I dined with him this day at the house of my friends, Messieurs Edward and Charles Dilly, booksellers in the Poultry:  there were present, their elder brother Mr. Dilly of Bedfordshire, Dr. Goldsmith, Mr. Langton, Mr. Claxton, Reverend Dr. Mayo a dissenting minister, the Reverend Mr. Toplady, and my friend the Reverend Mr. Temple.

Boswell.  ’I am well assured that the people of Otaheite who have the bread tree, the fruit of which serves them for bread, laughed heartily when they were informed of the tedious process necessary with us to have bread;—­plowing, sowing, harrowing, reaping, threshing, grinding, baking.’  Johnson.  ’Why, Sir, all ignorant savages will laugh when they are told of the advantages of civilized life.  Were you to tell men who live without houses, how we pile brick upon brick, and rafter upon rafter, and that after a house is raised to a certain height, a man tumbles off a scaffold, and breaks his neck; he would laugh heartily at our folly in building; but it does not follow that men are better without houses.  No, Sir, (holding up a slice of a good loaf,) this is better than the bread tree.’

I introduced the subject of toleration.  Johnson.  ’Every society has a right to preserve publick peace and order, and therefore has a good right to prohibit the propagation of opinions which have a dangerous tendency.  To say the magistrate has this right, is using an inadequate word:  it is the society for which the magistrate is agent.  He may be morally or theologically wrong in restraining the propagation of opinions which he thinks dangerous, but he is politically right.’  Mayo.  ’I am of opinion, Sir, that every man is entitled to liberty of conscience in religion; and that the magistrate cannot restrain that right.’  Johnson.  ’Sir, I agree with you.  Every man has a right to liberty of conscience, and with that the magistrate cannot interfere.  People confound liberty of thinking with liberty of talking; nay, with liberty of preaching.  Every man has a physical right to think as he pleases; for it cannot be discovered how he thinks.  He has not a moral right, for he ought to inform himself, and think justly.  But, Sir, no member of a society has a right to teach any doctrine contrary to what the society holds to be true.  The magistrate, I say, may be wrong in what he thinks:  but while he thinks himself right, he may and ought to enforce what he thinks.’  Mayo.  ’Then, Sir, we are to remain always in errour, and truth never can prevail; and the magistrate was right in persecuting the first Christians.’  Johnson.  ’Sir, the only method by which religious truth can be established is by martyrdom.  The magistrate has a right to enforce what he thinks; and he who is conscious of the truth has a right to suffer.  I am afraid there is no other way of ascertaining the truth, but by persecution on the one hand and enduring it on the other.’  Goldsmith.  ’But