CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 3 1924 079 619 551 The original of tiiis book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/cletails/cu31924079619551 In compliance with current copyright law, Cornell University Library produced this replacement volume on paper that meets the ANSI Standard Z39.48-1992 to replace the irreparably deteriorated original. 1997 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE BOHN'S STANDARD LIBRARY ■ARLY ESSAYS BY JOHN STUART MILL GEORGE BELL & SONS LONDON : YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN NEW YORK : 66, FIFTH AVENUE, AND BOMBAY 5 3, ESPLANADE ROAD (,'AMKRIDGE . DEIGHTOK, BELL & CO. EARLY ESSAYS BY lOHN STUART MILL SELECTED FROM THE ORIGINAL SOURCES BY J. W. M. GIBBS EDITOR OF •• THE WORKS OF GOLDSMITH," ETC. LONDON GEORGE BELL AND SONS 1897 \ -,•■ Ac 'P^q■-/ ^, irt-^b/ -!I?\\-ICK PRFSS : — CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO. TOOKS COURT, CHANCERV LANF, LONDON- EDITOR'S PREFACE. THE contents of this volume have been selected from Mill's numerous contributions to the periodical press between the year 1829, when he was beginning to write for the j)ublic, and the year 1844, when he published his first book. This book, entitled " Essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy," consisted of five articles, the last of which had appeared previously in the "Westminster Review" (in 1831), the other four having been written, but not published, at earlier dates. The volume is now very scarce, and as a good deal of biographical interest attaches to these early expressions of his views on his favourite science, they have been included bodily in the present selection. There are other essays, contributed first to periodi- cals, which INIill reprinted, with slight alterations, in the four volumes, entitled "Dissertations and Discus- sions, Political, Philosophical, and Historical." These volumes are also out of print: but the few essays from them which will be found here have been rejn-inted from the original versions which appeared in the London and TTestminster Reviews, such passages as Mill omitted in his reprint being placed within brackets. VI rREl-ACJJ. In iidclitiou to the foregoiug the reader will find several essaj-s which appeared in periodicals, and have not before been reprinted. Considerable trouble has l)een expended in ransacking old volumes of the "■ London Review," " Westminster Review," etc., to unearth these. Two that will pi-obably have most general interest are the reviews of Tennyson's poems and Carlyle's " French Revolution." That Mill him- self did not think it worth while to republish these is easily comprehensible. They were written simply as reviews, and their subjects lay apart from the sociological questions which towards the end of his life mainly engaged his attention. But for that very reason they have a special interest for the student of his character ; and their intrinsic merits, and the fact that in both cases they show an early and in- dependent appreciation of two of the greatest English writers of the nineteenth century, will do more than justify their republication. And a similar justification will apj)ly to the other two essays on poetry. The concluding and important article on Bentham, to whose teaching JNIill owed so much, and whose reputation may be said to owe in return so much to j\lill, is one of those which appeared in the " Disserta- tions." The two apiDendices have been brought to- gether for the first time from widely difierent sources, with a view to exhibiting in more completeness jNIill's attitude towards his early master. ,T. W. M. G. CON T 1-: X rs. I'AOE Mill's I^kei'ace to the Essays ox Some I'xsetti-ed Qlestioxs, etc. ."! Essay I. Of the Laws of Intekchaxoi: ijetween Nations ; x\^xd the DiSTEinuTiox of the Uaixs ok Commerce among the Countries of the Co^i- mep.cial World '> Essay I]. Of the Influence of Consu-mttion on Pp.oduction ... 4S E.ssay' III. On the Words Productive .vxd Uxi'ro- DUCTIVE 74 Essay' IV. On Profits and Interest 88 Essay- V. On the Definition of Political Econo.my; AND on the Method of Investigation proper TO it " llG Corporation and Church Property lei What is Poetry- ? 201 The Two Kinds of Poetry 221 Tennyson's Poems 239 Carlyles French Kevolutiox 271 15enthaji . .s27 Appendices to the Foregoing Article. (A.) Democr-Ycy- and Govern.ment . 383 (15.) P.EMAEKS OX BeNTHAM'S PHILO.SOPHY, liY E. L. Bulwer-Lytton and J. S. Mill 390 (C.) Mill on Bowring's "Life of Bentham ' 409 Index 417 *,■■" The jmblishers have to thank ili^^sis. .Maciidll.an for iiermi>- sion to reprint the extracts from Lord Tennyson's [ineni-i: in thr essav upon tlieni. ESSAYS SOME UNSETTLED QUESTIONS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. IWritfen 1829-30; part jmblished 1831 ; the five essays first 2)itbluhecl 1844.] . AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. OF these Essays, which were written in 1829 and 1830, the fifth alone has been previously printed. The other four have hitherto rema-ined in manuscript, because, during the temporary suspension of public interest in the species of discussion to which they belong, there was no inducement to their pubhcation. They are now published (with a few merely verbal alterations) under the impression, that the controversies excited by Colonel Torrens' Budget have again called the attention of jsolitical economists to the discussions of the abstract science: and from the additional considera- tion, that the fixst paper relates expressly to the point upon which the question at issue between Colonel Torrens and his antagonists has principally turned.^ ' " The Budget : a Series of Letters on Financial, Commercial, and Colonial Policy. By a Member of the Political Economy Club," 1841-43, was the title of Colonel Torrens's book. He was a retired officer of marines, and one of the pioneers of the " Free Trade " polic}'. He owned " The Traveller " (the paper was afterwards amalgamated mth the existing "Globe"), the editor of which — Coulson, a, barrister, who had been an amanuensis of Bentham — accepted as contributions the earliest of Mill's writings that appeared in the public press. This was in 1822, when IMill was only si.Kteen. ilill, though in most things agreeing with Torrens, controverted some of his arguments, and Torrens replied. Eicardo said, in his "Political Economy" (3rd ed., p. 318): " Among the most able of the publications on the impolicy of re- 4 PREFACli. From that jjaper it will be seen that opinions identical in principle with those promulgated by Colonel Torrens (there would probably be considerable difference as to the ertent of their practical application) have been held by the writer for more than fifteen years: although he cannot cla,im to himself the original conception, but only the elaboration, of the fundamental doctrine of the Essay. A prejudice appears to exist in many quarters against the theory in question, on the supposition of its being opposed to one of the most valuable results of modem political philosophy, the doctrine of Freedom of Trade between nation and nation. The opinions now laid before the readers are presented as corollaries necessarily follow- ing from the principles upon which Free Trade itself rests. The writer has also been careful to point out, that from these opinions no justification can be derived for iwy pro- tecting duty, or other preference given to domestic over foreign industry. But in regard to those duties on foreign commodities which do not operate as protection, but are maintained solely for revenue, and which do not touch either the necessaries of life or the materials and instru- ments of production, it is his opinion that any relaxation of such duties, beyond what may be required by the interest of the revenue itself, should in general be made contingent upon the adoption of some corresponding degree of freedom of trade with this country, by the nation from which the commodities are imported.' stricting the importation of corn may be classed Colonel Torrens's ' Essay on the External Corn Trade ' " (4th e The remainder of what Mr. Eicardo has done for the philosophical exposition of the principles of foreign trade, is to show, that the truth of the propositions now re- capitulated is not afEected by the introduction of money as a medium of exchange ; the precious metals always tend- ing to distribute themselves in such a manner throughout the commercial world, that every country shall import all that it would have imported, and export all that it would have exported, if exchanges had taten place, as in the example above supposed, by barter. To this branch of the subject we shall, in the sequel of this essay, return. At present it will be more convenient that we should continue to suppose, that exchanges take place by the direct trucking of one commodity against another. It is established, that the advantage which two countries derive from trading with each other, results from the more advantageous employment which thence arises, of the labour and capital — ^for shortness let us say the labour — of both jointly. The circumstances are such, that if each country confines itself to the production of one commodity, there is a greater total return to the labour of both together ; and this increase of produce forms the whole of what the two countries taken together gain by the trade. It is the purpose of the present essay to inquire, in what proportion the increase of produce, arising from the saving of labour, is divided between the two countries. This question was not entered into by Mr. Ricardo, whose attention was engrossed by far more important questions, and who, having a science to create, had not liiackets to be exact. The asterisks, of course, stand for a pas- sage left out. The younger Jlill, however, helped the elder in the production of the "Elements" (the first edition of \vhich appeared in 1821), and he may, therefore, in this quotation be, to some extent, dealing with his own work.— Ed.] 10 LAWS OF INTERCHANGE time, or room, to occupy himself with much more than the leading principles. When he had done enough to enable anyone who came after him, and who took the necessary pains, to do all the rest, he was satisfied. He very rarely followed out the principles of the science into the ramifica- tions of their consequences. But we believe that to no one, who has thoroughly entered into the spirit of his discoveries, will even the minutiae of the science ofEer any difficulty but that which is constituted by the necessity of patience and circumspection in tracing principles to their results. Mr. Eicardo, while intending to go no further into the question of the advantage of foreign trade than to show what it consisted of, and under what circumstances it arose, unguardedly expressed himself as if each of the two countries making the exchange separately gained the whole of the difference between the comparative costs of the two commodities in one country and in the other. But, the whole gain of both countries together, consisting in the saving of labour ; and the saving of labour being exactly equal to the difference between the costs, in the two countries, of the one commodity as compared with the other ; the two countries taken together gain no more than this difference : and if either country gains the whole of it, the other country derives no advantage from the trade. Suppose, for example, that 10 yards of broadcloth cost in England as much labour as 15 yards of linen, and in Germany as much as 20. If England sends 10 yards of broadcloth to Germany, and is able to exchange them for linen according to the German cost of production, she will get 20 yards of Hnen, with a quantity of labour with which she could not have produced more than 15 ; and will gain, therefore, 5 yards on every 15, or 33^ per cent. But in this case Germany would obtain only 10 yards of cloth for 20 of linen. Now, 10 yards of cloth cost exactly the same BETWEEN NATIONS. 11 quantity of labour in Grermany as 20 of linen ; Germany, therefore, derives no advantage from the trade, more than she would possess if it did not exist. So, on the other hand, if Germany sends 15 yards of linen to England, and finding the relative value of the two articles in that country determined by the EngUsh costs of production, is enabled to purchase with 15 yards of linen 10 yards of cloth; Germany now gains 5 yards, just as England did before, — for with 15 yards of linen she pur- chases 10 yards of cloth, when to j)roduce these 10 yards she must have employed as much labour as woidd have enabled her to produce 20 yards of linen. But in this case England would gain nothing : she would only obtain, for her 10 yards of cloth, 15 yards of liueu, which is exactly the comparative cost at which she could have produced them. This, which was not an error, but a mere oversight of Mr. Eicardo, arising from his having left the question of the division of the advantage entirely unnoticed, was first corrected iu the third edition of Mr. Mill's " Elements of Political Economy." It can hardlj", however, be said that Mr. Mill has prosecuted the inquiiy any further; which, indeed, would have been quite as inconsistent with the nature of his plan as of Mr. Ricardo's. 1. When the trade is estabhshed between the two countries, the two commodities will exchange for each other at the same rate of interchange iu both countries — batilig the cost of carriage, of which, for the jjresent, itwiU be more convenient to omit the consideration. Supposing, therefore, for the sake of argument, that the carriage of the commodities from one country to another could be eifected without labour and without cost, no sooner would the trade be opened than, it is self-evident, the value of the two commodities, estimated in each other, would come to a level iu both countries. 12 LAWS OF INTERCHANGE If we knew what this level would be, we should know iu what proportion, the two countries would share the advan- ta.ge of the trade. When each country produced both commodities for itself, 10 yards of broadcloth exchanged for 15 yards of linen in England, and for 20 in Germany. They will now exchange for the same number of yards of linen in both. For what number r If for 15 yards, England will be just as she was, and G-ennany will gain all. If for 20 yards, Germany will be as before, and England will derive the whole of the benefit. If for any number intermediate between 15 and 20, the advantage will be shared between the two countries. If, for example, 10 yards of cloth exchange for 18 of linen, England will gain an advantage of 3 yards on every 15, Germany will save 2 out of every 20. The problem is, what are the causes which determine the proportion in which the cloth of England and the linen of Germany will exchange for each other ? This, therefore, is a question concerning exchangeable value. There must be something which determines how much of one commodity another commodity will purchase ; and there is no reason to suppose that the law of exchange- able value is more difiicult of ascertainment in this case than in other cases. The law, however, cannot be precisely the same as in the common cases. When two articles are produced in the im- mediate vicinity of one another, so that, without ex- patriating himself, or moving to a distance, the capitalist has the choice of producing one or the other, the quantities of the two articles which will exchange for each other will be, on the average, those which are produced by equal quantities of labour. But this cannot be applied to the case where the two articles are ijroduced in two different countries ; because men do not usually leave their country, or even send their capital abroad, for the sake of those BETWEEN NATIONS. 13 small difierences of profit which are sufficient to determine their choice of a business, or of an investment, in their own country and neighbourhood. The principle, that value is projiortional to cost of pro- duction, being consequently inapplicable, we must revert to a principle anterior to that of cost of production, and from which this last flows as a consequence, — namely, the principle of demand and supply. In order to apply this principle, with any advantage, to the solution of the question which now occupies us, the principle itself, and the idea attached to the term demand, must be conceived with a precision, which the loose manner in which the words are used generally prevents. It is well known that the quantity of any commodity which can be disposed of, varies with the price. The higher the price, the fewer will he the purchasers, and the smaller the quantity sold. The lower the price, the greater will in general be the number of purchasers, and the greater the quantity disposed of. This is true of almost all com- modities whatever : though of some commodities, to di- minish the consumption in any given degree would require a much greater rise of price than of others. Whatever be the commodity — the supply in any market being given, there is some price at which the whole of the supply exactly will find j)urchasers, and no more. That, whatever it be, is the price at which, by the effect of com- petition, the commodity wiU. be sold. If the price be higher, the whole of the supply will not be disposed of, and the sellers, by their competition, wiU bring down the price. If the price be lower, there will be found purchasers for a larger supply, and the competition of these purchasers wiU raise the price. This, then, is what we mean, when we say that price, or exchangeable value, depends on demand and supply. We should express the principle more accurately, if we were to 14 I.AWS OF INTERCHANGE say, the price so regulates itself that the demand shall be exactly sufficient to carry off the supply. Let us now applj'' the principle of demand and supply, thus understood, to the interchange of broadcloth and linen between England and Germany. As exchangeable value in this case, as in every other, is j)roverbially fluctuating, it does not matter what we suppose it to be when we begin ; we shall soon see whether there be any fixed point about which it oscillates — which it has a tendency always to approach to, and to remain at. Let us suppose, then, that by the effect of what Adam Smith calls the higgling of the market, 10 yards of cloth, in both countries, exchange for 17 yards of linen. The demand for a commodity, that is, the quantity of it which can find a purchaser, varies, as we have before remarked, according to the price. In Grermany, the price of 10 yards of cloth is now 17 yards of linen ; or whatever quantity of money is equivalent in Germany to 17 yards of linen. Now, that being the price, there is some particular number of yards of cloth, which will be in demand, or will find purchasers, at that price. There is some given quantity of cloth, more than which could not be disposed of at that price, — ^less than which, at that price, would not fully satisfy the demand. Let us suppose this quantity to be 1,000 times 10 yards. Let us now turn our attention to England. There, the l^rice of 17 yards of linen is 10 yards of cloth, or whatever quantity of money is equivalent in England to 10 yards of cloth. There is some particular number of yards of linen, which, at that price, will exactly satisfy the demand, and no more. Let us suppose that this number is 1,000 times 17 yards. As 17 yards of Unen are to 10 yards of cloth, so are 1,000 times 17 yards to 1,000 times 10 yards. At the e.Kisting exchangeable value, the linen which England re- BETWEEN NATIONS. 15 quires, will exactly pay for tlie quantity of cloth which, on the same terms of interchange, Germany requires. The demand on each side is precisely sufficient to carry off the supply on the other. The conditions required by the prin- ciple of demand and supply are fulfilled, and the two com- modities will continue to be interchanged, as we supposed them to be, in the ratio of 17 yards of linen for 10 yards of cloth. But our supposition might have been different. Sup- pose that, at the assumed rate of interchange, England had been disposed to c-onsume no greater quantity of linen than 800 times 17 yards; it is evident that, at the rate supposed, this would not have sufficed to pay for the 1,000 times 10 yards of cloth, which we have supposed G-emiany to require at the assvimed value. Germany would be able to procure no more than 800 times 10 yards, at that price. To procure the remaining 200, which she would have no means of doing but by bidding higher for them, she would offer more than 17 yards of linen in exchange for 10 yards of cloth ; let us suppose her to offer 18. At that price, perhaps, England would be inclined to purchase a greater quantity of linen. She could consume, possibly, at that price, 900 times 18 yards. On the other hand, cloth having risen in price, the demand of Germany for it would, probably, have diminished. If, instead of 1,000 times 10 yards, she is now contented with 900 times 10 yards, these win exactly pay for the 900 times 18 yards of linen which England is willing to take at the altered price : the demand on each side will again exactly suffice to take off the corresponding supply ; and 10 yards for 18 wiU be the rate at which, in both countries, cloth will exchange for linen. The converse of all this would have happened if instead of 800 times 17 yards, we had supposed that England, at the rate of 10 for 17, would have taken 1,200 times 16 LAWS OF INTERCHANGE 17 yards of linen. In this case, it is England whose demand is not fully supplied ; it is England who, by bid- ding for more linen, will alter the rate of interchange to her own disadvantage ; and 10 yards of cloth will fall, in both countries, below the value of 17 yards of linen. By this fall of cloth, or what is the same thing, this rise of linen, the demand of G-ermany for cloth will increase, and the demand of England for linen will diminish, tiU the rate of interchange has so adjusted itself that the cloth and the linen will exactly pay for another ; and when once this point is attained, values will remain as they are. It may be considered, therefore, as established, that when two countries trade together in two commodities, the exchangeable value of these commodities relatively to each other will adjust itself to the inclinations and circum- stances of the consumers on both sides, in such manner that the quantities required by each country, of the^rticle which it imports from its neighbour, shall be exactly sufficient to pay for one another. As the inclinations and circumstances of consumers cannot be reduced to any rule, so neither can the proportions in which the two com- modities will be interchanged. We know that the limits within which the variation is confined are the ratio between their costs of production in the one country, and the lutio between their costs of production in the other. Ten yards of cloth cannot exchange for more than 20 yards of linen, nor for less than 15. But they may exchange for any intermediate number. The ratios, therefore, in which the advantage of the trade may be divided between the two nations, are various. The cii-cumstances on which the proportionate share of each country more remotely depends, admit only of a very general indication. It is even possible to conceive an extreme case, in which the whole of the advantage resulting from the interchange would be reaped by one party, the other country gaining BETWEEN NATIONS. 17 nothing at all. There is no absurdity in the hypothesis, that of some given commodity a certain quantity is all that is wanted at any price, and that when that quantity is obtained, no fall in the exchangeable value would induce other consumers to come forward, or those who are already supplied to take more. Let us suppose that this is the case in G-ermany with cloth. Before her trade with England commenced, when 10 yards of cloth cost her as much labour as 20 yards of linen, she nevertheless con- sumed as much cloth as she wanted under any circum- stances, and if she could obtain it at the rate of 10 yards of cloth for 15 of linen, she would not consume more. Let this fixed quantity be 1,000 times 10 yards. At the rate, however, of 10 for 20, England would want more linen than would be equivalent to this quantity of cloth. She would consequently offer a higher value for linen; or, what is the same thing, she would offer her cloth at a cheaper rate. But as by no lowering of the value could she prevail on Germany to take a greater quantity of cloth, there would be no limit to the rise of linen, or fall of cloth, until the demand of England for linen was reduced bv the rise of its value, to the quantity which 1,000 times 10 yards of cloth would purchase. It might be, that to produce this diminution of the demand, a less fall would not suffice, than one which would make 10 yards of cloth exchange for 15 of linen. Germany would then gain the whole of the advantage, and England would be exactly as she was before the trade commenced. It would be for the interest, however, of Germany herself, to keep her linen a little below the value at which it coidd be produced in England, in order to keep herself from being supplanted by the home producer. England, therefore, would always benefit in some degree by the existence of the trade, though it might be in a very trifling one. But in general there will not be this extreme inequality I. c 18 LAWS OF INTERCHANGE in the degree in whicli the demand in the two countries varies with variations in the price. The advantage will probably be divided equally, oftener than in any one un- equal ratio that can be named ; though the division will be much oftener, on the whole, unequal than equal. 2. We shall now examine whether the same law of inter- change, which we have shown to apply upon the supposi- tion of barter, holds good after the introduction of money. Mr. Eicardo fotmd that his more general proposition stood this test; and as the proposition which we have just demonstrated is only a further development of his prin- ciple, we shall probably find that it suffers as httle, by a mere change in the mode (for it is no more) in which one commodity is exchanged against another. We may at first make whatever supposition we will with respect to the value of money. Let us suppose, therefore, that before the ojDening of the trade, the price of cloth is the same in both countries, namely, six shiDings per yard.^ As 10 yards of cloth were supposed to exchange in England for 16 yards of linen, in Grermany for 20, we must suppose that linen is sold in England at four shillings per yard, in Germany at three. Cost of carriage and importer's profit are left, as before, out of consideration. In this state of prices, cloth, it is evident, cannot yet be exported from England into Germany. But hnen can be imported from Germany into England. It will be so, and, in the first instance, the linen will be paid for in money. The ef&ux of money from England, and its influx into Germany, will raise money prices in the latter country, and lower them in the former. Linen will rise in Germany above three shillings per yard, and cloth above six shillings. Linen in England being imported from Germany, will ' The figures used are of course arbitrary, having no reference to any existing prices. BE'fWKEN NATIONS. 19 (since cost of carriage is not reckoned) sink to the same price as in that country, while cloth will fall below six shillings. As soon as the price of cloth is lower in England than in Germany, it will begin to be exported, and the price of cloth in Germany will fall to what it is in England. As long as the cloth exported does not suffice to pay for the linen imported, money will continue to flow from England into Germany, and prices generally will continue to faU in England, and rise in Germany. By the fall, however, of cloth in England, cloth will fall in Germany also, and the demand for it will increase. By the rise of linen in Germany, linen must rise in England also, and the demand for it will diminish. Although the increased exportation of cloth takes place at a lower price, and the diminished importation of linen at a highei, yet the total money value of the exportation would probably increase, that of the importation diminish. As cloth fell in price and linen rose, there would be some particular price of both articles at which the cloth exported, and the linen imported, would exactly pay for each other. At this point prices would remain, because money would then cease to move out of England into Germany. What this point might be, would entirely depend upon the circumstances and inclinations of the purchasers on both sides. If the fall of cloth did not much increase the demand for it in Germany, and the rise of linen did not diminish very rapidly the demand for it in England, much money must pass before the equilibrium is restored ; cloth would fall very much, and Unen would rise, until England, perhaps, had to pay nearly as much for it as when she produced it for herself. But if, on the contrary, the fall of cloth caused a very rapid increase of the demand for it in Germany, and the rise of linen in Germany reduced very rapidly the demand in England from what it was under the influence of the first cheapness produced by the opening 20 LAATS OF INTERCHANGE of the trade ; the cloth would very soon suffice to pay for the linen, little money would pass between the two countries, and England would derive a large portion of the benefit of the trade. We have thus arrived at precisely the same conclusion, in supposing the employment of money, which we found to hold under the suj)position of barter. In what shape the benefit accrues to the two nations from the trade, is clear enough. Germany, before the commencement of the trade, paid six shillings per yard for broadcloth. She now obtains it at a lower price. This, however, is not the whole of her advantage. As the money prices of all her other commodities have risen, the money incomes of all her producers have increased. This is no advantage to them, in buying fi'om each other; because the price of what they buy has risen in the same ratio with their means of paying for it : but it is an advantage to them in buying anything which has not risen ; and still more, anything which has fallen. They therefore benefit as consumers of cloth, not merely to the extent to which cloth has fallen, but also to the extent to which other prices have risen. Suppose that this is one-tenth. The same proportion of their money incomes as before, will sufiice to supply their other wants, and the remainder, being increased one-tenth in amount, will enable them to purchase one-tenth more cloth than before, even though cloth had not fallen. But it has fallen : so that they are doubly gainers. If they do not choose to increase their consumption of cloth, this does not prevent them from being gainers. They purchase the same quantity with less money, and have more to expend upon their other wants. In England, on the contrary, general money-prices have fallen. Linen, however, has fallen more than the rest; having been lowered in price, by importation from a country BETWEEN NATIONS. 21 ■where it was cheaper, whereas the others have fallen only from the consequent efflux of money. Notwithstanding, therefore, the general fall of money-prices, the English producers will be exactly as they were in all other respects, while they will gain as purchasers of linen. The greater the efflux of money required to restore the equilibrium, the greater will be the gain of Grennany ; both by the fall of cloth, and by the rise of her general prices. The less the efflux of money requisite, the greater will be the gain of England ; because the price of linen will con- tinue lower, and her general prices will not be reduced so much. It must not, however, be imagined that high money-prices are a good, and low money-prices an evil, in themselves. But the higher the general money-prices in any country, the greater will be that country's means of purchasing those commodities which, being imported from abroad, are independent of the causes which keep prices high at home. 3. We have hitherto supposed the carriage to be per- formed without labour or expense. If we abandon this supposition, we must correct the statement of the case in a slight degree. The prices of the two articles will no longer, when the trade is opened, be the same in both countries, nor will the articles exchange for one another at the same rate in both. Ten yards of cloth will purchase in Germany a quantity of linen greater than in England by a per- centage equal to the entire cost of conveyance both of the cloth to G-ermany and of the linen to England. The money-price of linen will be higher in England than in Germany, by the cost of carriage of the linen. The money- price of cloth will be higher in Germany than in England, bv the cost of carriage of the cloth. The expense of the carriage is evidently a deduction ^ro ianto from the saving of labour produced by the establish- ment of the trade. The two countries together, therefore, 22 LAWS OF INTERCHANGE have their gains by the trade diminished, by the amount of the cost of carriage of both commodities. But here the question arises, which of the two countries bears this de- duction, or in what proportion it is divided between them ? At the first inspection it would appear that each country bears its own cost of carriage, that is, that each country pays the carriage of the commodity which it imports. Upon this supposition, each country would gain whatever share of the joint saving of labour would otherwise fall to its lot, minus the cost of bringing from the other country the commodity which it imports. This solution is rendered plausible by the circumstance just now mentioned, that the price of the commodity will be higher in the country which imports it, than in the country which exports it, by the amount of the cost of carriage. If Unen is sold in England at a higher price than in Germany, by a percentage equal to the co.st of carriage of the linen, it appears obvious that England pays for the carriage of the linen, and G-ermany, by parity of reason, for that of the cloth. But if we apply to these questions the principles already explained, we shall see that this is not by any means a universal law : the fact may correspond with it, or it may not. For suppose that the prices have adjusted themselves, no matter how, and that the imports and exports balance one another, each commodity, of course, being dearer by the cost of carriage, in the country which imports than in that which exports it : and suppose now that the cost of carriage, both of the one and of the other, were suddenly and miraculously annihilated, and that the commodities could pass from country to country without expense. If each country bore its own cost of carriage before, each country will save its own cost of carriage now. Cloth, in Germany, will in that case fall exactly to what it is in England ; linen in England, to what it is in Germany. BETWEEN NATIONS. 23 Now this fall of price, supposing it to happen, will pro- bably affect the demand on both sides ; and it will either affect it alike in both countries, or it will affect it unequally. It will affect it alike, if the fall of price does not affect the demand at all, or if it affects it equally in both countries. If either of these results should take place, the cloth and the linen would continue to balance each other as before : no money would pass from one country to the other ; prices in both would continue at the point to which they had fallen, and each country would exactly save the cost of carriage on the commodity which it imports from the other. But the result might be, that the fall of price might not have an effect exactly equal, on the demand in the two countries. Suppose, for instance, that the fall of cloth in Germany owing to the saving of the cost of carriage, did not increase the demand for cloth in Germany ; but that the fall of linen in England from a like cause, did increase the demand for linen in England. The Unen imported would be more than could be paid for by the cloth exported : the difference must be paid in money : the change in the distribution of the precious metals between the two countries would lower the price of cloth in England (and consequently in Germany), while it would raise the price of linen in Germany (and consequently in England). Germany, therefore, by the annihilation of cost of carriage, would save in price more than the cost of carriage of the cloth ; England would save less in price than the cost of carriage of the linen. But if by the miraculous annihilation of cost of carriage, England would not save the whole of the carriage of her imports, it follows that England did not previously pay the whole of that cost of carriage. Thus, the division of the cost of trade, and the division of the advantage of trade, are governed by precisely the same principles ; and the only general proposition which 24 LAWS OF INTERCHANGE can be affirmed respecting tlie cost is, that it is pro tanto a deduction from the advantage. It cannot even be main- tained that the cost is shared in the same proportion as the advantage is, because the increase of the demand for a commodity as its price falls is not governed by any fixed law. Suppose, for instance, that the advantage happened to be divided equally : this must be because the greater cheapness arising fi-om the establishment of the trade, either did not affect the demand at all or affected it in an equal proportion on both sides. Now, because such is the effect of the degree of increased cheapness resulting from importation burthened with cost of carriage, it would not follow that the still greater degree of cheapness, produced by the additional saving of the cost of carriage itself , would also affect the demand of both countries in precisely an equal degree. But we cannot be said to bear an expense, which, if saved, would be saved to somebody else, and not to us. Two countries may have equal shares of the clear benefit of the trade, while, if the cost of carriage were saved, they would divide that saving unequally. If so, they divide the gross gain in one unequal ratio, the cost in another unequal ratio, though their shares of the cost being deducted from their shares of the gain leave equal remainders. 4. The question naturally suggests itself, whether any country, by its o\vn legislative policy, can engross to itseK a larger share of the benefits of foreign commerce, than would fall to it in the natural or spontaneous course of trade. The answer is, it can. By taxing exports, for instance, we may, under certain circumstances, produce a division of the advantage of the trade more favourable to ourselves. In some cases, we may draw iuto our coffers, at the expense of foreigners, not only the whole tax, but more than the tax : in other cases, we should gain exactly the tax, — in others, less than the tax. In this last case, a part BETWEEN NATIONS. 25 of the tax is borne by ourselves : possibly the whole, jjossibly even, as we shall show, more than the whole. Suppose that England taxes her export of cloth: the tax not being supposed high enough to induce Grermany to produce cloth for herself. The price at which cloth can be sold in Germany is augmented by the tax. This will probably diminish the quantity consumed. It may diminish it so much, that even at the increased price, there will not be required so great a money value as before. It may diminish it in such a ratio, that the money value of the quantity consumed will be exactly the same as before. Or it may not diminish it at all, or so little, that, in conse- quence of the higher price, a greater money value will be purchased than before. In this last case, England will gain, at the expense of Gtermany, not only the whole amount of the duty, but more. For the money value of her exports to Grermany being increased, while her im- ports remain the same, money will flow into England from Germany. The price of cloth will rise in England, and consequently in Germany ; but the price of linen will fall in Germany, and consequently in England. We shall export less cloth, and import more linen, till the equilibrium is restored. It thus appears, what is at first sight somewhat remarkable, that, by taxing her exports, England would, under some conceivable circumstances, not only gain from her foreign customers the whole amount of the tax, but would also get her imports cheaper. She would get them cheaper in two ways, — for she would obtain them for less money, and would have more money to purchase them with. Gtermany, on the other hand, would suffer doubly: she would have to pay for her cloth a price increased not only by the duty, but by the influx of money into England, while the same change in the distribution of the circulating medium would leave her less money to purchase it with. This, however, is only one of three possible cases. If, 26 LAWS OF INTERCHANGE after the imposition of the duty, Germany requires so diminished a quantity of cloth, that its total money value is exactly the same as before, the balance of trade will be undisturbed : England will gain the duty, Germany will lose it, and nothing more. If, again, the imposition of the duty occasions such a falling off in the demand, that Germany requires a less pecimiary value than before, our exports will no longer pay for our imports, money must pass from England into Germany, and Germany's share of the advantage of the trade will be increased. By the change in the distribution of money, cloth will fall in England ; and therefore it will, of course, fall in Germany. Thus Germany will not pay the whole of the tax. From the same cause, linen will rise in Germany, and conse- quently in England. When this alteration of prices has so adjusted the demand, that the cloth and the Unen again pay for one another, the result is, that Germany has paid only a part of the tax, and the remainder of what has been received into our treasury has come indirectly out of the pockets of our own consumers of linen, who pay a higher price for that imported commodity, in consequence of the tax on our exports, which at the same time they, in conse- quence of the efflux of money and consequent fall of prices, have smaller money incomes wherewith to pay for the linen at that advanced price. It is not an impossible supposition that, by taxing our exports, we might not only gain nothing from the foreigner, the tax being j)aid out of our own pockets, but might even compel oui- own people to pay a second tax to the foreigner. Supjjose, as before, that the demand of Germany for cloth falls off so much on the imposition of the duty, that she requires a smaller money value than before, but that the case is so different with linen in England, that when the price rises the demand either does not fall off at all, or so little that the money value required is greater than before. BETWEEN NATIONS. 27 The first effect of laying on the duty is, as before, that the cioth exported ■will no longer pay for the linen imported. Money wUl, therefore, flow out of England into Germanj'. One effect is to i-aise the price of linen in Germany, and, consequently, in England. But this, by the supposition, instead of stopping the eflux of money, only makes it greater, because the higher the price, the greater the money value of the linen consumed. The balance, there- fore, can only be restored by the other effect, vrhich is going on at the same time, namely, the fall of cloth in the EngUsh, and, consequently, in the German market. Even when cloth has fallen so low that its price with the duty is only equal to what its price without the duty was at first, it is not a necessary consequence that the fall will stop ; for the same amount of exjwrlation as before will not now suffice to pay the increased money value of the imports ; and although the German consumers have now not only cloth at the old price, but likewise increased money incomes, it is not certain that they will be inclined to employ the increase of their incomes in increasing their purchases of cloth. The price of cloth, therefore, must perhaps fall, to restore the equiUbrium, more than the whole amount of the duty ; Germany may be enabled to import cloth at a lower price when it is taxed, than when it was untaxed : and this gain she will acquire at the expense of the EngUsh consumers of linen, who, in addition, will be the real payers of the whole of what is received at their own custom-house under the name of duties on the export of doth. Such are the extremely various effects which may result to ourselves, and to our customers, from the imposition of taxes on our exports : ' and the determining circumstances ^ We have not deemed it nece&sarjf to enter minutely into all the circumstances which might modify the results mentioned in the text. For example, let us revert to the first case, that in 28 LAWS OF INTERCHANGE are of a nature so imperfectly ascertainable, that it must be almost impossible to decide with any certainty, even after the tax has been imposed, whether we have been gainers by it or losers. It is certain, however, that what- ever we gain, is lost by somebody else, and there is the expense of the collection besides: if international morality, therefore, were lightly understood and acted upon, such taxes, as being contrary to the universal weal, would not exist. Moreover, the imposition of such a tax frequently will, and always may, expose a country to lose this branch of its trade altogether, or to carry it on with diminished advantage, in consequence of the competition of untaxed exporters from other countries, or of the domestic pro- ducers in the country to which it exports. Even on the most selfish principles, therefore, the benefit of such a tax is always extremely precarious. 5. We have had an example of a tax on exports, that is, on foreigners, falling in part on ourselves. We shall, therefore, not be surprised if we find a tax on imports, that is, on ourselves, partly falling upon foreigners. which the demand for cloth in Germany is so little aflected by the rise of price in consequence of the tax, that the quantity bought exceeds in pecuniary value what it was before. As the German consumers lay out more money in cloth, they have less to lay out in other things ; other money prices will fall ; among the rest that of linen ; and this may so increase the demand for linen in England as to restore the equilibrium of exports and imjiorts without any passage of money. But England's treasury will still gain from Germany the whole of the tax, and the English people will buy their linen cheaper besides. Again, in the opposite case, where the tax so diminishes the demand, that a smaller pecuniary value is required than before. The German consumers have, therefore, move to expend in other tilings ; these, and among the rest linen, will rise ; and this may so diminish the demand for linen in England, as to restore the equilibrium without the transmission of money. But the efifect, as respects the division of the advan- tage, is stUl as stated in the text. BETWEEN NATIONS. 29 Instead of taxing the cloth which we export, suppose that we tax the linen which we import. The duty which we are now supposing must not be what is termed a protecting duty, that is, a duty sufficiently high to induce us to produce the article at home. If it had this effect, it would destroy entirely the trade both in cloth and in linen, and both countries would lose the whole of the adrantage which they previously gained by exchanging those com- modities with one another. We suppose a duty which might diminish the consumption of the article, but which would not prevent us from continuing to import, as before, whatever linen we did consume. The equilibrium of trade would be disturbed if the imposition of the tax diminished in the slightest degree the quantity of linen consumed. Tor, as the tax is levied at our own custom-house, the German exporter only receives the same price as formerly, though the English consumer pays a higher one. If, therefore, there be any diminution of the quantity bought, although a larger sum of money may be actually laid out in the article, a smaller one will be due from England to G-ermany : this sum will no longer be an equivalent for the sum due from Germany to England for cloth, the balance therefore must be paid in money. Prices will fall in Germany, and rise in England ; linen will fall in the German market ; cloth will rise in the English. The Germans wiU pay a higher price for cloth, and will have smaller money incomes to buy it with ; while the English will obtain ILuen cheaper, that is, its price will exceed what it previously was by less than the amount of the duty, while their means of purchasing it will be increased by the increase of their money incomes. If the imposition of the tax does not diminish the demand, it wiU leave the trade exactly as it was before. We shall import as much, and export as much ; the whole of the tax will be paid out of our own pockets. 30 LAWS OF INTERCHANGE But the imposition of a tax on a commodity, almost always diminishes the demand more or less ; and it can never, or scarcely ever increase the demand. It may, therefore, be laid down as a principle, that a tax on imported commodities, when it really operates as a tax, and not as a prohibition, either total or partial, almost always falls in part upon the foreigners who consume our goods : and that this is a mode in which a nation may be almost sure of appropi'iating to itself, at the expense of foreigners, a larger share than would otherwise belong to it of the increase in the general productiveness of the labour and capital of the world, which results from the interchange of commodities among nations. It is scarcely necessary to observe, that no such advan- tage can result from the duty, if it operate as a protecting duty ; if it induce the country which imposes it, to produce for herself that which she would otherwise have imported. The saving of labour — the increase in the general produc- tiveness of the capital of the world — ^which is the effect of commerce, and which a non-protecting duty would enable the country imposing it to engross, could not be engrossed by a protecting duty, because such a duty prevents any such increased production from existing. With a view to'practical legislation, therefore, duties on importation may be divided into two classes : those which have the effect of encouraging some particular branch of domestic industry, and those which have not. The former are purely mischievous, both to the country imposing them, and to those with whom it trades. They prevent a saving of labour and capital, which, if permitted to be made, would be divided in some proportion or other between the importing country and the countries which buy what that country does or might export. The other class of duties are those which do not en- courage one mode of procuring an article at the expense of BETWEEN NATIONS. 31 another, but allow interchange to take place just as if the duty did not exist — and to produce the saving of labour which constitutes the motive to international as to all other commerce. Of this kind, are duties on the importation of any commodity which could not by any possibility be pro- duced at home ; and duties not sufficiently high to counter- balance the difference of expense between the production of the article at home, and its importation. Of the money which is brought into the treasury of any country by taxes of this last description, a part only is paid by the people of that country ; the remainder by the foreign consumers of their goods. Nevertheless, this latter kind of taxes are in principle as ineligible as the former, although not precisely on the same ground. A protecting duty can never be a cause of gain, but always and necessarily of loss, to the country imposing it, just so far as it is efficacious to its end. A non-protect- ing duty on the contrary would, in most cases, be a source of gain to the country imposing it, in so far as throwing part of the weight of its taxes upon other people is a gain ; but it would be a means of gain which it could seldom be advisable to adopt, being so easily counteracted by a pre- cisely similar proceeding on the other side. If England, in the case already supposed, sought to obtain for herself more than her natural share of the ad- vantage of the trade with Germany, by imposing a duty upon cloth, G-ermany would only have to impose a duty upon linen, sufficient to diminish the demand for that article about as much as the demand for cloth had been diminished in England by the tax. Things would then be as. before, and each country would pay its own tax. Un- less, indeed, the sum of the two duties exceeded the entire advantage of the trade ; for in that case the trade, and its advantage, would cease entirely. There would be no advantage, therefore, in imposing 32 LAWS OF INTERCHANGE duties of this kind, with a view to gain by them, in the manner which has been pointed out. But so long as any other kind of taxes on commodities are retained, as a source of revenue, these may often be as unobjectionable as the rest. It is evident, moreover, that considerations of reci- procity, which are quite unessential when the matter in debate is a protecting duty, are of material importance when the repeal of duties of this other description is dis- cussed. A country cannot be expected to renounce the power of taxing foreigners, unless foreigners will in return practise towards itself the same forbearance. The only mode in which a country can save itself from being a loser by the duties imposed by other countries on its commodi- ties, is to impose corresponding duties on theirs. Only it must take care that these duties be not so high as to ex- ceed all that remains of the advantage of the trade, and put an end to importation altogether ; causing the article to be either produced at home, or imported from another and a dearer market. It is not necessary to apply the principles which we have stated to the case of bounties on exportation or importation. The application is easy, and the conclusions present nothing of particular interest or importance. 6. Any cause which alters the exports or imports from one country into another, alters the division of the advan- tage of interchange between those two countries. Suppose the discovery of a new process, by which some article of export, or some article not previously exported, can be pro- duced so cheap as to occasion a great demand for it in other countries. This of course produces a great influx of money from other countries, and lowers the prices of all articles imported from them, until the increase of importa- tion produced by this cause has restored the equilibrium. Thus, the country which acquires a new article of export gets its imports cheaper. This is not a case of mere alteration BETWEEN NATIONS. 33 in the division of the advantage ; it is a new advantage created by the discovery. But suppose that the invention, to which the nation is indebted for this increase of the return to its industry, comes into use also in the other country, and that the pro- cess is one which can be as perfectly and as cheaply performed in the one country as in the other. The new exportation will cease ; trade will revert to its old channels, the money which flowed in will again flow out, and the country which invented the process will lose that increase of its gain by trade, which it had derived from the discovery. Now the exportation of machinery comes withia the case which we have just described. If the fact be, that by allowing to foreigners a participa- tion in our machinery, we enable them to produce any of our leading articles of export, at a lower money price than we can sell those articles, it is certain that unless we possess as great an advantage in the production of the machinery itself as we have in the production of other articles by means of machinery, the permitting of its ex- portation would alter to our disadvantage the division of the benefit of trade. Our exports being diminished, we should have to pay a balance in money. This would raise, in foreign countries, the price of everything which we import from thence : while our incomes, being reduced in money value, would render us less able to buy those articles even if they had not risen. The equilibrium of ex- ports and imports would only be restored, when either some of the latter became so dear that we could produce them cheaper at home, or some articles not previously exported became exportable from the fall of prices. In the one case, we lose the benefit of importation altogether, and are obliged to produce at home, at a greater cost. In the other case, we continue to import, but pay dearer for our imports. I. D 34 LAWS OF INTERCIIAKGE Notwithstanding -what has now been observed, restric- tions on the exportation of machinery are not, in our opinion, justifiable, either on the score of international morality or of sound policy. It is evidently the common interest of all nations that each of them should abstain from every measure by which the aggregate wealth of the commercial world would be diminished, although of this smaller sum total it might thereby be enabled to attract to itself a larger share. And the time will certainly come when nations in general will feel the importance of this rule, and will so direct their approbation and disapproba- tion as to enforce observance of it. Moreover, a country possessing machines should consider that if a similar advantage were extended to other countries, they would employ it above all in the production of those articles, in which they had already the greatest natural advantages ; and if the former country would be a loser by their improvements in the production of articles which it sells, it would gain by their improvements in those which it buys. The exportation of machinery may, however, be a proper subject for adjustment with other nations, on the principle of reciprocity. Until, by the common consent of nations, all restrictions upon trade are done away, a nation cannot be required to abolish those from which she derives a real advantage, without stipulating for an equivalent. 7. The case which we have just examined, is an example in how remarkable a manner every cause which materially influences exports, operates upon the prices of imports. According to the ancient theory of the balance of trade, and to the associations of the generality of what are termed practical men to this day, the sole benefit derived from commerce consists in the exports, and imports are rather an evil than otherwise. Political economists, seeing the folly of these views, and cleaiiy perceiving that the ad- vantage of commerce consists and must consist solely of the BETWEEN KATIO]S"S. 35 imports, have occasionally suffered tkemselves to employ language evincing inattention to th.e fact, that exports, though unimportant in them^selves, are important by their influence on imports. So real and extensive is this in- fluence, that every new market which is opened for any of our goods, and every increase in the demand for our com- modities in foreign countries, enables us to supply ourselves with foreign comm.odities at a smaller cost. Let us revert to our earliest and simplest example, but which displays the real law of int-erchange more luminously than any formula into which money enters; the case of simple barter. We showed, that if at the rate of 10 yards of cloth for 1 7 of linen, the demand of G-ermany amounted to 1,000 times 10 yards of cloth, the two nations will trade together at that rate of interchange, provided that the linen required in England be exactly 1,000 times 17 yards, neither more nor less. For the cloth and the linen will then exactly pay ,^for one another, and nobody on either side will be obliged to offer what he has to sell at a lower rate, in order to procure what he wants to buy. Now if the increase of wealth and population in G-ermany should greatly increase the demand in that country for cloth, the demand for linen in England not increasing in the same ratio, — if, for instance, Germany became willing, at the above rate, to take 1,500 times 10 yards ; is it not evident, that to induce England to take in exchange for this the only article which G-ermany by supposition has to give, the latter must offer it at a rate more advantageous to England — at 18, or perhaps 19 yards, for 10 of cloth ? So that the division of the advantage becomes more and more favourable to a country, in proportion as the demand for its commodities increases in foreign countries. It is not even necessary that the country which takes its goods, should supply it with any commodity whatever. Suppose that a country should be opened to our merchants. 36 LAWS OF INTERCHANGE disj)osed to tuy from us in abundance, but which can sell to us scarcely anything, as every commodity which it affords could be got cheaper by us from some other quarter. Nevertheless, our trade with this country will enable us to obtain from all other countries their com- modities at a lower price. At the first opening of this commerce of mere exportation, we must have received in payment a large quantity of money ; for which our customer will have been indemnified by other countries, in exchange for her commodities. Prices must conse- quently be lower in all other countries, and higher with us, than before the opening of the new branch of trade ; and we therefore obtain the commodities of other countries at a less cost, both as we pay less money for them, and as that money is lower in value. 8. Another obvious application of the same principle will enable us to explain, and to bring within the dominion of strict science, the rivality of one exporting nation and another, or what is called, in the language of the mer- cantile system, underselling : a subject which political economists have taken little trouble to elucidate, from the habit before alluded to of disregarding almost entirely, in their purely scientific inquiries, those circumstances which affect the trade of a country by operating immediately upon the exports. Let us revert to our old example, and to our old figures. Suppose that the trade between England and G-ermany in cloth and linen is established, and that the rate of inter- change is 10 yards of cloth for 17 of linen. Now suppose that there arises in another country, in Flanders, for example, a linen manufacture ; and that the same causes, the wortiug of which in England and Germany has made 10 yards exchange for 17, would in Englaud and Flanders, putting G-ermany out of the question, have made the rate of interchange 10 for 18. It is evident that Germany also BETWEEN NATIONS. 37 must give 18 yards of linen for 10 of cloth, and so carry on the trade with a diminished share of the advantage, or lose it altogether. If the play of demand in England and Flanders had made the rate of interchange not 10 for 18 but 10 for 21 (10 to 20 being in Germany the comparative cost of production), it is evident that Germany could not have maintained the competition, and would have lost, not part of her share of the advantage, but all advantage, and the trade itself. It would be no answer to say, that Germany could prob- ably have still found the means of importing cloth from England, by exporting something else. If she had pur- chased cloth with anything else, she would have purchased it dearer : as is proved by the fact, that having free choice, she found it most advantageous to pui'chase it with linen. When she could get 10 yards of cloth for 17 of linen, that was the mode in which she could get it with least labour. Being pressed by competition, she gave successfully 17f , 18, 18^ ; but rather than give 19 yards of hnen, she perhaps would prefer to give, as costing her rather less labour, 10 yards of silk (which we will suppose to be the quantity which in England will purchase 10 yards of cloth). It is obvious that, although Germany has found the means of supplying herself with cloth, by exporting a different article from that in which she was undersold, yet the advantage of the trade between her and England is now shared in a proportion much less favourable to Germany. There is no difficulty in showing that the same series of consequences takes place in exactly the same manner through the agency of money. The trade in cloth and linen between England and Germany being supposed to exist as before, Flanders produces linen at a lower price than that at which Germany has hitherto afforded it. The exportation from Germany is suspended ; and Germany, continuing to import cloth, pays for it in money. By 38 LAWS OF INTERCHANGE SO doing she lowers her own prices, and raises those m England : she has to pay more money for cloth, and to pay it in a currency of higher value. She thus suffers more and more as a consumer of cloth, until by the fall of her prices she can either afford to sell linen as cheap as Flanders, or to export some other commodity which she could not export before. In either case, her trade resumes its course, but with diminished advantage on her side.' It is in the mode just described, that those countries which formerly supplied Europe with manufactures, but ^ The world at large, sellers and 1)uyers taken together, is always a gainer by underselling. If, in the case supposed, England were compelled by a commercial treaty to exclude the linen of Flanders from her market, the total wealth of the world . if affected at all, would be diminished. For, what is the cause which enables Flanders to undersell Germany? That Flanders, if she had the trade, would exchange linen for cloth at a rate of interchange more advantageous to England. And why can Flanders do so? It must be either because Flanders can produce the article with a less comparative quantity of labour than Germany, and therefore the total advan- tage to be di^^ded between the t^vo countries is greater in the case of Flanders than of Germany; or else because, though the total advantage is not greater, Flanders obtains a less share of it, her demand for cloth being greater, at the same rate of interchange, than that of Germany. In the former case, to exclude Flemieh linen from England would be to prevent the world at large from making a greater sa-s-ing of labour instead of a less. In the latter, the exclusion would be inefficacious for the only end it could be intended for, viz., the benefit of Germany, unless Flemish money ■were excluded from England as well as Flemish linen. For Flanders would buy English cloth, paying for it in money, until the fall of her prices enabled her to pay for it "«-ith something else : and the ultimate result would be that, by the rise of prices in England, Germany must pay a higher price for her cloth, and so lose a part of the advantage in spite of the treaty; while England would pay for German linen the same price indeed, but as the money incomes of her own people would be increased, the same money price would imply a smaller sacrifice. BETWEEN NATIONS. 39 which owed their power of doing so not to any natural and permanent advantages, but to their more advanced state of civilization as compared with other countries, have lost their pre-eminence as other countries successively attained an equal degree of civilization. Lombardy and Flanders, in the Middle Ages, produced some descriptions of clothing and ornament for all Europe : Holland, at a much later period, supplied ships, and almost all articles which came in ships, to most other parts of the world. All these countries have probably at this moment a much larger amount of capital than ever they had, but having been undersold by other countries, they have lost by far the greater part of the share which they had engrossed to themselves of the benefit which the world derives from commerce ; and ilieir capital yields to them in consequence a smaller proportional return. We are aware that other causes have contributed to the same effect, but we cannot doubt that this is a principal one. As much as is really true of the great returns alleged to have been made to capital during the last war, must have arisen from a similar cause. Our exclusive command of the sea excluded from the market aU by whom we should have been undersold. The adoption by Prance, Russia, the Netherlands, and the United States, of a more severely restrictive commercial policy, subsequently to 1815, has done great injury un- doubtedly to those countries ; for the duties which they have established are intended to be, and really are, of the class termed protectmg ; that is to say, such as force the production of commodities by more costly processes at home, instead of suffering them to be imported from abroad. But these duties, though chiefly injurious to the countries imposing them, have also been highly injurious to England. By diminishing her exportation, or preventing it from in- creasing as it would otherwise have done, they have kept 40 LAWS OF INTERCHANGE up the prices of all imported commodities in England, above what those prices would have fallen to if trade had been left free. By another obvious application of the same reasoning, it will be seen, that there is a real foundation for the notion, that a country may be benefited by receiving from another country the concession of what used to be termed commercial advantages, or by restraining its colonies from purchasing goods of any country except itself. In the figured illustration last used (p. 36), it is evident, that if England had been bound by a treaty with G-ermany to buy linen exclusively from her, Germany would have retained the trade which we supposed her to lose, and would have continued to purchase cloth at a comparatively cheap rate from England, instead of producing it by a more costly process at home. Suppose that England had been a colony of Germany, and we see that by compelling colonies to deal at her shop, she may obtain a real advantage, though of a nature which we may hazard the assertion that the founders of our colonial policy little dreamt of. Such an advantage, however, being gained at the expense of another country', is, at the least, simply equivalent to a tax, or tribute. Now, if a country has just grounds, or deems superiority of power a sufficient ground; for exacting a tribute from another country, the most direct mode is the best. First, because it is the most intelligible, and has least of trick or disguise. Secondly, because it allows the people of the country paying the tribute, to raise the money in whatever way they consider least oppressive to themselves. Thirdly, because the indirect mode of taxing a country, by restrictions on its commerce, disturbs the distribution of industry most advantageous to the world at large, and occasions a greater loss to the restricted country, and to the other countries with which that country would have traded, than gain to the country BETWEEN NATIONS. 41 in whose favour tlie restrictions are imposed. And lastly, because a country never could obtain such privileges from an independent nation, and has seldom been so undisguised an oppressor as to demand them even from its colonies, without subjecting itself to restrictions in some degree equivalent, for the benefit of those whom it has thus taxed. Each country, therefore, usually pays tribute to the other ; and to produce this fruitless reciprocity of exaction, the industry and trade of both countries are diverted from the most advantageous channels, and the return to the labour and capital of both is diminished, ia pure loss. 9. The same principles which have led to the above conclusions, also suggest a remark of some importance with respect to the probable effect of a change from a restricted to a comparatively free trade. There is no doubt that our prohibiting the importation of a particular article, which, but for the prohibition, would have been imported, enables us to obtain our other imports at smaller cost. The article for which we have the greatest demand, and for which our demand is most in- creased by cheapness, is that which we should naturally import preferably to any other ; now of this article we should import the quantity necessary to pay for our exports, on terms of interchange less advantageous to us than in the case of any other commodity. If our legis- lature prohibits this commodity, the other country will be obliged to offer any other article on easier terms, in order to force a sufficient demand for it to be an equivalent to what she purchases from us. The steps of the process, money being used, would be these: — We prohibit the importation of linen. The ex- portation of cloth continues, but is paid for in money. Our prices rise, those in Germany fall, until silk, or some other article, can be imported from Germany cheaper than it can be produced at home, and in sufficient abundance to 42 LAWS OF INTERCHANGE balance the export of cloth.. Thus by sacrificing the cheapness of one commodity, we gain the cheapness of another : but we sacrifice a greater cheapness to gain a less, and we sacrifice cheapness in the article which we most want, and would import by preference, while our compensation is cheapness in an article which we either could produce more advantageously at home, or which we have so little desire for, that it requires a species of bounty on the article to create a demand. Restrictions on importation do, however, tend to keep down the value and price of our remaining imports, and to keep up the nominal or money-prices of all our other commodities, by retaining a greater quantity of money in the country than would otherwise be there. Prom this it obviously follows, that if the restrictions were removed, we should have to pay rather more for some of the articles which we now import, while those which we are now pre- vented from importing would cost us more than might be inferred from their present price in the foreign market. And general prices would fall ; to the benefit of those who have fixed sums to receive ; to the disadvantage of those who have fixed sums to pay ; and giving rise, as a general fall of prices always does, to an appearance, though a temporary and fallacious one, of general distress.'^ It is right to observe that the measures of the British Legislature which have been falsely characterized as measures of free trade, must, from their extremely in- significant extent, have produced far too little effect in ^ This last i:)Ossible eft'ect of a sudden introduction of free trade, was pointed out in an able article on the Silk Question, in a work of too short duration, the "Parliamentary Review." [The full title of this was "The Parliamentary and Historical Review.'' It was started by Bentham in 1825, and continued for about three years. Charles Austin was the editor, and Mill, then still " in his teens," was one of the chief contributors. The first article in the Hrst number is by Mill. — Ed.] BETWEEN NATIONS. 43 increasing our importation, to have actually led, iu any degree wortli mentioning, to the results specified above. It is of greater importance to take notice, that these effects may be entirely obviated, if foreign countries can be prevailed upon simultaneously to relax their restrictive systems, so as to create an immediate increase of demand for our exports at the present prices. It is true that exports and imports must, in the end, balance one another, and if we increase our imports, our exports will of neces- sity increase too. But it is a forced increase, produced by an efflux of money and fall of prices ; and this fall of prices being permanent, although it would be no evil at all in a country where credit is unknown, it may be a very serious one where large classes of persons, and the nation itself, are under engagements to pay fixed sums of money of large amount. 10. The only remaining application of the principle set forth in this essay, which we think it of importance to notice specially, is the effect produced upon a country by the annual payment of a tribute or subsidy to a foreign power, or by the annual remittance of rents to absentee landlords, or of any other kind of income to its absent owners. Remittances to absentees are often very incor- rectly likened in their general character to the payment of a tribute ; from which they differ in this very, material circumstance, that tribute, if not paid to a foreign country, is not paid at all, whereas rents are paid to landlord, and consumed by him, even if he resides at home. The two kinds of payment, however, have a perfect resemblance to each other in such parts of their effects as we are about to point out. The tribute, subsidy, or remittance, is always in goods ; for, unless the country possesses mines of the precious metals, and numbers those metals among its regular articles of export, it cannot go on, year after year, parting 44 LAWS OF INTERCHANGE with them, and never receiving them back. When a nation has regular payments to make in a foreign country, for which it is not to receive any return, its exports must annually exceed its imports by the amount of the pay- ments which it is bound so to make. In order to force a demand for its exports greater than its imports will suffice to pay for, it must offer them at a rate of interchange more favourable to the foreign country, and less so to itself, than if it had no payments to make beyond the value of its imports. It therefore carries on the trade with less advantage, in consequence of the obligations to which it is subject towards persons resident in foreign countries. The steps of the process are these. The exports and imports being in equilibrium, suppose a treaty to be con- cluded, by which the country binds itseii to pay in tribute to another country, a certain sum annually. It makes, perhaps, the first pajmient by a remittance of money. This lowers prices in the paying country, and raises them in the receiving one : the exports of the tributary country increase, its imports diminish. When the eflux of money has altered prices in the requisite degree, the exports exceed the imports annually, by the amount of the tribute ; and the latter, being added to the sum of the payments due, restores the balance of payments between the two countries. The result to the tributary country is a diminu- tion of her share in the advantage of foreign trade. She pays dearer for her imports, in two ways, because she pays more money, and because that money is of higher value, the money incomes of her inhabitants being of smaller amount. Thus the imposition of a tribute is a double burthen to the country paying it, and a double gain to that which receives it. The tributary country pays to the other, first, the tax, whatever be its amount, and next, something more, which the one country loses in the increased cost of BETWEEN NATIONS. 45 its imports, the other gains in the diminished cost of its own. Absenteeism, moreover, though not burthensome in the former of these ways, since the money is paid whether the receiver be an absentee or not, is yet disadvantageous in the second of the two modes which have been mentioned. Ireland pays dearer for her imports in consequence of her absentees ; a circumstance which the assailants of Mr, M'CuUoch, whether political economists or not, have not, we believe, hitherto thought of producing against him. 11. If the question be now asked, which of the countries of the world gains most by foreign commerce, the following wUl be the answer. If by gain be meant advantage, in the most enlarged sense, that country will generally gain the most, which stands most in need of foreign commodities. But if by gain be meant saving of labour and capital in obtaining the commodities which the country desires to have, whatever they may be ; the country wiU gain, not in proportion to its own need of foreign articles, but to the need which foreigners have of the articles which itself produces. Let us take, as an illustration of our meaning, the case of France and England. Those two nations, in conse- quence of the restrictions with which they have loaded their commercial intercourse, carry on so little trade with each other, as may almost, regard being had to the wealth and population of the two countries, be called none at all. If these fetters were at once taken off, which of the two countries worJd be the greatest gainer ? England without doubt. There would instantly arise in Prance an immense demand for the cottons, woollens, and iron of England ; while wines, brandies, and silks, the staple articles of Prance, are less likely to come into general demand here, nor would the consumption of such productions, it is 46 LAWS OF INTERCHANGE probable, be so rapidly increased by the fall of price. The fall would probably be very great before Prance could obtain a vent in England for so much of her exports as would suffice to pay for the probable amount of her imports. There would be a considerable flow of the precious metals out of France into England. The English consumer of French wine would not merely save the amount of the duty which that wine now pays, but would find the wine itself falling in prime cost, while his means of purchasing it would be increased by the augmentation of his own money income. The French consumer of English cottons, on the contrary, would not long continue to be able to purchase them at the price they now sell for in England. He would gain less, as the English would gain m.ore, than might appear from a mere comparison between the present prices of commodities in the two countries. Various consequences would flow from opening the trade between France and England, which are not ex- pected, either by the friends or by the opponents of the present restrictive system. The wine-growers of France, who imagine that free trade would relieve their distress by raising the price of their wine, might not improbably find that price actually lowered. On the other hand, our silk manufacturers would be surprised if they were told that the free admission of our cottons and hardware into the French market, would endanger their branch of manu- facture : yet such might very possibly be the effect. France, it is likely, could most advantageously pay us in silks for a portion of the large amount of cottons and hardware which we should sell to her ; and though our silk manufacturers may now be able to compete advan- tageously, in some branches of the manufacture, with their French rivals, it by no means follows that they could do so when the efflux of money from France, and its influx into BETWEEN NATIONS. 47 England, had lowered the price of silk goods in the French market, and increased all the expenses of ^jroduction here. On the whole, England probablj-, of all the countries of Europe, draws to herself the largest share of the gains of international commerce: because her exportable articles are in universal demand, and are of such a kind that the demand increases rapidly as the price falls. Countries which export food, have the former advantage, but not the latter. But our own colonies, and the countries which supply us with the materials of our manufactures, maintain a hard struggle with us for an equal share of the advan- tages of their trade ; for their exports are also of a kind for which there exists a most extensive demand here, and a demand capable of almost indefinite extension by a fall of price. Contrary, therefore, to common opinion, it is probable that our trade with the colonies, and with the countries which send us the raw materials of our national industry, is not more but less advantageous to us, in pro- portion to its extent, than our trade with the continent of Europe. We mean in respect to the mere amount of the return to the labour and capital of the country ; con- sidered abstractedly from the usefulness or agreeableness of the particular articles on which the receivers may choose to expend it.^ ^ Mill says of this essay,in his "Autobiography " (p. 121) : "The theories of International Values and of Profits were excogitated and worked out in about equal portions by myself and Graham : .... but when my exposition came to be written, I found that I had so over-estimated my agreement ^vith him .... on Inter- national Values, that I was obliged to consider them as now exclusivelv mine." — Ed. ESSAY II. OF THE INFLUENCE OF CONSUMPTION ON PRODUCTION. BFEOEE the appearance of those great writers whose discoveries have given to political economy its present comparatively scientific character, the ideas universally entertained both by theorists and by practical men, on the causes of national -wealth, were grounded upon certain general views, which almost all who have given any con- siderable attention to the subject now justly hold to be completely erroneous. Among the mistakes which were most pernicious in their direct consequences, and tended in the greatest degree to prevent a just conception of the objects of the science, or of the test to be applied to the solution of the questions which it presents, was the immense importance attached to consumption. The great end of- legislation in matters of national wealth, according to the prevalent opinion, was to create consumers. A great and rapid consumption was what the producers, of all classes and denominations, wanted, to enrich themselves and the country. This object, under varviug names of an extensive demand, a brisk circulation, a great expenditure of money, and some- times totidem verbis a large consumption, was conceived to be the great condition of prosperitj'. It is not necessary, in -the present state of the science, to INFLUENCE OF CONSUMPTION ON PRODUCTION. 49 contest this doctrine in the most flagrantly absurd of its forms or of its applications. The utility of a large govern- ment expenditure, for the purpose of encouraging industry, is no longer maintained. Taxes are not now esteemed to be " like the dews of heaven, which return again in prolific showers." It is no longer supposed that you benefit the producer by taking his money, provided you give it to him again in exchange for his goods. There is nothing which impresses a person of reflection with a stronger sense of the shallowness of the political reasonings of the last two cen- turies, than the general reception so long given to a doctrine which, if it proves anything, proves that the more you take from the pockets of the people to spend on yourown plea- sures, the richer they grow ; that the man who steals money out of a shop, provided he expends it aU again at the same shop, is a benefactor to the tradesman whom he robs, and that the same operation, repeated sufl5.ciently often, would make the tradesman's fortune. In opposition to these palpable absurdities, it was trium- phantly established by political economists, that consump- tion never needs encouragement. AU which is produced is already consumed, either for the purpose of reproduction or of enjoyment. The person who saves his income is no less a consumer than he who spends it: he consumes it in a different way ; it supplies food and clothing to be con- sumed, tools and m.aterials to be used, by productive labourers. Consumption, therefore, already takes place to the greatest extent which the amount of production admits of ; but, of the two kinds of consumption, reproductive and unproductive, the former alone adds to the national wealth, the latter impairs it. What is consumed for mere enjoy- ment, is gone ; what is consumed for reproduction, leaves commodities of equal value, commonly with the addition of a proflt. The usual effect of the attempts of government to encourage consumption, is merely to prevent saving ; 50 OF THE INFLUENCE OF CONSUMPTION that is, to promote unproductive consumption at the ex- pense of reproductive, and diminish the national wealth by the very means which were intended to increase it. What a country wants to make it richer, is never con- sumption, but production. Where there is the latter, we may be sure that there is no want of the former. To pro- duce, implies that the producer desires to consume ; why else should he give himself useless labour ? He may not wish to consume what he himself produces, but his motive for producing and selling is the desire to buy. Therefore, if the producers generally produce and sell more and more, they certainly also buy more and more. Each may not want more of what he himself produces, but each wants more of what some other produces ; and, by producing what the other wants, hopes to obtain what the other pro- duces. There wiU never, therefore, be a greater quantity produced, of commodities in general, than there are con- sumers for. But there may be, and always are, abundance of persons who have the inclination to become consumers of some commodity, but are unable to satisfy their wish, be- cause they have not the means of producing either that, or anything to give in exchange for it. The legislator, there- fore, needs not give himself any concern about consump- tion. There will always be consumption for everything which can be produced, until the wants of aU who possess the means of producing are completely satisfied, and then production will not increase any farther. The legislator has to look solely to two points : that no obstacle shall exist to prevent those who have the means of producing, from employing those means as they find most for their interest ; and that those who have not at present the means of producing, to the extent of their desire to consume, shall have every facility afforded to their acquiring the means, that, becoming producers, they may be enabled to consume. ON PRODUCTION. 51 These general principles are now well understood by almost all who profess to have studied the subject, and are disputed by few except those who ostentatiously proclaim their contempt for such studies. We touch upon the question, not in the hope of rendering these fundamental truths clearer than they already are, but to perform a task, so useful and needful, that it is to be wished it were of tener deemed part of the business of those who direct their assaults against ancient prejudices,— that of seeing that no scattered particles of important truth are buried and lost in the ruins of exploded error. Every prejudice, which has long and extensively prevailed among the educated and in- telligent, must certainly be borne out by some strong appearance of evidence ; and when it is found that the evidence does not prove the received conclusion, it is of the highest importance to see what it does prove. If this be thought not worth inquiring into, an error conformable to appearances is often merely exchanged for an error contrary to appearances ; while, even if the result be truth, it is paradoxical truth, and will have difficulty in obtaining credence while the false appearances remain. Let us therefore inquire into the nature of the appear- ances, which gave rise to the belief that a great demand, a brisk circulation, a rapid consumption (three equivalent expressions), ai-e a cause of national prosperity. If every man produced for himself, or with his capital employed others to produce, everything which he required, customers and their wants would be a matter of profound indifference to him. He would be rich, if he had pro- duced and stored up a la,rge supply of the articles which he was likely to require; and poor, if he had stored up none at all, or not enough to last until he could produce more. The case, however, is different after the separation of 52 OF THE INFLUENCE OF CONSUMPTION employments. In civilized society, a single producer con- fines himself to tlie production of one commodity, or a small nnmber of commodities ; and his afiluence depends, not solely upon the quantity of his commodity which he has produced and laid in store, but upon his success in finding purchasers for that commodity. It is true, therefore, of every particular producer or dealer, that a great demand, a brisk circulation, a rapid consumption, of the commodities which he sells at his shop or produces in his manufactory, is important to him. The dealer whose shop is crowded with customers, who can dis- pose of a product almost the very moment it is com- pleted, makes large profits, while his next neighbour, with an equal capital but fewer customers, gains comparatively little. It was natural that, in this case, as in a hundred others, the analogy of an individual should be unduly applied to a nation: as it has been concluded that a nation generally gains in wealth by the conquest of a province, because an individual frequently does so by the acquisition of an estate ; and as, because an individual estimates his riches by the quantity of money which he can command, it was long deemed an excellent contrivance for enriching a country, to heap up artificially the greatest possible quan- tity of the precious metals within it. Let us examine, then, more closely than has usually been done, the case from which the misleading analogy is drawn. Let us ascertain to what extent the two cases actually resemble; what is the explanation of the false appearance, and the real nature of the phenomenon which, being seen indistinctly, has led to a false conclusion. We shall propose for examination a very simple case, but the explanation of which will sufiice to clear up all other cases which fall within the same principle. Suppose that ON PRODUCTION. . 53 a number of foreigners with large incomes arrive in a country, and there expend those incomes : will this opera- tion be beneficial, as respects the national wealth, to the country which receives these immigrants ? Tes, say many political economists, if they save any part of their incomes, and employ them reproductively ; because then an addition is made to the national capital, and the produce is a clear increase of the national wealth. But if the foreigner ex- pends all his income unprod actively, it is no benefit to the country, say they, and for the following reason. If the foreigner had his income remitted to him in bread and beef, coats and shoes, and all the other articles which he was desirous to consume, it would not be pretended that his eating, drinking, and wearing them, on our shores rather than on his own, could be of any advantage to us in point of wealth. Now, the case is not different if his income is remitted to him in some one commodity, as, for instance, in money. For whatever takes place afterwards, with a view to the supply of his wants, is a mere exchange of equivalents ; and it is impossible that a person should ever be enriched by merely receiving an equal value in ex- change for an equal value. When it is said that the purchases of the foreign con- sumer give employment to capital which would otherwise yield no profit to its owner, the same political economists reject this proposition as involving the fallacy of what has been called a " general glut.'' They say, that the capital, which any person has chosen to produce and to accumulatej can always find employment, since the fact that he has accumulated it proves that he had an unsatisfied desire ; and if he cannot find anything to produce for the wants of other consumers, he can for his own. It is impossible to contest these propositions as thus .stated. But there is one consideration which clearly shows, that there is something more in the matter than 54 OF THE INFLUENCE OF CONSUMPTION is here taken into the account ; and this is, that the above reasoning tends distinctly to prove, that it does a trades- man no good to go into his shop and buy his goods. How can he be enriched ? it might be asked. He merely receives a certain value in money, for an equivalent value in goods. Neither does this give employment to his capital ; for there never exists more capital than can find employment, and if one person does not buy his goods another v?ill ; or if nobody does, their is over-production in that business, he can remove his capital, and find employment for it in another trade. Everyone sees the fallacy of this reasoning as applied to individual producers. Everyone knows that as applied to them it has not even the semblance of plausibility; that the wealth of a producer does in a great measure depend upon the number of his customers, and that in general every additional purchaser does really add to his profits. If the reasoning, which would be so absurd if applied to indi- viduals, be applicable to nations, the principle on which it rests must require much explanation and elucidation. Let us endeavour to analyze with precision the real nature of the advantage which a producer derives from an addition to the number of his customers. For this purpose, it is necessary that we should premise a single observation on the meaning of the word capital It is usually defined, the food, clothing, and other articles set aside for the consumption of the labourer, together with the materials and instruments of production. This definition appears to us peeuUarly liable to misapprehen- sion; and much vagueness and some narrow views have, we conceive, occasionally resulted from its being interpreted with too mechanical an adherence to the literal meaning of the words. The capital, whether of an individual or of a nation, consists, we apprehend, of all matters possessing exchange- ON PRODUCTION. 65 able value, which the individual or the nation has in his or in its possession for the purpose of reproduction, and not for the purpose of the owner's unproductive enjoyment. All unsold goods, therefore, constitute a part of the national capital, and of the capital of the producer or dealer to whom they belong. It is true that tools, materials, and the articles on which the labourer is sup- ported, are the only articles which are directly subservient to production : and if I have a capital consisting of money, or of goods in a warehouse, I can only employ them as means of production in so far as they are capable of being exchanged for the articles which conduce directly to that end. But the food, machinery, etc., which will ultimately be purchased with the goods in my warehouse, may at this moment not be in the country, may not be even in existence. If, after having sold the goods, I hire labourers with the money, and set them to work, I am surely employing capital, though the com, which in the form of bread those labourers may buy with the money, may be now in warehouse at Dantzie, or perhaps not yet above ground. Whatever, therefore, is destined to be employed repro- ductively, either in its existing shape, or indirectly by a previous (or even subsequent) exchange, is capital. Sup- pose that I have laid out all the money I possess in wages and tools, and that the article I produce is just completed : in the interval which elapses before I can sell the article, realize the proceeds, and lay them out again in wages and tools, vrill it be said that I have no capital? Certainly not : I have the same capital as before, perhaps a greater, but it is locked up, as the expression is, and not disposable. When we have thus seen accurately what really consti- tutes capital, it becomes obvious, that of the capital of a country, there is at aU times a very large proportion lying idle. The annual produce of a country is never anything 56 OF THE INFLUENCE OF CONSUMPTION approacliing in magnitude to what it might be if all the resources devoted to reproduction, if all the capital, in short, of the country, were in full employment. If every commodity on an average remained imsold for a length of time equal to that required for its production, it is obvious that, at any one time, uo more than half the productive capital of the country would be really perform- ing the functions of capital. The two halves would relieve one another, like the semichori in a Greek tragedy ; or rather the half which was in employment would be a fluctuating portion, composed of varying parts ; but the result would be, that each producer would be able to pro- duce every year only half as large a supply of commodities, as he could produce if he were sure of selling them the moment the production was completed. This, or something like it, is, however the habitual state, at every instant, of a very large proportion of aU the capitalists in the world. The number of producers, or dealers, who turn over their capital, as the expression is, in the shortest possible time, is very small There are few who have so rapid a sale for their wares, that all the goods which their own capital, or the capital which they can borrow, enables them to supply, are carried off as fast as they can be supplied. The majority have not an extent of business, at all adequate ■to the amount of the capital they dispose of. It is true that, in the communities in which industry and commerce are practised with greatest success, the contrivances of banking enable the possessor of a larger capital than he can employ in his own business, to employ it productively and derive a revenue from it notwithstanding. Tet even then, there is, of necessity, a great quantity of capital which remains fixed in the shape of implements, machinery, buildings, etc., whether it is only half employed, or in complete employment : and every dealer keeps a stock ON PRODUCTION. 57 in trade, to be ready for a possible sudden demand, thougli he probably may not be able to dispose of it for an indefinite period. This perpetual non-employment of a large proportion of capital, is the price we pay for the division of labour. The purchase is worth what it costs ; but the price is considerable. Of the importance of the fact which has just been noticed there are three signal proofs. One is, the large sum often given for the goodwill of a particular business. Another is, the large rent which is paid for shops in certain situations, near a grea,t thoroughfare for example, which have no advantage except that the occupier may expect a larger body of customers, and be enabled to turn over his capital more quickly. Another is, that in many trades, there are some dealers who sell articles of an equal quality at a lower price than other dealers. Of course, this is not a voluntary sacrifice of profits : they expect by the conse- quent overflow of customers to turn over their capital more quietly, and to be gainers by keeping the whole of their capital in more constant employment, though on any given operation their gains are less. The reasoning cited in the earlier part of this paper, to show the uselessness of a mere purchaser or customer, for enriching a nation or an individual, applies only to the case of dealers who have already as much business as their capital admits of, and as rapid a sale for their com- modities as is possible. To such dealers an additional purchaser is really of no use ; for, if they are sure of selling all their commodities the moment those commodities are on sale, it is of no consequence whether they sell them to one person or to another. But it is questionable whether there be any dealers in whose case this hypothesis is exactly verified ; and to the great majority it is not applicable at all. An additional customer, to most dealers. 68 OF THE INFLUENCE OF CONSUMPTION is equivalent to an increase of their productive capital. He enables them to convert a portion of their capital which was lying idle (and which could never have become pro- ductive in their hands until a customer was found) into wages and instruments of production ; and if we suppose that the commodity, unless bought by him, would not have found a purchaser for a year after, then all which a capital of that value can enable men to produce during a year, is clear gain — gain to the dealer, or producer, and to the labourers whom he will employ, and thus (if no one sustains any corresponding loss) gain to the nation. The aggregate produce of the country for the succeeding year is, therefore, increased ; not by the mere exchange, but by calling into activity a portion of the national capital, which, had it not been for the exchange, would have remained for some time longer unemployed. Thus there are actually at all times producers and dealers, of all, or nearly all classes, whose capital is lying partially idle, because they have not found the means of fulfilling the condition which the division of labour renders indispensable to the full employment of capital, — viz., that of exchanging their products with each other. If these persons could find one another out, they could mutually relieve each other from this disadvantage. Any two shopkeepers, in insufficient employment, who agree to deal at each other's shops so long as they could there pur- chase articles of as good a quality as elsewhere, and at as low a price, would render the nation a service. It may be said that they must previously have dealt, to the same amount, with some other dealers ; but this is eiToneous, since they could only have obtained the means of purchas- ing by being previously enabled to sell. B3' their compact, each would gain a customer, who would call his capital into fuller employment ; each therefore would obtain an increased produce ; and they would thus be enabled to ON PRODUCTION. 59 become better customers to eacli other than they could be to third parties. It is obvious that every dealer who has not business sufficient fully to employ his capital (which is the case with all dealers when they commence business, and with many to the end of their lives), is in this predicament simply for want of some one with whom to exchange his commodities ; and as there are such persons to about the sam.e degree probably in all trades, it is evident that if these persons sought one another out, they have their remedy in their own hands, and by each other's assistance might bring their capital into more full employment. We are now qualified to define the exact nature of the benefit which a j)roducer or dealer derives from the acqui- sition of a new customer. It is as follows : 1. If any part of his own capital was locked up in the form of unsold goods, producing (for a longer period or a shorter) nothing at all ; a portion of this is called into greater activity, and becomes more constantly productive. But to this we must add some further advantages. 2. If the additional demand exceeds what can be sup- plied by setting at liberty the capital which exists in the state of unsold goods ; and if the dealer has additional resources, which were productively invested (in the public funds, for instance), but not in his own trade ; he is enabled to obtain, on a portion of these, not mere interest, but profit, and so to gain that difference between the rate of profit and the rate of interest, which may be considered as " wages of superintendence." 3. If all the dealer's capital is employed in his own trade, and no part of it locked up as unsold goods, the new demand affords him additional encouragement to save, by enabling his savings to yield him not merely interest, but profit ; and if he does not choose to save (or until he shall have saved), it enables him to carry on an additional 60 OF THE INFLUENCE OF CONSUMPTION business with borrowed capital, and so gain the difference between interest and profit, or, in other words, to receive "wages of superintendence on a larger amount of capital. This, it will be found, is a complete account of all the gains which a dealer in any commodity can derive from an accession to the number of those who deal with him : and it is evident to everyone, that these advantages are real and important, and that they are the cause which induces a dealer of any kind to desire an increase of his business. It follows from these premises, that the arrival of a new unproductive consumer (living on his own means) in any placie, be that place a village, a town, or an entire country, is beneficial to that place, if it causes to any of the dealers of the place any ot the advantages above enumerated, without withdrawing an equal advantage of the same Vind from any other dealer of the same place. This accordingly is the test by which we must try aU such questions, and by which the propriety of the ana- logical argument, from dealing with a tradesmen to dealing with a nation, must be decided. Let us take, for instance, as our example, Paris, which is much frequented by strangers from various parts of the world, who, as sojo\irners there, live unproductively upon their means. Let us consider whether the presence of these persons is beneficial, in an ind/ustrial point of view, to Paris. We exclude from the consideration that portion of the strangers' incomes which they pay to natives as direct remuneration for service, or labour of any description. This is obviously beneficial to the country. An increase in the funds expended in employing labour, whether that labour be productive or unproductive, tends equally to raise wages. The condition of the whole labouring class is, so far, benefited. It is ti-ue that the labourers thus ON PRODUCTION. 61 employed by sojourners are probably, in part or altogether^ withdrawn from productive employment. But this is far from being an evil ; for either the situation of the labouring class is improved, which is far more than an equivalent for a diminution in mere production, or the rise of wages acts as a stimulus to population, and then the number of pro- ductive labourers becomes as great as before. To this we may add, that what the sojourners pay as wages of labour or service (whether constant or casual), though expended unproductively by the first possessor, may, when it passes into the hands of the receivers, be by them saved, and invested in a productive employ- ment. If so, a direct addition is made to the national capital. All this is obvious, and is sufficiently allowed by political economists ; who have invariably set apart the gains of all persons coming under the class of domestic servants, as real advantages arising to a place from the residence there of an increased number of unproductive consumers. We have only to examine whether the purchases of commodities . by these unproductive consumers, confer the same kind of benefit upon the village, town, or nation, which is bestowed upon a particular tradesmen by dealing at his shop. Now it is obvious that the sojourners, on their arrival, confer the benefit in question upon some dealers, who did not enjoy it before. They purchase their food, and many other articles, from the dealers in the place. They, there- fore, call the capital of some dealers, which was locked up in unsold goods, into more active employment. They encourage them to save, and enable them to receive wages of superintendence upon a larger amount of capital. These effects being undeniable, the question is, whether the presence of the sojourners deprives any others of the Paris dealers of a similar advantage. 62 OF TIIK INFLUENCE OF CONSUMPTION It will be seen ttat it does ; and nothing will then remain but a comparison of the amounts. It is obvious to all who reflect (and was shown in the paper which proceeds this) that the remittances to persons who expend their incomes in foreign countries are, after a slight passage of the precious meta,]s, defrayed in com- modities : and that the result commonly is, an increase of exports and a diminution of imports, untU the latter fall short of the former by the amount of the remittances. The arrival, therefore, of the strangers (say from England), while it creates at Paris a market for com- modities equivalent in value to their funds, displaces in the market other commodities to an equal value. To the extent of the increase of exports from England into France in the way of remittance, it introduces additional commodities which, by their cheapness, displace others formerly produced in that country. To the extent of the diiD^inution of imports into England from France, com- modities which existed or which were habitually produced in that country are deprived of a market, or can only find one at a price not sufficient to defray the cost. It must, therefore, be a matter of mere accident, if by arriving in a place, the new unproductive consumer causes any net advantage to its industry, of the kind which we are now examining. Not to mention that this, lite any other change in the channels of trade, may render useless a portion of fixed capital, and so far injure the national wealth. A distinction, however, must here be made. The place to which the new unproductive consumers have come, may be a town or village, as well as a country. If a town or village, it may either be or not be a place having an export trade. If the place had no previous trade except with the im- mediate neighbourhood, there are no exports and imports, ON PRODUCTION. 63 by the new arrangement of wticli, the remittance can be made. There is no capital, formerly employed in manu- facturing for the foreign market, which is now brought into less full employment. Tet the remittance evidently is still made in com- modities, but in this case without displacing any which were produced before. To show this, it is necessary to make the following remarks. The reason why towns ejdst, is that ceteris paribus it is convenient, in order to save cost of carriage, that the pro- duction of commodities should take place as far as practic- able in the immediate vicinity of the consumer. Capital finds its way so easily from town to country and from country to town, that the amount of capital in the town will be regulated |wholly by the amount wL^ich can be employed there more conveniently than elsewhere. Con- sequently the capital of a place will be such as is sufi&eient. 1st. To produce all commodities which from local circumstances can be produced there at less cost than elsewhere : and if this be the case to any great extent, it will be an exporting town. When we say produced, we may add, or stored. 2nd. To produce and retail the commodities which are consumed by the inhabitants of the town, and the place of whose production is in other respects a matter of indif- ference. To the inhabitants of the town must be added such dwellers in the adjoining country, as are nearer to that place than to any other equally well furnished market. Now, if new unproductive consumers resort to the place, it is clear that for the latter of these two purposes, more capital will be required than before. Consequently, if less is not required for the former purpose, more capital will establish itself at the place. Until this additional capital has arrived, the producers 64 OF THE INFLUENCE OF CONSUMPTION and dealers already on the spot will enjoy great advan- tages. Every particle of their own capital will be called into the most active employment. What their capital does not enable them to supply, wiU be got from others at a distance, who cannot supply it on such favourable terms ; consequently they will be in the predicament of possessing a partial monopoly — receiving for everything a price regulated by a higher cost of production than they are compelled to pay. They also, being in possession of the market, will be enabled to make a large portion of the new capital pass through their hands, and thus to earn wages of superintendence upon it. K, indeed, the place from whence the strangers came, previously traded with that where they have taken up their abode, the effect of their arrival is, that the exports of the town wiU diminish, and that it will be supplied from abroad with something which it previously produced at home. In this way an amount of capital will be set free equal to that required, and there will be no increase on the whole. The removal of the court from London to Birmingham would not necessarily, though it would pro- bably,^ increase the amount of capital in the latter place. The afflux of money to Birmingham, and its efflux from London, would render it cheaper to make some articles in London for Birmingham consumption ; and to make others in London for home consumption, which were formerly brought from Birmingham. But instead of Birmingham, an exporting town, suppose a village, or a town which only produced and retailed for ' Probably ; because most articles of an ornamental description being still required from the same makers, these makers, with their capital, would probably follow their customers. Besides, from place to place within the same country, most persons will rather change their habitation than their employment. But the raoring on this score would be reciprocal. ON PR0Dt7CTI0X. 65 itself and its immediate vicinity. The remittances must come either in the shape of money; and though the money ■would not remain, but would be sent away in exchange for commodities, it would, however, first pass through the hands of the producers and dealers in the place, and would by them be exported in exchange for the articles which they require — viz., the materials, tools, and subsistence necessary for the increased production now required of them, and articles of foreign luxury for their own increased unproductive consumption. These articles would not dis- place any formerly made in the place, but on the contrary, would forward the production of m.ore. Hence we may consider the following propositions as established : 1. The expenditure of absentees (the ease of domestic servants excepted), is not necessarily any loss to the country which they leave, or gain to the country which they resort to (save in the manner shown in Essay L) : for almost every country habitually exports and imports to a much greater value than the incomes of its absentees, or of the foreign sojourners within it. 2. But sojourners often do much good to the town or village which they resort to, and absentees harm to that which they leave. The capital of the petty tradesman in a small town near an absentee's estate, is deprived of the market for which it is conveniently situated, and must resort to another to which other capitals lie nearer, and where it is consequently outbid, and gains less ; obtaining only the same price, with greater expenses. But this evil would be equally occasioned, if, instead of going abroad, the absentee had removed to his own capital city. If the tradesman could, in the latter case, remove to the metropolis, or in the former, employ himself in producing increased exports, or in producing for home consumption 66 OF THE INFLUENCE OF CONSUMPTION articles now no longer imported, each in the place most convenient for that opei-ation ; he would not be a loser, though the place which he was obliged to leave might be said to lose. Paris undoubt-edly gains much by the sojourn of foreigners, while the counteracting loss by diminution of exports from France is suffered by the great trading and manufacturing towns, Kouen, Bordeaux, Lyons, etc., which also suffer the principal part of the loss by importation of articles previously produced at home. The capital thus set free, finds its most convenient seat to be Paris, since the business to which it must turn is the production of articles to be unproductively consumed by the sojourners. The great trading towns of France would undoubtedly be more flourishing, if Fi-ance were not frequented by foreigners. Eome and Naples are perhaps purely benefited by the foreigners sojourning there: for they have so little external trade, that their case may resemble that of the village in our hypothesis. Absenteeism, therefore (excei^t as shown in the first Essay), is a local, not a national evil; and the resort of foreigners, in so far as they purchase for unproductive consumption, is not, in any commercial countr)', a national, though it may be a local good. From the considerations which we have now adduced, it is obvious what is meant by such phrases as a brisk demand, and a rapid cii-culation. There is a brisk demand and a rapid circulation, when goods, generally speaking, are sold as fast as they can be produced. There is slackness, on the contrary, and stagnation, when goods, which have been jjroduced, remain for a long time unsold. In the former case, the capital which has been locked up in production is disengaged as soon as the production is completed ; and can be immediately employed in further production. In ON PRODUCTION. 67 the latter case, a large portion of the productive capital of the country is lying in temporary inactiTity. From what has been already said, it is obvious that periods of " brisk demand " are also the periods of greatest production : the national capital is never called into full employment but at those periods. This, however, is no reason for desiring such times ; it is not desirable that the whole capital of the country should be in full employment. For, the calculations of producers and traders being of ne- cessity imperfect, there are always some commodities which are more or less in excess, as there are always some which are in deficiency. If, therefore, the whole truth were known, there would always be some classes of producers contract- ing, not extending, their operations. If all are endeavour- ing to extend them, it is a certain proof that some general delusion is afloat. The commonest cause of such delusion is some general, or very extensive, rise of prices (whether caused by sj)eculation or by the currency) which persuades all dealers that they are growing rich. And hence, an increase of production really takes place during the pro- gress of dej^reciation, as long as the existence of deprecia- tion is not suspected ; and it is this which gives to the falla- cies of the currency school, principally represented by Mr. Attwood, all the little plausibility they possess. But when the delusion vanishes and the truth is disclosed, those whose commodities are relatively in excess must diminish their production or be ruined : and if during the high prices they have built mills and erected machinery, they will be likely to repent at leisure. In the present state of the commercial world, mercantile transactions being carried on upon an immense scale, but the remote causes of fluctuations in prices being very little understood, so that unreasonable hopes and um-easonable fears alternately rule with tyrannical sway over the minds of a majority of the mercantile public ; general eagerness 68 OF THE INFLUENCE OF CONSUMPTION to buy and general reluctance to buy, succeed one another in a manner more or less marked, at brief intervals. Except during short pei'iods of transition, there is almost always either great briskness of business or great stagna- tion ; either the principal producers of almost all the lead- ing articles of industry have as many orders as they can possibly execute, or the dealers in almost all commodities have their warehouses full of unsold goods. In this last case, it is commonly said that there is a general superabundance ; and as those economists who have contested the possibility of general superabundance, would none of them deny the possibility or even the frequent occurrence of the phenomenon which we have just noticed, it would seem incumbent on them to show, that the expression to which they object is not applicable to a state of things in which all or most commodities remain unsold, in the same sense in which there is said to be a superabundance of any one commodity when it remains in the warehouses of dealers for want of a market. This is merely a question of naming, but an important one, as it seems to us that much apparent difference of opinion has been produced by a mere difference in the mode of describing the same facts, and that persons who at bottom were perfectly agreed, have considered each other as guilty of gross error, and sometimes even misrepresenta- tion, on this subject. In order to afford the explanations with which it is necessary to take the doctrine of the impossibility of an excess of all commodities, we must advert for a moment to the argument by which this impossibility is commonly maintained. There can never, it is said, be a want of buyers for all commodities ; because whoever offers a commodity for sale, desires to obtain a commodity in exchange for it, and ON PKODUCTION. 69 is therefore a buyer by the mere fact of his being a seller. The sellers and the buyers, for all commodities taken together, must, by the metaphysical necessity of the case, be an exact equipoise to each other ; and if there be more sellers than buyers of one thing, there must be more buyers than sellers for another. This argument is evidently founded on the supposition of a state of barter ; and, on that supijosition, it is perfectly incontestable. When two persons perform an act of barter, each of them is at once a seller and a buyer. He cannot sell without buying. Unless he chooses to buy some other person's commodity, he does not sell his own. If, however, we suppose that money is used, these pro- positions cease to be exactly true. It must be admitted that no person desires money for its own sake (unless some very rare cases of misers be an exception), and that he who sells his commodity, receiving money in exchange, does so with the intention of buying with that same money some other commodity. Interchange by means of money is therefore, as has been often observed, ultimately nothing but barter. But there is this difference — that in the case of barter, the selling and the buying are simultaneously confounded in one operation ; you sell what you have, and buy what you want, by one indivisible act, and you cannot do the one without doing the other. Now the effect of the employment of money, and even the utility of it, is, that it enables this one act of interchange to be divided into two separate acts or operations ; one of which may be performed now, and the other a year hence, or whenever it shall be most convenient. Although he who sells, really sells only to buy, he needs not buy at the same moment when he sells ; and he does not therefore necessarily add to the immediate demand for one commodity when he adds to the supply of another. The buying and selling being now separated, it may very well occur, that there may be, 70 OF THE INFLUE>'CE OF CONSUMPTIO^" at some given time, a very general inclination to sell with as little delay as possible, accompanied witli an equally general inclination to defer all purchases as long as possible. This is always actually the case, in those periods which are described as periods of general excess. And no one, after sufficient explanation, wiU contest the possibility of general excess, in this sense of the word. The state of things which we have just described, and which is of no uncommon occurrence, amounts to it. For when there is a general anxiety to sell, and a general disinclination ia buy, commodities of all kinds remain for a long time unsold, and those which find an immediate market, do so at a very low jDrice. If it be said that when all commodities fall in price, the fall is of no consequence, since mere money-price is not material while the rela- tive value of all commodities remains the same, we answer that this would be true if the low prices were to last for ever. But as it is certain that prices will rise again sooner or later, the person who is obliged by necessity to sell his commodity at a low money-price is reaUy a sufferer, the money he receives sinking shortly to its ordinary value. Eveiy person, therefore, delays selling if he can, keeping his capital unproductive in the meantime, and sustaining the consequent loss of interest. There is stagnation to those who are not obliged to sell, and distress to those who are. It is true that this state can be only temporary, and must even be succeeded by a reaction of corresponding violence, since those who have sold without buying will certainly buy at last, and there will then be more buyers than sellers. But although the general over-supply is of necessity only temjiorary, this is no more than may be said of every partial over- supply. An overstocked state of the market is always temporary, and is generally followed by a more than common briskness of demand. ON PRODUCTIOX. 71 In order to render the argument for the impossibility of an excess of all commodities apphcable to the case in which a circulating medium is employed, money must itself be considered as a commodity. It must, undoubtedly, be admitted that there cannot be an excess of all other com- modities, and an excess of money at the same time. But those who have, at periods such as we have described, affinned that there was an excess of all commodities, never pretended that money was one of these commodities ; they held that there was not an excess, but a deficiency of the circulating medium. What they called a general super- abundance, was not a superabundance of commodities rela- tively to commodities, but a superabundance of all commo- dities relatively to money. What it amounted to was, that persons in general, at that particular time, from a general expectation of being called upon to meet sudden demands, liked better to possess money than any other commodity. Money, consequently, was in request, and all other com- modities were in comparative disrepute. In extreme cases, money is collected in masses, and hoarded ; in the milder cases, people merely defer parting with their money, or coming under any new engagements to part with it. But the result is, that all commodities fall in price, or become unsaleable. When this happens to one single commodity, there is said to be a superabundance of that commodity ; and if that be a proper expression, there would seem to be in the nature of the case no particular impropriety in saying that there is a superabundance of all or most commodities, when all or most of them are in this same predicament. It is, however, of the utmost importance to observe that excess of all commodities, in the only sense in which it is possible, means only a temporary fall in their value rela- tively to money. To suppose that the markets for aU commodities could, in any other sense than this, be over- 72 OF THE INFLUENCE OF CONSUMPTION stocked, involves the absurdity that commodities may fall in value relatively to themselves ; or that, of two commodi- ties, each can fall relatively to the other, A becoming equivalent to B — a, and B to A — x, at the same time. And it is, perhaps, a sufficient reason for not using phrases of this description, that they suggest the idea of excessive production. A want of market for one article may arise from excessive production of that article ; but when com- modities in general become unsaleable, it is from a very different cause ; there cannot be excessive production of commodities in general. The argument against the possibility of general over- production is quite conclusive, so far as it applies to the doctrine that a country may accumulate capital too fast ; that produce in general may, by increasing faster than the demand for it, reduce all producers to distress. This proposition, strange to say, was almost a received doctrine as lately as thirty years ago ; and the merit of those who have exploded it is much greater than might be inferred from the extreme obviousness of its absurdity when it is stated in its native simplicity. It is true that if all the wants of all the inhabitants of a country were fully satisfied, no further capital could find useful employment ; but, in that case, none would be accumulated. So long as there remain any persons not possessed, we do not say of subsistence, but of the most refined luxuries, and who would work to possess them, there is employment for capital ; and if the commodities which these persons want are not produced and placed at their disposal, it can onlv be because cajiital does not exist, disposable for the purpose of employing, if not any other labourers, those very labourers themselves, in producing the articles for their own cousumpition. Nothing can be more chimerical than the fear that the accumulation of capital should produce poverty and not wealth, or that it wiU ever take ON PRODUCTION. 73 place too fast for its own end. Nothing is more true than that it is produce which constitutes the market for produce, and that every increase of production, if distri- buted without miscalculation among all kinds of produce in the proportion which private interest would dictate, creates, or rather constitutes, its own demand. This is the truth which the deniers of general over- production have seized and enforced ; nor is it pretended that anything has been added to it, or subtracted from it, in the present disquisition. But it is thought that those who receive the doctrine accompanied with the explana- tions which we have given, will understand, more clearly than before, what is, and what is not, implied in it ; and will see that, when properly understood, it in no way contradicts those obvious facts which are universally known and admitted to be not only of possible, but of actual and even frequent occurrence. The doctrine in question only appears a paradox, because it has usually been so expressed as apparently to contradict these well- known facts ; which, however, were equally well known to the authors of the doctrine, who, therefore, can only have adopted from inadvertence any form of expression which could to a caudid person appear inconsistent with it. The essentials of the doctrine are preserved when it is allowed that there cannot be permanent excess of produc- tion, or of accumulation ; though it be •'at the same time admitted, that as there may be a temporary excess of any one article considered separately, so may there of com- modities generally, not in consequence of over-production, but of a want of commercial confidence.^ ^ For further remarks upon consumption and productit such as are comparatively insignificant. The phrases productive labour, and productive consump- tion, have been employed by some writers on political economy with very great latitude. They have considered, and classed, as productive labour and productive consump- tion, all labour which serves any useful purpose — all consumption which is not waste. Mr. M'Culloeh has asserted, totidem verbis, that the labour of Madame Pasta was as well entitled to be called productive labour as that of a cotton spinner. Employed in this sense, the words productive and un- productive are superfluous, since the words useful and agreeable on the one hand, useless and worthless on the other, are quite sufficient to express all the ideas to which the words productive and unproductive are here applied. This use of the terms, therefore, is subversive of the ends of language. Those writers who have employed the words in a more limited sense, have usually understood by productive or unproductive labour, labour which is productive of wealth, or unproductive of wealth. But what is wealth ? And here the words productive and unproductive have been affected with additional ambiguities, corresponding to the different extension which different writers have given to the term wealth. Some have given the name of wealth to all things which tend to the use or enjoyment of mankind, and which possess exchangeable value. This last clause is added to exclude air, the light of the sun, and any other things which can be obtained in unlimited quantity without labour or sacrifice ; together with all such things as. 76 ON THE WORDS PRODUCTIVE thoiigli produced by labour, are not held in sufficient geieral estimation to command any price in the market. But when this definition came to be explained, many persons were disposed to interpret " all tMngs which tend to the use or enjoyment of man," as implying only all material things. Immaterial products they refuse to consider as wealth ; and labour or expenditure which yielded nothing but immaterial products, they charac- terized as unproductive labour and unproductive ex- penditure. To this it was, or might have been, answered, that according to this classification, a carpenter's labour at his trade is productive labour, but the same individual's labour in learning his trade was unproductive labour. Tet it is obvious that, on both occasions, his labour tended exclusively to what is allowed to be production : the one was equally indispensable with the other, to the ultimate result. Further, if we adopted the above definition, we should be obliged to say that a nation whose artisans were twice as skilful as those of another nation, was not, ceteris paribtis, more wealthy ; although it is evident that every one of the results of wealth, and everything for the sake of which wealth is desired, would be possessed by the former country in a higher degree than by the latter. Every classification according to which a basket of cherries, gathered and eaten the next minute, are called wealth, while that title is denied to the acquired skill of those who are acknowledged to be productive labourers, is a purely arbitrary division, and does not conduce to the ends for which classification and nomenclature are designed. In order to get over all difficulties, some political economists seem disposed to make the terms express a distinction sufficiently definite indeed, but more com- AND UNPRODUCm-E. 11 pletely arbitrary, and having less foundation in nature, than any of the former. They will hot allow to any labour or to any expenditure the name of productive, unless the produce which it yields returns into the hands of the very person who made the outlay. Hedging and ditching they term productive labour, though those operations conduce to production only indirectly, by protecting the produce from destruction ; but the necessary expenses incurred by a government for the protection of property are, they insist upon it, consumed unproductively: though, as has been well pointed out by Mr. M'Ciilloch, these expenses, in their relation to the national wealth, are exactly analogous to the wages of a hedger or a ditcher. The only difference is, that the farmer, who pays for the hedging and ditching, is the person to whom the consequent increase of pro- duction accrues, while the government, which is at the expense of police officers and courts of justice, does not, as a necessary consequence, get back into its own coffers the increase of the national wealth resulting from the security of property. It would be endless to point out the oddities and incon- gruities which result from this classification. Whether we take the words wealth and production in the largest, or in the most restricted sense in which they have ever yet been employed, nobody will dispute that roads, bridges, and canals, contribute in an eminent degree, and in a very direct manner, to the increase of production and wealth. The labour and pecujiiary resources employed in their construction would, aecording to the above theory, be con- sidered productive, if every occupier of land were compelled by law to construct so much of the road, or canal, as passes through his own farm. If, instead of this, the government makes the road, and throws it open to the pubHc toll-free, the labour and expenditure would be, on the above system, clearly unproductive. But if the government, or an 78 ON THE WORDS PRODUCTIVE association of indivi\-ith ; so that, instead of 60 labourers and a fixed capital worth 60 quarters of corn, we have 80 labourers and a fixed capital worth 30. The numerical statement of this case is more intricate than that in the text, but the result is not different. AND INTEREST. 101 weavers, we should have supposed them to be paid iu cloth. This supposition is allowable, for it is obviously of no consequence, in a question of value, or cost of produc- tion, what precise article we assume as the medium of exchange. The supposition has, besides, the recommenda- tion of being conformable to the most ordinary state of the facts ; for it is by the sale of his own finished article that each capitalist obtains the means of hiring labourers to renew the production ; which is virtually the same thing as if, instead of selUng the article for money and giving the money to his labourers, he gave the article itself to the labourers, and they sold it for their daily bread. Assuming, therefore, that the labourer is paid in the very article he produces, it is evident that, when any saving of expense tates place in the production of that article, if the labourer still receives the same cost of pro- duction as before, he must receive an increased quantity, in the very same ratio in which the productive power of capital has been increased. But, if so, the outlay of the capitalist will bear exactly the same proportion to the return as it did before ; and profits will not rise. The variations, therefore, in the rate of profits, and those in the cost of production of wages, go hand in hand, and are inseparable. Mr. Eicardo's principle, that profits cannot rise unless wages fall, is strictly true, if by low wages be meant not merely wages which are the produce of a smaller quantity of labour, but wages which are pro- duced at less cost, reckoning labour and previous profits together. But the interpretation which some economists have put upon Mr. Eicardo's doctrine, when they explain it to mean that profits depend upon the proportion which the labourers collectively receive of the aggregate produce, will not hold at all ; for that, in our first examjjle, remained the same, and yet profits rose. 102 ON PROFITS The only expression of the law of profits, which seems to be correct, is, that they depend upon the cost of pro- duction of wages. This must be received as the ultimate principle. From this may be deduced all the corollaries which Mr. Eicardo and others have drawn from this theory of profits as expounded by himself. The cost of production of the wages of one labourer for a year, is the result of two concurrent elements or factors, — viz., 1st, the quantity of commodities which the state of the labour market affords to him ; 2ndly, the cost of production of each of those commodities. It follows, that the rate of profits can never rise but in conjunction with one or other of two changes, — 1st, a diminished rem.uneration of the labourer ; or, 2ndly, an improvement in production, or an extension of commerce, by which any of the articles habitually consumed by the labourer may be obtained at smaller cost. (If the improvement be in any article which is not consumed by the labourer, it merely lowers the price of that article, and thereby benefits capitalists and all other people so far as they are consumers of that particular article, and may be said to increase gross profit, but not the rate of profit.) So, on the other hand, the rate of profit cannot fall, unless concurrently with one of two events : 1st, an im- provement in the labourer's condition ; or, 2ndly, an increased difiiculty of producing or importing some article which the labourer habitually consumes. The progress of population and cultivation has a tendency to lower profits through the latter of these two channels, owing to the well- known law of the application of capital to land, that a double capital does not coeteris paribus yield a double produce. There is, therefore, a tendency in the rate of profits to fall with the progress of society. But there is also an antagonist tendency of profits to rise, by the sue- AND INTEREST. 103 cessive introduction of improvements in agriculture, and in the production of those manufactured articles which the labourers consume. Supposing, therefore, that the actual comforts of the labourer remain the same, profits will fall or rise, according as population, or improvements in the production of food and other necessaries, advance fastest. The rate of profits, therefore, tends to fall from the following causes : — 1. An increase of capital beyond population, producing increased competition for labour ; 2. An increase of population, occasioning a demand for an increased quantity of food, which must be produced at a greater cost. The rate of profit tends to rise from the following causes : — 1. An increase of population beyond capital, producing increased competition for employment ; 2. Improvements producing increased cheapness of neces- saries, and other articles habitually consumed by the labourer. The circumstances which regulate the rate of interest have usually been treated, even by professed writers on political economy, in a vague, loose, and unscientific manner. It has, however, been felt that there is some connection between the rate of interest and the rate of profit ; that (to use the words of Adam Smith) much will be given for money, when much can be made of it. It has been felt, also, that the fluctuations in the market-rate of interest from day to day, are determined, like other matters of bargain and sale, by demand and supply. It has, there- fore, been considered as an established principle, that the rate of interest varies from day to day according to the quantity of capital offered or called for on loan ; but con- forms on the average of years to a standard determined by the rate of profits, and bearing some proportion to that rate — but a proportion which few attempts have been made to define. 104 ON PROFITS In consequence of these views, it has been customary to judge of the general rate of profits at any time or place, by the rate of interest at that time and place: it being supposed that the rate of interest, though liable to temporary fluctuations, can never vary for any long period of time unless profits vary ; a notion which appears to us to be erroneous. It was observed by Adam Smith, that profits may be considered as divided into two parts, of which one may properly be considered as the remuneration for the use of the capital itself, the other as the reward of the labour of superintending its employment; and that the former of these wiU correspond with the rate of interest. The pro- ducer who borrows capital to employ it in his business, will consent to pay, for the use of it, all that remains of the profits he can mate by it, after reserving what he considers reasonable remuneration for the trouble and risk which he incurs by borrowing and employing it. This remark is just ; but it seems necessary to give greater precision to the ideas which it involves. The difference between the profit which can be made by the use of capital, and the interest which will be paid for it, is rightly characterized as wages of superintendence. But to infer from this that it is regulated by entirely the same principles as other wages, would be to push the analogy too far. It is wages, but wages paid by a commission upon the capital employed. If the general rate of profit is 10 per cent., and the rate of interest 5 per cent., the wages of superintendence will be 6 per cent. ; and though one borrower employ a capital of .£100,000, another no more than ^6100, the labour of both will be rewarded with the same percentage, though, in the one case, this sjTnbol will represent an income of £5, in the other case, of .£5,000. Yet it cannot be pretended that the labour of the two borrowers differs in this proportion. AND INTEREST. 105 The rule, therefore, that equal quantities of labour of equal hardness and skill are equally remunerated, does not hold of this kind of labour. The wages of any other labour are here an inapplicable criterion. The wages of superintendence are distinguished from ordinary wages by another peculiarity, that they are not paid in advance out of capital, like the wages of all other labourers, but m.erge in the profit, and are not realized until the production is completed. This takes them entirely out of the ordinary law of wages. The wages of labourers who are paid in advance, are regulated by the number of competitors . compared with the amount of capital ; the labourers can consume no more than what has been pre- viously accumulated. But there is no such limit to the remuneration of a kind of labour which is not paid for out of wealth previously accumulated, but out of that produce which it is itself employed in calling into existence. When these circumstances are duly weighed, it will be perceived, that although profit may be correctly analyzed into interest and wages of superintendence, we ought not to lay it down as the law of interest, that it is profits minus the wages of superintendence. Of the two expressions, it would be decidedly the more correct, that the wages of superintendence are regulated by the rate of interest, or are equal to profits minus interest. In strict propriety, neither expression would be allowable. Interest, and the wages of superintendence, can scarcely be said to depend upon one another. They are to one another in the same relation as wages and profits are. They are like two buckets in a well : when one rises the other descends, but neither of the two motions is the cause of the other ; both are simultaneous effects of the same cause, the turning of the windlass. There are among the capitalists of every country a con- siderable number who are habitually, and almost necessarily, 106 ON PROFITS lenders ; to whom scarcely any difference between what they could receive for their money and what could be made by it, would be an equivalent for incurring the risk and labour of carrying on business. In this predicament is the property of widows and orphans ; of many public bodies ; of charitable institutions ; most property which is vested in trustees ; and the property of a great number of per- sons unused to business, and who have a distaste for it, or whose other occupations prevent their engagiag in it. How large a proportion of the property lent to the nation comes under this description, has been pointed out in Mr. Tooke's " Considerations on the State of the Currency." There is another large class, consisting of bankers, bill- brokers, and others, who are money-lenders by profession ; who enter into that profession vfith the intention of making such gains as it will yield them, and who would not be in- duced to change their business by any but a very strong pecuniary inducement. There is, therefore, a large class of persons who are habitually lenders. On the other hand, all persons in business may be considered as habitually borrowers. Ex- cept ia times of stagnation, they are all desirous of extend- ing their business beyond their own capital, and are never desirous of lending any portion of their capital except for very short periods, during which they cannot advan- tageously invest it in their own trade. There is, in short, a productive class, and there is, besides, a class technically styled the monied class, who live upon the interest of their capital, without engaging personally in the work of production. The class of borrowers may be considered as unlimited. There is no quantity of capital that could be offered to be lent, which the productive classes would not be willing to borrow, at any rate of interest which would afford them the slightest excess of profit above a bare equivalent for AND INTEREST. 107 the additional risk, incurred by that transaction, of the evils attendant on insolvency. The only assignable limit to the inclination to borrow, is the power of giving security : the producers would find it difficult to borrow more than an amount equal to their own capital. If more than half the capital of the country were in the hands of persons who preferred lending it to engaging personally in business, and if the surplus were greater than could be invested in loans to Government, or in mortgages upon the property of unproductive consumers ; the competition of lenders would force down the rate of interest very low. A certain portion of the monied class would he obliged either to sacrifice their predilections by engaging in business, or to lend on iaferior security ; and they would accordingly accept, where they could obtain good security, an abatement of interest equivalent to the difference of risk. This is an extreme case. Let us put an extreme case of a contrary kind. Suppose that the wealthy people of any country, not relishing an idle life, and having a strong taste for gainful labour, were generally indisposed to accept of a smaller income in. order to be relieved from the labour and anxiety of business. Every producer in flourish- ing circumstances would be eager to borrow, and few willing to lend. Under these circumstances the rate of interest would differ very little from the rate of profit. The trouble of managing a business is not proportionally increased by an increase of the magnitude of the business ; and a very small surplus profit above the rate of interest, would there- fore be a sufficient inducement to capitalists to borrow. We may even conceive a people whose habits were such, that in order to induce them to lend, it might be necessary to offer them a rate of interest f uUy equal to the ordinary rate of profit. In that case, of course, the productive classes would scarcely ever borrow. But government, and the unproductive classes, who do not borrow in order to 108 ON PROFITS make a profit by the loan, but from the pressure of a real or supposed necessity, might still be ready to borrow at this high rate. Although the inclination to borrow has no fixed or necessary limit except the power of giving security, yet it always, in point of fact, stops short of this ; from the un- certainty of the prospects of any individual producer, which generally indisposes him to involve himseK to the full ex- tent of his means of payment. There is never auy per- manent want of market for things in general ; but there may be so for the commodity which any one individual is producing ; and even if there is a demand for the com- modity, people may not buy it of him but of some other. There are, consequently, never more than a portion of the producers, the state of whose business encourages them to add to their capital by borrowing ; and even these are dis- posed to borrow only as much as they see an immediate prospect of profitably employing. There is, therefore, a jjractical limit to the demands of borrowers at any given instant ; and when these demands are all satisfied, any additional capital offered on loan can find an investment only by a reduction of the rate of interest. The amount of borrowers being given (and by the amount of borrowers is here meant the aggregate sum which people are willing to borrow at some given rate), the rate of interest will depend upon the quantity of capital owned by people who are unwilling or unable to engage in trade. The circumstances which determine this, are, on the one hand, the degree in which a taste for business, or an aversion to it, happens to be prevalent among the classes possessed of property ; and on the other hand, the amount of the annual accumulation from the earnings of labour. Those who accumulate from their wages, fees, or salaries, have, of course (speaking generally), no means of investing their savings except by lending them to others : their occupa- -AND INTERKST. JQg tL7oTZT *''" ''■°" ^'"^^^^"^ -Perinteading an, dZl7 T'^ circumstances, then, the rate of interest depends, the amount of borrowers being given. And the counter-proposition equaUj holds, that, the above circum- stances bemg given, the rate of interest depends upon the amount of borrowers. Suppose, for example, that when the rate of interest has ^justed ztself to the existing state of the circumsUnces which affect the disposition to borrow and to lend, a war breaks out, which induces govermnent, for a series of years, to borrow annuaUj a large sum of money. Durmg the whole of this period, the rate of interest will remaii considerably above what it was before, and what it wiU be afterwards. Beforethe co-r^z^icucumoz^t cf tae supposea war, ail per- sons who "were disposed to lend at the then rate of interest, had found borrowers, and their capital was invested. This may be assumed ; for if any capital had been seeldng for a borrower at the existing rate of interest, and unable to find one, its owner would have offered it at a rate slightly below the existing rate. He would, for instance, have bought into the funds, at a slight advance of price ; and thus set at liberty the capital of some f undholder, who, the funds yielding a lower interest, would have been obliged to accept a lower interest from individuals. Since, then, all who were willing to lend their capital at the market-rate, have already lent it. Government will not be .able to borrow unless by offering liigher interest. Though, with the existing habits of the possessors of dis- posable capital, an increased number cannot be found who are willing to lend at the existing rate, there are doubtless some who will be induced to lend by the temptation of a higher rate. The same temptation will also induce some persons to invest, in the purchase of the new stock, what no ON PROFITS they would otherwise have expended unproductively in in- creasing their establishments, or prodnctively, in improving their estates. The rate of interest will rise just sufficiently to caU forth an increase of lenders to the amount required This we apprehend to he the cause why the rate of interest in this country was so high as it is well known to have been during the last war. It is, therefore, by no means to be inferred, as some have done, that the general rate of prohts was unusually high during the same period, because m- terest was so. Supposing the rate of profits to l^ave been precisely the same during the war, as before or after it, the rate of interest would neveriiheless have risen, from the causes and in the manner above described. The practical use of the preceding investigation is, to ..- j-_..„ +i,e confidence with which inferences are frequently drawn wit^ respect -to- iti-TSite. of frofit from evidence regarding the rate of interest ; and to show that although the rate of profit is one of the elements which combine to determine the rate of interest, the latter is also acted upon by causes peculiar to itself, and may either rise or fall, both temporarily and permanently, while the general rate of profits remains unchanged. The introduction of banks, which perform the function of lenders and loan-brokers, with or without that of issuers of paper-money, produces some further anomalies in the rate of interest, which have not, so far as we are aware, been hitherto brought within the pale of exact science. If bankers were merely a class of middlemen between the lender and the borrower ; if they merely received de- posits of capital from those who had it lying unemployed in their hands, and lent this, together with their own capital, to the productive classes, receiving Laterest for it, and paying interest iu their turn to those who had placed capital in their hands ; the effect of the operations of bank. AND INTEREST. Ill ing on the rate of interest would be to lower it in some slight degree. The banter receives and collects together sums of money much too small, when taken individually, to render it worth while for the owners to look out for an investment, but which in the aggregate form a considerable amount. This amount may be considered a clear addition to the productive capital of the country ; at least, to the capital in activity at any moment. And as this addition to the capital accrues wholly to that part of it which is not employed by the owners, but lent to other producers, the natural effect is a diminution of the rate of interest. The banker, to the extent of his own private capital (the expenses of his business being first paid), is a lender at interest. But, being subject to risk and trouble fully equal to that which belongs to most other employments, he cannot be satisfied with the mere interest even of his whole capital : he must have the ordinary profits of stock, or he will not engage in the business : the state of banking must be such as to hold out to him the prospect of adding, to the interest of what remains of his own capital after paying the expenses of his business, interest upon capital deposited with him, in sufficient amount to make up, aft^r paying the expenses, the ordinary profit which could be derived from his own capital in any productive employ- ment. This will be accomplished in one of two ways. 1. If the circumstances of society are such as to furnish a ready investment of disposable capital (as for instance in London, where the public funds and other securities, of undoubted stability, and affording great advantages for receiving the interest without trouble and reaHzuig the principal without difficulty when required, tempt all per- sons who have sums of importance lying idle, to invest them on their own account without the intervention of any middleman) ; the deposits with bankers consist chiefly of small sums likely to be wanted in a very short period for 112 ON PROFITS current expenses, and the interest on which would seldom be worth the trouble of calculating it. Bankers, therefore, do not aUow any interest on their dej)osits. After paying the expenses of their business, all the rest of the interest they receive is clear gain. But as the circumstances of banking, as of all other modes of employing capital, will on the average be such as to afford to a person entering into the business a prospect of reaUzing tlie ordinary, and no more than the ordinary, profits upon his own capital ; the gains of each banker by the investment of his deposits, will not on the average exceed what is necessary to make up his gains on his own capital to the ordinary rate. It is, of course, competition which brings about this limitation. Whether competition operates by lowering the rate of in- terest, or by dividing the business among a larger nunaber, it is difficult to decide. Probably it operates in both ways ; but it is by no means impossible that it may operate in the latter way alone : just as an increase in the number of physicians does not lower the fees, though it diminishes an average competitor's chance of obtaining them. It is not impossible that the disposition of the lenders might be such, that they would cease to lend rather than acquiesce in any reduction of the rate of interest. If so, the arrival of a new lender, in the person of a banker of deposit, would not lower the rate of interest in any con- siderable degree. A sUght fall would take place, and with that exception things would be as before, except that the capital in the hands of the banker would have put itself into the place of an equal portion of capital belonging to other lenders, who would themselves have engaged in business {e.g., by subscribing to some joint-stock company, or entering into commandite). Bankers' profits would then be limited to the ordinary rate chiefly by tlie division of the business among many banks, so that each on the average would receive no more interest on his deposits than AIs^D INTEREST. 113 would suffice to make up the interest on his own capital to the ordinary rate of profit after paying all expenses. 2. But if the circumstances of society render it difficult and inconvenient for persons who wish to live upon the interest of their money, to seek an investment for them- selves, the bankers become agents for this specific purpose : large as well as small sums are deposited with them, and they allow interest to their customers. Such is the practice of the Scotch banks, and of most of the country banks in England. Their customers, not living at any of the great seats of money transactions, prefer intrusting their capital to somebody on the spot, whom they know, and in whom they confide. He invests their money on the best terms he can, and pays to them such interest as he can afford to give ; retaining a compensation for his own risk and trouble. This compensation is fiied by the competition of the market. The rate of interest is no further lowered by this operation, than inasmuch as it brings together the lender and the borrower in a safe and expeditious manner. The lender incurs less risk, and a larger proportion, therefore, of the holders of capital are willing to be lenders. When a banker, in addition to his other functions, is also an issuer of paper money, he gains an advantage similar to that which the London bankers derive from their deposits. To the extent to which he can put forth his notes, he has so much the more to lend, without himself having to pay any interest for it. If the paper is convertible, it cannot get into circulation permanently without displacing specie, which goes abroad and brings back an equivalent value. To the extent of this value, there is an increase of the capital of the country ; and the increase accrues solely to that part of the capital which is employed in loans. If the paper is inconvertible, and instead of displacing specie depreciates the currency, the banker by issuing it 114 ON PROFITS levies a tax on every person who has money in his hands or due to him. He thus appropriates to himself a portion of the capital of other people, and a portion of their re- venue. The capital might have been intended to be lent, or it might have been intended to be employed by the owner : such part of it as was intended to be employed by the owner now changes its destination, and is lent. The revenue was either intended to be accumulated, in which case it had already become capital, or it was intended to be spent : in this last case, revenue is converted into capital : and thus, strange as it may appear, the depreciation of the currency, when effected in this way, operates to a certain extent as a forced accumulation. This, indeed, is no paUia- tion of its iniquity. Though A might have spent his pro- perty unproductively, B ought not to be permitted to rob him of it because B will expend it on productive labour. In any supposable case, however, the issue of paper money by banters increases the proportion of the whole capital of the country which is destined to be lent. The rate of interest must therefore fall, until some of the lenders give over lending, or until the increase of borrowers absorbs the whole. But a fall of the rate of interest, sufficient to enable the money market to absorb the whole of the paper-loans, may not be sufficient to reduce the profits of a lender who lends what costs him nothing, to the ordinary rate of profit upon his capital. Here, therefore, competition will operate chiefly by dividing the business. The notes of each bank will be confined within so narrow a district, or will divide the supply of a district with so many other banks, that on the average each will receive no larger amount of interest on his notes than will make up the interest on his own capital to the ordinary rate of profit. Even in this way, however, the competition has the effect, to a certain limited extent, of lowering the rate AND INTEREST. 115 of interest ; for the power of bankers to receive interest on more than their capital attracts a greater amount of capital into the banking business than would otherwise flow into it ; and this greater capital being all lent, interest wiU fall in consequence. ESSAY V. ON THE DEFINITION OF POLITICAL ECONOMY; AND ON THE METHOD OF INVESTIGATION PEOPEE TO IT.i IT might be imagined, on a superficial view of the nature and objects of definition, that the definition of a science would occupy the same place in the chronological which it commonly does in the didactic order. As a treatise on any science usually commences with an attempt to express, in a brief formula, what the science is, and wherein it differs from other sciences, so, it might be supposed, did the framing of such a formida naturally precede the suc- cessful cultivation of the science. This, however, is far from having been the case. The definition of a science has almost invariably not preceded, but followed, the creation of the science itself. Like the wall of a city, it has usually been erected, not to be a receptacle for such edifices as might afterwards spring up, but to circumscribe an aggregation already in existence. Mankind did not measure out the ground for intellectual cultivation before they began to plant it; they did not divide the field of human investigation into regular com- partments first, and then begin to collect truths for the ' This fifth essay was originally published in advance of the other four, viz., in the "Westminster Review" of October, 1S36. Here the latter part of the title ran : " the Method of Philo- .«ophical Investigation in that Science." — Ed. ON THE DEFINITION OF POLITICAX ECONOMY. 117 purpose of being therein deposited ; they proceeded in a less systematic manner. As discoTeries were gathered in, either one by one, or in groups resulting from the con- tinued prosecution of some uniform course of inquiry, the truths which were successively brought into store cohered and became agglomerated according to their individual affinities. Without any intentional classification, the facts classed themselves. They became associated in the miad, according to their general and obvious resemblances ; and the aggregates thus formed, having to be frequently spoken of as aggregates, came to be denoted by a common name. Any body of truths which had thus acqxured a collective denomination was called a science. It was long before this fortuitous classification was felt not to be sufficiently pre- cise. It was in a more advanced stage of the progress of knowledge that mankind became sensible of the advantage of ascertaining whether the facts which* they had thus grouped together were distinguished from all other facts by any common proj)erties, and what these were. The first attempts to answer this question were commonly very unskilful, and the consequent definitions extremely imperfect. And, in truth, there is scarcely any investigation in the whole body of a science requiring so high a degree of analysis aud abstraction, as the inquiry, what the science itself is ; in other words, what are the properties common to all the truths composing it, and distinguishing them from all other truths. Many persons, accordiiigly, who are pro- foundly conversant with the details of a science, would be very much at a loss to supply such a definition of the science itself as should not be liable to well-grounded logical objections. Prom this remark, we cannot except the authors of elementary scientific treatises. The definitions which those works furnish of the sciences, for the most part either do not fit them — some being too wide, some too 118 Oy THE DEFINITION narrow — or do not go deep enough into them, but define a science by its accidents, not its essentials ; by some one of its properties which may, indeed, serve the purpose of a distinguishing mark, but which is of too little importance to have ever of itself led mankind to give the science a name and rank as a separate object of study. The definition of a science must, indeed, be placed among that class of truths which Dugald Stewart had in view, when he observed that the first principles of all sciences be- long to the philosophy of the human miad. The observa- tion is just ; and the first principles of all sciences, includ- ing the definitions of them, have consequently participated hitherto in the vagueness and uncertainty which has per- vaded that most difficult and unsettled of all branches of knowledge. If we open any book, even of mathematics or natural philosophy, it is impossible not to be struck with the mistiness of what we find represented as preliminary and fundamantal notions, and the very insufficient manner in which the propositions which are palmed upon us as first principles seem to be made out, contrasted with the lucidity of the explanations and the conclusiveness of the proofs as soon as the writer enters upon the details of his subject. Whence comes this anomaly ? Why is the admitted cer- tainty of the results of those sciences in no way prejudiced by the want of solidity in their premises ? How happens it that a firm superstructure has been erected upon an un- stable foundation ? The solution of the paradox is, that what are called first principles, are in truth, last principles. Instead of being the fixed point from whence the chain of proof which supports all the rest of the science hangs sus- pended, they are themselves the remotest link of the chain. Though presented as if all other truths were to be deduced from them, they are the truths which are last an-ived at ; the result of the last stage of generalization, or of the last aud subtlest process of analysis, to which the i^articular OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 119 truths of the science can be subjected ; those particular truths having previously been ascertaiaed by the evidence proper to their own nature. Like other sciences. Political Economy has remained destitute of a definition framed on strictly logical prin- ciples, or even of, what is more easily to be had, a defini- tion exactly co-extensive with the thing defined. This has not, perhaps, caused the real bounds of the science to be, in this country at least, practically mistaken or overpassed ; but it has occasioned — perhaps we should rather say it is connected with — indefinite, and often erroneous, con- ceptions of the mode in which the science should be studied. We proceed to verify these assertions by an examina- tion of the most generally received definitions of the science. 1. First, as to the vulgar notion of the nature and object of Political Economy, we shall not be wide of the mark if we state it to be something to this effect : That Political Economy is a science which teaches, or professes to teach, in what manner a nation may be made rich. This notion of what constitutes the science, is in some degree coun- tenanced by the title and arrangement which Adam Smith gave to his invaluable work. A systematic treatise on Political Economy, he chose to call an " Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations ; " and the topics are introduced in. an order suitable to that view of the purpose of his book. With respect to the definition in question, if definition it can be called whicb is not found in any set form of words, but left to be arrived at by a process of abstraction from a hundred current modes of speaking on the subject ; it seems liable to the conclusive objection, that it confounds the essentially distinct, though closely connected, ideas of science and art. These two ideas differ from one another 120 ox THE DEFINITION as the understanding differs from the will, or as the indica- tive mood in grammar differs from the imperative. The one deals in facts, the other in precepts. Science is a collection of truths ; art, a body of rules, or directions for conduct. The language of science is, This is, or. This is not ; This does, or does not, happen. The language of art is. Do this ; Avoid that. Science takes cognizance of a phenomenon, and endeavours to discover its law; art proposes to itself an end, and looks out for means to effect it. If, therefore. Political Economy be a science, it cannot be a collection of practical rules ; though, unless it be altogether a useless science, practical rules must be capable of being founded upon it. The science of me- chanics, a branch of iiatural philosophy, lays down the laws of motion, and the properties of what are called the mechanical powers. The art of practical mechanics teaches how we may avail ourselves of those laws and properties, to increase our command over external nature. An art would not be an art, unless it were founded upon a scien- tific knowledge of the properties of the subject-matter: without this, it would not be philosophy, but empiricism ; t/m-iipla, not rt'^vj), in Plato's sense. Rules, therefore, for making a nation increase in wealth, are not a science, but they are the results of science. Political Economy does not of itself instruct how to make a nation rich ; but whoever would be qualified to judge of the means of making a nation rich, must first be a political economist. 2. The definition most generally received among in- structed persons, and laid down in the commencement of most of the professed treatises on the subject, is to the following effect : That Political Economy informs us of the laws which regulate the production, distribution, and consumption of wealth. To this definition is frequently appended a familiar illustration. Political Economy, it OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 121 is said, is to the state, what domestic economy is to the family.' This definition is free from the fault which we pointed out in the former one. It distinctly takes notice that Political Economy is a science and not an art ; that it is conversant with laws of nature, not with maxims of con- duct, and teaches us how things take place of themselves, not in what manner it is advisable for us to shape them, in order to attain some particular end. But though the definition is, with regard to this par- ticular point, unobjectionable, so much can scarcely be said for the accompanying illustration ; which rather sends back the mind to the current loose notion of Political Economy already disposed of. PoHtical Economy is really, and is stated in the definition to be, a science : but do- mestic economy, so far as it is capable of being reduced to principles, is an art. It consists of rules, or maxims of prudence, for keeping the family regularly supplied with what its wants require, and securing, with any given amount of means, the greatest possible quantity of physical comfort and enjoyment. Undoubtedly the beneficial result, the great practical ajpplication of Political Economy, would be to accomplish for a nation something like what the most perfect domestic economy accomplishes for a single household: but supposing this purpose realized, there would be the same difference between the rules by which it might be effected, and Political Economy, which there is between the art of gunnery and the theory of projectiles, or between the rules of mathematical land-surveying and the science of trigonometry. The definition, though not liable to the same objection ' This is James Mill's definition. His first sentence in the " In- troduction " to his " Elements of Political Economy" is : " Political Economy is to the State what domestic economy is to the family " (3rd ed., p. 1).— Ed. 122 ON THE DEFINITION as the illustration ■wMch is annexed to it, is itself far froni unexceptionable. To neither of them, considered as stand- ing at the head of a treatise, have we much to object. At a very early age in the study of the science, anything more accurate would be useless, and therefore pedantic. In a merely initiatory definition, scientific precision is not re- quired : the object is, to insinuate into the learner's mind, it is scarcely material by what means, some general pre- conception of what are the uses of the pursuit, and what the series of topics through which he is about to travel. As a mere anticipation or ebauche of a definition, intended to indicate to a learner as. much as he is able to under- stand before he begins, of the nature of what is about to be taught to him, we do not quarrel with the received formula. But if it claims to be admitted as that complete definitio or boundary-line, which restdts from a thorough exploring of the whole extent of the subject, and is intended to mark the exact place of Political Economy among the sciences, its pretension cannot be allowed. " The science of the laws which regulate the production, distribution, and consumption of wealth." The term wealth is surrounded by a haze of floating and vapoury associa- tions, which will let nothing that is seen through them be shewn distinctly. Let us supply its place by a periphrasis. Wealth is defined, all objects useful or agreeable to man- kind, except such as can be obtained in indefinite quantity without labour. Instead of all objects, some authorities say, all material objects : the distinction is of no moment for the present purpose. To confine ourselves to production : if the laws of the production of all objects, or even of all material objects, which are useful or agreeable to mankind, were comprised in Political Economy, it would be difficult to say where the science would end : at the least, all or nearly all physical knowledge would be included. in it. Corn and OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 123 cattle are material objects, in a higli degi'ee useful to man- kind. The laws of the production of the one include the principles of agriculture ; the production of the other is the subject of the art of cattle-breeding, which, in so far as really an art., must be built upon the science of physiology. The laws of the production of manufactured articles involve the whole of chemistry and the whole of mechanics. The laws of the production of the wealth which is extracted from the bowels of the earth, can- not be set forth without taking in a large part of geology. When a definition so manifestly surpasses in extent what it professes to define, we must suppose that it is not meant to be interpreted literally, though the limitations with which it is to be understood are not stated. Perhaps it will be said, that Political Economy is con- versant with such only of the laws of the production of wealth as are applicable to all kinds of wealth : those which relate to the details of particular trades or employ- ments forming the subject of other and totally distinct sciences. If, however, there were no more in the distinction be- tween Political Economy and physical science than this, the distinction, we may venture to afiirm, would never have been made. No similar division exists in any other department of knowledge. We do not break up zoology or mineralogy into two parts ; one treating of the pro- perties common to all animals, or to all minerals ; another conversant with the properties peculiar to each particular species of animals or minerals. The reason is obvious ; there is no distinction in kind between the general laws of animal or of mineral nature and the peculiar properties of particular species. There is as close an analogy between the general laws and the particular ones, as there is between one of the general laws and another: most commonly. 124 ON THE DEFINITION indeed, the particular laws are but the complex result of a plurality of general laws modifying eacli other. A separation, therefore, between the general laws and the particular ones, merely because the former are general and the latter particular, would run counter both to the strongest motives of convenience and to the natural ten- dencies of the mind. If the case is different with the laws of the production of wealth, it must be because, in this case, the general laws differ in kind from the par- ticular ones. But if so, the difference in kind is the radical distinction, and we should find out what that is, and found our definition upon it. But, further, the recognised boundaries which separate the field of Political Economy from that of physical science, by no means correspond with the distinction between the truths which concern all kinds of wealth and those which relate only to some kinds. The three laws of motion, and the law of gravitation, are common, as far as human observation has yet extended, to all matter ; and these, therefore, as being among the laws of the production of all wealth, should form part of Political Economy. There are hardly any of the processes of industry which do not partly depend upon the properties of the lever ; but it would be a strange classification which included those properties among the truths of Political Economy. Again, the latter science has many inquiries altogether as special, and relating as exclusively to particular sorts of material objects, as anj^ of the branches of physical science. The investigation of some of the circumstances which regulate the price of corn, has as little to do with the laws common to the production of all wealth, as any part of the knowledge of the agriculturist. The inquiry into the rent of mines or fisheries, or into the value of the precious metals, elicits truths which have immediate reference to the production solely of a peculiar kind of wealth; yet OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 125 these are admitted to be correctly placed in tlie science of Political Economy. The real distinction between Political Economy and physical science must be sought in something deeper than the nat\u-e of the subjecfrmatter ; which, indeed, is for the most part common to both. Political Economy, and the scientific grounds of all the useful arts, have in truth one and the same subject-matter ; namely, the objects which conduce to man's convenience and enjoyment: but they are, nevertheless, perfectly distinct branches of knowledge. 3. If we contemplate the whole field of human know- ledge, attained or attainable, we find that it separates itself obviously, and as it were spontaneously, into two divisions, which stand so strikingly in opposition and con- tradistinction to one another, that in all classifications of our knowledge they have been kept apart. These are, physical science, and moral or psychological science. The difference between these two departments of our know- ledge does not reside in the subject-matter with which they are conversant : for although, of the simplest and most elementary parts of each, it may be said, with an approach to truth, that they ai-e concerned with different subject-matters — namely, the one with the human mind, the other with aU things whatever except the mind ; this distinction does not hold between the higher regions of the two. Take the science of politics, for instance, or that of law : who wUl say that these are physical sciences ? and yet is it not obvious that they are conversant fully as much with matter as with mind ? Take, again, the theory of music, of painting, of any other of the fine arts, and who will venture to pronounce that the facts they are con- versant with belong either wholly to. the class of matter, or wholly to that of mind ? The following seems to be the rationale of the distinction between physical and moral science. 126 ON THE DEFINITION In all the intercourse of man with nature, whether we consider him as acting upon it, or as receiving impressions from it, the effect or phenomenon depends upon causes of two kinds : the properties of the object acting, and those of the object acted upon. Everything which can possibly happen in which man and external things are jointly con- cerned, results from the joint operation of a law or laws of matter, and a law or laws of the human mind. Thus the production of com by human labour is the result of a law of mind, and maay laws of matter. The laws of matter are those properties of the soil and of vegetable life which cause the seed to germinate in the ground, and those properties of the human body which render food necessary to its support. The law of mind is, that man desires to possess subsistence, and consequently wills the necessary means of procuring it. Laws of mind and laws of matter are so dissimilar in their nature, that it would be contrary to all principles of rational arrangement to mix them up as part of the same study. In all scientific methods, therefore, they are placed apart. Any compound effect or phenomenon which depends both on the properties of matter and on those of mind, may thus become the subject of two completely distinct sciences, or branches of science; one, treating of the phenomenon in so far as it depends upon the laws of matter only ; the other treating of it in so far as it depends upon the laws of mind. The physical sciences are those which treat of the laws of matter, and of all complex phenomena in so far as dependent upon the laws of matter. The mental or moral sciences are those which treat of the laws of mind, and of all complex phenomena in so far as dependent upon the laws of mind. Most of the moral sciences presuppose physical science ; but few of the physical sciences presuppose moral science." OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 127 The reason is obvious. There are many phenomena (an earthquake, for example, or the motions of the planets) •which depend upon the laws of matter exclusively ; and have nothing whatever to do with the laws of mind. Many, therefore, of the physical sciences may be treated of without auy reference to mind, and as if the mind existed as a recipient of knowledge only, not as a cause producing effects. But there are no phenomena which depend exclusively upon the laws of miad; even the phenomena of the mind itself being partially dependent upon the physiological laws of the body. All the mental sciences, therefore, not excepting the pure science of mind, must take account of a great variety of physical truths ; and (as physical science is commonly and very properly studied first) may be said to presuppose them, taking up the complex phenomena where physical science leaves them. Now this, it will be found, is a precise statement of the relation in which Political Economy stands to the various sciences which are tributary to the arts of production. The laws of the production of the objects which con- stitute wealth, are the subject-matter both of Political Economy and of almost all the physical sciences. Such, however, of those laws as are purely laws of matter, belong to physical science, and to that exclusively. Such of them as are laws of the human mind, and no others, belong to Political Economy, which finally sums up the result of both combined. Political Economy, therefore, presupposes all the physical sciences ; it takes for granted all such of the truths of those sciences as are concerned in the production of the objects demanded bj- the wants of mankind ; or at least it takes for granted that the physical part of the process takes place somehow. It then inquires what are the phenomena of mind which are concerned in the production 128 ON THE DEFINITION and distribution ^ of those same objects ; it borrows from the pure science of mind the laws of those phenomena, and inquires what effects follow from these mental laws, acting in concurrence with those ^jhysical ones.^ From the above considerations the following seems to come out as the correct and complete definition of Political Economy : " The science which treats of the production and distribution of wealth, so far as they depend upon the laws of human nature." Or thus — ■" The science relating to the moral or psychological laws of the produc- tion and distribution of wealth." '■ We say, the production and distribtition, not, as is usual with writers on this science, the production, distribution, and conmtmp- tion. For we contend that Political Econony, as conceived by those very writers, has nothing to do with the consumption of wealth, further than as the consideration of it is inseparable from that of production, or from that of dii?tribution. We know not of any laws of the consumption of wealth as the subject of a distinct science : they can be no other than the laws of human enjoyment. Political economists have never treated of consumption on its own account, but always for the purpose of the inquiry in what manner different kinds of consumption affect the production and distri- bution of wealth. Under the head of Consumption, in professed treatises on the science, the following are the subjects treated of : 1st, The distinction between productive and unproductive con- sumption ; 2nd, The inquiry whether it is possible for too much wealth to be produced, and for too great a portion of what has been produced to be applied to the purpose of further productioti; 3rd, The theory of taxation, that is to say, the following two questions — by whom each particular tax is paid (a question of dis- tribution), and in what manner particular taxes a.fLect production. ^ The physical laws of the production of useful objects are all equally presupposed by the science of Political Economy : most of them, however, it presupposes in the gross, seeming to say nothing about them. A few (such, for instance, as the decreasing ratio in which the produce of the soil is increased by an increased appli- cation of labour) it is obliged particularly to specify, and thus seems to borrow those truths from the physical sciences to which they properly belong, and include them among its own. OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 129 For popular use this definition is amply sufiicient, but it still falls short of the complete accuracy required for •the purposes of the philosopher. Political Economy does not treat of the production and distribution of wealth in all states of mankind, but only in what is termed the social state ; nor so far as they depend upon the laws of human nature, but only so far as they depend upon a certain portion of those laws. This, at least, is the view which must be taken of Political Economy, if we mean it to find any place in an encyclopedical division of the field of science. On any other view, it either is not science at all, or it is several sciences. This will appear clearly, if, on the one hand, we take a general survey of the moral sciences, with a view to assign the exact place of Political Economy among them ; while, on the other, we consider attentively the nature of the methods or processes by which the truths which are the object of those sciences are arrived at. Man, who, considered as a being having a moral or mental nature, is the subject-matter of all the moral sciences, may, with reference to that part of his nature, form the subject of philosophical inquiry under several distinct hypotheses. We may inquire what belongs to man considei^ed individually, and as if no human being existed besides himself; we may next consider him as coming into contact with other individuals ; and finally, as living in a state of society, that is, forming part of a body or aggregation of human beings, systematically co-operating for common purposes. Of this last state, political govern- ment, or subjection to a common superior, is an ordiuaxy ingredient, but forms no necessary part of the conception, and, with respect to our present purpose, needs not be further adverted to. Those laws or properties of human nature which apper- tain to man as a mere individual, and do not presuppose, I. K 130 ox THE DEFIX"1TI0>" as a necessary condition, the existence of other individuals (except, perhaps, as mere instrumeuts or means), form a part of the subject of pure mental philosophy. They' comprise all the laws of the mere intellect, and those of the purely self-regarding desires. Those laws of human nature which relate to the feelings called forth in a human being by other individual human or intelligent beings, as such ; namely, the affections, the conscience, or feeling of duty, and the love of approbation ; and to the conduct of man, so far as it depends upon, or has relation to, these parts of his nature — form the subject of another portion of pure mental philosophy, namely, that portion of it on which morals, or ethics, are founded. For morality itseK is not a science, but an art ; not truths, but rules. The truths on which the rules are founded are drawn (as is the case in all arts) from a variety of sciences ; but the principal of them, and those which are most nearly peculiar to this particular art, belong to a branch of the science of mind. Finally, there are certain principles of human nature which are peculiarly connected with the ideas and feelings generated in man by living in a state of society, that is, by forming part of a union or aggregation of human beings for a common purpose or purposes. Few, indeed, of the elementary laws of the human mind are peculiar to this state, almost all being called into action in the two other states. But those simple laws of human nature, operating in that wider field, give rise to results of a sufficiently universal character, and even (when com^sared with the still more complex phenomena of which they are the deter- mining causes) sufficiently simple, to admit of being called, though in a somewhat looser sense, laius of society, or laws of human nature in the social state. These laws, or general truths, form the subject of a branch of science which may be aptly desiguat^ed from the title of social OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 131 economy ; somewhat less happily by that of speculative politics, or the science of politics, as contradistinguished from the art. This science stands in the same relation to the social, as anatomy and physiology to the physical body. It shows by what principles of his nature man is induced to enter into a state of society ; how this feature in his position acts upon his interests and feelings, and through them upon his conduct ; how the association tends pro- gressively to become closer, and the co-operation extends itself to more and more purposes ; what those purposes are, and what the varieties of means most generally adopted for furthering them ; what are the various rela- tions which establish themselves among human beings as the ordinary consequence of the social union ; what those which are different in different states of society ; in what historical order those states tend to succeed one another ; and what are the effects of each upon the conduct and character of man. This branch of science, whether we prefer to call it social economy, speculative politics, or the natural history of society, jjresupposes the whole science of the nature of the individual mind ; since all the laws of which the latter science takes cognizance are brought into play in a state of society, and the truths of the social science are but state- ments of the manner in which those simple laws take effect in complicated circumstances. Pure mental philo- sophy, therefore, is an essential part, or preliminary, of political philosophy. The science of social economy em- braces eveiy part of man's nature, in so far as influencing the conduct or condition of man in society ; and therefore may it be termed speculative politics, as being the scientific foundation of practical politics, or the art of government, of which the art of legislation is a part.' ' The science of legislation is an incorrect and misleading ex- pression. Legislation is making laws. We do not talk of the 132 ON THE DEFINITION It is to this important division of the field of science that one of the -writers -who have most correctly conceived and copiously illustrated its nature and limits, — we mean M. Say, — has chosen to give the name Political Economy. And, indeed, this large extension of the signification of that term is countenanced by its etymology. But the words " political economy " have long ceased to have so large a meaning. Every writer is entitled to use the words which are his tools in the manner which he judges most conducive to the general purposes of the exposition of truth ; but he exercises this discretion under liability to criticism : and M. Say seems to have done in this instance, what should never be done without strong reasons ; to have altered the meaning of a name which was appro- priated to a particular purpose (and for which, therefore, a substitute must be provided), in order to transfer it to an object for which it was easy to find a more characteristic denomination. What is now commonly understood by the term " Politi- cal Economy " is not the science of speculative politics, but a branch of that science. It does not treat of the whole of man's nature as modified by the social state, nor of the whole conduct of man in society. It is concerned with him solely as a being who desires to possess wealth, and who is capable of judging of the comparative efficacy of means for obtaining that end. It predicts only such of the phenomena of the social state as take place in con- sequence of the pursuit of wealth. It makes entire sfleiice of inaHng anything. Even the science ofgovernmait would be an objectionable expression, were it not that govcrmneiit is often loosely taken to signify, not the act of governing, but the state or condition of being governed, or of living under a govern- ment. A preferable expression would be, the science of political society ; a principal branch of the more extensive science of society, characterized in the text. OF rOLITICAL ECONOMY. 133 abstraction of every other human passion or motive ; except those which may be regarded as perpetually an- tagonizing principles to the desire of wealth, namely, aver- sion to labour, and desire of the present enjoyment of costly indulgences. These it takes, to a certain extent, into its calcula,tions, because these do not merely, lite other desires, occasionally conflict with the pursuit of wealth, but accompany it always as a drag, or impediment, and are therefore inseparably mixed up in the considera- tion of it. Political Economy considers mankind as occu- pied solely in acquiring and consuming wealth ; and aims at showing what is the course of action into which man- kind, living in a state of society, would be impelled, if that motive, except in the degree in which it is checked by the two perpetual counter-motives above adverted to, were absolute ruler of all their actions. Under the influence of this desire, it shows mankind accumulating wealth, and employing that wealth in the production of other wealth ; sanctioning by mutual agreement the institution of pro- perty ; establishing laws to prevent individuals from en- croaching upon the property of others by force or fraud ; adopting various contrivances' for increasing the pro- ductiveness of their labour ; settling the division of the produce by agreement, under the influence of competition (competition itself being governed by certain laws, which laws are therefore the ultimate regulators of the division of the produce) ; and employing certain expedients (as money, credit, etc.) to facihtate the distribution. All these operations, though many of them are really the result of a plurality of motives, are considered by Political Economy as flowing solely from the desire of wealth. The science then proceeds to investigate the laws which govern these several operations, under the supposition that man is a being who is determined, by the necessity of his nature, to prefer a greater portion of wealth to a smaller in all 134 ON THE DEFINITION cases, ■without any other exception than that constituted by the two counter-motives ah-eady specified. Not that any political economist was ever so absurd as to suppose that mantind are really thus constituted, but because this is the mode in which science must necessarily proceed. When an effect depends upon a concurrence of causes, those causes must be studied one at a time, and their laws separately investigated, if we wish, through the causes, to obtain the power of either predicting or controlUng the effect; since the law of the effect is compounded of the laws of all the causes which determine it. The law of the centripetal and that of the tangential force must have been known before the motions of the earth and planets could be explained, or many of them predicted. The same is the case with the conduct of man in society. In order to judge how he will act under the variety of desires and aversions which are concurrently operating upon him, we must know how he would act under the exclusive influence of each one in particular. There is, perhaps, no action of a man's life in which he is neither under the immediate nor under the remote influence of any impulse but the mere desire of wealth. With resjsect to those parts of human conduct of which wealth is not even the principal object, to these Political Economy does not pretend that its conclusions are applicable. But there are also certain departments of human affairs, in which the acquisition of wealth is the main and acknowledged end. It is only of these that Political Economy takes notice. The manner in which it necessarily proceeds is that of treating the main and acknowledged end as if it were the sole end ; which, of all hypotheses equally simple, is the nearest to the truth. The political economist inquires, what are the actions which would be produced by this desire, if, within the departments in question, it were unimpeded by any other. In this way a nearer appi-oximation is obtained OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 135 than would otherwise be jDracticable, to the real order of human affairs in those departments. This approximation is then to be corrected by making proper allowance for the effects of any impulses of a different description, which can be shown to interfere with the result in any particular case. Only in a few of the most striking cases (such as the important one of the principle of population) are these corrections interpolated into the expositions of Political Economy itself ; the strictness of purely scientific arrange- ment being thereby somewhat departed from, for the sake of practical utility. So far as it is known, or may be pre- sumed, that the conduct of mankind in the pursuit of wealth is under the collateral influence of any other of the properties of our nature than the desire of obtaining the greatest quantity of wealth with the least labour and self- denial, the conclusions of Pohtical Economy will so far fail of being applicable to the explanation or prediction of real events, until they are modified by a correct allowance for the degree of influence exercised by the other cause. Political Economy, then, may be defined as follows ; and the definition seems to be complete : " The science which traces the laws of such of the phenomena of society as arise from the combined opera- tions of mankind for the production of wealth, in so far as those phenomena are not modified by the pursuit of any other object." But while this is a correct definition of Political Economy as a portion of the field of science, the didactic writer on the subject will naturally combine in his exposition, with the truths of the pure science, as many of the practical modifications as will, in his estimation, be most conducive to the usefulness of his work. The above attempt to fiume a stricter definition of the science than what are commonly received as such, maj- be 136 ox THE DEFINITION thought to be of little use ; or, at best, to be chiefly useful iu a general survey and classification of the sciences, rather than as conducing to the more successful pursuit of the particular science in question. We thint otherwise, and for this reason ; that, with the consideration of the defini- tion of a science, is inseparably connected that of the 2)hilosophic method of the science ; the nature of the process by which its investigations are to be carried on, its truths to be arrived at. Now, in whatever science there are systematic difierences of opinion — which is as much as to say, in all the moral or mental sciences, and in Political Economy among the rest ; in whatever science there exist, among those who have attended to the subject, what are commonly called dif- ferences of principle, as distinguished from differences of matter-of-fact or detail, — the cause will be found to be, a difference in their conceptions of the philosophic method of the science. The parties who differ are guided, either knowingly or unconsciously, by different views concerning the nature of the evidence appropriate to the subject. They differ not solely in what they believe themselves to see, but in the quarter whence they obtained the light by which they think they see it. The most tmiversal of the forms in which this difference of method is accustomed to present itself, is the ancient feud between what is called theory, and what is called practice or experience. There are, on social and political questions, two kinds of reasoners : there is one portion who term themselves practical men, and call the others theorists ; a title which the latter do not reject, though they by no means recognize it as peculiar to them. The distinction between the two is a very broad one, though it is one of which the language employed is a most incorrect exponent. It has been again and again demonstrated, that tliose who are accused of despising facts and disregarding OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 137 experience build and profess to build wholly upon facts and experience ; while those who disavow theory cannot make one step without theorizing. But, although both classes of inquirers do nothing but theorize, and both of them consult no other guide than experience, there is this dif- ference between them, and a most important difference it is : that those who are called practical men requii-e specific experience, and argue wholly upwards from particular facts to a general conclusion ; while those "who are called theorists aim at embracing a wider field of experience, and, having argued upwards from particular facts to a general principle including a much wider range than that of the question under discussion, then argue downwards from that general principle to a variety of specific conclusions. Suppose, for example, that the question were, whether absolute kings were likely to employ the powers of govern- ment for the welfare or for the oppression of their subjects. The practicals would endeavour to determine this question by a direct induction from the conduct of particular despotic monarchs, as testified by history. The theorists "would refer the question to be decided by the test not solely of our experience of kings, but of our experience of men. They would contend that an observation of the tendencies which nature has manifested in the variety of situations in which human beings have been placed, and especially observation of what passes in our own minds, warrants us in inferring that a human being in the situa- tion of a despotic king will make a bad use of power ; and that this conclusion would lose nothing of its certainty even if absolute kings had never existed, or if history fur- nished us with no information of the manner in which they had conducted themselves. The first of these methods is a method of induction, merely ; the last a mixed method of induction and ratio- cination. The first may be called the method a posteriori ; 138 ON THE DEFINITION the latter, the method a priori. We are aware that this last expression is sometimes used to characterize a supposed raode of philosophizing, which does not profess to be founded upon experience at all. But we are not acquainted with any mode of philosophizing, on political subjects at least, to which such a description is fairly applicable. By the method a posteriori we mean that which requires, as the basis of its conclusions, not experience merely, but specific experience. By the method a priori we mean (what has commonly been meant) reasoning from an assumed hypothesis ; which is not a practice confined to mathematics, but is of the essence of all science which admits of geneiul reason at all. To verify the hypothesis itself a posteriori, that is, to examine whether the facts of any actual case are in accordance with it, is no part of the business of science at all, but of the application of science. In the definition which we have attempted to frame of the science of Political Economy, we have characterized it as essentially an abstract science, and its method as the method a priori. Such is undoubtedly its character as it has been understood and taught by all its most dis- tinguished teachers. It reasons, and, as we contend, must necessarily reason, from assumptions, not from facts. It is built upon hypothesis, strictly analogous to those which, under the name of definitions, are the foundation of the other abstract sciences. Geometry presupposes an arbitrary definition of a line, " that which has length but not breadth." Just in the same manner does Political Economy presuppose an arbitrary definition of man, as a being who invariably does that by which he may obtain the greatest amount of necessaries, conveniences, and luxuries, with the smallest quantity of labour and physical self-denial with which they can be obtained in the existing state of know- ledge. It is true that this definition of man is not formally OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 139 prefixed to any work on Political Economy, as the definition of a line is prefixed to Euclid's Elements ; and in pro- portion as by being so prefixed it would be less in danger of being forgotten, we may see ground for regret that this is not done. It is proper that what is assumed in every particular case, should once for all be brought before the mind in its full extent, by being somewhere formally stated as a general maxim. Now, no one who is conversant with systematic treatises on Political Economy will question, that whenever a political economist has shown that, by acting in a particular manner, a labourer may obviously obtain higher wages, a capitalist larger profits, or a land- lord higher rent, he concludes, as a matter of course, that they will certainly act in that manner. Political Economy, therefore, reasons from assumed premises — from premises which might be totally without foundation in fact, and which are not pretended to be universally in accordance with it. The conclusions of Political Economy, conse- quently, like those of geometry, are only true, as the com- mon phrase is, in the abstract ; that is, they are only true under certain suppositions, in which none but general causes — causes common to the whole class of cases under consideration — are taken into the account. This ought not to be denied by the political economist. If he deny it, then, and then only, he places himself in the wrong. The a priori method which is laid to his charge, as if his employment of it proved his whole science to be worthless, is, as we shall presently show, the only method by which truth can possibly be attained in any department of the social science. AU that is requisite is, that he be on his guard not to ascribe to conclusions which are grounded upon an hypothesis a diffei-ent kind of certainty from that which really belongs to them. They would be true without qualification, only in a case which is purely imaginary. In propoi'tion as the actual facts recede 140 ON THE DEFINITION from the hypothesis, he must allow a con-esponding devia- tion from the strict letter of his conclusion ; otherwise it will be true only of things such as he has arbitrarily supposed, not of such things as really exist. That which is true in the abstract, is always true in the concrete with proper allowances. When a certain cause really exists, and r£ left to itself would infallibly produce a certain effect, that same effect, modified by all the other concurrent causes, will correctly^ correspond to the result really produced. The conclusions of geometry are not strictly true of such lines, angles, and figures, as human hands can construct. But no one, therefore, contends that the conclusions of geometry are of no utility, or that it would be better to shut up Euclid's Elements, and content ourselves with " practice " and " experience." No mathematician ever thought that his definition of a line corresponded to an actual line. As little did any political economist ever imagine that real men had no object of desire but wealth, or none which would not give way to the slightest motive of a pecuniary kind. But they were justified in assuming this, for the purposes of their argument ; because they had to do only with those parts of human conduct which have pecuniary advantage for their direct and principal object ; and because, as no two indi- vidual cases are exactly alike, no general maxims could ever be laid down unless some of the circumstances of the particular case were left out of consideration. But we go farther than to afiirm that the method a priori is a legitimate mode of philosophical investigation in the moral sciences : we contend that it is the only mode. We afiirm that -the method a posteriori, or that of specific experience, is altogether inefl&cacious in those sciences, as a means of arriving at any considerable body of valuable truth ; though it admits of being usefully applied in aid of OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 141 the method a priori, and even forms an indispensable supplement to it. There is a property common to almost all the moral sciences, and by which they are distiugxushed from many of the physical ; this is, that it is seldom in our power to make experiments in them. In chemistry and natural philosophy, we can not only observe what happens under all the combinations of circumstances which nature brings together, but we may also try an indefinite number of new combinations. This we can seldom do in ethical, and scarcely ever in political science. We cannot try forms of government and systems of national policy on a diminutive scale in. our laboratories, shaping our experiments as we think they may most conduce to the advancement of know- ledge. We therefore study nature under circumstances of great disadvantage in these sciences ; being confined to the limited number of experiments which; take place (if we may so speak) of their own accord, without any prepara- tion or management of ours ; in circumstances, moreover, of great complexity, and never perfectly known to us ; and with the far greater part of the processes concealed from our observation. The consequence of this unavoidable defect in the materials of the induction is, that we can rarely obtain what Bacon has quaintly, but not unaptly, termed an experimentum crucis. In any science which admits of an unlimited range of arbitrary experiments, an experimentum crucis may always be obtained. Being able to vary all the circum- stances, we can always take effectual means of ascertaining which of them are, and which are not, material. Call the effect B, and let the question be whether the cause A in any wav contributes to it. We try an experiment in which all the surrounding circumstances are altered, except A alone : if the effect B is nevertheless produced, A is the 142 ON THE DEFINITION cause of it. Or, instead of leaving A, and changing the otlier circumstances, we leave all the other circumstaaces and change A : if the effect B in that case does not take place, then again A is a necessary condition of its existence. Either of these experiments, if accurately performed, is an experimentum crucis ; it converts the presumption we had before of the existence of a connection between A and B into proof, by negativing every other hypothesis which would account for the appearances. But this can seldom be done in the moral sciences, owing to the immense multitude of the influencing cir- cumstances, and our very scanty means of varying the experiment. Even in operating upon an individual mind, which is the case affording greatest room for experiment- ing, we cannot often obtain a crucial experiment. The effect, for example, of a particular circumstance in educa- tion, upon the formation of character, may be tried in a variety of cases, but we can hardly ever be certain that any two of those cases differ in all their circumstances except the solitary one of which we wish to estimate the influence. In how much greater a degree must this diffi- culty exist in the affairs of states, where even the number of recorded experiments is so scanty in comparison with the variety and multitude of the circumstances concerned in each. How, for example, can we obtain a crucial exjaeri- ment on the effect of a restrictive commercial policy upon national wealth r We must find two nations alike in every other respect, or at least possessed, in a degree exactly equal, of every thing which conduces to national opulence, and adopting exactly the same pohcy in all their other affairs, but differing in this only, that one of them adopts a system of commercial restrictions, and the other adopts free trade. This would be a decisive experiment, similar to those which we cau almost always obtain in experimental physics. Doubtless this would be the most conclusive OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 143 evidence of all if we could get it. But let anyone consider how infinitely numerous and various are the circumstances which either directly or indirectly do or may influence the amount of the national wealth, and then ask himself what are the probabilities that in the longest revolution of ages two nations will be found, which agree, and can be shown to agree, in all those circumstances except one ? Since, therefore, it is vain to hope that truth can be arrived at, either in Political Economy or in any other department of the social science, while we look at the facts in the concrete, clothed in all the complexity with which nature has surrounded them, and endeavour to elicit a general law by a process of induction from a comparison of details ; there remains no other method than the a priori one, or that of " abstract speculation." Although sufficiently ample grounds are not afforded in the field of politics, for a satisfactory induction by a com- parison of the effects, the causes may, in all cases, be made the subject of specific experiment. These causes are, laws of human nature, and external circumstances capable of exciting the human will to action. The desires of man, and the natxire of the conduct to which they prompt him, are within the i-each of our observation. We can also observe what are the objects which excite those desires. The materials of this knowledge everyone can principally collect within himself ; with reasonable consideration of the differences, of which experience discloses to him the exis- tence, between himself and other people. Knowing there- fore accurately the properties of the substances concerned, we may reason with as much certainty as in the most demonstrative jiarts of physics from any assumed set of cii'cumstances. This will be mere trifling if the assumed circumstances bear no sort of resemblance to any real ones; but if the assumption is correct as far as it goes, and differs from the truth no otherwise than as a part differs from the 144 ON THE DEFINITION whole, then the conclusions which are correctly deduced from the assumption constitute abstract truth ; and when completed by adding or subtracting the effect of the non- calculated circumstances, they are true in the concrete, and may be applied to practice. Of this character is the science of Political Economy in the writings of its best teachers. To render it perfect as an abstract science, the combinations of circumstances which it assumes, in order to trace their effects, should embody all the circumstances that are common to all cases whatever, and likewise all the circumstances that are common to any important class of cases. The conclusions correctly deduced from these assumptions, would be as true in the abstract as those of mathematics ; and would be as near an approximation as abstract truth can ever be, to truth in the concrete. When the principles of Political Economy are to be applied to a particular case, then it is necessary to take into account all the individual circumstances of that case ; not only examining to which of the sets of circumstances contemplated by the abstract science the circumstances of the case in question correspond, but likewise what other circumstances may exist in that case, which not being common to it with any large and strongly- marked class of cases, have not fallen under the cognizance of the science. These circumstances have been called disturbing causes. And here only it is that an element of uncertainty enters into the process — au uncertainty inherent in the nature of these complex phenomena, and arising from the im- possibility of being quite sure that all the circumstances of the particular case are known to us sufficiently in detail, and that our attention is not unduly diverted from any of them. This constitutes the only uncertainty of Political Economy ; and not of it alone, but of the moral sciences in general. When the disturbing causes are known, the OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 145 allowance uecessary to be made for them detracts in no way from scientific precision, nor constitutes any deviation from the a priori method. The disturbing causes are not handed over to be dealt with by mere conjecture. Like friction in m.echanics, to whicli they have been often com- pared, they may at fii-st have been considered merely as a nou- assignable deduction to be made by guess from the result given by the general principles of science ; but in time many of them are brougbt within the pale of the abstract science itself, and their effect is found to admit of as accurate an estimation as those more striking effects wbich they modify. The disturbing causes have their laws, as the causes which are thereby disturbed have theirs ; and from the laws of the disturbing causes, the nature and amount of the disturbance may be predicted a priori, lite the operation of the more general laws which they are said to modify or disturb, but with which they might more properly be said to be concurrent. The effect of the special causes is then to be added to, or subtracted from, tbe effect of the general ones. These disturbing causes are sometimes circumstances which operate upon human conduct through the sam.e principle of human nature with which Political Economy is conversant, namely, the desire of wealth, but which are not general enough to be taken into account in the abstract science. Of disturbances of this description every political economist can produce many examples. In other instances the disturbing cause is some other lavr of human nature. In the latter case it never can fall within the province of Political Economy ; it belongs to some other science ; and here the mere political economist, he who has studied no science but Political Economy, if he attempt to apply his science to practice, will fail.' ' One of the strongest reasons for drawing the line of separation clearlj' and broadly between science and art Ls the following ; I. L 14tj OK THE DEFINITION As for the other kind of disturbiug causes, uamely those which operate through the same law of human nature out of which the general principles of the science arise, these might always be brought within the pale of the abstract science if it were worth while ; and when we make the necessary allowances for them in practice, if we are doing anything but guess, we are following out the method of the abstract science into minuter details ; inserting among its hypotheses a fresh and still more complex combination of circumstances, and so adding pro hoc vice a supple- mentary chapter or appendix, or at least a supplementary theorem, to the abstract science. Having now shown that the method a priori in Political Economy, and in all the other branches of moral science, is the only certain or scientific mode of investigation, and that the a posteriori method, or that of specific experience, as a means of arriving at truth, is inapplicable to these subjects, we shall be able to show that the latter method is notwith- standing of great value in the moral sciences ; namely, not as a means of discovering truth, but of verifying it, and rediicing to the lowest point that uncertainty before alluded That the principle of classification in science most com-eniently follows the classification of causes, while arts must necessarily be classified according to the classification of the effects, the pro- duction of which is their appropriate end. Now an effect, whether in physics or morals, commonly depends upon a conciurence of causes, and it frequently happens that several of these causes belong to different sciences. Thus in the construction of enoines upon the principles of the science of mechcaiics, it is necessary to bear in mind the chemical properties of the material, such a« its liability to oxydize ; its electrical and magnetic i)roperties, and so forth. From this it foUoA\s that although the necessary founda- tion of all art is .science, that is, the knowledge of the properties or laws of the objects upon which, and with which, the art does its work ; it is not equally true that every art corresponds to one particular science. Each art presupposes, not one science, but science in general ; or, at least, many distinct sciences. Ol-- POLITICAL ECONOMY. 147 to as arising from the complexity of every particular case, and from the difficulty (not to say impossibility) of our being assured d priori that we have taken into account all the material circumstances. If we could be quite certain that we knew all the facts of the particular case, we could derive little additional advantage from specific experience. The causes being given, we may know what will be their effect, without an actual trial of eveiy possible combination ; since the causes are human feelings, and outward eircum.stances fitted to excite them : and, as tbese for the most part are, or at least might be, familiar to us, we can more surely judge of their combined effect from that familiarity, than from any evidence which can be elicited from the complicated and entangled circumstances of an actual experiment. If the knowledge what are the particular causes operating in any given instance were revealed to us by infallible authority, then, if our abstract science were perfect, we should become prophets. But the causes are not so revealed .- they are to be collected by observation ; and observation in circum- stances of complexity is apt to be imperfect. Som.e of the causes may lie beyond observation ; many are apt to escape it, unless we are on the look-out for them ; and it is only the habit of long and accurate observation which can give us so correct a preconception what causes we are likely to find, as shall induce us to look for them in the right quarter. But such is the nature of the human understand- ing, that the very fact of attending with intensity to one part of a thing, has a tendency to withdraw the attention from the other parts. We are consequently in great danger of adverting to a portion only of the causes which are actually at work. And if we are in this predicament, the more accurate our deductions and the more certain our conclusions in the abstract (that is, making abstraction of all circumstances except those which form part of the 148 0\ THK DEFINITION hypothesis), the less we are likelj' to suspect that we are in error : for no one can have looked closely into the sources of fallacious thinking without being deeply conscious that the coherence, and neat concatenation of our philosophical svst^ms, is more apt than we are commonly aware to pass with us as evidence of their truth. We cannot, therefore, too carefully endeavour to verify our theory, by comparing, in the particular cases to which we have access, the results which it would have led us to predict, with the most trustworthy accounts we can obtain of those which have been actually realized. The dis- crepancy between our anticipations and the actual fact is often the only circumstance which would have drawn our attention to some important disturbing cause which we had overlooked. Nay, it often discloses to us errors in thought, still more serious than the omission of what can with any propriety be termed a disturbing cause. It often reveals to us that the basis itself of our whole argument is insufficient ; that the data, from which we had reasoned, comprise only a jjart, and not always the most important part, of the circumstances by which the result is really determined. Such oversights are committed by very good reasoners, and even by a still i-arer class, that of good observers. It is a kind of error to which those are peculiarly liable whose views are the largest and most philosophical : for exactly in that ratio are their minds more accustomed to dwell upon those laws, qualities, and tendencies, which are common to large classes of cases, and which belong to all place and all time ; while it often happens that circumstances almost peculiar to the particular case or era have a far greater share in governing than one case. Although, therefore, a philosopher be convinced that no general truths can be attained in the affairs of nations by the a posteriori rt>ad, it does not the less behove him, according to the measure of his opportunities, to sift and OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 149 scrutinize the details of every specific experiment. Without this, he may be an excellent professor of abstract science ; for a person may be of great use who points out correctly what effects will follow from certain combinations of pos- sible circumstances, in whatever tract of the extensive region of hypothetical cases those combinations may be found. He stands in the same relation to the legislator, as the mere geographer to the practical navigator ; telling him the latitude and longitude of all sorts of places, but not how to find whereabouts he himself is sailing. If, however, he does no more than this, he must rest con- tented to take no share in practical politics ; to have no opinion, or to hold it with extreme modesty, on the applications which should be made of his doctrines to existing circumstances. No one who attempts to lay down propositions for the guidance of mankind, however perfect his scientific acquirements, can dispense with a practical knowledge of the actual modes in which the affairs of the world are carried on, and an extensive personal experience of the actual ideas, feelings, and intellectual and moral tendencies of his own country and of liis own age. The true prac- tical statesman is he who combines this experience with a pi'ofound knowledge of absti-act political jjhilosoph}-. Either acquirement, without the other, leaves him lame and im- potent if he is sensible of the deficiency ; renders him obstinate and presumptuous if, as is more probable, he is entirely unconscious of it.' ' In the " Westminster Keview " the autlior concluded this paragraph thus: "Knowledge of what is called history, so com- monly regarded as the sole fountain of political experience, is useful only in the third degiee. History by itself, if we knew it ten times better than we do, could, for the reasons already given, prove little or nothing ; but the study of it is a conective to the narrow and exclusive views wliich are apt to be engendered by observation on a more limited scale. Those who never look back- 1-50 ox THE DEFINITIOX Such, then, are the respective offices and uses of the a priori and the a jiosteriori methods — the method of abstract science, and that of specific experiment — as well in Political Economy, as in all the other branches of social philosophy. Truth com^pels us to express our conviction that whether among those who have written on these sub- jects, or among those for whose use they wrote, few can be pointed out who have allowed to each of these methods its just value, and systematicalh' kept each to its projjer objects and functions. One of the peculiarities of niodem times, the separation of theory from practice — of the studies of the closet from the outward business of the world — ^has given a wrong bias to the ideas and feelings both of the student and of the man of business. Each undervalues that part of the materials of thought with which he is not familiar. The one despises all compre- hensive views, the other neglects details. The one draws his notion of the universe from the few objects with which his course of life has happened to render him familiar ; the other having got demonstration on his side, and for- getting that it is only a demonstration nisi — a proof at all times liable to be set aside by the addition of a single new fact to the hypothesis — denies, instead of examining and sifting, the allesations which are opposed to him. For this he has considerable excuse in the worthlessness of the testimony on which the facts brought forward to invalidate the conclusions of theory usually rest. In these complex matters, men see with their preconceived opinions, not with their eyes : an interested or a j)assionate man's wards, seldom look far forwards : their notions of human affairs, and of hiiuian nature itself, are circumscribed within the con- ditions of their own country and their own times. But the uses of history, and the spirit in which it ought to he studied, are subjects which ha\e never yet had justice done them, and which involve considerations more multifarious than can be pertinently intro- duced in this place. " — Ed. OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 151 statistics are of little "wortb. ; and a year seldom passes without examples of the astounding falsehoods which large bodies of respectable men will back each other in publish- ing to the world as facts within their personal knowledge. It is not because a thing is asserted to be true, but because in its nature it muy be true, that a sincere and patient inquirer will feel himself called upon to investigate it. He will use the assertions of opponents not as evidence, but indications leading to evidence ; suggestions of the most proper course for his own inquiries. But while the philosopher and the practical man bandy half-truths with one another, we may seek far without finding cue who, placed on a higher eminence of thought, comprehends as a whole what they see only in separate parts ; who can make the anticipations of the philosopher guide the observation of the practical man, and the specific experience of the practical man warn the philosopher where something is to be added to his theory. The most memorable example in modem times of a man who tmited the spirit of philosophy with the pursuits of active life, and kept wholly clear from the partialities and prejudices both of the student and of the practical states- man, was Turgot ; the wonder not only of his age, but of historv. for his astonishing combination of the most oppo- site, and, judging from common experience, almost incom- patible excellences. Though it is impossible to furnish any test by which a speculative thinker, either in Political Economy or in any other branch of social jjhilosophy, may know that he is competent to judge of the application of his principles to the existing condition of his own or an_v other country, indications may be suggested by the absence of which he mav well and surely know that he is not competent. His knowledge must at least enable him to explain and account for what is, or he is an insufiicient judge of what ought to 152 ON THE DEFINITION be. If a political economist, for instance, finds himself puzzled by any recent or present commercial phenomena ; if there is any mystery to him in the late or present state of the productive industry of the country, which his know- ledge of principle does not enable him to unriddle ; he may be sure that something is wanting to render his system of opinions a safe guide in existing circumstances. Either some of the facts which influence the situation of the country and the course of events are not known to him ; or, knowing them, he knows not what ought to be their effects. In the latter case his system is imperfect even as an abstract system ; it does not enable him to trace correctly all the consequences even of assumed pre- mises. Though he succeed in throwing doubts upon the reality of some of the phenomena which he is required to explain, his task is not yet completed ; even then he is called upon to show how the belief, which he deems un- founded, arose ; and what is the real nature of the appearances which gave a colour of probability to aUega- t.ions which examination proves to be untrue. When the speculative politician has gone through this labour — has gone through it conscientiously, not with the desire of finding his system complete, but of making it so — he may deem himself qualified to apply his principles to the guidance of practice: but he must still continue to exercise the same discipline upon every new eom^bination of facts as it arises ; he must make a large allowance for the disturbing influence of unforeseen causes, and must carefully watch the result of every experiment, in order that any residuum of facts which his principles did not lead him to expect, and do not enable him to explain, may become the subject of a fresh analysis, and furnish the occasion for a consequent enlargement or correction of his general views. The method of the practical philosopher consists, there- OF POLITICAJ. ECONOMY. 153 fore, of two processes ; the one analytical, the other syn- thetical. He must analyze the existing state of society into its elements, not dropping and losing any of them by the way. After referring to the experience of individual man to learn the law of each of these elements, that is, to learn what are its natural effects, and how much of the effect follows from so much of the cause when not counter- acted by any other caiise, there remains an operation of synthesis ; to put all these effects together, and, from what they are separately, to collect what would be the effect of all the causes acting at once. If these various operations could be correctly performed, the result would be prophecy ; but, as they can be performed only with a certain approxi- mation to correctness, mankind can never predict with absolute certainty, but only with a less or greater degree of probability ; according as they are better or worse apprised what the causes are, — have learnt with more or less accuracy from experience the law to which each of those causes, when acting separately, conforms, — and have summed up the aggregate effect more or less carefully. With all the precautions which have been indicated there will still be some danger of falling into partial views ; but we shall at least have taken the best securities against it. All that we can do more, is to endeavour to be im- partial critics of our own theories, and to free ourselves, as far as we are able, from that reluctance from which few inquirers are altogether exempt, to admit the reality or relevancy of any facts which they have not previously either taken into, or left a place open for in, their systems. If indeed every phenomenon was generally the effect of no more than one cause, a knowledge of the law of that cause would, unless there was a logical error in our reason- ing, enable us confidently to predict all the circumstances of the phenomenon. We might then, if we had carefully examined our premises and our reasoning, and found no 154 ON THE DEFINITION flaw, venture to disbelieve the testimony which might be brought to show that matters had turned out differently from what we should have predicted. If the causes of erroneous conclusions were always patent on the face of the reasonings which lead to them, the human understand- ing would be a far more trustworthy instrument than it is. But the narrowest examination of the process itself will help us little towards discovering that we have omitted part of the premises which we ought to have taken into our reasoning. Effects are commonly determined by a con- cvrrence of causes. If we have overlooked any one cause, we may reason justly from aU the others, and only be the further wrong. Our premises will be true, and our reason- ing correct, and yet the result of no value in the particular case. There is, therefore, almost always room for a modest doubt as to our practical conclusions. Against false pre- mises and unsound reasoning, a good mental discipline may effectually secure us ; but against the danger of over- loohing something, neither strength of understanding nor intellectual cultivation can be more than a very imperfect protection. A person may be warranted in feeling con- fident, that whatever he has carefully contemplated with his mind's eye he has seen correctly ; but no one can be sure that there is not something in existence which he has not seen at all. He can do no more than satisfy himself that he has seen all that is visible to any other persons who have concerned themselves with the subject. For this purpose he must endeavour to place himself at their point of view, and strive earnestly to see the object as thev see it ; nor give up the attempt until he has either added the appearance which is floating before them to his own stock of realities, or made out clearly that it is an optical de- ception. The principles which we have now stated are by no OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 155 means aliea to common apprehension : they are not abso- lutely hidden, perhaps, from anyone, but are commonly seen through a mist. We might have presented the latter part of them in a phraseology in which they would have seemed the most familiar of truisms: we might have cautioned inquirers against too extensive generalization, and reminded them that there are exceptions to all rules. Such is the current language of those who distrust compre- hensive thinking, without having any cleai' notion why or where it ought to be distrusted. We have avoided the use of these expressions purposely, because we deem them superficial and inaccurate. The error, when there is error, does not arise from generaliziug too extensively ; that is, from including too wide a range of particular cases in a single proposition. Doubtless, a man often asserts of an entire class what is only ti-ue of a part of it ; but his error generally consists not in making too wide an assertion, but in making the wrong kind of assei-tiou : he predicated an actual result, when he should only have predicated a tendency to that result — a power acting with a certain in- tensity in that direction. With regard to exceptions ; in any tolerably advanced science there is properly ho such thing as an exception. What is thought to be an excep- tion to a principle is always some other and distinct prin- ciple cutting into the former • some other force which im- pinges against the first force, and deflects it from its direction. There are not a law and an exception to that law — the law acting in ninety-nine cases, and the exception in one. There are two laws, each possibly acting in the whole hundred cases, and bringing about a common effect by their conjunct operation. If the force which, being the less conspicuous of the two, is called the disturbing force, prevails sufiiciently over the other force in some one case, to constitute that case what is commonly called an ex- ception, the same disturbing force probably acts as a 156 ox THE DEFINITION modifying cause in many other cases which no one will caU exceptions. Thus if it were stated to be a law of natui'e, that all heavy bodies fall to the ground, it would probably be said that the resistance of the atmosphere, which prevents a balloon from faUing, constitutes the balloon an exception to that pretended law of nature. But the real law is, that all heavy bodies tend to fall ; and to this there is no ex- ception, not even the sun and moon ; for even thej% as every astronomer knows, tend towards the earth, with a force exactly equal to that with which the earth tends towards them. The resistance of the atmosphere might, in the particular case of the balloon, from a misapprehen- sion of what the law of gravitation is, be said to prevail over the law ; but its disturbing effect is quite as real in every other ease, since though it does not prevent, it retards the fall of all bodies whatever. The rule, and the so-called exception, do not divide the cases between them ; each of them is a comprehensive rule extending to all cases. To call one of these concurrent principles an exception to the other, is superficial, and contrary to the correct prin- ciples of nomenclature and arrangement. An effect of precisely the same kind, and arising from the same cause, ought not to be placed in two different categories, merely as there does or does not exist another cause preponderat- ing over it. It is only in art, as distinguished from science, that we can with propriety speak of exceptions. Art, the imme- diate end of which is practice, has nothing to do with causes, except as the means of bi'iuging about effects. However heterogeneous the causes, it carries the effects of them all into one single reckoning, and according as the sum-total is plus or minus, according as it falls above or below a certain line. Art says. Do this, or Abstain from doing it. The exception does not run by insensible OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 157 degrees into the rule, like what are called exceptions in science. In a question of practice it frequently happens that a certaia thing is either fit to be done, or fit to be altogether .abstained from, there being no medium. If, in the majority of cases, it is fit to be done, that is made the rule. When a case subsequently occurs in which the thing ought not to be done, an entirely new leaf is turned over ; the rule is now done with, and dismissed . a new train of ideas is introduced, between which and those involved in the rule there is a broad line of demarcation ; as broad and tranchant as the difference between Ay and No. Very possibly, between the last ease which comes within the rule and the first of the exception, there is only the dif- ference of a shade : but that shade probably makes the whole interval between acting in one way and in a totally different one. We may, therefore, in talking of art, un- objectionably speak of the nde and the exception ; meaning by the rule, the cases ia which there exists a prepon- derance, however slight, of indiicements for acting in a particular way ; and by the exception, the cases in which the preponderance is on the contrary side.' ' The original edition of this essay, in the " London and "West- minster Review" for October, 1836, is signed "A," that letter standing for "Antiquum," as Mill himself tells us in a note to a later written essay (see p. 236). — Ed. CORPORATION AND CHURCH PROPERTY. [1833.] NOTE. The foUo\ving Essay was first published in "The Jurist" for l'el)ruary, 1833. It was reprinted with some omissions (which in the following reproduction of the original text are indicated by brackets) in the " Dissertations and Discussions," 1859, under the title, " The Right and Wrong of State Interference with Corporate and Church Property." CORPORATION AND CHURCH PROPERTY. WE intend, in the present article, to enter somewhat minutely into the subject of Foundations and Endowments, and the rights and duties of the Legislature in respect to them -. with the design, first, of showing that there is no moral hindrance or bar to the interference of the Legislature with endowments, though it should even extend to a total change in their purposes ; and next, of inquiring, in what spirit, and with what reservations, it is incumbent on a virtuous Legislature to exercise this power. As questions of political ethics, and the philosophy of legislation in the abstract, these inquiries are not un- worthy of the consideration of thinking minds [nor of a conspicuous place in the pages of a work like the present.'] But to this country, and at this particular time, they are practical questions ; not solely in that more elevated and philosophical sense, in which aU questions of right and wrong are emphatically practical questions ; but as being the peculiar questions [on which to postpone forming an ojjinion, would be to abdicate the rank of thinking beings, and consent to be driven by the mere force of circum- stances] of the present hour. For no one [capable of [^ The article, in fact, was the first in the fourth volume of the "Jurist."— Ed.] I. M 162 CORPORATION AND CHURCH PROPERTY. looking a quarter of a session before him] can help seeing that one of the most pressing of the duties ivhich Parlia- mentary Eeform has devolved upon our pubUc men, as that to which we, as public writers, are now about to address ourselves ; namely, to decide what righteously TTUiy, and, supposing this determined, what should, be done with the property of the Church, and of the various Public Corporations. It is a twofold problem ; a question of expediency, and a question of morality : the former complex, and depend- ing upon temporary circumstances ; the latter simple, and unchangeable. We are to examine, not merely in what way a certain portion of property may be most usefully employed ; that is a subsequent consideration : but, whether we can touch it at all without spoliation ; whether the diversion of the estates of foundations from the present hands, and from the present purposes, would be disposing of what is justly our own, or robbing somebody else of what is his ; violating property, endangering all rights, and infringing the first principles of the social union. For the enemies of the interference of the Legislature assert no less. And, if this were so, it would already be an act of immorality even to discuss the other question. It is no fit occupation for an honest man, to east up the probable profits of an act of plunder. If a resumption of endowments belongs to a class of acts which, by universal agreement, ought to be abstained from, whatever may be their consequences ; there is no more to be said. [It is under this aspect, then, that we proijose first to consider the subject of our intei-ference with foundations. We leave it to others, or perhaps ourselves, at another time to discuss whether existing foundations required to be resumed. What must be first decided, and what we are now about to attempt to decide, is, whether the Legis- lature is at liberty to entertain the question.] CORPORATIO^' AND CHURCH PROPERTY. 163 If the inquiry we have now undertaken were embarrassed with no other difficulties than are inherent in its own nature, it would not detain us long. Unfortunately it is inextricably entangled with the hopes and fears, the at- tachments and antipathies, of these excited times. All men are either friendly or hostile to the Church of England ; all men wish either well or iU to our universities, and to our municipal corporations. But we inow not why the being biassed by such predilections or aversions, should be more pardonable in a moralist or a legislator, than it would be in a judge. If the dispute were, whether the Duke of Wellington should be called upon to account for =£100,000, it would be an infamous perversion of justice to moot the question of the Duke of Wellington's public services, and to decide the cause according as the judge approves, or not, of the war with Bonaparte, or Catholic emancipation. The true question would be, whether the money in the Duke's possession is his or no. We have our opinion, like other people, on the merits or demerits of the clergy, and other holders of en'H.owments. We shall endeavour to forget that we have any. General principles of justice are not to be shaped to suit the form and dimen- sions of some particular case in which the judge happens to take an interest. [Our assertion ^vith respect to the Church of England, and the trustees of all other national foundations, is, that the funds which they are in charge of are not theirs, but the nation's, and that the nation may justly resume them. But we would rather a hundred times that the property should remain in the present hands, than that it should be taken otherwise than by a high and solemn act of duty. No use to which it would be possible to convert the en- dowments would do so much good, as an act of doubtful morality would do harm. The passions which prompt men to seize and take, are never let loose with impunity, and 164 CORPORATION AND CHURCH PROPERTY. never require to be more tightly curbed than when they are indulged. If there be anyone -who, in supporting a general resumption of endowments, thinks of the con- venience first, and of the justice only second, we have nothing in common with him. It is as much the bounden duty of a nation as of an individual, to exact from itself a survey of the moral bearings of an action, the more deliber- ate in proportion as it is itself a party concerned, and tempted to the proceeding by other motives than a sense of moral obligation. If, in the observations we are about to make, we be found wanting in the performance of this duty ; if we seek to carry our point not through the conscience of the nation, but through any of the less worthy impulses — let us be disregarded and despised, and let every word we are about to write be as it were unwritten. But if we approach the subject with a deep sense of the heavy responsibility of an unjust decision, and seek support to omr cause from no motives but those to which an honest man may worthily listen on a question of right and wrong; then may the words which we shall utter in this spirit, obtain from readers imbued with the like, patient hearing and un- prejudiced judgment.] 1. By a foundation or endowment, is to be understood, money or money's worth (most commonly land) assigned, in perpetuity or for some long period, for a public purpose : meaning by public, a purpose which, whatever it may he, is not the personal use and enjoyment of an assignable individual or assignable individuals. The foundations which exist or have existed, in this or other countries, are exceedingly multifarious. There are schools, and hospitals, supported by assignments of land or money ; there are also almshouses, and other charitable institutions of a nature more or less analogous. The estates of monasteries belong to the class of endowments : CORPORATION AND CHURCH PROPERTY. 165 SO do those of our universities ; and the lands and tithes of all established churches. The estates of the Corporation of London, of the Fishmongers' and Mercers' Companies, etc., are also public foundations, and differ from the fore- going only in being local, not national. All these masses of property originally belonged to some individual or individuals, or to the State ; and were, either by the rightful owner, or by some wrongful possessor, appro- priated to the several purposes to which they now, really or in name, continue to be applied. It may seem most natural to begin by considering whether the existence of endowments is desirable at all ; if this be settled in the afiirmative, to inquire on what conditions they should be suffered to be constituted ; and, lastly, how the Legislature ought to deal with them after they are formed. But the problem, what is to be done with existing endow- ments, is paramount in present importance to the question of prospective legislation. It is preferable, therefore, even at the expense of an inversion of the logical order of our propositions, to consider, first, whether it is allowable for the State to change the appropriation of endowments, and, afterwards, what is the limit at which its interference should stop. 2. If endowments are permitted, it is implied as a necessary condition, that the State, for a time at least, shall not intermeddle with them. The property assigned m.ust temporarily be sacred to the purposes to which it was destined by its owners. The founders of the London University would never have subscribed, nor would Mr. Drummond have established the Oxford Professorship of Political Economy, if they had thought that they were merely raising a sum of money to be placed at the dis- posal of Parliament, or of the ministry for the time being. Subject to the restrictions which we shall hereafter suggest, the control of the founder, over the disposition of the 166 CORPOKATION AND CHURCH PROPERTY. property, should, in point of degree, be absolute. But to what extent should it reach in point of time ? For how long should this unlimited power of the founder continue ? To this question the answer is so simple and obvious that we may venture to express a doubt whether it can ever have been missed by any unsophisticated and earnest inquirer. The sacredness of the founder's assignment should continue during his own life, and for such longer period as the foresight of a prudent man may be presumed to reach, and no further. We do not pretend to fix the exact term of years ; perhaps there is no necessity for its beiug accurately fixed ; but it evidently should not be a long one. For such a period, it conduces to the ends for which foundations ought to exist, and for which alone they -can ever rationally have been intended, that they should remain undisturbed. All beyond this is to make the dead, judges of the exigencies of the living ; to erect, not merely the ends, but the means, not merely the speculative- opinions, but the practical expedients, of a gone-by age, into an irrevocable law for the present. The wisdom of our ancestors is, we fear, a sorry wisdom, but this is not even following the wisdom of our ancestors ; for our ancestors did not bind themselves never to alter what they had once established. Under the guise of fulfilling a bequest, this is making a dead man's intentions for a single day, a rule for subse- quent centuries, when we know not whether he himself would have made it a rule, even for the morrow. [It is as if one who was an infant when his mother died, should dress himself all his life in a frock and petticoats, because Ms mother clothed him in them when he was a baby. J There is no fact in history which posterity will find it more difficult to understand, than that the idea of per- petuity, and that of any of the contrivances of man, should .CORPORATION AND CHURCH PROPERTY. 167 have been coupled together in any sane mind : that it has been believed, nay, clung to as G-ospel truth, and has formed part of the creed of whole nations, that a significa- tion of the vfill of a m^ere man, ages ago, could impose upon all mankind now and for ever an obligation of obeying him : — that, in the beginning of the nineteenth century, it was not permitted to question this doctrine without opprobrium : though for hundreds of years before, a solemn condemnation of this very absurdity had been written in the laws, and familiar to every judge by whom, during all that period, they had been administered. During the last four hundred years or thereabouts, in England and Wales, the power of a landed proprietor to entail his land in favour of a particular line of his de- scendants has been narrowed t-o a very moderate term of years after his decease. During the same length of time, it has been laid down as a maxim of the common law, in the sweeping terms in which techniear jurisprudence delights, that " the law abhors perpetuities." It is now a considerable number of years since a London merchant having by testament directed that the bulk of his foi-tune should accumulate for two generations, and then devolve without restriction upon a person specified ; this will, rare as such dispositions might be expected to be, excited so much disapprobation, that an Act of Parliament' was passed, expressly to enact that nothing of the same sort should be done ia future. Is it of consequence to the public by whom and how private property is inherited, which, whoever possess it, will in the main be spent in ministering to one person's in- dividual wants and enjoyments — and is the use made of a like sum, specifically set apart for the benefit of the public, or of an indefinite portion of the public, a matter in which 1 The Thellusson Act, 39 and 40 Geo. III., c 98.— Ed. 168 CORPORATIOX AND CHUKCII PROPERTX. the nation has no concern ? Or shall we say it is supposed by King, Ix)rds, and Commons, and the Judges of the land, that a man cannot know what partition of his pro- perty among his descendants, thirty years hence, will be for the interest of the descendants themselves ; but that he may know (though he have scarcely learnt his alphabet) how children may be best educated five hundred years hence ; how the necessities of the poor may then be best provided for ; what branches of learning, or of what is called learning, it will be most important to cultivate, and by what body of men it will be desirable that the people should be taught religion, to the end of time ? Men would not yield up their understandings to doc- trines like these, if they were not under some strong bias. Such thoughts never sprung from reason and reflection. [The afllections have bere usurped the judgment seat, and pronounced in place of the intellect.] The cry about robbing the Church, spoliation of endowments, etc., means only that the party likes better the purposes to which the monies are now applied, than those to which he thinks they would be applied if they were resumed : — a feeling which, if it be founded on conviction, we must be contemptible to blame ; but were it even just, we do not see why a man, who has got at his conclusions by good arguments, should defend them by bad. It may be very unwise to alienate the property of some particular foundation ; but that does not make it robbery. If it be inexpedient, try to prove it so ; but do not pretend that it is a crime to disobey a man's injunctions who has been dead five hundred years. We fear, too, that this zeal for the inviolability of endowments proceeds often from a feeling, which we find it more diffi- cult to bear with — that unreasoning instinct, which renders those whose souls are buried in their acres, or pent up in their money bags, partizans of the 2iti possidetis principle in all things ; the dread that if any thing is taken from any CORPORATION AND CHURCH PROPERTY. 169 body, every thing will be taken from every body ; a terror, the more passionate because it is vague, at seeing violent hands laid upon their Dagon money, though it be but to rescue him from the hands of those who have filched him away. That this is the real source of much of the horror which' is felt at a bare proposal that the Legislature should lay a finger upon the estates of a public trust, although it be to restore them to their original purposes, is manifest from this ; that the same persons can witness the most absolute perversion and alienation of the endowment from its destined ends, by the slow, silent creeping-in of abuse in the hands of the trustees themselves, and not feel the slightest discomposure. Wherefore ? — their solicitude was not for the objects of the endowment, but for the safety and sacrednoss of " vested rights." They dislike the example of searching in a person's pocket, although it be for stolen goods. For them, it is enough if the nine points of the law maintain their wonted sanctity. Those they are sure they have on their side, if any troublesome questioner should come and, in their turn, incommode them. The tenth point is much more intricate and obscure, and they have not half so much faith in it. To every argument tending to prove the utility of the Church Establishment, or any other endowed public insti- tution, we shall at all times lend an open ear. Like all reasons wliich are brought to show the inexpediency of a proposed innovation, they cannot be too carefully weighed. But when it is called spohation of property, for the State to alter a disposition made by the State itself, or by an individual who died six hundred j-eais ago, we answer, that no person ought to be exercising rights of property six hundred years after his death; that such rights of property, if they have been unwisely sanc- tioned by the State, ought to be instantaneously put an end to ; that there is no fear of robbing a dead man ; and no 170 COBPORATIOX AND CHCECH PKOPERTT. reasonable dead man wlio gave his money when living, for the benefit of the community, would have desired that his mode of benefiting the community should be stuck to when a better coiild be found. 3. Thus far of the imaginary rights of the founder. Next, as to those rights of another kind, which, in the case of an existing endowment, have usually sprung up in con- sequence of its existence ; we mean the life interest of the actual holders. How far are these analogous to what are deemed rights of property ? — that is, rights which it is un- just to take from a man without his consent, or without giving him a full equivalent. There are some endowments in which the life interests amount to rights of property in the strictest sense. These are such as are created for the application of their revenues to the mere use and enjoyment of individuals of a particular description : to give pensions to indigent persons, or to persons devoted to particular pursuits ; to relieve the necessities, or reward the services, of persons of a parti- cular kind, by supporting them in almshouses or hospitals. There are probably very few of these endowments which are fit to continue .- mankind have begun to find out that the mass of poverty is increased, not diminished, by these impotent attempts to keep pace with it by mere giving. All, however, who are now actually benefiting by such institutions, have a right to the continuance of the benefit, which should be as inviolable as the right of the weaver to the produce of his loom. They have it by gift ; precisely as if the founder was alive, and had settled it upon them by deed under hand and seal. To take it from an existing incumbent would be an ex-post-facto law of the worst kind. It would be the same sort of injustice as if, in abolishing entails, the existing landed proprietors had all been ejected from their estates, on the plea that the estates had come to them by entail from their predecessors. CORPORATION AKD CHURCH PROPERTY. 171 These rights, however, are never any thing but life inter- ests. Such pensions or alms are not hereditary. They are not transmissible by will, or by gift. There is no assign- able person standing in remainder or reversion ; no indi- vidual specially designated, either by law or custom, to succeed to a vacancy as it arises. No person would suffer any privation, or be disappointed in any authorized expec- tation, by the resumption of the endowment at the death of the existrug incumbents. There is no loss, where nobody ■wiR ever know who has lost. To say that the funds cannot rightfully be resumed at the expiration of the hfe interests, because somebody or other would succeed to them if they continued to exist, is tantamount to affirming, that the army or navy can never be reduced without an act of spoliation, because, if they were kept up, somebody, to be sure, would be made a cadet or a nudshipman, who now will not.' But there is another and a far more important class of endowments, where the object is not a provision for indi- viduals of whatsoever description, but the furtherance of some public purpose ; the diffusion of religious instruction, for example, or the education of youth. Such, for in- stance, is the nature of the Church property, and the property attached to the Universities and the foundation schools. The individuals through whose hands the money passes, never entered into the founder's contemplation otherwise than as mere trustees for the public purpose. ' Charities or liberalities of this kind are not always uncon- ditional ; they may be burthened ^\^th the performance of some duty. Still, if the duty be merely an incidental charge, and the main purpose of the endowment be a provision for the individuals, the Legislature, though it may release the incumbents from the performance of the duty, is not at liberty, on that pretext, to make them forfeit the right. This thej' ought to retain for their lives, or for the term of years for which it was conferred ; pro- vided they hold themselves in readiness to fulfil its conditions, so far as they lawfully maj". 172 CORPORATION AND CHURCH PROPKllTY. The founder of a College at Oxford did not bestow his money in order that some men then living, and an in- definite series of successors appointing one another in a direct Une, might be comfortably fed and clothed. He, we may be sure, intended no benefit to them, further than as a necessary means to the end he had in view — the education of youth, and the advancement of learning. The hke is true of the Church property: it is held in trust, for the spiritual culture of the people of England. The Clergy and the Universities are not proprietors, nor even partly trustees and partly projirietors : they are called so, we know, in law, for convenience of classification ; but it is a classification which only tends to mislead. The trustees are indeed, at present, owing to the supineuess of the Legislature, the sole tribunal empowered to judge of the performance of the trust : but it will scarcely be pretended that the money is made over to them for any other reason than because they are charged with the trust, — or that it is not an impUed condition, that they shall apply every shilling of it with an exclusive regard to the jjerformance of the duty intrusted to the collective body. Yet of persons thus situated, persons whose interest in the foundation is entirely subsidiary and subordinate, the whole of whose rights exist solely as the necessary means to enable them to perform certain duties — it is currently asserted, and that not modestly, and in a tone of dis- cussion, but angrily, abusively, and in the spirit of arrogant assumption, that the endowments of the Church and of the Universities are theik property ; to deprive them of which would be as much an act of confiscation as to rob a land- owner of his estate ! Their property ! In what system of legislative ethics, or even of positive law,' is an estate in the hands of trustees ' If any caviller should say (and he must be a cavDler who would say) that the English common law is an exception, inas- CORPORATION' AND CHURCH PROPERTY. 173 the property of the trustees ? It is the property of the cestui que trust : of the person, or body of persons, for whose benefit the trust is created. This, in the case of a national endowment, is the entire people." 4. The claims of the Clergy, and of the various members of the Universities, to the retention of their present in- comes, are of a widely different nature from those rights which are intended when we speak of the inviolability of property; and stand upon a totally different foundation. The same person who is a trustee is also a labourer. He is to be paid for his services. "What he is entitled to, is his wages while liis services are required, and such retiring allowance as is stipulated in his engagement. All his just pretensions depend on the terms of his contract. Though there might be inhumanity, there would be no injustice, in turning him out into the streets when his services are no longer needed, unless the contract by which he was engaged had expressly or tacitly provided otherwise. much a-s trusts are not recognized or enforced by the common law Courts, the legal estate vesting in the tmstee ; we answer that we cannot consider smx tiling as law which does not actually obtain as such, but is superseded by the contrarj' mandates of the rival power Equity. ' In the case of endo\\'pients whicli, though existing for public purposes, are not national but local, such as the estates of the City of London, the cestui que trust is not the entire people, but some limited portion of them, namely, those who are directly reached by the benefit intended to be conferred. To apply such property to national purposes, without the consent, duly signified, of the fractional part of the nation which is interested in it, might be ^v^ong. But that fractional portion is generally far larger than the body which the law now recognizes as the proprietor. We are ready to maintain, for example, that if the Legislature (as it ought) should unite the whole of the metropolis into one body for municipal purposes, the estates of the City of London, and of all the incorporated trades, might be applied to the benefit of that collective body without a particle of injustice. 174 CORPORATION AND CHURCH PROPERTY. It is, however, a fact, that in the majority of cases, and particularly in the case of the Church and of the Uni- versities, the incumbents hold their emoluments under an implied contract, which fully entitles them to retain the whole amount during the term of their lives. If the army were to be remodelled, or to be reduced, and the whole of the officers changed, or a part of them discarded ; and if these were thrown upon the world, with- out allowing them half-pay, or the pension of their rank, there would not (we think it will be allowed) be any spoliation of property. But it might be said, with perfect justice, that there would be a breach of an implied con- tract ; because the State would be defeating an expectation raised by its own uniform practice. Half -pay, or a pension, is certaiiily not promised to an officer when he enters the army ; he does not give his services on that express con- dition. But the regulations of the army have from time immemorial sanctioned the practice, and led the officers to count upon it, and they give their services on that understanding. The case of the clergyman only differs from that of the military officer in this, that the one, by custom, may be deprived of his place, but retains a part of its emoluments ; the other, by a different custom, retains his place, emolu- ments and all, to the very end of his days. If this were the practice in the army, then instead of haK-pay an officer would never retire on less tlian full ; and all persons would see that, whether this was a good practice or no, it ought not to be abolished retrospectively. The same argu- ment holds good in the case of the clergyman. It cannot be doubted that where the emoluments of a public officer have, by the uniform practice of ages, been considered as placed out of the control of the Legislature, to exercise that control to the disadvantage of the in- dividual, without giving him notice before he accepts the CORPO RATION Als'D CHURCH PROPERTY. 175 office, is an injustice to him. It gives him reasonable ground for complaining of a breach of contract, and should be scrupulously avoided ; even if it were not something more than merely impoUtic, to immolate large classes of men for the pecuniary gain, of the remainder ; and most unwise to teach a multitude of influential persons that their only means of maintaining themselves and their families in their accustomed comfort is by opposing a successful resistance to political reforms. In return for the continuation of the life interests after releasing the incumbents from the performance of accom- panying duties, the State, of course, would acquire a right to the services of the individuals in any other mode in which it could turn them to useful account ; provided it were one suited to the station they had formerly filled. 5. We have endeavoured to make as clear as possible the real grounds of the moral question respecting the inter- ference of the Legislature with foundations. We have shown that it is no violation of any right which ought to exist in the founder, to set aside his dispositions many years after his decease ; but that where individuals have been allowed to acquire beneficial interests in the endow- ment, these ought in general to be respected; being, in most cases, either rights of property for life, or rights for life by virtue of an implied contract. But, with the reser- vation of these life interests, the Legislature is at liberty to dispose, at its discretion, of the endowment, after that moderate number of years has elapsed from the date of its formation, beyond which the foresight of an individual cannot reasonably be supposed to extend. We feel certain that the conclusion which we have just stated is fully made out, and that nothing in the nature of an argument, capable of bearing examination, can be brought to invalidate it. But it is harder, in some cases> 176 CORPORATION AND CHURCH PROPERTY. to convince men's imagination than their reason ; and we are not sure that we have said enough to destroy the force of an objection, which is yet a mere illusion of the imagina- tion, by the aid of a collective name. Would you rob the Church? it is asked. And at the sound of these words rise tip images of rapine, violence, plunder, and every sentiment of abhorrence which would be excited by a proposal to take away from an indi- vidual the earnings of his toil or the inheritance of his fathers. But the Church ! Who is the Church ? Who is it that we desire to rob ? Who are the persons whose property, whose rights, we are proposing to take away ? Not the clergy ; from them we do not propose to ta,ke anything. To every man who now benefits by the endow- ment, we have said that we would leave his entire income ; at least untU the State shall offer, as the purchase-money of his services in some other shape, advantages which he himself shall regard as equivalent. But if not the clergy, surely we are not proposing to rob the laity : on the contrary, they are robbed now, if the fact be, that the application of the money to its present purpose is no longer advisable. We are exhorting the laity to claim their property out of the hands of the clergy ; who are not the Church, but only the managing members of the association. Qui trompe-t-on id ? asks Figaro. Qui vole-t-on id ? may well be asked. Who suffers by the robbery when everybody robs nobody ? [Show us the man, woman, or child who is to be robbed, and he shall be forthwith un- robbed ; we will warrant him harmless at our own risk, j But though no man, no woman, and no child is robbed, the Church it seems is robbed. What follows ? That the Church may be robbed, and no man, woman, or child be the worse for it. If this be so, why, in Heaven's name, CORPORATION AND CHURCH PROPERTY, 177 should it not be done ? If any hard cash can be squeezed out of an abstraction, we are for appropriating it at once. We had no idea that the region "Where entity and quiddity, The ghosts of defunct bodies, fly," was an Eldorado of riches. We wish all other abstract ideas had as ample a patrimony. It is fortunate that their estates are of a less volatile and airy nature than them- selves, and that here at length is a " chimsera bombinans in vacuo" which lives upon something more substantial than " secundas intentiones." We hold all such entia rationis to be fair game, and their possessions a legitimate subject of invasion and conquest. Any act may be a crime, if calling names could make it so ; but the robbery that we object to must be something more than robbing a word. The laws of property were made for the protection of men, and not of phrases. As long as the bread is not taten from any of our fellow creatures, we care not though the whole English dictionary had to beg in the streets. Let those who think it a robbery for the nation to resume what we say is its own, tell us whose it is ; let them inform us, what human creatures it belongs to ; not what letters and syllables. The alphabet has no property, and if it brings an action for damages in any court where we are judge, it shall be non- suited. But the Church, it will be said, is a corporation ; and a corporation is a, person, and may hold property, and bring an action at law. A corporation never dies, but is like a river, ever flowing, yet always the same ; while it empties at one extremity it fiUs at the other, and preserves its identity by the continuity of its existence. Whatever is acquired for the corporation belongs to the corporation, even when all its members have died out, and been 178 CORPORATION AND CHURCH PROPERTY. succeeded by others. So London stands upon the Thames as it did at the Conquest, though not one drop of water be the same. It is quite unnecessary to remind us of all this. It is true that such is the law. We admit that the law can call a man now living, and a man not yet born, the same person ; but that does not hinder them from being two different men. After declaring them one person, it m.ay ordain that the income held by one in a certain capacity, shall pass, on his death, to the other. There is nothing at all inconceivable in the idea ; so far from it, that such is actually the fact. It is as simple and as easy as to say that a man's income shall pass to the man's own son. It is one of the modes in which property may be legally transmitted. It is part of the law of inheritance and succession. There is not the slightest intention entertained of disputing all this. The law is precisely as it is said to be : but because the law is so, does it follow that it ought to be ? or that it must remain protected against amendment, more than any other of the laws which regulate the succes- sion to property ? All, or almost all, laws give rights to somebody. By the abrogation of any, or almost any laws, some rights would cease to exist. But because a law has once been enacted, ought it to subsist to the end of all things ? We know that there are some alterations in the law, which would be, morally speaking, infringements of property. What makes them so ? Not, surely, the mere fact, inseparable from the repeal of any law whatever, that the rights which it created cease to exist. Wliere then lies the distinction ? There is no difficulty about it, nor ever was. The difference is, that some laws cannot be altered without painfully frus- trating existing and authorized expectations ; for which, therefore, compensation is, in all or most cases, due. Now CORPORATIOJS^ AND CHURCH PROPERTY. 179 in the case of churcli property no authorized expectations are defeated, except those of existing incumbents: this evil is prevented if the life interests of the incumbents are preserved to them.^ To make the semblance of an injury ■where there is none, nothing better can be thought of than to lump np the living incumbents and their unborn suc- cessors into one undivided mass, call the entire heap one person, and pretend that not to give to the unborn man, is to take from the hving one. [Our argument, it is true, professes only to hold good in morality ; we do not affect to believe that it "would hold good in law. What we propose would be contrary to law. liepealing a law is generally contrary to law.j To resume endowments would ineontestably be to set aside, by an act of the legislature, a disposition of property lawfully made. It would be a change in the laws ; but a change which is allowable, if to alter a disposition of law be ever allow- able. The fact of its being a disposition of property can make no difference. Property surely may be appropriated by law, to purposes from which it may be highly desirable that it should be alienated. Much property is set apart by the laws of all idolatrous nations, for the special use and service of their gods. Large revenues are annually ex- pended in offerings to those gods. To resume those revenues would manifestly be robbing Baal ; they are his by law ; law cannot give a clearer right of property than he has to them. A lawyer, addressing a court of justice, would have nothing to object to this argument : but a moralist or a legislator might say, that the revenues were of no use to Baal, and that he would never miss them. ' On reprinting this essay Mill suggested that we might read "persons actuall3' in orders" here, instead of "existing incum- bents ; " and added that expectations of unheneficed clergymen might be satisfied by postponing the resumption of the endow- ment to allow the -expectation to become possession. — Ed. 180 CORPORATION AND CHURCH PROPERTY. We, of this generation, are not addicted to falling down before a Baal of brass or stone : tbe idols we worship are abstract terms ; the divinities to whom we render up our substance are personifications. Besides our duties to our fellow-countrymen, we owe duties to the constitution ; privileges which landlords or merchants have no claim to, must be granted to agriculture, or trade : and when every clergyman has received the last halfpenny of his dues and expectations, there are rights of the Church, which it would be sacrilege to violate. For all such rights we confess our utter indifference. The only moral duties which we are conscious of, are towards living beings, either present or to come ; who can , be in some way better for what we do or forbear. When we have done our duty to all these, we feel easy in our minds, and sleep with an untroubled conscience the sleep of the just ; a sleep which the groans of no plundered abstraction are loud enough to disturb. 6. If our case were not already far more than sufficiently made out, it would be pertinent to observe that the Church of England, least of all religious establishments, is entitled to dispute the power of the legislature to alter the destina- tion of endowments, since it owes to the exercise of such a power all its own possessions. The Roman Catholic Church derived its property from an earlier source than any of the existing governments of Christendom : it is moreover a society within itself, which existed anterior to the State, which is organized indepen- dently of the State, and no changes in the State can affect its identity, or its constitution. Its endowments, too, or a great part of them, came into its hands not for public purposes but for private ; not in trust, but by fair bargain and sale ; the donor taking out the value in masses for his private salvation ; and thereby effecting an earlier libera- tion of his individual soul from purgatory. If any ecclesi- CORPORATION AND CHURCH PROPERTY. 181 astical establishment, therefore, cotild be entitled to deem itseK ill-used in having its property taken away from it, this might. Not so the Church of England; she, from her origin, never was anything but a state church ; all the property she ever had, the State first toot from the Roman Catholic Church ; exercising therein a just and proper attribute of sovereignty ; but perpetrating a flagrant wrong in paying little or no regard to life interests, and consign- ing the incumbents to penury. The corporation which was then turned out of house and home, stni exists, and is in every respect the same as before : but if the Church of England were separated from the State, its identity as a corporation would be gone : the present rehgious society would be dissolved, and a new one formed, xmder different rules and a different principle of government; from a monarchy it would be changed to a republic, from a system of nomination to one of popular election. A CathoUc bishop can look out upon the fair and broad domains of his Protestant substitute, and say, all this would have been mine. But let the State endowments be once withdrawn from the Church of England, her mitred but unpalaced prelates will indulge in no such delusion : nobody, we suppose, will then stand up for the nnscriptural ^ and simoniacal abuses of lay-patronage and conges cCelire ; and the divine who for his piety and learning shall have been elected rector of Stanhope, or bishop of Winchester, if he ever cast a wistful thought towards the pristine appendages of his dignity, will check it bythe reflection, that they would not have belonged to Mm, but to some political tool, some tutor or chaplain of a minister, or some stupid younger son of a squirearchal house. A Catholic prelate, no doubt, believes at heart that he has been robbed ; as the descendants of the Pretender would have ' In 1859 jSIr. Mill T\-ithdrew the word " unscriptural." — ^Ed. 182 CORPORATION AND CHURCH PROPERTY. believed to tlie latest generation, that they ought to be Kings of England. But an English Protestant bishop who (after his church in ceasing to receive state pay, had ceased also to be fashioned as a state tool) should still fancy that he was the party losing by the cutting off of the salary, must be strangely ignorant of the history of Eng- land's political religion, as well as of something else which would have taught him that a person honestly selected to sei-ve G-od, was not a likely individual to have been ap- pointed high-priest of Mammon. 7. We have now arrived at the commencement of the second, and only remaining part of our task. We have contended that endowments, after a certain lapse of time, may, at the discretion of the legislature, be diverted from their original purposes. It remains to consider by what principles or rules the legislature is bound to govern itself in the exercise of this discretion. We would prescribe but one rule : it is somewhat general, but sufficient to indicate the spirit in which the control of the legislature ought to be exerted. It is this. When a resolution has been taken (which should never be, except on strong grounds) to alter the appropriation of an endowment; let the first object be to employ it usefully ; the second, to depart as little from the original purpose of the foundation, as is consistent with that primary object. The endeavour should be, even in altering the disj)ositions of the founder, stiU to carry into effect as much of his intention as it is possible to realize without any sacrifice of substantial utility. This limitation of the discretionary power of interference residing in the legislature, would meet, we suspect, with as much resistance (though from a very different sort of persons) as the discretionary power itself. It would be objected to by -some, because they are desirous to confiscate COKPORA.TION AND CHURCH PROPERTr. 183 the existing endowments towards paying oif the national debt, or defraying the current expenses of the State: by others, because they deem foundations altogether to be rather mischievous than useful, and the intentions of founders to be undeserving of auy regard. This last opinion is the more entitled to notice, as among its sup- porters is to be numbered the great and good Turgot. That eminently wise man thought so unfavourably of the purposes for which endowments are usually made, and of the average intelligence of the founders, that he was an enemy to foundations altogether. Notwithstanding our deep reverence for this illustrious mau, and the great weight which is due to his opinion on all subjects which he had maturely considered, we must regard his opinion on this subject, as one of what it is now allow- able to call the prejudices of his age. The wisest man is not safe from the liability to mistake for good the reverse of some inveterate and grievous Ol. The clearer his discern- ment of existing evils, and the more absolutely his whole soul is engaged in the contest against them, the more danger that the mischiefs which chiefly occupy his own thoughts, should render him insensible to their contraries, and that in guarding one side he should leave the other uncovered. If Turgot did not wholly escape this error, which was common to all the philosophers of his time, ample allowances may be justly claimed both for him and for them. It is not the least of the mischiefs of our mis- chievous prejudices, that in their decline they raise up counter-prejudices, and that the human mind must oscillate for a time between opposite extremes, before it can settle quietly in the middle. The prejudices of the French philo- sophers were such as it was natural should exist, when all established institutions were in the very last stage of decay and decrepitude, preparatory to the catastrophe by which, soon after, they were swept away: — when whatever 184 CORPORATION AND CHURCH PROPERTY. was meant to transmit light, had become a curtain to keep it out, and whatever was designed for the protection of society, had turned to preying upon society ; when every trust which had been reposed in individuals for the benefit of the species, had degenerated into a selfish job, and the canker had eaten so deeply into the heart of civilization, that the greatest genius of his time deliberately preferred the condition of a naked savage. The principal foundation which existed in the time of Turgot was the Catholic hierarchy ; when, if it had lost some part of its capacity of evil, it could less than ever pretend to contain any spark of good ; when it had become irreconcilably hostile to the progress of the human mind, because that progress was no longer compatible with belief in its tenets; and when, to stand its ground against the advance of incredulity, it had been driven to knit itself closely with that temporal despotism, to which it had once been a substantial, and the only existing, impediment and control. After this came monastic bodies constituted osten- sibly for purposes which derived all their value from supersti- tion, and now not even fulfilling what they professed; bodies, of most of which the very existence had become one vast and continued lie. Next came universities and academical institu- tions, which had once taught aU that was then known ; but having ever since indulged their ease by remaining station- ary, found it for their interest that knowledge should do so too — institutions for education, which always kept a century behind the community they affected to educate ; who, when Descartes appeared, publicly censured him for differing from Aristotle ; and when Newton appeared, anathematized him for differing from Descartes. Then there were hospitals which killed more of their unhappy patients than they cured, and charities, of which the superintendents, like the licentiates in Gil Bias, got rich by taking care of the affairs of the poor : or which at best CORPORATION AND CHURCH PROPERTY. 185 made twenty beggars, by giving, or pretending to give, a miserable and dependent pittance to one. The foundations, therefore, -were among the grossest and most conspicuous of the familiar abuses of the time ; and beneath their shade flourished and multiplied large classes of men, by interest and habit the protectors of all abuses whatsoever. What wonder, that a life spent in practical struggles against abuses should have strongly prepossessed Turgot against foundations in general. Tet the evils existed, not because there were foundations, but because those foundations were perpetuities, and provision was not made for their continual modification, to meet the wants of each successive age. The opinion of Turgot was sufficiently in accordance with the prevailing philosophy of his time. It is rare that the same heads and the same hands excel both in pulling down and in building up. The work of urgency in those days was to make war against evil : this the philosophers did, and the negation of evil was nearly all the good which their philosophy provided for. They seem to have conceived the perfection of political society to be reached, if man could but be compelled to abstain from injuring man ; not con- sidering that men need help as well as forbearance, and that Nature is to the greater number a severer taskmaster even than man is to man. They left each individual to fight his own battle against fate and necessity, with little aid from his fellow-men, save what he, of his own spontaneous seek- ing, might purchase in open market and pay for. K this be a just estimate of the exigencies of human society ; if man requires nothing from man, except not to be molested by him, nor from government, except to be guarded against molestation ; undoubtedly foundations, and manv other things, are great absurdities. But we may conceive a people, perfectly exempt from oppression by their government, amj)ly protected by that government, 186 CORPORATION AND CHURCH PROPERTY. both against foreign enemies and against force or fraud as between its own citizens ; we may conceive all this secured, as far at least as institutions can secure it, and yet the people in an abject stat-e of degi-adation, both physical and mental. [We should not despair of proving, that only in certain transitional periods of history is the government itself the cause of much evil, or would a change in the government produce much good : at all other times what- ever evils exist in the government, are but the too faithful picture of the evils existing in the national mind ; of little importance compared with these last, and incurable except in proportion as these are cured.] The primary and perennial sources of all social evil, are ignorance and want of culture. These are not reached by the best contrived system of political checks, necessary as such checks are for other jjurposes. There is also an un- fortunate peculiarity attending these evils. "While they are so much the greatest of all calamities, they are those of which the persons suffering from them are apt to be the least aware. Of their bodily wants and ailments mankind are generally conscious ; but the want of the mind, the want of being wiser and better, is in the far greater num- ber of cases unf elt : misery indeed is felt, but is ascribed to any imaginable cause except the true one. This want has moreover the property of disguising from mankind not only itself, but the most eligible means of providing even for the wants of which they are conscious. On what, then, have mankind depended, on what must they continue to be dependent, for the removal of their ignorance and their defect of culture ? Mainly, on the un- remitting exertions of the more instructed and cultivated, whether in the position of the government or in a private station, to awaken in their minds a consciousness of this want, and to facilitate to them the means of supplying it. The instruments of this work are not merely schools and CORPORATION AND CHURCH PROPERTY. 187 colleges, .but every means by which the people can be reached, either through their intellects or their sensibilities : from preaching and popular writing, to national galleries, theatres, and public games. Here, then, is a wide field of usefulness open for founda- tions ; and in point of fact, they have been destined for such purposes oftener than for any other. We are of opinion that such endowments are deserving of encourage- ment, where a sufficiency do not already exist; and that they ought not to be appropriated in another manner, as long as any opening remains for their useful application in this. A doctrine is indeed abroad, and has been sanctioned by many high authorities, beginning with Adam Smith, that endowed e:tabhshments, for education or other public pur- poses, are a mere premium upon idleness and inefficiency. Undoubtedly they are so, when it is nobody's business to see that the receivers of the endowment do their duty; when (what is more) every attempt to regulate, or so much as to know (further than the interested parties chuse to mate it known) the manner in which the funds are em- ployed, and the nature and extent of the service rendered in consideration of them, is resented and exclaimed against as an atrocious interference with the inviolability of private property. That this is the condition of most of our own endowed establishments is too true. But instead of fixing our eyes exclusively upon what is nearest to us, let us turn them towards the endowed Universities of France and Germany, and mark if those are places of idleness and inefficiency. Let us see whether, where the endowment proceeds from the governments themselves, and where the governments do not, as here, leave it optional whether that which is promised and paid for shall or shall not be done, it be not found that, notwithstanding the acknowledged defects of those governments, the education given is the 188 CORPORATION AND CHURCH PROPERTY. very best which, the age and country can supply. Let us even look at home, and examine whether, with all the grievous abuses of the endowed seminaries of Great Britain, they are, after all, a particle worse than, or even so bad as, almost all our other places of education. We may ask, whether the desire to gain as much money with as little labour as is consistent with saving appearances, be peculiar to the endowed teachers ? Whether the plan of nineteen- twentieths of our unendowed schools, be not an organized system of charlatanerie for imposing upon the ignorance of parents ? Whether parents do, in point of fact, prove themselves as solicitous, and as well qualified, to judge rightly of the merits of places of education, as the theory of Adam Smith supposes ? Whether the truth be not, that, for the most part, they bestow very little thought upon the matter ; or if they do, show themselves in general the ready dupes of the very shallowest artifices ? Whether the necessity of keeping parents in good humour does not too often, instead of rendering the education better, render it worse ; the real ends of instruction being sacrificed, not solely (as would be the case under other circumstances) to the ease of the teacher, but to that, and also to the addi- tional positive vices of clap-trap and lip-proficiency ? We may ask whether it is not matter of experience, that a schoolmaster who endeavours really to educate, instead of endeavouring only to seem to educate, and laying himself out for the suffrages of those who never look below the sur- face, and only for ari instant at that, is almost sure, unless he have the genius and the ardour of a Pestalozzi, to make a losing speculation ? Let us do what we may, it will be the study of the merely trading schoolmaster to teach down to the level of the parents, be that level high or low ; as it is of the trading author, to write down to the level of his readers. And in the one shape as in the other, it is in all times and in all places indispensable, that enlightened CORPORATION AND CHURCH PROPERTY. 189 individuals and enlightened governments should, from other motives than that of pecuniary gain, bestir them- selves to provide (though by no means forcibly to impose) that good and wholesome food for the wants of the mind, for which the competition of the mere trading market affords in general so indifferent a substitute. It may be said, however, that where there is a wise government, and one which has the perfect confidence of the people, whatever expense it may be requisite either to defray or to advance for national education, or any other of the purposes for which endowments exist, ought rather to be furnished by the government, and paid out of the taxes ; the government being probably a better judge of good education than an average man — even an average founder. To this we answer, that the full benefit of the superior wisdom of the government would be obtained, in the case of old foundations, by that discretionary power of modify- ing the dispositions of the founder, which as we have contended at so much length, ought to be exerted by the government as often as it sees cause. We certainly agree, that if the government is so wise, and if the people rely so implicitly on its wisdom, as to find money out of the taxes for all the purposes of utility to which they could have apphed the endowment, it is of no consequence whether the endowment be alienated or no ; the alienation is merely nominal. But all know how far the fact at present differs from the above supposition. We can scarcely look forward to a time when it will not be extremely difficult to raise any considerable fund by taxation for any new purpose. But if there were a fund specially set apart, which never came from the people's pockets at all, which was given to them in trust for purposes of education, and which it was considered improper to divert to any other employment while it could be usefully devoted to that; the people 190 CORPORATIOX AND CHURCH PROPERTT. would be willing enough to have it applied to that purpose if the government chose. There is such a fiuid, and it consists of the national endowments. If, again, it be said, that as the people grow more enlightened, they wiU become raore able to appreciate, and more willing to pay for, good instruction ; that the com- petition of the market will become more and more adequate to provide good education, and endowed establishments will be less and less necessary ; we admit the fact. And we, for our share, will let the State do what it likes with endowments, so soon as the legislature, being well con- stituted and composed of the elite of the nation, shall be of opinion that the generality of the private schools and colleges are equal to any which itself can provide. So much with regard to old endowments ; the applica- tion of which, to the purpose for which they were destined, ought to be as completely under the control of the govern- ment as if the funds wei-e taken directly out of the taxes. But in addition to these old endowments, the liberty of forming new ones, for education and mental culture in all shapes, seems to us of considerable importance ; and a limited number of years should, we think, be allowed, during which the disposition of the founder shoidd undergo no alteration. We deem this advisable, simply because governments are fallible ; and, as they have ample means both of pro- viding and of recommending the education they deem best, should not be allowed to prevent other people from doing the same. No government is entitled (further than is implied in the very act of governing) to make its own opinion the measure of every thing which is useful and true. A perfect government would, no doubt, be always under the guidance of the wisest members of the com- munity. But no government can unite all the wisdom which is in all the members of the community taken CORPORATION AND CHURCH PROPERTY. 191 together ; much less can a mere majority in a legislative body. And it m.ust be a very conceited government -which ■would shut the door in the teeth of all -wisdom but its own. A nation ought not to place its entire stake upon the -wisdom of one man, or one body of men, and to deprive all other intellect and virtue of a fair field of useful- ness, unless they can be made to square exactly with the intellect and virtue of that man or body. It is the -wisdom of a community, as -well as of an individual, to be-ware of being one-sided : the more chances it gives itself, the greater the probability that some will succeed. A govern- ment, -when properly constituted, should be allowed the greatest possible facilities for what itself deems good ; but the smallest for preventing the good which may chance -to come from elsewhere. This -will not be disputed if the government be a monarchy or an aristocracy : it is quite equally true when the constitution is popular. The dis- approbation of the government, in that case, means the disapprobation of the majority : and where the opinion of the majority gives the law, there, above all, it is eminently the interest of the majority that minorities should have fair play. Sinister interest indeed is often found in a minority, but so, it must also be remembered, is truth : at her original appearance she must be so. All improvements, either in opinion or practice, must be in a minority at first. We deem it important that indi-viduals should have it in their power to enable good schooling, good -writing, good preaching, or any other course of good instruction, to be carried on for a certain number of years at a pecurdary loss. By that time, if the people are intelligent, and the government -wisely constituted, the institution will probably be capable of supporting itself, or the govern- ment will be willing to adopt all that is good in it, for the improvement of the institutions which are under the public care. For, that the people can see what is for their 192 CORPORATION AND CHURCH PROPERTY. good, when it has long been shown them, is commonly true ; that they can foresee it — seldom. Endowments, again, are a natural and convenient mode of providing for the support of establishments which are interesting only to a peculiar class, and for which, there- fore, it would be improper to tax all the members of the community. Such, for instance, are colleges for the pro- fessional instruction of the clergy of a sect ; as Maynooth, York, or Highbury. 8. If, then, it be in truth desirable that foundations should exist, which we think is clear from the foregoing and many other considerations ; it would seem to follow, as a natural consequence, that the appropriation made by the founder should not be set aside, save in so far as paramount reasons of utility require; that his design should be no further departed from than he himself would probably have approved, if he had lived to the present time, and participated to a reasonable degree in its best ideas. If foundations desei-ve to be encouraged, it is desirable to reward the liberality of the founder, by allowing to works of usefulness (though a perpetuity is impossible) as prolonged a duration of individual and dis- tinguishable existence as circiunstances wUl admit. But this is not the only, nor perhaps the strongest reason, for keeping to a certain extent in view, even in an alienation of endowments, the intention of the founder. We conceive that almost any fixed rule, consistent with insuring the employment of the funds for some purpose of real utility, is preferable to allowing financiers to count upon them as a resource applicable to all the exigencies of the State indiscriminately : otherwise they may be seized on to supply, not the most permanent or essential, but the most immediate and important demands : one year of financial difficulty might suffice to dissipate funds that centuries would not replace ; and the time for an inter- CORPORATION AND CHURCH PROPERTY. 193 ference -with foundations wonld be determined, not by the necessity of a reform, but by the state of the quarter's revenue. A still more cogent consideration, is the imm^ense importance to society of the associations which lead man- kind to respect the declared mil of every man, in the disposal of what is justly his own. That will is surely not least deserving of respect, when it is ordaining an act of beneficence. And any uncalled for deviation from it (if not, strictly spealdug, a violation of property), runs counter to a feeling so nearly allied to those on which the respect for property is founded, that there is scarcely a possibility of infringing the one without shaking the security of the other. It is no violation of these salutary associations to resume an endowment, if it be done with the conscientious reserva- tion which we have suggested. Respect for the intentions of the founder is not shown by a literal adherence to his mere words, but by an honest attempt to give execution to his real wishes ; not sticking superstitiously to the means which he hit upon accidentally, or because he knew no better; but regarding solely, as he himself did, the end which he sought to compass by those means. The first duty of the legislature, then, is to employ the endowment usefully : and that in a degree corresponding to the greatness of the benefit contemplated by the donor. But it is also of importance, that not only as great a benefit, but as far as possible the same kind of benefit, should be reaped by society, as that which the founder intended. We are not to consider, to what object we, under the temptations of the moment, should like best to apply the money ; but rather what, among all purposes of unquestionable utility, which a reasonable man in these days would value sufficiently to give this sum of money for, is the particular purpose most resembling the original disposition of the founder. Thus, money assigned for purposes of education should 194 CORPORATION AND CHURCH PROPERTY. be devoted, by preference, to education : the kind, and the mode, being altered, as the principles and practice of education came to be better understood. Money left for giving alms should certainly cease to be expended in giving alms ; but it should be applied, in preference to the genei-al benefit of the poorer classes, in whatever manner might appear most eligible. The endowments of an established church should continue to bear that character, as long as it is deemed advisable that the clergy of a sect or sects should be supported by a public provision of that amount : and under any circumstances, as much of these endowments as is required should be sacredly preserved for the purposes of spiritual culture ; using that expression in its primitive meaning, to denote the culture of the inward man — his moral and intellectual well-being, as distinguished from the mere supply of his bodily wants. Such, indeed, as has been forcibly maintained by Mr. Coleridge,^ was the only just conception of a national clergy, from their first establishment. To the minds of our ancestors they presented themselves, not solely as ministers for going through the ceremonial of religion,- nor even solely as religious teachers in the naiTOw sense, but as the lettered class ; the clerici or clerks : whose highest concern indeed was religion, as it was of all other men ; but who were appointed generally to prosecute all those studies, and diffuse all those impressions, which constituted mental culture, as then understood; which fitted the mind of man for his condition, destiny, and duty, as a man. In proportion as this enlarged conception of the object of a national church establishment has been departed from, so far, in the opinion of the first living defender of our own establishment, it has been perverted both in idea and in fact from its true nature and ends. A ' See his little work on Church and State. CORPORATION AND CHURCH PROPERTY. 195 national clerisy or clergy, as Mr. Coleridge conceives it, would be a grand institution for the education of the whole people: not their school education merely, though that would be included iu the scheme ; but for training and rearing them, by systematic culture continued throughout life, to the highest perfection of their mental and spiritual nature. The benefits of such an institution, and how it ought to be constituted so as to be free from the vices of an established church as at present understood, are questions too extensive to be further adverted to in this place. We wLH rather say, as being more pertinent to our present design, that if endowments (like the Church property) originally set apart for what was then deemed the highest spiritual culture, were diverted to the purposes of the highest spiritual culture which the intellect of the present age could devise, there would be no departure from the intentions of the original owners, but, on the contrary, a faithful fulfilment of them, when a literal and servile adherence to the mere accidents of the appropriation would be the surest means of defeating its essentials. We may add that the perfect lawfulness of such an aHenation as this, is explicitly laid down by the eminent writer to whom we have referred. It is part of his doctrine, that the state is at liberty to withdraw the endowment from its existing possessors, whenever anybody or persons can be found, whether ministers of religion or not, by whom the ends of the establishment, as he understands them, are likely to be more perfectly fulfilled. It is the more import- ant to place this admission upon record, as the most able and accomplished of the rising defenders of the Church of England have evidently issued from Mr. Coleridge's school, and have taken their weapons chiefly from his storehouse. If, however, we seize upon the endowments of the Church, not for the civilization and cultivation of the 196 CORPORATION AND CHURCH PROPERTY. miiids of OUT people, but to pay ofE a small fraction of the National Debt, or to supply a temporary financial exigency, — ^we shall not only squander for the benefit of a single generation, the inheritance of all posterity ; we shall not only purchase an imperceptible good, by sacrificing a most important one ; but by disregarding entirely the intentions of the original owners, we shall do our best to create a habit of paltering with the sacredness of a trust. It matters not that the property has now become res nullius, and is therefore, properly speaking, our own. It is none of our earning ; others gave it to us, and for p\irposes which it may be a duty to set aside, but which cannot honestly be sacrificed to a convenience. We have not the slightest reason to believe that if the owners were aUve, and stiU masters of their property, they would give it to lis to be blown away in gunpowder, or to save a few years' house and window tax. On a pressing exigency, as to avert a national bankruptcy, or repel a foreign invasion, the whole or any part of the endowment might be borrowed ; as, in such a case, might any other property, j)ubUc or private : but subject to the promptest possible repayment. If any surplus remains, after as much has been done for cultivating the minds of the people, as it is thought advisable to do without mating them pay for it, the residue may be unobjectioually applied to the ordinary purposes of government : though it should even then, we think, be considered as a fund still liable to be drawn upon, if hereafter required, for purposes of spiritual culture. 9. We have still to add a few words on the kinds of foundation which ought not to be permitted : after which we shall conclude. No endowment should be suffered to be made, or funds to be legally appropriated, for any purpose which is actually ■unlawful. If the law has forbidden any act, has con- CORPORATION AND CHURCH PROPERTY. 197 stituted it an offence or injury, every mode of committing the act, or of instigating others to commit it, ought to be prohibited, not some particular modes only. But if the purpose for which the foundation is constituted be not illegal, but only, in the opinion of the legislature, in- expedient, we do not deem this to be a sufficient reason for denying to the appropriation the protection of the law. The grounds of this opinion may be sufficiently collected from the preceding observations. The only other restriction which we would impose upon the authors of Foundations, is, that the endowment shall not consist of land. The evils of allowing land to pass into Mortmain are universally acknowledged ; and the trustees, besides, ought to have no concern with the money intrusted to them, except to apply it to its purposes. They may desire landed property as a source of power, which is a reason the more for refusing it to them : but as a source of income, it is not suited to their position. They shoiild have only to receive an annuity, and that in the simplest and least troublesome manner : not to realize a rental from a multitude of tenants. Their time and attention ought not to be divided between their proper business and the duties of a landlord, or the superintendence and manage- ment of a landed estate. The very first step in a general revision of the Founda- tions, and one which would be desirable even if the reform should go no further, would be to dispose of the estates of all the public trusts in Great Britain, by sale to the highest bidder, and invest the proceeds in the stocks or other monied securities. If the legislature were then to assert its right of control over all endowments of an origin anterior to a certain recent date, the exercise of this control should become a regular department of the administration, and the expenditure of the interest should be brought under the consideration of parliament in an annual report. For 198 CORPORATION AND CHURCH PROPERTY. tmtil the execution of these trusts shall be subject to the common responsibility which attaches to other public functions, the endowments (at least the greater part of them) for any useful purpose might fully as well not exist. WHAT IS POETRY? WHAT IS POETRY ?i IT has often been asked. What is Poetry ? And many and various are the answers which have been returned. The vulgarest of all — one with which no person possessed of the facnlties to which Poetry addresses itself can ever have been satisfied — is that which confotmds poetry with metrical composition : yet to this wretched mockery of a definition, many have been led back, by the failure of all their attempts to find any other that would dis- tinguish what they have been accustomed to call poetry, from much which they have known only under other names. That, however, the word "poetry" does import some- thing quit* peculiar iu its nature, something which may exist in what is called prose as well as in verse, something which does not even require the instrument of words, but can speak through those other audible symbols called musical sounds, and even through the visible ones, which are the language of sculpture, paintiag, and architecture ; all this, as we believe, is and must be felt, though perhaps indistinctly, by all upon whom poetry iu any of its shapes produces any impression beyond that of tickling the ear. To the mind, poetry is either nothing, or it is the better part of all art whatever, and of real life too ; and the dis- tinction between poetry and what is not poetry, whether ex- plained or not, is felt to be fundamental. ' " Monthly Repository," January, 1S33. — Ed. 202 -VTHAT IS POETRY? Where everyone feels a difference, a difference ttere must be. All other appearances may be fallacious, but the appearance of a difference is a real difference. Appear- ances too, like other things, must have a cause, and that vrhich can cause anything, even an illusion, must be a reality. And hence, while a half -philosophy disdains the classifications and distinctions indicated by popular lan- guage, philosophy carried to its highest point may frame new ones, but never sets aside the old, content with correcting and regularizing them. It cuts fresh channels for thought, but it does not fill up such as it finds ready- made, but it traces, on the contrary, more deeply, broadly, and distinctly, those into which the current has sponta- neously flowed. Let us then attempt, in the way of modest inqmry, not to coerce and confine nature within the bounds of an arbitrary definition, but rather to find the boundaries which she herself has set, and erect a barrier round them ; not calling mankind to sjxovcat for having misapplied the word " poetry," but attempting to clear up the conception which they already attach to it, and to bring before their minds as a distinct principle that which, as a vague feeling, has really guided them in their actual employment of the term. The object of poetry is confessedly to act upon the emotions ; and therein is poetry sufficiently distinguished from what Wordsworth affirms to be its logical opposite, namely, not prose, but matter of fact or science. The one addresses itself to the belief, the other to the feelings. The one does its work by convincing or persuading, the other by moving. The one acts by presenting a proposi- tion to the understanding, the other by offering interesting objects of contemplation to the sensibilities. This, however, leaves us very far from a definition of poetry. We have distinguished it from one thing, but we WHAT IS POETRY? 203 are bound to distinguish, it from everything. To. bring thoughts or images to the mind for the purpose of acting upon the emotions, does not belong to poetry alone. It is equally the province (for example) of the novelist : and yet the faculty of the poet and that of the novelist are as dis- tinct as any other two faculties ; and the faculty of the novelist and of the orator, or of the poet and the meta- physician. The two characters may be united, as characters the most disparate may ; but they have no natural con- nection. Many of the finest poems are in the form of novels, and in.almost all good novels there is true poetry. But there . is a radical distinction between the interest felt in a novel as such, and the interest excited by poetry ; for the one is derived from incident, the other from the representation of feeling. In one, the source of the emotion excited is the ^ exhibition of a state or states of human sensibility ; in the other, of a series of states of mere outward circumstances. Now, all minds are capable of being affected more or less by representations of the latter kind, and all, or almost all, by those of the former ; yet the two sources of interest correspond to two distinct, and (as respects their greatest development) mutually exclusive, characters of mind. [So much is the nature of poetry dissimilar to the nature of fictitious narrative, that to have a really strong passion for either of the two, seems to presuppose or to superinduce a comparative indifference to the other.] At what age is the passion for a story, for almost any kind of story, merely as a story, the most intense? — in childhood. But that also is the age at which poetry, even of the simplest description, is least relished and least understood ; because the feelings with which it is especially conversant are yet undeveloped, and not having been even in the slightest degree experienced, cannot be sympathized with. In what stage of the progress of society, again, 204 WHAT IS POETRY? is stor j-telling most valued, and the story-teller in greatest request and honour ? — in a rude state ; Uke that of the Tartars and Arabs at this day, and of almost all nations in the earliest ages. But in this state of society there is little poetry except ballads, which are mostly narrative, that is, essentially stories, and derive their principal interest from the incidents. Considered as poetry, they are of the lowest and most elementary kind : the feelings depicted, or rather indicated, are the simplest our nature has ; such joys and griefs as the immediate pressure of some outward event excites in rude minds, which live wholly immersed in out- ward things, and have never, ^ther from choice or a force they could not resist, turned themselves to the contempla- tion of the world within. Passing now from childhood, and from the childhood of society, to the grown-up men and women of this most grown-up and unchildlike age — the minds and hearts of greatest depth and elevation are commonly those which take greatest delight in poetry ; the shallowest and emptiest, on the contrary, are, by universal remark, the most addicted to novel-reading. This accords, too, with all analogous experience of human nature. The sort - of persons whom not merely in books but in their lives, we find perpetually engaged in hunting for excite- ment from without, are invariably those who do not pos- sess, either in the vigour of their intellectual powers or in the depth of their sensibilities, that which would enable them to find ample excitement nearer at home. The same persons whose time is divided between sight-seeing, gossip, and fashionable dissipation, take a natural delight in fictitious narrative ; the excitement it affords is of the kind which comes from without. Such persons are rarely lovers of poetry, though they may fancy themselves so, because they relish novels in verse. But poetry, which is the dehnea- > tion of the deeper and more secret workings of the human heart, is interesting only to those to whom it recalls what WHAT IS POETRY? 205 they Lave felt, or whose imagination it stirs up to conceive •what they could feel, or what they might have been able to feel had their outward circumstances been different. Poetry, when it is really such, is truth ; and fiction also, if it is good for anything, is truth : but they are different , -truths. The truth of poetry is to paint the human soul truly : the truth of fiction is to give a true picture of life. The two kinds of knowledge are different, and come by different ways, come mostly to different persons. Great poets are often proverbially ignorant of life. What they know has come by observation of themselves ; they have found there one highly delicate, and sensitive, and refine specimen of human nature, on which the laws of emotion are written in large characters, such as, can be read off without much study : and other knowledge of mankind, such as comes to men of the world by outward experience, is iiot indispensable to them as poets : but to the novelist such knowledge is all in all ; he has to describe outward things, not the inward man ; actions and events, not feel- ings ; and it will not do for him to be numbered among those who, as Madame Eoland said of Brissot, know man but not men. All this is no bar to the possibihty of combining both elements, poetry and narrative or incident, in the same ' work, and calling it either a novel or a poem ; but so may red and white combine on the same human features, or on the same canvas ; [and so may oil and vinegar, though opposite natures, blend together in the same composite taste.J There is one order of composition which requires the union of poetry and incident, each in its highest kind — the dramatic. Even there the two elements are per- < jectly distinguishable, and may exist of unequal quality, and in the most various proportion. The incidents of a dramatic poem may be scanty and ineffective, though the 206 WHAT IS POETRY? delineation of passion and character may be of the highest order ; as in Goethe's glorious " Torquato Tasso : " or again, the story as a mere story may be well got np for effect, as is the case with some the most trashy productions of the Minerva press : ' it may eveu be, what those are not, a coherent and probable series of events, though there be scarcely a feeling exhibited which is not represented falsely, or in a manner absolutely common-place. The combination of the two excellencies is what renders Shakespeare so generally acceptable, each sort of readers finding in him what is suitable to their faculties. To the many he is great as a story-teller, to the few as a poet. In limiting poetry to the delineation of states of feeling, and denying the name where nothing is delineated but outward objects, ^e may be thought to have done what we promised to avoid — to have not found, but viade a defini- tion, in opposition to the usage of the English language, since it is established by common consent that there is a poetry called a^scripii?;e. We deny the charge. Description is not poetry because there is descriptive poetry, no more than science is poetry because there is such a thing as a didactic poem [; no more, we might almost say, than Greek or Latin is poetry because there are Greek and Latin poems]. ■ But an object which admits of being described, or a truth which may fill a place in a scientific treatise, may also furnish an occasion for the generation of poetry, which we thereupon choose to call descriptive or didactic. The poetry is not in the object itself, nor in the scientific truth itself, but in the state of mind in which the one and the other may be contemplated. The mere delineation of the dimensions and colours of external objects is not poetry, no more than a geometrical ground-plan of St. Peter's or Westminster Abbey is painting. Descriptive ' Published by the firm of Newman, at the comer of Comhill and Bishopsgate Street. — Ed. WHAT IS POETBT? 207 poetry consists, no doubt, in description, but in description of things as they appear, not as they are ; and it paints^ them not in their bare and natural lineaments, but arranged in the colours and seen through the m.edium of the imagination set in action by the feelings. If a poet is to describe a lion, he will not set about describing him as a naturalist would, nor even as a traveller would, who was intent upon stating the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. He describes him by imagery, that is, by suggesting the most striking likenesses and contrasts which might occur to a mind contemplating the lion, in^^ the state of awe, wonder, or terror, which the si3eetacle naturally excites, or is, on the occasion, supposed to excite. Xow this is describing the lion professedly, but the state , of excitement of the spectator really. The lion may be de- scribed falsely or in exaggerated colours, and the poetry be all the better ; but if the human emotion be not painted with the most scrupulous truth, the poetry is bad poetry, i.e. is not poetry at all, but a failure. Thus far our progress towards a clear view of the essentials of poetry has brought us very close to the last two attempts at a definition of poetry which we happen to have seen in print, both of them by poets and men of genius. The one is by Ebenezer Elliott, the author of " Corn-Law Ehymes," and other poems of still greater merit.' " Poetry," says he, " is impassioned truth." The other is by a writer in Blackwood's Magazine, and comes, we think, still nearer the mark. He defines poetry, " man's ' thoughts tinged by his feelings." There is in either definition a near approximation to what we are in search of. Every truth which man can announce, every thought, even every outward impression, which can enter into his consciousness, may become poetry when shewn through ' He contributed to the "Monthly Repository,'' in which this essay appeared. — Ed. 208 WHAT IS POKTRT? any impassioned medium, when invested with the colouring of joy, or grief, or pity, or affection, or admiration, or reverence, or awe, or even hatred or terror : and, unless so ^coloured, nothing, he it as interesting as it may, is poetry. But both these definitions fail to discriminate between poetry and eloquence. Eloquence, as well as poetry, is impassioned truth : eloquence, as well as poetry, is thoughts coloured by the feelings. Tet common apprehension and philosophic criticism alike recognize a distinction between the two : there is much that everyone would call eloquence, which no one would think of classing as poetry. A question will sometimes arise, whether some particular author is a poet ; and those who maintain the negative commonly allow, that though not a poet, he is a highly eloquent writer. The distinction between poetry and eloquence appears to us to be equally fundamental with the distinction betTween poetry and narrative, or between poetry and description. It is stiU. farther from having been satisfactorily cleared up than either of the others [, unless, which is highly probable, the German artists and critics have thrown some light upon it which has not yet reached us. Without a perfect knowledge of what they have written, it is something like presumption to write upon such subjects at all, and we shall be the foremost to urge that, whatever we may be about to submit, may be received, subject to correction from iAem]. Poetry and eloquence are both alike the expression or uttering forth of feeling. But if we may be excused the antithesis, we should say that eloquence is heard, poetry is o«;erheard. Eloquence supposes an audience ; the pecu- liarity of poetry appear to us to lie in the poet's utt^r unconsciousness of a listener. Poetry is feeling, confessing itself to itself in moments of solitude, and embodying itself in symbols, which are the nearest possible representations of the feeling in the exact shape in which it exists in the WHAT IS POETRY? 209 poet's mind. Eloquence is feeling pouring itseK out to other minds, courting their sympathy, or endeavouring to influence their belief, or move them to passion or to action. All poetry is of the nature of soHloquy. It may be said that poetry which is printed on hot-pressed paper and sold at a bookseller's shop, is a soliloquy in full dress, and on the stage. But there is nothing absurd in the idea of such a mode of soliloquizing. What we have said to our- selves, we may tell to others afterwards ; what we have said or done in solitude, we may voluntarily reproduce when we know that other eyes are upon us. But no trace of consciousness that any eyes are upon us must be visible in the wort itself. The actor knows that there is an audience present ; but if he act as though he knew it, he acts ill. A poet may write poetry with the intention of publishing it ; he may write it even for the express purpose of being paid for it ; that it should he poetry, being written under such influences, is far less probable; not, however, impossible ; but no otherwise possible than if he can succeed in excluding from his work every vestige of such lookings-forth into the outward and every-day world, and can express his feelings exactly as he has felt them in ^ solitude, or as he feels that he should feel them, though they were to remain for ever unuttered. But when he 1 turns round and addresses himself to another person ; y when the act of utterance is not itself the end, but a ■ means to an end — viz. by the feelings he himself expresses, 'to work upon the feelings, or upon the belief, or the will, of another, — when the expression of his emotions, or of his thoughts tinged by his emotions, is tinged also by that pur- pose, by that desire of making an impression upon another mind, then it ceases to be poetry, and becomes eloquence- Poetry, accordingly, is the natural fruit of solitude and meditation ; eloquence, of intercourse with the world. The ~^ I. p 210 WHAT IS POETRY? persons who have most feeling of their own, if intellectual culture have given them a language in which to express it, have the highest faculty of poetry ; those who best under- stand the feelings of others, are the most eloquent. The jjersons, and the nations, who commonly excel in poetry, are those whose character and tastes render them least dependent for their happiness upon the applause, or sympathy, or concurrence of the world in general. Those, to whom that applause, that sympathy, that concurrence are most necessary, generally excel most in eloquence. And hence, perhaps, the iJench, who are the least poetical of all great and refined nations, are among the most eloquent : the French, also, heing the most sociable, the vainest, and the least self-dependent. If the above be, as we believe, the true theory of the distinction commonly admitted between eloquence and poetry ; or though it be not that, yet if, as we cannot doubt, the distinction above stated be a real hond fide dis- tinction, it win be found to hold, not merely in the language of words, but in all other language, and to intersect the whole domain of art. Tate, for example, music : we shall find in that art, so pecuharly the expression of passion, two perfectly distinct styles ; one of which may be called the poetry, the other the oratory of music. This difference, being seized, would put an end to much musical sectarianism. There has been much contention whether the character of Rossini's music — the music, we mean, which is characteristic of that composer — is compatible with the expression of passion. Without doubt, the passion it expresses is not the musing, meditative tenderness, or pathos, or grief of Mozart, the great poet of his art. Tet it is passion, but garrulous passion — the passion which pours itself into other ears ; and therein the better calculated for dramatic effect, having a natural adaptation for dialogue. Mozart also is great in WIFAT IS POETRY? 211 musical oratory ; but his most touching compositions are in the opposite style — that of soliloqay. Who can imagine " Dove sono " heard ? We imagiae it ot!e»'heard. ***** Purely pathetic music commonly partakes of soliloquy. The soul is absorbed in its distress, and though there may be bystanders, it is not thinking of them. When the mind is looking ivithin, and not without, its state does not often^;,^ or rapidly vary ; and hence the even, unint€rruj)ted flow, approaching almost to monotony, which a good reader, or a good singer, will give to words or music of a pensive or melancholy cast. But grief taking the form of a prayer, or of a complaint, becomes oratorical ; no longer low, and even, and subdued, it assumes a more emphatic rhythm, a more S-apidly returning accent ; instead of a few slow equal notes, following one after another at regular intervals, it crowds note upon note, and ofttimes assumes a hurry and bustle hke joy. Those who are familiar with some of the best of Rossini's serious comj)ositions, such as the air " Tu che i miseri conforti," in the opera of " Taneredi," or the duet " Ebben per mia memoria," in " La Gazza Ladra," will at once understand and feel otu- meaning. Both are highly tragic and passionate ; the passion of both is that of oratory, not poetry. The like may be said of that most moving prayer in Beethoven's " FideUo "• — '■ Komm, Hotfnung, lass das letzte Stern Der Miide nicht erbleichen ; " in which !Madame Devi-ient last summer exhibited such consummate powers of pathetic expression. How different from Wint-er's beautiful " Paga fui," the very soul of melancholy exhaling itself in solitude ; fuller of meaning, and, therefore, more profoundly poetical than the words for which it was composed — for it seems to express not simple melancholy, but the melancholy of remorse. 212 WHAT IS POETRY? If, from vocal music, we now pass to instnimental, we may have a specimen of musical oratory in any fine miUtarv symphony or march : while the poetrj' of music seems to have attained its consummation in Beethoven's Overture to Egmont. We question whether so deep an expression of mixed grandeur and melancholy was ever in auy other instance produced by mere sounds. In the arts which speak to the eye, the same distinctions will be found to hold, not only betweeu poetry and oratory, but between poetry, oratory, narrative, and simple imitation or description. Pure description is exemplified in a mere portrait or a mere landscape — productions of art, it is true, but of the mechanical rather than of the fine arts, being works >of simple imitation, not creation. We say, a mere portrait, or a m,ere landscape, because it is possible for a portrait or a landscape, without ceasing to be such, to be also a picture. [A portrait by Lawrence, or one of Turner's views, is not a mere copy from nature : the one combines with the given features that particular expression (among all good and pleasing ones) which those features are most capable of wearing, and which, therefore, in combination with them, is capable of producing the greatest positive beauty. Turner, again, unites the objects of the given landscape \vith whatever sky, and whatever light and shade, enable those particular objects to imi^ress the imagination most strongly. In both, there is creative art — not working after ^-^ an actual model, but realizing an idea.] Whatever in painting or sculpture expresses human feeling — or character, which is only a certain state of feeling grown habitual — may be called, according to circumstances, the laoetry, or the eloquence, of the painter's or the sculptor's art ; the poetry, if the feeling declares itself by such signs as escape from us when we are unconscious of being seen ; the oratory, if the signs WHAT IS POETRY? 213 are those we use for the purpose of voluntary communi- cation. [The poetry of painting seems to be carried to its highest perfection in the Peasant Girl of Rembrandt, or ui any Madonna or Magdalen of Gruido ; that of sculpture, in almost any of the Greek statues of the gods ; not con- sidering these in respect to the mere physical beauty, of which they are such perfect models, nor undertaking either to vindicate or to contest the opinion of philosophers. -I that even physical beauty is ultimately resolvable into ex- pression; we may safely affirm that, in no other of man's works did so much of soul ever shiue through mere inani- mate matter.] The narrative style answers to what is called historical painting, which it is the fashion among connoisseurs to treat as the climax of the pictorial art. That it is the most difficult branch of the art we do not doubt, because, in its perfection, it includes, in a manner, the perfection of all the other branches. As an epic poem, though in so far as it is epic {i.e. naiTative), it is not poetry at all, is yet Persons of this sort may be said to think chronologically. If they remember a fact, it is by reason of a fortuitous coinoetry, human feeling, enters far more largely into this than into the poetry of culture. Not only because the natures which we have called poetical, really feel more, and consequentlj' have more feeling to express ; but because, the capacity of feeling being so great, feeling, when excited and not voluntarily resisted, seizes the helm of their thoughts, and the succession of ideas and images " becomes the mere utterance of an emotion ; not, as in other natures, the emotion a mere ornamental colouring of the thought. Ordinary education and the ordinary course of life are constantly at work counteracting this quality of mind, and substituting habits more suitable to their own end : if instead of substituting, they were content to superadd, then there were nothing to complain of. But when will educa- tion consist, not in repressing any mental faculty or power, from the uncontrolled action of which danger is apprehended, but in training up to its proper strength the cx)rrective and antagonist power ? In whomsoever the quality which we have described exists, and is not stifled, that person is a poet. Doubtless he is a greater poet in proportion as the fineness of his perceptions, whether of sense or of internal consciousness, furnishes him with an ampler supply of lovely images — the vigour and richness of his intellect with a greater abundance of moving thoughts. For it is through these thoughts and images that the feeling speaks, and through their impressiveness that it impresses itself, and finds response in other hearts ; and from these media of trans- mitting it (contrary to the laws of physical nature) increase of intensity is reflected back upon the feeling itself. But all these it is possible to have, and not be a poet ; they are 2-32 THE TWO KINDS OF POETRY. mere materials, -whict the poet shares in comm^on -with other people. What constitutes the poet is not the imagery nor the thoughts, nor even the feelings, but the law accord- ing to which they are called up. He is a poet, not because he has ideas of any particular kind, but because the suc- cession of his ideas is subordinate to the course of his emotions. Many who have never acknowledged this in theory, bear testimony to it in their particular judgments. In listening to an oration, or reading a written discourse not professedly poetical, when do we begin to feel that the speaker or author is putting off the character of the orator or the prose writer, and is passing into the poet ? Not when he begins to show strong feeUng ; then we merely say, he seems to feel what he says ; still less when he expresses himself in imagery ; then, unless illustration be manifestly his sole object, we are apt to say. This is affectation. It is when the feeling, (instead of passing away, or, if it con- tinue, letting the train of thoughts run on exactly as they 1 would have done if there were no influence at work but the I mere intellect) becomes itself the originator of another train ' of association, which expels, or blends, with the former ; as when (to take a simple example) the ideas or objects generally, of which the person has occasion to speak for the purposes of his discourse, are spoken of in words which we spontaneously use only when in a state of excitement, and which prove that the mind is at least as much occupied by a passive state of its own feelings, as by the desire of attaining the premeditated end which the discourse has in view.' ' And this, me may remark by the way, seems to point to the true theory of poetic diction ; and to suggest the true answer to as mucli as is erroneous of Mr. Wordsworth's celebrated doctrine on that subject. For on the one liand, all language which is the natural expression of feeling, is really poetical, and will always be THE TWO KINDS OF POETRY. 233 Our judgments of authors who lay actual claim to the title of poets, follow the same principle. We believe that whenever, after a writer's meaning is fully understood, it is stiU matter of reasoning and discussion whether he is a poet or not, he will be found to be wanting in the charac- teristic peculiarity of association which we have so often adverted to. When, on the contrary, after reading or hearing one or two passages, the mind instinctively and without hesitation cries out, This is a poet, the probabiKty is, that the passages are strongly marked with this peculiar quality. And we may add that in such case, a critic who, not having sufficient feeling to respond to the poetry, is also without sufficient philosophy to understand it though he feel it not, will be apt to pronounce, not " this is prose," but this is " exaggeration," " this is mysticism," or, " this is nonsense." Although a philosopher cannot, by culture, make him- self, in the peculiar sense in which we now use the term, a poet, unless at least he have that peculiarity of nature which would probably have made poetry his earliest pur- suit; a -poet may always, by culture, make himself a philosopher. The poetic laws of association are by no means incompatible with the more ordinary laws ; are by no means such as mnst have their course, even though a deliberate pirrpose require their suspension. If the pecu- liarities of the poetic temperament were uncontrollable in any poet, they might be supposed so in Shelley ; yet how powerfully, In the Cenci, does he coerce and restrain all felt as such, apart from conventional associations ; but on the other, whenever intellectual culture has afforded a choice between several modes of expressing the same emotion, the stronger the feeling is, the more naturally and certainly will it prefer the language which is most peculiarly appropriated to itself, and kept sacred from the contact of all more vulgar and familiar objects of contemplation. 234 THE TWO KINDS OF POETRY. the characteristic qualities of his genius ! what severe simplicity, in place of his usual barbaric splendour ! how rigidly does he keep the feelings and the imagery in sub- ordination to the thought ! The investigation of nature requires no habits or qualities of mind, but such as may always be acquired by industry and mental activity. Because in one state the mind may be so given up to a state of feeling, that the succession of its ideas is determined by the present enjoyment or suffer- ing which pervades it, that is no reason but that in the calm retirement of study, when under no peculiar excite- ment either of the outward or of the inward sense, it may form any combinations, or pursue any trains of ideas, which are most conducive to the purposes of philosophic inquiry ; and may, while in that state, form deliberate convictions, from which no excitement will afterwards make it swerve. Might we not go even further than this ? We shall not pause to ask whether it be not a misunder- standing of the nature of passionate feeling to imagine that it is inconsistent with calmness, and whether they who so deem of it, do not confound the state of desire- which unfortunately is possible to all, with the state of fruition which is granted only to the few. But without entering into this deeper investigation; that capacity of strong feeling, which is supposed necessarily to disturb ^ the judgment, is also the material out of which all motives ■' are made ; the motives, consequently, which lead human beings to the pursuit of truth. The greater the indi- vidual's capability of happiness and of misery, the stronger interest has that individual in arriving at truth ; and when once that interest is felt, an impassioned nature is sure to pursue this, as to pursue any other object, with greater ardour ; for energy of character is always the offspring of strong feeling. If, therefore, the most impassioned natures do not ripen into the most powerful intellects, it is always THK TWO KINDS OF POETRY. 235 ft'om defect of culture, or sometliiiig wrong in the circum- stances by which the being has originally or successively been surrounded. Undoubtedly strong feelings require a strong iatellect to carry them, as more sail requires more ballast : and when, from neglect, or bad education, that strength is wanting, no wonder if the grandest and swiftest vessels make the most utter wreck. Where, as in Milton, or to descend to our own times, in Coleridge, a poetic nature has been united with logical and scientific culture, the pecuharity of association arising from the finer nature so perpetually alternates with the associations attainable by commoner natures trained to high perfection, that its own particular law is not so con- spicuously characteristic of the result produced, as in a poet like Shelley, to whom systematic intellectual culture, in a measure proportioned to the intensity of his own nature, has been wanting. Whether the superiority wiU naturally be on the side of the logician-poet or of the mere poet — whether the writings of the one ought, as a whole, to be truer, and their influence more beneficent, than those of the other — is too obvioiis in principle to need statement : it would be absurd to doubt whether two endowments are better than one ; whether truth is more certainly arrived at by two processes, verifying and correcting each other, than by one alone. Unfortunately, in practice the matter is not quite so simple ; there the question often is, which is least prejudicial to the intellect, uncultivation or mal- cultivation. For, as long as so much of education is made up of artificialities and conventionalisms, and the so-called training of the intellect — consists chiefly of the mere inculcation of traditional opinions, many of which, from the mere fact that the human intellect has not yet reached perfection, must necessarily be false ; it is not always clear that the poet of acquired ideas has the advantage over him whose feelinar has been his sole teacher. For, the depth 236 THE TWO KINDS OF POETRY. and durability of wroiig as well as of rigit impressions, is proportional to the fineness of the material ; and they who have the greatest capacity of natural feeling are generally ( those whose artificial feelings are the strongest. Hence, doubtless, among other reasons, it is, that in an age of revolutions in opinion, the cotemporary poets, those at least who deserve the name, those who have any indi- viduality of character, if they are not before their age, are almost sure to be behind it. An observation curiously verified all over Europe in the present century. Nor let it be thought disparaging. However urgent may be the necessity for a breaking up of old modes of belief, the most strong-minded and discerning, next to those who head the movement, are generally those who bring up the rear of it. A text on which to dilate would lead us too far from the present subject Ajjtiqtjus.' ' This signatvire is only tised to identify the authorship of the present article with that of a paper headed ' "What is Poetry ? ' in a former number of the ' Repository.' The writer had a reason for the title when he first adopted it ; but he has discarded it in his later articles, as giving a partial, and so far a false, notion of the spirit by which he would wish his thoughts and writings to be characterized. As Wordsworth says, ' Past a,ni future are the ^\^ngs On whose support, harmoniously conjoined, Moves the great spirit of human knowledge ; ' and though the present as often goes amiss for lack of what time and change have deprived us of, as of what they have yet to bring, a title which points only one way is unsuitable to a writer who attempts to look both ways. In future, when a signature is employed, it will be the single letter A. [Mill afterwards con- tributed articles to the " London Review" with the signature A. —Ed.] TENNYSON'S POEMS. TENNYSON'S POEMS.' TOWAEDS the close of 1830 appeared a small volume of poem.s, the work of an unknown author, and which, with considerable faults (some of them of a bad kind), gave evidence of powers such as had not for many years been displayed by any new aspirant to the character of a poet. This first publication was followed in due time by a second ' in which the faults of its predecessor were still visible, but were evidently on the point of disappearing ; while the positive excellence was not only greater and more uniformly sustained, but of a higher order. The imagination of the poet and his reason had alike advanced: the one had become more teeming and vigorous, while its resources had been brought more habitually and completely under the command of the other. The notice which these iJoems have hitherto received from the more widely- circulated and influential organs of criticism consists, so far as we are aware, of two articles — areview of the first publication, in "Blackwood's Magazine," and of the second in the " Quarterly Eeview." The article in " Blackwood," along with the usual flippancy and levity of that journal, evinced one of its better characteristics — a genuine appreciation and willing recognition of genius. It 1 " London Re\-iew,^' July, 1835.— 1. Poems chiefly Lyrical, by Alfred Tennyson. Effingham Wilson. 1830. 2. Poems, by Alfred Tennyson. Mo.Kon. 1833. — Ed. 240 TENNYSON'S POEMS. was not to be expected that a writer in " Blackwood " could accomplish a criticism on a volume of poetry, without cutting capers and exhibiting himself in postures, as Draw- cansir says, " because he dare." The article on Mr. Tenny- son is throughout in a strain of mocking exaggeration.' Some reviewers write to extol their author, others to laugh at him ; this writer was desirous to do both — first to make the book appear beyond measure contemptible, next in the highest degree admirable — putting the whole force of his mind alternately into these two purposes. If we can forgive this audacious sporting with his reader and his subjects, the critique is otherwise not without merit. The praise and blame, though shovelled out rather than measured, are thrown into the right places ; the real merits and defects of the poems are pointed out with discrimination, and a fair enough impression left of the proportion between the two ; and it is evident that if the same writer were to review Mr. Tennyson's second publication, his praise, instead of being about equally balanced by his censure, would be but slightly qualified by it. Of Mr. Tennyson's two volumes, the second was the only one which fell into the hands of the " Quarterly Eeviewer ; " and his treatment of it, compared with the notice taken by "Blackwood" of its more juvenile predecessor, forms a contrast characteristic of the two journals. Whatever may be in other respects our opinion of " Blackwood's Magazine," it is impossible to deny to its principal writers (or writer) a certain susceptibility of sense, a geniality of temperament. Their mode of writing about works of genius is that of a person who derives much enjoyment from them, and is grateful for them. G-enuine powers of mind, with whatever opinions connected, seldom fail to meet with response and recognition from these writers. ' The article was by " Christopher North '' (Professor John Wilson).— Ed. Tennyson's poems, 241 The " Quarterly Review," on tlie other hand, both under its original and under its present management, has been . characterised by qualities directly the reverse of these. Every new claim upon its admiration, unless forced upon it by the public voice, or recommended by some party interest, it welcomes, not with a friendly extension of the hand, but with a curl of the lip : the critic (as we figure him to ourselves) tating up the book, in trusting anticipa- tion of pleasure, not from the book, but from the contem- plation of his own cleverness in making it contemptible.' He has not missed the opportunity of admiring himself at the expense of Mr. Tennyson : although, as we have not heard that these poems have yet, like those of Mr. Robert Montgomery,^ reached the eleventh edition, nor that any apprehension is entertained of danger to the pubhc taste from their extravagant popularity, we may well be astonished that performances so utterly worthless, as the critic considers them, should have appeared to him de- serving of so much attention from so superior a mind. The plan he adopts is no new one, but abundantly hackneyed : he selects the few bad passages (not amount- ing to three pages in the whole), and such others as, by being separated from the context, may be made to look ridiculous ; and in a strain of dull irony, of which all the point consists in the ill-nature, he holds forth these as a specimen of the work. A piece of criticism resembling, in all but their wit, the disgraceful articles in the early ' The " Quarterly" article was no doubt by Lookhart, editor of the " Review "' at this time. The " original and present manage- ment "of the "Review" alluded to by Mill was that of Gifford and Lockhart, the first and third editors. J. T. Coleridge was for a short time editor between these two. — Ed. ^ The author of " The Omnipresence of the Deity," whose book," published in 1S2S, reached twelve editions in as many months. His " Satan ■" was afterwards very much cut up by Macaulay in the " Edinburgh Re%-iew."— Ed. I. E 242 TENNYSON'S POEMS. numbers of the " Edinburgh Review " on Wordsworth and Coleridge. , Meanwhile, these poems have been vanning their way, / by slow approaches, to a reputation, the exact limits and measure of which it would be hazardous at present to pre- dict, but which, we believe, will not ultimately be incon- siderable. Desiring, so far as may depend upon us, to accelerate this progress, and also not without a desire to exhibit, to any who still have faith in the " Quarterly Review," the value of its critical judgments, we propose to lay before those of our readers who are still unacquainted with the poems, such specimens as may justify the terms in which we have spoken of them — interspersing or sub- joining a few remarks on the character and the present state of the development of Mr. Tennyson's poetic endowment. Of all the capacities of a poet, that which seems to have arisen earliest in Mr- Tennyson, and in which he most excels, is that of scene-painting, in the higher sense of the term : not the mere power of producing that rather vapid species of composition usually termed descriptive poetry — for there is not in these volumes one passage of pure description ; but the power of creating scenery, in keeping with some state of human feeling ; so fitted to it as to be the embodied symbol of it, and to summon up the state of feeling itself, with a force not to be surpassed by anything but reality. Our first specimen, selected from the earlier of the two volumes, will illustrate chiefly this quality of Mr. Tennyson's productions. "We do not anticipate that this little poem wUl be equally relished at fii-st by all lovers of poetry : and, indeed, if it were, its merit could be but of the humblest kind ; for sentiments and imagery which can be received at once, and with equal ease, into every mind, must necessarily be trite. Nevertheless, we do not hesitate to quote it at full length. The subject is Mariana, the TENNYSON'S POEMS. 243 Mariana of " Measure for Measure," living deserted and in solitude in the " moated grange." The ideas which these two words suggest, impregnated with the feelings of the supposed inhabitant, have given rise to the following picture : " With blackest moss the flower-pots Were thickly crusted, one and all. The rusted nails fell from the knots That held the peach to the garden-wall. The broken sheds looked sad and strange, Unlifted was the clinking latch. Weeded and worn the ancient thatch Upon the lonely moated grange. She only said, ' My life is dreary, He Cometh not,' she said ; She said, ' I am aweaiy, aweai-y, I would that I were dead ! ' " Her tears fell with the dews at even, Her tears fell ere the dews were dried. She could not look on the sweet heaven, Either at morn or eventide. After the flitting of the bats, T^Tien thickest dark did trance the sky. She drew her casement-curtain by, And glanced athwart the glooming flats. She only said, ' The night is dreary, He Cometh not,' she said : She said, ' I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead ! ' " Upon the middle of the night. Waking she heard the night-fowl crow : The cock sung out an hour ere light : From the dark fen the oxen's low Came to her : without hope of change, In sleep she seem'd to walk forlorn, Tin cold ^^•inds woke the grey-eyed mom About the lonelv moated grange. 244 TENNYSON'S POEMS. She only said, ' The day is dreary, He Cometh not,' she said ; She said, ' I am awearj-, aweary. I would that I were dead ! ' " About a stone-cast from the wall A sluice with blackened waters slept, And o'er it many, round and small. The clustered marish-mosses crept. Hard by a jjoplar shook alway All silver-green with gnarled bark. For leagues no other tree did mark The level waste, the rounding grey. She only said, ' My life is dreary. He Cometh not,' she said ; She said, ' I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead ! ' " And ever when the moon was low. And the shrill winds were up an' away, In the white curtain, to and fro. She saw the gusty shadow sway. But when the moon was very low. And wild -ivinds bound Avithin their cell. The shadow of the poplar fell Upon her bed, across her brow. She only said, ' The night is dreary. He Cometh not,' she said ; She said, ' I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead ] ' " All day within the dreamy house. The doors upon their hinges creaked ; The blue-fly sung i' the pane ; the mouse Behind the mouldering wainscot shrieked. Or from the crevice peer 'd about. Old faces glimmer'd thro' the doors. Old footsteps trod the upper floors, Old voices called her from ■n'ithout. She onlj- said, ' My life is dreary. He Cometh not,' she said ; She said, ' I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead ! ' TENNYSON'S POEMS. 245 " The sparrow's chirrup on the roof, The slow clock ticking, and the sound Which to the wooing wind aloof The poplar made, did all confound Her sense ; but most she loathed the hour AVhen the thick moted sunbeam lay Athwart the chambers, and the day Downsloped was westering in his bower. Then, said she, ' I am very dreary. He will not come,' she said ; She wept, ' I am aweary, aweary, Oh God, that I were dead ! ' " In the one peculiar and rare quality which we intended to illustrate by it, this poem appears to us to be pre- eminent. We do not, indeed, defend all the expressions in it, some of which seem to have been extorted from the author by the tyranny of rhyme ; and we might find much more to say against the poem, if we insisted upon judging it by a wrong standard. The nominal subject excites anticipations which the poem does not even attempt to fulfil. The humblest poet who is a poet at aU, could make more than is here made of the situation of a maiden aban- doned by her lover. But that was not Mr. Tennyson's idea. The love-story is secondary in his mind. The words, " he cometh not," are almost the only words which aUude to it at all. To place ourselves at the right point of view, we must drop the conception of Shakespeare's Mariana, and retain only that of a " moated grange," and a solitary dweller within it, forgotten by mankind. And now see whether poetic imagei-y ever conveyed a more intense conception of such a place, or of the feeling of such an inmate. From the very first Une, the rust of age and the solitude of desertion are on the whole picture- Words surely never excited a more vivid feeling of physical and spiritual dreariness : and not dreariness alone — for that might be felt under many other circumstances of 246 TENNYSON'S POEMS. solitude — ^but the dreariness whieli speaks not merely of being far from human converse and sympathy, but of being deserted by it. Our next specimen shall be of a character remote from this. It is the second of two poems, " The May Queen " and " New Tear's Eve "—the one expressing the wild, overflowing spirits of a light-hearted girl, just chosen Queen of the May ; the latter the feelings of the same girl some months afterwards, when dying by a gradual decay. We regret that the opening of the latter poem must lose in our pages the effect of contrast produced by its imme- diately succeeding the former : " If you're waking call me early, call me early, mother dear. For I would see the sun rise upon the glad New-year. It is the last New-year that I shall ever see. Then you may lay me low i' the mould and think no more o' me. "To-night I saw the sun set : he set and left hehind The good old year, the dear old time, and all my peace of mind ; And the New-year's coming up, mother, but I shall never see The may upon the blackthorn, the leaf upon the tree. " Last May we made a crown of flowers : we had a merry day ; Beneath the hawthorn on the green they made me Queen of May ; And we danced about the may -pole and in the hazel-copse. Till Charles's Wain came out above the tall white chimney-tops. " There's not a flower on aU the hUls : the frost is on the pane : I only wish to live till the snowdrops come again : I wish the snow would melt and the sun come out on high — I long to see a flower so before the day I die. " The building rook wOl caw from the windy tall ekn-tree, And the tufted plover pipe along the fallow lea. And the swallow wUl come back again with summer o'er the wave, But I shall lie alone, mother, within the mouldering grave. " Upon the chancel-casement, and upon that grave of mine. In the early early morning the summer sun wiU shine. Before the red cock crows from the farm upon the hill, When you are warm-asleep, mother, and all the world is stUl. Tennyson's poems. 247 " When the flowers come again, mother, beneath the waning light You'll never see me more in the long gray fields at night ; When from the dry dark wold the summer airs blow cool On the oat-grass and the sword-grass, and the bulrush in the pool. " Ye'll bury me, my mother, just beneath the hawthorn shade. And ye'U come sometimes and see me where I am lowly laid. I shall not forget ye, mother, I shall hear ye when ye pass, With your feet above my head in the long and pleasant grass. " I have been wild and wayward, but ye'll forgive me now ; Ye'U kiss me, my own mother, upon my cheek and brow ; Nay, nay, ye must not weep, nor let your grief be wild. You should not fret for me, mother, you have another child. " If I can I'll come again, mother, from out my resting-place ; Tho' ye'll not see me, mother, I shall look upon your face ; Though I cannot speak a word, I shall hearken what you say. And be often — often with ye when you think I'm far away. " Goodnight, goodnight, when I have said goodnight for evermore. And ye see me carried out from the threshold of the door ; Don't let EflSe come to see me till my grave be growing green : She'll he a better chUd to you than ever I have been. " She'll find my garden-tools upon the granary floor : Let her take 'em : they are hers : I shall never garden more : JJut tell her, when I'm gone, to train the rose-bush that I set About the parlour-window and the box of mignonette. " Good-night, sweet mother : call me when it begins to dawn. All night I lie awake, but I fall asleep at morn ; But I would see the sun rise upon the glad New -year. So, if you're waking, call me, call me early, mother dear. " This poem is fitted for a more extensive popiilarity than any other in the two volumes. Simple, genuine pathos, arising out of the situations and feelings common to mankind generally, is, of all poetic beauty, that which .can be most universally ajspreciated ; and the genius implied in it is, in consequence, apt to be overrated, for it is also of all kinds that which can be most easily 248 TENNYSON'S POEMS. produced. In this poem there is not only the truest pathos, but (except in one passage) ' perfect harmony and keeping. The next poem which we shall quote is one of higher pretensions. Its length exceeds the usual dimensions of an extract. But the idea which would be given of the more perfect of Mr. Tennyson's poems, by detached passages, would be not merely an incomplete but a false idea. There is not a stanza in the following poem which can be felt or even understood as the poet intended, unless the reader's imagination and feelings are already in the state which results from the passage next preceding, or rather from all which precedes. The very breats, which divide the story into parts, all tell. If every one approached poet'-y in the spirit in which it ought to be approached, willing to feel it first and examine it afterwards, we should not premise another word. But there is a class of readers (a class, too, on whose verdict the early success of a young poet mainly depends), who dare not enjoy until they have felt satisfied themselves that they have a warrant for enjoying ; who read a poem with the critical understanding first, and only when they are convinced that it is right to be deUghted, are willing to give their spontaneous feelings fair play. The conse- quence is that they lose the general effect, while they higgle about the details, and never place themselves in the position in which, even with their mere understandings, they can estimate the poem as a whole. For the benefit of such readers, we tell them beforehand, that this is a tale of en- chantment, and that they will never enter into the spirit of it unless they surrender their imagination to the guidance of the poet, with tbe same easy credulity with which they ' We allude to the second line of the second stanza. The con- cluding words of the line appear to us altogether out of keeping with the re^t of the poem. TENNYSON'S POEMS. 249 would read the " Arabian Nights," or what this story more resembles, the tales of magic of the Middle Ages. Though the agency is supernatural, the scenery, as will be perceived, belongs to the actual world. No reader of any imagination will complain, that the precise nature of the enchantment is left in mystery. THE LEGEND OF THE LADY OF SHALOTT. PAET THE FIRST. " On either side the river lie Long fields of barley and of rye, That clothe the wold and meet the sky ; And thro' the field the road runs by To many-tower'd Camelot. The yellow leaved waterlily, The green-sheathed daffodilly. Tremble in the water chUly, Hound about Shalott. "Willows whiten, aspens shiver, The sunbeam-showers break and quiver In the stream that mnneth ever By the island in the river Flowing down to Camelot. Four grey walls, and four grey towers, Overlook a space of flowers. And the sUent isle imbowers The Lady of Shalott. " Underneath the bearded barley, The reaper, reaping late and early. Hears ever chanting cheerly. Like an angel, singing clearly, O'er the stream of Camelot. Piling the sheaves in furrows airy. Beneath the moon, the reaper weary Listening whispers, ' 'Tis the fairy Lady of Shalott.' " The little isle is all inrailed With a rose-fence, and over-trailed 250 TENNYSON'S POEMS. With roses : by the marge unbailed The shallop flitteth silken-sali'd Skimming down to Camelot : A pearl garland winds her head : She leaneth on a velvet bed, Full royally apparrellfed, The Lady of Shalott. PART THE SECOND. " No time has she to sport and play : There she weaves by night and day A charmed web she weaves alway, A curse is on her if she stay Her weaving either night or day, To look down to Camelot. She knoTvs not what the curse may be. Therefore she weaveth steadily, Therefore no other care hath she, The Lady of Shalott. " She lives with little joy or fear. Over the water, running near. The sheepbell tinkles in her ear. Before her hangs a mirror clear. Reflecting toward Camelot. And, as the mazy web she whirls. She sees the surly callage-churls. And the red-cloaks of market girls. Pass onward from Shalott. " Sometimes a troop of damsels glad. An abbot on an ambling pad, Sometimes a curly shepherd-lad. Or long-hair'd page in crimson clad. Goes by to towered Camelot. And sometimes thro' the mirror blue The knights come riding two and two : She hath no loyal knight and true, The Lady of Shalott. " But in her web she still delights To weave the mirror's magic sights. TENNYSON'S POEMS. 251 For often thro' the silent nights A funeral, with plumes and lights. And music, came from Camelot. Or when the moon was overhead. Came two young lovers lately, wed : ' I am half-sick of shadows,' said The Lady of Shalott. PART THE THIRD. " A bow-shot from her bower-eaves, He rode between the barley-sheaves : The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves, And flamed upon the brazen greaves Of bold Sir Launcelot. A red-cross knight for ever kneeled To a lady in his shield. That sparkled on the yellow field. Beside remote Shalott. " The gemmy bridle gKtter'd free, T;ike to some branch of stars we see Hung in the golden galaxy. The bridle-bells rang merrily As he rode down from Camelot. And, from his blazoned baldric slung, A mighty silver bugle hung, And, as he rode, his armour rung. Beside remote Shalott. " All in the blue unclouded weather Thick-jewelled shone the saddle-leather. The helmet, and the helmet-feather Burned like one burning flame together. As he rode down from Camelot. As often thro' the purple night. Below the stariy clusters bright. Some bearded meteor, trailing light. Moves over green Shalott. " His broad clear brow in sunlight glowed. On burnished hooves liis war-horse trode. 252 Tennyson's poems. From underneath his helmet flow'd His coal-black curls as on he rode. As he rode dow-n from Camelot. From the bank, and from the river, He flashed into the crystal mirror, ' Tirra lirra, tirra lirra,' Sang Sir Launcelot. ^ " She left the web : she left the loom : She made three paces thro' the room : She saw the waterflower bloom : She saw the helmet and the plume : She looked down to Camelot. Out flew the web and floated wide, The mirror cracked from side to side, ' The curse is come upon me,' cried The Lady of Shalott. PART THE FOUETH. " In the stormy east-mnd straining, The pale-yellow woods were waning. The broad stream in his banks complaining, Heavily the low sky raining Over tower'd Camelot : Outside the isle a shallow boat Beneath a willow lay afloat. Below the carven stem she wrote, The Lady of Shalott. " A cloudwhite crown of pearl she dight. All raimented in sno'wy white That loosely flew, (her zone in sight. Clasped with one blinding diamond bright, ) Her wide eyes fixed on Camelot, ' In this most striking passage, which we should have thought would have commanded admiration from everyone who can read, all that the " Quarterly " re\'iewer could see is, that the rhymes are incorrect ! TENNYSON'S POEMS. 253 Though the squally east -wind keenly Blew, with folded arms serenely By the waters stood the queenly Lady of Shalott. " With a steady stony glance — Like some hold seer in a trance, Beholding all his own mischance. Mute, with a glassy countenance She looked down to Camelot. It was the closing of the day She loosed the chain, and down she lay, The hroad stream bore her far away. The Lady of Shalott. " As when to sailors when they roam, Bj' creeks and out-falls far from home. Rising and dropping with the foam. From dying swans wild warblings come, Blown shoreward ; so to Camelot : Still as the boat-head wound along, The willowy hills and fields among, They heard her chanting her death-song. The Lady of Shalott. "A long-dra^vn carol, mournful, holy. She chanted loudly, chanted lowly. Till her eyes were darkened wholly. And her smooth face sharpened slowly ' Turned to towered Camelot : For ere she reached upon the tide The first house by the wat€r-side. Singing in her song she died. The Lady of Shalott. " Under tower and balcony, By garden-wall and gallerj-, ' This exquisite line the egregious critic of the " Quarterly " dis- tinguishes by italics as specially absurd ! proving thereby what is his test of the truth of a description, even of a physical fact. He does not ask himself, Is the fact so ? but. Have I ever seen the expression in the verses of any former poet of celebrity? 254 Tennyson's poems. A pale, pale corpse she floated by. Dead-cold between the houses high, Dead into towered Camelot. Knight and burgher, lord and dame. To the plankdd wharfage came. Below the stem they read her name. The Lady of Shalott.^ In powers of narratiTe and scene-painting combined, this poem must he ranted among the very first of its class. The delineation of outward objects, as in the greater number of Mr. Tennyson's poems, is, not picturesque, but (if we may use the term) statuesque ; with, brilliancy of colour superadded. The forms are not as in paintiug, of unequal degrees of definiteness ; the tints do not melt gradually into eacb otlier, but eacb individual object stands out in bold relief, with, a clear decided outliae. This statue- like precision and distinctness few artists bave been able to give to so essentially vague a language as that of words : but if once this difficulty be got over, scene-painting by words bas a wider range than either painting or sculpture ;' for it can represent (as the reader must have seen in the f orei; going poem), not only with the vividness and strength of the one, but witb the clearness and definiteness of the other, objects in motion. Along with all this there is in the poem all that power of mating a few touches do the whole wort, which excites our admiration in Coleridge. Every line suggests so much more than it says, that much may be left unsaid : the concentration, which is the soul of narrative, is obtained -without the sacrifice of reality and life. Where the march of the story requires that the mind shall pause, details are specified ; where rapidity is necessary, they are all brought before us at a flash. Except that the versification is less exquisite, the " Lady of Shalott " is entitled to a place by the side of " The Ancient Mariner " and " Christabel." ^ We omit the remaining stanza, which seems to us a, " lame and impotent conclusion," where no conclusion was required. TENNYSON'S POEMS. 255 Mr. Tennyson's two volumes contain a whole picture gallery of lovely women. The imagery of the following passage from the poem of "Isahel," in the first volumes, is beautifully typical of the nobler and gentler of two beings, upholding, purifying, and, as far as possible, assimilating to itself the grosser and ruder : " A clear stream flowing with a muddy one, Till in its onward current it absorbs With swifter movement and in pmer light The vexed eddies of its wayivard brother — A leaning and upbearing pareisite, Clothing the stem, which else had fallen quite. With clustered flowerbells and ambrosial orbs Of rich fruit bunches leaning on each other. '' We venture upon a long extract from what we consider the finest of these ideal portraits, the "Eleanore." The reader must not, in this case, look for the definiteness of the " Lady of Shalott ; " there is nothing statuesque here. The object to be represented being more vague, there is greater vagueness and dimness in the expression. The loveliness of a graceful woman, words cannot make us see, but only feel. The individual expressions in the poem, from which the following is an extract, may not always bear a minute analysis ; but ought they to be subjected to it ? They are mere colours in a picture ; nothing in them- selves, but everything as they conduce to the general result. " How may full-sailed verse express, How may measured words adore The full-liowing harniony Of thy swan-like stateliness, Eleanore ? The luxuriant symmetry Of thy floating gracefulness, Eleanore ? 256 TENNYSON'S POEMS. Every turn and glance of thine, Every lineament divine, Eleanore, And the steady sunset glow, That stays upon thee ? For in thee Is nothing sudden, nothing single ; Like two streams of incense free From one censer, in one shrine. Thought and motion mingle. Mingle ever. Motions flow To one another, even as tho' They were modulated so To an unheard melody, Which lives atout thee, and a sweep Of richest pauses, evermore Drawn from each other mellow-deep — Who may express thee, Eleanore ? " I stand before thee, Eleanore ; I see thy beauty gradually unfold. Daily and hourly, more and more. I muse, as in a trance, the while Slowly, as from a cloud of gold. Comes out thy deep ambrosial .smile. I muse, as in a trance, whene'er The languors of thy love-deep eyes Float on to me. I would I were So tranced, so rapt in ecstacies. To stand apart, and to adore. Gazing on thee for evermore. Serene, imperial Eleanore ! " ***** It has for some time been the fashion, though a fashion now happily on the decline, to consider a poet as a poet, only so far as he is supposed capable of delineating the more violent passions ; meaning by violent passions, states of excitement approaching to monomania, and characters predisposed to such states. The poem which follows will show how powerfully, without the slightest straining, by a few touches which do not seem to cost him an effort, Mr. Tennyson can depict such a state and such a character. enntson's poems, 257 THE SISTERS. " We were two (laughters of one race : Sbe was the fairest in the face : The wind is blowing in turret an' tree. They were together, and she fell ; Therefore revenge became me well. O the Earl was fair to see ! " She died : she went to burning flame : She mixed her ancient blood \vith shame. The wind is howling in turret an' tree. Whole weeks and months, and early and late. To win his love I lay in wait : O the Earl was fair to see ! " I made a feast ; I bad him come : I won his love, I brought him home. The wind is roaring in turret an' tree. And after supper, on a bed, Upon my lap he laid his head ; O the Earl was fair to see ! ' ' I kiss'd his eyelids into rest : His ruddy cheek upon my breast. The ^vind is raging in turret an' tree. I hated bim ^^•ith the hate of hell. But I loved his beauty passing well. O the Earl was fair to see ! ' ' I rose up in the sUent night : I made mj' dagger sharp and bright. The wind is raving in turret an' tree. As half-asleep his breath he drew, Three times I stabb'd him thro' and thro'. O the Earl was fair to see ! •' I cuii'd and comb'd his comely head, He looked so grand when he was dead, s 258 TENNYSON'S POEMS. The wind is Wowing in turret an' tree. I wrapped his body in the sheet, And laid him at his mother's feet. O the Earl was fair to see ! " The second publication contains several classical subjects treated with more or less felicity. The story of the Judg- ment of Paris, recited by (Enone, his deserted love, is introduced in the following stately manner : " There is a dale in Ida, lovelier Than any in old Ionia, beautiful With emerald slopes of sunny sward, that lean Above the loud glenriver, which hath worn A path through steepdown granite walls below, Mantled with flowering tendriltwine. In front The cedar-shadowy valleys open wide. Far-seen, high over all the Godbuilt wall And many a snowy-columned range divine. Mounted with awful sculptures — men and Gods, The work' of Gods — bright on the dark blue sky The windy citadel of Ilion Shone, like the crown of Troas. Hither came Mournful QSnohe, wandering forlorn Of Paris, once her playmate. Round her neck, Her neck all marble-white and marble-cold. Floated her hair or seemed to float in rest ; She, leaning on a vine-ent\vinM stone. Sang to the stillness, till the mountain-shadow Sloped downward to her seat from the upper cliff. " ^ ' The small critic of the "Quarterly" finds fault with the frequent repetition, in Q5none's recital, of the following two vex-ses : " O mother Ida, many fountaiued Ida, Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die. " To return continually to the same refrain is, as the reader must have observed, even in our extracts, a frequent practice of Mr. Tennyson, and one which, though occasionally productive of great beauty, he carries to a faulty excess. But on this occasion, if evei', tenntson's poems. 259 • The length to which our quotations have extended, and the unsatisfaetoriaess of short extracts, prevent us from giving any specimen of one of the finest of Mr. Tennyson's poems, the " Lotos Eaters." The subject is familiar to every reader of the " Odyssey." The poem is not of such sustained merit in the execution as some of the others ; but the general impression resembles an effect of climate in a landscape: we see the objects through a drowsy, relaxing, but dreamy atmosphere, and the inhabitants seem to have inhaled the like. Two lines near the com- mencement touch the keynote of the poem : "In the afternoon they came unto a land Wherein it seemfed always afternoon." The above extracts by no means afford an idea of all the variety of beauty to be found in these volumes. But the specimens we have given may, we hope, satisfy the reader, that if he explore further for himself, his search will be rewarded. We shall only subjoin a few remarks tending to an estimation of Mr. Tennyson's general character as a writer and as a poet. There are in the character of every true poet two elements, for one of which he is indebted to nature, for the other to ctiltivation. What he derives from nature is fine senses : a nervous organization, not only adapted to make his outward impressions vivid and distinct (in which, however, practice does even more than nature), but so constituted, as to be, more easily than common organiza- tions, thrown, either by physical or moral causes, into it was allowable. A subject from Greek poetry surely justifies imitation of the Greek poets. Repetitions similar to this are, as everybody knows, universal among the pastoral and elegiac poets of Greece, and their Roman imitators ; and this pcem is both pastoral and elegiac 260 tenntson's poems. states of enjoyment or suffering, especially of enjoyment : states of a certain duration, often lasting long after the removal of the cause whicli produced them ; and not local, nor consciously physical, but, in so far as organic, per- Tading the entire nervous system. This peculiar kind of nervous susceptibility seems to be the distinctive character of the poetic temperament. It constitutes the capacity for poetry ; and not only produces, as has been shown from the known laws of the human mind, a predisposition to the poetic associations, but supplies the very materials out of which m9,ny of them are formed.' What the poet will afterwards construct out of these materials, or whether he wUI construct anything of value to any one but himself, depends upon the direction given, either by accident or design, to his habitual associations. Here, therefore, begins the province of culture ; and from this point up- wards we may lay it down as a principle that the achieve- ments of any poet in his art will be in proportion to the growth and perfection of his thinking faculty. Every great poet, every poet who has extensively or permanently influenced mankind, has been a great thinker ; — has had a philosophy though perhaps he did not call it by that name ; — has had his mind full of thoughts derived not merely from passive sensibility, but from trains of reflec- tion, from observation, analysis, and generalization ; how- ever remote the sphere of his observation and meditation may have lain from the studies of the schools. Where the poetic temperament exists in its greatest degree, while the systematic culture of the intellect has been neglected, ' It may be thought, perhaps, that among the gifts of nature to a poet, ought also to be included a vivid and exuberent imagina- tion. Vi'e believe, however, that vividness of imagination is no further a gift of nature than in so far that it is a natural con- sec^uence of vivid sensations. All besides this we are inclined to think depends on habit and cultivation. Tennyson's poems. 261 e may expect to find, what we do find in the best poems : Shelley — ^vivid representations of states of passive and reamy emotion, fitted to give extreme pleasure to persons : similar organization to the poet, hut not likely to be inpathized in, because not understood, by any other arsons ; and scarcely conducing at all to the noblest end : poetry as an intellectual pursuit, that of acting upon the jsires and characters of mankind through their emotions, I raise them towards the perfection of their nature. This, te every other adaptation of means to ends, is the work ' cultivated reason ; and the poet's success in it will be in •oportion to the intrinsic value of his thoughts, and to le command which he has acquired over the materials of s imagination, for placing those thoughts in a strong jht before the intellect, and impressing them on the elings. The poems which we have quoted from Mr. Tennyson •ove incontestably tliat he possesses, in an eminent igree, the natural endowment of a poet — the poetic mperament. And it appears clearly not only from a mparison of the two volumes, but of different poems in e same volume, that, with him, the other element of letic excellence — intellectual culture — is advancing both 3adily and rapidly ; that he is not destined like so many hers, to be remembered for what he might have done, ther than for what he. did ; that he will not remain a poet mere temperament, but is ripening into a true artist, r. Tennyson may not be conscious of the wide difference maturity of intellect, which is apparent in his various ems. Though he now writes from greater fulness and harness of thought, it by no means follows that he has urnt to detect the absence of those qualities in some of 3 earlier effusions. Indeed, he himself in one of the most autiful poems of his first volume (though, as a work of i, very imperfect), the " Ode to Memory," confesses 262 TENNTSOjr'S POEMS. a parental predilection for the " first bom " of his genius. But to us it is evident, not only that his second volume differs from his first as early manhood from youth, but that the various poems of the first volume belong to different, and even distant stages of intellectual develop- laent; — distant, not perhaps in years — for a mind like Mr. Tennyson's advances rapidly — but corresponding to very difEereiit states of the intellectual powers, both in respect of their strength and of their proportions. From the very first, hke all writers of his natural gifts, he luxuriates in sensuous ' imagery ; his nominal subject sometimes lies buried in a heap of it. From the first, too, we see his intellect, with every successive degree of strength, struggling upwards to shape this sensuous imagery to a spiritual meaning ; '' to bring the materials which sense supplies, and fancy summons up, under the command of a central and controlling thought or feeling. We have seen by the poem of " Mariana " with what success he could occasionally do this, even in the period which answers to his first volume ; but that volume contains various instances in which he has attempted the same thing and failed. Such, for example, are, in our opinion, the opening poem " Claribel," and the verses headed " Elegiacs." In both ' '' Sensuous, a word revived by Coleridge, as he himself states, " from our elder classics." It is used by Milton, who in his little tract on Education, says of poetry, as compared with rhetoric, that it ia less sabtUe and fine, but more simple, sensuous, and passionate. The word sensual is irretrievably diverted to another meaning ; and a term seems to be required, which (■\x'ithout exciting any ethical associations) shall denote all things pertaining to the bodily senses, in contradistinction to things pertaining to the intel- lect and the mental feelings. To this use the word sensuous seems as well adapted as any other which could be chosen. ^ We conceive ourselves warranted, both by usage and the necessity of the case, in using the word spiritual as the convei-se of sensuous. It is scarcely necessary to say that we do not mean religious. TENNYSON'S POEMS. 263 there is what is commonly called imagination — namely, fancy : the imagery and the melody actually haunt us ; but there is no harmonizing principle in either ; — no appro- priateness to the spiritual elements of the scene. If the one poem had been called " A Solitary Place in a Wood," and the other " An Evening Landscape," they would not have lost, but gained. In another poem in the same volume, called " A Dirge," and intended for a person who, when alive, had suffered from calumny — a subject which a poet of maturer powers would have made so much of, Mr. Tennyson merely glances at the topics of thought and emotion which his subject suggested, and expatiates in the mere scenery about the grave.' ' There are instances in the volume of far worse failures than these. Such are the two poems " The Merman " and " The Mer- maid." When a poet attempts to represent to us any of the beings either of religious or of popular mythology, we expect from him, that under the conditions prescribed by the received notion of those beings, some mode of spiritual existence will be figured which we shall recognize as in harmony mth the general laws of spirit, but exhibiting those laws in action among a new set of elements. The faculty of thus bringing home to us a coherent conception of beings unknown to our experience, not by logically characterizing them, but by a living representation of them, such as they would, in fact, he, if the hypothesis of their possibility could be realized — is what is meant, when anything is meant, by the words creative imagination. Mr. Tennyson not only fails in this, but makes nothing even of the sensuous elements of the scene : he does not even prodtice, what he in no other instance misses, a, suitable representation of outward scenery. He is actually puerile. Of the two productions (the most juvenile, we should think, of the set), " An English War Song " and "National Song," we can only say, that unless they are meant for bitter ridicule of vulgar nationality, and of the poverty of intellect which usually aecom- panies it, their appearance here is unaccountable. The sonnet, " Buonaparte," in the second volume, though not so childish in manner, has still something of tlie same spirit which was mani- fested in the two just cited (if they are to be taken as serious). 264 TENNYSON'S POEMS. Some of the smaller poems have a fault which in any but a very juvenile production would be the worse fault of all : they are altogether without meaning : none, at least, that can be discerned in them bj' persons otherwise com- petent judges of poetry ; if the author had any meaning, he has not been able to express it. Such, for instance are the two songs on the Owl ; such, also, are the verses headed " The How and the Why," in the first volume, and the lines on " To-day and Yesterday," in the second. In the former of these productions Mr. Tennyson aimed at shadowing forth the vague aspirations to a knowledge beyond the reach of man — the yearnings for a solution of all questions, soluble or insoluble, which concern our nature and destiny — the impatience under the insufficiency of the human faculties to penetrate the secret of our being here, and being what we are- — ^which are natural in a certain state of the human mind ; if this was what he sought to typify, he has only proved that he knows not the feeling — that he has neither experienced it, nor realized it in imagi- nation. The questions which a Faust calls upon earth and heaven, and all powers supernal and infernal, to resolve for him, are not the ridiculous ones which Mr. Tennyson asks himself in these verses. But enough of faults which the poet has almost entirely thrown off merely by the natural expansion of his intellect. We have alluded to them chiefly to show how rapidly pro- gressive that intellect has been.' There are traces, we ' With the trifling exceptions already mentioned the only pieces in the second volume which we could have wished omitted are, the little piece of childishness beginning " O darling room," and the verses to Christopher North, which express, in rather a com- monplace way, the author's resentment of a critique, which merited no resentment, from him, but rather (all things considered) a directly contrary feeling. One or two poems of greater pretensions than the above may be considered, not indeed as absolute, but as comparative failures. TENNYSON'S POEMS. 265 think, of a continuance of the same progression throughout the second as well as the first volume. : In the art of painting a picture to the inward eye, the improvement is not so conspicuous as in other qualities ; so high a degree of excellence having been already attained in the first volume. Besides the poems which we have quoted, we may refer, in that volume, to those entitled; " Recollections of the Arabian Nights," " The Dying Swan," '•• The Kraken," " The Sleeping Beauty," the beau- tiful poems (songs they are called, but are not), " In the glooming light," and " A spirit haunts the year's last hours," are (like the " Mariana ") not mere pictures, but states of emotion, embodied in sensuous imagery. From these, however, to the command over the materials of out- ward sense for the purpose of bodying forth states of feel- ing, evinced by some of the poems in the second volume, especially "The Lady of Shalott " and " The Lotos Eaters," there is a considerable distance; and Mr. Tennyson seems, as he proceeded to have raised his aims stiU higher, to have aspired to render his poems not only vivid representa- tions of spiritual states, but symbolical of spiritual truths. His longest poem, " The Palace of Art," is an attempt of this sort. As such we do not think it wholly successful, though rich in beauties of detail; but we deem it of the most favourable augury for Mr. Tennyson's future achieve m^ents, since it proves a continually increasing endeavour towards the highest excellence, and a constantly rising standard of it. We predict, that as Mr. Tennyson advances in general spiritual culture, these higher aims will become more and more predominant in his writings, that he will strive more Among these we must place the second poem in the volume (which affords to the " Quarterly " critic the opportunities for almost his only just criticisms) ; and even, notwithstanding its fine sonorous opening, the " Hesperides." 266 TENNYSON'S POEMS. and more diligently, and, even without striving, mil be more and more impelled by the natural tendencies of an expanding character, tovrards what has been described as the highest object of poetry, " to incorporate the everlast- ing reason of man in forms visible to his sense, and suitable to it." For the fulfilment of this exalted purpose, vrhat we have already seen of him authorizes us to foretell with confidence that powers of execution will not fail him ; it rests with himself to see that his powers of thought may teep pace with them. To render his poetic endowment the means of giving impressiveness to important truths, he must by continual study and meditation strengthen his intellect for the discrimination of such truths ; he must see that his theory of life and the w^orld be no chimera of the brain, but the well-grounded result of solid and mature thinking ; — he must cultivate, and with no half-devotion, philosophy as well as poetry. It may not be superfluous to add, that he shoiild guard himself against an error, to which the philosophical specu- lations of poets are peculiarly liable — that of embracing as truth, not the conclusions which are recommended by the strongest evidence, but those which have the most poetical appearance ; — not those which arise from the deductions of impartial reason, but those which are most captivating to an imagination, biased perhaps by education and conventional associations. That whatever philosophy he adopts will leave amiple materials for poetry, he may be weU assured. What- ever is comprehensive, whatever is commanding, whatever is on a great scale, is poetical. Let our philosophical system be what it may, human feelings exist .- human nature, with all its enjoyments and sufferings, its strugglings, its victories and defeats, still remain? to us ; and these are the materials of all poetry. Whoever, in the greatest concerns of human life, pursues truth with unbiased feelings, and an intellect adequate to discern it, will not find that the • resources of TENNYSON'S POEMS. 267 poetry are lost to him because lie has learnt to use and not to abuse them. They are as open to him as they are to the sentimental weakling, who has no test of the true but the ornamental. And when he once has theni under his com- mand, he can wield them for purposes, and with a power, of which neither the dilettante nor the visionary have the slightest conception. We will not conclude without reminding Mr. Tennyson that if he wishes his poems to live he has stiU. much to do in order to perfect himself in the merely mechanical parts of his craft. In a prose- writer great beauties bespeak for- giveness for innumerable negligences ; but poems, espe- cially short poems, attain permanent fame only by the most finished perfection in the details. In some of the most beautiful of Mr. Tennyson's production there are awkwardnesses and feeblenesses of expression, occasionally even absurdities, to be corrected; and which generally might be corrected without impairing a single beauty. His powers of versification are not yet of the highest order. In one great secret of his art, the adaptation of the music of his verse to the character of his subject, he is far from being a master : he often seems to take his metres almost at random. But this is little to set in the balance against so much excellence ; and needed not have been mentioned, except to indicate to Mr. Tennyson the points on which some of his warmest admirers see most room and most necessity for further effort on his part, if he would secure to himself the high place in our poetic literature for which so many of the qualificationjare already his own. A. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. THE FKENCH REVOLUTION.^ THIS is not so much, a history, as an epic poem ; and notwithstanding, or even in consequence of this, the truest of histories. It is the history of the French Revolu- tion, and the poetry of it, both in one ; and on the whole no work of greater genius, either historical or poetical, has been produced in this country for many years. It is a book on which opinion vrill be for some time divided ; nay, what talk there is about it, while it is still fresh, will probably be oftenest of a disparaging sort ; as indeed is usually the case, both with men's works and ' " The French Revolution : A History. In three volumes. By Thomas Carlyle. Small 8vo, Fraser, 1837." [This review appearetl in the "London and Westminster Review" of July, 1837. It is now reprinted for the fiist time ; Mill himself says of the article ("Autobiography," 1873, p. 217): "I believe that the early suc- cess and reputation of Carlyle's ' French Revolution ' were con- siderably a^ccelerated by what I wrote about it in the Review. Immediately on its publication, and before the commonplace critics, all whose rules and modes of judgment it set at defiance, had time to preoccupy the public with their disapproval of it, I wrote and published a review of the book, hailing it as one of those pro- ductions of genius which are above all rules, and are a law to themselves." Further on he says that he did not ascribe the impression he thought was produced by what he wrote " to any particular merit of execution: indeed," continues he, "I do not tliink the execution was good." He adds that he was gratified at the "success" of his "attempt to do immediate service" to a deserving work. — Ed.] 272 THE FRENCH EEVOLUTION. ■srith men themselves, of distinguislied originality. For a thing which is unaccustomed, must be a very small thing indeed, if mankind can at once see into it and be sure that it is good : "when, therefore, a considerable thing, which is also an unaccustomed one, appears, those who will here- after approve, sit silent for a time, making up their minds ; and those only to whom the mere novelty is a sufficient reason ior disapproval, speak out. We need not fear to prophesy that the suffrages of a large class of the very best qualified judges will be given, even enthusiastically, in favour of the volumes before us ; but we will not affect to deny that the sentiment of another large class of readers (among whom are many entitled to the most respectful attention on other subjects) wiU be far different ; a class comprehending all who are repelled by quaintness of manner. For a style more peculiar than that of Mr. Carlyle, more imHke the jog-trot characterless uniformity which distinguishes the English style of this age of Periodicals, does not exist. Nor indeed can this style be wholly defended even by its admirers. Some of its peculiarities are mere mannerisms, arising from some casual association of ideas, or some habit accidentally picked up ; and what is worse, many sterling thoughts are so disguised in phraseology borrowed from the spiritualist school of German poets and metaphysicians, as not only to obscure the meaning, but to raise, in the minds of most English readers, a not unnatural nor inexcusable presump- tion of there being no meaning at alL Nevertheless, the presumption fails in this instance (as in many other instances) ; there is not only a meaning, but generally a true, and even a profound meaning ; and, although a few dicta about the " mystery " and the " infinitude " which are in the universe and in man, and such like topics, are repeated in varied phrases greatly too often for our taste, this must be borne with, proceeding, as one cannot but THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 273 see, from feelings the most solemn, and the most deeply rooted which can lie in the heart of a human being. These transcendentalisms, and the accidental mannerisms excepted, we pronounce the style of this book to be not only good, but of surpassing excellence ; excelled, in its kind, only by the great masters of epic poetry ; and a most suitable and glorious vesture for a work which is itself, as we have said, an epic poem.' To anyone who is perfectly satisfied with the best of the existing histories, it wUl be difficult to explain whereia the merit of Mr. Carlyle's book consists. If there be a person who, in reading the histories of Hume, Robertson, and Gribbon (works of extraordinary talent, and the works of great writers) has never felt that this, after all, is not history — and that the lives and deeds of his fellow- creatures must be placed before him in quite another manner, if he is to know them, or feel them to be real beings, who once were alive, beings of his own flesh and blood, not mere shadows and dim abstractions ; such a person, for whom plausible talk about a thing does as well as an image of the thing itself, feels no need of a book like Mr. Carlyle's 5 the want, which it is peculiarly fitted to supply, does not yet consciously exist in his mind. That such a want, however, is generally felt, may be inferred from tlie vast number of historical plays and historical ' Mill's first idea of Carlyle's writing was that it was "insane ' rhapsodj'. " This was, he tells us, when he read Carlyle's essays on Goethe, etc., in the Edinburgh and Foreign Quarterly reviews, about 1829. In 1831, however, Carlj'le indulged in a similar criticism of Mill, whom he supposed to be " a new mystic." This latter brought about a meeting, and a mutual better under- standing between them. Mill then read "Sartor Kesartus" (in "Fraser's Magazine") "with enthusiastic admiration and the keenest interest," and soon after Carlyle became a frequent con- tributor to his (Mill's) review, the "London and Westminster." — Ed. I. T 274 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. romances, wtich have been written for no other purpose than to satisfy it. Mr. Carlyle has been the first to sliew that all which is done for history by the best historical play, by Schiller's Wallenstein, for example, or Vitet's admirable trilogy,' maybe done in a strictly true narrative, in which every incident rests on irrefragable authority ; may be done, by means merely of an apt selection and a judicious grouping of authentic facts. It has been noted as a point which distinguishes Shake- speare from ordinary dramatists, that iheir characters are logical abstractions, his are human beings : that their kings are nothing but kings, their lovers nothing but lovers, their patriots, courtiers, villains, cowards, bullies, are each of them that, and that alone ; while his are real men and women, who have these qualities, but have them in addi- tion to their full share of all other qualities (not incom- patible), which are incident to human nature. In Shake- speare, consequently, we feel we are in a world of realities ; we are among such beings as really could exist, as do exist, or have existed, and as we can sympathize with ; the faces we see around us are human faces, and not mere rudiments of such, or exaggerations of single features. This quality, so often pointed out as distinctive of Shakespeare's plays, distinguishes Mr. Carlyle' s history. Never before did we take up a book calling itself by that name, a book treating of past times, and professing to be true, and find ourselves actually among human beings. We at once felt, that what had hitherto been to us mere abstractions, had become * " Les Barricades ; " " Les Etats de Blois ; " and " La Mort de Henri III.," three pi'ose plays or rather series of dramatic scenes, illustrative of the League and the period of the religious wars in France. A work scarcely heard of in this country, hut which well deserves to he so. The author, like so many of the rising literary notahilities of France (from M. Guizot downwards), is now unhap- pily withdrawn from literature, hy place-hunting, and doctriiiaire politics. THE FRENCH BEVOLCTTION. 275 realities ; the " forms of things unknown," which we fancied we fcaew, but knew their names merely, were, for the first time, with most startling effect, " bodied forth " and " turned into shape." Other historians talk to us indeed of human beings ; but what do thej place before us ? Not even stuffed figures of such, but rather their , algebraical symbols ; a few phrases, which present no image to the fancy, but by adding up the dictionary mean- ings of which, we may hunt out a few qualities, not enough to form even the merest outline of what the men were, or possibly could have been ; furnishing little but a canvas, which, if we ourselves can paint, we may fill with almost any picture, and if we cannot, it will remain for ever blank. Take, for example, Hume's history ; certainly, in its own way, one of the most skilful specimens of narrative in modem literature, and with some pretensions also to philosophy. Does Hume throw his own mind into the mind of an Anglo-Saxon, or an Anglo-Norman ? Does jany reader feel, after having read Hume's history, that he can now picture to himself what human life was, among the Anglo-Saxons r" how an Anglo-Saxon would have acted in any supposable case ? what were his joys, his sorrows, his hopes and fears, his ideas and opinions on any of the great and small matters of human interest ? Would not the sight, if it could be had, of a single table or pair of shoes made by an Anglo-Saxon, tell us, directly and by inference, more of his whole way of life, more of how men thought and acted among the Anglo-Saxons, than Hume, with all his narrative skill, has contrived to tell us from aU his materials ? Or descending from the history of civili2a,tion, which in Hume's case may have been a subordinate object, to the history of political events : did anyone ever gain from Hume's history anything like a picture of what may 276 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. actually have been passing, in the minds, say, of Cavaliers or of Roundlieads during the civil wars ? Does anyone feel that Hume has made him figure to himself with any precision what manner of men these were ; how far they were like ourselves, how far different; what things they loved and hated, and what sort of conception they had formed of the things they loved and hated ? And what kind of a notion can be framed of a period of history, unless we begin with that as a preliminary ? Hampden, and Strafford, and Vane, and Cromwell, do these, in Hume's pages, appear to us like beings who actually trod this earth, and spoke with a human voice, and stretched out human hands in fellowship with other human beings ; or liie the figures in a phantasmagoria, colourless, im- palpable, gigantic, and in all varieties of attitude, but all resembling one another in being shadows? And suppose he had done his best to assist us in forming a conception of these leading characters : what would it have availed, unless he had placed us also in the atmosphere which they breathed ? What wiser are we for looking out upon the world through Hampden's eyes, unless it be the same world which Hampden looked upon? and what help has Hume afforded us for this ? Has he depicted to us, or to himseK, what all the multitude of people were about, who surrounded Hampden; what the whole English nation were feehng, thinking, or doing ? Does he shew us what impressions from without were coming to Hampden — ^what materials and what instruments were given him to work with ? If not, we are well qualified, truly, from Hume's information, to erect ourselves into judges of any part of Hampden's conduct ! Another very celebrated historian, we mean Gibbon — not a man of mere science and analysis, like Hume, but with some (though not the truest or profoundest) artistic feeUng of the picturesque, and from whom, therefore. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 277 rather more miglit liave been expected — has with much pains succeeded in producing a tolerably graphic picture of here and there a battle, a tumult, or an insurrection ; his book is full of movement and costume, and would make a series of very pretty ballets at the Opera-house, and the ballets would give us fully as distinct an idea of the Roman empire, and how it declined and fell, as the book does. If we want that, we must look for it anywhere but in Gibbon. One touch of M. Guizot removes a portion of the veil which hid from us the recesses of private life Tinder the Roman empire, lets in a ray of light which pene- trates as far even as the domestic hearth of a subject of Rome, and shews us the government at work making that desolate ; but no similar gleam of light from Gibbon's mind ever reaches the subject ; human life, in the times he wrote about, is not what he concerned himself with. On the other hand, there are probably many among our residers who are acquainted (though it is not included in _ Coleridge's admirable translation) with that extraordinary piece of dramatic writing, termed " Wallensteitfs Camp." One of the greatest of dramatists, the historian of the Thirty Tears' War, aspired to do, in a dramatic fiction, which even his genius had not enabled him to do in his history — to delineate the great characters, and, above all, to embody the general spirit of that period. This is done with such life and reality through ten acts, that the reader feels when it is over as if all the prominent personages in the play were people whom he had known from his child- hood ; but the author did not trust to this alone ; he pre- fixed to the ten acts, one introductory act, intended to exhibit, not the characters, but the element they moved in. It is there, in this preliminary piece, that Schiller really de- picts the Thirty Tears' War ; without that, even the other ten acts, splendid a.: they are, would not have sufficiently realized it to our conception, nor would the WaUensteins 278 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. and Piccolominis and Terzskys of that glorious tragedy have been themselves, comparatively speaking, intelligible. What Schiller must have done, in his own mind, with respect to the age of Wallen stein, to enable him to frame that fictitious delineation of it, Mr. Carlyle, with a mind which looks still more penetratingly into the deeper mean- ings of things than Schiller's, has done with respect to the French Revolution. And he has communicated his picture of it with equal vividness ; but he has done it by means of real, not fictitious incidents. And therefore is his book, as we said, at once the authentic History and the Poetry of the French Eevolution. It is indeed a favourite doctrine of Mr. Carlyle, and one which he has enforced with great strength of reason and eloquence in other places, that all poetry suitable to the present age must be of this kind : that poetry has not naturally anything to do with fiction, nor is fiction in these days even the most appropriate vehicle and vesture of it ; that it should, and will, employ itseK more and more, not in inventing unrealities, but in bringing out into ever greater distinctness and impressiveness the poetic aspect of realities. For what is it, in the fictitious sub- jects which poets usually treat, that makes those subjects poetical? Surely not the dry, mechanical facts which compose the story ; but the feelings — the high and solemn, the tender or mournful, even the gay and mirthful con- templations, which the story, or the manner of relating it, awaken in our minds. But would not all these thoughts and feelings be far more vividly aroused if the facts were believed ; if the men, and all that is ascribed to them, had actually heen ; if the whole were no play of imagination, but a truth ? In every real fact, in which any of the great interests of human beings are implicated, there lie the materials of aU poetry ; there is, as Mr. Carlyle has said, the fifth act of a tragedy in every peasant's deathbed ; THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 279 the life of every heroic character is a heroic poem, were but the man of genius found, who could so write it ! Not falsification of the reality is wanted, not the representation of it as being anything which it is not; only a deeper understanding of what it is ; the power to conceive, and to represent, not the mere outside surface and costume of the thing, nor yet the mere logical definition, and caput mortuum of it — but an image of the thing itself in the concrete, with all that is lovable or hateable or admirable or pitiable or sad or solemn or pathetic, in it, and in the things which are implied in it>>That is, the thing must be presented as it can exist only in the mind of a great poet : of one gifted with the two essential elements of the poetic char- acter — creative imagination, which, from a chaos of scat- tered hints and confused testimonies, can summon up the Thing to appear before it as a completed whole : and that depth, and breadth of feeliag which makes all the images that are called up appear arrayed in whatever, of all that belongs to them, is naturally most affecting and impressive to the human soul. We do not envy the person who can read Mr. Carlyle's three volumes, and not recognize in him both these en- dowments in a most rare and remarkable degree. What is equally important to be said — he possesses in no less perfection that among the qualities necessary for his task, seemingly the most opposite to these, and in which the man of poetic imagination might be thought likeliest to be deficient ; the quality of the historical day-drudge. A ^ more pains-taking or accurate investigator of facts, and sifter of testimonies, never wielded the historical pen. We do not say this at random, but from a most extensive acquaintance with his materials,' with his subject, and with the mode in which it has been treated by others. ^ Mill's studies in the French, revolutionary period began -with his visit to France, as a youth, about 1821, when he met M. Say, a 280 THE FRENCH KEYOLUTIOX. Thus endowed, and having a theme the most replete with every kind of human interest, epic, tragic, elegiac, even comic and farcical, which history affords, and so near to us withal, that the authentic details of it are still attain- able ; need it be said, that he has produced a work which deserves to be memorable ? a work which, whatever may be its immediate reception, " will not willingly be let die ; " whose reputa,tion will be a grovring reputation, its influence rapidly felt, for it will be read by the writers ; and perhaps every historical work of any note, which shall hereafter be written in this country, will be different from what it would have been if this book were not. The book commences with the last illness of Louis XV., which is introduced as follows : " President Henault, remarking on royal Surnames of Honour how difficult it often is to ascei^in not only why, but even wben, thej were conferred, takes occasion in his sleek official way to make a philosophical reflection. ' The Surname of Sien- aime (Well-beloved),' says he, ' which Louis XV. bears, will not leave posterity in the same doubt. This Prince, in the year 1744, while hastening from one end of his kingdom to the other, and suspending his conquests in Flanders that he might fly to the assistance of Akace, was arrested at MetE by a malady which threatened to cut short his days. At the news of this, Paris, all in terror, seemed a city taken by storm : the churches resounded with supplications and groans ; the prayers of priests and people were every moment interrupted by their sobs ; and it friend of his father, and a man of the later period of the Revolu- tion. "I carried away," says Mill, "a strong and permanent interest in Continental Liberalism, of which I ever afterwards kept myself a« courant" {" Autobiog.," pji. 60, 61). A result of this was, as !Mr. Courtney says ("Life," p. 49), "a careful study of the French Revolution, and a design to write something on the subject. The literary harvest was not, however, reaped by Mill himself, but by Carlyle, into whose hands Mill seems to have placed a consider- aijle mass of materials." — Ed. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 281 was from an interest so dear and tender that this Surname of Bien-aime fashioned itself, a title higher still than all the rest which this great Prince has earned.' ' " So stands it written; in lasting memorial of that year 1744. Tliirty other years have come and gone ; and ' this great Prince ' again lies sick ; but in how altered circumstances now ! Churches resound not with excessive groanings ; Paris is stoically calm : sobs interrupt no prayers, for indeed none are offered, except Priests' Litanies, read or chanted at fixed money-rate per hour, which are not liable to interruption. The shepherd of the people has been carried home from Little Trianon, heavy of heart, and been put to bed in his own Chateau of "Versailles : the flock knows it, and heeds it not. At most, in the immeasurable tide of French Speech (which ceases not day after day, and only ebbs towards the short hours of night), may this of the royal sickness emerge fi'om time to time as an article of news. Bets are doubtless depending ; nay some people ' express themselves loudly in the streets.' ^ But for the rest, on green field and steepled city, the May sun shines out, the May evening fades ; and men ply their useful or useless business as if no Louis lay in danger." The loathsome deathbed of the royal debauchee becomes, ander Mr. Carlyle's pencil, the central figure in an historical picture, including all France; bringing before us, as it were, visibly, all the spiritual and physical elements which there existed, and made up the sum of what might be termed the influences of the age. In this picture, and in that of the " Era of Hope " (as Mr. Carlyle calls the first years of Louis XVT.) there is much that we would gladly quote. But on the whole we think these introductory chapters the least interesting part of the book ; less dis- tinguished by their intrinsic merit, and more so by all the peculiarities of manner which either are really defects, or ' " Abr^ge Chronologique de I'Histoire de France " (Paris, 1775), p. 701. - "M^moires de M. le Baron Besenval" (Paris, 1805), vol. ii., pp. 59-90. 282 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. appear so. These chapters will only Lave justice done them on a second reading : once familiarized with the author's characteristic turn of thought and expression, we find many passages full of meaning, which, to unprepared miads, would convey a very small portion, if any, of the sense which they are not only intended, but are in them- selves admirably calculated to express : for the finest ex- pression is not always that which is the most readily apprehended. The real character of the book, however, begins only to display itself when the properly narrative portion commences. This, however, is more or less the case with all histories, though seldom to so conspicuous an extent. The stream of the narrative acquires its full speed about the hundred and sixty-fifth page, and the beginning of the fourth book. The introductory rapid sketch of what may be called the coming-on of the Eevolution, is then ended, and we are arrived at the calling together of the States General. The fourth book, first chapter, opens as follows : " The universal prayer, therefore, is to be fiilfilled ! Always in days of national perplexity, when wrong abounded and help was not, this remedy of States General was called for ; by a Malesherbes, nay by a Fenelon : ' even Parlements calling for it were ' escorted with blessings.' And now behold it is vouch- safed us ; States General shall verily be ! " To say, let States General be, was easy ; to say in what manner they shall be, is not so easy. Since the year 1614, there have no States General met in France ; all trace of them has vanished from the lirlng habits of men. Their structure, powers, methods of procedure, which were never in any measure fixed, have now become wholly a vague Possibility. Clay which the potter may shape, this way or that: — say rather, the twenty-five millions of potters ; for so many have now, more or less, a vote in it ! How to shape the States General ? There is a problem. Each Body-corporate, each privileged, each organized Class has ' Montgaillard, vol. i., p. 461. , FRENCH REVOLUTION. 283 secret hopes of its own in that matter ; and also secret misgivings of its own, — for, behold, this monstrous twenty-million Class, hitherto the dumb sheep which these others had to agree about the manner of shearing, is now also arising with hopes ! It has ceased or is ceasing to be dumb ; it speaks through Pamphlets, or at least brays and growls behind them, in unison, — increasing wonderfully their volume of sound, "As for the Parlement of Paris, it has at once declared for the ' old form of 1614.' Which form had this advantage, that the Tiers Etat, Third Estate, or Commons, figured there as a show mainly : whereby the Noblesse and Clergy had but to avoid quarrel between themselves, and decide unobstructed what they thought best. Such was the clearly declared opinion of the Paris Parlement. But, being met by a storm of mere hooting and howling from all men, such opinion was blown straightway to the winds ; and the popularity of the Parlement along with it,- — never to return. The ParlemenfS part, we said above, was as good as played. Concerning which, however, there is this farther to be noted : the proximity of dates. It was on the 22nd of September that the Parlement returned from ' vacation ' or ' exile in its estates ; ' to be reinstalled amid boundless jubilee from aU Paris. Precisely next day, it was that this same Parle- ment came to its ' clearly declared opinion : ' and then on the morrow after that, you behold it ' covered with outrages ; ' its outer court, one vast sibilation, and the glory departed from it for evermore.^ A popularity of twenty-four hours was, in those times, no uncommon allowance. " On the other hand, how superfluous was that invitation of Lomenie : the invitation to thinkers I Thinkers and unthinkers, by the million, are spontaneously at their post, doing what is in them. Clubs labour: Societe Puhlicole ; Breton Club ; Enraored Club, Club des Enrages. Likewise dinner-parties in the Palais Koyal ; your Mirabeaus, Talleyrands dining there, in company \vith Chamforts, Morellets, with Duponts and hot Parlementeers, not without object! For a certain JVeckerean lion's-provider, whom one could name, assembles them there : ° — or even their own private determination to have dinner does it. And then as to pamphlets — in figurative language, ' it is a sheer snowing of 1 .Weber, vol. i., p. 347. ^ Weber, vol. i., p. 360. 284 THE FRENCH RETOLTJTION. pamphlets ; like to snow up the Government thorouglifares ! ' Now is the time for friends of freedom ; sane, and even insane. " Count, or self-styled Count, d'Aintraigues, ' the young Languedocian gentleman,' with perhaps Chamfort the Cynic to help him, rises into furor almost Pythic ; highest, where many are high.* Foolish young Languedocian gentleman ; who himself so soon, ' emigrating among the foremost,' must fly indignant over the marches, with the Contrat Social in his pocket, — towards outer darkness, thankless intriguings, ignis fatuus hover- iiigs, and death by the stiletto ! Abbe Sieyes has left Chartres Cathedral, and canonry and book-shelves there ; has let his tonsure grow, and come to Paris with a secular head, of the most irrefragable sort, to ask three questions, and answer them : What is the Third Estate ? All. Whai has it hitherto been in our form of government f Nothing. What does it want f To become something. " D'Orleans, for be sure he, on his way to Chaos, is in the thick of this, — promulgates his Deliberations ; ° fathered by him, written by Laclos of the Liaisons Dangereuses. The result of which comes out simply : ' The Third Estate is the Nation.' On the other hand, Monseigneur d'Artois, with other Princes of the Blood, publishes, in solemn Memorial to the King, that, if such things be listened to. Privilege, Nobility, Monarchy, Church, State, and Strongbox are in danger.' In danger truly : and yet if you do not listen, are they out of danger ? It is the voice of all France, this sound that rises. Immeasurable, manifold ; as the sound of outbreaking waters : wise were he who knew what to do in it, — if not to fly to the mountains, and hide himself! " How an ideal, all-seeing Versailles Government, sitting there on such principles, in such an environment, would have deter- mined to demean itself at this new juncture ; may even yet be a question. Such a Government had felt too well that its long task was now drawing to a close ; that, under the guise of these States General, at length inevitable, a new omnipotent Unknown • "M^moiresurlesEtats-G<5n^raux." See Montgaillard, vol. !., pp. 457-9. ^ " D61ib&ations k prendre pour les Assemblies des Bailliages.'' ' " M^moire present^ au Koi par Monseigneur Comte d'Artois, M. le Prince de Conde, M. le Due de Bourbon, M. le Due d'Enghien, et JI. le Prince de Conti." (Given in " Hist. Pari.," vol. i., p. 256.) THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 285 of Democracy was cotning into being ; in presence of which no Versailles Gt)venunent either could or should, except in a provisory character, continue extant. To enact which provisory character, so unspeakably important, might its whole faculties but have sufficed ; and so a peaceable, gradual, well-conducted Abdication and Domine-dimittas have been the issue ! " This for our ideal, all-seeing Versailles Government. But for the actual irrational Versailles Government ? Alas ! that is a Government existing there only for its own behoof: without right, except possession ; and now also without might. It for- sees nothing, sees nothing ; has not so much as a purpose, but has only purposes, — and the instinct whereby all that exists will struggle to keep existing. VVhoUy a vortex : in which vain counsels, hallucinations, falsehoods, intrigues, and imbecilities whirl ; like withered rubbish in the meeting of winds ! The CEil-de-Boeuf has its irrational hopes, if also its fears. Since hitherto all States General have done as good as nothing, why should these do more ? The Commons indeed look dangerous ; but on the whole is not revolt, unknown now for five generations, an impossibility ? The Three Estates can, by management, be set against each other ; the Third will, as heretofore, join with the King ; wUl, out of mere spite and self-interest, be eager to tax and vex the other two. The other two are thus delivered bound into our hands, that we may fleece them likewise. Where- upon, money being got, and the Three Estates all in quarrel, dismiss them, and let the fiiture go as it can ! As good Arch- bishop Lomeoie was wont to say : ' There are so many accidents ; and it needs but one to save us.' — How many to destroy us ? " Poor Necker in the midst of such an anarchy does what is possible for him. He looks into it with obstinately hopeful fece ; lauds the known rectitude of the kingly mind ; listens indulgent-like to the known perverseness of the queenly and coui'tly ; — emits if any proclamation or regulation, one favouring the Tiers Etat ; but settling nothing ; hovering afar off rather, and advising all things to settle themselves. « * * * 'But so, at least, by Royal Edict of the 24th of January,"^ does it finally, to impatient expectant France, become not only ' "R^glement du Koi pour la Convocation des Etats-Gen^raux k Versailles" (reprinted, wrong dated, in " Histoire Parlemen- taire," vol. i., p. 262, 286 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. indubitable that national deputies are to meet, but possible (so far and hardly further has the royal regulation gone) to begin electing them." The next Chapter is " The Election." " Up then, and be doing ! The royal signal-word flies through France, as through vast forests the rushing of a mighty wind. At Parish Churches, in Townhalls, and every House of Con- vocation ; by BaiUiages, by Seneschalsies, in whatsoever form men convene ; there, ^vith confusion enough, are primary assem- blies forming. To elect your electors ; such is the form prescribed : then to draw up your ' Writ of Plaints and Grievances ' (^Cahier de plaintes et doleaaces), of which latter there is no lack. " With such virtue works this Royal January Edict ; as it rolls rapidly, in its leathern mails, along these frost-bound high- ways, towards all the four winds. Like some Jiat, or magic spell- word; — which snch things do resemble! For always, as it sounds out ' at the market-cross,' accompanied with trumpet- blast ; presided by BaiUi, Seneschal, or other minor functionary, with beefeaters ; or, in country churches, is droned forth after sermon ' au prone des messes paroissales; ' and is registered, posted, and let fly over all the world, — ^yon behold how this multitudinous French people, so long simmering and buzzing in eager expectancy, begins heaping and shaping itself into organic groups. Which organic groups, again, hold smaller organic grouplets: the in- articulate buzzing becomes articulate speaking and acting. By Primary Assembly, and then by Secondary ; by ' successive elections,' and infinite elaboration and scrutiny, according to prescribed process, — shall the genuine ' Plaints and Grievances ' be at length got to paper ; shall the fit National Representative be at lengtli laid hold of " How the whole People shakes itself, as if it had one life ; and, in thou sand- voiced humour, announces that it is awake, suddenly out of long death-sleep, and wUl thenceforth sleep no more ! The long looked-for has come at last ; wondrous news, of victory, deliverance, enfiranchisement, sounds magical through every heart. To the proud strong man it has come ; whose strong hands shall -no more be gyved ; to whom boundless unconquered continents lie disclosed. The weary day-drudge has heard of it; the beggar with THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 287 his crust moistened in tears. What! To us also has hope reached; down even to us ? Hunger and hardship are not to be eternal ? The bread we extorted from the rugged glebe, and, with the toil of our sinews, reaped and ground, and kneaded into loaves, was not wholly for another, then ; but we also shall eat of it, and be filled? Glorious news (answer the prudent elders), but all too unlikely ! — Thus, at any rate, may the lower people, who pay no money taxes and have no right to vote,^ assiduously crowd round those that do ; and most halls of assembly, within doors and with- out, seem animated enough." Has the reader often seen the state of an agitated nation made thus present, thus palpable ? How the thing paints itself in all its greatness — the men in all their littleness ! and this is not done by reasoning about them, but by showing them. The deep pathos of the last paragraph, grand as it is, is but an average specimen ; as, indeed, is the whole passage. In the remaining two volumes and a half there are scarcely five consecutive pages of inferior merit to those we have quoted. The few extracts we can venture to make, wiU be selected, not for peculiarity of merit, but either as forming wholes in themselves, or as depicting events and situations, with which the reader, it may be hoped, is familiar.^ For the more he previously ' " R^glement du Roi " (in "Histoire Parlementaire," as above, vol. i., pp. 267-307). ^ It may be hoped ; scarcely, we fear, expected. For considering the extraordinary dramatic interest of the storj' of the Revolution, however imperfectly told, it is really surprising how little, to English readers, even the outline of the facts is known. Mr. Carlyle's book is less fitted for those who know nothing about the subject, than for those who already know a little. We rejoice to see that a translation of Thiers is announced. As a mere piece of narrative, we know nothing in modern historical ^^Titing so nearly resembling the ancient models as Thiers' History : we hope he has met with a translator who can do him justice. Whoever has read Thiers first, will be the better fitted both to enjoy and to understand Carlyle. 288 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. knew of the mere outline of the facts, the more he will admire the writer, whose pictorial and truly poetic genius enables him for the first time to fill up the outline. Our last extract was an abridged sketch of the State of a Nation : the next shall be a copious narrative of a single event : the far-famed Siege of the Bastille. How much every such passage must suffer by being torn from the context, needs scarcely be said ; and nothing that could be said, could, in this case, make it adequately felt. The history of the two previous days occupies twenty-two pages, rising from page to page in interest. We begin at noon on the fourteenth of July : " All morning, since nine, there has been a cry everywhere : To the Bastille ! Repealed ' deputations of citizens ' have been here, passionate for arms ; whom de Launaj has got dismissed by soft speeches through portholes. Towards noon, Elector Thuriot de la Rosiere gains admittance ; finds de Lamiay in- disposed for surrender ; nay disposed for blowing up the place rather. Thuriot mounts with liim to the battlements ; heaps of paving-stones, old iron and missiles lie piled; cannon all duly levelled ; in every embrasure a cannon, — orly drawn back a little ! But outwards, behold, O Thuriot, how the multitude flows on, weUing through every street ; tocsin furiously pealing, all drums beating the generale ; the Suburb Saint- Antoine roll- ing hitherward wholly, as one man ! Such vision (spectral yet real) thou, O Thuriot, as from thy Mount of Vision, beholdest in this moment : prophetic of what other Phantasmagories, and loud- gibbering Spectral Realities, which thou yet beholdest not, but shalt! ' Que voulez^tous ? ^ said de Launay, turning pale at the sight, with an air of reproach, almost of menace. ' Monsieur,' said Thuriot, rising into the moral-sublime, ' What mean you f Consider if I could not precipitate hoth of us from this height,' — say only a hundred feet, exclusive of the walled ditch ! Where- upon de Launay fell silent. Thuriot shews himself from some pinnacle, to comfort the multitude becoming suspicious, fremes- ceut : then descends ; departs with protest ; with warning addressed also to the Invalides, — on whom, however, it produces but a rai.^ed indistinct impression. The old heads are none of THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 289 the clearest ; besides, it is said, de Launay has been profuse of beverages (^prodigua des hoUsons). They think, they will not fire, — if not fired on, if they can help it ; but must, on the whole, be ruled considerably by circumstances. " Wo to thee, de Launay, in such an hour, if thou canst not, taking some one firm decision, rule circumstances ! Soft speeches will not serve ; hard grape-shot is questionable ; but hovering between the two is ttnquestionable. Ever wilder swells the tide of men ; their infinite hum waxing ever louder, into imprecations, perhaps into crackle of stray musketry, — which latter, on walls nine feet thick, cannot do execution. The outer drawbridge has been lowered for Thuriot ; new deputation of citizens (it is the third, and noisiest of all) penetrates that way into the outer court : soft speeches producing no clearance of these, de Launay gives fire ; pulls up his drawbridge. A sHght sputter ; — which has kindled the too combustible chaos ; made it a roaring fire- chaos ! Bursts forth Insurrection, at sight of its own blood (for there were deaths by that sputter of fire), into endless rolling ex- plosion of musketry, distraction, execration: — and over head, from the fortress, let one great gun, with its grape-shot, go booming, to shew what we could do. The Bastille is besieged ! ' " On, then, all Frenchmen that have hearts in their bodies ! Eoar with all your throats, of cartilage and metal, ye Sons of Liberty ; stir spasmodically whatsoever of utmost faculty is in you, soul, body or spirit ; for it is the hour ! Smite, thou Louis Tournay, cartwright of the Marais, old-soldier of the Regiment Dauphine ; smite at that outer drawbridge-chain, though the fiery hail whistles round thee ! Never, over nave or felloe, did thy axe strike such a stroke. Down with it, man ; down with it to Orcus : let the whole accursed Edifice sink thither, and Tyranny be swallowed up for ever ! Mounted, some say on the roof of the guard-room, some ' on bayonets stuck into joints of -the wall,' Louis Toumay smites, brave Aubin Bonnemere (also an old soldier) seconding him : the chain yields, breaks ; the huge drawbridge slams down, thundering (arec/racas). Glorious: and yet, alas, it is still but the outworks. The Eight grim Towers, with their Invalides' musketry, their paving-stones and cannon-mouths, still soar aloft intact ; — ditch yawning impassable, stone-faced ; the inner drawbridge with its hack towards us : the Bastille is stiU to take ! I. U 290 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. " To describe this siege of the Bastille (thought to be one of the most important iu History) perhaps transceiuls the talent of mortals. Could one but, after infinite reading, get to understand so much as the plan of the building ! But there is open Esplanade, at the end of the Rue Saint- Antoine ; there are such Forecourts, Cour Avance, Cour de T Orme, arched Gateway (where Louis Tournay now fights) ; then new drawbridges, dormant-bridges, rampart-bastions, and the grim Eight Towers : a labyrinthic mass, high-frowning there, of all ages from twenty years to four hundred and twenty ; — beleagured, in this its last hour, as we said, by mere Chaos come again ! Ordnance of all calibres ; throats of all capacities ; men of all plans, every man his o^vn engineer : seldom since the war of Pygmies and Cranes was there seen so anomalous a thing. Half -pay Elie is home for a suit of regimentals ; no one would heed him in coloured clothes : half- pay Hulin is haranguing Gardes Frauijaises in the Place de Grere. Frantic patriots pick up the grape-shots ; bear them, still hot (or seemingly so), to the H6tel-de-ViUe : — Paris, you perceive, is to be burnt ! Flesselles is ' pale to the very lips,' for the roar of the multitude grows deep. Paris wholly has got to the acme of its frenzy ; whirled, all ways, by panic madness. At every street- barricade, there whirls simmering, a minor whirlpool, — strengthen- ing the barricade, since God knows what is coming : and all minor whirlpools play distractedly into that grand Fire-Mahl- strom which is lashing round the Bastille. " And so it lashes and it roars. Cholat the wine-merchant has become an impromptu cannoneer. See Georget, of the marine service, fresh from Brest, ply the King of Siam's cannon. Singular (if we were not used to the like) : Georget lay, last night, taking his ease at his inn ; the King of Siam's cannon also lay, knowing nothing of him, for a hmidred years. Yet now, at the right instant, they have got together, and discourse eloquent music. For, hearing what was toward, Georget sprang from the Brest Diligence, and ran. Gardes Fran^aises also will be here, with real artillery : were not the walls so thick ! — Upwards from the Esplanade, horizontally from aU neighbouring roofs and windows, flashes one irregular deluge of musketry, — without effect. The Invalides lie flat, firing comparatively at their ease from behind stone; hardly through portholes, shew the tip of a nose. We fall, shot ; and make no impression ! THE FRENCH KEVOLCTION. 291 "Let conflagration rage; of whatsoever is combustible! Guard-rooms are burnt, Invalides' mess-rooms. A distracted ' Peruke-maker with two fiery torches' is for burning 'the salt- petres of the Arsenal;' — had not a woman run screaming; had not a Patriot, with some tincture of Natural Philosophy, instantly struck the wind out of him (butt of musket on pit of stomach), overturned barrels, and stayed the devouring element. A young beautiful lady, seized escaping in these Outer Courts, and thought falsely to be de Launay's daughter, shall be burnt in de Launay's sight ; she lies swooned on a paillasse : but again a Patriot, it is brave Aubin Bonnemere the old soldier, dashes in, and rescues her. Straw is burnt ; thi-ee cartloads of it, hauled thither, go up in white smoke : almost to the choking of Patriotism itself; so that Elie had, with singed brows, to drag back one cart ; and Keole the 'gigantic haberdasher' another. Smoke as of Tophet ; confiision as of Babel ; noise as of the Crack of Doom ! " Blood flows ; the aliment of new madness. The wounded are carried into houses of the Rue Cerisaie ; the dying leave their last mandate not to yield till the accursed Stronghold fall. And yet, alas, how fall ? The walls are so thick ! Deputations, three in number, arrive from the H6tel-de-ViUe ; Abbe Fauchet (who was one) can say, with what almost superhuman courage of benevolence.^ These wave their Town-flag in the arched Gate- way : and stand, rolling their drum ; but to no purpose. In such Crack of Doom, de Launay cannot hear them, dare not believe them : they return, with justified rage, the whew of lead still singing in their ears. ^Vhat to do ? The Firemen are here, squirting with their fire-pumps on the Invalides' cannon, to wet the touchholes ; they unfortunately cannot squirt so high ; but produce only clouds of spray. Individuals of classical knowledge propose catapults. Santerre, the sonorous brewer of the suburb Saint-Antoine, advises rather that the place be fired, by a ' mixture of phosphorus and oil of turpentine spouted up through forcing pumps : ' O Spinola-Santerre, hast thou the mixture ready f Every man his own engineer ! And still the fire-deluge abates not ; even women are firing, and Turks ; at least one woman (with her sweetheart), and one Turk.^ Gardes Fraugaises ' Fauchet's Narrative ("Deux Amis,'' vol. i, p. 324). ' "Deux Amis" (vol i., p. 319), Dusaulx, etc. 292 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. have come : real cannon^ real cannoneers. Usher Maillard is busy ; half-pay Elie, half-pay Hulin rage in the midst of thousands. " How the great Bastille Clock ticks (inaudible) in its Inner Court there, at its ease, hour after hour ; as if nothing special, for it or the world, were passing ! It tolled One when the firing began; and is now pointing towards Five, and still the firing slakes not. — Far down, in their vaults, the seven Prisoners hear mnflSed din as of earthquakes ; their Turnkeys answer vaguely. " Wo to thee, de Launay, with thy poor hundred Invalides ! Broglie is distant, and his ears heavy : Besenval hears, but can send no help. One poor troop of Hussars has crept, reconnoitring, cautiously along the quais, as far as the Pont Neuf. ' We are come to join you,' said the Captain ; for the crowd seems shore- less. A large-headed dwarfish individual, of smoke-bleared aspect, shambles forward, opening his blue lips, for there is sense in him ; and croaks : ' Alight, then, and give up your arms ! ' The Hussar-Captain is too happy to be escorted to the barriers, and dismissed on parole. Who the squat individual was ? Men answer. It is M. Marat, author of the excellent pacific Avis au Peuple ! Great truly, O thou remarkable Dogleech, is this thy day of emergence and new birth : and yet this same day come four years But let the curtains of the Future hang. " A^Tiat shall de Launay do ? One thing only de Launay could have done : what he said he would do. Fancy him sitting, from the first, with lighted taper, within arm's length of the powder- magazine ; motionless, like old Roman Senator, or bronze Lamp- holder ; coldly apprising Thuriot, and all men, by a slight motion of his eye, what his resolution was : — Harmless he sat there, while unharmed ; but the King's fortress, meanwhile, could, might, would, or should, in nowise, be surrendered, save to the King's Messenger : one old man's life is worthless, so it be lost with honour ; but think, ye brawling canaille, how will it be when a whole Bastille springs skj'ward! — In such statuesque, taper-holding attitude, one fancies de Launay might have left Thuriot, the red Clerks of the Bazoche, Cure of Saint-Stephen ond all the tagrag-aud-bobtail of the world, to work their will. " And yet, withal, he could not do it. Hast thou considered how each man's heart is so tremulously responsive to the hearts of all men ; hast thou noted hew omnipotent is the very sound THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 293 of many men ? How their shriek of indif^nation palsies the strong soul ; their howl of contumely Avithers with unfelt pangs ? The Ritter Gliick confessed that the giound-tone of the noblest passage, in one of his noblest Operas, was the voice of the popu- lace he had heard at Vienna, crying to their Kaiser : Bread ! Bread ! Great is the combined voice of men ; the utterance of their instincts, which are truer than their thoughts : it is the greatest a man encounters, among the sounds and shadows, which make up this World of Time. He who can resist that, has his footing somewhere heyond time. De Launay could not do it. Disti-acted, he hovers between two ; hopes in the middle of despair ; surrenders not his fortress ; declares that he will blow it up, seizes torches to blow it up, and does not blow it. Unhappy old de Launay, it is the death-agony of thy Bastille and thee ! Jail, jailoring and jailor, all thi-ee, such as they may have been, must finish. " For four hours now has the "World-bedlam roared : call it the World-Chimsera, blowing fire ! The poor Invalides have sunk fder their battlements, or rise only with reversed muskets : jy have made a white flag of napkins ; go beating the chamade, seeming to beat, for one can hear nothing. The very Swiss the Portcullis look weary of firing ; disheartened in the fire- / deluge : a porthole at the drawbridge is opened, as by one that would speak. See Huissier Maillard, the shifty man ! On his plank, swinging over the abyss of that stone-ditch ; plank rest- ing on parapet, balanced by weight of patriots, — he hovers perilous : such a dove towards such an ark ! Deftly, thou shifty Usher : one man already fell ; and lies smashed, far down there, against the masonry ! Usher Maillard falls not : deftly, unerring he walks, with outspread pahn. The Swiss holds a paper through his porthole ; the shifty Usher snatches it, and returns. Terms of surrender : Pardon, immunity to all ! Are they accepted ? — ' Foi d^officier, on the word of an officer,' answers half-pay Hulin, — or half-pay Elie, for men do not agree on it, ' they are ! ' Sinks the drawbridge, — Usher Maillard bolting it when down ; rushes in the living deluge : the Bastille is fallen ! Victoire ! La Bastille est prise ! " ^ ' "Histoiie de la Kevolution," par Deux Amis de la Liberte, vol. i., pp. 267-306. Besenval, vol. iii, pp. 410-434. Dusaul-x : 294 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. We next quote the passage on the Burning of Chateaux. Mr. Carlyle gives rather a different account from what English people have been used to, of that feature of the Eevolution : " Starvation has been known among the French commonalty before this ; known and familiar. Did we not see them, in the year 1775, presenting, in sallow faces, in wretchedness and raggedness, their Petition of Grievances ; and, for answer, getting a brand-new gaUows forty feet high ? Hunger and darkness, through long years ! For look back on that earlier Paris riot, when a great personage, worn out by debauchery, was believed to be in want of blood-baths ; and mothers, in worn raiment, yet with living hearts under it, ' filled the public places ' with their wild Rachel-cries, — stiDed also by the gallows. Twenty years ago, the Friend of Men (preaching to the deaf) described the Limousin peasants as wearing a pain-stricken {souffredouleur) look, a look past complaint, ' as if the oppression of the great were like the hail and the thunder, a thing irremediable, the ordinance of nature.' ' And now, if in some great hour, the shock of a falling Bastille should awaken youj and it were found to be the ordinance of art merely ; ana-, remediable, reversible ! ^' " Or has the reader forgotten that ' flood of savages,' which, in sight of the same Friend of Men, descended from the mountains at Mont d'Or ? Lank -haired haggard faces ; shapes rawboned, in. high sabots ; in woollen jupes, with leather girdles studded with copper-nails ! They rocked from foot to foot, and beat time with their elbows too, as the quarrel and battle which was not long in beginning went on ; shouting fiei-cely ; the lank faces distorted into the similitude of a cruel laugh. For they were darkened and hardened : long had they been the prey of excise- men and tax-men ; of ' clerks with the cold spurt of their pen.' It was the fixed prophecy of our old Marquis, which no man would listen to, that ' such Goverament by Blind-man's-buff, stumbling along too far, would end by the General Overturn, the Calbute Generale ! ' "Prise de la BastiUe," pp. 291-301. Bailly : " M&ioires " (Col- lection de Berville et Barrifere), vol. i. , pp. 322 et seq. ' Fils Adoptif : " ]\I(5moires de Mirabeau," vol. i., pp. 364-394. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 295 " JsTo man would listen, eact went his thouglitless way ; — and Time and Destiny also ti-avelled on. The Government by Blind- man's-buff", stumbling along, has reached the precipice inevitable for it. Dull Drudgery, driven on, by clerks with the cold dastard spurt of their pen, has been driven — into a Commimion of Drudges ! For now, moreover, there have come the strangest confused tidings ; by Paris Journals with their paper wings ; or stiU more portentous, whei-e no Journals are,^ by rumour and conjecture: Oppression not inevitable; a Bastille prostrate, and the Constitution fast getting ready ! Which Constitution, if it be something and not nothing, what can it be but bread to eat ? " The traveller, ' walking up hUl bridle in hand,' overtakes ' a poor woman ; ' the image as such commonly are, of drudgery and scarcity ; ' looking sixty years of age, though she is not yet twenty-eight.' They have seven children, her poor drudge and she : a farm, with one cow, which helps to make the children soup ; also one little horse, or garron. They have rents and quit- rents. Hens to pay to this Seigneur, Oat-sacks to that; King's taxes, Statute-labour, Church-taxes, taxes enough ; — and think the times inexpressible. She has heard that somewhere, in some manner, something is to be done for the poor : ' God send it soon; for the dues and taxes crush us down (junis ecrasent') ! ' ^ " Fair prophecies are spoken, but they are not fulfilled. There have been Notables, Assemblages, turnings out and comings in. Intriguing and manoeuvring ; parliamentary elo- quence and arguing, Greek meeting Greek in high places, has long gone on ; yet stOl bread conies not. The harvest is reaped and garnered ; yet still we have no bread. Urged by despair and by hope, what can Drudgery do, but rise as predicted, and pro- duce the General Overturn ? " Fancy, then, some five full-grown millions of such gaunt figures, with their haggard faces {Jigures haves) ; in wooUen jupes, with copper-studded leather girths, and high sabots, — starting up to ask, as in forest-roarings, their washed Upper- Classes, aft«r long unreviewed centuries, virtually this question : How have ye treated us ; how have ye taught us, fed us, and led ^ See Arthur Young, voL i., pp. 137-150, etc. " Ibid., p. m. 296 THE FRENCH BEVOLUTION. us, while we toiled for you ? The answer can be read in flames, over the nightly summer-sky. This is the feeding and leatiing we have had of you : Emptiness, — of pocket, of stomach, of head, and of heart. Behold there is nothing in us ; nothing but what natiire gires her wild children of the desert : Ferocity and Appetite ; Strength grounded on Hunger. Did ye mark among your Bights of Man, that man was not to die of starvation, while there was bread reaped by him? It is among the Mights of Man. " Seventy-two Chateaus have flamed aloft in the Maconnais and Beaujolais alone : this seems the centre of the conflagration; but it has spread over Dauphine, Alsace, the Lyonnais ; the whole south-east is in a blaze. All over the north, from Bouen to Metz, disorder is abroad : smugglers of salt go openly in in armed bands : the barriers of towns are burnt ; toU-gatherers, tax-gatherers, ofiicial persons put to flight. ' It was thought,' says Young, ' the people, from hunger, would revolt ; ' and we see they have done it. Desperate Lackalls, long prowling aim- less, now finding hope in desperation itself, everywhere form a nucleus. They ring the Church bell by way of tocsin : and the parish turns out to the work.^ Ferocity, atrocity ; hunger and revenge : such work as we can imagine ! " 111 stands it now with the Seignem-, who, for example, ' has walled up the only Fountain of the Township ; ' who has ridden high on his chartier and parchment : who has preserved Game not wisely but too well. Churches also, and Canonries, are sacked, without mercy ; which have shorn the flock too close, forgetting to feed it. Wo to the land over which Sansculottism, in its day of vengeance, tramps roughshod, — shod in sabots ! Highbred Seigneurs, with their delicate women and little ones, had to ' fly half-naked,' under cloud of night ; glad to escape the flames, and even worse. You meet them at the tahles-(T hdte of inns ; making wise reflections or foolish that ' rank is destroyed ; ' uncertain whither they shall now wend." The metayer will find it convenient to be slack in paying rent. As for the Tax- gatherer, he, long hunting as a biped of prey, may now get hunted as one ; his Majesty's Exchequer will not ' fill up the Deficit,' this season : it is the notion of many that a Patriot Majesty, being the Bestorer of French Liberty, has abolished ' See "Histoire Parlementaire, '' vol. ii., pp. 243-246. "See Young, vol. i. , pp. 149, etc. - TIIL; FRENCH REVOLUTION. 297 most taxes, thoiigli, for their private ends, some men make a secret of it. " Where this ■nill end ? In the Abyss, one may prophesy ; whither all Delusions, are, at all moments, travelling; where this Delusion has now arrived. For if there be a Faith, from of old, it is this, as we often repeat, that no Lie can live for ever. The very Tmth has to change its vesture, from time to time ; and be born again. But all Lies have sentence of death written down against them, in Heaven's Chancery itself; and, slowly or fast, advance incessantly towards their hour. ' The sign of a Graml Seigneur being landlord,' says the vehement plain-spoken Arthur Xonng, ' are wastes, landes, deserts, ling : go to his residence, you will find it in the middle of a forest, peopled with deer, wild boars and wolves. The fields are scenes of pitiable management, as the houses are of misery. To see so many millions of hands, that would be industrious, all idle and starving : oh, if I were legislator of France, for one day, I would malie these great lords skip again ! " ^ O Arthur, thou now actually beholdest them skip ; — wilt thou grow to grumble at that too ? " For long years and generations it lasted, but the time came. Featherbrain, whom no reasoning and no pleading could touch, the glare of the firebrand had to illuminate : there remained but that method. Consider it, look at it ! The widow is gathering nettles for her children's dinner ; a perfumed Seigneur, delicately lounging in the Qiil-de-Boeuf, has an alchemy whereby he will extract from her the third nettle, and name it Rent and Law: such an arrangement must end. Ought it ? But, O most fearful is such an ending ! Let those, to whom God, in His great mercy, has granted time and space, prepare another and milder one." We sliall now give a still more striking scene : the opening of the " Insurrection of Women." " If Voltaire once, in splenetic humour, asked his countrymen : ' But you, Gualches, what have you invented ? ' they can now answer ; the Art of Insurrection. It was an art needed in these last singular times : an art, for which the French natiu-e, so fiill of vehemence, so free from depth, was perhaps of all others the fittest. " Accordingly, to what a height, one may well say of perfection, ' Arthur Young, vol. i., pp. 12, 48, 84, etc. 298 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. has this branch of huruan industry been carried by France, within the last half century ! Insurrection, which, Lafayette thought, might be ' the most sacred of duties,' ranks now, for the French people, among the duties which they can perform. Other mobs are dull masses ; which'roU onwards with a dull fierce tenacity, a dull fierce heat, but emit no light-flashes of genius as they go. The French mob, again, is among the liveliest phenomena of our world. So rapid, audacious ; so clear-sighted, inventive, prompt to seize the moment ; instinct with life to its finger-ends ! That talent, were there no other, of spontaneously standing in queue, distinguishes, as we said, the French People from all Peoples, ancient and modern. " Let the reader confess too that, taking one thing with another, perhaps few terrestrial Appearances are better worth considering than mobs. Your mob is a genuine outburst of Nature ; issuing from, or communicating with, the deepest deep of Nature. When so much goes grinning and grimacing as a lifeless Formality, and under the stiff buckram no heart can be felt beating, here once more, if nowhere else, is a Sincerity and Reality. Shudder at it ; or even shriek over it, if thou must; nevertheless consider it. Such a Complex of human Forces and Individualities hurled forth, in their transcendental mood, to act and react, on circum- stances and on one another ; to work out what it is in them to work. The thing they will do is known to no man ; least of all to themselves. It is the inflammablest immeasurable Fire-work, generating, consuming itself. With what phases, to what extent, with what results it will burn off. Philosophy and Perspicacity conjecture in vain. " 'Man," as has been written, ' is for ever interesting to man ; nay, properly there is nothing else interesting.' In which light also, may we not discern why most Battles have become so wearisome ? Battles, in these ages, are transacted by mechanism ; with the slightest possible development of human individuality or spontaneity : men now even die, and kill one another, in an arti- ficial manner. Battles ever since Homer's time, when they were Fighting Mobs, have mostly ceased to be worth lookuig at, worth reading of, or remembering. How many wearisome bloody Battles does History strive to represent ; or even, in a husky way, to sing : — and she would omit or carelessly slur-over this one Insurrection of Women ? THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 299 " A thought, or dim raw-material of a thonght, was fermenting all night, universally in the female head, and might explode. In squalid garret, on Monday morning, IStatemity awakes, to hear children weeping for bread. Maternity must forth to the streets, to the herb-markets and Bakers'-queues ; meets there with hunger-stricken Maternity, sympathetic, exasperative. O we unhappy women! But instead of Bakers'-queues, why not to Aristocrats' palaces, the root of the matter ? Allans ! Let us assemble. To the H6tel-de-Ville ; to Versailles; to the Lanterne ! "In one of the Guardhouses of the Quartier Saint-Eustache, ' a young woman ' seizes a drum, — for how shall National Guards give fire on women, on a young woman ? The young woman seizes the drum ; sets forth, beating it, ' uttering cries relative to the dearth of grains.' Descend, O mothers ; descend, ye Judiths, to food and revenge ! — All women gather and go ; crowds storm all stairs, force out all women : the female Insurrectionary Force, according to Camille, resembles the English Naval one ; there is a universal ' Press of women.' Eobust dames of the Halle, slim mantua-makers, assiduous, risen with the dawn; ancient Virginity tripping to matins ; the Housemaid, with early broom; all must go. Rouse ye, O women ; the laggard men will not act ; they say, we ourselves may act ! " And so, like snowbreak from the mountains, for every stair- case is a melted brook, it storms ; tumultuous, wild-shrUlinor, towards the H6tel-de- VUle. Tumultuous ; with or without drum- music : for the Faubourg Saint- Antoine also has tucked up its gown ; and, with besom-staves, fire-irons, and even rusty pistols (void of ammunition), is flowing on. Sound of it flies, with a velocity of sound, to the utmost Barriers. By seven o'clock, on this raw October morning, fifth of the month, the Townhall win see wonders. Nay, as chance would have it, a male party are already there ; clustering tumultuously round some National Patrol, and a Baker who had been seized with short weights. They are there ; and have even lowered the rope of the Lanterne. So that the official persons have to smuggle forth the short- weighing Baker by back doors, and even send ' to all the Dis- tricts ' for more force. " Grand it was, says CamiUe, to see so many Judiths, from eight to ten thousand of them in all, rushing out to search into 300 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. the root of tlie matter ! Not unfrightful it must have been ; ludicro-terrific, and most unmanageable. At such hour the overwatcbed Three Hundred are not yet stirring : none but some Clerks, a company of National Guards ; and M. de Gouvion, the Major-General. Gouvion has fought in America for the cause of civil Liberty ; a man of no inconsiderable heart, but deficient in head. He is, for the moment, in his back apartment ; assuaging Usher MaUlard, the Bastille-serjeant, who has come, as too many do, with ' representations.' The assuagement is still incomplete when our Judiths arrive. " The National Guards form on the outer stairs, witb levelled bayonets ; tbe ten thousand Judiths press up, resistless ; with obtestations, with outspread hands, — merely to speak to the Mayor. The rear forces them ; nay, from male hands in the rear, stones already fly : the National Guard must do one of two things ; sweep the Place de Greve >vith cannon, or else open to right and left. They open ; the living deluge rushes in. Through all rooms and cabinets, upwards to the topmost belfry : ravenous ; seeking arms, seeking Mayors, seeking justice ; — while, again, the better-dressed speak kindly to the Clerks ; point out the misery of these poor women ; also their ailments, some even of an interesting sort.' " Poor M. de Gouvion is shiftless in this extremity ; — a man shiftless, perturbed ; who will one day commit suicide. How happy for him that Usher MaUlard, the shifty, was there, at the moment, though making representations ! Fly back, thou shifty Maillard; seek the Bastille Company ; and O return fast with it; above all, with thy own shifty head ! Tor, behold, the Judiths can find no Mayor or Municipal ; scarcely in the topmost belfry, can they find poor Abbe Lefevre the Powder-distributor. Him, for want of a better, they suspend there ; in the pale morning light; over the top of all Paris, which swims in one's failing eyes : — a horrible end ? Nay, the rope broke, as French ropes often did ; or else an Amazon cut it. Abbe Lefevre falls, some twenty feet, rattling among the leads ; and lives long years after, though always with ' a tremblemcnt in the limbs.' - " And now doors fly under hatchets : the Judiths have broken ' "Deux Amis," vol. iii., pp. 141-166. - Dusaulx : " Prise de la Bastille" (Note, p. 2S1). 'J:HE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 301 the Armoury ; have seized guns and cannons, three money-bags, paper-heaps ; torches flare : in few minutes, onr brave Hotel-de- ViUe which dates from the Fourth Heniy, will, with all that it holds, be in flames ! " Here opens a new chapter. " In flames, truly, — were it not that Usher Maillard, swift of foot, shifty of head, has returned ! " Maillard, of his own motion, for Gouvion or the rest would not even sanction him, — snatches a drum ; descends the Porch- stairs, ran-tan, beating sharp, with loud rolls, his Rogues' march : to Versailles! Allans; a Versailles ! As men beat on kettle or warming-pan, when angry she-bees, or say, flying desperate wasps, are to be hived ; and the desperate insects hear it, and cluster round it, — simply as round a guidance, where there was none : so now these Menads round shifty Maillard, Eiding-Usher of the Chatelet. The axe pauses uplifted ; Abbe Lefevre is left half-hanged ; from the belfry downwards all vomits itself. What rub-a-dub is that? Stanislas Maillard, Bastille-hero, will lead us to Versailles ? Joy to thee, Maillard ; blessed axt thou above Riding-Ushers ! Away then, away ! " The seized cannon are yoked with seized cart-horses : brown- locked Demoiselle Theroigne, with pike and helmet, sits there as gunneress, ' with haughty eye and serene fair countenance ; ' comparable, some think, to the Maid of Orleans, or even recall- ing ' the idea of Pallas Athene.' ^ Jlaillard {for his drum still rolls) is, by heaven-rending acclamation, admitted General. Maillard hastens the languid march. Maillard, beating i-hythmic, with sharp ran-tan, all along the Quais, leads forward, with difficulty, his Menadic host. Such a host — marched not in silence ! The bargeman jiauses on the river ; all wagoners and coach-drivers fly ; men peer from windows, — not women, lest they be pressed. Sight of sights : Bacchantes, in these ultimate Formalized Ages ! Bronze Henri looks on, from his Pont Neuf ; the Monarchic Louvre, Medicean Tuileries see a day not theretofore seen. " And now Maillard has his Menads in the Cliamps Elysees (fields Tartarean rather) ; and the Hotel-de-Ville has suffered ' " Deux Amis," vol. iii., p. 157. 302 THE FKENCH REVOLUTION. comparatively nothing. Broken doors ; an Abbe Lefevre, who shall never more distribute powder ; three sacks of money, most part of which (for Sansculottism, though famishing, is not with- out honour) shall be returned : ' this is all the damage. Great Maillard ! A small nucleus of order is round his drum ; but his outskirts fluctuate like the mad ocean: tor rascality male and female is flowing in on him, from the four winds ; guidance there is none but in his single head and two drumsticks. " O Maillard, when, since war first was, had General of Force such a task before him, as thou this day ? Walter the penniless still touches the feeling heart : but then Walter had sanction : had space to turn in ; and also his crusaders were of the male sex. Thou, this day, disowned of Heaven and Earth, art General of iienads. Their inarticulate frenzy thou must, on the spur of the instant, render into articulate words, into actions that are not frantic. Fail in it, this way or that ! Pragmatical Ofliciality, with its penalties and law-books, waits before thee; Menads storm behind. If such hewed otF the melodious head of Orpheus, and hurled it into the Peneus waters, what may they not make of thee, — thee rhythmic merely, with no music but a sheepskin drum! — Maillard did not fail. Remarkable Maillard, \ if fame were not an accident, and history a distillation of rumour, how remarkable wert thou I * * * * * " Scarcely was Maillard gone, when M. de Gouvion's message to all the Districts, and such tocsin and drumming of the generale, began to take effect. Armed National Guards from every District ; especially the Grenadiers of the Centre, who are our Old Gardes Fran9aises, arrive in quick sequence, on the Place de Greve. An' immense people' is there ; Saint- Antoine, with pike and rusty firelock, is all crowding thither, be it welcome or unwelcome. The Centre Grenadiers are received with cheer- ing : ' it is not cheers that we want,' answer they gloomily ; ' the nation has been insulted ; to arms, and come with us for orders ! ' Ha, sits the wind so ? Patriotism and PatroUotism are now one ! " The Three Hundred have assembled ; ' all the Committees are in activity;' Lafayette is dictating dispatches for Versailles, when a Deputation of the Centre Grenadiers introduces itself to ^ " Histoire Parlementaire," voL iii., p. 310. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 303 him. The Deputation makes military obeisance ; and thus speaks, not without a kind of thought in it : ' Mon General, we are deputed by the Six Companies of Grenadiers. We do not think you a traitor, but we think the Government betrays you ; it is time that this end. We cannot turn our bayonets against women crying to us for bread. The people are miserable, the source of the mischief is at Versailles : we must go seek the Ki ng, and bring him to Paris. We must exterminate (^exierminer) the Regiment de Flandre and the Gardes-du- Corps, who have dared to trample on the jSTational Cockade. If the King be too weak to wear his crown, let him lay it down. You will crown his Son, you will name a Council of Regency ; and all will go better.' ' Reproachful astonishment paints itself on the face of Lafayette ; speaks itself from his eloquent chivalrous lips : in vain. ' My General, we would shed the last drop of our blood for you; but the root of the mischief is at Versailles : we must go and bring the King to Paris ; all the people wish it, tout le peuple le veut.' " My General descends to the outer staircase ; and harangues ; once more in vain. ' To Versailles ! To Vei-saUles ! ' Mayor BaUly, sent for through floods of Sansculottism, attempts academic oratory from his gilt state-coach ; realizes nothing but infinite hoarse cries of : ' Bread ! To Vei-sailles ! ' — and gladly shrinks within doors. Lafayette mounts the white charger ; and again haraugues, and reharangues : with eloquence, with firm- ness, indignant demonstration ; with all things but persuasion. To Versailles ! To Versailles ! ' So lasts it, hour after hour ; — for the space of half a day. " The great Scipio Americanus can do nothing ; not so much as escape. ' Morhlcu, mon General,' cry the Grenadiers, serrying their ranks as the white charger makes a motion that way. ' You will not leave us, you will abide with us ! ' A perilous juncture : Major BaOly and the Municipals sit quaking within doors ; My General is prisoner without : the Place de Greve, with its thirty thousand Regulars, its whole irregular Saint-Antoine and Saint- Marceau, is one minatory mass of clear or rusty steel ; all hearts set, with a moody fixedness, on one object. Moody, fixed are all hearts : tranquil is no heart, — if it be not that of the white ' "Deux Amis," vol. iii., p. 161. 304 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. charger, who paws there, with arched neck, composedly champing his bit; as if no World, with its Dynasties and Eras, were now rushing down. The drizzly day tends westward ; the cry is still : ' To Versailles ! ' " Nay now, borne from afar, come quite sinister cries ; hoarse, reverberating in longdrawn hollow murmurs, with syllables too like those of Lanterne ! Or else, irregular Sansculottism may be marching off, of itself; with pikes, nay with cannon. The inflexible Scipio does at length, by aide-de-camp, ask of the Municipals : Whether or not he may go ? A Letter is handed out to him, over armed heads ; sixty thousand faces flash fixedly on his, there is stillness and no bosom breathes, till he have read. By Heaven, he grows suddenly pale ! Do the Municipals per- mit ? ' Permit and even order,' — since he can no other. Clan- gour of approval rends the welkin. To your ranks, then ; let us march ! "It is, as we compute, towards three in the afternoon. Indignant National Guards may dine for once fi-om their haver- sack : dined or undined, they march \nth oue heart. Paris flings up her windows, clap hands, as the Avengers, with their shrilling drums and shalms framp by ; she will then sit pensive, apprehensive, and pass rather a sleepless night.^ On the white charger, Lafayette, in the slowest possible manner, going and coming, and eloquently haranguing among the ranks, rolls onward with his thirty thousand. Saint- Antoine, with pike and cannon, has preceded him; a mixed multitude, of all and of no arms, hovers on his flanks and skirts ; the country once more pauses agape : Paris marche sur nous." We cannot stop liere. See the beginning of the next chapter. " For indeed, about this same moment, Maillard has halted his draggled Menads on the last hill-top ; and now Versailles, and the Chateau of Versailles, and far and wide the inheritance of Royalty opens to the wondering eye. Prom far on the right, over Marly and Saiut-Germain-en-Lay ; round towards liam- bouillet, on the left : beautiful all ; softly embosomed ; as if in sadness, in the dim moist weather ! And near before us is Ver- ^ " Deux Amis,'' vol. iii., p. 165. itiK FRENCH REVOLUTION. 305 sajUes, New and Old ; with that broad frondent Avenue de Ver- sailles between, — stately-frondent, broad, 300 feet as men reckon, with four rows of elms ; and then the Chateau de Versailles, ending in royal Parks and Pleasances, gleaming lakelets, arbours. Labyrinths, the Menagerie, and Great and Little Trianon. ELigh-towered dwellings, leafy pleasant places ; where the gods of this lower world abide : whence, nevertheless, black Care cannot be excluded; whither Menadic Hunger is even now advancing, armed with pike-thyrsi ! " Yes, yonder, Mesdames, where our straight frondent Avenue, joined, as you note, by Two frondent brother Avenuesf rom this hand and from that, spreads out into Place Royale and Palace Forecourt; yonder is the Salle des Mentis. Yonder an august Assembly sits regenerating France. Forecourt, Grand Court, Court of Marble, Court narrowing into Court you may discern next, or fancy ; on the extreme verge of which that glass-dome, visibly glittering like a star of hope, is the — (Eil-de-Boeuf ! Yonder, or nowhere in the world, is bread baked for us. But, O Mesdames, were not one thing good : That our cannons, with Demoiselle Theroigue and all show of war, be put to the rear ? Submission beseems petitioners of a National Assembly ; we are strangers in Versailles, — whence, too audibly, there comes even now sound as of tocsin and generale ! Also to put on, if possible, a cheerful countenance, hiding our sorrows ; and even to sing? Sorrow, pitied of the Heavens, is hateful, suspicious to the Earth. — So counsels shifty Maillard ; haranguing his Menads, on the heights near Versailles. " Cunning MaUlaid's dispositions are obeyed. The draggled Insurrectionists advance up the Avenue, ' in three columns ' among the four Elm-rows ; ' singing Henri Quatre,' with what melody they can ; and shouting Vive le Roi. Versailles, though the elm-rows are dripping wet, crowds from both sides, with : ' Vivent nos Parisiennes, our Paris ones for ever ! ' " We skip twenty pages, and pass to a later part of the same incident. " Deep sleep has fallen promiscuously on the high and on the low, suspending most things, even wrath and famine. Darkness covers the Earth. But, far on the north-east, Paris flings up her great yellow gleam ; far into the wet black Night. For all is 306 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. illuminated there, as in the old July nights; the streets deserted, for alarm of war ; the Municipals all wakeftil ; patrols hailing, with their hoarse Who-goes. There, as we discover, our poor slim Louison Chabray, her poor nerves all fluttered, is arriving about this very hour. There Usher Maillard will arrive, about an hour hence, ' towards four in the morning.' They report, suc- cessively, to a wakefiil H6tel-de-Ville what comfort they can report ; which again, with early dawn, large comfortable placards, shall impart to all men. " Lafayette, in the Hotel de Noailles, not far from the Chateau, having now finished haranguing, sits with his officers consulting : at five o'clock the unanimous best counsel is, that a man so tost and toiled for twenty-four hours and more, fling himself on a bed, and seek some rest. ****** " The dull dawn of a new morning, drizzly and chill, had but broken over Versailles, when it pleased Destiny that a Body- guard should look out of window, on the right wing of the Chateau, to see what prospect there was in Heaven and in Earth. Rascality male and female is prowling in view of hiin. His fasting stomach is, with good cause, sour ; he perhaps cannot forbear a passing malison on them ; least of all can he forbear answering such. " 111 words breed worse : till the worst word came ; and then the ill deed. Did the maledicent Bodyguard, getting (as was too inevitable) better malediction than he gave, load his muske- toon, and threaten to fire ; nay, actually fire ? Were wise who wist! It stands asserted; to us not credibly. Be this as it may, menaced Rascality, in whinnying scorn, is shaking at all Grates : the fastening of one (some write, it was a chain merely) gives way ; Rascality is in the Grand Court, whinnying louder stiU. " The maledicent Bodyguard, more Bodyguards than he do now give fire : a man's arm is shattered. Lecointre will depose ^ that ' the Sieur Cardaine, a National Guard without arms, was stabbed.' But see, sure enough, poor Jerome I'Heritier, an un- armed National Guard he too, 'cabinet maker, a saddler's son, of Paris,' with the down of youthhood still on his chin, — he reels ^ "Deposition de Lecointre" (in Hist., Part IIL, pp. 111-115). THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 307 death-stricken ; rushes to the pavement, scattering it with his blood and brains ! — AUelew ! Wilder than Irish wakes, i-ises the howl : of pity ; of infinite revenue. In a few moments, the Grate of the inner and inmost Court, which they name Court of Marble, this too is forced, or surprised, and bursts open : the Court of Marble too is overflowed : up the Grand Staircase, up all stairs and entrances rushes the living Deluge ! Deshuttgs and Varigny, the two sentry Bodyguards, are trodden down, are massacred >vith a hundred pikes. Women snatch their cut- lasses, or any weapon, and storm-in Menadic : — other women lift the corpse of shot Jerome ; lay it down on the . marble steps ; there shall the livid face and smashed head, dumb for ever, speak. " Wo now to all Bodyguards, mercy is none foi' them ! Miomandre de Sainte-Marie pleads with soft words, on the Grand Staircase, 'descending four steps :' — to the roaring tor- nado. His comrades snatch him up, by the skirts and belts ; literally, from the jaws of Destruction ; and slam-to their Door. This also wiU stand few instants ; the panels shivering in, like potsherds. Barricading serves not : fly fast, ye Bodyguards ; rabid Insurrection, like the hellhound Chase, uproaring at your heels ! " The terrorstruck Bodyguards fly, bolting and barricading; it follows. Wlitherward ? Thi-ough hall on hall : wo, now ! towards the Queen's Suite of Rooms, in the furthest room of which the Queen is now asleep. Five sentinels rush through that long Suite ; they are in the Anteroom knocking loud : ' Save the Queen ! ' Trembling women fall at their feet vrith tears ; are answered : ' yes, we will die ; save ye the Queen ! ' " Tremble not, women, but haste : for lo, another voice shouts far through the outermost door, ' save the Queen ■ ' and the door is shut. It is brave Miomandre's voice that shouts this second warning. He has stormed across imminent death to do it ; fronts imminent death, having done it. Brave Tardivet du Repaire, bent on the same desperate service, was borne down with pikes ; his comrades hardly snatched him in again alive. Miomandre and Tardivet: let the names of those two Body- guards, as the names of brave men should, live long. " Trembling Maids of Honour, one of whom from afar caught glimpse of Miomandre as well as heard him, hastily wrap the 308 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. Queeu ; not in robes of state. She flies for her life, across the CEil-de-BoE«f ; against the main door of which too Insurrection batters. She is in the King's Apartment, in the King's ai-ms ; she clasps her children amid a faithful few. The Imperial- hearted bursts into mother's tears : ' O my friends, save nie and my children, O mes amis, sauvez moi et mes enfans J ' The bat- tering of Insurrectionarj axes clangs audible across the CEil-de- Bffiuf. What an hour ! " Yes, friends : a hideous fearful hour ; shameful alike to Governed and Governor ; wherein Governed and Governor igno- miniouslj testify that their relation is at an end. Rage, which had brewed itself in twenty thousand hearts, for the last four- and- twenty hours, has taken ^re : Jerome's brained corpse lies there as live-coaL It is, as we said, the infinite Element burst- ing in ; wild-surging through all corridors and conduits. , "Meanwhile, the poor Bodyguards have got hunted mostly into the (Eil-de-Boeuf. They may die there, at the King's threshold; they can do little to defend it They are heaping tabourets (stools of honour), benches and all movables, against the door; at which the axe of Insurrection thunders. But did brave Miomandre perish, then, at the Queen s outer door ? No, he was fractured, slashed, lacerated, left for dead ; he has nevertheless crawled hither ; and shall live, honoured of loyal France. Remark also, in flat contradiction to much which has been said and simg, that Insurrection did not burst that door he had defended ; but hurried elsewhither, seeking new Bodyguards.* " Poor Bodyguards, with their Thyestes' Opera- Repast ! Well for them that Insurrection has only pikes and axes ; no right sieging-tools ! It shakes and thunders. Must they aU perish miserably, and Royalty with them ? Deshuttes and Varigny, massacred at the first inbreak, have been beheaded in the marble Court : a sacrifice to Jerome's manes : Jourdan with the tile- beard did that duty willingly ; and asked. If there were no more ? Another captive they are leadmg round the corpse, with howl-chauntings : may not Jourdan again tuck up his sleeves ? " And louder and louder rages Insiu-rection within, plundering ' Campan, vol. iL, pp. 75-87. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 309 if it cannot kill ; louder and louder it thundei-s at the GEil-de- Boeuf : what can now hinder its bursting in ? — On a sudden it ceases ; the battering has ceased ! Wild rushing : the cries grows fainter ; there is silence, or the tramp of regular steps ; then a friendly knocking : ' We are the Centre Grenadiers, old Gardes Franvith prompt military word of command. National Guards, suddenly roused, by sound of trumpet and alarm-drum, are all arriving. The death-knell ceases : the first sky-lambent blaze of Insurrection is got damped down ; it burns now, if unextinguished, yet flameless, as charred coals do, and not inextinguishable." And what (it may be asked) are Mr. Carlyle's opinions ? If this means, whether is he Tory, Whig, or Democrat ; is he for things as they are, or for things nearly as they are ; or is he one who thiaks that subverting things as they are, and setting np Democracy is the main thing needful ? we answer, he is none of all these. We should sav that he has appropriated and made part of his own frame of thought, nearly all that is good in aU these several modes of thinking. But it may be asked, what ^ Toulongeon, vol. L, p. 144. 310 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. opinion has Mr. Carlyle formed of the French Eevolution, as an event in. universal history ; and this question is entitled to an answer. It should be, however, premised, that in a history upon the plan of Mr. Carlyle's, the opinions of the writer are a matter of secondary im- portance." lu reading an ordinary historian, we want to know his opinions, because it is mainly his opinions of things, and not the things themselves, that he sets before us ; or if any features of the things themselves, those chiefly, ■which his opinions lead him to consider as of im- portance- Our readers have seen sufficient in the extracts we have made for them, to be satisfied that this is not Mr. Carlyle's method. Mr. Carlyle brings the thing before us in the concrete — clothecl , not indeed in all its properties and circumstances, since these are infinite, but in as many of them as can be authentically ascertained and imagina- tively realized: not prejudging that some of those pro- perties and circumstances will prove instructive and others not, a prejudgment which is the fertile source of mis- representation and one-sided historical delineation without end. Every one knows, who has attended (for instance) to the siftiug of a complicated case by a court of justice, that as long as our image of the fact remains in the slightest degree vague and hazy and undefined, we cannot t«ll but that what we do not yet distinctly see may be pre- ciselj' that on which all turns. Mr. Carlyle, therefore, brings us acquainted with persons, things, and events, before he suggests to us what to think of them : nay, we see that this is the very process by which he arrives at his own thoughts ; he paints the thing to himself — he con- structs a picture of it in his own mind, and does not, till afterwards, make any logical propositions about it at all. This done, his logical propositions concerning the thing may be true, or may be false ; the thing is there, and any reader may find a totally different set of propositions in it THE FRENCH KEVOLUTION. 311 if he cau ; as he might in the reality, if that had been before him. "We, for our part, do not always agree in Mr. Carlyle's opinions either on things or on men. But we hold it to be impossible that any person should set before himseK a perfectly true picture of a great historical event, as it actually happened, and yet that his judgment of it should be radically wrong. DifEering partially from some of Mr. Carlyle's detached views, we hold his theory, or theorem, of the Revolution, to be the true theory ; true as far as it goes, and wanting little of being as complete as any theory of so vast and complicated a phenomena can be. Nay, we do not think that any rational creature, now that the thing can be looked at calmly, now that we have nothing to hope or to fear from it, can form any second theory on the matter. Mr. Carlyle's view of the Revolution is briefly this : That it was the breaking down of a great Imposture : which had not always been an Imposture, but had been becoming such for several centuries. Two bodies — the King and Feudal Nobility, and the Clergy — held their exalted stations, and received the obedience and allegiance which were paid to them, by virtue solely of their affording guidance to the people : the one, directing and keeping order among them in their con- junct operations towards the pursuit of their most im- portant temporal interests ; the other, ministering to their spiritual teaching and culture. These are the grounds on which alone any government either claims obedience or finds it : for the obedience of twenty-five millions to a few hundred thousand never yet was yielded to avowed tyranny. Now, this guidance, the original ground of all obedience, the privileged classes did for centuries give. The King and the Nobles led the people in war, and protected and 312 THE FRENCH REV0LT7TI0N. judged them in peace, being the fittest persons to do so who then existed; and the Clergy did teach the best doctrine, did inculcate and impress upon the people the best rule of life then known, and did believe in the doc- trine and in the rule of life which they taught, and mani- fested their belief by their actions, and believed that, in teaching it, they were doing the highest thing appointed to mortals. So far as they did this, both spiritual and temporal rulers deserved and obtained reverence, and will- ing loyal obedience. But for centuries before the French Revolution, the sincerity which once was in this scheme of society was gradually dying out. The King and the Nobles afforded less and less of any real guidance, of any real protection to the people ; and even ceased more and more to fancy that they afforded any. All the important busi- ness of society went on without them, nay, mostly in spite of their hindrance. The appointed spiritual teachers ceased to do their duty as teachers, ceased to practise what they taught, ceased to believe it, but alas, not to cant about it, or to receive wages as teachers of it. Thus the whole scheme of society and government in France become one great Lie : the places of honour and power being all occu- pied by persons whose sole claim to occupy them was the pretence of being what they were not, of doing what they did not, nor even for a single moment attempted to do. All other vileness and profligacy in the rulers of a country were but the inevitable consequences of this inherent vice in the condition of their existence. And, this continuing for centuries, the government growing ever more and more consciously a Lie, the people ever more and more perceiving it to be such, the day of reckoning, which comes for all impostures, came for this : the Good would no longer obey such rulers, the Bad ceased to be in awe of them, and both together rose up and hurled them into chaos. Such is Mr. Carlyle's idea of what the Revolution was. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 313 And now, as to the melancholy turn it took, the horrors which accompanied it, the iron despotism by which it was forced to wind itself up, and the smallness of its positive results, compared with those which were hoped for by the sanguine in its commencement. Mr. Carlyle's theory of these things is also a simple one : That the men, most of them good, and many of them among the most iastructed of their generation, who at- tempted at that period to regenerate France, failed in what it was impossible that anyone should succeed in : namely, in attempting to found a government, to create a new order of society, a new set of iastitutions and habits, among a people having no convictions to base such order of things upon. That the existing government, habits, state of society, were bad, this the people were thoroughly convinced of, and rose up as one man, to declare, in every language of deed and word, that they would no -more endure it. What was, was bad; but what was good, nobody had determined ; no opinion on that subject had rooted itself in the people's minds ; nor was there even any person, or any body of persons, deference for whom was rooted in their minds and whose word they were willing to take for all the rest. Suppose, then; that the twelve hundred members of the Constituent Assembly had even been gifted with perfect knowledge what arrangement of society was best : — how were they to get time to establish it ? Or how were they to hold the people in obedience to it when established? A people with no preconceived revereiiee, either for it or for them ; a people like slaves broke from their fetters — with all man's boiuidless desires let loose in indefinite expectation, and all the influences of habit and imagination which keep mankind patient under the denial of what they crave for, annihilated for the time, never to be restored but in some quite different shape ? Faith, doubtless, in representative institutions, there 314 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. was, and of the firmest kind ; but unhappily this was not enough : for all that representative institutions themselves can do, is to give practical effect to the faith of the people in something else. What is a representative constitution ? Simply a set of contrivances for ascertaining the convictions of the people ; for enabling them to declare what men they have faith in ; or, failing such, what things the majority of them will insist upon having done to them — ^by what ride they are willing to be governed. But what if the majority have not faith in any men, nor know even in the smallest degree what things they wish to have done, in what manner they would be governed ? This was the condition of the French people. To have made it other- . wise was possible, but required time ; and time, unhappily, in a Revolution, is not given. A great man, indeed, may do it, by inspiring at least faith in himself, which may last till the tree he has planted has taken root, and can stand alone ; such apparently was Solon,' and such perhaps, had he lived, might have been Mirabeau : nay, in the absence of other greatness, even a great quack may temporarily do it ; as Napoleon, himself a mixture of great man and great quack, did in some measure exemplify. Revolutions sweep much away, but if any Revolution since the beginning of the world ever founded anything, towards which the minds of the people had not been growing for generations pre- vious, it has been founded by some individual man. Much more must be added to what has now been said, to make the statement of Mr. Carlyle's opinions on the ' A more definite, as well as, we tliink, a juster idea of this great man, than we have met -with elsewhere, may be found in Mr. Bulwer's " Athens " ; a book which, if it be completed as it has been begun, ^vill, by its effect in correcting prejudices which have been most sedulously fostered, and dift'using true notions on one of the most interesting of all parts of the world's history, entitle its author to no humble meed of praise. [The late Lord Lytton"s "Athens, its Rise and Fall,'" remains a fragment. — Ed.] THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 315 French Revolution anything like complete ; nor shall we any further set forth, either such of those opinions as we agree in, or those, far less numerous, from which we dis- agree. Nevertheless, we will not leave the subject without pointing out what appears to us to be the most prominent defect in our author's general mode of thinking. His own method being that of the artist, not of the man of science - — working as he does by figuring things to himself as wholes, not dissecting them into their parts — he appears, though perhaps it is but appearance, to entertain some- thing like a contempt for the opposite method ; and to go as much too far in his distrust of analysis and generaliza- tion, as others (the Constitutional party, for instance, in the French Eevolution) went too far in their reliance upon it. Doubtless, in the infinite complexities of human affairs, any general theorem which a wise man will form con- cerning them, must be regarded as a mere approximation to truth ; an approximation obtained by striking an. average of many cases, and consequently not exactly fitting any one case. No wise man, therefore, will stand upon his theorem only — neglecting to look into the specialities of the case in hand, and see what features that may present which may take it out of any theorem, or bring it within the compass of more theorems than one. But the far greater number of people — when they have got a formula by rote, when they can bring the matter in hand within some maxim " in that case made and provided " by the traditions of the vulgar, by the doctrines of their sect or school, or by some generalization of their own — do not think it necessary to let their mind's eye rest upon the thing itseK at all ; but dehberate and act, not upon know- ledge of the thing, but upon a hearsay of it ; being (to use a frequent illustration of our author) provided with spectacles, they fancy it not needful to use their eyes. It 316 THE FREKCH REVOLUTION. sbould be understood that general principles are not in- tended to dispense with thinking and examining, but to help us to think and examine. When the object itself is out of our reach, and we cannot examine into it, we must follow general principles, because, by doing so, we are not so hkely to go wrong, and almost certain not to go so far wrong, as if we floated on the boundless ocean of mere conjecture ; but when we are not driven to guess, when we have means and appliances for observing, general principles are nothing more or other than helps towards a better use of those means and appliances. Thus far we and Mr. Carlyle travel harmoniously together ; but here we apparently diverge. For, having admitted that general principles {or for mvlcB, as our author caEs them, after old Mirabeau, the crabbed ami des hom-mes) are helps to observation, not substitutes for it, we must add, that they are necessary helps, and that without general principles no one ever observed a particular case to any purpose. For, except by general principles, how do we bring the hght of past experience to bear upon the new case ? The essence of past experience lies embodied in those logical, abstract propositions, which our author makes so light of : — there, and nowhere else. From them we learn what has ordinarily been found true, or even recal what we ourselves have found true, in innumerable unnamed and unremembered cases, more or less resembling the present. We are hence taught, at the least, what we we shall prohaily find true in the present case ; and although this, which is only a probability, may be lazily acquiesced in and act^d upon without further inquiry as a certainty, the risk even so is infinitely less than if we began without a theory, or even a probable hypothesis. Granting that all the facts of the particular instance are within the reach of observation, how difficult is the work of observing, how almost impossible that of disentangling a complicated case, THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 317 if, when we begin, no one view of it appears to us more probable than another ? Without a hypothesis to commence with, we do not even know what end to begin at, what points to inquire into. Nearly everything that has ever been ascertained by scientific observers, was brought to light in the attempt to test and verify some theory. To start from a theory, but not to see the object through the ^theory; to bring light with us, but also to receive other light from whencesoever it comes ; such is the part of the philosopher, of the true practical seer or person of insight. Connected mth the tendency which we fancy we perceive in our author, to undervalue general principles, is another tendency which we think is perceptible in him, to set too low a value on what constitutions and forms of government can do. Be it admitted once for all, that no form of government wiU enable you, as our author has elsewhere said, " given a world of rogues, to produce an honesty by their united action ; " nor when a people are wholly with- out faith either in man or creed, has any representative constitution a charm to render them governable well, or even governable at all. On the other hand, Mr. Oarlyle must no less admit, that when a nation has faith in any men, or any set of principles, representative institutions furnish the only regular and peaceable mode in which that faith can quietly declare itself, and those men, or those principles, obtain the predominance. It is surely no trifling matter to have a legalized means whereby the guidance will always be in the hands of the Acknowledged Wisest, who, if not always the really wisest, are at least those whose wisdom, such as it may be, is the most avail- able for the piirpose. Doubtless it is the natural law of representative governments that the power is shared, in varying proportions, between the really skilfullest and the sfcilfiillest quacks ; with a tendency, in easy times, towards the preponderance of the quacks, in the "times which try 318 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. men's souls," towards that of the true men. Improve- ments enougli may be expected as mankind improve, but that the best and wisest shall always be accounted such, that we need not expect ; because the quack can always steal, and vend for his own profit, as much of the good ware as is marketable. But is not aU this to the full as likely to happen in every other kind of government as in a representative one ? with these differences in favour of representative government, which will be found perhaps to be its only real and universal pre-eminence : That it alone is government by consent — government by mutual com- promise and compact ; while all others are, in one form or another, govemment-s by constraint : That it alone pro- ceeds by quiet muster of opposing strengths, when that which is really weakest sees itself to be such, and peaceably gives way; a benefit never yet realized but in countries inured to a representative government ; elsewhere nothing but actual blows can show who is strongest, and every great dissension of opinion must break out into a civil war. We have thus briefly touched upon the two principal points on which we take exception, not so much to any opinion of the author, as to the tone of sentiment which runs through the book ; a tone of sentiment which other- wise, for justness and nobleness, stands almost unrivalled in the writings of our time. A deep catholic sympathy with human nature, with all natural human feelings, looks out from every page of these volumes ; justice administered in love, to all kind of human beings, bad and good ; the most earnest exalted feeling of moral distinctions, with the most generous allowances for whatever partial con- founding of these distinctions, either natural weakness or perverse circumstances can excuse. ISo greatness, no strength, no goodness or lovingness, passes unrecognized or unhonoured by him. All the sublimity of " the simul- taneous death-defiance of twenty-five millions " speaks THE FKENCH REVOLUTION. 319 itself forth in his pages — not the less impressively, because the unspeakable folly and incoherency, "which always in real life are not one step from, but actually- pervade, the sublimities of so large a body (and did so most notably in this instance) are no less perceptible to his keen sense of the ludicrous. "We presume it is this which has caused the book to be accused, even in print, of " flippancy," a term which appears to us singularly misappHed.' Tor is not this mixture and confused entanglement of the great and the contemptible, precisely what we meet with in nature ? and would not a history, which did not make us not only see this, but feel it, be deceptive ; and give an impression which would be the more false, the greater the general vivacity and vigour of the delineation ? And indeed the capacity to see and feel what is lovable, admirable, in a thing, and what is laughable iu it, at the same time, constitutes humour ; the quality to which we owe a Falstaff, a Parson Adams, an Uncle Toby, and Mause Headriggs and Barons of Bradwardine without end. You meet in this book with passages of grave drollery (drollery unsought for, arising from the simple statement of facts, and a true natural feeling of them) not inferior to the best in Mr. Peacock's novels ; and imme- diately or soon after comes a soft note as of dirge music, or ' This critique referred to was probalily that of the " Athenseuni." The need there was at this time for sach an article as Mill's, to save Carlj'le from his fate at the hands of the average critic, is fairly demonstrated in the follo^ving passages from the "Athe- nfeum " article, which was dated May 20th, 1837 : " Originality of thought is unquestionably the best reason for crating a book ; originality of style is a rare and refreshing merit ; but it is paying rather dear for one's whistle to qualify for it in the university of Bedlam. ... It is one thing to put forth a few pages of quaint- nes.s, neologism, and whimsical coxcombry ; and another to carry such questionable qualities through three long volumes of mis- placed persiflage and flippant pseudo-philosophy." — Ed. 320 THE FRENCH BEVOLUTION. solemn choral song of old Greek tragedy, which makes the heart too full for endurance, and forces you to close the book and rest for a while. Again, there are aphorisms which deserve to live for ever ; characters drawn with a few touches, and indicating a very remarkable insight into many of the obscurest • regions of human nature ; much genuine philosophy, dis- guised though it often be in a poetico-metaphysical vesture of a most questionable kind; and, in short, new and singular but not therefore absurd or unpractical views taken of many important things. A most original book ; original not least in its complete sincerity, its disregard of the merely conventional : every idea and sentiment is given out exactly as it is thought and felt, fresh from the soul of the writer, and in such language (conformable to precedent or not) as is most capable of representing. it in the form in which it exists there. And hence the critics have begun to call the style ■" affected ; " a term which conventional people, whether in literature or society, invariably bestow upon the unreservedly natural.' In truth, every book which is eminently original, either ^ A curious instance of this occurred lately. ^Ir. D'lsraeli, a writer of considerable literary daring, tried in liis novel, " Hen- rietta Temple," one of the boldest experiments he had yet ventured upon; that of making his lovers and his other characters speak naturally the language of real talk, not dressed-up talk ; such language as all persons talk who are not in the presence of an audience. A questionable experiment — allowable as an experi- ment, but scarcely otherwise ; for the reader does not want pure nature, but nature idealized ; nobody wants the verbiage, the repetitions and slovenlinesses, of real conversation, but only the substance of what is interesting in such conversation, divested of these. There was much which might have been said by critics against Mr. D'lsraeli's experiment; but what did they say ? "Affec- tation ! " — that was their cry. Natural conversation in print looked so unnatural to men of artificiality ; it was so unlike all' their experience — of books ! THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 321 in matter or style, has a hard battle to fight before it can obtain even pardon for its originality, much less applause. Well, therefore, may this be the case when a book is original, not in matter only or in style only, but in both ; and, moreover, written in prose, with a fervour and exalta- tion of feeling which is only tolerated in verse, if even there. And when we consider that Wordsworth, Coleridge, and others of their time, whose deviation from the beaten track was but a stone's throw compared with Mr. Carlyle, were ignominiously hooted out of court by the wise tribunals which in those days dispensed justice in such matters, and had to wait for a second generation before the sentence could be reversed, and their names placed among the great names of our literature, we might well imagine that the same or a worse fate awaits Mr. Carlyle ; did we not believe that those very writers, aided by circumstances, have made straight the way for Mr. Carlyle and for much else. This very phenomenon, of the different estimation of Wordsworth and Coleridge, now, and thirty years ago, is among the indications of one of the most conspicuous new elements which have sprung up in the European mind dTiring those years; an insatiable demand for realities, come of conventionalities and formalities what may ; of which desire the literary phasis is, a large tolerance for every feeling which is natural and not got-up, for every picture taken from the life and not from other pictures, however it may clash with traditionary notions of elegance or congruity. The book before us needs to be read with this catholic spirit; if we read it captiously, we shall never have done finding fault. But no true poet, writing sin- cerely and following the promptings of his own genius, can fail to be contemptible to any who desire to find him so ; and if even Milton's " Areopagitica," of which now, it would seem, no one dares speak with only moderate praise, were now first to issue from the press, it would be turned I. T 322 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. from with contempt by every one who will think or speak disparagingly of this work of Mr. Carlyle. We add one short extract more from near the end of the book ; a summing up, as it were, of the morality of the great catastrophe : " The Convention, now grown Anti-Jacobin, did, with an eye to justify and fortify itself, publish lists of what the Reign of Terror had perpetrated — lists of persons guUlotiued. The lists, cries splenetic Abbe Montgaillard, were not complete. They contain the names of — how many persons thinks the reader ? — Two Thousand all but a few. There were above four thousand, cries Montgaillard ; so many were guillotined, fusilladed, noyaded, done to dire death ; of whom nine hundred were women. It is a horrible sum of human lives, M. I'Abbe ; some ten times as many shot rightly on a field of battle, and one might have had his Glorious-Victory with Te Hetim. It is not far from the two- hxmdredth part of what perished in the entire Seven Tears' War. By which Seven Tears' War, did not the great Fritz wrench Silesia from the great Theresa ; and a Pompadour, stung by epigrams, satisfy herself that she could not be an Agnes Sorel ? The head of a man is a strange vacant sounding-shell, M. I'Abbe, and studies Cocker to small purpose. "But what if History, somewhere on this planet, were to hear of a Nation, the thhd soul of whom had not, for thirty weeks each year, as many third-rat« potatoes as would sustain him ? His- tory, in that case, feels bound to consider that starvation is starvation - that starvation from age to age presupposes much : History ventures to assert that the French Sansculotte of ninety- three, who, roused from long death-sleep, could rush at once to the frontiers and die fighting for an immortal Hope and Faith of Deliverance for him and his, was but the secontZ-miserablest of men ! The Irish Sans-potato, had he not senses then ; nay, a soul ? In his frozen darkness, it was bitter for him to die famishing ; bitter to see his children famish. It was bitter for him to be a beggar, a liar, and a knave. Nay, if that dreary Greenland-wind of benighted Want, perennial from sire to son, had frozen him into a kind of torpor and numb callosity, so that he saw not, felt not, was this, for a creature with a soul in it, some assuagement, or the cruellest wretchedness of all ? THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 323 " Such things were — sucli things are ; and they go ou in silence peaceably ; and Sansculottisms follow them. History, looking back over this France through long times, back to Turgot's time, for instance, when dumb Drudgery staggered up to its King's Palace, and in wide expanse of sallow faces, squalor and winged raggedness, presented, hieroglyphically, its Petition of Grievances, and for answer got hanged on a ' new gallows forty feet high,' — confesses, mournfully, that there is no period to be met with, in which the general twenty-five millions of France sufiered less than in this period which they name Keign of Terror ! But it was not the Dumb Millions that suffered here ; it was the Speaking Thousands, and Hundreds, and Units, who shrieked, and published, and made the world ring with their wail, as they could and should : that is the grand peculiarity. The frightfallest Births of Time are never the loud speaking ones, for these soon die ; they are the silent ones which can live from cen- tury to century ! Anarchy, hateful as Death, is abhorrent to the whole nature of man ; and so must itself soon die. " Wherefore let all men know what of depth and of height is still revealed in man ; and, with fear and wonder, with just sym- pathy and just antipathy, with clear eye and open heart, contem- plate it and appropriate it ; and draw innumerable inferences •from it. This inference, for example, among the first: — That ' if the gods of this lower world will sit on their glittering thrones, indolent as Epicurus' gods, with the living Chaos of Ignorance and Hunger weltering uncared for at their feet, and smooth Parasites preaching Peace, peace, when there is no peace,' then the dark chaos, it seems, will rise. . . That there be no second Sansculottism in our earth for a thousand years, let us understand well what the first was ; and let Rich and Poor of us go and do otherwise. A. BENTHAM. [1838.] BENTHAM/ TBDEEE are two men, recently deceased, to whom their coTmtry is indebted not only for the greater part of the important ideas which have been thrown into circula- tion among its thinking men in their time, but for a revo- lution in its general modes of thought and investigation.^ These m.en, dissimilar in almost all else, agreed in being closet- students — secluded in a peculiar degree, by circirai- stances and character, from the business and intercourse of the world : and both were, through a large portion of their lives, regarded by those who took the lead in opinion (when they happened to hear of them) with feelings akin to con- tempt. But they were destined to renew a lesson given to mankind by every age, and always disregarded — to shew that speculative philosophy, which to the superficial appears a thing so remote from the business of life and the outward interests of men, is in reality the thing on earth which most influences them, and in the long run overbears every other influence save those which it must itself obey. The ^ The Works of Jeremy Bentham : now first collected under the superintendence of his Executor, John Bowring. Parts I. to IV. Tait, Edinburgh, 1838. This was the original heading. The article appeared in the "London and Westminster Review" for August, 1838.— Ed. ^ Bentham and Coleridge died respectively 1832 and 1834. — Ed. 328 BENTHAM. writers of ■whom we speak have never been read by the multitude ; except for the more slight of their works, their readers have been few : but they have been the teachers of the teachers ; there is hardly to be found ui England an individual of any importance in the world of mind, who (whatever opinions he may have afterwards adopted) did not first learn to think from one of these two ; and though their influences have but begun to diffuse themselves through these intermediate channels over society at large, there is already scarcely a publication of any consequence addressed to the educated classes, which, if these persons had not existed, would not have been very different from what it is. These men are, Jeremy Bentham and Samuel Taylor Coleridge — the two great seminal minds of England in their age. No comparison is intended here between the minds or influences of these remarkable men : this were impossible unless there were first formed a complete judgment of each considered apart. It is our intention to attempt, on the present occasion, an estimate of one of them ; the only one, a completed edition of whose works is yet in progress, and who, in the classification which may be made of all writers into movement and Conservative, belongs to the same division with ourselves. For although they were far too great men to be correctly designated by either appellation exclusively, yet in the main, Bentham was a movement philosopher, Coleridge a Conservative one. The influence of the former has made itself felt chiefly on movement minds, of the latter on Conservative ones ; and the two systems of concentric circles which the shock given by them is spread- ing over the ocean of mind, have only just begun to meet and intersect The writings of both contain severe lessons to their own side, on many of the errors and faults they are most addicted to : but to Bentham it was given to discern more particularly those truths with which existing doctrines BENTHAM. 329 and institutions were at variance ; to Coleridge, tte neglected truths whicli lay in them. A man of great knowledge of the world, and of the highest reputation for practical talent and sagacity among the official men of his time (himself no follower of Bentham, nor of any partial or exclusive school whatever) once said to us, as the result of his observation, that to Bentham more than to any other source might be traced the ques- tioning spirit, the disposition to demand the why of every- thing, which had gained so much ground and was pro- ducing such important consequences in these times. The more this assertion is examined, the more true it will be found. Bentham has been in this age and country the great questioner of things established. It is by the influence of the m.odes of thought with which his writings inoculated a considerable number of thinking men, that the yoke of authority has been broken, and innumerable opinions, formerly received on tradition as incontestable, are put upon their defence, and required to give an account of themselves. Who, before Bentham (whatever controversies might exist on points of detail), dared to speak disrespect- fully, in express terms, of the British Constitution, or the Einglish Law ? He did so ; and his arguments and his e^xample together encouraged others. We do not mean that his writings caused the Reform Bill, or that the Appropriation Clause owns him as its parent : the changes which have been made, and the greater changes which will be made, in our institutions, are not the work of philo- sophers, but of the interests and instincts of large portions of society recently grown into strength. But Bentham gave voice to those interests and instincts : imtil he spoke out, those who found our institutions unsuited to them did not dare to say so, did not dare consciously to think so ; they had never heard those institutions questioned by 330 BENTHAM. cultivated men, by men of acknowledged intellect ; and it is not in the nature of uninstructed minds to resist the united authority of the instruct.ed. Bentham broke the spell. It was not Bentham by his own writings ; it was Bentham through the minds and pens which those writings fed — through the men in more direct contact with the world, into whom his spirit passed. If the superstition about ancestorial wisdom has fallen into decay ; if the pubhc are grown familiar with the idea that their laws and institutions are in great part not the product of intellect and virtue, but of modem corruption grafted upon ancient barbarism ; if the hardiest innovation is no longer scouted because it is an innovation — establishments no longer con- sidered sacred because they are estabhshments — it will be found that those who have accustomed the public mind to those ideas have learnt them in Bentham's school, and that the assault on ancient institutions has been, and is, carried on for the most part with his weapons. It matters iiot although these thinkers, or indeed thinkers of any descrip- tion, have been but scantily found among the persons pro- minently and ostensibly at the head of the Keform movle- ment. All movements, except revolutionary ones, are headed, not by those who originate them, but by those wno know best how to compromise between the old opinioms and the new. The father of English innovation, both in doctrines and in institutions, is Bentham : he is the greaAt subversive, or, in the language of continental philosophers! the great critical, thinker of his age and country. \ We consider this, however, to be not his highest title to \ fame. Were this aU, he were to be ranked among the lowest order of the potentates of mind — the negative, or destructive philosophers ; those who can perceive what is false, but not what is true ; who awaken the human mind to the inconsistencies and absurdities of time-sanctioned opinions and institutions, but substitute nothing in the BENTHAM. 331 place of what they take away. We have no desire to undervalue the services of such persons: mankind have been deeply indehted to them ; nor wiU there ever be a lack of work for them, in a world in which so many false things are believed, in which so many which have been true, are believed long after they have ceased to be true. The qualities, however, which fit men for perceiving anomalies, without perceiving the truths which would rectify them, are not among the rarest of endowments. Courage, verbal acuteness, command over the forms of argumentation, and a popular stile, wUl make, out of the shallowest man, with a sufficient lack of reverence, a first- ratej negative philosopher. Such men have never been wan!ting in periods of culture ; and the period ia which Beutham formed his early impressions was emphatically their reign, in proportion to its barrenness in the more notle products of the human mind. An age of formalism in ■Sie Church and corruption in the State, when the most^ vamable part of the meaning of spiritual truths had faded frcjm the minds even of those who retained from habit a mechanical belief in them, was the time to raise up all lainds of sceptical philosophy. Accordingly, Prance had Voltaire, and his school of negative thinkers, and England . had the profoundest negative thinker upon record, David Hume : a man, the peculiarities of whose mind qualified nim to detect failure of proof, and want of logical con- sistency, at a depth which French sceptics, with their com- paratively feeble powers of analysis and abstraction, stopt f;ar short of. [Hume, the prince of dilettanti, from whose ;writings one will hardly learn that there is such a thing as truth, far less that it is attainable ; but only that the pro and con. of everything may be argued with infinite ingenuity, land furnishes a fine intellectual exercise. This absolute Bcepticism in speculation very naturally brought him round fto Toryism in practice ; for if no faith can be had in the 332 BENTHAM, operations of human intellect, and one side of a question is about as likely as another to be true, a man will commonly be inclined to prefer that order of things which, being no more wrong than every other, he has hitherto found com- patible with his private comforts. Accordingly Hume's scepticism agreed very well with the comfortable classes, until it began to reach the uncomfortable : when the dis- covery was made that, although men could be content to be rich without a faith, men would not be content to be poor without it, and religion and niorahty came into fashion again as the cheap defence of rents and tithes.] If Bentham had merely continued the work of Hume, he would scarcely have been heard of in philosophy ; foir he was far inferior to Hume in Hume's qualities, and was in no respect fitted to excel as a metaphysician. We must Wot look for subtlety, or the power of recondite analysis, among his intellectual characteristics. In the former quality, few great thinkers have ever been so deficient ; and to find the latter, in any considerable measure, in a mind acknowledg- ing any kindred with his, we must have recourse to the l^te Mr. Mill ^ — a man who imited all the great qualities of me metaphysicians of the eighteenth century, with others of a different complexion, admirably qualifying him to comple' and correct their work. Bentham had not these peculia: gifts ; but he possessed others, not inferior, which were noi possessed by any of his precursors ; which have made him source of light to a generation which has far outgrown thei: influence, and, as we called him, the chief subversivi thinker of an age which has long lost all that they could; subvert. To speak of him first as a merely negative philosopher — as one who refutes illogical arguments, exposes sophistry, detects contradiction and absurdity ; even in that capacity ' James Mill, the author's father, who died in June, 1836. This essay, as first puhlished, was merely signed " A." — Ed. BENTHAM. 333 there was a wide field left vacant for him by Hume, and which he has occupied to an unprecedented extent; the field of practical abuses. This was Bentham's peculiar province : to this he was called by the whole bent of his disposition: to carry the warfare against absurdity into things practical. His was an essentially practical mind. It was by practical abuses that his mind was first turned, to speculation — by the abuses of the profession which was chosen for him, that of the law. He has himself stated what particular abuse first gave that shock to his mind, the recoil of which has made the whole mountain of abuse totter ; it was the custom of making the cHent pay for three attendances in the office of a Master in Chancery, when only one was given. The law, he found, on examina- tion, was full of such things. But were these discoveries of his ? No ; they were known to every lawyer who ever practised, to every judge who ever sat upon the bench, and neither before nor for long after did they cause any appajent uneasiness to the consciences of these learned persons, nor hinder them from asserting, whenever occasion offered, in books, ia parliament, or on the bench, that the law was the perfection of reason. During so many genera- tions, in each of which thousands of educated young men were successively placed iu Bentham's position and with Bentham's opportunities, he alone was found with sufficient moral sensibility and self-reliance to say in his heart that these things, however profitable they might be, were frauds, and that between them and himself there should be a guK fixed. To this rare union of self-reliance and moral sensi- bility we are indebted for all that Bentham has done. Sent to Oxford by his father at the unusually early age of fifteen — required, on admission, to declare his belief in the thirty-nine articles — he felt it necessary to examine them ; and the examination suggested scruples, which he sought to get removed, but instead of the satisfaction he expected. 334 BENTHAM. was told that it was not for boys like him to set up their judgment against the great men of the Church. After a struggle,- he signed ; but the impression that he had done an immoral act, never left him ; he considered himself to have signed a falsehood, and throughout life he never relaxed iu his indignant denunciations of all laws which command such falsehoods, all institutions which attach rewards to the telling of them. 'C By thus carrying the war of criticism and refutation, the conflict with falsehood and absurdity, into the field of t practical evils, Bentham, even if he had done nothing else. Would have earned an important place in the history of [intellect. He carried on the warfare without intermission. To this, not only many of his most piquant chapters, but some of the most finished of his entire works, are entirely devoted : the " Defence of Usury ; " the " Book of Falla- cies ; " and the onslaught upon Blackstone, published anonymously under the title of " A Fragment on Govern- ment," which, though a first production, and of a writer afterwards so much ridiculed for his style, excited the highest admiration no less for its composition than for its thoughts, and was attributed by turns to Lord Mansfield, to Lord Camden, and (by Dr. Johnson) to Dunning, one of the greatest masters of style among the lawyers of his day. These writings are altogether original ; though of the nega- tive school, they resemble nothing previously produced by negative philosophers ; and would have sufficed to create for Bentham, among the subversive thinkers of modem Europe, a place pecuUarly his own. But it is not these writings that constitute the real distinction between him and them. There was a deeper difference. It was that they were purely negative thinkers, he was positive : they only assailed error, he made it a point of conscience not to do so until he thought he could plant instead the corre- sponding truth. Their character was exclusively analytic, BENTHAM. 3i his was synthetic. They took for their startiog-point the received opinion on any subject, dug round it with their logical implements, pronouDced its foundations defective, and condemned it : he began de novo, laid his own founda- tions deeply and firmly, built up his own structure, and bid mankind compare the two ; it was when he had solved the problem himself, or thought he had done so, that he declared all other solutions to be erroneous. Hence, what they did, wiU not last ; it must perish, much of it has already perished, with the errors which it exploded : what he did has its own value, by which it must outlast all errors to which it is opposed. Though we may reject, as we often must, his practical conclusions, yet his premises, the collections of facts and observations from which his conclusions were drawn, remain for ever, a part of the materials of philosophy. A place, therefore, must be assigned to Bentham among the masters of wisdom, the great teachers and permanent intellectual ornaments of the human race. He is among those who have enriched mankind with imperishable gifts ; and although these do not transcend all other gifts, nor entitle him to those honours " above all Greek, above all Eoman fame," which by a natural reaction against the neglect and contempt of the world, some few of his admirers were once disposed to accumulate upon him, yet to refuse an admiring recognition of what he was, on account of what he was not, is a much worse error, and one which, pardonable in the vulgar, is no longer permitted to any cultivated and instructed mind. If we were asked to say, in the fewest possible words, what we conceive to be Bentham's place among these great intellectual benefactors of humanity ; what he was, and what he was not ; what kind of service he did and did not render to truth ; we should say — he was not a great philosopher, but he was a great reformer in philosophy. ,36 BENTHAM. He brought into philosophy something which it greatly needed, and for want of which it was at a stand. It was not his doctrines which did this, it was his mode of arriving at them. He introduced into morals and politics those habits of thought and modes of investigation, which are essential to the idea of science ; and the absence of which made those departments of inqtiiry, as physics had been before Bacon, a field of interminable discussion, leading to f no result. It was not his opinions, in short, but his method, \ that constituted the novelty and the value of what he did ; !a value beyond all price, even though we should reject the the whole, as we unquestionably must a large part, of the Vgpinions themselves. Bentham's method may be shortly described as the method of detail ; of treating wholes by separating them into their parts, abstractions by resolving them into Things, — classes and generalities by distinguishing them into the individuals of which they are made up; and breaking every question into pieces before attempting to solve it. The precise amount of originality of this process, considered as a logical conception — its degree of connexion with the methods of physical science, or with the previous labours of Bacon, Hobbes, or Locke — is not an essential considera- tion in this place. Whatever originality there was in the method — in the subjects he appUed it to, and in the rigidity with which he adhered to it, there was the greatest. Hence his interminable classifications. Hence his elaborate demonstrations of the most acknowledged truths. That murder, incendiarism, robbery, are mischievous actions, he win not take for granted without proof ; let the thing appear ever so self-evident, he will know the why and the how of it with the last degree of precision ; he will distinguish all the different mischiefs of a crime, whether of the first, the second, or the third order, namely, 1. the evil to the sufferer, and to his personal connexions ; 2, the danger BENTHAM. 337 from example, and the alarm or painful feeling of insecurity ; and 3. tiie discouragement to industry and useful pursuits arising from the alarm, and the trouble and resources which must be expended m warding off the danger. After this enumeration, he will prove to you from the la,ws of human feeling, that even the first of these evils, the sufferings of the immediate victim, will on the average greatly outweigh the pleasure reaped by the offender ; much more when all the other evils are taken into account. Unless this could be proved, he would account the infliction of punishment unwarrantable ; and for taking the trouble to prove it formally, his defence is, " there are truths which it is necessary to prove, not for their ovra sakes, because they are acknowledged, but that an opening may be made for the reception of other truths which depend upon them. It is in this manner we provide for the reception of first principles, which, once received, prepare the way for admission of all other truths." ' To which "H may be added, that in this manner also do we discipline the \ mind for practising the same sort of dissection upon ques- j tions more complicated and of more doubtful issue. ^ It is a sound maxim, and one which all close thinkers have felt, but which no one before Bentham ever so con- sistently applied, that error lurks in generalities : that the" human mind is not capable of embracing a complex whole, until it has surveyed and catalogued the parts of which that whole is made up ; that abstractions are not facts, but an abridged mode of expressing facts, and that the only| practical mode of deahng with them is to trace them backj to the facts (whether of experience or of consciousness) of j which they are the expression. Proceeding on this prin-J ciple, Bentham makes short work with the ordinary modes of moral and political reasoning. These, it appeared to ^ Part I. pp. 161-2, of the new edition. I. z "\ 338 BENTHAM. liim, when hunted to their source, for the most part ter- minated in phrases. In politics, liberty, social order, con- stitution, law of nature, social compact, etc., were the catchwords : ethics had its analogous ones. Such were the arguments on which the gravest questions of morality and policy were made to turn ; not reasons, but allusions to J reasons ; sacramental expressions, by which a summary appeal was made to some general sentiment of mankind, or to some maxim in familiar use, which might be true or not, but the limitations of which no one had ever critically examined. And this satisfied other people; but not r Bentham. He required something more than opinion as a \ reason for opinion. Whenever he found a jphrase used as / an argument for or against anything, he insisted upon L knowing what it meant; whether it appealed to any standard, or gave intimation of any matter of fact relevant to the question ; and if he could not find that it did either, he treated it as an attempt on the part of the disputant to impose his own individual sentiment on other people, without giving them a reason for it ; a " contrivance for avoiding the obligation of appealing to any external standard, and for prevailing upon the reader to accept of the author's sentiment and opinion as a reason, and that a sufficient one, for itself." Bentham shall speak for him- self on this subject : the passage is from his first systematic work, " Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation" [voL i., p. 8 of the present publication], and we could scarcely quote anything more strongly exemplify- ing both the strength and weakness of his system of philosophy. " It is curious enough to observe the variety of inventions men have bit upon, and the variety of pbi-ases they have brought forward, in order to conceal from the world, and, if possible, from themselves, this very general aud therefore very pardonable self-sufficiency. BENTHAM. 339 " 1. One man says, he has a thing made on purpose to tell him what is right and what is wrong ; and that is called a ' moral sense : ' and then he goes to work at his ease, and says, such a thing is right, and such a thing is wrong — why ? ' Because my moral sense tells me it is.' " 2. Another man comes and alters the phrase : leaving out moral, and putting in common in the room of it. He then tells you that his common sense tells him what is right and wrong, as surely as the other's moral sense did : meaning by common sense a sense of some kind or other, which, he says, is possessed by all mankind : the sense of those whose sense is not the same as the author's being struck out as not worth taking. This con- trivance does better than the other ; for a moral sense being a new thing, a man may feel about him a good while vrithout being able to find it out : but common sense is as old as the creation ; and there is no man but would be ashamed to be thought not to have as much of it as his neighbours. It has another great advantage : by appearing to share power, it lessens envy ; for when a man gets upon this ground, in order to anathematise those who differ from him, it is not by a sic volo sic jubeo, but by a velitisjubeatis. " 3. Another man comes, and says, that as to a moral sense indeed, he cannot find that he has any such thing : that, how- ever, he has an understanding, which will do quite as well. This understanding, he says, is the standard of right and wrong : it tells him so and so. All good and wise men understand as he does : if other men's understandings differ in any part from his, so much the worse for them : it is a sure sign they are either defective or corrupt. " 4. Another man says, that there is an eternal and immutable Rule of Right : that that rule of right dictates so and so : and then he begins giving you his sentiments upon anything that comes uppermost : and these sentiments (you are to take for granted) are so many branches of the eternal rule of right. " 5. Another man, or perhaps the same man (it is no matter), says that there are certain practices conformable, and others repugnant, to the Fitness of Things ; and then he tells you, at his leisure, what practices are conformable, and what repugnant : just as he happens to like a practice or dislike it. " 6. A great multitude of people are continually talking of the 340 BENTHAM. Law of Nature ; and then they go on giving you their sentiments about what is right and what is wrong : and these sentiments, you are to understand, are so many chapters and sections of the Law of Nature. " 7. Instead of the phrase, Law of Nature, you have some- times Law of Reason, Right Reason, Natural Justice, Natural Equity, Good Order. Any of them will do equally weD. This latter is most used in politics. The three last are much more tolerable than the others, because they do not very explicitly claim to be anything more than phrases : they insist but feebly upon the being looked upon as so many positive standards of themselves, and seem content to be taken, upon occasion, for phrases expressive of the conformity of the thing in question to ■ the proper standard, whatever that may be. On most occasions, however, it wiU be better to say utility: utility is clearer, as referring more explicitly to pain and pleasure. " 8. We have one philosopher, who says, there is no harm in anything in the world but in telling a lie ; and that if, for example, you were to murder your own father, this would only be a particular way of saying, he was not your father. Of course when this philosopher sees anything that he does not like, he says, it is a particular way of telling a lie. It is saying, that the act ought to be done, or may be done, when, in truth, it ought not to be done. " 9. The fairest and openist of them all is that sort of man who speaks out, and says, I am of the number of the Elect : now God himself takes care to inform the Elect what is right: and that with so good effect, and let them strive ever so, they cannot help not ouly knowing it but practising it. If therefore a man wants to know what is right and what is wrong, he has nothing to do but to come to me." [Few, we believe, are now of opinion that these phrases and similar ones have nothing more in them than Bentham saw. But it wiU be as little pretended now-a-days, by any person of authority as a thinker, that the phrases can pass as reasons, till after their meaning has been completely analysed, and translated into precise language : until the standard they appeal to is ascertained, and the sense in BENTHAM- 341 which, and the limits -within which, they are admissible as arguments, accurately marked out.] It is the introduction into the philosophy of human conduct, of this method of detail — of this practice of never., reasoning about wholes until they have been resolved into! their parts, nor about abstractions until they have been translated into realities — that constitutes the originality of 1 Bentham in philosophy, and makes him the great reformer of the moral and political branch of it. To what he terms the " exhaustive method of classification," which is but one branch of this more general method, he himself ascribes everything original in the systemiatic and elaborate work from which we have quoted. The generalities of his philosophy itself have little or no novelty : to ascribe any to the doctrine that general utility is the foundation of morality, would imply great ignorance of the history of philosophy, of general literature, and of Bentham's own. writings. He derived the idea, as he says himself, from Hume and Helvetius ; and it was the doctrine no less, of the adversaries of those writers, the religious philosophers of that age, prior to Eeid and Beattie. We never saw an abler defence of the doctrine of utility than in a book written in refutation of Shaftesbury, and now little read — Brown's ' " Essays on the Characteristics ; " and in John- son's celebrated review of Soame Jenyns, the same doctrine is set forth as that both of the author and of the reviewer. In all ages of philosophy one of its schools has been utilitarian — not only from the time of Epicurus, but long before. It was by mei-e accident that this opinion became connected in Bentham with his peculiar method. The utilitarian philosophers antecedent to him had no more claims to the method than their antagonists. To refer, for instance, to the Epicurean philosophy, according to the '■ Author of another book which made no little sensation when it first appeared, " An Estimate of the Planners of the Times." 342 BENTHAM. most complete view we have of the moral part of it, by the most accomplished scholar of antiquity, Cicero ; we ask any one who has read his philosophical writings, the "De Finibus " for instance, whether the arguments of the Epicureans are not as perfect a specimen of aKiafiayia as those of the Stoics or Platonists, vague phrases which different persons may understand in different senses, and no person in any definite sense ; rhetorical appeals to common notions, to iiKora and (rrjfxua instead of reK/xripia, notions never narrowly looted into, and seldom exactly true, or true at all in the sense necessary to support the conclusion of any systematic appeal to fact and experience which might seem to be their peculiar province, the Epicurean morahsts are as devoid as any of the other schools ; they never take a question to pieces, and join issue on a definite point. Bentham certainly did not learn his sifting and anatomizing method from them. This method Bentham has finally installed in philo- sophy ; has made it henceforth imperative on philosophers of all schools. By it he has formed the intellects of many thinkers, who either never adopted, or have abandoned, most of his peculiar opinions. He has taught the method to men of the most opposite schools to his ; he has made them perceive that if they do not test their doctrines by the method of detail, their adversaries will. He has thus, it is not too much to say, for the first time introduced precision of thought into moral and political philosophy. Instead of taking up their opinions by intuition, or by ratiocination from premises adopted on a mere rough view, and couched in language so vague that it is impossible to say exactly whether they are true or false, philosophers are now forced to understand one another, to break down the generality of their propositions, and join a precise issue in every dispute. This is nothing less than a revolution in philosophy. Its effect is gradually becoming evident in BEKTIIAM. 343 tlie -wrritings of Englist thinkers of every variety of opinion, and will be felt more and more in proportion as Bentham^'s writings are diffused, and as the number of minds to whose formation they contribute is multiplied. It will naturally be presumed that of the fruits of this great philosophical improvement some portion at least will have been reaped by its author. Armed with such a potent instrument, and wielding it with such singleness of aim ; cultivating the field of practical philosophy with such un- wearied and such consistent use of a method right in itself, and not adopted by his predecessors'; it cannot be but that Bentham by his own inquiries must have accomphshed something considerable. And so, it wUl be found, he has ; something not only considerable, but extraordinary ; though but little compared with what he has left undone, and far short of what his sanguine and almost boyish fancy made him flatter himself that he had accomplished. His peculiar method, admirably calculated to mate clear thinkers, and sure ones to the extent of their materials, has not equal efficacy for making those materials complete. It is a security for accuracy, but not for comprehensiveness ; or rather, it is a security for one sort of comprehensiveness,^ but not for another. It is not to be denied that Bentham's method of laying out his subject is admirable as a preservative against one kind of narrow and partial views. He begins by placing before himself the whole of the field of inquiry to which the particular question belongs, and divides down till he arrives at the thing he is in search of ; and thus by suc- cessively rejecting all which is Twt the thing, he gradually works out a definition of what it is. This, which he calls the exhaustive method, is as old as philosojjhy itself. Plato owes everything to it, and does everything by it ; and the use made of it by that great man in his Dialogues, Bacon^ 344 BE NTH AM. in one of those pregnant logical hints scattered through his ■writings, and so much neglected hy most of his pretended followers, pronounces to be the nearest approach to a true inductive method in the ancient philosophy. Bentham was Uttle aware that Plato had anticipated him in the process to which he too declared that he owed everything. By the Tpractice of it, his speculations are rendered eminently ' systematic and consistent ; no question, with him, is ever tiin insulated one ; he sees every subject in connection with all the other subjects with which in his view it is related, and from which it requires to be distinguished ; and as all that he knows, in the least degree allied to the subject, has been marshalled in an orderly manner before him, he does : not, like people who use a looser method, forget and over- >^Iook a thing on one occasion to remember it on another. Hence there is probably no philosopher of so wide a range, in whom there are so few inconsistencies. If any of the truths which he did not see, had come to be seen by him, he would have remembered it everywhere and at all times, and would have adjusted his whole system to it. And this is another admirable quality which he has impressed upon the best of the minds trained in his habits of thought : f when those minds do open to admit new truths, they digest L-them as fast as they receive them. But this system, excellent for keeping before the mind of the thinker all that he knows, does not make him know enough ; it does not make a knowledge of some of the pro- perties of a thing suffice for the whole of it, nor render a rooted habit of surveying a complex object (though ever so carefully) in only one of its aspects, tantamount to the power of contemplating it in all. To give this last power, other qualities are required : whether Beutbam possessed those other qualities we have now to see. Bentham's mind, as we have already said, was eminently synthetical. He begins all his inquiries by supposing BENTHAM. '■> ^5 nothing to be known on the subject, and reconstructs all philosophy ah initio, without reference to the opinions of his predecessors. But to build either a philosophy or any- thing else, there must be materials. For the philosophy of matter, the materials are the properties of matter ; for m^oral and political philosophy, the properties of man, and of man's position in the world. The knowledge which any inquirer possesses of these properties, constitutes a limit beyond which, as a moralist or a political j)hilosopher, whatever be his powers of mind, he cannot go. Nobody's synthesis can be more complete than his analysis. If in his survey of human nature and of human life he has left any element out, then, wheresoever that element exerts any influence, his conclusions will fail, more or less, in their apj)lication. If he has left out many elements, and those veryiimportant, his labours may be highly valuable ; he may tave largely contributed to that body of partial truths which, when completed and corrected by one another, con- stitute jjractical truth ; but the applicability of his system to jiractice in its own proper shaj)e will be of an exceedingly limited range. Human nature and human life are wide subjects, and whoever would embark in an ent-erprise requiring a thorough knowledge of them, has need both of large stores of his own, and of aU aids and apphances from elsewhere. His qualifications for success will be proportional to two things ; the degree in which his own nature and circumstances furnish him with a correct and complete picture of man's nature and circumstances ; and his capacity of deriving light from other minds. Bentham failed in deriving light from other minds. His\ writings contain few traces' of the accurate knowledge of anv school of thinking but his own ; and many proofs of-- his entire conviction that they could teach him nothing worth knowing. For some of the most illustrious of pre- 346 BENTHAM. vious thJTiVers, his contempt -was unmeasured. In almost the only j;>assage of Bowring's " Deontology" which, from its style, and from its having before appeared in print, may be known to be Bentham's, Socrates and Plato are spoken of in t^mis distressing to his greatest admirers ; and the incapacity to appreciate such men, is a fact perfectly in unison with the general habits of Bentham's mind. He had a phrase, expressive of the view he took of all moral speculations to which his method had not been applied, or (which he considered as the same thing) not founded on a recognition of utility as the moral standard; this phrase was "vague generalities." Whatever presented itself to him in such a shape, he dismissed as unworthy of notice, or dwelt upon only to denounce as absurd. He did /not heed, or rather the nature of his mind prevented it :6rom occurring to him, that these generalities contained,' the whole unanalyzed esperience of the human race. Unless it can be asserted that mankind did not know anything -until logicians taught it to them — ^that until the last hand has been put to a moral truth by giving it a meta- physicallv precise expression, all the previous rough-hewing which it has undergone by the common intellect at the suggestion of common wants and common experience is to go for nothing ; it must be allowed, that even the originality which can, and the courage which dares, think for itself, is not a more necessary part of the philosophical character than reverence for previous thinkers, and for the collective i^niind of the human race. What has been the opinion of \ mankind, has been the opinion of persons of all tempers ]' and dispositions, of all pai-tialities and prepossessions, of / all varieties in position, in education, in opportunities of ._ observation and inquiry. No one inquirer is all this; every inquirer is either young or old, rich or poor, sickly or healthy, nianied or single, meditative or active, a poet or a logician, an ancient or a modern, a man or a woman ; BENTHAM. 341 and if a thinking person, tas, in addition, the accidental peculiarities of his individual modes of thought. Every circumstance vrhich gives a character to the life of a human being, carries with it its peculiar biases ; its peculiar facilities for perceiving some things, and for missing or forgetting others. But, from points of view different from his, different things are perceptible ; and none are so likely to have seen what he does not see, as those who do not see what he sees. The general opinion of mankind is the"] average of the conclusions of all minds, stripped indeed of their choicest and most recondite thoughts, but freed from their twists and partialities : a net result, in which every- body's particular point of view is represented, nobody's predominant. The collective mind does not penetrate below the surface, but it sees all the surface ; which pro- foimd thinkers, even by reason of their profundity, seldom do : their intenser view of a thing in some of its aspects diverting their attention from others. / The hardiest assertor, therefore, of the freedom of private judgment — the keenest detector of the errors of his pre- decessors, and of the inaccuracies of current modes of thought — is the very person who most needs to fortify the weak side of his own intellect, by a study of the opinions of mankind in all ages and nations, and of the speculations of philosophers of the modes of thought most opposite to his own. It is there that he will find the experiences denied to himself — the remainder of the truth of which he sees but half — the truths, of which the errors he detects are commonly but the exaggerations. If, like Bentham, he brings with him an improved instrument of investigation, the greater is the probability that he will find ready pre- pared a rich abundance of rough ore, which was merely waiting for that instrument. A man of clear ideas errs grievously if he imagines that whatever is seen confusedly does not exist : it belongs to him, when he meets with such 348 BEXTHAM. a thing, to dispel the mist, and fix the outlines of the dim vague form which is looming through it. Benthain's contempt, then, of all other schools of thinkers ; his determination to create a philosophy wholly out of the materials furnished by his own mind, and by minds like his own ; was his first disqualification as a philosopher. His second, was the inconapleteness of his own mind as a representative of universal human nature. In many of the most natural and strongest feelings of human nature he had no sympathy ; from many of its graver experiences he was altogether cut off; and the faculty by which one mind understands a mind different from itself, and throws itself into the feelings of that other mind, was denied him by his deficiency of Imagination. With Imagination in the popular sense, command of imagery and metaphorical expression, Bentham was, to a certain degree, endowed. For want, indeed, of poetical culture, the images with which his fancy supplied him were seldom beautiful, but they were quaint and humorous, or bold, forcible, and intense : passages might be quoted from him both of playful irony, and of declamatory eloquence, seldom surpassed in the writings of philo- sophers. The Imagination which he had not, was that to which the name is generally appropriated by the best writers of the present day ; that which enables us, by a voluntary effort, to conceive the absent as if it were pre- sent, the imaginary as if it were real, and to clothe it in ■the feelings which, if it were indeed real, it would bring ^long with it. This is the power by which one human being enters into the mind and circumstances of another. This power constitutes the poet, in so far as he does any- thing but melodiously utter his own actual feelings. It constitutes the dramatist entirely. It is one of the con- stituents of the historian ; by it we understand other times ; by it Gruizot interprets to us the middle ages ; BENTHAM. 349 Nisard, in his beautiful Studies on the later Latin poets, places us in the Rome of the Caesars ; Michelet disengages the distinctive characters of the different races and genera- tions of mankind from the facts of their history. Without it nobody knows even his own natiare, further than circum- stances have actually tried it and called it out; nor the nature of his fellow-creatures, beyond such generalisations as he may have been enabled to make from his observation of their outward conduct. By these limits, accordingly, Bentham's knowledge of~] human nature is bounded. It is wholly empirical ; and / the empiricism of one who has had little experience. He I had neither internal experience nor external ; the quiet, J even tenor of his life, and his healthiness of mind, con- spired to exclude him from both. He never knew pro- sperity and adversity, passion nor satiety: he never had even the experiences which sickness gives ; he lived from childhood to the age of eighty-five in boyish health. He knew no dejection, no heaviness of heart. He never felt life a sore and a weary burthen. He was a boy to the last. Self-consciousness, that daemon of the ■ men of genius of our time, from Wordsworth to Byron, from Goethe to Chateaubriand, and to which this age owes most both of its cheerful and its mournful wisdom, never was awakened in him. How much of human nature slumbered in him he knew not, neither can we know. He had never been made alive to the unseen influences which were acting on him- self, nor consequently on his fellow-creatures. Other ages ' and other nations were a blank to him for purposes oi instruction. He measured them but by one standard : . their knowledge of facts, and their capability to take correct views of utility, and merge all other objects in it.\ His own lot was cast in a generation of the leanest ana barreaest men whom England had yet produced, and he was an old man when a better race came in with the- pre- 350 BENTHAM. 'T sent century. He saw accordingly in man little but what I the vulgarest eye can see; recognized no diversities of L. character but what he who runs may read. Knowing so little of human feelings, he knew still less of the influences by which those feelings are formed : all the more subtle workings both of the mind upon itself, and of external things upon the mind, escaped him ; and no one, probably, who, in a highly instructed age, ever attempted to give a rule to all human conduct, set out with a more limited ' knowledge either of the things by which human conduct is, or of those by which it should be, influenced. This, then, is our idea of Bentham. He was a man both of remarkable endowments for philosophy, and of remarkable deficiencies for it : fitted, beyond almost any man, for drawing from his premises, conclusions not only correct, but sufficiently precise and specific to be practical : but whose general conception of human nature and life, furnished him with an unusually slender stock of premises. It is obvious what would be likely to be achieved by such a man ; what a thinker, thus gifted and thus disqualified, could be in philosophy. He could be a systematic and accurately logical half-man ; hunting half-truths to their consequences and practical applications, on a scale both of greatness and of minuteness not previously exemplified : and this is the character which posterity will probably assign to Bentham. We express our sincere and well-considered conviction when we say, that there is hardly anything positive in Bentham's philosophy which is not true : that when his practical conclusions are erroneous, which in our opinion ^they are very often, it is not because the considerations j which he urges are not rational and valid in themselves, \ but because some more important principle, which he did ; not perceive, supersedes those considerations, and turns the scale. The bad part of his writings is his resolute denial BENTHAM. 351 of all that he does not see, of all truths but those which he recognises. By that alone has he exercised any bad influence upon his age ; by that he has, not created a school of deniers, for this is an ignorant prejudice^ut put himself at the head of the school which exists always, though it does not always find a great man to give it the sanction of philosophy : thrown the inantle of intellect over the natural tendency of men in all ages to deny the existence of all spiritual influences of which they have no consciousness in themselves. The truths which are not Bentham's, which his philo- sophy takes no account of, are many and important ; but his non -recognition of them does not put them out of existence ; they are still with us, and it is a comparatively easy task that is reserved for us, to harmonize these truths with his. To reject his half of the truth because he over- looked the other half, would be to fall into his error with- out having his excuse. For our own part, we have a large tolerance for one-eyed men, provided their one eye is a penetrating one : if they saw more, they probably would not see so keenly, nor so eagerly pursue one course of inquiry. Almost all rich veins of original and striking speculation have been opened by systematic half -minds: though whether these new thoughts drive out others as good, or are peacefully superadded to them, depends on whether these half-minds are or are not followed in the same track by complete minds. The field of man's nature and life cannot be too much worked, or in too many direc- tions ; untU every clod is turned up the work is imperfect ; no whole truth is possible but by combining the points of view of all the fractional truths, nor, therefore, until it has been fully seen what each fractional truth can do by itself. What Bentham's fractional truths could do, there is no such good means of showing as by a review of his philo- 352 BENTHAM. sopLy : and such a review, though inevitably a most brief and general one, it is now necessary to attempt. The first question in regard to any man of speculation is, what is his theory of human life ? In the minds of many philosophers, whatever theory they have of this sort is latent, and it would be a revelation to themselves to have it pointed out to them in their writings as others can see it, unconsciously moulding everything to its own likeness. But Bentham always linew his own premises, and made his reader know them : it was not his custom to leave the theoretic grounds of his practical conclusions to conjecture. Pew great thinkers have afforded the means of assigning with so much certainty the exact conception which they had formed of man and of man's life. ^ Man is conceived by Bentham as a being susceptible of I pleasures and pains, and governed in all his conduct partly / by the different modifications of self-interest, and the I passions commonly classed as selfish, partly by sympathies, i or occasionally antipathies, towards other beings. And mere Bentham's conception of human nature stops. He does not, indeed, exclude religion ; the prospect of divine rewards and punishments he includes under the head of " self-regarding interest," and the devotional feeling under that of sympathy towards God. But the whole of the pimpelling or restraining principles, whether of this world or the next which he recognizes, are either self-love, or love or hatred towards other beings. That there might be no doubt of what he thought on the subject, he has not left us to the general evidence of his writings, but has drawn out a " Table of the Springs of Action," an express enumera- tion and classification of human motives, with their various names, laudatory, vituperative, and neutral : and this table, to be found in Part I. of the present publication,' we re- ^ That is, the collected works of Bentham. — Ed. 1 J L: BENTHAM. 353 commend to the study of those who would understand his philosophy. Man is never recognised by him as a being capable of \ pursuing spiritual perfection as an end ; of desiring, for its ) own sake, the conformity of his own character to his / standard of excellence, without hope of good or fear of evU J from other source than his own inward consciousness, j Even in the more limited form of Conscience, this great^ fact in human nature escapes him. Nothing is more | curious than the absence of recognition in any of his| writings of the existence of conscience, as a thing distinct! from philanthropy, from affection for God or man, and| from self-interest in this world or in the next. There is a^ studied abstinence from any of the phrases which, in the mouths of others, import the acknowledgment of such a fact.' If we find the words " Conscience," " Principle," "Moral Eectitude," "Moral Duty," in his Table of the Springs of Action, it is among the synonymes of the " love of reputation " ; with an intimation as to the two former phrases, that they are also sometimes synonymous with the religious motive, or the motive of sympathy. The feeling of! moral approbation or disapprobation properly so called, either ; towards ourselves or oui- fellow-creatures, he seems unaware of the existence of ; and neither the word self-respect, nor the ■ idea to which that word is appropriated, occurs even once, so | far as our recollection serves us, in his whole writings. Nor is it only the moral part of man's nature, in the I strict sense of the term — the desire of perfection, or the^ ^ In a passage in the last volume of his book on Evidence, and possibly in one or two other places, the "love of justice" is spoken of as a feeling inherent in almost aU mankind. It is impossible, without explanations, now unattainable, to ascertain what sense is to be put upon casual expressions so inconsistent with the general tenor of his pliilosophy. [ fhe " book on Evid- ence " formed the two volumes of the Collected Works which Mill himself so laboriously edited in 1826-7.— Ed.] I. A A 354 BENTHAM. / feeling of an aj)proTing or of an accusing conscience — that \ he overlooks ; he but faintly recognizes, as a fact in human ^^ nature, the pursuit of any other ideal end for its own sake. The sense of honour, and personal dignity— that feeling of personal exaltation and degradation which acts indepen- dently of other people's opinion, or even in defiance of it; the love of beauty, the passion of the artist ; the love of order, of congruity, of consistency in all things, and con- formity to their end ; the love of power, not in the limited form of power over other human beings, but abstract power, the power of making our volitions effectual; the love of action, the thirst for movement and activity, a principle scarcely of less influence in human life than its opposite, the love of ease : — ^None of these powerful con- _stituents of human nature are thought worthy of a place among the " Springs of Action ; " and though there is possibly no one of them of the existence of which an acknowledgment might not be found in some corner of Bentham's writings, no conclusions are ever founded on the acknowledgment. Man, that most complex being, is a , very simple one in his eyes.. Even under the head of f sympathy, his recognition does not extend to the more ( complex forms of the feeling — the love of loving, the need of a sympathising support, or of an object of admiration y and reverence. If he thought at all of any of the deeper feelings of human nature, it was but as idiosyncraeies of taste, with which neither the moralist nor the legislator had any concern, further than to prohibit such as were mischievous among the actions to which they might chance to lead. To say either that man should, or that he should not, take jjleasure in one thing, displeasure in another, appeared to him as much an act of despotism in the , moralist, as in the political ruler. It would be most unjust to Bentham to surmise (as narrow-minded and p.'i.ssiouate adversaries are apt in such BENTHAM. 355 cases to do) that this picture of human nature was copied from himself; that all those constituents of humanity which he rejected from his table of motives, were wanting in his own breast. The unusual strength of his early feel- ings of virtue, was, as we have seen, the original cause of all his speculations ; and a noble sense of morality, and especially of justice, guides and pervades them all. But having been early accustomed to keep before his mind s eye the happiness of mankind (or rather of the whole sentient world), as the only thing desirable in itself, or i which rendered anything else desirable, he confounded all i disinterested feelings which he found in himself, with the; desire of general happiness : just as some religious writers^/ who loved virtue for its own sake as much perhaps as men could do, habitually confounded their love of virtue with their fear of hell. It would have required greater subtlety than Bentham possessed, to distinguish from each other, feelings which, from long habit, always acted in the same direction ; and his want of imagination prevented him from reading the distinction, where it is legible enough, in the hearts of others. Accordingly, he has not been followed in this grand over- sight by any of the able men who, from the extent of their intellectual obligations to him, have been regarded as his disciples. They may have followed him in his doctrine of utility, and in his rejection of the moral sense as a test of right and wrong : but while repudiating it as such, they have, with Hartley, acknowledged it as a fact in human nature ; they have endeavoured to account for it, to assign its laws : nor are they justify chargeable either with under- valuing this part of our nature, or with amy disposition to throw it into the background of their speculations. If some part of the influence of this cardinal error has extended itself to them, it is circuitously, and through the effect on their minds of other parts of Bentham's doctrines. 356 BENTHAM. Sympathy, tte only disinterested motive wliicli Bentham recognized, he felt the inadequacy of, except in certain limited cases, as a security for virtuous action. Personal afEectiou, he well knew, is as liable to operate to the injury of third parties, and requires as much to be kept in check, as any other feeling whatever: and general philanthropy, considered as a motive influencing mankind in general, he estimated at its true value when divorced from the feeling of duty — as the very weakest and most unsteady of all '"feelings. There remained, as a motive by which mankind are influenced, and by which they may be guided to their ^ood, only personal interest. Accordingly, Bentham' s idea (of the world is that of a collection of persons pursuing each j his separate interest or pleasure, and the prevention of whom from jostling one another more than can be helped, must be attempted by hopes and fears derived from three sources — the law, religion, and public opinion. To these three powers, considered as binding human, conduct, he gave the name of sanctions: the political sanction, opei-ating by the rewards and penalties of the law; the religious sanc- tion, by those expected from the E.uler of the Universe ; and the popidar, which he characteristically calls also the moral sanction, operating through the pains and pleasures arising from the favour or disfavour of our fellow-creatures. Such is Bentham's theory of the world. Ajid now, in a sjnrit neither of apology nor of censure, but of calm appre- ciation, we are to inquire how far this view of human nature and life will carry any one : — how much it will accomplish in morals, and how much in political and social philosophy : what it will do for the individual, and what for society. It will do nothing for the conduct of the individual, beyond prescribing some of the more obvious dictates of -worldly prudence, and outward probity and beneficence. There is no need to expatiate on the deficiencies of a system of ethics which does not pretend to aid individuals in the BENTHAM. 357 formation of their own character ; which recognises no j such wish as that of self-culture, we may even say no such \ .power, as existing in human natvire ; and if it did recognize, could furnish Uttle assistance to that grand duty of man, because it overlooks the existence of about half of the whole number of mental feelings which human beings are capable of, including all those of which the direct objects are states of their own mind. _ Morality consists of two parts. One of these is self- | education ; the training, by the human being himself, j of his affections and will. That department is a blank inj in Bentham's system. The other and co-equal part, the regulation of his outward actions, must be altogether halt- ing and imperfect without the first ; for how can we judge in what manner many an action vdll affect the worldly interests of ourselves or others, unless we take in, as part of the question, its influence on the regulation of our, or their, affections and desires ? A moralist on Bentham's. principles may get as far as this, that we ought not to slay, bum, or steal; but what will be his qualifications for regulating the nicer shades of human behaviour, or for laying down even the greater moralities as to those facts in human life which influence the depths of the character quite independently of any influence on worldly circumstances — such, for instance, as the sexualj relations, or those of family in general, or any other social^ and sympathetic connexions of an intimate kind? The moralities of these questions depend on considerations of which Bentham not only was not a competent judge, but which he never even took into the account. It is fortunate for the world that Bentham's taste lay rather in the direction of jurisprudential than of properly ethical inquiry. Nothing expressly of the latter kind has been published under his name, except the " Deontology " — a book scarcely ever alluded to by any admirer of 3-58 BENTHAM. BentLam without deep regret that it ever saw the light. We did not expect from Bentham correct systematic views of ethics, or a sound treatment of any question the moralities of which require a profound knowledge of the human heart ; but we did expect that the greater moral questions would have been boldly plunged into, and at least a searching criticism produced of the received opinions ; we did not exisect that the petite morale almost alone would have been treated, and that with the most pedantic minuteness, and upon the jmd pro quo piinciples which regulate trade. The boot has not even the value which would belong to an authentic exhibition of the legitimate consequences of an erroneous line of thought ; for the style proves it to have been so entirely rewritten, ■ that it is impossible to tell how much or how little of it is Bentham's. The collected edition, now in progress, will not, it is said, include Bentham's religious writings ; these, although we think them of exceedingly small value, are at least his, and the world has a right to whatever light they throw upon the constitution of his mind. But the omission of the " Deontology " would be an act of editorial discretion which we should deem entirely justifiable.' ' The "editorial discretioa'' was exercised — whether in con- sequence of Mill's ad^-ice does not appear — and " Deontology " was fiot published in the after-coming volumes of Bentham's works. From the first Mill said this book was " Bowring's," as he says here (p. 346), rather than Bentham's. As published in 1834 the work is entitled, "Deontology, or the Science of Morality," "arranged and edited by John Bowring from Jeremy Bentham's MSS." In the list of works by Bowring at the end of the biography in the "Diet. Nat. Biog.," " Deontology " appears without any mention of Bentham ; and in a list of Bowring's works, added to his " Auto- biography," edited by Mr. LewinB. Bowring, 1877, " Deontology" appears in the same way, though in Mr. Lewin Bowring's prefatory " Memoir" we are told that, " In 1834 he " (Dr. Bowring) "published a work called ' Bentham's Deontologj',' " etc. Perhaps the truth is that " Deontologj- " became, through its editing by Bowring, a BENTHAM. 359 If Bentham's theory of life can do so little for the in- dividual, what can it do for society ? It will enable a society which has attained a certain state of spiritual development, and the maintenance of which in that state is otherwise provided for, to prescribe the rules by which it may protect its material interests. It will do nothing (except sometimes as an instrument in the hands of a higher principle) for the spiritual interests of society ; nor does it suffice of itself even for the material ^ interests. That which alone causes any material interests / to exist, which alone enables any body of human beings to exist as a society, is national character : that it is, which ^ causes one nation to succeed in all it attempts, another to I faU ; one nation to understand and aspire to elevated l things, another to grovel in mean ones ; which makes the f greatness of one nation lasting, and dooms another to earljj and rapid decay. The true teacher of the fitting social arrangements for England, France, or America, is the one who can point out how the English, Erench, or American character can be improved, and how it has been made what it is. A philosophy of laws and institutions, not founded"] on a philosophy of national character, is an absurdity.J But what could Bentham's opinion be worth on national chai-acter ? How could he, whose mind contained so few/ and so poor types of individual character, rise to that higher generalization "r All he can do is but to indicate means by which, in any given state of the national mind, the material interests of society can be protected ; saving the question, of which others must judge, and not he, whether the use of those means would have, on the national character, any injurious influence. We have arrived, then, at a sort of estimate of what a philosophy like Bentham's can do. It can teach the means joint work, just as the work on " Evidence," edited by Mill in 1826-7, may be said to be the joint work of Bentham and Mill. — Ed. 360 BENTHAM. of organizing and regulating the merely hxisiness part of the social arrangements. Whatever can be understood or whatever done vdthout reference to moral influences, his philosophy is equal to ; vrhere those influences require to be taken into account, it is at fault. He committed the Tmistake of supposing that the iusiness part of human 1 affairs was the whole of them ; all at least that the legis- / lator and the moralist had to do with. Not that he dis- r regarded moral influences when he perceived them ; but I his want of imagination, small experience of human feel- I ings, and ignorance of the filiation and connection of feel- vings with one another, made this rarely the case. The business part is accordingly the only province of human affairs which Bentham. has cultivated with any success ; into which he has introduced any considerable number of comprehensive and luminous practical principles. That is the field of his greatness ; and there he is indeed great. He has swept _ away the accumulated cobwebs of centuries — he has untied knots which the efforts of the ablest thinkers, age after age, had only drawn tighter ; and it is no exaggeration to say of him that over a great part of the field he was the first to shed the light of reason. We turn with pleasure from what Bentham could not do, to what he did. It is an ungracious task to call a great benefactor of mankind to account for not being a greater — to insist upon the errors of a man who has originated more new truths, has given to the world more sound practical lessons, than it ever received, except in a few glorious in- stances, from any other individual. The unpleasing part of our work is ended. We are now to show the greatness of the man ; the grasp which his intellect took of the sub- jects with which it was fitted to deal; the giant's task which was before him, and the hero's courage and hero's sti'ength with which he achieved it. Nor let that which he BENTHAM. 361 did be deemed of small account because its province was limited : man has but the choice to go a little way in many paths, or a great way in only one. The field of Bentham's labours was like the space between two parallel lines ; narrow to excess in one direction, in another it reached to infinity. Bentham's speculations, as we are already aware, began with law • and in that department he accoijiplished his greatest trinmphs. He found the philosophy of law a chaos, he left it a science: he found the practice of the law an Augean stable, he turned the river into it which is mining and sweeping away mound after mound of its rubbish. Without going into the exaggerated invectives against lawyers, which Bentham sometimes permitted himself, or making one portion of society alone accountable for the fault of all, we may say that circumstances had made English lawyers in a peculiar degree liable to the reproach of Voltaire, who defines lawyers the " conservators of ancient barbarous usages." The basis of the English law was, and still is, the feudal system. That system, like all those which existed as custom before they were established as law, possessed a certain degree of suitableness to the wants of the society among whom it grew up — that is to say, of a tribe of rude soldiers, holding a conquered people in subjection, and dividing its spoils among themselves. Advancing civilisation had, however, converted this armed encampment of barbarous warriors in the midst of enemies reduced to slavery, into an industrious, commercial, rich, and free people. The laws which were suitable to the first of these states of society, could have no manner of relation to the cu'cumstances of the second : which could not even have come into existence unless something had been done to adapt those laws to it. But the adaptation was not the 362 BENTHAM. result of thought and design ; it arose not from any com- prehensive consideration of the new state of society and its exigencies. What was done, was done by a struggle of centuries between the old barbarism and the new civiliza- tion ; between the feudal aristocracy of conquerors, holding "fast to the rude system they had established, and the conquered effecting their emancipation. The last was the growing power, but was never strong enough to break its bonds, though ever and anon some weak point gave way. Hence the law came to be like the costume of a full-grown man who had never put off the clothes made for him when he first went to school. Band after band had burst, and, as the rent widened, then, without removing anything ex- cept what might drop off of itseK, the hole was darned, or patches of fresh law were brought from the nearest shop and stuck on. Hence all ages of English history have given one another rendezvous in EngKsh law ; their several products may be seen all together, not interfused, but heaped one upon another, as all ages of the earth may be read in some perpendicular section of its surface — the de- posits of each successive period not substituted but super- imposed on those of the preceding. And in the world of law no less than in the physical world, every commotion and conflict of the elements has left its mark behind in some break or irregularity of the strata : every struggle which ever rent the bosom of "society is apparent in the dis- jointed condition of the part of the field of law which covers the spot : nay, the very traps and pitfalls which one con- tending party set for another are still standing, and the the teeth not of hyenas only, but of foxes and all cunning animals, are imprinted on the curious remains found in these antediluvian caves. In the English law, as in the Eoman before it, the adaptations of barbarous laws to the growth of civilized society were made chiefly by stealth. They were generally BENTHAM. 363 made by the courts of justice, who could not help reading the new wants of mankind in the cases between man and man which came before them ; but who, having no authority to make new laws for those new wants, were obliged to do the work covertly, and evade the jealousy and opposition of an ignorant, prejudiced, and for the most part brutal and tyrannical legislature. Some of the most necessary of these improvements, such as the giving force of law to trusts, and the breaking up of entails, were effected in actual opposition to the strongly-declared will of ParKament, whose clumsy hands, no match for the astute- ness of judges, could not, after repeated trials, manage to make any law which the judges could not find a trick for rendering inoperative. The whole history of the contest about trusts may still be read in the words of a conveyance, as could the contest about entails, till the abolition of fine and recovery by a bill of the present Attorney-General; but dearly did the client pay for the cabinet of historical curiosities which he was obliged to purchase every time that he made a settlement of his estate. The result of this mode of improving social institutions was, that whatever new things were done had to be done in consistency with old forms and names ; and the laws were improved with much the same effect as if, in the improvement of agri- culture, the plough could only have been introduced by making it look like a spade ; or as if, when the primeval practice of ploughing by the horse's tail gave way to the innovation of harness, the tail, for form's sake, had still remained attached to the plough. ^Vhen the conflicts were over, and the mixed mass settled down into something like a fixed state, and that state a very profitable and therefore a very agreeable one to lawyers, they, following the natural tendency of the human mind, began to theorise upon it, and, in obedience to necessity, had to digest it and give it a systematic form. 364 BENTHAM. It was from this thing of shreds and patches, in which the only part that approached to order or system was the early harbarous part, now more than half superseded, that English lawyers had to construct, by induction and abs- traction, their philosophy of law ; and without the logical habits and general intellectual cultivation which the lawyers of the Roman empire brought to a similar task. Bentham found the philosophy of law what English practising lawyers had made it ; a mess, in which real and personal property, law and equity, felony, praemunire, misprision, and mis- demeanour, words without a vestige of meaning when detached from the history of English institutions — ^mere tide-marks to point out the line which the sea and the shore, in their secular struggles, had adjusted as their mutual boundary— all passed for distinctions inherent in the nature of things ; in which every absurdity, every lucrative abuse, had a reason found for it — a reason which only now and then even pretended to be drawn from ex- pediency ; most commonly a technical reason, one of mere form, derived from the old barbarous system . While the theory of the law was in this state, to describe what the practice of it was would require the pen of a Swift, or of Bentham himself. The whole progress of a suit at law seemed like a series of contrivances for lawyers' profit, in which the suitors were regarded as the prey ; and if the poor were not the helpless victims of every Sir Giles Over- reach who could pay the price, they might thank opinion and manners for it, not the law. It may be fancied by some people that Bentham did an easy thing in merely calling all this absurd, and proving it to be so. But he began the contest a young man, and he had grown old before he had any followers. History will one day refuse to give credit to the intensity of the super- stition which, till very lately, protected this mischievous mess from examination or doubt — passed off the charming BENTHAM. 365 representations of Blaekstone for a just estimate of the English law, and proclaimed the shame of human reason to be the perfection of it. Glory to Bentham that he has dealt to this superstition its deathblow — that he has been the Hercules of this hydra, the St. George of this pestilent dragon ! The honour is all his — nothing but his peculiar qualities could have done it. There were wanted his in- defatigable perseverance, his firm self-reliance, needing no support from other men's opinion ; his intensely practical turn of mind, his synthetical habits — above all, his peculiar method. iTetaphysicians, armed with vague generalities, had often tried their hands at the subject, and left it no more advanced than they found it. Law is a matter of business : means and ends are the things to be considered in it, not abstractions : vagueness was not to be met by vagueness, but by definiteness and precision : details were not to be encountered with generalities, but with details. Nor could any progress be made, on such a subject, by merely showing that existing things were bad ; it was necessary also to show how they might be made better. No great man whom we read of was qualified to do this thing except Bentham. He has done it, once and for ever : [witness these volumes, and the others by which they are to be followed.] Into the details of what Bentham has done we cannot enter : many hundred pages would be required to give a tolerable abstract of it. To sum up our estimate under a few heads. First: He has expelled mysticism from the philosophy of law, and set the example of viewing laws in a practical light, as means to certain definite and precise ends. Secondly : He has cleared up the confusion and vagueness attaching to the idea of law in general, to the idea of a body of laws, and all general ideas therein involved. Thirdly : He demonstrated the necessity and practicability of codification, or the conversion of all law 366 BENTHAM. into a -written and systematically arranged code : not like the Code Napoleon, a code without a single definition, requiring a constant reference to anterior precedent for the meaning of all its technical terms ; but a code containing within itself all that is necessary for its own interpretation, together with a perpetual provision for its own emendation and improvement. He has shewn of what parts such a code would consist; the relation of those parts to one another ; and by his distinctions and classifications has done very much towards showing what should be, or might be, its nomenclature and arrangement. What he has left undone, he has made it comparatively easy for others to r do. Fourthly : He has taken a systematic view ' of the \ exigencies of society for which the civil code is intended to [provide, and of the principles of human nature by which \its provisions are to be tested : and this view, defective (as We have already intimated) wherever spiritual interests Require to be taken into account, is excellent for that large - /portion of the laws of any country which are designed for The protection of material interests. Fifthly (to say nothing of the subject of punishment, for which something considerable had been done before) he found the jDhUosophy of judicial procedure, including that of judicial establish- ments and of evidence, in a more wretched state than even any other part of the philosophy of law ; he carried it at once almost to perfection. He left it with evei-y one of its principles established, and little remaining to be done even in the suggestion of practical arrangements. These assertions in behalf of Bentham may be left, and now without fear for the result, in the hands of those who are competent to judge of them. There are even in the highest seats of justice, men to whom the claims made for him will not now appear extravagant. Principle after ^ See the " Principles of Civil Law,'' contained in Part II. of the present pnWication. BENTHAM. 367 principle of those propounded by him is moreover making its way by infiltration into the understandings most shut against his influence, and driving nonsense and prejudice from one corner of them to another. The reform of the laws of any country according to his principles, can only be gradual, and may be long ere it is accomplished ; but the work is in progress, and both parliament and the judges are every year doing something, and often some- thing not inconsiderable, towards the forwarding of it. It seems proper here to take notice of an accusation sometimes made both against Bentham and against the principle of codification — as if they required one uniform suit of ready-made laws for all times and all states of society. The doctrine of codification, as the word imports, relates to the form only of the laws, not their substance ; it does not concern itseK with what the laws should be, but declares that whatever they are, they ought to be systematically arranged, and fixed down to a determinate form of words. To the accusation, so far as it affects Bentham, one of the essays in the present collection (now for the first time published in English) is a complete answer : that " On the Infl^uence of Time and Place in Matters of Legislation.'' It may there be seen that the different exigencies of different nations with respect to law, occupied his attention as systematically as any other portion of the wants which render laws necessary : with the limitations, it is true, which were set to all his specula-\ tions by the imperfections of his theory of human nature. For, taking, as we have seen, next to no account of national character and the causes which form and main- tain it, he was precluded fi-oni considering, except to a very ! limited extent, the laws of a country as an instrument of i national culture : one of their most important aspects, andi in which they must of course vaiy according to the degreei and kind of culture already attained ; as a tutor gives hisj 368 BENTHAM. pupil different lessons according to the progress already made in his education. The same laws would not have suited our wild ancestors, accustomed to rude independence, and a people of Asiatics bowed down by military des- potism : the slave needs to be trained to govern himself, the savage to submit to the government of others. The same laws wiU not suit the Enghsh, who plsice their habitual rehance in themselves, and the French, who place theirs in leaders. Very different institutions- are needed to train to the perfection of their nature, or to con- stitute into a united nation and social polity, an essentially subjective people like the North Germans, and an essen- tially objective people like those of Northern and Central Italy ; the one afEectionate and dreamy, the other pas- sionate and worldly ; the one trustful and loyal, the other calculating and suspicious ; the one not practical enough, the other overmuch ; the one wanting individuality, the other fellow-feeling ; the one failing for want of exacting enough for itself, the other for want of conceding enough to others. Bentham was little accustomed to look at iTnstitutions in theij' relation to these topics. The effects \ of this oversight must of course be perceptible throughout jhis speculations, but we do not think the errors into which lit led him very material in the greater part of civil and Ipenal law : it is in the department of constitutional legisla- 'tion that they were fundamentaL ^ The Benthamic theory of government has made so much noise in the world of late years ; it has held such a con- spicuous place among Radical philosophies, and Eadical modes of thinking have participated so much more largely than any others in its spirit, that many worthy persons imagine there is no other Eadical jihilosophy extant. Leaving such persons to discover their error as they may, we shall expend a few words in attempting to discriminate between the truth and error of this celebrated theory. BENTHAM. 36if \) There are three great questions in government. First, to -what anthority is it for the good of the people that they should be subject ? Secondly, how are they to be induced to obey that authority ? The answers to these two ques- tions vary indefinitely, according to the degree and kind of civilization and cultivation already attained by a people, and their peculiar aptitudes for receiving more. Comes next a thii'd question, not liable to so much variation, namely, by what means are the abuses of this authority to be checked ? This third question is the only one of the three to which Bentham seriously applies himself, and he gives it the only answer it admits of — Eesponsibility.j,^ responsibiUty to persons whose interest, whose obvious ana recognizable interest, accords with the end in view — good, government This being granted, it is next to be asked.J in what body of persons this identity of interest with good government, that is, with the interest of the whole com- munity, is to be found ? In nothing less, says Bentham, than the numerical majority: nor, say we, even in the numerical majority itself ; of no portion of the community Vss than all, will the interest coincide, at all times and in y. respects, with the interest of all. But, since power ^Ven to all, by a representative government, is in fact given to a majority ; we are obliged to fall back upon the first of our three questions, namely, under what authority is it for the good of the people that they be placed ? And if to this the answer be, under that of a majority among themselves, Bentham's system cannot be questioned. This one assumption being made, his " Constitutional Code " is admirable. That extraordinary power which he possessed, of at once seizing comprehensive principles, and scheming out minute details, is brought into play with surpassing vigour in devising means for preventing rulers frorn] escaping from the control of the majority ; for enabling / and inducing the majority to exercise that control unre^ I. B B 370 BENTHAM. mittingly ; and for providing tliem witli servants of every desirable endowment, moral and intellectual, compatible ^with entire subservience to their -will. But is this fundamental doctrine of Bentham's political t philosophy an universal truth ? Is it, at all times and places, good for mankind to be under the absolute authority of the majority of themselves? We say the ' authority, not the political authority merely, because it is chimerical to suppose that whatever has absolute power [ over men's bodies will not arrogate it over their minds, will not seek to control (not perhaps by legal penalties, but by the persecutions of society) opinions and feelings which j depart from its standard; will not attempt to shape the education of the young by its own model, and to extinguish 'all books, all schools, all combinations of individuals for Hoint action upon society, which may be attempted for the ^purpose of keeping alive a spirit at variance with its own. \ Is it, we say, the proper condition of man, in all ages and [^nations, to be under the despotism of Public Opinion ? It is very conceivable that such a doctrine should find acceptance from some of the noblest spirits, in a time of reaction against the aristocratic governments of modern Europe ; governments founded upon the entire sacrifice (except so far as prudence, and sometimes humane feeling interfere) of the community generally, to the self-interest and ease of a few. European reformers have been accustomed to see the numerical majority everywhere unjustly depressed, everywhere trampled upon, or at the best overlooked, by governments ; nowhere possessing power enough to extort redress of their most positive grievances, provision for their mental culture, or even to prevent themselves from being taxed avowedly for the pecuniary profit of the ruling classes. To see these things, and to seek to put an end to them, by means (among other things) of giving more political power to the majority, BENTHAM. 371 constitutes EadiealisTn ; and it is because so many in this age tave felt this wish, and have felt that the realization of it was an object worthy of men's devoting their lives to it, that such a theory of Government as Bentham's has found favour with them. But, though to pass from one form of bad government to another be the ordinary fate of man- kind, philosophers ought not to make themselves parties to it, by sacrificing one portion of important truth to another. - The numerical majority of any society whatever, must/ consist of persons all standing in the same social position, and having, in the main, the same pursuits, namelyy unskilled manual labourers : and we mean no disparage- ment to them : whatever we say to their disadvantage, we say equally of a numerical majority of shopkeepers, or of squires. Where there is identity of position and pursuits there also will be identity of partialities, passions, an prejudices ; and to give to any one set of partialities passions, and prejudices, absolute power, without counter-/ balance from partialities, passions, and prejudices of £, different sort, is the way to render the correction of any of those imperfections hopeless ; to make one narrow mean type of human nature universal and perpetual, and to crush every influence which tends to the further im- provement of man's intellectual and moral nature. There must, we know, be some paramount power in society ; and' that the majority should be that power, is on the whole- right, not as being just in itself, but as being less unjust) than am' other footing on which the matter can be placedJ But it is necessary that the institutions of society should make provision for keeping up, in some form or other, as a corrective to partial views, and a shelter for freedom of/ thought and individuality of character, a jserpetual and standing Opposition to the will of the majority. All) countries which have long continued progressive, .or been 372 BENTHAM. durably great, have been so because there lias been aa organized opposition to the ruling power, of whatever kind that power was : plebeians to jjatricians, clergy to kings, freethinkers to clergy, kings to barons, commons to king and aristocracy. Almost all the greatest men who ever lived have formed part of such an Opposition. Wherever some such quarrel has not been going on — wherever it has been terminated by the complete victory of one of the con- tending principles, and no new contest has taken the place of the old — society has either been hardened into Chinese stationariness, or fallen into dissolution. A centre of resistance, round which all the moiul and social elements which the ruling power views with disfavour may cluster themselves, and behind those bulwarks they may find shelter from the attempts of that power to hunt them out of existence, is as necessary where the opinion of the majority is sovereign, as where the ruling power is a hier- archy or an aristocracy. Where no such point d'appui exists, there the human race will inevitably degenerate ; and the question, whether the United States, for instance, will in time sink into another China (also a most com- mercial and industrious nation), resolves itself, to us, into the question, whether such a centre of resistance will gradually evolve itself or not. These things being considered, we cannot think that Bentham made the most useful employment which might (Tiave been made of his great powers, when, not content \with enthroning the majority as sovereign, by means of luniversal suffrage without king or house of lords, he /exhausted all the resources of ingenuity in devising means \for riveting the yoke of public opinion closer and closer I round the necks of all public functionaries, and excluding every possibility of the exercise of the slightest or most temporary influence either by a minority, or by the functionary's own notions of right. Sureh" when j-ou have BENTHAM. 373 made a px)wer the strongest jDower, you have done enough for it ; your care is thenceforth wanted rather to prevent that strongest power from swallowing up all others. "Wherever all the forces of society act in one single direc"^ tion, there the rights of the individual human being are in extreme peril. The power of the majority is salutary so far as it is used defensively, not offensively — as its exertion! is tempered by respect for the personality of tte individual^ and reverence for superiority of cultivated intelligence. If Bentham had employed himself in pointing out the means by whicH institutions fundamentally democratic might be best adapted to the preservation and strengthening of those two sentiments, be would have done something more permanently valuable, and more worthy of liis great in- tellect. Montesquieu, with the ligbts of the present age, would have done it ; and we are possibly destined to receive- tMs benefit from the Montesquieu of our own times, M. de Tocqueville.' Do we then consider Bentham's political speculations useless ? Far from it. We consider them only one-sided. He has brought out into a strong light. Las cleared from a thousand confusions and misconceptions, and pointed out with admirable skill the best means of promoting, one of / the ideal qualities of a jjjcrfect government — identity of j interest between the trustees and the community for whom 1 they hold their power in trust. This quality is not at^^ tainable in its ideal perfection, and must moreover be striven for with a perpetual eye to all other requisites ; but those other requisites must still more be striven for without losing sight of this : and when the slightest postponem.ent is made of it to any other end, the sacrifice, often necessary, is never unattended with evil. Bentham has pointed out ^ Mill had read De Tocqueville's book upon " Democracy in America " in 1835 ; and he rexdewed that work in the " Edinburgh Review " of October, 1S40, the article being his first contribution 374 BEXTHAM. how complete tliis sacrifice is in modern European societies: how exclusively, partial and sinister interests are the ruling power there, with only such check as is imposed by public opinion — which being thus, in the existing order of things, perpetually apparent as a source of good, he was led by natural partiality to exaggerate its intriasic excellence. This sinister interest of rulers Bentham hunt-ed through all its disguises, and especially through those which hide it from the men themselves who are influenced by it. The \ greatest service rendered by him to the philosophy of universal human natiu'e, is, perhaps, his illustration of what he terms " interest- begotten prejudice " — the in- herent tendency of man to make a duty and a virtue of (following his self-interest. The idea, it is true, was far from being peculiarly Bentham's : the artifices by which we persuade ourselves that we are not yielding to our selfish inclinations when we are, had attracted the notice of all moralists, and had been probed by religious writers to a depth as much below Bentham's, as their knowledge of the profundities and windings of the human heart was superior to his. But it is selfish interest in the form of class-interest, and the class morality founded thereon, which Bentham has illustrated : the manner in which any set of persons who mis much together, and have a common interest, are apt to make that common interest their stan- dard of virtue, and the social feelings of the members of the class are made to play into the hands of their selfish ones ; whence the union so often exemplified in history, between the most heroic persoual disinterestedness and the most odious class-selfishness. This was one of Bentham's leading ideas, and almost the only one by which he con- tributed to the elucidation of history : much of which, except so far as this explained it, must have been entirely to the " Edinburgh," the organ of his and James Mill's former antagonist, Macaulay. See note at p. 386. — Ed. BENTHAM. 375 inexplicable to him. Tne idea was given him by Hel- vetius, whose book, " De I'Esprit," is one continued and most acute commentary on it ; and, together with the other great idea of Helvetius, the influence of circumstances on character, it will make his name live by the side of Rousseau, when all of the other French philosophers of- the eighteenth century shall be extant as such only in literary history. In the brief view which we have been able to give of Bentham's philosophy, it may surprise the reader that we have said so little about the first principle of it, with which his name is more identified than with anything else ; the " principle of utility," or, as he afterwards named it, " the greatest-happiness principle." It is a topic on which much were to be said, if there were room, or if it were in reality necessary for the just estimation of Bentham. On an occasion more suitable for a discussion of the metaphysics of morality, or on which the explanations necessary to make an opinion on so abstract a subject intelligible could be conveniently given, we should be fully prepared to state what we think on this subject. [All we intend to say at^ present is, that we are much nearer in agreeing with i Bentham in his principle, than in the degree of importance / which he attached to it.] We think utility, or happiness, I much too complex and indefinite an end to be sought except ' through the medium of various secondary ends, concerning which there may be, and often is, agreement among persons who differ in their ultimate standard ; and about which there does in fact prevail a much greater unanimity among thinking persons, than might be supposed from their diametrical divergence on the great .questions of moral ! metaphysics. As mankind are much more nearly of one | nature, than of one opinion about their own nature, they are easily brought to agree in their intermediate principles, vera ilia ei media axiomata, as Bacon says, than in their 376 BENTHAM. first principles : and the attempt to make the bearings of actions upon the ultimate end more evident than they can be made by referring them to the intermediate ends, and to estimate their value by a direct reference to human happiness, generally terminates in attaching most import- ance, not to those effects which are really the greatest, but to those which can most easily be pointed to and in- dividually identified. Those who adopt utility as a standard can seldom apply it truly except through the secondary principles ; those who reject it, generally do no more than erect those secondary principles into first principles. We consider, therefore, the utilitarian controversy as a question of arrangement and logical subordination rather than of practice ; important principally in a purely scientific point of view, for the sate of the systematic unity and coherency of ethical philosophy. [Whatever be our own opinion on the subject, it is from no such source that we loot for the great improvements which we believe are destined to tate place in ethical doctrine.] It is probable, however, that to the principle of utility we owe all that Bentham did ; that it was necessary to him to find a first principle which he could receive as self-evident, and to which he could attach all his other doctrines as logical consequences : that to him systematic unity was an indispensable condition of his con- fidence in his own intellect. And there is something further to be remarted -. whether happiness be or be not the end to which morality should be referred— that it be referred to an end of some sort, and not left in the dominion of vague feeling or inexplicable internal conviction, that it be made a matter of reason and calculation, and not merely of sentiment, is essential to the veiy idea of moral philo- sophy ; is, in fact, what renders argument or discussion on r moral questions possible. That the morality of actions depends upon the consequences which they tend to produce, is the doctrine of rational persons of all schools ; that the BENTHAM. 377 good or evil of those consequences is measured solely ty pleasure or pain, is all of the doctrine of the school of utility, which is peculiar to it. In so far as Bentham's adoption of the principle of utility induced him to fix his attention upon the con- sequences of actions as the consideration determining the morality, so far at least he was in the right path : thought to go far in it without wandering, there was needed a greater knowledge of the formation of chai-acter, and of j the consequences of actions upon the agent's own frame of mind, than Bentham possessed. His want of power to estimate this class of consequences, together with his want of the degree of modest [respect (a far different thing to blind deference) due to the traditionary opinions and feelings in which the experience of mankind on that part of the subject lies embodied, render him, we conceive, a most unsafe guide] on questions of practical ethics^ He is chargeable also with another error, which it would be improper to pass over, because nothing has tended more to place him in opposition to the common feelings of mankind, and to give to his philosophy that cold, mechanical, and ungenial air which characterizes the popular idea of a Benthamite. This error, or rather one- sidedness, belongs to him not as a utilitarian, but as a moralist by profession, and in common with almost all professed raoralists, whether religious or philosophical : it is that of treating the moral view of actions and characters, which is unquestionably the first and most important mode of looking at them, as if it were the sole one : whereas it is only one of three, by all of which our sentiments towards the human being may be, ought to be, and with- out entirely crushing our own nature cannot but be, materially influenced. Every human action has three? aspects : its moral aspect, or that of its right and wrong ;i its cesfhetic aspect, or that of its beauty ; its sym-pathetic 378 BENTHAM. |__aspect, or that of its loveableness. The first addresses itself to our reason and conscience : the second to our imagination ; the third to our human fellow-feeling. According to the first, we approve or disapprove; accord- ing to the second, we admire or despise ; according to the third, we love, pity, or dislike. The morality of an action depends on its foreseeable consequences ; its beauty, and its loveableness, or the reverse, depend upon the qualities which it is evidence of. Thus, a lie is wrong, because its effect is to mislead, and because it tends to destroy the confidence of man in man ; it is also mean, because it is cowardly — ^because it proceeds from not daring to face the consequences of telling the truth — or at best is evidence of want of that power to compass our ends by straight- forward means, which is conceived as properly belonging to every person not deficient in energy or in understanding. The action of Brutus in sentencing his sons was right, because it was executing a law essential to the freedom of his country, against persons of whose guilt there was no doubt : it was admirable, because it evinced a rare degree of patriotism, courage, and self-control; but there was nothing loveable in it ; it affords no presumption in regard to loveable qualities, unless a presumption of their deficiency. If one of the sons had engaged in the con- spiracy from affection for the other, his action would have been loveable, though neither moral nor admirable. It is not possible for any sophistry to confound these three modes of vievring an action ; but it is very possible to adhere to one of them exclusively, and lose sight of the rest. Sentimentality consists in setting the last two of the three above the first ; the error of moralists in general, and of Bentham, is to sink the two latter entirely. This is pre-eminently the case with Bentham : he both wrote and felt as if the moral standard ought not only to be para- mount (which it ought), but to be alone ; as if it ought to BENTHAM. 379 be the sole master of all our actions, and even of all our / sentiments ; as if either to admire or like, or despise or J dislike a person for any action which neither does good nor [ harm, or which does not do a good or a harm proportioned I to the sentiment entertained, were an injustice and a pre- 1 judice. He carried this so far, that there were certairr phrases which, being expressive of what he considered to be this groundless liking or aversion, he could not bear to hear pronounced in his presence. Among these phrases were those of good and had taste. He thought it an insolent piece of dogmatism in one person to praise or condemn another for a matter of taste : as if men's likings and dislikings, on things in themselves indifferent, were not pregnant with the most important iuferences as to every point of their character ; as if a person's tastes did not show him to be wise or a fool, cultivated or ignorant, gentle or rough, [polished or coarse,] sensitive or callous, generous or sordid, benevolent or selfish, conscientious or depraved. Connected with the same topic are Bentham's peculiar opinions on poetry. Much has been said for which there is no foundation, about his contempt for the pleasures of imagination, and for the fine arts. Music was throughout life his favourite amusement ; painting, sculpture, and the other arts addressed to the eye, he was so far from holding in any contempt, that he occasionally recognizes them as means employable for important social ends ; though his ignorance of the deeper springs of human character pfe^ vented him from suspecting how profoundly such things/ enter into the moral nat\u-e of man, and into the educatiod both of the individual and of the race. But towards poetry in the nan-ower sense, that which employs the lan^ guage of words, he entertained no favour. Words, he thought, were perverted from their proper office when they were employed in uttering anything but precise logical 380 BENTHAM. truth. He says, somewhere in his works, that, " quantity _of pleasure being equal, push-pin is as good as poetry " : but this is only a paradoxical way of stating what he would equally have said of the things which he most valued and admired. Another aphorism is attributed to him, which is much more characteristic of his view of this subject : "All poetry is misrepresentation." Poetry, he thought, consisted essentially in exaggeration for effect: in pro- claiming some one view of a thing very emphatically, and suppressing all the limitations and qualifications. This trait of character seems to us a curious example of what Mr. Carlyle strikingly calls " the completeness of limited men." Here is a philosopher who is happy within his narrow boundary as no man of indefinite range ever was — who fl.atters himself that he is so completely emancipated from the essential law of poor human intellect, by which it can only see one thing at a time well, that he can even turn round upon the imperfection and lay a solemn inter- dict upon it. Did Bentham really suppose that it is in poetry only that propositions cannot be exactly true, cannot contain in themselves all the limitations and qualifications with which they require to be taken when applied to practice ? We have seen how far his own prose proposi- tions are from reaUzing this Utopia : and even the attempt to approach to it would be incompatible not with poetry merely, but with oratory, and popular writing of every kind. Bentham' s charge is true to the fullest extent ; aU writing which undertakes to makes men feel truths as well as see them, does take up one point at a time, does seek to impress that, to drive that home, to make it sink into and colour the whole mind of the reader or hearer. It is justified in doing so, if the portion of truth which it thus enforces be that which is called for by the occasion. All writing addressed to the feelings has a natural tendency to exaggeration ; but Bentham should have remembered that BENTHAM. 381 in this, as in many things, we must aim at too much, to be assured of doing enough. From the same principle in Bentham came the intricate and involved style, which makes his later writings books for the student only, not the general reader. It was from his perpetually aiming at impracticable precision. Nearly all his earlier, and many parts of his later writings, are models, as we have already observed, of light, playful, and popular style ; a Benthamiana might be made of passages worthy of Addison or Goldsmith. But in bis later years and more advanced studies, he fell into a Latin or German structure of sentence, foreign to tbe genius of the English language. He could not bear, for the sake of clearness and the reader's ease, to say, as ordinary men are content to do, a little more than the truth in one sentence, and cor- rect it in the next. The whole of tbe qualifying remarks wbich he intended to make, he insisted upon imbedding as parentheses in the very middle of the sentence itself. Ajid thus the sense being so long suspended, and attention being required to the accessory ideas before the principal idea had been properly seized, it became difficult, without som.e practice, to make out the train of thought. It is fortunate that so many of the most important parts of his writings are free from this defect. We regard it as a reductio ad absurdum of his objection to poetry. In trying to write in a manner against which the same objection should not lie, he could stop nowhere short of utter un- readableness, and after all attained no more accuracy than is compatible with opinions as imperfect and one-sided as those of any poet or sentimentalist breathing. Judge then in what state literature and philosophy would be, and what chance they would have of influencing the multitude, if his objection were allowed, and all styles of writing banished whicb would not stand his test. We must here close this brief and imperfect view of 382 BENTHAM. Bentham and his doctrines ; in -whicli many parts of the subject have been entirely untouched, and no part done justice to, but which at least proceeds from an intimate familiarity with his writings, and is, we believe, the first attempt at an impartial estimate of his character as a pbUosopher, and of the result of his labours to the world. After every abatement, and it has been seen whether we have made our abatements spariugly — there remains to Bentham an indisputable place among the great intellec- tual benefactors of mankind. His writings will long form an indispensable part of the education of the highest order of practical thinters ; and the present collection of them ought to be in the hands of every one who would either understand his age, or take any beneficial part in the great business of it. A. APPENDICES TO THE FOREGOING ARTICLE.^ (A.) DEMOCEACT AND GOVEENMENTr FEOM this principle of the necessity of identifying the interest of the government with that of the people, most of the practical maxims of a representative govern- ment are corollaries. All popular institutions are means towards rendering the identity of interest more complete. We say more complete, hecause (and this it is important to remark) perfectly complete it can never he. An approxi- mation is all that is, in the nature of things, possible. By pushing to its utmost extent the accountability of govern- m.ents to the people, you indeed take away from them the power of prosecuting their own interests at the exj^ense of the people by force, but you leave to them the whole range and compass of fraud. An attorney is accountable to his client, and removable at his client's pleasure ; but we should scarcely say that his interest is identical with that of his client. When the accountability is perfect, the interest of rulers approximates more and more to identity with that of -the people, in proportion as the people are more enlightened. The identity would be pei'- fect, only if the people were so wise, that it should no longer be practicable to employ deceit as an instrument of government ; a point of advancement only one stage below ' The following articles are reprinted as supplementary to the foregoing essay. The first was given by Mill himself, in a slightly condensed form, in his o'sm reprint of the essay on Bentham. - "London Review," Jvdv and October, 1835. 384 APPENDICES TO THE FOREGOING AIITICLE. that at wliich they could do without government altogether ; at least, without force, and penal sanctions, not (of course) without guidance and organized co-operation. Identitication of interest between the rulers and the ruled, being therefore, in a literal sense, impossible to realized, must not be spoken of as a condition whicL. a government must absolutely fulfil ; but as an end to be in- cessantly aimed at, and approximated to as nearly as cir- cumstances render possible, and as is compatible with the regard due to other ends. Tor the identity of interest, even if it were wholly attainable, not being the sole requi- site of good government, expediency may require that we should sacrifice some portion of it, or (to speak more pre- cisely) content ourselves with a somewhat less approxima- tion to it than might possibly be attainable, for the sake of some other end. The only end, liable occasionally to conflict with that which we have been insisting on, and at all comparable to it in importance — the only other condition essential to good government — is this : That it be government by a select body, not by the public collectively : That political questions be not decided by an appeal, either ^ect or indirect, to the judgment or will of an uninstructed mass, whether of gentlemen or of clowns; but by the deliberately formed opinions of a comparatively few, specially educated for the task. This is an element of good government which has existed, in a greater or less degree, in some aristocracies, though unhappUy not in our own ; and has been the cause of whatever reputation for prudent and skilful administration those governments have enjoyed. It has seldom been found in any aristocracies but those which were avowedly such. Aristocracies in the guise of monarchies (such as those of England and France) have very generally been aristocracies of idlers ; while the others (such as Eome, Venice, and Holland) might partially be considered as aristocracies of experienced and laborious men. Of all governments, ancient or modern, the one by which this excellence is possessed in the most eminent de- gree is the government of Prussia — a most powerfully and skilfully organized aristocracy of the most highl^'-educated (a.) democracy and goteenment. 385 men in the kingdom. The British government in India partakes (with considerable modifications) of the same character. When this principle has been combined ivith other fortunate circumstances, and particularly (as in Prussia) with circumstances rendering the popularity of the govern- ment almost a necessary condition of its security, a very considerable degree of good government has occasionally been produced, even without any express accountability to the people. Such fortunate circumstances, however, are seldom to be reckoned upon. But though the principle of government by persons specially brought up to it will not suffice to produce good government, good government cannot be had without it; and the grand difficulty in poHtics will for a long time be, how best to conciliate the two great elements on which good government depends ; to combine the greatest amount o^ the advantage derived from the independent judgment of a specially instructed Few, with the greatest degree of the security for rectitude of purpose derived from rendering those Few responsible to the Many. What is necessary, however, to make the two ends per- fectly reconcilable, is a smaller matter than might at first sight be supposed. It is not necessary that the many should themselves be perfectly wise ; it is sufficient if they be duly sensible of the value of superior wisdom. It is sufficient if they be aware, that the majority of political questions turn upon considerations of which they, and all persons not trained for the purpose, must necessarily be very imperfect judges ; and that their judgment must in general be exercised rather upon the characters and talents of the persons whom they appoint to decide these questions for them, than upon the questions themselves. They would then select as their representatives those whom the general voice of the instructed pointed out as the most instructed ; and would retain them, so long as no symptom was mani- fested in their conduct, of being under the influence of interests or of feelings at variance with the public welfare. This implies no greater wisdom in the people than the very ordinary wisdom, of knowing what things they are and are 386 APPENDICES TO THE FOREGOING ARTICLE. not sufficient judges of. If the bulk of any nation possess a fair stare of this "(visdoni, the argument for universal suffrage, so far as respects that people, is irresistible ; forj the experience of ages, and especially of all great national emergencies, bears out the assertion, that whenever the multitude are really alive to the necessity of superior intellect, they rarely fail to distinguish those who possess it. ****** The idea of a rational democracy is,^ that the people themselves govern, but thej' have security for good govern- ment. This security they cannot have by any other means than by retaining in their own hands the ultimate control. If they renounce this, they give themselves up to tyranny. A governing class not accountable to the people are sure, in the main, to sacrifice the people to the pursuit of separate interests and inclinations of their own. Even their feelings of morality, even their ideas of excellence, have reference, not to the good of the people, but to their own good; their very virtues are class virtues — their noblest acts of patriotism and self-devotion are but the sacrifice of their private interests to the interests of their class. The heroic public virtue of a Leonidas was quite compatible with the existence of Helots. In no government will the interests of the people be the object, except where the people are able to dismiss their rulers as soon as the devotion of those rulers ' to the interests of the people becomes questionable. But this is the only purpose for which it is good to entrust power to the people. Provided good intentions can be secured, the best government (need it be said ?) must be the government of the wisest, and these must always be a few. The people ought to be the masters, but they are masters who must employ servants more skilful than themselves : like a ministry when they employ a military commander, or the military commander when he employs an army surgeon. When the minister ^ This second extract is from Mill's review of De TocqueWUe's "Democracy in America" which appeared in the "London Review " of October, 1835. A second review by him on the same book, on its translation into English, appeared in the " Edinburgh Ee\'iew" of 1840.— Ed. {A.) DEMOCRACY AND GOVERNMENT. 387 ceases to confide in the commander, lie dismisses him and appoints another ; but he does not send him instructions -when and where to fight. He holds him responsible only for results. The people must do the same. This does not render the control of the people nugatory. The control of a government over the commander of its army is not nugatory. A man's control over his physician is not nugatory, although he does not direct his physician what medicine to administer. [He either obeys the prescription of his physician, or, if dissatisfied with him, takes another. In that consists his security. In that consists also the people's security ; and with that it is their wisdom to be satisfied.] But in government, as in everything else, the danger is, lest those who can do whatever they will, may will to do more than is for their ultimate interest. The interest of the people is, to choose for their rulers the most instructed and the ablest persons who can be found ; and having done so, to allow them to exercise their knowledge and ability for the good of the people freely, or with the least possible control — as long as it is the good of the people, and not some private end, that they are aiming at. A democracy thus administered would unite all the good qualities ever possessed by any government. Not only would its ends be good, but its means would be as well chosen as the wisdom of the age would allow ; and the omnipotence of the majority would be exercised through the agency and at the discretion of an enlightened minority, accountable to the majority in the last resort. But it is not possible that the constitution of the democracy itself should provide adequate security for its being understood and administered in this spirit. This rests with the good sense of the people themselves. If the people can remove their rulers for one thing, they can for another. That ultimate control, without which they cannot have security for good government, may, i£ they please, be made the means of themselves interfering in the govern- ment, and making their legislators mere delegates for carrying into execution the preconceived judgment of the majority. If the people do this, they mistake their 388 APPENDICES TO THE FOREGOING ARTICLE. interest ; and sueli a government, though better than most aristocracies, is not the kind of democracy which wise men desire. Some persons, and persons too whose desire for en- lightened government cannot be questioned, do not take so serious a view of this perversion of the true idea of an enlightened democracy as we do. They say, it is well that the many should evoke all political questions to their ovm tribunal, and decide them according to their own judgment, because then philosophers will be compelled to enlighten the multitude, and render them capable of appreciating their more profound views. ZSTo one can attach greater value than we do to this consequence of popular govern- ment, in so far as we believe it capable of being realized ; and the argument would be irresistible, if, in order to instruct the people, all that is requisite were to will it ; if it were only the discovery of political truths which required study and wisdom, and the evidence of them when dis- covered could be made apparent at once to any person of common sense, as well educated as every individual in the community might and ought to be. But the fact is not so. Many of the truths of politics (La political economy, for instance) are the result of a concatenation of propositions, the very first steps of which no one who has not gone through a course of study is prepared to concede ; there are others, to have a complete perception of which requires much meditation, and experience of human nature. How will philosophers bring these home to the perceptions of the multitude ? Can they enable common sense to judge of science, or inexperience of experience ? Everyone who has even crossed the threshold of political philosophy knows, that on many of its questions the false view is greatly the most plausible ; and a large portion of its truths are, and must always remain, to all but those who have specially studied them, paradoxes ; as contrary, in appearance, to common sense, as the proposition that the earth moves round the sun. The multitude will never beHeve those truths, until tendered to them from an authority in which they have as unlimited confidence as tbey have ia the unanimous voice of astronomers on a question of astronomy. (a.) democeacy and government. 389 That they should have no such confidence at present is no discredit to them ; for show us the men who are entitled to it ? But we are well satisfied that it will be given, as soon as knowledge shall have made sufiicient progress among the instructed classes themselves, to produce some- thing like a general agreement in their opinions on the leading points of moral and political doctrine. Even now, on those points on which the instructed classes are agreed, the uninstructed have generally adopted their opinions. (B.) REMARKS ON BENTHAM'S PHILOSOPHY.' (By J. S. Mill and Bulwee-Lytton.) IT is uo light task to give an abridged view of the philo- sophical opinions of one, who attempted to place the vast subjects of morals and legislation upon a scientific basis : a mere outline is all that can be attempted. The first principles of Mr. Bentham's philosophy are these, — ^that happiness, meaning by that term pleasure and exemption from pain, is the only thing desirable in itself ; that all other things are desirable solely as means to that end : that the production, therefore, of the greatest possible happiness, is the only fit purpose of all human thought and action, and consequently of all morality and government ; and moreover, that pleasure and pain are the sole agencies by which the conduct of mankind is in fact governed, what- ever circumstances the individual may be placed in, and whether he is aware of it or not. Mr. Bentham does not appear to have entered very deeply into the metaphysical grounds of these doctrines ; he seems to have taken those grounds very much upon the showing of the metaphysicians who preceded him. The principle of utility, or as he afterwards called it, " the greatest-happiness principle," stands no otherwise demon- strated in his writings, than by an enumeration of the ^ This article was given in Buhver-Lytton's (afterwards Lord Lytton) book of sketches called " England and the English," 1833. It is now first collected into Mill's works. In his preface to "England and the English," Mr. Bulwer, then in the height of his popularity as a, novelist, and about to commence his career as a poliiician, says of the article that he had " considerable aid " in its compilation from " a gentleman qualified, perhaps before all men ]i^^n^r, to judge profoundly of the philosopny of Bentham," ■i.e., from J. S. Mill— Ed. (B.) remarks on BENTHAM'S PHILOSOPHf. 391 phrases of a diilereiit description whicli have been commonly employed to denote the rule of life, and the rejection of them all, as having no intelligible meaning, further than as they may iavolve a tacit reference to considerations of utility. Such are the phrases " law of nature, " lighQ reason," " natural rights," " moral sense." All these Mt. Bentham regarded as mere covers for dogmatism ; excuses for setting one's own ipse dixit as a rule to bind oth^ people. " They consist, all of them," says he, " in so many contrivances for avoiding the obligation of appealing to any external standard, and for prevailing upon the reader accept the author's sentiment or opinion as a reason fo: itself." ' This, however, is not fair treatment of the believers in other moral principles than that of utiUty. All modes of speech are employed in an ignorant manner, by ignorant people ; but no one who had thought deeply and system- atically enough to be entitled to the name of a philosopher, ever supposed that his own private sentiments of appro- bation and disapprobation must necessarily be well-founded, and needed not to be compared with any external standard:.,,^ The answer of such persons to Mr. Bentham would beT/ that by an inductive and analytical examination of the / human mind, they had satisfied themselves, that what we 1 call our moral sentiments (that is, the feelings of com- 1 plfl,cency and aversion we experience when we compare i actions of our own or of other people with our standard of i right and wrong) are as much part of the original eonsti- ;' tution of man's nature as the desire of happiness and the fear of suffering : That those sentiments do not indeed attach themselves to the same actions under all circum- stances, but neither do they, in attaching themselves to actions, follow the law of utility, but certain other general laws, which are the same in all mankind naturally ; though education or external circumstances may counteract them,| by creating artificial associations stronger than they. N^ proof, indeed, can be given that we ought to abide by these laws ; but neither can any proof be given, that we ought to regulate our conduct by utiUty. All that can be said is,' that the pursuit of happiness is natural to us ; and so, it is 392 APPENDICES TO THE FOREGOING ARTICLE. I contended, is the reverence for, and the inclination to square Lour actions by, certain general laws of morality. Anyone who is acquainted with the ethical doctrines either of the Keid and Stewart school, or of the German metaphysicians (not to go further back), knows that such would be the answer of those philosophers to Mr. Bentham ; and it is an answer of which Mr. Bentham's writiags fur- nish no sufficient refutation. For it is evident, that these views of the origin of moral distinctions are not, what he \ says all such views are, destitute of any precise and tangible i meaning; nor chargeable with setting up as a standard j the feelings of the particular person. They set up as a standard what are assumed (on grounds which are con- ' sidered sufficient) to be the instincts of the species, or prin- ; ciples of our common nature as universal and inexplicable ■-as instincts. To pass judgment on these doctrines, belongs to a pro- founder and subtler metaphysics than Mr. Bentham pos- sessed. I apprehend it will be the judgment of posterity, that in his views of what, in the felicitous expression of Hobbes, may be caRedi-Mhe philosophia prima, it has for the most part, even when he was most completely in the right, Jbeen reserved for others to prove him so. The greatest of ,Mr. Bentham's defects, his insufficient knowledge and ap- preciation of the thoughts of other men, shows itself con- tetantly in his grappling with some delusive shadow of an /adversary's opinion, and leaving the actual substance un- Tiarmed. After laying down the principle of Utility, Mr. Bentham is occupied, through the most voluminous and the most permanently valuable part of his works, in constructing the outlines of practical ethics and legislation, and filling up some portions of the latter science (or rather art) in great detail ; by the uniform and unflinching application of his own greatest-happiness principle, from which the eminently consistent and systematic character of his intellect pre- vented him from ever swerving. In the writings of no philo- sopher, probably, are to be detected so few contradictions — so few instances of even momentary deviation from the principles he himself has laid down. (b.) remarks on bentham's philosophy. 393 It is perhaps fortunate that Mr. Bentham devoted a much larger share of his time and labour to the suhjeet of legis- lation, than to that of morals ; for the mode in which he understood and applied the principle of Utility, appears to me far more conducive to the attainment of true and valuable results in the former, than in the latter of these two branches of inquiry. The recognition of happiness as the only thing desirable in itself, and of the production of the state of things most favourable to happiness as the only rational end both of morals and policy, by no means neces- sarily leads to the doctrine of expediency as professed by Paley ; the ethical canon which judges of the morality of an act or a class of actions, solely by the probable con- sequences of that particular kind of act, supposing it to be generally practised. This is a very small part indeed of what a more enlarged understanding of the " greatest- happiness principle " would require us to take into the account. A certain kind of action, as for example, theft, or lying, would, if commonly practised, occasion certain evil consequences to society: but those evil consequences are far from constituting the entire moral bearings of the vices of theft or lying. We shall have a very imperfect view of the relation of those practices to the general happiness, if we suppose them to exist singly, and insulated. All acts sup- posecertain dispositions, and habits of mind and heart, which may be in themselves states of enjoyment or of wretched- ness, and which must be fruitful in other consequences, besides those particular acts. No person can be a thief or a liar without being much else : and if our moral judgments and feehngs mth respect to a person convicted of either vice, were grounded solely upon the pernicious tendency of thieving and of lying, they would be partial and incomplete ; many considerations would be omitted, which are at least equally " germane to the matter ; " many which, by leaving them out of our general views, we may indeed teach our- selves a habit of overlooking, but which it is impossible for any of us not to be influenced by, in particular cases, in proportion as they are forced upon our attention. Now, the great fault I have to find with Mr. Bentham as a moral philosopher, and the source of the chief part of 394 APPENDICES TO THE FOREGOING ARTICLE. the temporary mischief which in that character, along with a vastly, greater am^ount of permanent good, he must be ^llowed to have produced, is this : that he has practically, fto a very great extent, confounded the principle of Utility \with the principle of specific consequences, and has habitu- jally made up his estimate of the approbation or blame due ito a particular kind of action, from a calculation solely of the consequences to which that very action, if practised generally, wotdd itself lead. He has largely exemplified, and contributed very widely to diffuse, a tone of thinking, according to which any kind of action or any habit, which in its own specific consequences cannot be proved to be hecessarily or probably productive of unhappiness to the agent himself or to others, is supposed to be fully justified ; and any disapprobation or aversion entertained towards the individual by reason of it, is set down from that time i&jrward as prejudice and superstition. It is not con- I sidered (at least, not habitually considered) whether the I act or habit in question, though not in itself necessarily / pernicious, may not form part of a character essentially 1 pernicious, or at least essentially deficient in some quality eminently conducive to the " greatest happiness." To '^apply such a standard as this, would indeed often require a much deeper insight into the formation of character, [and knowledge of the internal workings of human nature, than Mr. Bentham possessed. But, in a greater or less degree, he, and everyone else, judges by this standard: even those who are warped, by some partial view, into the omission of all such elements from their general specu- lation. When the moralist thus overlooks the relation of an act to a certain state of mind as its cause, and its connection through that common cause with large classes and groups of actions apparently very little resembling itself, his estimation even of the consequences of the very act itself, is rendered imperfect. For it may be affirmed with few exceptions, that any act whatever has a tendency to fix and perpetuate the state or character of mind in which itself has originated. And if that important element in the moral relations of the action be not taken into account by (b.) kemarks on bentham's philosophy. 395 the moralist as a cause, neither probably will it be taken into account as a consequence. Mr. Bentham is far from having altogether overlooked this side of the subject. Indeed, those most origioal and instructive, though, as I conceive, in their spirit, partially erroneous chapters, on motives and on dispositions, in his first great work, the Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, open up a direct and broad path to these most important topics. It is not the less true that Mr. Bentham, and many others, following his example, when they came to discuss particular questions of ethics, have conunonly,. in the superior stress which they laid / upon the specie consequences of a class of acts, rejected/ aU contemplation of the action in its general bearings upon \ the entire moral being of the agent ; or have, to say theJ least, thrown those considerations so far into the back- ground, as to be almost out of sight. And by so doing they have not only marred the value of many of their speculations, considered as mere philosophical inquiries, but have always run the risk of incurring, and in many cases have in my opinion actually incurred, serious practical errors. This incompleteness, however, in Mr. Bentham's views, was not of a nature materially to diminish the value of his speculations through the greater part of the field of legisla- tion. Those of the bearings of an action, upon which Mr. Bentham bestowed almost exclusive attention, were also those with which almost alone legislation is con--- versant. The legislator enjoins or prohibits an action, ) with very little regard to the general moral excellence or j turpitude which it implies ; he looks to the consequences ' to society of the particular kind of action; his object is ' not to render people incapable of desiring a crime, but to I deter them from actually committing it. Taking human beings as he finds them, he endeavours to supply such | inducements as wUl constrain even persons of the disposi- j tions the most at variance with the general happiness, to practise as great a degree of regard to it in their actual conduct, as can be obtained from them by such means without preponderant inconvenience. A theory, therefore. 396 APPENDICES TO THE FOREGOING ARTICLE. whicli considers little in. an action besides that action's own consequences, will generally be sufficient to serve the purposes of a philosophy of legislation. Such a philosophy ■will he most apt to fail in the consideration of the greater social questions — the theory of organic institutions and general forms of polity; for those (unlike the details of legislation) to be duly estimated, must be viewed as the great instruments of forming the national character; of carrying forward the members of the community towards perfection, or preserving them from degeneracy. This, as might in some measure be expected, is a point of view in which, except for some partial or limited purpose, Mr. Bentham seldom contemplates these questions. And this signal omission is one of the greatest of the deficiencies by which his speculations on the theory of government, though full of valuable ideas, are rendered, in my judg- ment, altogether inconclusive in their general results. To these we shall advert more fully hereafter. As yet I have not acquitted myself of the more agreeable task of setting forth some part of the services which the philosophy of legislation owes to Mr. Bentham. The greatest service of all, that for which posterity will award most honour to his name, is one that is his exclusively, and can be shared by no one present or to come ; it is the service which can be performed only once for any science, that of pointing out by what method of investigation it may be made a science. What Bacon did for physical knowledge, Mr. Bentham has done for philosophical legis- lation. Before Bacon's time, many physical facts had been ascertained; and previously to Mr. Bentham, mankind were in possession of many just and valuable detached observations on the making of laws. But he was the first who attempted regularly to deduce all the secondary and intermediate principles of law, by direct and systematic inference from the one great axiom or principle of general utility. In all existing systems of law, those secondary principles or dicta in which the essence of the systems resided, had grown up in detail, and even when founded in views of utility, were not the result of any scientific and comprehensive course of inquiry ; but more frequently (B.) REMARKS ON BENTHAAl'S PHIiOSOPHT. 397 were purely technical ; that is, they had grown out of circumstances purely historical, and, not having been altered when those circumstances changed, had nothing left to rest upon but fictions, and unmeaning forms. Take for instance the law of real property ; the whole of which continues to this very day to be founded on the doctrine of feudal tenures, when those tenures have long ceased to exist except in the phraseology of Westminster Hall. Nor was the theory of law in a better state than the practical systems ; speculative jurists having dared little more than to refine somewhat upon the technical maxims of the particular body of jurisprudence which they happened to have studied. Mr. Bentham was the first who had the genius and courage to conceive the idea of bringing back the science to first principles. This could not be done, could scarcely even be attempted, without, as a necessary consequence, making obvious the utter worthlessness of many, and the crudity and want of precision of almost aU, the maxims, which had previously passed everywhere for principles of law. Mr. Bentham, moreover, has warred against the errors of existing systems of jurisprudence, in a more direct manner than by merely presenting the contrary truths. The force of argument with which he rent asiinder the fantastic and illogical maxims on which the various techni- cal systems are founded, and exposed the flagrant evils which they practically produce, is only equalled by the pungent sarcasm and exquisite humour with which he has derided their absurdities, and the eloquent declamation which he continually pours forth against them, sometimes in the form of lamentation, and sometimes of invective. This then was the first, and perhaps the grandesF] achievement of Mr. Bentham ; the entire discrediting of | all technical systems; and the example which he set ofj treating law as no peculiar mystery, but a simple piece of I practical business, wherein means were to be adapted to! ends, as in any of the other arts of life. To have accom- plished this, supposing him to have done nothing else, is to have equalled the glory of the greatest scientific bene- factors of the human race. 398 APPENDICES TO THE FOBEGOING ARTICLE. But Mr. Bentham, unlike Bacon, did not merely prophesy a science ; he made large strides towards the creation of one. He was the first who conceived with anything ap- proaching to precision, the idea of a Code, or complete body of law ; and the distinctive characters of its essential parts, — the Civil Law, the Penal Law, and the Law of Procedure. On the first two of these three departments he rendered valuable service ; the third he actually created. Conformably to the habits of his mind, he set about in- vestigating ah initio, a philosophy or science for each of the three branches. He did with the received principles of each, what a good code would do with the laws themselves ; ■ — extirpated the bad, substituting others : re-enacted the good, but in so much clearer and more methodical a form, that those who were most familiar with them before, scarcely recognized them as the same. Even upon old truths, when they pass through his hands, he leaves so many of his marts, that often he almost seems to claim the discovery of what he has only systematized. In creating the philosophy of Civil Law, he proceeded not much beyond estabhshii^ on the proper basis some of its most general principles, and cursorily discussing some of the most interesting of its details. Nearly the whole of what he has published on this branch of law, is contained in the " Traites de Legislation," edited by M. Dumont. To the most difficult part, and that which most needed a master-hand to clear away its difficulties, the nomenclature and arrangement of the Civil Code, he contributed little, except detached observations, and criticisms upon the errors of his predecessors. The " Yue G-enerale d'un Corps Complet de Legislation," included in the work just cited, contains almost all which he has given to us on this subject. La the dei)artment of Penal Law, he is the author of the best attempt yet made towards a philosophical classifi- cation of offences. The theory of punishments (for which however more had been done by his predecessors, than for any other part of the science of law) he left nearly complete. The theory of Procedure (including that of the constitu- (a.) KEMABKS ON BENTHAM'S PiriLOSOPHY. 399 tion of the courts of justice) lie found in a more utterly barbarous state than even either of the other branches ; and he left it incomparably the most perfect. There is scarcely a question of practical importance in this most important department, which he has not settled. He has left next to nothing for his successors. He has shown with the force of demonstration, and has enforced and illustrated the truth in a hundred ways, that by sweeping away the greater part of the artificial rules and forms which obtain in all the countries called civilized, and adopting the simple and direct modes of investigation, which all men employ in endeavouring to ascertain facts for their own private knowledge, it is possible to get rid of at least nine-tenths of the expense, and ninety-nine hundredths of the delay, of law proceedings ; not only with no increase, but with an almost incredible diminution, of the chances of erroneous decision. He has also estab- ' lished irrefragably the principles of a good judicial estab- lishment : a division of the country into districts, with one judge in each, appointed only for a limited period, and deciding all sorts of cases ; with a deputy under him, appointed and removable by himself : an appeal lying in aU cases whatever, but by the transmission of papers only, to a supreme court or courts, consisting each of only one judge, and stationed in the metropolis. It is impos-sible within the compass of this sketch, to attempt any further statement of Mr. Bentham's principles and views on the great science which first became a science in his hands. As an analyst of human nature (the faculty in which above all it is necessary that an ethical philosopher should excel) I cannot rank Mr. Bentham very high. He has done little in this department, beyond introducing what appears to me a very deceptive phraseology, and furnishing a cata- logue of the " springs of action," from which some of the most important are left out. ^ That the actions of sentient beings are wholly determined by pleasure and pain, is the fundamental principle from which he starts ; and thereupon Mr. Bentham creates a motive, and an interest, corresponding to each pleasure or 400 APPENDICES TO THE FOREGOING ARTICLE. pain, ajid affirms that our actions are detei-mined by onr interests, by the preponderant interest, by the balance of motives. Now if this only means what was before asserted, that our actions are determined by pleasure and pain, that simple and unambiguous naode of stating the proposition 'is preferable. But under cover of the obscurer phrase a meaning creeps in, both to the author's mind and the reader's, which goes much farther, and is entirely false : that all our acts are determined by pains and pleasures in prospect, pains and pleasures to which we look forward as the consequences of our acts. This, as a universal truth, . can in no way be maintained. The pain or pleasure which determines our conduct is as frequently one which precedes the moment of action as one which follows it. A man may, it is true, be deterred, in circumstances of temptation, from perpetrating a crime, by his dread of the punishment, or of the remorse, which he fears he may have to endure after the guilty act ; and in that case we may say with some kind of propriety, that his conduct is swayed by the balance of motives ; or, if you wiU, of interests. But the case may be, and is to the full as likely to be, that he recoils from the very thought of committing the act ; the idea of placing himself in such a situation is so painful, that he cannot dwell upon it long enough to have even the physical power of perpetrating the crime. His conduct is determined by pain; but by a pain which precedes the act, not by one which is expected to follow it. Not only may this be so, but unless it be so, the man is not really virtuous. The fear of pain consequent upon the act, cannot arise, unless there be deliberation ; and the man as well as " the woman who deliberates," is in imminent danger of being lost. With what propriety shrinking from an action without delibera- tion, can be called yielding to an interest, I cannot see. Interest surely conveys, and is intended to convey, the idea of an end, to which the conduct (whether it be act or for- bearance) is designed as the ineans. Nothing of this sort takes place in the above example. It would be more correct to say that conduct is sometimes determined by an interest, that is, by a deliberate and conscious aim ; and sometimes by an impulse, that is, by a feeling (call it an (b.) remarks on bentham's philosophy. 401 association if you think fit) -whicli Las no ulterior end] tlie act or forbeai-ance becoming an end in itself. -~:£^ ' The attempt, again, to enumerate motives, that is, human I desires and aversions, seems to me to be in its very con-/ oeption an error. Motives are innumerable : there isl nothing ■whatever which may not become an object ofl desire or of dislike by association. It may be desirable to! distinguish by peculiar notice the motives which are strongest and of most frequent operation ; but Mr. Benti ham has not even done this. In his list of motives, though he includes sympathy, he omits conscience, or the feeling of duty : one would never imagine from reading him that\ any human being ever did an act merely because it is right, \ or abstained from it merely because it is wrong. In this-J Mr. Bentham differs widely from Hartley, who, although he considers the moral sentiments to be wholly the result of -association, does not therefore deny them a place in his system, but includes the feelings of " the moral sense " as one of the six classes into which he divides pleasures and pains. In Mr. Bentham's own mind, deeply imbued as it was with the " greatest-happiness principle," this motive was probably so blended with that of sympathy as to be undistinguishable from it ; but he should have recollected that those who acknowledge another standard of right and wrong than happiness, or who have never reflected on the subject at all, have often very strong feelings of moral obligation ; and whether a person's standard be happiness j or anything else, his attachment to his standard is not necessarily in proportion to his benevolence. Persons of weak sympathies have often a strong feeling of justice; and others, again, with the feelings of benevolence in con- 1 siderable strength, have scarcely any consciousness of moral •obligation at all. -^ It is scarcely necessary to point out that the habitual omigsion of so important a spring of action in an enumera- tion professing to be complete, must tend to create a habit of overlooking the same phenomenon, and consequeritly making no allowance for it, in other moral speculations. It is difficult to imagine any more fruitful source of gross error ; though one would be apt to suppose the oversight I. B D 402 APPENDICES TO THE FORECJOING ARTICLE. an impossible one, without this evidence of its having been committed by one of the greatest thinkers our species has produced. How can we suppose him to be alive to the existence and force of the motive in particular cases, who omits it in a deliberate and comjirehensive enumeration of all the influences by which human conduct is governed ? In laying down as a philosophical axiom, that men's actions are always obedient to their interests, Mr. Bentham did no more than dress up the very trivial proposition that all persons do what they feel themselves most disposed to do, in terms which appeared to him more precise, and better suited to the purposes of philosophy, than those more familiar expressions. He by no means intended by this assertion to impute universal selfishness to mankind, for he reckoned the motive of sympathy as an interest, and would have included conscience under the same appellation, if that motive had found any place in his philosophy, as a distinct principle from benevolence. He distinguished two Idnds of interests, the self- regarding and the social: in vulgar discourse, the name is restricted to the former kind alone. But there cannot be a gi-eater mistake than to suppose that, because we may ourselves be perfectly co7iscious of an ambiguity in our language, that ambiguity therefore has no i^effect in perverting our modes of thought. I am persuaded, \from experience, that this habit of speaking of all the feel- jings which govern mankind under the name of interests, is ' almost always in point of fact connected with a tendency j to consider interest in the vulgar sense, that is, purely self- I regarding interest, as exercising, by the very constitution 1 of human nature, a far more exclusive and paramount con- llrol over human actions than it really does exercise. Such, certainly, was the tendency of Mr. Benthani's own opinions. -Habitually, and throughout his works, the moment he has shown that a man's selfish interest would prompt him to a \ particular course of action, he lays it down without further / parley that the man's interest lies that way ; and, by sliding '' insensibly from the vulgar sense of the word into the philo- sophical, and from the philosophical back into the vulgar, the conclusion which is always brought out is, that the (b.) remarks on bentiiam's philosophy. 403 man will act as the selfish interest prompts. The extent to which Mr. Bentbam was a believer in the predominance of] the selfish principle in human nature, may be seen froin the sweeping t-erms in which, in his Book of Fallacies, he^ expressly lays down that predominance as a philosophical axiom. " In every human breast (rare and short-hved ebullitions, the result of some extraordinarily strong stimulus or ex- citement, excepted) self -regarding interest is predominant over social interest ; each person's own individual interest over the interests of all other persons tat en together." Pp. 392-3. In another passage of the same work (p. 368) he says, " Taking the whole of life together, there exists not, nor ever can exist, that human being in whose instance any public interest he can have had will not, in so far as depends upon himself, have been sacrificed to his own personal interest. Towards the advancement of the pubUc interest, all that the most public-spirited (which is as much as to say the most virtuous) of men can do, is to do what depends upon himself towards bringing the public interest, that is, his own personal share in the public interest, to a state as nearly approaching to coincidence, and on as few occasions amounting to a state of repugnance, as possible, with his private interests." By the promulgation of such views of human nature, and bv a general tone of thought and expression perfectly in harmony with them, I conceive Mr. Bentham's writings to have done and t-o be doing very serious evil. It is by such things that the more enthusiastic and generous minds are prejudiced against all his other speculations, and against the very attempt to make ethics and politics a subject of precise and philosophical thinking ; which attempt, indeed, if it were necessarily connected with such views, would be still more pernicious than the vague and flashy declama- tion for which it is proposed as a substitute. The effect is still worse on the minds of those who are not shocked and repelled by this tone of thinking, for on them it must be perverting to their whole moral nature. It is difficult to form the conception of a tendency more inconsistent witb 404 APPENDICES TO THE FOREGOING ARTICLE. all rational hope of good for the human species, than that which must be impressed by such doctrines, upon any mind in which they find acceptance. There are, there have been, many human beings, in whom the motives of patriotism or of benevolence have been per- manent, steady principles of action, superior to any or- dinary, and in not a few instances, to any possible, tempta- tions of personal interest. There are, and have been, multitudes, in whom the motive of conscience or moral obligation has been thus paramount. There is nothing in the constitution of human nature to forbid its being so in all mankind. Until it is so, the race will never enjoy one- tenth part of the happiness which our natTire is susceptible of. I regard any considerable increase of human happiness, through mere changes in outward circumstances, unaccom- panied by changes in the state of the desires, as hopeless ; not to mention that while the desires are circumscribed in self, there can be- no adequate motive for exertions tending to modify to good ends even those external cir- cumst-ances. No man's individual share of any public good which he can hope to realize by his efforts, is an equivalent for the sacrifice of his ease, and of the personal objects which he might attain by another course of conduct. The balance can be turned in favour of virtuous exertion, only by the interest of feeling or by that of conscience — those " social interests," the necessary subordination of which to " self- regarding " is so lightly assumed. But the power of anyone to realize in himself the state of mind, without which his own enjoyment of life can be but poor and scanty, and on which all our hopes of happi- ness or moral perfection to the species must rest, depends entirely upon his having faith in the actual existence of .such feelings and dispositions in others, and in their possibility for himself. It is for those in whom the feelings of virtue are weak, that ethical writing is chiefly needful, and its proper office is to strengthen those feelings. But to be qualified for this task, it is necessary', first to have, and next to show, in every sentence and in eveiy line, a firm, unwavering confidence in man's capability of virtue. It is by a sort of sympathetic contagion, or inspiration, that (B.) remarks ox BKXTHAM'S PHlLOSOPIiy. 405 a, noble mind assimilates other minds to itself ; and no one was ever inspired by one whose own inspiration was not sufficient to give him faith iu the possibility of making others feel what he feels. Upon those who need to be strengthened and upheld by a really insj)ired moralist — such a moralist as Socrates, or Plato, or (speaking humanly and not theologically) as Christ; the effect of such writings as Mr. Bentham's, if they be read and believed and their spirit' imbibed, must either be hopeless despondency and gloom, or ;i reckless giving themselves up to a life of that miserable self-seeking, which they are there taught to regard as inherent in their original and unalterable nature. Mr. Bentham's speculations on politics in the narrow sense, that is, on the theory of government, are distinguished by his usual characteristic, that of begiuning at the be- ginning. He places before himself man in society without a government, and, considering what sort of government it would be advisable to construct, finds that the m^ost ex- pedient would be a representative democracy. Whatever may be the value of this conclusion, the mode in which it is arrived at appears to me to be fallacious ; for it assumes that mankind are alike in all times and all places, that they have the same wants and are exposed to the same evils, and that if the same institutions do not suit them, it is only because in the more backward stages of improvement they have not wisdom to see what institutions are most for theu- good. How to invest certain servants of the people with the power necessary for the protection of person and pro- perty, with the greatest "possible facility to the people of changing the depositaries of that power, when they think it is abused ; such is the only problem in social organization which Mr. Bentham has proposed to himself. Yet this is but a part of the real problem. It never seems to have occurred to him to regard political institutions in a higher lieht, as the principal means of the social education of a people. Had he done so, he would have seen that the same institutions will no more suit two nations in different stages of civilization, than tbe same lessons will suit children of different ages. As the degree of civilization 406 APPENDICES TO THE FOHEGOINCJ ARTICI-E. already attained varies, so does the kind of social influence necessary for carrying tlie community forward to the next stage of its progress. For a tribe of North American Indians, improvement means, taming down their proud and solitary self-dependence; for a body of emancipated negroes, it means accustoming them to be seK-dependent, instead of being merely obedient to orders : for our semi- barbarous ancestors it would have meant, softening them : for a race of enervated Asiatics it would mean hardening them. How can the same social organization be fitted for producing so many contrary effects ? The prevailing error of Mr. Bentham's views of human nature appears to me to be this — he supposes mantind to be swayed by only a part of the inducements which really actuate them ; but of that part he imagines them to be much cooler and more thoughtful calculators than they really are. He has, I think, been, to a certain extent, mis- led in the theory of politics, by supposing that the sub- mission of the mass of mankind to an established govern-, ment is mainly owing to a reasoning perception of the necessity of legal protection, and of the common interest of all in a prompt and zealous obedience to the law. He was not, I am persuaded, aware, how very much of the really wonderful acquiescence of mankind in any government which they find established, is the effect of mere habit and imagination, and, therefore, depends upon the preservation of something like continuity of existence in the institutions, and identity in their outward forms ; cannot transfer itself easily to new institutions, even though in themselves pre- ferable ; and is greatly shaken when there occurs anything like a break in the line of historical duration — anything which can be termed the end of the old constitution and the beginning of a new one. The constitutional writers of our own country, anterior to Mr. Beutham, had carried feelings of this kind to the height of a superstition ; they never considered what was best adapted to their own times, but only what had existed in former times, even in times that had long gone by. It is not very many years since such were the principal grounds on which parliamentary reform itself was de- (b.) remarks ox bentham's philosophy. 407 fended. Mr. Bentham has done mucli service in discredit- ing, as he has done completely, this school of politicians, and exposing the absurd sacrifice of present ends to anti- quated means ; but he has, I think, himself fallen into a contrary error. The very fact that a certain set of political] institutions already exist, have long existed, and have I become associated vfith all the historical recollections of a | people, is in itself, as far as it goes, a property which/ adapts them to that people, and gives them a great advan- 1 tage over any new institutions in obtaining that ready and willing resignation to what has once been decided by lawful authority, which alone renders possible those' innumerable compromises between adverse interests and expectations, without which no government could be carried on for a year, and with diificulty even for a week. Of the percep- tion of this important truth, scarcely a trace is visible in i Mr. Bentham's writings.^ It IS impossible, however, to contest to Mr. Bentham, on this subject or on any other which he has touched, the merit, and it is very great, of having brought forward into notice one of the faces of the truth, and a highly important one. Whether on government, on morals, or on any of the other topics on which his speculations are comparatively imperfect, thev are still highly instructive and valuable to ' It is necessary, however, to distinguisli between Mr. Bentliam'.s practical conclusions, as an English politician of the present day, and his systematic views as a political philosopher. It is to the latter only that the foiegoing observations are intended to apply : on the former I am not now called upon to pronounce any opinion. For the just estimation of his merits, the question is not what were his conclusions, but what was his mode of arriving at them. Theoretical views most •v\'idely different, may lead to the same practical corollaries : and that part of any system of philosophy which bodies itself forth in directions for immediate practice, must be so small a portion of the whole as to furnish a very insufficient criterion of the degree in which it approximates to scientific and universal truth. Let Mr. Bentham's opinions on the political questions of the day be as sound or as mistaken as any one may deem them, the fact which is of importance in judging of Mr. Bentliara himself is that those opinions rest upon a basis of half- truth. Each inquirer is left to add the other half for himself, and confirm or correct the practical conclusion as the other lights of which he happens to be in possession allow him. 408 APPENDiaiS TO THK FOREGOING AUTICJ.i;. any one who is capable of supplying the remainder of the truth ; they are calculated to mislead only by the preten- sion which they invariably set up of being the whole truth, a complete theory and philosophy of the subject. Mr. Bentham was more a thinker than a reader; he seldom compared his ideas with those of other philosophers, and was by no means aware how many thoughts had existed in other minds, which his doctrines did not. afford the means either to refute or to appreciate.' ' In the hook to which the above wa,s contributed (" England and the English "), Buhver-Lytton liimself gave "A few Observa- tions on Mr. Mill." This has reference to J. S. Mill's father, and deals chiefly with the elder MUl as a disciple of Bentham. Tlie following is an extract from the versatile, and at this time some- what Kadical, writer, who afterxvards becaiSe the Tory Lord Lytton : " Mi-. Mill is eminently a metaphysician ; Bentham as little of a metaphysician as any one can be who ever attained to. eq^ual success in the science of philosojiliy. Every moral or political system must be indeed a corollary from some general view of human nature. But Bentham, though punctilious and precise in the premises he advances, confines' himself, in that very precise- ness, to a few simple and general principles. He seldom analyses — he studies the human mind rather after the method of natural history than of philosophy. He enumerates — he classifies the facts — but he does not accomit for them. You read in his works an enumeration of pains and pleasures — an enumeration of motives — an enumeration of the properties which constitute the value of a pleasure or a pain. But Bentham does not even attempt to explain any of the feelings or impulses enumerated— he does not attempt to show that thej' are subject to the laws of any more elementary phenomena of human nature. Of human nature'indeed in its rarer or more hidden parts, Bentham knew but little — wherever he attained to valuable results, which his predecessors had missed, it was by estimating more justly than they the action of some outward circumstance upon the more obvious and vulgar elements of our nature — not by understanding better than they, the workings of those elements which are not obvious and not vulgar. Where but a moderate knowledge of these last was neces- sary to the correctness of his conclusions, he was apt to straj" farther from the tinith than even the votaries of connnonplace. He often threw aside a trite and unsatisfactory truism, in order to replace it with a parado.xical error." — En. (C.) MILL ON BOWEING'S "LIFE OF BENTHAM." [Froiatlie " EdlnUirgh Review," 1S44.) Letter from John S. Mill, Esq., to the Editor.' nPHOUG-H it is not the practice to insert in this Journal -L any controversial statements respecting the Articles contained in it, the Editor's great respect for the memorv of the Father defended in the following Letter, and for the Son who writes it, induces him to comply with that claim " for justice" which it urges, by giving it all the publicity which its appearance here can insure. He leaves all com- ment or observation upon its contents to others ; feeling, that if there is any ease in which, independently of any opinion as to the justness of the complaint, such a claim ought to be complied with, it must be that where a Son craves the opportunity of vindicating, in the same work where he thinks it was injured, the character of a Father of whose name and services to the cause of liberal know- ledge he is justly proud. " Sir, — Li an Article on Dr. Bowring's 'Life of Bentham,' published in the last Number of the 'Edin- burgh Review,' statements are made, on the authority of that work, tending to give a most false impression of the character of one who, by his writings and personal in- fluence, has done more for philosophy and good govern- ment than almost any man of his generation, and who has ' This appeared in the " Edinburgh Review " of January, 1844, ill reference to an article on Bowring's " Life of Bentham," wliich had appeared in the previous October. The review in question i.s understood to have been by William Empson (editor, 1847-52). At this time Mill himself was an "Edinburgh Ke\dewer." His first article in that capacity wa* on De Tocqueville, 1840. — Ed. 410 APPEKWICES TO THE FOREGOING ARTICLE. peculiar claims upon tlie justice of the ' Edinburgh Review,' to which he was for many years an important contributor — I mean the late Mr. James Mill, my father. " That those whose lives are devoted to the service of mankind should meet with inadequate appreciation from their contemporaries can surprise no one ; but when their motives and moral character are misrepresented, not only justice, but the pubhc interest requires that the mis- representation should be corrected ; and I trust you will not refuse the necessary opportunity to the person on whom that duty is, in the present case, peculiarly incumbent. " The Reviewer, quoting from the ' Memoirs,' says : ' Bentham said of Mill, that his willingness to do good to others depended too much on his power of making the good done to them subservient to good done to himself. His creed of politics results less from love for the many than from hatred of the few. It is too much under the influence of social and dissocial affection.' " What is here promulgated as Bentham' s deliberate judgment, was never, I will venture to affirm, believed by any human being who had the smallest knowledge of Mr. Mill. " I know not how a biographer is to be justified in giving publicity and permanence to every idle word which may have been said to the prejudice of others, under some passing impression or momentary irritation. It would, besides, be easy to show, that the reports of Bentham's conversations contained in the Biography, abound in the inaccuracies which are to be expected when things care- lessly stated by one person, are afterwards noted down from memory by another. But whatever Bentham may really have said, when a statement so injurious to another is made on his authority, justice to that other imposes the necessity of declaring what the ' Memoirs ' amply confirm, that among Mr. Bentham's eminent intellectual endow- ments, capacity for judging of character was not one. The manner of his intercourse with others was not favourable to his a<;quiring a real knowledge of them ; and his warmest friends and admirers often lamented that his (C.) ON BOWRING'S "Lll-E OF BENTHAM." 411 opinion of men depended less on their merits than on accidental circumstances, and on the state of his personal relations with them at the time. On no other principle can I. account for his expressing any opinion of Mr. Mill bearing the complexion of that quoted in the Article. *' It imputes to Mr. Mill, as the source of his democratic opinions, the vulgarest motives of an unprincipled dema- gogue ; namely, selfish ambition, and a malignant hatred of the ruling classes. Now, there was perhaps no one man among Mr. Mill's contemporaries, holding similar opinions to his, who stood more manifestly clear from even the sus- picion of these motives. " He could in no way hope for ' good to himself ' from the opinions he professed. In many respects they stood in the way of his personal interest. They deprived his writings of the countenance of either of the great parties in the state, in times when that countenance was much more important than it now is, and when he migbt have obtained it as easily as many others did, who had not a tithe of his talents. Even had his opinions become pre- dominant, which he never expected would be the case during his life, he would, as he well knew, have reaped no personal benefit from them ; and assuredly, the time when he embraced democratic doctrines, was a time when no person in his senses could have entertained the smallest hope of gaining any thing by their profession. " As for ' hatred of the few,' the phrase seems introduced solely to round an antithesis. There never was a man more free from any feelings of hatred. His hostility was to institutions and principles, not to persons. It was his invariable doctrine that the ruling individuals were not intentionally bad, nor in any way worse than other men. Towards some of them he entertained strong feelings of personal friendship. A certain asperity, no doubt, appears occasionally in his controversial writings ; but it proceeded from no private motives : — the individuals against whom it showed itself never injured him, never wounded his vanity, or interfered with his interests ; his path and theirs never crossed. It has been shown in the highly honourable acknowledgment recently made by Mr. Macaulay, how far 412 APPENDICES TO THE FOREGOING ARTICLE. Mr. Mill was from retaining any grudge, even when he had been personally attacked, and with a severity which the assailant himself cannot now approve. Mr. Mill never wrote severe things of any one hut from honest conviction, and in the exercise, as he believed, of a duty ; and the fault, if fault it be, is one which we of this age may view with leniency, when we see how often the absence of it has no better source than incapacity of earnest feehng on any subject not personal. " The Eeviewer, still following the ' Memoirs,' enters into some points of private history, of so personal a nature, and so little interesting to the public, that it is unpleasant to feel called upon to speak of them ; but since the impression- conveyed is, that Mr. Mill received obligations from Bentham, such as one man rarely receives from another, and that for these obhgations he made but an ungrateful return, it is necessary to show how incorrectly the facts are stated, and how false a colouring is put upon such of them as are true. "The statements in the 'Memoirs' are, that Bentham ' found Mill in great distress, about to emigrate to Caen ; that he put him into a house, and took him and his fa mily to live with him for the half of every year, for ten years together.' " At the time when Bentham is said to have 'fourid Mill about to emigrate,' they had already been intimate fot many years, as the dates prove ; since the ' emigration ' spoken of could not have been projected until after the Continent was open. Like many others, Mr. Mill had thoughts of removing to a country where a small income would go further in supporting and educating a family; but a person is not usually said to be ' in great distress ' who never in his life was in debt, and whose income, what- ever it might be, always covered his expenses. " Secondly, that Bentham ' put him into a house.' If this means that he occupied any house of Bentham' s, free of rent, the assertion is contrary to fact. He paid to Mr. Bentham between ^50 and <£60 a-year rent, which was as high a rent as he had been accustomed to pay. "Thirdly, that Mr. Mill and his family lived with (C.) ox BOWUIXG's "LIFE OF BENTHAM." 413 Mr. Bentliam for half of ten years. They did so for half of four years, at Ford Abbey ; and they passed small portions of several previous summers with him at Barrow Green. His last visit to Barrow Green, I know, was of not more than a month's duration, and the previous ones all together, did not, as I am informed, (for my own memory does not reach so far back,) extend to more than six months, or seven at most. Bentham himself, in a letter pubUshed in the ' Life,' says, the half of five years : which is not far from the mark. " The pecuniary benefit, therefore, which Mr. MiD de- I'ived from his intimacy with Bentham consisted in this, that he and his family lived with him as his guests, while he was in the country, periods amounting in all to about two years and a half. I have no reason to think that this hospitality was either given, or accepted, as pecuniary assistance ; and I will add, that the obligation was- iiot exclusively on one side. Bentham was not then, as he was afterwards, surrounded by persons who courted his society! and were ever ready to volunteer their services ; and to a man of his secluded habits, it was no little advantage to have near him such a man as Mr. Mill, to whose advice and aid he habitually had recourse in all business trans- actions with the outward world, of a troublesome or irk- some nature. Such as the connection was, that it was not of Mr. Mill's seeking, is shown by a remarkable letter from him to Mr. Bentham, which is to be found in the ' Life,' and which was written, as its date proves, during the first visit to Ford Abbey. "Lastly, the Keviewer, on his own authority, asserts, that Mr. Mill became estranged from Bentham, and, in after years, ' so far withdrew his allegiance from the dead lion as to deny that he had ever called him master.' There was, during the last few 3'ears of Bentham's life, less fre- quency and cordiality of intercourse than in former years, chiefly because Bentham had acquired newer, and to him, more agreeable intimacies; but Mr. Mill's feeling never altered towards him, nor did he ever fail, publicly or privately, in giving due honour to Bentham's name, and acknowledgment of the intellectual debt he owed to him. 414 APPENDICES TO THE POREGOIXG ARTICX.K. The ' allegiance ' which he disclaimed was only that which no man, who thints for himself, will own to another. He was no otherwise a disciple of Bentham, than of Hobbes, Hartley, or Eicardo. " These are small matters in themselves — quite unworthy to be brought before the public; but if the things are trivial, the inferences drawn from them are not so, aud nothing is small which involves injustice to the memory, aud a total misconception of the character, of an eminent man. Reluctant, therefore, as I am so to occupj' your space ; yet as the extensive circulation of the ' Edinburgh lleview ' has been given to these misstatements, I do not feel that I am unreasonable in soliciting a place, in the next number, for this contradiction of them. " I am. Sir, your obedient servant, <'J. S. Mill." INDEX. I.XDEX. ABSENTEE landlords, 43, 6.3. Action, linmau, three as- pects of, 377. "Action, Table of the Springs of," Bentham's, 352, 399. .-Vddison, his style, 38 1 . America, government of, 372 ; democracy in, De Tocqueiille's work on, 373. Antiquus, Mill's signatnre, 157, 217, 236. Architecture, 216. Aristocracies in the jrui~p of monarchies, 384. -Vrmy emoluments, 174. -Vrt, andPoetry, 120; andScience, 120, 145, 156. Articles, Thirty-nine, Bentham and the, 333. Artists, judges, etc., their labour a-s a commodity, 74. "Athenfeum" critique of Car- lyle's "French Revolution,' 319. Athen.s, Bulwer.Lj-tton's Wok on, 314. AtfNvood, Mr., and the currency, 67. Austin, Charles, and jSIill. 4-_'. Authority, or the dicta of the Instruct.ed. 38S. Balance of trade, theory of, 34. Banks and banking, 106, 110. Barrow Green, Bentham and Jlill at, 413. Beaconsfield, Lord, 320. Beattie and Keid, and tlie doc- trine of Utility, 341. Beauty in act, 377. Beethoven, 211. Bentham, Jeremy, 3, 42, 379, 382, 413,414; and Chancery abu-ses, 3.33; and Coleridge, 327; "Deon- tology- " attributed to him, 346, 357 ; his disciples, 355 ; and Duraont's "Traitfe," 398; his work " On Evidence," 353, 359 ; his ' ' Book of Fallacies," 403 ; at FordAbbey,413; his anonymous work " On Government " attri- buted to Dr. Joh nson and ot hers, 3.34, 405; his " greatest happi- ne.ss" principle, 392, 401 ; his half-truths, 351, 407 ; and Hartley, 401 ; and Helvetius, 341, 375 ; and Hume, 341 ; and human nature, 349, 356, 403 ; his want of imagination, 34S, 360 : and law reforui, 329, 360, 393, 396, 397; his "Life "and the edition of his Works, by BowriuL', 409; a "limited'" 418 I>DEX. man, 880 ; and Lord Mansfield, 334 ; was no metaphysician, 390, 408 ; his metliod, 336 ; and the Mills, ser iiniler Mill, Jas. and J. S. ; as a moral teacher, 338, 399 ; his onesidedne^-s, 377 ; at Oxford, 333 ; and Ids oppo- nents, 392 ; on penal laws, 398 ; his views on personal interest, 356; asaijlulosojilier, 348 ; and Plato, 344, 346 ; on poetry, etc., 348, 378, 380 ; his politics, 370, 373, 405, 411 : and Kadicalism, 368, 370 ; his religions writings, 358 ; and Socrates, :J46 ; his " Springs of Action," 352, 399 ; \ his style, 381 ; more a thinker than a reader, 408 ; and the \ Thirty-nine Articles, 333 ; an ; unsafe guide, 377; his "De- ; fence of Usury," 334 ; and the " Utility" principle, 375 {sec also Utility) ; his Works, Bow- ring's edition of, 327, 382, 409. Benthamism, itscold, mechanical, ungenial air, 377. "Blackwood's Magazine," its early review of Tennyson, 239. Bowring, his (or Beutham's) "Deontology," 346, 3-57; his "Life of Bentham,'' 409; his edition of Bentliam'.s Works, 327, 382, 400. Ihown on the doctrine of Utilitj-, 341. IJrutus and his sons, a con, Mr., 3. INUEX. 419 Courtney, Mr. W. I... on Mill, G. (Jiitics, Cailyle's eaily, 319. Culture and Poetry, 231. C'linency, the, 67. Ou.'stonier and dealer, relations of, r,9. Uavifl, French painter, 214. Dealers, iir iiolitical economy, 60. Debts, war, of nations, 109. Demand and supply, 1.3, 51, 66. Democracy, 309 ; Bentham's de- mocratic opinions, 411 ; and government, 383 ; De Tocque- ville on, 373. " Deontology,'' book attributed to Bentliam, 346, 3o7. Detail and generality, 337. De Tocqueville's " Democracy in America," 386, 373. Deverient, Mme., 211. Disestablishment of the Church. See Church Property, etc. Disraeli, B. (Lord Beaconsfield), 320. Duniont's " Traites de Legisla- tion," 398. "Edinburgh Review," 242; its article on Boining'.s "Life of Bentham," 409 ; and the Mills, 373, 409 ; J. S. Mill'.? letter to the Editor, 409. Educational endo^^•nlents, 171, 187. Elliott, Ebenezer, 207. Eloquence and music, 208. Enrpson, AV., editor of the "Edin- biugh Review," 409. " England and the English," Bul- wer-Lytton's, 390, 408. Endowments (scr Cliui-cli, Educa- tional, etc.); resumption of, 182. England, government of, 384 ; and France, trade between, 45. Enjoyment, sources of, 80. Epicurean philosophy, the, and the doctrine of Utility, 341. " Evidence," Bentham's work on, edited by J. S. Mill, 353, 359. "Examiner," Mill's early writings i in that paper, 6. Exchangeable vahie,12. Export, taxes on, 25. Exportation of machinery, 33. " Fallacies, Book of," Bentham's, 403. Feudal system, the, and the law, i 361. i First principles, 118. i Fitness of things, the, 339. Ford Abbey, Beutham at, 413. Foi'eign commerce, 24, 45. Foreigners, sojourn of, 66. Foundations and endowments. See Endowments, etc. France and England, trade be- tween, 45. Free Trade, 3, 4, 41, 45. See also Imports, etc. French, the, 210 ; their govern- ment, 384 ; their painting, 214 ; their philosophers, 183 ; their later writers^. 274. French Revolution, the moral of it, 322; Carlyle's account of, and his theory of the convulsion, 271, 313. ' Generalization and detail, 337. Genius, the doenion of, 349. I Gibbon,'273, 276. 420 INDKX. " Globe, The," newsiiaiier, 53. " Glut" in political economy, 53. ( loldsmitli, .381. Gonner, E. C. K., liis edition of Ricardo, 5. Government, Bentham's tlieory of, and the Radicals, 368; borrow- ing by, 109 ; and democracy, 383; of England, 384; forms of, 384 ; the three great ques- tions in, 369. "Government, On,'' Bentham's anonymous Twok, .334. (iuido, 213. GuLzot, 274, 277 ; on the Middle Ages, 348. Half-minds = men who see only half a truth, 351. Hapi^iness, the gieatest, Bent- ham's jninciple of, 392, 401. Happiness and Utility, 376. Hartley, 355, 414. Helvetius, his " De I'Esprit," 375 ; liis influence on Bentham, 375, .341. "Higgling "of the market, the, 14. Historian, the. and the poet, 348. Historians, modern, 273, 275. History, 149. Hobbes, 414. Holland, Government of, 384. Human action, three aspects of, 377. Human life, the theory of, 352. Human nature, Bentham's erro- neous views of, 349, 356, 403. Hume, Da\id. a.s historian, 273 ; his influence on Bentham, 341 ; the prince of dilettanti philo- sophers, 3.'?1. Ima;;inatioii, in poetry, 225 : want of in Bentham, 348, 360. Imports, taxes on, 28. .S'cc alin Free Trade, etc. India, British, government of, 385. Interchange between nations, 5. Interest and motive, 400. Interest and profits, 88. Interests, the rule of, 374. International values, 5. Ireland, absentee landlords of, 45. .Jenyns, Soame, and the Utility doctrine, 341. Johnson, Dr., a book by Bent- ham attributed to him, 334 ; his %'iew of Utility, 341. Judges, their labour as a com- modity, 83. "Jurist, The," Hill's contribu- tion to it, 161. Justice, Bentham's love of, 353 ; that of Brutus, 378. Lalx)ur, 92, 93 ; that of artists, judges, etc., S3. Law, codification of the, 366 ; the Feiidal system and the, 361. Law reforms, by Bentham, 329, 360. Lawrence's portraits, 212. Legislation and law reform, Bent- ham on, 393, 396, 397. Liberals and Conservatives, 328. Life, the theory of human, 352. " Limited men," Bentham an in- stance of their "completeness," .380. Lockhart's review of Tennyson's Poems, 239, 241 , 252. '■ London and Westminster Re- l.VDliX. J 21 view," Mill's luticlcs in, 116, ]o7, 271, 273, 327. See oho " M'estminster Review." I.iJiidon Coiiioration, ite property, 17.^ " Tjoudon Ke^-iew," Mill's articles in, 236, 239. 383. London University, its founda- tion, 165. Lyttou, Bulwer, 314; on Bentliam and Mill, 390. Lytton, Lord. Scr Lytton, Bulwer. Macaulay, and the two ilills, 374, 411. -Machinery, exportation of, 33. ilajoiity and niinoiitv rale, .370, .385, Mankind, Michelet on, 349. Mansfield, Lord, and Bentham, 334. Market, the higgling of the, 14. M'Culloch, 45, 75. Michelet, on mankind, 349. Mill, James, 3.32 ; and Bentham, 409 ; liis ' ' Elements of Political Economy, "8, 121 . Mill, John Stuart, association with Charles Austin, 42 : and Ben tham's "Works, 383, 390 ; his edition of Beutham's work " On Evidence," 353, 359; on Bow- ring's " Life of Bentham," 409 ; on British Government in India, 385 ; Cairnes on his work, 6 ; on Carlyle's " French Revolu- tion," 271, 313 ; on Carlyle's opinions, 273, 309 ; Carlyle on, 273, 309 ; Courtney on, 6 ; on De Tocqueville, 373, 386 ; his early of his fathers " Political Economy," 8 ; in France, 279 ; as Ricardo's disciple, 16, 95, 115. Mills, the two, aiid the " Edin- burgh Review," 373, 41 1. Milton, 235, 261 ; his " -A.reo- pagitica," 321. Minerva Press novels, 206. ilinority and majority rule, 370, 385. Monarchies and aristocracies, 384. Money, "locked u]i," 55. Money lenders, in jiolitical economy, 106. Money-prices, 20. Montesquieu, 373. Montgomery, Robert, 241. " Jlontlily Repository," Mill's contributions to, 201, 236. Moral and ]i!ivsical science, 12.3. " Morals and legislation," Bent- liam on, 338. Moral sense, 339. Morality, 357 ; in act, 377. Motive and interest, 400. Music, and eloquence, 208 ; and painting, 210. iSIusical performances, 81. National Debt, 109. Nature, the law of, 340. Net produce, 86. Nisard, on Rome, 349. Novels, 203, 206. Oxford, Bentham at, 333. Painting and music, 210. -122 " Pailiamenteiy and Historical Review," Mill's work on it, 42. Pasta, Mdme. , 75. Penal Laws, Bentham and the, 398. Perpetuities and the law, 167. Personal interest, Bentham's view of, 356. Plato, Bentham and, 344, 346. Philosophy, modern speculative, 327. Physical and moral science, 125. Pleasure and pain, and morality, 352, 376. Phrases, fallacies in, 33S. Poet, the power of the, 348. Poetry, Bentham's opinions on, 348, 379 ; and culture, 231 ; imagination in, 225 ; and push- pin, 380 ; what is it ? 201 ; the two kinds of, 221. Political economy, 132 ; and the people, 388 ; definition and method of, llfi; its only un- certainty, 144. " Political Economy, Elements of," by James Mill, edited by J. S. MiU, 8. ' ' Political Economy, Unsettled Questions of," 5. Political Economy Club, the, 3. Politics, the science of, 131. Practical men and theorists, 136. Produce, net, 86. Production, and consumption, 48, 128 ; and distribution, 128 ; over-production, 72 ; and tools, 91, 95 ; and wealth, 122. Productive and unproductive, on the words, 74. Profits and interest, 88 ; Ricardo on, 92. Progiessive government and its limits, 371. Pro2)erty, accumulation of, 167. Protective duties, 4, 39. Sec also Free Trade, etc. Prussia, government of, 384. " Quarterly Review " on Tenny- son's Poems, 2:59, 241, 252. liadicalisni and Bentham's jvoli- tics, 368, 370. Raphael, 214. Reciprocity and Fiee Trade, 4, 40. Beid, the ethics of, 392. Reid and Beattie and the doc- trine of Utility, 341. Rembrandt, 213. Ricardo, 5, 6, 414 ; his disciple, J. S. Mill, 61, 95, 115; on profits, 92 ; Gonner's edition of his Works, 5. Right, a rule of, 339. Robertson, historian, 273. Roman law, 362. j Roman Catholic Church ijrojierty j in England, ISO. j Rome, Nisard on, 349 ; the government of, 384. 1 Rossini, 211. Rousseau, 375. 1 Rubens, 214. , Rule and exception, 156. Rule of right, a, 339. I Salvator Rosa, 215. I Say, M., 132, 279. I Sceptics, English and French,331. i Schiller, 274, 277. j Science and Art, 120, 145, 150 : ! physical and moral, 125. INDEX. 423 187; 119. 346. Selt-con.seioiwnetjs, .■i4!). Selfishness in human nature, 403. Sensuous and sensual, the -nords, 261. Shelley, 2-28. Smith, Adam, 14, 103, 187 ; his " Wealth of Nations, Social economy, 130. Social evil, 186. Socrates, and Bentham, Solon, 314. Stewart, the ethics of, .392. Suhsidies, foreign, 43. Suffrage, Universal, whensafe,385. Supply and demand. Sec Demand and sui>ply. Sympathy, 401 ; in act, 377 ; Bentliam's view of, 356. Taste, good and bad, 379. Taxes, 49. Tennyson's Poems, " Black- wood's " early review of, 239 ; Mill's review, 239 ; the " Quar- terly's" review (Lockhart's), 2:39, 241, 2.52. Tliellusson Ca-se, and Act, 167. Theor\- and practice, 136, loO. Thirty-nine Articles, Bentham and the, 333. Tooke, his " Considerations on the Currency," 106. Tools, etc., as essentials of pro- duction, 91, 05. Torrens, Col., and liis " Bnd- get," .3. Trade, the balance of, 34 ; during war, 39. "Traveller, Tlie,'' uewspa^ier, 3. Truths, fractional, 351. Turgot, 183. Turner's paintings, 212. Undei-selling, 36. Understanding, 339. Universities, endowment of, 171 ; foundations of, 184. Unproductive capital, 74. See also productive, etc. " Unsettled Questions, Some, of Political Economy," 5. United States Government, 372. See also America. Utility, the doctrine of, 340, 375, 391 ; and the epicurean philo- sophy, 341. Usury, Bentham's "Defence of," 334. Value, exchangeable, 12 ; in- terest, 5. Venice, government of, 384. Vested rights, 169. Vitet, 274. 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