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diff --git a/old/11557-8.txt b/old/11557-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ed11b7c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11557-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5822 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of On Compromise, by John Morley + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: On Compromise + +Author: John Morley + +Release Date: March 13, 2004 [EBook #11557] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON COMPROMISE *** + + + + +Produced by Garrett Alley and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + +ON COMPROMISE + + _'It makes all the difference in the world whether we put + Truth in the first place or in the second place.'_ + + WHATLEY + + + + +ON COMPROMISE + +BY + +JOHN MORLEY + +MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED + +ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON + +1908 + +_This Edition first printed 1886_ + + + + +NOTE. + +The writer has availed himself of the opportunity of a new edition to +add three or four additional illustrations in the footnotes. The +criticisms on the first edition call for no remark, excepting this, +perhaps, that the present little volume has no pretensions to be +anything more than an Essay. To judge such it performance as if it +professed to be an exhaustive Treatise in casuistry, is to subject it to +tests which it was never designed to bear. Merely to open questions, to +indicate points, to suggest cases, to sketch outlines,--as an Essay does +all these things,--may often be a process not without its own modest +usefulness and interest. + +_May 4, 1877._ + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. + + Design of this Essay + The question stated + Suggested by some existing tendencies in England + Comparison with other countries + Test of this comparison + The absent quality specifically defined + History and decay of some recent aspirations + Illustrations + Characteristics of one present mood + Analysis of its causes + (1) Influence of French examples + (2) Influence of the Historic Method + (3) Influence of the Newspaper Press + (4) Increase of material prosperity + (5) Transformation of the spiritual basis of thought + (6) Influence of a State Church + + + CHAPTER II. OF THE POSSIBLE UTILITY OF ERROR + + Questions of a dual doctrine lies at the outset of our inquiry + This doctrine formulated + Marks the triumph of _status quo_ + Psychological vindication of such a doctrine + Answered by assertion of the dogmatic character of popular belief + And the pernicious social influence of its priests + The root idea of the defenders of a dual doctrine + Thesis of the present chapter, against that idea + Examination of some of the pleas for error + I. That a false opinion may be clothed with good associations + II. That all minds are not open to reason + III. That a false opinion, considered in relation to the general + mental attitude, may be less hurtful than its premature + demolition + IV. That mere negative truth is not a guide + V. That error has been a stepping-stone to truth + We cannot tell how much truth has been missed + Inevitableness is not utility + + + CHAPTER III. INTELLECTUAL RESPONSIBILITY AND THE POLITICAL SPIRIT. + + The modern _disciplina arcani_ + Hume's immoral advice + Evil intellectual effects of immoral compromise + Depravation that follows its grosser forms + The three provinces of compromise + Radical importance of their separation + Effects of their confusion in practical politics + Economy or management in the Formation of opinion + Its lawfulness turns on the claims of majority and minority over one + another + Thesis of the present chapter + Its importance, owing to the supremacy of the political spirit in + England + Effects of the predominance of this spirit + Contrasted with epochs of intellectual responsibility + A modern movement against the political spirit + An objection considered + Importance to character of rationalised conviction, and of ideals + The absence of them attenuates conduct + Illustrations in modern politics + Modern latitudinarianism + Illustration in two supreme issues + Pascal's remarks upon a state of Doubt + Dr. Newman on the same + Three ways of dealing with the issues + Another illustration of intellectual improbity + The Savoyard Vicar + Mischievousness of substituting spiritual self-indulgence for reason + + + CHAPTER IV. RELIGIOUS CONFORMITY. + + Compromise in Expression + Touches religion rather than politics + Hume on non-resistance + Reason why rights of free speech do not exactly coincide with rights of + free thought + Digression into the matter of free speech + Dissent no longer railing and vituperative + Tendency of modern free thought to assimilate some elements from the + old faith + A wide breach still remains + Heresy, however, no longer traced to depravity + Tolerance not necessarily acquiescence in scepticism + Object of the foregoing digression + The rarity of plain-speaking a reason why it is painful + Conformity in the relationship between child and parent + Between husband and wife + In the education of children + The case of an unbelieving priest + The case of one who fears to lose his influence + Conformity not harmless nor unimportant + + + CHAPTER V. THE REALISATION OF OPINION. + + The application of opinion to conduct + Tempering considerations + Not to be pressed too far + Our action in realising our opinions depends on our social theory + Legitimate and illegitimate compromise in view of that + The distinction equally sound on the evolutional theory + Condition of progressive change + A plea for compromise examined + A second plea + The allegation of provisional usefulness examined + Illustrated in religious institutions + In political institutions + Burke's commendation of political compromise + The saying that small reforms may be the worst enemies of great ones + In what sense true + Illustration in the Elementary Education Act + Wisdom of social patience + The considerations which apply to political practice do not apply to + our own lives + Nor to the publication of social opinions + The amount of conscience in a community + Evil of attenuating this element + Historic illustration + New side of the discussion + Is earnestness of conviction fatal to concession of liberty to others? + Two propositions at the base of an affirmative answer + Earnestness of conviction consistent with sense of liability to error + Belief in one's own infallibility does not necessarily lead to + intolerance + The contrary notion due to juristic analogies in social discussion + Connection between the doctrine of liberty and social evolution + The timid compromisers superfluous apprehension + Material limits to the effect of moral speculation + Illustration from the history of Slavery + Illustration from French history + Practical influence of a faith in the self-protecting quality of a + society + Conclusion + + + NOTE TO PAGE 242. + + The Doctrine of Liberty + + + + +ON COMPROMISE. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +INTRODUCTORY. + +The design of the following essay is to consider, in a short and direct +way, some of the limits that are set by sound reason to the practice of +the various arts of accommodation, economy, management, conformity, or +compromise. The right of thinking freely and acting independently, of +using our minds without excessive awe of authority, and shaping our +lives without unquestioning obedience to custom, is now a finally +accepted principle in some sense or other with every school of thought +that has the smallest chance of commanding the future. Under what +circumstances does the exercise and vindication of the right, thus +conceded in theory, become a positive duty in practice? If the majority +are bound to tolerate dissent from the ruling opinions and beliefs, +under what conditions and within what limitations is the dissentient +imperatively bound to avail himself of this toleration? How far, and in +what way, ought respect either for immediate practical convenience, or +for current prejudices, to weigh against respect for truth? For how much +is it well that the individual should allow the feelings and convictions +of the many to count, when he comes to shape, to express, and to act +upon his own feelings and convictions? Are we only to be permitted to +defend general principles, on condition that we draw no practical +inferences from them? Is every other idea to yield precedence and empire +to existing circumstances, and is the immediate and universal +workableness of a policy to be the main test of its intrinsic fitness? + +To attempt to answer all these questions fully would be nothing less +than to attempt a compendium of life and duty in all their details, a +Summa of cases of conscience, a guide to doubters at every point of the +compass. The aim of the present writer is a comparatively modest one; +namely, to seek one or two of the most general principles which ought +to regulate the practice of compliance, and to suggest some of the +bearings which they may have in their application to certain +difficulties in modern matters of conduct. + +It is pretty plain that an inquiry of this kind needs to be fixed by +reference to a given set of social circumstances tolerably well +understood. There are some common rules as to the expediency of +compromise and conformity, but their application is a matter of endless +variety and the widest elasticity. The interesting and useful thing is +to find the relation of these too vague rules to actual conditions; to +transform them into practical guides and real interpreters of what is +right and best in thought and conduct, in a special and definite kind of +emergency. According to the current assumptions of the writer and the +preacher, the one commanding law is that men should cling to truth and +right, if the very heavens fall. In principle this is universally +accepted. To the partisans of authority and tradition it is as much a +commonplace as to the partisans of the most absolute and unflinching +rationalism. Yet in practice all schools alike are forced to admit the +necessity of a measure of accommodation in the very interests of truth +itself. Fanatic is a name of such ill repute, exactly because one who +deserves to be called by it injures good causes by refusing timely and +harmless concession; by irritating prejudices that a wiser way of urging +his own opinion might have turned aside; by making no allowances, +respecting no motives, and recognising none of those qualifying +principles, which are nothing less than necessary to make his own +principle true and fitting in a given society. The interesting question +in connection with compromise obviously turns upon the placing of the +boundary that divides wise suspense in forming opinions, wise reserve in +expressing them, and wise tardiness in trying to realise them, from +unavowed disingenuousness and self-illusion, from voluntary +dissimulation, and from indolence and pusillanimity. These are the three +departments or provinces of compromise. Our subject is a question of +boundaries.[1] And this question, being mainly one of time and +circumstance, may be most satisfactorily discussed in relation to the +time and the circumstances which we know best, or at least whose +deficiencies and requirements are most pressingly visible to us. + +Though England counts her full share of fearless truth-seekers in most +departments of inquiry, yet there is on the whole no weakening, but a +rather marked confirmation, of what has become an inveterate national +characteristic, and has long been recognised as such; a profound +distrust, namely, of all general principles; a profound dislike both of +much reference to them, and of any disposition to invest them with +practical authority; and a silent but most pertinacious measurement of +philosophic truths by political tests. 'It is not at all easy, humanly +speaking,' says one who has tried the experiment, 'to wind an Englishman +up to the level of dogma.' The difficulty has extended further than the +dogma of theology. The supposed antagonism between expediency and +principle has been pressed further and further away from the little +piece of true meaning that it ever could be rightly allowed to have, +until it has now come to signify the paramount wisdom of counting the +narrow, immediate, and personal expediency for everything, and the +whole, general, ultimate, and completed expediency for nothing. +Principle is only another name for a proposition stating the terms of +one of these larger expediencies. When principle is held in contempt, or +banished to the far dreamland of the philosopher and the student, with +an affectation of reverence that in a materialist generation is in truth +the most overweening kind of contempt, this only means that men are +thinking much of the interests of to-day, and little of the more ample +interests of the many days to come. It means that the conditions of the +time are unfriendly to the penetration and the breadth of vision which +disclose to us the whole range of consequences that follow on certain +kinds of action or opinion, and unfriendly to the intrepidity and +disinterestedness which make us willing to sacrifice our own present +ease or near convenience, in the hope of securing higher advantages for +others or for ourselves in the future. + +Let us take politics, for example. What is the state of the case with +us, if we look at national life in its broadest aspect? A German has his +dream of a great fatherland which shall not only be one and +consolidated, but shall in due season win freedom for itself, and be as +a sacred hearth whence others may borrow the warmth of freedom and order +for themselves. A Spaniard has his vision either of militant loyalty to +God and the saints and the exiled line of his kings, or else of devotion +to the newly won liberty and to the raising up of his fallen nation. An +American, in the midst of the political corruption which for the moment +obscures the great democratic experiment, yet has his imagination +kindled by the size and resources of his land, and his enthusiasm fired +by the high destinies which he believes to await its people in the +centuries to come. A Frenchman, republican or royalist, with all his +frenzies and 'fool-fury' of red or white, still has his hope and dream +and aspiration, with which to enlarge his life and lift him on an ample +pinion out from the circle of a poor egoism. What stirs the hope and +moves the aspiration of our Englishman? Surely nothing either in the +heavens above or on the earth beneath. The English are as a people +little susceptible in the region of the imagination. But they have done +good work in the world, acquired a splendid historic tradition of stout +combat for good causes, founded a mighty and beneficent empire; and +they have done all this notwithstanding their deficiencies of +imagination. Their lands have been the home of great and forlorn causes, +though they could not always follow the transcendental flights of their +foreign allies and champions. If Englishmen were not strong in +imagination, they were what is better and surer, strong in their hold of +the great emancipating principles. What great political cause, her own +or another's, is England befriending to-day? To say that no great cause +is left, is to tell us that we have reached the final stage of human +progress, and turned over the last leaf in the volume of human +improvements. The day when this is said and believed marks the end of a +nation's life. Is it possible that, after all, our old protestant +spirit, with its rationality, its austerity, its steady political +energy, has been struck with something of the mortal fatigue that seizes +catholic societies after their fits of revolution? + +We need not forget either the atrocities or the imbecilities which mark +the course of modern politics on the Continent. I am as keenly alive as +any one to the levity of France, and the [Greek: hubris] of Germany. It +may be true that the ordinary Frenchman is in some respects the victim +of as poor an egoism as that of the ordinary Englishman; and that the +American has no advantage over us in certain kinds of magnanimous +sentiment. What is important is the mind and attitude, not of the +ordinary man, but of those who should be extraordinary. The decisive +sign of the elevation of a nation's life is to be sought among those who +lead or ought to lead. The test of the health of a people is to be found +in the utterances of those who are its spokesmen, and in the action of +those whom it accepts or chooses to be its chiefs. We have to look to +the magnitude of the issues and the height of the interests which engage +its foremost spirits. What are the best men in a country striving for? +And is the struggle pursued intrepidly and with a sense of its size and +amplitude, or with creeping foot and blinking eye? The answer to these +questions is the answer to the other question, whether the best men in +the country are small or great. It is a commonplace that the manner of +doing things is often as important as the things done. And it has been +pointed out more than once that England's most creditable national +action constantly shows itself so poor and mean in expression that the +rest of Europe can discern nothing in it but craft and sinister +interest. Our public opinion is often rich in wisdom, but we lack the +courage of our wisdom. We execute noble achievements, and then are best +pleased to find shabby reasons for them. + +There is a certain quality attaching alike to thought and expression and +action, for which we may borrow the name of grandeur. It has been +noticed, for instance, that Bacon strikes and impresses us, not merely +by the substantial merit of what he achieved, but still more by a +certain greatness of scheme and conception. This quality is not a mere +idle decoration. It is not a theatrical artifice of mask or buskin, to +impose upon us unreal impressions of height and dignity. The added +greatness is real. Height of aim and nobility of expression are true +forces. They grow to be an obligation upon us. A lofty sense of personal +worth is one of the surest elements of greatness. That the lion should +love to masquerade in the ass's skin is not modesty and reserve, but +imbecility and degradation. And that England should wrap herself in the +robe of small causes and mean reasons is the more deplorable, because +there is no nation in the world the substantial elements of whose power +are so majestic and imperial as our own. Our language is the most widely +spoken of all tongues, its literature is second to none in variety and +power. Our people, whether English or American, have long ago superseded +the barbarous device of dictator and Caesar by the manly arts of +self-government. We understand that peace and industry are the two most +indispensable conditions of modern civilisation, and we draw the lines +of our policy in accordance with such a conviction. We have had imposed +upon us by the unlucky prowess of our ancestors the task of ruling a +vast number of millions of alien dependents. We undertake it with a +disinterestedness, and execute it with a skill of administration, to +which history supplies no parallel, and which, even if time should show +that the conditions of the problem were insoluble, will still remain +for ever admirable. All these are elements of true pre-eminence. They +are calculated to inspire us with the loftiest consciousness of national +life. They ought to clothe our voice with authority, to nerve our action +by generous resolution, and to fill our counsels with weightiness and +power. + +Within the last forty years England has lost one by one each of those +enthusiasms which may have been illusions,--some of them undoubtedly +were so,--but which at least testified to the existence among us, in a +very considerable degree, of a vivid belief in the possibility of +certain broad general theories being true and right, as well as in the +obligation of making them lights to practical conduct and desire. People +a generation ago had eager sympathy with Hungary, with Italy, with +Poland, because they were deeply impressed by the doctrine of +nationalities. They had again a generous and energetic hatred of such an +institution as the negro slavery of America, because justice and +humanity and religion were too real and potent forces within their +breasts to allow them to listen to those political considerations by +which American statesmen used to justify temporising and compromise. +They had strong feelings about Parliamentary Reform, because they were +penetrated by the principle that the possession of political power by +the bulk of a society is the only effective security against sinister +government; or else by the principle that participation in public +activity, even in the modest form of an exercise of the elective +franchise, is an elevating and instructing agency; or perhaps by the +principle that justice demands that those who are compelled to obey laws +and pay national taxes should have a voice in making the one and +imposing the other. + +It may be said that the very fate of these aspirations has had a +blighting effect on public enthusiasm and the capacity of feeling it. +Not only have most of them now been fulfilled, and so passed from +aspiration to actuality, but the results of their fulfilment have been +so disappointing as to make us wonder whether it is really worth while +to pray, when to have our prayers granted carries the world so very +slight a way forward. The Austrian is no longer in Italy; the Pope has +ceased to be master in Rome; the patriots of Hungary are now in +possession of their rights, and have become friends of their old +oppressors; the negro slave has been transformed into an American +citizen. At home, again, the gods have listened to our vows. Parliament +has been reformed, and the long-desired mechanical security provided for +the voter's freedom. We no longer aspire after all these things, you may +say, because our hopes have been realised and our dreams have come true. +It is possible that the comparatively prosaic results before our eyes at +the end of all have thrown a chill over our political imagination. What +seemed so glorious when it was far off, seems perhaps a little poor now +that it is near; and this has damped the wing of political fancy. The +old aspirations have vanished, and no new ones have arisen in their +place. Be the cause what it may, I should express the change in this +way, that the existing order of facts, whatever it may be, now takes a +hardly disputed precedence with us over ideas, and that the coarsest +political standard is undoubtingly and finally applied over the whole +realm of human thought. + +The line taken up by the press and the governing classes of England +during the American Civil War may serve to illustrate the kind of mood +which we conceive to be gaining firmer hold than ever of the national +mind. Those who sympathised with the Southern States listened only to +political arguments, and very narrow and inefficient political +arguments, as it happened, when they ought to have seen that here was an +issue which involved not only political ideas, but moral and religious +ideas as well. That is to say, the ordinary political tests were not +enough to reveal the entire significance of the crisis, nor were the +political standards proper for measuring the whole of the expediencies +hanging in the balance. The conflict could not be adequately gauged by +such questions as whether the Slave States had or had not a +constitutional right to establish an independent government; whether the +Free States were animated by philanthropy or by love of empire; whether +it was to the political advantage of England that the American Union +should be divided and consequently weakened. Such questions were not +necessarily improper in themselves, and we can imagine circumstances in +which they might be not only proper but decisive. But, the +circumstances being what they were, the narrower expediencies of +ordinary politics were outweighed by one of those supreme and +indefeasible expediencies which are classified as moral. These are, in +other words, the higher, wider, more binding, and transcendent part of +the master art of social wellbeing. + +Here was only one illustration of the growing tendency to substitute the +narrowest political point of view for all the other ways of regarding +the course of human affairs, and to raise the limitations which +practical exigencies may happen to set to the application of general +principles, into the very place of the principles themselves. Nor is the +process of deteriorating conviction confined to the greater or noisier +transactions of nations. It is impossible that it should be so. That +process is due to causes which affect the mental temper an a whole, and +pour round us an atmosphere that enervates our judgment from end to end, +not more in politics than in morality, and not more in morality than in +philosophy, in art, and in religion. Perhaps this tendency never showed +itself more offensively than when the most important newspaper in the +country criticised our great naturalist's scientific speculations as to +the descent of man, from the point of view of property, intelligence, +and a stake in the country, and severely censured him for revealing his +particular zoological conclusions to the general public, at a moment +when the sky of Paris was red with the incendiary flames of the Commune. +It would be hard to reduce the transformation of all truth into a +subordinate department of daily politics, to a more gross and unseemly +absurdity. + +The consequences of such a transformation, of putting immediate social +convenience in the first place, and respect for truth in the second, are +seen, as we have said, in a distinct and unmistakable lowering of the +level of national life; a slack and lethargic quality about public +opinion; a growing predominance of material, temporary, and selfish +aims, over those which are generous, far-reaching, and spiritual; a +deadly weakening of intellectual conclusiveness, and clear-shining moral +illumination, and, lastly, of a certain stoutness of self-respect for +which England was once especially famous. A plain categorical +proposition is becoming less and less credible to average minds. Or at +least the slovenly willingness to hold two directly contradictory +propositions at one and the same time is becoming more and more common. +In religion, morals, and politics, the suppression of your true opinion, +if not the positive profession of what you hold to be a false opinion, +is hardly ever counted a vice, and not seldom even goes for virtue and +solid wisdom. One is conjured to respect the beliefs of others, but +forbidden to claim the same respect for one's own. + +This dread of the categorical proposition might be creditable, if it +sprang from attachment to a very high standard of evidence, or from a +deep sense of the relative and provisional quality of truth. There might +even be a plausible defence set up for it, if it sprang from that +formulated distrust of the energetic rational judgment in comparison +with the emotional, affective, contemplative parts of man, which +underlies the various forms of religious mysticism. If you look closely +into our present mood, it is seen to be the product mainly and above all +of a shrinking deference to the _status quo_, not merely as having a +claim not to be lightly dealt with, which every serious man concedes, +but as being the last word and final test of truth and justice. Physical +science is allowed to be the sphere of accurate reasoning and distinct +conclusions, but in morals and politics, instead of admitting that these +subjects have equally a logic of their own, we silently suspect all +first principles, and practically deny the strict inferences from +demonstrated premisses. Faith in the soundness of given general theories +of right and wrong melts away before the first momentary triumph of +wrong, or the first passing discouragement in enforcing right. + +Our robust political sense, which has discovered so many of the secrets +of good government, which has given us freedom with order, and popular +administration without corruption, and unalterable respect for law along +with indelible respect for individual right, this, which has so long +been our strong point, is fast becoming our weakness and undoing. For +the extension of the ways of thinking which are proper in politics, to +other than political matter, means at the same time the depravation of +the political sense itself. Not only is social expediency effacing the +many other points of view that men ought to take of the various facts of +life and thought: the idea of social expediency itself is becoming a +dwarfed and pinched idea. Ours is the country where love of constant +improvement ought to be greater than anywhere else, because fear of +revolution is less. Yet the art of politics is growing to be as meanly +conceived as all the rest At elections the national candidate has not +often a chance against the local candidate, nor the man of a principle +against the man of a class. In parliament we are admonished on high +authority that 'the policy of a party is not the carrying out of the +opinion of any section of it, but the general consensus of the whole,' +which seems to be a hierophantic manner of saying that the policy of a +party is one thing, and the principle which makes it a party is another +thing, and that men who care very strongly about anything are to +surrender that and the hope of it, for the sake of succeeding in +something about which they care very little or not at all. This is our +modern way of giving politicians heart for their voyage, of inspiring +them with resoluteness and self-respect, with confidence in the worth of +their cause and enthusiasm for its success. Thoroughness is a mistake, +and nailing your flag to the mast a bit of delusive heroics. Think +wholly of to-day, and not at all of to-morrow. Beware of the high and +hold fast to the safe. Dismiss conviction, and study general consensus. +No zeal, no faith, no intellectual trenchancy, but as much low-minded +geniality and trivial complaisance as you please. + +Of course, all these characteristics of our own society mark tendencies +that are common enough in all societies. They often spring from an +indolence and enervation that besets a certain number of people, however +invigorating the general mental climate may be. What we are now saying +is that the general mental climate itself has, outside of the domain of +physical science, ceased to be invigorating; that, on the contrary, it +fosters the more inglorious predispositions of men, and encourages a +native willingness, already so strong, to acquiesce in a lazy +accommodation with error, an ignoble economy of truth, and a vicious +compromise of the permanent gains of adhering to a sound general +principle, for the sake of the temporary gains of departing from it. + + +Without attempting an elaborate analysis of the causes that have brought +about this debilitation of mental tone, we may shortly remind ourselves +of one or two facts in the political history, in the intellectual +history, and in the religious history of this generation, which perhaps +help us to understand a phenomenon that we have all so keen an interest +both in understanding and in modifying. + +To begin with what lies nearest to the surface. The most obvious agency +at work in the present exaggeration of the political standard as the +universal test of truth, is to be found in some contemporary incidents. +The influence of France upon England since the revolution of 1848 has +tended wholly to the discredit of abstract theory and general reasoning +among us, in all that relates to politics, morals, and religion. In +1848, not in 1789, questions affecting the fundamental structure and +organic condition of the social union came for the first time into +formidable prominence. For the first time those questions and the +answers to them were stated in articulate formulas and distinct +theories. They were not merely written in books; they so fascinated the +imagination and inflamed the hopes of the time, that thousands of men +were willing actually to go down into the streets and to shed their +blood for the realisation of their generous dream of a renovated +society. The same sight has been seen since, and even when we do not see +it, we are perfectly aware that the same temper is smouldering. Those +were premature attempts to convert a crude aspiration into a political +reality, and to found a new social order on a number of umcompromising +deductions from abstract principles of the common weal. They have had +the natural effect of deepening the English dislike of a general theory, +even when such a theory did no more than profess to announce a remote +object of desire, and not the present goal of immediate effort. + +It is not only the Socialists who are responsible for the low esteem +into which a spirit of political generalisation has fallen in other +countries, in consequence of French experience. Mr. Mill has described +in a well-known passage the characteristic vice of the leaders of all +French parties, and not of the democratic party more than any other. +'The commonplaces of politics in France,' he says, 'are large and +sweeping practical maxims, from which, as ultimate premisses, men reason +downwards to particular applications, and this they call being logical +and consistent. For instance, they are perpetually arguing that such and +such a measure ought to be adopted, because it is a consequence of the +principle on which the form of government is founded; of the principle +of legitimacy, or the principle of the sovereignty of the people. To +which it may be answered that if these be really practical principles, +they must rest on speculative grounds; the sovereignty of the people +(for example) must be a right foundation for government, because a +government thus constituted tends to produce certain beneficial effects. +Inasmuch, however, as no government produces all possible beneficial +effects, but all are attended with more or fewer inconveniences; and +since these cannot be combated by means drawn from the very causes which +produce them, it would often be a much stronger recommendation of some +practical arrangement that it does not follow from what is called the +general principle of the government, than that it does,'[2] + +The English feeling for compromise is on its better side the result of a +shrewd and practical, though informal, recognition of a truth which the +writer has here expressed in terms of Method. The disregard which the +political action of France has repeatedly betrayed of a principle really +so important has hitherto strengthened our own regard for it, until it +has not only made us look on its importance as exclusive and final, but +has extended our respect for the right kind of compromise to wrong and +injurious kinds. + +A minor event, which now looks much less important than it did not many +years ago, but which still had real influence in deteriorating moral +judgment, was the career of a late sovereign of France. Some apparent +advantages followed for a season from a rule which had its origin in a +violent and perfidious usurpation, and which was upheld by all the arts +of moral corruption, political enervation, and military repression. The +advantages lasted long enough to create in this country a steady and +powerful opinion that Napoleon the Third's early crime was redeemed by +the seeming prosperity which followed. The shocking prematureness of +this shallow condonation is now too glaringly visible for any one to +deny it. Not often in history has the great truth that 'morality is the +nature of things' received corroboration so prompt and timely. We need +not commit ourselves to the optimistic or sentimental hypothesis that +wickedness always fares ill in the world, or on the other hand that +whoso hearkens diligently to the divine voice, and observes all the +commandments to do them, shall be blessed in his basket and his store +and all the work of his hand. The claims of morality to our allegiance, +so far as its precepts are solidly established, rest on the same +positive base as our faith in the truth of physical laws. Moral +principles, when they are true, are at bottom only registered +generalisations from experience. They record certain uniformities of +antecedence and consequence in the region of human conduct Want of faith +in the persistency of these uniformities is only a little less fatuous +in the moral order than a corresponding want of faith would instantly +disclose itself to be in the purely physical order. In both orders alike +there is only too much of this kind of fatuousness, this readiness to +believe that for once in our favour the stream shall flow up hill, that +we may live in miasmatic air unpoisoned, that a government may depress +the energy, the self-reliance, the public spirit of its citizens, and +yet be able to count on these qualities whenever the government itself +may have broken down, and left the country to make the best of such +resources as are left after so severe and prolonged a drain. This is the +sense in which morality is the nature of things. The system of the +Second Empire was in the same sense an immoral system. Unless all the +lessons of human experience were futile, and all the principles of +political morality mere articles of pedantry, such a system must +inevitably bring disaster, as we might have seen that it was sowing the +seeds of disaster. Yet because the catastrophe lingered, opinion in +England began to admit the possibility of evil being for this once good, +and to treat any reference to the moral and political principles which +condemned the imperial system, and all systems like it, beyond hope or +appeal, as simply the pretext of a mutinous or Utopian impatience. + +This, however, is only one of the more superficial influences which have +helped and fallen in with the working of profounder causes of weakened +aspiration and impoverished moral energy, and of the substitution of +latitudinarian acquiescence and faltering conviction for the +whole-hearted assurance of better times. Of these deeper causes, the +most important in the intellectual development of the prevailing forms +of thought and sentiment is the growth of the Historic Method. Let us +consider very shortly how the abuse of this method, and an unauthorised +extension and interpretation of its conclusions, are likely to have had +something to do with the enervation of opinion. + +The Historic Method may be described as the comparison of the forms of +an idea, or a usage, or a belief, at any given time, with the earlier +forms from which they were evolved, or the later forms into which they +were developed, and the establishment, from such a comparison, of an +ascending and descending order among the facts. It consists in the +explanation of existing parts in the frame of society by connecting them +with corresponding parts in some earlier frame; in the identification of +present forms in the past, and past forms in the present. Its main +process is the detection of corresponding customs, opinions, laws, +beliefs, among different communities, and a grouping of them into +general classes with reference to some one common feature. It is a +certain way of seeking answers to various questions of origin, resting +on the same general doctrine of evolution, applied to moral and social +forms, as that which is being applied with so much ingenuity to the +series of organic matter. The historic conception is a reference of +every state of society to a particular stage in the evolution of its +general conditions. Ideas of law, of virtue, of religion, of the +physical universe, of history, of the social union itself, all march in +a harmonious and inter-dependent order. + +Curiosity with reference to origins is for various reasons the most +marked element among modern scientific tendencies. It covers the whole +field, moral, intellectual, and physical, from the smile or the frown on +a man's face, up to the most complex of the ideas in his mind; from the +expression of his emotions, to their root and relations with one another +in his inmost organisation. As an ingenious writer, too soon lost to our +political literature, has put it:--'If we wanted to describe one of the +most marked results, perhaps the most marked result, of late thought, we +should say that by it everything is made _an antiquity_. When in former +times our ancestors thought of an antiquarian, they described him as +occupied with coins and medals and Druids' stones. But now there are +other relics; indeed all matter is become such. Man himself has to the +eye of science become an antiquity. She tries to read, is beginning to +read, knows she ought to read, in the frame of each man the result of a +whole history of all his life, and what he is and what makes him so.'[3] +Character is considered less with reference to its absolute qualities +than as an interesting scene strewn with scattered rudiments, survivals, +inherited predispositions. Opinions are counted rather as phenomena to +be explained than as matters of truth and falsehood. Of usages, we are +beginning first of all to think where they came from, and secondarily +whether they are the most fitting and convenient that men could be got +to accept. In the last century men asked of a belief or a story, Is it +true? We now ask, How did men come to take it for true? In short the +relations among social phenomena which now engage most attention, are +relations of original source, rather than those of actual consistency in +theory and actual fitness in practice. The devotees of the current +method are more concerned with the pedigree and genealogical connections +of a custom or an idea than with its own proper goodness or badness, its +strength or its weakness. + +Though there is no necessary or truly logical association between +systematic use of this method rightly limited, and a slack and slipshod +preference of vague general forms over definite ideas, yet every one can +see its tendency, if uncorrected, to make men shrink from importing +anything like absolute quality into their propositions. We can see also, +what is still worse, its tendency to place individual robustness and +initiative in the light of superfluities, with which a world that goes +by evolution can very well dispense. Men easily come to consider +clearness and positiveness in their opinions, staunchness in holding and +defending them, and fervour in carrying them into action, as equivocal +virtues of very doubtful perfection, in a state of things where every +abuse has after all had a defensible origin; where every error has, we +must confess, once been true relatively to other parts of belief in +those who held the error; and where all parts of life are so bound up +with one another, that it is of no avail to attack one evil, unless you +attack many more at the same time. This is a caricature of the real +teaching of the Historic Method, of which we shall have to speak +presently; but it is one of those caricatures which the natural sloth in +such matters, and the indigenous intellectual haziness of the majority +of men, make them very willing to take for the true philosophy of +things. + + +Then there is the newspaper press, that huge engine for keeping +discussion on a low level, and making the political test final. To take +off the taxes on knowledge was to place a heavy tax on broad and +independent opinion. The multiplication of journals 'delivering brawling +judgments unashamed on all things all day long,' has done much to deaden +the small stock of individuality in public verdicts. It has done much to +make vulgar ways of looking at things and vulgar ways of speaking of +them stronger and stronger, by formulating and repeating and +stereotyping them incessantly from morning until afternoon, and from +year's end to year's end. For a newspaper must live, and to live it must +please, and its conductors suppose, perhaps not altogether rightly, that +it can only please by being very cheerful towards prejudices, very +chilly to general theories, loftily disdainful to the men of a +principle. Their one cry to an advocate of improvement is some sagacious +silliness about recognising the limits of the practicable in politics, +and seeing the necessity of adapting theories to facts. As if the fact +of taking a broader and wiser view than the common crowd disqualifies a +man from knowing what the view of the common crowd happens to be, and +from estimating it at the proper value for practical purposes. Why are +the men who despair of improvement to be the only persons endowed with +the gift of discerning the practicable? It is, however, only too easy to +understand how a journal, existing for a day, should limit its view to +the possibilities of the day, and how, being most closely affected by +the particular, it should coldly turn its back upon all that is general. +And it is easy, too, to understand the reaction of this intellectual +timorousness upon the minds of ordinary readers, who have too little +natural force and too little cultivation to be able to resist the +narrowing and deadly effect of the daily iteration of short-sighted +commonplaces. + + +Far the most penetrating of all the influences that are impairing the +moral and intellectual nerve of our generation, remain still to be +mentioned. The first of these is the immense increase of material +prosperity, and the second is the immense decline in sincerity of +spiritual interest. The evil wrought by the one fills up the measure of +the evil wrought by the other. We have been, in spite of momentary +declensions, on a flood tide of high profits and a roaring trade, and +there is nothing like a roaring trade for engendering latitudinarians. +The effect of many possessions, especially if they be newly acquired, in +slackening moral vigour, is a proverb. Our new wealth is hardly leavened +by any tradition of public duty such as lingers among the English +nobles, nor as yet by any common custom of devotion to public causes, +such as seems to live and grow in the United States. Under such +conditions, with new wealth come luxury and love of ease and that fatal +readiness to believe that God has placed us in the best of possible +worlds, which so lowers men's aims and unstrings their firmness of +purpose. Pleasure saps high interests, and the weakening of high +interests leaves more undisputed room for pleasure. Management and +compromise appear among the permitted arts, because they tend to +comfort, and comfort is the end of ends, comprehending all ends. Not +truth is the standard, but the politic and the reputable. Are we to +suppose that it is firm persuasion of the greater scripturalness of +episcopacy that turns the second generation of dissenting manufacturers +in our busy Lancashire into churchmen? Certainly such conversions do no +violence to the conscience of the proselyte, for he is intellectually +indifferent, a spiritual neuter. + +That brings us to the root of the matter, the serious side of a +revolution that in this social consequence is so unspeakably ignoble. +This root of the matter is the slow transformation now at work of the +whole spiritual basis of thought. Every age is in some sort an age of +transition, but our own is characteristically and cardinally an epoch of +transition in the very foundations of belief and conduct. The old hopes +have grown pale, the old fears dim; strong sanctions are become weak, +and once vivid faiths very numb. Religion, whatever destinies may be in +store for it, is at least for the present hardly any longer an organic +power. It is not that supreme, penetrating, controlling, decisive part +of a man's life, which it has been, and will be again. The work of +destruction is all the more perturbing to timorous spirits, and more +harassing even to doughtier spirits, for being done impalpably, +indirectly, almost silently and as if by unseen hands. Those who dwell +in the tower of ancient faiths look about them in constant +apprehension, misgiving, and wonder, with the hurried uneasy mien of +people living amid earthquakes. The air seems to their alarms to be full +of missiles, and all is doubt, hesitation, and shivering expectancy. +Hence a decisive reluctance to commit one's self. Conscience has lost +its strong and on-pressing energy, and the sense of personal +responsibility lacks sharpness of edge. The native hue of spiritual +resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of distracted, wavering, +confused thought. The souls of men have become void. Into the void have +entered in triumph the seven devils of Secularity. + +And all this hesitancy, this tampering with conviction for fear of its +consequences, this want of faithful dealing in the highest matters, is +being intensified, aggravated, driven inwards like a fatal disorder +toward the vital parts, by the existence of a State Church. While +thought stirs and knowledge extends, she remains fast moored by ancient +formularies. While the spirit of man expands in search after new light, +and feels energetically for new truth, the spirit of the Church is +eternally entombed within the four corners of acts of parliament. Her +ministers vow almost before they have crossed the threshold of manhood +that they will search no more. They virtually swear that they will to +the end of their days believe what they believe then, before they have +had time either to think or to know the thoughts of others. They take +oath, in other words, to lead mutilated lives. If they cannot keep this +solemn promise, they have at least every inducement that ordinary human +motives can supply, to conceal their breach of it. The same system which +begins by making mental indolence a virtue and intellectual narrowness a +part of sanctity, ends by putting a premium on something too like +hypocrisy. Consider the seriousness of fastening up in these bonds some +thousands of the most instructed and intelligent classes in the country, +the very men who would otherwise be best fitted from position and +opportunities for aiding a little in the long, difficult, and plainly +inevitable work of transforming opinion. Consider the waste of +intelligence, and what is assuredly not less grave, the positive +dead-weight and thick obstruction, by which an official hierarchy so +organised must paralyse mental independence in a community. + +We know the kind of man whom this system delights to honour. He was +described for us five and thirty years ago by a master hand. 'Mistiness +is the mother of wisdom. A man who can set down half a dozen general +propositions which escape from destroying one another only by being +diluted into truisms; who can hold the balance between opposites so +skilfully as to do without fulcrum or beam; who never enunciates a truth +without guarding himself against being supposed to exclude the +contradictory,--who holds that scripture is the only authority, yet that +the Church is to be deferred to, that faith only justifies, yet that it +does not justify without works, that grace does not depend upon the +sacraments, yet is not given without them, that bishops are a divine +ordinance, yet that those who have them not are in the same religious +condition as those who have,--this is your safe man and the hope of the +Church; this is what the Church is said to want, not party men, but +sensible, temperate, sober, well-judging persons, to guide it through +the channel of no meaning, between the Scylla and Charybdis of Aye and +No.'[4] The writer then thought that such a type could not endure, and +that the Church must become more real. On the contrary, her reality is +more phantom-like now than it was then. She is the sovereign pattern and +exemplar of management, of the triumph of the political method in +spiritual things, and of the subordination of ideas to the _status quo_. + +It is true that all other organised priesthoods are also bodies which +move within formularies even more inelastic than those of the +Establishment. But then they have not the same immense social power, nor +the same temptations to make all sacrifices to preserve it. They affect +the intellectual temper of large numbers of people, but the people whom +they affect are not so strongly identified with the greater organs of +the national life. The State Church is bound up in the minds of the most +powerful classes with a given ordering of social arrangements, and the +consequence of this is that the teachers of the Church have reflected +back upon thorn a sense of responsibility for these arrangements, which +obscures their spirituality, clogs their intellectual energy and mental +openness, and turns them into a political army of obstruction to new +ideas. They feel themselves to a certain extent discharged from the +necessity of recognising the tremendous conflict in the region of belief +that goes on around them, just as if they were purely civil +administrators, concerned only with the maintenance of the present +order. None of this is true of the private Churches. Their teachers and +members regard belief as something wholly independent of the civil +ordering of things. However little enlightened in some respects, however +hostile to certain of the ideas by which it is sought to replace their +own, they are at least representatives of the momentous principle of our +individual responsibility for the truth of our opinions. They may bring +their judgments to conclusions that are less in accord with modern +tendencies than those of one or two schools that still see their way to +subscribing Anglican articles and administering Anglican rites. At any +rate, they admit that the use of his judgment is a duty incumbent on the +individual, and a duty to be discharged without reference to any +external considerations whatever, political or otherwise. This is an +elevating, an exhilarating principle, however deficiencies of culture +may have narrowed the sphere of its operations. It is because a State +Church is by its very conception hostile to such a principle, that we +are justified in counting it apart from the private Churches with all +their faults, and placing it among the agencies that weaken the vigour +of a national conscience and check the free play and access of +intellectual light. + +Here we may leave the conditions that have made an inquiry as to some of +the limits of compromise, which must always be an interesting and +important subject, one of especial interest and importance to ourselves +at present. Is any renovation of the sacredness of principle a possible +remedy for some of these elements of national deterioration? They will +not disappear until the world has grown into possession of a new +doctrine. When that comes, all other good things will follow. What we +have to remember is that the new doctrine itself will never come, except +to spirits predisposed to their own liberation. Our day of small +calculations and petty utilities must first pass away; our vision of the +true expediencies must reach further and deeper; our resolution to +search for the highest verities, to give up all and follow them, must +first become the supreme part of ourselves. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 1: See below, ch. iii.] + +[Footnote 2: _System of Logic_, bk. vi. ch. xi.] + +[Footnote 3: Bagehot.] + +[Footnote 4: Dr. J.H. Newman's _Essays Critical and Historical_, vol. i. +p. 301.] + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +OF THE POSSIBLE UTILITY OF ERROR. + + _Das Wahre fördert; aus dem Irrthum entwickelt + sich nichts, er verwickeltuns nur.--_ + GOETHE. + +At the outset of an inquiry how far existing facts ought to be allowed +to overrule ideas and principles that are at variance with them, a +preliminary question lies in our way, about which it may be well to say +something. This is the question of a dual doctrine. In plainer words, +the question whether it is expedient that the more enlightened classes +in a community should upon system not only possess their light in +silence, but whether they should openly encourage a doctrine for the +less enlightened classes which they do not believe to be true for +themselves, while they regard it as indispensably useful in the case of +less fortunate people. An eminent teacher tells us how after he had +once succeeded in presenting the principle of Necessity to his own mind +in a shape which seemed to bring with it all the advantages of the +principle of Free Will, he 'no longer suffered under the burden so heavy +to one who aims at being a reformer in opinions, of thinking one +doctrine true, and the contrary doctrine morally beneficial.'[5] The +discrepancy which this writer thought a heavy burden has struck others +as the basis of a satisfactory solution. + + Nil dulcius est bene quam munita tenere + Edita doctrina sapientum templa serena, + Despicere unde queas alios passimque videre + Errare atque viam palantes quaerere vitae. + +The learned are to hold the true doctrine; the unlearned are to be +taught its morally beneficial contrary. 'Let the Church,' it has been +said, 'admit two descriptions of believers, those who are for the +letter, and those who hold by the spirit. At a certain point in rational +culture, belief in the supernatural becomes for many an impossibility; +do not force such persons to wear a cowl of lead. Do not you meddle with +what we teach or write, and then we will not dispute the common people +with you; do not contest our place in the school and the academy, and +then we will surrender to your hands the country school.'[6] This is +only a very courageous and definite way of saying what a great many less +accomplished persons than M. Renan have silently in their hearts, and in +England quite as extensively as in France. They do not believe in hell, +for instance, but they think hell a useful fiction for the lower +classes. They would deeply regret any change in the spirit or the +machinery of public instruction which would release the lower classes +from so wholesome an error. And as with hell, so with other articles of +the supernatural system; the existence of a Being who will distribute +rewards and penalties in a future state, the permanent sentience of each +human personality, the vigilant supervision of our conduct, as well as +our inmost thoughts and desires, by the heavenly powers; and so forth. + +Let us discuss this matter impersonally, without reference to our own +opinions and without reference to the evidence for or against their +truth. I am not speaking now of those who hold all these ideas to be +certainly true, or highly probable, and who at the same time +incidentally insist on the great usefulness of such ideas in confirming +morality and producing virtuous types of character. With such persons, +of course, there is no question of a dual doctrine. They entertain +certain convictions themselves, and naturally desire to have their +influence extended over others. The proposition which we have to +consider is of another kind. It expresses the notions of those who--to +take the most important kind of illustration--think untrue the popular +ideas of supernatural interference in our obscure human affairs; who +think untrue the notion of the prolongation of our existence after death +to fulfil the purpose of the supernatural powers; or at least who think +them so extremely improbable that no reasonable man or woman, once +awakened to a conviction of this improbability, would thenceforth be +capable of receiving effective check or guidance from beliefs, that +would have sunk slowly down to the level of doubtful guesses. We have +now to deal with those who while taking this view of certain doctrines, +still declare them to be indispensable for restraining from anti-social +conduct all who are not acute or instructed enough to see through them. +In other words, they think error useful, and that it may be the best +thing for society that masses of men should cheat and deceive themselves +in their most fervent aspirations and their deepest assurances. This is +the furthest extreme to which the empire of existing facts over +principles can well be imagined to go. It lies at the root of every +discussion upon the limits which separate lawful compromise or +accommodation from palpable hypocrisy. + +It will probably be said that according to the theory of the school of +which M. Renan is the most eloquent representative, the common people +are not really cheating themselves or being cheated. Indeed M. Renan +himself has expatiated on the charm of seeing figures of the ideal in +the cottages of the poor, images representing no reality, and so forth. +'What a delight,' he cries, 'for the man who is borne down by six days +of toil to come on the seventh to rest upon his knees, to contemplate +the tall columns, a vault, arches, an altar; to listen to the chanting, +to hear moral and consoling words!'[7] The dogmas which criticism +attacks are not for these poor people 'the object of an explicit +affirmation,' and therefore there is no harm in them; 'it is the +privilege of pure sentiment to be invulnerable, and to play with poison +without being hurt by it.' In other words, the dogmas are false, but the +liturgy, as a performance stirring the senses of awe, reverence, +susceptibility to beauty of various kinds, appeals to and satisfies a +sentiment that is both true and indispensable in the human mind. More +than this, in the two or three supreme moments of life to which men look +forward and on which they look back,--at birth, at the passing of the +threshold into fulness of life, at marriage, at death,--the Church is +present to invest the hour with a certain solemn and dignified charm. +That is the way in which the instructed are to look at the services of a +Church, after they have themselves ceased to believe its faith, us a +true account of various matters which it professes to account for +truly. + +It will be perceived that this is not exactly the ground of those who +think a number of what they confess to be untruths, wholesome for the +common people for reasons of police, and who would maintain churches on +the same principle on which they maintain the county constabulary. It is +a psychological, not a political ground. It is on the whole a more true, +as well as a far more exalted position. The human soul, they say, has +these lovely and elevating aspirations; not to satisfy them is to leave +man a dwarfed creature. Why quarrel with a system that leaves you to +satisfy them in the true way, and does much to satisfy thorn in a false +but not very harmful way among those who unfortunately have to sit in +the darkness of the outer court? + +This is not a proper occasion for saying anything about the adequateness +of the catholic, or any other special manner of fostering and solacing +the religious impulses of men. We have to assume that the instructed +class believe the catholic dogmas to be untrue, and yet wishes the +uninstructed to be handed over to a system that reposes on the theory +that these dogmas are superlatively true. What then is to be said of the +tenableness of such a position? To the plain man it looks like a +deliberate connivance at a plan for the propagation of error--assuming, +as I say, for the moment, that these articles of belief are erroneous +and contrary to fact and evidence. Ah, but, we are told, the people make +no explicit affirmation of dogma; that does nothing for them; they are +indifferent to it. A great variety of things might be said to this +statement. We might ask, for instance, whether the people ever made an +explicit affirmation of dogma in the past, or whether it was always the +hazy indifferent matter which it is supposed to be now. If so, whether +we shall not have to re-cast our most fundamental notions of the way in +which Christian civilisation has been evolved. If not, and if people did +once explicitly affirm dogma, when exactly was it that they ceased to do +so? + +The answers to these questions would all go to show that at the time +when religion was the great controlling and organising force in conduct, +the prime elemental dogmas were accepted with the most vivid conviction +of reality. I do not pretend that the common people followed all the +inferences which the intellectual subtlety of the master-spirits of +theology drew so industriously from the simple premisses of scripture +and tradition. But assuredly dogma was at the foundation of the whole +structure. When did it cease to be so? How was the structure supported, +after you had altered this condition of things? + +Apart from this historic issue, the main question one would like to put +to the upholder of duality of religion on this plea, is the simple one, +whether the power of the ceremonial which charms him so much is not +actually at this moment drawn wholly from dogma and the tradition of +dogma; whether its truth is not explicitly affirmed to the unlettered +man, and whether the inseparable connection between the dogma and the +ceremonial is not constantly impressed upon him by the spiritual +teachers to whom the dual system hands him and his order over for all +time? If any one of those philosophic critics will take the trouble to +listen to a few courses of sermons at the present day, and the remark +applies not less to protestant than to catholic churches, he will find +that instead of that '_parole morale et consolante_' which is so +soothing to think of, the pulpit is now the home of fervid controversy +and often exacerbated declamation in favour of ancient dogma against +modern science. We do not say whether this is or is not the wisest line +for the clergy to follow. We only press the fact against those who wish +us to believe that dogma counts for nothing in the popular faith, and +that therefore we need not be uneasy as to its effects. + +Next, one would say to those who think that all will go well if you +divide the community into two classes, one privileged to use its own +mind, the other privileged to have its mind used by a priesthood, that +they overlook the momentous circumstance of these professional upholders +of dogmatic systems being also possessed of a vast social influence in +questions that naturally belong to another sphere. There is hardly a +single great controversy in modern politics, where the statesman does +not find himself in immediate contact with the real or supposed +interests, and with the active or passive sentiment, of one of these +religious systems. Therefore if the instructed or intellectually +privileged class cheerfully leave the field open to men who, _ex +hypothesi_, are presumed to be less instructed, narrower, more +impenetrable by reason, and the partisans of the letter against the +spirit, then this result follows. They are deliberately strengthening +the hands of the persons least fitted by judgment, experience, and +temper, for using such power rightly. And they are strengthening them +not merely in dealing with religious matters, but, what is of more +importance, in dealing with an endless variety of the gravest social and +political matters. It is impossible to map out the exact dimensions of +the field in which a man shall exercise his influence, and to which he +is to be rigorously confined. Give men influence in one matter, +especially if that be such a matter as religious belief and ceremonial, +and it is simply impossible that this influence shall not extend with +more or less effect over as much of the whole sphere of conduct as they +may choose surrendering the common people without dispute or effort to +organised priesthoods for religious purposes, you would be inevitably +including a vast number of other purposes in the self-same destination. +This does not in the least prejudice practical ways of dealing with +certain existing circumstances, such as the propriety or justice of +allowing a catholic people to have a catholic university. It is only an +argument against erecting into a complete and definite formula the +division of a society into two great castes, the one with a religion of +the spirit, the other with a creed of the letter. + +Again, supposing that the enlightened caste were to consent to abandon +the common people to what are assumed to be lower and narrower forms of +truth,--which is after all little more than a fine phrase for forms of +falsehood,--what can be more futile than to suppose that such a +compromise will be listened to for a single moment by a caste whose +first principle is that they are the possessors and ministers, not of an +inferior or superior form of truth, but of the very truth itself, +absolute, final, complete, divinely sent, infallibly interpreted? The +disciples of the relative may afford to compromise. The disciples of the +absolute, never. + +We shall see other objections as we go on to this state of things, in +which a minority holds true opinions and abandons the majority to false +ones. At the bottom of the advocacy of a dual doctrine slumbers the idea +that there is no harm in men being mistaken, or at least only so little +harm as is more than compensated for by the marked tranquillity in which +their mistake may wrap them. This is not an idea merely that +intellectual error is a pathological necessity of the mind, no more to +be escaped than the pathological necessities which afflict and finally +dissolve the body. That is historically true. It is an idea that error +somehow in certain stages, where there is enough of it, actually does +good, like vaccination. Well, the thesis of the present chapter is that +erroneous opinion or belief, in itself and as such, can never be useful. +This may seem a truism which everybody is willing to accept without +demur. But it is one of those truisms which persons habitually forget +and repudiate in practice, just because they have never made it real to +themselves by considering and answering the objections that may be +brought against it. We see this repudiation before our eyes every day. +Thus for instance, parents theoretically take it for granted that error +cannot be useful, while they are teaching or allowing others to teach +their children what they, the parents, believe to be untrue. Thus +husbands who think the common theology baseless and unmeaning, are found +to prefer that their wives shall not question this theology nor neglect +its rites. These are only two out of a hundred examples of the daily +admission that error may be very useful to other people. I need hardly +say that to deny this, as the commonplace to which this chapter is +devoted denies it, is a different thing from denying the expediency of +letting errors alone at a given time. That is another question, to be +discussed afterwards. You may have a thoroughly vicious and dangerous +enemy, and yet it may be expedient to choose your own hour and occasion +for attacking him. 'The passage from error to truth,' in the words of +Condorcet, 'may be accompanied by certain evils. Every great change +necessarily brings some of these in its train; and though they may be +always far below the evil you are for destroying, yet it ought to do +what is possible to diminish them. It is not enough to do good; one must +do it in a good way. No doubt we should destroy all errors, but as it is +impossible to destroy them all in an instant, we should imitate a +prudent architect who, when obliged to destroy a building, and knowing +how its parts are united together, sets about its demolition in such a +way as to prevent its fall from being dangerous.'[8] + +Those, let us note by the way, who are accustomed to think the moral +tone of the eighteenth century low and gross compared with that of the +nineteenth, may usefully contrast these just and prudent word? of +caution in extirpating error, with M. Renan's invitation to men whom he +considers wrong in their interpretation of religion, to plant their +error as widely and deeply as they can; and who are moreover themselves +supposed to be demoralised, or else they would not be likely to +acquiesce in a previous surrender of the universities to men whom they +think in mortal error. Apart however from M. Renan, Condorcet's words +merely assert the duty of setting to work to help on the change from +false to true opinions with prudence, and this every sensible man +admits. Our position is that in estimating the situation, in counting up +and balancing the expediencies of an attack upon error at this or that +point, nothing is to be set to the credit of error as such, nor is there +anything in its own operations or effects to entitle it to a moment's +respite. Every one would admit this at once in the case of physical +truths, though there are those who say that some of the time spent in +the investigation of physical truths might be more advantageously +devoted to social problems. But in the case of moral and religious +truths or errors, people, if they admit that nothing is to be set to the +credit of error as such, still constantly have a subtle and practically +mischievous confusion in their minds between the possible usefulness of +error, and the possible expediency of leaving it temporarily +undisturbed. What happens in consequence of such a confusion is this. +Men leave error undisturbed, because they accept in a loose way the +proposition that a belief may be 'morally useful without being +intellectually sustainable,' They disguise their own dissent from +popular opinions, because they regard such opinions as useful to other +people. We are not now discussing the case of those who embrace a creed +for themselves, on the ground that, though they cannot demonstrate its +truth to the understanding, yet they find it pregnant with moralising +and elevating characteristics. We are thinking of a very different +attitude--that, namely, of persons who believe a creed to be not more +morally useful than it is intellectually sustainable, so far as they +themselves are concerned. To them it is pure and uncompensated error. +Yet from a vague and general idea that what is useless error to them may +be useful to others, they insist on doing their best to perpetuate the +system which spreads and consecrates the error. And how do they settle +the question? They reckon up the advantages, and forget the drawbacks. +They detect and dwell on one or two elements of utility in the false +belief or the worn-out institution, and leave out of all account the +elements that make in the other direction. + +Considering how much influence this vague persuasion has in encouraging +a well-meaning hypocrisy in individuals, and a profound stagnation in +societies, it may be well to examine the matter somewhat generally. Let +us try to measure the force of some of the most usual pleas for error. + +I. A false opinion, it may be said, is frequently found to have +clustering around it a multitude of excellent associations, which do far +more good than the false opinion that supports them, does harm. In the +middle ages, for instance, there was a belief that a holy man had the +gift of routing demons, of healing the sick, and of working divers other +miracles. Supposing that this belief was untrue, supposing that it was +an error to attribute the sudden death of an incredible multitude of +troublesome flies in a church to the fact of Saint Bernard having +excommunicated them, what then? The mistaken opinion was still +associated with a deep reverence for virtue and sanctity, and this was +more valuable, than the error of the explanation of the death of the +flies was noxious or degrading. + +The answer to this seems to be as follows. First, in making false +notions the proofs or close associates of true ones, you are exposing +the latter to the ruin which awaits the former. For example, if you have +in the minds of children or servants associated honesty, industry, +truthfulness, with the fear of hell-fire, then supposing this fear to +become extinct in their minds,--which, being unfounded in truth, it is +in constant risk of doing--the virtues associated with it are likely to +be weakened exactly in proportion as that association was strong. + +Second, for all good habits in thought or conduct there are good and +real reasons in the nature of things. To leave such habits attached to +false opinions is to lessen the weight of these natural or spontaneous +reasons, and so to do more harm in the long run than effacement of them +seems for a time to do good. Most excellences in human character have a +spontaneous root in our nature. Moreover if they had not, and where they +have not, there is always a valid and real external defence for them. +The unreal defence must be weaker than the real one, and the +substitution of a weak for a strong defence, where both are to be had, +is not useful but the very opposite. + +II. It is true, the objector would probably continue, that there is a +rational defence for all excellences of conduct, as there is for all +that is worthy and fitting in institutions. But the force of a rational +defence lies in the rationality of the man to whom it is proffered. The +arguments which persuade one trained in scientific habits of thought, +only touch persons of the same kind. Character is not all pure reason. +That fitness of things which you pronounce to be the foundation of good +habits, may be borne in upon men, and may speak to them, through other +channels than the syllogism. You assume a community of highly-trained +wranglers and proficient sophisters. The plain fact is that, for the +mass of men, use and wont, rude or gracious symbols, blind custom, +prejudices, superstitions,--however erroneous in themselves, however +inadequate to the conveyance of the best truth,--are the only safe +guardians of the common virtues. In this sense, then, error may have its +usefulness. + +A hundred years ago this apology for error was met by those high-minded +and interesting men, the French believers in human perfectibility, with +their characteristic dogma,--of which Rousseau was the ardent +expounder,--that man is born with a clear and unsophisticated spirit, +perfectly able to discern all the simple truths necessary for common +conduct by its own unaided light. His motives are all pure and unselfish +and his intelligence is unclouded, until priests and tyrants mutilate +the one and corrupt the other. We who have the benefit of the historic +method, and have to take into account the medium that surrounds a human +creature the moment it comes into the world, to say nothing of all the +inheritance from the past which it brings within it into the world at +the same moment, cannot take up this ground. We cannot maintain that +everybody is born with light enough to see the rational defences of +things for himself, without the education of institutions. What we do +maintain is--and this is the answer to the plea for error at present +under consideration--that whatever impairs the brightness of such light +as a man has, is not useful but hurtful. Our reply to those who contend +for the usefulness of error on the ground of the comparative impotence +of rationality over ordinary minds, is something of this kind. +Superstition, blind obedience to custom, and the other substitutes for a +right and independent use of the mind, may accidentally and in some few +respects impress good ideas upon persons who are too darkened to accept +those ideas on their real merits. But then superstition itself is the +main cause of this very darkness. To hold error is in so far to foster +erroneous ways of thinking on all subjects; is to make the intelligence +less and less ready to receive truth in all matters whatever. Men are +made incapable of perceiving the rational defences, and of feeling +rational motives, for good habits,--so far as they are thus +incapable,--by the very errors which we are asked silently to +countenance as useful substitutes for right reason. 'Erroneous motives,' +as Condorcet has expressed this matter, 'have an additional drawback +attached to them, the habit which they strengthen of reasoning ill. The +more important the subject on which you reason ill, and the more you +busy yourself about it, by so much the more dangerous do the influences +of such a habit become. It is especially on subjects analogous to that +on which you reason wrongly, or which you connect with it by habit, that +such a defect extends most powerfully and most rapidly. Hence it is +extremely hard for the man who believes himself obliged to conform in +his conduct to what he considers truths useful to men, but who +attributes the obligation to erroneous motives, to reason very correctly +on the truths themselves; the more attention he pays to such motives, +and the more importance he comes to attach to them, the more likely he +will be to go wrong.'[9] So, in short, superstition does an immense harm +by enfeebling rational ways of thinking; it does a little good by +accidentally endorsing rational conclusions in one or two matters. And +yet, though the evil which it is said to repair is a trifle beside the +evil which it is admitted to inflict, the balance of expediencies is +after all declared to be such as to warrant us in calling errors useful! + +III. A third objection now presents itself to me, which I wish to state +as strongly as possible. 'Even if a false opinion cannot in itself be +more useful than a true one, whatever good habits may seem to be +connected with it, yet,' it may be contended, 'relatively to the general +mental attitude of a set of men, to their other notions and maxims, the +false opinion may entail less harm than would be wrought by its mere +demolition. There are false opinions so intimately bound up with the +whole way of thinking and feeling, that to introduce one or two detached +true opinions in their stead, would, even if it were possible, only +serve to break up that coherency of character and conduct which it is +one of the chief objects of moralists and the great art of living to +produce. For a true opinion does not necessarily bring in its train all +the other true opinions that are logically connected with it. On the +contrary, it is only too notorious a fact in the history of belief, that +not merely individuals but whole societies are capable of holding at one +and the same time contradictory opinions and mutually destructive +principles. On the other hand, neither does a false opinion involve +practically all the evil consequences deducible from it. For the results +of human inconsistency are not all unhappy, and if we do not always act +up to virtuous principle, no more do we always work out to its remotest +inference every vicious principle. Not insincerity, but inconsistency, +has constantly turned the adherents of persecuting precepts into friends +of tolerant practice.' + +'It is a comparatively small thing to persuade a superstitious person to +abandon this or that article of his superstition. You have no security +that the rejection of the one article which you have displaced will lead +to the rejection of any other, and it is quite possible that it may lead +to all the more fervid an adhesion to what remains behind. Error, +therefore, in view of such considerations may surely be allowed to have +at least a provisional utility.' + +Now undoubtedly the repudiation of error is not at all the same thing +as embracing truth. People are often able to see the force of arguments +that destroy a given opinion, without being able to see the force of +arguments for the positive opinion that ought to replace it. They can +only be quite sure of seeing both, when they have acquired not merely a +conviction that one notion is false and another true, but have +furthermore exchanged a generally erroneous way of thinking for a +generally correct way. Hence the truly important object with every one +who holds opinions which he deems it of the highest moment that others +should accept, must obviously be to reach people's general ways of +thinking; to stir their love of truth; to penetrate them with a sense of +the difference in the quality of evidence; to make them willing to +listen to criticism and new opinion; and perhaps above all to teach them +to take ungrudging and daily trouble to clear up in their minds the +exact sense of the terms they use. + +If this be so, a false opinion, like an erroneous motive, can hardly +have even a provisional usefulness. For how can you attack an erroneous +way of thinking except in detail, that is to say through the sides of +this or that single wrong opinion? Each of these wrong opinions is an +illustration and type, as it is a standing support and abettor, of some +kind of wrong reasoning, though they are not all on the same scale nor +all of them equally instructive. It is precisely by this method of +gradual displacement of error step by step, that the few stages of +progress which the race has yet traversed, have been actually achieved. +Even if the place of the erroneous idea is not immediately taken by the +corresponding true one, or by the idea which is at least one or two +degrees nearer to the true one, still the removal of error in this +purely negative way amounts to a positive gain. Why? For the excellent +reason that it is the removal of a bad element which otherwise tends to +propagate itself, or even if it fails to do that, tends at the best to +make the surrounding mass of error more inveterate. All error is what +physiologists term fissiparous, and in exterminating one false opinion +you may be hindering the growth of an uncounted brood of false opinions. + +Then as to the maintenance of that coherency, interdependence, and +systematisation of opinions and motives, which is said to make character +organic, and is therefore so highly prized by some schools of thought. +No doubt the loosening of this or that part of the fabric of +heterogeneous origin, which constitutes the character of a man or woman, +tends to loosen the whole. But do not let us feed ourselves upon +phrases. This organic coherency, what does it come to? It signifies in a +general way, to describe it briefly, a harmony between the intellectual, +the moral, and the practical parts of human nature; an undisturbed +cooperation between reason, affection, and will; the reason prescribing +nothing against which the affections revolt, and proscribing nothing +which they crave; and the will obeying the joint impulses of these two +directing forces, without liability to capricious or extravagant +disturbance of their direction. Well, if the reason were perfect in +information and method, and the affections faultless in their impulse, +then organic unity of character would be the final consummation of all +human improvement, and it would be criminal, even if it were possible, +to undermine a structure of such priceless value. But short of this +there can be no value in coherency and harmonious consistency as such. +So long as error is an element in it, then for so long the whole product +is vitiated. Undeniably and most fortunately, social virtues are found +side by side with speculative mistakes and the gravest intellectual +imperfections. We may apply to humanity the idea which, as Hebrew +students tell us, is imputed in the Talmud to the Supreme Being. _God +prays_, the Talmud says; and his prayer is this,--'Be it my will that my +mercy overpower my justice.' And so with men, with or without their +will, their mercifulness overpowers their logic. And not their +mercifulness only, but all their good impulses overpower their logic. To +repeat the words which I have put into the objector's mouth, we do not +always work out every vicious principle to its remotest inference. What, +however, is this but to say that in such cases character is saved, not +by its coherency, but by the opposite; to say not that error is useful, +but what is a very different thing, that its mischievousness is +sometimes capable of being averted or minimised? + +The apologist may retort that he did not mean answer to the argument +from coherency of conduct. In measuring utility you have to take into +account not merely the service rendered to the objects of the present +hour, but the contribution to growth, progress, and the future. From +this point of view most of the talk about unity of character is not much +more than a glorifying of stagnation. It leaves out of sight the +conditions necessary for the continuance of the unending task of human +improvement. Now whatever ease may be given to an individual or a +generation by social or religious error, such error at any rate can +conduce nothing to further advancement That, at least, is not one of its +possible utilities. + +This is also one of the answers to the following plea. 'Though the +knowledge of every positive truth is an useful acquisition, this +doctrine cannot without reservation he applied to negative truth. When +the only truth ascertainable is that nothing can be known, we do not, by +this knowledge, gain any new fact by which to guide ourselves.'[10] But +logical coherency, but a kind of practical everyday coherency, which +may be open to a thousand abstract objections, yet which still secures +both to the individual and to society a number of advantages that might +be endangered by any disturbance of opinion or motive. No doubt, and the +method and season of chasing erroneous opinions and motives out of the +mind must always be a matter of much careful and far-seeing +consideration. Only in the course of such consideration, let us not +admit the notion in any form that error can have even provisional +utility. For it is not the error which confers the advantages that we +desire to preserve, but some true opinion or just motive or high or +honest sentiment, which exists and thrives and operates in spite of the +error and in face of it, springing from man's spontaneous and +unformulated recognition of the real relations of things. This +recognition is very faint in the beginnings of society. It grows clearer +and firmer with each step forward. And in a tolerably civilised age it +has become a force on which you can fairly lean with a considerable +degree of assurance. + +And this leads to the central point of the the negative truth that +nothing can be known is in fact a truth that guides us. [Transcriber's +note: sic.] It leads us away from sterile and irreclaimable tracts +of thought and emotion, and so inevitably compels the energies which +would otherwise have been wasted, to feel after a more profitable +direction. By leaving the old guide-marks undisturbed, you may give +ease to an existing generation, but the present ease is purchased at +the cost of future growth. To have been deprived of the faith of the +old dispensation, is the first condition of strenuous endeavour after +the new. + +No doubt history abounds with cases in which a false opinion on moral or +religious subjects, or an erroneous motive in conduct, has seemed to be +a stepping-stone to truth. But this is in no sense a demonstration of +the utility of error. For in all such cases the erroneous opinion or +motive was far from being wholly erroneous, or wholly without elements +of truth and reality. If it helped to quicken the speed or mend the +direction of progress, that must have been by virtue of some such +elements within it. All that was error in it was pure waste, or worse +than waste. It is true that the religious sentiment has clothed itself +in a great number of unworthy, inadequate, depressing, and otherwise +misleading shapes, dogmatic and liturgic. Yet on the whole the religious +sentiment has conferred enormous benefits on civilisation. This is no +proof of the utility of the mistaken direction which these dogmatic or +liturgic shapes imposed upon it. On the contrary, the effect of the +false dogmas and enervating liturgies is so much that has to be deducted +from the advantages conferred by a sentiment in itself valuable and of +priceless capability.[11] + +Yes, it will be urged, but from the historic conditions of the time, +truth could only be conveyed in erroneous forms, and motives of +permanent price for humanity could only be secured in these mistaken +expressions. Here I would again press the point of this necessity for +erroneous forms and mistaken expressions being, in a great many of the +most important instances, itself derivative, one among other ill +consequences of previous moral and religious error. 'It was gravely +said,' Bacon tells us, 'by some of the prelates in the Council of Trent, +where the doctrines of the Schoolmen have great sway; that the schoolmen +were like Astronomers, which did faigne Eccentricks and Epicycles and +Engines of Orbs to save the Phenomena; though they know there were no +such Things; and in like manner that the Schoolmen had framed a number +of subtile and intricate Axioms and Theorems, to save the practice of +the Church.' This is true of much else besides scholastic axioms and +theorems. Subordinate error was made necessary and invented, by reason +of some pro-existent main stock of error, and to save the practice of +the Church. Thus we are often referred to the consolation which this or +that doctrine has brought to the human spirit. But what if the same +system had produced the terror which made absence of consolation +intolerable? How much of the necessity for expressing the enlarged +humanity of the Church in the doctrine of purgatory, arose from the +existence of the older unsoftened doctrine of eternal hell? + +Again, how much of this alleged necessity of error, as alloy for the too +pure metal of sterling truth, is to be explained by the interest which +powerful castes or corporations have had in preserving the erroneous +forms, even when they could not resist, or did not wish to resist, their +impregnation by newer and better doctrine? This interest was not +deliberately sinister or malignant. It may be more correctly as well as +more charitably explained by that infirmity of human nature, which makes +us very ready to believe what it is on other grounds convenient to us to +believe. Nobody attributes to pure malevolence the heartiness with which +the great corporation of lawyers, for example, resist the removal of +superfluous and obstructive forms in their practice; they have come to +look on such forms as indispensable safeguards. Hence powerful teachers +and preachers of all kinds have been spontaneously inclined to suppose +a necessity, which had no real existence, of preserving as much as was +possible of what we know to be error, even while introducing wholesome +modification of it. This is the honest, though mischievous, conservatism +of the human mind. We have no right to condemn our foregoers; far less +to lavish on them the evil names of impostor, charlatan, and brigand, +which the zealous unhistoric school of the last century used so +profusely. But we have a right to say of them, as we say of those who +imitate their policy now, that their conservatism is no additional proof +of the utility of error. Least of all is it any justification for those +who wish to have impressed upon the people a complete system of +religious opinion which men of culture have avowedly put away. And, +moreover, the very priests must, I should think, be supposed to have put +it away also. Else they would hardly be invited deliberately to abdicate +their teaching functions in the very seats where teaching is of the +weightiest and most far-spreading influence. + +Meanwhile our point is that the reforms in opinion which have been +effected on the plan of pouring the new wine of truth into the old +bottles of superstition--though not dishonourable to the sincerity of +the reformers--are no testimony to even the temporary usefulness of +error. Those who think otherwise do not look far enough in front of the +event. They forget the evil wrought by the prolonged duration of the +error, to which the added particle of truth may have given new vitality. +They overlook the ultimate enervation that is so often the price paid +for the temporary exaltation. + +Nor, finally, can they know the truths which the error thus prolonged +has hindered from coming to the birth. A strenuous disputant has +recently asserted against me that 'the region of the _might have been_ +lies beyond the limits of sane speculation.'[12] It in surely extending +optimism too far to insist on carrying it back right through the ages. +To me at any rate the history of mankind is a huge _pis-aller_, just as +our present society is; a prodigious wasteful experiment, from which a +certain number of precious results have been extracted, but which is +not now, nor ever has been at any other time, a final measure of all the +possibilities of the time. This is not inconsistent with the scientific +conception of history; it is not to deny the great law that society has +a certain order of progress; but only to urge that within that, the only +possible order, there is always room for all kinds and degrees of +invention, improvement, and happy or unhappy accident. There is no +discoverable law fixing precisely the more or the less of these; nor how +much of each of them a community shall meet with, nor exactly when it +shall meet with them. We have to distinguish between possibility and +necessity. Only certain steps in advance are possible at a given time; +but it is not inevitable that those potential advances should all be +realised. Does anybody suppose that humanity has had the profit of all +the inventive and improving capacity born into the world? That Turgot, +for example, was the only man that ever lived who might have done more +for society than he was allowed to do, and spared society a cataclysm? +No,--history is a _pis-aller_. It has assuredly not moved without the +relation of cause and effect; it is a record of social growth and its +conditions; but it is also a record of interruption and misadventure and +perturbation. You trace the long chain which has made us what we are in +this aspect and that. But where are the dropped links that might have +made all the difference? _Ubi sunt eorum tabulae qui post vota nuncupate +perierunt_? Where is the fruit of those multitudinous gifts which came +into the world in untimely seasons? We accept the past for the same +reason that we accept the laws of the solar system, though, as Comte +says, 'we can easily conceive them improved in certain respects.' The +past, like the solar system, is beyond reach of modification at our +hands, and we cannot help it. But it is surely the mere midsummer +madness of philosophic complacency to think that we have come by the +shortest and easiest of all imaginable routes to our present point in +the march; to suppose that we have wasted nothing, lost nothing, cruelly +destroyed nothing, on the road. What we have lost is all in the region +of the 'might have been,' and we are justified in taking this into +account, and thinking much of it, and in trying to find causes for the +loss. One of them has been want of liberty for the human intelligence; +and another, to return to our proper subject, has been the prolonged +existence of superstition, of false opinions, and of attachment to gross +symbols, beyond the time when they might have been successfully +attacked, and would have fallen into decay but for the mistaken +political notion of their utility. In making a just estimate of this +utility, if we see reason to believe that these false opinions, narrow +superstitions, gross symbols, have been an impediment to the free +exercise of the intelligence and a worthier culture of the emotions, +then we are justified in placing the unknown loss as a real and most +weighty item in the account against them. + +In short, then, the utmost that can be said on behalf of errors in +opinion and motive, is that they are inevitable elements in human +growth. But the inevitable does not coincide with the useful. Pain can +be avoided by none of the sons of men, yet the horrible and +uncompensated subtraction which it makes from the value and usefulness +of human life, is one of the most formidable obstacles to the smoother +progress of the world. And as with pain, so with error. The moral of our +contention has reference to the temper in which practically we ought to +regard false doctrine and ill-directed motive. It goes to show that if +we have satisfied ourselves on good grounds that the doctrine is false, +or the motive ill directed, then the only question that we need ask +ourselves turns solely upon the possibility of breaking it up and +dispersing it, by methods compatible with the doctrine of liberty. Any +embarrassment in dealing with it, due to a semi-latent notion that it +may be useful to some one else is a weakness that hinders social +progress. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 5: Mill's _Autobiography_ p. 170.] + +[Footnote 6: M. Renan's _Réforme Intellectuelle et Morale de la France_, +p. 98.] + +[Footnote 7: _Etudes d'Histoire Religieuse_, Preface, p. xvi.] + +[Footnote 8: In 1779 the Academy of Prussia announced this as the +question for their annual prize essay:--'_S'il est utile au peuple +d'être trompé_.' They received thirty-three essays; twenty showing that +it is not useful, thirteen showing that it is. The Academy, with an +impartiality that caused much amusement in Paris and Berlin, awarded two +prizes, one to the best proof of the negative answer, another to the +best proof of the affirmative. See Bartholmess, _Hist. Philosophique de +l'Académie de Prusse_, i. 281, and ii. 278. Condorcet did not actually +compete for the prize, but he wrote a very acute piece, suggested by the +theme, which was printed in 1790. _Oeuv._ v. 343. + +To illustrate the common fact of certain currents of thought being in +the air at given times, we may mention that in 1770 was published the +posthumous work of another Frenchman, Chesneau du Marsais (1676-1756) +entitled:--'_Essai sur les Préjugés; ou de l'influence des Opinions sur +les Moeurs et sur le Bonheur des Hommes_.' The principal prejudices to +which he refers are classed under Antiquity--Ancestry--Native +Country--Religion--Respect for Wealth. Some of the reasoning is almost +verbally identical with Condorcet's. For an account of Du Marsais, see +D'Alembert, _Oeuv._ iii 481.] + +[Footnote 9: _Oeuv._ v. 354.] + +[Footnote 10: Mill's _Three Essays on Religion_, p.73. I have offered +some criticisms on the whole passage in _Critical Miscellanies, Second +Series_, pp. 300-304.] + +[Footnote 11: 'Enfin, supposons pour un instant que le dogme de l'autre +vie soit de quelqu'utilité, et qu'il retienne vraiment un petit nombre +d'individus, qu'est-ce que ces foibles avantages comparés à la foule de +maux que l'on en voir découler? Contre un homme timide que cette idée +contient, il en est des millions qu'elle ne peut contenir; il en des +millions qu'elle rend insensés, farouches, fanatiques, inutiles et +méchants; il en est des millions qu'elle détourne de leurs devoirs +envers la société; il en est une infinité qu'elle afflige et qu'elle +trouble, sans aucun bien réel pour leurs associés.--_Système de la +Nature_, i. xiii.] + +[Footnote 12: Sir J.F. Stephen's _Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity_, +2d. ed., p. 19, _note_.] + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +INTELLECTUAL RESPONSIBILITY AND THE POLITICAL SPIRIT. + +We have been considering the position of those who would fain divide the +community into two great castes; the one of thoughtful and instructed +persons using their minds freely, but guarding their conclusions in +strict reserve; the other of the illiterate or unreflecting, who should +have certain opinions and practices taught them, not because they are +true or are really what their votaries are made to believe them to be, +but because the intellectual superiors of the community think the +inculcation of such a belief useful in all cases save their own. Nor is +this a mere theory. On the contrary, it is a fair description of an +existing state of things. We have the old _disciplina arcani_ among us +in as full force as in the primitive church, but with an all-important +difference. The Christian fathers practised reserve for the sake of +leading the acolyte the more surely to the fulness of truth. The modern +economiser keeps back his opinions, or dissembles the grounds of them, +for the sake of leaving his neighbours the more at their ease in the +peaceful sloughs of prejudice and superstition and low ideals. We quote +Saint Paul when he talked of making himself all things to all men, and +of becoming to the Jews a Jew, and as without the Law to the heathen. +But then we do so with a view to justifying ourselves for leaving the +Jew to remain a Jew, and the heathen to remain heathen. We imitate the +same apostle in accepting old time-worn altars dedicated to the Unknown +God. We forget that he made the ancient symbol the starting-point of a +revolutionised doctrine. There is, as anybody can see, a whole world of +difference between the reserve of sagacious apostleship, on the one +hand, dealing tenderly with scruple and tearfulness and fine sensibility +of conscience, and the reserve of intellectual cowardice on the other +hand, dealing hypocritically with narrow minds in the supposed interests +of social peace and quietness. The old _disciplina arcani_ signified +the disclosure of a little light with a view to the disclosure of more. +The new means the dissimulation of truth with a view to the perpetuation +of error. Consider the difference between these two fashions of +compromise, in their effects upon the mind and character of the person +compromising. The one is fully compatible with fervour and hopefulness +and devotion to great causes. The other stamps a man with artifice, and +hinders the free eagerness of his vision, and wraps him about with +mediocrity,--not always of understanding, but that still worse thing, +mediocrity of aspiration and purpose. + +The coarsest and most revolting shape which the doctrine of conformity +can assume, and its degrading consequences to the character of the +conformer, may be conveniently illustrated by a passage in the life of +Hume. He looked at things in a more practical manner than would find +favour with the sentimental champions of compromise in nearer times. +There is a well-known letter of Hume's, in which he recommends a young +man to become a clergyman, on the ground that it was very hard to got +any tolerable civil employment, and that as Lord Bute was then all +powerful, his friend would be certain of preferment. In answer to the +young man's scruples as to the Articles and the rest, Hume says:-- + +'It is putting too great a respect on the vulgar and their superstitions +to pique one's self on sincerity with regard to them. If the thing were +worthy of being treated gravely, I should tell him [the young man] that +the Pythian oracle with the approbation of Xenophon advised every one to +worship the gods--[Greek: nhomô pholeôs]. I wish it were still in my +power to be a hypocrite in this particular. The common duties of society +usually require it; and the ecclesiastical profession only adds a little +more to an innocent dissimulation, or rather simulation, without which +it is impossible to pass through the world.'[13] + +This is a singularly straightforward way of stating a view which +silently influences a much greater number of men than it is pleasant to +think of. They would shrink from throwing their conduct into so gross a +formula. They will lift up their hands at this quotation, so strangely +blind are we to the hiding-places of our own hearts, even when others +flash upon them the terrible illumination that comes of calling conduct +and motives by plain names. Now it is not merely the moral improbity of +these cases which revolts us--the improbity of making in solemn form a +number of false statements for the sake of earning a livelihood; of +saying in order to get money or social position that you accept a number +of propositions which in fact you utterly reject; of declaring expressly +that you trust you are inwardly moved to take upon you this office and +ministration by the Holy Ghost, when the real motive is a desire not to +miss the chance of making something out of the Earl of Bute. This side +of such dissimulation is shocking enough. And it is not any more +shocking to the most devout believer than it is to people who doubt +whether there be any Holy Ghost or not. Those who no longer place their +highest faith in powers above and beyond men, are for that very reason +more deeply interested than others in cherishing the integrity and +worthiness of man himself. Apart, however, from the immorality of such +reasoned hypocrisy, which no man with a particle of honesty will +attempt to blink, there is the intellectual improbity which it brings in +its train, the infidelity to truth, the disloyalty to one's own +intelligence. Gifts of understanding are numbed and enfeebled in a man, +who has once played such a trick with his own conscience as to persuade +himself that, because the vulgar are superstitious, it is right for the +learned to earn money by turning themselves into the ministers and +accomplices of superstition. If he is clever enough to see through the +vulgar and their beliefs, he is tolerably sure to be clever enough from +time to time and in his better moments to see through himself. He begins +to suspect himself of being an impostor. That suspicion gradually unmans +him when he comes to use his mind in the sphere of his own +enlightenment. One of really superior power cannot escape these better +moments and the remorse that they bring. As he advances in life, as his +powers ought to be coming to fuller maturity and his intellectual +productiveness to its prime, just in the same degree the increasing +seriousness of life multiplies such moments and deepens their remorse, +and so the light of intellectual promise slowly goes out in impotent +endeavour, or else in taking comfort that much goods are laid up, or, +what is deadliest of all, in a soulless cynicism. + +We do not find out until it is too late that the intellect too, at least +where it is capable of being exercised on the higher objects, has its +sensitiveness. It loses its colour and potency and finer fragrance in an +atmosphere of mean purpose and low conception of the sacredness of fact +and reality. Who has not observed inferior original power achieving +greater results even in the intellectual field itself, where the +superior understanding happens to have been unequally yoked with a +self-seeking character, over scenting the expedient? If Hume had been in +the early productive part of his life the hypocrite which he wished it +were in his power to show himself in its latter part, we may be +tolerably sure that European philosophy would have missed one of its +foremost figures. It has been often said that he who begins life by +stifling his convictions is in a fair way for ending it without any +convictions to stifle. We may, perhaps, add that he who sets out with +the notion that the difference between truth and falsehood is a thing of +no concern to the vulgar, is very likely sooner or later to come to the +kindred notion that it is not a thing of any supreme concern to himself. + +Let thus much have been said as to those who deliberately and knowingly +sell their intellectual birthright for a mess of pottage, making a +brazen compromise with what they hold despicable, lest they should have +to win their bread honourably. Men need to expend no declamatory +indignation upon them. They have a hell of their own; words can add no +bitterness to it. It is no light thing to have secured a livelihood on +condition of going through life masked and gagged. To be compelled, week +after week, and year after year, to recite the symbols of ancient faith +and lift up his voice in the echoes of old hopes, with the blighting +thought in his soul that the faith is a lie, and the hope no more than +the folly of the crowd; to read hundreds of times in a twelvemonth with +solemn unction as the inspired word of the Supreme what to him are +meaningless as the Abracadabras of the conjuror in a booth; to go on to +the end of his days administering to simple folk holy rites of +commemoration and solace, when he has in his mind at each phrase what +dupes are those simple folk and how wearisomely counterfeit their rites: +and to know through all that this is really to be the one business of +his prostituted life, that so dreary and hateful a piece of play-acting +will make the desperate retrospect of his last hours--of a truth here is +the very [Greek: bdhelygma tês erêmhôseôs], the abomination of +desolation of the human spirit indeed. + +No one will suppose that this is designed for the normal type of priest. +But it is well to study tendencies in their extreme catastrophe. This is +only the catastrophe, in one of its many shapes, of the fatal doctrine +that money, position, power, philanthropy, or any of the thousand +seductive masks of the pseudo-expedient, may carry a man away from love +of truth and yet leave him internally unharmed. The depravation that +follows the trucking for money of intellectual freedom and self-respect, +attends in its degree each other departure from disinterested following +of truth, and each other substitution of convenience, whether public or +private, in its place. And both parties to such a compromise are losers. +The world which offers gifts and tacitly undertakes to ask no questions +as to the real state of the timeserver's inner mind, loses no less than +the timeserver himself who receives the gifts and promises to hold his +peace. It is as though a society placed penalties on mechanical +inventions and the exploration of new material resources, and offered +bounties for the steadiest adherence to all ancient processes in culture +and production. The injury to wealth in the one case would not be any +deeper than the injury to morality is in the other. + + +To pass on to less sinister forms of this abnegation of intellectual +responsibility. In the opening sentences of the first chapter we spoke +of a wise suspense in forming opinions, a wise reserve in expressing +them, and a wise tardiness in trying to realise them. Thus we meant to +mark out the three independent provinces of compromise, each of them +being the subject of considerations that either do not apply at all to +the other two, or else apply in a different degree. Disingenuousness or +self-illusion, arising from a depressing deference to the existing state +of things, or to what is immediately practicable, or to what other +people would think of us if they knew our thoughts, is the result of +compromising truth in the matter of forming and holding opinions. +Secondly, positive simulation is what comes of an unlawful willingness +to compromise in the matter of avowing and publishing them. Finally, +pusillanimity or want of faith is the vice that belongs to unlawful +compromise in the department of action and realisation. This is not +merely a division arranged for convenience of discussion. It goes to the +root of conduct and character, and is the key to the present mood of our +society. It is always a hardy thing to attempt to throw a complex matter +into very simple form, but we should say that the want of energy and +definiteness in contemporary opinions, of which we first complained, is +due mainly to the following notion; that if a subject is not ripe for +practical treatment, you and I are therefore entirely relieved from the +duty of having clear ideas about it. If the majority cling to an +opinion, why should we ask whether that is the sound and right opinion +or the reverse? Now this notion, which springs from a confusion of the +three fields of compromise with one another, quietly reigns almost +without dispute. The devotion to the practical aspect of truth is in +such excess, as to make people habitually deny that it can be worth +while to form an opinion, when it happens at the moment to be incapable +of realisation, for the reason that there is no direct prospect of +inducing a sufficient number of persons to share it. 'We are quite +willing to think that your view is the right one, and would produce all +the improvements for which you hope; but then there is not the smallest +chance of persuading the only persons able to carry out such a view; why +therefore discuss it?' No talk is more familiar to us than this. As if +the mere possibility of the view being a right one did not obviously +entitle it to discussion; discussion being the only process by which +people are likely to be induced to accept it, or else to find good +grounds for finally dismissing it. + +It is precisely because we believe that opinion, and nothing but +opinion, can effect great permanent changes, that we ought to be +careful to keep this most potent force honest, wholesome, fearless, and +independent. Take the political field. Politicians and newspapers almost +systematically refuse to talk about a new idea, which is not capable of +being at once embodied in a bill, and receiving the royal assent before +the following August. There is something rather contemptible, seen from +the ordinary standards of intellectual integrity, in the position of a +minister who waits to make up his mind whether a given measure, say the +disestablishment of the Irish Church, is in itself and on the merits +desirable, until the official who runs diligently up and down the +backstairs of the party, tells him that the measure is practicable and +required in the interests of the band. On the one hand, a leader is +lavishly panegyrised for his highmindedness, in suffering himself to be +driven into his convictions by his party. On the other, a party is +extolled for its political tact, in suffering itself to be forced out of +its convictions by its leader. It is hard to decide which is the more +discreditable and demoralising sight. The education of chiefs by +followers, and of followers by chiefs, into the abandonment in a month +of the traditions of centuries or the principles of a lifetime may +conduce to the rapid and easy working of the machine. It certainly marks +a triumph of the political spirit which the author of _The Prince_ might +have admired. It is assuredly mortal to habits of intellectual +self-respect in the society which allows itself to be amused by the +cajolery and legerdemain and self-sophistication of its rulers. + +Of course there are excellent reasons why a statesman immersed in the +actual conduct of affairs, should confine his attention to the work +which his hands find to do. But the fact that leading statesmen are of +necessity so absorbed in the tasks of the hour furnishes all the better +reason why as many other people as possible should busy themselves in +helping to prepare opinion for the practical application of unfamiliar +but weighty and promising suggestions, by constant and ready discussion +of them upon their merits. As a matter of fact it is not the men most +occupied who are usually most deaf to new ideas. It is the loungers of +politics, the quidnuncs, gossips, bustling idlers, who are most +industrious in stifling discussion by protests against the waste of +time and the loss of force involved in talking about proposals which are +not exactly ready to be voted on. As it is, everybody knows that +questions are inadequately discussed, or often not discussed at all, on +the ground that the time is not yet come for their solution. Then when +some unforeseen perturbation, or the natural course of things, forces on +the time for their resolution, they are settled in a slovenly, +imperfect, and often downright vicious manner, from the fact that +opinion has not been prepared for solving them in an efficient and +perfect manner. The so-called settlement of the question of national +education is the most recent and most deplorable illustration of what +comes of refusing to examine ideas alleged to be impracticable. Perhaps +we may venture to prophesy that the disendowment of the national church +will supply the next illustration on an imposing scale. Gratuitous +primary instruction, and the redistribution of electoral power, are +other matters of signal importance, which comparatively few men will +consent to discuss seriously and patiently, and for our indifference to +which we shall one day surely smart. A judicious and cool writer has +said that 'an opinion gravely professed by a man of sense and education +demands always respectful consideration--demands and actually receives +it from those whose own sense and education give them a correlative +right; and whoever offends against this sort of courtesy may fairly be +deemed to have forfeited the privileges it secures.'[14] That is the +least part of the matter. The serious mischief is the eventual +miscarriage and loss and prodigal waste of good ideas. + +The evil of which we have been speaking comes of not seeing the great +truth, that it is worth while to take pains to find out the best way of +doing a given task, even if you have strong grounds for suspecting that +it will ultimately be done in a worse way. And so also in spheres of +thought away from the political sphere, it is worth while 'to scorn +delights and live laborious days' in order to make as sure as we can of +having the best opinion, even if we know that this opinion has an +infinitely small chance of being speedily or ever accepted by the +majority, or by anybody but ourselves. Truth and wisdom have to bide +their time, and then take their chance after all. The most that the +individual can do is to seek them for himself, even if he seek alone. +And if it is the most, it is also the least. Yet in our present mood we +seem not to feel this. We misunderstand the considerations which should +rightly lead us in practice to surrender some of what we desire, in +order to secure the rest; and rightly make us acquiesce in a second-best +course of action, in order to avoid stagnation or retrogression. We +misunderstand all this, and go on to suppose that there are the same +grounds why we should in our own minds acquiesce in second-best +opinions; why we should mix a little alloy of conventional expression +with the too fine ore of conviction; why we should adopt beliefs that we +suspect in our hearts to be of more than equivocal authenticity, but +into whose antecedents we do not greatly care to inquire, because they +stand so well with the general public. This is compromise or economy or +management of the first of the three kinds of which we are talking. It +is economy applied to the formation of opinion; compromise or management +in making up one's mind. + +The lawfulness or expediency of it turns mainly, as with the other two +kinds of compromise, upon the relative rights of the majority and the +minority, and upon the respect which is owing from the latter to the +former. It is a very easy thing for people endowed with the fanatical +temperament, or demoralised by the habit of looking at society +exclusively from the juridical point of view, to insist that no respect +at all, except the respect that arises from being too weak to have your +own way, is due from either to the other. This shallow and mischievous +notion rests either on a misinterpretation of the experience of +civilised societies, or else on nothing more creditable than an +arbitrary and unreflecting temper. Those who have thought most carefully +and disinterestedly about the matter, are agreed that in advanced +societies the expedient course is that no portion of the community +should insist on imposing its own will upon any other portion, except in +matters which are vitally connected with the maintenance of the social +union. The question where this vital connection begins is open to much +discussion. The line defining the sphere of legitimate interference may +be drawn variously, whether at self-regarding acts, or in some other +condition and element of conduct. Wherever this line may be best taken, +not only abstract speculation, but the practical and spontaneous tact of +the world, has decided that there are limits, alike in the interest of +majority and minority, to the rights of either to disturb the other. In +other words, it is expedient in certain affairs that the will of the +majority should be absolutely binding, while in affairs of a different +order it should count for nothing, or as nearly nothing, as the sociable +dependence of a man on his fellows will permit. + +Our thesis is this. In the positive endeavour to realise an opinion, to +convert a theory into practice, it may be, and very often is, highly +expedient to defer to the prejudices of the majority, to move very +slowly, to bow to the conditions of the _status quo_, to practise the +very utmost sobriety, self-restraint, and conciliatoriness. The mere +expression of opinion, in the next place, the avowal of dissent from +received notions, the refusal to conform to language which implies the +acceptance of such notions,--this rests on a different footing. Here +the reasons for respecting the wishes and sentiments of the majority are +far less strong, though, as we shall presently see, such reasons +certainly exist, and will weigh with all well-considering men. Finally, +in the formation of an opinion as to the abstract preferableness of one +course of action over another, or as to the truth or falsehood or right +significance of a proposition, the fact that the majority of one's +contemporaries lean in the other direction is naught, and no more than +dust in the balance. In making up our minds as to what would be the +wisest line of policy if it were practicable, we have nothing to do with +the circumstance that it is not practicable. And in settling with +ourselves whether propositions purporting to state matters of fact are +trim or not, we have to consider how far they are conformable to the +evidence. We have nothing to do with the comfort and solace which they +would be likely to bring to others or ourselves, if they were taken as +true. + +A nominal assent to this truth will be instantly given even by those who +in practice systematically disregard it. The difficulty of transforming +that nominal assent into a reality is enormous in such a community as +ours. Of all societies since the Roman Republic, and not even excepting +the Roman Republic, England has been the most emphatically and +essentially political. She has passed through military phases and +through religious phases, but they have been transitory, and the great +central stream of national life has flowed in political channels. The +political life has been stronger than any other, deeper, wider, more +persistent, more successful. The wars which built up our far-spreading +empire were not waged with designs of military conquest; they were +mostly wars for a market. The great spiritual emancipation of the +sixteenth and seventeenth centuries figures in our history partly as an +accident, partly as an intrigue, partly as a raid of nobles in search of +spoil. It was hardly until the reformed doctrine became associated with +analogous ideas and corresponding precepts in government, that people +felt at home with it, and became really interested in it. + +One great tap-root of our national increase has been the growth of +self-government, or government by deliberative bodies, representing +opposed principles and conflicting interests. With the system of +self-government has grown the habit--not of tolerance precisely, for +Englishmen when in earnest are as little in love with tolerance as +Frenchmen or any other people, but--of giving way to the will of the +majority, so long as they remain a majority. This has come to pass for +the simple reason that, on any other terms, the participation of large +numbers of people in the control and arrangement of public affairs +immediately becomes unworkable. The gradual concentration of power in +the hands of a supreme deliberative body, the active share of so many +thousands of persons in choosing and controlling its members, the close +attention with which the proceedings of parliament are followed and +watched, the kind of dignity that has been lent to parliamentary methods +by the great importance of the transactions, have all tended in the same +direction. They have all helped both to fix our strongest and most +constant interests upon politics, and to ingrain the mental habits +proper to politics, far more deeply than any other, into our general +constitution and inmost character. + +Thus the political spirit has grown to be the strongest element in our +national life; the dominant force, extending its influence over all our +ways of thinking in matters that have least to do with politics, or even +nothing at all to do with them. There has thus been engendered among us +the real sense of political responsibility. In a corresponding degree +has been discouraged, what it is the object of the present chapter to +urge, the sense of intellectual responsibility. If it were inevitable +that one of these two should always enfeeble or exclude the other, if +the price of the mental alacrity and open-mindedness of the age of +Pericles must always be paid in the political incompetence of the age of +Demosthenes, it would be hard to settle which quality ought to be most +eagerly encouraged by those who have most to do with the spiritual +direction of a community. No doubt the tone of a long-enduring and +imperial society, such as Rome was, must be conservative, drastic, +positive, hostile to the death to every speculative novelty. But then, +after all, the permanence of Roman power was only valuable to mankind +because it ensured the spread of certain civilising ideas. And these +ideas had originated among people so characteristically devoid of the +sovereign faculty of political coherency as were the Greeks and the +Jews. In the Greeks, it is true, we find not only ideas of the highest +speculative fertility, but actual political institutions. Still we +should hardly point to Greek history for the most favourable examples of +their stable working. Practically and as a matter of history, a society +is seldom at the same time successfully energetic both in temporals and +spirituals; seldom prosperous alike in seeking abstract truth and +nursing the political spirit. There is a decisive preponderance in one +direction or the other, and the equal balance between free and active +thinking, and coherent practical energy in a community, seems too hard +to sustain. The vast military and political strength of Germany, for +instance, did not exist, and was scarcely anticipated in men's minds, +during the time of her most strenuous passion for abstract truth and +deeper learning and new criticism. In France never was political and +national interest so debilitated, so extinct, as it was during the reign +of Lewis the Fifteenth: her intellectual interest was never so vivid, +so fruitful, or so widely felt. + +Yet it is at least well, and more than that, it is an indispensable +condition of social wellbeing, that the divorce between political +responsibility and intellectual responsibility, between respect for what +is instantly practicable and search after what is only important in +thought, should not be too complete and universal. Even if there were no +other objection, the undisputed predominance of the political spirit has +a plain tendency to limit the subjects in which the men animated by it +can take a real interest. All matters fall out of sight, or at least +fall into a secondary place, which do not bear more or less directly and +patently upon the material and structural welfare of the community. In +this way the members of the community miss the most bracing, widening, +and elevated of the whole range of influences that create great +characters. First, they lose sincere concern about the larger questions +which the human mind has raised up for itself. Second, they lose a +fearless desire to reach the true answers to them, or if no certain +answers should prove to be within reach, then at any rate to be +satisfied on good grounds that this is so. Such questions are not +immediately discerned by commonplace minds to be of social import. +Consequently they, and all else that is not obviously connected with the +machinery of society, give way in the public consideration to what is so +connected with it, in a manner that cannot be mistaken. + +Again, even minds that are not commonplace are affected for the worse by +the same spirit. They are aware of the existence of the great +speculative subjects and of their importance, but the pressure of the +political spirit on such men makes them afraid of the conclusions to +which free inquiry might bring them. Accordingly they abstain from +inquiry, and dread nothing so much as making up their minds. They see +reasons for thinking that, if they applied themselves seriously to the +formation of true opinions in this or that department, they would come +to conclusions which, though likely to make their way in the course of +some centuries, are wholly unpopular now, and which might ruin the +influence of anybody suspected of accepting, or even of so much as +leaning towards, them. Life, they reflect, is short; missionaries do +not pass for a very agreeable class, nor martyrs for a very sensible +class; one can only do a trifling amount of good in the world, at best; +it is moral suicide to throw away any chance of achieving even that +trifle; and therefore it is best not only not to express, but not to +take the trouble to acquire, right views in this quarter or that, and to +draw clear away from such or such a region of thought, for the sake of +keeping peace on earth and superficial good will among men. + +It would be too harsh to stigmatise such a train of thought as +self-seeking and hypocritical. It is the natural product of the +political spirit, which is incessantly thinking of present consequences +and the immediately feasible. There is nothing in the mere dread of +losing it, to hinder influence from being well employed, so far as it +goes. But one can hardly overrate the ill consequences of this +particular kind of management, this unspoken bargaining with the little +circle of his fellows which constitutes the world of a man. If he may +retain his place among them as preacher or teacher, he is willing to +forego his birthright of free explanation; he consents to be blind to +the duty which attaches to every intelligent man of having some clear +ideas, even though only provisional ones, upon the greatest subjects of +human interest, and of deliberately preferring these, whatever they may +be, to their opposites. Either an individual or a community is fatally +dwarfed by any such limitation of the field in which one is free to use +his mind. For it is a limitation, not prescribed by absorption in one +set of subjects rather than another, nor by insufficient preparation for +the discussion of certain subjects, nor by indolence nor incuriousness, +but solely by apprehension of the conclusions to which such use of the +mind might bring the too courageous seeker. If there were no other ill +effect, this kind of limitation would at least have the radical +disadvantage of dulling the edge of responsibility, of deadening the +sharp sense of personal answerableness either to a God, or to society, +or to a man's own conscience and intellectual self-respect. + +How momentous a disadvantage this is, we can best know by contemplating +the characters which have sometimes lighted up the old times. Men were +then devoutly persuaded that their eternal salvation depended on their +having true beliefs. Any slackness in finding out which beliefs are the +true ones would have to be answered for before the throne of Almighty +God, at the sure risk and peril of everlasting damnation. To what +quarter in the large historic firmament can we turn our eyes with such +certainty of being stirred and elevated, of thinking better of human +life and the worth of those who have been most deeply penetrated by its +seriousness, as to the annals of the intrepid spirits whom the +protestant doctrine of indefeasible personal responsibility brought to +the front in Germany in the sixteenth century, and in England and +Scotland in the seventeenth? It is not their fanaticism, still less is +it their theology, which makes the great Puritan chiefs of England and +the stern Covenanters of Scotland so heroic in our sight. It is the fact +that they sought truth and ensued it, not thinking of the practicable +nor cautiously counting majorities and minorities, but each man +pondering and searching so 'as ever in the great Taskmaster's eye.' + +It is no adequate answer to urge that this awful consciousness of a +divine presence and supervision has ceased to be the living fact it once +was. That partly explains, but it certainly does not justify, our +present lassitude. For the ever-wakeful eye of celestial power is not +the only conceivable stimulus to responsibility. To pass from those grim +heroes of protestantism to the French philosophers of the last century +is a wide leap in a hundred respects, yet they too were pricked by the +oestrus of intellectual responsibility. Their doctrine was dismally +insufficient, and sometimes, as the present writer has often pointed +out, it was directly vicious. Their daily lives were surrounded by much +shabbiness and many meannesses. But, after all, no temptation and no +menace, no pains or penalties for thinking about certain subjects, and +no rewards for turning to think about something else, could divert such +men as Voltaire and Diderot from their alert and strenuous search after +such truth as could be vouchsafed to their imperfect lights. A +catastrophe followed, it is true, but the misfortunes which attended it +were due more to the champions of tradition and authority than to the +soldiers of emancipation. Even in the case of the latter, they were due +to an inadequate doctrine, and not at all either to their sense of the +necessity of free speculation and inquiry, or to the intrepidity with +which they obeyed the promptings of that ennobling sense. + +Perhaps the latest attempt of a considerable kind to suppress the +political spirit in non-political concerns was the famous movement which +had its birth a generation ago among the gray quadrangles and ancient +gardens of Oxford, 'the sweet city with her dreaming spires,' where +there has ever been so much detachment from the world, alongside of the +coarsest and fiercest hunt after the grosser prizes of the world. No one +has much less sympathy with the direction of the tractarian revival than +the present writer, in whose Oxford days the star of Newman had set, and +the sun of Mill had risen in its stead. And it is needful to distinguish +the fervid and strong spirits with whom the revival began from the +mimics of our later day. No doubt the mere occasion of tractarianism was +political. Its leaders were alarmed at the designs imputed to the newly +reformed parliament of disestablishing the Anglican Church. They asked +themselves the question, which I will put in their own words (_Tract_ +i.)--'Should the government of the country so far forget their God as to +cut off the Church, to deprive it of its temporal honours and substance, +on what will you rest the claims to respect and attention which you make +upon your flock? In answering this question they speedily found +themselves, as might have been expected, at the opposite pole of thought +from things political. The whole strength of their appeal to members of +the Church lay in men's weariness of the high and dry optimism, which +presents the existing order of things as the noblest possible, and the +undisturbed way of the majority as the way of salvation. Apostolical +succession and Sacramentalism may not have been in themselves +progressive ideas. The spirit which welcomed them had at least the +virtue of taking away from Caesar the things that are not Caesar's. + +Glaring as were the intellectual faults of the Oxford movement, it was +at any rate a recognition in a very forcible way of the doctrine that +spiritual matters are not to be settled by the dicta of a political +council. It acknowledged that a man is answerable at his own peril for +having found or lost the truth. It was a warning that he must reckon +with a judge who will not account the _status quo_, nor the convenience +of a cabinet, a good plea for indolent acquiescence in theological +error. It ended, in the case of its most vigorous champions, in a final +and deliberate putting out of the eyes of the understanding. The last +act of assertion of personal responsibility was a headlong acceptance of +the responsibility of tradition and the Church. This was deplorable +enough. But apart from other advantages incidental to the tractarian +movement, such as the attention which it was the means of drawing to +history and the organic connection between present and past, it had, we +repeat, the merit of being an effective protest against what may be +called the House of Commons' view of human life--a view excellent in its +place, but most blighting and dwarfing out of it. It was, what every +sincere uprising of the better spirit in men and women must always be, +an effective protest against the leaden tyranny of the man of the world +and the so-called practical person. The man of the world despises +catholics for taking their religious opinions on trust and being the +slaves of tradition. As if he had himself formed his own most important +opinions either in religion or anything else. He laughs at them for +their superstitious awe of the Church. As if his own inward awe of the +Greater Number were one whit less of a superstition. He mocks their +deference for the past. As if his own absorbing deference to the present +were one tittle better bottomed or a jot more respectable. The modern +emancipation will profit us very little if the _status quo_ is to be +fastened round our necks with the despotic authority of a heavenly +dispensation, and if in the stead of ancient Scriptures we are to accept +the plenary inspiration of Majorities. + + +It may be urged that if, as it is the object of the present chapter to +state, there are opinions which a man should form for himself, and which +it may yet be expedient that he should not only be slow to attempt to +realise in practical life, but sometimes even slow to express,--then we +are demanding from him the performance of a troublesome duty, while we +are taking from him the only motives which could really induce him to +perform it. If, it may be asked, I am not to carry my notions into +practice, nor try to induce others to accept them, nor even boldly +publish them, why in the name of all economy of force should I take so +much pains in forming opinions which are, after all, on these conditions +so very likely to come to naught? The answer to this is that opinions do +not come to naught, even if the man who holds them should never think +fit to publish them. For one thing, as we shall see in our next +division, the conditions which make against frank declaration of our +convictions are of rare occurrence. And, apart from this, convictions +may well exert a most decisive influence over our conduct, even if +reasons exist, or seem to exist, for not pressing them on others. Though +themselves invisible to the outer world, they may yet operate with +magnetic force both upon other parts of our belief which the outer world +does see, and upon the whole of our dealings with it. Whether we are +good or bad, it is only a broken and incoherent fragment of our whole +personality that even those who are intimate with us, much less the +common world, can ever come into contact with. The important thing is +that the personality itself should be as little as possible broken, +incoherent, and fragmentary; that reasoned and consistent opinions +should back a firm will, and independent convictions inspire the +intellectual self-respect and strenuous self-possession which the +clamour of majorities and the silent yet ever-pressing force of the +_status quo_ are equally powerless to shake. + +Character is doubtless of far more importance than mere intellectual +opinion. We only too often see highly rationalised convictions in +persons of weak purpose or low motives. But while fully recognising +this, and the sort of possible reality which lies at the root of such a +phrase as 'godless intellect' or 'intellectual devils'--though the +phrase has no reality when it is used by self-seeking politicians or +prelates--yet it is well to remember the very obvious truth that +opinions are at least an extremely important part of character. As it is +sometimes put, what we think has a prodigiously close connection with +what we are. The consciousness of having reflected seriously and +conclusively on important questions, whether social or spiritual, +augments dignity while it does not lessen humility. In this sense, +taking thought can and does add a cubit to our stature. Opinions which +we may not feel bound or even permitted to press on other people, are +not the less forces for being latent. They shape ideals, and it is +ideals that inspire conduct. They do this, though from afar, and though +he who possesses them may not presume to take the world into his +confidence. Finally, unless a man follows out ideas to their full +conclusion without fear what the conclusion may be, whether he thinks it +expedient to make his thought and its goal fully known or not, it is +impossible that he should acquire a commanding grasp of principles. And +a commanding grasp of principles, whether they are public or not, is at +the very root of coherency of character. It raises mediocrity near to a +level with the highest talents, if those talents are in company with a +disposition that allows the little prudences of the hour incessantly to +obscure the persistent laws of things. These persistencies, if a man +has once satisfied himself of their direction and mastered their +bearings and application, are just as cogent and valuable a guide to +conduct, whether he publishes them _ad urbem et orbem_, or esteems them +too strong meat for people who have, through indurated use and wont, +lost the courage of facing unexpected truths. + +One conspicuous result of the failure to see that our opinions have +roots to them, independently of the feelings which either majorities or +other portions of the people around us may entertain about them, is that +neither political matters nor any other serious branches of opinion, +engage us in their loftiest or most deep-reaching forms. The advocate of +a given theory of government or society is so misled by a wrong +understanding of the practice of just and wise compromise in applying +it, as to forget the noblest and most inspiring shape which his theory +can be made to assume. It is the worst of political blunders to insist +on carrying an ideal set of principles into execution, where others have +rights of dissent, and those others persons whose assent is as +indispensable to success, as it is impossible to attain. But to be +afraid or ashamed of holding such an ideal set of principles in one's +mind in their highest and most abstract expression, does more than any +one other cause to stunt or petrify those elements in character to which +life should owe most of its savour. + +If a man happens to be a Conservative, for instance, it is pitiful that +he should think so much more of what other people on his side or the +other think, than of the widest and highest of the ideas on which a +conservative philosophy of life and human society reposes. Such ideas +are these,--that the social union is the express creation and ordering +of the Deity: that its movements follow his mysterious and fixed +dispensation: that the church and the state are convertible terms, and +each citizen of the latter is an incorporated member of the former: that +conscience, if perversely and misguidedly self-asserting, has no rights +against the decrees of the conscience of the nation: that it is the most +detestable of crimes to perturb the pacific order of society either by +active agitation or speculative restlessness; that descent from a long +line of ancestors in great station adds an element of dignity to life, +and imposes many high obligations. We do not say that these and the +rest of the propositions which make up the true theoretic basis of a +conservative creed, are proper for the hustings, or expedient in an +election address or a speech in parliament. We do say that if these high +and not unintelligible principles, which alone can give to reactionary +professions any worth or significance, were present in the minds of men +who speak reactionary language, the country would be spared the ignominy +of seeing certain real truths of society degraded at the hands of +aristocratic adventurers and plutocratic parasites into some miserable +process of 'dishing Whigs.' + +This impoverishment of aims and depravation of principles by the triumph +of the political spirit outside of its proper sphere, cannot +unfortunately be restricted to any one set of people in the state. It is +something in the very atmosphere, which no sanitary cordon can limit. +Liberalism, too, would be something more generous, more attractive--yes, +and more practically effective, if its professors and champions could +allow their sense of what is feasible to be refreshed and widened by a +more free recognition, however private and undemonstrative, of the +theoretic ideas which give their social creed whatever life and +consistency it may have. Such ideas are these: That the conditions of +the social union are not a mystery, only to be touched by miracle, but +the results of explicable causes, and susceptible of constant +modification: that the thoughts of wise and patriotic men should be +perpetually turned towards the improvement of these conditions in every +direction: that contented acquiescence in the ordering that has come +down to us from the past is selfish and anti-social, because amid the +ceaseless change that is inevitable in a growing organism, the +institutions of the past demand progressive re-adaptations: that such +improvements are most likely to be secured in the greatest abundance by +limiting the sphere of authority, extending that of free individuality, +and steadily striving after the bestowal, so far as the nature of things +will ever permit it, of equality of opportunity: that while there is +dignity in ancestry, a modern society is only safe in proportion as it +summons capacity to its public counsels and enterprises; that such a +society to endure must progress: that progress on its political side +means more than anything else the substitution of Justice as a governing +idea, instead of Privilege, and that the best guarantee for justice in +public dealings is the participation in their own government of the +people most likely to suffer from injustice. This is not an exhaustive +account of the progressive doctrine, and we have here nothing to say as +to its soundness. We only submit that if those who use the watchwords of +Liberalism were to return upon its principles, instead of dwelling +exclusively on practical compromises, the tone of public life would be +immeasurably raised. The cause of social improvement would be less +systematically balked of the victories that are best worth gaining. +Progress would mean something more than mere entrances and exits on the +theatre of office. We should not see in the mass of parliamentary +candidates--and they are important people, because nearly every +Englishman with any ambition is a parliamentary candidate, actual or +potential--that grave anxiety, that sober rigour, that immense caution, +which are all so really laughable, because so many of those men are only +anxious lest they should make a mistake in finding out what the +majority of their constituents would like them to think; only rigorous +against those who are indiscreet enough to press a principle against the +beck of a whip or a wire-puller; and only very cautious not so much lest +their opinion should be wrong, as lest it should not pay. + + +Indolence and timidity have united to popularise among us a flaccid +latitudinarianism, which thinks itself a benign tolerance for the +opinions of others. It is in truth only a pretentious form of being +without settled opinions of our own, and without any desire to settle +them. No one can complain of the want of speculative activity at the +present time in a certain way. The air, at a certain social elevation, +is as full as it has ever been of ideas, theories, problems, possible +solutions, suggested questions, and proffered answers. But then they are +at large, without cohesion, and very apt to be the objects even in the +more instructed minds of not much more than dilettante interest. We see +in solution an immense number of notions, which people think it quite +unnecessary to precipitate in the form of convictions. We constantly +hear the age lauded for its tolerance, for its candour, for its openness +of mind, for the readiness with which a hearing is given to ideas that +forty years ago, or even less than that, would have excluded persons +suspected of holding them from decent society, and in fact did so +exclude them. Before, however, we congratulate ourselves too warmly on +this, let us be quite sure that we are not mistaking for tolerance what +is really nothing more creditable than indifference. These two attitudes +of mind, which are so vitally unlike in their real quality, are so hard +to distinguish in their outer seeming. + +One is led to suspect that carelessness is the right name for what looks +like reasoned toleration, by such a line of consideration as the +following. It is justly said that at the bottom of all the great +discussions of modern society lie the two momentous questions, first +whether there is a God, and second whether the soul is immortal. In +other words, whether our fellow-creatures are the highest beings who +take an interest in us, or in whom we need take an interest; and, then, +whether life in this world is the only life of which we shall ever be +conscious. It is true of most people that when they are talking of +evolution, and the origin of species, and the experiential or +intuitional source of ideas, and the utilitarian or transcendental basis +of moral obligation, these are the questions which they really have in +their minds. Now, in spite of the scientific activity of the day, nobody +is likely to contend that men are pressed keenly in their souls by any +poignant stress of spiritual tribulation in the face of the two supreme +enigmas. Nobody will say that there is much of that striving and +wrestling and bitter agonising, which whole societies of men have felt +before now on questions of far less tremendous import. Ours, as has been +truly said, is 'a time of loud disputes and weak convictions,' In a +generation deeply impressed by a sense of intellectual responsibility +this could not be. As it is, even superior men are better pleased to +play about the height of these great arguments, to fly in busy +intellectual sport from side to side, from aspect to aspect, than they +are intent on resolving what it is, after all, that the discussion comes +to and to which solution, when everything has been said and heard, the +balance of truth really to incline. There are too many giggling +epigrams; people are too willing to look on collections of mutually +hostile opinions with the same kind of curiosity which they bestow on a +collection of mutually hostile beasts in a menagerie. They have very +faint predilections for one rather than another. If they were truly +alive to the duty of conclusiveness, or to the inexpressible magnitude +of the subjects which nominally occupy their minds, but really only +exercise their tongues, this elegant Pyrrhonism would be impossible, and +this light-hearted neutrality most unendurable. + +Well has the illustrious Pascal said with reference to one of the two +great issues of the modern controversy:--'The immortality of the soul is +a thing that concerns us so closely and touches us so profoundly, that +one must have lost all feeling to be indifferent as to knowing how the +matter is. All our actions and all our thoughts must follow such +different paths, according as there are eternal goods to hope for or are +not, that it is impossible to take a step with sense and judgment, +without regulating it in view of this point, which ought to be our first +object.... I can have nothing but compassion for those who groan and +travail in this doubt with all sincerity, who look on it as the worst of +misfortunes, and who, sparing no pains to escape from it, make of this +search their chief and most serious employment.... But he who doubts and +searches not is at the same time a grievous wrongdoer, and a grievously +unfortunate man. If along with this he is tranquil and self-satisfied, +if he publishes his contentment to the world and plumes himself upon it, +and if it is this very state of doubt which he makes the subject of his +joy and vanity--I have no terms in which to describe so extravagant a +creature.'[15] Who, except a member of the school of extravagant +creatures themselves, would deny that Pascal's irritation is most +wholesome and righteous? + +Perhaps in reply to this, we may be confronted by our own doctrine of +intellectual responsibility interpreted in a directly opposite sense. We +may be reminded of the long array of difficulties that interfere between +us and knowledge in that tremendous matter, and of objections that rise +in such perplexing force to an answer either one way or the other. And +finally we may be despatched with a eulogy of caution and a censure of +too great heat after certainty. The answer is that there is a kind of +Doubt not without search, but after and at the end of search, which is +not open to Pascal's just reproaches against the more ignoble and +frivolous kind. And this too has been described for us by a subtle +doctor of Pascal's communion. 'Are there pleasures of Doubt, as well as +of Inference and Assent? In one sense there are. Not indeed if doubt +means ignorance, uncertainty, or hopeless suspense; but there is a +certain grave acquiescence in ignorance, a recognition of our impotence +to solve momentous and urgent questions, which has a satisfaction of its +own. After high aspirations, after renewed endeavours, after bootless +toil, after long wanderings, after hope, effort, weariness, failure, +painfully alternating and recurring, it is an immense relief to the +exhausted mind to be able to say, "At length I know that I can know +nothing about anything." ... Ignorance remains the evil which it ever +was, but something of the peace of certitude is gained in knowing the +worst, and in having reconciled the mind to the endurance of it.'[16] +Precisely, and what one would say of our own age is that it will not +deliberately face this knowledge of the worst. So it misses the peace of +certitude, and not only its peace, but the strength and coherency that +follow strict acceptance of the worst, when the worst is after all the +best within reach. + +Those who are in earnest when they blame too great haste after +certainty, do in reality mean us to embrace certainty, but in favour of +the vulgar opinions. They only see the prodigious difficulties of the +controversy when you do not incline to their own side in it. They only +panegyrise caution and the strictly provisional when they suspect that +intrepidity and love of the conclusive would lead them to unwelcome +shores. These persons, however, whether fortunately or unfortunately, +have no longer much influence over the most active part of the national +intelligence. Whether permanently or not, resolute orthodoxy, however +prosperous it may seem among many of the uncultivated rich, has lost its +hold upon thought. For thought has become dispersive, and the +centrifugal forces of the human mind, among those who think seriously, +have for the time become dominant and supreme. No one, I suppose, +imagines that the singular ecclesiastical revival which is now going on, +is accompanied by any revival of real and reasoned belief; or that the +opulent manufacturers who subscribe so generously for restored cathedral +fabrics and the like, have been moved by the apologetics of _Aids to +Faith_ and the Christian Evidence Society. + +Obviously only three ways of dealing with the great problems of which we +have spoken are compatible with a strong and well-bottomed character. We +may affirm that there is a deity with definable attributes; and that +there is a conscious state and continued personality after the +dissolution of the body. Or we may deny. Or we may assure ourselves that +we have no faculties enabling us on good evidence either to deny or +affirm. Intellectual self-respect and all the qualities that are derived +from that, may well go with any one of these three courses, decisively +followed and consistently applied in framing a rule of life and a +settled scheme of its aims and motives. Why do we say that intellectual +self-respect is not vigorous, nor the sense of intellectual +responsibility and truthfulness and coherency quick and wakeful among +us? Because so many people, even among those who might be expected to +know better, insist on the futile attempt to reconcile all those +courses, instead of fixing on one and steadily abiding in it. They speak +as if they affirmed, and they act as if they denied, and in their hearts +they cherish a slovenly sort of suspicion that we can neither deny nor +affirm. It may be said that this comes to much the same thing as if they +had formally decided in the last or neutral sense. It is not so. This +illegitimate union of three contradictories fritters character away, +breaks it up into discordant parts, and dissolves into mercurial +fluidity that leavening sincerity and free and cheerful boldness, which +come of harmonious principles of faith and action, and without which men +can never walk as confident lovers of justice and truth. + + +Ambrose's famous saying, that 'it hath not pleased the Lord to give his +people salvation in dialectic,' has a profound meaning far beyond its +application to theology. It is deeply true that our ruling convictions +are less the product of ratiocination than of sympathy, imagination, +usage, tradition. But from this it does not follow that the reasoning +faculties are to be further discouraged. On the contrary, just because +the other elements are so strong that they can be trusted to take care +of themselves, it is expedient to give special countenance to the +intellectual habits, which alone can check and rectify the constantly +aberrating tendencies of sentiment on the one side, and custom on the +other. This remark brings us to another type, of whom it is not +irrelevant to speak shortly in this place. The consequences of the +strength of the political spirit are not all direct, nor does its +strength by any means spring solely from its indulgence to the less +respectable elements of character, such as languor, extreme pliableness, +superficiality. On the contrary, it has an indirect influence in +removing the only effective restraint on the excesses of some qualities +which, when duly directed and limited, are among the most precious parts +of our mental constitution. The political spirit is the great force in +throwing love of truth and accurate reasoning into a secondary place. +The evil does not stop here. This achievement has indirectly +countenanced the postponement of intellectual methods, and the +diminution of the sense of intellectual responsibility, by a school that +is anything rather than political. + +Theology has borrowed, and coloured for her own use, the principles +which were first brought into vogue in politics. If in the one field it +is the fashion to consider convenience first and truth second, in the +other there is a corresponding fashion of placing truth second and +emotional comfort first. If there are some who compromise their real +opinions, or the chance of reaching truth, for the sake of gain, there +are far more who shrink from giving their intelligence free play, for +the sake of keeping undisturbed certain luxurious spiritual +sensibilities. This choice of emotional gratification before truth and +upright dealing with one's own understanding, creates a character that +is certainly far less unlovely than those who sacrifice their +intellectual integrity to more material convenience. The moral flaw is +less palpable and less gross. Yet here too there is the stain of +intellectual improbity, and it is perhaps all the more mischievous for +being partly hidden under the mien of spiritual exaltation. + +There is in literature no more seductive illustration of this seductive +type than Rousseau's renowned character of the Savoyard +Vicar--penetrated with scepticism as to the attributes of the deity, the +meaning of the holy rites, the authenticity of the sacred documents; yet +full of reverence, and ever respecting in silence what he could neither +reject nor understand. 'The essential worship,' he says, 'is the worship +of the heart. God never rejects this homage, under whatever form it be +offered to him. In old days I used to say mass with the levity which in +time infects even the gravest things when we do them too often. Since +acquiring my new principles [of reverential scepticism] I celebrate it +with more veneration: I am overcome by the majesty of the Supreme Being, +by his presence, by the insufficiency of the human mind, which conceives +so ill what pertains to its author. When I approach the moment of +consecration, I collect myself for performing the act with all the +feelings required by the church and the majesty of the sacrament. I +strive to annihilate my reason before the Supreme Intelligence, saying, +Who art thou that thou shouldst measure infinite power?'[17] + +The Savoyard Vicar is not imaginary. The acquiescence in indefinite +ideas for the sake of comforted emotions, and the abnegation of strong +convictions in order to make room for free and plenteous effusion, have +for us all the marks of a too familiar reality. Such a doctrine is an +everyday plea for self-deception, and a current justification for +illusion even among some of the finer spirits. They have persuaded +themselves not only that the life of the religious emotions is the +highest life, but that it is independent of the intellectual forms with +which history happens to have associated it. And so they refine and +sophisticate and make havoc with plain and honest interpretation, in +order to preserve a soft serenity of soul unperturbed. + +Now, we are not at all concerned to dispute such positions as that +Feeling is the right starting-point of moral education; that in forming +character appeal should be to the heart rather than to the +understanding; that the only basis on which our faculties can be +harmoniously ordered is the preponderance of affection over reason. +These propositions open much grave and complex discussion, and they are +not to our present purpose. We only desire to state the evil of the +notion that a man is warranted in comforting himself with dogmas and +formularies, which he has first to empty of all definite, precise, and +clearly determinable significance, before he can get them out of the way +of his religious sensibilities. Whether Reason or Affection is to have +the empire in the society of the future, when Reason may possibly have +no more to discover for us in the region of morals and religion, and so +will have become _emeritus_ and taken a lower place, as of a tutor whose +services the human family, being now grown up, no longer +requires,--however this may be, it is at least certain that in the +meantime the spiritual life of man needs direction quite as much as it +needs impulse, and light quite as much as force. This direction and +light can only be safely procured by the free and vigorous use of the +intelligence. But the intelligence is not free in the presence of a +mortal fear lest its conclusions should trouble soft tranquillity of +spirit. There is always hope of a man so long as he dwells in the region +of the direct categorical proposition and the unambiguous term; so long +as he does not deny the rightly drawn conclusion after accepting the +major and minor premisses. This may seem a scanty virtue and very easy +grace. Yet experience shows it to be too hard of attainment for those +who tamper with disinterestedness of conviction, for the sake of +luxuriating in the softness of spiritual transport without interruption +from a syllogism. It is true that there are now and then in life as in +history noble and fair natures, that by the silent teaching and +unconscious example of their inborn purity, star-like constancy, and +great devotion, do carry the world about them to further heights of +living than can be attained by ratiocination. But these, the blameless +and loved saints of the earth, rise too rarely on our dull horizons to +make a rule for the world. The law of things is that they who tamper +with veracity, from whatever motive, are tampering with the vital force +of human progress. Our comfort and the delight of the religious +imagination are no better than forms of self-indulgence, when they are +secured at the cost of that love of truth on which, more than on +anything else, the increase of light and happiness among men must +depend. We have to fight and do lifelong battle against the forces of +darkness, and anything that turns the edge of reason blunts the surest +and most potent of our weapons. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 13: Burton's _Lift of Hume,_ ii. 186-188] + +[Footnote 14: Isaac Taylor's _Natural History of Enthusiasm_, p. 226.] + +[Footnote 15: _Pensées_, II. Art ii.] + +[Footnote 16: Dr. Newman's _Grammar of Assent_, p. 201.] + +[Footnote 17: _Emile_, bk. iv.] + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +RELIGIOUS CONFORMITY. + +The main field of discussion touching Compromise in expression and +avowal lies in the region of religious belief. In politics no one +seriously contends that respect for the feelings and prejudices of other +people requires us to be silent about our opinions. A republican, for +instance, is at perfect liberty to declare himself so. Nobody will say +that he is not within his rights if he should think it worth while to +practise this liberty, though of course he will have to face the obloquy +which attends all opinion that is not shared by the more demonstrative +and vocal portions of the public. It is true that in every stable +society a general conviction prevails of the extreme undesirableness of +constantly laying bare the foundations of government. Incessant +discussion of the theoretical bases of the social union is naturally +considered worse than idle. It is felt by many wise men that the chief +business of the political thinker is to interest himself in +generalisations of such a sort as leads with tolerable straightness to +practical improvements of a far-reaching and durable kind. Even among +those, however, who thus feel it not to be worth while to be for ever +handling the abstract principles which are, after all, only clumsy +expressions of the real conditions that bring and keep men together in +society, yet nobody of any consideration pretends to silence or limit +the free discussion of these principles. Although a man is not likely to +be thanked who calls attention to the vast discrepancies between the +theory and practice of the constitution, yet nobody now would +countenance the notion of an inner doctrine in politics. We smile at the +line that Hume took in speaking of the doctrine of non-resistance. He +did not deny that the right of resistance to a tyrannical sovereign does +actually belong to a nation. But, he said, 'if ever on any occasion it +were laudable to conceal truth from the populace, it must be confessed +that the doctrine of resistance affords such an example; and that all +speculative reasoners ought to observe with regard to this principle +the same cautious silence which the laws, in every species of +government, have ever prescribed to themselves.' As if the cautious +silence of the political writer could prevent a populace from feeling +the heaviness of an oppressor's hand, and striving to find relief from +unjust burdens. As if any nation endowed with enough of the spirit of +independence to assent to the right of resistance when offered to them +as a speculative theorem, would not infallibly be led by the same spirit +to assert the right without the speculative theorem. That so acute a +head as Hume's should have failed to perceive these very plain +considerations, and that he should moreover have perpetrated the +absurdity of declaring the right of resistance, in the same breath in +which he declares the laudableness of keeping it a secret, only allows +how carefully a man need steer after he has once involved himself in the +labyrinths of Economy.[18] + +In religion the unreasonableness of imposing a similar cautious silence +is not yet fully established, nor the vicious effects of practising it +clearly recognised. In these high matters an amount of economy and +management is held praiseworthy, which in any other subject would be +universally condemned as cowardly and ignoble. Indeed the preliminary +stage has scarcely been reached--the stage in which public opinion +grants to every one the unrestricted right of shaping his own beliefs, +independently of those of the people who surround him. Any woman, for +instance, suspected of having cast behind her the Bible and all +practices of devotion and the elementary articles of the common creed, +would be distrustfully regarded even by those who wink at the same kind +of mental boldness in men. Nay, she would be so regarded even by some of +the very men who have themselves discarded as superstition what they +still wish women to retain for law and gospel. So long as any class of +adults are effectually discouraged in the free use of their minds upon +the most important subjects, we are warranted in saying that the era of +free thought, which naturally precedes the era of free speech, is still +imperfectly developed. + +The duties and rights of free speech are by no means identical with +those of independent thought. One general reason for this is tolerably +plain. The expression of opinion directly affects other people, while +its mere formation directly affects no one but ourselves. Therefore the +limits of compromise in expression are less widely and freely placed, +because the rights and interests of all who may be made listeners to our +spoken or written words are immediately concerned. In forming opinions, +a man or woman owes no consideration to any person or persons whatever. +Truth is the single object. It is truth that in the forum of conscience +claims an undivided allegiance. The publication of opinion stands on +another footing. That is an external act, with possible consequences, +like all other external acts, both to the doer and to every one within +the sphere of his influence. And, besides these, it has possible +consequences to the prosperity of the opinion itself.[19] + +A hundred questions of fitness, of seasonableness, of conflicting +expediencies, present themselves in this connection, and nothing gives +more anxiety to a sensible man who holds notions opposed to the current +prejudices, than to hit the right mark where intellectual integrity and +prudence, firmness and wise reserve, are in exact accord. When we come +to declaring opinions that are, however foolishly and unreasonably, +associated with pain and even a kind of turpitude in the minds of those +who strongly object to them, then some of our most powerful sympathies +are naturally engaged. We wonder whether duty to truth can possibly +require us to inflict keen distress on those to whom we are bound by the +tenderest and most consecrated ties. This is so wholly honourable a +sentiment, that no one who has not made himself drunk with the thin sour +wine of a crude and absolute logic will refuse to consider it. Before, +however, attempting to illustrate cases of conscience in this order, we +venture to make a short digression into the region of the matter, as +distinct from the manner of free speech. One or two changes of great +importance in the way in which men think about religion, bear directly +upon the conditions on which they may permit themselves and others to +speak about it. + + +The peculiar character of all the best kinds of dissent from the nominal +creed of the time, makes it rather less difficult for us to try to +reconcile unflinching honesty with a just and becoming regard for the +feelings of those who have claims upon our forbearance, than would have +been the case a hundred years ago. 'It is not now with a polite sneer,' +as a high ecclesiastical authority lately admitted, 'still less with a +rude buffet or coarse words, that Christianity is assailed.' Before +churchmen congratulate themselves too warmly on this improvement in the +nature of the attack, perhaps they ought to ask themselves how far it is +due to the change in the position of the defending party. The truth is +that the coarse and realistic criticism of which Voltaire was the +consummate master, has done its work. It has driven the defenders of the +old faith into the milder and more genial climate of non-natural +interpretations, and the historic sense, and a certain elastic +relativity of dogma. The old criticism was victorious, but after victory +it vanished. One reason of this was that the coarse and realistic forms +of belief had either vanished before it, or else they forsook their +ancient pretensions and clothed themselves in more modest robes. The +consequence of this, and of other causes which might be named, is that +the modern attack, while fully as serious and much more radical, has a +certain gravity, decorum, and worthiness of form. No one of any sense or +knowledge now thinks the Christian religion had its origin in +deliberate imposture. The modern freethinker does not attack it; he +explains it. And what is more, he explains it by referring its growth to +the better, and not to the worse part of human nature. He traces it to +men's cravings for a higher morality. He finds its source in their +aspirations after nobler expression of that feeling for the +incommensurable things, which is in truth under so many varieties of +inwoven pattern the common universal web of religious faith. + +The result of this way of looking at a creed which a man no longer +accepts, is that he is able to speak of it with patience and historic +respect. He can openly mark his dissent from it, without exacerbating +the orthodox sentiment by galling pleasantries or bitter animadversion +upon details. We are now awake to the all-important truth that belief in +this or that detail of superstition is the result of an irrational state +of mind, and flows logically from superstitious premisses. We see that +it is to begin at the wrong end, to assail the deductions as impossible, +instead of sedulously building up a state of mind in which their +impossibility would become spontaneously visible. + +Besides the great change which such a point of view makes in men's way +of speaking of a religion, whose dogmas and documents they reject, there +is this further consideration leaning in the same direction. The +tendency of modern free thought is more and more visibly towards the +extraction of the first and more permanent elements of the old faith, to +make the purified material of the new. When Dr. Congreve met the famous +epigram about Comte's system being Catholicism minus Christianity, by +the reply that it is Catholicism plus Science, he gave an ingenious +expression to the direction which is almost necessarily taken by all who +attempt, in however informal a manner, to construct for themselves some +working system of faith, in place of the faith which science and +criticism have sapped. In what ultimate form, acceptable to great +multitudes of men, these attempts will at last issue, no one can now +tell. For we, like the Hebrews of old, shall all have to live and die in +faith, 'not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, +and being persuaded of them, and embracing them, and confessing that we +are strangers and pilgrims on the earth.' Meanwhile, after the first +great glow and passion of the just and necessary revolt of reason +against superstition have slowly lost the exciting splendour of the +dawn, and become diffused in the colourless space of a rather bleak +noonday, the mind gradually collects again some of the ideas of the old +religion of the West, and willingly, or even joyfully, suffers itself to +be once more breathed upon by something of its spirit. Christianity was +the last great religious synthesis. It is the one nearest to us. Nothing +is more natural than that those who cannot rest content with +intellectual analysis, while awaiting the advent of the Saint Paul of +the humanitarian faith of the future, should gather up provisionally +such fragmentary illustrations of this new faith as are to be found in +the records of the old. Whatever form may be ultimately imposed on our +vague religious aspirations by some prophet to come, who shall unite +sublime depth of feeling and lofty purity of life with strong +intellectual grasp and the gift of a noble eloquence, we may at least be +sure of this, that it will stand as closely related to Christianity as +Christianity stood closely related to the old Judaic dispensation. It is +commonly assumed that the rejecters of the popular religion stand in +face of it, as the Christians stood in face of the pagan belief and +pagan rites in the Empire. The analogy is inexact. The modern denier, if +he is anything better than that, or entertains hopes of a creed to come, +is nearer to the position of the Christianising Jew.[20] Science, when +she has accomplished all her triumphs in her own order, will still have +to go back, when the time comes, to assist in the building up of a new +creed by which men can live. The builders will have to seek material in +the purified and sublimated ideas, of which the confessions and rites of +the Christian churches have been the grosser expression. Just as what +was once the new dispensation was preached _a Judaeos ad Judaeos apud +Judaeos_, so must the new, that is to be, find a Christian teacher and +Christian hearers. It can hardly be other than an expansion, a +development, a readaptation, of all the moral and spiritual truth that +lay hidden under the worn-out forms. It must be such a harmonising of +the truth with our intellectual conceptions as shall fit it to be an +active guide to conduct. In a world '_where men sit and hear each other +groan, where but to think is to be full of sorrow_,' it is hard to +imagine a time when we shall be indifferent to that sovereign legend of +Pity. We have to incorporate it in some wider gospel of Justice and +Progress. + +I shall not, I hope, be suspected of any desire to prophesy too smooth +things. It is no object of ours to bridge over the gulf between belief +in the vulgar theology and disbelief. Nor for a single moment do we +pretend that, when all the points of contact between virtuous belief and +virtuous disbelief are made the most of that good faith will allow, +there will not still and after all remain a terrible controversy between +those who cling passionately to all the consolations, mysteries, +personalities, of the orthodox faith, and us who have made up our minds +to face the worst, and to shape, as best we can, a life in which the +cardinal verities of the common creed shall have no place. The future +faith, like the faith of the past, brings not peace but a sword. It is a +tale not of concord, but of households divided against themselves. Those +who are incessantly striving to make the old bottles hold the new wine, +to reconcile the irreconcilable, to bring the Bible and the dogmas of +the churches to be good friends with history and criticism, are prompted +by the humanest intention.[21] One sympathises with this amiable anxiety +to soften shocks, and break the rudeness of a vital transition. In this +essay, at any rate, there is no such attempt. We know that it is the son +against the father, and the mother-in-law against the daughter-in-law. +No softness of speech will disguise the portentous differences between +those who admit a supernatural revelation and those who deny it. No +charity nor goodwill can narrow the intellectual breach between those +who declare that a world without an ever-present Creator with +intelligible attributes would be to them empty and void, and those who +insist that none of the attributes of a Creator can ever be grasped by +the finite intelligence of men.[22] Our object in urging the historic, +semi-conservative, and almost sympathetic quality, which distinguishes +the unbelief of to-day from the unbelief of a hundred years ago, is only +to show that the most strenuous and upright of plain-speakers is less +likely to shock and wound the lawful sensibilities of devout persons +than he would have been so long as unbelief went no further than bitter +attack on small details. In short, all save the purely negative and +purely destructive school of freethinkers, are now able to deal with +the beliefs from which they dissent, in a way which makes patient and +disinterested controversy not wholly impossible. + +One more point of much importance ought to be mentioned. The belief that +heresy is the result of wilful depravity is fast dying out. People no +longer seriously think that speculative error is bound up with moral +iniquity, or that mistaken thinking is either the result or the cause of +wicked living. Even the official mouthpieces of established beliefs now +usually represent a bad heart as only one among other possible causes of +unbelief. It divides the curse with ignorance, intellectual shallowness, +the unfortunate influence of plausible heresiarchs, and other +alternative roots of evil. They thus leave a way of escape, by which the +person who does not share their own convictions may still be credited +with a good moral character. Some persons, it is true, 'cannot see how a +man who deliberately rejects the Roman Catholic religion can, in the +eyes of those who earnestly believe it, be other than a rebel against +God.' They assure us that, 'as opinions become better marked and more +distinctly connected with action, the truth that decided dissent from +them implies more or less of a reproach upon those who hold them +decidedly, becomes so obvious that every one perceives it.' No doubt a +protestant or a sceptic regards the beliefs of a catholic as a reproach +upon the believer's understanding. So the man whose whole faith rests on +the miraculous and on acts of special intervention, regards the strictly +positive and scientific thinker as the dupe of a crude and narrow logic. +But this now carries with it no implication of moral obliquity. De +Maistre's rather grotesque conviction that infidels always die of +horrible diseases with special names, could now only be held among the +very dregs of the ecclesiastical world. + +Nor is it correct to say that 'when religious differences come to be, +and are regarded as, mere differences of opinion, it is because the +controversy is really decided in the sceptical sense.' Those who agree +with the present writer, for example, are not sceptics. They positively, +absolutely, and without reserve, reject as false the whole system of +objective propositions which make up the popular belief of the day, in +one and all of its theological expressions. They look upon that system +as mischievous in its consequences to society, for many reasons,--among +others because it tends to divert and misdirect the most energetic +faculties of human nature. This, however, does not make them suspect the +motives or the habitual morality of those who remain in the creed in +which they were nurtured. The difference is a difference of opinion, as +purely as if we refused to accept the undulatory theory of light; and we +treat it as such. Then reverse this. Why is it any more impossible for +those who remain in the theological stage, who are not in the smallest +degree sceptical, who in their heart of hearts embrace without a shadow +of misgiving all the mysteries of the faith, why is it any more +impossible for them than for us, whose convictions are as strong as +theirs, to treat the most radical dissidence as that and nothing other +or worse? Logically, it perhaps might not be hard to convict them of +inconsistency, but then, as has been so often said, inconsistency is a +totally different thing from insincerity, or doubting adherence, or +silent scepticism. The beliefs of an ordinary man are a complex +structure of very subtle materials, all compacted into a whole, not by +logic, but by lack of logic; not by syllogism or sorites, but by the +vague. + +As a plain matter of fact and observation, we may all perceive that +dissent from religious opinion less and less implies reproach in any +serious sense. We all of us know in the flesh liberal catholics and +latitudinarian protestants, who hold the very considerable number of +beliefs that remain to them, quite as firmly and undoubtingly as +believers who are neither liberal nor latitudinarian. The compatibility +of error in faith with virtue in conduct is to them only a mystery the +more, a branch of the insoluble problem of Evil, permitted by a Being at +once all-powerful and all-benevolent. Stringent logic may make short +work of either fact,--a benevolent author of evil, or a virtuous +despiser of divine truth. But in an atmosphere of mystery, logical +contradictions melt away. Faith gives a sanction to that tolerant and +charitable judgment of the character of heretics, which has its real +springs partly in common human sympathy whereby we are all bound to one +another, and partly in experience, which teaches us that practical +righteousness and speculative orthodoxy do not always have their roots +in the same soil. The world is every day growing larger. The range of +the facts of the human race is being enormously extended by naturalists, +by historians, by philologists, by travellers, by critics. The manifold +past experiences of humanity are daily opening out to us in vaster and +at the same time more ordered proportions. And so even those who hold +fast to Christianity as the noblest, strongest, and only final +conclusion of these experiences, are yet constrained to admit that it is +no more than a single term in a very long and intricate series. + + +The object of the foregoing digression is to show some cause for +thinking that dissent from the current beliefs is less and less likely +to inflict upon those who retain them any very intolerable kind or +degree of mental pain. Therefore it is in so far all the plainer, as +well as easier, a duty not to conceal such dissent. What we have been +saying comes to this. If a believer finds that his son, for instance, +has ceased to believe, he no longer has this disbelief thrust upon him +in gross and irreverent forms. Nor does he any longer suppose that the +unbelieving son must necessarily be a profligate. And moreover, in +ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, he no longer supposes that infidels, +of his own family or acquaintance at any rate, will consume for eternal +ages in lakes of burning marl. + +Let us add another consideration. One reason why so many persons are +really shocked and pained by the avowal of heretical opinions is the +very fact that such avowal is uncommon. If unbelievers and doubters were +more courageous, believers would be less timorous. It is because they +live in an enervating fool's paradise of seeming assent and conformity, +that the breath of an honest and outspoken word strikes so eager and +nipping on their sensibilities. If they were not encouraged to suppose +that all the world is of their own mind, if they were forced out of that +atmosphere of self-indulgent silences and hypocritical reserves, which +is systematically poured round them, they would acquire a robuster +mental habit. They would learn to take dissents for what they are worth. +They would be led either to strengthen or to discard their own +opinions, if the dissents happened to be weighty or instructive; either +to refute or neglect such dissents as should be ill-founded or +insignificant. They will remain valetudinarians, so long as a curtain of +compromise shelters them from the real belief of those of their +neighbours who have ventured to use their minds with some measure of +independence. A very brief contact with people who, when the occasion +comes, do not shrink from saying what they think, is enough to modify +that excessive liability to be shocked at truth-speaking, which is only +so common because truth-speaking itself is so unfamiliar. + +Now, however great the pain inflicted by the avowal of unbelief, it +seems to the present writer that one relationship in life, and one only, +justifies us in being silent where otherwise it would be right to speak. +This relationship is that between child and parents. Those parents are +wisest who train their sons and daughters in the utmost liberty both of +thought and speech; who do not instill dogmas into them, but inculcate +upon them the sovereign importance of correct ways of forming opinions; +who, while never dissembling the great fact that if one opinion is +true, its contradictory cannot be true also, but must be a lie and must +partake of all the evil qualities of a lie, yet always set them the +example of listening to unwelcome opinions with patience and candour. +Still all parents are not wise. They cannot all endure to hear of any +religious opinions except their own. Where it would give them sincere +and deep pain to hear a son or daughter avow disbelief in the +inspiration of the Bible and so forth, then it seems that the younger +person is warranted in refraining from saying that he or she does not +accept such and such doctrines. This, of course, only where the son or +daughter feels a tender and genuine attachment to the parent. Where the +parent has not earned this attachment, has been selfish, indifferent, or +cruel, the title to the special kind of forbearance of which we are +speaking can hardly exist. In an ordinary way, however, a parent has a +claim on us which no other person in the world can have, and a man's +self-respect ought scarcely to be injured if he finds himself shrinking +from playing the apostle to his own father and mother. + +One can indeed imagine circumstances where this would not be true. If +you are persuaded that you have had revealed to you a glorious gospel of +light and blessedness, it is impossible not to thirst to impart such +tidings most eagerly to those who are closest about your heart. We are +not in that position. We have as yet no magnificent vision, so definite, +so touching, so 'clothed with the beauty of a thousand stars,' as to +make us eager, for the sake of it, to murder all the sweetnesses of +filial piety in an aggressive eristic. This much one concedes. Yet let +us ever remember that those elders are of nobler type who have kept +their minds in a generous freedom, and have made themselves strong with +that magnanimous confidence in truth, which the Hebrew expressed in old +phrase, that if counsel or work be of men it will come to nought, but if +it be of God ye cannot overthrow it. + +Even in the case of parents, and even though our new creed is but +rudimentary, there can be no good reason why we should go further in the +way of economy than mere silence. Neither they nor any other human being +can possibly have a right to expect us, not merely to abstain from the +open expression of dissents, but positively to profess unreal and +feigned assents. No fear of giving pain, no wish to soothe the alarms of +those to whom we owe much, no respect for the natural clinging of the +old to the faith which has accompanied them through honourable lives, +can warrant us in saying that we believe to be true what we are +convinced is false. The most lax moralist counts a lie wrong, even when +the motive is unselfish, and springs from the desire to give pleasure to +those whom it is our duty to please. A deliberate lie avowedly does not +cease to be one because it concerns spiritual things. Nor is it the less +wrong because it is uttered by one to whom all spiritual things have +become indifferent. Filial affection is a motive which would, if any +motive could, remove some of the taint of meanness with which pious +lying, like every other kind of lying, tends to infect character. The +motive may no doubt ennoble the act, though the act remains in the +category of forbidden things. But the motive of these complaisant +assents and false affirmations, taken at their very best, is still +comparatively a poor motive. No real elevation of spirit is possible for +a man who is willing to subordinate his convictions to his domestic +affections, and to bring himself to a habit of viewing falsehood +lightly, lest the truth should shock the illegitimate and over-exacting +sensibilities either of his parents or any one else. We may understand +what is meant by the logic of the feelings, and accept it as the proper +corrective for a too intense egoism. But when the logic of the feelings +is invoked to substitute the egoism of the family for the slightly +narrower egoism of the individual, it can hardly be more than a fine +name for self-indulgence and a callous indifference to all the largest +human interests. + + +This brings us to consider the case of another no less momentous +relationship, and the kind of compromise in the matter of religious +conformity which it justifies or imposes. It constantly happens that the +husband has wholly ceased to believe the religion to which his wife +clings with unshaken faith. We need not enter into the causes why women +remain in bondage to opinions which so many cultivated men either reject +or else hold in a transcendental and non-natural sense. The only +question with which we are concerned is the amount of free assertion of +his own convictions which a man should claim and practise, when he knows +that such convictions are distasteful to his wife. Is it lawful, as it +seems to be in dealing with parents, to hold his conviction silently? Is +it lawful either positively or by implication to lead his wife to +suppose that he shares her opinions, when in truth he rejects them? + +If it were not for the maxims and practice in daily use among men +otherwise honourable, one would not suppose it possible that two answers +could be given to these questions by any one with the smallest pretence +of principle or self-respect. As it is, we all of us know men who +deliberately reject the entire Christian system, and still think it +compatible with uprightness to summon their whole establishments round +them at morning and evening, and on their knees to offer up elaborately +formulated prayers, which have just as much meaning to them as the +entrails of the sacrificial victim had to an infidel haruspex. We see +the same men diligently attending religious services; uttering assents +to confessions of which they really reject every syllable; kneeling, +rising, bowing, with deceptive solemnity; even partaking of the +sacrament with a consummate devoutness that is very edifying to all who +are not in the secret, and who do not know that they are acting a part, +and making a mock both of their own reason and their own probity, merely +to please persons whose delusions they pity and despise from the bottom +of their hearts. + +On the surface there is certainly nothing to distinguish this kind of +conduct from the grossest hypocrisy. Is there anything under the surface +to relieve it from this complexion? Is there any weight in the sort of +answer which such men make to the accusation that their conformity is a +very degrading form of deceit, and a singularly mischievous kind of +treachery? Is the plea of a wish to spare mental discomfort to others an +admissible and valid plea? It seems to us to be none of these things, +and for the following among other reasons. + +If a man drew his wife by lot, or by any other method over which neither +he nor she has any control, as in the case of parents, perhaps he might +with some plausibleness contend that he owed her certain limited +deferences and reserves, just as we admit that he may owe them to his +parents. But this is not the case. Marriage, in this country at least, +is the result of mutual choice. If men and women do as a matter of fact +usually make this choice hastily and on wofully imperfect information of +one another's characters, that is no warrant for a resort to unlawful +expedients to remedy the blunder. If a woman cares ardently enough about +religion to feel keen distress at the idea of dissent from it on the +part of those closely connected with her, she surely may be expected to +take reasonable pains to ascertain beforehand the religious attitude of +one with whom she is about to unite herself for life. On the other hand, +if a man sets any value on his own opinions, if they are in any real +sense a part of himself, he must be guilty of something like deliberate +and systematic duplicity during the acquaintance preceding marriage, if +his dissent has remained unsuspected. Certainly if men go through +society before marriage under false colours, and feign beliefs which +they do not hold, they have only themselves to thank for the degradation +of having to keep up the imposture afterwards. Suppose a protestant +were to pass himself off for a catholic because he happened to meet a +catholic lady whom he desired to marry. Everybody would agree in calling +such a man by a very harsh name. It is hard to see why a freethinker, +who by reticence and conformity passes himself off for a believer, +should be more leniently judged. The differences between a catholic and +a protestant are assuredly not any greater than those between a believer +and an unbeliever. We all admit the baseness of dissimulation in the +former case. Why is it any less base in the latter? + +Marriages, however, are often made in haste, or heedlessly, or early in +life, before either man or woman has come to feel very deeply about +religion either one way or another. The woman does not know how much she +will need religion, nor what comfort it may bring to her. The man does +not know all the objections to it which may disclose themselves to his +understanding as the years ripen. There is always at work that most +unfortunate maxim, tacitly held and acted upon in ninety-nine marriages +out of a hundred, that money is of importance, and social position is of +importance, and good connections are of importance, and health and +manners and comely looks, and that the only thing which is of no +importance whatever is opinion and intellectual quality and temper. Now +granting that both man and woman are indifferent at the time of their +union, is that any reason why upon either of them acquiring serious +convictions, the other should be expected, out of mere complaisance, to +make a false and hypocritical pretence of sharing them? To see how +flimsy is this plea of fearing to give pain to the religious +sensitiveness of women, we have only to imagine one or two cases which +go beyond the common experience, yet which ought not to strain the plea, +if it be valid. + +Thus, if my wife turns catholic, am I to pretend to turn catholic too, +to save her the horrible distress of thinking that I am doomed to +eternal perdition? Or if she chooses to embrace the doctrine of direct +illumination from heaven, and to hear voices bidding her to go or come, +to do or abstain from doing, am I too to shape my conduct after these +fancied monitions? Or if it comes into her mind to serve tables, and to +listen in all faith to the miracles of spiritualism, am I, lest I +should pain her, to feign a surrender of all my notions of evidence, to +pretend a transformation of all my ideas of worthiness in life and +beyond life, and to go to séances with the same regularity and +seriousness with which you go to church? Of course in each of these +cases everybody who does not happen to share the given peculiarity of +belief, will agree that however severely a husband's dissent might pain +the wife, whatever distress and discomfort it might inflict upon her, +yet he would be bound to let her suffer, rather than sacrifice his +veracity and self-respect. Why then is it any less discreditable to +practise an insincere conformity in more ordinary circumstances? If the +principle of such conformity is good for anything at all, it ought to +cover these less usual cases as completely as the others which are more +usual. Indeed there would be more to be said on behalf of conformity for +politeness' sake, where the woman had gone through some great process of +change, for then one might suppose that her heart was deeply set on the +matter. Even then the plea would be worthless, but it is more +indisputably worthless still where the sentiment which we are bidden to +respect at the cost of our own freedom of speech is nothing more +laudable than a fear of moving out of the common groove of religious +opinion, or an intolerant and unreasoned bigotry, or mere stupidity and +silliness of the vulgarest type.[23] + +Ah, it is said, you forget that women cannot live without religion. The +present writer is equally of this opinion that women cannot be happy +without a religion, nor men either. That is not the question. It does +not follow because a woman cannot be happy without a religion, that +therefore she cannot be happy unless her husband is of the same +religion. Still less, that she would be made happy by his insincerely +pretending to be of the same religion. And least of all is it true, if +both these propositions were credible, that even then for the sake of +her happiness he is bound not merely to live a life of imposture, but in +so doing to augment the general forces of imposture in the world, and to +make the chances of truth, light, and human improvement more and more +unfavourable. Women are at present far less likely than men to possess a +sound intelligence and a habit of correct judgment. They will remain so, +while they have less ready access than men to the best kinds of literary +and scientific training, and--what is far more important--while social +arrangements exclude them from all those kinds of public activity, which +are such powerful agents both in fitting men to judge soundly, and in +forming in them the sense of responsibility for their judgments being +sound. + +It may be contended that this alleged stronger religiosity of women, +however coarse and poor in its formulae, is yet of constant value as a +protest in favour of the maintenance of the religious element in human +character and life, and that this is a far more important thing for us +all than the greater or less truth of the dogmas with which such +religiosity happens to be associated. In reply to this, without +tediously labouring the argument, I venture to make the following +observations. In the first place, it is an untenable idea that +religiosity or devoutness of spirit is valuable in itself, without +reference to the goodness or badness of the dogmatic forms and the +practices in which it clothes itself. A fakir would hardly be an +estimable figure in our society, merely because his way of living +happens to be a manifestation of the religious spirit. If the religious +spirit leads to a worthy and beautiful life, if it shows itself in +cheerfulness, in pity, in charity and tolerance, in forgiveness, in a +sense of the largeness and the mystery of things, in a lifting up of the +soul in gratitude and awe to some supreme power and sovereign force, +then whatever drawback there may be in the way of superstitious dogma, +still such a spirit is on the whole a good thing. If not, not. It would +be better without the superstition: even with the superstition it is +good. But if the religious spirit is only a fine name for narrowness of +understanding, for stubborn intolerance, for mere social formality, for +a dread of losing that poor respectability which means thinking and +doing exactly as the people around us think and do, then the religious +spirit is not a good thing, but a thoroughly bad and hateful thing. To +that we owe no management of any kind. Any one who suppresses his real +opinions, and feigns others, out of deference to such a spirit as this +in his household, ought to say plainly both to himself and to us that he +cares more for his own ease and undisturbed comfort than he cares for +truth and uprightness. For it is that, and not any tenderness for holy +things, which is the real ground of his hypocrisy. + +Now with reference to the religious spirit in its nobler form, it is +difficult to believe that any one genuinely animated by it would be +soothed by the knowledge that her dearest companion is going through +life with a mask on, quietly playing a part, uttering untrue +professions, doing his best to cheat her and the rest of the world by a +monstrous spiritual make-believe. One would suppose that instead of +having her religious feeling gratified by conformity on these terms, +nothing could wound it so bitterly nor outrage it so unpardonably. To +know that her sensibility is destroying the entireness of the man's +nature, its loyalty alike to herself and to truth, its freedom and +singleness and courage--surely this can hardly be less distressing to a +fine spirit than the suspicion that his heresies may bring him to the +pit, or than the void of going through life without even the semblance +of religious sympathy between them. If it be urged that the woman would +never discover the piety of the man to be a counterfeit, we reply that +unless her own piety were of the merely formal kind, she would be sure +to make the discovery. The congregation in the old story were untouched +by the disguised devil's eloquence on behalf of religion: it lacked +unction. The verbal conformity of the unbeliever lacks unction, and its +hollowness is speedily revealed to the quick apprehension of true +faith.[24] + +Let us not be supposed to be arguing in favour of incessant battle of +high dialectic in the household. Nothing could be more destructive of +the gracious composure and mental harmony, of which household life ought +to be, but perhaps seldom is, the great organ and instrument. Still less +are we pleading for the freethinker's right at every hour of day or +night to mock, sneer, and gibe at the sincere beliefs and +conscientiously performed rites of those, whether men or women, whether +strangers or kinsfolk, from whose religion he disagrees. 'It is not +ancient impressions only,' said Pascal, 'which are capable of abusing +us. The charm of novelty has the same power.' The prate of new-born +scepticism may be as tiresome and as odious as the cant of gray +orthodoxy. Religious discussion is not to be foisted upon us at every +turn either by defenders or assailants. All we plead for is that when +the opportunity meets the freethinker full in front, he is called upon +to speak as freely as he thinks. Not more than this. A plain man has no +trouble in acquiring this tact of reasonableness. We may all write what +we please, because it is in the discretion of the rest of the world +whether they will hearken or not. But in the family this is not so. If a +man systematically intrudes disrespectful and unwelcome criticism upon a +woman who retains the ancient belief, he is only showing that +freethinker may be no more than bigot differently writ. It ought to be +essential to no one's self-respect that he cannot consent to live with +people who do not think as he thinks. We may be sure that there is +something shallow and convulsive about the beliefs of a man who cannot +allow his house-mates to possess their own beliefs in peace. + +On the other hand, it is essential to the self-respect of every one +with the least love of truth that he should be free to express his +opinions on every occasion, where silence would be taken for an assent +which he does not really give. Still more unquestionably, he should be +free from any obligation to forswear himself either directly, as by +false professions, or by implication, as when he attend services, public +or private, which are to him the symbol of superstition and mere +spiritual phantasmagoria. The vindication of this simple right of living +one's life honestly can hardly demand any heroic virtue. A little of the +straightforwardness which men are accustomed to call manly, is the only +quality that is needed; a little of that frank courage and determination +in spiritual things, which men are usually so ready to practise towards +their wives in temporal things. It must be a keen delight to a cynic to +see a man who owns that he cannot bear to pain his wife by not going to +church and saying prayers, yet insisting on having his own way, +fearlessly thwarting her wishes, and contradicting her opinions, in +every other detail, small and great, of the domestic economy. + +The truth of the matter is that the painful element in companionship is +not difference of opinion, but discord of temperament. The important +thing is not that two people should be inspired by the same convictions, +but rather that each of them should hold his and her own convictions in +a high and worthy spirit. Harmony of aim, not identity of conclusion, is +the secret of the sympathetic life; to stand on the same moral plane, +and that, if possible, a high one; to find satisfaction in different +explanations of the purpose and significance of life and the universe, +and yet the same satisfaction. It is certainly not less possible to +disbelieve religiously than to believe religiously. This accord of mind, +this emulation in freedom and loftiness of soul, this kindred sense of +the awful depth of the enigma which the one believes to be answered, and +the other suspects to be for ever unanswerable--here, and not in a +degrading and hypocritical conformity, is the true gratification of +those spiritual sensibilities which are alleged to be so much higher in +women than in men. Where such an accord exists, there may still be +solicitude left in the mind of either at the superstition or the +incredulity of the other, but it will be solicitude of that magnanimous +sort which is in some shape or other the inevitable and not unfruitful +portion of every better nature. + +If there are women who petulantly or sourly insist on more than this +kind of harmony, it is probable that their system of divinity is little +better than a special manifestation of shrewishness. The man is as much +bound to resist that, as he is bound to resist extravagance in spending +money, or any other vice of character. If he does not resist it, if he +suppresses his opinions, and practices a hypocritical conformity, it +must be from weakness of will and principle. Against this we have +nothing to say. A considerable proportion of people, men no less than +women, are born invertebrate, and they must got on as they best can. But +let us at least bargain that they shall not erect the maxims of their +own feebleness into a rule for those who are braver and of stronger +principle than themselves. And do not let the accidental exigencies of a +personal mistake be made the foundation of a general doctrine. It is a +poor saying, that the world is to become void of spiritual sincerity, +because Xanthippe has a turn for respectable theology. + + +One or two words should perhaps be said in this place as to conformity +to common religious belief in the education of children. Where the +parents differ, the one being an unbeliever, the other a believer, it is +almost impossible for anybody to lay down a general rule. The present +writer certainly has no ambition to attempt the thorny task of compiling +a manual for mixed marriages. It is perhaps enough to say that all would +depend upon the nature of the beliefs which the religious person wished +to inculcate. Considering that the woman has an absolutely equal moral +right with the man to decide in what faith the child shall be brought +up, and considering how important it is that the mother should take an +active part in the development of the child's affections and impulses, +the most resolute of deniers may perhaps think that the advantages of +leaving the matter to her, outweigh the disadvantages of having a +superstitious bias given to the young mind. In these complex cases an +honest and fair-minded man's own instincts are more likely to lead him +right than any hard and fast rule. Two reserves in assenting to the +wife's control of early teaching will probably suggest themselves to +everybody who is in earnest about religion. First, if the theology which +the woman desires to instill contains any of those wicked and depraving +doctrines which neither Catholicism nor Calvinism is without, in the +hands of some professors, the husband is as much justified in pressing +his legal rights over the child to the uttermost, as he would be if the +proposed religion demanded physical mutilation. Secondly, he will not +himself take part in baptismal or other ceremonies which are to him no +better than mere mummeries, nor will he ever do anything to lead his +children at any age to suppose that he believes what he does not +believe. Such limitations as these are commanded by all considerations +alike of morality and good sense. + +To turn to the more normal case where either the man has had the wise +forethought not to yoke himself unequally with a person of ardent belief +which he does not share, or where both parents dissent from the popular +creed. Here, whatever difficulties may attend its application, the +principle is surely as clear as the sun at noonday. There can be no good +plea for the deliberate and formal inculcation upon the young of a +number of propositions which you believe to be false. To do this is to +sow tares not in your enemy's field, but in the very ground which is +most precious of all others to you and most full of hope for the future. +To allow it to be done merely that children may grow up in the +stereotyped mould, is simply to perpetuate in new generations the +present thick-sighted and dead-heavy state of our spirits. It is to do +one's best to keep society for an indefinite time sapped by hollow and +void professions, instead of being nourished by sincerity and +whole-heartedness.[25] + +Nor here, more than elsewhere in this chapter, are we trying to turn +the family into a field of ceaseless polemic. No one who knows the stuff +of which life is made, the pressure of material cares, the play of +passion, the busy energising of the affections, the anxieties of health, +and all the other solicitudes, generous or ignoble, which naturally +absorb the days of the common multitude of men--is likely to think such +an ideal either desirable or attainable. Least of all is it desirable +to give character a strong set in this polemical direction in its most +plastic days. The controversial and denying humour is a different thing +from the habit of being careful to know what we mean by the words we +use, and what evidence there is for the beliefs we hold. It is possible +to foster the latter habit without creating the former. And it is +possible to bring up the young in dissent from the common beliefs around +them, or in indifference to them, without engendering any of that pride +in eccentricity for its own sake, which is so little likeable a quality +in either young or old. There is, however, little risk of an excess in +this direction. The young tremble even more than the old at the +penalties of nonconformity. There is more excuse for them in this. Such +penalties in their case usually come closer and in more stringent forms. +Neither have they had time to find out, as their elders have or ought to +have found out, what a very moderate degree of fortitude enables us to +bear up against social disapproval, when we know that it is nothing more +than the common form of convention. + +The great object is to keep the minds of the young as open as possible +in the matter of religion; to breed in them a certain simplicity and +freedom from self-consciousness, in finding themselves without the +religious beliefs and customs of those around them; to make them regard +differences in these respects as very natural and ordinary matters, +susceptible of an easy explanation. It is of course inevitable, unless +they are brought up in cloistered seclusion, that they should hear much +of the various articles of belief which we are anxious that they should +not share. They will ask you whether the story of the creation of the +universe is true; whether such and such miracles really happened; +whether this person or that actually lived, and actually did all that he +is said to have done. Plainly the right course is to tell them, without +any agitation or excess or vehemence or too much elaboration, the simple +truth in such matters exactly as it appears to one's own mind. There is +no reason why they should not know the best parts of the Bible as well +as they know the Iliad or Herodotus. There are many reasons why they +should know them better. But one most important condition of this is +constantly overlooked by people, who like to satisfy their intellectual +vanity by scepticism, and at the same time to make their comfort safe by +external conformity. If the Bible is to be taught only because it is a +noble and most majestic monument of literature, it should be taught as +that and no more. That a man who regards it solely us supreme +literature, should impress it upon the young as the supernaturally +inspired word of God and the accurate record of objective occurrences, +is a piece of the plainest and most shocking dishonesty. Let a youth be +trained in simple and straightforward recognition of the truth that we +can know, and can conjecture, nothing with any assurance as to the +ultimate mysteries of things. Let his imagination and his sense of awe +be fed from those springs, which are none the less bounteous because +they flow in natural rather than supernatural channels. Let him be +taught the historic place and source of the religions which he is not +bound to accept, unless the evidence for their authority by and by +brings him to another mind. A boy or girl trained in this way has an +infinitely better chance of growing up with the true spirit and +leanings of religion implanted in the character, than if they had been +educated in formulae which they could not understand, by people who do +not believe them. + +The most common illustration of a personal mistake being made the base +of a general doctrine, is found in the case of those who, after +committing themselves for life to the profession of a given creed, awake +to the shocking discovery that the creed has ceased to be true for them. +The action of a popular modern story, Mrs. Gaskell's _North and South_, +turns upon the case of a clergyman whoso faith is overthrown, and who in +consequence abandons his calling, to his own serious material detriment +and under circumstances of severe suffering to his family. I am afraid +that current opinion, especially among the cultivated class, would +condemn such a sacrifice as a piece of misplaced scrupulosity. No man, +it would be said, is called upon to proclaim his opinions, when to do so +will cost him the means of subsistence. This will depend upon the value +which he sets upon the opinions that be has to proclaim. If such a +proposition is true, the world must efface its habit of admiration for +the martyrs and heroes of the past, who embraced violent death rather +than defile themselves by a lying confession. Or is present heroism +ridiculous, and only past heroism admirable? However, nobody has a right +to demand the heroic from all the world; and if to publish his dissent +from the opinions which he nominally holds would reduce a man to +beggary, human charity bids us say as little as may be. We may leave +such men to their unfortunate destiny, hoping that they will make what +good use of it may be possible. _Non ragioniam di lor_. These cases only +show the essential and profound immorality of the priestly +profession--in all its forms, and no matter in connection with what +church or what dogma--which makes a man's living depend on his +abstaining from using his mind, or concealing the conclusions to which +use of his mind has brought him. The time will come when society will +look back on the doctrine, that they who serve the altar should live by +the altar, as a doctrine of barbarism and degradation. + +But if one, by refusing to offer a pinch of incense to the elder gods, +should thus strip himself of a marked opportunity of exerting an +undoubtedly useful influence over public opinion, or over a certain +section of society, is he not justified in compromising to the extent +necessary to preserve this influence? Instead of answering this +directly, we would make the following remarks. First, it can seldom be +clear in times like our own that religious heterodoxy must involve the +loss of influence in other than religious spheres. The apprehension that +it will do so is due rather to timorousness and a desire to find a fair +reason for the comforts of silence and reserve. If a teacher has +anything to tell the world in science, philosophy, history, the world +will not be deterred from listening to him by knowing that he does not +walk in the paths of conventional theology. Second, what influence can a +man exert, that should seem to him more useful than that of a protester +against what he counts false opinions, in the most decisive and +important of all regions of thought? Surely if any one is persuaded, +whether rightly or wrongly, that his fellows are expending the best part +of their imaginations and feelings on a dream and a delusion, and that +by so doing moreover they are retarding to an indefinite degree the +wider spread of light and happiness, then nothing that he can tell them +about chemistry or psychology or history can in his eyes be comparable +in importance to the duty of telling them this. There is no advantage +nor honest delight in influence, if it is only to be exerted in the +sphere of secondary objects, and at the cost of the objects which ought +to be foremost in the eyes of serious people. In truth the men who have +done most for the world have taken very little heed of influence. They +have sought light, and left their influence to fare as it might list. +Can we not imagine the mingled mystification and disdain with which a +Spinosa or a Descartes, a Luther or a Pascal, would have listened to an +exhortation in our persuasive modern manner on the niceties of the +politic and the social obligation of pious fraud? It is not given to +many to perform the achievements of such giants as these, but every one +may help to keep the standard of intellectual honesty at a lofty pitch, +and what better service can a man render than to furnish the world with +an example of faithful dealing with his own conscience and with his +fellows? This at least is the one talent that is placed in the hands of +the obscurest of us all.[26] + +And what is this smile of the world, to win which we are bidden to +sacrifice our moral manhood; this frown of the world, whose terrors are +more awful than the withering up of truth and the slow going out of +light within the souls of us? Consider the triviality of life and +conversation and purpose, in the bulk of those whose approval is held +out for our prize and the mark of our high calling. Measure, if you can, +the empire over them of prejudice unadulterated by a single element of +rationality, and weigh, if you can, the huge burden of custom, +unrelieved by a single leavening particle of fresh thought. Ponder the +share which selfishness and love of ease have in the vitality and the +maintenance of the opinions that we are forbidden to dispute. Then how +pitiful a thing seems the approval or disapproval of these creatures of +the conventions of the hour, as one figures the merciless vastness of +the universe of matter sweeping us headlong through viewless space; as +one hears the wail of misery that is for ever ascending to the deaf +gods; as one counts the little tale of the years that separate us from +eternal silence. In the light of these things, a man should surely dare +to live his small span of life with little heed of the common speech +upon him or his life, only caring that his days may be full of reality, +and his conversation of truth-speaking and wholeness. + +Those who think conformity in the matters of which we have been +speaking harmless and unimportant, must do so either from indifference +or else from despair. It is difficult to convince any one who is +possessed by either one or other of these two evil spirits. Men who have +once accepted them, do not easily relinquish philosophies that relieve +their professors from disagreeable obligations of courage and endeavour. +To the indifferent person one can say nothing. We can only acquiesce in +that deep and terrible scripture, 'He that is filthy, let him be filthy +still.' To those who despair of human improvement or the spread of light +in the face of the huge mass of brute prejudice, we can only urge that +the enormous weight and the firm hold of baseless prejudice and false +commonplace are the very reasons which make it so important that those +who are not of the night nor of the darkness should the more strenuously +insist on living their own lives in the daylight. To those, finally, who +do not despair, but think that the new faith will come so slowly that it +is not worth while for the poor mortal of a day to make himself a +martyr, we may suggest that the new faith when it comes will be of +little worth, unless it has been shaped by generations of honest and +fearless men, and unless it finds in those who are to receive it an +honest and fearless temper. Our plea is not for a life of perverse +disputings or busy proselytising, but only that we should learn to look +at one another with a clear and steadfast eye, and march forward along +the paths we choose with firm step and erect front. The first advance +towards either the renovation of one faith or the growth of another, +must be the abandonment of those habits of hypocritical conformity and +compliance which have filled the air of the England of to-day with gross +and obscuring mists. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 18: It may be said that Hume meant no more than this: that of +two equally oppressed nations, the one which had been taught to assent +to the doctrine of resistance would be more likely to practise 'the +sacred duty of insurrection' than the other, from whom the doctrine had +been concealed. Or, in other words, that the first would rise against +oppression, when the oppression had reached a pitch which to the second +would still seem bearable. The answer to Hume's proposition, interpreted +in this way, would be that if the doctrine of resistance be presented to +the populace in its true shape,--if it be 'truth,' as he admits,--then +the application of it in practice should be as little likely to prove +mischievous as that of any other truth. If the gist of the remark be +that this is a truth which the populace is especially likely to apply +wrongly, in consequence of its ignorance, passion, and heedlessness, we +may answer by appealing to history, which is rather a record of +excessive patience in the various nations of the earth than of excessive +petulance.] + +[Footnote 19: There is another ground for the distinction between the +conditions of holding and those of expressing opinion. This depends upon +the psychological proposition that belief is independent of the will. +Though this or any other state of the understanding may be involuntary, +the manifestation of such a state is not so, but is a voluntary act, +and, 'being neutral in itself, may be commendable or reprehensible +according to the circumstances in which it takes place.' (Bailey's +_Essay on Formation of Opinion_, § 7).] + +[Footnote 20: The following words, illustrating the continuity between +the Christian and Jewish churches, are not without instruction to those +who meditate on the possible continuity between the Christian church and +that which is one day to grow into the place of it:--'Not only do forms +and ordinances remain under the Gospel equally as before; but, what was +in use before is not so much superseded by the Gospel ordinances as +changed into them. What took place under the Law is a pattern, what was +commanded is a rule, under the Gospel. The substance remains, the use, +the meaning, the circumstances, the benefit is changed; grace is added, +life is infused: "the body is of Christ;" but it is in great measure +that same body which was in being before He came. The Gospel has not put +aside, it has incorporated into itself the revelation which went before +it. It avails itself of the Old Testament, as a great gift to Christian +as well as to Jew. It does not dispense with it, but it dispenses it. +Persons sometimes urge that there is no code of duty in the New +Testament, no ceremonial, no rules for Church polity. Certainly not; +they are unnecessary; they are already given in the Old. Why should the +Old Testament remain in the Christian church but to be used? _There_ we +are to look for our forms, our rites, our polity; only illustrated, +tempered, spiritualised by the Gospel. The preempts remain, the +observance of them is changed,'--Dr. J.H. Newman; _Sermon on Subjects of +the Day_, p. 205.] + +[Footnote 21: There is a set of most acute and searching criticisms on +this matter in Mr. Leslie Stephen's _Essays on Free-Thinking and +Plain-Speaking_ (Longmans, 1873). The last essay in the volume, _An +Apology for Plain-Speaking_, is a decisive and remarkable exposition of +the treacherous playing with words, which underlies even the most +vigorous efforts to make the phrases and formula of the old creed hold +the reality of new faith.] + +[Footnote 22: Upon this sentence the following criticism has been +made:--'Surely both of these so-called contradictions are deliberately +affirmed by the vast majority of all thinkers upon the subject. What +orthodox asserter of the omnipresence of a "Creator with intelligible +attributes" ever maintained that these attributes could be "grasped by +men"?'--The orthodox asserter, no doubt, _says_ that he does not +maintain that the divine attributes can be grasped by men; but his +habitual treatment of them as intelligible, and as the subjects of +propositions made in languages that is designed to be intelligible, +shows that his first reservation is merely nominal, as it is certainly +inconsistent with his general position. Religious people who warn you +most solemnly that man who is a worm and the son of a worm cannot +possibly compass in his puny understanding the attributes of the Divine +Being, will yet--as an eminent divine not in holy orders has truly +said--tell you all about him, as if he were the man who lives in the +next street.] + +[Footnote 23: That able man, the late J.E. Cairnes, suggested the +following objection to this paragraph. When two persons marry, there is +a reasonable expectation, almost amounting to an understanding, that +they will both of them adhere to their religion, just as both of them +tacitly agree to follow the ways of the world in the host of minor +social matters. If, therefore, either of them turns to some other creed, +the person so turning has, so to speak, broken the contract. The utmost +he or she can contend for is forbearance. If a woman embraces +catholicism, she may seek tolerance, but she has no right to exact +conformity. If the man becomes an unbeliever, he in like manner breaks +the bargain, and may be justly asked not to flaunt his misdemeanour. + +My answer to this would turn upon the absolute inexpediency of such +silent bargains being assumed by public opinion. In the present state of +opinion, where the whole air is alive with the spirit of change, nobody +who takes his life or her life seriously, could allow an assumption +which means reduction of one of the most important parts of character, +the love of truth, to a nullity.] + +[Footnote 24: The reader remembers how Wolmar, the atheistic husband of +Julie in Rousseau's _New Heloïsa_, is distressed by the chagrin which +his unbelief inflicts on the piety of his wife. 'He told me that he had +been frequently tempted to make a feint of yielding to her arguments, +and to pretend, for the sake of calming her sentiments that he did not +really hold. But such baseness of soul is too far from him. Without for +a moment imposing on Julie, such dissimulation would only have been a +new torment to her. The good faith, the frankness, the union of heart, +that console for so many troubles, would have been eclipsed between +them. Was it by lessening his wife's esteem for him that he could +reassure her? Instead of using any disguise, he tells her sincerely what +he thinks, but he says it in so simple a tone, etc.--V. v. 126.] + +[Footnote 25: The common reason alleged by freethinkers for having their +children brought up in the orthodox ways is that, if they were not so +brought up, they would be looked on as contaminating agents whom other +parents would take care to keep away from the companionship of their +children. This excuse may have had some force at another time. At the +present day, when belief is so weak, we doubt whether the young would be +excluded from the companionship of their equals in age, merely because +they had not been trained in some of the conventional shibboleths. Even +if it were so, there are certainly some ways of compensating for the +disadvantages of exclusion from orthodox circles. + +I have heard of a more interesting reason; namely, that the historic +position of the young, relatively to the time in which they are placed, +is in some sort falsified, unless they have gone through a training in +the current beliefs of their age: unless they have undergone that, they +miss, as it were, some of the normal antecedents. I do not think this +plea will hold good. However desirable it may be that the young should +know all sorts of erroneous beliefs and opinions as products of the +past, it can hardly be in any degree desirable that they should take +them for truths. If there were no other objection, there would be this, +that the disturbance and waste of force involved in shaking off in their +riper years the erroneous opinions which had been instilled into them +in childhood, would more than counter-balance any advantages, whatever +their precise nature may be, to be derived from having shared in their +own proper persons the ungrounded notions of others.] + +[Footnote 26: Miss Martineau has an excellent protest against 'the +dereliction of principle shown in supposing that any "Cause" can be of +so much importance as fidelity to truth, or can be important at all +otherwise than in its relation to truth which wants vindicating. It +reminds me of an incident which happened when I was in America, at the +time of the severest trials of the Abolitionists. A pastor from the +southern States lamented to a brother clergyman in the North the +introduction of the Anti-slavery question, because the views of their +sect were "getting on so well before!" "Getting on!" cried the northern +minister. "What is the use of getting your vessel on when you have +thrown both captain and cargo overboard?" Thus, what signifies the +pursuit of any one reform, like those specified,--Anti-slavery and the +Woman question,--when the freedom which is the very soul of the +controversy, the very principle of the movement,--is mourned over in any +other of its many manifestations? The only effectual advocates of such +reforms as those are people who follow truth wherever it +leads.'--_Autobiography_, ii. 442.] + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +THE REALISATION OF OPINION. + +A person who takes the trouble to form his own opinions and beliefs will +feel that he owes no responsibility to the majority for his conclusions. +If he is a genuine lover of truth, if he is inspired by the divine +passion for seeing things as they are, and a divine abhorrence of +holding ideas which do not conform to the facts, he will be wholly +independent of the approval or assent of the persons around him. When he +proceeds to apply his beliefs in the practical conduct of life, the +position is different. There are now good reasons why his attitude +should be in some ways less inflexible. The society in which he is +placed is a very ancient and composite growth. The people from whom he +dissents have not come by their opinions, customs, and institutions by a +process of mere haphazard. These opinions and customs all had their +origin in a certain real or supposed fitness. They have a certain depth +of root in the lives of a proportion of the existing generation. Their +fitness for satisfying human needs may have vanished, and their +congruity with one another may have come to an end. That is only one +side of the truth. The most zealous propagandism cannot penetrate to +them. The quality of bearing to be transplanted from one kind of soil +and climate to another is not very common, and it is far from being +inexhaustible even where it exists. + +In common language we speak of a generation as something possessed of a +kind of exact unity, with all its parts and members one and homogeneous. +Yet very plainly it is not this. It is a whole, but a whole in a state +of constant flux. Its factors and elements are eternally shifting. It is +not one, but many generations. Each of the seven ages of man is +neighbour to all the rest. The column of the veterans is already +staggering over into the last abyss, while the column of the newest +recruits is forming with all its nameless and uncounted hopes. To each +its tradition, its tendency, its possibilities. Only a proportion of +each in one society can have nerve enough to grasp the banner of a new +truth, and endurance enough to bear it along rugged and untrodden ways. + +And then, as we have said, one must remember the stuff of which life is +made. One must consider what an overwhelming preponderance of the most +tenacious energies and most concentrated interests of a society must be +absorbed between material cares and the solicitude of the affections. It +is obviously unreasonable to lose patience and quarrel with one's time, +because it is tardy in throwing off its institutions and beliefs, and +slow to achieve the transformation which is the problem in front of it. +Men and women have to live. The task for most of them is arduous enough +to make them well pleased with even such imperfect shelter as they find +in the use and wont of daily existence. To insist on a whole community +being made at once to submit to the reign of new practices and new +ideas, which have just begun to commend themselves to the most advanced +speculative intelligence of the time,--this, even if it were a possible +process, would do much to make life impracticable and to hurry on social +dissolution. + +'It cannot be too emphatically asserted,' as has been said by one of +the most influential of modern thinkers, 'that this policy of +compromise, alike in institutions, in actions, and in beliefs, which +especially characterises English life, is a policy essential to a +society going through the transitions caused by continued growth and +development. Ideas and institutions proper to a past social state, but +incongruous with the new social state that has grown out of it, +surviving into this new social state they have made possible, and +disappearing only as this new social state establishes its own ideas and +institutions, are necessarily, during their survival, in conflict with +these new ideas and institutions--necessarily furnish elements of +contradiction in men's thoughts and deeds. And yet, as for the carrying +on of social life, the old must continue so long as the new is not +ready, this perpetual compromise is an indispensable accompaniment of a +normal development.'[27] + +Yet we must not press this argument, and the state of feeling that +belongs to it, further than they may be fairly made to go. The danger in +most natures lies on this side, for on this side our love of ease +works, and our prejudices. The writer in the passage we have just quoted +is describing compromise as a natural state of things, the resultant of +divergent forces. He is not professing to define its conditions or +limits as a practical duty. Nor is there anything in his words, or in +the doctrine of social evolution of which he is the most elaborate and +systematic expounder, to favour that deliberate sacrifice of truth, +either in search or in expression, against which our two previous +chapters were meant to protest.[28] When Mr. Spencer talks of a new +social state establishing its own ideas, of course he means, and can +only mean, that men and women establish their own ideas, and to do that, +it is obvious that they must at one time or another have conceived them +without any special friendliness of reference to the old ideas, which +they were in the fulness of time to supersede. Still less, of course, +can a new social state ever establish its ideas, unless the persons who +hold them confess them openly, and give to them an honest and effective +adherence. + +Every discussion of the more fundamental principles of conduct must +contain, expressly or by implication, some general theory of the nature +and constitution of the social union. Let us state in a few words that +which seems to command the greatest amount both of direct and analogical +evidence in our time. It is perhaps all the more important to discuss +our subject with immediate and express reference to this theory, because +it has become in some minds a plea for a kind of philosophic +indifference towards any policy of Thorough, as well as an excuse for +systematic abstention from vigorous and downright courses of action. + +A progressive society is now constantly and justly compared to a growing +organism. Its vitality in this aspect consists of a series of changes in +ideas and institutions. These changes arise spontaneously from the +operation of the whole body of social conditions, external and +internal. The understanding and the affections and desires are always +acting on the domestic, political, and economic ordering. They influence +the religious sentiment. They touch relations with societies outside. In +turn they are constantly being acted on by all these elements. In a +society progressing in a normal and uninterrupted course, this play and +interaction is the sign and essence of life. It is, as we are so often +told, a long process of new adaptations and re-adaptations; of the +modification of tradition and usage by truer ideas and improved +institutions. There may be, and there are, epochs of rest, when this +modification in its active and demonstrative shape slackens or ceases to +be visible. But even then the modifying forces are only latent. Further +progress depends on the revival of their energy, before there has been +time for the social structure to become ossified and inelastic. The +history of civilisation is the history of the displacement of old +conceptions by new ones more conformable to the facts. It is the record +of the removal of old institutions and ways of living, in favour of +others of greater convenience and ampler capacity, at once multiplying +and satisfying human requirements. + +Now compromise, in view of the foregoing theory of social advance, may +be of two kinds, and of these two kinds one is legitimate and the other +not. It may stand for two distinct attitudes of mind, one of them +obstructive and the other not. It may mean the deliberate suppression or +mutilation of an idea, in order to make it congruous with the +traditional idea or the current prejudice on the given subject, whatever +that may be. Or else it may mean a rational acquiescence in the fact +that the bulk of your contemporaries are not yet prepared either to +embrace the new idea, or to change their ways of living in conformity to +it. In the one case, the compromiser rejects the highest truth, or +dissembles his own acceptance of it. In the other, he holds it +courageously for his ensign and device, but neither forces nor expects +the whole world straightway to follow. The first prolongs the duration +of the empire of prejudice, and retards the arrival of improvement. The +second does his best to abbreviate the one, and to hasten and make +definite the other, yet he does not insist on hurrying changes which, +to be effective, would require the active support of numbers of persons +not yet ripe for them. It is legitimate compromise to say:--'I do not +expect you to execute this improvement, or to surrender that prejudice, +in my time. But at any rate it shall not be my fault if the improvement +remains unknown or rejected. There shall be one man at least who has +surrendered the prejudice, and who does not hide that fact.' It is +illegitimate compromise to say:--'I cannot persuade you to accept my +truth; therefore I will pretend to accept your falsehood.' + +That this distinction is as sound on the evolutional theory of society +as on any other is quite evident. It would be odd if the theory which +makes progress depend on modification forbade us to attempt to modify. +When it is said that the various successive changes in thought and +institution present and consummate themselves spontaneously, no one +means by spontaneity that they come to pass independently of human +effort and volition. On the contrary, this energy of the members of the +society is one of the spontaneous elements. It is quite as +indispensable as any other of them, if indeed it be not more so. +Progress depends upon tendencies and forces in a community. But of these +tendencies and forces, the organs and representatives must plainly be +found among the men and women of the community, and cannot possibly be +found anywhere else. Progress is not automatic, in the sense that if we +were all to be cast into a deep slumber for the space of a generation, +we should awake to find ourselves in a greatly improved social state. +The world only grows better, even in the moderate degree in which it +does grow better, because people wish that it should, and take the right +steps to make it better. Evolution is not a force, but a process; not a +cause, but a law. It explains the source, and marks the immovable +limitations, of social energy. But social energy itself can never be +superseded either by evolution or by anything else. + +The reproach of being impracticable and artificial attaches by rights +not to those who insist on resolute, persistent, and uncompromising +efforts to remove abuses, but to a very different class--to those, +namely, who are credulous enough to suppose that abuses and bad customs +and wasteful ways of doing things will remove themselves. This +credulity, which is a cloak for indolence or ignorance or stupidity, +overlooks the fact that there are bodies of men, more or less numerous, +attached by every selfish interest they have to the maintenance of these +abusive customs. 'A plan,' says Bentham, 'may be said to be too good to +be practicable, where, without adequate inducement in the shape of +personal interest, it requires for its accomplishment that some +individual or class of individuals shall have made a sacrifice of his or +their personal interest to the interest of the whole. When it is on the +part of a body of men or a multitude of individuals taken at random that +any such sacrifice is reckoned upon, then it is that in speaking of the +plan the term _Utopian_ may without impropriety be applied.' And this is +the very kind of sacrifice which must be anticipated by those who so +misunderstand the doctrine of evolution as to believe that the world is +improved by some mystic and self-acting social discipline, which +dispenses with the necessity of pertinacious attack upon institutions +that have outlived their time, and interests that have lost their +justification. + +We are thus brought to the position--to which, indeed, bare observation +of actual occurrences might well bring us, if it were not for the +clouding disturbances of selfishness, or of a true philosophy of society +wrongly applied--that a society can only pursue its normal course by +means of a certain progression of changes, and that these changes can +only be initiated by individuals or very small groups of individuals. +The progressive tendency can only be a tendency, it can only work its +way through the inevitable obstructions around it, by means of persons +who are possessed by the special progressive idea. Such ideas do not +spring up uncaused and unconditioned in vacant space. They have had a +definite origin and ordered antecedents. They are in direct relation +with the past. They present themselves to one person or little group of +persons rather than to another, because circumstances, or the accident +of a superior faculty of penetration, have placed the person or group in +the way of such ideas. In matters of social improvement the most common +reason why one hits upon a point of progress and not another, is that +the one happens to be more directly touched than the other by the +unimproved practice. Or he is one of those rare intelligences, active, +alert, inventive, which by constitution or training find their chief +happiness in thinking in a disciplined and serious manner how things can +be better done. In all cases the possession of a new idea, whether +practical or speculative, only raises into definite speech what others +have needed without being able to make their need articulate. This is +the principle on which experience shows us that fame and popularity are +distributed. A man does not become celebrated in proportion to his +general capacity, but because he does or says something which happened +to need doing or saying at the moment. + +This brings us directly to our immediate subject. For such a man is the +holder of a trust It is upon him and those who are like him that the +advance of a community depends. If he is silent, then repair is checked, +and the hurtful elements of worn-out beliefs and waste institutions +remain to enfeeble the society, just as the retention of waste products +enfeebles or poisons the body. If in a spirit of modesty which is often +genuine, though it is often only a veil for love of ease, he asks why he +rather than another should speak, why he before others should refuse +compliance and abstain from conformity, the answer is that though the +many are ultimately moved, it is always one who is first to leave the +old encampment. If the maxim of the compromiser were sound, it ought to +be capable of universal application. Nobody has a right to make an +apology for himself in this matter, which he will not allow to be valid +for others. If one has a right to conceal his true opinions, and to +practice equivocal conformities, then all have a right. One plea for +exemption is in this case as good as another, and no better. That he has +married a wife, that he has bought a yoke of oxen and must prove them, +that he has bidden guests to a feast--one excuse lies on the same level +as the rest. All are equally worthless as answers to the generous +solicitation of enlightened conscience. Suppose, then, that each man on +whom in turn the new ideas dawned wore to borrow the compromiser's plea +and imitate his example. We know what would happen. The exploit in +which no one will consent to go first, remains unachieved. You wait +until there are persons enough agreeing with you to form an effective +party? But how are the members of the band to know one another, if all +are to keep their dissent from the old, and their adherence to the new, +rigorously private? And how many members constitute the innovating band +an effective force! When one-half of the attendants at a church are +unbelievers, will that warrant us in ceasing to attend, or shall we +tarry until the dissemblers number two-thirds? Conceive the additions +which your caution has made to the moral integrity of the community in +the meantime. Measure the enormous hindrances that will have been placed +in the way of truth and improvement, when the day at last arrives on +which you and your two-thirds take heart to say that falsehood and abuse +have now reached their final term, and must at length be swept away into +the outer darkness. Consider how much more terrible the shock of change +will be when it does come, and how much less able will men be to meet +it, and to emerge successfully from it. + +Perhaps the compromiser shrinks, not because he fears to march alone, +but because he thinks that the time has not yet come for the progressive +idea which he has made his own, and for whose triumph one day he +confidently hopes. This plea may mean two wholly different states of the +case. The time has not yet come for what? For making those positive +changes in life or institution, which the change in idea must ultimately +involve? That is one thing. Or for propagating, elaborating, enforcing +the new idea, and strenuously doing all that one can to bring as many +people as possible to a state of theory, which will at last permit the +requisite change in practice to be made with safety and success? This is +another and entirely different thing. The time may not have come for the +first of these two courses. The season may not be advanced enough for us +to push on to active conquest. But the time has always come, and the +season is never unripe, for the announcement of the fruitful idea. + +We must go further than that. In so far as it can be done by one man +without harming his neighbours, the time has always come for the +realisation of an idea. When the change in way of living or in +institution is one which requires the assent and co-operation of numbers +of people, it may clearly be a matter for question whether men enough +are ready to yield assent and co-operation. But the expression of the +necessity of the change and the grounds of it, though it may not always +be appropriate, can never be premature, and for these reasons. The fact +of a new idea having come to one man is a sign that it is in the air. +The innovator is as much the son of his generation as the conservative. +Heretics have as direct a relation to antecedent conditions as the +orthodox. Truth, said Bacon, has been rightly named the daughter of +Time. The new idea does not spring up uncaused and by miracle. If it has +come to me, there must be others to whom it has only just missed coming. +If I have found my way to the light, there must be others groping after +it very close in my neighbourhood. My discovery is their goal. They are +prepared to receive the new truth, which they were not prepared to find +for themselves. The fact that the mass are not yet ready to receive, any +more than to find, is no reason why the possessor of the new truth +should run to hide under a bushel the candle which has been lighted for +him. If the time has not come for them, at least it has come for him. No +man can ever know whether his neighbours are ready for change or not. He +has all the following certainties, at least:--that he himself is ready +for the change; that he believes it would be a good and beneficent one; +that unless some one begins the work of preparation, assuredly there +will be no consummation; and that if he declines to take a part in the +matter, there can be no reason why every one else in turn should not +decline in like manner, and so the work remain for ever unperformed. The +compromiser who blinds himself to all those points, and acts just as if +the truth were not in him, does for ideas with which he agrees, the very +thing which the acute persecutor does for ideas which he dislikes--he +extinguishes beginnings and kills the germs. + + +The consideration on which so many persons rely, that an existing +institution, though destined to be replaced by a better, performs useful +functions provisionally, is really not to the point. It is an excellent +reason why the institution should not be removed or fundamentally +modified, until public opinion is ripe for the given piece of +improvement. But it is no reason at all why those who are anxious for +the improvement, should speak and act just as they would do if they +thought the change perfectly needless and undesirable. It is no reason +why those who allow the provisional utility of a belief or an +institution or a custom of living, should think solely of the utility +and forget the equally important element of its provisionalness. For the +fact of its being provisional is the very ground why every one who +perceives this element, should set himself to act accordingly. It is the +ground why he should set himself, in other words, to draw opinion in +every way open to him--by speech, by voting, by manner of life and +conduct--in the direction of new truth and the better practice. Let us +not, because we deem a thing to be useful for the hour, act as if it +were to be useful for ever. The people who selfishly seek to enjoy as +much comfort and ease as they can in an existing state of things, with +the desperate maxim, 'After us, the deluge,' are not any worse than +those who cherish present comfort and case and take the world as it +comes, in the fatuous and self-deluding hope, 'After us, the +millennium.' Those who make no sacrifice to avert the deluge, and those +who make none to hasten their millennium, are on the same moral level. +And the former have at least the quality of being no worse than their +avowed principle, while the latter nullify their pretended hopes by +conformities which are only proper either to profound social +contentment, or to profound social despair. Nay, they seem to think that +there is some merit in this merely speculative hopefulness. They act as +if they supposed that to be very sanguine about the general improvement +of mankind, is a virtue that relieves them from taking trouble about any +improvement in particular. + +If those who defend a given institution are doing their work well, that +furnishes the better reason why those who disapprove of it and +disbelieve in its enduring efficacy, should do their work well also. +Take the Christian churches, for instance. Assume, if you will, that +they are serving a variety of useful functions. If that were all, it +would be a reason for conforming. But we are speaking of those for whom +the matter does not end here. If you are convinced that the dogma is not +true; that a steadily increasing number of persons are becoming aware +that it is not true; that its efficacy as a basis of spiritual life is +being lowered in the same degree as its credibility; that both dogma and +church must be slowly replaced by higher forms of faith, if not also by +more effective organisations; then, all who hold such views as these +have as distinctly a function in the community as the ministers and +upholders of the churches, and the zeal of the latter is simply the most +monstrously untenable apology that could be invented for dereliction of +duty by the former. + +If the orthodox to some extent satisfy certain of the necessities of the +present, there are other necessities of the future which can only be +satisfied by those who now pass for heretical. The plea which we are +examining, if it is good for the purpose for which it is urged, would +have to be expressed in this way:--The institution is working as +perfectly as it can be made to do, or as any other in its place would be +likely to do, and therefore I will do nothing by word or deed towards +meddling with it. Those who think this, and act accordingly, are the +consistent conservatives of the community. If a man takes up any +position short of this, his conformity, acquiescence, and inertia at +once become inconsistent and culpable. For unless the institution or +belief is entirely adequate, it must be the duty of all who have +satisfied themselves that it is not so, to recognise its deficiences, +and at least to call attention to them, even if they lack opportunity or +capacity to suggest remedies. Now we are dealing with persons who, from +the hypothesis, do not admit that this or that factor in an existing +social state secures all the advantages which might be secured if +instead of that factor there were some other. We are speaking of all the +various kinds of dissidents, who think that the current theology, or an +established church, or a monarchy, or an oligarchic republic, is a bad +thing and a lower form, even at the moment while they attribute +provisional merit to it. They can mean nothing by classing each of +these as bad things, except that they either bring with them certain +serious drawbacks, or exclude certain valuable advantages. The fact that +they perform their functions well, such as they are, leaves the +fundamental vice or defect of these functions just where it was. If any +one really thinks that the current theology involves depraved notions of +the supreme impersonation of good, restricts and narrows the +intelligence, misdirects the religious imagination, and has become +powerless to guide conduct, then how does the circumstance that it +happens not to be wholly and unredeemedly bad in its influence, relieve +our dissident from all care or anxiety as to the points in which, as we +have seen, he does count it inadequate and mischievous? Even if he +thinks it does more good than harm--a position which must be very +difficult for one who believes the common supernatural conception of it +to be entirely false--even then, how is he discharged from the duty of +stigmatising the harm which he admits that it does? + +Again, take the case of the English monarchy. Grant, if you will, that +this institution has a certain function, and that by the present chief +magistrate this function is estimably performed. Yet if we are of those +who believe that in the stage of civilisation which England has reached +in other matters, the monarchy must be either obstructive and injurious, +or else merely decorative; and that a merely decorative monarchy tends +in divers ways to engender habits of abasement, to nourish lower social +ideals, to lessen a high civil self-respect in the community; then it +must surely be our duty not to lose any opportunity of pressing these +convictions. To do this is not necessarily to act as if one were anxious +for the immediate removal of the throne and the crown into the museum of +political antiquities. We may have no urgent practical solicitude in +this direction, on the intelligible principle that a free people always +gets as good a kind of government as it deserves. Our conviction is not, +on the present hypothesis, that monarchy ought to be swept away in +England, but that monarchy produces certain mischievous consequences to +the public spirit of the community. And so what we are bound to do is to +take care not to conceal this conviction; to abstain scrupulously from +all kinds of action and observance, public or private, which tend ever +so remotely to foster the ignoble and degrading elements that exist in a +court and spread from it outwards; and to use all the influence we have, +however slight it may be, in loading public opinion to a right attitude +of contempt and dislike for these ignoble and degrading elements, and +the conduct engendered by them. A policy like this does not interfere +with the advantages of the monarchy, such as they are asserted to be, +and it has the effect of making what are supposed to be its +disadvantages as little noxious as possible. The question whether we can +get others to agree with us is not relevant. If we were eager for +instant overthrow, it would be the most relevant of all questions. But +we are in the preliminary stage, the stage for acting on opinion. The +fact that others do not yet share our opinion, is the very reason for +our action. We can only bring them to agree with us, if it be possible +on any terms, by persistency in our principles. This persistency, in all +but either very timid or very vulgar natures, always has been and +always will be independent of external assent or co-operation. The +history of success, as we can never too often repeat to ourselves, is +the history of minorities. And what is more, it is for the most part the +history of insurrection exactly against what the worldly spirits of the +time, whenever it may have been, deemed mere trifles and accidents, with +which sensible men should on no account dream of taking the trouble to +quarrel. + +'Halifax,' says Macaulay, 'was in speculation a strong republican and +did not conceal it. He often made hereditary monarchy and aristocracy +the subjects of his keen pleasantry, while he was fighting the battles +of the court and obtaining for himself step after step in the peerage.' +We are perfectly familiar with this type, both in men who have, and men +who have not, such brilliant parts as Halifax. Such men profess to +nourish high ideals of life, of character, of social institutions. Yet +they never think of these ideals, when they are deciding what is +practically attainable. One would like to ask them what purpose is +served by an ideal, if it is not to make a guide for practice and a +landmark in dealing with the real. A man's loftiest and most ideal +notions must be of a singularly ethereal and, shall we not say, +senseless kind, if he can never see how to take a single step that may +tend in the slightest degree towards making them more real. If an ideal +has no point of contact with what exists, it is probably not much more +than the vapid outcome of intellectual or spiritual self-indulgence. If +it has such a point of contact, then there is sure to be something which +a man can do towards the fulfilment of his hopes. He cannot substitute a +new national religion for the old, but he can at least do something to +prevent people from supposing that the adherents of the old are more +numerous than they really are, and something to show them that good +ideas are not all exhausted by the ancient forms. He cannot transform a +monarchy into a republic, but he can make sure that one citizen at least +shall aim at republican virtues, and abstain from the debasing +complaisance of the crowd. + + +'It is a very great mistake, said Burke, many years before the French +Revolution is alleged, and most unreasonably alleged, to have alienated +him from liberalism: 'it is a very great mistake to imagine that +mankind follow up practically any speculative principle, either of +government or of freedom, as far as it will go in argument and logical +illation. All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, +every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and +barter. We balance inconveniences; we give and take;--we remit some +rights that we may enjoy others.... Man acts from motives relative to +his interests; and not on metaphysical speculations.[29] These are the +words of wisdom and truth, if we can be sure that men will interpret +them in all the fulness of their meaning, and not be content to take +only that part of the meaning which falls in with the dictates of their +own love of ease. In France such words ought to be printed in capitals +on the front of every newspaper, and written up in letters of burnished +gold over each faction of the Assembly, and on the door of every bureau +in the Administration. In England they need a commentary which shall +bring out the very simple truth, that compromise and barter do not mean +the undisputed triumph of one set of principles. Nor, on the other hand, +do they mean the mutilation of both sets of principles, with a view to +producing a _tertium quid_ that shall involve the disadvantages of each, +without securing the advantages of either. What Burke means is that we +ought never to press our ideas up to their remotest logical issues, +without reference to the conditions in which we are applying them. In +politics we have an art. Success in politics, as in every other art, +obviously before all else implies both knowledge of the material with +which we have to deal, and also such concession as is necessary to the +qualities of the material. Above all, in politics we have an art in +which development depends upon small modifications. That is the true +side of the conservative theory. To hurry on after logical perfection is +to show one's self ignorant of the material of that social structure +with which the politician has to deal. To disdain anything short of an +organic change in thought or institution in infatuation. To be willing +to make such changes too frequently, even when they are possible, is +foolhardiness. That fatal French saying about small reforms being the +worst enemies of great reforms is, in the sense in which it is commonly +used, a formula of social ruin. + +On the other hand, let us not forget that there is a sense in which this +very saying is profoundly true. A small and temporary improvement may +really be the worst enemy of a great and permanent improvement, unless +the first is made on the lines and in the direction of the second. And +so it may, if it be successfully palmed off upon a society as actually +being the second. In such a case as this, and our legislation presents +instances of the kind, the small reform, if it be not made with +reference to some large progressive principle and with a view to further +extension of its scope, makes it all the more difficult to return to the +right line and direction when improvement is again demanded. To take an +example which is now very familiar to us all. The Education Act of 1870 +was of the nature of a small reform. No one pretends that it is anything +approaching to a final solution of a complex problem. But the government +insisted, whether rightly or wrongly, that their Act was as large a +measure as public opinion was at that moment ready to support. At the +same time it was clearly agreed among the government and the whole of +the party at their backs, that at some time or other, near or remote, if +public instruction was to be made genuinely effective, the private, +voluntary, or denominational system would have to be replaced by a +national system. To prepare for this ultimate replacement was one of the +points to be most steadily borne in mind, however slowly and tentatively +the process might be conducted. Instead of that, the authors of the Act +deliberately introduced provisions for extending and strengthening the +very system which will have eventually to be superseded. They thus by +their small reform made the future great reform the more difficult of +achievement. Assuredly this is not the compromise and barter, the give +and take, which Burke intended. What Burke means by compromise, and what +every true statesman understands by it, is that it may be most +inexpedient to meddle with an institution merely because it does not +harmonise with 'argument and logical illation.' This is a very different +thing from giving new comfort and strength with one hand, to an +institution whose death-warrant you pretend to be signing with the +other. + +In a different way the second possible evil of a small reform may be +equally mischievous--where the small reform is represented as settling +the question. The mischief here is not that it takes us out of the +progressive course, as in the case we have just been considering, but +that it sets men's minds in a posture of contentment, which is not +justified by the amount of what has been done, and which makes it all +the harder to arouse them to new effort when the inevitable time +arrives. + +In these ways, then, compromise may mean, not acquiescence in an +instalment, on the ground that the time is not ripe to yield us more +than an instalment, but either the acceptance of the instalment as +final, followed by the virtual abandonment of hope and effort; or else +it may mean a mistaken reversal of direction, which augments the +distance that has ultimately to be traversed. In either of these senses, +the small reform may become the enemy of the great one. But a right +conception of political method, based on a rightly interpreted +experience of the conditions on which societies unite progress with +order, leads the wise conservative to accept the small change, lest a +worse thing befall him, and the wise innovator to seize the chance of a +small improvement, while incessantly working in the direction of great +ones. The important thing is that throughout the process neither of them +should lose sight of his ultimate ideal; nor fail to look at the detail +from the point of view of the whole; nor allow the near particular to +bulk so unduly large as to obscure the general and distant. + +If the process seems intolerably slow, we may correct our impatience by +looking back upon the past. People seldom realise the enormous period of +time which each change in men's ideas requires for its full +accomplishment. We speak of these changes with a peremptory kind of +definiteness, as if they had covered no more than the space of a few +years. Thus we talk of the time of the Reformation, as we might talk of +the Reform Bill or the Repeal of the Corn Duties. Yet the Reformation is +the name for a movement of the mind of northern Europe, which went on +for three centuries. Then if we turn to that still more momentous set +of events, the rise and establishment of Christianity, one might suppose +from current speech that we could fix that within a space of half a +century or so. Yet it was at least four hundred years before all the +foundations of that great superstructure of doctrine and organisation +were completely laid. Again, to descend to less imposing occurrences, +the transition in the Eastern Empire from the old Roman system of +national organisation to that other system to which we give the specific +name of Byzantine,--this transition, so infinitely less important as it +was than either of the two other movements, yet occupied no less than a +couple of hundred years. The conditions of speech make it indispensable +for us to use definite and compendious names for movements that were +both tardy and complex. We are forced to name a long series of events as +if they were a single event. But we lose the reality of history, we fail +to recognise one of the most striking aspects of human affairs, and +above all we miss that most invaluable practical lesson, the lesson of +patience, unless we remember that the great changes of history took up +long periods of time which, when measured by the little life of a man, +are almost colossal, like the vast changes of geology. We know how long +it takes before a species of plant or animal disappears in face of a +better adapted species. Ideas and customs, beliefs and institutions, +have always lingered just as long in face of their successors, and the +competition is not less keen nor less prolonged, because it is for one +or other inevitably destined to be hopeless. History, like geology, +demands the use of the imagination, and in proportion as the exercise of +the historic imagination is vigorously performed in thinking of the +past, will be the breadth of our conception of the changes which the +future has in store for us, as well as of the length of time and the +magnitude of effort required for their perfect achievement[30]. + +This much, concerning moderation in political practice. No such +considerations present themselves in the matters which concern the +shaping of our own lives, or the publications of our social opinions. In +this region we are not imposing charges upon others, either by law or +otherwise. We therefore owe nothing to the prejudices or habits of +others. If any one sets serious value upon the point of difference +between his own ideal and that which is current, if he thinks that his +'experiment in living' has promise of real worth, and that if more +persons could be induced to imitate it, some portion of mankind would be +thus put in possession of a better kind of happiness, then it is selling +a birthright for a mess of pottage to abandon hopes so rich and +generous, merely in order to avoid the passing and casual penalties of +social disapproval. And there is a double evil in this kind of flinching +from obedience to the voice of our better selves, whether it takes the +form of absolute suppression of what we think and hope, or only of +timorous and mutilated presentation. We lose not only the possible +advantage of the given change. Besides that, we lose also the certain +advantage of maintaining or increasing the amount of conscientiousness +in the world. And everybody can perceive the loss incurred in a society +where diminution of the latter sort takes place. The advance of the +community depends not merely on the improvement and elevation of its +moral maxima, but also on the quickening of moral sensibility. The +latter work has mostly been effected, when it has been effected on a +large scale, by teachers of a certain singular personal quality. They do +nothing to improve the theory of conduct, but they have the art of +stimulating men to a more enthusiastic willingness to rise in daily +practice to the requirements of whatever theory they may accept. The +love of virtue, of duty, of holiness, or by whatever name we call this +powerful sentiment, exists in the majority of men, where it exists at +all, independently of argument. It is a matter of affection, sympathy, +association, aspiration. Hence, even while, in quality, sense of duty is +a stationary factor, it is constantly changing in quantity. The amount +of conscience in different communities, or in the same community at +different times, varies infinitely. The immediate cause of the decline +of a society in the order of morals is a decline in the quantity of its +conscience, a deadening of its moral sensitiveness, and not a +depravation of its theoretical ethics. The Greeks became corrupt and +enfeebled, not for lack of ethical science, but through the decay in the +numbers of those who were actually alive to the reality and force of +ethical obligations. Mahometans triumphed over Christians in the East +and in Spain--if we may for a moment isolate moral conditions from the +rest of the total circumstances--not because their scheme of duty was +more elevated or comprehensive, but because their respect for duty was +more strenuous and fervid. + +The great importance of leaving this priceless element in a community +as free, as keen, and as active as possible, is overlooked by the +thinkers who uphold coercion against liberty, as a saving social +principle. Every act of coercion directed against an opinion or a way of +living is in so far calculated to lessen the quantity of conscience in +the society where such acts are practised. Of course, where ways of +living interfere with the lawful rights of others, where they are not +strictly self-regarding in all their details, it is necessary to force +the dissidents, however strong may be their conscientious sentiment. The +evil of attenuating that sentiment is smaller than the evil of allowing +one set of persons to realise their own notions of happiness, at the +expense of all the rest of the world. But where these notions can be +realised without unlawful interference of that kind, then the forcible +hindrance of such realisation is a direct weakening of the force and +amount of conscience on which the community may count. There is one +memorable historic case to illustrate this. Lewis XIV., in revoking the +Edict of Nantes, and the author of the still more cruel law of 1724, not +only violently drove out multitudes of the most scrupulous part of the +French nation; they virtually offered the most tremendous bribes to +those of less stern resolution, to feign conversion to the orthodox +faith. This was to treat conscience as a thing of mean value. It was to +scatter to the wind with both hands the moral resources of the +community. And who can fail to see the strength which would have been +given to France in her hour of storm, a hundred years after the +revocation of the Edict of Nantes, if her protestant sons, fortified by +the training in the habits of individual responsibility which +protestantism involves, had only been there to aid? + + +This consideration brings us to a new side of the discussion. We may +seem to have been unconsciously arguing as strongly in favour of a +vigorous social conservatism as of a self-asserting spirit of social +improvement. All that we have been saying may appear to cut both ways. +If the innovator should decline to practise silence or reserve, why +should the possessor of power be less uncompromising, and why should he +not impose silence by force? If the heretic ought to be uncompromising +in expressing his opinions, and in acting upon them, in the fulness of +his conviction that they are right, why should not the orthodox be +equally uncompromising in his resolution to stamp out the heretical +notions and unusual ways of living, in the fulness of his conviction +that they are thoroughly wrong? To this question the answer is that the +hollow kinds of compromise are as bad in the orthodox as in the +heretical. Truth has as much to gain from sincerity and thoroughness in +one as in the other. But the issue between the partisans of the two +opposed schools turns upon the sense which we design to give to the +process of stamping out. Those who cling to the tenets of liberty limit +the action of the majority, as of the minority, strictly to persuasion. +Those who dislike liberty, insist that earnestness of conviction +justifies either a majority or a minority in using not persuasion only, +but force. I do not propose here to enter into the great question which +Mr. Mill pressed anew upon the minds of this generation. His arguments +are familiar to every reader, and the conclusion at which he arrived is +almost taken for a postulate in the present essay.[31] The object of +these chapters is to reiterate the importance of self-assertion, +tenacity, and positiveness of principle. The partisan of coercion will +argue that this thesis is on one side of it a justification of +persecution, and other modes of interfering with new opinions and new +ways of living by force, and the strong arm of the law, and whatever +other energetic means of repression may be at command. If the minority +are to be uncompromising alike in seeking and realising what they take +for truth, why not the majority? Now this implies two propositions. It +is the same as to say, first, that earnestness of conviction is not to +be distinguished from a belief in our own infallibility; second, that +faith in our infallibility is necessarily bound up with intolerance. + +Neither of these propositions is true. Let us take them in turn. +Earnestness of conviction is perfectly compatible with a sense of +liability to error. This has been so excellently put by a former writer +that we need not attempt to better his exposition. 'Every one must, of +course, think his own opinions right; for if he thought them wrong, they +would no longer be his opinions: but there is a wide difference between +regarding ourselves as infallible, and being firmly convinced of the +truth of our creed. When a man reflects on any particular doctrine, he +may be impressed with a thorough conviction of the improbability or even +impossibility of its being false: and so he may feel with regard to all +his other opinions, when he makes them objects of separate +contemplation. And yet when he views them in the aggregate, when he +reflects that not a single being on the earth holds collectively the +same, when he looks at the past history and present state of mankind, +and observes the various creeds of different ages and nations, the +peculiar modes of thinking of sects and bodies and individuals, the +notions once firmly held, which have been exploded, the prejudices once +universally prevalent, which have been removed, and the endless +controversies which have distracted those who have made it the business +of their lives to arrive at the truth; and when he further dwells on +the consideration that many of these, his fellow-creatures, have had a +conviction of the justness of their respective sentiments equal to his +own, he cannot help the obvious inference, that in his own opinion it is +next to impossible that there is not an admixture of error; that there +is an infinitely greater probability of his being wrong in some than +right in all.'[32] + +Of course this is not an account of the actual frame of mind of ordinary +men. They never do think of their opinions in the aggregate in +comparison with the collective opinions of others, nor ever draw the +conclusions which such reflections would suggest. But such a frame of +mind is perfectly attainable, and has often been attained, by persons of +far lower than first-rate capacity. And if this is so, there is no +reason why it should not be held up for the admiration and imitation of +all those classes of society which profess to have opinions. It would +thus become an established element in the temper of the age. Nor need we +fear that the result of this would be any flaccidity of conviction, or +lethargy in act. A man would still be penetrated with the rightness of +his own opinion on a given issue, and would still do all that he could +to make it prevail in practice. But among the things which he would no +longer permit himself to do, would be the forcible repression in others +of any opinions, however hostile to his own, or of any kind of conduct, +however widely it diverged from his own, and provided that it concerned +themselves only. This widening of his tolerance would be the natural +result of a rational and realised consciousness of his own general +fallibility. + +Next, even belief in one's own infallibility does not necessarily lead +to intolerance. For it may be said that though no man in his senses +would claim to be incapable of error, yet in every given case he is +quite sure that he is not in error, and therefore this assurance in +particular is tantamount by process of cumulation to a sense of +infallibility in general. Now even if this were so, it would not of +necessity either produce or justify intolerance. The certainty of the +truth of your own opinions is independent of any special idea as to the +means by which others may best be brought to share them. The question +between persuasion and force remains apart--unless, indeed, we may say +that in societies where habits of free discussion have once begun to +take root, those who are least really sure about their opinions, are +often most unwilling to trust to persuasion to bring them converts, and +most disposed to grasp the rude implements of coercion, whether legal or +merely social. The cry, 'Be my brother, or I slay thee,' was the sign of +a very weak, though very fiery, faith in the worth of fraternity. He +whose faith is most assured, has the best reason for relying on +persuasion, and the strongest motive to thrust from him all temptations +to use angry force. The substitution of force for persuasion, among its +other disadvantages, has this further drawback, from our present point +of view, that it lessens the conscience of a society and breeds +hypocrisy. You have not converted a man, because you have silenced him. +Opinion and force belong to different elements. To think that you are +able by social disapproval or other coercive means to crush a man's +opinion, is as one who should fire a blunderbuss to put out a star. The +acquiescence in current notions which is secured by law or by petulant +social disapproval, is as worthless and as essentially hypocritical, as +the conversion of an Irish pauper to protestantism by means of +soup-tickets, or that of a savage to Christianity by the gift of a +string of beads. Here is the radical fallacy of those who urge that +people must use promises and threats in order to encourage opinions, +thoughts, and feelings which they think good, and to prevent others +which they think bad. Promises and threats can influence acts. Opinions +and thoughts on morals, politics, and the rest, after they have once +grown in a man's mind, can no more be influenced by promises and threats +than can my knowledge that snow is white or that ice is cold. You may +impose penalties on me by statute for saying that snow is white, or +acting as if I thought ice cold, and the penalties may affect my +conduct. They will not, because they cannot, modify my beliefs in the +matter by a single iota. One result therefore of intolerance is to make +hypocrites. On this, as on the rest of the grounds which vindicate the +doctrine of liberty, a man who thought himself infallible either in +particular or in general, from the Pope of Rome down to the editor of +the daily newspaper, might still be inclined to abstain from any form of +compulsion. The only reason to the contrary is that a man who is so +silly as to think himself incapable of going wrong, is very likely to be +too silly to perceive that coercion may be one way of going wrong. + +The currency of the notion that earnest sincerity about one's opinions +and ideals of conduct is inseparably connected with intolerance, is +indirectly due to the predominance of legal or juristic analogies in +social discussion. For one thing, the lawyer has to deal mainly with +acts, and to deal with them by way of repression. His attention is +primarily fixed on the deed, and only secondarily on the mind of the +doer. And so a habit of thought is created, which treats opinion as +something equally in the sphere of coercion with actions. At the same +time it favours coercive ways of affecting opinion. Then, what is still +more important, the jurist's conception of society has its root in the +relation between sovereign and subject, between lawmaker and those whom +law restrains. Exertion of power on one hand, and compliance on the +other--this is his type of the conditions of the social union. The +fertility and advance of discussion on social issues depends on the +substitution of the evolutional for the legal conception. The lawyer's +type of proposition is absolute. It is also, for various reasons which +need not be given here, inspired by involuntary reference to the lower, +rather than to the more highly developed, social states. In the lower +states law, penalties, coercion, compulsion, the strong hand, a sternly +repressive public opinion, were the conditions on which the community +was united and held together. But the line of thought which these +analogies suggest, becomes less and less generally appropriate in social +discussion, in proportion as the community becomes more complex, more +various in resource, more special in its organisation, in a word, more +elaborately civilised. The evolutionist's idea of society concedes to +law its historic place and its actual part. But then this idea leads +directly to a way of looking at society, which makes the replacement of +law by liberty a condition of reaching the higher stages of social +development. + +The doctrine of liberty belongs to the subject of this chapter, because +it is only another way of expressing the want of connection between +earnestness in realising our opinions, and anything like coercion in +their favour. If it were true that aversion from compromise, in carrying +out our ideas, implied the rightfulness of using all the means in our +power to hinder others from carrying out ideas hostile to them, then we +should have been preaching in a spirit unfavourable to the principle of +liberty. Our main text has been that men should refuse to sacrifice +their opinions and ways of living (in the self-regarding sphere) out of +regard to the _status quo_, or the prejudices of others. And this, as a +matter of course, excludes the right of forcing or wishing any one else +to make such a sacrifice to us. Well, the first foundation-stone for the +doctrine of liberty is to be sought in the conception of society as a +growing and developing organism. This is its true base, apart from the +numerous minor expediencies which may be adduced to complete the +structure of the argument. It is fundamentally advantageous that in +societies which have reached our degree of complex and intricate +organisation, unfettered liberty should be conceded to ideas and, within +the self-regarding sphere, to conduct also. The reasons for this are of +some such kind as the following. New ideas and new 'experiments in +living' would not arise, if there were not a certain inadequateness in +existing ideas and ways of living. They may not point to the right mode +of meeting inadequateness, but they do point to the existence and +consciousness of it. They originate in the social capability of growth. +Society can only develop itself on condition that all such novelties +(within the limit laid down, for good and valid reasons, at self +regarding conduct) are allowed to present themselves. First, because +neither the legislature nor any one else can ever know for certain what +novelties will prove of enduring value. Second, because even if we did +know for certain that given novelties were pathological growths and not +normal developments, and that they never would be of any value, still +the repression necessary to extirpate them would involve too serious a +risk both of keeping back social growth at some other point, and of +giving the direction of that growth an irreparable warp. And let us +repeat once more, in proportion as a community grows more complex in its +classes, divisions, and subdivisions, more intricate in its productive, +commercial, or material arrangements, so does this risk very obviously +wax more grave. + +In the sense in which we are speaking of it, liberty is not a positive +force, any more than the smoothness of a railroad is a positive +force.[33] It is a condition. As a force, there is a sense in which it +is true to call liberty a negation. As a condition, though it may still +be a negation, yet it may be indispensable for the production of certain +positive results. The vacuity of an exhausted receiver is not a force, +but it is the indispensable condition of certain positive operations. +Liberty as a force may be as impotent as its opponents allege. This does +not affect its value as a preliminary or accompanying condition. The +absence of a strait-waistcoat is a negation; but it is a useful +condition for the activity of sane men. No doubt there must be a +definite limit to this absence of external interference with conduct, +and that limit will be fixed at various points by different thinkers. We +are now only urging that it cannot be wisely fixed for the more complex +societies by any one who has not grasped this fundamental preconception, +that liberty, or the absence of coercion, or the leaving people to +think, speak, and act as they please, is in itself a good thing. It is +the object of a favourable presumption. The burden of proving it +inexpedient always lies, and wholly lies, on those who wish to abridge +it by coercion, whether direct or indirect. + +One reason why this truth is so reluctantly admitted, is men's +irrational want of faith in the self-protective quality of a highly +developed and healthy community. The timid compromiser on the one hand, +and the advocate of coercive restriction on the other, are equally the +victims of a superfluous apprehension. The one fears to use his liberty +for the same reason that makes the other fearful of permitting liberty. +This common reason is the want of a sensible confidence that, in a free +western community, which has reached our stage of development, +religious, moral, and social novelties--provided they are tainted by no +element of compulsion or interference with the just rights of others, +may be trusted to find their own level. Moral and intellectual +conditions are not the only motive forces in a community, nor are they +even the most decisive. Political and material conditions fix the limits +at which speculation can do either good or harm. Let us take an +illustration of the impotence of moral ideas to override material +circumstances; and we shall venture to place this illustration somewhat +fully before the reader. + +There is no more important distinction between modern civilised +communities and the ancient communities than the fact that the latter +rested on Slavery, while the former have abolished it. Hence there can +hardly be a more interesting question than this--by what agencies so +prodigious a transformation of one of the fundamental conditions of +society was brought about. The popular answer is of a very ready kind, +and it passes quite satisfactorily. This answer is that the first great +step towards free labour, the transformation of personal slavery into +serfdom, was the result of the spiritual change which was wrought in +men's minds by the teaching of the Church. It is unquestionable that the +influence of the Church tended to mitigate the evils of slavery, to +humanise the relations between master and slave, between the lord and +the serf. But this is a very different thing from the radical +transformation of those relations. If we think of society as an +organism we instantly understand that so immense a change as this could +not possibly have been effected without the co-operation of the other +great parts of the social system, any more than a critical evolution +could take place in the nutritive apparatus of an animal, without a +change in the whole series of its organs. Thus in order that serfage +should be evolved from slavery, and free labour again from serfage, it +could not be enough that an alteration should have been wrought in men's +ideas as to their common brotherhood, and the connected ideas as to the +lawfulness or unlawfulness of certain human relations. There must have +been an alteration also of the economic and material conditions. History +confirms the expectations which we should thus have been led to +entertain. The impotence of spiritual and moral agencies alone in +bringing about this great metamorphosis, is shown by such facts as +these. For centuries after the new faith had consolidated itself, +slavery was regarded without a particle of that deep abhorrence which +the possession of man by man excites in us now. In the ninth and tenth +centuries the slave trade was the most profitable branch of the +commerce that was carried on in the Mediterranean. The historian tells +us that, even so late as this, slaves were the principal article of +European export to Africa, Syria, and Egypt, in payment for the produce +of the East which was brought from those countries. It was the crumbling +of the old social system which, by reducing the population, lessening +the wealth, and lowering the standard of living among the free masters, +tended to extinguish slavery, by diminishing the differences between the +masters and their bondsmen. Again, it was certain laws enacted by the +Roman government for the benefit of the imperial fisc, which first +conferred rights on the slave. The same laws brought the free farmer, +whose position was less satisfactory for the purposes of the revenue, +down nearer and nearer to a servile condition. Again, in the ninth and +tenth centuries, pestilence and famine accelerated the extinction of +predial slavery by weakening the numbers of the free population. +'History,' we are told by that thoroughly competent authority, Mr. +Finlay, 'affords its testimony that neither the doctrines of +Christianity, nor the sentiments of humanity, have ever yet succeeded +in extinguishing slavery, where the soil could be cultivated with profit +by slave labour. No Christian community of slave-holders has yet +voluntarily abolished slavery. In no country where it prevailed has +rural slavery ceased, until the price of productions raised by slave +labour has fallen so low as to leave no profit to the slave-owner.' + +The moral of all this is the tolerably obvious truth, that the +prosperity of an abstract idea depends as much on the medium into which +it is launched, as upon any quality of its own. Stable societies are +amply furnished with force enough to resist all effort in a destructive +direction. There is seldom much fear, and in our own country there is +hardly any fear at all, of hasty reformers making too much way against +the spontaneous conservatism which belongs to a healthy and +well-organised community. If dissolvent ideas do make their way, it is +because the society was already ripe for dissolution. New ideas, however +ardently preached, will dissolve no society which was not already in a +condition of profound disorganisation. We may be allowed just to point +to two memorable instances, by way of illustration, though a long and +elaborate discussion would be needed to bring out their full force. It +has often been thought since, as it was thought by timorous +reactionaries at the time, that Christianity in various ways sapped the +strength of the Roman Empire, and opened the way for the barbarians. In +truth, the most careful and competent students know now that the Empire +slowly fell to pieces, partly because the political arrangements were +vicious and inadequate, but mainly because the fiscal and economic +system impoverished and depopulated one district of the vast empire +after another. It was the break-up of the Empire that gave the Church +its chance; not the Church that broke up the Empire. It is a mistake of +the same kind to suppose that the destructive criticism of the French +philosophers a hundred years ago was the great operative cause of the +catastrophe which befel the old social régime. If Voltaire, Diderot, +Rousseau, had never lived, or if their works had all been suppressed as +soon as they were printed, their absence would have given no new life to +agriculture, would not have stimulated trade, nor replenished the +bankrupt fisc, nor incorporated the privileged classes with the bulk of +the nation, nor done anything else to repair an organisation of which +every single part had become incompetent for its proper function. It was +the material misery and the political despair engendered by the reigning +system, which brought willing listeners to the feet of the teachers who +framed beneficent governments on the simple principles of reason and the +natural law. And these teachers only busied themselves with abstract +politics, because the real situation was desperate. They had no +alternative but to evolve social improvements out of their own +consciousness. There was not a single sound organ in the body politic, +which they could have made the starting-point of a reconstitution of a +society on the base of its actual or historic structure. The mischiefs +which resulted from their method are patent and undeniable. But the +method was made inevitable by the curse of the old régime.[34] + +Nor is there any instance in history of mere opinion making a breach in +the essential constitution of a community, so long as the political +conditions were stable and the economic or nutritive conditions sound. +If some absolute monarch were to be seized by a philanthropic resolution +to transform the ordering of a society which seemed to be at his +disposal, he might possibly, by the perseverance of a lifetime, succeed +in throwing the community into permanent confusion. Joseph II. perhaps +did as much as a modern sovereign can do in this direction. Yet little +came of his efforts, either for good or harm. But a man without the +whole political machinery in his power need hardly labour under any +apprehension that he may, by the mere force of speculative opinion, +involuntarily work a corresponding mischief. If it is true that the most +fervent apostles of progress usually do very little of the good on which +they congratulate themselves, they ought surely on the same ground to be +acquitted of much of the harm for which they are sometimes reviled. In a +country of unchecked and abundant discussion, a new idea is not at all +likely to make much way against the objection of its novelty, unless it +is really commended by some quality of temporary or permanent value. So +far therefore as the mere publication of new principles is concerned, +and so far also as merely self-regarding action goes, one who has the +keenest sense of social responsibility, and is most scrupulously afraid +of doing anything to slacken or perturb the process of social growth, +may still consistently give to the world whatever ideas he has gravely +embraced. He may safely trust, if the society be in a normal condition, +to its justice of assimilation and rejection. There are a few +individuals for whom newness is a recommendation. But what are these +few among the many to whom newness is a stumbling-block? Old ideas may +survive merely because they are old. A new one will certainly not, among +a considerable body of men in a healthy social state, gain any +acceptance worth speaking of, merely because it is new. + +The recognition of the self-protecting quality of society is something +more than a point of speculative importance. It has a direct practical +influence. For it would add to the courage and intrepidity of the men +who are most attached to the reigning order of things. If such men could +only divest themselves of a futile and nervous apprehension, that things +as they are have no root in their essential fitness and harmony, and +that order consequently is ever hanging on a trembling and doubtful +balance, they would not only gain by the self-respect which would be +added to them and the rest of the community, but all discussion would +become more robust and real. If they had a larger faith in the stability +for which they profess so great an anxiety, they would be more free +alike in understanding and temper to deal generously, honestly, and +effectively with those whom they count imprudent innovators. There is +nothing more amusing or more instructive than to turn to the debates in +parliament or the press upon some innovating proposal, after an interval +since the proposal was accepted by the legislature. The flaming hopes of +its friends, the wild and desperate prophecies of its antagonists, are +found to be each as ill-founded as the other. The measure which was to +do such vast good according to the one, such portentous evil according +to the other, has done only a part of the promised good, and has done +none of the threatened evil. The true lesson from this is one of +perseverance and thoroughness for the improver, and one of faith in the +self-protectiveness of a healthy society for the conservative. The +master error of the latter is to suppose that men are moved mainly by +their passions rather than their interests, that all their passions are +presumably selfish and destructive, and that their own interests can +seldom be adequately understood by the persons most directly concerned. +How many fallacies are involved in this group of propositions, the +reader may well be left to judge for himself. + +We have in this chapter considered some of the limitations which are +set by the conditions of society on the duty of trying to realise our +principles in action. The general conclusion is in perfect harmony with +that of the previous chapters. A principle, if it be sound, represents +one of the larger expediencies. To abandon that for the sake of some +seeming expediency of the hour, is to sacrifice the greater good for the +less, on no more creditable ground than that the less is nearer. It is +better to wait, and to defer the realisation of our ideas until we can +realise them fully, than to defraud the future by truncating them, if +truncate them we must, in order to secure a partial triumph for them in +the immediate present. It is better to bear the burden of +impracticableness, than to stifle conviction and to pare away principle +until it becomes more hollowness and triviality. What is the sense, and +what is the morality, of postponing the wider utility to the narrower? +Nothing is so sure to impoverish an epoch, to deprive conduct of +nobleness, and character of elevation. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 27: _The Study of Sociology_, p. 396.] + +[Footnote 28: No one, for instance, has given more forcible or decisive +expression than Mr. Spencer has done to the duty of not passively +accepting the current theology. See his _First Principles_, pt. i. ch. +vi, § 34; paragraph beginning,--'Whoever hesitates to utter that which +he thinks the highest truth, lest it should be too much in advance of +the time, may reassure himself by looking at his acts from an impersonal +point of view,' etc.] + +[Footnote 29: _Speech on Conciliation with America_.] + +[Footnote 30: 'Toute énormité dans les esprits d'un certain ordre n'est +souvent qu'une grande vue prise hors du temps et du lieu, et ne gardant +aucun rapport réel avec les objets environnants. Le propre de certaines +prunelles ardentes est de franchir du regard les intervalles et de les +supprimer. Tantôt c'est une idée qui retarde de plusieurs siècles, et +que ces vigoureux esprits se figurent encore présente et vivante; tantôt +c'est une idée qui avance, et qu'ils croient incontinent réalisable. M. +de Couaën était ainsi; il voyait 1814 dès 1804, et de là une +supériorité; mais il jugeait 1814 possible dès 1804 ou 1805, et de là +tout un chimérique entassement.--Voilà un point blanc à l'horizon, +chacun jurerait que c'est un nuage. "C'est une montagne," dit le +voyageur à l'oeil d'aigle; mais s'il ajoute: "Nous y arriverons ce soir, +dans deux heures;" si, à chaque heure de marche, il crie avec +emportement: "Nous y sommes," et le veut démontrer, il choque les +voisins avec sa poutre, et donne l'avantage aux yeux moins perçants et +plus habitués à la plaine.'--Ste. Beuve's _Volupté_, p. 262] + +[Footnote 31: It is sometimes convenient to set familiar arguments down +once more; so I venture to reprint in a note at the end of the chapter a +short exposition of the doctrine of liberty, which I had occasion to +make in considering Sir J.F. Stephen's vigorous attack on that +doctrine.] + +[Footnote 32: Mr. Samuel Bailey's _Essays on the Formation and +Publication of Opinions_, etc., p. 138, (1826.)] + +[Footnote 33: There is a sense, and a most important sense, in which +liberty is a positive force. It is its robust and bracing influence on +character, which makes wise men prize freedom and strive for the +enlargement of its province. As Mr. Mill expressed this:--'It is of +importance not only what men do, but what manner of men they are that do +it,' Milton pointed to the positive effect of liberty on character in +the following passage:--'They are not skilful considerers of human +things who imagine to remove sin by removing the matter of sin. Though +ye take from a covetous man his treasure, he has yet one jewel left; ye +cannot bereave him of his covetousness. Banish all objects of lust, shut +up all youth into the severest discipline that can be exercised in any +hermitage, ye cannot make them chaste that came not thither so. Suppose +we could expel sin by this means; look how much we thus expel of sin, so +much we expel of virtue. And were I the chooser, a dram of well-doing +should be preferred before many times as much the forcible hindrance of +evil-doing. For God sure esteems the growth and completing of one +virtuous person, more than the restraint of ten vicious.'] + +[Footnote 34: There is, I think, nothing in this paragraph really +inconsistent with De Tocqueville's well-known and striking chapter, +'Comment les hommes de lettres devinrent les principaux hommes +politiques du pays, et des effets qui en résultèrent.' (_Ancien Régime_, +iii. i.) Thus Sénac de Meilhan writes in 1795;--'C'est quand la +Révolution a été entamée qu'on a cherché dans Mably, dans Rousseau, des +armes pour sustenter le système vers lequel entrainait l'effervescence +de quelques esprits hardis. Mais ce ne sont point les auteurs que j'ai +cités qui ont enflamme les têtes; M. Necker seul a produit cet effet, et +déterminé l'explosion,' ... 'Les écrits de Voltaire ont certainement nui +à la religion, et ébranlé la croyance dans un assez grand nombre; mais +ils n'ont aucun rapport avec les affaires du gouvernement, et sont plus +favorables que contraires à la monarchie....' Of Rousseau's _Social +Contract_:--'Ce livre profond et abstrait était peu lu, et etendu de +bien peu de gens.' Mably--'avait peu de vogue.' _De Gouvernment, etc., +en France_, p. 129, etc.] + + + + +NOTE TO PAGE 242. + + +THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY. + +Mr. Mill's memorable plea for social liberty was little more than an +enlargement, though a very important enlargement, of the principles of +the still more famous Speech for Liberty of Unlicensed Printing with +which Milton ennobled English literature two centuries before. Milton +contended for free publication of opinion mainly on these grounds: +First, that the opposite system implied the 'grace of infallibility and +incorruptibleness' in the licensers. Second, that the prohibition of +bold books led to mental indolence and stagnant formalism both in +teachers and congregations, producing the 'laziness of a licensing +church.' Third, that it 'hinders and retards the importation of our +richest merchandise, truth;' for the commission of the licenser enjoins +him to let nothing pass which is not vulgarly received already, and 'if +it come to prohibiting, there is not aught more likely to be prohibited +than truth itself, whose first appearance to our eyes, bleared and +dimmed with prejudice and custom, is more unsightly and unplausible +than many errors, even as the person is of many a great man slight and +contemptible to see to.' Fourth, that freedom is in itself an ingredient +of true virtue, and 'they are not skilful considerers of human things +who imagine to remove sin by removing the matter of sin; that virtue +therefore, which is but a youngling in the contemplation of evil, and +knows not the utmost that vice promises to her followers, and rejects +it, is but a blank virtue, not a pure; her virtue is but an excremental +virtue, which was the reason why our sage and serious poet Spenser, whom +I dare be known to think a better teacher than Scotus or Aquinas, +describing true temperance under the form of Guion, brings him in with +his palmer through the cave of Mammon and the tower of earthly bliss, +that he might see and know and yet abstain.' + +The four grounds on which Mr. Mill contends for the necessity of freedom +in the expression of opinion to the mental wellbeing of mankind, are +virtually contained in these. His four grounds are, (1) that the +silenced opinion may be true; (2) it may contain a portion of truth, +essential to supplement the prevailing opinion; (3) vigorous contesting +of opinions that are even wholly true, is the only way of preventing +them from sinking to the level of uncomprehended prejudices; (4) without +such contesting, the doctrine will lose its vital effect on character +and conduct. + +But Milton drew the line of liberty at what he calls 'neighbouring +differences, or rather indifferences.' The Arminian controversy had +loosened the bonds with which the newly liberated churches of the +Reformation, had made haste to bind themselves again, and weakened that +authority of confessions, which had replaced the older but not more +intolerant authority of the universal church. Other controversies which +raged during the first half of the seventeenth century,--those between +catholics and protestants, between prelatists and presbyterians, between +socinians and trinitarians, between latitudinarians, puritans, and +sacramentalists,--all tended to weaken theological exclusiveness. This +slackening, however, was no more than partial. Roger Williams, indeed, +the Welsh founder of Rhode Island, preached, as early as 1631, the +principles of an unlimited toleration, extending to catholics, Jews, and +even infidels. Milton stopped a long way short of this. He did not mean +'tolerated popery and open superstition, which, as it extirpates all +religious and civil supremacies, so itself should be extirpate, provided +first that all charitable and compassionate means be used to win and +regain the weak and the misled: that also which is impious or evil +absolutely either against faith or manners no law can possibly permit +that intends not to unlaw itself.' + + +Locke, writing five-and-forty years later, somewhat widened these +limitations. His question was not merely whether there should be free +expression of opinion, but whether there should furthermore be freedom +of worship and of religious union. He answered both questions +affirmatively,--not on the semi-sceptical ground of Jeremy Taylor, which +is also one of the grounds taken by Mr. Mill, that we cannot be sure +that our own opinion is the true one,--but on the strength of his +definition of the province of the civil magistrate. Locke held that the +magistrate's whole jurisdiction reached only to civil concernments, and +that 'all civil power, right, and dominion is bounded to that only care +of promoting these things; and that it neither can nor ought in any +manner to be extended to the saving of souls. This chiefly because the +power of the civil magistrate consists only in outward force, while true +and saving religion consists in the inward persuasion of the mind, +without which nothing can be acceptable to God, and such is the nature +of the understanding that it cannot he compelled to the belief of +anything by outward force.... It is only light and evidence that can +work a change in men's opinions; and that light can in no manner proceed +from corporal sufferings, or any other outward penalties.' 'I may grow +rich by an art that I take not delight in; I may be cured of some +disease by remedies that I have not faith in; but I cannot be saved by a +religion that at I distrust and a ritual that I abhor.' (_First Letter +concerning Toleration_.) And much more in the same excellent vein. But +Locke fixed limits to toleration. 1. No opinions contrary to human +society, or to those moral rules which are necessary to the preservation +of civil society, are to be tolerated by the magistrate. Thus, to take +examples from our own day, a conservative minister would think himself +right on this principle in suppressing the Land and Labour League; a +catholic minister in dissolving the Education League; and any minister +in making mere membership of the Mormon sect a penal offence. 2. No +tolerance ought to be extended to 'those who attribute unto the +faithful, religious, and orthodox, that is in plain terms unto +themselves, any peculiar privilege or power above other mortals, in +civil concernments; or who, upon pretence of religion, do challenge any +manner of authority over such as are not associated with them in their +ecclesiastical communion.' As I have seldom heard of any sect, except +the Friends, who did not challenge as much authority as it could +possibly get over persons not associated with it, this would amount to a +universal proscription of religion; but Locke's principle might at any +rate be invoked against Ultra-montanism in some circumstances. 3. Those +are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of God. The taking +away of God, _though but even in thought_, dissolves all society; and +promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, +have no hold on such. Thus the police ought to close Mr. Bradlaugh's +Hall of Science, and perhaps on some occasions the Positivist School. + +Locke's principles depended on a distinction between civil concernments, +which he tries to define, and all other concernments. Warburton's +arguments on the alliance between church and state turned on the same +point, as did the once-famous Bangorian controversy. This distinction +would fit into Mr. Mill's cardinal position, which consists in a +distinction between the things that only affect the doer or thinker of +them, and the things that affect other persons as well. Locke's attempt +to divide civil affairs from affairs of salvation, was satisfactory +enough for the comparatively narrow object with which he opened his +discussion. Mr. Mill's account of civil affairs is both wider and more +definite; naturally so, as he had to maintain the cause of tolerance in +a much more complex set of social conditions, and amid a far greater +diversity of speculative energy, than any one dreamed of in Locke's +time. Mr. Mill limits the province of the civil magistrate to the +repression of acts that directly and immediately injure others than the +doer of them. So long as acts, including the expression of opinions, are +purely self-regarding, it seems to him expedient in the long run that +they should not be interfered with by the magistrate. He goes much +further than this. Self-regarding acts should not be interfered with by +the magistrate. Not only self-regarding acts, but all opinions +whatever, should, moreover, be as little interfered with as possible by +public opinion, except in the way of vigorous argumentation and earnest +persuasion in a contrary direction; the silent but most impressive +solicitation of virtuous example; the wise and careful upbringing of the +young, so that when they enter life they may be most nobly fitted to +choose the right opinions and obey the right motives. + +The consideration by which he supports this rigorous confinement of +external interference on the part of government, or the unorganised +members of the community whose opinion is called public opinion, to +cases of self-protection, are these, some of which have been already +stated:-- + +1. By interfering to suppress opinions or experiments in living, you may +resist truths and improvements in a greater or less degree. + +2. Constant discussion is the only certain means of preserving the +freshness of truth in men's minds, and the vitality of its influence +upon their conduct and motives. + +3. Individuality is one of the most valuable elements of wellbeing, and +you can only be sure of making the most of individuality, if you have an +atmosphere of freedom, encouraging free development and expansion. + +4. Habitual resort to repressive means of influencing conduct tends more +than anything else to discredit and frustrate the better means, such as +education, good example, and the like. (_Liberty_, 148.) + +The principle which he deduces from these considerations is--'that the +sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, +in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number is +self-protection; the only purpose for which power can be rightfully +exercised over any member of a civilised community, is to prevent harm +to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient +warrant. He cannot be rightfully compelled to do or forbear because it +will make him happier, because in the opinion of others to do so would +be wise or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with +him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but +not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil in case he do +otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to +deter him must be calculated to produce evil to others.' (_Liberty_, +22.) + + +Two disputable points in the above doctrine are likely at once to reveal +themselves to the least critical eye. First, that doctrine would seem to +check the free expression of disapproval; one of the most wholesome and +indispensable duties which anybody with interest in serious questions +has to perform, and the non-performance of which would remove the most +proper and natural penalty from frivolous or perverse opinions and +obnoxious conduct. Mr. Mill deals with this difficulty as follows:--'We +have a right in various ways to act upon our unfavourable opinion of any +one, not to the oppression of his individuality, but in the exercise of +ours. We are not bound, for example, to seek his society; we have a +right to avoid it (though not to parade the avoidance) for we have a +right to choose the society most acceptable to us. We have a right, and +it may be our duty, to caution others against him, if we think his +example or conversation likely to have a pernicious effect on those with +whom he associates. We may give others a preference over him in optional +good offices, except those which tend to his improvement. In these +various modes a person may suffer very severe penalties at the hands of +others for faults which directly concern only himself; but he suffers +these penalties only in so far as they are the natural, and as it were +the spontaneous, consequences of the faults themselves, not because they +are purposely inflicted on him for the sake of punishment.' (_Liberty_, +139.) This appears to be a satisfactory way of meeting the objection. +For though the penalties of disapproval may be just the same, whether +deliberately inflicted, or naturally and spontaneously falling on the +object of such disapproval, yet there is a very intelligible difference +between the two processes in their effect on the two parties concerned. +A person imbued with Mr. Mill's principle would feel the responsibility +of censorship much more seriously; would reflect more carefully and +candidly about the conduct or opinion of which he thought ill; would be +more on his guard against pharisaic censoriousness, and that desire to +be ever judging one another, which Milton well called the stronghold of +our hypocrisy. The disapproval of such a person would have an austere +colour, a gravity, a self-respecting reserve, which could never belong +to an equal degree of disapproval in a person who had started from the +officious principle, that if we are sure we are right, it is straightway +our business to make the person whom we think wrong smart for his error. +And in the same way such disapproval would be much more impressive to +the person whom it affected. If it was justified, he would be like a +froward child who is always less effectively reformed--if reformable at +all--by angry chidings and passionate punishments than by the sight of a +cool and austere displeasure which lets him persist in his frowardness +if he chooses. + + +The second weak point in the doctrine lies in the extreme vagueness of +the terms, protective and self-regarding. The practical difficulty +begins with the definition of these terms. Can any opinion, or any +serious part of conduct, be looked upon as truly and exclusively +self-regarding? This central ingredient in the discussion seems +insufficiently laboured in the essay on Liberty. Yet it is here more +than anywhere else that controversy is needed to clear up what is in +just as much need of elucidation, whatever view we may take of the +inherent virtue of freedom--whether we look on freedom as a mere +negation, or as one of the most powerful positive conditions of +attaining the highest kind of human excellence. + +To some persons the analysis of conduct, on which the whole doctrine of +liberty rests, seems metaphysical and arbitrary. They are reluctant to +admit there are any self-regarding acts at all. This reluctance implies +a perfectly tenable proposition, a proposition which has been maintained +by nearly all religious bodies in the world's history in their +non-latitudinarian stages. To distinguish the self-regarding from the +other parts of conduct, strikes them not only as unscientific, but as +morally and socially mischievous. They insist that there is a social as +well as a personal element in every human act, though in very different +proportions. There is no gain, they contend, and there may be much harm, +in trying to mark off actions, in which the personal element decisively +preponderates, from actions of another sort. Mr. Mill did so distinguish +actions, nor was his distinction either metaphysical or arbitrary in its +source. As a matter of observation, and for the practical purposes of +morality, there are kinds of action whose consequences do not go beyond +the doer of them. No doubt, you may say that by engaging in these kinds +in any given moment, the doer is neglecting the actions in which the +social element preponderates, and therefore even acts that seem purely +self-regarding have indirect and negative consequences to the rest of +the world. But to allow considerations of this sort to prevent us from +using a common-sense classification of acts by the proportion of the +personal element in them, is as unreasonable as if we allowed the +doctrine of the conservation of physical force, or the evolution of one +mode of force into another, to prevent us from classifying the +affections of matter independently, as light, heat, motion, and the +rest. There is one objection obviously to be made to most of the +illustrations which are designed to show the public element in all +private conduct. The connection between the act and its influence on +others is so remote (using the word in a legal sense), though quite +certain, distinct, and traceable, that you can only take the act out of +the self-regarding category, by a process which virtually denies the +existence of any such category. You must set a limit to this 'indirect +and at-a-distance argument,' as Locke called a similar plea, and the +setting of this limit is the natural supplement to Mr. Mill's 'simple +principle.' + +The division between self-regarding acts and others then, rests on +observation of their actual consequences. And why was Mr. Mill so +anxious to erect self-regarding acts into a distinct and important +class, so important as to be carefully and diligently secured by a +special principle of liberty? Because observation of the recorded +experience of mankind teaches us, that the recognition of this +independent provision is essential to the richest expansion of human +faculty. To narrow or to repudiate such a province, and to insist +exclusively on the social bearing of each part of conduct, is to limit +the play of motives, and to thwart the doctrine that 'mankind obtain a +greater sum of happiness when each pursues his own, under the rules and +conditions required by the rest, than when each makes the good of the +rest his only object.' To narrow or to repudiate such a province is to +tighten the power of the majority over the minority, and to augment the +authority of whatever sacerdotal or legislative body may represent the +majority. Whether the lawmakers be laymen in parliament, or priests of +humanity exercising the spiritual power, it matters not. + + +We may best estimate the worth and the significance of the doctrine of +Liberty by considering the line of thought and observation which led to +it. To begin with, it is in Mr. Mill's hands something quite different +from the same doctrine as preached by the French revolutionary school; +indeed one might even call it reactionary, in respect of the French +theory of a hundred years back. It reposes on no principle of abstract +right, but, like the rest of its author's opinions, on principles of +utility and experience. Dr. Arnold used to divide reformers into two +classes, popular and liberal. The first he defined as seekers of +liberty, the second as seekers of improvement; the first were the goats, +and the second were the sheep. Mr. Mill's doctrine denied the mutual +exclusiveness of the two parts of this classification, for it made +improvement the end and the test, while it proclaimed liberty to be the +means. Every thinker now perceives that the strongest and most durable +influences in every western society lead in the direction of democracy, +and tend with more or less rapidity to throw the control of social +organisation into the hands of numerical majorities. There are many +people who believe that if you only make the ruling body big enough, it +is sure to be either very wise itself, or very eager to choose wise +leaders. Mr. Mill, as any one who is familiar with his writings is well +aware, did not hold this opinion. He had no more partiality for mob rule +than De Maistre or Goethe or Mr. Carlyle. He saw its evils more clearly +than any of these eminent men, because he had a more scientific eye, and +because he had had the invaluable training of a political administrator +on a large scale, and in a very responsible post. But he did not content +himself with seeing these evils, and he wasted no energy in passionate +denunciation of them, which he knew must prove futile. Guizot said of De +Tocqueville, that he was an aristocrat who accepted his defeat. Mr. Mill +was too penetrated by popular sympathies to be an aristocrat in De +Tocqueville's sense, but he likewise was full of ideas and hopes which +the unchecked or undirected course of democracy would defeat without +chance of reparation. This fact he accepted, and from this he started. +Mr. Carlyle, and one or two rhetorical imitators, poured malediction on +the many-headed populace, and with a rather pitiful impatience insisted +that the only hope for men lay in their finding and obeying a strong +man, a king, a hero, a dictator. How he was to be found, neither the +master nor his still angrier and more impatient mimics could ever tell +us. + +Now Mr. Mill's doctrine laid down the main condition of finding your +hero; namely, that all ways should be left open to him, because no man, +nor majority of men, could possibly tell by which of these ways their +deliverers were from time to time destined to present themselves. Wits +have caricatured all this, by asking us whether by encouraging the tares +to grow, you give the wheat a better chance. This is as misleading as +such metaphors usually are. The doctrine of liberty rests on a faith +drawn from the observation of human progress, that though we know wheat +to be serviceable and tares to be worthless, yet there are in the great +seed-plot of human nature a thousand rudimentary germs, not wheat and +not tares, of whose properties we have not had a fair opportunity of +assuring ourselves. If you are too eager to pluck up the tares, you are +very likely to pluck up with them these untried possibilities of human +excellence, and you are, moreover, very likely to injure the growing +wheat as well. The demonstration of this lies in the recorded experience +of mankind. + + +Nor is this all. Mr. Mill's doctrine does not lend the least countenance +to the cardinal opinion of some writers in the last century, that the +only need of human character and of social institutions is to be let +alone. He never said that we were to leave the ground uncultivated, to +bring up whatever might chance to grow. On the contrary, the ground was +to be cultivated with the utmost care and knowledge, with a view to +prevent the growth of tares--but cultivated in a certain manner. You may +take the method of the Inquisition, of the more cruel of the Puritans, +of De Maistre, of Mr. Carlyle; or you may take Mr. Mill's method of +cultivation. According to the doctrine of Liberty, we are to devote +ourselves to prevention, as the surest and most wholesome mode of +extirpation. Persuade; argue; cherish virtuous example; bring up the +young in habits of right opinion and right motive; shape your social +arrangements so as to stimulate the best parts of character. By these +means you will gain all the advantages that could possibly have come of +heroes and legislative dragooning, as well as a great many more which +neither heroes nor legislative dragooning could ever have secured. + +It is well with men, Mr. Mill said, moreover, in proportion as they +respect truth. Now they at once prove and strengthen their respect for +truth, by having an open mind to all its possibilities, while at the +same time they hold firmly to their own proved convictions, until they +hear better evidence to the contrary. There is no anarchy, nor +uncertainty, nor paralysing air of provisionalness in such a frame of +mind. So far is it from being fatal to loyalty or reverence, that it is +an indispensable part of the groundwork of the only loyalty that a wise +ruler or teacher would care to inspire--the loyalty springing from a +rational conviction that, in a field open to all comers, he is the best +man they can find. Only on condition of liberty without limit is the +ablest and most helpful of 'heroes' sure to be found; and only on +condition of liberty without limit are his followers sure to be worthy +of him. You must have authority, and yet must have obedience. The +noblest and deepest and most beneficent kind of authority is that which +rests on an obedience that is rational and spontaneous. + + +The same futile impatience which animates the political utterances of +Mr. Carlyle and his more weak-voiced imitators, takes another form in +men of a different training or temperament. They insist that if the +majority has the means of preventing vice by law, it is folly and +weakness not to resort to those means. The superficial attractiveness +of such a doctrine is obvious. The doctrine of liberty implies a broader +and a more patient view. It says:--Even if you could be sure that what +you take for vice is so--and the history of persecution shows how +careful you should be in this preliminary point--even then it is an +undoubted and, indeed, a necessary tendency of this facile repressive +legislation, to make those who resort to it neglect the more effective, +humane, and durable kinds of preventive legislation. You pass a law (if +you can) putting down drunkenness; there is a neatness in such a method +very attractive to fervid and impatient natures. Would you not have done +better to leave that law unpassed, and apply yourselves sedulously +instead to the improvement of the dwellings of the more drunken class, +to the provision of amusements that might compete with the ale-house, to +the extension and elevation of instruction, and so on? You may say that +this should be done, and yet the other should not be left undone; but, +as matter of fact and history, the doing of the one has always gone with +the neglect of the other, and ascetic law-making in the interests of +virtue has never been accompanied either by law-making or any other +kinds of activity for making virtue easier or more attractive. It is the +recognition how little punishment can do, that leaves men free to see +how much social prevention can do. I believe, then, that what seems to +the criminal lawyers and passionate philanthropists self-evident, is in +truth an illusion, springing from a very shallow kind of impatience, +heated in some of them by the addition of a cynical contempt for human +nature and the worth of human existence. + +If people believe that the book of social or moral knowledge is now +completed, that we have turned over the last page and heard the last +word, much of the foundation of Mr. Mill's doctrine would disappear. But +those who hold this can hardly have much to congratulate themselves +upon. If it were so, and if governments were to accept the principle +that the only limits to the enforcement of the moral standard of the +majority are the narrow expediencies of each special case, without +reference to any deep and comprehensive principle covering all the +largest considerations, why, then, the society to which we ought to look +with most admiration and envy, is the Eastern Empire during the ninth +and tenth centuries, when the Byzantine system of a thorough +subordination of the spiritual power had fully consolidated itself! + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of On Compromise, by John Morley + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON COMPROMISE *** + +***** This file should be named 11557-8.txt or 11557-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/5/5/11557/ + +Produced by Garrett Alley and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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