Critiques and Addresses

RS OF THE MIDLAND INSTIT

nd hopeful events in our modern history. But it is impossible, even if it were desirable, to shut our eyes to the fact, that there is a minority, not inconsiderable in numbers, nor defic

maintained that the whole fabric of society will be destroyed if the poor, as well as the rich, are educated; that anything like sound and good education will only make them discontented with their station and raise hopes which, in the great majority of cases, will be bitterly disappointed. It is said: Ther

which they were born into that above them. Society needs grocers and merchants as much as it needs coalheavers; but if a merchant accumulates wealth and works his way to a baronetcy, or if the son of a greengrocer becomes a lord chancellor, or an archbishop, or, as a successful soldier, wins a peerage, all the

ted man. In the second place, though it may be granted that the words of the catechism, which require a man to do his duty in the station to which it has pleased God to call him, give an admirable definition of our obligation to ourselves and to society; yet the question remains, how is any given person to find out what is the particular station to which it has pleased God to call him? A new-born infant does not come into the world labelled scavenger, shopkeeper, bishop, or duke. One mass of red pulp is just like another to all outward appearance. And it is only by finding out what his faculties are good for, and seeking, not for the sake of gratifying a paltry vanity, but as the highest d

e children. But as you are of the same original family, a golden parent will sometimes have a silver son, or a silver parent a golden son. And God proclaims to the rulers, as a first principle, that before all they should watch over their offspring, and see what elements mingle with their nature; for if the son of a golden or silver parent has an admixture of brass and iron, then nature or

ogues of Plato." Trans

tion, by B. Jowett, M

cult duty of picking out the men of brass from those of silver and gold. Educate, and the latter will certainly rise to the top; remove all those artificial props by which the brass and iron folk are kept at the top, and, by a law as sure as that of gravitation, they will gradually sink to the bottom

owledge, which should give that power guidance, is wanting, the chances are not small that the rocket will simply run a-muck among friends and foes. What gives force to the socialistic movement which is now stirring European society to its depths, but a determination on the part of the naturally able men among the proletariat, to put an end, somehow or other, to the misery and degradation in which a large proportion of their fellows are steeped? The question, whether the means by which they purpose to achieve this end are adequate or not, is at this moment the most imp

hes, and live in fine houses, and talk aristocratic slang, from those who go about in fustian, and live in back slums, and talk gutter slang. Some inborn plebeian blindness, in fact, prevents me from understanding what advantage the former have over the latter. I have never

by no means wish to express any sentimental preference for Lazarus against Dives, but, on the face of the matter, one does not see why the practice of these virtues should be more difficult in one stat

attempts to promote the spread of knowledge by the establishment of teaching bodies, examining bodies, libraries, or museums, or by the sending out of scientific expeditions; all endeavours to advance art by the establishment of schools of design, or picture galleries; or by spending money upon an architectural public building when a brick box would answer the purpose. According to their views, not a shilling of public money must be bestowed upon a public park or pleasure-ground; not sixpence upon the relief of starvation, or the cure of disease. Those who hold these views support them by two lines of argument. They enforce them deductively by arguing from an assumed axiom, that the State has no right to do anything but protect its subjects from aggression. The Stat

tent to all the world. Who is to say how private enterprise would come out if it tried its hand at State work? Those who have had most experience of joint-stock companies and their management, will probably be least inclined to believe in the innate superiority of private enterprise over State management. If continental bureaucracy and centralization be fraught with multitudinous evils, surely English beadleocracy and parochial obstruction are not altogether lovely. If it be said that, as a matter of political expe

er of Government, as its supporters imply. If my next-door neighbour chooses to have his drains in such a state as to create a poisonous atmosphere, which I breathe at the risk of typhus and diphtheria, he restricts my just freedom to live just as much as if he went about with a pistol, threatening my life; if he is to be allowed t

ble is it for any one man to do a wrong thing without interfering, more or less, with the freedom of all his fellow-citizens. So that, even upon the

hat the principle which justifies the State in enforcing vaccination or education, will also justify it in prescribing my religious belief

nterference has been carried far enough. And, so far as my acquaintance with those who carry on the business of Government goes, I must say that I find them far less eager to interfere with the people, than the people are to be interfered with. And the reason is obvious. The people are keenly sensible of particular evils, and, like a man suffering from pain, desire an immediate remedy. The statesman, on the other hand, is like the physician, who knows that he can stop t

waistcoat, if as good grounds could be assigned for such an order as for the command to educate my children. And this leads us to the question which lies at the roo

profoundest of English

ry, writ

of the people: to which he is obliged by the law of nature, and to render an account thereof to God, the author of that law, and to none but Him. But by safety, here, is not

of the police-theory of government, pure and simp

uries, when they shall complain; but by a general providence contained in public instruction both of doctrine an

iathan," Moleswor

evil that can happen in this life;" and all who have read the "Leviathan" know to what length Hobbes's anxiety for the preservation of the authority of the representative of the sovereign power, whatev

by everything which weakened that power: but, to John Locke, who witnessed the evils which flow from the attempt of

do its duty, and its replacement by another, as a matter of course. The great champion of the revolution of 1688 could do no less. Nor is it otherwise than na

intention to be worse), the power of the society, or legislation, constituted by them can never be supposed to extend further than the common good, but is obliged to secure every one's property by providing against those three defects above mentioned, that made the state of nature so unsafe and uneasy. And so, whoever has the legislative or supreme power of any commonwealth, is bound to govern by established standing laws, promul

s Essay, "Of Civil

sopher's views of the functions of Government incline to the negative, rather than the positive, side. But a further stu

f men constituted only for the procuring, prese

olency of body; and the possession of outward things,

laws, to secure unto all the people in general, and to every one of his subje

e civil concernments…. All civil power, right, and dominion, is

g a child "to be profitable to the curing or preventing any disease that children are subject unto, and

tanding that it cannot be compelled to the belief of anything by outward force," it is absurd to attempt to make men religious by compulsion. I cannot discover that Locke fathers the pet doctrine of modern Liberalism, that the toleration of error is a good thing in itself, and to be reckoned among the cardinal virtues; on the contrary, in this very "Let

han chief policeman. And, of late years, the belief in the efficacy of doing nothing, thus formulated, has acquired considerable popularity for several reasons. In the first place, men's speculative convictions have become less and less real; their tolerance is larg

been published under the title of "Essay

ace (however interrupted by brief periods of warfare), have changed the face of commerce as completely as modern artillery has changed that of war. The merchant found himself as much burdened by ancient protective measures as the soldier by his armour-and negative legislation has been of as much use to the one as the stripping off of breast-plates, greaves, and buff-coat to the other. But because the soldier is better without his armour it does not exactly follow that it is de

pursuit of wealth, there must be added that nobler and better reason for a profound distrust of legislative interference, which animates Von Humboldt and shines forth in the pages of Mr. Mill's famous Essay on Libe

essay[1] to the drawing out of a comparison between the process by which men have advanced from the savage state to the highest civilization, and that by which an animal passes from the cond

ocial Organism:" Es

ly dependent; and that they continue to live and grow as wholes, while successive generations of their units appear and disappear,-are broad

l between the development of a nervous system, which is the governing power of the body in the se

and the Legislature co-ordinates the countless heterogeneous considerations which affect the immediate and remote welfare of the whole community. We may describe the office of the brain as that of averaging the interests of life, physical, intellectual, moral, social; and a good brain is one in which the desires answering to their respective interests are so balanced, that the con

ation, not only of what the latter is, and how it has become what it is, but of what it ought to be, and what it is tending

to prevent it from hindering the contraction of another muscle; or each gland, that it had a right to secrete, so long as its secretion interfered with

epresentative of the sovereign authority in the living organism, though he derives all his powers from the mass which he rules, is above the law. The questioning of his authority involves death, or that partial death which we call paralysis. Hence, if the analogy of the body politic with the body physiological counts for anything, it seems to me to be in favour of a much larger amount of gove

reement. And yet it is true. There is a contract between the two which, if it were written out, would run in these terms:-"I undertake to feed, clothe, house, and not to kill, flog, or otherwise maltreat you, Quashie, if you perform a certain amount of work." Quashie, seeing no better terms to be had, accepts the bargain, and goes to work accordingly. A highwayman who garottes me, and then clears out my pockets, robs

robbery, nevertheless implies a contract between governor and governed, with voluntary submiss

condition of Quashie's giving up his freedom to be idle. And the essence and foundation of every social organization, whether simple or complex, is the fact that each member of the society voluntarily renounces his freedom in certain directions, in return for the a

chemist, by which independent elements are gradually built up into complex aggregations-in which each element retains an independent individuality, though held in subordination to the whole. The atoms of carbon and hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, which enter into a complex molecule, do not lose the powers originally inherent in them, when they unite to form that molecule, the properties of which express those forces

tion of desire leads to the resumption of that freedom, the suppression of which is essential to the existence of the social molecule. And the great problem of that social chemistry we call politics, is to discover what desires of mankind may be gratified, and what must be suppressed, if the highly complex compound, society, is to avoid decomposition. That the gratification of some of men's desires shall be renounced is es

metaphysical, wrote, nearly a century ago, a wonderfully instructive essay entitled "A Conception of Univ

n translated by De Quincey, and attention has been recently drawn to its "signal merits" by the Editor of

ind-that is, the combination in them of an impulse to enter into society, with a thorough spirit of opposition which constantly threatens to break up this society. The ground of this lies in human nature. Man has an inclination to enter into society, because in that state he feels that he becomes more a man, or, in othe

ercome their inclination to be idle, and, spurred by the love of honour, or power, or wealth,

is formed, and by continual enlightenment the foundations of a way of thinking are laid, which gradually changes the mere rude capacity of moral perception into deter

by that unsociability which is compelled by its own existence to discipline itself, and so

litics, and indicates the manner in which the evolution of society has resulted from the constant attempt of individuals to stra

vernment?" is translated into another-namely, What ought we men, in our corporate capacity, to do, not only in the way of restraining that free individuality which is inconsistent with the existence of society, but in encouraging t

the noblest, and at the same time briefest, sta

RNMENT IS THE GO

Of Civil Gover

aculty shall be such as leads him to control all those desires which run counter to the good of mankind, and to cherish only those which conduce to the welfare of society; and in which every man's native intellect shall be

t and foolish, a small proportion of genuine knaves, and a sprinkling of capable and honest men, by whose efforts the former are kept in a reasonable state of guidance, and the latter of repr

are we not bound to admit, with Locke, that it may have a right to interfere with "Popery" and "Atheism," if it be really true that the practical consequences of such beliefs con be proved to be injurious to civil society? The question where to draw the line between those things with which the State ought, and those with which it ought not, to interf

e, and the modern socialists, bear witness that, in every age, men whose capacity is of no mean order, and whose desire to benefit their fellows has rarely been excelled, have been strongly, nay, enthusi

he idea which underlies them is worthless, but only that the science of politics is in a very rudimentary and imperfect state. Politics, as a science, is not older

may and what it may not do, if, assuming the truth of Locke's maxim that "the end of

, by every man, of all the happiness which he can enjoy

atque ego intelligant, ut eorum intellectus et cupiditas prorsus cum meo intellectu et cupiditate convenient: atque hoc fiat, necesse est tantum de Natura intelligere, quantum sufficit ad

off because another acquires wealth by trade, or by the exercise of a profession; on the contrary, he cannot have acquired his wealth, except by benefiting others to the full extent of what they considered to be its value; and his wealth is no more than fairy gold if he does not go on benefiting others in the same way. A thousand men may enjoy the pleasure derived from a picture, a symphony,

stal and telegraph services? I have not yet met with any valid, argument against the propriety of the State doing what our Government does in this matter; except the assumption, which remains to be proved, that Government will manage these things worse than private enterprise would do. Nor is there any agreement upon the still more important question whether the State ought, or ought not, to regulate the distribution of wealth. If it ought not, then all legislation which regulates inheritance-the statute of Mortmain, and the like-is wrong in principle; and, when a rich man dies, we ought to return to the state of nature, and have a scramble for his property. If, on the other ha

d Church which should be a blessing to the community. A Church in which, week by week, services should be devoted, not to the iteration of abstract propositions in theology, but to the setting before men's minds of an ideal of true, just, and pure living; a place in which those who are weary of the burden of daily cares, should find a mome

ive nihilism admits that Government may prevent aggression of one man on another. But this implies the maintenance of an army and navy, as much as of a body of police; it implies a d

an individual. If any number of States agree to observe a common set of international laws, they have, in fact, set up a sovereign authority or supra-national government, the end of which, like that of all governments, is the good of mankind; and the possession of as much freedom by each State, as is consistent with the attainment of that end. But there is this difference: that the government thus set up over nations

tary effort fails in doing, either from want of intelligence or lack of will. And here it cannot be alleged that the action of the State is always hurtful. On the contrary, in every country in Europe, univer

mes supérieurs au moment du péril." The writer, M. Pasteur, has no doubt that the cause of the astounding collapse of his countrymen is to be sought

la culture des sciences dans leur expression la plus élevée est peut-être pl

losophique ou scientifique, cet esprit de discernement qui soumet tout à une raison sévère, condamne l'ignorance, dissipe les préjugés et les erreurs. Ils élèvent le niveau intellectuel, le sentiment moral; par eux, l'idée divine elle-même se répand et s'exalte…. Si, au moment du péril suprême,

ll content if, for our days and nights of unremitting toil, we could secure the pay which a first-class Treasury clerk earns without any obviously trying strain upon his faculties. The sole order of nobility which, in my judgment, becomes a philosopher, is that rank which he holds in the estimation of his fellow-workers, who are the only co

re to do the hardest of work for the most modest of tangible rewards, the means of making themselves useful to their age and generation. And this is just what the S

ollege in Newcastle, are all noble products of local energy and munificence. But the good they are doing is not local-the commonwealth, to its uttermost limits, shares in the benefits they confer; and I am at a loss to understand upon what principle of equity the State, which admits the prin

ing men the realities of life and the obligations which are involved in the very existence of society; it promotes intellectual development, not only by training the individual intellect, but by sifting out from the masses of ordinary or inferior capacities, those who are competent to increase the general welfare by occupying higher positions; and, lastly, it promotes morality and refinement, b