Lord Acton’s definition of liberty, already quoted, as “the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes to be his duty against the influence of authority, custom and opinion,” suggests that the test of the quality and measure of liberty in a particular community, lies in its attitude to and its treatment of dissent—or to put it in another way, its treatment of minorities. And it is plainly true that the freedom of the mind is a pure fiction except it be freedom to dissent from the common acceptances of the community. Speaking generally, the common tendency is toward the suppression of dissent especially if it be of a radical type, in all kinds of communities, democratic or otherwise. In some cases, the suppression is dictated by the obvious requirements of an authoritarian polity, in which case it is systematic and deliberate; but this is on the whole less dangerous than the informal and unorganised suppression or opposition which springs out of the mental inertia of the multitude, the lethargy which is bred of hatred of change, and especially out of the prejudice which is easily and successfully generated in the minds of the ignorant by those whose interests would be imperilled by change. It is only by a recognition of the social significance and value of dissent, and the important part it has played in historical progress, that we are likely to reach a proper understanding of the true democratic attitude to it. In the history of religion, it is plain that dissent has almost always proved to be the organ of advance, and if not of advance, at least of a saner balance of religious faith and practice; and it may be said with not a little assurance that whether in church or state, the dissent that has gained a reasonable following has been evoked by the need of vindicating some natural right or emphasising some truth or fact of experience which was neglected or obscured in the traditional syntheses. It may still further be stated, that whereas dissent has been denounced by its contemporaries as disruptive and hostile to social solidarity, it has in point of fact been the product of a larger social vision than that current in the existing conventions. Dissent has usually been created by the desire to broaden the basis of human fellowship. This will be seen by an appeal to the mental outlook of the dissenter. Of course every dissenting movement has been hampered and prejudiced, and its ideals muddied by the adhesion to it of temperamental rebels, and the type of crank which gathers around any standard of revolt, just as the opposition to dissent has been degraded by its readiness to accept the help of “lewd fellows of the baser sort.” But when one penetrates to the core of the movement in the mind of its chief exponents we find ourselves in a peculiarly pure and stimulating air. The great historical rebels have almost invariably been actuated by a social passion.