But personal liberty may infringe upon the personal liberty of others, and the possibilities of conflict are not less in relation to the connected right of liberty in religion. That this liberty is absolute cannot be contended, for no modern state would tolerate a form of religious worship which should include cannibalism, human sacrifice, or the burning of witches. I take religious liberty to include the liberties of thought and expression, and to add to these the right of worship in any form which does not inflict injury on others or involve a breach of public order. It is open to a man to preach the principles of Torquemada or the religion of Mahomet. It is not open to men to practice such of their precepts as would violate the rights of others or cause a breach of the peace.
Expression is free, and worship is free as far as it is the expression of personal devotion.
Liberalism has had to deal with those restraints on the individual which flow from the hierarchic organization of society, and reserve certain offices, certain forms of occupation, and perhaps the right or at least the opportunity of education generally, to people of a certain rank or class. In its more extreme form this is a caste system. It is clearly a matter of Liberal principle that membership of an organization should not depend on any hereditary qualification, nor be set about with any artificial difficulty of entry designed for purposes of exclusiveness. It has only to be added here that restrictions of sex are in every respect parallel. Here, again, the Liberal movement is at once an attack on an obstruction and on an inequality.