LIBRARY ANNEX 1(57 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Date Du -w^ -Mim)f im^irmw s 4a?fr£ H99» iRl. ^^±m&^i 4Y- ' De Morgan, whose extremely able work goes much deeper into the subject than Archbishop Whately's, is, however, content with excluding induction, not from logic, but from formal logic. 'What is now called induc- tion, meaning the discovery of laws from instances, and higher laws from lower ones, is beyond the province of formal logic' — De Morgan's Zogic, 1847, p. 215. As a law of nature Is fre- quently the major premiss of a syllogism, this statement of Mr. De Morgan's seems unobjectionable. The point at issue involves much more than a mere dispute respecting words, and I there- fore add, without subscribing to, the view of another eminent authority. 'To entitle any work to be classed as the logic of this or that school, it is at least necessary that it should, in com- 84: MILL ON LIBEKTT. nearly the middle of the present century, men were divided between the Aristotelian logic which infers from generals to particulars, and the Baconian logic which infers from par- ticulars to generals.* mon with the Aristotelian logic, adhere to the syllogistic method, whatever modifications or additions it may derive from the par- ticular school of its author.' — Mansel's Introduction to Aldrich's Artia Zogicce Rudimcnta, 1856, p. xlii. See also Appendix, pp. 194, 195, and Mr. Mansel's Prolegomena Logica, 1851, pp. 89, 169. On the other hand. Bacon, who considered the syllogism to be worse than useless, distinctly claims the title of ' logical ' for his inductive system. ' Illud vero monendum, nos in hoc nostro organo tractare logioam, non philosophiam.' — Novum Or- ganum, lib. ii. Aphor. lii. in Bacon's Works, vol. iv. p. 382. This should be compared with the remarks of Sir Wm. Hamilton on inductive logic in his Discwssions, 1852, p. 158. What strikes one most in this controversy is, that none of the great advocates of the exclusive right of the syllogistic system to the word 'logic' appear to be well acquainted with physical science. They, therefore, cannot understand the real nature of .induction in the modern sense of the term, and they naturally depreciate a method with whose triumphs they have no sympathy. * To what extent Aristotle did or did not recognize an in- duction of particulars as the first step in our knowledge, and therefore as the base of every major premiss, has been often dis- puted ; but I have not heard that any of the disputants have adopted the only means by which such a question can be tested — namely, bringing together the most decisive passages from MILL ON LIBEETT. 85 "While tlie science of logic was in this state, there appeared in 1843 Mr. Mill's System of Logic y the fundamental idea of which is, that the logical process is not from generals to particulars, nor from particulars to generals, but from particulars to particulars. According to this view, which is gradually securing the adhesion of thinkers the syllogism, instead of being an act of reasoning, is an act, first of registration, and then of interpretation. The major premiss of a syllogism being the record of previous induction, the business of syllogism is to interpret that record and bring it to light. In the syllogism we preserve our experience, and we also realize it ; but the reasoning is at an end when the major premiss is enunciated. For, after that enunciation, no fresh truth is propounded. As soon, therefore, as the major is stated, the argument is over ; because the general proposition is but a register, or, as it were, a note-book, of inferences which involve Aristotle, and then leaving them to the judgment of the reader. A3 this seems to be the most impartial way of proceeding, I have gone through Aristotle's logical works with a view to it ; and those who are interested in these matters will find the extracts at the end of this essay. 86 MILL ON LIBEETT. everything at issue. While, however, the syllogism is not a process of reasoning, it is a security that the previous reasoning is good. And this, in three ways. In the first place, by interposing a general proposition between the collection of the first particulars and the statement of the last particulars, it pre- sents a larger object to the imagination than would be possible if we had only the par- ticulars in our mind. In the second place, the syllogism serves as an artificial memory, and enables us to preserve order among a mass of details ; being at once a formula into which we throw them, and a contrivance by which we recall them. Finally, the syllogism is a protection against negligence ; since, when we infer from a number of observed cases to a case we have not yet observed, we, instead of jumping at once to that case, state a general proposition which includes it, and which must be true if our conclusion is true; so that, by this means, if we have reasoned errone- ously, the error becomes more broad and con- spicuous. This remarkable analysis of the nature and fimctions of the syllogism is, so far as our MILL ON LIBEETT. 87 present knowledge goes, exhaustive; whether or not it will admit of still further resolution we cannot tell. At all events it is a contri- bution of the greatest importance to the science of reasoning, and involves many other speculative questions which are indirectly connected with it, but which I shall not now open up. Neither need I stop to show how it affords a basis for establishing the true dis- tinction between induction and deduction ; a distinction which Mr. Mill is one of the ex- tremely few English writers who has thor- oughly understood, since it is commonly sup- posed in this country that geometry is the proper type of deduction, whereas it is only one of the types, and, though an admirable pattern of the deductive investigation of coex- istences throws no light on the deductive in- vestigation of sequences. But, passing over these matters as too large to be discussed here, I would call attention to a fundamental prin- ciple which underlies Mr. MUl's philosophy, and from which it will appear that he is as much opposed to the advocates of the Baconian method as to those of the Aristotelian. In this respect he has been, perhaps unconsciously, 88 MILL ON LtBEETT. greatly influenced by the spirit of the age ; for it might be easily shown, and indeed will hardly be disputed, that during the last fifty years an opinion has been gaining ground, that the Baconian system has been overrated, and that its favourite idea, of proceeding from effects to causes instead of from causes to effects, will not carry us so far as was supposed by the truly great, though somewhat empirical thinkers of the eighteenth century. One point in which the inductive philoso- phy commonly received in England is very inaccurate, and which Mr. Mill has justly at- tacked, is, that following the authority of Bacon, it insists upon all generalizations being conducted by ascending from each generaliza- tion to the one immediately above and ad- joining ; and it denounces as hasty and unphilosophic any attempt to soar to a higher stage without mastering the intermediate steps.* This is an undue limitation of that * ' Ascendendo continenter et gradatim, ut ultimo loco per- Teniatur ad maxime geueralia ; quae via vera- est, sed intentata.' Novum Orgaiium, lib. i. aphor. six. in Baeon'a WorTcs, Tol. iv. p. 268. London, ITtS ; 4to. And in lib. i. aphor. civ. p. 294. —'Sed de soientiia turn demum bene sperandum est, quandoper MILL ON LIBEETY. 89 peculiar property of genius whicli, for want of a better word, we call intuition ; and that, in this respect, Bacon's philosophy was too nar- row, and placed men too much on the par* by obliging them all to use the same method is now frequently though not generally ad- mitted, and has been perceived by several philosophers.f The objections raised by Mr. Mill on this ground, though put with great ability, are, as he would be the first to confess, scalaru Teram et per gradus continuos et non intermissos, aut hiulcos, a. particularibus ascendetur ad axiomata minora, ct dcinde ad media, alia aliis superiora, et postremo demum ad generalissima.' * ' Nostra vero inveniendi scientias ea est ratio, ut non mul- tum ingeniorum acumini ct robori relinquatur ; sed quae ingenia et intellectus fere exaequet.' — Novum Organum, lib. i. aphor. Ixi. ; Bacon's Works, vol. iv. p. 275. And in lib. i. aphor. cxxii. [Works, vol. iv. p. 301], 'Nostra enim via inveniendi scientias exaequat fere ingenia, et non multum excellentiae eorum reliuquit ; cum omnia per certissimas regulas et demon- strationes transigat.' f And is noticed in Whewell's Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, 1847, vol. ii. p. 240 ; though this celebrated writer, so far from connecting it with Bacon's doctrine of gradual and un- interrupted ascent, considers such doctrine to be the peculiar merit of Bacon, and accuses those who bold a contrary opinion, of 'dimness of vision,' pp. 126, 232. Happily, all are not dim who are said to be so. 90 MILt ON LIBEETY. not original ; and the same remark may be made in a smaller degree concerning another objection — ^namely, that Bacon did not attach sufficient weight to the plurality of causes,* and did not see that the great complexity they produce would often baffle his method, and would render another method necessary. But while Mr. Mill has in these parts of his work been anticipated, there is a moi-e subtle, and as it appears to me, a more fatal objection which he has made against the Ba- conian philosophy. And as this objection, be- sides being entirely new, lies far out of the path of ordinary speculation, it has hardly yet attracted the notice even of philosophic logicians, and the reader will probably be interested in hearing a simple and untech- nical statement of it. Logic, considered as a science, is solely concerned with induction ; and the business of induction is to arrive at causes ; or, to speak more strictly, to arrive at a knowledge of the laws of causation.f So far Mr. Mill * Mill's Logic, fourth edition, vol. Ji, p. 321. I am almost sure this remark has been made before. f ' The main question of the science of logic is induction. MILL ON LIBERTY. 91 agrees with Bacon ; but from the operation of this rule he removes an immense body of phenomena which were brought under it by the Baconian philosophy. He asserts, and I think he proves, that though imiformities of succession may be investigated inductively, it is impossible to investigate, after that fash- ion, uniformities of co-existence; and that, therefore, to these last the Baconian method is inapplicable. If, for instance, we say that aU negroes have woolly hair, we affirm an uniformity of co-existence between the hair and some other property or properties essen- tial to the negro. But if we were to say that they have woolly hair in consequence of their skin being black, we should affirm an uni- formity not of co-existence, but of succession. Uniformities of succession are frequently ame- nable to induction : uniformities of co-exis- tence are never amenable to it, and are con- which, however, is almost entirely passed over by professed writers.' — Mill's Logic, vol. i. p. 309. ' The chief object of in- ductive logic is to point out how the laws of causation are to be ascertained.' — Vol. i. p. 407. ' The mental process with which logic is conversant, the operation of ascertaining truths by means of evidence, ia always, even when appearances point to a differ- ent theory of it, a process of induction.' — Vol. ii. p. 177. 92 MILL ON LIBEETT. sequently out of the jurisdiction of the Baconian philosophy. They may, no doubt, he treated according to the simple enumeration of the ancients, which, however, was so crude an induction as hardly to be worthy the name.* But the powerful induction of the moderns, depending upon a separation of nature, and an elimination of disturbances, is, in reference to co-existences, absolutely impotent. The * The character of the Aristotelian induction is so justly portrayed by Mr. Maurice in his admirable account of the Greek philosophy, that I cannot resist the pleasure of transcribing the passage. 'What this induction is, and how entirely it differs from that process which bears the same name in the writings of Bacon, the reader will perceive the more he studies the different writings of Aristotle. He will find, first, that the sensible phe- nomenon is taken for granted as a safe starting point. That phenomena are not principles, Aristotle believed as strongly as we could. But, to suspect phenomena, to suppose that they need sifting and probing in order that we may know what the fact is which they denote, this is no part of his system.' — Maurice's Ancient Philosophy, 1850, p. 173. Nothing can be better than the expression that Aristotle did not suspect phe- nomena. The moderns do suspect them, and therefore test them either by crucial experiments or by averages. The latter resource was not effectively employed until the eighteenth cen- tury. It now bids fair to be of immense importance, though in some branches of inquiry the nomenclature must become more precise before the full value of the method can be seen. MILL ON LIBERTY. 93 utmost that it can give is empirical laws, useful for practical guidance, but void of scientific value. That this has hitherto been the case the history of our loiowledge decisively proves. That it always will be the case is, in Mr. Mill's opinion, equally certain, be- cause while, on the oue hand, the study of uniformities of succession has for its basis that absorbing and over-ruling hypothesis of the constancy of causation, on which every human being more or less relies, and to which phil- osophers will hear of no exception ; we, on the other hand, find that the study of the uniformities of co-existence has no such sup- port, and that therefore the whole field of inquiry is unsettled and indeterminate. Thus it is that if I see a negro suffering pain, the law of causation compels me to believe that something had previously happened of wliich pain was the necessary consequence. But I am not bound to believe that he possesses some property of which his woolly hair or his dark skin are the necessary accompaniments. I cling to the necessity of an uniform se- quence ; I reject the necessity of an uniform co-existence. This is the difference between 94 MILL OK LIBEETT. consequences and concomitants. That the pain has a cause, I am well assured. But for aught I can tell, the blackness and the wooUiness may be ultimate properties which are referrible to no cause;* or if they are not ultimate properties, each may be de- pendent on its own cause, but not be neces- sarily connected. The relation, therefore, may be universal in regard to the fact, and yet casual in regard to the science. This distinction when once stated is very simple ; but its consequences in relation to the science of logic had escaped all previous thinkers. "When thoroughly appreciated, it will dispel the idle dream of the universal application of the Baconian philosophy ; and in the meantime it will explain how it was that even during Bacon's life, and in his own hands, his method frequently and signally failed. He evidently believed that as every * That is, not logically referrible by the understanding. I say nothing of causes which touch on transcendental grounds ; but, barring these, Mr. Mill's assertion seems unimpeachable, that ' co-existences between the ultimate properties of things ' . . . 'cannot depend on causation,' unless by 'ascending to the origin of all things.' — Mill's Logic, vol. ii. p. 106. MLL ON LIBERTY. 95 phenomenon has something which must fol- low from it, so also it has something which must go with it, and which he termed its Form.* If he could generalize the form — that is to say, if he could obtain the law of the co-existence — he rightly supposed that he would gain a scientific knowledge of the phenomenon. With this view he taxed his fertile invention to the utmost. He contrived a variety of refined and ingenious artifices, by which various instances might be succes- fully compared, and the conditions which are essential, distinguished from those which are non-essential. He collated negatives with aflirmatives, and taught the art of separating nature by rejections and exclusions. Yet, in regard to the study of co-existences, all his caution, all his knowledge, and all his thought, * 'Ktenim forma naturae alicujus talis est, ut, ea posita, natura data infallibiliter sequatur. Itaque adest perpetuo, quando natura ilia adest, atque earn universaliter afiirmat, atque inest omni. Eadem forma talis est, ut ea amota, natura data infallibi- liter fugiat. Itaque abest perpetua quando natura ilia abest, eamque perpetuo abnegat, atque inest soli.' — Noman Organum, lib. ii. aphor. iv. ; Works, vol. ir. p. 307. Compare also respect- ing these forms, his treatise on Tlie Advancement of Learning, book ii. ; Works, vol. i. pp. 57, 58, 61, 62. 96 MILL ON LIBERTY. were useless. His weapons, notwithstandifig their power, could make no impression on that stubborn and refractory topic. The laws of co-existences are as great a mystery as ever, and all our conclusions respecting them are purely empirical. Every inductive science now existing is, in its strictly scientific part, solely a generalization of sequences. The reason of this, though vaguely appreciated by several writers, was first clearly stated and connected with the general theory of our knowledge by Mr. Mill. He has the immense merit of striking at once to the very root of the subject, and showing that, in the science of logic, there is a fundamental distinction which forbids us to treat co-existences as we may treat sequences ; that a neglect of this distinction impairs the value of the philosophy of Bacon, and has crippled his successors ; and finally, that the origin of this distinction may be traced backward and upwai'd until we reach those ultimate laws of causation which support the fabric of our knowledge, and beyond which the human mind, in the present stage of its development, is unable to penetrate. MILL ON LIBEETY. 97 While Mr. Mill, both by delving to the foundation and rising to the summit, has ex- cluded the Baconian philosophy from the investigation of co-existences, he has likewise proved its incapacity for solving those vast social problems which now, for the first time in the history of the world, the most advanced thinkers are setting themselves to work at deliberately, with scientific purpose, and with something like adequate resources. As this, however, pertains to that domain to which I too, according to my measure and with what- ever power I may haply possess, have devoted myself, I am unwilling to discuss here what elsewhere I shall find a fitter place for con- sidering ; and I shall be content if I have con- veyed to the reader some idea of what has been effected by one whom I cannot but regard as the most profound thinker England has produced since the seventeenth century, and whose services, though recognized by innumer- able persons each in his own peculiar walk, are little understood in their entirety, because we, owing partly to the constantly increasing mass of our knowledge, and partly to an ex- cessive veneration for the principle of the 5 98 MILL ON LIBEKTY. division of labour, are too prone to isolate our ' inquiries and to narrow the range of our in- tellectual sympathies. The notion that a man will best succeed by adhering to one pursuit, is as true in practical life as it is false in speculative life. Ifo one can have a firm grasp of any science if, by confining himself to it, he shuts out the light of analogy, and deprives himself of that peculiar aid which is derived from a commanding survey of the co-ordina- tion and interdependence of things and of the relation they bear to each other. He may, no doubt, work at the details of his subject ; he may be useful in adding to its facts ; he will never be able to enlarge its philosophy. For, the philosophy of every department depends on its connexion with other departments, and must therefore be sought at their points of contact. It must be looked for in the place where they touch and coalesce ; it lies not in the centre of each science, but on the confines and margin. Tliis, liowever, is a truth which men are apt to reject, because they are naturally averse to comprehensive labour, and are too ready to believe that their own peculiar and limited MILL ON LIBEETY. 99 science is so important that they would not be justified in striking into paths which diverge from it. Hence we see physical philosophers knowing nothing of political economy, political economists nothing of physical science, and logicians nothing of either. Hence, too, there are few indeed who are capable of measuring the enormous field which Mr. Mill has trav- ersed, or of scanning the depth to which in that field he has sunk his shaft. It is from such a man as this, that a work has recently issued upon a subject far more important than any which even he had previously investigated, and in fact the most important with which the human mind can grapple. For, Liberty is the one thing most essential to the right development of indi- viduals and to the real grandeur of nations. It is a product of knowledge when knowledge advances in a healthy and regular manner; but if under certain unhappy circumstances it is opposed by what seems to be knowledge, tlien, in God's name, let knowledge perish and Liberty be preserved. Liberty is not a means to an end, it is an end itself. To secure • it, to enlarge it, and to diftuse it, shoxild be the 100 mLL ON LIBEETY. main object of all social arraDgements and of all political contrivances. None but a pedant or a tyrant can put science or literature in competition witli it. Within certain limits, and very small limits too, it is the inalienable prerogative of man, of which no force of circumstances and no lapse of time can de- prive him. He has no right to barter it away even from himself, still less from his children. It is the foundation of all self-respect, and without it the great doctrine of moral respon- sibility would degenerate into a lie and a juggle. It is a sacred deposit, and the love of it is a holy instinct engraven in our hearts. And if it could be shown that the tendency of advancing knowledge is to encroach upon it; if it could be proved that in the march of what we call civilization, the desire for liberty did necessarily decline, and the exercise of liberty become less frequent ; if this could be made apparent, I for one should wish that the human race might halt in its career, and that we might recede step by step, so that the very trophies and memory of our glory should vanish, sooner than that men were bribed by their splendour to forget the senti- ment of their own personal dignity. MILL ON LIBEETY. 101 But it cannot be. Surely it cannot be that we, improving in all other things, should be retrograding in the most essential. Yet, among thinkers of great depth and authority, there is a fear that such is the case. With that fear I cannot agree ; but the existence of the fear, and the discussions to which it has led and will lead are extremely salutary, as calling our attention to an evil which in the eagerness of our advance we might otherwise overlook. We are stepping on at a rate of which no previous example has been seen ; and it is good "that, amid the pride and flush of our prosperity, we should be made to in- quire what price we have paid for our suc- cess. Let us compute the cost as well as the gain. Before we announce our fortune we should balance our books. Every one, there- fore, should rejoice at the appearance of a work in which for the first time the great question of Liberty is unfolded in all its dimensions, considered on every side and from every aspect, and brought to bear upon our present condition with a steadiness of hand and a clearness of purpose which they will most admire who are most accustomed to reflect on this difiicult and complicated topic. 102 MILL ON LIBEETY. In the actual state of the world, Mr. Mill rightly considers that the least important part of the question of liberty is that which con- cerns the relation between subjects and rulers. On this point, notwithstanding the momentary ascendancy of despotism on the Continent, there is, I believe, nothing to dread. In France and Germany, the bodies of men are enslaved, but not their minds. !N"early all the intellect of Europe is arrayed against tyranny, jind the ultimate result of such a struggle can hardly be doubted. The immense armies which are maintained, and which some mention as a proof that the love of war is increasing instead of diminishing, are merely an evidence that the governing classes disti'ust and suspect the future, and know that their real danger is to be found not abroad but at home. They fear revolution far more than invasion. The state of foreign affairs is their pretence for arming; the state of public opinion is the cause. And right glad they are to find a decent pretext for protecting themselves from that punishment which many of them richly deserve. But I cannot understand how any one who has carefully studied the march of MILL ON LIBEETF. 103 the European mind, and has seen it triumph over obstacles ten times more formidable than these, can really apprehend that the liberties of Europe will ultimately fall before those who now threaten their existence. When the spirit of freedom was far less strong and less universal, the task was tried, and tried in vain. It is hardly to be supposed that the monarchical principle, decrepit as it now is, and stripped of that dogma of divine right which long upheld it, can eventually with- stand the pressure of those general causes which, for three centuries, have marked it for destruction. And, since despotism has chosen the institution of monarchy as that under which it seeks a shelter, and for which it will fight its last battle, we may fairly as- sume that the danger is less imminent than is commonly imagined, and that they who rely on an old and enfeebled principle, with which neither the religion nor the affections of men are associated as of yore, will find that they are leaning on a broken reed, and that the scepti-e of their power will pass from them. I cannot, therefore, participate in the feel- 104 MILL ON LIBEETY. ings of those who look with apprehensions at the present condition of Europe. Mr. Mill would perhaps take a less sanguine view ; but it is observable that the greater part of his defence of liberty is not directed against political tyranny. There is, however, another sort of tyranny which is far more insidious, and against which he has chiefly bent his eflForts. This is the despotism of custom, to which ordinary minds entirely succumb, and before which even strong minds quail. But custom being merely the product of public opinion, or rather its external manifestation, the two principles of custom and opinion must be considered together ; and I will briefly state how, according to Mr. Mill, their joint action is producing serious mischief, and is threatening mischief more serious still. The proposition which Mr. Mill undertakes to establish is, that society, whether acting by the legislature or by the influence of public opinion, has no right to interfere with the conduct of any individual for the sake of his own good. Society may interfere with him for their good, not for his. If his actions hurt them, he is, under certain circumstances,- MILL ON LTBEBTY, 105 amenable to their authority; if they only hurt himself, he is never amenable. The proposition, thus stated, -will be acceded to by many persons who, in practice, repudiate it every day of their lives. The ridicule which is cast upon whoever deviates from an estab- lished custom, however trifl.ing and foolish that custom may be, shows the determination of society to exercise arbitrary sway over in- dividuals. On the most insignificant as well as on the most important matters, rules are laid down which no one dares to violate, except in those extremely rare cases in which great intellect, great wealth, or great rank enable a man rather to command society than to be commanded by it. The immense mass of mankind are, in regard to their usages, in a state of social slavery ; each man being bound under heavy penalties to conform to the stand- ard of life common to his own class. How serious those penalties are, is evident from the fact that though innumerable persons complain of prevailing customs and wish to shake them ofi", they dare not do so, but continue to prac- tise them, though frequently at the expense of health, comfort, and fortune. Men, not 5* 106 MILL ON LIBERTY. cowards in other respects, and of a fair share of moral courage, are afraid to rebel against this grievous and exacting tyranny. The consequences of this are injurious, not only to those who desire to be freed from the thraldom, but also to those who do not desire to be freed ; that is, to the whole of society. Of these results, there are two particularly mischievous, and which, in the opinion of Mr. Mill, are likely to gain ground, unless some sudden change of sentiment should occur. The first mischief is, that a sufficient num- ber of experiments are not made respecting the diff'erent ways of living; from which it happens that the art of life is not so well understood as it otherwise would be. If society were more lenient to eccentricity, and more inclined to examine what is unusual than to laugh at it, we should find that many courses of conduct which we call whimsical, and which according to the ordinary standard are ut- terly irrational, have more reason in them than we are disposed to imagine. But, while a country or an age will obstinately insist upon condemning all human conduct which MILL ON LIBEETY. lOT is not in accordance with the manner or fashion of the day, deviations from the straight line will be rarely hazarded. We are, therefore, prevented from loiowing how far such devia- tions would be useful. By discouraging the experiment, we retard the knowledge. On this account, if on no other, it is advisable that the widest latitude should be given to unusual actions, which ought to be valued as tests whereby we may ascertain whether or not particular things are expedient. Of course, the essentials of morals are not to be violated, nor the public peace to be disturbed. But short of this, every indulgence should be granted. For progress depends upon change ; and it is only by practising uncustomary things that we can discover if they are fit to become customary. The other evil which society inflicts on herself by her own tyranny is still more serious ; and although I cannot go with Mr. Mill in considering the danger to be so immi- nent as he does, there can, I thinlc, be little doubt that it is the one weak point in modern civilization ; and that it is the only thing of importance in which, if we are not actually 108 MILL ON LIBEETY. receding, we are making no perceptible ad- vance. This is, that most precious and inestimable quality, the quality of individuality. That the increasing authority of society, if not coim- teracted by other causes, tends to limit the exercise of this quality, seems indisputable. Whether or not there are counteracting causes is a question of great complexity, and could not be discussed without entering into the general theory of our existing civilization. With the most unfeigned deference for every opinion enunciated by Mr. Mill, I venture to differ from him on this matter, and to think that, on the whole, individuality is not dimin- ishing, and that so far as we can estimate the future, it is not likely to diminish. But it would ill become any man to combat the views of this great thinker, without subjecting the point at issue to a rigid and careful analysis ; and as I have not done so, I will not weaken my theory by advancing imper- fect arguments in its favour, but will, as before, confine myself to stating the conclu- sions at which he has arrived, after what has MILL ON LIEEETT. 109 eTidently been a train of long and anxious reflection. AQCording to Mr. Mill, things are tending, and have for some time tended, to lessen the influence of original minds, and to raise medi- ocrity to the foremost place. Individuals are lost in the crowd. The world is ruled not by them, but by public opinion ; and public opinion, being the voice of the many, is the voice of mediocrity. Affairs are now gov- ei'ned by average men, who will not pay to great men the deference that was formerly yielded. Energy and originality being less respected, are becoming more rare ; and in England in particular, real energy has hardly any field, except in business, where a large amount of it undoubtedly exists.* Our great- ness is collective, and depends not upon what we do as individuals, but upon our power of combining. In every successive genera- tion, men more resemble each other in all * ' There is now scarcely any outlet for energy in this coun- try except business. The energy expended in that may still be regarded as considerable.' — Mill On Liberty, p. 125. I suppose that, under the word business, Mr. Mill includes political and the higher class of official pursuits. 110 MILL ON LIBEETT. respects. They are more alike in their civil and political privileges, in their habits, in their tastes, in their manners, in their dress, in what they see, in what they do, in what they read, in what they think, and in what they say. On all sides the process of assimilation is going on. Shades of character are being blended, and contrasts of will are being recon- ciled. As a natural consequence, the indi- vidual life, that is, the life which distinguishes each man from his fellows, is perishing. The consolidation of the many destroys the action of the few. While we amalgamate the mass, we absorb the unit. The authority of society is, in this way, ruining society itself. For, the human fac- ulties can, for the most part, only be exercised and disciplined by the act of choosing ; but he who does a thing merely because others do it, makes no choice at all. Constantly copying the manners and opinions of our contemporaries, we strike out nothing that is new ; we follow on in a dull and monotonous uniformity. We go where others lead. The field of option is being straitened ; the number of alternatives is diminishing. And the result MTT.T. ON LIBEETY. Ill is, a sensible decay of tlitt vigour and raeiness of character, that diversity and fuhiess of life, and that audacity both of conception and of execution which marked the strong men of former times, and enabled them at once to improve and to guide the human species. , Now all this is gone, perhaps never to return, unless some great convulsion should previously occur. Originality is dying away, and is being replaced by a spirit of servile and apish imitation. We are degenerating into machines who do the will of society ; our impulses and desires are repressed by a galling and artificial code ; our minds are dwarfed and stunted by the checks and limitations to which we are perpetually sub- jected. How, then, is it possible to discover new truths of real importance ? How is it possible that creative thought can flourish in so sickly and tainted an atmosphere ? Genius is a form of originality ; if the originality is discour- aged, how can the genius remain? It is hard to see the remedy for this crying evil. Society is growing so strong as to destroy indi- viduality ; that is, to destroy the very quality 112 MILL ON LIBEKTY. to wliicli OTir civilisation, and therefore our social fabric, is primarily owing. The truth is, that we must vindicate the right of each man to do what he likes, and to say what he thinks, to an extent much greater than is usually supposed to be either safe or decent. This we must do for the sake of so- ciety, quite as much as for our own sake. That society would .be benefited by a greater free- dom of action has been already shown ; and • the same thing may be proved concerning free- dom of speech and of writing. In this respect, authors, and the teachers of manliind gen- erally, are far too timid ; while the state of public opinion is far too interfering. The re- marks which Mr. Mill has made on this, are so exhaustive as to be unanswerable ; and though many will call in question wliat he has said respecting the decline of individuality, no well instructed person will dispute the accuracy of his conclusions respecting the need of an increased liberty of discussion and of publication. In the present state of knowledge the majority of people are so ill-informed as not to be aware of the true nature of belief; they MILL ON LIBEETY. 113 are not aware tliat all belief is involuntary, and is entirely governed by the circumstances which produce it. They who have paid attention to these subjects, know that what we call the will has no power over belief, and that consequently a man is nowise responsible for his ei'eed, ex- cept in so far as he is responsible for the events which gave him his creed. Whether, for in- stance, he is a Mohammedan or a Christian, will usually resolve itself into a simple question of his geographical antecedents. He who is born in Constantinople, will hold one set of opinions ; he who is born in London, will hold another set. Both act according to their light and their circumstances, and if both are sincere both are guiltless. In each case, the believer is controlled by physical facts which deter- mine his creed and over which he can no more exercise authority than he can exercise authority over the movements of the planets or the rotation of the earth. This view, though long familiar to thinkers, can hardly be said to have been popularized before the present century ;* and to its diffusion, as well • Its diffusion was greatly lielped by Bailey's Essays on tJie Formation of Opinions, wliich were first published, I believe, 114: MILL ON LIBEETT. as to other larger and more potent causes, we must ascribe the increasing spirit of toleration to which not only our literature but even our statute-book bears witness. But, though belief is involuntary, it will be objected, with a certain degree of plausi- bility, that the expression of that belief, and particularly the formal and written publica- tion, is a voluntary act, and consequently a responsible one. If I were arguing the ques- tion exhaustively, I should at the outset demur to this proposition, and should require it to be stated in more cautious and limited terms ; but, to save time, let us suppose it to be true, and let us inquire whether, if a man be respon- sible to himself for the publication of his opinions, it is right that he should be also held responsible by those to whom he offers them ? In other words, is it proper that law or public opinion should discourage an indi- vidual from publishing sentiments which are hostile to the prevailing notions, and are considered by the rest of society to be false and mischievous ? in 1821 ; and being popularly written, as well as suitable to the age, have exercised considerable influence. MILL ON LIBEETY. 115 Upon this point, tlie arguments of Mr. Mill are so full and decisive that I despair of adding anything to them. It will be enough if I give a summary of the principal ones ; for it would be strange, indeed, if before many months are past, this noble treatise, so full of wisdom and of thought, is not in the hands of every one who cares for the future welfare of humanity, and whose ideas rise above the immediate interests of his own time. Those who hold that an individual ought to be discouraged from publishing a work con- taining heretical or irreligious opinions, must, of course, assume that such opinions are false ; since, in the present day, hardly any man would be so impudent as to propose that a true opinion should be stifled because it was uimsual as well as true. "We are all agreed that truth is good ; or, at all events, those who are not agreed must be treated as persons beyond the pale of reason, and on whose obtuse understandings it would be idle to waste an argument. He who says that truth is not always to be told, and that it is not fit for all minds, is simply a defender of false- hood; and we should take no notice of him, 116 MILL ON LIBEETT. inasmuch as the object of discussion being to destroy error, we cannot discuss with a man who deliberately affirms that error should be spared. "We take, therefore, for granted that those who seek to prevent any opinion being laid before the world, do so for the sake of truth, and with a view to prevent the unwary from being led into error. The intention is good ; it remains for us to inquire how it operates. Now, in the first place, we can never be sure that the opinion of the majority is true. Nearly every opinion hold by the majority was once confined to the minority. Every established religion was once a heresy. If the opinions of the majority had always pre- vailed, Christianity would have been extirpated as soon as Christ was murdered. If an age or a people assume that any notion they enter- tain is certainly right, they assume their own infallibility, and arrogantly claim for them- selves a prerogative which even the wisest of mankind never possess. To affirm that a doctrine is unquestionably revealed from above, is equally to affirm their own infallibility, since they affirm that they cannot be mistaken MILL ON LIBEETY. 117 in believing it to be revealed. A man who is sure that bis creed is true, is sure of his own infallibility, because he is sure that upon that point he has committed no error. Unless, therefore, we are prepared to claim, on our own behalf, an immunity from error, and an incapa- bility of being mistaken, which transcend the limits of the human mind, we are bound not only to permit our opinions to be disputed, but to be grateful to those who will do so. For, as no one who is not absurdly and im- modestly confident of his own powers, can be sure that what he believes to be true is true, it will be his object, if he be an honest man, to rectify the en-ors he may have committed. But it is a matter of history that errors have only been rectified by two means ; namely, by experience and discussion. The use of discus- sion is to show how experience is to be inter- preted. Experience alone, has never improved either mankind or individuals. Experience, be- fore it can be available, must be sifted and test- ed. This is done by discussion, which brings out the meaning of experience, and enables us to apply the observations that have been made, and turn them to acco.unt. Human judgment 118 MILL ON LIBEKTY. owes its value solely to the fact that when it is wrong it is possible to set it right. Inasmuch, however, as it can only be set right by the con- flict and collision of hostile opinions, it is clear that when those opinions are smothered, and when that conflict is stopped, the means of cor- recting our judgment are gone, and hence the value of our judgment is destroyed. The more, therefore, that the majority discourage the opinions of the minority, the smaller is the chance of the majority holding accurate views. But if, instead of discouraging the opinions, they should suppress them, even that small chance is taken away, and society can have no option but to go on from bad to worse, its blunders becoming more inveterate and more mischievous, in proportion as that liberty of discussion which might have rectified them has been the longer withheld. Here we, as the advocates of liberty, might fairly close the argument, leaving our op- ponents in the dilemma of either asserting their own infallibility, or else of abandoning the idea of interfering with freedom of discussion. So complete, however, is our ease, that we can actually afford to dispense with what has MILL ON LIBERTY. 119 been just stated, and support our views on other and totally different grounds. We will concede to those who favour restriction, all the premises that they require. "We will con- cede to them the strongest position that they can imagine, and we will take for granted that a nation has the means of knowing with ab- solute certainty that some of its opinions arc right. "We say, then, and we will prove, that, assuming these opinions to be true, it is ad- visable that they should be combated, and that their truth should be denied. That an opinion which is held by an immense majority, and which is moreover completely and un- qualifiedly true, ought to be contested, and that those who contest it do a public service, appears at first sight to be an untenable paradox. A paradox, indeed, it is, if by a paradox wfi mean an assertion not generally admitted ; but, so far from being untenable, it is a sound and wholesome doctrine, which, if it were adopted, would, to an extraordinary extent, facilitate the progress of society. Supposing any well-established opinion to be certainly true, the result of its not being vigorously attacked is, that it becomes more 120 MILL ON LIBEETT. passive and inert than it would otherwise be. This, as Mr. Mill observes, has been exemplified iu the history of Christianity. In the early Church, while Christianity was struggling against innumerable opponents, it displayed a life and an energy which diminished in pro- portion as the opposition was withdrawn When an enemy is at the gate, the garrison is alert. If the enemy retires, the alertness slackens ; and if he disappears altogether, nothing remains but the mere forms and duty of discipline, which, unenlivened by danger, grow torpid and mechanical. Tliis is a law of the human mind, and is of universal ap- plication. Every religion, after being estab- lished, loses much of its vitality. Its doctrines being less questioned, it naturally happens that those who hold them, scrutinize them less closely, and therefore grasp them less firmly. Their wits being no longer sharpened by con- troversy, what was formerly a living truth dwindles into a dead dogma. The excitement of the battle being over, the weapons are laid aside ; they fall into disuse ; they grow rusty ; the skill and fire in the warrior are gone. It is amid the roar of the cannon, the flash of MILL ON LIBEETY. 121 the bayonet, and the clang of the trumpet, that the forms of men dilate ; they swell with emotion ; their bulk increases ; their stature rises, and even small natures wax into great ones, able to do all and to dare all. So, indeed, it is. On any subject, universal ac- quiescence always engenders universal apathy. By a parity of reasoning, the greater the acquiescence the greater the apathy. All hail, therefore, to those who, by attacking a truth, prevent that truth from slumbering. All hail to those bold and fearless natures, the heretics and innovators of the day, who, rousing men out of their lazy sleep, sound in their ears the tocsin and the clarion, and force them to come forth that they may do battle for their creed. Of all evils, torpor is the most deadly. Give us paradox, give us error, give us what you will, so that you save us from stagnation. It is the cold spirit of routine which is the nightshade of our nature. It sits upon men like a blight, blunting their faculties, withering their pow- ers, and making them both unable and unwilU ing either to struggle for the truth, or to figure to themselves what it is that they really believe, See how this has acted, in regard to the 6 122 MILL ON LEBEBTY. doctrines of the Ilfew Testament. When those doctrines where first propounded, they were vigorously assailed, and therefore the early Christians clung to them, realized them, and bound them up in their hearts to an extent unparalleled in any subsequent age. Every Christian professes to believe that it is good to be ill-used and buffeted ; that wealth is an evil, because rich men cannot enter the king- dom of heaven ; that if your cloak is taken, you must give your coat also ; that if you are smitten on one cheek, you should turn round and offer the other. These and similar doc- trines, the early Christians not only professed, but acted up to and followed. The same doctrines are contained in our Bibles, read in our churches, and preached in our pulpits. Who is there that obeys them? And what reason is there for this imiversal defection, beyond the fact that when Christianity was constantly assailed, those who received its tenets held them with a tenacity and saw them with a vividness which cannot be ex- pected in an age that sanctions them by gen- eral acquiescence? Nqw, indeed, they are not only acquiesced in, they are also watched MILL ON LIBEETY. 123 over and sedulously protected. They are pro- tected by law, and by that public opinion which is infinitely more powerful than any law. Hence it is, that to them, men yield a cold and lifeless assent ; they hear them and they talk about them, but whoever was to obey them with that scrupulous fidelity which was formerly practised, would find to his cost how much he had mistaken his age, and how great is the difference, in vitality and in prac- tical effect, between doctrines which are gen- erally received and those which are fearlessly discussed. In proportion as knowledge has advanced, and habits of correct thinking been diffused, men have gradually approached towards these views of liberty, though Mr. Mill has been the first to bring them together in a thoroughly comprehensive spirit, and to concentrate in a single treatise all the arguments in their be- half. How everything has long tended to this result, must be known to whoever has studied the history of the English mind. "Whatever may be the case respecting the alleged decline of individuality, and the increasing tyranny of custom, there can, at all events, be no doubt ' 124: MILL ON LIBEKTT. that, in religious matters, public opinion is constantly becoming more liberal. The legal penalties which our ignorant and intolerant ancestors inflicted upon whoever differed from themselves, are now some of them repealed, and some of them obsolete. Not only have we ceased to murder or torture those who dis- agree with us, but, strange to say, we have even recognized their claim to political rights as well as to civil equality. The admission of the Jews into Parliament, that just and righteous measure, which was carried in the teeth of the most cherished and inveterate prejudice, is a striking proof of the force of the general movement ; as also is the rapidly increasing disposition to abolish oaths, and to do away in public life with every species of religious tests. Partly as cause, and partly as effect of all this, there never was a period in which so many bold and able attacks were made upon the prevailing theology, and in which so many heretical doctrines were pro- pounded, not only by laymen, but occasionally by ministers of the church, some of the most eminent of whom have, during the present generation, come forward to denounce the MILL ON L3EKTY. 125 errors in their own system, and to point out the flaws in tlieir own creed. The unorthodox character of physical science is equally no- torious ; and many of its professors do not scruple to impeach the truth of statements which are still held to be essential, and which, in other days, no one could have impugned, without exposing himself to serious danger. In former times, such men would have been silenced or punished ; now, they are respected and valued ; their works are eagerly read, and the circle of their influence is steadily widening. According to the letter of our law-books, these, and similar publications, which fearless and inquisitive men are pour- ing into the public ear, are illegal, and Govern- ment has the power of prosecuting their authors. The state of opinion, however, is so improved, that such prosecutions would be fatal to any Government which instigated them. We have, therefore, every reason to congratulate ourselves on having outlived the reign of open persecution. We may fairly suppose that the cruelties which our fore- fathers committed in the name of religion, could not now be perpetrated, and that it 126 MILL ON LIBEETT. would be. impossible to punisb a man merely because he expressed notions which the ma- jority considered to be profane and mis- chievous. Under these circumstances, and seeing that the practice of prosecuting men for uttering their sentiments on religious matters has been for many years discontinued, an attempt to revive that shameful custom would, if it were generally known, be at once scouted. It would be deemed unnatural as well as cruel : out of the ordinary course, and wholly un- suited to the humane and liberal notions of an age which seeks to relax penalties rather than to multiply them. As to the man who might be mad enough to make the attempt, we should look upon him in the light in which we should regard some noxious animal, which, being suddenly let loose, went about working harm, and undoing all the good that had been previously done. We should hold him to be a nuisance which it was our duty either to abate, or to warn people of. To us, he would be a sort of public enemy ; a disturber of human happiness ; a creature hostile to the human species. If he possessed MILL ON LIBEETT. 12Y authority, we should loathe him the more, as one who, instead of employing for the benefit of his country the power with T^hieh his country had entrusted him, used it to gratify his own malignant prejudices, or maybe to humour the spleen of some wretched and intolerant faction with which lie was connected. Inasmuch, therefore, as, in the present state of English society, any punishment in- flicted for the use of language which did not tend to break the public peace, and which was neither seditious in reference to the State, nor libellous in reference to individuals, would be simply a wanton cruelty, alien to the genius of our time, and capable of producing no effect beyond reviving intolerance, exas- perating the friends of liberty, and bringing the administration of justice into disrepute, it was with the greatest astonishment that I read in Mr. MiU's work that such a thing had occurred in this country, and at one of our asssizes, less than two years ago. Not- withstanding my knowledge of Mr. Mill's ac- curacy, I thought that, in this instance, he must have been mistaken. I supposed that 128 MILL ON LIBEETT. he had not heard all the circumstances, and that the person punished had been guilty of some' other offence. I could not believe that in the year 1857, there was a judge on the English bench who would sentence a poor man of irreproachable character, of industrious habits, and supporting his family by the sweat of his brow, to twenty-one months' imprison- ment, merely because he had uttered and written on a gate a few words respecting Christianity. Even now, when I have carefully investigated the facts to which Mr. Mill only alludes, and have the documents before me, I can hardly bring myself to realize the events which have actually occurred, and which I will relate, in order that public opinion may take cognizance of a transaction which happened in a remote part of the kingdom, but which the general welfare requires to be bruited abroad, so that men may determine whether or not such things shall be allowed. In the summer of 1857, a poor man named Thomas PoUey, was gaining his livelihood as a common labourer in Liskeard, in Cornwall, where he had been well known for several years, and had always borne a high character MILL ON LIBERTY. 129 for honesty, industry, and sobriety. His habits were so eccentric, that his mind was justly reputed to be disordered ; and an ac- cident which happened to him about two years before this period, had evidently in- flicted some serious injury, as since then his demeanour had become more strange and excitable. Still, he was not only perfectly harmless, but was a very useful member of society, respected by his neighbours, and loved by his family, for whom he toiled with a zeal rare in his class, or indeed in any class. Among other hallucinations, he believed that the earth was a living animal, and, in his ordinary employment of well-sinking, he avoided digging too deeply, lest he should penetrate the skin of the earth, and wound some vital part. He also imagined that if he hurt the earth, the tides would cease to flow ; and that nothing being really mortal, whenever a child died it reappeared at the next birth in the same family. Holding all nature to be animated, he moreover fancied that this was in some way connected with the potato-rot, and, in the wildness of his vagaries, he did not hesitate to say, that if 6* 130 MILL ON LIBERTY. the ashes of burnt Bibles were strewed over the fields, the rot would cease. This was associated, in his mind, with a foolish dislike of the Bible itself, and an hostility against Christianity ; in reference, however, to which he could hurt no one, as not only was he very ignorant, but his neighbours, regarding him as crack-brained, were uninfluenced by him ; though in the other relations of life he was valued and respected by his employers, and indeed by all who were most acquainted with his disposition. This singular man, who was known by the additional peculiarity of wearing a long beard, wrote upon a gate a few very silly words ex- pressive of his opinion respecting the potato-rot and the Bible, and also of his hatred of Chris- tianity. For this, as well as for using lan- guage equally absurd, but which no one was obliged to listen to, and which certainly could influence no one, a clergyman in the neigh- bourhood lodged an information against him, and caused him to be summoned before a magistrate, who was likewise a clergyman. The magistrate, instead of pitying him or remonstrating with him, committed him for MILL ON LIBEETY. 131 trial and sent him to jail. At the next assizes, he was brought before the judge. He had no counsel to defend him, but the son of the judge acted as counsel to prosecute him. The father and the son performed their parts with zeal, and were perfectly successful. Under their auspices, Pooley was foimd guUty. He was brought up for judgment. When addressed by the judge, his restless manner, his wild and incoherent speech, his disordered countenance and glaring eye, betokened too surely the disease of his mind. But neither this, nor the fact that he was ignorant, poor, and friendless, produced any effect upon that stony-hearted man who now held him in his gripe. He was sentenced to be imprisoned for a year and nine months. The interests of religion were vindicated. Christianity was protected, and her triumph assured, by dragging a poor, harmless and demented crea- ture from the bosom of his family,, throwing him. into jail, and leaving.his wife and children without provision, either to starve or to beg. Before he had been many days in prison, the insanity which was obvious at the time of his trial, ceased to lurk, and broke out into 132 MILL ON LIBEETT. acts of violence. He grew worse ; and within a fortnight after the sentence had been pro- nounced he went mad, and it was found necessary to remove him from the jail to the County Lunatic Asylum. While he was lying there, his misfortunes attracted the at- tention of a few high-minded and benevolent men, who exerted themselves to procure his pardon ; so that, if he recovered, he might be restored to his family. This petition was refused. It was necessary to support the judge ; and the petitioners were informed that if the miserable lunatic should regain his reason, he would be sent back to prison to undergo the rest of his sentence. This, in all probability, would have caused a relapse ; but little was thought of that ; and it was hoped that, as he was an obscure and humble man, the efforts made in his behalf would soon subside. Those, however, who had once interested themselves in such a case, were not likely to slacken their zeal. The cry grew hotter, and preparations were made for bringing the whole question before the country. Then it was that the authorities gave way. Happily for mankind, one vice is often bal- MILL ON LIBEKTT. 133 anced by another, and cruelty is corrected by cowardice. Tlie authors and abettors of fbis prodigious iniquity trembled at the risk they -would run if the public feeling of this • great country were roiised. The result was, that the proceedings of the judge were rescinded, as far as possible, by a pardon being granted to Pooley less than five months after the sentence was pronounced. By this means, general exposure was avoided ; and perhaps that handful of noble- minded men who obtained the liberation of Pooley, were right in letting the matter fall into oblivion after they had carried their point. Most of them were engaged in political or other practical aflFairs, and they were, there- fore, obliged to consider expediency as well as justice. But such is not the case with the historian of this sad event. No writer on important subjects has reason to expect that he can work real good, or that his words shall live, if he allows himself to be so trammelled by expediency as to postpone to it considerations of right, of justice, and of truth. A great crime has been committed, and the names of the criminals ought to be 134: MILL ON LIBEETr. known. They should be in every one's mouth. They should be blazoned abroad, in order that the world may see that in a free coiintiy such things cannot be done with impunity. To discourage a repetition of the offence the offenders must be punished. And, surely, no pimishment can be more severe than to pre- serve their names. Against them personally, I have nothing to object, for I have no knowledge of them. Individually, I can feel no animosity towards men who have done me no harm, and whom I have never seen. But they have violated principles dearer to me than any personal feeling, and in vindi- cation of which I would set all personal feel- ing at nought. Fortunate, indeed, it is for humanity that our minds are constructed after such a fashion as to make it impossible for us, by any effort of abstract reasoning, to consider oppression apart from the oppressor. "We may abhor a speculative principle, and yet respect him who advocates it. This dis- tinction between the opinion and the person is, however, confined to the intellectual world, and does not extend to the practical. Such a separation cannot exist in regard to actual MILL ON LIBEKTY. 135 deeds of cruelty. In sucli cases, our passions instruct our understanding. The same cause which excites our sympathy for the oppressed, stirs up our hatred of the oppressor. This is an instinct of our nature, and he who struggles against it does so to his own detri- ment. It belongs to the higher region of the mind ; it is not to be impeached by argument ; it cannot even be touched by it. Therefore it is, that when we hear that a poor, a defenceless, and a half-witted man, who had hurt no one, a kind father, an affectionate husband, whose private character was un- blemished, and whose integrity was beyond dis- pute, is suddenly thrown into prison, his family left to subsist on the precarious charity of stran- gers, he himself by this cruel treatment deprived of the little reason he possessed, then turned into a mad-house, and finally refused such scanty re- dress as might have been accorded him, a spirit of vehement indignation is excited, partly, in- deed, against a system under which such things can be done ; but still more against those who, in the pride of their power and wicked- ness of their hearts, put laws into execution which had long fallen into disuse, and which 136 MILL ON LIBEETT. they were not bound to enforce, but of which they availed themselres to crush the victim they held in their grasp. The prosecutor who lodged the information against Pooley, and had him brought before the magistrate, was the Kev. Paul Bush. The magistrate who received the information, and committed him for trial, was the Eev. James Glencross. The judge who passed the sentence which destroyed his reason and beg- gared his family, was Mr. Justice Coleridge. Of the two first, little need be said. It is to be hoped that their names will live, and that they will enjoy that sort of fame which they have amply earned. Perhaps, after all, we should rather blame the state of society which concedes power to such men, than wonder that having the power they should abuse it. But,, with Mr. Justice Coleridge we have a different account to settle, and to him other language must be applied. That our judges should have great authority is unavoidable. To them, a wide and discre- tionary latitude is necessarily entrusted. Great confidence being reposed in them, they are bound by every possible principle which can MILL ON LIBEETY. 137 actuate an honest man, to respect that con- fidence. They are bound to avoid not only injustice, but, so far as they can, the very appearance of injustice. Seeing, as they do, all classes of society, they are well aware that, among the lower ranks, there is a deep, though on the whole a diminishing, belief that the poor are ill-treated by the rich, and that even in the courts of law equal measure is not always meted out to both. An opinion of this sort is full of danger, and it is the more dangerous because it is not unfounded. The coimtry magistrates are too often unfau- in their decisions, and this will always be the case until greater publicity is given to their proceedings. But, from our superior judges we expect another sort of conduct. We ex- pect, and it must honestly be said we usiially find, that they shall be above petty prejudices, or at all events, that whatever private opinions they may have, they shall not intrude those opinions into the sanctuary of justice. Above all do we expect that they shall not ferret out some obsolete law for the purpose of op- pressing the poor, when they know right well that the anti-Christian sentiments which that 138 MILL ON LIBEETY. law was intended to punisli are quite as com- mon among tlie npper classes as among the lower, and are participated in by many persons who enjoy the confidence of the country and to whom the highest oflSces are entrusted. That this is the case, was known in the year 1857 to Mr. Justice Coleridge, just as it was then known, and is now known, to every one who mixes in the world. The charge, therefore, which I bring against this unjust and unrighteous judge is, that he passed a sentence of extreme severity upon a poor and friendless man in a remote part of the king- dom, where he might reasonably expect that his sentence would escape public animad- version ; that he did this by virtue of a law which had fallen into disuse, and was con- trary to the spirit of the age ;* and that he would not have dared to commit such an act, in the face of a London audience, and in the full light of the London press. Neither * Or rather by virtue of the cruel and persecuting maxims of our old Common Law, established at a period when it was a matter of religion to bum heretics and to drown witches. Why did not such a judge live three hundred years ago ? He has fallen upon evil times and has come too late into the world. MILL Oir LIBEETT. 139 would he, nor those -w^ho supported him, have treated in such a manner a person belonging to the upper classes. No. They select the most inaccessible county in England, "where the press is least active and the people are most illiterate, and there they pounce upon a defenceless man and make him the scape- goat. He is to be the victim whose vicarious sufferings may atone for the offences of more powerful unbelievers. Hardly a year goes by, without some writer of influence and ability attacking Christianity, and every such attack is punishable by law. Why did not Mr. Justice Coleridge, and those who think like him, put the law iiito force against those writers ? Why do they not do it now ? Why do they not have the learned and the eminent indicted and thrown into prison? Simply because they dare not. I defy them to it. They are afraid of the odium ; they tremble at the hostility they would incur and at the scorn which would be heaped upon them, both by their contemporaries and by posterity. Happily for mankind, literature is a real power, and tyranny quakes at it. But to me it appears, that men of letters perform 140 MILL ON LIBEETT. the least part of their dhtj when they defend each other. It is their proper function, and it ought to be their glory, to defend the weak against the strong, and to uphold the poor against the rich. This should be their pride and their honour. I would it were known in every cottage, that the intellectual classes sympathize, not with the upper ranks, but with the lower. I would that we made the freedom of the people our first consideration. Then, indeed, would literature be the religion of liberty, and we, priests of the altar, minis- tering her sacred rites, might feel that we act in the purest spirit of our creed when we denounce tyranny in high places, when we chastise the insolence of office, and when we vindicate the cause of Thomas Pooley against Justice Coleridge. For my part, I can honestly say that I have nothing exaggerated, nor set down aught in malice. What the verdict of public opinion may be, I cannot tell. I speak merely as a man of letters, and do not pretend to represent any class. I have no interest to advocate ; I hold no brief ; I carry no man's proxy. But unless I altogether mistake the general feeling, MILL ON LIBEETT. 141 it will be considered that a great crime has been committed ; that a knowledge of that crime has been too long hidden in a comer ; and that I have done something towards dragging the criminal from his covert, and letting in on him the full light of day. This gross iniquity is, no doubt, to be im- mediately ascribed to the cold heart and shal- low understanding of the judge by whom it was perpetrated. If, however, public opinion had been sufficiently enlightened, those evil qualities would have been restrained and ren- dered unable to work the mischief. There- fore it is, that the safest and most permanent remedy would be to diffuse sound notions respecting the liberty of speech and of publi- cation. It should be clearly understood that every man has an absolute and irrefragable right to treat any doctrine as he thinks proper ; either to argue against it, or to ridicule it. If his arguments are wrong, he can be re- futed ; if his ridicule is foolish, he can be out-ridiculed. To this, there can be no ex- ception. It matters not what the tenet may be, nor how dear it is to our feelings. Like all other opinions, it must take its chance; 142 MILL ON LIBEETY. it must be roughly used ; it must stand every test ; it must be tliorougbly discussed and sifted. And we may rest assured that if it really be a great and valuable truth, such opposition will endear it to us the more ; and that we shall cling to ■ it the closer, in pro- portion as it is argued against, aspersed, and attempted to be overthrown. If I were asked for an instance of the ex- treme latitude to which such licence might be extended, I would take what, in my judg- ment, at least, is the most important of all doctrines, the doctrine of a future state. Strictly speaking, there is, in the present early condition of the human mind, no subject on which we can arrive at complete certainty ; but the belief in a future state approaches that certainty nearer than any other belief, and it is one which, if eradicated, would drive most of us to despair. On both these grounds, it stands alone. It is fortified by arguments far stronger than can be adduced in support of any other opinion ; and it is a supreme consolation to those who sufi"er afflic- tion, or smart under a sense of injustice. The attempts made to impugn it, have always MILL ON LIBEETT. 143 Beemcd to me to be very weak, and to leave the real difficulties untouclied. They are nega- tive arguments directed against affirmative ones. But if, in transcendental inquiries, negative arguments are to satisfy us, how- shall we escape from the reasonings of Berke- ley respecting the non-existence of the ma- terial world? Those reasonings have never been answered, and our knowledge must be infinitely more advanced than it now is, before they can be answered. They are far stronger than the arguments of the atheists ; and I cannot but wonder that they who reject a future state, should believe in the reality of the material world. Still, those who do reject it, are not only justified in openly denying it, but are bound to do so. Our first and para- mount duty is to be true to ourselves ; and no man is true to himself who fears to express his opinion. There is hardly any vice which so debases us in our own esteem, as moral cowardice. There is hardly any virtue which BO elevates our character, as moral courage. Therefore it is, that the more unpopular a notion, the greater the merit of him who ad- vocates it, provided, of course, he does so in 144 MILL ON LIBEETY. honesty and singleness of heart. On this ac- count, although I regard the expectation of another life as the prop and mainstay of mankind, and although I cannot help think- ing that they who reject it have taken an imperfect and uncomprehensive view, and have not covered the whole field of inquiry, I do strenuously maintain, that against it every species of attack is legitimate, and I feel as- sured that the more it is assailed, the more it will flourish, and the more vividly we shall realize its meaning, its depth, and its necessity. That many of the common arguments in favour of this great doctrine are unsound, might be easily shown ; but, until the entire subject is freely discussed, we shall never know how far they are unsound, and whiat part of them ought to be retained. K, for instance, we make our belief in it depend upon asser- tions contained in books regarded as sacred, it will follow that whenever those books lose their influence the doctrine will be in peril. The basis being impaired, the superstructure will tremble. It may well be that, in the march of ages, every definite and written creed now existing is destined to die out, and to be MILL OK LIBERTY. 145 succeeded by better ones. The world has been the beginning of them, and we have no surety that it will not see the end of them. Everything which is essential to the human mind must survive all the shocks and vicissi- tudes of time ; but dogmas, which the mind once did without, cannot be essential to it. Perhaps, we have no right so to anticipate the judgment of our remotest posterity, as to affirm that any opinion is essential to all possible forms of civilization ; but, at all events, we have more reason to believe this of the doctrine of a future state than of any other conceivable idea. Let us then beware of endangering its stability by narrowing its foundation. Let us take heed how we rest it on the testimony of inspired writings, when we know that inspiration at one epoch is often different from inspiration at another. If Chris- tianity should ever perish, the age that loses it, will have reason to deplore the blindness of those who teach mankind to defend this glorious and consolatory tenet, not by general considerations of the fundamental properties of our common nature, but by traditions, as- sertions, and records, which do not bear the 7 146 MILL ON LIBEETT. stamp of universality, since in one state of society they are held to be true, and in another state of society they are held to be false. Of the same fluctuating and precarious character, is the argument drawn from the triumph of injustice in this world, and the consequent necessity of such unfairness being remedied in another life. For, it admits of historical proof that, as civilization advances, the impunity and rewards of wickedness di- minish. In a barbarous state of society, virtue is invariably trampled upon, and nothing really succeeds except violence or fraud. In that stage of affairs, the worst criminals are the most prosperous men. But in every succeed- ing step of the great progress, injustice be- comes more hazardous ; force and rapine grow more unsafe ; precautions multiply ; the super- vision is keener; tyranny and deceit are oftener detected. Being oftener detected, it is less profitable to practise them. In the same proportion, the rewards of integrity in- crease, and the prospects of virtue brighten. A large part of the power, the honour, and the fame formerly possessed by evil men is transferred to good men. Acts of injus- MILL ON LIBEETT. 147 tice which at an earher period would have escaped attention, or, if known, would have excited no odium, are now chastised, not only by law, but also by public opinion. Indeed, so marked is this tendency, that many per- sons, by a singular confusion of thought, ac- tually persuade themselves that offences are increasing because we hear more of them, and punish them oftener ; not seeing that this merely proves that we note them more and hate them more. We redouble our efforts against inj ustice, not on account of the spread of injustice, but on account of our better under- standing how to meet it, and being more de- termined to coerce it. No other age has ever cried out against it so loudly ; and yet, strange to say, this very proof of our superiority to all other ages is cited as evidence of our in- feriority. This, I shall return to elsewhere ; my present object in mentioning it, is partly to check a prevailing error, but chiefly to indicate its connexion with the subject before us. Nothing is more certain than that, as society advances, the weak are better protected against the strong ; the honest against the dishonest ; and the just against the unjust. If, 148 MILL ON LIBEETT. then, we adopt the popular argument in favour of another life, that injustice here, must be compensated hereafter, we are driven to the terrible conclusion that the same progress of civilization, which, in this world, heightens the penalties inflicted on injustice, would also lessen the need of future compensation, and thereby weaken the ground of our belief. The inference would be untrue, but it follows from the premises. To me it appears not only sad, but extremely pernicious, that on a topic of such surpassing interest, the understandings of men should be imposed upon by reasonings which are so shallow, that, if pushed to their legitimate consequence, they would defeat their own aim, because they would force us to assert that the more we improve in our moral conduct towards each other, the less we should care for a future and a better world. I have brought forward these views for the sake of justifying the general proposition maintained in this essay. For, it is evident that if the state of public opinion did not discourage a fearless investigation of these matters, and did not foolishly cast a slur upon those who attack doctrines which are dear MILL ON LIBEETT. 149 to US, the whole subject would be more thor- oughly understood, and such weak arguments as are commonly advanced would have been long since exploded. If they who deny the immortality of the soul, could, without the least opprobrium, state in the boldest man- ner all their objections, the advocates of the doctrine would be obliged to reconsider their own position, and to abandon its untenable points. By this means, that which I revere, and which an overwhelming majority of us revere, as a glorious truth, would be im- mensely strengthened. It would be strength- ened by being deprived of those sophistical arguments which are commonly urged in its favour, and which give to its enemies an in- calculable advantage. It would, moreover, be strengthened by that feeling of security which men have in their own convictions, when they know that everything is said against them which can be said, and that their opponents have a fair and liberal hear- ing. This begets a magnanimity, and a ra- tional confidence, which cannot otherwise be obtained. But, such results can never happen while we are so timid, or so dishonest, as to 150 MILL ON LIBERTY. impute improper motives to those who assail our religious opinions. "We may rely upon it that as long as we look upon an atheistical writer as a moral offender, or. even as long as we glance at him with suspicion, atheism will remain a standing and a permanent dan- ger, because, skulking in hidden corners, it will use stratagems which their secresy will prevent us from baffling ; it will practise artifices to which the persecuted are forced to resort ; it will number its concealed prose- lytes to an extent of which only they who have studied this painful subject are aware ; and, above all, by enabling them to complain of the treatment to which they are exposed, it will excite the sympathy of many high and generous natures who, in an open and manly warfare, might strive against them, but who by a noble instinet, find themselves incapable of contending with any sect which is oppressed, maligned, or intimidated. Though this essay has been prolonged much beyond my original intention, I am un- willing to conclude it just at this point, when I have attacked arguments which support a doctrine that I cherish above all other doc- MILL ON LIBEETY. 151 trines. It is, indeed, certain that lie wlio destroys a feeble argument in favour of any truth, renders the geatest service to that tmth, by obliging its advocates to produce a stronger one. Still, an idea will prevail among some persons that such service is in- sidious ; and that to expose the weak side of a cause, is likely to be the work, not of a friend but of an enemy in disguise. Partly, therefore, to prevent misinterpretation from those who are always ready to misinterpret, and partly for the satisfaction of more candid readers, I will venture to state what I ap- prehend to be the safest and most impreg- nable ground on which the supporters of this great doctrine can take their stand. That gi'ound is the universality of the affections ; the yearning of every mind to care for something out of itself. For, this is the very bond and seal of our common humanity ; it is the golden link which knits together and preserves the human species. It is in the need of loving and of being loved, that the highest instincts of our nature are first re- vealed. Not only is it found among the good and the virtuous, but experience proves that 152 MILL ON LIBEETT. it is compatible with almost any amount of depravity, and with almost every form of vice. No other principle is so general or so power- ful. It exists in the most harharous and fe- rocious states of society, and we know that even sanguinary and revolting crimes are often unable to eflface it from the breast of the criminal. It warms the coldest temperament, and softens the hardest heart. However a character may be deteriorated and debased, this single passion is capable of redeeming it from utter defilement, and of rescuing it from the lowest depths. And if, from time to time, we hear of an apparently well attested case of its entii-e absence, we are irresistibly impelled to believe that, even in that mind, it lurks unseen ; that it is stunted, not de- stroyed ; that there is yet some nook or cranny in which it is buried ; that- the avenues from without are not quite closed; and that, in spite of adverse circumstances, the affections are not so dead but that it would be possible to rouse them from their torpor, and kindle them into life. Look now at the way in which this god- like and fundamental principle of our nature MILL ON LIBEETT. 153 acts. As long as we are with those whom we love, and as long as the sense of security is unimpaired, we rejoice, and the remote consequences of our love are usually forgotten. Its fears and its risks are unheeded. But, when the dark day approaches, and the mo- ment of sorrow is at hand, other and yet eS' sential parts of our affection come into play. And if, perchance, the struggle has been long and arduous ; if we have been tempted to cling to hope when hope should have been abandoned, so much the more are we at the last changed and humbled. To note the slow, but inevitable march of disease, to watch the enemy stealing in at the gate, to see the strength gradually waning, the limbs totter- ing more and more, the noble faculties dwind- ling by degrees, the eye paling and losing its lustre, the tongue faltering as it- vainly tries to utter its words of endearment, the very lips hardly able to smile with their wonted tenderness ; — to see this, is hard indeed to bear, and many of the strongest natures have sunk under it. But when even this is gone ; when the very signs of life are mute ; when the last faint tie is severed, and there lies 7* 154 MILL ON LIBEETY. before us nought save the shell and husk of what we loved too well, then truly, if we believed the separation were final, how could we stand up and live? "We have staked our all upon a single cast, and lost the stake. There, where we have garnered up our hearts, and where our treasure is, thieves break in and spoil. Methinks, that in that moment of desolation, the best of us would succumb, but for the deep conviction that all is not really over ; that we have as yet only seen a part ; and that something remains behind. Something behind ; something which the eye of reason cannot discern, but on. which the eye of afi"ection is fixed. What is that, which, passing over us like a shadow, strains the aching vision as we gaze at it? Whence comes that sense of mysterious companion- ship in the midst of solitude ; that ineffable feeling which cheers the atflieted ? Why is it that, at these times, our minds arc thrown back on themselves, and, being so thrown, have a forecast of another and a higher state? If this be a delusion, it is one which the affections have themselves created, and we must believe that the purest and noblest ele- MILL ON LIBEETT. 155 ments of our nature conspire to deceive us. So surely as we lose what we love, so surely does hope mingle with grief. That if a man stood alone, he would deem himself mortal, I can well imagine. "Why not ? On account of his loneliness, his moral faculties would be undeveloped, and it is solely from them that he could learn the doctrine of immortality. There is nothing, either in the mechanism of the material universe, or in the vast sweep and compass of science, which can teach it. The human intellect, glorious as it is, and in its own field almost omnipotent, knows it not. For, the province and function of the intellect is to take those steps, and to produce those im- provements, whether speculative or practical, which accelerate the march of nations, and to which we owe the august and imposing fabric of modern civilization. But this intellectual movement which determines the condition of man, does not apply with the same force to the condition of men. What is most potent in the mass, loses its supremacy in the unit. One law for the separate elements ; another law for the entire compound. The intellectual principle is conspicuous in regard to the race ; 156 MILL OK LIBEETT. the moral principle in regard to the indi- vidual. And of all the moral sentiments -which adorn and elevate the human character, the instinct of affection is surely the most lovely, the most powerful, and the most general. Un- less, therefore, we are prepared to assert that this, the fairest and choicest of our possessions, is of so delusive and fraudiilent a character, that its dictates are not to be trusted, we can hardly avoid the conclusion, that, inasmuch as they are the same in all ages, with all degrees of knowledge, and with all varieties of religion, they bear upon their surface the impress of truth, and are at once the con- ditions and consequence of our being. It is, then, to that sense of immortality with which the affections inspire us, that I woidd appeal for the best proof of the reality of a future life. Other proofs perhaps there are, which it may be for other men or for other times to work out. But, before this can be done, the entire subject will have to be reopened, in order that it may be discussed with boldness and yet with calmness, which however cannot happen as long as a stigma rests on those who attack the belief ; because MILL ON LIBEETY. 167 its assailants, being unfairly treated, will for the most part be either timid or passionate. How mischievous as well as how unjust such a stigma is, has, I trust, been made apparent, and to that part of the question I need not revert. One thing only I would repeat, be- cause I honestly believe it to be of the deepest importance. Most earnestly would I again urge upon those who cherish the doctrine of immortality, not to defend it, as they too often do, by arguments which have a basis smaller than the doctrine itself. I long to see this glorious tenet rescued from the jurisdiction of a narrow and sectarian theology, which, foolishly, ascribing to a single religion the possession of all truth, proclaims other re- ligions to- be false, and debases the most magnificent topics by contracting them within the horizon of its own little vision. Every creed which has existed long and played a great part, contains a- large amount of truth, or else it would not have retained its hold upon the human mind. To suppose, however, that any one of theni contains the whole truth, is to suppose that as soon as that creed was enunciated the limits of inspiration were 158 MILL ON LIBEETY. reached, and the power of inspiration exhaust- ed. For such a supposition we have no warrant. On the contrary, the history of man- kind,, if compared in long periods, shows a very slow, but still a clearly marked, improve- ment in the character of successive creeds ; so that if we reason from the analogy of the past, we have a right to hope that the improve- ment will continue, and that subsequent creeds will surpass ours. Using the word religion in its ordinary sense, we find that the re- ligious opinions of men depend on an im- mense variety of circumstances which are con- stantly shifting. Hence it is, that whatever rests merely upon these opinions has in it something transient and mutable. "Well, there- fore, may they who take a distant and com- prehensive view, be filled with dismay when they see a doctrine like the immortality of the soul defended in this maimer. Such ad- vocates incur a heavy responsibility. They imperil their own cause ; they make the fundamental depend upon the casual ; they support what is permanent by what is ephem- eral ; and with their books, their dogmas, their traditions, their rituals, their records. MILL ON LIBERTY. 159 and their other perishable contrivances, they seek to prove what was known to the world before these existed, and what, if these were to die away, would still be known, and would remain the common heritage of the human species, and the consolation of myriads yet unborn. Note to p. 85. "On Si in T&v irp6Tepov iipimivav ol \6yoi, Ka\ Sti roirav, Kal Trpos ravra, fj.ia fihv irdrrts 7} Si^ ttjs 4irayuy7is. El ydp tis iTurxmolri iiciffrriv rav wpordiTeaii' koI tUv •npo^Ximirav • (jyal- voir' Uv t) airh roS Spov, fj 6,vh toB ISiov, ij Airi to3 pisp.ivav a Toirwv, XP^ Ilie\(7^ Hhy oiv iart koI i i^ iirceytiiyrjs trvWoyur/ihs rh Sii rod irtpoxi Bdrepov ixpov t$ uttrif avWoyiffturSai. — Aristot. Analyt. Prior., lib. ii. cap. xxv. p. 138. tavephv Si koI, 8ti, df rts tClaBitins iK\4\oiTev, hidyKt], koC iirurriinriv Tivk iK\e\oarevai, ^v aiivarov XaP^tv • ciirep /lavSd- vo/ify fl hmyuyy, fi iatoSel^ei. "Eitti S" ^ fiiv an-ifScilis Ik tUv KaB6\ou • Ti 5' iwayayii ix T&y Karh fifpos • liSiyteroy Se rii Ka96- \ov 6eaprj7fli &yev rfjs alaB^iireus. — Aristotelis Analytica Posteriora, lib, i. cap. xviii., Lipsiae, 1832, p. 117. MILL ON LIBERTY. 161 Kal 4 juiv Ka0({\ov ratir^ ■ 7) Sk Kari /icpos els <£taBritta> t€- AcuT^. — Analyt. Post., lib. L cap. xxiv. p. 191. All that Aristotle knew of induction is contained in these passages. What he says in his Metaphysics is more vaguely ex- pressed, or perhaps the text is more corrupt. The early part of the first book may, however, be looked at. INFLUENCE OF WOMEN PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN ON THE PEOGEESS OF KNOWLEDGE * The subject upon which I have undertaken to address you is the influence of women on the progress of knowledge, undoubtedly one of the most interesting questions that could be sub- mitted to any audience. Indeed, it is not only very interesting, it is also extremely important. When we see how knowledge has civilized mankind ; when we see how every great step in the march and advance of nations has been invariably preceded by a corresponding step in their knowledge ; when we moreover see, what is assuredly true, that women are constantly growing more influential, it becomes a matter of great moment that we should endeavour to * A Discourse delivered at the Royal Institution, on Friday, the 19th of March, 1868. 166 THE INFLUENCE OP WOMEN ON ascertain the relation between their influence and our knowledge. On every side, in all so- cial phenomena, in the education of children, in the tone and spirit of literature, in the forms and usages of life ; nay, even in the proceed- ings of legislatures, in the history of statute- books, and in the decisions of magistrates, we find manifold proofs that women are gradually making their way, and slowly but surely win- ning for themselves a position superior to any they have hitherto attained. This is one of many peculiarities which distinguish modern civilization, and which show how essentially the most advanced countries are difierent from those that formerly flourished. Among the most celebrated nations of antiquity, women held a very subordinate place. The most splendid and durable monument of the Koman empire, and the noblest gift Home has be- queathed to posterity, is her jurisprudence — a vast and harmonious system, worked out with consummate skill, and from which we derive our purest and largest notions of civil law. Yet this, which, not to mention the immense sway it still exercises in France and Germany, has taught to our most enlightened lawyers their THE PE0GEES8 OF KNOWLEDGE. 167 best lessons ; and ■which enabled Bracton among the earlier jurists, Somers, Hardwicke, Mansfield, and Stowell among the later, to soften by its refinement the rude maxims of our Saxon ancestors, and adjust the coarser princi- ples of the old Common Law to the actual exi- gencies of life ; this imperishable specimen of human sagacity is, strange to say, so grossly unjust towards women, that a great writer upon that code has well observed, that in it women are regarded not as persons, but as things ; so completely were they stripped of all their rights, and held in subjection by their proud and imperious masters. As to the other great nation of antiquity, we have only to open the literature of the ancient Greeks to see with what airs of superiority, with what serene and lofty contempt, and sometimes with what mocking and biting scorn, women were treated by that lively and ingenious people. Instead of valuing them as companions, they looked on them as toys. How little part women really took in the development of Greek civilization may be illustrated by the singular fact, that their influence, scanty as it was, did not reach its height in the most civil- 168 THE nn?LUENCE OF WOMEN ON ized times, or in the most civilized regions. In modern Europe, the influence of women and the spread of civilization have been nearly commensurate, both advancing with almost equal speed. But if you compare the picture of Greek life in Homer with that to be found in Plato and his contemporaries, you will be struck by a totally opposite circumstance. Between Plato and Homer there intervened, according to the common reckoning, a period of at least four centuries, during which the Greeks made many notable improvements in the arts of life, and in various branches of spec- ulative and practical knowledge. So far, how- ever, from women participating in this move- ment, we find that, in the state of society exhibited by Plato and his contemporaries, they had evidently lost ground ; their in- fluence being less then than it was in the earlier and more barbarous period depicted by Homer. This fact illustrates the question in regard to time ; another fact illustrates it in regard to place. In Sparta, women pos- sessed more influence than they did in Athens ; although the Spartans were rude and igno- rant, the Athenians polite and accomplished. THE PKOGEESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 169 The causes of these inconsistencies would form a curious subject for investigation : but it is enough to call your attention to them as one of many proofs that the boasted civili- zations of antiquity were eminently one-sided, and that they fell because society did not advance in all its parts, but sacrificed some of its constituents in order to secure the prog- ress of others. In modern European society we have happily no instance of this sort ; and if we now inquire what the influence of women has been upon that society, every one will allow that on the whole it has been extremely bene- ficial. Their influence has prevented life from being too exclusively practical and selfish, and has saved it from degenerating into a dull and monotonous routine, by infusing into it an ideal and romantic element. It has softened the violence of men ; it has improved their manners ; it has lessened their cruelty. Thus far, the gain is complete and undeniable. But if we ask what their influence has been, not on the general interests of society, but on one of those interests, namely, the progress of knowledge, the answer is not so obvious. For, 170 THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN ON to state the matter candidly, it must be con- fessed that none of the greatest -works which instruct and delight mankind, have been com- posed by women. In poetry, in painting, in sculpture, in music, the most exquisite produc' tions are the work of men. No woman, how- ever favourable her circumstances may have been, has made a discovery sufficiently impor- tant to mark an epoch in the annals of the human mind. These are facts which cannot be contested, and from them a very stringent and peremptory inference has been drawn. From them it has been inferred, and it is openly stated by eminent writers, that women have no concern with the highest forms of knowledge ; that such matters are altogether out of their reach ; that they should confine themselves to practical, moral, and domestic life, which it is their province to exalt and to beautify ; but that they can exercise no influence, direct or indirect, over the progress of knowledge, and that if they seek to exercise such influence, they will not only fail in their object, but will restrict the field of their really useful and legitimate activity. Now, I may as well state at once, and at THE PEOGEESS OF KNOWLEDGE. lYl the outset, that I have come here to-night with the intention of combating this proposition, which I hold to be unphilosophical and dan- gerous ; false in theory and pernicious in prac- tice. I believe, and I hope before we separate to convince you, that so far from women exercising little or no influence over the progress of knowledge, they are capable of exercising, and have actually exercised, an enor- mous influence ; that this influence is, in fact, so great that it is hardly possible to assign limits to it ; and that great as it is, it may with advantage be still further increased. I hope, moreover, to convince you that this influence has been exhibited not merely from time to time in rare, sudden, and transitory ebullitions, but that it acts by virtue of certain laws inherent to human nature ; and that although it works as an under-current below the surface, and is therefore invisible to hasty observers, it has already produced the most im- portant results, and has affected the shape, the character, and the amount of our knowledge. To clear up this matter, we must flrst of all imderstand what knowledge is. Some men who pride themselves, on their common sense 172 THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN ON — and whenever a man boasts mncli about that, you may be pretty sure that he has very little sense, either common or uncommon — such men there are who will tell you that all knowl- edge consists of facts, that everything else is mere talk and theory, and that nothing has any value except facts. Those who speak so much of the value of facts may understand the meaning of fact, but they evidently do not understand the meaning of value. For, the value of a thing is not a property residing in that thing, nor is it a component ;. but it is simply its relation to some other thing. We say, for instance, that a five-shilling piece has a certain value ; but the value does not reside in the coin. If it does, where is it ? Our senses cannot grasp value. "We cannot see value, nor hear it, nor feel it, nor taste it, nor smell it. The value consists solely in the rela- tion which the five-shilling piece bears to something else. Just so in regard to facts. Facts, as facts, have no sort of value, but are simply a mass of idle lumber. The value of a fact is not an element or constituent of that fact, but is its relation to the total stock of our knowledge, either present or prospective. THE PEOGEESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 173 Facts, therefore, have merely a potential and, as it were, subsequent value, and the only- advantage of possessing them is the possibility of drawing conclusions from them ; in other words, of rising to the idea, the principle, the law which governs them. Our knowledge is composed not of facts, but of the relations which facts and ideas bear to themselves and to each other ; and real knowledge consists not in an acquaintance with facts, which only makes a pedant, but in the use of facts, which makes a philosopher. Looking at knowledge in this way, we shall find that it has three divisions, — Method, Science, and Art. Of method I will speak presently ; but I will first state the limits of the other two divisions. The immediate object of all art is either pleasure or utility : the immediate object of all science is solely truth. As art and science have difierent objects, so also have they different faculties. The faculty of art is to change events ; the faculty of science is to foresee them. The phenomena with which we deal are controlled by art ; they are predicted by science. The more complete a science is, the greater its power 174 THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN ON of prediction ; the more complete an art is, the greater its power of control. Astronomy, for instance, is called the queen of the sciences, he- cause it is the most advanced of all ; and the astronomer, while he abandons all hope of controlling or altering the phenomena, frc quently knows what the phenomena will be years before they actually appear ; the extent of his foreknowledge proving the accuracy of his science. So, too, in the science of me- chanics, we predict that, certain circumstances being present, certain results must follow ; and having done this, our science ceases. Our art then begins, and from that moment the object of utility and the faculty of control come into play ; so that in the art of mechanics, we alter what in the science of mechanics we were content to foresee. One of the most conspicuous tendencies of advancing civilization is to give a scientific basis to that faculty of control which is repre- sented by art, and thus afford fresh prominence to the faculty of prediction. In the earliest stage of society there are many arts, but no sciences. A little later, science begins to appear, and every subsequent step is marked THE PEOGEESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 175 by an iucreased desire to bring art under tbe dominion of science. To those who have stud- ied the history of the human mind, this tend- ency is so familiar that I need hardly stop to prove it. Perhaps the most remarkable instance is in the case of agriculture, which, for thou- sands of years, was a mere empirical art, resting on the traditional maxims of experience, but which, during the present century, chemists began to draw under their jurisdiction, so that the practical art of manuring the ground is explained by laws of physical science. Prob- ably the next step will be to bring another part of the art of agriculture under the dominion of meteorology, which will be done as soon as the conditions which govern the changes of the weather have been so generalized as to enable us to foretell what the weather will be. General reasoning, therefore, as well as the history of what has been actually done, jus- tify us in saying that the highest, the ripest, and the most important form of knowledge, is the scientific form of predicting consequences ; it is therefore to this form that I shall restrict the remainder of what I have to say to you respecting the influence of women. And the 176 THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN ON point which I shall attempt to prove is, that there is a natural, a leading, and prohahly an indestructible eleixient, in the minds of women, which enables them, not indeed to make scientific discoveries, but to exercise the most momentous and salutary influence over the method by which discoveries are made. And as all questions concerning the philosophy of method lie at the very root of our knowledge, I will, in the first place, state, as succinctly as I am able, the only two methods by which we can arrive at truth. The scientific inquirer, properly so called, that is, he whose object is merely truth, has only two ways of attaining his result. He may proceed from the external world to the internal ; or he may begin with the internal and proceed to the external. In the former case he studies the facts presented to his senses, in order to arrive at a true idea of them ; in the latter case he studies the ideas already in his mind, in order to explain the facts of which his senses are cognizant. If he begin with the facts his method is induc- tive ; if he begin with the ideas it is deductive. The inductive philosopher collects phenomena THE PEOGEKSS OF KKOWLEDGE. 177 either by observation or by experiment, and from them rises to the general principle or law which explains and covers them. The deductive philosopher draws the principle from ideas already existing in his mind, and ex- plains the phenomena by descending on them, instead of rising from them. Several eminent thinkers have asserted that every idea is the result of induction, and that the axioms of geometry, for instance, are the product of early and unconscious induction. In the same way Mr. Mill, in his great work on Logic, affirms that all reasoning is in reality from particular to particular, and that the major premiss of every syllogism is merely a record and register of knowledge previously obtained. "Whether this be true, or whether, as another school of thinkers asserts, we have ideas antecedent to experience, is a question which has been hotly disputed, but which I do not bslieve the actual resources of our knowledge can answer, and certainly I have no intention at present of making the attempt. It is enough to say that we call geometry a deductive science, because, even if its axioms are arrived at in- ductively, the inductive process is extremely 178 THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN ON small, and we are unconscious of it ; while the deductive reasonings form the great mass and difficulty of the science. To bring this distinction home to you, I will illustrate it by a specimen of deductive and inductive investigation of the same sub- ject. Suppose a writer on what is termed social science, wishes to estimate the influence of different habits of thought on the average duration of life, and taking as an instance the opposite pursuits of poets and mathemati- cians, asks which of them live longest. How is he to solve this ? If he proceeds induc- tively he will first collect the facts, that is, he will ransack the biographies of poets and mathematicians in different ages, different cli- mates, and different states of society, so as to eliminate perturbations arising from cir- cumstances not connected with his subject. He will then throw the results into the statis- tical form of tables of mortality, and on com- paring them will find, that notwithstanding the immense variety of circumstances which he has investigated, there is a general average which constitutes an empirical law, and proves that mathematicians, as a body, are longer THE PEOGEESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 179 lived than poets. This is the inductive meth- od. On the other hand, the deductive in- quirer will arrive at precisely the same con- clusion by a totally different method. He will argue thus : poetry appeals to the imagination, mathematics to the understanding. To work the imagmation is more exciting than to work the understanding, and what is habitually exciting is usually unhealthly. But what is usually unhealthy will tend to shorten life ; therefore poetry tends more than mathematics to shorten life ; therefore on the whole poets will die sooner than mathematicians. You now see the difference between induc- tion and deduction ; and you see, too, that both methods are valuable, and that any con- clusion must be greatly strengthened if we can reach it by two such different paths. To connect this with the question before us, I will endeavour to establish two propositions. First, That women naturally prefer the de- ductive method to the inductive. Secondly, That women by encouraging in men deductive habits of thought, have rendered an immense though unconscious service to the progress of knowledge, by preventing scientific investi- 180 THE INFLUENCE OF "WOMEN ON gators from being as exclusively inductive as they would otherwise be. In regard to women being by nature more deductive, and men more inductive, you will remember that induction assigns the first place to particular facts ; deduction to general prop- ositions or ideas. Now, there are several reasons why women prefer the deductive, and, if I may so say, ideal method. They are more emotional, more enthusiastic, and more imaginative than men ; they therefore live more in an ideal world ; while men, with their colder, harder, and austerer organiza- tions, are more practical and more under the dominion of facts, to which they consequently ascribe a higher importance. Another cir- cumstance which makes women more deductive, is that they possess more of what is called intuition. They cannot see so far as men can, but what they do see they see quicker. Hence, they are constantly tempted to grasp at once at an idea, and seek to solve a problem sud- denly, in contradistinction to the slower and more laborious ascent of the inductive investi- gator. That women are more deductive than men, THE PEOGEKSS OF KNOWLEDGE. 181 because they think quicker than men, is a proposition which some persons will not relish, and yet it may be proved hi a variety of ways. Indeed, nothing could prevent its being universally admitted except the fact, that the remarkable rapidity with which women think is obscured by that miserable, that contempt- ible, that preposterous system, called their education, in which valuable things are care- fully kept from them, and triflmg things carefully taught to them, until their fine and nimble minds are too often irretrievably in- jured. It is on this account, that in the lower classes the superior quickness of women is even more noticeable than in the upper ; and an eminent physician. Dr. Currie, men- tions in one of his letters, that when a labourer and his wife came together to consult him, it was always from the woman that he gained the clearest and most precise information, the intellect of the man moving too slowly for his purpose. To this I may add another ob- servation which many travellers have made, and which any one can verify : namely, that when you are in a foreign country, and speak- ing a foreign language, women will under- 182 THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN ON stand you quicker than men -will ; and that for the same reason, if you lose your way in a town abroad*, it is always best to apply to a woman, because a man will show less readi- ness of apprehension. These, and other circumstances which might be adduced — such, for instance, as the insight into character possessed by women, and the fine tact for which they are remarkable — ^prove that they are more deductive than men, for two principal reasons. First, Because they are quicker than men. Secondly, Because, being more emotional and enthusiastic, they live in a more ideal world, and therefore prefer a method of inquiry which proceeds from ideas to facts ; leaving to men the op- posite method of proceeding from facts to ideas.. My second proposition is, that women have rendered great though unconscious service to science, by encouraging and keeping alive this habit of deductive thought ; and that if it were not for them, scientific men would be much too inductive, and the progress of our knowledge would be hindered. There are many here who will not willingly admit this THE PKOGEESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 183 proposition, because in England, since the first half of the seventeenth century, the in- ductive method, as the means of arriving at physical truths, has been the object, not of rational admiration, but of a blind and servile worship ; and it is constantly said, that since the time of Bacon all great physical dis- coveries have been made by that process. If this be true, then of course the deductive habits of women must, iu reference to the progress of knowledge, have done more harm than good. But it is not true. It is not true that tlie greatest modern discoveries have all been made by induction ; and the circumstance of its being believed to be true, is one of many proofs how much more suc- cessful Englishmen have been in making dis- coveries than in investigating the principles according to which discoveries are made. The first instance I will give you of the triumph of the deductive method, is in the most important discovery yet made respect- ing the inorganic world ; I mean the discov- ery of the law of gravitation by Sir Isaac Newton. Several of Newton's other discov- eries were, no doiibt, inductive, in so far as 184 THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN ON they merely assumed such provisional and tentative hypotheses as are always necessary to make experiments fruitful. But it is certain that his greatest discovery of all was deduc- tive, in the proper sense of the word ; that is to say, the process of reasoning from ideas was out of all proportion large, compared to the process of reasoning from facts. Five or six years after the accession of Charles II., Newton was sitting in a garden, when (you all know this part of the story) an apple fell from a tree. Whether he had heen already musing respecting gravitation, or whether the fall of the apple directed his thoughts into that channel is uncertain, and is immaterial to my present purpose, which is merely to indicate the course his mind actually took. His object was to discover some law, that is, rise to some higher truth respecting gravity than was previously known. Observe how he went to work. He sat still where he was, and he thought. He did not get up to make experiments concerning gravitation, nor did he go home to consult observations which others had made, or to collate tables of ob- servations : he did not even continue to watch THE PEOGEESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 185 the external world, but he sat, like a man entranced and enraptured, feeding on his own mind, and evolving idea after idea. He thought that if the apple had been on a higher tree, if it had been on the highest known tree, it would have equally fallen. Thus far, there was no reason to think that the power which made the apple fall was susceptible of diminu- tion ; and if it were not susceptible of diminu tion, why should it be susceptible of limit? If it were unlimited and undiminished, it would extend above the earth ; it would reach the moon and keep her in her orbit. If the power which made the apple fall was actually able to control the moon, why should it stop there ? "Why should not the planets also be controlled, and why should not they be forced to run their course by the necessity of gravi- tating towards the sun, just as the moon gravitated towards the earth ? His mind thus advancing from idea to idea, he was carried by imagination into the realms of space, and still sitting, neither experimenting nor observ- ing, but heedless of the operations of nature, he completed the most sxiblime and majestic speculation that it ever entered into the heart of man to conceive. Owing to an inaccurate 186 THE INFLTJEKCE OF WOMEN ON measTirement of the diameter of the earth, the details which verified this stupendous con- ception were not completed till twenty years later, when Newton, still pursuing the same process, made a deductive application of the laws of Kepler : so that both in the beginning and in the end, the greatest discovery of the greatest natural philosopher the world has yet seen, was the fruit of the deductive method. See how small a part the senses played in that discovery ! It was the triumph of the idea ! It was the audacity of genius ! It was the outbreak of a mind so daring, and yet so subtle, that we have only Shakspeare's with which to compare it. To pretend, there- fore, as many have done, that the fall of the apple was the cause of the discovery, and then to adduce that as a confirmation of the idle and superficial saying ' that great events spring from little causes,' only shows how unable such writers are to appreciate what our mas- ters have done for us. No great event ever sprung, or ever will spring, from a little cause ; and this, the greatest of all discoveries, had a cause fully equal to the efi'ect produced. The cause of the discovery of the law of gravi- THE PEOGEESS OF KNOWLEDGE 187 tation was not the fall of the apple, nor was it anything that occurred in the external world. The cause of the discovery of Newton was the mind of Newton himself. The next instance I will mention of the successful employment of the a priori^ or de- ductive method, concerns the mineral king- dom. If you take a crystallized substance as it is usually found in nature, nothing can at first sight appear more irregular and capri- cious. Even in its simplest form, the shape is so various as to be perplexing ; but natural crystals are generally met with, not in pri- mary forms, but in secondary ones, in which they have a singularly confused and uncouth aspect. These strange-looking bodies had long excited the attention of philosophers, who, after the approved inductive fashion, subject- ed them to all sorts of experiments ; divided them, broke them up, measured them, ■weighed them, analysed them, thrust them into crucibles, brought chemical agents to bear upon them, and did everything they could think of to worm out the secret of these crystals, and get at their mystery. Still, the mystery was not revealed to them. At length, late in the eighteenth 188 THE INFLTJENCE OF WOMEN ON century, a Frencliniaii named Haiiy, one of the most remarkable men of a remarkable age, made the discovery, and ascertained that these native crystals, irregular as they appear, are in truth perfectly regular, and that their sec- ondary forms deviate from their primaiy forms by a regular process of diminution ; that is, by what he termed laws of decrement — the principles of decrease being as unerring as those of increase. Now, I beg that you will particularly notice how this striking discovery was made. Haiiy was essentially a poet ; and his great delight was to wander in the Jardin du Hoi, observing nature, not as a physical philosopher, but as a poet. Though his understanding was strong, his imagination was stronger ; and it was for the purpose of filling his mind with ideas of beauty that he directed his attention first to the vegetable kingdom, with its graceful forms and various hues. His poetic temperament luxuriating in such images of beauty, his mind became saturated with ideas of symmetry, and Cuvier assures us that it was in consequence of those ideas that he began to believe that the ap- parently irregular forms of native crystals ril3 TEOGEESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 189 were in reality regular ; in other words, that in them, too, there was a beauty — a hidden beauty — though the senses were unable to discern it. As soon as this idea was firmly implanted in his mind, at least half the dis- covery was made ; for he had got the key to it, and was on the right road, which others had missed because, while they approached minerals experimentally on the side of the senses, he approached them speculatively on the side of the idea. This is not a mei'e fanci- ful assertion of mine, since Haiiy himself tells us, in his great work on Mineralogy, that he took, as his starting point, ideas of the sym- metry of form ; and that from those ideas he worked down deductively to his subject. It was in this way, and of course after a long series of subsequent labours, that he read the riddle which had baifled his able but unim- aginative predecessors. And there are two circumstances worthy of note, as confirming what I have said respecting the real history , of this discovery. The first is, that although Haiiy is universally admitted to be the founder of the science, his means of observation were so mde that subsequent crystallographers declare 190 THE INFLUENCE OF -WOMEN ON that hardly any of his measurements of angles are correct ; as indeed is not surprising, in- asmuch as the goniometer which he employed was a very imperfect instrument ; and that of "WoUaston, which acts by reflection, was not then invented. The other circumstance is, that the little mathematics he once knew he had forgotten amid his poetic and im- aginative pursuits ; so that, in working out the details of his own science, he was obliged, like a schoolboy, to learn the elements of geom- etry before he could prove to the world what he had already proved to himself, and could bring the laws of the science of form to bear upon the structure of the mineral kingdom. To these cases of the application of what may be termed the ideal method to the in- organic world, I will add another from the organic department of nature. Those among you who are interested' in botany, are aware that the highest morphological generalization we possess respecting plants, is the great law of metamorphosis, according to which the stamens, pistils, corollas, bracts, petals, and so forth, of every plant, are simply modified leaves. It is now known that these various THE PEOGKESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 191 parts, different in shape, different in colour, and different in function, are successive stages of the leaf — epochs, as it were, of its history. The question naturally arises, who made this discovery? "Was it some inductive inves- tigator, who had spent years in experiments and minute observations of plants, and who, with indefatigable industry, had collected them, classified them, given them hard names, dried them, laid them up in his herbarium that he might at leisure study their structure and rise to their laws? Not so. The dis- covery was made by Gdthe, the greatest poet Germany has produced, and one of the greatest the world has ever seen. And he made it, not in spite of being a poet, but because he was a poet. It was his brilliant imagination, his passion for beauty, and his exquisite con- ception of form, which supplied him with ideas, from which, reasoning deductively, he arrived at conclusions by descent, not by ascent. He stood on an eminence, and look- ing down from the heights generalized the law. Then he descended into the plains, and verified the idea. When the discovery was announced by Gothe, the botanists not only 1D2 THE INFLUENCE OP WOMEN ON rejected it, but were filled with wrath at the notion of a poet invading their territory. What ! a man who made verses and wrote plays, a mere man of imagination, a poor creature who knew nothing of facts, who had not even used the microscope, who had made no great experiments on the growth of plants ; was he to enter the sacred precincts of physical science, and give himself out as a philosopher ? It was too absurd. But Gdthe, who had thrown his idea upon the world, could afford to wait and bide his time. You know the result. Tlie men of facts at length succumbed before the man of ideas ; the philosophers, even on their own ground, were beaten by the poet ; and this great discovery is now received and eagerly welcomed by those very persons who, if they had lived fifty years ago, would have treated it with scorn, and who even now still go on in their old routine, tell- ing us, in defiance of the history of our knowledge, that all physical discoveries are made by the Baconian method, and that any other method is unworthy the attention of sound and sensible thinkers. One more instance, and I have done with THE PKOGEESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 193 this part of the subject. The same great poet made another important physical discovery in precisely the same way. Gothe, strolling in a cemetery near Yenice, stumbled on a skull which was lying before him. Suddenly the idea flashed across his mind that the skull was composed of vertebrae ; in other words, that the bony covering of the head was simply an expansion of the bony coveriilg of the spine. This luminous idea was afterwards adopted by Oken and a few other great naturalists in Germany and France, but it was not received in England till ten years ago, when Mr. Owen took it nyi, and in his very remarkable work on the .Hotnologies of the Vertebrate Skeleton, showed its meaning and purpose as contribu- ting towards a general scheme of philosophic anatomy. That, the discovery was made by Gothe late in the eighteenth century is cer- tain, and it is equally certain that for fifty years afterwards the English anatomists, with all their tools and all their dissections, ignored or despised that very discovery which they are now compelled to accept. You will particularly observe the circum- stances under which this discovery was made. 9 19i THE INFLUENCK OF WOMEN ON It was not made by some great surgeon, dissec- tor, or physician, but it was made by a great poet, and amidst scenes most likely to excite a poetic temperament. It was made in Venice, that land so calculated to fire the imagination of a poet; the land of marvels, the land of poe-. try and romance, the land of painting and of song. It was made, too, when Gdthe, sur- rounded by the ashes of the dead, would be naturally impressed with those feelings of sol- emn awe, in whose presence the human under- standing, rebuked and abashed, becomes weak and helpless, and leaves the imagination unfet- tered to wander in that ideal world which is its own peculiar abode, and from which it. derives its highest aspirations. It has often seemed to mo that there is a striking similarity between this event and one of the most beautiful episodes in the greatest production of the greatest man the world has ever possessed ; I mean Shakspeare's Hamlet. You remember that wonderful scene in the churchyard, when Hamlet walks in among the graves, where the brutal and ignorant clowns are singing and jeering and jesting over the re- mains of the dead. You remember how the THE PKOGEESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 195 fine imagination of the great Danish thinker is stirred by the spectacle, albeit he knows not yet that the grave which is being dug at his feet is destined to contain all that he holds dear upon earth. But though he wists not of this, he is moved like the great German poet, and he, like Gcithe, takes up a skull, and his speculative faculties begin to work. Images of decay crowd on his mind as he thinks how the mighty are fallen and have passed away. In a moment, his imagination carries him b^ck two thousand years, and he almost believes that the skull he holds in his hand is indeed the skull of Alexander, and in Iiis mind's eye he contrasts the putrid bone with what it once contiiined, the brain of the scourge and conqueror of man- kind. Then it is that suddenly he, like Gdthe, passes into an ideal physical world, and seizing the great doctrine of the indestructibility of matter, that doctrine which in his age it was difficult to grasp, he begins to show how, by a long series of successive changes, the head of Alexander might have been made to subserve the most ignoble purposes; the substance be- ing always metamorphosed, never destroyed. * Why,' asks Hamlet, ' why may not imagina- 196 THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN ON tion trace the noble dust of Alexander ? ' when, just as he is about to pursue this train of ideas, he is stopped by one of those men of facts, one of those practical and prosaic natures, who are always ready to impede the flight of genius. By his side stands the faithful, the affectionate, but the narrow-minded Horatio, who, looking upon all this as the dream of a distempered fancy, objects that, — "twere to consider too curiously to consider so.' O ! what a picture ! what a contrast between Hamlet and Horatio ; between the idea and the sense ; be- tween the imagination and the understanding. ' 'Twere to consider too curiously to consider so.' Even thus was Gothe troubled by his con- temporaries, and thus too often speculation is stopped, genius is chilled, and the play and swell of the human mind repressed, because ideas are made subordinate to facts, because the external is preferred to the internal, and because the Horatios of action discourage the Hamlets of thought. Much more could I have said to you on this subject, and gladly would I have enlarged on so fruitful a theme as the philosophy of scien- tific method ; a philosophy too much neglected THE PEOGEESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 197 in this cotmtiy, but of the deepest interest to those who care to rise above the little instincts of the hour, and who love to inquire into the origin of our knowledge, and into the nature of the conditions under which that knowledge exists. But I fear that I have almost exhausted your patience in leading you into paths of thought which, not being familiar, must be somewhat difficult, and I can hardly hope that I have succeeded in making every point perfectly clear. Still, I do trust that there is no obscurity as to the general results. I trust that I have not altogether raised my voice in vain before this great assembly, and that I have done at least something towards vindicating the use in physical science of that deductive method which, during the last two centuries, Englishmen have unwisely despised. Not that I deny for a moment the immense value of the opposite or inductive method. Indeed, it is impossible for any one standing in this theatre to do so. It is impossible to ;forget that within the precincts of this build- ing, great secrets have been extorted from nature by induction alone. Under the shadow and protection of this noble Institution, men 198 THE IISTFLUENCE OF WOMEN ON of real eminence, men of power and tliouglit have, By a skilful employment of that method, made considerable additions to our knowledge, have earned for themselves the respect of their contemporaries, and well deserve the homage of posterity. To them all honour is due ; and I, for one, would say, let that honour be paid freely, ungrudgingly, and with an open and bounteous heart. But I venture to submit that all discoveries have not been made by this, their favourite process. I sub- mit there is a spiritual, a poetic, and for aught we know a spontaneous and uncaused element in the human mind, which ever and anon, suddenly and without warning, gives us a glimpse and a forecast of the future, and urges us to seize truth as it were by anticipation. In attacking tlie fortress, we may sometimes storm the citadel without stopping to sap the outworks. That great discoveries have been made in this way, the history of our knowledge decisively proves. And if, passing from what has been already accomplished, we look at what remains to be done, we shall find that the necessity of some such plan is likely to become more and more pressing. The field THE PEOGEESB OF KNOWLEDGE. 199 of thought is rapidly widening, and as the horizon recedes on every side, it will soon be impossible for the mere logical operations of the understanding to cover the whole of that enormous and outlying domain. Already the division of labour has been pushed so far that we are in imminent danger of losing in comprehensiveness more than we gain in ac- curacy. In our pursuit after special truths, we run no small risk of dwarfing our own minds. By concentrating our attention we are apt to narrow our conceptions, and to miss those commanding views which would be attained by a wider though perhaps less minute survey. It is but too clear that some- thing of this sort has already happened, and that serious mischief has been wrought. For, look at the language and sentiments of those who profess to guide, and who in some meas- ure do guide, public opinion in the scientific world. According to their verdict, if a man does something specific and immediate, if, for instance, he discovers a new acid or a new salt, great admiration is excited, and his praise is loudly celebrated. But when a man like Gcitlie puts forth some vast and pregnant idea 200 THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN ON which is destined to revolutionize a whole department of inquiry, and by inaugurating a new train of thought to form an epoch in the history of the human mind ; if it happens, as is always the case, that certain facts con- tradict that view, then the so-called scientific men rise up in arms against the author of so daring an innovation ; a storm is raised about his head, he is denounced as a dreamer, an idle visionary, an interloper in matters which he has not studied with proper sobriety. Thus it is that great minds are depressed in order that little minds may be raised. This false standard of excellence has corrupted even our language and vitiated the ordinary forms of speech. Among us a theorist is actually a term of reproach, instead of being, as it ought to be, a term of honour ; for to theorize is the highest function of genius, and the greatest philosophers must always be the greatest theorists. What makes all this the more serious is, that the further our knowledge advances, the greater will be the need of rising to transcendental views of the physical world. To the magnificent doctrine of the indestruc- tibility of matter, we are now adding the no THE PEOGEESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 201 less magnificent one of the indestructibility of foi'ce ; and we are beginning to perceive that, according to the ordinary scientific treat- ment, our investigations must be confined to questions of metamorphosis and of distribu- tion ; that the study of causes and of entities is forbidden to us ; and that we are limited to phenomena through which and above which we can never hope to pass. But unless I greatly err, there is something in us which craves for more than this. Surely we shall not always be satisfied, even in physical science, with the cheerless prospect of never reaching beyond the laws of co-existence and of sequence? Surely this is not the be-all and end-all of our knowledge. And yet, according to the strict canons of inductive logic,, we can do no more. According to that method, this is the verge and confine of all. Happily, however, induc- tion is only one of our resources. Induction is indeed a mighty weapon laid up in the arnioury of the human mind, and by its aid great deeds have been accomplished and noble conquests have been won. But in that armoury there is another weapon, I will not say of a stronger make, but certainly of a keener edge ; 9* 202 THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN ON and if that weapon had been oftener used during the present and preceding century, our Icnowledge would be far more advanced than it actually is. If the imagination had been more cultivated, if there had been a closer union between the spirit of poetry and the spirit of science, natural philosophy would have made greater progress, because natural philosophers would have taken a higher and more successful aim, and would have enlisted on their side a wider range of human sympathies. From this point of view you will see the incalculable service women have rendered to the progress of knowledge. Great and ex- clusive as is our passion for induction, it would, but for them, have been greater and more exclusive still. Empirical as we are, slaves as we are to the tyranny of facts, our slavery would, but for them, have been more complete and more ignominious. Their turn of thought, their habits of mind, their conver- sation, their influence, insensibly extending over the whole surface of society, and fre- quently penetrating its intimate structure, have, more than all other things put together, tended to raise us into an ideal world, lift us THE PEOGEESS OP KNOWLEDGE. 203 from the dust in which we are too prone to grovel, and develop in us those germs of im- agination which even the most sluggish and apathetic understandings in some degree pos- sess. The striking fact that most men of genius have had remarkable mothers, and that they have gained from their mothers far more than from their fathers ; this singular and unques- tionable fact can, I think, be best explained by the principles which I have laid down. Some, indeed, will tell you that this depends upon laws of the hereditary transmission of character from parent to child. But if this be the case, how comes it that while every one admits that remarkable men have usually remarkable mothers, it is not generally ad- mitted that remarkable men have usually remarkable fathers? If the intellect is be- queathed on one side, why is it not bequeathed on the other ? For my part, I greatly doubt whether the human mind is handed down in this way, like an heir-loom, from one gen- eration to another. I rather believe that, in regard to the relation between men of genius and their mothers, the really important events occur after birth, when the habits of thought 204: THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN ON peculiar to one sex act upon and improve the habits of , thought peculiar to the other sex. Unconsciously, and from a very early period, there is established an intimate and endearing connexion between the deductive mind of the mother and the inductive mind of her son. The understanding of the boy, softened and yet elevated by the imagination of his mother, is saved from that degeneracy towards which the mere understanding always inclines ; it is saved from being too cold, too matter-of-fact, too prosaic, and the different properties and functions of the miud are more harmoniously developed than would otherwise be practicable. Thus it is that by the mere play of the affec- tions the finished man is ripened and com- pleted. Thus it is that the most touching and the most sacred form of human love, the purest, the highest, and the holiest compact of which our nature is capable, becomes an engine for the advancement of knowledge and the dis- covery of truth. In after life other relations often arise by which the same process is con- tinued. And notwithstanding a few excep- tions, we do undoubtedly find that the most truly eminent men have had not only their THE PEOGEKSS OF KNOWLEDGE. 205 affections, but also their intellect, greatly in- fluenced by women. I will go even farther ; and I will venture to say that those who have not undergone that influence betray a some- thing incomplete and mutilated. "We detect even in their genius a certain frigidity of tone ; and we look in vain for that burning fire, that gushing and spontaneous nature with which our ideas of genius are indissolubly asso- ciated. Therefore it is that those who are most anxious that the boundaries of knowledge should be enlarged, ought to be most eager that the influence of women should be increased, in order that every resource of the human mind may be at once and quickly brought into play. For you may rely upon it that the time is approaching when all those resources will be needed, and will be taxed even to the utmost. "We shall soon have on our hands work far more arduous than any we have yet accom- plished ; and wo shall be encountered by diffi- culties the removal of which will require every sort of help, and every variety of power. As yet we are in the infancy of our knowledge. What we have done is but a speck compared to what remains to be done. For what is 206 THE INFLTJENCE OF WOMEN ON there that we really know? "We are too apt to speak as if we had penetrated into the sanc- tuary of truth and raised the veil of .the god- dess, when in fact we are still standing, cow- ard-like, trembling before the Testibnle, and not daring from very fear to cross the threshold of the temple. The highest of our so-called laws of nature are as yet purely empirical. You are startled by that assertion ; but it is literally true. Not one single physical discov- ery that has ever been made has been connected with the laws of the mind that made it ; and until that connexion is ascertained our knowl- edge has no sure basis. On the one side we have mind ; on the other side we have matter. These two principles are so interwoven, they so act upon and perturb each other, that we shall never really know the laws of one unless we also know the laws of both. Everything is essential ; everything hangs together, and forms part of one single scheme, one grand and complex plan, one gorgeous drama of which the universe is the theatre. They who discourse to you of the laws of nature as if those laws were binding on nature, or as if they formed a part of nature, deceive both you THE PEOGEESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 207 and themselves. The laws of nature have their sole seat, origin, and function in the human mind. They are simply the conditions under which the regularity of nature is recog- nised. They explain the external world, but they reside in the internal. As yet we know scarcely anything of the laws of mind, and therefore we know scarely anything of the laws of nature. Let us not be led away by vain and high-sounding words. We talk of the law of gravitation, and yet we know not what gravitation is ; we talk of the conserva- tion of force and distribution of forces, and we know not what forces are ; we talk with complacent ignorance of the atomic arrange- ments of matter, and we neither know what atoms are nor what matter is ; we do not even know if matter, in the ordinary sense of the word, can be said to exist ; we have as yet only broken the first ground, we have but touched the crust and surface of things. Be- fore us and around us there is an immense and untrodden field, whose limits the eye vainly strives to define ; so completely are they lost in the dim and shadowy outline of the future. In that field, which we and our posterity have 208 THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN ON yet to traverse, I firmly believe that the im- agination will effect quite as much as the understanding. Our poetry will have to re- inforce our logic, and we must feel as much as we must argue. Let us, then, hope that the imaginative and emotional minds of one sex will continue to accelerate the great progress, by acting upon and improving the colder and harder minds of the other sex. By this coali- tion, by this union of different faculties, differ- ent tastes, and different methods, we shall go on our way with the greater ease. A vast and splendid career lies before us, which it will take many ages to complete. We see looming in the distance a rich and goodly harvest, into which perchance some of us may yet live to thrust our sickle, but of which, reap what we may, the greatest crop of all must be reserved for our posterity. So far, however, from desponding, we ought to be sanguine. We have every reason to believe that when the human mind once steadily com- bines the whole of its powers, it will be more than a match for the diflBculties presented by the external woi'ld. ,As we surpass our fathers, so will our childi'en surpass us. We, waging THE PEOGEESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 209 against the forces of nature what has too often been a precarious, unsteady, and unskilled warfare, have never yet put forth the whole of our strength, and have never united all our faculties against our common foe. We, there- fore, have been often worsted, and have sus- tained many and grievous reverses. But even so, such is the elasticity of the human mind, such is the energy of that immortal and god- like principle which lives within us, that we are baffled without being discouraged, our very defeats quicken our resources, and we may hope that our descendants, benefiting by our failure, will profit by our example, and that for them is reserved that last and decisive stage of the great conilict between Man and Nature, in which, advancing from success to success, fresh trophies will be constantly won, every struggle will issue in a conquest, and every battle end in a victory. THE END. M