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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3),
+by Leslie Stephen
+
+
+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: The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3)
+       James Mill
+
+
+Author: Leslie Stephen
+
+
+
+Release Date: June 14, 2008  [eBook #25788]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ENGLISH UTILITARIANS, VOLUME
+II (OF 3)***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Stacy Brown, Thierry Alberto, Henry Craig, and the
+Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+(http://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+THE ENGLISH UTILITARIANS
+
+by
+
+LESLIE STEPHEN
+
+In Three Volumes
+
+VOL. II
+
+JAMES MILL
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+London
+Duckworth And Co.
+3 Henrietta Street, W.C.
+1900
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+JAMES MILL
+
+                                      PAGE
+
+  I. Early Life,                         1
+
+ II. Bentham's Lieutenant,               7
+
+III. Leader of the Utilitarians,        25
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+REFORM MOVEMENTS
+
+  I. Political Change,                  41
+
+ II. Law Reform,                        47
+
+III. Economic Reform,                   51
+
+ IV. Church Reform,                     57
+
+  V. Sinister Interests,                62
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+POLITICAL THEORY
+
+  I. Mill on Government,                74
+
+ II. Whiggism,                          98
+
+III. Conservatism,                     109
+
+ IV. Socialism,                        119
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+MALTHUS
+
+  I. Malthus's Starting-point,         137
+
+ II. The Ratios,                       147
+
+III. Moral Restraint,                  156
+
+ IV. Social Remedies,                  165
+
+  V. Political Application,            174
+
+ VI. Rent,                             181
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+RICARDO
+
+  I. Ricardo's Starting-point,         186
+
+ II. The Distribution Problem,         195
+
+III. Value and Labour,                 204
+
+ IV. The Classical Political Economy,  216
+
+  V. The Ricardians,                   226
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+ECONOMIC HERETICS
+
+  I. The Malthusian Controversy,       238
+
+ II. Socialism,                        259
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+PSYCHOLOGY
+
+  I. Thomas Brown,                     267
+
+ II. James Mill's _Analysis_,          287
+
+III. James Mill's Ethics,              312
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+RELIGION
+
+  I. Philip Beauchamp,                 338
+
+ II. Contemporary Thought,             361
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+JAMES MILL
+
+
+I. EARLY LIFE
+
+Bentham's mantle fell upon James Mill.[1] Mill expounded in the
+tersest form the doctrines which in Bentham's hands spread into
+endless ramifications and lost themselves in minute details. Mill
+became the leader of Bentham's bodyguard; or, rather, the mediator
+between the prophet in his 'hermitage' and the missionaries who were
+actively engaged on the hustings and in committee-rooms. The special
+characteristics of English Utilitarianism in the period of its
+greatest activity were thus more affected by Mill than by any other
+leader of opinion.
+
+James Mill was one of the countless Scots who, having been trained at
+home in strict frugality and stern Puritanic principles, have fought
+their way to success in England. He was born 6th April 1773 in the
+parish of Logie Pert, Forfarshire. His father, also named James Mill,
+was a village shoemaker, employing two or three journeymen when at
+the height of his prosperity. His mother, Isabel Fenton, daughter of a
+farmer, had been a servant in Edinburgh. Her family had some claims to
+superior gentility; she was fastidious, delicate in frame, and accused
+of pride by her neighbours. She resolved to bring up James, her eldest
+son, to be a gentleman, which practically meant to be a minister. He
+probably showed early promise of intellectual superiority. He received
+the usual training at the parish school, and was then sent to the
+Montrose Academy, where he was the school-fellow and friend of a
+younger lad, Joseph Hume (1777-1855), afterwards his political ally.
+He boarded with a Montrose shopkeeper for 2s. 6d. a week, and remained
+at the Academy till he was seventeen. He was never put to work in his
+father's shop, and devoted himself entirely to study. The usual age
+for beginning to attend a Scottish university was thirteen or
+fourteen; and it would have been the normal course for a lad in Mill's
+position to be sent at that age to Aberdeen. Mill's education was
+prolonged by a connection which was of great service to him. Sir John
+Stuart (previously Belches), of Fettercairn House, in Mill's
+neighbourhood, had married Lady Jane Leslie, and was by her father of
+an only child, Wilhelmina. Lady Jane was given to charity, and had set
+up a fund to educate promising lads for the ministry. Mill was
+probably recommended to her by the parish minister, as likely to do
+credit to her patronage. He also acted as tutor to Wilhelmina, who
+afterwards became the object of Scott's early passion. Mill spent much
+time at Fettercairn House, and appears to have won the warm regards
+both of the Stuarts and of their daughter, who spoke of him
+affectionately 'with almost her last breath.'[2] The Stuarts passed
+their winters at Edinburgh, whither Mill accompanied them. He entered
+the university in 1790, and seems to have applied himself chiefly to
+Greek and to philosophy. He became so good a Greek scholar that long
+afterwards (1818) he had some thoughts of standing for the Greek chair
+at Glasgow.[3] He was always a keen student of Plato. He read the
+ordinary Scottish authorities, and attended the lectures of Dugald
+Stewart. Besides reading Rousseau, he studied Massillon, probably with
+a view to his future performances in the pulpit. Massillon might be
+suggested to him by quotations in Adam Smith's _Moral Sentiments_.
+There are few records of acquaintanceship with any of his
+distinguished contemporaries, except the chemist Thomas Thomson, who
+became a lifelong friend. He probably made acquaintance with Brougham,
+and may have known Jeffrey; but he was not a member of the Speculative
+Society, joined by most young men of promise.
+
+In 1794 he began his course of divinity, and on 4th October 1798 was
+licensed to preach. He lived in his father's house, where part of the
+family room was screened off to form a study for him. He delivered
+some sermons, apparently with little success. He failed to obtain a
+call from any parish; and there are vague reports of his acting as
+tutor in some families, and of a rebuff received at the table of the
+marquis of Tweeddale, father of one of his pupils, which made him
+resolve to seek for independence by a different career.
+
+In 1802 Mill went to London in company with Sir John Stuart, who was
+about to take his seat in parliament. Stuart procured admission for
+him to the gallery of the House of Commons, where he attended many
+debates, and acquired an interest in politics. His ambition, however,
+depended upon his pen; and at first, it would seem, he was not more
+particular than other journalists as to the politics of the papers to
+which he contributed. He had obtained a testimonial from Thomson, on
+the strength of which he introduced himself to John Gifford, editor of
+the _Anti-Jacobin Review_.[4] This was a monthly magazine, which had
+adopted the name and politics of the deceased _Anti-Jacobin_, edited
+by William Gifford. Mill obtained employment, and wrote articles
+implying an interest in the philosophy, and especially in the
+political economy, of the time. It is noteworthy, considering his
+later principles, that he should at this time have taken part in a
+strong Tory organ. He wrote a pamphlet in 1804 (the first publication
+under his name) to prove the impolicy of a bounty upon the exportation
+of grain; and in 1807 replied in _Commerce Defended_ to William
+Spence's _Britain independent of Commerce_. Meanwhile he had found
+employment of a more regular kind. He had formed a connection with a
+bookseller named Baldwin, for whom he undertook to help in rewriting a
+book called _Nature Delineated_. This scheme was changed for a
+periodical called the _Literary Journal_, which started at the
+beginning of 1803, and lived through four years with Mill as editor.
+At the same time apparently he edited the _St. James's Chronicle_,
+also belonging to Baldwin, which had no very definite political
+colour. The _Journal_ professed to give a systematic survey of
+literary, scientific, and philosophical publications. For the
+scientific part Mill was helped by Thomson. His own contributions show
+that, although clearly a rationalist, he was still opposed to open
+infidelity. A translation of Villers' _History of the Reformation_
+implies similar tendencies. Other literary hack-work during this and
+the next few years is vaguely indicated. Mill was making about £500 a
+year or something more during his editorships, and thought himself
+justified in marrying. On 5th June 1805 he became the husband of
+Harriett Burrow, daughter of a widow who kept a private lunatic asylum
+originally started by her husband. The Mills settled in a house in
+Pentonville belonging to Mrs. Burrow, for which they paid £50 a year.
+
+The money question soon became pressing. The editorships vanished, and
+to make an income by periodical writing was no easy task. His son
+observes that nothing could be more opposed to his father's later
+principles than marrying and producing a large family under these
+circumstances. Nine children were ultimately born, all of whom
+survived their father. The family in his old home were an additional
+burthen. His mother died before his departure from Scotland. His
+father was paralysed, and having incautiously given security for a
+friend, became bankrupt. His only brother, William, died soon
+afterwards, and his only sister, Mary, married one of her father's
+journeymen named Greig, and tried to carry on the business. The
+father died about 1808, and the Greigs had a hard struggle, though two
+of the sons ultimately set up a business in Montrose. James Mill
+appears to have helped to support his father, whose debts he undertook
+to pay, and to have afterwards helped the Greigs. They thought, it
+seems, that he ought to have done more, but were not unlikely to
+exaggerate the resources of a man who was making his way in England.
+Mill was resolute in doing his duty, but hardly likely to do it
+graciously. At any rate, in the early years, it must have been a
+severe strain to do anything.
+
+In spite of all difficulties Mill, by strict frugality and unremitting
+energy, managed to keep out of debt. In the end of 1806 he undertook
+the history of British India. This was to be the great work which
+should give him a name, and enable him to rise above the herd of
+contemporary journalists. He calculated the time necessary for its
+completion at three years, but the years were to be more than trebled
+before the book was actually finished. At that period there were fewer
+facilities than there could now be for making the necessary
+researches: and we do not know what were the reasons which prompted
+the selection of a subject of which he could have no first-hand
+knowledge. The book necessarily impeded other labours; and to the toil
+of writing Mill added the toil of superintending the education of his
+children. His struggle for some years was such as to require an
+extraordinary strain upon all his faculties. Mill, however, possessed
+great physical and mental vigour. He was muscular, well-made, and
+handsome; he had marked powers of conversation, and made a strong
+impression upon all with whom he came in contact. He gradually formed
+connections which effectually determined his future career.
+
+
+II. BENTHAM'S LIEUTENANT
+
+The most important influence in Mill's life was the friendship with
+Bentham. This appears to have begun in 1808. Mill speedily became a
+valued disciple. He used to walk from Pentonville to dine with Bentham
+in Queen's Square Place. Soon the elder man desired to have his new
+friend nearer at hand. In 1810 Mill moved to the house in Bentham's
+garden, which had once belonged to Milton; when this proved
+unsuitable, he was obliged to move to a more distant abode at Stoke
+Newington; but finally, in 1814, he settled in another house belonging
+to Bentham, 1 Queen's Square, close under the old gentleman's wing.
+Here for some years they lived in the closest intimacy. The Mills also
+stayed with Bentham in his country-houses at Barrow Green, and
+afterwards at Ford Abbey. The association was not without its
+troubles. Bentham was fanciful, and Mill stern and rigid. No one,
+however, could be a more devoted disciple. The most curious
+illustration of their relations is a letter written to Bentham by
+Mill, 19th September 1814, while they were both at Ford Abbey. Mill in
+this declares himself to be a 'most faithful and fervent disciple' of
+the truths which Bentham had the 'immortal honour' of propounding. He
+had fancied himself to be his master's favourite disciple. No one is
+so completely of Bentham's way of thinking, or so qualified by
+position for carrying on the propaganda. Now, however, Bentham showed
+that he had taken umbrage at some part of Mill's behaviour. An open
+quarrel would bring discredit upon both sides, and upon their common
+beliefs. The great dangers to friendship are pecuniary obligation and
+too close intimacy. Mill has made it a great purpose of his life to
+avoid pecuniary obligation, though he took pride in receiving
+obligations from Bentham. He has confined himself to accepting
+Bentham's house at a low rent, and allowing his family to live for
+part of the year at Bentham's expense. He now proposes so to arrange
+his future life that they shall avoid an excessively close intimacy,
+from which, he thinks, had arisen the 'umbrage.' The letter, which is
+manly and straightforward, led to a reconciliation, and for some years
+the intercourse was as close as ever.[5]
+
+Mill's unreserved adoption of Bentham's principles, and his resolution
+to devote his life to their propagation, implies a development of
+opinion. He had entirely dropped his theology. In the early years of
+his London life, Mill had been only a rationalist. He had by this time
+become what would now be called an agnostic. He thought 'dogmatic
+atheism' absurd, says J. S. Mill;[6] 'but he held that we can know
+nothing whatever as to the origin of the world.' The occasion of the
+change, according to his family, was his intercourse with General
+Miranda, who was sitting at Bentham's feet about this time. J. S. Mill
+states that the turning-point in his father's mind was the study of
+Butler's _Analogy_. That book, he thought, as others have thought, was
+conclusive against the optimistic deism which it assails; but he
+thought also that the argument really destroyed Butler's own
+standing-ground. The evils of the world are incompatible with the
+theory of Almighty benevolence. The purely logical objection was
+combined with an intense moral sentiment. Theological doctrines, he
+thought, were not only false, but brutal. His son had heard him say 'a
+hundred times' that men have attributed to their gods every trait of
+wickedness till the conception culminated in the Christian doctrine of
+hell. Mill still attended church services for some time after his
+marriage, and the children were christened. But the eldest son did not
+remember the period of even partial conformity, and considered himself
+to have been brought up from the first without any religious belief.
+James Mill had already taken up the uncompromising position congenial
+to his character, although the reticence which the whole party
+observed prevented any open expression of his sentiments.
+
+Mill's propaganda of Benthamism was for some time obscure. He helped
+to put together some of Bentham's writings, especially the book upon
+evidence. He was consulted in regard to all proposed publications,
+such as the pamphlet upon jury-packing, which Mill desired to publish
+in spite of Romilly's warning. Mill endeavoured also to disseminate
+the true faith through various periodicals. He obtained admission to
+the _Edinburgh Review_, probably through its chief contributor,
+Brougham. Neither Brougham nor Jeffrey was likely to commit the great
+Whig review to the support of a creed still militant and regarded with
+distrust by the respectable. Mill contributed various articles from
+1808 to 1813, but chiefly upon topics outside of the political sphere.
+The _Edinburgh Review_, as I have said, had taken a condescending
+notice of Bentham in 1804. Mill tried to introduce a better tone into
+an article upon Bexon's _Code de la Législation pénale_, which he was
+permitted to publish in the number for October 1809. Knowing Jeffrey's
+'dislike of praise,' he tried to be on his guard, and to insinuate his
+master's doctrine without openly expressing his enthusiasm. Jeffrey,
+however, sadly mangled the review, struck out every mention but one of
+Bentham, and there substituted words of his own for Mill's. Even as it
+was, Brougham pronounced the praise of Bentham to be excessive.[7]
+Mill continued to write for a time, partly, no doubt, with a view to
+Jeffrey's cheques. Almost his last article (in January 1813) was
+devoted to the Lancasterian controversy, in which Mill, as we shall
+directly see, was in alliance with the Whigs. But the Edinburgh
+Reviewers were too distinctly of the Whig persuasion to be congenial
+company for a determined Radical. They would give him no more than a
+secondary position, and would then take good care to avoid the
+insertion of any suspicious doctrine. Mill wrote no more after the
+summer of 1813.
+
+Meanwhile he was finding more sympathetic allies. First among them was
+William Allen (1770-1843), chemist, of Plough Court. Allen was a
+Quaker; a man of considerable scientific tastes; successful in
+business, and ardently devoted throughout his life to many
+philanthropic schemes. He took, in particular, an active part in the
+agitation against slavery. He was, as we have seen, one of the
+partners who bought Owen's establishment at New Lanark; and his
+religious scruples were afterwards the cause of Owen's retirement.
+These, however, were only a part of his multifarious schemes. He was
+perhaps something of a busybody; his head may have been a little
+turned by the attentions which he received on all hands; he managed
+the affairs of the duke of Kent; was visited by the Emperor Alexander
+in 1814; and interviewed royal personages on the Continent, in order
+to obtain their support in attacking the slave-trade, and introducing
+good schools and prisons. But, though he may have shared some of the
+weaknesses of popular philanthropists, he is mentioned with respect
+even by observers such as Owen and Place, who had many prejudices
+against his principles. He undoubtedly deserves a place among the
+active and useful social reformers of his time.
+
+I have already noticed the importance of the Quaker share in the
+various philanthropic movements of the time. The Quaker shared many of
+the views upon practical questions which were favoured by the
+freethinker. Both were hostile to slavery, in favour of spreading
+education, opposed to all religious tests and restrictions, and
+advocates of reform in prisons, and in the harsh criminal law. The
+fundamental differences of theological belief were not so productive
+of discord in dealing with the Quakers as with other sects; for it was
+the very essence of the old Quaker spirit to look rather to the spirit
+than to the letter. Allen, therefore, was only acting in the spirit of
+his society when he could be on equally good terms with the Emperor
+Alexander or the duke of Kent, and, on the other hand, with James
+Mill, the denouncer of kings and autocrats. He could join hands with
+Mill in assailing slavery, insisting upon prison reform, preaching
+toleration and advancing civilisation, although he heartily
+disapproved of the doctrines with which Mill's practical principles
+were associated. Mill, too, practised--even to a questionable
+degree--the method of reticence, and took good care not to offend his
+coadjutor.
+
+Their co-operation was manifested in a quarterly journal called the
+_Philanthropist_, which appeared during the seven years, 1811-1817,
+and was published at Allen's expense. Mill found in it the opportunity
+of advocating many of his cherished opinions. He defended toleration
+in the name of Penn, whose life had been published by Clarkson. He
+attacked the slave-owners, and so came into alliance with Wilberforce,
+Zachary Macaulay, and others of the evangelical persuasion. He found,
+at the same time, opportunities for propagating the creed of Bentham
+in connection with questions of prison reform and the penal code. His
+most important article, published in 1812, was another contribution to
+the Lancasterian controversy. In this Mill had allies of a very
+different school; and his activity brings him into close connection
+with one of the most remarkable men of the time.[8]
+
+This was Francis Place, the famous Radical tailor. Place, born 3rd
+November 1771, had raised himself from the position of a working-man
+to be occupant of a shop at Charing Cross, which became the centre of
+important political movements. Between Place and Mill there was much
+affinity of character. Place, like Mill, was a man of rigid and
+vigorous intellect. Dogmatic, self-confident, and decidedly
+censorious, not attractive by any sweetness or grace of character, but
+thoroughly sincere and independent, he extorts rather than commands
+our respect by his hearty devotion to what he at least believed to be
+the cause of truth and progress. Place was what is now called a
+thorough 'individualist.' He believed in self-reliance and energy, and
+held that the class to which he belonged was to be raised, as he had
+raised himself, by the exercise of those qualities, not by invoking
+the direct interference of the central power, which, indeed, as he
+knew it, was only likely to interfere on the wrong side. He had the
+misfortune to be born in London instead of Scotland, and had therefore
+not Mill's educational advantages. He tried energetically, and not
+unsuccessfully, to improve his mind, but he never quite surmounted the
+weakness of the self-educated man, and had no special literary talent.
+His writing, in fact, is dull and long-winded, though he has the merit
+of judging for himself, and of saying what he thinks.
+
+Place had been a member of the Corresponding Society, and was at one
+time chairman of the weekly committee. He had, however, disapproved of
+their proceedings, and retired in time to escape the imprisonment
+which finally crushed the committee. He was now occupied in building
+up his own fortunes at Charing Cross. When, during the second war, the
+native English Radicalism began again to raise its head, Place took a
+highly important share in the political agitation. Westminster, the
+constituency in which he had a vote, had long been one of the most
+important boroughs. It was one of the few large popular
+constituencies, and was affected by the influences naturally strongest
+in the metropolis. After being long under the influence of the court
+and the dean and chapter, it had been carried by Fox during the
+discontents of 1780, when the reform movement took a start and the
+county associations were symptoms of a growing agitation. The great
+Whig leader, though not sound upon the question of reform, represented
+the constituency till his death, and reform dropped out of notice for
+the time. Upon Fox's death (13th September 1806) Lord Percy was
+elected without opposition as his successor by an arrangement among
+the ruling families. Place was disgusted at the distribution of 'bread
+and cheese and beer,' and resolved to find a truly popular candidate.
+In the general election which soon followed at the end of 1806 he
+supported Paull, an impecunious adventurer, who made a good fight, but
+was beaten by Sir J. Hood and Sheridan. Place now proposed a more
+thorough organisation of the constituency, and formed a committee
+intended to carry an independent candidate. Sir Francis Burdett, a
+typical country gentleman of no great brains and of much aristocratic
+pride, but a man of honour, and of as much liberal feeling as was
+compatible with wealth and station, had sat at the feet of the old
+Radical, Home Tooke. He had sympathised with the French revolution;
+but was mainly, like his mentor, Tooke, a reformer of the English
+type, and a believer in Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights. He had
+sat in parliament, and in 1802 had been elected for Middlesex. After a
+prolonged litigation, costing enormous sums, the election had been
+finally annulled in 1806. He had subscribed £1000 towards Paull's
+expenses; but was so disgusted with his own election experiences that
+he refused to come forward as a candidate. Place's committee resolved
+therefore to elect him and Paull free of expense. Disputes between
+Paull and Burdett led to a duel, in which both were wounded. The
+committee threw over Paull, and at the election on the dissolution of
+parliament in the spring of 1807, Burdett and Cochrane--afterwards
+Lord Dundonald--were triumphantly elected, defeating the Whig
+candidates, Sheridan and Elliot. The election was the first triumph of
+the reformers, and was due to Place more than any one. Burdett
+retained his seat for Westminster until 1837, and, in spite of many
+quarrels with his party, was a leading representative of the movement,
+which henceforward slowly gathered strength. Place, indeed, had
+apparently but scanty respect for the candidate whose success he had
+secured. Burdett and his like aimed at popularity, while he was
+content to be ignored so long as he could by any means carry the
+measures which he approved. Place, therefore, acted as a most
+efficient wire-puller, but had no ambition to leave his shop to make
+speeches on the hustings.
+
+The scandals about the duke of York and the Walcheren expedition gave
+a chance to the Radicals and to their leader in the House of Commons.
+Events in 1810 led to a popular explosion, of which Burdett was the
+hero. John Gale Jones, an old member of the Corresponding Societies,
+had put out a placard denouncing the House of Commons for closing its
+doors during a debate upon the Walcheren expedition. The House
+proceeded against Jones, who was more or less advised by Place in his
+proceedings. Burdett took the part of Jones, by a paper published in
+Cobbett's _Register_, and was ultimately committed to the Tower in
+consequence. The whole of London was for a time in a state of
+excitement, and upon the verge of an outbreak. Burdett refused to
+submit to the arrest. Mobs collected; soldiers filled the streets and
+were pelted. Burdett, when at last he was forced to admit the
+officers, appeared in his drawing-room in the act of expounding Magna
+Charta to his son. That, it was to be supposed, was his usual
+occupation of an afternoon. Meetings were held, and resolutions
+passed, in support of the martyr to liberty; and when his imprisonment
+terminated on the prorogation of parliament, vast crowds collected,
+and a procession was arranged to convoy him to his home. Place had
+been active in arranging all the details of what was to be a great
+popular manifestation. To his infinite disgust, Burdett shrank from
+the performance, and went home by water. The crowd was left to expend
+its remaining enthusiasm upon the hackney carriage which contained his
+fellow-sufferer Jones. Jones, in the following December, was sentenced
+to twelve months' imprisonment for a libel. Cobbett, Burdett's special
+supporter at this time, was also imprisoned in June 1810. For a time
+the popular agitation collapsed. Place seems to have thought that the
+failure was due to Burdett's want of courage, and dropped all
+communication with him till a later contest at Westminster.
+
+Place was thus at the centre of the political agitation which, for the
+time, represented the most energetic reforming movement. It was in
+1811 or 1812 that he became acquainted with Mill.[9] In Mill he
+recognised a congenial spirit, and a man able to defend and develop
+principles. He perhaps, as Professor Bain thinks, made advances to
+Mill upon the strength of the history of India; and in 1814 he was
+certainly endeavouring to raise money to put Mill above the need of
+precarious hack-work.[10] The anticipated difficulty of persuading
+Mill so far to sacrifice his independence was apparently fatal to the
+scheme. Place was in occasional communication with Bentham, and
+visited him at Ford Abbey in 1817. He became intimate with the great
+man; helped him in business affairs; and was one of the disciples
+employed to prepare his books for publication.[11] Bentham was the
+source of philosophy, and Mill only his prophet. But Mill, who was
+capable of activity in practical affairs, was more useful to a man of
+the world. The first business which brought them into close connection
+was the Lancasterian controversy. The strong interest roused by this
+agitation was significant of many difficulties to come. The average
+mind had been gradually coming to the conclusion that the poor should
+be taught to read and write. Sunday schools and Hannah More's schools
+in Somersetshire had drawn the attention of the religious world to the
+subject. During the early years of the century the education question
+had steadily become more prominent, and the growing interest was shown
+by a singularly bitter and complicated controversy. The opposite
+parties fought under the banners of Bell and Lancaster. Andrew Bell,
+born at St. Andrews, 27th March 1753, was both a canny Scot and an
+Anglican clergyman. He combined philanthropy with business faculties.
+He sailed to India in 1787 with £128, 10s. in his pocket to be an army
+chaplain; he returned in 1796 with £25,000 and a new system of
+education which he had devised as superintendent of an orphan asylum.
+He settled in England, published an account of his plan, and did
+something to bring it into operation. Meanwhile Joseph Lancaster
+(1770-1838), a young Quaker, had set up a school in London; he devised
+a plan similar to that of Bell, and in 1803 published an account of
+his improvements in education with acknowledgments to Bell. For a time
+the two were on friendly terms. Lancaster set about propagating his
+new system with more enthusiasm than discretion. His fame rapidly
+spread till it reached the throne. In 1805 George III. sent for him;
+the royal family subscribed to his schools; and the king declared his
+wish that every child in his dominions should be taught to read the
+Bible. The king's gracious wish unconsciously indicated a difficulty.
+Was it safe to teach the Bible without the safeguard of authorised
+interpretation? Orthodox opponents feared the alliance with a man
+whose first principle was toleration, and first among them was the
+excellent Mrs. Trimmer, who had been already engaged in the
+Sunday-school movement. She pointed out in a pamphlet that the
+schismatic Lancaster was weakening the Established Church. The
+_Edinburgh Review_ came to his support in 1806 and 1807; for the Whig,
+especially if he was also a Scot, was prejudiced against the Church of
+England. Lancaster went on his way, but soon got into difficulties,
+for he was impetuous, careless of money, and autocratic. William
+Allen, with another Quaker, came to his support in 1808, and founded
+the Royal Lancasterian Society to maintain his school in the Borough
+Road, and propagate its like elsewhere. Lancaster travelled through
+the country, and the agitation prospered, and spread even to America.
+The church, however, was now fairly aroused. Bishop Marsh preached a
+sermon in St. Paul's, and followed it up by pamphlets; the cause was
+taken up by the _Quarterly Review_ in 1811, and in the same year the
+National Society was founded to 'educate the poor in the principles of
+the Established Church.' Bell had suggested a national system, but the
+times were not ripe. Meanwhile the controversy became furious. The
+_Edinburgh_ and the _Quarterly_ thundered on opposite sides. Immense
+importance was attached by both parties to the scheme devised by Bell,
+and partly adopted by Lancaster. The war involved a personal element
+and the charges of plagiarism which give spice to a popular
+controversy. All parties, and certainly the Utilitarians, strangely
+exaggerated the value of the new method. They regarded the proposal
+that children should be partly taught by other children instead of
+being wholly taught by adults as a kind of scientific discovery which
+would enormously simplify and cheapen education. Believers in the
+'Panopticon' saw in it another patent method of raising the general
+level of intelligence. But the real question was between church and
+dissent. Was the church catechism to be imposed or not? This, as we
+have seen, was the occasion of Bentham's assault upon church and
+catechism. On the other side, Bell's claims were supported with
+enthusiasm by all the Tories, and by such men as Southey and
+Coleridge. Southey, who had defended Bell in the _Quarterly_,[12]
+undertook to be Bell's biographer[13] and literary executor. Coleridge
+was so vehement in the cause that when lecturing upon 'Romeo and
+Juliet' in 1811, he plunged by way of exordium into an assault upon
+Lancaster's modes of punishment.[14] De Quincey testifies that he
+became a positive bore upon Bell's virtues. In 1812 Lancaster had got
+deeply into debt to the trustees of the Society, who included besides
+Allen, Joseph Fox--a 'shallow, gloomy bigot' according to Place--and
+some other Quakers. Lancaster resented their control, and in 1812 made
+over his Borough Road school to them, and set up one of his own at
+Tooting. They continued, however, to employ him, and in 1813 formed
+themselves into the 'British and Foreign' School Society. Place had
+known Lancaster from 1804, and Mill had supported him in the press.
+They both became members of the committee, though Place took the most
+active part. He makes many grave charges against Lancaster, whom he
+regarded as hopelessly flighty and impracticable, if not worse.
+Ultimately in 1814 Lancaster resigned his position, and naturally
+retorted that Place was an infidel. Place, meanwhile, was ill at ease
+with the 'gloomy bigot,' as he calls Fox. After many quarrels, Fox
+succeeded in getting the upper hand, and Place finally withdrew from
+the committee in 1815.
+
+Two other schemes arose out of this, in which Mill was specially
+interested, but which both proved abortive. Mill and Place resolved in
+1813 to start a 'West London Lancasterian Institution,' which was to
+educate the whole population west of Temple Bar. They were joined by
+Edward Wakefield, father of the Edward Gibbon Wakefield who in later
+years was known as an economist, and himself author of a work of
+considerable reputation, _An Account of Ireland, Statistical and
+Political_ (1812). The three joined Joseph Fox, and ultimately a
+meeting was held in August 1813. Sir James Mackintosh was in the
+chair. Mill wrote the address, and motions were proposed by his friend
+Joseph Hume and by William Allen. Papers were circulated, headed
+'Schools for all,'[15] and the institution was launched with a
+sufficiency of applause. But the 'gloomy bigot' was secretary. He
+declared that he would rather see the institution destroyed than
+permit it to be used for infidel purposes. The Bible was, of course,
+to be read in the schools, but Fox wished that the Bible alone should
+be read. As the committee, according to Place, included four infidels,
+three Unitarians, six Methodists, two Baptists, two Roman Catholics,
+and several members of the Established Church, it was hardly a happy
+family. To add to the confusion, Sir Francis Burdett, who had
+contributed a thousand pounds, had taken it into his head that Place
+was a government spy.[16] The Association, as is hardly surprising,
+ceased to exist in 1816, after keeping up a school of less than three
+hundred children, and ended in hopeless failure. The Utilitarians had
+higher hopes from a scheme of their own. This was the Chrestomathic
+school which occasioned Bentham's writing. An association was formed
+in February 1814. Mackintosh, Brougham, Mill, Allen, Fox, and
+Wakefield were to be trustees. The school was to apply Lancasterian
+principles to the education of the middle classes, and Bentham was to
+supply them with a philosophy and with a site in his garden. There the
+old gentleman was to see a small version of the Panopticon building,
+and, for a time, he took great delight in the prospect. Gradually,
+however, it seems to have dawned upon him that there might be
+inconveniences in being overlooked by a set of even model schoolboys.
+There were difficulties as to funds. Ricardo offered £200 and
+collected subscriptions for £900, but Place thought that he might have
+been more liberal. About 1817 they counted upon subscriptions for
+£2310. Allen was treasurer, Place secretary, and the dukes of Kent and
+York were on the committee. Romilly was persuaded to join, and they
+had hopes of the £1000 given by Burdett to the West London
+Institution. But the thing could never be got into working order, in
+spite of Place's efforts and Mill's counsels; and, after painful
+haulings and tuggings, it finally collapsed in 1820.[17]
+
+The efforts of the Utilitarians to effect anything directly in the way
+of education thus fell completely flat. One moral is sufficiently
+obvious. They were, after all, but a small clique, regarded with
+suspicion by all outsiders; and such a system as could seriously
+affect education could only be carried out either by government,
+which was thinking of very different things, or by societies already
+connected with the great religious bodies. The only function which
+could be adequately discharged by the little band of Utilitarians was
+to act upon public opinion; and this, no doubt, they could do to some
+purpose. I have gone so far into these matters in order to illustrate
+their position; but, as will be seen, Mill, though consulted at every
+stage by Place, and doing what he could to advocate the cause, was,
+after all, in the background. He was still wrestling with the Indian
+History, which was, as he hoped, to win for him an independent
+position. The effort was enormous. In 1814 he told Place that he was
+working at the History from 5 A.M. till 11 P.M. When at Ford Abbey his
+regular day's work began at 6 A.M. and lasted till 11 P.M., during
+which time three hours were given to teaching his children, and a
+couple of short walks supplied him with recreation. How, with all his
+energy, he managed to pay his way is a mystery, which his biographer
+is unable fully to solve.[18]
+
+The History at last appeared in 3 vols. 4to, at the end of 1817. Dry
+and stern as its author, and embodying some of his political
+prejudices, it was at least a solid piece of work, which succeeded at
+once, and soon became the standard book upon the subject. Mill argues
+in the preface with characteristic courage that his want of personal
+knowledge of India was rather an advantage. It made him impartial. A
+later editor[19] has shown that it led to some serious misconceptions.
+It is characteristic of the Utilitarian attitude to assume that a
+sufficient knowledge of fact can always be obtained from blue-books
+and statistics. Some facts require imagination and sympathy to be
+appreciated, and there Mill was deficient. He could not give an
+adequate picture of Hindoo beliefs and customs, though he fully
+appreciated the importance of such questions. Whatever its
+shortcomings, the book produced a remarkable change in Mill's
+position. He applied for a vacant office in the India House. His
+friends, Joseph Hume and Ricardo, made interest for him in the city.
+Place co-operated energetically.[20] Canning, then president of the
+Board of Control, is said to have supported him; and the general
+impression of his ability appears to have caused his election, in
+spite of some Tory opposition. He became Assistant to the Examiner of
+India Correspondence, with a salary of £800 on 12th May 1819. On 10th
+April 1821 he became Second Assistant, with £1000 a year; on 9th April
+1823 he was made Assistant Examiner, with £1200 a year; and on 1st
+December 1830 Examiner, with £1900, which on 17th February 1836 was
+raised to £2000. The official work came in later years to absorb the
+greatest part of Mill's energy, and his position excluded him from any
+active participation in politics, had he ever been inclined for it.
+Mill, however, set free from bondage, was able to exert himself very
+effectually with his pen; and his writings became in a great degree
+the text-books of his sect.
+
+During 1818 he had again co-operated with Place in a political matter.
+The dissolution of parliament in 1818 produced another contest at
+Westminster. Place and Mill were leaders in the Radical committee,
+which called a public meeting, where Burdett and Kinnaird were chosen
+as candidates. They were opposed to Romilly, the old friend of Bentham
+and of Mill himself. Both Mill and Bentham regarded him as not
+sufficiently orthodox. Romilly, however, was throughout at the head of
+the poll, and the Radical committee were obliged to withdraw their
+second candidate, Kinnaird, in order to secure the election of Burdett
+against the government candidate Maxwell. Romilly soon afterwards
+dined at Bentham's house, and met Mill, with Dumont, Brougham, and
+Rush, on friendly terms. On Romilly's sad death on 2nd November
+following, Mill went to Worthing to offer his sympathy to the family,
+and declared that the 'gloom' had 'affected his health.' He took no
+part in the consequent election, in which Hobhouse stood
+unsuccessfully as the Radical candidate.
+
+
+III. LEADER OF THE UTILITARIANS
+
+Politics were beginning to enter upon a new phase. The period was
+marked by the 'Six Acts' and the 'Peterloo massacre.' The Radical
+leaders who upheld the cause in those dark days were not altogether to
+the taste of the Utilitarians. After Burdett, John Cartwright
+(1740-1824) and Henry (or 'Orator') Hunt (1773-1835), hero of the
+'Peterloo massacre,' were the most conspicuous. They were supported by
+Cobbett, the greatest journalist of the time, and various more obscure
+writers. The Utilitarians held them in considerable contempt. Burdett
+was flashy, melodramatic, and vain; Hunt an 'unprincipled demagogue';
+and Cartwright, the Nestor of reform, who had begun his labours in
+1780, was, according to Place, wearisome, impracticable, and a mere
+nuisance in matters of business. The Utilitarians tried to use such
+men, but shared the Tory opinion of their value. They had some
+relations with other obscure writers who were martyrs to the liberty
+of the press. Place helped William Hone in the _Reformer's Register_,
+which was brought out in 1817. The famous trial in which Hone
+triumphed over Ellenborough occurred at the end of that year. Richard
+Carlile (1790-1843), who reprinted Hone's pamphlets, and in 1818
+published Paine's works, was sentenced in 1819 to three years'
+imprisonment; and while in confinement began the _Republican_, which
+appeared from 1819 to 1826. Ultimately he passed nine years in jail,
+and showed unflinching courage in maintaining the liberty of speech.
+The Utilitarians, as Professor Bain believes, helped him during his
+imprisonments, and John Mill's first publication was a protest against
+his prosecution.[21] A 'republican, an atheist, and Malthusian,' he
+was specially hated by the respectable, and had in all these
+capacities claims upon the sympathy of the Utilitarians. One of
+Carlile's first employments was to circulate the _Black Dwarf_, edited
+by Thomas Jonathan Wooler from 1817 to 1824.[22] This paper
+represented Cartwright, but it also published Bentham's reform
+_Catechism_, besides direct contributions and various selections from
+his works.
+
+The Utilitarians were opposed on principle to Cobbett, a reformer of a
+type very different from their own; and still more vitally opposed to
+Owen, who was beginning to develop his Socialist schemes. If they had
+sympathy for Radicalism of the Wooler or Carlile variety, they
+belonged too distinctly to the ranks of respectability, and were too
+deeply impressed with the necessity of reticence, to allow their
+sympathies to appear openly. As, on the other hand, they were too
+Radical in their genuine creed to be accepted by Edinburgh Reviewers
+and frequenters of Holland House, there was a wide gap between them
+and the genuine Whig. Their task therefore was to give a political
+theory which should be Radical in principle, and yet in such a form as
+should appeal to the reason of the more cultivated readers without too
+openly shocking their prejudices.
+
+James Mill achieved this task by the publication of a series of
+articles in the Supplement to the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, which
+appeared from 1816 to 1823, of which I shall presently speak at
+length. It passed for the orthodox profession of faith among the
+little circle of friends who had now gathered round him. First among
+them was David Ricardo. He had become known to Mill in 1811. 'I,' said
+Bentham, 'was the spiritual father of Mill, and Mill the spiritual
+father of Ricardo.'[23] Mill was really the disciple of Ricardo in
+economics; but it was Mill who induced him to publish his chief work,
+and Mill's own treatise upon the subject published in 1820 is
+substantially an exposition of Ricardo's doctrine. Mill, too,
+encouraged Ricardo to take a seat in parliament in 1818, and there for
+the short remainder of his life, Ricardo defended the characteristic
+Utilitarian principles with the authority derived from his reputation
+as an economist.[24] The two were now especially intimate. During
+Mill's first years in the India House, his only recreation was an
+annual visit to Ricardo at Gatcombe. Meetings at Ricardo's house in
+London led to the foundation of the 'Political Economy Club' in 1821.
+Mill drafted the rules of the club, emphasising the duty of members to
+propagate sound economic opinions through the press. The club took
+root and helped to make Mill known to politicians and men of
+commercial influence. One of the members was Malthus, who is said, and
+the assertion is credible enough, to have been generally worsted by
+Mill in the discussions at the club. Mill was an awkward antagonist,
+and Malthus certainly not conspicuous for closeness of logic. The
+circle of Mill's friends naturally extended as his position in the
+India House enabled him to live more at his ease and brought him into
+contact with men of political position. His old school-fellow Joseph
+Hume had made a fortune in India, and returned to take a seat in
+parliament and become the persistent and tiresome advocate of many of
+the Utilitarian doctrines. A younger generation was growing up,
+enthusiastic in the cause of reform, and glad to sit at the feet of
+men who claimed at least to be philosophical leaders. John Black
+(1783-1855), another sturdy Scot, who came from Duns in Berwickshire,
+had, in 1817, succeeded Perry as editor of the _Morning Chronicle_.
+The _Chronicle_ was an opposition paper, and day by day Black walked
+with Mill from the India House, discussing the topics of the time and
+discharging himself through the _Chronicle_. The _Chronicle_ declined
+after 1821, owing to a change in the proprietorship.[25] Albany
+Fonblanque (1793-1872) took to journalism at an early age, succeeded
+Leigh Hunt as leader-writer for the _Examiner_ in 1826, became
+another exponent of Utilitarian principles, and for some time in
+alliance with John Stuart Mill was among the most effective
+representatives of the new school in the press. John Ramsay M'Culloch
+(1789-1864) upheld the economic battle in the _Scotsman_ at Edinburgh
+from 1817-1827, and edited it from 1818-1820. He afterwards devoted
+himself to lecturing in London, and was for many years the most ardent
+apostle of the 'dismal science.' He was a genial, whisky-loving Scot;
+the favourite object of everybody's mimicry; and was especially
+intimate with James Mill. Many other brilliant young men contributed
+their help in various ways. Henry Bickersteth (1783-1851), afterwards
+Lord Langdale and Master of the Rolls, had brought Bentham and Burdett
+into political alliance; and his rising reputation at the bar led to
+his being placed in 1824 upon a commission for reforming the procedure
+of the Court of Chancery, one of the most cherished objects of the
+Utilitarian creed. Besides these there were the group of young men,
+who were soon to be known as the 'philosophical Radicals.' John Stuart
+Mill, upon whom the mantle of his father was to descend, was
+conspicuous by his extraordinary precocity, and having been carefully
+educated in the orthodox faith, was employed in 1825 upon editing
+Bentham's great work upon evidence. George Grote (1794-1871), the
+future historian, had been introduced to Mill by Ricardo; and was in
+1821 defending Mill's theory of government against Mackintosh, and in
+1822 published the _Analysis of Revealed Religion_, founded upon
+Bentham's manuscripts and expressing most unequivocally the
+Utilitarian theory of religion. With them were associated the two
+Austins, John (1790-1859) who, in 1821, lived close to Bentham and
+Mill in Queen's Square, and who was regarded as the coming teacher of
+the Utilitarian system of jurisprudence; and Charles (1799-1874), who
+upheld the true faith among the young gentlemen at Cambridge with a
+vigour and ability which at least rivalled the powers of his
+contemporary, Macaulay. Meanwhile, Mill himself was disqualified by
+his office from taking any direct part in political agitations. Place
+continued an active connection with the various Radical committees and
+associations; but the younger disciples had comparatively little
+concern in such matters. They were more interested in discussing the
+applications of Utilitarianism in various directions, or, so far as
+they had parliamentary aspirations, were aspiring to found a separate
+body of 'philosophical Radicals,' which looked down upon Place and his
+allies from the heights of superior enlightenment.
+
+Mill could now look forward to a successful propaganda of the creed
+which had passed so slowly through its period of incubation. The death
+of Ricardo in 1823 affected him to a degree which astonished his
+friends, accustomed only to his stern exterior. A plentiful crop of
+young proselytes, however, was arising to carry on the work; and the
+party now became possessed of the indispensable organ. The
+_Westminster Review_ was launched at the beginning of 1824. Bentham
+provided the funds; Mill's official position prevented him from
+undertaking the editorship, which was accordingly given to Bentham's
+young disciple, Bowring, helped for a time by Henry Southern. The
+_Westminster_ was to represent the Radicals as the two older reviews
+represented the Whigs and the Tories; and to show that the new party
+had its philosophers and its men of literary cultivation as well as
+its popular agitators and journalists. It therefore naturally put
+forth its claims by opening fire in the first numbers against the
+_Edinburgh_ and the _Quarterly Reviews_. The assault upon the
+_Edinburgh Review_, of which I shall speak presently, made an
+impression, and, as J. S. Mill tells us, brought success to the first
+number of the new venture. The gauntlet was thrown down with plenty of
+vigour, and reformers were expected to rally round so thoroughgoing a
+champion. In later numbers Mill afterwards (Jan. 9, 1826) fell upon
+Southey's _Book of the Church_, and (April 1826) assailed church
+establishments in general. He defended toleration during the same year
+in a review of Samuel Bailey's _Formation of Opinions_, and gave a
+general account of his political creed in an article (October) on the
+'State of the Nation.' This was his last contribution to the
+_Westminster_; but in 1827 he contributed to the _Parliamentary
+History and Review_, started by James Marshall of Leeds, an article
+upon recent debates on reform, which ended for a time his political
+writings.
+
+The Utilitarians had no great talent for cohesion. Their very
+principles were indeed in favour of individual independence, and they
+were perhaps more ready to diverge than to tolerate divergence. The
+_Westminster Review_ had made a good start, and drew attention to the
+rising 'group'--J. S. Mill declares that it never formed a
+'school.'[26] From the very first the Mills distrusted Bowring and
+disapproved of some articles; the elder Mill failed to carry his
+disciples with him, partly because they were already in favour of
+giving votes to women; and as the _Review_ soon showed itself unable
+to pay its way, some new arrangement became necessary. It was finally
+bought by Perronet Thompson, and ceased for a time to be the official
+organ of Benthamism.
+
+Another undertaking occupied much of Mill's attention in the following
+years. The educational schemes of the Utilitarians had so far proved
+abortive. In 1824, however, it had occurred to the poet, Thomas
+Campbell, then editing the _New Monthly Magazine_, that London ought
+to possess a university comparable to that of Berlin, and more on a
+level with modern thought than the old universities of Oxford and
+Cambridge, which were still in the closest connection with the church.
+Campbell addressed a letter to Brougham, and the scheme was taken up
+energetically on several sides. Place[27] wrote an article, which he
+offered to Campbell for the _New Monthly_, who declined out of modesty
+to publish it in his own organ. It was then offered to Bowring for the
+_Westminster_, and ultimately suppressed by him, which may have been
+one of the causes of his differences with the Mills. Brougham took a
+leading part in the agitation; Joseph Hume promised to raise £100,000.
+George Birkbeck, founder of the Mechanics' Institution, and Zachary
+Macaulay, who saw in it a place of education for dissenting ministers,
+joined the movement, and among the most active members of the new body
+were James Mill and Grote. A council was formed at the end of 1825,
+and after various difficulties a sum of £160,000 was raised, and the
+university started in Gower Street in 1828. Among the first body of
+professors were John Austin and M'Culloch, both of them sound
+Utilitarians. The old difficulty, however, made itself felt. In order
+to secure the unsectarian character of the university, religious
+teaching was omitted. The college was accused of infidelity. King's
+College was started in opposition; and violent antipathies were
+aroused. A special controversy raged within the council itself. Two
+philosophical chairs were to be founded; and philosophy cannot be kept
+clear of religion. After long discussions, one chair was filled by the
+appointment of the Reverend John Hoppus, an independent minister.
+Grote, declaring that no man, pledged by his position to the support
+of any tenets, should be appointed, resigned his place on the
+council.[28] The university in 1836 became a college combined with its
+rival King's College under the newly formed examining body called the
+University of London. It has, I suppose, been of service to education,
+and may be regarded as the one practical achievement of the
+Utilitarians in that direction, so far as its foundation was due to
+them. It must, however, be admitted that the actual body still falls
+very far short of the ideal present to the minds of its founders.
+
+From 1822 James Mill spent his vacations at Dorking, and afterwards at
+Mickleham. He had devoted them to a task which was necessary to fill a
+gap in the Utilitarian scheme. Hitherto the school had assumed, rather
+than attempted to establish, a philosophical basis of its teaching.
+Bentham's fragmentary writings about the Chrestomathic school supplied
+all that could by courtesy be called a philosophy. Mill, however, had
+been from the first interested in philosophical questions. His reading
+was not wide; he knew something of the doctrines taught by Stewart and
+Stewart's successor, Brown. He had been especially impressed by
+Hobbes, to some degree by Locke and Hume, but above all by Hartley. He
+knew something, too, of Condillac and the French Ideologists. Of
+recent German speculation he was probably quite ignorant. I find
+indeed that Place had called his attention to the account of Kant,
+published by Wirgman in the _Encyclopædia Londinensis_ 1817. Mill
+about the same time tells Place that he has begun to read _The Critic
+of Pure Reason_. 'I see clearly enough,' he says, 'what poor Kant
+would be about, but it would require some time to give an account of
+him.' He wishes (December 6, 1817) that he had time to write a book
+which would 'make the human mind as plain as the road from Charing
+Cross to St. Paul's.'[29] This was apparently the task to which he
+applied himself in his vacations. The _Analysis_ appeared in 1829,
+and, whatever its defects of incompleteness and one-sidedness from a
+philosophical point of view, shows in the highest degree Mill's powers
+of close, vigorous statement; and lays down with singular clearness
+the psychological doctrine, which from his point of view supplied the
+fundamental theorems of knowledge in general. It does not appear,
+however, to have made an impression proportionate to the intellectual
+power displayed, and had to wait a long time before reaching the
+second edition due to the filial zeal of J. S. Mill.
+
+James Mill, after his articles in the _Westminster_, could take
+little part in political agitation. He was still consulted by Place in
+regard to the Reform movement. Place himself took an important part at
+the final crisis, especially by his circulation in the week of agony
+of the famous placard, 'Go for Gold.' But the Utilitarians were now
+lost in the crowd. The demand for reform had spread through all
+classes. The attack upon the ruling class carried on by the Radicals
+of all shades in the dark days of Sidmouth and the six Acts was now
+supported by the nation at large. The old Toryism could no longer
+support itself by appealing to the necessities of a struggle for
+national existence. The prestige due to the victorious end of the war
+had faded away. The Reform Bill of 1832 was passed, and the
+Utilitarians hoped that the millennium would at least begin to dawn.
+
+Mill in 1830 removed from Queen's Square to Vicarage Place,
+Kensington. He kept his house at Mickleham, and there took long Sunday
+walks with a few of his disciples. His strength was more and more
+absorbed in his official duties. He was especially called upon to give
+evidence before the committees which from 1830 to 1833 considered the
+policy to be adopted in renewing the charter of the East India
+Company. Mill appeared as the advocate of the company, defended their
+policy, and argued against the demands of the commercial body which
+demanded the final suppression of the old trading monopoly of the
+Company. The abolition, indeed, was a foregone conclusion; but Mill's
+view was not in accordance with the doctrines of the thoroughgoing
+freetraders. His official experience, it seems, upon this and other
+matters deterred him from the _a priori_ dogmatism too characteristic
+of his political speculations. Mill also suggested the formation of a
+legislative council, which was to contain one man 'versed in the
+philosophy of men and government.' This was represented by the
+appointment of the legal member of council in the Act of 1833. Mill
+approved of Macaulay as the first holder of the post. It was 'very
+handsome' of him, as Macaulay remarks, inasmuch as the famous articles
+written by Macaulay himself, in which the _Edinburgh_ had at last
+retorted upon the Utilitarians, must still have been fresh in his
+memory. The 'Penal Code' drawn by Macaulay as holder of the office was
+the first actual attempt to carry out Bentham's favourite schemes
+under British rule, and the influence of the chief of Bentham's
+disciples at the India House may have had something to do with its
+initiation. Macaulay's chief subordinate, it may be remarked, Charles
+Hay Cameron, was one of the Benthamites, and had been proposed by
+Grote for the chair at the London University ultimately filled by
+Hoppus.
+
+After 1830 Mill wrote the severe fragment on Mackintosh, which, after
+a delay caused by Mackintosh's death, appeared in 1835. He contributed
+some articles to the _London Review_, founded by Sir W. Molesworth, as
+an organ of the 'philosophical Radicals,' and superintended, though
+not directly edited, by J. S. Mill. These, his last performances,
+repeat the old doctrines. It does not appear, indeed, that Mill ever
+altered one of his opinions. He accepted Bentham's doctrine to the
+end, as unreservedly as a mathematician might accept Newton's
+_Principia_.
+
+Mill's lungs had begun to be affected. It was supposed that they were
+injured by the dust imbibed on coach journeys to Mickleham. He had a
+bad attack of hæmorrhage in August 1835, and died peacefully on 23rd
+June 1836.
+
+What remains to be said of Mill personally may be suggested by a
+noticeable parallel. S. T. Coleridge, born about six months before
+Mill, died two years before him. The two lives thus coincided for more
+than sixty years, and each man was the leader of a school. In all else
+the contrast could hardly be greater. If we were to apply the rules of
+ordinary morality, it would be entirely in Mill's favour. Mill
+discharged all his duties as strenuously as a man could, while
+Coleridge's life was a prolonged illustration of the remark that when
+an action presented itself to him as a duty he became physically
+incapable of doing it. Whatever Mill undertook he accomplished, often
+in the face of enormous difficulties. Coleridge never finished
+anything, and his works are a heap of fragments of the prolegomena to
+ambitious schemes. Mill worked his hardest from youth to age, never
+sparing labour or shirking difficulties or turning aside from his
+path. Coleridge dawdled through life, solacing himself with opium, and
+could only be coaxed into occasional activity by skilful diplomacy.
+Mill preserved his independence by rigid self-denial, temperance, and
+punctuality. Coleridge was always dependent upon the generosity of his
+friends. Mill brought up a large family, and in the midst of severe
+labours found time to educate them even to excess. Coleridge left his
+wife and children to be cared for by others. And Coleridge died in the
+odour of sanctity, revered by his disciples, and idolised by his
+children; while Mill went to the grave amidst the shrugs of
+respectable shoulders, and respected rather than beloved by the son
+who succeeded to his intellectual leadership.
+
+The answer to the riddle is indeed plain enough; or rather there are
+many superabundantly obvious answers. Had Mill defended orthodox views
+and Coleridge been avowedly heterodox, we should no doubt have heard
+more of Coleridge's opium and of Mill's blameless and energetic life.
+But this explains little. That Coleridge was a man of genius and,
+moreover, of exquisitely poetical genius, and that Mill was at most a
+man of remarkable talent and the driest and sternest of logicians is
+also obvious. It is even more to the purpose that Coleridge was
+overflowing with kindliness, though little able to turn goodwill to
+much effect; whereas Mill's morality took the form chiefly of
+attacking the wicked. This is indicated by the saying attributed by
+Bowring to Bentham that Mill's sympathy for the many sprang out of his
+hatred of the oppressing few.[30] J. S. Mill very properly protested
+against this statement when it was quoted in the _Edinburgh Review_.
+It would obviously imply a gross misunderstanding, whether Bentham,
+not a good observer of men, said so or not. But it indicates the side
+of Mill's character which made him unattractive to contemporaries and
+also to posterity. He partook, says his son,[31] of the Stoic, the
+Epicurean, and the Cynic character. He was a Stoic in his personal
+qualities; an Epicurean so far as his theory of morals was concerned;
+and a Cynic in that he cared little for pleasure. He thought life a
+'poor thing' after the freshness of youth had passed; and said that
+he had never known an old man happy unless he could live over again in
+the pleasures of the young. Temperance and self-restraint were
+therefore his favourite virtues. He despised all 'passionate
+emotions'; he held with Bentham that feelings by themselves deserved
+neither praise nor blame; he condemned a man who did harm whether the
+harm came from malevolence or from intellectual error. Therefore all
+sentiment was objectionable, for sentiment means neglect of rules and
+calculations. He shrank from showing feeling with more than the usual
+English reserve; and showed his devotion to his children by drilling
+them into knowledge with uncompromising strictness. He had no feeling
+for the poetical or literary side of things; and regarded life, it
+would seem, as a series of arguments, in which people were to be
+constrained by logic, not persuaded by sympathy. He seems to have
+despised poor Mrs. Mill, and to have been unsuccessful in concealing
+his contempt, though in his letters he refers to her respectfully.
+Mill therefore was a man little likely to win the hearts of his
+followers, though his remarkable vigour of mind dominated their
+understandings.
+
+The amiable and kindly, whose sympathies are quickly moved, gain an
+unfair share of our regard both in life and afterwards. We are more
+pleased by an ineffectual attempt to be kindly, than by real kindness
+bestowed ungraciously. Mill's great qualities should not be overlooked
+because they were hidden by a manner which seems almost deliberately
+repellent. He devoted himself through life to promote the truth as he
+saw it; to increase the scanty amounts of pleasures enjoyed by
+mankind; and to discharge all the duties which he owed to his
+neighbours. He succeeded beyond all dispute in forcibly presenting one
+set of views which profoundly influenced his countrymen; and the very
+narrowness of his intellect enabled him to plant his blows more
+effectively.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] The chief authority for James Mill is _James Mill: a Biography_,
+by Alexander Bain, Emeritus Professor of Logic in the University of
+Aberdeen, London, 1882. The book contains very full materials; and, if
+rather dry, deals with a dry subject.
+
+[2] Wallas's _Francis Place_, p. 70 _n._
+
+[3] Bain's _James Mill_, p. 166.
+
+[4] Gifford's real name was John Richards Green. The identity of his
+assumed name with that of the more famous William Gifford has led to a
+common confusion between the two periodicals. 'Peter Pindar' assaulted
+William Gifford under the erroneous impression that he was editor of
+the second.
+
+[5] Letter in Bain's _James Mill_, pp. 136-40.
+
+[6] _Autobiography_, p. 39.
+
+[7] Bain's _James Mill_, pp. 97-106. Mill appears to have said
+something 'extravagant' about Bentham in an article upon Miranda in
+the _Edinburgh Review_ for January 1809. He also got some praises of
+Bentham into the _Annual Review_ of 1809 (Bain, 92-96).
+
+[8] See the very interesting Life of Francis Place, by Mr. Graham
+Wallas, 1898.
+
+[9] Bain's _James Mill_, p. 78, and Wallas's _Francis Place_, p. 66.
+
+[10] Wallas's _Francis Place_, p. 68.
+
+[11] He 'put together' the _Not Paul but Jesus_ at Ford Abbey in 1817,
+and helped to preface the Reform _Catechism_. Wallas's _Francis
+Place_, p. 84.
+
+[12] The article of 1811 was also published separately.
+
+[13] He wrote only the first volume. Two others were added by Cuthbert
+Southey.
+
+[14] _Lectures_ (Ashe, 1885), pp. 32, 61.
+
+[15] James Mill, according to Place, wrote a 'memorable and admirable
+essay, "Schools for all, not schools for Churchmen only."'--Wallas's
+_Francis Place_, 99 _n._
+
+[16] This absurd suspicion was aroused by the quarrel about Burdett's
+arrest. See Wallas's _Place_, p. 56.
+
+[17] Mr. Wallas gives an account of these schemes in chap. iv. of his
+Life of Place. I have also consulted Place's collections in Additional
+MSS., 27,823.
+
+[18] Bain's _James Mill_, p. 162.
+
+[19] H. H. Wilson in his preface to the edition of 1840.
+
+[20] Wallas's _Francis Place_, p. 78.
+
+[21] Bain's _James Mill_, p. 435.
+
+[22] _Ibid._ p. 433.
+
+[23] Bentham's _Works_, p. 498.
+
+[24] See Carman in _Economic Review_, 1894.
+
+[25] See under Black in _Dictionary of National Biography_.
+
+[26] _Autobiography_, p. 101.
+
+[27] See Place's account in Additional MSS. 27,823.
+
+[28] G. C. Robertson, _Philosophical Remains_, p. 166; and under
+George Grote in _Dictionary of National Biography_.
+
+[29] Letters communicated by Mr. Graham Wallas. See Mr. Wallas's
+_Francis Place_, p. 91.
+
+[30] So Place observed that Mill 'could help the mass, but could not
+help the individual, not even himself or his own.'--Wallas's _Francis
+Place_, p. 79.
+
+[31] _Autobiography_, p. 48.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+REFORM MOVEMENTS
+
+
+I. POLITICAL CHANGE
+
+The last years of Mill's life correspond to the period in which
+Utilitarianism reached, in certain respects, its highest pitch of
+influence. The little band who acknowledged him as their chief leader,
+and as the authorised lieutenant of Bentham, considered themselves to
+be in the van of progress. Though differing on many points from each
+other, and regarded with aversion or distrust by the recognised party
+leaders, they were in their most militant and confident state of mind.
+They were systematically reticent as to their religious views: they
+left to popular orators the public advocacy of their favourite
+political measures; and the credit of finally passing such of those
+measures as were adopted fell chiefly to the hands of the great
+political leaders. The Utilitarians are ignored in the orthodox Whig
+legend. In the preface to his collected works, Sydney Smith runs over
+the usual list of changes which had followed, and, as he seems to
+think, had in great part resulted from, the establishment of the
+_Edinburgh Review_. Smith himself, and Jeffrey and Horner and, above
+all, 'the gigantic Brougham,' had blown the blast which brought down
+the towers of Jericho. Sir G. O. Trevelyan, in his _Life of Macaulay_,
+describes the advent of the Whigs to office in a similar sense.
+'Agitators and incendiaries,' he says, 'retired into the background,
+as will always be the case when the country is in earnest: and
+statesmen who had much to lose, and were not afraid to risk it,
+stepped quietly and firmly to the front. The men and the sons of the
+men who had so long endured exclusion from office, embittered by
+unpopularity, at length reaped their reward.'[32] The Radical version
+of the history is different. The great men, it said, who had left the
+cause to be supported by agitators so long as the defence was
+dangerous and profitless, stepped forward now that it was clearly
+winning, and received both the reward and the credit. Mill and Place
+could not find words to express their contempt for the trimming,
+shuffling Whigs. They were probably unjust enough in detail; but they
+had a strong case in some respects. The Utilitarians represented that
+part of the reforming party which had a definite and a reasoned creed.
+They tried to give logic where the popular agitators were content with
+declamation, and represented absolute convictions when the Whig
+reformers were content with tentative and hesitating compromises. They
+had some grounds for considering themselves to be the 'steel of the
+lance'; the men who formulated and deliberately defended the
+principles which were beginning to conquer the world.
+
+The Utilitarians, I have said, became a political force in the
+concluding years of the great war struggle. The catastrophe of the
+revolution had unchained a whole whirlwind of antagonisms. The
+original issues had passed out of sight; and great social,
+industrial, and political changes were in progress which made the
+nation that emerged from the war a very different body from the nation
+that had entered it nearly a generation before. It is not surprising
+that at first very erroneous estimates were made of the new position
+when peace at last returned.
+
+The Radicals, who had watched on one side the growth of debt and
+pauperism, and, on the other hand, the profits made by stockjobbers,
+landlords, and manufacturers, ascribed all the terrible sufferings to
+the selfish designs of the upper classes. When the war ended they
+hoped that the evils would diminish, while the pretext for
+misgovernment would be removed. A bitter disappointment followed. The
+war was followed by widespread misery. Plenty meant ruin to
+agriculturists, and commercial 'gluts' resulting in manufacturers'
+warehouses crammed with unsaleable goods. The discontent caused by
+misery had been encountered during the war by patriotic fervour. It
+was not a time for redressing evils, when the existence of the nation
+was at stake. Now that the misery continued, and the excuse for
+delaying redress had been removed, a demand arose for parliamentary
+reform. Unfortunately discontent led also to sporadic riotings, to
+breaking of machinery and burning of ricks. The Tory government saw in
+these disturbances a renewal of the old Jacobin spirit, and had
+visions--apparently quite groundless--of widespread conspiracies and
+secret societies ready to produce a ruin of all social order. It had
+recourse to the old repressive measures, the suspension of the Habeas
+Corpus Act, the passage of the 'Six Acts,' and the prosecution of
+popular agitators. Many observers fancied that the choice lay between
+a servile insurrection and the establishment of arbitrary power.
+
+By degrees, however, peace brought back prosperity. Things settled
+down; commerce revived; and the acute distress passed away. The whole
+nation went mad over the wrongs of Queen Caroline; and the demand for
+political reform became for the time less intense. But it soon
+appeared that, although this crisis had been surmounted, the temper of
+the nation had profoundly changed. The supreme power still belonged
+constitutionally to the landed interest. But it had a profoundly
+modified social order behind it. The war had at least made it
+necessary to take into account the opinions of larger classes. An
+appeal to patriotism means that some regard must be paid to the
+prejudices and passions of people at large. When enormous sums were to
+be raised, the moneyed classes would have their say as to modes of
+taxation. Commerce and manufactures went through crises of terrible
+difficulty due to the various changes of the war; but, on the whole,
+the industrial classes were steadily and rapidly developing in wealth,
+and becoming relatively more important. The war itself was, in one
+aspect at least, a war for the maintenance of the British supremacy in
+trade. The struggle marked by the policy of the 'Orders in Council' on
+one side, and Napoleon's decrees on the other, involved a constant
+reference to Manchester and Liverpool and the rapidly growing
+manufacturing and commercial interests. The growth, again, of the
+press, at a time when every one who could read was keenly interested
+in news of most exciting and important events, implied the rapid
+development of a great organ of public opinion.
+
+The effects of these changes soon became palpable. The political
+atmosphere was altogether different; and an entirely new set of
+influences was governing the policy of statesmen. The change affected
+the Tory as much as the Whig. However strongly he might believe that
+he was carrying on the old methods, he was affected by the new ideas
+which had been almost unconsciously incorporated in his creed. How
+great was the change, and how much it took the shape of accepting
+Utilitarian theories, may be briefly shown by considering a few
+characteristic facts.
+
+The ablest men who held office at the time were Canning, Huskisson,
+and Peel. They represented the conservatism which sought to
+distinguish itself from mere obstructiveness. Their influence was felt
+in many directions. The Holy Alliance had the sympathy of men who
+could believe that the war had brought back the pre-revolutionary
+order, and that its main result had been to put the Jacobin spirit in
+chains. Canning's accession to office in 1822 meant that the foreign
+policy of England was to be definitely opposed to the policy of the
+'Holy Alliance.' A pithy statement of his view is given in a
+remarkable letter, dated 1st February 1823, to the prince who was soon
+to become Charles X.[33] The French government had declared that a
+people could only receive a free constitution as a gift from their
+legitimate kings. Should the English ministry, says Canning, after
+this declaration, support the French in their attack upon the
+constitutional government of Spain, it would be driven from office
+amid 'the execration of Tories and Whigs alike.' He thought that the
+doctrine of the sovereignty of the people was less alien to the
+spirit of the British Constitution than the opposite doctrine of the
+legitimists. In the early days, when Canning sat at the feet of Pitt,
+the war, if not in their eyes an Anti-Jacobin crusade, had to be
+supported by stimulating the Anti-Jacobin sentiment. In later days,
+the war had come to be a struggle against the oppression of nations by
+foreign despots. Canning could now accept the version of Pitt's policy
+which corresponded to the later phase. Englishmen in general had no
+more sympathy for despots who claimed a divine right than for despots
+who acted in the name of democracy--especially when the despots
+threatened to interfere with British trade. When Canning called 'the
+new world into existence to redress the balance of the old,'[34] he
+declared that English policy should resist threats from the Holy
+Alliance directed against some of our best customers. The general
+approval had special force among the Utilitarians. In the South
+American States Bentham had found eager proselytes, and had hoped to
+become a Solon. He had been consulted by the constitutionalists in
+Spain and Portugal; and he and his disciples, Joseph Hume in
+particular, had joined the Greek Committee, and tried to regenerate
+Athens by sound Utilitarian tracts. All English Liberals sympathised
+with the various movements which were more or less favoured by
+Canning's policy; but the Utilitarians could also see in them the
+opening of new fields already white for the harvest.
+
+The foreign policy was significant. It proved that the war, whatever
+else it had done, had not brought back the old order; and the old
+British traditions in favour of liberty of speech and action would
+revive now that they were no longer trammelled by the fears of a
+destructive revolution. The days of July in 1830 gave fresh importance
+to the reaction of foreign upon English politics.
+
+
+II. LAW REFORM
+
+Meanwhile, however, the Utilitarians had a far stronger interest in
+domestic problems. In the first place, in Bentham's especial province
+a complete change of feeling had taken place. Romilly was Bentham's
+earliest disciple (so Bentham said), and looked up to him with 'filial
+reverence.' Every 'reformatiuncle' introduced by Romilly in parliament
+had been first brought to Bentham, to be conned over by the two.[35]
+With great difficulty Romilly had got two or three measures through
+the House of Commons, generally to be thrown out by Eldon's influence
+in the Lords.[36] After Romilly's death in 1818, the cause was taken
+up by the Whig philosopher, Sir James Mackintosh, and made a distinct
+step in advance. Though there were still obstacles in the upper
+regions, a committee was obtained to consider the frequency of capital
+punishment, and measures were passed to abolish it in particular
+cases. Finally, in 1823, the reform was adopted by Peel. Peel was
+destined to represent in the most striking way the process by which
+new ideas were gradually infiltrating the upper sphere. Though still a
+strong Tory and a representative of the university of Oxford, he was
+closely connected with the manufacturing classes, and had become
+aware, as he wrote to Croker (23rd March 1820), that public opinion
+had grown to be too large for its accustomed channels. As Home
+Secretary, he took up the whole subject of the criminal law, and
+passed in the next years a series of acts consolidating and mitigating
+the law, and repealing many old statutes. A measure of equal
+importance was his establishment in 1829 of the metropolitan police
+force, which at last put an end to the old chaotic muddle described by
+Colquhoun of parish officers and constables. Other significant legal
+changes marked the opening of a new era. Eldon was the very
+incarnation of the spirit of obstruction; and the Court of Chancery,
+over which he presided for a quarter of a century, was thought to be
+the typical stronghold of the evil principles denounced by Bentham. An
+attack in 1823 upon Eldon was made in the House of Commons by John
+Williams (1777-1846), afterwards a judge. Eldon, though profoundly
+irritated by the personal imputations involved, consented to the
+appointment of a commission, which reported in 1825, and recommended
+measures of reform. In 1828, Brougham made a great display upon which
+he had consulted Bentham.[37] In a speech of six hours' length he gave
+a summary of existing abuses, which may still be read with
+interest.[38] Commissions were appointed to investigate the procedure
+of the Common Law Court and the law of real property. Another
+commission, intended to codify the criminal law, was appointed in
+1833. Brougham says that of 'sixty capital defects' described in his
+speech, fifty-five had been removed, or were in course of removal,
+when his speeches were collected (_i.e._ 1838). Another speech of
+Brougham's in 1828 dealt with the carrying into execution of a
+favourite plan of Bentham's--the formation of local courts, which
+ultimately became the modern county courts.[39] The facts are
+significant of a startling change--no less than an abrupt transition
+from the reign of entire apathy to a reign of continuous reform
+extending over the whole range of law. The Reform Bill accelerated the
+movement, but it had been started before Bentham's death. The great
+stone, so long immovable, was fairly set rolling.
+
+Bentham's influence, again, in bringing about the change is
+undeniable. He was greatly dissatisfied with Brougham's speech, and,
+indeed, would have been dissatisfied with anything short of a complete
+logical application of his whole system. He held Brougham to be
+'insincere,'[40] a trimmer and popularity-hunter, but a useful
+instrument. Brougham's astonishing vanity and self-seeking prompted
+and perverted his amazing activity. He represents the process, perhaps
+necessary, by which a philosopher's ideas have to be modified before
+they can be applied to practical application. Brougham, however, could
+speak generously of men no longer in a position to excite his
+jealousy. He says in the preface to his first speech that 'the age of
+law reform and the age of Jeremy Bentham' were the same thing, and
+declares Bentham to be the 'first legal philosopher' who had appeared
+in the world. As the Chief advocates of Bentham he reckons Romilly,
+his parliamentary representative; Dumont, his literary interpreter;
+and James Mill, who, in his article upon 'jurisprudence,' had
+popularised the essential principles of the doctrine.
+
+The Utilitarians had at last broken up the barriers of obstruction and
+set the stream flowing. Whigs and Tories were taking up their
+theories. They naturally exaggerated in some respects the completeness
+of the triumph. The English law has not yet been codified, and it was
+characteristic of the Benthamite school to exaggerate the facility of
+that process. In their hatred of 'judge-made law' they assumed too
+easily that all things would be arranged into convenient pigeon-holes
+as soon as 'Judge and Co.' were abolished. It was a characteristic
+error to exaggerate the simplicity of their problem, and to fail to
+see that 'judge-made' law corresponds to a necessary inductive process
+by which the complex and subtle differences have to be gradually
+ascertained and fitted into a systematic statement. One other remark
+suggests itself. The Utilitarians saw in the dogged obstructiveness of
+Eldon and his like the one great obstacle to reform. It did not occur
+to them that the clumsiness of parliamentary legislation might be
+another difficulty. They failed to notice distinctly one tendency of
+their reforms. To make a code you require a sovereign strong enough to
+dominate the lawyers, not a system in which lawyers are an essential
+part of a small governing class. Codification, in short, means
+centralisation in one department. Blindness to similar results
+elsewhere was a characteristic of the Utilitarian thinkers.
+
+
+III. ECONOMIC REFORM
+
+In another department the Utilitarians boasted, and also with good
+reason, of the triumph of their tenets. Political economy was in the
+ascendant. Professorships were being founded in Oxford, Cambridge,[41]
+London, and Edinburgh. Mrs. Marcet's _Conversations_ (1818) were
+spreading the doctrine among babes and sucklings. The Utilitarians
+were the sacred band who defended the strictest orthodoxy against all
+opponents. They spoke as recognised authorities upon some of the most
+vital questions of the day, of which I need here only notice Free
+Trade, the doctrine most closely associated with the teaching of their
+revered Adam Smith. In 1816 Ricardo remarks with satisfaction that the
+principle 'is daily obtaining converts' even among the most prejudiced
+classes; and he refers especially to a petition in which the clothiers
+of Gloucestershire[42] expressed their willingness to give up all
+restrictions. There was, indeed, an important set-off against this
+gain. The landowners were being pledged to protection. They had
+decided that in spite of the peace, the price of wheat must be kept up
+to 80s. a quarter. They would no longer be complimented as Adam Smith
+had complimented them on their superior liberality, and were now
+creating a barrier only to be stormed after a long struggle.
+Meanwhile the principle was making rapid way among their rivals. One
+symptom was the adoption by the London merchants in 1820 of a famous
+petition on behalf of free trade.[43] It was drawn up by Thomas Tooke
+(1774-1858), who had long been actively engaged in the Russian trade,
+and whose _History of Prices_ is in some respects the most valuable
+economic treatise of the time. Tooke gives a curious account of his
+action on this occasion.[44] He collected a few friends engaged in
+commerce, who were opposed to the corn laws. He found that several of
+them had 'crude and confused' notions upon the subject, and that each
+held that his own special interests should be exempted on some pretext
+from the general rule. After various dexterous pieces of diplomacy,
+however, he succeeded in obtaining the signature of Samuel Thornton, a
+governor of the bank of England, and ultimately procured a sufficient
+number of signatures by private solicitation. He was favourably
+received by the Prime Minister Lord Liverpool, and Vansittart (then
+Chancellor of the Exchequer), and finally got the petition presented
+to the House of Commons by Alexander Baring (afterwards Lord
+Ashburton). Tooke remarks that the Liverpool administration was in
+advance, not only of the public generally, but of the 'mercantile
+community,' Glasgow and Manchester, however, followed in the same
+steps, and the petition became a kind of official manifesto of the
+orthodox doctrine. The Political Economy Club formed next year at
+Tooke's instigation (April 18, 1821) was intended to hasten the
+process of dispersing crude and confused ideas. It was essentially an
+organ of the Utilitarian propaganda.
+
+The influence of the economists upon public policy was shown by the
+important measures carried through chiefly by Huskisson. Huskisson
+(1770-1830) was a type of the most intelligent official of his time.
+Like his more brilliant friend Canning, he had been introduced into
+office under Pitt, and retained a profound reverence for his early
+leader. Huskisson was a thorough man of business, capable of wrestling
+with blue-books, of understanding the sinking-fund, and having
+theories about the currency; a master of figures and statistics and
+the whole machinery of commerce. Though eminently useful, he might at
+any moment be applying some awkward doctrine from Adam Smith.
+
+Huskisson began the series of economic reforms which were brought to
+their full development by Peel and Gladstone. The collection of his
+speeches[45] incidentally brings out very clearly his relation to the
+Utilitarians. The most remarkable is a great speech of April 24,
+1826[46] (upon the state of the silk manufacture), of which Canning
+declared that he had never heard one abler, or which made a deeper
+impression upon the House. In this he reviews his policy, going over
+the most important financial measures of the preceding period. They
+made a new era, and he dates the beginning of the movement from the
+London petition, and the 'luminous speech' made by Baring when
+presenting it. We followed public opinion, he says, and did not create
+it.[47] Adopting the essential principles of the petition, the
+government had in the first place set free the great woollen trade.
+The silk trade had been emancipated by abolishing the Spitalfield Acts
+passed in the previous century, which enabled magistrates to fix the
+rates of wages. The principle of prohibition had been abandoned,
+though protective duties remained. The navigation laws had been
+materially relaxed, and steps taken towards removing restrictions of
+different kinds upon trade with France and with India. One symptom of
+the change was the consolidation of the custom law effected by James
+Deacon Hume (1774-1842), an official patronised by Huskisson, and an
+original member of the Political Economy Club. By a law passed in
+1825, five hundred statutes dating from the time of Edward I. were
+repealed, and the essence of the law given in a volume of moderate
+size. Finally, the removal of prohibitions was undermining the
+smugglers.
+
+The measures upon which Huskisson justly prided himself might have
+been dictated by the Political Economy Club itself. So far as they
+went they were an application of the doctrines of its thoroughgoing
+members, of Mill, Ricardo, and the orthodox school. They indeed
+supported him in the press. The _Morning Chronicle_, which expressed
+their views, declared him to be the most virtuous minister, that is
+(in true Utilitarian phrase), the most desirous of national welfare
+who had ever lived. The praise of Radicals would be not altogether
+welcome. Canning, in supporting his friend, maintained that sound
+commercial policy belonged no more to the Whigs than to the Tories.
+Huskisson and he were faithful disciples of Pitt, whose treaty with
+France in 1786, assailed by Fox and the Whigs, had been the first
+practical application of the Wealth of Nations. Neither party,
+perhaps, could claim a special connection with good or bad political
+economy; and certainly neither was prepared to incur political
+martyrdom in zeal for scientific truth. A question was beginning to
+come to the front which would make party lines dependent upon economic
+theories, and Huskisson's view of this was characteristic.
+
+The speech from which I have quoted begins with an indignant retort
+upon a member who had applied to him Burke's phrase about a
+perfect-bred metaphysician exceeding the devil in malignity and
+contempt for mankind. Huskisson frequently protested even against the
+milder epithet of theorist. He asserted most emphatically that he
+appealed to 'experience' and not to 'theory,' a slippery distinction
+which finds a good exposure in Bentham's _Book of Fallacies_.[48] The
+doctrine, however, was a convenient one for Huskisson. He could appeal
+to experience to show that commercial restrictions had injured the
+woollen trade, and their absence benefited the cotton trade,[49] and
+when he was not being taunted with theories, he would state with
+perfect clearness the general free trade argument.[50] But he had to
+keep an eye to the uncomfortable tricks which theories sometimes play.
+He argued emphatically in 1825[51] that analogy between manufactures
+and agriculture is 'illogical.' He does not wish to depress the price
+of corn, but to keep it at such a level that our manufactures may not
+be hampered by dear food. Here he was forced by stress of politics to
+differ from his economical friends. The country gentleman did not wish
+to pay duties on his silk or his brandy, but he had a direct and
+obvious interest in keeping up the price of corn. Huskisson had
+himself supported the Corn Bill of 1815, but it was becoming more and
+more obvious that a revision would be necessary. In 1828 he declared
+that he 'lamented from the bottom of his soul the mass of evil and
+misery and destruction of capital which that law in the course of
+twelve years had produced.'[52] Ricardo, meanwhile, and the economists
+had from the first applied to agriculture the principles which
+Huskisson applied to manufactures.[53] Huskisson's melancholy death
+has left us unable to say whether upon this matter he would have been
+as convertible as Peel. In any case the general principle of free
+trade was as fully adopted by Huskisson and Canning as by the
+Utilitarians themselves. The Utilitarians could again claim to be both
+the inspirers of the first principles, and the most consistent in
+carrying out the deductions. They, it is true, were not generally
+biassed by having any interest in rents. They were to be the allies or
+teachers of the manufacturing class which began to be decidedly
+opposed to the squires and the old order.
+
+In one very important economic question, the Utilitarians not only
+approved a change of the law, but were the main agents in bringing it
+about. Francis Place was the wire-puller, to whose energy was due the
+abolition of the Conspiracy Laws in 1824. Joseph Hume in the House of
+Commons, and M'Culloch, then editor of the _Scotsman_, had the most
+conspicuous part in the agitation, but Place worked the machinery of
+agitation. The bill passed in 1824 was modified by an act of 1825; but
+the modification, owing to Place's efforts, was not serious, and the
+act, as we are told on good authority, 'effected a real emancipation,'
+and for the first time established the right of 'collective
+bargaining.'[54] The remarkable thing is that this act, carried on the
+principles of 'Radical individualism' and by the efforts of Radical
+individualists, was thus a first step towards the application to
+practice of socialist doctrine. Place thought that the result of the
+act would be not the encouragement, but the decline, of trades-unions.
+The unions had been due to the necessity of combining against
+oppressive laws, and would cease when those laws were abolished.[55]
+This marks a very significant stage in the development of economic
+opinion.
+
+
+IV. CHURCH REFORM
+
+The movement which at this period was most conspicuous politically was
+that which resulted in Roman Catholic emancipation, and here, too, the
+Utilitarians might be anticipating a complete triumph of their
+principles. The existing disqualifications, indeed, were upheld by
+little but the purely obstructive sentiment. When the duke of York
+swore that 'so help him God!' he would oppose the change to the last,
+he summed up the whole 'argument' against it. Canning and Huskisson
+here represented the policy not only of Pitt, but of Castlereagh. The
+Whigs, indeed, might claim to be the natural representatives of
+toleration. The church of England was thoroughly subjugated by the
+state, and neither Whig nor Tory wished for a fundamental change. But
+the most obvious differentia of Whiggism was a dislike to the
+ecclesiastical spirit. The Whig noble was generally more or less of a
+freethinker; and upon such topics Holland House differed little from
+Queen's Square Place, or differed only in a rather stricter reticence.
+Both Whig and Tory might accept Warburton's doctrine of an 'alliance'
+between church and state. The Tory inferred that the church should be
+supported. His prescription for meeting discontent was 'more yeomanry'
+and a handsome sum for church-building. The Whig thought that the
+church got a sufficient return in being allowed to keep its revenues.
+On the Tory view, the relation might be compared to that of man and
+wife in Christian countries where, though the two are one, the husband
+is bound to fidelity. On the Whig view it was like a polygamous
+system, where the wife is in complete subjection, and the husband may
+take any number of concubines. The Whig noble regarded the church as
+socially useful, but he was by no means inclined to support its
+interests when they conflicted with other political considerations. He
+had been steadily in favour of diminishing the privileges of the
+establishment, and had taken part in removing the grievances of the
+old penal laws. He was not prepared to uphold privileges which
+involved a palpable danger to his order.
+
+This position is illustrated by Sydney Smith, the ideal divine of
+Holland House. The _Plymley Letters_[56] give his views most pithily.
+Smith, a man as full of sound sense as of genuine humour, appeals to
+the principles of toleration, and is keenly alive to the absurdity of
+a persecution which only irritates without conversion. But he also
+appeals to the danger of the situation. 'If Bonaparte lives,'[57] he
+says, 'and something is not done to conciliate the Catholics, it seems
+to me absolutely impossible but that we must perish.' We are like the
+captain of a ship attacked by a pirate, who should begin by examining
+his men in the church catechism, and forbid any one to sponge or ram
+who had not taken the sacrament according to the forms of the church
+of England. He confesses frankly that the strength of the Irish is
+with him a strong motive for listening to their claims. To talk of
+'not acting from fear is mere parliamentary cant.'[58] Although the
+danger which frightened Smith was evaded, this was the argument which
+really brought conviction even to Tories in 1829. In any case the
+Whigs, whose great boast was their support of toleration, would not be
+prompted by any Quixotic love of the church to encounter tremendous
+perils in defence of its privileges.
+
+Smith's zeal had its limits. He observes humorously in his preface
+that he had found himself after the Reform Bill engaged in the defence
+of the National Church against the archbishop of Canterbury and the
+bishop of London. The letters to Archdeacon Singleton, written when
+the Whigs were flirting with the Radicals, show how much good an old
+Whig could find in the establishment. This marks the difference
+between the true Whig and the Utilitarian. The Whig would not risk the
+country for the sake of church; he would keep the clerical power
+strictly subordinate to the power of the state, but then, when
+considered from the political side, it was part of a government system
+providing him with patronage, and to be guarded from the rude assaults
+of the Radical reformer. The Utilitarian, though for the moment he was
+in alliance with the Whig, regarded the common victory as a step to
+something far more sweeping. He objected to intolerance as decidedly
+as the Whig, for absolute freedom of opinion was his most cherished
+doctrine. He objected still more emphatically to persecution on behalf
+of the church, because he entirely repudiated its doctrines. The
+objection to spreading true doctrine by force is a strong one, but
+hardly so strong as the objection to a forcible spread of false
+doctrine. But, besides this, the church represented to the Utilitarian
+precisely the very worst specimen of the corruptions of the time. The
+Court of Chancery was bad enough, but the whole ecclesiastical system
+with its vast prizes,[59] its opportunities for corrupt patronage, its
+pluralism and non-residence was an evil on a larger scale. The
+Radical, therefore, unlike the Whig, was an internecine enemy of the
+whole system. The 'church of England system,' as Bentham calmly
+remarks, is 'ripe for dissolution.'[60] I have already noticed his
+quaint proposal for giving effect to his views. Mill, in the
+_Westminster Review_, denounced the church of England as the worst of
+all churches.[61] To the Utilitarian, in short, the removal of the
+disqualification of dissenters and Catholics was thus one step to the
+consummation which their logic demanded--the absolute disestablishment
+and disendowment of the church. Conservatives in general anticipated
+the confiscation of church revenues as a necessary result of reform;
+and so far as the spirit of reformers was represented by the
+Utilitarians and their Radical allies, they had good grounds for the
+fear. James Mill's theory is best indicated by a later article
+published in the _London Review_ of July 1835. After pointing out that
+the church of England retains all the machinery desired for supporting
+priests and preventing the growth of intellect and morality, he
+proceeds to ask what the clergy do for their money. They read prayers,
+which is a palpable absurdity; they preach sermons to spread
+superstitious notions of the Supreme Being, and perform
+ceremonies--baptism, and so forth--which are obviously silly. The
+church is a mere state machine worked in subservience to the sinister
+interest of the governing classes. The way to reform it would be to
+equalise the pay: let the clergy be appointed by a 'Minister of Public
+Instruction' or the county authorities; abolish the articles, and
+constitute a church 'without dogmas or ceremonies'; and employ the
+clergy to give lectures on ethics, botany, political economy, and so
+forth, besides holding Sunday meetings, dances (decent dances are to
+be specially invented for the purpose), and social meals, which would
+be a revival of the 'agapai' of the early Christians. For this
+purpose, however, it might be necessary to substitute tea and coffee
+for wine. In other words, the church is to be made into a popular
+London University. The plan illustrates the incapacity of an isolated
+clique to understand the real tone of public opinion. I need not
+pronounce upon Mill's scheme, which seems to have some sense in it,
+but one would like to know whether Newman read his article.
+
+
+V. SINISTER INTERESTS
+
+In questions of foreign policy, of law reform, of political economy,
+and of religious tests, the Utilitarians thus saw the gradual
+approximation to their most characteristic views on the part of the
+Whigs, and a strong infiltration of the same views among the less
+obstructive Tories. They held the logical creed, to which others were
+slowly approximating, either from the force of argument or from the
+great social changes which were bringing new classes into political
+power. The movement for parliamentary reform which for a time
+overshadowed all other questions might be regarded as a corollary from
+the position already won. Briefly, it was clear that a new social
+stratum was exercising a vast influence; the doctrines popular with it
+had to be more or less accepted; and the only problem worth
+consideration by practical men was whether or not such a change should
+be made in the political machinery as would enable the influence to be
+exercised by direct and constitutional means. To the purely
+obstructive Tory parliamentary reform was a step to the general
+cataclysm. The proprietor of a borough, like the proprietor of a
+church patronage or commission in the army, had a right to his votes,
+and to attack his right was simply confiscation of private property.
+The next step might be to confiscate his estate. But even the more
+intelligent Conservative drew the line at such a measure. Canning,
+Huskisson, and even Peel might accept the views of the Utilitarians in
+regard to foreign policy, to law reform, to free trade, or the removal
+of religious tests, declaring only that they were obeying 'experience'
+instead of logic, and might therefore go just as far as they pleased.
+But they were all pledged to resist parliamentary reform to the
+utmost. Men thoroughly steeped in official life, and versed in the
+actual working of the machinery, were naturally alive to the magnitude
+of the change to be introduced. They saw with perfect clearness that
+it would amount to a revolution. The old system in which the ruling
+classes carried on business by family alliances and bargains between
+ministers and great men would be impracticable. The fact that so much
+had been done in the way of concession to the ideas of the new classes
+was for them an argument against the change. If the governing classes
+were ready to reform abuses, why should they be made unable to govern?
+A gradual enfranchisement of the great towns on the old system might
+be desirable. Such a man as Huskisson, representing great commercial
+interests, could not be blind to the necessity. But a thorough
+reconstruction was more alarming. As Canning had urged in a great
+speech at Liverpool, a House of Commons, thoroughly democratised,
+would be incompatible with the existence of the monarchy and the
+House of Lords. So tremendously powerful a body would reduce the other
+parts of the constitution to mere excrescences, feeble drags upon the
+new driving-wheel in which the whole real force would be concentrated.
+
+That this expressed, in point of fact, a serious truth, was, I take
+it, undeniable. The sufficient practical answer was, that change was
+inevitable. To refuse to adapt the constitutional machinery to the
+altered political forces was not to hinder their growth, but to make a
+revolution necessary. When, accordingly, the excluded classes began
+seriously to demand admission, the only question came to lie between
+violent and peaceable methods. The alarm with which our fathers
+watched the progress of the measure may seem to us exaggerated, but
+they scarcely overestimated the magnitude of the change. The old
+rulers were taking a new partner of such power, that whatever
+authority was left to them might seem to be left on sufferance. As
+soon as he became conscious of his strength, they would be reduced to
+nonentities. The Utilitarians took some part in the struggle, and
+welcomed the victory with anticipations destined to be, for the time
+at least, cruelly disappointed. But they were still a small minority,
+whose views rather scandalised the leaders of the party with which
+they were in temporary alliance. The principles upon which they based
+their demands, as formulated by James Mill, looked, as we shall see,
+far beyond the concessions of the moment.
+
+One other political change is significant, though I am unable to give
+an adequate account of it. Bentham's denunciation of 'sinister
+interests'--one of his leading topics--corresponds to the question of
+sinecures, which was among the most effective topics of Radical
+declamation. The necessity of limiting the influence of the crown and
+excluding 'placemen' from the House of Commons had been one of the
+traditional Whig commonplaces, and a little had been done by Burke's
+act of 1782 towards limiting pensions and abolishing obsolete offices.
+When English Radicalism revived, the assault was renewed in parliament
+and the press. During the war little was achieved, though a revival of
+the old complaints about placemen in parliament was among the first
+symptoms of the rising sentiment. In 1812 an attack was made upon the
+'tellers of the Exchequer.' Romilly[62] says that the value of one of
+these offices had risen to £26,000 or £27,000 a year. The income came
+chiefly from fees, and the actual work, whatever it was, was done by
+deputy. The scandal was enormous at a time when the stress upon the
+nation was almost unbearable. One of the tellerships was held by a
+member of the great Grenville family, who announced that they regarded
+the demand for reform as a personal attack upon them. The opposition,
+therefore, could not muster even its usual strength, and the motion
+for inquiry was rejected. When the war was over, even the government
+began to feel that something must be done. In 1817 some acts were
+passed[63] abolishing a variety of sinecure offices and 'regulating
+certain offices in the Court of Exchequer.' The Radicals considered
+this as a mere delusion, because it was provided at the same time that
+pensions might be given to persons who had held certain great offices.
+The change, however, was apparently of importance as removing the
+chief apology for sinecures, and the system with modifications still
+remains. The marquis of Camden, one of the tellers of the Exchequer,
+voluntarily resigned the fees and accepted only the regular salary of
+£2500. His action is commended in the _Black Book_,[64] which
+expresses a regret that the example had not been followed by other
+great sinecurists. Public opinion was beginning to be felt. During the
+subsequent period the cry against sinecures became more emphatic. The
+_Black Book_, published originally in 1820 and 1823, and afterwards
+reissued, gave a list, so far as it could be ascertained, of all
+pensions, and supplied a mass of information for Radical orators. The
+amount of pensions is stated at over £1,000,000, including sinecure
+offices with over £350,000 annually;[65] and the list of offices
+(probably very inaccurate in detail) gives a singular impression of
+the strange ramifications of the system. Besides the direct pensions,
+every new department of administration seems to have suggested the
+foundation of offices which tended to become sinecures. The cry for
+'retrenchment' was joined to the cry for reform.[66] Joseph Hume, who
+first entered parliament in 1818, became a representative of the
+Utilitarian Radicalism, and began a long career of minute criticism
+which won for him the reputation of a stupendous bore, but helped to
+keep a steady pressure upon ministers.[67] Sir James Graham
+(1792-1861) was at this time of Radical tendencies, and first made
+himself conspicuous by demanding returns of pensions.[68] The
+settlements of the civil lists of George IV., William IV., and
+Victoria, gave opportunities for imposing new restrictions upon the
+pension system. Although no single sweeping measure was passed, the
+whole position was changed. By the time of the Reform Bill, a sinecure
+had become an anachronism. The presumption was that whenever an
+opportunity offered, it would be suppressed. Some of the sinecure
+offices in the Court of Chancery, the 'Keeper of the Hanaper,' the
+'Chaffwax,' and so forth, were abolished by an act passed by the
+parliament which had just carried the Reform Bill.[69] In 1833 a
+reform of the system of naval administration by Sir James Graham got
+rid of some cumbrous machinery; and Graham again was intrusted in 1834
+with an act under which the Court of Exchequer was finally reformed,
+and the 'Clerk of the Pells' and the 'Tellers of the Exchequer' ceased
+to exist.[70] Other offices seem to have melted away by degrees,
+whenever a chance offered.
+
+Many other of the old abuses had ceased to require any special
+denunciations from political theorists. The general principle was
+established, and what remained was to apply it in detail. The prison
+system was no longer in want of a Howard or a Bentham. Abuses remained
+which occupied the admirable Mrs. Fry; and many serious difficulties
+had to be solved by a long course of experiment. But it was no longer
+a question whether anything should be doing, but of the most
+efficient means of bringing about an admittedly desirable end. The
+agitation for the suppression of the slave-trade again had been
+succeeded by the attack upon slavery. The system was evidently doomed,
+although not finally abolished till after the Reform Bill; and
+ministers were only considering the question whether the abolition
+should be summary or gradual, or what compensation might be made to
+vested interests. The old agitation had been remarkable, as I have
+said, not only for its end but for the new kind of machinery to which
+it had applied. Popular agitation[71] had taken a new shape. The
+county associations formed in the last days of the American war of
+independence, and the societies due to the French revolution had set a
+precedent. The revolutionary societies had been suppressed or had died
+out, as opposed to the general spirit of the nation, although they had
+done a good deal to arouse political speculation. In the period of
+distress which followed the war the Radical reformers had again held
+public meetings, and had again been met by repressive measures. The
+acts of 1817 and 1819[72] imposed severe restrictions upon the right
+of public meeting. The old 'county meeting,' which continued to be
+common until the reform period, and was summoned by the
+lord-lieutenant or the sheriff on a requisition from the freeholders,
+had a kind of constitutional character, though I do not know its
+history in detail.[73] The extravagantly repressive measures were an
+anachronism, or could only be enforced during the pressure of an
+intense excitement. In one way or other, public meetings were soon
+being held as frequently as ever. The trial of Queen Caroline gave
+opportunity for numerous gatherings, and statesmen began to find that
+they must use instead of suppressing them. Canning[74] appears to have
+been the first minister to make frequent use of speeches addressed to
+public meetings; and meetings to which such appeals were addressed
+soon began to use their authority to demand pledges from the
+speakers.[75] Representation was to be understood more and more as
+delegation. Meanwhile the effect of public meetings was enormously
+increased when a general organisation was introduced. The great
+precedent was the Catholic Association, founded in 1823 by O'Connell
+and Sheil. The peculiar circumstances of the Irish people and their
+priests gave a ready-made machinery for the agitation which triumphed
+in 1829. The Political Union founded by Attwood at Birmingham in the
+same year adopted the method, and led to the triumph of 1832.
+Political combination henceforth took a different shape, and in the
+ordinary phrase, 'public opinion' became definitely the ultimate and
+supreme authority. This enormous change and the corresponding
+development of the power of the press, which affected to mould and, at
+any rate, expressed public opinion, entirely fell in with Utilitarian
+principles. Their part in bringing about the change was of no special
+importance except in so far as they more or less inspired the popular
+orators. They were, however, ready to take advantage of it. They had
+the _Westminster Review_ to take a place beside the _Edinburgh_ and
+_Quarterly Reviews_, which had raised periodical writing to a far
+higher position than it had ever occupied, and to which leading
+politicians and leading authors on both sides had become regular
+contributors. The old contempt for journalism was rapidly vanishing.
+In 1825 Canning expresses his regret for having given some information
+to a paper of which an ill use had been made. He had previously
+abstained from all communication with 'these gentry,' and was now
+resolved to have done with _hoc genus omne_ for good and all.[76] In
+1839 we find his former colleague, Lord Lyndhurst, seeking an alliance
+with Barnes, the editor of the _Times_, as eagerly as though Barnes
+had been the head of a parliamentary party.[77]
+
+The newspapers had probably done more than the schools to spread
+habits of reading through the country. Yet the strong interest which
+was growing up in educational matters was characteristic. Brougham's
+phrase, 'the schoolmaster is abroad' (29th January 1821), became a
+popular proverb, and rejoiced the worthy Bentham.[78] I have already
+described the share taken by the Utilitarians in the great Bell and
+Lancaster controversy. Parliament had as yet done little. A bill
+brought in by Whitbread had been passed in 1807 by the House of
+Commons, enabling parishes to form schools on the Scottish model, but
+according to Romilly,[79] it was passed in the well-grounded
+confidence that it would be thrown out by the peers. A committee upon
+education was obtained by Brougham after the peace, which reported in
+1818, and which led to a commission upon school endowments. Brougham
+introduced an education bill in 1820, but nothing came of it. The
+beginning of any participation by government in national education was
+not to take place till after the Reform Bill. Meanwhile, however, the
+foundation of the London University upon unsectarian principles was
+encouraging the Utilitarians; and there were other symptoms of the
+growth of enlightenment. George Birkbeck (1776-1841) had started some
+popular lectures upon science at Glasgow about 1800, and having
+settled as a physician in London, started the 'Mechanics' Institution'
+in 1824. Brougham was one of the first trustees; and the institution,
+though exposed to a good deal of ridicule, managed to take root and
+become the parent of others. In 1827 was started the Society for the
+Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, of which Brougham was president, and
+the committee of which included James Mill. In the course of its
+twenty years' existence it published or sanctioned the publication by
+Charles Knight of a great mass of popular literature. The _Penny
+Magazine_ (1832-1845) is said to have had two hundred thousand
+subscribers at the end of its first year of existence. Crude and
+superficial as were some of these enterprises, they clearly marked a
+very important change. Cobbett and the Radical orators found enormous
+audiences ready to listen to their doctrine. Churchmen and Dissenters,
+Tories and Radicals were finding it necessary both to educate and to
+disseminate their principles by writing; and as new social strata were
+becoming accessible to such influences, their opinions began to
+exercise in turn a more distinct reaction upon political and
+ecclesiastical affairs.
+
+No party felt more confidence at the tendency of this new
+intellectual fermentation than the Utilitarians. They had a definite,
+coherent, logical creed. Every step which increased the freedom of
+discussion increased the influence of the truth. Their doctrines were
+the truth, if not the whole truth. Once allow them to get a fulcrum
+and they would move the world. Bit by bit their principles of
+legislation, of economy, of politics were being accepted in the most
+different quarters; and even the more intelligent of their opponents
+were applying them, though the application might be piecemeal and
+imperfect. It was in vain that an adversary protested that he was not
+bound by logic, and appealed to experience instead of theory. Let him
+justify his action upon what grounds he pleased, he was, in point of
+fact, introducing the leaven of true doctrine, and it might be trusted
+to work out the desirable results.
+
+I must now deal more in detail with the Utilitarian theories. I will
+only observe in general terms that their triumph was not likely to be
+accepted without a struggle. Large classes regarded them with absolute
+abhorrence. Their success, if they did succeed, would mean the
+destruction of religious belief, of sound philosophy, of the great
+important ecclesiastical and political institutions, and probably
+general confiscation of property and the ruin of the foundations of
+society. And, meanwhile, in spite of the progress upon which I have
+dwelt, there were two problems, at least, of enormous importance, upon
+which it could scarcely be said that any progress had been made. The
+church, in the first place, was still where it had been. No change had
+been made in its constitution; it was still the typical example of
+corrupt patronage; and the object of the hatred of all thoroughgoing
+Radicals. And, in the second place, pauperism had grown to appalling
+dimensions during the war; and no effectual attempt had been made to
+deal with it. Behind pauperism there were great social questions, the
+discontent and misery of great masses of the labouring population.
+Whatever reforms might be made in other parts of the natural order,
+here were difficulties enough to task the wisdom of legislators and
+speculators upon legislative principles.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[32] _Life of Macaulay_, p. 114. (Popular Edition).
+
+[33] Canning's _Political Correspondence_, i. 71-76.
+
+[34] 12th December 1826.
+
+[35] Bentham's _Works_, v. p. 370.
+
+[36] Romilly's attempts to improve the criminal law began in 1808. For
+various notices of his efforts, see his _Life_ (3 vols. 1860),
+especially vol. ii. 243-54, 309, 321, 331, 369, 371, 389-91. Romilly
+was deeply interested in Dumont's _Théorie des Peines Légales_ (1811),
+which he read in MS. and tried to get reviewed in the _Quarterly_ (ii.
+258, 391; iii. 136). The remarks (ii. 2-3) on the 'stupid dread of
+innovation' and the savage spirit infused into Englishmen by the
+horrors of the French revolution are worth notice in this connection.
+
+[37] Bentham's _Works_, x. p. 574.
+
+[38] Brougham's _Speeches_ (1838), ii. 287-486.
+
+[39] An interesting summary of the progress of law reforms and of
+Bentham's share in them is given in Sir R. K. Wilson's _History of
+Modern English Law_ (1875).
+
+[40] Bentham's _Works_, x. 571.
+
+[41] In Cambridge Pryme was the first professor in 1828, but had only
+the title without endowment. The professorship was only salaried in
+1863.
+
+[42] Ricardo's _Works_ (1888), p. 407.
+
+[43] Printed in Porter's _Progress of the Nation_ and elsewhere.
+
+[44] See sixth volume of _History of Prices_ by Tooke and Newmarch,
+and privately printed _Minutes of Political Economy Club_ (1882).
+
+[45] _Speeches_, 3 vols. 8vo, 1831.
+
+[46] _Ibid._ ii. 465-530.
+
+[47] _Ibid._ ii. 477.
+
+[48] Bentham's _Works_, ii. 459. We may remember how J. S. Mill in his
+boyhood was abashed because he could not explain to his father the
+force of the distinction.
+
+[49] _Speeches_, ii. 246, 332.
+
+[50] _Ibid._ i. 102-108 (Currency Pamphlet of 1810).
+
+[51] _Ibid._ ii. 397.
+
+[52] _Speeches_, iii. 257.
+
+[53] Ricardo indeed made a reservation as to the necessity of
+counterbalancing by a moderate duty the special burthens upon
+agriculture.
+
+[54] In the _History of Trades-Unionism_ by Sidney and Beatrice Webb
+(1894), pp. 88-98. The history of Place's agitation is fully given in
+Mr. Graham Wallas's _Life_, chap. viii.
+
+[55] Wallas's Francis _Place_, p. 217.
+
+[56] First published in 1807-8.
+
+[57] _Letter_ iii.
+
+[58] _Ibid._ vi.
+
+[59] Sydney Smith put very ingeniously the advantages of what he
+called the 'lottery' system: of giving, that is, a few great prizes,
+instead of equalising the incomes of the clergy. Things look so
+different from opposite points of views.
+
+[60] _Church of Englandism_, ii. 199.
+
+[61] See especially his review of Southey's _Book of the Church_.
+
+[62] Romilly's _Memoirs_, iii. 33.
+
+[63] 57 George III. caps. 60-67.
+
+[64] Edition of 1828, p. 24.
+
+[65] _Ibid._ p. 10.
+
+[66] A Mr. Gray proposed at a county meeting in 1816 that the cry of
+'retrenchment and reform' should be raised in every corner of the
+island (Henry Jephson's _Platform_, p. 378). I do not know whether
+this was the first appearance of the formula.
+
+[67] Hume had been introduced to Place by James Mill, who thought him
+worth 'nursing.' Place found him at first 'dull and selfish,' but
+'nursed him' so well that by 1836 he had become the 'man of
+men,'--Wallas's _Francis Place_, p. 181, 182.
+
+[68] Torrens's _Life of Graham_, i. 250-72, where his great speech of
+14th May 1830 is given.
+
+[69] 2 and 3 William IV. cap. 111 (passed 15 August 1832).
+
+[70] 4 and 5 William IV. cap. 15.
+
+[71] _The Platform, its Origin and Progress_, by Henry Jephson (1892),
+gives a very interesting historical account of the process.
+
+[72] 57 George III. cap. 19, and 60 George III. cap. 6.
+
+[73] See Jephson's _Platform_, pp. 167-70.
+
+[74] See Jephson's _Platform_, i. 348, 455, 517.
+
+[75] See _Ibid._ ii. 129-40 for some interesting passages as to this.
+
+[76] _Official Correspondence_ (1887), 308.
+
+[77] Greville's _George IV. and William IV._, iii. 155, 167-69, 171.
+
+[78] Bentham's _Works_, x. 571.
+
+[79] Romilly's _Memoirs_, ii. 67, 222.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+POLITICAL THEORY
+
+
+I. MILL ON GOVERNMENT
+
+I now turn to the general political theory of which Mill was the
+authoritative exponent. The _Encyclopædia_ article upon 'Government'
+(1820) gives the pith of their doctrine. It was, as Professor Bain[80]
+thinks, an 'impelling and a guiding force' in the movement which
+culminated in the Reform Bill. The younger Utilitarians regarded it,
+says J. S. Mill, as 'a masterpiece of political wisdom';[81] while
+Macaulay[82] taunts them for holding it to be 'perfect and
+unanswerable.' This famous article is a terse and energetic summary of
+the doctrine implied in Bentham's _Works_, but there obscured under
+elaboration of minute details. It is rather singular, indeed, that so
+vigorous a manifesto of Utilitarian dogma should have been accepted by
+Macvey Napier--a sound Whig--for a publication which professed
+scientific impartiality. It has, however, in the highest degree, the
+merits of clearness and condensation desirable in a popular
+exposition. The reticence appropriate to the place excuses the
+omission of certain implicit conclusions. Mill has to give a complete
+theory of politics in thirty-two 8vo pages. He has scanty room for
+qualifying statement or historical illustration. He speaks as from the
+chair of a professor laying down the elementary principles of a
+demonstrated science.[83]
+
+Mill starts from the sacred principle. The end of government, as the
+end of all conduct, must be the increase of human happiness. The
+province of government is limited by another consideration. It has to
+deal with one class of happiness, that is, with the pains and
+pleasures 'which men derive from one another.' By a 'law of nature'
+labour is requisite for procuring the means of happiness. Now, if
+'nature' produced all that any man desired, there would be no need of
+government, for there would be no conflict of interest. But, as the
+material produced is finite, and can be appropriated by individuals,
+it becomes necessary to insure to every man his proper share. What,
+then, is a man's proper share? That which he himself produces; for, if
+you give to one man more than the produce of his labour, you must take
+away the produce of another man's labour. The greatest happiness,
+therefore, is produced by 'assuring to every man the greatest possible
+quantity of the produce of his own labour.' How can this be done?
+Will not the strongest take the share of the weakest? He can be
+prevented in one and apparently only in one way. Men must unite and
+delegate to a few the power necessary for protecting all. 'This is
+government.'[84]
+
+The problem is now simple. Government is essentially an association
+of men for the protection of property. It is a delegation of the
+powers necessary for that purpose to the guardians, and 'all the
+difficult questions of government relate to the means' of preventing
+the guardians from themselves becoming plunderers.
+
+How is this to be accomplished? The power of protection, says Mill,
+following the old theory, may be intrusted to the whole community, to
+a few, or to one; that is, we may have a democracy, an aristocracy, or
+a monarchy. A democracy, or direct government of all by all, is for
+the ordinary reasons pronounced impracticable. But the objections to
+the other systems are conclusive. The need of government, he has
+shown, depends upon 'the law of human nature'[85] that 'a man, if
+able, will take from others anything which they have and he desires.'
+The very principle which makes government necessary, therefore, will
+prompt a government to defeat its own proper end. Mill's doctrine is
+so far identical with the doctrine of Hobbes; men are naturally in a
+state of war, and government implies a tacit contract by which men
+confer upon a sovereign the power necessary for keeping the peace. But
+here, though admitting the force of Hobbes's argument, he diverges
+from its conclusion. If a democracy be impossible, and an aristocracy
+or monarchy necessarily oppressive, it might seem, he admits, as it
+actually seemed to Hobbes and to the French economists, that the fewer
+the oppressors the better, and that therefore an absolute monarchy is
+the best. Experience, he thinks, is 'on the surface' ambiguous.
+Eastern despots and Roman emperors have been the worst scourges to
+mankind; yet the Danes preferred a despot to an aristocracy, and are
+as 'well governed as any people in Europe.' In Greece, democracy, in
+spite of its defects, produced the most brilliant results.[86] Hence,
+he argues, we must go 'beyond the surface,' and 'penetrate to the
+springs within.' The result of the search is discouraging. The hope of
+glutting the rulers is illusory. There is no 'point of saturation'[87]
+with the objects of desire, either for king or aristocracy. It is a
+'grand governing law of human nature' that we desire such power as
+will make 'the persons and properties of human beings subservient to
+our pleasures.'[88] This desire is indefinitely great. To the number
+of men whom we would force into subservience, and the degree in which
+we would make them subservient, we can assign no limits. Moreover, as
+pain is a more powerful instrument for securing obedience than
+pleasure, a man will desire to possess 'unlimited power of inflicting
+pain upon others.' Will he also desire, it may be asked, to make use
+of it? The 'chain of inference,' he replies, in this case is close and
+strong 'to a most unusual degree.' A man desires the actions of others
+to be in correspondence with his own wishes. 'Terror' will be the
+'grand instrument.'[89] It thus follows that the very principle upon
+which government is founded leads, in the absence of checks, 'not only
+to that degree of plunder which leaves the members (of a community)
+... the bare means of subsistence, but to that degree of cruelty which
+is necessary to keep in existence the most intense terror.' An English
+gentleman, he says, is a favourable specimen of civilisation, and yet
+West Indian slavery shows of what cruelty he could be guilty when
+unchecked. If equal cruelty has not been exhibited elsewhere, it is,
+he seems to think, because men were not 'the same as sheep in respect
+to their shepherd,'[90] and may therefore resist if driven too far.
+The difficulty upon this showing is to understand how any government,
+except the most brutal tyranny, ever has been, or ever can be,
+possible. What is the combining principle which can weld together such
+a mass of hostile and mutually repellent atoms? How they can even form
+the necessary compact is difficult to understand, and the view seems
+to clash with his own avowed purpose. It is Mill's aim, as it was
+Bentham's, to secure the greatest happiness of the greatest number;
+and yet he seems to set out by proving as a 'law of human nature' that
+nobody can desire the happiness of any one except himself. He quotes
+from Montesquieu the saying, which shows an 'acute sense of this
+important truth,' 'that every one who has power is led to abuse
+it.'[91] Rather it would seem, according to Mill, all power implies
+abuse in its very essence. The problem seems to be how to make
+universal cohesion out of universal repulsion.
+
+Mill has his remedy for this deeply seated evil. He attacks, as
+Bentham had already done, the old-fashioned theory, according to which
+the British Constitution was an admirable mixture of the three 'simple
+forms.' Two of the powers, he argues, will always agree to 'swallow up
+the third.'[92] 'The monarchy and aristocracy have all possible
+motives for endeavouring to obtain unlimited power over the persons
+and property of the community,' though the democracy, as he also says,
+has every possible motive for preventing them. And in England, as he
+no doubt meant his readers to understand, the monarchy and aristocracy
+had to a great extent succeeded. Where, then, are we to look? To the
+'grand discovery of modern times,' namely, the representative system.
+If this does not solve all difficulties we shall be forced to the
+conclusion that good government is impossible. Fortunately, however,
+the representative system may be made perfectly effective. This
+follows easily. It would, as he has said,[93] be a 'contradiction in
+terms' to suppose that the community at large can 'have an interest
+opposite to its interest,' In the Bentham formula, it can have 'no
+sinister interest.' It cannot desire its own misery. Though the
+community cannot act as a whole, it can act through representatives.
+It is necessary to intrust power to a governing body; but that body
+can be prevented by adequate checks from misusing its powers. Indeed,
+the common theory of the British Constitution was precisely that the
+House of Commons was 'the checking body.'[94] The whole problem is to
+secure a body which shall effectively discharge the function thus
+attributed in theory to the House of Commons. That will be done when
+the body is chosen in such a way that its interests are necessarily
+coincident with those of the community at large. Hence there is of
+course no difficulty in deducing the actual demands of reformers.
+Without defining precise limits, he shows that representatives must be
+elected for brief periods, and that the right to a vote must at least
+be wide enough to prevent the electoral body from forming a class with
+'sinister interests.' He makes some remarkable qualifications, with
+the view apparently of not startling his readers too much by absolute
+and impracticable claims. He thinks that the necessary identity of
+interest would still be secured if classes were unrepresented whose
+interests are 'indisputably included in those of others.' Children's
+interests are involved in those of their parents, and the interests of
+'almost all women' in those of their fathers or husbands.[95] Again,
+all men under forty might be omitted without mischief, for 'the great
+majority of old men have sons whose interests they regard as an
+essential part of their own. This is a law of human nature.'[96] There
+would, he observes, be no danger that men above forty would try to
+reduce the 'rest of the community to the state of abject slaves.'
+Mill, as his son tells us,[97] disowned any intention of positively
+advocating these exclusions. He only meant to say that they were not
+condemned by his general principle. The doctrine, however, about
+women, even as thus understood, scandalised his younger followers.
+
+Mill proceeds to argue at some length that a favourite scheme of some
+moderate reformers, for the representation of classes, could only lead
+to 'a motley aristocracy,' and then answers two objections. The first
+is that his scheme would lead to the abolition of the monarchy and the
+House of Lords. The reply is simple and significant. It would only
+lead to that result if a monarchy or a House of Lords were favourable
+to bad government. He does not inquire whether they are so in fact.
+The second objection is that the people do not understand their own
+interest, and to this his answer is more remarkable. If the doctrine
+be true, he says, we are in 'deplorable' position: we have to choose
+between evils which will be designedly produced by those who have both
+the power to oppress and an interest in oppression; and the evils
+which will be accidentally produced by men who would act well if they
+recognised their own interests.[98] Now the first evil is in any case
+the worst, for it supposes an 'invariable' evil; while in the other
+case, men may at least act well by accident. A governing class, that
+is with interests separate from those of the government, _must_ be
+bad. If the interests be identical, the government _may_ be bad. It
+will be bad if ignorant, but ignorance is curable. Here he appeals for
+once to a historical case. The priesthood at the Reformation argued on
+behalf of their own power from the danger that the people would make a
+bad use of the Bible. The Bible should therefore be kept for the
+sacred caste. They had, Mill thinks, a stronger case in appearance
+than the Tories, and yet the effect of allowing the people to judge
+for themselves in religious matters has been productive of good
+effects 'to a degree which has totally altered the condition of human
+nature.'[99] Why should not the people be trusted to judge for
+themselves in politics? This implies a doctrine which had great
+influence with the Utilitarians. In the remarkable essay upon
+'Education,' which is contained in the volume of reprints, Mill
+discusses the doctrine of Helvétius that all the differences between
+men are due to education. Without pronouncing positively upon the
+differences between individuals, Mill observes that, at any rate, the
+enormous difference between classes of men is wholly due to
+education.[100] He takes education, it must be observed, in the widest
+possible sense, as meaning what would now be called the whole action
+of the 'environment' upon the individual. This includes, as he shows
+at length, domestic education, all the vast influence exercised upon a
+child in his family, 'technical education,' by which he means the
+ordinary school teaching, 'social education,' that is the influences
+which we imbibe from the current opinions of our neighbours, and
+finally, 'political education,' which he calls the 'keystone of the
+arch.' The means, he argues, by which the 'grand objects of desire may
+be attained, depend almost wholly upon the political machine.'[101] If
+that 'machine' be so constituted as to make the grand objects of
+desire the 'natural prizes of just and virtuous conduct, of high
+services to mankind and of the generous and amiable sentiments from
+which great endeavours in the service of mankind naturally proceed, it
+is natural to see diffused among mankind a generous ardour in the
+acquisition of those admirable qualities which prepare a man for
+admirable action, great intelligence, perfect self-command, and
+over-ruling benevolence.' The contrary will be the case where the
+political machine prompts to the flattery of a small ruling body.
+
+This characteristic passage betrays an enthusiasm which really burned
+under Mill's stern outside. He confines himself habitually to the
+forms of severe logic, and scorns anything like an appeal to
+sentiment. The trammels of his scientific manner impede his utterance
+a little, even when he is speaking with unwonted fervour. Yet the
+prosaic Utilitarian who has been laying down as a universal law that
+the strong will always plunder the weak, and that all rulers will
+reduce their subjects to abject slavery, is absolutely convinced, it
+seems, of the possibility of somehow transmuting selfishness into
+public spirit, justice, generosity, and devotion to truth. Equally
+characteristic is the faith in the 'political machine.' Mill speaks as
+if somebody had 'discovered' the representative system as Watt (more
+or less) discovered the steam-engine; that to 'discover' the system is
+the same thing as to set it to work; and that, once at work, it will
+be omnipotent. He is not less certain that a good constitution will
+make men virtuous, than was Bentham that he could grind rogues honest
+by the Panopticon. The indefinite modifiability of character was the
+ground upon which the Utilitarians based their hopes of progress; and
+it was connected in their minds with the doctrine of which his essay
+upon education is a continuous application. The theory of 'association
+of ideas' appeared to him to be of the utmost importance in education
+and in politics, because it implied almost unlimited possibilities of
+moulding human beings to fit them for a new order. In politics this
+implied, as J. S. Mill says,[102] 'unbounded confidence' in the
+influence of 'reason.' Teach the people and let them vote freely, and
+everything would follow.
+
+This gives Mill's answer to one obvious objection. The Conservative
+who answered him by dwelling upon the ignorance of the lower classes
+was in some respects preaching to a convert. Nobody was more
+convinced than Mill of the depths of popular ignorance or, indeed, of
+the stupidity of mankind in general. The labourers who cheered Orator
+Hunt at Peterloo were dull enough; but so were the peers who cheered
+Eldon in the House of Lords; and the labourers at least desired
+general prosperity, while the peers were content if their own rents
+were kept up. With general education, however, even the lower orders
+of the people would be fit for power, especially when we take into
+account one other remarkable conclusion. The 'wise and good,' he says,
+'in any class of men do, for all general purposes, govern the
+rest.'[103] Now, the class in which wisdom and virtue are commonest is
+not the aristocracy, but the middle rank. Another truth follows 'from
+the principles of human nature in general.' That is the rather
+surprising truth that the lower orders take their opinions from the
+middle class; apply to the middle class for help in sickness and old
+age; hold up the same class as a model to be imitated by their
+children, and 'account it an honour' to adopt its opinions.
+Consequently, however far the franchise were extended, it is this
+class which has produced the most distinguished ornaments of art,
+science, and even of legislation, which will ultimately decide upon
+political questions. 'The great majority of the people,' is his
+concluding sentence, 'never cease to be guided by that rank; and we
+may with some confidence challenge the adversaries of the people to
+produce a single instance to the contrary in the history of the
+world.'
+
+This article upon 'Government' gives the very essence of Utilitarian
+politics. I am afraid that it also suggests that the political theory
+was chiefly remarkable for a simple-minded audacity. Good political
+treatises are rare. They are apt to be pamphlets in disguise, using
+'general principles' for showy perorations, or to be a string of
+platitudes with no definite application to facts. They are fit only
+for the platform, or only for the professor's lecture-room. Mill's
+treatise, according to his most famous antagonist, was a mere bundle
+of pretentious sophistry.
+
+Macaulay came forth like a Whig David to slay the Utilitarian Goliath.
+The _Encyclopædia_ articles, finished in 1824, were already in
+1825,[104] as Mill says, text-books of the young men at the Cambridge
+Union. Macaulay, who won his Trinity fellowship in 1824, had there
+argued the questions with his friend Charles Austin, one of Bentham's
+neophytes. In the next year Macaulay made his first appearance as an
+Edinburgh Reviewer; and in 1829 he took the field against Mill. In the
+January number he attacked the essay upon 'Government'; and in two
+articles in the succeeding numbers of the _Review_ replied to a
+defence made by some Utilitarian in the _Westminster_. Mill himself
+made no direct reply; and Macaulay showed his gratitude for Mill's
+generosity in regard to the Indian appointment by declining to
+republish the articles.[105] He confessed to have treated his opponent
+with a want of proper respect, though he retracted none of his
+criticisms. The offence had its excuses. Macaulay was a man under
+thirty, in the full flush of early success; nor was Mill's own
+treatment of antagonists conciliatory. The dogmatic arrogance of the
+Utilitarians was not unnaturally met by an equally arrogant
+countercheck. Macaulay ridicules the Utilitarians for their claim to
+be the defenders of the true political faith. He is afraid not of them
+but of the 'discredit of their alliance'; he wishes to draw a broad
+line between judicious reformers and a 'sect which having derived all
+its influence from the countenance which they imprudently bestowed
+upon it, hates them with the deadly hatred of ingratitude.' No party,
+he says, was ever so unpopular. It had already disgusted people with
+political economy; and would disgust them with parliamentary reform,
+if it could associate itself in public opinion with the cause[106].
+This was indeed to turn the tables. The half-hearted disciple was
+insulting the thoroughbred teacher who had borne the heat and burthen
+of the day, and from whom he had learned his own doctrine. Upon this
+and other impertinences--the assertion, for example, that Utilitarians
+were as incapable of understanding an argument as any 'true blue
+baronet after the third bottle at a Pitt Club'--it is needless to
+dwell. They illustrate, however, the strong resentment with which the
+Utilitarians were regarded by the classes from whom the Whigs drew
+their most cultivated supporters. Macaulay's line of argument will
+show what was the real conflict of theory.
+
+His view is, in fact, a long amplification of the charge that Mill was
+adopting a purely _a priori_ method. Mill's style is as dry as Euclid,
+and his arguments are presented with an affectation of logical
+precision. Mill has inherited the 'spirit and style of the Schoolmen.
+He is an Aristotelian of the fifteenth century.' He writes about
+government as though he was unaware that any actual governments had
+ever existed. He deduces his science from a single assumption of
+certain 'propensities of human nature.'[107] After dealing with Mill's
+arguments, Macaulay winds up with one of his characteristic purple
+patches about the method of induction. He invokes the authority of
+Bacon--a great name with which in those days writers conjured without
+a very precise consideration of its true significance. By Bacon's
+method we are to construct in time the 'noble science of politics,'
+which is equally removed from the barren theories of Utilitarian
+sophists and the petty craft of intriguing jobbers. The Utilitarians
+are schoolmen, while the Whigs are the true followers of Bacon and
+scientific induction. J. S. Mill admitted within certain limits the
+relevancy of this criticism, and was led by the reflections which it
+started to a theory of his own. Meanwhile, he observes that his father
+ought to have justified himself by declaring that the book was not a
+'scientific treatise on politics,' but an 'argument for parliamentary
+reform.'[108] It is not quite easy to see how James Mill could have
+made such a 'justification' and distinguished it from a recantation.
+
+If Mill really meant what Macaulay took him to mean, it would be
+superfluous to argue the question gravely. The reasoning is only fit,
+like the reasoning of all Macaulay's antagonists, for the proverbial
+schoolboy. Mill, according to Macaulay, proposes to discover what
+governments are good; and, finding that experience gives no clear
+answer, throws experience aside and appeals to absolute laws of human
+nature. One such 'law' asserts that the strong will plunder the weak.
+Therefore all governments except the representative must be
+oppressive, and rule by sheer terror. Mill's very reason for relying
+upon this argument is precisely that the facts contradict it. Some
+despotisms work well, and some democracies ill; therefore we must
+prove by logic that all despotisms are bad, and all democracies good.
+Is this really Mill's case?
+
+An answer given by Mill's champion, to which Macaulay replies in his
+last article, suggests some explanation of Mill's position. Macaulay
+had paid no attention to one highly important phrase. The terrible
+consequences which Mill deduces from the selfishness of rulers will
+follow, he says, 'if nothing checks.'[109] Supplying this
+qualification, as implied throughout, we may give a better meaning to
+Mill's argument. A simple observation of experience is insufficient.
+The phenomena are too complex; governments of the most varying kinds
+have shown the same faults; and governments of the same kind have
+shown them in the most various degrees. Therefore the method which
+Macaulay suggests is inapplicable. We should reason about government,
+says Macaulay,[110] as Bacon told us to reason about heat. Find all
+the circumstances in which hot bodies agree, and you will determine
+the principle of heat. Find all the circumstances in which good
+governments agree, and you will find the principles of good
+government. Certainly; but the process, as Macaulay admits, would be a
+long one. Rather, it would be endless. What 'circumstances' can be the
+same in all good governments in all times and places? Mill held in
+substance, that we could lay down certain broad principles about
+human nature, the existence of which is of course known from
+'experience', and by showing how they would work, if restrained by no
+distinct checks, obtain certain useful conclusions. Mill indicates
+this line of reply in his own attack upon Mackintosh.[111] There he
+explains that what he really meant was to set forth a principle
+recognised by Berkeley, Hume, Blackstone, and, especially, in Plato's
+_Republic_. Plato's treatise is a development of the principle that
+'identity of interests affords the only security for good government.'
+Without such identity of interest, said Plato, the guardians of the
+flock become wolves. Hume[112] had given a pithy expression of the
+same view in the maxim 'established,' as he says, 'by political
+writers,' that in framing the 'checks and controls of the
+constitution, every man ought to be supposed a knave and to have no
+other end in his actions than private interest.' Mill points this by
+referring to the 'organs of aristocratical opinion' for the last fifty
+years. The incessant appeal has been for 'confidence in public men,'
+and confidence is another name for scope for misrule.[113] This, he
+explains, was what he meant by the statement (which Mackintosh
+considered to have been exploded by Macaulay) that every man pursued
+his own interest.[114] It referred to the class legislation of the
+great aristocratic ring: kings, nobles, church, law, and army.
+Utilitarianism, in its political relations, was one continuous warfare
+against these sinister 'interests,' The master-evil of the
+contemporary political state undoubtedly implied a want of
+responsibility. A political trust was habitually confounded with
+private property. Moreover, whatever else may be essential to good
+government, one essential is a strong sense of responsibility in the
+governors. That is a very sound principle, though not an axiom from
+which all political science can be deduced. If the essay on
+'Government' was really meant as a kind of political Euclid--as a
+deduction of the best system of government from this single principle
+of responsibility--it was as grotesque as Macaulay asserted. Mill
+might perhaps have met the criticism by lowering his claims as his son
+suggests. He certainly managed to express his argument in such terms
+that it has an uncomfortable appearance of being intended for a
+scientific exposition.
+
+This deserves notice because the position is characteristic of the
+Utilitarians' method. Their appeals to experience always end by
+absolute assertions. We shall find the same difficulty in their
+economic inquiries. When accused, for example, of laying down absolute
+principles in such cases, they reply that they are only speaking of
+'tendencies,' and recognise the existence of 'checks.' They treat of
+what would be, if certain forces acted without limit, as a necessary
+step towards discovering what is when the limits exist. They appear to
+their opponents to forget the limits in their practical conclusions.
+This political argument is an instance of the same method. The genesis
+of his theory is plain. Mill's 'government,' like Bentham's, is simply
+the conception of legal 'sovereignty' transferred to the sphere of
+politics. Mill's exposition is only distinguished from his master's by
+the clearness with which he brings out the underlying assumptions. The
+legal sovereign is omnipotent, for what he declares to be the law is
+therefore the law. The law is his commands enforced by 'sanctions,'
+and therefore by organised force. The motives for obedience are the
+fear of the gallows on one side, and, on the other, the desire of
+protection for life and property. Law, again, is the ultimate social
+bond, and can be made at will by the sovereign. He thus becomes so
+omnipotent that it is virtually assumed that he can even create
+himself. Not only can the sovereign, once constituted, give commands
+enforced by coercive sanctions upon any kind of conduct, but he can
+determine his own constitution. He can at once, for example, create a
+representative system in practice, when it has been discovered in
+theory, and can by judicious regulations so distribute 'self-interest'
+as to produce philanthropy and public spirit. Macaulay's answer really
+makes a different assumption. He accepts the purely 'empirical' or
+'rule of thumb' position. It is idle, he says, to ask what would
+happen if there were no 'checks.' It is like leaving out the effect of
+friction in a problem of mechanics. The logic may be correct, but the
+conclusions are false in practice.[115] Now this 'friction' was
+precisely the favourite expedient of the Utilitarians in political
+economy. To reason about facts, they say, you must analyse, and
+therefore provisionally disregard the 'checks,' which must be
+afterwards introduced in practical applications. Macaulay is really
+bidding us take 'experience' in the lump, and refrains from the only
+treatment which can lead to a scientific result. His argument, in
+fact, agrees with that of his famous essay on Bacon, where we learn
+that philosophy applied to moral questions is all nonsense, and that
+science is simply crude common-sense. He is really saying that all
+political reasoning is impossible, and that we must trust to
+unreasoned observation. Macaulay, indeed, has good grounds of
+criticism. He shows very forcibly the absurdity of transferring the
+legal to the political sovereignty. Parliament might, as he says, make
+a law that every gentleman with £2000 a year might flog a pauper with
+a cat-of-nine-tails whenever he pleased. But, as the first exercise of
+such a power would be the 'last day of the English aristocracy,' their
+power is strictly limited in fact.[116] That gives very clearly the
+difference between legal and political sovereignty. What parliament
+makes law is law, but is not therefore enforceable. We have to go
+behind the commands and sanctions before we understand what is the
+actual power of government. It is very far from omnipotent. Macaulay,
+seeing this, proceeds to throw aside Mill's argument against the
+possibility of a permanent division of power. The _de facto_
+limitation of the sovereign's power justifies the old theory about
+'mixed forms of government.' 'Mixed governments' are not impossible,
+for they are real. All governments are, in fact, 'mixed.' Louis XIV.
+could not cut off the head of any one whom he happened to dislike. An
+oriental despot is strictly bound by the religious prejudices of his
+subjects. If 'sovereignty' means such power it is a chimera in
+practice, or only realised approximately when, as in the case of negro
+slavery, a class is actually ruled by force in the hands of a really
+external power. And yet the attack upon 'mixed governments,' which
+Bentham had expounded in the _Fragment_, has a real force which
+Macaulay seems to overlook. Mill's argument against a possible
+'balance' of power was, as Macaulay asserted, equally applicable to
+the case of independent sovereigns; yet France might be stronger at
+Calais and England at Dover.[117] Mill might have replied that a state
+is a state precisely because, and in so far as, there is an agreement
+to recognise a common authority or sovereign. Government does not
+imply a 'mixture,' but a fusion of power. There is a unity, though not
+the abstract unity of the Utilitarian sovereign. The weakness of the
+Utilitarians is to speak as though the sovereign, being external to
+each individual, could therefore be regarded as external to the whole
+society. He rules as a strong nation may rule a weak dependency. When
+the sovereign becomes also the society, the power is regarded as
+equally absolute, though now applied to the desirable end of
+maximising happiness. The whole argument ignores the simple
+consideration that the sovereign is himself in all cases the product
+of the society over which he rules, and his whole action, even in the
+most despotic governments, determined throughout by organic instincts,
+explaining and not ultimately explicable by coercion. Macaulay's
+doctrine partially recognises this by falling back upon the Whig
+theory of checks and balances, and the mixture of three mysterious
+entities, monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. But, as Bentham had
+sufficiently shown in the _Fragment_, the theory becomes hopelessly
+unreal when we try to translate it into facts. There are not three
+separate forces, conflicting like three independent forces, but a
+complex set of social institutions bound together into a whole. It is
+impossible really to regard government as a permanent balance of
+antagonistic forces, confronting each other like the three duellists
+in Sheridan's _Critic_. The practical result of that theory is to
+substitute for the 'greatest happiness' principle the vague criterion
+of the preservation of an equilibrium between indefinable forces; and
+to make the ultimate end of government the maintenance as long as
+possible of a balance resting on no ulterior principle, but
+undoubtedly pleasant for the comfortable classes. Nothing is left but
+the rough guesswork, which, if a fine name be wanted, may be called
+Baconian induction. The 'matchless constitution,' as Bentham calls it,
+represents a convenient compromise, and the tendency is to attach
+exaggerated importance to its ostensible terms. When Macaulay
+asserted against Mill[118] that it was impossible to say which
+element--monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy--had gained strength in
+England in the last century, he is obviously looking at the formulæ
+and not at the social body behind.
+
+This leads to considerations really more important than the
+argumentation about _a priori_ and inductive methods. Mill in practice
+knew very well the qualifications necessary before his principles
+applied. He showed it in his Indian evidence; and Place could have
+told him, had it required telling, that the actual political machinery
+worked by very strange and tortuous methods. Yet he was content to
+override such considerations when he is expounding his theory, and
+laid himself open to Macaulay's broad common-sense retort. The nation
+at large cannot, he says, have a 'sinister interest.' It must desire
+legislation which is beneficial to the whole. This is to make the vast
+assumption that every individual will desire what is good for all, and
+will be a sufficient judge of what is good. But is it clear that a
+majority will even desire what is good for the whole? May they not
+wish to sacrifice both other classes and coming generations to their
+own instantaneous advantages? Is it plain that even enlightenment of
+mind would induce a poor man to see his own advantage in the policy
+which would in the long run be best for the whole society? You are
+bound, said Macaulay, to show that the poor man will not believe that
+he personally would benefit by direct plunder of the rich; and indeed
+that he would not be right in so believing. The nation, no doubt,
+would suffer, but in the immediate period which alone is contemplated
+by a selfish pauper, the mass of the poor might get more pleasure out
+of confiscation. Will they not, on your own principles, proceed to
+confiscation? Shall we not have such a catastrophe as the reign of
+terror?
+
+The Westminster Reviewer retorted by saying that Macaulay prophesied a
+reign of terror as a necessary consequence of an extended franchise.
+Macaulay, skilfully enough, protested against this interpretation. 'We
+say again and again,' he declares, 'that we are on the defensive. We
+do not think it necessary to prove that a quack medicine is poison.
+Let the vendor prove it to be sanative. We do not pretend to show that
+universal suffrage is an evil. Let its advocates show it to be a
+good.'[119] Mill rests his whole case upon the selfishness of mankind.
+Will not the selfishness lead the actual majority at a given moment to
+plunder the rich and to disregard the interests of their own
+successors?
+
+Macaulay's declaration that he was only 'upon the defensive' might be
+justifiable in an advocate. His real thought may be inferred from a
+speech on the charter made in 1842. The chartists' petition of that
+year had asked for universal suffrage. Universal suffrage, he replies,
+would be incompatible with the 'institution of property.'[120] If the
+chartists acted upon their avowed principles, they would enforce 'one
+vast spoliation.' Macaulay could not say, of course, what would
+actually result, but his 'guess' was that we should see 'something
+more horrible than can be imagined--something like the siege of
+Jerusalem on a far larger scale.' The very best event he could
+anticipate--'and what must the state of things be, if an Englishman
+and a Whig calls such an event the very best?'--would be a military
+despotism, giving a 'sort of protection to a miserable wreck of all
+that immense glory and prosperity.'[121] So in the criticism of Mill
+he had suggested that if his opponent's principles were correct, and
+his scheme adopted, 'literature, science, commerce, manufactures'
+would be swept away, and that a 'few half-naked fishermen would divide
+with the owls and foxes the ruins of the greatest of European
+cities.'[122]
+
+Carefully as Macaulay guards himself in his articles upon Mill, the
+speech shows sufficiently what was his 'guess'; that is, his real
+expectation. This gives the vital difference. What Macaulay professes
+to deduce from Mill's principles he really holds himself, and he holds
+it because he argues, as indeed everybody has to argue, pretty much on
+Mill's method. He does not really remain in the purely sceptical
+position which would correspond to his version of 'Baconian
+induction.' He argues, just as Mill would have argued, from general
+rules about human nature. Selfish and ignorant people will, he thinks,
+be naturally inclined to plunder; therefore, if they have power, they
+will plunder. So Mill had argued that a selfish class would rule for
+its own sinister interests and therefore not for the happiness of the
+greatest number. The argument is the same, and it is the only line of
+argument which is possible till, if that should ever happen, a genuine
+science of politics shall have been constituted. The only question is
+whether it shall take the pomp of _a priori_ speculation or conceal
+itself under a show of 'Baconian induction.'
+
+On one point they agree. Both Mill and Macaulay profess unbounded
+confidence in the virtue and wisdom of the middle, that is, of their
+own class. Macaulay hopes for a reform bill which will make the votes
+of the House of Commons 'the express image of the opinion of the
+middle orders of Britain.'[123] Mill holds that the middle class will
+retain this moral authority, however widely the franchise be extended;
+while Macaulay fears that they will be swamped by its extension to the
+masses. The reform bill which they joined in supporting was regarded
+by the Radicals as a payment on account; while the Whig hoped that it
+would be a full and final discharge. The Radical held that no barriers
+against democracy were needed; he took for granted that a democracy
+would find its natural leaders in the educated and intelligent. The
+Whig, to whom such confidence appeared to be altogether misplaced, had
+to find some justification for the 'checks' and 'balances' which he
+thought essential.
+
+
+II. WHIGGISM
+
+I have spoken of Macaulay's articles because they represent the most
+pointed conflict between the Utilitarian and the Whig. Macaulay
+belongs properly to the next generation, but he appeared as the
+mouthpiece of the earlier group of writers who in Mill's time
+delivered through the _Edinburgh Review_ the true oracles of the Whig
+faith. Upon that ground Mill had assailed them in his article. Their
+creed, he said, was a 'see-saw.' The Whigs were aristocrats as much as
+the Tories. They were simply the 'outs' who hoped to be the 'ins.'
+They trimmed their sails to catch public opinion, but were careful not
+to drift into the true popular currents. They had no desire to limit
+the power which they hoped one day to possess. They would attack
+abuses--the slave-trade or the penal laws--to gain credit for
+liberality and enlightenment, when the abuses were such as could be
+removed without injuring the power of the aristocracy. They could use
+'vague generalities' about liberty and so forth, but only to evade
+definite applications. When any measure was proposed which really
+threatened the power of the privileged classes, they could bring out a
+contradictory set of fine phrases about Jacobinism and democracy.
+Their whole argument was a shuffle and they themselves mere selfish
+trimmers.[124] To this Jeffrey replied (in December 1826) by accepting
+the position.[125] He pleaded guilty to a love of 'trimming,' which
+meant a love of the British Constitution. The constitution was a
+compromise--a balance of opposing forces--and the only question could
+be whether they were properly balanced. The answer was fair enough.
+Mill was imputing motives too easily, and assuming that the Reviewers
+saw the abuses in the same light as he did, and were truckling to
+public robbers in hopes of sharing the plunder. He was breaking a
+butterfly upon a wheel. The Edinburgh Reviewers were not missionaries
+of a creed. They were a set of brilliant young men, to whom the
+_Review_ was at first a mere pastime, occupying such leisure as was
+allowed by their professional pursuits. They were indeed men of
+liberal sympathies, intelligent and independent enough to hold by a
+party which was out of power. They had read Hume and Voltaire and
+Rousseau; they had sat at the feet of Dugald Stewart; and were in
+sympathy with intellectual liberalism. But they were men who meant to
+become judges, members of parliament, or even bishops. Nothing in
+their social atmosphere had stimulated the deep resentment against
+social injustice which makes the fanatic or the enthusiast. We may
+take as their interpreter the Whig philosopher James Mackintosh
+(1765-1832), a man of wide reading, both in history and philosophy, an
+eloquent orator, and a very able writer. Mackintosh, said
+Coleridge,[126] is the 'king of the men of talent'; by which was
+intimated that, as a man of talent, he was not, like some people, a
+man of genius. Mackintosh, that is, was a man to accept plausible
+formulæ and to make them more plausible; not a man to pierce to the
+heart of things, or reveal fruitful germs of thought. His intellect
+was judicial; given to compromises, affecting a judicious _via media_,
+and endeavouring to reconcile antagonistic tendencies. Thoroughgoing
+or one-sided thinkers, and Mill in particular, regarded him with
+excessive antipathy as a typical representative of the opposite
+intellectual tendencies. Mackintosh's political attitude is
+instructive. At the outbreak of the French revolution he was a
+struggling young Scot, seeking his fortune in London, just turning
+from medicine to the bar, and supporting himself partly by journalism.
+He became secretary to the Society of the 'Friends of the People,' the
+Whig rival of the revolutionary clubs, and in April 1791 sprang into
+fame by his _Vindiciæ Gallicæ_. The Whigs had not yet lost the fervour
+with which they had welcomed the downfall of the Bastille. Burke's
+_Reflections_, the work of a great thinker in a state of irritation
+bordering upon frenzy, had sounded the note of alarm. The revolution,
+as Burke maintained, was in fact the avatar of a diabolic power. It
+meant an attack upon the very organic principles of society. It
+therefore implied a complete breach of historical continuity, and a
+war against the reverence for 'prescription' and tradition which is
+essential to all healthy development. To his extreme opponents the
+same theory afforded the justification of the revolution. It meant
+that every institution was to be thrown into the crucible, and a new
+world to arise governed only by reason. The view very ably defended by
+Mackintosh was opposed to both. He looks upon the French revolution as
+a more complete application of the principles of Locke and the English
+Whigs of 1688. The revolutionists are, as he urges,[127] applying the
+principles which had been worked out by the 'philosophers of Europe'
+during the preceding century. They were not, as Burke urged,
+rejecting experience for theory. The relation between their doctrine
+and politics is analogous to the relation between geometry and
+mechanics.[128] We are now in the position of a people who should be
+familiar with Newton, but in shipbuilding be still on a level with the
+Esquimaux. The 'rights of man' appear to him to mean, not, as Burke
+and Bentham once agreed, a set of 'anarchical fallacies,' but a set of
+fundamental moral principles; and the declaration of them a most wise
+and 'auspicious' commencement of the 'regenerating labours' of the new
+legislators. The French revolution represented what Somers would now
+approve if he had our advantages.[129] A thoroughgoing change had
+become necessary in France. The church, army, and law were now
+'incorrigible.'[130] Burke had seen, in the confiscation of church
+property, an attempt to abolish Christianity. To Mackintosh it seemed
+to be a reform justifiable in principle, which, though too roughly
+carried out, would reduce 'a servile and imperious priesthood to
+humble utility.'[131] A poor priesthood, indeed, might incline to
+popular superstition. We could console ourselves by reflecting that
+the power of the church, as a corporation, was broken, and that
+toleration and philosophy would restrain fanaticism.[132] The
+assignats were still 'almost at par.'[133] The sale of the national
+property would nearly extinguish the debt. France had 'renounced for
+ever the idea of conquest,'[134] and had no temptations to war,
+except her colonies. Their commercial inutility and political
+mischievousness had been so 'unanimously demonstrated,' that the
+French empire must soon be delivered from 'this cumbrous and
+destructive appendage.' An armed people, moreover, could never be used
+like a mercenary army to suppress liberty. There was no danger of
+military despotism, and France would hereafter seek for a pure glory
+by cultivating the arts of peace and extending the happiness of
+mankind.[135]
+
+No wonder that Mackintosh, with these views, thought that the history
+of the fall of the Bastille would 'kindle in unborn millions the holy
+enthusiasm of freedom';[136] or that, in the early disorders, he saw
+temporary aberrations of mobs, destined to be speedily suppressed by
+the true leaders of the revolution. Mackintosh saw, I take it, about
+as far as most philosophers, that is, about as far as people who are
+not philosophers. He observes much that Burke ought to have
+remembered, and keeps fairly to the philosophical principle which he
+announces of attributing the revolution to general causes, and not to
+the schemes of individuals.[137] When assignats became waste paper,
+when the guillotine got to work, when the religion of reason was being
+set up against Christianity, when the French were conquering Europe,
+when a military despotism was arising, when, in short, it became quite
+clear that the French revolution meant something very different from a
+philosophical application of the principles of Locke and Adam Smith,
+Mackintosh began to see that Burke had not so far missed the mark.
+Burke, before dying, received his penitent opponent at Beaconsfield;
+and in 1800 Mackintosh took the opportunity of publicly declaring that
+he 'abhorred, abjured, and for ever renounced the French revolution,
+with its sanguinary history, its abominable principles, and its ever
+execrable leaders.' He hoped to 'wipe off the disgrace of having been
+once betrayed into that abominable conspiracy against God and
+man.'[138] In his famous defence of Peltier (1803), he denounced the
+revolution in a passage which might have been adopted from Burke's
+_Letters on a Regicide Peace_.[139]
+
+In a remarkable letter to Windham[140] of 1806, Mackintosh gives his
+estimate of Burke, and takes some credit to himself for having
+discovered, even in the time of his youthful errors, the consistency
+of Burke's principles, as founded upon an abhorrence of 'abstract
+politics.'[141] Politics, he now thought, must be made scientific by
+recognising with Burke the supreme importance of prescription and
+historic continuity, and by admitting that the philosophers had not
+yet constructed a science bearing to practical politics the same
+relation as geometry to mechanics. He applied his theory to the
+question of parliamentary reform in the _Edinburgh Review_.[142] Here
+he accepts the doctrine, criticised by James Mill, that a proper
+representative system must be judged, not, as Mill maintained, solely
+by the identity of its interest with that of the community at large,
+but by its fitness to give power to different classes. It follows that
+the landowners, the professional classes, and the populace should all
+be represented. And he discovers that the variety of the English
+system was calculated to secure this end. Though it was only in a few
+constituencies that the poorest class had a voice, their vote in such
+places represented the same class elsewhere. It was as well that there
+should be some extreme Radicals to speak for the poorest. But he
+thinks that any uniform suffrage would be bad, and that universal
+suffrage would be the most mischievous of all systems.[143] That would
+mean the swamping of one class by all--a tyranny more oppressive,
+perhaps, than any other tyranny. If one class alone were to be
+represented, it should be the favourite middle class, which has the
+'largest share of sense and virtue,' and is most connected in interest
+with other classes.[144] A legitimate aim of the legislator is,
+therefore, to prevent an excess of democracy. With Mackintosh it seems
+essential not simply to suppress 'sinister interests,' but to save
+both the aristocracy and the middle class from being crushed by the
+lower classes. The opposition is vital; and it is plain that the
+argument for the aristocracy, that is, for a system developed from all
+manner of historical accidents and not evolved out of any simple
+logical principles, must be defended upon empirical grounds.
+
+Mackintosh was in India during the early period of the _Edinburgh
+Review_. Jeffrey, as editor for its first quarter of a century, may be
+taken more fully to represent its spirit. Jeffrey's trenchant, if not
+swaggering style, covered a very timid, sensitive, and, in some
+respects, a very conservative temperament. His objection to the 'Lake
+Poets' was the objection of the classical to the romantic school.
+Jeffrey's brightness of intellect may justify Carlyle's comparison of
+him to Voltaire,--only a Voltaire qualified by dislike to men who were
+'dreadfully in earnest.' Jeffrey was a philosophical sceptic; he
+interpreted Dugald Stewart as meaning that metaphysics, being all
+nonsense, we must make shift with common-sense; and he wrote a
+dissertation upon taste, to prove that there are no rules about taste
+whatever. He was too genuine a sceptic to sacrifice peace to the
+hopeless search for truth. One of the most striking passages in his
+_Essays_[145] is an attack upon 'perfectibility.' He utterly
+disbelieves that progress in knowledge will improve morals or diminish
+war, or cure any of the evils that flesh is heir to. Such a man is not
+of the material of which enthusiastic reformers are made. Throughout
+the war he was more governed by his fear than by his zeal. He was in
+constant dread of failure abroad and ruin at home. The _Review_
+provoked the Tories, and induced them to start its rival, not by
+advocacy of political principles, but by its despairing view of the
+war.[146] He was still desiring at that time (1808) to avoid 'party
+politics' in the narrower sense.
+
+The political view corresponding to this is given in the articles,
+some of which (though the authorship was not yet avowed) were assailed
+by Mill in the _Westminster_. In an early article[147] he defends the
+French philosophers against the imputation of responsibility for the
+reign of terror. Their excellent and humane doctrines had been
+misapplied by the 'exasperation' and precipitation of inexperienced
+voters. His most characteristic article is one published in January
+1810. The failure of the Walcheren expedition had confirmed his
+disbelief in our military leaders; the rise of English Radicalism, led
+by Burdett in the House of Commons, and Cobbett in the press, the
+widely spread distress and the severity of oppressive measures, roused
+his keenest alarm.[148] We are, he declared, between two violent and
+pernicious factions--the courtiers of arbitrary power and the
+democrats. If the Whig leaders did not first conciliate and then
+restrain the people, the struggle of the extreme parties would soon
+sweep away the constitution, the monarchy, and the Whig aristocracy by
+which that monarchy 'is controlled, confirmed, and exalted above all
+other forms of polity.' Democracy, it was plain, was increasing with
+dangerous rapidity. A third of every man's income was being taken by
+taxes, and after twenty years' boastful hostility we were left without
+a single ally. Considering all this, it seems as though 'the wholesome
+days of England were numbered,' and we are on the 'verge of the most
+dreadful of all calamities'--a civil war.
+
+Jeffrey has learned from Hume that all government is ultimately
+founded upon opinion. The great thing is to make the action of public
+opinion regular and constituted. The whole machinery of the
+constitution, he says, is for the express purpose of 'preventing the
+kingly power from dashing itself to pieces against the more radical
+power of the people.'[149] The merit of a representative body is not
+to be tested simply by the goodness of its legislation, but by its
+diminishing the intensity of the struggle for the supreme power.
+Jeffrey in fact is above all preoccupied with the danger of
+revolution. The popular will is, in fact, supreme; repression may
+force it into explosion; but by judicious management it may be tamed
+and tempered. Then we need above all things that it should, as he says
+in his reply to Mill (December 1826), give their 'natural and
+wholesome influence to wealth and rank.' The stability of the English
+Constitution depends, as he said in 1810, upon the monarchy and
+aristocracy, and their stability on their being the natural growth of
+ages and having 'struck their roots deep into every stratum of the
+political soil.'
+
+The Whigs represent the view implied in Macaulay's attack upon
+Mill--the view of cultivated men of sense, with their eyes open to
+many difficulties overlooked by zealots, but far too sceptical and
+despondent to rouse any enthusiasm or accept any dogmas absolutely. By
+the time of the Reform Bill the danger was obviously on the side of
+dogged obstructionism, and then the 'middle party,' as Jeffrey calls
+it, inclined towards the Radical side and begged them to join its
+ranks and abandon the attempt to realise extreme views. They could
+also take credit as moderate men do for having all along been in the
+right. But to both extremes, as Jeffrey pathetically complains, they
+appeared to be mere trimmers.[150]
+
+The Utilitarian held the Whig to be a 'trimmer'; the Whig thought the
+Utilitarian a fanatic; they agreed in holding that the Tory was simply
+stupid. And yet, when we look at the Tory creed, we shall find that
+both Whig and Utilitarian overlooked some very vital problems. The
+Tories of course represent the advocates of strong government; and, as
+their opponents held, had no theories--only prejudices. The first
+article of the creed of an Eldon or a Sidmouth was, 'I believe in
+George III.';--not a doctrine capable of philosophical justification.
+Such Toryism meant the content of the rich and powerful with the
+system by which their power and wealth were guaranteed. Their
+instincts had been sharpened by the French revolution; and they saw in
+any change the removal of one of the safeguards against a fresh
+outburst of the nether fires. The great bulk of all political opinion
+is an instinct, not a philosophy; and the obstructive Tories
+represented little more than class prejudice and the dread of a great
+convulsion. Yet intelligent Tories were being driven to find some
+reasons for their creed, which the Utilitarians might have considered
+more carefully.
+
+
+III. CONSERVATISM
+
+A famous man of letters represents certain tendencies more clearly
+than the average politician. Robert Southey (1777-1843), the 'ultra
+servile sack-guzzler,' as Bentham pleasantly calls him in 1823,[151]
+was probably the best abused man, on his own side at least, among
+Mill's contemporaries. He was attacked by Mill himself, and savagely
+denounced by Byron and Hazlitt. He was not only a conspicuous writer
+in the _Quarterly Review_ but, as his enemies thought, a renegade
+bought by pensions. It is, I hope, needless to defend him against this
+charge. He was simply an impatient man of generous instincts and no
+reflective power, who had in his youth caught the revolutionary fever,
+and, as he grew up, developed the patriotic fever.
+
+Later views are given in the _Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects
+of Society_ (1829), chiefly known to modern readers by one of
+Macaulay's essays. Southey was as assailable as Mill. His political
+economy is a mere muddle; his political views are obviously distorted
+by accidental prejudices; and the whole book is desultory and
+disjointed. In a dialogue with the ghost of Sir Thomas More, he takes
+the opportunity of introducing descriptions of scenery, literary
+digressions, and quaint illustrations from his vast stores of reading
+to the confusion of all definite arrangement. Southey is in the
+awkward position of a dogmatist defending a compromise. An Anglican
+claiming infallibility is necessarily inconsistent. His view of
+toleration, for example, is oddly obscure. He would apparently like to
+persecute infidels;[152] and yet he wishes to denounce the Catholic
+church for its persecuting principles. He seems to date the main
+social evils to the changes which began at the Reformation, and yet he
+looks back to the period which succeeded the Reformation as
+representing the ideal state of the British polity. His sympathy with
+the literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries predisposed
+him to this position. He would have been more intelligible if he had
+been more distinctly reactionary. For all that, his views show the
+presence of a leaven which was materially to affect the later
+development of English opinions. That Jacobinism meant anarchy, and
+that anarchy led irresistibly to military despotism were propositions
+which to him, as to so many others, seemed to be established by the
+French revolution. What, then, was the cause of the anarchy? Sir
+Thomas More comes from the grave to tell us this, because he had
+witnessed the past symptoms of the process. The transition from the
+old feudal system to the modern industrial organisation had in his day
+become unmistakably developed. In feudal times, every man had his
+definite place in society; he was a member of a little group;
+supported, if controlled and disciplined, by an elaborate system of
+spiritual authority. The Reformation was the period at which the
+'masterless man' made his appearance. The conversion of pastures into
+arable land, the growth of commerce and of pauperism, were marks of
+the coming change. It proceeded quietly for some generations; but the
+development of the modern manufacturing system represents the
+operation of the same process on a far larger scale, and with far
+greater intensity. The result may be described by saying that we have
+instead of a legitimate development a degeneration of society. A vast
+populace has grown up outside of the old order. It is independent
+indeed, but at the heavy price of being rather an inorganic mass than
+a constituent part of the body politic. It is, briefly, to the growth
+of a huge 'proletariate' outside the church, and hostile to the state,
+that Southey attributes all social evils.
+
+The view has become familiar enough in various shapes; and in the
+reproaches which Southey brings against the manufacturing system we
+have an anticipation of other familiar lamentations. Our manufacturing
+wealth is a 'wen,' a 'fungous excrescence from the body politic';[153]
+it is no more a proof of real prosperity than the size of a dropsical
+patient is a proof of health;[154] the manufacturer worships mammon
+instead of Moloch;[155] and wrings his fortune from the degradation of
+his labourers as his warlike ancestors wrung wealth from their slaves;
+he confines children in a tainted atmosphere, physical and moral, from
+morning till night, and a celebrated minister (Pitt) boasts of this
+very evil;[156] he treats his fellow-creatures as machines,[157] and
+wealth, though accumulated, is not diffused; the great capitalists,
+'like pikes in a fishpond,' devour the weaker fish;[158] competition
+is not directed to providing the best goods, but the cheapest;[159]
+every man oppresses his neighbour; the landlord racks his tenant, the
+farmer grinds the labourer; all the little centres of permanent life
+are broken up; not one man in a thousand is buried with his fathers,
+and the natural ties and domestic affections are prematurely
+dissolved.[160]
+
+Here, too, is to be found the source of the infidel opinions which
+call for suppression. London is a hotbed of corruption;[161] a centre
+of wealth; and yet, in spite of poor-laws, a place where wretches are
+dying of starvation, and which could collect a mob capable of
+producing the most appalling catastrophes. In such a place, men become
+unbelievers like savages, because removed from all humanising
+influences, and booksellers can carry on a trade in blasphemy.
+Infidelity is bred in 'the filth and corruption of large towns and
+manufacturing districts.'[162] The disappearance of clerical influence
+has led to 'a mass of ignorance, vice, and wretchedness which no
+generous heart can contemplate without grief.'[163] It is not
+surprising that, in Southey's opinion, it is doubtful whether the bulk
+of the people has gained or lost in the last thousand years.[164]
+Macaulay takes all this as mere sentimentalism and preference of a
+picturesque outside to solid comfort. But whatever Southey's errors of
+fact, they show at least a deeper insight than his opponent into some
+social evils. His proposed remedies explain his diagnosis of the evil.
+In the first place, it is not surprising, though it surprised
+Macaulay, that he had many sympathies with the socialist, Robert Owen.
+He saw Owen in 1816,[165] and was much impressed by his views. In the
+_Colloquies_,[166] Owen is called the 'happiest, most beneficent, and
+most practical of all enthusiasts'; an account is given of one of the
+earliest co-operative schemes,[167] and Southey believes in the
+possibility of the plan. He makes, however, one significant remark.
+Owen, he thinks, could not succeed without enlisting in his support
+some sectarian zeal. As Owen happened to object to all religious
+sects, this defect could not be remedied.
+
+Southey, in fact, held that the absence of religious discipline was at
+the root of the whole evil. Religion, he declares, much to the scorn
+of Macaulay, 'is the basis upon which civil government rests.'[168]
+There must, as he infers, be an established religion, and the state
+which neglects this duty is preparing its own ruin. 'Nothing,' he
+declares, 'in abstract science can be more certain than these
+propositions,' though they are denied by 'our professors of the arts
+babblative and scribblative'--that is, by Benthamites and Whigs. For
+here, in fact, we come to the irreconcilable difference. Government is
+not to be a mere machinery for suppressing violence, but an ally of
+the church in spreading sound religion and morality. The rulers,
+instead of merely reflecting the popular will, should lead and direct
+all agencies for suppressing vice and misery. Southey, as his son
+takes pains to show,[169] though he was for upholding authority by the
+most stringent measures, was convinced that the one way to make
+government strong was to improve the condition of the people. He
+proposed many measures of reform; national education on the
+principles, of course, of Dr. Bell; state-aided colonisation and the
+cultivation of waste lands at home; Protestant sisterhoods to
+reproduce the good effects of the old order which he regretted and yet
+had to condemn on Anglican principles. The English church should have
+made use of the Wesleyans as the church of Rome had used the
+Franciscans and Dominicans; and his _Life of Wesley_ was prompted by
+his fond belief that this might yet be done. Government, he said,
+ought to be 'paternal';[170] and his leading aspirations have been
+adopted by Socialists on the one hand, and the converts to Catholicism
+on the other.
+
+For his philosophy, Southey was in the habit of referring to
+Coleridge; and Coleridge's _Constitution of Church and State_ is
+perhaps the book in which Coleridge comes nearest to bringing an
+argument to a conclusion. Though marked by his usual complexities of
+style, his parentheses and irrelevant allusions and glances at wide
+metaphysical discussions, he succeeds in laying down a sufficient
+sketch of his position. The book was originally published in 1830, and
+refers to the Catholic emancipation of the previous year. Unlike
+Southey, he approves of the measure, only regretting the absence of
+certain safeguards; and his general purpose may be said to be to give
+such a theory of the relations of church and state as may justify an
+establishment upon loftier grounds than those of the commonplace Tory.
+
+His method, as he explains, is to find the true 'idea' of a
+constitution and a national church. The 'idea,' he explains, does not
+mean the conscious aim of the persons who founded or now constitute
+the bodies in question. An 'idea' is the subjective counterpart of an
+objective law.[171] It corresponds to the vital force which moulds
+the structure of the social organism, although it may never have been
+distinctly formulated by any one of the actors. In this sense,
+therefore, we should have to proceed by a historical method. We should
+study the constitution as we study the physiology of a physical
+body;[172] and he works out the analogy at some length. So far,
+Coleridge is expressing the characteristic view that Nature in general
+is to be regarded as an evolution; only that evolution is to be
+understood in the sense of Schelling not in the sense of either
+Darwin. Of course, when Coleridge professes to find the 'idea' of the
+church and state, what he really finds is not the idea so much as his
+idea of the idea--which may be a very different thing. His theory of
+'evolution' is compatible with assuming that evolutions are
+illegitimate whenever he happens to dislike them.
+
+He coincides rather curiously with James Mill in asserting that the
+'social bond' was originally formed to protect property, not to
+protect life.[173] He discovers accordingly that the ancient races,
+Jews, Goths, and Kelts alike, divided the land into two parts, one to
+be inherited by separate families, the other to be set apart for the
+nation. From the latter or the 'nationalty' springs the church
+establishment. This property belongs rightfully and inalienably to the
+nation itself. It is held by what he calls the 'clerisy.' Its
+functions are, in the first place, to provide a career by which the
+poorest classes may rise to a higher position; and secondly, to
+provide for the development of all the qualities which distinguish
+the civilised man from the savage.[174] Briefly, then, the church is
+that part of the national organism which is devoted to educating the
+people to be 'obedient, free, useful organisable subjects, citizens,
+and patriots, living to the benefit of the estate, and prepared to die
+for its defence.' Henry viii. would have surpassed Alfred if he had
+directed the 'nationalty' to its true purposes; that is, especially to
+the maintenance of universities, of a parochial clergy, and of schools
+in every parish. Unluckily, Henry VIII.'s 'idea' of a national church
+was vague. Ideas were not his strong point. Coleridge appears to be
+especially troubled to work the principles into conformity with his
+views of Catholic emancipation. The peculiarity of the theory is that
+the church, according to him, seems to be simply a national
+institution. It might exist, and in fact, did exist before
+Christianity, as is proved not only by the Jewish but by the Druidical
+church.[175] That it should be Christian in England is a 'blessed
+accident,' or 'providential boon'--or, as he puts it, 'most awfully a
+godsend.' Hence it follows that a primary condition of its utility is
+that the clerisy should contribute to the support of the other organs
+of the community. They must not be the subjects of a foreign power,
+nor, as he argues at length, subject to the desocialising influence of
+celibacy. It follows that the Roman church is unfitted to be ever a
+national church, although, if that danger be sufficiently obviated, no
+political disqualifications should be imposed upon Romanists. And
+thus, too, the Church Catholic is essentially a body which has no
+relations to any particular state. It is opposed to the world, not to
+the nation, and can have no visible head or 'personal centre of
+unity.'[176] The church which makes such claims is the revelation of
+Antichrist.
+
+We need not inquire into the prophecies. It is enough to say that to
+Coleridge as to Southey the preservation of an established church
+seemed to be an essential condition of morality and civilisation. They
+differed from the ordinary Tory, who was content to defend any of the
+abuses by the cry of sacrilege and confiscation. The church was to be
+made worthy of its position, and rendered capable of discharging its
+high functions effectually. Coleridge, it may be said, would fully
+admit that an organ which had ceased to correspond to its idea must
+die. It could not continue to preserve itself by mere force of
+obstruction, but must arouse, throw off its abuses, and show itself to
+be worthy of its high claims. Meanwhile, however, he was perhaps more
+anxious to show the Utilitarians that in assailing the institution on
+account of its abuses, they were really destroying the most essential
+guarantee of progress. He sums up, in a curious passage, the proofs of
+modern degradation.[177] The wicked eighteenth century is of course
+responsible for everything. The 'mechanic corpuscular theory'; the
+consequent decay of philosophy, illustrated by such phrases as an
+excellent 'idea' of cooking; 'the ourang-outang theology of the origin
+of the human species substituted for the first ten chapters of the
+book of Genesis; rights of nature for the duties and privileges of
+citizens; idealess facts, misnamed proofs from history, for principles
+and the insight derived from them': all these and other calamitous
+results of modern philosophy are connected with a neglect of the
+well-being of the people, the mistaking of a large revenue for
+prosperity, and the consumption of gin by paupers to the 'value of
+eighteen millions yearly.' He appeals pathetically to the leaders of
+the Utilitarians. They will scorn him for pronouncing that a 'natural
+clerisy' is 'an essential element of a rightly constituted nation.'
+All their tract societies and mechanics' institutes and 'lecture
+bazaars under the absurd name of universities' are 'empiric specifics'
+which feed the disease. Science will be plebified, not popularised.
+The morality necessary for a state 'can only exist for the people in
+the form of religion. But the existence of a true philosophy, or the
+power and habit of contemplating particulars in the unity and fontal
+mirror of the idea,--this in the rulers and teachers of a nation is
+indispensable to a sound state of religion in all classes. In fact,
+religion, true or false, is and ever has been the centre of gravity in
+a realm to which all other things must and will accommodate
+themselves.'
+
+The existence of the eighteenth century always remained a hopeless
+puzzle for Coleridge and his followers. Why at that period everything
+went wrong in the higher regions of thought remained a mystery. 'God
+is above,' says Sir Thomas More to Southey,[178] 'but the devil is
+below; evil principles are in their nature more active than good.' The
+devil seemed to have got into the upper air, and was working with his
+allies, Bentham and Mill and Paine and Cobbett, with remarkable
+success. But, whatever the theories of conservatives in church and
+state, the fact that the theories were held is important. The
+diametrical opposition between two schools, one of which regarded the
+church as a simple abuse, and its doctrines as effete superstitions,
+while the other looked to the church and its creed as giving the sole
+hope for suppressing the evil principle, was a critical point in later
+movements, political as well as religious.
+
+
+IV. SOCIALISM
+
+I have spoken of Southey's sympathy for Robert Owen. Owen (1771-1858)
+is one of the characteristic figures of the time. He was the son of a
+village tradesman in Wales, and had risen to prosperity by the
+qualities of the virtuous apprentice. Industry, patience, an
+imperturbably good temper, and sagacity in business matters had raised
+him to high position as a manufacturer at the time of the rapid
+advance of the cotton trade. Many poor men have followed the same path
+to wealth. Owen's peculiarity was that while he became a capitalist he
+preserved his sympathy with the working classes. While improving
+machinery, he complained that the 'living machinery' was neglected.
+One great step in his career was his marriage to the daughter of David
+Dale of New Lanark, a religious and worthy manufacturer.[179] Dale had
+employed a number of pauper children who were in that day to be
+disposed of by their parishes; and had done his best to make their
+position more tolerable. Owen took up this scheme, and carried it out
+more systematically. New Lanark, in his hands, became a model village;
+he provided in various ways for the encouragement of sobriety,
+industry, and honesty among his workmen, set up stores to supply cheap
+and good provisions, and especially provided infant schools and a
+systematic education. 'The children,' he declares, 'were the happiest
+human beings he ever saw.' When his partners interfered with his
+plans, Owen bought them out and started the company to which Bentham
+and Allen belonged. New Lanark rapidly became famous. It was visited
+by all the philanthropists of the day. The royal dukes not only of
+England but of Russia were interested; and Owen even believed that he
+had converted Napoleon at Elba. So far, Owen was a benevolent
+capitalist, exercising a paternal sway over his people. He became
+convinced, however, that he had discovered the key to the great social
+problems of the day. When the distresses followed the peace, he was
+prepared to propound his remedy, and found many willing hearers in all
+classes. Liverpool and Sidmouth listened to him with favour, and the
+duke of Kent became president of a committee started to carry out his
+views. He gave the impetus to the movement by which the Factory Act of
+1819 was carried, although it was far from embodying his proposals in
+their completeness.
+
+Owen's diagnosis of the social disease explains Southey's partiality.
+Like Southey, he traced the evil to the development of the
+manufacturing system. That system involved, as he held, what later
+Socialists have called the 'exploitation' of the labouring classes by
+the capitalists. With singularly crude notions of political economy,
+Owen assumed that the 'dead machinery' was in competition with the
+'living machinery.' He made startling calculations as to the amount
+of human labour represented by steam-engines; and took for granted
+that the steam-engine displaced an equal number of workmen. His remedy
+for poverty was to set up a number of communities, which should
+maintain themselves by cultivating the soil with the spade, and in
+which every man should labour for all. Thus New Lanarks were to be
+spread over the country, with the difference that the employer was to
+be omitted. Owen, in short, became properly a Socialist, having been
+simply a paternal philanthropist. For a time Owen met with
+considerable support. A great meeting was held in London in 1817, and
+a committee was started two years afterwards, of which Ricardo was a
+member. Ricardo, indeed, took pains to let it be known that he did not
+believe in the efficacy of Owen's plans. Meanwhile Owen was breaking
+off his connection with New Lanark, and becoming the apostle of a new
+social creed. His missionary voyages took him to Ireland, to the
+United States and Mexico, and attempts were made to establish
+communities in Scotland and in the State of Illinois.
+
+Owen and his followers became natural antagonists of the Utilitarians.
+He agreed with Southey in tracing distress to the development of the
+great manufacturing system, though he went much further. The
+principles essentially involved in the whole industrial system were,
+according to him, pernicious. He held the essential doctrine of his
+modern successors that property is theft. Between such a man and the
+men who took the _Wealth of Nations_ for their gospel, and Ricardo as
+its authorised commentator, there was an impassable gulf. On the other
+hand, Owen was equally far from the Tory view of religious
+principles. Southey's remark that he could only succeed by allying
+himself with some religious fanaticism was just to the point.
+
+Owen was a man of very few ideas, though he held such as he had with
+extraordinary tenacity, and enforced them by the effective if
+illogical method of incessant repetition. Among them was the idea
+which, as he declares, had occurred to him before he was ten years old
+that there was something radically wrong in all religions. Whether
+this opinion had come to him from the diffused rationalism of his
+time, or was congenial to the practical and prosaic temperament which
+was disquieted by the waste of energy over futile sectarian squabbles,
+or was suggested by his early study of Seneca--the only author of whom
+he speaks as having impressed him in early years--it became a fixed
+conviction. He had been an early supporter of Lancaster and
+'unsectarian' education. When his great meeting was to be held in 1817
+it occurred to him that he might as well announce his views. He
+accordingly informed his hearers that the religions of the world were
+the great obstacles to progress. He expected, as he assures us, that
+this candid avowal would cause him to be 'torn in pieces.' It provoked
+on the contrary general applause, and Owen congratulated himself
+rather hastily on having struck the deathblow of superstition.
+
+Owen's position, at any rate, was a significant symptom. It showed
+that the Socialist movement sprang from motives outside the sphere of
+the churches. Owen's personal simplicity and calmness seems to have
+saved him from any bitter animosity. He simply set aside Christianity
+as not to the purpose, and went on calmly asserting and re-asserting
+his views to Catholics and Protestants, Whigs, Radicals, and Tories.
+They agreed in considering him to be a bore, but were bored rather
+than irritated. Owen himself, like later Socialists, professed
+indifference to the political warfare of Whigs and Tories. When, at
+the height of the Reform movement, he published a paper called the
+_Crisis_, the title referred not to the struggle in which all the
+upper classes were absorbed, but to the industrial revolution which he
+hoped to bring about. He would have been equally ready to accept help
+from Whig, Tory, or Radical; but his position was one equally
+distasteful to all. The Tory could not ally himself with the man who
+thought all religions nonsense; nor any of the regular parties with
+the man who condemned the whole industrial system and was opposed to
+all the cherished prejudices of the respectable middle classes.
+
+Owen's favourite dogma is worth a moment's notice. He was never tired
+of repeating that 'character is formed by circumstances'; from which
+he placidly infers that no man deserves praise or blame for his
+conduct. The inference, it must be admitted, is an awkward one in any
+ethical system. It represents, probably, Owen's most serious objection
+to the religions of the world. The ultimate aim of the priest is to
+save men's souls; and sin means conduct which leads to supernatural
+punishment. Owen, on the contrary, held that immorality was simply a
+disease to be cured, and that wrath with the sinner was as much out of
+place as wrath with a patient. In this sense Owen's view, as I at
+least should hold, defines the correct starting-point of any social
+reformer. He has to consider a scientific problem, not to be an agent
+of a supernatural legislator. He should try to alter the general
+conditions from which social evils spring, not to deal in pardons or
+punishment. Owen was acting with thoroughly good sense in his early
+applications of this principle. The care, for example, which he
+bestowed upon infant education recognised the fact that social reform
+implied a thorough training of the individual from his earliest years.
+Owen's greatest error corresponds to the transformation which this
+belief underwent in his mind. Since circumstances form character, he
+seems to have argued, it is only necessary to change the circumstances
+of a grown-up man to alter his whole disposition. His ambitious scheme
+in America seemed to suppose that it was enough to bring together a
+miscellaneous collection of the poor and discontented people, and to
+invite them all to behave with perfect unselfishness. At present I
+need only remark that in this respect there was a close coincidence
+between Owen and the Utilitarians. Both of them really aimed at an
+improvement of social conditions on a scientific method; and both
+justified their hopes by the characteristic belief in the indefinite
+modifiability of human nature by external circumstances.
+
+I turn to a man who was in some ways the most complete antithesis to
+Owen. William Cobbett (1762-1835), unlike Owen, took a passionate and
+conspicuous part in the political struggles of the day. Cobbett,
+declares the _Edinburgh Review_ in July 1807, has more influence than
+all the other journalists put together. He had won it, as the reviewer
+thought, by his force of character, although he had changed his
+politics completely 'within the last six months.' The fact was more
+significant than was then apparent. Cobbett, son of a labourer who
+had risen to be a small farmer, had in spite of all obstacles learned
+to read and write and become a great master of the vernacular. His
+earliest model had been Swift's _Tale of a Tub_, and in downright
+vigour of homely language he could scarcely be surpassed even by the
+author of the _Drapier's Letters_. He had enlisted as a soldier, and
+had afterwards drifted to America. There he had become conspicuous as
+a typical John Bull. Sturdy and pugnacious in the highest degree, he
+had taken the English side in American politics when the great
+question was whether the new power should be bullied by France or by
+England. He had denounced his precursor, Paine, in language savouring
+too much, perhaps, of barrack-rooms, but certainly not wanting in
+vigour. He defied threats of tar and feathers; put a portrait of
+George III. in his shop-window; and gloried in British victories, and,
+in his own opinion, kept American policy straight. He had, however,
+ended by making America too hot to hold him; and came back to declare
+that republicanism meant the vilest and most corrupt of tyrannies, and
+that, as an Englishman, he despised all other nations upon earth. He
+was welcomed on his return by Pitt's government as likely to be a
+useful journalist, and became the special adherent of Windham, the
+ideal country-gentleman and the ardent disciple of Burke's principles.
+He set up an independent paper and heartily supported the war. On the
+renewal of hostilities in 1803 Cobbett wrote a manifesto[180] directed
+by the government to be read in every parish church in the kingdom, in
+order to rouse popular feeling. When Windham came into office in 1806,
+Cobbett's friends supposed that his fortune was made. Yet at this
+very crisis he became a reformer. His conversion was put down, of
+course, to his resentment at the neglect of ministers. I do not think
+that Cobbett was a man to whose character one can appeal as a
+conclusive answer to such charges. Unfortunately he was not free from
+weaknesses which prevent us from denying that his political course was
+affected by personal motives. But, in spite of weaknesses and of
+countless inconsistencies, Cobbett had perfectly genuine convictions
+and intense sympathies which sufficiently explain his position, and
+make him more attractive than many less obviously imperfect
+characters. He tells us unconsciously what were the thoughts suggested
+to a man penetrated to the core by the strongest prejudices--they can
+hardly be called opinions--of the true country labourer.
+
+The labourer, in the first place, if fairly represented by Cobbett,
+had none of the bitter feeling against the nobility which smouldered
+in the French peasantry. Cobbett looked back as fondly to the
+surroundings of his youth as any nobleman could look back to Eton or
+to his country mansion. He remembered the 'sweet country air' round
+Crooksbury Hill, the song of birds, and the rambles through heather
+and woodland. He loved the rough jovial sports; bull-baiting and
+prize-fighting and single-stick play. He had followed the squire's
+hounds on foot, and admired without jealousy the splendid gardens of
+the bishop's palace at Farnham. Squire and parson were an intrinsic
+part of the general order of things. The state of the English working
+classes was, he often declares, the happiest that could be
+imagined,[181] and he appeals in confirmation to his own memories.
+Although, upon enlisting, he had found the army corrupt, he not only
+loved the soldier for the rest of his life, but shared to the full the
+patriotic exultation which welcomed the 1st of June and the Nile. Even
+to the last, he could not stomach the abandonment of the title 'King
+of France'; for so long as it was retained, it encouraged the farmer
+to tell his son the story of Crecy and Agincourt.[182]
+
+What, then, alienated Cobbett? Briefly, the degradation of the class
+he loved. 'I wish,' he said, 'to see the poor men of England what the
+poor men of England were when I was born, and from endeavouring to
+accomplish this task, nothing but the want of means shall make me
+desist.'[183] He had a right to make that boast, and his ardour in the
+cause was as unimpeachable as honourable. It explains why Cobbett has
+still a sympathetic side. He was a mass of rough human nature; no prig
+or bundle of abstract formulæ, like Paine and his Radical successors.
+Logic with him is not in excess, but in defect. His doctrines are
+hopelessly inconsistent, except so far as they represent his stubborn
+prejudices. Any view will serve his purpose which can be made a weapon
+of offence in his multitudinous quarrels. Cobbett, like the Radicals
+of the time, was frightened by the gigantic progress of the debt. He
+had advocated war; but the peasant who was accustomed to reckon his
+income by pence, and had cried like a child when he lost the price of
+a red herring, was alarmed by the reckless piling up of millions of
+indebtedness. In 1806 he calmly proposed to his patron Windham to put
+matters straight by repudiating the interest. 'The nation must
+destroy the debt, or the debt will destroy the nation,' as he argued
+in the _Register_.[184] The proposal very likely caused the alienation
+of a respectable minister, though propounded with an amusing air of
+philosophical morality. Cobbett's alarm developed until it became to
+him a revelation of the mystery of iniquity. His Radical friends were
+denouncing placemen and jobbery, and Cobbett began to perceive what
+was at the bottom of the evil. The money raised to carry on the war
+served also to support a set of bloodsuckers, who were draining the
+national strength. Already, in 1804, he was lamenting a change due to
+Pitt's funding system. The old families, he said, were giving way to
+'loanjobbers, contractors, and nabobs'; and the country people amazed
+to find that their new masters had been 'butchers, bakers,
+bottle-corkers, and old-clothesmen.'[185] Barings and Ricardos and
+their like were swallowing up the old country gentry wholesale; and in
+later years he reckons up, as he rides, the changes in his own
+neighbourhood.[186] His affection for the old country-gentleman might
+be superficial; but his lamentations over the degradation of the
+peasantry sprang from his heart. It was all, in his eyes, part of one
+process. Paper money, he found out, was at the bottom of it all; for
+paper money was the outward and visible symbol of a gigantic system of
+corruption and jobbery. It represented the device by which the
+hard-earned wages of the labourer were being somehow conjured away
+into the pockets of Jews and stockjobbers. The classes which profited
+by this atrocious system formed what he called the 'Thing'--the huge,
+intricate combination of knaves which was being denounced by the
+Radicals--though with a difference. Cobbett could join the reformers
+in so far as, like them, he thought that the rotten boroughs were a
+vital part of the system. He meets a miserable labourer complaining of
+the 'hard times.' The harvest had been good, but its blessings were
+not for the labourer. That 'accursed hill,' says Cobbett, pointing to
+old Sarum, 'is what has robbed you of your supper.'[187] The labourer
+represented the class whose blood was being sucked.
+
+So far, then, as the Radicals were assailing the borough-mongers,
+Cobbett could be their cordial ally. Two years' imprisonment for libel
+embittered his feelings. In the distress which succeeded the peace,
+Cobbett's voice was for a time loudest in the general hubbub. He
+reduced the price of his _Register_, and his 'two-penny trash' reached
+a circulation of 25,000 or 30,000 copies. He became a power in the
+land, and anticipated the immediate triumph of reform. The day was not
+yet. Sidmouth's measures of repression frightened Cobbett to America
+(March 1819), where he wrote his history of the 'last hundred days of
+English liberty.' He returned in a couple of years, damaged in
+reputation and broken in fortune; but only to carry on the war with
+indomitable energy, although with a recklessness and extravagance
+which alienated his allies and lowered his character. He tried to
+cover his errors by brags and bombast, which became ridiculous, and
+which are yet not without significance.
+
+Cobbett came back from America with the relics of Paine. Paine, the
+object of his abuse, had become his idol, not because Cobbett cared
+much for any abstract political theories, or for religious dogmas.
+Paine's merit was that he had attacked paper money. To Cobbett, as to
+Paine, it seemed that English banknotes were going the way of French
+assignats and the provincial currency of the Americans. This became
+one main topic of his tirades, and represented, as he said, the 'Alpha
+and Omega' of English politics. The theory was simple. The whole
+borough-mongering system depended upon the inflated currency. Prick
+that bubble and the whole would collapse. It was absolutely
+impossible, he said, that the nation should return to cash payments
+and continue to pay interest on the debt. Should such a thing happen,
+he declared, he would 'give his poor body up to be broiled on one of
+Castlereagh's widest-ribbed gridirons.'[188] The 'gridiron prophecy'
+became famous; a gridiron was for long a frontispiece to the
+_Register_; and Cobbett, far from retracting, went on proving, in the
+teeth of facts, that it had been fulfilled. His inference was, not
+that paper should be preserved, but that the debt should be treated
+with a 'sponge.'
+
+Cobbett, therefore, was an awkward ally of political economists, whose
+great triumph was the resumption of cash payments, and who regarded
+repudiation as the deadly sin. The burthen of the debt, meanwhile, was
+so great that repudiation was well within the limits of
+possibility.[189] Cobbett, in their eyes, was an advocate of the
+grossest dishonesty, and using the basest incentives. Cobbett fully
+retorted their scorn. The economists belonged to the very class whom
+he most hated. He was never tired of denouncing Scottish
+'feelosophers'; he sneers at Adam Smith,[190] and Ricardo was to him
+the incarnation of the stock-jobbing interest. Cobbett sympathised
+instinctively with the doctrine of the French economists that
+agriculture was the real source of all wealth. He nearly accepts a
+phrase, erroneously attributed to Windham, 'Perish Commerce'; and he
+argues that commerce was, in fact, of little use, and its monstrous
+extension at the bottom of all our worst evils.[191] Nobody could be
+more heartily opposed to the spirit which animated the political
+economists and the whole class represented by them. At times he spoke
+the language of modern Socialists. He defines Capital as 'money taken
+from the labouring classes, which, being given to army tailors and
+suchlike, enables them to keep foxhounds and trace their descent from
+the Normans.'[192]
+
+The most characteristic point of his speculations is his view of the
+poor-laws. Nobody could speak with more good sense and feeling of the
+demoralisation which they were actually producing, of the sapping of
+the spirit of independence, and of all the devices by which the
+agricultural labourer was losing the happiness enjoyed in early years.
+But Cobbett's deduction from his principles is peculiar. 'Parson
+Malthus' is perhaps the favourite object of his most virulent abuse.
+'I have hated many men,' he says, 'but never any one so much as you,'
+'I call you parson,' he explains, 'because that word includes
+"boroughmonger" among other meanings, though no single word could be
+sufficient.'[193] Cobbett rages against the phrase 'redundant
+population.' There would be plenty for all if the borough-mongers and
+stockjobbers could be annihilated, taxes abolished, and the debt
+repudiated. The ordinary palliatives suggested were little to the
+taste of this remarkable Radical. The man who approved bull-fighting
+and supported the slave-trade naturally sneered at 'heddekashun,' and
+thought savings-banks a mean device to interest the poor in the
+keeping up of the funds. His remedy was always a sponge applied to the
+debt, and the abolition of taxes.
+
+This leads, however, to one remarkable conclusion. Cobbett's attack
+upon the church establishment probably did more to cause alarm than
+any writings of the day. For Paine's attacks upon its creed he cared
+little enough. 'Your religion,' said a parson to him, 'seems to be
+altogether political.' It might well be, was Cobbett's retort, since
+his creed was made for him by act of parliament.[194] In fact, he
+cared nothing for theology, though he called himself a member of the
+church of England, and retained an intense dislike for Unitarians,
+dissenters in general, 'saints' as he called the Evangelical party,
+Scottish Presbyterians, and generally for all religious sects. He
+looked at church questions solely from one point of view. He had
+learned, it seems, from a passage in Ruggles's _History of the
+Poor_,[195] that the tithes had been originally intended to support
+the poor as well as the church. Gradually, as he looked back upon the
+'good old times,' he developed the theory expounded in his _History of
+the Reformation_. It is a singular performance, written at the period
+of his most reckless exasperation (1824-27), but with his full vigour
+of style. He declares[196] in 1825 that he has sold forty-five
+thousand copies, and it has been often reprinted. The purpose is to
+show that the Reformation was 'engendered in beastly lust, brought
+forth in hypocrisy, and cherished and fed by plunder and devastation,
+and by rivers of English and Irish blood.'[197] Briefly, it is the
+cause of every evil that has happened since, including 'the debt, the
+banks, the stockjobbers, and the American revolution.'[198] In proving
+this, Cobbett writes in the spirit of some vehement Catholic bigot,
+maddened by the penal laws. Henry VIII., Elizabeth, and William III.
+are his monsters; the Marys of England and Scotland his ideal martyrs.
+He almost apologises for the massacre of St. Bartholomew and the
+Gunpowder Plot; and, in spite of his patriotism, attributes the defeat
+of the Armada to a storm, for fear of praising Elizabeth. The
+bitterest Ultramontane of to-day would shrink from some of this
+Radical's audacious statements. Cobbett, in spite of his extravagance,
+shows flashes of his usual shrewdness. He remarks elsewhere that the
+true way of studying history is to examine acts of parliament and
+lists of prices of labour and of food;[199] and he argues upon such
+grounds for the prosperity of the agricultural labourer under Edward
+III., 'when a dung-cart filler could get a fat goose and a half for
+half a day's work.' He makes some telling hits, as when he contrasts
+William of Wykeham with Brownlow North, the last bishop of Winchester.
+Protestants condemned celibacy. Well, had William been married, we
+should not have had Winchester school, or New College; had Brownlow
+North been doomed to celibacy, he would not have had ten sons and
+sons-in-law to share twenty-four rich livings, besides prebends and
+other preferments; and perhaps he would not have sold small beer from
+his episcopal palace at Farnham. Cobbett's main doctrine is that when
+the Catholic church flourished, the population was actually more
+numerous and richer, that the care of the priests and monks made
+pauperism impossible, and that ever since the hideous blunder
+perpetrated by the reformers everything has been going from bad to
+worse. When it was retorted that the census proved the population to
+be growing, he replied that the census was a lie. Were the facts truly
+stated, he declares, we should have a population of near twenty-eight
+million in England by the end of this century,[200] a manifest
+_reductio ad absurdum_. If it were remarked that there was a Catholic
+church in France, and that Cobbett proves his case by the superiority
+of the English poor to the French poor, he remarked summarily that the
+French laws were different.[201]
+
+Thus, the one monster evil is the debt, and the taxes turn out to have
+been a Protestant invention made necessary by the original act of
+plunder. That was Cobbett's doctrine, and, however perverse might be
+some of his reasonings, it was clearly to the taste of a large
+audience. The poor-law was merely a partial atonement for a vast and
+continuous process of plunder. Corrupt as might be its actual
+operation, it was a part of the poor man's patrimony, extorted by fear
+from the gang of robbers who fattened upon their labours.
+
+Cobbett's theories need not be discussed from the logical or
+historical point of view. They are the utterances of a man made
+unscrupulous by his desperate circumstances, fighting with boundless
+pugnacity, ready to strike any blow, fair or foul, so long as it will
+vex his enemies, and help to sell the _Register_. His pugnacity
+alienated all his friends. Not only did Whigs and Tories agree in
+condemning him, but the Utilitarians hated and despised him, and his
+old friends, Burnett and Hunt, were alienated from him, and reviled by
+him. His actual followers were a small and insignificant remnant. Yet
+Cobbett, like Owen, represented in a crude fashion blind instincts of
+no small importance in the coming years. And it is especially to be
+noted that in one direction the philosophic Coleridge and the keen
+Quarterly Reviewer Southey, and the Socialist Owen and the reactionary
+Radical Cobbett, were more in agreement than they knew. What alarmed
+them was the vast social change indicated by the industrial
+revolution. In one way or another they connected all the evils of the
+day with the growth of commerce and manufactures, and the breaking up
+of the old system of domestic trade and village life.[202] That is to
+say, that in a dumb and inarticulate logic, though in the loudest
+tones of denunciation, Tories and Socialists, and nondescript Radicals
+were raging against the results of the great social change, which the
+Utilitarians regarded as the true line of advance of the day. This
+gives the deepest line of demarcation, and brings us to the political
+economy, which shows most fully how the case presented itself to the
+true Utilitarian.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[80] Bain's _James Mill_, p. 215.
+
+[81] _Autobiography_, p. 104.
+
+[82] _Miscellaneous Works_ (Popular Edition), p. 131.
+
+[83] The articles from the _Encyclopædia_ upon Government,
+Jurisprudence, Liberty of the Press, Prisons and Prison Discipline,
+Colonies, Law of Nations, Education, were reprinted in a volume 'not
+for sale,' in 1825 and 1828. I quote from a reprint not dated.
+
+[84] 'Government,' pp. 3-5.
+
+[85] 'Government,' p. 8.
+
+[86] 'Government,' p. 9.
+
+[87] _Ibid._ p. 11.
+
+[88] _Ibid._ p. 9.
+
+[89] _Ibid._ p. 12.
+
+[90] 'Government,' p. 9.
+
+[91] C'est une expérience éternelle que tout homme qui a du pouvoir
+est porté à en abuser; il va jusqu'à ce qu'il trouve des
+limites.--_Esprit des Lois_, Bk. xi. chap 4.
+
+[92] 'Government,' p. 15.
+
+[93] 'Government,' p. 7.
+
+[94] _Ibid._ p. 18.
+
+[95] 'Government,' p. 21.
+
+[96] _Ibid._ p. 22
+
+[97] _Autobiography_, p. 104.
+
+[98] 'Government,' p. 28.
+
+[99] _Ibid._ p. 30. Mill especially refers to the exposure of clerical
+artifices in Father Paul's _Council of Trent_.
+
+[100] 'Education,' p. 20
+
+[101] _Ibid._ p. 45.
+
+[102] _Autobiography_, p. 106.
+
+[103] 'Government,' p. 31.
+
+[104] Bain's _James Mill_, p. 392.
+
+[105] They were reprinted in the _Miscellaneous Works_ after
+Macaulay's death. I quote from the 'popular edition' of that work
+(1875).
+
+[106] _Miscellaneous Works_, p. 166.
+
+[107] _Miscellaneous Works_, p. 132.
+
+[108] Mill's _Autobiography_, p. 158.
+
+[109] 'Government,' p. 12.
+
+[110] _Miscellaneous Works_, p. 169.
+
+[111] _Fragment on Mackintosh_ (1870), pp. 275-94.
+
+[112] Essay on the 'Independency of Parliament.'
+
+[113] _Fragment_, p. 292.
+
+[114] _Ibid._ p. 276.
+
+[115] _Miscellaneous Works_, p. 170.
+
+[116] _Miscellaneous Works_, p. 173.
+
+[117] _Miscellaneous Works_, p. 138.
+
+[118] _Miscellaneous Works_, pp. 135-40.
+
+[119] _Miscellaneous Works_, p. 158, and see pp. 143-47.
+
+[120] _Speeches_ (Popular Edition), p. 125.
+
+[121] _Ibid._ p. 128.
+
+[122] _Miscellaneous Works_, p. 146.
+
+[123] _Miscellaneous Works_, p. 183.
+
+[124] A full analysis of this article is in Bain's _James Mill_, pp.
+265-75.
+
+[125] Article upon Sheridan, reprinted in Jeffrey's _Essays_, iv.
+(1844).
+
+[126] _Table-Talk_, 27th April 1823.
+
+[127] _Vindiciæ Gallicæ_, in _Miscellaneous Works_, iii. (1846), p.
+57.
+
+[128] Mackintosh thinks it necessary to add that this parallel was
+suggested to him by William Thomson (1746-1837), a literary gentleman
+who continued Watson's _Philip III._, and may, for anything I know,
+deserve Mackintosh's warm eulogy.
+
+[129] _Vindiciæ Gallicæ_, p. 59.
+
+[130] _Ibid._ p. 51.
+
+[131] _Ibid._ p. 148.
+
+[132] _Ibid._ p. 68.
+
+[133] _Ibid._ p. 72.
+
+[134] _Ibid._ p. 125.
+
+[135] _Vindiciæ Gallicæ_, p. 128.
+
+[136] _Ibid._ p. 84.
+
+[137] _Ibid._ p. 30.
+
+[138] _Life of Mackintosh_, i. 125.
+
+[139] _Miscellaneous Works_, iii. 261-65.
+
+[140] _Life_, i. 309-16.
+
+[141] See _Miscellaneous Works_, iii. 3.
+
+[142] _Ibid._ iii. 203-38 (an article highly praised by Bagehot in his
+_Parliamentary Reform_).
+
+[143] _Miscellaneous Works_, iii. 215-16.
+
+[144] _Ibid._ iii. 226. Mackintosh in this article mentions the
+'caucus,' and observes that the name implies that combinations have
+been already formed upon 'which the future government of the
+confederacy may depend more than on the forms of election, or the
+letter of the present laws.' He inclines to approve the system as
+essential to party government.
+
+[145] _Essays_ (1844), i. 84-106.
+
+[146] The famous 'Cevallos' article of 1808, said to be written by
+Jeffrey and Brougham (Macvey Napier's _Correspondence_, p. 308), gave
+the immediate cause of starting the _Quarterly_; and, according to
+Brougham, first gave a distinctly Liberal character to the
+_Edinburgh_. For Jeffrey's desire to avoid 'party politics,' see
+Lockhart's _Life of Scott_, M. Napier's _Correspondence_, p. 435, and
+Homer's _Memoirs_ (1853), i. 464.
+
+[147] April 1805; reprinted in _Essays_, ii. 38, etc., to show, as he
+says, how early he had taken up his view of the French revolution.
+
+[148] Sydney Smith complains in his correspondence of this article as
+exaggerating the power of the aristocracy.
+
+[149] _Essays_, iv. 29.
+
+[150] I need not speak of Brougham, then the most conspicuous advocate
+of Whiggism. He published in 1843 a _Political Philosophy_, which,
+according to Lord Campbell, killed the 'Society for the Diffusion of
+Useful Knowledge.' No such hypothesis is necessary to account for the
+death of a society encumbered by a 'Dictionary of Universal
+Biography.' But the book was bad enough to kill, if a collection of
+outworn platitudes can produce that effect.
+
+[151] Bentham's _Works_, x. 536.
+
+[152] _Colloquies_, i. 253.
+
+[153] _Colloquies_, i. 171.
+
+[154] _Ibid._ i. 178.
+
+[155] _Ibid._ i. 169.
+
+[156] _Ibid._ i. 167.
+
+[157] _Ibid._ i. 170.
+
+[158] _Ibid._ i. 194.
+
+[159] _Ibid._ ii. 247.
+
+[160] _Colloquies_, ii. 259.
+
+[161] _Ibid._ i. 109.
+
+[162] _Ibid._ ii. 105-7.
+
+[163] _Ibid._ i. 106.
+
+[164] _Ibid._ i. 47.
+
+[165] _Life and Correspondence_, iv. 195; _Selections_, iii. 45.
+
+[166] _Colloquies_, i. 62.
+
+[167] _Colloquies_, i. 135.
+
+[168] _Ibid._ ii. 147. Southey is here almost verbally following
+Burke's _Reflections_.
+
+[169] _Life and Correspondence_, v. 4-6.
+
+[170] _Colloquies_, i. 105.
+
+[171] _On the Constitution of Church and State, according to the idea
+of each_, 1852 (fourth edition).
+
+[172] _Church and State_, p. 100.
+
+[173] _Ibid._ p. 97.
+
+[174] _Church and State_, p. 85.
+
+[175] _Ibid._ p. 67.
+
+[176] _Church and State_, p. 142.
+
+[177] _Ibid._ pp. 75-79.
+
+[178] _Colloquies_, i. 37.
+
+[179] See an early account of Dale (in 1798) in Sydney Smith's _Life
+and Letters_, i. 35, and another in Wilberforce's _Correspondence_
+(1840), i. 137 (in 1796).
+
+[180] Printed in _Political Works_, i. 302.
+
+[181] _Political Works_, v. 313; vi. 579.
+
+[182] _Political Works_, i. 473; v. 319.
+
+[183] _Ibid._ ii. 285.
+
+[184] _Political Works_, ii. 28; iv. 388.
+
+[185] _Ibid._ i. 443.
+
+[186] _Rural Rides_ (1853), p. 311.
+
+[187] _Rural Rides_, p. 386.
+
+[188] _Political Works_, v. 436 (22nd July 1819).
+
+[189] Even M'Culloch had recommended a partial repudiation.
+
+[190] _Political Works_, iv. 237.
+
+[191] _Ibid._ ii. 19, 107, 250, 346; and iii. 423. See _Parliamentary
+History_, xxx., where the first use of the phrase by Hardinge is
+reported.
+
+[192] _Political Works_, vi. 176.
+
+[193] _Ibid._ 395.
+
+[194] _Rural Rides_, p. 446.
+
+[195] He complains bitterly that Ruggles had suppressed this in a
+second edition. _Protestant Reformation_ (1850), ii., Introduction.
+
+[196] _Political Register_, 29th Jan. 1825.
+
+[197] _Protestant Reformation_, p. 13.
+
+[198] _Ibid._ p. 262.
+
+[199] _Advice to Young Men_, p. 8.
+
+[200] _Political Works_, v. 405. If our census be not a lie, there
+were twenty-seven million Englishmen in 1891.
+
+[201] _Protestant Reformation_, i. 311.
+
+[202] Coleridge in a letter to Allsop (_Conversations_, etc., i. 20)
+approves one of Cobbett's articles, because it popularises the weighty
+truth of the 'hollowness of commercial wealth.' Cobbett, he sadly
+reflects, is an overmatch for Liverpool. See Cobbett's _Political
+Works_, v. 466 _n._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+MALTHUS
+
+
+I. MALTHUS'S STARTING-POINT
+
+The political movement represented the confluence of many different
+streams of agitation. Enormous social changes had generated
+multifarious discontent. New wants and the new strains and stresses
+between the various parts of the political mechanism required new
+adaptations. But, if it were inquired what was the precise nature of
+the evils, and how the reform of parliament was to operate, the most
+various answers might be given. A most important line of division did
+not coincide with the line between the recognised parties. One wing of
+the Radicals agreed with many Conservatives in attributing the great
+evils of the day to the industrial movement and the growth of
+competition. The middle-class Whigs and the Utilitarians were, on the
+contrary, in thorough sympathy with the industrial movement, and
+desired to limit the functions of government, and trust to self-help
+and free competition. The Socialistic movement appeared for the
+present to be confined to a few dreamers and demagogues. The
+Utilitarians might approve the spirit of the Owenites, but held their
+schemes to be chimerical. Beneath the political controversies there
+was therefore a set of problems to be answered; and the Utilitarian
+answer defines their distinction from Radicals of a different and, as
+they would have said, unphilosophical school.
+
+What, then, was the view really taken by the Utilitarians of these
+underlying problems? They not only had a very definite theory in
+regard to them, but in working it out achieved perhaps their most
+important contribution to speculation. Beneath a political theory
+lies, or ought to lie, what we now call a 'sociology'--a theory of
+that structure of society which really determines the character and
+the working of political institutions. The Utilitarian theory was
+embodied in their political economy. I must try to define as well as I
+can what were the essential first principles implied, without going
+into the special problems which would be relevant in a history of
+political economy.
+
+The two leading names in the literature of political economy during
+the first quarter of this century were undoubtedly Malthus and
+Ricardo. Thomas Robert Malthus[203] (1766-1834) was not one of the
+Utilitarian band. As a clergyman, he could not share their opinion of
+the Thirty-nine Articles. Moreover, he was a Whig, not a Radical; and
+he was even tainted with some economic heresy. Still, he became one of
+the prophets, if not the leading prophet, of the Utilitarians. Belief
+in the Malthusian theory of population was the most essential article
+of their faith, and marked the line of cleavage between the two wings
+of the Radical party.
+
+Malthus was the son of a country gentleman in Surrey. His father was
+a man of studious habits, and one of the enthusiastic admirers of
+Rousseau. His study of _Émile_ probably led to the rather desultory
+education of his son. The boy, after being taught at home, was for a
+time a pupil of R. Graves (1715-1804), author of the _Spiritual
+Quixote_, a Whig clergyman who was at least orthodox enough to
+ridicule Methodism. Malthus was next sent to attend Gilbert
+Wakefield's lectures at the Warrington 'Academy,' the Unitarian place
+of education, and in 1784 went to Jesus College, Cambridge, of which
+Wakefield had been a fellow. For Wakefield, who had become a
+Unitarian, and who was afterwards a martyr to political Radicalism, he
+appears to have retained a strong respect. At Jesus, again, Malthus
+was under Frend, who also was to join the Unitarians. Malthus was thus
+brought up under the influences of the modified rationalism which was
+represented by the Unitarians outside the establishment and by Paley
+within. Coleridge was at Jesus while Malthus was still a fellow, and
+there became an ardent admirer of Priestley, Malthus remained within
+the borders of the church. Its yoke was light enough, and he was
+essentially predisposed to moderate views. He took his degree as ninth
+wrangler in 1788, became a fellow of his college in 1793, took orders,
+and in 1798 was curate of Albury, near his father's house in Surrey.
+Malthus's home was within a walk of Farnham, where Cobbett had been
+born and passed his childhood. He had, therefore, before his eyes the
+same agricultural labourer whose degradation excited Cobbett to
+Radicalism. Very different views were suggested to Malthus. The
+revolutionary doctrine was represented in England by the writings of
+Godwin, whose _Political Justice_ appeared in 1793 and _Enquirer_ in
+1797. These books naturally afforded topics for discussion between
+Malthus and his father. The usual relations between senior and junior
+were inverted; the elder Malthus, as became a follower of Rousseau,
+was an enthusiast; and the younger took the part of suggesting doubts
+and difficulties. He resolved to put down his arguments upon paper, in
+order to clear his mind; and the result was the _Essay upon
+Population_, of which the first edition appeared anonymously in 1798.
+
+The argument upon which Malthus relied was already prepared for him.
+The dreams of the revolutionary enthusiasts supposed either a neglect
+of the actual conditions of human life or a belief that those
+conditions could be radically altered by the proposed political
+changes. The cooler reasoner was entitled to remind them that they
+were living upon solid earth, not in dreamland. The difficulty of
+realising Utopia may be presented in various ways. Malthus took a
+point which had been noticed by Godwin. In the conclusion of his
+_Political Justice_,[204] while taking a final glance at the coming
+millennium, Godwin refers to a difficulty suggested by Robert Wallace.
+Wallace had[205] said that all the evils under which mankind suffers
+might be removed by a community of property, were it not that such a
+state of things would lead to an 'excessive population.' Godwin makes
+light of the difficulty. He thinks that there is some 'principle in
+human society by means of which everything tends to find its own level
+and proceed in the most auspicious way, when least interfered with by
+the mode of regulation.' Anyhow, there is plenty of room on the earth,
+at present. Population may increase for 'myriads of centuries.' Mind,
+as Franklin has said, may become 'omnipotent over matter';[206] life
+may be indefinitely prolonged; our remote descendants who have filled
+the earth 'will probably cease to propagate';[207] they will not have
+the trouble of making a fresh start at every generation; and in those
+days there will be 'no war, no crimes, no administration of justice';
+and moreover, 'no disease, anguish, melancholy, or resentment.'
+Briefly, we shall be like the angels, only without the needless
+addition of a supreme ruler. Similar ideas were expressed in
+Condorcet's famous _Tableau historique des progrès de l'esprit
+humain_,[208] written while he was in daily fear of death by the
+guillotine, and so giving the most striking instance on record of the
+invincibility of an idealist conviction under the hardest pressure of
+facts.
+
+The argument of Malthus is a product of the whole previous course of
+speculation. The question of population had occupied the French
+economists. The profound social evils of France gave the
+starting-point of their speculations; and one of the gravest symptoms
+had been the decay of population under the last years of Louis XIV.
+Their great aim was to meet this evil by encouraging agriculture. It
+could not escape the notice of the simplest observer that if you would
+have more mouths you must provide more food, unless, as some pious
+people assumed, that task might be left to Providence. Quesnay had
+laid it down as one of his axioms that the statesman should aim at
+providing sustenance before aiming simply at stimulating population.
+It follows, according to Gulliver's famous maxim, that the man who
+makes two blades of grass grow where one grew before deserves better
+of his country than the 'whole race of politicians put together.'
+Other writers, in developing this thesis, had dwelt upon the
+elasticity of population. The elder Mirabeau, for example, published
+his _Ami des hommes ou traité de la population_ in 1756. He observes
+that, given the means of subsistence, men will multiply like rats in a
+barn.[209] The great axiom, he says,[210] is 'la mesure de la
+subsistance est celle de la population.' Cultivate your fields, and
+you will raise men. Mirabeau replies to Hume's essay upon the
+'Populousness of ancient nations' (1752), of which Wallace's first
+treatise was a criticism. The problem discussed by Hume and Wallace
+had been comparatively academical; but by Malthus's time the question
+had taken a more practical shape. The sentimentalists denounced luxury
+as leading to a decay of the population. Their prevailing doctrine is
+embodied in Goldsmith's famous passage in the _Deserted Village_
+(1770):
+
+    'Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
+    Where wealth accumulates and men decay.'
+
+The poetical version only reflected the serious belief of Radical
+politicians. Although, as we are now aware, the population was in fact
+increasing rapidly, the belief prevailed among political writers that
+it was actually declining. Trustworthy statistics did not exist. In
+1753 John Potter, son of the archbishop, proposed to the House of
+Commons a plan for a census. A violent discussion arose,[211] in the
+course of which it was pointed out that the plan would inevitably lead
+to the adoption of the 'canvas frock and wooden shoes.' Englishmen
+would lose their liberty, become French slaves, and, when counted,
+would no doubt be taxed and forcibly enlisted. The bill passed the
+House of Commons in spite of such reasoning, but was thrown out by the
+House of Lords. Till the first census was taken in 1801--a period at
+which the absolute necessity of such knowledge had become obvious--the
+most elementary facts remained uncertain. Was population increasing or
+decreasing? That surely might be ascertainable.
+
+Richard Price (1723-1791) was not only a distinguished moralist and a
+leading politician, but perhaps the best known writer of his time upon
+statistical questions. He had the credit of suggesting Pitt's sinking
+fund,[212] and spoke with the highest authority upon facts and
+figures. Price argued in 1780[213] that the population of England had
+diminished by one-fourth since the revolution of 1688. A sharp
+controversy followed upon the few ascertainable data. The vagueness of
+the results shows curiously how much economists had to argue in the
+dark. Malthus observes in his first edition that he had been
+convinced by reading Price that population was restrained by 'vice and
+misery,' as results, not of political institutions, but of 'our own
+creation.'[214] This gives the essential point of difference. Mirabeau
+had declared that the population of all Europe was decaying. Hume's
+essay, which he criticises, had been in answer to a similar statement
+of Montesquieu. Price had learned that other countries were increasing
+in number, though England, he held, was still declining. What, then,
+was the cause? The cause, replied both Price and Mirabeau, was
+'luxury,' to which Price adds the specially English evils of the
+'engrossment of farms' and the enclosure of open fields. Price had to
+admit that the English towns had increased; but this was an additional
+evil. The towns increased simply by draining the country; and in the
+towns themselves the deaths exceeded the births. The great cities were
+the graves of mankind. This opinion was strongly held, too, by Arthur
+Young, who ridiculed the general fear of depopulation, and declared
+that if money were provided, you could always get labour, but who
+looked upon the towns as destructive cancers in the body politic.
+
+The prevalence of this view explains Malthus's position. To attribute
+depopulation to luxury was to say that it was caused by the inequality
+of property. The rich man wasted the substance of the country, became
+demoralised himself, and both corrupted and plundered his neighbours.
+The return to a 'state of nature,' in Rousseau's phrase, meant the
+return to a state of things in which this misappropriation should
+become impossible. The whole industry of the nation would then be
+devoted to supporting millions of honest, simple peasants and
+labourers, whereas it now went to increasing the splendour of the
+great at the expense of the poor. Price enlarges upon this theme,
+which was, in fact, the contemporary version of the later formula that
+the rich are growing richer and the poor poorer. The immediate effect
+of equalising property, then, would be an increase of population. It
+was the natural retort, adopted by Malthus, that such an increase
+would soon make everybody poor, instead of making every one
+comfortable. Population, the French economists had said, follows
+subsistence. Will it not multiply indefinitely? The rapid growth of
+population in America was noticed by Price and Godwin; and the theory
+had been long before expanded by Franklin, in a paper which Malthus
+quotes in his later editions. 'There is no bound,' said Franklin in
+1751,[215] 'to the prolific nature of plants and animals but what is
+made by their crowding and interfering with each other's means of
+subsistence.' The whole earth, he infers, might be overspread with
+fennel, for example, or, if empty of men, replenished in a few ages
+with Englishmen. There were supposed to be already one million of
+Englishmen in North America. If they doubled once in twenty-five
+years, they would in a century exceed the number of Englishmen at
+home. This is identical with Mirabeau's principle of the multiplying
+of rats in a barn. Population treads closely on the heels of
+subsistence. Work out your figures and see the results.[216]
+
+Malthus's essay in the first edition was mainly an application of
+this retort, and though the logic was effective as against Godwin, he
+made no elaborate appeal to facts. Malthus soon came to see that a
+more precise application was desirable. It was clearly desirable to
+know whether population was or was not actually increasing, and under
+what conditions. I have spoken of the contemporary labours of
+Sinclair, Young, Sir F. Eden, and others. To collect statistics was
+plainly one of the essential conditions of settling the controversy.
+Malthus in 1799 travelled on the continent to gather information, and
+visited Sweden, Norway, Russia, and Germany. The peace of Amiens
+enabled him in 1802 to visit France and Switzerland. He inquired
+everywhere into the condition of the people, collected such
+statistical knowledge as was then possible, and returned to digest it
+into a elaborate treatise. Meanwhile, the condition of England was
+giving a fresh significance to the argument. The first edition had
+been published at the critical time when the poor-law was being
+relaxed, and disastrous results were following war and famine. The old
+complaint that the poor-law was causing depopulation was being changed
+for the complaint that it was stimulating pauperism. The first edition
+already discussed this subject, which was occupying all serious
+thinkers; it was now to receive a fuller treatment. The second
+edition, greatly altered, appeared in 1803, and made Malthus a man of
+authority. His merits were recognised by his appointment in 1805 to
+the professorship of history and political economy at the newly
+founded East India College at Haileybury. There he remained till the
+end of his life, which was placid, uneventful, and happy. He made a
+happy marriage in 1804; and his calm temperament enabled him to bear
+an amount of abuse which might have broken the health of a more
+irritable man. Cobbett's epithet, 'parson Malthus,' strikes the
+keynote. He was pictured as a Christian priest denouncing charity, and
+proclaiming the necessity of vice and misery. He had the ill luck to
+be the centre upon which the antipathies of Jacobin and anti-Jacobin
+converged. Cobbett's language was rougher than Southey's; but the
+poet-laureate and the author of 'two-penny trash' were equally
+vehement in sentiment. Malthus, on the other hand, was accepted by the
+political economists, both Whig and Utilitarian. Horner and
+Mackintosh, lights of the Whigs, were his warm friends as well as his
+disciples. He became intimate with Ricardo, and he was one of the
+original members of the Political Economy Club. He took abuse
+imperturbably; was never vexed 'after the first fortnight' by the most
+unfair attack; and went on developing his theories, lecturing his
+students, and improving later editions of his treatise. Malthus died
+on 23rd December 1834.
+
+
+II. THE RATIOS
+
+The doctrine marks a critical point in political economy. Malthus's
+opponents, as Mr. Bonar remarks,[217] attacked him alternately for
+propounding a truism and for maintaining a paradox. A 'truism' is not
+useless so long as its truth is not admitted. It would be the greatest
+of achievements to enunciate a law self-evident as soon as formulated,
+and yet previously ignored or denied. Was this the case of Malthus? Or
+did he really startle the world by clothing a commonplace in paradox,
+and then explain away the paradox till nothing but the commonplace was
+left?
+
+Malthus laid down in his first edition a proposition which continued
+to be worried by all his assailants. Population, he said, when
+unchecked, increases in the geometrical ratio; the means of
+subsistence increase only in an arithmetical ratio. Geometrical ratios
+were just then in fashion.[218] Price had appealed to their wonderful
+ways in his arguments about the sinking fund; and had pointed out that
+a penny put out to 5 per cent. compound interest at the birth of
+Christ would, in the days of Pitt, have been worth some millions of
+globes of solid gold, each as big as the earth. Both Price and Malthus
+lay down a proposition which can easily be verified by the
+multiplication-table. If, as Malthus said, population doubles in
+twenty-five years, the number in two centuries would be to the present
+number as 256 to 1, and in three as 4096 to 1. If, meanwhile, the
+quantity of subsistence increased in 'arithmetical progression,' the
+multipliers for it would be only 9 and 13. It follows that, in the
+year 2003, two hundred and fifty-six persons will have to live upon
+what now supports nine. So far, the case is clear. But how does the
+argument apply to facts? For obvious reasons, Price's penny could not
+become even one solid planet of gold. Malthus's population is also
+clearly impossible. That is just his case. The population of British
+North America was actually, when he wrote, multiplying at the assigned
+rate. What he pointed out was that such a rate must somehow be
+stopped; and his question was, how precisely will it be stopped? The
+first proposition, he says[219] (that is, that population increased
+geometrically), 'I considered as proved the moment that the American
+increase was related; and the second as soon as enunciated.' To say
+that a population increases geometrically, in fact, is simply to say
+that it increases at a fixed rate. The arithmetical increase
+corresponds to a statement which Malthus, at any rate, might regard as
+undeniable; namely, that in a country already fully occupied, the
+possibility of increasing produce is restricted within much narrower
+limits. In a 'new country,' as in the American colonies, the increase
+of food might proceed as rapidly as the increase of population.
+Improved methods of cultivation, or the virtual addition of vast
+tracts of fertile territory by improved means of communication, may of
+course add indefinitely to the resources of a population. But Malthus
+was contemplating a state of things in which the actual conditions
+limited the people to an extraction of greater supplies from a
+strictly limited area. Whether Malthus assumed too easily that this
+represented the normal case may be questionable. At any rate, it was
+not only possible but actual in the England of the time. His problem
+was very much to the purpose. His aim was to trace the way in which
+the population of a limited region is prevented from increasing
+geometrically. If the descendants of Englishmen increase at a certain
+rate in America, why do they not increase equally in England? That, it
+must be admitted, is a fair scientific problem. Finding that two races
+of similar origin, and presumably like qualities, increase at
+different rates, we have to investigate the causes of the difference.
+
+Malthus answered the problem in the simplest and most consistent way
+in his first edition. What are the checks? The ultimate check would
+clearly be starvation. A population might multiply till it had not
+food. But before this limit is actually reached, it will suffer in
+various ways from scarcity. Briefly, the checks may be distinguished
+into the positive, that is, actual distress, and the preventive, or
+'foresight.' We shall actually suffer unless we are restrained by the
+anticipation of suffering. As a fact, however, he thinks that men are
+but little influenced by the prudence which foresees sufferings. They
+go on multiplying till the consequences are realised. You may be
+confined in a room, to use one of his illustrations,[220] though the
+walls do not touch you; but human beings are seldom satisfied till
+they have actually knocked their heads against the wall. He sums up
+his argument in the first edition in three propositions.[221]
+Population is limited by the means of subsistence; that is obvious;
+population invariably increases when the means of subsistence are
+increased; that is shown by experience to be practically true; and
+therefore, finally, the proportion is maintained by 'misery and
+vice.' That is the main conclusion which not unnaturally startled the
+world. Malthus always adhered in some sense to the main doctrine,
+though he stated explicitly some reserves already implicitly involved.
+A writer must not be surprised if popular readers remember the
+unguarded and dogmatic utterances which give piquancy to a theory, and
+overlook the latent qualifications which, when fully expressed, make
+it approximate to a commonplace. The political bearing of his
+reasoning is significant. The application of Godwin's theories of
+equality would necessarily, as he urges, stimulate an excessive
+population. To meet the consequent evils, two measures would be
+obviously necessary; private property must be instituted in order to
+stimulate prudence; and marriage must be instituted to make men
+responsible for the increase of the population. These institutions are
+necessary, and they make equality impossible. Weak, then, as foresight
+may be with most men, the essential social institutions have been
+developed by the necessity of enabling foresight to exercise some
+influence; and thus indirectly societies have in fact grown in wealth
+and numbers through arrangements which have by one and the same action
+strengthened prudence and created inequality. Although this is clearly
+implied, the main impression produced upon Malthus's readers was that
+he held 'vice and misery' to be essential to society; nay, that in
+some sense he regarded them as blessings. He was accused, as he tells
+us,[222] of objecting to vaccination, because it tended to prevent
+deaths from small-pox, and has to protest against some one who had
+declared his principles to be favourable to the slave trade.[223] He
+was represented, that is, as holding depopulation to be good in
+itself. These perversions were grotesque, but partly explain the
+horror with which Malthus was constantly regarded; and we must
+consider what made them plausible.
+
+I must first notice the maturer form of his doctrine. In the second
+edition he turns to account the result of his later reading, his
+personal observations, and the statistical results which were
+beginning to accumulate. The remodelled book opens with a survey of
+the observed action of the checks; and it concludes with a discussion
+of the 'moral restraint' which is now added to 'vice and misery.'
+Although considerable fragments of the old treatise remained to the
+last, the whole book was altered both in style and character. The
+style certainly suffers, for Malthus was not a master of the literary
+art; he inserts his additions with little care for the general effect.
+He tones down some of the more vivid phrases which had given offence,
+though he does not retract the substance. A famous passage[224] in the
+second edition, in which he speaks of 'nature's mighty feast,' where,
+unluckily, the 'table is already full,' and therefore unbidden guests
+are left to starve, was suppressed in the later editions. Yet the
+principle that no man has a claim to subsistence as of right remains
+unaltered. The omission injures the literary effect without altering
+the logic; and I think that, where the argument is amended, the new
+element is scarcely worked into the old so as to gain thorough
+consistency.
+
+Malthus's survey of different countries showed how various are the
+'checks' by which population is limited in various countries. We take
+a glance at all nations through all epochs of history. In the South
+Sea we find a delicious climate and a fertile soil, where population
+is mainly limited by vice, infanticide, and war; and where, in spite
+of these influences, the population multiplies at intervals till it is
+killed off by famine. In China, a vast and fertile territory,
+inhabited by an industrious race, in which agriculture has always been
+encouraged, marriage stimulated, and property widely diffused, has
+facilitated the production of a vast population in the most abject
+state of poverty, driven to expose children by want, and liable at
+intervals to destructive famines. In modern Europe, the checks appear
+in the most various forms; in Switzerland and Norway a frugal
+population in small villages sometimes instinctively understands the
+principle of population, and exhibits the 'moral restraint,' while in
+England the poor-laws are producing a mass of hopeless and inert
+pauperism. Consideration of these various cases, and a comparison of
+such records as are obtainable of the old savage races, of the
+classical states of antiquity, of the Northern barbarians and of the
+modern European nations, suggests a natural doubt. Malthus abundantly
+proves what can hardly be denied, that population has everywhere been
+found to press upon the means of subsistence, and that vice and misery
+are painfully abundant. But does he establish or abandon his main
+proposition? He now asserts the 'tendency' of population to outrun the
+means of subsistence. Yet he holds unequivocally that the increase of
+population has been accompanied by an increased comfort; that want has
+diminished although population has increased; and that the
+'preventive' check is stronger than of old in proportion to the
+positive check. Scotland, he says,[225] is 'still overpeopled, but not
+so much as when it contained fewer inhabitants.' Many nations, as he
+points out in general terms, have been most prosperous when most
+populous.[226] They could export food when crowded, and have ceased to
+import it when thinned. This, indeed, expresses his permanent views,
+though the facts were often alleged by his critics as a disproof of
+them. Was not the disproof real? Does not a real evasion lurk under
+the phrase 'tendency'? You may say that the earth has a tendency to
+fall into the sun, and another 'tendency' to move away from the sun.
+But it would be absurd to argue that we were therefore in danger of
+being burnt or of being frozen. To explain the law of a vital process,
+we may have to analyse it, and therefore to regard it as due to
+conflicting forces; but the forces do not really exist separately, and
+in considering the whole concrete phenomenon we must take them as
+mutually implied. A man has a 'tendency' to grow too fat; and another
+'tendency' to grow too thin. That surely means that on the whole he
+has a 'tendency' to preserve the desirable mean. The phrase, then, can
+only have a distinct meaning when the conflicting forces represent two
+independent or really separable forces. To use an illustration given
+by Malthus, we might say that a man had a 'tendency' to grow upwards;
+but was restrained by a weight on his head. The man has the
+'tendency,' because we may regard the weight as a separable accident.
+When both forces are of the essence, the separate 'tendencies'
+correspond merely to our way of analysing the fact. But if one can be
+properly regarded as relatively accidental, the 'tendency' means the
+way in which the other will manifest itself in actual cases.
+
+In 1829, Senior put this point to Malthus.[227] What, he asked, do you
+understand by a 'tendency' when you admit that the tendency is
+normally overbalanced by others? Malthus explains his meaning to be
+that every nation suffers from evils 'specifically arising from the
+pressure of population against food.' The wages of the labourer in old
+countries have never been sufficient to enable him to maintain a large
+family at ease. There is overcrowding, we may say, in England now as
+there was in England at the Conquest; though food has increased in a
+greater proportion than population; and the pressure has therefore
+taken a milder form. This, again, is proved by the fact that, whenever
+a relaxation of the pressure has occurred, when plagues have
+diminished population, or improvements in agriculture increased their
+supply of food, the gap has been at once filled up. The people have
+not taken advantage of the temporary relaxation of the check to
+preserve the new equilibrium, but have taken out the improvement by a
+multiplication of numbers. The statement then appears to be that at
+any given time the population is in excess. Men would be better off if
+they were less numerous. But, on the other hand, the tendency to
+multiply does not represent a constant force, an irresistible instinct
+which will always bring men down to the same level, but something
+which, in fact, may vary materially. Malthus admits, in fact, that
+the 'elasticity' is continually changing; and therefore repudiates the
+interpretation which seemed to make all improvement hopeless. Why,
+then, distinguish the 'check' as something apart from the instinct?
+If, in any case, we accept this explanation, does not the theory
+become a 'truism,' or at least a commonplace, inoffensive but hardly
+instructive? Does it amount to more than the obvious statement that
+prudence and foresight are desirable and are unfortunately scarce?
+
+
+III. MORAL RESTRAINT
+
+The change in the theory of 'checks' raises another important
+question. Malthus now introduced a modification upon which his
+supporters laid great stress. In the new version the 'checks' which
+proportion population to means of subsistence are not simply 'vice and
+misery,' but 'moral restraint, vice, and misery.'[228] How, precisely,
+does this modify the theory? How are the different 'checks' related?
+What especially is meant by 'moral' in this connection? Malthus takes
+his ethical philosophy pretty much for granted, but is clearly a
+Utilitarian according to the version of Paley.[229] He agrees with
+Paley that 'virtue evidently consists in educing from the materials
+which the Creator has placed under our guidance the greatest sum of
+human happiness.'[230] He adds to this that our 'natural impulses are,
+abstractedly considered, good, and only to be distinguished by their
+consequences.' Hunger, he says, as Bentham had said, is the same in
+itself, whether it leads to stealing a loaf or to eating your own
+loaf. He agrees with Godwin that morality means the 'calculation of
+consequences,'[231] or, as he says with Paley, implies the discovery
+of the will of God by observing the effect of actions upon happiness.
+Reason then regulates certain innate and practically unalterable
+instincts by enabling us to foretell their consequences. The
+reasonable man is influenced not simply by the immediate
+gratification, but by a forecast of all the results which it will
+entail. In these matters Malthus was entirely at one with the
+Utilitarians proper, and seems to regard their doctrine as
+self-evident.
+
+He notices briefly one logical difficulty thus introduced. The
+'checks' are vice, misery, and moral restraint. But why distinguish
+vice from misery? Is not conduct vicious which causes misery,[232] and
+precisely because it causes misery? He replies that to omit 'vice'
+would confuse our language. Vicious conduct may cause happiness in
+particular cases; though its general tendency would be pernicious. The
+answer is not very clear; and Malthus, I think, would have been more
+logical if he had stuck to his first theory, and regarded vice as
+simply one form of imprudence. Misery, that is, or the fear of misery,
+and the indulgence in conduct which produces misery are the 'checks'
+which limit population; and the whole problem is to make the ultimate
+sanction more operative upon the immediate conduct. Man becomes more
+virtuous simply as he becomes more prudent, and is therefore governed
+in his conduct by recognising the wider and more remote series of
+consequences. There is, indeed, the essential difference that the
+virtuous man acts (on whatever motives) from a regard to the 'greatest
+happiness of the greatest number,' and not simply from self-regard.
+Still the ultimate and decisive criterion is the tendency of conduct
+to produce misery; and if Malthus had carried this through as
+rigorously as Bentham, he would have been more consistent. The 'moral
+check' would then have been simply a department of the prudential;
+including prudence for others as well as for ourselves. One reason for
+the change is obvious. His assumption enables him to avoid coming into
+conflict with the accepted morality of the time. On his exposition
+'vice' occasionally seems not to be productive of misery but an
+alternative to misery; and yet something bad in itself. Is this
+consistent with his Utilitarianism? The vices of the South Sea
+Islanders, according to him, made famine less necessary; and, if they
+gave pleasure at the moment, were they not on the whole beneficial?
+Malthus again reckons among vices practices which limit the population
+without causing 'misery' directly.[233] Could he logically call them
+vicious? He wishes to avoid the imputation of sanctioning such
+practices, and therefore condemns them by his moral check; but it
+would be hard to prove that he was consistent in condemning them. Or,
+again, there is another familiar difficulty. The Catholic church
+encourages marriage as a remedy for vice; and thereby stimulates both
+population and poverty. How would Malthus solve the problem: is it
+better to encourage chastity and a superabundance of people, or to
+restrict marriage at the cost of increasing temptation to vice? He
+seems to evade the point by saying that he recommends both chastity
+and abstinence from marriage. By 'moral restraint,' as he explains, he
+means 'restraint from marriage from prudential motives, with a conduct
+strictly moral during the period of this restraint.' 'I have never,'
+he adds, 'intentionally deviated from this sense.'[234] A man, that
+is, should postpone taking a wife, and should not console himself by
+taking a mistress. He is to refrain from increasing the illegitimate
+as well as from increasing the legitimate population. It is not
+surprising that Malthus admits that this check has 'in past ages
+operated with inconsiderable force.'[235] In fact Malthus, as a
+thoroughly respectable and decent clergyman, manages by talking about
+the 'moral restraint' rather to evade than to answer some awkward
+problems of conduct; but at the cost of some inconsequence.
+
+But another result of this mode of patching up his argument is more
+important. The 'vices of mankind,' he says in an unusually rhetorical
+summary of his historical inquiry,[236] 'are active and able ministers
+of depopulation. They are the precursors in the great army of
+destruction, and often finish the dreadful work themselves. But should
+they fail in the war of extermination, sickly seasons, epidemics,
+pestilence, and plague advance in terrific array, and sweep off their
+thousands and ten thousands. Should success still be incomplete,
+gigantic inevitable famine stalks in the rear, and at one mighty blow
+levels the population with the food of the world.' The life of the
+race, then, is a struggle with misery; its expansion is constantly
+forcing it upon this array of evils; and in proportion to the
+elasticity is the severity of the evils which follow. This is not only
+a 'gloomy view,' but again seems to suggest that 'vice' is an
+alternative to 'misery.' Vices are bad, it would seem, but at least
+they obviate the necessity for disease and famine. Malthus probably
+suppressed the passage because he thought it liable to this
+interpretation. It indicates, however, a real awkwardness, if not
+something more, in his exposition. He here speaks as if there was room
+for a fixed number of guests at his banquet. Whatever, therefore,
+keeps the population to that limit must be so far good. If he had
+considered his 'moral check' more thoroughly, he might have seen that
+this does not correspond to his real meaning. The 'moral' and the
+prudential checks are not really to be contrasted as alternative, but
+co-operative. Every population, vicious or virtuous, must of course
+proportion its numbers to its means of support. That gives the
+prudential check. But the moral check operates by altering the
+character of the population itself. From the purely economic point of
+view, vice is bad because it lowers efficiency. A lazy, drunken, and
+profligate people would starve where an industrious, sober, and honest
+people would thrive. The check of vice thus brings the check of misery
+into play at an earlier stage. It limits by lowering the vitality and
+substituting degeneration for progress. The check, therefore, is
+essentially mischievous. Though it does not make the fields barren, it
+lowers the power of cultivation. Malthus had recognised this when he
+pointed out, as we have seen, that emergence from the savage state
+meant the institution of marriage and property and, we may infer, the
+correlative virtues of chastity, industry, and honesty. If men can
+form large societies, and millions can be supported where once a few
+thousands were at starvation point, it is due to the civilisation
+which at every stage implies 'moral restraint' in a wider sense than
+Malthus used the phrase. An increase of population by such means was,
+of course, to be desired. If Malthus emphasises this inadequately, it
+is partly, no doubt, because the Utilitarian view of morality tended
+to emphasise the external consequences rather than the alteration of
+the man himself. Yet the wider and sounder view is logically implied
+in his reasoning--so much so that he might have expressed his real aim
+more clearly if he had altered the order of his argument. He might
+have consistently taken the same line as earlier writers and declared
+that he desired, above all things, the increase of population. He
+would have had indeed to explain that he desired the increase of a
+sound and virtuous population; and that hasty and imprudent increase
+led to misery and to a demoralisation which would ultimately limit
+numbers in the worst way. We shall see directly how nearly he accepts
+this view. Meanwhile, by insisting upon the need of limitation, he was
+led to speak often as if limitation by any means was good and the one
+thing needful, and the polemic against Godwin in the first edition had
+given prominence to this side of the question. Had he put his views in
+a different shape, he would perhaps have been so edifying that he
+would have been disregarded. He certainly avoided that risk, and had
+whatever advantage is gained by stating sound doctrine paradoxically.
+
+We shall, I think, appreciate his real position better by considering
+his approximation to the theory which, as we know, was suggested to
+Darwin by a perusal of Malthus.[237] There is a closer resemblance
+than appears at first. The first edition concludes by two chapters
+afterwards omitted, giving the philosophical application of his
+theory. He there says that the 'world is a mighty process of God not
+for the trial but for the creation and formation of the mind.'[238] It
+is not, as Butler thought, a place of 'probation,' but a scene in
+which the higher qualities are gradually developed. Godwin had quoted
+Franklin's view that 'mind' would become 'omnipotent over matter.'
+Malthus holds that, as he puts it, 'God is making matter into mind.'
+The difference is that Malthus regards evil in general not as a sort
+of accident of which we can get rid by reason; but as the essential
+stimulus which becomes the efficient cause of intellectual activity.
+The evils from which men suffer raise savage tribes from their
+indolence, and by degrees give rise to the growth of civilisation. The
+argument, though these chapters were dropped by Malthus, was taken up
+by J. B. Sumner, to whom he refers in later editions.[239] It is, in
+fact, an imperfect way of stating a theory of evolution. This appears
+in his opening chapters upon the 'moral restraint.'[240] He explains
+that moral and physical evils are 'instruments employed by the Deity'
+to admonish us against such conduct as is destructive of happiness.
+Diseases are indications that we have broken a law of nature. The
+plague of London was properly interpreted by our ancestors as a hint
+to improve the sanitary conditions of the town. Similarly, we have to
+consider the consequences of obeying our instincts. The desire of food
+and necessaries is the most powerful of these instincts, and next to
+it the passion between the sexes. They are both good, for they are
+both natural; but they have to be properly correlated. To 'virtuous
+love' in particular we owe the 'sunny spots' in our lives, where the
+imagination loves to bask. Desire of necessaries gives us the stimulus
+of the comfortable fireside; and love adds the wife and children,
+without whom the fireside would lose half its charm. Now, as a rule,
+the sexual passion is apt to be in excess. The final cause of this
+excess is itself obvious. We cannot but conceive that it is an object
+of 'the Creator that the earth should be replenished.'[241] To secure
+that object, it is necessary that 'there should be a tendency in the
+population to increase faster than food.' If the two instincts were
+differently balanced, men would be content though the population of a
+fertile region were limited to the most trifling numbers. Hence the
+instinct has mercifully been made so powerful as to stimulate
+population, and thus indirectly and eventually to produce a population
+at once larger and more comfortable. On the one hand, it is of the
+very utmost importance to the happiness of mankind that they should
+not increase too fast,[242] but, on the other hand, if the passion
+were weakened, the motives which make a man industrious and capable of
+progress would be diminished also. It would, of course, be simpler to
+omit the 'teleology'; to say that sanitary regulations are made
+necessary by the plague, not that the plague is divinely appointed to
+encourage sanitary regulations. Malthus is at the point of view of
+Paley which becomes Darwinism when inverted; but the conclusion is
+much the same. He reaches elsewhere, in fact, a more precise view of
+the value of the 'moral restraint.' In a chapter devoted for once to
+an ideal state of things,[243] he shows how a race thoroughly imbued
+with that doctrine would reconcile the demands of the two instincts.
+Population would in that case increase, but, instead of beginning by
+an increase, it would begin by providing the means of supporting. No
+man would become a father until he had seen his way to provide for a
+family. The instinct which leads to increasing the population would
+thus be intrinsically as powerful as it now is; but when regulated by
+prudence it would impel mankind to begin at the right end. Food would
+be ready before mouths to eat it.
+
+
+IV. SOCIAL REMEDIES
+
+This final solution appears in Malthus's proposed remedies for the
+evils of the time. Malthus[244] declares that 'an increase of
+population when it follows in its natural order is both a great
+positive good in itself, and absolutely necessary' to an increase of
+wealth. This natural order falls in, as he observes, with the view to
+which Mirabeau had been converted, that 'revenue was the source of
+population,' and not population of revenue.[245] Malthus holds
+specifically that, 'in the course of some centuries,' the population
+of England might be doubled or trebled, and yet every man be 'much
+better fed and clothed than he is at present.'[246] He parts company
+with Paley, who had considered the ideal state to be 'that of a
+laborious frugal people ministering to the demands of an opulent
+luxurious nation.'[247] That, says Malthus, is 'not an inviting
+prospect.' Nothing but a conviction of absolute necessity could
+reconcile us to the 'thought of ten millions of people condemned to
+incessant toil, and to the privation of everything but absolute
+necessaries, in order to minister to the excessive luxuries of the
+other million.' But he denies that any such necessity exists. He
+wishes precisely to see luxury spread among the poorer classes. A
+desire for such luxury is the best of all checks to population, and
+one of the best means of raising the standard. It would, in fact,
+contribute to his 'moral restraint.' So, too, he heartily condemns
+the hypocrisy of the rich, who professed a benevolent desire to
+better the poor, and yet complained of high wages.[248] If, he says
+elsewhere,[249] a country can 'only be rich by running a successful
+race for low wages, I should be disposed to say, Perish such riches!'
+No one, in fact, could see more distinctly than Malthus the
+demoralising influence of poverty, and the surpassing importance of
+raising the people from the terrible gulf of pauperism. He refers to
+Colquhoun's account of the twenty thousand people who rose every
+morning in London without knowing how they were to be supported; and
+observes that 'when indigence does not produce overt acts of vice, it
+palsies every virtue.'[250] The temptations to which the poor man is
+exposed, and the sense of injustice due to an ignorance of the true
+cause of misery, tend to 'sour the disposition, to harden the heart,
+and deaden the moral sense.' Unfortunately, the means which have been
+adopted to lessen the evil have tended to increase it. In the first
+place, there was the master-evil of the poor-laws. Malthus points out
+the demoralising effects of these laws in chapters full of admirable
+common sense, which he was unfortunately able to enforce by fresh
+illustrations in successive editions. He attends simply to the
+stimulus to population. He thinks that if the laws had never existed,
+the poor would now have been much better off.[251] If the laws had
+been fully carried out, every labourer might have been certain that
+all his children would be supported, or, in other words, every check
+to population would have been removed.[252] Happily, the becoming
+pride of the English peasantry was not quite extinct; and the poor-law
+had to some extent counteracted itself, or taken away with one hand
+what it gave with the other, by placing the burthen upon the
+parishes.[253] Thus landlords have been more disposed to pull down
+than to build cottages, and marriage has been checked. On the whole,
+however, Malthus could see in the poor-laws nothing but a vast agency
+for demoralising the poor, tempered by a system of petty tyrannical
+interference. He proposes, therefore, that the poor-law should be
+abolished. Notice should be given that no children born after a
+certain day should be entitled to parish help; and, as he quaintly
+suggests, the clergyman might explain to every couple, after
+publishing the banns, the immorality of reckless marriage, and the
+reasons for abolishing a system which had been proved to frustrate the
+intentions of the founders.[254] Private charity, he thinks, would
+meet the distress which might afterwards arise, though humanity
+imperiously requires that it should be 'sparingly administered.' Upon
+this duty he writes a sensible chapter.[255] To his negative proposals
+Malthus adds a few of the positive kind. He is strongly in favour of a
+national system of education, and speaks with contempt of the
+'illiberal and feeble' arguments opposed to it. The schools, he
+observes, might confer 'an almost incalculable benefit' upon society,
+if they taught 'a few of the simplest principles of political
+economy.'[256] He had been disheartened by the prejudices of the
+ignorant labourer, and felt the incompatibility of a free government
+with such ignorance. A real education, such as was given in Scotland,
+would make the poor not, as alarmists had suggested, more inflammable,
+but better able to detect the sophistry of demagogues.[257] He is, of
+course, in favour of savings banks,[258] and approves friendly
+societies, though he is strongly opposed to making them compulsory, as
+they would then be the poor-law in a new form.[259] The value of every
+improvement turns upon its effect in encouraging the 'moral
+restraint.' Malthus's ultimate criterion is always, Will the measure
+make people averse to premature marriage? He reaches the apparently
+inconsistent result that it might be desirable to make an allowance
+for every child beyond six.[260] But this is on the hypothesis that
+the 'moral restraint' has come to be so habitual that no man marries
+until he has a fair prospect of maintaining a family of six. If this
+were the practical code, the allowance in cases where the expectation
+was disappointed would not act as an encouragement to marriage, but as
+a relief under a burthen which could not have been anticipated. Thus
+all Malthus's teaching may be said to converge upon this practical
+point. Add to the Ten Commandments the new law, 'Thou shalt not marry
+until there is a fair prospect of supporting six children.' Then
+population will increase, but sufficient means for subsistence will
+always be provided beforehand. We shall make sure that there is a
+provision for additional numbers before, not after, we add to our
+numbers. Food first and population afterwards gives the rule; thus we
+achieve the good end without the incidental evils.
+
+Malthus's views of the appropriate remedy for social evils
+undoubtedly show an imperfect appreciation of the great problems
+involved. Reckless propagation is an evil; but Malthus regards it as
+an evil which can be isolated and suppressed by simply adding a new
+article to the moral code. He is dealing with a central problem of
+human nature and social order. Any modification of the sexual
+instincts or of the constitution of the family involves a profound
+modification of the whole social order and of the dominant religious
+and moral creeds. Malthus tacitly assumes that conduct is determined
+by the play of two instincts, unalterable in themselves, but capable
+of modification in their results by a more extensive view of
+consequences. To change men's ruling motives in regard to the most
+important part of their lives is to alter their whole aims and
+conceptions of the world, and of happiness in every other relation. It
+supposes, therefore, not a mere addition of knowledge, but a
+transformation of character and an altered view of all the theories
+which have been embodied in religious and ethical philosophy. He
+overlooks, too, considerations which would be essential to a complete
+statement. A population which is too prudent may suffer itself to be
+crowded out by more prolific races in the general struggle for
+existence; and cases may be suggested such as that of the American
+colonies, in which an increase of numbers might be actually an
+advantage by facilitating a more efficient organisation of labour.
+
+The absence of a distinct appreciation of such difficulties gives to
+his speculation that one-sided character which alienated his more
+sentimental contemporaries. It was natural enough in a man who was
+constantly confronted by the terrible development of pauperism in
+England, and was too much tempted to assume that the tendency to
+reckless propagation was not only a very grave evil, but the ultimate
+source of every evil. The doctrine taken up in this unqualified
+fashion by some of his disciples, and preached by them with the utmost
+fervour as the one secret of prosperity, shocked both the conservative
+and orthodox whose prejudices were trampled upon, and such Radicals as
+inherited Godwin's or Condorcet's theory of perfectibility. Harsh and
+one-sided as it might be, however, we may still hold that it was of
+value, not only in regard to the most pressing difficulty of the day,
+but also as calling attention to a vitally important condition of
+social welfare. The question, however, recurs whether, when the
+doctrine is so qualified as to be admissible, it does not also become
+a mere truism.
+
+An answer to this question should begin by recognising one specific
+resemblance between his speculations and Darwin's. Facts, which appear
+from an older point of view to be proofs of a miraculous
+interposition, become with Malthus, as with Darwin, the normal results
+of admitted conditions. Godwin had admitted that there was some
+'principle which kept population on a level with subsistence.' 'The
+sole question is,' says Malthus,[261] 'what is this principle? Is it
+some obscure and occult cause? a mysterious interference of heaven,'
+inflicting barrenness at certain periods? or 'a cause open to our
+researches and within our view?' Other writers had had recourse to the
+miraculous. One of Malthus's early authorities was Süssmilch, who had
+published his _Göttliche Ordnung_ in 1761, to show how Providence had
+taken care that the trees should not grow into the sky. The
+antediluvians had been made long-lived in order that they might have
+large families and people an empty earth, while life was divinely
+shortened as the world filled up. Süssmilch, however, regarded
+population as still in need of stimulus. Kings might help Providence.
+A new Trajan would deserve to be called the father of his people, if
+he increased the marriage-rate. Malthus replies that the statistics
+which the worthy man himself produced showed conclusively that the
+marriages depended upon the deaths. The births fill up the vacancies,
+and the prince who increased the population before vacancies arose
+would simply increase the rate of mortality.[262] If you want to
+increase your birth-rate without absolutely producing famine, as he
+remarks afterwards,[263] make your towns unhealthy, and encourage
+settlement by marshes. You might thus double the mortality, and we
+might all marry prematurely without being absolutely starved. His own
+aim is not to secure the greatest number of births, but to be sure
+that the greatest number of those born may be supported.[264] The
+ingenious M. Muret, again, had found a Swiss parish in which the mean
+life was the highest and the fecundity smallest known. He piously
+conjectures that it may be a law of God that 'the force of life in
+each country should be in the inverse ratio of its fecundity.' He
+needs not betake himself to a miracle, says Malthus.[265] The case is
+simply that in a small and healthy village, where people had become
+aware of the importance of the 'preventive check,' the young people
+put off marriage till there was room for them, and consequently both
+lowered the birth-rate and raised the average duration of life.
+
+Nothing, says Malthus very forcibly, has caused more errors than the
+confusion between 'relative and positive, and between cause and
+effect.'[266] He is here answering the argument that because the poor
+who had cows were the most industrious, the way to make them
+industrious was to give them cows. Malthus thinks it more probable
+that industry got the cow than that the cow produced industry. This is
+a trifling instance of a very general truth. People had been content
+to notice the deaths caused by war and disease, and to infer at once
+that what caused death must diminish population. Malthus shows the
+necessity of observing other collateral results. The gap may be made
+so great as to diminish population; but it may be compensated by a
+more rapid reproduction; or, the rapidity of reproduction may itself
+be the cause of the disease; so that to remove one kind of mortality
+may be on some occasion to introduce others. The stream is dammed on
+one breach to flow more strongly through other outlets.[267]
+
+This is, I conceive, to say simply that Malthus was introducing a
+really scientific method. The facts taken in the true order became at
+once intelligible instead of suggesting mysterious and irregular
+interferences. Earlier writers had been content to single out one
+particular set of phenomena without attending to its place in the more
+general and complex processes, of which they formed an integral part.
+Infanticide, as Hume had pointed out, might tend to increase
+population.[268] In prospect, it might encourage people to have
+babies; and when babies came, natural affection might prevent the
+actual carrying out of the intention. To judge of the actual effect,
+we have to consider the whole of the concrete case. It may be carried
+out, as apparently in the South Sea Islands, so generally as to limit
+population; or it may be, as in China, an indication that the pressure
+is so great that a number of infants become superfluous. Its
+suppression might, in the one case, lead to an increase of the
+population; in the other, to the increase of other forms of mortality.
+Malthus's investigations illustrate the necessity of referring every
+particular process to its place in the whole system, of noting how any
+given change might set up a set of actions and reactions in virtue of
+the general elasticity of population, and thus of constantly referring
+at every step to the general conditions of human life. He succeeded in
+making many points clear, and of showing how hastily many inferences
+had been drawn. He explained, for example, why the revolutionary wars
+had not diminished the population of France, in spite of the great
+number of deaths,[269] and thus gave an example of a sound method of
+inquiry which has exercised a great influence upon later observers.
+Malthus was constantly misunderstood and misrepresented, and his
+opponents often allege as fatal objections to his doctrine the very
+facts by which it was really supported. But we may, I think, say, that
+since his writing no serious economical writer has adopted the old
+hasty guesses, or has ventured to propose a theory without regard to
+the principles of which he first brought out the full significance.
+
+
+V. POLITICAL APPLICATION
+
+This I take to indicate one real and permanent value of Malthus's
+writings. He introduced a new method of approaching the great social
+problems. The value of the method may remain, however inaccurate may
+be the assumptions of facts. The 'tendency,' if interpreted to mean
+that people are always multiplying too rapidly, may be a figment. If
+it is taken as calling attention to one essential factor in the case,
+it is a most important guide to investigation. This brings out another
+vital point. The bearing of the doctrine upon the political as well as
+upon the economical views of the Utilitarians is of conspicuous
+importance. Malthus's starting-point, as we have seen, was the
+opposition to the doctrine of 'perfectibility.' Hard facts, which
+Godwin and Condorcet had neglected, were fatal to their dreams. You
+have, urged Malthus, neglected certain undeniable truths as to the
+unalterable qualities of human nature, and, therefore, your theories
+will not work. The revolutionists had opposed an ideal 'state of
+nature' to the actual arrangements of society. They imagined that the
+'state of nature' represented the desirable consummation, and that the
+constitution of the 'natural' order could be determined from certain
+abstract principles. The equality of man, and the absolute rights
+which could be inferred by a kind of mathematical process, supplied
+the necessary dogmatic basis. The antithesis to the state of nature
+was the artificial state, marked by inequality, and manifesting its
+spirit by luxury. Kings, priests, and nobles had somehow established
+this unnatural order; and to sweep them away summarily was the way of
+bringing the natural order into full activity. The ideal system was
+already potentially in existence, and would become actual when men's
+minds were once cleared from superstition, and the political made to
+correspond to the natural rights of man. To this Malthus had replied,
+as we have seen, that social inequality was not a mere arbitrary
+product of fraud and force, but an expedient necessary to restrain the
+primitive instincts of mankind. He thus coincides with Bentham's
+preference of 'security' to 'equality,' and illustrates the real
+significance of that doctrine. Property and marriage, though they
+involve inequality, were institutions of essential importance. Godwin
+had pushed his theories to absolute anarchy; to the destruction of all
+law, for law in general represented coercion or an interference with
+the state of nature. Malthus virtually asserted that the metaphysical
+doctrine was inapplicable because, men being what they are, these
+conclusions were incompatible with even the first stages of social
+progress. This means, again, that for the metaphysical method Malthus
+is substituting a scientific method. Instead of regarding all
+government as a kind of mysterious intervention from without, which
+has somehow introduced a fatal discord into the natural order, he
+inquires what are the facts; how law has been evolved; and for what
+reason. His answer is, in brief, that law, order, and inequality have
+been absolutely necessary in order to limit tendencies which would
+otherwise keep men in a state of hopeless poverty and depression.
+
+This gives the 'differentia' of the Utilitarian considered as one
+species of the genus 'Radical.' Malthus's criticism of Paine is
+significant.[270] He agrees with Paine that the cause of popular
+risings is 'want of happiness.' But Paine, he remarks, was 'in many
+important points totally ignorant of the structure of society'; and
+has fallen into the error of attributing all want of happiness to
+government. Consequently, Paine advocates a plan for distributing
+taxes among the poorest classes, which would aggravate the evils a
+hundredfold. He fully admits with Paine that man has rights. The true
+line of answer would be to show what those rights are. To give this
+answer is not Malthus's present business; but there is one right, at
+any rate, which a man does not and cannot possess: namely, the 'right
+to subsistence when his labour will not fairly purchase it.' He does
+not possess it because he cannot possess it; to try to secure it is to
+try to 'reverse the laws of nature,' and therefore to produce cruel
+suffering by practising an 'inhuman deceit.' The Abbé Raynal had said
+that a man had a right to subsist 'before all social laws.' Man had
+the same right, replied Malthus, as he had to live a hundred or a
+thousand years. He may live, _if he can_ without interfering with
+others. Social laws have, in fact, enlarged the power of subsistence;
+but neither before nor after their institution could an unlimited
+number subsist. Briefly, the question of fact comes before the
+question of right, and the fault of the revolutionary theorists was to
+settle the right without reference to the possibility of making the
+right correspond to the fact.
+
+Hence Malthus draws his most emphatic political moral. The admission
+that all evil is due to government is the way to tyranny. Make men
+believe that government is the one cause of misery, and they will
+inevitably throw the whole responsibility upon their rulers; seek for
+redress by cures which aggravate the disease; and strengthen the hands
+of those who prefer even despotism to anarchy. This, he intimates, is
+the explanation of the repressive measures in which the
+country-gentlemen had supported Pitt. The people had fancied that by
+destroying government they would make bread cheap; government was
+forced to be tyrannical in order to resist revolution; while its
+supporters were led to 'give up some of the most valuable privileges
+of Englishmen.'[271] It is then of vital importance to settle what is
+and what is not to be set down to government. Malthus, in fact, holds
+that the real evils are due to underlying causes which cannot be
+directly removed, though they may be diminished or increased, by
+legislators. Government can do something by giving security to
+property, and by making laws which will raise the self-respect of the
+lower classes. But the effect of such laws must be slow and gradual;
+and the error which has most contributed to that delay in the progress
+of freedom, which is 'so disheartening to every liberal mind,'[272] is
+the confusion as to the true causes of misery. Thus, as he has already
+urged, professed economists could still believe, so long after the
+publication of Adam Smith's work, that it was 'in the power of the
+justices of the peace or even of the omnipotence of parliament to
+alter by a _fiat_ the whole circumstances of the country.'[273] Yet
+men who saw the absurdity of trying to fix the price of provisions
+were ready to propose to fix the rate of wages. They did not see that
+one term of the proportion implied the other. Malthus's whole
+criticism of the poor-law, already noticed, is a commentary upon this
+text. It is connected with a general theory of human nature. The
+author of nature, he says, has wisely made 'the passion of self-love
+beyond expression stronger than the passion of benevolence.'[274] He
+means, as he explains, that every man has to pursue his own welfare
+and that of his family as his primary object. Benevolence, of course,
+is the 'source of our purest and most refined pleasures,' and so
+forth; but it should come in as a supplement to self-love. Therefore
+we must never admit that men have a strict right to relief. That is to
+injure the very essential social force. 'Hard as it may seem in
+individual instances, dependent poverty ought to be held
+disgraceful.'[275] The spirit of independence or self-help is the one
+thing necessary. 'The desire of bettering our condition and the fear
+of making it worse, like the _vis medicatrix_ in physics, is the _vis
+medicatrix naturae_ in politics, and is continually counteracting the
+disorders arising from narrow human institutions.'[276] It is only
+because the poor-laws have not quite destroyed it, that they have not
+quite ruined the country. The pith of Malthus's teaching is fairly
+expressed in his last letter to Senior.[277] He holds that the
+improvement in the condition of the great mass of the labouring
+classes should be considered as the main interest of society. To
+improve their condition, it is essential to impress them with the
+conviction that they can do much more for themselves than others can
+do for them, and that the _only_ source of permanent improvement is
+the improvement of their moral and religious habits. What government
+can do, therefore, is to maintain such institutions as may strengthen
+the _vis medicatrix_, or 'desire to better our condition,' which
+poor-laws had directly tended to weaken. He maintains in his letter to
+Senior, that this desire is 'perfectly feeble' compared with the
+tendency of the population to increase, and operates in a very slight
+degree upon the great mass of the labouring class.[278] Still, he
+holds that on the whole the 'preventive checks' have become stronger
+relatively to the positive,[279] and, at any rate, all proposals must
+be judged by their tendency to strengthen the preventive.
+
+Malthus was not a thoroughgoing supporter of the 'do-nothing'
+doctrine. He approved of a national system of education, and of the
+early factory acts, though only as applied to infant labour. So, as we
+shall see, did all the Utilitarians. The 'individualism,' however, is
+not less decided; and leads him to speak as though the elasticity of
+population were not merely an essential factor in the social problem,
+but the sole principle from which all solutions must be deduced. He is
+thus led, as I have tried to show, to a narrow interpretation of his
+'moral check.' He is apt to take 'vice' simply as a product of
+excessive pressure, and, in his general phrases at least, to overlook
+its reciprocal tendency to cause pressure. The 'moral check' is only
+preventive or negative, not a positive cause of superior vigour. A
+similar defect appears in his theory of the _vis medicatrix_. He was,
+I hold, perfectly right in emphasising the importance of individual
+responsibility. No reform can be permanent which does not raise the
+morality of the individual. His insistence upon this truth was of the
+highest importance, and it is to be wished that its importance might
+be more fully recognised to-day. The one-sidedness appears in his
+proposal to abolish the poor-law simply. That became the most
+conspicuous and widely accepted doctrine. All men of 'sense,' said
+Sydney Smith--certainly a qualified representative of the class--in
+1820, agree, first, that the poor-law must be abolished; and secondly,
+that it must be abolished very gradually.[280] That is really to
+assume that by refusing to help people at all, you will force them to
+help themselves. There is another alternative, namely, that they may,
+as Malthus himself often recognises, become demoralised by excessive
+poverty. To do simply nothing may lead to degeneration instead of
+increased energy. The possibility of an improved law, which might act
+as a moral discipline instead of a simply corrupting agency, is simply
+left out of account; and the tendency to stimulate reckless population
+is regarded not only as one probable consequence, but as the very
+essence of all poor-laws. Upon Malthus's assumptions, the statement
+that sound political and social theories must be based upon systematic
+inquiry into facts, meant that the individual was the ultimate
+unalterable unit, whose interest in his own welfare gave the one
+fulcrum for all possible changes. The ideal 'state of nature' was a
+fiction. The true basis of our inquiries is the actual man known to us
+by observation. The main fault of this being was the excess of the
+instinct of multiplication, and the way to improve him was to show how
+it might conflict with the instinct of self-preservation. In this
+shape the doctrine expressed the most characteristic tendency of the
+Utilitarians, and divided them from the Socialists or believers in
+abstract rights of man.
+
+
+VI. RENT
+
+Here, then, we are at a central point of the Utilitarian creed. The
+expansive force of population is, in a sense, the great motive power
+which moulds the whole social structure; or, rather, it forces
+together the independent units, and welds them into an aggregate. The
+influence of this doctrine upon other economical speculations is of
+the highest importance. One critical stage in the process is marked by
+the enunciation of the theory of rent, which was to become another
+essential article of the true faith. The introduction of this doctrine
+is characteristic, and marks the point at which Ricardo superseded
+Malthus as chief expositor of the doctrine.
+
+Malthus's views were first fully given in his _Inquiry into Rent_, the
+second of three pamphlets which he published during the corn-law
+controversy of 1814-15.[281] The opinions now stated had, he says,
+been formed in the course of his lecturing at Haileybury; and he made
+them public on account of their bearing upon the most absorbing
+questions of the time. The connection of the theory with Malthus's
+speculations and with the contemporary difficulties is indeed obvious.
+The landlord had clearly one of the reserved seats at the banquet of
+nature. He was the most obvious embodiment of 'security' as opposed to
+equality. Malthus, again, had been influenced by the French economists
+and their theory of the 'surplus fund,' provided by agriculture.
+According to them, as he says,[282] this fund or rent constitutes the
+whole national wealth. In his first edition he had defended the
+economists against some of Adam Smith's criticisms; and though he
+altered his views and thought that they had been led into preposterous
+errors, he retained a certain sympathy for them. Agriculture has still
+a certain 'pre-eminence.' God has bestowed upon the soil the
+'inestimable quality of being able to maintain more persons than are
+necessary to work it.'[283] It has the special virtue that the supply
+of necessaries generates the demand. Make more luxuries and the price
+may fall; but grow more food and there will be more people to eat it.
+This, however, seems to be only another way of stating an unpleasant
+fact. The blessing of 'fertility' counteracts itself. As he argues in
+the essay,[284] an equal division of land might produce such an
+increase of population as would exhaust any conceivable increase of
+food. These views--not, I think, very clear or consistently worked
+out--lead apparently to the conclusion that the fertility is indeed a
+blessing, but on condition of being confined to a few. The result, in
+any case, is the orthodox theory of rent. The labourer gets less than
+he would if the products of the soil were equally distributed. Both
+wages and profits must fall as more is left to rent, and that this
+actually happens, he says, with unusual positiveness, is an
+'incontrovertible truth.'[285] The fall enables the less fertile land
+to be cultivated, and gives an excess of produce on the more fertile.
+'This excess is rent.'[286] He proceeds to expound his doctrine by
+comparing land to a set of machines for making corn.[287] If, in
+manufacture, a new machine is introduced every one adopts it. In
+agriculture the worst machines have still to be used; and those who
+have the best and sell at the same price, can appropriate the surplus
+advantage. This, he declares, is a law 'as invariable as the action of
+the principle of gravity.'[288] Yet Smith and others have overlooked a
+'principle of the highest importance'[289] and have failed to see that
+the price of corn, as of other things, must conform to the cost of
+production. The same doctrine was expounded in the same year by Sir
+Edward West;[290] and, as it seems to me, more clearly and simply.
+West, like Malthus, says that he has to announce a principle
+overlooked by Adam Smith. This is briefly that 'each equal additional
+quantity of work bestowed on agriculture yields an actually diminished
+return.' He holds that profits fall as wealth increases, but he denies
+Adam Smith's view that this is a simple result of increased
+competition.[291] Competition would equalise, but would not lower
+profits, for 'the productive powers of manufactures are constantly
+increasing.' In agriculture the law is the opposite one of diminishing
+returns. Hence the admitted fall of profits shows that the necessity
+of taking inferior soils into cultivation is the true cause of the
+fall.
+
+Such coincidences as that between Malthus and West are common enough,
+for very obvious reasons. In this case, I think, there is less room
+for surprise than usual. The writer generally credited with the
+discovery of the rent doctrine is James Anderson, who had stated it
+as early as 1777.[292] The statement, however, did not attract
+attention until at the time of West and Malthus it was forced upon
+observers by the most conspicuous facts of the day. Adam Smith and
+other economists had, as Malthus notices, observed what is obvious
+enough, that rent in some way represented a 'net produce'--a something
+which remained after paying the costs of production. So much was
+obvious to any common-sense observer. In a curious paper of December
+1804,[293] Cobbett points out that the landlords will always keep the
+profits of farmers down to the average rate of equally agreeable
+businesses. This granted, it is a short though important step to the
+theory of rent. The English system had, in fact, spontaneously
+analysed the problem. The landlord, farmer, and labourer represented
+the three interests which might elsewhere be combined. Prices raised
+by war and famine had led to the enclosure of wastes and the breaking
+up of pastures. The 'margin of cultivation' was thus illustrated by
+facts. Farmers were complaining that they could not make a profit if
+prices were lowered. The landed classes were profiting by a rise of
+price raised, according to a familiar law, in greater proportion than
+the deficiency of the harvest. Facts of this kind were, one must
+suppose, familiar to every land-agent; and to discover the law of
+rent, it was only necessary for Malthus and West to put them in their
+natural order. The egg had only to be put on its end, though that, as
+we know, is often a difficult task. When the feat was accomplished
+consequences followed which were fully developed by Ricardo.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[203] Mr. James Bonar's _Malthus and his Work_ (1885) gives an
+admirable account of Malthus. The chief original authorities are a
+life by Bishop Otter, prefixed to a second edition of the _Political
+Economy_ (1831), and an article by Empson, Malthus's colleague, in the
+_Edinburgh Review_ for January 1837.
+
+[204] _Political Justice_ (3rd edition, 1798), ii. bk. viii. chap.
+ix., p. 514.
+
+[205] Wallace wrote in answer to Hume, _A Dissertation on the Numbers
+of Mankind in Ancient and Modern Times_ (1753), and _Various Prospects
+of Mankind_, and _Nature and Providence_ (1761). Godwin refers to the
+last.
+
+[206] _Political Justice_, ii. 520.
+
+[207] _Ibid._ ii. 528.
+
+[208] First published in 1795, after the first edition, as Godwin
+remarks, of the _Political Justice_.
+
+[209] _Ami des hommes_ (reprint of 1883), p. 15.
+
+[210] _Ami des hommes_, p. 26.
+
+[211] See the curious debate in _Parl. Hist._ xiv. 1318-1365.
+
+[212] The seventh edition of Price's _Observations on Reversionary
+Payments_, etc. (1812), contains a correspondence with Pitt (i. 216,
+etc.). The editor, W. Morgan, accuses Pitt of adopting Price's plans
+without due acknowledgment and afterwards spoiling them.
+
+[213] _Essay on Population_, p. 18. In _Observations_, ii. 141, he
+estimates the diminution at a million and a half. Other books
+referring to the same controversy are Howlett's _Examination of Dr.
+Price's Essay_ (1781); _Letter to Lord Carlisle_, by William Eden
+(1744-1814), first Lord Auckland; William Wales's _Enquiry into
+Present State of Population_, etc. (1781); and Geo. Chalmers's
+_Estimate of the Comparative Strength of Great Britain_ (1782 and
+several later editions).
+
+[214] _Essay_ (first edition), p. 339.
+
+[215] _Memoirs_, etc. (1819), ii. 10.
+
+[216] So Sir James Stewart, whose light was extinguished by Adam
+Smith, begins his _Enquiry into the Principles of Political Economy_
+(1767) by discussing the question of population, and compares the
+'generative faculty' to a spring loaded with a weight, and exerting
+itself in proportion to the diminution of resistance (_Works_, 1805,
+i. 22). He compares population to 'rabbits in a warren.' Joseph
+Townsend, in his _Journey Through Spain_ (1792), to whom Malthus
+refers, had discussed the supposed decay of the Spanish population,
+and illustrates his principles by a geometric progression: see ii.
+213-56, 386-91. Eden, in his book on the poor (i. 214), quotes a tract
+attributed to Sir Matthew Hale for the statement that the poor
+increase on 'geometrical progression.'
+
+[217] _Malthus and his Work_, p. 85.
+
+[218] Voltaire says in the _Dictionnaire Philosophique_ (art.
+'Population'): 'On ne propage point en Progression Géométrique. Tous
+les calculs qu'on a faits sur cette prétendue multiplication sont des
+chimères absurdes.' They had been used to reconcile the story of the
+deluge with the admitted population of the world soon afterwards.
+
+[219] _Essay_ (1826), ii 453 _n._ I cite from this, the last edition
+published in Malthus's lifetime, unless otherwise stated.
+
+[220] _Essay_, ii. 251 (bk. iii. ch. xiv.).
+
+[221] _Ibid._ (1798), p. 141.
+
+[222] _Essay_, ii. 449 (Appendix).
+
+[223] _Essay_, ii. 473 (Appendix).
+
+[224] _Ibid._ (Second Edition), p. 400. The passage is given in full
+in _Malthus and his Work_, p. 307.
+
+[225] _Essay_, i. 469 (bk. ii. ch. x.). Eden had made the same remark.
+
+[226] _Ibid._ ii. 229 (bk. iii. ch. xiv.).
+
+[227] Correspondence in Senior's _Three Essays on Population_ (1829).
+
+[228] _Essay_, i. 234 (bk. i. ch. ii.).
+
+[229] Mr. Bonar thinks (_Malthus and his Work_, p. 324) that Malthus
+followed Paley's predecessor, Abraham Tucker, rather than Paley. The
+difference is not for my purpose important. In any case, Malthus's
+references are to Paley.
+
+[230] _Essay_, ii. 266 (bk. iv. ch. i.).
+
+[231] _Essay_ (first edition), p. 212.
+
+[232] _Ibid._ i. 16 _n._ (bk. i. ch. ii.).
+
+[233] See _e.g._ his remarks upon Condorcet in _Essay_, ii. 8 (bk.
+iii. ch. i.); and Owen in _Ibid._ ii. 48 (bk. iii ch. ii.).
+
+[234] _Essay_, i. 15 _n._ (bk. i. ch. ii.); and see _Ibid._ (edit. of
+1807) ii. 128.
+
+[235] _Ibid._ (1807) ii. 128.
+
+[236] _Ibid._ (1807) ii. 3 (bk. ii. ch. ii.). (Omitted in later
+editions.)
+
+[237] Mr. A. R. Wallace, Darwin's fellow-discoverer of the doctrine,
+also learned it from Malthus. See Clodd's _Pioneers of Evolution_.
+Malthus uses the phrase 'struggle for existence' in relation to a
+fight between two savage tribes in the first edition of his _Essay_,
+p. 48. In replying to Condorcet, Malthus speaks (_Essay_, ii. 12, bk.
+iii. ch. i.) of the possible improvement of living organisms. He
+argues that, though a plant may be improved, it cannot be indefinitely
+improved by cultivation. A carnation could not be made as large as a
+tulip. It has been said that this implies a condemnation by
+anticipation of theories of the development of species. This is hardly
+correct. Malthus simply urges against Condorcet that our inability to
+fix limits precisely does not imply that there are no limits. This, it
+would seem, must be admitted on all hands. Evolution implies definite
+though not precisely definable limits. Life may be lengthened, but not
+made immortal.
+
+[238] _Essay_ (first edition), 353.
+
+[239] _Ibid._ 42 _n._ (bk. iii. ch. iii.)
+
+[240] _Essay_, ii. 301-36 (bk. iv. ch. i. and ii.). Sumner's _Treatise
+on the Records of the Creation, and on the Moral Attributes of the
+Creator: with Particular Reference to the Jewish History and the
+Consistency of the Principle of Population with the Wisdom and
+Goodness of the Creator_ (1815), had gained the second Burnett prize.
+It went through many editions; and shows how Cuvier confirms Genesis,
+and Malthus proves that the world was intended to involve a
+competition favourable to the industrious and sober. Sumner's view of
+Malthus is given in Part ii., chaps, v. and vi. In previous chapters
+he has supported Malthus's attack on Godwin and Condorcet.
+
+[241] _Essay_, ii. 266 (bk. iv. ch. i.).
+
+[242] _Essay_, ii 268 (bk. iv. ch. i.).
+
+[243] _Ibid._ (bk. iv. ch. ii.).
+
+[244] _Essay_, 241 (bk. iii. ch. iv.).
+
+[245] _Ibid._ ii. 241 (bk. iii. ch. xiv.).
+
+[246] _Ibid._ ii. 293 (bk. iv. ch. iv.).
+
+[247] _Ibid._ ii. 425 (bk. iv. ch. xiii.). Malthus expresses a hope
+that Paley had modified his views upon population, and refers to a
+passage in the _Natural Theology_.
+
+[248] _Essay_, ii. 292 (bk. iv. ch. iv.).
+
+[249] _Political Economy_ (1836), p. 214.
+
+[250] _Essay_, ii. 298 (bk. iv. ch. iv.).
+
+[251] _Ibid._ ii. 86 (bk. iii. ch. vi.).
+
+[252] _Ibid._ ii. 87 (bk. iii. ch. vi.).
+
+[253] _Essay_, ii. 90 (bk. iii. ch. vi.).
+
+[254] _Ibid._ ii. 338 (bk. iv. ch. viii.).
+
+[255] _Ibid._ ii. (bk. iv. ch. x.).
+
+[256] _Ibid._ ii. 353 (bk. iv. ch. ix.).
+
+[257] _Essay_, ii. 356 (bk. iv. ch. ix.).
+
+[258] _Ibid._ ii. 407 (bk. iv. ch. xii.).
+
+[259] _Ibid._ ii. 375 (bk. iv. ch. xi.).
+
+[260] _Ibid._ ii. 429 (bk. iv. ch. xiii.).
+
+[261] _Essay of 1807_ (bk. iii. ch. ii., and vol. ii. p. 111). The
+phrases quoted are toned down in later editions.
+
+[262] _Essay_, i. 330 (bk. ii. ch. iv.).
+
+[263] _Ibid._ ii. 300 (bk. iv. ch. v.).
+
+[264] _Ibid._ ii. 405 (bk. iv. ch. xiii.).
+
+[265] _Ibid._ i. 343 (bk. ii. ch. v.).
+
+[266] _Essay_, ii. 424 (bk. iv. ch. xiii.).
+
+[267] _Ibid._ ii. 304 (bk. iv. ch. v.).
+
+[268] _Essay_, i. 75 (bk. i. ch. v.).
+
+[269] _Ibid._ (bk. ii. ch. vi.).
+
+[270] _Essay_, ii. 318 (bk. iv. ch. vi.).
+
+[271] _Essay_, ii. 315 (bk. iv. ch. v.).
+
+[272] _Ibid._ ii. 326 (bk. iv. ch. vi.).
+
+[273] _Ibid._ ii. 78 (bk. iii. ch. v.).
+
+[274] _Essay_, ii. 454 (Appendix).
+
+[275] _Ibid._ ii. 82 (bk. iii. ch. vi.).
+
+[276] _Ibid._ ii. 90 (bk. iii. ch. vi.).
+
+[277] Senior's _Three Lectures_, p. 86.
+
+[278] Senior's _Three Lectures_, p. 60.
+
+[279] _Essay_, i. 534 (bk. ii. ch. xiii.).
+
+[280] Smith's _Works_ (1859), i. 295.
+
+[281] _Observations on the Effects of the Corn-laws, 1814; Inquiry
+into the Nature and Progress of Rent, 1815_; and _The Grounds of an
+Opinion on the Policy of restricting the Importation of Foreign Corn_,
+intended as an appendix to the _Observations on the Corn-laws_, 1815.
+
+[282] _Inquiry into Rent_, p. 1.
+
+[283] _Ibid._ p. 16.
+
+[284] _Essay_, ii. 35 (bk. iii. ch. ii.).
+
+[285] _Inquiry into Rent_, p. 20.
+
+[286] _Ibid._ p. 18.
+
+[287] _Ibid._ p. 38.
+
+[288] _Inquiry into Rent_, p. 20.
+
+[289] _Ibid._ p. 37.
+
+[290] _Essay on the Application of Capital to Land, by a Fellow of
+University College, Oxford, 1815._
+
+[291] _Essay_, p. 19.
+
+[292] _In An Inquiry into the Nature of the Corn-laws_, and again
+(1801) in _Observations on Agriculture_, etc., vol. v. 401-51.
+
+[293] _Political Works_, i. 485, etc. In this paper, I may add,
+Cobbett, not yet a Radical, accepts Malthus's view of the tendency of
+the human species to multiply more quickly than its support. He does
+not mention Malthus, but speaks of the belief as universally admitted,
+and afterwards illustrates it amusingly by saying that, in his
+ploughboy days, he used to wonder that there was always just enough
+hay for the horses and enough horses for the hay.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+RICARDO
+
+
+I. RICARDO'S STARTING-POINT
+
+David Ricardo,[294] born 19th April 1772, was the son of a Dutch Jew
+who had settled in England, and made money upon the Stock Exchange.
+Ricardo had a desultory education, and was employed in business from
+his boyhood. He abandoned his father's creed, and married an
+Englishwoman soon after reaching his majority. He set up for himself
+in business, and, at a time when financial transactions upon an
+unprecedented scale were giving great opportunities for speculators,
+he made a large fortune, and about 1814 bought an estate at Gatcombe
+Park, Gloucestershire. He withdrew soon afterwards from business, and
+in 1819 became member of parliament. His death on 11th September 1823
+cut short a political career from which his perhaps too sanguine
+friends anticipated great results. His influence in his own department
+of inquiry had been, meanwhile, of the greatest importance. He had
+shown in his youth some inclination for scientific pursuits; he
+established a laboratory, and became a member of scientific societies.
+The perusal of Adam Smith's _Wealth of Nations_ in 1799 gave him an
+interest in the application of scientific methods to the questions
+with which he was most conversant. Accepting Adam Smith as the leading
+authority, he proceeded to think out for himself certain doctrines,
+which appeared to him to have been insufficiently recognised by his
+teacher. The first result of his speculations was a pamphlet published
+in 1809 upon the depreciation of the currency. Upon that topic he
+spoke as an expert, and his main doctrines were accepted by the famous
+Bullion Committee. Ricardo thus became a recognised authority on one
+great set of problems of the highest immediate interest. Malthus's
+_Inquiry into Rent_ suggested another pamphlet; and in 1817,
+encouraged by the warm pressure of his friend, James Mill, he
+published his chief book, the _Principles of Political Economy and
+Taxation_. This became the economic Bible of the Utilitarians. The
+task of a commentator or interpreter is, for various reasons, a
+difficult one.
+
+There is a certain analogy between Ricardo and a very different
+writer, Bishop Butler. Each of them produced a great effect by a short
+treatise, and in each case the book owed very little to the ordinary
+literary graces. Ricardo's want of literary training, or his natural
+difficulty of utterance, made his style still worse than Butler's;
+but, like Butler, he commands our respect by his obvious sincerity and
+earnestness. He is content when he has so expressed his argument that
+it can be seized by an attentive reader. He is incapable of, or
+indifferent to, clear and orderly exposition of principles. The logic
+is there, if you will take the trouble to look for it. Perhaps we
+ought to be flattered by this tacit reliance upon our patience. 'You,'
+Ricardo, like Butler, seems to say to us, 'are anxious for truth: you
+do not care for ornament, and may be trusted to work out the full
+application of my principles.' In another respect the two are alike.
+Butler's argument has impressed many readers as a demolition of his
+own case. It provokes revolt instead of adhesion. Ricardo, an orthodox
+economist, laid down principles which were adopted by Socialists to
+upset his own assumptions. Such a God as you worship, said Butler's
+opponents, is an unjust being, and therefore worse than no God. Such a
+system as you describe, said Ricardo's opponents, is an embodiment of
+injustice, and therefore to be radically destroyed. Admitting the
+logic, the argument may be read as a _reductio ad absurdum_ in both
+cases.
+
+Ricardo has involved himself in certain special difficulties. In the
+first place, he presupposes familiarity with Adam Smith. The
+_Principles_ is a running comment upon some of Smith's theories, and
+no attempt is made to reduce them to systematic order. He starts by
+laying down propositions, the proof of which comes afterwards, and is
+then rather intimated than expressly given. He adopts the terminology
+which Smith had accepted from popular use,[295] and often applies it
+in a special significance, which is at least liable to be
+misunderstood by his readers, or forgotten by himself. It is
+difficult, again, to feel sure whether some of his statements are to
+be taken as positive assertions of fact, or merely as convenient
+assumptions for the purposes of his argument. Ricardo himself, as
+appears in his letters, was painfully aware of his own awkwardness of
+expression, and upon that point alone all his critics seem to be in
+tolerable agreement. Happily, it will be enough for my purpose if I
+can lay down his essential premises without following him to the
+remoter deductions.
+
+Ricardo's pamphlet upon Malthus (1815) gives a starting-point. Ricardo
+cordially adopts Malthus's theory of rent, but declares that it is
+fatal to some of Malthus's conclusions. Malthus, we have seen, wished
+to regard rent as in some sense a gift of Providence--a positive
+blessing due to the fertility of the soil. Ricardo maintains, on the
+contrary, that 'the interest of the landlord is necessarily opposed to
+the interest of every other class in the community.'[296] The landlord
+is prosperous when corn is scarce and dear; all other persons when it
+is plentiful and cheap. This follows upon Malthus's own showing. As
+men are forced to have recourse to inferior soils, the landlord
+obtains a larger share of the whole produce; and, moreover, since corn
+also becomes more valuable, will have a larger share of a more
+valuable product. The question apparently in dispute--whether we
+should be glad that some land is better than the worst, or sorry
+because all is not equal to the best--seems rather idle. The real
+question, however, is whether rent, being a blessing, should be kept
+up by protection,[297] or, being a curse, should be brought down by
+competition? What is the real working of the system? Set the trade
+free, says Ricardo, and the capital will be withdrawn from the poor
+land and employed upon manufactures, to be exchanged for the corn of
+other countries.[298] The change must correspond to a more
+advantageous distribution of capital, or it would not be adopted. The
+principle involved in this last proposition is, he adds, one of the
+'best established in the science of political economy, and by no one
+is more readily admitted than by Mr. Malthus.' To enforce protection
+would be, on Malthus's illustration, to compel us to use the 'worst
+machines, when, at a less expense, we could hire the very best from
+our neighbours.'[299] Briefly, then, the landlord's interest is
+opposed to the national interest, because it enforces a worse
+distribution of capital. He compels us to get corn from his worst
+land, instead of getting it indirectly, but in greater quantity, from
+our spinning-jennies.
+
+For Ricardo, as for Malthus, the ultimate driving force is the
+pressure of population. The mass of mankind is always struggling to
+obtain food, and is able to multiply so rapidly as to exhaust any
+conceivable increase of supplies. The landlord class alone profits.
+The greater the struggle for supply the greater will be the share of
+the whole produce which must be surrendered to it. Beyond this,
+however, lies the further problem which specially occupied Ricardo.
+How will the resulting strain affect the relations of the two
+remaining classes, the labourers and the capitalists? The ultimate
+evil of protection is the bad distribution of capital. But capital
+always acts by employing labour. The farmer's capital does not act by
+itself, but by enabling his men to work. Hence, to understand the
+working of the industrial machinery, we have to settle the relation of
+wages and profits. Ricardo states this emphatically in his preface.
+Rent, profit, and wages, he says, represent the three parts into which
+the whole produce of the earth is divided. 'To determine the laws
+which regulate this distribution is the principal problem in political
+economy'; and one, he adds, which has been left in obscurity by
+previous writers.[300] His investigations are especially directed by
+the purpose thus defined. He was the first writer who fairly brought
+under distinct consideration what he held, with reason, to be the most
+important branch of economical inquiry.
+
+There was clearly a gap in the economic doctrine represented by the
+_Wealth of Nations_. Adam Smith was primarily concerned with the
+theory of the 'market.' He assumes the existence of the social
+arrangement which is indicated by that phrase. The market implies a
+constitution of industrial agencies such that, within it, only one
+price is possible for a given commodity, or, rather, such that a
+difference of price cannot be permanent. According to the accepted
+illustration, the sea is not absolutely level, but it is always
+tending to a level.[301] A permanent elevation at one point is
+impossible. The agency by which this levelling or equilibrating
+process is carried out is competition, involving what Smith called the
+'higgling of the market.' The momentary fluctuation, again, supposes
+the action of 'supply and demand,' which, as they vary, raise and
+depress prices. To illustrate the working of this machinery, to show
+how previous writers had been content to notice a particular change
+without following out the collateral results, and had thus been led
+into fallacies such as that of the 'mercantile system,' was Smith's
+primary task.
+
+Beyond or beneath these questions lie difficulties, which Smith,
+though not blind to their existence, treated in a vacillating and
+inconsistent fashion. Variations of supply and demand cause
+fluctuations in the price; but what finally determines the point to
+which the fluctuating prices must gravitate? We follow the process by
+which one wave propagates another; but there is still the question,
+What ultimately fixes the normal level? Upon this point Ricardo could
+find no definite statement in his teacher. 'Supply and demand' was a
+sacred phrase which would always give a verbal answer, or indicate the
+immediate cause of variations on the surface. Beneath the surface
+there must be certain forces at work which settle why a quarter of
+corn 'gravitates' to a certain price; why the landlord can get just so
+many quarters of corn for the use of his fields; and why the produce,
+which is due jointly to the labourer and the farmer, is divided in a
+certain fixed proportion. To settle such points it is necessary to
+answer the problem of distribution, for the play of the industrial
+forces is directed by the constitution of the classes which co-operate
+in the result. Ricardo saw in Malthus's doctrines of rent and of
+population a new mode of approaching the problem. What was wanted, in
+the first place, was to systematise the logic adopted by his
+predecessors. Rent, it was clear, could not be both a cause and an
+effect of price, though at different points of his treatise Smith had
+apparently accepted each view of the relation. We must first settle
+which is cause and which effect; and then bring our whole system into
+the corresponding order. For the facts, Ricardo is content to trust
+mainly to others. The true title of his work should be that which his
+commentator, De Quincey, afterwards adopted, the _Logic of Political
+Economy_. This aim gives a partial explanation of the characteristic
+for which Ricardo is most generally criticised. He is accused of being
+abstract in the sense of neglecting facts. He does not deny the
+charge. 'If I am too theoretical (which I really believe to be the
+case) you,' he says to Malthus, 'I think, are too practical.'[302] If
+Malthus is more guided than Ricardo by a reference to facts, he has of
+course an advantage. But so far as Malthus or Adam Smith
+theorised--and, of course, their statement of facts involved a
+theory--they were at least bound to be consistent. It is one thing to
+recognise the existence of facts which your theory will not explain,
+and to admit that it therefore requires modification. It is quite
+another thing to explain each set of facts in turn by theories which
+contradict each other. That is not to be historical but to be
+muddleheaded. Malthus and Smith, as it seemed to Ricardo, had
+occasionally given explanations which, when set side by side,
+destroyed each other. He was therefore clearly justified in the
+attempt to exhibit these logical inconsistencies and to supply a
+theory which should be in harmony with itself. He was so far neither
+more nor less 'theoretical' than his predecessors, but simply more
+impressed by the necessity of having at least a consistent theory.
+
+There was never a time at which logic in such matters was more wanted,
+or its importance more completely disregarded. Rash and ignorant
+theorists were plunging into intricate problems and propounding
+abstract solutions. The enormous taxation made necessary by the war
+suggested at every point questions as to the true incidence of the
+taxes. Who really gained or suffered by the protection of corn? Were
+the landlords, the farmers, or the labourers directly interested?
+Could they shift the burthen upon other shoulders or not? What, again,
+it was of the highest importance to know, was the true 'incidence' of
+tithes, of a land-tax, of the poor-laws, of an income-tax, and of all
+the multitudinous indirect taxes from which the national income was
+derived? The most varying views were held and eagerly defended. Who
+really paid? That question interested everybody, and occupies a large
+part of Ricardo's book. The popular answers involved innumerable
+inconsistencies, and were supported by arguments which only required
+to be confronted in order to be confuted. Ricardo's aim was to
+substitute a clear and consistent theory for this tangle of perplexed
+sophistry. In that sense his aim was in the highest degree
+'practical,' although he left to others the detailed application of
+his doctrines to the actual facts of the day.
+
+
+II. THE DISTRIBUTION PROBLEM
+
+The rent doctrine gives one essential datum. A clear comprehension of
+rent is, as he was persuaded, 'of the utmost importance to political
+economy.'[303] The importance is that it enables him to separate one
+of the primary sources of revenue from the others. It is as though, in
+the familiar illustration, we were considering the conditions of
+equilibrium of a fluid; and we now see that one part may be considered
+as a mere overflow, resulting from (not determining) the other
+conditions. The primary assumption in the case of the market is the
+level of price. When we clearly distinguish rent on one side from
+profits and wages on the other, we see that we may also assume a level
+of profits. There cannot, as Ricardo constantly says, 'be two rates of
+profit,' that is, at the same time and in the same country. But so
+long as rent was lumped with other sources of revenue it was
+impossible to see, what Malthus and West had now made clear, that in
+agriculture, as in manufactures, the profits of the producer must
+conform to the principle. Given their theory, it follows that the
+power of land to yield a great revenue does not imply a varying rate
+of profit or a special bounty of nature bestowed upon agriculture. It
+means simply that, since the corn from the good and bad land sells at
+the same price, there is a surplus on the good. But as that surplus
+constitutes rent, the farmer's rate of profit will still be uniform.
+Thus we have got rid of one complication, and we are left with a
+comparatively simple issue. We have to consider the problem, What
+determines the distribution as between the capitalist and the
+labourer? That is the vital question for Ricardo.
+
+Ricardo's theory, in the first place, is a modification of Adam
+Smith's. He accepts Smith's statement that wages are determined by the
+'supply and demand of labourers,' and by the 'price of commodities on
+which their wages are expended.'[304] The appeal to 'supply and
+demand' implies that the rate of wages depends upon unchangeable
+economic conditions. He endorses[305] Malthus's statement about the
+absurdity of considering 'wages' as something which may be fixed by
+his Majesty's 'Justices of the Peace,' and infers with Malthus that
+wages should be left to find their 'natural level.' But what precisely
+is this 'natural level?' If the Justice of the Peace cannot fix the
+rate of wages, what does fix them? Supply and demand? What, then, is
+precisely meant in this case by the supply and demand? The 'supply' of
+labour, we may suppose, is fixed by the actual labouring population at
+a given time. The 'demand,' again, is in some way clearly related to
+'capital.' As Smith again had said,[306] the demand for labour
+increases with the 'increase of revenue and "stock," and cannot
+possibly increase without it.' Ricardo agrees that 'population
+regulates itself by the funds which are to employ it, and therefore
+always increases or diminishes with the increase or diminution of
+capital.'[307] It was indeed a commonplace that the increase of
+capital was necessary to an increase of population, as it is obvious
+enough that population must be limited by the means of subsistence
+accumulated. Smith, for example, goes on to insist upon this in one of
+the passages which partly anticipates Malthus.[308] But this does not
+enable us to separate profit from wages, or solve Ricardo's problem.
+When we speak of supply and demand as determining the price of a
+commodity, we generally have in mind two distinct though related
+processes. One set of people is growing corn, and another working coal
+mines. Each industry, therefore, has a separate existence, though each
+may be partly dependent upon the other. But this is not true of labour
+and capital. They are not products of different countries or
+processes. They are inseparable constituents of a single process.
+Labour cannot be maintained without capital, nor can capital produce
+without labour. Capital, according to Ricardo's definition, is the
+'part of the wealth of a country which is employed in production, and
+consists of food, clothing, raw materials, machinery, etc., necessary
+to give effect to labour.'[309] That part, then, of capital which is
+applied to the support of the labourer--his food, clothing, and so
+forth--is identical with wages. To say that, if it increases, his
+wages increase is to be simply tautologous. If, on the other hand, we
+include the machinery and raw materials, it becomes difficult to say
+in what sense 'capital' can be taken as a demand for labour. Ricardo
+tells Malthus that an accumulation of profit does not, as Malthus had
+said, necessarily raise wages[310]; and he ultimately decided, much
+to the scandal of his disciple, M'Culloch, that an increase of 'fixed
+capital' or machinery might be actually prejudicial, under certain
+circumstances, to the labourer. The belief of the labouring class that
+machinery often injures them is not, he expressly says, 'founded on
+prejudice and error, but is conformable to the correct principles of
+political economy.'[311] The word 'capital,' indeed, was used with a
+vagueness which covered some of the most besetting fallacies of the
+whole doctrine. Ricardo himself sometimes speaks as though he had in
+mind merely the supply of labourers' necessaries, though he regularly
+uses it in a wider sense. The generalities, therefore, about supply
+and demand, take us little further.
+
+From these difficulties Ricardo escapes by another method. Malthus's
+theory of population gives him what he requires. The 'natural price of
+labour' (as distinguished from its 'market price') is, as he asserts,
+'that price which is necessary to enable the labourers, one with
+another, to subsist and perpetuate their race without either increase
+or diminution.'[312] This is the true 'natural price,' about which the
+'market price' oscillates. An increase of capital may raise wages for
+a time above the natural price, but an increase of population will
+bring back the previous rate. Ricardo warns us, indeed, that this
+natural price of labour is not to be regarded as something 'absolutely
+fixed and constant.'[313] It varies in different times and countries,
+and even in the same country at different times. An English cottager
+now possesses what would once have been luxuries. Ricardo admits
+again[314] that the wages of different classes of labourers may be
+different, although he does not consider that this fact affects his
+argument. We may allow for it by considering the skilled labourer as 2
+or 1-1/2 labourers rolled into one. The assumption enables him to get
+out of a vicious circle. He is seeking to discover the proportions in
+which produce will be divided between the two classes, and which
+co-operate in the production. The 'demand and supply' principle may
+show that an increase of capital will tend to increase wages, but even
+that tendency, as he carefully points out, can only be admitted
+subject to certain important reservations. In any case, if it explains
+temporary fluctuations, it will not ascertain the point round which
+the fluctuations take place. But the two variables, wages and profit,
+are clearly connected, and if we can once assume that one of these
+variables is fixed by an independent law, we may explain in what way
+the other will be fixed. Having got rid of 'rent,' the remaining
+produce has to be divided between wages and profit. If the produce be
+fixed, the greater the share of the labourer the less will be the
+share of the capitalist, and _vice versa_. But the labourer's share
+again is determined by the consideration that it must be such as to
+enable him to keep up the population. The capitalist will get the
+surplus produce after allowing to the labourer the share so
+determined. Everything turns ultimately upon this 'natural price'--the
+constant which underlies all the variations.
+
+One other point is implied. The population is limited, as we see, by
+the necessity of raising supplies of food from inferior soils.
+Moreover, this is the sole limit. A different view had been taken
+which greatly exercised the orthodox economists. It was generally
+admitted that in the progress of society the rate of profit declined.
+Adam Smith explained this by arguing that, as capital increased, the
+competition of capitalists lowered the rate. To this it was replied
+(as by West) that though competition equalised profits, it could not
+fix the rate of profit. The simple increase of capital does not prove
+that it will be less profitably employed. The economists had
+constantly to argue against the terrible possibility of a general
+'glut.' The condition of things at the peace had suggested this alarm.
+The mischief was ascribed to 'over-production' and not to misdirected
+production. The best cure for our evils, as some people thought, would
+be to burn all the goods in stock. On this version of the argument, it
+would seem that an increase of wealth might be equivalent to an
+increase of poverty. To confute the doctrine in this form, it was only
+necessary to have a more intelligent conception of the true nature of
+exchange. As James Mill had argued in his pamphlet against Spence,
+every increase of supply is also an increase of demand. The more there
+is to sell, the more there is to buy. The error involved in the theory
+of a 'glut' is the confusion between a temporary dislocation of the
+machinery of exchange, which can and will be remedied by a new
+direction of industry, and the impossible case of an excess of wealth
+in general.[315] Malthus never quite cleared his mind of this error,
+and Ricardo had to argue the point with him. Abundance of capital
+cannot by itself, he says, 'make capital less in demand.' The 'demand
+for capital is infinite.'[316] The decline in the rate of profit,
+therefore, depends upon another cause. 'If, with every accumulation of
+profit, we could tack a piece of fresh fertile land to our Island,
+profits would never fall.'[317] Fertile land, however, is limited. We
+have to resort to inferior soil, and therefore to employ capital at a
+less advantage. In the _Principles_ he enforces the same doctrine with
+the help of Say, who had shown 'most satisfactorily' that any amount
+of capital might be employed.[318] If, in short, labour and capital
+were always equally efficient, there would be no limit to the amount
+producible. If the supply of food and raw materials can be multiplied,
+wealth can be multiplied to any amount. The admitted tendency of
+profits to fall must therefore be explained simply and solely by the
+growing difficulty of producing the food and the raw material.
+
+Ricardo's doctrine, then, is Malthus carried out more logically. Take
+a nation in a state of industrial equilibrium. The produce of the
+worst soil just supports the labourer, and leaves a profit to the
+capitalist. The labourer gets just enough to keep up his numbers to
+the standard; the capitalist just enough profit to induce him to keep
+up the capital which supports the labourer. Since there can be only
+one rate of wages and only one rate of profit, this fixes the shares
+into which the whole produce of the nation is divided, after leaving
+to the landlord the surplus produce of the more fertile soils.
+Accepting this scheme as a starting-point, we get a method for
+calculating the results of any changes. We can see how a tax imposed
+upon rents or profits or wages will affect the classes which are thus
+related; how improvements in cultivation or machinery, or a new demand
+for our manufactures, will act, assuming the conditions implied in
+this industrial organisation; how, in short, any disturbance of the
+balance will work, so as to produce a new equilibrium. Ricardo exerts
+all his ingenuity in working out the problem which, with the help of a
+few assumptions, becomes mathematical. The arithmetical illustrations
+which he employed for the purpose became a nuisance in the hands of
+his disciples. They are very useful as checks to general statements,
+but lend themselves so easily to the tacit introduction of erroneous
+assumptions as often to give a totally false air of precision to the
+results. Happily I need not follow him into that region, and may omit
+any consideration of the logical value of his deductions. I must be
+content to say that, so far as he is right, his system gives an
+economic calculus for working out the ultimate result of assigned
+economic changes. The pivot of the whole construction is the 'margin
+of cultivation'--the point at which the food for a pressing population
+is raised at the greatest disadvantages. 'Profits,' as he says,[319]
+'depend on high and low wages; wages on the price of necessaries; and
+the price of necessaries chiefly on the price of food, because all
+other requisites may be increased almost without limit.'
+
+Ricardo takes the actual constitution of society for granted. The
+threefold division into landowners, capitalists, and labourers is
+assumed as ultimate. For him that is as much a final fact as to a
+chemist it is a final fact that air and water are composed of certain
+elements. Each class represents certain economic categories. The
+landlord sits still and absorbs the overflow of wealth created by
+others. The labourer acts a very important but in one respect a purely
+passive part. His whole means of subsistence are provided by the
+capitalist, and advanced to him in the shape of wages. His share in
+the process is confined to multiplying up to a fixed standard. The
+capitalist is the really active agent. The labourer is simply one of
+the implements used in production. His wages are part of the
+capitalist's 'costs of production.' The capitalist virtually raises
+labourers, one may say, so long as raising them is profitable, just as
+he raises horses for his farm. Ricardo, in fact, points out that in
+some cases it may be for the farmer's interest to substitute horses
+for men.[320] If it be essential to any product that there should be a
+certain number of labourers or a certain number of horses, that number
+will be produced. But when the expense becomes excessive, and in the
+case of labourers that happens as worse soils have to be broken up for
+food, the check is provided through its effect upon the accumulation
+of capital. That, therefore, becomes the essential point. The whole
+aim of the legislator should be to give facilities for the
+accumulation of capital, and the way to do that is to abstain from all
+interference with the free play of the industrial forces. The test,
+for example, of the goodness of a tax--or rather of its comparative
+freedom from the evils of every tax--is that it should permit of
+accumulation by interfering as little as possible with the tendency
+of the capital to distribute itself in the most efficient way.
+
+
+III. VALUE AND LABOUR
+
+To solve the distribution problem, then, it is necessary to get behind
+the mere fluctuations of the market, and to consider what are the
+ultimate forces by which the market is itself governed. What effect
+has this upon the theory of the market itself? This leads to a famous
+doctrine.
+
+According to his disciple, M'Culloch, Ricardo's great merit was that
+he 'laid down the fundamental theorem of the science of value.' He
+thus cleared up what had before been an 'impenetrable mystery,' and
+showed the true relations of profit, wages, and prices.[321] Ricardo's
+theory of value, again, was a starting-point of the chief modern
+Socialist theories. It marked, as has been said,[322] the point at
+which the doctrine of the rights of man changes from a purely
+political to an economical theory. Ricardo remarks in his first
+chapter that the vagueness of theories of value has been the most
+fertile source of economic errors. He admitted to the end of his life
+that he had not fully cleared up the difficulty. Modern economists
+have refuted and revised and discussed, and, let us hope, now made
+everything quite plain. They have certainly shown that some of
+Ricardo's puzzles implied confusions singular in so keen a thinker.
+That may serve as a warning against dogmatism. Boys in the next
+generation will probably be asked by examiners to expose the palpable
+fallacies of what to us seem to be demonstrable truths. At any rate,
+I must try to indicate the critical point as briefly as possible.
+
+The word 'value,' in the first place, has varying meanings, which give
+an opportunity for writers of text-books to exhibit their powers of
+lucid exposition. The value of a thing in one sense is what it will
+fetch; the quantity of some other thing for which it is actually
+exchanged in the market. In that sense, as Ricardo incidentally
+observes,[323] the word becomes meaningless unless you can say what is
+the other thing. It is self-contradictory to speak as if a thing by
+itself could have a constant or any value. Value, however, may take a
+different sense. It is the economic equivalent of the 'utility' of
+Bentham's 'felicific calculus.' It means the 'lot of pleasure' which
+causes a thing to be desirable. If we could tell how many units of
+utility it contained we could infer the rate of exchange for other
+things. The value of anything 'in use' will correspond to the number
+of units of utility which it contains; and things which have the same
+quantity of 'utilities' will have the same 'exchangeable value.'
+Ricardo can thus consider the old problem of finding 'an invariable
+measure of value.' He points out the difficulty of finding any
+particular thing which will serve the purpose, inasmuch as the
+relations of everything to everything else are constantly varying. He
+therefore proposes to make use of an imaginary measure. If gold were
+always produced under exactly the same circumstances, with the same
+labour and the same capital, it would serve approximately for a
+standard. Accordingly he gives notice that, for the purposes of his
+book, he will assume this to be the case, and money to be 'invariable
+in value.'[324] We can thus, on the one hand, compare values at
+different periods. A thing has the same value at all times which at
+all times requires 'the same sacrifice of toil and labour to produce
+it.'[325] The 'sacrifice' measures the 'utility,' and we may assume
+that the same labour corresponds in all ages to the same psychological
+unit. But, on the other hand, at any given period things will exchange
+in proportion to the labour of producing them. This follows at once
+from Ricardo's postulates. Given the single rate of wages and profits,
+and assuming the capital employed to be in the same proportion, things
+must exchange in proportion to the quantity of labour employed; for if
+I got the same value by employing one labourer as you get by employing
+two, my profits would be higher. Ricardo, indeed, has to allow for
+many complexities arising from the fact that very different quantities
+of capital are required in different industries; but the general
+principle is given by the simplest case. Hence we have a measure of
+value, applicable at any given time and in comparing different times.
+It implies, again, what M'Culloch sums up as the 'fundamental
+theorem,' that the value of 'freely produced commodities' depends on
+the quantity of labour required for their 'production.' What is made
+by two men is worth twice what is made by one man. That gives what
+M'Culloch calls the 'clue to the labyrinth.'
+
+The doctrine leads to a puzzle. If I can measure the 'sacrifice,' can
+I measure the 'utility' which it gains? The 'utility' of an ounce of
+gold is not something 'objective' like its physical qualities, but
+varies with the varying wants of the employer. Iron or coal may be
+used for an infinite variety of purposes and the utility will be
+different in each. The thing may derive part of its 'utility' from its
+relation to other things. The utility of my food is not really
+separate from the utility of my hat; for unless I eat I cannot wear
+hats. My desire for any object, again, is modified by all my other
+desires, and even if I could isolate a 'desire' as a psychological
+unit, it would not give me a fixed measure. Twice the article does not
+give twice the utility; a double stimulus may only add a small
+pleasure or convert it into agony. These and other difficulties imply
+the hopelessness of searching for this chimerical unit of 'utility'
+when considered as a separate thing. It shifts and escapes from our
+hands directly we grasp it. Ricardo discusses some of these points in
+his interesting chapter on 'Value and Riches.' Gold, he says, may cost
+two thousand times more than iron, but it is certainly not two
+thousand times as useful.[326] Suppose, again, that some invention
+enables you to make more luxuries by the same labour, you increase
+wealth but not value. There will be, say, twice as many hats, but each
+hat may have half its former value. There will be more things to
+enjoy, but they will only exchange for the same quantity of other
+things. That is, he says, the amount of 'riches' varies, while the
+amount of value is fixed. This, according to him, proves that value
+does not vary with 'utility.' 'Utility,' as he declares in his first
+chapter, is 'absolutely essential to value,' but it is 'not the
+measure of exchangeable value.'[327] A solution of these puzzles may
+be sought in any modern text-book. Ricardo escapes by an apparently
+paradoxical conclusion. He is undertaking an impossible problem when
+he starts from the buyers' desire of an 'utility.' Therefore he turns
+from the buyers to the sellers. The seller has apparently a measurable
+and definable motive--the desire to make so much per cent. on his
+capital.[328] Ricardo, unfortunately, speaks as though the two parties
+to the bargain somehow represented mutually exclusive processes.
+'Supply and demand' determine the value of 'monopolised articles,' but
+the cost of other articles depends _not_ 'on the state of demand and
+supply,' _but_ 'on the increased or diminished cost of their
+production.'[329] Why 'not' and 'but'? If supply and demand
+corresponds to the whole play of motives which determines the bargain,
+this is like saying, according to the old illustration, that we must
+attribute the whole effect of a pair of scissors to one blade and not
+to the other. His view leads to the apparent confusion of taking for
+the cause of value not our desire for a thing, but the sacrifice we
+must make to attain it. Bentham[330] said, for example, that Ricardo
+confused 'cost' with 'value.' The denial that utility must in some
+sense or other determine value perplexes an intelligible and
+consistent meaning. It is clearly true, upon his postulates, that the
+value of goods, other than 'monopolised,' must conform to the cost of
+production. He speaks as if he confounded a necessary condition with
+an 'efficient cause,' and as if one of two correlative processes could
+be explained without the other. But the fact that there is a
+conformity, however brought about, was enough for his purpose. The
+demand of buyers, he would say, determines the particular direction of
+production: it settles whether hats should be made of silk or beaver;
+whether we should grow corn or spin cotton. But the ultimate force is
+the capitalist's desire for profit. So long as he can raise labourers'
+necessaries by employing part of his capital, he can employ the labour
+as he chooses. He can always produce wealth; all the wealth produced
+can be exchanged, and the demand always be equal to the supply, since
+the demand is merely the other side of the supply. The buyer's tastes
+decide how the capital shall be applied, but does not settle how much
+wealth there shall be, only what particular forms it shall take.
+Somehow or other it must always adjust itself so that the value of
+each particular kind shall correspond to the 'cost of production.' The
+cost of production includes the tools and the raw materials, which are
+themselves products of previous labour. All capital itself is
+ultimately the product of labour, and thus, as Ricardo incidentally
+says, may be regarded as 'accumulated labour.'[331]
+
+This phrase sums up the doctrine which underlies his theory of value
+and indicates its connection with the theory of distribution. Ricardo
+had perceived that the supply and demand formula which would serve
+sufficiently in problems of exchange, or the fluctuations of
+market-price, could not be made to solve the more fundamental problem
+of distribution. We must look beneath the superficial phenomena and
+ask what is the nature of the structure itself: what is the driving
+force or the mainspring which works the whole mechanism. We seem,
+indeed, to be inquiring into the very origin of industrial
+organisation. The foundation of a sound doctrine comes from Adam
+Smith. Smith had said that in a primitive society the only rule would
+be that things should exchange in proportion to the labour of getting
+them. If it cost twice as much labour to kill a beaver as to kill a
+deer, one beaver would be worth two deer. In accepting this bit of
+what Smith's commentator, Dugald Stewart,[332] calls 'theoretical' or
+'conjectural' history, Ricardo did not mean to state a historical
+fact. He was not thinking of actual Choctaws or Cherokees. The beaver
+was exchanged for the deer about the time when the primitive man
+signed the 'social contract.' He is a hypothetical person used for
+purposes of illustration and simplification. Ricardo is not really
+dealing with the question of origins; but he is not the less implying
+a theory of structure. It did not matter that the 'social contract'
+was historically a figment; it would serve equally well to explain
+government. It did not matter that actual savages may have exchanged
+beavers and deer by the help of clubs instead of competition in the
+market. The industrial fabric is what would have been had it been thus
+built up. It can be constructed from base to summit by the application
+of his formula. As in the imaginary state of deer and beaver, we have
+a number of independent persons making their bargains upon this
+principle of the equivalence of labour; and that principle is supposed
+to be carried out so that the most remote processes of the industrial
+machinery can be analysed into results of this principle. This gives a
+sufficient clue to the whole labyrinth of modern industry, and there
+is no need of considering the extinct forms of social structure, which
+we know to have existed, and under which the whole system of
+distribution took place under entirely different conditions.[333] A
+great change has taken place since the time of the deer and beaver:
+the capitalist has been developed, and has become the motive power.
+The labourer's part is passive; and the 'value' is fixed by the
+bargaining between the proprietors of 'accumulated labour,' forced by
+competition to make equal profits, instead of being fixed by the
+equitable bargain between the two hunters exchanging the products of
+their individual labour. Essentially, however, the principle is the
+same. In the last as in the first stage of society, things are
+exchanged in proportion to the labour necessary to produce them. Now
+it is plain enough that such a doctrine cannot lead to a complete
+solution of the problem of distribution. It would be a palpably
+inadequate account of historical processes which have determined the
+actual relation of classes. The industrial mechanism has been
+developed as a part of the whole social evolution; and, however
+important the economic forces, they have been inextricably blended
+with all the other forces by which a society is built up. For the same
+reason, Ricardo's theorem would be inadequate 'sociologically,' or as
+a formula which would enable us to predict the future distribution of
+wealth. It omits essential factors in the process, and therefore
+supposes forces to act automatically and invariably which will in fact
+be profoundly modified in societies differently organised and
+composed of individuals differing in character. The very fundamental
+assumptions as to the elasticity of population, and the accumulation
+of capital as wages and profits fluctuate, are clearly not absolute
+truths. An increase of the capitalist's share, for example, at the
+expense of wages, may lead to the lowered efficiency of the labourer;
+and, instead of the compensating process supposed to result from the
+stimulus to accumulation, the actual result may be a general
+degeneration of the industry. Or, again, the capacity of labourers to
+combine both depends and reacts upon their intelligence and moral
+character, and will profoundly modify the results of the general
+competition.[334] Such remarks, now familiar enough, are enough to
+suggest that a full explanation of the economic phenomena would
+require reference to considerations which lie beyond the proper sphere
+of the economist. Yet the economist may urge that he is making a fair
+and perhaps necessary abstraction. He may consider the forces to be
+constant, although he may be fully aware that the assumption requires
+to be corrected when his formulæ are applied to facts. He may consider
+what is the play at any given time of the operations of the market,
+though the market organisation is itself dependent upon the larger
+organisation of which it is a product. He does not profess to deal in
+'sociology,' but 'pure political economy.' In that more limited
+sphere he may accept Ricardo's postulates. The rate of wages is fixed
+at any given moment by the 'labour market.' That is the immediate
+organ through which the adjustment is effected. Wages rise and fall
+like the price of commodities, when for any reason the number of
+hirers or the number of purchasers varies. The 'supply and demand'
+formula, however, could not, as Ricardo saw, be summarily identified
+with labour and capital. We must go behind the immediate phenomena to
+consider how they are regulated by the ultimate moving power. Then,
+with the help of the theories of population and rent, we find that the
+wages are one product of the whole industrial process. We must look
+beyond the immediate market fluctuation to the effect upon the
+capitalists who constitute the market. The world is conceived as one
+great market, in which the motives of the capitalist supply the motive
+power; and the share which goes to the labourer is an incidental or
+collateral result of the working of the whole machinery. Now, though
+the sociologist would say that this is quite inadequate for his
+purpose, and that we must consider the whole social structure, he may
+also admit that the scheme has a validity in its own sphere. It
+describes the actual working of the mechanism at any given time; and
+it may be that in Ricardo's time it gave an approximate account of the
+facts. To make it complete, it requires to be set, so to speak, in a
+more general framework of theory; and we may then see that it cannot
+give a complete solution. Still, as a consistent scheme which
+corresponds to the immediate phenomena, it helps us to understand the
+play of the industrial forces which immediately regulate the market.
+
+Ricardo's position suggested a different line of reply. The doctrines
+that capital is 'accumulated labour' and that all value is in
+proportion to the labour fell in with the Socialist theory. If value
+is created by labour, ought not 'labour' to possess what it makes? The
+right to the whole produce of labour seemed to be a natural
+conclusion. Ricardo might answer that when I buy your labour, it
+becomes mine. I may consider myself to have acquired the rights of the
+real creator of the wealth, and to embody all the labourers, whose
+'accumulated labour' is capital. Still, there is a difficulty. The
+beaver and deer case has an awkward ethical aspect. To say that they
+are exchanged at such a rate seems to mean that they ought to be
+exchanged at the rate. This again implies the principle that a man has
+a right to what he has caught; that is, to the whole fruits of his
+labour. James Mill, as we have seen, starts his political treatise by
+assuming this as obvious.[335] He did not consider the possible
+inferences; for it is certainly a daring assumption that the principle
+is carried out by the economic system. According to Ricardo rent is
+paid to men who don't labour at all. The fundholder was a weight upon
+all industry, and as dead a weight as the landlord. The capitalist,
+Ricardo's social mainspring, required at least cross-examination. He
+represents 'accumulated labour' in some fashion, but it is not plain
+that the slice which he takes out of the whole cake is proportioned
+accurately to his personal labour. The right and the fact which
+coincided in the deer and beaver period have somehow come to diverge.
+
+Here, then, we are at a point common to the two opposing schools.
+Both are absolute 'individualists' in different senses. Society is
+built up, and all industrial relations determined, by the competition
+of a multitude of independent atoms, each aiming at self-preservation.
+Malthus's principle applies this to the great mass of mankind.
+Systematically worked out, it has led to Ricardo's identification of
+value with quantities of labour. Keeping simply to the matter of fact,
+it shows how a small minority have managed to get advantages in the
+struggle, and to raise themselves upon the shoulders of the struggling
+mass. Malthus shows that the resulting inequality prevents the
+struggle from lowering every one to starvation point. But the
+advantage was not obvious to the struggling mass which exemplified the
+struggle for existence. If equality meant not the initial facts but
+the permanent right, society was built upon injustice. Apply the
+political doctrine of rights of man to the economic right to wealth,
+and you have the Socialist doctrine of right to the whole produce of
+labour. It is true that it is exceedingly difficult to say what each
+man has created when he is really part of a complex machinery; but
+that is a problem to which Socialists could apply their ingenuity. The
+real answer of the political economists was that although the existing
+order implied great inequalities of wealth it was yet essential to
+industrial progress, and therefore to an improvement in the general
+standard of comfort. This, however, was the less evident the more they
+insisted upon the individual interest. The net result seemed to be
+that by accident or inheritance, possibly by fraud or force, a small
+number of persons have got a much larger share of wealth than their
+rivals. Ricardo may expound the science accurately; and, if so, we
+have to ask, What are the right ethical conclusions?
+
+For the present, the Utilitarians seem to have considered this
+question as superfluous. They were content to take the existing order
+for granted; and the question remains how far their conclusions upon
+that assumption could be really satisfactory.
+
+
+IV. THE CLASSICAL POLITICAL ECONOMY.
+
+Ricardo had worked out the main outlines of the 'Classical Political
+Economy': the system which to his disciples appeared to be as clear,
+consistent, and demonstrable as Euclid; and which was denounced by
+their opponents as mechanical, materialistic, fatalistic, and
+degrading. After triumphing for a season, it has been of late years
+often treated with contempt, and sometimes banished to the limbo of
+extinct logomachies. It is condemned as 'abstract.' Of all delusions
+on the subject, replies a very able and severe critic,[336] there is
+none greater than the belief that it was 'wholly abstract and
+unpractical.' Its merits lay in its treatment of certain special
+questions of the day; while in the purely scientific questions it was
+hopelessly confused and inconsistent. Undoubtedly, as I have tried to
+point out, Malthus and Ricardo were reasoning upon the contemporary
+state of things. The doctrine started from observation of facts; it
+was too 'abstract' so far as it neglected elements in the concrete
+realities which were really relevant to the conclusions. One cause of
+confusion was the necessity of starting from the classification
+implied in ordinary phrases. It is exemplified by the vague use of
+such words as 'capital,' 'value,' 'supply and demand.' Definitions, as
+is often remarked,[337] come at the end of an investigation, though
+they are placed at the beginning of an exposition. When the primary
+conceptions to be used were still so shifting and contradictory as is
+implied in the controversies of the day, it is no wonder that the
+formulæ should be wanting in scientific precision. Until we have
+determined what is meant by 'force' we cannot have a complete science
+of dynamics. The economists imagined that they had reached the goal
+before they had got rid of ambiguities hidden in the accepted
+terminology. Meanwhile it will be enough if I try to consider broadly
+what was the nature of the body of statements which thus claimed to be
+an elaborated science.
+
+Ricardo's purpose was to frame a calculus, to give a method of
+reasoning which will enable us to clinch our economic reasoning. We
+are to be sure that we have followed out the whole cycle of cause and
+effect. Capitalists, landowners, labourers form parts of a rounded
+system, implying reciprocal actions and reactions. The imposition of a
+tax or a tariff implies certain changes in existing relations: that
+change involves other changes; and to trace out the total effect, we
+must understand what are the ultimate conditions of equilibrium, or
+what are the processes by which the system will adjust itself to the
+new conditions. To describe, again, the play of a number of reciprocal
+forces, we have to find what mathematicians call an 'independent
+variable': some one element in the changes on which all other changes
+will depend. That element, roughly speaking, ultimately comes out to
+be 'labour.' The simplicity of the system gave an impression both of
+clearness and certainty, which was transferred from the reasoning to
+the premises. The facts seemed to be established, because they were
+necessary to the system. The first step to an estimate of the value of
+the doctrine would be to draw up a statement of the 'postulates'
+implied. Among them, we should have such formulæ as the single rate of
+profits and wages; which imply the 'transferability' of labour and
+capital, or the flow of either element to the best-paid employment. We
+should have again the Malthusian doctrine of the multiplication of
+labour up to a certain standard; and the fact that scarcity means
+dearness and plenty cheapness. These doctrines at least are taken for
+granted; and it may perhaps be said that they are approximations which
+only require qualifications, though sometimes very important
+qualifications, to hold good of the society actually contemplated.
+
+They were true enough to give the really conclusive answer to many
+popular fallacies. The type of sophistry which Ricardo specially
+assailed was that which results from neglecting the necessary
+implications of certain changes. The arguments for the old 'mercantile
+theory'--for 'protection' of industry, for the poor-law, for resisting
+the introduction of machinery, the fear of 'gluts' and all manner of
+doctrines about the currency--were really exposed by the economists
+upon the right grounds. It was absurd to suppose that by simply
+expanding the currency, or by making industry less efficient, or
+forcing it to the least profitable employments, you were increasing
+the national wealth; or to overlook the demoralising effects of a
+right to support because you resolved only to see the immediate
+benefits of charity to individuals. It is true, no doubt, that in some
+cases there might be other arguments, and that the economists were apt
+to take a narrow view of the facts. Yet they decisively exploded many
+bad arguments, and by the right method of enforcing the necessity of
+tracing out the whole series of results. It was partly to their
+success in confuting absurd doctrines that their confidence was due;
+though the confidence was excessive when it was transferred to the
+axioms from which they professed to start. A doctrine may be true
+enough to expose an error, and yet not capable of yielding definite
+and precise conclusions. If I know that nothing can come out of
+nothing, I am on the way to a great scientific principle and able to
+confute some palpable fallacies; but I am still a very long way from
+understanding the principle of the 'conservation of energy.' The truth
+that scarcity meant dearness was apparently well known to Joseph in
+Egypt, and applied very skilfully for his purpose. Economists have
+framed a 'theory of value' which explains more precisely the way in
+which this is brought about. A clear statement may be valuable to
+psychologists; but for most purposes of political economy Joseph's
+knowledge is quite sufficient. It is the doctrine which is really used
+in practice whatever may be its ultimate justification.
+
+The postulates, however, were taken by the economists to represent
+something more than approximate statements of the fact. They imply
+certain propositions which might be regarded as axioms. Men desire
+wealth and prefer their own interests. The whole theory might then be
+regarded as a direct deduction from the axioms. It thus seemed to
+have a kind of mathematical certainty. When facts failed to conform to
+the theory the difficulty could be met by speaking, as Malthus spoke,
+of 'tendencies,' or by appealing to the analogy of 'friction' in
+mechanics. The excuse might be perfectly valid in some cases, but it
+often sanctioned a serious error. It was assumed that the formula was
+still absolutely true of something, and that the check or friction was
+a really separable and accidental interference. Thus it became easy to
+discard, as irrelevant, objections which really applied to the
+principle itself, and to exaggerate the conformity between fact and
+theory. The economic categories are supposed to state the essential
+facts, and the qualifications necessary to make them accurate were apt
+to slip out of sight. Ricardo,[338] to mention a familiar instance,
+carefully points out that the 'economic rent,' which clearly
+represents an important economic category, is not to be confounded, as
+in 'popular' use, with the payments actually made, which often include
+much that is really profit. The distinction, however, was constantly
+forgotten, and the abstract formula summarily applied to the concrete
+fact.
+
+The economists had constructed a kind of automaton which fairly
+represented the actual working of the machinery. But then, each
+element of their construction came to represent a particular formula,
+and to represent nothing else. The landlord is simply the receiver of
+surplus value; the capitalist the one man who saves, and who saves in
+proportion to profit; and the labourer simply the embodiment of
+Malthus's multiplying tendency. Then the postulates as to the ebb and
+flow of capital and labour are supposed to work automatically and
+instantaneously. Ricardo argues that a tax upon wages will fall, not,
+as Buchanan thought, upon the labourer, nor, as Adam Smith thought,
+upon rent, but upon profits; and his reason is apparently that if
+wages were 'lowered the requisite population would not be kept
+up.'[339] The labourer is able to multiply or diminish so rapidly that
+he always conforms at once to the required standard. This would seem
+to neglect the consideration that, after all, some time is required to
+alter the numbers of a population, and that other changes of a totally
+different character may be meanwhile set up by rises and falls of
+wages. Ricardo, as his letters show,[340] was well aware of the
+necessity of making allowance for such considerations in applying his
+theorems. He simplified the exposition by laying them down too
+absolutely; and the doctrine, taken without qualification, gives the
+'economic man,' who must be postulated to make the doctrine work
+smoothly. The labourer is a kind of constant unit--absolutely fixed in
+his efficiency, his wants, and so forth; and the same at one period as
+at another, except so far as he may become more prudent, and therefore
+fix his 'natural price' a little higher. An 'iron law' must follow
+when you have invented an iron unit. In short, when society is
+represented by this hypothetical mechanism, where each man is an
+embodiment of the required formula, the theory becomes imperfect so
+far as society is made up of living beings, varying, though
+gradually, in their whole character and attributes, and forming part
+of an organised society incomparably too complex in its structure to
+be adequately represented by the three distinct classes, each of which
+is merely a formula embodied in an individual man. The general rules
+may be very nearly true in a great many cases, especially on the
+stock-exchange; but before applying them to give either a history or a
+true account of the actual working of concrete institutions, a much
+closer approximation must be made to the actual data.
+
+I need not enlarge, however, upon a topic which has been so often
+expounded. I think that at present the tendency is rather to do
+injustice to the common-sense embodied in this system, to the
+soundness of its aims, and to its value in many practical and
+immediate questions, than to overestimate its claim to scientific
+accuracy. That claim may be said to have become obsolete.
+
+One point, however, remains. The holders of such a doctrine must, it
+is said, have been without the bowels of compassion. Ricardo, as
+critics observe with undeniable truth, was a Jew and a member of the
+stock-exchange. Now Jews, in spite of Shylock's assertions, and
+certainly Jewish stockbrokers, are naturally without human feeling. If
+you prick them, they only bleed banknotes. They are fitted to be
+capitalists, who think of wages as an item in an account, and of the
+labourer as part of the tools used in business. Ricardo, however, was
+not a mere money-dealer, nor even a walking treatise. He was a kindly,
+liberal man, desirous to be, as he no doubt believed himself to be, in
+sympathy with the leaders of political and scientific thought, and
+fully sharing their aspirations. No doubt he, like his friends, was
+more conspicuous for coolness of head than for impulsive
+philanthropy. Like them, he was on his guard against 'sentimentalism'
+and 'vague generalities,' and thought that a hasty benevolence was apt
+to aggravate the evils which it attacked. The Utilitarians naturally
+translated all aspirations into logical dogmas; but some people who
+despised them as hard-hearted really took much less pains to give
+effect to their own benevolent impulses. Now Ricardo, in this matter,
+was at one with James Mill and Bentham, and especially Malthus.[341]
+The essential doctrine of Malthus was that the poor could be made less
+poor by an improved standard of prudence. In writing to Malthus,
+Ricardo incidentally remarks upon the possibility of raising the
+condition of the poor by 'good education' and the inculcation of
+foresight in the great matter of marriage.[342] Incidental references
+in the _Principles_ are in the same strain. He accepts Malthus's view
+of the poor-laws, and hopes that, by encouraging foresight, we may by
+degrees approach 'a sounder and more healthful state.'[343] He
+repudiates emphatically a suggestion of Say that one of his arguments
+implies 'indifference to the happiness' of the masses,[344] and holds
+that 'the friends of humanity' should encourage the poor to raise
+their standard of comfort and enjoyment. The labourers, as he
+elsewhere incidentally observes, are 'by far the most important class
+in society.'[345] How should they not be if the greatest happiness of
+the greatest number be the legitimate aim of all legislation?
+
+It is true that in his argument Ricardo constantly assumes that his
+'natural price' will also be the real price of labour. The assumption
+that the labourers' wages tend to a minimum is a base for his general
+arguments. The inconsistency, if there be one, is easily intelligible.
+Ricardo agreed with Malthus that, though the standard might be raised,
+and though a rise was the only way to improvement, the chances of such
+a rise were not encouraging. Improved wages, as he says,[346] might
+enable the labourer to live more comfortably if only he would not
+multiply. But 'so great are the delights of domestic society, that in
+practice it is invariably found that an increase of population follows
+an amended condition of the labourer,' and thus the advantage is lost
+as soon as gained.
+
+I have tried to show what was the logical convenience of the
+assumption. Ricardo, who has always to state an argument at the cost
+of an intellectual contortion, is content to lay down a rule without
+introducing troublesome qualifications and reserves. Yet he probably
+held that his postulate was a close approximation to the facts.
+Looking at the actual state of things at the worst time of the
+poor-law, and seeing how small were the prospects of stirring the
+languid mind of the pauper to greater forethought, he thought that he
+might assume the constancy of an element which varied so slowly. The
+indifference of the Ricardo school generally to historical inquiry had
+led them no doubt to assume such constancy too easily. Malthus, who
+had more leaning to history, had himself called attention to many
+cases in which the 'prudential check' operated more strongly than it
+did among the English poor. Probably Ricardo was in this, as in other
+cases, too hasty in assuming facts convenient for his argument. The
+poor man's character can, it is clear, be only known empirically; and,
+in fact, Ricardo simply appeals to experience. He thinks that, as a
+fact, men always do multiply in excess. But he does not deny that
+better education might change their character in this respect. Indeed,
+as I have said, an even excessive faith in the possible modification
+of character by education was one of the Utilitarian tenets. If
+Ricardo had said broadly that a necessary condition of the improvement
+of the poor was a change of the average character, I think that he
+would have been saying what was perfectly true and very much to the
+purpose both then and now. The objection to his version of a most
+salutary doctrine is that it is stated in too narrow terms. The
+ultimate unit, the human being, is indeed supposed to be capable of
+great modification, but it is solely through increasing his foresight
+as to the effects of multiplication that the change is supposed to be
+attainable. The moral thus drawn implied a very limited view of the
+true nature and influence of great social processes, and in practice
+came too often to limiting possible improvement to the one condition
+of letting things alone. Let a man starve if he will not work, and he
+will work. That, as a sole remedy, may be insufficient; though, even
+in that shape, it is a doctrine more likely to be overlooked than
+overvalued. And meanwhile the acquiescence in the painful doctrine
+that, as a matter of fact, labourers would always multiply to
+starvation point, was calculated to produce revolt against the whole
+system. Macaulay's doctrine that the Utilitarians had made political
+economy unpopular was so far true that the average person resented the
+unpleasant doctrines thus obtruded upon him in their most unpleasant
+shape; and, if he was told that they were embodied logic, revolted
+against logic itself.
+
+
+V. THE RICARDIANS
+
+It will be quite sufficient to speak briefly of the minor prophets who
+expounded the classical doctrine; sometimes falling into fallacies,
+against which Ricardo's logical instinct had warned him; and sometimes
+perhaps unconsciously revealing errors which really lurked in his
+premises. When Ricardo died, James Mill told M'Culloch that they were
+'the two and only genuine disciples' of their common friend.[347] Mill
+wrote what he intended for a Schoolbook of Political Economy.[348]
+Brief, pithy, and vigorous, it purports to give the essential
+principles in their logical order; but, as his son remarks,[349] had
+only a passing importance. M'Culloch took a more important place by
+his writings in the _Edinburgh Review_ and elsewhere, and by his
+lectures at Edinburgh and at London. He was one of the first
+professors of the new university. His _Principles of Political
+Economy_[350] became a text-book, to be finally superseded by John
+Stuart Mill. Other works statistical and bibliographical showed great
+industry, and have still their value. He was so much the typical
+economist of the day that he has been identified with Carlyle's
+_M'Crowdy_, the apostle of the dismal science.[351] He writes,
+however, with enough vivacity and fervour of belief in his creed to
+redeem him from the charge of absolute dulness. An abler thinker was
+Colonel (Robert) Torrens (1780-1864).[352] He had served with
+distinction in the war; but retired on half-pay, and was drawn by some
+natural idiosyncrasy into the dry paths of economic discussion. He was
+already confuting the French economists in 1808; and was writing upon
+the Bank-charter Act and the Ten Hours' Bill in 1844. Torrens held
+himself, apparently with justice, to be rather an independent ally
+than a disciple of Ricardo. His chief works were an essay upon the
+'External Corn-trade' (1815)[353] and an 'Essay on the Production of
+Wealth' (1821). Ricardo pronounced his arguments upon the Corn-trade
+to be 'unanswered and unanswerable,'[354] and he himself claimed to be
+an independent discoverer of the true theory of rent.[355] He was
+certainly a man of considerable acuteness and originality. In these
+writings we find the most sanguine expressions of the belief that
+political economy was not only a potential, but on the verge of
+becoming an actual, science. Torrens observes that all sciences have
+to pass through a period of controversy; but thinks that economists
+are emerging from this stage, and rapidly approaching unanimity. In
+twenty years, says this hopeful prophet, there will scarcely exist a
+'doubt of its' (Political Economy's) 'fundamental principles.'[356]
+Torrens thinks that Ricardo has generalised too much, and Malthus too
+little; but proposes, with proper professions of modesty, to take the
+true _via media_, and weld the sound principles into a harmonious
+whole by a due combination of observation and theory. The science, he
+thinks, is 'analogous to the mixed mathematics.'[357] As from the laws
+of motion we can deduce the theory of dynamics, so from certain simple
+axioms about human nature we can deduce the science of Political
+Economy. M'Culloch, at starting, insists in edifying terms upon the
+necessity of a careful and comprehensive induction, and of the study
+of industrial phenomena in different times and places, and under
+varying institutions.[358] This, however, does not prevent him from
+adopting the same methods of reasoning. 'Induction' soon does its
+office, and supplies a few simple principles, from which we may make a
+leap to our conclusions by a rapid, deductive process.
+
+The problems appear to be too simple to require long preliminary
+investigations of fact. Torrens speaks of proving by 'strictly
+demonstrative evidence' or of 'proceeding to demonstrate' by strict
+analysis.[359] This is generally the preface to one of those
+characteristic arithmetical illustrations to which Ricardo's practice
+gave a sanction. We are always starting an imaginary capitalist with
+so many quarters of corn and suits of clothes, which he can transmute
+into any kind of product, and taking for granted that he represents a
+typical case. This gives a certain mathematical air to the reasoning,
+and too often hides from the reasoner that he may be begging the
+question in more ways than one by the arrangement of his imaginary
+case. One of the offenders in this kind was Nassau Senior (1790-1864),
+a man of remarkable good sense, and fully aware of the necessity of
+caution in applying his theories to facts. He was the first professor
+of Political Economy at Oxford (1825-1830), and his treatise[360] lays
+down the general assumption of his orthodox contemporaries clearly and
+briefly. The science, he tells us, is deducible from four elementary
+propositions: the first of which asserts that every 'man desires to
+obtain additional wealth with as little sacrifice as possible'; while
+the others state the first principles embodied in Malthus's theory of
+population, and in the laws corresponding to the increasing facility
+of manufacturing and the decreasing facility of agricultural
+industry.[361] As these propositions include no reference to the
+particular institutions or historical development of the social
+structure, they virtually imply that a science might be constructed
+equally applicable in all times and places; and that, having obtained
+them, we need not trouble ourselves any further with inductions. Hence
+it follows that we can at once get from the abstract 'man' to the
+industrial order. We may, it would seem, abstract from history in
+general. This corresponds to the postulate explicitly stated by
+M'Culloch. 'A state,' he tells us, 'is nothing more than an aggregate
+of individuals': men, that is, who 'inhabit a certain tract of
+country.'[362] He infers that 'whatever is most advantageous to them'
+(the individuals) 'is most advantageous to the state.' Self-interest,
+therefore, the individual's desire of adding to his 'fortune,' is the
+mainspring or _causa causans_ of all improvement.[363] This is, of
+course, part of the familiar system, which applies equally in ethics
+and politics. M'Culloch is simply generalising Adam Smith's congenial
+doctrine that statesmen are guilty of absurd presumption when they try
+to interfere with a man's management of his own property.[364] This
+theory, again, is expressed by the familiar maxim _pas trop
+gouverner_, which is common to the whole school, and often accepted
+explicitly.[365]
+
+It will be quite enough to notice one or two characteristic results.
+The most important concern the relation between the labourer and the
+capitalist. Malthus gives the starting-point. Torrens, for example,
+says that the 'real wages of labour have a constant tendency to settle
+down' to the amount rendered necessary by 'custom and climate' in
+order to keep up his numbers.[366] Mill observes in his terse way that
+the capitalist in the present state of society 'is as much the owner
+of the labour' as the manufacturer who operates with slaves. The only
+'difference is in the mode of purchasing.'[367] One buys a man's whole
+labour; the other his labour for a day. The rate of wages can
+therefore be raised, like the price of slaves, only by limiting the
+supply. Hence the 'grand practical problem is to find the means of
+limiting the number of births.'[368] M'Culloch is equally clear, and
+infers that every scheme 'not bottomed on' the principle of
+proportioning labour to capital must be 'completely nugatory and
+ineffectual.'[369]
+
+The doctrine common to the whole school led M'Culloch to conclusions
+which became afterwards notorious enough to require a word of notice.
+Torrens, like Ricardo, speaks of capital as 'accumulated labour,' but
+makes a great point of observing that, although this is true, the case
+is radically changed in a developed state of society. The value of
+things no longer depends upon the labour, but upon the amount of
+capital employed in their production.[370] This, indeed, may seem to
+be the most natural way of stating the accepted principle. M'Culloch
+replies that the change makes no difference in the principle,[371]
+inasmuch as capital being 'accumulated labour,' value is still
+proportioned to labour, though in a transubstantiated shape. M'Culloch
+supposed that by carrying out this principle systematically he was
+simplifying Ricardo and bringing the whole science into unity. All
+questions, whether of value in exchange, or of the rate of wages, can
+then be reduced to comparing the simple unit called labour. Both Mill
+and M'Culloch regard capital as a kind of labour, so that things may
+be produced by capital alone, 'without the co-operation of any
+immediate labour'[372]--a result which can hardly be realised with the
+discovery of a perpetual motion. So, again, the value of a joint
+product is the 'sum' of these two values.[373] All value, therefore,
+can be regarded as proportioned to labour in one of its two states.
+M'Culloch advanced to an unfortunate conclusion, which excited some
+ridicule. Though Ricardo and Torrens[374] rejected it, it was accepted
+by Mill in his second edition.[375] Wine kept in a cask might increase
+in value. Could that value be ascribed to 'additional labour actually
+laid out'? M'Culloch gallantly asserted that it could, though 'labour'
+certainly has to be interpreted in a non-natural sense.[376] Not only
+is capital labour, but fermentation is labour, or how can we say that
+all value is proportioned to labour? This is only worth notice as a
+pathetic illustration of the misfortunes of a theorist ridden by a
+dogma of his own creation. Another conclusion is more important. The
+'real value' of anything is measured by the labour required to produce
+it. Nothing 'again is more obvious' than that equal labour implies the
+'same sacrifice' in all states of society.[377] It might seem to
+follow that the value of anything was measured by the labour which it
+would command. This doctrine, however, though maintained by Malthus,
+was, according to M'Culloch, a pestilent heresy, first exploded by
+Ricardo's sagacity.[378] Things exchange, as he explains, in
+proportion to the labour which produces them, but the share given to
+the labourer may vary widely. The labourer, he says, 'gives a
+constant, but receives a variable quantity in its stead.' He makes the
+same sacrifice when he works for a day, but may get for it what he
+produces in ten hours, or only in one. In every case, however, he gets
+less than he produces, for the excess 'constitutes profits.'[379] The
+capitalist must get his interest, that is, the wages of the
+accumulated labour. Here we come again to the Socialist position, only
+that the Socialist infers that the labourer is always cheated by the
+capitalist, and does not consider that the machine can ask for 'wages'
+on the pretext that it is accumulated labour. What, however,
+determines the share actually received? After all, as a machine is not
+actually a labourer, and its work not a separable product, we cannot
+easily see how much wages it is entitled to receive. M'Culloch follows
+the accepted argument. 'No proposition,' he says, 'can be better
+established than that the market rate of wages ... is exclusively
+determined by the proportion between capital and population.'[380] We
+have ultimately here, as elsewhere, 'the grand principle to which we
+must always come at last,' namely, 'the cost of production.'[381]
+Wages must correspond to the cost of raising the labourer. This leads
+to a formula, which afterwards became famous. In a pamphlet[382]
+devoted to the question, he repeats the statement that wages depend
+upon the proportion between population and capital; and then, as if
+the phrase were identical, substitutes that portion of capital which
+is required for the labourer's consumption. This is generally cited as
+the first statement of the 'wage-fund' theory, to which I shall have
+to return.
+
+I need not pursue these illustrations of the awkward results of
+excessive zeal in a disciple. It is worth noticing, however, that
+M'Culloch's practical conclusions are not so rigid as might be
+inferred. His abstract doctrines do not give his true theory, so much
+as what he erroneously took to be his theory. The rules with which he
+works are approximately true under certain conditions, and he
+unconsciously assumes the conditions to be negligible, and the rules
+therefore absolute. It must be added that he does not apply his
+conclusions so rigidly as might be expected. By the help of
+'friction,' or the admission that the ride is only true in nineteen
+cases out of twenty, he can make allowance for many deviations from
+rigid orthodoxy. He holds, for example, that government interference
+is often necessary. He wishes in particular for the establishment of a
+'good system of public education.'[383] He seems to have become more
+sentimental in later years. In the edition of 1843 he approves the
+Factory Acts, remarking that the last then passed 'may not, in some
+respects, have gone far enough.'[384] He approves a provision for the
+'impotent poor,' on the principle of the Elizabethan act, though he
+disapproves the centralising tendency of the new poor-law. Though he
+is a good Malthusian,[385] and holds the instinct of population to be
+a 'constant quantity,'[386] he does not believe in the impossibility
+of improvement. The 'necessary' rate of wages fixes only a minimum:
+an increase of population has been accompanied by an increase of
+comfort.[387] Wages rise if the standard of life be raised, and a rise
+of wages tends to raise the standard. He cordially denounces the
+benevolent persons who held that better wages only meant more
+dissipation. Better wages are really the great spur to industry and
+improvement.[388] Extreme poverty causes apathy; and the worst of
+evils is the sluggishness which induces men to submit to reductions of
+wages. A sense of comfort will raise foresight; and the _vis
+medicatrix_ should be allowed to act upon every rank of society. He is
+no doubt an individualist, as looking to the removal of restrictions,
+such as the Conspiracy Laws,[389] rather than to a positive action of
+the government; but it is worth notice that this typical economist is
+far from accepting some of the doctrines attributed to the school in
+general.
+
+The classical school blundered when it supposed that the rules which
+it formulated could be made absolute. To give them that character, it
+was necessary to make false assumptions as to the ultimate
+constitution of society; and the fallacy became clear when the formulæ
+were supposed to give a real history or to give first principles, from
+which all industrial relations could be deduced. Meanwhile, the
+formulæ, as they really expressed conditional truths, might be very
+useful so long as, in point of fact, the conditions existed, and were
+very effective in disposing of many fallacies. The best illustration
+would probably be given by the writings of Thomas Tooke
+(1774-1858),[390] one of the founders of the Political Economy Club.
+The _History of Prices_ is an admirable explanation of phenomena which
+had given rise to the wildest theories. The many oscillations of trade
+and finance during the great struggle, the distress which had followed
+the peace, had bewildered hasty reasoners. Some people, of course,
+found consolation in attributing everything to the mysterious action
+of the currency; others declared that the war-expenditure had supplied
+manufacturers and agriculturists with a demand for their wares,
+apparently not the less advantageous because the payment came out of
+their own pockets.[391] Tooke very patiently and thoroughly explodes
+these explanations, and traces the fluctuations of price to such
+causes as the effect of the seasons and the varying events of the war
+which opened or closed the channels of commerce. The explanation in
+general seems to be thoroughly sound and conclusive, and falls in, as
+far as it goes, with the principles of his allies. He shows, for
+example, very clearly what were the conditions under which the
+orthodox theory of rent was really applicable; how bad seasons brought
+gain instead of loss to the 'agricultural interest,' that is, as Tooke
+explains, to the landlord and farmer; how by a rise of price out of
+proportion to the diminution of supply, the farmer made large profits;
+how rents rose, enclosure bills increased, and inferior land was
+brought under the plough. The landlord's interest was for the time
+clearly opposed to that of all other classes, however inadequate the
+doctrine might become when made absolute by a hasty generalisation. I
+need not dwell upon the free-trade argument which made the popular
+reputation of the economists. It is enough to note briefly that the
+error as to the sphere of applicability of the doctrine did not
+prevent many of the practical conclusions from being of the highest
+value.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[294] A life of Ricardo by M'Culloch is prefixed to his _Works_. I
+cite the edition of 1880. Ricardo's letters to Malthus were published
+by Mr. Bonar in 1887; his letters to M'Culloch, edited by Mr.
+Hollander for the American Economic Association, in 1895; and his
+letters to H. Trower, edited by Mr. Bonar and Mr. Hollander, have just
+appeared (1900).
+
+[295] He remarks upon this difficulty in the case of Smith's
+treatment of rent, and gives a definition to which he scarcely
+adheres.--_Works_, p. 34 ('Principles,' ch. ii., 1888).
+
+[296] _Works_, p. 378. Ricardo, it should be said, complained when
+Malthus interpreted him to mean that this opposition of interests was
+permanent and absolute.
+
+[297] Malthus admits the general principle of free trade, but supports
+some degree of protection to corn, mainly upon political grounds. He
+holds, however, with Adam Smith, that 'no equal quantity of productive
+labour employed in manufactures could ever occasion so great a
+reproduction as in agriculture' (_Grounds of an Opinion, etc._, p.
+35)--a relic of the 'physiocrat' doctrine.
+
+[298] _Works_, p. 385.
+
+[299] _Ibid._ p. 386.
+
+[300] See also _Letters to Malthus_, p. 175.
+
+[301] 'Your modern political economists say that it is a principle in
+their science that all things find their level; which I deny, and say,
+on the contrary, that it is the true principle that all things are
+finding their level, like water in a storm.'--Coleridge's
+_Table-Talk_, 17th May 1833.
+
+[302] _Letters to Malthus_, p. 96; and see the frequently quoted
+passage where he complains that Malthus has taken his book as more
+'practical' than he had intended it to be, and speaks of his method of
+imagining 'strong cases.'--_Ibid._ p. 167.
+
+[303] _Works_, p. 40 _n._ (ch. ii.).
+
+[304] _Works_, p. 53 (ch. v.), and p. 124 (ch. xvi.), where he quotes
+from the _Wealth of Nations_ (M'Culloch), p. 390 (bk. v. ch. ii. art.
+3).
+
+[305] _Works_, p. 131.
+
+[306] _Wealth of Nations_ (M'Culloch), p. 31 (bk. i. ch. viii.).
+
+[307] _Works_, p. 41 (ch. ii.).
+
+[308] _Wealth of Nations_ (M'Culloch), p. 36.
+
+[309] _Works_, p. 51 (ch. v.).
+
+[310] _Letters to Malthus_, p. 98.
+
+[311] _Works_, p. 239 (ch. xxxi., added in third edition, 1821).
+
+[312] _Ibid._ p. 50 (ch. v.).
+
+[313] _Ibid._ p. 52.
+
+[314] _Ibid._ p. 15 (ch. i. sec. ii.).
+
+[315] There is, indeed, a difficulty which I happily need not discuss.
+Undoubtedly the doctrine of gluts was absurd. There is, of course, no
+limit to the amount of wealth which can be used or exchanged. But
+there certainly seems to be a great difficulty in effecting such a
+readjustment of the industrial system as is implied in increased
+production of wealth; and the disposition to save may at a given time
+be greater than the power of finding profitable channels for employing
+wealth. This involves economical questions beyond my ability to
+answer, and happily not here relevant.
+
+[316] _Letters to Malthus_, p. 101.
+
+[317] _Ibid._ p. 52.
+
+[318] _Works_, p. 174 (ch. xxi.).
+
+[319] _Works_, p. 66 (ch. vi.).
+
+[320] _Works_, p. 240 (ch. xxxi.).
+
+[321] Ricardo, _Works_, p. xxiv.
+
+[322] Menger's _Das Recht auf den vollen Arbeitsertrag_ (1891), p. 38.
+
+[323] _Works_, p. 228 (ch. xxviii.).
+
+[324] _Works_, pp. 29, 60.
+
+[325] _Ibid._ p. 166.
+
+[326] _Works_, p. 170 (ch. xx.).
+
+[327] _Ibid._ p. 7.
+
+[328] So he tells Malthus (_Letters_, pp. 173, 174) that the buyer has
+'the least to do in the world' with the regulation of prices. It is
+all the competition of the sellers. 'Demand' influences price for the
+moment, but 'supply follows close upon its heels, and takes up the
+regulation of price.'
+
+[329] _Works_, p. 234.
+
+[330] Bentham's _Works_, x. 498.
+
+[331] _Works_, p. 250 (ch. xxxii.).
+
+[332] Stewart's _Works_, x. 34.
+
+[333] See Bagehot's remarks upon J. S. Mill's version of this doctrine
+in _Economic Studies_: chapter on 'Cost of Production.'
+
+[334] Another illustration of the need of such considerations is
+given, as has been pointed out, in Adam Smith's famous chapter upon
+the variation in the rate of wages. He assumes that the highest wages
+will be paid for the least agreeable employments, whereas, in fact,
+the least agreeable are generally the worst paid. His doctrine, that
+is, is only true upon a tacit assumption as to the character and
+position of the labourer, which must be revised before the rule can be
+applied.
+
+[335] J. S. Mill, too, in his _Political Economy_ makes the foundation
+of private property 'the right of producers to what they themselves
+have produced.' (Bk. ii. ch. ii. § 1.)
+
+[336] Mr. Edwin Cannan, in _Production and Distribution_ (1894), p.
+383.
+
+[337] A definition, says Burke in his essay on the 'Sublime and
+Beautiful' (introduction) 'seems rather to follow than to precede our
+inquiry, of which it ought to be considered as the result.'
+
+[338] _Works_, p. 34 (chap. ii.). Rent is there defined as the sum
+paid for the original and indestructible powers of the soil.
+
+[339] _Works_, p. 132 (chap. xvii.). He admits (_Ibid._ p. 210 _n._)
+that the labourer may have a little more than what is absolutely
+necessary, and that his inference is therefore 'expressed too
+strongly.'
+
+[340] See _Letters to M'Culloch_, p. xxi.
+
+[341] 'The assaults upon Malthus's "great work,"' he says (_Works_, p.
+243, ch. xxxii.), 'have only served to prove its strength.'
+
+[342] _Letters to Malthus_, p. 226.
+
+[343] _Works_, p. 58 (ch. v.).
+
+[344] _Ibid._ p. 211 _n._ (ch. xxvi.).
+
+[345] _Ibid._ p. 258 (ch. xxxii.).
+
+[346] _Works_, p. 248 (ch. xxii.).
+
+[347] Bain's _James Mill_, p. 211.
+
+[348] Editions in 1821, 1824, and 1826.
+
+[349] _Autobiography_, p. 204.
+
+[350] The first edition, an expanded version of an article in the
+_Encyclopædia Britannica_, appeared in 1825.
+
+[351] _Latter-day Pamphlets_ (New Downing Street). M'Crowdy is
+obviously a type, not an individual.
+
+[352] See Mr. Hewin's life of him in _Dictionary of National
+Biography_.
+
+[353] Fourth edition in 1827.
+
+[354] Ricardo's _Works_, p. 164 _n._
+
+[355] _External Corn-trade_, preface to fourth edition. J. S. Mill
+observes in his chapter upon 'International Trade' that Torrens was
+the earliest expounder of the doctrine afterwards worked out by
+Ricardo and Mill himself. For Ricardo's opinion of Torrens, see
+_Letters to Trower_, p. 39.
+
+[356] _Production of Wealth_ (Preface).
+
+[357] _Production of Wealth_ (Preface).
+
+[358] _Political Economy_ (1825), p. 21.
+
+[359] _External Corn-trade_, pp. xviii, 109, 139; _Production of
+Wealth_, p. 375.
+
+[360] Originally in the _Encyclopædia Metropolitana_, 1836.
+
+[361] Senior's _Political Economy_ (1850), p. 26.
+
+[362] _Ibid._ (1825), pp. 55, 129-131.
+
+[363] Senior's _Political Economy_ (150), p. 125.
+
+[364] _Ibid._ p. 135. M'Culloch admits the possibility that a man may
+judge his own interests wrongly, but thinks that this will not happen
+in one case out of twenty (_Ibid._ p. 15).
+
+[365] See Torrens's _Production of Wealth_, p. 208; and M'Culloch's
+_Political Economy_ (1843), p. 294, where he admits some exceptions.
+
+[366] _External Corn-trade_, p. 87, etc.
+
+[367] _Political Economy_ (second edition), pp. 21, 22.
+
+[368] _Ibid._ p. 67.
+
+[369] _Political Economy_ (1825), p. 329.
+
+[370] _Production of Wealth_, p. 34, etc.
+
+[371] _Political Economy_ (1825), p. 318.
+
+[372] Mill's _Political Economy_ (second edition), p. 102; M'Culloch's
+_Political Economy_ (1825), pp. 289-291.
+
+[373] M'Culloch's _Political Economy_, p. 290.
+
+[374] Preface to _External Corn-trade_.
+
+[375] _Ibid._ p. 95.
+
+[376] _Political Economy_ (1825), pp. 313-18. This argument disappears
+in later editions.
+
+[377] _Ibid._ p. 217.
+
+[378] _Political Economy_, p. 221. De Quincey makes a great point of
+this doctrine, of which it is not worth while to examine the meaning.
+
+[379] _Political Economy_, p. 221 _n._
+
+[380] _Ibid._ p. 336.
+
+[381] _Ibid._ p. 337.
+
+[382] 'Essay upon the Circumstances which determine the Rate of Wages'
+(1826), p. 113. This was written for Constable's _Miscellany_, and is
+mainly repetition from the _Political Economy_. It was republished,
+with alterations, in 1851.
+
+[383] _Political Economy_, pp. 359-61.
+
+[384] _Ibid._ (1843), p. 178. And see his remarks on the unfavourable
+side of the Factory System, p. 186 _seq._
+
+[385] 'Wherever two persons have the means of subsisting,' as he
+quaintly observes, 'a marriage invariably takes place' (_Political
+Economy_, p. 154).
+
+[386] _Political Economy_, p. 206.
+
+[387] _Political Economy_, p. 344.
+
+[388] _Ibid._ pp. 349-52.
+
+[389] See pamphlet on the rate of wages, pp. 178-204.
+
+[390] Tooke's _Thoughts and Details on the High and Low Prices of the
+last Thirty Years_ appeared in 1823 (second edition 1824). This was
+rewritten and embodied in the _History of Prices_, the first two
+volumes of which appeared in 1838. Four later volumes appeared in
+1839, 1848, and 1857.
+
+[391] The popular view is given by Southey. The Radicals, he says in
+1823, desire war because they expect it to lead to revolution. 'In
+this they are greatly deceived, for it would restore agricultural
+prosperity, and give a new spur to our manufactures' (_Selections from
+Southey's Letters_, iii. 382. See also _Life and Correspondence_, iv.
+228, 386).
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+ECONOMIC HERETICS
+
+
+I. THE MALTHUSIAN CONTROVERSY
+
+The Economic theory became triumphant. Expounded from new university
+chairs, summarised in text-books for schools, advocated in the press,
+and applied by an energetic party to some of the most important
+political discussions of the day, it claimed the adhesion of all
+enlightened persons. It enjoyed the prestige of a scientific doctrine,
+and the most popular retort seemed to be an involuntary concession of
+its claims. When opponents appealed from 'theorists' to practical men,
+the Utilitarians scornfully set them down as virtually appealing from
+reason to prejudice. No rival theory held the field. If Malthus and
+Ricardo differed, it was a difference between men who accepted the
+same first principles. They both professed to interpret Adam Smith as
+the true prophet, and represented different shades of opinion rather
+than diverging sects. There were, however, symptoms of opposition,
+which, at the time, might be set down as simple reluctance to listen
+to disagreeable truths. In reality, they were indications of a
+dissatisfaction which was to become of more importance and to lead in
+time to a more decided revolt. I must indicate some of them, though
+the expressions of dissent were so various and confused that it is not
+very easy to reduce them to order.
+
+Malthus's doctrine was really at the base of the whole theory, though
+it must be admitted that neither Malthus himself nor his opponents
+were clear as to what his doctrine really was. His assailants often
+attacked theories which he disavowed, or asserted principles which he
+claimed as his own.[392] I mention only to set aside some respectable
+and wearisome gentlemen such as Ingram, Jarrold, Weyland, and Grahame,
+who considered Malthus chiefly as impugning the wisdom of Providence.
+They quote the divine law, 'Increase and multiply'; think that Malthus
+regards vice and misery as blessings, and prove that population does
+not 'tend' to increase too rapidly. Jarrold apparently accepts the
+doctrine which Malthus attributes to Süssmilch, that lives have been
+shortened since the days of the patriarchs, and the reproductive
+forces diminished as the world has grown fuller. Grahame believes in a
+providential 'ordeal,' constituted by infant mortality, which is not,
+like war and vice, due to human corruption, but a beneficent
+regulating force which correlates fertility with the state of society.
+This might be taken by Malthus as merely amounting to another version
+of his checks. Such books, in fact, simply show, what does not require
+to be further emphasised, that Malthus had put his version of the
+struggle for existence into a form which seemed scandalous to the
+average orthodox person. The vagueness of Malthus himself and the
+confused argument of such opponents makes it doubtful whether they are
+really answering his theories or reducing them to a less repulsive
+form of statement.
+
+In other directions, the Malthusian doctrine roused keen feeling on
+both sides, and the line taken by different parties is significant.
+Malthus had appeared as an antagonist of the revolutionary party. He
+had laid down what he took to be an insuperable obstacle to the
+realisation of their dreams. Yet his views were adopted and extended
+by those who called themselves thorough Radicals. As, in our days,
+Darwinism has been claimed as supporting both individualist and
+socialistic conclusions, the theory of his predecessor, Malthus, might
+be applied in a Radical or a Conservative sense. In point of fact,
+Malthus was at once adopted by the Whigs, as represented by the
+_Edinburgh Review_. They were followers of Adam Smith and Dugald
+Stewart; they piqued themselves, and, as even James Mill admitted,
+with justice, upon economic orthodoxy. They were at the same time
+predisposed to a theory which condemned the revolutionary Utopias. It
+provided them with an effective weapon against the agitators whom they
+especially dreaded. The Tories might be a little restrained by
+orthodox qualms. In 1812 Southey was permitted to make an onslaught
+upon Malthus in the _Quarterly_;[393] but more complimentary
+allusions followed, and five years later the essay was elaborately
+defended in an able article.[394] An apology was even insinuated for
+the previous assault, though the blame was thrown upon Malthus for
+putting his doctrines in an offensive shape. A reference to Owen
+suggests that the alarm excited by Socialism had suggested the need of
+some sound political economy.
+
+Another controversy which was being carried on at intervals indicates
+the line of cleavage between the capitalist and the landed interest.
+James Mill's early pamphlet, _Commerce Defended_ (1808), and Torrens's
+pamphlet, _Economists Refuted_, were suggested by this discussion.
+Although the war was partly in defence of British trade, its
+vicissitudes produced various commercial crises; and the patriotic
+Tories were anxious to show that we could thrive even if our trade was
+shut out from the Continent. The trading classes maintained that they
+really supplied the sinews of war, and had a right to some control of
+the policy. The controversy about the orders in council and Berlin
+decrees emphasised these disputes, and called some attention to the
+questions involved in the old controversy between the 'mercantile' and
+the 'agricultural' systems. A grotesque exaggeration of one theory was
+given by Mill's opponent, William Spence[395] (1783-1860), in his
+_Britain independent of Commerce_, which went through several editions
+in 1808, and refurbished or perverted the doctrine of the French
+economists. The argument, at least, shows what fallacies then needed
+confutation by the orthodox. In the preface to his collected tracts,
+Spence observes that the high price of corn was the cause of 'all our
+wealth and prosperity during the war.' The causes of the high price
+('assisted,' he admits, 'by occasional bad seasons') were the
+'national debt, in other words, taxation,' which raised the price,
+first, of necessaries, and then of luxuries (thus, he says,
+'neutralising its otherwise injurious effects'), and the virtual
+monopoly by the agriculturist of the home market.[396] All our wealth,
+that is, was produced by taxation aided by famine, or, in brief, by
+the landowner's power of squeezing more out of the poor. Foreign
+trade, according to Spence, is altogether superfluous. Its effect is
+summed up by the statement that we give hardware to America, and, in
+return, get only 'the vile weed, tobacco.'[397] Spence's writings only
+show the effect of strong prejudices on a weak brain. A similar
+sentiment dictated a more noteworthy argument to a much abler writer,
+whose relation to Malthus is significant--Thomas Chalmers
+(1780-1847),[398] probably best remembered at present for his
+leadership of the great disruption of 1843. He had a reputation for
+eloquence and philosophic ability not fully intelligible at the
+present day. His appearance was uncouth, and his written style is
+often clumsy. He gave an impression at times of indolence and of
+timidity. Yet his superficial qualities concealed an ardent
+temperament and cordial affections. Under a sufficient stimulus he
+could blaze out in stirring speech and vigorous action. His
+intellectual training was limited. He had, we are told, been much
+influenced in his youth by the French philosophers of the time, and
+had appeared on the side of the more freethinking party in the famous
+Leslie controversy. Soon afterwards, however, he was converted to
+'evangelical' views. He still accepted Thomas Brown as a great
+metaphysician,[399] but thought that in moral questions Brown's
+deistical optimism required to be corrected by an infusion of Butler's
+theory of conscience. He could adapt Butler's _Analogy_, and write an
+edifying Bridgewater Treatise. I need only say, however, that, though
+his philosophy was not very profound, he had an enthusiasm which
+enables him at times to write forcibly and impressively.
+
+Chalmers was from 1803 to 1815 minister of Kilmany, Fifeshire, and his
+attention had already been drawn to the question of pauperism. He took
+part in the Spence controversy, by an essay upon the _Extent and
+Stability of National Resources_.[400] In this he expounds a doctrine
+which is afterwards given in his _Political Economy in Connection with
+the Moral State and Moral Aspects of Society_.[401] The main purpose
+of his early book is the patriotic. It is meant, like Spence's
+pamphlet, to prove that Napoleon could do us no vital injury. Should
+he succeed, he would only lop off superfluous branches, not hew down
+the main trunk. Chalmers's argument to show the ease with which a
+country may recover the effects of a disastrous war is highly praised
+by J. S. Mill[402] as the first sound explanation of the facts.
+Chalmers's position, however, is radically different from the
+position of either James or J. S. Mill. Essentially it is the
+development of the French economists' theory, though Chalmers is
+rather unwilling to admit his affinity to a discredited school.[403]
+He has reached some of their conclusions, he admits, but by a
+different path.[404] He coincides, in this respect, with Malthus, who
+was equally impressed by the importance of 'subsistence,' or of the
+food-supply of the labourer. The great bulk of the food required must
+be raised within our own borders. As Chalmers says, in 1832, the total
+importation of corn, even in the two famine years, 1800 and 1801,
+taken together, had only provided food for five weeks,[405] and could
+normally represent a mere fringe or superfluous addition to our
+resources. His main argument is simple. The economists have fallen
+into a fatal error. A manufacturer, he observes, only makes his own
+article.[406] The economists somehow imagine that he also supports
+himself. You see a prosperous 'shawl-making village.' You infer that
+its ruin would cause the destitution of so many families. It would
+only mean the loss of so many shawls. The food which supports the
+shawl-makers would still be produced, and would be only diverted to
+support makers of some other luxury.[407] There would be a temporary
+injury to individuals, but no permanent weakening of national
+resources. Hence we have his division of the population. The
+agriculturists, and those who make the 'second necessaries' (the
+cottages, ploughs, and so forth, required by the agriculturist),
+create the great wealth of the country. Besides these we have the
+'disposable' population, which is employed in making luxuries for the
+landowners, and, finally, the 'redundant' or what he calls in his
+later book the 'excrescent' or 'superinduced' population,[408] which
+is really supported by foreign trade. Commerce, then, is merely 'the
+efflorescence of our agriculture.'[409] Were it annihilated this
+instant, we should still retain our whole disposable population. The
+effect of war is simply to find a different employment for this part
+of the nation. Napoleon, he says, is 'emptying our shops and filling
+our battalions.'[410] All the 'redundant' population might be
+supported by simply diminishing the number of our cart-horses.[411]
+Similarly, the destruction of the commerce of France 'created her
+armies.' It only transferred men from trade to war, and 'millions of
+artisans' were 'transformed into soldiers.'[412] Pitt was really
+strengthening when he supposed himself to be ruining his enemy.
+'Excrescence' and 'efflorescence' are Chalmers's equivalent for the
+'sterility' of the French economists. The backbone of all industry is
+agriculture, and the manufacturers simply employed by the landowner
+for such purposes as he pleases. Whether he uses them to make his
+luxuries or to fight his battles, the real resources of the nation
+remain untouched. The Ricardians insist upon the vital importance of
+'capital.' The one economic end of the statesmen, as the capitalist
+class naturally thinks, should be to give every facility for its
+accumulation, and consequently for allowing it to distribute itself in
+the most efficient way. Chalmers, on the contrary, argues that we may
+easily have too much capital. He was a firm believer in gluts. He
+admits that the extension of commerce was of great good at the end of
+the feudal period, but not as the 'efficient cause' of wealth, only as
+'unlocking the capabilities of the soil.'[413] This change produced
+the illusion that commerce has a 'creative virtue,' whereas its
+absolute dependence upon agriculture is a truth of capital importance
+in political economy. More Malthusian than Malthus, Chalmers argues
+that the case of capital is strictly parallel to the case of
+population.[414] Money may be redundant as much as men, and the real
+causes of every economic calamity are the 'over-speculation of
+capitalists,' and the 'over-population of the community at
+large.'[415] In this question, however, Chalmers gets into
+difficulties, which show so hopeless a confusion between 'capital,'
+income, and money, that I need not attempt to unravel his
+meaning.[416] Anyhow, he is led to approve the French doctrine of the
+single tax. Ultimately, he thinks, all taxes fall upon rent.[417]
+Agriculture fills the great reservoir from which all the subsidiary
+channels are filled. Whether the stream be tapped at the source or
+further down makes no difference. Hence he infers that, as the
+landlords necessarily pay the taxes, they should pay them openly. By
+an odd coincidence, he would tax rents like Mill, though upon
+opposite grounds. He holds that the interest of the landowners is not
+opposed to, but identical with, the interest of all classes.
+Politically, as well as economically, they should be supreme. They
+are, 'naturally and properly, the lords of the ascendant,' and, as he
+oddly complains in the year of the Reform Bill, not 'sufficiently
+represented in parliament.'[418] A 'splendid aristocracy' is, he
+thinks, a necessary part of the social edifice;[419] the law of
+primogeniture is necessary to support them; and the division of land
+will cause the decay of France. The aristocracy are wanted to keep up
+a high standard of civilisation and promote philosophy, science, and
+art.[420] The British aristocracy in the reign of George IV. scarcely
+realised this ideal, and would hardly have perceived that to place all
+the taxes upon their shoulders would be to give them a blessing in
+disguise. According to Chalmers, however, an established church
+represents an essential part of the upper classes, and is required to
+promote a high standard of life among the poor.[421] In connection
+with this, he writes a really forcible chapter criticising the
+economical distinction of productive and unproductive labour, and
+shows at least that the direct creation of material wealth is not a
+sufficient criterion of the utility of a class.
+
+Chalmers's arguments are of interest mainly from their bearing upon
+his practical application of the Malthusian problem. His interest in
+the problem of pauperism had been stimulated by his residence in
+Glasgow, where from 1815 to 1823 he had been actively engaged in
+parochial duties. In 1819 he had set up an organised system of
+charity in a poor district, which both reduced the expenditure and
+improved the condition of the poor. The experiment, though dropped
+some years later, became famous, and in later years Chalmers
+successfully started a similar plan in Edinburgh. It was this
+experience which gave shape to his Malthusian theories. He was, that
+is, a Malthusian in the sense of believing that the great problem was
+essentially the problem of raising the self-respect and spirit of
+independence of the poor. The great evil which confronted him in
+Glasgow was the mischief connected with the growth of the factory
+system. He saw, as he thought, the development of wealth leading to
+the degradation of the labourer. The great social phenomenon was the
+tendency to degeneration, the gradual dissolution of an organism, and
+corruption destroying the vital forces. On the one hand, this
+spectacle led him, as it led others, to look back fondly to the good
+old times of homely food and primitive habits, to the peasantry as
+represented in Burns's _Cotter's Saturday Night_ or Scott's _Heart of
+Midlothian_, when the poor man was part of a social, political, and
+ecclesiastical order, disciplined, trained, and self-respecting, not a
+loose waif and stray in a chaotic welter of separate atoms. These were
+the facts which really suggested his theory of the 'excrescent'
+population, produced by the over-speculation of capitalists. The
+paupers of Glasgow were 'excrescent,' and the 'gluts' were visible in
+the commercial crises which had thrown numbers of poor weavers out of
+employment and degraded them into permanent paupers. The facts were
+before his eyes, if the generalisation was hasty and crude. He held,
+on the other hand, that indiscriminate charity, and still more the
+establishment by poor-laws of a legal right to support, was
+stimulating the evil. The poor-law had worked incalculable mischiefs
+in England,[422] and he struggled vigorously, though unavailingly, to
+resist its introduction into Scotland. Chalmers, however, did not
+accept the theory ascribed to the Utilitarians, that the remedy for
+the evils was simply to leave things alone. He gives his theory in an
+article upon the connection between the extension of the church and
+the extinction of pauperism. He defends Malthus against the
+'execrations' of sentimentalism. Malthus, he thinks, would not
+suppress but change the direction of beneficence. A vast expenditure
+has only stimulated pauperism. The true course is not to diminish the
+rates but to make them 'flow into the wholesome channel of maintaining
+an extended system of moral and religious instruction.'[423] In other
+words, suppress workhouses but build schools and churches; organise
+charity and substitute a systematic individual inspection for reckless
+and indiscriminate almsgiving. Then you will get to the root of the
+mischief. The church, supported from the land, is to become the great
+civilising agent. Chalmers, accordingly, was an ardent advocate of a
+church establishment. He became the leader of the Free Church movement
+not as objecting to an establishment on principle, but because he
+thought that the actual legal fetters of the Scottish establishment
+made it impossible to carry out an effective reorganisation and
+therefore unable to discharge its true functions.
+
+Here Chalmers's economical theories are crossed by various political
+and ecclesiastical questions with which I am not concerned. His
+peculiarities as an economist bring out, I think, an important point.
+He shows how Malthus's views might be interpreted by a man who,
+instead of sharing, was entirely opposed to the ordinary capitalist
+prejudices. It would be idle to ask which was the more logical
+development of Malthus. When two systems are full of doubtful
+assumptions of fact and questionable logic and vague primary
+conceptions, that question becomes hardly intelligible. We can only
+note the various turns given to the argument by the preconceived
+prejudices of the disputants. By most of them the Malthusian view was
+interpreted as implying the capitalist as distinguished from the
+landowning point of view.
+
+To Southey as to Chalmers the great evil of the day was the growth of
+the disorganised populace under the factory system. The difference is
+that while Chalmers enthusiastically adopted Malthus's theory as
+indicating the true remedy for the evil, Southey regards it with
+horror as declaring the evil to be irremediable. Chalmers, a shrewd
+Scot actively engaged in parochial work, had his attention fixed upon
+the reckless improvidence of the 'excrescent' population, and welcomed
+a doctrine which laid stress upon the necessity of raising the
+standard of prudence and morality. He recognised and pointed out with
+great force the inadequacy of such palliatives as emigration,
+home-colonisation, and so forth.[424] Southey, an ardent and impulsive
+man of letters, with no practical experience of the difficulties of
+social reform, has no patience for such inquiries. His remedy, in all
+cases, was a 'paternal government' vigorously regulating society; and
+Malthus appears to him to be simply an opponent of all such action.
+Southey had begun the attack in 1803 by an article in the _Annual
+Review_ (edited by A. Aikin) for which the leading hints were given by
+Coleridge, then with Southey at Keswick.[425] In his letters and his
+later articles he never mentions Malthus without abhorrence.[426]
+Malthus, according to his article in the _Annual Review_, regards
+'vice' and 'misery' as desirable; thinks that the 'gratification of
+lust' is a 'physical necessity'; and attributes to the 'physical
+constitution of our nature' what should be ascribed to the 'existing
+system of society.' Malthus, that is, is a fatalist, a materialist,
+and an anarchist. His only remedy is to abolish the poor-rates, and
+starve the poor into celibacy. The folly and wickedness of the book
+have provoked him, he admits, to contemptuous indignation; and Malthus
+may be a good man personally. Still, the 'farthing candle' of
+Malthus's fame as a political philosopher must soon go out. So in the
+_Quarterly Review_ Southey attributes the social evils to the
+disintegrating effect of the manufacturing system, of which Adam Smith
+was the 'tedious and hard-hearted' prophet. The excellent Malthus
+indeed becomes the 'hard-hearted' almost as Hooker was the
+'judicious.' This sufficiently represents the view of the sentimental
+Tory. Malthus, transformed into a monster, deserves the 'execrations'
+noticed by Chalmers. There is a thorough coincidence between this view
+and that of the sentimental Radicals. Southey observes that Malthus
+(as interpreted by him) does not really answer Godwin. Malthus argues
+that 'perfectibility' gives an impossible end because equality would
+lead to vice and misery. But why should we not suppose with Godwin a
+change of character which would imply prudence and chastity? Men as
+they are may be incapable of equality because they have brutal
+passions. But men as they are to be may cease to be brutal and become
+capable of equality. This, indeed, represents a serious criticism.
+What Malthus was really concerned to prove was that the social state
+and the corresponding character suppose each other; and that real
+improvement supposes that the individual must somehow acquire the
+instincts appropriate to an improved state. The difference between him
+and his opponents was that he emphasised the mischief of legislation,
+such as that embodied in the poor-law, which contemplated a forcible
+change, destroying poverty without raising the poor man's character.
+Such a rise required a long and difficult elaboration, and he
+therefore dwells mainly upon the folly of the legislative, unsupported
+by the moral, remedy. To Godwin, on the other hand, who professed an
+unlimited faith in the power of reason, this difficulty was
+comparatively unimportant. Remove political inequalities and men will
+spontaneously become virtuous and prudent.
+
+Godwin accordingly, when answering Dr. Parr and Mackintosh,[427] in
+1801, welcomed Malthus's first version of the essay. He declares it to
+be as 'unquestionable an addition to the theory of political economy'
+as has been made by any writer for a century past; and 'admits the
+ratios to their full extent.'[428] In this philosophical spirit he
+proceeds to draw some rather startling conclusions. He hopes that, as
+mankind improves, such practices as infanticide will not be necessary;
+but he remarks that it would be happier for a child to perish in
+infancy than to spend seventy years in vice and misery.[429] He refers
+to the inhabitants of Ceylon as a precedent for encouraging other
+practices restrictive of population. In short, though he hopes that
+such measures may be needless, he does not shrink from admitting their
+possible necessity. So far, then, Godwin and Malthus might form an
+alliance. Equality might be the goal of both; and both might admit the
+necessity of change in character as well as in the political
+framework; only that Malthus would lay more stress upon the evil of
+legislative changes outrunning or independent of moral change. Here,
+however, arose the real offence. Malthus had insisted upon the
+necessity of self-help. He had ridiculed the pretensions of government
+to fix the rate of wages; and had shown how the poor-laws defeated
+their own objects. This was the really offensive ground to the
+political Radicals. They had been in the habit of tracing all evils to
+the selfishness and rapacity of the rulers; pensions, sinecures,
+public debts, huge armies, profligate luxuries of all kinds, were the
+fruits of bad government and the true causes of poverty. Kings and
+priests were the harpies who had settled upon mankind, and were
+ruining their happiness. Malthus, they thought, was insinuating a base
+apology for rulers when he attributed the evil to the character of the
+subjects instead of attributing it to the wickedness of their rulers.
+He was as bad as the old Tory, Johnson,[430] exclaiming:--
+
+    'How small of all that human hearts endure
+    That part which kings and laws can cause or cure!'
+
+He was, they held, telling the tyrants that it was not their fault if
+the poor were miserable. The essay was thus an apology for the
+heartlessness of the rich. This view was set forth by Hazlitt in an
+attack upon Malthus in 1807.[431] It appears again in the _Enquiry_ by
+G. Ensor (1769-1843)--a vivacious though rather long-winded Irishman,
+who was known both to O'Connell and to Bentham.[432] Godwin himself
+was roused by the appearance of the fifth edition of Malthus's _Essay_
+to write a reply, which appeared in 1820. He was helped by David Booth
+(1766-1846),[433] a man of some mathematical and statistical
+knowledge. Hazlitt's performance is sufficiently significant of the
+general tendency. Hazlitt had been an enthusiastic admirer of Godwin,
+and retained as much of the enthusiasm as his wayward prejudices would
+allow. He was through life what may be called a sentimental Radical,
+so far as Radicalism was compatible with an ardent worship of
+Napoleon. To him Napoleon meant the enemy of Pitt and Liverpool and
+Castlereagh and the Holy Alliance. Hazlitt could forgive any policy
+which meant the humiliation of the men whom he most heartily hated.
+His attack upon Malthus was such as might satisfy even Cobbett, whose
+capacity for hatred, and especially for this particular object of
+hatred, was equal to Hazlitt's. The personal rancour of which Hazlitt
+was unfortunately capable leads to monstrous imputations. Not only
+does Malthus's essay show the 'little low rankling malice of a parish
+beadle ... disguised in the garb of philosophy,' and bury 'false
+logic' under 'a heap of garbled calculations,'[434] and so forth; but
+he founds insinuations upon Malthus's argument as to the constancy of
+the sexual passion. Malthus, he fully believes, has none of the
+ordinary passions, anger, pride, avarice, or the like, but declares
+that he must be a slave to an 'amorous complexion,' and believe all
+other men to be made 'of the same combustible materials.'[435] This
+foul blow is too characteristic of Hazlitt's usual method; but
+indicates also the tone which could be taken by contemporary
+journalism.
+
+The more serious argument is really that the second version of Malthus
+is an answer to his first. Briefly, the 'moral check' which came in
+only as a kind of afterthought is a normal part of the process by
+which population is kept within limits, and prevents the monstrous
+results of the 'geometrical ratio.' Hazlitt, after insisting upon
+this, admits that there is nothing in 'the general principles here
+stated that Mr. Malthus is at present disposed to deny, or that he has
+not himself expressly insisted upon in some part or other of his
+various works.'[436] He only argues that Malthus's concessions are
+made at the cost of self-contradiction. Why then, it may be asked,
+should not Hazlitt take the position of an improver and harmoniser of
+the doctrine rather than of a fierce opponent? The answer has been
+already implied. He regards Malthus as an apologist for an unjust
+inequality. Malthus, he says, in classifying the evils of life, has
+'allotted to the poor all the misery, and to the rich as much vice as
+they please.'[437] The check of starvation will keep down the numbers
+of the poor; and the check of luxury and profligacy will restrain the
+multiplication of the rich. 'The poor are to make a formal surrender
+of their right to provoke charity or parish assistance that the rich
+may be able to lay out all their money on their vices.'[438] The
+misery of the lower orders is the result of the power of the upper. A
+man born into a world where he is not wanted has no right, said
+Malthus, to a share of the food. That might be true if the poor were a
+set of lazy supernumeraries living on the industrious. But the truth
+is that the poor man does the work, and is forced to put up in return
+with a part of the produce of his labour.[439] The poor-laws recognise
+the principle that those who get all from the labour of others should
+provide from their superfluities for the necessities of those in
+want.[440] The 'grinding necessity' of which Malthus had spoken does
+not raise but lower the standard; and a system of equality would
+lessen instead of increasing the pressure. Malthus, again, has
+proposed that parents should be responsible for their children. That
+is, says Hazlitt, Malthus would leave children to starvation, though
+he professes to disapprove infanticide. He would 'extinguish every
+spark of humanity ... towards the children of others' on pretence of
+preserving the 'ties of parental affection.' Malthus tries to argue
+that the 'iniquity of government' is not the cause of poverty. That
+belief, he says, has generated discontent and revolution. That is,
+says Hazlitt, the way to prevent revolutions and produce reforms is to
+persuade people that all the evils which government may inflict are
+their own fault. Government is to do as much mischief as it pleases,
+without being answerable for it.[441] The poor-laws, as Hazlitt
+admits, are bad, but do not show the root of the evil. The evils are
+really due to increasing tyranny, dependence, indolence, and
+unhappiness due to other causes. Pauperism has increased because the
+government and the rich have had their way in everything. They have
+squandered our revenues, multiplied sinecures and pensions, doubled
+salaries, given monopolies and encouraged jobs, and depressed the poor
+and industrious. The 'poor create their own fund,' and the necessity
+for it has arisen from the exorbitant demands made by the rich.[442]
+Malthus is a Blifil,[443] hypocritically insinuating arguments in
+favour of tyranny under pretence of benevolence.
+
+Hazlitt's writing, although showing the passions of a bitter partisan,
+hits some of Malthus's rather cloudy argumentation. His successor,
+Ensor, representing the same view, finds an appropriate topic in the
+wrongs of Ireland. Irish poverty, he holds, is plainly due not to
+over-population but to under-government,[444] meaning, we must
+suppose, misgovernment. But the same cause explains other cases. The
+'people are poor and are growing poorer,'[445] and there is no mystery
+about it. The expense of a court, the waste of the profits and money
+in the House of Commons, facts which are in striking contrast to the
+republican virtues of the United States, are enough to account for
+everything; and Malthus's whole aim is to 'calumniate the people.'
+Godwin in 1820 takes up the same taunts. Malthus ought, he thinks, to
+welcome war, famine, pestilence, and the gallows.[446] He has taught
+the poor that they have no claim to relief, and the rich that, by
+indulging in vice, they are conferring a benefit upon the country. The
+poor-laws admit a right, and he taunts Malthus for proposing to
+abolish it, and refusing food to a poor man on the ground that he had
+notice not to come into the world two years before he was born.[447]
+
+Godwin, whose earlier atheism had been superseded by a vague deism,
+now thinks with Cobbett that the poor were supported by the piety of
+the mediæval clergy, who fed the hungry and clothed the naked from
+their vast revenues, while dooming themselves to spare living.[448] He
+appeals to the authority of the Christian religion, which indeed might
+be a fair _argumentum ad hominem_ against 'Parson Malthus.' He
+declares that Nature takes more care of her work than such irreverent
+authors suppose, and 'does not ask our aid to keep down the excess of
+population.'[449] In fact, he doubts whether population increases at
+all. Malthus's whole theory, he says, rests upon the case of America;
+and with the help of Mr. Booth and some very unsatisfactory
+statistics, he tries to prove that the increase shown in the American
+census has been entirely due to immigration. Malthus safely declined
+to take any notice of a production which in fact shows that Godwin
+had lost his early vigour. The sound Utilitarian, Francis Place, took
+up the challenge, and exploded some of Godwin's statistics. He shows
+his Radicalism by admitting that Malthus, to whose general benevolence
+he does justice, had not spoken of the poor as one sprung like himself
+from the poor would naturally do; and he accepts modes of limiting the
+population from which Malthus himself had shrunk. For improvement, he
+looks chiefly to the abolition of restrictive laws.
+
+
+II. SOCIALISM
+
+The arguments of Hazlitt and his allies bring us back to the Socialist
+position. Although it was represented by no writer of much literary
+position, Owen was becoming conspicuous, and some of his sympathisers
+were already laying down principles more familiar to-day. Already, in
+the days of the Six Acts, the government was alarmed by certain
+'Spencean Philanthropists.' According to Place they were a very feeble
+sect, numbering only about fifty, and perfectly harmless. Their
+prophet was a poor man called Thomas Spence (1750-1815),[450] who had
+started as a schoolmaster, and in 1775 read a paper at Newcastle
+before a 'Philosophical Society.'[451] He proposed that the land in
+every village should belong to all the inhabitants--a proposal which
+Mr. Hyndman regards as a prophecy of more thoroughgoing schemes of
+Land Nationalisation. Spence drifted to London, picked up a precarious
+living, partly by selling books of a revolutionary kind, and died in
+1815, leaving, it seems, a few proselytes. A writer of higher literary
+capacity was Charles Hall, a physician at Tavistock, who in 1805
+published a book on _The Effects of Civilisation_.[452] The effects of
+civilisation, he holds, are simply pernicious. Landed property
+originated in violence, and has caused all social evils. A great
+landlord consumes unproductively as much as would keep eight thousand
+people.[453] He gets everything from the labour of the poor; while
+they are forced to starvation wages by the raising of rents. Trade and
+manufactures are equally mischievous. India gets nothing but jewellery
+from Europe, and Europe nothing but muslin from India, while so much
+less food is produced in either country.[454] Manufactures generally
+are a cause and sign of the poverty of nations.[455]
+
+Such sporadic protests against the inequalities of wealth may be taken
+as parts of that 'ancient tale of wrong' which has in all ages been
+steaming up from the suffering world, and provoking a smile from
+epicurean deities. As Owenism advanced, the argument took a more
+distinct form. Mill[456] mentions William Thompson of Cork as a 'very
+estimable man,' who was the 'principal champion' of the Owenites in
+their debates with the Benthamites. He published in 1824 a book upon
+the distribution of wealth.[457] It is wordy, and is apt to remain in
+the region of 'vague generalities' just at the points where specific
+statements would be welcome. But besides the merit of obvious
+sincerity and good feeling, it has the interest of showing very
+clearly the relation between the opposing schools. Thompson had a
+common ground with the Utilitarians, though they undoubtedly would
+consider his logic to be loose and overridden by sentimentalism. In
+the first place, he heartily admired Bentham: 'the most profound and
+celebrated writer on legislation in this or any other country.'[458]
+He accepts the 'greatest happiness principle' as applicable to the
+social problem. He argues for equality upon Bentham's ground. Take a
+penny from a poor man to give it to the rich man, and the poor man
+clearly loses far more happiness than the rich man gains. With
+Bentham, too, he admits the importance of 'security,' and agrees that
+it is not always compatible with equality. A man should have the
+fruits of his labour; and therefore the man who labours most should
+have most. But, unlike Bentham, he regards equality as more important
+than security. To him the main consideration is the monstrous mass of
+evil resulting from vast accumulations of wealth in a few hands. In
+the next place, he adapts to his own purpose the Ricardian theory of
+value. All value whatever, he argues, is created by labour. The
+labourer, he infers, should have the value which he creates. As things
+are, the labourer parts with most of it to the capitalist or the owner
+of rents. The capitalist claims a right to the whole additional
+production due to the employment of capital. The labourer, on the
+other hand, may claim a right to the whole additional production,
+after replacing the wear and tear and allowing to the capitalist
+enough to support him in equal comfort with the productive
+labourers.[459] Thompson holds that while either system would be
+compatible with 'security,' the labourer's demand is sanctioned by
+'equality.' In point of fact, neither system has been fully carried
+out; but the labourer's view would tend to prevail with the spread of
+knowledge and justice. While thus anticipating later Socialism, he
+differs on a significant point. Thompson insists upon the importance
+of 'voluntary exchange' as one of his first principles. No one is to
+be forced to take what he does not himself think a fair equivalent for
+his labour. Here, again, he would coincide with the Utilitarians.
+They, not less than he, were for free trade and the abolition of every
+kind of monopoly. But that view may lead by itself to the simple
+adoption of the do-nothing principle, or, as modern Socialists would
+say, to the more effectual plunder of the poor. The modern Socialist
+infers that the means of production must be in some way nationalised.
+Thompson does not contemplate such a consummation. He denounces, like
+all the Radicals of the day, monopolies and conspiracy laws. Sinecures
+and standing armies and State churches are the strongholds of tyranny
+and superstition. The 'hereditary possession of wealth' is one of the
+master-evils, and with sinecures will disappear the systems of entails
+and unequal distribution of inheritance.[460] Such institutions have
+encouraged the use of fraud and force, and indirectly degraded the
+labourer into a helpless position. He would sweep them all away, and
+with them all disqualifications imposed upon women.[461] This once
+done, it will be necessary to establish a universal and thoroughgoing
+system of education. Then the poor man, freed from the shackles of
+superstition and despotism, will be able to obtain his rights as
+knowledge and justice spread through the whole community. The desire
+to accumulate for selfish purposes will itself disappear. The labourer
+will get all that he creates; the aggregate wealth will be enormously
+multiplied, though universally diffused; and the form taken by the new
+society will, as he argues at great length, be that of voluntary
+co-operative associations upon Owen's principles.
+
+The economists would, of course, reject the theory that the
+capitalists should have no profits; but, in spite of this, they might
+agree to a great extent with Thompson's aspirations. Thompson,
+however, holds the true Socialist sentiment of aversion to Malthus. He
+denies energetically what he takes to be the Malthusian doctrine: that
+increased comfort will always produce increased numbers.[462] This has
+been the 'grand scarecrow to frighten away all attempts at social
+improvement.' Thompson accordingly asserts that increased comfort
+always causes increased prudence ultimately; and looks forward to a
+stationary state in which the births will just balance the deaths. I
+need not inquire here which theory puts the cart before the horse. The
+opposition possibly admits of reconciliation; but here I only remark
+once more how Malthus stood for the appeal to hard facts which always
+provoked the Utopians as much as it corresponded to the stern
+Utilitarian view.
+
+Another writer, Thomas Hodgskin, honorary secretary of the Birkbeck
+Institution, who published a tract called _Labour defended against the
+Claims of Capital, or the Unproductiveness of Capital proved_ (1825),
+and afterwards gave some popular lectures on political economy, has
+been noticed as anticipating Socialist ideas. He can see, he says, why
+something should go to the maker of a road and something be paid by
+the person who gets the benefit of it. But he does not see why the
+road itself should have anything.[463] Hodgskin writes without
+bitterness, if without much logic. It is not for me to say whether
+modern Socialists are well advised in admitting that these crude
+suggestions were anticipations of their own ideas. The most natural
+inference would be that vague guesses about the wickedness of the rich
+have been in all ages current among the poor, and now and then take
+more pretentious form. Most men want very naturally to get as much and
+to work as little as they can, and call their desire a first principle
+of justice.
+
+Perhaps, however, it is fairer to notice in how many points there was
+unconscious agreement; and how by converting very excellent maxims
+into absolute dogmas, from which a whole system was deducible, the
+theories appeared to be mutually contradictory, and, taken separately,
+became absurd. The palpable and admitted evil was the growth of
+pauperism and demoralisation of the labourer. The remedy, according to
+the Utilitarians, is to raise the sense of individual responsibility,
+to make a man dependent upon his own exertions, and to give him
+security that he will enjoy their fruit. Let government give education
+on one hand and security on the other, and equality will follow in due
+time. The sentimental Radical naturally replies that leaving a man to
+starve does not necessarily make him industrious; that, in point of
+fact, great and growing inequality of wealth has resulted; and that
+the rights of man should be applied not only to political privilege,
+but to the possession of property. The Utilitarians have left out
+justice by putting equality in the background. Justice, as Bentham
+replied, has no meaning till you have settled by experience what laws
+will produce happiness; and your absolute equality would destroy the
+very mainspring of social improvement. Meanwhile the Conservative
+thinks that both parties are really fostering the evils by making
+individualism supreme, and that organisation is necessary to
+improvement; while one set of Radicals would perpetuate a mere blind
+struggle for existence, and the other enable the lowest class to
+enforce a dead level of ignorance and stupidity. They therefore call
+upon government to become paternal and active, and to teach not only
+morality but religion; and upon the aristocracy to discharge its
+functions worthily, in order to stamp out social evils and prevent a
+servile insurrection. But how was the actual government of George IV.
+and Sidmouth and Eldon to be converted to a sense of its duties? On
+each side appeal is made to a sweeping and absolute principle, and
+amazingly complex and difficult questions of fact are taken for
+granted. The Utilitarians were so far right that they appealed to
+experience, as, in fact, such questions have to be settled by the slow
+co-operation of many minds in many generations. Unfortunately the
+Utilitarians had, as we have seen, a very inadequate conception of
+what experience really meant, and were fully as rash and dogmatic as
+their opponents. I must now try to consider what were the intellectual
+conceptions implied by their mode of treating these problems.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[392] The discussions of population most frequently mentioned are:--W.
+Godwin, _Thoughts occasioned by Dr. Parr's Spital Sermon_, etc., 1801;
+R. Southey, in (Aikin's) _Annual Review for 1803_, pp. 292-301; Thomas
+Jarrold, _Dissertations on Man_, etc., 1806; W. Hazlitt, _Reply to the
+Essay on Population_, 1807; A. Ingram, _Disquisitions on Population_,
+1808; John Weyland, _Principles of Population_, etc., 1806; James
+Grahame, _Inquiry into the Principle of Population_, 1816; George
+Ensor, _Inquiry concerning the Population of Nations_, 1818; W.
+Godwin, _On Population_, 1820; Francis Place, _Principles of
+Population_, 1822; David Booth, _Letter to the Rev. T. R. Malthus_,
+1823; M. T. Sadler, _Law of Population_, 1830; A. Alison, _Principles
+of Population_, 1840; T. Doubleday, _True Law of Population_, 1842.
+
+[393] _Quarterly Review_, Dec. 1812 (reprinted in Southey's _Moral and
+Political Essays_, 1832).
+
+[394] _Quarterly Review_, July 1817, by (Archbishop) Sumner, Malthus's
+commentator in the _Records of Creation_. Ricardo's _Letters to
+Trower_, p. 47.
+
+[395] _Spence's Tracts on Political Economy_ were collected with a
+preface in 1822. Spence is better known as an entomologist, and
+collaborated with William Kirby.
+
+[396] _Tracts_ (1822), p. xiii.
+
+[397] _Ibid._ p. 59.
+
+[398] Chalmers's _Works_ were published in twenty-five volumes in
+1841-42.
+
+[399] Chalmers's _Works_, i. 237.
+
+[400] This essay is not in his collected _Works_, though in vol. xxi.
+it is promised for the next volume.
+
+[401] _Works_, xix. and xx.
+
+[402] Mill's _Political Economy_, bk. i. ch. v. § 7 and 8. See
+Chalmers, xix. 140.
+
+[403] _National Resources_ (Appendix).
+
+[404] _Works_, xix. 306.
+
+[405] _Ibid._ xix. 226, 233.
+
+[406] _National Resources_, p. 48.
+
+[407] _Works_, xix. 64.
+
+[408] _Works_, xix. 226.
+
+[409] _Ibid._ xix. 235.
+
+[410] _National Resources_, p. 158.
+
+[411] _Ibid._ p. 160.
+
+[412] _Works_, xix. 262.
+
+[413] _Works_, xix. 75.
+
+[414] _Ibid._ xix. 118-47.
+
+[415] _Ibid._ xix. 343.
+
+[416] See _Ibid._ xix. 171. J. S. Mill speaks of Chalmers's
+speculations with a respect which it is difficult to understand.
+
+[417] Chalmers holds that the Ricardian doctrine of rent inverts the
+true order. Fertile lands do not pay rent because poor lands are
+brought into cultivation, but poor lands are cultivated because
+fertile lands pay rent. He apparently wishes, like Malthus, to regard
+rent as a blessing, not a curse. The point is not worth arguing. See
+_Works_, xix. 320.
+
+[418] _Works_, xix. 304-5.
+
+[419] _Ibid._ xix. 370.
+
+[420] _Ibid._ xix. 366.
+
+[421] _Ibid._ xix. 322.
+
+[422] _Works_, xx. 247, 296.
+
+[423] _Ibid._ xx. 290.
+
+[424] _Works_, xix. 380.
+
+[425] The copy of Malthus's second edition with Coleridge's notes used
+by Southey is in the British Museum.
+
+[426] See Southey's _Political_.
+
+[427] _Thoughts occasioned by Dr. Parr's Spital Sermon._ A copy
+annotated by Coleridge is in the British Museum.
+
+[428] _Thoughts_, etc., pp. 56, 61, 62.
+
+[429] _Ibid._ p. 71.
+
+[430] Lines added to Goldsmith's _Traveller_.
+
+[431] _Reply to the Essay on Population_, etc., 1807. The book was
+anonymous. The first three letters had appeared in Cobbett's
+_Register_. Two others with an appendix are added.
+
+[432] Bentham's _Works_, x. 603, 604; and _Dictionary of National
+Biography_.
+
+[433] See _Dictionary of National Biography_.
+
+[434] Hazlitt's _Reply_, p. 19.
+
+[435] _Ibid._ pp. 139-41.
+
+[436] _Ibid._ p. 117.
+
+[437] _Reply_, p. 263.
+
+[438] _Ibid._ p. 344.
+
+[439] _Ibid._ p. 284.
+
+[440] _Ibid._ p. 287.
+
+[441] _Reply_, p. 351.
+
+[442] _Ibid._ pp. 362-64.
+
+[443] _Ibid._ p. 352.
+
+[444] Ensor's _Enquiry_, p. 294.
+
+[445] _Ibid._ p. 441.
+
+[446] _Godwin on Population_, p. 506.
+
+[447] _Ibid._ p. 553.
+
+[448] _Ibid._ p. 558.
+
+[449] Godwin, p. 219.
+
+[450] See account of him reprinted from Mackenzie's _History of
+Newcastle_ and _Dictionary of National Biography_.
+
+[451] Reprinted by Mr. Hyndman in 1822, with a preface.
+
+[452] See _Dictionary of National Biography_. Hall's book was
+reprinted by J. M. Morgan in the 'Phoenix Library,' 1850. See Anton
+Menger's _Das Recht auf den vollen Arbeitsertrag_ (second edition,
+1891), for notices of Hall, Thompson, and others.
+
+[453] _Effects of Civilisation_ (1850), p. 86.
+
+[454] _Ibid._ p. 71.
+
+[455] _Ibid._ p. 115.
+
+[456] _Autobiography_, p. 125. See Holyoake's _History of
+Co-operation_, i. 16, 109, 278-83, 348, for some interesting notices
+of Thompson. Menger (_Recht auf den vollen Arbeitsertrag_, p. 100
+_n._) holds that Thompson not only anticipated but inspired Marx:
+Rodbertus, he says, drew chiefly upon St. Simon and Proudhon.
+
+[457] _An Inquiry into the Principles of the Distribution of Wealth
+most conducive to Human Happiness; applied to the Newly Proposed
+System of Voluntary Equality of Wealth._--1824.
+
+[458] _Distribution of Wealth_, p. 327.
+
+[459] _Distribution of Wealth_, p. 167, etc.
+
+[460] _Ibid._ p. 310.
+
+[461] He wrote, as J. S. Mill observes, an _Appeal_ [1825] against
+James Mill's views on this matter--a fact which no doubt commended him
+to the son.
+
+[462] _Distribution of Wealth_, pp. 425, 535, etc.
+
+[463] _Labour Defended_, p. 16.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+PSYCHOLOGY
+
+
+I. THOMAS BROWN
+
+The politicians and economists, of whom I have spoken, took first
+principles for granted. The intellectual temperament, which made
+certain methods congenial to them, would no doubt have led them to an
+analogous position in philosophy. Bentham had touched upon
+philosophical points in a summary way, and James Mill, as we shall
+see, gave a more explicit statement. But such men as Ricardo and
+Malthus had no systematic philosophy, though a certain philosophy was
+congenial to their methods. Desire to reach a solid groundwork of
+fact, hearty aversion to mere word-juggling, and to effeminate
+sentimentalism, respect for science and indifference to, if not
+contempt for, poetry, resolution to approve no laws or institutions
+which could not be supported on plain grounds of utility, and to
+accept no theory which could not be firmly based on verifiable
+experience, imply moral and intellectual tendencies, in which we may
+perhaps say that the Utilitarians represent some of the strongest and
+most valuable qualities of the national character. Taking these
+qualities for granted, let us consider how the ultimate problems
+presented themselves to the school thus distinguished.
+
+I have already observed that the Scottish philosophy, taught by Reid
+and Dugald Stewart, represented the only approach to a living
+philosophical system in these islands at the beginning of the century.
+It held this position for a long period. Mill, who had heard Dugald
+Stewart's lectures, knew nothing of German thought. He was well read
+in French philosophers, and in harmony with one leading sect. The
+so-called _idéologues_,[464] who regarded Condillac as representing
+the true line of intellectual progress, were in France the analogues
+of the English Utilitarians. Destutt de Tracy and Cabanis were their
+most conspicuous leaders in this generation. The philosophy of Reid
+and Stewart crossed the channel, and supplied the first assailants of
+the _idéologues_ with their controversial weapons. Thus, until the
+German influence came to modify the whole controversy, the vital issue
+seemed to lie between the doctrine of Reid or 'intuitionism' on the
+one hand, and the purely 'experiential' school on the other, whether,
+as in France, it followed Condillac, or, as in England, looked back
+chiefly to Hartley. Both sections traced their intellectual ancestry
+to Locke and Hobbes, with some reference to Bacon, and, by the French
+writers, to Descartes. Stewart, again, as I have said, was the
+accepted Whig philosopher. It is true that the Whig sat habitually in
+the seat of Gallio. Jeffrey, whether he fully realised the fact or
+not, was at bottom a sceptic in philosophy as in politics. John Allen,
+the prophet of Holland House, was a thorough sceptic, and says[465]
+that Horner, one of Stewart's personal admirers, was really a
+follower of Hume. The Whigs were inclined to Shaftesbury's doctrine
+that sensible men had all one religion, and that sensible men never
+said what it was. Those who had a more definite and avowable creed
+were content to follow Stewart's amiable philosophising. Brougham
+professed, let us hope, sincerely, to be an orthodox theist, and
+explained the argument from design in a commentary upon Paley. Sydney
+Smith expounded Reid and Stewart in lectures which showed at least
+that he was still a wit when talking 'philosophy' at the Royal
+Institution; and, though he hated 'enthusiasm' in dissenters,
+evangelicals, and tractarians, and kept religion strictly in its
+place--a place well outside of practical politics--managed to preach a
+wholesome, commonplace morality in terms of Christian theology. The
+difference between the Whig and the Radical temper showed itself in
+philosophical as in political questions. The Radical prided himself on
+being logical and thoroughgoing, while the Whig loved compromise, and
+thought that logic was very apt to be a nuisance. The systematic
+reticence which the Utilitarians held to be necessary prevented this
+contrast from showing itself distinctly on the surface. The
+Utilitarians, however, though they avoided such outspoken scepticism
+as would startle the public, indicated quite sufficiently to the
+initiated their essential position. It implied what they fully
+recognised in private conversation--a complete abandonment of
+theology. They left the obvious inferences to be drawn by others. In
+philosophy they could speak out in a well-founded confidence that few
+people were able to draw inferences. I will begin by considering the
+doctrine against which they protested; for the antagonism reveals, I
+think, the key to their position.
+
+When Stewart was obliged by infirmity to retire from the active
+discharge of his duties, he was succeeded by Thomas Brown (1778-1820).
+Brown had shown early precocity, and at the age of fifteen had
+attracted Stewart's notice by some remarks on a psychological point.
+He published at twenty a criticism of Darwin's _Zoonomia_, and he
+became one of the _Edinburgh Review_ circle. When the _Review_ was
+started he contributed an article upon Kant. In those happy days it
+was so far from necessary to prepare oneself for such a task by
+studying a library of commentators that the young reviewer could
+frankly admit his whole knowledge to be derived from Villers'
+_Philosophie de Kant_ (1801).[466] Soon afterwards he took an
+important share in a once famous controversy. John Leslie, just
+elected to the mathematical chair at Edinburgh, was accused of having
+written favourably of Hume's theory of causation. Whigs and Tories
+took this up as a party question,[467] and Brown undertook to explain
+in a pamphlet what Hume's theory was, and to show that it did not lead
+to atheism. Leslie's friends triumphed, though it does not appear how
+far Brown's arguments contributed to their success. The pamphlet was
+rewritten and enlarged, and a third edition of 1818 gives a full
+exposition of his theory. Brown had meanwhile become Stewart's leading
+disciple, and in 1810 was elected to be his colleague. Brown held the
+position, doing all the active duties, until his premature death in
+1820. Brown, according to his biographer, wrote his lectures
+immediately before delivery, and completed them during his first two
+years of office. His theories, as well as his words, were often,
+according to the same authority, extemporised. Brown found that he
+could not improve what he had written under 'very powerful
+excitement.' Moreover, he had an unlucky belief that he was a poet.
+From 1814 till 1819 he brought out yearly what he supposed to be a
+poem. These productions, the _Paradise of Coquets_ and the rest, are
+in the old-fashioned taste, and have long passed into oblivion.
+
+The lectures, published posthumously, became a text-book for students,
+and reached a nineteenth edition in 1851. Their faults, considered as
+philosophical treatises, are palpable. They have the wordiness of
+hasty composition, and the discursive rhetoric intended to catch the
+attention of an indolent audience. Brown does not see that he is
+insulting his hearers when he apologises for introducing logic into
+lectures upon metaphysics, and indemnifies them by quotations from
+Akenside and the _Essay on Man_. Brown, however, showed great
+acuteness and originality. He made deviations, and took pains to mark
+his deviations, from Reid, though he spoke more guardedly of his own
+friend, Stewart. Stewart, who had strongly supported Brown's election,
+was shocked when, on the publication of the lectures, he came to
+discover that his colleague had been preaching heresy, and wrote with
+obvious annoyance of Brown's hastiness and dangerous concessions to
+the enemy.[468] Brown, however, impressed his contemporaries by his
+ability. Sydney Smith is probably reporting the current judgment of
+his own circle when he says[469] that in metaphysics Stewart was a
+'humbug' compared with Brown. I certainly think that Stewart, whom I
+should be sorry to call a humbug, shows less vigour and subtlety.
+Brown, at any rate, impressed both the Mills, and his relation to them
+is significant.
+
+Brown's essay upon Causation indicates this relation. In this, indeed,
+there is little, if any, divergence from Stewart, though he attacks
+Reid with considerable asperity. He urges that Reid, while really
+agreeing with Hume, affected to answer him under cover of merely
+verbal distinctions.[470] The main point is simple. Hume had asserted
+that all events seem to be 'entirely loose and separate,' or, in other
+words, 'conjoined but never connected.' Yet he points out that, in
+fact, when we have found two events to be 'conjoined,' we call one
+cause and the other effect, and assume a 'necessary connection'
+between them. He then asks, What is the origin of this belief, and
+what, therefore, is the logical warrant for its validity? Brown
+entirely accepts Hume's statement of the facts. The real meaning of
+our statements is evaded by appealing to the conception of 'power.'
+When the loadstone (in his favourite illustration) attracts the iron,
+we say it has a 'power' of attracting iron. But to speak thus of a
+power is simply to describe the same facts in other words. We assert
+this, and nothing more than this, that when the loadstone comes near
+the iron, each moves towards the other. 'Power' is a word which only
+covers a statement of 'invariable antecedence.' Brown traces the
+various confusions which have obscured the true nature of this belief.
+He insists especially that we can no more discover power in mental
+than in physical sequences. The will had been supposed to be the type
+of causal power; but volition, according to Brown, reveals simply
+another succession of desires and bodily actions. The hypothesis of
+'power' has been really the source of 'illusion.' The tendency to
+personify leads us to convert metaphor into fact, to invent a subject
+of this imaginary 'power,' and thus to create a mythology of beings to
+carry on the processes of nature. In other words, Brown here follows
+Hume or even anticipates Comte. As J. S. Mill remarks,[471] this
+erroneous identification of 'power' with 'will' gives the
+'psychological rationale of Comte's great historical generalisation';
+and, so far, Brown, as a follower of Hume, is clearly on the way to
+positivism.
+
+The world, then, is a vast aggregate of 'loose' phenomena. A
+contemplation of things reveals no reason for one order rather than
+another. You may look at your loadstone as long as you please, but you
+will find no reason for its attracting iron. You may indeed
+interpolate a number of minute intervening sequences, and the process
+often suggests a vague something more than sequence; but this is a
+mere illusion.[472] Could we, in fact, see all the minute changes in
+bodies we should actually perceive that cause means nothing but 'the
+immediate invariable antecedence of an event.'[473] Brown especially
+argues against the attempts of d'Alembert and Euler to deduce the
+first laws of motion from the principle of 'sufficient reason.'[474]
+That, as he argues in detail, is merely begging the question, by
+introducing the principle of causation under an alias.
+
+What, then, is the principle? We believe, he says,[475] that 'every
+event must have a cause,' and that circumstances exactly 'similar must
+have results exactly similar.' This belief, though applicable to all
+events, does not give us the 'slightest aid' to determining,
+independently of experience, any particular event. We observe that B
+follows A, but, for all we can say, it might as well follow any other
+letter of the alphabet. Yet we are entitled to say in general that it
+does uniformly follow some particular letter. The metaphor which
+describes cause and effect as a 'bond' tying A and B together is
+perfectly appropriate if taken to express the bare fact of
+sequence;[476] but we fall into error if we fancy there is really any
+bond whatever beside the events themselves.
+
+The belief, then, in causation has precisely the same import according
+to Hume and Brown; and both agree that it is not produced by
+'reasoning.' The proposition 'B has once succeeded A,' or 'has
+succeeded A a thousand times,' is entirely different from the
+proposition 'B will for ever succeed A.'[477] No process of logical
+inference can extract one from the other. Shall we, then, give up a
+belief in causation? The belief in any case exists as a fact. Hume
+explains it by custom or association. Brown argues, and I think with
+much force, that Hume's explanation is insufficient. Association may
+explain (if it does more than restate) the fact that one 'idea' calls
+up another idea, but such association may and often does occur without
+suggesting any belief. The belief, too, precedes the association. We
+begin by believing too much, not too little, and assume a necessary
+connection of many phenomena which we afterwards find to be
+independent. The true answer is therefore different. There are three
+sources of belief, 'perception,' 'reasoning,' and 'intuition.'[478]
+Now, we cannot 'perceive' anything but a present coincidence; neither
+can we establish a connection by any process of 'reasoning,' and
+therefore the belief must be an 'intuition.' This, accordingly, is
+Brown's conclusion. 'There are principles,' he says, 'independent of
+reasoning, in the mind which save it from the occasional follies of
+all our ratiocinations';[479] or rather, as he explains, which
+underlie all reasoning. The difference, then, between Hume and Brown
+(and, as Brown argues, between Hume and Reid's real doctrine) is not
+as to the import, but as to the origin, of the belief. It is an
+'intuition' simply because it cannot be further analysed. It does not
+allow us to pass a single step beyond experience; it merely authorises
+us to interpret experience. We can discover any actual law of
+connection between phenomena only by observing that they occur in
+succession. We cannot get beyond or behind the facts--and therefore
+intuitionism in this sense is not opposed to empiricism, but a warrant
+for empirical conclusions. An 'intuition,' briefly, is an unanalysable
+belief. Brown asserts that a certain element of thought has not been
+explained, and assumes it to be therefore inexplicable or ultimate.
+Brown's account of causation had a great influence upon both the
+Mills, and especially affected the teaching of the younger Mill.
+
+Another point is important. Reid, as I have said, had specially prided
+himself upon his supposed overthrow of Berkeley's idealism. He was
+considered to have shown, in spite of sceptics, that the common belief
+in an external world was reasonable. Brown in his lectures ridiculed
+Reid's claim. This 'mighty achievement,' the 'supposed overthrow of a
+great system,' was 'nothing more than the proof that certain phrases
+are metaphorical, which were intended by their authors to be
+understood _only_ as metaphors.'[480] The theory was dead before Reid
+slew it, though the phrases were still used as a mere 'relic,' or
+survival of an obsolete doctrine.[481] The impossibility of
+constructing extension out of our sensations is the _experimentum
+crucis_ upon which Reid was ready to stake his case. If the attempt at
+such a construction could succeed, he would 'lay his hand upon his
+mouth' and give up the argument.[482] Brown takes up the challenge
+thus thrown out. He holds that our knowledge of an external world is
+derived from a source which Reid overlooked. He modifies the Scottish
+psychology by introducing the muscular senses. His theory is that the
+infant which has learned to move discovers that on some occasions its
+movements are modified by a sense of 'impeded effort.'[483] The sudden
+interruption to a well-known series excites in its mind the notion of
+'a cause which is not in itself.' This is the source of our belief in
+an external world. That belief is essentially the belief in some cause
+which we know to be other than our own mental constitution or the
+series of 'internal' phenomena, and of which we can know nothing else.
+It is enough to indicate a theory which has been elaborated by later
+psychologists, and plays a great part (for example) in the theories of
+Mill, Bain, and Mr. Herbert Spencer. It shows the real tendency of
+Brown's speculations. In the first place, it must be noticed that the
+theory itself had been already emphatically stated by Destutt de
+Tracy. Hamilton accuses Brown of plagiarism.[484] Whether his
+accusation be justifiable or not, it is certainly true that Brown had
+in some way reached the same principles which had been already set
+forth by a leading 'ideologist.' Brown, that is, though the official
+exponent of the Scottish philosophy, was in this philosophical tenet
+at one with the school which they regarded as materialistic or
+sceptical. The path by which he reaches his conclusions is also
+characteristic.
+
+Brown has reversed the interpretation of Reid's _experimentum crucis_.
+I will give up my case, says Reid, if you can make the external world
+out of sensations. That, replies Brown, is precisely what we can do.
+How from sensations do we get what Berkeley called 'outness'? We get
+it, says Brown, from the sense of resistance or 'impeded effort.' That
+reveals to us the fact that there is something independent of
+ourselves, and the belief in such a something is precisely what we
+mean, and all that we mean, by the belief in an external world.
+Consistently with this, Brown rejects Reid's distinction between the
+primary and secondary qualities. The distinction corresponds no doubt
+to some real differences, but there is no difference of the kind
+suggested by Reid. 'All [the qualities] are relative and equally
+relative--our perception of extension and resistance as much as our
+perception of fragrance and bitterness.'[485] We ascribe the
+sensations to 'external objects,' but the objects are only known by
+the 'medium' of our sensations. In other words, the whole world may be
+regarded as a set of sensations, whether of sight, smell, touch, or
+resistance to muscular movement, accompanied by the belief that they
+are caused by something not ourselves, and of which something we can
+only say that it is not ourselves.
+
+Once more, the analysis of the process by which the belief is
+generated is significant. From resistance, or the sensation produced
+when something 'resists our attempts to grasp it,' we get the
+'outness.' Then perception is 'nothing more than the association of
+this complex notion with our other sensations--the notion of something
+extended and resisting, suggested by these sensations, when the
+suggestions themselves have previously arisen, and suggested in the
+same manner and on the same principle as any other associate feeling
+suggests any other associate feeling.'[486] The odour or colour of a
+rose recalls the sensation of touching and of resistance to our grasp.
+Thus we regard the whole group of sensations as due to the external
+cause which produces the sensation of resistance. Brown seems to
+hesitate a little as to whether he shall appeal to an 'intuition' or
+to 'association,' but 'as I rather think,' he says, the belief is
+founded 'on associations as powerful as intuition.'[487]
+
+Whatever, then, may be the origin of the belief--'intuition' or
+'association'--it is clear that it can give us no knowledge except
+such as is derived from sensations. Moreover, Brown is thus led, as in
+the doctrine of causation, to accept a really sceptical position. He
+declares that he is in this respect at one with both Reid and Hume.
+They both accept two propositions: first, that we cannot 'by mere
+reasoning' prove the existence of an external world; secondly, that it
+is 'absolutely impossible for us not to believe' in its existence.
+Hume, he says, pronounces the first proposition in a 'loud tone
+of voice' and 'whispers' the second. Reid, conversely, passes
+over the first rapidly and 'dwells on the second with a tone of
+confidence.'[488] Brown accepts both statements. He has already said
+that there is no argument against Berkeley's denial of matter any more
+than against the 'infinite divisibility of matter.' But he adds, it is
+'physically impossible' for us to admit the conclusion, at least
+without 'an instant dissent from a momentary logical admission.'[489]
+This, indeed, is but a version of Hume's familiar statement that
+Berkeley's arguments admit of no reply and produce no conviction.
+
+Another essential doctrine of the Mills, the 'association' theory, is
+treated differently by Brown. Brown, as we have seen, both in his
+theory of causation and in his theory of our belief in an external
+world, speaks of principles in the mind which somehow override
+'ratiocination.' In the first case, he speaks of 'intuition,' but in
+the other, as I have said, he seems to prefer association. The
+difference is remarkable because the belief in an external world is
+upon his showing simply a case of causation. It means essentially the
+reference of our sensations as to an external cause. Now, in the
+argument upon causation, he has insisted upon the insufficiency of
+association to generate the belief; and he would have found it
+difficult to meet his own arguments if applied to the belief in an
+external world. Yet it does not seem to occur to him that there is any
+difficulty in explaining this belief in an external world as a case
+of what Mill called 'indissoluble association.' Brown, as Mill
+thought, was not sufficiently aware of the power of this principle,
+and the difference between them is marked by this divergence. Brown
+had a great deal to say about association, though he chose generally
+to substitute the word 'suggestion,' previously familiar to Reid and
+Berkeley.[490] He considers it, however, mainly in another relation.
+He proposes to trace the order in which 'trains' of ideas succeed each
+other in our minds. He does not dwell upon the influence of
+association in producing belief. His question is not primarily as to
+the logic, but as to the actual succession of our thoughts. He
+explains that he uses the word 'suggestion' in order to avoid the
+hypothesis that the sequence of two ideas necessarily implies a
+previous state of mind in which they were brought together; and
+endeavours to explain various cases (as, for example, association by
+'contrast' as well as by 'likeness' or 'continuity') by a more
+'subtile' analysis.[491] He then works out an elaborate theory of
+'simple' and 'relative' suggestion. Simple 'suggestion'[492]
+corresponds mainly to ordinary association, as when a friend's name or
+his book calls up the thought of the man himself. 'Relative
+suggestion' arises when two or more objects are perceived and suggest
+various relations of likeness and so forth.[493] This provides a
+scheme for working out the whole doctrine of the sequences of ideas so
+far as the sequences depend upon the mind itself and not upon external
+causes. It thus leads to problems of abstraction and generalisation
+and to his whole theory of what he calls the 'intellectual states.' He
+again closely coincides with the French ideologists. He starts by
+examining Locke and Condillac. He of course professes to hold that
+Condillac's version of Locke is illegitimate, and ridicules the famous
+formula _penser c'est sentir_. He is, however, equally unwilling to
+admit Reid's 'variety of powers.'[494] In fact, his criticism of
+Condillac shows more affinity than contrast. Condillac erred, he says,
+in holding that thoughts are 'transformed sensations.' This was a
+false simplification into which he considers Condillac to have been
+led partly by the ambiguity of the word _sentir_.[495] Condillac
+applied to the mind the theory, true in 'the chemistry of the material
+chemists,' that the 'compounds are the elements themselves.'[496] He
+errs when he infers from the analogy that a feeling which arises out
+of others can be resolved into them. 'Love and hate' and other
+emotions are fundamentally different from the sensations by which they
+are occasioned, not mere 'transformations' of those sensations. We, on
+the other hand (that is to say, Reid and Stewart), have erred by
+excessive amplification. Instead of identifying different things, we
+have admitted a superfluous number of 'ultimate principles.'
+
+The result is that besides the original sensations, we have to
+consider a number of feelings, which, while essentially different, are
+'suggested' or caused by them. These are parts of the whole
+intellectual construction, and, though not transformed sensations, are
+still 'feelings' arising in consequence of the sensations. They are
+parts of the 'trains' or sequences of 'ideas.' It is accordingly
+characteristic of Brown that he habitually describes an intellectual
+process as a 'feeling.' The statement of a mathematical proportion,
+for example, is a case of 'relative suggestion.' When we consider
+two numbers together we have a '_feeling_ of the relation of
+proportion.'[497] The 'profoundest reasonings' are 'nothing more than
+a continued analysis of our thought,' by which we resolve the 'complex
+_feelings_ of our minds' into the simpler conceptions out of which
+they were constructed.[498] In other words, Brown, it would seem,
+really accepts the _penser c'est sentir_, only that he regards the
+_sentir_ as including separate classes of feeling, which cannot be
+regarded as simple 'transformations' of sensation. They are 'states of
+the mind' caused by, that is, invariably following upon, the simpler
+states, and, of course, combining in an endless variety of different
+forms. Reasoning is nothing more than a series of relative
+'suggestions of which the separate subjects are felt by us to be
+mutually related.'[499] Hence, too, arises his theory of
+generalisation. He is, he says, not a 'nominalist' but a
+'conceptualist,' and here, for once, agrees with Reid as against
+Stewart.[500] The 'general term,' according to him, expresses the
+'feeling or general notion of resemblance,' which arises upon a
+contemplation of two objects. 'In Nature,' as he observes
+elsewhere,[501] 'there are no classes,' but the observation of a
+number of particular cases and a certain feeling to which we give a
+name. Here, again, Brown's view coincides with that of his French
+contemporaries.
+
+We may then say briefly that Brown carries out in his own fashion the
+conception of psychology which makes it an inductive science parallel
+to the physical sciences, and to be pursued by the same methods. We
+have to do with 'feelings' instead of atoms, and with mental instead
+of 'material' chemistry. Our sole method is still an analysis such as
+guides us in unravelling complex physical phenomena. We have, indeed,
+to admit certain first truths--the belief in our own identity is one
+of them--which are necessary to our very existence, although the
+assertion of such principles was carried to an extravagant and
+ridiculous length 'by Reid and some of his friends.' When, however, we
+come to ask what these principles are, it must be admitted that they
+are very innocent. They are not dangerous things, like 'innate ideas,'
+capable of leading us to a transcendental world, but simply assertions
+that we are warranted in trusting our sensations and applying a
+thoroughly inductive and empirical method. They are the cement which
+joins the feelings, and which, as Mill thought, could be supplanted by
+'indissoluble associations.' The indefinite power thus attributed to
+association became, as we shall see, Mill's most characteristic
+doctrine. Meanwhile, I will only mention one inference which
+illustrates Brown's philosophical tendencies. Stewart had spoken
+doubtfully of the ontological argument for theology. Brown throws it
+over altogether. He does not even change it into an 'intuition.' He
+has always, he says, regarded it as 'absolutely void of force' unless
+it tacitly assumes the 'physical argument.' Nay, it is one proof of
+the force of this physical argument that it has saved us from doubts
+which would be rather strengthened than weakened by the 'metaphysical
+arguments.'[502] The 'physical argument' means the argument from
+design, which thus becomes the sole support of theology.
+
+Hamilton naturally regards Brown as a mere sceptic in disguise. His
+theory of perception destroys his theory of personal identity. He has
+refused to accept our intuitive belief in one case, and cannot appeal
+to it in the other. He leaves no room for 'liberty of will,' and
+advances 'no argument in support of this condition of our moral
+being.'[503] Indeed, as Stewart complained, Brown, by identifying
+'will' and 'desire,' has got rid of the will altogether. It is only
+natural that a man who is making a scientific study of the laws of
+human nature should find no room for an assertion that within a
+certain sphere there are no laws. A physiologist might as well admit
+that some vital processes are uncaused.
+
+Brown thus illustrates the gravitation of the 'common-sense'
+philosophy to pure empiricism. He was the last in the genuine line of
+Scottish common-sense philosophers. When after what may be called the
+unphilosophical interregnum which followed Brown's death, Hamilton
+became professor, the Scottish tradition was blended with the very
+different theories derived from Kant. Upon Brown's version, the
+Scottish philosophy had virtually declared itself bankrupt. The
+substance of his teaching was that of the very school which his
+predecessors had attempted to confute, carefully as the fact might be
+hidden by dexterous rhetoric and manipulation of technical terms. He
+agrees with Hume's premises, and adopts the method of Condillac. This
+was perceived by his most remarkable hearer. Carlyle went to Edinburgh
+at the end of 1809. Brown, 'an eloquent, acute little gentleman, full
+of enthusiasm about simple suggestions, relative, etc.,' was 'utterly
+unprofitable' to him, disspiriting 'as the autumn winds among withered
+leaves.'[504] In _Signs of the Times_ (1829) Carlyle gave his view of
+the Scottish philosophy generally. They had, he says, started from the
+'mechanical' premises suggested by Hume. 'They let loose instinct as
+an indiscriminatory bandog to guard them against (his) conclusions':
+'they tugged lustily at the logical chain by which Hume was so coldly
+towing them and the world into bottomless abysses of Atheism and
+Fatalism. But the chain somehow snapped between them, and the issue
+has been that nobody now cares about either--any more than about
+Hartley's, Darwin's, or Priestley's contemporaneous doings in
+England.'[505] The judgment goes to the root of the matter. The method
+of Reid inevitably led to this result. Consider the philosophy as
+based upon, if not identical with, an inductive science of psychology,
+and the end is clear. You may study and analyse the phenomena as
+carefully as you please; and may, as the Scottish professors did,
+produce, if not a scientific psychology, yet a mass of acute
+prolegomena to a science. But the analysis can only reveal the actual
+combinations, chemical or mechanical, of thought. The ultimate
+principles which the teachers profess to discover are simply
+provisional; products not yet analysed, but not therefore incapable of
+analysis. It was very desirable to point them out: an insistence upon
+the insufficiency of Hume's or Condillac's theories was a most
+valuable service; but it was valuable precisely because every
+indication of such an unresolved element was a challenge to the next
+comer to resolve it by closer analysis. And thus, in fact, the
+intuitions, which had played so great a part with Reid, come in
+Brown's hands to be so clearly limited to the materials given by
+sensation or experience that any show of 'philosophy,' meaning an
+independent theory of the universe, was an illusory combination of
+fine phrases.[506]
+
+
+II. JAMES MILL'S 'ANALYSIS'
+
+James Mill's _Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind_ is on the
+one hand an exposition of the principles implied in Bentham's
+writings, and, on the other hand, a statement of the position from
+which the younger Mill started. J. S. Mill discussed the book with his
+father during its composition, and in 1869 he published a new edition,
+with elaborate notes by himself, George Grote, Professor Bain, and
+Andrew Findlater.[507] The commentary is of great importance in
+defining the relation between the two successors to the throne of
+Bentham.
+
+Mill's _Analysis_, though not widely read, made a deep impression upon
+Mill's own disciples. It is terse, trenchant, and uncompromising. It
+reminds us in point of style of the French writers, with whom he
+sympathised, rather than of the English predecessors, to whom much of
+the substance was owing. The discursive rhetoric of Brown or Stewart
+is replaced by good, hard, sinewy logic. The writer is plainly in
+earnest. If over confident, he has no petty vanity, and at least
+believes every word that he says. Certain limitations are at once
+obvious. Mill, as a publicist, a historian, and a busy official, had
+not had much time to spare for purely philosophic reading. He was not
+a professor in want of a system, but an energetic man of business,
+wishing to strike at the root of the superstitions to which his
+political opponents appealed for support. He had heard of Kant, and
+seen what 'the poor man would be at.' Later German systems, had he
+heard of them, would have been summarily rejected by him as so much
+transcendental moonshine. The problem of philosophy was, he held, a
+very simple one, if attacked in a straightforward, scientific method.
+
+Mill, like his Scottish rivals, applies 'Baconian' principles. The
+inductive method, which had already been so fruitful in the physical
+sciences, will be equally effective in philosophy, and ever since
+Locke, philosophy had meant psychology. The 'philosophy of the mind'
+and the philosophy of the body may be treated as co-ordinate and
+investigated by similar methods. In the physical sciences we come
+ultimately to the laws of movement of their constituent atoms. In the
+moral sciences we come in the same way to the study of 'ideas.' The
+questions, How do ideas originate? and how are they combined so as to
+form the actual state of consciousness? are therefore the general
+problems to be solved. Hume had definitely proposed the problem.
+Hartley had worked out the theory of association of ideas which Hume
+had already compared[508] to the universal principle of gravitation in
+the physical world; and had endeavoured to show how this might be
+connected with physiological principles. Hartley's followers had been
+content to dwell upon the power of association. Abraham Tucker,
+Priestley, Erasmus Darwin, and Belsham represented this tendency, and
+were the normal antagonists of Reid and Stewart. In France the
+'ideologists' mainly followed Condillac, and apparently knew nothing
+of Hartley. Mill, as his son testifies, had been profoundly influenced
+by Hartley's treatise--the 'really master-production,' as he esteemed
+it, 'in the philosophy of mind.'[509] Hartley's work, as the younger
+Mill thought, and the elder apparently agreed, was very superior to
+the 'merely verbal generalisation of Condillac.' James Mill, however,
+admired Condillac and his successors. In his article upon education,
+Mill traces the association theory to Hobbes, Locke, and Hume, the
+last of whom, he says, was succeeded by the two 'more sober-minded'
+philosophers, Condillac and Hartley; while he especially praises
+Erasmus Darwin, Helvétius, and Cabanis. Mill, therefore, may be
+regarded as an independent ally of the ideologists whose influence
+upon Brown has been already noticed. Mill had not read Brown's
+_Lectures_ when he began his _Analysis_, and after reading them
+thought Brown 'but poorly read in the doctrine of association.'[510]
+He had, however, read the essay upon causation, which he rather oddly
+describes as 'one of the most valuable contributions to science for
+which we are indebted to the last generation.'[511] He accepted
+Brown's view _minus_ the 'intuition.'
+
+The pith of Mill's book is thus determined. His aim is to give a
+complete analysis of mental phenomena, and therefore to resolve those
+phenomena into their primitive constituent atoms. Here we have at once
+a tacit assumption which governs his method. Philosophy, speaking
+roughly, is by some people supposed to start from truths, and thus to
+be in some way an evolution of logic. According to Mill it must start
+from facts, and therefore from something not given by logic. To state
+clearly, indeed, the relation between truth and fact may suggest very
+intricate problems. Mill, at any rate, must find a basis in fact, and
+for him the ultimate facts must be feelings. The reality at least of a
+feeling is undeniable. The _Penser c'est sentir_, or the doctrine that
+all 'ideas' are transformed sensations is his starting-point. The word
+'feeling,' according to him, includes every 'phenomenon of the mind.'
+'Think,' he says elsewhere,[512] does not include all our experience,
+but 'there is nothing to which we could not extend the term "I feel."'
+He proceeds to infer that our experience is either a knowledge of the
+feelings separately, or 'a knowledge of the order in which they follow
+each other; and this is all.' We may add that the knowledge is the
+feeling. Reid, Kant, and the Germans have indeed tried to show that
+there are feelings not derived from the sensations, but this, as
+Hartley and Condillac have shown, is a mistake. This is his first
+principle in a nutshell, and must give a clue to the various
+applications.
+
+The next step is familiar. Hume had distinguished impressions and
+ideas. 'Ideas' are copies of previous 'impressions.' It is for
+psychology to say what are the laws by which they are related to their
+originals. The ultimate origin cannot be explained by psychology
+alone. Impressions are caused by the outward world acting in some way
+upon the mind; and the psychologist can only classify the various
+modes in which they present themselves. Mill therefore begins by the
+usual account of the five senses, through which comes all knowledge of
+the external world. He adds to Reid's list muscular sensations, and
+those derived from the internal organs, to which last Cabanis in
+particular had called attention. So far he is following the steps of
+his predecessors. He is, he says, simply asserting an 'indisputable'
+fact.[513] We have sensations and we have ideas, which are 'copies of
+sensations.' We may then consider how far these facts will enable us
+to explain the whole series of mental phenomena. 'Ideation,' which he
+suggests as a new word--the process by which a continuous series of
+thoughts goes on in our minds--is the general phenomenon to be
+considered. Without, as yet, pronouncing that sensations and copies of
+sensations will turn out to form the whole contents of our
+consciousness, he tries to show for what part of those contents they
+will account.
+
+Here we come to the doctrine which for him and his school gave the
+key to all psychological problems. It was James Mill's real merit,
+according to his son, that he carried the principle of association of
+ideas further than it had been carried by Hartley or other
+predecessors.[514] The importance of the doctrine, indeed, is implied
+in the very statement of the problem. If it be true, or so far as it
+is true, that our consciousness reveals to us simply a series of
+'sensations' and 'ideas,' the question must be how they are combined.
+'Thought succeeds thought, idea follows idea incessantly,'[515] says
+Mill; and this phrase assumes 'thoughts' and 'ideas' to be separable
+atoms. How, then, do they come to coalesce into an apparently
+continuous stream? The mind is a stream of 'ideas.' If the stream is
+composed of drops, we must, of course, consider the drops as composing
+the stream. The question is, What laws can we assign which will
+determine the process of composition? The phrase 'association'
+admittedly expresses some general and very familiar truths.
+Innumerable connections may be established when there is no assignable
+ground of connection in the ideas themselves other than the fact of a
+previous contact. One idea not only calls up the other, but in some
+way generates a belief in an independent connection. We hear thunder,
+for example, and think of lightning. The two ideas are entirely
+distinct and separate, for they are due to different senses. Yet we
+not only think of lightning when we hear thunder, but we have no doubt
+that there is a causal connection. We believe in this connection,
+again, though no further explanation can be given of the fact.
+Thunder and lightning have occurred together, and we infer that they
+will, and even must, occur together. When we examine our whole
+structure of belief, we find such 'arbitrary' associations pervade it
+in every direction. Language itself is learned simply by association.
+There is no connection whatever between the sound of the word 'man'
+and the 'ideas' which the word excites, beyond the fact that the sound
+has been previously heard when the ideas were excited. Here, then, is
+a phenomenon to be explained or generalised. We have in countless
+cases a certain connection established for which no further reason can
+be assigned than the fact of its previous occurrence. On such a
+ground, we believe that fire burns, that bread is wholesome, that
+stones fall; and but for such beliefs could know nothing of the
+outside world. 'Contingent' truth, therefore, or truth derived from
+mere contact, pervades, if it does not constitute, the whole fabric of
+our whole knowledge. To prove that all our knowledge is derived from
+experience is, according to Mill, to prove that in some sense or other
+association of ideas lies at the base of all intellectual processes.
+When Locke introduced a chapter upon 'Association of Ideas' into the
+fourth edition of his essay, he treated it as the exceptional case.
+Some ideas had a connection traceable by reason; others were only
+connected by 'chance and custom.' Association does not explain
+reasoning, only the deviations from reasoning. But with Hume and
+Hartley the relation is inverted. The principle, instead of being an
+exceptional case, is simply the universal rule from which logical
+connection may be deduced as a special case.
+
+The facts upon which Mill relied, and the account of them which he
+gave, require notice and embodiment in any sound psychology. In some
+shape or other they form the starting-point of all later systems.
+Mill's vigorous application of his principle, worked out with
+imperfect appreciation and with many oversights, had therefrom, at
+least, the merit of preparing the ground for a more scientific method.
+In any case, however, his conclusions, so far as sound, must be placed
+in a different framework of theory. It becomes necessary to dwell
+chiefly upon the curious defects of his theory, if taken as he wished
+it to be taken, for an ultimate scientific statement. The fact that
+there is a synthesis and an analysis is expressed by 'association.'
+But what more can we say? What are the 'laws' of association? Unless
+some rule can be given, we shall get nothing that can be called a
+theory. One idea is not suggested by the other through any logical
+process. They are still 'conjoined' but not 'connected.' The
+connection, therefore, must be given by something different from the
+ideas themselves. Now the order of the original 'sensations' depends
+upon the 'objects of nature,' and is therefore left to 'physical
+philosophy.'[516] They occur, however, either in 'synchronous' or in
+'successive' order. Then 'ideas' spring up in the order of
+'sensations,' and this is the 'general law of association of
+ideas.'[517] The synchronous sensations produce synchronous ideas and
+the successive sensations successive ideas. Finally, the strength of
+the association between the ideas depends upon 'the vividness of the
+associated feelings, and the frequency of the association.'[518] Hume
+had said that association depended upon three principles, 'contiguity
+in time and place,' 'causation,' and 'resemblance.' Contiguity in time
+corresponds to the successive, and contiguity in place to the
+synchronous, order. Causation, as Brown had finally proved,[519] means
+simply antecedence and consequence. 'Resemblance' remains and is, as
+Mill afterwards says,[520] a most important principle; but in an
+unlucky moment he is half inclined to reduce even 'resemblance' to
+'contiguity.'[521] Resemblance is, he even suggests, merely 'a case of
+frequency,' because we generally see like things together. When we see
+one tree or sheep, we generally see several trees or sheep. J. S. Mill
+mildly remarks upon this quaint suggestion as the 'least successful
+simplification' in the book. He argues the point gravely. Sheep, it is
+clear, are not seen to be like because they often compose a flock, but
+are considered to be a flock because they are seen to be like. To do
+James Mill justice, he drops the argument as soon as he has struck it
+out. It is only worth notice as showing his aim. 'Likeness' seems to
+imply a relation dependent on the ideas themselves; not purely
+external and arbitrary. If we could get rid of likeness, all
+association would ultimately be 'contiguity.' 'The fundamental law of
+association,' as he says elsewhere,[522] 'is that when two things have
+been frequently found together, we never perceive or think of the one
+without thinking of the other.' The two ideas are associated as two
+balls are associated when they are in the same box. So far as they are
+themselves concerned, they might be separated without any alteration
+in their own properties. What, then, corresponds to the 'box'?
+Association depends upon relations of time and space. Things are
+associated by occurring in succession or together; the red colour of a
+rose is in the same place with the shape of the leaf; the scent is
+perceived at the same time with the colour. The thunder follows the
+lightning. What, then, he might ask, are 'time' and 'space'? Are they
+'ideas' or 'sensations' or qualities of the objects? or, in any case,
+as supplying the ultimate principle of association, do they not
+require investigation? Before coming to that problem, however, we have
+to settle other knotty points. We must clear away illusions which seem
+to introduce something more than association. Elements of thought not
+at first sight expressible simply in terms of sensations and ideas
+must be analysed to show that they are only disguises for different
+combinations of the facts. Reasoning, according to most logicians,
+supposes, first, concepts, and therefore some process of
+classification of the objects of thought; and, secondly, some process
+of combining these concepts to bring out hitherto unknown truths.
+What, then, is the meaning of the general or abstract symbols employed
+in the process? Mill's provision of raw materials consists so far of
+sensations and ideas, which are worked up so as to form 'clusters'
+(the word is taken from Hartley) and 'trains.' This corresponds to
+synchronous and successive associations. How does the logical
+terminology express these 'clusters' and 'trains'? Mill answers by a
+theory of 'naming.' Language fulfils two purposes; it is required in
+order to make our ideas known to others; and in order to fix our own
+ideas. Ideas are fluctuating, transitory, and 'come into the mind
+unbidden.' We must catch and make a note of these shifting crowds of
+impalpable entities. We therefore put marks upon the simple
+sensations or upon the 'clusters.' We ticket them as a tradesman
+tickets bundles of goods in his warehouse, and can refer to them for
+our own purposes or those of others. As the number of objects to be
+marked is enormous, as there are countless ideas and clusters and
+clusters of clusters of endless variety to be arranged in various
+ways, one main object of naming is economy. A single word has to be
+used to mark a great number of individuals. This will account for such
+general names as are represented by noun-substantives: man, horse,
+dog, and so forth. Mill then proceeds, with the help of Horne Tooke,
+to explain the other grammatical forms. An adjective is another kind
+of noun marking a cross division. Verbs, again, are adjectives marking
+other sets of facts, and enabling us to get rid of the necessity of
+using a new mark for every individual or conceivable combination into
+clusters. J. S. Mill remarks that this omits the special function of
+verbs--their 'employment in predication.'[523] James Mill, however,
+has his own view of 'predication.' 'Man' is a mark of John, Peter,
+Thomas, and the rest. When I say 'John is a man,' I mean that 'man is
+another mark to that idea of which John is a mark.'[524] I am then
+able to make a statement which will apply to all the individuals, and
+save the trouble of repeating the assertion about each. 'Predication,'
+therefore, is simply a substitution of one name for another. So, for
+example, arithmetic is simply naming. What I call two and two, I also
+call four. The series of thoughts in this case is merely 'a series of
+names applicable to the same thing and meaning the same thing.'[525]
+This doctrine, as J. S. Mill remarks, is derived from Hobbes, whom
+Leibniz in consequence called _plus quam nominalis_.[526] My belief
+that two and two make four explains why I give the same name to
+certain numbers; but the giving the name does not explain the belief.
+Meanwhile, if a class name be simply the mark which is put upon a
+bundle of things, we have got rid of a puzzle. Mill triumphs over the
+unfortunate realists who held that a class meant a mysterious entity,
+existing somewhere apart from all the individuals in which it is
+embodied. There is really nothing mysterious; a name is first the mark
+of an individual, the individual corresponding to a 'cluster' or a set
+of 'simple ideas, concreted into a complex idea.'[527] Then the name
+and the complex idea are associated reciprocally; each 'calls up' the
+other. The complex idea is 'associated' with other resembling ideas.
+The name becomes a talisman calling up the ideas of an indefinite
+number of resembling individuals, and the name applied to one
+in the first instance becomes a mark which calls up all, or, as
+he says, is the 'name of the whole combination.' Classification,
+therefore, 'is merely a process of naming, and is all resolvable into
+association.'[528] The peculiarity of this theory, as his commentators
+again remark, is that it expressly omits any reference to abstraction.
+The class simply means the aggregate of resembling individuals without
+any selection of the common attributes which are, in J. S. Mill's
+phrase, 'connoted' by the class-name. Abstraction, as James Mill
+explains, is a subsidiary process, corresponding to the 'formation of
+_sub-species_.'[529]
+
+Mill has now shown how the various forms of language correspond to
+ideas, formed into clusters of various orders by the principle of
+association. The next step will naturally be to show how these
+clusters are connected in the process of reasoning. Here the
+difficulty about predication recurs. J. S. Mill[530] remarks that his
+father's theory of predication consistently omits 'the element
+Belief.' When I say, 'John is a man,' I make an affirmation or assert
+a belief. I do not simply mean to call up in the mind of my hearer a
+certain 'cluster' or two coincident clusters of ideas, but to convey
+knowledge of truths. The omission of reference to belief is certainly
+no trifle. Mill has classified the various ideas and combinations of
+ideas which are used in judgment, but the process of judgment itself
+seems to have slipped out of account. He may have given us, or be able
+to give us, a reasoned catalogue of the contents of our minds, but has
+not explained how the mind itself acts. It is a mere passive recipient
+of ideas, or rather itself a cluster of ideas cohering in various
+ways, without energy of its own. One idea, as he tells us, calls up
+another 'by its own associating power.'[531] Ideas are things which
+somehow stick together and revive each other, without reference to the
+mind in which they exist or which they compose. This explains his
+frequent insistence upon one assertion. As we approach the question of
+judgment he finds it essential. 'Having a sensation and having a
+feeling,' he says, 'are not two things.' To 'feel an idea and be
+conscious of that feeling are not two things; the feeling and the
+consciousness are but two names for the same thing.'[532] So, again,
+'to have a sensation and to believe that we have it, are not
+distinguishable things.'[533] Locke's reflection thus becomes nothing
+but simple consciousness, and having a feeling is the same as
+attending to it.[534] The point is essential. It amounts to saying
+that we can speak of a thought as though it were simply a thing.
+
+Thus belief not only depends upon, but actually _is_ association. 'It
+is not easy,' he says, 'to treat of memory, belief, and judgment
+separately.'[535] As J. S. Mill naturally asks, 'How is it possible to
+treat of belief without including in it memory and judgment?' Memory
+is a case of belief, and judgment an 'act of belief.'[536] To James
+Mill, however, it appears that as these different functions all
+involve association, they may be resolved into varying applications of
+that universal power. Memory involves 'an idea of my present self' and
+an 'idea of my past self,' and to remember is to 'run over the
+intervening states of consciousness called up by association.'[537]
+Belief involves association at every step. The belief in external
+objects is, as 'all men admit' ... 'wholly resolvable into
+association.'[538] 'That a cause means and can mean nothing to the
+human mind but constant antecedence' (and therefore 'inseparable
+association,' as he thinks) 'is no longer a point in dispute.'[539]
+Association, it is true, may produce wrong as well as right beliefs;
+right beliefs when 'in conformity with the connections of
+things,'[540] and wrong beliefs when not in conformity. In both cases
+the belief is produced by 'custom,' though, happily, the right custom
+is by far the commonest. The 'strength of the association follows the
+frequency.' The crow flies east as well as west; but the stone always
+falls downwards.[541] Hence I form an 'inseparable association'
+corresponding to a belief in gravitation, but have no particular
+belief about the direction of a crow's flight.
+
+This gives the doctrine of 'indissoluble association'--the pivot of
+the whole scheme--the doctrine, says J. S. Mill, which, 'if it can be
+proved, is the greatest of all the triumphs of the Association
+Philosophy.'[542] The younger Mill always insisted upon the vast
+importance of the principle; but he here admits a difficulty. In a
+long note[543] upon James Mill's chapter on 'Belief,' conspicuous for
+his usual candour, he confesses the inadequacy of his father's view.
+The comment indicates the point of divergence and yet shows curiously
+the ground common to both. James Mill's theory states facts in some
+sense undeniable. Our 'ideas' cohere and combine to form a tissue: an
+imagery or series of pictures which form the content and are somehow
+the ground of our beliefs. The process of formation clearly involves
+'association.' The scent of the rose is associated with the colour:
+both with the visible form and so forth. But is this process the same
+thing as believing, or have we to explain the belief by some mental
+activity different from, however closely connected with, the
+imagination, or in his phrase the 'ideation'? Here J. S. Mill finds a
+difficulty. The statement, 'I believe that thunder will follow
+lightning,' is something more than the statement, 'the sight suggests
+or calls up the sound.' The mental picture considered by itself may be
+described as a fact, without considering what belief, or whether any
+belief, is implied. J. S. Mill therefore makes a distinction intended
+to clear up his father's confusion. There is a difference, he says,
+between remembering 'a real fact' and remembering a 'thought.'[544] He
+illustrates this by the difference between the idea of Lafayette and
+the idea of Falstaff. Lafayette was real, and had been seen by the
+rememberer. Falstaff is a figment who, having never existed, can never
+have been seen. Yet the idea of Falstaff may be quite as vivid as the
+idea of Lafayette. What, then, is the difference between the two
+states of mind? One, says J. S. Mill, is a belief about 'real facts';
+the other about 'thoughts.' This, he observes, corresponds to James
+Mill's distinction between a 'sensation' and an 'idea,'[545] a
+difference which he had admitted to be 'primordial.' Then, says J. S.
+Mill, we may as well admit that there is an 'element' in the
+remembrance of a real fact not implied in the remembrance of a thought
+and not dependent on any difference in the 'ideas' themselves. It,
+too, may be taken as 'primordial,' or incapable of further analysis.
+This doctrine becomes important in some of Mill's logical
+speculations,[546] and is connected with his whole theory of belief in
+an external world. It has an uncomfortable likeness to Reid's
+'common-sense' view, and even to the hated 'intuitionism'; and Mill
+deserves the more credit for his candour.
+
+Meanwhile it seems clear that the criticism implies an important
+confusion. The line of distinction is drawn in the wrong place. So
+far as the simple 'imagination' is concerned, there may be no question
+of belief or disbelief. The picture of Falstaff or of Lafayette, a
+horse or a centaur, arises equally, and is put together, let us
+suppose, by simple association. But as soon as I think about either I
+believe or disbelieve, and equally whether I judge the object to be a
+thought or to be a 'real fact,' whether I say that I could have seen
+Lafayette, or that I could not have seen Falstaff. It is not a
+question between reality or unreality, but between two classes of
+reality. A dream is a real dream, just as a man is a real man. The
+question is simply where or how it exists, not whether it exists. The
+picture is, in one case, put together by my mind; in the other, due to
+a stimulus from without; but it exists in both cases; and belief is
+equally present whether I put it in one class of reality or the other:
+as we form a judgment equally when we pronounce a man to be lying, and
+when we pronounce him to be speaking the truth. J. S. Mill seems to
+suppose that association can explain the imagination of a centaur or a
+Falstaff, but cannot explain the belief in a horse or Lafayette. The
+imagination or 'ideation,' he should have said, accounts in both cases
+for the mere contents of the thought; but in neither case can it by
+itself explain the judgment as to 'reality.' That is to say, James
+Mill may have described accurately a part of the process by which the
+mental picture is constructed, but has omitted to explain the action
+of the mind itself. Belief, we may agree, is a 'primordial' or
+ultimate faculty; but we must not interpret it as belief in a 'real
+fact' as distinguished from belief in 'a thought': that is a secondary
+and incidental distinction.
+
+This confusion, as I have said, apparently prevents J. S. Mill from
+seeing how deeply his very frank admissions cut into the very
+structure of his father's system. He has, as I have said, remarked
+upon the singular absence of any reference to 'belief,' 'abstraction,'
+and so forth; but he scarcely observes how much is implied by the
+omission. His criticism should have gone further. James Mill has not
+only omitted a faculty which enables us to distinguish between
+'thoughts' and 'things,' images of fancy and pictures of reality, but
+also the faculty which is equally present whenever we properly think
+instead of simply seeing images passively; and equally whether we
+refer an image to fact or fancy. His 'analysis of the mind' seems to
+get rid of the mind itself.
+
+The omission becomes important at the next step. 'Under the modest
+title of an explanation of the meaning of several names,' says his
+son, James Mill discusses 'some of the deepest and most intricate
+questions in all metaphysics.' A treatise on chemistry might almost as
+well be 'described as an explanation of the names, air, water, potass,
+sulphuric acid, and so forth.'[547] Why does the chapter come in this
+place and in this peculiar form? Probably because James Mill was
+partly conscious of the inadequacy of his previous chapters. The
+problems which he has been considering could not be adequately treated
+by regarding ideas as 'things' bound together by association. What,
+after all, is a proposition? What is meant by 'true' or 'false,' as
+distinguished from real and unreal? If an association actually _is_ a
+truth, what is the difference between right and wrong associations?
+Both are facts, and the very words 'right' and 'wrong,' that is, true
+and false, apply not to facts but to propositions.[548] The judgment
+is tested in some way by correspondence to the 'order of Nature,' or
+of our sensations and ideas. What precisely is meant by this order? So
+far as we have gone, it seems as if ideas might be combined in any
+order whatever, and the most various beliefs generated in different
+minds. Perhaps, however, the principle of association itself may
+reveal something as to the possible modes of coalescence. Mill makes
+contiguity an ultimate ground of association; and contiguity implies
+that things have certain relations expressible in terms of space and
+time and so forth. These primitive relations now come up for
+consideration, and should enable us to say more precisely what kind of
+order is possible. In fact, Mill now endeavours to analyse the
+meanings of such words as relation in general, time, space, number,
+likeness, personal identity and others. The effect of his analysis is
+that the principles, whatever they may be, which might be supposed to
+underlie association appear to be products of association. He begins
+by asking what is the meaning of 'relative terms.' Their peculiarity
+is that they 'always exist in pairs,' such as 'father and son,' 'high
+and low,' 'right and left.' 'If it is asked, Why do we give names in
+pairs? the general answer immediately suggests itself; it is because
+the things named present themselves in pairs, that is, are joined by
+association.'[549] J. S. Mill thinks that no part of the _Analysis_
+is more valuable than the 'simple explanation' which follows. There is
+no 'mystical bond called a relation' between two things, but 'a very
+simple peculiarity in the concrete fact' marked by the names. In
+'ordinary names of objects, the fact connoted by a name ... concerns
+one object only'; in the case of relative names, 'the fact connoted
+concerns two objects, and cannot be understood without thinking of
+them both.' A 'fact concerning an object' is a curiously awkward
+expression; but one point is clear. If the two objects concerned are
+the same, whether considered apart or together, the 'relation' must be
+something more than the facts, and therefore requires to be specified.
+If they are, in fact, one thing, or parts of a continuous process, we
+must ask how they come to be distinguished, and what ground there is
+for speaking of association. James Mill, by considering the problem as
+a mere question of 'names,' seems to intimate that the relation is a
+mere figment. In fact, as J. S. Mill perceives, the 'explanations'
+become nugatory. They simply repeat the thing to be explained. He
+begins with 'resemblance.' To feel two things to be alike is, he says,
+the same thing as to have the two feelings. He means to say,
+apparently, that when there are two 'ideas' there is not also a third
+idea of 'likeness.' That would be what Bentham called a 'fictitious
+entity.' But this cannot 'explain' the likeness of the ideas. 'Their
+being alike,' as his son interprets, 'is nothing but their being felt
+to be alike--which does not help us.'[550] So 'antecedence and
+consequence' are 'explained' by saying that one of two feelings calls
+up the other; or, as the son again remarks, antecedence is explained
+by antecedence, and succession by succession. Antecedence and
+consequence, like likeness and unlikeness, must therefore, according
+to J. S. Mill, be 'postulated as universal conditions of Nature,
+inherent in all our feelings whether of external or internal
+consciousness.'[551] In other words, apparently, time is an ultimate
+form of thought. Time and space, generally, as James Mill thinks, are
+the 'abstract names' respectively of successive and simultaneous
+order, which become 'indissolubly associated with the idea of every
+object.'[552] Space, of course, is said to be a product of touch and
+muscular sensations, and the problem as to how these varying
+sensations and these alone give rise to apparently necessary and
+invariable beliefs is not taken into consideration. Mill is here
+dealing with the questions which Kant attempted to answer by showing
+how the mind imposes its forms upon sense-given materials, forms them
+into concepts, and combines the concepts into judgments and reasoning.
+Mill evades the mysterious and transcendental at the cost of omitting
+reason altogether. He represents the result of accepting one horn of a
+dilemma, which presses upon philosophies of loftier pretensions. Those
+who accept the other horn speak of a 'fact' as though it were a truth,
+and argue as though the world could be spun out of pure logic, or a
+tissue be made of relations without any things to be related. Mill,
+with scarcely a glance at such doctrines, tries systematically to
+speak of a truth as if it were a fact. The world for him is made up of
+ideas sticking together; and nothing else exists. The relation is the
+fact; belief is the association; consciousness and reflection,
+considered apart, are nothing but the sensations, ideas, clusters,
+and trains. The attempt to base all truth upon experience, to bring
+philosophy into harmony with science was, as I hold, perfectly right.
+Only, upon these assumptions it could not be carried out. Mill had the
+merit which is implied even by an unsuccessful attempt to hold by
+fact. He raises a number of interesting questions; and I think that it
+is more remarkable that so many of his observations have still an
+interest for psychologists than that so much is obviously wrong. Mill,
+it may be said, took an essay upon association for a treatise upon
+psychology in general. He was writing what might be one important
+chapter in such a treatise, and supposes that he has written the
+whole, and can deduce 'philosophy' from it, if, indeed, any philosophy
+can be said to remain. Meanwhile, I may observe, that by pushing his
+principles to extremes, even his 'association' doctrine is endangered.
+His _Analysis_ seems to destroy even the elements which are needed to
+give the simplest laws of association. It is rather difficult to say
+what is meant by the 'contiguity,' 'sequence,' and 'resemblance,'
+which are the only conditions specified, and which he seems to explain
+not as the conditions but as the product of association. J. S. Mill
+perceived that something was wanting which he afterwards tried to
+supply. I will just indicate one or two points, which may show what
+problems the father bequeathed to the son. James Mill, at one place,
+discusses the odd problem 'how it happens that all trains of thought
+are not the same.'[553] The more obvious question is, on his
+hypothesis, how it happens that any two people have the same beliefs,
+since the beliefs are made of the most varying materials. If, again,
+two ideas when associated remain distinct, we have Hume's difficulty.
+Whatever is distinguishable, he argued, is separable. If two ideas
+simply lie side by side, as is apparently implied by 'contiguity,' so
+that each can be taken apart without change, why should we suppose
+that they will never exist apart, or, indeed, that they should ever
+again come together? The contiguity does not depend upon them, but
+upon some inscrutable collocation, of which we can only say that it
+exists now. This is the problem which greatly occupied J. S. Mill.
+
+The 'indissoluble' or 'inseparable' association, which became the
+grand arcanum of the school, while intended to answer some of these
+difficulties, raises others. Mill seems to insist upon splitting a
+unit into parts in order that it may be again brought together by
+association. So J. S. Mill, in an admiring note, confirms his father's
+explanation ('one of the most important thought in the whole
+treatise') of the infinity of space.[554] We think space infinite
+because we always 'associate' position with extension. Surely space is
+extension; and to think of one without the other implies a
+contradiction. We think space infinite, because we think of a space as
+only limited by other space, and therefore indefinitely extensible.
+There is no 'association,' simply repetition. Elsewhere we have the
+problem, How does one association exclude another? Only, as J. S. Mill
+replies, when one idea includes the idea of the absence of the
+others.[555] We cannot combine the ideas of a plane and a convex
+surface. Why? Because we have never had both sets of sensations
+together. The 'commencement' of one set has always been 'simultaneous
+with the cessation of another set,' as, for instance, when we bend a
+flat sheet of paper. The difficulty seems to be that one fact cannot
+be contradictory of another, since contradiction only applies to
+assertions. When I say that A is above B, however, I surely assert
+that B is below A; and I cannot make both assertions about A and B at
+the same time without a contradiction. To explain this by an
+association of simultaneous and successive sensations seems to be a
+curiously roundabout way of 'explaining.' Every assertion is also a
+denial; and, if I am entitled to say anything, I am enabled without
+any help from association to deny its contradictory. On Mill's
+showing, the assertion and the denial of its contradiction, instead of
+being identical, are taken to be two beliefs accidentally associated.
+Finally, I need only make one remark upon the fundamental difficulty.
+It is hard to conceive of mere loose 'ideas' going about in the
+universe at large and sticking accidentally to others. After all, the
+human being is in true sense also an organised whole, and his
+constitution must be taken into account in discovering the laws of
+'ideation.' This is the point of view to which Mill, in his anxiety to
+get rid of everything that had a savour of _a priori_ knowledge about
+it, remains comparatively blind. It implies a remarkable omission.
+Mill's great teacher, Hartley, had appealed to physiology in a
+necessarily crude fashion. He had therefore an organism: a brain or a
+nervous system which could react upon the external world and modify
+and combine sensations. Mill's ideas would have more apparent
+connection if they could be made to correspond to 'vibratiuncles' or
+physical processes of some kind. But this part of Hartley's hypothesis
+had been dropped: and all reality is therefore reduced to the whirl
+of vagrant and accidentally cohering ideas in brains and clusters. His
+one main aim is to get rid of everything that can be called mystical
+and to trace all mental processes to 'experience,' as he understands
+experience--to show that we are never entitled to assert that two
+ideas may not be joined in any way whatever.
+
+The general tendency of the 'Association Philosophy' is sufficiently
+clear. It may be best appreciated by comparing it to the method of the
+physical sciences, which it was intended to rival. The physicist
+explains the 'laws of nature' by regarding a phenomenon as due to the
+varying arrangements of an indefinite multitude of uniform atoms. I
+need not ask whether these atoms are to be regarded as realities, even
+the sole realities, or, on the other hand, as a kind of logical
+scaffolding removable when the laws are ascertained. In any case, the
+assumption is necessary and most fruitful in the search for accurate
+and quantitative formulæ. Mill virtually assumes that the same thing
+can be done by breaking up the stream of consciousness into the ideas
+which correspond to the primitive atoms. What precisely these atoms
+may be, how the constantly varying flow of thought can be resolved
+into constituent fractions, is not easy to see. The physicist at least
+supposes his atoms to have definite space relations, but there is
+nothing clearly corresponding to space in the 'ideas.' They are
+capable of nothing but co-existence, sequence, and likeness; but the
+attempt to explain the meaning of those words ends in nothing but
+repeating them. One result is the curious combination of the absolute
+and the indefinitely variable. We get absolute statements because the
+ultimate constituents are taken to be absolutely constant. We have
+indefinite variability because they may be collocated in any
+conceivable or inconceivable way. This becomes evident when we have to
+do with organisms of any kind: with characters or societies an
+organism varies, but varies along definite lines. But, on Mill's
+showing, the organic relations correspond to the indefinitely
+variable. Education is omnipotent; state constitutions can be
+manufactured at will, and produce indefinite consequences. And yet he
+can lay down laws of absolute validity, because he seems to be
+deducing them from one or two formulæ corresponding to the essential
+and invariable properties of the ultimate unit--whether man or ideas.
+From this follows, too, the tendency to speak as if human desires
+corresponded to some definite measurable things, such as utility in
+ethics, value in political economy, and self-interest in politics.
+This point appears in the application of Mill's theories to the moral
+sciences.
+
+
+III. JAMES MILL'S ETHICS
+
+James Mill in his ethical doctrine follows Bentham with little
+variation; but he shows very clearly what was the psychology which
+Bentham virtually assumed. I may pass very briefly over Mill's theory
+of conduct[556] in general. The 'phenomena of thought,' he says, may
+be divided into the 'intellectual' and the 'active' powers. Hitherto
+he has considered 'sensations' and 'ideas' merely as existing; he will
+now consider them as 'exciting to action.'[557] The phenomena consist
+in both cases of sensations and ideas, combined into 'clusters,' and
+formed into trains 'according to the sense laws.' We have now to
+consider the ideas as active, and 'to demonstrate the simple laws into
+which the phenomena of human life, so numerous and apparently so
+diversified, may all be easily resolved.'
+
+A desire is an 'idea' of a pleasant sensation; an 'aversion' an idea
+of painful sensation. The idea and the sensation are not two things,
+but two names for the same thing. Desire, again, has a 'tacit
+reference to future time' when applied to a given case. We associate
+these pains and pleasures with the causes; and in the important case
+our own actions are the causes. Thus the association produces the
+motive, and the readiness to obey the motive is, as Bentham says, the
+'disposition.' Then, following Hartley, Mill explains the will. Bodily
+actions are muscular contractions, which are slowly co-ordinated by
+habit--association, of course, acting at every stage of the process.
+Now, it is a plain fact that muscular contractions follow 'ideas.' It
+is easy, then, to see how the 'idea of a pleasure should excite the
+idea of the action which is the cause of it; and how, when the idea
+exists, the action should follow.'[558] An 'end' is a pleasure
+desired, and gives the 'motive.' When we start from the motive and get
+the pleasure the same association is called 'will.' 'Free-will' is of
+course nonsense. We have a full account of the human mechanism, and
+can see that it is throughout worked by association, admitting the
+primary fact of experience that the idea causes the muscular
+contraction.
+
+This, and the ethical conclusions which follow, substantially
+coincide with Bentham's doctrine, or supply the first principles from
+which Bentham might be deduced. A fuller exposition of the ethics is
+given in the _Fragment on Mackintosh_. Mackintosh, in 1829, wrote a
+Dissertation upon 'Ethical Philosophy,' for the _Encyclopædia
+Britannica_.[559] The book stirred Mill's 'indignation against an
+evil-doer.'[560] He wrote a _Fragment on Mackintosh_, which was
+suppressed for a time in consequence of his antagonist's death in
+1832, but published in the year of his own death, 1835.[561] According
+to Professor Bain, the book was softened in consequence of
+remonstrances from Bickersteth. It would be curious to see the
+previous version. Professor Bain says that there are 'thousands' of
+books which contain 'far worse severities of language.' I confess that
+I cannot remember quite 'a thousand.' It is at least difficult to
+imagine more unmitigated expressions of contempt and aversion.
+Mackintosh, says Mill, uses 'macaroni phrases,' 'tawdry talk,'
+'gabble'; he gets 'beyond drivelling' into something more like
+'raving'; he 'deluges' us with 'unspeakable nonsense.' 'Good God!'
+sums up the comment which can be made upon one sentence.[562] Sir
+James, he declares, 'has got into an intellectual state so thoroughly
+depraved that I doubt whether a parallel to it is possible to be
+found.'[563] There is scarcely a mention of Mackintosh without an
+insult. A partial explanation of Mill's wrath may be suggested by the
+chapter upon Bentham. Mackintosh there accused the Utilitarians
+generally of 'wantonly wounding the most respectable feelings of
+mankind'; of 'clinging to opinions because they are obnoxious'; of
+taking themselves to be a 'chosen few,' despising the multitude, and
+retorting the dislike which their arrogance has provoked by using
+still more exasperating language.[564] He suggested that they should
+do more justice to 'the Romillys and the Broughams,' who had been the
+real and judicious reformers; and he illustrated the errors of Bentham
+by especial reference to Mill's arguments upon government and
+education. There had long been an antipathy. Mackintosh, said Mill in
+1820, 'lives but for London display; _parler et faire parler de lui_
+in certain circles is his heaven.'[565]
+
+Mackintosh would have been most at home in a professorial chair. He
+was, indeed, professor at Haileybury from 1818 to 1824, and spoken of
+as a probable successor to Brown at Edinburgh. But he could never
+decidedly concentrate himself upon one main purpose. Habits of
+procrastination and carelessness about money caused embarrassment
+which forced him to write hastily. His love of society interfered with
+study, and his study was spread over an impossible range of subjects.
+His great abilities, wasted by these infirmities, were seconded by
+very wide learning. Macaulay describes the impression which he made at
+Holland House.[566] He passed among his friends as the profound
+philosopher; the man of universal knowledge of history; of ripe and
+most impartial judgment in politics; the oracle to whom all men might
+appeal with confidence, though a little too apt to find out that all
+sides were in the right. When he went to India he took with him some
+of the scholastic writers and the works of Kant and Fichte, then known
+to few Englishmen. One of Macaulay's experiences at Holland House was
+a vision of Mackintosh verifying a quotation from Aquinas.[567] It
+must have been delightful. The ethical 'dissertation,' however, had to
+be shortened by omitting all reference to German philosophy, and the
+account of the schoolmen is cursory. It is easy to see why the suave
+and amiable Mackintosh appeared to Mill to be a 'dandy' philosopher,
+an unctuous spinner of platitudes to impose upon the frequenters of
+Holland House, and hopelessly confused in the attempt to make
+compromises between contradictory theories. It is equally easy to see
+why to Mackintosh the thoroughgoing and strenuous Mill appeared to be
+a one-sided fanatic, blind to the merits of all systems outside the
+narrow limits of Benthamism, and making even philanthropy hateful. Had
+Mackintosh lived to read Mill's _Fragment_, he would certainly have
+thought it a proof that the Utilitarians were as dogmatic and acrid as
+he had ever asserted.
+
+Mackintosh's position in ethics explains Mill's antagonism. Neither
+Aquinas nor Kant nor Fichte influenced him. His doctrine is the
+natural outcome of the Scottish philosophy. Hutcheson had both
+invented Bentham's sacred formula, and taught the 'Moral Sense' theory
+which Bentham attacked. To study the morality from the point of view
+of 'inductive psychology' is to study the moral faculty, and to reject
+the purely 'intellectual' system. To assign the position of the moral
+faculty in the psychological system is to show its utility. On the
+other hand, it was the very aim of the school to avoid the sceptical
+conclusions of Hume in philosophy, and in ethics to avoid the complete
+identification of morality with utility. There must be a distinction
+between the judgments, 'this is right,' and 'this is useful'; even
+'useful to men in general.' Hence, on the one hand, morality is
+immediately dictated by a special sense or faculty, and yet its
+dictates coincide with the dictates of utility. I have spoken of this
+view as represented by Dugald Stewart; and Brown had, according to his
+custom, moved a step further by diminishing the list of original first
+principles, and making 'virtue' simply equivalent to 'feelings' of
+approval and disapproval.[568] Virtue, he said, is useful; the utility
+'accompanies our moral approbation; but the perception of that utility
+does not constitute our moral approbation, nor is it necessarily
+presupposed by it.'[569] He compares the coincidence between virtue
+and utility to Leibniz's pre-established harmony.[570] The position is
+familiar. The adaptation of an organism to its conditions may be taken
+either as an explanation of its development or as a proof of a
+creative purpose.
+
+Mackintosh takes nearly the same position. Ethical inquiries, he says,
+relate to 'two perfectly distinct subjects.' We have the problem of
+the 'criterion' (What is the distinction between right and wrong?) and
+the problem of the 'moral sentiments' (What are the feelings produced
+by the contemplation of right and wrong?). In treating of the
+feelings, again, we must avoid the confusion caused in the older
+philosophy by the reduction of 'feeling' to 'thought.'[571] Reason
+and sensation are distinct though inseparably combined; and hence, he
+argues, it is a fallacy to speak with Clarke as if reason could by
+itself be a motive. An argument to influence conduct must always be in
+the last resort an appeal to a 'feeling.'[572] It is idle to tell a
+man that conduct is infamous unless he _feels_ infamy to be painful.
+We have then to ask what are the feelings which prompt to morality. So
+far as the criterion is concerned, Mackintosh fully agrees with Hume,
+whose theory that 'general utility constitutes a general ground of
+moral distinctions can never be impugned until some example can be
+produced of a virtue generally pernicious or a vice generally
+beneficial.'[573] Hume, however, overlooks the 'rightful supremacy of
+the moral faculty over every other principle of human action.'
+Mackintosh thought that his best service, as he told Macvey
+Napier,[574] had been his 'endeavour to slip in a foundation under
+Butler's doctrine of the supremacy of the conscience, which he left
+baseless.' To slip in a foundation is a very delicate operation in
+logical as in material architecture; and the new foundation seems here
+to be in danger of inverting the edifice. The 'supremacy of
+conscience'[575] means with him that the 'moral sentiments' form a
+separate class. They are the feelings with which we contemplate
+voluntary actions in general, and therefore those aroused by the
+character and conduct of the agent. Mackintosh thus takes an æsthetic
+view of morality. We have a 'moral taste' or perception of beauty. The
+same qualities which make a horse beautiful make him also swift and
+safe, but we perceive the beauty without thinking of the utility, or
+rather when we do not think of it. So we admire a hero or martyr for
+the beauty of his character without reference to his services to
+us.[576] This moral taste, though not identical with the conscience,
+becomes 'absorbed into it.' The conscience differs from the 'moral
+taste' because it acts upon the will. But its supremacy seems to be
+this quality which it shares with or derives from the taste--its
+immediate and spontaneous operation. It is, he seems to mean, a direct
+perception of beauty in character applied to the regulation of
+conduct. Virtue corresponds to an instinctive and so far ultimate
+appreciation of beauty of character. Mackintosh insists upon this
+intrinsic charm of virtue in the language which struck Mill as simply
+foppish affectation. The pleasure of 'benevolence' itself, says
+Mackintosh, is infinitely superior to the pleasures to which it may
+lead. Could it become 'lasting and intense,' it would convert the
+heart into a heaven.[577] To love virtue, you must love it 'for its
+own sake.'[578] The delights of being virtuous (as he interprets the
+phrase) are greater than any delight from the consequences of virtue.
+And he holds up as a model Fletcher of Saltoun, who would 'lose his
+life to serve his country, but would not do a base thing to save
+it.'[579]
+
+How, then, is this view to be reconciled with the unreserved admission
+of 'utility' as the 'criterion' of right and wrong? One answer is that
+Mackintosh fully accepts Hartley's doctrine of association. He even
+criticises previous philosophers for not pushing it far enough. He
+says that association, instead of merely combining a 'thought' and a
+'feeling,' 'forms them into a new compound, in which the properties of
+the component parts are no longer discoverable, and which may itself
+become a substantive principle of human virtue.'[580] The question of
+origin, therefore, is different from the question of nature. He
+follows Hartley in tracing the development of various desires, and in
+showing how the 'secondary desires' are gradually formed from the
+primitive by transference to different objects.[581] We must start
+from feelings which lie beneath any intellectual process, and thus the
+judgment of utility is from the first secondary. We arrive at the
+higher feelings which are 'as independent as if they were
+underived,'[582] and yet, as happiness has been involved at every
+stage as an end of each desire, it is no wonder that the ultimate
+result should be to make the general happiness the end. The
+coincidence, then, of the criterion with the end of the moral
+sentiments is 'not arbitrary,' but arises necessarily from 'the laws
+of human nature and the circumstances in which mankind are
+placed.'[583] Hence we reach the doctrine which 'has escaped Hartley
+as well as every other philosopher.'[584] That doctrine is that the
+moral faculty is one; it is compound, indeed, in its origin; but
+becomes an independent unit, which can no longer be resolved even in
+thought into its constituent elements.
+
+The doctrine approximates, it would seem, to Mill's; but was all the
+more unpalatable to him on that account. The agreement implies
+plagiarism, and the difference hopeless stupidity. To Mill Bentham was
+the legitimate development of Hartley, while to Mackintosh Bentham
+was the plausible perverter of Hartley. Mill regarded Mackintosh as a
+sophist, whose aim was to mislead honest Utilitarians into the paths
+of orthodoxy, and who also ignored the merits of Mill himself. 'It was
+Mr. Mill,' he says, 'who first made known the great importance of the
+principle of the indissoluble association';[585] 'Mr. Mill' who had
+taken up Hartley's speculations and 'prosecuted the inquiry to its
+end';[586] 'Mr. Mill' who explained affections and motives and
+dispositions;[587] and 'Mr. Mill' who had cleared up mistakes about
+classification which 'had done more to perpetuate darkness on the
+subject of mind than any other cause, perhaps than all other causes
+taken together.'[588] Sir James blundered because he had not read
+Mill's book, as he pretended to have done. Mill does not say all this
+from vanity; he is simply stating an obvious matter of fact.
+
+Mill's polemic against the Moral Sense theory, even against a moral
+sense produced by association, reveals the really critical points of
+the true Utilitarian doctrine. Mill would cut down the moral sense
+root and branch. The 'moral sense' means a 'particular faculty'
+necessary to discern right and wrong. But no particular faculty is
+necessary to discern 'utility.'[589] Hence the distinction between the
+'criterion' and the 'moral sentiments' is absurd. The utility is not
+the 'criterion' of the morality but itself constitutes the morality.
+To say that conduct is right, according to the Utilitarians, is the
+same thing as to say that it produces happiness. If the moral sense
+orders conduct opposed to the criterion, it is so far bad. If it
+never orders such conduct, it is superfluous. Happiness, as with
+Bentham, is a definite thing--a currency of solid bullion; and
+'virtue' means nothing except as calculated in this currency. Mill,
+again, like Bentham, regards the 'utility' principle as giving the
+sole 'objective' test. The complaint that it sanctions 'expediency' is
+a simple fallacy.
+
+If you do not love virtue 'for its own sake,' said Mackintosh, you
+will break a general law wherever the law produces a balance of
+painful consequences. Mill replies with great vigour.[590] All general
+rules, it is true, imply exceptions, but only when they conflict with
+the supreme rule. 'There is no exception to a rule of morality,' says
+Mill, 'but what is made by a rule of morality.'[591] There are
+numerous cases in which the particular laws conflict; and one law must
+then be broken. The question which to break must then be decided by
+the same unequivocal test, 'utility.' If a rule for increasing utility
+diminishes utility in a given case, it must be broken in that case.
+Mackintosh's Fletcher of Saltoun illustrates the point.[592] What is
+the 'base' thing which Fletcher would not do to save his country?
+Would he not be the basest of men if he did not save his country at
+any cost? To destroy half a population and reduce the other half to
+misery has been thought a sacrifice not too great for such an end.
+Would not Mackintosh himself allow Fletcher, when intrusted with an
+important fortress, to sacrifice the lives and properties of innocent
+people in defence of his position?[593] What, then, does the love of
+virtue 'for its own sake' come to? If you refuse to save your country,
+because you think the means base, your morality is mischievous, that
+is, immoral. If, on the other hand, you admit that the means cease to
+be base, the supposed supremacy is an empty brag. The doctrine is then
+verbally maintained, but interpreted so as to conform to the criterion
+of utility. In other words, Mackintosh cannot reconcile his admission
+of utility as a 'criterion' with his support of a moral sense entitled
+to override the criterion. Mackintosh's moral sense is meant to
+distinguish the moral motive from 'expediency.' To this, again, Mill
+has a very forcible answer. A man is blameable who makes exceptions to
+laws in his own private interest. But if a man consistently and
+invariably acted for the 'greatest happiness of the greatest number,'
+and paid no more attention to his own happiness than to other
+people's, he would certainly have a very lofty and inflexible test,
+assuming--as we must allow Mill to assume--that we can calculate the
+effect of conduct upon happiness at large. Again, upon the assumption
+that 'moral' is equivalent to 'felicific,' we get a general rule
+entitled to override any individual tastes or fancies, such as Mill
+supposes to be meant by the 'Moral Sense.' The rule is derived from
+the interests of all, and gives an ultimate 'objective criterion.' J.
+S. Mill, describing his father's system, observes that the teaching of
+such a man was not likely to err on 'the side of laxity or
+indulgence.'[594] It certainly did not. And, in fact, his criterion,
+however obtained, had in his eyes the certainty of a scientific law.
+This or that is right as surely as this or that food is wholesome. My
+taste has nothing to do with it. And, moreover, the criterion
+certainly gives a moral ground. If I know that any conduct will
+produce more happiness than misery that is a moral reason for adopting
+it. A 'moral sense' which should be radically inconsistent with that
+criterion, which should order me to inflict suffering as suffering, or
+without some ulterior reason, would be certainly at fault. Mackintosh
+indeed would have agreed to this, though, if Mill was right, at the
+expense of consistency.
+
+Mill, however, deduces from his criterion doctrines which involve a
+remarkable paradox. The mode in which he is led to them is
+characteristic of the whole method. Mill, like Bentham, puts morality
+upon the same plane with law. Conduct is influenced either by the
+'community in its conjunct capacity'--that is, by law; or by
+'individuals in their individual capacity'--that is, by morality.[595]
+The sanction of one, we may infer, is force; of the other, approval
+and disapproval. With this we must take another Benthamite doctrine,
+of which I have already spoken.[596] 'Mr. Bentham demonstrated,' says
+Mill, 'that the morality of an act does not depend upon the motive,'
+and, further, that it 'is altogether dependent on the intention.'[597]
+Upon this he constantly insists. Mackintosh's view that virtue depends
+upon motive will be 'scorned by every man who has any knowledge of the
+philosophy of the human mind.... The virtue does not depend upon the
+motive. There is no bad motive. Every motive is the desire of good; to
+the agent himself or to some one else.'[598] He gives an analysis of
+action to put the point beyond doubt. Action supposes a 'motive,' a
+'volition,' and an 'external act' or muscular contraction. So far
+there is nothing moral. But then an act has consequences, good or bad,
+to human beings, which constitute its utility. To make it moral, the
+agent must anticipate 'beneficial consequences,' and must have no
+reason to anticipate a balance of evil consequences. Intention means
+the calculation of consequences, and without that calculation there
+can be no morality.[599] Hence the morality is equivalent to a
+'conviction of the general utility' of the action.[600] 'All this,' he
+concludes, 'is settled by universal consent. It is vain, therefore, to
+think of disputing it.' One may, however, ask what it means. I have
+already observed that the view of the non-moral character of motive
+was a natural corollary from the purely legal point of view. I must
+now consider the results of applying it unreservedly in the
+inappropriate sphere of ethics.
+
+In the first place, the denial of any moral quality in motive seems to
+be inconsistent with Mill's own principles. The Utilitarian, according
+to him, holds that the moral law is essentially the statement that
+certain conduct produces general happiness. If, then, we ask, Who is a
+good man? we first reply that he is a man whose conduct produces
+happiness. Another conclusion is obviously necessary, and is implied
+in Mill's statement that the 'intention' is essential to morality. The
+man, that is, must foresee that his conduct will produce happiness.
+The 'calculation' is precisely what makes an action moral as well as
+accidentally useful. In other words, the man is good to whom the
+knowledge that an act will produce happiness is the same thing as a
+command to perform the act. The 'intention' could not affect conduct
+without the corresponding motive, and Mill can at times recognise the
+obvious consequence. The 'physical law' (meaning the law enforced by
+physical coercion), he says incidentally, has 'extrinsic'
+sanctions;[601] the moral law is different, because it sanctions good
+actions for their goodness. 'Moral approval' must therefore include
+approval of character. A man, to be moral, must be one who does useful
+things simply because they are useful. He must then, it would seem, be
+at least benevolent. The same thing is implied by the doctrine of
+'intention' or 'calculation.' An action may be useful or the reverse
+without being moral when the consequences are unknown to the agent. To
+make it moral he must know the consequences--for otherwise he is
+merely acting at random; and the foreseen consequences constitute the
+'intention.' To this Mill adds that he must have taken into account
+the consequences which 'might have been foreseen.'[602] Otherwise we
+should have to excuse a man because he had neglected to calculate,
+whereas to calculate is the very essence of virtue. A man who fired a
+gun down a crowded street would not be excusable because he had not
+thought of the result. He 'ought' to have thought of it. The question
+of moral approval of any given action turns upon these questions. Did
+a man foresee evil consequences and disregard them? He is then cruel.
+Did he neglect to consider them? He is then culpably careless, though
+not actually malignant. Were the consequences altogether beyond the
+powers of reasonable calculation? Then he may be blameless. The whole
+moral question, therefore, depends upon the character indicated; that
+is, upon the motives which induce a man to calculate consequences and
+which determine his conduct when the calculation is made.
+
+The truth is, I think, and it is characteristic of Mill's modes of
+analysis, that he is making an impossible abstraction. He is
+separating parts of a single process and treating them as independent.
+If actions are bad because they have bad consequences, motives are bad
+because they are causes of bad actions. You cannot suppress the effect
+without suppressing the cause, and therefore the cause of the cause.
+Mill relies chiefly upon one argument. The same conduct will produce
+the same consequences whatever the motives. That is undeniable. It is
+the same to me whether I am burnt because the persecutor loves my soul
+or because he hates me as a rebel to his authority. But when is
+conduct 'the same'? If we classify acts as the legislator has to
+classify them by 'external' or 'objective' relations, we put together
+the man who is honest solely from fear of the gallows and the man who
+is honest from hatred of stealing. So long as both act alike, the
+'consequences' to their neighbours are alike. Neither is legally
+punishable. But if acts are classified by their motives, one is a
+rogue and the other virtuous; and it is only then that the question of
+morality properly arises. In that case, it is idle to separate the
+question of motive and consequences, because the character determines
+the motive and therefore the action. Nobody should have seen this more
+clearly than Mill as a good 'determinist.' Conduct and character are
+related as the convex and concave of the curve; conduct is simply the
+manifestation of character, and to separate them is absurd.
+
+Why did he not see this? For reasons, I think, which illustrate his
+whole method. From a scientific point of view, the ethical problem
+raises the wide questions, What are the moral sentiments? and, What
+functions do they discharge in regard to the society or to its
+individual members? We might hold that morality is justified by
+'utility' in the sense that the moral rules and the character which
+they indicate are essential to the welfare of the race or its
+individual constituents. But to Mill this proposition is interpreted
+as identical with the proposition that conduct must be estimated by
+its 'consequences.' We are to consider not the action itself, but its
+effects; and the effects are clearly independent of the motive when
+once the action has been done. We may therefore get a calculus of
+'utility': general rules stating what actions will be useful
+considered abstractedly from their motives. The method, again, might
+be plausible if we could further assume that all men were the same and
+differed only in external circumstances. That is the point of view to
+which Mill, like Bentham, is always more or less consciously
+inclining. The moral and the positive law are equally enforced by
+'sanctions'; by something not dependent upon the man himself, and
+which he is inclined to suppose will operate equally upon all men.
+Such language could be justifiable only of an average and uniform
+'man,' a kind of constant unit, whose varying behaviour must always be
+explained by difference in circumstance. We have sufficiently seen the
+results elsewhere, and in this ethical doctrine they are especially
+manifest.
+
+Mackintosh recognised the fact that morality is essentially a
+function of character. Mill cannot fully admit that, because he
+virtually assumes all character to be the same. Regarding morality as
+something co-ordinate with law, he does not perceive that the very
+possibility of law implies the moral instincts, which correspond to
+the constitution of character, and belong to a sphere underlying, not
+on the same plane with, the legislative sphere. They are the source of
+all order; not themselves the product of the order. It is impossible
+to deduce them, therefore, from the organisation which presupposes
+them. Now, in one direction, Mill's theory leads, as his son remarked,
+not to laxity but to excessive strictness. The 'criterion' is laid
+down absolutely. The 'moral sense' is rejected because it means an
+autocratic faculty, entitled to override the criterion by its own
+authority. To appeal to 'motives' is to allow the individual to make
+his own feeling the ultimate test of right and wrong. If we follow
+Mill in this we are not really assuming the moral neutrality of motive
+or the indifference, but an impossible profession of character. Men
+are not governed by abstract principles but by their passions and
+affections. The emotions, as Mackintosh rightly said, cannot be
+resolved into the mere logic. Utility may give the true criterion of
+morality, but it does not follow that the perception of utility is
+implied in moral conduct. The motives are good which in fact produce
+useful conduct, though the agent does not contemplate the abstract
+principle. It is impossible that men should be moved simply by a
+desire for the 'greatest happiness of the greatest number.' What does
+and always must guide men is their personal relation to the little
+circle which they actually influence. The good man is the man so
+constituted that he will spontaneously fulfil his duties. The moral
+law, that is, will be also the law of his character and conduct. The
+mother is good because she loves her child, not because she sees that
+care of her child is dictated by the general maxim of utility. The
+'utility' of character means the fitness of the agent to be an
+efficient member of the social structure to which he belongs. In
+particular cases this may lead to such problems as that of Fletcher of
+Saltoun. His sense of honour and his general benevolence, though both
+useful, might come into collision; and the most difficult of all
+questions of casuistry arise from such conflicts between private and
+public affections. Mill is justified in holding that a sense of honour
+cannot give an ultimate and autocratic decision. Under some pretext or
+other, we shall have to ask the Utilitarian question whether on the
+whole it may not be causing more misery than the virtuous action is
+worth. But that only means that the character must be so balanced as
+to give due weight to each motive; not that we can abstract from
+character altogether, as though human beings could be mere colourless
+and uniform atoms, embodying abstract formulæ.
+
+Mill is following Bentham, and only brings out more clearly the
+psychological assumptions. A man, he says, acts from the 'same motive'
+whether he steals five shillings or earns it by a day's labour. The
+motive, in this sense, regards only one consequence, whereas the
+'intention' regards all. The 'motive,' that is, is only one of the
+motives or a part of the character, and this way of speaking is one of
+the awkward results of turning 'motives' into 'things.' The obvious
+answer is that which Mill himself makes to Mackintosh. Mackintosh and
+Butler, he thinks, personify particular 'appetites.'[603] It is not
+really the 'conscience' which decides, but the man. That is quite
+true, and similarly it is the whole man who steals or works, not the
+'personified' motive; and it is accordingly from the whole character
+that we judge. We have to consider the relation of the love of five
+shillings to the other qualities of industry and honesty. The same
+view appears in Mill's characteristic dislike of 'sentimentalism.'
+Wishing to attack Mackintosh's rhetoric about the delight of virtuous
+feeling, he for once quotes a novel to illustrate this point. When
+Parson Adams defined charity as a 'generous disposition to relieve the
+distressed,' Peter Pounce approved; 'it is, as you say, a disposition,
+and does not so much consist in the act as in the disposition to do
+it.'[604] When, therefore, Mackintosh says that he finds it difficult
+to separate the virtue from the act, Mill replies that nothing is
+easier. The virtue is 'in the act and its consequences'; the feeling a
+mere removable addition. Apparently he would hold that the good
+Samaritan and the Pharisee had the same feeling, though it prompted
+one to relieve the sufferer and the other to relieve himself of the
+sight of the sufferer. They had, of course, a feeling in common, but a
+feeling which produced diametrically opposite effects, because
+entering into totally different combinations.
+
+If Mill's doctrine leads to an impossible strictness in one direction,
+it leads to less edifying results in another. We have omitted 'motive'
+and come to the critical question, How, after all, is the moral code
+to be enforced? By overlooking this question and declaring 'motive' to
+be irrelevant, we get the paradox already accepted by Bentham. His
+definition of virtue is action for the good of others as well as of
+ourselves. In what way is the existence of such action to be
+reconciled with this doctrine? What are the motives which make men
+count the happiness of others to be equally valuable with their own?
+or, in the Utilitarian language, What is the 'sanction' of morality?
+After all Bentham's insistence upon the 'self-preference principle'
+and Mill's account of selfishness in his political theory, we are
+suddenly told that morality means a lofty and rigid code in which the
+happiness of all is the one end. Here again Mill is entangled by the
+characteristic difficulty of his psychology. To analyse is to divide
+objects into separate units. When he has to do with complex objects
+and relations apparently reciprocal, he is forced to represent them by
+a simple sequence. The two factors are not mutually dependent but
+distinct things somehow connected in time. One result is his account
+of 'ends' or 'motives' (the two, as he observes, are synonymous).[605]
+The end is something to be gained by the act, the 'association' of
+which with the act constitutes a 'desire.' This, we have seen, always
+refers to the future.[606] In acting, then, I am always guided by
+calculations of future pleasures or pains. I believe this to be one of
+the most unfortunate because one of the most plausible of Utilitarian
+fallacies. If we are determined by pains and pleasures, it is in one
+sense as contradictory to speak of our being determined by future
+pains and pleasures as to speak of our being nourished to-day by
+to-morrow's dinner. The 'future pleasure' does not exist; the
+anticipated pleasure acts by making the present action pleasant; and
+we then move (as it is said) along the line of least resistance.
+Certain conduct is intrinsically pleasurable or painful, and the
+future pleasure only acts through the present foretaste. When,
+however, we regard the pleasure as future and as somehow a separable
+thing, we can only express these undeniable facts by accepting a
+purely egoistic conclusion. We are, of course, moved by our own
+feelings, as we breathe with our own lungs and digest with our own
+stomachs. But when we accept the doctrine of 'ends' this harmless and
+self-evident truth is perverted into the statement that our 'end' must
+be our own pleasure; that we cannot be really or directly unselfish.
+The analysis, indeed, is so defective that it can hardly be applied
+intelligibly. Hume observes that no man would rest his foot
+indifferently upon a stool or a gouty toe. The action itself of giving
+pain would be painful, and cannot be plausibly resolved into an
+anticipation of an 'end.' This, again, is conspicuously true of all
+the truly social emotions. Not only the conscience, but the sense of
+shame or honour, or pride and vanity act powerfully and
+instantaneously as present motives without necessary reference to any
+future results. The knowledge that I am giving pain or causing future
+pain is intrinsically and immediately painful to the normal human
+being, and the supposed 'analysis' is throughout a fiction. Mill,
+however, like Bentham, takes it for granted, but perceives more
+clearly than Bentham the difficulty to which it leads. How, from a
+theory of pure selfishness, are we to get a morality of general
+benevolence? The answer is given by the universal 'association.' We
+are governed, he holds, by our own emotions; our end is our own
+pleasure, and we have to consider how this end dictates a desire for
+general happiness. He expounds with great vigour the process by which
+the love of friends, children and parents and country may be gradually
+developed through the association of our pleasures with the
+fellow-creatures who caused them. J. S. Mill regards his exposition as
+'almost perfect,'[607] and says that it shows how the 'acquired
+sentiments'--the moral sentiments and so forth--may be gradually
+developed; may become 'more intense and powerful than any of the
+elements out of which they may have been formed, and may also in their
+maturity be perfectly disinterested.' James Mill declares that the
+analysis does not affect the reality of the sentiments analysed.
+Gratitude remains gratitude, and generosity generosity, just as a
+white ray remains white after Newton had decomposed it into rays of
+different colours.[608] Here once more we have the great principle of
+indissoluble association or mental chemistry.
+
+Granting that the emotions so generated may be real, we may still ask
+whether the analysis be sufficient. James Mill's account of the way in
+which they are generated leaves a doubt. Morality is first impressed
+upon us by authority. Our parents praise and blame, reward and
+punish. Thus are formed associations of praise and blame with certain
+actions. Then, we form further associations with the causes of praise
+and blame and thus acquire the sentiments of 'praiseworthiness' and
+'blameworthiness.' The sensibility to praise and blame generally forms
+the 'popular sanction,' and this, when praiseworthiness is concerned,
+becomes the moral sanction.[609] Here we see that morality is regarded
+as somehow the product of a 'sanction'; that is, of the action of
+praise and blame with their usual consequences upon the individual.
+His sensibility causes him through association to acquire the habits
+which generally bring praise and blame; and ultimately these qualities
+become attractive for their own sake. The difficulty is to see where
+the line is crossed which divides truly moral or altruistic conduct
+from mere prudence. Admitting that association may impel us to conduct
+which involves self-sacrifice, we may still ask whether such conduct
+is reasonable. Association produces belief in error as well as in
+truth. If I love a man because he is useful and continue to love him
+when he can no longer be useful, am I not misguided? If I wear a
+ragged coat, because it was once smart, my conduct is easily explained
+as a particular kind of folly. If I am good to my old mother when she
+can no longer nurse me, am I not guilty of a similar folly? In short,
+a man who inferred from Mill's principles that he would never do good
+without being paid for it, would be hardly inconsistent. Your
+associations, Mill would say, are indissoluble. He might answer, I
+will try--it is surely not so hard to dissolve a tie of gratitude!
+Granting, in short, that Mill gives an account of such virtue as may
+be made of enlightened self-interest, he does not succeed in making
+intelligible the conduct which alone deserves the name of virtuous.
+The theory always halts at the point where something more is required
+than an external sanction, and supposes a change of character as well
+as a wider calculation of personal interest.
+
+The imperfection of this theory may be taken for granted. It has been
+exposed by innumerable critics. It is more important to observe one
+cause of the imperfection. Mill's argument contains an element of real
+worth. It may be held to represent fairly the historical development
+of morals. That morality is first conceived as an external law
+deriving its sanctity from authority; that it is directed against
+obviously hurtful conduct; and that it thus serves as a protection
+under which the more genuine moral sentiments can develop themselves,
+I believe to be in full accordance with sound theories of ethics. But
+Mill was throughout hampered by the absence of any theory of
+evolution. He had to represent a series of changes as taking place in
+the individual which can only be conceived as the product of a long
+and complex social change. He is forced to represent the growth of
+morality as an accretion of new 'ends' due to association, not as an
+intrinsic development of the character itself. He has to make morality
+out of atomic sensations and ideas collected in clusters and trains
+without any distinct reference to the organic constitution of the
+individual or of society, and as somehow or other deducible from the
+isolated human being, who remains a constant, though he collects into
+groups governed by external sanctions. He sees that morality is
+formed somehow or other, but he cannot show that it is either
+reasonable or an essential fact of human nature. Here, again, we shall
+see what problem was set to his son. Finally, if Mill did not explain
+ethical theory satisfactorily, it must be added in common justice that
+he was himself an excellent example of the qualities for which he
+tried to account. A life of devotion to public objects and a
+conscientious discharge of private duties is just the phenomenon for
+which a cluster of 'ideas' and 'associations' seems to be an
+inadequate account. How, it might have been asked, do you explain
+James Mill? His main purpose, too, was to lay down a rule of duty,
+almost mathematically ascertainable, and not to be disturbed by any
+sentimentalism, mysticism, or rhetorical foppery. If, in the attempt
+to free his hearers from such elements, he ran the risk of reducing
+morality to a lower level and made it appear as unamiable as sound
+morality can appear, it must be admitted that in this respect too his
+theories reflected his personal character.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[464] For an account of these writers and their relation to the
+pre-revolutionary schools, see _Les Idéologues_ by F. Picavet (1891).
+
+[465] Macvey Napier's _Correspondence_, p. 424.
+
+[466] Charles François Dominique de Villers (1767-1815) was a French
+officer, who emigrated in 1792, and took refuge at Lübeck. He became
+profoundly interested in German life and literature, and endeavoured
+to introduce a knowledge of German speculation to his countrymen. His
+chief books were this exposition of Kant and an essay upon the
+_Reformation of Luther_ (1803), which went through several editions,
+and was translated by James Mill in 1805. An interesting account of
+Villers is in the _Biographie Universelle_.
+
+[467] See Cockburn's _Memorials_ for a good notice of this.
+
+[468] Stewart's _Works_, iv. 345.
+
+[469] Lady Holland's _Life of Smith_, ii. 388.
+
+[470] _Inquiry into the Relations of Cause and Effect_ (third
+edition), pp. 178, 180, and part iv. sec. 6.
+
+[471] _Examination of Hamilton_ (fourth edition), p. 379.
+
+[472] _Cause and Effect_, pp. 184-87.
+
+[473] _Cause and Effect_, p. 197.
+
+[474] _Ibid._ p. 239 _seq._
+
+[475] _Ibid._ p. 244.
+
+[476] _Ibid._ p. 150.
+
+[477] _Ibid._ p. 357.
+
+[478] _Cause and Effect_, p. 313.
+
+[479] _Cause and Effect_, p. 482. Brown thinks that we can logically
+disprove the existence of motion by the hare and tortoise argument,
+and should therefore disregard logic.
+
+[480] Brown's _Lectures_, (1851), p. 167, Lect. xxvi.
+
+[481] Lecture xxv. This question as to whether Brown had or had not
+grossly misrepresented Reid and other philosophers, led to an
+entangled argument, in which Mill defended Brown against Hamilton. I
+will not ask whether Reid was a 'natural realist' or a 'cosmothetic
+idealist,' or what Descartes or Arnauld thought about the question.
+
+[482] Reid's _Works_, p. 128.
+
+[483] _Lectures_, pp. 150, 158-59.
+
+[484] _Dissertations_, p. 98. Compare Brown's Twenty-fourth Lecture
+with Tracy's _Idéologie_, ch. vii., and the account of the way in
+which the infant learns from resistance to infer a cause, and make of
+the cause _un être qui n'est pas moi_. The resemblance is certainly
+close. Brown was familiar with French literature, and shows it by many
+quotations, though he does not, I think, refer to Tracy. Brown, it
+must be noticed, did not himself publish his lectures, and a professor
+is not bound to give all his sources in popular lectures. An
+explanation would have been due in a treatise. Picavet quotes
+Rhétoré's _Philosophie de Thomas Brown_ (a book which I have not seen)
+for the statement that Brown's lectures often read like a translation
+of Laromiguière, with whom Brown was 'perhaps' acquainted. As,
+however, the _Leçons_, to which reference is apparently made, did not
+appear till 1815 and 1818, when Brown's lectures were already written,
+this seems to be impossible. The coincidence, which to me seems to be
+exaggerated by the statement, is explicable by a common relation to
+previous writers.
+
+[485] _Lectures_, p. 166 (Lect. xxvi.).
+
+[486] _Lectures_, p. 158 (Lect. xxv.).
+
+[487] _Ibid._ p. 151 (Lect. xxiv.).
+
+[488] _Lectures_, p. 177 (ch. xxviii.). Brown made the same remark to
+Mackintosh in 1812. (Mackintosh's _Ethical Philosophy_, 1872, 236
+_n._)
+
+[489] _Ibid._ p. 154 (Lect. xxiv.).
+
+[490] See Hamilton's note to Reid's _Works_, p. 111.
+
+[491] _Lectures_, p. 255 (Lect. xl.).
+
+[492] _Ibid._ (Lect. xxxiii. and following).
+
+[493] _Ibid._ p. 214-15 (Lect. xxxiii.). The phrase is revived by
+Professor Stout in his _Analytic Psychology_.
+
+[494] _Lectures_, p. 213 (Lect. xxxiii.).
+
+[495] This is one of the coincidences with Laromiguière (_Leçons_
+(1837), i. 103).
+
+[496] _Lectures_, p. 210.
+
+[497] _Lectures_, p. 315 (Lect. xlviii.).
+
+[498] _Ibid._ p. 314.
+
+[499] _Lectures_, p. 335 (Lect. li.). See Lect. xi. for a general
+explanation. The mind is nothing but a 'series of feelings'; and to
+say that 'I am conscious of feeling' is simply to say 'I feel.' The
+same phrase often occurs in James Mill.
+
+[500] _Ibid._ p. 298 (Lect. xlvi.).
+
+[501] _Ibid._ p. 498 (Lect. lxxiv.).
+
+[502] _Lectures_, p. 622 (Lect. xciii.).
+
+[503] _Dissertations_, p. 98.
+
+[504] Froude's _Carlyle_, p. 25.
+
+[505] _Miscellanies_ (1858), ii. 104. See, too, _Miscellanies_, i. 60,
+on German Literature, where he thinks that the Germans attacked the
+centre instead of the outworks of Hume's citadel. Carlyle speaks with
+marked respect of Dugald Stewart, who, if he knew what he was about,
+would agree with Kant.
+
+[506] In Caroline Fox's _Memories of Old Friends_ (second edition),
+ii. 314, is a letter from J. S. Mill, expressing a very high opinion
+of Brown, whom he had just been re-reading (1840) with a view to the
+Logic. Brown's 'analysis in his early lectures of the amount of what
+we can learn of the phenomena of the world seems to me perfect, and
+his mode of inquiry into the mind is strictly founded upon that
+analysis.'
+
+[507] I quote from this edition. Andrew Findlater (1810-1885), a
+Scottish schoolmaster, and editor of Chambers's _Cyclopædia_, was a
+philologist (_Dictionary of National Biography_), and his notes
+chiefly concern Mill's adaptations of Horne Tooke.
+
+[508] _Treatise_ (bk. i. pt. i. sec. iv.).
+
+[509] J. S. Mill's _Autobiography_, p. 68.
+
+[510] _Fragment on Mackintosh_, p. 314.
+
+[511] _Analysis_, ii. 42. 'Odd,' because Brown was six years younger
+than Mill.
+
+[512] 'Education,' p. 6.
+
+[513] _Analysis_, i. 52.
+
+[514] _Analysis_, i. xvii.
+
+[515] _Ibid._ i. 70.
+
+[516] _Analysis_, i. 71.
+
+[517] _Ibid._ i. 78.
+
+[518] _Ibid._ i. 83.
+
+[519] _Analysis_, ii. 42.
+
+[520] _Ibid._ i. 270.
+
+[521] _Ibid._ i. 111.
+
+[522] _Ibid._ i. 362.
+
+[523] _Analysis_, i. 154 _n._
+
+[524] _Ibid._ i. 161.
+
+[525] _Analysis_, i. 189.
+
+[526] _Ibid._ i. 163 _n._
+
+[527] _Ibid._ i. 266.
+
+[528] _Ibid._ i. 269.
+
+[529] _Ibid._ i. 295.
+
+[530] _Analysis_, i. 162 _n._, 187 _n._
+
+[531] _Ibid._ ii. 21.
+
+[532] _Ibid._ i. 224-25.
+
+[533] _Analysis_, i. 342.
+
+[534] _e.g._ _Ibid._ ii. 176.
+
+[535] _Ibid._ i. 341.
+
+[536] _Ibid._ i. 342 _n._
+
+[537] _Ibid._ i. 331.
+
+[538] _Ibid._ i. 345.
+
+[539] _Ibid._ i. 352.
+
+[540] _Ibid._ i. 381.
+
+[541] _Analysis_, i. 363.
+
+[542] _Ibid._ i. 402.
+
+[543] _Ibid._ i. 402-23.
+
+[544] _Analysis_, i. 423.
+
+[545] _Ibid._ i. 413, 419.
+
+[546] See especially his account of definition, _Logic_, bk. i. ch.
+viii., and the problem about the serpent and the dragon.
+
+[547] _Analysis_, ii. 2.
+
+[548] This point puzzles Destutt de Tracy. All error, he says, arises
+in judgments: 'Cependant les jugements, les perceptions de rapports,
+en tant que perceptions que nous avons actuellement, sont aussi
+certaines et aussi réelles que toutes les autres.'--_Éléments
+d'Idéologie_ (1865), iii. 449.
+
+[549] _Analysis_, ii. 6, 7.
+
+[550] _Analysis_, ii. 18 _n._
+
+[551] _Analysis_, ii. 24 _n._
+
+[552] _Ibid._ ii. 132-33.
+
+[553] _Analysis_, ii. 67-69.
+
+[554] _Analysis_, ii. 113 _n._
+
+[555] _Ibid._ i. 97 _n._
+
+[556] Professor Bain points out that Mill is occasionally confused by
+his ignorance of the triple division, intellect, feelings: and will,
+introduced in the next generation.--_Analysis_, ii. 180 _n._
+
+[557] _Analysis_, ii. 181-83.
+
+[558] _Analysis_, ii. 351.
+
+[559] Also privately printed in 1830. Later editions, edited by
+Whewell, appeared in 1836, 1862, 1873. I quote the last. See M.
+Napier's _Correspondence_, pp. 57-59, for the composition.
+
+[560] Mill's _Fragment_ (Preface).
+
+[561] See Bain's _James Mill_, pp. 374, 415-18.
+
+[562] _Fragment_, pp. 190, 192, 213, 298, 307, 326.
+
+[563] _Ibid._ p. 210.
+
+[564] _Ethical Philosophy_ (1873), pp. 188, 193.
+
+[565] M. Napier's _Correspondence_, p. 25.
+
+[566] _Essay on Sir J. Mackintosh._
+
+[567] _Essay on Lord Holland._
+
+[568] _Lectures_, p. 500 (Lect. lxxv.).
+
+[569] _Ibid._ p. 519 (Lect. lxxvii.).
+
+[570] _Ibid._ p. 522 (Lect. lxxviii.).
+
+[571] _Ethical Philosophy_ (Hobbes), pp. 62-64.
+
+[572] _Ibid._ p. 85.
+
+[573] _Ibid._ p. 145.
+
+[574] _Ibid._ p. 9.
+
+[575] _Ibid._ p. 120.
+
+[576] _Ethical Philosophy_, pp. 14, 170.
+
+[577] _Ibid._ p. 197.
+
+[578] _Ibid._ p. 248.
+
+[579] _Ibid._ p. 204.
+
+[580] _Ethical Philosophy_ p. 242.
+
+[581] _Ibid._ p. 251.
+
+[582] _Ibid._ p. 262.
+
+[583] _Ibid._ p. 264.
+
+[584] _Ibid._ p. 169.
+
+[585] _Fragment_, p. 173.
+
+[586] _Ibid._ p. 323.
+
+[587] _Ibid._ p. 221.
+
+[588] _Fragment_, p. 247. Mackintosh quotes Mill's _Analysis_ at p.
+197. It had only just appeared.
+
+[589] _Fragment_, p. 11.
+
+[590] _Fragment_, p. 246, etc.
+
+[591] _Ibid._ p. 246.
+
+[592] _Ibid._ pp. 269, 270.
+
+[593] Cf. Newman's _Apologia_. 'The Catholic Church holds it better
+for the sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and
+for all the millions on it to die of starvation in extremest agony, so
+far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul,--I will not say
+should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, tell one
+wilful untruth, or should steal one poor farthing without excuse.' I
+should steal the farthing and assume the 'excuse.' I confess that I
+would not only lie, but should think lying right under the supposed
+circumstances.
+
+[594] _Autobiography_, p. 51.
+
+[595] _Fragment_, p. 251.
+
+[596] Vol. i. p. 257.
+
+[597] _Fragment_, p. 161.
+
+[598] _Fragment_, pp. 315-16.
+
+[599] _Ibid._ p. 164.
+
+[600] _Ibid._ pp. 320-22.
+
+[601] _Fragment_, p. 102.
+
+[602] _Ibid._ p. 162.
+
+[603] _Analysis_, p. 73.
+
+[604] _Fragment_, p. 209.
+
+[605] _Fragment_, p. 316.
+
+[606] At one point, as J. S. Mill notes, he speaks of an 'unsatisfied
+desire' as a motive, which seems to indicate a present feeling; but
+this is not his usual view.--_Analysis_, ii. 361, 377 _n._
+
+[607] _Analysis_, ii. 233 _n._ Mill adds that though his father
+explains the 'intellectual,' he does not explain the 'animal' element
+in the affections. This, however, is irrelevant for my purpose.
+
+[608] _Fragment_, pp. 51-52.
+
+[609] _Analysis_, ii. 292-300; _Fragment_, pp. 247-65. Note Mill's
+interpretation of this theory of 'praiseworthiness.'--_Analysis_, ii.
+298 _n._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+RELIGION
+
+
+I. PHILIP BEAUCHAMP
+
+The application of Mill's _Analysis_ to the views of orthodox
+theologians required, one might have supposed, as little
+interpretation as a slap in the face. But a respectable philosopher
+may lay down what premises he pleases if he does not avowedly draw his
+conclusions. Mill could argue in perfect safety against the
+foundations of theology, while Richard Carlile was being sent to gaol
+again and again for attacking the superstructure. The Utilitarians
+thought themselves justified in taking advantage of the illogicality
+of mankind. Whether it was that the ruling powers had no philosophical
+principles themselves, or that they did not see what inferences would
+follow, or that they thought that the average person was incapable of
+drawing inferences, they drew the line at this point. You may openly
+maintain doctrines inconsistent with all theology, but you must not
+point out the inconsistency. The Utilitarians contented themselves
+with sapping the fort instead of risking an open assault. If its
+defenders were blind to the obvious consequences of the procedure, so
+much the better. In private, there was obviously no want of plain
+speaking. In Bentham's MSS. the Christian religion is nicknamed 'Jug'
+as the short for 'Juggernaut.' He and his friends were as anxious as
+Voltaire to crush the 'infamous,' but they would do it by indirect
+means. They argued resolutely for more freedom; and Samuel Bailey's
+essay upon the formation of opinions--a vigorous argument on behalf of
+the widest possible toleration--was enthusiastically praised by James
+Mill in the _Westminster Review_. For the present they carefully
+abstained from the direct avowal of obnoxious opinions, which were
+still legally punishable, and which would undoubtedly excite the
+strongest hostility. Bentham, as we have seen, had ventured, though
+anonymously, to assail the church catechism and to cross-examine St.
+Paul. One remarkable manifesto gave a fuller utterance to his
+opinions. A book called _The Analysis of the Influence of Natural
+Religion on the Temporal Happiness of Mankind_, by 'Philip Beauchamp,'
+appeared in 1822. The publisher was Richard Carlile, who was then
+'safe in Dorchester gaol.' No legal notice was taken of 'Philip
+Beauchamp.' The reason may have been that the book excited very little
+attention in general. Yet it is probably as forcible an attack as has
+often been written upon the popular theology. The name of 'Philip
+Beauchamp' covered a combination of Bentham and George Grote.[610] The
+book, therefore, represents the view of representative Utilitarians of
+the first and third generation, and clearly expressed the real
+opinions of the whole party. In his posthumous essays J. S. Mill
+speaks of it as the only explicit discussion known to him of the
+question of the utility, as distinguished from the question of the
+truth, of religion. Obviously, it was desirable to apply the universal
+test to religious belief, and this very pithy and condensed statement
+shows the result.
+
+A short summary may indicate the essence of the argument. It is only
+necessary to observe that the phrase 'natural religion' is part of the
+disguise. It enables the author to avoid an explicit attack upon
+revelation; but it is superabundantly obvious that the word 'natural'
+is superfluous. Revelation is really a fiction, and all religions are
+'natural.' A religion is called a 'superstition,' as 'Philip
+Beauchamp' remarks at starting, when its results are thought to be
+bad; and allowed to be a religion only when they are thought to be
+good.[611] That device covers the familiar fallacy of distinguishing
+between uses and abuses, and, upon that pretence, omitting to take bad
+consequences into account. We must avoid it by defining religion and
+then tracing all the consequences, good or bad. Religion is
+accordingly taken to mean the belief in the existence of 'an Almighty
+Being, by whom pains and pleasures will be dispensed to mankind during
+an infinite and future state of existence.' The definition is already
+characteristic. 'Religion' may be used in a far wider sense,
+corresponding to a philosophy of the universe, whether that
+philosophy does or does not include this particular doctrine. But
+'Philip Beauchamp's' assumption is convenient because it gives a
+rational reasoning to the problem of utility. Religion is taken to be
+something adventitious or superimposed upon other beliefs, and we can
+therefore intelligibly ask whether it does good or harm. Taking this
+definition for granted, let us consider the results.
+
+The first point is that we are of necessity in absolute ignorance as
+to a posthumous state. Now, fear is from our earliest infancy the
+'never-failing companion and offspring of ignorance.' Knowledge alone
+can rescue us from perpetual suffering, because all security depends
+upon knowledge. Pain, moreover, is far more 'pungent' and distinct
+than pleasure. 'Want and pain are natural; satisfaction and pleasure
+artificial and invented.' Pain, therefore, as the strongest, will
+dictate our anticipations. The hope of immortality is by the orthodox
+described as a blessing; but the truth, deducible from these
+principles of human nature and verified by experience, is that natural
+religion, instead of soothing apprehensions, adds fresh grounds of
+apprehension. A revelation, as 'Philip Beauchamp' admits, might
+conceivably dispel our fears; but he would obviously say that the
+religion which is taken to be revealed gives a far more vivid picture
+of hell than of heaven.[612] In the next place, it is 'obvious at
+first sight' that natural religion can properly give 'no rule of
+guidance.' It refers us to a region of 'desperate and unfathomable'
+darkness.[613] But it nevertheless indirectly suggests a pernicious
+rule. It rests entirely upon conjectures as to the character of the
+invisible Being who apportions pain or pleasure for inscrutable
+reasons. Will this Being be expected to approve useful or pernicious
+conduct? From men's language we might suppose that he is thought to be
+purely benevolent. Yet from their dogmas it would seem that he is a
+capricious tyrant. How are we to explain the discrepancy? The
+discrepancy is the infallible result of the circumstances already
+stated.[614] The Deity has limitless power, and therefore is the
+natural object of our instinctive fears. The character of the Deity is
+absolutely incomprehensible, and incomprehensibility in human affairs
+is identical with caprice and insanity.[615] The ends and the means of
+the Deity are alike beyond our knowledge; and the extremes both of
+wisdom and of folly are equally unaccountable. Now, we praise or blame
+human beings in order to affect their conduct towards us, to attract
+favours or repel injuries. A tyrant possessed of unlimited power
+considers that by simple abstinence from injury he deserves boundless
+gratitude. The weak will only dare to praise, and the strong will only
+blame. The slave-owner never praises and the slave never blames,
+because one can use the lash while the other is subject to the lash.
+If, then, we regard the invisible Being as a capricious despot, and,
+moreover, as a despot who knows every word we utter, we shall never
+speak of him without the highest eulogy, just because we attribute to
+him the most arbitrary tyranny. Hence, the invisible despot will
+specially favour the priests whose lives are devoted to supporting his
+authority, and, next to priests, those who, by the practice of
+ceremonies painful or useless to themselves, show that their sole aim
+is to give him pleasure. He will specially detest the atheists, and,
+next to atheists, all who venture to disregard his arbitrary laws. A
+human judge may be benevolent, because he is responsible to the
+community. They give and can take away his power. But the invisible
+and irresponsible ruler will have no motives for benevolence, and
+approve conduct pernicious to men because it is the best proof of a
+complete subservience to himself.[616] In spite of this, it has been
+generally asserted that religion supplies a motive, and the only
+adequate motive, to moral conduct. But the decay of religion would
+leave the sources of pain and pleasure unchanged. To say, then, that
+the conduct prescribed by religion would disappear if the religious
+motives were removed is virtually to admit that it produces no
+'temporal benefit.' Otherwise, the motives for practising such conduct
+would not be affected. In fact, morality is the same in all countries,
+though the injunctions of religion are various and contradictory. If
+religion ordered only what is useful, it would coincide with human
+laws, and be at worst superfluous. As a fact, it condemns the most
+harmless pleasures, such as the worst of human legislators have never
+sought to suppress. People have become tolerant, that is, they have
+refused to enforce religious observances, precisely because they have
+seen that such observances cannot be represented as conducive to
+temporal happiness.
+
+Duty, again, may be divided into duty to God and duty to man. Our
+'duty to God' is a 'deduction from the pleasures of the individual
+without at all benefiting the species.' It must therefore be taken as
+a tax paid for the efficacy supposed to be communicated to the other
+branch--the 'duty to man.'[617] Does religion, then, stimulate our
+obedience to the code of duty to man? 'Philip Beauchamp' admits for
+once that, in certain cases, it '_might possibly_' be useful. It might
+affect 'secret crimes,' that is, crimes where the offender is
+undiscoverable. That, however, is a trifle. These cases, he thinks,
+would be 'uncommonly rare' under a well-conceived system. The extent
+of evil in this life would therefore be trifling were superhuman
+inducements entirely effaced from the human bosom, and if 'human
+institutions were ameliorated according to the progress of
+philosophy.'[618] On the other hand, the imaginary punishments are
+singularly defective in the qualities upon which Bentham had insisted
+in human legislation. They are remote and uncertain, and to make up
+for this are represented as boundless in intensity and durability. For
+that reason, they precisely reverse the admitted principle that
+punishment should be so devised as to produce the greatest possible
+effect by the smallest infliction of pain. Supernatural sanctions are
+supposed to maximise pain with a minimum of effect. The fear of hell
+rarely produces any effect till a man is dying, and then inflicts
+great suffering, though it has been totally inefficient as a
+preventive at the time of temptation. The influence of supernatural
+penalties is therefore in 'an inverse ratio to the demand for
+it.'[619] In reality, the efficacy of the sanctions is due to their
+dependence upon public opinion. Our real motive for acting rightly is
+our desire for the praise of our fellows and our interest in their
+good conduct. We conceal this motive even from ourselves, because we
+wish to have the credit of serving the Deity exclusively. This is
+confirmed by the familiar instances of a conflict between public
+opinion and religious sanctions. Duelling, fornication, and perjury
+are forbidden by the divine law, but the prohibition is ineffectual
+whenever the real sentiment of mankind is opposed to it. The divine
+law is set aside as soon as it conflicts with the popular opinion. In
+exceptional cases, indeed, the credit attached to unreasonable
+practices leads to fanaticism, asceticism, and even insanity; but
+superhuman terrors fail at once when they try to curb the action of
+genuine substantial motives. Hence we must admit that they are useless
+in the case even of 'secret crimes.' Religion, in short, prescribes
+mischievous practices, becomes impotent except for the production of
+misery, and is really, though not avowedly, dependent on the popular
+sanction.[620]
+
+We can now classify the evils actually produced. Religion injures
+individuals by prescribing useless and painful practices: fasting,
+celibacy, voluntary self-torture, and so forth. It suggests vague
+terrors which often drive the victim to insanity, and it causes
+remorse for harmless enjoyments.[621] Religion injures society by
+creating antipathies against unbelievers, and in a less degree against
+heretics and nonconformists. It perverts public opinion by making
+innocent actions blameable; by distorting the whole science of
+morality and sanctioning the heterogeneous dictates of a certain blind
+and unaccountable impulse called the 'moral instinct or
+conscience.'[622] Morality becomes a 'mere catalogue of reigning
+sentiments,' because it has cast away the standard of utility. A
+special aversion to improvement is generated, because whatever
+changes our conceptions of the 'sequences of phenomena' is supposed to
+break the divine 'laws of nature.' 'Unnatural' becomes a
+'self-justifying' epithet forbidding any proposed change of conduct,
+which will counteract the 'designs of God.' Religion necessarily
+injures intellectual progress. It disjoins belief from its only safe
+ground, experience. The very basis, the belief in an inscrutable and
+arbitrary power, sanctions supernatural or 'extra-experimental'
+beliefs of all kinds. You reject in the case of miracles all the tests
+applicable to ordinary instruction, and appeal to trial by ordeal
+instead of listening to witnesses. Instead of taking the trouble to
+plough and sow, you expect to get a harvest by praying to an
+inscrutable Being. You marry without means, because you hold that God
+never sends a child without sending food for it to eat. Meanwhile you
+suborn 'unwarranted belief' by making belief a matter of reward and
+penalty. It is made a duty to dwell upon the arguments upon one side
+without attending to those upon the other, and 'the weaker the
+evidence the greater the merit in believing.'[623] The temper is
+depraved not only by the antipathies generated, but by the 'fitful and
+intermittent character' of the inducements to conduct.[624]
+
+The final result of all this is still more serious. It is that
+religion, besides each separate mischief, 'subsidises a standing army
+for the perpetuation of all the rest.'[625] The priest gains power as
+a 'wonder-worker,' who knows how to propitiate the invisible Being,
+and has a direct interest in 'depraving the intellect,' cherishing
+superstition, surrounding himself with mysteries, representing the
+will of the Deity as arbitrary and capricious, and forming an
+organised 'array of human force and fraud.'[626] The priesthood sets
+up an infallible head, imposes upon the weak and dying, stimulates
+antipathy, forms the mass of 'extra-experimental' beliefs into the
+likeness of a science, and allies itself with the state. Heresy
+becomes a crime. The ruler helps the priests to raise a tax for their
+own comfort, while they repay him by suppressing all seditious
+opinions. Thus is formed an unholy alliance between the authorities of
+'natural religion' and the 'sinister interests of the earth.' The
+alliance is so complete that it is even more efficient than if it had
+been openly proclaimed. 'Prostration and plunder of the community is
+indeed the common end of both' (priests and rulers). The only chance
+of dissension is about the 'partition of the spoil.'[627]
+
+The book is as characteristic of the Utilitarians in style as in
+spirit. It is terse, vigorous reasoning, with no mere rhetorical
+flourishes. The consequences of the leading principle are deduced
+without flinching and without reserve. Had the authors given their
+names, they would no doubt have excited antipathies injurious to the
+propaganda of Utilitarianism. They held, for that reason presumably,
+that they were not bound to point out the ultimate goal of their
+speculations. No intelligent reader of their other writings could fail
+to see what that goal must be; but an 'open secret' is still for many
+purposes a real secret. Whatever might be the suspicions of their
+antagonists, they could only be accused of a tendency. The book
+amounts to an admission that the suspicions were well founded.
+Utilitarianism, the Utilitarians clearly recognised, logically implied
+the rejection of all theology. Religion--on their understanding of the
+word--must, like everything else, be tested by its utility, and it was
+shown to be either useless or absolutely pernicious. The aim of the
+Utilitarians was, in brief, to be thoroughly scientific. The man of
+science must be opposed to the belief in an inscrutable agent of
+boundless power, interfering at every point with the laws of nature,
+and a product of the fancy instead of the reason. Such a conception,
+so far as accepted, makes all theory of human conduct impossible,
+suggests rules conflicting with the supreme rule of utility, and gives
+authority to every kind of delusion, imposture, and 'sinister
+interest.'
+
+It would, I think, be difficult to mention a more vigorous discussion
+of the problem stated. As anonymous, it could be ignored instead of
+answered; and probably such orthodox persons as read it assumed it to
+be a kind of _reductio ad absurdum_ of the Utilitarian creed. It might
+follow, they could admit, logically from the Utilitarian analysis of
+human nature, but it could only prove that the analysis was
+fundamentally wrong. Yet its real significance is precisely its
+thorough applicability to the contemporary state of opinion.
+Beauchamp's definition coincides with Paley's. The coincidence was
+inevitable. Utilitarians both in ethical and philosophical questions
+start from the same assumptions as Paley, and the Paley doctrine gave
+the pith of the dominant theology. I have observed that the Scottish
+philosophers had abandoned the _a priori_ argument, and laid the whole
+stress of their theological doctrine upon Paley's argument from final
+causes. The change of base was an inevitable consequence of their
+whole system. They appealed to experience, to 'Baconian' methods, and
+to 'inductive psychology.' The theory of 'intuitions,' effective where
+it fell in with admitted beliefs, was idle against an atheist, who
+denied that he had the intuition. The 'final causes' argument,
+however, rested upon common ground, and supplied a possible line of
+defence. The existence of the Deity could perhaps be proved
+empirically, like the existence of the 'watchmaker.' Accordingly, this
+was the argument upon which reliance was really placed by the average
+theologian of the time. Metaphysical or ontological reasoning had been
+discarded for plain common-sense. The famous _Bridgewater Treatises_
+are the characteristic product of the period. It had occurred to the
+earl of Bridgewater, who died in 1829, that £8000 from his estate
+might be judiciously spent in proving the existence of a benevolent
+creator. The council of the Royal Society employed eight eminent men
+of science to carry out this design.[628] They wrote some interesting
+manuals of popular science, interspersed with proper theological
+applications. The arguments were sincere enough, though they now seem
+to overlook with singular blindness the answer which would be
+suggested by the 'evolutionist.' The logical result is, in any case, a
+purely empirical theology. The religion which emerges is not a
+philosophy or theory of the world in general, but corresponds to a
+belief in certain matters of fact (or fiction). The existence of the
+Deity is to be proved, like the existence of Caesar, by special
+evidence.
+
+The main results are obvious. The logical base of the whole creed is
+'natural theology,' and 'natural theology' is simply a branch of
+science, amenable to the ordinary scientific tests. It is intended to
+prove the existence of an agent essential to the working of the
+machinery, as from the movements of a planet we infer the existence of
+a disturbing planet. The argument from design, in this acceptation, is
+briefly mentioned by 'Philip Beauchamp.' It is, he argues, 'completely
+extra-experimental'; for experience only reveals design in living
+beings: it supposes a pre-existing chaos which can never be shown to
+have existed, and the 'omnipotent will' introduced to explain the
+facts is really no explanation at all, but a collection of meaningless
+words.[629] The argument is briefly dismissed as concerning the truth,
+not the utility, of religion, but one point is sufficiently indicated.
+The argument from 'design' is always plausible, because it applies
+reasoning undeniably valid when it is applied within its proper
+sphere. The inference from a watch to a watchmaker is clearly
+conclusive. We know sufficiently what is meant by the watchmaker and
+by 'making.' We therefore reason to a _vera causa_--an agent already
+known. When the inference is to the action of an inconceivable Being
+performing an inconceivable operation upon inconceivable materials, it
+really becomes illusory, or amounts to the simple assertion that the
+phenomenon is inexplicable. Therefore, again, it is essentially
+opposed to science though claiming to be scientific. The action of
+the creator is supposed to begin where the possibility of knowledge
+ends. It is just the inexplicable element which suggests the creative
+agency. Conversely, the satisfactory explanation of any phenomenon
+takes it out of the theological sphere. As soon as the process becomes
+'natural' it ceases to demand the supernatural artificer. 'Making,'
+therefore, is contradistinguished from 'growing.' If we see how the
+eye has come into existence, we have no longer any reason to assume
+that it was put together mechanically. In other words, 'teleology' of
+this variety is dispelled by theories of evolution. The hypothesis of
+interference becomes needless when we see how things came to be by
+working out perfectly natural processes. As science, therefore,
+expands, theology recedes. This was to become more evident at a later
+period. For the present, the teleological argument in the Paley form,
+triumphantly set forth in Bridgewater Treatises and the like, rested
+the defence of theology on the proofs of the discontinuity of the
+universe and the consequent necessity for admitting supernatural
+interference. Science was therefore invoked to place absolute limits
+on its own progress.
+
+But other vital difficulties were already felt. The argument from
+contrivance naturally implies limitation. The maker of a machine is
+strictly limited by the properties of the matter upon which he works.
+The inference might be verbally saved by saying that the maker was
+'potentially' omnipotent; but the argument, so far as it goes, is more
+easily satisfied by the hypothesis of a Being of great but still
+limited powers. The Deity so proved, if the proof be valid, is not
+himself the ground of the universe, the source from which nature
+itself emanates, as well as the special laws of nature, but a part of
+the whole system; interfering, guiding, and controlling, but still
+only one of the powers which contribute to the formation of the whole.
+Hence arise questions which theologians rather evaded than attempted
+to answer. If with the help of Paley we can prove the existence of an
+invisible Being--potentially omnipotent, though always operating as
+though limited--there would still remain the question as to his
+attributes. He is skilful, we may grant, but is he benevolent or is he
+moral? The benevolence could of course be asserted by optimists, if
+facts were amenable to rhetoric. But a theory which is essentially
+scientific or empirical, and consistently argues from the effect to
+the cause, must start from an impartial view of the facts, and must
+make no presupposition as to the nature of the cause. The cause is
+known only through the effects, and our judgment of them cannot be
+modified by simply discovering that they are caused. If, then,
+contrivance is as manifest in disease as in health, in all the
+sufferings which afflict mankind as well as in the pleasures which
+solace him, we must either admit that the creator is not benevolent,
+or frankly admit that he is not omnipotent and fall into Manichæism.
+Nature, we are frequently told, is indifferent if not cruel; and
+though Paley and his followers choose to shut their eyes to ugly
+facts, it could be only by sacrificing their logic. They were bound to
+prove from observation that the world was so designed as to secure the
+'greatest happiness' before they could logically infer a purely
+benevolent designer. It was of the very essence of their position that
+observed facts should be the ultimate basis of the whole theory; and
+to alter the primary data by virtue of deductions drawn from them
+could obviously not be logically justifiable.
+
+Such reflections, though sufficiently obvious, might be too far from
+practical application to have much immediate effect. But the question
+of the moral bearing of theology was of more interest; and, here, the
+coincidence of the Utilitarianism with the accepted theology of the
+day is especially important. The Deity regarded as the artificer
+appears to be far from purely benevolent. In respect to morality, is
+he not simply indifferent? Does he not make men fragile and place them
+amidst pitfalls? Does he not constantly slay the virtuous and save the
+wicked? How, indeed, from the purely empirical or scientific base, do
+you deduce any moral attributes whatever? 'Natural theology,' as it
+was called, might reveal a contriver, but could it reveal a judge or a
+moral guide? Here the difficulty of a purely matter-of-fact theology
+made itself felt on many sides. The remarkable influence of Butler
+upon many minds was partly due to a perception of this omission.
+Butler avowedly appeals to the conscience, and therefore at least
+recognises God as directly revealed in a moral character. That seemed
+to supply a gap in the ordinary theology. But in the purely empirical
+view Butler's argument was untenable. It appealed to one of the
+'intuitions' which were incompatible with its fundamental assumptions.
+The compunctions of conscience were facts to be explained by
+'association,' not to be regarded as intimations of wrath. Butler's
+view might be inverted. The 'conscience' does, in truth, suggest the
+divine wrath; but that only means that it suggests the quack remedies
+upon which 'wonder-working' priests establish their power. Instead of
+proving the truth of the religion, it explains the origin of
+superstition. To James Mill, as we have seen, Butler's argument would
+logically prove not a righteous governor but a cruel creator.
+Theologians, again, of the Paley school, were bound in consistency to
+the empirical or Utilitarian view of morality. Paley accepted the
+consequences unreservedly; and if such philosophers as Brown and
+Mackintosh persisted in regarding the coincidence between morality and
+happiness as indicative of a pre-established harmony, not of an
+identification of morality with the pursuit of general happiness, they
+still admitted that 'utility' was the 'criterion' of morality. The
+moral law, that is, coincides in its substance with the law, 'maximise
+happiness,' and happiness means, as 'Philip Beauchamp' calls it,
+'temporal' happiness--the happiness of actual men living in this world
+and knowing nothing of any external world. How, then, is the moral law
+related to theology? To know what is moral, we must appeal to
+experience and 'utility.' We must discover what makes for happiness,
+just as in medicine we must discover what makes for health or
+pleasure, by the ordinary methods of observation. What place is left
+for any supernatural intervention? The ostensible answer was that
+though the moral code could be deduced from its utility, the motives
+by which it was to be enforced required some supernatural agency. The
+natural man might see what was right, but need not therefore do what
+was right. Here 'Philip Beauchamp' comes to a direct issue with the
+theologians. He denies that the supernatural motive will be on the
+side of morality. When J. S. Mill remarked that there had been few
+discussions of the 'utility' as distinguished from the truth of
+religion, he scarcely recognises one conspicuous fact. The great
+argument of divines had always been the absolute necessity of religion
+to morality; and if morality be understood to mean utility, this is
+simply an argument from utility. The point, indeed, was often taken
+for granted; but it certainly represents one of the strongest
+persuasives, if not one of the strongest reasons. The divines, in
+fact, asserted that religion was of the highest utility as supplying
+the motive for moral conduct. What motives, then, can be derived from
+such knowledge of the Deity as is attainable from the 'Natural
+theology' argument? How can we prove from it that he who puts the
+world together is more favourable to the virtues than to the vices
+which are its results; or, if more favourable, that he shows any other
+favour than can be inferred from experience? He has, it is agreed, put
+men, as Bentham had said, under the command of two sovereign masters,
+Pleasure and Pain; and has enabled them to calculate consequences, and
+therefore to seek future pleasure and avoid future pain. That only
+proves that we can increase our happiness by prudence; but it suggests
+no additional reasons either for seeking happiness or for altering our
+estimate of happiness. As 'Philip Beauchamp' argues, we cannot from
+the purely empirical ground get any motive for taking into account
+anything beyond our 'temporal' or secular interests. This, again, was
+in fact admitted by Paley. His mode of escape from the dilemma is
+familiar. The existence of a supreme artificer is inferred from the
+interventions in the general order of nature. The existence of a moral
+ruler, or the fact that the ruler approves morality, is inferred from
+his interference by the particular manifestations of power which we
+call miraculous. We know that actions will have other consequences
+than those which can be inferred from our own experience, because some
+two thousand years ago a Being appeared who could raise the dead and
+heal the sick. If sufficient evidence of the fact be forthcoming, we
+are entitled to say upon his authority that the wicked will be damned
+and the virtuous go to heaven. Obedience to the law enforced by these
+sanctions is obviously prudent, and constitutes the true _differentia_
+of moral conduct. Virtue, according to the famous definition, is doing
+good 'for the sake of everlasting happiness.' The downright bluntness
+with which Paley announced these conclusions startled contemporaries,
+and yet it must be admitted that they were a natural outcome of his
+position.
+
+In short, the theological position of the Paley school and the
+Utilitarian position of 'Philip Beauchamp' start from the common
+ground of experience. Religion means the knowledge of certain facts,
+which are to be inferred from appropriate evidence. It does not modify
+the whole system of thought, but simply adds certain corollaries; and
+the whole question is whether the corollaries are or are not proved by
+legitimate reasoning. Can we discover heaven and hell as we discovered
+America? Can observation of nature reveal to us a supernatural world?'
+The first difficulty is that the argument for natural theology has to
+rest upon interference, not upon order, and therefore comes into
+conflict with the first principles of scientific procedure. The Deity
+is revealed not by the rational but by the arbitrary; and the more the
+world is explained, the less the proof that he exists, because the
+narrower the sphere of his action. Then, as such a Deity, even if
+proved, is not proved to be benevolent or moral, we have to rely for
+the moral element upon the evidence of 'miracles,' that is, again, of
+certain interruptions of order. The scientific tendency more or less
+embodied in Protestantism, so far as it appealed to reason or to
+'private judgment,' had, moreover, made it necessary to relegate
+miracles to a remote period, while denying them at the present. To
+prove at once that there are no miracles now, and that there were a
+few miracles two thousand years ago, was really hopeless. In fact, the
+argument had come to be stated in an artificial form which had no real
+relation to the facts. If the apostles had been a jury convinced by a
+careful legal examination of the evidence; if they had pronounced
+their verdict, in spite of the knowledge that they would be put to
+death for finding it, there would have been some force in Paley's
+argument. But then they had not. To assume such an origin for any
+religion implied a total misconception of the facts. Paley assumed
+that the apostles resembled twelve respectable deans of Carlisle
+solemnly declaring, in spite of the most appalling threats, that John
+Wesley had been proved to have risen from the dead. Paley might
+plausibly urge that such an event would require a miracle. But,
+meanwhile, his argument appeared to rest the whole case for morality
+and religion upon this narrow and perilous base. We can only know that
+it is our interest to be moral if we know of heaven and hell; and we
+only know of heaven and hell if we accept the evidence of miracles,
+and infer that the worker of miracles had supernatural sources of
+information. The moral difficulty which emerges is obvious. The Paley
+conception of the Deity is, in fact, coincident with Bentham's
+conception of the sovereign. He is simply an invisible sovereign,
+operating by tremendous sanctions. The sanctions are 'external,' that
+is to say, pains and pleasures, annexed to conduct by the volition of
+the sovereign, not intrinsic consequences of the conduct itself. Such
+a conception, thoroughly carried through, makes the relation between
+religion and morality essentially arbitrary. Moreover, if with 'Philip
+Beauchamp' we regard the miracle argument as obviously insufficient,
+and consider what are the attributes really attributed to the
+sovereign, we must admit that they suggest such a system as he
+describes rather than the revelation of an all-wise and benevolent
+ruler. It is true, as 'Philip Beauchamp' argues, that the system has
+all the faults of the worst human legislation; that the punishment is
+made atrociously--indeed infinitely--severe to compensate for its
+uncertainty and remoteness; and that (as he would clearly add), to
+prevent it from shocking and stunning the intellect, it is regarded as
+remissible in consideration of vicarious suffering. If, then, the
+religion is really what its dogmas declare, it is easier to assume
+that it represents the cunning of a priesthood operating upon the
+blind fears and wild imaginations of an inaccessible world; and the
+ostensible proofs of a divine origin resting upon miraculous proofs
+are not worth consideration. It professes to be a sanction to all
+morality, but is forced to construct a mythology which outrages all
+moral considerations. Taken as a serious statement of fact, the
+anthropomorphism of the vulgar belief was open to the objections which
+Socrates brought against the Pagan mythology. The supreme ruler was
+virtually represented as arbitrary, cruel, and despotic.
+
+If we ask the question, whether in point of fact the religion attacked
+by 'Philip Beauchamp' fairly represented the religion of the day, we
+should have, of course, to admit that it was in one sense a gross
+caricature. If, that is, we asked what were the real roots of the
+religious zeal of Wilberforce and the Evangelicals, or of the
+philanthropists with whom even James Mill managed to associate on
+friendly terms, it would be the height of injustice to assume that
+they tried to do good simply from fear of hell and hope of heaven, or
+that their belief in Christianity was due to a study of Paley's
+_Evidences_. Their real motives were far nobler: genuine hatred of
+injustice and sympathy for suffering, joined to the conviction that
+the sects to which they belonged were working on the side of justice
+and happiness; while the creeds which they accepted were somehow
+congenial to their best feelings, and enabled them to give utterance
+to their deepest emotions. But when they had to give a ground for that
+belief they could make no adequate defence. They were better than
+their ostensible creed, because the connection of their creed with
+their morality was really arbitrary and traditional. We must always
+distinguish between the causes of strong convictions and the reasons
+officially assigned for them. The religious creed, as distinguished
+from the religious sentiment, was really traditional, and rested upon
+the simple fact that it was congenial to the general frame of mind.
+Its philosophy meanwhile had become hopelessly incoherent. It wished
+to be sensible, and admitted in principle the right of 'private
+judgment' or rationalism so far as consistent with Protestantism. The
+effect had been that in substance it had become Utilitarian and
+empirical; while it had yet insisted upon holding on to the
+essentially irrational element.
+
+The religious tradition was becoming untenable in this sense at the
+same time as the political tradition. If radicalism in both were to be
+effectually resisted, some better foundation must be found for
+conservatism. I should be tempted to say that a critical period was
+approaching, did I not admit that every period can always be described
+as critical. In fact, however, thoughtful people, perceiving on the
+one hand that the foundations of their creed were shaking, and yet
+holding it to be essential to their happiness, began to take a new
+position. The 'Oxford movement,' started soon afterwards, implied a
+conviction that the old Protestant position was as untenable as the
+radical asserted. Its adherents attempted to find a living and visible
+body whose supernatural authority might maintain the old dogmatic
+system. Liberal thinkers endeavoured to spiritualise the creed and
+prove its essential truths by philosophy, independently of the
+particular historical evidence. The popular tendency was to admit in
+substance that the dogmas most assailed were in fact immoral: but to
+put them into the background, or, if necessary, to explain them away.
+The stress was to be laid not upon miracles, but upon the moral
+elevation of Christianity or the beauty of character of its founder.
+The 'unsectarian' religion, represented in the most characteristic
+writings of the next generation, in Tennyson and Browning, Thackeray
+and Dickens, reflects this view. Such men detested the coarse and
+brutalising dogmas which might be expounded as the true 'scheme of
+salvation' by ignorant preachers seeking to rouse sluggish natures to
+excitement; but they held to religious conceptions which, as they
+thought, really underlay these disturbing images, and which, indeed,
+could hardly be expressed in any more definite form than that of a
+hope or a general attitude of the whole character. The problem seemed
+to be whether we shall support a dogmatic system by recognising a
+living spiritual authority, or frankly accept reason as the sole
+authority, and, while explaining away the repulsive dogmas, try to
+retain the real essence of religious belief.
+
+
+II. CONTEMPORARY THOUGHT
+
+If I were writing a general history of opinion, it would be necessary
+to discuss the views of Mill's English contemporaries; to note their
+attitude in regard to the Utilitarian position, and point out how they
+prepared the way for the later developments of thought. The
+Utilitarians were opposed to a vague sentiment rather than to any
+definite system. They were a small and a very unpopular sect. They
+excited antipathy on all sides. As advocating republicanism, they were
+hardly more disliked by the Tories, who directly opposed them, than by
+the Whigs, who might be suspected of complicity. As enthusiastic
+political economists, they were equally detested by sentimental
+Radicals, Socialists, and by all who desired a strong government,
+whether for the suppression of social evils or the maintenance of
+social abuses. And now, as suspected of atheism, they were hated by
+theologians. But though the Utilitarians were on all sides condemned
+and denounced, they were met by no definite and coherent scheme of
+philosophy. The philosophy of Stewart and Brown had at least a strong
+drift in their direction. Though 'political economy' was denounced in
+general terms, all who spoke with authority accepted Adam Smith. Their
+political opponents generally did not so much oppose their theories as
+object to theory in general. The Utilitarian system might be both
+imperfect and dogmatic; but it had scarcely to contend with any clear
+and assignable rival. The dislike of Englishmen to any systematic
+philosophy, whether founded upon the national character or chiefly due
+to special conditions, was still conspicuous outside of the small
+Utilitarian camp.
+
+To discover, therefore, the true position of contemporary opinion, we
+should have to look elsewhere. Instead of seeking for the philosophers
+who did not exist, we should have to examine the men of letters who
+expressed the general tendencies. In Germany, philosophical theories
+may be held to represent the true drift of the national mind, and a
+historian of German thought would inquire into the various systems
+elaborated by professors of philosophy. He would at least be in no
+want of materials for definite logical statements. In England, there
+was no such intellectual movement. There we should have to consider
+poetry and literature; to read Wordsworth and Coleridge, Scott and
+Byron and Shelley, if we would know what men were really thinking and
+feeling. The difficulty is, of course, that none of these men, unless
+Coleridge be an exception, had any conscious or systematic philosophy.
+We can only ask, therefore, what they would have said if they had
+been requested to justify their views by abstract reasoning; and that
+is a rather conjectural and indefinite enterprise. It lies,
+fortunately, outside of my field; and it will be enough if I try to
+suggest one or two sufficiently vague hints. In the first place, the
+contrast between the Utilitarians and their opponents may almost be
+identified with the contrast between the prosaic and the poetical
+aspects of the world in general. Bentham frankly objected to poetry in
+general. It proved nothing. The true Utilitarian was the man who held
+on to fact, and to nothing but the barest, most naked and unadorned
+fact. Poetry in general came within the sweep of his denunciations of
+'sentimentalism' and 'vague generalities.' It was the 'production of a
+rude age'; the silly jingling which might be suitable to savages, but
+was needless for the grown-up man, and was destined to disappear along
+with the whole rubbish of mythology and superstition in whose service
+it had been enlisted. There is indeed a natural sympathy between any
+serious view of life and a distrust of the æsthetic tendencies.
+Theologians of many different types have condemned men for dallying
+with the merely pleasurable, when they ought to be preoccupied with
+the great ethical problems or the safety of their souls. James Mill
+had enough of the old Puritan in him to sympathise with Carlyle's
+aspiration, 'May the devil fly away with the fine arts!' To such men
+it was difficult to distinguish between fiction and lying; and if some
+concession might be made to human weakness, poets and novelists might
+supply the relaxations and serve to fill up the intervals of life, but
+must be sternly excluded if they tried to intrude into serious
+studies. Somehow love of the beautiful only interfered with the
+scientific investigation of hard facts.
+
+Poets, indeed, may take the side of reform, or may perhaps be
+naturally expected to take that side. The idealist and the dreamer
+should be attracted most powerfully by the visions of a better world
+and the restoration of the golden age. Shelley was among the most
+enthusiastic prophets of the coming era. His words, he hoped, were to
+be 'the trumpet of a prophecy' to 'unawakened earth.' Shelley had sat
+at the feet of Godwin, and represented that vague metaphysical
+dreaming to which the Utilitarians were radically hostile. To the
+literary critic, Shelley's power is the more remarkable because from a
+flimsy philosophy he span an imaginative tissue of such magical and
+marvellous beauty. But Shelley dwelt in an ethereal region, where
+ordinary beings found breathing difficult. There facts seemed to
+dissolve into thin air instead of supplying a solid and substantial
+base. His idealism meant unreality. His 'trumpet' did not in fact
+stimulate the mass of mankind, and his fame at this period was
+confined to a few young gentlemen of literary refinement. The man who
+had really stirred the world was Byron; and if the decline of Byron's
+fame has resulted partly from real defects, it is partly due also to
+the fact that his poetry was so admirably adapted to his
+contemporaries. Byron at least could see facts as clearly as any
+Utilitarian, though fact coloured by intense passion. He, like the
+Utilitarians, hated solemn platitudes and hypocritical conventions. I
+have noticed the point at which he came into contact with Bentham's
+disciples. His pathetic death shortly afterwards excited a singularly
+strong movement of sympathy. 'The news of his death,' said Carlyle at
+the time, 'came upon my heart like a mass of lead; and yet the thought
+of it sends a painful twinge through all my being, as if I had lost a
+brother.' At a later time he defines Byron as 'a dandy of sorrows and
+acquainted with grief.'[630] That hits off one aspect of Byronism.
+Byron was the Mirabeau of English literature, in so far as he was at
+once a thorough aristocrat and a strong revolutionist. He had the
+qualification of a true satirist. His fate was at discord with his
+character. He was proud of his order, and yet despised its actual
+leaders. He was ready alternately to boast of his vices and to be
+conscious that they were degrading. He shocked the respectable world
+by mocking 'Satanically,' as they held, at moral conventions, and yet
+rather denounced the hypocrisy and the heartlessness of precisians
+than insulted the real affections. He covered sympathy with human
+suffering under a mask of misanthropy, and attacked war and oppression
+in the character of a reckless outlaw. Full of the affectation of a
+'dandy,' he was yet rousing all Europe by a cry of pure
+sentimentalism. It would be absurd to attribute any definite doctrine
+to Byron. His scepticism in religious matters was merely part of a
+general revolt against respectability. What he illustrates is the
+vague but profound revolutionary sentiment which indicated a belief
+that the world seemed to be out of joint, and a vehement protest
+against the selfish and stolid conservatism which fancied that the old
+order could be preserved in all its fossil institutions and
+corresponding dogmas.
+
+What was the philosophy congenial to Conservatism? There is, of
+course, the simple answer, None. Toryism was a 'reaction' due to the
+great struggle of the war and the excesses of the revolution. A
+'reaction' is a very convenient phrase. We are like our fathers; then
+the resemblance is only natural. We differ; then the phrase 'reaction'
+makes the alteration explain itself. No doubt, however, there was in
+some sense a reaction. Many people changed their minds as the
+revolutionary movement failed to fulfil their hopes. I need not argue
+now that such men were not necessarily corrupt renegades. I can only
+try to indicate the process by which they were led towards certain
+philosophical doctrines. Scott, Wordsworth, and Coleridge represent it
+enough for my purpose. When Mill was reproaching Englishmen for their
+want of interest in history, he pointed out that Thierry, 'the
+earliest of the three great French historians' (Guizot and Michelet
+are the two others), ascribed his interest in his subject to
+_Ivanhoe_.[631] Englishmen read _Ivanhoe_ simply for amusement.
+Frenchmen could see that it threw a light upon history, or at least
+suggested a great historical problem. Scott, it is often said, was the
+first person to teach us that our ancestors were once as much alive as
+ourselves. Scott, indeed, the one English writer whose fame upon the
+Continent could be compared to Byron's, had clearly no interest in, or
+capacity for, abstract speculations. An imaginative power, just
+falling short of the higher poetical gift, and a masculine
+common-sense were his most conspicuous faculties. The two qualities
+were occasionally at issue; his judgment struggled with his
+prejudices, and he sympathised too keenly with the active leaders and
+concrete causes to care much for any abstract theory. Yet his
+influence upon thought, though indirect, was remarkable. The vividness
+of his historical painting--inaccurate, no doubt, and delightfully
+reckless of dates and facts--stimulated the growing interest in
+historical inquiries even in England. His influence in one direction
+is recognised by Newman, who was perhaps thinking chiefly of his
+mediævalism.[632] But the historical novels are only one side of
+Scott. Patriotic to the core, he lived at a time when patriotic
+feeling was stimulated to the utmost, and when Scotland in particular
+was still a province, and yet in many ways the most vigorous and
+progressive part of a great empire. He represents patriotism
+stimulated by contact with cosmopolitan movements. Loving every local
+peculiarity, painting every class from the noble to the peasant,
+loving the old traditions, and yet sharing the great impulses of the
+day, Scott was able to interest the world at large. While the most
+faithful portrayer of the special national type, he has too much sense
+not to be well aware that picturesque cattle-stealers and Jacobite
+chiefs were things of the past; but he loves with his whole heart the
+institutions rooted in the past and rich in historical associations.
+He transferred to poetry and fiction the political doctrine of Burke.
+To him, the revolutionary movement was simply a solvent, corroding all
+the old ties because it sapped the old traditions, and tended to
+substitute a mob for a nation. The continuity of national life seemed
+to him the essential condition; and a nation was not a mere aggregate
+of separate individuals, but an ancient organism, developing on an
+orderly system--where every man had his rightful place, and the
+beggar, as he observes in the _Antiquary_, was as ready as the noble
+to rise against foreign invasion. To him, the kings or priests who, to
+the revolutionist, represented simple despotism, represented part of a
+rough but manly order, in which many virtues were conspicuous and the
+governing classes were discharging great functions. Though he did not
+use the phrase, the revolutionary or radical view was hateful to him
+on account of its 'individualism.' It meant the summary destruction of
+all that he cherished most warmly in order to carry out theories
+altogether revolting to his common-sense. The very roots of a sound
+social order depend upon the traditions and accepted beliefs which
+bind together clans or families, and assign to every man a
+satisfactory function in life. The vivid realisation of history goes
+naturally with a love--excessive or reasonable--of the old order; and
+Scott, though writing carelessly to amuse idle readers, was
+stimulating the historical conceptions, which, for whatever reason,
+were most uncongenial to the Utilitarian as to all the revolutionists.
+
+The more conscious philosophical application is illustrated by
+Wordsworth and Coleridge. Both of them had shared the truly
+revolutionary enthusiasm, and both came in time to be classed with the
+Tories. Both, as will be seen, had a marked influence upon J. S. Mill.
+Wordsworth has written in the _Prelude_ one of the most remarkable of
+intellectual autobiographies. He was to be, though he never quite
+succeeded in being, a great philosophical poet. He never succeeded,
+because, in truth, he was not a great philosopher. But no one has
+more clearly indicated the history of his mental evolution. His
+sympathy with the revolution was perfectly genuine, but involved a
+vast misconception. A sturdy, independent youth, thoroughly imbued
+with the instincts of his northern dalesmen, he had early leaned to a
+republican sentiment. His dislike of the effete conventionalism of the
+literary creed blended with his aversion to the political rule of the
+time. He caught the contagion of revolutionary enthusiasm in France,
+and was converted by the sight of the 'hunger-bitten' peasant
+girl--the victim of aristocratic oppression. 'It is against that,'
+said his friend, 'that we are fighting,' and so far Wordsworth was a
+convert. The revolution, therefore, meant to him the restoration of an
+idyllic state, in which the homely virtues of the independent peasant
+should no longer be crushed and deprived of reward by the instruments
+of selfish despotism. The outbreak of war put his principles at issue
+with his patriotism. He suffered keenly when called upon to triumph
+over the calamities of his countrymen. But gradually he came to think
+that his sympathies were misplaced. The revolution had not altered
+human nature. The atrocities disturbed him, but for a time he could
+regard them as a mere accident. As the war went on, he began to
+perceive that the new power could be as tyrannical and selfish as the
+old. Instead of reconstructing a simple social ideal, it was forming a
+military despotism. When the French armies put down the simple Swiss
+peasantry, to whom he had been drawn by his home-bred sympathies, he
+finally gave up the revolutionary cause. He had gone through a mental
+agony, and his distracted sympathies ultimately determined a change
+which corresponded to the adoption of a new philosophy. Wordsworth,
+indeed, had little taste for abstract logic. He had imbibed Godwin's
+doctrine, but when acceptance of Godwin's conclusions involved a
+conflict with his strongest affections--the sacrifice not only of his
+patriotism but of the sympathies which bound him to his fellows--he
+revolted. Godwin represents the extreme of 'individualism,' the
+absolute dissolution of all social and political bonds. Wordsworth
+escaped, not by discovering a logical defect in the argument, but by
+yielding to the protest of his emotions. The system, he thought, was
+fatal to all the affections which had made life dear to him; to the
+vague 'intimations' which, whatever else they might be, had yet power
+to give harmony to our existence.
+
+By degrees he adopted a new diagnosis of the great political evils. On
+one side, he sympathised with Scott's sense of the fatal effects upon
+the whole social organism. Among his noblest poems are the 'Brothers'
+and 'Michael,' to which he specially called the attention of Fox. They
+were intended, he explained, to show the surpassing value of the
+domestic affections conspicuous among the shepherds and 'statesmen' of
+the northern dales. He had now come to hold that the principles of
+Godwin and his like were destructive to the most important elements of
+human welfare. The revolutionists were not simply breaking the fetters
+of the simple peasant, but destroying the most sacred ties to which
+the peasant owed whatever dignity or happiness he possessed.
+Revolution, in short, meant anarchy. It meant, therefore, the
+destruction of all that gives real value to life. It was, as he held,
+one product of the worship of the 'idol proudly named the "wealth of
+nations,"'[633] selfishness and greed replacing the old motives to
+'plain living and high thinking.' Wordsworth, in short, saw the ugly
+side of the industrial revolution, the injury done to domestic life by
+the factory system, or the substitution of a proletariate for a
+peasantry, and the replacement of the lowest social order by a vast
+inorganic mob. The contemporary process, which was leading to
+pauperism and to the evils of the factory system, profoundly affected
+Wordsworth, as well as the impulsive Southey; and their frequent
+denunciations gave colour to the imputations that they were opposed to
+all progress. Certainly they were even morbidly alive to the evil
+aspects of the political economy of Malthus and Ricardo, which to them
+seemed to prescribe insensibility and indifference to most serious and
+rapidly accumulating evils.
+
+Meanwhile, Wordsworth was also impressed by the underlying
+philosophical difficulties. The effect of the revolutionary principles
+was to destroy the religious sentiment, not simply by disproving this
+or that historical statement, but by making the whole world prosaic
+and matter-of-fact. His occasional outbursts against the man of
+science--the 'fingering slave' who would 'peep and botanise upon his
+mother's grave'--are one version of his feeling. The whole scientific
+method tended to materialism and atomism; to a breaking up of the
+world into disconnected atoms, and losing the life in dissecting the
+machinery. His protest is embodied in the pantheism of the noble lines
+on Tintern Abbey, and his method of answering might be divined from
+the ode on the 'Intimations of Immortality.' Somehow or other the
+world represents a spiritual and rational unity, not a mere chaos of
+disconnected atoms and fragments. We 'see into the heart of things'
+when we trust to our emotions and hold by the instincts, clearly
+manifested in childhood, but clouded and overwhelmed in our later
+struggles with the world. The essential thing is the cultivation of
+our 'moral being,' the careful preservation and assimilation of the
+stern sense of duty, which alone makes life bearable and gives a
+meaning to the universe.
+
+Wordsworth, it is plain, was at the very opposite pole from the
+Utilitarians. He came to consider that their whole method meant the
+dissolution of all that was most vitally sacred, and to hold that the
+revolution had attracted his sympathies on false pretences. Yet it is
+obvious that, however great the stimulus which he exerted, and however
+lofty his highest flights of poetry, he had no distinct theory to
+offer. His doctrine undoubtedly was congenial to certain philosophical
+views, but was not itself an articulate philosophy. He appeals to
+instincts and emotions, not to any definite theory. In a remarkable
+letter, Coleridge told Wordsworth why he was disappointed with the
+_Excursion_.[634] He had hoped that it would be the 'first and only
+true philosophical poem in existence.' Wordsworth was to have started
+by exposing the 'sandy sophisms of Locke,' and after exploding Pope's
+_Essay on Man_, and showing the vanity of (Erasmus) Darwin's belief in
+an 'ourang-outang state,' and explaining the fall of man and the
+'scheme of redemption,' to have concluded by 'a grand didactic swell
+on the identity of a true philosophy with true religion.' He would
+show how life and intelligence were to be substituted for the
+'philosophy of mechanism.' Facts would be elevated into theory, theory
+into laws, and laws into living and intelligent powers--true idealism
+necessarily perfecting itself in realism, and realism refining itself
+into idealism.'
+
+The programme was a large one. If it represents what Coleridge
+seriously expected from Wordsworth, it also suggests that he was
+unconsciously wandering into an exposition of one of the gigantic but
+constantly shifting schemes of a comprehensive philosophy, which he
+was always proposing to execute. To try to speak of Coleridge
+adequately would be hopeless and out of place. I must briefly mention
+him, because he was undoubtedly the most conspicuous representative of
+the tendencies opposed to Utilitarianism. The young men who found
+Bentham exasperating imbibed draughts of mingled poetry and philosophy
+from Coleridge's monologues at Hampstead. Carlyle has told us, in a
+famous chapter of his _Life of Sterling_, what they went out to see:
+at once a reed shaken by the wind and a great expounder of
+transcendental truth. The fact that Coleridge exerted a very great
+influence is undeniable. To define precisely what that influence was
+is impossible. His writings are a heap of fragments. He contemplated
+innumerable schemes for great works, and never got within measurable
+distance of writing any. He poured himself out indefinitely upon the
+margins of other men's books; and the piety of disciples has collected
+a mass of these scattered and incoherent jottings, which announce
+conclusions without giving the premises, or suggest difficulties
+without attempting to solve them. He seems to have been almost as
+industrious as Bentham in writing; but whereas Bentham's fragments
+could be put together as wholes, Coleridge's are essentially
+distracted hints of views never really elaborated. He was always
+thinking, but seems always to be making a fresh start at any point
+that strikes him for the moment. Besides all this, there is the
+painful question of plagiarism. His most coherent exposition (in the
+_Biographia Literaria_) is simply appropriated from Schelling, though
+he ascribes the identity to a 'genial coincidence' of thought. I need
+make no attempt to make out what Coleridge really thought for himself,
+and then to try to put his thoughts together,--and indeed hold the
+attempt to be impossible. The most remarkable thing is the apparent
+disproportion between Coleridge's definite services to philosophy and
+the effect which he certainly produced upon some of his ablest
+contemporaries. That seems to prove that he was really aiming at some
+important aspect of truth, incapable as he may have been of
+definitively reaching it. I can only try to give a hint or two as to
+its general nature. Coleridge, in the first place, was essentially a
+poet, and, moreover, his poetry was of the type most completely
+divorced from philosophy. Nobody could say more emphatically that
+poetry should not be rhymed logic; and his most impressive poems are
+simply waking dreams. They are spontaneous incarnations of sensuous
+imagery, which has no need of morals or definite logical schemes.
+Although he expected Wordsworth to transmute philosophy into poetry,
+he admitted that the achievement would be unprecedented. Even in
+Lucretius, he said, what was poetry was not philosophy, and what was
+philosophy was not poetry. Yet Coleridge's philosophy was essentially
+the philosophy of a poet. He had, indeed, great dialectical
+ingenuity--a faculty which may certainly be allied with the highest
+imagination, though it may involve certain temptations. A poet who has
+also a mastery of dialectics becomes a mystic in philosophy. Coleridge
+had, it seems, been attracted by Plotinus in his schooldays. At a
+later period he had been attracted by Hartley, Berkeley, and
+Priestley. To a brilliant youth, anxious to be in the van of
+intellectual progress, they represented the most advanced theories.
+But there could never be a full sympathy between Coleridge and the
+forefathers of English empiricism; and he went to Germany partly to
+study the new philosophy which was beginning to shine--though very
+feebly and intermittingly--in England. When he had returned he began
+to read Kant and Schelling, or rather to mix excursions into their
+books with the miscellaneous inquiries to which his versatile
+intellect attracted him.
+
+Now, it is abundantly clear that Coleridge never studied any
+philosophy systematically. He never acquired a precise acquaintance
+with the technical language of various schemes, or cared for their
+precise logical relations to each other. The 'genial coincidence' with
+Schelling, though an unlucky phrase, represents a real fact. He dipped
+into Plotinus or Behmen or Kant or Schelling, or any one who
+interested him, and did not know whether they were simply embodying
+ideas already in his own mind, or suggesting new ideas; or, what was
+probably more accurate, expressing opinions which, in a general way,
+were congenial to his own way of contemplating the world. His power of
+stimulating other minds proves sufficiently that he frequently hit
+upon impressive and suggestive thoughts. He struck out illuminating
+sparks, but he never diffused any distinct or steady daylight. His
+favourite position, for example, of the distinction between the Reason
+and the Understanding is always coming up and being enforced with the
+strongest asseverations of its importance. That he had adopted it more
+or less from Kant is obvious, though I imagine it to be also obvious
+that he did not clearly understand his authority.[635] To what,
+precisely, it amounts is also unintelligible to me. Somehow or other,
+it implies that the mind can rise into transcendental regions, and,
+leaving grovelling Utilitarians and the like to the conduct of the
+understanding in matters of practical expediency, can perceive that
+the universe is in some way evolved from the pure reason, and the mind
+capable of ideas which correspond to stages of the evolution. How this
+leads to the conclusions that the Christian doctrines of the Logos and
+the Trinity are embodiments of pure philosophy is a problem upon which
+I need not touch. When we have called Coleridge a mystic, with flashes
+of keen insight into the weakness of the opposite theory, I do not see
+how we are to get much further, or attribute to him any articulate and
+definite scheme.
+
+Hopelessly unsystematic as Coleridge may have been, his significance
+in regard to the Utilitarians is noteworthy. It is indicated in a
+famous article which J. S. Mill contributed to the _Westminster
+Review_ in March 1840.[636] Mill's concessions to Coleridge rather
+scandalised the faithful; and it is enough to observe here that it
+marks the apogee of Mill's Benthamism. Influences, of which I shall
+have to speak, had led him to regard his old creed as imperfect, and
+to assent to great part of Coleridge's doctrine. Mill does not discuss
+the metaphysical or theological views of the opposite school, though
+he briefly intimates his dissent. But it is interesting to observe how
+Coleridge impressed a disciple of Bentham. The 'Germano-Coleridgian
+doctrine,' says Mill, was a reaction against the philosophy of the
+eighteenth century: 'ontological,' 'conservative,' 'religious,'
+'concrete and historical,' and finally 'poetical,' because the other
+was 'experimental,' 'innovative,' 'infidel,' 'abstract and
+metaphysical,' and 'matter-of-fact and prosaic.' Yet the two
+approximate, and each helps to restore the balance and comes a little
+nearer to a final equilibrium. The error of the French philosophers
+had been their negative and purely critical tendency. They had thought
+that it was enough to sweep away superstition, priestcraft, and
+despotism, and that no constructive process was necessary. They had
+not perceived the necessity of social discipline, of loyalty to
+rulers, or of patriotic feeling among the subjects. They had,
+therefore, entirely failed to recognise the historical value of old
+creeds and institutions, and had tried to remodel society 'without the
+binding forces which hold society together.'[637] Hence, too, the
+_philosophes_ came to despise history; and D'Alembert is said to have
+wished that all record of past events could be blotted out. Their
+theory, in its popular version at least, came to be that states and
+churches had been got up 'for the sole purpose of picking people's
+pockets.'[638] This had become incredible to any intelligent reasoner,
+and any Tory could prove that there was something good in the past.
+The peculiarity of the 'Germano-Coleridgian' school was that they saw
+beyond the immediate controversy. They were the first to inquire with
+any power into 'the inductive laws of the existence and growth of
+human society'; the first to recognise the importance of the great
+constructive principles; and the first to produce not a piece of party
+advocacy, but 'a philosophy of society in the only form in which it is
+yet possible, that of a philosophy of history.' Hence arose that
+'series of great writers and thinkers, from Herder to Michelet,' who
+have given to past history an intelligible place in the gradual
+evolution of humanity.[639] This very forcible passage is interesting
+in regard to Mill, and shows a very clear perception of some defects
+in his own philosophy. It also raises an important question.
+
+Accepting Mill's view, it is remarkable that the great error of his
+own school, which professed to be based upon experience, was the
+rejection of history; and the great merit of the _a priori_ and
+'intuitionist' school was precisely their insistence upon history. To
+this I shall have to return hereafter. Meanwhile, Mill proceeds to
+show how Coleridge, by arguing from the 'idea' of church and state,
+had at least recognised the necessity of showing that political and
+social institutions must have a sufficient reason, and be justified by
+something more than mere obstinate prejudice. Men like Pitt and Sir
+Robert Peel, if they accepted Coleridge's support, would have to alter
+their whole position. Coleridge's defence of his ideal church was at
+once the severest satire upon the existing body and a proof, as
+against Bentham and Adam Smith, of the advantages of an endowed class
+for the cultivation and diffusion of learning. Coleridge, moreover,
+though he objected to the Reform Bill, showed himself a better
+reformer than Lord John Russell. He admitted what the Whigs refused to
+see, the necessity of diminishing the weight of the landowner
+interest. Landowners were not to be ultimate sources of power, but to
+represent one factor in a reasoned system. In short, by admitting that
+all social arrangements in some sense were embodiments of reason, he
+admitted that they must also be made to conform to reason.
+
+Coleridge and Bentham, then, are not really enemies but allies, and
+they wield powers which are 'opposite poles of one great force of
+progression.'[640] The question, however, remains, how the philosophy
+of each leader is really connected with his practical conclusions.
+Mill's view would apparently be that Coleridge somehow managed to
+correct the errors or fill the gaps of the Utilitarian system--a very
+necessary task, as Mill admits--while Coleridge would have held that
+those errors were the inevitable fruit of the whole empirical system
+of thought. The Reason must be restored to its rightful supremacy over
+the Understanding, which had been working its wicked will since the
+days of Locke and eighteenth century. The problem is a wide one. I
+must be content to remark the inevitable antithesis. Whether enemies
+or allies, the Utilitarians and their antagonists were separated by a
+gulf which could not be bridged for the time. The men of
+common-sense, who had no philosophy at all, were shocked by the
+immediate practical applications of Utilitarianism, its hostility to
+the old order which they loved, its apparent helplessness in social
+questions, its relegation of all progress to the conflict of selfish
+interests, its indifference to all the virtues associated with
+patriotism and local ties. By more reflective minds, it was condemned
+as robbing the world of its poetry, stifling the religious emotions,
+and even quenching sentiment in general. The few who wished for a
+philosophy found the root of its errors in the assumptions which
+reduced the world to a chaos of atoms, outwardly connected and
+combined into mere dead mechanism. The world, for the poet and the
+philosopher alike, must be not a congeries of separate things, but in
+some sense a product of reason. Thought, not fact, must be the
+ultimate reality. Unfortunately or otherwise, the poetical sentiment
+could never get itself translated into philosophical theory.
+Coleridge's random and discursive hints remained mere hints--a
+suggestion at best for future thought. Mill's criticism shows how far
+they could be assimilated by a singularly candid Utilitarian. To him,
+we see, they represented mainly the truth that his own party,
+following the general tendency of the eighteenth century, had been led
+to neglect the vital importance of the constructive elements of
+society; that they had sacrificed order to progress, and therefore
+confounded progress with destruction, and failed to perceive the real
+importance in past times even of the institutions which had become
+obsolete. Social atomism or individualism, therefore, implied a total
+misconception of what Mill calls the 'evolution of humanity.' This
+marks a critical point. The 'Germano-Coleridgians' had a theory of
+evolution. By evolution, indeed, was meant a dialectical evolution;
+the evolution of 'ideas' or reason, in which each stage of history
+represents a moment of some vast and transcendental process of
+thought. Evolution, so understood, seemed rightly or wrongly to be
+mere mysticism or intellectual juggling. It took leave of fact, or
+managed by some illegitimate process to give to a crude generalisation
+from experience the appearance of a purely logical deduction. In this
+shape, therefore, it was really opposed to science, although the time
+was to come in which evolution would present itself in a scientific
+form.[641] Meanwhile, the concessions made by J. S. Mill were not
+approved by his fellows, and would have been regarded as little short
+of treason by the older Utilitarians. The two schools, if Coleridge's
+followers could be called a school, regarded each other's doctrines as
+simply contradictory. In appealing to experience and experience alone,
+the Utilitarians, as their opponents held, had reduced the world to a
+dead mechanism, destroyed every element of cohesion, made society a
+struggle of selfish interests, and struck at the very roots of all
+order, patriotism, poetry, and religion. They retorted that their
+critics were blind adherents of antiquated prejudice, and sought to
+cover superstition and despotism either by unprovable dogmatic
+assertions, or by taking refuge in a cloudy mystical jargon, which
+really meant nothing.
+
+They did not love each other.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[610] See _Dictionary of National Biography_, under 'George Grote.'
+Bentham's MS. is in the British Museum, and shows, I think, that
+Grote's share in the work was a good deal more than mere editing. I
+quote from a reprint by Truelove (1875). It was also privately
+reprinted by Grote himself in 1866.
+
+[611] Cf. Hobbes's definition: 'Fear of power invisible feigned by the
+mind, or imagined from tales publicly allowed, [is] Religion: not
+allowed, Superstition. And when the power imagined is truly such as we
+imagine, True Religion.'--_Works_ (Molesworth), iii. 45.
+
+[612] 'Philip Beauchamp,' ch. ii. pp. 11-15.
+
+[613] _Ibid._ p. 17.
+
+[614] 'Philip Beauchamp,' p. 21.
+
+[615] _Ibid._ pp. 22 and 104.
+
+[616] 'Philip Beauchamp,' ch. iii.
+
+[617] 'Philip Beauchamp,' ch. iv.
+
+[618] _Ibid._ p. 45, ch. v.
+
+[619] _Ibid._ p. 52, ch. vi.
+
+[620] 'Philip Beauchamp,' ch. viii.
+
+[621] _Ibid._ part ii. ch. i.
+
+[622] _Ibid._ p. 80, part ii. ch. ii.
+
+[623] 'Philip Beauchamp,' pp. 97, 99.
+
+[624] _Ibid._ p. 101.
+
+[625] _Ibid._ p. 103.
+
+[626] 'Philip Beauchamp,' p. 163.
+
+[627] _Ibid._ p. 122.
+
+[628] The writers were Chalmers, Kidd, Whewell, Sir Charles Bell,
+Roget, Buckland, Kirby, and Prout. The essays appeared from 1833 to
+1835. The versatile Brougham shortly afterwards edited Paley's
+_Natural Theology_.
+
+[629] 'Philip Beauchamp,' p. 88.
+
+[630] Froude's _Carlyle_, i. 215; ii. 93.
+
+[631] Mill's _Dissertations_, i. 235; ii. 130.
+
+[632] George Borrow's vehement dislike of Scott as the inventor of
+Puseyism and modern Jesuitism of all kinds is characteristic.
+
+[633] _Prelude_, bk. xiii.
+
+[634] Coleridge's _Letters_ (1890), pp. 643-49.
+
+[635] Mr. Hutchison Stirling insists upon this in the _Fortnightly
+Review_ for July 1867. He proves, I think, that Coleridge's knowledge
+of the various schemes of German philosophy and of the precise
+relation of Kant, Fichte, and Schelling was altogether desultory and
+confused. How far this is important depends upon whether we attach
+much or little importance to precise combinations of words used by
+these philosophers.
+
+[636] _Dissertations_, i. 392-474.
+
+[637] _Ibid._ i. 424.
+
+[638] _Dissertations_, i. 437.
+
+[639] _Ibid._ i. 425-27.
+
+[640] _Dissertations_, i. 437.
+
+[641] Coleridge's _Hints towards the Formation of a more Comprehensive
+Theory of Life_, edited by S. B. Watson, in 1848, is a curious attempt
+to apply his evolution doctrine to natural science. Lewes, in his
+_Letters on Comte's Philosophy of the Sciences_, says that it is a
+'shameless plagiarism' from Schelling's _Erster Entwurf_, etc. It
+seems, as far as I can judge, that Coleridge's doctrines about
+magnetism, reproduction, irritability, sensibility, etc., are, in
+fact, adapted from Schelling. The book was intended, as Mr. E. H.
+Coleridge tells me, for a chapter in a work on Scrophula, projected by
+Gillman. As Coleridge died long before the publication, he cannot be
+directly responsible for not acknowledging obligations to Schelling.
+Unfortunately he cannot claim the benefit of a good character in such
+matters. Anyhow, Coleridge's occasional excursions into science can
+only represent a vague acceptance of the transcendental method
+represented, as I understand, by Oken.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to her Majesty at the
+Edinburgh University Press
+
+
+
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+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3),
+by Leslie Stephen</h1>
+<pre>
+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 <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3)</p>
+<p>       James Mill</p>
+<p>Author: Leslie Stephen</p>
+<p>Release Date: June 14, 2008  [eBook #25788]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ENGLISH UTILITARIANS, VOLUME II (OF 3)***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>E-text prepared by Stacy Brown, Thierry Alberto, Henry Craig,<br />
+    and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
+    (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a></span></p>
+
+<h1>THE ENGLISH UTILITARIANS</h1>
+
+<h2><i>By</i> LESLIE STEPHEN</h2>
+
+<p class="padtop subhead2"><i>IN THREE VOLUMES</i></p>
+
+<p class="subhead1 padtop">VOL. II<br />
+JAMES MILL</p>
+
+<p class="subhead2 padtop">LONDON<br />
+<i>DUCKWORTH and CO.</i><br />
+3 HENRIETTA STREET, W.C.<br />
+1900</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+
+<table summary="contents" style="width: 60%;"><tbody>
+<tr>
+<td class="tc" colspan="2">CHAPTER I</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tc" colspan="2">JAMES MILL</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tl">I. Early Life,</td>                 <td class="tr"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tl">II. Bentham's Lieutenant,</td>       <td class="tr"><a href="#Page_7">7</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tl">III. Leader of the Utilitarians,</td><td class="tr"><a href="#Page_25">25</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+
+<td class="tc" colspan="2">CHAPTER II</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tc" colspan="2">REFORM MOVEMENTS</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tl">I. Political Change,</td>          <td class="tr"><a href="#Page_41">41</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tl">II. Law Reform,</td>                <td class="tr"><a href="#Page_47">47</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tl">III. Economic Reform,</td>           <td class="tr"><a href="#Page_51">51</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tl">IV. Church Reform,</td>             <td class="tr"><a href="#Page_57">57</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tl">V. Sinister Interests,</td>        <td class="tr"><a href="#Page_62">62</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+
+<td class="tc" colspan="2">CHAPTER III</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tc" colspan="2">POLITICAL THEORY</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tl">I. Mill on Government,</td>        <td class="tr"><a href="#Page_74">74</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tl">II. Whiggism,</td>                  <td class="tr"><a href="#Page_98">98</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tl">III. Conservatism,</td>             <td class="tr"><a href="#Page_109">109</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tl">IV. Socialism,</td>                <td class="tr"><a href="#Page_119">119</a></td>
+</tr></tbody></table>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span></p>
+
+<table summary="contents" style="width: 60%;"><tbody>
+<tr>
+<td class="tc" colspan="2">CHAPTER IV</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tc" colspan="2">MALTHUS</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tl">I. Malthus's Starting-point,</td> <td class="tr"><a href="#Page_137">137</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tl">II. The Ratios,</td>               <td class="tr"><a href="#Page_147">147</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tl">III. Moral Restraint,</td>                <td class="tr"><a href="#Page_156">156</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tl">IV. Social Remedies,</td>                <td class="tr"><a href="#Page_165">165</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tl">V. Political Application,</td>          <td class="tr"><a href="#Page_174">174</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tl">VI. Rent,</td>                           <td class="tr"><a href="#Page_181">181</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+
+<td class="tc" colspan="2">CHAPTER V</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tc" colspan="2">RICARDO</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tl">I. Ricardo's Starting-point,</td>       <td class="tr"><a href="#Page_186">186</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tl">II. The Distribution Problem,</td>       <td class="tr"><a href="#Page_195">195</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tl">III. Value and Labour,</td>               <td class="tr"><a href="#Page_204">204</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tl">IV. The Classical Political Economy,</td><td class="tr"><a href="#Page_216">216</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tl">V. The Ricardians,</td>                 <td class="tr"><a href="#Page_226">226</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+
+<td class="tc" colspan="2">CHAPTER VI</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tc" colspan="2">ECONOMIC HERETICS</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tl">I. The Malthusian Controversy,</td>     <td class="tr"><a href="#Page_238">238</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tl">II. Socialism,</td>                      <td class="tr"><a href="#Page_259">259</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+
+<td class="tc" colspan="2">CHAPTER VII</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tc" colspan="2">PSYCHOLOGY</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tl">I. Thomas Brown,</td>                   <td class="tr"><a href="#Page_267">267</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tl">II. James Mill's <i>Analysis</i>,</td>          <td class="tr"><a href="#Page_287">287</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tl">III. James Mill's Ethics,</td>            <td class="tr"><a href="#Page_312">312</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+
+<td class="tc" colspan="2">CHAPTER VIII</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tc" colspan="2">RELIGION</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tl">I. Philip Beauchamp,</td>               <td class="tr"><a href="#Page_338">338</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tl">II. Contemporary Thought,</td>           <td class="tr"><a href="#Page_361">361</a></td>
+</tr></tbody></table>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<p class="subhead1">JAMES MILL</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">I. EARLY LIFE</p>
+
+<p>Bentham's mantle fell upon James Mill.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> Mill expounded in the
+tersest form the doctrines which in Bentham's hands spread into
+endless ramifications and lost themselves in minute details. Mill
+became the leader of Bentham's bodyguard; or, rather, the mediator
+between the prophet in his 'hermitage' and the missionaries who were
+actively engaged on the hustings and in committee-rooms. The special
+characteristics of English Utilitarianism in the period of its
+greatest activity were thus more affected by Mill than by any other
+leader of opinion.</p>
+
+<p>James Mill was one of the countless Scots who, having been trained at
+home in strict frugality and stern Puritanic principles, have fought
+their way to success in England. He was born 6th April 1773 in the
+parish of Logie Pert, Forfarshire. His father, also named James Mill,
+was a village shoemaker, employing two or three<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> journeymen when at
+the height of his prosperity. His mother, Isabel Fenton, daughter of a
+farmer, had been a servant in Edinburgh. Her family had some claims to
+superior gentility; she was fastidious, delicate in frame, and accused
+of pride by her neighbours. She resolved to bring up James, her eldest
+son, to be a gentleman, which practically meant to be a minister. He
+probably showed early promise of intellectual superiority. He received
+the usual training at the parish school, and was then sent to the
+Montrose Academy, where he was the school-fellow and friend of a
+younger lad, Joseph Hume (1777-1855), afterwards his political ally.
+He boarded with a Montrose shopkeeper for 2s. 6d. a week, and remained
+at the Academy till he was seventeen. He was never put to work in his
+father's shop, and devoted himself entirely to study. The usual age
+for beginning to attend a Scottish university was thirteen or
+fourteen; and it would have been the normal course for a lad in Mill's
+position to be sent at that age to Aberdeen. Mill's education was
+prolonged by a connection which was of great service to him. Sir John
+Stuart (previously Belches), of Fettercairn House, in Mill's
+neighbourhood, had married Lady Jane Leslie, and was by her father of
+an only child, Wilhelmina. Lady Jane was given to charity, and had set
+up a fund to educate promising lads for the ministry. Mill was
+probably recommended to her by the parish minister, as likely to do
+credit to her patronage. He also acted as tutor to Wilhelmina, who
+afterwards became the object of Scott's early passion. Mill spent much
+time at Fettercairn House, and appears to have won the warm regards
+both of the Stuarts and of their daughter, who spoke of him
+affectionately 'with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> almost her last breath.'<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> The Stuarts passed
+their winters at Edinburgh, whither Mill accompanied them. He entered
+the university in 1790, and seems to have applied himself chiefly to
+Greek and to philosophy. He became so good a Greek scholar that long
+afterwards (1818) he had some thoughts of standing for the Greek chair
+at Glasgow.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> He was always a keen student of Plato. He read the
+ordinary Scottish authorities, and attended the lectures of Dugald
+Stewart. Besides reading Rousseau, he studied Massillon, probably with
+a view to his future performances in the pulpit. Massillon might be
+suggested to him by quotations in Adam Smith's <i>Moral Sentiments</i>.
+There are few records of acquaintanceship with any of his
+distinguished contemporaries, except the chemist Thomas Thomson, who
+became a lifelong friend. He probably made acquaintance with Brougham,
+and may have known Jeffrey; but he was not a member of the Speculative
+Society, joined by most young men of promise.</p>
+
+<p>In 1794 he began his course of divinity, and on 4th October 1798 was
+licensed to preach. He lived in his father's house, where part of the
+family room was screened off to form a study for him. He delivered
+some sermons, apparently with little success. He failed to obtain a
+call from any parish; and there are vague reports of his acting as
+tutor in some families, and of a rebuff received at the table of the
+marquis of Tweeddale, father of one of his pupils, which made him
+resolve to seek for independence by a different career.</p>
+
+<p>In 1802 Mill went to London in company with Sir John Stuart, who was
+about to take his seat in parliament. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>Stuart procured admission for
+him to the gallery of the House of Commons, where he attended many
+debates, and acquired an interest in politics. His ambition, however,
+depended upon his pen; and at first, it would seem, he was not more
+particular than other journalists as to the politics of the papers to
+which he contributed. He had obtained a testimonial from Thomson, on
+the strength of which he introduced himself to John Gifford, editor of
+the <i>Anti-Jacobin Review</i>.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> This was a monthly magazine, which had
+adopted the name and politics of the deceased <i>Anti-Jacobin</i>, edited
+by William Gifford. Mill obtained employment, and wrote articles
+implying an interest in the philosophy, and especially in the
+political economy, of the time. It is noteworthy, considering his
+later principles, that he should at this time have taken part in a
+strong Tory organ. He wrote a pamphlet in 1804 (the first publication
+under his name) to prove the impolicy of a bounty upon the exportation
+of grain; and in 1807 replied in <i>Commerce Defended</i> to William
+Spence's <i>Britain independent of Commerce</i>. Meanwhile he had found
+employment of a more regular kind. He had formed a connection with a
+bookseller named Baldwin, for whom he undertook to help in rewriting a
+book called <i>Nature Delineated</i>. This scheme was changed for a
+periodical called the <i>Literary Journal</i>, which started at the
+beginning of 1803, and lived through four years with Mill as editor.
+At the same time apparently he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> edited the <i>St. James's Chronicle</i>,
+also belonging to Baldwin, which had no very definite political
+colour. The <i>Journal</i> professed to give a systematic survey of
+literary, scientific, and philosophical publications. For the
+scientific part Mill was helped by Thomson. His own contributions show
+that, although clearly a rationalist, he was still opposed to open
+infidelity. A translation of Villers' <i>History of the Reformation</i>
+implies similar tendencies. Other literary hack-work during this and
+the next few years is vaguely indicated. Mill was making about &pound;500 a
+year or something more during his editorships, and thought himself
+justified in marrying. On 5th June 1805 he became the husband of
+Harriett Burrow, daughter of a widow who kept a private lunatic asylum
+originally started by her husband. The Mills settled in a house in
+Pentonville belonging to Mrs. Burrow, for which they paid &pound;50 a year.</p>
+
+<p>The money question soon became pressing. The editorships vanished, and
+to make an income by periodical writing was no easy task. His son
+observes that nothing could be more opposed to his father's later
+principles than marrying and producing a large family under these
+circumstances. Nine children were ultimately born, all of whom
+survived their father. The family in his old home were an additional
+burthen. His mother died before his departure from Scotland. His
+father was paralysed, and having incautiously given security for a
+friend, became bankrupt. His only brother, William, died soon
+afterwards, and his only sister, Mary, married one of her father's
+journeymen named Greig, and tried to carry on the business.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> The
+father died about 1808, and the Greigs had a hard struggle, though two
+of the sons ultimately set up a business in Montrose. James Mill
+appears to have helped to support his father, whose debts he undertook
+to pay, and to have afterwards helped the Greigs. They thought, it
+seems, that he ought to have done more, but were not unlikely to
+exaggerate the resources of a man who was making his way in England.
+Mill was resolute in doing his duty, but hardly likely to do it
+graciously. At any rate, in the early years, it must have been a
+severe strain to do anything.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of all difficulties Mill, by strict frugality and unremitting
+energy, managed to keep out of debt. In the end of 1806 he undertook
+the history of British India. This was to be the great work which
+should give him a name, and enable him to rise above the herd of
+contemporary journalists. He calculated the time necessary for its
+completion at three years, but the years were to be more than trebled
+before the book was actually finished. At that period there were fewer
+facilities than there could now be for making the necessary
+researches: and we do not know what were the reasons which prompted
+the selection of a subject of which he could have no first-hand
+knowledge. The book necessarily impeded other labours; and to the toil
+of writing Mill added the toil of superintending the education of his
+children. His struggle for some years was such as to require an
+extraordinary strain upon all his faculties. Mill, however, possessed
+great physical and mental vigour. He was muscular, well-made, and
+handsome; he had marked powers of conversation, and made a strong
+impression upon all with whom he came<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> in contact. He gradually formed
+connections which effectually determined his future career.</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">II. BENTHAM'S LIEUTENANT</p>
+
+<p>The most important influence in Mill's life was the friendship with
+Bentham. This appears to have begun in 1808. Mill speedily became a
+valued disciple. He used to walk from Pentonville to dine with Bentham
+in Queen's Square Place. Soon the elder man desired to have his new
+friend nearer at hand. In 1810 Mill moved to the house in Bentham's
+garden, which had once belonged to Milton; when this proved
+unsuitable, he was obliged to move to a more distant abode at Stoke
+Newington; but finally, in 1814, he settled in another house belonging
+to Bentham, 1 Queen's Square, close under the old gentleman's wing.
+Here for some years they lived in the closest intimacy. The Mills also
+stayed with Bentham in his country-houses at Barrow Green, and
+afterwards at Ford Abbey. The association was not without its
+troubles. Bentham was fanciful, and Mill stern and rigid. No one,
+however, could be a more devoted disciple. The most curious
+illustration of their relations is a letter written to Bentham by
+Mill, 19th September 1814, while they were both at Ford Abbey. Mill in
+this declares himself to be a 'most faithful and fervent disciple' of
+the truths which Bentham had the 'immortal honour' of propounding. He
+had fancied himself to be his master's favourite disciple. No one is
+so completely of Bentham's way of thinking, or so qualified by
+position for carrying on the propaganda. Now, however, Bentham showed
+that he had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> taken umbrage at some part of Mill's behaviour. An open
+quarrel would bring discredit upon both sides, and upon their common
+beliefs. The great dangers to friendship are pecuniary obligation and
+too close intimacy. Mill has made it a great purpose of his life to
+avoid pecuniary obligation, though he took pride in receiving
+obligations from Bentham. He has confined himself to accepting
+Bentham's house at a low rent, and allowing his family to live for
+part of the year at Bentham's expense. He now proposes so to arrange
+his future life that they shall avoid an excessively close intimacy,
+from which, he thinks, had arisen the 'umbrage.' The letter, which is
+manly and straightforward, led to a reconciliation, and for some years
+the intercourse was as close as ever.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p>
+
+<p>Mill's unreserved adoption of Bentham's principles, and his resolution
+to devote his life to their propagation, implies a development of
+opinion. He had entirely dropped his theology. In the early years of
+his London life, Mill had been only a rationalist. He had by this time
+become what would now be called an agnostic. He thought 'dogmatic
+atheism' absurd, says J. S. Mill;<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> 'but he held that we can know
+nothing whatever as to the origin of the world.' The occasion of the
+change, according to his family, was his intercourse with General
+Miranda, who was sitting at Bentham's feet about this time. J. S. Mill
+states that the turning-point in his father's mind was the study of
+Butler's <i>Analogy</i>. That book, he thought, as others have thought, was
+conclusive against the optimistic deism which it assails; but he
+thought also that the argument really destroyed Butler's own
+standing-ground. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> evils of the world are incompatible with the
+theory of Almighty benevolence. The purely logical objection was
+combined with an intense moral sentiment. Theological doctrines, he
+thought, were not only false, but brutal. His son had heard him say 'a
+hundred times' that men have attributed to their gods every trait of
+wickedness till the conception culminated in the Christian doctrine of
+hell. Mill still attended church services for some time after his
+marriage, and the children were christened. But the eldest son did not
+remember the period of even partial conformity, and considered himself
+to have been brought up from the first without any religious belief.
+James Mill had already taken up the uncompromising position congenial
+to his character, although the reticence which the whole party
+observed prevented any open expression of his sentiments.</p>
+
+<p>Mill's propaganda of Benthamism was for some time obscure. He helped
+to put together some of Bentham's writings, especially the book upon
+evidence. He was consulted in regard to all proposed publications,
+such as the pamphlet upon jury-packing, which Mill desired to publish
+in spite of Romilly's warning. Mill endeavoured also to disseminate
+the true faith through various periodicals. He obtained admission to
+the <i>Edinburgh Review</i>, probably through its chief contributor,
+Brougham. Neither Brougham nor Jeffrey was likely to commit the great
+Whig review to the support of a creed still militant and regarded with
+distrust by the respectable. Mill contributed various articles from
+1808 to 1813, but chiefly upon topics outside of the political sphere.
+The <i>Edinburgh Review</i>, as I have said, had taken a condescending
+notice of Bentham in 1804. Mill tried to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> introduce a better tone into
+an article upon Bexon's <i>Code de la L&eacute;gislation p&eacute;nale</i>, which he was
+permitted to publish in the number for October 1809. Knowing Jeffrey's
+'dislike of praise,' he tried to be on his guard, and to insinuate his
+master's doctrine without openly expressing his enthusiasm. Jeffrey,
+however, sadly mangled the review, struck out every mention but one of
+Bentham, and there substituted words of his own for Mill's. Even as it
+was, Brougham pronounced the praise of Bentham to be excessive.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a>
+Mill continued to write for a time, partly, no doubt, with a view to
+Jeffrey's cheques. Almost his last article (in January 1813) was
+devoted to the Lancasterian controversy, in which Mill, as we shall
+directly see, was in alliance with the Whigs. But the Edinburgh
+Reviewers were too distinctly of the Whig persuasion to be congenial
+company for a determined Radical. They would give him no more than a
+secondary position, and would then take good care to avoid the
+insertion of any suspicious doctrine. Mill wrote no more after the
+summer of 1813.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile he was finding more sympathetic allies. First among them was
+William Allen (1770-1843), chemist, of Plough Court. Allen was a
+Quaker; a man of considerable scientific tastes; successful in
+business, and ardently devoted throughout his life to many
+philanthropic schemes. He took, in particular, an active part in the
+agitation against slavery. He was, as we have seen, one of the
+partners who bought Owen's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> establishment at New Lanark; and his
+religious scruples were afterwards the cause of Owen's retirement.
+These, however, were only a part of his multifarious schemes. He was
+perhaps something of a busybody; his head may have been a little
+turned by the attentions which he received on all hands; he managed
+the affairs of the duke of Kent; was visited by the Emperor Alexander
+in 1814; and interviewed royal personages on the Continent, in order
+to obtain their support in attacking the slave-trade, and introducing
+good schools and prisons. But, though he may have shared some of the
+weaknesses of popular philanthropists, he is mentioned with respect
+even by observers such as Owen and Place, who had many prejudices
+against his principles. He undoubtedly deserves a place among the
+active and useful social reformers of his time.</p>
+
+<p>I have already noticed the importance of the Quaker share in the
+various philanthropic movements of the time. The Quaker shared many of
+the views upon practical questions which were favoured by the
+freethinker. Both were hostile to slavery, in favour of spreading
+education, opposed to all religious tests and restrictions, and
+advocates of reform in prisons, and in the harsh criminal law. The
+fundamental differences of theological belief were not so productive
+of discord in dealing with the Quakers as with other sects; for it was
+the very essence of the old Quaker spirit to look rather to the spirit
+than to the letter. Allen, therefore, was only acting in the spirit of
+his society when he could be on equally good terms with the Emperor
+Alexander or the duke of Kent, and, on the other hand, with James
+Mill, the denouncer of kings and autocrats.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> He could join hands with
+Mill in assailing slavery, insisting upon prison reform, preaching
+toleration and advancing civilisation, although he heartily
+disapproved of the doctrines with which Mill's practical principles
+were associated. Mill, too, practised&mdash;even to a questionable
+degree&mdash;the method of reticence, and took good care not to offend his
+coadjutor.</p>
+
+<p>Their co-operation was manifested in a quarterly journal called the
+<i>Philanthropist</i>, which appeared during the seven years, 1811-1817,
+and was published at Allen's expense. Mill found in it the opportunity
+of advocating many of his cherished opinions. He defended toleration
+in the name of Penn, whose life had been published by Clarkson. He
+attacked the slave-owners, and so came into alliance with Wilberforce,
+Zachary Macaulay, and others of the evangelical persuasion. He found,
+at the same time, opportunities for propagating the creed of Bentham
+in connection with questions of prison reform and the penal code. His
+most important article, published in 1812, was another contribution to
+the Lancasterian controversy. In this Mill had allies of a very
+different school; and his activity brings him into close connection
+with one of the most remarkable men of the time.<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p>
+
+<p>This was Francis Place, the famous Radical tailor. Place, born 3rd
+November 1771, had raised himself from the position of a working-man
+to be occupant of a shop at Charing Cross, which became the centre of
+important political movements. Between Place and Mill there was much
+affinity of character. Place, like Mill, was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> a man of rigid and
+vigorous intellect. Dogmatic, self-confident, and decidedly
+censorious, not attractive by any sweetness or grace of character, but
+thoroughly sincere and independent, he extorts rather than commands
+our respect by his hearty devotion to what he at least believed to be
+the cause of truth and progress. Place was what is now called a
+thorough 'individualist.' He believed in self-reliance and energy, and
+held that the class to which he belonged was to be raised, as he had
+raised himself, by the exercise of those qualities, not by invoking
+the direct interference of the central power, which, indeed, as he
+knew it, was only likely to interfere on the wrong side. He had the
+misfortune to be born in London instead of Scotland, and had therefore
+not Mill's educational advantages. He tried energetically, and not
+unsuccessfully, to improve his mind, but he never quite surmounted the
+weakness of the self-educated man, and had no special literary talent.
+His writing, in fact, is dull and long-winded, though he has the merit
+of judging for himself, and of saying what he thinks.</p>
+
+<p>Place had been a member of the Corresponding Society, and was at one
+time chairman of the weekly committee. He had, however, disapproved of
+their proceedings, and retired in time to escape the imprisonment
+which finally crushed the committee. He was now occupied in building
+up his own fortunes at Charing Cross. When, during the second war, the
+native English Radicalism began again to raise its head, Place took a
+highly important share in the political agitation. Westminster, the
+constituency in which he had a vote, had long been one of the most
+important boroughs. It was one of the few large<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> popular
+constituencies, and was affected by the influences naturally strongest
+in the metropolis. After being long under the influence of the court
+and the dean and chapter, it had been carried by Fox during the
+discontents of 1780, when the reform movement took a start and the
+county associations were symptoms of a growing agitation. The great
+Whig leader, though not sound upon the question of reform, represented
+the constituency till his death, and reform dropped out of notice for
+the time. Upon Fox's death (13th September 1806) Lord Percy was
+elected without opposition as his successor by an arrangement among
+the ruling families. Place was disgusted at the distribution of 'bread
+and cheese and beer,' and resolved to find a truly popular candidate.
+In the general election which soon followed at the end of 1806 he
+supported Paull, an impecunious adventurer, who made a good fight, but
+was beaten by Sir J. Hood and Sheridan. Place now proposed a more
+thorough organisation of the constituency, and formed a committee
+intended to carry an independent candidate. Sir Francis Burdett, a
+typical country gentleman of no great brains and of much aristocratic
+pride, but a man of honour, and of as much liberal feeling as was
+compatible with wealth and station, had sat at the feet of the old
+Radical, Home Tooke. He had sympathised with the French revolution;
+but was mainly, like his mentor, Tooke, a reformer of the English
+type, and a believer in Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights. He had
+sat in parliament, and in 1802 had been elected for Middlesex. After a
+prolonged litigation, costing enormous sums, the election had been
+finally annulled in 1806. He had subscribed &pound;1000 towards Paull's
+expenses;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> but was so disgusted with his own election experiences that
+he refused to come forward as a candidate. Place's committee resolved
+therefore to elect him and Paull free of expense. Disputes between
+Paull and Burdett led to a duel, in which both were wounded. The
+committee threw over Paull, and at the election on the dissolution of
+parliament in the spring of 1807, Burdett and Cochrane&mdash;afterwards
+Lord Dundonald&mdash;were triumphantly elected, defeating the Whig
+candidates, Sheridan and Elliot. The election was the first triumph of
+the reformers, and was due to Place more than any one. Burdett
+retained his seat for Westminster until 1837, and, in spite of many
+quarrels with his party, was a leading representative of the movement,
+which henceforward slowly gathered strength. Place, indeed, had
+apparently but scanty respect for the candidate whose success he had
+secured. Burdett and his like aimed at popularity, while he was
+content to be ignored so long as he could by any means carry the
+measures which he approved. Place, therefore, acted as a most
+efficient wire-puller, but had no ambition to leave his shop to make
+speeches on the hustings.</p>
+
+<p>The scandals about the duke of York and the Walcheren expedition gave
+a chance to the Radicals and to their leader in the House of Commons.
+Events in 1810 led to a popular explosion, of which Burdett was the
+hero. John Gale Jones, an old member of the Corresponding Societies,
+had put out a placard denouncing the House of Commons for closing its
+doors during a debate upon the Walcheren expedition. The House
+proceeded against Jones, who was more or less advised by Place in his
+proceedings. Burdett took the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> part of Jones, by a paper published in
+Cobbett's <i>Register</i>, and was ultimately committed to the Tower in
+consequence. The whole of London was for a time in a state of
+excitement, and upon the verge of an outbreak. Burdett refused to
+submit to the arrest. Mobs collected; soldiers filled the streets and
+were pelted. Burdett, when at last he was forced to admit the
+officers, appeared in his drawing-room in the act of expounding Magna
+Charta to his son. That, it was to be supposed, was his usual
+occupation of an afternoon. Meetings were held, and resolutions
+passed, in support of the martyr to liberty; and when his imprisonment
+terminated on the prorogation of parliament, vast crowds collected,
+and a procession was arranged to convoy him to his home. Place had
+been active in arranging all the details of what was to be a great
+popular manifestation. To his infinite disgust, Burdett shrank from
+the performance, and went home by water. The crowd was left to expend
+its remaining enthusiasm upon the hackney carriage which contained his
+fellow-sufferer Jones. Jones, in the following December, was sentenced
+to twelve months' imprisonment for a libel. Cobbett, Burdett's special
+supporter at this time, was also imprisoned in June 1810. For a time
+the popular agitation collapsed. Place seems to have thought that the
+failure was due to Burdett's want of courage, and dropped all
+communication with him till a later contest at Westminster.</p>
+
+<p>Place was thus at the centre of the political agitation which, for the
+time, represented the most energetic reforming movement. It was in
+1811 or 1812 that he became acquainted with Mill.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> In Mill he
+recognised a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> congenial spirit, and a man able to defend and develop
+principles. He perhaps, as Professor Bain thinks, made advances to
+Mill upon the strength of the history of India; and in 1814 he was
+certainly endeavouring to raise money to put Mill above the need of
+precarious hack-work.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> The anticipated difficulty of persuading
+Mill so far to sacrifice his independence was apparently fatal to the
+scheme. Place was in occasional communication with Bentham, and
+visited him at Ford Abbey in 1817. He became intimate with the great
+man; helped him in business affairs; and was one of the disciples
+employed to prepare his books for publication.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> Bentham was the
+source of philosophy, and Mill only his prophet. But Mill, who was
+capable of activity in practical affairs, was more useful to a man of
+the world. The first business which brought them into close connection
+was the Lancasterian controversy. The strong interest roused by this
+agitation was significant of many difficulties to come. The average
+mind had been gradually coming to the conclusion that the poor should
+be taught to read and write. Sunday schools and Hannah More's schools
+in Somersetshire had drawn the attention of the religious world to the
+subject. During the early years of the century the education question
+had steadily become more prominent, and the growing interest was shown
+by a singularly bitter and complicated controversy. The opposite
+parties fought under the banners of Bell and Lancaster. Andrew Bell,
+born at St. Andrews, 27th March 1753, was both a canny Scot and an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>
+Anglican clergyman. He combined philanthropy with business faculties.
+He sailed to India in 1787 with &pound;128, 10s. in his pocket to be an army
+chaplain; he returned in 1796 with &pound;25,000 and a new system of
+education which he had devised as superintendent of an orphan asylum.
+He settled in England, published an account of his plan, and did
+something to bring it into operation. Meanwhile Joseph Lancaster
+(1770-1838), a young Quaker, had set up a school in London; he devised
+a plan similar to that of Bell, and in 1803 published an account of
+his improvements in education with acknowledgments to Bell. For a time
+the two were on friendly terms. Lancaster set about propagating his
+new system with more enthusiasm than discretion. His fame rapidly
+spread till it reached the throne. In 1805 George <span class="smcap">iii.</span> sent for him;
+the royal family subscribed to his schools; and the king declared his
+wish that every child in his dominions should be taught to read the
+Bible. The king's gracious wish unconsciously indicated a difficulty.
+Was it safe to teach the Bible without the safeguard of authorised
+interpretation? Orthodox opponents feared the alliance with a man
+whose first principle was toleration, and first among them was the
+excellent Mrs. Trimmer, who had been already engaged in the
+Sunday-school movement. She pointed out in a pamphlet that the
+schismatic Lancaster was weakening the Established Church. The
+<i>Edinburgh Review</i> came to his support in 1806 and 1807; for the Whig,
+especially if he was also a Scot, was prejudiced against the Church of
+England. Lancaster went on his way, but soon got into difficulties,
+for he was impetuous, careless of money, and autocratic. William
+Allen, with another Quaker,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> came to his support in 1808, and founded
+the Royal Lancasterian Society to maintain his school in the Borough
+Road, and propagate its like elsewhere. Lancaster travelled through
+the country, and the agitation prospered, and spread even to America.
+The church, however, was now fairly aroused. Bishop Marsh preached a
+sermon in St. Paul's, and followed it up by pamphlets; the cause was
+taken up by the <i>Quarterly Review</i> in 1811, and in the same year the
+National Society was founded to 'educate the poor in the principles of
+the Established Church.' Bell had suggested a national system, but the
+times were not ripe. Meanwhile the controversy became furious. The
+<i>Edinburgh</i> and the <i>Quarterly</i> thundered on opposite sides. Immense
+importance was attached by both parties to the scheme devised by Bell,
+and partly adopted by Lancaster. The war involved a personal element
+and the charges of plagiarism which give spice to a popular
+controversy. All parties, and certainly the Utilitarians, strangely
+exaggerated the value of the new method. They regarded the proposal
+that children should be partly taught by other children instead of
+being wholly taught by adults as a kind of scientific discovery which
+would enormously simplify and cheapen education. Believers in the
+'Panopticon' saw in it another patent method of raising the general
+level of intelligence. But the real question was between church and
+dissent. Was the church catechism to be imposed or not? This, as we
+have seen, was the occasion of Bentham's assault upon church and
+catechism. On the other side, Bell's claims were supported with
+enthusiasm by all the Tories, and by such men as Southey and
+Coleridge. Southey, who had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> defended Bell in the <i>Quarterly</i>,<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a>
+undertook to be Bell's biographer<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> and literary executor. Coleridge
+was so vehement in the cause that when lecturing upon 'Romeo and
+Juliet' in 1811, he plunged by way of exordium into an assault upon
+Lancaster's modes of punishment.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> De Quincey testifies that he
+became a positive bore upon Bell's virtues. In 1812 Lancaster had got
+deeply into debt to the trustees of the Society, who included besides
+Allen, Joseph Fox&mdash;a 'shallow, gloomy bigot' according to Place&mdash;and
+some other Quakers. Lancaster resented their control, and in 1812 made
+over his Borough Road school to them, and set up one of his own at
+Tooting. They continued, however, to employ him, and in 1813 formed
+themselves into the 'British and Foreign' School Society. Place had
+known Lancaster from 1804, and Mill had supported him in the press.
+They both became members of the committee, though Place took the most
+active part. He makes many grave charges against Lancaster, whom he
+regarded as hopelessly flighty and impracticable, if not worse.
+Ultimately in 1814 Lancaster resigned his position, and naturally
+retorted that Place was an infidel. Place, meanwhile, was ill at ease
+with the 'gloomy bigot,' as he calls Fox. After many quarrels, Fox
+succeeded in getting the upper hand, and Place finally withdrew from
+the committee in 1815.</p>
+
+<p>Two other schemes arose out of this, in which Mill was specially
+interested, but which both proved abortive. Mill and Place resolved in
+1813 to start a 'West<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> London Lancasterian Institution,' which was to
+educate the whole population west of Temple Bar. They were joined by
+Edward Wakefield, father of the Edward Gibbon Wakefield who in later
+years was known as an economist, and himself author of a work of
+considerable reputation, <i>An Account of Ireland, Statistical and
+Political</i> (1812). The three joined Joseph Fox, and ultimately a
+meeting was held in August 1813. Sir James Mackintosh was in the
+chair. Mill wrote the address, and motions were proposed by his friend
+Joseph Hume and by William Allen. Papers were circulated, headed
+'Schools for all,'<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> and the institution was launched with a
+sufficiency of applause. But the 'gloomy bigot' was secretary. He
+declared that he would rather see the institution destroyed than
+permit it to be used for infidel purposes. The Bible was, of course,
+to be read in the schools, but Fox wished that the Bible alone should
+be read. As the committee, according to Place, included four infidels,
+three Unitarians, six Methodists, two Baptists, two Roman Catholics,
+and several members of the Established Church, it was hardly a happy
+family. To add to the confusion, Sir Francis Burdett, who had
+contributed a thousand pounds, had taken it into his head that Place
+was a government spy.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> The Association, as is hardly surprising,
+ceased to exist in 1816, after keeping up a school of less than three
+hundred children, and ended in hopeless failure. The Utilitarians had
+higher hopes from a scheme of their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> own. This was the Chrestomathic
+school which occasioned Bentham's writing. An association was formed
+in February 1814. Mackintosh, Brougham, Mill, Allen, Fox, and
+Wakefield were to be trustees. The school was to apply Lancasterian
+principles to the education of the middle classes, and Bentham was to
+supply them with a philosophy and with a site in his garden. There the
+old gentleman was to see a small version of the Panopticon building,
+and, for a time, he took great delight in the prospect. Gradually,
+however, it seems to have dawned upon him that there might be
+inconveniences in being overlooked by a set of even model schoolboys.
+There were difficulties as to funds. Ricardo offered &pound;200 and
+collected subscriptions for &pound;900, but Place thought that he might have
+been more liberal. About 1817 they counted upon subscriptions for
+&pound;2310. Allen was treasurer, Place secretary, and the dukes of Kent and
+York were on the committee. Romilly was persuaded to join, and they
+had hopes of the &pound;1000 given by Burdett to the West London
+Institution. But the thing could never be got into working order, in
+spite of Place's efforts and Mill's counsels; and, after painful
+haulings and tuggings, it finally collapsed in 1820.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p>
+
+<p>The efforts of the Utilitarians to effect anything directly in the way
+of education thus fell completely flat. One moral is sufficiently
+obvious. They were, after all, but a small clique, regarded with
+suspicion by all outsiders; and such a system as could seriously
+affect education could only be carried out either by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> government,
+which was thinking of very different things, or by societies already
+connected with the great religious bodies. The only function which
+could be adequately discharged by the little band of Utilitarians was
+to act upon public opinion; and this, no doubt, they could do to some
+purpose. I have gone so far into these matters in order to illustrate
+their position; but, as will be seen, Mill, though consulted at every
+stage by Place, and doing what he could to advocate the cause, was,
+after all, in the background. He was still wrestling with the Indian
+History, which was, as he hoped, to win for him an independent
+position. The effort was enormous. In 1814 he told Place that he was
+working at the History from 5 <span class="smcap">a.m.</span> till 11 <span class="smcap">p.m.</span> When at Ford Abbey his
+regular day's work began at 6 <span class="smcap">a.m.</span> and lasted till 11 <span class="smcap">p.m.</span>, during
+which time three hours were given to teaching his children, and a
+couple of short walks supplied him with recreation. How, with all his
+energy, he managed to pay his way is a mystery, which his biographer
+is unable fully to solve.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></p>
+
+<p>The History at last appeared in 3 vols. 4to, at the end of 1817. Dry
+and stern as its author, and embodying some of his political
+prejudices, it was at least a solid piece of work, which succeeded at
+once, and soon became the standard book upon the subject. Mill argues
+in the preface with characteristic courage that his want of personal
+knowledge of India was rather an advantage. It made him impartial. A
+later editor<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> has shown that it led to some serious misconceptions.
+It is characteristic of the Utilitarian attitude to assume that a
+sufficient<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> knowledge of fact can always be obtained from blue-books
+and statistics. Some facts require imagination and sympathy to be
+appreciated, and there Mill was deficient. He could not give an
+adequate picture of Hindoo beliefs and customs, though he fully
+appreciated the importance of such questions. Whatever its
+shortcomings, the book produced a remarkable change in Mill's
+position. He applied for a vacant office in the India House. His
+friends, Joseph Hume and Ricardo, made interest for him in the city.
+Place co-operated energetically.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> Canning, then president of the
+Board of Control, is said to have supported him; and the general
+impression of his ability appears to have caused his election, in
+spite of some Tory opposition. He became Assistant to the Examiner of
+India Correspondence, with a salary of &pound;800 on 12th May 1819. On 10th
+April 1821 he became Second Assistant, with &pound;1000 a year; on 9th April
+1823 he was made Assistant Examiner, with &pound;1200 a year; and on 1st
+December 1830 Examiner, with &pound;1900, which on 17th February 1836 was
+raised to &pound;2000. The official work came in later years to absorb the
+greatest part of Mill's energy, and his position excluded him from any
+active participation in politics, had he ever been inclined for it.
+Mill, however, set free from bondage, was able to exert himself very
+effectually with his pen; and his writings became in a great degree
+the text-books of his sect.</p>
+
+<p>During 1818 he had again co-operated with Place in a political matter.
+The dissolution of parliament in 1818 produced another contest at
+Westminster. Place and Mill were leaders in the Radical committee,
+which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> called a public meeting, where Burdett and Kinnaird were chosen
+as candidates. They were opposed to Romilly, the old friend of Bentham
+and of Mill himself. Both Mill and Bentham regarded him as not
+sufficiently orthodox. Romilly, however, was throughout at the head of
+the poll, and the Radical committee were obliged to withdraw their
+second candidate, Kinnaird, in order to secure the election of Burdett
+against the government candidate Maxwell. Romilly soon afterwards
+dined at Bentham's house, and met Mill, with Dumont, Brougham, and
+Rush, on friendly terms. On Romilly's sad death on 2nd November
+following, Mill went to Worthing to offer his sympathy to the family,
+and declared that the 'gloom' had 'affected his health.' He took no
+part in the consequent election, in which Hobhouse stood
+unsuccessfully as the Radical candidate.</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">III. LEADER OF THE UTILITARIANS</p>
+
+<p>Politics were beginning to enter upon a new phase. The period was
+marked by the 'Six Acts' and the 'Peterloo massacre.' The Radical
+leaders who upheld the cause in those dark days were not altogether to
+the taste of the Utilitarians. After Burdett, John Cartwright
+(1740-1824) and Henry (or 'Orator') Hunt (1773-1835), hero of the
+'Peterloo massacre,' were the most conspicuous. They were supported by
+Cobbett, the greatest journalist of the time, and various more obscure
+writers. The Utilitarians held them in considerable contempt. Burdett
+was flashy, melodramatic, and vain; Hunt an 'unprincipled demagogue';
+and Cartwright, the Nestor of reform, who had begun his labours<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> in
+1780, was, according to Place, wearisome, impracticable, and a mere
+nuisance in matters of business. The Utilitarians tried to use such
+men, but shared the Tory opinion of their value. They had some
+relations with other obscure writers who were martyrs to the liberty
+of the press. Place helped William Hone in the <i>Reformer's Register</i>,
+which was brought out in 1817. The famous trial in which Hone
+triumphed over Ellenborough occurred at the end of that year. Richard
+Carlile (1790-1843), who reprinted Hone's pamphlets, and in 1818
+published Paine's works, was sentenced in 1819 to three years'
+imprisonment; and while in confinement began the <i>Republican</i>, which
+appeared from 1819 to 1826. Ultimately he passed nine years in jail,
+and showed unflinching courage in maintaining the liberty of speech.
+The Utilitarians, as Professor Bain believes, helped him during his
+imprisonments, and John Mill's first publication was a protest against
+his prosecution.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> A 'republican, an atheist, and Malthusian,' he
+was specially hated by the respectable, and had in all these
+capacities claims upon the sympathy of the Utilitarians. One of
+Carlile's first employments was to circulate the <i>Black Dwarf</i>, edited
+by Thomas Jonathan Wooler from 1817 to 1824.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> This paper
+represented Cartwright, but it also published Bentham's reform
+<i>Catechism</i>, besides direct contributions and various selections from
+his works.</p>
+
+<p>The Utilitarians were opposed on principle to Cobbett, a reformer of a
+type very different from their own; and still more vitally opposed to
+Owen, who was beginning to develop his Socialist schemes. If they had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>
+sympathy for Radicalism of the Wooler or Carlile variety, they
+belonged too distinctly to the ranks of respectability, and were too
+deeply impressed with the necessity of reticence, to allow their
+sympathies to appear openly. As, on the other hand, they were too
+Radical in their genuine creed to be accepted by Edinburgh Reviewers
+and frequenters of Holland House, there was a wide gap between them
+and the genuine Whig. Their task therefore was to give a political
+theory which should be Radical in principle, and yet in such a form as
+should appeal to the reason of the more cultivated readers without too
+openly shocking their prejudices.</p>
+
+<p>James Mill achieved this task by the publication of a series of
+articles in the Supplement to the <i>Encyclop&aelig;dia Britannica</i>, which
+appeared from 1816 to 1823, of which I shall presently speak at
+length. It passed for the orthodox profession of faith among the
+little circle of friends who had now gathered round him. First among
+them was David Ricardo. He had become known to Mill in 1811. 'I,' said
+Bentham, 'was the spiritual father of Mill, and Mill the spiritual
+father of Ricardo.'<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> Mill was really the disciple of Ricardo in
+economics; but it was Mill who induced him to publish his chief work,
+and Mill's own treatise upon the subject published in 1820 is
+substantially an exposition of Ricardo's doctrine. Mill, too,
+encouraged Ricardo to take a seat in parliament in 1818, and there for
+the short remainder of his life, Ricardo defended the characteristic
+Utilitarian principles with the authority derived from his reputation
+as an economist.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> The two were now especially intimate. During
+Mill's first years in the India House, his only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> recreation was an
+annual visit to Ricardo at Gatcombe. Meetings at Ricardo's house in
+London led to the foundation of the 'Political Economy Club' in 1821.
+Mill drafted the rules of the club, emphasising the duty of members to
+propagate sound economic opinions through the press. The club took
+root and helped to make Mill known to politicians and men of
+commercial influence. One of the members was Malthus, who is said, and
+the assertion is credible enough, to have been generally worsted by
+Mill in the discussions at the club. Mill was an awkward antagonist,
+and Malthus certainly not conspicuous for closeness of logic. The
+circle of Mill's friends naturally extended as his position in the
+India House enabled him to live more at his ease and brought him into
+contact with men of political position. His old school-fellow Joseph
+Hume had made a fortune in India, and returned to take a seat in
+parliament and become the persistent and tiresome advocate of many of
+the Utilitarian doctrines. A younger generation was growing up,
+enthusiastic in the cause of reform, and glad to sit at the feet of
+men who claimed at least to be philosophical leaders. John Black
+(1783-1855), another sturdy Scot, who came from Duns in Berwickshire,
+had, in 1817, succeeded Perry as editor of the <i>Morning Chronicle</i>.
+The <i>Chronicle</i> was an opposition paper, and day by day Black walked
+with Mill from the India House, discussing the topics of the time and
+discharging himself through the <i>Chronicle</i>. The <i>Chronicle</i> declined
+after 1821, owing to a change in the proprietorship.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> Albany
+Fonblanque (1793-1872) took to journalism at an early age, succeeded
+Leigh Hunt as leader-writer for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> the <i>Examiner</i> in 1826, became
+another exponent of Utilitarian principles, and for some time in
+alliance with John Stuart Mill was among the most effective
+representatives of the new school in the press. John Ramsay M'Culloch
+(1789-1864) upheld the economic battle in the <i>Scotsman</i> at Edinburgh
+from 1817-1827, and edited it from 1818-1820. He afterwards devoted
+himself to lecturing in London, and was for many years the most ardent
+apostle of the 'dismal science.' He was a genial, whisky-loving Scot;
+the favourite object of everybody's mimicry; and was especially
+intimate with James Mill. Many other brilliant young men contributed
+their help in various ways. Henry Bickersteth (1783-1851), afterwards
+Lord Langdale and Master of the Rolls, had brought Bentham and Burdett
+into political alliance; and his rising reputation at the bar led to
+his being placed in 1824 upon a commission for reforming the procedure
+of the Court of Chancery, one of the most cherished objects of the
+Utilitarian creed. Besides these there were the group of young men,
+who were soon to be known as the 'philosophical Radicals.' John Stuart
+Mill, upon whom the mantle of his father was to descend, was
+conspicuous by his extraordinary precocity, and having been carefully
+educated in the orthodox faith, was employed in 1825 upon editing
+Bentham's great work upon evidence. George Grote (1794-1871), the
+future historian, had been introduced to Mill by Ricardo; and was in
+1821 defending Mill's theory of government against Mackintosh, and in
+1822 published the <i>Analysis of Revealed Religion</i>, founded upon
+Bentham's manuscripts and expressing most unequivocally the
+Utilitarian theory of religion. With them were associated the two
+Austins, John (1790-1859)<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> who, in 1821, lived close to Bentham and
+Mill in Queen's Square, and who was regarded as the coming teacher of
+the Utilitarian system of jurisprudence; and Charles (1799-1874), who
+upheld the true faith among the young gentlemen at Cambridge with a
+vigour and ability which at least rivalled the powers of his
+contemporary, Macaulay. Meanwhile, Mill himself was disqualified by
+his office from taking any direct part in political agitations. Place
+continued an active connection with the various Radical committees and
+associations; but the younger disciples had comparatively little
+concern in such matters. They were more interested in discussing the
+applications of Utilitarianism in various directions, or, so far as
+they had parliamentary aspirations, were aspiring to found a separate
+body of 'philosophical Radicals,' which looked down upon Place and his
+allies from the heights of superior enlightenment.</p>
+
+<p>Mill could now look forward to a successful propaganda of the creed
+which had passed so slowly through its period of incubation. The death
+of Ricardo in 1823 affected him to a degree which astonished his
+friends, accustomed only to his stern exterior. A plentiful crop of
+young proselytes, however, was arising to carry on the work; and the
+party now became possessed of the indispensable organ. The
+<i>Westminster Review</i> was launched at the beginning of 1824. Bentham
+provided the funds; Mill's official position prevented him from
+undertaking the editorship, which was accordingly given to Bentham's
+young disciple, Bowring, helped for a time by Henry Southern. The
+<i>Westminster</i> was to represent the Radicals as the two older reviews
+represented the Whigs and the Tories;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> and to show that the new party
+had its philosophers and its men of literary cultivation as well as
+its popular agitators and journalists. It therefore naturally put
+forth its claims by opening fire in the first numbers against the
+<i>Edinburgh</i> and the <i>Quarterly Reviews</i>. The assault upon the
+<i>Edinburgh Review</i>, of which I shall speak presently, made an
+impression, and, as J. S. Mill tells us, brought success to the first
+number of the new venture. The gauntlet was thrown down with plenty of
+vigour, and reformers were expected to rally round so thoroughgoing a
+champion. In later numbers Mill afterwards (Jan. 9, 1826) fell upon
+Southey's <i>Book of the Church</i>, and (April 1826) assailed church
+establishments in general. He defended toleration during the same year
+in a review of Samuel Bailey's <i>Formation of Opinions</i>, and gave a
+general account of his political creed in an article (October) on the
+'State of the Nation.' This was his last contribution to the
+<i>Westminster</i>; but in 1827 he contributed to the <i>Parliamentary
+History and Review</i>, started by James Marshall of Leeds, an article
+upon recent debates on reform, which ended for a time his political
+writings.</p>
+
+<p>The Utilitarians had no great talent for cohesion. Their very
+principles were indeed in favour of individual independence, and they
+were perhaps more ready to diverge than to tolerate divergence. The
+<i>Westminster Review</i> had made a good start, and drew attention to the
+rising 'group'&mdash;J. S. Mill declares that it never formed a
+'school.'<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> From the very first the Mills distrusted Bowring and
+disapproved of some articles; the elder Mill failed to carry his
+disciples with him, partly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> because they were already in favour of
+giving votes to women; and as the <i>Review</i> soon showed itself unable
+to pay its way, some new arrangement became necessary. It was finally
+bought by Perronet Thompson, and ceased for a time to be the official
+organ of Benthamism.</p>
+
+<p>Another undertaking occupied much of Mill's attention in the following
+years. The educational schemes of the Utilitarians had so far proved
+abortive. In 1824, however, it had occurred to the poet, Thomas
+Campbell, then editing the <i>New Monthly Magazine</i>, that London ought
+to possess a university comparable to that of Berlin, and more on a
+level with modern thought than the old universities of Oxford and
+Cambridge, which were still in the closest connection with the church.
+Campbell addressed a letter to Brougham, and the scheme was taken up
+energetically on several sides. Place<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> wrote an article, which he
+offered to Campbell for the <i>New Monthly</i>, who declined out of modesty
+to publish it in his own organ. It was then offered to Bowring for the
+<i>Westminster</i>, and ultimately suppressed by him, which may have been
+one of the causes of his differences with the Mills. Brougham took a
+leading part in the agitation; Joseph Hume promised to raise &pound;100,000.
+George Birkbeck, founder of the Mechanics' Institution, and Zachary
+Macaulay, who saw in it a place of education for dissenting ministers,
+joined the movement, and among the most active members of the new body
+were James Mill and Grote. A council was formed at the end of 1825,
+and after various difficulties a sum of &pound;160,000 was raised, and the
+university started in Gower Street in 1828. Among the first body of
+professors <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>were John Austin and M'Culloch, both of them sound
+Utilitarians. The old difficulty, however, made itself felt. In order
+to secure the unsectarian character of the university, religious
+teaching was omitted. The college was accused of infidelity. King's
+College was started in opposition; and violent antipathies were
+aroused. A special controversy raged within the council itself. Two
+philosophical chairs were to be founded; and philosophy cannot be kept
+clear of religion. After long discussions, one chair was filled by the
+appointment of the Reverend John Hoppus, an independent minister.
+Grote, declaring that no man, pledged by his position to the support
+of any tenets, should be appointed, resigned his place on the
+council.<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> The university in 1836 became a college combined with its
+rival King's College under the newly formed examining body called the
+University of London. It has, I suppose, been of service to education,
+and may be regarded as the one practical achievement of the
+Utilitarians in that direction, so far as its foundation was due to
+them. It must, however, be admitted that the actual body still falls
+very far short of the ideal present to the minds of its founders.</p>
+
+<p>From 1822 James Mill spent his vacations at Dorking, and afterwards at
+Mickleham. He had devoted them to a task which was necessary to fill a
+gap in the Utilitarian scheme. Hitherto the school had assumed, rather
+than attempted to establish, a philosophical basis of its teaching.
+Bentham's fragmentary writings about the Chrestomathic school supplied
+all that could by courtesy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> be called a philosophy. Mill, however, had
+been from the first interested in philosophical questions. His reading
+was not wide; he knew something of the doctrines taught by Stewart and
+Stewart's successor, Brown. He had been especially impressed by
+Hobbes, to some degree by Locke and Hume, but above all by Hartley. He
+knew something, too, of Condillac and the French Ideologists. Of
+recent German speculation he was probably quite ignorant. I find
+indeed that Place had called his attention to the account of Kant,
+published by Wirgman in the <i>Encyclop&aelig;dia Londinensis</i> 1817. Mill
+about the same time tells Place that he has begun to read <i>The Critic
+of Pure Reason</i>. 'I see clearly enough,' he says, 'what poor Kant
+would be about, but it would require some time to give an account of
+him.' He wishes (December 6, 1817) that he had time to write a book
+which would 'make the human mind as plain as the road from Charing
+Cross to St. Paul's.'<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> This was apparently the task to which he
+applied himself in his vacations. The <i>Analysis</i> appeared in 1829,
+and, whatever its defects of incompleteness and one-sidedness from a
+philosophical point of view, shows in the highest degree Mill's powers
+of close, vigorous statement; and lays down with singular clearness
+the psychological doctrine, which from his point of view supplied the
+fundamental theorems of knowledge in general. It does not appear,
+however, to have made an impression proportionate to the intellectual
+power displayed, and had to wait a long time before reaching the
+second edition due to the filial zeal of J. S. Mill.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p><p>James Mill, after his articles in the <i>Westminster</i>, could take
+little part in political agitation. He was still consulted by Place in
+regard to the Reform movement. Place himself took an important part at
+the final crisis, especially by his circulation in the week of agony
+of the famous placard, 'Go for Gold.' But the Utilitarians were now
+lost in the crowd. The demand for reform had spread through all
+classes. The attack upon the ruling class carried on by the Radicals
+of all shades in the dark days of Sidmouth and the six Acts was now
+supported by the nation at large. The old Toryism could no longer
+support itself by appealing to the necessities of a struggle for
+national existence. The prestige due to the victorious end of the war
+had faded away. The Reform Bill of 1832 was passed, and the
+Utilitarians hoped that the millennium would at least begin to dawn.</p>
+
+<p>Mill in 1830 removed from Queen's Square to Vicarage Place,
+Kensington. He kept his house at Mickleham, and there took long Sunday
+walks with a few of his disciples. His strength was more and more
+absorbed in his official duties. He was especially called upon to give
+evidence before the committees which from 1830 to 1833 considered the
+policy to be adopted in renewing the charter of the East India
+Company. Mill appeared as the advocate of the company, defended their
+policy, and argued against the demands of the commercial body which
+demanded the final suppression of the old trading monopoly of the
+Company. The abolition, indeed, was a foregone conclusion; but Mill's
+view was not in accordance with the doctrines of the thoroughgoing
+freetraders. His official experience, it seems, upon this and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> other
+matters deterred him from the <i>a priori</i> dogmatism too characteristic
+of his political speculations. Mill also suggested the formation of a
+legislative council, which was to contain one man 'versed in the
+philosophy of men and government.' This was represented by the
+appointment of the legal member of council in the Act of 1833. Mill
+approved of Macaulay as the first holder of the post. It was 'very
+handsome' of him, as Macaulay remarks, inasmuch as the famous articles
+written by Macaulay himself, in which the <i>Edinburgh</i> had at last
+retorted upon the Utilitarians, must still have been fresh in his
+memory. The 'Penal Code' drawn by Macaulay as holder of the office was
+the first actual attempt to carry out Bentham's favourite schemes
+under British rule, and the influence of the chief of Bentham's
+disciples at the India House may have had something to do with its
+initiation. Macaulay's chief subordinate, it may be remarked, Charles
+Hay Cameron, was one of the Benthamites, and had been proposed by
+Grote for the chair at the London University ultimately filled by
+Hoppus.</p>
+
+<p>After 1830 Mill wrote the severe fragment on Mackintosh, which, after
+a delay caused by Mackintosh's death, appeared in 1835. He contributed
+some articles to the <i>London Review</i>, founded by Sir W. Molesworth, as
+an organ of the 'philosophical Radicals,' and superintended, though
+not directly edited, by J. S. Mill. These, his last performances,
+repeat the old doctrines. It does not appear, indeed, that Mill ever
+altered one of his opinions. He accepted Bentham's doctrine to the
+end, as unreservedly as a mathematician might accept Newton's
+<i>Principia</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Mill's lungs had begun to be affected. It was supposed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>that they were
+injured by the dust imbibed on coach journeys to Mickleham. He had a
+bad attack of h&aelig;morrhage in August 1835, and died peacefully on 23rd
+June 1836.</p>
+
+<p>What remains to be said of Mill personally may be suggested by a
+noticeable parallel. S. T. Coleridge, born about six months before
+Mill, died two years before him. The two lives thus coincided for more
+than sixty years, and each man was the leader of a school. In all else
+the contrast could hardly be greater. If we were to apply the rules of
+ordinary morality, it would be entirely in Mill's favour. Mill
+discharged all his duties as strenuously as a man could, while
+Coleridge's life was a prolonged illustration of the remark that when
+an action presented itself to him as a duty he became physically
+incapable of doing it. Whatever Mill undertook he accomplished, often
+in the face of enormous difficulties. Coleridge never finished
+anything, and his works are a heap of fragments of the prolegomena to
+ambitious schemes. Mill worked his hardest from youth to age, never
+sparing labour or shirking difficulties or turning aside from his
+path. Coleridge dawdled through life, solacing himself with opium, and
+could only be coaxed into occasional activity by skilful diplomacy.
+Mill preserved his independence by rigid self-denial, temperance, and
+punctuality. Coleridge was always dependent upon the generosity of his
+friends. Mill brought up a large family, and in the midst of severe
+labours found time to educate them even to excess. Coleridge left his
+wife and children to be cared for by others. And Coleridge died in the
+odour of sanctity, revered by his disciples, and idolised by his
+children; while Mill went to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> grave amidst the shrugs of
+respectable shoulders, and respected rather than beloved by the son
+who succeeded to his intellectual leadership.</p>
+
+<p>The answer to the riddle is indeed plain enough; or rather there are
+many superabundantly obvious answers. Had Mill defended orthodox views
+and Coleridge been avowedly heterodox, we should no doubt have heard
+more of Coleridge's opium and of Mill's blameless and energetic life.
+But this explains little. That Coleridge was a man of genius and,
+moreover, of exquisitely poetical genius, and that Mill was at most a
+man of remarkable talent and the driest and sternest of logicians is
+also obvious. It is even more to the purpose that Coleridge was
+overflowing with kindliness, though little able to turn goodwill to
+much effect; whereas Mill's morality took the form chiefly of
+attacking the wicked. This is indicated by the saying attributed by
+Bowring to Bentham that Mill's sympathy for the many sprang out of his
+hatred of the oppressing few.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> J. S. Mill very properly protested
+against this statement when it was quoted in the <i>Edinburgh Review</i>.
+It would obviously imply a gross misunderstanding, whether Bentham,
+not a good observer of men, said so or not. But it indicates the side
+of Mill's character which made him unattractive to contemporaries and
+also to posterity. He partook, says his son,<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> of the Stoic, the
+Epicurean, and the Cynic character. He was a Stoic in his personal
+qualities; an Epicurean so far as his theory of morals was concerned;
+and a Cynic in that he cared little for pleasure. He thought life a
+'poor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> thing' after the freshness of youth had passed; and said that
+he had never known an old man happy unless he could live over again in
+the pleasures of the young. Temperance and self-restraint were
+therefore his favourite virtues. He despised all 'passionate
+emotions'; he held with Bentham that feelings by themselves deserved
+neither praise nor blame; he condemned a man who did harm whether the
+harm came from malevolence or from intellectual error. Therefore all
+sentiment was objectionable, for sentiment means neglect of rules and
+calculations. He shrank from showing feeling with more than the usual
+English reserve; and showed his devotion to his children by drilling
+them into knowledge with uncompromising strictness. He had no feeling
+for the poetical or literary side of things; and regarded life, it
+would seem, as a series of arguments, in which people were to be
+constrained by logic, not persuaded by sympathy. He seems to have
+despised poor Mrs. Mill, and to have been unsuccessful in concealing
+his contempt, though in his letters he refers to her respectfully.
+Mill therefore was a man little likely to win the hearts of his
+followers, though his remarkable vigour of mind dominated their
+understandings.</p>
+
+<p>The amiable and kindly, whose sympathies are quickly moved, gain an
+unfair share of our regard both in life and afterwards. We are more
+pleased by an ineffectual attempt to be kindly, than by real kindness
+bestowed ungraciously. Mill's great qualities should not be overlooked
+because they were hidden by a manner which seems almost deliberately
+repellent. He devoted himself through life to promote the truth as he
+saw it; to increase the scanty amounts of pleasures enjoyed by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>
+mankind; and to discharge all the duties which he owed to his
+neighbours. He succeeded beyond all dispute in forcibly presenting one
+set of views which profoundly influenced his countrymen; and the very
+narrowness of his intellect enabled him to plant his blows more
+effectively.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> The chief authority for James Mill is <i>James Mill: a
+Biography</i>, by Alexander Bain, Emeritus Professor of Logic in the
+University of Aberdeen, London, 1882. The book contains very full
+materials; and, if rather dry, deals with a dry subject.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Wallas's <i>Francis Place</i>, p. 70 <i>n.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Bain's <i>James Mill</i>, p. 166.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Gifford's real name was John Richards Green. The identity
+of his assumed name with that of the more famous William Gifford has
+led to a common confusion between the two periodicals. 'Peter Pindar'
+assaulted William Gifford under the erroneous impression that he was
+editor of the second.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Letter in Bain's <i>James Mill</i>, pp. 136-40.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> <i>Autobiography</i>, p. 39.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Bain's <i>James Mill</i>, pp. 97-106. Mill appears to have
+said something 'extravagant' about Bentham in an article upon Miranda
+in the <i>Edinburgh Review</i> for January 1809. He also got some praises
+of Bentham into the <i>Annual Review</i> of 1809 (Bain, 92-96).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> See the very interesting Life of Francis Place, by Mr.
+Graham Wallas, 1898.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Bain's <i>James Mill</i>, p. 78, and Wallas's <i>Francis Place</i>,
+p. 66.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Wallas's <i>Francis Place</i>, p. 68.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> He 'put together' the <i>Not Paul but Jesus</i> at Ford Abbey
+in 1817, and helped to preface the Reform <i>Catechism</i>. Wallas's
+<i>Francis Place</i>, p. 84.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> The article of 1811 was also published separately.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> He wrote only the first volume. Two others were added by
+Cuthbert Southey.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> <i>Lectures</i> (Ashe, 1885), pp. 32, 61.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> James Mill, according to Place, wrote a 'memorable and
+admirable essay, "Schools for all, not schools for Churchmen
+only."'&mdash;Wallas's <i>Francis Place</i>, 99 <i>n.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> This absurd suspicion was aroused by the quarrel about
+Burdett's arrest. See Wallas's <i>Place</i>, p. 56.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> Mr. Wallas gives an account of these schemes in chap.
+iv. of his Life of Place. I have also consulted Place's collections in
+Additional <span class="smcap">mss.</span>, 27,823.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> Bain's <i>James Mill</i>, p. 162.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> H. H. Wilson in his preface to the edition of 1840.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Wallas's <i>Francis Place</i>, p. 78.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Bain's <i>James Mill</i>, p. 435.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 433.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> Bentham's <i>Works</i>, p. 498.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> See Carman in <i>Economic Review</i>, 1894.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> See under Black in <i>Dictionary of National Biography</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> <i>Autobiography</i>, p. 101.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> See Place's account in Additional <span class="smcap">mss.</span> 27,823.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> G. C. Robertson, <i>Philosophical Remains</i>, p. 166; and
+under George Grote in <i>Dictionary of National Biography</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Letters communicated by Mr. Graham Wallas. See Mr.
+Wallas's <i>Francis Place</i>, p. 91.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> So Place observed that Mill 'could help the mass, but
+could not help the individual, not even himself or his own.'&mdash;Wallas's
+<i>Francis Place</i>, p. 79.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> <i>Autobiography</i>, p. 48.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p><hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<p class="subhead1">REFORM MOVEMENTS</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">I. POLITICAL CHANGE</p>
+
+<p>The last years of Mill's life correspond to the period in which
+Utilitarianism reached, in certain respects, its highest pitch of
+influence. The little band who acknowledged him as their chief leader,
+and as the authorised lieutenant of Bentham, considered themselves to
+be in the van of progress. Though differing on many points from each
+other, and regarded with aversion or distrust by the recognised party
+leaders, they were in their most militant and confident state of mind.
+They were systematically reticent as to their religious views: they
+left to popular orators the public advocacy of their favourite
+political measures; and the credit of finally passing such of those
+measures as were adopted fell chiefly to the hands of the great
+political leaders. The Utilitarians are ignored in the orthodox Whig
+legend. In the preface to his collected works, Sydney Smith runs over
+the usual list of changes which had followed, and, as he seems to
+think, had in great part resulted from, the establishment of the
+<i>Edinburgh Review</i>. Smith himself, and Jeffrey and Horner and, above
+all, 'the gigantic Brougham,' had blown the blast which brought down<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>
+the towers of Jericho. Sir G. O. Trevelyan, in his <i>Life of Macaulay</i>,
+describes the advent of the Whigs to office in a similar sense.
+'Agitators and incendiaries,' he says, 'retired into the background,
+as will always be the case when the country is in earnest: and
+statesmen who had much to lose, and were not afraid to risk it,
+stepped quietly and firmly to the front. The men and the sons of the
+men who had so long endured exclusion from office, embittered by
+unpopularity, at length reaped their reward.'<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> The Radical version
+of the history is different. The great men, it said, who had left the
+cause to be supported by agitators so long as the defence was
+dangerous and profitless, stepped forward now that it was clearly
+winning, and received both the reward and the credit. Mill and Place
+could not find words to express their contempt for the trimming,
+shuffling Whigs. They were probably unjust enough in detail; but they
+had a strong case in some respects. The Utilitarians represented that
+part of the reforming party which had a definite and a reasoned creed.
+They tried to give logic where the popular agitators were content with
+declamation, and represented absolute convictions when the Whig
+reformers were content with tentative and hesitating compromises. They
+had some grounds for considering themselves to be the 'steel of the
+lance'; the men who formulated and deliberately defended the
+principles which were beginning to conquer the world.</p>
+
+<p>The Utilitarians, I have said, became a political force in the
+concluding years of the great war struggle. The catastrophe of the
+revolution had unchained a whole whirlwind of antagonisms. The
+original issues had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> passed out of sight; and great social,
+industrial, and political changes were in progress which made the
+nation that emerged from the war a very different body from the nation
+that had entered it nearly a generation before. It is not surprising
+that at first very erroneous estimates were made of the new position
+when peace at last returned.</p>
+
+<p>The Radicals, who had watched on one side the growth of debt and
+pauperism, and, on the other hand, the profits made by stockjobbers,
+landlords, and manufacturers, ascribed all the terrible sufferings to
+the selfish designs of the upper classes. When the war ended they
+hoped that the evils would diminish, while the pretext for
+misgovernment would be removed. A bitter disappointment followed. The
+war was followed by widespread misery. Plenty meant ruin to
+agriculturists, and commercial 'gluts' resulting in manufacturers'
+warehouses crammed with unsaleable goods. The discontent caused by
+misery had been encountered during the war by patriotic fervour. It
+was not a time for redressing evils, when the existence of the nation
+was at stake. Now that the misery continued, and the excuse for
+delaying redress had been removed, a demand arose for parliamentary
+reform. Unfortunately discontent led also to sporadic riotings, to
+breaking of machinery and burning of ricks. The Tory government saw in
+these disturbances a renewal of the old Jacobin spirit, and had
+visions&mdash;apparently quite groundless&mdash;of widespread conspiracies and
+secret societies ready to produce a ruin of all social order. It had
+recourse to the old repressive measures, the suspension of the Habeas
+Corpus Act, the passage of the 'Six Acts,' and the prosecution of
+popular agitators.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> Many observers fancied that the choice lay between
+a servile insurrection and the establishment of arbitrary power.</p>
+
+<p>By degrees, however, peace brought back prosperity. Things settled
+down; commerce revived; and the acute distress passed away. The whole
+nation went mad over the wrongs of Queen Caroline; and the demand for
+political reform became for the time less intense. But it soon
+appeared that, although this crisis had been surmounted, the temper of
+the nation had profoundly changed. The supreme power still belonged
+constitutionally to the landed interest. But it had a profoundly
+modified social order behind it. The war had at least made it
+necessary to take into account the opinions of larger classes. An
+appeal to patriotism means that some regard must be paid to the
+prejudices and passions of people at large. When enormous sums were to
+be raised, the moneyed classes would have their say as to modes of
+taxation. Commerce and manufactures went through crises of terrible
+difficulty due to the various changes of the war; but, on the whole,
+the industrial classes were steadily and rapidly developing in wealth,
+and becoming relatively more important. The war itself was, in one
+aspect at least, a war for the maintenance of the British supremacy in
+trade. The struggle marked by the policy of the 'Orders in Council' on
+one side, and Napoleon's decrees on the other, involved a constant
+reference to Manchester and Liverpool and the rapidly growing
+manufacturing and commercial interests. The growth, again, of the
+press, at a time when every one who could read was keenly interested
+in news of most exciting and important events, implied the rapid
+development of a great organ of public opinion.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p><p>The effects of these changes soon became palpable. The political
+atmosphere was altogether different; and an entirely new set of
+influences was governing the policy of statesmen. The change affected
+the Tory as much as the Whig. However strongly he might believe that
+he was carrying on the old methods, he was affected by the new ideas
+which had been almost unconsciously incorporated in his creed. How
+great was the change, and how much it took the shape of accepting
+Utilitarian theories, may be briefly shown by considering a few
+characteristic facts.</p>
+
+<p>The ablest men who held office at the time were Canning, Huskisson,
+and Peel. They represented the conservatism which sought to
+distinguish itself from mere obstructiveness. Their influence was felt
+in many directions. The Holy Alliance had the sympathy of men who
+could believe that the war had brought back the pre-revolutionary
+order, and that its main result had been to put the Jacobin spirit in
+chains. Canning's accession to office in 1822 meant that the foreign
+policy of England was to be definitely opposed to the policy of the
+'Holy Alliance.' A pithy statement of his view is given in a
+remarkable letter, dated 1st February 1823, to the prince who was soon
+to become Charles <span class="smcap">x.</span><a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> The French government had declared that a
+people could only receive a free constitution as a gift from their
+legitimate kings. Should the English ministry, says Canning, after
+this declaration, support the French in their attack upon the
+constitutional government of Spain, it would be driven from office
+amid 'the execration of Tories and Whigs alike.' He thought that the
+doctrine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> of the sovereignty of the people was less alien to the
+spirit of the British Constitution than the opposite doctrine of the
+legitimists. In the early days, when Canning sat at the feet of Pitt,
+the war, if not in their eyes an Anti-Jacobin crusade, had to be
+supported by stimulating the Anti-Jacobin sentiment. In later days,
+the war had come to be a struggle against the oppression of nations by
+foreign despots. Canning could now accept the version of Pitt's policy
+which corresponded to the later phase. Englishmen in general had no
+more sympathy for despots who claimed a divine right than for despots
+who acted in the name of democracy&mdash;especially when the despots
+threatened to interfere with British trade. When Canning called 'the
+new world into existence to redress the balance of the old,'<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> he
+declared that English policy should resist threats from the Holy
+Alliance directed against some of our best customers. The general
+approval had special force among the Utilitarians. In the South
+American States Bentham had found eager proselytes, and had hoped to
+become a Solon. He had been consulted by the constitutionalists in
+Spain and Portugal; and he and his disciples, Joseph Hume in
+particular, had joined the Greek Committee, and tried to regenerate
+Athens by sound Utilitarian tracts. All English Liberals sympathised
+with the various movements which were more or less favoured by
+Canning's policy; but the Utilitarians could also see in them the
+opening of new fields already white for the harvest.</p>
+
+<p>The foreign policy was significant. It proved that the war, whatever
+else it had done, had not brought back the old order; and the old
+British traditions in favour of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> liberty of speech and action would
+revive now that they were no longer trammelled by the fears of a
+destructive revolution. The days of July in 1830 gave fresh importance
+to the reaction of foreign upon English politics.</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">II. LAW REFORM</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, however, the Utilitarians had a far stronger interest in
+domestic problems. In the first place, in Bentham's especial province
+a complete change of feeling had taken place. Romilly was Bentham's
+earliest disciple (so Bentham said), and looked up to him with 'filial
+reverence.' Every 'reformatiuncle' introduced by Romilly in parliament
+had been first brought to Bentham, to be conned over by the two.<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a>
+With great difficulty Romilly had got two or three measures through
+the House of Commons, generally to be thrown out by Eldon's influence
+in the Lords.<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> After Romilly's death in 1818, the cause was taken
+up by the Whig philosopher, Sir James Mackintosh, and made a distinct
+step in advance. Though there were still obstacles in the upper
+regions, a committee was obtained to consider the frequency of capital
+punishment, and measures were passed to abolish it in particular
+cases. Finally, in 1823,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> the reform was adopted by Peel. Peel was
+destined to represent in the most striking way the process by which
+new ideas were gradually infiltrating the upper sphere. Though still a
+strong Tory and a representative of the university of Oxford, he was
+closely connected with the manufacturing classes, and had become
+aware, as he wrote to Croker (23rd March 1820), that public opinion
+had grown to be too large for its accustomed channels. As Home
+Secretary, he took up the whole subject of the criminal law, and
+passed in the next years a series of acts consolidating and mitigating
+the law, and repealing many old statutes. A measure of equal
+importance was his establishment in 1829 of the metropolitan police
+force, which at last put an end to the old chaotic muddle described by
+Colquhoun of parish officers and constables. Other significant legal
+changes marked the opening of a new era. Eldon was the very
+incarnation of the spirit of obstruction; and the Court of Chancery,
+over which he presided for a quarter of a century, was thought to be
+the typical stronghold of the evil principles denounced by Bentham. An
+attack in 1823 upon Eldon was made in the House of Commons by John
+Williams (1777-1846), afterwards a judge. Eldon, though profoundly
+irritated by the personal imputations involved, consented to the
+appointment of a commission, which reported in 1825, and recommended
+measures of reform. In 1828, Brougham made a great display upon which
+he had consulted Bentham.<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> In a speech of six hours' length he gave
+a summary of existing abuses, which may still be read with
+interest.<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> Commissions were appointed to investigate the procedure
+of the Common Law Court and the law<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> of real property. Another
+commission, intended to codify the criminal law, was appointed in
+1833. Brougham says that of 'sixty capital defects' described in his
+speech, fifty-five had been removed, or were in course of removal,
+when his speeches were collected (<i>i.e.</i> 1838). Another speech of
+Brougham's in 1828 dealt with the carrying into execution of a
+favourite plan of Bentham's&mdash;the formation of local courts, which
+ultimately became the modern county courts.<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> The facts are
+significant of a startling change&mdash;no less than an abrupt transition
+from the reign of entire apathy to a reign of continuous reform
+extending over the whole range of law. The Reform Bill accelerated the
+movement, but it had been started before Bentham's death. The great
+stone, so long immovable, was fairly set rolling.</p>
+
+<p>Bentham's influence, again, in bringing about the change is
+undeniable. He was greatly dissatisfied with Brougham's speech, and,
+indeed, would have been dissatisfied with anything short of a complete
+logical application of his whole system. He held Brougham to be
+'insincere,'<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> a trimmer and popularity-hunter, but a useful
+instrument. Brougham's astonishing vanity and self-seeking prompted
+and perverted his amazing activity. He represents the process, perhaps
+necessary, by which a philosopher's ideas have to be modified before
+they can be applied to practical application. Brougham, however, could
+speak generously of men no longer in a position to excite his
+jealousy. He says in the preface to his first speech that 'the age of
+law reform and the age of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> Jeremy Bentham' were the same thing, and
+declares Bentham to be the 'first legal philosopher' who had appeared
+in the world. As the Chief advocates of Bentham he reckons Romilly,
+his parliamentary representative; Dumont, his literary interpreter;
+and James Mill, who, in his article upon 'jurisprudence,' had
+popularised the essential principles of the doctrine.</p>
+
+<p>The Utilitarians had at last broken up the barriers of obstruction and
+set the stream flowing. Whigs and Tories were taking up their
+theories. They naturally exaggerated in some respects the completeness
+of the triumph. The English law has not yet been codified, and it was
+characteristic of the Benthamite school to exaggerate the facility of
+that process. In their hatred of 'judge-made law' they assumed too
+easily that all things would be arranged into convenient pigeon-holes
+as soon as 'Judge and Co.' were abolished. It was a characteristic
+error to exaggerate the simplicity of their problem, and to fail to
+see that 'judge-made' law corresponds to a necessary inductive process
+by which the complex and subtle differences have to be gradually
+ascertained and fitted into a systematic statement. One other remark
+suggests itself. The Utilitarians saw in the dogged obstructiveness of
+Eldon and his like the one great obstacle to reform. It did not occur
+to them that the clumsiness of parliamentary legislation might be
+another difficulty. They failed to notice distinctly one tendency of
+their reforms. To make a code you require a sovereign strong enough to
+dominate the lawyers, not a system in which lawyers are an essential
+part of a small governing class. Codification, in short, means
+centralisation in one department. Blindness to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> similar results
+elsewhere was a characteristic of the Utilitarian thinkers.</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">III. ECONOMIC REFORM</p>
+
+<p>In another department the Utilitarians boasted, and also with good
+reason, of the triumph of their tenets. Political economy was in the
+ascendant. Professorships were being founded in Oxford, Cambridge,<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a>
+London, and Edinburgh. Mrs. Marcet's <i>Conversations</i> (1818) were
+spreading the doctrine among babes and sucklings. The Utilitarians
+were the sacred band who defended the strictest orthodoxy against all
+opponents. They spoke as recognised authorities upon some of the most
+vital questions of the day, of which I need here only notice Free
+Trade, the doctrine most closely associated with the teaching of their
+revered Adam Smith. In 1816 Ricardo remarks with satisfaction that the
+principle 'is daily obtaining converts' even among the most prejudiced
+classes; and he refers especially to a petition in which the clothiers
+of Gloucestershire<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> expressed their willingness to give up all
+restrictions. There was, indeed, an important set-off against this
+gain. The landowners were being pledged to protection. They had
+decided that in spite of the peace, the price of wheat must be kept up
+to 80s. a quarter. They would no longer be complimented as Adam Smith
+had complimented them on their superior liberality, and were now
+creating a barrier only to be stormed after a long<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> struggle.
+Meanwhile the principle was making rapid way among their rivals. One
+symptom was the adoption by the London merchants in 1820 of a famous
+petition on behalf of free trade.<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> It was drawn up by Thomas Tooke
+(1774-1858), who had long been actively engaged in the Russian trade,
+and whose <i>History of Prices</i> is in some respects the most valuable
+economic treatise of the time. Tooke gives a curious account of his
+action on this occasion.<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> He collected a few friends engaged in
+commerce, who were opposed to the corn laws. He found that several of
+them had 'crude and confused' notions upon the subject, and that each
+held that his own special interests should be exempted on some pretext
+from the general rule. After various dexterous pieces of diplomacy,
+however, he succeeded in obtaining the signature of Samuel Thornton, a
+governor of the bank of England, and ultimately procured a sufficient
+number of signatures by private solicitation. He was favourably
+received by the Prime Minister Lord Liverpool, and Vansittart (then
+Chancellor of the Exchequer), and finally got the petition presented
+to the House of Commons by Alexander Baring (afterwards Lord
+Ashburton). Tooke remarks that the Liverpool administration was in
+advance, not only of the public generally, but of the 'mercantile
+community,' Glasgow and Manchester, however, followed in the same
+steps, and the petition became a kind of official manifesto of the
+orthodox doctrine. The Political Economy Club formed next year at
+Tooke's instigation (April 18, 1821) was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> intended to hasten the
+process of dispersing crude and confused ideas. It was essentially an
+organ of the Utilitarian propaganda.</p>
+
+<p>The influence of the economists upon public policy was shown by the
+important measures carried through chiefly by Huskisson. Huskisson
+(1770-1830) was a type of the most intelligent official of his time.
+Like his more brilliant friend Canning, he had been introduced into
+office under Pitt, and retained a profound reverence for his early
+leader. Huskisson was a thorough man of business, capable of wrestling
+with blue-books, of understanding the sinking-fund, and having
+theories about the currency; a master of figures and statistics and
+the whole machinery of commerce. Though eminently useful, he might at
+any moment be applying some awkward doctrine from Adam Smith.</p>
+
+<p>Huskisson began the series of economic reforms which were brought to
+their full development by Peel and Gladstone. The collection of his
+speeches<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> incidentally brings out very clearly his relation to the
+Utilitarians. The most remarkable is a great speech of April 24,
+1826<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> (upon the state of the silk manufacture), of which Canning
+declared that he had never heard one abler, or which made a deeper
+impression upon the House. In this he reviews his policy, going over
+the most important financial measures of the preceding period. They
+made a new era, and he dates the beginning of the movement from the
+London petition, and the 'luminous speech' made by Baring when
+presenting it. We followed public opinion, he says, and did not create
+it.<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> Adopting the essential principles<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> of the petition, the
+government had in the first place set free the great woollen trade.
+The silk trade had been emancipated by abolishing the Spitalfield Acts
+passed in the previous century, which enabled magistrates to fix the
+rates of wages. The principle of prohibition had been abandoned,
+though protective duties remained. The navigation laws had been
+materially relaxed, and steps taken towards removing restrictions of
+different kinds upon trade with France and with India. One symptom of
+the change was the consolidation of the custom law effected by James
+Deacon Hume (1774-1842), an official patronised by Huskisson, and an
+original member of the Political Economy Club. By a law passed in
+1825, five hundred statutes dating from the time of Edward <span class="smcap">i.</span> were
+repealed, and the essence of the law given in a volume of moderate
+size. Finally, the removal of prohibitions was undermining the
+smugglers.</p>
+
+<p>The measures upon which Huskisson justly prided himself might have
+been dictated by the Political Economy Club itself. So far as they
+went they were an application of the doctrines of its thoroughgoing
+members, of Mill, Ricardo, and the orthodox school. They indeed
+supported him in the press. The <i>Morning Chronicle</i>, which expressed
+their views, declared him to be the most virtuous minister, that is
+(in true Utilitarian phrase), the most desirous of national welfare
+who had ever lived. The praise of Radicals would be not altogether
+welcome. Canning, in supporting his friend, maintained that sound
+commercial policy belonged no more to the Whigs than to the Tories.
+Huskisson and he were faithful disciples of Pitt, whose treaty with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>
+France in 1786, assailed by Fox and the Whigs, had been the first
+practical application of the Wealth of Nations. Neither party,
+perhaps, could claim a special connection with good or bad political
+economy; and certainly neither was prepared to incur political
+martyrdom in zeal for scientific truth. A question was beginning to
+come to the front which would make party lines dependent upon economic
+theories, and Huskisson's view of this was characteristic.</p>
+
+<p>The speech from which I have quoted begins with an indignant retort
+upon a member who had applied to him Burke's phrase about a
+perfect-bred metaphysician exceeding the devil in malignity and
+contempt for mankind. Huskisson frequently protested even against the
+milder epithet of theorist. He asserted most emphatically that he
+appealed to 'experience' and not to 'theory,' a slippery distinction
+which finds a good exposure in Bentham's <i>Book of Fallacies</i>.<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> The
+doctrine, however, was a convenient one for Huskisson. He could appeal
+to experience to show that commercial restrictions had injured the
+woollen trade, and their absence benefited the cotton trade,<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> and
+when he was not being taunted with theories, he would state with
+perfect clearness the general free trade argument.<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> But he had to
+keep an eye to the uncomfortable tricks which theories sometimes play.
+He argued emphatically in 1825<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> that analogy between manufactures
+and agriculture is 'illogical.' He does not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> wish to depress the price
+of corn, but to keep it at such a level that our manufactures may not
+be hampered by dear food. Here he was forced by stress of politics to
+differ from his economical friends. The country gentleman did not wish
+to pay duties on his silk or his brandy, but he had a direct and
+obvious interest in keeping up the price of corn. Huskisson had
+himself supported the Corn Bill of 1815, but it was becoming more and
+more obvious that a revision would be necessary. In 1828 he declared
+that he 'lamented from the bottom of his soul the mass of evil and
+misery and destruction of capital which that law in the course of
+twelve years had produced.'<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> Ricardo, meanwhile, and the economists
+had from the first applied to agriculture the principles which
+Huskisson applied to manufactures.<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> Huskisson's melancholy death
+has left us unable to say whether upon this matter he would have been
+as convertible as Peel. In any case the general principle of free
+trade was as fully adopted by Huskisson and Canning as by the
+Utilitarians themselves. The Utilitarians could again claim to be both
+the inspirers of the first principles, and the most consistent in
+carrying out the deductions. They, it is true, were not generally
+biassed by having any interest in rents. They were to be the allies or
+teachers of the manufacturing class which began to be decidedly
+opposed to the squires and the old order.</p>
+
+<p>In one very important economic question, the Utilitarians not only
+approved a change of the law, but were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> the main agents in bringing it
+about. Francis Place was the wire-puller, to whose energy was due the
+abolition of the Conspiracy Laws in 1824. Joseph Hume in the House of
+Commons, and M'Culloch, then editor of the <i>Scotsman</i>, had the most
+conspicuous part in the agitation, but Place worked the machinery of
+agitation. The bill passed in 1824 was modified by an act of 1825; but
+the modification, owing to Place's efforts, was not serious, and the
+act, as we are told on good authority, 'effected a real emancipation,'
+and for the first time established the right of 'collective
+bargaining.'<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> The remarkable thing is that this act, carried on the
+principles of 'Radical individualism' and by the efforts of Radical
+individualists, was thus a first step towards the application to
+practice of socialist doctrine. Place thought that the result of the
+act would be not the encouragement, but the decline, of trades-unions.
+The unions had been due to the necessity of combining against
+oppressive laws, and would cease when those laws were abolished.<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a>
+This marks a very significant stage in the development of economic
+opinion.</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">IV. CHURCH REFORM</p>
+
+<p>The movement which at this period was most conspicuous politically was
+that which resulted in Roman Catholic emancipation, and here, too, the
+Utilitarians might be anticipating a complete triumph of their
+principles. The existing disqualifications, indeed, were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> upheld by
+little but the purely obstructive sentiment. When the duke of York
+swore that 'so help him God!' he would oppose the change to the last,
+he summed up the whole 'argument' against it. Canning and Huskisson
+here represented the policy not only of Pitt, but of Castlereagh. The
+Whigs, indeed, might claim to be the natural representatives of
+toleration. The church of England was thoroughly subjugated by the
+state, and neither Whig nor Tory wished for a fundamental change. But
+the most obvious differentia of Whiggism was a dislike to the
+ecclesiastical spirit. The Whig noble was generally more or less of a
+freethinker; and upon such topics Holland House differed little from
+Queen's Square Place, or differed only in a rather stricter reticence.
+Both Whig and Tory might accept Warburton's doctrine of an 'alliance'
+between church and state. The Tory inferred that the church should be
+supported. His prescription for meeting discontent was 'more yeomanry'
+and a handsome sum for church-building. The Whig thought that the
+church got a sufficient return in being allowed to keep its revenues.
+On the Tory view, the relation might be compared to that of man and
+wife in Christian countries where, though the two are one, the husband
+is bound to fidelity. On the Whig view it was like a polygamous
+system, where the wife is in complete subjection, and the husband may
+take any number of concubines. The Whig noble regarded the church as
+socially useful, but he was by no means inclined to support its
+interests when they conflicted with other political considerations. He
+had been steadily in favour of diminishing the privileges of the
+establishment, and had taken part in removing the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> grievances of the
+old penal laws. He was not prepared to uphold privileges which
+involved a palpable danger to his order.</p>
+
+<p>This position is illustrated by Sydney Smith, the ideal divine of
+Holland House. The <i>Plymley Letters</i><a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> give his views most pithily.
+Smith, a man as full of sound sense as of genuine humour, appeals to
+the principles of toleration, and is keenly alive to the absurdity of
+a persecution which only irritates without conversion. But he also
+appeals to the danger of the situation. 'If Bonaparte lives,'<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> he
+says, 'and something is not done to conciliate the Catholics, it seems
+to me absolutely impossible but that we must perish.' We are like the
+captain of a ship attacked by a pirate, who should begin by examining
+his men in the church catechism, and forbid any one to sponge or ram
+who had not taken the sacrament according to the forms of the church
+of England. He confesses frankly that the strength of the Irish is
+with him a strong motive for listening to their claims. To talk of
+'not acting from fear is mere parliamentary cant.'<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> Although the
+danger which frightened Smith was evaded, this was the argument which
+really brought conviction even to Tories in 1829. In any case the
+Whigs, whose great boast was their support of toleration, would not be
+prompted by any Quixotic love of the church to encounter tremendous
+perils in defence of its privileges.</p>
+
+<p>Smith's zeal had its limits. He observes humorously in his preface
+that he had found himself after the Reform Bill engaged in the defence
+of the National Church against the archbishop of Canterbury and the
+bishop of London.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> The letters to Archdeacon Singleton, written when
+the Whigs were flirting with the Radicals, show how much good an old
+Whig could find in the establishment. This marks the difference
+between the true Whig and the Utilitarian. The Whig would not risk the
+country for the sake of church; he would keep the clerical power
+strictly subordinate to the power of the state, but then, when
+considered from the political side, it was part of a government system
+providing him with patronage, and to be guarded from the rude assaults
+of the Radical reformer. The Utilitarian, though for the moment he was
+in alliance with the Whig, regarded the common victory as a step to
+something far more sweeping. He objected to intolerance as decidedly
+as the Whig, for absolute freedom of opinion was his most cherished
+doctrine. He objected still more emphatically to persecution on behalf
+of the church, because he entirely repudiated its doctrines. The
+objection to spreading true doctrine by force is a strong one, but
+hardly so strong as the objection to a forcible spread of false
+doctrine. But, besides this, the church represented to the Utilitarian
+precisely the very worst specimen of the corruptions of the time. The
+Court of Chancery was bad enough, but the whole ecclesiastical system
+with its vast prizes,<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> its opportunities for corrupt patronage, its
+pluralism and non-residence was an evil on a larger scale. The
+Radical, therefore, unlike the Whig, was an internecine enemy of the
+whole system. The 'church of England system,' as Bentham calmly
+remarks, is 'ripe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> for dissolution.'<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a> I have already noticed his
+quaint proposal for giving effect to his views. Mill, in the
+<i>Westminster Review</i>, denounced the church of England as the worst of
+all churches.<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> To the Utilitarian, in short, the removal of the
+disqualification of dissenters and Catholics was thus one step to the
+consummation which their logic demanded&mdash;the absolute disestablishment
+and disendowment of the church. Conservatives in general anticipated
+the confiscation of church revenues as a necessary result of reform;
+and so far as the spirit of reformers was represented by the
+Utilitarians and their Radical allies, they had good grounds for the
+fear. James Mill's theory is best indicated by a later article
+published in the <i>London Review</i> of July 1835. After pointing out that
+the church of England retains all the machinery desired for supporting
+priests and preventing the growth of intellect and morality, he
+proceeds to ask what the clergy do for their money. They read prayers,
+which is a palpable absurdity; they preach sermons to spread
+superstitious notions of the Supreme Being, and perform
+ceremonies&mdash;baptism, and so forth&mdash;which are obviously silly. The
+church is a mere state machine worked in subservience to the sinister
+interest of the governing classes. The way to reform it would be to
+equalise the pay: let the clergy be appointed by a 'Minister of Public
+Instruction' or the county authorities; abolish the articles, and
+constitute a church 'without dogmas or ceremonies'; and employ the
+clergy to give lectures on ethics, botany, political economy, and so
+forth, besides holding Sunday<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> meetings, dances (decent dances are to
+be specially invented for the purpose), and social meals, which would
+be a revival of the 'agapai' of the early Christians. For this
+purpose, however, it might be necessary to substitute tea and coffee
+for wine. In other words, the church is to be made into a popular
+London University. The plan illustrates the incapacity of an isolated
+clique to understand the real tone of public opinion. I need not
+pronounce upon Mill's scheme, which seems to have some sense in it,
+but one would like to know whether Newman read his article.</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">V. SINISTER INTERESTS</p>
+
+<p>In questions of foreign policy, of law reform, of political economy,
+and of religious tests, the Utilitarians thus saw the gradual
+approximation to their most characteristic views on the part of the
+Whigs, and a strong infiltration of the same views among the less
+obstructive Tories. They held the logical creed, to which others were
+slowly approximating, either from the force of argument or from the
+great social changes which were bringing new classes into political
+power. The movement for parliamentary reform which for a time
+overshadowed all other questions might be regarded as a corollary from
+the position already won. Briefly, it was clear that a new social
+stratum was exercising a vast influence; the doctrines popular with it
+had to be more or less accepted; and the only problem worth
+consideration by practical men was whether or not such a change should
+be made in the political machinery as would enable the influence to be
+exercised by direct and constitutional means. To<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> the purely
+obstructive Tory parliamentary reform was a step to the general
+cataclysm. The proprietor of a borough, like the proprietor of a
+church patronage or commission in the army, had a right to his votes,
+and to attack his right was simply confiscation of private property.
+The next step might be to confiscate his estate. But even the more
+intelligent Conservative drew the line at such a measure. Canning,
+Huskisson, and even Peel might accept the views of the Utilitarians in
+regard to foreign policy, to law reform, to free trade, or the removal
+of religious tests, declaring only that they were obeying 'experience'
+instead of logic, and might therefore go just as far as they pleased.
+But they were all pledged to resist parliamentary reform to the
+utmost. Men thoroughly steeped in official life, and versed in the
+actual working of the machinery, were naturally alive to the magnitude
+of the change to be introduced. They saw with perfect clearness that
+it would amount to a revolution. The old system in which the ruling
+classes carried on business by family alliances and bargains between
+ministers and great men would be impracticable. The fact that so much
+had been done in the way of concession to the ideas of the new classes
+was for them an argument against the change. If the governing classes
+were ready to reform abuses, why should they be made unable to govern?
+A gradual enfranchisement of the great towns on the old system might
+be desirable. Such a man as Huskisson, representing great commercial
+interests, could not be blind to the necessity. But a thorough
+reconstruction was more alarming. As Canning had urged in a great
+speech at Liverpool, a House of Commons, thoroughly democratised,
+would be incompatible with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> the existence of the monarchy and the
+House of Lords. So tremendously powerful a body would reduce the other
+parts of the constitution to mere excrescences, feeble drags upon the
+new driving-wheel in which the whole real force would be concentrated.</p>
+
+<p>That this expressed, in point of fact, a serious truth, was, I take
+it, undeniable. The sufficient practical answer was, that change was
+inevitable. To refuse to adapt the constitutional machinery to the
+altered political forces was not to hinder their growth, but to make a
+revolution necessary. When, accordingly, the excluded classes began
+seriously to demand admission, the only question came to lie between
+violent and peaceable methods. The alarm with which our fathers
+watched the progress of the measure may seem to us exaggerated, but
+they scarcely overestimated the magnitude of the change. The old
+rulers were taking a new partner of such power, that whatever
+authority was left to them might seem to be left on sufferance. As
+soon as he became conscious of his strength, they would be reduced to
+nonentities. The Utilitarians took some part in the struggle, and
+welcomed the victory with anticipations destined to be, for the time
+at least, cruelly disappointed. But they were still a small minority,
+whose views rather scandalised the leaders of the party with which
+they were in temporary alliance. The principles upon which they based
+their demands, as formulated by James Mill, looked, as we shall see,
+far beyond the concessions of the moment.</p>
+
+<p>One other political change is significant, though I am unable to give
+an adequate account of it. Bentham's denunciation of 'sinister
+interests'&mdash;one of his leading<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> topics&mdash;corresponds to the question of
+sinecures, which was among the most effective topics of Radical
+declamation. The necessity of limiting the influence of the crown and
+excluding 'placemen' from the House of Commons had been one of the
+traditional Whig commonplaces, and a little had been done by Burke's
+act of 1782 towards limiting pensions and abolishing obsolete offices.
+When English Radicalism revived, the assault was renewed in parliament
+and the press. During the war little was achieved, though a revival of
+the old complaints about placemen in parliament was among the first
+symptoms of the rising sentiment. In 1812 an attack was made upon the
+'tellers of the Exchequer.' Romilly<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> says that the value of one of
+these offices had risen to &pound;26,000 or &pound;27,000 a year. The income came
+chiefly from fees, and the actual work, whatever it was, was done by
+deputy. The scandal was enormous at a time when the stress upon the
+nation was almost unbearable. One of the tellerships was held by a
+member of the great Grenville family, who announced that they regarded
+the demand for reform as a personal attack upon them. The opposition,
+therefore, could not muster even its usual strength, and the motion
+for inquiry was rejected. When the war was over, even the government
+began to feel that something must be done. In 1817 some acts were
+passed<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> abolishing a variety of sinecure offices and 'regulating
+certain offices in the Court of Exchequer.' The Radicals considered
+this as a mere delusion, because it was provided at the same time that
+pensions might be given to persons who had held certain great offices.
+The change, however, was apparently of importance as removing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>the
+chief apology for sinecures, and the system with modifications still
+remains. The marquis of Camden, one of the tellers of the Exchequer,
+voluntarily resigned the fees and accepted only the regular salary of
+&pound;2500. His action is commended in the <i>Black Book</i>,<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a> which
+expresses a regret that the example had not been followed by other
+great sinecurists. Public opinion was beginning to be felt. During the
+subsequent period the cry against sinecures became more emphatic. The
+<i>Black Book</i>, published originally in 1820 and 1823, and afterwards
+reissued, gave a list, so far as it could be ascertained, of all
+pensions, and supplied a mass of information for Radical orators. The
+amount of pensions is stated at over &pound;1,000,000, including sinecure
+offices with over &pound;350,000 annually;<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a> and the list of offices
+(probably very inaccurate in detail) gives a singular impression of
+the strange ramifications of the system. Besides the direct pensions,
+every new department of administration seems to have suggested the
+foundation of offices which tended to become sinecures. The cry for
+'retrenchment' was joined to the cry for reform.<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a> Joseph Hume, who
+first entered parliament in 1818, became a representative of the
+Utilitarian Radicalism, and began a long career of minute criticism
+which won for him the reputation of a stupendous bore, but helped to
+keep a steady pressure upon ministers.<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a> Sir James<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> Graham
+(1792-1861) was at this time of Radical tendencies, and first made
+himself conspicuous by demanding returns of pensions.<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> The
+settlements of the civil lists of George <span class="smcap">iv.</span>, William <span class="smcap">iv.</span>, and
+Victoria, gave opportunities for imposing new restrictions upon the
+pension system. Although no single sweeping measure was passed, the
+whole position was changed. By the time of the Reform Bill, a sinecure
+had become an anachronism. The presumption was that whenever an
+opportunity offered, it would be suppressed. Some of the sinecure
+offices in the Court of Chancery, the 'Keeper of the Hanaper,' the
+'Chaffwax,' and so forth, were abolished by an act passed by the
+parliament which had just carried the Reform Bill.<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a> In 1833 a
+reform of the system of naval administration by Sir James Graham got
+rid of some cumbrous machinery; and Graham again was intrusted in 1834
+with an act under which the Court of Exchequer was finally reformed,
+and the 'Clerk of the Pells' and the 'Tellers of the Exchequer' ceased
+to exist.<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a> Other offices seem to have melted away by degrees,
+whenever a chance offered.</p>
+
+<p>Many other of the old abuses had ceased to require any special
+denunciations from political theorists. The general principle was
+established, and what remained was to apply it in detail. The prison
+system was no longer in want of a Howard or a Bentham. Abuses remained
+which occupied the admirable Mrs. Fry; and many serious difficulties
+had to be solved by a long course of experiment. But it was no longer
+a question whether<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> anything should be doing, but of the most
+efficient means of bringing about an admittedly desirable end. The
+agitation for the suppression of the slave-trade again had been
+succeeded by the attack upon slavery. The system was evidently doomed,
+although not finally abolished till after the Reform Bill; and
+ministers were only considering the question whether the abolition
+should be summary or gradual, or what compensation might be made to
+vested interests. The old agitation had been remarkable, as I have
+said, not only for its end but for the new kind of machinery to which
+it had applied. Popular agitation<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a> had taken a new shape. The
+county associations formed in the last days of the American war of
+independence, and the societies due to the French revolution had set a
+precedent. The revolutionary societies had been suppressed or had died
+out, as opposed to the general spirit of the nation, although they had
+done a good deal to arouse political speculation. In the period of
+distress which followed the war the Radical reformers had again held
+public meetings, and had again been met by repressive measures. The
+acts of 1817 and 1819<a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> imposed severe restrictions upon the right
+of public meeting. The old 'county meeting,' which continued to be
+common until the reform period, and was summoned by the
+lord-lieutenant or the sheriff on a requisition from the freeholders,
+had a kind of constitutional character, though I do not know its
+history in detail.<a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a> The extravagantly repressive measures were an
+anachronism, or could only be enforced during the pressure of an
+intense excitement.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> In one way or other, public meetings were soon
+being held as frequently as ever. The trial of Queen Caroline gave
+opportunity for numerous gatherings, and statesmen began to find that
+they must use instead of suppressing them. Canning<a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a> appears to have
+been the first minister to make frequent use of speeches addressed to
+public meetings; and meetings to which such appeals were addressed
+soon began to use their authority to demand pledges from the
+speakers.<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> Representation was to be understood more and more as
+delegation. Meanwhile the effect of public meetings was enormously
+increased when a general organisation was introduced. The great
+precedent was the Catholic Association, founded in 1823 by O'Connell
+and Sheil. The peculiar circumstances of the Irish people and their
+priests gave a ready-made machinery for the agitation which triumphed
+in 1829. The Political Union founded by Attwood at Birmingham in the
+same year adopted the method, and led to the triumph of 1832.
+Political combination henceforth took a different shape, and in the
+ordinary phrase, 'public opinion' became definitely the ultimate and
+supreme authority. This enormous change and the corresponding
+development of the power of the press, which affected to mould and, at
+any rate, expressed public opinion, entirely fell in with Utilitarian
+principles. Their part in bringing about the change was of no special
+importance except in so far as they more or less inspired the popular
+orators. They were, however, ready to take advantage of it. They had
+the <i>Westminster Review</i> to take a place beside the <i>Edinburgh</i> and
+<i>Quarterly Reviews</i>, which had raised<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> periodical writing to a far
+higher position than it had ever occupied, and to which leading
+politicians and leading authors on both sides had become regular
+contributors. The old contempt for journalism was rapidly vanishing.
+In 1825 Canning expresses his regret for having given some information
+to a paper of which an ill use had been made. He had previously
+abstained from all communication with 'these gentry,' and was now
+resolved to have done with <i>hoc genus omne</i> for good and all.<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a> In
+1839 we find his former colleague, Lord Lyndhurst, seeking an alliance
+with Barnes, the editor of the <i>Times</i>, as eagerly as though Barnes
+had been the head of a parliamentary party.<a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a></p>
+
+<p>The newspapers had probably done more than the schools to spread
+habits of reading through the country. Yet the strong interest which
+was growing up in educational matters was characteristic. Brougham's
+phrase, 'the schoolmaster is abroad' (29th January 1821), became a
+popular proverb, and rejoiced the worthy Bentham.<a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a> I have already
+described the share taken by the Utilitarians in the great Bell and
+Lancaster controversy. Parliament had as yet done little. A bill
+brought in by Whitbread had been passed in 1807 by the House of
+Commons, enabling parishes to form schools on the Scottish model, but
+according to Romilly,<a name="FNanchor_79_79" id="FNanchor_79_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a> it was passed in the well-grounded
+confidence that it would be thrown out by the peers. A committee upon
+education was obtained by Brougham after the peace, which reported in
+1818, and which led to a commission upon school endowments.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> Brougham
+introduced an education bill in 1820, but nothing came of it. The
+beginning of any participation by government in national education was
+not to take place till after the Reform Bill. Meanwhile, however, the
+foundation of the London University upon unsectarian principles was
+encouraging the Utilitarians; and there were other symptoms of the
+growth of enlightenment. George Birkbeck (1776-1841) had started some
+popular lectures upon science at Glasgow about 1800, and having
+settled as a physician in London, started the 'Mechanics' Institution'
+in 1824. Brougham was one of the first trustees; and the institution,
+though exposed to a good deal of ridicule, managed to take root and
+become the parent of others. In 1827 was started the Society for the
+Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, of which Brougham was president, and
+the committee of which included James Mill. In the course of its
+twenty years' existence it published or sanctioned the publication by
+Charles Knight of a great mass of popular literature. The <i>Penny
+Magazine</i> (1832-1845) is said to have had two hundred thousand
+subscribers at the end of its first year of existence. Crude and
+superficial as were some of these enterprises, they clearly marked a
+very important change. Cobbett and the Radical orators found enormous
+audiences ready to listen to their doctrine. Churchmen and Dissenters,
+Tories and Radicals were finding it necessary both to educate and to
+disseminate their principles by writing; and as new social strata were
+becoming accessible to such influences, their opinions began to
+exercise in turn a more distinct reaction upon political and
+ecclesiastical affairs.</p>
+
+<p>No party felt more confidence at the tendency of this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> new
+intellectual fermentation than the Utilitarians. They had a definite,
+coherent, logical creed. Every step which increased the freedom of
+discussion increased the influence of the truth. Their doctrines were
+the truth, if not the whole truth. Once allow them to get a fulcrum
+and they would move the world. Bit by bit their principles of
+legislation, of economy, of politics were being accepted in the most
+different quarters; and even the more intelligent of their opponents
+were applying them, though the application might be piecemeal and
+imperfect. It was in vain that an adversary protested that he was not
+bound by logic, and appealed to experience instead of theory. Let him
+justify his action upon what grounds he pleased, he was, in point of
+fact, introducing the leaven of true doctrine, and it might be trusted
+to work out the desirable results.</p>
+
+<p>I must now deal more in detail with the Utilitarian theories. I will
+only observe in general terms that their triumph was not likely to be
+accepted without a struggle. Large classes regarded them with absolute
+abhorrence. Their success, if they did succeed, would mean the
+destruction of religious belief, of sound philosophy, of the great
+important ecclesiastical and political institutions, and probably
+general confiscation of property and the ruin of the foundations of
+society. And, meanwhile, in spite of the progress upon which I have
+dwelt, there were two problems, at least, of enormous importance, upon
+which it could scarcely be said that any progress had been made. The
+church, in the first place, was still where it had been. No change had
+been made in its constitution; it was still the typical example of
+corrupt patronage; and the object of the hatred of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> all thoroughgoing
+Radicals. And, in the second place, pauperism had grown to appalling
+dimensions during the war; and no effectual attempt had been made to
+deal with it. Behind pauperism there were great social questions, the
+discontent and misery of great masses of the labouring population.
+Whatever reforms might be made in other parts of the natural order,
+here were difficulties enough to task the wisdom of legislators and
+speculators upon legislative principles.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> <i>Life of Macaulay</i>, p. 114. (Popular Edition).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Canning's <i>Political Correspondence</i>, i. 71-76.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> 12th December 1826.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> Bentham's <i>Works</i>, v. p. 370.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> Romilly's attempts to improve the criminal law began in
+1808. For various notices of his efforts, see his <i>Life</i> (3 vols.
+1860), especially vol. ii. 243-54, 309, 321, 331, 369, 371, 389-91.
+Romilly was deeply interested in Dumont's <i>Th&eacute;orie des Peines L&eacute;gales</i>
+(1811), which he read in <span class="smcap">ms.</span> and tried to get reviewed in the
+<i>Quarterly</i> (ii. 258, 391; iii. 136). The remarks (ii. 2-3) on the
+'stupid dread of innovation' and the savage spirit infused into
+Englishmen by the horrors of the French revolution are worth notice in
+this connection.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> Bentham's <i>Works</i>, x. p. 574.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> Brougham's <i>Speeches</i> (1838), ii. 287-486.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> An interesting summary of the progress of law reforms
+and of Bentham's share in them is given in Sir R. K. Wilson's <i>History
+of Modern English Law</i> (1875).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> Bentham's <i>Works</i>, x. 571.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> In Cambridge Pryme was the first professor in 1828, but
+had only the title without endowment. The professorship was only
+salaried in 1863.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> Ricardo's <i>Works</i> (1888), p. 407.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> Printed in Porter's <i>Progress of the Nation</i> and
+elsewhere.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> See sixth volume of <i>History of Prices</i> by Tooke and
+Newmarch, and privately printed <i>Minutes of Political Economy Club</i>
+(1882).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> <i>Speeches</i>, 3 vols. 8vo, 1831.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ii. 465-530.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ii. 477.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> Bentham's <i>Works</i>, ii. 459. We may remember how J. S.
+Mill in his boyhood was abashed because he could not explain to his
+father the force of the distinction.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> <i>Speeches</i>, ii. 246, 332.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 102-108 (Currency Pamphlet of 1810).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ii. 397.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> <i>Speeches</i>, iii. 257.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> Ricardo indeed made a reservation as to the necessity of
+counterbalancing by a moderate duty the special burthens upon
+agriculture.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> In the <i>History of Trades-Unionism</i> by Sidney and
+Beatrice Webb (1894), pp. 88-98. The history of Place's agitation is
+fully given in Mr. Graham Wallas's <i>Life</i>, chap. viii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> Wallas's Francis <i>Place</i>, p. 217.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> First published in 1807-8.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> <i>Letter</i> iii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> vi.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> Sydney Smith put very ingeniously the advantages of what
+he called the 'lottery' system: of giving, that is, a few great
+prizes, instead of equalising the incomes of the clergy. Things look
+so different from opposite points of views.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> <i>Church of Englandism</i>, ii. 199.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> See especially his review of Southey's <i>Book of the
+Church</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> Romilly's <i>Memoirs</i>, iii. 33.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> 57 George <span class="smcap">iii.</span> caps. 60-67.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> Edition of 1828, p. 24.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 10.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> A Mr. Gray proposed at a county meeting in 1816 that the
+cry of 'retrenchment and reform' should be raised in every corner of
+the island (Henry Jephson's <i>Platform</i>, p. 378). I do not know whether
+this was the first appearance of the formula.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> Hume had been introduced to Place by James Mill, who
+thought him worth 'nursing.' Place found him at first 'dull and
+selfish,' but 'nursed him' so well that by 1836 he had become the 'man
+of men,'&mdash;Wallas's <i>Francis Place</i>, p. 181, 182.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> Torrens's <i>Life of Graham</i>, i. 250-72, where his great
+speech of 14th May 1830 is given.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> 2 and 3 William <span class="smcap">iv.</span> cap. 111 (passed 15 August 1832).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> 4 and 5 William <span class="smcap">iv.</span> cap. 15.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> <i>The Platform, its Origin and Progress</i>, by Henry
+Jephson (1892), gives a very interesting historical account of the
+process.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> 57 George <span class="smcap">iii.</span> cap. 19, and 60 George <span class="smcap">iii.</span> cap. 6.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> See Jephson's <i>Platform</i>, pp. 167-70.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> See Jephson's <i>Platform</i>, i. 348, 455, 517.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> See <i>Ibid.</i> ii. 129-40 for some interesting passages as
+to this.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> <i>Official Correspondence</i> (1887), 308.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> Greville's <i>George IV. and William IV.</i>, iii. 155,
+167-69, 171.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> Bentham's <i>Works</i>, x. 571.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_79_79" id="Footnote_79_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> Romilly's <i>Memoirs</i>, ii. 67, 222.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<p class="subhead1">POLITICAL THEORY</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">I. MILL ON GOVERNMENT</p>
+
+<p>I now turn to the general political theory of which Mill was the
+authoritative exponent. The <i>Encyclop&aelig;dia</i> article upon 'Government'
+(1820) gives the pith of their doctrine. It was, as Professor Bain<a name="FNanchor_80_80" id="FNanchor_80_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a>
+thinks, an 'impelling and a guiding force' in the movement which
+culminated in the Reform Bill. The younger Utilitarians regarded it,
+says J. S. Mill, as 'a masterpiece of political wisdom';<a name="FNanchor_81_81" id="FNanchor_81_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a> while
+Macaulay<a name="FNanchor_82_82" id="FNanchor_82_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a> taunts them for holding it to be 'perfect and
+unanswerable.' This famous article is a terse and energetic summary of
+the doctrine implied in Bentham's <i>Works</i>, but there obscured under
+elaboration of minute details. It is rather singular, indeed, that so
+vigorous a manifesto of Utilitarian dogma should have been accepted by
+Macvey Napier&mdash;a sound Whig&mdash;for a publication which professed
+scientific impartiality. It has, however, in the highest degree, the
+merits of clearness and condensation desirable in a popular
+exposition. The reticence appropriate to the place excuses the
+omission of certain implicit conclusions. Mill has to give a complete
+theory of politics in thirty-two 8vo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> pages. He has scanty room for
+qualifying statement or historical illustration. He speaks as from the
+chair of a professor laying down the elementary principles of a
+demonstrated science.<a name="FNanchor_83_83" id="FNanchor_83_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a></p>
+
+<p>Mill starts from the sacred principle. The end of government, as the
+end of all conduct, must be the increase of human happiness. The
+province of government is limited by another consideration. It has to
+deal with one class of happiness, that is, with the pains and
+pleasures 'which men derive from one another.' By a 'law of nature'
+labour is requisite for procuring the means of happiness. Now, if
+'nature' produced all that any man desired, there would be no need of
+government, for there would be no conflict of interest. But, as the
+material produced is finite, and can be appropriated by individuals,
+it becomes necessary to insure to every man his proper share. What,
+then, is a man's proper share? That which he himself produces; for, if
+you give to one man more than the produce of his labour, you must take
+away the produce of another man's labour. The greatest happiness,
+therefore, is produced by 'assuring to every man the greatest possible
+quantity of the produce of his own labour.' How can this be done?
+Will not the strongest take the share of the weakest? He can be
+prevented in one and apparently only in one way. Men must unite and
+delegate to a few the power necessary for protecting all. 'This is
+government.'<a name="FNanchor_84_84" id="FNanchor_84_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p><p>The problem is now simple. Government is essentially an association
+of men for the protection of property. It is a delegation of the
+powers necessary for that purpose to the guardians, and 'all the
+difficult questions of government relate to the means' of preventing
+the guardians from themselves becoming plunderers.</p>
+
+<p>How is this to be accomplished? The power of protection, says Mill,
+following the old theory, may be intrusted to the whole community, to
+a few, or to one; that is, we may have a democracy, an aristocracy, or
+a monarchy. A democracy, or direct government of all by all, is for
+the ordinary reasons pronounced impracticable. But the objections to
+the other systems are conclusive. The need of government, he has
+shown, depends upon 'the law of human nature'<a name="FNanchor_85_85" id="FNanchor_85_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a> that 'a man, if
+able, will take from others anything which they have and he desires.'
+The very principle which makes government necessary, therefore, will
+prompt a government to defeat its own proper end. Mill's doctrine is
+so far identical with the doctrine of Hobbes; men are naturally in a
+state of war, and government implies a tacit contract by which men
+confer upon a sovereign the power necessary for keeping the peace. But
+here, though admitting the force of Hobbes's argument, he diverges
+from its conclusion. If a democracy be impossible, and an aristocracy
+or monarchy necessarily oppressive, it might seem, he admits, as it
+actually seemed to Hobbes and to the French economists, that the fewer
+the oppressors the better, and that therefore an absolute monarchy is
+the best. Experience, he thinks, is 'on the surface' ambiguous.
+Eastern despots<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> and Roman emperors have been the worst scourges to
+mankind; yet the Danes preferred a despot to an aristocracy, and are
+as 'well governed as any people in Europe.' In Greece, democracy, in
+spite of its defects, produced the most brilliant results.<a name="FNanchor_86_86" id="FNanchor_86_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> Hence,
+he argues, we must go 'beyond the surface,' and 'penetrate to the
+springs within.' The result of the search is discouraging. The hope of
+glutting the rulers is illusory. There is no 'point of saturation'<a name="FNanchor_87_87" id="FNanchor_87_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a>
+with the objects of desire, either for king or aristocracy. It is a
+'grand governing law of human nature' that we desire such power as
+will make 'the persons and properties of human beings subservient to
+our pleasures.'<a name="FNanchor_88_88" id="FNanchor_88_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_88_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a> This desire is indefinitely great. To the number
+of men whom we would force into subservience, and the degree in which
+we would make them subservient, we can assign no limits. Moreover, as
+pain is a more powerful instrument for securing obedience than
+pleasure, a man will desire to possess 'unlimited power of inflicting
+pain upon others.' Will he also desire, it may be asked, to make use
+of it? The 'chain of inference,' he replies, in this case is close and
+strong 'to a most unusual degree.' A man desires the actions of others
+to be in correspondence with his own wishes. 'Terror' will be the
+'grand instrument.'<a name="FNanchor_89_89" id="FNanchor_89_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_89_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a> It thus follows that the very principle upon
+which government is founded leads, in the absence of checks, 'not only
+to that degree of plunder which leaves the members (of a community)
+... the bare means of subsistence, but to that degree of cruelty which
+is necessary to keep in existence the most intense terror.' An English
+gentleman, he says, is a favourable specimen of civilisation,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> and yet
+West Indian slavery shows of what cruelty he could be guilty when
+unchecked. If equal cruelty has not been exhibited elsewhere, it is,
+he seems to think, because men were not 'the same as sheep in respect
+to their shepherd,'<a name="FNanchor_90_90" id="FNanchor_90_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_90_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a> and may therefore resist if driven too far.
+The difficulty upon this showing is to understand how any government,
+except the most brutal tyranny, ever has been, or ever can be,
+possible. What is the combining principle which can weld together such
+a mass of hostile and mutually repellent atoms? How they can even form
+the necessary compact is difficult to understand, and the view seems
+to clash with his own avowed purpose. It is Mill's aim, as it was
+Bentham's, to secure the greatest happiness of the greatest number;
+and yet he seems to set out by proving as a 'law of human nature' that
+nobody can desire the happiness of any one except himself. He quotes
+from Montesquieu the saying, which shows an 'acute sense of this
+important truth,' 'that every one who has power is led to abuse
+it.'<a name="FNanchor_91_91" id="FNanchor_91_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_91_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a> Rather it would seem, according to Mill, all power implies
+abuse in its very essence. The problem seems to be how to make
+universal cohesion out of universal repulsion.</p>
+
+<p>Mill has his remedy for this deeply seated evil. He attacks, as
+Bentham had already done, the old-fashioned theory, according to which
+the British Constitution was an admirable mixture of the three 'simple
+forms.' Two of the powers, he argues, will always agree to 'swallow up
+the third.'<a name="FNanchor_92_92" id="FNanchor_92_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_92_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a> 'The monarchy and aristocracy have all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> possible
+motives for endeavouring to obtain unlimited power over the persons
+and property of the community,' though the democracy, as he also says,
+has every possible motive for preventing them. And in England, as he
+no doubt meant his readers to understand, the monarchy and aristocracy
+had to a great extent succeeded. Where, then, are we to look? To the
+'grand discovery of modern times,' namely, the representative system.
+If this does not solve all difficulties we shall be forced to the
+conclusion that good government is impossible. Fortunately, however,
+the representative system may be made perfectly effective. This
+follows easily. It would, as he has said,<a name="FNanchor_93_93" id="FNanchor_93_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_93_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a> be a 'contradiction in
+terms' to suppose that the community at large can 'have an interest
+opposite to its interest,' In the Bentham formula, it can have 'no
+sinister interest.' It cannot desire its own misery. Though the
+community cannot act as a whole, it can act through representatives.
+It is necessary to intrust power to a governing body; but that body
+can be prevented by adequate checks from misusing its powers. Indeed,
+the common theory of the British Constitution was precisely that the
+House of Commons was 'the checking body.'<a name="FNanchor_94_94" id="FNanchor_94_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_94_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a> The whole problem is to
+secure a body which shall effectively discharge the function thus
+attributed in theory to the House of Commons. That will be done when
+the body is chosen in such a way that its interests are necessarily
+coincident with those of the community at large. Hence there is of
+course no difficulty in deducing the actual demands of reformers.
+Without defining precise limits, he shows that representatives must be
+elected for brief periods, and that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> right to a vote must at least
+be wide enough to prevent the electoral body from forming a class with
+'sinister interests.' He makes some remarkable qualifications, with
+the view apparently of not startling his readers too much by absolute
+and impracticable claims. He thinks that the necessary identity of
+interest would still be secured if classes were unrepresented whose
+interests are 'indisputably included in those of others.' Children's
+interests are involved in those of their parents, and the interests of
+'almost all women' in those of their fathers or husbands.<a name="FNanchor_95_95" id="FNanchor_95_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_95_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a> Again,
+all men under forty might be omitted without mischief, for 'the great
+majority of old men have sons whose interests they regard as an
+essential part of their own. This is a law of human nature.'<a name="FNanchor_96_96" id="FNanchor_96_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_96_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> There
+would, he observes, be no danger that men above forty would try to
+reduce the 'rest of the community to the state of abject slaves.'
+Mill, as his son tells us,<a name="FNanchor_97_97" id="FNanchor_97_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_97_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a> disowned any intention of positively
+advocating these exclusions. He only meant to say that they were not
+condemned by his general principle. The doctrine, however, about
+women, even as thus understood, scandalised his younger followers.</p>
+
+<p>Mill proceeds to argue at some length that a favourite scheme of some
+moderate reformers, for the representation of classes, could only lead
+to 'a motley aristocracy,' and then answers two objections. The first
+is that his scheme would lead to the abolition of the monarchy and the
+House of Lords. The reply is simple and significant. It would only
+lead to that result if a monarchy or a House of Lords were favourable
+to bad government. He does not inquire whether they are so in fact.
+The second<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> objection is that the people do not understand their own
+interest, and to this his answer is more remarkable. If the doctrine
+be true, he says, we are in 'deplorable' position: we have to choose
+between evils which will be designedly produced by those who have both
+the power to oppress and an interest in oppression; and the evils
+which will be accidentally produced by men who would act well if they
+recognised their own interests.<a name="FNanchor_98_98" id="FNanchor_98_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_98_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a> Now the first evil is in any case
+the worst, for it supposes an 'invariable' evil; while in the other
+case, men may at least act well by accident. A governing class, that
+is with interests separate from those of the government, <i>must</i> be
+bad. If the interests be identical, the government <i>may</i> be bad. It
+will be bad if ignorant, but ignorance is curable. Here he appeals for
+once to a historical case. The priesthood at the Reformation argued on
+behalf of their own power from the danger that the people would make a
+bad use of the Bible. The Bible should therefore be kept for the
+sacred caste. They had, Mill thinks, a stronger case in appearance
+than the Tories, and yet the effect of allowing the people to judge
+for themselves in religious matters has been productive of good
+effects 'to a degree which has totally altered the condition of human
+nature.'<a name="FNanchor_99_99" id="FNanchor_99_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_99_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a> Why should not the people be trusted to judge for
+themselves in politics? This implies a doctrine which had great
+influence with the Utilitarians. In the remarkable essay upon
+'Education,' which is contained in the volume of reprints, Mill
+discusses the doctrine of Helv&eacute;tius that all the differences between<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>
+men are due to education. Without pronouncing positively upon the
+differences between individuals, Mill observes that, at any rate, the
+enormous difference between classes of men is wholly due to
+education.<a name="FNanchor_100_100" id="FNanchor_100_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_100_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a> He takes education, it must be observed, in the widest
+possible sense, as meaning what would now be called the whole action
+of the 'environment' upon the individual. This includes, as he shows
+at length, domestic education, all the vast influence exercised upon a
+child in his family, 'technical education,' by which he means the
+ordinary school teaching, 'social education,' that is the influences
+which we imbibe from the current opinions of our neighbours, and
+finally, 'political education,' which he calls the 'keystone of the
+arch.' The means, he argues, by which the 'grand objects of desire may
+be attained, depend almost wholly upon the political machine.'<a name="FNanchor_101_101" id="FNanchor_101_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_101_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a> If
+that 'machine' be so constituted as to make the grand objects of
+desire the 'natural prizes of just and virtuous conduct, of high
+services to mankind and of the generous and amiable sentiments from
+which great endeavours in the service of mankind naturally proceed, it
+is natural to see diffused among mankind a generous ardour in the
+acquisition of those admirable qualities which prepare a man for
+admirable action, great intelligence, perfect self-command, and
+over-ruling benevolence.' The contrary will be the case where the
+political machine prompts to the flattery of a small ruling body.</p>
+
+<p>This characteristic passage betrays an enthusiasm which really burned
+under Mill's stern outside. He confines himself habitually to the
+forms of severe logic, and scorns anything like an appeal to
+sentiment. The trammels of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> scientific manner impede his utterance
+a little, even when he is speaking with unwonted fervour. Yet the
+prosaic Utilitarian who has been laying down as a universal law that
+the strong will always plunder the weak, and that all rulers will
+reduce their subjects to abject slavery, is absolutely convinced, it
+seems, of the possibility of somehow transmuting selfishness into
+public spirit, justice, generosity, and devotion to truth. Equally
+characteristic is the faith in the 'political machine.' Mill speaks as
+if somebody had 'discovered' the representative system as Watt (more
+or less) discovered the steam-engine; that to 'discover' the system is
+the same thing as to set it to work; and that, once at work, it will
+be omnipotent. He is not less certain that a good constitution will
+make men virtuous, than was Bentham that he could grind rogues honest
+by the Panopticon. The indefinite modifiability of character was the
+ground upon which the Utilitarians based their hopes of progress; and
+it was connected in their minds with the doctrine of which his essay
+upon education is a continuous application. The theory of 'association
+of ideas' appeared to him to be of the utmost importance in education
+and in politics, because it implied almost unlimited possibilities of
+moulding human beings to fit them for a new order. In politics this
+implied, as J. S. Mill says,<a name="FNanchor_102_102" id="FNanchor_102_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_102_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a> 'unbounded confidence' in the
+influence of 'reason.' Teach the people and let them vote freely, and
+everything would follow.</p>
+
+<p>This gives Mill's answer to one obvious objection. The Conservative
+who answered him by dwelling upon the ignorance of the lower classes
+was in some respects<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> preaching to a convert. Nobody was more
+convinced than Mill of the depths of popular ignorance or, indeed, of
+the stupidity of mankind in general. The labourers who cheered Orator
+Hunt at Peterloo were dull enough; but so were the peers who cheered
+Eldon in the House of Lords; and the labourers at least desired
+general prosperity, while the peers were content if their own rents
+were kept up. With general education, however, even the lower orders
+of the people would be fit for power, especially when we take into
+account one other remarkable conclusion. The 'wise and good,' he says,
+'in any class of men do, for all general purposes, govern the
+rest.'<a name="FNanchor_103_103" id="FNanchor_103_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_103_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a> Now, the class in which wisdom and virtue are commonest is
+not the aristocracy, but the middle rank. Another truth follows 'from
+the principles of human nature in general.' That is the rather
+surprising truth that the lower orders take their opinions from the
+middle class; apply to the middle class for help in sickness and old
+age; hold up the same class as a model to be imitated by their
+children, and 'account it an honour' to adopt its opinions.
+Consequently, however far the franchise were extended, it is this
+class which has produced the most distinguished ornaments of art,
+science, and even of legislation, which will ultimately decide upon
+political questions. 'The great majority of the people,' is his
+concluding sentence, 'never cease to be guided by that rank; and we
+may with some confidence challenge the adversaries of the people to
+produce a single instance to the contrary in the history of the
+world.'</p>
+
+<p>This article upon 'Government' gives the very essence of Utilitarian
+politics. I am afraid that it also suggests<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> that the political theory
+was chiefly remarkable for a simple-minded audacity. Good political
+treatises are rare. They are apt to be pamphlets in disguise, using
+'general principles' for showy perorations, or to be a string of
+platitudes with no definite application to facts. They are fit only
+for the platform, or only for the professor's lecture-room. Mill's
+treatise, according to his most famous antagonist, was a mere bundle
+of pretentious sophistry.</p>
+
+<p>Macaulay came forth like a Whig David to slay the Utilitarian Goliath.
+The <i>Encyclop&aelig;dia</i> articles, finished in 1824, were already in
+1825,<a name="FNanchor_104_104" id="FNanchor_104_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_104_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a> as Mill says, text-books of the young men at the Cambridge
+Union. Macaulay, who won his Trinity fellowship in 1824, had there
+argued the questions with his friend Charles Austin, one of Bentham's
+neophytes. In the next year Macaulay made his first appearance as an
+Edinburgh Reviewer; and in 1829 he took the field against Mill. In the
+January number he attacked the essay upon 'Government'; and in two
+articles in the succeeding numbers of the <i>Review</i> replied to a
+defence made by some Utilitarian in the <i>Westminster</i>. Mill himself
+made no direct reply; and Macaulay showed his gratitude for Mill's
+generosity in regard to the Indian appointment by declining to
+republish the articles.<a name="FNanchor_105_105" id="FNanchor_105_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_105_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a> He confessed to have treated his opponent
+with a want of proper respect, though he retracted none of his
+criticisms. The offence had its excuses. Macaulay was a man under
+thirty, in the full flush of early success; nor was Mill's own
+treatment of antagonists conciliatory. The dogmatic arrogance of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> the
+Utilitarians was not unnaturally met by an equally arrogant
+countercheck. Macaulay ridicules the Utilitarians for their claim to
+be the defenders of the true political faith. He is afraid not of them
+but of the 'discredit of their alliance'; he wishes to draw a broad
+line between judicious reformers and a 'sect which having derived all
+its influence from the countenance which they imprudently bestowed
+upon it, hates them with the deadly hatred of ingratitude.' No party,
+he says, was ever so unpopular. It had already disgusted people with
+political economy; and would disgust them with parliamentary reform,
+if it could associate itself in public opinion with the cause<a name="FNanchor_106_106" id="FNanchor_106_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_106_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a>.
+This was indeed to turn the tables. The half-hearted disciple was
+insulting the thoroughbred teacher who had borne the heat and burthen
+of the day, and from whom he had learned his own doctrine. Upon this
+and other impertinences&mdash;the assertion, for example, that Utilitarians
+were as incapable of understanding an argument as any 'true blue
+baronet after the third bottle at a Pitt Club'&mdash;it is needless to
+dwell. They illustrate, however, the strong resentment with which the
+Utilitarians were regarded by the classes from whom the Whigs drew
+their most cultivated supporters. Macaulay's line of argument will
+show what was the real conflict of theory.</p>
+
+<p>His view is, in fact, a long amplification of the charge that Mill was
+adopting a purely <i>a priori</i> method. Mill's style is as dry as Euclid,
+and his arguments are presented with an affectation of logical
+precision. Mill has inherited the 'spirit and style of the Schoolmen.
+He is an Aristotelian of the fifteenth century.' He writes about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>
+government as though he was unaware that any actual governments had
+ever existed. He deduces his science from a single assumption of
+certain 'propensities of human nature.'<a name="FNanchor_107_107" id="FNanchor_107_107"></a><a href="#Footnote_107_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a> After dealing with Mill's
+arguments, Macaulay winds up with one of his characteristic purple
+patches about the method of induction. He invokes the authority of
+Bacon&mdash;a great name with which in those days writers conjured without
+a very precise consideration of its true significance. By Bacon's
+method we are to construct in time the 'noble science of politics,'
+which is equally removed from the barren theories of Utilitarian
+sophists and the petty craft of intriguing jobbers. The Utilitarians
+are schoolmen, while the Whigs are the true followers of Bacon and
+scientific induction. J. S. Mill admitted within certain limits the
+relevancy of this criticism, and was led by the reflections which it
+started to a theory of his own. Meanwhile, he observes that his father
+ought to have justified himself by declaring that the book was not a
+'scientific treatise on politics,' but an 'argument for parliamentary
+reform.'<a name="FNanchor_108_108" id="FNanchor_108_108"></a><a href="#Footnote_108_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a> It is not quite easy to see how James Mill could have
+made such a 'justification' and distinguished it from a recantation.</p>
+
+<p>If Mill really meant what Macaulay took him to mean, it would be
+superfluous to argue the question gravely. The reasoning is only fit,
+like the reasoning of all Macaulay's antagonists, for the proverbial
+schoolboy. Mill, according to Macaulay, proposes to discover what
+governments are good; and, finding that experience gives no clear
+answer, throws experience aside and appeals to absolute laws of human
+nature. One such 'law' asserts that the strong will plunder the weak.
+Therefore <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>all governments except the representative must be
+oppressive, and rule by sheer terror. Mill's very reason for relying
+upon this argument is precisely that the facts contradict it. Some
+despotisms work well, and some democracies ill; therefore we must
+prove by logic that all despotisms are bad, and all democracies good.
+Is this really Mill's case?</p>
+
+<p>An answer given by Mill's champion, to which Macaulay replies in his
+last article, suggests some explanation of Mill's position. Macaulay
+had paid no attention to one highly important phrase. The terrible
+consequences which Mill deduces from the selfishness of rulers will
+follow, he says, 'if nothing checks.'<a name="FNanchor_109_109" id="FNanchor_109_109"></a><a href="#Footnote_109_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a> Supplying this
+qualification, as implied throughout, we may give a better meaning to
+Mill's argument. A simple observation of experience is insufficient.
+The phenomena are too complex; governments of the most varying kinds
+have shown the same faults; and governments of the same kind have
+shown them in the most various degrees. Therefore the method which
+Macaulay suggests is inapplicable. We should reason about government,
+says Macaulay,<a name="FNanchor_110_110" id="FNanchor_110_110"></a><a href="#Footnote_110_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a> as Bacon told us to reason about heat. Find all
+the circumstances in which hot bodies agree, and you will determine
+the principle of heat. Find all the circumstances in which good
+governments agree, and you will find the principles of good
+government. Certainly; but the process, as Macaulay admits, would be a
+long one. Rather, it would be endless. What 'circumstances' can be the
+same in all good governments in all times and places? Mill held in
+substance, that we could lay down certain broad<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> principles about
+human nature, the existence of which is of course known from
+'experience', and by showing how they would work, if restrained by no
+distinct checks, obtain certain useful conclusions. Mill indicates
+this line of reply in his own attack upon Mackintosh.<a name="FNanchor_111_111" id="FNanchor_111_111"></a><a href="#Footnote_111_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a> There he
+explains that what he really meant was to set forth a principle
+recognised by Berkeley, Hume, Blackstone, and, especially, in Plato's
+<i>Republic</i>. Plato's treatise is a development of the principle that
+'identity of interests affords the only security for good government.'
+Without such identity of interest, said Plato, the guardians of the
+flock become wolves. Hume<a name="FNanchor_112_112" id="FNanchor_112_112"></a><a href="#Footnote_112_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a> had given a pithy expression of the
+same view in the maxim 'established,' as he says, 'by political
+writers,' that in framing the 'checks and controls of the
+constitution, every man ought to be supposed a knave and to have no
+other end in his actions than private interest.' Mill points this by
+referring to the 'organs of aristocratical opinion' for the last fifty
+years. The incessant appeal has been for 'confidence in public men,'
+and confidence is another name for scope for misrule.<a name="FNanchor_113_113" id="FNanchor_113_113"></a><a href="#Footnote_113_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a> This, he
+explains, was what he meant by the statement (which Mackintosh
+considered to have been exploded by Macaulay) that every man pursued
+his own interest.<a name="FNanchor_114_114" id="FNanchor_114_114"></a><a href="#Footnote_114_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a> It referred to the class legislation of the
+great aristocratic ring: kings, nobles, church, law, and army.
+Utilitarianism, in its political relations, was one continuous warfare
+against these sinister 'interests,' The master-evil of the
+contemporary political state undoubtedly implied a want of
+responsibility. A political trust was habitually<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> confounded with
+private property. Moreover, whatever else may be essential to good
+government, one essential is a strong sense of responsibility in the
+governors. That is a very sound principle, though not an axiom from
+which all political science can be deduced. If the essay on
+'Government' was really meant as a kind of political Euclid&mdash;as a
+deduction of the best system of government from this single principle
+of responsibility&mdash;it was as grotesque as Macaulay asserted. Mill
+might perhaps have met the criticism by lowering his claims as his son
+suggests. He certainly managed to express his argument in such terms
+that it has an uncomfortable appearance of being intended for a
+scientific exposition.</p>
+
+<p>This deserves notice because the position is characteristic of the
+Utilitarians' method. Their appeals to experience always end by
+absolute assertions. We shall find the same difficulty in their
+economic inquiries. When accused, for example, of laying down absolute
+principles in such cases, they reply that they are only speaking of
+'tendencies,' and recognise the existence of 'checks.' They treat of
+what would be, if certain forces acted without limit, as a necessary
+step towards discovering what is when the limits exist. They appear to
+their opponents to forget the limits in their practical conclusions.
+This political argument is an instance of the same method. The genesis
+of his theory is plain. Mill's 'government,' like Bentham's, is simply
+the conception of legal 'sovereignty' transferred to the sphere of
+politics. Mill's exposition is only distinguished from his master's by
+the clearness with which he brings out the underlying assumptions. The
+legal sovereign is omnipotent, for what he declares to be the law is
+therefore the law.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> The law is his commands enforced by 'sanctions,'
+and therefore by organised force. The motives for obedience are the
+fear of the gallows on one side, and, on the other, the desire of
+protection for life and property. Law, again, is the ultimate social
+bond, and can be made at will by the sovereign. He thus becomes so
+omnipotent that it is virtually assumed that he can even create
+himself. Not only can the sovereign, once constituted, give commands
+enforced by coercive sanctions upon any kind of conduct, but he can
+determine his own constitution. He can at once, for example, create a
+representative system in practice, when it has been discovered in
+theory, and can by judicious regulations so distribute 'self-interest'
+as to produce philanthropy and public spirit. Macaulay's answer really
+makes a different assumption. He accepts the purely 'empirical' or
+'rule of thumb' position. It is idle, he says, to ask what would
+happen if there were no 'checks.' It is like leaving out the effect of
+friction in a problem of mechanics. The logic may be correct, but the
+conclusions are false in practice.<a name="FNanchor_115_115" id="FNanchor_115_115"></a><a href="#Footnote_115_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a> Now this 'friction' was
+precisely the favourite expedient of the Utilitarians in political
+economy. To reason about facts, they say, you must analyse, and
+therefore provisionally disregard the 'checks,' which must be
+afterwards introduced in practical applications. Macaulay is really
+bidding us take 'experience' in the lump, and refrains from the only
+treatment which can lead to a scientific result. His argument, in
+fact, agrees with that of his famous essay on Bacon, where we learn
+that philosophy applied to moral questions is all nonsense, and that
+science is simply crude common-sense. He is really saying that all
+political<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> reasoning is impossible, and that we must trust to
+unreasoned observation. Macaulay, indeed, has good grounds of
+criticism. He shows very forcibly the absurdity of transferring the
+legal to the political sovereignty. Parliament might, as he says, make
+a law that every gentleman with &pound;2000 a year might flog a pauper with
+a cat-of-nine-tails whenever he pleased. But, as the first exercise of
+such a power would be the 'last day of the English aristocracy,' their
+power is strictly limited in fact.<a name="FNanchor_116_116" id="FNanchor_116_116"></a><a href="#Footnote_116_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a> That gives very clearly the
+difference between legal and political sovereignty. What parliament
+makes law is law, but is not therefore enforceable. We have to go
+behind the commands and sanctions before we understand what is the
+actual power of government. It is very far from omnipotent. Macaulay,
+seeing this, proceeds to throw aside Mill's argument against the
+possibility of a permanent division of power. The <i>de facto</i>
+limitation of the sovereign's power justifies the old theory about
+'mixed forms of government.' 'Mixed governments' are not impossible,
+for they are real. All governments are, in fact, 'mixed.' Louis <span class="smcap">xiv.</span>
+could not cut off the head of any one whom he happened to dislike. An
+oriental despot is strictly bound by the religious prejudices of his
+subjects. If 'sovereignty' means such power it is a chimera in
+practice, or only realised approximately when, as in the case of negro
+slavery, a class is actually ruled by force in the hands of a really
+external power. And yet the attack upon 'mixed governments,' which
+Bentham had expounded in the <i>Fragment</i>, has a real force which
+Macaulay seems to overlook. Mill's argument against a possible
+'balance' of power was, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> Macaulay asserted, equally applicable to
+the case of independent sovereigns; yet France might be stronger at
+Calais and England at Dover.<a name="FNanchor_117_117" id="FNanchor_117_117"></a><a href="#Footnote_117_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a> Mill might have replied that a state
+is a state precisely because, and in so far as, there is an agreement
+to recognise a common authority or sovereign. Government does not
+imply a 'mixture,' but a fusion of power. There is a unity, though not
+the abstract unity of the Utilitarian sovereign. The weakness of the
+Utilitarians is to speak as though the sovereign, being external to
+each individual, could therefore be regarded as external to the whole
+society. He rules as a strong nation may rule a weak dependency. When
+the sovereign becomes also the society, the power is regarded as
+equally absolute, though now applied to the desirable end of
+maximising happiness. The whole argument ignores the simple
+consideration that the sovereign is himself in all cases the product
+of the society over which he rules, and his whole action, even in the
+most despotic governments, determined throughout by organic instincts,
+explaining and not ultimately explicable by coercion. Macaulay's
+doctrine partially recognises this by falling back upon the Whig
+theory of checks and balances, and the mixture of three mysterious
+entities, monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. But, as Bentham had
+sufficiently shown in the <i>Fragment</i>, the theory becomes hopelessly
+unreal when we try to translate it into facts. There are not three
+separate forces, conflicting like three independent forces, but a
+complex set of social institutions bound together into a whole. It is
+impossible really to regard government as a permanent balance of
+antagonistic forces, confronting each other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> like the three duellists
+in Sheridan's <i>Critic</i>. The practical result of that theory is to
+substitute for the 'greatest happiness' principle the vague criterion
+of the preservation of an equilibrium between indefinable forces; and
+to make the ultimate end of government the maintenance as long as
+possible of a balance resting on no ulterior principle, but
+undoubtedly pleasant for the comfortable classes. Nothing is left but
+the rough guesswork, which, if a fine name be wanted, may be called
+Baconian induction. The 'matchless constitution,' as Bentham calls it,
+represents a convenient compromise, and the tendency is to attach
+exaggerated importance to its ostensible terms. When Macaulay
+asserted against Mill<a name="FNanchor_118_118" id="FNanchor_118_118"></a><a href="#Footnote_118_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a> that it was impossible to say which
+element&mdash;monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy&mdash;had gained strength in
+England in the last century, he is obviously looking at the formul&aelig;
+and not at the social body behind.</p>
+
+<p>This leads to considerations really more important than the
+argumentation about <i>a priori</i> and inductive methods. Mill in practice
+knew very well the qualifications necessary before his principles
+applied. He showed it in his Indian evidence; and Place could have
+told him, had it required telling, that the actual political machinery
+worked by very strange and tortuous methods. Yet he was content to
+override such considerations when he is expounding his theory, and
+laid himself open to Macaulay's broad common-sense retort. The nation
+at large cannot, he says, have a 'sinister interest.' It must desire
+legislation which is beneficial to the whole. This is to make the vast
+assumption that every individual will desire what is good for all, and
+will be a sufficient judge of what is good.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> But is it clear that a
+majority will even desire what is good for the whole? May they not
+wish to sacrifice both other classes and coming generations to their
+own instantaneous advantages? Is it plain that even enlightenment of
+mind would induce a poor man to see his own advantage in the policy
+which would in the long run be best for the whole society? You are
+bound, said Macaulay, to show that the poor man will not believe that
+he personally would benefit by direct plunder of the rich; and indeed
+that he would not be right in so believing. The nation, no doubt,
+would suffer, but in the immediate period which alone is contemplated
+by a selfish pauper, the mass of the poor might get more pleasure out
+of confiscation. Will they not, on your own principles, proceed to
+confiscation? Shall we not have such a catastrophe as the reign of
+terror?</p>
+
+<p>The Westminster Reviewer retorted by saying that Macaulay prophesied a
+reign of terror as a necessary consequence of an extended franchise.
+Macaulay, skilfully enough, protested against this interpretation. 'We
+say again and again,' he declares, 'that we are on the defensive. We
+do not think it necessary to prove that a quack medicine is poison.
+Let the vendor prove it to be sanative. We do not pretend to show that
+universal suffrage is an evil. Let its advocates show it to be a
+good.'<a name="FNanchor_119_119" id="FNanchor_119_119"></a><a href="#Footnote_119_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a> Mill rests his whole case upon the selfishness of mankind.
+Will not the selfishness lead the actual majority at a given moment to
+plunder the rich and to disregard the interests of their own
+successors?</p>
+
+<p>Macaulay's declaration that he was only 'upon the defensive' might be
+justifiable in an advocate. His real<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> thought may be inferred from a
+speech on the charter made in 1842. The chartists' petition of that
+year had asked for universal suffrage. Universal suffrage, he replies,
+would be incompatible with the 'institution of property.'<a name="FNanchor_120_120" id="FNanchor_120_120"></a><a href="#Footnote_120_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a> If the
+chartists acted upon their avowed principles, they would enforce 'one
+vast spoliation.' Macaulay could not say, of course, what would
+actually result, but his 'guess' was that we should see 'something
+more horrible than can be imagined&mdash;something like the siege of
+Jerusalem on a far larger scale.' The very best event he could
+anticipate&mdash;'and what must the state of things be, if an Englishman
+and a Whig calls such an event the very best?'&mdash;would be a military
+despotism, giving a 'sort of protection to a miserable wreck of all
+that immense glory and prosperity.'<a name="FNanchor_121_121" id="FNanchor_121_121"></a><a href="#Footnote_121_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a> So in the criticism of Mill
+he had suggested that if his opponent's principles were correct, and
+his scheme adopted, 'literature, science, commerce, manufactures'
+would be swept away, and that a 'few half-naked fishermen would divide
+with the owls and foxes the ruins of the greatest of European
+cities.'<a name="FNanchor_122_122" id="FNanchor_122_122"></a><a href="#Footnote_122_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a></p>
+
+<p>Carefully as Macaulay guards himself in his articles upon Mill, the
+speech shows sufficiently what was his 'guess'; that is, his real
+expectation. This gives the vital difference. What Macaulay professes
+to deduce from Mill's principles he really holds himself, and he holds
+it because he argues, as indeed everybody has to argue, pretty much on
+Mill's method. He does not really remain in the purely sceptical
+position which would correspond to his version of 'Baconian
+induction.' He argues, just as Mill would have argued, from general<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>
+rules about human nature. Selfish and ignorant people will, he thinks,
+be naturally inclined to plunder; therefore, if they have power, they
+will plunder. So Mill had argued that a selfish class would rule for
+its own sinister interests and therefore not for the happiness of the
+greatest number. The argument is the same, and it is the only line of
+argument which is possible till, if that should ever happen, a genuine
+science of politics shall have been constituted. The only question is
+whether it shall take the pomp of <i>a priori</i> speculation or conceal
+itself under a show of 'Baconian induction.'</p>
+
+<p>On one point they agree. Both Mill and Macaulay profess unbounded
+confidence in the virtue and wisdom of the middle, that is, of their
+own class. Macaulay hopes for a reform bill which will make the votes
+of the House of Commons 'the express image of the opinion of the
+middle orders of Britain.'<a name="FNanchor_123_123" id="FNanchor_123_123"></a><a href="#Footnote_123_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a> Mill holds that the middle class will
+retain this moral authority, however widely the franchise be extended;
+while Macaulay fears that they will be swamped by its extension to the
+masses. The reform bill which they joined in supporting was regarded
+by the Radicals as a payment on account; while the Whig hoped that it
+would be a full and final discharge. The Radical held that no barriers
+against democracy were needed; he took for granted that a democracy
+would find its natural leaders in the educated and intelligent. The
+Whig, to whom such confidence appeared to be altogether misplaced, had
+to find some justification for the 'checks' and 'balances' which he
+thought essential.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="subhead2">II. WHIGGISM</p>
+
+<p>I have spoken of Macaulay's articles because they represent the most
+pointed conflict between the Utilitarian and the Whig. Macaulay
+belongs properly to the next generation, but he appeared as the
+mouthpiece of the earlier group of writers who in Mill's time
+delivered through the <i>Edinburgh Review</i> the true oracles of the Whig
+faith. Upon that ground Mill had assailed them in his article. Their
+creed, he said, was a 'see-saw.' The Whigs were aristocrats as much as
+the Tories. They were simply the 'outs' who hoped to be the 'ins.'
+They trimmed their sails to catch public opinion, but were careful not
+to drift into the true popular currents. They had no desire to limit
+the power which they hoped one day to possess. They would attack
+abuses&mdash;the slave-trade or the penal laws&mdash;to gain credit for
+liberality and enlightenment, when the abuses were such as could be
+removed without injuring the power of the aristocracy. They could use
+'vague generalities' about liberty and so forth, but only to evade
+definite applications. When any measure was proposed which really
+threatened the power of the privileged classes, they could bring out a
+contradictory set of fine phrases about Jacobinism and democracy.
+Their whole argument was a shuffle and they themselves mere selfish
+trimmers.<a name="FNanchor_124_124" id="FNanchor_124_124"></a><a href="#Footnote_124_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a> To this Jeffrey replied (in December 1826) by accepting
+the position.<a name="FNanchor_125_125" id="FNanchor_125_125"></a><a href="#Footnote_125_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a> He pleaded guilty to a love of 'trimming,' which
+meant a love of the British Constitution. The constitution was a
+compromise&mdash;a balance of opposing forces&mdash;and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> only question could
+be whether they were properly balanced. The answer was fair enough.
+Mill was imputing motives too easily, and assuming that the Reviewers
+saw the abuses in the same light as he did, and were truckling to
+public robbers in hopes of sharing the plunder. He was breaking a
+butterfly upon a wheel. The Edinburgh Reviewers were not missionaries
+of a creed. They were a set of brilliant young men, to whom the
+<i>Review</i> was at first a mere pastime, occupying such leisure as was
+allowed by their professional pursuits. They were indeed men of
+liberal sympathies, intelligent and independent enough to hold by a
+party which was out of power. They had read Hume and Voltaire and
+Rousseau; they had sat at the feet of Dugald Stewart; and were in
+sympathy with intellectual liberalism. But they were men who meant to
+become judges, members of parliament, or even bishops. Nothing in
+their social atmosphere had stimulated the deep resentment against
+social injustice which makes the fanatic or the enthusiast. We may
+take as their interpreter the Whig philosopher James Mackintosh
+(1765-1832), a man of wide reading, both in history and philosophy, an
+eloquent orator, and a very able writer. Mackintosh, said
+Coleridge,<a name="FNanchor_126_126" id="FNanchor_126_126"></a><a href="#Footnote_126_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a> is the 'king of the men of talent'; by which was
+intimated that, as a man of talent, he was not, like some people, a
+man of genius. Mackintosh, that is, was a man to accept plausible
+formul&aelig; and to make them more plausible; not a man to pierce to the
+heart of things, or reveal fruitful germs of thought. His intellect
+was judicial; given to compromises, affecting a judicious <i>via media</i>,
+and endeavouring to reconcile antagonistic tendencies.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> Thoroughgoing
+or one-sided thinkers, and Mill in particular, regarded him with
+excessive antipathy as a typical representative of the opposite
+intellectual tendencies. Mackintosh's political attitude is
+instructive. At the outbreak of the French revolution he was a
+struggling young Scot, seeking his fortune in London, just turning
+from medicine to the bar, and supporting himself partly by journalism.
+He became secretary to the Society of the 'Friends of the People,' the
+Whig rival of the revolutionary clubs, and in April 1791 sprang into
+fame by his <i>Vindici&aelig; Gallic&aelig;</i>. The Whigs had not yet lost the fervour
+with which they had welcomed the downfall of the Bastille. Burke's
+<i>Reflections</i>, the work of a great thinker in a state of irritation
+bordering upon frenzy, had sounded the note of alarm. The revolution,
+as Burke maintained, was in fact the avatar of a diabolic power. It
+meant an attack upon the very organic principles of society. It
+therefore implied a complete breach of historical continuity, and a
+war against the reverence for 'prescription' and tradition which is
+essential to all healthy development. To his extreme opponents the
+same theory afforded the justification of the revolution. It meant
+that every institution was to be thrown into the crucible, and a new
+world to arise governed only by reason. The view very ably defended by
+Mackintosh was opposed to both. He looks upon the French revolution as
+a more complete application of the principles of Locke and the English
+Whigs of 1688. The revolutionists are, as he urges,<a name="FNanchor_127_127" id="FNanchor_127_127"></a><a href="#Footnote_127_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a> applying the
+principles which had been worked out by the 'philosophers of Europe'
+during the preceding century. They were not,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> as Burke urged,
+rejecting experience for theory. The relation between their doctrine
+and politics is analogous to the relation between geometry and
+mechanics.<a name="FNanchor_128_128" id="FNanchor_128_128"></a><a href="#Footnote_128_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a> We are now in the position of a people who should be
+familiar with Newton, but in shipbuilding be still on a level with the
+Esquimaux. The 'rights of man' appear to him to mean, not, as Burke
+and Bentham once agreed, a set of 'anarchical fallacies,' but a set of
+fundamental moral principles; and the declaration of them a most wise
+and 'auspicious' commencement of the 'regenerating labours' of the new
+legislators. The French revolution represented what Somers would now
+approve if he had our advantages.<a name="FNanchor_129_129" id="FNanchor_129_129"></a><a href="#Footnote_129_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a> A thoroughgoing change had
+become necessary in France. The church, army, and law were now
+'incorrigible.'<a name="FNanchor_130_130" id="FNanchor_130_130"></a><a href="#Footnote_130_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a> Burke had seen, in the confiscation of church
+property, an attempt to abolish Christianity. To Mackintosh it seemed
+to be a reform justifiable in principle, which, though too roughly
+carried out, would reduce 'a servile and imperious priesthood to
+humble utility.'<a name="FNanchor_131_131" id="FNanchor_131_131"></a><a href="#Footnote_131_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a> A poor priesthood, indeed, might incline to
+popular superstition. We could console ourselves by reflecting that
+the power of the church, as a corporation, was broken, and that
+toleration and philosophy would restrain fanaticism.<a name="FNanchor_132_132" id="FNanchor_132_132"></a><a href="#Footnote_132_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a> The
+assignats were still 'almost at par.'<a name="FNanchor_133_133" id="FNanchor_133_133"></a><a href="#Footnote_133_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a> The sale of the national
+property would nearly extinguish the debt. France had 'renounced for
+ever the idea of conquest,'<a name="FNanchor_134_134" id="FNanchor_134_134"></a><a href="#Footnote_134_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a> and had no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> temptations to war,
+except her colonies. Their commercial inutility and political
+mischievousness had been so 'unanimously demonstrated,' that the
+French empire must soon be delivered from 'this cumbrous and
+destructive appendage.' An armed people, moreover, could never be used
+like a mercenary army to suppress liberty. There was no danger of
+military despotism, and France would hereafter seek for a pure glory
+by cultivating the arts of peace and extending the happiness of
+mankind.<a name="FNanchor_135_135" id="FNanchor_135_135"></a><a href="#Footnote_135_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a></p>
+
+<p>No wonder that Mackintosh, with these views, thought that the history
+of the fall of the Bastille would 'kindle in unborn millions the holy
+enthusiasm of freedom';<a name="FNanchor_136_136" id="FNanchor_136_136"></a><a href="#Footnote_136_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a> or that, in the early disorders, he saw
+temporary aberrations of mobs, destined to be speedily suppressed by
+the true leaders of the revolution. Mackintosh saw, I take it, about
+as far as most philosophers, that is, about as far as people who are
+not philosophers. He observes much that Burke ought to have
+remembered, and keeps fairly to the philosophical principle which he
+announces of attributing the revolution to general causes, and not to
+the schemes of individuals.<a name="FNanchor_137_137" id="FNanchor_137_137"></a><a href="#Footnote_137_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a> When assignats became waste paper,
+when the guillotine got to work, when the religion of reason was being
+set up against Christianity, when the French were conquering Europe,
+when a military despotism was arising, when, in short, it became quite
+clear that the French revolution meant something very different from a
+philosophical application of the principles of Locke and Adam Smith,
+Mackintosh began to see that Burke had not so far missed the mark.
+Burke, before dying, received<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> his penitent opponent at Beaconsfield;
+and in 1800 Mackintosh took the opportunity of publicly declaring that
+he 'abhorred, abjured, and for ever renounced the French revolution,
+with its sanguinary history, its abominable principles, and its ever
+execrable leaders.' He hoped to 'wipe off the disgrace of having been
+once betrayed into that abominable conspiracy against God and
+man.'<a name="FNanchor_138_138" id="FNanchor_138_138"></a><a href="#Footnote_138_138" class="fnanchor">[138]</a> In his famous defence of Peltier (1803), he denounced the
+revolution in a passage which might have been adopted from Burke's
+<i>Letters on a Regicide Peace</i>.<a name="FNanchor_139_139" id="FNanchor_139_139"></a><a href="#Footnote_139_139" class="fnanchor">[139]</a></p>
+
+<p>In a remarkable letter to Windham<a name="FNanchor_140_140" id="FNanchor_140_140"></a><a href="#Footnote_140_140" class="fnanchor">[140]</a> of 1806, Mackintosh gives his
+estimate of Burke, and takes some credit to himself for having
+discovered, even in the time of his youthful errors, the consistency
+of Burke's principles, as founded upon an abhorrence of 'abstract
+politics.'<a name="FNanchor_141_141" id="FNanchor_141_141"></a><a href="#Footnote_141_141" class="fnanchor">[141]</a> Politics, he now thought, must be made scientific by
+recognising with Burke the supreme importance of prescription and
+historic continuity, and by admitting that the philosophers had not
+yet constructed a science bearing to practical politics the same
+relation as geometry to mechanics. He applied his theory to the
+question of parliamentary reform in the <i>Edinburgh Review</i>.<a name="FNanchor_142_142" id="FNanchor_142_142"></a><a href="#Footnote_142_142" class="fnanchor">[142]</a> Here
+he accepts the doctrine, criticised by James Mill, that a proper
+representative system must be judged, not, as Mill maintained, solely
+by the identity of its interest with that of the community at large,
+but by its fitness to give power to different classes. It follows that
+the landowners, the professional classes, and the populace should<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> all
+be represented. And he discovers that the variety of the English
+system was calculated to secure this end. Though it was only in a few
+constituencies that the poorest class had a voice, their vote in such
+places represented the same class elsewhere. It was as well that there
+should be some extreme Radicals to speak for the poorest. But he
+thinks that any uniform suffrage would be bad, and that universal
+suffrage would be the most mischievous of all systems.<a name="FNanchor_143_143" id="FNanchor_143_143"></a><a href="#Footnote_143_143" class="fnanchor">[143]</a> That would
+mean the swamping of one class by all&mdash;a tyranny more oppressive,
+perhaps, than any other tyranny. If one class alone were to be
+represented, it should be the favourite middle class, which has the
+'largest share of sense and virtue,' and is most connected in interest
+with other classes.<a name="FNanchor_144_144" id="FNanchor_144_144"></a><a href="#Footnote_144_144" class="fnanchor">[144]</a> A legitimate aim of the legislator is,
+therefore, to prevent an excess of democracy. With Mackintosh it seems
+essential not simply to suppress 'sinister interests,' but to save
+both the aristocracy and the middle class from being crushed by the
+lower classes. The opposition is vital; and it is plain that the
+argument for the aristocracy, that is, for a system developed from all
+manner of historical accidents and not evolved out of any simple
+logical principles, must be defended upon empirical grounds.</p>
+
+<p>Mackintosh was in India during the early period of the <i>Edinburgh
+Review</i>. Jeffrey, as editor for its first quarter of a century, may be
+taken more fully to represent <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>its spirit. Jeffrey's trenchant, if not
+swaggering style, covered a very timid, sensitive, and, in some
+respects, a very conservative temperament. His objection to the 'Lake
+Poets' was the objection of the classical to the romantic school.
+Jeffrey's brightness of intellect may justify Carlyle's comparison of
+him to Voltaire,&mdash;only a Voltaire qualified by dislike to men who were
+'dreadfully in earnest.' Jeffrey was a philosophical sceptic; he
+interpreted Dugald Stewart as meaning that metaphysics, being all
+nonsense, we must make shift with common-sense; and he wrote a
+dissertation upon taste, to prove that there are no rules about taste
+whatever. He was too genuine a sceptic to sacrifice peace to the
+hopeless search for truth. One of the most striking passages in his
+<i>Essays</i><a name="FNanchor_145_145" id="FNanchor_145_145"></a><a href="#Footnote_145_145" class="fnanchor">[145]</a> is an attack upon 'perfectibility.' He utterly
+disbelieves that progress in knowledge will improve morals or diminish
+war, or cure any of the evils that flesh is heir to. Such a man is not
+of the material of which enthusiastic reformers are made. Throughout
+the war he was more governed by his fear than by his zeal. He was in
+constant dread of failure abroad and ruin at home. The <i>Review</i>
+provoked the Tories, and induced them to start its rival, not by
+advocacy of political principles, but by its despairing view of the
+war.<a name="FNanchor_146_146" id="FNanchor_146_146"></a><a href="#Footnote_146_146" class="fnanchor">[146]</a> He was still desiring at that time (1808) to avoid 'party
+politics' in the narrower sense.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span></p><p>The political view corresponding to this is given in the articles,
+some of which (though the authorship was not yet avowed) were assailed
+by Mill in the <i>Westminster</i>. In an early article<a name="FNanchor_147_147" id="FNanchor_147_147"></a><a href="#Footnote_147_147" class="fnanchor">[147]</a> he defends the
+French philosophers against the imputation of responsibility for the
+reign of terror. Their excellent and humane doctrines had been
+misapplied by the 'exasperation' and precipitation of inexperienced
+voters. His most characteristic article is one published in January
+1810. The failure of the Walcheren expedition had confirmed his
+disbelief in our military leaders; the rise of English Radicalism, led
+by Burdett in the House of Commons, and Cobbett in the press, the
+widely spread distress and the severity of oppressive measures, roused
+his keenest alarm.<a name="FNanchor_148_148" id="FNanchor_148_148"></a><a href="#Footnote_148_148" class="fnanchor">[148]</a> We are, he declared, between two violent and
+pernicious factions&mdash;the courtiers of arbitrary power and the
+democrats. If the Whig leaders did not first conciliate and then
+restrain the people, the struggle of the extreme parties would soon
+sweep away the constitution, the monarchy, and the Whig aristocracy by
+which that monarchy 'is controlled, confirmed, and exalted above all
+other forms of polity.' Democracy, it was plain, was increasing with
+dangerous rapidity. A third of every man's income was being taken by
+taxes, and after twenty years' boastful hostility we were left without
+a single ally. Considering all this, it seems as though 'the wholesome
+days of England were numbered,' and we are on the 'verge of the most
+dreadful of all calamities'&mdash;a civil war.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p><p>Jeffrey has learned from Hume that all government is ultimately
+founded upon opinion. The great thing is to make the action of public
+opinion regular and constituted. The whole machinery of the
+constitution, he says, is for the express purpose of 'preventing the
+kingly power from dashing itself to pieces against the more radical
+power of the people.'<a name="FNanchor_149_149" id="FNanchor_149_149"></a><a href="#Footnote_149_149" class="fnanchor">[149]</a> The merit of a representative body is not
+to be tested simply by the goodness of its legislation, but by its
+diminishing the intensity of the struggle for the supreme power.
+Jeffrey in fact is above all preoccupied with the danger of
+revolution. The popular will is, in fact, supreme; repression may
+force it into explosion; but by judicious management it may be tamed
+and tempered. Then we need above all things that it should, as he says
+in his reply to Mill (December 1826), give their 'natural and
+wholesome influence to wealth and rank.' The stability of the English
+Constitution depends, as he said in 1810, upon the monarchy and
+aristocracy, and their stability on their being the natural growth of
+ages and having 'struck their roots deep into every stratum of the
+political soil.'</p>
+
+<p>The Whigs represent the view implied in Macaulay's attack upon
+Mill&mdash;the view of cultivated men of sense, with their eyes open to
+many difficulties overlooked by zealots, but far too sceptical and
+despondent to rouse any enthusiasm or accept any dogmas absolutely. By
+the time of the Reform Bill the danger was obviously on the side of
+dogged obstructionism, and then the 'middle party,' as Jeffrey calls
+it, inclined towards the Radical side and begged them to join its
+ranks and abandon the attempt to realise extreme views. They<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> could
+also take credit as moderate men do for having all along been in the
+right. But to both extremes, as Jeffrey pathetically complains, they
+appeared to be mere trimmers.<a name="FNanchor_150_150" id="FNanchor_150_150"></a><a href="#Footnote_150_150" class="fnanchor">[150]</a></p>
+
+<p>The Utilitarian held the Whig to be a 'trimmer'; the Whig thought the
+Utilitarian a fanatic; they agreed in holding that the Tory was simply
+stupid. And yet, when we look at the Tory creed, we shall find that
+both Whig and Utilitarian overlooked some very vital problems. The
+Tories of course represent the advocates of strong government; and, as
+their opponents held, had no theories&mdash;only prejudices. The first
+article of the creed of an Eldon or a Sidmouth was, 'I believe in
+George <span class="smcap">iii.</span>';&mdash;not a doctrine capable of philosophical justification.
+Such Toryism meant the content of the rich and powerful with the
+system by which their power and wealth were guaranteed. Their
+instincts had been sharpened by the French revolution; and they saw in
+any change the removal of one of the safeguards against a fresh
+outburst of the nether fires. The great bulk of all political opinion
+is an instinct, not a philosophy; and the obstructive Tories
+represented little more than class prejudice and the dread of a great
+convulsion. Yet intelligent Tories were being driven to find some
+reasons for their creed, which the Utilitarians might have considered
+more carefully.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="subhead2">III. CONSERVATISM</p>
+
+<p>A famous man of letters represents certain tendencies more clearly
+than the average politician. Robert Southey (1777-1843), the 'ultra
+servile sack-guzzler,' as Bentham pleasantly calls him in 1823,<a name="FNanchor_151_151" id="FNanchor_151_151"></a><a href="#Footnote_151_151" class="fnanchor">[151]</a>
+was probably the best abused man, on his own side at least, among
+Mill's contemporaries. He was attacked by Mill himself, and savagely
+denounced by Byron and Hazlitt. He was not only a conspicuous writer
+in the <i>Quarterly Review</i> but, as his enemies thought, a renegade
+bought by pensions. It is, I hope, needless to defend him against this
+charge. He was simply an impatient man of generous instincts and no
+reflective power, who had in his youth caught the revolutionary fever,
+and, as he grew up, developed the patriotic fever.</p>
+
+<p>Later views are given in the <i>Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects
+of Society</i> (1829), chiefly known to modern readers by one of
+Macaulay's essays. Southey was as assailable as Mill. His political
+economy is a mere muddle; his political views are obviously distorted
+by accidental prejudices; and the whole book is desultory and
+disjointed. In a dialogue with the ghost of Sir Thomas More, he takes
+the opportunity of introducing descriptions of scenery, literary
+digressions, and quaint illustrations from his vast stores of reading
+to the confusion of all definite arrangement. Southey is in the
+awkward position of a dogmatist defending a compromise. An Anglican
+claiming infallibility is necessarily inconsistent. His view of
+toleration, for example, is oddly obscure. He would apparently like to
+persecute<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> infidels;<a name="FNanchor_152_152" id="FNanchor_152_152"></a><a href="#Footnote_152_152" class="fnanchor">[152]</a> and yet he wishes to denounce the Catholic
+church for its persecuting principles. He seems to date the main
+social evils to the changes which began at the Reformation, and yet he
+looks back to the period which succeeded the Reformation as
+representing the ideal state of the British polity. His sympathy with
+the literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries predisposed
+him to this position. He would have been more intelligible if he had
+been more distinctly reactionary. For all that, his views show the
+presence of a leaven which was materially to affect the later
+development of English opinions. That Jacobinism meant anarchy, and
+that anarchy led irresistibly to military despotism were propositions
+which to him, as to so many others, seemed to be established by the
+French revolution. What, then, was the cause of the anarchy? Sir
+Thomas More comes from the grave to tell us this, because he had
+witnessed the past symptoms of the process. The transition from the
+old feudal system to the modern industrial organisation had in his day
+become unmistakably developed. In feudal times, every man had his
+definite place in society; he was a member of a little group;
+supported, if controlled and disciplined, by an elaborate system of
+spiritual authority. The Reformation was the period at which the
+'masterless man' made his appearance. The conversion of pastures into
+arable land, the growth of commerce and of pauperism, were marks of
+the coming change. It proceeded quietly for some generations; but the
+development of the modern manufacturing system represents the
+operation of the same process on a far larger scale, and with far
+greater intensity. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>The result may be described by saying that we have
+instead of a legitimate development a degeneration of society. A vast
+populace has grown up outside of the old order. It is independent
+indeed, but at the heavy price of being rather an inorganic mass than
+a constituent part of the body politic. It is, briefly, to the growth
+of a huge 'proletariate' outside the church, and hostile to the state,
+that Southey attributes all social evils.</p>
+
+<p>The view has become familiar enough in various shapes; and in the
+reproaches which Southey brings against the manufacturing system we
+have an anticipation of other familiar lamentations. Our manufacturing
+wealth is a 'wen,' a 'fungous excrescence from the body politic';<a name="FNanchor_153_153" id="FNanchor_153_153"></a><a href="#Footnote_153_153" class="fnanchor">[153]</a>
+it is no more a proof of real prosperity than the size of a dropsical
+patient is a proof of health;<a name="FNanchor_154_154" id="FNanchor_154_154"></a><a href="#Footnote_154_154" class="fnanchor">[154]</a> the manufacturer worships mammon
+instead of Moloch;<a name="FNanchor_155_155" id="FNanchor_155_155"></a><a href="#Footnote_155_155" class="fnanchor">[155]</a> and wrings his fortune from the degradation of
+his labourers as his warlike ancestors wrung wealth from their slaves;
+he confines children in a tainted atmosphere, physical and moral, from
+morning till night, and a celebrated minister (Pitt) boasts of this
+very evil;<a name="FNanchor_156_156" id="FNanchor_156_156"></a><a href="#Footnote_156_156" class="fnanchor">[156]</a> he treats his fellow-creatures as machines,<a name="FNanchor_157_157" id="FNanchor_157_157"></a><a href="#Footnote_157_157" class="fnanchor">[157]</a> and
+wealth, though accumulated, is not diffused; the great capitalists,
+'like pikes in a fishpond,' devour the weaker fish;<a name="FNanchor_158_158" id="FNanchor_158_158"></a><a href="#Footnote_158_158" class="fnanchor">[158]</a> competition
+is not directed to providing the best goods, but the cheapest;<a name="FNanchor_159_159" id="FNanchor_159_159"></a><a href="#Footnote_159_159" class="fnanchor">[159]</a>
+every man oppresses his neighbour; the landlord racks his tenant, the
+farmer grinds the labourer; all the little centres of permanent life
+are broken up;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> not one man in a thousand is buried with his fathers,
+and the natural ties and domestic affections are prematurely
+dissolved.<a name="FNanchor_160_160" id="FNanchor_160_160"></a><a href="#Footnote_160_160" class="fnanchor">[160]</a></p>
+
+<p>Here, too, is to be found the source of the infidel opinions which
+call for suppression. London is a hotbed of corruption;<a name="FNanchor_161_161" id="FNanchor_161_161"></a><a href="#Footnote_161_161" class="fnanchor">[161]</a> a centre
+of wealth; and yet, in spite of poor-laws, a place where wretches are
+dying of starvation, and which could collect a mob capable of
+producing the most appalling catastrophes. In such a place, men become
+unbelievers like savages, because removed from all humanising
+influences, and booksellers can carry on a trade in blasphemy.
+Infidelity is bred in 'the filth and corruption of large towns and
+manufacturing districts.'<a name="FNanchor_162_162" id="FNanchor_162_162"></a><a href="#Footnote_162_162" class="fnanchor">[162]</a> The disappearance of clerical influence
+has led to 'a mass of ignorance, vice, and wretchedness which no
+generous heart can contemplate without grief.'<a name="FNanchor_163_163" id="FNanchor_163_163"></a><a href="#Footnote_163_163" class="fnanchor">[163]</a> It is not
+surprising that, in Southey's opinion, it is doubtful whether the bulk
+of the people has gained or lost in the last thousand years.<a name="FNanchor_164_164" id="FNanchor_164_164"></a><a href="#Footnote_164_164" class="fnanchor">[164]</a>
+Macaulay takes all this as mere sentimentalism and preference of a
+picturesque outside to solid comfort. But whatever Southey's errors of
+fact, they show at least a deeper insight than his opponent into some
+social evils. His proposed remedies explain his diagnosis of the evil.
+In the first place, it is not surprising, though it surprised
+Macaulay, that he had many sympathies with the socialist, Robert Owen.
+He saw Owen in 1816,<a name="FNanchor_165_165" id="FNanchor_165_165"></a><a href="#Footnote_165_165" class="fnanchor">[165]</a> and was much impressed by his views. In the
+<i>Colloquies</i>,<a name="FNanchor_166_166" id="FNanchor_166_166"></a><a href="#Footnote_166_166" class="fnanchor">[166]</a> Owen is called the 'happiest, most beneficent, and
+most practical of all enthusiasts'; an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> account is given of one of the
+earliest co-operative schemes,<a name="FNanchor_167_167" id="FNanchor_167_167"></a><a href="#Footnote_167_167" class="fnanchor">[167]</a> and Southey believes in the
+possibility of the plan. He makes, however, one significant remark.
+Owen, he thinks, could not succeed without enlisting in his support
+some sectarian zeal. As Owen happened to object to all religious
+sects, this defect could not be remedied.</p>
+
+<p>Southey, in fact, held that the absence of religious discipline was at
+the root of the whole evil. Religion, he declares, much to the scorn
+of Macaulay, 'is the basis upon which civil government rests.'<a name="FNanchor_168_168" id="FNanchor_168_168"></a><a href="#Footnote_168_168" class="fnanchor">[168]</a>
+There must, as he infers, be an established religion, and the state
+which neglects this duty is preparing its own ruin. 'Nothing,' he
+declares, 'in abstract science can be more certain than these
+propositions,' though they are denied by 'our professors of the arts
+babblative and scribblative'&mdash;that is, by Benthamites and Whigs. For
+here, in fact, we come to the irreconcilable difference. Government is
+not to be a mere machinery for suppressing violence, but an ally of
+the church in spreading sound religion and morality. The rulers,
+instead of merely reflecting the popular will, should lead and direct
+all agencies for suppressing vice and misery. Southey, as his son
+takes pains to show,<a name="FNanchor_169_169" id="FNanchor_169_169"></a><a href="#Footnote_169_169" class="fnanchor">[169]</a> though he was for upholding authority by the
+most stringent measures, was convinced that the one way to make
+government strong was to improve the condition of the people. He
+proposed many measures of reform; national education on the
+principles, of course, of Dr. Bell; state-aided colonisation and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>
+cultivation of waste lands at home; Protestant sisterhoods to
+reproduce the good effects of the old order which he regretted and yet
+had to condemn on Anglican principles. The English church should have
+made use of the Wesleyans as the church of Rome had used the
+Franciscans and Dominicans; and his <i>Life of Wesley</i> was prompted by
+his fond belief that this might yet be done. Government, he said,
+ought to be 'paternal';<a name="FNanchor_170_170" id="FNanchor_170_170"></a><a href="#Footnote_170_170" class="fnanchor">[170]</a> and his leading aspirations have been
+adopted by Socialists on the one hand, and the converts to Catholicism
+on the other.</p>
+
+<p>For his philosophy, Southey was in the habit of referring to
+Coleridge; and Coleridge's <i>Constitution of Church and State</i> is
+perhaps the book in which Coleridge comes nearest to bringing an
+argument to a conclusion. Though marked by his usual complexities of
+style, his parentheses and irrelevant allusions and glances at wide
+metaphysical discussions, he succeeds in laying down a sufficient
+sketch of his position. The book was originally published in 1830, and
+refers to the Catholic emancipation of the previous year. Unlike
+Southey, he approves of the measure, only regretting the absence of
+certain safeguards; and his general purpose may be said to be to give
+such a theory of the relations of church and state as may justify an
+establishment upon loftier grounds than those of the commonplace Tory.</p>
+
+<p>His method, as he explains, is to find the true 'idea' of a
+constitution and a national church. The 'idea,' he explains, does not
+mean the conscious aim of the persons who founded or now constitute
+the bodies in question. An 'idea' is the subjective counterpart of an
+objective<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> law.<a name="FNanchor_171_171" id="FNanchor_171_171"></a><a href="#Footnote_171_171" class="fnanchor">[171]</a> It corresponds to the vital force which moulds
+the structure of the social organism, although it may never have been
+distinctly formulated by any one of the actors. In this sense,
+therefore, we should have to proceed by a historical method. We should
+study the constitution as we study the physiology of a physical
+body;<a name="FNanchor_172_172" id="FNanchor_172_172"></a><a href="#Footnote_172_172" class="fnanchor">[172]</a> and he works out the analogy at some length. So far,
+Coleridge is expressing the characteristic view that Nature in general
+is to be regarded as an evolution; only that evolution is to be
+understood in the sense of Schelling not in the sense of either
+Darwin. Of course, when Coleridge professes to find the 'idea' of the
+church and state, what he really finds is not the idea so much as his
+idea of the idea&mdash;which may be a very different thing. His theory of
+'evolution' is compatible with assuming that evolutions are
+illegitimate whenever he happens to dislike them.</p>
+
+<p>He coincides rather curiously with James Mill in asserting that the
+'social bond' was originally formed to protect property, not to
+protect life.<a name="FNanchor_173_173" id="FNanchor_173_173"></a><a href="#Footnote_173_173" class="fnanchor">[173]</a> He discovers accordingly that the ancient races,
+Jews, Goths, and Kelts alike, divided the land into two parts, one to
+be inherited by separate families, the other to be set apart for the
+nation. From the latter or the 'nationalty' springs the church
+establishment. This property belongs rightfully and inalienably to the
+nation itself. It is held by what he calls the 'clerisy.' Its
+functions are, in the first place, to provide a career by which the
+poorest classes may rise to a higher position; and secondly, to
+provide for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> development of all the qualities which distinguish
+the civilised man from the savage.<a name="FNanchor_174_174" id="FNanchor_174_174"></a><a href="#Footnote_174_174" class="fnanchor">[174]</a> Briefly, then, the church is
+that part of the national organism which is devoted to educating the
+people to be 'obedient, free, useful organisable subjects, citizens,
+and patriots, living to the benefit of the estate, and prepared to die
+for its defence.' Henry viii. would have surpassed Alfred if he had
+directed the 'nationalty' to its true purposes; that is, especially to
+the maintenance of universities, of a parochial clergy, and of schools
+in every parish. Unluckily, Henry <span class="smcap">viii.</span>'s 'idea' of a national church
+was vague. Ideas were not his strong point. Coleridge appears to be
+especially troubled to work the principles into conformity with his
+views of Catholic emancipation. The peculiarity of the theory is that
+the church, according to him, seems to be simply a national
+institution. It might exist, and in fact, did exist before
+Christianity, as is proved not only by the Jewish but by the Druidical
+church.<a name="FNanchor_175_175" id="FNanchor_175_175"></a><a href="#Footnote_175_175" class="fnanchor">[175]</a> That it should be Christian in England is a 'blessed
+accident,' or 'providential boon'&mdash;or, as he puts it, 'most awfully a
+godsend.' Hence it follows that a primary condition of its utility is
+that the clerisy should contribute to the support of the other organs
+of the community. They must not be the subjects of a foreign power,
+nor, as he argues at length, subject to the desocialising influence of
+celibacy. It follows that the Roman church is unfitted to be ever a
+national church, although, if that danger be sufficiently obviated, no
+political disqualifications should be imposed upon Romanists. And
+thus, too, the Church Catholic is essentially a body which has no
+relations to any particular <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>state. It is opposed to the world, not to
+the nation, and can have no visible head or 'personal centre of
+unity.'<a name="FNanchor_176_176" id="FNanchor_176_176"></a><a href="#Footnote_176_176" class="fnanchor">[176]</a> The church which makes such claims is the revelation of
+Antichrist.</p>
+
+<p>We need not inquire into the prophecies. It is enough to say that to
+Coleridge as to Southey the preservation of an established church
+seemed to be an essential condition of morality and civilisation. They
+differed from the ordinary Tory, who was content to defend any of the
+abuses by the cry of sacrilege and confiscation. The church was to be
+made worthy of its position, and rendered capable of discharging its
+high functions effectually. Coleridge, it may be said, would fully
+admit that an organ which had ceased to correspond to its idea must
+die. It could not continue to preserve itself by mere force of
+obstruction, but must arouse, throw off its abuses, and show itself to
+be worthy of its high claims. Meanwhile, however, he was perhaps more
+anxious to show the Utilitarians that in assailing the institution on
+account of its abuses, they were really destroying the most essential
+guarantee of progress. He sums up, in a curious passage, the proofs of
+modern degradation.<a name="FNanchor_177_177" id="FNanchor_177_177"></a><a href="#Footnote_177_177" class="fnanchor">[177]</a> The wicked eighteenth century is of course
+responsible for everything. The 'mechanic corpuscular theory'; the
+consequent decay of philosophy, illustrated by such phrases as an
+excellent 'idea' of cooking; 'the ourang-outang theology of the origin
+of the human species substituted for the first ten chapters of the
+book of Genesis; rights of nature for the duties and privileges of
+citizens; idealess facts, misnamed proofs from history, for principles
+and the insight derived from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> them': all these and other calamitous
+results of modern philosophy are connected with a neglect of the
+well-being of the people, the mistaking of a large revenue for
+prosperity, and the consumption of gin by paupers to the 'value of
+eighteen millions yearly.' He appeals pathetically to the leaders of
+the Utilitarians. They will scorn him for pronouncing that a 'natural
+clerisy' is 'an essential element of a rightly constituted nation.'
+All their tract societies and mechanics' institutes and 'lecture
+bazaars under the absurd name of universities' are 'empiric specifics'
+which feed the disease. Science will be plebified, not popularised.
+The morality necessary for a state 'can only exist for the people in
+the form of religion. But the existence of a true philosophy, or the
+power and habit of contemplating particulars in the unity and fontal
+mirror of the idea,&mdash;this in the rulers and teachers of a nation is
+indispensable to a sound state of religion in all classes. In fact,
+religion, true or false, is and ever has been the centre of gravity in
+a realm to which all other things must and will accommodate
+themselves.'</p>
+
+<p>The existence of the eighteenth century always remained a hopeless
+puzzle for Coleridge and his followers. Why at that period everything
+went wrong in the higher regions of thought remained a mystery. 'God
+is above,' says Sir Thomas More to Southey,<a name="FNanchor_178_178" id="FNanchor_178_178"></a><a href="#Footnote_178_178" class="fnanchor">[178]</a> 'but the devil is
+below; evil principles are in their nature more active than good.' The
+devil seemed to have got into the upper air, and was working with his
+allies, Bentham and Mill and Paine and Cobbett, with remarkable
+success. But, whatever the theories of conservatives in church and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>
+state, the fact that the theories were held is important. The
+diametrical opposition between two schools, one of which regarded the
+church as a simple abuse, and its doctrines as effete superstitions,
+while the other looked to the church and its creed as giving the sole
+hope for suppressing the evil principle, was a critical point in later
+movements, political as well as religious.</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">IV. SOCIALISM</p>
+
+<p>I have spoken of Southey's sympathy for Robert Owen. Owen (1771-1858)
+is one of the characteristic figures of the time. He was the son of a
+village tradesman in Wales, and had risen to prosperity by the
+qualities of the virtuous apprentice. Industry, patience, an
+imperturbably good temper, and sagacity in business matters had raised
+him to high position as a manufacturer at the time of the rapid
+advance of the cotton trade. Many poor men have followed the same path
+to wealth. Owen's peculiarity was that while he became a capitalist he
+preserved his sympathy with the working classes. While improving
+machinery, he complained that the 'living machinery' was neglected.
+One great step in his career was his marriage to the daughter of David
+Dale of New Lanark, a religious and worthy manufacturer.<a name="FNanchor_179_179" id="FNanchor_179_179"></a><a href="#Footnote_179_179" class="fnanchor">[179]</a> Dale had
+employed a number of pauper children who were in that day to be
+disposed of by their parishes; and had done his best to make their
+position more tolerable. Owen took up this scheme, and carried it out
+more systematically. New Lanark, in his hands, became a model village;
+he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> provided in various ways for the encouragement of sobriety,
+industry, and honesty among his workmen, set up stores to supply cheap
+and good provisions, and especially provided infant schools and a
+systematic education. 'The children,' he declares, 'were the happiest
+human beings he ever saw.' When his partners interfered with his
+plans, Owen bought them out and started the company to which Bentham
+and Allen belonged. New Lanark rapidly became famous. It was visited
+by all the philanthropists of the day. The royal dukes not only of
+England but of Russia were interested; and Owen even believed that he
+had converted Napoleon at Elba. So far, Owen was a benevolent
+capitalist, exercising a paternal sway over his people. He became
+convinced, however, that he had discovered the key to the great social
+problems of the day. When the distresses followed the peace, he was
+prepared to propound his remedy, and found many willing hearers in all
+classes. Liverpool and Sidmouth listened to him with favour, and the
+duke of Kent became president of a committee started to carry out his
+views. He gave the impetus to the movement by which the Factory Act of
+1819 was carried, although it was far from embodying his proposals in
+their completeness.</p>
+
+<p>Owen's diagnosis of the social disease explains Southey's partiality.
+Like Southey, he traced the evil to the development of the
+manufacturing system. That system involved, as he held, what later
+Socialists have called the 'exploitation' of the labouring classes by
+the capitalists. With singularly crude notions of political economy,
+Owen assumed that the 'dead machinery' was in competition with the
+'living machinery.' He made startling calculations <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>as to the amount
+of human labour represented by steam-engines; and took for granted
+that the steam-engine displaced an equal number of workmen. His remedy
+for poverty was to set up a number of communities, which should
+maintain themselves by cultivating the soil with the spade, and in
+which every man should labour for all. Thus New Lanarks were to be
+spread over the country, with the difference that the employer was to
+be omitted. Owen, in short, became properly a Socialist, having been
+simply a paternal philanthropist. For a time Owen met with
+considerable support. A great meeting was held in London in 1817, and
+a committee was started two years afterwards, of which Ricardo was a
+member. Ricardo, indeed, took pains to let it be known that he did not
+believe in the efficacy of Owen's plans. Meanwhile Owen was breaking
+off his connection with New Lanark, and becoming the apostle of a new
+social creed. His missionary voyages took him to Ireland, to the
+United States and Mexico, and attempts were made to establish
+communities in Scotland and in the State of Illinois.</p>
+
+<p>Owen and his followers became natural antagonists of the Utilitarians.
+He agreed with Southey in tracing distress to the development of the
+great manufacturing system, though he went much further. The
+principles essentially involved in the whole industrial system were,
+according to him, pernicious. He held the essential doctrine of his
+modern successors that property is theft. Between such a man and the
+men who took the <i>Wealth of Nations</i> for their gospel, and Ricardo as
+its authorised commentator, there was an impassable gulf. On the other
+hand, Owen was equally far from the Tory view<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> of religious
+principles. Southey's remark that he could only succeed by allying
+himself with some religious fanaticism was just to the point.</p>
+
+<p>Owen was a man of very few ideas, though he held such as he had with
+extraordinary tenacity, and enforced them by the effective if
+illogical method of incessant repetition. Among them was the idea
+which, as he declares, had occurred to him before he was ten years old
+that there was something radically wrong in all religions. Whether
+this opinion had come to him from the diffused rationalism of his
+time, or was congenial to the practical and prosaic temperament which
+was disquieted by the waste of energy over futile sectarian squabbles,
+or was suggested by his early study of Seneca&mdash;the only author of whom
+he speaks as having impressed him in early years&mdash;it became a fixed
+conviction. He had been an early supporter of Lancaster and
+'unsectarian' education. When his great meeting was to be held in 1817
+it occurred to him that he might as well announce his views. He
+accordingly informed his hearers that the religions of the world were
+the great obstacles to progress. He expected, as he assures us, that
+this candid avowal would cause him to be 'torn in pieces.' It provoked
+on the contrary general applause, and Owen congratulated himself
+rather hastily on having struck the deathblow of superstition.</p>
+
+<p>Owen's position, at any rate, was a significant symptom. It showed
+that the Socialist movement sprang from motives outside the sphere of
+the churches. Owen's personal simplicity and calmness seems to have
+saved him from any bitter animosity. He simply set aside Christianity
+as not to the purpose, and went on calmly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> asserting and re-asserting
+his views to Catholics and Protestants, Whigs, Radicals, and Tories.
+They agreed in considering him to be a bore, but were bored rather
+than irritated. Owen himself, like later Socialists, professed
+indifference to the political warfare of Whigs and Tories. When, at
+the height of the Reform movement, he published a paper called the
+<i>Crisis</i>, the title referred not to the struggle in which all the
+upper classes were absorbed, but to the industrial revolution which he
+hoped to bring about. He would have been equally ready to accept help
+from Whig, Tory, or Radical; but his position was one equally
+distasteful to all. The Tory could not ally himself with the man who
+thought all religions nonsense; nor any of the regular parties with
+the man who condemned the whole industrial system and was opposed to
+all the cherished prejudices of the respectable middle classes.</p>
+
+<p>Owen's favourite dogma is worth a moment's notice. He was never tired
+of repeating that 'character is formed by circumstances'; from which
+he placidly infers that no man deserves praise or blame for his
+conduct. The inference, it must be admitted, is an awkward one in any
+ethical system. It represents, probably, Owen's most serious objection
+to the religions of the world. The ultimate aim of the priest is to
+save men's souls; and sin means conduct which leads to supernatural
+punishment. Owen, on the contrary, held that immorality was simply a
+disease to be cured, and that wrath with the sinner was as much out of
+place as wrath with a patient. In this sense Owen's view, as I at
+least should hold, defines the correct starting-point of any social
+reformer. He has to consider a scientific problem, not to be an agent
+of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> a supernatural legislator. He should try to alter the general
+conditions from which social evils spring, not to deal in pardons or
+punishment. Owen was acting with thoroughly good sense in his early
+applications of this principle. The care, for example, which he
+bestowed upon infant education recognised the fact that social reform
+implied a thorough training of the individual from his earliest years.
+Owen's greatest error corresponds to the transformation which this
+belief underwent in his mind. Since circumstances form character, he
+seems to have argued, it is only necessary to change the circumstances
+of a grown-up man to alter his whole disposition. His ambitious scheme
+in America seemed to suppose that it was enough to bring together a
+miscellaneous collection of the poor and discontented people, and to
+invite them all to behave with perfect unselfishness. At present I
+need only remark that in this respect there was a close coincidence
+between Owen and the Utilitarians. Both of them really aimed at an
+improvement of social conditions on a scientific method; and both
+justified their hopes by the characteristic belief in the indefinite
+modifiability of human nature by external circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>I turn to a man who was in some ways the most complete antithesis to
+Owen. William Cobbett (1762-1835), unlike Owen, took a passionate and
+conspicuous part in the political struggles of the day. Cobbett,
+declares the <i>Edinburgh Review</i> in July 1807, has more influence than
+all the other journalists put together. He had won it, as the reviewer
+thought, by his force of character, although he had changed his
+politics completely 'within the last six months.' The fact was more
+significant than was then apparent. Cobbett, son of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> labourer who
+had risen to be a small farmer, had in spite of all obstacles learned
+to read and write and become a great master of the vernacular. His
+earliest model had been Swift's <i>Tale of a Tub</i>, and in downright
+vigour of homely language he could scarcely be surpassed even by the
+author of the <i>Drapier's Letters</i>. He had enlisted as a soldier, and
+had afterwards drifted to America. There he had become conspicuous as
+a typical John Bull. Sturdy and pugnacious in the highest degree, he
+had taken the English side in American politics when the great
+question was whether the new power should be bullied by France or by
+England. He had denounced his precursor, Paine, in language savouring
+too much, perhaps, of barrack-rooms, but certainly not wanting in
+vigour. He defied threats of tar and feathers; put a portrait of
+George <span class="smcap">iii.</span> in his shop-window; and gloried in British victories, and,
+in his own opinion, kept American policy straight. He had, however,
+ended by making America too hot to hold him; and came back to declare
+that republicanism meant the vilest and most corrupt of tyrannies, and
+that, as an Englishman, he despised all other nations upon earth. He
+was welcomed on his return by Pitt's government as likely to be a
+useful journalist, and became the special adherent of Windham, the
+ideal country-gentleman and the ardent disciple of Burke's principles.
+He set up an independent paper and heartily supported the war. On the
+renewal of hostilities in 1803 Cobbett wrote a manifesto<a name="FNanchor_180_180" id="FNanchor_180_180"></a><a href="#Footnote_180_180" class="fnanchor">[180]</a> directed
+by the government to be read in every parish church in the kingdom, in
+order to rouse popular feeling. When Windham came into office in 1806,
+Cobbett's friends supposed that his fortune<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> was made. Yet at this
+very crisis he became a reformer. His conversion was put down, of
+course, to his resentment at the neglect of ministers. I do not think
+that Cobbett was a man to whose character one can appeal as a
+conclusive answer to such charges. Unfortunately he was not free from
+weaknesses which prevent us from denying that his political course was
+affected by personal motives. But, in spite of weaknesses and of
+countless inconsistencies, Cobbett had perfectly genuine convictions
+and intense sympathies which sufficiently explain his position, and
+make him more attractive than many less obviously imperfect
+characters. He tells us unconsciously what were the thoughts suggested
+to a man penetrated to the core by the strongest prejudices&mdash;they can
+hardly be called opinions&mdash;of the true country labourer.</p>
+
+<p>The labourer, in the first place, if fairly represented by Cobbett,
+had none of the bitter feeling against the nobility which smouldered
+in the French peasantry. Cobbett looked back as fondly to the
+surroundings of his youth as any nobleman could look back to Eton or
+to his country mansion. He remembered the 'sweet country air' round
+Crooksbury Hill, the song of birds, and the rambles through heather
+and woodland. He loved the rough jovial sports; bull-baiting and
+prize-fighting and single-stick play. He had followed the squire's
+hounds on foot, and admired without jealousy the splendid gardens of
+the bishop's palace at Farnham. Squire and parson were an intrinsic
+part of the general order of things. The state of the English working
+classes was, he often declares, the happiest that could be
+imagined,<a name="FNanchor_181_181" id="FNanchor_181_181"></a><a href="#Footnote_181_181" class="fnanchor">[181]</a> and he appeals in confirmation to his own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> memories.
+Although, upon enlisting, he had found the army corrupt, he not only
+loved the soldier for the rest of his life, but shared to the full the
+patriotic exultation which welcomed the 1st of June and the Nile. Even
+to the last, he could not stomach the abandonment of the title 'King
+of France'; for so long as it was retained, it encouraged the farmer
+to tell his son the story of Crecy and Agincourt.<a name="FNanchor_182_182" id="FNanchor_182_182"></a><a href="#Footnote_182_182" class="fnanchor">[182]</a></p>
+
+<p>What, then, alienated Cobbett? Briefly, the degradation of the class
+he loved. 'I wish,' he said, 'to see the poor men of England what the
+poor men of England were when I was born, and from endeavouring to
+accomplish this task, nothing but the want of means shall make me
+desist.'<a name="FNanchor_183_183" id="FNanchor_183_183"></a><a href="#Footnote_183_183" class="fnanchor">[183]</a> He had a right to make that boast, and his ardour in the
+cause was as unimpeachable as honourable. It explains why Cobbett has
+still a sympathetic side. He was a mass of rough human nature; no prig
+or bundle of abstract formul&aelig;, like Paine and his Radical successors.
+Logic with him is not in excess, but in defect. His doctrines are
+hopelessly inconsistent, except so far as they represent his stubborn
+prejudices. Any view will serve his purpose which can be made a weapon
+of offence in his multitudinous quarrels. Cobbett, like the Radicals
+of the time, was frightened by the gigantic progress of the debt. He
+had advocated war; but the peasant who was accustomed to reckon his
+income by pence, and had cried like a child when he lost the price of
+a red herring, was alarmed by the reckless piling up of millions of
+indebtedness. In 1806 he calmly proposed to his patron Windham to put
+matters straight by repudiating the interest. 'The nation must<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>
+destroy the debt, or the debt will destroy the nation,' as he argued
+in the <i>Register</i>.<a name="FNanchor_184_184" id="FNanchor_184_184"></a><a href="#Footnote_184_184" class="fnanchor">[184]</a> The proposal very likely caused the alienation
+of a respectable minister, though propounded with an amusing air of
+philosophical morality. Cobbett's alarm developed until it became to
+him a revelation of the mystery of iniquity. His Radical friends were
+denouncing placemen and jobbery, and Cobbett began to perceive what
+was at the bottom of the evil. The money raised to carry on the war
+served also to support a set of bloodsuckers, who were draining the
+national strength. Already, in 1804, he was lamenting a change due to
+Pitt's funding system. The old families, he said, were giving way to
+'loanjobbers, contractors, and nabobs'; and the country people amazed
+to find that their new masters had been 'butchers, bakers,
+bottle-corkers, and old-clothesmen.'<a name="FNanchor_185_185" id="FNanchor_185_185"></a><a href="#Footnote_185_185" class="fnanchor">[185]</a> Barings and Ricardos and
+their like were swallowing up the old country gentry wholesale; and in
+later years he reckons up, as he rides, the changes in his own
+neighbourhood.<a name="FNanchor_186_186" id="FNanchor_186_186"></a><a href="#Footnote_186_186" class="fnanchor">[186]</a> His affection for the old country-gentleman might
+be superficial; but his lamentations over the degradation of the
+peasantry sprang from his heart. It was all, in his eyes, part of one
+process. Paper money, he found out, was at the bottom of it all; for
+paper money was the outward and visible symbol of a gigantic system of
+corruption and jobbery. It represented the device by which the
+hard-earned wages of the labourer were being somehow conjured away
+into the pockets of Jews and stockjobbers. The classes which profited
+by this atrocious system formed what he called the 'Thing'&mdash;the huge,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>
+intricate combination of knaves which was being denounced by the
+Radicals&mdash;though with a difference. Cobbett could join the reformers
+in so far as, like them, he thought that the rotten boroughs were a
+vital part of the system. He meets a miserable labourer complaining of
+the 'hard times.' The harvest had been good, but its blessings were
+not for the labourer. That 'accursed hill,' says Cobbett, pointing to
+old Sarum, 'is what has robbed you of your supper.'<a name="FNanchor_187_187" id="FNanchor_187_187"></a><a href="#Footnote_187_187" class="fnanchor">[187]</a> The labourer
+represented the class whose blood was being sucked.</p>
+
+<p>So far, then, as the Radicals were assailing the borough-mongers,
+Cobbett could be their cordial ally. Two years' imprisonment for libel
+embittered his feelings. In the distress which succeeded the peace,
+Cobbett's voice was for a time loudest in the general hubbub. He
+reduced the price of his <i>Register</i>, and his 'two-penny trash' reached
+a circulation of 25,000 or 30,000 copies. He became a power in the
+land, and anticipated the immediate triumph of reform. The day was not
+yet. Sidmouth's measures of repression frightened Cobbett to America
+(March 1819), where he wrote his history of the 'last hundred days of
+English liberty.' He returned in a couple of years, damaged in
+reputation and broken in fortune; but only to carry on the war with
+indomitable energy, although with a recklessness and extravagance
+which alienated his allies and lowered his character. He tried to
+cover his errors by brags and bombast, which became ridiculous, and
+which are yet not without significance.</p>
+
+<p>Cobbett came back from America with the relics of Paine. Paine, the
+object of his abuse, had become his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> idol, not because Cobbett cared
+much for any abstract political theories, or for religious dogmas.
+Paine's merit was that he had attacked paper money. To Cobbett, as to
+Paine, it seemed that English banknotes were going the way of French
+assignats and the provincial currency of the Americans. This became
+one main topic of his tirades, and represented, as he said, the 'Alpha
+and Omega' of English politics. The theory was simple. The whole
+borough-mongering system depended upon the inflated currency. Prick
+that bubble and the whole would collapse. It was absolutely
+impossible, he said, that the nation should return to cash payments
+and continue to pay interest on the debt. Should such a thing happen,
+he declared, he would 'give his poor body up to be broiled on one of
+Castlereagh's widest-ribbed gridirons.'<a name="FNanchor_188_188" id="FNanchor_188_188"></a><a href="#Footnote_188_188" class="fnanchor">[188]</a> The 'gridiron prophecy'
+became famous; a gridiron was for long a frontispiece to the
+<i>Register</i>; and Cobbett, far from retracting, went on proving, in the
+teeth of facts, that it had been fulfilled. His inference was, not
+that paper should be preserved, but that the debt should be treated
+with a 'sponge.'</p>
+
+<p>Cobbett, therefore, was an awkward ally of political economists, whose
+great triumph was the resumption of cash payments, and who regarded
+repudiation as the deadly sin. The burthen of the debt, meanwhile, was
+so great that repudiation was well within the limits of
+possibility.<a name="FNanchor_189_189" id="FNanchor_189_189"></a><a href="#Footnote_189_189" class="fnanchor">[189]</a> Cobbett, in their eyes, was an advocate of the
+grossest dishonesty, and using the basest incentives. Cobbett fully
+retorted their scorn. The economists belonged to the very class whom
+he most hated. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> was never tired of denouncing Scottish
+'feelosophers'; he sneers at Adam Smith,<a name="FNanchor_190_190" id="FNanchor_190_190"></a><a href="#Footnote_190_190" class="fnanchor">[190]</a> and Ricardo was to him
+the incarnation of the stock-jobbing interest. Cobbett sympathised
+instinctively with the doctrine of the French economists that
+agriculture was the real source of all wealth. He nearly accepts a
+phrase, erroneously attributed to Windham, 'Perish Commerce'; and he
+argues that commerce was, in fact, of little use, and its monstrous
+extension at the bottom of all our worst evils.<a name="FNanchor_191_191" id="FNanchor_191_191"></a><a href="#Footnote_191_191" class="fnanchor">[191]</a> Nobody could be
+more heartily opposed to the spirit which animated the political
+economists and the whole class represented by them. At times he spoke
+the language of modern Socialists. He defines Capital as 'money taken
+from the labouring classes, which, being given to army tailors and
+suchlike, enables them to keep foxhounds and trace their descent from
+the Normans.'<a name="FNanchor_192_192" id="FNanchor_192_192"></a><a href="#Footnote_192_192" class="fnanchor">[192]</a></p>
+
+<p>The most characteristic point of his speculations is his view of the
+poor-laws. Nobody could speak with more good sense and feeling of the
+demoralisation which they were actually producing, of the sapping of
+the spirit of independence, and of all the devices by which the
+agricultural labourer was losing the happiness enjoyed in early years.
+But Cobbett's deduction from his principles is peculiar. 'Parson
+Malthus' is perhaps the favourite object of his most virulent abuse.
+'I have hated many men,' he says, 'but never any one so much as you,'
+'I call you parson,' he explains, 'because that word includes
+"boroughmonger" among other meanings, though no single word could be
+sufficient.'<a name="FNanchor_193_193" id="FNanchor_193_193"></a><a href="#Footnote_193_193" class="fnanchor">[193]</a> Cobbett<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> rages against the phrase 'redundant
+population.' There would be plenty for all if the borough-mongers and
+stockjobbers could be annihilated, taxes abolished, and the debt
+repudiated. The ordinary palliatives suggested were little to the
+taste of this remarkable Radical. The man who approved bull-fighting
+and supported the slave-trade naturally sneered at 'heddekashun,' and
+thought savings-banks a mean device to interest the poor in the
+keeping up of the funds. His remedy was always a sponge applied to the
+debt, and the abolition of taxes.</p>
+
+<p>This leads, however, to one remarkable conclusion. Cobbett's attack
+upon the church establishment probably did more to cause alarm than
+any writings of the day. For Paine's attacks upon its creed he cared
+little enough. 'Your religion,' said a parson to him, 'seems to be
+altogether political.' It might well be, was Cobbett's retort, since
+his creed was made for him by act of parliament.<a name="FNanchor_194_194" id="FNanchor_194_194"></a><a href="#Footnote_194_194" class="fnanchor">[194]</a> In fact, he
+cared nothing for theology, though he called himself a member of the
+church of England, and retained an intense dislike for Unitarians,
+dissenters in general, 'saints' as he called the Evangelical party,
+Scottish Presbyterians, and generally for all religious sects. He
+looked at church questions solely from one point of view. He had
+learned, it seems, from a passage in Ruggles's <i>History of the
+Poor</i>,<a name="FNanchor_195_195" id="FNanchor_195_195"></a><a href="#Footnote_195_195" class="fnanchor">[195]</a> that the tithes had been originally intended to support
+the poor as well as the church. Gradually, as he looked back upon the
+'good old times,' he developed the theory expounded in his <i>History of
+the Reformation</i>. It is a singular performance,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> written at the period
+of his most reckless exasperation (1824-27), but with his full vigour
+of style. He declares<a name="FNanchor_196_196" id="FNanchor_196_196"></a><a href="#Footnote_196_196" class="fnanchor">[196]</a> in 1825 that he has sold forty-five
+thousand copies, and it has been often reprinted. The purpose is to
+show that the Reformation was 'engendered in beastly lust, brought
+forth in hypocrisy, and cherished and fed by plunder and devastation,
+and by rivers of English and Irish blood.'<a name="FNanchor_197_197" id="FNanchor_197_197"></a><a href="#Footnote_197_197" class="fnanchor">[197]</a> Briefly, it is the
+cause of every evil that has happened since, including 'the debt, the
+banks, the stockjobbers, and the American revolution.'<a name="FNanchor_198_198" id="FNanchor_198_198"></a><a href="#Footnote_198_198" class="fnanchor">[198]</a> In proving
+this, Cobbett writes in the spirit of some vehement Catholic bigot,
+maddened by the penal laws. Henry <span class="smcap">viii.</span>, Elizabeth, and William <span class="smcap">iii.</span>
+are his monsters; the Marys of England and Scotland his ideal martyrs.
+He almost apologises for the massacre of St. Bartholomew and the
+Gunpowder Plot; and, in spite of his patriotism, attributes the defeat
+of the Armada to a storm, for fear of praising Elizabeth. The
+bitterest Ultramontane of to-day would shrink from some of this
+Radical's audacious statements. Cobbett, in spite of his extravagance,
+shows flashes of his usual shrewdness. He remarks elsewhere that the
+true way of studying history is to examine acts of parliament and
+lists of prices of labour and of food;<a name="FNanchor_199_199" id="FNanchor_199_199"></a><a href="#Footnote_199_199" class="fnanchor">[199]</a> and he argues upon such
+grounds for the prosperity of the agricultural labourer under Edward
+<span class="smcap">iii.</span>, 'when a dung-cart filler could get a fat goose and a half for
+half a day's work.' He makes some telling hits, as when he contrasts
+William of Wykeham with Brownlow North, the last bishop of Winchester.
+Protestants condemned celibacy. Well,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> had William been married, we
+should not have had Winchester school, or New College; had Brownlow
+North been doomed to celibacy, he would not have had ten sons and
+sons-in-law to share twenty-four rich livings, besides prebends and
+other preferments; and perhaps he would not have sold small beer from
+his episcopal palace at Farnham. Cobbett's main doctrine is that when
+the Catholic church flourished, the population was actually more
+numerous and richer, that the care of the priests and monks made
+pauperism impossible, and that ever since the hideous blunder
+perpetrated by the reformers everything has been going from bad to
+worse. When it was retorted that the census proved the population to
+be growing, he replied that the census was a lie. Were the facts truly
+stated, he declares, we should have a population of near twenty-eight
+million in England by the end of this century,<a name="FNanchor_200_200" id="FNanchor_200_200"></a><a href="#Footnote_200_200" class="fnanchor">[200]</a> a manifest
+<i>reductio ad absurdum</i>. If it were remarked that there was a Catholic
+church in France, and that Cobbett proves his case by the superiority
+of the English poor to the French poor, he remarked summarily that the
+French laws were different.<a name="FNanchor_201_201" id="FNanchor_201_201"></a><a href="#Footnote_201_201" class="fnanchor">[201]</a></p>
+
+<p>Thus, the one monster evil is the debt, and the taxes turn out to have
+been a Protestant invention made necessary by the original act of
+plunder. That was Cobbett's doctrine, and, however perverse might be
+some of his reasonings, it was clearly to the taste of a large
+audience. The poor-law was merely a partial atonement for a vast and
+continuous process of plunder. Corrupt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> as might be its actual
+operation, it was a part of the poor man's patrimony, extorted by fear
+from the gang of robbers who fattened upon their labours.</p>
+
+<p>Cobbett's theories need not be discussed from the logical or
+historical point of view. They are the utterances of a man made
+unscrupulous by his desperate circumstances, fighting with boundless
+pugnacity, ready to strike any blow, fair or foul, so long as it will
+vex his enemies, and help to sell the <i>Register</i>. His pugnacity
+alienated all his friends. Not only did Whigs and Tories agree in
+condemning him, but the Utilitarians hated and despised him, and his
+old friends, Burnett and Hunt, were alienated from him, and reviled by
+him. His actual followers were a small and insignificant remnant. Yet
+Cobbett, like Owen, represented in a crude fashion blind instincts of
+no small importance in the coming years. And it is especially to be
+noted that in one direction the philosophic Coleridge and the keen
+Quarterly Reviewer Southey, and the Socialist Owen and the reactionary
+Radical Cobbett, were more in agreement than they knew. What alarmed
+them was the vast social change indicated by the industrial
+revolution. In one way or another they connected all the evils of the
+day with the growth of commerce and manufactures, and the breaking up
+of the old system of domestic trade and village life.<a name="FNanchor_202_202" id="FNanchor_202_202"></a><a href="#Footnote_202_202" class="fnanchor">[202]</a> That is to
+say, that in a dumb and inarticulate logic, though in the loudest
+tones of denunciation, Tories and Socialists, and nondescript Radicals
+were raging against the results of the great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> social change, which the
+Utilitarians regarded as the true line of advance of the day. This
+gives the deepest line of demarcation, and brings us to the political
+economy, which shows most fully how the case presented itself to the
+true Utilitarian.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_80_80" id="Footnote_80_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> Bain's <i>James Mill</i>, p. 215.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_81_81" id="Footnote_81_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> <i>Autobiography</i>, p. 104.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_82_82" id="Footnote_82_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> <i>Miscellaneous Works</i> (Popular Edition), p. 131.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_83_83" id="Footnote_83_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> The articles from the <i>Encyclop&aelig;dia</i> upon Government,
+Jurisprudence, Liberty of the Press, Prisons and Prison Discipline,
+Colonies, Law of Nations, Education, were reprinted in a volume 'not
+for sale,' in 1825 and 1828. I quote from a reprint not dated.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_84_84" id="Footnote_84_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> 'Government,' pp. 3-5.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_85_85" id="Footnote_85_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a> 'Government,' p. 8.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_86_86" id="Footnote_86_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a> 'Government,' p. 9.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_87_87" id="Footnote_87_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 11.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_88_88" id="Footnote_88_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 9.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_89_89" id="Footnote_89_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 12.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_90_90" id="Footnote_90_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a> 'Government,' p. 9.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_91_91" id="Footnote_91_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a> C'est une exp&eacute;rience &eacute;ternelle que tout homme qui a du
+pouvoir est port&eacute; &agrave; en abuser; il va jusqu'&agrave; ce qu'il trouve des
+limites.&mdash;<i>Esprit des Lois</i>, Bk. xi. chap 4.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_92_92" id="Footnote_92_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a> 'Government,' p. 15.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_93_93" id="Footnote_93_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a> 'Government,' p. 7.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_94_94" id="Footnote_94_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_94_94"><span class="label">[94]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 18.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_95_95" id="Footnote_95_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_95_95"><span class="label">[95]</span></a> 'Government,' p. 21.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_96_96" id="Footnote_96_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96_96"><span class="label">[96]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 22</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_97_97" id="Footnote_97_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_97_97"><span class="label">[97]</span></a> <i>Autobiography</i>, p. 104.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_98_98" id="Footnote_98_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_98_98"><span class="label">[98]</span></a> 'Government,' p. 28.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_99_99" id="Footnote_99_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_99_99"><span class="label">[99]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 30. Mill especially refers to the exposure of
+clerical artifices in Father Paul's <i>Council of Trent</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_100_100" id="Footnote_100_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_100_100"><span class="label">[100]</span></a> 'Education,' p. 20</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_101_101" id="Footnote_101_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_101_101"><span class="label">[101]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 45.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_102_102" id="Footnote_102_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102_102"><span class="label">[102]</span></a> <i>Autobiography</i>, p. 106.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_103_103" id="Footnote_103_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103_103"><span class="label">[103]</span></a> 'Government,' p. 31.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_104_104" id="Footnote_104_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_104_104"><span class="label">[104]</span></a> Bain's <i>James Mill</i>, p. 392.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_105_105" id="Footnote_105_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_105_105"><span class="label">[105]</span></a> They were reprinted in the <i>Miscellaneous Works</i> after
+Macaulay's death. I quote from the 'popular edition' of that work
+(1875).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_106_106" id="Footnote_106_106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106_106"><span class="label">[106]</span></a> <i>Miscellaneous Works</i>, p. 166.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_107_107" id="Footnote_107_107"></a><a href="#FNanchor_107_107"><span class="label">[107]</span></a> <i>Miscellaneous Works</i>, p. 132.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_108_108" id="Footnote_108_108"></a><a href="#FNanchor_108_108"><span class="label">[108]</span></a> Mill's <i>Autobiography</i>, p. 158.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_109_109" id="Footnote_109_109"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109_109"><span class="label">[109]</span></a> 'Government,' p. 12.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_110_110" id="Footnote_110_110"></a><a href="#FNanchor_110_110"><span class="label">[110]</span></a> <i>Miscellaneous Works</i>, p. 169.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_111_111" id="Footnote_111_111"></a><a href="#FNanchor_111_111"><span class="label">[111]</span></a> <i>Fragment on Mackintosh</i> (1870), pp. 275-94.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_112_112" id="Footnote_112_112"></a><a href="#FNanchor_112_112"><span class="label">[112]</span></a> Essay on the 'Independency of Parliament.'</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_113_113" id="Footnote_113_113"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113_113"><span class="label">[113]</span></a> <i>Fragment</i>, p. 292.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_114_114" id="Footnote_114_114"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114_114"><span class="label">[114]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 276.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_115_115" id="Footnote_115_115"></a><a href="#FNanchor_115_115"><span class="label">[115]</span></a> <i>Miscellaneous Works</i>, p. 170.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_116_116" id="Footnote_116_116"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116_116"><span class="label">[116]</span></a> <i>Miscellaneous Works</i>, p. 173.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_117_117" id="Footnote_117_117"></a><a href="#FNanchor_117_117"><span class="label">[117]</span></a> <i>Miscellaneous Works</i>, p. 138.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_118_118" id="Footnote_118_118"></a><a href="#FNanchor_118_118"><span class="label">[118]</span></a> <i>Miscellaneous Works</i>, pp. 135-40.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_119_119" id="Footnote_119_119"></a><a href="#FNanchor_119_119"><span class="label">[119]</span></a> <i>Miscellaneous Works</i>, p. 158, and see pp. 143-47.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_120_120" id="Footnote_120_120"></a><a href="#FNanchor_120_120"><span class="label">[120]</span></a> <i>Speeches</i> (Popular Edition), p. 125.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_121_121" id="Footnote_121_121"></a><a href="#FNanchor_121_121"><span class="label">[121]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 128.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_122_122" id="Footnote_122_122"></a><a href="#FNanchor_122_122"><span class="label">[122]</span></a> <i>Miscellaneous Works</i>, p. 146.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_123_123" id="Footnote_123_123"></a><a href="#FNanchor_123_123"><span class="label">[123]</span></a> <i>Miscellaneous Works</i>, p. 183.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_124_124" id="Footnote_124_124"></a><a href="#FNanchor_124_124"><span class="label">[124]</span></a> A full analysis of this article is in Bain's <i>James
+Mill</i>, pp. 265-75.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_125_125" id="Footnote_125_125"></a><a href="#FNanchor_125_125"><span class="label">[125]</span></a> Article upon Sheridan, reprinted in Jeffrey's <i>Essays</i>,
+iv. (1844).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_126_126" id="Footnote_126_126"></a><a href="#FNanchor_126_126"><span class="label">[126]</span></a> <i>Table-Talk</i>, 27th April 1823.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_127_127" id="Footnote_127_127"></a><a href="#FNanchor_127_127"><span class="label">[127]</span></a> <i>Vindici&aelig; Gallic&aelig;</i>, in <i>Miscellaneous Works</i>, iii.
+(1846), p. 57.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_128_128" id="Footnote_128_128"></a><a href="#FNanchor_128_128"><span class="label">[128]</span></a> Mackintosh thinks it necessary to add that this
+parallel was suggested to him by William Thomson (1746-1837), a
+literary gentleman who continued Watson's <i>Philip III.</i>, and may, for
+anything I know, deserve Mackintosh's warm eulogy.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_129_129" id="Footnote_129_129"></a><a href="#FNanchor_129_129"><span class="label">[129]</span></a> <i>Vindici&aelig; Gallic&aelig;</i>, p. 59.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_130_130" id="Footnote_130_130"></a><a href="#FNanchor_130_130"><span class="label">[130]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 51.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_131_131" id="Footnote_131_131"></a><a href="#FNanchor_131_131"><span class="label">[131]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 148.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_132_132" id="Footnote_132_132"></a><a href="#FNanchor_132_132"><span class="label">[132]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 68.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_133_133" id="Footnote_133_133"></a><a href="#FNanchor_133_133"><span class="label">[133]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 72.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_134_134" id="Footnote_134_134"></a><a href="#FNanchor_134_134"><span class="label">[134]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 125.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_135_135" id="Footnote_135_135"></a><a href="#FNanchor_135_135"><span class="label">[135]</span></a> <i>Vindici&aelig; Gallic&aelig;</i>, p. 128.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_136_136" id="Footnote_136_136"></a><a href="#FNanchor_136_136"><span class="label">[136]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 84.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_137_137" id="Footnote_137_137"></a><a href="#FNanchor_137_137"><span class="label">[137]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 30.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_138_138" id="Footnote_138_138"></a><a href="#FNanchor_138_138"><span class="label">[138]</span></a> <i>Life of Mackintosh</i>, i. 125.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_139_139" id="Footnote_139_139"></a><a href="#FNanchor_139_139"><span class="label">[139]</span></a> <i>Miscellaneous Works</i>, iii. 261-65.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_140_140" id="Footnote_140_140"></a><a href="#FNanchor_140_140"><span class="label">[140]</span></a> <i>Life</i>, i. 309-16.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_141_141" id="Footnote_141_141"></a><a href="#FNanchor_141_141"><span class="label">[141]</span></a> See <i>Miscellaneous Works</i>, iii. 3.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_142_142" id="Footnote_142_142"></a><a href="#FNanchor_142_142"><span class="label">[142]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> iii. 203-38 (an article highly praised by
+Bagehot in his <i>Parliamentary Reform</i>).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_143_143" id="Footnote_143_143"></a><a href="#FNanchor_143_143"><span class="label">[143]</span></a> <i>Miscellaneous Works</i>, iii. 215-16.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_144_144" id="Footnote_144_144"></a><a href="#FNanchor_144_144"><span class="label">[144]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> iii. 226. Mackintosh in this article mentions
+the 'caucus,' and observes that the name implies that combinations
+have been already formed upon 'which the future government of the
+confederacy may depend more than on the forms of election, or the
+letter of the present laws.' He inclines to approve the system as
+essential to party government.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_145_145" id="Footnote_145_145"></a><a href="#FNanchor_145_145"><span class="label">[145]</span></a> <i>Essays</i> (1844), i. 84-106.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_146_146" id="Footnote_146_146"></a><a href="#FNanchor_146_146"><span class="label">[146]</span></a> The famous 'Cevallos' article of 1808, said to be
+written by Jeffrey and Brougham (Macvey Napier's <i>Correspondence</i>, p.
+308), gave the immediate cause of starting the <i>Quarterly</i>; and,
+according to Brougham, first gave a distinctly Liberal character to
+the <i>Edinburgh</i>. For Jeffrey's desire to avoid 'party politics,' see
+Lockhart's <i>Life of Scott</i>, M. Napier's <i>Correspondence</i>, p. 435, and
+Homer's <i>Memoirs</i> (1853), i. 464.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_147_147" id="Footnote_147_147"></a><a href="#FNanchor_147_147"><span class="label">[147]</span></a> April 1805; reprinted in <i>Essays</i>, ii. 38, etc., to
+show, as he says, how early he had taken up his view of the French
+revolution.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_148_148" id="Footnote_148_148"></a><a href="#FNanchor_148_148"><span class="label">[148]</span></a> Sydney Smith complains in his correspondence of this
+article as exaggerating the power of the aristocracy.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_149_149" id="Footnote_149_149"></a><a href="#FNanchor_149_149"><span class="label">[149]</span></a> <i>Essays</i>, iv. 29.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_150_150" id="Footnote_150_150"></a><a href="#FNanchor_150_150"><span class="label">[150]</span></a> I need not speak of Brougham, then the most conspicuous
+advocate of Whiggism. He published in 1843 a <i>Political Philosophy</i>,
+which, according to Lord Campbell, killed the 'Society for the
+Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.' No such hypothesis is necessary to
+account for the death of a society encumbered by a 'Dictionary of
+Universal Biography.' But the book was bad enough to kill, if a
+collection of outworn platitudes can produce that effect.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_151_151" id="Footnote_151_151"></a><a href="#FNanchor_151_151"><span class="label">[151]</span></a> Bentham's <i>Works</i>, x. 536.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_152_152" id="Footnote_152_152"></a><a href="#FNanchor_152_152"><span class="label">[152]</span></a> <i>Colloquies</i>, i. 253.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_153_153" id="Footnote_153_153"></a><a href="#FNanchor_153_153"><span class="label">[153]</span></a> <i>Colloquies</i>, i. 171.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_154_154" id="Footnote_154_154"></a><a href="#FNanchor_154_154"><span class="label">[154]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 178.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_155_155" id="Footnote_155_155"></a><a href="#FNanchor_155_155"><span class="label">[155]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 169.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_156_156" id="Footnote_156_156"></a><a href="#FNanchor_156_156"><span class="label">[156]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 167.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_157_157" id="Footnote_157_157"></a><a href="#FNanchor_157_157"><span class="label">[157]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 170.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_158_158" id="Footnote_158_158"></a><a href="#FNanchor_158_158"><span class="label">[158]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 194.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_159_159" id="Footnote_159_159"></a><a href="#FNanchor_159_159"><span class="label">[159]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ii. 247.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_160_160" id="Footnote_160_160"></a><a href="#FNanchor_160_160"><span class="label">[160]</span></a> <i>Colloquies</i>, ii. 259.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_161_161" id="Footnote_161_161"></a><a href="#FNanchor_161_161"><span class="label">[161]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 109.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_162_162" id="Footnote_162_162"></a><a href="#FNanchor_162_162"><span class="label">[162]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ii. 105-7.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_163_163" id="Footnote_163_163"></a><a href="#FNanchor_163_163"><span class="label">[163]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 106.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_164_164" id="Footnote_164_164"></a><a href="#FNanchor_164_164"><span class="label">[164]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 47.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_165_165" id="Footnote_165_165"></a><a href="#FNanchor_165_165"><span class="label">[165]</span></a> <i>Life and Correspondence</i>, iv. 195; <i>Selections</i>, iii.
+45.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_166_166" id="Footnote_166_166"></a><a href="#FNanchor_166_166"><span class="label">[166]</span></a> <i>Colloquies</i>, i. 62.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_167_167" id="Footnote_167_167"></a><a href="#FNanchor_167_167"><span class="label">[167]</span></a> <i>Colloquies</i>, i. 135.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_168_168" id="Footnote_168_168"></a><a href="#FNanchor_168_168"><span class="label">[168]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ii. 147. Southey is here almost verbally
+following Burke's <i>Reflections</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_169_169" id="Footnote_169_169"></a><a href="#FNanchor_169_169"><span class="label">[169]</span></a> <i>Life and Correspondence</i>, v. 4-6.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_170_170" id="Footnote_170_170"></a><a href="#FNanchor_170_170"><span class="label">[170]</span></a> <i>Colloquies</i>, i. 105.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_171_171" id="Footnote_171_171"></a><a href="#FNanchor_171_171"><span class="label">[171]</span></a> <i>On the Constitution of Church and State, according to
+the idea of each</i>, 1852 (fourth edition).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_172_172" id="Footnote_172_172"></a><a href="#FNanchor_172_172"><span class="label">[172]</span></a> <i>Church and State</i>, p. 100.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_173_173" id="Footnote_173_173"></a><a href="#FNanchor_173_173"><span class="label">[173]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 97.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_174_174" id="Footnote_174_174"></a><a href="#FNanchor_174_174"><span class="label">[174]</span></a> <i>Church and State</i>, p. 85.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_175_175" id="Footnote_175_175"></a><a href="#FNanchor_175_175"><span class="label">[175]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 67.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_176_176" id="Footnote_176_176"></a><a href="#FNanchor_176_176"><span class="label">[176]</span></a> <i>Church and State</i>, p. 142.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_177_177" id="Footnote_177_177"></a><a href="#FNanchor_177_177"><span class="label">[177]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> pp. 75-79.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_178_178" id="Footnote_178_178"></a><a href="#FNanchor_178_178"><span class="label">[178]</span></a> <i>Colloquies</i>, i. 37.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_179_179" id="Footnote_179_179"></a><a href="#FNanchor_179_179"><span class="label">[179]</span></a> See an early account of Dale (in 1798) in Sydney
+Smith's <i>Life and Letters</i>, i. 35, and another in Wilberforce's
+<i>Correspondence</i> (1840), i. 137 (in 1796).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_180_180" id="Footnote_180_180"></a><a href="#FNanchor_180_180"><span class="label">[180]</span></a> Printed in <i>Political Works</i>, i. 302.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_181_181" id="Footnote_181_181"></a><a href="#FNanchor_181_181"><span class="label">[181]</span></a> <i>Political Works</i>, v. 313; vi. 579.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_182_182" id="Footnote_182_182"></a><a href="#FNanchor_182_182"><span class="label">[182]</span></a> <i>Political Works</i>, i. 473; v. 319.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_183_183" id="Footnote_183_183"></a><a href="#FNanchor_183_183"><span class="label">[183]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ii. 285.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_184_184" id="Footnote_184_184"></a><a href="#FNanchor_184_184"><span class="label">[184]</span></a> <i>Political Works</i>, ii. 28; iv. 388.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_185_185" id="Footnote_185_185"></a><a href="#FNanchor_185_185"><span class="label">[185]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 443.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_186_186" id="Footnote_186_186"></a><a href="#FNanchor_186_186"><span class="label">[186]</span></a> <i>Rural Rides</i> (1853), p. 311.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_187_187" id="Footnote_187_187"></a><a href="#FNanchor_187_187"><span class="label">[187]</span></a> <i>Rural Rides</i>, p. 386.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_188_188" id="Footnote_188_188"></a><a href="#FNanchor_188_188"><span class="label">[188]</span></a> <i>Political Works</i>, v. 436 (22nd July 1819).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_189_189" id="Footnote_189_189"></a><a href="#FNanchor_189_189"><span class="label">[189]</span></a> Even M'Culloch had recommended a partial repudiation.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_190_190" id="Footnote_190_190"></a><a href="#FNanchor_190_190"><span class="label">[190]</span></a> <i>Political Works</i>, iv. 237.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_191_191" id="Footnote_191_191"></a><a href="#FNanchor_191_191"><span class="label">[191]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ii. 19, 107, 250, 346; and iii. 423. See
+<i>Parliamentary History</i>, xxx., where the first use of the phrase by
+Hardinge is reported.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_192_192" id="Footnote_192_192"></a><a href="#FNanchor_192_192"><span class="label">[192]</span></a> <i>Political Works</i>, vi. 176.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_193_193" id="Footnote_193_193"></a><a href="#FNanchor_193_193"><span class="label">[193]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> 395.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_194_194" id="Footnote_194_194"></a><a href="#FNanchor_194_194"><span class="label">[194]</span></a> <i>Rural Rides</i>, p. 446.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_195_195" id="Footnote_195_195"></a><a href="#FNanchor_195_195"><span class="label">[195]</span></a> He complains bitterly that Ruggles had suppressed this
+in a second edition. <i>Protestant Reformation</i> (1850), ii.,
+Introduction.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_196_196" id="Footnote_196_196"></a><a href="#FNanchor_196_196"><span class="label">[196]</span></a> <i>Political Register</i>, 29th Jan. 1825.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_197_197" id="Footnote_197_197"></a><a href="#FNanchor_197_197"><span class="label">[197]</span></a> <i>Protestant Reformation</i>, p. 13.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_198_198" id="Footnote_198_198"></a><a href="#FNanchor_198_198"><span class="label">[198]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 262.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_199_199" id="Footnote_199_199"></a><a href="#FNanchor_199_199"><span class="label">[199]</span></a> <i>Advice to Young Men</i>, p. 8.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_200_200" id="Footnote_200_200"></a><a href="#FNanchor_200_200"><span class="label">[200]</span></a> <i>Political Works</i>, v. 405. If our census be not a lie,
+there were twenty-seven million Englishmen in 1891.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_201_201" id="Footnote_201_201"></a><a href="#FNanchor_201_201"><span class="label">[201]</span></a> <i>Protestant Reformation</i>, i. 311.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_202_202" id="Footnote_202_202"></a><a href="#FNanchor_202_202"><span class="label">[202]</span></a> Coleridge in a letter to Allsop (<i>Conversations</i>, etc.,
+i. 20) approves one of Cobbett's articles, because it popularises the
+weighty truth of the 'hollowness of commercial wealth.' Cobbett, he
+sadly reflects, is an overmatch for Liverpool. See Cobbett's
+<i>Political Works</i>, v. 466 <i>n.</i></p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<p class="subhead1">MALTHUS</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">I. MALTHUS'S STARTING-POINT</p>
+
+<p>The political movement represented the confluence of many different
+streams of agitation. Enormous social changes had generated
+multifarious discontent. New wants and the new strains and stresses
+between the various parts of the political mechanism required new
+adaptations. But, if it were inquired what was the precise nature of
+the evils, and how the reform of parliament was to operate, the most
+various answers might be given. A most important line of division did
+not coincide with the line between the recognised parties. One wing of
+the Radicals agreed with many Conservatives in attributing the great
+evils of the day to the industrial movement and the growth of
+competition. The middle-class Whigs and the Utilitarians were, on the
+contrary, in thorough sympathy with the industrial movement, and
+desired to limit the functions of government, and trust to self-help
+and free competition. The Socialistic movement appeared for the
+present to be confined to a few dreamers and demagogues. The
+Utilitarians might approve the spirit of the Owenites, but held their
+schemes to be chimerical. Beneath the political controversies there
+was therefore a set of problems to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> answered; and the Utilitarian
+answer defines their distinction from Radicals of a different and, as
+they would have said, unphilosophical school.</p>
+
+<p>What, then, was the view really taken by the Utilitarians of these
+underlying problems? They not only had a very definite theory in
+regard to them, but in working it out achieved perhaps their most
+important contribution to speculation. Beneath a political theory
+lies, or ought to lie, what we now call a 'sociology'&mdash;a theory of
+that structure of society which really determines the character and
+the working of political institutions. The Utilitarian theory was
+embodied in their political economy. I must try to define as well as I
+can what were the essential first principles implied, without going
+into the special problems which would be relevant in a history of
+political economy.</p>
+
+<p>The two leading names in the literature of political economy during
+the first quarter of this century were undoubtedly Malthus and
+Ricardo. Thomas Robert Malthus<a name="FNanchor_203_203" id="FNanchor_203_203"></a><a href="#Footnote_203_203" class="fnanchor">[203]</a> (1766-1834) was not one of the
+Utilitarian band. As a clergyman, he could not share their opinion of
+the Thirty-nine Articles. Moreover, he was a Whig, not a Radical; and
+he was even tainted with some economic heresy. Still, he became one of
+the prophets, if not the leading prophet, of the Utilitarians. Belief
+in the Malthusian theory of population was the most essential article
+of their faith, and marked the line of cleavage between the two wings
+of the Radical party.</p>
+
+<p>Malthus was the son of a country gentleman in Surrey.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> His father was
+a man of studious habits, and one of the enthusiastic admirers of
+Rousseau. His study of <i>&Eacute;mile</i> probably led to the rather desultory
+education of his son. The boy, after being taught at home, was for a
+time a pupil of R. Graves (1715-1804), author of the <i>Spiritual
+Quixote</i>, a Whig clergyman who was at least orthodox enough to
+ridicule Methodism. Malthus was next sent to attend Gilbert
+Wakefield's lectures at the Warrington 'Academy,' the Unitarian place
+of education, and in 1784 went to Jesus College, Cambridge, of which
+Wakefield had been a fellow. For Wakefield, who had become a
+Unitarian, and who was afterwards a martyr to political Radicalism, he
+appears to have retained a strong respect. At Jesus, again, Malthus
+was under Frend, who also was to join the Unitarians. Malthus was thus
+brought up under the influences of the modified rationalism which was
+represented by the Unitarians outside the establishment and by Paley
+within. Coleridge was at Jesus while Malthus was still a fellow, and
+there became an ardent admirer of Priestley, Malthus remained within
+the borders of the church. Its yoke was light enough, and he was
+essentially predisposed to moderate views. He took his degree as ninth
+wrangler in 1788, became a fellow of his college in 1793, took orders,
+and in 1798 was curate of Albury, near his father's house in Surrey.
+Malthus's home was within a walk of Farnham, where Cobbett had been
+born and passed his childhood. He had, therefore, before his eyes the
+same agricultural labourer whose degradation excited Cobbett to
+Radicalism. Very different views were suggested to Malthus. The
+revolutionary doctrine was represented in England by the writings of
+Godwin, whose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> <i>Political Justice</i> appeared in 1793 and <i>Enquirer</i> in
+1797. These books naturally afforded topics for discussion between
+Malthus and his father. The usual relations between senior and junior
+were inverted; the elder Malthus, as became a follower of Rousseau,
+was an enthusiast; and the younger took the part of suggesting doubts
+and difficulties. He resolved to put down his arguments upon paper, in
+order to clear his mind; and the result was the <i>Essay upon
+Population</i>, of which the first edition appeared anonymously in 1798.</p>
+
+<p>The argument upon which Malthus relied was already prepared for him.
+The dreams of the revolutionary enthusiasts supposed either a neglect
+of the actual conditions of human life or a belief that those
+conditions could be radically altered by the proposed political
+changes. The cooler reasoner was entitled to remind them that they
+were living upon solid earth, not in dreamland. The difficulty of
+realising Utopia may be presented in various ways. Malthus took a
+point which had been noticed by Godwin. In the conclusion of his
+<i>Political Justice</i>,<a name="FNanchor_204_204" id="FNanchor_204_204"></a><a href="#Footnote_204_204" class="fnanchor">[204]</a> while taking a final glance at the coming
+millennium, Godwin refers to a difficulty suggested by Robert Wallace.
+Wallace had<a name="FNanchor_205_205" id="FNanchor_205_205"></a><a href="#Footnote_205_205" class="fnanchor">[205]</a> said that all the evils under which mankind suffers
+might be removed by a community of property, were it not that such a
+state of things would lead to an 'excessive population.' Godwin makes
+light of the difficulty. He thinks that there is some 'principle in
+human society by means of which everything tends to find its own level
+and proceed in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> the most auspicious way, when least interfered with by
+the mode of regulation.' Anyhow, there is plenty of room on the earth,
+at present. Population may increase for 'myriads of centuries.' Mind,
+as Franklin has said, may become 'omnipotent over matter';<a name="FNanchor_206_206" id="FNanchor_206_206"></a><a href="#Footnote_206_206" class="fnanchor">[206]</a> life
+may be indefinitely prolonged; our remote descendants who have filled
+the earth 'will probably cease to propagate';<a name="FNanchor_207_207" id="FNanchor_207_207"></a><a href="#Footnote_207_207" class="fnanchor">[207]</a> they will not have
+the trouble of making a fresh start at every generation; and in those
+days there will be 'no war, no crimes, no administration of justice';
+and moreover, 'no disease, anguish, melancholy, or resentment.'
+Briefly, we shall be like the angels, only without the needless
+addition of a supreme ruler. Similar ideas were expressed in
+Condorcet's famous <i>Tableau historique des progr&egrave;s de l'esprit
+humain</i>,<a name="FNanchor_208_208" id="FNanchor_208_208"></a><a href="#Footnote_208_208" class="fnanchor">[208]</a> written while he was in daily fear of death by the
+guillotine, and so giving the most striking instance on record of the
+invincibility of an idealist conviction under the hardest pressure of
+facts.</p>
+
+<p>The argument of Malthus is a product of the whole previous course of
+speculation. The question of population had occupied the French
+economists. The profound social evils of France gave the
+starting-point of their speculations; and one of the gravest symptoms
+had been the decay of population under the last years of Louis XIV.
+Their great aim was to meet this evil by encouraging agriculture. It
+could not escape the notice of the simplest observer that if you would
+have more mouths you must provide more food, unless, as some pious
+people assumed, that task might be left to Providence.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> Quesnay had
+laid it down as one of his axioms that the statesman should aim at
+providing sustenance before aiming simply at stimulating population.
+It follows, according to Gulliver's famous maxim, that the man who
+makes two blades of grass grow where one grew before deserves better
+of his country than the 'whole race of politicians put together.'
+Other writers, in developing this thesis, had dwelt upon the
+elasticity of population. The elder Mirabeau, for example, published
+his <i>Ami des hommes ou trait&eacute; de la population</i> in 1756. He observes
+that, given the means of subsistence, men will multiply like rats in a
+barn.<a name="FNanchor_209_209" id="FNanchor_209_209"></a><a href="#Footnote_209_209" class="fnanchor">[209]</a> The great axiom, he says,<a name="FNanchor_210_210" id="FNanchor_210_210"></a><a href="#Footnote_210_210" class="fnanchor">[210]</a> is 'la mesure de la
+subsistance est celle de la population.' Cultivate your fields, and
+you will raise men. Mirabeau replies to Hume's essay upon the
+'Populousness of ancient nations' (1752), of which Wallace's first
+treatise was a criticism. The problem discussed by Hume and Wallace
+had been comparatively academical; but by Malthus's time the question
+had taken a more practical shape. The sentimentalists denounced luxury
+as leading to a decay of the population. Their prevailing doctrine is
+embodied in Goldsmith's famous passage in the <i>Deserted Village</i>
+(1770):</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where wealth accumulates and men decay.'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The poetical version only reflected the serious belief of Radical
+politicians. Although, as we are now aware, the population was in fact
+increasing rapidly, the belief prevailed among political writers that
+it was actually declining. Trustworthy statistics did not exist. In
+1753 John Potter, son of the archbishop, proposed to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> House of
+Commons a plan for a census. A violent discussion arose,<a name="FNanchor_211_211" id="FNanchor_211_211"></a><a href="#Footnote_211_211" class="fnanchor">[211]</a> in the
+course of which it was pointed out that the plan would inevitably lead
+to the adoption of the 'canvas frock and wooden shoes.' Englishmen
+would lose their liberty, become French slaves, and, when counted,
+would no doubt be taxed and forcibly enlisted. The bill passed the
+House of Commons in spite of such reasoning, but was thrown out by the
+House of Lords. Till the first census was taken in 1801&mdash;a period at
+which the absolute necessity of such knowledge had become obvious&mdash;the
+most elementary facts remained uncertain. Was population increasing or
+decreasing? That surely might be ascertainable.</p>
+
+<p>Richard Price (1723-1791) was not only a distinguished moralist and a
+leading politician, but perhaps the best known writer of his time upon
+statistical questions. He had the credit of suggesting Pitt's sinking
+fund,<a name="FNanchor_212_212" id="FNanchor_212_212"></a><a href="#Footnote_212_212" class="fnanchor">[212]</a> and spoke with the highest authority upon facts and
+figures. Price argued in 1780<a name="FNanchor_213_213" id="FNanchor_213_213"></a><a href="#Footnote_213_213" class="fnanchor">[213]</a> that the population of England had
+diminished by one-fourth since the revolution of 1688. A sharp
+controversy followed upon the few ascertainable data. The vagueness of
+the results shows curiously how much economists had to argue in the
+dark. Malthus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> observes in his first edition that he had been
+convinced by reading Price that population was restrained by 'vice and
+misery,' as results, not of political institutions, but of 'our own
+creation.'<a name="FNanchor_214_214" id="FNanchor_214_214"></a><a href="#Footnote_214_214" class="fnanchor">[214]</a> This gives the essential point of difference. Mirabeau
+had declared that the population of all Europe was decaying. Hume's
+essay, which he criticises, had been in answer to a similar statement
+of Montesquieu. Price had learned that other countries were increasing
+in number, though England, he held, was still declining. What, then,
+was the cause? The cause, replied both Price and Mirabeau, was
+'luxury,' to which Price adds the specially English evils of the
+'engrossment of farms' and the enclosure of open fields. Price had to
+admit that the English towns had increased; but this was an additional
+evil. The towns increased simply by draining the country; and in the
+towns themselves the deaths exceeded the births. The great cities were
+the graves of mankind. This opinion was strongly held, too, by Arthur
+Young, who ridiculed the general fear of depopulation, and declared
+that if money were provided, you could always get labour, but who
+looked upon the towns as destructive cancers in the body politic.</p>
+
+<p>The prevalence of this view explains Malthus's position. To attribute
+depopulation to luxury was to say that it was caused by the inequality
+of property. The rich man wasted the substance of the country, became
+demoralised himself, and both corrupted and plundered his neighbours.
+The return to a 'state of nature,' in Rousseau's phrase, meant the
+return to a state of things in which this misappropriation should
+become impossible. The whole industry of the nation would then be
+devoted to supporting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> millions of honest, simple peasants and
+labourers, whereas it now went to increasing the splendour of the
+great at the expense of the poor. Price enlarges upon this theme,
+which was, in fact, the contemporary version of the later formula that
+the rich are growing richer and the poor poorer. The immediate effect
+of equalising property, then, would be an increase of population. It
+was the natural retort, adopted by Malthus, that such an increase
+would soon make everybody poor, instead of making every one
+comfortable. Population, the French economists had said, follows
+subsistence. Will it not multiply indefinitely? The rapid growth of
+population in America was noticed by Price and Godwin; and the theory
+had been long before expanded by Franklin, in a paper which Malthus
+quotes in his later editions. 'There is no bound,' said Franklin in
+1751,<a name="FNanchor_215_215" id="FNanchor_215_215"></a><a href="#Footnote_215_215" class="fnanchor">[215]</a> 'to the prolific nature of plants and animals but what is
+made by their crowding and interfering with each other's means of
+subsistence.' The whole earth, he infers, might be overspread with
+fennel, for example, or, if empty of men, replenished in a few ages
+with Englishmen. There were supposed to be already one million of
+Englishmen in North America. If they doubled once in twenty-five
+years, they would in a century exceed the number of Englishmen at
+home. This is identical with Mirabeau's principle of the multiplying
+of rats in a barn. Population treads closely on the heels of
+subsistence. Work out your figures and see the results.<a name="FNanchor_216_216" id="FNanchor_216_216"></a><a href="#Footnote_216_216" class="fnanchor">[216]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span></p><p>Malthus's essay in the first edition was mainly an application of
+this retort, and though the logic was effective as against Godwin, he
+made no elaborate appeal to facts. Malthus soon came to see that a
+more precise application was desirable. It was clearly desirable to
+know whether population was or was not actually increasing, and under
+what conditions. I have spoken of the contemporary labours of
+Sinclair, Young, Sir F. Eden, and others. To collect statistics was
+plainly one of the essential conditions of settling the controversy.
+Malthus in 1799 travelled on the continent to gather information, and
+visited Sweden, Norway, Russia, and Germany. The peace of Amiens
+enabled him in 1802 to visit France and Switzerland. He inquired
+everywhere into the condition of the people, collected such
+statistical knowledge as was then possible, and returned to digest it
+into a elaborate treatise. Meanwhile, the condition of England was
+giving a fresh significance to the argument. The first edition had
+been published at the critical time when the poor-law was being
+relaxed, and disastrous results were following war and famine. The old
+complaint that the poor-law was causing depopulation was being changed
+for the complaint that it was stimulating pauperism. The first edition
+already discussed this subject, which was occupying all serious
+thinkers; it was now to receive a fuller treatment. The second
+edition, greatly altered,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> appeared in 1803, and made Malthus a man of
+authority. His merits were recognised by his appointment in 1805 to
+the professorship of history and political economy at the newly
+founded East India College at Haileybury. There he remained till the
+end of his life, which was placid, uneventful, and happy. He made a
+happy marriage in 1804; and his calm temperament enabled him to bear
+an amount of abuse which might have broken the health of a more
+irritable man. Cobbett's epithet, 'parson Malthus,' strikes the
+keynote. He was pictured as a Christian priest denouncing charity, and
+proclaiming the necessity of vice and misery. He had the ill luck to
+be the centre upon which the antipathies of Jacobin and anti-Jacobin
+converged. Cobbett's language was rougher than Southey's; but the
+poet-laureate and the author of 'two-penny trash' were equally
+vehement in sentiment. Malthus, on the other hand, was accepted by the
+political economists, both Whig and Utilitarian. Horner and
+Mackintosh, lights of the Whigs, were his warm friends as well as his
+disciples. He became intimate with Ricardo, and he was one of the
+original members of the Political Economy Club. He took abuse
+imperturbably; was never vexed 'after the first fortnight' by the most
+unfair attack; and went on developing his theories, lecturing his
+students, and improving later editions of his treatise. Malthus died
+on 23rd December 1834.</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">II. THE RATIOS</p>
+
+<p>The doctrine marks a critical point in political economy. Malthus's
+opponents, as Mr. Bonar remarks,<a name="FNanchor_217_217" id="FNanchor_217_217"></a><a href="#Footnote_217_217" class="fnanchor">[217]</a> attacked him alternately for
+propounding a truism and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> for maintaining a paradox. A 'truism' is not
+useless so long as its truth is not admitted. It would be the greatest
+of achievements to enunciate a law self-evident as soon as formulated,
+and yet previously ignored or denied. Was this the case of Malthus? Or
+did he really startle the world by clothing a commonplace in paradox,
+and then explain away the paradox till nothing but the commonplace was
+left?</p>
+
+<p>Malthus laid down in his first edition a proposition which continued
+to be worried by all his assailants. Population, he said, when
+unchecked, increases in the geometrical ratio; the means of
+subsistence increase only in an arithmetical ratio. Geometrical ratios
+were just then in fashion.<a name="FNanchor_218_218" id="FNanchor_218_218"></a><a href="#Footnote_218_218" class="fnanchor">[218]</a> Price had appealed to their wonderful
+ways in his arguments about the sinking fund; and had pointed out that
+a penny put out to 5 per cent. compound interest at the birth of
+Christ would, in the days of Pitt, have been worth some millions of
+globes of solid gold, each as big as the earth. Both Price and Malthus
+lay down a proposition which can easily be verified by the
+multiplication-table. If, as Malthus said, population doubles in
+twenty-five years, the number in two centuries would be to the present
+number as 256 to 1, and in three as 4096 to 1. If, meanwhile, the
+quantity of subsistence increased in 'arithmetical progression,' the
+multipliers for it would be only 9 and 13. It follows that, in the
+year 2003, two hundred and fifty-six persons will have to live upon
+what now supports nine. So far,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> the case is clear. But how does the
+argument apply to facts? For obvious reasons, Price's penny could not
+become even one solid planet of gold. Malthus's population is also
+clearly impossible. That is just his case. The population of British
+North America was actually, when he wrote, multiplying at the assigned
+rate. What he pointed out was that such a rate must somehow be
+stopped; and his question was, how precisely will it be stopped? The
+first proposition, he says<a name="FNanchor_219_219" id="FNanchor_219_219"></a><a href="#Footnote_219_219" class="fnanchor">[219]</a> (that is, that population increased
+geometrically), 'I considered as proved the moment that the American
+increase was related; and the second as soon as enunciated.' To say
+that a population increases geometrically, in fact, is simply to say
+that it increases at a fixed rate. The arithmetical increase
+corresponds to a statement which Malthus, at any rate, might regard as
+undeniable; namely, that in a country already fully occupied, the
+possibility of increasing produce is restricted within much narrower
+limits. In a 'new country,' as in the American colonies, the increase
+of food might proceed as rapidly as the increase of population.
+Improved methods of cultivation, or the virtual addition of vast
+tracts of fertile territory by improved means of communication, may of
+course add indefinitely to the resources of a population. But Malthus
+was contemplating a state of things in which the actual conditions
+limited the people to an extraction of greater supplies from a
+strictly limited area. Whether Malthus assumed too easily that this
+represented the normal case may be questionable. At any rate, it was
+not only possible but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> actual in the England of the time. His problem
+was very much to the purpose. His aim was to trace the way in which
+the population of a limited region is prevented from increasing
+geometrically. If the descendants of Englishmen increase at a certain
+rate in America, why do they not increase equally in England? That, it
+must be admitted, is a fair scientific problem. Finding that two races
+of similar origin, and presumably like qualities, increase at
+different rates, we have to investigate the causes of the difference.</p>
+
+<p>Malthus answered the problem in the simplest and most consistent way
+in his first edition. What are the checks? The ultimate check would
+clearly be starvation. A population might multiply till it had not
+food. But before this limit is actually reached, it will suffer in
+various ways from scarcity. Briefly, the checks may be distinguished
+into the positive, that is, actual distress, and the preventive, or
+'foresight.' We shall actually suffer unless we are restrained by the
+anticipation of suffering. As a fact, however, he thinks that men are
+but little influenced by the prudence which foresees sufferings. They
+go on multiplying till the consequences are realised. You may be
+confined in a room, to use one of his illustrations,<a name="FNanchor_220_220" id="FNanchor_220_220"></a><a href="#Footnote_220_220" class="fnanchor">[220]</a> though the
+walls do not touch you; but human beings are seldom satisfied till
+they have actually knocked their heads against the wall. He sums up
+his argument in the first edition in three propositions.<a name="FNanchor_221_221" id="FNanchor_221_221"></a><a href="#Footnote_221_221" class="fnanchor">[221]</a>
+Population is limited by the means of subsistence; that is obvious;
+population invariably increases when the means of subsistence are
+increased; that is shown by experience to be practically true; and
+therefore, finally,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> the proportion is maintained by 'misery and
+vice.' That is the main conclusion which not unnaturally startled the
+world. Malthus always adhered in some sense to the main doctrine,
+though he stated explicitly some reserves already implicitly involved.
+A writer must not be surprised if popular readers remember the
+unguarded and dogmatic utterances which give piquancy to a theory, and
+overlook the latent qualifications which, when fully expressed, make
+it approximate to a commonplace. The political bearing of his
+reasoning is significant. The application of Godwin's theories of
+equality would necessarily, as he urges, stimulate an excessive
+population. To meet the consequent evils, two measures would be
+obviously necessary; private property must be instituted in order to
+stimulate prudence; and marriage must be instituted to make men
+responsible for the increase of the population. These institutions are
+necessary, and they make equality impossible. Weak, then, as foresight
+may be with most men, the essential social institutions have been
+developed by the necessity of enabling foresight to exercise some
+influence; and thus indirectly societies have in fact grown in wealth
+and numbers through arrangements which have by one and the same action
+strengthened prudence and created inequality. Although this is clearly
+implied, the main impression produced upon Malthus's readers was that
+he held 'vice and misery' to be essential to society; nay, that in
+some sense he regarded them as blessings. He was accused, as he tells
+us,<a name="FNanchor_222_222" id="FNanchor_222_222"></a><a href="#Footnote_222_222" class="fnanchor">[222]</a> of objecting to vaccination, because it tended to prevent
+deaths from small-pox, and has to protest against some one who had
+declared his principles<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> to be favourable to the slave trade.<a name="FNanchor_223_223" id="FNanchor_223_223"></a><a href="#Footnote_223_223" class="fnanchor">[223]</a> He
+was represented, that is, as holding depopulation to be good in
+itself. These perversions were grotesque, but partly explain the
+horror with which Malthus was constantly regarded; and we must
+consider what made them plausible.</p>
+
+<p>I must first notice the maturer form of his doctrine. In the second
+edition he turns to account the result of his later reading, his
+personal observations, and the statistical results which were
+beginning to accumulate. The remodelled book opens with a survey of
+the observed action of the checks; and it concludes with a discussion
+of the 'moral restraint' which is now added to 'vice and misery.'
+Although considerable fragments of the old treatise remained to the
+last, the whole book was altered both in style and character. The
+style certainly suffers, for Malthus was not a master of the literary
+art; he inserts his additions with little care for the general effect.
+He tones down some of the more vivid phrases which had given offence,
+though he does not retract the substance. A famous passage<a name="FNanchor_224_224" id="FNanchor_224_224"></a><a href="#Footnote_224_224" class="fnanchor">[224]</a> in the
+second edition, in which he speaks of 'nature's mighty feast,' where,
+unluckily, the 'table is already full,' and therefore unbidden guests
+are left to starve, was suppressed in the later editions. Yet the
+principle that no man has a claim to subsistence as of right remains
+unaltered. The omission injures the literary effect without altering
+the logic; and I think that, where the argument is amended, the new
+element is scarcely worked into the old so as to gain thorough
+consistency.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p><p>Malthus's survey of different countries showed how various are the
+'checks' by which population is limited in various countries. We take
+a glance at all nations through all epochs of history. In the South
+Sea we find a delicious climate and a fertile soil, where population
+is mainly limited by vice, infanticide, and war; and where, in spite
+of these influences, the population multiplies at intervals till it is
+killed off by famine. In China, a vast and fertile territory,
+inhabited by an industrious race, in which agriculture has always been
+encouraged, marriage stimulated, and property widely diffused, has
+facilitated the production of a vast population in the most abject
+state of poverty, driven to expose children by want, and liable at
+intervals to destructive famines. In modern Europe, the checks appear
+in the most various forms; in Switzerland and Norway a frugal
+population in small villages sometimes instinctively understands the
+principle of population, and exhibits the 'moral restraint,' while in
+England the poor-laws are producing a mass of hopeless and inert
+pauperism. Consideration of these various cases, and a comparison of
+such records as are obtainable of the old savage races, of the
+classical states of antiquity, of the Northern barbarians and of the
+modern European nations, suggests a natural doubt. Malthus abundantly
+proves what can hardly be denied, that population has everywhere been
+found to press upon the means of subsistence, and that vice and misery
+are painfully abundant. But does he establish or abandon his main
+proposition? He now asserts the 'tendency' of population to outrun the
+means of subsistence. Yet he holds unequivocally that the increase of
+population has been accompanied by an increased comfort; that want has
+diminished although<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> population has increased; and that the
+'preventive' check is stronger than of old in proportion to the
+positive check. Scotland, he says,<a name="FNanchor_225_225" id="FNanchor_225_225"></a><a href="#Footnote_225_225" class="fnanchor">[225]</a> is 'still overpeopled, but not
+so much as when it contained fewer inhabitants.' Many nations, as he
+points out in general terms, have been most prosperous when most
+populous.<a name="FNanchor_226_226" id="FNanchor_226_226"></a><a href="#Footnote_226_226" class="fnanchor">[226]</a> They could export food when crowded, and have ceased to
+import it when thinned. This, indeed, expresses his permanent views,
+though the facts were often alleged by his critics as a disproof of
+them. Was not the disproof real? Does not a real evasion lurk under
+the phrase 'tendency'? You may say that the earth has a tendency to
+fall into the sun, and another 'tendency' to move away from the sun.
+But it would be absurd to argue that we were therefore in danger of
+being burnt or of being frozen. To explain the law of a vital process,
+we may have to analyse it, and therefore to regard it as due to
+conflicting forces; but the forces do not really exist separately, and
+in considering the whole concrete phenomenon we must take them as
+mutually implied. A man has a 'tendency' to grow too fat; and another
+'tendency' to grow too thin. That surely means that on the whole he
+has a 'tendency' to preserve the desirable mean. The phrase, then, can
+only have a distinct meaning when the conflicting forces represent two
+independent or really separable forces. To use an illustration given
+by Malthus, we might say that a man had a 'tendency' to grow upwards;
+but was restrained by a weight on his head. The man has the
+'tendency,' because we may regard the weight as a separable accident.
+When both forces are of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> the essence, the separate 'tendencies'
+correspond merely to our way of analysing the fact. But if one can be
+properly regarded as relatively accidental, the 'tendency' means the
+way in which the other will manifest itself in actual cases.</p>
+
+<p>In 1829, Senior put this point to Malthus.<a name="FNanchor_227_227" id="FNanchor_227_227"></a><a href="#Footnote_227_227" class="fnanchor">[227]</a> What, he asked, do you
+understand by a 'tendency' when you admit that the tendency is
+normally overbalanced by others? Malthus explains his meaning to be
+that every nation suffers from evils 'specifically arising from the
+pressure of population against food.' The wages of the labourer in old
+countries have never been sufficient to enable him to maintain a large
+family at ease. There is overcrowding, we may say, in England now as
+there was in England at the Conquest; though food has increased in a
+greater proportion than population; and the pressure has therefore
+taken a milder form. This, again, is proved by the fact that, whenever
+a relaxation of the pressure has occurred, when plagues have
+diminished population, or improvements in agriculture increased their
+supply of food, the gap has been at once filled up. The people have
+not taken advantage of the temporary relaxation of the check to
+preserve the new equilibrium, but have taken out the improvement by a
+multiplication of numbers. The statement then appears to be that at
+any given time the population is in excess. Men would be better off if
+they were less numerous. But, on the other hand, the tendency to
+multiply does not represent a constant force, an irresistible instinct
+which will always bring men down to the same level, but something
+which, in fact, may vary materially. Malthus admits, in fact, that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>
+the 'elasticity' is continually changing; and therefore repudiates the
+interpretation which seemed to make all improvement hopeless. Why,
+then, distinguish the 'check' as something apart from the instinct?
+If, in any case, we accept this explanation, does not the theory
+become a 'truism,' or at least a commonplace, inoffensive but hardly
+instructive? Does it amount to more than the obvious statement that
+prudence and foresight are desirable and are unfortunately scarce?</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">III. MORAL RESTRAINT</p>
+
+<p>The change in the theory of 'checks' raises another important
+question. Malthus now introduced a modification upon which his
+supporters laid great stress. In the new version the 'checks' which
+proportion population to means of subsistence are not simply 'vice and
+misery,' but 'moral restraint, vice, and misery.'<a name="FNanchor_228_228" id="FNanchor_228_228"></a><a href="#Footnote_228_228" class="fnanchor">[228]</a> How, precisely,
+does this modify the theory? How are the different 'checks' related?
+What especially is meant by 'moral' in this connection? Malthus takes
+his ethical philosophy pretty much for granted, but is clearly a
+Utilitarian according to the version of Paley.<a name="FNanchor_229_229" id="FNanchor_229_229"></a><a href="#Footnote_229_229" class="fnanchor">[229]</a> He agrees with
+Paley that 'virtue evidently consists in educing from the materials
+which the Creator has placed under our guidance the greatest sum of
+human happiness.'<a name="FNanchor_230_230" id="FNanchor_230_230"></a><a href="#Footnote_230_230" class="fnanchor">[230]</a> He adds to this that our 'natural impulses are,
+abstractedly considered, good, and only to be distinguished by their
+consequences.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> Hunger, he says, as Bentham had said, is the same in
+itself, whether it leads to stealing a loaf or to eating your own
+loaf. He agrees with Godwin that morality means the 'calculation of
+consequences,'<a name="FNanchor_231_231" id="FNanchor_231_231"></a><a href="#Footnote_231_231" class="fnanchor">[231]</a> or, as he says with Paley, implies the discovery
+of the will of God by observing the effect of actions upon happiness.
+Reason then regulates certain innate and practically unalterable
+instincts by enabling us to foretell their consequences. The
+reasonable man is influenced not simply by the immediate
+gratification, but by a forecast of all the results which it will
+entail. In these matters Malthus was entirely at one with the
+Utilitarians proper, and seems to regard their doctrine as
+self-evident.</p>
+
+<p>He notices briefly one logical difficulty thus introduced. The
+'checks' are vice, misery, and moral restraint. But why distinguish
+vice from misery? Is not conduct vicious which causes misery,<a name="FNanchor_232_232" id="FNanchor_232_232"></a><a href="#Footnote_232_232" class="fnanchor">[232]</a> and
+precisely because it causes misery? He replies that to omit 'vice'
+would confuse our language. Vicious conduct may cause happiness in
+particular cases; though its general tendency would be pernicious. The
+answer is not very clear; and Malthus, I think, would have been more
+logical if he had stuck to his first theory, and regarded vice as
+simply one form of imprudence. Misery, that is, or the fear of misery,
+and the indulgence in conduct which produces misery are the 'checks'
+which limit population; and the whole problem is to make the ultimate
+sanction more operative upon the immediate conduct. Man becomes more
+virtuous simply as he becomes more prudent, and is therefore governed
+in his conduct by recognising the wider and more remote series of
+consequences. There<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> is, indeed, the essential difference that the
+virtuous man acts (on whatever motives) from a regard to the 'greatest
+happiness of the greatest number,' and not simply from self-regard.
+Still the ultimate and decisive criterion is the tendency of conduct
+to produce misery; and if Malthus had carried this through as
+rigorously as Bentham, he would have been more consistent. The 'moral
+check' would then have been simply a department of the prudential;
+including prudence for others as well as for ourselves. One reason for
+the change is obvious. His assumption enables him to avoid coming into
+conflict with the accepted morality of the time. On his exposition
+'vice' occasionally seems not to be productive of misery but an
+alternative to misery; and yet something bad in itself. Is this
+consistent with his Utilitarianism? The vices of the South Sea
+Islanders, according to him, made famine less necessary; and, if they
+gave pleasure at the moment, were they not on the whole beneficial?
+Malthus again reckons among vices practices which limit the population
+without causing 'misery' directly.<a name="FNanchor_233_233" id="FNanchor_233_233"></a><a href="#Footnote_233_233" class="fnanchor">[233]</a> Could he logically call them
+vicious? He wishes to avoid the imputation of sanctioning such
+practices, and therefore condemns them by his moral check; but it
+would be hard to prove that he was consistent in condemning them. Or,
+again, there is another familiar difficulty. The Catholic church
+encourages marriage as a remedy for vice; and thereby stimulates both
+population and poverty. How would Malthus solve the problem: is it
+better to encourage chastity and a superabundance of people, or to
+restrict marriage at the cost of increasing temptation to vice? He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>
+seems to evade the point by saying that he recommends both chastity
+and abstinence from marriage. By 'moral restraint,' as he explains, he
+means 'restraint from marriage from prudential motives, with a conduct
+strictly moral during the period of this restraint.' 'I have never,'
+he adds, 'intentionally deviated from this sense.'<a name="FNanchor_234_234" id="FNanchor_234_234"></a><a href="#Footnote_234_234" class="fnanchor">[234]</a> A man, that
+is, should postpone taking a wife, and should not console himself by
+taking a mistress. He is to refrain from increasing the illegitimate
+as well as from increasing the legitimate population. It is not
+surprising that Malthus admits that this check has 'in past ages
+operated with inconsiderable force.'<a name="FNanchor_235_235" id="FNanchor_235_235"></a><a href="#Footnote_235_235" class="fnanchor">[235]</a> In fact Malthus, as a
+thoroughly respectable and decent clergyman, manages by talking about
+the 'moral restraint' rather to evade than to answer some awkward
+problems of conduct; but at the cost of some inconsequence.</p>
+
+<p>But another result of this mode of patching up his argument is more
+important. The 'vices of mankind,' he says in an unusually rhetorical
+summary of his historical inquiry,<a name="FNanchor_236_236" id="FNanchor_236_236"></a><a href="#Footnote_236_236" class="fnanchor">[236]</a> 'are active and able ministers
+of depopulation. They are the precursors in the great army of
+destruction, and often finish the dreadful work themselves. But should
+they fail in the war of extermination, sickly seasons, epidemics,
+pestilence, and plague advance in terrific array, and sweep off their
+thousands and ten thousands. Should success still be incomplete,
+gigantic inevitable famine stalks in the rear, and at one mighty blow
+levels the population with the food of the world.' The life of the
+race, then, is a struggle with misery; its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> expansion is constantly
+forcing it upon this array of evils; and in proportion to the
+elasticity is the severity of the evils which follow. This is not only
+a 'gloomy view,' but again seems to suggest that 'vice' is an
+alternative to 'misery.' Vices are bad, it would seem, but at least
+they obviate the necessity for disease and famine. Malthus probably
+suppressed the passage because he thought it liable to this
+interpretation. It indicates, however, a real awkwardness, if not
+something more, in his exposition. He here speaks as if there was room
+for a fixed number of guests at his banquet. Whatever, therefore,
+keeps the population to that limit must be so far good. If he had
+considered his 'moral check' more thoroughly, he might have seen that
+this does not correspond to his real meaning. The 'moral' and the
+prudential checks are not really to be contrasted as alternative, but
+co-operative. Every population, vicious or virtuous, must of course
+proportion its numbers to its means of support. That gives the
+prudential check. But the moral check operates by altering the
+character of the population itself. From the purely economic point of
+view, vice is bad because it lowers efficiency. A lazy, drunken, and
+profligate people would starve where an industrious, sober, and honest
+people would thrive. The check of vice thus brings the check of misery
+into play at an earlier stage. It limits by lowering the vitality and
+substituting degeneration for progress. The check, therefore, is
+essentially mischievous. Though it does not make the fields barren, it
+lowers the power of cultivation. Malthus had recognised this when he
+pointed out, as we have seen, that emergence from the savage state
+meant the institution of marriage and property and,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> we may infer, the
+correlative virtues of chastity, industry, and honesty. If men can
+form large societies, and millions can be supported where once a few
+thousands were at starvation point, it is due to the civilisation
+which at every stage implies 'moral restraint' in a wider sense than
+Malthus used the phrase. An increase of population by such means was,
+of course, to be desired. If Malthus emphasises this inadequately, it
+is partly, no doubt, because the Utilitarian view of morality tended
+to emphasise the external consequences rather than the alteration of
+the man himself. Yet the wider and sounder view is logically implied
+in his reasoning&mdash;so much so that he might have expressed his real aim
+more clearly if he had altered the order of his argument. He might
+have consistently taken the same line as earlier writers and declared
+that he desired, above all things, the increase of population. He
+would have had indeed to explain that he desired the increase of a
+sound and virtuous population; and that hasty and imprudent increase
+led to misery and to a demoralisation which would ultimately limit
+numbers in the worst way. We shall see directly how nearly he accepts
+this view. Meanwhile, by insisting upon the need of limitation, he was
+led to speak often as if limitation by any means was good and the one
+thing needful, and the polemic against Godwin in the first edition had
+given prominence to this side of the question. Had he put his views in
+a different shape, he would perhaps have been so edifying that he
+would have been disregarded. He certainly avoided that risk, and had
+whatever advantage is gained by stating sound doctrine paradoxically.</p>
+
+<p>We shall, I think, appreciate his real position better by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> considering
+his approximation to the theory which, as we know, was suggested to
+Darwin by a perusal of Malthus.<a name="FNanchor_237_237" id="FNanchor_237_237"></a><a href="#Footnote_237_237" class="fnanchor">[237]</a> There is a closer resemblance
+than appears at first. The first edition concludes by two chapters
+afterwards omitted, giving the philosophical application of his
+theory. He there says that the 'world is a mighty process of God not
+for the trial but for the creation and formation of the mind.'<a name="FNanchor_238_238" id="FNanchor_238_238"></a><a href="#Footnote_238_238" class="fnanchor">[238]</a> It
+is not, as Butler thought, a place of 'probation,' but a scene in
+which the higher qualities are gradually developed. Godwin had quoted
+Franklin's view that 'mind' would become 'omnipotent over matter.'
+Malthus holds that, as he puts it, 'God is making matter into mind.'
+The difference is that Malthus regards evil in general not as a sort
+of accident of which we can get rid by reason; but as the essential
+stimulus which becomes the efficient cause of intellectual activity.
+The evils from which men suffer raise savage tribes from their
+indolence, and by degrees give rise to the growth of civilisation. The
+argument, though these chapters were dropped by Malthus, was taken up
+by J. B. Sumner, to whom he refers in later editions.<a name="FNanchor_239_239" id="FNanchor_239_239"></a><a href="#Footnote_239_239" class="fnanchor">[239]</a> It is, in
+fact, an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> imperfect way of stating a theory of evolution. This appears
+in his opening chapters upon the 'moral restraint.'<a name="FNanchor_240_240" id="FNanchor_240_240"></a><a href="#Footnote_240_240" class="fnanchor">[240]</a> He explains
+that moral and physical evils are 'instruments employed by the Deity'
+to admonish us against such conduct as is destructive of happiness.
+Diseases are indications that we have broken a law of nature. The
+plague of London was properly interpreted by our ancestors as a hint
+to improve the sanitary conditions of the town. Similarly, we have to
+consider the consequences of obeying our instincts. The desire of food
+and necessaries is the most powerful of these instincts, and next to
+it the passion between the sexes. They are both good, for they are
+both natural; but they have to be properly correlated. To 'virtuous
+love' in particular we owe the 'sunny spots' in our lives, where the
+imagination loves to bask. Desire of necessaries gives us the stimulus
+of the comfortable fireside; and love adds the wife and children,
+without whom the fireside would lose half its charm. Now, as a rule,
+the sexual passion is apt to be in excess. The final cause of this
+excess is itself obvious. We cannot but conceive that it is an object
+of 'the Creator that the earth should be replenished.'<a name="FNanchor_241_241" id="FNanchor_241_241"></a><a href="#Footnote_241_241" class="fnanchor">[241]</a> To secure
+that object, it is necessary that 'there should be a tendency in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>
+population to increase faster than food.' If the two instincts were
+differently balanced, men would be content though the population of a
+fertile region were limited to the most trifling numbers. Hence the
+instinct has mercifully been made so powerful as to stimulate
+population, and thus indirectly and eventually to produce a population
+at once larger and more comfortable. On the one hand, it is of the
+very utmost importance to the happiness of mankind that they should
+not increase too fast,<a name="FNanchor_242_242" id="FNanchor_242_242"></a><a href="#Footnote_242_242" class="fnanchor">[242]</a> but, on the other hand, if the passion
+were weakened, the motives which make a man industrious and capable of
+progress would be diminished also. It would, of course, be simpler to
+omit the 'teleology'; to say that sanitary regulations are made
+necessary by the plague, not that the plague is divinely appointed to
+encourage sanitary regulations. Malthus is at the point of view of
+Paley which becomes Darwinism when inverted; but the conclusion is
+much the same. He reaches elsewhere, in fact, a more precise view of
+the value of the 'moral restraint.' In a chapter devoted for once to
+an ideal state of things,<a name="FNanchor_243_243" id="FNanchor_243_243"></a><a href="#Footnote_243_243" class="fnanchor">[243]</a> he shows how a race thoroughly imbued
+with that doctrine would reconcile the demands of the two instincts.
+Population would in that case increase, but, instead of beginning by
+an increase, it would begin by providing the means of supporting. No
+man would become a father until he had seen his way to provide for a
+family. The instinct which leads to increasing the population would
+thus be intrinsically as powerful as it now is; but when regulated by
+prudence it would impel mankind to begin at the right end. Food would
+be ready before mouths to eat it.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="subhead2">IV. SOCIAL REMEDIES</p>
+
+<p>This final solution appears in Malthus's proposed remedies for the
+evils of the time. Malthus<a name="FNanchor_244_244" id="FNanchor_244_244"></a><a href="#Footnote_244_244" class="fnanchor">[244]</a> declares that 'an increase of
+population when it follows in its natural order is both a great
+positive good in itself, and absolutely necessary' to an increase of
+wealth. This natural order falls in, as he observes, with the view to
+which Mirabeau had been converted, that 'revenue was the source of
+population,' and not population of revenue.<a name="FNanchor_245_245" id="FNanchor_245_245"></a><a href="#Footnote_245_245" class="fnanchor">[245]</a> Malthus holds
+specifically that, 'in the course of some centuries,' the population
+of England might be doubled or trebled, and yet every man be 'much
+better fed and clothed than he is at present.'<a name="FNanchor_246_246" id="FNanchor_246_246"></a><a href="#Footnote_246_246" class="fnanchor">[246]</a> He parts company
+with Paley, who had considered the ideal state to be 'that of a
+laborious frugal people ministering to the demands of an opulent
+luxurious nation.'<a name="FNanchor_247_247" id="FNanchor_247_247"></a><a href="#Footnote_247_247" class="fnanchor">[247]</a> That, says Malthus, is 'not an inviting
+prospect.' Nothing but a conviction of absolute necessity could
+reconcile us to the 'thought of ten millions of people condemned to
+incessant toil, and to the privation of everything but absolute
+necessaries, in order to minister to the excessive luxuries of the
+other million.' But he denies that any such necessity exists. He
+wishes precisely to see luxury spread among the poorer classes. A
+desire for such luxury is the best of all checks to population, and
+one of the best means of raising the standard. It would, in fact,
+contribute to his 'moral restraint.' So, too, he heartily condemns
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> hypocrisy of the rich, who professed a benevolent desire to
+better the poor, and yet complained of high wages.<a name="FNanchor_248_248" id="FNanchor_248_248"></a><a href="#Footnote_248_248" class="fnanchor">[248]</a> If, he says
+elsewhere,<a name="FNanchor_249_249" id="FNanchor_249_249"></a><a href="#Footnote_249_249" class="fnanchor">[249]</a> a country can 'only be rich by running a successful
+race for low wages, I should be disposed to say, Perish such riches!'
+No one, in fact, could see more distinctly than Malthus the
+demoralising influence of poverty, and the surpassing importance of
+raising the people from the terrible gulf of pauperism. He refers to
+Colquhoun's account of the twenty thousand people who rose every
+morning in London without knowing how they were to be supported; and
+observes that 'when indigence does not produce overt acts of vice, it
+palsies every virtue.'<a name="FNanchor_250_250" id="FNanchor_250_250"></a><a href="#Footnote_250_250" class="fnanchor">[250]</a> The temptations to which the poor man is
+exposed, and the sense of injustice due to an ignorance of the true
+cause of misery, tend to 'sour the disposition, to harden the heart,
+and deaden the moral sense.' Unfortunately, the means which have been
+adopted to lessen the evil have tended to increase it. In the first
+place, there was the master-evil of the poor-laws. Malthus points out
+the demoralising effects of these laws in chapters full of admirable
+common sense, which he was unfortunately able to enforce by fresh
+illustrations in successive editions. He attends simply to the
+stimulus to population. He thinks that if the laws had never existed,
+the poor would now have been much better off.<a name="FNanchor_251_251" id="FNanchor_251_251"></a><a href="#Footnote_251_251" class="fnanchor">[251]</a> If the laws had
+been fully carried out, every labourer might have been certain that
+all his children would be supported, or, in other words, every check
+to population would have been removed.<a name="FNanchor_252_252" id="FNanchor_252_252"></a><a href="#Footnote_252_252" class="fnanchor">[252]</a> Happily,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> the becoming
+pride of the English peasantry was not quite extinct; and the poor-law
+had to some extent counteracted itself, or taken away with one hand
+what it gave with the other, by placing the burthen upon the
+parishes.<a name="FNanchor_253_253" id="FNanchor_253_253"></a><a href="#Footnote_253_253" class="fnanchor">[253]</a> Thus landlords have been more disposed to pull down
+than to build cottages, and marriage has been checked. On the whole,
+however, Malthus could see in the poor-laws nothing but a vast agency
+for demoralising the poor, tempered by a system of petty tyrannical
+interference. He proposes, therefore, that the poor-law should be
+abolished. Notice should be given that no children born after a
+certain day should be entitled to parish help; and, as he quaintly
+suggests, the clergyman might explain to every couple, after
+publishing the banns, the immorality of reckless marriage, and the
+reasons for abolishing a system which had been proved to frustrate the
+intentions of the founders.<a name="FNanchor_254_254" id="FNanchor_254_254"></a><a href="#Footnote_254_254" class="fnanchor">[254]</a> Private charity, he thinks, would
+meet the distress which might afterwards arise, though humanity
+imperiously requires that it should be 'sparingly administered.' Upon
+this duty he writes a sensible chapter.<a name="FNanchor_255_255" id="FNanchor_255_255"></a><a href="#Footnote_255_255" class="fnanchor">[255]</a> To his negative proposals
+Malthus adds a few of the positive kind. He is strongly in favour of a
+national system of education, and speaks with contempt of the
+'illiberal and feeble' arguments opposed to it. The schools, he
+observes, might confer 'an almost incalculable benefit' upon society,
+if they taught 'a few of the simplest principles of political
+economy.'<a name="FNanchor_256_256" id="FNanchor_256_256"></a><a href="#Footnote_256_256" class="fnanchor">[256]</a> He had been disheartened by the prejudices of the
+ignorant labourer, and felt the incompatibility of a free government
+with such ignorance. A real education,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> such as was given in Scotland,
+would make the poor not, as alarmists had suggested, more inflammable,
+but better able to detect the sophistry of demagogues.<a name="FNanchor_257_257" id="FNanchor_257_257"></a><a href="#Footnote_257_257" class="fnanchor">[257]</a> He is, of
+course, in favour of savings banks,<a name="FNanchor_258_258" id="FNanchor_258_258"></a><a href="#Footnote_258_258" class="fnanchor">[258]</a> and approves friendly
+societies, though he is strongly opposed to making them compulsory, as
+they would then be the poor-law in a new form.<a name="FNanchor_259_259" id="FNanchor_259_259"></a><a href="#Footnote_259_259" class="fnanchor">[259]</a> The value of every
+improvement turns upon its effect in encouraging the 'moral
+restraint.' Malthus's ultimate criterion is always, Will the measure
+make people averse to premature marriage? He reaches the apparently
+inconsistent result that it might be desirable to make an allowance
+for every child beyond six.<a name="FNanchor_260_260" id="FNanchor_260_260"></a><a href="#Footnote_260_260" class="fnanchor">[260]</a> But this is on the hypothesis that
+the 'moral restraint' has come to be so habitual that no man marries
+until he has a fair prospect of maintaining a family of six. If this
+were the practical code, the allowance in cases where the expectation
+was disappointed would not act as an encouragement to marriage, but as
+a relief under a burthen which could not have been anticipated. Thus
+all Malthus's teaching may be said to converge upon this practical
+point. Add to the Ten Commandments the new law, 'Thou shalt not marry
+until there is a fair prospect of supporting six children.' Then
+population will increase, but sufficient means for subsistence will
+always be provided beforehand. We shall make sure that there is a
+provision for additional numbers before, not after, we add to our
+numbers. Food first and population afterwards gives the rule; thus we
+achieve the good end without the incidental evils.</p>
+
+<p>Malthus's views of the appropriate remedy for social<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> evils
+undoubtedly show an imperfect appreciation of the great problems
+involved. Reckless propagation is an evil; but Malthus regards it as
+an evil which can be isolated and suppressed by simply adding a new
+article to the moral code. He is dealing with a central problem of
+human nature and social order. Any modification of the sexual
+instincts or of the constitution of the family involves a profound
+modification of the whole social order and of the dominant religious
+and moral creeds. Malthus tacitly assumes that conduct is determined
+by the play of two instincts, unalterable in themselves, but capable
+of modification in their results by a more extensive view of
+consequences. To change men's ruling motives in regard to the most
+important part of their lives is to alter their whole aims and
+conceptions of the world, and of happiness in every other relation. It
+supposes, therefore, not a mere addition of knowledge, but a
+transformation of character and an altered view of all the theories
+which have been embodied in religious and ethical philosophy. He
+overlooks, too, considerations which would be essential to a complete
+statement. A population which is too prudent may suffer itself to be
+crowded out by more prolific races in the general struggle for
+existence; and cases may be suggested such as that of the American
+colonies, in which an increase of numbers might be actually an
+advantage by facilitating a more efficient organisation of labour.</p>
+
+<p>The absence of a distinct appreciation of such difficulties gives to
+his speculation that one-sided character which alienated his more
+sentimental contemporaries. It was natural enough in a man who was
+constantly confronted by the terrible development of pauperism in
+England,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> and was too much tempted to assume that the tendency to
+reckless propagation was not only a very grave evil, but the ultimate
+source of every evil. The doctrine taken up in this unqualified
+fashion by some of his disciples, and preached by them with the utmost
+fervour as the one secret of prosperity, shocked both the conservative
+and orthodox whose prejudices were trampled upon, and such Radicals as
+inherited Godwin's or Condorcet's theory of perfectibility. Harsh and
+one-sided as it might be, however, we may still hold that it was of
+value, not only in regard to the most pressing difficulty of the day,
+but also as calling attention to a vitally important condition of
+social welfare. The question, however, recurs whether, when the
+doctrine is so qualified as to be admissible, it does not also become
+a mere truism.</p>
+
+<p>An answer to this question should begin by recognising one specific
+resemblance between his speculations and Darwin's. Facts, which appear
+from an older point of view to be proofs of a miraculous
+interposition, become with Malthus, as with Darwin, the normal results
+of admitted conditions. Godwin had admitted that there was some
+'principle which kept population on a level with subsistence.' 'The
+sole question is,' says Malthus,<a name="FNanchor_261_261" id="FNanchor_261_261"></a><a href="#Footnote_261_261" class="fnanchor">[261]</a> 'what is this principle? Is it
+some obscure and occult cause? a mysterious interference of heaven,'
+inflicting barrenness at certain periods? or 'a cause open to our
+researches and within our view?' Other writers had had recourse to the
+miraculous. One of Malthus's early authorities was S&uuml;ssmilch, who had
+published his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> <i>G&ouml;ttliche Ordnung</i> in 1761, to show how Providence had
+taken care that the trees should not grow into the sky. The
+antediluvians had been made long-lived in order that they might have
+large families and people an empty earth, while life was divinely
+shortened as the world filled up. S&uuml;ssmilch, however, regarded
+population as still in need of stimulus. Kings might help Providence.
+A new Trajan would deserve to be called the father of his people, if
+he increased the marriage-rate. Malthus replies that the statistics
+which the worthy man himself produced showed conclusively that the
+marriages depended upon the deaths. The births fill up the vacancies,
+and the prince who increased the population before vacancies arose
+would simply increase the rate of mortality.<a name="FNanchor_262_262" id="FNanchor_262_262"></a><a href="#Footnote_262_262" class="fnanchor">[262]</a> If you want to
+increase your birth-rate without absolutely producing famine, as he
+remarks afterwards,<a name="FNanchor_263_263" id="FNanchor_263_263"></a><a href="#Footnote_263_263" class="fnanchor">[263]</a> make your towns unhealthy, and encourage
+settlement by marshes. You might thus double the mortality, and we
+might all marry prematurely without being absolutely starved. His own
+aim is not to secure the greatest number of births, but to be sure
+that the greatest number of those born may be supported.<a name="FNanchor_264_264" id="FNanchor_264_264"></a><a href="#Footnote_264_264" class="fnanchor">[264]</a> The
+ingenious M. Muret, again, had found a Swiss parish in which the mean
+life was the highest and the fecundity smallest known. He piously
+conjectures that it may be a law of God that 'the force of life in
+each country should be in the inverse ratio of its fecundity.' He
+needs not betake himself to a miracle, says Malthus.<a name="FNanchor_265_265" id="FNanchor_265_265"></a><a href="#Footnote_265_265" class="fnanchor">[265]</a> The case is
+simply that in a small and healthy village, where people had become
+aware of the importance of the 'preventive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> check,' the young people
+put off marriage till there was room for them, and consequently both
+lowered the birth-rate and raised the average duration of life.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing, says Malthus very forcibly, has caused more errors than the
+confusion between 'relative and positive, and between cause and
+effect.'<a name="FNanchor_266_266" id="FNanchor_266_266"></a><a href="#Footnote_266_266" class="fnanchor">[266]</a> He is here answering the argument that because the poor
+who had cows were the most industrious, the way to make them
+industrious was to give them cows. Malthus thinks it more probable
+that industry got the cow than that the cow produced industry. This is
+a trifling instance of a very general truth. People had been content
+to notice the deaths caused by war and disease, and to infer at once
+that what caused death must diminish population. Malthus shows the
+necessity of observing other collateral results. The gap may be made
+so great as to diminish population; but it may be compensated by a
+more rapid reproduction; or, the rapidity of reproduction may itself
+be the cause of the disease; so that to remove one kind of mortality
+may be on some occasion to introduce others. The stream is dammed on
+one breach to flow more strongly through other outlets.<a name="FNanchor_267_267" id="FNanchor_267_267"></a><a href="#Footnote_267_267" class="fnanchor">[267]</a></p>
+
+<p>This is, I conceive, to say simply that Malthus was introducing a
+really scientific method. The facts taken in the true order became at
+once intelligible instead of suggesting mysterious and irregular
+interferences. Earlier writers had been content to single out one
+particular set of phenomena without attending to its place in the more
+general and complex processes, of which they formed an integral part.
+Infanticide, as Hume had pointed out, might tend to increase
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>population.<a name="FNanchor_268_268" id="FNanchor_268_268"></a><a href="#Footnote_268_268" class="fnanchor">[268]</a> In prospect, it might encourage people to have
+babies; and when babies came, natural affection might prevent the
+actual carrying out of the intention. To judge of the actual effect,
+we have to consider the whole of the concrete case. It may be carried
+out, as apparently in the South Sea Islands, so generally as to limit
+population; or it may be, as in China, an indication that the pressure
+is so great that a number of infants become superfluous. Its
+suppression might, in the one case, lead to an increase of the
+population; in the other, to the increase of other forms of mortality.
+Malthus's investigations illustrate the necessity of referring every
+particular process to its place in the whole system, of noting how any
+given change might set up a set of actions and reactions in virtue of
+the general elasticity of population, and thus of constantly referring
+at every step to the general conditions of human life. He succeeded in
+making many points clear, and of showing how hastily many inferences
+had been drawn. He explained, for example, why the revolutionary wars
+had not diminished the population of France, in spite of the great
+number of deaths,<a name="FNanchor_269_269" id="FNanchor_269_269"></a><a href="#Footnote_269_269" class="fnanchor">[269]</a> and thus gave an example of a sound method of
+inquiry which has exercised a great influence upon later observers.
+Malthus was constantly misunderstood and misrepresented, and his
+opponents often allege as fatal objections to his doctrine the very
+facts by which it was really supported. But we may, I think, say, that
+since his writing no serious economical writer has adopted the old
+hasty guesses, or has ventured to propose a theory without regard to
+the principles of which he first brought out the full significance.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="subhead2">V. POLITICAL APPLICATION</p>
+
+<p>This I take to indicate one real and permanent value of Malthus's
+writings. He introduced a new method of approaching the great social
+problems. The value of the method may remain, however inaccurate may
+be the assumptions of facts. The 'tendency,' if interpreted to mean
+that people are always multiplying too rapidly, may be a figment. If
+it is taken as calling attention to one essential factor in the case,
+it is a most important guide to investigation. This brings out another
+vital point. The bearing of the doctrine upon the political as well as
+upon the economical views of the Utilitarians is of conspicuous
+importance. Malthus's starting-point, as we have seen, was the
+opposition to the doctrine of 'perfectibility.' Hard facts, which
+Godwin and Condorcet had neglected, were fatal to their dreams. You
+have, urged Malthus, neglected certain undeniable truths as to the
+unalterable qualities of human nature, and, therefore, your theories
+will not work. The revolutionists had opposed an ideal 'state of
+nature' to the actual arrangements of society. They imagined that the
+'state of nature' represented the desirable consummation, and that the
+constitution of the 'natural' order could be determined from certain
+abstract principles. The equality of man, and the absolute rights
+which could be inferred by a kind of mathematical process, supplied
+the necessary dogmatic basis. The antithesis to the state of nature
+was the artificial state, marked by inequality, and manifesting its
+spirit by luxury. Kings, priests, and nobles had somehow established
+this unnatural order; and to sweep them away summarily was the way of
+bringing the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> natural order into full activity. The ideal system was
+already potentially in existence, and would become actual when men's
+minds were once cleared from superstition, and the political made to
+correspond to the natural rights of man. To this Malthus had replied,
+as we have seen, that social inequality was not a mere arbitrary
+product of fraud and force, but an expedient necessary to restrain the
+primitive instincts of mankind. He thus coincides with Bentham's
+preference of 'security' to 'equality,' and illustrates the real
+significance of that doctrine. Property and marriage, though they
+involve inequality, were institutions of essential importance. Godwin
+had pushed his theories to absolute anarchy; to the destruction of all
+law, for law in general represented coercion or an interference with
+the state of nature. Malthus virtually asserted that the metaphysical
+doctrine was inapplicable because, men being what they are, these
+conclusions were incompatible with even the first stages of social
+progress. This means, again, that for the metaphysical method Malthus
+is substituting a scientific method. Instead of regarding all
+government as a kind of mysterious intervention from without, which
+has somehow introduced a fatal discord into the natural order, he
+inquires what are the facts; how law has been evolved; and for what
+reason. His answer is, in brief, that law, order, and inequality have
+been absolutely necessary in order to limit tendencies which would
+otherwise keep men in a state of hopeless poverty and depression.</p>
+
+<p>This gives the 'differentia' of the Utilitarian considered as one
+species of the genus 'Radical.' Malthus's criticism of Paine is
+significant.<a name="FNanchor_270_270" id="FNanchor_270_270"></a><a href="#Footnote_270_270" class="fnanchor">[270]</a> He agrees with Paine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> that the cause of popular
+risings is 'want of happiness.' But Paine, he remarks, was 'in many
+important points totally ignorant of the structure of society'; and
+has fallen into the error of attributing all want of happiness to
+government. Consequently, Paine advocates a plan for distributing
+taxes among the poorest classes, which would aggravate the evils a
+hundredfold. He fully admits with Paine that man has rights. The true
+line of answer would be to show what those rights are. To give this
+answer is not Malthus's present business; but there is one right, at
+any rate, which a man does not and cannot possess: namely, the 'right
+to subsistence when his labour will not fairly purchase it.' He does
+not possess it because he cannot possess it; to try to secure it is to
+try to 'reverse the laws of nature,' and therefore to produce cruel
+suffering by practising an 'inhuman deceit.' The Abb&eacute; Raynal had said
+that a man had a right to subsist 'before all social laws.' Man had
+the same right, replied Malthus, as he had to live a hundred or a
+thousand years. He may live, <i>if he can</i> without interfering with
+others. Social laws have, in fact, enlarged the power of subsistence;
+but neither before nor after their institution could an unlimited
+number subsist. Briefly, the question of fact comes before the
+question of right, and the fault of the revolutionary theorists was to
+settle the right without reference to the possibility of making the
+right correspond to the fact.</p>
+
+<p>Hence Malthus draws his most emphatic political moral. The admission
+that all evil is due to government is the way to tyranny. Make men
+believe that government is the one cause of misery, and they will
+inevitably throw the whole responsibility upon their rulers; seek for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>
+redress by cures which aggravate the disease; and strengthen the hands
+of those who prefer even despotism to anarchy. This, he intimates, is
+the explanation of the repressive measures in which the
+country-gentlemen had supported Pitt. The people had fancied that by
+destroying government they would make bread cheap; government was
+forced to be tyrannical in order to resist revolution; while its
+supporters were led to 'give up some of the most valuable privileges
+of Englishmen.'<a name="FNanchor_271_271" id="FNanchor_271_271"></a><a href="#Footnote_271_271" class="fnanchor">[271]</a> It is then of vital importance to settle what is
+and what is not to be set down to government. Malthus, in fact, holds
+that the real evils are due to underlying causes which cannot be
+directly removed, though they may be diminished or increased, by
+legislators. Government can do something by giving security to
+property, and by making laws which will raise the self-respect of the
+lower classes. But the effect of such laws must be slow and gradual;
+and the error which has most contributed to that delay in the progress
+of freedom, which is 'so disheartening to every liberal mind,'<a name="FNanchor_272_272" id="FNanchor_272_272"></a><a href="#Footnote_272_272" class="fnanchor">[272]</a> is
+the confusion as to the true causes of misery. Thus, as he has already
+urged, professed economists could still believe, so long after the
+publication of Adam Smith's work, that it was 'in the power of the
+justices of the peace or even of the omnipotence of parliament to
+alter by a <i>fiat</i> the whole circumstances of the country.'<a name="FNanchor_273_273" id="FNanchor_273_273"></a><a href="#Footnote_273_273" class="fnanchor">[273]</a> Yet
+men who saw the absurdity of trying to fix the price of provisions
+were ready to propose to fix the rate of wages. They did not see that
+one term of the proportion implied the other. Malthus's whole
+criticism of the poor-law, already noticed, is a commentary upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> this
+text. It is connected with a general theory of human nature. The
+author of nature, he says, has wisely made 'the passion of self-love
+beyond expression stronger than the passion of benevolence.'<a name="FNanchor_274_274" id="FNanchor_274_274"></a><a href="#Footnote_274_274" class="fnanchor">[274]</a> He
+means, as he explains, that every man has to pursue his own welfare
+and that of his family as his primary object. Benevolence, of course,
+is the 'source of our purest and most refined pleasures,' and so
+forth; but it should come in as a supplement to self-love. Therefore
+we must never admit that men have a strict right to relief. That is to
+injure the very essential social force. 'Hard as it may seem in
+individual instances, dependent poverty ought to be held
+disgraceful.'<a name="FNanchor_275_275" id="FNanchor_275_275"></a><a href="#Footnote_275_275" class="fnanchor">[275]</a> The spirit of independence or self-help is the one
+thing necessary. 'The desire of bettering our condition and the fear
+of making it worse, like the <i>vis medicatrix</i> in physics, is the <i>vis
+medicatrix naturae</i> in politics, and is continually counteracting the
+disorders arising from narrow human institutions.'<a name="FNanchor_276_276" id="FNanchor_276_276"></a><a href="#Footnote_276_276" class="fnanchor">[276]</a> It is only
+because the poor-laws have not quite destroyed it, that they have not
+quite ruined the country. The pith of Malthus's teaching is fairly
+expressed in his last letter to Senior.<a name="FNanchor_277_277" id="FNanchor_277_277"></a><a href="#Footnote_277_277" class="fnanchor">[277]</a> He holds that the
+improvement in the condition of the great mass of the labouring
+classes should be considered as the main interest of society. To
+improve their condition, it is essential to impress them with the
+conviction that they can do much more for themselves than others can
+do for them, and that the <i>only</i> source of permanent improvement is
+the improvement of their moral and religious habits. What government
+can do, therefore, is to maintain such institutions as may<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> strengthen
+the <i>vis medicatrix</i>, or 'desire to better our condition,' which
+poor-laws had directly tended to weaken. He maintains in his letter to
+Senior, that this desire is 'perfectly feeble' compared with the
+tendency of the population to increase, and operates in a very slight
+degree upon the great mass of the labouring class.<a name="FNanchor_278_278" id="FNanchor_278_278"></a><a href="#Footnote_278_278" class="fnanchor">[278]</a> Still, he
+holds that on the whole the 'preventive checks' have become stronger
+relatively to the positive,<a name="FNanchor_279_279" id="FNanchor_279_279"></a><a href="#Footnote_279_279" class="fnanchor">[279]</a> and, at any rate, all proposals must
+be judged by their tendency to strengthen the preventive.</p>
+
+<p>Malthus was not a thoroughgoing supporter of the 'do-nothing'
+doctrine. He approved of a national system of education, and of the
+early factory acts, though only as applied to infant labour. So, as we
+shall see, did all the Utilitarians. The 'individualism,' however, is
+not less decided; and leads him to speak as though the elasticity of
+population were not merely an essential factor in the social problem,
+but the sole principle from which all solutions must be deduced. He is
+thus led, as I have tried to show, to a narrow interpretation of his
+'moral check.' He is apt to take 'vice' simply as a product of
+excessive pressure, and, in his general phrases at least, to overlook
+its reciprocal tendency to cause pressure. The 'moral check' is only
+preventive or negative, not a positive cause of superior vigour. A
+similar defect appears in his theory of the <i>vis medicatrix</i>. He was,
+I hold, perfectly right in emphasising the importance of individual
+responsibility. No reform can be permanent which does not raise the
+morality of the individual. His insistence upon this truth was of the
+highest importance, and it is to be wished that its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> importance might
+be more fully recognised to-day. The one-sidedness appears in his
+proposal to abolish the poor-law simply. That became the most
+conspicuous and widely accepted doctrine. All men of 'sense,' said
+Sydney Smith&mdash;certainly a qualified representative of the class&mdash;in
+1820, agree, first, that the poor-law must be abolished; and secondly,
+that it must be abolished very gradually.<a name="FNanchor_280_280" id="FNanchor_280_280"></a><a href="#Footnote_280_280" class="fnanchor">[280]</a> That is really to
+assume that by refusing to help people at all, you will force them to
+help themselves. There is another alternative, namely, that they may,
+as Malthus himself often recognises, become demoralised by excessive
+poverty. To do simply nothing may lead to degeneration instead of
+increased energy. The possibility of an improved law, which might act
+as a moral discipline instead of a simply corrupting agency, is simply
+left out of account; and the tendency to stimulate reckless population
+is regarded not only as one probable consequence, but as the very
+essence of all poor-laws. Upon Malthus's assumptions, the statement
+that sound political and social theories must be based upon systematic
+inquiry into facts, meant that the individual was the ultimate
+unalterable unit, whose interest in his own welfare gave the one
+fulcrum for all possible changes. The ideal 'state of nature' was a
+fiction. The true basis of our inquiries is the actual man known to us
+by observation. The main fault of this being was the excess of the
+instinct of multiplication, and the way to improve him was to show how
+it might conflict with the instinct of self-preservation. In this
+shape the doctrine expressed the most characteristic tendency of the
+Utilitarians, and divided them from the Socialists or believers in
+abstract rights of man.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="subhead2">VI. RENT</p>
+
+<p>Here, then, we are at a central point of the Utilitarian creed. The
+expansive force of population is, in a sense, the great motive power
+which moulds the whole social structure; or, rather, it forces
+together the independent units, and welds them into an aggregate. The
+influence of this doctrine upon other economical speculations is of
+the highest importance. One critical stage in the process is marked by
+the enunciation of the theory of rent, which was to become another
+essential article of the true faith. The introduction of this doctrine
+is characteristic, and marks the point at which Ricardo superseded
+Malthus as chief expositor of the doctrine.</p>
+
+<p>Malthus's views were first fully given in his <i>Inquiry into Rent</i>, the
+second of three pamphlets which he published during the corn-law
+controversy of 1814-15.<a name="FNanchor_281_281" id="FNanchor_281_281"></a><a href="#Footnote_281_281" class="fnanchor">[281]</a> The opinions now stated had, he says,
+been formed in the course of his lecturing at Haileybury; and he made
+them public on account of their bearing upon the most absorbing
+questions of the time. The connection of the theory with Malthus's
+speculations and with the contemporary difficulties is indeed obvious.
+The landlord had clearly one of the reserved seats at the banquet of
+nature. He was the most obvious embodiment of 'security' as opposed to
+equality. Malthus, again, had been influenced by the French economists
+and their theory of the 'surplus fund,' provided by agriculture.
+According to them, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> he says,<a name="FNanchor_282_282" id="FNanchor_282_282"></a><a href="#Footnote_282_282" class="fnanchor">[282]</a> this fund or rent constitutes the
+whole national wealth. In his first edition he had defended the
+economists against some of Adam Smith's criticisms; and though he
+altered his views and thought that they had been led into preposterous
+errors, he retained a certain sympathy for them. Agriculture has still
+a certain 'pre-eminence.' God has bestowed upon the soil the
+'inestimable quality of being able to maintain more persons than are
+necessary to work it.'<a name="FNanchor_283_283" id="FNanchor_283_283"></a><a href="#Footnote_283_283" class="fnanchor">[283]</a> It has the special virtue that the supply
+of necessaries generates the demand. Make more luxuries and the price
+may fall; but grow more food and there will be more people to eat it.
+This, however, seems to be only another way of stating an unpleasant
+fact. The blessing of 'fertility' counteracts itself. As he argues in
+the essay,<a name="FNanchor_284_284" id="FNanchor_284_284"></a><a href="#Footnote_284_284" class="fnanchor">[284]</a> an equal division of land might produce such an
+increase of population as would exhaust any conceivable increase of
+food. These views&mdash;not, I think, very clear or consistently worked
+out&mdash;lead apparently to the conclusion that the fertility is indeed a
+blessing, but on condition of being confined to a few. The result, in
+any case, is the orthodox theory of rent. The labourer gets less than
+he would if the products of the soil were equally distributed. Both
+wages and profits must fall as more is left to rent, and that this
+actually happens, he says, with unusual positiveness, is an
+'incontrovertible truth.'<a name="FNanchor_285_285" id="FNanchor_285_285"></a><a href="#Footnote_285_285" class="fnanchor">[285]</a> The fall enables the less fertile land
+to be cultivated, and gives an excess of produce on the more fertile.
+'This excess is rent.'<a name="FNanchor_286_286" id="FNanchor_286_286"></a><a href="#Footnote_286_286" class="fnanchor">[286]</a> He proceeds to expound his doctrine by
+comparing land to a set of machines for making corn.<a name="FNanchor_287_287" id="FNanchor_287_287"></a><a href="#Footnote_287_287" class="fnanchor">[287]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> If, in
+manufacture, a new machine is introduced every one adopts it. In
+agriculture the worst machines have still to be used; and those who
+have the best and sell at the same price, can appropriate the surplus
+advantage. This, he declares, is a law 'as invariable as the action of
+the principle of gravity.'<a name="FNanchor_288_288" id="FNanchor_288_288"></a><a href="#Footnote_288_288" class="fnanchor">[288]</a> Yet Smith and others have overlooked a
+'principle of the highest importance'<a name="FNanchor_289_289" id="FNanchor_289_289"></a><a href="#Footnote_289_289" class="fnanchor">[289]</a> and have failed to see that
+the price of corn, as of other things, must conform to the cost of
+production. The same doctrine was expounded in the same year by Sir
+Edward West;<a name="FNanchor_290_290" id="FNanchor_290_290"></a><a href="#Footnote_290_290" class="fnanchor">[290]</a> and, as it seems to me, more clearly and simply.
+West, like Malthus, says that he has to announce a principle
+overlooked by Adam Smith. This is briefly that 'each equal additional
+quantity of work bestowed on agriculture yields an actually diminished
+return.' He holds that profits fall as wealth increases, but he denies
+Adam Smith's view that this is a simple result of increased
+competition.<a name="FNanchor_291_291" id="FNanchor_291_291"></a><a href="#Footnote_291_291" class="fnanchor">[291]</a> Competition would equalise, but would not lower
+profits, for 'the productive powers of manufactures are constantly
+increasing.' In agriculture the law is the opposite one of diminishing
+returns. Hence the admitted fall of profits shows that the necessity
+of taking inferior soils into cultivation is the true cause of the
+fall.</p>
+
+<p>Such coincidences as that between Malthus and West are common enough,
+for very obvious reasons. In this case, I think, there is less room
+for surprise than usual. The writer generally credited with the
+discovery of the rent doctrine is James Anderson, who had stated it
+as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> early as 1777.<a name="FNanchor_292_292" id="FNanchor_292_292"></a><a href="#Footnote_292_292" class="fnanchor">[292]</a> The statement, however, did not attract
+attention until at the time of West and Malthus it was forced upon
+observers by the most conspicuous facts of the day. Adam Smith and
+other economists had, as Malthus notices, observed what is obvious
+enough, that rent in some way represented a 'net produce'&mdash;a something
+which remained after paying the costs of production. So much was
+obvious to any common-sense observer. In a curious paper of December
+1804,<a name="FNanchor_293_293" id="FNanchor_293_293"></a><a href="#Footnote_293_293" class="fnanchor">[293]</a> Cobbett points out that the landlords will always keep the
+profits of farmers down to the average rate of equally agreeable
+businesses. This granted, it is a short though important step to the
+theory of rent. The English system had, in fact, spontaneously
+analysed the problem. The landlord, farmer, and labourer represented
+the three interests which might elsewhere be combined. Prices raised
+by war and famine had led to the enclosure of wastes and the breaking
+up of pastures. The 'margin of cultivation' was thus illustrated by
+facts. Farmers were complaining that they could not make a profit if
+prices were lowered. The landed classes were profiting by a rise of
+price raised, according to a familiar law, in greater proportion than
+the deficiency of the harvest. Facts of this kind were, one must
+suppose, familiar to every land-agent; and to discover the law of
+rent, it was only necessary for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> Malthus and West to put them in their
+natural order. The egg had only to be put on its end, though that, as
+we know, is often a difficult task. When the feat was accomplished
+consequences followed which were fully developed by Ricardo.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_203_203" id="Footnote_203_203"></a><a href="#FNanchor_203_203"><span class="label">[203]</span></a> Mr. James Bonar's <i>Malthus and his Work</i> (1885) gives
+an admirable account of Malthus. The chief original authorities are a
+life by Bishop Otter, prefixed to a second edition of the <i>Political
+Economy</i> (1831), and an article by Empson, Malthus's colleague, in the
+<i>Edinburgh Review</i> for January 1837.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_204_204" id="Footnote_204_204"></a><a href="#FNanchor_204_204"><span class="label">[204]</span></a> <i>Political Justice</i> (3rd edition, 1798), ii. bk. viii.
+chap. ix., p. 514.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_205_205" id="Footnote_205_205"></a><a href="#FNanchor_205_205"><span class="label">[205]</span></a> Wallace wrote in answer to Hume, <i>A Dissertation on the
+Numbers of Mankind in Ancient and Modern Times</i> (1753), and <i>Various
+Prospects of Mankind</i>, and <i>Nature and Providence</i> (1761). Godwin
+refers to the last.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_206_206" id="Footnote_206_206"></a><a href="#FNanchor_206_206"><span class="label">[206]</span></a> <i>Political Justice</i>, ii. 520.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_207_207" id="Footnote_207_207"></a><a href="#FNanchor_207_207"><span class="label">[207]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ii. 528.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_208_208" id="Footnote_208_208"></a><a href="#FNanchor_208_208"><span class="label">[208]</span></a> First published in 1795, after the first edition, as
+Godwin remarks, of the <i>Political Justice</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_209_209" id="Footnote_209_209"></a><a href="#FNanchor_209_209"><span class="label">[209]</span></a> <i>Ami des hommes</i> (reprint of 1883), p. 15.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_210_210" id="Footnote_210_210"></a><a href="#FNanchor_210_210"><span class="label">[210]</span></a> <i>Ami des hommes</i>, p. 26.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_211_211" id="Footnote_211_211"></a><a href="#FNanchor_211_211"><span class="label">[211]</span></a> See the curious debate in <i>Parl. Hist.</i> xiv.
+1318-1365.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_212_212" id="Footnote_212_212"></a><a href="#FNanchor_212_212"><span class="label">[212]</span></a> The seventh edition of Price's <i>Observations on
+Reversionary Payments</i>, etc. (1812), contains a correspondence with
+Pitt (i. 216, etc.). The editor, W. Morgan, accuses Pitt of adopting
+Price's plans without due acknowledgment and afterwards spoiling
+them.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_213_213" id="Footnote_213_213"></a><a href="#FNanchor_213_213"><span class="label">[213]</span></a> <i>Essay on Population</i>, p. 18. In <i>Observations</i>, ii.
+141, he estimates the diminution at a million and a half. Other books
+referring to the same controversy are Howlett's <i>Examination of Dr.
+Price's Essay</i> (1781); <i>Letter to Lord Carlisle</i>, by William Eden
+(1744-1814), first Lord Auckland; William Wales's <i>Enquiry into
+Present State of Population</i>, etc. (1781); and Geo. Chalmers's
+<i>Estimate of the Comparative Strength of Great Britain</i> (1782 and
+several later editions).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_214_214" id="Footnote_214_214"></a><a href="#FNanchor_214_214"><span class="label">[214]</span></a> <i>Essay</i> (first edition), p. 339.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_215_215" id="Footnote_215_215"></a><a href="#FNanchor_215_215"><span class="label">[215]</span></a> <i>Memoirs</i>, etc. (1819), ii. 10.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_216_216" id="Footnote_216_216"></a><a href="#FNanchor_216_216"><span class="label">[216]</span></a> So Sir James Stewart, whose light was extinguished by
+Adam Smith, begins his <i>Enquiry into the Principles of Political
+Economy</i> (1767) by discussing the question of population, and compares
+the 'generative faculty' to a spring loaded with a weight, and
+exerting itself in proportion to the diminution of resistance
+(<i>Works</i>, 1805, i. 22). He compares population to 'rabbits in a
+warren.' Joseph Townsend, in his <i>Journey Through Spain</i> (1792), to
+whom Malthus refers, had discussed the supposed decay of the Spanish
+population, and illustrates his principles by a geometric progression:
+see ii. 213-56, 386-91. Eden, in his book on the poor (i. 214), quotes
+a tract attributed to Sir Matthew Hale for the statement that the poor
+increase on 'geometrical progression.'</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_217_217" id="Footnote_217_217"></a><a href="#FNanchor_217_217"><span class="label">[217]</span></a> <i>Malthus and his Work</i>, p. 85.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_218_218" id="Footnote_218_218"></a><a href="#FNanchor_218_218"><span class="label">[218]</span></a> Voltaire says in the <i>Dictionnaire Philosophique</i> (art.
+'Population'): 'On ne propage point en Progression G&eacute;om&eacute;trique. Tous
+les calculs qu'on a faits sur cette pr&eacute;tendue multiplication sont des
+chim&egrave;res absurdes.' They had been used to reconcile the story of the
+deluge with the admitted population of the world soon afterwards.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_219_219" id="Footnote_219_219"></a><a href="#FNanchor_219_219"><span class="label">[219]</span></a> <i>Essay</i> (1826), ii 453 <i>n.</i> I cite from this, the last
+edition published in Malthus's lifetime, unless otherwise stated.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_220_220" id="Footnote_220_220"></a><a href="#FNanchor_220_220"><span class="label">[220]</span></a> <i>Essay</i>, ii. 251 (bk. iii. ch. xiv.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_221_221" id="Footnote_221_221"></a><a href="#FNanchor_221_221"><span class="label">[221]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> (1798), p. 141.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_222_222" id="Footnote_222_222"></a><a href="#FNanchor_222_222"><span class="label">[222]</span></a> <i>Essay</i>, ii. 449 (Appendix).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_223_223" id="Footnote_223_223"></a><a href="#FNanchor_223_223"><span class="label">[223]</span></a> <i>Essay</i>, ii. 473 (Appendix).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_224_224" id="Footnote_224_224"></a><a href="#FNanchor_224_224"><span class="label">[224]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> (Second Edition), p. 400. The passage is given
+in full in <i>Malthus and his Work</i>, p. 307.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_225_225" id="Footnote_225_225"></a><a href="#FNanchor_225_225"><span class="label">[225]</span></a> <i>Essay</i>, i. 469 (bk. ii. ch. x.). Eden had made the
+same remark.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_226_226" id="Footnote_226_226"></a><a href="#FNanchor_226_226"><span class="label">[226]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ii. 229 (bk. iii. ch. xiv.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_227_227" id="Footnote_227_227"></a><a href="#FNanchor_227_227"><span class="label">[227]</span></a> Correspondence in Senior's <i>Three Essays on Population</i>
+(1829).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_228_228" id="Footnote_228_228"></a><a href="#FNanchor_228_228"><span class="label">[228]</span></a> <i>Essay</i>, i. 234 (bk. i. ch. ii.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_229_229" id="Footnote_229_229"></a><a href="#FNanchor_229_229"><span class="label">[229]</span></a> Mr. Bonar thinks (<i>Malthus and his Work</i>, p. 324) that
+Malthus followed Paley's predecessor, Abraham Tucker, rather than
+Paley. The difference is not for my purpose important. In any case,
+Malthus's references are to Paley.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_230_230" id="Footnote_230_230"></a><a href="#FNanchor_230_230"><span class="label">[230]</span></a> <i>Essay</i>, ii. 266 (bk. iv. ch. i.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_231_231" id="Footnote_231_231"></a><a href="#FNanchor_231_231"><span class="label">[231]</span></a> <i>Essay</i> (first edition), p. 212.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_232_232" id="Footnote_232_232"></a><a href="#FNanchor_232_232"><span class="label">[232]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 16 <i>n.</i> (bk. i. ch. ii.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_233_233" id="Footnote_233_233"></a><a href="#FNanchor_233_233"><span class="label">[233]</span></a> See <i>e.g.</i> his remarks upon Condorcet in <i>Essay</i>, ii. 8
+(bk. iii. ch. i.); and Owen in <i>Ibid.</i> ii. 48 (bk. iii ch. ii.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_234_234" id="Footnote_234_234"></a><a href="#FNanchor_234_234"><span class="label">[234]</span></a> <i>Essay</i>, i. 15 <i>n.</i> (bk. i. ch. ii.); and see <i>Ibid.</i>
+(edit. of 1807) ii. 128.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_235_235" id="Footnote_235_235"></a><a href="#FNanchor_235_235"><span class="label">[235]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> (1807) ii. 128.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_236_236" id="Footnote_236_236"></a><a href="#FNanchor_236_236"><span class="label">[236]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> (1807) ii. 3 (bk. ii. ch. ii.). (Omitted in
+later editions.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_237_237" id="Footnote_237_237"></a><a href="#FNanchor_237_237"><span class="label">[237]</span></a> Mr. A. R. Wallace, Darwin's fellow-discoverer of the
+doctrine, also learned it from Malthus. See Clodd's <i>Pioneers of
+Evolution</i>. Malthus uses the phrase 'struggle for existence' in
+relation to a fight between two savage tribes in the first edition of
+his <i>Essay</i>, p. 48. In replying to Condorcet, Malthus speaks (<i>Essay</i>,
+ii. 12, bk. iii. ch. i.) of the possible improvement of living
+organisms. He argues that, though a plant may be improved, it cannot
+be indefinitely improved by cultivation. A carnation could not be made
+as large as a tulip. It has been said that this implies a condemnation
+by anticipation of theories of the development of species. This is
+hardly correct. Malthus simply urges against Condorcet that our
+inability to fix limits precisely does not imply that there are no
+limits. This, it would seem, must be admitted on all hands. Evolution
+implies definite though not precisely definable limits. Life may be
+lengthened, but not made immortal.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_238_238" id="Footnote_238_238"></a><a href="#FNanchor_238_238"><span class="label">[238]</span></a> <i>Essay</i> (first edition), 353.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_239_239" id="Footnote_239_239"></a><a href="#FNanchor_239_239"><span class="label">[239]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> 42 <i>n.</i> (bk. iii. ch. iii.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_240_240" id="Footnote_240_240"></a><a href="#FNanchor_240_240"><span class="label">[240]</span></a> <i>Essay</i>, ii. 301-36 (bk. iv. ch. i. and ii.). Sumner's
+<i>Treatise on the Records of the Creation, and on the Moral Attributes
+of the Creator: with Particular Reference to the Jewish History and
+the Consistency of the Principle of Population with the Wisdom and
+Goodness of the Creator</i> (1815), had gained the second Burnett prize.
+It went through many editions; and shows how Cuvier confirms Genesis,
+and Malthus proves that the world was intended to involve a
+competition favourable to the industrious and sober. Sumner's view of
+Malthus is given in Part ii., chaps, v. and vi. In previous chapters
+he has supported Malthus's attack on Godwin and Condorcet.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_241_241" id="Footnote_241_241"></a><a href="#FNanchor_241_241"><span class="label">[241]</span></a> <i>Essay</i>, ii. 266 (bk. iv. ch. i.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_242_242" id="Footnote_242_242"></a><a href="#FNanchor_242_242"><span class="label">[242]</span></a> <i>Essay</i>, ii 268 (bk. iv. ch. i.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_243_243" id="Footnote_243_243"></a><a href="#FNanchor_243_243"><span class="label">[243]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> (bk. iv. ch. ii.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_244_244" id="Footnote_244_244"></a><a href="#FNanchor_244_244"><span class="label">[244]</span></a> <i>Essay</i>, 241 (bk. iii. ch. iv.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_245_245" id="Footnote_245_245"></a><a href="#FNanchor_245_245"><span class="label">[245]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ii. 241 (bk. iii. ch. xiv.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_246_246" id="Footnote_246_246"></a><a href="#FNanchor_246_246"><span class="label">[246]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ii. 293 (bk. iv. ch. iv.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_247_247" id="Footnote_247_247"></a><a href="#FNanchor_247_247"><span class="label">[247]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ii. 425 (bk. iv. ch. xiii.). Malthus expresses
+a hope that Paley had modified his views upon population, and refers
+to a passage in the <i>Natural Theology</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_248_248" id="Footnote_248_248"></a><a href="#FNanchor_248_248"><span class="label">[248]</span></a> <i>Essay</i>, ii. 292 (bk. iv. ch. iv.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_249_249" id="Footnote_249_249"></a><a href="#FNanchor_249_249"><span class="label">[249]</span></a> <i>Political Economy</i> (1836), p. 214.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_250_250" id="Footnote_250_250"></a><a href="#FNanchor_250_250"><span class="label">[250]</span></a> <i>Essay</i>, ii. 298 (bk. iv. ch. iv.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_251_251" id="Footnote_251_251"></a><a href="#FNanchor_251_251"><span class="label">[251]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ii. 86 (bk. iii. ch. vi.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_252_252" id="Footnote_252_252"></a><a href="#FNanchor_252_252"><span class="label">[252]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ii. 87 (bk. iii. ch. vi.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_253_253" id="Footnote_253_253"></a><a href="#FNanchor_253_253"><span class="label">[253]</span></a> <i>Essay</i>, ii. 90 (bk. iii. ch. vi.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_254_254" id="Footnote_254_254"></a><a href="#FNanchor_254_254"><span class="label">[254]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ii. 338 (bk. iv. ch. viii.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_255_255" id="Footnote_255_255"></a><a href="#FNanchor_255_255"><span class="label">[255]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ii. (bk. iv. ch. x.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_256_256" id="Footnote_256_256"></a><a href="#FNanchor_256_256"><span class="label">[256]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ii. 353 (bk. iv. ch. ix.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_257_257" id="Footnote_257_257"></a><a href="#FNanchor_257_257"><span class="label">[257]</span></a> <i>Essay</i>, ii. 356 (bk. iv. ch. ix.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_258_258" id="Footnote_258_258"></a><a href="#FNanchor_258_258"><span class="label">[258]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ii. 407 (bk. iv. ch. xii.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_259_259" id="Footnote_259_259"></a><a href="#FNanchor_259_259"><span class="label">[259]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ii. 375 (bk. iv. ch. xi.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_260_260" id="Footnote_260_260"></a><a href="#FNanchor_260_260"><span class="label">[260]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ii. 429 (bk. iv. ch. xiii.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_261_261" id="Footnote_261_261"></a><a href="#FNanchor_261_261"><span class="label">[261]</span></a> <i>Essay of 1807</i> (bk. iii. ch. ii., and vol. ii. p.
+111). The phrases quoted are toned down in later editions.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_262_262" id="Footnote_262_262"></a><a href="#FNanchor_262_262"><span class="label">[262]</span></a> <i>Essay</i>, i. 330 (bk. ii. ch. iv.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_263_263" id="Footnote_263_263"></a><a href="#FNanchor_263_263"><span class="label">[263]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ii. 300 (bk. iv. ch. v.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_264_264" id="Footnote_264_264"></a><a href="#FNanchor_264_264"><span class="label">[264]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ii. 405 (bk. iv. ch. xiii.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_265_265" id="Footnote_265_265"></a><a href="#FNanchor_265_265"><span class="label">[265]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 343 (bk. ii. ch. v.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_266_266" id="Footnote_266_266"></a><a href="#FNanchor_266_266"><span class="label">[266]</span></a> <i>Essay</i>, ii. 424 (bk. iv. ch. xiii.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_267_267" id="Footnote_267_267"></a><a href="#FNanchor_267_267"><span class="label">[267]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ii. 304 (bk. iv. ch. v.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_268_268" id="Footnote_268_268"></a><a href="#FNanchor_268_268"><span class="label">[268]</span></a> <i>Essay</i>, i. 75 (bk. i. ch. v.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_269_269" id="Footnote_269_269"></a><a href="#FNanchor_269_269"><span class="label">[269]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> (bk. ii. ch. vi.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_270_270" id="Footnote_270_270"></a><a href="#FNanchor_270_270"><span class="label">[270]</span></a> <i>Essay</i>, ii. 318 (bk. iv. ch. vi.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_271_271" id="Footnote_271_271"></a><a href="#FNanchor_271_271"><span class="label">[271]</span></a> <i>Essay</i>, ii. 315 (bk. iv. ch. v.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_272_272" id="Footnote_272_272"></a><a href="#FNanchor_272_272"><span class="label">[272]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ii. 326 (bk. iv. ch. vi.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_273_273" id="Footnote_273_273"></a><a href="#FNanchor_273_273"><span class="label">[273]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ii. 78 (bk. iii. ch. v.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_274_274" id="Footnote_274_274"></a><a href="#FNanchor_274_274"><span class="label">[274]</span></a> <i>Essay</i>, ii. 454 (Appendix).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_275_275" id="Footnote_275_275"></a><a href="#FNanchor_275_275"><span class="label">[275]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ii. 82 (bk. iii. ch. vi.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_276_276" id="Footnote_276_276"></a><a href="#FNanchor_276_276"><span class="label">[276]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ii. 90 (bk. iii. ch. vi.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_277_277" id="Footnote_277_277"></a><a href="#FNanchor_277_277"><span class="label">[277]</span></a> Senior's <i>Three Lectures</i>, p. 86.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_278_278" id="Footnote_278_278"></a><a href="#FNanchor_278_278"><span class="label">[278]</span></a> Senior's <i>Three Lectures</i>, p. 60.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_279_279" id="Footnote_279_279"></a><a href="#FNanchor_279_279"><span class="label">[279]</span></a> <i>Essay</i>, i. 534 (bk. ii. ch. xiii.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_280_280" id="Footnote_280_280"></a><a href="#FNanchor_280_280"><span class="label">[280]</span></a> Smith's <i>Works</i> (1859), i. 295.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_281_281" id="Footnote_281_281"></a><a href="#FNanchor_281_281"><span class="label">[281]</span></a> <i>Observations on the Effects of the Corn-laws, 1814;
+Inquiry into the Nature and Progress of Rent, 1815</i>; and <i>The Grounds
+of an Opinion on the Policy of restricting the Importation of Foreign
+Corn</i>, intended as an appendix to the <i>Observations on the Corn-laws</i>,
+1815.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_282_282" id="Footnote_282_282"></a><a href="#FNanchor_282_282"><span class="label">[282]</span></a> <i>Inquiry into Rent</i>, p. 1.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_283_283" id="Footnote_283_283"></a><a href="#FNanchor_283_283"><span class="label">[283]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 16.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_284_284" id="Footnote_284_284"></a><a href="#FNanchor_284_284"><span class="label">[284]</span></a> <i>Essay</i>, ii. 35 (bk. iii. ch. ii.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_285_285" id="Footnote_285_285"></a><a href="#FNanchor_285_285"><span class="label">[285]</span></a> <i>Inquiry into Rent</i>, p. 20.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_286_286" id="Footnote_286_286"></a><a href="#FNanchor_286_286"><span class="label">[286]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 18.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_287_287" id="Footnote_287_287"></a><a href="#FNanchor_287_287"><span class="label">[287]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 38.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_288_288" id="Footnote_288_288"></a><a href="#FNanchor_288_288"><span class="label">[288]</span></a> <i>Inquiry into Rent</i>, p. 20.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_289_289" id="Footnote_289_289"></a><a href="#FNanchor_289_289"><span class="label">[289]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 37.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_290_290" id="Footnote_290_290"></a><a href="#FNanchor_290_290"><span class="label">[290]</span></a> <i>Essay on the Application of Capital to Land, by a
+Fellow of University College, Oxford, 1815.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_291_291" id="Footnote_291_291"></a><a href="#FNanchor_291_291"><span class="label">[291]</span></a> <i>Essay</i>, p. 19.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_292_292" id="Footnote_292_292"></a><a href="#FNanchor_292_292"><span class="label">[292]</span></a> <i>In An Inquiry into the Nature of the Corn-laws</i>, and
+again (1801) in <i>Observations on Agriculture</i>, etc., vol. v. 401-51.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_293_293" id="Footnote_293_293"></a><a href="#FNanchor_293_293"><span class="label">[293]</span></a> <i>Political Works</i>, i. 485, etc. In this paper, I may
+add, Cobbett, not yet a Radical, accepts Malthus's view of the
+tendency of the human species to multiply more quickly than its
+support. He does not mention Malthus, but speaks of the belief as
+universally admitted, and afterwards illustrates it amusingly by
+saying that, in his ploughboy days, he used to wonder that there was
+always just enough hay for the horses and enough horses for the hay.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span></p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<p class="subhead1">RICARDO</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">I. RICARDO'S STARTING-POINT</p>
+
+<p>David Ricardo,<a name="FNanchor_294_294" id="FNanchor_294_294"></a><a href="#Footnote_294_294" class="fnanchor">[294]</a> born 19th April 1772, was the son of a Dutch Jew
+who had settled in England, and made money upon the Stock Exchange.
+Ricardo had a desultory education, and was employed in business from
+his boyhood. He abandoned his father's creed, and married an
+Englishwoman soon after reaching his majority. He set up for himself
+in business, and, at a time when financial transactions upon an
+unprecedented scale were giving great opportunities for speculators,
+he made a large fortune, and about 1814 bought an estate at Gatcombe
+Park, Gloucestershire. He withdrew soon afterwards from business, and
+in 1819 became member of parliament. His death on 11th September 1823
+cut short a political career from which his perhaps too sanguine
+friends anticipated great results. His influence in his own department
+of inquiry had been, meanwhile, of the greatest importance. He had
+shown in his youth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> some inclination for scientific pursuits; he
+established a laboratory, and became a member of scientific societies.
+The perusal of Adam Smith's <i>Wealth of Nations</i> in 1799 gave him an
+interest in the application of scientific methods to the questions
+with which he was most conversant. Accepting Adam Smith as the leading
+authority, he proceeded to think out for himself certain doctrines,
+which appeared to him to have been insufficiently recognised by his
+teacher. The first result of his speculations was a pamphlet published
+in 1809 upon the depreciation of the currency. Upon that topic he
+spoke as an expert, and his main doctrines were accepted by the famous
+Bullion Committee. Ricardo thus became a recognised authority on one
+great set of problems of the highest immediate interest. Malthus's
+<i>Inquiry into Rent</i> suggested another pamphlet; and in 1817,
+encouraged by the warm pressure of his friend, James Mill, he
+published his chief book, the <i>Principles of Political Economy and
+Taxation</i>. This became the economic Bible of the Utilitarians. The
+task of a commentator or interpreter is, for various reasons, a
+difficult one.</p>
+
+<p>There is a certain analogy between Ricardo and a very different
+writer, Bishop Butler. Each of them produced a great effect by a short
+treatise, and in each case the book owed very little to the ordinary
+literary graces. Ricardo's want of literary training, or his natural
+difficulty of utterance, made his style still worse than Butler's;
+but, like Butler, he commands our respect by his obvious sincerity and
+earnestness. He is content when he has so expressed his argument that
+it can be seized by an attentive reader. He is incapable of, or
+indifferent to, clear and orderly exposition of principles. The logic
+is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> there, if you will take the trouble to look for it. Perhaps we
+ought to be flattered by this tacit reliance upon our patience. 'You,'
+Ricardo, like Butler, seems to say to us, 'are anxious for truth: you
+do not care for ornament, and may be trusted to work out the full
+application of my principles.' In another respect the two are alike.
+Butler's argument has impressed many readers as a demolition of his
+own case. It provokes revolt instead of adhesion. Ricardo, an orthodox
+economist, laid down principles which were adopted by Socialists to
+upset his own assumptions. Such a God as you worship, said Butler's
+opponents, is an unjust being, and therefore worse than no God. Such a
+system as you describe, said Ricardo's opponents, is an embodiment of
+injustice, and therefore to be radically destroyed. Admitting the
+logic, the argument may be read as a <i>reductio ad absurdum</i> in both
+cases.</p>
+
+<p>Ricardo has involved himself in certain special difficulties. In the
+first place, he presupposes familiarity with Adam Smith. The
+<i>Principles</i> is a running comment upon some of Smith's theories, and
+no attempt is made to reduce them to systematic order. He starts by
+laying down propositions, the proof of which comes afterwards, and is
+then rather intimated than expressly given. He adopts the terminology
+which Smith had accepted from popular use,<a name="FNanchor_295_295" id="FNanchor_295_295"></a><a href="#Footnote_295_295" class="fnanchor">[295]</a> and often applies it
+in a special significance, which is at least liable to be
+misunderstood by his readers, or forgotten by himself. It is
+difficult, again, to feel sure whether some of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> statements are to
+be taken as positive assertions of fact, or merely as convenient
+assumptions for the purposes of his argument. Ricardo himself, as
+appears in his letters, was painfully aware of his own awkwardness of
+expression, and upon that point alone all his critics seem to be in
+tolerable agreement. Happily, it will be enough for my purpose if I
+can lay down his essential premises without following him to the
+remoter deductions.</p>
+
+<p>Ricardo's pamphlet upon Malthus (1815) gives a starting-point. Ricardo
+cordially adopts Malthus's theory of rent, but declares that it is
+fatal to some of Malthus's conclusions. Malthus, we have seen, wished
+to regard rent as in some sense a gift of Providence&mdash;a positive
+blessing due to the fertility of the soil. Ricardo maintains, on the
+contrary, that 'the interest of the landlord is necessarily opposed to
+the interest of every other class in the community.'<a name="FNanchor_296_296" id="FNanchor_296_296"></a><a href="#Footnote_296_296" class="fnanchor">[296]</a> The landlord
+is prosperous when corn is scarce and dear; all other persons when it
+is plentiful and cheap. This follows upon Malthus's own showing. As
+men are forced to have recourse to inferior soils, the landlord
+obtains a larger share of the whole produce; and, moreover, since corn
+also becomes more valuable, will have a larger share of a more
+valuable product. The question apparently in dispute&mdash;whether we
+should be glad that some land is better than the worst, or sorry
+because all is not equal to the best&mdash;seems rather idle. The real
+question, however, is whether rent, being a blessing, should be kept
+up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> by protection,<a name="FNanchor_297_297" id="FNanchor_297_297"></a><a href="#Footnote_297_297" class="fnanchor">[297]</a> or, being a curse, should be brought down by
+competition? What is the real working of the system? Set the trade
+free, says Ricardo, and the capital will be withdrawn from the poor
+land and employed upon manufactures, to be exchanged for the corn of
+other countries.<a name="FNanchor_298_298" id="FNanchor_298_298"></a><a href="#Footnote_298_298" class="fnanchor">[298]</a> The change must correspond to a more
+advantageous distribution of capital, or it would not be adopted. The
+principle involved in this last proposition is, he adds, one of the
+'best established in the science of political economy, and by no one
+is more readily admitted than by Mr. Malthus.' To enforce protection
+would be, on Malthus's illustration, to compel us to use the 'worst
+machines, when, at a less expense, we could hire the very best from
+our neighbours.'<a name="FNanchor_299_299" id="FNanchor_299_299"></a><a href="#Footnote_299_299" class="fnanchor">[299]</a> Briefly, then, the landlord's interest is
+opposed to the national interest, because it enforces a worse
+distribution of capital. He compels us to get corn from his worst
+land, instead of getting it indirectly, but in greater quantity, from
+our spinning-jennies.</p>
+
+<p>For Ricardo, as for Malthus, the ultimate driving force is the
+pressure of population. The mass of mankind is always struggling to
+obtain food, and is able to multiply so rapidly as to exhaust any
+conceivable increase of supplies. The landlord class alone profits.
+The greater the struggle for supply the greater will be the share of
+the whole produce which must be surrendered to it. Beyond this,
+however, lies the further problem which specially<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> occupied Ricardo.
+How will the resulting strain affect the relations of the two
+remaining classes, the labourers and the capitalists? The ultimate
+evil of protection is the bad distribution of capital. But capital
+always acts by employing labour. The farmer's capital does not act by
+itself, but by enabling his men to work. Hence, to understand the
+working of the industrial machinery, we have to settle the relation of
+wages and profits. Ricardo states this emphatically in his preface.
+Rent, profit, and wages, he says, represent the three parts into which
+the whole produce of the earth is divided. 'To determine the laws
+which regulate this distribution is the principal problem in political
+economy'; and one, he adds, which has been left in obscurity by
+previous writers.<a name="FNanchor_300_300" id="FNanchor_300_300"></a><a href="#Footnote_300_300" class="fnanchor">[300]</a> His investigations are especially directed by
+the purpose thus defined. He was the first writer who fairly brought
+under distinct consideration what he held, with reason, to be the most
+important branch of economical inquiry.</p>
+
+<p>There was clearly a gap in the economic doctrine represented by the
+<i>Wealth of Nations</i>. Adam Smith was primarily concerned with the
+theory of the 'market.' He assumes the existence of the social
+arrangement which is indicated by that phrase. The market implies a
+constitution of industrial agencies such that, within it, only one
+price is possible for a given commodity, or, rather, such that a
+difference of price cannot be permanent. According to the accepted
+illustration, the sea is not absolutely level, but it is always
+tending to a level.<a name="FNanchor_301_301" id="FNanchor_301_301"></a><a href="#Footnote_301_301" class="fnanchor">[301]</a> A<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> permanent elevation at one point is
+impossible. The agency by which this levelling or equilibrating
+process is carried out is competition, involving what Smith called the
+'higgling of the market.' The momentary fluctuation, again, supposes
+the action of 'supply and demand,' which, as they vary, raise and
+depress prices. To illustrate the working of this machinery, to show
+how previous writers had been content to notice a particular change
+without following out the collateral results, and had thus been led
+into fallacies such as that of the 'mercantile system,' was Smith's
+primary task.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond or beneath these questions lie difficulties, which Smith,
+though not blind to their existence, treated in a vacillating and
+inconsistent fashion. Variations of supply and demand cause
+fluctuations in the price; but what finally determines the point to
+which the fluctuating prices must gravitate? We follow the process by
+which one wave propagates another; but there is still the question,
+What ultimately fixes the normal level? Upon this point Ricardo could
+find no definite statement in his teacher. 'Supply and demand' was a
+sacred phrase which would always give a verbal answer, or indicate the
+immediate cause of variations on the surface. Beneath the surface
+there must be certain forces at work which settle why a quarter of
+corn 'gravitates' to a certain price; why the landlord can get just so
+many quarters of corn for the use of his fields; and why the produce,
+which is due jointly to the labourer and the farmer, is divided in a
+certain fixed proportion. To settle such points it is necessary to
+answer the problem of distribution, for the play of the industrial
+forces is directed by the constitution of the classes which co-operate
+in the result.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> Ricardo saw in Malthus's doctrines of rent and of
+population a new mode of approaching the problem. What was wanted, in
+the first place, was to systematise the logic adopted by his
+predecessors. Rent, it was clear, could not be both a cause and an
+effect of price, though at different points of his treatise Smith had
+apparently accepted each view of the relation. We must first settle
+which is cause and which effect; and then bring our whole system into
+the corresponding order. For the facts, Ricardo is content to trust
+mainly to others. The true title of his work should be that which his
+commentator, De Quincey, afterwards adopted, the <i>Logic of Political
+Economy</i>. This aim gives a partial explanation of the characteristic
+for which Ricardo is most generally criticised. He is accused of being
+abstract in the sense of neglecting facts. He does not deny the
+charge. 'If I am too theoretical (which I really believe to be the
+case) you,' he says to Malthus, 'I think, are too practical.'<a name="FNanchor_302_302" id="FNanchor_302_302"></a><a href="#Footnote_302_302" class="fnanchor">[302]</a> If
+Malthus is more guided than Ricardo by a reference to facts, he has of
+course an advantage. But so far as Malthus or Adam Smith
+theorised&mdash;and, of course, their statement of facts involved a
+theory&mdash;they were at least bound to be consistent. It is one thing to
+recognise the existence of facts which your theory will not explain,
+and to admit that it therefore requires modification. It is quite
+another thing to explain each set of facts in turn by theories which
+contradict each other. That is not to be historical but to be
+muddleheaded. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>Malthus and Smith, as it seemed to Ricardo, had
+occasionally given explanations which, when set side by side,
+destroyed each other. He was therefore clearly justified in the
+attempt to exhibit these logical inconsistencies and to supply a
+theory which should be in harmony with itself. He was so far neither
+more nor less 'theoretical' than his predecessors, but simply more
+impressed by the necessity of having at least a consistent theory.</p>
+
+<p>There was never a time at which logic in such matters was more wanted,
+or its importance more completely disregarded. Rash and ignorant
+theorists were plunging into intricate problems and propounding
+abstract solutions. The enormous taxation made necessary by the war
+suggested at every point questions as to the true incidence of the
+taxes. Who really gained or suffered by the protection of corn? Were
+the landlords, the farmers, or the labourers directly interested?
+Could they shift the burthen upon other shoulders or not? What, again,
+it was of the highest importance to know, was the true 'incidence' of
+tithes, of a land-tax, of the poor-laws, of an income-tax, and of all
+the multitudinous indirect taxes from which the national income was
+derived? The most varying views were held and eagerly defended. Who
+really paid? That question interested everybody, and occupies a large
+part of Ricardo's book. The popular answers involved innumerable
+inconsistencies, and were supported by arguments which only required
+to be confronted in order to be confuted. Ricardo's aim was to
+substitute a clear and consistent theory for this tangle of perplexed
+sophistry. In that sense his aim was in the highest degree
+'practical,' although he left to others the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> detailed application of
+his doctrines to the actual facts of the day.</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">II. THE DISTRIBUTION PROBLEM</p>
+
+<p>The rent doctrine gives one essential datum. A clear comprehension of
+rent is, as he was persuaded, 'of the utmost importance to political
+economy.'<a name="FNanchor_303_303" id="FNanchor_303_303"></a><a href="#Footnote_303_303" class="fnanchor">[303]</a> The importance is that it enables him to separate one
+of the primary sources of revenue from the others. It is as though, in
+the familiar illustration, we were considering the conditions of
+equilibrium of a fluid; and we now see that one part may be considered
+as a mere overflow, resulting from (not determining) the other
+conditions. The primary assumption in the case of the market is the
+level of price. When we clearly distinguish rent on one side from
+profits and wages on the other, we see that we may also assume a level
+of profits. There cannot, as Ricardo constantly says, 'be two rates of
+profit,' that is, at the same time and in the same country. But so
+long as rent was lumped with other sources of revenue it was
+impossible to see, what Malthus and West had now made clear, that in
+agriculture, as in manufactures, the profits of the producer must
+conform to the principle. Given their theory, it follows that the
+power of land to yield a great revenue does not imply a varying rate
+of profit or a special bounty of nature bestowed upon agriculture. It
+means simply that, since the corn from the good and bad land sells at
+the same price, there is a surplus on the good. But as that surplus
+constitutes rent, the farmer's rate of profit will still be uniform.
+Thus we have got rid of one complication, and we are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> left with a
+comparatively simple issue. We have to consider the problem, What
+determines the distribution as between the capitalist and the
+labourer? That is the vital question for Ricardo.</p>
+
+<p>Ricardo's theory, in the first place, is a modification of Adam
+Smith's. He accepts Smith's statement that wages are determined by the
+'supply and demand of labourers,' and by the 'price of commodities on
+which their wages are expended.'<a name="FNanchor_304_304" id="FNanchor_304_304"></a><a href="#Footnote_304_304" class="fnanchor">[304]</a> The appeal to 'supply and
+demand' implies that the rate of wages depends upon unchangeable
+economic conditions. He endorses<a name="FNanchor_305_305" id="FNanchor_305_305"></a><a href="#Footnote_305_305" class="fnanchor">[305]</a> Malthus's statement about the
+absurdity of considering 'wages' as something which may be fixed by
+his Majesty's 'Justices of the Peace,' and infers with Malthus that
+wages should be left to find their 'natural level.' But what precisely
+is this 'natural level?' If the Justice of the Peace cannot fix the
+rate of wages, what does fix them? Supply and demand? What, then, is
+precisely meant in this case by the supply and demand? The 'supply' of
+labour, we may suppose, is fixed by the actual labouring population at
+a given time. The 'demand,' again, is in some way clearly related to
+'capital.' As Smith again had said,<a name="FNanchor_306_306" id="FNanchor_306_306"></a><a href="#Footnote_306_306" class="fnanchor">[306]</a> the demand for labour
+increases with the 'increase of revenue and "stock," and cannot
+possibly increase without it.' Ricardo agrees that 'population
+regulates itself by the funds which are to employ it, and therefore
+always increases or diminishes with the increase or diminution of
+capital.'<a name="FNanchor_307_307" id="FNanchor_307_307"></a><a href="#Footnote_307_307" class="fnanchor">[307]</a> It was indeed a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> commonplace that the increase of
+capital was necessary to an increase of population, as it is obvious
+enough that population must be limited by the means of subsistence
+accumulated. Smith, for example, goes on to insist upon this in one of
+the passages which partly anticipates Malthus.<a name="FNanchor_308_308" id="FNanchor_308_308"></a><a href="#Footnote_308_308" class="fnanchor">[308]</a> But this does not
+enable us to separate profit from wages, or solve Ricardo's problem.
+When we speak of supply and demand as determining the price of a
+commodity, we generally have in mind two distinct though related
+processes. One set of people is growing corn, and another working coal
+mines. Each industry, therefore, has a separate existence, though each
+may be partly dependent upon the other. But this is not true of labour
+and capital. They are not products of different countries or
+processes. They are inseparable constituents of a single process.
+Labour cannot be maintained without capital, nor can capital produce
+without labour. Capital, according to Ricardo's definition, is the
+'part of the wealth of a country which is employed in production, and
+consists of food, clothing, raw materials, machinery, etc., necessary
+to give effect to labour.'<a name="FNanchor_309_309" id="FNanchor_309_309"></a><a href="#Footnote_309_309" class="fnanchor">[309]</a> That part, then, of capital which is
+applied to the support of the labourer&mdash;his food, clothing, and so
+forth&mdash;is identical with wages. To say that, if it increases, his
+wages increase is to be simply tautologous. If, on the other hand, we
+include the machinery and raw materials, it becomes difficult to say
+in what sense 'capital' can be taken as a demand for labour. Ricardo
+tells Malthus that an accumulation of profit does not, as Malthus had
+said, necessarily raise wages<a name="FNanchor_310_310" id="FNanchor_310_310"></a><a href="#Footnote_310_310" class="fnanchor">[310]</a>; and he ultimately decided, much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>
+to the scandal of his disciple, M'Culloch, that an increase of 'fixed
+capital' or machinery might be actually prejudicial, under certain
+circumstances, to the labourer. The belief of the labouring class that
+machinery often injures them is not, he expressly says, 'founded on
+prejudice and error, but is conformable to the correct principles of
+political economy.'<a name="FNanchor_311_311" id="FNanchor_311_311"></a><a href="#Footnote_311_311" class="fnanchor">[311]</a> The word 'capital,' indeed, was used with a
+vagueness which covered some of the most besetting fallacies of the
+whole doctrine. Ricardo himself sometimes speaks as though he had in
+mind merely the supply of labourers' necessaries, though he regularly
+uses it in a wider sense. The generalities, therefore, about supply
+and demand, take us little further.</p>
+
+<p>From these difficulties Ricardo escapes by another method. Malthus's
+theory of population gives him what he requires. The 'natural price of
+labour' (as distinguished from its 'market price') is, as he asserts,
+'that price which is necessary to enable the labourers, one with
+another, to subsist and perpetuate their race without either increase
+or diminution.'<a name="FNanchor_312_312" id="FNanchor_312_312"></a><a href="#Footnote_312_312" class="fnanchor">[312]</a> This is the true 'natural price,' about which the
+'market price' oscillates. An increase of capital may raise wages for
+a time above the natural price, but an increase of population will
+bring back the previous rate. Ricardo warns us, indeed, that this
+natural price of labour is not to be regarded as something 'absolutely
+fixed and constant.'<a name="FNanchor_313_313" id="FNanchor_313_313"></a><a href="#Footnote_313_313" class="fnanchor">[313]</a> It varies in different times and countries,
+and even in the same country at different times. An English cottager
+now possesses what would once have been luxuries. Ricardo admits
+again<a name="FNanchor_314_314" id="FNanchor_314_314"></a><a href="#Footnote_314_314" class="fnanchor">[314]</a> that the wages of different classes of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> labourers may be
+different, although he does not consider that this fact affects his
+argument. We may allow for it by considering the skilled labourer as 2
+or 1-1/2 labourers rolled into one. The assumption enables him to get
+out of a vicious circle. He is seeking to discover the proportions in
+which produce will be divided between the two classes, and which
+co-operate in the production. The 'demand and supply' principle may
+show that an increase of capital will tend to increase wages, but even
+that tendency, as he carefully points out, can only be admitted
+subject to certain important reservations. In any case, if it explains
+temporary fluctuations, it will not ascertain the point round which
+the fluctuations take place. But the two variables, wages and profit,
+are clearly connected, and if we can once assume that one of these
+variables is fixed by an independent law, we may explain in what way
+the other will be fixed. Having got rid of 'rent,' the remaining
+produce has to be divided between wages and profit. If the produce be
+fixed, the greater the share of the labourer the less will be the
+share of the capitalist, and <i>vice versa</i>. But the labourer's share
+again is determined by the consideration that it must be such as to
+enable him to keep up the population. The capitalist will get the
+surplus produce after allowing to the labourer the share so
+determined. Everything turns ultimately upon this 'natural price'&mdash;the
+constant which underlies all the variations.</p>
+
+<p>One other point is implied. The population is limited, as we see, by
+the necessity of raising supplies of food from inferior soils.
+Moreover, this is the sole limit. A different view had been taken
+which greatly exercised the orthodox economists. It was generally
+admitted that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> in the progress of society the rate of profit declined.
+Adam Smith explained this by arguing that, as capital increased, the
+competition of capitalists lowered the rate. To this it was replied
+(as by West) that though competition equalised profits, it could not
+fix the rate of profit. The simple increase of capital does not prove
+that it will be less profitably employed. The economists had
+constantly to argue against the terrible possibility of a general
+'glut.' The condition of things at the peace had suggested this alarm.
+The mischief was ascribed to 'over-production' and not to misdirected
+production. The best cure for our evils, as some people thought, would
+be to burn all the goods in stock. On this version of the argument, it
+would seem that an increase of wealth might be equivalent to an
+increase of poverty. To confute the doctrine in this form, it was only
+necessary to have a more intelligent conception of the true nature of
+exchange. As James Mill had argued in his pamphlet against Spence,
+every increase of supply is also an increase of demand. The more there
+is to sell, the more there is to buy. The error involved in the theory
+of a 'glut' is the confusion between a temporary dislocation of the
+machinery of exchange, which can and will be remedied by a new
+direction of industry, and the impossible case of an excess of wealth
+in general.<a name="FNanchor_315_315" id="FNanchor_315_315"></a><a href="#Footnote_315_315" class="fnanchor">[315]</a> Malthus never quite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> cleared his mind of this error,
+and Ricardo had to argue the point with him. Abundance of capital
+cannot by itself, he says, 'make capital less in demand.' The 'demand
+for capital is infinite.'<a name="FNanchor_316_316" id="FNanchor_316_316"></a><a href="#Footnote_316_316" class="fnanchor">[316]</a> The decline in the rate of profit,
+therefore, depends upon another cause. 'If, with every accumulation of
+profit, we could tack a piece of fresh fertile land to our Island,
+profits would never fall.'<a name="FNanchor_317_317" id="FNanchor_317_317"></a><a href="#Footnote_317_317" class="fnanchor">[317]</a> Fertile land, however, is limited. We
+have to resort to inferior soil, and therefore to employ capital at a
+less advantage. In the <i>Principles</i> he enforces the same doctrine with
+the help of Say, who had shown 'most satisfactorily' that any amount
+of capital might be employed.<a name="FNanchor_318_318" id="FNanchor_318_318"></a><a href="#Footnote_318_318" class="fnanchor">[318]</a> If, in short, labour and capital
+were always equally efficient, there would be no limit to the amount
+producible. If the supply of food and raw materials can be multiplied,
+wealth can be multiplied to any amount. The admitted tendency of
+profits to fall must therefore be explained simply and solely by the
+growing difficulty of producing the food and the raw material.</p>
+
+<p>Ricardo's doctrine, then, is Malthus carried out more logically. Take
+a nation in a state of industrial equilibrium. The produce of the
+worst soil just supports the labourer, and leaves a profit to the
+capitalist. The labourer gets just enough to keep up his numbers to
+the standard; the capitalist just enough profit to induce him to keep
+up the capital which supports the labourer. Since there can be only
+one rate of wages and only one rate of profit, this fixes the shares
+into which the whole produce of the nation is divided, after leaving
+to the landlord the surplus produce of the more fertile soils.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>
+Accepting this scheme as a starting-point, we get a method for
+calculating the results of any changes. We can see how a tax imposed
+upon rents or profits or wages will affect the classes which are thus
+related; how improvements in cultivation or machinery, or a new demand
+for our manufactures, will act, assuming the conditions implied in
+this industrial organisation; how, in short, any disturbance of the
+balance will work, so as to produce a new equilibrium. Ricardo exerts
+all his ingenuity in working out the problem which, with the help of a
+few assumptions, becomes mathematical. The arithmetical illustrations
+which he employed for the purpose became a nuisance in the hands of
+his disciples. They are very useful as checks to general statements,
+but lend themselves so easily to the tacit introduction of erroneous
+assumptions as often to give a totally false air of precision to the
+results. Happily I need not follow him into that region, and may omit
+any consideration of the logical value of his deductions. I must be
+content to say that, so far as he is right, his system gives an
+economic calculus for working out the ultimate result of assigned
+economic changes. The pivot of the whole construction is the 'margin
+of cultivation'&mdash;the point at which the food for a pressing population
+is raised at the greatest disadvantages. 'Profits,' as he says,<a name="FNanchor_319_319" id="FNanchor_319_319"></a><a href="#Footnote_319_319" class="fnanchor">[319]</a>
+'depend on high and low wages; wages on the price of necessaries; and
+the price of necessaries chiefly on the price of food, because all
+other requisites may be increased almost without limit.'</p>
+
+<p>Ricardo takes the actual constitution of society for granted. The
+threefold division into landowners, capitalists, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>and labourers is
+assumed as ultimate. For him that is as much a final fact as to a
+chemist it is a final fact that air and water are composed of certain
+elements. Each class represents certain economic categories. The
+landlord sits still and absorbs the overflow of wealth created by
+others. The labourer acts a very important but in one respect a purely
+passive part. His whole means of subsistence are provided by the
+capitalist, and advanced to him in the shape of wages. His share in
+the process is confined to multiplying up to a fixed standard. The
+capitalist is the really active agent. The labourer is simply one of
+the implements used in production. His wages are part of the
+capitalist's 'costs of production.' The capitalist virtually raises
+labourers, one may say, so long as raising them is profitable, just as
+he raises horses for his farm. Ricardo, in fact, points out that in
+some cases it may be for the farmer's interest to substitute horses
+for men.<a name="FNanchor_320_320" id="FNanchor_320_320"></a><a href="#Footnote_320_320" class="fnanchor">[320]</a> If it be essential to any product that there should be a
+certain number of labourers or a certain number of horses, that number
+will be produced. But when the expense becomes excessive, and in the
+case of labourers that happens as worse soils have to be broken up for
+food, the check is provided through its effect upon the accumulation
+of capital. That, therefore, becomes the essential point. The whole
+aim of the legislator should be to give facilities for the
+accumulation of capital, and the way to do that is to abstain from all
+interference with the free play of the industrial forces. The test,
+for example, of the goodness of a tax&mdash;or rather of its comparative
+freedom from the evils of every tax&mdash;is that it should permit of
+accumulation by interfering as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> little as possible with the tendency
+of the capital to distribute itself in the most efficient way.</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">III. VALUE AND LABOUR</p>
+
+<p>To solve the distribution problem, then, it is necessary to get behind
+the mere fluctuations of the market, and to consider what are the
+ultimate forces by which the market is itself governed. What effect
+has this upon the theory of the market itself? This leads to a famous
+doctrine.</p>
+
+<p>According to his disciple, M'Culloch, Ricardo's great merit was that
+he 'laid down the fundamental theorem of the science of value.' He
+thus cleared up what had before been an 'impenetrable mystery,' and
+showed the true relations of profit, wages, and prices.<a name="FNanchor_321_321" id="FNanchor_321_321"></a><a href="#Footnote_321_321" class="fnanchor">[321]</a> Ricardo's
+theory of value, again, was a starting-point of the chief modern
+Socialist theories. It marked, as has been said,<a name="FNanchor_322_322" id="FNanchor_322_322"></a><a href="#Footnote_322_322" class="fnanchor">[322]</a> the point at
+which the doctrine of the rights of man changes from a purely
+political to an economical theory. Ricardo remarks in his first
+chapter that the vagueness of theories of value has been the most
+fertile source of economic errors. He admitted to the end of his life
+that he had not fully cleared up the difficulty. Modern economists
+have refuted and revised and discussed, and, let us hope, now made
+everything quite plain. They have certainly shown that some of
+Ricardo's puzzles implied confusions singular in so keen a thinker.
+That may serve as a warning against dogmatism. Boys in the next
+generation will probably be asked by examiners to expose the palpable
+fallacies of what to us seem to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> demonstrable truths. At any rate,
+I must try to indicate the critical point as briefly as possible.</p>
+
+<p>The word 'value,' in the first place, has varying meanings, which give
+an opportunity for writers of text-books to exhibit their powers of
+lucid exposition. The value of a thing in one sense is what it will
+fetch; the quantity of some other thing for which it is actually
+exchanged in the market. In that sense, as Ricardo incidentally
+observes,<a name="FNanchor_323_323" id="FNanchor_323_323"></a><a href="#Footnote_323_323" class="fnanchor">[323]</a> the word becomes meaningless unless you can say what is
+the other thing. It is self-contradictory to speak as if a thing by
+itself could have a constant or any value. Value, however, may take a
+different sense. It is the economic equivalent of the 'utility' of
+Bentham's 'felicific calculus.' It means the 'lot of pleasure' which
+causes a thing to be desirable. If we could tell how many units of
+utility it contained we could infer the rate of exchange for other
+things. The value of anything 'in use' will correspond to the number
+of units of utility which it contains; and things which have the same
+quantity of 'utilities' will have the same 'exchangeable value.'
+Ricardo can thus consider the old problem of finding 'an invariable
+measure of value.' He points out the difficulty of finding any
+particular thing which will serve the purpose, inasmuch as the
+relations of everything to everything else are constantly varying. He
+therefore proposes to make use of an imaginary measure. If gold were
+always produced under exactly the same circumstances, with the same
+labour and the same capital, it would serve approximately for a
+standard. Accordingly he gives notice that, for the purposes of his
+book, he will assume this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> to be the case, and money to be 'invariable
+in value.'<a name="FNanchor_324_324" id="FNanchor_324_324"></a><a href="#Footnote_324_324" class="fnanchor">[324]</a> We can thus, on the one hand, compare values at
+different periods. A thing has the same value at all times which at
+all times requires 'the same sacrifice of toil and labour to produce
+it.'<a name="FNanchor_325_325" id="FNanchor_325_325"></a><a href="#Footnote_325_325" class="fnanchor">[325]</a> The 'sacrifice' measures the 'utility,' and we may assume
+that the same labour corresponds in all ages to the same psychological
+unit. But, on the other hand, at any given period things will exchange
+in proportion to the labour of producing them. This follows at once
+from Ricardo's postulates. Given the single rate of wages and profits,
+and assuming the capital employed to be in the same proportion, things
+must exchange in proportion to the quantity of labour employed; for if
+I got the same value by employing one labourer as you get by employing
+two, my profits would be higher. Ricardo, indeed, has to allow for
+many complexities arising from the fact that very different quantities
+of capital are required in different industries; but the general
+principle is given by the simplest case. Hence we have a measure of
+value, applicable at any given time and in comparing different times.
+It implies, again, what M'Culloch sums up as the 'fundamental
+theorem,' that the value of 'freely produced commodities' depends on
+the quantity of labour required for their 'production.' What is made
+by two men is worth twice what is made by one man. That gives what
+M'Culloch calls the 'clue to the labyrinth.'</p>
+
+<p>The doctrine leads to a puzzle. If I can measure the 'sacrifice,' can
+I measure the 'utility' which it gains? The 'utility' of an ounce of
+gold is not something 'objective' like its physical qualities, but
+varies with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> varying wants of the employer. Iron or coal may be
+used for an infinite variety of purposes and the utility will be
+different in each. The thing may derive part of its 'utility' from its
+relation to other things. The utility of my food is not really
+separate from the utility of my hat; for unless I eat I cannot wear
+hats. My desire for any object, again, is modified by all my other
+desires, and even if I could isolate a 'desire' as a psychological
+unit, it would not give me a fixed measure. Twice the article does not
+give twice the utility; a double stimulus may only add a small
+pleasure or convert it into agony. These and other difficulties imply
+the hopelessness of searching for this chimerical unit of 'utility'
+when considered as a separate thing. It shifts and escapes from our
+hands directly we grasp it. Ricardo discusses some of these points in
+his interesting chapter on 'Value and Riches.' Gold, he says, may cost
+two thousand times more than iron, but it is certainly not two
+thousand times as useful.<a name="FNanchor_326_326" id="FNanchor_326_326"></a><a href="#Footnote_326_326" class="fnanchor">[326]</a> Suppose, again, that some invention
+enables you to make more luxuries by the same labour, you increase
+wealth but not value. There will be, say, twice as many hats, but each
+hat may have half its former value. There will be more things to
+enjoy, but they will only exchange for the same quantity of other
+things. That is, he says, the amount of 'riches' varies, while the
+amount of value is fixed. This, according to him, proves that value
+does not vary with 'utility.' 'Utility,' as he declares in his first
+chapter, is 'absolutely essential to value,' but it is 'not the
+measure of exchangeable value.'<a name="FNanchor_327_327" id="FNanchor_327_327"></a><a href="#Footnote_327_327" class="fnanchor">[327]</a> A solution of these puzzles may
+be sought in any modern text-book. Ricardo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> escapes by an apparently
+paradoxical conclusion. He is undertaking an impossible problem when
+he starts from the buyers' desire of an 'utility.' Therefore he turns
+from the buyers to the sellers. The seller has apparently a measurable
+and definable motive&mdash;the desire to make so much per cent. on his
+capital.<a name="FNanchor_328_328" id="FNanchor_328_328"></a><a href="#Footnote_328_328" class="fnanchor">[328]</a> Ricardo, unfortunately, speaks as though the two parties
+to the bargain somehow represented mutually exclusive processes.
+'Supply and demand' determine the value of 'monopolised articles,' but
+the cost of other articles depends <i>not</i> 'on the state of demand and
+supply,' <i>but</i> 'on the increased or diminished cost of their
+production.'<a name="FNanchor_329_329" id="FNanchor_329_329"></a><a href="#Footnote_329_329" class="fnanchor">[329]</a> Why 'not' and 'but'? If supply and demand
+corresponds to the whole play of motives which determines the bargain,
+this is like saying, according to the old illustration, that we must
+attribute the whole effect of a pair of scissors to one blade and not
+to the other. His view leads to the apparent confusion of taking for
+the cause of value not our desire for a thing, but the sacrifice we
+must make to attain it. Bentham<a name="FNanchor_330_330" id="FNanchor_330_330"></a><a href="#Footnote_330_330" class="fnanchor">[330]</a> said, for example, that Ricardo
+confused 'cost' with 'value.' The denial that utility must in some
+sense or other determine value perplexes an intelligible and
+consistent meaning. It is clearly true, upon his postulates, that the
+value of goods, other than 'monopolised,' must conform to the cost of
+production. He speaks as if he confounded a necessary condition with
+an 'efficient cause,' and as if one of two correlative processes could
+be explained without the other.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> But the fact that there is a
+conformity, however brought about, was enough for his purpose. The
+demand of buyers, he would say, determines the particular direction of
+production: it settles whether hats should be made of silk or beaver;
+whether we should grow corn or spin cotton. But the ultimate force is
+the capitalist's desire for profit. So long as he can raise labourers'
+necessaries by employing part of his capital, he can employ the labour
+as he chooses. He can always produce wealth; all the wealth produced
+can be exchanged, and the demand always be equal to the supply, since
+the demand is merely the other side of the supply. The buyer's tastes
+decide how the capital shall be applied, but does not settle how much
+wealth there shall be, only what particular forms it shall take.
+Somehow or other it must always adjust itself so that the value of
+each particular kind shall correspond to the 'cost of production.' The
+cost of production includes the tools and the raw materials, which are
+themselves products of previous labour. All capital itself is
+ultimately the product of labour, and thus, as Ricardo incidentally
+says, may be regarded as 'accumulated labour.'<a name="FNanchor_331_331" id="FNanchor_331_331"></a><a href="#Footnote_331_331" class="fnanchor">[331]</a></p>
+
+<p>This phrase sums up the doctrine which underlies his theory of value
+and indicates its connection with the theory of distribution. Ricardo
+had perceived that the supply and demand formula which would serve
+sufficiently in problems of exchange, or the fluctuations of
+market-price, could not be made to solve the more fundamental problem
+of distribution. We must look beneath the superficial phenomena and
+ask what is the nature of the structure itself: what is the driving
+force or the mainspring <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>which works the whole mechanism. We seem,
+indeed, to be inquiring into the very origin of industrial
+organisation. The foundation of a sound doctrine comes from Adam
+Smith. Smith had said that in a primitive society the only rule would
+be that things should exchange in proportion to the labour of getting
+them. If it cost twice as much labour to kill a beaver as to kill a
+deer, one beaver would be worth two deer. In accepting this bit of
+what Smith's commentator, Dugald Stewart,<a name="FNanchor_332_332" id="FNanchor_332_332"></a><a href="#Footnote_332_332" class="fnanchor">[332]</a> calls 'theoretical' or
+'conjectural' history, Ricardo did not mean to state a historical
+fact. He was not thinking of actual Choctaws or Cherokees. The beaver
+was exchanged for the deer about the time when the primitive man
+signed the 'social contract.' He is a hypothetical person used for
+purposes of illustration and simplification. Ricardo is not really
+dealing with the question of origins; but he is not the less implying
+a theory of structure. It did not matter that the 'social contract'
+was historically a figment; it would serve equally well to explain
+government. It did not matter that actual savages may have exchanged
+beavers and deer by the help of clubs instead of competition in the
+market. The industrial fabric is what would have been had it been thus
+built up. It can be constructed from base to summit by the application
+of his formula. As in the imaginary state of deer and beaver, we have
+a number of independent persons making their bargains upon this
+principle of the equivalence of labour; and that principle is supposed
+to be carried out so that the most remote processes of the industrial
+machinery can be analysed into results of this principle. This gives a
+sufficient clue to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> the whole labyrinth of modern industry, and there
+is no need of considering the extinct forms of social structure, which
+we know to have existed, and under which the whole system of
+distribution took place under entirely different conditions.<a name="FNanchor_333_333" id="FNanchor_333_333"></a><a href="#Footnote_333_333" class="fnanchor">[333]</a> A
+great change has taken place since the time of the deer and beaver:
+the capitalist has been developed, and has become the motive power.
+The labourer's part is passive; and the 'value' is fixed by the
+bargaining between the proprietors of 'accumulated labour,' forced by
+competition to make equal profits, instead of being fixed by the
+equitable bargain between the two hunters exchanging the products of
+their individual labour. Essentially, however, the principle is the
+same. In the last as in the first stage of society, things are
+exchanged in proportion to the labour necessary to produce them. Now
+it is plain enough that such a doctrine cannot lead to a complete
+solution of the problem of distribution. It would be a palpably
+inadequate account of historical processes which have determined the
+actual relation of classes. The industrial mechanism has been
+developed as a part of the whole social evolution; and, however
+important the economic forces, they have been inextricably blended
+with all the other forces by which a society is built up. For the same
+reason, Ricardo's theorem would be inadequate 'sociologically,' or as
+a formula which would enable us to predict the future distribution of
+wealth. It omits essential factors in the process, and therefore
+supposes forces to act automatically and invariably which will in fact
+be profoundly modified in societies differently<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> organised and
+composed of individuals differing in character. The very fundamental
+assumptions as to the elasticity of population, and the accumulation
+of capital as wages and profits fluctuate, are clearly not absolute
+truths. An increase of the capitalist's share, for example, at the
+expense of wages, may lead to the lowered efficiency of the labourer;
+and, instead of the compensating process supposed to result from the
+stimulus to accumulation, the actual result may be a general
+degeneration of the industry. Or, again, the capacity of labourers to
+combine both depends and reacts upon their intelligence and moral
+character, and will profoundly modify the results of the general
+competition.<a name="FNanchor_334_334" id="FNanchor_334_334"></a><a href="#Footnote_334_334" class="fnanchor">[334]</a> Such remarks, now familiar enough, are enough to
+suggest that a full explanation of the economic phenomena would
+require reference to considerations which lie beyond the proper sphere
+of the economist. Yet the economist may urge that he is making a fair
+and perhaps necessary abstraction. He may consider the forces to be
+constant, although he may be fully aware that the assumption requires
+to be corrected when his formul&aelig; are applied to facts. He may consider
+what is the play at any given time of the operations of the market,
+though the market organisation is itself dependent upon the larger
+organisation of which it is a product. He does not profess to deal in
+'sociology,' but 'pure political economy.' In that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> more limited
+sphere he may accept Ricardo's postulates. The rate of wages is fixed
+at any given moment by the 'labour market.' That is the immediate
+organ through which the adjustment is effected. Wages rise and fall
+like the price of commodities, when for any reason the number of
+hirers or the number of purchasers varies. The 'supply and demand'
+formula, however, could not, as Ricardo saw, be summarily identified
+with labour and capital. We must go behind the immediate phenomena to
+consider how they are regulated by the ultimate moving power. Then,
+with the help of the theories of population and rent, we find that the
+wages are one product of the whole industrial process. We must look
+beyond the immediate market fluctuation to the effect upon the
+capitalists who constitute the market. The world is conceived as one
+great market, in which the motives of the capitalist supply the motive
+power; and the share which goes to the labourer is an incidental or
+collateral result of the working of the whole machinery. Now, though
+the sociologist would say that this is quite inadequate for his
+purpose, and that we must consider the whole social structure, he may
+also admit that the scheme has a validity in its own sphere. It
+describes the actual working of the mechanism at any given time; and
+it may be that in Ricardo's time it gave an approximate account of the
+facts. To make it complete, it requires to be set, so to speak, in a
+more general framework of theory; and we may then see that it cannot
+give a complete solution. Still, as a consistent scheme which
+corresponds to the immediate phenomena, it helps us to understand the
+play of the industrial forces which immediately regulate the market.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span></p><p>Ricardo's position suggested a different line of reply. The doctrines
+that capital is 'accumulated labour' and that all value is in
+proportion to the labour fell in with the Socialist theory. If value
+is created by labour, ought not 'labour' to possess what it makes? The
+right to the whole produce of labour seemed to be a natural
+conclusion. Ricardo might answer that when I buy your labour, it
+becomes mine. I may consider myself to have acquired the rights of the
+real creator of the wealth, and to embody all the labourers, whose
+'accumulated labour' is capital. Still, there is a difficulty. The
+beaver and deer case has an awkward ethical aspect. To say that they
+are exchanged at such a rate seems to mean that they ought to be
+exchanged at the rate. This again implies the principle that a man has
+a right to what he has caught; that is, to the whole fruits of his
+labour. James Mill, as we have seen, starts his political treatise by
+assuming this as obvious.<a name="FNanchor_335_335" id="FNanchor_335_335"></a><a href="#Footnote_335_335" class="fnanchor">[335]</a> He did not consider the possible
+inferences; for it is certainly a daring assumption that the principle
+is carried out by the economic system. According to Ricardo rent is
+paid to men who don't labour at all. The fundholder was a weight upon
+all industry, and as dead a weight as the landlord. The capitalist,
+Ricardo's social mainspring, required at least cross-examination. He
+represents 'accumulated labour' in some fashion, but it is not plain
+that the slice which he takes out of the whole cake is proportioned
+accurately to his personal labour. The right and the fact which
+coincided in the deer and beaver period have somehow come to diverge.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p><p>Here, then, we are at a point common to the two opposing schools.
+Both are absolute 'individualists' in different senses. Society is
+built up, and all industrial relations determined, by the competition
+of a multitude of independent atoms, each aiming at self-preservation.
+Malthus's principle applies this to the great mass of mankind.
+Systematically worked out, it has led to Ricardo's identification of
+value with quantities of labour. Keeping simply to the matter of fact,
+it shows how a small minority have managed to get advantages in the
+struggle, and to raise themselves upon the shoulders of the struggling
+mass. Malthus shows that the resulting inequality prevents the
+struggle from lowering every one to starvation point. But the
+advantage was not obvious to the struggling mass which exemplified the
+struggle for existence. If equality meant not the initial facts but
+the permanent right, society was built upon injustice. Apply the
+political doctrine of rights of man to the economic right to wealth,
+and you have the Socialist doctrine of right to the whole produce of
+labour. It is true that it is exceedingly difficult to say what each
+man has created when he is really part of a complex machinery; but
+that is a problem to which Socialists could apply their ingenuity. The
+real answer of the political economists was that although the existing
+order implied great inequalities of wealth it was yet essential to
+industrial progress, and therefore to an improvement in the general
+standard of comfort. This, however, was the less evident the more they
+insisted upon the individual interest. The net result seemed to be
+that by accident or inheritance, possibly by fraud or force, a small
+number of persons have got a much larger share of wealth than their
+rivals.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> Ricardo may expound the science accurately; and, if so, we
+have to ask, What are the right ethical conclusions?</p>
+
+<p>For the present, the Utilitarians seem to have considered this
+question as superfluous. They were content to take the existing order
+for granted; and the question remains how far their conclusions upon
+that assumption could be really satisfactory.</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">IV. THE CLASSICAL POLITICAL ECONOMY.</p>
+
+<p>Ricardo had worked out the main outlines of the 'Classical Political
+Economy': the system which to his disciples appeared to be as clear,
+consistent, and demonstrable as Euclid; and which was denounced by
+their opponents as mechanical, materialistic, fatalistic, and
+degrading. After triumphing for a season, it has been of late years
+often treated with contempt, and sometimes banished to the limbo of
+extinct logomachies. It is condemned as 'abstract.' Of all delusions
+on the subject, replies a very able and severe critic,<a name="FNanchor_336_336" id="FNanchor_336_336"></a><a href="#Footnote_336_336" class="fnanchor">[336]</a> there is
+none greater than the belief that it was 'wholly abstract and
+unpractical.' Its merits lay in its treatment of certain special
+questions of the day; while in the purely scientific questions it was
+hopelessly confused and inconsistent. Undoubtedly, as I have tried to
+point out, Malthus and Ricardo were reasoning upon the contemporary
+state of things. The doctrine started from observation of facts; it
+was too 'abstract' so far as it neglected elements in the concrete
+realities which were really relevant to the conclusions. One cause of
+confusion was the necessity of starting from the classification
+implied in ordinary phrases. It is exemplified by the vague use<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> of
+such words as 'capital,' 'value,' 'supply and demand.' Definitions, as
+is often remarked,<a name="FNanchor_337_337" id="FNanchor_337_337"></a><a href="#Footnote_337_337" class="fnanchor">[337]</a> come at the end of an investigation, though
+they are placed at the beginning of an exposition. When the primary
+conceptions to be used were still so shifting and contradictory as is
+implied in the controversies of the day, it is no wonder that the
+formul&aelig; should be wanting in scientific precision. Until we have
+determined what is meant by 'force' we cannot have a complete science
+of dynamics. The economists imagined that they had reached the goal
+before they had got rid of ambiguities hidden in the accepted
+terminology. Meanwhile it will be enough if I try to consider broadly
+what was the nature of the body of statements which thus claimed to be
+an elaborated science.</p>
+
+<p>Ricardo's purpose was to frame a calculus, to give a method of
+reasoning which will enable us to clinch our economic reasoning. We
+are to be sure that we have followed out the whole cycle of cause and
+effect. Capitalists, landowners, labourers form parts of a rounded
+system, implying reciprocal actions and reactions. The imposition of a
+tax or a tariff implies certain changes in existing relations: that
+change involves other changes; and to trace out the total effect, we
+must understand what are the ultimate conditions of equilibrium, or
+what are the processes by which the system will adjust itself to the
+new conditions. To describe, again, the play of a number of reciprocal
+forces, we have to find what mathematicians call an 'independent
+variable': some one element in the changes on which all other changes
+will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> depend. That element, roughly speaking, ultimately comes out to
+be 'labour.' The simplicity of the system gave an impression both of
+clearness and certainty, which was transferred from the reasoning to
+the premises. The facts seemed to be established, because they were
+necessary to the system. The first step to an estimate of the value of
+the doctrine would be to draw up a statement of the 'postulates'
+implied. Among them, we should have such formul&aelig; as the single rate of
+profits and wages; which imply the 'transferability' of labour and
+capital, or the flow of either element to the best-paid employment. We
+should have again the Malthusian doctrine of the multiplication of
+labour up to a certain standard; and the fact that scarcity means
+dearness and plenty cheapness. These doctrines at least are taken for
+granted; and it may perhaps be said that they are approximations which
+only require qualifications, though sometimes very important
+qualifications, to hold good of the society actually contemplated.</p>
+
+<p>They were true enough to give the really conclusive answer to many
+popular fallacies. The type of sophistry which Ricardo specially
+assailed was that which results from neglecting the necessary
+implications of certain changes. The arguments for the old 'mercantile
+theory'&mdash;for 'protection' of industry, for the poor-law, for resisting
+the introduction of machinery, the fear of 'gluts' and all manner of
+doctrines about the currency&mdash;were really exposed by the economists
+upon the right grounds. It was absurd to suppose that by simply
+expanding the currency, or by making industry less efficient, or
+forcing it to the least profitable employments, you were increasing
+the national wealth; or to overlook the demoralising effects of a
+right to support<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> because you resolved only to see the immediate
+benefits of charity to individuals. It is true, no doubt, that in some
+cases there might be other arguments, and that the economists were apt
+to take a narrow view of the facts. Yet they decisively exploded many
+bad arguments, and by the right method of enforcing the necessity of
+tracing out the whole series of results. It was partly to their
+success in confuting absurd doctrines that their confidence was due;
+though the confidence was excessive when it was transferred to the
+axioms from which they professed to start. A doctrine may be true
+enough to expose an error, and yet not capable of yielding definite
+and precise conclusions. If I know that nothing can come out of
+nothing, I am on the way to a great scientific principle and able to
+confute some palpable fallacies; but I am still a very long way from
+understanding the principle of the 'conservation of energy.' The truth
+that scarcity meant dearness was apparently well known to Joseph in
+Egypt, and applied very skilfully for his purpose. Economists have
+framed a 'theory of value' which explains more precisely the way in
+which this is brought about. A clear statement may be valuable to
+psychologists; but for most purposes of political economy Joseph's
+knowledge is quite sufficient. It is the doctrine which is really used
+in practice whatever may be its ultimate justification.</p>
+
+<p>The postulates, however, were taken by the economists to represent
+something more than approximate statements of the fact. They imply
+certain propositions which might be regarded as axioms. Men desire
+wealth and prefer their own interests. The whole theory might then be
+regarded as a direct deduction from the axioms.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> It thus seemed to
+have a kind of mathematical certainty. When facts failed to conform to
+the theory the difficulty could be met by speaking, as Malthus spoke,
+of 'tendencies,' or by appealing to the analogy of 'friction' in
+mechanics. The excuse might be perfectly valid in some cases, but it
+often sanctioned a serious error. It was assumed that the formula was
+still absolutely true of something, and that the check or friction was
+a really separable and accidental interference. Thus it became easy to
+discard, as irrelevant, objections which really applied to the
+principle itself, and to exaggerate the conformity between fact and
+theory. The economic categories are supposed to state the essential
+facts, and the qualifications necessary to make them accurate were apt
+to slip out of sight. Ricardo,<a name="FNanchor_338_338" id="FNanchor_338_338"></a><a href="#Footnote_338_338" class="fnanchor">[338]</a> to mention a familiar instance,
+carefully points out that the 'economic rent,' which clearly
+represents an important economic category, is not to be confounded, as
+in 'popular' use, with the payments actually made, which often include
+much that is really profit. The distinction, however, was constantly
+forgotten, and the abstract formula summarily applied to the concrete
+fact.</p>
+
+<p>The economists had constructed a kind of automaton which fairly
+represented the actual working of the machinery. But then, each
+element of their construction came to represent a particular formula,
+and to represent nothing else. The landlord is simply the receiver of
+surplus value; the capitalist the one man who saves, and who saves in
+proportion to profit; and the labourer simply the embodiment of
+Malthus's multiplying <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>tendency. Then the postulates as to the ebb and
+flow of capital and labour are supposed to work automatically and
+instantaneously. Ricardo argues that a tax upon wages will fall, not,
+as Buchanan thought, upon the labourer, nor, as Adam Smith thought,
+upon rent, but upon profits; and his reason is apparently that if
+wages were 'lowered the requisite population would not be kept
+up.'<a name="FNanchor_339_339" id="FNanchor_339_339"></a><a href="#Footnote_339_339" class="fnanchor">[339]</a> The labourer is able to multiply or diminish so rapidly that
+he always conforms at once to the required standard. This would seem
+to neglect the consideration that, after all, some time is required to
+alter the numbers of a population, and that other changes of a totally
+different character may be meanwhile set up by rises and falls of
+wages. Ricardo, as his letters show,<a name="FNanchor_340_340" id="FNanchor_340_340"></a><a href="#Footnote_340_340" class="fnanchor">[340]</a> was well aware of the
+necessity of making allowance for such considerations in applying his
+theorems. He simplified the exposition by laying them down too
+absolutely; and the doctrine, taken without qualification, gives the
+'economic man,' who must be postulated to make the doctrine work
+smoothly. The labourer is a kind of constant unit&mdash;absolutely fixed in
+his efficiency, his wants, and so forth; and the same at one period as
+at another, except so far as he may become more prudent, and therefore
+fix his 'natural price' a little higher. An 'iron law' must follow
+when you have invented an iron unit. In short, when society is
+represented by this hypothetical mechanism, where each man is an
+embodiment of the required formula, the theory becomes imperfect so
+far as society is made up of living beings, varying, though<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>
+gradually, in their whole character and attributes, and forming part
+of an organised society incomparably too complex in its structure to
+be adequately represented by the three distinct classes, each of which
+is merely a formula embodied in an individual man. The general rules
+may be very nearly true in a great many cases, especially on the
+stock-exchange; but before applying them to give either a history or a
+true account of the actual working of concrete institutions, a much
+closer approximation must be made to the actual data.</p>
+
+<p>I need not enlarge, however, upon a topic which has been so often
+expounded. I think that at present the tendency is rather to do
+injustice to the common-sense embodied in this system, to the
+soundness of its aims, and to its value in many practical and
+immediate questions, than to overestimate its claim to scientific
+accuracy. That claim may be said to have become obsolete.</p>
+
+<p>One point, however, remains. The holders of such a doctrine must, it
+is said, have been without the bowels of compassion. Ricardo, as
+critics observe with undeniable truth, was a Jew and a member of the
+stock-exchange. Now Jews, in spite of Shylock's assertions, and
+certainly Jewish stockbrokers, are naturally without human feeling. If
+you prick them, they only bleed banknotes. They are fitted to be
+capitalists, who think of wages as an item in an account, and of the
+labourer as part of the tools used in business. Ricardo, however, was
+not a mere money-dealer, nor even a walking treatise. He was a kindly,
+liberal man, desirous to be, as he no doubt believed himself to be, in
+sympathy with the leaders of political and scientific thought, and
+fully sharing their aspirations. No doubt he, like his friends, was
+more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> conspicuous for coolness of head than for impulsive
+philanthropy. Like them, he was on his guard against 'sentimentalism'
+and 'vague generalities,' and thought that a hasty benevolence was apt
+to aggravate the evils which it attacked. The Utilitarians naturally
+translated all aspirations into logical dogmas; but some people who
+despised them as hard-hearted really took much less pains to give
+effect to their own benevolent impulses. Now Ricardo, in this matter,
+was at one with James Mill and Bentham, and especially Malthus.<a name="FNanchor_341_341" id="FNanchor_341_341"></a><a href="#Footnote_341_341" class="fnanchor">[341]</a>
+The essential doctrine of Malthus was that the poor could be made less
+poor by an improved standard of prudence. In writing to Malthus,
+Ricardo incidentally remarks upon the possibility of raising the
+condition of the poor by 'good education' and the inculcation of
+foresight in the great matter of marriage.<a name="FNanchor_342_342" id="FNanchor_342_342"></a><a href="#Footnote_342_342" class="fnanchor">[342]</a> Incidental references
+in the <i>Principles</i> are in the same strain. He accepts Malthus's view
+of the poor-laws, and hopes that, by encouraging foresight, we may by
+degrees approach 'a sounder and more healthful state.'<a name="FNanchor_343_343" id="FNanchor_343_343"></a><a href="#Footnote_343_343" class="fnanchor">[343]</a> He
+repudiates emphatically a suggestion of Say that one of his arguments
+implies 'indifference to the happiness' of the masses,<a name="FNanchor_344_344" id="FNanchor_344_344"></a><a href="#Footnote_344_344" class="fnanchor">[344]</a> and holds
+that 'the friends of humanity' should encourage the poor to raise
+their standard of comfort and enjoyment. The labourers, as he
+elsewhere incidentally observes, are 'by far the most important class
+in society.'<a name="FNanchor_345_345" id="FNanchor_345_345"></a><a href="#Footnote_345_345" class="fnanchor">[345]</a> How should they not be if the greatest happiness of
+the greatest number be the legitimate aim of all legislation?</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span></p><p>It is true that in his argument Ricardo constantly assumes that his
+'natural price' will also be the real price of labour. The assumption
+that the labourers' wages tend to a minimum is a base for his general
+arguments. The inconsistency, if there be one, is easily intelligible.
+Ricardo agreed with Malthus that, though the standard might be raised,
+and though a rise was the only way to improvement, the chances of such
+a rise were not encouraging. Improved wages, as he says,<a name="FNanchor_346_346" id="FNanchor_346_346"></a><a href="#Footnote_346_346" class="fnanchor">[346]</a> might
+enable the labourer to live more comfortably if only he would not
+multiply. But 'so great are the delights of domestic society, that in
+practice it is invariably found that an increase of population follows
+an amended condition of the labourer,' and thus the advantage is lost
+as soon as gained.</p>
+
+<p>I have tried to show what was the logical convenience of the
+assumption. Ricardo, who has always to state an argument at the cost
+of an intellectual contortion, is content to lay down a rule without
+introducing troublesome qualifications and reserves. Yet he probably
+held that his postulate was a close approximation to the facts.
+Looking at the actual state of things at the worst time of the
+poor-law, and seeing how small were the prospects of stirring the
+languid mind of the pauper to greater forethought, he thought that he
+might assume the constancy of an element which varied so slowly. The
+indifference of the Ricardo school generally to historical inquiry had
+led them no doubt to assume such constancy too easily. Malthus, who
+had more leaning to history, had himself called attention to many
+cases in which the 'prudential check' operated more strongly than it
+did among the English poor. Probably Ricardo was in this, as in other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>
+cases, too hasty in assuming facts convenient for his argument. The
+poor man's character can, it is clear, be only known empirically; and,
+in fact, Ricardo simply appeals to experience. He thinks that, as a
+fact, men always do multiply in excess. But he does not deny that
+better education might change their character in this respect. Indeed,
+as I have said, an even excessive faith in the possible modification
+of character by education was one of the Utilitarian tenets. If
+Ricardo had said broadly that a necessary condition of the improvement
+of the poor was a change of the average character, I think that he
+would have been saying what was perfectly true and very much to the
+purpose both then and now. The objection to his version of a most
+salutary doctrine is that it is stated in too narrow terms. The
+ultimate unit, the human being, is indeed supposed to be capable of
+great modification, but it is solely through increasing his foresight
+as to the effects of multiplication that the change is supposed to be
+attainable. The moral thus drawn implied a very limited view of the
+true nature and influence of great social processes, and in practice
+came too often to limiting possible improvement to the one condition
+of letting things alone. Let a man starve if he will not work, and he
+will work. That, as a sole remedy, may be insufficient; though, even
+in that shape, it is a doctrine more likely to be overlooked than
+overvalued. And meanwhile the acquiescence in the painful doctrine
+that, as a matter of fact, labourers would always multiply to
+starvation point, was calculated to produce revolt against the whole
+system. Macaulay's doctrine that the Utilitarians had made political
+economy unpopular was so far true that the average person resented the
+unpleasant doctrines thus obtruded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> upon him in their most unpleasant
+shape; and, if he was told that they were embodied logic, revolted
+against logic itself.</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">V. THE RICARDIANS</p>
+
+<p>It will be quite sufficient to speak briefly of the minor prophets who
+expounded the classical doctrine; sometimes falling into fallacies,
+against which Ricardo's logical instinct had warned him; and sometimes
+perhaps unconsciously revealing errors which really lurked in his
+premises. When Ricardo died, James Mill told M'Culloch that they were
+'the two and only genuine disciples' of their common friend.<a name="FNanchor_347_347" id="FNanchor_347_347"></a><a href="#Footnote_347_347" class="fnanchor">[347]</a> Mill
+wrote what he intended for a Schoolbook of Political Economy.<a name="FNanchor_348_348" id="FNanchor_348_348"></a><a href="#Footnote_348_348" class="fnanchor">[348]</a>
+Brief, pithy, and vigorous, it purports to give the essential
+principles in their logical order; but, as his son remarks,<a name="FNanchor_349_349" id="FNanchor_349_349"></a><a href="#Footnote_349_349" class="fnanchor">[349]</a> had
+only a passing importance. M'Culloch took a more important place by
+his writings in the <i>Edinburgh Review</i> and elsewhere, and by his
+lectures at Edinburgh and at London. He was one of the first
+professors of the new university. His <i>Principles of Political
+Economy</i><a name="FNanchor_350_350" id="FNanchor_350_350"></a><a href="#Footnote_350_350" class="fnanchor">[350]</a> became a text-book, to be finally superseded by John
+Stuart Mill. Other works statistical and bibliographical showed great
+industry, and have still their value. He was so much the typical
+economist of the day that he has been identified with Carlyle's
+<i>M'Crowdy</i>, the apostle of the dismal science.<a name="FNanchor_351_351" id="FNanchor_351_351"></a><a href="#Footnote_351_351" class="fnanchor">[351]</a> He writes,
+however, with enough vivacity and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> fervour of belief in his creed to
+redeem him from the charge of absolute dulness. An abler thinker was
+Colonel (Robert) Torrens (1780-1864).<a name="FNanchor_352_352" id="FNanchor_352_352"></a><a href="#Footnote_352_352" class="fnanchor">[352]</a> He had served with
+distinction in the war; but retired on half-pay, and was drawn by some
+natural idiosyncrasy into the dry paths of economic discussion. He was
+already confuting the French economists in 1808; and was writing upon
+the Bank-charter Act and the Ten Hours' Bill in 1844. Torrens held
+himself, apparently with justice, to be rather an independent ally
+than a disciple of Ricardo. His chief works were an essay upon the
+'External Corn-trade' (1815)<a name="FNanchor_353_353" id="FNanchor_353_353"></a><a href="#Footnote_353_353" class="fnanchor">[353]</a> and an 'Essay on the Production of
+Wealth' (1821). Ricardo pronounced his arguments upon the Corn-trade
+to be 'unanswered and unanswerable,'<a name="FNanchor_354_354" id="FNanchor_354_354"></a><a href="#Footnote_354_354" class="fnanchor">[354]</a> and he himself claimed to be
+an independent discoverer of the true theory of rent.<a name="FNanchor_355_355" id="FNanchor_355_355"></a><a href="#Footnote_355_355" class="fnanchor">[355]</a> He was
+certainly a man of considerable acuteness and originality. In these
+writings we find the most sanguine expressions of the belief that
+political economy was not only a potential, but on the verge of
+becoming an actual, science. Torrens observes that all sciences have
+to pass through a period of controversy; but thinks that economists
+are emerging from this stage, and rapidly approaching unanimity. In
+twenty years, says this hopeful prophet, there will scarcely exist a
+'doubt of its' (Political Economy's) 'fundamental principles.'<a name="FNanchor_356_356" id="FNanchor_356_356"></a><a href="#Footnote_356_356" class="fnanchor">[356]</a>
+Torrens thinks that Ricardo has generalised too<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> much, and Malthus too
+little; but proposes, with proper professions of modesty, to take the
+true <i>via media</i>, and weld the sound principles into a harmonious
+whole by a due combination of observation and theory. The science, he
+thinks, is 'analogous to the mixed mathematics.'<a name="FNanchor_357_357" id="FNanchor_357_357"></a><a href="#Footnote_357_357" class="fnanchor">[357]</a> As from the laws
+of motion we can deduce the theory of dynamics, so from certain simple
+axioms about human nature we can deduce the science of Political
+Economy. M'Culloch, at starting, insists in edifying terms upon the
+necessity of a careful and comprehensive induction, and of the study
+of industrial phenomena in different times and places, and under
+varying institutions.<a name="FNanchor_358_358" id="FNanchor_358_358"></a><a href="#Footnote_358_358" class="fnanchor">[358]</a> This, however, does not prevent him from
+adopting the same methods of reasoning. 'Induction' soon does its
+office, and supplies a few simple principles, from which we may make a
+leap to our conclusions by a rapid, deductive process.</p>
+
+<p>The problems appear to be too simple to require long preliminary
+investigations of fact. Torrens speaks of proving by 'strictly
+demonstrative evidence' or of 'proceeding to demonstrate' by strict
+analysis.<a name="FNanchor_359_359" id="FNanchor_359_359"></a><a href="#Footnote_359_359" class="fnanchor">[359]</a> This is generally the preface to one of those
+characteristic arithmetical illustrations to which Ricardo's practice
+gave a sanction. We are always starting an imaginary capitalist with
+so many quarters of corn and suits of clothes, which he can transmute
+into any kind of product, and taking for granted that he represents a
+typical case. This gives a certain mathematical air to the reasoning,
+and too often hides from the reasoner that he may be begging the
+question in more ways than one by the arrangement of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> his imaginary
+case. One of the offenders in this kind was Nassau Senior (1790-1864),
+a man of remarkable good sense, and fully aware of the necessity of
+caution in applying his theories to facts. He was the first professor
+of Political Economy at Oxford (1825-1830), and his treatise<a name="FNanchor_360_360" id="FNanchor_360_360"></a><a href="#Footnote_360_360" class="fnanchor">[360]</a> lays
+down the general assumption of his orthodox contemporaries clearly and
+briefly. The science, he tells us, is deducible from four elementary
+propositions: the first of which asserts that every 'man desires to
+obtain additional wealth with as little sacrifice as possible'; while
+the others state the first principles embodied in Malthus's theory of
+population, and in the laws corresponding to the increasing facility
+of manufacturing and the decreasing facility of agricultural
+industry.<a name="FNanchor_361_361" id="FNanchor_361_361"></a><a href="#Footnote_361_361" class="fnanchor">[361]</a> As these propositions include no reference to the
+particular institutions or historical development of the social
+structure, they virtually imply that a science might be constructed
+equally applicable in all times and places; and that, having obtained
+them, we need not trouble ourselves any further with inductions. Hence
+it follows that we can at once get from the abstract 'man' to the
+industrial order. We may, it would seem, abstract from history in
+general. This corresponds to the postulate explicitly stated by
+M'Culloch. 'A state,' he tells us, 'is nothing more than an aggregate
+of individuals': men, that is, who 'inhabit a certain tract of
+country.'<a name="FNanchor_362_362" id="FNanchor_362_362"></a><a href="#Footnote_362_362" class="fnanchor">[362]</a> He infers that 'whatever is most advantageous to them'
+(the individuals) 'is most advantageous to the state.' Self-interest,
+therefore, the individual's desire of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> adding to his 'fortune,' is the
+mainspring or <i>causa causans</i> of all improvement.<a name="FNanchor_363_363" id="FNanchor_363_363"></a><a href="#Footnote_363_363" class="fnanchor">[363]</a> This is, of
+course, part of the familiar system, which applies equally in ethics
+and politics. M'Culloch is simply generalising Adam Smith's congenial
+doctrine that statesmen are guilty of absurd presumption when they try
+to interfere with a man's management of his own property.<a name="FNanchor_364_364" id="FNanchor_364_364"></a><a href="#Footnote_364_364" class="fnanchor">[364]</a> This
+theory, again, is expressed by the familiar maxim <i>pas trop
+gouverner</i>, which is common to the whole school, and often accepted
+explicitly.<a name="FNanchor_365_365" id="FNanchor_365_365"></a><a href="#Footnote_365_365" class="fnanchor">[365]</a></p>
+
+<p>It will be quite enough to notice one or two characteristic results.
+The most important concern the relation between the labourer and the
+capitalist. Malthus gives the starting-point. Torrens, for example,
+says that the 'real wages of labour have a constant tendency to settle
+down' to the amount rendered necessary by 'custom and climate' in
+order to keep up his numbers.<a name="FNanchor_366_366" id="FNanchor_366_366"></a><a href="#Footnote_366_366" class="fnanchor">[366]</a> Mill observes in his terse way that
+the capitalist in the present state of society 'is as much the owner
+of the labour' as the manufacturer who operates with slaves. The only
+'difference is in the mode of purchasing.'<a name="FNanchor_367_367" id="FNanchor_367_367"></a><a href="#Footnote_367_367" class="fnanchor">[367]</a> One buys a man's whole
+labour; the other his labour for a day. The rate of wages can
+therefore be raised, like the price of slaves, only by limiting the
+supply. Hence the 'grand practical problem is to find the means of
+limiting the number of births.'<a name="FNanchor_368_368" id="FNanchor_368_368"></a><a href="#Footnote_368_368" class="fnanchor">[368]</a> M'Culloch is equally clear, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>
+infers that every scheme 'not bottomed on' the principle of
+proportioning labour to capital must be 'completely nugatory and
+ineffectual.'<a name="FNanchor_369_369" id="FNanchor_369_369"></a><a href="#Footnote_369_369" class="fnanchor">[369]</a></p>
+
+<p>The doctrine common to the whole school led M'Culloch to conclusions
+which became afterwards notorious enough to require a word of notice.
+Torrens, like Ricardo, speaks of capital as 'accumulated labour,' but
+makes a great point of observing that, although this is true, the case
+is radically changed in a developed state of society. The value of
+things no longer depends upon the labour, but upon the amount of
+capital employed in their production.<a name="FNanchor_370_370" id="FNanchor_370_370"></a><a href="#Footnote_370_370" class="fnanchor">[370]</a> This, indeed, may seem to
+be the most natural way of stating the accepted principle. M'Culloch
+replies that the change makes no difference in the principle,<a name="FNanchor_371_371" id="FNanchor_371_371"></a><a href="#Footnote_371_371" class="fnanchor">[371]</a>
+inasmuch as capital being 'accumulated labour,' value is still
+proportioned to labour, though in a transubstantiated shape. M'Culloch
+supposed that by carrying out this principle systematically he was
+simplifying Ricardo and bringing the whole science into unity. All
+questions, whether of value in exchange, or of the rate of wages, can
+then be reduced to comparing the simple unit called labour. Both Mill
+and M'Culloch regard capital as a kind of labour, so that things may
+be produced by capital alone, 'without the co-operation of any
+immediate labour'<a name="FNanchor_372_372" id="FNanchor_372_372"></a><a href="#Footnote_372_372" class="fnanchor">[372]</a>&mdash;a result which can hardly be realised with the
+discovery of a perpetual motion. So, again, the value of a joint
+product is the 'sum' of these two values.<a name="FNanchor_373_373" id="FNanchor_373_373"></a><a href="#Footnote_373_373" class="fnanchor">[373]</a> All value, therefore,
+can be regarded as proportioned <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>to labour in one of its two states.
+M'Culloch advanced to an unfortunate conclusion, which excited some
+ridicule. Though Ricardo and Torrens<a name="FNanchor_374_374" id="FNanchor_374_374"></a><a href="#Footnote_374_374" class="fnanchor">[374]</a> rejected it, it was accepted
+by Mill in his second edition.<a name="FNanchor_375_375" id="FNanchor_375_375"></a><a href="#Footnote_375_375" class="fnanchor">[375]</a> Wine kept in a cask might increase
+in value. Could that value be ascribed to 'additional labour actually
+laid out'? M'Culloch gallantly asserted that it could, though 'labour'
+certainly has to be interpreted in a non-natural sense.<a name="FNanchor_376_376" id="FNanchor_376_376"></a><a href="#Footnote_376_376" class="fnanchor">[376]</a> Not only
+is capital labour, but fermentation is labour, or how can we say that
+all value is proportioned to labour? This is only worth notice as a
+pathetic illustration of the misfortunes of a theorist ridden by a
+dogma of his own creation. Another conclusion is more important. The
+'real value' of anything is measured by the labour required to produce
+it. Nothing 'again is more obvious' than that equal labour implies the
+'same sacrifice' in all states of society.<a name="FNanchor_377_377" id="FNanchor_377_377"></a><a href="#Footnote_377_377" class="fnanchor">[377]</a> It might seem to
+follow that the value of anything was measured by the labour which it
+would command. This doctrine, however, though maintained by Malthus,
+was, according to M'Culloch, a pestilent heresy, first exploded by
+Ricardo's sagacity.<a name="FNanchor_378_378" id="FNanchor_378_378"></a><a href="#Footnote_378_378" class="fnanchor">[378]</a> Things exchange, as he explains, in
+proportion to the labour which produces them, but the share given to
+the labourer may vary widely. The labourer, he says, 'gives a
+constant, but receives a variable quantity in its stead.' He makes the
+same sacrifice when he works for a day, but may get for it what he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>
+produces in ten hours, or only in one. In every case, however, he gets
+less than he produces, for the excess 'constitutes profits.'<a name="FNanchor_379_379" id="FNanchor_379_379"></a><a href="#Footnote_379_379" class="fnanchor">[379]</a> The
+capitalist must get his interest, that is, the wages of the
+accumulated labour. Here we come again to the Socialist position, only
+that the Socialist infers that the labourer is always cheated by the
+capitalist, and does not consider that the machine can ask for 'wages'
+on the pretext that it is accumulated labour. What, however,
+determines the share actually received? After all, as a machine is not
+actually a labourer, and its work not a separable product, we cannot
+easily see how much wages it is entitled to receive. M'Culloch follows
+the accepted argument. 'No proposition,' he says, 'can be better
+established than that the market rate of wages ... is exclusively
+determined by the proportion between capital and population.'<a name="FNanchor_380_380" id="FNanchor_380_380"></a><a href="#Footnote_380_380" class="fnanchor">[380]</a> We
+have ultimately here, as elsewhere, 'the grand principle to which we
+must always come at last,' namely, 'the cost of production.'<a name="FNanchor_381_381" id="FNanchor_381_381"></a><a href="#Footnote_381_381" class="fnanchor">[381]</a>
+Wages must correspond to the cost of raising the labourer. This leads
+to a formula, which afterwards became famous. In a pamphlet<a name="FNanchor_382_382" id="FNanchor_382_382"></a><a href="#Footnote_382_382" class="fnanchor">[382]</a>
+devoted to the question, he repeats the statement that wages depend
+upon the proportion between population and capital; and then, as if
+the phrase were identical, substitutes that portion of capital which
+is required for the labourer's consumption. This is generally cited as
+the first statement of the 'wage-fund' theory, to which I shall have
+to return.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span></p><p>I need not pursue these illustrations of the awkward results of
+excessive zeal in a disciple. It is worth noticing, however, that
+M'Culloch's practical conclusions are not so rigid as might be
+inferred. His abstract doctrines do not give his true theory, so much
+as what he erroneously took to be his theory. The rules with which he
+works are approximately true under certain conditions, and he
+unconsciously assumes the conditions to be negligible, and the rules
+therefore absolute. It must be added that he does not apply his
+conclusions so rigidly as might be expected. By the help of
+'friction,' or the admission that the ride is only true in nineteen
+cases out of twenty, he can make allowance for many deviations from
+rigid orthodoxy. He holds, for example, that government interference
+is often necessary. He wishes in particular for the establishment of a
+'good system of public education.'<a name="FNanchor_383_383" id="FNanchor_383_383"></a><a href="#Footnote_383_383" class="fnanchor">[383]</a> He seems to have become more
+sentimental in later years. In the edition of 1843 he approves the
+Factory Acts, remarking that the last then passed 'may not, in some
+respects, have gone far enough.'<a name="FNanchor_384_384" id="FNanchor_384_384"></a><a href="#Footnote_384_384" class="fnanchor">[384]</a> He approves a provision for the
+'impotent poor,' on the principle of the Elizabethan act, though he
+disapproves the centralising tendency of the new poor-law. Though he
+is a good Malthusian,<a name="FNanchor_385_385" id="FNanchor_385_385"></a><a href="#Footnote_385_385" class="fnanchor">[385]</a> and holds the instinct of population to be
+a 'constant quantity,'<a name="FNanchor_386_386" id="FNanchor_386_386"></a><a href="#Footnote_386_386" class="fnanchor">[386]</a> he does not believe in the impossibility
+of improvement. The 'necessary' rate of wages fixes only a minimum:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>
+an increase of population has been accompanied by an increase of
+comfort.<a name="FNanchor_387_387" id="FNanchor_387_387"></a><a href="#Footnote_387_387" class="fnanchor">[387]</a> Wages rise if the standard of life be raised, and a rise
+of wages tends to raise the standard. He cordially denounces the
+benevolent persons who held that better wages only meant more
+dissipation. Better wages are really the great spur to industry and
+improvement.<a name="FNanchor_388_388" id="FNanchor_388_388"></a><a href="#Footnote_388_388" class="fnanchor">[388]</a> Extreme poverty causes apathy; and the worst of
+evils is the sluggishness which induces men to submit to reductions of
+wages. A sense of comfort will raise foresight; and the <i>vis
+medicatrix</i> should be allowed to act upon every rank of society. He is
+no doubt an individualist, as looking to the removal of restrictions,
+such as the Conspiracy Laws,<a name="FNanchor_389_389" id="FNanchor_389_389"></a><a href="#Footnote_389_389" class="fnanchor">[389]</a> rather than to a positive action of
+the government; but it is worth notice that this typical economist is
+far from accepting some of the doctrines attributed to the school in
+general.</p>
+
+<p>The classical school blundered when it supposed that the rules which
+it formulated could be made absolute. To give them that character, it
+was necessary to make false assumptions as to the ultimate
+constitution of society; and the fallacy became clear when the formul&aelig;
+were supposed to give a real history or to give first principles, from
+which all industrial relations could be deduced. Meanwhile, the
+formul&aelig;, as they really expressed conditional truths, might be very
+useful so long as, in point of fact, the conditions existed, and were
+very effective in disposing of many fallacies. The best illustration
+would probably be given by the writings of Thomas Tooke
+(1774-1858),<a name="FNanchor_390_390" id="FNanchor_390_390"></a><a href="#Footnote_390_390" class="fnanchor">[390]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> one of the founders of the Political Economy Club.
+The <i>History of Prices</i> is an admirable explanation of phenomena which
+had given rise to the wildest theories. The many oscillations of trade
+and finance during the great struggle, the distress which had followed
+the peace, had bewildered hasty reasoners. Some people, of course,
+found consolation in attributing everything to the mysterious action
+of the currency; others declared that the war-expenditure had supplied
+manufacturers and agriculturists with a demand for their wares,
+apparently not the less advantageous because the payment came out of
+their own pockets.<a name="FNanchor_391_391" id="FNanchor_391_391"></a><a href="#Footnote_391_391" class="fnanchor">[391]</a> Tooke very patiently and thoroughly explodes
+these explanations, and traces the fluctuations of price to such
+causes as the effect of the seasons and the varying events of the war
+which opened or closed the channels of commerce. The explanation in
+general seems to be thoroughly sound and conclusive, and falls in, as
+far as it goes, with the principles of his allies. He shows, for
+example, very clearly what were the conditions under which the
+orthodox theory of rent was really applicable; how bad seasons brought
+gain instead of loss to the 'agricultural interest,' that is, as Tooke
+explains, to the landlord and farmer; how by a rise of price out of
+proportion to the diminution of supply, the farmer made large profits;
+how rents rose, enclosure bills increased, and inferior land was
+brought under the plough. The landlord's interest was for the time
+clearly opposed to that of all other classes, however<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> inadequate the
+doctrine might become when made absolute by a hasty generalisation. I
+need not dwell upon the free-trade argument which made the popular
+reputation of the economists. It is enough to note briefly that the
+error as to the sphere of applicability of the doctrine did not
+prevent many of the practical conclusions from being of the highest
+value.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_294_294" id="Footnote_294_294"></a><a href="#FNanchor_294_294"><span class="label">[294]</span></a> A life of Ricardo by M'Culloch is prefixed to his
+<i>Works</i>. I cite the edition of 1880. Ricardo's letters to Malthus were
+published by Mr. Bonar in 1887; his letters to M'Culloch, edited by
+Mr. Hollander for the American Economic Association, in 1895; and his
+letters to H. Trower, edited by Mr. Bonar and Mr. Hollander, have just
+appeared (1900).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_295_295" id="Footnote_295_295"></a><a href="#FNanchor_295_295"><span class="label">[295]</span></a> He remarks upon this difficulty in the case of Smith's
+treatment of rent, and gives a definition to which he scarcely
+adheres.&mdash;<i>Works</i>, p. 34 ('Principles,' ch. ii., 1888).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_296_296" id="Footnote_296_296"></a><a href="#FNanchor_296_296"><span class="label">[296]</span></a> <i>Works</i>, p. 378. Ricardo, it should be said, complained
+when Malthus interpreted him to mean that this opposition of interests
+was permanent and absolute.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_297_297" id="Footnote_297_297"></a><a href="#FNanchor_297_297"><span class="label">[297]</span></a> Malthus admits the general principle of free trade, but
+supports some degree of protection to corn, mainly upon political
+grounds. He holds, however, with Adam Smith, that 'no equal quantity
+of productive labour employed in manufactures could ever occasion so
+great a reproduction as in agriculture' (<i>Grounds of an Opinion,
+etc.</i>, p. 35)&mdash;a relic of the 'physiocrat' doctrine.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_298_298" id="Footnote_298_298"></a><a href="#FNanchor_298_298"><span class="label">[298]</span></a> <i>Works</i>, p. 385.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_299_299" id="Footnote_299_299"></a><a href="#FNanchor_299_299"><span class="label">[299]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 386.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_300_300" id="Footnote_300_300"></a><a href="#FNanchor_300_300"><span class="label">[300]</span></a> See also <i>Letters to Malthus</i>, p. 175.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_301_301" id="Footnote_301_301"></a><a href="#FNanchor_301_301"><span class="label">[301]</span></a> 'Your modern political economists say that it is a
+principle in their science that all things find their level; which I
+deny, and say, on the contrary, that it is the true principle that all
+things are finding their level, like water in a storm.'&mdash;Coleridge's
+<i>Table-Talk</i>, 17th May 1833.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_302_302" id="Footnote_302_302"></a><a href="#FNanchor_302_302"><span class="label">[302]</span></a> <i>Letters to Malthus</i>, p. 96; and see the frequently
+quoted passage where he complains that Malthus has taken his book as
+more 'practical' than he had intended it to be, and speaks of his
+method of imagining 'strong cases.'&mdash;<i>Ibid.</i> p. 167.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_303_303" id="Footnote_303_303"></a><a href="#FNanchor_303_303"><span class="label">[303]</span></a> <i>Works</i>, p. 40 <i>n.</i> (ch. ii.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_304_304" id="Footnote_304_304"></a><a href="#FNanchor_304_304"><span class="label">[304]</span></a> <i>Works</i>, p. 53 (ch. v.), and p. 124 (ch. xvi.), where
+he quotes from the <i>Wealth of Nations</i> (M'Culloch), p. 390 (bk. v. ch.
+ii. art. 3).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_305_305" id="Footnote_305_305"></a><a href="#FNanchor_305_305"><span class="label">[305]</span></a> <i>Works</i>, p. 131.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_306_306" id="Footnote_306_306"></a><a href="#FNanchor_306_306"><span class="label">[306]</span></a> <i>Wealth of Nations</i> (M'Culloch), p. 31 (bk. i. ch.
+viii.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_307_307" id="Footnote_307_307"></a><a href="#FNanchor_307_307"><span class="label">[307]</span></a> <i>Works</i>, p. 41 (ch. ii.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_308_308" id="Footnote_308_308"></a><a href="#FNanchor_308_308"><span class="label">[308]</span></a> <i>Wealth of Nations</i> (M'Culloch), p. 36.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_309_309" id="Footnote_309_309"></a><a href="#FNanchor_309_309"><span class="label">[309]</span></a> <i>Works</i>, p. 51 (ch. v.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_310_310" id="Footnote_310_310"></a><a href="#FNanchor_310_310"><span class="label">[310]</span></a> <i>Letters to Malthus</i>, p. 98.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_311_311" id="Footnote_311_311"></a><a href="#FNanchor_311_311"><span class="label">[311]</span></a> <i>Works</i>, p. 239 (ch. xxxi., added in third edition,
+1821).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_312_312" id="Footnote_312_312"></a><a href="#FNanchor_312_312"><span class="label">[312]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 50 (ch. v.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_313_313" id="Footnote_313_313"></a><a href="#FNanchor_313_313"><span class="label">[313]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 52.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_314_314" id="Footnote_314_314"></a><a href="#FNanchor_314_314"><span class="label">[314]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 15 (ch. i. sec. ii.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_315_315" id="Footnote_315_315"></a><a href="#FNanchor_315_315"><span class="label">[315]</span></a> There is, indeed, a difficulty which I happily need not
+discuss. Undoubtedly the doctrine of gluts was absurd. There is, of
+course, no limit to the amount of wealth which can be used or
+exchanged. But there certainly seems to be a great difficulty in
+effecting such a readjustment of the industrial system as is implied
+in increased production of wealth; and the disposition to save may at
+a given time be greater than the power of finding profitable channels
+for employing wealth. This involves economical questions beyond my
+ability to answer, and happily not here relevant.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_316_316" id="Footnote_316_316"></a><a href="#FNanchor_316_316"><span class="label">[316]</span></a> <i>Letters to Malthus</i>, p. 101.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_317_317" id="Footnote_317_317"></a><a href="#FNanchor_317_317"><span class="label">[317]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 52.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_318_318" id="Footnote_318_318"></a><a href="#FNanchor_318_318"><span class="label">[318]</span></a> <i>Works</i>, p. 174 (ch. xxi.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_319_319" id="Footnote_319_319"></a><a href="#FNanchor_319_319"><span class="label">[319]</span></a> <i>Works</i>, p. 66 (ch. vi.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_320_320" id="Footnote_320_320"></a><a href="#FNanchor_320_320"><span class="label">[320]</span></a> <i>Works</i>, p. 240 (ch. xxxi.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_321_321" id="Footnote_321_321"></a><a href="#FNanchor_321_321"><span class="label">[321]</span></a> Ricardo, <i>Works</i>, p. xxiv.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_322_322" id="Footnote_322_322"></a><a href="#FNanchor_322_322"><span class="label">[322]</span></a> Menger's <i>Das Recht auf den vollen Arbeitsertrag</i>
+(1891), p. 38.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_323_323" id="Footnote_323_323"></a><a href="#FNanchor_323_323"><span class="label">[323]</span></a> <i>Works</i>, p. 228 (ch. xxviii.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_324_324" id="Footnote_324_324"></a><a href="#FNanchor_324_324"><span class="label">[324]</span></a> <i>Works</i>, pp. 29, 60.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_325_325" id="Footnote_325_325"></a><a href="#FNanchor_325_325"><span class="label">[325]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 166.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_326_326" id="Footnote_326_326"></a><a href="#FNanchor_326_326"><span class="label">[326]</span></a> <i>Works</i>, p. 170 (ch. xx.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_327_327" id="Footnote_327_327"></a><a href="#FNanchor_327_327"><span class="label">[327]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 7.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_328_328" id="Footnote_328_328"></a><a href="#FNanchor_328_328"><span class="label">[328]</span></a> So he tells Malthus (<i>Letters</i>, pp. 173, 174) that the
+buyer has 'the least to do in the world' with the regulation of
+prices. It is all the competition of the sellers. 'Demand' influences
+price for the moment, but 'supply follows close upon its heels, and
+takes up the regulation of price.'</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_329_329" id="Footnote_329_329"></a><a href="#FNanchor_329_329"><span class="label">[329]</span></a> <i>Works</i>, p. 234.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_330_330" id="Footnote_330_330"></a><a href="#FNanchor_330_330"><span class="label">[330]</span></a> Bentham's <i>Works</i>, x. 498.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_331_331" id="Footnote_331_331"></a><a href="#FNanchor_331_331"><span class="label">[331]</span></a> <i>Works</i>, p. 250 (ch. xxxii.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_332_332" id="Footnote_332_332"></a><a href="#FNanchor_332_332"><span class="label">[332]</span></a> Stewart's <i>Works</i>, x. 34.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_333_333" id="Footnote_333_333"></a><a href="#FNanchor_333_333"><span class="label">[333]</span></a> See Bagehot's remarks upon J. S. Mill's version of this
+doctrine in <i>Economic Studies</i>: chapter on 'Cost of Production.'</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_334_334" id="Footnote_334_334"></a><a href="#FNanchor_334_334"><span class="label">[334]</span></a> Another illustration of the need of such considerations
+is given, as has been pointed out, in Adam Smith's famous chapter upon
+the variation in the rate of wages. He assumes that the highest wages
+will be paid for the least agreeable employments, whereas, in fact,
+the least agreeable are generally the worst paid. His doctrine, that
+is, is only true upon a tacit assumption as to the character and
+position of the labourer, which must be revised before the rule can be
+applied.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_335_335" id="Footnote_335_335"></a><a href="#FNanchor_335_335"><span class="label">[335]</span></a> J. S. Mill, too, in his <i>Political Economy</i> makes the
+foundation of private property 'the right of producers to what they
+themselves have produced.' (Bk. ii. ch. ii. &sect; 1.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_336_336" id="Footnote_336_336"></a><a href="#FNanchor_336_336"><span class="label">[336]</span></a> Mr. Edwin Cannan, in <i>Production and Distribution</i>
+(1894), p. 383.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_337_337" id="Footnote_337_337"></a><a href="#FNanchor_337_337"><span class="label">[337]</span></a> A definition, says Burke in his essay on the 'Sublime
+and Beautiful' (introduction) 'seems rather to follow than to precede
+our inquiry, of which it ought to be considered as the result.'</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_338_338" id="Footnote_338_338"></a><a href="#FNanchor_338_338"><span class="label">[338]</span></a> <i>Works</i>, p. 34 (chap. ii.). Rent is there defined as
+the sum paid for the original and indestructible powers of the soil.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_339_339" id="Footnote_339_339"></a><a href="#FNanchor_339_339"><span class="label">[339]</span></a> <i>Works</i>, p. 132 (chap. xvii.). He admits (<i>Ibid.</i> p.
+210 <i>n.</i>) that the labourer may have a little more than what is
+absolutely necessary, and that his inference is therefore 'expressed
+too strongly.'</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_340_340" id="Footnote_340_340"></a><a href="#FNanchor_340_340"><span class="label">[340]</span></a> See <i>Letters to M'Culloch</i>, p. xxi.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_341_341" id="Footnote_341_341"></a><a href="#FNanchor_341_341"><span class="label">[341]</span></a> 'The assaults upon Malthus's "great work,"' he says
+(<i>Works</i>, p. 243, ch. xxxii.), 'have only served to prove its
+strength.'</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_342_342" id="Footnote_342_342"></a><a href="#FNanchor_342_342"><span class="label">[342]</span></a> <i>Letters to Malthus</i>, p. 226.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_343_343" id="Footnote_343_343"></a><a href="#FNanchor_343_343"><span class="label">[343]</span></a> <i>Works</i>, p. 58 (ch. v.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_344_344" id="Footnote_344_344"></a><a href="#FNanchor_344_344"><span class="label">[344]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 211 <i>n.</i> (ch. xxvi.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_345_345" id="Footnote_345_345"></a><a href="#FNanchor_345_345"><span class="label">[345]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 258 (ch. xxxii.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_346_346" id="Footnote_346_346"></a><a href="#FNanchor_346_346"><span class="label">[346]</span></a> <i>Works</i>, p. 248 (ch. xxii.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_347_347" id="Footnote_347_347"></a><a href="#FNanchor_347_347"><span class="label">[347]</span></a> Bain's <i>James Mill</i>, p. 211.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_348_348" id="Footnote_348_348"></a><a href="#FNanchor_348_348"><span class="label">[348]</span></a> Editions in 1821, 1824, and 1826.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_349_349" id="Footnote_349_349"></a><a href="#FNanchor_349_349"><span class="label">[349]</span></a> <i>Autobiography</i>, p. 204.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_350_350" id="Footnote_350_350"></a><a href="#FNanchor_350_350"><span class="label">[350]</span></a> The first edition, an expanded version of an article in
+the <i>Encyclop&aelig;dia Britannica</i>, appeared in 1825.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_351_351" id="Footnote_351_351"></a><a href="#FNanchor_351_351"><span class="label">[351]</span></a> <i>Latter-day Pamphlets</i> (New Downing Street). M'Crowdy
+is obviously a type, not an individual.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_352_352" id="Footnote_352_352"></a><a href="#FNanchor_352_352"><span class="label">[352]</span></a> See Mr. Hewin's life of him in <i>Dictionary of National
+Biography</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_353_353" id="Footnote_353_353"></a><a href="#FNanchor_353_353"><span class="label">[353]</span></a> Fourth edition in 1827.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_354_354" id="Footnote_354_354"></a><a href="#FNanchor_354_354"><span class="label">[354]</span></a> Ricardo's <i>Works</i>, p. 164 <i>n.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_355_355" id="Footnote_355_355"></a><a href="#FNanchor_355_355"><span class="label">[355]</span></a> <i>External Corn-trade</i>, preface to fourth edition. J. S.
+Mill observes in his chapter upon 'International Trade' that Torrens
+was the earliest expounder of the doctrine afterwards worked out by
+Ricardo and Mill himself. For Ricardo's opinion of Torrens, see
+<i>Letters to Trower</i>, p. 39.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_356_356" id="Footnote_356_356"></a><a href="#FNanchor_356_356"><span class="label">[356]</span></a> <i>Production of Wealth</i> (Preface).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_357_357" id="Footnote_357_357"></a><a href="#FNanchor_357_357"><span class="label">[357]</span></a> <i>Production of Wealth</i> (Preface).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_358_358" id="Footnote_358_358"></a><a href="#FNanchor_358_358"><span class="label">[358]</span></a> <i>Political Economy</i> (1825), p. 21.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_359_359" id="Footnote_359_359"></a><a href="#FNanchor_359_359"><span class="label">[359]</span></a> <i>External Corn-trade</i>, pp. xviii, 109, 139; <i>Production
+of Wealth</i>, p. 375.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_360_360" id="Footnote_360_360"></a><a href="#FNanchor_360_360"><span class="label">[360]</span></a> Originally in the <i>Encyclop&aelig;dia Metropolitana</i>, 1836.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_361_361" id="Footnote_361_361"></a><a href="#FNanchor_361_361"><span class="label">[361]</span></a> Senior's <i>Political Economy</i> (1850), p. 26.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_362_362" id="Footnote_362_362"></a><a href="#FNanchor_362_362"><span class="label">[362]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> (1825), pp. 55, 129-131.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_363_363" id="Footnote_363_363"></a><a href="#FNanchor_363_363"><span class="label">[363]</span></a> Senior's <i>Political Economy</i> (150), p. 125.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_364_364" id="Footnote_364_364"></a><a href="#FNanchor_364_364"><span class="label">[364]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 135. M'Culloch admits the possibility that a
+man may judge his own interests wrongly, but thinks that this will not
+happen in one case out of twenty (<i>Ibid.</i> p. 15).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_365_365" id="Footnote_365_365"></a><a href="#FNanchor_365_365"><span class="label">[365]</span></a> See Torrens's <i>Production of Wealth</i>, p. 208; and
+M'Culloch's <i>Political Economy</i> (1843), p. 294, where he admits some
+exceptions.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_366_366" id="Footnote_366_366"></a><a href="#FNanchor_366_366"><span class="label">[366]</span></a> <i>External Corn-trade</i>, p. 87, etc.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_367_367" id="Footnote_367_367"></a><a href="#FNanchor_367_367"><span class="label">[367]</span></a> <i>Political Economy</i> (second edition), pp. 21, 22.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_368_368" id="Footnote_368_368"></a><a href="#FNanchor_368_368"><span class="label">[368]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 67.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_369_369" id="Footnote_369_369"></a><a href="#FNanchor_369_369"><span class="label">[369]</span></a> <i>Political Economy</i> (1825), p. 329.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_370_370" id="Footnote_370_370"></a><a href="#FNanchor_370_370"><span class="label">[370]</span></a> <i>Production of Wealth</i>, p. 34, etc.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_371_371" id="Footnote_371_371"></a><a href="#FNanchor_371_371"><span class="label">[371]</span></a> <i>Political Economy</i> (1825), p. 318.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_372_372" id="Footnote_372_372"></a><a href="#FNanchor_372_372"><span class="label">[372]</span></a> Mill's <i>Political Economy</i> (second edition), p. 102;
+M'Culloch's <i>Political Economy</i> (1825), pp. 289-291.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_373_373" id="Footnote_373_373"></a><a href="#FNanchor_373_373"><span class="label">[373]</span></a> M'Culloch's <i>Political Economy</i>, p. 290.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_374_374" id="Footnote_374_374"></a><a href="#FNanchor_374_374"><span class="label">[374]</span></a> Preface to <i>External Corn-trade</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_375_375" id="Footnote_375_375"></a><a href="#FNanchor_375_375"><span class="label">[375]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 95.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_376_376" id="Footnote_376_376"></a><a href="#FNanchor_376_376"><span class="label">[376]</span></a> <i>Political Economy</i> (1825), pp. 313-18. This argument
+disappears in later editions.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_377_377" id="Footnote_377_377"></a><a href="#FNanchor_377_377"><span class="label">[377]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 217.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_378_378" id="Footnote_378_378"></a><a href="#FNanchor_378_378"><span class="label">[378]</span></a> <i>Political Economy</i>, p. 221. De Quincey makes a great
+point of this doctrine, of which it is not worth while to examine the
+meaning.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_379_379" id="Footnote_379_379"></a><a href="#FNanchor_379_379"><span class="label">[379]</span></a> <i>Political Economy</i>, p. 221 <i>n.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_380_380" id="Footnote_380_380"></a><a href="#FNanchor_380_380"><span class="label">[380]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 336.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_381_381" id="Footnote_381_381"></a><a href="#FNanchor_381_381"><span class="label">[381]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 337.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_382_382" id="Footnote_382_382"></a><a href="#FNanchor_382_382"><span class="label">[382]</span></a> 'Essay upon the Circumstances which determine the Rate
+of Wages' (1826), p. 113. This was written for Constable's
+<i>Miscellany</i>, and is mainly repetition from the <i>Political Economy</i>.
+It was republished, with alterations, in 1851.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_383_383" id="Footnote_383_383"></a><a href="#FNanchor_383_383"><span class="label">[383]</span></a> <i>Political Economy</i>, pp. 359-61.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_384_384" id="Footnote_384_384"></a><a href="#FNanchor_384_384"><span class="label">[384]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> (1843), p. 178. And see his remarks on the
+unfavourable side of the Factory System, p. 186 <i>seq.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_385_385" id="Footnote_385_385"></a><a href="#FNanchor_385_385"><span class="label">[385]</span></a> 'Wherever two persons have the means of subsisting,' as
+he quaintly observes, 'a marriage invariably takes place' (<i>Political
+Economy</i>, p. 154).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_386_386" id="Footnote_386_386"></a><a href="#FNanchor_386_386"><span class="label">[386]</span></a> <i>Political Economy</i>, p. 206.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_387_387" id="Footnote_387_387"></a><a href="#FNanchor_387_387"><span class="label">[387]</span></a> <i>Political Economy</i>, p. 344.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_388_388" id="Footnote_388_388"></a><a href="#FNanchor_388_388"><span class="label">[388]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> pp. 349-52.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_389_389" id="Footnote_389_389"></a><a href="#FNanchor_389_389"><span class="label">[389]</span></a> See pamphlet on the rate of wages, pp. 178-204.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_390_390" id="Footnote_390_390"></a><a href="#FNanchor_390_390"><span class="label">[390]</span></a> Tooke's <i>Thoughts and Details on the High and Low
+Prices of the last Thirty Years</i> appeared in 1823 (second edition
+1824). This was rewritten and embodied in the <i>History of Prices</i>, the
+first two volumes of which appeared in 1838. Four later volumes
+appeared in 1839, 1848, and 1857.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_391_391" id="Footnote_391_391"></a><a href="#FNanchor_391_391"><span class="label">[391]</span></a> The popular view is given by Southey. The Radicals, he
+says in 1823, desire war because they expect it to lead to revolution.
+'In this they are greatly deceived, for it would restore agricultural
+prosperity, and give a new spur to our manufactures' (<i>Selections from
+Southey's Letters</i>, iii. 382. See also <i>Life and Correspondence</i>, iv.
+228, 386).</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span></p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<p class="subhead1">ECONOMIC HERETICS</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">I. THE MALTHUSIAN CONTROVERSY</p>
+
+<p>The Economic theory became triumphant. Expounded from new university
+chairs, summarised in text-books for schools, advocated in the press,
+and applied by an energetic party to some of the most important
+political discussions of the day, it claimed the adhesion of all
+enlightened persons. It enjoyed the prestige of a scientific doctrine,
+and the most popular retort seemed to be an involuntary concession of
+its claims. When opponents appealed from 'theorists' to practical men,
+the Utilitarians scornfully set them down as virtually appealing from
+reason to prejudice. No rival theory held the field. If Malthus and
+Ricardo differed, it was a difference between men who accepted the
+same first principles. They both professed to interpret Adam Smith as
+the true prophet, and represented different shades of opinion rather
+than diverging sects. There were, however, symptoms of opposition,
+which, at the time, might be set down as simple reluctance to listen
+to disagreeable truths. In reality, they were indications of a
+dissatisfaction which was to become of more importance and to lead in
+time to a more decided revolt. I must indicate some of them,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> though
+the expressions of dissent were so various and confused that it is not
+very easy to reduce them to order.</p>
+
+<p>Malthus's doctrine was really at the base of the whole theory, though
+it must be admitted that neither Malthus himself nor his opponents
+were clear as to what his doctrine really was. His assailants often
+attacked theories which he disavowed, or asserted principles which he
+claimed as his own.<a name="FNanchor_392_392" id="FNanchor_392_392"></a><a href="#Footnote_392_392" class="fnanchor">[392]</a> I mention only to set aside some respectable
+and wearisome gentlemen such as Ingram, Jarrold, Weyland, and Grahame,
+who considered Malthus chiefly as impugning the wisdom of Providence.
+They quote the divine law, 'Increase and multiply'; think that Malthus
+regards vice and misery as blessings, and prove that population does
+not 'tend' to increase too rapidly. Jarrold apparently accepts the
+doctrine which Malthus attributes to S&uuml;ssmilch, that lives have been
+shortened since the days of the patriarchs, and the reproductive
+forces diminished as the world has grown fuller. Grahame believes in a
+providential 'ordeal,' constituted by infant mortality, which is not,
+like war and vice, due to human corruption, but a beneficent
+regulating force which correlates fertility with the state of society.
+This might be taken by Malthus as merely amounting to another<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> version
+of his checks. Such books, in fact, simply show, what does not require
+to be further emphasised, that Malthus had put his version of the
+struggle for existence into a form which seemed scandalous to the
+average orthodox person. The vagueness of Malthus himself and the
+confused argument of such opponents makes it doubtful whether they are
+really answering his theories or reducing them to a less repulsive
+form of statement.</p>
+
+<p>In other directions, the Malthusian doctrine roused keen feeling on
+both sides, and the line taken by different parties is significant.
+Malthus had appeared as an antagonist of the revolutionary party. He
+had laid down what he took to be an insuperable obstacle to the
+realisation of their dreams. Yet his views were adopted and extended
+by those who called themselves thorough Radicals. As, in our days,
+Darwinism has been claimed as supporting both individualist and
+socialistic conclusions, the theory of his predecessor, Malthus, might
+be applied in a Radical or a Conservative sense. In point of fact,
+Malthus was at once adopted by the Whigs, as represented by the
+<i>Edinburgh Review</i>. They were followers of Adam Smith and Dugald
+Stewart; they piqued themselves, and, as even James Mill admitted,
+with justice, upon economic orthodoxy. They were at the same time
+predisposed to a theory which condemned the revolutionary Utopias. It
+provided them with an effective weapon against the agitators whom they
+especially dreaded. The Tories might be a little restrained by
+orthodox qualms. In 1812 Southey was permitted to make an onslaught
+upon Malthus in the <i>Quarterly</i>;<a name="FNanchor_393_393" id="FNanchor_393_393"></a><a href="#Footnote_393_393" class="fnanchor">[393]</a> but more complimentary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>
+allusions followed, and five years later the essay was elaborately
+defended in an able article.<a name="FNanchor_394_394" id="FNanchor_394_394"></a><a href="#Footnote_394_394" class="fnanchor">[394]</a> An apology was even insinuated for
+the previous assault, though the blame was thrown upon Malthus for
+putting his doctrines in an offensive shape. A reference to Owen
+suggests that the alarm excited by Socialism had suggested the need of
+some sound political economy.</p>
+
+<p>Another controversy which was being carried on at intervals indicates
+the line of cleavage between the capitalist and the landed interest.
+James Mill's early pamphlet, <i>Commerce Defended</i> (1808), and Torrens's
+pamphlet, <i>Economists Refuted</i>, were suggested by this discussion.
+Although the war was partly in defence of British trade, its
+vicissitudes produced various commercial crises; and the patriotic
+Tories were anxious to show that we could thrive even if our trade was
+shut out from the Continent. The trading classes maintained that they
+really supplied the sinews of war, and had a right to some control of
+the policy. The controversy about the orders in council and Berlin
+decrees emphasised these disputes, and called some attention to the
+questions involved in the old controversy between the 'mercantile' and
+the 'agricultural' systems. A grotesque exaggeration of one theory was
+given by Mill's opponent, William Spence<a name="FNanchor_395_395" id="FNanchor_395_395"></a><a href="#Footnote_395_395" class="fnanchor">[395]</a> (1783-1860), in his
+<i>Britain independent of Commerce</i>, which went through several editions
+in 1808, and refurbished or perverted the doctrine of the French
+economists. The argument, at least, shows what fallacies then needed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>
+confutation by the orthodox. In the preface to his collected tracts,
+Spence observes that the high price of corn was the cause of 'all our
+wealth and prosperity during the war.' The causes of the high price
+('assisted,' he admits, 'by occasional bad seasons') were the
+'national debt, in other words, taxation,' which raised the price,
+first, of necessaries, and then of luxuries (thus, he says,
+'neutralising its otherwise injurious effects'), and the virtual
+monopoly by the agriculturist of the home market.<a name="FNanchor_396_396" id="FNanchor_396_396"></a><a href="#Footnote_396_396" class="fnanchor">[396]</a> All our wealth,
+that is, was produced by taxation aided by famine, or, in brief, by
+the landowner's power of squeezing more out of the poor. Foreign
+trade, according to Spence, is altogether superfluous. Its effect is
+summed up by the statement that we give hardware to America, and, in
+return, get only 'the vile weed, tobacco.'<a name="FNanchor_397_397" id="FNanchor_397_397"></a><a href="#Footnote_397_397" class="fnanchor">[397]</a> Spence's writings only
+show the effect of strong prejudices on a weak brain. A similar
+sentiment dictated a more noteworthy argument to a much abler writer,
+whose relation to Malthus is significant&mdash;Thomas Chalmers
+(1780-1847),<a name="FNanchor_398_398" id="FNanchor_398_398"></a><a href="#Footnote_398_398" class="fnanchor">[398]</a> probably best remembered at present for his
+leadership of the great disruption of 1843. He had a reputation for
+eloquence and philosophic ability not fully intelligible at the
+present day. His appearance was uncouth, and his written style is
+often clumsy. He gave an impression at times of indolence and of
+timidity. Yet his superficial qualities concealed an ardent
+temperament and cordial affections. Under a sufficient stimulus he
+could blaze out in stirring speech and vigorous action. His
+intellectual training was limited. He had, we are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> told, been much
+influenced in his youth by the French philosophers of the time, and
+had appeared on the side of the more freethinking party in the famous
+Leslie controversy. Soon afterwards, however, he was converted to
+'evangelical' views. He still accepted Thomas Brown as a great
+metaphysician,<a name="FNanchor_399_399" id="FNanchor_399_399"></a><a href="#Footnote_399_399" class="fnanchor">[399]</a> but thought that in moral questions Brown's
+deistical optimism required to be corrected by an infusion of Butler's
+theory of conscience. He could adapt Butler's <i>Analogy</i>, and write an
+edifying Bridgewater Treatise. I need only say, however, that, though
+his philosophy was not very profound, he had an enthusiasm which
+enables him at times to write forcibly and impressively.</p>
+
+<p>Chalmers was from 1803 to 1815 minister of Kilmany, Fifeshire, and his
+attention had already been drawn to the question of pauperism. He took
+part in the Spence controversy, by an essay upon the <i>Extent and
+Stability of National Resources</i>.<a name="FNanchor_400_400" id="FNanchor_400_400"></a><a href="#Footnote_400_400" class="fnanchor">[400]</a> In this he expounds a doctrine
+which is afterwards given in his <i>Political Economy in Connection with
+the Moral State and Moral Aspects of Society</i>.<a name="FNanchor_401_401" id="FNanchor_401_401"></a><a href="#Footnote_401_401" class="fnanchor">[401]</a> The main purpose
+of his early book is the patriotic. It is meant, like Spence's
+pamphlet, to prove that Napoleon could do us no vital injury. Should
+he succeed, he would only lop off superfluous branches, not hew down
+the main trunk. Chalmers's argument to show the ease with which a
+country may recover the effects of a disastrous war is highly praised
+by J. S. Mill<a name="FNanchor_402_402" id="FNanchor_402_402"></a><a href="#Footnote_402_402" class="fnanchor">[402]</a> as the first sound explanation of the facts.
+Chalmers's position, however, is radically different from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> the
+position of either James or J. S. Mill. Essentially it is the
+development of the French economists' theory, though Chalmers is
+rather unwilling to admit his affinity to a discredited school.<a name="FNanchor_403_403" id="FNanchor_403_403"></a><a href="#Footnote_403_403" class="fnanchor">[403]</a>
+He has reached some of their conclusions, he admits, but by a
+different path.<a name="FNanchor_404_404" id="FNanchor_404_404"></a><a href="#Footnote_404_404" class="fnanchor">[404]</a> He coincides, in this respect, with Malthus, who
+was equally impressed by the importance of 'subsistence,' or of the
+food-supply of the labourer. The great bulk of the food required must
+be raised within our own borders. As Chalmers says, in 1832, the total
+importation of corn, even in the two famine years, 1800 and 1801,
+taken together, had only provided food for five weeks,<a name="FNanchor_405_405" id="FNanchor_405_405"></a><a href="#Footnote_405_405" class="fnanchor">[405]</a> and could
+normally represent a mere fringe or superfluous addition to our
+resources. His main argument is simple. The economists have fallen
+into a fatal error. A manufacturer, he observes, only makes his own
+article.<a name="FNanchor_406_406" id="FNanchor_406_406"></a><a href="#Footnote_406_406" class="fnanchor">[406]</a> The economists somehow imagine that he also supports
+himself. You see a prosperous 'shawl-making village.' You infer that
+its ruin would cause the destitution of so many families. It would
+only mean the loss of so many shawls. The food which supports the
+shawl-makers would still be produced, and would be only diverted to
+support makers of some other luxury.<a name="FNanchor_407_407" id="FNanchor_407_407"></a><a href="#Footnote_407_407" class="fnanchor">[407]</a> There would be a temporary
+injury to individuals, but no permanent weakening of national
+resources. Hence we have his division of the population. The
+agriculturists, and those who make the 'second necessaries' (the
+cottages, ploughs, and so forth, required by the agriculturist),
+create the great wealth of the country. Besides these we have the
+'disposable' <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>population, which is employed in making luxuries for the
+landowners, and, finally, the 'redundant' or what he calls in his
+later book the 'excrescent' or 'superinduced' population,<a name="FNanchor_408_408" id="FNanchor_408_408"></a><a href="#Footnote_408_408" class="fnanchor">[408]</a> which
+is really supported by foreign trade. Commerce, then, is merely 'the
+efflorescence of our agriculture.'<a name="FNanchor_409_409" id="FNanchor_409_409"></a><a href="#Footnote_409_409" class="fnanchor">[409]</a> Were it annihilated this
+instant, we should still retain our whole disposable population. The
+effect of war is simply to find a different employment for this part
+of the nation. Napoleon, he says, is 'emptying our shops and filling
+our battalions.'<a name="FNanchor_410_410" id="FNanchor_410_410"></a><a href="#Footnote_410_410" class="fnanchor">[410]</a> All the 'redundant' population might be
+supported by simply diminishing the number of our cart-horses.<a name="FNanchor_411_411" id="FNanchor_411_411"></a><a href="#Footnote_411_411" class="fnanchor">[411]</a>
+Similarly, the destruction of the commerce of France 'created her
+armies.' It only transferred men from trade to war, and 'millions of
+artisans' were 'transformed into soldiers.'<a name="FNanchor_412_412" id="FNanchor_412_412"></a><a href="#Footnote_412_412" class="fnanchor">[412]</a> Pitt was really
+strengthening when he supposed himself to be ruining his enemy.
+'Excrescence' and 'efflorescence' are Chalmers's equivalent for the
+'sterility' of the French economists. The backbone of all industry is
+agriculture, and the manufacturers simply employed by the landowner
+for such purposes as he pleases. Whether he uses them to make his
+luxuries or to fight his battles, the real resources of the nation
+remain untouched. The Ricardians insist upon the vital importance of
+'capital.' The one economic end of the statesmen, as the capitalist
+class naturally thinks, should be to give every facility for its
+accumulation, and consequently for allowing it to distribute itself in
+the most efficient way. Chalmers, on the contrary, argues that we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> may
+easily have too much capital. He was a firm believer in gluts. He
+admits that the extension of commerce was of great good at the end of
+the feudal period, but not as the 'efficient cause' of wealth, only as
+'unlocking the capabilities of the soil.'<a name="FNanchor_413_413" id="FNanchor_413_413"></a><a href="#Footnote_413_413" class="fnanchor">[413]</a> This change produced
+the illusion that commerce has a 'creative virtue,' whereas its
+absolute dependence upon agriculture is a truth of capital importance
+in political economy. More Malthusian than Malthus, Chalmers argues
+that the case of capital is strictly parallel to the case of
+population.<a name="FNanchor_414_414" id="FNanchor_414_414"></a><a href="#Footnote_414_414" class="fnanchor">[414]</a> Money may be redundant as much as men, and the real
+causes of every economic calamity are the 'over-speculation of
+capitalists,' and the 'over-population of the community at
+large.'<a name="FNanchor_415_415" id="FNanchor_415_415"></a><a href="#Footnote_415_415" class="fnanchor">[415]</a> In this question, however, Chalmers gets into
+difficulties, which show so hopeless a confusion between 'capital,'
+income, and money, that I need not attempt to unravel his
+meaning.<a name="FNanchor_416_416" id="FNanchor_416_416"></a><a href="#Footnote_416_416" class="fnanchor">[416]</a> Anyhow, he is led to approve the French doctrine of the
+single tax. Ultimately, he thinks, all taxes fall upon rent.<a name="FNanchor_417_417" id="FNanchor_417_417"></a><a href="#Footnote_417_417" class="fnanchor">[417]</a>
+Agriculture fills the great reservoir from which all the subsidiary
+channels are filled. Whether the stream be tapped at the source or
+further down makes no difference. Hence he infers that, as the
+landlords necessarily pay the taxes, they should pay them openly. By
+an odd coincidence, he would tax rents like Mill,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> though upon
+opposite grounds. He holds that the interest of the landowners is not
+opposed to, but identical with, the interest of all classes.
+Politically, as well as economically, they should be supreme. They
+are, 'naturally and properly, the lords of the ascendant,' and, as he
+oddly complains in the year of the Reform Bill, not 'sufficiently
+represented in parliament.'<a name="FNanchor_418_418" id="FNanchor_418_418"></a><a href="#Footnote_418_418" class="fnanchor">[418]</a> A 'splendid aristocracy' is, he
+thinks, a necessary part of the social edifice;<a name="FNanchor_419_419" id="FNanchor_419_419"></a><a href="#Footnote_419_419" class="fnanchor">[419]</a> the law of
+primogeniture is necessary to support them; and the division of land
+will cause the decay of France. The aristocracy are wanted to keep up
+a high standard of civilisation and promote philosophy, science, and
+art.<a name="FNanchor_420_420" id="FNanchor_420_420"></a><a href="#Footnote_420_420" class="fnanchor">[420]</a> The British aristocracy in the reign of George <span class="smcap">iv.</span> scarcely
+realised this ideal, and would hardly have perceived that to place all
+the taxes upon their shoulders would be to give them a blessing in
+disguise. According to Chalmers, however, an established church
+represents an essential part of the upper classes, and is required to
+promote a high standard of life among the poor.<a name="FNanchor_421_421" id="FNanchor_421_421"></a><a href="#Footnote_421_421" class="fnanchor">[421]</a> In connection
+with this, he writes a really forcible chapter criticising the
+economical distinction of productive and unproductive labour, and
+shows at least that the direct creation of material wealth is not a
+sufficient criterion of the utility of a class.</p>
+
+<p>Chalmers's arguments are of interest mainly from their bearing upon
+his practical application of the Malthusian problem. His interest in
+the problem of pauperism had been stimulated by his residence in
+Glasgow, where from 1815 to 1823 he had been actively engaged in
+parochial duties. In 1819 he had set up an organised system of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>
+charity in a poor district, which both reduced the expenditure and
+improved the condition of the poor. The experiment, though dropped
+some years later, became famous, and in later years Chalmers
+successfully started a similar plan in Edinburgh. It was this
+experience which gave shape to his Malthusian theories. He was, that
+is, a Malthusian in the sense of believing that the great problem was
+essentially the problem of raising the self-respect and spirit of
+independence of the poor. The great evil which confronted him in
+Glasgow was the mischief connected with the growth of the factory
+system. He saw, as he thought, the development of wealth leading to
+the degradation of the labourer. The great social phenomenon was the
+tendency to degeneration, the gradual dissolution of an organism, and
+corruption destroying the vital forces. On the one hand, this
+spectacle led him, as it led others, to look back fondly to the good
+old times of homely food and primitive habits, to the peasantry as
+represented in Burns's <i>Cotter's Saturday Night</i> or Scott's <i>Heart of
+Midlothian</i>, when the poor man was part of a social, political, and
+ecclesiastical order, disciplined, trained, and self-respecting, not a
+loose waif and stray in a chaotic welter of separate atoms. These were
+the facts which really suggested his theory of the 'excrescent'
+population, produced by the over-speculation of capitalists. The
+paupers of Glasgow were 'excrescent,' and the 'gluts' were visible in
+the commercial crises which had thrown numbers of poor weavers out of
+employment and degraded them into permanent paupers. The facts were
+before his eyes, if the generalisation was hasty and crude. He held,
+on the other hand, that indiscriminate charity, and still more the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>
+establishment by poor-laws of a legal right to support, was
+stimulating the evil. The poor-law had worked incalculable mischiefs
+in England,<a name="FNanchor_422_422" id="FNanchor_422_422"></a><a href="#Footnote_422_422" class="fnanchor">[422]</a> and he struggled vigorously, though unavailingly, to
+resist its introduction into Scotland. Chalmers, however, did not
+accept the theory ascribed to the Utilitarians, that the remedy for
+the evils was simply to leave things alone. He gives his theory in an
+article upon the connection between the extension of the church and
+the extinction of pauperism. He defends Malthus against the
+'execrations' of sentimentalism. Malthus, he thinks, would not
+suppress but change the direction of beneficence. A vast expenditure
+has only stimulated pauperism. The true course is not to diminish the
+rates but to make them 'flow into the wholesome channel of maintaining
+an extended system of moral and religious instruction.'<a name="FNanchor_423_423" id="FNanchor_423_423"></a><a href="#Footnote_423_423" class="fnanchor">[423]</a> In other
+words, suppress workhouses but build schools and churches; organise
+charity and substitute a systematic individual inspection for reckless
+and indiscriminate almsgiving. Then you will get to the root of the
+mischief. The church, supported from the land, is to become the great
+civilising agent. Chalmers, accordingly, was an ardent advocate of a
+church establishment. He became the leader of the Free Church movement
+not as objecting to an establishment on principle, but because he
+thought that the actual legal fetters of the Scottish establishment
+made it impossible to carry out an effective reorganisation and
+therefore unable to discharge its true functions.</p>
+
+<p>Here Chalmers's economical theories are crossed by various political
+and ecclesiastical questions with which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> I am not concerned. His
+peculiarities as an economist bring out, I think, an important point.
+He shows how Malthus's views might be interpreted by a man who,
+instead of sharing, was entirely opposed to the ordinary capitalist
+prejudices. It would be idle to ask which was the more logical
+development of Malthus. When two systems are full of doubtful
+assumptions of fact and questionable logic and vague primary
+conceptions, that question becomes hardly intelligible. We can only
+note the various turns given to the argument by the preconceived
+prejudices of the disputants. By most of them the Malthusian view was
+interpreted as implying the capitalist as distinguished from the
+landowning point of view.</p>
+
+<p>To Southey as to Chalmers the great evil of the day was the growth of
+the disorganised populace under the factory system. The difference is
+that while Chalmers enthusiastically adopted Malthus's theory as
+indicating the true remedy for the evil, Southey regards it with
+horror as declaring the evil to be irremediable. Chalmers, a shrewd
+Scot actively engaged in parochial work, had his attention fixed upon
+the reckless improvidence of the 'excrescent' population, and welcomed
+a doctrine which laid stress upon the necessity of raising the
+standard of prudence and morality. He recognised and pointed out with
+great force the inadequacy of such palliatives as emigration,
+home-colonisation, and so forth.<a name="FNanchor_424_424" id="FNanchor_424_424"></a><a href="#Footnote_424_424" class="fnanchor">[424]</a> Southey, an ardent and impulsive
+man of letters, with no practical experience of the difficulties of
+social reform, has no patience for such inquiries. His remedy, in all
+cases, was a 'paternal government' vigorously regulating<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> society; and
+Malthus appears to him to be simply an opponent of all such action.
+Southey had begun the attack in 1803 by an article in the <i>Annual
+Review</i> (edited by A. Aikin) for which the leading hints were given by
+Coleridge, then with Southey at Keswick.<a name="FNanchor_425_425" id="FNanchor_425_425"></a><a href="#Footnote_425_425" class="fnanchor">[425]</a> In his letters and his
+later articles he never mentions Malthus without abhorrence.<a name="FNanchor_426_426" id="FNanchor_426_426"></a><a href="#Footnote_426_426" class="fnanchor">[426]</a>
+Malthus, according to his article in the <i>Annual Review</i>, regards
+'vice' and 'misery' as desirable; thinks that the 'gratification of
+lust' is a 'physical necessity'; and attributes to the 'physical
+constitution of our nature' what should be ascribed to the 'existing
+system of society.' Malthus, that is, is a fatalist, a materialist,
+and an anarchist. His only remedy is to abolish the poor-rates, and
+starve the poor into celibacy. The folly and wickedness of the book
+have provoked him, he admits, to contemptuous indignation; and Malthus
+may be a good man personally. Still, the 'farthing candle' of
+Malthus's fame as a political philosopher must soon go out. So in the
+<i>Quarterly Review</i> Southey attributes the social evils to the
+disintegrating effect of the manufacturing system, of which Adam Smith
+was the 'tedious and hard-hearted' prophet. The excellent Malthus
+indeed becomes the 'hard-hearted' almost as Hooker was the
+'judicious.' This sufficiently represents the view of the sentimental
+Tory. Malthus, transformed into a monster, deserves the 'execrations'
+noticed by Chalmers. There is a thorough coincidence between this view
+and that of the sentimental Radicals. Southey observes that Malthus
+(as interpreted by him) does not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> really answer Godwin. Malthus argues
+that 'perfectibility' gives an impossible end because equality would
+lead to vice and misery. But why should we not suppose with Godwin a
+change of character which would imply prudence and chastity? Men as
+they are may be incapable of equality because they have brutal
+passions. But men as they are to be may cease to be brutal and become
+capable of equality. This, indeed, represents a serious criticism.
+What Malthus was really concerned to prove was that the social state
+and the corresponding character suppose each other; and that real
+improvement supposes that the individual must somehow acquire the
+instincts appropriate to an improved state. The difference between him
+and his opponents was that he emphasised the mischief of legislation,
+such as that embodied in the poor-law, which contemplated a forcible
+change, destroying poverty without raising the poor man's character.
+Such a rise required a long and difficult elaboration, and he
+therefore dwells mainly upon the folly of the legislative, unsupported
+by the moral, remedy. To Godwin, on the other hand, who professed an
+unlimited faith in the power of reason, this difficulty was
+comparatively unimportant. Remove political inequalities and men will
+spontaneously become virtuous and prudent.</p>
+
+<p>Godwin accordingly, when answering Dr. Parr and Mackintosh,<a name="FNanchor_427_427" id="FNanchor_427_427"></a><a href="#Footnote_427_427" class="fnanchor">[427]</a> in
+1801, welcomed Malthus's first version of the essay. He declares it to
+be as 'unquestionable an addition to the theory of political economy'
+as has been made by any writer for a century past; and 'admits<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> the
+ratios to their full extent.'<a name="FNanchor_428_428" id="FNanchor_428_428"></a><a href="#Footnote_428_428" class="fnanchor">[428]</a> In this philosophical spirit he
+proceeds to draw some rather startling conclusions. He hopes that, as
+mankind improves, such practices as infanticide will not be necessary;
+but he remarks that it would be happier for a child to perish in
+infancy than to spend seventy years in vice and misery.<a name="FNanchor_429_429" id="FNanchor_429_429"></a><a href="#Footnote_429_429" class="fnanchor">[429]</a> He refers
+to the inhabitants of Ceylon as a precedent for encouraging other
+practices restrictive of population. In short, though he hopes that
+such measures may be needless, he does not shrink from admitting their
+possible necessity. So far, then, Godwin and Malthus might form an
+alliance. Equality might be the goal of both; and both might admit the
+necessity of change in character as well as in the political
+framework; only that Malthus would lay more stress upon the evil of
+legislative changes outrunning or independent of moral change. Here,
+however, arose the real offence. Malthus had insisted upon the
+necessity of self-help. He had ridiculed the pretensions of government
+to fix the rate of wages; and had shown how the poor-laws defeated
+their own objects. This was the really offensive ground to the
+political Radicals. They had been in the habit of tracing all evils to
+the selfishness and rapacity of the rulers; pensions, sinecures,
+public debts, huge armies, profligate luxuries of all kinds, were the
+fruits of bad government and the true causes of poverty. Kings and
+priests were the harpies who had settled upon mankind, and were
+ruining their happiness. Malthus, they thought, was insinuating a base
+apology for rulers when he attributed the evil to the character of the
+subjects instead of attributing it to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> wickedness of their rulers.
+He was as bad as the old Tory, Johnson,<a name="FNanchor_430_430" id="FNanchor_430_430"></a><a href="#Footnote_430_430" class="fnanchor">[430]</a> exclaiming:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'How small of all that human hearts endure<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That part which kings and laws can cause or cure!'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>He was, they held, telling the tyrants that it was not their fault if
+the poor were miserable. The essay was thus an apology for the
+heartlessness of the rich. This view was set forth by Hazlitt in an
+attack upon Malthus in 1807.<a name="FNanchor_431_431" id="FNanchor_431_431"></a><a href="#Footnote_431_431" class="fnanchor">[431]</a> It appears again in the <i>Enquiry</i> by
+G. Ensor (1769-1843)&mdash;a vivacious though rather long-winded Irishman,
+who was known both to O'Connell and to Bentham.<a name="FNanchor_432_432" id="FNanchor_432_432"></a><a href="#Footnote_432_432" class="fnanchor">[432]</a> Godwin himself
+was roused by the appearance of the fifth edition of Malthus's <i>Essay</i>
+to write a reply, which appeared in 1820. He was helped by David Booth
+(1766-1846),<a name="FNanchor_433_433" id="FNanchor_433_433"></a><a href="#Footnote_433_433" class="fnanchor">[433]</a> a man of some mathematical and statistical
+knowledge. Hazlitt's performance is sufficiently significant of the
+general tendency. Hazlitt had been an enthusiastic admirer of Godwin,
+and retained as much of the enthusiasm as his wayward prejudices would
+allow. He was through life what may be called a sentimental Radical,
+so far as Radicalism was compatible with an ardent worship of
+Napoleon. To him Napoleon meant the enemy of Pitt and Liverpool and
+Castlereagh and the Holy Alliance. Hazlitt could forgive any policy
+which meant the humiliation of the men whom he most heartily hated.
+His attack upon Malthus was such as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> might satisfy even Cobbett, whose
+capacity for hatred, and especially for this particular object of
+hatred, was equal to Hazlitt's. The personal rancour of which Hazlitt
+was unfortunately capable leads to monstrous imputations. Not only
+does Malthus's essay show the 'little low rankling malice of a parish
+beadle ... disguised in the garb of philosophy,' and bury 'false
+logic' under 'a heap of garbled calculations,'<a name="FNanchor_434_434" id="FNanchor_434_434"></a><a href="#Footnote_434_434" class="fnanchor">[434]</a> and so forth; but
+he founds insinuations upon Malthus's argument as to the constancy of
+the sexual passion. Malthus, he fully believes, has none of the
+ordinary passions, anger, pride, avarice, or the like, but declares
+that he must be a slave to an 'amorous complexion,' and believe all
+other men to be made 'of the same combustible materials.'<a name="FNanchor_435_435" id="FNanchor_435_435"></a><a href="#Footnote_435_435" class="fnanchor">[435]</a> This
+foul blow is too characteristic of Hazlitt's usual method; but
+indicates also the tone which could be taken by contemporary
+journalism.</p>
+
+<p>The more serious argument is really that the second version of Malthus
+is an answer to his first. Briefly, the 'moral check' which came in
+only as a kind of afterthought is a normal part of the process by
+which population is kept within limits, and prevents the monstrous
+results of the 'geometrical ratio.' Hazlitt, after insisting upon
+this, admits that there is nothing in 'the general principles here
+stated that Mr. Malthus is at present disposed to deny, or that he has
+not himself expressly insisted upon in some part or other of his
+various works.'<a name="FNanchor_436_436" id="FNanchor_436_436"></a><a href="#Footnote_436_436" class="fnanchor">[436]</a> He only argues that Malthus's concessions are
+made at the cost of self-contradiction. Why then, it may be asked,
+should not Hazlitt take the position of an improver and harmoniser of
+the doctrine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> rather than of a fierce opponent? The answer has been
+already implied. He regards Malthus as an apologist for an unjust
+inequality. Malthus, he says, in classifying the evils of life, has
+'allotted to the poor all the misery, and to the rich as much vice as
+they please.'<a name="FNanchor_437_437" id="FNanchor_437_437"></a><a href="#Footnote_437_437" class="fnanchor">[437]</a> The check of starvation will keep down the numbers
+of the poor; and the check of luxury and profligacy will restrain the
+multiplication of the rich. 'The poor are to make a formal surrender
+of their right to provoke charity or parish assistance that the rich
+may be able to lay out all their money on their vices.'<a name="FNanchor_438_438" id="FNanchor_438_438"></a><a href="#Footnote_438_438" class="fnanchor">[438]</a> The
+misery of the lower orders is the result of the power of the upper. A
+man born into a world where he is not wanted has no right, said
+Malthus, to a share of the food. That might be true if the poor were a
+set of lazy supernumeraries living on the industrious. But the truth
+is that the poor man does the work, and is forced to put up in return
+with a part of the produce of his labour.<a name="FNanchor_439_439" id="FNanchor_439_439"></a><a href="#Footnote_439_439" class="fnanchor">[439]</a> The poor-laws recognise
+the principle that those who get all from the labour of others should
+provide from their superfluities for the necessities of those in
+want.<a name="FNanchor_440_440" id="FNanchor_440_440"></a><a href="#Footnote_440_440" class="fnanchor">[440]</a> The 'grinding necessity' of which Malthus had spoken does
+not raise but lower the standard; and a system of equality would
+lessen instead of increasing the pressure. Malthus, again, has
+proposed that parents should be responsible for their children. That
+is, says Hazlitt, Malthus would leave children to starvation, though
+he professes to disapprove infanticide. He would 'extinguish every
+spark of humanity ... towards the children of others' on pretence of
+preserving the 'ties of parental affection.' Malthus tries to argue
+that the 'iniquity of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> government' is not the cause of poverty. That
+belief, he says, has generated discontent and revolution. That is,
+says Hazlitt, the way to prevent revolutions and produce reforms is to
+persuade people that all the evils which government may inflict are
+their own fault. Government is to do as much mischief as it pleases,
+without being answerable for it.<a name="FNanchor_441_441" id="FNanchor_441_441"></a><a href="#Footnote_441_441" class="fnanchor">[441]</a> The poor-laws, as Hazlitt
+admits, are bad, but do not show the root of the evil. The evils are
+really due to increasing tyranny, dependence, indolence, and
+unhappiness due to other causes. Pauperism has increased because the
+government and the rich have had their way in everything. They have
+squandered our revenues, multiplied sinecures and pensions, doubled
+salaries, given monopolies and encouraged jobs, and depressed the poor
+and industrious. The 'poor create their own fund,' and the necessity
+for it has arisen from the exorbitant demands made by the rich.<a name="FNanchor_442_442" id="FNanchor_442_442"></a><a href="#Footnote_442_442" class="fnanchor">[442]</a>
+Malthus is a Blifil,<a name="FNanchor_443_443" id="FNanchor_443_443"></a><a href="#Footnote_443_443" class="fnanchor">[443]</a> hypocritically insinuating arguments in
+favour of tyranny under pretence of benevolence.</p>
+
+<p>Hazlitt's writing, although showing the passions of a bitter partisan,
+hits some of Malthus's rather cloudy argumentation. His successor,
+Ensor, representing the same view, finds an appropriate topic in the
+wrongs of Ireland. Irish poverty, he holds, is plainly due not to
+over-population but to under-government,<a name="FNanchor_444_444" id="FNanchor_444_444"></a><a href="#Footnote_444_444" class="fnanchor">[444]</a> meaning, we must
+suppose, misgovernment. But the same cause explains other cases. The
+'people are poor and are growing poorer,'<a name="FNanchor_445_445" id="FNanchor_445_445"></a><a href="#Footnote_445_445" class="fnanchor">[445]</a> and there is no mystery
+about it. The expense of a court, the waste of the profits and money<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>
+in the House of Commons, facts which are in striking contrast to the
+republican virtues of the United States, are enough to account for
+everything; and Malthus's whole aim is to 'calumniate the people.'
+Godwin in 1820 takes up the same taunts. Malthus ought, he thinks, to
+welcome war, famine, pestilence, and the gallows.<a name="FNanchor_446_446" id="FNanchor_446_446"></a><a href="#Footnote_446_446" class="fnanchor">[446]</a> He has taught
+the poor that they have no claim to relief, and the rich that, by
+indulging in vice, they are conferring a benefit upon the country. The
+poor-laws admit a right, and he taunts Malthus for proposing to
+abolish it, and refusing food to a poor man on the ground that he had
+notice not to come into the world two years before he was born.<a name="FNanchor_447_447" id="FNanchor_447_447"></a><a href="#Footnote_447_447" class="fnanchor">[447]</a></p>
+
+<p>Godwin, whose earlier atheism had been superseded by a vague deism,
+now thinks with Cobbett that the poor were supported by the piety of
+the medi&aelig;val clergy, who fed the hungry and clothed the naked from
+their vast revenues, while dooming themselves to spare living.<a name="FNanchor_448_448" id="FNanchor_448_448"></a><a href="#Footnote_448_448" class="fnanchor">[448]</a> He
+appeals to the authority of the Christian religion, which indeed might
+be a fair <i>argumentum ad hominem</i> against 'Parson Malthus.' He
+declares that Nature takes more care of her work than such irreverent
+authors suppose, and 'does not ask our aid to keep down the excess of
+population.'<a name="FNanchor_449_449" id="FNanchor_449_449"></a><a href="#Footnote_449_449" class="fnanchor">[449]</a> In fact, he doubts whether population increases at
+all. Malthus's whole theory, he says, rests upon the case of America;
+and with the help of Mr. Booth and some very unsatisfactory
+statistics, he tries to prove that the increase shown in the American
+census has been entirely due to immigration. Malthus safely declined
+to take any notice of a production which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> in fact shows that Godwin
+had lost his early vigour. The sound Utilitarian, Francis Place, took
+up the challenge, and exploded some of Godwin's statistics. He shows
+his Radicalism by admitting that Malthus, to whose general benevolence
+he does justice, had not spoken of the poor as one sprung like himself
+from the poor would naturally do; and he accepts modes of limiting the
+population from which Malthus himself had shrunk. For improvement, he
+looks chiefly to the abolition of restrictive laws.</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">II. SOCIALISM</p>
+
+<p>The arguments of Hazlitt and his allies bring us back to the Socialist
+position. Although it was represented by no writer of much literary
+position, Owen was becoming conspicuous, and some of his sympathisers
+were already laying down principles more familiar to-day. Already, in
+the days of the Six Acts, the government was alarmed by certain
+'Spencean Philanthropists.' According to Place they were a very feeble
+sect, numbering only about fifty, and perfectly harmless. Their
+prophet was a poor man called Thomas Spence (1750-1815),<a name="FNanchor_450_450" id="FNanchor_450_450"></a><a href="#Footnote_450_450" class="fnanchor">[450]</a> who had
+started as a schoolmaster, and in 1775 read a paper at Newcastle
+before a 'Philosophical Society.'<a name="FNanchor_451_451" id="FNanchor_451_451"></a><a href="#Footnote_451_451" class="fnanchor">[451]</a> He proposed that the land in
+every village should belong to all the inhabitants&mdash;a proposal which
+Mr. Hyndman regards as a prophecy of more thoroughgoing schemes of
+Land Nationalisation. Spence drifted to London, picked up a precarious
+living, partly by selling books of a revolutionary kind, and died<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> in
+1815, leaving, it seems, a few proselytes. A writer of higher literary
+capacity was Charles Hall, a physician at Tavistock, who in 1805
+published a book on <i>The Effects of Civilisation</i>.<a name="FNanchor_452_452" id="FNanchor_452_452"></a><a href="#Footnote_452_452" class="fnanchor">[452]</a> The effects of
+civilisation, he holds, are simply pernicious. Landed property
+originated in violence, and has caused all social evils. A great
+landlord consumes unproductively as much as would keep eight thousand
+people.<a name="FNanchor_453_453" id="FNanchor_453_453"></a><a href="#Footnote_453_453" class="fnanchor">[453]</a> He gets everything from the labour of the poor; while
+they are forced to starvation wages by the raising of rents. Trade and
+manufactures are equally mischievous. India gets nothing but jewellery
+from Europe, and Europe nothing but muslin from India, while so much
+less food is produced in either country.<a name="FNanchor_454_454" id="FNanchor_454_454"></a><a href="#Footnote_454_454" class="fnanchor">[454]</a> Manufactures generally
+are a cause and sign of the poverty of nations.<a name="FNanchor_455_455" id="FNanchor_455_455"></a><a href="#Footnote_455_455" class="fnanchor">[455]</a></p>
+
+<p>Such sporadic protests against the inequalities of wealth may be taken
+as parts of that 'ancient tale of wrong' which has in all ages been
+steaming up from the suffering world, and provoking a smile from
+epicurean deities. As Owenism advanced, the argument took a more
+distinct form. Mill<a name="FNanchor_456_456" id="FNanchor_456_456"></a><a href="#Footnote_456_456" class="fnanchor">[456]</a> mentions William Thompson of Cork as a 'very
+estimable man,' who was the 'principal champion' of the Owenites in
+their debates with the Benthamites. He published in 1824 a book upon
+the distribution of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> wealth.<a name="FNanchor_457_457" id="FNanchor_457_457"></a><a href="#Footnote_457_457" class="fnanchor">[457]</a> It is wordy, and is apt to remain in
+the region of 'vague generalities' just at the points where specific
+statements would be welcome. But besides the merit of obvious
+sincerity and good feeling, it has the interest of showing very
+clearly the relation between the opposing schools. Thompson had a
+common ground with the Utilitarians, though they undoubtedly would
+consider his logic to be loose and overridden by sentimentalism. In
+the first place, he heartily admired Bentham: 'the most profound and
+celebrated writer on legislation in this or any other country.'<a name="FNanchor_458_458" id="FNanchor_458_458"></a><a href="#Footnote_458_458" class="fnanchor">[458]</a>
+He accepts the 'greatest happiness principle' as applicable to the
+social problem. He argues for equality upon Bentham's ground. Take a
+penny from a poor man to give it to the rich man, and the poor man
+clearly loses far more happiness than the rich man gains. With
+Bentham, too, he admits the importance of 'security,' and agrees that
+it is not always compatible with equality. A man should have the
+fruits of his labour; and therefore the man who labours most should
+have most. But, unlike Bentham, he regards equality as more important
+than security. To him the main consideration is the monstrous mass of
+evil resulting from vast accumulations of wealth in a few hands. In
+the next place, he adapts to his own purpose the Ricardian theory of
+value. All value whatever, he argues, is created by labour. The
+labourer, he infers, should have the value which he creates. As things
+are, the labourer parts with most of it to the capitalist or the owner
+of rents. The capitalist claims a right to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> whole additional
+production due to the employment of capital. The labourer, on the
+other hand, may claim a right to the whole additional production,
+after replacing the wear and tear and allowing to the capitalist
+enough to support him in equal comfort with the productive
+labourers.<a name="FNanchor_459_459" id="FNanchor_459_459"></a><a href="#Footnote_459_459" class="fnanchor">[459]</a> Thompson holds that while either system would be
+compatible with 'security,' the labourer's demand is sanctioned by
+'equality.' In point of fact, neither system has been fully carried
+out; but the labourer's view would tend to prevail with the spread of
+knowledge and justice. While thus anticipating later Socialism, he
+differs on a significant point. Thompson insists upon the importance
+of 'voluntary exchange' as one of his first principles. No one is to
+be forced to take what he does not himself think a fair equivalent for
+his labour. Here, again, he would coincide with the Utilitarians.
+They, not less than he, were for free trade and the abolition of every
+kind of monopoly. But that view may lead by itself to the simple
+adoption of the do-nothing principle, or, as modern Socialists would
+say, to the more effectual plunder of the poor. The modern Socialist
+infers that the means of production must be in some way nationalised.
+Thompson does not contemplate such a consummation. He denounces, like
+all the Radicals of the day, monopolies and conspiracy laws. Sinecures
+and standing armies and State churches are the strongholds of tyranny
+and superstition. The 'hereditary possession of wealth' is one of the
+master-evils, and with sinecures will disappear the systems of entails
+and unequal distribution of inheritance.<a name="FNanchor_460_460" id="FNanchor_460_460"></a><a href="#Footnote_460_460" class="fnanchor">[460]</a> Such institutions have
+encouraged the use of fraud and force,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> and indirectly degraded the
+labourer into a helpless position. He would sweep them all away, and
+with them all disqualifications imposed upon women.<a name="FNanchor_461_461" id="FNanchor_461_461"></a><a href="#Footnote_461_461" class="fnanchor">[461]</a> This once
+done, it will be necessary to establish a universal and thoroughgoing
+system of education. Then the poor man, freed from the shackles of
+superstition and despotism, will be able to obtain his rights as
+knowledge and justice spread through the whole community. The desire
+to accumulate for selfish purposes will itself disappear. The labourer
+will get all that he creates; the aggregate wealth will be enormously
+multiplied, though universally diffused; and the form taken by the new
+society will, as he argues at great length, be that of voluntary
+co-operative associations upon Owen's principles.</p>
+
+<p>The economists would, of course, reject the theory that the
+capitalists should have no profits; but, in spite of this, they might
+agree to a great extent with Thompson's aspirations. Thompson,
+however, holds the true Socialist sentiment of aversion to Malthus. He
+denies energetically what he takes to be the Malthusian doctrine: that
+increased comfort will always produce increased numbers.<a name="FNanchor_462_462" id="FNanchor_462_462"></a><a href="#Footnote_462_462" class="fnanchor">[462]</a> This has
+been the 'grand scarecrow to frighten away all attempts at social
+improvement.' Thompson accordingly asserts that increased comfort
+always causes increased prudence ultimately; and looks forward to a
+stationary state in which the births will just balance the deaths. I
+need not inquire here which theory puts the cart before the horse. The
+opposition possibly admits of reconciliation; but here I only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> remark
+once more how Malthus stood for the appeal to hard facts which always
+provoked the Utopians as much as it corresponded to the stern
+Utilitarian view.</p>
+
+<p>Another writer, Thomas Hodgskin, honorary secretary of the Birkbeck
+Institution, who published a tract called <i>Labour defended against the
+Claims of Capital, or the Unproductiveness of Capital proved</i> (1825),
+and afterwards gave some popular lectures on political economy, has
+been noticed as anticipating Socialist ideas. He can see, he says, why
+something should go to the maker of a road and something be paid by
+the person who gets the benefit of it. But he does not see why the
+road itself should have anything.<a name="FNanchor_463_463" id="FNanchor_463_463"></a><a href="#Footnote_463_463" class="fnanchor">[463]</a> Hodgskin writes without
+bitterness, if without much logic. It is not for me to say whether
+modern Socialists are well advised in admitting that these crude
+suggestions were anticipations of their own ideas. The most natural
+inference would be that vague guesses about the wickedness of the rich
+have been in all ages current among the poor, and now and then take
+more pretentious form. Most men want very naturally to get as much and
+to work as little as they can, and call their desire a first principle
+of justice.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps, however, it is fairer to notice in how many points there was
+unconscious agreement; and how by converting very excellent maxims
+into absolute dogmas, from which a whole system was deducible, the
+theories appeared to be mutually contradictory, and, taken separately,
+became absurd. The palpable and admitted evil was the growth of
+pauperism and demoralisation of the labourer. The remedy, according to
+the Utilitarians, is to raise the sense of individual responsibility,
+to make<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> a man dependent upon his own exertions, and to give him
+security that he will enjoy their fruit. Let government give education
+on one hand and security on the other, and equality will follow in due
+time. The sentimental Radical naturally replies that leaving a man to
+starve does not necessarily make him industrious; that, in point of
+fact, great and growing inequality of wealth has resulted; and that
+the rights of man should be applied not only to political privilege,
+but to the possession of property. The Utilitarians have left out
+justice by putting equality in the background. Justice, as Bentham
+replied, has no meaning till you have settled by experience what laws
+will produce happiness; and your absolute equality would destroy the
+very mainspring of social improvement. Meanwhile the Conservative
+thinks that both parties are really fostering the evils by making
+individualism supreme, and that organisation is necessary to
+improvement; while one set of Radicals would perpetuate a mere blind
+struggle for existence, and the other enable the lowest class to
+enforce a dead level of ignorance and stupidity. They therefore call
+upon government to become paternal and active, and to teach not only
+morality but religion; and upon the aristocracy to discharge its
+functions worthily, in order to stamp out social evils and prevent a
+servile insurrection. But how was the actual government of George IV.
+and Sidmouth and Eldon to be converted to a sense of its duties? On
+each side appeal is made to a sweeping and absolute principle, and
+amazingly complex and difficult questions of fact are taken for
+granted. The Utilitarians were so far right that they appealed to
+experience, as, in fact, such questions have to be settled by the slow
+co-operation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> of many minds in many generations. Unfortunately the
+Utilitarians had, as we have seen, a very inadequate conception of
+what experience really meant, and were fully as rash and dogmatic as
+their opponents. I must now try to consider what were the intellectual
+conceptions implied by their mode of treating these problems.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_392_392" id="Footnote_392_392"></a><a href="#FNanchor_392_392"><span class="label">[392]</span></a> The discussions of population most frequently mentioned
+are:&mdash;W. Godwin, <i>Thoughts occasioned by Dr. Parr's Spital Sermon</i>,
+etc., 1801; R. Southey, in (Aikin's) <i>Annual Review for 1803</i>, pp.
+292-301; Thomas Jarrold, <i>Dissertations on Man</i>, etc., 1806; W.
+Hazlitt, <i>Reply to the Essay on Population</i>, 1807; A. Ingram,
+<i>Disquisitions on Population</i>, 1808; John Weyland, <i>Principles of
+Population</i>, etc., 1806; James Grahame, <i>Inquiry into the Principle of
+Population</i>, 1816; George Ensor, <i>Inquiry concerning the Population of
+Nations</i>, 1818; W. Godwin, <i>On Population</i>, 1820; Francis Place,
+<i>Principles of Population</i>, 1822; David Booth, <i>Letter to the Rev. T.
+R. Malthus</i>, 1823; M. T. Sadler, <i>Law of Population</i>, 1830; A. Alison,
+<i>Principles of Population</i>, 1840; T. Doubleday, <i>True Law of
+Population</i>, 1842.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_393_393" id="Footnote_393_393"></a><a href="#FNanchor_393_393"><span class="label">[393]</span></a> <i>Quarterly Review</i>, Dec. 1812 (reprinted in Southey's
+<i>Moral and Political Essays</i>, 1832).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_394_394" id="Footnote_394_394"></a><a href="#FNanchor_394_394"><span class="label">[394]</span></a> <i>Quarterly Review</i>, July 1817, by (Archbishop) Sumner,
+Malthus's commentator in the <i>Records of Creation</i>. Ricardo's <i>Letters
+to Trower</i>, p. 47.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_395_395" id="Footnote_395_395"></a><a href="#FNanchor_395_395"><span class="label">[395]</span></a> <i>Spence's Tracts on Political Economy</i> were collected
+with a preface in 1822. Spence is better known as an entomologist, and
+collaborated with William Kirby.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_396_396" id="Footnote_396_396"></a><a href="#FNanchor_396_396"><span class="label">[396]</span></a> <i>Tracts</i> (1822), p. xiii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_397_397" id="Footnote_397_397"></a><a href="#FNanchor_397_397"><span class="label">[397]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 59.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_398_398" id="Footnote_398_398"></a><a href="#FNanchor_398_398"><span class="label">[398]</span></a> Chalmers's <i>Works</i> were published in twenty-five
+volumes in 1841-42.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_399_399" id="Footnote_399_399"></a><a href="#FNanchor_399_399"><span class="label">[399]</span></a> Chalmers's <i>Works</i>, i. 237.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_400_400" id="Footnote_400_400"></a><a href="#FNanchor_400_400"><span class="label">[400]</span></a> This essay is not in his collected <i>Works</i>, though in
+vol. xxi. it is promised for the next volume.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_401_401" id="Footnote_401_401"></a><a href="#FNanchor_401_401"><span class="label">[401]</span></a> <i>Works</i>, xix. and xx.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_402_402" id="Footnote_402_402"></a><a href="#FNanchor_402_402"><span class="label">[402]</span></a> Mill's <i>Political Economy</i>, bk. i. ch. v. &sect; 7 and 8.
+See Chalmers, xix. 140.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_403_403" id="Footnote_403_403"></a><a href="#FNanchor_403_403"><span class="label">[403]</span></a> <i>National Resources</i> (Appendix).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_404_404" id="Footnote_404_404"></a><a href="#FNanchor_404_404"><span class="label">[404]</span></a> <i>Works</i>, xix. 306.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_405_405" id="Footnote_405_405"></a><a href="#FNanchor_405_405"><span class="label">[405]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> xix. 226, 233.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_406_406" id="Footnote_406_406"></a><a href="#FNanchor_406_406"><span class="label">[406]</span></a> <i>National Resources</i>, p. 48.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_407_407" id="Footnote_407_407"></a><a href="#FNanchor_407_407"><span class="label">[407]</span></a> <i>Works</i>, xix. 64.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_408_408" id="Footnote_408_408"></a><a href="#FNanchor_408_408"><span class="label">[408]</span></a> <i>Works</i>, xix. 226.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_409_409" id="Footnote_409_409"></a><a href="#FNanchor_409_409"><span class="label">[409]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> xix. 235.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_410_410" id="Footnote_410_410"></a><a href="#FNanchor_410_410"><span class="label">[410]</span></a> <i>National Resources</i>, p. 158.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_411_411" id="Footnote_411_411"></a><a href="#FNanchor_411_411"><span class="label">[411]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 160.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_412_412" id="Footnote_412_412"></a><a href="#FNanchor_412_412"><span class="label">[412]</span></a> <i>Works</i>, xix. 262.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_413_413" id="Footnote_413_413"></a><a href="#FNanchor_413_413"><span class="label">[413]</span></a> <i>Works</i>, xix. 75.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_414_414" id="Footnote_414_414"></a><a href="#FNanchor_414_414"><span class="label">[414]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> xix. 118-47.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_415_415" id="Footnote_415_415"></a><a href="#FNanchor_415_415"><span class="label">[415]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> xix. 343.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_416_416" id="Footnote_416_416"></a><a href="#FNanchor_416_416"><span class="label">[416]</span></a> See <i>Ibid.</i> xix. 171. J. S. Mill speaks of Chalmers's
+speculations with a respect which it is difficult to understand.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_417_417" id="Footnote_417_417"></a><a href="#FNanchor_417_417"><span class="label">[417]</span></a> Chalmers holds that the Ricardian doctrine of rent
+inverts the true order. Fertile lands do not pay rent because poor
+lands are brought into cultivation, but poor lands are cultivated
+because fertile lands pay rent. He apparently wishes, like Malthus, to
+regard rent as a blessing, not a curse. The point is not worth
+arguing. See <i>Works</i>, xix. 320.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_418_418" id="Footnote_418_418"></a><a href="#FNanchor_418_418"><span class="label">[418]</span></a> <i>Works</i>, xix. 304-5.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_419_419" id="Footnote_419_419"></a><a href="#FNanchor_419_419"><span class="label">[419]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> xix. 370.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_420_420" id="Footnote_420_420"></a><a href="#FNanchor_420_420"><span class="label">[420]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> xix. 366.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_421_421" id="Footnote_421_421"></a><a href="#FNanchor_421_421"><span class="label">[421]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> xix. 322.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_422_422" id="Footnote_422_422"></a><a href="#FNanchor_422_422"><span class="label">[422]</span></a> <i>Works</i>, xx. 247, 296.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_423_423" id="Footnote_423_423"></a><a href="#FNanchor_423_423"><span class="label">[423]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> xx. 290.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_424_424" id="Footnote_424_424"></a><a href="#FNanchor_424_424"><span class="label">[424]</span></a> <i>Works</i>, xix. 380.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_425_425" id="Footnote_425_425"></a><a href="#FNanchor_425_425"><span class="label">[425]</span></a> The copy of Malthus's second edition with Coleridge's
+notes used by Southey is in the British Museum.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_426_426" id="Footnote_426_426"></a><a href="#FNanchor_426_426"><span class="label">[426]</span></a> See Southey's <i>Political</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_427_427" id="Footnote_427_427"></a><a href="#FNanchor_427_427"><span class="label">[427]</span></a> <i>Thoughts occasioned by Dr. Parr's Spital Sermon.</i> A
+copy annotated by Coleridge is in the British Museum.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_428_428" id="Footnote_428_428"></a><a href="#FNanchor_428_428"><span class="label">[428]</span></a> <i>Thoughts</i>, etc., pp. 56, 61, 62.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_429_429" id="Footnote_429_429"></a><a href="#FNanchor_429_429"><span class="label">[429]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 71.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_430_430" id="Footnote_430_430"></a><a href="#FNanchor_430_430"><span class="label">[430]</span></a> Lines added to Goldsmith's <i>Traveller</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_431_431" id="Footnote_431_431"></a><a href="#FNanchor_431_431"><span class="label">[431]</span></a> <i>Reply to the Essay on Population</i>, etc., 1807. The
+book was anonymous. The first three letters had appeared in Cobbett's
+<i>Register</i>. Two others with an appendix are added.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_432_432" id="Footnote_432_432"></a><a href="#FNanchor_432_432"><span class="label">[432]</span></a> Bentham's <i>Works</i>, x. 603, 604; and <i>Dictionary of
+National Biography</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_433_433" id="Footnote_433_433"></a><a href="#FNanchor_433_433"><span class="label">[433]</span></a> See <i>Dictionary of National Biography</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_434_434" id="Footnote_434_434"></a><a href="#FNanchor_434_434"><span class="label">[434]</span></a> Hazlitt's <i>Reply</i>, p. 19.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_435_435" id="Footnote_435_435"></a><a href="#FNanchor_435_435"><span class="label">[435]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> pp. 139-41.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_436_436" id="Footnote_436_436"></a><a href="#FNanchor_436_436"><span class="label">[436]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 117.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_437_437" id="Footnote_437_437"></a><a href="#FNanchor_437_437"><span class="label">[437]</span></a> <i>Reply</i>, p. 263.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_438_438" id="Footnote_438_438"></a><a href="#FNanchor_438_438"><span class="label">[438]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 344.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_439_439" id="Footnote_439_439"></a><a href="#FNanchor_439_439"><span class="label">[439]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 284.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_440_440" id="Footnote_440_440"></a><a href="#FNanchor_440_440"><span class="label">[440]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 287.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_441_441" id="Footnote_441_441"></a><a href="#FNanchor_441_441"><span class="label">[441]</span></a> <i>Reply</i>, p. 351.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_442_442" id="Footnote_442_442"></a><a href="#FNanchor_442_442"><span class="label">[442]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> pp. 362-64.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_443_443" id="Footnote_443_443"></a><a href="#FNanchor_443_443"><span class="label">[443]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 352.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_444_444" id="Footnote_444_444"></a><a href="#FNanchor_444_444"><span class="label">[444]</span></a> Ensor's <i>Enquiry</i>, p. 294.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_445_445" id="Footnote_445_445"></a><a href="#FNanchor_445_445"><span class="label">[445]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 441.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_446_446" id="Footnote_446_446"></a><a href="#FNanchor_446_446"><span class="label">[446]</span></a> <i>Godwin on Population</i>, p. 506.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_447_447" id="Footnote_447_447"></a><a href="#FNanchor_447_447"><span class="label">[447]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 553.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_448_448" id="Footnote_448_448"></a><a href="#FNanchor_448_448"><span class="label">[448]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 558.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_449_449" id="Footnote_449_449"></a><a href="#FNanchor_449_449"><span class="label">[449]</span></a> Godwin, p. 219.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_450_450" id="Footnote_450_450"></a><a href="#FNanchor_450_450"><span class="label">[450]</span></a> See account of him reprinted from Mackenzie's <i>History
+of Newcastle</i> and <i>Dictionary of National Biography</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_451_451" id="Footnote_451_451"></a><a href="#FNanchor_451_451"><span class="label">[451]</span></a> Reprinted by Mr. Hyndman in 1822, with a preface.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_452_452" id="Footnote_452_452"></a><a href="#FNanchor_452_452"><span class="label">[452]</span></a> See <i>Dictionary of National Biography</i>. Hall's book was
+reprinted by J. M. Morgan in the 'Ph&oelig;nix Library,' 1850. See Anton
+Menger's <i>Das Recht auf den vollen Arbeitsertrag</i> (second edition,
+1891), for notices of Hall, Thompson, and others.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_453_453" id="Footnote_453_453"></a><a href="#FNanchor_453_453"><span class="label">[453]</span></a> <i>Effects of Civilisation</i> (1850), p. 86.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_454_454" id="Footnote_454_454"></a><a href="#FNanchor_454_454"><span class="label">[454]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 71.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_455_455" id="Footnote_455_455"></a><a href="#FNanchor_455_455"><span class="label">[455]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 115.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_456_456" id="Footnote_456_456"></a><a href="#FNanchor_456_456"><span class="label">[456]</span></a> <i>Autobiography</i>, p. 125. See Holyoake's <i>History of
+Co-operation</i>, i. 16, 109, 278-83, 348, for some interesting notices
+of Thompson. Menger (<i>Recht auf den vollen Arbeitsertrag</i>, p. 100
+<i>n.</i>) holds that Thompson not only anticipated but inspired Marx:
+Rodbertus, he says, drew chiefly upon St. Simon and Proudhon.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_457_457" id="Footnote_457_457"></a><a href="#FNanchor_457_457"><span class="label">[457]</span></a> <i>An Inquiry into the Principles of the Distribution of
+Wealth most conducive to Human Happiness; applied to the Newly
+Proposed System of Voluntary Equality of Wealth.</i>&mdash;1824.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_458_458" id="Footnote_458_458"></a><a href="#FNanchor_458_458"><span class="label">[458]</span></a> <i>Distribution of Wealth</i>, p. 327.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_459_459" id="Footnote_459_459"></a><a href="#FNanchor_459_459"><span class="label">[459]</span></a> <i>Distribution of Wealth</i>, p. 167, etc.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_460_460" id="Footnote_460_460"></a><a href="#FNanchor_460_460"><span class="label">[460]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 310.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_461_461" id="Footnote_461_461"></a><a href="#FNanchor_461_461"><span class="label">[461]</span></a> He wrote, as J. S. Mill observes, an <i>Appeal</i> [1825]
+against James Mill's views on this matter&mdash;a fact which no doubt
+commended him to the son.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_462_462" id="Footnote_462_462"></a><a href="#FNanchor_462_462"><span class="label">[462]</span></a> <i>Distribution of Wealth</i>, pp. 425, 535, etc.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_463_463" id="Footnote_463_463"></a><a href="#FNanchor_463_463"><span class="label">[463]</span></a> <i>Labour Defended</i>, p. 16.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span></p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<p class="subhead1">PSYCHOLOGY</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">I. THOMAS BROWN</p>
+
+<p>The politicians and economists, of whom I have spoken, took first
+principles for granted. The intellectual temperament, which made
+certain methods congenial to them, would no doubt have led them to an
+analogous position in philosophy. Bentham had touched upon
+philosophical points in a summary way, and James Mill, as we shall
+see, gave a more explicit statement. But such men as Ricardo and
+Malthus had no systematic philosophy, though a certain philosophy was
+congenial to their methods. Desire to reach a solid groundwork of
+fact, hearty aversion to mere word-juggling, and to effeminate
+sentimentalism, respect for science and indifference to, if not
+contempt for, poetry, resolution to approve no laws or institutions
+which could not be supported on plain grounds of utility, and to
+accept no theory which could not be firmly based on verifiable
+experience, imply moral and intellectual tendencies, in which we may
+perhaps say that the Utilitarians represent some of the strongest and
+most valuable qualities of the national character. Taking these
+qualities for granted, let us consider how the ultimate problems
+presented themselves to the school thus distinguished.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p><p>I have already observed that the Scottish philosophy, taught by Reid
+and Dugald Stewart, represented the only approach to a living
+philosophical system in these islands at the beginning of the century.
+It held this position for a long period. Mill, who had heard Dugald
+Stewart's lectures, knew nothing of German thought. He was well read
+in French philosophers, and in harmony with one leading sect. The
+so-called <i>id&eacute;ologues</i>,<a name="FNanchor_464_464" id="FNanchor_464_464"></a><a href="#Footnote_464_464" class="fnanchor">[464]</a> who regarded Condillac as representing
+the true line of intellectual progress, were in France the analogues
+of the English Utilitarians. Destutt de Tracy and Cabanis were their
+most conspicuous leaders in this generation. The philosophy of Reid
+and Stewart crossed the channel, and supplied the first assailants of
+the <i>id&eacute;ologues</i> with their controversial weapons. Thus, until the
+German influence came to modify the whole controversy, the vital issue
+seemed to lie between the doctrine of Reid or 'intuitionism' on the
+one hand, and the purely 'experiential' school on the other, whether,
+as in France, it followed Condillac, or, as in England, looked back
+chiefly to Hartley. Both sections traced their intellectual ancestry
+to Locke and Hobbes, with some reference to Bacon, and, by the French
+writers, to Descartes. Stewart, again, as I have said, was the
+accepted Whig philosopher. It is true that the Whig sat habitually in
+the seat of Gallio. Jeffrey, whether he fully realised the fact or
+not, was at bottom a sceptic in philosophy as in politics. John Allen,
+the prophet of Holland House, was a thorough sceptic, and says<a name="FNanchor_465_465" id="FNanchor_465_465"></a><a href="#Footnote_465_465" class="fnanchor">[465]</a>
+that Horner, one of Stewart's personal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> admirers, was really a
+follower of Hume. The Whigs were inclined to Shaftesbury's doctrine
+that sensible men had all one religion, and that sensible men never
+said what it was. Those who had a more definite and avowable creed
+were content to follow Stewart's amiable philosophising. Brougham
+professed, let us hope, sincerely, to be an orthodox theist, and
+explained the argument from design in a commentary upon Paley. Sydney
+Smith expounded Reid and Stewart in lectures which showed at least
+that he was still a wit when talking 'philosophy' at the Royal
+Institution; and, though he hated 'enthusiasm' in dissenters,
+evangelicals, and tractarians, and kept religion strictly in its
+place&mdash;a place well outside of practical politics&mdash;managed to preach a
+wholesome, commonplace morality in terms of Christian theology. The
+difference between the Whig and the Radical temper showed itself in
+philosophical as in political questions. The Radical prided himself on
+being logical and thoroughgoing, while the Whig loved compromise, and
+thought that logic was very apt to be a nuisance. The systematic
+reticence which the Utilitarians held to be necessary prevented this
+contrast from showing itself distinctly on the surface. The
+Utilitarians, however, though they avoided such outspoken scepticism
+as would startle the public, indicated quite sufficiently to the
+initiated their essential position. It implied what they fully
+recognised in private conversation&mdash;a complete abandonment of
+theology. They left the obvious inferences to be drawn by others. In
+philosophy they could speak out in a well-founded confidence that few
+people were able to draw inferences. I will begin by considering the
+doctrine against which they protested;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> for the antagonism reveals, I
+think, the key to their position.</p>
+
+<p>When Stewart was obliged by infirmity to retire from the active
+discharge of his duties, he was succeeded by Thomas Brown (1778-1820).
+Brown had shown early precocity, and at the age of fifteen had
+attracted Stewart's notice by some remarks on a psychological point.
+He published at twenty a criticism of Darwin's <i>Zoonomia</i>, and he
+became one of the <i>Edinburgh Review</i> circle. When the <i>Review</i> was
+started he contributed an article upon Kant. In those happy days it
+was so far from necessary to prepare oneself for such a task by
+studying a library of commentators that the young reviewer could
+frankly admit his whole knowledge to be derived from Villers'
+<i>Philosophie de Kant</i> (1801).<a name="FNanchor_466_466" id="FNanchor_466_466"></a><a href="#Footnote_466_466" class="fnanchor">[466]</a> Soon afterwards he took an
+important share in a once famous controversy. John Leslie, just
+elected to the mathematical chair at Edinburgh, was accused of having
+written favourably of Hume's theory of causation. Whigs and Tories
+took this up as a party question,<a name="FNanchor_467_467" id="FNanchor_467_467"></a><a href="#Footnote_467_467" class="fnanchor">[467]</a> and Brown undertook to explain
+in a pamphlet what Hume's theory was, and to show that it did not lead
+to atheism. Leslie's friends triumphed, though it does not appear how
+far Brown's arguments contributed to their success. The pamphlet was
+rewritten and enlarged, and a third<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> edition of 1818 gives a full
+exposition of his theory. Brown had meanwhile become Stewart's leading
+disciple, and in 1810 was elected to be his colleague. Brown held the
+position, doing all the active duties, until his premature death in
+1820. Brown, according to his biographer, wrote his lectures
+immediately before delivery, and completed them during his first two
+years of office. His theories, as well as his words, were often,
+according to the same authority, extemporised. Brown found that he
+could not improve what he had written under 'very powerful
+excitement.' Moreover, he had an unlucky belief that he was a poet.
+From 1814 till 1819 he brought out yearly what he supposed to be a
+poem. These productions, the <i>Paradise of Coquets</i> and the rest, are
+in the old-fashioned taste, and have long passed into oblivion.</p>
+
+<p>The lectures, published posthumously, became a text-book for students,
+and reached a nineteenth edition in 1851. Their faults, considered as
+philosophical treatises, are palpable. They have the wordiness of
+hasty composition, and the discursive rhetoric intended to catch the
+attention of an indolent audience. Brown does not see that he is
+insulting his hearers when he apologises for introducing logic into
+lectures upon metaphysics, and indemnifies them by quotations from
+Akenside and the <i>Essay on Man</i>. Brown, however, showed great
+acuteness and originality. He made deviations, and took pains to mark
+his deviations, from Reid, though he spoke more guardedly of his own
+friend, Stewart. Stewart, who had strongly supported Brown's election,
+was shocked when, on the publication of the lectures, he came to
+discover that his colleague had been preaching<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> heresy, and wrote with
+obvious annoyance of Brown's hastiness and dangerous concessions to
+the enemy.<a name="FNanchor_468_468" id="FNanchor_468_468"></a><a href="#Footnote_468_468" class="fnanchor">[468]</a> Brown, however, impressed his contemporaries by his
+ability. Sydney Smith is probably reporting the current judgment of
+his own circle when he says<a name="FNanchor_469_469" id="FNanchor_469_469"></a><a href="#Footnote_469_469" class="fnanchor">[469]</a> that in metaphysics Stewart was a
+'humbug' compared with Brown. I certainly think that Stewart, whom I
+should be sorry to call a humbug, shows less vigour and subtlety.
+Brown, at any rate, impressed both the Mills, and his relation to them
+is significant.</p>
+
+<p>Brown's essay upon Causation indicates this relation. In this, indeed,
+there is little, if any, divergence from Stewart, though he attacks
+Reid with considerable asperity. He urges that Reid, while really
+agreeing with Hume, affected to answer him under cover of merely
+verbal distinctions.<a name="FNanchor_470_470" id="FNanchor_470_470"></a><a href="#Footnote_470_470" class="fnanchor">[470]</a> The main point is simple. Hume had asserted
+that all events seem to be 'entirely loose and separate,' or, in other
+words, 'conjoined but never connected.' Yet he points out that, in
+fact, when we have found two events to be 'conjoined,' we call one
+cause and the other effect, and assume a 'necessary connection'
+between them. He then asks, What is the origin of this belief, and
+what, therefore, is the logical warrant for its validity? Brown
+entirely accepts Hume's statement of the facts. The real meaning of
+our statements is evaded by appealing to the conception of 'power.'
+When the loadstone (in his favourite illustration) attracts the iron,
+we say it has a 'power' of attracting iron. But to speak thus of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> a
+power is simply to describe the same facts in other words. We assert
+this, and nothing more than this, that when the loadstone comes near
+the iron, each moves towards the other. 'Power' is a word which only
+covers a statement of 'invariable antecedence.' Brown traces the
+various confusions which have obscured the true nature of this belief.
+He insists especially that we can no more discover power in mental
+than in physical sequences. The will had been supposed to be the type
+of causal power; but volition, according to Brown, reveals simply
+another succession of desires and bodily actions. The hypothesis of
+'power' has been really the source of 'illusion.' The tendency to
+personify leads us to convert metaphor into fact, to invent a subject
+of this imaginary 'power,' and thus to create a mythology of beings to
+carry on the processes of nature. In other words, Brown here follows
+Hume or even anticipates Comte. As J. S. Mill remarks,<a name="FNanchor_471_471" id="FNanchor_471_471"></a><a href="#Footnote_471_471" class="fnanchor">[471]</a> this
+erroneous identification of 'power' with 'will' gives the
+'psychological rationale of Comte's great historical generalisation';
+and, so far, Brown, as a follower of Hume, is clearly on the way to
+positivism.</p>
+
+<p>The world, then, is a vast aggregate of 'loose' phenomena. A
+contemplation of things reveals no reason for one order rather than
+another. You may look at your loadstone as long as you please, but you
+will find no reason for its attracting iron. You may indeed
+interpolate a number of minute intervening sequences, and the process
+often suggests a vague something more than sequence; but this is a
+mere illusion.<a name="FNanchor_472_472" id="FNanchor_472_472"></a><a href="#Footnote_472_472" class="fnanchor">[472]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> Could we, in fact, see all the minute changes in
+bodies we should actually perceive that cause means nothing but 'the
+immediate invariable antecedence of an event.'<a name="FNanchor_473_473" id="FNanchor_473_473"></a><a href="#Footnote_473_473" class="fnanchor">[473]</a> Brown especially
+argues against the attempts of d'Alembert and Euler to deduce the
+first laws of motion from the principle of 'sufficient reason.'<a name="FNanchor_474_474" id="FNanchor_474_474"></a><a href="#Footnote_474_474" class="fnanchor">[474]</a>
+That, as he argues in detail, is merely begging the question, by
+introducing the principle of causation under an alias.</p>
+
+<p>What, then, is the principle? We believe, he says,<a name="FNanchor_475_475" id="FNanchor_475_475"></a><a href="#Footnote_475_475" class="fnanchor">[475]</a> that 'every
+event must have a cause,' and that circumstances exactly 'similar must
+have results exactly similar.' This belief, though applicable to all
+events, does not give us the 'slightest aid' to determining,
+independently of experience, any particular event. We observe that B
+follows A, but, for all we can say, it might as well follow any other
+letter of the alphabet. Yet we are entitled to say in general that it
+does uniformly follow some particular letter. The metaphor which
+describes cause and effect as a 'bond' tying A and B together is
+perfectly appropriate if taken to express the bare fact of
+sequence;<a name="FNanchor_476_476" id="FNanchor_476_476"></a><a href="#Footnote_476_476" class="fnanchor">[476]</a> but we fall into error if we fancy there is really any
+bond whatever beside the events themselves.</p>
+
+<p>The belief, then, in causation has precisely the same import according
+to Hume and Brown; and both agree that it is not produced by
+'reasoning.' The proposition 'B has once succeeded A,' or 'has
+succeeded A a thousand times,' is entirely different from the
+proposition 'B will for ever succeed A.'<a name="FNanchor_477_477" id="FNanchor_477_477"></a><a href="#Footnote_477_477" class="fnanchor">[477]</a> No process of logical
+inference can extract one from the other. Shall we, then, give up a
+belief in causation? The belief in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> any case exists as a fact. Hume
+explains it by custom or association. Brown argues, and I think with
+much force, that Hume's explanation is insufficient. Association may
+explain (if it does more than restate) the fact that one 'idea' calls
+up another idea, but such association may and often does occur without
+suggesting any belief. The belief, too, precedes the association. We
+begin by believing too much, not too little, and assume a necessary
+connection of many phenomena which we afterwards find to be
+independent. The true answer is therefore different. There are three
+sources of belief, 'perception,' 'reasoning,' and 'intuition.'<a name="FNanchor_478_478" id="FNanchor_478_478"></a><a href="#Footnote_478_478" class="fnanchor">[478]</a>
+Now, we cannot 'perceive' anything but a present coincidence; neither
+can we establish a connection by any process of 'reasoning,' and
+therefore the belief must be an 'intuition.' This, accordingly, is
+Brown's conclusion. 'There are principles,' he says, 'independent of
+reasoning, in the mind which save it from the occasional follies of
+all our ratiocinations';<a name="FNanchor_479_479" id="FNanchor_479_479"></a><a href="#Footnote_479_479" class="fnanchor">[479]</a> or rather, as he explains, which
+underlie all reasoning. The difference, then, between Hume and Brown
+(and, as Brown argues, between Hume and Reid's real doctrine) is not
+as to the import, but as to the origin, of the belief. It is an
+'intuition' simply because it cannot be further analysed. It does not
+allow us to pass a single step beyond experience; it merely authorises
+us to interpret experience. We can discover any actual law of
+connection between phenomena only by observing that they occur in
+succession.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> We cannot get beyond or behind the facts&mdash;and therefore
+intuitionism in this sense is not opposed to empiricism, but a warrant
+for empirical conclusions. An 'intuition,' briefly, is an unanalysable
+belief. Brown asserts that a certain element of thought has not been
+explained, and assumes it to be therefore inexplicable or ultimate.
+Brown's account of causation had a great influence upon both the
+Mills, and especially affected the teaching of the younger Mill.</p>
+
+<p>Another point is important. Reid, as I have said, had specially prided
+himself upon his supposed overthrow of Berkeley's idealism. He was
+considered to have shown, in spite of sceptics, that the common belief
+in an external world was reasonable. Brown in his lectures ridiculed
+Reid's claim. This 'mighty achievement,' the 'supposed overthrow of a
+great system,' was 'nothing more than the proof that certain phrases
+are metaphorical, which were intended by their authors to be
+understood <i>only</i> as metaphors.'<a name="FNanchor_480_480" id="FNanchor_480_480"></a><a href="#Footnote_480_480" class="fnanchor">[480]</a> The theory was dead before Reid
+slew it, though the phrases were still used as a mere 'relic,' or
+survival of an obsolete doctrine.<a name="FNanchor_481_481" id="FNanchor_481_481"></a><a href="#Footnote_481_481" class="fnanchor">[481]</a> The impossibility of
+constructing extension out of our sensations is the <i>experimentum
+crucis</i> upon which Reid was ready to stake his case. If the attempt at
+such a construction could succeed, he would 'lay his hand upon his
+mouth' and give up the argument.<a name="FNanchor_482_482" id="FNanchor_482_482"></a><a href="#Footnote_482_482" class="fnanchor">[482]</a> Brown takes up the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> challenge
+thus thrown out. He holds that our knowledge of an external world is
+derived from a source which Reid overlooked. He modifies the Scottish
+psychology by introducing the muscular senses. His theory is that the
+infant which has learned to move discovers that on some occasions its
+movements are modified by a sense of 'impeded effort.'<a name="FNanchor_483_483" id="FNanchor_483_483"></a><a href="#Footnote_483_483" class="fnanchor">[483]</a> The sudden
+interruption to a well-known series excites in its mind the notion of
+'a cause which is not in itself.' This is the source of our belief in
+an external world. That belief is essentially the belief in some cause
+which we know to be other than our own mental constitution or the
+series of 'internal' phenomena, and of which we can know nothing else.
+It is enough to indicate a theory which has been elaborated by later
+psychologists, and plays a great part (for example) in the theories of
+Mill, Bain, and Mr. Herbert Spencer. It shows the real tendency of
+Brown's speculations. In the first place, it must be noticed that the
+theory itself had been already emphatically stated by Destutt de
+Tracy. Hamilton accuses Brown of plagiarism.<a name="FNanchor_484_484" id="FNanchor_484_484"></a><a href="#Footnote_484_484" class="fnanchor">[484]</a> Whether his
+accusation be justifiable or not, it is certainly true that Brown had
+in some way reached the same principles which had been already set
+forth by a leading 'ideologist.' Brown, that is, though the official
+exponent of the Scottish philosophy,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> was in this philosophical tenet
+at one with the school which they regarded as materialistic or
+sceptical. The path by which he reaches his conclusions is also
+characteristic.</p>
+
+<p>Brown has reversed the interpretation of Reid's <i>experimentum crucis</i>.
+I will give up my case, says Reid, if you can make the external world
+out of sensations. That, replies Brown, is precisely what we can do.
+How from sensations do we get what Berkeley called 'outness'? We get
+it, says Brown, from the sense of resistance or 'impeded effort.' That
+reveals to us the fact that there is something independent of
+ourselves, and the belief in such a something is precisely what we
+mean, and all that we mean, by the belief in an external world.
+Consistently with this, Brown rejects Reid's distinction between the
+primary and secondary qualities. The distinction corresponds no doubt
+to some real differences, but there is no difference of the kind
+suggested by Reid. 'All [the qualities] are relative and equally
+relative&mdash;our perception of extension and resistance as much as our
+perception of fragrance and bitterness.'<a name="FNanchor_485_485" id="FNanchor_485_485"></a><a href="#Footnote_485_485" class="fnanchor">[485]</a> We ascribe the
+sensations to 'external objects,' but the objects are only known by
+the 'medium' of our sensations. In other words, the whole world may be
+regarded as a set of sensations, whether of sight, smell, touch, or
+resistance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> to muscular movement, accompanied by the belief that they
+are caused by something not ourselves, and of which something we can
+only say that it is not ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>Once more, the analysis of the process by which the belief is
+generated is significant. From resistance, or the sensation produced
+when something 'resists our attempts to grasp it,' we get the
+'outness.' Then perception is 'nothing more than the association of
+this complex notion with our other sensations&mdash;the notion of something
+extended and resisting, suggested by these sensations, when the
+suggestions themselves have previously arisen, and suggested in the
+same manner and on the same principle as any other associate feeling
+suggests any other associate feeling.'<a name="FNanchor_486_486" id="FNanchor_486_486"></a><a href="#Footnote_486_486" class="fnanchor">[486]</a> The odour or colour of a
+rose recalls the sensation of touching and of resistance to our grasp.
+Thus we regard the whole group of sensations as due to the external
+cause which produces the sensation of resistance. Brown seems to
+hesitate a little as to whether he shall appeal to an 'intuition' or
+to 'association,' but 'as I rather think,' he says, the belief is
+founded 'on associations as powerful as intuition.'<a name="FNanchor_487_487" id="FNanchor_487_487"></a><a href="#Footnote_487_487" class="fnanchor">[487]</a></p>
+
+<p>Whatever, then, may be the origin of the belief&mdash;'intuition' or
+'association'&mdash;it is clear that it can give us no knowledge except
+such as is derived from sensations. Moreover, Brown is thus led, as in
+the doctrine of causation, to accept a really sceptical position. He
+declares that he is in this respect at one with both Reid and Hume.
+They both accept two propositions: first, that we cannot 'by mere
+reasoning' prove the existence of an external world; secondly, that it
+is 'absolutely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> impossible for us not to believe' in its existence.
+Hume, he says, pronounces the first proposition in a 'loud tone
+of voice' and 'whispers' the second. Reid, conversely, passes
+over the first rapidly and 'dwells on the second with a tone of
+confidence.'<a name="FNanchor_488_488" id="FNanchor_488_488"></a><a href="#Footnote_488_488" class="fnanchor">[488]</a> Brown accepts both statements. He has already said
+that there is no argument against Berkeley's denial of matter any more
+than against the 'infinite divisibility of matter.' But he adds, it is
+'physically impossible' for us to admit the conclusion, at least
+without 'an instant dissent from a momentary logical admission.'<a name="FNanchor_489_489" id="FNanchor_489_489"></a><a href="#Footnote_489_489" class="fnanchor">[489]</a>
+This, indeed, is but a version of Hume's familiar statement that
+Berkeley's arguments admit of no reply and produce no conviction.</p>
+
+<p>Another essential doctrine of the Mills, the 'association' theory, is
+treated differently by Brown. Brown, as we have seen, both in his
+theory of causation and in his theory of our belief in an external
+world, speaks of principles in the mind which somehow override
+'ratiocination.' In the first case, he speaks of 'intuition,' but in
+the other, as I have said, he seems to prefer association. The
+difference is remarkable because the belief in an external world is
+upon his showing simply a case of causation. It means essentially the
+reference of our sensations as to an external cause. Now, in the
+argument upon causation, he has insisted upon the insufficiency of
+association to generate the belief; and he would have found it
+difficult to meet his own arguments if applied to the belief in an
+external world. Yet it does not seem to occur to him that there is any
+difficulty in explaining this belief in an external<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> world as a case
+of what Mill called 'indissoluble association.' Brown, as Mill
+thought, was not sufficiently aware of the power of this principle,
+and the difference between them is marked by this divergence. Brown
+had a great deal to say about association, though he chose generally
+to substitute the word 'suggestion,' previously familiar to Reid and
+Berkeley.<a name="FNanchor_490_490" id="FNanchor_490_490"></a><a href="#Footnote_490_490" class="fnanchor">[490]</a> He considers it, however, mainly in another relation.
+He proposes to trace the order in which 'trains' of ideas succeed each
+other in our minds. He does not dwell upon the influence of
+association in producing belief. His question is not primarily as to
+the logic, but as to the actual succession of our thoughts. He
+explains that he uses the word 'suggestion' in order to avoid the
+hypothesis that the sequence of two ideas necessarily implies a
+previous state of mind in which they were brought together; and
+endeavours to explain various cases (as, for example, association by
+'contrast' as well as by 'likeness' or 'continuity') by a more
+'subtile' analysis.<a name="FNanchor_491_491" id="FNanchor_491_491"></a><a href="#Footnote_491_491" class="fnanchor">[491]</a> He then works out an elaborate theory of
+'simple' and 'relative' suggestion. Simple 'suggestion'<a name="FNanchor_492_492" id="FNanchor_492_492"></a><a href="#Footnote_492_492" class="fnanchor">[492]</a>
+corresponds mainly to ordinary association, as when a friend's name or
+his book calls up the thought of the man himself. 'Relative
+suggestion' arises when two or more objects are perceived and suggest
+various relations of likeness and so forth.<a name="FNanchor_493_493" id="FNanchor_493_493"></a><a href="#Footnote_493_493" class="fnanchor">[493]</a> This provides a
+scheme for working out the whole doctrine of the sequences of ideas so
+far as the sequences depend upon the mind itself and not upon external
+causes. It thus leads to problems of abstraction and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> generalisation
+and to his whole theory of what he calls the 'intellectual states.' He
+again closely coincides with the French ideologists. He starts by
+examining Locke and Condillac. He of course professes to hold that
+Condillac's version of Locke is illegitimate, and ridicules the famous
+formula <i>penser c'est sentir</i>. He is, however, equally unwilling to
+admit Reid's 'variety of powers.'<a name="FNanchor_494_494" id="FNanchor_494_494"></a><a href="#Footnote_494_494" class="fnanchor">[494]</a> In fact, his criticism of
+Condillac shows more affinity than contrast. Condillac erred, he says,
+in holding that thoughts are 'transformed sensations.' This was a
+false simplification into which he considers Condillac to have been
+led partly by the ambiguity of the word <i>sentir</i>.<a name="FNanchor_495_495" id="FNanchor_495_495"></a><a href="#Footnote_495_495" class="fnanchor">[495]</a> Condillac
+applied to the mind the theory, true in 'the chemistry of the material
+chemists,' that the 'compounds are the elements themselves.'<a name="FNanchor_496_496" id="FNanchor_496_496"></a><a href="#Footnote_496_496" class="fnanchor">[496]</a> He
+errs when he infers from the analogy that a feeling which arises out
+of others can be resolved into them. 'Love and hate' and other
+emotions are fundamentally different from the sensations by which they
+are occasioned, not mere 'transformations' of those sensations. We, on
+the other hand (that is to say, Reid and Stewart), have erred by
+excessive amplification. Instead of identifying different things, we
+have admitted a superfluous number of 'ultimate principles.'</p>
+
+<p>The result is that besides the original sensations, we have to
+consider a number of feelings, which, while essentially different, are
+'suggested' or caused by them. These are parts of the whole
+intellectual construction, and, though not transformed sensations, are
+still 'feelings' arising in consequence of the sensations. They are
+parts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> of the 'trains' or sequences of 'ideas.' It is accordingly
+characteristic of Brown that he habitually describes an intellectual
+process as a 'feeling.' The statement of a mathematical proportion,
+for example, is a case of 'relative suggestion.' When we consider
+two numbers together we have a '<i>feeling</i> of the relation of
+proportion.'<a name="FNanchor_497_497" id="FNanchor_497_497"></a><a href="#Footnote_497_497" class="fnanchor">[497]</a> The 'profoundest reasonings' are 'nothing more than
+a continued analysis of our thought,' by which we resolve the 'complex
+<i>feelings</i> of our minds' into the simpler conceptions out of which
+they were constructed.<a name="FNanchor_498_498" id="FNanchor_498_498"></a><a href="#Footnote_498_498" class="fnanchor">[498]</a> In other words, Brown, it would seem,
+really accepts the <i>penser c'est sentir</i>, only that he regards the
+<i>sentir</i> as including separate classes of feeling, which cannot be
+regarded as simple 'transformations' of sensation. They are 'states of
+the mind' caused by, that is, invariably following upon, the simpler
+states, and, of course, combining in an endless variety of different
+forms. Reasoning is nothing more than a series of relative
+'suggestions of which the separate subjects are felt by us to be
+mutually related.'<a name="FNanchor_499_499" id="FNanchor_499_499"></a><a href="#Footnote_499_499" class="fnanchor">[499]</a> Hence, too, arises his theory of
+generalisation. He is, he says, not a 'nominalist' but a
+'conceptualist,' and here, for once, agrees with Reid as against
+Stewart.<a name="FNanchor_500_500" id="FNanchor_500_500"></a><a href="#Footnote_500_500" class="fnanchor">[500]</a> The 'general term,' according to him, expresses the
+'feeling or general notion of resemblance,' which arises upon a
+contemplation of two objects. 'In Nature,' as he observes
+elsewhere,<a name="FNanchor_501_501" id="FNanchor_501_501"></a><a href="#Footnote_501_501" class="fnanchor">[501]</a> 'there are no classes,' but the observation of a
+number of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> particular cases and a certain feeling to which we give a
+name. Here, again, Brown's view coincides with that of his French
+contemporaries.</p>
+
+<p>We may then say briefly that Brown carries out in his own fashion the
+conception of psychology which makes it an inductive science parallel
+to the physical sciences, and to be pursued by the same methods. We
+have to do with 'feelings' instead of atoms, and with mental instead
+of 'material' chemistry. Our sole method is still an analysis such as
+guides us in unravelling complex physical phenomena. We have, indeed,
+to admit certain first truths&mdash;the belief in our own identity is one
+of them&mdash;which are necessary to our very existence, although the
+assertion of such principles was carried to an extravagant and
+ridiculous length 'by Reid and some of his friends.' When, however, we
+come to ask what these principles are, it must be admitted that they
+are very innocent. They are not dangerous things, like 'innate ideas,'
+capable of leading us to a transcendental world, but simply assertions
+that we are warranted in trusting our sensations and applying a
+thoroughly inductive and empirical method. They are the cement which
+joins the feelings, and which, as Mill thought, could be supplanted by
+'indissoluble associations.' The indefinite power thus attributed to
+association became, as we shall see, Mill's most characteristic
+doctrine. Meanwhile, I will only mention one inference which
+illustrates Brown's philosophical tendencies. Stewart had spoken
+doubtfully of the ontological argument for theology. Brown throws it
+over altogether. He does not even change it into an 'intuition.' He
+has always, he says, regarded it as 'absolutely void of force' unless
+it tacitly assumes the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> 'physical argument.' Nay, it is one proof of
+the force of this physical argument that it has saved us from doubts
+which would be rather strengthened than weakened by the 'metaphysical
+arguments.'<a name="FNanchor_502_502" id="FNanchor_502_502"></a><a href="#Footnote_502_502" class="fnanchor">[502]</a> The 'physical argument' means the argument from
+design, which thus becomes the sole support of theology.</p>
+
+<p>Hamilton naturally regards Brown as a mere sceptic in disguise. His
+theory of perception destroys his theory of personal identity. He has
+refused to accept our intuitive belief in one case, and cannot appeal
+to it in the other. He leaves no room for 'liberty of will,' and
+advances 'no argument in support of this condition of our moral
+being.'<a name="FNanchor_503_503" id="FNanchor_503_503"></a><a href="#Footnote_503_503" class="fnanchor">[503]</a> Indeed, as Stewart complained, Brown, by identifying
+'will' and 'desire,' has got rid of the will altogether. It is only
+natural that a man who is making a scientific study of the laws of
+human nature should find no room for an assertion that within a
+certain sphere there are no laws. A physiologist might as well admit
+that some vital processes are uncaused.</p>
+
+<p>Brown thus illustrates the gravitation of the 'common-sense'
+philosophy to pure empiricism. He was the last in the genuine line of
+Scottish common-sense philosophers. When after what may be called the
+unphilosophical interregnum which followed Brown's death, Hamilton
+became professor, the Scottish tradition was blended with the very
+different theories derived from Kant. Upon Brown's version, the
+Scottish philosophy had virtually declared itself bankrupt. The
+substance of his teaching was that of the very school which his
+predecessors had attempted to confute, carefully as the fact might be
+hidden by dexterous rhetoric and manipulation of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> technical terms. He
+agrees with Hume's premises, and adopts the method of Condillac. This
+was perceived by his most remarkable hearer. Carlyle went to Edinburgh
+at the end of 1809. Brown, 'an eloquent, acute little gentleman, full
+of enthusiasm about simple suggestions, relative, etc.,' was 'utterly
+unprofitable' to him, disspiriting 'as the autumn winds among withered
+leaves.'<a name="FNanchor_504_504" id="FNanchor_504_504"></a><a href="#Footnote_504_504" class="fnanchor">[504]</a> In <i>Signs of the Times</i> (1829) Carlyle gave his view of
+the Scottish philosophy generally. They had, he says, started from the
+'mechanical' premises suggested by Hume. 'They let loose instinct as
+an indiscriminatory bandog to guard them against (his) conclusions':
+'they tugged lustily at the logical chain by which Hume was so coldly
+towing them and the world into bottomless abysses of Atheism and
+Fatalism. But the chain somehow snapped between them, and the issue
+has been that nobody now cares about either&mdash;any more than about
+Hartley's, Darwin's, or Priestley's contemporaneous doings in
+England.'<a name="FNanchor_505_505" id="FNanchor_505_505"></a><a href="#Footnote_505_505" class="fnanchor">[505]</a> The judgment goes to the root of the matter. The method
+of Reid inevitably led to this result. Consider the philosophy as
+based upon, if not identical with, an inductive science of psychology,
+and the end is clear. You may study and analyse the phenomena as
+carefully as you please; and may, as the Scottish professors did,
+produce, if not a scientific psychology, yet a mass of acute
+prolegomena to a science. But the analysis can only reveal the actual
+combinations,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> chemical or mechanical, of thought. The ultimate
+principles which the teachers profess to discover are simply
+provisional; products not yet analysed, but not therefore incapable of
+analysis. It was very desirable to point them out: an insistence upon
+the insufficiency of Hume's or Condillac's theories was a most
+valuable service; but it was valuable precisely because every
+indication of such an unresolved element was a challenge to the next
+comer to resolve it by closer analysis. And thus, in fact, the
+intuitions, which had played so great a part with Reid, come in
+Brown's hands to be so clearly limited to the materials given by
+sensation or experience that any show of 'philosophy,' meaning an
+independent theory of the universe, was an illusory combination of
+fine phrases.<a name="FNanchor_506_506" id="FNanchor_506_506"></a><a href="#Footnote_506_506" class="fnanchor">[506]</a></p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">II. JAMES MILL'S 'ANALYSIS'</p>
+
+<p>James Mill's <i>Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind</i> is on the
+one hand an exposition of the principles implied in Bentham's
+writings, and, on the other hand, a statement of the position from
+which the younger Mill started. J. S. Mill discussed the book with his
+father during its composition, and in 1869 he published a new edition,
+with elaborate notes by himself, George Grote, Professor Bain, and
+Andrew Findlater.<a name="FNanchor_507_507" id="FNanchor_507_507"></a><a href="#Footnote_507_507" class="fnanchor">[507]</a> The commentary <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>is of great importance in
+defining the relation between the two successors to the throne of
+Bentham.</p>
+
+<p>Mill's <i>Analysis</i>, though not widely read, made a deep impression upon
+Mill's own disciples. It is terse, trenchant, and uncompromising. It
+reminds us in point of style of the French writers, with whom he
+sympathised, rather than of the English predecessors, to whom much of
+the substance was owing. The discursive rhetoric of Brown or Stewart
+is replaced by good, hard, sinewy logic. The writer is plainly in
+earnest. If over confident, he has no petty vanity, and at least
+believes every word that he says. Certain limitations are at once
+obvious. Mill, as a publicist, a historian, and a busy official, had
+not had much time to spare for purely philosophic reading. He was not
+a professor in want of a system, but an energetic man of business,
+wishing to strike at the root of the superstitions to which his
+political opponents appealed for support. He had heard of Kant, and
+seen what 'the poor man would be at.' Later German systems, had he
+heard of them, would have been summarily rejected by him as so much
+transcendental moonshine. The problem of philosophy was, he held, a
+very simple one, if attacked in a straightforward, scientific method.</p>
+
+<p>Mill, like his Scottish rivals, applies 'Baconian' principles. The
+inductive method, which had already been so fruitful in the physical
+sciences, will be equally effective in philosophy, and ever since
+Locke, philosophy had meant psychology. The 'philosophy of the mind'
+and the philosophy of the body may be treated as co-ordinate and
+investigated by similar methods. In the physical sciences we come
+ultimately to the laws of movement of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> their constituent atoms. In the
+moral sciences we come in the same way to the study of 'ideas.' The
+questions, How do ideas originate? and how are they combined so as to
+form the actual state of consciousness? are therefore the general
+problems to be solved. Hume had definitely proposed the problem.
+Hartley had worked out the theory of association of ideas which Hume
+had already compared<a name="FNanchor_508_508" id="FNanchor_508_508"></a><a href="#Footnote_508_508" class="fnanchor">[508]</a> to the universal principle of gravitation in
+the physical world; and had endeavoured to show how this might be
+connected with physiological principles. Hartley's followers had been
+content to dwell upon the power of association. Abraham Tucker,
+Priestley, Erasmus Darwin, and Belsham represented this tendency, and
+were the normal antagonists of Reid and Stewart. In France the
+'ideologists' mainly followed Condillac, and apparently knew nothing
+of Hartley. Mill, as his son testifies, had been profoundly influenced
+by Hartley's treatise&mdash;the 'really master-production,' as he esteemed
+it, 'in the philosophy of mind.'<a name="FNanchor_509_509" id="FNanchor_509_509"></a><a href="#Footnote_509_509" class="fnanchor">[509]</a> Hartley's work, as the younger
+Mill thought, and the elder apparently agreed, was very superior to
+the 'merely verbal generalisation of Condillac.' James Mill, however,
+admired Condillac and his successors. In his article upon education,
+Mill traces the association theory to Hobbes, Locke, and Hume, the
+last of whom, he says, was succeeded by the two 'more sober-minded'
+philosophers, Condillac and Hartley; while he especially praises
+Erasmus Darwin, Helv&eacute;tius, and Cabanis. Mill, therefore, may be
+regarded as an independent ally of the ideologists whose influence
+upon Brown has been already noticed. Mill had not read Brown's
+<i>Lectures</i> when he began his <i>Analysis</i>, and after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> reading them
+thought Brown 'but poorly read in the doctrine of association.'<a name="FNanchor_510_510" id="FNanchor_510_510"></a><a href="#Footnote_510_510" class="fnanchor">[510]</a>
+He had, however, read the essay upon causation, which he rather oddly
+describes as 'one of the most valuable contributions to science for
+which we are indebted to the last generation.'<a name="FNanchor_511_511" id="FNanchor_511_511"></a><a href="#Footnote_511_511" class="fnanchor">[511]</a> He accepted
+Brown's view <i>minus</i> the 'intuition.'</p>
+
+<p>The pith of Mill's book is thus determined. His aim is to give a
+complete analysis of mental phenomena, and therefore to resolve those
+phenomena into their primitive constituent atoms. Here we have at once
+a tacit assumption which governs his method. Philosophy, speaking
+roughly, is by some people supposed to start from truths, and thus to
+be in some way an evolution of logic. According to Mill it must start
+from facts, and therefore from something not given by logic. To state
+clearly, indeed, the relation between truth and fact may suggest very
+intricate problems. Mill, at any rate, must find a basis in fact, and
+for him the ultimate facts must be feelings. The reality at least of a
+feeling is undeniable. The <i>Penser c'est sentir</i>, or the doctrine that
+all 'ideas' are transformed sensations is his starting-point. The word
+'feeling,' according to him, includes every 'phenomenon of the mind.'
+'Think,' he says elsewhere,<a name="FNanchor_512_512" id="FNanchor_512_512"></a><a href="#Footnote_512_512" class="fnanchor">[512]</a> does not include all our experience,
+but 'there is nothing to which we could not extend the term "I feel."'
+He proceeds to infer that our experience is either a knowledge of the
+feelings separately, or 'a knowledge of the order in which they follow
+each other; and this is all.' We may add that the knowledge is the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>
+feeling. Reid, Kant, and the Germans have indeed tried to show that
+there are feelings not derived from the sensations, but this, as
+Hartley and Condillac have shown, is a mistake. This is his first
+principle in a nutshell, and must give a clue to the various
+applications.</p>
+
+<p>The next step is familiar. Hume had distinguished impressions and
+ideas. 'Ideas' are copies of previous 'impressions.' It is for
+psychology to say what are the laws by which they are related to their
+originals. The ultimate origin cannot be explained by psychology
+alone. Impressions are caused by the outward world acting in some way
+upon the mind; and the psychologist can only classify the various
+modes in which they present themselves. Mill therefore begins by the
+usual account of the five senses, through which comes all knowledge of
+the external world. He adds to Reid's list muscular sensations, and
+those derived from the internal organs, to which last Cabanis in
+particular had called attention. So far he is following the steps of
+his predecessors. He is, he says, simply asserting an 'indisputable'
+fact.<a name="FNanchor_513_513" id="FNanchor_513_513"></a><a href="#Footnote_513_513" class="fnanchor">[513]</a> We have sensations and we have ideas, which are 'copies of
+sensations.' We may then consider how far these facts will enable us
+to explain the whole series of mental phenomena. 'Ideation,' which he
+suggests as a new word&mdash;the process by which a continuous series of
+thoughts goes on in our minds&mdash;is the general phenomenon to be
+considered. Without, as yet, pronouncing that sensations and copies of
+sensations will turn out to form the whole contents of our
+consciousness, he tries to show for what part of those contents they
+will account.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span></p><p>Here we come to the doctrine which for him and his school gave the
+key to all psychological problems. It was James Mill's real merit,
+according to his son, that he carried the principle of association of
+ideas further than it had been carried by Hartley or other
+predecessors.<a name="FNanchor_514_514" id="FNanchor_514_514"></a><a href="#Footnote_514_514" class="fnanchor">[514]</a> The importance of the doctrine, indeed, is implied
+in the very statement of the problem. If it be true, or so far as it
+is true, that our consciousness reveals to us simply a series of
+'sensations' and 'ideas,' the question must be how they are combined.
+'Thought succeeds thought, idea follows idea incessantly,'<a name="FNanchor_515_515" id="FNanchor_515_515"></a><a href="#Footnote_515_515" class="fnanchor">[515]</a> says
+Mill; and this phrase assumes 'thoughts' and 'ideas' to be separable
+atoms. How, then, do they come to coalesce into an apparently
+continuous stream? The mind is a stream of 'ideas.' If the stream is
+composed of drops, we must, of course, consider the drops as composing
+the stream. The question is, What laws can we assign which will
+determine the process of composition? The phrase 'association'
+admittedly expresses some general and very familiar truths.
+Innumerable connections may be established when there is no assignable
+ground of connection in the ideas themselves other than the fact of a
+previous contact. One idea not only calls up the other, but in some
+way generates a belief in an independent connection. We hear thunder,
+for example, and think of lightning. The two ideas are entirely
+distinct and separate, for they are due to different senses. Yet we
+not only think of lightning when we hear thunder, but we have no doubt
+that there is a causal connection. We believe in this connection,
+again, though no further explanation can be given of the fact.
+Thunder<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> and lightning have occurred together, and we infer that they
+will, and even must, occur together. When we examine our whole
+structure of belief, we find such 'arbitrary' associations pervade it
+in every direction. Language itself is learned simply by association.
+There is no connection whatever between the sound of the word 'man'
+and the 'ideas' which the word excites, beyond the fact that the sound
+has been previously heard when the ideas were excited. Here, then, is
+a phenomenon to be explained or generalised. We have in countless
+cases a certain connection established for which no further reason can
+be assigned than the fact of its previous occurrence. On such a
+ground, we believe that fire burns, that bread is wholesome, that
+stones fall; and but for such beliefs could know nothing of the
+outside world. 'Contingent' truth, therefore, or truth derived from
+mere contact, pervades, if it does not constitute, the whole fabric of
+our whole knowledge. To prove that all our knowledge is derived from
+experience is, according to Mill, to prove that in some sense or other
+association of ideas lies at the base of all intellectual processes.
+When Locke introduced a chapter upon 'Association of Ideas' into the
+fourth edition of his essay, he treated it as the exceptional case.
+Some ideas had a connection traceable by reason; others were only
+connected by 'chance and custom.' Association does not explain
+reasoning, only the deviations from reasoning. But with Hume and
+Hartley the relation is inverted. The principle, instead of being an
+exceptional case, is simply the universal rule from which logical
+connection may be deduced as a special case.</p>
+
+<p>The facts upon which Mill relied, and the account of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> them which he
+gave, require notice and embodiment in any sound psychology. In some
+shape or other they form the starting-point of all later systems.
+Mill's vigorous application of his principle, worked out with
+imperfect appreciation and with many oversights, had therefrom, at
+least, the merit of preparing the ground for a more scientific method.
+In any case, however, his conclusions, so far as sound, must be placed
+in a different framework of theory. It becomes necessary to dwell
+chiefly upon the curious defects of his theory, if taken as he wished
+it to be taken, for an ultimate scientific statement. The fact that
+there is a synthesis and an analysis is expressed by 'association.'
+But what more can we say? What are the 'laws' of association? Unless
+some rule can be given, we shall get nothing that can be called a
+theory. One idea is not suggested by the other through any logical
+process. They are still 'conjoined' but not 'connected.' The
+connection, therefore, must be given by something different from the
+ideas themselves. Now the order of the original 'sensations' depends
+upon the 'objects of nature,' and is therefore left to 'physical
+philosophy.'<a name="FNanchor_516_516" id="FNanchor_516_516"></a><a href="#Footnote_516_516" class="fnanchor">[516]</a> They occur, however, either in 'synchronous' or in
+'successive' order. Then 'ideas' spring up in the order of
+'sensations,' and this is the 'general law of association of
+ideas.'<a name="FNanchor_517_517" id="FNanchor_517_517"></a><a href="#Footnote_517_517" class="fnanchor">[517]</a> The synchronous sensations produce synchronous ideas and
+the successive sensations successive ideas. Finally, the strength of
+the association between the ideas depends upon 'the vividness of the
+associated feelings, and the frequency of the association.'<a name="FNanchor_518_518" id="FNanchor_518_518"></a><a href="#Footnote_518_518" class="fnanchor">[518]</a> Hume
+had said that association depended upon three <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span>principles, 'contiguity
+in time and place,' 'causation,' and 'resemblance.' Contiguity in time
+corresponds to the successive, and contiguity in place to the
+synchronous, order. Causation, as Brown had finally proved,<a name="FNanchor_519_519" id="FNanchor_519_519"></a><a href="#Footnote_519_519" class="fnanchor">[519]</a> means
+simply antecedence and consequence. 'Resemblance' remains and is, as
+Mill afterwards says,<a name="FNanchor_520_520" id="FNanchor_520_520"></a><a href="#Footnote_520_520" class="fnanchor">[520]</a> a most important principle; but in an
+unlucky moment he is half inclined to reduce even 'resemblance' to
+'contiguity.'<a name="FNanchor_521_521" id="FNanchor_521_521"></a><a href="#Footnote_521_521" class="fnanchor">[521]</a> Resemblance is, he even suggests, merely 'a case of
+frequency,' because we generally see like things together. When we see
+one tree or sheep, we generally see several trees or sheep. J. S. Mill
+mildly remarks upon this quaint suggestion as the 'least successful
+simplification' in the book. He argues the point gravely. Sheep, it is
+clear, are not seen to be like because they often compose a flock, but
+are considered to be a flock because they are seen to be like. To do
+James Mill justice, he drops the argument as soon as he has struck it
+out. It is only worth notice as showing his aim. 'Likeness' seems to
+imply a relation dependent on the ideas themselves; not purely
+external and arbitrary. If we could get rid of likeness, all
+association would ultimately be 'contiguity.' 'The fundamental law of
+association,' as he says elsewhere,<a name="FNanchor_522_522" id="FNanchor_522_522"></a><a href="#Footnote_522_522" class="fnanchor">[522]</a> 'is that when two things have
+been frequently found together, we never perceive or think of the one
+without thinking of the other.' The two ideas are associated as two
+balls are associated when they are in the same box. So far as they are
+themselves concerned, they might be separated without any alteration
+in their own properties. What, then, corresponds to the 'box'?
+Association depends upon relations of time and space.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> Things are
+associated by occurring in succession or together; the red colour of a
+rose is in the same place with the shape of the leaf; the scent is
+perceived at the same time with the colour. The thunder follows the
+lightning. What, then, he might ask, are 'time' and 'space'? Are they
+'ideas' or 'sensations' or qualities of the objects? or, in any case,
+as supplying the ultimate principle of association, do they not
+require investigation? Before coming to that problem, however, we have
+to settle other knotty points. We must clear away illusions which seem
+to introduce something more than association. Elements of thought not
+at first sight expressible simply in terms of sensations and ideas
+must be analysed to show that they are only disguises for different
+combinations of the facts. Reasoning, according to most logicians,
+supposes, first, concepts, and therefore some process of
+classification of the objects of thought; and, secondly, some process
+of combining these concepts to bring out hitherto unknown truths.
+What, then, is the meaning of the general or abstract symbols employed
+in the process? Mill's provision of raw materials consists so far of
+sensations and ideas, which are worked up so as to form 'clusters'
+(the word is taken from Hartley) and 'trains.' This corresponds to
+synchronous and successive associations. How does the logical
+terminology express these 'clusters' and 'trains'? Mill answers by a
+theory of 'naming.' Language fulfils two purposes; it is required in
+order to make our ideas known to others; and in order to fix our own
+ideas. Ideas are fluctuating, transitory, and 'come into the mind
+unbidden.' We must catch and make a note of these shifting crowds of
+impalpable <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>entities. We therefore put marks upon the simple
+sensations or upon the 'clusters.' We ticket them as a tradesman
+tickets bundles of goods in his warehouse, and can refer to them for
+our own purposes or those of others. As the number of objects to be
+marked is enormous, as there are countless ideas and clusters and
+clusters of clusters of endless variety to be arranged in various
+ways, one main object of naming is economy. A single word has to be
+used to mark a great number of individuals. This will account for such
+general names as are represented by noun-substantives: man, horse,
+dog, and so forth. Mill then proceeds, with the help of Horne Tooke,
+to explain the other grammatical forms. An adjective is another kind
+of noun marking a cross division. Verbs, again, are adjectives marking
+other sets of facts, and enabling us to get rid of the necessity of
+using a new mark for every individual or conceivable combination into
+clusters. J. S. Mill remarks that this omits the special function of
+verbs&mdash;their 'employment in predication.'<a name="FNanchor_523_523" id="FNanchor_523_523"></a><a href="#Footnote_523_523" class="fnanchor">[523]</a> James Mill, however,
+has his own view of 'predication.' 'Man' is a mark of John, Peter,
+Thomas, and the rest. When I say 'John is a man,' I mean that 'man is
+another mark to that idea of which John is a mark.'<a name="FNanchor_524_524" id="FNanchor_524_524"></a><a href="#Footnote_524_524" class="fnanchor">[524]</a> I am then
+able to make a statement which will apply to all the individuals, and
+save the trouble of repeating the assertion about each. 'Predication,'
+therefore, is simply a substitution of one name for another. So, for
+example, arithmetic is simply naming. What I call two and two, I also
+call four. The series of thoughts in this case is merely 'a series of
+names applicable to the same thing and meaning the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> same thing.'<a name="FNanchor_525_525" id="FNanchor_525_525"></a><a href="#Footnote_525_525" class="fnanchor">[525]</a>
+This doctrine, as J. S. Mill remarks, is derived from Hobbes, whom
+Leibniz in consequence called <i>plus quam nominalis</i>.<a name="FNanchor_526_526" id="FNanchor_526_526"></a><a href="#Footnote_526_526" class="fnanchor">[526]</a> My belief
+that two and two make four explains why I give the same name to
+certain numbers; but the giving the name does not explain the belief.
+Meanwhile, if a class name be simply the mark which is put upon a
+bundle of things, we have got rid of a puzzle. Mill triumphs over the
+unfortunate realists who held that a class meant a mysterious entity,
+existing somewhere apart from all the individuals in which it is
+embodied. There is really nothing mysterious; a name is first the mark
+of an individual, the individual corresponding to a 'cluster' or a set
+of 'simple ideas, concreted into a complex idea.'<a name="FNanchor_527_527" id="FNanchor_527_527"></a><a href="#Footnote_527_527" class="fnanchor">[527]</a> Then the name
+and the complex idea are associated reciprocally; each 'calls up' the
+other. The complex idea is 'associated' with other resembling ideas.
+The name becomes a talisman calling up the ideas of an indefinite
+number of resembling individuals, and the name applied to one
+in the first instance becomes a mark which calls up all, or, as
+he says, is the 'name of the whole combination.' Classification,
+therefore, 'is merely a process of naming, and is all resolvable into
+association.'<a name="FNanchor_528_528" id="FNanchor_528_528"></a><a href="#Footnote_528_528" class="fnanchor">[528]</a> The peculiarity of this theory, as his commentators
+again remark, is that it expressly omits any reference to abstraction.
+The class simply means the aggregate of resembling individuals without
+any selection of the common attributes which are, in J. S. Mill's
+phrase, 'connoted' by the class-name. Abstraction, as James Mill
+explains, is a subsidiary process, corresponding to the 'formation of
+<i>sub-species</i>.'<a name="FNanchor_529_529" id="FNanchor_529_529"></a><a href="#Footnote_529_529" class="fnanchor">[529]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span></p><p>Mill has now shown how the various forms of language correspond to
+ideas, formed into clusters of various orders by the principle of
+association. The next step will naturally be to show how these
+clusters are connected in the process of reasoning. Here the
+difficulty about predication recurs. J. S. Mill<a name="FNanchor_530_530" id="FNanchor_530_530"></a><a href="#Footnote_530_530" class="fnanchor">[530]</a> remarks that his
+father's theory of predication consistently omits 'the element
+Belief.' When I say, 'John is a man,' I make an affirmation or assert
+a belief. I do not simply mean to call up in the mind of my hearer a
+certain 'cluster' or two coincident clusters of ideas, but to convey
+knowledge of truths. The omission of reference to belief is certainly
+no trifle. Mill has classified the various ideas and combinations of
+ideas which are used in judgment, but the process of judgment itself
+seems to have slipped out of account. He may have given us, or be able
+to give us, a reasoned catalogue of the contents of our minds, but has
+not explained how the mind itself acts. It is a mere passive recipient
+of ideas, or rather itself a cluster of ideas cohering in various
+ways, without energy of its own. One idea, as he tells us, calls up
+another 'by its own associating power.'<a name="FNanchor_531_531" id="FNanchor_531_531"></a><a href="#Footnote_531_531" class="fnanchor">[531]</a> Ideas are things which
+somehow stick together and revive each other, without reference to the
+mind in which they exist or which they compose. This explains his
+frequent insistence upon one assertion. As we approach the question of
+judgment he finds it essential. 'Having a sensation and having a
+feeling,' he says, 'are not two things.' To 'feel an idea and be
+conscious of that feeling are not two things; the feeling and the
+consciousness are but two names for the same thing.'<a name="FNanchor_532_532" id="FNanchor_532_532"></a><a href="#Footnote_532_532" class="fnanchor">[532]</a> So, again,
+'to have a sensation and to believe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> that we have it, are not
+distinguishable things.'<a name="FNanchor_533_533" id="FNanchor_533_533"></a><a href="#Footnote_533_533" class="fnanchor">[533]</a> Locke's reflection thus becomes nothing
+but simple consciousness, and having a feeling is the same as
+attending to it.<a name="FNanchor_534_534" id="FNanchor_534_534"></a><a href="#Footnote_534_534" class="fnanchor">[534]</a> The point is essential. It amounts to saying
+that we can speak of a thought as though it were simply a thing.</p>
+
+<p>Thus belief not only depends upon, but actually <i>is</i> association. 'It
+is not easy,' he says, 'to treat of memory, belief, and judgment
+separately.'<a name="FNanchor_535_535" id="FNanchor_535_535"></a><a href="#Footnote_535_535" class="fnanchor">[535]</a> As J. S. Mill naturally asks, 'How is it possible to
+treat of belief without including in it memory and judgment?' Memory
+is a case of belief, and judgment an 'act of belief.'<a name="FNanchor_536_536" id="FNanchor_536_536"></a><a href="#Footnote_536_536" class="fnanchor">[536]</a> To James
+Mill, however, it appears that as these different functions all
+involve association, they may be resolved into varying applications of
+that universal power. Memory involves 'an idea of my present self' and
+an 'idea of my past self,' and to remember is to 'run over the
+intervening states of consciousness called up by association.'<a name="FNanchor_537_537" id="FNanchor_537_537"></a><a href="#Footnote_537_537" class="fnanchor">[537]</a>
+Belief involves association at every step. The belief in external
+objects is, as 'all men admit' ... 'wholly resolvable into
+association.'<a name="FNanchor_538_538" id="FNanchor_538_538"></a><a href="#Footnote_538_538" class="fnanchor">[538]</a> 'That a cause means and can mean nothing to the
+human mind but constant antecedence' (and therefore 'inseparable
+association,' as he thinks) 'is no longer a point in dispute.'<a name="FNanchor_539_539" id="FNanchor_539_539"></a><a href="#Footnote_539_539" class="fnanchor">[539]</a>
+Association, it is true, may produce wrong as well as right beliefs;
+right beliefs when 'in conformity with the connections of
+things,'<a name="FNanchor_540_540" id="FNanchor_540_540"></a><a href="#Footnote_540_540" class="fnanchor">[540]</a> and wrong beliefs when not in conformity. In both cases
+the belief is produced by 'custom,' though, happily, the right custom
+is by far the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> commonest. The 'strength of the association follows the
+frequency.' The crow flies east as well as west; but the stone always
+falls downwards.<a name="FNanchor_541_541" id="FNanchor_541_541"></a><a href="#Footnote_541_541" class="fnanchor">[541]</a> Hence I form an 'inseparable association'
+corresponding to a belief in gravitation, but have no particular
+belief about the direction of a crow's flight.</p>
+
+<p>This gives the doctrine of 'indissoluble association'&mdash;the pivot of
+the whole scheme&mdash;the doctrine, says J. S. Mill, which, 'if it can be
+proved, is the greatest of all the triumphs of the Association
+Philosophy.'<a name="FNanchor_542_542" id="FNanchor_542_542"></a><a href="#Footnote_542_542" class="fnanchor">[542]</a> The younger Mill always insisted upon the vast
+importance of the principle; but he here admits a difficulty. In a
+long note<a name="FNanchor_543_543" id="FNanchor_543_543"></a><a href="#Footnote_543_543" class="fnanchor">[543]</a> upon James Mill's chapter on 'Belief,' conspicuous for
+his usual candour, he confesses the inadequacy of his father's view.
+The comment indicates the point of divergence and yet shows curiously
+the ground common to both. James Mill's theory states facts in some
+sense undeniable. Our 'ideas' cohere and combine to form a tissue: an
+imagery or series of pictures which form the content and are somehow
+the ground of our beliefs. The process of formation clearly involves
+'association.' The scent of the rose is associated with the colour:
+both with the visible form and so forth. But is this process the same
+thing as believing, or have we to explain the belief by some mental
+activity different from, however closely connected with, the
+imagination, or in his phrase the 'ideation'? Here J. S. Mill finds a
+difficulty. The statement, 'I believe that thunder will follow
+lightning,' is something more than the statement, 'the sight suggests
+or calls up the sound.' The mental picture considered by itself may be
+described as a fact,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> without considering what belief, or whether any
+belief, is implied. J. S. Mill therefore makes a distinction intended
+to clear up his father's confusion. There is a difference, he says,
+between remembering 'a real fact' and remembering a 'thought.'<a name="FNanchor_544_544" id="FNanchor_544_544"></a><a href="#Footnote_544_544" class="fnanchor">[544]</a> He
+illustrates this by the difference between the idea of Lafayette and
+the idea of Falstaff. Lafayette was real, and had been seen by the
+rememberer. Falstaff is a figment who, having never existed, can never
+have been seen. Yet the idea of Falstaff may be quite as vivid as the
+idea of Lafayette. What, then, is the difference between the two
+states of mind? One, says J. S. Mill, is a belief about 'real facts';
+the other about 'thoughts.' This, he observes, corresponds to James
+Mill's distinction between a 'sensation' and an 'idea,'<a name="FNanchor_545_545" id="FNanchor_545_545"></a><a href="#Footnote_545_545" class="fnanchor">[545]</a> a
+difference which he had admitted to be 'primordial.' Then, says J. S.
+Mill, we may as well admit that there is an 'element' in the
+remembrance of a real fact not implied in the remembrance of a thought
+and not dependent on any difference in the 'ideas' themselves. It,
+too, may be taken as 'primordial,' or incapable of further analysis.
+This doctrine becomes important in some of Mill's logical
+speculations,<a name="FNanchor_546_546" id="FNanchor_546_546"></a><a href="#Footnote_546_546" class="fnanchor">[546]</a> and is connected with his whole theory of belief in
+an external world. It has an uncomfortable likeness to Reid's
+'common-sense' view, and even to the hated 'intuitionism'; and Mill
+deserves the more credit for his candour.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile it seems clear that the criticism implies an important
+confusion. The line of distinction is drawn in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> the wrong place. So
+far as the simple 'imagination' is concerned, there may be no question
+of belief or disbelief. The picture of Falstaff or of Lafayette, a
+horse or a centaur, arises equally, and is put together, let us
+suppose, by simple association. But as soon as I think about either I
+believe or disbelieve, and equally whether I judge the object to be a
+thought or to be a 'real fact,' whether I say that I could have seen
+Lafayette, or that I could not have seen Falstaff. It is not a
+question between reality or unreality, but between two classes of
+reality. A dream is a real dream, just as a man is a real man. The
+question is simply where or how it exists, not whether it exists. The
+picture is, in one case, put together by my mind; in the other, due to
+a stimulus from without; but it exists in both cases; and belief is
+equally present whether I put it in one class of reality or the other:
+as we form a judgment equally when we pronounce a man to be lying, and
+when we pronounce him to be speaking the truth. J. S. Mill seems to
+suppose that association can explain the imagination of a centaur or a
+Falstaff, but cannot explain the belief in a horse or Lafayette. The
+imagination or 'ideation,' he should have said, accounts in both cases
+for the mere contents of the thought; but in neither case can it by
+itself explain the judgment as to 'reality.' That is to say, James
+Mill may have described accurately a part of the process by which the
+mental picture is constructed, but has omitted to explain the action
+of the mind itself. Belief, we may agree, is a 'primordial' or
+ultimate faculty; but we must not interpret it as belief in a 'real
+fact' as distinguished from belief in 'a thought': that is a secondary
+and incidental distinction.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span></p><p>This confusion, as I have said, apparently prevents J. S. Mill from
+seeing how deeply his very frank admissions cut into the very
+structure of his father's system. He has, as I have said, remarked
+upon the singular absence of any reference to 'belief,' 'abstraction,'
+and so forth; but he scarcely observes how much is implied by the
+omission. His criticism should have gone further. James Mill has not
+only omitted a faculty which enables us to distinguish between
+'thoughts' and 'things,' images of fancy and pictures of reality, but
+also the faculty which is equally present whenever we properly think
+instead of simply seeing images passively; and equally whether we
+refer an image to fact or fancy. His 'analysis of the mind' seems to
+get rid of the mind itself.</p>
+
+<p>The omission becomes important at the next step. 'Under the modest
+title of an explanation of the meaning of several names,' says his
+son, James Mill discusses 'some of the deepest and most intricate
+questions in all metaphysics.' A treatise on chemistry might almost as
+well be 'described as an explanation of the names, air, water, potass,
+sulphuric acid, and so forth.'<a name="FNanchor_547_547" id="FNanchor_547_547"></a><a href="#Footnote_547_547" class="fnanchor">[547]</a> Why does the chapter come in this
+place and in this peculiar form? Probably because James Mill was
+partly conscious of the inadequacy of his previous chapters. The
+problems which he has been considering could not be adequately treated
+by regarding ideas as 'things' bound together by association. What,
+after all, is a proposition? What is meant by 'true' or 'false,' as
+distinguished from real and unreal? If an association actually <i>is</i> a
+truth, what is the difference between right and wrong associations?
+Both<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> are facts, and the very words 'right' and 'wrong,' that is, true
+and false, apply not to facts but to propositions.<a name="FNanchor_548_548" id="FNanchor_548_548"></a><a href="#Footnote_548_548" class="fnanchor">[548]</a> The judgment
+is tested in some way by correspondence to the 'order of Nature,' or
+of our sensations and ideas. What precisely is meant by this order? So
+far as we have gone, it seems as if ideas might be combined in any
+order whatever, and the most various beliefs generated in different
+minds. Perhaps, however, the principle of association itself may
+reveal something as to the possible modes of coalescence. Mill makes
+contiguity an ultimate ground of association; and contiguity implies
+that things have certain relations expressible in terms of space and
+time and so forth. These primitive relations now come up for
+consideration, and should enable us to say more precisely what kind of
+order is possible. In fact, Mill now endeavours to analyse the
+meanings of such words as relation in general, time, space, number,
+likeness, personal identity and others. The effect of his analysis is
+that the principles, whatever they may be, which might be supposed to
+underlie association appear to be products of association. He begins
+by asking what is the meaning of 'relative terms.' Their peculiarity
+is that they 'always exist in pairs,' such as 'father and son,' 'high
+and low,' 'right and left.' 'If it is asked, Why do we give names in
+pairs? the general answer immediately suggests itself; it is because
+the things named present themselves in pairs, that is, are joined by
+association.'<a name="FNanchor_549_549" id="FNanchor_549_549"></a><a href="#Footnote_549_549" class="fnanchor">[549]</a> J. S. Mill thinks that no part of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> <i>Analysis</i>
+is more valuable than the 'simple explanation' which follows. There is
+no 'mystical bond called a relation' between two things, but 'a very
+simple peculiarity in the concrete fact' marked by the names. In
+'ordinary names of objects, the fact connoted by a name ... concerns
+one object only'; in the case of relative names, 'the fact connoted
+concerns two objects, and cannot be understood without thinking of
+them both.' A 'fact concerning an object' is a curiously awkward
+expression; but one point is clear. If the two objects concerned are
+the same, whether considered apart or together, the 'relation' must be
+something more than the facts, and therefore requires to be specified.
+If they are, in fact, one thing, or parts of a continuous process, we
+must ask how they come to be distinguished, and what ground there is
+for speaking of association. James Mill, by considering the problem as
+a mere question of 'names,' seems to intimate that the relation is a
+mere figment. In fact, as J. S. Mill perceives, the 'explanations'
+become nugatory. They simply repeat the thing to be explained. He
+begins with 'resemblance.' To feel two things to be alike is, he says,
+the same thing as to have the two feelings. He means to say,
+apparently, that when there are two 'ideas' there is not also a third
+idea of 'likeness.' That would be what Bentham called a 'fictitious
+entity.' But this cannot 'explain' the likeness of the ideas. 'Their
+being alike,' as his son interprets, 'is nothing but their being felt
+to be alike&mdash;which does not help us.'<a name="FNanchor_550_550" id="FNanchor_550_550"></a><a href="#Footnote_550_550" class="fnanchor">[550]</a> So 'antecedence and
+consequence' are 'explained' by saying that one of two feelings calls
+up the other; or, as the son again remarks,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> antecedence is explained
+by antecedence, and succession by succession. Antecedence and
+consequence, like likeness and unlikeness, must therefore, according
+to J. S. Mill, be 'postulated as universal conditions of Nature,
+inherent in all our feelings whether of external or internal
+consciousness.'<a name="FNanchor_551_551" id="FNanchor_551_551"></a><a href="#Footnote_551_551" class="fnanchor">[551]</a> In other words, apparently, time is an ultimate
+form of thought. Time and space, generally, as James Mill thinks, are
+the 'abstract names' respectively of successive and simultaneous
+order, which become 'indissolubly associated with the idea of every
+object.'<a name="FNanchor_552_552" id="FNanchor_552_552"></a><a href="#Footnote_552_552" class="fnanchor">[552]</a> Space, of course, is said to be a product of touch and
+muscular sensations, and the problem as to how these varying
+sensations and these alone give rise to apparently necessary and
+invariable beliefs is not taken into consideration. Mill is here
+dealing with the questions which Kant attempted to answer by showing
+how the mind imposes its forms upon sense-given materials, forms them
+into concepts, and combines the concepts into judgments and reasoning.
+Mill evades the mysterious and transcendental at the cost of omitting
+reason altogether. He represents the result of accepting one horn of a
+dilemma, which presses upon philosophies of loftier pretensions. Those
+who accept the other horn speak of a 'fact' as though it were a truth,
+and argue as though the world could be spun out of pure logic, or a
+tissue be made of relations without any things to be related. Mill,
+with scarcely a glance at such doctrines, tries systematically to
+speak of a truth as if it were a fact. The world for him is made up of
+ideas sticking together; and nothing else exists. The relation is the
+fact; belief is the association; consciousness and reflection,
+considered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> apart, are nothing but the sensations, ideas, clusters,
+and trains. The attempt to base all truth upon experience, to bring
+philosophy into harmony with science was, as I hold, perfectly right.
+Only, upon these assumptions it could not be carried out. Mill had the
+merit which is implied even by an unsuccessful attempt to hold by
+fact. He raises a number of interesting questions; and I think that it
+is more remarkable that so many of his observations have still an
+interest for psychologists than that so much is obviously wrong. Mill,
+it may be said, took an essay upon association for a treatise upon
+psychology in general. He was writing what might be one important
+chapter in such a treatise, and supposes that he has written the
+whole, and can deduce 'philosophy' from it, if, indeed, any philosophy
+can be said to remain. Meanwhile, I may observe, that by pushing his
+principles to extremes, even his 'association' doctrine is endangered.
+His <i>Analysis</i> seems to destroy even the elements which are needed to
+give the simplest laws of association. It is rather difficult to say
+what is meant by the 'contiguity,' 'sequence,' and 'resemblance,'
+which are the only conditions specified, and which he seems to explain
+not as the conditions but as the product of association. J. S. Mill
+perceived that something was wanting which he afterwards tried to
+supply. I will just indicate one or two points, which may show what
+problems the father bequeathed to the son. James Mill, at one place,
+discusses the odd problem 'how it happens that all trains of thought
+are not the same.'<a name="FNanchor_553_553" id="FNanchor_553_553"></a><a href="#Footnote_553_553" class="fnanchor">[553]</a> The more obvious question is, on his
+hypothesis, how it happens that any two people have the same beliefs,
+since the beliefs are made of the most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> varying materials. If, again,
+two ideas when associated remain distinct, we have Hume's difficulty.
+Whatever is distinguishable, he argued, is separable. If two ideas
+simply lie side by side, as is apparently implied by 'contiguity,' so
+that each can be taken apart without change, why should we suppose
+that they will never exist apart, or, indeed, that they should ever
+again come together? The contiguity does not depend upon them, but
+upon some inscrutable collocation, of which we can only say that it
+exists now. This is the problem which greatly occupied J. S. Mill.</p>
+
+<p>The 'indissoluble' or 'inseparable' association, which became the
+grand arcanum of the school, while intended to answer some of these
+difficulties, raises others. Mill seems to insist upon splitting a
+unit into parts in order that it may be again brought together by
+association. So J. S. Mill, in an admiring note, confirms his father's
+explanation ('one of the most important thought in the whole
+treatise') of the infinity of space.<a name="FNanchor_554_554" id="FNanchor_554_554"></a><a href="#Footnote_554_554" class="fnanchor">[554]</a> We think space infinite
+because we always 'associate' position with extension. Surely space is
+extension; and to think of one without the other implies a
+contradiction. We think space infinite, because we think of a space as
+only limited by other space, and therefore indefinitely extensible.
+There is no 'association,' simply repetition. Elsewhere we have the
+problem, How does one association exclude another? Only, as J. S. Mill
+replies, when one idea includes the idea of the absence of the
+others.<a name="FNanchor_555_555" id="FNanchor_555_555"></a><a href="#Footnote_555_555" class="fnanchor">[555]</a> We cannot combine the ideas of a plane and a convex
+surface. Why? Because we have never had both sets of sensations
+together. The 'commencement' of one set has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> always been 'simultaneous
+with the cessation of another set,' as, for instance, when we bend a
+flat sheet of paper. The difficulty seems to be that one fact cannot
+be contradictory of another, since contradiction only applies to
+assertions. When I say that A is above B, however, I surely assert
+that B is below A; and I cannot make both assertions about A and B at
+the same time without a contradiction. To explain this by an
+association of simultaneous and successive sensations seems to be a
+curiously roundabout way of 'explaining.' Every assertion is also a
+denial; and, if I am entitled to say anything, I am enabled without
+any help from association to deny its contradictory. On Mill's
+showing, the assertion and the denial of its contradiction, instead of
+being identical, are taken to be two beliefs accidentally associated.
+Finally, I need only make one remark upon the fundamental difficulty.
+It is hard to conceive of mere loose 'ideas' going about in the
+universe at large and sticking accidentally to others. After all, the
+human being is in true sense also an organised whole, and his
+constitution must be taken into account in discovering the laws of
+'ideation.' This is the point of view to which Mill, in his anxiety to
+get rid of everything that had a savour of <i>a priori</i> knowledge about
+it, remains comparatively blind. It implies a remarkable omission.
+Mill's great teacher, Hartley, had appealed to physiology in a
+necessarily crude fashion. He had therefore an organism: a brain or a
+nervous system which could react upon the external world and modify
+and combine sensations. Mill's ideas would have more apparent
+connection if they could be made to correspond to 'vibratiuncles' or
+physical processes of some kind. But this part of Hartley's hypothesis
+had been dropped:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> and all reality is therefore reduced to the whirl
+of vagrant and accidentally cohering ideas in brains and clusters. His
+one main aim is to get rid of everything that can be called mystical
+and to trace all mental processes to 'experience,' as he understands
+experience&mdash;to show that we are never entitled to assert that two
+ideas may not be joined in any way whatever.</p>
+
+<p>The general tendency of the 'Association Philosophy' is sufficiently
+clear. It may be best appreciated by comparing it to the method of the
+physical sciences, which it was intended to rival. The physicist
+explains the 'laws of nature' by regarding a phenomenon as due to the
+varying arrangements of an indefinite multitude of uniform atoms. I
+need not ask whether these atoms are to be regarded as realities, even
+the sole realities, or, on the other hand, as a kind of logical
+scaffolding removable when the laws are ascertained. In any case, the
+assumption is necessary and most fruitful in the search for accurate
+and quantitative formul&aelig;. Mill virtually assumes that the same thing
+can be done by breaking up the stream of consciousness into the ideas
+which correspond to the primitive atoms. What precisely these atoms
+may be, how the constantly varying flow of thought can be resolved
+into constituent fractions, is not easy to see. The physicist at least
+supposes his atoms to have definite space relations, but there is
+nothing clearly corresponding to space in the 'ideas.' They are
+capable of nothing but co-existence, sequence, and likeness; but the
+attempt to explain the meaning of those words ends in nothing but
+repeating them. One result is the curious combination of the absolute
+and the indefinitely variable. We get absolute statements because the
+ultimate constituents are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> taken to be absolutely constant. We have
+indefinite variability because they may be collocated in any
+conceivable or inconceivable way. This becomes evident when we have to
+do with organisms of any kind: with characters or societies an
+organism varies, but varies along definite lines. But, on Mill's
+showing, the organic relations correspond to the indefinitely
+variable. Education is omnipotent; state constitutions can be
+manufactured at will, and produce indefinite consequences. And yet he
+can lay down laws of absolute validity, because he seems to be
+deducing them from one or two formul&aelig; corresponding to the essential
+and invariable properties of the ultimate unit&mdash;whether man or ideas.
+From this follows, too, the tendency to speak as if human desires
+corresponded to some definite measurable things, such as utility in
+ethics, value in political economy, and self-interest in politics.
+This point appears in the application of Mill's theories to the moral
+sciences.</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">III. JAMES MILL'S ETHICS</p>
+
+<p>James Mill in his ethical doctrine follows Bentham with little
+variation; but he shows very clearly what was the psychology which
+Bentham virtually assumed. I may pass very briefly over Mill's theory
+of conduct<a name="FNanchor_556_556" id="FNanchor_556_556"></a><a href="#Footnote_556_556" class="fnanchor">[556]</a> in general. The 'phenomena of thought,' he says, may
+be divided into the 'intellectual' and the 'active' powers. Hitherto
+he has considered 'sensations' and 'ideas' merely as existing; he will
+now consider them as 'exciting to action.'<a name="FNanchor_557_557" id="FNanchor_557_557"></a><a href="#Footnote_557_557" class="fnanchor">[557]</a> The phenomena consist
+in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> both cases of sensations and ideas, combined into 'clusters,' and
+formed into trains 'according to the sense laws.' We have now to
+consider the ideas as active, and 'to demonstrate the simple laws into
+which the phenomena of human life, so numerous and apparently so
+diversified, may all be easily resolved.'</p>
+
+<p>A desire is an 'idea' of a pleasant sensation; an 'aversion' an idea
+of painful sensation. The idea and the sensation are not two things,
+but two names for the same thing. Desire, again, has a 'tacit
+reference to future time' when applied to a given case. We associate
+these pains and pleasures with the causes; and in the important case
+our own actions are the causes. Thus the association produces the
+motive, and the readiness to obey the motive is, as Bentham says, the
+'disposition.' Then, following Hartley, Mill explains the will. Bodily
+actions are muscular contractions, which are slowly co-ordinated by
+habit&mdash;association, of course, acting at every stage of the process.
+Now, it is a plain fact that muscular contractions follow 'ideas.' It
+is easy, then, to see how the 'idea of a pleasure should excite the
+idea of the action which is the cause of it; and how, when the idea
+exists, the action should follow.'<a name="FNanchor_558_558" id="FNanchor_558_558"></a><a href="#Footnote_558_558" class="fnanchor">[558]</a> An 'end' is a pleasure
+desired, and gives the 'motive.' When we start from the motive and get
+the pleasure the same association is called 'will.' 'Free-will' is of
+course nonsense. We have a full account of the human mechanism, and
+can see that it is throughout worked by association, admitting the
+primary fact of experience that the idea causes the muscular
+contraction.</p>
+
+<p>This, and the ethical conclusions which follow, substantially
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span>coincide with Bentham's doctrine, or supply the first principles from
+which Bentham might be deduced. A fuller exposition of the ethics is
+given in the <i>Fragment on Mackintosh</i>. Mackintosh, in 1829, wrote a
+Dissertation upon 'Ethical Philosophy,' for the <i>Encyclop&aelig;dia
+Britannica</i>.<a name="FNanchor_559_559" id="FNanchor_559_559"></a><a href="#Footnote_559_559" class="fnanchor">[559]</a> The book stirred Mill's 'indignation against an
+evil-doer.'<a name="FNanchor_560_560" id="FNanchor_560_560"></a><a href="#Footnote_560_560" class="fnanchor">[560]</a> He wrote a <i>Fragment on Mackintosh</i>, which was
+suppressed for a time in consequence of his antagonist's death in
+1832, but published in the year of his own death, 1835.<a name="FNanchor_561_561" id="FNanchor_561_561"></a><a href="#Footnote_561_561" class="fnanchor">[561]</a> According
+to Professor Bain, the book was softened in consequence of
+remonstrances from Bickersteth. It would be curious to see the
+previous version. Professor Bain says that there are 'thousands' of
+books which contain 'far worse severities of language.' I confess that
+I cannot remember quite 'a thousand.' It is at least difficult to
+imagine more unmitigated expressions of contempt and aversion.
+Mackintosh, says Mill, uses 'macaroni phrases,' 'tawdry talk,'
+'gabble'; he gets 'beyond drivelling' into something more like
+'raving'; he 'deluges' us with 'unspeakable nonsense.' 'Good God!'
+sums up the comment which can be made upon one sentence.<a name="FNanchor_562_562" id="FNanchor_562_562"></a><a href="#Footnote_562_562" class="fnanchor">[562]</a> Sir
+James, he declares, 'has got into an intellectual state so thoroughly
+depraved that I doubt whether a parallel to it is possible to be
+found.'<a name="FNanchor_563_563" id="FNanchor_563_563"></a><a href="#Footnote_563_563" class="fnanchor">[563]</a> There is scarcely a mention of Mackintosh without an
+insult. A partial explanation of Mill's wrath may be suggested by the
+chapter upon Bentham. Mackintosh there accused the Utilitarians
+generally of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> 'wantonly wounding the most respectable feelings of
+mankind'; of 'clinging to opinions because they are obnoxious'; of
+taking themselves to be a 'chosen few,' despising the multitude, and
+retorting the dislike which their arrogance has provoked by using
+still more exasperating language.<a name="FNanchor_564_564" id="FNanchor_564_564"></a><a href="#Footnote_564_564" class="fnanchor">[564]</a> He suggested that they should
+do more justice to 'the Romillys and the Broughams,' who had been the
+real and judicious reformers; and he illustrated the errors of Bentham
+by especial reference to Mill's arguments upon government and
+education. There had long been an antipathy. Mackintosh, said Mill in
+1820, 'lives but for London display; <i>parler et faire parler de lui</i>
+in certain circles is his heaven.'<a name="FNanchor_565_565" id="FNanchor_565_565"></a><a href="#Footnote_565_565" class="fnanchor">[565]</a></p>
+
+<p>Mackintosh would have been most at home in a professorial chair. He
+was, indeed, professor at Haileybury from 1818 to 1824, and spoken of
+as a probable successor to Brown at Edinburgh. But he could never
+decidedly concentrate himself upon one main purpose. Habits of
+procrastination and carelessness about money caused embarrassment
+which forced him to write hastily. His love of society interfered with
+study, and his study was spread over an impossible range of subjects.
+His great abilities, wasted by these infirmities, were seconded by
+very wide learning. Macaulay describes the impression which he made at
+Holland House.<a name="FNanchor_566_566" id="FNanchor_566_566"></a><a href="#Footnote_566_566" class="fnanchor">[566]</a> He passed among his friends as the profound
+philosopher; the man of universal knowledge of history; of ripe and
+most impartial judgment in politics; the oracle to whom all men might
+appeal with confidence, though a little too apt to find out that all
+sides were in the right. When he went to India<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> he took with him some
+of the scholastic writers and the works of Kant and Fichte, then known
+to few Englishmen. One of Macaulay's experiences at Holland House was
+a vision of Mackintosh verifying a quotation from Aquinas.<a name="FNanchor_567_567" id="FNanchor_567_567"></a><a href="#Footnote_567_567" class="fnanchor">[567]</a> It
+must have been delightful. The ethical 'dissertation,' however, had to
+be shortened by omitting all reference to German philosophy, and the
+account of the schoolmen is cursory. It is easy to see why the suave
+and amiable Mackintosh appeared to Mill to be a 'dandy' philosopher,
+an unctuous spinner of platitudes to impose upon the frequenters of
+Holland House, and hopelessly confused in the attempt to make
+compromises between contradictory theories. It is equally easy to see
+why to Mackintosh the thoroughgoing and strenuous Mill appeared to be
+a one-sided fanatic, blind to the merits of all systems outside the
+narrow limits of Benthamism, and making even philanthropy hateful. Had
+Mackintosh lived to read Mill's <i>Fragment</i>, he would certainly have
+thought it a proof that the Utilitarians were as dogmatic and acrid as
+he had ever asserted.</p>
+
+<p>Mackintosh's position in ethics explains Mill's antagonism. Neither
+Aquinas nor Kant nor Fichte influenced him. His doctrine is the
+natural outcome of the Scottish philosophy. Hutcheson had both
+invented Bentham's sacred formula, and taught the 'Moral Sense' theory
+which Bentham attacked. To study the morality from the point of view
+of 'inductive psychology' is to study the moral faculty, and to reject
+the purely 'intellectual' system. To assign the position of the moral
+faculty in the psychological system is to show its utility. On the
+other hand, it was the very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> aim of the school to avoid the sceptical
+conclusions of Hume in philosophy, and in ethics to avoid the complete
+identification of morality with utility. There must be a distinction
+between the judgments, 'this is right,' and 'this is useful'; even
+'useful to men in general.' Hence, on the one hand, morality is
+immediately dictated by a special sense or faculty, and yet its
+dictates coincide with the dictates of utility. I have spoken of this
+view as represented by Dugald Stewart; and Brown had, according to his
+custom, moved a step further by diminishing the list of original first
+principles, and making 'virtue' simply equivalent to 'feelings' of
+approval and disapproval.<a name="FNanchor_568_568" id="FNanchor_568_568"></a><a href="#Footnote_568_568" class="fnanchor">[568]</a> Virtue, he said, is useful; the utility
+'accompanies our moral approbation; but the perception of that utility
+does not constitute our moral approbation, nor is it necessarily
+presupposed by it.'<a name="FNanchor_569_569" id="FNanchor_569_569"></a><a href="#Footnote_569_569" class="fnanchor">[569]</a> He compares the coincidence between virtue
+and utility to Leibniz's pre-established harmony.<a name="FNanchor_570_570" id="FNanchor_570_570"></a><a href="#Footnote_570_570" class="fnanchor">[570]</a> The position is
+familiar. The adaptation of an organism to its conditions may be taken
+either as an explanation of its development or as a proof of a
+creative purpose.</p>
+
+<p>Mackintosh takes nearly the same position. Ethical inquiries, he says,
+relate to 'two perfectly distinct subjects.' We have the problem of
+the 'criterion' (What is the distinction between right and wrong?) and
+the problem of the 'moral sentiments' (What are the feelings produced
+by the contemplation of right and wrong?). In treating of the
+feelings, again, we must avoid the confusion caused in the older
+philosophy by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> the reduction of 'feeling' to 'thought.'<a name="FNanchor_571_571" id="FNanchor_571_571"></a><a href="#Footnote_571_571" class="fnanchor">[571]</a> Reason
+and sensation are distinct though inseparably combined; and hence, he
+argues, it is a fallacy to speak with Clarke as if reason could by
+itself be a motive. An argument to influence conduct must always be in
+the last resort an appeal to a 'feeling.'<a name="FNanchor_572_572" id="FNanchor_572_572"></a><a href="#Footnote_572_572" class="fnanchor">[572]</a> It is idle to tell a
+man that conduct is infamous unless he <i>feels</i> infamy to be painful.
+We have then to ask what are the feelings which prompt to morality. So
+far as the criterion is concerned, Mackintosh fully agrees with Hume,
+whose theory that 'general utility constitutes a general ground of
+moral distinctions can never be impugned until some example can be
+produced of a virtue generally pernicious or a vice generally
+beneficial.'<a name="FNanchor_573_573" id="FNanchor_573_573"></a><a href="#Footnote_573_573" class="fnanchor">[573]</a> Hume, however, overlooks the 'rightful supremacy of
+the moral faculty over every other principle of human action.'
+Mackintosh thought that his best service, as he told Macvey
+Napier,<a name="FNanchor_574_574" id="FNanchor_574_574"></a><a href="#Footnote_574_574" class="fnanchor">[574]</a> had been his 'endeavour to slip in a foundation under
+Butler's doctrine of the supremacy of the conscience, which he left
+baseless.' To slip in a foundation is a very delicate operation in
+logical as in material architecture; and the new foundation seems here
+to be in danger of inverting the edifice. The 'supremacy of
+conscience'<a name="FNanchor_575_575" id="FNanchor_575_575"></a><a href="#Footnote_575_575" class="fnanchor">[575]</a> means with him that the 'moral sentiments' form a
+separate class. They are the feelings with which we contemplate
+voluntary actions in general, and therefore those aroused by the
+character and conduct of the agent. Mackintosh thus takes an &aelig;sthetic
+view of morality. We have a 'moral taste' or perception of beauty. The
+same qualities which make a horse beautiful make him also swift and
+safe, but we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> perceive the beauty without thinking of the utility, or
+rather when we do not think of it. So we admire a hero or martyr for
+the beauty of his character without reference to his services to
+us.<a name="FNanchor_576_576" id="FNanchor_576_576"></a><a href="#Footnote_576_576" class="fnanchor">[576]</a> This moral taste, though not identical with the conscience,
+becomes 'absorbed into it.' The conscience differs from the 'moral
+taste' because it acts upon the will. But its supremacy seems to be
+this quality which it shares with or derives from the taste&mdash;its
+immediate and spontaneous operation. It is, he seems to mean, a direct
+perception of beauty in character applied to the regulation of
+conduct. Virtue corresponds to an instinctive and so far ultimate
+appreciation of beauty of character. Mackintosh insists upon this
+intrinsic charm of virtue in the language which struck Mill as simply
+foppish affectation. The pleasure of 'benevolence' itself, says
+Mackintosh, is infinitely superior to the pleasures to which it may
+lead. Could it become 'lasting and intense,' it would convert the
+heart into a heaven.<a name="FNanchor_577_577" id="FNanchor_577_577"></a><a href="#Footnote_577_577" class="fnanchor">[577]</a> To love virtue, you must love it 'for its
+own sake.'<a name="FNanchor_578_578" id="FNanchor_578_578"></a><a href="#Footnote_578_578" class="fnanchor">[578]</a> The delights of being virtuous (as he interprets the
+phrase) are greater than any delight from the consequences of virtue.
+And he holds up as a model Fletcher of Saltoun, who would 'lose his
+life to serve his country, but would not do a base thing to save
+it.'<a name="FNanchor_579_579" id="FNanchor_579_579"></a><a href="#Footnote_579_579" class="fnanchor">[579]</a></p>
+
+<p>How, then, is this view to be reconciled with the unreserved admission
+of 'utility' as the 'criterion' of right and wrong? One answer is that
+Mackintosh fully accepts Hartley's doctrine of association. He even
+criticises previous philosophers for not pushing it far enough. He
+says that association, instead of merely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> combining a 'thought' and a
+'feeling,' 'forms them into a new compound, in which the properties of
+the component parts are no longer discoverable, and which may itself
+become a substantive principle of human virtue.'<a name="FNanchor_580_580" id="FNanchor_580_580"></a><a href="#Footnote_580_580" class="fnanchor">[580]</a> The question of
+origin, therefore, is different from the question of nature. He
+follows Hartley in tracing the development of various desires, and in
+showing how the 'secondary desires' are gradually formed from the
+primitive by transference to different objects.<a name="FNanchor_581_581" id="FNanchor_581_581"></a><a href="#Footnote_581_581" class="fnanchor">[581]</a> We must start
+from feelings which lie beneath any intellectual process, and thus the
+judgment of utility is from the first secondary. We arrive at the
+higher feelings which are 'as independent as if they were
+underived,'<a name="FNanchor_582_582" id="FNanchor_582_582"></a><a href="#Footnote_582_582" class="fnanchor">[582]</a> and yet, as happiness has been involved at every
+stage as an end of each desire, it is no wonder that the ultimate
+result should be to make the general happiness the end. The
+coincidence, then, of the criterion with the end of the moral
+sentiments is 'not arbitrary,' but arises necessarily from 'the laws
+of human nature and the circumstances in which mankind are
+placed.'<a name="FNanchor_583_583" id="FNanchor_583_583"></a><a href="#Footnote_583_583" class="fnanchor">[583]</a> Hence we reach the doctrine which 'has escaped Hartley
+as well as every other philosopher.'<a name="FNanchor_584_584" id="FNanchor_584_584"></a><a href="#Footnote_584_584" class="fnanchor">[584]</a> That doctrine is that the
+moral faculty is one; it is compound, indeed, in its origin; but
+becomes an independent unit, which can no longer be resolved even in
+thought into its constituent elements.</p>
+
+<p>The doctrine approximates, it would seem, to Mill's; but was all the
+more unpalatable to him on that account. The agreement implies
+plagiarism, and the difference hopeless stupidity. To Mill Bentham was
+the legitimate development of Hartley, while to Mackintosh Bentham<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span>
+was the plausible perverter of Hartley. Mill regarded Mackintosh as a
+sophist, whose aim was to mislead honest Utilitarians into the paths
+of orthodoxy, and who also ignored the merits of Mill himself. 'It was
+Mr. Mill,' he says, 'who first made known the great importance of the
+principle of the indissoluble association';<a name="FNanchor_585_585" id="FNanchor_585_585"></a><a href="#Footnote_585_585" class="fnanchor">[585]</a> 'Mr. Mill' who had
+taken up Hartley's speculations and 'prosecuted the inquiry to its
+end';<a name="FNanchor_586_586" id="FNanchor_586_586"></a><a href="#Footnote_586_586" class="fnanchor">[586]</a> 'Mr. Mill' who explained affections and motives and
+dispositions;<a name="FNanchor_587_587" id="FNanchor_587_587"></a><a href="#Footnote_587_587" class="fnanchor">[587]</a> and 'Mr. Mill' who had cleared up mistakes about
+classification which 'had done more to perpetuate darkness on the
+subject of mind than any other cause, perhaps than all other causes
+taken together.'<a name="FNanchor_588_588" id="FNanchor_588_588"></a><a href="#Footnote_588_588" class="fnanchor">[588]</a> Sir James blundered because he had not read
+Mill's book, as he pretended to have done. Mill does not say all this
+from vanity; he is simply stating an obvious matter of fact.</p>
+
+<p>Mill's polemic against the Moral Sense theory, even against a moral
+sense produced by association, reveals the really critical points of
+the true Utilitarian doctrine. Mill would cut down the moral sense
+root and branch. The 'moral sense' means a 'particular faculty'
+necessary to discern right and wrong. But no particular faculty is
+necessary to discern 'utility.'<a name="FNanchor_589_589" id="FNanchor_589_589"></a><a href="#Footnote_589_589" class="fnanchor">[589]</a> Hence the distinction between the
+'criterion' and the 'moral sentiments' is absurd. The utility is not
+the 'criterion' of the morality but itself constitutes the morality.
+To say that conduct is right, according to the Utilitarians, is the
+same thing as to say that it produces happiness. If the moral sense
+orders conduct opposed to the criterion, it is so far bad.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> If it
+never orders such conduct, it is superfluous. Happiness, as with
+Bentham, is a definite thing&mdash;a currency of solid bullion; and
+'virtue' means nothing except as calculated in this currency. Mill,
+again, like Bentham, regards the 'utility' principle as giving the
+sole 'objective' test. The complaint that it sanctions 'expediency' is
+a simple fallacy.</p>
+
+<p>If you do not love virtue 'for its own sake,' said Mackintosh, you
+will break a general law wherever the law produces a balance of
+painful consequences. Mill replies with great vigour.<a name="FNanchor_590_590" id="FNanchor_590_590"></a><a href="#Footnote_590_590" class="fnanchor">[590]</a> All general
+rules, it is true, imply exceptions, but only when they conflict with
+the supreme rule. 'There is no exception to a rule of morality,' says
+Mill, 'but what is made by a rule of morality.'<a name="FNanchor_591_591" id="FNanchor_591_591"></a><a href="#Footnote_591_591" class="fnanchor">[591]</a> There are
+numerous cases in which the particular laws conflict; and one law must
+then be broken. The question which to break must then be decided by
+the same unequivocal test, 'utility.' If a rule for increasing utility
+diminishes utility in a given case, it must be broken in that case.
+Mackintosh's Fletcher of Saltoun illustrates the point.<a name="FNanchor_592_592" id="FNanchor_592_592"></a><a href="#Footnote_592_592" class="fnanchor">[592]</a> What is
+the 'base' thing which Fletcher would not do to save his country?
+Would he not be the basest of men if he did not save his country at
+any cost? To destroy half a population and reduce the other half to
+misery has been thought a sacrifice not too great for such an end.
+Would not Mackintosh himself allow Fletcher, when intrusted with an
+important fortress, to sacrifice the lives and properties of innocent
+people in defence of his position?<a name="FNanchor_593_593" id="FNanchor_593_593"></a><a href="#Footnote_593_593" class="fnanchor">[593]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> What, then, does the love of
+virtue 'for its own sake' come to? If you refuse to save your country,
+because you think the means base, your morality is mischievous, that
+is, immoral. If, on the other hand, you admit that the means cease to
+be base, the supposed supremacy is an empty brag. The doctrine is then
+verbally maintained, but interpreted so as to conform to the criterion
+of utility. In other words, Mackintosh cannot reconcile his admission
+of utility as a 'criterion' with his support of a moral sense entitled
+to override the criterion. Mackintosh's moral sense is meant to
+distinguish the moral motive from 'expediency.' To this, again, Mill
+has a very forcible answer. A man is blameable who makes exceptions to
+laws in his own private interest. But if a man consistently and
+invariably acted for the 'greatest happiness of the greatest number,'
+and paid no more attention to his own happiness than to other
+people's, he would certainly have a very lofty and inflexible test,
+assuming&mdash;as we must allow Mill to assume&mdash;that we can calculate the
+effect of conduct upon happiness at large. Again, upon the assumption
+that 'moral' is equivalent to 'felicific,' we get a general rule
+entitled to override any individual tastes or fancies, such as Mill
+supposes to be meant by the 'Moral Sense.' The rule is derived from
+the interests of all, and gives an ultimate 'objective criterion.' J.
+S. Mill, describing his father's system, observes that the teaching of
+such a man was not likely to err on 'the side<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span> of laxity or
+indulgence.'<a name="FNanchor_594_594" id="FNanchor_594_594"></a><a href="#Footnote_594_594" class="fnanchor">[594]</a> It certainly did not. And, in fact, his criterion,
+however obtained, had in his eyes the certainty of a scientific law.
+This or that is right as surely as this or that food is wholesome. My
+taste has nothing to do with it. And, moreover, the criterion
+certainly gives a moral ground. If I know that any conduct will
+produce more happiness than misery that is a moral reason for adopting
+it. A 'moral sense' which should be radically inconsistent with that
+criterion, which should order me to inflict suffering as suffering, or
+without some ulterior reason, would be certainly at fault. Mackintosh
+indeed would have agreed to this, though, if Mill was right, at the
+expense of consistency.</p>
+
+<p>Mill, however, deduces from his criterion doctrines which involve a
+remarkable paradox. The mode in which he is led to them is
+characteristic of the whole method. Mill, like Bentham, puts morality
+upon the same plane with law. Conduct is influenced either by the
+'community in its conjunct capacity'&mdash;that is, by law; or by
+'individuals in their individual capacity'&mdash;that is, by morality.<a name="FNanchor_595_595" id="FNanchor_595_595"></a><a href="#Footnote_595_595" class="fnanchor">[595]</a>
+The sanction of one, we may infer, is force; of the other, approval
+and disapproval. With this we must take another Benthamite doctrine,
+of which I have already spoken.<a name="FNanchor_596_596" id="FNanchor_596_596"></a><a href="#Footnote_596_596" class="fnanchor">[596]</a> 'Mr. Bentham demonstrated,' says
+Mill, 'that the morality of an act does not depend upon the motive,'
+and, further, that it 'is altogether dependent on the intention.'<a name="FNanchor_597_597" id="FNanchor_597_597"></a><a href="#Footnote_597_597" class="fnanchor">[597]</a>
+Upon this he constantly insists. Mackintosh's view that virtue depends
+upon motive will be 'scorned by every man who has any knowledge of the
+philosophy of the human mind....<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> The virtue does not depend upon the
+motive. There is no bad motive. Every motive is the desire of good; to
+the agent himself or to some one else.'<a name="FNanchor_598_598" id="FNanchor_598_598"></a><a href="#Footnote_598_598" class="fnanchor">[598]</a> He gives an analysis of
+action to put the point beyond doubt. Action supposes a 'motive,' a
+'volition,' and an 'external act' or muscular contraction. So far
+there is nothing moral. But then an act has consequences, good or bad,
+to human beings, which constitute its utility. To make it moral, the
+agent must anticipate 'beneficial consequences,' and must have no
+reason to anticipate a balance of evil consequences. Intention means
+the calculation of consequences, and without that calculation there
+can be no morality.<a name="FNanchor_599_599" id="FNanchor_599_599"></a><a href="#Footnote_599_599" class="fnanchor">[599]</a> Hence the morality is equivalent to a
+'conviction of the general utility' of the action.<a name="FNanchor_600_600" id="FNanchor_600_600"></a><a href="#Footnote_600_600" class="fnanchor">[600]</a> 'All this,' he
+concludes, 'is settled by universal consent. It is vain, therefore, to
+think of disputing it.' One may, however, ask what it means. I have
+already observed that the view of the non-moral character of motive
+was a natural corollary from the purely legal point of view. I must
+now consider the results of applying it unreservedly in the
+inappropriate sphere of ethics.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, the denial of any moral quality in motive seems to
+be inconsistent with Mill's own principles. The Utilitarian, according
+to him, holds that the moral law is essentially the statement that
+certain conduct produces general happiness. If, then, we ask, Who is a
+good man? we first reply that he is a man whose conduct produces
+happiness. Another conclusion is obviously necessary, and is implied
+in Mill's statement that the 'intention' is essential to morality. The
+man, that is, must foresee that his conduct will produce happiness.
+The 'calculation' is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> precisely what makes an action moral as well as
+accidentally useful. In other words, the man is good to whom the
+knowledge that an act will produce happiness is the same thing as a
+command to perform the act. The 'intention' could not affect conduct
+without the corresponding motive, and Mill can at times recognise the
+obvious consequence. The 'physical law' (meaning the law enforced by
+physical coercion), he says incidentally, has 'extrinsic'
+sanctions;<a name="FNanchor_601_601" id="FNanchor_601_601"></a><a href="#Footnote_601_601" class="fnanchor">[601]</a> the moral law is different, because it sanctions good
+actions for their goodness. 'Moral approval' must therefore include
+approval of character. A man, to be moral, must be one who does useful
+things simply because they are useful. He must then, it would seem, be
+at least benevolent. The same thing is implied by the doctrine of
+'intention' or 'calculation.' An action may be useful or the reverse
+without being moral when the consequences are unknown to the agent. To
+make it moral he must know the consequences&mdash;for otherwise he is
+merely acting at random; and the foreseen consequences constitute the
+'intention.' To this Mill adds that he must have taken into account
+the consequences which 'might have been foreseen.'<a name="FNanchor_602_602" id="FNanchor_602_602"></a><a href="#Footnote_602_602" class="fnanchor">[602]</a> Otherwise we
+should have to excuse a man because he had neglected to calculate,
+whereas to calculate is the very essence of virtue. A man who fired a
+gun down a crowded street would not be excusable because he had not
+thought of the result. He 'ought' to have thought of it. The question
+of moral approval of any given action turns upon these questions. Did
+a man foresee evil consequences and disregard them? He is then cruel.
+Did he neglect to consider them? He is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> then culpably careless, though
+not actually malignant. Were the consequences altogether beyond the
+powers of reasonable calculation? Then he may be blameless. The whole
+moral question, therefore, depends upon the character indicated; that
+is, upon the motives which induce a man to calculate consequences and
+which determine his conduct when the calculation is made.</p>
+
+<p>The truth is, I think, and it is characteristic of Mill's modes of
+analysis, that he is making an impossible abstraction. He is
+separating parts of a single process and treating them as independent.
+If actions are bad because they have bad consequences, motives are bad
+because they are causes of bad actions. You cannot suppress the effect
+without suppressing the cause, and therefore the cause of the cause.
+Mill relies chiefly upon one argument. The same conduct will produce
+the same consequences whatever the motives. That is undeniable. It is
+the same to me whether I am burnt because the persecutor loves my soul
+or because he hates me as a rebel to his authority. But when is
+conduct 'the same'? If we classify acts as the legislator has to
+classify them by 'external' or 'objective' relations, we put together
+the man who is honest solely from fear of the gallows and the man who
+is honest from hatred of stealing. So long as both act alike, the
+'consequences' to their neighbours are alike. Neither is legally
+punishable. But if acts are classified by their motives, one is a
+rogue and the other virtuous; and it is only then that the question of
+morality properly arises. In that case, it is idle to separate the
+question of motive and consequences, because the character determines
+the motive and therefore the action. Nobody should have seen this more
+clearly than Mill as a good<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> 'determinist.' Conduct and character are
+related as the convex and concave of the curve; conduct is simply the
+manifestation of character, and to separate them is absurd.</p>
+
+<p>Why did he not see this? For reasons, I think, which illustrate his
+whole method. From a scientific point of view, the ethical problem
+raises the wide questions, What are the moral sentiments? and, What
+functions do they discharge in regard to the society or to its
+individual members? We might hold that morality is justified by
+'utility' in the sense that the moral rules and the character which
+they indicate are essential to the welfare of the race or its
+individual constituents. But to Mill this proposition is interpreted
+as identical with the proposition that conduct must be estimated by
+its 'consequences.' We are to consider not the action itself, but its
+effects; and the effects are clearly independent of the motive when
+once the action has been done. We may therefore get a calculus of
+'utility': general rules stating what actions will be useful
+considered abstractedly from their motives. The method, again, might
+be plausible if we could further assume that all men were the same and
+differed only in external circumstances. That is the point of view to
+which Mill, like Bentham, is always more or less consciously
+inclining. The moral and the positive law are equally enforced by
+'sanctions'; by something not dependent upon the man himself, and
+which he is inclined to suppose will operate equally upon all men.
+Such language could be justifiable only of an average and uniform
+'man,' a kind of constant unit, whose varying behaviour must always be
+explained by difference in circumstance. We have sufficiently seen the
+results elsewhere, and in this ethical doctrine they are especially
+manifest.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span></p><p>Mackintosh recognised the fact that morality is essentially a
+function of character. Mill cannot fully admit that, because he
+virtually assumes all character to be the same. Regarding morality as
+something co-ordinate with law, he does not perceive that the very
+possibility of law implies the moral instincts, which correspond to
+the constitution of character, and belong to a sphere underlying, not
+on the same plane with, the legislative sphere. They are the source of
+all order; not themselves the product of the order. It is impossible
+to deduce them, therefore, from the organisation which presupposes
+them. Now, in one direction, Mill's theory leads, as his son remarked,
+not to laxity but to excessive strictness. The 'criterion' is laid
+down absolutely. The 'moral sense' is rejected because it means an
+autocratic faculty, entitled to override the criterion by its own
+authority. To appeal to 'motives' is to allow the individual to make
+his own feeling the ultimate test of right and wrong. If we follow
+Mill in this we are not really assuming the moral neutrality of motive
+or the indifference, but an impossible profession of character. Men
+are not governed by abstract principles but by their passions and
+affections. The emotions, as Mackintosh rightly said, cannot be
+resolved into the mere logic. Utility may give the true criterion of
+morality, but it does not follow that the perception of utility is
+implied in moral conduct. The motives are good which in fact produce
+useful conduct, though the agent does not contemplate the abstract
+principle. It is impossible that men should be moved simply by a
+desire for the 'greatest happiness of the greatest number.' What does
+and always must guide men is their personal relation to the little
+circle which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> they actually influence. The good man is the man so
+constituted that he will spontaneously fulfil his duties. The moral
+law, that is, will be also the law of his character and conduct. The
+mother is good because she loves her child, not because she sees that
+care of her child is dictated by the general maxim of utility. The
+'utility' of character means the fitness of the agent to be an
+efficient member of the social structure to which he belongs. In
+particular cases this may lead to such problems as that of Fletcher of
+Saltoun. His sense of honour and his general benevolence, though both
+useful, might come into collision; and the most difficult of all
+questions of casuistry arise from such conflicts between private and
+public affections. Mill is justified in holding that a sense of honour
+cannot give an ultimate and autocratic decision. Under some pretext or
+other, we shall have to ask the Utilitarian question whether on the
+whole it may not be causing more misery than the virtuous action is
+worth. But that only means that the character must be so balanced as
+to give due weight to each motive; not that we can abstract from
+character altogether, as though human beings could be mere colourless
+and uniform atoms, embodying abstract formul&aelig;.</p>
+
+<p>Mill is following Bentham, and only brings out more clearly the
+psychological assumptions. A man, he says, acts from the 'same motive'
+whether he steals five shillings or earns it by a day's labour. The
+motive, in this sense, regards only one consequence, whereas the
+'intention' regards all. The 'motive,' that is, is only one of the
+motives or a part of the character, and this way of speaking is one of
+the awkward results<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> of turning 'motives' into 'things.' The obvious
+answer is that which Mill himself makes to Mackintosh. Mackintosh and
+Butler, he thinks, personify particular 'appetites.'<a name="FNanchor_603_603" id="FNanchor_603_603"></a><a href="#Footnote_603_603" class="fnanchor">[603]</a> It is not
+really the 'conscience' which decides, but the man. That is quite
+true, and similarly it is the whole man who steals or works, not the
+'personified' motive; and it is accordingly from the whole character
+that we judge. We have to consider the relation of the love of five
+shillings to the other qualities of industry and honesty. The same
+view appears in Mill's characteristic dislike of 'sentimentalism.'
+Wishing to attack Mackintosh's rhetoric about the delight of virtuous
+feeling, he for once quotes a novel to illustrate this point. When
+Parson Adams defined charity as a 'generous disposition to relieve the
+distressed,' Peter Pounce approved; 'it is, as you say, a disposition,
+and does not so much consist in the act as in the disposition to do
+it.'<a name="FNanchor_604_604" id="FNanchor_604_604"></a><a href="#Footnote_604_604" class="fnanchor">[604]</a> When, therefore, Mackintosh says that he finds it difficult
+to separate the virtue from the act, Mill replies that nothing is
+easier. The virtue is 'in the act and its consequences'; the feeling a
+mere removable addition. Apparently he would hold that the good
+Samaritan and the Pharisee had the same feeling, though it prompted
+one to relieve the sufferer and the other to relieve himself of the
+sight of the sufferer. They had, of course, a feeling in common, but a
+feeling which produced diametrically opposite effects, because
+entering into totally different combinations.</p>
+
+<p>If Mill's doctrine leads to an impossible strictness in one direction,
+it leads to less edifying results in another. We have omitted 'motive'
+and come to the critical<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> question, How, after all, is the moral code
+to be enforced? By overlooking this question and declaring 'motive' to
+be irrelevant, we get the paradox already accepted by Bentham. His
+definition of virtue is action for the good of others as well as of
+ourselves. In what way is the existence of such action to be
+reconciled with this doctrine? What are the motives which make men
+count the happiness of others to be equally valuable with their own?
+or, in the Utilitarian language, What is the 'sanction' of morality?
+After all Bentham's insistence upon the 'self-preference principle'
+and Mill's account of selfishness in his political theory, we are
+suddenly told that morality means a lofty and rigid code in which the
+happiness of all is the one end. Here again Mill is entangled by the
+characteristic difficulty of his psychology. To analyse is to divide
+objects into separate units. When he has to do with complex objects
+and relations apparently reciprocal, he is forced to represent them by
+a simple sequence. The two factors are not mutually dependent but
+distinct things somehow connected in time. One result is his account
+of 'ends' or 'motives' (the two, as he observes, are synonymous).<a name="FNanchor_605_605" id="FNanchor_605_605"></a><a href="#Footnote_605_605" class="fnanchor">[605]</a>
+The end is something to be gained by the act, the 'association' of
+which with the act constitutes a 'desire.' This, we have seen, always
+refers to the future.<a name="FNanchor_606_606" id="FNanchor_606_606"></a><a href="#Footnote_606_606" class="fnanchor">[606]</a> In acting, then, I am always guided by
+calculations of future pleasures or pains. I believe this to be one of
+the most unfortunate because one of the most plausible of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> Utilitarian
+fallacies. If we are determined by pains and pleasures, it is in one
+sense as contradictory to speak of our being determined by future
+pains and pleasures as to speak of our being nourished to-day by
+to-morrow's dinner. The 'future pleasure' does not exist; the
+anticipated pleasure acts by making the present action pleasant; and
+we then move (as it is said) along the line of least resistance.
+Certain conduct is intrinsically pleasurable or painful, and the
+future pleasure only acts through the present foretaste. When,
+however, we regard the pleasure as future and as somehow a separable
+thing, we can only express these undeniable facts by accepting a
+purely egoistic conclusion. We are, of course, moved by our own
+feelings, as we breathe with our own lungs and digest with our own
+stomachs. But when we accept the doctrine of 'ends' this harmless and
+self-evident truth is perverted into the statement that our 'end' must
+be our own pleasure; that we cannot be really or directly unselfish.
+The analysis, indeed, is so defective that it can hardly be applied
+intelligibly. Hume observes that no man would rest his foot
+indifferently upon a stool or a gouty toe. The action itself of giving
+pain would be painful, and cannot be plausibly resolved into an
+anticipation of an 'end.' This, again, is conspicuously true of all
+the truly social emotions. Not only the conscience, but the sense of
+shame or honour, or pride and vanity act powerfully and
+instantaneously as present motives without necessary reference to any
+future results. The knowledge that I am giving pain or causing future
+pain is intrinsically and immediately painful to the normal human
+being, and the supposed 'analysis' is throughout a fiction. Mill,
+however, like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> Bentham, takes it for granted, but perceives more
+clearly than Bentham the difficulty to which it leads. How, from a
+theory of pure selfishness, are we to get a morality of general
+benevolence? The answer is given by the universal 'association.' We
+are governed, he holds, by our own emotions; our end is our own
+pleasure, and we have to consider how this end dictates a desire for
+general happiness. He expounds with great vigour the process by which
+the love of friends, children and parents and country may be gradually
+developed through the association of our pleasures with the
+fellow-creatures who caused them. J. S. Mill regards his exposition as
+'almost perfect,'<a name="FNanchor_607_607" id="FNanchor_607_607"></a><a href="#Footnote_607_607" class="fnanchor">[607]</a> and says that it shows how the 'acquired
+sentiments'&mdash;the moral sentiments and so forth&mdash;may be gradually
+developed; may become 'more intense and powerful than any of the
+elements out of which they may have been formed, and may also in their
+maturity be perfectly disinterested.' James Mill declares that the
+analysis does not affect the reality of the sentiments analysed.
+Gratitude remains gratitude, and generosity generosity, just as a
+white ray remains white after Newton had decomposed it into rays of
+different colours.<a name="FNanchor_608_608" id="FNanchor_608_608"></a><a href="#Footnote_608_608" class="fnanchor">[608]</a> Here once more we have the great principle of
+indissoluble association or mental chemistry.</p>
+
+<p>Granting that the emotions so generated may be real, we may still ask
+whether the analysis be sufficient. James Mill's account of the way in
+which they are generated leaves a doubt. Morality is first impressed
+upon us by authority. Our parents praise and blame, reward<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> and
+punish. Thus are formed associations of praise and blame with certain
+actions. Then, we form further associations with the causes of praise
+and blame and thus acquire the sentiments of 'praiseworthiness' and
+'blameworthiness.' The sensibility to praise and blame generally forms
+the 'popular sanction,' and this, when praiseworthiness is concerned,
+becomes the moral sanction.<a name="FNanchor_609_609" id="FNanchor_609_609"></a><a href="#Footnote_609_609" class="fnanchor">[609]</a> Here we see that morality is regarded
+as somehow the product of a 'sanction'; that is, of the action of
+praise and blame with their usual consequences upon the individual.
+His sensibility causes him through association to acquire the habits
+which generally bring praise and blame; and ultimately these qualities
+become attractive for their own sake. The difficulty is to see where
+the line is crossed which divides truly moral or altruistic conduct
+from mere prudence. Admitting that association may impel us to conduct
+which involves self-sacrifice, we may still ask whether such conduct
+is reasonable. Association produces belief in error as well as in
+truth. If I love a man because he is useful and continue to love him
+when he can no longer be useful, am I not misguided? If I wear a
+ragged coat, because it was once smart, my conduct is easily explained
+as a particular kind of folly. If I am good to my old mother when she
+can no longer nurse me, am I not guilty of a similar folly? In short,
+a man who inferred from Mill's principles that he would never do good
+without being paid for it, would be hardly inconsistent. Your
+associations, Mill would say, are indissoluble. He might answer, I
+will try&mdash;it is surely not so hard to dissolve a tie of gratitude!
+Granting, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span>in short, that Mill gives an account of such virtue as may
+be made of enlightened self-interest, he does not succeed in making
+intelligible the conduct which alone deserves the name of virtuous.
+The theory always halts at the point where something more is required
+than an external sanction, and supposes a change of character as well
+as a wider calculation of personal interest.</p>
+
+<p>The imperfection of this theory may be taken for granted. It has been
+exposed by innumerable critics. It is more important to observe one
+cause of the imperfection. Mill's argument contains an element of real
+worth. It may be held to represent fairly the historical development
+of morals. That morality is first conceived as an external law
+deriving its sanctity from authority; that it is directed against
+obviously hurtful conduct; and that it thus serves as a protection
+under which the more genuine moral sentiments can develop themselves,
+I believe to be in full accordance with sound theories of ethics. But
+Mill was throughout hampered by the absence of any theory of
+evolution. He had to represent a series of changes as taking place in
+the individual which can only be conceived as the product of a long
+and complex social change. He is forced to represent the growth of
+morality as an accretion of new 'ends' due to association, not as an
+intrinsic development of the character itself. He has to make morality
+out of atomic sensations and ideas collected in clusters and trains
+without any distinct reference to the organic constitution of the
+individual or of society, and as somehow or other deducible from the
+isolated human being, who remains a constant, though he collects into
+groups governed by external sanctions. He sees that morality is
+formed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> somehow or other, but he cannot show that it is either
+reasonable or an essential fact of human nature. Here, again, we shall
+see what problem was set to his son. Finally, if Mill did not explain
+ethical theory satisfactorily, it must be added in common justice that
+he was himself an excellent example of the qualities for which he
+tried to account. A life of devotion to public objects and a
+conscientious discharge of private duties is just the phenomenon for
+which a cluster of 'ideas' and 'associations' seems to be an
+inadequate account. How, it might have been asked, do you explain
+James Mill? His main purpose, too, was to lay down a rule of duty,
+almost mathematically ascertainable, and not to be disturbed by any
+sentimentalism, mysticism, or rhetorical foppery. If, in the attempt
+to free his hearers from such elements, he ran the risk of reducing
+morality to a lower level and made it appear as unamiable as sound
+morality can appear, it must be admitted that in this respect too his
+theories reflected his personal character.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_464_464" id="Footnote_464_464"></a><a href="#FNanchor_464_464"><span class="label">[464]</span></a> For an account of these writers and their relation to
+the pre-revolutionary schools, see <i>Les Id&eacute;ologues</i> by F. Picavet
+(1891).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_465_465" id="Footnote_465_465"></a><a href="#FNanchor_465_465"><span class="label">[465]</span></a> Macvey Napier's <i>Correspondence</i>, p. 424.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_466_466" id="Footnote_466_466"></a><a href="#FNanchor_466_466"><span class="label">[466]</span></a> Charles Fran&ccedil;ois Dominique de Villers (1767-1815) was a
+French officer, who emigrated in 1792, and took refuge at L&uuml;beck. He
+became profoundly interested in German life and literature, and
+endeavoured to introduce a knowledge of German speculation to his
+countrymen. His chief books were this exposition of Kant and an essay
+upon the <i>Reformation of Luther</i> (1803), which went through several
+editions, and was translated by James Mill in 1805. An interesting
+account of Villers is in the <i>Biographie Universelle</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_467_467" id="Footnote_467_467"></a><a href="#FNanchor_467_467"><span class="label">[467]</span></a> See Cockburn's <i>Memorials</i> for a good notice of this.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_468_468" id="Footnote_468_468"></a><a href="#FNanchor_468_468"><span class="label">[468]</span></a> Stewart's <i>Works</i>, iv. 345.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_469_469" id="Footnote_469_469"></a><a href="#FNanchor_469_469"><span class="label">[469]</span></a> Lady Holland's <i>Life of Smith</i>, ii. 388.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_470_470" id="Footnote_470_470"></a><a href="#FNanchor_470_470"><span class="label">[470]</span></a> <i>Inquiry into the Relations of Cause and Effect</i> (third
+edition), pp. 178, 180, and part iv. sec. 6.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_471_471" id="Footnote_471_471"></a><a href="#FNanchor_471_471"><span class="label">[471]</span></a> <i>Examination of Hamilton</i> (fourth edition), p. 379.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_472_472" id="Footnote_472_472"></a><a href="#FNanchor_472_472"><span class="label">[472]</span></a> <i>Cause and Effect</i>, pp. 184-87.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_473_473" id="Footnote_473_473"></a><a href="#FNanchor_473_473"><span class="label">[473]</span></a> <i>Cause and Effect</i>, p. 197.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_474_474" id="Footnote_474_474"></a><a href="#FNanchor_474_474"><span class="label">[474]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 239 <i>seq.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_475_475" id="Footnote_475_475"></a><a href="#FNanchor_475_475"><span class="label">[475]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 244.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_476_476" id="Footnote_476_476"></a><a href="#FNanchor_476_476"><span class="label">[476]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 150.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_477_477" id="Footnote_477_477"></a><a href="#FNanchor_477_477"><span class="label">[477]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 357.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_478_478" id="Footnote_478_478"></a><a href="#FNanchor_478_478"><span class="label">[478]</span></a> <i>Cause and Effect</i>, p. 313.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_479_479" id="Footnote_479_479"></a><a href="#FNanchor_479_479"><span class="label">[479]</span></a> <i>Cause and Effect</i>, p. 482. Brown thinks that we can
+logically disprove the existence of motion by the hare and tortoise
+argument, and should therefore disregard logic.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_480_480" id="Footnote_480_480"></a><a href="#FNanchor_480_480"><span class="label">[480]</span></a> Brown's <i>Lectures</i>, (1851), p. 167, Lect. xxvi.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_481_481" id="Footnote_481_481"></a><a href="#FNanchor_481_481"><span class="label">[481]</span></a> Lecture xxv. This question as to whether Brown had or
+had not grossly misrepresented Reid and other philosophers, led to an
+entangled argument, in which Mill defended Brown against Hamilton. I
+will not ask whether Reid was a 'natural realist' or a 'cosmothetic
+idealist,' or what Descartes or Arnauld thought about the question.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_482_482" id="Footnote_482_482"></a><a href="#FNanchor_482_482"><span class="label">[482]</span></a> Reid's <i>Works</i>, p. 128.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_483_483" id="Footnote_483_483"></a><a href="#FNanchor_483_483"><span class="label">[483]</span></a> <i>Lectures</i>, pp. 150, 158-59.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_484_484" id="Footnote_484_484"></a><a href="#FNanchor_484_484"><span class="label">[484]</span></a> <i>Dissertations</i>, p. 98. Compare Brown's Twenty-fourth
+Lecture with Tracy's <i>Id&eacute;ologie</i>, ch. vii., and the account of the way
+in which the infant learns from resistance to infer a cause, and make
+of the cause <i>un &ecirc;tre qui n'est pas moi</i>. The resemblance is certainly
+close. Brown was familiar with French literature, and shows it by many
+quotations, though he does not, I think, refer to Tracy. Brown, it
+must be noticed, did not himself publish his lectures, and a professor
+is not bound to give all his sources in popular lectures. An
+explanation would have been due in a treatise. Picavet quotes
+Rh&eacute;tor&eacute;'s <i>Philosophie de Thomas Brown</i> (a book which I have not seen)
+for the statement that Brown's lectures often read like a translation
+of Laromigui&egrave;re, with whom Brown was 'perhaps' acquainted. As,
+however, the <i>Le&ccedil;ons</i>, to which reference is apparently made, did not
+appear till 1815 and 1818, when Brown's lectures were already written,
+this seems to be impossible. The coincidence, which to me seems to be
+exaggerated by the statement, is explicable by a common relation to
+previous writers.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_485_485" id="Footnote_485_485"></a><a href="#FNanchor_485_485"><span class="label">[485]</span></a> <i>Lectures</i>, p. 166 (Lect. xxvi.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_486_486" id="Footnote_486_486"></a><a href="#FNanchor_486_486"><span class="label">[486]</span></a> <i>Lectures</i>, p. 158 (Lect. xxv.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_487_487" id="Footnote_487_487"></a><a href="#FNanchor_487_487"><span class="label">[487]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 151 (Lect. xxiv.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_488_488" id="Footnote_488_488"></a><a href="#FNanchor_488_488"><span class="label">[488]</span></a> <i>Lectures</i>, p. 177 (ch. xxviii.). Brown made the same
+remark to Mackintosh in 1812. (Mackintosh's <i>Ethical Philosophy</i>,
+1872, 236 <i>n.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_489_489" id="Footnote_489_489"></a><a href="#FNanchor_489_489"><span class="label">[489]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 154 (Lect. xxiv.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_490_490" id="Footnote_490_490"></a><a href="#FNanchor_490_490"><span class="label">[490]</span></a> See Hamilton's note to Reid's <i>Works</i>, p. 111.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_491_491" id="Footnote_491_491"></a><a href="#FNanchor_491_491"><span class="label">[491]</span></a> <i>Lectures</i>, p. 255 (Lect. xl.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_492_492" id="Footnote_492_492"></a><a href="#FNanchor_492_492"><span class="label">[492]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> (Lect. xxxiii. and following).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_493_493" id="Footnote_493_493"></a><a href="#FNanchor_493_493"><span class="label">[493]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 214-15 (Lect. xxxiii.). The phrase is
+revived by Professor Stout in his <i>Analytic Psychology</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_494_494" id="Footnote_494_494"></a><a href="#FNanchor_494_494"><span class="label">[494]</span></a> <i>Lectures</i>, p. 213 (Lect. xxxiii.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_495_495" id="Footnote_495_495"></a><a href="#FNanchor_495_495"><span class="label">[495]</span></a> This is one of the coincidences with Laromigui&egrave;re
+(<i>Le&ccedil;ons</i> (1837), i. 103).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_496_496" id="Footnote_496_496"></a><a href="#FNanchor_496_496"><span class="label">[496]</span></a> <i>Lectures</i>, p. 210.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_497_497" id="Footnote_497_497"></a><a href="#FNanchor_497_497"><span class="label">[497]</span></a> <i>Lectures</i>, p. 315 (Lect. xlviii.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_498_498" id="Footnote_498_498"></a><a href="#FNanchor_498_498"><span class="label">[498]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 314.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_499_499" id="Footnote_499_499"></a><a href="#FNanchor_499_499"><span class="label">[499]</span></a> <i>Lectures</i>, p. 335 (Lect. li.). See Lect. xi. for a
+general explanation. The mind is nothing but a 'series of feelings';
+and to say that 'I am conscious of feeling' is simply to say 'I feel.'
+The same phrase often occurs in James Mill.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_500_500" id="Footnote_500_500"></a><a href="#FNanchor_500_500"><span class="label">[500]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 298 (Lect. xlvi.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_501_501" id="Footnote_501_501"></a><a href="#FNanchor_501_501"><span class="label">[501]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 498 (Lect. lxxiv.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_502_502" id="Footnote_502_502"></a><a href="#FNanchor_502_502"><span class="label">[502]</span></a> <i>Lectures</i>, p. 622 (Lect. xciii.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_503_503" id="Footnote_503_503"></a><a href="#FNanchor_503_503"><span class="label">[503]</span></a> <i>Dissertations</i>, p. 98.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_504_504" id="Footnote_504_504"></a><a href="#FNanchor_504_504"><span class="label">[504]</span></a> Froude's <i>Carlyle</i>, p. 25.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_505_505" id="Footnote_505_505"></a><a href="#FNanchor_505_505"><span class="label">[505]</span></a> <i>Miscellanies</i> (1858), ii. 104. See, too,
+<i>Miscellanies</i>, i. 60, on German Literature, where he thinks that the
+Germans attacked the centre instead of the outworks of Hume's citadel.
+Carlyle speaks with marked respect of Dugald Stewart, who, if he knew
+what he was about, would agree with Kant.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_506_506" id="Footnote_506_506"></a><a href="#FNanchor_506_506"><span class="label">[506]</span></a> In Caroline Fox's <i>Memories of Old Friends</i> (second
+edition), ii. 314, is a letter from J. S. Mill, expressing a very high
+opinion of Brown, whom he had just been re-reading (1840) with a view
+to the Logic. Brown's 'analysis in his early lectures of the amount of
+what we can learn of the phenomena of the world seems to me perfect,
+and his mode of inquiry into the mind is strictly founded upon that
+analysis.'</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_507_507" id="Footnote_507_507"></a><a href="#FNanchor_507_507"><span class="label">[507]</span></a> I quote from this edition. Andrew Findlater
+(1810-1885), a Scottish schoolmaster, and editor of Chambers's
+<i>Cyclop&aelig;dia</i>, was a philologist (<i>Dictionary of National Biography</i>),
+and his notes chiefly concern Mill's adaptations of Horne Tooke.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_508_508" id="Footnote_508_508"></a><a href="#FNanchor_508_508"><span class="label">[508]</span></a> <i>Treatise</i> (bk. i. pt. i. sec. iv.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_509_509" id="Footnote_509_509"></a><a href="#FNanchor_509_509"><span class="label">[509]</span></a> J. S. Mill's <i>Autobiography</i>, p. 68.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_510_510" id="Footnote_510_510"></a><a href="#FNanchor_510_510"><span class="label">[510]</span></a> <i>Fragment on Mackintosh</i>, p. 314.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_511_511" id="Footnote_511_511"></a><a href="#FNanchor_511_511"><span class="label">[511]</span></a> <i>Analysis</i>, ii. 42. 'Odd,' because Brown was six years
+younger than Mill.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_512_512" id="Footnote_512_512"></a><a href="#FNanchor_512_512"><span class="label">[512]</span></a> 'Education,' p. 6.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_513_513" id="Footnote_513_513"></a><a href="#FNanchor_513_513"><span class="label">[513]</span></a> <i>Analysis</i>, i. 52.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_514_514" id="Footnote_514_514"></a><a href="#FNanchor_514_514"><span class="label">[514]</span></a> <i>Analysis</i>, i. xvii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_515_515" id="Footnote_515_515"></a><a href="#FNanchor_515_515"><span class="label">[515]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 70.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_516_516" id="Footnote_516_516"></a><a href="#FNanchor_516_516"><span class="label">[516]</span></a> <i>Analysis</i>, i. 71.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_517_517" id="Footnote_517_517"></a><a href="#FNanchor_517_517"><span class="label">[517]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 78.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_518_518" id="Footnote_518_518"></a><a href="#FNanchor_518_518"><span class="label">[518]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 83.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_519_519" id="Footnote_519_519"></a><a href="#FNanchor_519_519"><span class="label">[519]</span></a> <i>Analysis</i>, ii. 42.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_520_520" id="Footnote_520_520"></a><a href="#FNanchor_520_520"><span class="label">[520]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 270.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_521_521" id="Footnote_521_521"></a><a href="#FNanchor_521_521"><span class="label">[521]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 111.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_522_522" id="Footnote_522_522"></a><a href="#FNanchor_522_522"><span class="label">[522]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 362.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_523_523" id="Footnote_523_523"></a><a href="#FNanchor_523_523"><span class="label">[523]</span></a> <i>Analysis</i>, i. 154 <i>n.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_524_524" id="Footnote_524_524"></a><a href="#FNanchor_524_524"><span class="label">[524]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 161.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_525_525" id="Footnote_525_525"></a><a href="#FNanchor_525_525"><span class="label">[525]</span></a> <i>Analysis</i>, i. 189.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_526_526" id="Footnote_526_526"></a><a href="#FNanchor_526_526"><span class="label">[526]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 163 <i>n.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_527_527" id="Footnote_527_527"></a><a href="#FNanchor_527_527"><span class="label">[527]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 266.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_528_528" id="Footnote_528_528"></a><a href="#FNanchor_528_528"><span class="label">[528]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 269.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_529_529" id="Footnote_529_529"></a><a href="#FNanchor_529_529"><span class="label">[529]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 295.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_530_530" id="Footnote_530_530"></a><a href="#FNanchor_530_530"><span class="label">[530]</span></a> <i>Analysis</i>, i. 162 <i>n.</i>, 187 <i>n.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_531_531" id="Footnote_531_531"></a><a href="#FNanchor_531_531"><span class="label">[531]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ii. 21.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_532_532" id="Footnote_532_532"></a><a href="#FNanchor_532_532"><span class="label">[532]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 224-25.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_533_533" id="Footnote_533_533"></a><a href="#FNanchor_533_533"><span class="label">[533]</span></a> <i>Analysis</i>, i. 342.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_534_534" id="Footnote_534_534"></a><a href="#FNanchor_534_534"><span class="label">[534]</span></a> <i>e.g.</i> <i>Ibid.</i> ii. 176.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_535_535" id="Footnote_535_535"></a><a href="#FNanchor_535_535"><span class="label">[535]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 341.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_536_536" id="Footnote_536_536"></a><a href="#FNanchor_536_536"><span class="label">[536]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 342 <i>n.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_537_537" id="Footnote_537_537"></a><a href="#FNanchor_537_537"><span class="label">[537]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 331.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_538_538" id="Footnote_538_538"></a><a href="#FNanchor_538_538"><span class="label">[538]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 345.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_539_539" id="Footnote_539_539"></a><a href="#FNanchor_539_539"><span class="label">[539]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 352.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_540_540" id="Footnote_540_540"></a><a href="#FNanchor_540_540"><span class="label">[540]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 381.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_541_541" id="Footnote_541_541"></a><a href="#FNanchor_541_541"><span class="label">[541]</span></a> <i>Analysis</i>, i. 363.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_542_542" id="Footnote_542_542"></a><a href="#FNanchor_542_542"><span class="label">[542]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 402.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_543_543" id="Footnote_543_543"></a><a href="#FNanchor_543_543"><span class="label">[543]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 402-23.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_544_544" id="Footnote_544_544"></a><a href="#FNanchor_544_544"><span class="label">[544]</span></a> <i>Analysis</i>, i. 423.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_545_545" id="Footnote_545_545"></a><a href="#FNanchor_545_545"><span class="label">[545]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 413, 419.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_546_546" id="Footnote_546_546"></a><a href="#FNanchor_546_546"><span class="label">[546]</span></a> See especially his account of definition, <i>Logic</i>, bk.
+i. ch. viii., and the problem about the serpent and the dragon.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_547_547" id="Footnote_547_547"></a><a href="#FNanchor_547_547"><span class="label">[547]</span></a> <i>Analysis</i>, ii. 2.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_548_548" id="Footnote_548_548"></a><a href="#FNanchor_548_548"><span class="label">[548]</span></a> This point puzzles Destutt de Tracy. All error, he
+says, arises in judgments: 'Cependant les jugements, les perceptions
+de rapports, en tant que perceptions que nous avons actuellement, sont
+aussi certaines et aussi r&eacute;elles que toutes les autres.'&mdash;<i>&Eacute;l&eacute;ments
+d'Id&eacute;ologie</i> (1865), iii. 449.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_549_549" id="Footnote_549_549"></a><a href="#FNanchor_549_549"><span class="label">[549]</span></a> <i>Analysis</i>, ii. 6, 7.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_550_550" id="Footnote_550_550"></a><a href="#FNanchor_550_550"><span class="label">[550]</span></a> <i>Analysis</i>, ii. 18 <i>n.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_551_551" id="Footnote_551_551"></a><a href="#FNanchor_551_551"><span class="label">[551]</span></a> <i>Analysis</i>, ii. 24 <i>n.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_552_552" id="Footnote_552_552"></a><a href="#FNanchor_552_552"><span class="label">[552]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ii. 132-33.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_553_553" id="Footnote_553_553"></a><a href="#FNanchor_553_553"><span class="label">[553]</span></a> <i>Analysis</i>, ii. 67-69.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_554_554" id="Footnote_554_554"></a><a href="#FNanchor_554_554"><span class="label">[554]</span></a> <i>Analysis</i>, ii. 113 <i>n.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_555_555" id="Footnote_555_555"></a><a href="#FNanchor_555_555"><span class="label">[555]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 97 <i>n.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_556_556" id="Footnote_556_556"></a><a href="#FNanchor_556_556"><span class="label">[556]</span></a> Professor Bain points out that Mill is occasionally
+confused by his ignorance of the triple division, intellect, feelings:
+and will, introduced in the next generation.&mdash;<i>Analysis</i>, ii. 180
+<i>n.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_557_557" id="Footnote_557_557"></a><a href="#FNanchor_557_557"><span class="label">[557]</span></a> <i>Analysis</i>, ii. 181-83.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_558_558" id="Footnote_558_558"></a><a href="#FNanchor_558_558"><span class="label">[558]</span></a> <i>Analysis</i>, ii. 351.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_559_559" id="Footnote_559_559"></a><a href="#FNanchor_559_559"><span class="label">[559]</span></a> Also privately printed in 1830. Later editions, edited
+by Whewell, appeared in 1836, 1862, 1873. I quote the last. See M.
+Napier's <i>Correspondence</i>, pp. 57-59, for the composition.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_560_560" id="Footnote_560_560"></a><a href="#FNanchor_560_560"><span class="label">[560]</span></a> Mill's <i>Fragment</i> (Preface).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_561_561" id="Footnote_561_561"></a><a href="#FNanchor_561_561"><span class="label">[561]</span></a> See Bain's <i>James Mill</i>, pp. 374, 415-18.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_562_562" id="Footnote_562_562"></a><a href="#FNanchor_562_562"><span class="label">[562]</span></a> <i>Fragment</i>, pp. 190, 192, 213, 298, 307, 326.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_563_563" id="Footnote_563_563"></a><a href="#FNanchor_563_563"><span class="label">[563]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 210.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_564_564" id="Footnote_564_564"></a><a href="#FNanchor_564_564"><span class="label">[564]</span></a> <i>Ethical Philosophy</i> (1873), pp. 188, 193.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_565_565" id="Footnote_565_565"></a><a href="#FNanchor_565_565"><span class="label">[565]</span></a> M. Napier's <i>Correspondence</i>, p. 25.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_566_566" id="Footnote_566_566"></a><a href="#FNanchor_566_566"><span class="label">[566]</span></a> <i>Essay on Sir J. Mackintosh.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_567_567" id="Footnote_567_567"></a><a href="#FNanchor_567_567"><span class="label">[567]</span></a> <i>Essay on Lord Holland.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_568_568" id="Footnote_568_568"></a><a href="#FNanchor_568_568"><span class="label">[568]</span></a> <i>Lectures</i>, p. 500 (Lect. lxxv.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_569_569" id="Footnote_569_569"></a><a href="#FNanchor_569_569"><span class="label">[569]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 519 (Lect. lxxvii.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_570_570" id="Footnote_570_570"></a><a href="#FNanchor_570_570"><span class="label">[570]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 522 (Lect. lxxviii.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_571_571" id="Footnote_571_571"></a><a href="#FNanchor_571_571"><span class="label">[571]</span></a> <i>Ethical Philosophy</i> (Hobbes), pp. 62-64.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_572_572" id="Footnote_572_572"></a><a href="#FNanchor_572_572"><span class="label">[572]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 85.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_573_573" id="Footnote_573_573"></a><a href="#FNanchor_573_573"><span class="label">[573]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 145.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_574_574" id="Footnote_574_574"></a><a href="#FNanchor_574_574"><span class="label">[574]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 9.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_575_575" id="Footnote_575_575"></a><a href="#FNanchor_575_575"><span class="label">[575]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 120.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_576_576" id="Footnote_576_576"></a><a href="#FNanchor_576_576"><span class="label">[576]</span></a> <i>Ethical Philosophy</i>, pp. 14, 170.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_577_577" id="Footnote_577_577"></a><a href="#FNanchor_577_577"><span class="label">[577]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 197.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_578_578" id="Footnote_578_578"></a><a href="#FNanchor_578_578"><span class="label">[578]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 248.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_579_579" id="Footnote_579_579"></a><a href="#FNanchor_579_579"><span class="label">[579]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 204.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_580_580" id="Footnote_580_580"></a><a href="#FNanchor_580_580"><span class="label">[580]</span></a> <i>Ethical Philosophy</i> p. 242.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_581_581" id="Footnote_581_581"></a><a href="#FNanchor_581_581"><span class="label">[581]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 251.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_582_582" id="Footnote_582_582"></a><a href="#FNanchor_582_582"><span class="label">[582]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 262.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_583_583" id="Footnote_583_583"></a><a href="#FNanchor_583_583"><span class="label">[583]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 264.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_584_584" id="Footnote_584_584"></a><a href="#FNanchor_584_584"><span class="label">[584]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 169.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_585_585" id="Footnote_585_585"></a><a href="#FNanchor_585_585"><span class="label">[585]</span></a> <i>Fragment</i>, p. 173.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_586_586" id="Footnote_586_586"></a><a href="#FNanchor_586_586"><span class="label">[586]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 323.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_587_587" id="Footnote_587_587"></a><a href="#FNanchor_587_587"><span class="label">[587]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 221.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_588_588" id="Footnote_588_588"></a><a href="#FNanchor_588_588"><span class="label">[588]</span></a> <i>Fragment</i>, p. 247. Mackintosh quotes Mill's <i>Analysis</i>
+at p. 197. It had only just appeared.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_589_589" id="Footnote_589_589"></a><a href="#FNanchor_589_589"><span class="label">[589]</span></a> <i>Fragment</i>, p. 11.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_590_590" id="Footnote_590_590"></a><a href="#FNanchor_590_590"><span class="label">[590]</span></a> <i>Fragment</i>, p. 246, etc.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_591_591" id="Footnote_591_591"></a><a href="#FNanchor_591_591"><span class="label">[591]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 246.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_592_592" id="Footnote_592_592"></a><a href="#FNanchor_592_592"><span class="label">[592]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> pp. 269, 270.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_593_593" id="Footnote_593_593"></a><a href="#FNanchor_593_593"><span class="label">[593]</span></a> Cf. Newman's <i>Apologia</i>. 'The Catholic Church holds it
+better for the sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to
+fail, and for all the millions on it to die of starvation in extremest
+agony, so far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul,&mdash;I will
+not say should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, tell
+one wilful untruth, or should steal one poor farthing without excuse.'
+I should steal the farthing and assume the 'excuse.' I confess that I
+would not only lie, but should think lying right under the supposed
+circumstances.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_594_594" id="Footnote_594_594"></a><a href="#FNanchor_594_594"><span class="label">[594]</span></a> <i>Autobiography</i>, p. 51.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_595_595" id="Footnote_595_595"></a><a href="#FNanchor_595_595"><span class="label">[595]</span></a> <i>Fragment</i>, p. 251.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_596_596" id="Footnote_596_596"></a><a href="#FNanchor_596_596"><span class="label">[596]</span></a> Vol. i. p. 257.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_597_597" id="Footnote_597_597"></a><a href="#FNanchor_597_597"><span class="label">[597]</span></a> <i>Fragment</i>, p. 161.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_598_598" id="Footnote_598_598"></a><a href="#FNanchor_598_598"><span class="label">[598]</span></a> <i>Fragment</i>, pp. 315-16.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_599_599" id="Footnote_599_599"></a><a href="#FNanchor_599_599"><span class="label">[599]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 164.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_600_600" id="Footnote_600_600"></a><a href="#FNanchor_600_600"><span class="label">[600]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> pp. 320-22.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_601_601" id="Footnote_601_601"></a><a href="#FNanchor_601_601"><span class="label">[601]</span></a> <i>Fragment</i>, p. 102.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_602_602" id="Footnote_602_602"></a><a href="#FNanchor_602_602"><span class="label">[602]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 162.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_603_603" id="Footnote_603_603"></a><a href="#FNanchor_603_603"><span class="label">[603]</span></a> <i>Analysis</i>, p. 73.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_604_604" id="Footnote_604_604"></a><a href="#FNanchor_604_604"><span class="label">[604]</span></a> <i>Fragment</i>, p. 209.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_605_605" id="Footnote_605_605"></a><a href="#FNanchor_605_605"><span class="label">[605]</span></a> <i>Fragment</i>, p. 316.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_606_606" id="Footnote_606_606"></a><a href="#FNanchor_606_606"><span class="label">[606]</span></a> At one point, as J. S. Mill notes, he speaks of an
+'unsatisfied desire' as a motive, which seems to indicate a present
+feeling; but this is not his usual view.&mdash;<i>Analysis</i>, ii. 361, 377
+<i>n.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_607_607" id="Footnote_607_607"></a><a href="#FNanchor_607_607"><span class="label">[607]</span></a> <i>Analysis</i>, ii. 233 <i>n.</i> Mill adds that though his
+father explains the 'intellectual,' he does not explain the 'animal'
+element in the affections. This, however, is irrelevant for my
+purpose.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_608_608" id="Footnote_608_608"></a><a href="#FNanchor_608_608"><span class="label">[608]</span></a> <i>Fragment</i>, pp. 51-52.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_609_609" id="Footnote_609_609"></a><a href="#FNanchor_609_609"><span class="label">[609]</span></a> <i>Analysis</i>, ii. 292-300; <i>Fragment</i>,
+pp. 247-65. Note Mill's interpretation of this theory of
+'praiseworthiness.'&mdash;<i>Analysis</i>, ii. 298 <i>n.</i></p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span></p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<p class="subhead1">RELIGION</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">I. PHILIP BEAUCHAMP</p>
+
+<p>The application of Mill's <i>Analysis</i> to the views of orthodox
+theologians required, one might have supposed, as little
+interpretation as a slap in the face. But a respectable philosopher
+may lay down what premises he pleases if he does not avowedly draw his
+conclusions. Mill could argue in perfect safety against the
+foundations of theology, while Richard Carlile was being sent to gaol
+again and again for attacking the superstructure. The Utilitarians
+thought themselves justified in taking advantage of the illogicality
+of mankind. Whether it was that the ruling powers had no philosophical
+principles themselves, or that they did not see what inferences would
+follow, or that they thought that the average person was incapable of
+drawing inferences, they drew the line at this point. You may openly
+maintain doctrines inconsistent with all theology, but you must not
+point out the inconsistency. The Utilitarians contented themselves
+with sapping the fort instead of risking an open assault. If its
+defenders were blind to the obvious consequences of the procedure, so
+much the better. In private, there was obviously no want of plain
+speaking.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span> In Bentham's <span class="smcap">mss.</span> the Christian religion is nicknamed 'Jug'
+as the short for 'Juggernaut.' He and his friends were as anxious as
+Voltaire to crush the 'infamous,' but they would do it by indirect
+means. They argued resolutely for more freedom; and Samuel Bailey's
+essay upon the formation of opinions&mdash;a vigorous argument on behalf of
+the widest possible toleration&mdash;was enthusiastically praised by James
+Mill in the <i>Westminster Review</i>. For the present they carefully
+abstained from the direct avowal of obnoxious opinions, which were
+still legally punishable, and which would undoubtedly excite the
+strongest hostility. Bentham, as we have seen, had ventured, though
+anonymously, to assail the church catechism and to cross-examine St.
+Paul. One remarkable manifesto gave a fuller utterance to his
+opinions. A book called <i>The Analysis of the Influence of Natural
+Religion on the Temporal Happiness of Mankind</i>, by 'Philip Beauchamp,'
+appeared in 1822. The publisher was Richard Carlile, who was then
+'safe in Dorchester gaol.' No legal notice was taken of 'Philip
+Beauchamp.' The reason may have been that the book excited very little
+attention in general. Yet it is probably as forcible an attack as has
+often been written upon the popular theology. The name of 'Philip
+Beauchamp' covered a combination of Bentham and George Grote.<a name="FNanchor_610_610" id="FNanchor_610_610"></a><a href="#Footnote_610_610" class="fnanchor">[610]</a> The
+book, therefore, represents the view of representative Utilitarians of
+the first and third generation, and clearly expressed the real
+opinions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> of the whole party. In his posthumous essays J. S. Mill
+speaks of it as the only explicit discussion known to him of the
+question of the utility, as distinguished from the question of the
+truth, of religion. Obviously, it was desirable to apply the universal
+test to religious belief, and this very pithy and condensed statement
+shows the result.</p>
+
+<p>A short summary may indicate the essence of the argument. It is only
+necessary to observe that the phrase 'natural religion' is part of the
+disguise. It enables the author to avoid an explicit attack upon
+revelation; but it is superabundantly obvious that the word 'natural'
+is superfluous. Revelation is really a fiction, and all religions are
+'natural.' A religion is called a 'superstition,' as 'Philip
+Beauchamp' remarks at starting, when its results are thought to be
+bad; and allowed to be a religion only when they are thought to be
+good.<a name="FNanchor_611_611" id="FNanchor_611_611"></a><a href="#Footnote_611_611" class="fnanchor">[611]</a> That device covers the familiar fallacy of distinguishing
+between uses and abuses, and, upon that pretence, omitting to take bad
+consequences into account. We must avoid it by defining religion and
+then tracing all the consequences, good or bad. Religion is
+accordingly taken to mean the belief in the existence of 'an Almighty
+Being, by whom pains and pleasures will be dispensed to mankind during
+an infinite and future state of existence.' The definition is already
+characteristic. 'Religion' may be used in a far wider sense,
+corresponding to a philosophy of the universe, whether that
+philosophy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span> does or does not include this particular doctrine. But
+'Philip Beauchamp's' assumption is convenient because it gives a
+rational reasoning to the problem of utility. Religion is taken to be
+something adventitious or superimposed upon other beliefs, and we can
+therefore intelligibly ask whether it does good or harm. Taking this
+definition for granted, let us consider the results.</p>
+
+<p>The first point is that we are of necessity in absolute ignorance as
+to a posthumous state. Now, fear is from our earliest infancy the
+'never-failing companion and offspring of ignorance.' Knowledge alone
+can rescue us from perpetual suffering, because all security depends
+upon knowledge. Pain, moreover, is far more 'pungent' and distinct
+than pleasure. 'Want and pain are natural; satisfaction and pleasure
+artificial and invented.' Pain, therefore, as the strongest, will
+dictate our anticipations. The hope of immortality is by the orthodox
+described as a blessing; but the truth, deducible from these
+principles of human nature and verified by experience, is that natural
+religion, instead of soothing apprehensions, adds fresh grounds of
+apprehension. A revelation, as 'Philip Beauchamp' admits, might
+conceivably dispel our fears; but he would obviously say that the
+religion which is taken to be revealed gives a far more vivid picture
+of hell than of heaven.<a name="FNanchor_612_612" id="FNanchor_612_612"></a><a href="#Footnote_612_612" class="fnanchor">[612]</a> In the next place, it is 'obvious at
+first sight' that natural religion can properly give 'no rule of
+guidance.' It refers us to a region of 'desperate and unfathomable'
+darkness.<a name="FNanchor_613_613" id="FNanchor_613_613"></a><a href="#Footnote_613_613" class="fnanchor">[613]</a> But it nevertheless indirectly suggests a pernicious
+rule. It rests entirely upon conjectures as to the character of the
+invisible Being who apportions pain or pleasure for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> inscrutable
+reasons. Will this Being be expected to approve useful or pernicious
+conduct? From men's language we might suppose that he is thought to be
+purely benevolent. Yet from their dogmas it would seem that he is a
+capricious tyrant. How are we to explain the discrepancy? The
+discrepancy is the infallible result of the circumstances already
+stated.<a name="FNanchor_614_614" id="FNanchor_614_614"></a><a href="#Footnote_614_614" class="fnanchor">[614]</a> The Deity has limitless power, and therefore is the
+natural object of our instinctive fears. The character of the Deity is
+absolutely incomprehensible, and incomprehensibility in human affairs
+is identical with caprice and insanity.<a name="FNanchor_615_615" id="FNanchor_615_615"></a><a href="#Footnote_615_615" class="fnanchor">[615]</a> The ends and the means of
+the Deity are alike beyond our knowledge; and the extremes both of
+wisdom and of folly are equally unaccountable. Now, we praise or blame
+human beings in order to affect their conduct towards us, to attract
+favours or repel injuries. A tyrant possessed of unlimited power
+considers that by simple abstinence from injury he deserves boundless
+gratitude. The weak will only dare to praise, and the strong will only
+blame. The slave-owner never praises and the slave never blames,
+because one can use the lash while the other is subject to the lash.
+If, then, we regard the invisible Being as a capricious despot, and,
+moreover, as a despot who knows every word we utter, we shall never
+speak of him without the highest eulogy, just because we attribute to
+him the most arbitrary tyranny. Hence, the invisible despot will
+specially favour the priests whose lives are devoted to supporting his
+authority, and, next to priests, those who, by the practice of
+ceremonies painful or useless to themselves, show that their sole aim
+is to give him pleasure. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> will specially detest the atheists, and,
+next to atheists, all who venture to disregard his arbitrary laws. A
+human judge may be benevolent, because he is responsible to the
+community. They give and can take away his power. But the invisible
+and irresponsible ruler will have no motives for benevolence, and
+approve conduct pernicious to men because it is the best proof of a
+complete subservience to himself.<a name="FNanchor_616_616" id="FNanchor_616_616"></a><a href="#Footnote_616_616" class="fnanchor">[616]</a> In spite of this, it has been
+generally asserted that religion supplies a motive, and the only
+adequate motive, to moral conduct. But the decay of religion would
+leave the sources of pain and pleasure unchanged. To say, then, that
+the conduct prescribed by religion would disappear if the religious
+motives were removed is virtually to admit that it produces no
+'temporal benefit.' Otherwise, the motives for practising such conduct
+would not be affected. In fact, morality is the same in all countries,
+though the injunctions of religion are various and contradictory. If
+religion ordered only what is useful, it would coincide with human
+laws, and be at worst superfluous. As a fact, it condemns the most
+harmless pleasures, such as the worst of human legislators have never
+sought to suppress. People have become tolerant, that is, they have
+refused to enforce religious observances, precisely because they have
+seen that such observances cannot be represented as conducive to
+temporal happiness.</p>
+
+<p>Duty, again, may be divided into duty to God and duty to man. Our
+'duty to God' is a 'deduction from the pleasures of the individual
+without at all benefiting the species.' It must therefore be taken as
+a tax paid for the efficacy supposed to be communicated to the other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span>
+branch&mdash;the 'duty to man.'<a name="FNanchor_617_617" id="FNanchor_617_617"></a><a href="#Footnote_617_617" class="fnanchor">[617]</a> Does religion, then, stimulate our
+obedience to the code of duty to man? 'Philip Beauchamp' admits for
+once that, in certain cases, it '<i>might possibly</i>' be useful. It might
+affect 'secret crimes,' that is, crimes where the offender is
+undiscoverable. That, however, is a trifle. These cases, he thinks,
+would be 'uncommonly rare' under a well-conceived system. The extent
+of evil in this life would therefore be trifling were superhuman
+inducements entirely effaced from the human bosom, and if 'human
+institutions were ameliorated according to the progress of
+philosophy.'<a name="FNanchor_618_618" id="FNanchor_618_618"></a><a href="#Footnote_618_618" class="fnanchor">[618]</a> On the other hand, the imaginary punishments are
+singularly defective in the qualities upon which Bentham had insisted
+in human legislation. They are remote and uncertain, and to make up
+for this are represented as boundless in intensity and durability. For
+that reason, they precisely reverse the admitted principle that
+punishment should be so devised as to produce the greatest possible
+effect by the smallest infliction of pain. Supernatural sanctions are
+supposed to maximise pain with a minimum of effect. The fear of hell
+rarely produces any effect till a man is dying, and then inflicts
+great suffering, though it has been totally inefficient as a
+preventive at the time of temptation. The influence of supernatural
+penalties is therefore in 'an inverse ratio to the demand for
+it.'<a name="FNanchor_619_619" id="FNanchor_619_619"></a><a href="#Footnote_619_619" class="fnanchor">[619]</a> In reality, the efficacy of the sanctions is due to their
+dependence upon public opinion. Our real motive for acting rightly is
+our desire for the praise of our fellows and our interest in their
+good conduct. We conceal this motive even from ourselves, because we
+wish to have the credit of serving the Deity exclusively. This is
+confirmed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span>by the familiar instances of a conflict between public
+opinion and religious sanctions. Duelling, fornication, and perjury
+are forbidden by the divine law, but the prohibition is ineffectual
+whenever the real sentiment of mankind is opposed to it. The divine
+law is set aside as soon as it conflicts with the popular opinion. In
+exceptional cases, indeed, the credit attached to unreasonable
+practices leads to fanaticism, asceticism, and even insanity; but
+superhuman terrors fail at once when they try to curb the action of
+genuine substantial motives. Hence we must admit that they are useless
+in the case even of 'secret crimes.' Religion, in short, prescribes
+mischievous practices, becomes impotent except for the production of
+misery, and is really, though not avowedly, dependent on the popular
+sanction.<a name="FNanchor_620_620" id="FNanchor_620_620"></a><a href="#Footnote_620_620" class="fnanchor">[620]</a></p>
+
+<p>We can now classify the evils actually produced. Religion injures
+individuals by prescribing useless and painful practices: fasting,
+celibacy, voluntary self-torture, and so forth. It suggests vague
+terrors which often drive the victim to insanity, and it causes
+remorse for harmless enjoyments.<a name="FNanchor_621_621" id="FNanchor_621_621"></a><a href="#Footnote_621_621" class="fnanchor">[621]</a> Religion injures society by
+creating antipathies against unbelievers, and in a less degree against
+heretics and nonconformists. It perverts public opinion by making
+innocent actions blameable; by distorting the whole science of
+morality and sanctioning the heterogeneous dictates of a certain blind
+and unaccountable impulse called the 'moral instinct or
+conscience.'<a name="FNanchor_622_622" id="FNanchor_622_622"></a><a href="#Footnote_622_622" class="fnanchor">[622]</a> Morality becomes a 'mere catalogue of reigning
+sentiments,' because it has cast away the standard of utility. A
+special aversion to improvement is generated, because<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> whatever
+changes our conceptions of the 'sequences of phenomena' is supposed to
+break the divine 'laws of nature.' 'Unnatural' becomes a
+'self-justifying' epithet forbidding any proposed change of conduct,
+which will counteract the 'designs of God.' Religion necessarily
+injures intellectual progress. It disjoins belief from its only safe
+ground, experience. The very basis, the belief in an inscrutable and
+arbitrary power, sanctions supernatural or 'extra-experimental'
+beliefs of all kinds. You reject in the case of miracles all the tests
+applicable to ordinary instruction, and appeal to trial by ordeal
+instead of listening to witnesses. Instead of taking the trouble to
+plough and sow, you expect to get a harvest by praying to an
+inscrutable Being. You marry without means, because you hold that God
+never sends a child without sending food for it to eat. Meanwhile you
+suborn 'unwarranted belief' by making belief a matter of reward and
+penalty. It is made a duty to dwell upon the arguments upon one side
+without attending to those upon the other, and 'the weaker the
+evidence the greater the merit in believing.'<a name="FNanchor_623_623" id="FNanchor_623_623"></a><a href="#Footnote_623_623" class="fnanchor">[623]</a> The temper is
+depraved not only by the antipathies generated, but by the 'fitful and
+intermittent character' of the inducements to conduct.<a name="FNanchor_624_624" id="FNanchor_624_624"></a><a href="#Footnote_624_624" class="fnanchor">[624]</a></p>
+
+<p>The final result of all this is still more serious. It is that
+religion, besides each separate mischief, 'subsidises a standing army
+for the perpetuation of all the rest.'<a name="FNanchor_625_625" id="FNanchor_625_625"></a><a href="#Footnote_625_625" class="fnanchor">[625]</a> The priest gains power as
+a 'wonder-worker,' who knows how to propitiate the invisible Being,
+and has a direct interest in 'depraving the intellect,' cherishing
+superstition, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span>surrounding himself with mysteries, representing the
+will of the Deity as arbitrary and capricious, and forming an
+organised 'array of human force and fraud.'<a name="FNanchor_626_626" id="FNanchor_626_626"></a><a href="#Footnote_626_626" class="fnanchor">[626]</a> The priesthood sets
+up an infallible head, imposes upon the weak and dying, stimulates
+antipathy, forms the mass of 'extra-experimental' beliefs into the
+likeness of a science, and allies itself with the state. Heresy
+becomes a crime. The ruler helps the priests to raise a tax for their
+own comfort, while they repay him by suppressing all seditious
+opinions. Thus is formed an unholy alliance between the authorities of
+'natural religion' and the 'sinister interests of the earth.' The
+alliance is so complete that it is even more efficient than if it had
+been openly proclaimed. 'Prostration and plunder of the community is
+indeed the common end of both' (priests and rulers). The only chance
+of dissension is about the 'partition of the spoil.'<a name="FNanchor_627_627" id="FNanchor_627_627"></a><a href="#Footnote_627_627" class="fnanchor">[627]</a></p>
+
+<p>The book is as characteristic of the Utilitarians in style as in
+spirit. It is terse, vigorous reasoning, with no mere rhetorical
+flourishes. The consequences of the leading principle are deduced
+without flinching and without reserve. Had the authors given their
+names, they would no doubt have excited antipathies injurious to the
+propaganda of Utilitarianism. They held, for that reason presumably,
+that they were not bound to point out the ultimate goal of their
+speculations. No intelligent reader of their other writings could fail
+to see what that goal must be; but an 'open secret' is still for many
+purposes a real secret. Whatever might be the suspicions of their
+antagonists, they could only be accused of a tendency. The book
+amounts to an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span> admission that the suspicions were well founded.
+Utilitarianism, the Utilitarians clearly recognised, logically implied
+the rejection of all theology. Religion&mdash;on their understanding of the
+word&mdash;must, like everything else, be tested by its utility, and it was
+shown to be either useless or absolutely pernicious. The aim of the
+Utilitarians was, in brief, to be thoroughly scientific. The man of
+science must be opposed to the belief in an inscrutable agent of
+boundless power, interfering at every point with the laws of nature,
+and a product of the fancy instead of the reason. Such a conception,
+so far as accepted, makes all theory of human conduct impossible,
+suggests rules conflicting with the supreme rule of utility, and gives
+authority to every kind of delusion, imposture, and 'sinister
+interest.'</p>
+
+<p>It would, I think, be difficult to mention a more vigorous discussion
+of the problem stated. As anonymous, it could be ignored instead of
+answered; and probably such orthodox persons as read it assumed it to
+be a kind of <i>reductio ad absurdum</i> of the Utilitarian creed. It might
+follow, they could admit, logically from the Utilitarian analysis of
+human nature, but it could only prove that the analysis was
+fundamentally wrong. Yet its real significance is precisely its
+thorough applicability to the contemporary state of opinion.
+Beauchamp's definition coincides with Paley's. The coincidence was
+inevitable. Utilitarians both in ethical and philosophical questions
+start from the same assumptions as Paley, and the Paley doctrine gave
+the pith of the dominant theology. I have observed that the Scottish
+philosophers had abandoned the <i>a priori</i> argument, and laid the whole
+stress of their theological doctrine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span> upon Paley's argument from final
+causes. The change of base was an inevitable consequence of their
+whole system. They appealed to experience, to 'Baconian' methods, and
+to 'inductive psychology.' The theory of 'intuitions,' effective where
+it fell in with admitted beliefs, was idle against an atheist, who
+denied that he had the intuition. The 'final causes' argument,
+however, rested upon common ground, and supplied a possible line of
+defence. The existence of the Deity could perhaps be proved
+empirically, like the existence of the 'watchmaker.' Accordingly, this
+was the argument upon which reliance was really placed by the average
+theologian of the time. Metaphysical or ontological reasoning had been
+discarded for plain common-sense. The famous <i>Bridgewater Treatises</i>
+are the characteristic product of the period. It had occurred to the
+earl of Bridgewater, who died in 1829, that &pound;8000 from his estate
+might be judiciously spent in proving the existence of a benevolent
+creator. The council of the Royal Society employed eight eminent men
+of science to carry out this design.<a name="FNanchor_628_628" id="FNanchor_628_628"></a><a href="#Footnote_628_628" class="fnanchor">[628]</a> They wrote some interesting
+manuals of popular science, interspersed with proper theological
+applications. The arguments were sincere enough, though they now seem
+to overlook with singular blindness the answer which would be
+suggested by the 'evolutionist.' The logical result is, in any case, a
+purely empirical theology. The religion which emerges is not a
+philosophy or theory of the world in general, but corresponds to a
+belief in certain matters of fact (or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span> fiction). The existence of the
+Deity is to be proved, like the existence of Caesar, by special
+evidence.</p>
+
+<p>The main results are obvious. The logical base of the whole creed is
+'natural theology,' and 'natural theology' is simply a branch of
+science, amenable to the ordinary scientific tests. It is intended to
+prove the existence of an agent essential to the working of the
+machinery, as from the movements of a planet we infer the existence of
+a disturbing planet. The argument from design, in this acceptation, is
+briefly mentioned by 'Philip Beauchamp.' It is, he argues, 'completely
+extra-experimental'; for experience only reveals design in living
+beings: it supposes a pre-existing chaos which can never be shown to
+have existed, and the 'omnipotent will' introduced to explain the
+facts is really no explanation at all, but a collection of meaningless
+words.<a name="FNanchor_629_629" id="FNanchor_629_629"></a><a href="#Footnote_629_629" class="fnanchor">[629]</a> The argument is briefly dismissed as concerning the truth,
+not the utility, of religion, but one point is sufficiently indicated.
+The argument from 'design' is always plausible, because it applies
+reasoning undeniably valid when it is applied within its proper
+sphere. The inference from a watch to a watchmaker is clearly
+conclusive. We know sufficiently what is meant by the watchmaker and
+by 'making.' We therefore reason to a <i>vera causa</i>&mdash;an agent already
+known. When the inference is to the action of an inconceivable Being
+performing an inconceivable operation upon inconceivable materials, it
+really becomes illusory, or amounts to the simple assertion that the
+phenomenon is inexplicable. Therefore, again, it is essentially
+opposed to science though claiming to be scientific. The action of
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span> creator is supposed to begin where the possibility of knowledge
+ends. It is just the inexplicable element which suggests the creative
+agency. Conversely, the satisfactory explanation of any phenomenon
+takes it out of the theological sphere. As soon as the process becomes
+'natural' it ceases to demand the supernatural artificer. 'Making,'
+therefore, is contradistinguished from 'growing.' If we see how the
+eye has come into existence, we have no longer any reason to assume
+that it was put together mechanically. In other words, 'teleology' of
+this variety is dispelled by theories of evolution. The hypothesis of
+interference becomes needless when we see how things came to be by
+working out perfectly natural processes. As science, therefore,
+expands, theology recedes. This was to become more evident at a later
+period. For the present, the teleological argument in the Paley form,
+triumphantly set forth in Bridgewater Treatises and the like, rested
+the defence of theology on the proofs of the discontinuity of the
+universe and the consequent necessity for admitting supernatural
+interference. Science was therefore invoked to place absolute limits
+on its own progress.</p>
+
+<p>But other vital difficulties were already felt. The argument from
+contrivance naturally implies limitation. The maker of a machine is
+strictly limited by the properties of the matter upon which he works.
+The inference might be verbally saved by saying that the maker was
+'potentially' omnipotent; but the argument, so far as it goes, is more
+easily satisfied by the hypothesis of a Being of great but still
+limited powers. The Deity so proved, if the proof be valid, is not
+himself the ground of the universe, the source from which nature
+itself emanates,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> as well as the special laws of nature, but a part of
+the whole system; interfering, guiding, and controlling, but still
+only one of the powers which contribute to the formation of the whole.
+Hence arise questions which theologians rather evaded than attempted
+to answer. If with the help of Paley we can prove the existence of an
+invisible Being&mdash;potentially omnipotent, though always operating as
+though limited&mdash;there would still remain the question as to his
+attributes. He is skilful, we may grant, but is he benevolent or is he
+moral? The benevolence could of course be asserted by optimists, if
+facts were amenable to rhetoric. But a theory which is essentially
+scientific or empirical, and consistently argues from the effect to
+the cause, must start from an impartial view of the facts, and must
+make no presupposition as to the nature of the cause. The cause is
+known only through the effects, and our judgment of them cannot be
+modified by simply discovering that they are caused. If, then,
+contrivance is as manifest in disease as in health, in all the
+sufferings which afflict mankind as well as in the pleasures which
+solace him, we must either admit that the creator is not benevolent,
+or frankly admit that he is not omnipotent and fall into Manich&aelig;ism.
+Nature, we are frequently told, is indifferent if not cruel; and
+though Paley and his followers choose to shut their eyes to ugly
+facts, it could be only by sacrificing their logic. They were bound to
+prove from observation that the world was so designed as to secure the
+'greatest happiness' before they could logically infer a purely
+benevolent designer. It was of the very essence of their position that
+observed facts should be the ultimate basis of the whole theory;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> and
+to alter the primary data by virtue of deductions drawn from them
+could obviously not be logically justifiable.</p>
+
+<p>Such reflections, though sufficiently obvious, might be too far from
+practical application to have much immediate effect. But the question
+of the moral bearing of theology was of more interest; and, here, the
+coincidence of the Utilitarianism with the accepted theology of the
+day is especially important. The Deity regarded as the artificer
+appears to be far from purely benevolent. In respect to morality, is
+he not simply indifferent? Does he not make men fragile and place them
+amidst pitfalls? Does he not constantly slay the virtuous and save the
+wicked? How, indeed, from the purely empirical or scientific base, do
+you deduce any moral attributes whatever? 'Natural theology,' as it
+was called, might reveal a contriver, but could it reveal a judge or a
+moral guide? Here the difficulty of a purely matter-of-fact theology
+made itself felt on many sides. The remarkable influence of Butler
+upon many minds was partly due to a perception of this omission.
+Butler avowedly appeals to the conscience, and therefore at least
+recognises God as directly revealed in a moral character. That seemed
+to supply a gap in the ordinary theology. But in the purely empirical
+view Butler's argument was untenable. It appealed to one of the
+'intuitions' which were incompatible with its fundamental assumptions.
+The compunctions of conscience were facts to be explained by
+'association,' not to be regarded as intimations of wrath. Butler's
+view might be inverted. The 'conscience' does, in truth, suggest the
+divine wrath; but that only means that it suggests the quack remedies
+upon which 'wonder-working' <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span>priests establish their power. Instead of
+proving the truth of the religion, it explains the origin of
+superstition. To James Mill, as we have seen, Butler's argument would
+logically prove not a righteous governor but a cruel creator.
+Theologians, again, of the Paley school, were bound in consistency to
+the empirical or Utilitarian view of morality. Paley accepted the
+consequences unreservedly; and if such philosophers as Brown and
+Mackintosh persisted in regarding the coincidence between morality and
+happiness as indicative of a pre-established harmony, not of an
+identification of morality with the pursuit of general happiness, they
+still admitted that 'utility' was the 'criterion' of morality. The
+moral law, that is, coincides in its substance with the law, 'maximise
+happiness,' and happiness means, as 'Philip Beauchamp' calls it,
+'temporal' happiness&mdash;the happiness of actual men living in this world
+and knowing nothing of any external world. How, then, is the moral law
+related to theology? To know what is moral, we must appeal to
+experience and 'utility.' We must discover what makes for happiness,
+just as in medicine we must discover what makes for health or
+pleasure, by the ordinary methods of observation. What place is left
+for any supernatural intervention? The ostensible answer was that
+though the moral code could be deduced from its utility, the motives
+by which it was to be enforced required some supernatural agency. The
+natural man might see what was right, but need not therefore do what
+was right. Here 'Philip Beauchamp' comes to a direct issue with the
+theologians. He denies that the supernatural motive will be on the
+side of morality. When J. S. Mill remarked that there had been few
+discussions of the 'utility' as distinguished<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span> from the truth of
+religion, he scarcely recognises one conspicuous fact. The great
+argument of divines had always been the absolute necessity of religion
+to morality; and if morality be understood to mean utility, this is
+simply an argument from utility. The point, indeed, was often taken
+for granted; but it certainly represents one of the strongest
+persuasives, if not one of the strongest reasons. The divines, in
+fact, asserted that religion was of the highest utility as supplying
+the motive for moral conduct. What motives, then, can be derived from
+such knowledge of the Deity as is attainable from the 'Natural
+theology' argument? How can we prove from it that he who puts the
+world together is more favourable to the virtues than to the vices
+which are its results; or, if more favourable, that he shows any other
+favour than can be inferred from experience? He has, it is agreed, put
+men, as Bentham had said, under the command of two sovereign masters,
+Pleasure and Pain; and has enabled them to calculate consequences, and
+therefore to seek future pleasure and avoid future pain. That only
+proves that we can increase our happiness by prudence; but it suggests
+no additional reasons either for seeking happiness or for altering our
+estimate of happiness. As 'Philip Beauchamp' argues, we cannot from
+the purely empirical ground get any motive for taking into account
+anything beyond our 'temporal' or secular interests. This, again, was
+in fact admitted by Paley. His mode of escape from the dilemma is
+familiar. The existence of a supreme artificer is inferred from the
+interventions in the general order of nature. The existence of a moral
+ruler, or the fact that the ruler approves morality, is inferred from
+his interference by the particular <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span>manifestations of power which we
+call miraculous. We know that actions will have other consequences
+than those which can be inferred from our own experience, because some
+two thousand years ago a Being appeared who could raise the dead and
+heal the sick. If sufficient evidence of the fact be forthcoming, we
+are entitled to say upon his authority that the wicked will be damned
+and the virtuous go to heaven. Obedience to the law enforced by these
+sanctions is obviously prudent, and constitutes the true <i>differentia</i>
+of moral conduct. Virtue, according to the famous definition, is doing
+good 'for the sake of everlasting happiness.' The downright bluntness
+with which Paley announced these conclusions startled contemporaries,
+and yet it must be admitted that they were a natural outcome of his
+position.</p>
+
+<p>In short, the theological position of the Paley school and the
+Utilitarian position of 'Philip Beauchamp' start from the common
+ground of experience. Religion means the knowledge of certain facts,
+which are to be inferred from appropriate evidence. It does not modify
+the whole system of thought, but simply adds certain corollaries; and
+the whole question is whether the corollaries are or are not proved by
+legitimate reasoning. Can we discover heaven and hell as we discovered
+America? Can observation of nature reveal to us a supernatural world?'
+The first difficulty is that the argument for natural theology has to
+rest upon interference, not upon order, and therefore comes into
+conflict with the first principles of scientific procedure. The Deity
+is revealed not by the rational but by the arbitrary; and the more the
+world is explained, the less the proof that he exists, because the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span>
+narrower the sphere of his action. Then, as such a Deity, even if
+proved, is not proved to be benevolent or moral, we have to rely for
+the moral element upon the evidence of 'miracles,' that is, again, of
+certain interruptions of order. The scientific tendency more or less
+embodied in Protestantism, so far as it appealed to reason or to
+'private judgment,' had, moreover, made it necessary to relegate
+miracles to a remote period, while denying them at the present. To
+prove at once that there are no miracles now, and that there were a
+few miracles two thousand years ago, was really hopeless. In fact, the
+argument had come to be stated in an artificial form which had no real
+relation to the facts. If the apostles had been a jury convinced by a
+careful legal examination of the evidence; if they had pronounced
+their verdict, in spite of the knowledge that they would be put to
+death for finding it, there would have been some force in Paley's
+argument. But then they had not. To assume such an origin for any
+religion implied a total misconception of the facts. Paley assumed
+that the apostles resembled twelve respectable deans of Carlisle
+solemnly declaring, in spite of the most appalling threats, that John
+Wesley had been proved to have risen from the dead. Paley might
+plausibly urge that such an event would require a miracle. But,
+meanwhile, his argument appeared to rest the whole case for morality
+and religion upon this narrow and perilous base. We can only know that
+it is our interest to be moral if we know of heaven and hell; and we
+only know of heaven and hell if we accept the evidence of miracles,
+and infer that the worker of miracles had supernatural sources of
+information. The moral difficulty which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span> emerges is obvious. The Paley
+conception of the Deity is, in fact, coincident with Bentham's
+conception of the sovereign. He is simply an invisible sovereign,
+operating by tremendous sanctions. The sanctions are 'external,' that
+is to say, pains and pleasures, annexed to conduct by the volition of
+the sovereign, not intrinsic consequences of the conduct itself. Such
+a conception, thoroughly carried through, makes the relation between
+religion and morality essentially arbitrary. Moreover, if with 'Philip
+Beauchamp' we regard the miracle argument as obviously insufficient,
+and consider what are the attributes really attributed to the
+sovereign, we must admit that they suggest such a system as he
+describes rather than the revelation of an all-wise and benevolent
+ruler. It is true, as 'Philip Beauchamp' argues, that the system has
+all the faults of the worst human legislation; that the punishment is
+made atrociously&mdash;indeed infinitely&mdash;severe to compensate for its
+uncertainty and remoteness; and that (as he would clearly add), to
+prevent it from shocking and stunning the intellect, it is regarded as
+remissible in consideration of vicarious suffering. If, then, the
+religion is really what its dogmas declare, it is easier to assume
+that it represents the cunning of a priesthood operating upon the
+blind fears and wild imaginations of an inaccessible world; and the
+ostensible proofs of a divine origin resting upon miraculous proofs
+are not worth consideration. It professes to be a sanction to all
+morality, but is forced to construct a mythology which outrages all
+moral considerations. Taken as a serious statement of fact, the
+anthropomorphism of the vulgar belief was open to the objections which
+Socrates brought against the Pagan mythology. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> supreme ruler was
+virtually represented as arbitrary, cruel, and despotic.</p>
+
+<p>If we ask the question, whether in point of fact the religion attacked
+by 'Philip Beauchamp' fairly represented the religion of the day, we
+should have, of course, to admit that it was in one sense a gross
+caricature. If, that is, we asked what were the real roots of the
+religious zeal of Wilberforce and the Evangelicals, or of the
+philanthropists with whom even James Mill managed to associate on
+friendly terms, it would be the height of injustice to assume that
+they tried to do good simply from fear of hell and hope of heaven, or
+that their belief in Christianity was due to a study of Paley's
+<i>Evidences</i>. Their real motives were far nobler: genuine hatred of
+injustice and sympathy for suffering, joined to the conviction that
+the sects to which they belonged were working on the side of justice
+and happiness; while the creeds which they accepted were somehow
+congenial to their best feelings, and enabled them to give utterance
+to their deepest emotions. But when they had to give a ground for that
+belief they could make no adequate defence. They were better than
+their ostensible creed, because the connection of their creed with
+their morality was really arbitrary and traditional. We must always
+distinguish between the causes of strong convictions and the reasons
+officially assigned for them. The religious creed, as distinguished
+from the religious sentiment, was really traditional, and rested upon
+the simple fact that it was congenial to the general frame of mind.
+Its philosophy meanwhile had become hopelessly incoherent. It wished
+to be sensible, and admitted in principle the right of 'private
+judgment' or rationalism so far as consistent <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span>with Protestantism. The
+effect had been that in substance it had become Utilitarian and
+empirical; while it had yet insisted upon holding on to the
+essentially irrational element.</p>
+
+<p>The religious tradition was becoming untenable in this sense at the
+same time as the political tradition. If radicalism in both were to be
+effectually resisted, some better foundation must be found for
+conservatism. I should be tempted to say that a critical period was
+approaching, did I not admit that every period can always be described
+as critical. In fact, however, thoughtful people, perceiving on the
+one hand that the foundations of their creed were shaking, and yet
+holding it to be essential to their happiness, began to take a new
+position. The 'Oxford movement,' started soon afterwards, implied a
+conviction that the old Protestant position was as untenable as the
+radical asserted. Its adherents attempted to find a living and visible
+body whose supernatural authority might maintain the old dogmatic
+system. Liberal thinkers endeavoured to spiritualise the creed and
+prove its essential truths by philosophy, independently of the
+particular historical evidence. The popular tendency was to admit in
+substance that the dogmas most assailed were in fact immoral: but to
+put them into the background, or, if necessary, to explain them away.
+The stress was to be laid not upon miracles, but upon the moral
+elevation of Christianity or the beauty of character of its founder.
+The 'unsectarian' religion, represented in the most characteristic
+writings of the next generation, in Tennyson and Browning, Thackeray
+and Dickens, reflects this view. Such men detested the coarse and
+brutalising<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span> dogmas which might be expounded as the true 'scheme of
+salvation' by ignorant preachers seeking to rouse sluggish natures to
+excitement; but they held to religious conceptions which, as they
+thought, really underlay these disturbing images, and which, indeed,
+could hardly be expressed in any more definite form than that of a
+hope or a general attitude of the whole character. The problem seemed
+to be whether we shall support a dogmatic system by recognising a
+living spiritual authority, or frankly accept reason as the sole
+authority, and, while explaining away the repulsive dogmas, try to
+retain the real essence of religious belief.</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">II. CONTEMPORARY THOUGHT</p>
+
+<p>If I were writing a general history of opinion, it would be necessary
+to discuss the views of Mill's English contemporaries; to note their
+attitude in regard to the Utilitarian position, and point out how they
+prepared the way for the later developments of thought. The
+Utilitarians were opposed to a vague sentiment rather than to any
+definite system. They were a small and a very unpopular sect. They
+excited antipathy on all sides. As advocating republicanism, they were
+hardly more disliked by the Tories, who directly opposed them, than by
+the Whigs, who might be suspected of complicity. As enthusiastic
+political economists, they were equally detested by sentimental
+Radicals, Socialists, and by all who desired a strong government,
+whether for the suppression of social evils or the maintenance of
+social abuses. And now, as suspected of atheism, they were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span> hated by
+theologians. But though the Utilitarians were on all sides condemned
+and denounced, they were met by no definite and coherent scheme of
+philosophy. The philosophy of Stewart and Brown had at least a strong
+drift in their direction. Though 'political economy' was denounced in
+general terms, all who spoke with authority accepted Adam Smith. Their
+political opponents generally did not so much oppose their theories as
+object to theory in general. The Utilitarian system might be both
+imperfect and dogmatic; but it had scarcely to contend with any clear
+and assignable rival. The dislike of Englishmen to any systematic
+philosophy, whether founded upon the national character or chiefly due
+to special conditions, was still conspicuous outside of the small
+Utilitarian camp.</p>
+
+<p>To discover, therefore, the true position of contemporary opinion, we
+should have to look elsewhere. Instead of seeking for the philosophers
+who did not exist, we should have to examine the men of letters who
+expressed the general tendencies. In Germany, philosophical theories
+may be held to represent the true drift of the national mind, and a
+historian of German thought would inquire into the various systems
+elaborated by professors of philosophy. He would at least be in no
+want of materials for definite logical statements. In England, there
+was no such intellectual movement. There we should have to consider
+poetry and literature; to read Wordsworth and Coleridge, Scott and
+Byron and Shelley, if we would know what men were really thinking and
+feeling. The difficulty is, of course, that none of these men, unless
+Coleridge be an exception, had any conscious or systematic philosophy.
+We can only ask,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span> therefore, what they would have said if they had
+been requested to justify their views by abstract reasoning; and that
+is a rather conjectural and indefinite enterprise. It lies,
+fortunately, outside of my field; and it will be enough if I try to
+suggest one or two sufficiently vague hints. In the first place, the
+contrast between the Utilitarians and their opponents may almost be
+identified with the contrast between the prosaic and the poetical
+aspects of the world in general. Bentham frankly objected to poetry in
+general. It proved nothing. The true Utilitarian was the man who held
+on to fact, and to nothing but the barest, most naked and unadorned
+fact. Poetry in general came within the sweep of his denunciations of
+'sentimentalism' and 'vague generalities.' It was the 'production of a
+rude age'; the silly jingling which might be suitable to savages, but
+was needless for the grown-up man, and was destined to disappear along
+with the whole rubbish of mythology and superstition in whose service
+it had been enlisted. There is indeed a natural sympathy between any
+serious view of life and a distrust of the &aelig;sthetic tendencies.
+Theologians of many different types have condemned men for dallying
+with the merely pleasurable, when they ought to be preoccupied with
+the great ethical problems or the safety of their souls. James Mill
+had enough of the old Puritan in him to sympathise with Carlyle's
+aspiration, 'May the devil fly away with the fine arts!' To such men
+it was difficult to distinguish between fiction and lying; and if some
+concession might be made to human weakness, poets and novelists might
+supply the relaxations and serve to fill up the intervals of life, but
+must be sternly excluded if they tried to intrude<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span> into serious
+studies. Somehow love of the beautiful only interfered with the
+scientific investigation of hard facts.</p>
+
+<p>Poets, indeed, may take the side of reform, or may perhaps be
+naturally expected to take that side. The idealist and the dreamer
+should be attracted most powerfully by the visions of a better world
+and the restoration of the golden age. Shelley was among the most
+enthusiastic prophets of the coming era. His words, he hoped, were to
+be 'the trumpet of a prophecy' to 'unawakened earth.' Shelley had sat
+at the feet of Godwin, and represented that vague metaphysical
+dreaming to which the Utilitarians were radically hostile. To the
+literary critic, Shelley's power is the more remarkable because from a
+flimsy philosophy he span an imaginative tissue of such magical and
+marvellous beauty. But Shelley dwelt in an ethereal region, where
+ordinary beings found breathing difficult. There facts seemed to
+dissolve into thin air instead of supplying a solid and substantial
+base. His idealism meant unreality. His 'trumpet' did not in fact
+stimulate the mass of mankind, and his fame at this period was
+confined to a few young gentlemen of literary refinement. The man who
+had really stirred the world was Byron; and if the decline of Byron's
+fame has resulted partly from real defects, it is partly due also to
+the fact that his poetry was so admirably adapted to his
+contemporaries. Byron at least could see facts as clearly as any
+Utilitarian, though fact coloured by intense passion. He, like the
+Utilitarians, hated solemn platitudes and hypocritical conventions. I
+have noticed the point at which he came into contact with Bentham's
+disciples. His pathetic death shortly afterwards <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span>excited a singularly
+strong movement of sympathy. 'The news of his death,' said Carlyle at
+the time, 'came upon my heart like a mass of lead; and yet the thought
+of it sends a painful twinge through all my being, as if I had lost a
+brother.' At a later time he defines Byron as 'a dandy of sorrows and
+acquainted with grief.'<a name="FNanchor_630_630" id="FNanchor_630_630"></a><a href="#Footnote_630_630" class="fnanchor">[630]</a> That hits off one aspect of Byronism.
+Byron was the Mirabeau of English literature, in so far as he was at
+once a thorough aristocrat and a strong revolutionist. He had the
+qualification of a true satirist. His fate was at discord with his
+character. He was proud of his order, and yet despised its actual
+leaders. He was ready alternately to boast of his vices and to be
+conscious that they were degrading. He shocked the respectable world
+by mocking 'Satanically,' as they held, at moral conventions, and yet
+rather denounced the hypocrisy and the heartlessness of precisians
+than insulted the real affections. He covered sympathy with human
+suffering under a mask of misanthropy, and attacked war and oppression
+in the character of a reckless outlaw. Full of the affectation of a
+'dandy,' he was yet rousing all Europe by a cry of pure
+sentimentalism. It would be absurd to attribute any definite doctrine
+to Byron. His scepticism in religious matters was merely part of a
+general revolt against respectability. What he illustrates is the
+vague but profound revolutionary sentiment which indicated a belief
+that the world seemed to be out of joint, and a vehement protest
+against the selfish and stolid conservatism which fancied that the old
+order could be preserved in all its fossil institutions and
+corresponding dogmas.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span></p><p>What was the philosophy congenial to Conservatism? There is, of
+course, the simple answer, None. Toryism was a 'reaction' due to the
+great struggle of the war and the excesses of the revolution. A
+'reaction' is a very convenient phrase. We are like our fathers; then
+the resemblance is only natural. We differ; then the phrase 'reaction'
+makes the alteration explain itself. No doubt, however, there was in
+some sense a reaction. Many people changed their minds as the
+revolutionary movement failed to fulfil their hopes. I need not argue
+now that such men were not necessarily corrupt renegades. I can only
+try to indicate the process by which they were led towards certain
+philosophical doctrines. Scott, Wordsworth, and Coleridge represent it
+enough for my purpose. When Mill was reproaching Englishmen for their
+want of interest in history, he pointed out that Thierry, 'the
+earliest of the three great French historians' (Guizot and Michelet
+are the two others), ascribed his interest in his subject to
+<i>Ivanhoe</i>.<a name="FNanchor_631_631" id="FNanchor_631_631"></a><a href="#Footnote_631_631" class="fnanchor">[631]</a> Englishmen read <i>Ivanhoe</i> simply for amusement.
+Frenchmen could see that it threw a light upon history, or at least
+suggested a great historical problem. Scott, it is often said, was the
+first person to teach us that our ancestors were once as much alive as
+ourselves. Scott, indeed, the one English writer whose fame upon the
+Continent could be compared to Byron's, had clearly no interest in, or
+capacity for, abstract speculations. An imaginative power, just
+falling short of the higher poetical gift, and a masculine
+common-sense were his most conspicuous faculties. The two qualities
+were occasionally at issue; his judgment struggled with his
+prejudices, and he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span> sympathised too keenly with the active leaders and
+concrete causes to care much for any abstract theory. Yet his
+influence upon thought, though indirect, was remarkable. The vividness
+of his historical painting&mdash;inaccurate, no doubt, and delightfully
+reckless of dates and facts&mdash;stimulated the growing interest in
+historical inquiries even in England. His influence in one direction
+is recognised by Newman, who was perhaps thinking chiefly of his
+medi&aelig;valism.<a name="FNanchor_632_632" id="FNanchor_632_632"></a><a href="#Footnote_632_632" class="fnanchor">[632]</a> But the historical novels are only one side of
+Scott. Patriotic to the core, he lived at a time when patriotic
+feeling was stimulated to the utmost, and when Scotland in particular
+was still a province, and yet in many ways the most vigorous and
+progressive part of a great empire. He represents patriotism
+stimulated by contact with cosmopolitan movements. Loving every local
+peculiarity, painting every class from the noble to the peasant,
+loving the old traditions, and yet sharing the great impulses of the
+day, Scott was able to interest the world at large. While the most
+faithful portrayer of the special national type, he has too much sense
+not to be well aware that picturesque cattle-stealers and Jacobite
+chiefs were things of the past; but he loves with his whole heart the
+institutions rooted in the past and rich in historical associations.
+He transferred to poetry and fiction the political doctrine of Burke.
+To him, the revolutionary movement was simply a solvent, corroding all
+the old ties because it sapped the old traditions, and tended to
+substitute a mob for a nation. The continuity of national life seemed
+to him the essential condition; and a nation was not a mere aggregate
+of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span> separate individuals, but an ancient organism, developing on an
+orderly system&mdash;where every man had his rightful place, and the
+beggar, as he observes in the <i>Antiquary</i>, was as ready as the noble
+to rise against foreign invasion. To him, the kings or priests who, to
+the revolutionist, represented simple despotism, represented part of a
+rough but manly order, in which many virtues were conspicuous and the
+governing classes were discharging great functions. Though he did not
+use the phrase, the revolutionary or radical view was hateful to him
+on account of its 'individualism.' It meant the summary destruction of
+all that he cherished most warmly in order to carry out theories
+altogether revolting to his common-sense. The very roots of a sound
+social order depend upon the traditions and accepted beliefs which
+bind together clans or families, and assign to every man a
+satisfactory function in life. The vivid realisation of history goes
+naturally with a love&mdash;excessive or reasonable&mdash;of the old order; and
+Scott, though writing carelessly to amuse idle readers, was
+stimulating the historical conceptions, which, for whatever reason,
+were most uncongenial to the Utilitarian as to all the revolutionists.</p>
+
+<p>The more conscious philosophical application is illustrated by
+Wordsworth and Coleridge. Both of them had shared the truly
+revolutionary enthusiasm, and both came in time to be classed with the
+Tories. Both, as will be seen, had a marked influence upon J. S. Mill.
+Wordsworth has written in the <i>Prelude</i> one of the most remarkable of
+intellectual autobiographies. He was to be, though he never quite
+succeeded in being, a great philosophical poet. He never succeeded,
+because, in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span> truth, he was not a great philosopher. But no one has
+more clearly indicated the history of his mental evolution. His
+sympathy with the revolution was perfectly genuine, but involved a
+vast misconception. A sturdy, independent youth, thoroughly imbued
+with the instincts of his northern dalesmen, he had early leaned to a
+republican sentiment. His dislike of the effete conventionalism of the
+literary creed blended with his aversion to the political rule of the
+time. He caught the contagion of revolutionary enthusiasm in France,
+and was converted by the sight of the 'hunger-bitten' peasant
+girl&mdash;the victim of aristocratic oppression. 'It is against that,'
+said his friend, 'that we are fighting,' and so far Wordsworth was a
+convert. The revolution, therefore, meant to him the restoration of an
+idyllic state, in which the homely virtues of the independent peasant
+should no longer be crushed and deprived of reward by the instruments
+of selfish despotism. The outbreak of war put his principles at issue
+with his patriotism. He suffered keenly when called upon to triumph
+over the calamities of his countrymen. But gradually he came to think
+that his sympathies were misplaced. The revolution had not altered
+human nature. The atrocities disturbed him, but for a time he could
+regard them as a mere accident. As the war went on, he began to
+perceive that the new power could be as tyrannical and selfish as the
+old. Instead of reconstructing a simple social ideal, it was forming a
+military despotism. When the French armies put down the simple Swiss
+peasantry, to whom he had been drawn by his home-bred sympathies, he
+finally gave up the revolutionary cause. He had gone through a mental
+agony, and his distracted sympathies ultimately<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span> determined a change
+which corresponded to the adoption of a new philosophy. Wordsworth,
+indeed, had little taste for abstract logic. He had imbibed Godwin's
+doctrine, but when acceptance of Godwin's conclusions involved a
+conflict with his strongest affections&mdash;the sacrifice not only of his
+patriotism but of the sympathies which bound him to his fellows&mdash;he
+revolted. Godwin represents the extreme of 'individualism,' the
+absolute dissolution of all social and political bonds. Wordsworth
+escaped, not by discovering a logical defect in the argument, but by
+yielding to the protest of his emotions. The system, he thought, was
+fatal to all the affections which had made life dear to him; to the
+vague 'intimations' which, whatever else they might be, had yet power
+to give harmony to our existence.</p>
+
+<p>By degrees he adopted a new diagnosis of the great political evils. On
+one side, he sympathised with Scott's sense of the fatal effects upon
+the whole social organism. Among his noblest poems are the 'Brothers'
+and 'Michael,' to which he specially called the attention of Fox. They
+were intended, he explained, to show the surpassing value of the
+domestic affections conspicuous among the shepherds and 'statesmen' of
+the northern dales. He had now come to hold that the principles of
+Godwin and his like were destructive to the most important elements of
+human welfare. The revolutionists were not simply breaking the fetters
+of the simple peasant, but destroying the most sacred ties to which
+the peasant owed whatever dignity or happiness he possessed.
+Revolution, in short, meant anarchy. It meant, therefore, the
+destruction of all that gives real value to life. It was, as he held,
+one product of the worship of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span> 'idol proudly named the "wealth of
+nations,"'<a name="FNanchor_633_633" id="FNanchor_633_633"></a><a href="#Footnote_633_633" class="fnanchor">[633]</a> selfishness and greed replacing the old motives to
+'plain living and high thinking.' Wordsworth, in short, saw the ugly
+side of the industrial revolution, the injury done to domestic life by
+the factory system, or the substitution of a proletariate for a
+peasantry, and the replacement of the lowest social order by a vast
+inorganic mob. The contemporary process, which was leading to
+pauperism and to the evils of the factory system, profoundly affected
+Wordsworth, as well as the impulsive Southey; and their frequent
+denunciations gave colour to the imputations that they were opposed to
+all progress. Certainly they were even morbidly alive to the evil
+aspects of the political economy of Malthus and Ricardo, which to them
+seemed to prescribe insensibility and indifference to most serious and
+rapidly accumulating evils.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Wordsworth was also impressed by the underlying
+philosophical difficulties. The effect of the revolutionary principles
+was to destroy the religious sentiment, not simply by disproving this
+or that historical statement, but by making the whole world prosaic
+and matter-of-fact. His occasional outbursts against the man of
+science&mdash;the 'fingering slave' who would 'peep and botanise upon his
+mother's grave'&mdash;are one version of his feeling. The whole scientific
+method tended to materialism and atomism; to a breaking up of the
+world into disconnected atoms, and losing the life in dissecting the
+machinery. His protest is embodied in the pantheism of the noble lines
+on Tintern Abbey, and his method of answering might be divined from
+the ode on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span> the 'Intimations of Immortality.' Somehow or other the
+world represents a spiritual and rational unity, not a mere chaos of
+disconnected atoms and fragments. We 'see into the heart of things'
+when we trust to our emotions and hold by the instincts, clearly
+manifested in childhood, but clouded and overwhelmed in our later
+struggles with the world. The essential thing is the cultivation of
+our 'moral being,' the careful preservation and assimilation of the
+stern sense of duty, which alone makes life bearable and gives a
+meaning to the universe.</p>
+
+<p>Wordsworth, it is plain, was at the very opposite pole from the
+Utilitarians. He came to consider that their whole method meant the
+dissolution of all that was most vitally sacred, and to hold that the
+revolution had attracted his sympathies on false pretences. Yet it is
+obvious that, however great the stimulus which he exerted, and however
+lofty his highest flights of poetry, he had no distinct theory to
+offer. His doctrine undoubtedly was congenial to certain philosophical
+views, but was not itself an articulate philosophy. He appeals to
+instincts and emotions, not to any definite theory. In a remarkable
+letter, Coleridge told Wordsworth why he was disappointed with the
+<i>Excursion</i>.<a name="FNanchor_634_634" id="FNanchor_634_634"></a><a href="#Footnote_634_634" class="fnanchor">[634]</a> He had hoped that it would be the 'first and only
+true philosophical poem in existence.' Wordsworth was to have started
+by exposing the 'sandy sophisms of Locke,' and after exploding Pope's
+<i>Essay on Man</i>, and showing the vanity of (Erasmus) Darwin's belief in
+an 'ourang-outang state,' and explaining the fall of man and the
+'scheme of redemption,' to have concluded by 'a grand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span> didactic swell
+on the identity of a true philosophy with true religion.' He would
+show how life and intelligence were to be substituted for the
+'philosophy of mechanism.' Facts would be elevated into theory, theory
+into laws, and laws into living and intelligent powers&mdash;true idealism
+necessarily perfecting itself in realism, and realism refining itself
+into idealism.'</p>
+
+<p>The programme was a large one. If it represents what Coleridge
+seriously expected from Wordsworth, it also suggests that he was
+unconsciously wandering into an exposition of one of the gigantic but
+constantly shifting schemes of a comprehensive philosophy, which he
+was always proposing to execute. To try to speak of Coleridge
+adequately would be hopeless and out of place. I must briefly mention
+him, because he was undoubtedly the most conspicuous representative of
+the tendencies opposed to Utilitarianism. The young men who found
+Bentham exasperating imbibed draughts of mingled poetry and philosophy
+from Coleridge's monologues at Hampstead. Carlyle has told us, in a
+famous chapter of his <i>Life of Sterling</i>, what they went out to see:
+at once a reed shaken by the wind and a great expounder of
+transcendental truth. The fact that Coleridge exerted a very great
+influence is undeniable. To define precisely what that influence was
+is impossible. His writings are a heap of fragments. He contemplated
+innumerable schemes for great works, and never got within measurable
+distance of writing any. He poured himself out indefinitely upon the
+margins of other men's books; and the piety of disciples has collected
+a mass of these scattered and incoherent jottings, which announce
+conclusions without giving the premises, or suggest difficulties
+without<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span> attempting to solve them. He seems to have been almost as
+industrious as Bentham in writing; but whereas Bentham's fragments
+could be put together as wholes, Coleridge's are essentially
+distracted hints of views never really elaborated. He was always
+thinking, but seems always to be making a fresh start at any point
+that strikes him for the moment. Besides all this, there is the
+painful question of plagiarism. His most coherent exposition (in the
+<i>Biographia Literaria</i>) is simply appropriated from Schelling, though
+he ascribes the identity to a 'genial coincidence' of thought. I need
+make no attempt to make out what Coleridge really thought for himself,
+and then to try to put his thoughts together,&mdash;and indeed hold the
+attempt to be impossible. The most remarkable thing is the apparent
+disproportion between Coleridge's definite services to philosophy and
+the effect which he certainly produced upon some of his ablest
+contemporaries. That seems to prove that he was really aiming at some
+important aspect of truth, incapable as he may have been of
+definitively reaching it. I can only try to give a hint or two as to
+its general nature. Coleridge, in the first place, was essentially a
+poet, and, moreover, his poetry was of the type most completely
+divorced from philosophy. Nobody could say more emphatically that
+poetry should not be rhymed logic; and his most impressive poems are
+simply waking dreams. They are spontaneous incarnations of sensuous
+imagery, which has no need of morals or definite logical schemes.
+Although he expected Wordsworth to transmute philosophy into poetry,
+he admitted that the achievement would be unprecedented. Even in
+Lucretius, he said, what was poetry was not philosophy, and what was
+philosophy was not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span> poetry. Yet Coleridge's philosophy was essentially
+the philosophy of a poet. He had, indeed, great dialectical
+ingenuity&mdash;a faculty which may certainly be allied with the highest
+imagination, though it may involve certain temptations. A poet who has
+also a mastery of dialectics becomes a mystic in philosophy. Coleridge
+had, it seems, been attracted by Plotinus in his schooldays. At a
+later period he had been attracted by Hartley, Berkeley, and
+Priestley. To a brilliant youth, anxious to be in the van of
+intellectual progress, they represented the most advanced theories.
+But there could never be a full sympathy between Coleridge and the
+forefathers of English empiricism; and he went to Germany partly to
+study the new philosophy which was beginning to shine&mdash;though very
+feebly and intermittingly&mdash;in England. When he had returned he began
+to read Kant and Schelling, or rather to mix excursions into their
+books with the miscellaneous inquiries to which his versatile
+intellect attracted him.</p>
+
+<p>Now, it is abundantly clear that Coleridge never studied any
+philosophy systematically. He never acquired a precise acquaintance
+with the technical language of various schemes, or cared for their
+precise logical relations to each other. The 'genial coincidence' with
+Schelling, though an unlucky phrase, represents a real fact. He dipped
+into Plotinus or Behmen or Kant or Schelling, or any one who
+interested him, and did not know whether they were simply embodying
+ideas already in his own mind, or suggesting new ideas; or, what was
+probably more accurate, expressing opinions which, in a general way,
+were congenial to his own way of contemplating the world. His power of
+stimulating other minds proves<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span> sufficiently that he frequently hit
+upon impressive and suggestive thoughts. He struck out illuminating
+sparks, but he never diffused any distinct or steady daylight. His
+favourite position, for example, of the distinction between the Reason
+and the Understanding is always coming up and being enforced with the
+strongest asseverations of its importance. That he had adopted it more
+or less from Kant is obvious, though I imagine it to be also obvious
+that he did not clearly understand his authority.<a name="FNanchor_635_635" id="FNanchor_635_635"></a><a href="#Footnote_635_635" class="fnanchor">[635]</a> To what,
+precisely, it amounts is also unintelligible to me. Somehow or other,
+it implies that the mind can rise into transcendental regions, and,
+leaving grovelling Utilitarians and the like to the conduct of the
+understanding in matters of practical expediency, can perceive that
+the universe is in some way evolved from the pure reason, and the mind
+capable of ideas which correspond to stages of the evolution. How this
+leads to the conclusions that the Christian doctrines of the Logos and
+the Trinity are embodiments of pure philosophy is a problem upon which
+I need not touch. When we have called Coleridge a mystic, with flashes
+of keen insight into the weakness of the opposite theory, I do not see
+how we are to get much further, or attribute to him any articulate and
+definite scheme.</p>
+
+<p>Hopelessly unsystematic as Coleridge may have been, his significance
+in regard to the Utilitarians is noteworthy. It is indicated in a
+famous article which J. S. Mill contributed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span>to the <i>Westminster
+Review</i> in March 1840.<a name="FNanchor_636_636" id="FNanchor_636_636"></a><a href="#Footnote_636_636" class="fnanchor">[636]</a> Mill's concessions to Coleridge rather
+scandalised the faithful; and it is enough to observe here that it
+marks the apogee of Mill's Benthamism. Influences, of which I shall
+have to speak, had led him to regard his old creed as imperfect, and
+to assent to great part of Coleridge's doctrine. Mill does not discuss
+the metaphysical or theological views of the opposite school, though
+he briefly intimates his dissent. But it is interesting to observe how
+Coleridge impressed a disciple of Bentham. The 'Germano-Coleridgian
+doctrine,' says Mill, was a reaction against the philosophy of the
+eighteenth century: 'ontological,' 'conservative,' 'religious,'
+'concrete and historical,' and finally 'poetical,' because the other
+was 'experimental,' 'innovative,' 'infidel,' 'abstract and
+metaphysical,' and 'matter-of-fact and prosaic.' Yet the two
+approximate, and each helps to restore the balance and comes a little
+nearer to a final equilibrium. The error of the French philosophers
+had been their negative and purely critical tendency. They had thought
+that it was enough to sweep away superstition, priestcraft, and
+despotism, and that no constructive process was necessary. They had
+not perceived the necessity of social discipline, of loyalty to
+rulers, or of patriotic feeling among the subjects. They had,
+therefore, entirely failed to recognise the historical value of old
+creeds and institutions, and had tried to remodel society 'without the
+binding forces which hold society together.'<a name="FNanchor_637_637" id="FNanchor_637_637"></a><a href="#Footnote_637_637" class="fnanchor">[637]</a> Hence, too, the
+<i>philosophes</i> came to despise history; and D'Alembert is said to have
+wished that all record of past events could be blotted out. Their
+theory, in its popular version at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span> least, came to be that states and
+churches had been got up 'for the sole purpose of picking people's
+pockets.'<a name="FNanchor_638_638" id="FNanchor_638_638"></a><a href="#Footnote_638_638" class="fnanchor">[638]</a> This had become incredible to any intelligent reasoner,
+and any Tory could prove that there was something good in the past.
+The peculiarity of the 'Germano-Coleridgian' school was that they saw
+beyond the immediate controversy. They were the first to inquire with
+any power into 'the inductive laws of the existence and growth of
+human society'; the first to recognise the importance of the great
+constructive principles; and the first to produce not a piece of party
+advocacy, but 'a philosophy of society in the only form in which it is
+yet possible, that of a philosophy of history.' Hence arose that
+'series of great writers and thinkers, from Herder to Michelet,' who
+have given to past history an intelligible place in the gradual
+evolution of humanity.<a name="FNanchor_639_639" id="FNanchor_639_639"></a><a href="#Footnote_639_639" class="fnanchor">[639]</a> This very forcible passage is interesting
+in regard to Mill, and shows a very clear perception of some defects
+in his own philosophy. It also raises an important question.</p>
+
+<p>Accepting Mill's view, it is remarkable that the great error of his
+own school, which professed to be based upon experience, was the
+rejection of history; and the great merit of the <i>a priori</i> and
+'intuitionist' school was precisely their insistence upon history. To
+this I shall have to return hereafter. Meanwhile, Mill proceeds to
+show how Coleridge, by arguing from the 'idea' of church and state,
+had at least recognised the necessity of showing that political and
+social institutions must have a sufficient reason, and be justified by
+something more than mere obstinate prejudice. Men like Pitt and Sir
+Robert Peel, if they accepted Coleridge's support, would have to alter
+their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span> whole position. Coleridge's defence of his ideal church was at
+once the severest satire upon the existing body and a proof, as
+against Bentham and Adam Smith, of the advantages of an endowed class
+for the cultivation and diffusion of learning. Coleridge, moreover,
+though he objected to the Reform Bill, showed himself a better
+reformer than Lord John Russell. He admitted what the Whigs refused to
+see, the necessity of diminishing the weight of the landowner
+interest. Landowners were not to be ultimate sources of power, but to
+represent one factor in a reasoned system. In short, by admitting that
+all social arrangements in some sense were embodiments of reason, he
+admitted that they must also be made to conform to reason.</p>
+
+<p>Coleridge and Bentham, then, are not really enemies but allies, and
+they wield powers which are 'opposite poles of one great force of
+progression.'<a name="FNanchor_640_640" id="FNanchor_640_640"></a><a href="#Footnote_640_640" class="fnanchor">[640]</a> The question, however, remains, how the philosophy
+of each leader is really connected with his practical conclusions.
+Mill's view would apparently be that Coleridge somehow managed to
+correct the errors or fill the gaps of the Utilitarian system&mdash;a very
+necessary task, as Mill admits&mdash;while Coleridge would have held that
+those errors were the inevitable fruit of the whole empirical system
+of thought. The Reason must be restored to its rightful supremacy over
+the Understanding, which had been working its wicked will since the
+days of Locke and eighteenth century. The problem is a wide one. I
+must be content to remark the inevitable antithesis. Whether enemies
+or allies, the Utilitarians and their antagonists were separated by a
+gulf which could not be bridged for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span> time. The men of
+common-sense, who had no philosophy at all, were shocked by the
+immediate practical applications of Utilitarianism, its hostility to
+the old order which they loved, its apparent helplessness in social
+questions, its relegation of all progress to the conflict of selfish
+interests, its indifference to all the virtues associated with
+patriotism and local ties. By more reflective minds, it was condemned
+as robbing the world of its poetry, stifling the religious emotions,
+and even quenching sentiment in general. The few who wished for a
+philosophy found the root of its errors in the assumptions which
+reduced the world to a chaos of atoms, outwardly connected and
+combined into mere dead mechanism. The world, for the poet and the
+philosopher alike, must be not a congeries of separate things, but in
+some sense a product of reason. Thought, not fact, must be the
+ultimate reality. Unfortunately or otherwise, the poetical sentiment
+could never get itself translated into philosophical theory.
+Coleridge's random and discursive hints remained mere hints&mdash;a
+suggestion at best for future thought. Mill's criticism shows how far
+they could be assimilated by a singularly candid Utilitarian. To him,
+we see, they represented mainly the truth that his own party,
+following the general tendency of the eighteenth century, had been led
+to neglect the vital importance of the constructive elements of
+society; that they had sacrificed order to progress, and therefore
+confounded progress with destruction, and failed to perceive the real
+importance in past times even of the institutions which had become
+obsolete. Social atomism or individualism, therefore, implied a total
+misconception of what Mill calls the 'evolution of humanity.' This
+marks a critical point. The 'Germano-Coleridgians' had a theory<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span> of
+evolution. By evolution, indeed, was meant a dialectical evolution;
+the evolution of 'ideas' or reason, in which each stage of history
+represents a moment of some vast and transcendental process of
+thought. Evolution, so understood, seemed rightly or wrongly to be
+mere mysticism or intellectual juggling. It took leave of fact, or
+managed by some illegitimate process to give to a crude generalisation
+from experience the appearance of a purely logical deduction. In this
+shape, therefore, it was really opposed to science, although the time
+was to come in which evolution would present itself in a scientific
+form.<a name="FNanchor_641_641" id="FNanchor_641_641"></a><a href="#Footnote_641_641" class="fnanchor">[641]</a> Meanwhile, the concessions made by J. S. Mill were not
+approved by his fellows, and would have been regarded as little short
+of treason by the older Utilitarians. The two schools, if Coleridge's
+followers could be called a school, regarded each other's doctrines as
+simply contradictory. In appealing to experience and experience alone,
+the Utilitarians, as their opponents held, had reduced the world to a
+dead mechanism, destroyed every element of cohesion, made society a
+struggle of selfish interests, and struck at the very roots of all
+order, patriotism, poetry, and religion. They retorted that their
+critics were blind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span> adherents of antiquated prejudice, and sought to
+cover superstition and despotism either by unprovable dogmatic
+assertions, or by taking refuge in a cloudy mystical jargon, which
+really meant nothing.</p>
+
+<p>They did not love each other.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_610_610" id="Footnote_610_610"></a><a href="#FNanchor_610_610"><span class="label">[610]</span></a> See <i>Dictionary of National Biography</i>, under 'George
+Grote.' Bentham's <span class="smcap">ms.</span> is in the British Museum, and shows, I think,
+that Grote's share in the work was a good deal more than mere editing.
+I quote from a reprint by Truelove (1875). It was also privately
+reprinted by Grote himself in 1866.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_611_611" id="Footnote_611_611"></a><a href="#FNanchor_611_611"><span class="label">[611]</span></a> Cf. Hobbes's definition: 'Fear of power invisible
+feigned by the mind, or imagined from tales publicly allowed, [is]
+<span class="smcap">Religion</span>: not allowed, <span class="smcap">Superstition</span>. And when the power imagined is
+truly such as we imagine, <span class="smcap">True Religion</span>.'&mdash;<i>Works</i> (Molesworth), iii.
+45.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_612_612" id="Footnote_612_612"></a><a href="#FNanchor_612_612"><span class="label">[612]</span></a> 'Philip Beauchamp,' ch. ii. pp. 11-15.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_613_613" id="Footnote_613_613"></a><a href="#FNanchor_613_613"><span class="label">[613]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 17.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_614_614" id="Footnote_614_614"></a><a href="#FNanchor_614_614"><span class="label">[614]</span></a> 'Philip Beauchamp,' p. 21.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_615_615" id="Footnote_615_615"></a><a href="#FNanchor_615_615"><span class="label">[615]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> pp. 22 and 104.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_616_616" id="Footnote_616_616"></a><a href="#FNanchor_616_616"><span class="label">[616]</span></a> 'Philip Beauchamp,' ch. iii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_617_617" id="Footnote_617_617"></a><a href="#FNanchor_617_617"><span class="label">[617]</span></a> 'Philip Beauchamp,' ch. iv.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_618_618" id="Footnote_618_618"></a><a href="#FNanchor_618_618"><span class="label">[618]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 45, ch. v.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_619_619" id="Footnote_619_619"></a><a href="#FNanchor_619_619"><span class="label">[619]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 52, ch. vi.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_620_620" id="Footnote_620_620"></a><a href="#FNanchor_620_620"><span class="label">[620]</span></a> 'Philip Beauchamp,' ch. viii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_621_621" id="Footnote_621_621"></a><a href="#FNanchor_621_621"><span class="label">[621]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> part ii. ch. i.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_622_622" id="Footnote_622_622"></a><a href="#FNanchor_622_622"><span class="label">[622]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 80, part ii. ch. ii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_623_623" id="Footnote_623_623"></a><a href="#FNanchor_623_623"><span class="label">[623]</span></a> 'Philip Beauchamp,' pp. 97, 99.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_624_624" id="Footnote_624_624"></a><a href="#FNanchor_624_624"><span class="label">[624]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 101.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_625_625" id="Footnote_625_625"></a><a href="#FNanchor_625_625"><span class="label">[625]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 103.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_626_626" id="Footnote_626_626"></a><a href="#FNanchor_626_626"><span class="label">[626]</span></a> 'Philip Beauchamp,' p. 163.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_627_627" id="Footnote_627_627"></a><a href="#FNanchor_627_627"><span class="label">[627]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 122.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_628_628" id="Footnote_628_628"></a><a href="#FNanchor_628_628"><span class="label">[628]</span></a> The writers were Chalmers, Kidd, Whewell, Sir Charles
+Bell, Roget, Buckland, Kirby, and Prout. The essays appeared from 1833
+to 1835. The versatile Brougham shortly afterwards edited Paley's
+<i>Natural Theology</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_629_629" id="Footnote_629_629"></a><a href="#FNanchor_629_629"><span class="label">[629]</span></a> 'Philip Beauchamp,' p. 88.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_630_630" id="Footnote_630_630"></a><a href="#FNanchor_630_630"><span class="label">[630]</span></a> Froude's <i>Carlyle</i>, i. 215; ii. 93.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_631_631" id="Footnote_631_631"></a><a href="#FNanchor_631_631"><span class="label">[631]</span></a> Mill's <i>Dissertations</i>, i. 235; ii. 130.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_632_632" id="Footnote_632_632"></a><a href="#FNanchor_632_632"><span class="label">[632]</span></a> George Borrow's vehement dislike of Scott as the
+inventor of Puseyism and modern Jesuitism of all kinds is
+characteristic.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_633_633" id="Footnote_633_633"></a><a href="#FNanchor_633_633"><span class="label">[633]</span></a> <i>Prelude</i>, bk. xiii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_634_634" id="Footnote_634_634"></a><a href="#FNanchor_634_634"><span class="label">[634]</span></a> Coleridge's <i>Letters</i> (1890), pp. 643-49.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_635_635" id="Footnote_635_635"></a><a href="#FNanchor_635_635"><span class="label">[635]</span></a> Mr. Hutchison Stirling insists upon this in the
+<i>Fortnightly Review</i> for July 1867. He proves, I think, that
+Coleridge's knowledge of the various schemes of German philosophy and
+of the precise relation of Kant, Fichte, and Schelling was altogether
+desultory and confused. How far this is important depends upon whether
+we attach much or little importance to precise combinations of words
+used by these philosophers.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_636_636" id="Footnote_636_636"></a><a href="#FNanchor_636_636"><span class="label">[636]</span></a> <i>Dissertations</i>, i. 392-474.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_637_637" id="Footnote_637_637"></a><a href="#FNanchor_637_637"><span class="label">[637]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 424.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_638_638" id="Footnote_638_638"></a><a href="#FNanchor_638_638"><span class="label">[638]</span></a> <i>Dissertations</i>, i. 437.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_639_639" id="Footnote_639_639"></a><a href="#FNanchor_639_639"><span class="label">[639]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 425-27.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_640_640" id="Footnote_640_640"></a><a href="#FNanchor_640_640"><span class="label">[640]</span></a> <i>Dissertations</i>, i. 437.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_641_641" id="Footnote_641_641"></a><a href="#FNanchor_641_641"><span class="label">[641]</span></a> Coleridge's <i>Hints towards the Formation of a more
+Comprehensive Theory of Life</i>, edited by S. B. Watson, in 1848, is a
+curious attempt to apply his evolution doctrine to natural science.
+Lewes, in his <i>Letters on Comte's Philosophy of the Sciences</i>, says
+that it is a 'shameless plagiarism' from Schelling's <i>Erster Entwurf</i>,
+etc. It seems, as far as I can judge, that Coleridge's doctrines about
+magnetism, reproduction, irritability, sensibility, etc., are, in
+fact, adapted from Schelling. The book was intended, as Mr. E. H.
+Coleridge tells me, for a chapter in a work on Scrophula, projected by
+Gillman. As Coleridge died long before the publication, he cannot be
+directly responsible for not acknowledging obligations to Schelling.
+Unfortunately he cannot claim the benefit of a good character in such
+matters. Anyhow, Coleridge's occasional excursions into science can
+only represent a vague acceptance of the transcendental method
+represented, as I understand, by Oken.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3),
+by Leslie Stephen
+
+
+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: The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3)
+       James Mill
+
+
+Author: Leslie Stephen
+
+
+
+Release Date: June 14, 2008  [eBook #25788]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ENGLISH UTILITARIANS, VOLUME
+II (OF 3)***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Stacy Brown, Thierry Alberto, Henry Craig, and the
+Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+(http://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+THE ENGLISH UTILITARIANS
+
+by
+
+LESLIE STEPHEN
+
+In Three Volumes
+
+VOL. II
+
+JAMES MILL
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+London
+Duckworth And Co.
+3 Henrietta Street, W.C.
+1900
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+JAMES MILL
+
+                                      PAGE
+
+  I. Early Life,                         1
+
+ II. Bentham's Lieutenant,               7
+
+III. Leader of the Utilitarians,        25
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+REFORM MOVEMENTS
+
+  I. Political Change,                  41
+
+ II. Law Reform,                        47
+
+III. Economic Reform,                   51
+
+ IV. Church Reform,                     57
+
+  V. Sinister Interests,                62
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+POLITICAL THEORY
+
+  I. Mill on Government,                74
+
+ II. Whiggism,                          98
+
+III. Conservatism,                     109
+
+ IV. Socialism,                        119
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+MALTHUS
+
+  I. Malthus's Starting-point,         137
+
+ II. The Ratios,                       147
+
+III. Moral Restraint,                  156
+
+ IV. Social Remedies,                  165
+
+  V. Political Application,            174
+
+ VI. Rent,                             181
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+RICARDO
+
+  I. Ricardo's Starting-point,         186
+
+ II. The Distribution Problem,         195
+
+III. Value and Labour,                 204
+
+ IV. The Classical Political Economy,  216
+
+  V. The Ricardians,                   226
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+ECONOMIC HERETICS
+
+  I. The Malthusian Controversy,       238
+
+ II. Socialism,                        259
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+PSYCHOLOGY
+
+  I. Thomas Brown,                     267
+
+ II. James Mill's _Analysis_,          287
+
+III. James Mill's Ethics,              312
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+RELIGION
+
+  I. Philip Beauchamp,                 338
+
+ II. Contemporary Thought,             361
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+JAMES MILL
+
+
+I. EARLY LIFE
+
+Bentham's mantle fell upon James Mill.[1] Mill expounded in the
+tersest form the doctrines which in Bentham's hands spread into
+endless ramifications and lost themselves in minute details. Mill
+became the leader of Bentham's bodyguard; or, rather, the mediator
+between the prophet in his 'hermitage' and the missionaries who were
+actively engaged on the hustings and in committee-rooms. The special
+characteristics of English Utilitarianism in the period of its
+greatest activity were thus more affected by Mill than by any other
+leader of opinion.
+
+James Mill was one of the countless Scots who, having been trained at
+home in strict frugality and stern Puritanic principles, have fought
+their way to success in England. He was born 6th April 1773 in the
+parish of Logie Pert, Forfarshire. His father, also named James Mill,
+was a village shoemaker, employing two or three journeymen when at
+the height of his prosperity. His mother, Isabel Fenton, daughter of a
+farmer, had been a servant in Edinburgh. Her family had some claims to
+superior gentility; she was fastidious, delicate in frame, and accused
+of pride by her neighbours. She resolved to bring up James, her eldest
+son, to be a gentleman, which practically meant to be a minister. He
+probably showed early promise of intellectual superiority. He received
+the usual training at the parish school, and was then sent to the
+Montrose Academy, where he was the school-fellow and friend of a
+younger lad, Joseph Hume (1777-1855), afterwards his political ally.
+He boarded with a Montrose shopkeeper for 2s. 6d. a week, and remained
+at the Academy till he was seventeen. He was never put to work in his
+father's shop, and devoted himself entirely to study. The usual age
+for beginning to attend a Scottish university was thirteen or
+fourteen; and it would have been the normal course for a lad in Mill's
+position to be sent at that age to Aberdeen. Mill's education was
+prolonged by a connection which was of great service to him. Sir John
+Stuart (previously Belches), of Fettercairn House, in Mill's
+neighbourhood, had married Lady Jane Leslie, and was by her father of
+an only child, Wilhelmina. Lady Jane was given to charity, and had set
+up a fund to educate promising lads for the ministry. Mill was
+probably recommended to her by the parish minister, as likely to do
+credit to her patronage. He also acted as tutor to Wilhelmina, who
+afterwards became the object of Scott's early passion. Mill spent much
+time at Fettercairn House, and appears to have won the warm regards
+both of the Stuarts and of their daughter, who spoke of him
+affectionately 'with almost her last breath.'[2] The Stuarts passed
+their winters at Edinburgh, whither Mill accompanied them. He entered
+the university in 1790, and seems to have applied himself chiefly to
+Greek and to philosophy. He became so good a Greek scholar that long
+afterwards (1818) he had some thoughts of standing for the Greek chair
+at Glasgow.[3] He was always a keen student of Plato. He read the
+ordinary Scottish authorities, and attended the lectures of Dugald
+Stewart. Besides reading Rousseau, he studied Massillon, probably with
+a view to his future performances in the pulpit. Massillon might be
+suggested to him by quotations in Adam Smith's _Moral Sentiments_.
+There are few records of acquaintanceship with any of his
+distinguished contemporaries, except the chemist Thomas Thomson, who
+became a lifelong friend. He probably made acquaintance with Brougham,
+and may have known Jeffrey; but he was not a member of the Speculative
+Society, joined by most young men of promise.
+
+In 1794 he began his course of divinity, and on 4th October 1798 was
+licensed to preach. He lived in his father's house, where part of the
+family room was screened off to form a study for him. He delivered
+some sermons, apparently with little success. He failed to obtain a
+call from any parish; and there are vague reports of his acting as
+tutor in some families, and of a rebuff received at the table of the
+marquis of Tweeddale, father of one of his pupils, which made him
+resolve to seek for independence by a different career.
+
+In 1802 Mill went to London in company with Sir John Stuart, who was
+about to take his seat in parliament. Stuart procured admission for
+him to the gallery of the House of Commons, where he attended many
+debates, and acquired an interest in politics. His ambition, however,
+depended upon his pen; and at first, it would seem, he was not more
+particular than other journalists as to the politics of the papers to
+which he contributed. He had obtained a testimonial from Thomson, on
+the strength of which he introduced himself to John Gifford, editor of
+the _Anti-Jacobin Review_.[4] This was a monthly magazine, which had
+adopted the name and politics of the deceased _Anti-Jacobin_, edited
+by William Gifford. Mill obtained employment, and wrote articles
+implying an interest in the philosophy, and especially in the
+political economy, of the time. It is noteworthy, considering his
+later principles, that he should at this time have taken part in a
+strong Tory organ. He wrote a pamphlet in 1804 (the first publication
+under his name) to prove the impolicy of a bounty upon the exportation
+of grain; and in 1807 replied in _Commerce Defended_ to William
+Spence's _Britain independent of Commerce_. Meanwhile he had found
+employment of a more regular kind. He had formed a connection with a
+bookseller named Baldwin, for whom he undertook to help in rewriting a
+book called _Nature Delineated_. This scheme was changed for a
+periodical called the _Literary Journal_, which started at the
+beginning of 1803, and lived through four years with Mill as editor.
+At the same time apparently he edited the _St. James's Chronicle_,
+also belonging to Baldwin, which had no very definite political
+colour. The _Journal_ professed to give a systematic survey of
+literary, scientific, and philosophical publications. For the
+scientific part Mill was helped by Thomson. His own contributions show
+that, although clearly a rationalist, he was still opposed to open
+infidelity. A translation of Villers' _History of the Reformation_
+implies similar tendencies. Other literary hack-work during this and
+the next few years is vaguely indicated. Mill was making about L500 a
+year or something more during his editorships, and thought himself
+justified in marrying. On 5th June 1805 he became the husband of
+Harriett Burrow, daughter of a widow who kept a private lunatic asylum
+originally started by her husband. The Mills settled in a house in
+Pentonville belonging to Mrs. Burrow, for which they paid L50 a year.
+
+The money question soon became pressing. The editorships vanished, and
+to make an income by periodical writing was no easy task. His son
+observes that nothing could be more opposed to his father's later
+principles than marrying and producing a large family under these
+circumstances. Nine children were ultimately born, all of whom
+survived their father. The family in his old home were an additional
+burthen. His mother died before his departure from Scotland. His
+father was paralysed, and having incautiously given security for a
+friend, became bankrupt. His only brother, William, died soon
+afterwards, and his only sister, Mary, married one of her father's
+journeymen named Greig, and tried to carry on the business. The
+father died about 1808, and the Greigs had a hard struggle, though two
+of the sons ultimately set up a business in Montrose. James Mill
+appears to have helped to support his father, whose debts he undertook
+to pay, and to have afterwards helped the Greigs. They thought, it
+seems, that he ought to have done more, but were not unlikely to
+exaggerate the resources of a man who was making his way in England.
+Mill was resolute in doing his duty, but hardly likely to do it
+graciously. At any rate, in the early years, it must have been a
+severe strain to do anything.
+
+In spite of all difficulties Mill, by strict frugality and unremitting
+energy, managed to keep out of debt. In the end of 1806 he undertook
+the history of British India. This was to be the great work which
+should give him a name, and enable him to rise above the herd of
+contemporary journalists. He calculated the time necessary for its
+completion at three years, but the years were to be more than trebled
+before the book was actually finished. At that period there were fewer
+facilities than there could now be for making the necessary
+researches: and we do not know what were the reasons which prompted
+the selection of a subject of which he could have no first-hand
+knowledge. The book necessarily impeded other labours; and to the toil
+of writing Mill added the toil of superintending the education of his
+children. His struggle for some years was such as to require an
+extraordinary strain upon all his faculties. Mill, however, possessed
+great physical and mental vigour. He was muscular, well-made, and
+handsome; he had marked powers of conversation, and made a strong
+impression upon all with whom he came in contact. He gradually formed
+connections which effectually determined his future career.
+
+
+II. BENTHAM'S LIEUTENANT
+
+The most important influence in Mill's life was the friendship with
+Bentham. This appears to have begun in 1808. Mill speedily became a
+valued disciple. He used to walk from Pentonville to dine with Bentham
+in Queen's Square Place. Soon the elder man desired to have his new
+friend nearer at hand. In 1810 Mill moved to the house in Bentham's
+garden, which had once belonged to Milton; when this proved
+unsuitable, he was obliged to move to a more distant abode at Stoke
+Newington; but finally, in 1814, he settled in another house belonging
+to Bentham, 1 Queen's Square, close under the old gentleman's wing.
+Here for some years they lived in the closest intimacy. The Mills also
+stayed with Bentham in his country-houses at Barrow Green, and
+afterwards at Ford Abbey. The association was not without its
+troubles. Bentham was fanciful, and Mill stern and rigid. No one,
+however, could be a more devoted disciple. The most curious
+illustration of their relations is a letter written to Bentham by
+Mill, 19th September 1814, while they were both at Ford Abbey. Mill in
+this declares himself to be a 'most faithful and fervent disciple' of
+the truths which Bentham had the 'immortal honour' of propounding. He
+had fancied himself to be his master's favourite disciple. No one is
+so completely of Bentham's way of thinking, or so qualified by
+position for carrying on the propaganda. Now, however, Bentham showed
+that he had taken umbrage at some part of Mill's behaviour. An open
+quarrel would bring discredit upon both sides, and upon their common
+beliefs. The great dangers to friendship are pecuniary obligation and
+too close intimacy. Mill has made it a great purpose of his life to
+avoid pecuniary obligation, though he took pride in receiving
+obligations from Bentham. He has confined himself to accepting
+Bentham's house at a low rent, and allowing his family to live for
+part of the year at Bentham's expense. He now proposes so to arrange
+his future life that they shall avoid an excessively close intimacy,
+from which, he thinks, had arisen the 'umbrage.' The letter, which is
+manly and straightforward, led to a reconciliation, and for some years
+the intercourse was as close as ever.[5]
+
+Mill's unreserved adoption of Bentham's principles, and his resolution
+to devote his life to their propagation, implies a development of
+opinion. He had entirely dropped his theology. In the early years of
+his London life, Mill had been only a rationalist. He had by this time
+become what would now be called an agnostic. He thought 'dogmatic
+atheism' absurd, says J. S. Mill;[6] 'but he held that we can know
+nothing whatever as to the origin of the world.' The occasion of the
+change, according to his family, was his intercourse with General
+Miranda, who was sitting at Bentham's feet about this time. J. S. Mill
+states that the turning-point in his father's mind was the study of
+Butler's _Analogy_. That book, he thought, as others have thought, was
+conclusive against the optimistic deism which it assails; but he
+thought also that the argument really destroyed Butler's own
+standing-ground. The evils of the world are incompatible with the
+theory of Almighty benevolence. The purely logical objection was
+combined with an intense moral sentiment. Theological doctrines, he
+thought, were not only false, but brutal. His son had heard him say 'a
+hundred times' that men have attributed to their gods every trait of
+wickedness till the conception culminated in the Christian doctrine of
+hell. Mill still attended church services for some time after his
+marriage, and the children were christened. But the eldest son did not
+remember the period of even partial conformity, and considered himself
+to have been brought up from the first without any religious belief.
+James Mill had already taken up the uncompromising position congenial
+to his character, although the reticence which the whole party
+observed prevented any open expression of his sentiments.
+
+Mill's propaganda of Benthamism was for some time obscure. He helped
+to put together some of Bentham's writings, especially the book upon
+evidence. He was consulted in regard to all proposed publications,
+such as the pamphlet upon jury-packing, which Mill desired to publish
+in spite of Romilly's warning. Mill endeavoured also to disseminate
+the true faith through various periodicals. He obtained admission to
+the _Edinburgh Review_, probably through its chief contributor,
+Brougham. Neither Brougham nor Jeffrey was likely to commit the great
+Whig review to the support of a creed still militant and regarded with
+distrust by the respectable. Mill contributed various articles from
+1808 to 1813, but chiefly upon topics outside of the political sphere.
+The _Edinburgh Review_, as I have said, had taken a condescending
+notice of Bentham in 1804. Mill tried to introduce a better tone into
+an article upon Bexon's _Code de la Legislation penale_, which he was
+permitted to publish in the number for October 1809. Knowing Jeffrey's
+'dislike of praise,' he tried to be on his guard, and to insinuate his
+master's doctrine without openly expressing his enthusiasm. Jeffrey,
+however, sadly mangled the review, struck out every mention but one of
+Bentham, and there substituted words of his own for Mill's. Even as it
+was, Brougham pronounced the praise of Bentham to be excessive.[7]
+Mill continued to write for a time, partly, no doubt, with a view to
+Jeffrey's cheques. Almost his last article (in January 1813) was
+devoted to the Lancasterian controversy, in which Mill, as we shall
+directly see, was in alliance with the Whigs. But the Edinburgh
+Reviewers were too distinctly of the Whig persuasion to be congenial
+company for a determined Radical. They would give him no more than a
+secondary position, and would then take good care to avoid the
+insertion of any suspicious doctrine. Mill wrote no more after the
+summer of 1813.
+
+Meanwhile he was finding more sympathetic allies. First among them was
+William Allen (1770-1843), chemist, of Plough Court. Allen was a
+Quaker; a man of considerable scientific tastes; successful in
+business, and ardently devoted throughout his life to many
+philanthropic schemes. He took, in particular, an active part in the
+agitation against slavery. He was, as we have seen, one of the
+partners who bought Owen's establishment at New Lanark; and his
+religious scruples were afterwards the cause of Owen's retirement.
+These, however, were only a part of his multifarious schemes. He was
+perhaps something of a busybody; his head may have been a little
+turned by the attentions which he received on all hands; he managed
+the affairs of the duke of Kent; was visited by the Emperor Alexander
+in 1814; and interviewed royal personages on the Continent, in order
+to obtain their support in attacking the slave-trade, and introducing
+good schools and prisons. But, though he may have shared some of the
+weaknesses of popular philanthropists, he is mentioned with respect
+even by observers such as Owen and Place, who had many prejudices
+against his principles. He undoubtedly deserves a place among the
+active and useful social reformers of his time.
+
+I have already noticed the importance of the Quaker share in the
+various philanthropic movements of the time. The Quaker shared many of
+the views upon practical questions which were favoured by the
+freethinker. Both were hostile to slavery, in favour of spreading
+education, opposed to all religious tests and restrictions, and
+advocates of reform in prisons, and in the harsh criminal law. The
+fundamental differences of theological belief were not so productive
+of discord in dealing with the Quakers as with other sects; for it was
+the very essence of the old Quaker spirit to look rather to the spirit
+than to the letter. Allen, therefore, was only acting in the spirit of
+his society when he could be on equally good terms with the Emperor
+Alexander or the duke of Kent, and, on the other hand, with James
+Mill, the denouncer of kings and autocrats. He could join hands with
+Mill in assailing slavery, insisting upon prison reform, preaching
+toleration and advancing civilisation, although he heartily
+disapproved of the doctrines with which Mill's practical principles
+were associated. Mill, too, practised--even to a questionable
+degree--the method of reticence, and took good care not to offend his
+coadjutor.
+
+Their co-operation was manifested in a quarterly journal called the
+_Philanthropist_, which appeared during the seven years, 1811-1817,
+and was published at Allen's expense. Mill found in it the opportunity
+of advocating many of his cherished opinions. He defended toleration
+in the name of Penn, whose life had been published by Clarkson. He
+attacked the slave-owners, and so came into alliance with Wilberforce,
+Zachary Macaulay, and others of the evangelical persuasion. He found,
+at the same time, opportunities for propagating the creed of Bentham
+in connection with questions of prison reform and the penal code. His
+most important article, published in 1812, was another contribution to
+the Lancasterian controversy. In this Mill had allies of a very
+different school; and his activity brings him into close connection
+with one of the most remarkable men of the time.[8]
+
+This was Francis Place, the famous Radical tailor. Place, born 3rd
+November 1771, had raised himself from the position of a working-man
+to be occupant of a shop at Charing Cross, which became the centre of
+important political movements. Between Place and Mill there was much
+affinity of character. Place, like Mill, was a man of rigid and
+vigorous intellect. Dogmatic, self-confident, and decidedly
+censorious, not attractive by any sweetness or grace of character, but
+thoroughly sincere and independent, he extorts rather than commands
+our respect by his hearty devotion to what he at least believed to be
+the cause of truth and progress. Place was what is now called a
+thorough 'individualist.' He believed in self-reliance and energy, and
+held that the class to which he belonged was to be raised, as he had
+raised himself, by the exercise of those qualities, not by invoking
+the direct interference of the central power, which, indeed, as he
+knew it, was only likely to interfere on the wrong side. He had the
+misfortune to be born in London instead of Scotland, and had therefore
+not Mill's educational advantages. He tried energetically, and not
+unsuccessfully, to improve his mind, but he never quite surmounted the
+weakness of the self-educated man, and had no special literary talent.
+His writing, in fact, is dull and long-winded, though he has the merit
+of judging for himself, and of saying what he thinks.
+
+Place had been a member of the Corresponding Society, and was at one
+time chairman of the weekly committee. He had, however, disapproved of
+their proceedings, and retired in time to escape the imprisonment
+which finally crushed the committee. He was now occupied in building
+up his own fortunes at Charing Cross. When, during the second war, the
+native English Radicalism began again to raise its head, Place took a
+highly important share in the political agitation. Westminster, the
+constituency in which he had a vote, had long been one of the most
+important boroughs. It was one of the few large popular
+constituencies, and was affected by the influences naturally strongest
+in the metropolis. After being long under the influence of the court
+and the dean and chapter, it had been carried by Fox during the
+discontents of 1780, when the reform movement took a start and the
+county associations were symptoms of a growing agitation. The great
+Whig leader, though not sound upon the question of reform, represented
+the constituency till his death, and reform dropped out of notice for
+the time. Upon Fox's death (13th September 1806) Lord Percy was
+elected without opposition as his successor by an arrangement among
+the ruling families. Place was disgusted at the distribution of 'bread
+and cheese and beer,' and resolved to find a truly popular candidate.
+In the general election which soon followed at the end of 1806 he
+supported Paull, an impecunious adventurer, who made a good fight, but
+was beaten by Sir J. Hood and Sheridan. Place now proposed a more
+thorough organisation of the constituency, and formed a committee
+intended to carry an independent candidate. Sir Francis Burdett, a
+typical country gentleman of no great brains and of much aristocratic
+pride, but a man of honour, and of as much liberal feeling as was
+compatible with wealth and station, had sat at the feet of the old
+Radical, Home Tooke. He had sympathised with the French revolution;
+but was mainly, like his mentor, Tooke, a reformer of the English
+type, and a believer in Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights. He had
+sat in parliament, and in 1802 had been elected for Middlesex. After a
+prolonged litigation, costing enormous sums, the election had been
+finally annulled in 1806. He had subscribed L1000 towards Paull's
+expenses; but was so disgusted with his own election experiences that
+he refused to come forward as a candidate. Place's committee resolved
+therefore to elect him and Paull free of expense. Disputes between
+Paull and Burdett led to a duel, in which both were wounded. The
+committee threw over Paull, and at the election on the dissolution of
+parliament in the spring of 1807, Burdett and Cochrane--afterwards
+Lord Dundonald--were triumphantly elected, defeating the Whig
+candidates, Sheridan and Elliot. The election was the first triumph of
+the reformers, and was due to Place more than any one. Burdett
+retained his seat for Westminster until 1837, and, in spite of many
+quarrels with his party, was a leading representative of the movement,
+which henceforward slowly gathered strength. Place, indeed, had
+apparently but scanty respect for the candidate whose success he had
+secured. Burdett and his like aimed at popularity, while he was
+content to be ignored so long as he could by any means carry the
+measures which he approved. Place, therefore, acted as a most
+efficient wire-puller, but had no ambition to leave his shop to make
+speeches on the hustings.
+
+The scandals about the duke of York and the Walcheren expedition gave
+a chance to the Radicals and to their leader in the House of Commons.
+Events in 1810 led to a popular explosion, of which Burdett was the
+hero. John Gale Jones, an old member of the Corresponding Societies,
+had put out a placard denouncing the House of Commons for closing its
+doors during a debate upon the Walcheren expedition. The House
+proceeded against Jones, who was more or less advised by Place in his
+proceedings. Burdett took the part of Jones, by a paper published in
+Cobbett's _Register_, and was ultimately committed to the Tower in
+consequence. The whole of London was for a time in a state of
+excitement, and upon the verge of an outbreak. Burdett refused to
+submit to the arrest. Mobs collected; soldiers filled the streets and
+were pelted. Burdett, when at last he was forced to admit the
+officers, appeared in his drawing-room in the act of expounding Magna
+Charta to his son. That, it was to be supposed, was his usual
+occupation of an afternoon. Meetings were held, and resolutions
+passed, in support of the martyr to liberty; and when his imprisonment
+terminated on the prorogation of parliament, vast crowds collected,
+and a procession was arranged to convoy him to his home. Place had
+been active in arranging all the details of what was to be a great
+popular manifestation. To his infinite disgust, Burdett shrank from
+the performance, and went home by water. The crowd was left to expend
+its remaining enthusiasm upon the hackney carriage which contained his
+fellow-sufferer Jones. Jones, in the following December, was sentenced
+to twelve months' imprisonment for a libel. Cobbett, Burdett's special
+supporter at this time, was also imprisoned in June 1810. For a time
+the popular agitation collapsed. Place seems to have thought that the
+failure was due to Burdett's want of courage, and dropped all
+communication with him till a later contest at Westminster.
+
+Place was thus at the centre of the political agitation which, for the
+time, represented the most energetic reforming movement. It was in
+1811 or 1812 that he became acquainted with Mill.[9] In Mill he
+recognised a congenial spirit, and a man able to defend and develop
+principles. He perhaps, as Professor Bain thinks, made advances to
+Mill upon the strength of the history of India; and in 1814 he was
+certainly endeavouring to raise money to put Mill above the need of
+precarious hack-work.[10] The anticipated difficulty of persuading
+Mill so far to sacrifice his independence was apparently fatal to the
+scheme. Place was in occasional communication with Bentham, and
+visited him at Ford Abbey in 1817. He became intimate with the great
+man; helped him in business affairs; and was one of the disciples
+employed to prepare his books for publication.[11] Bentham was the
+source of philosophy, and Mill only his prophet. But Mill, who was
+capable of activity in practical affairs, was more useful to a man of
+the world. The first business which brought them into close connection
+was the Lancasterian controversy. The strong interest roused by this
+agitation was significant of many difficulties to come. The average
+mind had been gradually coming to the conclusion that the poor should
+be taught to read and write. Sunday schools and Hannah More's schools
+in Somersetshire had drawn the attention of the religious world to the
+subject. During the early years of the century the education question
+had steadily become more prominent, and the growing interest was shown
+by a singularly bitter and complicated controversy. The opposite
+parties fought under the banners of Bell and Lancaster. Andrew Bell,
+born at St. Andrews, 27th March 1753, was both a canny Scot and an
+Anglican clergyman. He combined philanthropy with business faculties.
+He sailed to India in 1787 with L128, 10s. in his pocket to be an army
+chaplain; he returned in 1796 with L25,000 and a new system of
+education which he had devised as superintendent of an orphan asylum.
+He settled in England, published an account of his plan, and did
+something to bring it into operation. Meanwhile Joseph Lancaster
+(1770-1838), a young Quaker, had set up a school in London; he devised
+a plan similar to that of Bell, and in 1803 published an account of
+his improvements in education with acknowledgments to Bell. For a time
+the two were on friendly terms. Lancaster set about propagating his
+new system with more enthusiasm than discretion. His fame rapidly
+spread till it reached the throne. In 1805 George III. sent for him;
+the royal family subscribed to his schools; and the king declared his
+wish that every child in his dominions should be taught to read the
+Bible. The king's gracious wish unconsciously indicated a difficulty.
+Was it safe to teach the Bible without the safeguard of authorised
+interpretation? Orthodox opponents feared the alliance with a man
+whose first principle was toleration, and first among them was the
+excellent Mrs. Trimmer, who had been already engaged in the
+Sunday-school movement. She pointed out in a pamphlet that the
+schismatic Lancaster was weakening the Established Church. The
+_Edinburgh Review_ came to his support in 1806 and 1807; for the Whig,
+especially if he was also a Scot, was prejudiced against the Church of
+England. Lancaster went on his way, but soon got into difficulties,
+for he was impetuous, careless of money, and autocratic. William
+Allen, with another Quaker, came to his support in 1808, and founded
+the Royal Lancasterian Society to maintain his school in the Borough
+Road, and propagate its like elsewhere. Lancaster travelled through
+the country, and the agitation prospered, and spread even to America.
+The church, however, was now fairly aroused. Bishop Marsh preached a
+sermon in St. Paul's, and followed it up by pamphlets; the cause was
+taken up by the _Quarterly Review_ in 1811, and in the same year the
+National Society was founded to 'educate the poor in the principles of
+the Established Church.' Bell had suggested a national system, but the
+times were not ripe. Meanwhile the controversy became furious. The
+_Edinburgh_ and the _Quarterly_ thundered on opposite sides. Immense
+importance was attached by both parties to the scheme devised by Bell,
+and partly adopted by Lancaster. The war involved a personal element
+and the charges of plagiarism which give spice to a popular
+controversy. All parties, and certainly the Utilitarians, strangely
+exaggerated the value of the new method. They regarded the proposal
+that children should be partly taught by other children instead of
+being wholly taught by adults as a kind of scientific discovery which
+would enormously simplify and cheapen education. Believers in the
+'Panopticon' saw in it another patent method of raising the general
+level of intelligence. But the real question was between church and
+dissent. Was the church catechism to be imposed or not? This, as we
+have seen, was the occasion of Bentham's assault upon church and
+catechism. On the other side, Bell's claims were supported with
+enthusiasm by all the Tories, and by such men as Southey and
+Coleridge. Southey, who had defended Bell in the _Quarterly_,[12]
+undertook to be Bell's biographer[13] and literary executor. Coleridge
+was so vehement in the cause that when lecturing upon 'Romeo and
+Juliet' in 1811, he plunged by way of exordium into an assault upon
+Lancaster's modes of punishment.[14] De Quincey testifies that he
+became a positive bore upon Bell's virtues. In 1812 Lancaster had got
+deeply into debt to the trustees of the Society, who included besides
+Allen, Joseph Fox--a 'shallow, gloomy bigot' according to Place--and
+some other Quakers. Lancaster resented their control, and in 1812 made
+over his Borough Road school to them, and set up one of his own at
+Tooting. They continued, however, to employ him, and in 1813 formed
+themselves into the 'British and Foreign' School Society. Place had
+known Lancaster from 1804, and Mill had supported him in the press.
+They both became members of the committee, though Place took the most
+active part. He makes many grave charges against Lancaster, whom he
+regarded as hopelessly flighty and impracticable, if not worse.
+Ultimately in 1814 Lancaster resigned his position, and naturally
+retorted that Place was an infidel. Place, meanwhile, was ill at ease
+with the 'gloomy bigot,' as he calls Fox. After many quarrels, Fox
+succeeded in getting the upper hand, and Place finally withdrew from
+the committee in 1815.
+
+Two other schemes arose out of this, in which Mill was specially
+interested, but which both proved abortive. Mill and Place resolved in
+1813 to start a 'West London Lancasterian Institution,' which was to
+educate the whole population west of Temple Bar. They were joined by
+Edward Wakefield, father of the Edward Gibbon Wakefield who in later
+years was known as an economist, and himself author of a work of
+considerable reputation, _An Account of Ireland, Statistical and
+Political_ (1812). The three joined Joseph Fox, and ultimately a
+meeting was held in August 1813. Sir James Mackintosh was in the
+chair. Mill wrote the address, and motions were proposed by his friend
+Joseph Hume and by William Allen. Papers were circulated, headed
+'Schools for all,'[15] and the institution was launched with a
+sufficiency of applause. But the 'gloomy bigot' was secretary. He
+declared that he would rather see the institution destroyed than
+permit it to be used for infidel purposes. The Bible was, of course,
+to be read in the schools, but Fox wished that the Bible alone should
+be read. As the committee, according to Place, included four infidels,
+three Unitarians, six Methodists, two Baptists, two Roman Catholics,
+and several members of the Established Church, it was hardly a happy
+family. To add to the confusion, Sir Francis Burdett, who had
+contributed a thousand pounds, had taken it into his head that Place
+was a government spy.[16] The Association, as is hardly surprising,
+ceased to exist in 1816, after keeping up a school of less than three
+hundred children, and ended in hopeless failure. The Utilitarians had
+higher hopes from a scheme of their own. This was the Chrestomathic
+school which occasioned Bentham's writing. An association was formed
+in February 1814. Mackintosh, Brougham, Mill, Allen, Fox, and
+Wakefield were to be trustees. The school was to apply Lancasterian
+principles to the education of the middle classes, and Bentham was to
+supply them with a philosophy and with a site in his garden. There the
+old gentleman was to see a small version of the Panopticon building,
+and, for a time, he took great delight in the prospect. Gradually,
+however, it seems to have dawned upon him that there might be
+inconveniences in being overlooked by a set of even model schoolboys.
+There were difficulties as to funds. Ricardo offered L200 and
+collected subscriptions for L900, but Place thought that he might have
+been more liberal. About 1817 they counted upon subscriptions for
+L2310. Allen was treasurer, Place secretary, and the dukes of Kent and
+York were on the committee. Romilly was persuaded to join, and they
+had hopes of the L1000 given by Burdett to the West London
+Institution. But the thing could never be got into working order, in
+spite of Place's efforts and Mill's counsels; and, after painful
+haulings and tuggings, it finally collapsed in 1820.[17]
+
+The efforts of the Utilitarians to effect anything directly in the way
+of education thus fell completely flat. One moral is sufficiently
+obvious. They were, after all, but a small clique, regarded with
+suspicion by all outsiders; and such a system as could seriously
+affect education could only be carried out either by government,
+which was thinking of very different things, or by societies already
+connected with the great religious bodies. The only function which
+could be adequately discharged by the little band of Utilitarians was
+to act upon public opinion; and this, no doubt, they could do to some
+purpose. I have gone so far into these matters in order to illustrate
+their position; but, as will be seen, Mill, though consulted at every
+stage by Place, and doing what he could to advocate the cause, was,
+after all, in the background. He was still wrestling with the Indian
+History, which was, as he hoped, to win for him an independent
+position. The effort was enormous. In 1814 he told Place that he was
+working at the History from 5 A.M. till 11 P.M. When at Ford Abbey his
+regular day's work began at 6 A.M. and lasted till 11 P.M., during
+which time three hours were given to teaching his children, and a
+couple of short walks supplied him with recreation. How, with all his
+energy, he managed to pay his way is a mystery, which his biographer
+is unable fully to solve.[18]
+
+The History at last appeared in 3 vols. 4to, at the end of 1817. Dry
+and stern as its author, and embodying some of his political
+prejudices, it was at least a solid piece of work, which succeeded at
+once, and soon became the standard book upon the subject. Mill argues
+in the preface with characteristic courage that his want of personal
+knowledge of India was rather an advantage. It made him impartial. A
+later editor[19] has shown that it led to some serious misconceptions.
+It is characteristic of the Utilitarian attitude to assume that a
+sufficient knowledge of fact can always be obtained from blue-books
+and statistics. Some facts require imagination and sympathy to be
+appreciated, and there Mill was deficient. He could not give an
+adequate picture of Hindoo beliefs and customs, though he fully
+appreciated the importance of such questions. Whatever its
+shortcomings, the book produced a remarkable change in Mill's
+position. He applied for a vacant office in the India House. His
+friends, Joseph Hume and Ricardo, made interest for him in the city.
+Place co-operated energetically.[20] Canning, then president of the
+Board of Control, is said to have supported him; and the general
+impression of his ability appears to have caused his election, in
+spite of some Tory opposition. He became Assistant to the Examiner of
+India Correspondence, with a salary of L800 on 12th May 1819. On 10th
+April 1821 he became Second Assistant, with L1000 a year; on 9th April
+1823 he was made Assistant Examiner, with L1200 a year; and on 1st
+December 1830 Examiner, with L1900, which on 17th February 1836 was
+raised to L2000. The official work came in later years to absorb the
+greatest part of Mill's energy, and his position excluded him from any
+active participation in politics, had he ever been inclined for it.
+Mill, however, set free from bondage, was able to exert himself very
+effectually with his pen; and his writings became in a great degree
+the text-books of his sect.
+
+During 1818 he had again co-operated with Place in a political matter.
+The dissolution of parliament in 1818 produced another contest at
+Westminster. Place and Mill were leaders in the Radical committee,
+which called a public meeting, where Burdett and Kinnaird were chosen
+as candidates. They were opposed to Romilly, the old friend of Bentham
+and of Mill himself. Both Mill and Bentham regarded him as not
+sufficiently orthodox. Romilly, however, was throughout at the head of
+the poll, and the Radical committee were obliged to withdraw their
+second candidate, Kinnaird, in order to secure the election of Burdett
+against the government candidate Maxwell. Romilly soon afterwards
+dined at Bentham's house, and met Mill, with Dumont, Brougham, and
+Rush, on friendly terms. On Romilly's sad death on 2nd November
+following, Mill went to Worthing to offer his sympathy to the family,
+and declared that the 'gloom' had 'affected his health.' He took no
+part in the consequent election, in which Hobhouse stood
+unsuccessfully as the Radical candidate.
+
+
+III. LEADER OF THE UTILITARIANS
+
+Politics were beginning to enter upon a new phase. The period was
+marked by the 'Six Acts' and the 'Peterloo massacre.' The Radical
+leaders who upheld the cause in those dark days were not altogether to
+the taste of the Utilitarians. After Burdett, John Cartwright
+(1740-1824) and Henry (or 'Orator') Hunt (1773-1835), hero of the
+'Peterloo massacre,' were the most conspicuous. They were supported by
+Cobbett, the greatest journalist of the time, and various more obscure
+writers. The Utilitarians held them in considerable contempt. Burdett
+was flashy, melodramatic, and vain; Hunt an 'unprincipled demagogue';
+and Cartwright, the Nestor of reform, who had begun his labours in
+1780, was, according to Place, wearisome, impracticable, and a mere
+nuisance in matters of business. The Utilitarians tried to use such
+men, but shared the Tory opinion of their value. They had some
+relations with other obscure writers who were martyrs to the liberty
+of the press. Place helped William Hone in the _Reformer's Register_,
+which was brought out in 1817. The famous trial in which Hone
+triumphed over Ellenborough occurred at the end of that year. Richard
+Carlile (1790-1843), who reprinted Hone's pamphlets, and in 1818
+published Paine's works, was sentenced in 1819 to three years'
+imprisonment; and while in confinement began the _Republican_, which
+appeared from 1819 to 1826. Ultimately he passed nine years in jail,
+and showed unflinching courage in maintaining the liberty of speech.
+The Utilitarians, as Professor Bain believes, helped him during his
+imprisonments, and John Mill's first publication was a protest against
+his prosecution.[21] A 'republican, an atheist, and Malthusian,' he
+was specially hated by the respectable, and had in all these
+capacities claims upon the sympathy of the Utilitarians. One of
+Carlile's first employments was to circulate the _Black Dwarf_, edited
+by Thomas Jonathan Wooler from 1817 to 1824.[22] This paper
+represented Cartwright, but it also published Bentham's reform
+_Catechism_, besides direct contributions and various selections from
+his works.
+
+The Utilitarians were opposed on principle to Cobbett, a reformer of a
+type very different from their own; and still more vitally opposed to
+Owen, who was beginning to develop his Socialist schemes. If they had
+sympathy for Radicalism of the Wooler or Carlile variety, they
+belonged too distinctly to the ranks of respectability, and were too
+deeply impressed with the necessity of reticence, to allow their
+sympathies to appear openly. As, on the other hand, they were too
+Radical in their genuine creed to be accepted by Edinburgh Reviewers
+and frequenters of Holland House, there was a wide gap between them
+and the genuine Whig. Their task therefore was to give a political
+theory which should be Radical in principle, and yet in such a form as
+should appeal to the reason of the more cultivated readers without too
+openly shocking their prejudices.
+
+James Mill achieved this task by the publication of a series of
+articles in the Supplement to the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, which
+appeared from 1816 to 1823, of which I shall presently speak at
+length. It passed for the orthodox profession of faith among the
+little circle of friends who had now gathered round him. First among
+them was David Ricardo. He had become known to Mill in 1811. 'I,' said
+Bentham, 'was the spiritual father of Mill, and Mill the spiritual
+father of Ricardo.'[23] Mill was really the disciple of Ricardo in
+economics; but it was Mill who induced him to publish his chief work,
+and Mill's own treatise upon the subject published in 1820 is
+substantially an exposition of Ricardo's doctrine. Mill, too,
+encouraged Ricardo to take a seat in parliament in 1818, and there for
+the short remainder of his life, Ricardo defended the characteristic
+Utilitarian principles with the authority derived from his reputation
+as an economist.[24] The two were now especially intimate. During
+Mill's first years in the India House, his only recreation was an
+annual visit to Ricardo at Gatcombe. Meetings at Ricardo's house in
+London led to the foundation of the 'Political Economy Club' in 1821.
+Mill drafted the rules of the club, emphasising the duty of members to
+propagate sound economic opinions through the press. The club took
+root and helped to make Mill known to politicians and men of
+commercial influence. One of the members was Malthus, who is said, and
+the assertion is credible enough, to have been generally worsted by
+Mill in the discussions at the club. Mill was an awkward antagonist,
+and Malthus certainly not conspicuous for closeness of logic. The
+circle of Mill's friends naturally extended as his position in the
+India House enabled him to live more at his ease and brought him into
+contact with men of political position. His old school-fellow Joseph
+Hume had made a fortune in India, and returned to take a seat in
+parliament and become the persistent and tiresome advocate of many of
+the Utilitarian doctrines. A younger generation was growing up,
+enthusiastic in the cause of reform, and glad to sit at the feet of
+men who claimed at least to be philosophical leaders. John Black
+(1783-1855), another sturdy Scot, who came from Duns in Berwickshire,
+had, in 1817, succeeded Perry as editor of the _Morning Chronicle_.
+The _Chronicle_ was an opposition paper, and day by day Black walked
+with Mill from the India House, discussing the topics of the time and
+discharging himself through the _Chronicle_. The _Chronicle_ declined
+after 1821, owing to a change in the proprietorship.[25] Albany
+Fonblanque (1793-1872) took to journalism at an early age, succeeded
+Leigh Hunt as leader-writer for the _Examiner_ in 1826, became
+another exponent of Utilitarian principles, and for some time in
+alliance with John Stuart Mill was among the most effective
+representatives of the new school in the press. John Ramsay M'Culloch
+(1789-1864) upheld the economic battle in the _Scotsman_ at Edinburgh
+from 1817-1827, and edited it from 1818-1820. He afterwards devoted
+himself to lecturing in London, and was for many years the most ardent
+apostle of the 'dismal science.' He was a genial, whisky-loving Scot;
+the favourite object of everybody's mimicry; and was especially
+intimate with James Mill. Many other brilliant young men contributed
+their help in various ways. Henry Bickersteth (1783-1851), afterwards
+Lord Langdale and Master of the Rolls, had brought Bentham and Burdett
+into political alliance; and his rising reputation at the bar led to
+his being placed in 1824 upon a commission for reforming the procedure
+of the Court of Chancery, one of the most cherished objects of the
+Utilitarian creed. Besides these there were the group of young men,
+who were soon to be known as the 'philosophical Radicals.' John Stuart
+Mill, upon whom the mantle of his father was to descend, was
+conspicuous by his extraordinary precocity, and having been carefully
+educated in the orthodox faith, was employed in 1825 upon editing
+Bentham's great work upon evidence. George Grote (1794-1871), the
+future historian, had been introduced to Mill by Ricardo; and was in
+1821 defending Mill's theory of government against Mackintosh, and in
+1822 published the _Analysis of Revealed Religion_, founded upon
+Bentham's manuscripts and expressing most unequivocally the
+Utilitarian theory of religion. With them were associated the two
+Austins, John (1790-1859) who, in 1821, lived close to Bentham and
+Mill in Queen's Square, and who was regarded as the coming teacher of
+the Utilitarian system of jurisprudence; and Charles (1799-1874), who
+upheld the true faith among the young gentlemen at Cambridge with a
+vigour and ability which at least rivalled the powers of his
+contemporary, Macaulay. Meanwhile, Mill himself was disqualified by
+his office from taking any direct part in political agitations. Place
+continued an active connection with the various Radical committees and
+associations; but the younger disciples had comparatively little
+concern in such matters. They were more interested in discussing the
+applications of Utilitarianism in various directions, or, so far as
+they had parliamentary aspirations, were aspiring to found a separate
+body of 'philosophical Radicals,' which looked down upon Place and his
+allies from the heights of superior enlightenment.
+
+Mill could now look forward to a successful propaganda of the creed
+which had passed so slowly through its period of incubation. The death
+of Ricardo in 1823 affected him to a degree which astonished his
+friends, accustomed only to his stern exterior. A plentiful crop of
+young proselytes, however, was arising to carry on the work; and the
+party now became possessed of the indispensable organ. The
+_Westminster Review_ was launched at the beginning of 1824. Bentham
+provided the funds; Mill's official position prevented him from
+undertaking the editorship, which was accordingly given to Bentham's
+young disciple, Bowring, helped for a time by Henry Southern. The
+_Westminster_ was to represent the Radicals as the two older reviews
+represented the Whigs and the Tories; and to show that the new party
+had its philosophers and its men of literary cultivation as well as
+its popular agitators and journalists. It therefore naturally put
+forth its claims by opening fire in the first numbers against the
+_Edinburgh_ and the _Quarterly Reviews_. The assault upon the
+_Edinburgh Review_, of which I shall speak presently, made an
+impression, and, as J. S. Mill tells us, brought success to the first
+number of the new venture. The gauntlet was thrown down with plenty of
+vigour, and reformers were expected to rally round so thoroughgoing a
+champion. In later numbers Mill afterwards (Jan. 9, 1826) fell upon
+Southey's _Book of the Church_, and (April 1826) assailed church
+establishments in general. He defended toleration during the same year
+in a review of Samuel Bailey's _Formation of Opinions_, and gave a
+general account of his political creed in an article (October) on the
+'State of the Nation.' This was his last contribution to the
+_Westminster_; but in 1827 he contributed to the _Parliamentary
+History and Review_, started by James Marshall of Leeds, an article
+upon recent debates on reform, which ended for a time his political
+writings.
+
+The Utilitarians had no great talent for cohesion. Their very
+principles were indeed in favour of individual independence, and they
+were perhaps more ready to diverge than to tolerate divergence. The
+_Westminster Review_ had made a good start, and drew attention to the
+rising 'group'--J. S. Mill declares that it never formed a
+'school.'[26] From the very first the Mills distrusted Bowring and
+disapproved of some articles; the elder Mill failed to carry his
+disciples with him, partly because they were already in favour of
+giving votes to women; and as the _Review_ soon showed itself unable
+to pay its way, some new arrangement became necessary. It was finally
+bought by Perronet Thompson, and ceased for a time to be the official
+organ of Benthamism.
+
+Another undertaking occupied much of Mill's attention in the following
+years. The educational schemes of the Utilitarians had so far proved
+abortive. In 1824, however, it had occurred to the poet, Thomas
+Campbell, then editing the _New Monthly Magazine_, that London ought
+to possess a university comparable to that of Berlin, and more on a
+level with modern thought than the old universities of Oxford and
+Cambridge, which were still in the closest connection with the church.
+Campbell addressed a letter to Brougham, and the scheme was taken up
+energetically on several sides. Place[27] wrote an article, which he
+offered to Campbell for the _New Monthly_, who declined out of modesty
+to publish it in his own organ. It was then offered to Bowring for the
+_Westminster_, and ultimately suppressed by him, which may have been
+one of the causes of his differences with the Mills. Brougham took a
+leading part in the agitation; Joseph Hume promised to raise L100,000.
+George Birkbeck, founder of the Mechanics' Institution, and Zachary
+Macaulay, who saw in it a place of education for dissenting ministers,
+joined the movement, and among the most active members of the new body
+were James Mill and Grote. A council was formed at the end of 1825,
+and after various difficulties a sum of L160,000 was raised, and the
+university started in Gower Street in 1828. Among the first body of
+professors were John Austin and M'Culloch, both of them sound
+Utilitarians. The old difficulty, however, made itself felt. In order
+to secure the unsectarian character of the university, religious
+teaching was omitted. The college was accused of infidelity. King's
+College was started in opposition; and violent antipathies were
+aroused. A special controversy raged within the council itself. Two
+philosophical chairs were to be founded; and philosophy cannot be kept
+clear of religion. After long discussions, one chair was filled by the
+appointment of the Reverend John Hoppus, an independent minister.
+Grote, declaring that no man, pledged by his position to the support
+of any tenets, should be appointed, resigned his place on the
+council.[28] The university in 1836 became a college combined with its
+rival King's College under the newly formed examining body called the
+University of London. It has, I suppose, been of service to education,
+and may be regarded as the one practical achievement of the
+Utilitarians in that direction, so far as its foundation was due to
+them. It must, however, be admitted that the actual body still falls
+very far short of the ideal present to the minds of its founders.
+
+From 1822 James Mill spent his vacations at Dorking, and afterwards at
+Mickleham. He had devoted them to a task which was necessary to fill a
+gap in the Utilitarian scheme. Hitherto the school had assumed, rather
+than attempted to establish, a philosophical basis of its teaching.
+Bentham's fragmentary writings about the Chrestomathic school supplied
+all that could by courtesy be called a philosophy. Mill, however, had
+been from the first interested in philosophical questions. His reading
+was not wide; he knew something of the doctrines taught by Stewart and
+Stewart's successor, Brown. He had been especially impressed by
+Hobbes, to some degree by Locke and Hume, but above all by Hartley. He
+knew something, too, of Condillac and the French Ideologists. Of
+recent German speculation he was probably quite ignorant. I find
+indeed that Place had called his attention to the account of Kant,
+published by Wirgman in the _Encyclopaedia Londinensis_ 1817. Mill
+about the same time tells Place that he has begun to read _The Critic
+of Pure Reason_. 'I see clearly enough,' he says, 'what poor Kant
+would be about, but it would require some time to give an account of
+him.' He wishes (December 6, 1817) that he had time to write a book
+which would 'make the human mind as plain as the road from Charing
+Cross to St. Paul's.'[29] This was apparently the task to which he
+applied himself in his vacations. The _Analysis_ appeared in 1829,
+and, whatever its defects of incompleteness and one-sidedness from a
+philosophical point of view, shows in the highest degree Mill's powers
+of close, vigorous statement; and lays down with singular clearness
+the psychological doctrine, which from his point of view supplied the
+fundamental theorems of knowledge in general. It does not appear,
+however, to have made an impression proportionate to the intellectual
+power displayed, and had to wait a long time before reaching the
+second edition due to the filial zeal of J. S. Mill.
+
+James Mill, after his articles in the _Westminster_, could take
+little part in political agitation. He was still consulted by Place in
+regard to the Reform movement. Place himself took an important part at
+the final crisis, especially by his circulation in the week of agony
+of the famous placard, 'Go for Gold.' But the Utilitarians were now
+lost in the crowd. The demand for reform had spread through all
+classes. The attack upon the ruling class carried on by the Radicals
+of all shades in the dark days of Sidmouth and the six Acts was now
+supported by the nation at large. The old Toryism could no longer
+support itself by appealing to the necessities of a struggle for
+national existence. The prestige due to the victorious end of the war
+had faded away. The Reform Bill of 1832 was passed, and the
+Utilitarians hoped that the millennium would at least begin to dawn.
+
+Mill in 1830 removed from Queen's Square to Vicarage Place,
+Kensington. He kept his house at Mickleham, and there took long Sunday
+walks with a few of his disciples. His strength was more and more
+absorbed in his official duties. He was especially called upon to give
+evidence before the committees which from 1830 to 1833 considered the
+policy to be adopted in renewing the charter of the East India
+Company. Mill appeared as the advocate of the company, defended their
+policy, and argued against the demands of the commercial body which
+demanded the final suppression of the old trading monopoly of the
+Company. The abolition, indeed, was a foregone conclusion; but Mill's
+view was not in accordance with the doctrines of the thoroughgoing
+freetraders. His official experience, it seems, upon this and other
+matters deterred him from the _a priori_ dogmatism too characteristic
+of his political speculations. Mill also suggested the formation of a
+legislative council, which was to contain one man 'versed in the
+philosophy of men and government.' This was represented by the
+appointment of the legal member of council in the Act of 1833. Mill
+approved of Macaulay as the first holder of the post. It was 'very
+handsome' of him, as Macaulay remarks, inasmuch as the famous articles
+written by Macaulay himself, in which the _Edinburgh_ had at last
+retorted upon the Utilitarians, must still have been fresh in his
+memory. The 'Penal Code' drawn by Macaulay as holder of the office was
+the first actual attempt to carry out Bentham's favourite schemes
+under British rule, and the influence of the chief of Bentham's
+disciples at the India House may have had something to do with its
+initiation. Macaulay's chief subordinate, it may be remarked, Charles
+Hay Cameron, was one of the Benthamites, and had been proposed by
+Grote for the chair at the London University ultimately filled by
+Hoppus.
+
+After 1830 Mill wrote the severe fragment on Mackintosh, which, after
+a delay caused by Mackintosh's death, appeared in 1835. He contributed
+some articles to the _London Review_, founded by Sir W. Molesworth, as
+an organ of the 'philosophical Radicals,' and superintended, though
+not directly edited, by J. S. Mill. These, his last performances,
+repeat the old doctrines. It does not appear, indeed, that Mill ever
+altered one of his opinions. He accepted Bentham's doctrine to the
+end, as unreservedly as a mathematician might accept Newton's
+_Principia_.
+
+Mill's lungs had begun to be affected. It was supposed that they were
+injured by the dust imbibed on coach journeys to Mickleham. He had a
+bad attack of haemorrhage in August 1835, and died peacefully on 23rd
+June 1836.
+
+What remains to be said of Mill personally may be suggested by a
+noticeable parallel. S. T. Coleridge, born about six months before
+Mill, died two years before him. The two lives thus coincided for more
+than sixty years, and each man was the leader of a school. In all else
+the contrast could hardly be greater. If we were to apply the rules of
+ordinary morality, it would be entirely in Mill's favour. Mill
+discharged all his duties as strenuously as a man could, while
+Coleridge's life was a prolonged illustration of the remark that when
+an action presented itself to him as a duty he became physically
+incapable of doing it. Whatever Mill undertook he accomplished, often
+in the face of enormous difficulties. Coleridge never finished
+anything, and his works are a heap of fragments of the prolegomena to
+ambitious schemes. Mill worked his hardest from youth to age, never
+sparing labour or shirking difficulties or turning aside from his
+path. Coleridge dawdled through life, solacing himself with opium, and
+could only be coaxed into occasional activity by skilful diplomacy.
+Mill preserved his independence by rigid self-denial, temperance, and
+punctuality. Coleridge was always dependent upon the generosity of his
+friends. Mill brought up a large family, and in the midst of severe
+labours found time to educate them even to excess. Coleridge left his
+wife and children to be cared for by others. And Coleridge died in the
+odour of sanctity, revered by his disciples, and idolised by his
+children; while Mill went to the grave amidst the shrugs of
+respectable shoulders, and respected rather than beloved by the son
+who succeeded to his intellectual leadership.
+
+The answer to the riddle is indeed plain enough; or rather there are
+many superabundantly obvious answers. Had Mill defended orthodox views
+and Coleridge been avowedly heterodox, we should no doubt have heard
+more of Coleridge's opium and of Mill's blameless and energetic life.
+But this explains little. That Coleridge was a man of genius and,
+moreover, of exquisitely poetical genius, and that Mill was at most a
+man of remarkable talent and the driest and sternest of logicians is
+also obvious. It is even more to the purpose that Coleridge was
+overflowing with kindliness, though little able to turn goodwill to
+much effect; whereas Mill's morality took the form chiefly of
+attacking the wicked. This is indicated by the saying attributed by
+Bowring to Bentham that Mill's sympathy for the many sprang out of his
+hatred of the oppressing few.[30] J. S. Mill very properly protested
+against this statement when it was quoted in the _Edinburgh Review_.
+It would obviously imply a gross misunderstanding, whether Bentham,
+not a good observer of men, said so or not. But it indicates the side
+of Mill's character which made him unattractive to contemporaries and
+also to posterity. He partook, says his son,[31] of the Stoic, the
+Epicurean, and the Cynic character. He was a Stoic in his personal
+qualities; an Epicurean so far as his theory of morals was concerned;
+and a Cynic in that he cared little for pleasure. He thought life a
+'poor thing' after the freshness of youth had passed; and said that
+he had never known an old man happy unless he could live over again in
+the pleasures of the young. Temperance and self-restraint were
+therefore his favourite virtues. He despised all 'passionate
+emotions'; he held with Bentham that feelings by themselves deserved
+neither praise nor blame; he condemned a man who did harm whether the
+harm came from malevolence or from intellectual error. Therefore all
+sentiment was objectionable, for sentiment means neglect of rules and
+calculations. He shrank from showing feeling with more than the usual
+English reserve; and showed his devotion to his children by drilling
+them into knowledge with uncompromising strictness. He had no feeling
+for the poetical or literary side of things; and regarded life, it
+would seem, as a series of arguments, in which people were to be
+constrained by logic, not persuaded by sympathy. He seems to have
+despised poor Mrs. Mill, and to have been unsuccessful in concealing
+his contempt, though in his letters he refers to her respectfully.
+Mill therefore was a man little likely to win the hearts of his
+followers, though his remarkable vigour of mind dominated their
+understandings.
+
+The amiable and kindly, whose sympathies are quickly moved, gain an
+unfair share of our regard both in life and afterwards. We are more
+pleased by an ineffectual attempt to be kindly, than by real kindness
+bestowed ungraciously. Mill's great qualities should not be overlooked
+because they were hidden by a manner which seems almost deliberately
+repellent. He devoted himself through life to promote the truth as he
+saw it; to increase the scanty amounts of pleasures enjoyed by
+mankind; and to discharge all the duties which he owed to his
+neighbours. He succeeded beyond all dispute in forcibly presenting one
+set of views which profoundly influenced his countrymen; and the very
+narrowness of his intellect enabled him to plant his blows more
+effectively.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] The chief authority for James Mill is _James Mill: a Biography_,
+by Alexander Bain, Emeritus Professor of Logic in the University of
+Aberdeen, London, 1882. The book contains very full materials; and, if
+rather dry, deals with a dry subject.
+
+[2] Wallas's _Francis Place_, p. 70 _n._
+
+[3] Bain's _James Mill_, p. 166.
+
+[4] Gifford's real name was John Richards Green. The identity of his
+assumed name with that of the more famous William Gifford has led to a
+common confusion between the two periodicals. 'Peter Pindar' assaulted
+William Gifford under the erroneous impression that he was editor of
+the second.
+
+[5] Letter in Bain's _James Mill_, pp. 136-40.
+
+[6] _Autobiography_, p. 39.
+
+[7] Bain's _James Mill_, pp. 97-106. Mill appears to have said
+something 'extravagant' about Bentham in an article upon Miranda in
+the _Edinburgh Review_ for January 1809. He also got some praises of
+Bentham into the _Annual Review_ of 1809 (Bain, 92-96).
+
+[8] See the very interesting Life of Francis Place, by Mr. Graham
+Wallas, 1898.
+
+[9] Bain's _James Mill_, p. 78, and Wallas's _Francis Place_, p. 66.
+
+[10] Wallas's _Francis Place_, p. 68.
+
+[11] He 'put together' the _Not Paul but Jesus_ at Ford Abbey in 1817,
+and helped to preface the Reform _Catechism_. Wallas's _Francis
+Place_, p. 84.
+
+[12] The article of 1811 was also published separately.
+
+[13] He wrote only the first volume. Two others were added by Cuthbert
+Southey.
+
+[14] _Lectures_ (Ashe, 1885), pp. 32, 61.
+
+[15] James Mill, according to Place, wrote a 'memorable and admirable
+essay, "Schools for all, not schools for Churchmen only."'--Wallas's
+_Francis Place_, 99 _n._
+
+[16] This absurd suspicion was aroused by the quarrel about Burdett's
+arrest. See Wallas's _Place_, p. 56.
+
+[17] Mr. Wallas gives an account of these schemes in chap. iv. of his
+Life of Place. I have also consulted Place's collections in Additional
+MSS., 27,823.
+
+[18] Bain's _James Mill_, p. 162.
+
+[19] H. H. Wilson in his preface to the edition of 1840.
+
+[20] Wallas's _Francis Place_, p. 78.
+
+[21] Bain's _James Mill_, p. 435.
+
+[22] _Ibid._ p. 433.
+
+[23] Bentham's _Works_, p. 498.
+
+[24] See Carman in _Economic Review_, 1894.
+
+[25] See under Black in _Dictionary of National Biography_.
+
+[26] _Autobiography_, p. 101.
+
+[27] See Place's account in Additional MSS. 27,823.
+
+[28] G. C. Robertson, _Philosophical Remains_, p. 166; and under
+George Grote in _Dictionary of National Biography_.
+
+[29] Letters communicated by Mr. Graham Wallas. See Mr. Wallas's
+_Francis Place_, p. 91.
+
+[30] So Place observed that Mill 'could help the mass, but could not
+help the individual, not even himself or his own.'--Wallas's _Francis
+Place_, p. 79.
+
+[31] _Autobiography_, p. 48.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+REFORM MOVEMENTS
+
+
+I. POLITICAL CHANGE
+
+The last years of Mill's life correspond to the period in which
+Utilitarianism reached, in certain respects, its highest pitch of
+influence. The little band who acknowledged him as their chief leader,
+and as the authorised lieutenant of Bentham, considered themselves to
+be in the van of progress. Though differing on many points from each
+other, and regarded with aversion or distrust by the recognised party
+leaders, they were in their most militant and confident state of mind.
+They were systematically reticent as to their religious views: they
+left to popular orators the public advocacy of their favourite
+political measures; and the credit of finally passing such of those
+measures as were adopted fell chiefly to the hands of the great
+political leaders. The Utilitarians are ignored in the orthodox Whig
+legend. In the preface to his collected works, Sydney Smith runs over
+the usual list of changes which had followed, and, as he seems to
+think, had in great part resulted from, the establishment of the
+_Edinburgh Review_. Smith himself, and Jeffrey and Horner and, above
+all, 'the gigantic Brougham,' had blown the blast which brought down
+the towers of Jericho. Sir G. O. Trevelyan, in his _Life of Macaulay_,
+describes the advent of the Whigs to office in a similar sense.
+'Agitators and incendiaries,' he says, 'retired into the background,
+as will always be the case when the country is in earnest: and
+statesmen who had much to lose, and were not afraid to risk it,
+stepped quietly and firmly to the front. The men and the sons of the
+men who had so long endured exclusion from office, embittered by
+unpopularity, at length reaped their reward.'[32] The Radical version
+of the history is different. The great men, it said, who had left the
+cause to be supported by agitators so long as the defence was
+dangerous and profitless, stepped forward now that it was clearly
+winning, and received both the reward and the credit. Mill and Place
+could not find words to express their contempt for the trimming,
+shuffling Whigs. They were probably unjust enough in detail; but they
+had a strong case in some respects. The Utilitarians represented that
+part of the reforming party which had a definite and a reasoned creed.
+They tried to give logic where the popular agitators were content with
+declamation, and represented absolute convictions when the Whig
+reformers were content with tentative and hesitating compromises. They
+had some grounds for considering themselves to be the 'steel of the
+lance'; the men who formulated and deliberately defended the
+principles which were beginning to conquer the world.
+
+The Utilitarians, I have said, became a political force in the
+concluding years of the great war struggle. The catastrophe of the
+revolution had unchained a whole whirlwind of antagonisms. The
+original issues had passed out of sight; and great social,
+industrial, and political changes were in progress which made the
+nation that emerged from the war a very different body from the nation
+that had entered it nearly a generation before. It is not surprising
+that at first very erroneous estimates were made of the new position
+when peace at last returned.
+
+The Radicals, who had watched on one side the growth of debt and
+pauperism, and, on the other hand, the profits made by stockjobbers,
+landlords, and manufacturers, ascribed all the terrible sufferings to
+the selfish designs of the upper classes. When the war ended they
+hoped that the evils would diminish, while the pretext for
+misgovernment would be removed. A bitter disappointment followed. The
+war was followed by widespread misery. Plenty meant ruin to
+agriculturists, and commercial 'gluts' resulting in manufacturers'
+warehouses crammed with unsaleable goods. The discontent caused by
+misery had been encountered during the war by patriotic fervour. It
+was not a time for redressing evils, when the existence of the nation
+was at stake. Now that the misery continued, and the excuse for
+delaying redress had been removed, a demand arose for parliamentary
+reform. Unfortunately discontent led also to sporadic riotings, to
+breaking of machinery and burning of ricks. The Tory government saw in
+these disturbances a renewal of the old Jacobin spirit, and had
+visions--apparently quite groundless--of widespread conspiracies and
+secret societies ready to produce a ruin of all social order. It had
+recourse to the old repressive measures, the suspension of the Habeas
+Corpus Act, the passage of the 'Six Acts,' and the prosecution of
+popular agitators. Many observers fancied that the choice lay between
+a servile insurrection and the establishment of arbitrary power.
+
+By degrees, however, peace brought back prosperity. Things settled
+down; commerce revived; and the acute distress passed away. The whole
+nation went mad over the wrongs of Queen Caroline; and the demand for
+political reform became for the time less intense. But it soon
+appeared that, although this crisis had been surmounted, the temper of
+the nation had profoundly changed. The supreme power still belonged
+constitutionally to the landed interest. But it had a profoundly
+modified social order behind it. The war had at least made it
+necessary to take into account the opinions of larger classes. An
+appeal to patriotism means that some regard must be paid to the
+prejudices and passions of people at large. When enormous sums were to
+be raised, the moneyed classes would have their say as to modes of
+taxation. Commerce and manufactures went through crises of terrible
+difficulty due to the various changes of the war; but, on the whole,
+the industrial classes were steadily and rapidly developing in wealth,
+and becoming relatively more important. The war itself was, in one
+aspect at least, a war for the maintenance of the British supremacy in
+trade. The struggle marked by the policy of the 'Orders in Council' on
+one side, and Napoleon's decrees on the other, involved a constant
+reference to Manchester and Liverpool and the rapidly growing
+manufacturing and commercial interests. The growth, again, of the
+press, at a time when every one who could read was keenly interested
+in news of most exciting and important events, implied the rapid
+development of a great organ of public opinion.
+
+The effects of these changes soon became palpable. The political
+atmosphere was altogether different; and an entirely new set of
+influences was governing the policy of statesmen. The change affected
+the Tory as much as the Whig. However strongly he might believe that
+he was carrying on the old methods, he was affected by the new ideas
+which had been almost unconsciously incorporated in his creed. How
+great was the change, and how much it took the shape of accepting
+Utilitarian theories, may be briefly shown by considering a few
+characteristic facts.
+
+The ablest men who held office at the time were Canning, Huskisson,
+and Peel. They represented the conservatism which sought to
+distinguish itself from mere obstructiveness. Their influence was felt
+in many directions. The Holy Alliance had the sympathy of men who
+could believe that the war had brought back the pre-revolutionary
+order, and that its main result had been to put the Jacobin spirit in
+chains. Canning's accession to office in 1822 meant that the foreign
+policy of England was to be definitely opposed to the policy of the
+'Holy Alliance.' A pithy statement of his view is given in a
+remarkable letter, dated 1st February 1823, to the prince who was soon
+to become Charles X.[33] The French government had declared that a
+people could only receive a free constitution as a gift from their
+legitimate kings. Should the English ministry, says Canning, after
+this declaration, support the French in their attack upon the
+constitutional government of Spain, it would be driven from office
+amid 'the execration of Tories and Whigs alike.' He thought that the
+doctrine of the sovereignty of the people was less alien to the
+spirit of the British Constitution than the opposite doctrine of the
+legitimists. In the early days, when Canning sat at the feet of Pitt,
+the war, if not in their eyes an Anti-Jacobin crusade, had to be
+supported by stimulating the Anti-Jacobin sentiment. In later days,
+the war had come to be a struggle against the oppression of nations by
+foreign despots. Canning could now accept the version of Pitt's policy
+which corresponded to the later phase. Englishmen in general had no
+more sympathy for despots who claimed a divine right than for despots
+who acted in the name of democracy--especially when the despots
+threatened to interfere with British trade. When Canning called 'the
+new world into existence to redress the balance of the old,'[34] he
+declared that English policy should resist threats from the Holy
+Alliance directed against some of our best customers. The general
+approval had special force among the Utilitarians. In the South
+American States Bentham had found eager proselytes, and had hoped to
+become a Solon. He had been consulted by the constitutionalists in
+Spain and Portugal; and he and his disciples, Joseph Hume in
+particular, had joined the Greek Committee, and tried to regenerate
+Athens by sound Utilitarian tracts. All English Liberals sympathised
+with the various movements which were more or less favoured by
+Canning's policy; but the Utilitarians could also see in them the
+opening of new fields already white for the harvest.
+
+The foreign policy was significant. It proved that the war, whatever
+else it had done, had not brought back the old order; and the old
+British traditions in favour of liberty of speech and action would
+revive now that they were no longer trammelled by the fears of a
+destructive revolution. The days of July in 1830 gave fresh importance
+to the reaction of foreign upon English politics.
+
+
+II. LAW REFORM
+
+Meanwhile, however, the Utilitarians had a far stronger interest in
+domestic problems. In the first place, in Bentham's especial province
+a complete change of feeling had taken place. Romilly was Bentham's
+earliest disciple (so Bentham said), and looked up to him with 'filial
+reverence.' Every 'reformatiuncle' introduced by Romilly in parliament
+had been first brought to Bentham, to be conned over by the two.[35]
+With great difficulty Romilly had got two or three measures through
+the House of Commons, generally to be thrown out by Eldon's influence
+in the Lords.[36] After Romilly's death in 1818, the cause was taken
+up by the Whig philosopher, Sir James Mackintosh, and made a distinct
+step in advance. Though there were still obstacles in the upper
+regions, a committee was obtained to consider the frequency of capital
+punishment, and measures were passed to abolish it in particular
+cases. Finally, in 1823, the reform was adopted by Peel. Peel was
+destined to represent in the most striking way the process by which
+new ideas were gradually infiltrating the upper sphere. Though still a
+strong Tory and a representative of the university of Oxford, he was
+closely connected with the manufacturing classes, and had become
+aware, as he wrote to Croker (23rd March 1820), that public opinion
+had grown to be too large for its accustomed channels. As Home
+Secretary, he took up the whole subject of the criminal law, and
+passed in the next years a series of acts consolidating and mitigating
+the law, and repealing many old statutes. A measure of equal
+importance was his establishment in 1829 of the metropolitan police
+force, which at last put an end to the old chaotic muddle described by
+Colquhoun of parish officers and constables. Other significant legal
+changes marked the opening of a new era. Eldon was the very
+incarnation of the spirit of obstruction; and the Court of Chancery,
+over which he presided for a quarter of a century, was thought to be
+the typical stronghold of the evil principles denounced by Bentham. An
+attack in 1823 upon Eldon was made in the House of Commons by John
+Williams (1777-1846), afterwards a judge. Eldon, though profoundly
+irritated by the personal imputations involved, consented to the
+appointment of a commission, which reported in 1825, and recommended
+measures of reform. In 1828, Brougham made a great display upon which
+he had consulted Bentham.[37] In a speech of six hours' length he gave
+a summary of existing abuses, which may still be read with
+interest.[38] Commissions were appointed to investigate the procedure
+of the Common Law Court and the law of real property. Another
+commission, intended to codify the criminal law, was appointed in
+1833. Brougham says that of 'sixty capital defects' described in his
+speech, fifty-five had been removed, or were in course of removal,
+when his speeches were collected (_i.e._ 1838). Another speech of
+Brougham's in 1828 dealt with the carrying into execution of a
+favourite plan of Bentham's--the formation of local courts, which
+ultimately became the modern county courts.[39] The facts are
+significant of a startling change--no less than an abrupt transition
+from the reign of entire apathy to a reign of continuous reform
+extending over the whole range of law. The Reform Bill accelerated the
+movement, but it had been started before Bentham's death. The great
+stone, so long immovable, was fairly set rolling.
+
+Bentham's influence, again, in bringing about the change is
+undeniable. He was greatly dissatisfied with Brougham's speech, and,
+indeed, would have been dissatisfied with anything short of a complete
+logical application of his whole system. He held Brougham to be
+'insincere,'[40] a trimmer and popularity-hunter, but a useful
+instrument. Brougham's astonishing vanity and self-seeking prompted
+and perverted his amazing activity. He represents the process, perhaps
+necessary, by which a philosopher's ideas have to be modified before
+they can be applied to practical application. Brougham, however, could
+speak generously of men no longer in a position to excite his
+jealousy. He says in the preface to his first speech that 'the age of
+law reform and the age of Jeremy Bentham' were the same thing, and
+declares Bentham to be the 'first legal philosopher' who had appeared
+in the world. As the Chief advocates of Bentham he reckons Romilly,
+his parliamentary representative; Dumont, his literary interpreter;
+and James Mill, who, in his article upon 'jurisprudence,' had
+popularised the essential principles of the doctrine.
+
+The Utilitarians had at last broken up the barriers of obstruction and
+set the stream flowing. Whigs and Tories were taking up their
+theories. They naturally exaggerated in some respects the completeness
+of the triumph. The English law has not yet been codified, and it was
+characteristic of the Benthamite school to exaggerate the facility of
+that process. In their hatred of 'judge-made law' they assumed too
+easily that all things would be arranged into convenient pigeon-holes
+as soon as 'Judge and Co.' were abolished. It was a characteristic
+error to exaggerate the simplicity of their problem, and to fail to
+see that 'judge-made' law corresponds to a necessary inductive process
+by which the complex and subtle differences have to be gradually
+ascertained and fitted into a systematic statement. One other remark
+suggests itself. The Utilitarians saw in the dogged obstructiveness of
+Eldon and his like the one great obstacle to reform. It did not occur
+to them that the clumsiness of parliamentary legislation might be
+another difficulty. They failed to notice distinctly one tendency of
+their reforms. To make a code you require a sovereign strong enough to
+dominate the lawyers, not a system in which lawyers are an essential
+part of a small governing class. Codification, in short, means
+centralisation in one department. Blindness to similar results
+elsewhere was a characteristic of the Utilitarian thinkers.
+
+
+III. ECONOMIC REFORM
+
+In another department the Utilitarians boasted, and also with good
+reason, of the triumph of their tenets. Political economy was in the
+ascendant. Professorships were being founded in Oxford, Cambridge,[41]
+London, and Edinburgh. Mrs. Marcet's _Conversations_ (1818) were
+spreading the doctrine among babes and sucklings. The Utilitarians
+were the sacred band who defended the strictest orthodoxy against all
+opponents. They spoke as recognised authorities upon some of the most
+vital questions of the day, of which I need here only notice Free
+Trade, the doctrine most closely associated with the teaching of their
+revered Adam Smith. In 1816 Ricardo remarks with satisfaction that the
+principle 'is daily obtaining converts' even among the most prejudiced
+classes; and he refers especially to a petition in which the clothiers
+of Gloucestershire[42] expressed their willingness to give up all
+restrictions. There was, indeed, an important set-off against this
+gain. The landowners were being pledged to protection. They had
+decided that in spite of the peace, the price of wheat must be kept up
+to 80s. a quarter. They would no longer be complimented as Adam Smith
+had complimented them on their superior liberality, and were now
+creating a barrier only to be stormed after a long struggle.
+Meanwhile the principle was making rapid way among their rivals. One
+symptom was the adoption by the London merchants in 1820 of a famous
+petition on behalf of free trade.[43] It was drawn up by Thomas Tooke
+(1774-1858), who had long been actively engaged in the Russian trade,
+and whose _History of Prices_ is in some respects the most valuable
+economic treatise of the time. Tooke gives a curious account of his
+action on this occasion.[44] He collected a few friends engaged in
+commerce, who were opposed to the corn laws. He found that several of
+them had 'crude and confused' notions upon the subject, and that each
+held that his own special interests should be exempted on some pretext
+from the general rule. After various dexterous pieces of diplomacy,
+however, he succeeded in obtaining the signature of Samuel Thornton, a
+governor of the bank of England, and ultimately procured a sufficient
+number of signatures by private solicitation. He was favourably
+received by the Prime Minister Lord Liverpool, and Vansittart (then
+Chancellor of the Exchequer), and finally got the petition presented
+to the House of Commons by Alexander Baring (afterwards Lord
+Ashburton). Tooke remarks that the Liverpool administration was in
+advance, not only of the public generally, but of the 'mercantile
+community,' Glasgow and Manchester, however, followed in the same
+steps, and the petition became a kind of official manifesto of the
+orthodox doctrine. The Political Economy Club formed next year at
+Tooke's instigation (April 18, 1821) was intended to hasten the
+process of dispersing crude and confused ideas. It was essentially an
+organ of the Utilitarian propaganda.
+
+The influence of the economists upon public policy was shown by the
+important measures carried through chiefly by Huskisson. Huskisson
+(1770-1830) was a type of the most intelligent official of his time.
+Like his more brilliant friend Canning, he had been introduced into
+office under Pitt, and retained a profound reverence for his early
+leader. Huskisson was a thorough man of business, capable of wrestling
+with blue-books, of understanding the sinking-fund, and having
+theories about the currency; a master of figures and statistics and
+the whole machinery of commerce. Though eminently useful, he might at
+any moment be applying some awkward doctrine from Adam Smith.
+
+Huskisson began the series of economic reforms which were brought to
+their full development by Peel and Gladstone. The collection of his
+speeches[45] incidentally brings out very clearly his relation to the
+Utilitarians. The most remarkable is a great speech of April 24,
+1826[46] (upon the state of the silk manufacture), of which Canning
+declared that he had never heard one abler, or which made a deeper
+impression upon the House. In this he reviews his policy, going over
+the most important financial measures of the preceding period. They
+made a new era, and he dates the beginning of the movement from the
+London petition, and the 'luminous speech' made by Baring when
+presenting it. We followed public opinion, he says, and did not create
+it.[47] Adopting the essential principles of the petition, the
+government had in the first place set free the great woollen trade.
+The silk trade had been emancipated by abolishing the Spitalfield Acts
+passed in the previous century, which enabled magistrates to fix the
+rates of wages. The principle of prohibition had been abandoned,
+though protective duties remained. The navigation laws had been
+materially relaxed, and steps taken towards removing restrictions of
+different kinds upon trade with France and with India. One symptom of
+the change was the consolidation of the custom law effected by James
+Deacon Hume (1774-1842), an official patronised by Huskisson, and an
+original member of the Political Economy Club. By a law passed in
+1825, five hundred statutes dating from the time of Edward I. were
+repealed, and the essence of the law given in a volume of moderate
+size. Finally, the removal of prohibitions was undermining the
+smugglers.
+
+The measures upon which Huskisson justly prided himself might have
+been dictated by the Political Economy Club itself. So far as they
+went they were an application of the doctrines of its thoroughgoing
+members, of Mill, Ricardo, and the orthodox school. They indeed
+supported him in the press. The _Morning Chronicle_, which expressed
+their views, declared him to be the most virtuous minister, that is
+(in true Utilitarian phrase), the most desirous of national welfare
+who had ever lived. The praise of Radicals would be not altogether
+welcome. Canning, in supporting his friend, maintained that sound
+commercial policy belonged no more to the Whigs than to the Tories.
+Huskisson and he were faithful disciples of Pitt, whose treaty with
+France in 1786, assailed by Fox and the Whigs, had been the first
+practical application of the Wealth of Nations. Neither party,
+perhaps, could claim a special connection with good or bad political
+economy; and certainly neither was prepared to incur political
+martyrdom in zeal for scientific truth. A question was beginning to
+come to the front which would make party lines dependent upon economic
+theories, and Huskisson's view of this was characteristic.
+
+The speech from which I have quoted begins with an indignant retort
+upon a member who had applied to him Burke's phrase about a
+perfect-bred metaphysician exceeding the devil in malignity and
+contempt for mankind. Huskisson frequently protested even against the
+milder epithet of theorist. He asserted most emphatically that he
+appealed to 'experience' and not to 'theory,' a slippery distinction
+which finds a good exposure in Bentham's _Book of Fallacies_.[48] The
+doctrine, however, was a convenient one for Huskisson. He could appeal
+to experience to show that commercial restrictions had injured the
+woollen trade, and their absence benefited the cotton trade,[49] and
+when he was not being taunted with theories, he would state with
+perfect clearness the general free trade argument.[50] But he had to
+keep an eye to the uncomfortable tricks which theories sometimes play.
+He argued emphatically in 1825[51] that analogy between manufactures
+and agriculture is 'illogical.' He does not wish to depress the price
+of corn, but to keep it at such a level that our manufactures may not
+be hampered by dear food. Here he was forced by stress of politics to
+differ from his economical friends. The country gentleman did not wish
+to pay duties on his silk or his brandy, but he had a direct and
+obvious interest in keeping up the price of corn. Huskisson had
+himself supported the Corn Bill of 1815, but it was becoming more and
+more obvious that a revision would be necessary. In 1828 he declared
+that he 'lamented from the bottom of his soul the mass of evil and
+misery and destruction of capital which that law in the course of
+twelve years had produced.'[52] Ricardo, meanwhile, and the economists
+had from the first applied to agriculture the principles which
+Huskisson applied to manufactures.[53] Huskisson's melancholy death
+has left us unable to say whether upon this matter he would have been
+as convertible as Peel. In any case the general principle of free
+trade was as fully adopted by Huskisson and Canning as by the
+Utilitarians themselves. The Utilitarians could again claim to be both
+the inspirers of the first principles, and the most consistent in
+carrying out the deductions. They, it is true, were not generally
+biassed by having any interest in rents. They were to be the allies or
+teachers of the manufacturing class which began to be decidedly
+opposed to the squires and the old order.
+
+In one very important economic question, the Utilitarians not only
+approved a change of the law, but were the main agents in bringing it
+about. Francis Place was the wire-puller, to whose energy was due the
+abolition of the Conspiracy Laws in 1824. Joseph Hume in the House of
+Commons, and M'Culloch, then editor of the _Scotsman_, had the most
+conspicuous part in the agitation, but Place worked the machinery of
+agitation. The bill passed in 1824 was modified by an act of 1825; but
+the modification, owing to Place's efforts, was not serious, and the
+act, as we are told on good authority, 'effected a real emancipation,'
+and for the first time established the right of 'collective
+bargaining.'[54] The remarkable thing is that this act, carried on the
+principles of 'Radical individualism' and by the efforts of Radical
+individualists, was thus a first step towards the application to
+practice of socialist doctrine. Place thought that the result of the
+act would be not the encouragement, but the decline, of trades-unions.
+The unions had been due to the necessity of combining against
+oppressive laws, and would cease when those laws were abolished.[55]
+This marks a very significant stage in the development of economic
+opinion.
+
+
+IV. CHURCH REFORM
+
+The movement which at this period was most conspicuous politically was
+that which resulted in Roman Catholic emancipation, and here, too, the
+Utilitarians might be anticipating a complete triumph of their
+principles. The existing disqualifications, indeed, were upheld by
+little but the purely obstructive sentiment. When the duke of York
+swore that 'so help him God!' he would oppose the change to the last,
+he summed up the whole 'argument' against it. Canning and Huskisson
+here represented the policy not only of Pitt, but of Castlereagh. The
+Whigs, indeed, might claim to be the natural representatives of
+toleration. The church of England was thoroughly subjugated by the
+state, and neither Whig nor Tory wished for a fundamental change. But
+the most obvious differentia of Whiggism was a dislike to the
+ecclesiastical spirit. The Whig noble was generally more or less of a
+freethinker; and upon such topics Holland House differed little from
+Queen's Square Place, or differed only in a rather stricter reticence.
+Both Whig and Tory might accept Warburton's doctrine of an 'alliance'
+between church and state. The Tory inferred that the church should be
+supported. His prescription for meeting discontent was 'more yeomanry'
+and a handsome sum for church-building. The Whig thought that the
+church got a sufficient return in being allowed to keep its revenues.
+On the Tory view, the relation might be compared to that of man and
+wife in Christian countries where, though the two are one, the husband
+is bound to fidelity. On the Whig view it was like a polygamous
+system, where the wife is in complete subjection, and the husband may
+take any number of concubines. The Whig noble regarded the church as
+socially useful, but he was by no means inclined to support its
+interests when they conflicted with other political considerations. He
+had been steadily in favour of diminishing the privileges of the
+establishment, and had taken part in removing the grievances of the
+old penal laws. He was not prepared to uphold privileges which
+involved a palpable danger to his order.
+
+This position is illustrated by Sydney Smith, the ideal divine of
+Holland House. The _Plymley Letters_[56] give his views most pithily.
+Smith, a man as full of sound sense as of genuine humour, appeals to
+the principles of toleration, and is keenly alive to the absurdity of
+a persecution which only irritates without conversion. But he also
+appeals to the danger of the situation. 'If Bonaparte lives,'[57] he
+says, 'and something is not done to conciliate the Catholics, it seems
+to me absolutely impossible but that we must perish.' We are like the
+captain of a ship attacked by a pirate, who should begin by examining
+his men in the church catechism, and forbid any one to sponge or ram
+who had not taken the sacrament according to the forms of the church
+of England. He confesses frankly that the strength of the Irish is
+with him a strong motive for listening to their claims. To talk of
+'not acting from fear is mere parliamentary cant.'[58] Although the
+danger which frightened Smith was evaded, this was the argument which
+really brought conviction even to Tories in 1829. In any case the
+Whigs, whose great boast was their support of toleration, would not be
+prompted by any Quixotic love of the church to encounter tremendous
+perils in defence of its privileges.
+
+Smith's zeal had its limits. He observes humorously in his preface
+that he had found himself after the Reform Bill engaged in the defence
+of the National Church against the archbishop of Canterbury and the
+bishop of London. The letters to Archdeacon Singleton, written when
+the Whigs were flirting with the Radicals, show how much good an old
+Whig could find in the establishment. This marks the difference
+between the true Whig and the Utilitarian. The Whig would not risk the
+country for the sake of church; he would keep the clerical power
+strictly subordinate to the power of the state, but then, when
+considered from the political side, it was part of a government system
+providing him with patronage, and to be guarded from the rude assaults
+of the Radical reformer. The Utilitarian, though for the moment he was
+in alliance with the Whig, regarded the common victory as a step to
+something far more sweeping. He objected to intolerance as decidedly
+as the Whig, for absolute freedom of opinion was his most cherished
+doctrine. He objected still more emphatically to persecution on behalf
+of the church, because he entirely repudiated its doctrines. The
+objection to spreading true doctrine by force is a strong one, but
+hardly so strong as the objection to a forcible spread of false
+doctrine. But, besides this, the church represented to the Utilitarian
+precisely the very worst specimen of the corruptions of the time. The
+Court of Chancery was bad enough, but the whole ecclesiastical system
+with its vast prizes,[59] its opportunities for corrupt patronage, its
+pluralism and non-residence was an evil on a larger scale. The
+Radical, therefore, unlike the Whig, was an internecine enemy of the
+whole system. The 'church of England system,' as Bentham calmly
+remarks, is 'ripe for dissolution.'[60] I have already noticed his
+quaint proposal for giving effect to his views. Mill, in the
+_Westminster Review_, denounced the church of England as the worst of
+all churches.[61] To the Utilitarian, in short, the removal of the
+disqualification of dissenters and Catholics was thus one step to the
+consummation which their logic demanded--the absolute disestablishment
+and disendowment of the church. Conservatives in general anticipated
+the confiscation of church revenues as a necessary result of reform;
+and so far as the spirit of reformers was represented by the
+Utilitarians and their Radical allies, they had good grounds for the
+fear. James Mill's theory is best indicated by a later article
+published in the _London Review_ of July 1835. After pointing out that
+the church of England retains all the machinery desired for supporting
+priests and preventing the growth of intellect and morality, he
+proceeds to ask what the clergy do for their money. They read prayers,
+which is a palpable absurdity; they preach sermons to spread
+superstitious notions of the Supreme Being, and perform
+ceremonies--baptism, and so forth--which are obviously silly. The
+church is a mere state machine worked in subservience to the sinister
+interest of the governing classes. The way to reform it would be to
+equalise the pay: let the clergy be appointed by a 'Minister of Public
+Instruction' or the county authorities; abolish the articles, and
+constitute a church 'without dogmas or ceremonies'; and employ the
+clergy to give lectures on ethics, botany, political economy, and so
+forth, besides holding Sunday meetings, dances (decent dances are to
+be specially invented for the purpose), and social meals, which would
+be a revival of the 'agapai' of the early Christians. For this
+purpose, however, it might be necessary to substitute tea and coffee
+for wine. In other words, the church is to be made into a popular
+London University. The plan illustrates the incapacity of an isolated
+clique to understand the real tone of public opinion. I need not
+pronounce upon Mill's scheme, which seems to have some sense in it,
+but one would like to know whether Newman read his article.
+
+
+V. SINISTER INTERESTS
+
+In questions of foreign policy, of law reform, of political economy,
+and of religious tests, the Utilitarians thus saw the gradual
+approximation to their most characteristic views on the part of the
+Whigs, and a strong infiltration of the same views among the less
+obstructive Tories. They held the logical creed, to which others were
+slowly approximating, either from the force of argument or from the
+great social changes which were bringing new classes into political
+power. The movement for parliamentary reform which for a time
+overshadowed all other questions might be regarded as a corollary from
+the position already won. Briefly, it was clear that a new social
+stratum was exercising a vast influence; the doctrines popular with it
+had to be more or less accepted; and the only problem worth
+consideration by practical men was whether or not such a change should
+be made in the political machinery as would enable the influence to be
+exercised by direct and constitutional means. To the purely
+obstructive Tory parliamentary reform was a step to the general
+cataclysm. The proprietor of a borough, like the proprietor of a
+church patronage or commission in the army, had a right to his votes,
+and to attack his right was simply confiscation of private property.
+The next step might be to confiscate his estate. But even the more
+intelligent Conservative drew the line at such a measure. Canning,
+Huskisson, and even Peel might accept the views of the Utilitarians in
+regard to foreign policy, to law reform, to free trade, or the removal
+of religious tests, declaring only that they were obeying 'experience'
+instead of logic, and might therefore go just as far as they pleased.
+But they were all pledged to resist parliamentary reform to the
+utmost. Men thoroughly steeped in official life, and versed in the
+actual working of the machinery, were naturally alive to the magnitude
+of the change to be introduced. They saw with perfect clearness that
+it would amount to a revolution. The old system in which the ruling
+classes carried on business by family alliances and bargains between
+ministers and great men would be impracticable. The fact that so much
+had been done in the way of concession to the ideas of the new classes
+was for them an argument against the change. If the governing classes
+were ready to reform abuses, why should they be made unable to govern?
+A gradual enfranchisement of the great towns on the old system might
+be desirable. Such a man as Huskisson, representing great commercial
+interests, could not be blind to the necessity. But a thorough
+reconstruction was more alarming. As Canning had urged in a great
+speech at Liverpool, a House of Commons, thoroughly democratised,
+would be incompatible with the existence of the monarchy and the
+House of Lords. So tremendously powerful a body would reduce the other
+parts of the constitution to mere excrescences, feeble drags upon the
+new driving-wheel in which the whole real force would be concentrated.
+
+That this expressed, in point of fact, a serious truth, was, I take
+it, undeniable. The sufficient practical answer was, that change was
+inevitable. To refuse to adapt the constitutional machinery to the
+altered political forces was not to hinder their growth, but to make a
+revolution necessary. When, accordingly, the excluded classes began
+seriously to demand admission, the only question came to lie between
+violent and peaceable methods. The alarm with which our fathers
+watched the progress of the measure may seem to us exaggerated, but
+they scarcely overestimated the magnitude of the change. The old
+rulers were taking a new partner of such power, that whatever
+authority was left to them might seem to be left on sufferance. As
+soon as he became conscious of his strength, they would be reduced to
+nonentities. The Utilitarians took some part in the struggle, and
+welcomed the victory with anticipations destined to be, for the time
+at least, cruelly disappointed. But they were still a small minority,
+whose views rather scandalised the leaders of the party with which
+they were in temporary alliance. The principles upon which they based
+their demands, as formulated by James Mill, looked, as we shall see,
+far beyond the concessions of the moment.
+
+One other political change is significant, though I am unable to give
+an adequate account of it. Bentham's denunciation of 'sinister
+interests'--one of his leading topics--corresponds to the question of
+sinecures, which was among the most effective topics of Radical
+declamation. The necessity of limiting the influence of the crown and
+excluding 'placemen' from the House of Commons had been one of the
+traditional Whig commonplaces, and a little had been done by Burke's
+act of 1782 towards limiting pensions and abolishing obsolete offices.
+When English Radicalism revived, the assault was renewed in parliament
+and the press. During the war little was achieved, though a revival of
+the old complaints about placemen in parliament was among the first
+symptoms of the rising sentiment. In 1812 an attack was made upon the
+'tellers of the Exchequer.' Romilly[62] says that the value of one of
+these offices had risen to L26,000 or L27,000 a year. The income came
+chiefly from fees, and the actual work, whatever it was, was done by
+deputy. The scandal was enormous at a time when the stress upon the
+nation was almost unbearable. One of the tellerships was held by a
+member of the great Grenville family, who announced that they regarded
+the demand for reform as a personal attack upon them. The opposition,
+therefore, could not muster even its usual strength, and the motion
+for inquiry was rejected. When the war was over, even the government
+began to feel that something must be done. In 1817 some acts were
+passed[63] abolishing a variety of sinecure offices and 'regulating
+certain offices in the Court of Exchequer.' The Radicals considered
+this as a mere delusion, because it was provided at the same time that
+pensions might be given to persons who had held certain great offices.
+The change, however, was apparently of importance as removing the
+chief apology for sinecures, and the system with modifications still
+remains. The marquis of Camden, one of the tellers of the Exchequer,
+voluntarily resigned the fees and accepted only the regular salary of
+L2500. His action is commended in the _Black Book_,[64] which
+expresses a regret that the example had not been followed by other
+great sinecurists. Public opinion was beginning to be felt. During the
+subsequent period the cry against sinecures became more emphatic. The
+_Black Book_, published originally in 1820 and 1823, and afterwards
+reissued, gave a list, so far as it could be ascertained, of all
+pensions, and supplied a mass of information for Radical orators. The
+amount of pensions is stated at over L1,000,000, including sinecure
+offices with over L350,000 annually;[65] and the list of offices
+(probably very inaccurate in detail) gives a singular impression of
+the strange ramifications of the system. Besides the direct pensions,
+every new department of administration seems to have suggested the
+foundation of offices which tended to become sinecures. The cry for
+'retrenchment' was joined to the cry for reform.[66] Joseph Hume, who
+first entered parliament in 1818, became a representative of the
+Utilitarian Radicalism, and began a long career of minute criticism
+which won for him the reputation of a stupendous bore, but helped to
+keep a steady pressure upon ministers.[67] Sir James Graham
+(1792-1861) was at this time of Radical tendencies, and first made
+himself conspicuous by demanding returns of pensions.[68] The
+settlements of the civil lists of George IV., William IV., and
+Victoria, gave opportunities for imposing new restrictions upon the
+pension system. Although no single sweeping measure was passed, the
+whole position was changed. By the time of the Reform Bill, a sinecure
+had become an anachronism. The presumption was that whenever an
+opportunity offered, it would be suppressed. Some of the sinecure
+offices in the Court of Chancery, the 'Keeper of the Hanaper,' the
+'Chaffwax,' and so forth, were abolished by an act passed by the
+parliament which had just carried the Reform Bill.[69] In 1833 a
+reform of the system of naval administration by Sir James Graham got
+rid of some cumbrous machinery; and Graham again was intrusted in 1834
+with an act under which the Court of Exchequer was finally reformed,
+and the 'Clerk of the Pells' and the 'Tellers of the Exchequer' ceased
+to exist.[70] Other offices seem to have melted away by degrees,
+whenever a chance offered.
+
+Many other of the old abuses had ceased to require any special
+denunciations from political theorists. The general principle was
+established, and what remained was to apply it in detail. The prison
+system was no longer in want of a Howard or a Bentham. Abuses remained
+which occupied the admirable Mrs. Fry; and many serious difficulties
+had to be solved by a long course of experiment. But it was no longer
+a question whether anything should be doing, but of the most
+efficient means of bringing about an admittedly desirable end. The
+agitation for the suppression of the slave-trade again had been
+succeeded by the attack upon slavery. The system was evidently doomed,
+although not finally abolished till after the Reform Bill; and
+ministers were only considering the question whether the abolition
+should be summary or gradual, or what compensation might be made to
+vested interests. The old agitation had been remarkable, as I have
+said, not only for its end but for the new kind of machinery to which
+it had applied. Popular agitation[71] had taken a new shape. The
+county associations formed in the last days of the American war of
+independence, and the societies due to the French revolution had set a
+precedent. The revolutionary societies had been suppressed or had died
+out, as opposed to the general spirit of the nation, although they had
+done a good deal to arouse political speculation. In the period of
+distress which followed the war the Radical reformers had again held
+public meetings, and had again been met by repressive measures. The
+acts of 1817 and 1819[72] imposed severe restrictions upon the right
+of public meeting. The old 'county meeting,' which continued to be
+common until the reform period, and was summoned by the
+lord-lieutenant or the sheriff on a requisition from the freeholders,
+had a kind of constitutional character, though I do not know its
+history in detail.[73] The extravagantly repressive measures were an
+anachronism, or could only be enforced during the pressure of an
+intense excitement. In one way or other, public meetings were soon
+being held as frequently as ever. The trial of Queen Caroline gave
+opportunity for numerous gatherings, and statesmen began to find that
+they must use instead of suppressing them. Canning[74] appears to have
+been the first minister to make frequent use of speeches addressed to
+public meetings; and meetings to which such appeals were addressed
+soon began to use their authority to demand pledges from the
+speakers.[75] Representation was to be understood more and more as
+delegation. Meanwhile the effect of public meetings was enormously
+increased when a general organisation was introduced. The great
+precedent was the Catholic Association, founded in 1823 by O'Connell
+and Sheil. The peculiar circumstances of the Irish people and their
+priests gave a ready-made machinery for the agitation which triumphed
+in 1829. The Political Union founded by Attwood at Birmingham in the
+same year adopted the method, and led to the triumph of 1832.
+Political combination henceforth took a different shape, and in the
+ordinary phrase, 'public opinion' became definitely the ultimate and
+supreme authority. This enormous change and the corresponding
+development of the power of the press, which affected to mould and, at
+any rate, expressed public opinion, entirely fell in with Utilitarian
+principles. Their part in bringing about the change was of no special
+importance except in so far as they more or less inspired the popular
+orators. They were, however, ready to take advantage of it. They had
+the _Westminster Review_ to take a place beside the _Edinburgh_ and
+_Quarterly Reviews_, which had raised periodical writing to a far
+higher position than it had ever occupied, and to which leading
+politicians and leading authors on both sides had become regular
+contributors. The old contempt for journalism was rapidly vanishing.
+In 1825 Canning expresses his regret for having given some information
+to a paper of which an ill use had been made. He had previously
+abstained from all communication with 'these gentry,' and was now
+resolved to have done with _hoc genus omne_ for good and all.[76] In
+1839 we find his former colleague, Lord Lyndhurst, seeking an alliance
+with Barnes, the editor of the _Times_, as eagerly as though Barnes
+had been the head of a parliamentary party.[77]
+
+The newspapers had probably done more than the schools to spread
+habits of reading through the country. Yet the strong interest which
+was growing up in educational matters was characteristic. Brougham's
+phrase, 'the schoolmaster is abroad' (29th January 1821), became a
+popular proverb, and rejoiced the worthy Bentham.[78] I have already
+described the share taken by the Utilitarians in the great Bell and
+Lancaster controversy. Parliament had as yet done little. A bill
+brought in by Whitbread had been passed in 1807 by the House of
+Commons, enabling parishes to form schools on the Scottish model, but
+according to Romilly,[79] it was passed in the well-grounded
+confidence that it would be thrown out by the peers. A committee upon
+education was obtained by Brougham after the peace, which reported in
+1818, and which led to a commission upon school endowments. Brougham
+introduced an education bill in 1820, but nothing came of it. The
+beginning of any participation by government in national education was
+not to take place till after the Reform Bill. Meanwhile, however, the
+foundation of the London University upon unsectarian principles was
+encouraging the Utilitarians; and there were other symptoms of the
+growth of enlightenment. George Birkbeck (1776-1841) had started some
+popular lectures upon science at Glasgow about 1800, and having
+settled as a physician in London, started the 'Mechanics' Institution'
+in 1824. Brougham was one of the first trustees; and the institution,
+though exposed to a good deal of ridicule, managed to take root and
+become the parent of others. In 1827 was started the Society for the
+Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, of which Brougham was president, and
+the committee of which included James Mill. In the course of its
+twenty years' existence it published or sanctioned the publication by
+Charles Knight of a great mass of popular literature. The _Penny
+Magazine_ (1832-1845) is said to have had two hundred thousand
+subscribers at the end of its first year of existence. Crude and
+superficial as were some of these enterprises, they clearly marked a
+very important change. Cobbett and the Radical orators found enormous
+audiences ready to listen to their doctrine. Churchmen and Dissenters,
+Tories and Radicals were finding it necessary both to educate and to
+disseminate their principles by writing; and as new social strata were
+becoming accessible to such influences, their opinions began to
+exercise in turn a more distinct reaction upon political and
+ecclesiastical affairs.
+
+No party felt more confidence at the tendency of this new
+intellectual fermentation than the Utilitarians. They had a definite,
+coherent, logical creed. Every step which increased the freedom of
+discussion increased the influence of the truth. Their doctrines were
+the truth, if not the whole truth. Once allow them to get a fulcrum
+and they would move the world. Bit by bit their principles of
+legislation, of economy, of politics were being accepted in the most
+different quarters; and even the more intelligent of their opponents
+were applying them, though the application might be piecemeal and
+imperfect. It was in vain that an adversary protested that he was not
+bound by logic, and appealed to experience instead of theory. Let him
+justify his action upon what grounds he pleased, he was, in point of
+fact, introducing the leaven of true doctrine, and it might be trusted
+to work out the desirable results.
+
+I must now deal more in detail with the Utilitarian theories. I will
+only observe in general terms that their triumph was not likely to be
+accepted without a struggle. Large classes regarded them with absolute
+abhorrence. Their success, if they did succeed, would mean the
+destruction of religious belief, of sound philosophy, of the great
+important ecclesiastical and political institutions, and probably
+general confiscation of property and the ruin of the foundations of
+society. And, meanwhile, in spite of the progress upon which I have
+dwelt, there were two problems, at least, of enormous importance, upon
+which it could scarcely be said that any progress had been made. The
+church, in the first place, was still where it had been. No change had
+been made in its constitution; it was still the typical example of
+corrupt patronage; and the object of the hatred of all thoroughgoing
+Radicals. And, in the second place, pauperism had grown to appalling
+dimensions during the war; and no effectual attempt had been made to
+deal with it. Behind pauperism there were great social questions, the
+discontent and misery of great masses of the labouring population.
+Whatever reforms might be made in other parts of the natural order,
+here were difficulties enough to task the wisdom of legislators and
+speculators upon legislative principles.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[32] _Life of Macaulay_, p. 114. (Popular Edition).
+
+[33] Canning's _Political Correspondence_, i. 71-76.
+
+[34] 12th December 1826.
+
+[35] Bentham's _Works_, v. p. 370.
+
+[36] Romilly's attempts to improve the criminal law began in 1808. For
+various notices of his efforts, see his _Life_ (3 vols. 1860),
+especially vol. ii. 243-54, 309, 321, 331, 369, 371, 389-91. Romilly
+was deeply interested in Dumont's _Theorie des Peines Legales_ (1811),
+which he read in MS. and tried to get reviewed in the _Quarterly_ (ii.
+258, 391; iii. 136). The remarks (ii. 2-3) on the 'stupid dread of
+innovation' and the savage spirit infused into Englishmen by the
+horrors of the French revolution are worth notice in this connection.
+
+[37] Bentham's _Works_, x. p. 574.
+
+[38] Brougham's _Speeches_ (1838), ii. 287-486.
+
+[39] An interesting summary of the progress of law reforms and of
+Bentham's share in them is given in Sir R. K. Wilson's _History of
+Modern English Law_ (1875).
+
+[40] Bentham's _Works_, x. 571.
+
+[41] In Cambridge Pryme was the first professor in 1828, but had only
+the title without endowment. The professorship was only salaried in
+1863.
+
+[42] Ricardo's _Works_ (1888), p. 407.
+
+[43] Printed in Porter's _Progress of the Nation_ and elsewhere.
+
+[44] See sixth volume of _History of Prices_ by Tooke and Newmarch,
+and privately printed _Minutes of Political Economy Club_ (1882).
+
+[45] _Speeches_, 3 vols. 8vo, 1831.
+
+[46] _Ibid._ ii. 465-530.
+
+[47] _Ibid._ ii. 477.
+
+[48] Bentham's _Works_, ii. 459. We may remember how J. S. Mill in his
+boyhood was abashed because he could not explain to his father the
+force of the distinction.
+
+[49] _Speeches_, ii. 246, 332.
+
+[50] _Ibid._ i. 102-108 (Currency Pamphlet of 1810).
+
+[51] _Ibid._ ii. 397.
+
+[52] _Speeches_, iii. 257.
+
+[53] Ricardo indeed made a reservation as to the necessity of
+counterbalancing by a moderate duty the special burthens upon
+agriculture.
+
+[54] In the _History of Trades-Unionism_ by Sidney and Beatrice Webb
+(1894), pp. 88-98. The history of Place's agitation is fully given in
+Mr. Graham Wallas's _Life_, chap. viii.
+
+[55] Wallas's Francis _Place_, p. 217.
+
+[56] First published in 1807-8.
+
+[57] _Letter_ iii.
+
+[58] _Ibid._ vi.
+
+[59] Sydney Smith put very ingeniously the advantages of what he
+called the 'lottery' system: of giving, that is, a few great prizes,
+instead of equalising the incomes of the clergy. Things look so
+different from opposite points of views.
+
+[60] _Church of Englandism_, ii. 199.
+
+[61] See especially his review of Southey's _Book of the Church_.
+
+[62] Romilly's _Memoirs_, iii. 33.
+
+[63] 57 George III. caps. 60-67.
+
+[64] Edition of 1828, p. 24.
+
+[65] _Ibid._ p. 10.
+
+[66] A Mr. Gray proposed at a county meeting in 1816 that the cry of
+'retrenchment and reform' should be raised in every corner of the
+island (Henry Jephson's _Platform_, p. 378). I do not know whether
+this was the first appearance of the formula.
+
+[67] Hume had been introduced to Place by James Mill, who thought him
+worth 'nursing.' Place found him at first 'dull and selfish,' but
+'nursed him' so well that by 1836 he had become the 'man of
+men,'--Wallas's _Francis Place_, p. 181, 182.
+
+[68] Torrens's _Life of Graham_, i. 250-72, where his great speech of
+14th May 1830 is given.
+
+[69] 2 and 3 William IV. cap. 111 (passed 15 August 1832).
+
+[70] 4 and 5 William IV. cap. 15.
+
+[71] _The Platform, its Origin and Progress_, by Henry Jephson (1892),
+gives a very interesting historical account of the process.
+
+[72] 57 George III. cap. 19, and 60 George III. cap. 6.
+
+[73] See Jephson's _Platform_, pp. 167-70.
+
+[74] See Jephson's _Platform_, i. 348, 455, 517.
+
+[75] See _Ibid._ ii. 129-40 for some interesting passages as to this.
+
+[76] _Official Correspondence_ (1887), 308.
+
+[77] Greville's _George IV. and William IV._, iii. 155, 167-69, 171.
+
+[78] Bentham's _Works_, x. 571.
+
+[79] Romilly's _Memoirs_, ii. 67, 222.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+POLITICAL THEORY
+
+
+I. MILL ON GOVERNMENT
+
+I now turn to the general political theory of which Mill was the
+authoritative exponent. The _Encyclopaedia_ article upon 'Government'
+(1820) gives the pith of their doctrine. It was, as Professor Bain[80]
+thinks, an 'impelling and a guiding force' in the movement which
+culminated in the Reform Bill. The younger Utilitarians regarded it,
+says J. S. Mill, as 'a masterpiece of political wisdom';[81] while
+Macaulay[82] taunts them for holding it to be 'perfect and
+unanswerable.' This famous article is a terse and energetic summary of
+the doctrine implied in Bentham's _Works_, but there obscured under
+elaboration of minute details. It is rather singular, indeed, that so
+vigorous a manifesto of Utilitarian dogma should have been accepted by
+Macvey Napier--a sound Whig--for a publication which professed
+scientific impartiality. It has, however, in the highest degree, the
+merits of clearness and condensation desirable in a popular
+exposition. The reticence appropriate to the place excuses the
+omission of certain implicit conclusions. Mill has to give a complete
+theory of politics in thirty-two 8vo pages. He has scanty room for
+qualifying statement or historical illustration. He speaks as from the
+chair of a professor laying down the elementary principles of a
+demonstrated science.[83]
+
+Mill starts from the sacred principle. The end of government, as the
+end of all conduct, must be the increase of human happiness. The
+province of government is limited by another consideration. It has to
+deal with one class of happiness, that is, with the pains and
+pleasures 'which men derive from one another.' By a 'law of nature'
+labour is requisite for procuring the means of happiness. Now, if
+'nature' produced all that any man desired, there would be no need of
+government, for there would be no conflict of interest. But, as the
+material produced is finite, and can be appropriated by individuals,
+it becomes necessary to insure to every man his proper share. What,
+then, is a man's proper share? That which he himself produces; for, if
+you give to one man more than the produce of his labour, you must take
+away the produce of another man's labour. The greatest happiness,
+therefore, is produced by 'assuring to every man the greatest possible
+quantity of the produce of his own labour.' How can this be done?
+Will not the strongest take the share of the weakest? He can be
+prevented in one and apparently only in one way. Men must unite and
+delegate to a few the power necessary for protecting all. 'This is
+government.'[84]
+
+The problem is now simple. Government is essentially an association
+of men for the protection of property. It is a delegation of the
+powers necessary for that purpose to the guardians, and 'all the
+difficult questions of government relate to the means' of preventing
+the guardians from themselves becoming plunderers.
+
+How is this to be accomplished? The power of protection, says Mill,
+following the old theory, may be intrusted to the whole community, to
+a few, or to one; that is, we may have a democracy, an aristocracy, or
+a monarchy. A democracy, or direct government of all by all, is for
+the ordinary reasons pronounced impracticable. But the objections to
+the other systems are conclusive. The need of government, he has
+shown, depends upon 'the law of human nature'[85] that 'a man, if
+able, will take from others anything which they have and he desires.'
+The very principle which makes government necessary, therefore, will
+prompt a government to defeat its own proper end. Mill's doctrine is
+so far identical with the doctrine of Hobbes; men are naturally in a
+state of war, and government implies a tacit contract by which men
+confer upon a sovereign the power necessary for keeping the peace. But
+here, though admitting the force of Hobbes's argument, he diverges
+from its conclusion. If a democracy be impossible, and an aristocracy
+or monarchy necessarily oppressive, it might seem, he admits, as it
+actually seemed to Hobbes and to the French economists, that the fewer
+the oppressors the better, and that therefore an absolute monarchy is
+the best. Experience, he thinks, is 'on the surface' ambiguous.
+Eastern despots and Roman emperors have been the worst scourges to
+mankind; yet the Danes preferred a despot to an aristocracy, and are
+as 'well governed as any people in Europe.' In Greece, democracy, in
+spite of its defects, produced the most brilliant results.[86] Hence,
+he argues, we must go 'beyond the surface,' and 'penetrate to the
+springs within.' The result of the search is discouraging. The hope of
+glutting the rulers is illusory. There is no 'point of saturation'[87]
+with the objects of desire, either for king or aristocracy. It is a
+'grand governing law of human nature' that we desire such power as
+will make 'the persons and properties of human beings subservient to
+our pleasures.'[88] This desire is indefinitely great. To the number
+of men whom we would force into subservience, and the degree in which
+we would make them subservient, we can assign no limits. Moreover, as
+pain is a more powerful instrument for securing obedience than
+pleasure, a man will desire to possess 'unlimited power of inflicting
+pain upon others.' Will he also desire, it may be asked, to make use
+of it? The 'chain of inference,' he replies, in this case is close and
+strong 'to a most unusual degree.' A man desires the actions of others
+to be in correspondence with his own wishes. 'Terror' will be the
+'grand instrument.'[89] It thus follows that the very principle upon
+which government is founded leads, in the absence of checks, 'not only
+to that degree of plunder which leaves the members (of a community)
+... the bare means of subsistence, but to that degree of cruelty which
+is necessary to keep in existence the most intense terror.' An English
+gentleman, he says, is a favourable specimen of civilisation, and yet
+West Indian slavery shows of what cruelty he could be guilty when
+unchecked. If equal cruelty has not been exhibited elsewhere, it is,
+he seems to think, because men were not 'the same as sheep in respect
+to their shepherd,'[90] and may therefore resist if driven too far.
+The difficulty upon this showing is to understand how any government,
+except the most brutal tyranny, ever has been, or ever can be,
+possible. What is the combining principle which can weld together such
+a mass of hostile and mutually repellent atoms? How they can even form
+the necessary compact is difficult to understand, and the view seems
+to clash with his own avowed purpose. It is Mill's aim, as it was
+Bentham's, to secure the greatest happiness of the greatest number;
+and yet he seems to set out by proving as a 'law of human nature' that
+nobody can desire the happiness of any one except himself. He quotes
+from Montesquieu the saying, which shows an 'acute sense of this
+important truth,' 'that every one who has power is led to abuse
+it.'[91] Rather it would seem, according to Mill, all power implies
+abuse in its very essence. The problem seems to be how to make
+universal cohesion out of universal repulsion.
+
+Mill has his remedy for this deeply seated evil. He attacks, as
+Bentham had already done, the old-fashioned theory, according to which
+the British Constitution was an admirable mixture of the three 'simple
+forms.' Two of the powers, he argues, will always agree to 'swallow up
+the third.'[92] 'The monarchy and aristocracy have all possible
+motives for endeavouring to obtain unlimited power over the persons
+and property of the community,' though the democracy, as he also says,
+has every possible motive for preventing them. And in England, as he
+no doubt meant his readers to understand, the monarchy and aristocracy
+had to a great extent succeeded. Where, then, are we to look? To the
+'grand discovery of modern times,' namely, the representative system.
+If this does not solve all difficulties we shall be forced to the
+conclusion that good government is impossible. Fortunately, however,
+the representative system may be made perfectly effective. This
+follows easily. It would, as he has said,[93] be a 'contradiction in
+terms' to suppose that the community at large can 'have an interest
+opposite to its interest,' In the Bentham formula, it can have 'no
+sinister interest.' It cannot desire its own misery. Though the
+community cannot act as a whole, it can act through representatives.
+It is necessary to intrust power to a governing body; but that body
+can be prevented by adequate checks from misusing its powers. Indeed,
+the common theory of the British Constitution was precisely that the
+House of Commons was 'the checking body.'[94] The whole problem is to
+secure a body which shall effectively discharge the function thus
+attributed in theory to the House of Commons. That will be done when
+the body is chosen in such a way that its interests are necessarily
+coincident with those of the community at large. Hence there is of
+course no difficulty in deducing the actual demands of reformers.
+Without defining precise limits, he shows that representatives must be
+elected for brief periods, and that the right to a vote must at least
+be wide enough to prevent the electoral body from forming a class with
+'sinister interests.' He makes some remarkable qualifications, with
+the view apparently of not startling his readers too much by absolute
+and impracticable claims. He thinks that the necessary identity of
+interest would still be secured if classes were unrepresented whose
+interests are 'indisputably included in those of others.' Children's
+interests are involved in those of their parents, and the interests of
+'almost all women' in those of their fathers or husbands.[95] Again,
+all men under forty might be omitted without mischief, for 'the great
+majority of old men have sons whose interests they regard as an
+essential part of their own. This is a law of human nature.'[96] There
+would, he observes, be no danger that men above forty would try to
+reduce the 'rest of the community to the state of abject slaves.'
+Mill, as his son tells us,[97] disowned any intention of positively
+advocating these exclusions. He only meant to say that they were not
+condemned by his general principle. The doctrine, however, about
+women, even as thus understood, scandalised his younger followers.
+
+Mill proceeds to argue at some length that a favourite scheme of some
+moderate reformers, for the representation of classes, could only lead
+to 'a motley aristocracy,' and then answers two objections. The first
+is that his scheme would lead to the abolition of the monarchy and the
+House of Lords. The reply is simple and significant. It would only
+lead to that result if a monarchy or a House of Lords were favourable
+to bad government. He does not inquire whether they are so in fact.
+The second objection is that the people do not understand their own
+interest, and to this his answer is more remarkable. If the doctrine
+be true, he says, we are in 'deplorable' position: we have to choose
+between evils which will be designedly produced by those who have both
+the power to oppress and an interest in oppression; and the evils
+which will be accidentally produced by men who would act well if they
+recognised their own interests.[98] Now the first evil is in any case
+the worst, for it supposes an 'invariable' evil; while in the other
+case, men may at least act well by accident. A governing class, that
+is with interests separate from those of the government, _must_ be
+bad. If the interests be identical, the government _may_ be bad. It
+will be bad if ignorant, but ignorance is curable. Here he appeals for
+once to a historical case. The priesthood at the Reformation argued on
+behalf of their own power from the danger that the people would make a
+bad use of the Bible. The Bible should therefore be kept for the
+sacred caste. They had, Mill thinks, a stronger case in appearance
+than the Tories, and yet the effect of allowing the people to judge
+for themselves in religious matters has been productive of good
+effects 'to a degree which has totally altered the condition of human
+nature.'[99] Why should not the people be trusted to judge for
+themselves in politics? This implies a doctrine which had great
+influence with the Utilitarians. In the remarkable essay upon
+'Education,' which is contained in the volume of reprints, Mill
+discusses the doctrine of Helvetius that all the differences between
+men are due to education. Without pronouncing positively upon the
+differences between individuals, Mill observes that, at any rate, the
+enormous difference between classes of men is wholly due to
+education.[100] He takes education, it must be observed, in the widest
+possible sense, as meaning what would now be called the whole action
+of the 'environment' upon the individual. This includes, as he shows
+at length, domestic education, all the vast influence exercised upon a
+child in his family, 'technical education,' by which he means the
+ordinary school teaching, 'social education,' that is the influences
+which we imbibe from the current opinions of our neighbours, and
+finally, 'political education,' which he calls the 'keystone of the
+arch.' The means, he argues, by which the 'grand objects of desire may
+be attained, depend almost wholly upon the political machine.'[101] If
+that 'machine' be so constituted as to make the grand objects of
+desire the 'natural prizes of just and virtuous conduct, of high
+services to mankind and of the generous and amiable sentiments from
+which great endeavours in the service of mankind naturally proceed, it
+is natural to see diffused among mankind a generous ardour in the
+acquisition of those admirable qualities which prepare a man for
+admirable action, great intelligence, perfect self-command, and
+over-ruling benevolence.' The contrary will be the case where the
+political machine prompts to the flattery of a small ruling body.
+
+This characteristic passage betrays an enthusiasm which really burned
+under Mill's stern outside. He confines himself habitually to the
+forms of severe logic, and scorns anything like an appeal to
+sentiment. The trammels of his scientific manner impede his utterance
+a little, even when he is speaking with unwonted fervour. Yet the
+prosaic Utilitarian who has been laying down as a universal law that
+the strong will always plunder the weak, and that all rulers will
+reduce their subjects to abject slavery, is absolutely convinced, it
+seems, of the possibility of somehow transmuting selfishness into
+public spirit, justice, generosity, and devotion to truth. Equally
+characteristic is the faith in the 'political machine.' Mill speaks as
+if somebody had 'discovered' the representative system as Watt (more
+or less) discovered the steam-engine; that to 'discover' the system is
+the same thing as to set it to work; and that, once at work, it will
+be omnipotent. He is not less certain that a good constitution will
+make men virtuous, than was Bentham that he could grind rogues honest
+by the Panopticon. The indefinite modifiability of character was the
+ground upon which the Utilitarians based their hopes of progress; and
+it was connected in their minds with the doctrine of which his essay
+upon education is a continuous application. The theory of 'association
+of ideas' appeared to him to be of the utmost importance in education
+and in politics, because it implied almost unlimited possibilities of
+moulding human beings to fit them for a new order. In politics this
+implied, as J. S. Mill says,[102] 'unbounded confidence' in the
+influence of 'reason.' Teach the people and let them vote freely, and
+everything would follow.
+
+This gives Mill's answer to one obvious objection. The Conservative
+who answered him by dwelling upon the ignorance of the lower classes
+was in some respects preaching to a convert. Nobody was more
+convinced than Mill of the depths of popular ignorance or, indeed, of
+the stupidity of mankind in general. The labourers who cheered Orator
+Hunt at Peterloo were dull enough; but so were the peers who cheered
+Eldon in the House of Lords; and the labourers at least desired
+general prosperity, while the peers were content if their own rents
+were kept up. With general education, however, even the lower orders
+of the people would be fit for power, especially when we take into
+account one other remarkable conclusion. The 'wise and good,' he says,
+'in any class of men do, for all general purposes, govern the
+rest.'[103] Now, the class in which wisdom and virtue are commonest is
+not the aristocracy, but the middle rank. Another truth follows 'from
+the principles of human nature in general.' That is the rather
+surprising truth that the lower orders take their opinions from the
+middle class; apply to the middle class for help in sickness and old
+age; hold up the same class as a model to be imitated by their
+children, and 'account it an honour' to adopt its opinions.
+Consequently, however far the franchise were extended, it is this
+class which has produced the most distinguished ornaments of art,
+science, and even of legislation, which will ultimately decide upon
+political questions. 'The great majority of the people,' is his
+concluding sentence, 'never cease to be guided by that rank; and we
+may with some confidence challenge the adversaries of the people to
+produce a single instance to the contrary in the history of the
+world.'
+
+This article upon 'Government' gives the very essence of Utilitarian
+politics. I am afraid that it also suggests that the political theory
+was chiefly remarkable for a simple-minded audacity. Good political
+treatises are rare. They are apt to be pamphlets in disguise, using
+'general principles' for showy perorations, or to be a string of
+platitudes with no definite application to facts. They are fit only
+for the platform, or only for the professor's lecture-room. Mill's
+treatise, according to his most famous antagonist, was a mere bundle
+of pretentious sophistry.
+
+Macaulay came forth like a Whig David to slay the Utilitarian Goliath.
+The _Encyclopaedia_ articles, finished in 1824, were already in
+1825,[104] as Mill says, text-books of the young men at the Cambridge
+Union. Macaulay, who won his Trinity fellowship in 1824, had there
+argued the questions with his friend Charles Austin, one of Bentham's
+neophytes. In the next year Macaulay made his first appearance as an
+Edinburgh Reviewer; and in 1829 he took the field against Mill. In the
+January number he attacked the essay upon 'Government'; and in two
+articles in the succeeding numbers of the _Review_ replied to a
+defence made by some Utilitarian in the _Westminster_. Mill himself
+made no direct reply; and Macaulay showed his gratitude for Mill's
+generosity in regard to the Indian appointment by declining to
+republish the articles.[105] He confessed to have treated his opponent
+with a want of proper respect, though he retracted none of his
+criticisms. The offence had its excuses. Macaulay was a man under
+thirty, in the full flush of early success; nor was Mill's own
+treatment of antagonists conciliatory. The dogmatic arrogance of the
+Utilitarians was not unnaturally met by an equally arrogant
+countercheck. Macaulay ridicules the Utilitarians for their claim to
+be the defenders of the true political faith. He is afraid not of them
+but of the 'discredit of their alliance'; he wishes to draw a broad
+line between judicious reformers and a 'sect which having derived all
+its influence from the countenance which they imprudently bestowed
+upon it, hates them with the deadly hatred of ingratitude.' No party,
+he says, was ever so unpopular. It had already disgusted people with
+political economy; and would disgust them with parliamentary reform,
+if it could associate itself in public opinion with the cause[106].
+This was indeed to turn the tables. The half-hearted disciple was
+insulting the thoroughbred teacher who had borne the heat and burthen
+of the day, and from whom he had learned his own doctrine. Upon this
+and other impertinences--the assertion, for example, that Utilitarians
+were as incapable of understanding an argument as any 'true blue
+baronet after the third bottle at a Pitt Club'--it is needless to
+dwell. They illustrate, however, the strong resentment with which the
+Utilitarians were regarded by the classes from whom the Whigs drew
+their most cultivated supporters. Macaulay's line of argument will
+show what was the real conflict of theory.
+
+His view is, in fact, a long amplification of the charge that Mill was
+adopting a purely _a priori_ method. Mill's style is as dry as Euclid,
+and his arguments are presented with an affectation of logical
+precision. Mill has inherited the 'spirit and style of the Schoolmen.
+He is an Aristotelian of the fifteenth century.' He writes about
+government as though he was unaware that any actual governments had
+ever existed. He deduces his science from a single assumption of
+certain 'propensities of human nature.'[107] After dealing with Mill's
+arguments, Macaulay winds up with one of his characteristic purple
+patches about the method of induction. He invokes the authority of
+Bacon--a great name with which in those days writers conjured without
+a very precise consideration of its true significance. By Bacon's
+method we are to construct in time the 'noble science of politics,'
+which is equally removed from the barren theories of Utilitarian
+sophists and the petty craft of intriguing jobbers. The Utilitarians
+are schoolmen, while the Whigs are the true followers of Bacon and
+scientific induction. J. S. Mill admitted within certain limits the
+relevancy of this criticism, and was led by the reflections which it
+started to a theory of his own. Meanwhile, he observes that his father
+ought to have justified himself by declaring that the book was not a
+'scientific treatise on politics,' but an 'argument for parliamentary
+reform.'[108] It is not quite easy to see how James Mill could have
+made such a 'justification' and distinguished it from a recantation.
+
+If Mill really meant what Macaulay took him to mean, it would be
+superfluous to argue the question gravely. The reasoning is only fit,
+like the reasoning of all Macaulay's antagonists, for the proverbial
+schoolboy. Mill, according to Macaulay, proposes to discover what
+governments are good; and, finding that experience gives no clear
+answer, throws experience aside and appeals to absolute laws of human
+nature. One such 'law' asserts that the strong will plunder the weak.
+Therefore all governments except the representative must be
+oppressive, and rule by sheer terror. Mill's very reason for relying
+upon this argument is precisely that the facts contradict it. Some
+despotisms work well, and some democracies ill; therefore we must
+prove by logic that all despotisms are bad, and all democracies good.
+Is this really Mill's case?
+
+An answer given by Mill's champion, to which Macaulay replies in his
+last article, suggests some explanation of Mill's position. Macaulay
+had paid no attention to one highly important phrase. The terrible
+consequences which Mill deduces from the selfishness of rulers will
+follow, he says, 'if nothing checks.'[109] Supplying this
+qualification, as implied throughout, we may give a better meaning to
+Mill's argument. A simple observation of experience is insufficient.
+The phenomena are too complex; governments of the most varying kinds
+have shown the same faults; and governments of the same kind have
+shown them in the most various degrees. Therefore the method which
+Macaulay suggests is inapplicable. We should reason about government,
+says Macaulay,[110] as Bacon told us to reason about heat. Find all
+the circumstances in which hot bodies agree, and you will determine
+the principle of heat. Find all the circumstances in which good
+governments agree, and you will find the principles of good
+government. Certainly; but the process, as Macaulay admits, would be a
+long one. Rather, it would be endless. What 'circumstances' can be the
+same in all good governments in all times and places? Mill held in
+substance, that we could lay down certain broad principles about
+human nature, the existence of which is of course known from
+'experience', and by showing how they would work, if restrained by no
+distinct checks, obtain certain useful conclusions. Mill indicates
+this line of reply in his own attack upon Mackintosh.[111] There he
+explains that what he really meant was to set forth a principle
+recognised by Berkeley, Hume, Blackstone, and, especially, in Plato's
+_Republic_. Plato's treatise is a development of the principle that
+'identity of interests affords the only security for good government.'
+Without such identity of interest, said Plato, the guardians of the
+flock become wolves. Hume[112] had given a pithy expression of the
+same view in the maxim 'established,' as he says, 'by political
+writers,' that in framing the 'checks and controls of the
+constitution, every man ought to be supposed a knave and to have no
+other end in his actions than private interest.' Mill points this by
+referring to the 'organs of aristocratical opinion' for the last fifty
+years. The incessant appeal has been for 'confidence in public men,'
+and confidence is another name for scope for misrule.[113] This, he
+explains, was what he meant by the statement (which Mackintosh
+considered to have been exploded by Macaulay) that every man pursued
+his own interest.[114] It referred to the class legislation of the
+great aristocratic ring: kings, nobles, church, law, and army.
+Utilitarianism, in its political relations, was one continuous warfare
+against these sinister 'interests,' The master-evil of the
+contemporary political state undoubtedly implied a want of
+responsibility. A political trust was habitually confounded with
+private property. Moreover, whatever else may be essential to good
+government, one essential is a strong sense of responsibility in the
+governors. That is a very sound principle, though not an axiom from
+which all political science can be deduced. If the essay on
+'Government' was really meant as a kind of political Euclid--as a
+deduction of the best system of government from this single principle
+of responsibility--it was as grotesque as Macaulay asserted. Mill
+might perhaps have met the criticism by lowering his claims as his son
+suggests. He certainly managed to express his argument in such terms
+that it has an uncomfortable appearance of being intended for a
+scientific exposition.
+
+This deserves notice because the position is characteristic of the
+Utilitarians' method. Their appeals to experience always end by
+absolute assertions. We shall find the same difficulty in their
+economic inquiries. When accused, for example, of laying down absolute
+principles in such cases, they reply that they are only speaking of
+'tendencies,' and recognise the existence of 'checks.' They treat of
+what would be, if certain forces acted without limit, as a necessary
+step towards discovering what is when the limits exist. They appear to
+their opponents to forget the limits in their practical conclusions.
+This political argument is an instance of the same method. The genesis
+of his theory is plain. Mill's 'government,' like Bentham's, is simply
+the conception of legal 'sovereignty' transferred to the sphere of
+politics. Mill's exposition is only distinguished from his master's by
+the clearness with which he brings out the underlying assumptions. The
+legal sovereign is omnipotent, for what he declares to be the law is
+therefore the law. The law is his commands enforced by 'sanctions,'
+and therefore by organised force. The motives for obedience are the
+fear of the gallows on one side, and, on the other, the desire of
+protection for life and property. Law, again, is the ultimate social
+bond, and can be made at will by the sovereign. He thus becomes so
+omnipotent that it is virtually assumed that he can even create
+himself. Not only can the sovereign, once constituted, give commands
+enforced by coercive sanctions upon any kind of conduct, but he can
+determine his own constitution. He can at once, for example, create a
+representative system in practice, when it has been discovered in
+theory, and can by judicious regulations so distribute 'self-interest'
+as to produce philanthropy and public spirit. Macaulay's answer really
+makes a different assumption. He accepts the purely 'empirical' or
+'rule of thumb' position. It is idle, he says, to ask what would
+happen if there were no 'checks.' It is like leaving out the effect of
+friction in a problem of mechanics. The logic may be correct, but the
+conclusions are false in practice.[115] Now this 'friction' was
+precisely the favourite expedient of the Utilitarians in political
+economy. To reason about facts, they say, you must analyse, and
+therefore provisionally disregard the 'checks,' which must be
+afterwards introduced in practical applications. Macaulay is really
+bidding us take 'experience' in the lump, and refrains from the only
+treatment which can lead to a scientific result. His argument, in
+fact, agrees with that of his famous essay on Bacon, where we learn
+that philosophy applied to moral questions is all nonsense, and that
+science is simply crude common-sense. He is really saying that all
+political reasoning is impossible, and that we must trust to
+unreasoned observation. Macaulay, indeed, has good grounds of
+criticism. He shows very forcibly the absurdity of transferring the
+legal to the political sovereignty. Parliament might, as he says, make
+a law that every gentleman with L2000 a year might flog a pauper with
+a cat-of-nine-tails whenever he pleased. But, as the first exercise of
+such a power would be the 'last day of the English aristocracy,' their
+power is strictly limited in fact.[116] That gives very clearly the
+difference between legal and political sovereignty. What parliament
+makes law is law, but is not therefore enforceable. We have to go
+behind the commands and sanctions before we understand what is the
+actual power of government. It is very far from omnipotent. Macaulay,
+seeing this, proceeds to throw aside Mill's argument against the
+possibility of a permanent division of power. The _de facto_
+limitation of the sovereign's power justifies the old theory about
+'mixed forms of government.' 'Mixed governments' are not impossible,
+for they are real. All governments are, in fact, 'mixed.' Louis XIV.
+could not cut off the head of any one whom he happened to dislike. An
+oriental despot is strictly bound by the religious prejudices of his
+subjects. If 'sovereignty' means such power it is a chimera in
+practice, or only realised approximately when, as in the case of negro
+slavery, a class is actually ruled by force in the hands of a really
+external power. And yet the attack upon 'mixed governments,' which
+Bentham had expounded in the _Fragment_, has a real force which
+Macaulay seems to overlook. Mill's argument against a possible
+'balance' of power was, as Macaulay asserted, equally applicable to
+the case of independent sovereigns; yet France might be stronger at
+Calais and England at Dover.[117] Mill might have replied that a state
+is a state precisely because, and in so far as, there is an agreement
+to recognise a common authority or sovereign. Government does not
+imply a 'mixture,' but a fusion of power. There is a unity, though not
+the abstract unity of the Utilitarian sovereign. The weakness of the
+Utilitarians is to speak as though the sovereign, being external to
+each individual, could therefore be regarded as external to the whole
+society. He rules as a strong nation may rule a weak dependency. When
+the sovereign becomes also the society, the power is regarded as
+equally absolute, though now applied to the desirable end of
+maximising happiness. The whole argument ignores the simple
+consideration that the sovereign is himself in all cases the product
+of the society over which he rules, and his whole action, even in the
+most despotic governments, determined throughout by organic instincts,
+explaining and not ultimately explicable by coercion. Macaulay's
+doctrine partially recognises this by falling back upon the Whig
+theory of checks and balances, and the mixture of three mysterious
+entities, monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. But, as Bentham had
+sufficiently shown in the _Fragment_, the theory becomes hopelessly
+unreal when we try to translate it into facts. There are not three
+separate forces, conflicting like three independent forces, but a
+complex set of social institutions bound together into a whole. It is
+impossible really to regard government as a permanent balance of
+antagonistic forces, confronting each other like the three duellists
+in Sheridan's _Critic_. The practical result of that theory is to
+substitute for the 'greatest happiness' principle the vague criterion
+of the preservation of an equilibrium between indefinable forces; and
+to make the ultimate end of government the maintenance as long as
+possible of a balance resting on no ulterior principle, but
+undoubtedly pleasant for the comfortable classes. Nothing is left but
+the rough guesswork, which, if a fine name be wanted, may be called
+Baconian induction. The 'matchless constitution,' as Bentham calls it,
+represents a convenient compromise, and the tendency is to attach
+exaggerated importance to its ostensible terms. When Macaulay
+asserted against Mill[118] that it was impossible to say which
+element--monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy--had gained strength in
+England in the last century, he is obviously looking at the formulae
+and not at the social body behind.
+
+This leads to considerations really more important than the
+argumentation about _a priori_ and inductive methods. Mill in practice
+knew very well the qualifications necessary before his principles
+applied. He showed it in his Indian evidence; and Place could have
+told him, had it required telling, that the actual political machinery
+worked by very strange and tortuous methods. Yet he was content to
+override such considerations when he is expounding his theory, and
+laid himself open to Macaulay's broad common-sense retort. The nation
+at large cannot, he says, have a 'sinister interest.' It must desire
+legislation which is beneficial to the whole. This is to make the vast
+assumption that every individual will desire what is good for all, and
+will be a sufficient judge of what is good. But is it clear that a
+majority will even desire what is good for the whole? May they not
+wish to sacrifice both other classes and coming generations to their
+own instantaneous advantages? Is it plain that even enlightenment of
+mind would induce a poor man to see his own advantage in the policy
+which would in the long run be best for the whole society? You are
+bound, said Macaulay, to show that the poor man will not believe that
+he personally would benefit by direct plunder of the rich; and indeed
+that he would not be right in so believing. The nation, no doubt,
+would suffer, but in the immediate period which alone is contemplated
+by a selfish pauper, the mass of the poor might get more pleasure out
+of confiscation. Will they not, on your own principles, proceed to
+confiscation? Shall we not have such a catastrophe as the reign of
+terror?
+
+The Westminster Reviewer retorted by saying that Macaulay prophesied a
+reign of terror as a necessary consequence of an extended franchise.
+Macaulay, skilfully enough, protested against this interpretation. 'We
+say again and again,' he declares, 'that we are on the defensive. We
+do not think it necessary to prove that a quack medicine is poison.
+Let the vendor prove it to be sanative. We do not pretend to show that
+universal suffrage is an evil. Let its advocates show it to be a
+good.'[119] Mill rests his whole case upon the selfishness of mankind.
+Will not the selfishness lead the actual majority at a given moment to
+plunder the rich and to disregard the interests of their own
+successors?
+
+Macaulay's declaration that he was only 'upon the defensive' might be
+justifiable in an advocate. His real thought may be inferred from a
+speech on the charter made in 1842. The chartists' petition of that
+year had asked for universal suffrage. Universal suffrage, he replies,
+would be incompatible with the 'institution of property.'[120] If the
+chartists acted upon their avowed principles, they would enforce 'one
+vast spoliation.' Macaulay could not say, of course, what would
+actually result, but his 'guess' was that we should see 'something
+more horrible than can be imagined--something like the siege of
+Jerusalem on a far larger scale.' The very best event he could
+anticipate--'and what must the state of things be, if an Englishman
+and a Whig calls such an event the very best?'--would be a military
+despotism, giving a 'sort of protection to a miserable wreck of all
+that immense glory and prosperity.'[121] So in the criticism of Mill
+he had suggested that if his opponent's principles were correct, and
+his scheme adopted, 'literature, science, commerce, manufactures'
+would be swept away, and that a 'few half-naked fishermen would divide
+with the owls and foxes the ruins of the greatest of European
+cities.'[122]
+
+Carefully as Macaulay guards himself in his articles upon Mill, the
+speech shows sufficiently what was his 'guess'; that is, his real
+expectation. This gives the vital difference. What Macaulay professes
+to deduce from Mill's principles he really holds himself, and he holds
+it because he argues, as indeed everybody has to argue, pretty much on
+Mill's method. He does not really remain in the purely sceptical
+position which would correspond to his version of 'Baconian
+induction.' He argues, just as Mill would have argued, from general
+rules about human nature. Selfish and ignorant people will, he thinks,
+be naturally inclined to plunder; therefore, if they have power, they
+will plunder. So Mill had argued that a selfish class would rule for
+its own sinister interests and therefore not for the happiness of the
+greatest number. The argument is the same, and it is the only line of
+argument which is possible till, if that should ever happen, a genuine
+science of politics shall have been constituted. The only question is
+whether it shall take the pomp of _a priori_ speculation or conceal
+itself under a show of 'Baconian induction.'
+
+On one point they agree. Both Mill and Macaulay profess unbounded
+confidence in the virtue and wisdom of the middle, that is, of their
+own class. Macaulay hopes for a reform bill which will make the votes
+of the House of Commons 'the express image of the opinion of the
+middle orders of Britain.'[123] Mill holds that the middle class will
+retain this moral authority, however widely the franchise be extended;
+while Macaulay fears that they will be swamped by its extension to the
+masses. The reform bill which they joined in supporting was regarded
+by the Radicals as a payment on account; while the Whig hoped that it
+would be a full and final discharge. The Radical held that no barriers
+against democracy were needed; he took for granted that a democracy
+would find its natural leaders in the educated and intelligent. The
+Whig, to whom such confidence appeared to be altogether misplaced, had
+to find some justification for the 'checks' and 'balances' which he
+thought essential.
+
+
+II. WHIGGISM
+
+I have spoken of Macaulay's articles because they represent the most
+pointed conflict between the Utilitarian and the Whig. Macaulay
+belongs properly to the next generation, but he appeared as the
+mouthpiece of the earlier group of writers who in Mill's time
+delivered through the _Edinburgh Review_ the true oracles of the Whig
+faith. Upon that ground Mill had assailed them in his article. Their
+creed, he said, was a 'see-saw.' The Whigs were aristocrats as much as
+the Tories. They were simply the 'outs' who hoped to be the 'ins.'
+They trimmed their sails to catch public opinion, but were careful not
+to drift into the true popular currents. They had no desire to limit
+the power which they hoped one day to possess. They would attack
+abuses--the slave-trade or the penal laws--to gain credit for
+liberality and enlightenment, when the abuses were such as could be
+removed without injuring the power of the aristocracy. They could use
+'vague generalities' about liberty and so forth, but only to evade
+definite applications. When any measure was proposed which really
+threatened the power of the privileged classes, they could bring out a
+contradictory set of fine phrases about Jacobinism and democracy.
+Their whole argument was a shuffle and they themselves mere selfish
+trimmers.[124] To this Jeffrey replied (in December 1826) by accepting
+the position.[125] He pleaded guilty to a love of 'trimming,' which
+meant a love of the British Constitution. The constitution was a
+compromise--a balance of opposing forces--and the only question could
+be whether they were properly balanced. The answer was fair enough.
+Mill was imputing motives too easily, and assuming that the Reviewers
+saw the abuses in the same light as he did, and were truckling to
+public robbers in hopes of sharing the plunder. He was breaking a
+butterfly upon a wheel. The Edinburgh Reviewers were not missionaries
+of a creed. They were a set of brilliant young men, to whom the
+_Review_ was at first a mere pastime, occupying such leisure as was
+allowed by their professional pursuits. They were indeed men of
+liberal sympathies, intelligent and independent enough to hold by a
+party which was out of power. They had read Hume and Voltaire and
+Rousseau; they had sat at the feet of Dugald Stewart; and were in
+sympathy with intellectual liberalism. But they were men who meant to
+become judges, members of parliament, or even bishops. Nothing in
+their social atmosphere had stimulated the deep resentment against
+social injustice which makes the fanatic or the enthusiast. We may
+take as their interpreter the Whig philosopher James Mackintosh
+(1765-1832), a man of wide reading, both in history and philosophy, an
+eloquent orator, and a very able writer. Mackintosh, said
+Coleridge,[126] is the 'king of the men of talent'; by which was
+intimated that, as a man of talent, he was not, like some people, a
+man of genius. Mackintosh, that is, was a man to accept plausible
+formulae and to make them more plausible; not a man to pierce to the
+heart of things, or reveal fruitful germs of thought. His intellect
+was judicial; given to compromises, affecting a judicious _via media_,
+and endeavouring to reconcile antagonistic tendencies. Thoroughgoing
+or one-sided thinkers, and Mill in particular, regarded him with
+excessive antipathy as a typical representative of the opposite
+intellectual tendencies. Mackintosh's political attitude is
+instructive. At the outbreak of the French revolution he was a
+struggling young Scot, seeking his fortune in London, just turning
+from medicine to the bar, and supporting himself partly by journalism.
+He became secretary to the Society of the 'Friends of the People,' the
+Whig rival of the revolutionary clubs, and in April 1791 sprang into
+fame by his _Vindiciae Gallicae_. The Whigs had not yet lost the fervour
+with which they had welcomed the downfall of the Bastille. Burke's
+_Reflections_, the work of a great thinker in a state of irritation
+bordering upon frenzy, had sounded the note of alarm. The revolution,
+as Burke maintained, was in fact the avatar of a diabolic power. It
+meant an attack upon the very organic principles of society. It
+therefore implied a complete breach of historical continuity, and a
+war against the reverence for 'prescription' and tradition which is
+essential to all healthy development. To his extreme opponents the
+same theory afforded the justification of the revolution. It meant
+that every institution was to be thrown into the crucible, and a new
+world to arise governed only by reason. The view very ably defended by
+Mackintosh was opposed to both. He looks upon the French revolution as
+a more complete application of the principles of Locke and the English
+Whigs of 1688. The revolutionists are, as he urges,[127] applying the
+principles which had been worked out by the 'philosophers of Europe'
+during the preceding century. They were not, as Burke urged,
+rejecting experience for theory. The relation between their doctrine
+and politics is analogous to the relation between geometry and
+mechanics.[128] We are now in the position of a people who should be
+familiar with Newton, but in shipbuilding be still on a level with the
+Esquimaux. The 'rights of man' appear to him to mean, not, as Burke
+and Bentham once agreed, a set of 'anarchical fallacies,' but a set of
+fundamental moral principles; and the declaration of them a most wise
+and 'auspicious' commencement of the 'regenerating labours' of the new
+legislators. The French revolution represented what Somers would now
+approve if he had our advantages.[129] A thoroughgoing change had
+become necessary in France. The church, army, and law were now
+'incorrigible.'[130] Burke had seen, in the confiscation of church
+property, an attempt to abolish Christianity. To Mackintosh it seemed
+to be a reform justifiable in principle, which, though too roughly
+carried out, would reduce 'a servile and imperious priesthood to
+humble utility.'[131] A poor priesthood, indeed, might incline to
+popular superstition. We could console ourselves by reflecting that
+the power of the church, as a corporation, was broken, and that
+toleration and philosophy would restrain fanaticism.[132] The
+assignats were still 'almost at par.'[133] The sale of the national
+property would nearly extinguish the debt. France had 'renounced for
+ever the idea of conquest,'[134] and had no temptations to war,
+except her colonies. Their commercial inutility and political
+mischievousness had been so 'unanimously demonstrated,' that the
+French empire must soon be delivered from 'this cumbrous and
+destructive appendage.' An armed people, moreover, could never be used
+like a mercenary army to suppress liberty. There was no danger of
+military despotism, and France would hereafter seek for a pure glory
+by cultivating the arts of peace and extending the happiness of
+mankind.[135]
+
+No wonder that Mackintosh, with these views, thought that the history
+of the fall of the Bastille would 'kindle in unborn millions the holy
+enthusiasm of freedom';[136] or that, in the early disorders, he saw
+temporary aberrations of mobs, destined to be speedily suppressed by
+the true leaders of the revolution. Mackintosh saw, I take it, about
+as far as most philosophers, that is, about as far as people who are
+not philosophers. He observes much that Burke ought to have
+remembered, and keeps fairly to the philosophical principle which he
+announces of attributing the revolution to general causes, and not to
+the schemes of individuals.[137] When assignats became waste paper,
+when the guillotine got to work, when the religion of reason was being
+set up against Christianity, when the French were conquering Europe,
+when a military despotism was arising, when, in short, it became quite
+clear that the French revolution meant something very different from a
+philosophical application of the principles of Locke and Adam Smith,
+Mackintosh began to see that Burke had not so far missed the mark.
+Burke, before dying, received his penitent opponent at Beaconsfield;
+and in 1800 Mackintosh took the opportunity of publicly declaring that
+he 'abhorred, abjured, and for ever renounced the French revolution,
+with its sanguinary history, its abominable principles, and its ever
+execrable leaders.' He hoped to 'wipe off the disgrace of having been
+once betrayed into that abominable conspiracy against God and
+man.'[138] In his famous defence of Peltier (1803), he denounced the
+revolution in a passage which might have been adopted from Burke's
+_Letters on a Regicide Peace_.[139]
+
+In a remarkable letter to Windham[140] of 1806, Mackintosh gives his
+estimate of Burke, and takes some credit to himself for having
+discovered, even in the time of his youthful errors, the consistency
+of Burke's principles, as founded upon an abhorrence of 'abstract
+politics.'[141] Politics, he now thought, must be made scientific by
+recognising with Burke the supreme importance of prescription and
+historic continuity, and by admitting that the philosophers had not
+yet constructed a science bearing to practical politics the same
+relation as geometry to mechanics. He applied his theory to the
+question of parliamentary reform in the _Edinburgh Review_.[142] Here
+he accepts the doctrine, criticised by James Mill, that a proper
+representative system must be judged, not, as Mill maintained, solely
+by the identity of its interest with that of the community at large,
+but by its fitness to give power to different classes. It follows that
+the landowners, the professional classes, and the populace should all
+be represented. And he discovers that the variety of the English
+system was calculated to secure this end. Though it was only in a few
+constituencies that the poorest class had a voice, their vote in such
+places represented the same class elsewhere. It was as well that there
+should be some extreme Radicals to speak for the poorest. But he
+thinks that any uniform suffrage would be bad, and that universal
+suffrage would be the most mischievous of all systems.[143] That would
+mean the swamping of one class by all--a tyranny more oppressive,
+perhaps, than any other tyranny. If one class alone were to be
+represented, it should be the favourite middle class, which has the
+'largest share of sense and virtue,' and is most connected in interest
+with other classes.[144] A legitimate aim of the legislator is,
+therefore, to prevent an excess of democracy. With Mackintosh it seems
+essential not simply to suppress 'sinister interests,' but to save
+both the aristocracy and the middle class from being crushed by the
+lower classes. The opposition is vital; and it is plain that the
+argument for the aristocracy, that is, for a system developed from all
+manner of historical accidents and not evolved out of any simple
+logical principles, must be defended upon empirical grounds.
+
+Mackintosh was in India during the early period of the _Edinburgh
+Review_. Jeffrey, as editor for its first quarter of a century, may be
+taken more fully to represent its spirit. Jeffrey's trenchant, if not
+swaggering style, covered a very timid, sensitive, and, in some
+respects, a very conservative temperament. His objection to the 'Lake
+Poets' was the objection of the classical to the romantic school.
+Jeffrey's brightness of intellect may justify Carlyle's comparison of
+him to Voltaire,--only a Voltaire qualified by dislike to men who were
+'dreadfully in earnest.' Jeffrey was a philosophical sceptic; he
+interpreted Dugald Stewart as meaning that metaphysics, being all
+nonsense, we must make shift with common-sense; and he wrote a
+dissertation upon taste, to prove that there are no rules about taste
+whatever. He was too genuine a sceptic to sacrifice peace to the
+hopeless search for truth. One of the most striking passages in his
+_Essays_[145] is an attack upon 'perfectibility.' He utterly
+disbelieves that progress in knowledge will improve morals or diminish
+war, or cure any of the evils that flesh is heir to. Such a man is not
+of the material of which enthusiastic reformers are made. Throughout
+the war he was more governed by his fear than by his zeal. He was in
+constant dread of failure abroad and ruin at home. The _Review_
+provoked the Tories, and induced them to start its rival, not by
+advocacy of political principles, but by its despairing view of the
+war.[146] He was still desiring at that time (1808) to avoid 'party
+politics' in the narrower sense.
+
+The political view corresponding to this is given in the articles,
+some of which (though the authorship was not yet avowed) were assailed
+by Mill in the _Westminster_. In an early article[147] he defends the
+French philosophers against the imputation of responsibility for the
+reign of terror. Their excellent and humane doctrines had been
+misapplied by the 'exasperation' and precipitation of inexperienced
+voters. His most characteristic article is one published in January
+1810. The failure of the Walcheren expedition had confirmed his
+disbelief in our military leaders; the rise of English Radicalism, led
+by Burdett in the House of Commons, and Cobbett in the press, the
+widely spread distress and the severity of oppressive measures, roused
+his keenest alarm.[148] We are, he declared, between two violent and
+pernicious factions--the courtiers of arbitrary power and the
+democrats. If the Whig leaders did not first conciliate and then
+restrain the people, the struggle of the extreme parties would soon
+sweep away the constitution, the monarchy, and the Whig aristocracy by
+which that monarchy 'is controlled, confirmed, and exalted above all
+other forms of polity.' Democracy, it was plain, was increasing with
+dangerous rapidity. A third of every man's income was being taken by
+taxes, and after twenty years' boastful hostility we were left without
+a single ally. Considering all this, it seems as though 'the wholesome
+days of England were numbered,' and we are on the 'verge of the most
+dreadful of all calamities'--a civil war.
+
+Jeffrey has learned from Hume that all government is ultimately
+founded upon opinion. The great thing is to make the action of public
+opinion regular and constituted. The whole machinery of the
+constitution, he says, is for the express purpose of 'preventing the
+kingly power from dashing itself to pieces against the more radical
+power of the people.'[149] The merit of a representative body is not
+to be tested simply by the goodness of its legislation, but by its
+diminishing the intensity of the struggle for the supreme power.
+Jeffrey in fact is above all preoccupied with the danger of
+revolution. The popular will is, in fact, supreme; repression may
+force it into explosion; but by judicious management it may be tamed
+and tempered. Then we need above all things that it should, as he says
+in his reply to Mill (December 1826), give their 'natural and
+wholesome influence to wealth and rank.' The stability of the English
+Constitution depends, as he said in 1810, upon the monarchy and
+aristocracy, and their stability on their being the natural growth of
+ages and having 'struck their roots deep into every stratum of the
+political soil.'
+
+The Whigs represent the view implied in Macaulay's attack upon
+Mill--the view of cultivated men of sense, with their eyes open to
+many difficulties overlooked by zealots, but far too sceptical and
+despondent to rouse any enthusiasm or accept any dogmas absolutely. By
+the time of the Reform Bill the danger was obviously on the side of
+dogged obstructionism, and then the 'middle party,' as Jeffrey calls
+it, inclined towards the Radical side and begged them to join its
+ranks and abandon the attempt to realise extreme views. They could
+also take credit as moderate men do for having all along been in the
+right. But to both extremes, as Jeffrey pathetically complains, they
+appeared to be mere trimmers.[150]
+
+The Utilitarian held the Whig to be a 'trimmer'; the Whig thought the
+Utilitarian a fanatic; they agreed in holding that the Tory was simply
+stupid. And yet, when we look at the Tory creed, we shall find that
+both Whig and Utilitarian overlooked some very vital problems. The
+Tories of course represent the advocates of strong government; and, as
+their opponents held, had no theories--only prejudices. The first
+article of the creed of an Eldon or a Sidmouth was, 'I believe in
+George III.';--not a doctrine capable of philosophical justification.
+Such Toryism meant the content of the rich and powerful with the
+system by which their power and wealth were guaranteed. Their
+instincts had been sharpened by the French revolution; and they saw in
+any change the removal of one of the safeguards against a fresh
+outburst of the nether fires. The great bulk of all political opinion
+is an instinct, not a philosophy; and the obstructive Tories
+represented little more than class prejudice and the dread of a great
+convulsion. Yet intelligent Tories were being driven to find some
+reasons for their creed, which the Utilitarians might have considered
+more carefully.
+
+
+III. CONSERVATISM
+
+A famous man of letters represents certain tendencies more clearly
+than the average politician. Robert Southey (1777-1843), the 'ultra
+servile sack-guzzler,' as Bentham pleasantly calls him in 1823,[151]
+was probably the best abused man, on his own side at least, among
+Mill's contemporaries. He was attacked by Mill himself, and savagely
+denounced by Byron and Hazlitt. He was not only a conspicuous writer
+in the _Quarterly Review_ but, as his enemies thought, a renegade
+bought by pensions. It is, I hope, needless to defend him against this
+charge. He was simply an impatient man of generous instincts and no
+reflective power, who had in his youth caught the revolutionary fever,
+and, as he grew up, developed the patriotic fever.
+
+Later views are given in the _Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects
+of Society_ (1829), chiefly known to modern readers by one of
+Macaulay's essays. Southey was as assailable as Mill. His political
+economy is a mere muddle; his political views are obviously distorted
+by accidental prejudices; and the whole book is desultory and
+disjointed. In a dialogue with the ghost of Sir Thomas More, he takes
+the opportunity of introducing descriptions of scenery, literary
+digressions, and quaint illustrations from his vast stores of reading
+to the confusion of all definite arrangement. Southey is in the
+awkward position of a dogmatist defending a compromise. An Anglican
+claiming infallibility is necessarily inconsistent. His view of
+toleration, for example, is oddly obscure. He would apparently like to
+persecute infidels;[152] and yet he wishes to denounce the Catholic
+church for its persecuting principles. He seems to date the main
+social evils to the changes which began at the Reformation, and yet he
+looks back to the period which succeeded the Reformation as
+representing the ideal state of the British polity. His sympathy with
+the literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries predisposed
+him to this position. He would have been more intelligible if he had
+been more distinctly reactionary. For all that, his views show the
+presence of a leaven which was materially to affect the later
+development of English opinions. That Jacobinism meant anarchy, and
+that anarchy led irresistibly to military despotism were propositions
+which to him, as to so many others, seemed to be established by the
+French revolution. What, then, was the cause of the anarchy? Sir
+Thomas More comes from the grave to tell us this, because he had
+witnessed the past symptoms of the process. The transition from the
+old feudal system to the modern industrial organisation had in his day
+become unmistakably developed. In feudal times, every man had his
+definite place in society; he was a member of a little group;
+supported, if controlled and disciplined, by an elaborate system of
+spiritual authority. The Reformation was the period at which the
+'masterless man' made his appearance. The conversion of pastures into
+arable land, the growth of commerce and of pauperism, were marks of
+the coming change. It proceeded quietly for some generations; but the
+development of the modern manufacturing system represents the
+operation of the same process on a far larger scale, and with far
+greater intensity. The result may be described by saying that we have
+instead of a legitimate development a degeneration of society. A vast
+populace has grown up outside of the old order. It is independent
+indeed, but at the heavy price of being rather an inorganic mass than
+a constituent part of the body politic. It is, briefly, to the growth
+of a huge 'proletariate' outside the church, and hostile to the state,
+that Southey attributes all social evils.
+
+The view has become familiar enough in various shapes; and in the
+reproaches which Southey brings against the manufacturing system we
+have an anticipation of other familiar lamentations. Our manufacturing
+wealth is a 'wen,' a 'fungous excrescence from the body politic';[153]
+it is no more a proof of real prosperity than the size of a dropsical
+patient is a proof of health;[154] the manufacturer worships mammon
+instead of Moloch;[155] and wrings his fortune from the degradation of
+his labourers as his warlike ancestors wrung wealth from their slaves;
+he confines children in a tainted atmosphere, physical and moral, from
+morning till night, and a celebrated minister (Pitt) boasts of this
+very evil;[156] he treats his fellow-creatures as machines,[157] and
+wealth, though accumulated, is not diffused; the great capitalists,
+'like pikes in a fishpond,' devour the weaker fish;[158] competition
+is not directed to providing the best goods, but the cheapest;[159]
+every man oppresses his neighbour; the landlord racks his tenant, the
+farmer grinds the labourer; all the little centres of permanent life
+are broken up; not one man in a thousand is buried with his fathers,
+and the natural ties and domestic affections are prematurely
+dissolved.[160]
+
+Here, too, is to be found the source of the infidel opinions which
+call for suppression. London is a hotbed of corruption;[161] a centre
+of wealth; and yet, in spite of poor-laws, a place where wretches are
+dying of starvation, and which could collect a mob capable of
+producing the most appalling catastrophes. In such a place, men become
+unbelievers like savages, because removed from all humanising
+influences, and booksellers can carry on a trade in blasphemy.
+Infidelity is bred in 'the filth and corruption of large towns and
+manufacturing districts.'[162] The disappearance of clerical influence
+has led to 'a mass of ignorance, vice, and wretchedness which no
+generous heart can contemplate without grief.'[163] It is not
+surprising that, in Southey's opinion, it is doubtful whether the bulk
+of the people has gained or lost in the last thousand years.[164]
+Macaulay takes all this as mere sentimentalism and preference of a
+picturesque outside to solid comfort. But whatever Southey's errors of
+fact, they show at least a deeper insight than his opponent into some
+social evils. His proposed remedies explain his diagnosis of the evil.
+In the first place, it is not surprising, though it surprised
+Macaulay, that he had many sympathies with the socialist, Robert Owen.
+He saw Owen in 1816,[165] and was much impressed by his views. In the
+_Colloquies_,[166] Owen is called the 'happiest, most beneficent, and
+most practical of all enthusiasts'; an account is given of one of the
+earliest co-operative schemes,[167] and Southey believes in the
+possibility of the plan. He makes, however, one significant remark.
+Owen, he thinks, could not succeed without enlisting in his support
+some sectarian zeal. As Owen happened to object to all religious
+sects, this defect could not be remedied.
+
+Southey, in fact, held that the absence of religious discipline was at
+the root of the whole evil. Religion, he declares, much to the scorn
+of Macaulay, 'is the basis upon which civil government rests.'[168]
+There must, as he infers, be an established religion, and the state
+which neglects this duty is preparing its own ruin. 'Nothing,' he
+declares, 'in abstract science can be more certain than these
+propositions,' though they are denied by 'our professors of the arts
+babblative and scribblative'--that is, by Benthamites and Whigs. For
+here, in fact, we come to the irreconcilable difference. Government is
+not to be a mere machinery for suppressing violence, but an ally of
+the church in spreading sound religion and morality. The rulers,
+instead of merely reflecting the popular will, should lead and direct
+all agencies for suppressing vice and misery. Southey, as his son
+takes pains to show,[169] though he was for upholding authority by the
+most stringent measures, was convinced that the one way to make
+government strong was to improve the condition of the people. He
+proposed many measures of reform; national education on the
+principles, of course, of Dr. Bell; state-aided colonisation and the
+cultivation of waste lands at home; Protestant sisterhoods to
+reproduce the good effects of the old order which he regretted and yet
+had to condemn on Anglican principles. The English church should have
+made use of the Wesleyans as the church of Rome had used the
+Franciscans and Dominicans; and his _Life of Wesley_ was prompted by
+his fond belief that this might yet be done. Government, he said,
+ought to be 'paternal';[170] and his leading aspirations have been
+adopted by Socialists on the one hand, and the converts to Catholicism
+on the other.
+
+For his philosophy, Southey was in the habit of referring to
+Coleridge; and Coleridge's _Constitution of Church and State_ is
+perhaps the book in which Coleridge comes nearest to bringing an
+argument to a conclusion. Though marked by his usual complexities of
+style, his parentheses and irrelevant allusions and glances at wide
+metaphysical discussions, he succeeds in laying down a sufficient
+sketch of his position. The book was originally published in 1830, and
+refers to the Catholic emancipation of the previous year. Unlike
+Southey, he approves of the measure, only regretting the absence of
+certain safeguards; and his general purpose may be said to be to give
+such a theory of the relations of church and state as may justify an
+establishment upon loftier grounds than those of the commonplace Tory.
+
+His method, as he explains, is to find the true 'idea' of a
+constitution and a national church. The 'idea,' he explains, does not
+mean the conscious aim of the persons who founded or now constitute
+the bodies in question. An 'idea' is the subjective counterpart of an
+objective law.[171] It corresponds to the vital force which moulds
+the structure of the social organism, although it may never have been
+distinctly formulated by any one of the actors. In this sense,
+therefore, we should have to proceed by a historical method. We should
+study the constitution as we study the physiology of a physical
+body;[172] and he works out the analogy at some length. So far,
+Coleridge is expressing the characteristic view that Nature in general
+is to be regarded as an evolution; only that evolution is to be
+understood in the sense of Schelling not in the sense of either
+Darwin. Of course, when Coleridge professes to find the 'idea' of the
+church and state, what he really finds is not the idea so much as his
+idea of the idea--which may be a very different thing. His theory of
+'evolution' is compatible with assuming that evolutions are
+illegitimate whenever he happens to dislike them.
+
+He coincides rather curiously with James Mill in asserting that the
+'social bond' was originally formed to protect property, not to
+protect life.[173] He discovers accordingly that the ancient races,
+Jews, Goths, and Kelts alike, divided the land into two parts, one to
+be inherited by separate families, the other to be set apart for the
+nation. From the latter or the 'nationalty' springs the church
+establishment. This property belongs rightfully and inalienably to the
+nation itself. It is held by what he calls the 'clerisy.' Its
+functions are, in the first place, to provide a career by which the
+poorest classes may rise to a higher position; and secondly, to
+provide for the development of all the qualities which distinguish
+the civilised man from the savage.[174] Briefly, then, the church is
+that part of the national organism which is devoted to educating the
+people to be 'obedient, free, useful organisable subjects, citizens,
+and patriots, living to the benefit of the estate, and prepared to die
+for its defence.' Henry viii. would have surpassed Alfred if he had
+directed the 'nationalty' to its true purposes; that is, especially to
+the maintenance of universities, of a parochial clergy, and of schools
+in every parish. Unluckily, Henry VIII.'s 'idea' of a national church
+was vague. Ideas were not his strong point. Coleridge appears to be
+especially troubled to work the principles into conformity with his
+views of Catholic emancipation. The peculiarity of the theory is that
+the church, according to him, seems to be simply a national
+institution. It might exist, and in fact, did exist before
+Christianity, as is proved not only by the Jewish but by the Druidical
+church.[175] That it should be Christian in England is a 'blessed
+accident,' or 'providential boon'--or, as he puts it, 'most awfully a
+godsend.' Hence it follows that a primary condition of its utility is
+that the clerisy should contribute to the support of the other organs
+of the community. They must not be the subjects of a foreign power,
+nor, as he argues at length, subject to the desocialising influence of
+celibacy. It follows that the Roman church is unfitted to be ever a
+national church, although, if that danger be sufficiently obviated, no
+political disqualifications should be imposed upon Romanists. And
+thus, too, the Church Catholic is essentially a body which has no
+relations to any particular state. It is opposed to the world, not to
+the nation, and can have no visible head or 'personal centre of
+unity.'[176] The church which makes such claims is the revelation of
+Antichrist.
+
+We need not inquire into the prophecies. It is enough to say that to
+Coleridge as to Southey the preservation of an established church
+seemed to be an essential condition of morality and civilisation. They
+differed from the ordinary Tory, who was content to defend any of the
+abuses by the cry of sacrilege and confiscation. The church was to be
+made worthy of its position, and rendered capable of discharging its
+high functions effectually. Coleridge, it may be said, would fully
+admit that an organ which had ceased to correspond to its idea must
+die. It could not continue to preserve itself by mere force of
+obstruction, but must arouse, throw off its abuses, and show itself to
+be worthy of its high claims. Meanwhile, however, he was perhaps more
+anxious to show the Utilitarians that in assailing the institution on
+account of its abuses, they were really destroying the most essential
+guarantee of progress. He sums up, in a curious passage, the proofs of
+modern degradation.[177] The wicked eighteenth century is of course
+responsible for everything. The 'mechanic corpuscular theory'; the
+consequent decay of philosophy, illustrated by such phrases as an
+excellent 'idea' of cooking; 'the ourang-outang theology of the origin
+of the human species substituted for the first ten chapters of the
+book of Genesis; rights of nature for the duties and privileges of
+citizens; idealess facts, misnamed proofs from history, for principles
+and the insight derived from them': all these and other calamitous
+results of modern philosophy are connected with a neglect of the
+well-being of the people, the mistaking of a large revenue for
+prosperity, and the consumption of gin by paupers to the 'value of
+eighteen millions yearly.' He appeals pathetically to the leaders of
+the Utilitarians. They will scorn him for pronouncing that a 'natural
+clerisy' is 'an essential element of a rightly constituted nation.'
+All their tract societies and mechanics' institutes and 'lecture
+bazaars under the absurd name of universities' are 'empiric specifics'
+which feed the disease. Science will be plebified, not popularised.
+The morality necessary for a state 'can only exist for the people in
+the form of religion. But the existence of a true philosophy, or the
+power and habit of contemplating particulars in the unity and fontal
+mirror of the idea,--this in the rulers and teachers of a nation is
+indispensable to a sound state of religion in all classes. In fact,
+religion, true or false, is and ever has been the centre of gravity in
+a realm to which all other things must and will accommodate
+themselves.'
+
+The existence of the eighteenth century always remained a hopeless
+puzzle for Coleridge and his followers. Why at that period everything
+went wrong in the higher regions of thought remained a mystery. 'God
+is above,' says Sir Thomas More to Southey,[178] 'but the devil is
+below; evil principles are in their nature more active than good.' The
+devil seemed to have got into the upper air, and was working with his
+allies, Bentham and Mill and Paine and Cobbett, with remarkable
+success. But, whatever the theories of conservatives in church and
+state, the fact that the theories were held is important. The
+diametrical opposition between two schools, one of which regarded the
+church as a simple abuse, and its doctrines as effete superstitions,
+while the other looked to the church and its creed as giving the sole
+hope for suppressing the evil principle, was a critical point in later
+movements, political as well as religious.
+
+
+IV. SOCIALISM
+
+I have spoken of Southey's sympathy for Robert Owen. Owen (1771-1858)
+is one of the characteristic figures of the time. He was the son of a
+village tradesman in Wales, and had risen to prosperity by the
+qualities of the virtuous apprentice. Industry, patience, an
+imperturbably good temper, and sagacity in business matters had raised
+him to high position as a manufacturer at the time of the rapid
+advance of the cotton trade. Many poor men have followed the same path
+to wealth. Owen's peculiarity was that while he became a capitalist he
+preserved his sympathy with the working classes. While improving
+machinery, he complained that the 'living machinery' was neglected.
+One great step in his career was his marriage to the daughter of David
+Dale of New Lanark, a religious and worthy manufacturer.[179] Dale had
+employed a number of pauper children who were in that day to be
+disposed of by their parishes; and had done his best to make their
+position more tolerable. Owen took up this scheme, and carried it out
+more systematically. New Lanark, in his hands, became a model village;
+he provided in various ways for the encouragement of sobriety,
+industry, and honesty among his workmen, set up stores to supply cheap
+and good provisions, and especially provided infant schools and a
+systematic education. 'The children,' he declares, 'were the happiest
+human beings he ever saw.' When his partners interfered with his
+plans, Owen bought them out and started the company to which Bentham
+and Allen belonged. New Lanark rapidly became famous. It was visited
+by all the philanthropists of the day. The royal dukes not only of
+England but of Russia were interested; and Owen even believed that he
+had converted Napoleon at Elba. So far, Owen was a benevolent
+capitalist, exercising a paternal sway over his people. He became
+convinced, however, that he had discovered the key to the great social
+problems of the day. When the distresses followed the peace, he was
+prepared to propound his remedy, and found many willing hearers in all
+classes. Liverpool and Sidmouth listened to him with favour, and the
+duke of Kent became president of a committee started to carry out his
+views. He gave the impetus to the movement by which the Factory Act of
+1819 was carried, although it was far from embodying his proposals in
+their completeness.
+
+Owen's diagnosis of the social disease explains Southey's partiality.
+Like Southey, he traced the evil to the development of the
+manufacturing system. That system involved, as he held, what later
+Socialists have called the 'exploitation' of the labouring classes by
+the capitalists. With singularly crude notions of political economy,
+Owen assumed that the 'dead machinery' was in competition with the
+'living machinery.' He made startling calculations as to the amount
+of human labour represented by steam-engines; and took for granted
+that the steam-engine displaced an equal number of workmen. His remedy
+for poverty was to set up a number of communities, which should
+maintain themselves by cultivating the soil with the spade, and in
+which every man should labour for all. Thus New Lanarks were to be
+spread over the country, with the difference that the employer was to
+be omitted. Owen, in short, became properly a Socialist, having been
+simply a paternal philanthropist. For a time Owen met with
+considerable support. A great meeting was held in London in 1817, and
+a committee was started two years afterwards, of which Ricardo was a
+member. Ricardo, indeed, took pains to let it be known that he did not
+believe in the efficacy of Owen's plans. Meanwhile Owen was breaking
+off his connection with New Lanark, and becoming the apostle of a new
+social creed. His missionary voyages took him to Ireland, to the
+United States and Mexico, and attempts were made to establish
+communities in Scotland and in the State of Illinois.
+
+Owen and his followers became natural antagonists of the Utilitarians.
+He agreed with Southey in tracing distress to the development of the
+great manufacturing system, though he went much further. The
+principles essentially involved in the whole industrial system were,
+according to him, pernicious. He held the essential doctrine of his
+modern successors that property is theft. Between such a man and the
+men who took the _Wealth of Nations_ for their gospel, and Ricardo as
+its authorised commentator, there was an impassable gulf. On the other
+hand, Owen was equally far from the Tory view of religious
+principles. Southey's remark that he could only succeed by allying
+himself with some religious fanaticism was just to the point.
+
+Owen was a man of very few ideas, though he held such as he had with
+extraordinary tenacity, and enforced them by the effective if
+illogical method of incessant repetition. Among them was the idea
+which, as he declares, had occurred to him before he was ten years old
+that there was something radically wrong in all religions. Whether
+this opinion had come to him from the diffused rationalism of his
+time, or was congenial to the practical and prosaic temperament which
+was disquieted by the waste of energy over futile sectarian squabbles,
+or was suggested by his early study of Seneca--the only author of whom
+he speaks as having impressed him in early years--it became a fixed
+conviction. He had been an early supporter of Lancaster and
+'unsectarian' education. When his great meeting was to be held in 1817
+it occurred to him that he might as well announce his views. He
+accordingly informed his hearers that the religions of the world were
+the great obstacles to progress. He expected, as he assures us, that
+this candid avowal would cause him to be 'torn in pieces.' It provoked
+on the contrary general applause, and Owen congratulated himself
+rather hastily on having struck the deathblow of superstition.
+
+Owen's position, at any rate, was a significant symptom. It showed
+that the Socialist movement sprang from motives outside the sphere of
+the churches. Owen's personal simplicity and calmness seems to have
+saved him from any bitter animosity. He simply set aside Christianity
+as not to the purpose, and went on calmly asserting and re-asserting
+his views to Catholics and Protestants, Whigs, Radicals, and Tories.
+They agreed in considering him to be a bore, but were bored rather
+than irritated. Owen himself, like later Socialists, professed
+indifference to the political warfare of Whigs and Tories. When, at
+the height of the Reform movement, he published a paper called the
+_Crisis_, the title referred not to the struggle in which all the
+upper classes were absorbed, but to the industrial revolution which he
+hoped to bring about. He would have been equally ready to accept help
+from Whig, Tory, or Radical; but his position was one equally
+distasteful to all. The Tory could not ally himself with the man who
+thought all religions nonsense; nor any of the regular parties with
+the man who condemned the whole industrial system and was opposed to
+all the cherished prejudices of the respectable middle classes.
+
+Owen's favourite dogma is worth a moment's notice. He was never tired
+of repeating that 'character is formed by circumstances'; from which
+he placidly infers that no man deserves praise or blame for his
+conduct. The inference, it must be admitted, is an awkward one in any
+ethical system. It represents, probably, Owen's most serious objection
+to the religions of the world. The ultimate aim of the priest is to
+save men's souls; and sin means conduct which leads to supernatural
+punishment. Owen, on the contrary, held that immorality was simply a
+disease to be cured, and that wrath with the sinner was as much out of
+place as wrath with a patient. In this sense Owen's view, as I at
+least should hold, defines the correct starting-point of any social
+reformer. He has to consider a scientific problem, not to be an agent
+of a supernatural legislator. He should try to alter the general
+conditions from which social evils spring, not to deal in pardons or
+punishment. Owen was acting with thoroughly good sense in his early
+applications of this principle. The care, for example, which he
+bestowed upon infant education recognised the fact that social reform
+implied a thorough training of the individual from his earliest years.
+Owen's greatest error corresponds to the transformation which this
+belief underwent in his mind. Since circumstances form character, he
+seems to have argued, it is only necessary to change the circumstances
+of a grown-up man to alter his whole disposition. His ambitious scheme
+in America seemed to suppose that it was enough to bring together a
+miscellaneous collection of the poor and discontented people, and to
+invite them all to behave with perfect unselfishness. At present I
+need only remark that in this respect there was a close coincidence
+between Owen and the Utilitarians. Both of them really aimed at an
+improvement of social conditions on a scientific method; and both
+justified their hopes by the characteristic belief in the indefinite
+modifiability of human nature by external circumstances.
+
+I turn to a man who was in some ways the most complete antithesis to
+Owen. William Cobbett (1762-1835), unlike Owen, took a passionate and
+conspicuous part in the political struggles of the day. Cobbett,
+declares the _Edinburgh Review_ in July 1807, has more influence than
+all the other journalists put together. He had won it, as the reviewer
+thought, by his force of character, although he had changed his
+politics completely 'within the last six months.' The fact was more
+significant than was then apparent. Cobbett, son of a labourer who
+had risen to be a small farmer, had in spite of all obstacles learned
+to read and write and become a great master of the vernacular. His
+earliest model had been Swift's _Tale of a Tub_, and in downright
+vigour of homely language he could scarcely be surpassed even by the
+author of the _Drapier's Letters_. He had enlisted as a soldier, and
+had afterwards drifted to America. There he had become conspicuous as
+a typical John Bull. Sturdy and pugnacious in the highest degree, he
+had taken the English side in American politics when the great
+question was whether the new power should be bullied by France or by
+England. He had denounced his precursor, Paine, in language savouring
+too much, perhaps, of barrack-rooms, but certainly not wanting in
+vigour. He defied threats of tar and feathers; put a portrait of
+George III. in his shop-window; and gloried in British victories, and,
+in his own opinion, kept American policy straight. He had, however,
+ended by making America too hot to hold him; and came back to declare
+that republicanism meant the vilest and most corrupt of tyrannies, and
+that, as an Englishman, he despised all other nations upon earth. He
+was welcomed on his return by Pitt's government as likely to be a
+useful journalist, and became the special adherent of Windham, the
+ideal country-gentleman and the ardent disciple of Burke's principles.
+He set up an independent paper and heartily supported the war. On the
+renewal of hostilities in 1803 Cobbett wrote a manifesto[180] directed
+by the government to be read in every parish church in the kingdom, in
+order to rouse popular feeling. When Windham came into office in 1806,
+Cobbett's friends supposed that his fortune was made. Yet at this
+very crisis he became a reformer. His conversion was put down, of
+course, to his resentment at the neglect of ministers. I do not think
+that Cobbett was a man to whose character one can appeal as a
+conclusive answer to such charges. Unfortunately he was not free from
+weaknesses which prevent us from denying that his political course was
+affected by personal motives. But, in spite of weaknesses and of
+countless inconsistencies, Cobbett had perfectly genuine convictions
+and intense sympathies which sufficiently explain his position, and
+make him more attractive than many less obviously imperfect
+characters. He tells us unconsciously what were the thoughts suggested
+to a man penetrated to the core by the strongest prejudices--they can
+hardly be called opinions--of the true country labourer.
+
+The labourer, in the first place, if fairly represented by Cobbett,
+had none of the bitter feeling against the nobility which smouldered
+in the French peasantry. Cobbett looked back as fondly to the
+surroundings of his youth as any nobleman could look back to Eton or
+to his country mansion. He remembered the 'sweet country air' round
+Crooksbury Hill, the song of birds, and the rambles through heather
+and woodland. He loved the rough jovial sports; bull-baiting and
+prize-fighting and single-stick play. He had followed the squire's
+hounds on foot, and admired without jealousy the splendid gardens of
+the bishop's palace at Farnham. Squire and parson were an intrinsic
+part of the general order of things. The state of the English working
+classes was, he often declares, the happiest that could be
+imagined,[181] and he appeals in confirmation to his own memories.
+Although, upon enlisting, he had found the army corrupt, he not only
+loved the soldier for the rest of his life, but shared to the full the
+patriotic exultation which welcomed the 1st of June and the Nile. Even
+to the last, he could not stomach the abandonment of the title 'King
+of France'; for so long as it was retained, it encouraged the farmer
+to tell his son the story of Crecy and Agincourt.[182]
+
+What, then, alienated Cobbett? Briefly, the degradation of the class
+he loved. 'I wish,' he said, 'to see the poor men of England what the
+poor men of England were when I was born, and from endeavouring to
+accomplish this task, nothing but the want of means shall make me
+desist.'[183] He had a right to make that boast, and his ardour in the
+cause was as unimpeachable as honourable. It explains why Cobbett has
+still a sympathetic side. He was a mass of rough human nature; no prig
+or bundle of abstract formulae, like Paine and his Radical successors.
+Logic with him is not in excess, but in defect. His doctrines are
+hopelessly inconsistent, except so far as they represent his stubborn
+prejudices. Any view will serve his purpose which can be made a weapon
+of offence in his multitudinous quarrels. Cobbett, like the Radicals
+of the time, was frightened by the gigantic progress of the debt. He
+had advocated war; but the peasant who was accustomed to reckon his
+income by pence, and had cried like a child when he lost the price of
+a red herring, was alarmed by the reckless piling up of millions of
+indebtedness. In 1806 he calmly proposed to his patron Windham to put
+matters straight by repudiating the interest. 'The nation must
+destroy the debt, or the debt will destroy the nation,' as he argued
+in the _Register_.[184] The proposal very likely caused the alienation
+of a respectable minister, though propounded with an amusing air of
+philosophical morality. Cobbett's alarm developed until it became to
+him a revelation of the mystery of iniquity. His Radical friends were
+denouncing placemen and jobbery, and Cobbett began to perceive what
+was at the bottom of the evil. The money raised to carry on the war
+served also to support a set of bloodsuckers, who were draining the
+national strength. Already, in 1804, he was lamenting a change due to
+Pitt's funding system. The old families, he said, were giving way to
+'loanjobbers, contractors, and nabobs'; and the country people amazed
+to find that their new masters had been 'butchers, bakers,
+bottle-corkers, and old-clothesmen.'[185] Barings and Ricardos and
+their like were swallowing up the old country gentry wholesale; and in
+later years he reckons up, as he rides, the changes in his own
+neighbourhood.[186] His affection for the old country-gentleman might
+be superficial; but his lamentations over the degradation of the
+peasantry sprang from his heart. It was all, in his eyes, part of one
+process. Paper money, he found out, was at the bottom of it all; for
+paper money was the outward and visible symbol of a gigantic system of
+corruption and jobbery. It represented the device by which the
+hard-earned wages of the labourer were being somehow conjured away
+into the pockets of Jews and stockjobbers. The classes which profited
+by this atrocious system formed what he called the 'Thing'--the huge,
+intricate combination of knaves which was being denounced by the
+Radicals--though with a difference. Cobbett could join the reformers
+in so far as, like them, he thought that the rotten boroughs were a
+vital part of the system. He meets a miserable labourer complaining of
+the 'hard times.' The harvest had been good, but its blessings were
+not for the labourer. That 'accursed hill,' says Cobbett, pointing to
+old Sarum, 'is what has robbed you of your supper.'[187] The labourer
+represented the class whose blood was being sucked.
+
+So far, then, as the Radicals were assailing the borough-mongers,
+Cobbett could be their cordial ally. Two years' imprisonment for libel
+embittered his feelings. In the distress which succeeded the peace,
+Cobbett's voice was for a time loudest in the general hubbub. He
+reduced the price of his _Register_, and his 'two-penny trash' reached
+a circulation of 25,000 or 30,000 copies. He became a power in the
+land, and anticipated the immediate triumph of reform. The day was not
+yet. Sidmouth's measures of repression frightened Cobbett to America
+(March 1819), where he wrote his history of the 'last hundred days of
+English liberty.' He returned in a couple of years, damaged in
+reputation and broken in fortune; but only to carry on the war with
+indomitable energy, although with a recklessness and extravagance
+which alienated his allies and lowered his character. He tried to
+cover his errors by brags and bombast, which became ridiculous, and
+which are yet not without significance.
+
+Cobbett came back from America with the relics of Paine. Paine, the
+object of his abuse, had become his idol, not because Cobbett cared
+much for any abstract political theories, or for religious dogmas.
+Paine's merit was that he had attacked paper money. To Cobbett, as to
+Paine, it seemed that English banknotes were going the way of French
+assignats and the provincial currency of the Americans. This became
+one main topic of his tirades, and represented, as he said, the 'Alpha
+and Omega' of English politics. The theory was simple. The whole
+borough-mongering system depended upon the inflated currency. Prick
+that bubble and the whole would collapse. It was absolutely
+impossible, he said, that the nation should return to cash payments
+and continue to pay interest on the debt. Should such a thing happen,
+he declared, he would 'give his poor body up to be broiled on one of
+Castlereagh's widest-ribbed gridirons.'[188] The 'gridiron prophecy'
+became famous; a gridiron was for long a frontispiece to the
+_Register_; and Cobbett, far from retracting, went on proving, in the
+teeth of facts, that it had been fulfilled. His inference was, not
+that paper should be preserved, but that the debt should be treated
+with a 'sponge.'
+
+Cobbett, therefore, was an awkward ally of political economists, whose
+great triumph was the resumption of cash payments, and who regarded
+repudiation as the deadly sin. The burthen of the debt, meanwhile, was
+so great that repudiation was well within the limits of
+possibility.[189] Cobbett, in their eyes, was an advocate of the
+grossest dishonesty, and using the basest incentives. Cobbett fully
+retorted their scorn. The economists belonged to the very class whom
+he most hated. He was never tired of denouncing Scottish
+'feelosophers'; he sneers at Adam Smith,[190] and Ricardo was to him
+the incarnation of the stock-jobbing interest. Cobbett sympathised
+instinctively with the doctrine of the French economists that
+agriculture was the real source of all wealth. He nearly accepts a
+phrase, erroneously attributed to Windham, 'Perish Commerce'; and he
+argues that commerce was, in fact, of little use, and its monstrous
+extension at the bottom of all our worst evils.[191] Nobody could be
+more heartily opposed to the spirit which animated the political
+economists and the whole class represented by them. At times he spoke
+the language of modern Socialists. He defines Capital as 'money taken
+from the labouring classes, which, being given to army tailors and
+suchlike, enables them to keep foxhounds and trace their descent from
+the Normans.'[192]
+
+The most characteristic point of his speculations is his view of the
+poor-laws. Nobody could speak with more good sense and feeling of the
+demoralisation which they were actually producing, of the sapping of
+the spirit of independence, and of all the devices by which the
+agricultural labourer was losing the happiness enjoyed in early years.
+But Cobbett's deduction from his principles is peculiar. 'Parson
+Malthus' is perhaps the favourite object of his most virulent abuse.
+'I have hated many men,' he says, 'but never any one so much as you,'
+'I call you parson,' he explains, 'because that word includes
+"boroughmonger" among other meanings, though no single word could be
+sufficient.'[193] Cobbett rages against the phrase 'redundant
+population.' There would be plenty for all if the borough-mongers and
+stockjobbers could be annihilated, taxes abolished, and the debt
+repudiated. The ordinary palliatives suggested were little to the
+taste of this remarkable Radical. The man who approved bull-fighting
+and supported the slave-trade naturally sneered at 'heddekashun,' and
+thought savings-banks a mean device to interest the poor in the
+keeping up of the funds. His remedy was always a sponge applied to the
+debt, and the abolition of taxes.
+
+This leads, however, to one remarkable conclusion. Cobbett's attack
+upon the church establishment probably did more to cause alarm than
+any writings of the day. For Paine's attacks upon its creed he cared
+little enough. 'Your religion,' said a parson to him, 'seems to be
+altogether political.' It might well be, was Cobbett's retort, since
+his creed was made for him by act of parliament.[194] In fact, he
+cared nothing for theology, though he called himself a member of the
+church of England, and retained an intense dislike for Unitarians,
+dissenters in general, 'saints' as he called the Evangelical party,
+Scottish Presbyterians, and generally for all religious sects. He
+looked at church questions solely from one point of view. He had
+learned, it seems, from a passage in Ruggles's _History of the
+Poor_,[195] that the tithes had been originally intended to support
+the poor as well as the church. Gradually, as he looked back upon the
+'good old times,' he developed the theory expounded in his _History of
+the Reformation_. It is a singular performance, written at the period
+of his most reckless exasperation (1824-27), but with his full vigour
+of style. He declares[196] in 1825 that he has sold forty-five
+thousand copies, and it has been often reprinted. The purpose is to
+show that the Reformation was 'engendered in beastly lust, brought
+forth in hypocrisy, and cherished and fed by plunder and devastation,
+and by rivers of English and Irish blood.'[197] Briefly, it is the
+cause of every evil that has happened since, including 'the debt, the
+banks, the stockjobbers, and the American revolution.'[198] In proving
+this, Cobbett writes in the spirit of some vehement Catholic bigot,
+maddened by the penal laws. Henry VIII., Elizabeth, and William III.
+are his monsters; the Marys of England and Scotland his ideal martyrs.
+He almost apologises for the massacre of St. Bartholomew and the
+Gunpowder Plot; and, in spite of his patriotism, attributes the defeat
+of the Armada to a storm, for fear of praising Elizabeth. The
+bitterest Ultramontane of to-day would shrink from some of this
+Radical's audacious statements. Cobbett, in spite of his extravagance,
+shows flashes of his usual shrewdness. He remarks elsewhere that the
+true way of studying history is to examine acts of parliament and
+lists of prices of labour and of food;[199] and he argues upon such
+grounds for the prosperity of the agricultural labourer under Edward
+III., 'when a dung-cart filler could get a fat goose and a half for
+half a day's work.' He makes some telling hits, as when he contrasts
+William of Wykeham with Brownlow North, the last bishop of Winchester.
+Protestants condemned celibacy. Well, had William been married, we
+should not have had Winchester school, or New College; had Brownlow
+North been doomed to celibacy, he would not have had ten sons and
+sons-in-law to share twenty-four rich livings, besides prebends and
+other preferments; and perhaps he would not have sold small beer from
+his episcopal palace at Farnham. Cobbett's main doctrine is that when
+the Catholic church flourished, the population was actually more
+numerous and richer, that the care of the priests and monks made
+pauperism impossible, and that ever since the hideous blunder
+perpetrated by the reformers everything has been going from bad to
+worse. When it was retorted that the census proved the population to
+be growing, he replied that the census was a lie. Were the facts truly
+stated, he declares, we should have a population of near twenty-eight
+million in England by the end of this century,[200] a manifest
+_reductio ad absurdum_. If it were remarked that there was a Catholic
+church in France, and that Cobbett proves his case by the superiority
+of the English poor to the French poor, he remarked summarily that the
+French laws were different.[201]
+
+Thus, the one monster evil is the debt, and the taxes turn out to have
+been a Protestant invention made necessary by the original act of
+plunder. That was Cobbett's doctrine, and, however perverse might be
+some of his reasonings, it was clearly to the taste of a large
+audience. The poor-law was merely a partial atonement for a vast and
+continuous process of plunder. Corrupt as might be its actual
+operation, it was a part of the poor man's patrimony, extorted by fear
+from the gang of robbers who fattened upon their labours.
+
+Cobbett's theories need not be discussed from the logical or
+historical point of view. They are the utterances of a man made
+unscrupulous by his desperate circumstances, fighting with boundless
+pugnacity, ready to strike any blow, fair or foul, so long as it will
+vex his enemies, and help to sell the _Register_. His pugnacity
+alienated all his friends. Not only did Whigs and Tories agree in
+condemning him, but the Utilitarians hated and despised him, and his
+old friends, Burnett and Hunt, were alienated from him, and reviled by
+him. His actual followers were a small and insignificant remnant. Yet
+Cobbett, like Owen, represented in a crude fashion blind instincts of
+no small importance in the coming years. And it is especially to be
+noted that in one direction the philosophic Coleridge and the keen
+Quarterly Reviewer Southey, and the Socialist Owen and the reactionary
+Radical Cobbett, were more in agreement than they knew. What alarmed
+them was the vast social change indicated by the industrial
+revolution. In one way or another they connected all the evils of the
+day with the growth of commerce and manufactures, and the breaking up
+of the old system of domestic trade and village life.[202] That is to
+say, that in a dumb and inarticulate logic, though in the loudest
+tones of denunciation, Tories and Socialists, and nondescript Radicals
+were raging against the results of the great social change, which the
+Utilitarians regarded as the true line of advance of the day. This
+gives the deepest line of demarcation, and brings us to the political
+economy, which shows most fully how the case presented itself to the
+true Utilitarian.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[80] Bain's _James Mill_, p. 215.
+
+[81] _Autobiography_, p. 104.
+
+[82] _Miscellaneous Works_ (Popular Edition), p. 131.
+
+[83] The articles from the _Encyclopaedia_ upon Government,
+Jurisprudence, Liberty of the Press, Prisons and Prison Discipline,
+Colonies, Law of Nations, Education, were reprinted in a volume 'not
+for sale,' in 1825 and 1828. I quote from a reprint not dated.
+
+[84] 'Government,' pp. 3-5.
+
+[85] 'Government,' p. 8.
+
+[86] 'Government,' p. 9.
+
+[87] _Ibid._ p. 11.
+
+[88] _Ibid._ p. 9.
+
+[89] _Ibid._ p. 12.
+
+[90] 'Government,' p. 9.
+
+[91] C'est une experience eternelle que tout homme qui a du pouvoir
+est porte a en abuser; il va jusqu'a ce qu'il trouve des
+limites.--_Esprit des Lois_, Bk. xi. chap 4.
+
+[92] 'Government,' p. 15.
+
+[93] 'Government,' p. 7.
+
+[94] _Ibid._ p. 18.
+
+[95] 'Government,' p. 21.
+
+[96] _Ibid._ p. 22
+
+[97] _Autobiography_, p. 104.
+
+[98] 'Government,' p. 28.
+
+[99] _Ibid._ p. 30. Mill especially refers to the exposure of clerical
+artifices in Father Paul's _Council of Trent_.
+
+[100] 'Education,' p. 20
+
+[101] _Ibid._ p. 45.
+
+[102] _Autobiography_, p. 106.
+
+[103] 'Government,' p. 31.
+
+[104] Bain's _James Mill_, p. 392.
+
+[105] They were reprinted in the _Miscellaneous Works_ after
+Macaulay's death. I quote from the 'popular edition' of that work
+(1875).
+
+[106] _Miscellaneous Works_, p. 166.
+
+[107] _Miscellaneous Works_, p. 132.
+
+[108] Mill's _Autobiography_, p. 158.
+
+[109] 'Government,' p. 12.
+
+[110] _Miscellaneous Works_, p. 169.
+
+[111] _Fragment on Mackintosh_ (1870), pp. 275-94.
+
+[112] Essay on the 'Independency of Parliament.'
+
+[113] _Fragment_, p. 292.
+
+[114] _Ibid._ p. 276.
+
+[115] _Miscellaneous Works_, p. 170.
+
+[116] _Miscellaneous Works_, p. 173.
+
+[117] _Miscellaneous Works_, p. 138.
+
+[118] _Miscellaneous Works_, pp. 135-40.
+
+[119] _Miscellaneous Works_, p. 158, and see pp. 143-47.
+
+[120] _Speeches_ (Popular Edition), p. 125.
+
+[121] _Ibid._ p. 128.
+
+[122] _Miscellaneous Works_, p. 146.
+
+[123] _Miscellaneous Works_, p. 183.
+
+[124] A full analysis of this article is in Bain's _James Mill_, pp.
+265-75.
+
+[125] Article upon Sheridan, reprinted in Jeffrey's _Essays_, iv.
+(1844).
+
+[126] _Table-Talk_, 27th April 1823.
+
+[127] _Vindiciae Gallicae_, in _Miscellaneous Works_, iii. (1846), p.
+57.
+
+[128] Mackintosh thinks it necessary to add that this parallel was
+suggested to him by William Thomson (1746-1837), a literary gentleman
+who continued Watson's _Philip III._, and may, for anything I know,
+deserve Mackintosh's warm eulogy.
+
+[129] _Vindiciae Gallicae_, p. 59.
+
+[130] _Ibid._ p. 51.
+
+[131] _Ibid._ p. 148.
+
+[132] _Ibid._ p. 68.
+
+[133] _Ibid._ p. 72.
+
+[134] _Ibid._ p. 125.
+
+[135] _Vindiciae Gallicae_, p. 128.
+
+[136] _Ibid._ p. 84.
+
+[137] _Ibid._ p. 30.
+
+[138] _Life of Mackintosh_, i. 125.
+
+[139] _Miscellaneous Works_, iii. 261-65.
+
+[140] _Life_, i. 309-16.
+
+[141] See _Miscellaneous Works_, iii. 3.
+
+[142] _Ibid._ iii. 203-38 (an article highly praised by Bagehot in his
+_Parliamentary Reform_).
+
+[143] _Miscellaneous Works_, iii. 215-16.
+
+[144] _Ibid._ iii. 226. Mackintosh in this article mentions the
+'caucus,' and observes that the name implies that combinations have
+been already formed upon 'which the future government of the
+confederacy may depend more than on the forms of election, or the
+letter of the present laws.' He inclines to approve the system as
+essential to party government.
+
+[145] _Essays_ (1844), i. 84-106.
+
+[146] The famous 'Cevallos' article of 1808, said to be written by
+Jeffrey and Brougham (Macvey Napier's _Correspondence_, p. 308), gave
+the immediate cause of starting the _Quarterly_; and, according to
+Brougham, first gave a distinctly Liberal character to the
+_Edinburgh_. For Jeffrey's desire to avoid 'party politics,' see
+Lockhart's _Life of Scott_, M. Napier's _Correspondence_, p. 435, and
+Homer's _Memoirs_ (1853), i. 464.
+
+[147] April 1805; reprinted in _Essays_, ii. 38, etc., to show, as he
+says, how early he had taken up his view of the French revolution.
+
+[148] Sydney Smith complains in his correspondence of this article as
+exaggerating the power of the aristocracy.
+
+[149] _Essays_, iv. 29.
+
+[150] I need not speak of Brougham, then the most conspicuous advocate
+of Whiggism. He published in 1843 a _Political Philosophy_, which,
+according to Lord Campbell, killed the 'Society for the Diffusion of
+Useful Knowledge.' No such hypothesis is necessary to account for the
+death of a society encumbered by a 'Dictionary of Universal
+Biography.' But the book was bad enough to kill, if a collection of
+outworn platitudes can produce that effect.
+
+[151] Bentham's _Works_, x. 536.
+
+[152] _Colloquies_, i. 253.
+
+[153] _Colloquies_, i. 171.
+
+[154] _Ibid._ i. 178.
+
+[155] _Ibid._ i. 169.
+
+[156] _Ibid._ i. 167.
+
+[157] _Ibid._ i. 170.
+
+[158] _Ibid._ i. 194.
+
+[159] _Ibid._ ii. 247.
+
+[160] _Colloquies_, ii. 259.
+
+[161] _Ibid._ i. 109.
+
+[162] _Ibid._ ii. 105-7.
+
+[163] _Ibid._ i. 106.
+
+[164] _Ibid._ i. 47.
+
+[165] _Life and Correspondence_, iv. 195; _Selections_, iii. 45.
+
+[166] _Colloquies_, i. 62.
+
+[167] _Colloquies_, i. 135.
+
+[168] _Ibid._ ii. 147. Southey is here almost verbally following
+Burke's _Reflections_.
+
+[169] _Life and Correspondence_, v. 4-6.
+
+[170] _Colloquies_, i. 105.
+
+[171] _On the Constitution of Church and State, according to the idea
+of each_, 1852 (fourth edition).
+
+[172] _Church and State_, p. 100.
+
+[173] _Ibid._ p. 97.
+
+[174] _Church and State_, p. 85.
+
+[175] _Ibid._ p. 67.
+
+[176] _Church and State_, p. 142.
+
+[177] _Ibid._ pp. 75-79.
+
+[178] _Colloquies_, i. 37.
+
+[179] See an early account of Dale (in 1798) in Sydney Smith's _Life
+and Letters_, i. 35, and another in Wilberforce's _Correspondence_
+(1840), i. 137 (in 1796).
+
+[180] Printed in _Political Works_, i. 302.
+
+[181] _Political Works_, v. 313; vi. 579.
+
+[182] _Political Works_, i. 473; v. 319.
+
+[183] _Ibid._ ii. 285.
+
+[184] _Political Works_, ii. 28; iv. 388.
+
+[185] _Ibid._ i. 443.
+
+[186] _Rural Rides_ (1853), p. 311.
+
+[187] _Rural Rides_, p. 386.
+
+[188] _Political Works_, v. 436 (22nd July 1819).
+
+[189] Even M'Culloch had recommended a partial repudiation.
+
+[190] _Political Works_, iv. 237.
+
+[191] _Ibid._ ii. 19, 107, 250, 346; and iii. 423. See _Parliamentary
+History_, xxx., where the first use of the phrase by Hardinge is
+reported.
+
+[192] _Political Works_, vi. 176.
+
+[193] _Ibid._ 395.
+
+[194] _Rural Rides_, p. 446.
+
+[195] He complains bitterly that Ruggles had suppressed this in a
+second edition. _Protestant Reformation_ (1850), ii., Introduction.
+
+[196] _Political Register_, 29th Jan. 1825.
+
+[197] _Protestant Reformation_, p. 13.
+
+[198] _Ibid._ p. 262.
+
+[199] _Advice to Young Men_, p. 8.
+
+[200] _Political Works_, v. 405. If our census be not a lie, there
+were twenty-seven million Englishmen in 1891.
+
+[201] _Protestant Reformation_, i. 311.
+
+[202] Coleridge in a letter to Allsop (_Conversations_, etc., i. 20)
+approves one of Cobbett's articles, because it popularises the weighty
+truth of the 'hollowness of commercial wealth.' Cobbett, he sadly
+reflects, is an overmatch for Liverpool. See Cobbett's _Political
+Works_, v. 466 _n._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+MALTHUS
+
+
+I. MALTHUS'S STARTING-POINT
+
+The political movement represented the confluence of many different
+streams of agitation. Enormous social changes had generated
+multifarious discontent. New wants and the new strains and stresses
+between the various parts of the political mechanism required new
+adaptations. But, if it were inquired what was the precise nature of
+the evils, and how the reform of parliament was to operate, the most
+various answers might be given. A most important line of division did
+not coincide with the line between the recognised parties. One wing of
+the Radicals agreed with many Conservatives in attributing the great
+evils of the day to the industrial movement and the growth of
+competition. The middle-class Whigs and the Utilitarians were, on the
+contrary, in thorough sympathy with the industrial movement, and
+desired to limit the functions of government, and trust to self-help
+and free competition. The Socialistic movement appeared for the
+present to be confined to a few dreamers and demagogues. The
+Utilitarians might approve the spirit of the Owenites, but held their
+schemes to be chimerical. Beneath the political controversies there
+was therefore a set of problems to be answered; and the Utilitarian
+answer defines their distinction from Radicals of a different and, as
+they would have said, unphilosophical school.
+
+What, then, was the view really taken by the Utilitarians of these
+underlying problems? They not only had a very definite theory in
+regard to them, but in working it out achieved perhaps their most
+important contribution to speculation. Beneath a political theory
+lies, or ought to lie, what we now call a 'sociology'--a theory of
+that structure of society which really determines the character and
+the working of political institutions. The Utilitarian theory was
+embodied in their political economy. I must try to define as well as I
+can what were the essential first principles implied, without going
+into the special problems which would be relevant in a history of
+political economy.
+
+The two leading names in the literature of political economy during
+the first quarter of this century were undoubtedly Malthus and
+Ricardo. Thomas Robert Malthus[203] (1766-1834) was not one of the
+Utilitarian band. As a clergyman, he could not share their opinion of
+the Thirty-nine Articles. Moreover, he was a Whig, not a Radical; and
+he was even tainted with some economic heresy. Still, he became one of
+the prophets, if not the leading prophet, of the Utilitarians. Belief
+in the Malthusian theory of population was the most essential article
+of their faith, and marked the line of cleavage between the two wings
+of the Radical party.
+
+Malthus was the son of a country gentleman in Surrey. His father was
+a man of studious habits, and one of the enthusiastic admirers of
+Rousseau. His study of _Emile_ probably led to the rather desultory
+education of his son. The boy, after being taught at home, was for a
+time a pupil of R. Graves (1715-1804), author of the _Spiritual
+Quixote_, a Whig clergyman who was at least orthodox enough to
+ridicule Methodism. Malthus was next sent to attend Gilbert
+Wakefield's lectures at the Warrington 'Academy,' the Unitarian place
+of education, and in 1784 went to Jesus College, Cambridge, of which
+Wakefield had been a fellow. For Wakefield, who had become a
+Unitarian, and who was afterwards a martyr to political Radicalism, he
+appears to have retained a strong respect. At Jesus, again, Malthus
+was under Frend, who also was to join the Unitarians. Malthus was thus
+brought up under the influences of the modified rationalism which was
+represented by the Unitarians outside the establishment and by Paley
+within. Coleridge was at Jesus while Malthus was still a fellow, and
+there became an ardent admirer of Priestley, Malthus remained within
+the borders of the church. Its yoke was light enough, and he was
+essentially predisposed to moderate views. He took his degree as ninth
+wrangler in 1788, became a fellow of his college in 1793, took orders,
+and in 1798 was curate of Albury, near his father's house in Surrey.
+Malthus's home was within a walk of Farnham, where Cobbett had been
+born and passed his childhood. He had, therefore, before his eyes the
+same agricultural labourer whose degradation excited Cobbett to
+Radicalism. Very different views were suggested to Malthus. The
+revolutionary doctrine was represented in England by the writings of
+Godwin, whose _Political Justice_ appeared in 1793 and _Enquirer_ in
+1797. These books naturally afforded topics for discussion between
+Malthus and his father. The usual relations between senior and junior
+were inverted; the elder Malthus, as became a follower of Rousseau,
+was an enthusiast; and the younger took the part of suggesting doubts
+and difficulties. He resolved to put down his arguments upon paper, in
+order to clear his mind; and the result was the _Essay upon
+Population_, of which the first edition appeared anonymously in 1798.
+
+The argument upon which Malthus relied was already prepared for him.
+The dreams of the revolutionary enthusiasts supposed either a neglect
+of the actual conditions of human life or a belief that those
+conditions could be radically altered by the proposed political
+changes. The cooler reasoner was entitled to remind them that they
+were living upon solid earth, not in dreamland. The difficulty of
+realising Utopia may be presented in various ways. Malthus took a
+point which had been noticed by Godwin. In the conclusion of his
+_Political Justice_,[204] while taking a final glance at the coming
+millennium, Godwin refers to a difficulty suggested by Robert Wallace.
+Wallace had[205] said that all the evils under which mankind suffers
+might be removed by a community of property, were it not that such a
+state of things would lead to an 'excessive population.' Godwin makes
+light of the difficulty. He thinks that there is some 'principle in
+human society by means of which everything tends to find its own level
+and proceed in the most auspicious way, when least interfered with by
+the mode of regulation.' Anyhow, there is plenty of room on the earth,
+at present. Population may increase for 'myriads of centuries.' Mind,
+as Franklin has said, may become 'omnipotent over matter';[206] life
+may be indefinitely prolonged; our remote descendants who have filled
+the earth 'will probably cease to propagate';[207] they will not have
+the trouble of making a fresh start at every generation; and in those
+days there will be 'no war, no crimes, no administration of justice';
+and moreover, 'no disease, anguish, melancholy, or resentment.'
+Briefly, we shall be like the angels, only without the needless
+addition of a supreme ruler. Similar ideas were expressed in
+Condorcet's famous _Tableau historique des progres de l'esprit
+humain_,[208] written while he was in daily fear of death by the
+guillotine, and so giving the most striking instance on record of the
+invincibility of an idealist conviction under the hardest pressure of
+facts.
+
+The argument of Malthus is a product of the whole previous course of
+speculation. The question of population had occupied the French
+economists. The profound social evils of France gave the
+starting-point of their speculations; and one of the gravest symptoms
+had been the decay of population under the last years of Louis XIV.
+Their great aim was to meet this evil by encouraging agriculture. It
+could not escape the notice of the simplest observer that if you would
+have more mouths you must provide more food, unless, as some pious
+people assumed, that task might be left to Providence. Quesnay had
+laid it down as one of his axioms that the statesman should aim at
+providing sustenance before aiming simply at stimulating population.
+It follows, according to Gulliver's famous maxim, that the man who
+makes two blades of grass grow where one grew before deserves better
+of his country than the 'whole race of politicians put together.'
+Other writers, in developing this thesis, had dwelt upon the
+elasticity of population. The elder Mirabeau, for example, published
+his _Ami des hommes ou traite de la population_ in 1756. He observes
+that, given the means of subsistence, men will multiply like rats in a
+barn.[209] The great axiom, he says,[210] is 'la mesure de la
+subsistance est celle de la population.' Cultivate your fields, and
+you will raise men. Mirabeau replies to Hume's essay upon the
+'Populousness of ancient nations' (1752), of which Wallace's first
+treatise was a criticism. The problem discussed by Hume and Wallace
+had been comparatively academical; but by Malthus's time the question
+had taken a more practical shape. The sentimentalists denounced luxury
+as leading to a decay of the population. Their prevailing doctrine is
+embodied in Goldsmith's famous passage in the _Deserted Village_
+(1770):
+
+    'Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
+    Where wealth accumulates and men decay.'
+
+The poetical version only reflected the serious belief of Radical
+politicians. Although, as we are now aware, the population was in fact
+increasing rapidly, the belief prevailed among political writers that
+it was actually declining. Trustworthy statistics did not exist. In
+1753 John Potter, son of the archbishop, proposed to the House of
+Commons a plan for a census. A violent discussion arose,[211] in the
+course of which it was pointed out that the plan would inevitably lead
+to the adoption of the 'canvas frock and wooden shoes.' Englishmen
+would lose their liberty, become French slaves, and, when counted,
+would no doubt be taxed and forcibly enlisted. The bill passed the
+House of Commons in spite of such reasoning, but was thrown out by the
+House of Lords. Till the first census was taken in 1801--a period at
+which the absolute necessity of such knowledge had become obvious--the
+most elementary facts remained uncertain. Was population increasing or
+decreasing? That surely might be ascertainable.
+
+Richard Price (1723-1791) was not only a distinguished moralist and a
+leading politician, but perhaps the best known writer of his time upon
+statistical questions. He had the credit of suggesting Pitt's sinking
+fund,[212] and spoke with the highest authority upon facts and
+figures. Price argued in 1780[213] that the population of England had
+diminished by one-fourth since the revolution of 1688. A sharp
+controversy followed upon the few ascertainable data. The vagueness of
+the results shows curiously how much economists had to argue in the
+dark. Malthus observes in his first edition that he had been
+convinced by reading Price that population was restrained by 'vice and
+misery,' as results, not of political institutions, but of 'our own
+creation.'[214] This gives the essential point of difference. Mirabeau
+had declared that the population of all Europe was decaying. Hume's
+essay, which he criticises, had been in answer to a similar statement
+of Montesquieu. Price had learned that other countries were increasing
+in number, though England, he held, was still declining. What, then,
+was the cause? The cause, replied both Price and Mirabeau, was
+'luxury,' to which Price adds the specially English evils of the
+'engrossment of farms' and the enclosure of open fields. Price had to
+admit that the English towns had increased; but this was an additional
+evil. The towns increased simply by draining the country; and in the
+towns themselves the deaths exceeded the births. The great cities were
+the graves of mankind. This opinion was strongly held, too, by Arthur
+Young, who ridiculed the general fear of depopulation, and declared
+that if money were provided, you could always get labour, but who
+looked upon the towns as destructive cancers in the body politic.
+
+The prevalence of this view explains Malthus's position. To attribute
+depopulation to luxury was to say that it was caused by the inequality
+of property. The rich man wasted the substance of the country, became
+demoralised himself, and both corrupted and plundered his neighbours.
+The return to a 'state of nature,' in Rousseau's phrase, meant the
+return to a state of things in which this misappropriation should
+become impossible. The whole industry of the nation would then be
+devoted to supporting millions of honest, simple peasants and
+labourers, whereas it now went to increasing the splendour of the
+great at the expense of the poor. Price enlarges upon this theme,
+which was, in fact, the contemporary version of the later formula that
+the rich are growing richer and the poor poorer. The immediate effect
+of equalising property, then, would be an increase of population. It
+was the natural retort, adopted by Malthus, that such an increase
+would soon make everybody poor, instead of making every one
+comfortable. Population, the French economists had said, follows
+subsistence. Will it not multiply indefinitely? The rapid growth of
+population in America was noticed by Price and Godwin; and the theory
+had been long before expanded by Franklin, in a paper which Malthus
+quotes in his later editions. 'There is no bound,' said Franklin in
+1751,[215] 'to the prolific nature of plants and animals but what is
+made by their crowding and interfering with each other's means of
+subsistence.' The whole earth, he infers, might be overspread with
+fennel, for example, or, if empty of men, replenished in a few ages
+with Englishmen. There were supposed to be already one million of
+Englishmen in North America. If they doubled once in twenty-five
+years, they would in a century exceed the number of Englishmen at
+home. This is identical with Mirabeau's principle of the multiplying
+of rats in a barn. Population treads closely on the heels of
+subsistence. Work out your figures and see the results.[216]
+
+Malthus's essay in the first edition was mainly an application of
+this retort, and though the logic was effective as against Godwin, he
+made no elaborate appeal to facts. Malthus soon came to see that a
+more precise application was desirable. It was clearly desirable to
+know whether population was or was not actually increasing, and under
+what conditions. I have spoken of the contemporary labours of
+Sinclair, Young, Sir F. Eden, and others. To collect statistics was
+plainly one of the essential conditions of settling the controversy.
+Malthus in 1799 travelled on the continent to gather information, and
+visited Sweden, Norway, Russia, and Germany. The peace of Amiens
+enabled him in 1802 to visit France and Switzerland. He inquired
+everywhere into the condition of the people, collected such
+statistical knowledge as was then possible, and returned to digest it
+into a elaborate treatise. Meanwhile, the condition of England was
+giving a fresh significance to the argument. The first edition had
+been published at the critical time when the poor-law was being
+relaxed, and disastrous results were following war and famine. The old
+complaint that the poor-law was causing depopulation was being changed
+for the complaint that it was stimulating pauperism. The first edition
+already discussed this subject, which was occupying all serious
+thinkers; it was now to receive a fuller treatment. The second
+edition, greatly altered, appeared in 1803, and made Malthus a man of
+authority. His merits were recognised by his appointment in 1805 to
+the professorship of history and political economy at the newly
+founded East India College at Haileybury. There he remained till the
+end of his life, which was placid, uneventful, and happy. He made a
+happy marriage in 1804; and his calm temperament enabled him to bear
+an amount of abuse which might have broken the health of a more
+irritable man. Cobbett's epithet, 'parson Malthus,' strikes the
+keynote. He was pictured as a Christian priest denouncing charity, and
+proclaiming the necessity of vice and misery. He had the ill luck to
+be the centre upon which the antipathies of Jacobin and anti-Jacobin
+converged. Cobbett's language was rougher than Southey's; but the
+poet-laureate and the author of 'two-penny trash' were equally
+vehement in sentiment. Malthus, on the other hand, was accepted by the
+political economists, both Whig and Utilitarian. Horner and
+Mackintosh, lights of the Whigs, were his warm friends as well as his
+disciples. He became intimate with Ricardo, and he was one of the
+original members of the Political Economy Club. He took abuse
+imperturbably; was never vexed 'after the first fortnight' by the most
+unfair attack; and went on developing his theories, lecturing his
+students, and improving later editions of his treatise. Malthus died
+on 23rd December 1834.
+
+
+II. THE RATIOS
+
+The doctrine marks a critical point in political economy. Malthus's
+opponents, as Mr. Bonar remarks,[217] attacked him alternately for
+propounding a truism and for maintaining a paradox. A 'truism' is not
+useless so long as its truth is not admitted. It would be the greatest
+of achievements to enunciate a law self-evident as soon as formulated,
+and yet previously ignored or denied. Was this the case of Malthus? Or
+did he really startle the world by clothing a commonplace in paradox,
+and then explain away the paradox till nothing but the commonplace was
+left?
+
+Malthus laid down in his first edition a proposition which continued
+to be worried by all his assailants. Population, he said, when
+unchecked, increases in the geometrical ratio; the means of
+subsistence increase only in an arithmetical ratio. Geometrical ratios
+were just then in fashion.[218] Price had appealed to their wonderful
+ways in his arguments about the sinking fund; and had pointed out that
+a penny put out to 5 per cent. compound interest at the birth of
+Christ would, in the days of Pitt, have been worth some millions of
+globes of solid gold, each as big as the earth. Both Price and Malthus
+lay down a proposition which can easily be verified by the
+multiplication-table. If, as Malthus said, population doubles in
+twenty-five years, the number in two centuries would be to the present
+number as 256 to 1, and in three as 4096 to 1. If, meanwhile, the
+quantity of subsistence increased in 'arithmetical progression,' the
+multipliers for it would be only 9 and 13. It follows that, in the
+year 2003, two hundred and fifty-six persons will have to live upon
+what now supports nine. So far, the case is clear. But how does the
+argument apply to facts? For obvious reasons, Price's penny could not
+become even one solid planet of gold. Malthus's population is also
+clearly impossible. That is just his case. The population of British
+North America was actually, when he wrote, multiplying at the assigned
+rate. What he pointed out was that such a rate must somehow be
+stopped; and his question was, how precisely will it be stopped? The
+first proposition, he says[219] (that is, that population increased
+geometrically), 'I considered as proved the moment that the American
+increase was related; and the second as soon as enunciated.' To say
+that a population increases geometrically, in fact, is simply to say
+that it increases at a fixed rate. The arithmetical increase
+corresponds to a statement which Malthus, at any rate, might regard as
+undeniable; namely, that in a country already fully occupied, the
+possibility of increasing produce is restricted within much narrower
+limits. In a 'new country,' as in the American colonies, the increase
+of food might proceed as rapidly as the increase of population.
+Improved methods of cultivation, or the virtual addition of vast
+tracts of fertile territory by improved means of communication, may of
+course add indefinitely to the resources of a population. But Malthus
+was contemplating a state of things in which the actual conditions
+limited the people to an extraction of greater supplies from a
+strictly limited area. Whether Malthus assumed too easily that this
+represented the normal case may be questionable. At any rate, it was
+not only possible but actual in the England of the time. His problem
+was very much to the purpose. His aim was to trace the way in which
+the population of a limited region is prevented from increasing
+geometrically. If the descendants of Englishmen increase at a certain
+rate in America, why do they not increase equally in England? That, it
+must be admitted, is a fair scientific problem. Finding that two races
+of similar origin, and presumably like qualities, increase at
+different rates, we have to investigate the causes of the difference.
+
+Malthus answered the problem in the simplest and most consistent way
+in his first edition. What are the checks? The ultimate check would
+clearly be starvation. A population might multiply till it had not
+food. But before this limit is actually reached, it will suffer in
+various ways from scarcity. Briefly, the checks may be distinguished
+into the positive, that is, actual distress, and the preventive, or
+'foresight.' We shall actually suffer unless we are restrained by the
+anticipation of suffering. As a fact, however, he thinks that men are
+but little influenced by the prudence which foresees sufferings. They
+go on multiplying till the consequences are realised. You may be
+confined in a room, to use one of his illustrations,[220] though the
+walls do not touch you; but human beings are seldom satisfied till
+they have actually knocked their heads against the wall. He sums up
+his argument in the first edition in three propositions.[221]
+Population is limited by the means of subsistence; that is obvious;
+population invariably increases when the means of subsistence are
+increased; that is shown by experience to be practically true; and
+therefore, finally, the proportion is maintained by 'misery and
+vice.' That is the main conclusion which not unnaturally startled the
+world. Malthus always adhered in some sense to the main doctrine,
+though he stated explicitly some reserves already implicitly involved.
+A writer must not be surprised if popular readers remember the
+unguarded and dogmatic utterances which give piquancy to a theory, and
+overlook the latent qualifications which, when fully expressed, make
+it approximate to a commonplace. The political bearing of his
+reasoning is significant. The application of Godwin's theories of
+equality would necessarily, as he urges, stimulate an excessive
+population. To meet the consequent evils, two measures would be
+obviously necessary; private property must be instituted in order to
+stimulate prudence; and marriage must be instituted to make men
+responsible for the increase of the population. These institutions are
+necessary, and they make equality impossible. Weak, then, as foresight
+may be with most men, the essential social institutions have been
+developed by the necessity of enabling foresight to exercise some
+influence; and thus indirectly societies have in fact grown in wealth
+and numbers through arrangements which have by one and the same action
+strengthened prudence and created inequality. Although this is clearly
+implied, the main impression produced upon Malthus's readers was that
+he held 'vice and misery' to be essential to society; nay, that in
+some sense he regarded them as blessings. He was accused, as he tells
+us,[222] of objecting to vaccination, because it tended to prevent
+deaths from small-pox, and has to protest against some one who had
+declared his principles to be favourable to the slave trade.[223] He
+was represented, that is, as holding depopulation to be good in
+itself. These perversions were grotesque, but partly explain the
+horror with which Malthus was constantly regarded; and we must
+consider what made them plausible.
+
+I must first notice the maturer form of his doctrine. In the second
+edition he turns to account the result of his later reading, his
+personal observations, and the statistical results which were
+beginning to accumulate. The remodelled book opens with a survey of
+the observed action of the checks; and it concludes with a discussion
+of the 'moral restraint' which is now added to 'vice and misery.'
+Although considerable fragments of the old treatise remained to the
+last, the whole book was altered both in style and character. The
+style certainly suffers, for Malthus was not a master of the literary
+art; he inserts his additions with little care for the general effect.
+He tones down some of the more vivid phrases which had given offence,
+though he does not retract the substance. A famous passage[224] in the
+second edition, in which he speaks of 'nature's mighty feast,' where,
+unluckily, the 'table is already full,' and therefore unbidden guests
+are left to starve, was suppressed in the later editions. Yet the
+principle that no man has a claim to subsistence as of right remains
+unaltered. The omission injures the literary effect without altering
+the logic; and I think that, where the argument is amended, the new
+element is scarcely worked into the old so as to gain thorough
+consistency.
+
+Malthus's survey of different countries showed how various are the
+'checks' by which population is limited in various countries. We take
+a glance at all nations through all epochs of history. In the South
+Sea we find a delicious climate and a fertile soil, where population
+is mainly limited by vice, infanticide, and war; and where, in spite
+of these influences, the population multiplies at intervals till it is
+killed off by famine. In China, a vast and fertile territory,
+inhabited by an industrious race, in which agriculture has always been
+encouraged, marriage stimulated, and property widely diffused, has
+facilitated the production of a vast population in the most abject
+state of poverty, driven to expose children by want, and liable at
+intervals to destructive famines. In modern Europe, the checks appear
+in the most various forms; in Switzerland and Norway a frugal
+population in small villages sometimes instinctively understands the
+principle of population, and exhibits the 'moral restraint,' while in
+England the poor-laws are producing a mass of hopeless and inert
+pauperism. Consideration of these various cases, and a comparison of
+such records as are obtainable of the old savage races, of the
+classical states of antiquity, of the Northern barbarians and of the
+modern European nations, suggests a natural doubt. Malthus abundantly
+proves what can hardly be denied, that population has everywhere been
+found to press upon the means of subsistence, and that vice and misery
+are painfully abundant. But does he establish or abandon his main
+proposition? He now asserts the 'tendency' of population to outrun the
+means of subsistence. Yet he holds unequivocally that the increase of
+population has been accompanied by an increased comfort; that want has
+diminished although population has increased; and that the
+'preventive' check is stronger than of old in proportion to the
+positive check. Scotland, he says,[225] is 'still overpeopled, but not
+so much as when it contained fewer inhabitants.' Many nations, as he
+points out in general terms, have been most prosperous when most
+populous.[226] They could export food when crowded, and have ceased to
+import it when thinned. This, indeed, expresses his permanent views,
+though the facts were often alleged by his critics as a disproof of
+them. Was not the disproof real? Does not a real evasion lurk under
+the phrase 'tendency'? You may say that the earth has a tendency to
+fall into the sun, and another 'tendency' to move away from the sun.
+But it would be absurd to argue that we were therefore in danger of
+being burnt or of being frozen. To explain the law of a vital process,
+we may have to analyse it, and therefore to regard it as due to
+conflicting forces; but the forces do not really exist separately, and
+in considering the whole concrete phenomenon we must take them as
+mutually implied. A man has a 'tendency' to grow too fat; and another
+'tendency' to grow too thin. That surely means that on the whole he
+has a 'tendency' to preserve the desirable mean. The phrase, then, can
+only have a distinct meaning when the conflicting forces represent two
+independent or really separable forces. To use an illustration given
+by Malthus, we might say that a man had a 'tendency' to grow upwards;
+but was restrained by a weight on his head. The man has the
+'tendency,' because we may regard the weight as a separable accident.
+When both forces are of the essence, the separate 'tendencies'
+correspond merely to our way of analysing the fact. But if one can be
+properly regarded as relatively accidental, the 'tendency' means the
+way in which the other will manifest itself in actual cases.
+
+In 1829, Senior put this point to Malthus.[227] What, he asked, do you
+understand by a 'tendency' when you admit that the tendency is
+normally overbalanced by others? Malthus explains his meaning to be
+that every nation suffers from evils 'specifically arising from the
+pressure of population against food.' The wages of the labourer in old
+countries have never been sufficient to enable him to maintain a large
+family at ease. There is overcrowding, we may say, in England now as
+there was in England at the Conquest; though food has increased in a
+greater proportion than population; and the pressure has therefore
+taken a milder form. This, again, is proved by the fact that, whenever
+a relaxation of the pressure has occurred, when plagues have
+diminished population, or improvements in agriculture increased their
+supply of food, the gap has been at once filled up. The people have
+not taken advantage of the temporary relaxation of the check to
+preserve the new equilibrium, but have taken out the improvement by a
+multiplication of numbers. The statement then appears to be that at
+any given time the population is in excess. Men would be better off if
+they were less numerous. But, on the other hand, the tendency to
+multiply does not represent a constant force, an irresistible instinct
+which will always bring men down to the same level, but something
+which, in fact, may vary materially. Malthus admits, in fact, that
+the 'elasticity' is continually changing; and therefore repudiates the
+interpretation which seemed to make all improvement hopeless. Why,
+then, distinguish the 'check' as something apart from the instinct?
+If, in any case, we accept this explanation, does not the theory
+become a 'truism,' or at least a commonplace, inoffensive but hardly
+instructive? Does it amount to more than the obvious statement that
+prudence and foresight are desirable and are unfortunately scarce?
+
+
+III. MORAL RESTRAINT
+
+The change in the theory of 'checks' raises another important
+question. Malthus now introduced a modification upon which his
+supporters laid great stress. In the new version the 'checks' which
+proportion population to means of subsistence are not simply 'vice and
+misery,' but 'moral restraint, vice, and misery.'[228] How, precisely,
+does this modify the theory? How are the different 'checks' related?
+What especially is meant by 'moral' in this connection? Malthus takes
+his ethical philosophy pretty much for granted, but is clearly a
+Utilitarian according to the version of Paley.[229] He agrees with
+Paley that 'virtue evidently consists in educing from the materials
+which the Creator has placed under our guidance the greatest sum of
+human happiness.'[230] He adds to this that our 'natural impulses are,
+abstractedly considered, good, and only to be distinguished by their
+consequences.' Hunger, he says, as Bentham had said, is the same in
+itself, whether it leads to stealing a loaf or to eating your own
+loaf. He agrees with Godwin that morality means the 'calculation of
+consequences,'[231] or, as he says with Paley, implies the discovery
+of the will of God by observing the effect of actions upon happiness.
+Reason then regulates certain innate and practically unalterable
+instincts by enabling us to foretell their consequences. The
+reasonable man is influenced not simply by the immediate
+gratification, but by a forecast of all the results which it will
+entail. In these matters Malthus was entirely at one with the
+Utilitarians proper, and seems to regard their doctrine as
+self-evident.
+
+He notices briefly one logical difficulty thus introduced. The
+'checks' are vice, misery, and moral restraint. But why distinguish
+vice from misery? Is not conduct vicious which causes misery,[232] and
+precisely because it causes misery? He replies that to omit 'vice'
+would confuse our language. Vicious conduct may cause happiness in
+particular cases; though its general tendency would be pernicious. The
+answer is not very clear; and Malthus, I think, would have been more
+logical if he had stuck to his first theory, and regarded vice as
+simply one form of imprudence. Misery, that is, or the fear of misery,
+and the indulgence in conduct which produces misery are the 'checks'
+which limit population; and the whole problem is to make the ultimate
+sanction more operative upon the immediate conduct. Man becomes more
+virtuous simply as he becomes more prudent, and is therefore governed
+in his conduct by recognising the wider and more remote series of
+consequences. There is, indeed, the essential difference that the
+virtuous man acts (on whatever motives) from a regard to the 'greatest
+happiness of the greatest number,' and not simply from self-regard.
+Still the ultimate and decisive criterion is the tendency of conduct
+to produce misery; and if Malthus had carried this through as
+rigorously as Bentham, he would have been more consistent. The 'moral
+check' would then have been simply a department of the prudential;
+including prudence for others as well as for ourselves. One reason for
+the change is obvious. His assumption enables him to avoid coming into
+conflict with the accepted morality of the time. On his exposition
+'vice' occasionally seems not to be productive of misery but an
+alternative to misery; and yet something bad in itself. Is this
+consistent with his Utilitarianism? The vices of the South Sea
+Islanders, according to him, made famine less necessary; and, if they
+gave pleasure at the moment, were they not on the whole beneficial?
+Malthus again reckons among vices practices which limit the population
+without causing 'misery' directly.[233] Could he logically call them
+vicious? He wishes to avoid the imputation of sanctioning such
+practices, and therefore condemns them by his moral check; but it
+would be hard to prove that he was consistent in condemning them. Or,
+again, there is another familiar difficulty. The Catholic church
+encourages marriage as a remedy for vice; and thereby stimulates both
+population and poverty. How would Malthus solve the problem: is it
+better to encourage chastity and a superabundance of people, or to
+restrict marriage at the cost of increasing temptation to vice? He
+seems to evade the point by saying that he recommends both chastity
+and abstinence from marriage. By 'moral restraint,' as he explains, he
+means 'restraint from marriage from prudential motives, with a conduct
+strictly moral during the period of this restraint.' 'I have never,'
+he adds, 'intentionally deviated from this sense.'[234] A man, that
+is, should postpone taking a wife, and should not console himself by
+taking a mistress. He is to refrain from increasing the illegitimate
+as well as from increasing the legitimate population. It is not
+surprising that Malthus admits that this check has 'in past ages
+operated with inconsiderable force.'[235] In fact Malthus, as a
+thoroughly respectable and decent clergyman, manages by talking about
+the 'moral restraint' rather to evade than to answer some awkward
+problems of conduct; but at the cost of some inconsequence.
+
+But another result of this mode of patching up his argument is more
+important. The 'vices of mankind,' he says in an unusually rhetorical
+summary of his historical inquiry,[236] 'are active and able ministers
+of depopulation. They are the precursors in the great army of
+destruction, and often finish the dreadful work themselves. But should
+they fail in the war of extermination, sickly seasons, epidemics,
+pestilence, and plague advance in terrific array, and sweep off their
+thousands and ten thousands. Should success still be incomplete,
+gigantic inevitable famine stalks in the rear, and at one mighty blow
+levels the population with the food of the world.' The life of the
+race, then, is a struggle with misery; its expansion is constantly
+forcing it upon this array of evils; and in proportion to the
+elasticity is the severity of the evils which follow. This is not only
+a 'gloomy view,' but again seems to suggest that 'vice' is an
+alternative to 'misery.' Vices are bad, it would seem, but at least
+they obviate the necessity for disease and famine. Malthus probably
+suppressed the passage because he thought it liable to this
+interpretation. It indicates, however, a real awkwardness, if not
+something more, in his exposition. He here speaks as if there was room
+for a fixed number of guests at his banquet. Whatever, therefore,
+keeps the population to that limit must be so far good. If he had
+considered his 'moral check' more thoroughly, he might have seen that
+this does not correspond to his real meaning. The 'moral' and the
+prudential checks are not really to be contrasted as alternative, but
+co-operative. Every population, vicious or virtuous, must of course
+proportion its numbers to its means of support. That gives the
+prudential check. But the moral check operates by altering the
+character of the population itself. From the purely economic point of
+view, vice is bad because it lowers efficiency. A lazy, drunken, and
+profligate people would starve where an industrious, sober, and honest
+people would thrive. The check of vice thus brings the check of misery
+into play at an earlier stage. It limits by lowering the vitality and
+substituting degeneration for progress. The check, therefore, is
+essentially mischievous. Though it does not make the fields barren, it
+lowers the power of cultivation. Malthus had recognised this when he
+pointed out, as we have seen, that emergence from the savage state
+meant the institution of marriage and property and, we may infer, the
+correlative virtues of chastity, industry, and honesty. If men can
+form large societies, and millions can be supported where once a few
+thousands were at starvation point, it is due to the civilisation
+which at every stage implies 'moral restraint' in a wider sense than
+Malthus used the phrase. An increase of population by such means was,
+of course, to be desired. If Malthus emphasises this inadequately, it
+is partly, no doubt, because the Utilitarian view of morality tended
+to emphasise the external consequences rather than the alteration of
+the man himself. Yet the wider and sounder view is logically implied
+in his reasoning--so much so that he might have expressed his real aim
+more clearly if he had altered the order of his argument. He might
+have consistently taken the same line as earlier writers and declared
+that he desired, above all things, the increase of population. He
+would have had indeed to explain that he desired the increase of a
+sound and virtuous population; and that hasty and imprudent increase
+led to misery and to a demoralisation which would ultimately limit
+numbers in the worst way. We shall see directly how nearly he accepts
+this view. Meanwhile, by insisting upon the need of limitation, he was
+led to speak often as if limitation by any means was good and the one
+thing needful, and the polemic against Godwin in the first edition had
+given prominence to this side of the question. Had he put his views in
+a different shape, he would perhaps have been so edifying that he
+would have been disregarded. He certainly avoided that risk, and had
+whatever advantage is gained by stating sound doctrine paradoxically.
+
+We shall, I think, appreciate his real position better by considering
+his approximation to the theory which, as we know, was suggested to
+Darwin by a perusal of Malthus.[237] There is a closer resemblance
+than appears at first. The first edition concludes by two chapters
+afterwards omitted, giving the philosophical application of his
+theory. He there says that the 'world is a mighty process of God not
+for the trial but for the creation and formation of the mind.'[238] It
+is not, as Butler thought, a place of 'probation,' but a scene in
+which the higher qualities are gradually developed. Godwin had quoted
+Franklin's view that 'mind' would become 'omnipotent over matter.'
+Malthus holds that, as he puts it, 'God is making matter into mind.'
+The difference is that Malthus regards evil in general not as a sort
+of accident of which we can get rid by reason; but as the essential
+stimulus which becomes the efficient cause of intellectual activity.
+The evils from which men suffer raise savage tribes from their
+indolence, and by degrees give rise to the growth of civilisation. The
+argument, though these chapters were dropped by Malthus, was taken up
+by J. B. Sumner, to whom he refers in later editions.[239] It is, in
+fact, an imperfect way of stating a theory of evolution. This appears
+in his opening chapters upon the 'moral restraint.'[240] He explains
+that moral and physical evils are 'instruments employed by the Deity'
+to admonish us against such conduct as is destructive of happiness.
+Diseases are indications that we have broken a law of nature. The
+plague of London was properly interpreted by our ancestors as a hint
+to improve the sanitary conditions of the town. Similarly, we have to
+consider the consequences of obeying our instincts. The desire of food
+and necessaries is the most powerful of these instincts, and next to
+it the passion between the sexes. They are both good, for they are
+both natural; but they have to be properly correlated. To 'virtuous
+love' in particular we owe the 'sunny spots' in our lives, where the
+imagination loves to bask. Desire of necessaries gives us the stimulus
+of the comfortable fireside; and love adds the wife and children,
+without whom the fireside would lose half its charm. Now, as a rule,
+the sexual passion is apt to be in excess. The final cause of this
+excess is itself obvious. We cannot but conceive that it is an object
+of 'the Creator that the earth should be replenished.'[241] To secure
+that object, it is necessary that 'there should be a tendency in the
+population to increase faster than food.' If the two instincts were
+differently balanced, men would be content though the population of a
+fertile region were limited to the most trifling numbers. Hence the
+instinct has mercifully been made so powerful as to stimulate
+population, and thus indirectly and eventually to produce a population
+at once larger and more comfortable. On the one hand, it is of the
+very utmost importance to the happiness of mankind that they should
+not increase too fast,[242] but, on the other hand, if the passion
+were weakened, the motives which make a man industrious and capable of
+progress would be diminished also. It would, of course, be simpler to
+omit the 'teleology'; to say that sanitary regulations are made
+necessary by the plague, not that the plague is divinely appointed to
+encourage sanitary regulations. Malthus is at the point of view of
+Paley which becomes Darwinism when inverted; but the conclusion is
+much the same. He reaches elsewhere, in fact, a more precise view of
+the value of the 'moral restraint.' In a chapter devoted for once to
+an ideal state of things,[243] he shows how a race thoroughly imbued
+with that doctrine would reconcile the demands of the two instincts.
+Population would in that case increase, but, instead of beginning by
+an increase, it would begin by providing the means of supporting. No
+man would become a father until he had seen his way to provide for a
+family. The instinct which leads to increasing the population would
+thus be intrinsically as powerful as it now is; but when regulated by
+prudence it would impel mankind to begin at the right end. Food would
+be ready before mouths to eat it.
+
+
+IV. SOCIAL REMEDIES
+
+This final solution appears in Malthus's proposed remedies for the
+evils of the time. Malthus[244] declares that 'an increase of
+population when it follows in its natural order is both a great
+positive good in itself, and absolutely necessary' to an increase of
+wealth. This natural order falls in, as he observes, with the view to
+which Mirabeau had been converted, that 'revenue was the source of
+population,' and not population of revenue.[245] Malthus holds
+specifically that, 'in the course of some centuries,' the population
+of England might be doubled or trebled, and yet every man be 'much
+better fed and clothed than he is at present.'[246] He parts company
+with Paley, who had considered the ideal state to be 'that of a
+laborious frugal people ministering to the demands of an opulent
+luxurious nation.'[247] That, says Malthus, is 'not an inviting
+prospect.' Nothing but a conviction of absolute necessity could
+reconcile us to the 'thought of ten millions of people condemned to
+incessant toil, and to the privation of everything but absolute
+necessaries, in order to minister to the excessive luxuries of the
+other million.' But he denies that any such necessity exists. He
+wishes precisely to see luxury spread among the poorer classes. A
+desire for such luxury is the best of all checks to population, and
+one of the best means of raising the standard. It would, in fact,
+contribute to his 'moral restraint.' So, too, he heartily condemns
+the hypocrisy of the rich, who professed a benevolent desire to
+better the poor, and yet complained of high wages.[248] If, he says
+elsewhere,[249] a country can 'only be rich by running a successful
+race for low wages, I should be disposed to say, Perish such riches!'
+No one, in fact, could see more distinctly than Malthus the
+demoralising influence of poverty, and the surpassing importance of
+raising the people from the terrible gulf of pauperism. He refers to
+Colquhoun's account of the twenty thousand people who rose every
+morning in London without knowing how they were to be supported; and
+observes that 'when indigence does not produce overt acts of vice, it
+palsies every virtue.'[250] The temptations to which the poor man is
+exposed, and the sense of injustice due to an ignorance of the true
+cause of misery, tend to 'sour the disposition, to harden the heart,
+and deaden the moral sense.' Unfortunately, the means which have been
+adopted to lessen the evil have tended to increase it. In the first
+place, there was the master-evil of the poor-laws. Malthus points out
+the demoralising effects of these laws in chapters full of admirable
+common sense, which he was unfortunately able to enforce by fresh
+illustrations in successive editions. He attends simply to the
+stimulus to population. He thinks that if the laws had never existed,
+the poor would now have been much better off.[251] If the laws had
+been fully carried out, every labourer might have been certain that
+all his children would be supported, or, in other words, every check
+to population would have been removed.[252] Happily, the becoming
+pride of the English peasantry was not quite extinct; and the poor-law
+had to some extent counteracted itself, or taken away with one hand
+what it gave with the other, by placing the burthen upon the
+parishes.[253] Thus landlords have been more disposed to pull down
+than to build cottages, and marriage has been checked. On the whole,
+however, Malthus could see in the poor-laws nothing but a vast agency
+for demoralising the poor, tempered by a system of petty tyrannical
+interference. He proposes, therefore, that the poor-law should be
+abolished. Notice should be given that no children born after a
+certain day should be entitled to parish help; and, as he quaintly
+suggests, the clergyman might explain to every couple, after
+publishing the banns, the immorality of reckless marriage, and the
+reasons for abolishing a system which had been proved to frustrate the
+intentions of the founders.[254] Private charity, he thinks, would
+meet the distress which might afterwards arise, though humanity
+imperiously requires that it should be 'sparingly administered.' Upon
+this duty he writes a sensible chapter.[255] To his negative proposals
+Malthus adds a few of the positive kind. He is strongly in favour of a
+national system of education, and speaks with contempt of the
+'illiberal and feeble' arguments opposed to it. The schools, he
+observes, might confer 'an almost incalculable benefit' upon society,
+if they taught 'a few of the simplest principles of political
+economy.'[256] He had been disheartened by the prejudices of the
+ignorant labourer, and felt the incompatibility of a free government
+with such ignorance. A real education, such as was given in Scotland,
+would make the poor not, as alarmists had suggested, more inflammable,
+but better able to detect the sophistry of demagogues.[257] He is, of
+course, in favour of savings banks,[258] and approves friendly
+societies, though he is strongly opposed to making them compulsory, as
+they would then be the poor-law in a new form.[259] The value of every
+improvement turns upon its effect in encouraging the 'moral
+restraint.' Malthus's ultimate criterion is always, Will the measure
+make people averse to premature marriage? He reaches the apparently
+inconsistent result that it might be desirable to make an allowance
+for every child beyond six.[260] But this is on the hypothesis that
+the 'moral restraint' has come to be so habitual that no man marries
+until he has a fair prospect of maintaining a family of six. If this
+were the practical code, the allowance in cases where the expectation
+was disappointed would not act as an encouragement to marriage, but as
+a relief under a burthen which could not have been anticipated. Thus
+all Malthus's teaching may be said to converge upon this practical
+point. Add to the Ten Commandments the new law, 'Thou shalt not marry
+until there is a fair prospect of supporting six children.' Then
+population will increase, but sufficient means for subsistence will
+always be provided beforehand. We shall make sure that there is a
+provision for additional numbers before, not after, we add to our
+numbers. Food first and population afterwards gives the rule; thus we
+achieve the good end without the incidental evils.
+
+Malthus's views of the appropriate remedy for social evils
+undoubtedly show an imperfect appreciation of the great problems
+involved. Reckless propagation is an evil; but Malthus regards it as
+an evil which can be isolated and suppressed by simply adding a new
+article to the moral code. He is dealing with a central problem of
+human nature and social order. Any modification of the sexual
+instincts or of the constitution of the family involves a profound
+modification of the whole social order and of the dominant religious
+and moral creeds. Malthus tacitly assumes that conduct is determined
+by the play of two instincts, unalterable in themselves, but capable
+of modification in their results by a more extensive view of
+consequences. To change men's ruling motives in regard to the most
+important part of their lives is to alter their whole aims and
+conceptions of the world, and of happiness in every other relation. It
+supposes, therefore, not a mere addition of knowledge, but a
+transformation of character and an altered view of all the theories
+which have been embodied in religious and ethical philosophy. He
+overlooks, too, considerations which would be essential to a complete
+statement. A population which is too prudent may suffer itself to be
+crowded out by more prolific races in the general struggle for
+existence; and cases may be suggested such as that of the American
+colonies, in which an increase of numbers might be actually an
+advantage by facilitating a more efficient organisation of labour.
+
+The absence of a distinct appreciation of such difficulties gives to
+his speculation that one-sided character which alienated his more
+sentimental contemporaries. It was natural enough in a man who was
+constantly confronted by the terrible development of pauperism in
+England, and was too much tempted to assume that the tendency to
+reckless propagation was not only a very grave evil, but the ultimate
+source of every evil. The doctrine taken up in this unqualified
+fashion by some of his disciples, and preached by them with the utmost
+fervour as the one secret of prosperity, shocked both the conservative
+and orthodox whose prejudices were trampled upon, and such Radicals as
+inherited Godwin's or Condorcet's theory of perfectibility. Harsh and
+one-sided as it might be, however, we may still hold that it was of
+value, not only in regard to the most pressing difficulty of the day,
+but also as calling attention to a vitally important condition of
+social welfare. The question, however, recurs whether, when the
+doctrine is so qualified as to be admissible, it does not also become
+a mere truism.
+
+An answer to this question should begin by recognising one specific
+resemblance between his speculations and Darwin's. Facts, which appear
+from an older point of view to be proofs of a miraculous
+interposition, become with Malthus, as with Darwin, the normal results
+of admitted conditions. Godwin had admitted that there was some
+'principle which kept population on a level with subsistence.' 'The
+sole question is,' says Malthus,[261] 'what is this principle? Is it
+some obscure and occult cause? a mysterious interference of heaven,'
+inflicting barrenness at certain periods? or 'a cause open to our
+researches and within our view?' Other writers had had recourse to the
+miraculous. One of Malthus's early authorities was Suessmilch, who had
+published his _Goettliche Ordnung_ in 1761, to show how Providence had
+taken care that the trees should not grow into the sky. The
+antediluvians had been made long-lived in order that they might have
+large families and people an empty earth, while life was divinely
+shortened as the world filled up. Suessmilch, however, regarded
+population as still in need of stimulus. Kings might help Providence.
+A new Trajan would deserve to be called the father of his people, if
+he increased the marriage-rate. Malthus replies that the statistics
+which the worthy man himself produced showed conclusively that the
+marriages depended upon the deaths. The births fill up the vacancies,
+and the prince who increased the population before vacancies arose
+would simply increase the rate of mortality.[262] If you want to
+increase your birth-rate without absolutely producing famine, as he
+remarks afterwards,[263] make your towns unhealthy, and encourage
+settlement by marshes. You might thus double the mortality, and we
+might all marry prematurely without being absolutely starved. His own
+aim is not to secure the greatest number of births, but to be sure
+that the greatest number of those born may be supported.[264] The
+ingenious M. Muret, again, had found a Swiss parish in which the mean
+life was the highest and the fecundity smallest known. He piously
+conjectures that it may be a law of God that 'the force of life in
+each country should be in the inverse ratio of its fecundity.' He
+needs not betake himself to a miracle, says Malthus.[265] The case is
+simply that in a small and healthy village, where people had become
+aware of the importance of the 'preventive check,' the young people
+put off marriage till there was room for them, and consequently both
+lowered the birth-rate and raised the average duration of life.
+
+Nothing, says Malthus very forcibly, has caused more errors than the
+confusion between 'relative and positive, and between cause and
+effect.'[266] He is here answering the argument that because the poor
+who had cows were the most industrious, the way to make them
+industrious was to give them cows. Malthus thinks it more probable
+that industry got the cow than that the cow produced industry. This is
+a trifling instance of a very general truth. People had been content
+to notice the deaths caused by war and disease, and to infer at once
+that what caused death must diminish population. Malthus shows the
+necessity of observing other collateral results. The gap may be made
+so great as to diminish population; but it may be compensated by a
+more rapid reproduction; or, the rapidity of reproduction may itself
+be the cause of the disease; so that to remove one kind of mortality
+may be on some occasion to introduce others. The stream is dammed on
+one breach to flow more strongly through other outlets.[267]
+
+This is, I conceive, to say simply that Malthus was introducing a
+really scientific method. The facts taken in the true order became at
+once intelligible instead of suggesting mysterious and irregular
+interferences. Earlier writers had been content to single out one
+particular set of phenomena without attending to its place in the more
+general and complex processes, of which they formed an integral part.
+Infanticide, as Hume had pointed out, might tend to increase
+population.[268] In prospect, it might encourage people to have
+babies; and when babies came, natural affection might prevent the
+actual carrying out of the intention. To judge of the actual effect,
+we have to consider the whole of the concrete case. It may be carried
+out, as apparently in the South Sea Islands, so generally as to limit
+population; or it may be, as in China, an indication that the pressure
+is so great that a number of infants become superfluous. Its
+suppression might, in the one case, lead to an increase of the
+population; in the other, to the increase of other forms of mortality.
+Malthus's investigations illustrate the necessity of referring every
+particular process to its place in the whole system, of noting how any
+given change might set up a set of actions and reactions in virtue of
+the general elasticity of population, and thus of constantly referring
+at every step to the general conditions of human life. He succeeded in
+making many points clear, and of showing how hastily many inferences
+had been drawn. He explained, for example, why the revolutionary wars
+had not diminished the population of France, in spite of the great
+number of deaths,[269] and thus gave an example of a sound method of
+inquiry which has exercised a great influence upon later observers.
+Malthus was constantly misunderstood and misrepresented, and his
+opponents often allege as fatal objections to his doctrine the very
+facts by which it was really supported. But we may, I think, say, that
+since his writing no serious economical writer has adopted the old
+hasty guesses, or has ventured to propose a theory without regard to
+the principles of which he first brought out the full significance.
+
+
+V. POLITICAL APPLICATION
+
+This I take to indicate one real and permanent value of Malthus's
+writings. He introduced a new method of approaching the great social
+problems. The value of the method may remain, however inaccurate may
+be the assumptions of facts. The 'tendency,' if interpreted to mean
+that people are always multiplying too rapidly, may be a figment. If
+it is taken as calling attention to one essential factor in the case,
+it is a most important guide to investigation. This brings out another
+vital point. The bearing of the doctrine upon the political as well as
+upon the economical views of the Utilitarians is of conspicuous
+importance. Malthus's starting-point, as we have seen, was the
+opposition to the doctrine of 'perfectibility.' Hard facts, which
+Godwin and Condorcet had neglected, were fatal to their dreams. You
+have, urged Malthus, neglected certain undeniable truths as to the
+unalterable qualities of human nature, and, therefore, your theories
+will not work. The revolutionists had opposed an ideal 'state of
+nature' to the actual arrangements of society. They imagined that the
+'state of nature' represented the desirable consummation, and that the
+constitution of the 'natural' order could be determined from certain
+abstract principles. The equality of man, and the absolute rights
+which could be inferred by a kind of mathematical process, supplied
+the necessary dogmatic basis. The antithesis to the state of nature
+was the artificial state, marked by inequality, and manifesting its
+spirit by luxury. Kings, priests, and nobles had somehow established
+this unnatural order; and to sweep them away summarily was the way of
+bringing the natural order into full activity. The ideal system was
+already potentially in existence, and would become actual when men's
+minds were once cleared from superstition, and the political made to
+correspond to the natural rights of man. To this Malthus had replied,
+as we have seen, that social inequality was not a mere arbitrary
+product of fraud and force, but an expedient necessary to restrain the
+primitive instincts of mankind. He thus coincides with Bentham's
+preference of 'security' to 'equality,' and illustrates the real
+significance of that doctrine. Property and marriage, though they
+involve inequality, were institutions of essential importance. Godwin
+had pushed his theories to absolute anarchy; to the destruction of all
+law, for law in general represented coercion or an interference with
+the state of nature. Malthus virtually asserted that the metaphysical
+doctrine was inapplicable because, men being what they are, these
+conclusions were incompatible with even the first stages of social
+progress. This means, again, that for the metaphysical method Malthus
+is substituting a scientific method. Instead of regarding all
+government as a kind of mysterious intervention from without, which
+has somehow introduced a fatal discord into the natural order, he
+inquires what are the facts; how law has been evolved; and for what
+reason. His answer is, in brief, that law, order, and inequality have
+been absolutely necessary in order to limit tendencies which would
+otherwise keep men in a state of hopeless poverty and depression.
+
+This gives the 'differentia' of the Utilitarian considered as one
+species of the genus 'Radical.' Malthus's criticism of Paine is
+significant.[270] He agrees with Paine that the cause of popular
+risings is 'want of happiness.' But Paine, he remarks, was 'in many
+important points totally ignorant of the structure of society'; and
+has fallen into the error of attributing all want of happiness to
+government. Consequently, Paine advocates a plan for distributing
+taxes among the poorest classes, which would aggravate the evils a
+hundredfold. He fully admits with Paine that man has rights. The true
+line of answer would be to show what those rights are. To give this
+answer is not Malthus's present business; but there is one right, at
+any rate, which a man does not and cannot possess: namely, the 'right
+to subsistence when his labour will not fairly purchase it.' He does
+not possess it because he cannot possess it; to try to secure it is to
+try to 'reverse the laws of nature,' and therefore to produce cruel
+suffering by practising an 'inhuman deceit.' The Abbe Raynal had said
+that a man had a right to subsist 'before all social laws.' Man had
+the same right, replied Malthus, as he had to live a hundred or a
+thousand years. He may live, _if he can_ without interfering with
+others. Social laws have, in fact, enlarged the power of subsistence;
+but neither before nor after their institution could an unlimited
+number subsist. Briefly, the question of fact comes before the
+question of right, and the fault of the revolutionary theorists was to
+settle the right without reference to the possibility of making the
+right correspond to the fact.
+
+Hence Malthus draws his most emphatic political moral. The admission
+that all evil is due to government is the way to tyranny. Make men
+believe that government is the one cause of misery, and they will
+inevitably throw the whole responsibility upon their rulers; seek for
+redress by cures which aggravate the disease; and strengthen the hands
+of those who prefer even despotism to anarchy. This, he intimates, is
+the explanation of the repressive measures in which the
+country-gentlemen had supported Pitt. The people had fancied that by
+destroying government they would make bread cheap; government was
+forced to be tyrannical in order to resist revolution; while its
+supporters were led to 'give up some of the most valuable privileges
+of Englishmen.'[271] It is then of vital importance to settle what is
+and what is not to be set down to government. Malthus, in fact, holds
+that the real evils are due to underlying causes which cannot be
+directly removed, though they may be diminished or increased, by
+legislators. Government can do something by giving security to
+property, and by making laws which will raise the self-respect of the
+lower classes. But the effect of such laws must be slow and gradual;
+and the error which has most contributed to that delay in the progress
+of freedom, which is 'so disheartening to every liberal mind,'[272] is
+the confusion as to the true causes of misery. Thus, as he has already
+urged, professed economists could still believe, so long after the
+publication of Adam Smith's work, that it was 'in the power of the
+justices of the peace or even of the omnipotence of parliament to
+alter by a _fiat_ the whole circumstances of the country.'[273] Yet
+men who saw the absurdity of trying to fix the price of provisions
+were ready to propose to fix the rate of wages. They did not see that
+one term of the proportion implied the other. Malthus's whole
+criticism of the poor-law, already noticed, is a commentary upon this
+text. It is connected with a general theory of human nature. The
+author of nature, he says, has wisely made 'the passion of self-love
+beyond expression stronger than the passion of benevolence.'[274] He
+means, as he explains, that every man has to pursue his own welfare
+and that of his family as his primary object. Benevolence, of course,
+is the 'source of our purest and most refined pleasures,' and so
+forth; but it should come in as a supplement to self-love. Therefore
+we must never admit that men have a strict right to relief. That is to
+injure the very essential social force. 'Hard as it may seem in
+individual instances, dependent poverty ought to be held
+disgraceful.'[275] The spirit of independence or self-help is the one
+thing necessary. 'The desire of bettering our condition and the fear
+of making it worse, like the _vis medicatrix_ in physics, is the _vis
+medicatrix naturae_ in politics, and is continually counteracting the
+disorders arising from narrow human institutions.'[276] It is only
+because the poor-laws have not quite destroyed it, that they have not
+quite ruined the country. The pith of Malthus's teaching is fairly
+expressed in his last letter to Senior.[277] He holds that the
+improvement in the condition of the great mass of the labouring
+classes should be considered as the main interest of society. To
+improve their condition, it is essential to impress them with the
+conviction that they can do much more for themselves than others can
+do for them, and that the _only_ source of permanent improvement is
+the improvement of their moral and religious habits. What government
+can do, therefore, is to maintain such institutions as may strengthen
+the _vis medicatrix_, or 'desire to better our condition,' which
+poor-laws had directly tended to weaken. He maintains in his letter to
+Senior, that this desire is 'perfectly feeble' compared with the
+tendency of the population to increase, and operates in a very slight
+degree upon the great mass of the labouring class.[278] Still, he
+holds that on the whole the 'preventive checks' have become stronger
+relatively to the positive,[279] and, at any rate, all proposals must
+be judged by their tendency to strengthen the preventive.
+
+Malthus was not a thoroughgoing supporter of the 'do-nothing'
+doctrine. He approved of a national system of education, and of the
+early factory acts, though only as applied to infant labour. So, as we
+shall see, did all the Utilitarians. The 'individualism,' however, is
+not less decided; and leads him to speak as though the elasticity of
+population were not merely an essential factor in the social problem,
+but the sole principle from which all solutions must be deduced. He is
+thus led, as I have tried to show, to a narrow interpretation of his
+'moral check.' He is apt to take 'vice' simply as a product of
+excessive pressure, and, in his general phrases at least, to overlook
+its reciprocal tendency to cause pressure. The 'moral check' is only
+preventive or negative, not a positive cause of superior vigour. A
+similar defect appears in his theory of the _vis medicatrix_. He was,
+I hold, perfectly right in emphasising the importance of individual
+responsibility. No reform can be permanent which does not raise the
+morality of the individual. His insistence upon this truth was of the
+highest importance, and it is to be wished that its importance might
+be more fully recognised to-day. The one-sidedness appears in his
+proposal to abolish the poor-law simply. That became the most
+conspicuous and widely accepted doctrine. All men of 'sense,' said
+Sydney Smith--certainly a qualified representative of the class--in
+1820, agree, first, that the poor-law must be abolished; and secondly,
+that it must be abolished very gradually.[280] That is really to
+assume that by refusing to help people at all, you will force them to
+help themselves. There is another alternative, namely, that they may,
+as Malthus himself often recognises, become demoralised by excessive
+poverty. To do simply nothing may lead to degeneration instead of
+increased energy. The possibility of an improved law, which might act
+as a moral discipline instead of a simply corrupting agency, is simply
+left out of account; and the tendency to stimulate reckless population
+is regarded not only as one probable consequence, but as the very
+essence of all poor-laws. Upon Malthus's assumptions, the statement
+that sound political and social theories must be based upon systematic
+inquiry into facts, meant that the individual was the ultimate
+unalterable unit, whose interest in his own welfare gave the one
+fulcrum for all possible changes. The ideal 'state of nature' was a
+fiction. The true basis of our inquiries is the actual man known to us
+by observation. The main fault of this being was the excess of the
+instinct of multiplication, and the way to improve him was to show how
+it might conflict with the instinct of self-preservation. In this
+shape the doctrine expressed the most characteristic tendency of the
+Utilitarians, and divided them from the Socialists or believers in
+abstract rights of man.
+
+
+VI. RENT
+
+Here, then, we are at a central point of the Utilitarian creed. The
+expansive force of population is, in a sense, the great motive power
+which moulds the whole social structure; or, rather, it forces
+together the independent units, and welds them into an aggregate. The
+influence of this doctrine upon other economical speculations is of
+the highest importance. One critical stage in the process is marked by
+the enunciation of the theory of rent, which was to become another
+essential article of the true faith. The introduction of this doctrine
+is characteristic, and marks the point at which Ricardo superseded
+Malthus as chief expositor of the doctrine.
+
+Malthus's views were first fully given in his _Inquiry into Rent_, the
+second of three pamphlets which he published during the corn-law
+controversy of 1814-15.[281] The opinions now stated had, he says,
+been formed in the course of his lecturing at Haileybury; and he made
+them public on account of their bearing upon the most absorbing
+questions of the time. The connection of the theory with Malthus's
+speculations and with the contemporary difficulties is indeed obvious.
+The landlord had clearly one of the reserved seats at the banquet of
+nature. He was the most obvious embodiment of 'security' as opposed to
+equality. Malthus, again, had been influenced by the French economists
+and their theory of the 'surplus fund,' provided by agriculture.
+According to them, as he says,[282] this fund or rent constitutes the
+whole national wealth. In his first edition he had defended the
+economists against some of Adam Smith's criticisms; and though he
+altered his views and thought that they had been led into preposterous
+errors, he retained a certain sympathy for them. Agriculture has still
+a certain 'pre-eminence.' God has bestowed upon the soil the
+'inestimable quality of being able to maintain more persons than are
+necessary to work it.'[283] It has the special virtue that the supply
+of necessaries generates the demand. Make more luxuries and the price
+may fall; but grow more food and there will be more people to eat it.
+This, however, seems to be only another way of stating an unpleasant
+fact. The blessing of 'fertility' counteracts itself. As he argues in
+the essay,[284] an equal division of land might produce such an
+increase of population as would exhaust any conceivable increase of
+food. These views--not, I think, very clear or consistently worked
+out--lead apparently to the conclusion that the fertility is indeed a
+blessing, but on condition of being confined to a few. The result, in
+any case, is the orthodox theory of rent. The labourer gets less than
+he would if the products of the soil were equally distributed. Both
+wages and profits must fall as more is left to rent, and that this
+actually happens, he says, with unusual positiveness, is an
+'incontrovertible truth.'[285] The fall enables the less fertile land
+to be cultivated, and gives an excess of produce on the more fertile.
+'This excess is rent.'[286] He proceeds to expound his doctrine by
+comparing land to a set of machines for making corn.[287] If, in
+manufacture, a new machine is introduced every one adopts it. In
+agriculture the worst machines have still to be used; and those who
+have the best and sell at the same price, can appropriate the surplus
+advantage. This, he declares, is a law 'as invariable as the action of
+the principle of gravity.'[288] Yet Smith and others have overlooked a
+'principle of the highest importance'[289] and have failed to see that
+the price of corn, as of other things, must conform to the cost of
+production. The same doctrine was expounded in the same year by Sir
+Edward West;[290] and, as it seems to me, more clearly and simply.
+West, like Malthus, says that he has to announce a principle
+overlooked by Adam Smith. This is briefly that 'each equal additional
+quantity of work bestowed on agriculture yields an actually diminished
+return.' He holds that profits fall as wealth increases, but he denies
+Adam Smith's view that this is a simple result of increased
+competition.[291] Competition would equalise, but would not lower
+profits, for 'the productive powers of manufactures are constantly
+increasing.' In agriculture the law is the opposite one of diminishing
+returns. Hence the admitted fall of profits shows that the necessity
+of taking inferior soils into cultivation is the true cause of the
+fall.
+
+Such coincidences as that between Malthus and West are common enough,
+for very obvious reasons. In this case, I think, there is less room
+for surprise than usual. The writer generally credited with the
+discovery of the rent doctrine is James Anderson, who had stated it
+as early as 1777.[292] The statement, however, did not attract
+attention until at the time of West and Malthus it was forced upon
+observers by the most conspicuous facts of the day. Adam Smith and
+other economists had, as Malthus notices, observed what is obvious
+enough, that rent in some way represented a 'net produce'--a something
+which remained after paying the costs of production. So much was
+obvious to any common-sense observer. In a curious paper of December
+1804,[293] Cobbett points out that the landlords will always keep the
+profits of farmers down to the average rate of equally agreeable
+businesses. This granted, it is a short though important step to the
+theory of rent. The English system had, in fact, spontaneously
+analysed the problem. The landlord, farmer, and labourer represented
+the three interests which might elsewhere be combined. Prices raised
+by war and famine had led to the enclosure of wastes and the breaking
+up of pastures. The 'margin of cultivation' was thus illustrated by
+facts. Farmers were complaining that they could not make a profit if
+prices were lowered. The landed classes were profiting by a rise of
+price raised, according to a familiar law, in greater proportion than
+the deficiency of the harvest. Facts of this kind were, one must
+suppose, familiar to every land-agent; and to discover the law of
+rent, it was only necessary for Malthus and West to put them in their
+natural order. The egg had only to be put on its end, though that, as
+we know, is often a difficult task. When the feat was accomplished
+consequences followed which were fully developed by Ricardo.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[203] Mr. James Bonar's _Malthus and his Work_ (1885) gives an
+admirable account of Malthus. The chief original authorities are a
+life by Bishop Otter, prefixed to a second edition of the _Political
+Economy_ (1831), and an article by Empson, Malthus's colleague, in the
+_Edinburgh Review_ for January 1837.
+
+[204] _Political Justice_ (3rd edition, 1798), ii. bk. viii. chap.
+ix., p. 514.
+
+[205] Wallace wrote in answer to Hume, _A Dissertation on the Numbers
+of Mankind in Ancient and Modern Times_ (1753), and _Various Prospects
+of Mankind_, and _Nature and Providence_ (1761). Godwin refers to the
+last.
+
+[206] _Political Justice_, ii. 520.
+
+[207] _Ibid._ ii. 528.
+
+[208] First published in 1795, after the first edition, as Godwin
+remarks, of the _Political Justice_.
+
+[209] _Ami des hommes_ (reprint of 1883), p. 15.
+
+[210] _Ami des hommes_, p. 26.
+
+[211] See the curious debate in _Parl. Hist._ xiv. 1318-1365.
+
+[212] The seventh edition of Price's _Observations on Reversionary
+Payments_, etc. (1812), contains a correspondence with Pitt (i. 216,
+etc.). The editor, W. Morgan, accuses Pitt of adopting Price's plans
+without due acknowledgment and afterwards spoiling them.
+
+[213] _Essay on Population_, p. 18. In _Observations_, ii. 141, he
+estimates the diminution at a million and a half. Other books
+referring to the same controversy are Howlett's _Examination of Dr.
+Price's Essay_ (1781); _Letter to Lord Carlisle_, by William Eden
+(1744-1814), first Lord Auckland; William Wales's _Enquiry into
+Present State of Population_, etc. (1781); and Geo. Chalmers's
+_Estimate of the Comparative Strength of Great Britain_ (1782 and
+several later editions).
+
+[214] _Essay_ (first edition), p. 339.
+
+[215] _Memoirs_, etc. (1819), ii. 10.
+
+[216] So Sir James Stewart, whose light was extinguished by Adam
+Smith, begins his _Enquiry into the Principles of Political Economy_
+(1767) by discussing the question of population, and compares the
+'generative faculty' to a spring loaded with a weight, and exerting
+itself in proportion to the diminution of resistance (_Works_, 1805,
+i. 22). He compares population to 'rabbits in a warren.' Joseph
+Townsend, in his _Journey Through Spain_ (1792), to whom Malthus
+refers, had discussed the supposed decay of the Spanish population,
+and illustrates his principles by a geometric progression: see ii.
+213-56, 386-91. Eden, in his book on the poor (i. 214), quotes a tract
+attributed to Sir Matthew Hale for the statement that the poor
+increase on 'geometrical progression.'
+
+[217] _Malthus and his Work_, p. 85.
+
+[218] Voltaire says in the _Dictionnaire Philosophique_ (art.
+'Population'): 'On ne propage point en Progression Geometrique. Tous
+les calculs qu'on a faits sur cette pretendue multiplication sont des
+chimeres absurdes.' They had been used to reconcile the story of the
+deluge with the admitted population of the world soon afterwards.
+
+[219] _Essay_ (1826), ii 453 _n._ I cite from this, the last edition
+published in Malthus's lifetime, unless otherwise stated.
+
+[220] _Essay_, ii. 251 (bk. iii. ch. xiv.).
+
+[221] _Ibid._ (1798), p. 141.
+
+[222] _Essay_, ii. 449 (Appendix).
+
+[223] _Essay_, ii. 473 (Appendix).
+
+[224] _Ibid._ (Second Edition), p. 400. The passage is given in full
+in _Malthus and his Work_, p. 307.
+
+[225] _Essay_, i. 469 (bk. ii. ch. x.). Eden had made the same remark.
+
+[226] _Ibid._ ii. 229 (bk. iii. ch. xiv.).
+
+[227] Correspondence in Senior's _Three Essays on Population_ (1829).
+
+[228] _Essay_, i. 234 (bk. i. ch. ii.).
+
+[229] Mr. Bonar thinks (_Malthus and his Work_, p. 324) that Malthus
+followed Paley's predecessor, Abraham Tucker, rather than Paley. The
+difference is not for my purpose important. In any case, Malthus's
+references are to Paley.
+
+[230] _Essay_, ii. 266 (bk. iv. ch. i.).
+
+[231] _Essay_ (first edition), p. 212.
+
+[232] _Ibid._ i. 16 _n._ (bk. i. ch. ii.).
+
+[233] See _e.g._ his remarks upon Condorcet in _Essay_, ii. 8 (bk.
+iii. ch. i.); and Owen in _Ibid._ ii. 48 (bk. iii ch. ii.).
+
+[234] _Essay_, i. 15 _n._ (bk. i. ch. ii.); and see _Ibid._ (edit. of
+1807) ii. 128.
+
+[235] _Ibid._ (1807) ii. 128.
+
+[236] _Ibid._ (1807) ii. 3 (bk. ii. ch. ii.). (Omitted in later
+editions.)
+
+[237] Mr. A. R. Wallace, Darwin's fellow-discoverer of the doctrine,
+also learned it from Malthus. See Clodd's _Pioneers of Evolution_.
+Malthus uses the phrase 'struggle for existence' in relation to a
+fight between two savage tribes in the first edition of his _Essay_,
+p. 48. In replying to Condorcet, Malthus speaks (_Essay_, ii. 12, bk.
+iii. ch. i.) of the possible improvement of living organisms. He
+argues that, though a plant may be improved, it cannot be indefinitely
+improved by cultivation. A carnation could not be made as large as a
+tulip. It has been said that this implies a condemnation by
+anticipation of theories of the development of species. This is hardly
+correct. Malthus simply urges against Condorcet that our inability to
+fix limits precisely does not imply that there are no limits. This, it
+would seem, must be admitted on all hands. Evolution implies definite
+though not precisely definable limits. Life may be lengthened, but not
+made immortal.
+
+[238] _Essay_ (first edition), 353.
+
+[239] _Ibid._ 42 _n._ (bk. iii. ch. iii.)
+
+[240] _Essay_, ii. 301-36 (bk. iv. ch. i. and ii.). Sumner's _Treatise
+on the Records of the Creation, and on the Moral Attributes of the
+Creator: with Particular Reference to the Jewish History and the
+Consistency of the Principle of Population with the Wisdom and
+Goodness of the Creator_ (1815), had gained the second Burnett prize.
+It went through many editions; and shows how Cuvier confirms Genesis,
+and Malthus proves that the world was intended to involve a
+competition favourable to the industrious and sober. Sumner's view of
+Malthus is given in Part ii., chaps, v. and vi. In previous chapters
+he has supported Malthus's attack on Godwin and Condorcet.
+
+[241] _Essay_, ii. 266 (bk. iv. ch. i.).
+
+[242] _Essay_, ii 268 (bk. iv. ch. i.).
+
+[243] _Ibid._ (bk. iv. ch. ii.).
+
+[244] _Essay_, 241 (bk. iii. ch. iv.).
+
+[245] _Ibid._ ii. 241 (bk. iii. ch. xiv.).
+
+[246] _Ibid._ ii. 293 (bk. iv. ch. iv.).
+
+[247] _Ibid._ ii. 425 (bk. iv. ch. xiii.). Malthus expresses a hope
+that Paley had modified his views upon population, and refers to a
+passage in the _Natural Theology_.
+
+[248] _Essay_, ii. 292 (bk. iv. ch. iv.).
+
+[249] _Political Economy_ (1836), p. 214.
+
+[250] _Essay_, ii. 298 (bk. iv. ch. iv.).
+
+[251] _Ibid._ ii. 86 (bk. iii. ch. vi.).
+
+[252] _Ibid._ ii. 87 (bk. iii. ch. vi.).
+
+[253] _Essay_, ii. 90 (bk. iii. ch. vi.).
+
+[254] _Ibid._ ii. 338 (bk. iv. ch. viii.).
+
+[255] _Ibid._ ii. (bk. iv. ch. x.).
+
+[256] _Ibid._ ii. 353 (bk. iv. ch. ix.).
+
+[257] _Essay_, ii. 356 (bk. iv. ch. ix.).
+
+[258] _Ibid._ ii. 407 (bk. iv. ch. xii.).
+
+[259] _Ibid._ ii. 375 (bk. iv. ch. xi.).
+
+[260] _Ibid._ ii. 429 (bk. iv. ch. xiii.).
+
+[261] _Essay of 1807_ (bk. iii. ch. ii., and vol. ii. p. 111). The
+phrases quoted are toned down in later editions.
+
+[262] _Essay_, i. 330 (bk. ii. ch. iv.).
+
+[263] _Ibid._ ii. 300 (bk. iv. ch. v.).
+
+[264] _Ibid._ ii. 405 (bk. iv. ch. xiii.).
+
+[265] _Ibid._ i. 343 (bk. ii. ch. v.).
+
+[266] _Essay_, ii. 424 (bk. iv. ch. xiii.).
+
+[267] _Ibid._ ii. 304 (bk. iv. ch. v.).
+
+[268] _Essay_, i. 75 (bk. i. ch. v.).
+
+[269] _Ibid._ (bk. ii. ch. vi.).
+
+[270] _Essay_, ii. 318 (bk. iv. ch. vi.).
+
+[271] _Essay_, ii. 315 (bk. iv. ch. v.).
+
+[272] _Ibid._ ii. 326 (bk. iv. ch. vi.).
+
+[273] _Ibid._ ii. 78 (bk. iii. ch. v.).
+
+[274] _Essay_, ii. 454 (Appendix).
+
+[275] _Ibid._ ii. 82 (bk. iii. ch. vi.).
+
+[276] _Ibid._ ii. 90 (bk. iii. ch. vi.).
+
+[277] Senior's _Three Lectures_, p. 86.
+
+[278] Senior's _Three Lectures_, p. 60.
+
+[279] _Essay_, i. 534 (bk. ii. ch. xiii.).
+
+[280] Smith's _Works_ (1859), i. 295.
+
+[281] _Observations on the Effects of the Corn-laws, 1814; Inquiry
+into the Nature and Progress of Rent, 1815_; and _The Grounds of an
+Opinion on the Policy of restricting the Importation of Foreign Corn_,
+intended as an appendix to the _Observations on the Corn-laws_, 1815.
+
+[282] _Inquiry into Rent_, p. 1.
+
+[283] _Ibid._ p. 16.
+
+[284] _Essay_, ii. 35 (bk. iii. ch. ii.).
+
+[285] _Inquiry into Rent_, p. 20.
+
+[286] _Ibid._ p. 18.
+
+[287] _Ibid._ p. 38.
+
+[288] _Inquiry into Rent_, p. 20.
+
+[289] _Ibid._ p. 37.
+
+[290] _Essay on the Application of Capital to Land, by a Fellow of
+University College, Oxford, 1815._
+
+[291] _Essay_, p. 19.
+
+[292] _In An Inquiry into the Nature of the Corn-laws_, and again
+(1801) in _Observations on Agriculture_, etc., vol. v. 401-51.
+
+[293] _Political Works_, i. 485, etc. In this paper, I may add,
+Cobbett, not yet a Radical, accepts Malthus's view of the tendency of
+the human species to multiply more quickly than its support. He does
+not mention Malthus, but speaks of the belief as universally admitted,
+and afterwards illustrates it amusingly by saying that, in his
+ploughboy days, he used to wonder that there was always just enough
+hay for the horses and enough horses for the hay.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+RICARDO
+
+
+I. RICARDO'S STARTING-POINT
+
+David Ricardo,[294] born 19th April 1772, was the son of a Dutch Jew
+who had settled in England, and made money upon the Stock Exchange.
+Ricardo had a desultory education, and was employed in business from
+his boyhood. He abandoned his father's creed, and married an
+Englishwoman soon after reaching his majority. He set up for himself
+in business, and, at a time when financial transactions upon an
+unprecedented scale were giving great opportunities for speculators,
+he made a large fortune, and about 1814 bought an estate at Gatcombe
+Park, Gloucestershire. He withdrew soon afterwards from business, and
+in 1819 became member of parliament. His death on 11th September 1823
+cut short a political career from which his perhaps too sanguine
+friends anticipated great results. His influence in his own department
+of inquiry had been, meanwhile, of the greatest importance. He had
+shown in his youth some inclination for scientific pursuits; he
+established a laboratory, and became a member of scientific societies.
+The perusal of Adam Smith's _Wealth of Nations_ in 1799 gave him an
+interest in the application of scientific methods to the questions
+with which he was most conversant. Accepting Adam Smith as the leading
+authority, he proceeded to think out for himself certain doctrines,
+which appeared to him to have been insufficiently recognised by his
+teacher. The first result of his speculations was a pamphlet published
+in 1809 upon the depreciation of the currency. Upon that topic he
+spoke as an expert, and his main doctrines were accepted by the famous
+Bullion Committee. Ricardo thus became a recognised authority on one
+great set of problems of the highest immediate interest. Malthus's
+_Inquiry into Rent_ suggested another pamphlet; and in 1817,
+encouraged by the warm pressure of his friend, James Mill, he
+published his chief book, the _Principles of Political Economy and
+Taxation_. This became the economic Bible of the Utilitarians. The
+task of a commentator or interpreter is, for various reasons, a
+difficult one.
+
+There is a certain analogy between Ricardo and a very different
+writer, Bishop Butler. Each of them produced a great effect by a short
+treatise, and in each case the book owed very little to the ordinary
+literary graces. Ricardo's want of literary training, or his natural
+difficulty of utterance, made his style still worse than Butler's;
+but, like Butler, he commands our respect by his obvious sincerity and
+earnestness. He is content when he has so expressed his argument that
+it can be seized by an attentive reader. He is incapable of, or
+indifferent to, clear and orderly exposition of principles. The logic
+is there, if you will take the trouble to look for it. Perhaps we
+ought to be flattered by this tacit reliance upon our patience. 'You,'
+Ricardo, like Butler, seems to say to us, 'are anxious for truth: you
+do not care for ornament, and may be trusted to work out the full
+application of my principles.' In another respect the two are alike.
+Butler's argument has impressed many readers as a demolition of his
+own case. It provokes revolt instead of adhesion. Ricardo, an orthodox
+economist, laid down principles which were adopted by Socialists to
+upset his own assumptions. Such a God as you worship, said Butler's
+opponents, is an unjust being, and therefore worse than no God. Such a
+system as you describe, said Ricardo's opponents, is an embodiment of
+injustice, and therefore to be radically destroyed. Admitting the
+logic, the argument may be read as a _reductio ad absurdum_ in both
+cases.
+
+Ricardo has involved himself in certain special difficulties. In the
+first place, he presupposes familiarity with Adam Smith. The
+_Principles_ is a running comment upon some of Smith's theories, and
+no attempt is made to reduce them to systematic order. He starts by
+laying down propositions, the proof of which comes afterwards, and is
+then rather intimated than expressly given. He adopts the terminology
+which Smith had accepted from popular use,[295] and often applies it
+in a special significance, which is at least liable to be
+misunderstood by his readers, or forgotten by himself. It is
+difficult, again, to feel sure whether some of his statements are to
+be taken as positive assertions of fact, or merely as convenient
+assumptions for the purposes of his argument. Ricardo himself, as
+appears in his letters, was painfully aware of his own awkwardness of
+expression, and upon that point alone all his critics seem to be in
+tolerable agreement. Happily, it will be enough for my purpose if I
+can lay down his essential premises without following him to the
+remoter deductions.
+
+Ricardo's pamphlet upon Malthus (1815) gives a starting-point. Ricardo
+cordially adopts Malthus's theory of rent, but declares that it is
+fatal to some of Malthus's conclusions. Malthus, we have seen, wished
+to regard rent as in some sense a gift of Providence--a positive
+blessing due to the fertility of the soil. Ricardo maintains, on the
+contrary, that 'the interest of the landlord is necessarily opposed to
+the interest of every other class in the community.'[296] The landlord
+is prosperous when corn is scarce and dear; all other persons when it
+is plentiful and cheap. This follows upon Malthus's own showing. As
+men are forced to have recourse to inferior soils, the landlord
+obtains a larger share of the whole produce; and, moreover, since corn
+also becomes more valuable, will have a larger share of a more
+valuable product. The question apparently in dispute--whether we
+should be glad that some land is better than the worst, or sorry
+because all is not equal to the best--seems rather idle. The real
+question, however, is whether rent, being a blessing, should be kept
+up by protection,[297] or, being a curse, should be brought down by
+competition? What is the real working of the system? Set the trade
+free, says Ricardo, and the capital will be withdrawn from the poor
+land and employed upon manufactures, to be exchanged for the corn of
+other countries.[298] The change must correspond to a more
+advantageous distribution of capital, or it would not be adopted. The
+principle involved in this last proposition is, he adds, one of the
+'best established in the science of political economy, and by no one
+is more readily admitted than by Mr. Malthus.' To enforce protection
+would be, on Malthus's illustration, to compel us to use the 'worst
+machines, when, at a less expense, we could hire the very best from
+our neighbours.'[299] Briefly, then, the landlord's interest is
+opposed to the national interest, because it enforces a worse
+distribution of capital. He compels us to get corn from his worst
+land, instead of getting it indirectly, but in greater quantity, from
+our spinning-jennies.
+
+For Ricardo, as for Malthus, the ultimate driving force is the
+pressure of population. The mass of mankind is always struggling to
+obtain food, and is able to multiply so rapidly as to exhaust any
+conceivable increase of supplies. The landlord class alone profits.
+The greater the struggle for supply the greater will be the share of
+the whole produce which must be surrendered to it. Beyond this,
+however, lies the further problem which specially occupied Ricardo.
+How will the resulting strain affect the relations of the two
+remaining classes, the labourers and the capitalists? The ultimate
+evil of protection is the bad distribution of capital. But capital
+always acts by employing labour. The farmer's capital does not act by
+itself, but by enabling his men to work. Hence, to understand the
+working of the industrial machinery, we have to settle the relation of
+wages and profits. Ricardo states this emphatically in his preface.
+Rent, profit, and wages, he says, represent the three parts into which
+the whole produce of the earth is divided. 'To determine the laws
+which regulate this distribution is the principal problem in political
+economy'; and one, he adds, which has been left in obscurity by
+previous writers.[300] His investigations are especially directed by
+the purpose thus defined. He was the first writer who fairly brought
+under distinct consideration what he held, with reason, to be the most
+important branch of economical inquiry.
+
+There was clearly a gap in the economic doctrine represented by the
+_Wealth of Nations_. Adam Smith was primarily concerned with the
+theory of the 'market.' He assumes the existence of the social
+arrangement which is indicated by that phrase. The market implies a
+constitution of industrial agencies such that, within it, only one
+price is possible for a given commodity, or, rather, such that a
+difference of price cannot be permanent. According to the accepted
+illustration, the sea is not absolutely level, but it is always
+tending to a level.[301] A permanent elevation at one point is
+impossible. The agency by which this levelling or equilibrating
+process is carried out is competition, involving what Smith called the
+'higgling of the market.' The momentary fluctuation, again, supposes
+the action of 'supply and demand,' which, as they vary, raise and
+depress prices. To illustrate the working of this machinery, to show
+how previous writers had been content to notice a particular change
+without following out the collateral results, and had thus been led
+into fallacies such as that of the 'mercantile system,' was Smith's
+primary task.
+
+Beyond or beneath these questions lie difficulties, which Smith,
+though not blind to their existence, treated in a vacillating and
+inconsistent fashion. Variations of supply and demand cause
+fluctuations in the price; but what finally determines the point to
+which the fluctuating prices must gravitate? We follow the process by
+which one wave propagates another; but there is still the question,
+What ultimately fixes the normal level? Upon this point Ricardo could
+find no definite statement in his teacher. 'Supply and demand' was a
+sacred phrase which would always give a verbal answer, or indicate the
+immediate cause of variations on the surface. Beneath the surface
+there must be certain forces at work which settle why a quarter of
+corn 'gravitates' to a certain price; why the landlord can get just so
+many quarters of corn for the use of his fields; and why the produce,
+which is due jointly to the labourer and the farmer, is divided in a
+certain fixed proportion. To settle such points it is necessary to
+answer the problem of distribution, for the play of the industrial
+forces is directed by the constitution of the classes which co-operate
+in the result. Ricardo saw in Malthus's doctrines of rent and of
+population a new mode of approaching the problem. What was wanted, in
+the first place, was to systematise the logic adopted by his
+predecessors. Rent, it was clear, could not be both a cause and an
+effect of price, though at different points of his treatise Smith had
+apparently accepted each view of the relation. We must first settle
+which is cause and which effect; and then bring our whole system into
+the corresponding order. For the facts, Ricardo is content to trust
+mainly to others. The true title of his work should be that which his
+commentator, De Quincey, afterwards adopted, the _Logic of Political
+Economy_. This aim gives a partial explanation of the characteristic
+for which Ricardo is most generally criticised. He is accused of being
+abstract in the sense of neglecting facts. He does not deny the
+charge. 'If I am too theoretical (which I really believe to be the
+case) you,' he says to Malthus, 'I think, are too practical.'[302] If
+Malthus is more guided than Ricardo by a reference to facts, he has of
+course an advantage. But so far as Malthus or Adam Smith
+theorised--and, of course, their statement of facts involved a
+theory--they were at least bound to be consistent. It is one thing to
+recognise the existence of facts which your theory will not explain,
+and to admit that it therefore requires modification. It is quite
+another thing to explain each set of facts in turn by theories which
+contradict each other. That is not to be historical but to be
+muddleheaded. Malthus and Smith, as it seemed to Ricardo, had
+occasionally given explanations which, when set side by side,
+destroyed each other. He was therefore clearly justified in the
+attempt to exhibit these logical inconsistencies and to supply a
+theory which should be in harmony with itself. He was so far neither
+more nor less 'theoretical' than his predecessors, but simply more
+impressed by the necessity of having at least a consistent theory.
+
+There was never a time at which logic in such matters was more wanted,
+or its importance more completely disregarded. Rash and ignorant
+theorists were plunging into intricate problems and propounding
+abstract solutions. The enormous taxation made necessary by the war
+suggested at every point questions as to the true incidence of the
+taxes. Who really gained or suffered by the protection of corn? Were
+the landlords, the farmers, or the labourers directly interested?
+Could they shift the burthen upon other shoulders or not? What, again,
+it was of the highest importance to know, was the true 'incidence' of
+tithes, of a land-tax, of the poor-laws, of an income-tax, and of all
+the multitudinous indirect taxes from which the national income was
+derived? The most varying views were held and eagerly defended. Who
+really paid? That question interested everybody, and occupies a large
+part of Ricardo's book. The popular answers involved innumerable
+inconsistencies, and were supported by arguments which only required
+to be confronted in order to be confuted. Ricardo's aim was to
+substitute a clear and consistent theory for this tangle of perplexed
+sophistry. In that sense his aim was in the highest degree
+'practical,' although he left to others the detailed application of
+his doctrines to the actual facts of the day.
+
+
+II. THE DISTRIBUTION PROBLEM
+
+The rent doctrine gives one essential datum. A clear comprehension of
+rent is, as he was persuaded, 'of the utmost importance to political
+economy.'[303] The importance is that it enables him to separate one
+of the primary sources of revenue from the others. It is as though, in
+the familiar illustration, we were considering the conditions of
+equilibrium of a fluid; and we now see that one part may be considered
+as a mere overflow, resulting from (not determining) the other
+conditions. The primary assumption in the case of the market is the
+level of price. When we clearly distinguish rent on one side from
+profits and wages on the other, we see that we may also assume a level
+of profits. There cannot, as Ricardo constantly says, 'be two rates of
+profit,' that is, at the same time and in the same country. But so
+long as rent was lumped with other sources of revenue it was
+impossible to see, what Malthus and West had now made clear, that in
+agriculture, as in manufactures, the profits of the producer must
+conform to the principle. Given their theory, it follows that the
+power of land to yield a great revenue does not imply a varying rate
+of profit or a special bounty of nature bestowed upon agriculture. It
+means simply that, since the corn from the good and bad land sells at
+the same price, there is a surplus on the good. But as that surplus
+constitutes rent, the farmer's rate of profit will still be uniform.
+Thus we have got rid of one complication, and we are left with a
+comparatively simple issue. We have to consider the problem, What
+determines the distribution as between the capitalist and the
+labourer? That is the vital question for Ricardo.
+
+Ricardo's theory, in the first place, is a modification of Adam
+Smith's. He accepts Smith's statement that wages are determined by the
+'supply and demand of labourers,' and by the 'price of commodities on
+which their wages are expended.'[304] The appeal to 'supply and
+demand' implies that the rate of wages depends upon unchangeable
+economic conditions. He endorses[305] Malthus's statement about the
+absurdity of considering 'wages' as something which may be fixed by
+his Majesty's 'Justices of the Peace,' and infers with Malthus that
+wages should be left to find their 'natural level.' But what precisely
+is this 'natural level?' If the Justice of the Peace cannot fix the
+rate of wages, what does fix them? Supply and demand? What, then, is
+precisely meant in this case by the supply and demand? The 'supply' of
+labour, we may suppose, is fixed by the actual labouring population at
+a given time. The 'demand,' again, is in some way clearly related to
+'capital.' As Smith again had said,[306] the demand for labour
+increases with the 'increase of revenue and "stock," and cannot
+possibly increase without it.' Ricardo agrees that 'population
+regulates itself by the funds which are to employ it, and therefore
+always increases or diminishes with the increase or diminution of
+capital.'[307] It was indeed a commonplace that the increase of
+capital was necessary to an increase of population, as it is obvious
+enough that population must be limited by the means of subsistence
+accumulated. Smith, for example, goes on to insist upon this in one of
+the passages which partly anticipates Malthus.[308] But this does not
+enable us to separate profit from wages, or solve Ricardo's problem.
+When we speak of supply and demand as determining the price of a
+commodity, we generally have in mind two distinct though related
+processes. One set of people is growing corn, and another working coal
+mines. Each industry, therefore, has a separate existence, though each
+may be partly dependent upon the other. But this is not true of labour
+and capital. They are not products of different countries or
+processes. They are inseparable constituents of a single process.
+Labour cannot be maintained without capital, nor can capital produce
+without labour. Capital, according to Ricardo's definition, is the
+'part of the wealth of a country which is employed in production, and
+consists of food, clothing, raw materials, machinery, etc., necessary
+to give effect to labour.'[309] That part, then, of capital which is
+applied to the support of the labourer--his food, clothing, and so
+forth--is identical with wages. To say that, if it increases, his
+wages increase is to be simply tautologous. If, on the other hand, we
+include the machinery and raw materials, it becomes difficult to say
+in what sense 'capital' can be taken as a demand for labour. Ricardo
+tells Malthus that an accumulation of profit does not, as Malthus had
+said, necessarily raise wages[310]; and he ultimately decided, much
+to the scandal of his disciple, M'Culloch, that an increase of 'fixed
+capital' or machinery might be actually prejudicial, under certain
+circumstances, to the labourer. The belief of the labouring class that
+machinery often injures them is not, he expressly says, 'founded on
+prejudice and error, but is conformable to the correct principles of
+political economy.'[311] The word 'capital,' indeed, was used with a
+vagueness which covered some of the most besetting fallacies of the
+whole doctrine. Ricardo himself sometimes speaks as though he had in
+mind merely the supply of labourers' necessaries, though he regularly
+uses it in a wider sense. The generalities, therefore, about supply
+and demand, take us little further.
+
+From these difficulties Ricardo escapes by another method. Malthus's
+theory of population gives him what he requires. The 'natural price of
+labour' (as distinguished from its 'market price') is, as he asserts,
+'that price which is necessary to enable the labourers, one with
+another, to subsist and perpetuate their race without either increase
+or diminution.'[312] This is the true 'natural price,' about which the
+'market price' oscillates. An increase of capital may raise wages for
+a time above the natural price, but an increase of population will
+bring back the previous rate. Ricardo warns us, indeed, that this
+natural price of labour is not to be regarded as something 'absolutely
+fixed and constant.'[313] It varies in different times and countries,
+and even in the same country at different times. An English cottager
+now possesses what would once have been luxuries. Ricardo admits
+again[314] that the wages of different classes of labourers may be
+different, although he does not consider that this fact affects his
+argument. We may allow for it by considering the skilled labourer as 2
+or 1-1/2 labourers rolled into one. The assumption enables him to get
+out of a vicious circle. He is seeking to discover the proportions in
+which produce will be divided between the two classes, and which
+co-operate in the production. The 'demand and supply' principle may
+show that an increase of capital will tend to increase wages, but even
+that tendency, as he carefully points out, can only be admitted
+subject to certain important reservations. In any case, if it explains
+temporary fluctuations, it will not ascertain the point round which
+the fluctuations take place. But the two variables, wages and profit,
+are clearly connected, and if we can once assume that one of these
+variables is fixed by an independent law, we may explain in what way
+the other will be fixed. Having got rid of 'rent,' the remaining
+produce has to be divided between wages and profit. If the produce be
+fixed, the greater the share of the labourer the less will be the
+share of the capitalist, and _vice versa_. But the labourer's share
+again is determined by the consideration that it must be such as to
+enable him to keep up the population. The capitalist will get the
+surplus produce after allowing to the labourer the share so
+determined. Everything turns ultimately upon this 'natural price'--the
+constant which underlies all the variations.
+
+One other point is implied. The population is limited, as we see, by
+the necessity of raising supplies of food from inferior soils.
+Moreover, this is the sole limit. A different view had been taken
+which greatly exercised the orthodox economists. It was generally
+admitted that in the progress of society the rate of profit declined.
+Adam Smith explained this by arguing that, as capital increased, the
+competition of capitalists lowered the rate. To this it was replied
+(as by West) that though competition equalised profits, it could not
+fix the rate of profit. The simple increase of capital does not prove
+that it will be less profitably employed. The economists had
+constantly to argue against the terrible possibility of a general
+'glut.' The condition of things at the peace had suggested this alarm.
+The mischief was ascribed to 'over-production' and not to misdirected
+production. The best cure for our evils, as some people thought, would
+be to burn all the goods in stock. On this version of the argument, it
+would seem that an increase of wealth might be equivalent to an
+increase of poverty. To confute the doctrine in this form, it was only
+necessary to have a more intelligent conception of the true nature of
+exchange. As James Mill had argued in his pamphlet against Spence,
+every increase of supply is also an increase of demand. The more there
+is to sell, the more there is to buy. The error involved in the theory
+of a 'glut' is the confusion between a temporary dislocation of the
+machinery of exchange, which can and will be remedied by a new
+direction of industry, and the impossible case of an excess of wealth
+in general.[315] Malthus never quite cleared his mind of this error,
+and Ricardo had to argue the point with him. Abundance of capital
+cannot by itself, he says, 'make capital less in demand.' The 'demand
+for capital is infinite.'[316] The decline in the rate of profit,
+therefore, depends upon another cause. 'If, with every accumulation of
+profit, we could tack a piece of fresh fertile land to our Island,
+profits would never fall.'[317] Fertile land, however, is limited. We
+have to resort to inferior soil, and therefore to employ capital at a
+less advantage. In the _Principles_ he enforces the same doctrine with
+the help of Say, who had shown 'most satisfactorily' that any amount
+of capital might be employed.[318] If, in short, labour and capital
+were always equally efficient, there would be no limit to the amount
+producible. If the supply of food and raw materials can be multiplied,
+wealth can be multiplied to any amount. The admitted tendency of
+profits to fall must therefore be explained simply and solely by the
+growing difficulty of producing the food and the raw material.
+
+Ricardo's doctrine, then, is Malthus carried out more logically. Take
+a nation in a state of industrial equilibrium. The produce of the
+worst soil just supports the labourer, and leaves a profit to the
+capitalist. The labourer gets just enough to keep up his numbers to
+the standard; the capitalist just enough profit to induce him to keep
+up the capital which supports the labourer. Since there can be only
+one rate of wages and only one rate of profit, this fixes the shares
+into which the whole produce of the nation is divided, after leaving
+to the landlord the surplus produce of the more fertile soils.
+Accepting this scheme as a starting-point, we get a method for
+calculating the results of any changes. We can see how a tax imposed
+upon rents or profits or wages will affect the classes which are thus
+related; how improvements in cultivation or machinery, or a new demand
+for our manufactures, will act, assuming the conditions implied in
+this industrial organisation; how, in short, any disturbance of the
+balance will work, so as to produce a new equilibrium. Ricardo exerts
+all his ingenuity in working out the problem which, with the help of a
+few assumptions, becomes mathematical. The arithmetical illustrations
+which he employed for the purpose became a nuisance in the hands of
+his disciples. They are very useful as checks to general statements,
+but lend themselves so easily to the tacit introduction of erroneous
+assumptions as often to give a totally false air of precision to the
+results. Happily I need not follow him into that region, and may omit
+any consideration of the logical value of his deductions. I must be
+content to say that, so far as he is right, his system gives an
+economic calculus for working out the ultimate result of assigned
+economic changes. The pivot of the whole construction is the 'margin
+of cultivation'--the point at which the food for a pressing population
+is raised at the greatest disadvantages. 'Profits,' as he says,[319]
+'depend on high and low wages; wages on the price of necessaries; and
+the price of necessaries chiefly on the price of food, because all
+other requisites may be increased almost without limit.'
+
+Ricardo takes the actual constitution of society for granted. The
+threefold division into landowners, capitalists, and labourers is
+assumed as ultimate. For him that is as much a final fact as to a
+chemist it is a final fact that air and water are composed of certain
+elements. Each class represents certain economic categories. The
+landlord sits still and absorbs the overflow of wealth created by
+others. The labourer acts a very important but in one respect a purely
+passive part. His whole means of subsistence are provided by the
+capitalist, and advanced to him in the shape of wages. His share in
+the process is confined to multiplying up to a fixed standard. The
+capitalist is the really active agent. The labourer is simply one of
+the implements used in production. His wages are part of the
+capitalist's 'costs of production.' The capitalist virtually raises
+labourers, one may say, so long as raising them is profitable, just as
+he raises horses for his farm. Ricardo, in fact, points out that in
+some cases it may be for the farmer's interest to substitute horses
+for men.[320] If it be essential to any product that there should be a
+certain number of labourers or a certain number of horses, that number
+will be produced. But when the expense becomes excessive, and in the
+case of labourers that happens as worse soils have to be broken up for
+food, the check is provided through its effect upon the accumulation
+of capital. That, therefore, becomes the essential point. The whole
+aim of the legislator should be to give facilities for the
+accumulation of capital, and the way to do that is to abstain from all
+interference with the free play of the industrial forces. The test,
+for example, of the goodness of a tax--or rather of its comparative
+freedom from the evils of every tax--is that it should permit of
+accumulation by interfering as little as possible with the tendency
+of the capital to distribute itself in the most efficient way.
+
+
+III. VALUE AND LABOUR
+
+To solve the distribution problem, then, it is necessary to get behind
+the mere fluctuations of the market, and to consider what are the
+ultimate forces by which the market is itself governed. What effect
+has this upon the theory of the market itself? This leads to a famous
+doctrine.
+
+According to his disciple, M'Culloch, Ricardo's great merit was that
+he 'laid down the fundamental theorem of the science of value.' He
+thus cleared up what had before been an 'impenetrable mystery,' and
+showed the true relations of profit, wages, and prices.[321] Ricardo's
+theory of value, again, was a starting-point of the chief modern
+Socialist theories. It marked, as has been said,[322] the point at
+which the doctrine of the rights of man changes from a purely
+political to an economical theory. Ricardo remarks in his first
+chapter that the vagueness of theories of value has been the most
+fertile source of economic errors. He admitted to the end of his life
+that he had not fully cleared up the difficulty. Modern economists
+have refuted and revised and discussed, and, let us hope, now made
+everything quite plain. They have certainly shown that some of
+Ricardo's puzzles implied confusions singular in so keen a thinker.
+That may serve as a warning against dogmatism. Boys in the next
+generation will probably be asked by examiners to expose the palpable
+fallacies of what to us seem to be demonstrable truths. At any rate,
+I must try to indicate the critical point as briefly as possible.
+
+The word 'value,' in the first place, has varying meanings, which give
+an opportunity for writers of text-books to exhibit their powers of
+lucid exposition. The value of a thing in one sense is what it will
+fetch; the quantity of some other thing for which it is actually
+exchanged in the market. In that sense, as Ricardo incidentally
+observes,[323] the word becomes meaningless unless you can say what is
+the other thing. It is self-contradictory to speak as if a thing by
+itself could have a constant or any value. Value, however, may take a
+different sense. It is the economic equivalent of the 'utility' of
+Bentham's 'felicific calculus.' It means the 'lot of pleasure' which
+causes a thing to be desirable. If we could tell how many units of
+utility it contained we could infer the rate of exchange for other
+things. The value of anything 'in use' will correspond to the number
+of units of utility which it contains; and things which have the same
+quantity of 'utilities' will have the same 'exchangeable value.'
+Ricardo can thus consider the old problem of finding 'an invariable
+measure of value.' He points out the difficulty of finding any
+particular thing which will serve the purpose, inasmuch as the
+relations of everything to everything else are constantly varying. He
+therefore proposes to make use of an imaginary measure. If gold were
+always produced under exactly the same circumstances, with the same
+labour and the same capital, it would serve approximately for a
+standard. Accordingly he gives notice that, for the purposes of his
+book, he will assume this to be the case, and money to be 'invariable
+in value.'[324] We can thus, on the one hand, compare values at
+different periods. A thing has the same value at all times which at
+all times requires 'the same sacrifice of toil and labour to produce
+it.'[325] The 'sacrifice' measures the 'utility,' and we may assume
+that the same labour corresponds in all ages to the same psychological
+unit. But, on the other hand, at any given period things will exchange
+in proportion to the labour of producing them. This follows at once
+from Ricardo's postulates. Given the single rate of wages and profits,
+and assuming the capital employed to be in the same proportion, things
+must exchange in proportion to the quantity of labour employed; for if
+I got the same value by employing one labourer as you get by employing
+two, my profits would be higher. Ricardo, indeed, has to allow for
+many complexities arising from the fact that very different quantities
+of capital are required in different industries; but the general
+principle is given by the simplest case. Hence we have a measure of
+value, applicable at any given time and in comparing different times.
+It implies, again, what M'Culloch sums up as the 'fundamental
+theorem,' that the value of 'freely produced commodities' depends on
+the quantity of labour required for their 'production.' What is made
+by two men is worth twice what is made by one man. That gives what
+M'Culloch calls the 'clue to the labyrinth.'
+
+The doctrine leads to a puzzle. If I can measure the 'sacrifice,' can
+I measure the 'utility' which it gains? The 'utility' of an ounce of
+gold is not something 'objective' like its physical qualities, but
+varies with the varying wants of the employer. Iron or coal may be
+used for an infinite variety of purposes and the utility will be
+different in each. The thing may derive part of its 'utility' from its
+relation to other things. The utility of my food is not really
+separate from the utility of my hat; for unless I eat I cannot wear
+hats. My desire for any object, again, is modified by all my other
+desires, and even if I could isolate a 'desire' as a psychological
+unit, it would not give me a fixed measure. Twice the article does not
+give twice the utility; a double stimulus may only add a small
+pleasure or convert it into agony. These and other difficulties imply
+the hopelessness of searching for this chimerical unit of 'utility'
+when considered as a separate thing. It shifts and escapes from our
+hands directly we grasp it. Ricardo discusses some of these points in
+his interesting chapter on 'Value and Riches.' Gold, he says, may cost
+two thousand times more than iron, but it is certainly not two
+thousand times as useful.[326] Suppose, again, that some invention
+enables you to make more luxuries by the same labour, you increase
+wealth but not value. There will be, say, twice as many hats, but each
+hat may have half its former value. There will be more things to
+enjoy, but they will only exchange for the same quantity of other
+things. That is, he says, the amount of 'riches' varies, while the
+amount of value is fixed. This, according to him, proves that value
+does not vary with 'utility.' 'Utility,' as he declares in his first
+chapter, is 'absolutely essential to value,' but it is 'not the
+measure of exchangeable value.'[327] A solution of these puzzles may
+be sought in any modern text-book. Ricardo escapes by an apparently
+paradoxical conclusion. He is undertaking an impossible problem when
+he starts from the buyers' desire of an 'utility.' Therefore he turns
+from the buyers to the sellers. The seller has apparently a measurable
+and definable motive--the desire to make so much per cent. on his
+capital.[328] Ricardo, unfortunately, speaks as though the two parties
+to the bargain somehow represented mutually exclusive processes.
+'Supply and demand' determine the value of 'monopolised articles,' but
+the cost of other articles depends _not_ 'on the state of demand and
+supply,' _but_ 'on the increased or diminished cost of their
+production.'[329] Why 'not' and 'but'? If supply and demand
+corresponds to the whole play of motives which determines the bargain,
+this is like saying, according to the old illustration, that we must
+attribute the whole effect of a pair of scissors to one blade and not
+to the other. His view leads to the apparent confusion of taking for
+the cause of value not our desire for a thing, but the sacrifice we
+must make to attain it. Bentham[330] said, for example, that Ricardo
+confused 'cost' with 'value.' The denial that utility must in some
+sense or other determine value perplexes an intelligible and
+consistent meaning. It is clearly true, upon his postulates, that the
+value of goods, other than 'monopolised,' must conform to the cost of
+production. He speaks as if he confounded a necessary condition with
+an 'efficient cause,' and as if one of two correlative processes could
+be explained without the other. But the fact that there is a
+conformity, however brought about, was enough for his purpose. The
+demand of buyers, he would say, determines the particular direction of
+production: it settles whether hats should be made of silk or beaver;
+whether we should grow corn or spin cotton. But the ultimate force is
+the capitalist's desire for profit. So long as he can raise labourers'
+necessaries by employing part of his capital, he can employ the labour
+as he chooses. He can always produce wealth; all the wealth produced
+can be exchanged, and the demand always be equal to the supply, since
+the demand is merely the other side of the supply. The buyer's tastes
+decide how the capital shall be applied, but does not settle how much
+wealth there shall be, only what particular forms it shall take.
+Somehow or other it must always adjust itself so that the value of
+each particular kind shall correspond to the 'cost of production.' The
+cost of production includes the tools and the raw materials, which are
+themselves products of previous labour. All capital itself is
+ultimately the product of labour, and thus, as Ricardo incidentally
+says, may be regarded as 'accumulated labour.'[331]
+
+This phrase sums up the doctrine which underlies his theory of value
+and indicates its connection with the theory of distribution. Ricardo
+had perceived that the supply and demand formula which would serve
+sufficiently in problems of exchange, or the fluctuations of
+market-price, could not be made to solve the more fundamental problem
+of distribution. We must look beneath the superficial phenomena and
+ask what is the nature of the structure itself: what is the driving
+force or the mainspring which works the whole mechanism. We seem,
+indeed, to be inquiring into the very origin of industrial
+organisation. The foundation of a sound doctrine comes from Adam
+Smith. Smith had said that in a primitive society the only rule would
+be that things should exchange in proportion to the labour of getting
+them. If it cost twice as much labour to kill a beaver as to kill a
+deer, one beaver would be worth two deer. In accepting this bit of
+what Smith's commentator, Dugald Stewart,[332] calls 'theoretical' or
+'conjectural' history, Ricardo did not mean to state a historical
+fact. He was not thinking of actual Choctaws or Cherokees. The beaver
+was exchanged for the deer about the time when the primitive man
+signed the 'social contract.' He is a hypothetical person used for
+purposes of illustration and simplification. Ricardo is not really
+dealing with the question of origins; but he is not the less implying
+a theory of structure. It did not matter that the 'social contract'
+was historically a figment; it would serve equally well to explain
+government. It did not matter that actual savages may have exchanged
+beavers and deer by the help of clubs instead of competition in the
+market. The industrial fabric is what would have been had it been thus
+built up. It can be constructed from base to summit by the application
+of his formula. As in the imaginary state of deer and beaver, we have
+a number of independent persons making their bargains upon this
+principle of the equivalence of labour; and that principle is supposed
+to be carried out so that the most remote processes of the industrial
+machinery can be analysed into results of this principle. This gives a
+sufficient clue to the whole labyrinth of modern industry, and there
+is no need of considering the extinct forms of social structure, which
+we know to have existed, and under which the whole system of
+distribution took place under entirely different conditions.[333] A
+great change has taken place since the time of the deer and beaver:
+the capitalist has been developed, and has become the motive power.
+The labourer's part is passive; and the 'value' is fixed by the
+bargaining between the proprietors of 'accumulated labour,' forced by
+competition to make equal profits, instead of being fixed by the
+equitable bargain between the two hunters exchanging the products of
+their individual labour. Essentially, however, the principle is the
+same. In the last as in the first stage of society, things are
+exchanged in proportion to the labour necessary to produce them. Now
+it is plain enough that such a doctrine cannot lead to a complete
+solution of the problem of distribution. It would be a palpably
+inadequate account of historical processes which have determined the
+actual relation of classes. The industrial mechanism has been
+developed as a part of the whole social evolution; and, however
+important the economic forces, they have been inextricably blended
+with all the other forces by which a society is built up. For the same
+reason, Ricardo's theorem would be inadequate 'sociologically,' or as
+a formula which would enable us to predict the future distribution of
+wealth. It omits essential factors in the process, and therefore
+supposes forces to act automatically and invariably which will in fact
+be profoundly modified in societies differently organised and
+composed of individuals differing in character. The very fundamental
+assumptions as to the elasticity of population, and the accumulation
+of capital as wages and profits fluctuate, are clearly not absolute
+truths. An increase of the capitalist's share, for example, at the
+expense of wages, may lead to the lowered efficiency of the labourer;
+and, instead of the compensating process supposed to result from the
+stimulus to accumulation, the actual result may be a general
+degeneration of the industry. Or, again, the capacity of labourers to
+combine both depends and reacts upon their intelligence and moral
+character, and will profoundly modify the results of the general
+competition.[334] Such remarks, now familiar enough, are enough to
+suggest that a full explanation of the economic phenomena would
+require reference to considerations which lie beyond the proper sphere
+of the economist. Yet the economist may urge that he is making a fair
+and perhaps necessary abstraction. He may consider the forces to be
+constant, although he may be fully aware that the assumption requires
+to be corrected when his formulae are applied to facts. He may consider
+what is the play at any given time of the operations of the market,
+though the market organisation is itself dependent upon the larger
+organisation of which it is a product. He does not profess to deal in
+'sociology,' but 'pure political economy.' In that more limited
+sphere he may accept Ricardo's postulates. The rate of wages is fixed
+at any given moment by the 'labour market.' That is the immediate
+organ through which the adjustment is effected. Wages rise and fall
+like the price of commodities, when for any reason the number of
+hirers or the number of purchasers varies. The 'supply and demand'
+formula, however, could not, as Ricardo saw, be summarily identified
+with labour and capital. We must go behind the immediate phenomena to
+consider how they are regulated by the ultimate moving power. Then,
+with the help of the theories of population and rent, we find that the
+wages are one product of the whole industrial process. We must look
+beyond the immediate market fluctuation to the effect upon the
+capitalists who constitute the market. The world is conceived as one
+great market, in which the motives of the capitalist supply the motive
+power; and the share which goes to the labourer is an incidental or
+collateral result of the working of the whole machinery. Now, though
+the sociologist would say that this is quite inadequate for his
+purpose, and that we must consider the whole social structure, he may
+also admit that the scheme has a validity in its own sphere. It
+describes the actual working of the mechanism at any given time; and
+it may be that in Ricardo's time it gave an approximate account of the
+facts. To make it complete, it requires to be set, so to speak, in a
+more general framework of theory; and we may then see that it cannot
+give a complete solution. Still, as a consistent scheme which
+corresponds to the immediate phenomena, it helps us to understand the
+play of the industrial forces which immediately regulate the market.
+
+Ricardo's position suggested a different line of reply. The doctrines
+that capital is 'accumulated labour' and that all value is in
+proportion to the labour fell in with the Socialist theory. If value
+is created by labour, ought not 'labour' to possess what it makes? The
+right to the whole produce of labour seemed to be a natural
+conclusion. Ricardo might answer that when I buy your labour, it
+becomes mine. I may consider myself to have acquired the rights of the
+real creator of the wealth, and to embody all the labourers, whose
+'accumulated labour' is capital. Still, there is a difficulty. The
+beaver and deer case has an awkward ethical aspect. To say that they
+are exchanged at such a rate seems to mean that they ought to be
+exchanged at the rate. This again implies the principle that a man has
+a right to what he has caught; that is, to the whole fruits of his
+labour. James Mill, as we have seen, starts his political treatise by
+assuming this as obvious.[335] He did not consider the possible
+inferences; for it is certainly a daring assumption that the principle
+is carried out by the economic system. According to Ricardo rent is
+paid to men who don't labour at all. The fundholder was a weight upon
+all industry, and as dead a weight as the landlord. The capitalist,
+Ricardo's social mainspring, required at least cross-examination. He
+represents 'accumulated labour' in some fashion, but it is not plain
+that the slice which he takes out of the whole cake is proportioned
+accurately to his personal labour. The right and the fact which
+coincided in the deer and beaver period have somehow come to diverge.
+
+Here, then, we are at a point common to the two opposing schools.
+Both are absolute 'individualists' in different senses. Society is
+built up, and all industrial relations determined, by the competition
+of a multitude of independent atoms, each aiming at self-preservation.
+Malthus's principle applies this to the great mass of mankind.
+Systematically worked out, it has led to Ricardo's identification of
+value with quantities of labour. Keeping simply to the matter of fact,
+it shows how a small minority have managed to get advantages in the
+struggle, and to raise themselves upon the shoulders of the struggling
+mass. Malthus shows that the resulting inequality prevents the
+struggle from lowering every one to starvation point. But the
+advantage was not obvious to the struggling mass which exemplified the
+struggle for existence. If equality meant not the initial facts but
+the permanent right, society was built upon injustice. Apply the
+political doctrine of rights of man to the economic right to wealth,
+and you have the Socialist doctrine of right to the whole produce of
+labour. It is true that it is exceedingly difficult to say what each
+man has created when he is really part of a complex machinery; but
+that is a problem to which Socialists could apply their ingenuity. The
+real answer of the political economists was that although the existing
+order implied great inequalities of wealth it was yet essential to
+industrial progress, and therefore to an improvement in the general
+standard of comfort. This, however, was the less evident the more they
+insisted upon the individual interest. The net result seemed to be
+that by accident or inheritance, possibly by fraud or force, a small
+number of persons have got a much larger share of wealth than their
+rivals. Ricardo may expound the science accurately; and, if so, we
+have to ask, What are the right ethical conclusions?
+
+For the present, the Utilitarians seem to have considered this
+question as superfluous. They were content to take the existing order
+for granted; and the question remains how far their conclusions upon
+that assumption could be really satisfactory.
+
+
+IV. THE CLASSICAL POLITICAL ECONOMY.
+
+Ricardo had worked out the main outlines of the 'Classical Political
+Economy': the system which to his disciples appeared to be as clear,
+consistent, and demonstrable as Euclid; and which was denounced by
+their opponents as mechanical, materialistic, fatalistic, and
+degrading. After triumphing for a season, it has been of late years
+often treated with contempt, and sometimes banished to the limbo of
+extinct logomachies. It is condemned as 'abstract.' Of all delusions
+on the subject, replies a very able and severe critic,[336] there is
+none greater than the belief that it was 'wholly abstract and
+unpractical.' Its merits lay in its treatment of certain special
+questions of the day; while in the purely scientific questions it was
+hopelessly confused and inconsistent. Undoubtedly, as I have tried to
+point out, Malthus and Ricardo were reasoning upon the contemporary
+state of things. The doctrine started from observation of facts; it
+was too 'abstract' so far as it neglected elements in the concrete
+realities which were really relevant to the conclusions. One cause of
+confusion was the necessity of starting from the classification
+implied in ordinary phrases. It is exemplified by the vague use of
+such words as 'capital,' 'value,' 'supply and demand.' Definitions, as
+is often remarked,[337] come at the end of an investigation, though
+they are placed at the beginning of an exposition. When the primary
+conceptions to be used were still so shifting and contradictory as is
+implied in the controversies of the day, it is no wonder that the
+formulae should be wanting in scientific precision. Until we have
+determined what is meant by 'force' we cannot have a complete science
+of dynamics. The economists imagined that they had reached the goal
+before they had got rid of ambiguities hidden in the accepted
+terminology. Meanwhile it will be enough if I try to consider broadly
+what was the nature of the body of statements which thus claimed to be
+an elaborated science.
+
+Ricardo's purpose was to frame a calculus, to give a method of
+reasoning which will enable us to clinch our economic reasoning. We
+are to be sure that we have followed out the whole cycle of cause and
+effect. Capitalists, landowners, labourers form parts of a rounded
+system, implying reciprocal actions and reactions. The imposition of a
+tax or a tariff implies certain changes in existing relations: that
+change involves other changes; and to trace out the total effect, we
+must understand what are the ultimate conditions of equilibrium, or
+what are the processes by which the system will adjust itself to the
+new conditions. To describe, again, the play of a number of reciprocal
+forces, we have to find what mathematicians call an 'independent
+variable': some one element in the changes on which all other changes
+will depend. That element, roughly speaking, ultimately comes out to
+be 'labour.' The simplicity of the system gave an impression both of
+clearness and certainty, which was transferred from the reasoning to
+the premises. The facts seemed to be established, because they were
+necessary to the system. The first step to an estimate of the value of
+the doctrine would be to draw up a statement of the 'postulates'
+implied. Among them, we should have such formulae as the single rate of
+profits and wages; which imply the 'transferability' of labour and
+capital, or the flow of either element to the best-paid employment. We
+should have again the Malthusian doctrine of the multiplication of
+labour up to a certain standard; and the fact that scarcity means
+dearness and plenty cheapness. These doctrines at least are taken for
+granted; and it may perhaps be said that they are approximations which
+only require qualifications, though sometimes very important
+qualifications, to hold good of the society actually contemplated.
+
+They were true enough to give the really conclusive answer to many
+popular fallacies. The type of sophistry which Ricardo specially
+assailed was that which results from neglecting the necessary
+implications of certain changes. The arguments for the old 'mercantile
+theory'--for 'protection' of industry, for the poor-law, for resisting
+the introduction of machinery, the fear of 'gluts' and all manner of
+doctrines about the currency--were really exposed by the economists
+upon the right grounds. It was absurd to suppose that by simply
+expanding the currency, or by making industry less efficient, or
+forcing it to the least profitable employments, you were increasing
+the national wealth; or to overlook the demoralising effects of a
+right to support because you resolved only to see the immediate
+benefits of charity to individuals. It is true, no doubt, that in some
+cases there might be other arguments, and that the economists were apt
+to take a narrow view of the facts. Yet they decisively exploded many
+bad arguments, and by the right method of enforcing the necessity of
+tracing out the whole series of results. It was partly to their
+success in confuting absurd doctrines that their confidence was due;
+though the confidence was excessive when it was transferred to the
+axioms from which they professed to start. A doctrine may be true
+enough to expose an error, and yet not capable of yielding definite
+and precise conclusions. If I know that nothing can come out of
+nothing, I am on the way to a great scientific principle and able to
+confute some palpable fallacies; but I am still a very long way from
+understanding the principle of the 'conservation of energy.' The truth
+that scarcity meant dearness was apparently well known to Joseph in
+Egypt, and applied very skilfully for his purpose. Economists have
+framed a 'theory of value' which explains more precisely the way in
+which this is brought about. A clear statement may be valuable to
+psychologists; but for most purposes of political economy Joseph's
+knowledge is quite sufficient. It is the doctrine which is really used
+in practice whatever may be its ultimate justification.
+
+The postulates, however, were taken by the economists to represent
+something more than approximate statements of the fact. They imply
+certain propositions which might be regarded as axioms. Men desire
+wealth and prefer their own interests. The whole theory might then be
+regarded as a direct deduction from the axioms. It thus seemed to
+have a kind of mathematical certainty. When facts failed to conform to
+the theory the difficulty could be met by speaking, as Malthus spoke,
+of 'tendencies,' or by appealing to the analogy of 'friction' in
+mechanics. The excuse might be perfectly valid in some cases, but it
+often sanctioned a serious error. It was assumed that the formula was
+still absolutely true of something, and that the check or friction was
+a really separable and accidental interference. Thus it became easy to
+discard, as irrelevant, objections which really applied to the
+principle itself, and to exaggerate the conformity between fact and
+theory. The economic categories are supposed to state the essential
+facts, and the qualifications necessary to make them accurate were apt
+to slip out of sight. Ricardo,[338] to mention a familiar instance,
+carefully points out that the 'economic rent,' which clearly
+represents an important economic category, is not to be confounded, as
+in 'popular' use, with the payments actually made, which often include
+much that is really profit. The distinction, however, was constantly
+forgotten, and the abstract formula summarily applied to the concrete
+fact.
+
+The economists had constructed a kind of automaton which fairly
+represented the actual working of the machinery. But then, each
+element of their construction came to represent a particular formula,
+and to represent nothing else. The landlord is simply the receiver of
+surplus value; the capitalist the one man who saves, and who saves in
+proportion to profit; and the labourer simply the embodiment of
+Malthus's multiplying tendency. Then the postulates as to the ebb and
+flow of capital and labour are supposed to work automatically and
+instantaneously. Ricardo argues that a tax upon wages will fall, not,
+as Buchanan thought, upon the labourer, nor, as Adam Smith thought,
+upon rent, but upon profits; and his reason is apparently that if
+wages were 'lowered the requisite population would not be kept
+up.'[339] The labourer is able to multiply or diminish so rapidly that
+he always conforms at once to the required standard. This would seem
+to neglect the consideration that, after all, some time is required to
+alter the numbers of a population, and that other changes of a totally
+different character may be meanwhile set up by rises and falls of
+wages. Ricardo, as his letters show,[340] was well aware of the
+necessity of making allowance for such considerations in applying his
+theorems. He simplified the exposition by laying them down too
+absolutely; and the doctrine, taken without qualification, gives the
+'economic man,' who must be postulated to make the doctrine work
+smoothly. The labourer is a kind of constant unit--absolutely fixed in
+his efficiency, his wants, and so forth; and the same at one period as
+at another, except so far as he may become more prudent, and therefore
+fix his 'natural price' a little higher. An 'iron law' must follow
+when you have invented an iron unit. In short, when society is
+represented by this hypothetical mechanism, where each man is an
+embodiment of the required formula, the theory becomes imperfect so
+far as society is made up of living beings, varying, though
+gradually, in their whole character and attributes, and forming part
+of an organised society incomparably too complex in its structure to
+be adequately represented by the three distinct classes, each of which
+is merely a formula embodied in an individual man. The general rules
+may be very nearly true in a great many cases, especially on the
+stock-exchange; but before applying them to give either a history or a
+true account of the actual working of concrete institutions, a much
+closer approximation must be made to the actual data.
+
+I need not enlarge, however, upon a topic which has been so often
+expounded. I think that at present the tendency is rather to do
+injustice to the common-sense embodied in this system, to the
+soundness of its aims, and to its value in many practical and
+immediate questions, than to overestimate its claim to scientific
+accuracy. That claim may be said to have become obsolete.
+
+One point, however, remains. The holders of such a doctrine must, it
+is said, have been without the bowels of compassion. Ricardo, as
+critics observe with undeniable truth, was a Jew and a member of the
+stock-exchange. Now Jews, in spite of Shylock's assertions, and
+certainly Jewish stockbrokers, are naturally without human feeling. If
+you prick them, they only bleed banknotes. They are fitted to be
+capitalists, who think of wages as an item in an account, and of the
+labourer as part of the tools used in business. Ricardo, however, was
+not a mere money-dealer, nor even a walking treatise. He was a kindly,
+liberal man, desirous to be, as he no doubt believed himself to be, in
+sympathy with the leaders of political and scientific thought, and
+fully sharing their aspirations. No doubt he, like his friends, was
+more conspicuous for coolness of head than for impulsive
+philanthropy. Like them, he was on his guard against 'sentimentalism'
+and 'vague generalities,' and thought that a hasty benevolence was apt
+to aggravate the evils which it attacked. The Utilitarians naturally
+translated all aspirations into logical dogmas; but some people who
+despised them as hard-hearted really took much less pains to give
+effect to their own benevolent impulses. Now Ricardo, in this matter,
+was at one with James Mill and Bentham, and especially Malthus.[341]
+The essential doctrine of Malthus was that the poor could be made less
+poor by an improved standard of prudence. In writing to Malthus,
+Ricardo incidentally remarks upon the possibility of raising the
+condition of the poor by 'good education' and the inculcation of
+foresight in the great matter of marriage.[342] Incidental references
+in the _Principles_ are in the same strain. He accepts Malthus's view
+of the poor-laws, and hopes that, by encouraging foresight, we may by
+degrees approach 'a sounder and more healthful state.'[343] He
+repudiates emphatically a suggestion of Say that one of his arguments
+implies 'indifference to the happiness' of the masses,[344] and holds
+that 'the friends of humanity' should encourage the poor to raise
+their standard of comfort and enjoyment. The labourers, as he
+elsewhere incidentally observes, are 'by far the most important class
+in society.'[345] How should they not be if the greatest happiness of
+the greatest number be the legitimate aim of all legislation?
+
+It is true that in his argument Ricardo constantly assumes that his
+'natural price' will also be the real price of labour. The assumption
+that the labourers' wages tend to a minimum is a base for his general
+arguments. The inconsistency, if there be one, is easily intelligible.
+Ricardo agreed with Malthus that, though the standard might be raised,
+and though a rise was the only way to improvement, the chances of such
+a rise were not encouraging. Improved wages, as he says,[346] might
+enable the labourer to live more comfortably if only he would not
+multiply. But 'so great are the delights of domestic society, that in
+practice it is invariably found that an increase of population follows
+an amended condition of the labourer,' and thus the advantage is lost
+as soon as gained.
+
+I have tried to show what was the logical convenience of the
+assumption. Ricardo, who has always to state an argument at the cost
+of an intellectual contortion, is content to lay down a rule without
+introducing troublesome qualifications and reserves. Yet he probably
+held that his postulate was a close approximation to the facts.
+Looking at the actual state of things at the worst time of the
+poor-law, and seeing how small were the prospects of stirring the
+languid mind of the pauper to greater forethought, he thought that he
+might assume the constancy of an element which varied so slowly. The
+indifference of the Ricardo school generally to historical inquiry had
+led them no doubt to assume such constancy too easily. Malthus, who
+had more leaning to history, had himself called attention to many
+cases in which the 'prudential check' operated more strongly than it
+did among the English poor. Probably Ricardo was in this, as in other
+cases, too hasty in assuming facts convenient for his argument. The
+poor man's character can, it is clear, be only known empirically; and,
+in fact, Ricardo simply appeals to experience. He thinks that, as a
+fact, men always do multiply in excess. But he does not deny that
+better education might change their character in this respect. Indeed,
+as I have said, an even excessive faith in the possible modification
+of character by education was one of the Utilitarian tenets. If
+Ricardo had said broadly that a necessary condition of the improvement
+of the poor was a change of the average character, I think that he
+would have been saying what was perfectly true and very much to the
+purpose both then and now. The objection to his version of a most
+salutary doctrine is that it is stated in too narrow terms. The
+ultimate unit, the human being, is indeed supposed to be capable of
+great modification, but it is solely through increasing his foresight
+as to the effects of multiplication that the change is supposed to be
+attainable. The moral thus drawn implied a very limited view of the
+true nature and influence of great social processes, and in practice
+came too often to limiting possible improvement to the one condition
+of letting things alone. Let a man starve if he will not work, and he
+will work. That, as a sole remedy, may be insufficient; though, even
+in that shape, it is a doctrine more likely to be overlooked than
+overvalued. And meanwhile the acquiescence in the painful doctrine
+that, as a matter of fact, labourers would always multiply to
+starvation point, was calculated to produce revolt against the whole
+system. Macaulay's doctrine that the Utilitarians had made political
+economy unpopular was so far true that the average person resented the
+unpleasant doctrines thus obtruded upon him in their most unpleasant
+shape; and, if he was told that they were embodied logic, revolted
+against logic itself.
+
+
+V. THE RICARDIANS
+
+It will be quite sufficient to speak briefly of the minor prophets who
+expounded the classical doctrine; sometimes falling into fallacies,
+against which Ricardo's logical instinct had warned him; and sometimes
+perhaps unconsciously revealing errors which really lurked in his
+premises. When Ricardo died, James Mill told M'Culloch that they were
+'the two and only genuine disciples' of their common friend.[347] Mill
+wrote what he intended for a Schoolbook of Political Economy.[348]
+Brief, pithy, and vigorous, it purports to give the essential
+principles in their logical order; but, as his son remarks,[349] had
+only a passing importance. M'Culloch took a more important place by
+his writings in the _Edinburgh Review_ and elsewhere, and by his
+lectures at Edinburgh and at London. He was one of the first
+professors of the new university. His _Principles of Political
+Economy_[350] became a text-book, to be finally superseded by John
+Stuart Mill. Other works statistical and bibliographical showed great
+industry, and have still their value. He was so much the typical
+economist of the day that he has been identified with Carlyle's
+_M'Crowdy_, the apostle of the dismal science.[351] He writes,
+however, with enough vivacity and fervour of belief in his creed to
+redeem him from the charge of absolute dulness. An abler thinker was
+Colonel (Robert) Torrens (1780-1864).[352] He had served with
+distinction in the war; but retired on half-pay, and was drawn by some
+natural idiosyncrasy into the dry paths of economic discussion. He was
+already confuting the French economists in 1808; and was writing upon
+the Bank-charter Act and the Ten Hours' Bill in 1844. Torrens held
+himself, apparently with justice, to be rather an independent ally
+than a disciple of Ricardo. His chief works were an essay upon the
+'External Corn-trade' (1815)[353] and an 'Essay on the Production of
+Wealth' (1821). Ricardo pronounced his arguments upon the Corn-trade
+to be 'unanswered and unanswerable,'[354] and he himself claimed to be
+an independent discoverer of the true theory of rent.[355] He was
+certainly a man of considerable acuteness and originality. In these
+writings we find the most sanguine expressions of the belief that
+political economy was not only a potential, but on the verge of
+becoming an actual, science. Torrens observes that all sciences have
+to pass through a period of controversy; but thinks that economists
+are emerging from this stage, and rapidly approaching unanimity. In
+twenty years, says this hopeful prophet, there will scarcely exist a
+'doubt of its' (Political Economy's) 'fundamental principles.'[356]
+Torrens thinks that Ricardo has generalised too much, and Malthus too
+little; but proposes, with proper professions of modesty, to take the
+true _via media_, and weld the sound principles into a harmonious
+whole by a due combination of observation and theory. The science, he
+thinks, is 'analogous to the mixed mathematics.'[357] As from the laws
+of motion we can deduce the theory of dynamics, so from certain simple
+axioms about human nature we can deduce the science of Political
+Economy. M'Culloch, at starting, insists in edifying terms upon the
+necessity of a careful and comprehensive induction, and of the study
+of industrial phenomena in different times and places, and under
+varying institutions.[358] This, however, does not prevent him from
+adopting the same methods of reasoning. 'Induction' soon does its
+office, and supplies a few simple principles, from which we may make a
+leap to our conclusions by a rapid, deductive process.
+
+The problems appear to be too simple to require long preliminary
+investigations of fact. Torrens speaks of proving by 'strictly
+demonstrative evidence' or of 'proceeding to demonstrate' by strict
+analysis.[359] This is generally the preface to one of those
+characteristic arithmetical illustrations to which Ricardo's practice
+gave a sanction. We are always starting an imaginary capitalist with
+so many quarters of corn and suits of clothes, which he can transmute
+into any kind of product, and taking for granted that he represents a
+typical case. This gives a certain mathematical air to the reasoning,
+and too often hides from the reasoner that he may be begging the
+question in more ways than one by the arrangement of his imaginary
+case. One of the offenders in this kind was Nassau Senior (1790-1864),
+a man of remarkable good sense, and fully aware of the necessity of
+caution in applying his theories to facts. He was the first professor
+of Political Economy at Oxford (1825-1830), and his treatise[360] lays
+down the general assumption of his orthodox contemporaries clearly and
+briefly. The science, he tells us, is deducible from four elementary
+propositions: the first of which asserts that every 'man desires to
+obtain additional wealth with as little sacrifice as possible'; while
+the others state the first principles embodied in Malthus's theory of
+population, and in the laws corresponding to the increasing facility
+of manufacturing and the decreasing facility of agricultural
+industry.[361] As these propositions include no reference to the
+particular institutions or historical development of the social
+structure, they virtually imply that a science might be constructed
+equally applicable in all times and places; and that, having obtained
+them, we need not trouble ourselves any further with inductions. Hence
+it follows that we can at once get from the abstract 'man' to the
+industrial order. We may, it would seem, abstract from history in
+general. This corresponds to the postulate explicitly stated by
+M'Culloch. 'A state,' he tells us, 'is nothing more than an aggregate
+of individuals': men, that is, who 'inhabit a certain tract of
+country.'[362] He infers that 'whatever is most advantageous to them'
+(the individuals) 'is most advantageous to the state.' Self-interest,
+therefore, the individual's desire of adding to his 'fortune,' is the
+mainspring or _causa causans_ of all improvement.[363] This is, of
+course, part of the familiar system, which applies equally in ethics
+and politics. M'Culloch is simply generalising Adam Smith's congenial
+doctrine that statesmen are guilty of absurd presumption when they try
+to interfere with a man's management of his own property.[364] This
+theory, again, is expressed by the familiar maxim _pas trop
+gouverner_, which is common to the whole school, and often accepted
+explicitly.[365]
+
+It will be quite enough to notice one or two characteristic results.
+The most important concern the relation between the labourer and the
+capitalist. Malthus gives the starting-point. Torrens, for example,
+says that the 'real wages of labour have a constant tendency to settle
+down' to the amount rendered necessary by 'custom and climate' in
+order to keep up his numbers.[366] Mill observes in his terse way that
+the capitalist in the present state of society 'is as much the owner
+of the labour' as the manufacturer who operates with slaves. The only
+'difference is in the mode of purchasing.'[367] One buys a man's whole
+labour; the other his labour for a day. The rate of wages can
+therefore be raised, like the price of slaves, only by limiting the
+supply. Hence the 'grand practical problem is to find the means of
+limiting the number of births.'[368] M'Culloch is equally clear, and
+infers that every scheme 'not bottomed on' the principle of
+proportioning labour to capital must be 'completely nugatory and
+ineffectual.'[369]
+
+The doctrine common to the whole school led M'Culloch to conclusions
+which became afterwards notorious enough to require a word of notice.
+Torrens, like Ricardo, speaks of capital as 'accumulated labour,' but
+makes a great point of observing that, although this is true, the case
+is radically changed in a developed state of society. The value of
+things no longer depends upon the labour, but upon the amount of
+capital employed in their production.[370] This, indeed, may seem to
+be the most natural way of stating the accepted principle. M'Culloch
+replies that the change makes no difference in the principle,[371]
+inasmuch as capital being 'accumulated labour,' value is still
+proportioned to labour, though in a transubstantiated shape. M'Culloch
+supposed that by carrying out this principle systematically he was
+simplifying Ricardo and bringing the whole science into unity. All
+questions, whether of value in exchange, or of the rate of wages, can
+then be reduced to comparing the simple unit called labour. Both Mill
+and M'Culloch regard capital as a kind of labour, so that things may
+be produced by capital alone, 'without the co-operation of any
+immediate labour'[372]--a result which can hardly be realised with the
+discovery of a perpetual motion. So, again, the value of a joint
+product is the 'sum' of these two values.[373] All value, therefore,
+can be regarded as proportioned to labour in one of its two states.
+M'Culloch advanced to an unfortunate conclusion, which excited some
+ridicule. Though Ricardo and Torrens[374] rejected it, it was accepted
+by Mill in his second edition.[375] Wine kept in a cask might increase
+in value. Could that value be ascribed to 'additional labour actually
+laid out'? M'Culloch gallantly asserted that it could, though 'labour'
+certainly has to be interpreted in a non-natural sense.[376] Not only
+is capital labour, but fermentation is labour, or how can we say that
+all value is proportioned to labour? This is only worth notice as a
+pathetic illustration of the misfortunes of a theorist ridden by a
+dogma of his own creation. Another conclusion is more important. The
+'real value' of anything is measured by the labour required to produce
+it. Nothing 'again is more obvious' than that equal labour implies the
+'same sacrifice' in all states of society.[377] It might seem to
+follow that the value of anything was measured by the labour which it
+would command. This doctrine, however, though maintained by Malthus,
+was, according to M'Culloch, a pestilent heresy, first exploded by
+Ricardo's sagacity.[378] Things exchange, as he explains, in
+proportion to the labour which produces them, but the share given to
+the labourer may vary widely. The labourer, he says, 'gives a
+constant, but receives a variable quantity in its stead.' He makes the
+same sacrifice when he works for a day, but may get for it what he
+produces in ten hours, or only in one. In every case, however, he gets
+less than he produces, for the excess 'constitutes profits.'[379] The
+capitalist must get his interest, that is, the wages of the
+accumulated labour. Here we come again to the Socialist position, only
+that the Socialist infers that the labourer is always cheated by the
+capitalist, and does not consider that the machine can ask for 'wages'
+on the pretext that it is accumulated labour. What, however,
+determines the share actually received? After all, as a machine is not
+actually a labourer, and its work not a separable product, we cannot
+easily see how much wages it is entitled to receive. M'Culloch follows
+the accepted argument. 'No proposition,' he says, 'can be better
+established than that the market rate of wages ... is exclusively
+determined by the proportion between capital and population.'[380] We
+have ultimately here, as elsewhere, 'the grand principle to which we
+must always come at last,' namely, 'the cost of production.'[381]
+Wages must correspond to the cost of raising the labourer. This leads
+to a formula, which afterwards became famous. In a pamphlet[382]
+devoted to the question, he repeats the statement that wages depend
+upon the proportion between population and capital; and then, as if
+the phrase were identical, substitutes that portion of capital which
+is required for the labourer's consumption. This is generally cited as
+the first statement of the 'wage-fund' theory, to which I shall have
+to return.
+
+I need not pursue these illustrations of the awkward results of
+excessive zeal in a disciple. It is worth noticing, however, that
+M'Culloch's practical conclusions are not so rigid as might be
+inferred. His abstract doctrines do not give his true theory, so much
+as what he erroneously took to be his theory. The rules with which he
+works are approximately true under certain conditions, and he
+unconsciously assumes the conditions to be negligible, and the rules
+therefore absolute. It must be added that he does not apply his
+conclusions so rigidly as might be expected. By the help of
+'friction,' or the admission that the ride is only true in nineteen
+cases out of twenty, he can make allowance for many deviations from
+rigid orthodoxy. He holds, for example, that government interference
+is often necessary. He wishes in particular for the establishment of a
+'good system of public education.'[383] He seems to have become more
+sentimental in later years. In the edition of 1843 he approves the
+Factory Acts, remarking that the last then passed 'may not, in some
+respects, have gone far enough.'[384] He approves a provision for the
+'impotent poor,' on the principle of the Elizabethan act, though he
+disapproves the centralising tendency of the new poor-law. Though he
+is a good Malthusian,[385] and holds the instinct of population to be
+a 'constant quantity,'[386] he does not believe in the impossibility
+of improvement. The 'necessary' rate of wages fixes only a minimum:
+an increase of population has been accompanied by an increase of
+comfort.[387] Wages rise if the standard of life be raised, and a rise
+of wages tends to raise the standard. He cordially denounces the
+benevolent persons who held that better wages only meant more
+dissipation. Better wages are really the great spur to industry and
+improvement.[388] Extreme poverty causes apathy; and the worst of
+evils is the sluggishness which induces men to submit to reductions of
+wages. A sense of comfort will raise foresight; and the _vis
+medicatrix_ should be allowed to act upon every rank of society. He is
+no doubt an individualist, as looking to the removal of restrictions,
+such as the Conspiracy Laws,[389] rather than to a positive action of
+the government; but it is worth notice that this typical economist is
+far from accepting some of the doctrines attributed to the school in
+general.
+
+The classical school blundered when it supposed that the rules which
+it formulated could be made absolute. To give them that character, it
+was necessary to make false assumptions as to the ultimate
+constitution of society; and the fallacy became clear when the formulae
+were supposed to give a real history or to give first principles, from
+which all industrial relations could be deduced. Meanwhile, the
+formulae, as they really expressed conditional truths, might be very
+useful so long as, in point of fact, the conditions existed, and were
+very effective in disposing of many fallacies. The best illustration
+would probably be given by the writings of Thomas Tooke
+(1774-1858),[390] one of the founders of the Political Economy Club.
+The _History of Prices_ is an admirable explanation of phenomena which
+had given rise to the wildest theories. The many oscillations of trade
+and finance during the great struggle, the distress which had followed
+the peace, had bewildered hasty reasoners. Some people, of course,
+found consolation in attributing everything to the mysterious action
+of the currency; others declared that the war-expenditure had supplied
+manufacturers and agriculturists with a demand for their wares,
+apparently not the less advantageous because the payment came out of
+their own pockets.[391] Tooke very patiently and thoroughly explodes
+these explanations, and traces the fluctuations of price to such
+causes as the effect of the seasons and the varying events of the war
+which opened or closed the channels of commerce. The explanation in
+general seems to be thoroughly sound and conclusive, and falls in, as
+far as it goes, with the principles of his allies. He shows, for
+example, very clearly what were the conditions under which the
+orthodox theory of rent was really applicable; how bad seasons brought
+gain instead of loss to the 'agricultural interest,' that is, as Tooke
+explains, to the landlord and farmer; how by a rise of price out of
+proportion to the diminution of supply, the farmer made large profits;
+how rents rose, enclosure bills increased, and inferior land was
+brought under the plough. The landlord's interest was for the time
+clearly opposed to that of all other classes, however inadequate the
+doctrine might become when made absolute by a hasty generalisation. I
+need not dwell upon the free-trade argument which made the popular
+reputation of the economists. It is enough to note briefly that the
+error as to the sphere of applicability of the doctrine did not
+prevent many of the practical conclusions from being of the highest
+value.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[294] A life of Ricardo by M'Culloch is prefixed to his _Works_. I
+cite the edition of 1880. Ricardo's letters to Malthus were published
+by Mr. Bonar in 1887; his letters to M'Culloch, edited by Mr.
+Hollander for the American Economic Association, in 1895; and his
+letters to H. Trower, edited by Mr. Bonar and Mr. Hollander, have just
+appeared (1900).
+
+[295] He remarks upon this difficulty in the case of Smith's
+treatment of rent, and gives a definition to which he scarcely
+adheres.--_Works_, p. 34 ('Principles,' ch. ii., 1888).
+
+[296] _Works_, p. 378. Ricardo, it should be said, complained when
+Malthus interpreted him to mean that this opposition of interests was
+permanent and absolute.
+
+[297] Malthus admits the general principle of free trade, but supports
+some degree of protection to corn, mainly upon political grounds. He
+holds, however, with Adam Smith, that 'no equal quantity of productive
+labour employed in manufactures could ever occasion so great a
+reproduction as in agriculture' (_Grounds of an Opinion, etc._, p.
+35)--a relic of the 'physiocrat' doctrine.
+
+[298] _Works_, p. 385.
+
+[299] _Ibid._ p. 386.
+
+[300] See also _Letters to Malthus_, p. 175.
+
+[301] 'Your modern political economists say that it is a principle in
+their science that all things find their level; which I deny, and say,
+on the contrary, that it is the true principle that all things are
+finding their level, like water in a storm.'--Coleridge's
+_Table-Talk_, 17th May 1833.
+
+[302] _Letters to Malthus_, p. 96; and see the frequently quoted
+passage where he complains that Malthus has taken his book as more
+'practical' than he had intended it to be, and speaks of his method of
+imagining 'strong cases.'--_Ibid._ p. 167.
+
+[303] _Works_, p. 40 _n._ (ch. ii.).
+
+[304] _Works_, p. 53 (ch. v.), and p. 124 (ch. xvi.), where he quotes
+from the _Wealth of Nations_ (M'Culloch), p. 390 (bk. v. ch. ii. art.
+3).
+
+[305] _Works_, p. 131.
+
+[306] _Wealth of Nations_ (M'Culloch), p. 31 (bk. i. ch. viii.).
+
+[307] _Works_, p. 41 (ch. ii.).
+
+[308] _Wealth of Nations_ (M'Culloch), p. 36.
+
+[309] _Works_, p. 51 (ch. v.).
+
+[310] _Letters to Malthus_, p. 98.
+
+[311] _Works_, p. 239 (ch. xxxi., added in third edition, 1821).
+
+[312] _Ibid._ p. 50 (ch. v.).
+
+[313] _Ibid._ p. 52.
+
+[314] _Ibid._ p. 15 (ch. i. sec. ii.).
+
+[315] There is, indeed, a difficulty which I happily need not discuss.
+Undoubtedly the doctrine of gluts was absurd. There is, of course, no
+limit to the amount of wealth which can be used or exchanged. But
+there certainly seems to be a great difficulty in effecting such a
+readjustment of the industrial system as is implied in increased
+production of wealth; and the disposition to save may at a given time
+be greater than the power of finding profitable channels for employing
+wealth. This involves economical questions beyond my ability to
+answer, and happily not here relevant.
+
+[316] _Letters to Malthus_, p. 101.
+
+[317] _Ibid._ p. 52.
+
+[318] _Works_, p. 174 (ch. xxi.).
+
+[319] _Works_, p. 66 (ch. vi.).
+
+[320] _Works_, p. 240 (ch. xxxi.).
+
+[321] Ricardo, _Works_, p. xxiv.
+
+[322] Menger's _Das Recht auf den vollen Arbeitsertrag_ (1891), p. 38.
+
+[323] _Works_, p. 228 (ch. xxviii.).
+
+[324] _Works_, pp. 29, 60.
+
+[325] _Ibid._ p. 166.
+
+[326] _Works_, p. 170 (ch. xx.).
+
+[327] _Ibid._ p. 7.
+
+[328] So he tells Malthus (_Letters_, pp. 173, 174) that the buyer has
+'the least to do in the world' with the regulation of prices. It is
+all the competition of the sellers. 'Demand' influences price for the
+moment, but 'supply follows close upon its heels, and takes up the
+regulation of price.'
+
+[329] _Works_, p. 234.
+
+[330] Bentham's _Works_, x. 498.
+
+[331] _Works_, p. 250 (ch. xxxii.).
+
+[332] Stewart's _Works_, x. 34.
+
+[333] See Bagehot's remarks upon J. S. Mill's version of this doctrine
+in _Economic Studies_: chapter on 'Cost of Production.'
+
+[334] Another illustration of the need of such considerations is
+given, as has been pointed out, in Adam Smith's famous chapter upon
+the variation in the rate of wages. He assumes that the highest wages
+will be paid for the least agreeable employments, whereas, in fact,
+the least agreeable are generally the worst paid. His doctrine, that
+is, is only true upon a tacit assumption as to the character and
+position of the labourer, which must be revised before the rule can be
+applied.
+
+[335] J. S. Mill, too, in his _Political Economy_ makes the foundation
+of private property 'the right of producers to what they themselves
+have produced.' (Bk. ii. ch. ii. Sec. 1.)
+
+[336] Mr. Edwin Cannan, in _Production and Distribution_ (1894), p.
+383.
+
+[337] A definition, says Burke in his essay on the 'Sublime and
+Beautiful' (introduction) 'seems rather to follow than to precede our
+inquiry, of which it ought to be considered as the result.'
+
+[338] _Works_, p. 34 (chap. ii.). Rent is there defined as the sum
+paid for the original and indestructible powers of the soil.
+
+[339] _Works_, p. 132 (chap. xvii.). He admits (_Ibid._ p. 210 _n._)
+that the labourer may have a little more than what is absolutely
+necessary, and that his inference is therefore 'expressed too
+strongly.'
+
+[340] See _Letters to M'Culloch_, p. xxi.
+
+[341] 'The assaults upon Malthus's "great work,"' he says (_Works_, p.
+243, ch. xxxii.), 'have only served to prove its strength.'
+
+[342] _Letters to Malthus_, p. 226.
+
+[343] _Works_, p. 58 (ch. v.).
+
+[344] _Ibid._ p. 211 _n._ (ch. xxvi.).
+
+[345] _Ibid._ p. 258 (ch. xxxii.).
+
+[346] _Works_, p. 248 (ch. xxii.).
+
+[347] Bain's _James Mill_, p. 211.
+
+[348] Editions in 1821, 1824, and 1826.
+
+[349] _Autobiography_, p. 204.
+
+[350] The first edition, an expanded version of an article in the
+_Encyclopaedia Britannica_, appeared in 1825.
+
+[351] _Latter-day Pamphlets_ (New Downing Street). M'Crowdy is
+obviously a type, not an individual.
+
+[352] See Mr. Hewin's life of him in _Dictionary of National
+Biography_.
+
+[353] Fourth edition in 1827.
+
+[354] Ricardo's _Works_, p. 164 _n._
+
+[355] _External Corn-trade_, preface to fourth edition. J. S. Mill
+observes in his chapter upon 'International Trade' that Torrens was
+the earliest expounder of the doctrine afterwards worked out by
+Ricardo and Mill himself. For Ricardo's opinion of Torrens, see
+_Letters to Trower_, p. 39.
+
+[356] _Production of Wealth_ (Preface).
+
+[357] _Production of Wealth_ (Preface).
+
+[358] _Political Economy_ (1825), p. 21.
+
+[359] _External Corn-trade_, pp. xviii, 109, 139; _Production of
+Wealth_, p. 375.
+
+[360] Originally in the _Encyclopaedia Metropolitana_, 1836.
+
+[361] Senior's _Political Economy_ (1850), p. 26.
+
+[362] _Ibid._ (1825), pp. 55, 129-131.
+
+[363] Senior's _Political Economy_ (150), p. 125.
+
+[364] _Ibid._ p. 135. M'Culloch admits the possibility that a man may
+judge his own interests wrongly, but thinks that this will not happen
+in one case out of twenty (_Ibid._ p. 15).
+
+[365] See Torrens's _Production of Wealth_, p. 208; and M'Culloch's
+_Political Economy_ (1843), p. 294, where he admits some exceptions.
+
+[366] _External Corn-trade_, p. 87, etc.
+
+[367] _Political Economy_ (second edition), pp. 21, 22.
+
+[368] _Ibid._ p. 67.
+
+[369] _Political Economy_ (1825), p. 329.
+
+[370] _Production of Wealth_, p. 34, etc.
+
+[371] _Political Economy_ (1825), p. 318.
+
+[372] Mill's _Political Economy_ (second edition), p. 102; M'Culloch's
+_Political Economy_ (1825), pp. 289-291.
+
+[373] M'Culloch's _Political Economy_, p. 290.
+
+[374] Preface to _External Corn-trade_.
+
+[375] _Ibid._ p. 95.
+
+[376] _Political Economy_ (1825), pp. 313-18. This argument disappears
+in later editions.
+
+[377] _Ibid._ p. 217.
+
+[378] _Political Economy_, p. 221. De Quincey makes a great point of
+this doctrine, of which it is not worth while to examine the meaning.
+
+[379] _Political Economy_, p. 221 _n._
+
+[380] _Ibid._ p. 336.
+
+[381] _Ibid._ p. 337.
+
+[382] 'Essay upon the Circumstances which determine the Rate of Wages'
+(1826), p. 113. This was written for Constable's _Miscellany_, and is
+mainly repetition from the _Political Economy_. It was republished,
+with alterations, in 1851.
+
+[383] _Political Economy_, pp. 359-61.
+
+[384] _Ibid._ (1843), p. 178. And see his remarks on the unfavourable
+side of the Factory System, p. 186 _seq._
+
+[385] 'Wherever two persons have the means of subsisting,' as he
+quaintly observes, 'a marriage invariably takes place' (_Political
+Economy_, p. 154).
+
+[386] _Political Economy_, p. 206.
+
+[387] _Political Economy_, p. 344.
+
+[388] _Ibid._ pp. 349-52.
+
+[389] See pamphlet on the rate of wages, pp. 178-204.
+
+[390] Tooke's _Thoughts and Details on the High and Low Prices of the
+last Thirty Years_ appeared in 1823 (second edition 1824). This was
+rewritten and embodied in the _History of Prices_, the first two
+volumes of which appeared in 1838. Four later volumes appeared in
+1839, 1848, and 1857.
+
+[391] The popular view is given by Southey. The Radicals, he says in
+1823, desire war because they expect it to lead to revolution. 'In
+this they are greatly deceived, for it would restore agricultural
+prosperity, and give a new spur to our manufactures' (_Selections from
+Southey's Letters_, iii. 382. See also _Life and Correspondence_, iv.
+228, 386).
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+ECONOMIC HERETICS
+
+
+I. THE MALTHUSIAN CONTROVERSY
+
+The Economic theory became triumphant. Expounded from new university
+chairs, summarised in text-books for schools, advocated in the press,
+and applied by an energetic party to some of the most important
+political discussions of the day, it claimed the adhesion of all
+enlightened persons. It enjoyed the prestige of a scientific doctrine,
+and the most popular retort seemed to be an involuntary concession of
+its claims. When opponents appealed from 'theorists' to practical men,
+the Utilitarians scornfully set them down as virtually appealing from
+reason to prejudice. No rival theory held the field. If Malthus and
+Ricardo differed, it was a difference between men who accepted the
+same first principles. They both professed to interpret Adam Smith as
+the true prophet, and represented different shades of opinion rather
+than diverging sects. There were, however, symptoms of opposition,
+which, at the time, might be set down as simple reluctance to listen
+to disagreeable truths. In reality, they were indications of a
+dissatisfaction which was to become of more importance and to lead in
+time to a more decided revolt. I must indicate some of them, though
+the expressions of dissent were so various and confused that it is not
+very easy to reduce them to order.
+
+Malthus's doctrine was really at the base of the whole theory, though
+it must be admitted that neither Malthus himself nor his opponents
+were clear as to what his doctrine really was. His assailants often
+attacked theories which he disavowed, or asserted principles which he
+claimed as his own.[392] I mention only to set aside some respectable
+and wearisome gentlemen such as Ingram, Jarrold, Weyland, and Grahame,
+who considered Malthus chiefly as impugning the wisdom of Providence.
+They quote the divine law, 'Increase and multiply'; think that Malthus
+regards vice and misery as blessings, and prove that population does
+not 'tend' to increase too rapidly. Jarrold apparently accepts the
+doctrine which Malthus attributes to Suessmilch, that lives have been
+shortened since the days of the patriarchs, and the reproductive
+forces diminished as the world has grown fuller. Grahame believes in a
+providential 'ordeal,' constituted by infant mortality, which is not,
+like war and vice, due to human corruption, but a beneficent
+regulating force which correlates fertility with the state of society.
+This might be taken by Malthus as merely amounting to another version
+of his checks. Such books, in fact, simply show, what does not require
+to be further emphasised, that Malthus had put his version of the
+struggle for existence into a form which seemed scandalous to the
+average orthodox person. The vagueness of Malthus himself and the
+confused argument of such opponents makes it doubtful whether they are
+really answering his theories or reducing them to a less repulsive
+form of statement.
+
+In other directions, the Malthusian doctrine roused keen feeling on
+both sides, and the line taken by different parties is significant.
+Malthus had appeared as an antagonist of the revolutionary party. He
+had laid down what he took to be an insuperable obstacle to the
+realisation of their dreams. Yet his views were adopted and extended
+by those who called themselves thorough Radicals. As, in our days,
+Darwinism has been claimed as supporting both individualist and
+socialistic conclusions, the theory of his predecessor, Malthus, might
+be applied in a Radical or a Conservative sense. In point of fact,
+Malthus was at once adopted by the Whigs, as represented by the
+_Edinburgh Review_. They were followers of Adam Smith and Dugald
+Stewart; they piqued themselves, and, as even James Mill admitted,
+with justice, upon economic orthodoxy. They were at the same time
+predisposed to a theory which condemned the revolutionary Utopias. It
+provided them with an effective weapon against the agitators whom they
+especially dreaded. The Tories might be a little restrained by
+orthodox qualms. In 1812 Southey was permitted to make an onslaught
+upon Malthus in the _Quarterly_;[393] but more complimentary
+allusions followed, and five years later the essay was elaborately
+defended in an able article.[394] An apology was even insinuated for
+the previous assault, though the blame was thrown upon Malthus for
+putting his doctrines in an offensive shape. A reference to Owen
+suggests that the alarm excited by Socialism had suggested the need of
+some sound political economy.
+
+Another controversy which was being carried on at intervals indicates
+the line of cleavage between the capitalist and the landed interest.
+James Mill's early pamphlet, _Commerce Defended_ (1808), and Torrens's
+pamphlet, _Economists Refuted_, were suggested by this discussion.
+Although the war was partly in defence of British trade, its
+vicissitudes produced various commercial crises; and the patriotic
+Tories were anxious to show that we could thrive even if our trade was
+shut out from the Continent. The trading classes maintained that they
+really supplied the sinews of war, and had a right to some control of
+the policy. The controversy about the orders in council and Berlin
+decrees emphasised these disputes, and called some attention to the
+questions involved in the old controversy between the 'mercantile' and
+the 'agricultural' systems. A grotesque exaggeration of one theory was
+given by Mill's opponent, William Spence[395] (1783-1860), in his
+_Britain independent of Commerce_, which went through several editions
+in 1808, and refurbished or perverted the doctrine of the French
+economists. The argument, at least, shows what fallacies then needed
+confutation by the orthodox. In the preface to his collected tracts,
+Spence observes that the high price of corn was the cause of 'all our
+wealth and prosperity during the war.' The causes of the high price
+('assisted,' he admits, 'by occasional bad seasons') were the
+'national debt, in other words, taxation,' which raised the price,
+first, of necessaries, and then of luxuries (thus, he says,
+'neutralising its otherwise injurious effects'), and the virtual
+monopoly by the agriculturist of the home market.[396] All our wealth,
+that is, was produced by taxation aided by famine, or, in brief, by
+the landowner's power of squeezing more out of the poor. Foreign
+trade, according to Spence, is altogether superfluous. Its effect is
+summed up by the statement that we give hardware to America, and, in
+return, get only 'the vile weed, tobacco.'[397] Spence's writings only
+show the effect of strong prejudices on a weak brain. A similar
+sentiment dictated a more noteworthy argument to a much abler writer,
+whose relation to Malthus is significant--Thomas Chalmers
+(1780-1847),[398] probably best remembered at present for his
+leadership of the great disruption of 1843. He had a reputation for
+eloquence and philosophic ability not fully intelligible at the
+present day. His appearance was uncouth, and his written style is
+often clumsy. He gave an impression at times of indolence and of
+timidity. Yet his superficial qualities concealed an ardent
+temperament and cordial affections. Under a sufficient stimulus he
+could blaze out in stirring speech and vigorous action. His
+intellectual training was limited. He had, we are told, been much
+influenced in his youth by the French philosophers of the time, and
+had appeared on the side of the more freethinking party in the famous
+Leslie controversy. Soon afterwards, however, he was converted to
+'evangelical' views. He still accepted Thomas Brown as a great
+metaphysician,[399] but thought that in moral questions Brown's
+deistical optimism required to be corrected by an infusion of Butler's
+theory of conscience. He could adapt Butler's _Analogy_, and write an
+edifying Bridgewater Treatise. I need only say, however, that, though
+his philosophy was not very profound, he had an enthusiasm which
+enables him at times to write forcibly and impressively.
+
+Chalmers was from 1803 to 1815 minister of Kilmany, Fifeshire, and his
+attention had already been drawn to the question of pauperism. He took
+part in the Spence controversy, by an essay upon the _Extent and
+Stability of National Resources_.[400] In this he expounds a doctrine
+which is afterwards given in his _Political Economy in Connection with
+the Moral State and Moral Aspects of Society_.[401] The main purpose
+of his early book is the patriotic. It is meant, like Spence's
+pamphlet, to prove that Napoleon could do us no vital injury. Should
+he succeed, he would only lop off superfluous branches, not hew down
+the main trunk. Chalmers's argument to show the ease with which a
+country may recover the effects of a disastrous war is highly praised
+by J. S. Mill[402] as the first sound explanation of the facts.
+Chalmers's position, however, is radically different from the
+position of either James or J. S. Mill. Essentially it is the
+development of the French economists' theory, though Chalmers is
+rather unwilling to admit his affinity to a discredited school.[403]
+He has reached some of their conclusions, he admits, but by a
+different path.[404] He coincides, in this respect, with Malthus, who
+was equally impressed by the importance of 'subsistence,' or of the
+food-supply of the labourer. The great bulk of the food required must
+be raised within our own borders. As Chalmers says, in 1832, the total
+importation of corn, even in the two famine years, 1800 and 1801,
+taken together, had only provided food for five weeks,[405] and could
+normally represent a mere fringe or superfluous addition to our
+resources. His main argument is simple. The economists have fallen
+into a fatal error. A manufacturer, he observes, only makes his own
+article.[406] The economists somehow imagine that he also supports
+himself. You see a prosperous 'shawl-making village.' You infer that
+its ruin would cause the destitution of so many families. It would
+only mean the loss of so many shawls. The food which supports the
+shawl-makers would still be produced, and would be only diverted to
+support makers of some other luxury.[407] There would be a temporary
+injury to individuals, but no permanent weakening of national
+resources. Hence we have his division of the population. The
+agriculturists, and those who make the 'second necessaries' (the
+cottages, ploughs, and so forth, required by the agriculturist),
+create the great wealth of the country. Besides these we have the
+'disposable' population, which is employed in making luxuries for the
+landowners, and, finally, the 'redundant' or what he calls in his
+later book the 'excrescent' or 'superinduced' population,[408] which
+is really supported by foreign trade. Commerce, then, is merely 'the
+efflorescence of our agriculture.'[409] Were it annihilated this
+instant, we should still retain our whole disposable population. The
+effect of war is simply to find a different employment for this part
+of the nation. Napoleon, he says, is 'emptying our shops and filling
+our battalions.'[410] All the 'redundant' population might be
+supported by simply diminishing the number of our cart-horses.[411]
+Similarly, the destruction of the commerce of France 'created her
+armies.' It only transferred men from trade to war, and 'millions of
+artisans' were 'transformed into soldiers.'[412] Pitt was really
+strengthening when he supposed himself to be ruining his enemy.
+'Excrescence' and 'efflorescence' are Chalmers's equivalent for the
+'sterility' of the French economists. The backbone of all industry is
+agriculture, and the manufacturers simply employed by the landowner
+for such purposes as he pleases. Whether he uses them to make his
+luxuries or to fight his battles, the real resources of the nation
+remain untouched. The Ricardians insist upon the vital importance of
+'capital.' The one economic end of the statesmen, as the capitalist
+class naturally thinks, should be to give every facility for its
+accumulation, and consequently for allowing it to distribute itself in
+the most efficient way. Chalmers, on the contrary, argues that we may
+easily have too much capital. He was a firm believer in gluts. He
+admits that the extension of commerce was of great good at the end of
+the feudal period, but not as the 'efficient cause' of wealth, only as
+'unlocking the capabilities of the soil.'[413] This change produced
+the illusion that commerce has a 'creative virtue,' whereas its
+absolute dependence upon agriculture is a truth of capital importance
+in political economy. More Malthusian than Malthus, Chalmers argues
+that the case of capital is strictly parallel to the case of
+population.[414] Money may be redundant as much as men, and the real
+causes of every economic calamity are the 'over-speculation of
+capitalists,' and the 'over-population of the community at
+large.'[415] In this question, however, Chalmers gets into
+difficulties, which show so hopeless a confusion between 'capital,'
+income, and money, that I need not attempt to unravel his
+meaning.[416] Anyhow, he is led to approve the French doctrine of the
+single tax. Ultimately, he thinks, all taxes fall upon rent.[417]
+Agriculture fills the great reservoir from which all the subsidiary
+channels are filled. Whether the stream be tapped at the source or
+further down makes no difference. Hence he infers that, as the
+landlords necessarily pay the taxes, they should pay them openly. By
+an odd coincidence, he would tax rents like Mill, though upon
+opposite grounds. He holds that the interest of the landowners is not
+opposed to, but identical with, the interest of all classes.
+Politically, as well as economically, they should be supreme. They
+are, 'naturally and properly, the lords of the ascendant,' and, as he
+oddly complains in the year of the Reform Bill, not 'sufficiently
+represented in parliament.'[418] A 'splendid aristocracy' is, he
+thinks, a necessary part of the social edifice;[419] the law of
+primogeniture is necessary to support them; and the division of land
+will cause the decay of France. The aristocracy are wanted to keep up
+a high standard of civilisation and promote philosophy, science, and
+art.[420] The British aristocracy in the reign of George IV. scarcely
+realised this ideal, and would hardly have perceived that to place all
+the taxes upon their shoulders would be to give them a blessing in
+disguise. According to Chalmers, however, an established church
+represents an essential part of the upper classes, and is required to
+promote a high standard of life among the poor.[421] In connection
+with this, he writes a really forcible chapter criticising the
+economical distinction of productive and unproductive labour, and
+shows at least that the direct creation of material wealth is not a
+sufficient criterion of the utility of a class.
+
+Chalmers's arguments are of interest mainly from their bearing upon
+his practical application of the Malthusian problem. His interest in
+the problem of pauperism had been stimulated by his residence in
+Glasgow, where from 1815 to 1823 he had been actively engaged in
+parochial duties. In 1819 he had set up an organised system of
+charity in a poor district, which both reduced the expenditure and
+improved the condition of the poor. The experiment, though dropped
+some years later, became famous, and in later years Chalmers
+successfully started a similar plan in Edinburgh. It was this
+experience which gave shape to his Malthusian theories. He was, that
+is, a Malthusian in the sense of believing that the great problem was
+essentially the problem of raising the self-respect and spirit of
+independence of the poor. The great evil which confronted him in
+Glasgow was the mischief connected with the growth of the factory
+system. He saw, as he thought, the development of wealth leading to
+the degradation of the labourer. The great social phenomenon was the
+tendency to degeneration, the gradual dissolution of an organism, and
+corruption destroying the vital forces. On the one hand, this
+spectacle led him, as it led others, to look back fondly to the good
+old times of homely food and primitive habits, to the peasantry as
+represented in Burns's _Cotter's Saturday Night_ or Scott's _Heart of
+Midlothian_, when the poor man was part of a social, political, and
+ecclesiastical order, disciplined, trained, and self-respecting, not a
+loose waif and stray in a chaotic welter of separate atoms. These were
+the facts which really suggested his theory of the 'excrescent'
+population, produced by the over-speculation of capitalists. The
+paupers of Glasgow were 'excrescent,' and the 'gluts' were visible in
+the commercial crises which had thrown numbers of poor weavers out of
+employment and degraded them into permanent paupers. The facts were
+before his eyes, if the generalisation was hasty and crude. He held,
+on the other hand, that indiscriminate charity, and still more the
+establishment by poor-laws of a legal right to support, was
+stimulating the evil. The poor-law had worked incalculable mischiefs
+in England,[422] and he struggled vigorously, though unavailingly, to
+resist its introduction into Scotland. Chalmers, however, did not
+accept the theory ascribed to the Utilitarians, that the remedy for
+the evils was simply to leave things alone. He gives his theory in an
+article upon the connection between the extension of the church and
+the extinction of pauperism. He defends Malthus against the
+'execrations' of sentimentalism. Malthus, he thinks, would not
+suppress but change the direction of beneficence. A vast expenditure
+has only stimulated pauperism. The true course is not to diminish the
+rates but to make them 'flow into the wholesome channel of maintaining
+an extended system of moral and religious instruction.'[423] In other
+words, suppress workhouses but build schools and churches; organise
+charity and substitute a systematic individual inspection for reckless
+and indiscriminate almsgiving. Then you will get to the root of the
+mischief. The church, supported from the land, is to become the great
+civilising agent. Chalmers, accordingly, was an ardent advocate of a
+church establishment. He became the leader of the Free Church movement
+not as objecting to an establishment on principle, but because he
+thought that the actual legal fetters of the Scottish establishment
+made it impossible to carry out an effective reorganisation and
+therefore unable to discharge its true functions.
+
+Here Chalmers's economical theories are crossed by various political
+and ecclesiastical questions with which I am not concerned. His
+peculiarities as an economist bring out, I think, an important point.
+He shows how Malthus's views might be interpreted by a man who,
+instead of sharing, was entirely opposed to the ordinary capitalist
+prejudices. It would be idle to ask which was the more logical
+development of Malthus. When two systems are full of doubtful
+assumptions of fact and questionable logic and vague primary
+conceptions, that question becomes hardly intelligible. We can only
+note the various turns given to the argument by the preconceived
+prejudices of the disputants. By most of them the Malthusian view was
+interpreted as implying the capitalist as distinguished from the
+landowning point of view.
+
+To Southey as to Chalmers the great evil of the day was the growth of
+the disorganised populace under the factory system. The difference is
+that while Chalmers enthusiastically adopted Malthus's theory as
+indicating the true remedy for the evil, Southey regards it with
+horror as declaring the evil to be irremediable. Chalmers, a shrewd
+Scot actively engaged in parochial work, had his attention fixed upon
+the reckless improvidence of the 'excrescent' population, and welcomed
+a doctrine which laid stress upon the necessity of raising the
+standard of prudence and morality. He recognised and pointed out with
+great force the inadequacy of such palliatives as emigration,
+home-colonisation, and so forth.[424] Southey, an ardent and impulsive
+man of letters, with no practical experience of the difficulties of
+social reform, has no patience for such inquiries. His remedy, in all
+cases, was a 'paternal government' vigorously regulating society; and
+Malthus appears to him to be simply an opponent of all such action.
+Southey had begun the attack in 1803 by an article in the _Annual
+Review_ (edited by A. Aikin) for which the leading hints were given by
+Coleridge, then with Southey at Keswick.[425] In his letters and his
+later articles he never mentions Malthus without abhorrence.[426]
+Malthus, according to his article in the _Annual Review_, regards
+'vice' and 'misery' as desirable; thinks that the 'gratification of
+lust' is a 'physical necessity'; and attributes to the 'physical
+constitution of our nature' what should be ascribed to the 'existing
+system of society.' Malthus, that is, is a fatalist, a materialist,
+and an anarchist. His only remedy is to abolish the poor-rates, and
+starve the poor into celibacy. The folly and wickedness of the book
+have provoked him, he admits, to contemptuous indignation; and Malthus
+may be a good man personally. Still, the 'farthing candle' of
+Malthus's fame as a political philosopher must soon go out. So in the
+_Quarterly Review_ Southey attributes the social evils to the
+disintegrating effect of the manufacturing system, of which Adam Smith
+was the 'tedious and hard-hearted' prophet. The excellent Malthus
+indeed becomes the 'hard-hearted' almost as Hooker was the
+'judicious.' This sufficiently represents the view of the sentimental
+Tory. Malthus, transformed into a monster, deserves the 'execrations'
+noticed by Chalmers. There is a thorough coincidence between this view
+and that of the sentimental Radicals. Southey observes that Malthus
+(as interpreted by him) does not really answer Godwin. Malthus argues
+that 'perfectibility' gives an impossible end because equality would
+lead to vice and misery. But why should we not suppose with Godwin a
+change of character which would imply prudence and chastity? Men as
+they are may be incapable of equality because they have brutal
+passions. But men as they are to be may cease to be brutal and become
+capable of equality. This, indeed, represents a serious criticism.
+What Malthus was really concerned to prove was that the social state
+and the corresponding character suppose each other; and that real
+improvement supposes that the individual must somehow acquire the
+instincts appropriate to an improved state. The difference between him
+and his opponents was that he emphasised the mischief of legislation,
+such as that embodied in the poor-law, which contemplated a forcible
+change, destroying poverty without raising the poor man's character.
+Such a rise required a long and difficult elaboration, and he
+therefore dwells mainly upon the folly of the legislative, unsupported
+by the moral, remedy. To Godwin, on the other hand, who professed an
+unlimited faith in the power of reason, this difficulty was
+comparatively unimportant. Remove political inequalities and men will
+spontaneously become virtuous and prudent.
+
+Godwin accordingly, when answering Dr. Parr and Mackintosh,[427] in
+1801, welcomed Malthus's first version of the essay. He declares it to
+be as 'unquestionable an addition to the theory of political economy'
+as has been made by any writer for a century past; and 'admits the
+ratios to their full extent.'[428] In this philosophical spirit he
+proceeds to draw some rather startling conclusions. He hopes that, as
+mankind improves, such practices as infanticide will not be necessary;
+but he remarks that it would be happier for a child to perish in
+infancy than to spend seventy years in vice and misery.[429] He refers
+to the inhabitants of Ceylon as a precedent for encouraging other
+practices restrictive of population. In short, though he hopes that
+such measures may be needless, he does not shrink from admitting their
+possible necessity. So far, then, Godwin and Malthus might form an
+alliance. Equality might be the goal of both; and both might admit the
+necessity of change in character as well as in the political
+framework; only that Malthus would lay more stress upon the evil of
+legislative changes outrunning or independent of moral change. Here,
+however, arose the real offence. Malthus had insisted upon the
+necessity of self-help. He had ridiculed the pretensions of government
+to fix the rate of wages; and had shown how the poor-laws defeated
+their own objects. This was the really offensive ground to the
+political Radicals. They had been in the habit of tracing all evils to
+the selfishness and rapacity of the rulers; pensions, sinecures,
+public debts, huge armies, profligate luxuries of all kinds, were the
+fruits of bad government and the true causes of poverty. Kings and
+priests were the harpies who had settled upon mankind, and were
+ruining their happiness. Malthus, they thought, was insinuating a base
+apology for rulers when he attributed the evil to the character of the
+subjects instead of attributing it to the wickedness of their rulers.
+He was as bad as the old Tory, Johnson,[430] exclaiming:--
+
+    'How small of all that human hearts endure
+    That part which kings and laws can cause or cure!'
+
+He was, they held, telling the tyrants that it was not their fault if
+the poor were miserable. The essay was thus an apology for the
+heartlessness of the rich. This view was set forth by Hazlitt in an
+attack upon Malthus in 1807.[431] It appears again in the _Enquiry_ by
+G. Ensor (1769-1843)--a vivacious though rather long-winded Irishman,
+who was known both to O'Connell and to Bentham.[432] Godwin himself
+was roused by the appearance of the fifth edition of Malthus's _Essay_
+to write a reply, which appeared in 1820. He was helped by David Booth
+(1766-1846),[433] a man of some mathematical and statistical
+knowledge. Hazlitt's performance is sufficiently significant of the
+general tendency. Hazlitt had been an enthusiastic admirer of Godwin,
+and retained as much of the enthusiasm as his wayward prejudices would
+allow. He was through life what may be called a sentimental Radical,
+so far as Radicalism was compatible with an ardent worship of
+Napoleon. To him Napoleon meant the enemy of Pitt and Liverpool and
+Castlereagh and the Holy Alliance. Hazlitt could forgive any policy
+which meant the humiliation of the men whom he most heartily hated.
+His attack upon Malthus was such as might satisfy even Cobbett, whose
+capacity for hatred, and especially for this particular object of
+hatred, was equal to Hazlitt's. The personal rancour of which Hazlitt
+was unfortunately capable leads to monstrous imputations. Not only
+does Malthus's essay show the 'little low rankling malice of a parish
+beadle ... disguised in the garb of philosophy,' and bury 'false
+logic' under 'a heap of garbled calculations,'[434] and so forth; but
+he founds insinuations upon Malthus's argument as to the constancy of
+the sexual passion. Malthus, he fully believes, has none of the
+ordinary passions, anger, pride, avarice, or the like, but declares
+that he must be a slave to an 'amorous complexion,' and believe all
+other men to be made 'of the same combustible materials.'[435] This
+foul blow is too characteristic of Hazlitt's usual method; but
+indicates also the tone which could be taken by contemporary
+journalism.
+
+The more serious argument is really that the second version of Malthus
+is an answer to his first. Briefly, the 'moral check' which came in
+only as a kind of afterthought is a normal part of the process by
+which population is kept within limits, and prevents the monstrous
+results of the 'geometrical ratio.' Hazlitt, after insisting upon
+this, admits that there is nothing in 'the general principles here
+stated that Mr. Malthus is at present disposed to deny, or that he has
+not himself expressly insisted upon in some part or other of his
+various works.'[436] He only argues that Malthus's concessions are
+made at the cost of self-contradiction. Why then, it may be asked,
+should not Hazlitt take the position of an improver and harmoniser of
+the doctrine rather than of a fierce opponent? The answer has been
+already implied. He regards Malthus as an apologist for an unjust
+inequality. Malthus, he says, in classifying the evils of life, has
+'allotted to the poor all the misery, and to the rich as much vice as
+they please.'[437] The check of starvation will keep down the numbers
+of the poor; and the check of luxury and profligacy will restrain the
+multiplication of the rich. 'The poor are to make a formal surrender
+of their right to provoke charity or parish assistance that the rich
+may be able to lay out all their money on their vices.'[438] The
+misery of the lower orders is the result of the power of the upper. A
+man born into a world where he is not wanted has no right, said
+Malthus, to a share of the food. That might be true if the poor were a
+set of lazy supernumeraries living on the industrious. But the truth
+is that the poor man does the work, and is forced to put up in return
+with a part of the produce of his labour.[439] The poor-laws recognise
+the principle that those who get all from the labour of others should
+provide from their superfluities for the necessities of those in
+want.[440] The 'grinding necessity' of which Malthus had spoken does
+not raise but lower the standard; and a system of equality would
+lessen instead of increasing the pressure. Malthus, again, has
+proposed that parents should be responsible for their children. That
+is, says Hazlitt, Malthus would leave children to starvation, though
+he professes to disapprove infanticide. He would 'extinguish every
+spark of humanity ... towards the children of others' on pretence of
+preserving the 'ties of parental affection.' Malthus tries to argue
+that the 'iniquity of government' is not the cause of poverty. That
+belief, he says, has generated discontent and revolution. That is,
+says Hazlitt, the way to prevent revolutions and produce reforms is to
+persuade people that all the evils which government may inflict are
+their own fault. Government is to do as much mischief as it pleases,
+without being answerable for it.[441] The poor-laws, as Hazlitt
+admits, are bad, but do not show the root of the evil. The evils are
+really due to increasing tyranny, dependence, indolence, and
+unhappiness due to other causes. Pauperism has increased because the
+government and the rich have had their way in everything. They have
+squandered our revenues, multiplied sinecures and pensions, doubled
+salaries, given monopolies and encouraged jobs, and depressed the poor
+and industrious. The 'poor create their own fund,' and the necessity
+for it has arisen from the exorbitant demands made by the rich.[442]
+Malthus is a Blifil,[443] hypocritically insinuating arguments in
+favour of tyranny under pretence of benevolence.
+
+Hazlitt's writing, although showing the passions of a bitter partisan,
+hits some of Malthus's rather cloudy argumentation. His successor,
+Ensor, representing the same view, finds an appropriate topic in the
+wrongs of Ireland. Irish poverty, he holds, is plainly due not to
+over-population but to under-government,[444] meaning, we must
+suppose, misgovernment. But the same cause explains other cases. The
+'people are poor and are growing poorer,'[445] and there is no mystery
+about it. The expense of a court, the waste of the profits and money
+in the House of Commons, facts which are in striking contrast to the
+republican virtues of the United States, are enough to account for
+everything; and Malthus's whole aim is to 'calumniate the people.'
+Godwin in 1820 takes up the same taunts. Malthus ought, he thinks, to
+welcome war, famine, pestilence, and the gallows.[446] He has taught
+the poor that they have no claim to relief, and the rich that, by
+indulging in vice, they are conferring a benefit upon the country. The
+poor-laws admit a right, and he taunts Malthus for proposing to
+abolish it, and refusing food to a poor man on the ground that he had
+notice not to come into the world two years before he was born.[447]
+
+Godwin, whose earlier atheism had been superseded by a vague deism,
+now thinks with Cobbett that the poor were supported by the piety of
+the mediaeval clergy, who fed the hungry and clothed the naked from
+their vast revenues, while dooming themselves to spare living.[448] He
+appeals to the authority of the Christian religion, which indeed might
+be a fair _argumentum ad hominem_ against 'Parson Malthus.' He
+declares that Nature takes more care of her work than such irreverent
+authors suppose, and 'does not ask our aid to keep down the excess of
+population.'[449] In fact, he doubts whether population increases at
+all. Malthus's whole theory, he says, rests upon the case of America;
+and with the help of Mr. Booth and some very unsatisfactory
+statistics, he tries to prove that the increase shown in the American
+census has been entirely due to immigration. Malthus safely declined
+to take any notice of a production which in fact shows that Godwin
+had lost his early vigour. The sound Utilitarian, Francis Place, took
+up the challenge, and exploded some of Godwin's statistics. He shows
+his Radicalism by admitting that Malthus, to whose general benevolence
+he does justice, had not spoken of the poor as one sprung like himself
+from the poor would naturally do; and he accepts modes of limiting the
+population from which Malthus himself had shrunk. For improvement, he
+looks chiefly to the abolition of restrictive laws.
+
+
+II. SOCIALISM
+
+The arguments of Hazlitt and his allies bring us back to the Socialist
+position. Although it was represented by no writer of much literary
+position, Owen was becoming conspicuous, and some of his sympathisers
+were already laying down principles more familiar to-day. Already, in
+the days of the Six Acts, the government was alarmed by certain
+'Spencean Philanthropists.' According to Place they were a very feeble
+sect, numbering only about fifty, and perfectly harmless. Their
+prophet was a poor man called Thomas Spence (1750-1815),[450] who had
+started as a schoolmaster, and in 1775 read a paper at Newcastle
+before a 'Philosophical Society.'[451] He proposed that the land in
+every village should belong to all the inhabitants--a proposal which
+Mr. Hyndman regards as a prophecy of more thoroughgoing schemes of
+Land Nationalisation. Spence drifted to London, picked up a precarious
+living, partly by selling books of a revolutionary kind, and died in
+1815, leaving, it seems, a few proselytes. A writer of higher literary
+capacity was Charles Hall, a physician at Tavistock, who in 1805
+published a book on _The Effects of Civilisation_.[452] The effects of
+civilisation, he holds, are simply pernicious. Landed property
+originated in violence, and has caused all social evils. A great
+landlord consumes unproductively as much as would keep eight thousand
+people.[453] He gets everything from the labour of the poor; while
+they are forced to starvation wages by the raising of rents. Trade and
+manufactures are equally mischievous. India gets nothing but jewellery
+from Europe, and Europe nothing but muslin from India, while so much
+less food is produced in either country.[454] Manufactures generally
+are a cause and sign of the poverty of nations.[455]
+
+Such sporadic protests against the inequalities of wealth may be taken
+as parts of that 'ancient tale of wrong' which has in all ages been
+steaming up from the suffering world, and provoking a smile from
+epicurean deities. As Owenism advanced, the argument took a more
+distinct form. Mill[456] mentions William Thompson of Cork as a 'very
+estimable man,' who was the 'principal champion' of the Owenites in
+their debates with the Benthamites. He published in 1824 a book upon
+the distribution of wealth.[457] It is wordy, and is apt to remain in
+the region of 'vague generalities' just at the points where specific
+statements would be welcome. But besides the merit of obvious
+sincerity and good feeling, it has the interest of showing very
+clearly the relation between the opposing schools. Thompson had a
+common ground with the Utilitarians, though they undoubtedly would
+consider his logic to be loose and overridden by sentimentalism. In
+the first place, he heartily admired Bentham: 'the most profound and
+celebrated writer on legislation in this or any other country.'[458]
+He accepts the 'greatest happiness principle' as applicable to the
+social problem. He argues for equality upon Bentham's ground. Take a
+penny from a poor man to give it to the rich man, and the poor man
+clearly loses far more happiness than the rich man gains. With
+Bentham, too, he admits the importance of 'security,' and agrees that
+it is not always compatible with equality. A man should have the
+fruits of his labour; and therefore the man who labours most should
+have most. But, unlike Bentham, he regards equality as more important
+than security. To him the main consideration is the monstrous mass of
+evil resulting from vast accumulations of wealth in a few hands. In
+the next place, he adapts to his own purpose the Ricardian theory of
+value. All value whatever, he argues, is created by labour. The
+labourer, he infers, should have the value which he creates. As things
+are, the labourer parts with most of it to the capitalist or the owner
+of rents. The capitalist claims a right to the whole additional
+production due to the employment of capital. The labourer, on the
+other hand, may claim a right to the whole additional production,
+after replacing the wear and tear and allowing to the capitalist
+enough to support him in equal comfort with the productive
+labourers.[459] Thompson holds that while either system would be
+compatible with 'security,' the labourer's demand is sanctioned by
+'equality.' In point of fact, neither system has been fully carried
+out; but the labourer's view would tend to prevail with the spread of
+knowledge and justice. While thus anticipating later Socialism, he
+differs on a significant point. Thompson insists upon the importance
+of 'voluntary exchange' as one of his first principles. No one is to
+be forced to take what he does not himself think a fair equivalent for
+his labour. Here, again, he would coincide with the Utilitarians.
+They, not less than he, were for free trade and the abolition of every
+kind of monopoly. But that view may lead by itself to the simple
+adoption of the do-nothing principle, or, as modern Socialists would
+say, to the more effectual plunder of the poor. The modern Socialist
+infers that the means of production must be in some way nationalised.
+Thompson does not contemplate such a consummation. He denounces, like
+all the Radicals of the day, monopolies and conspiracy laws. Sinecures
+and standing armies and State churches are the strongholds of tyranny
+and superstition. The 'hereditary possession of wealth' is one of the
+master-evils, and with sinecures will disappear the systems of entails
+and unequal distribution of inheritance.[460] Such institutions have
+encouraged the use of fraud and force, and indirectly degraded the
+labourer into a helpless position. He would sweep them all away, and
+with them all disqualifications imposed upon women.[461] This once
+done, it will be necessary to establish a universal and thoroughgoing
+system of education. Then the poor man, freed from the shackles of
+superstition and despotism, will be able to obtain his rights as
+knowledge and justice spread through the whole community. The desire
+to accumulate for selfish purposes will itself disappear. The labourer
+will get all that he creates; the aggregate wealth will be enormously
+multiplied, though universally diffused; and the form taken by the new
+society will, as he argues at great length, be that of voluntary
+co-operative associations upon Owen's principles.
+
+The economists would, of course, reject the theory that the
+capitalists should have no profits; but, in spite of this, they might
+agree to a great extent with Thompson's aspirations. Thompson,
+however, holds the true Socialist sentiment of aversion to Malthus. He
+denies energetically what he takes to be the Malthusian doctrine: that
+increased comfort will always produce increased numbers.[462] This has
+been the 'grand scarecrow to frighten away all attempts at social
+improvement.' Thompson accordingly asserts that increased comfort
+always causes increased prudence ultimately; and looks forward to a
+stationary state in which the births will just balance the deaths. I
+need not inquire here which theory puts the cart before the horse. The
+opposition possibly admits of reconciliation; but here I only remark
+once more how Malthus stood for the appeal to hard facts which always
+provoked the Utopians as much as it corresponded to the stern
+Utilitarian view.
+
+Another writer, Thomas Hodgskin, honorary secretary of the Birkbeck
+Institution, who published a tract called _Labour defended against the
+Claims of Capital, or the Unproductiveness of Capital proved_ (1825),
+and afterwards gave some popular lectures on political economy, has
+been noticed as anticipating Socialist ideas. He can see, he says, why
+something should go to the maker of a road and something be paid by
+the person who gets the benefit of it. But he does not see why the
+road itself should have anything.[463] Hodgskin writes without
+bitterness, if without much logic. It is not for me to say whether
+modern Socialists are well advised in admitting that these crude
+suggestions were anticipations of their own ideas. The most natural
+inference would be that vague guesses about the wickedness of the rich
+have been in all ages current among the poor, and now and then take
+more pretentious form. Most men want very naturally to get as much and
+to work as little as they can, and call their desire a first principle
+of justice.
+
+Perhaps, however, it is fairer to notice in how many points there was
+unconscious agreement; and how by converting very excellent maxims
+into absolute dogmas, from which a whole system was deducible, the
+theories appeared to be mutually contradictory, and, taken separately,
+became absurd. The palpable and admitted evil was the growth of
+pauperism and demoralisation of the labourer. The remedy, according to
+the Utilitarians, is to raise the sense of individual responsibility,
+to make a man dependent upon his own exertions, and to give him
+security that he will enjoy their fruit. Let government give education
+on one hand and security on the other, and equality will follow in due
+time. The sentimental Radical naturally replies that leaving a man to
+starve does not necessarily make him industrious; that, in point of
+fact, great and growing inequality of wealth has resulted; and that
+the rights of man should be applied not only to political privilege,
+but to the possession of property. The Utilitarians have left out
+justice by putting equality in the background. Justice, as Bentham
+replied, has no meaning till you have settled by experience what laws
+will produce happiness; and your absolute equality would destroy the
+very mainspring of social improvement. Meanwhile the Conservative
+thinks that both parties are really fostering the evils by making
+individualism supreme, and that organisation is necessary to
+improvement; while one set of Radicals would perpetuate a mere blind
+struggle for existence, and the other enable the lowest class to
+enforce a dead level of ignorance and stupidity. They therefore call
+upon government to become paternal and active, and to teach not only
+morality but religion; and upon the aristocracy to discharge its
+functions worthily, in order to stamp out social evils and prevent a
+servile insurrection. But how was the actual government of George IV.
+and Sidmouth and Eldon to be converted to a sense of its duties? On
+each side appeal is made to a sweeping and absolute principle, and
+amazingly complex and difficult questions of fact are taken for
+granted. The Utilitarians were so far right that they appealed to
+experience, as, in fact, such questions have to be settled by the slow
+co-operation of many minds in many generations. Unfortunately the
+Utilitarians had, as we have seen, a very inadequate conception of
+what experience really meant, and were fully as rash and dogmatic as
+their opponents. I must now try to consider what were the intellectual
+conceptions implied by their mode of treating these problems.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[392] The discussions of population most frequently mentioned are:--W.
+Godwin, _Thoughts occasioned by Dr. Parr's Spital Sermon_, etc., 1801;
+R. Southey, in (Aikin's) _Annual Review for 1803_, pp. 292-301; Thomas
+Jarrold, _Dissertations on Man_, etc., 1806; W. Hazlitt, _Reply to the
+Essay on Population_, 1807; A. Ingram, _Disquisitions on Population_,
+1808; John Weyland, _Principles of Population_, etc., 1806; James
+Grahame, _Inquiry into the Principle of Population_, 1816; George
+Ensor, _Inquiry concerning the Population of Nations_, 1818; W.
+Godwin, _On Population_, 1820; Francis Place, _Principles of
+Population_, 1822; David Booth, _Letter to the Rev. T. R. Malthus_,
+1823; M. T. Sadler, _Law of Population_, 1830; A. Alison, _Principles
+of Population_, 1840; T. Doubleday, _True Law of Population_, 1842.
+
+[393] _Quarterly Review_, Dec. 1812 (reprinted in Southey's _Moral and
+Political Essays_, 1832).
+
+[394] _Quarterly Review_, July 1817, by (Archbishop) Sumner, Malthus's
+commentator in the _Records of Creation_. Ricardo's _Letters to
+Trower_, p. 47.
+
+[395] _Spence's Tracts on Political Economy_ were collected with a
+preface in 1822. Spence is better known as an entomologist, and
+collaborated with William Kirby.
+
+[396] _Tracts_ (1822), p. xiii.
+
+[397] _Ibid._ p. 59.
+
+[398] Chalmers's _Works_ were published in twenty-five volumes in
+1841-42.
+
+[399] Chalmers's _Works_, i. 237.
+
+[400] This essay is not in his collected _Works_, though in vol. xxi.
+it is promised for the next volume.
+
+[401] _Works_, xix. and xx.
+
+[402] Mill's _Political Economy_, bk. i. ch. v. Sec. 7 and 8. See
+Chalmers, xix. 140.
+
+[403] _National Resources_ (Appendix).
+
+[404] _Works_, xix. 306.
+
+[405] _Ibid._ xix. 226, 233.
+
+[406] _National Resources_, p. 48.
+
+[407] _Works_, xix. 64.
+
+[408] _Works_, xix. 226.
+
+[409] _Ibid._ xix. 235.
+
+[410] _National Resources_, p. 158.
+
+[411] _Ibid._ p. 160.
+
+[412] _Works_, xix. 262.
+
+[413] _Works_, xix. 75.
+
+[414] _Ibid._ xix. 118-47.
+
+[415] _Ibid._ xix. 343.
+
+[416] See _Ibid._ xix. 171. J. S. Mill speaks of Chalmers's
+speculations with a respect which it is difficult to understand.
+
+[417] Chalmers holds that the Ricardian doctrine of rent inverts the
+true order. Fertile lands do not pay rent because poor lands are
+brought into cultivation, but poor lands are cultivated because
+fertile lands pay rent. He apparently wishes, like Malthus, to regard
+rent as a blessing, not a curse. The point is not worth arguing. See
+_Works_, xix. 320.
+
+[418] _Works_, xix. 304-5.
+
+[419] _Ibid._ xix. 370.
+
+[420] _Ibid._ xix. 366.
+
+[421] _Ibid._ xix. 322.
+
+[422] _Works_, xx. 247, 296.
+
+[423] _Ibid._ xx. 290.
+
+[424] _Works_, xix. 380.
+
+[425] The copy of Malthus's second edition with Coleridge's notes used
+by Southey is in the British Museum.
+
+[426] See Southey's _Political_.
+
+[427] _Thoughts occasioned by Dr. Parr's Spital Sermon._ A copy
+annotated by Coleridge is in the British Museum.
+
+[428] _Thoughts_, etc., pp. 56, 61, 62.
+
+[429] _Ibid._ p. 71.
+
+[430] Lines added to Goldsmith's _Traveller_.
+
+[431] _Reply to the Essay on Population_, etc., 1807. The book was
+anonymous. The first three letters had appeared in Cobbett's
+_Register_. Two others with an appendix are added.
+
+[432] Bentham's _Works_, x. 603, 604; and _Dictionary of National
+Biography_.
+
+[433] See _Dictionary of National Biography_.
+
+[434] Hazlitt's _Reply_, p. 19.
+
+[435] _Ibid._ pp. 139-41.
+
+[436] _Ibid._ p. 117.
+
+[437] _Reply_, p. 263.
+
+[438] _Ibid._ p. 344.
+
+[439] _Ibid._ p. 284.
+
+[440] _Ibid._ p. 287.
+
+[441] _Reply_, p. 351.
+
+[442] _Ibid._ pp. 362-64.
+
+[443] _Ibid._ p. 352.
+
+[444] Ensor's _Enquiry_, p. 294.
+
+[445] _Ibid._ p. 441.
+
+[446] _Godwin on Population_, p. 506.
+
+[447] _Ibid._ p. 553.
+
+[448] _Ibid._ p. 558.
+
+[449] Godwin, p. 219.
+
+[450] See account of him reprinted from Mackenzie's _History of
+Newcastle_ and _Dictionary of National Biography_.
+
+[451] Reprinted by Mr. Hyndman in 1822, with a preface.
+
+[452] See _Dictionary of National Biography_. Hall's book was
+reprinted by J. M. Morgan in the 'Phoenix Library,' 1850. See Anton
+Menger's _Das Recht auf den vollen Arbeitsertrag_ (second edition,
+1891), for notices of Hall, Thompson, and others.
+
+[453] _Effects of Civilisation_ (1850), p. 86.
+
+[454] _Ibid._ p. 71.
+
+[455] _Ibid._ p. 115.
+
+[456] _Autobiography_, p. 125. See Holyoake's _History of
+Co-operation_, i. 16, 109, 278-83, 348, for some interesting notices
+of Thompson. Menger (_Recht auf den vollen Arbeitsertrag_, p. 100
+_n._) holds that Thompson not only anticipated but inspired Marx:
+Rodbertus, he says, drew chiefly upon St. Simon and Proudhon.
+
+[457] _An Inquiry into the Principles of the Distribution of Wealth
+most conducive to Human Happiness; applied to the Newly Proposed
+System of Voluntary Equality of Wealth._--1824.
+
+[458] _Distribution of Wealth_, p. 327.
+
+[459] _Distribution of Wealth_, p. 167, etc.
+
+[460] _Ibid._ p. 310.
+
+[461] He wrote, as J. S. Mill observes, an _Appeal_ [1825] against
+James Mill's views on this matter--a fact which no doubt commended him
+to the son.
+
+[462] _Distribution of Wealth_, pp. 425, 535, etc.
+
+[463] _Labour Defended_, p. 16.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+PSYCHOLOGY
+
+
+I. THOMAS BROWN
+
+The politicians and economists, of whom I have spoken, took first
+principles for granted. The intellectual temperament, which made
+certain methods congenial to them, would no doubt have led them to an
+analogous position in philosophy. Bentham had touched upon
+philosophical points in a summary way, and James Mill, as we shall
+see, gave a more explicit statement. But such men as Ricardo and
+Malthus had no systematic philosophy, though a certain philosophy was
+congenial to their methods. Desire to reach a solid groundwork of
+fact, hearty aversion to mere word-juggling, and to effeminate
+sentimentalism, respect for science and indifference to, if not
+contempt for, poetry, resolution to approve no laws or institutions
+which could not be supported on plain grounds of utility, and to
+accept no theory which could not be firmly based on verifiable
+experience, imply moral and intellectual tendencies, in which we may
+perhaps say that the Utilitarians represent some of the strongest and
+most valuable qualities of the national character. Taking these
+qualities for granted, let us consider how the ultimate problems
+presented themselves to the school thus distinguished.
+
+I have already observed that the Scottish philosophy, taught by Reid
+and Dugald Stewart, represented the only approach to a living
+philosophical system in these islands at the beginning of the century.
+It held this position for a long period. Mill, who had heard Dugald
+Stewart's lectures, knew nothing of German thought. He was well read
+in French philosophers, and in harmony with one leading sect. The
+so-called _ideologues_,[464] who regarded Condillac as representing
+the true line of intellectual progress, were in France the analogues
+of the English Utilitarians. Destutt de Tracy and Cabanis were their
+most conspicuous leaders in this generation. The philosophy of Reid
+and Stewart crossed the channel, and supplied the first assailants of
+the _ideologues_ with their controversial weapons. Thus, until the
+German influence came to modify the whole controversy, the vital issue
+seemed to lie between the doctrine of Reid or 'intuitionism' on the
+one hand, and the purely 'experiential' school on the other, whether,
+as in France, it followed Condillac, or, as in England, looked back
+chiefly to Hartley. Both sections traced their intellectual ancestry
+to Locke and Hobbes, with some reference to Bacon, and, by the French
+writers, to Descartes. Stewart, again, as I have said, was the
+accepted Whig philosopher. It is true that the Whig sat habitually in
+the seat of Gallio. Jeffrey, whether he fully realised the fact or
+not, was at bottom a sceptic in philosophy as in politics. John Allen,
+the prophet of Holland House, was a thorough sceptic, and says[465]
+that Horner, one of Stewart's personal admirers, was really a
+follower of Hume. The Whigs were inclined to Shaftesbury's doctrine
+that sensible men had all one religion, and that sensible men never
+said what it was. Those who had a more definite and avowable creed
+were content to follow Stewart's amiable philosophising. Brougham
+professed, let us hope, sincerely, to be an orthodox theist, and
+explained the argument from design in a commentary upon Paley. Sydney
+Smith expounded Reid and Stewart in lectures which showed at least
+that he was still a wit when talking 'philosophy' at the Royal
+Institution; and, though he hated 'enthusiasm' in dissenters,
+evangelicals, and tractarians, and kept religion strictly in its
+place--a place well outside of practical politics--managed to preach a
+wholesome, commonplace morality in terms of Christian theology. The
+difference between the Whig and the Radical temper showed itself in
+philosophical as in political questions. The Radical prided himself on
+being logical and thoroughgoing, while the Whig loved compromise, and
+thought that logic was very apt to be a nuisance. The systematic
+reticence which the Utilitarians held to be necessary prevented this
+contrast from showing itself distinctly on the surface. The
+Utilitarians, however, though they avoided such outspoken scepticism
+as would startle the public, indicated quite sufficiently to the
+initiated their essential position. It implied what they fully
+recognised in private conversation--a complete abandonment of
+theology. They left the obvious inferences to be drawn by others. In
+philosophy they could speak out in a well-founded confidence that few
+people were able to draw inferences. I will begin by considering the
+doctrine against which they protested; for the antagonism reveals, I
+think, the key to their position.
+
+When Stewart was obliged by infirmity to retire from the active
+discharge of his duties, he was succeeded by Thomas Brown (1778-1820).
+Brown had shown early precocity, and at the age of fifteen had
+attracted Stewart's notice by some remarks on a psychological point.
+He published at twenty a criticism of Darwin's _Zoonomia_, and he
+became one of the _Edinburgh Review_ circle. When the _Review_ was
+started he contributed an article upon Kant. In those happy days it
+was so far from necessary to prepare oneself for such a task by
+studying a library of commentators that the young reviewer could
+frankly admit his whole knowledge to be derived from Villers'
+_Philosophie de Kant_ (1801).[466] Soon afterwards he took an
+important share in a once famous controversy. John Leslie, just
+elected to the mathematical chair at Edinburgh, was accused of having
+written favourably of Hume's theory of causation. Whigs and Tories
+took this up as a party question,[467] and Brown undertook to explain
+in a pamphlet what Hume's theory was, and to show that it did not lead
+to atheism. Leslie's friends triumphed, though it does not appear how
+far Brown's arguments contributed to their success. The pamphlet was
+rewritten and enlarged, and a third edition of 1818 gives a full
+exposition of his theory. Brown had meanwhile become Stewart's leading
+disciple, and in 1810 was elected to be his colleague. Brown held the
+position, doing all the active duties, until his premature death in
+1820. Brown, according to his biographer, wrote his lectures
+immediately before delivery, and completed them during his first two
+years of office. His theories, as well as his words, were often,
+according to the same authority, extemporised. Brown found that he
+could not improve what he had written under 'very powerful
+excitement.' Moreover, he had an unlucky belief that he was a poet.
+From 1814 till 1819 he brought out yearly what he supposed to be a
+poem. These productions, the _Paradise of Coquets_ and the rest, are
+in the old-fashioned taste, and have long passed into oblivion.
+
+The lectures, published posthumously, became a text-book for students,
+and reached a nineteenth edition in 1851. Their faults, considered as
+philosophical treatises, are palpable. They have the wordiness of
+hasty composition, and the discursive rhetoric intended to catch the
+attention of an indolent audience. Brown does not see that he is
+insulting his hearers when he apologises for introducing logic into
+lectures upon metaphysics, and indemnifies them by quotations from
+Akenside and the _Essay on Man_. Brown, however, showed great
+acuteness and originality. He made deviations, and took pains to mark
+his deviations, from Reid, though he spoke more guardedly of his own
+friend, Stewart. Stewart, who had strongly supported Brown's election,
+was shocked when, on the publication of the lectures, he came to
+discover that his colleague had been preaching heresy, and wrote with
+obvious annoyance of Brown's hastiness and dangerous concessions to
+the enemy.[468] Brown, however, impressed his contemporaries by his
+ability. Sydney Smith is probably reporting the current judgment of
+his own circle when he says[469] that in metaphysics Stewart was a
+'humbug' compared with Brown. I certainly think that Stewart, whom I
+should be sorry to call a humbug, shows less vigour and subtlety.
+Brown, at any rate, impressed both the Mills, and his relation to them
+is significant.
+
+Brown's essay upon Causation indicates this relation. In this, indeed,
+there is little, if any, divergence from Stewart, though he attacks
+Reid with considerable asperity. He urges that Reid, while really
+agreeing with Hume, affected to answer him under cover of merely
+verbal distinctions.[470] The main point is simple. Hume had asserted
+that all events seem to be 'entirely loose and separate,' or, in other
+words, 'conjoined but never connected.' Yet he points out that, in
+fact, when we have found two events to be 'conjoined,' we call one
+cause and the other effect, and assume a 'necessary connection'
+between them. He then asks, What is the origin of this belief, and
+what, therefore, is the logical warrant for its validity? Brown
+entirely accepts Hume's statement of the facts. The real meaning of
+our statements is evaded by appealing to the conception of 'power.'
+When the loadstone (in his favourite illustration) attracts the iron,
+we say it has a 'power' of attracting iron. But to speak thus of a
+power is simply to describe the same facts in other words. We assert
+this, and nothing more than this, that when the loadstone comes near
+the iron, each moves towards the other. 'Power' is a word which only
+covers a statement of 'invariable antecedence.' Brown traces the
+various confusions which have obscured the true nature of this belief.
+He insists especially that we can no more discover power in mental
+than in physical sequences. The will had been supposed to be the type
+of causal power; but volition, according to Brown, reveals simply
+another succession of desires and bodily actions. The hypothesis of
+'power' has been really the source of 'illusion.' The tendency to
+personify leads us to convert metaphor into fact, to invent a subject
+of this imaginary 'power,' and thus to create a mythology of beings to
+carry on the processes of nature. In other words, Brown here follows
+Hume or even anticipates Comte. As J. S. Mill remarks,[471] this
+erroneous identification of 'power' with 'will' gives the
+'psychological rationale of Comte's great historical generalisation';
+and, so far, Brown, as a follower of Hume, is clearly on the way to
+positivism.
+
+The world, then, is a vast aggregate of 'loose' phenomena. A
+contemplation of things reveals no reason for one order rather than
+another. You may look at your loadstone as long as you please, but you
+will find no reason for its attracting iron. You may indeed
+interpolate a number of minute intervening sequences, and the process
+often suggests a vague something more than sequence; but this is a
+mere illusion.[472] Could we, in fact, see all the minute changes in
+bodies we should actually perceive that cause means nothing but 'the
+immediate invariable antecedence of an event.'[473] Brown especially
+argues against the attempts of d'Alembert and Euler to deduce the
+first laws of motion from the principle of 'sufficient reason.'[474]
+That, as he argues in detail, is merely begging the question, by
+introducing the principle of causation under an alias.
+
+What, then, is the principle? We believe, he says,[475] that 'every
+event must have a cause,' and that circumstances exactly 'similar must
+have results exactly similar.' This belief, though applicable to all
+events, does not give us the 'slightest aid' to determining,
+independently of experience, any particular event. We observe that B
+follows A, but, for all we can say, it might as well follow any other
+letter of the alphabet. Yet we are entitled to say in general that it
+does uniformly follow some particular letter. The metaphor which
+describes cause and effect as a 'bond' tying A and B together is
+perfectly appropriate if taken to express the bare fact of
+sequence;[476] but we fall into error if we fancy there is really any
+bond whatever beside the events themselves.
+
+The belief, then, in causation has precisely the same import according
+to Hume and Brown; and both agree that it is not produced by
+'reasoning.' The proposition 'B has once succeeded A,' or 'has
+succeeded A a thousand times,' is entirely different from the
+proposition 'B will for ever succeed A.'[477] No process of logical
+inference can extract one from the other. Shall we, then, give up a
+belief in causation? The belief in any case exists as a fact. Hume
+explains it by custom or association. Brown argues, and I think with
+much force, that Hume's explanation is insufficient. Association may
+explain (if it does more than restate) the fact that one 'idea' calls
+up another idea, but such association may and often does occur without
+suggesting any belief. The belief, too, precedes the association. We
+begin by believing too much, not too little, and assume a necessary
+connection of many phenomena which we afterwards find to be
+independent. The true answer is therefore different. There are three
+sources of belief, 'perception,' 'reasoning,' and 'intuition.'[478]
+Now, we cannot 'perceive' anything but a present coincidence; neither
+can we establish a connection by any process of 'reasoning,' and
+therefore the belief must be an 'intuition.' This, accordingly, is
+Brown's conclusion. 'There are principles,' he says, 'independent of
+reasoning, in the mind which save it from the occasional follies of
+all our ratiocinations';[479] or rather, as he explains, which
+underlie all reasoning. The difference, then, between Hume and Brown
+(and, as Brown argues, between Hume and Reid's real doctrine) is not
+as to the import, but as to the origin, of the belief. It is an
+'intuition' simply because it cannot be further analysed. It does not
+allow us to pass a single step beyond experience; it merely authorises
+us to interpret experience. We can discover any actual law of
+connection between phenomena only by observing that they occur in
+succession. We cannot get beyond or behind the facts--and therefore
+intuitionism in this sense is not opposed to empiricism, but a warrant
+for empirical conclusions. An 'intuition,' briefly, is an unanalysable
+belief. Brown asserts that a certain element of thought has not been
+explained, and assumes it to be therefore inexplicable or ultimate.
+Brown's account of causation had a great influence upon both the
+Mills, and especially affected the teaching of the younger Mill.
+
+Another point is important. Reid, as I have said, had specially prided
+himself upon his supposed overthrow of Berkeley's idealism. He was
+considered to have shown, in spite of sceptics, that the common belief
+in an external world was reasonable. Brown in his lectures ridiculed
+Reid's claim. This 'mighty achievement,' the 'supposed overthrow of a
+great system,' was 'nothing more than the proof that certain phrases
+are metaphorical, which were intended by their authors to be
+understood _only_ as metaphors.'[480] The theory was dead before Reid
+slew it, though the phrases were still used as a mere 'relic,' or
+survival of an obsolete doctrine.[481] The impossibility of
+constructing extension out of our sensations is the _experimentum
+crucis_ upon which Reid was ready to stake his case. If the attempt at
+such a construction could succeed, he would 'lay his hand upon his
+mouth' and give up the argument.[482] Brown takes up the challenge
+thus thrown out. He holds that our knowledge of an external world is
+derived from a source which Reid overlooked. He modifies the Scottish
+psychology by introducing the muscular senses. His theory is that the
+infant which has learned to move discovers that on some occasions its
+movements are modified by a sense of 'impeded effort.'[483] The sudden
+interruption to a well-known series excites in its mind the notion of
+'a cause which is not in itself.' This is the source of our belief in
+an external world. That belief is essentially the belief in some cause
+which we know to be other than our own mental constitution or the
+series of 'internal' phenomena, and of which we can know nothing else.
+It is enough to indicate a theory which has been elaborated by later
+psychologists, and plays a great part (for example) in the theories of
+Mill, Bain, and Mr. Herbert Spencer. It shows the real tendency of
+Brown's speculations. In the first place, it must be noticed that the
+theory itself had been already emphatically stated by Destutt de
+Tracy. Hamilton accuses Brown of plagiarism.[484] Whether his
+accusation be justifiable or not, it is certainly true that Brown had
+in some way reached the same principles which had been already set
+forth by a leading 'ideologist.' Brown, that is, though the official
+exponent of the Scottish philosophy, was in this philosophical tenet
+at one with the school which they regarded as materialistic or
+sceptical. The path by which he reaches his conclusions is also
+characteristic.
+
+Brown has reversed the interpretation of Reid's _experimentum crucis_.
+I will give up my case, says Reid, if you can make the external world
+out of sensations. That, replies Brown, is precisely what we can do.
+How from sensations do we get what Berkeley called 'outness'? We get
+it, says Brown, from the sense of resistance or 'impeded effort.' That
+reveals to us the fact that there is something independent of
+ourselves, and the belief in such a something is precisely what we
+mean, and all that we mean, by the belief in an external world.
+Consistently with this, Brown rejects Reid's distinction between the
+primary and secondary qualities. The distinction corresponds no doubt
+to some real differences, but there is no difference of the kind
+suggested by Reid. 'All [the qualities] are relative and equally
+relative--our perception of extension and resistance as much as our
+perception of fragrance and bitterness.'[485] We ascribe the
+sensations to 'external objects,' but the objects are only known by
+the 'medium' of our sensations. In other words, the whole world may be
+regarded as a set of sensations, whether of sight, smell, touch, or
+resistance to muscular movement, accompanied by the belief that they
+are caused by something not ourselves, and of which something we can
+only say that it is not ourselves.
+
+Once more, the analysis of the process by which the belief is
+generated is significant. From resistance, or the sensation produced
+when something 'resists our attempts to grasp it,' we get the
+'outness.' Then perception is 'nothing more than the association of
+this complex notion with our other sensations--the notion of something
+extended and resisting, suggested by these sensations, when the
+suggestions themselves have previously arisen, and suggested in the
+same manner and on the same principle as any other associate feeling
+suggests any other associate feeling.'[486] The odour or colour of a
+rose recalls the sensation of touching and of resistance to our grasp.
+Thus we regard the whole group of sensations as due to the external
+cause which produces the sensation of resistance. Brown seems to
+hesitate a little as to whether he shall appeal to an 'intuition' or
+to 'association,' but 'as I rather think,' he says, the belief is
+founded 'on associations as powerful as intuition.'[487]
+
+Whatever, then, may be the origin of the belief--'intuition' or
+'association'--it is clear that it can give us no knowledge except
+such as is derived from sensations. Moreover, Brown is thus led, as in
+the doctrine of causation, to accept a really sceptical position. He
+declares that he is in this respect at one with both Reid and Hume.
+They both accept two propositions: first, that we cannot 'by mere
+reasoning' prove the existence of an external world; secondly, that it
+is 'absolutely impossible for us not to believe' in its existence.
+Hume, he says, pronounces the first proposition in a 'loud tone
+of voice' and 'whispers' the second. Reid, conversely, passes
+over the first rapidly and 'dwells on the second with a tone of
+confidence.'[488] Brown accepts both statements. He has already said
+that there is no argument against Berkeley's denial of matter any more
+than against the 'infinite divisibility of matter.' But he adds, it is
+'physically impossible' for us to admit the conclusion, at least
+without 'an instant dissent from a momentary logical admission.'[489]
+This, indeed, is but a version of Hume's familiar statement that
+Berkeley's arguments admit of no reply and produce no conviction.
+
+Another essential doctrine of the Mills, the 'association' theory, is
+treated differently by Brown. Brown, as we have seen, both in his
+theory of causation and in his theory of our belief in an external
+world, speaks of principles in the mind which somehow override
+'ratiocination.' In the first case, he speaks of 'intuition,' but in
+the other, as I have said, he seems to prefer association. The
+difference is remarkable because the belief in an external world is
+upon his showing simply a case of causation. It means essentially the
+reference of our sensations as to an external cause. Now, in the
+argument upon causation, he has insisted upon the insufficiency of
+association to generate the belief; and he would have found it
+difficult to meet his own arguments if applied to the belief in an
+external world. Yet it does not seem to occur to him that there is any
+difficulty in explaining this belief in an external world as a case
+of what Mill called 'indissoluble association.' Brown, as Mill
+thought, was not sufficiently aware of the power of this principle,
+and the difference between them is marked by this divergence. Brown
+had a great deal to say about association, though he chose generally
+to substitute the word 'suggestion,' previously familiar to Reid and
+Berkeley.[490] He considers it, however, mainly in another relation.
+He proposes to trace the order in which 'trains' of ideas succeed each
+other in our minds. He does not dwell upon the influence of
+association in producing belief. His question is not primarily as to
+the logic, but as to the actual succession of our thoughts. He
+explains that he uses the word 'suggestion' in order to avoid the
+hypothesis that the sequence of two ideas necessarily implies a
+previous state of mind in which they were brought together; and
+endeavours to explain various cases (as, for example, association by
+'contrast' as well as by 'likeness' or 'continuity') by a more
+'subtile' analysis.[491] He then works out an elaborate theory of
+'simple' and 'relative' suggestion. Simple 'suggestion'[492]
+corresponds mainly to ordinary association, as when a friend's name or
+his book calls up the thought of the man himself. 'Relative
+suggestion' arises when two or more objects are perceived and suggest
+various relations of likeness and so forth.[493] This provides a
+scheme for working out the whole doctrine of the sequences of ideas so
+far as the sequences depend upon the mind itself and not upon external
+causes. It thus leads to problems of abstraction and generalisation
+and to his whole theory of what he calls the 'intellectual states.' He
+again closely coincides with the French ideologists. He starts by
+examining Locke and Condillac. He of course professes to hold that
+Condillac's version of Locke is illegitimate, and ridicules the famous
+formula _penser c'est sentir_. He is, however, equally unwilling to
+admit Reid's 'variety of powers.'[494] In fact, his criticism of
+Condillac shows more affinity than contrast. Condillac erred, he says,
+in holding that thoughts are 'transformed sensations.' This was a
+false simplification into which he considers Condillac to have been
+led partly by the ambiguity of the word _sentir_.[495] Condillac
+applied to the mind the theory, true in 'the chemistry of the material
+chemists,' that the 'compounds are the elements themselves.'[496] He
+errs when he infers from the analogy that a feeling which arises out
+of others can be resolved into them. 'Love and hate' and other
+emotions are fundamentally different from the sensations by which they
+are occasioned, not mere 'transformations' of those sensations. We, on
+the other hand (that is to say, Reid and Stewart), have erred by
+excessive amplification. Instead of identifying different things, we
+have admitted a superfluous number of 'ultimate principles.'
+
+The result is that besides the original sensations, we have to
+consider a number of feelings, which, while essentially different, are
+'suggested' or caused by them. These are parts of the whole
+intellectual construction, and, though not transformed sensations, are
+still 'feelings' arising in consequence of the sensations. They are
+parts of the 'trains' or sequences of 'ideas.' It is accordingly
+characteristic of Brown that he habitually describes an intellectual
+process as a 'feeling.' The statement of a mathematical proportion,
+for example, is a case of 'relative suggestion.' When we consider
+two numbers together we have a '_feeling_ of the relation of
+proportion.'[497] The 'profoundest reasonings' are 'nothing more than
+a continued analysis of our thought,' by which we resolve the 'complex
+_feelings_ of our minds' into the simpler conceptions out of which
+they were constructed.[498] In other words, Brown, it would seem,
+really accepts the _penser c'est sentir_, only that he regards the
+_sentir_ as including separate classes of feeling, which cannot be
+regarded as simple 'transformations' of sensation. They are 'states of
+the mind' caused by, that is, invariably following upon, the simpler
+states, and, of course, combining in an endless variety of different
+forms. Reasoning is nothing more than a series of relative
+'suggestions of which the separate subjects are felt by us to be
+mutually related.'[499] Hence, too, arises his theory of
+generalisation. He is, he says, not a 'nominalist' but a
+'conceptualist,' and here, for once, agrees with Reid as against
+Stewart.[500] The 'general term,' according to him, expresses the
+'feeling or general notion of resemblance,' which arises upon a
+contemplation of two objects. 'In Nature,' as he observes
+elsewhere,[501] 'there are no classes,' but the observation of a
+number of particular cases and a certain feeling to which we give a
+name. Here, again, Brown's view coincides with that of his French
+contemporaries.
+
+We may then say briefly that Brown carries out in his own fashion the
+conception of psychology which makes it an inductive science parallel
+to the physical sciences, and to be pursued by the same methods. We
+have to do with 'feelings' instead of atoms, and with mental instead
+of 'material' chemistry. Our sole method is still an analysis such as
+guides us in unravelling complex physical phenomena. We have, indeed,
+to admit certain first truths--the belief in our own identity is one
+of them--which are necessary to our very existence, although the
+assertion of such principles was carried to an extravagant and
+ridiculous length 'by Reid and some of his friends.' When, however, we
+come to ask what these principles are, it must be admitted that they
+are very innocent. They are not dangerous things, like 'innate ideas,'
+capable of leading us to a transcendental world, but simply assertions
+that we are warranted in trusting our sensations and applying a
+thoroughly inductive and empirical method. They are the cement which
+joins the feelings, and which, as Mill thought, could be supplanted by
+'indissoluble associations.' The indefinite power thus attributed to
+association became, as we shall see, Mill's most characteristic
+doctrine. Meanwhile, I will only mention one inference which
+illustrates Brown's philosophical tendencies. Stewart had spoken
+doubtfully of the ontological argument for theology. Brown throws it
+over altogether. He does not even change it into an 'intuition.' He
+has always, he says, regarded it as 'absolutely void of force' unless
+it tacitly assumes the 'physical argument.' Nay, it is one proof of
+the force of this physical argument that it has saved us from doubts
+which would be rather strengthened than weakened by the 'metaphysical
+arguments.'[502] The 'physical argument' means the argument from
+design, which thus becomes the sole support of theology.
+
+Hamilton naturally regards Brown as a mere sceptic in disguise. His
+theory of perception destroys his theory of personal identity. He has
+refused to accept our intuitive belief in one case, and cannot appeal
+to it in the other. He leaves no room for 'liberty of will,' and
+advances 'no argument in support of this condition of our moral
+being.'[503] Indeed, as Stewart complained, Brown, by identifying
+'will' and 'desire,' has got rid of the will altogether. It is only
+natural that a man who is making a scientific study of the laws of
+human nature should find no room for an assertion that within a
+certain sphere there are no laws. A physiologist might as well admit
+that some vital processes are uncaused.
+
+Brown thus illustrates the gravitation of the 'common-sense'
+philosophy to pure empiricism. He was the last in the genuine line of
+Scottish common-sense philosophers. When after what may be called the
+unphilosophical interregnum which followed Brown's death, Hamilton
+became professor, the Scottish tradition was blended with the very
+different theories derived from Kant. Upon Brown's version, the
+Scottish philosophy had virtually declared itself bankrupt. The
+substance of his teaching was that of the very school which his
+predecessors had attempted to confute, carefully as the fact might be
+hidden by dexterous rhetoric and manipulation of technical terms. He
+agrees with Hume's premises, and adopts the method of Condillac. This
+was perceived by his most remarkable hearer. Carlyle went to Edinburgh
+at the end of 1809. Brown, 'an eloquent, acute little gentleman, full
+of enthusiasm about simple suggestions, relative, etc.,' was 'utterly
+unprofitable' to him, disspiriting 'as the autumn winds among withered
+leaves.'[504] In _Signs of the Times_ (1829) Carlyle gave his view of
+the Scottish philosophy generally. They had, he says, started from the
+'mechanical' premises suggested by Hume. 'They let loose instinct as
+an indiscriminatory bandog to guard them against (his) conclusions':
+'they tugged lustily at the logical chain by which Hume was so coldly
+towing them and the world into bottomless abysses of Atheism and
+Fatalism. But the chain somehow snapped between them, and the issue
+has been that nobody now cares about either--any more than about
+Hartley's, Darwin's, or Priestley's contemporaneous doings in
+England.'[505] The judgment goes to the root of the matter. The method
+of Reid inevitably led to this result. Consider the philosophy as
+based upon, if not identical with, an inductive science of psychology,
+and the end is clear. You may study and analyse the phenomena as
+carefully as you please; and may, as the Scottish professors did,
+produce, if not a scientific psychology, yet a mass of acute
+prolegomena to a science. But the analysis can only reveal the actual
+combinations, chemical or mechanical, of thought. The ultimate
+principles which the teachers profess to discover are simply
+provisional; products not yet analysed, but not therefore incapable of
+analysis. It was very desirable to point them out: an insistence upon
+the insufficiency of Hume's or Condillac's theories was a most
+valuable service; but it was valuable precisely because every
+indication of such an unresolved element was a challenge to the next
+comer to resolve it by closer analysis. And thus, in fact, the
+intuitions, which had played so great a part with Reid, come in
+Brown's hands to be so clearly limited to the materials given by
+sensation or experience that any show of 'philosophy,' meaning an
+independent theory of the universe, was an illusory combination of
+fine phrases.[506]
+
+
+II. JAMES MILL'S 'ANALYSIS'
+
+James Mill's _Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind_ is on the
+one hand an exposition of the principles implied in Bentham's
+writings, and, on the other hand, a statement of the position from
+which the younger Mill started. J. S. Mill discussed the book with his
+father during its composition, and in 1869 he published a new edition,
+with elaborate notes by himself, George Grote, Professor Bain, and
+Andrew Findlater.[507] The commentary is of great importance in
+defining the relation between the two successors to the throne of
+Bentham.
+
+Mill's _Analysis_, though not widely read, made a deep impression upon
+Mill's own disciples. It is terse, trenchant, and uncompromising. It
+reminds us in point of style of the French writers, with whom he
+sympathised, rather than of the English predecessors, to whom much of
+the substance was owing. The discursive rhetoric of Brown or Stewart
+is replaced by good, hard, sinewy logic. The writer is plainly in
+earnest. If over confident, he has no petty vanity, and at least
+believes every word that he says. Certain limitations are at once
+obvious. Mill, as a publicist, a historian, and a busy official, had
+not had much time to spare for purely philosophic reading. He was not
+a professor in want of a system, but an energetic man of business,
+wishing to strike at the root of the superstitions to which his
+political opponents appealed for support. He had heard of Kant, and
+seen what 'the poor man would be at.' Later German systems, had he
+heard of them, would have been summarily rejected by him as so much
+transcendental moonshine. The problem of philosophy was, he held, a
+very simple one, if attacked in a straightforward, scientific method.
+
+Mill, like his Scottish rivals, applies 'Baconian' principles. The
+inductive method, which had already been so fruitful in the physical
+sciences, will be equally effective in philosophy, and ever since
+Locke, philosophy had meant psychology. The 'philosophy of the mind'
+and the philosophy of the body may be treated as co-ordinate and
+investigated by similar methods. In the physical sciences we come
+ultimately to the laws of movement of their constituent atoms. In the
+moral sciences we come in the same way to the study of 'ideas.' The
+questions, How do ideas originate? and how are they combined so as to
+form the actual state of consciousness? are therefore the general
+problems to be solved. Hume had definitely proposed the problem.
+Hartley had worked out the theory of association of ideas which Hume
+had already compared[508] to the universal principle of gravitation in
+the physical world; and had endeavoured to show how this might be
+connected with physiological principles. Hartley's followers had been
+content to dwell upon the power of association. Abraham Tucker,
+Priestley, Erasmus Darwin, and Belsham represented this tendency, and
+were the normal antagonists of Reid and Stewart. In France the
+'ideologists' mainly followed Condillac, and apparently knew nothing
+of Hartley. Mill, as his son testifies, had been profoundly influenced
+by Hartley's treatise--the 'really master-production,' as he esteemed
+it, 'in the philosophy of mind.'[509] Hartley's work, as the younger
+Mill thought, and the elder apparently agreed, was very superior to
+the 'merely verbal generalisation of Condillac.' James Mill, however,
+admired Condillac and his successors. In his article upon education,
+Mill traces the association theory to Hobbes, Locke, and Hume, the
+last of whom, he says, was succeeded by the two 'more sober-minded'
+philosophers, Condillac and Hartley; while he especially praises
+Erasmus Darwin, Helvetius, and Cabanis. Mill, therefore, may be
+regarded as an independent ally of the ideologists whose influence
+upon Brown has been already noticed. Mill had not read Brown's
+_Lectures_ when he began his _Analysis_, and after reading them
+thought Brown 'but poorly read in the doctrine of association.'[510]
+He had, however, read the essay upon causation, which he rather oddly
+describes as 'one of the most valuable contributions to science for
+which we are indebted to the last generation.'[511] He accepted
+Brown's view _minus_ the 'intuition.'
+
+The pith of Mill's book is thus determined. His aim is to give a
+complete analysis of mental phenomena, and therefore to resolve those
+phenomena into their primitive constituent atoms. Here we have at once
+a tacit assumption which governs his method. Philosophy, speaking
+roughly, is by some people supposed to start from truths, and thus to
+be in some way an evolution of logic. According to Mill it must start
+from facts, and therefore from something not given by logic. To state
+clearly, indeed, the relation between truth and fact may suggest very
+intricate problems. Mill, at any rate, must find a basis in fact, and
+for him the ultimate facts must be feelings. The reality at least of a
+feeling is undeniable. The _Penser c'est sentir_, or the doctrine that
+all 'ideas' are transformed sensations is his starting-point. The word
+'feeling,' according to him, includes every 'phenomenon of the mind.'
+'Think,' he says elsewhere,[512] does not include all our experience,
+but 'there is nothing to which we could not extend the term "I feel."'
+He proceeds to infer that our experience is either a knowledge of the
+feelings separately, or 'a knowledge of the order in which they follow
+each other; and this is all.' We may add that the knowledge is the
+feeling. Reid, Kant, and the Germans have indeed tried to show that
+there are feelings not derived from the sensations, but this, as
+Hartley and Condillac have shown, is a mistake. This is his first
+principle in a nutshell, and must give a clue to the various
+applications.
+
+The next step is familiar. Hume had distinguished impressions and
+ideas. 'Ideas' are copies of previous 'impressions.' It is for
+psychology to say what are the laws by which they are related to their
+originals. The ultimate origin cannot be explained by psychology
+alone. Impressions are caused by the outward world acting in some way
+upon the mind; and the psychologist can only classify the various
+modes in which they present themselves. Mill therefore begins by the
+usual account of the five senses, through which comes all knowledge of
+the external world. He adds to Reid's list muscular sensations, and
+those derived from the internal organs, to which last Cabanis in
+particular had called attention. So far he is following the steps of
+his predecessors. He is, he says, simply asserting an 'indisputable'
+fact.[513] We have sensations and we have ideas, which are 'copies of
+sensations.' We may then consider how far these facts will enable us
+to explain the whole series of mental phenomena. 'Ideation,' which he
+suggests as a new word--the process by which a continuous series of
+thoughts goes on in our minds--is the general phenomenon to be
+considered. Without, as yet, pronouncing that sensations and copies of
+sensations will turn out to form the whole contents of our
+consciousness, he tries to show for what part of those contents they
+will account.
+
+Here we come to the doctrine which for him and his school gave the
+key to all psychological problems. It was James Mill's real merit,
+according to his son, that he carried the principle of association of
+ideas further than it had been carried by Hartley or other
+predecessors.[514] The importance of the doctrine, indeed, is implied
+in the very statement of the problem. If it be true, or so far as it
+is true, that our consciousness reveals to us simply a series of
+'sensations' and 'ideas,' the question must be how they are combined.
+'Thought succeeds thought, idea follows idea incessantly,'[515] says
+Mill; and this phrase assumes 'thoughts' and 'ideas' to be separable
+atoms. How, then, do they come to coalesce into an apparently
+continuous stream? The mind is a stream of 'ideas.' If the stream is
+composed of drops, we must, of course, consider the drops as composing
+the stream. The question is, What laws can we assign which will
+determine the process of composition? The phrase 'association'
+admittedly expresses some general and very familiar truths.
+Innumerable connections may be established when there is no assignable
+ground of connection in the ideas themselves other than the fact of a
+previous contact. One idea not only calls up the other, but in some
+way generates a belief in an independent connection. We hear thunder,
+for example, and think of lightning. The two ideas are entirely
+distinct and separate, for they are due to different senses. Yet we
+not only think of lightning when we hear thunder, but we have no doubt
+that there is a causal connection. We believe in this connection,
+again, though no further explanation can be given of the fact.
+Thunder and lightning have occurred together, and we infer that they
+will, and even must, occur together. When we examine our whole
+structure of belief, we find such 'arbitrary' associations pervade it
+in every direction. Language itself is learned simply by association.
+There is no connection whatever between the sound of the word 'man'
+and the 'ideas' which the word excites, beyond the fact that the sound
+has been previously heard when the ideas were excited. Here, then, is
+a phenomenon to be explained or generalised. We have in countless
+cases a certain connection established for which no further reason can
+be assigned than the fact of its previous occurrence. On such a
+ground, we believe that fire burns, that bread is wholesome, that
+stones fall; and but for such beliefs could know nothing of the
+outside world. 'Contingent' truth, therefore, or truth derived from
+mere contact, pervades, if it does not constitute, the whole fabric of
+our whole knowledge. To prove that all our knowledge is derived from
+experience is, according to Mill, to prove that in some sense or other
+association of ideas lies at the base of all intellectual processes.
+When Locke introduced a chapter upon 'Association of Ideas' into the
+fourth edition of his essay, he treated it as the exceptional case.
+Some ideas had a connection traceable by reason; others were only
+connected by 'chance and custom.' Association does not explain
+reasoning, only the deviations from reasoning. But with Hume and
+Hartley the relation is inverted. The principle, instead of being an
+exceptional case, is simply the universal rule from which logical
+connection may be deduced as a special case.
+
+The facts upon which Mill relied, and the account of them which he
+gave, require notice and embodiment in any sound psychology. In some
+shape or other they form the starting-point of all later systems.
+Mill's vigorous application of his principle, worked out with
+imperfect appreciation and with many oversights, had therefrom, at
+least, the merit of preparing the ground for a more scientific method.
+In any case, however, his conclusions, so far as sound, must be placed
+in a different framework of theory. It becomes necessary to dwell
+chiefly upon the curious defects of his theory, if taken as he wished
+it to be taken, for an ultimate scientific statement. The fact that
+there is a synthesis and an analysis is expressed by 'association.'
+But what more can we say? What are the 'laws' of association? Unless
+some rule can be given, we shall get nothing that can be called a
+theory. One idea is not suggested by the other through any logical
+process. They are still 'conjoined' but not 'connected.' The
+connection, therefore, must be given by something different from the
+ideas themselves. Now the order of the original 'sensations' depends
+upon the 'objects of nature,' and is therefore left to 'physical
+philosophy.'[516] They occur, however, either in 'synchronous' or in
+'successive' order. Then 'ideas' spring up in the order of
+'sensations,' and this is the 'general law of association of
+ideas.'[517] The synchronous sensations produce synchronous ideas and
+the successive sensations successive ideas. Finally, the strength of
+the association between the ideas depends upon 'the vividness of the
+associated feelings, and the frequency of the association.'[518] Hume
+had said that association depended upon three principles, 'contiguity
+in time and place,' 'causation,' and 'resemblance.' Contiguity in time
+corresponds to the successive, and contiguity in place to the
+synchronous, order. Causation, as Brown had finally proved,[519] means
+simply antecedence and consequence. 'Resemblance' remains and is, as
+Mill afterwards says,[520] a most important principle; but in an
+unlucky moment he is half inclined to reduce even 'resemblance' to
+'contiguity.'[521] Resemblance is, he even suggests, merely 'a case of
+frequency,' because we generally see like things together. When we see
+one tree or sheep, we generally see several trees or sheep. J. S. Mill
+mildly remarks upon this quaint suggestion as the 'least successful
+simplification' in the book. He argues the point gravely. Sheep, it is
+clear, are not seen to be like because they often compose a flock, but
+are considered to be a flock because they are seen to be like. To do
+James Mill justice, he drops the argument as soon as he has struck it
+out. It is only worth notice as showing his aim. 'Likeness' seems to
+imply a relation dependent on the ideas themselves; not purely
+external and arbitrary. If we could get rid of likeness, all
+association would ultimately be 'contiguity.' 'The fundamental law of
+association,' as he says elsewhere,[522] 'is that when two things have
+been frequently found together, we never perceive or think of the one
+without thinking of the other.' The two ideas are associated as two
+balls are associated when they are in the same box. So far as they are
+themselves concerned, they might be separated without any alteration
+in their own properties. What, then, corresponds to the 'box'?
+Association depends upon relations of time and space. Things are
+associated by occurring in succession or together; the red colour of a
+rose is in the same place with the shape of the leaf; the scent is
+perceived at the same time with the colour. The thunder follows the
+lightning. What, then, he might ask, are 'time' and 'space'? Are they
+'ideas' or 'sensations' or qualities of the objects? or, in any case,
+as supplying the ultimate principle of association, do they not
+require investigation? Before coming to that problem, however, we have
+to settle other knotty points. We must clear away illusions which seem
+to introduce something more than association. Elements of thought not
+at first sight expressible simply in terms of sensations and ideas
+must be analysed to show that they are only disguises for different
+combinations of the facts. Reasoning, according to most logicians,
+supposes, first, concepts, and therefore some process of
+classification of the objects of thought; and, secondly, some process
+of combining these concepts to bring out hitherto unknown truths.
+What, then, is the meaning of the general or abstract symbols employed
+in the process? Mill's provision of raw materials consists so far of
+sensations and ideas, which are worked up so as to form 'clusters'
+(the word is taken from Hartley) and 'trains.' This corresponds to
+synchronous and successive associations. How does the logical
+terminology express these 'clusters' and 'trains'? Mill answers by a
+theory of 'naming.' Language fulfils two purposes; it is required in
+order to make our ideas known to others; and in order to fix our own
+ideas. Ideas are fluctuating, transitory, and 'come into the mind
+unbidden.' We must catch and make a note of these shifting crowds of
+impalpable entities. We therefore put marks upon the simple
+sensations or upon the 'clusters.' We ticket them as a tradesman
+tickets bundles of goods in his warehouse, and can refer to them for
+our own purposes or those of others. As the number of objects to be
+marked is enormous, as there are countless ideas and clusters and
+clusters of clusters of endless variety to be arranged in various
+ways, one main object of naming is economy. A single word has to be
+used to mark a great number of individuals. This will account for such
+general names as are represented by noun-substantives: man, horse,
+dog, and so forth. Mill then proceeds, with the help of Horne Tooke,
+to explain the other grammatical forms. An adjective is another kind
+of noun marking a cross division. Verbs, again, are adjectives marking
+other sets of facts, and enabling us to get rid of the necessity of
+using a new mark for every individual or conceivable combination into
+clusters. J. S. Mill remarks that this omits the special function of
+verbs--their 'employment in predication.'[523] James Mill, however,
+has his own view of 'predication.' 'Man' is a mark of John, Peter,
+Thomas, and the rest. When I say 'John is a man,' I mean that 'man is
+another mark to that idea of which John is a mark.'[524] I am then
+able to make a statement which will apply to all the individuals, and
+save the trouble of repeating the assertion about each. 'Predication,'
+therefore, is simply a substitution of one name for another. So, for
+example, arithmetic is simply naming. What I call two and two, I also
+call four. The series of thoughts in this case is merely 'a series of
+names applicable to the same thing and meaning the same thing.'[525]
+This doctrine, as J. S. Mill remarks, is derived from Hobbes, whom
+Leibniz in consequence called _plus quam nominalis_.[526] My belief
+that two and two make four explains why I give the same name to
+certain numbers; but the giving the name does not explain the belief.
+Meanwhile, if a class name be simply the mark which is put upon a
+bundle of things, we have got rid of a puzzle. Mill triumphs over the
+unfortunate realists who held that a class meant a mysterious entity,
+existing somewhere apart from all the individuals in which it is
+embodied. There is really nothing mysterious; a name is first the mark
+of an individual, the individual corresponding to a 'cluster' or a set
+of 'simple ideas, concreted into a complex idea.'[527] Then the name
+and the complex idea are associated reciprocally; each 'calls up' the
+other. The complex idea is 'associated' with other resembling ideas.
+The name becomes a talisman calling up the ideas of an indefinite
+number of resembling individuals, and the name applied to one
+in the first instance becomes a mark which calls up all, or, as
+he says, is the 'name of the whole combination.' Classification,
+therefore, 'is merely a process of naming, and is all resolvable into
+association.'[528] The peculiarity of this theory, as his commentators
+again remark, is that it expressly omits any reference to abstraction.
+The class simply means the aggregate of resembling individuals without
+any selection of the common attributes which are, in J. S. Mill's
+phrase, 'connoted' by the class-name. Abstraction, as James Mill
+explains, is a subsidiary process, corresponding to the 'formation of
+_sub-species_.'[529]
+
+Mill has now shown how the various forms of language correspond to
+ideas, formed into clusters of various orders by the principle of
+association. The next step will naturally be to show how these
+clusters are connected in the process of reasoning. Here the
+difficulty about predication recurs. J. S. Mill[530] remarks that his
+father's theory of predication consistently omits 'the element
+Belief.' When I say, 'John is a man,' I make an affirmation or assert
+a belief. I do not simply mean to call up in the mind of my hearer a
+certain 'cluster' or two coincident clusters of ideas, but to convey
+knowledge of truths. The omission of reference to belief is certainly
+no trifle. Mill has classified the various ideas and combinations of
+ideas which are used in judgment, but the process of judgment itself
+seems to have slipped out of account. He may have given us, or be able
+to give us, a reasoned catalogue of the contents of our minds, but has
+not explained how the mind itself acts. It is a mere passive recipient
+of ideas, or rather itself a cluster of ideas cohering in various
+ways, without energy of its own. One idea, as he tells us, calls up
+another 'by its own associating power.'[531] Ideas are things which
+somehow stick together and revive each other, without reference to the
+mind in which they exist or which they compose. This explains his
+frequent insistence upon one assertion. As we approach the question of
+judgment he finds it essential. 'Having a sensation and having a
+feeling,' he says, 'are not two things.' To 'feel an idea and be
+conscious of that feeling are not two things; the feeling and the
+consciousness are but two names for the same thing.'[532] So, again,
+'to have a sensation and to believe that we have it, are not
+distinguishable things.'[533] Locke's reflection thus becomes nothing
+but simple consciousness, and having a feeling is the same as
+attending to it.[534] The point is essential. It amounts to saying
+that we can speak of a thought as though it were simply a thing.
+
+Thus belief not only depends upon, but actually _is_ association. 'It
+is not easy,' he says, 'to treat of memory, belief, and judgment
+separately.'[535] As J. S. Mill naturally asks, 'How is it possible to
+treat of belief without including in it memory and judgment?' Memory
+is a case of belief, and judgment an 'act of belief.'[536] To James
+Mill, however, it appears that as these different functions all
+involve association, they may be resolved into varying applications of
+that universal power. Memory involves 'an idea of my present self' and
+an 'idea of my past self,' and to remember is to 'run over the
+intervening states of consciousness called up by association.'[537]
+Belief involves association at every step. The belief in external
+objects is, as 'all men admit' ... 'wholly resolvable into
+association.'[538] 'That a cause means and can mean nothing to the
+human mind but constant antecedence' (and therefore 'inseparable
+association,' as he thinks) 'is no longer a point in dispute.'[539]
+Association, it is true, may produce wrong as well as right beliefs;
+right beliefs when 'in conformity with the connections of
+things,'[540] and wrong beliefs when not in conformity. In both cases
+the belief is produced by 'custom,' though, happily, the right custom
+is by far the commonest. The 'strength of the association follows the
+frequency.' The crow flies east as well as west; but the stone always
+falls downwards.[541] Hence I form an 'inseparable association'
+corresponding to a belief in gravitation, but have no particular
+belief about the direction of a crow's flight.
+
+This gives the doctrine of 'indissoluble association'--the pivot of
+the whole scheme--the doctrine, says J. S. Mill, which, 'if it can be
+proved, is the greatest of all the triumphs of the Association
+Philosophy.'[542] The younger Mill always insisted upon the vast
+importance of the principle; but he here admits a difficulty. In a
+long note[543] upon James Mill's chapter on 'Belief,' conspicuous for
+his usual candour, he confesses the inadequacy of his father's view.
+The comment indicates the point of divergence and yet shows curiously
+the ground common to both. James Mill's theory states facts in some
+sense undeniable. Our 'ideas' cohere and combine to form a tissue: an
+imagery or series of pictures which form the content and are somehow
+the ground of our beliefs. The process of formation clearly involves
+'association.' The scent of the rose is associated with the colour:
+both with the visible form and so forth. But is this process the same
+thing as believing, or have we to explain the belief by some mental
+activity different from, however closely connected with, the
+imagination, or in his phrase the 'ideation'? Here J. S. Mill finds a
+difficulty. The statement, 'I believe that thunder will follow
+lightning,' is something more than the statement, 'the sight suggests
+or calls up the sound.' The mental picture considered by itself may be
+described as a fact, without considering what belief, or whether any
+belief, is implied. J. S. Mill therefore makes a distinction intended
+to clear up his father's confusion. There is a difference, he says,
+between remembering 'a real fact' and remembering a 'thought.'[544] He
+illustrates this by the difference between the idea of Lafayette and
+the idea of Falstaff. Lafayette was real, and had been seen by the
+rememberer. Falstaff is a figment who, having never existed, can never
+have been seen. Yet the idea of Falstaff may be quite as vivid as the
+idea of Lafayette. What, then, is the difference between the two
+states of mind? One, says J. S. Mill, is a belief about 'real facts';
+the other about 'thoughts.' This, he observes, corresponds to James
+Mill's distinction between a 'sensation' and an 'idea,'[545] a
+difference which he had admitted to be 'primordial.' Then, says J. S.
+Mill, we may as well admit that there is an 'element' in the
+remembrance of a real fact not implied in the remembrance of a thought
+and not dependent on any difference in the 'ideas' themselves. It,
+too, may be taken as 'primordial,' or incapable of further analysis.
+This doctrine becomes important in some of Mill's logical
+speculations,[546] and is connected with his whole theory of belief in
+an external world. It has an uncomfortable likeness to Reid's
+'common-sense' view, and even to the hated 'intuitionism'; and Mill
+deserves the more credit for his candour.
+
+Meanwhile it seems clear that the criticism implies an important
+confusion. The line of distinction is drawn in the wrong place. So
+far as the simple 'imagination' is concerned, there may be no question
+of belief or disbelief. The picture of Falstaff or of Lafayette, a
+horse or a centaur, arises equally, and is put together, let us
+suppose, by simple association. But as soon as I think about either I
+believe or disbelieve, and equally whether I judge the object to be a
+thought or to be a 'real fact,' whether I say that I could have seen
+Lafayette, or that I could not have seen Falstaff. It is not a
+question between reality or unreality, but between two classes of
+reality. A dream is a real dream, just as a man is a real man. The
+question is simply where or how it exists, not whether it exists. The
+picture is, in one case, put together by my mind; in the other, due to
+a stimulus from without; but it exists in both cases; and belief is
+equally present whether I put it in one class of reality or the other:
+as we form a judgment equally when we pronounce a man to be lying, and
+when we pronounce him to be speaking the truth. J. S. Mill seems to
+suppose that association can explain the imagination of a centaur or a
+Falstaff, but cannot explain the belief in a horse or Lafayette. The
+imagination or 'ideation,' he should have said, accounts in both cases
+for the mere contents of the thought; but in neither case can it by
+itself explain the judgment as to 'reality.' That is to say, James
+Mill may have described accurately a part of the process by which the
+mental picture is constructed, but has omitted to explain the action
+of the mind itself. Belief, we may agree, is a 'primordial' or
+ultimate faculty; but we must not interpret it as belief in a 'real
+fact' as distinguished from belief in 'a thought': that is a secondary
+and incidental distinction.
+
+This confusion, as I have said, apparently prevents J. S. Mill from
+seeing how deeply his very frank admissions cut into the very
+structure of his father's system. He has, as I have said, remarked
+upon the singular absence of any reference to 'belief,' 'abstraction,'
+and so forth; but he scarcely observes how much is implied by the
+omission. His criticism should have gone further. James Mill has not
+only omitted a faculty which enables us to distinguish between
+'thoughts' and 'things,' images of fancy and pictures of reality, but
+also the faculty which is equally present whenever we properly think
+instead of simply seeing images passively; and equally whether we
+refer an image to fact or fancy. His 'analysis of the mind' seems to
+get rid of the mind itself.
+
+The omission becomes important at the next step. 'Under the modest
+title of an explanation of the meaning of several names,' says his
+son, James Mill discusses 'some of the deepest and most intricate
+questions in all metaphysics.' A treatise on chemistry might almost as
+well be 'described as an explanation of the names, air, water, potass,
+sulphuric acid, and so forth.'[547] Why does the chapter come in this
+place and in this peculiar form? Probably because James Mill was
+partly conscious of the inadequacy of his previous chapters. The
+problems which he has been considering could not be adequately treated
+by regarding ideas as 'things' bound together by association. What,
+after all, is a proposition? What is meant by 'true' or 'false,' as
+distinguished from real and unreal? If an association actually _is_ a
+truth, what is the difference between right and wrong associations?
+Both are facts, and the very words 'right' and 'wrong,' that is, true
+and false, apply not to facts but to propositions.[548] The judgment
+is tested in some way by correspondence to the 'order of Nature,' or
+of our sensations and ideas. What precisely is meant by this order? So
+far as we have gone, it seems as if ideas might be combined in any
+order whatever, and the most various beliefs generated in different
+minds. Perhaps, however, the principle of association itself may
+reveal something as to the possible modes of coalescence. Mill makes
+contiguity an ultimate ground of association; and contiguity implies
+that things have certain relations expressible in terms of space and
+time and so forth. These primitive relations now come up for
+consideration, and should enable us to say more precisely what kind of
+order is possible. In fact, Mill now endeavours to analyse the
+meanings of such words as relation in general, time, space, number,
+likeness, personal identity and others. The effect of his analysis is
+that the principles, whatever they may be, which might be supposed to
+underlie association appear to be products of association. He begins
+by asking what is the meaning of 'relative terms.' Their peculiarity
+is that they 'always exist in pairs,' such as 'father and son,' 'high
+and low,' 'right and left.' 'If it is asked, Why do we give names in
+pairs? the general answer immediately suggests itself; it is because
+the things named present themselves in pairs, that is, are joined by
+association.'[549] J. S. Mill thinks that no part of the _Analysis_
+is more valuable than the 'simple explanation' which follows. There is
+no 'mystical bond called a relation' between two things, but 'a very
+simple peculiarity in the concrete fact' marked by the names. In
+'ordinary names of objects, the fact connoted by a name ... concerns
+one object only'; in the case of relative names, 'the fact connoted
+concerns two objects, and cannot be understood without thinking of
+them both.' A 'fact concerning an object' is a curiously awkward
+expression; but one point is clear. If the two objects concerned are
+the same, whether considered apart or together, the 'relation' must be
+something more than the facts, and therefore requires to be specified.
+If they are, in fact, one thing, or parts of a continuous process, we
+must ask how they come to be distinguished, and what ground there is
+for speaking of association. James Mill, by considering the problem as
+a mere question of 'names,' seems to intimate that the relation is a
+mere figment. In fact, as J. S. Mill perceives, the 'explanations'
+become nugatory. They simply repeat the thing to be explained. He
+begins with 'resemblance.' To feel two things to be alike is, he says,
+the same thing as to have the two feelings. He means to say,
+apparently, that when there are two 'ideas' there is not also a third
+idea of 'likeness.' That would be what Bentham called a 'fictitious
+entity.' But this cannot 'explain' the likeness of the ideas. 'Their
+being alike,' as his son interprets, 'is nothing but their being felt
+to be alike--which does not help us.'[550] So 'antecedence and
+consequence' are 'explained' by saying that one of two feelings calls
+up the other; or, as the son again remarks, antecedence is explained
+by antecedence, and succession by succession. Antecedence and
+consequence, like likeness and unlikeness, must therefore, according
+to J. S. Mill, be 'postulated as universal conditions of Nature,
+inherent in all our feelings whether of external or internal
+consciousness.'[551] In other words, apparently, time is an ultimate
+form of thought. Time and space, generally, as James Mill thinks, are
+the 'abstract names' respectively of successive and simultaneous
+order, which become 'indissolubly associated with the idea of every
+object.'[552] Space, of course, is said to be a product of touch and
+muscular sensations, and the problem as to how these varying
+sensations and these alone give rise to apparently necessary and
+invariable beliefs is not taken into consideration. Mill is here
+dealing with the questions which Kant attempted to answer by showing
+how the mind imposes its forms upon sense-given materials, forms them
+into concepts, and combines the concepts into judgments and reasoning.
+Mill evades the mysterious and transcendental at the cost of omitting
+reason altogether. He represents the result of accepting one horn of a
+dilemma, which presses upon philosophies of loftier pretensions. Those
+who accept the other horn speak of a 'fact' as though it were a truth,
+and argue as though the world could be spun out of pure logic, or a
+tissue be made of relations without any things to be related. Mill,
+with scarcely a glance at such doctrines, tries systematically to
+speak of a truth as if it were a fact. The world for him is made up of
+ideas sticking together; and nothing else exists. The relation is the
+fact; belief is the association; consciousness and reflection,
+considered apart, are nothing but the sensations, ideas, clusters,
+and trains. The attempt to base all truth upon experience, to bring
+philosophy into harmony with science was, as I hold, perfectly right.
+Only, upon these assumptions it could not be carried out. Mill had the
+merit which is implied even by an unsuccessful attempt to hold by
+fact. He raises a number of interesting questions; and I think that it
+is more remarkable that so many of his observations have still an
+interest for psychologists than that so much is obviously wrong. Mill,
+it may be said, took an essay upon association for a treatise upon
+psychology in general. He was writing what might be one important
+chapter in such a treatise, and supposes that he has written the
+whole, and can deduce 'philosophy' from it, if, indeed, any philosophy
+can be said to remain. Meanwhile, I may observe, that by pushing his
+principles to extremes, even his 'association' doctrine is endangered.
+His _Analysis_ seems to destroy even the elements which are needed to
+give the simplest laws of association. It is rather difficult to say
+what is meant by the 'contiguity,' 'sequence,' and 'resemblance,'
+which are the only conditions specified, and which he seems to explain
+not as the conditions but as the product of association. J. S. Mill
+perceived that something was wanting which he afterwards tried to
+supply. I will just indicate one or two points, which may show what
+problems the father bequeathed to the son. James Mill, at one place,
+discusses the odd problem 'how it happens that all trains of thought
+are not the same.'[553] The more obvious question is, on his
+hypothesis, how it happens that any two people have the same beliefs,
+since the beliefs are made of the most varying materials. If, again,
+two ideas when associated remain distinct, we have Hume's difficulty.
+Whatever is distinguishable, he argued, is separable. If two ideas
+simply lie side by side, as is apparently implied by 'contiguity,' so
+that each can be taken apart without change, why should we suppose
+that they will never exist apart, or, indeed, that they should ever
+again come together? The contiguity does not depend upon them, but
+upon some inscrutable collocation, of which we can only say that it
+exists now. This is the problem which greatly occupied J. S. Mill.
+
+The 'indissoluble' or 'inseparable' association, which became the
+grand arcanum of the school, while intended to answer some of these
+difficulties, raises others. Mill seems to insist upon splitting a
+unit into parts in order that it may be again brought together by
+association. So J. S. Mill, in an admiring note, confirms his father's
+explanation ('one of the most important thought in the whole
+treatise') of the infinity of space.[554] We think space infinite
+because we always 'associate' position with extension. Surely space is
+extension; and to think of one without the other implies a
+contradiction. We think space infinite, because we think of a space as
+only limited by other space, and therefore indefinitely extensible.
+There is no 'association,' simply repetition. Elsewhere we have the
+problem, How does one association exclude another? Only, as J. S. Mill
+replies, when one idea includes the idea of the absence of the
+others.[555] We cannot combine the ideas of a plane and a convex
+surface. Why? Because we have never had both sets of sensations
+together. The 'commencement' of one set has always been 'simultaneous
+with the cessation of another set,' as, for instance, when we bend a
+flat sheet of paper. The difficulty seems to be that one fact cannot
+be contradictory of another, since contradiction only applies to
+assertions. When I say that A is above B, however, I surely assert
+that B is below A; and I cannot make both assertions about A and B at
+the same time without a contradiction. To explain this by an
+association of simultaneous and successive sensations seems to be a
+curiously roundabout way of 'explaining.' Every assertion is also a
+denial; and, if I am entitled to say anything, I am enabled without
+any help from association to deny its contradictory. On Mill's
+showing, the assertion and the denial of its contradiction, instead of
+being identical, are taken to be two beliefs accidentally associated.
+Finally, I need only make one remark upon the fundamental difficulty.
+It is hard to conceive of mere loose 'ideas' going about in the
+universe at large and sticking accidentally to others. After all, the
+human being is in true sense also an organised whole, and his
+constitution must be taken into account in discovering the laws of
+'ideation.' This is the point of view to which Mill, in his anxiety to
+get rid of everything that had a savour of _a priori_ knowledge about
+it, remains comparatively blind. It implies a remarkable omission.
+Mill's great teacher, Hartley, had appealed to physiology in a
+necessarily crude fashion. He had therefore an organism: a brain or a
+nervous system which could react upon the external world and modify
+and combine sensations. Mill's ideas would have more apparent
+connection if they could be made to correspond to 'vibratiuncles' or
+physical processes of some kind. But this part of Hartley's hypothesis
+had been dropped: and all reality is therefore reduced to the whirl
+of vagrant and accidentally cohering ideas in brains and clusters. His
+one main aim is to get rid of everything that can be called mystical
+and to trace all mental processes to 'experience,' as he understands
+experience--to show that we are never entitled to assert that two
+ideas may not be joined in any way whatever.
+
+The general tendency of the 'Association Philosophy' is sufficiently
+clear. It may be best appreciated by comparing it to the method of the
+physical sciences, which it was intended to rival. The physicist
+explains the 'laws of nature' by regarding a phenomenon as due to the
+varying arrangements of an indefinite multitude of uniform atoms. I
+need not ask whether these atoms are to be regarded as realities, even
+the sole realities, or, on the other hand, as a kind of logical
+scaffolding removable when the laws are ascertained. In any case, the
+assumption is necessary and most fruitful in the search for accurate
+and quantitative formulae. Mill virtually assumes that the same thing
+can be done by breaking up the stream of consciousness into the ideas
+which correspond to the primitive atoms. What precisely these atoms
+may be, how the constantly varying flow of thought can be resolved
+into constituent fractions, is not easy to see. The physicist at least
+supposes his atoms to have definite space relations, but there is
+nothing clearly corresponding to space in the 'ideas.' They are
+capable of nothing but co-existence, sequence, and likeness; but the
+attempt to explain the meaning of those words ends in nothing but
+repeating them. One result is the curious combination of the absolute
+and the indefinitely variable. We get absolute statements because the
+ultimate constituents are taken to be absolutely constant. We have
+indefinite variability because they may be collocated in any
+conceivable or inconceivable way. This becomes evident when we have to
+do with organisms of any kind: with characters or societies an
+organism varies, but varies along definite lines. But, on Mill's
+showing, the organic relations correspond to the indefinitely
+variable. Education is omnipotent; state constitutions can be
+manufactured at will, and produce indefinite consequences. And yet he
+can lay down laws of absolute validity, because he seems to be
+deducing them from one or two formulae corresponding to the essential
+and invariable properties of the ultimate unit--whether man or ideas.
+From this follows, too, the tendency to speak as if human desires
+corresponded to some definite measurable things, such as utility in
+ethics, value in political economy, and self-interest in politics.
+This point appears in the application of Mill's theories to the moral
+sciences.
+
+
+III. JAMES MILL'S ETHICS
+
+James Mill in his ethical doctrine follows Bentham with little
+variation; but he shows very clearly what was the psychology which
+Bentham virtually assumed. I may pass very briefly over Mill's theory
+of conduct[556] in general. The 'phenomena of thought,' he says, may
+be divided into the 'intellectual' and the 'active' powers. Hitherto
+he has considered 'sensations' and 'ideas' merely as existing; he will
+now consider them as 'exciting to action.'[557] The phenomena consist
+in both cases of sensations and ideas, combined into 'clusters,' and
+formed into trains 'according to the sense laws.' We have now to
+consider the ideas as active, and 'to demonstrate the simple laws into
+which the phenomena of human life, so numerous and apparently so
+diversified, may all be easily resolved.'
+
+A desire is an 'idea' of a pleasant sensation; an 'aversion' an idea
+of painful sensation. The idea and the sensation are not two things,
+but two names for the same thing. Desire, again, has a 'tacit
+reference to future time' when applied to a given case. We associate
+these pains and pleasures with the causes; and in the important case
+our own actions are the causes. Thus the association produces the
+motive, and the readiness to obey the motive is, as Bentham says, the
+'disposition.' Then, following Hartley, Mill explains the will. Bodily
+actions are muscular contractions, which are slowly co-ordinated by
+habit--association, of course, acting at every stage of the process.
+Now, it is a plain fact that muscular contractions follow 'ideas.' It
+is easy, then, to see how the 'idea of a pleasure should excite the
+idea of the action which is the cause of it; and how, when the idea
+exists, the action should follow.'[558] An 'end' is a pleasure
+desired, and gives the 'motive.' When we start from the motive and get
+the pleasure the same association is called 'will.' 'Free-will' is of
+course nonsense. We have a full account of the human mechanism, and
+can see that it is throughout worked by association, admitting the
+primary fact of experience that the idea causes the muscular
+contraction.
+
+This, and the ethical conclusions which follow, substantially
+coincide with Bentham's doctrine, or supply the first principles from
+which Bentham might be deduced. A fuller exposition of the ethics is
+given in the _Fragment on Mackintosh_. Mackintosh, in 1829, wrote a
+Dissertation upon 'Ethical Philosophy,' for the _Encyclopaedia
+Britannica_.[559] The book stirred Mill's 'indignation against an
+evil-doer.'[560] He wrote a _Fragment on Mackintosh_, which was
+suppressed for a time in consequence of his antagonist's death in
+1832, but published in the year of his own death, 1835.[561] According
+to Professor Bain, the book was softened in consequence of
+remonstrances from Bickersteth. It would be curious to see the
+previous version. Professor Bain says that there are 'thousands' of
+books which contain 'far worse severities of language.' I confess that
+I cannot remember quite 'a thousand.' It is at least difficult to
+imagine more unmitigated expressions of contempt and aversion.
+Mackintosh, says Mill, uses 'macaroni phrases,' 'tawdry talk,'
+'gabble'; he gets 'beyond drivelling' into something more like
+'raving'; he 'deluges' us with 'unspeakable nonsense.' 'Good God!'
+sums up the comment which can be made upon one sentence.[562] Sir
+James, he declares, 'has got into an intellectual state so thoroughly
+depraved that I doubt whether a parallel to it is possible to be
+found.'[563] There is scarcely a mention of Mackintosh without an
+insult. A partial explanation of Mill's wrath may be suggested by the
+chapter upon Bentham. Mackintosh there accused the Utilitarians
+generally of 'wantonly wounding the most respectable feelings of
+mankind'; of 'clinging to opinions because they are obnoxious'; of
+taking themselves to be a 'chosen few,' despising the multitude, and
+retorting the dislike which their arrogance has provoked by using
+still more exasperating language.[564] He suggested that they should
+do more justice to 'the Romillys and the Broughams,' who had been the
+real and judicious reformers; and he illustrated the errors of Bentham
+by especial reference to Mill's arguments upon government and
+education. There had long been an antipathy. Mackintosh, said Mill in
+1820, 'lives but for London display; _parler et faire parler de lui_
+in certain circles is his heaven.'[565]
+
+Mackintosh would have been most at home in a professorial chair. He
+was, indeed, professor at Haileybury from 1818 to 1824, and spoken of
+as a probable successor to Brown at Edinburgh. But he could never
+decidedly concentrate himself upon one main purpose. Habits of
+procrastination and carelessness about money caused embarrassment
+which forced him to write hastily. His love of society interfered with
+study, and his study was spread over an impossible range of subjects.
+His great abilities, wasted by these infirmities, were seconded by
+very wide learning. Macaulay describes the impression which he made at
+Holland House.[566] He passed among his friends as the profound
+philosopher; the man of universal knowledge of history; of ripe and
+most impartial judgment in politics; the oracle to whom all men might
+appeal with confidence, though a little too apt to find out that all
+sides were in the right. When he went to India he took with him some
+of the scholastic writers and the works of Kant and Fichte, then known
+to few Englishmen. One of Macaulay's experiences at Holland House was
+a vision of Mackintosh verifying a quotation from Aquinas.[567] It
+must have been delightful. The ethical 'dissertation,' however, had to
+be shortened by omitting all reference to German philosophy, and the
+account of the schoolmen is cursory. It is easy to see why the suave
+and amiable Mackintosh appeared to Mill to be a 'dandy' philosopher,
+an unctuous spinner of platitudes to impose upon the frequenters of
+Holland House, and hopelessly confused in the attempt to make
+compromises between contradictory theories. It is equally easy to see
+why to Mackintosh the thoroughgoing and strenuous Mill appeared to be
+a one-sided fanatic, blind to the merits of all systems outside the
+narrow limits of Benthamism, and making even philanthropy hateful. Had
+Mackintosh lived to read Mill's _Fragment_, he would certainly have
+thought it a proof that the Utilitarians were as dogmatic and acrid as
+he had ever asserted.
+
+Mackintosh's position in ethics explains Mill's antagonism. Neither
+Aquinas nor Kant nor Fichte influenced him. His doctrine is the
+natural outcome of the Scottish philosophy. Hutcheson had both
+invented Bentham's sacred formula, and taught the 'Moral Sense' theory
+which Bentham attacked. To study the morality from the point of view
+of 'inductive psychology' is to study the moral faculty, and to reject
+the purely 'intellectual' system. To assign the position of the moral
+faculty in the psychological system is to show its utility. On the
+other hand, it was the very aim of the school to avoid the sceptical
+conclusions of Hume in philosophy, and in ethics to avoid the complete
+identification of morality with utility. There must be a distinction
+between the judgments, 'this is right,' and 'this is useful'; even
+'useful to men in general.' Hence, on the one hand, morality is
+immediately dictated by a special sense or faculty, and yet its
+dictates coincide with the dictates of utility. I have spoken of this
+view as represented by Dugald Stewart; and Brown had, according to his
+custom, moved a step further by diminishing the list of original first
+principles, and making 'virtue' simply equivalent to 'feelings' of
+approval and disapproval.[568] Virtue, he said, is useful; the utility
+'accompanies our moral approbation; but the perception of that utility
+does not constitute our moral approbation, nor is it necessarily
+presupposed by it.'[569] He compares the coincidence between virtue
+and utility to Leibniz's pre-established harmony.[570] The position is
+familiar. The adaptation of an organism to its conditions may be taken
+either as an explanation of its development or as a proof of a
+creative purpose.
+
+Mackintosh takes nearly the same position. Ethical inquiries, he says,
+relate to 'two perfectly distinct subjects.' We have the problem of
+the 'criterion' (What is the distinction between right and wrong?) and
+the problem of the 'moral sentiments' (What are the feelings produced
+by the contemplation of right and wrong?). In treating of the
+feelings, again, we must avoid the confusion caused in the older
+philosophy by the reduction of 'feeling' to 'thought.'[571] Reason
+and sensation are distinct though inseparably combined; and hence, he
+argues, it is a fallacy to speak with Clarke as if reason could by
+itself be a motive. An argument to influence conduct must always be in
+the last resort an appeal to a 'feeling.'[572] It is idle to tell a
+man that conduct is infamous unless he _feels_ infamy to be painful.
+We have then to ask what are the feelings which prompt to morality. So
+far as the criterion is concerned, Mackintosh fully agrees with Hume,
+whose theory that 'general utility constitutes a general ground of
+moral distinctions can never be impugned until some example can be
+produced of a virtue generally pernicious or a vice generally
+beneficial.'[573] Hume, however, overlooks the 'rightful supremacy of
+the moral faculty over every other principle of human action.'
+Mackintosh thought that his best service, as he told Macvey
+Napier,[574] had been his 'endeavour to slip in a foundation under
+Butler's doctrine of the supremacy of the conscience, which he left
+baseless.' To slip in a foundation is a very delicate operation in
+logical as in material architecture; and the new foundation seems here
+to be in danger of inverting the edifice. The 'supremacy of
+conscience'[575] means with him that the 'moral sentiments' form a
+separate class. They are the feelings with which we contemplate
+voluntary actions in general, and therefore those aroused by the
+character and conduct of the agent. Mackintosh thus takes an aesthetic
+view of morality. We have a 'moral taste' or perception of beauty. The
+same qualities which make a horse beautiful make him also swift and
+safe, but we perceive the beauty without thinking of the utility, or
+rather when we do not think of it. So we admire a hero or martyr for
+the beauty of his character without reference to his services to
+us.[576] This moral taste, though not identical with the conscience,
+becomes 'absorbed into it.' The conscience differs from the 'moral
+taste' because it acts upon the will. But its supremacy seems to be
+this quality which it shares with or derives from the taste--its
+immediate and spontaneous operation. It is, he seems to mean, a direct
+perception of beauty in character applied to the regulation of
+conduct. Virtue corresponds to an instinctive and so far ultimate
+appreciation of beauty of character. Mackintosh insists upon this
+intrinsic charm of virtue in the language which struck Mill as simply
+foppish affectation. The pleasure of 'benevolence' itself, says
+Mackintosh, is infinitely superior to the pleasures to which it may
+lead. Could it become 'lasting and intense,' it would convert the
+heart into a heaven.[577] To love virtue, you must love it 'for its
+own sake.'[578] The delights of being virtuous (as he interprets the
+phrase) are greater than any delight from the consequences of virtue.
+And he holds up as a model Fletcher of Saltoun, who would 'lose his
+life to serve his country, but would not do a base thing to save
+it.'[579]
+
+How, then, is this view to be reconciled with the unreserved admission
+of 'utility' as the 'criterion' of right and wrong? One answer is that
+Mackintosh fully accepts Hartley's doctrine of association. He even
+criticises previous philosophers for not pushing it far enough. He
+says that association, instead of merely combining a 'thought' and a
+'feeling,' 'forms them into a new compound, in which the properties of
+the component parts are no longer discoverable, and which may itself
+become a substantive principle of human virtue.'[580] The question of
+origin, therefore, is different from the question of nature. He
+follows Hartley in tracing the development of various desires, and in
+showing how the 'secondary desires' are gradually formed from the
+primitive by transference to different objects.[581] We must start
+from feelings which lie beneath any intellectual process, and thus the
+judgment of utility is from the first secondary. We arrive at the
+higher feelings which are 'as independent as if they were
+underived,'[582] and yet, as happiness has been involved at every
+stage as an end of each desire, it is no wonder that the ultimate
+result should be to make the general happiness the end. The
+coincidence, then, of the criterion with the end of the moral
+sentiments is 'not arbitrary,' but arises necessarily from 'the laws
+of human nature and the circumstances in which mankind are
+placed.'[583] Hence we reach the doctrine which 'has escaped Hartley
+as well as every other philosopher.'[584] That doctrine is that the
+moral faculty is one; it is compound, indeed, in its origin; but
+becomes an independent unit, which can no longer be resolved even in
+thought into its constituent elements.
+
+The doctrine approximates, it would seem, to Mill's; but was all the
+more unpalatable to him on that account. The agreement implies
+plagiarism, and the difference hopeless stupidity. To Mill Bentham was
+the legitimate development of Hartley, while to Mackintosh Bentham
+was the plausible perverter of Hartley. Mill regarded Mackintosh as a
+sophist, whose aim was to mislead honest Utilitarians into the paths
+of orthodoxy, and who also ignored the merits of Mill himself. 'It was
+Mr. Mill,' he says, 'who first made known the great importance of the
+principle of the indissoluble association';[585] 'Mr. Mill' who had
+taken up Hartley's speculations and 'prosecuted the inquiry to its
+end';[586] 'Mr. Mill' who explained affections and motives and
+dispositions;[587] and 'Mr. Mill' who had cleared up mistakes about
+classification which 'had done more to perpetuate darkness on the
+subject of mind than any other cause, perhaps than all other causes
+taken together.'[588] Sir James blundered because he had not read
+Mill's book, as he pretended to have done. Mill does not say all this
+from vanity; he is simply stating an obvious matter of fact.
+
+Mill's polemic against the Moral Sense theory, even against a moral
+sense produced by association, reveals the really critical points of
+the true Utilitarian doctrine. Mill would cut down the moral sense
+root and branch. The 'moral sense' means a 'particular faculty'
+necessary to discern right and wrong. But no particular faculty is
+necessary to discern 'utility.'[589] Hence the distinction between the
+'criterion' and the 'moral sentiments' is absurd. The utility is not
+the 'criterion' of the morality but itself constitutes the morality.
+To say that conduct is right, according to the Utilitarians, is the
+same thing as to say that it produces happiness. If the moral sense
+orders conduct opposed to the criterion, it is so far bad. If it
+never orders such conduct, it is superfluous. Happiness, as with
+Bentham, is a definite thing--a currency of solid bullion; and
+'virtue' means nothing except as calculated in this currency. Mill,
+again, like Bentham, regards the 'utility' principle as giving the
+sole 'objective' test. The complaint that it sanctions 'expediency' is
+a simple fallacy.
+
+If you do not love virtue 'for its own sake,' said Mackintosh, you
+will break a general law wherever the law produces a balance of
+painful consequences. Mill replies with great vigour.[590] All general
+rules, it is true, imply exceptions, but only when they conflict with
+the supreme rule. 'There is no exception to a rule of morality,' says
+Mill, 'but what is made by a rule of morality.'[591] There are
+numerous cases in which the particular laws conflict; and one law must
+then be broken. The question which to break must then be decided by
+the same unequivocal test, 'utility.' If a rule for increasing utility
+diminishes utility in a given case, it must be broken in that case.
+Mackintosh's Fletcher of Saltoun illustrates the point.[592] What is
+the 'base' thing which Fletcher would not do to save his country?
+Would he not be the basest of men if he did not save his country at
+any cost? To destroy half a population and reduce the other half to
+misery has been thought a sacrifice not too great for such an end.
+Would not Mackintosh himself allow Fletcher, when intrusted with an
+important fortress, to sacrifice the lives and properties of innocent
+people in defence of his position?[593] What, then, does the love of
+virtue 'for its own sake' come to? If you refuse to save your country,
+because you think the means base, your morality is mischievous, that
+is, immoral. If, on the other hand, you admit that the means cease to
+be base, the supposed supremacy is an empty brag. The doctrine is then
+verbally maintained, but interpreted so as to conform to the criterion
+of utility. In other words, Mackintosh cannot reconcile his admission
+of utility as a 'criterion' with his support of a moral sense entitled
+to override the criterion. Mackintosh's moral sense is meant to
+distinguish the moral motive from 'expediency.' To this, again, Mill
+has a very forcible answer. A man is blameable who makes exceptions to
+laws in his own private interest. But if a man consistently and
+invariably acted for the 'greatest happiness of the greatest number,'
+and paid no more attention to his own happiness than to other
+people's, he would certainly have a very lofty and inflexible test,
+assuming--as we must allow Mill to assume--that we can calculate the
+effect of conduct upon happiness at large. Again, upon the assumption
+that 'moral' is equivalent to 'felicific,' we get a general rule
+entitled to override any individual tastes or fancies, such as Mill
+supposes to be meant by the 'Moral Sense.' The rule is derived from
+the interests of all, and gives an ultimate 'objective criterion.' J.
+S. Mill, describing his father's system, observes that the teaching of
+such a man was not likely to err on 'the side of laxity or
+indulgence.'[594] It certainly did not. And, in fact, his criterion,
+however obtained, had in his eyes the certainty of a scientific law.
+This or that is right as surely as this or that food is wholesome. My
+taste has nothing to do with it. And, moreover, the criterion
+certainly gives a moral ground. If I know that any conduct will
+produce more happiness than misery that is a moral reason for adopting
+it. A 'moral sense' which should be radically inconsistent with that
+criterion, which should order me to inflict suffering as suffering, or
+without some ulterior reason, would be certainly at fault. Mackintosh
+indeed would have agreed to this, though, if Mill was right, at the
+expense of consistency.
+
+Mill, however, deduces from his criterion doctrines which involve a
+remarkable paradox. The mode in which he is led to them is
+characteristic of the whole method. Mill, like Bentham, puts morality
+upon the same plane with law. Conduct is influenced either by the
+'community in its conjunct capacity'--that is, by law; or by
+'individuals in their individual capacity'--that is, by morality.[595]
+The sanction of one, we may infer, is force; of the other, approval
+and disapproval. With this we must take another Benthamite doctrine,
+of which I have already spoken.[596] 'Mr. Bentham demonstrated,' says
+Mill, 'that the morality of an act does not depend upon the motive,'
+and, further, that it 'is altogether dependent on the intention.'[597]
+Upon this he constantly insists. Mackintosh's view that virtue depends
+upon motive will be 'scorned by every man who has any knowledge of the
+philosophy of the human mind.... The virtue does not depend upon the
+motive. There is no bad motive. Every motive is the desire of good; to
+the agent himself or to some one else.'[598] He gives an analysis of
+action to put the point beyond doubt. Action supposes a 'motive,' a
+'volition,' and an 'external act' or muscular contraction. So far
+there is nothing moral. But then an act has consequences, good or bad,
+to human beings, which constitute its utility. To make it moral, the
+agent must anticipate 'beneficial consequences,' and must have no
+reason to anticipate a balance of evil consequences. Intention means
+the calculation of consequences, and without that calculation there
+can be no morality.[599] Hence the morality is equivalent to a
+'conviction of the general utility' of the action.[600] 'All this,' he
+concludes, 'is settled by universal consent. It is vain, therefore, to
+think of disputing it.' One may, however, ask what it means. I have
+already observed that the view of the non-moral character of motive
+was a natural corollary from the purely legal point of view. I must
+now consider the results of applying it unreservedly in the
+inappropriate sphere of ethics.
+
+In the first place, the denial of any moral quality in motive seems to
+be inconsistent with Mill's own principles. The Utilitarian, according
+to him, holds that the moral law is essentially the statement that
+certain conduct produces general happiness. If, then, we ask, Who is a
+good man? we first reply that he is a man whose conduct produces
+happiness. Another conclusion is obviously necessary, and is implied
+in Mill's statement that the 'intention' is essential to morality. The
+man, that is, must foresee that his conduct will produce happiness.
+The 'calculation' is precisely what makes an action moral as well as
+accidentally useful. In other words, the man is good to whom the
+knowledge that an act will produce happiness is the same thing as a
+command to perform the act. The 'intention' could not affect conduct
+without the corresponding motive, and Mill can at times recognise the
+obvious consequence. The 'physical law' (meaning the law enforced by
+physical coercion), he says incidentally, has 'extrinsic'
+sanctions;[601] the moral law is different, because it sanctions good
+actions for their goodness. 'Moral approval' must therefore include
+approval of character. A man, to be moral, must be one who does useful
+things simply because they are useful. He must then, it would seem, be
+at least benevolent. The same thing is implied by the doctrine of
+'intention' or 'calculation.' An action may be useful or the reverse
+without being moral when the consequences are unknown to the agent. To
+make it moral he must know the consequences--for otherwise he is
+merely acting at random; and the foreseen consequences constitute the
+'intention.' To this Mill adds that he must have taken into account
+the consequences which 'might have been foreseen.'[602] Otherwise we
+should have to excuse a man because he had neglected to calculate,
+whereas to calculate is the very essence of virtue. A man who fired a
+gun down a crowded street would not be excusable because he had not
+thought of the result. He 'ought' to have thought of it. The question
+of moral approval of any given action turns upon these questions. Did
+a man foresee evil consequences and disregard them? He is then cruel.
+Did he neglect to consider them? He is then culpably careless, though
+not actually malignant. Were the consequences altogether beyond the
+powers of reasonable calculation? Then he may be blameless. The whole
+moral question, therefore, depends upon the character indicated; that
+is, upon the motives which induce a man to calculate consequences and
+which determine his conduct when the calculation is made.
+
+The truth is, I think, and it is characteristic of Mill's modes of
+analysis, that he is making an impossible abstraction. He is
+separating parts of a single process and treating them as independent.
+If actions are bad because they have bad consequences, motives are bad
+because they are causes of bad actions. You cannot suppress the effect
+without suppressing the cause, and therefore the cause of the cause.
+Mill relies chiefly upon one argument. The same conduct will produce
+the same consequences whatever the motives. That is undeniable. It is
+the same to me whether I am burnt because the persecutor loves my soul
+or because he hates me as a rebel to his authority. But when is
+conduct 'the same'? If we classify acts as the legislator has to
+classify them by 'external' or 'objective' relations, we put together
+the man who is honest solely from fear of the gallows and the man who
+is honest from hatred of stealing. So long as both act alike, the
+'consequences' to their neighbours are alike. Neither is legally
+punishable. But if acts are classified by their motives, one is a
+rogue and the other virtuous; and it is only then that the question of
+morality properly arises. In that case, it is idle to separate the
+question of motive and consequences, because the character determines
+the motive and therefore the action. Nobody should have seen this more
+clearly than Mill as a good 'determinist.' Conduct and character are
+related as the convex and concave of the curve; conduct is simply the
+manifestation of character, and to separate them is absurd.
+
+Why did he not see this? For reasons, I think, which illustrate his
+whole method. From a scientific point of view, the ethical problem
+raises the wide questions, What are the moral sentiments? and, What
+functions do they discharge in regard to the society or to its
+individual members? We might hold that morality is justified by
+'utility' in the sense that the moral rules and the character which
+they indicate are essential to the welfare of the race or its
+individual constituents. But to Mill this proposition is interpreted
+as identical with the proposition that conduct must be estimated by
+its 'consequences.' We are to consider not the action itself, but its
+effects; and the effects are clearly independent of the motive when
+once the action has been done. We may therefore get a calculus of
+'utility': general rules stating what actions will be useful
+considered abstractedly from their motives. The method, again, might
+be plausible if we could further assume that all men were the same and
+differed only in external circumstances. That is the point of view to
+which Mill, like Bentham, is always more or less consciously
+inclining. The moral and the positive law are equally enforced by
+'sanctions'; by something not dependent upon the man himself, and
+which he is inclined to suppose will operate equally upon all men.
+Such language could be justifiable only of an average and uniform
+'man,' a kind of constant unit, whose varying behaviour must always be
+explained by difference in circumstance. We have sufficiently seen the
+results elsewhere, and in this ethical doctrine they are especially
+manifest.
+
+Mackintosh recognised the fact that morality is essentially a
+function of character. Mill cannot fully admit that, because he
+virtually assumes all character to be the same. Regarding morality as
+something co-ordinate with law, he does not perceive that the very
+possibility of law implies the moral instincts, which correspond to
+the constitution of character, and belong to a sphere underlying, not
+on the same plane with, the legislative sphere. They are the source of
+all order; not themselves the product of the order. It is impossible
+to deduce them, therefore, from the organisation which presupposes
+them. Now, in one direction, Mill's theory leads, as his son remarked,
+not to laxity but to excessive strictness. The 'criterion' is laid
+down absolutely. The 'moral sense' is rejected because it means an
+autocratic faculty, entitled to override the criterion by its own
+authority. To appeal to 'motives' is to allow the individual to make
+his own feeling the ultimate test of right and wrong. If we follow
+Mill in this we are not really assuming the moral neutrality of motive
+or the indifference, but an impossible profession of character. Men
+are not governed by abstract principles but by their passions and
+affections. The emotions, as Mackintosh rightly said, cannot be
+resolved into the mere logic. Utility may give the true criterion of
+morality, but it does not follow that the perception of utility is
+implied in moral conduct. The motives are good which in fact produce
+useful conduct, though the agent does not contemplate the abstract
+principle. It is impossible that men should be moved simply by a
+desire for the 'greatest happiness of the greatest number.' What does
+and always must guide men is their personal relation to the little
+circle which they actually influence. The good man is the man so
+constituted that he will spontaneously fulfil his duties. The moral
+law, that is, will be also the law of his character and conduct. The
+mother is good because she loves her child, not because she sees that
+care of her child is dictated by the general maxim of utility. The
+'utility' of character means the fitness of the agent to be an
+efficient member of the social structure to which he belongs. In
+particular cases this may lead to such problems as that of Fletcher of
+Saltoun. His sense of honour and his general benevolence, though both
+useful, might come into collision; and the most difficult of all
+questions of casuistry arise from such conflicts between private and
+public affections. Mill is justified in holding that a sense of honour
+cannot give an ultimate and autocratic decision. Under some pretext or
+other, we shall have to ask the Utilitarian question whether on the
+whole it may not be causing more misery than the virtuous action is
+worth. But that only means that the character must be so balanced as
+to give due weight to each motive; not that we can abstract from
+character altogether, as though human beings could be mere colourless
+and uniform atoms, embodying abstract formulae.
+
+Mill is following Bentham, and only brings out more clearly the
+psychological assumptions. A man, he says, acts from the 'same motive'
+whether he steals five shillings or earns it by a day's labour. The
+motive, in this sense, regards only one consequence, whereas the
+'intention' regards all. The 'motive,' that is, is only one of the
+motives or a part of the character, and this way of speaking is one of
+the awkward results of turning 'motives' into 'things.' The obvious
+answer is that which Mill himself makes to Mackintosh. Mackintosh and
+Butler, he thinks, personify particular 'appetites.'[603] It is not
+really the 'conscience' which decides, but the man. That is quite
+true, and similarly it is the whole man who steals or works, not the
+'personified' motive; and it is accordingly from the whole character
+that we judge. We have to consider the relation of the love of five
+shillings to the other qualities of industry and honesty. The same
+view appears in Mill's characteristic dislike of 'sentimentalism.'
+Wishing to attack Mackintosh's rhetoric about the delight of virtuous
+feeling, he for once quotes a novel to illustrate this point. When
+Parson Adams defined charity as a 'generous disposition to relieve the
+distressed,' Peter Pounce approved; 'it is, as you say, a disposition,
+and does not so much consist in the act as in the disposition to do
+it.'[604] When, therefore, Mackintosh says that he finds it difficult
+to separate the virtue from the act, Mill replies that nothing is
+easier. The virtue is 'in the act and its consequences'; the feeling a
+mere removable addition. Apparently he would hold that the good
+Samaritan and the Pharisee had the same feeling, though it prompted
+one to relieve the sufferer and the other to relieve himself of the
+sight of the sufferer. They had, of course, a feeling in common, but a
+feeling which produced diametrically opposite effects, because
+entering into totally different combinations.
+
+If Mill's doctrine leads to an impossible strictness in one direction,
+it leads to less edifying results in another. We have omitted 'motive'
+and come to the critical question, How, after all, is the moral code
+to be enforced? By overlooking this question and declaring 'motive' to
+be irrelevant, we get the paradox already accepted by Bentham. His
+definition of virtue is action for the good of others as well as of
+ourselves. In what way is the existence of such action to be
+reconciled with this doctrine? What are the motives which make men
+count the happiness of others to be equally valuable with their own?
+or, in the Utilitarian language, What is the 'sanction' of morality?
+After all Bentham's insistence upon the 'self-preference principle'
+and Mill's account of selfishness in his political theory, we are
+suddenly told that morality means a lofty and rigid code in which the
+happiness of all is the one end. Here again Mill is entangled by the
+characteristic difficulty of his psychology. To analyse is to divide
+objects into separate units. When he has to do with complex objects
+and relations apparently reciprocal, he is forced to represent them by
+a simple sequence. The two factors are not mutually dependent but
+distinct things somehow connected in time. One result is his account
+of 'ends' or 'motives' (the two, as he observes, are synonymous).[605]
+The end is something to be gained by the act, the 'association' of
+which with the act constitutes a 'desire.' This, we have seen, always
+refers to the future.[606] In acting, then, I am always guided by
+calculations of future pleasures or pains. I believe this to be one of
+the most unfortunate because one of the most plausible of Utilitarian
+fallacies. If we are determined by pains and pleasures, it is in one
+sense as contradictory to speak of our being determined by future
+pains and pleasures as to speak of our being nourished to-day by
+to-morrow's dinner. The 'future pleasure' does not exist; the
+anticipated pleasure acts by making the present action pleasant; and
+we then move (as it is said) along the line of least resistance.
+Certain conduct is intrinsically pleasurable or painful, and the
+future pleasure only acts through the present foretaste. When,
+however, we regard the pleasure as future and as somehow a separable
+thing, we can only express these undeniable facts by accepting a
+purely egoistic conclusion. We are, of course, moved by our own
+feelings, as we breathe with our own lungs and digest with our own
+stomachs. But when we accept the doctrine of 'ends' this harmless and
+self-evident truth is perverted into the statement that our 'end' must
+be our own pleasure; that we cannot be really or directly unselfish.
+The analysis, indeed, is so defective that it can hardly be applied
+intelligibly. Hume observes that no man would rest his foot
+indifferently upon a stool or a gouty toe. The action itself of giving
+pain would be painful, and cannot be plausibly resolved into an
+anticipation of an 'end.' This, again, is conspicuously true of all
+the truly social emotions. Not only the conscience, but the sense of
+shame or honour, or pride and vanity act powerfully and
+instantaneously as present motives without necessary reference to any
+future results. The knowledge that I am giving pain or causing future
+pain is intrinsically and immediately painful to the normal human
+being, and the supposed 'analysis' is throughout a fiction. Mill,
+however, like Bentham, takes it for granted, but perceives more
+clearly than Bentham the difficulty to which it leads. How, from a
+theory of pure selfishness, are we to get a morality of general
+benevolence? The answer is given by the universal 'association.' We
+are governed, he holds, by our own emotions; our end is our own
+pleasure, and we have to consider how this end dictates a desire for
+general happiness. He expounds with great vigour the process by which
+the love of friends, children and parents and country may be gradually
+developed through the association of our pleasures with the
+fellow-creatures who caused them. J. S. Mill regards his exposition as
+'almost perfect,'[607] and says that it shows how the 'acquired
+sentiments'--the moral sentiments and so forth--may be gradually
+developed; may become 'more intense and powerful than any of the
+elements out of which they may have been formed, and may also in their
+maturity be perfectly disinterested.' James Mill declares that the
+analysis does not affect the reality of the sentiments analysed.
+Gratitude remains gratitude, and generosity generosity, just as a
+white ray remains white after Newton had decomposed it into rays of
+different colours.[608] Here once more we have the great principle of
+indissoluble association or mental chemistry.
+
+Granting that the emotions so generated may be real, we may still ask
+whether the analysis be sufficient. James Mill's account of the way in
+which they are generated leaves a doubt. Morality is first impressed
+upon us by authority. Our parents praise and blame, reward and
+punish. Thus are formed associations of praise and blame with certain
+actions. Then, we form further associations with the causes of praise
+and blame and thus acquire the sentiments of 'praiseworthiness' and
+'blameworthiness.' The sensibility to praise and blame generally forms
+the 'popular sanction,' and this, when praiseworthiness is concerned,
+becomes the moral sanction.[609] Here we see that morality is regarded
+as somehow the product of a 'sanction'; that is, of the action of
+praise and blame with their usual consequences upon the individual.
+His sensibility causes him through association to acquire the habits
+which generally bring praise and blame; and ultimately these qualities
+become attractive for their own sake. The difficulty is to see where
+the line is crossed which divides truly moral or altruistic conduct
+from mere prudence. Admitting that association may impel us to conduct
+which involves self-sacrifice, we may still ask whether such conduct
+is reasonable. Association produces belief in error as well as in
+truth. If I love a man because he is useful and continue to love him
+when he can no longer be useful, am I not misguided? If I wear a
+ragged coat, because it was once smart, my conduct is easily explained
+as a particular kind of folly. If I am good to my old mother when she
+can no longer nurse me, am I not guilty of a similar folly? In short,
+a man who inferred from Mill's principles that he would never do good
+without being paid for it, would be hardly inconsistent. Your
+associations, Mill would say, are indissoluble. He might answer, I
+will try--it is surely not so hard to dissolve a tie of gratitude!
+Granting, in short, that Mill gives an account of such virtue as may
+be made of enlightened self-interest, he does not succeed in making
+intelligible the conduct which alone deserves the name of virtuous.
+The theory always halts at the point where something more is required
+than an external sanction, and supposes a change of character as well
+as a wider calculation of personal interest.
+
+The imperfection of this theory may be taken for granted. It has been
+exposed by innumerable critics. It is more important to observe one
+cause of the imperfection. Mill's argument contains an element of real
+worth. It may be held to represent fairly the historical development
+of morals. That morality is first conceived as an external law
+deriving its sanctity from authority; that it is directed against
+obviously hurtful conduct; and that it thus serves as a protection
+under which the more genuine moral sentiments can develop themselves,
+I believe to be in full accordance with sound theories of ethics. But
+Mill was throughout hampered by the absence of any theory of
+evolution. He had to represent a series of changes as taking place in
+the individual which can only be conceived as the product of a long
+and complex social change. He is forced to represent the growth of
+morality as an accretion of new 'ends' due to association, not as an
+intrinsic development of the character itself. He has to make morality
+out of atomic sensations and ideas collected in clusters and trains
+without any distinct reference to the organic constitution of the
+individual or of society, and as somehow or other deducible from the
+isolated human being, who remains a constant, though he collects into
+groups governed by external sanctions. He sees that morality is
+formed somehow or other, but he cannot show that it is either
+reasonable or an essential fact of human nature. Here, again, we shall
+see what problem was set to his son. Finally, if Mill did not explain
+ethical theory satisfactorily, it must be added in common justice that
+he was himself an excellent example of the qualities for which he
+tried to account. A life of devotion to public objects and a
+conscientious discharge of private duties is just the phenomenon for
+which a cluster of 'ideas' and 'associations' seems to be an
+inadequate account. How, it might have been asked, do you explain
+James Mill? His main purpose, too, was to lay down a rule of duty,
+almost mathematically ascertainable, and not to be disturbed by any
+sentimentalism, mysticism, or rhetorical foppery. If, in the attempt
+to free his hearers from such elements, he ran the risk of reducing
+morality to a lower level and made it appear as unamiable as sound
+morality can appear, it must be admitted that in this respect too his
+theories reflected his personal character.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[464] For an account of these writers and their relation to the
+pre-revolutionary schools, see _Les Ideologues_ by F. Picavet (1891).
+
+[465] Macvey Napier's _Correspondence_, p. 424.
+
+[466] Charles Francois Dominique de Villers (1767-1815) was a French
+officer, who emigrated in 1792, and took refuge at Luebeck. He became
+profoundly interested in German life and literature, and endeavoured
+to introduce a knowledge of German speculation to his countrymen. His
+chief books were this exposition of Kant and an essay upon the
+_Reformation of Luther_ (1803), which went through several editions,
+and was translated by James Mill in 1805. An interesting account of
+Villers is in the _Biographie Universelle_.
+
+[467] See Cockburn's _Memorials_ for a good notice of this.
+
+[468] Stewart's _Works_, iv. 345.
+
+[469] Lady Holland's _Life of Smith_, ii. 388.
+
+[470] _Inquiry into the Relations of Cause and Effect_ (third
+edition), pp. 178, 180, and part iv. sec. 6.
+
+[471] _Examination of Hamilton_ (fourth edition), p. 379.
+
+[472] _Cause and Effect_, pp. 184-87.
+
+[473] _Cause and Effect_, p. 197.
+
+[474] _Ibid._ p. 239 _seq._
+
+[475] _Ibid._ p. 244.
+
+[476] _Ibid._ p. 150.
+
+[477] _Ibid._ p. 357.
+
+[478] _Cause and Effect_, p. 313.
+
+[479] _Cause and Effect_, p. 482. Brown thinks that we can logically
+disprove the existence of motion by the hare and tortoise argument,
+and should therefore disregard logic.
+
+[480] Brown's _Lectures_, (1851), p. 167, Lect. xxvi.
+
+[481] Lecture xxv. This question as to whether Brown had or had not
+grossly misrepresented Reid and other philosophers, led to an
+entangled argument, in which Mill defended Brown against Hamilton. I
+will not ask whether Reid was a 'natural realist' or a 'cosmothetic
+idealist,' or what Descartes or Arnauld thought about the question.
+
+[482] Reid's _Works_, p. 128.
+
+[483] _Lectures_, pp. 150, 158-59.
+
+[484] _Dissertations_, p. 98. Compare Brown's Twenty-fourth Lecture
+with Tracy's _Ideologie_, ch. vii., and the account of the way in
+which the infant learns from resistance to infer a cause, and make of
+the cause _un etre qui n'est pas moi_. The resemblance is certainly
+close. Brown was familiar with French literature, and shows it by many
+quotations, though he does not, I think, refer to Tracy. Brown, it
+must be noticed, did not himself publish his lectures, and a professor
+is not bound to give all his sources in popular lectures. An
+explanation would have been due in a treatise. Picavet quotes
+Rhetore's _Philosophie de Thomas Brown_ (a book which I have not seen)
+for the statement that Brown's lectures often read like a translation
+of Laromiguiere, with whom Brown was 'perhaps' acquainted. As,
+however, the _Lecons_, to which reference is apparently made, did not
+appear till 1815 and 1818, when Brown's lectures were already written,
+this seems to be impossible. The coincidence, which to me seems to be
+exaggerated by the statement, is explicable by a common relation to
+previous writers.
+
+[485] _Lectures_, p. 166 (Lect. xxvi.).
+
+[486] _Lectures_, p. 158 (Lect. xxv.).
+
+[487] _Ibid._ p. 151 (Lect. xxiv.).
+
+[488] _Lectures_, p. 177 (ch. xxviii.). Brown made the same remark to
+Mackintosh in 1812. (Mackintosh's _Ethical Philosophy_, 1872, 236
+_n._)
+
+[489] _Ibid._ p. 154 (Lect. xxiv.).
+
+[490] See Hamilton's note to Reid's _Works_, p. 111.
+
+[491] _Lectures_, p. 255 (Lect. xl.).
+
+[492] _Ibid._ (Lect. xxxiii. and following).
+
+[493] _Ibid._ p. 214-15 (Lect. xxxiii.). The phrase is revived by
+Professor Stout in his _Analytic Psychology_.
+
+[494] _Lectures_, p. 213 (Lect. xxxiii.).
+
+[495] This is one of the coincidences with Laromiguiere (_Lecons_
+(1837), i. 103).
+
+[496] _Lectures_, p. 210.
+
+[497] _Lectures_, p. 315 (Lect. xlviii.).
+
+[498] _Ibid._ p. 314.
+
+[499] _Lectures_, p. 335 (Lect. li.). See Lect. xi. for a general
+explanation. The mind is nothing but a 'series of feelings'; and to
+say that 'I am conscious of feeling' is simply to say 'I feel.' The
+same phrase often occurs in James Mill.
+
+[500] _Ibid._ p. 298 (Lect. xlvi.).
+
+[501] _Ibid._ p. 498 (Lect. lxxiv.).
+
+[502] _Lectures_, p. 622 (Lect. xciii.).
+
+[503] _Dissertations_, p. 98.
+
+[504] Froude's _Carlyle_, p. 25.
+
+[505] _Miscellanies_ (1858), ii. 104. See, too, _Miscellanies_, i. 60,
+on German Literature, where he thinks that the Germans attacked the
+centre instead of the outworks of Hume's citadel. Carlyle speaks with
+marked respect of Dugald Stewart, who, if he knew what he was about,
+would agree with Kant.
+
+[506] In Caroline Fox's _Memories of Old Friends_ (second edition),
+ii. 314, is a letter from J. S. Mill, expressing a very high opinion
+of Brown, whom he had just been re-reading (1840) with a view to the
+Logic. Brown's 'analysis in his early lectures of the amount of what
+we can learn of the phenomena of the world seems to me perfect, and
+his mode of inquiry into the mind is strictly founded upon that
+analysis.'
+
+[507] I quote from this edition. Andrew Findlater (1810-1885), a
+Scottish schoolmaster, and editor of Chambers's _Cyclopaedia_, was a
+philologist (_Dictionary of National Biography_), and his notes
+chiefly concern Mill's adaptations of Horne Tooke.
+
+[508] _Treatise_ (bk. i. pt. i. sec. iv.).
+
+[509] J. S. Mill's _Autobiography_, p. 68.
+
+[510] _Fragment on Mackintosh_, p. 314.
+
+[511] _Analysis_, ii. 42. 'Odd,' because Brown was six years younger
+than Mill.
+
+[512] 'Education,' p. 6.
+
+[513] _Analysis_, i. 52.
+
+[514] _Analysis_, i. xvii.
+
+[515] _Ibid._ i. 70.
+
+[516] _Analysis_, i. 71.
+
+[517] _Ibid._ i. 78.
+
+[518] _Ibid._ i. 83.
+
+[519] _Analysis_, ii. 42.
+
+[520] _Ibid._ i. 270.
+
+[521] _Ibid._ i. 111.
+
+[522] _Ibid._ i. 362.
+
+[523] _Analysis_, i. 154 _n._
+
+[524] _Ibid._ i. 161.
+
+[525] _Analysis_, i. 189.
+
+[526] _Ibid._ i. 163 _n._
+
+[527] _Ibid._ i. 266.
+
+[528] _Ibid._ i. 269.
+
+[529] _Ibid._ i. 295.
+
+[530] _Analysis_, i. 162 _n._, 187 _n._
+
+[531] _Ibid._ ii. 21.
+
+[532] _Ibid._ i. 224-25.
+
+[533] _Analysis_, i. 342.
+
+[534] _e.g._ _Ibid._ ii. 176.
+
+[535] _Ibid._ i. 341.
+
+[536] _Ibid._ i. 342 _n._
+
+[537] _Ibid._ i. 331.
+
+[538] _Ibid._ i. 345.
+
+[539] _Ibid._ i. 352.
+
+[540] _Ibid._ i. 381.
+
+[541] _Analysis_, i. 363.
+
+[542] _Ibid._ i. 402.
+
+[543] _Ibid._ i. 402-23.
+
+[544] _Analysis_, i. 423.
+
+[545] _Ibid._ i. 413, 419.
+
+[546] See especially his account of definition, _Logic_, bk. i. ch.
+viii., and the problem about the serpent and the dragon.
+
+[547] _Analysis_, ii. 2.
+
+[548] This point puzzles Destutt de Tracy. All error, he says, arises
+in judgments: 'Cependant les jugements, les perceptions de rapports,
+en tant que perceptions que nous avons actuellement, sont aussi
+certaines et aussi reelles que toutes les autres.'--_Elements
+d'Ideologie_ (1865), iii. 449.
+
+[549] _Analysis_, ii. 6, 7.
+
+[550] _Analysis_, ii. 18 _n._
+
+[551] _Analysis_, ii. 24 _n._
+
+[552] _Ibid._ ii. 132-33.
+
+[553] _Analysis_, ii. 67-69.
+
+[554] _Analysis_, ii. 113 _n._
+
+[555] _Ibid._ i. 97 _n._
+
+[556] Professor Bain points out that Mill is occasionally confused by
+his ignorance of the triple division, intellect, feelings: and will,
+introduced in the next generation.--_Analysis_, ii. 180 _n._
+
+[557] _Analysis_, ii. 181-83.
+
+[558] _Analysis_, ii. 351.
+
+[559] Also privately printed in 1830. Later editions, edited by
+Whewell, appeared in 1836, 1862, 1873. I quote the last. See M.
+Napier's _Correspondence_, pp. 57-59, for the composition.
+
+[560] Mill's _Fragment_ (Preface).
+
+[561] See Bain's _James Mill_, pp. 374, 415-18.
+
+[562] _Fragment_, pp. 190, 192, 213, 298, 307, 326.
+
+[563] _Ibid._ p. 210.
+
+[564] _Ethical Philosophy_ (1873), pp. 188, 193.
+
+[565] M. Napier's _Correspondence_, p. 25.
+
+[566] _Essay on Sir J. Mackintosh._
+
+[567] _Essay on Lord Holland._
+
+[568] _Lectures_, p. 500 (Lect. lxxv.).
+
+[569] _Ibid._ p. 519 (Lect. lxxvii.).
+
+[570] _Ibid._ p. 522 (Lect. lxxviii.).
+
+[571] _Ethical Philosophy_ (Hobbes), pp. 62-64.
+
+[572] _Ibid._ p. 85.
+
+[573] _Ibid._ p. 145.
+
+[574] _Ibid._ p. 9.
+
+[575] _Ibid._ p. 120.
+
+[576] _Ethical Philosophy_, pp. 14, 170.
+
+[577] _Ibid._ p. 197.
+
+[578] _Ibid._ p. 248.
+
+[579] _Ibid._ p. 204.
+
+[580] _Ethical Philosophy_ p. 242.
+
+[581] _Ibid._ p. 251.
+
+[582] _Ibid._ p. 262.
+
+[583] _Ibid._ p. 264.
+
+[584] _Ibid._ p. 169.
+
+[585] _Fragment_, p. 173.
+
+[586] _Ibid._ p. 323.
+
+[587] _Ibid._ p. 221.
+
+[588] _Fragment_, p. 247. Mackintosh quotes Mill's _Analysis_ at p.
+197. It had only just appeared.
+
+[589] _Fragment_, p. 11.
+
+[590] _Fragment_, p. 246, etc.
+
+[591] _Ibid._ p. 246.
+
+[592] _Ibid._ pp. 269, 270.
+
+[593] Cf. Newman's _Apologia_. 'The Catholic Church holds it better
+for the sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and
+for all the millions on it to die of starvation in extremest agony, so
+far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul,--I will not say
+should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, tell one
+wilful untruth, or should steal one poor farthing without excuse.' I
+should steal the farthing and assume the 'excuse.' I confess that I
+would not only lie, but should think lying right under the supposed
+circumstances.
+
+[594] _Autobiography_, p. 51.
+
+[595] _Fragment_, p. 251.
+
+[596] Vol. i. p. 257.
+
+[597] _Fragment_, p. 161.
+
+[598] _Fragment_, pp. 315-16.
+
+[599] _Ibid._ p. 164.
+
+[600] _Ibid._ pp. 320-22.
+
+[601] _Fragment_, p. 102.
+
+[602] _Ibid._ p. 162.
+
+[603] _Analysis_, p. 73.
+
+[604] _Fragment_, p. 209.
+
+[605] _Fragment_, p. 316.
+
+[606] At one point, as J. S. Mill notes, he speaks of an 'unsatisfied
+desire' as a motive, which seems to indicate a present feeling; but
+this is not his usual view.--_Analysis_, ii. 361, 377 _n._
+
+[607] _Analysis_, ii. 233 _n._ Mill adds that though his father
+explains the 'intellectual,' he does not explain the 'animal' element
+in the affections. This, however, is irrelevant for my purpose.
+
+[608] _Fragment_, pp. 51-52.
+
+[609] _Analysis_, ii. 292-300; _Fragment_, pp. 247-65. Note Mill's
+interpretation of this theory of 'praiseworthiness.'--_Analysis_, ii.
+298 _n._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+RELIGION
+
+
+I. PHILIP BEAUCHAMP
+
+The application of Mill's _Analysis_ to the views of orthodox
+theologians required, one might have supposed, as little
+interpretation as a slap in the face. But a respectable philosopher
+may lay down what premises he pleases if he does not avowedly draw his
+conclusions. Mill could argue in perfect safety against the
+foundations of theology, while Richard Carlile was being sent to gaol
+again and again for attacking the superstructure. The Utilitarians
+thought themselves justified in taking advantage of the illogicality
+of mankind. Whether it was that the ruling powers had no philosophical
+principles themselves, or that they did not see what inferences would
+follow, or that they thought that the average person was incapable of
+drawing inferences, they drew the line at this point. You may openly
+maintain doctrines inconsistent with all theology, but you must not
+point out the inconsistency. The Utilitarians contented themselves
+with sapping the fort instead of risking an open assault. If its
+defenders were blind to the obvious consequences of the procedure, so
+much the better. In private, there was obviously no want of plain
+speaking. In Bentham's MSS. the Christian religion is nicknamed 'Jug'
+as the short for 'Juggernaut.' He and his friends were as anxious as
+Voltaire to crush the 'infamous,' but they would do it by indirect
+means. They argued resolutely for more freedom; and Samuel Bailey's
+essay upon the formation of opinions--a vigorous argument on behalf of
+the widest possible toleration--was enthusiastically praised by James
+Mill in the _Westminster Review_. For the present they carefully
+abstained from the direct avowal of obnoxious opinions, which were
+still legally punishable, and which would undoubtedly excite the
+strongest hostility. Bentham, as we have seen, had ventured, though
+anonymously, to assail the church catechism and to cross-examine St.
+Paul. One remarkable manifesto gave a fuller utterance to his
+opinions. A book called _The Analysis of the Influence of Natural
+Religion on the Temporal Happiness of Mankind_, by 'Philip Beauchamp,'
+appeared in 1822. The publisher was Richard Carlile, who was then
+'safe in Dorchester gaol.' No legal notice was taken of 'Philip
+Beauchamp.' The reason may have been that the book excited very little
+attention in general. Yet it is probably as forcible an attack as has
+often been written upon the popular theology. The name of 'Philip
+Beauchamp' covered a combination of Bentham and George Grote.[610] The
+book, therefore, represents the view of representative Utilitarians of
+the first and third generation, and clearly expressed the real
+opinions of the whole party. In his posthumous essays J. S. Mill
+speaks of it as the only explicit discussion known to him of the
+question of the utility, as distinguished from the question of the
+truth, of religion. Obviously, it was desirable to apply the universal
+test to religious belief, and this very pithy and condensed statement
+shows the result.
+
+A short summary may indicate the essence of the argument. It is only
+necessary to observe that the phrase 'natural religion' is part of the
+disguise. It enables the author to avoid an explicit attack upon
+revelation; but it is superabundantly obvious that the word 'natural'
+is superfluous. Revelation is really a fiction, and all religions are
+'natural.' A religion is called a 'superstition,' as 'Philip
+Beauchamp' remarks at starting, when its results are thought to be
+bad; and allowed to be a religion only when they are thought to be
+good.[611] That device covers the familiar fallacy of distinguishing
+between uses and abuses, and, upon that pretence, omitting to take bad
+consequences into account. We must avoid it by defining religion and
+then tracing all the consequences, good or bad. Religion is
+accordingly taken to mean the belief in the existence of 'an Almighty
+Being, by whom pains and pleasures will be dispensed to mankind during
+an infinite and future state of existence.' The definition is already
+characteristic. 'Religion' may be used in a far wider sense,
+corresponding to a philosophy of the universe, whether that
+philosophy does or does not include this particular doctrine. But
+'Philip Beauchamp's' assumption is convenient because it gives a
+rational reasoning to the problem of utility. Religion is taken to be
+something adventitious or superimposed upon other beliefs, and we can
+therefore intelligibly ask whether it does good or harm. Taking this
+definition for granted, let us consider the results.
+
+The first point is that we are of necessity in absolute ignorance as
+to a posthumous state. Now, fear is from our earliest infancy the
+'never-failing companion and offspring of ignorance.' Knowledge alone
+can rescue us from perpetual suffering, because all security depends
+upon knowledge. Pain, moreover, is far more 'pungent' and distinct
+than pleasure. 'Want and pain are natural; satisfaction and pleasure
+artificial and invented.' Pain, therefore, as the strongest, will
+dictate our anticipations. The hope of immortality is by the orthodox
+described as a blessing; but the truth, deducible from these
+principles of human nature and verified by experience, is that natural
+religion, instead of soothing apprehensions, adds fresh grounds of
+apprehension. A revelation, as 'Philip Beauchamp' admits, might
+conceivably dispel our fears; but he would obviously say that the
+religion which is taken to be revealed gives a far more vivid picture
+of hell than of heaven.[612] In the next place, it is 'obvious at
+first sight' that natural religion can properly give 'no rule of
+guidance.' It refers us to a region of 'desperate and unfathomable'
+darkness.[613] But it nevertheless indirectly suggests a pernicious
+rule. It rests entirely upon conjectures as to the character of the
+invisible Being who apportions pain or pleasure for inscrutable
+reasons. Will this Being be expected to approve useful or pernicious
+conduct? From men's language we might suppose that he is thought to be
+purely benevolent. Yet from their dogmas it would seem that he is a
+capricious tyrant. How are we to explain the discrepancy? The
+discrepancy is the infallible result of the circumstances already
+stated.[614] The Deity has limitless power, and therefore is the
+natural object of our instinctive fears. The character of the Deity is
+absolutely incomprehensible, and incomprehensibility in human affairs
+is identical with caprice and insanity.[615] The ends and the means of
+the Deity are alike beyond our knowledge; and the extremes both of
+wisdom and of folly are equally unaccountable. Now, we praise or blame
+human beings in order to affect their conduct towards us, to attract
+favours or repel injuries. A tyrant possessed of unlimited power
+considers that by simple abstinence from injury he deserves boundless
+gratitude. The weak will only dare to praise, and the strong will only
+blame. The slave-owner never praises and the slave never blames,
+because one can use the lash while the other is subject to the lash.
+If, then, we regard the invisible Being as a capricious despot, and,
+moreover, as a despot who knows every word we utter, we shall never
+speak of him without the highest eulogy, just because we attribute to
+him the most arbitrary tyranny. Hence, the invisible despot will
+specially favour the priests whose lives are devoted to supporting his
+authority, and, next to priests, those who, by the practice of
+ceremonies painful or useless to themselves, show that their sole aim
+is to give him pleasure. He will specially detest the atheists, and,
+next to atheists, all who venture to disregard his arbitrary laws. A
+human judge may be benevolent, because he is responsible to the
+community. They give and can take away his power. But the invisible
+and irresponsible ruler will have no motives for benevolence, and
+approve conduct pernicious to men because it is the best proof of a
+complete subservience to himself.[616] In spite of this, it has been
+generally asserted that religion supplies a motive, and the only
+adequate motive, to moral conduct. But the decay of religion would
+leave the sources of pain and pleasure unchanged. To say, then, that
+the conduct prescribed by religion would disappear if the religious
+motives were removed is virtually to admit that it produces no
+'temporal benefit.' Otherwise, the motives for practising such conduct
+would not be affected. In fact, morality is the same in all countries,
+though the injunctions of religion are various and contradictory. If
+religion ordered only what is useful, it would coincide with human
+laws, and be at worst superfluous. As a fact, it condemns the most
+harmless pleasures, such as the worst of human legislators have never
+sought to suppress. People have become tolerant, that is, they have
+refused to enforce religious observances, precisely because they have
+seen that such observances cannot be represented as conducive to
+temporal happiness.
+
+Duty, again, may be divided into duty to God and duty to man. Our
+'duty to God' is a 'deduction from the pleasures of the individual
+without at all benefiting the species.' It must therefore be taken as
+a tax paid for the efficacy supposed to be communicated to the other
+branch--the 'duty to man.'[617] Does religion, then, stimulate our
+obedience to the code of duty to man? 'Philip Beauchamp' admits for
+once that, in certain cases, it '_might possibly_' be useful. It might
+affect 'secret crimes,' that is, crimes where the offender is
+undiscoverable. That, however, is a trifle. These cases, he thinks,
+would be 'uncommonly rare' under a well-conceived system. The extent
+of evil in this life would therefore be trifling were superhuman
+inducements entirely effaced from the human bosom, and if 'human
+institutions were ameliorated according to the progress of
+philosophy.'[618] On the other hand, the imaginary punishments are
+singularly defective in the qualities upon which Bentham had insisted
+in human legislation. They are remote and uncertain, and to make up
+for this are represented as boundless in intensity and durability. For
+that reason, they precisely reverse the admitted principle that
+punishment should be so devised as to produce the greatest possible
+effect by the smallest infliction of pain. Supernatural sanctions are
+supposed to maximise pain with a minimum of effect. The fear of hell
+rarely produces any effect till a man is dying, and then inflicts
+great suffering, though it has been totally inefficient as a
+preventive at the time of temptation. The influence of supernatural
+penalties is therefore in 'an inverse ratio to the demand for
+it.'[619] In reality, the efficacy of the sanctions is due to their
+dependence upon public opinion. Our real motive for acting rightly is
+our desire for the praise of our fellows and our interest in their
+good conduct. We conceal this motive even from ourselves, because we
+wish to have the credit of serving the Deity exclusively. This is
+confirmed by the familiar instances of a conflict between public
+opinion and religious sanctions. Duelling, fornication, and perjury
+are forbidden by the divine law, but the prohibition is ineffectual
+whenever the real sentiment of mankind is opposed to it. The divine
+law is set aside as soon as it conflicts with the popular opinion. In
+exceptional cases, indeed, the credit attached to unreasonable
+practices leads to fanaticism, asceticism, and even insanity; but
+superhuman terrors fail at once when they try to curb the action of
+genuine substantial motives. Hence we must admit that they are useless
+in the case even of 'secret crimes.' Religion, in short, prescribes
+mischievous practices, becomes impotent except for the production of
+misery, and is really, though not avowedly, dependent on the popular
+sanction.[620]
+
+We can now classify the evils actually produced. Religion injures
+individuals by prescribing useless and painful practices: fasting,
+celibacy, voluntary self-torture, and so forth. It suggests vague
+terrors which often drive the victim to insanity, and it causes
+remorse for harmless enjoyments.[621] Religion injures society by
+creating antipathies against unbelievers, and in a less degree against
+heretics and nonconformists. It perverts public opinion by making
+innocent actions blameable; by distorting the whole science of
+morality and sanctioning the heterogeneous dictates of a certain blind
+and unaccountable impulse called the 'moral instinct or
+conscience.'[622] Morality becomes a 'mere catalogue of reigning
+sentiments,' because it has cast away the standard of utility. A
+special aversion to improvement is generated, because whatever
+changes our conceptions of the 'sequences of phenomena' is supposed to
+break the divine 'laws of nature.' 'Unnatural' becomes a
+'self-justifying' epithet forbidding any proposed change of conduct,
+which will counteract the 'designs of God.' Religion necessarily
+injures intellectual progress. It disjoins belief from its only safe
+ground, experience. The very basis, the belief in an inscrutable and
+arbitrary power, sanctions supernatural or 'extra-experimental'
+beliefs of all kinds. You reject in the case of miracles all the tests
+applicable to ordinary instruction, and appeal to trial by ordeal
+instead of listening to witnesses. Instead of taking the trouble to
+plough and sow, you expect to get a harvest by praying to an
+inscrutable Being. You marry without means, because you hold that God
+never sends a child without sending food for it to eat. Meanwhile you
+suborn 'unwarranted belief' by making belief a matter of reward and
+penalty. It is made a duty to dwell upon the arguments upon one side
+without attending to those upon the other, and 'the weaker the
+evidence the greater the merit in believing.'[623] The temper is
+depraved not only by the antipathies generated, but by the 'fitful and
+intermittent character' of the inducements to conduct.[624]
+
+The final result of all this is still more serious. It is that
+religion, besides each separate mischief, 'subsidises a standing army
+for the perpetuation of all the rest.'[625] The priest gains power as
+a 'wonder-worker,' who knows how to propitiate the invisible Being,
+and has a direct interest in 'depraving the intellect,' cherishing
+superstition, surrounding himself with mysteries, representing the
+will of the Deity as arbitrary and capricious, and forming an
+organised 'array of human force and fraud.'[626] The priesthood sets
+up an infallible head, imposes upon the weak and dying, stimulates
+antipathy, forms the mass of 'extra-experimental' beliefs into the
+likeness of a science, and allies itself with the state. Heresy
+becomes a crime. The ruler helps the priests to raise a tax for their
+own comfort, while they repay him by suppressing all seditious
+opinions. Thus is formed an unholy alliance between the authorities of
+'natural religion' and the 'sinister interests of the earth.' The
+alliance is so complete that it is even more efficient than if it had
+been openly proclaimed. 'Prostration and plunder of the community is
+indeed the common end of both' (priests and rulers). The only chance
+of dissension is about the 'partition of the spoil.'[627]
+
+The book is as characteristic of the Utilitarians in style as in
+spirit. It is terse, vigorous reasoning, with no mere rhetorical
+flourishes. The consequences of the leading principle are deduced
+without flinching and without reserve. Had the authors given their
+names, they would no doubt have excited antipathies injurious to the
+propaganda of Utilitarianism. They held, for that reason presumably,
+that they were not bound to point out the ultimate goal of their
+speculations. No intelligent reader of their other writings could fail
+to see what that goal must be; but an 'open secret' is still for many
+purposes a real secret. Whatever might be the suspicions of their
+antagonists, they could only be accused of a tendency. The book
+amounts to an admission that the suspicions were well founded.
+Utilitarianism, the Utilitarians clearly recognised, logically implied
+the rejection of all theology. Religion--on their understanding of the
+word--must, like everything else, be tested by its utility, and it was
+shown to be either useless or absolutely pernicious. The aim of the
+Utilitarians was, in brief, to be thoroughly scientific. The man of
+science must be opposed to the belief in an inscrutable agent of
+boundless power, interfering at every point with the laws of nature,
+and a product of the fancy instead of the reason. Such a conception,
+so far as accepted, makes all theory of human conduct impossible,
+suggests rules conflicting with the supreme rule of utility, and gives
+authority to every kind of delusion, imposture, and 'sinister
+interest.'
+
+It would, I think, be difficult to mention a more vigorous discussion
+of the problem stated. As anonymous, it could be ignored instead of
+answered; and probably such orthodox persons as read it assumed it to
+be a kind of _reductio ad absurdum_ of the Utilitarian creed. It might
+follow, they could admit, logically from the Utilitarian analysis of
+human nature, but it could only prove that the analysis was
+fundamentally wrong. Yet its real significance is precisely its
+thorough applicability to the contemporary state of opinion.
+Beauchamp's definition coincides with Paley's. The coincidence was
+inevitable. Utilitarians both in ethical and philosophical questions
+start from the same assumptions as Paley, and the Paley doctrine gave
+the pith of the dominant theology. I have observed that the Scottish
+philosophers had abandoned the _a priori_ argument, and laid the whole
+stress of their theological doctrine upon Paley's argument from final
+causes. The change of base was an inevitable consequence of their
+whole system. They appealed to experience, to 'Baconian' methods, and
+to 'inductive psychology.' The theory of 'intuitions,' effective where
+it fell in with admitted beliefs, was idle against an atheist, who
+denied that he had the intuition. The 'final causes' argument,
+however, rested upon common ground, and supplied a possible line of
+defence. The existence of the Deity could perhaps be proved
+empirically, like the existence of the 'watchmaker.' Accordingly, this
+was the argument upon which reliance was really placed by the average
+theologian of the time. Metaphysical or ontological reasoning had been
+discarded for plain common-sense. The famous _Bridgewater Treatises_
+are the characteristic product of the period. It had occurred to the
+earl of Bridgewater, who died in 1829, that L8000 from his estate
+might be judiciously spent in proving the existence of a benevolent
+creator. The council of the Royal Society employed eight eminent men
+of science to carry out this design.[628] They wrote some interesting
+manuals of popular science, interspersed with proper theological
+applications. The arguments were sincere enough, though they now seem
+to overlook with singular blindness the answer which would be
+suggested by the 'evolutionist.' The logical result is, in any case, a
+purely empirical theology. The religion which emerges is not a
+philosophy or theory of the world in general, but corresponds to a
+belief in certain matters of fact (or fiction). The existence of the
+Deity is to be proved, like the existence of Caesar, by special
+evidence.
+
+The main results are obvious. The logical base of the whole creed is
+'natural theology,' and 'natural theology' is simply a branch of
+science, amenable to the ordinary scientific tests. It is intended to
+prove the existence of an agent essential to the working of the
+machinery, as from the movements of a planet we infer the existence of
+a disturbing planet. The argument from design, in this acceptation, is
+briefly mentioned by 'Philip Beauchamp.' It is, he argues, 'completely
+extra-experimental'; for experience only reveals design in living
+beings: it supposes a pre-existing chaos which can never be shown to
+have existed, and the 'omnipotent will' introduced to explain the
+facts is really no explanation at all, but a collection of meaningless
+words.[629] The argument is briefly dismissed as concerning the truth,
+not the utility, of religion, but one point is sufficiently indicated.
+The argument from 'design' is always plausible, because it applies
+reasoning undeniably valid when it is applied within its proper
+sphere. The inference from a watch to a watchmaker is clearly
+conclusive. We know sufficiently what is meant by the watchmaker and
+by 'making.' We therefore reason to a _vera causa_--an agent already
+known. When the inference is to the action of an inconceivable Being
+performing an inconceivable operation upon inconceivable materials, it
+really becomes illusory, or amounts to the simple assertion that the
+phenomenon is inexplicable. Therefore, again, it is essentially
+opposed to science though claiming to be scientific. The action of
+the creator is supposed to begin where the possibility of knowledge
+ends. It is just the inexplicable element which suggests the creative
+agency. Conversely, the satisfactory explanation of any phenomenon
+takes it out of the theological sphere. As soon as the process becomes
+'natural' it ceases to demand the supernatural artificer. 'Making,'
+therefore, is contradistinguished from 'growing.' If we see how the
+eye has come into existence, we have no longer any reason to assume
+that it was put together mechanically. In other words, 'teleology' of
+this variety is dispelled by theories of evolution. The hypothesis of
+interference becomes needless when we see how things came to be by
+working out perfectly natural processes. As science, therefore,
+expands, theology recedes. This was to become more evident at a later
+period. For the present, the teleological argument in the Paley form,
+triumphantly set forth in Bridgewater Treatises and the like, rested
+the defence of theology on the proofs of the discontinuity of the
+universe and the consequent necessity for admitting supernatural
+interference. Science was therefore invoked to place absolute limits
+on its own progress.
+
+But other vital difficulties were already felt. The argument from
+contrivance naturally implies limitation. The maker of a machine is
+strictly limited by the properties of the matter upon which he works.
+The inference might be verbally saved by saying that the maker was
+'potentially' omnipotent; but the argument, so far as it goes, is more
+easily satisfied by the hypothesis of a Being of great but still
+limited powers. The Deity so proved, if the proof be valid, is not
+himself the ground of the universe, the source from which nature
+itself emanates, as well as the special laws of nature, but a part of
+the whole system; interfering, guiding, and controlling, but still
+only one of the powers which contribute to the formation of the whole.
+Hence arise questions which theologians rather evaded than attempted
+to answer. If with the help of Paley we can prove the existence of an
+invisible Being--potentially omnipotent, though always operating as
+though limited--there would still remain the question as to his
+attributes. He is skilful, we may grant, but is he benevolent or is he
+moral? The benevolence could of course be asserted by optimists, if
+facts were amenable to rhetoric. But a theory which is essentially
+scientific or empirical, and consistently argues from the effect to
+the cause, must start from an impartial view of the facts, and must
+make no presupposition as to the nature of the cause. The cause is
+known only through the effects, and our judgment of them cannot be
+modified by simply discovering that they are caused. If, then,
+contrivance is as manifest in disease as in health, in all the
+sufferings which afflict mankind as well as in the pleasures which
+solace him, we must either admit that the creator is not benevolent,
+or frankly admit that he is not omnipotent and fall into Manichaeism.
+Nature, we are frequently told, is indifferent if not cruel; and
+though Paley and his followers choose to shut their eyes to ugly
+facts, it could be only by sacrificing their logic. They were bound to
+prove from observation that the world was so designed as to secure the
+'greatest happiness' before they could logically infer a purely
+benevolent designer. It was of the very essence of their position that
+observed facts should be the ultimate basis of the whole theory; and
+to alter the primary data by virtue of deductions drawn from them
+could obviously not be logically justifiable.
+
+Such reflections, though sufficiently obvious, might be too far from
+practical application to have much immediate effect. But the question
+of the moral bearing of theology was of more interest; and, here, the
+coincidence of the Utilitarianism with the accepted theology of the
+day is especially important. The Deity regarded as the artificer
+appears to be far from purely benevolent. In respect to morality, is
+he not simply indifferent? Does he not make men fragile and place them
+amidst pitfalls? Does he not constantly slay the virtuous and save the
+wicked? How, indeed, from the purely empirical or scientific base, do
+you deduce any moral attributes whatever? 'Natural theology,' as it
+was called, might reveal a contriver, but could it reveal a judge or a
+moral guide? Here the difficulty of a purely matter-of-fact theology
+made itself felt on many sides. The remarkable influence of Butler
+upon many minds was partly due to a perception of this omission.
+Butler avowedly appeals to the conscience, and therefore at least
+recognises God as directly revealed in a moral character. That seemed
+to supply a gap in the ordinary theology. But in the purely empirical
+view Butler's argument was untenable. It appealed to one of the
+'intuitions' which were incompatible with its fundamental assumptions.
+The compunctions of conscience were facts to be explained by
+'association,' not to be regarded as intimations of wrath. Butler's
+view might be inverted. The 'conscience' does, in truth, suggest the
+divine wrath; but that only means that it suggests the quack remedies
+upon which 'wonder-working' priests establish their power. Instead of
+proving the truth of the religion, it explains the origin of
+superstition. To James Mill, as we have seen, Butler's argument would
+logically prove not a righteous governor but a cruel creator.
+Theologians, again, of the Paley school, were bound in consistency to
+the empirical or Utilitarian view of morality. Paley accepted the
+consequences unreservedly; and if such philosophers as Brown and
+Mackintosh persisted in regarding the coincidence between morality and
+happiness as indicative of a pre-established harmony, not of an
+identification of morality with the pursuit of general happiness, they
+still admitted that 'utility' was the 'criterion' of morality. The
+moral law, that is, coincides in its substance with the law, 'maximise
+happiness,' and happiness means, as 'Philip Beauchamp' calls it,
+'temporal' happiness--the happiness of actual men living in this world
+and knowing nothing of any external world. How, then, is the moral law
+related to theology? To know what is moral, we must appeal to
+experience and 'utility.' We must discover what makes for happiness,
+just as in medicine we must discover what makes for health or
+pleasure, by the ordinary methods of observation. What place is left
+for any supernatural intervention? The ostensible answer was that
+though the moral code could be deduced from its utility, the motives
+by which it was to be enforced required some supernatural agency. The
+natural man might see what was right, but need not therefore do what
+was right. Here 'Philip Beauchamp' comes to a direct issue with the
+theologians. He denies that the supernatural motive will be on the
+side of morality. When J. S. Mill remarked that there had been few
+discussions of the 'utility' as distinguished from the truth of
+religion, he scarcely recognises one conspicuous fact. The great
+argument of divines had always been the absolute necessity of religion
+to morality; and if morality be understood to mean utility, this is
+simply an argument from utility. The point, indeed, was often taken
+for granted; but it certainly represents one of the strongest
+persuasives, if not one of the strongest reasons. The divines, in
+fact, asserted that religion was of the highest utility as supplying
+the motive for moral conduct. What motives, then, can be derived from
+such knowledge of the Deity as is attainable from the 'Natural
+theology' argument? How can we prove from it that he who puts the
+world together is more favourable to the virtues than to the vices
+which are its results; or, if more favourable, that he shows any other
+favour than can be inferred from experience? He has, it is agreed, put
+men, as Bentham had said, under the command of two sovereign masters,
+Pleasure and Pain; and has enabled them to calculate consequences, and
+therefore to seek future pleasure and avoid future pain. That only
+proves that we can increase our happiness by prudence; but it suggests
+no additional reasons either for seeking happiness or for altering our
+estimate of happiness. As 'Philip Beauchamp' argues, we cannot from
+the purely empirical ground get any motive for taking into account
+anything beyond our 'temporal' or secular interests. This, again, was
+in fact admitted by Paley. His mode of escape from the dilemma is
+familiar. The existence of a supreme artificer is inferred from the
+interventions in the general order of nature. The existence of a moral
+ruler, or the fact that the ruler approves morality, is inferred from
+his interference by the particular manifestations of power which we
+call miraculous. We know that actions will have other consequences
+than those which can be inferred from our own experience, because some
+two thousand years ago a Being appeared who could raise the dead and
+heal the sick. If sufficient evidence of the fact be forthcoming, we
+are entitled to say upon his authority that the wicked will be damned
+and the virtuous go to heaven. Obedience to the law enforced by these
+sanctions is obviously prudent, and constitutes the true _differentia_
+of moral conduct. Virtue, according to the famous definition, is doing
+good 'for the sake of everlasting happiness.' The downright bluntness
+with which Paley announced these conclusions startled contemporaries,
+and yet it must be admitted that they were a natural outcome of his
+position.
+
+In short, the theological position of the Paley school and the
+Utilitarian position of 'Philip Beauchamp' start from the common
+ground of experience. Religion means the knowledge of certain facts,
+which are to be inferred from appropriate evidence. It does not modify
+the whole system of thought, but simply adds certain corollaries; and
+the whole question is whether the corollaries are or are not proved by
+legitimate reasoning. Can we discover heaven and hell as we discovered
+America? Can observation of nature reveal to us a supernatural world?'
+The first difficulty is that the argument for natural theology has to
+rest upon interference, not upon order, and therefore comes into
+conflict with the first principles of scientific procedure. The Deity
+is revealed not by the rational but by the arbitrary; and the more the
+world is explained, the less the proof that he exists, because the
+narrower the sphere of his action. Then, as such a Deity, even if
+proved, is not proved to be benevolent or moral, we have to rely for
+the moral element upon the evidence of 'miracles,' that is, again, of
+certain interruptions of order. The scientific tendency more or less
+embodied in Protestantism, so far as it appealed to reason or to
+'private judgment,' had, moreover, made it necessary to relegate
+miracles to a remote period, while denying them at the present. To
+prove at once that there are no miracles now, and that there were a
+few miracles two thousand years ago, was really hopeless. In fact, the
+argument had come to be stated in an artificial form which had no real
+relation to the facts. If the apostles had been a jury convinced by a
+careful legal examination of the evidence; if they had pronounced
+their verdict, in spite of the knowledge that they would be put to
+death for finding it, there would have been some force in Paley's
+argument. But then they had not. To assume such an origin for any
+religion implied a total misconception of the facts. Paley assumed
+that the apostles resembled twelve respectable deans of Carlisle
+solemnly declaring, in spite of the most appalling threats, that John
+Wesley had been proved to have risen from the dead. Paley might
+plausibly urge that such an event would require a miracle. But,
+meanwhile, his argument appeared to rest the whole case for morality
+and religion upon this narrow and perilous base. We can only know that
+it is our interest to be moral if we know of heaven and hell; and we
+only know of heaven and hell if we accept the evidence of miracles,
+and infer that the worker of miracles had supernatural sources of
+information. The moral difficulty which emerges is obvious. The Paley
+conception of the Deity is, in fact, coincident with Bentham's
+conception of the sovereign. He is simply an invisible sovereign,
+operating by tremendous sanctions. The sanctions are 'external,' that
+is to say, pains and pleasures, annexed to conduct by the volition of
+the sovereign, not intrinsic consequences of the conduct itself. Such
+a conception, thoroughly carried through, makes the relation between
+religion and morality essentially arbitrary. Moreover, if with 'Philip
+Beauchamp' we regard the miracle argument as obviously insufficient,
+and consider what are the attributes really attributed to the
+sovereign, we must admit that they suggest such a system as he
+describes rather than the revelation of an all-wise and benevolent
+ruler. It is true, as 'Philip Beauchamp' argues, that the system has
+all the faults of the worst human legislation; that the punishment is
+made atrociously--indeed infinitely--severe to compensate for its
+uncertainty and remoteness; and that (as he would clearly add), to
+prevent it from shocking and stunning the intellect, it is regarded as
+remissible in consideration of vicarious suffering. If, then, the
+religion is really what its dogmas declare, it is easier to assume
+that it represents the cunning of a priesthood operating upon the
+blind fears and wild imaginations of an inaccessible world; and the
+ostensible proofs of a divine origin resting upon miraculous proofs
+are not worth consideration. It professes to be a sanction to all
+morality, but is forced to construct a mythology which outrages all
+moral considerations. Taken as a serious statement of fact, the
+anthropomorphism of the vulgar belief was open to the objections which
+Socrates brought against the Pagan mythology. The supreme ruler was
+virtually represented as arbitrary, cruel, and despotic.
+
+If we ask the question, whether in point of fact the religion attacked
+by 'Philip Beauchamp' fairly represented the religion of the day, we
+should have, of course, to admit that it was in one sense a gross
+caricature. If, that is, we asked what were the real roots of the
+religious zeal of Wilberforce and the Evangelicals, or of the
+philanthropists with whom even James Mill managed to associate on
+friendly terms, it would be the height of injustice to assume that
+they tried to do good simply from fear of hell and hope of heaven, or
+that their belief in Christianity was due to a study of Paley's
+_Evidences_. Their real motives were far nobler: genuine hatred of
+injustice and sympathy for suffering, joined to the conviction that
+the sects to which they belonged were working on the side of justice
+and happiness; while the creeds which they accepted were somehow
+congenial to their best feelings, and enabled them to give utterance
+to their deepest emotions. But when they had to give a ground for that
+belief they could make no adequate defence. They were better than
+their ostensible creed, because the connection of their creed with
+their morality was really arbitrary and traditional. We must always
+distinguish between the causes of strong convictions and the reasons
+officially assigned for them. The religious creed, as distinguished
+from the religious sentiment, was really traditional, and rested upon
+the simple fact that it was congenial to the general frame of mind.
+Its philosophy meanwhile had become hopelessly incoherent. It wished
+to be sensible, and admitted in principle the right of 'private
+judgment' or rationalism so far as consistent with Protestantism. The
+effect had been that in substance it had become Utilitarian and
+empirical; while it had yet insisted upon holding on to the
+essentially irrational element.
+
+The religious tradition was becoming untenable in this sense at the
+same time as the political tradition. If radicalism in both were to be
+effectually resisted, some better foundation must be found for
+conservatism. I should be tempted to say that a critical period was
+approaching, did I not admit that every period can always be described
+as critical. In fact, however, thoughtful people, perceiving on the
+one hand that the foundations of their creed were shaking, and yet
+holding it to be essential to their happiness, began to take a new
+position. The 'Oxford movement,' started soon afterwards, implied a
+conviction that the old Protestant position was as untenable as the
+radical asserted. Its adherents attempted to find a living and visible
+body whose supernatural authority might maintain the old dogmatic
+system. Liberal thinkers endeavoured to spiritualise the creed and
+prove its essential truths by philosophy, independently of the
+particular historical evidence. The popular tendency was to admit in
+substance that the dogmas most assailed were in fact immoral: but to
+put them into the background, or, if necessary, to explain them away.
+The stress was to be laid not upon miracles, but upon the moral
+elevation of Christianity or the beauty of character of its founder.
+The 'unsectarian' religion, represented in the most characteristic
+writings of the next generation, in Tennyson and Browning, Thackeray
+and Dickens, reflects this view. Such men detested the coarse and
+brutalising dogmas which might be expounded as the true 'scheme of
+salvation' by ignorant preachers seeking to rouse sluggish natures to
+excitement; but they held to religious conceptions which, as they
+thought, really underlay these disturbing images, and which, indeed,
+could hardly be expressed in any more definite form than that of a
+hope or a general attitude of the whole character. The problem seemed
+to be whether we shall support a dogmatic system by recognising a
+living spiritual authority, or frankly accept reason as the sole
+authority, and, while explaining away the repulsive dogmas, try to
+retain the real essence of religious belief.
+
+
+II. CONTEMPORARY THOUGHT
+
+If I were writing a general history of opinion, it would be necessary
+to discuss the views of Mill's English contemporaries; to note their
+attitude in regard to the Utilitarian position, and point out how they
+prepared the way for the later developments of thought. The
+Utilitarians were opposed to a vague sentiment rather than to any
+definite system. They were a small and a very unpopular sect. They
+excited antipathy on all sides. As advocating republicanism, they were
+hardly more disliked by the Tories, who directly opposed them, than by
+the Whigs, who might be suspected of complicity. As enthusiastic
+political economists, they were equally detested by sentimental
+Radicals, Socialists, and by all who desired a strong government,
+whether for the suppression of social evils or the maintenance of
+social abuses. And now, as suspected of atheism, they were hated by
+theologians. But though the Utilitarians were on all sides condemned
+and denounced, they were met by no definite and coherent scheme of
+philosophy. The philosophy of Stewart and Brown had at least a strong
+drift in their direction. Though 'political economy' was denounced in
+general terms, all who spoke with authority accepted Adam Smith. Their
+political opponents generally did not so much oppose their theories as
+object to theory in general. The Utilitarian system might be both
+imperfect and dogmatic; but it had scarcely to contend with any clear
+and assignable rival. The dislike of Englishmen to any systematic
+philosophy, whether founded upon the national character or chiefly due
+to special conditions, was still conspicuous outside of the small
+Utilitarian camp.
+
+To discover, therefore, the true position of contemporary opinion, we
+should have to look elsewhere. Instead of seeking for the philosophers
+who did not exist, we should have to examine the men of letters who
+expressed the general tendencies. In Germany, philosophical theories
+may be held to represent the true drift of the national mind, and a
+historian of German thought would inquire into the various systems
+elaborated by professors of philosophy. He would at least be in no
+want of materials for definite logical statements. In England, there
+was no such intellectual movement. There we should have to consider
+poetry and literature; to read Wordsworth and Coleridge, Scott and
+Byron and Shelley, if we would know what men were really thinking and
+feeling. The difficulty is, of course, that none of these men, unless
+Coleridge be an exception, had any conscious or systematic philosophy.
+We can only ask, therefore, what they would have said if they had
+been requested to justify their views by abstract reasoning; and that
+is a rather conjectural and indefinite enterprise. It lies,
+fortunately, outside of my field; and it will be enough if I try to
+suggest one or two sufficiently vague hints. In the first place, the
+contrast between the Utilitarians and their opponents may almost be
+identified with the contrast between the prosaic and the poetical
+aspects of the world in general. Bentham frankly objected to poetry in
+general. It proved nothing. The true Utilitarian was the man who held
+on to fact, and to nothing but the barest, most naked and unadorned
+fact. Poetry in general came within the sweep of his denunciations of
+'sentimentalism' and 'vague generalities.' It was the 'production of a
+rude age'; the silly jingling which might be suitable to savages, but
+was needless for the grown-up man, and was destined to disappear along
+with the whole rubbish of mythology and superstition in whose service
+it had been enlisted. There is indeed a natural sympathy between any
+serious view of life and a distrust of the aesthetic tendencies.
+Theologians of many different types have condemned men for dallying
+with the merely pleasurable, when they ought to be preoccupied with
+the great ethical problems or the safety of their souls. James Mill
+had enough of the old Puritan in him to sympathise with Carlyle's
+aspiration, 'May the devil fly away with the fine arts!' To such men
+it was difficult to distinguish between fiction and lying; and if some
+concession might be made to human weakness, poets and novelists might
+supply the relaxations and serve to fill up the intervals of life, but
+must be sternly excluded if they tried to intrude into serious
+studies. Somehow love of the beautiful only interfered with the
+scientific investigation of hard facts.
+
+Poets, indeed, may take the side of reform, or may perhaps be
+naturally expected to take that side. The idealist and the dreamer
+should be attracted most powerfully by the visions of a better world
+and the restoration of the golden age. Shelley was among the most
+enthusiastic prophets of the coming era. His words, he hoped, were to
+be 'the trumpet of a prophecy' to 'unawakened earth.' Shelley had sat
+at the feet of Godwin, and represented that vague metaphysical
+dreaming to which the Utilitarians were radically hostile. To the
+literary critic, Shelley's power is the more remarkable because from a
+flimsy philosophy he span an imaginative tissue of such magical and
+marvellous beauty. But Shelley dwelt in an ethereal region, where
+ordinary beings found breathing difficult. There facts seemed to
+dissolve into thin air instead of supplying a solid and substantial
+base. His idealism meant unreality. His 'trumpet' did not in fact
+stimulate the mass of mankind, and his fame at this period was
+confined to a few young gentlemen of literary refinement. The man who
+had really stirred the world was Byron; and if the decline of Byron's
+fame has resulted partly from real defects, it is partly due also to
+the fact that his poetry was so admirably adapted to his
+contemporaries. Byron at least could see facts as clearly as any
+Utilitarian, though fact coloured by intense passion. He, like the
+Utilitarians, hated solemn platitudes and hypocritical conventions. I
+have noticed the point at which he came into contact with Bentham's
+disciples. His pathetic death shortly afterwards excited a singularly
+strong movement of sympathy. 'The news of his death,' said Carlyle at
+the time, 'came upon my heart like a mass of lead; and yet the thought
+of it sends a painful twinge through all my being, as if I had lost a
+brother.' At a later time he defines Byron as 'a dandy of sorrows and
+acquainted with grief.'[630] That hits off one aspect of Byronism.
+Byron was the Mirabeau of English literature, in so far as he was at
+once a thorough aristocrat and a strong revolutionist. He had the
+qualification of a true satirist. His fate was at discord with his
+character. He was proud of his order, and yet despised its actual
+leaders. He was ready alternately to boast of his vices and to be
+conscious that they were degrading. He shocked the respectable world
+by mocking 'Satanically,' as they held, at moral conventions, and yet
+rather denounced the hypocrisy and the heartlessness of precisians
+than insulted the real affections. He covered sympathy with human
+suffering under a mask of misanthropy, and attacked war and oppression
+in the character of a reckless outlaw. Full of the affectation of a
+'dandy,' he was yet rousing all Europe by a cry of pure
+sentimentalism. It would be absurd to attribute any definite doctrine
+to Byron. His scepticism in religious matters was merely part of a
+general revolt against respectability. What he illustrates is the
+vague but profound revolutionary sentiment which indicated a belief
+that the world seemed to be out of joint, and a vehement protest
+against the selfish and stolid conservatism which fancied that the old
+order could be preserved in all its fossil institutions and
+corresponding dogmas.
+
+What was the philosophy congenial to Conservatism? There is, of
+course, the simple answer, None. Toryism was a 'reaction' due to the
+great struggle of the war and the excesses of the revolution. A
+'reaction' is a very convenient phrase. We are like our fathers; then
+the resemblance is only natural. We differ; then the phrase 'reaction'
+makes the alteration explain itself. No doubt, however, there was in
+some sense a reaction. Many people changed their minds as the
+revolutionary movement failed to fulfil their hopes. I need not argue
+now that such men were not necessarily corrupt renegades. I can only
+try to indicate the process by which they were led towards certain
+philosophical doctrines. Scott, Wordsworth, and Coleridge represent it
+enough for my purpose. When Mill was reproaching Englishmen for their
+want of interest in history, he pointed out that Thierry, 'the
+earliest of the three great French historians' (Guizot and Michelet
+are the two others), ascribed his interest in his subject to
+_Ivanhoe_.[631] Englishmen read _Ivanhoe_ simply for amusement.
+Frenchmen could see that it threw a light upon history, or at least
+suggested a great historical problem. Scott, it is often said, was the
+first person to teach us that our ancestors were once as much alive as
+ourselves. Scott, indeed, the one English writer whose fame upon the
+Continent could be compared to Byron's, had clearly no interest in, or
+capacity for, abstract speculations. An imaginative power, just
+falling short of the higher poetical gift, and a masculine
+common-sense were his most conspicuous faculties. The two qualities
+were occasionally at issue; his judgment struggled with his
+prejudices, and he sympathised too keenly with the active leaders and
+concrete causes to care much for any abstract theory. Yet his
+influence upon thought, though indirect, was remarkable. The vividness
+of his historical painting--inaccurate, no doubt, and delightfully
+reckless of dates and facts--stimulated the growing interest in
+historical inquiries even in England. His influence in one direction
+is recognised by Newman, who was perhaps thinking chiefly of his
+mediaevalism.[632] But the historical novels are only one side of
+Scott. Patriotic to the core, he lived at a time when patriotic
+feeling was stimulated to the utmost, and when Scotland in particular
+was still a province, and yet in many ways the most vigorous and
+progressive part of a great empire. He represents patriotism
+stimulated by contact with cosmopolitan movements. Loving every local
+peculiarity, painting every class from the noble to the peasant,
+loving the old traditions, and yet sharing the great impulses of the
+day, Scott was able to interest the world at large. While the most
+faithful portrayer of the special national type, he has too much sense
+not to be well aware that picturesque cattle-stealers and Jacobite
+chiefs were things of the past; but he loves with his whole heart the
+institutions rooted in the past and rich in historical associations.
+He transferred to poetry and fiction the political doctrine of Burke.
+To him, the revolutionary movement was simply a solvent, corroding all
+the old ties because it sapped the old traditions, and tended to
+substitute a mob for a nation. The continuity of national life seemed
+to him the essential condition; and a nation was not a mere aggregate
+of separate individuals, but an ancient organism, developing on an
+orderly system--where every man had his rightful place, and the
+beggar, as he observes in the _Antiquary_, was as ready as the noble
+to rise against foreign invasion. To him, the kings or priests who, to
+the revolutionist, represented simple despotism, represented part of a
+rough but manly order, in which many virtues were conspicuous and the
+governing classes were discharging great functions. Though he did not
+use the phrase, the revolutionary or radical view was hateful to him
+on account of its 'individualism.' It meant the summary destruction of
+all that he cherished most warmly in order to carry out theories
+altogether revolting to his common-sense. The very roots of a sound
+social order depend upon the traditions and accepted beliefs which
+bind together clans or families, and assign to every man a
+satisfactory function in life. The vivid realisation of history goes
+naturally with a love--excessive or reasonable--of the old order; and
+Scott, though writing carelessly to amuse idle readers, was
+stimulating the historical conceptions, which, for whatever reason,
+were most uncongenial to the Utilitarian as to all the revolutionists.
+
+The more conscious philosophical application is illustrated by
+Wordsworth and Coleridge. Both of them had shared the truly
+revolutionary enthusiasm, and both came in time to be classed with the
+Tories. Both, as will be seen, had a marked influence upon J. S. Mill.
+Wordsworth has written in the _Prelude_ one of the most remarkable of
+intellectual autobiographies. He was to be, though he never quite
+succeeded in being, a great philosophical poet. He never succeeded,
+because, in truth, he was not a great philosopher. But no one has
+more clearly indicated the history of his mental evolution. His
+sympathy with the revolution was perfectly genuine, but involved a
+vast misconception. A sturdy, independent youth, thoroughly imbued
+with the instincts of his northern dalesmen, he had early leaned to a
+republican sentiment. His dislike of the effete conventionalism of the
+literary creed blended with his aversion to the political rule of the
+time. He caught the contagion of revolutionary enthusiasm in France,
+and was converted by the sight of the 'hunger-bitten' peasant
+girl--the victim of aristocratic oppression. 'It is against that,'
+said his friend, 'that we are fighting,' and so far Wordsworth was a
+convert. The revolution, therefore, meant to him the restoration of an
+idyllic state, in which the homely virtues of the independent peasant
+should no longer be crushed and deprived of reward by the instruments
+of selfish despotism. The outbreak of war put his principles at issue
+with his patriotism. He suffered keenly when called upon to triumph
+over the calamities of his countrymen. But gradually he came to think
+that his sympathies were misplaced. The revolution had not altered
+human nature. The atrocities disturbed him, but for a time he could
+regard them as a mere accident. As the war went on, he began to
+perceive that the new power could be as tyrannical and selfish as the
+old. Instead of reconstructing a simple social ideal, it was forming a
+military despotism. When the French armies put down the simple Swiss
+peasantry, to whom he had been drawn by his home-bred sympathies, he
+finally gave up the revolutionary cause. He had gone through a mental
+agony, and his distracted sympathies ultimately determined a change
+which corresponded to the adoption of a new philosophy. Wordsworth,
+indeed, had little taste for abstract logic. He had imbibed Godwin's
+doctrine, but when acceptance of Godwin's conclusions involved a
+conflict with his strongest affections--the sacrifice not only of his
+patriotism but of the sympathies which bound him to his fellows--he
+revolted. Godwin represents the extreme of 'individualism,' the
+absolute dissolution of all social and political bonds. Wordsworth
+escaped, not by discovering a logical defect in the argument, but by
+yielding to the protest of his emotions. The system, he thought, was
+fatal to all the affections which had made life dear to him; to the
+vague 'intimations' which, whatever else they might be, had yet power
+to give harmony to our existence.
+
+By degrees he adopted a new diagnosis of the great political evils. On
+one side, he sympathised with Scott's sense of the fatal effects upon
+the whole social organism. Among his noblest poems are the 'Brothers'
+and 'Michael,' to which he specially called the attention of Fox. They
+were intended, he explained, to show the surpassing value of the
+domestic affections conspicuous among the shepherds and 'statesmen' of
+the northern dales. He had now come to hold that the principles of
+Godwin and his like were destructive to the most important elements of
+human welfare. The revolutionists were not simply breaking the fetters
+of the simple peasant, but destroying the most sacred ties to which
+the peasant owed whatever dignity or happiness he possessed.
+Revolution, in short, meant anarchy. It meant, therefore, the
+destruction of all that gives real value to life. It was, as he held,
+one product of the worship of the 'idol proudly named the "wealth of
+nations,"'[633] selfishness and greed replacing the old motives to
+'plain living and high thinking.' Wordsworth, in short, saw the ugly
+side of the industrial revolution, the injury done to domestic life by
+the factory system, or the substitution of a proletariate for a
+peasantry, and the replacement of the lowest social order by a vast
+inorganic mob. The contemporary process, which was leading to
+pauperism and to the evils of the factory system, profoundly affected
+Wordsworth, as well as the impulsive Southey; and their frequent
+denunciations gave colour to the imputations that they were opposed to
+all progress. Certainly they were even morbidly alive to the evil
+aspects of the political economy of Malthus and Ricardo, which to them
+seemed to prescribe insensibility and indifference to most serious and
+rapidly accumulating evils.
+
+Meanwhile, Wordsworth was also impressed by the underlying
+philosophical difficulties. The effect of the revolutionary principles
+was to destroy the religious sentiment, not simply by disproving this
+or that historical statement, but by making the whole world prosaic
+and matter-of-fact. His occasional outbursts against the man of
+science--the 'fingering slave' who would 'peep and botanise upon his
+mother's grave'--are one version of his feeling. The whole scientific
+method tended to materialism and atomism; to a breaking up of the
+world into disconnected atoms, and losing the life in dissecting the
+machinery. His protest is embodied in the pantheism of the noble lines
+on Tintern Abbey, and his method of answering might be divined from
+the ode on the 'Intimations of Immortality.' Somehow or other the
+world represents a spiritual and rational unity, not a mere chaos of
+disconnected atoms and fragments. We 'see into the heart of things'
+when we trust to our emotions and hold by the instincts, clearly
+manifested in childhood, but clouded and overwhelmed in our later
+struggles with the world. The essential thing is the cultivation of
+our 'moral being,' the careful preservation and assimilation of the
+stern sense of duty, which alone makes life bearable and gives a
+meaning to the universe.
+
+Wordsworth, it is plain, was at the very opposite pole from the
+Utilitarians. He came to consider that their whole method meant the
+dissolution of all that was most vitally sacred, and to hold that the
+revolution had attracted his sympathies on false pretences. Yet it is
+obvious that, however great the stimulus which he exerted, and however
+lofty his highest flights of poetry, he had no distinct theory to
+offer. His doctrine undoubtedly was congenial to certain philosophical
+views, but was not itself an articulate philosophy. He appeals to
+instincts and emotions, not to any definite theory. In a remarkable
+letter, Coleridge told Wordsworth why he was disappointed with the
+_Excursion_.[634] He had hoped that it would be the 'first and only
+true philosophical poem in existence.' Wordsworth was to have started
+by exposing the 'sandy sophisms of Locke,' and after exploding Pope's
+_Essay on Man_, and showing the vanity of (Erasmus) Darwin's belief in
+an 'ourang-outang state,' and explaining the fall of man and the
+'scheme of redemption,' to have concluded by 'a grand didactic swell
+on the identity of a true philosophy with true religion.' He would
+show how life and intelligence were to be substituted for the
+'philosophy of mechanism.' Facts would be elevated into theory, theory
+into laws, and laws into living and intelligent powers--true idealism
+necessarily perfecting itself in realism, and realism refining itself
+into idealism.'
+
+The programme was a large one. If it represents what Coleridge
+seriously expected from Wordsworth, it also suggests that he was
+unconsciously wandering into an exposition of one of the gigantic but
+constantly shifting schemes of a comprehensive philosophy, which he
+was always proposing to execute. To try to speak of Coleridge
+adequately would be hopeless and out of place. I must briefly mention
+him, because he was undoubtedly the most conspicuous representative of
+the tendencies opposed to Utilitarianism. The young men who found
+Bentham exasperating imbibed draughts of mingled poetry and philosophy
+from Coleridge's monologues at Hampstead. Carlyle has told us, in a
+famous chapter of his _Life of Sterling_, what they went out to see:
+at once a reed shaken by the wind and a great expounder of
+transcendental truth. The fact that Coleridge exerted a very great
+influence is undeniable. To define precisely what that influence was
+is impossible. His writings are a heap of fragments. He contemplated
+innumerable schemes for great works, and never got within measurable
+distance of writing any. He poured himself out indefinitely upon the
+margins of other men's books; and the piety of disciples has collected
+a mass of these scattered and incoherent jottings, which announce
+conclusions without giving the premises, or suggest difficulties
+without attempting to solve them. He seems to have been almost as
+industrious as Bentham in writing; but whereas Bentham's fragments
+could be put together as wholes, Coleridge's are essentially
+distracted hints of views never really elaborated. He was always
+thinking, but seems always to be making a fresh start at any point
+that strikes him for the moment. Besides all this, there is the
+painful question of plagiarism. His most coherent exposition (in the
+_Biographia Literaria_) is simply appropriated from Schelling, though
+he ascribes the identity to a 'genial coincidence' of thought. I need
+make no attempt to make out what Coleridge really thought for himself,
+and then to try to put his thoughts together,--and indeed hold the
+attempt to be impossible. The most remarkable thing is the apparent
+disproportion between Coleridge's definite services to philosophy and
+the effect which he certainly produced upon some of his ablest
+contemporaries. That seems to prove that he was really aiming at some
+important aspect of truth, incapable as he may have been of
+definitively reaching it. I can only try to give a hint or two as to
+its general nature. Coleridge, in the first place, was essentially a
+poet, and, moreover, his poetry was of the type most completely
+divorced from philosophy. Nobody could say more emphatically that
+poetry should not be rhymed logic; and his most impressive poems are
+simply waking dreams. They are spontaneous incarnations of sensuous
+imagery, which has no need of morals or definite logical schemes.
+Although he expected Wordsworth to transmute philosophy into poetry,
+he admitted that the achievement would be unprecedented. Even in
+Lucretius, he said, what was poetry was not philosophy, and what was
+philosophy was not poetry. Yet Coleridge's philosophy was essentially
+the philosophy of a poet. He had, indeed, great dialectical
+ingenuity--a faculty which may certainly be allied with the highest
+imagination, though it may involve certain temptations. A poet who has
+also a mastery of dialectics becomes a mystic in philosophy. Coleridge
+had, it seems, been attracted by Plotinus in his schooldays. At a
+later period he had been attracted by Hartley, Berkeley, and
+Priestley. To a brilliant youth, anxious to be in the van of
+intellectual progress, they represented the most advanced theories.
+But there could never be a full sympathy between Coleridge and the
+forefathers of English empiricism; and he went to Germany partly to
+study the new philosophy which was beginning to shine--though very
+feebly and intermittingly--in England. When he had returned he began
+to read Kant and Schelling, or rather to mix excursions into their
+books with the miscellaneous inquiries to which his versatile
+intellect attracted him.
+
+Now, it is abundantly clear that Coleridge never studied any
+philosophy systematically. He never acquired a precise acquaintance
+with the technical language of various schemes, or cared for their
+precise logical relations to each other. The 'genial coincidence' with
+Schelling, though an unlucky phrase, represents a real fact. He dipped
+into Plotinus or Behmen or Kant or Schelling, or any one who
+interested him, and did not know whether they were simply embodying
+ideas already in his own mind, or suggesting new ideas; or, what was
+probably more accurate, expressing opinions which, in a general way,
+were congenial to his own way of contemplating the world. His power of
+stimulating other minds proves sufficiently that he frequently hit
+upon impressive and suggestive thoughts. He struck out illuminating
+sparks, but he never diffused any distinct or steady daylight. His
+favourite position, for example, of the distinction between the Reason
+and the Understanding is always coming up and being enforced with the
+strongest asseverations of its importance. That he had adopted it more
+or less from Kant is obvious, though I imagine it to be also obvious
+that he did not clearly understand his authority.[635] To what,
+precisely, it amounts is also unintelligible to me. Somehow or other,
+it implies that the mind can rise into transcendental regions, and,
+leaving grovelling Utilitarians and the like to the conduct of the
+understanding in matters of practical expediency, can perceive that
+the universe is in some way evolved from the pure reason, and the mind
+capable of ideas which correspond to stages of the evolution. How this
+leads to the conclusions that the Christian doctrines of the Logos and
+the Trinity are embodiments of pure philosophy is a problem upon which
+I need not touch. When we have called Coleridge a mystic, with flashes
+of keen insight into the weakness of the opposite theory, I do not see
+how we are to get much further, or attribute to him any articulate and
+definite scheme.
+
+Hopelessly unsystematic as Coleridge may have been, his significance
+in regard to the Utilitarians is noteworthy. It is indicated in a
+famous article which J. S. Mill contributed to the _Westminster
+Review_ in March 1840.[636] Mill's concessions to Coleridge rather
+scandalised the faithful; and it is enough to observe here that it
+marks the apogee of Mill's Benthamism. Influences, of which I shall
+have to speak, had led him to regard his old creed as imperfect, and
+to assent to great part of Coleridge's doctrine. Mill does not discuss
+the metaphysical or theological views of the opposite school, though
+he briefly intimates his dissent. But it is interesting to observe how
+Coleridge impressed a disciple of Bentham. The 'Germano-Coleridgian
+doctrine,' says Mill, was a reaction against the philosophy of the
+eighteenth century: 'ontological,' 'conservative,' 'religious,'
+'concrete and historical,' and finally 'poetical,' because the other
+was 'experimental,' 'innovative,' 'infidel,' 'abstract and
+metaphysical,' and 'matter-of-fact and prosaic.' Yet the two
+approximate, and each helps to restore the balance and comes a little
+nearer to a final equilibrium. The error of the French philosophers
+had been their negative and purely critical tendency. They had thought
+that it was enough to sweep away superstition, priestcraft, and
+despotism, and that no constructive process was necessary. They had
+not perceived the necessity of social discipline, of loyalty to
+rulers, or of patriotic feeling among the subjects. They had,
+therefore, entirely failed to recognise the historical value of old
+creeds and institutions, and had tried to remodel society 'without the
+binding forces which hold society together.'[637] Hence, too, the
+_philosophes_ came to despise history; and D'Alembert is said to have
+wished that all record of past events could be blotted out. Their
+theory, in its popular version at least, came to be that states and
+churches had been got up 'for the sole purpose of picking people's
+pockets.'[638] This had become incredible to any intelligent reasoner,
+and any Tory could prove that there was something good in the past.
+The peculiarity of the 'Germano-Coleridgian' school was that they saw
+beyond the immediate controversy. They were the first to inquire with
+any power into 'the inductive laws of the existence and growth of
+human society'; the first to recognise the importance of the great
+constructive principles; and the first to produce not a piece of party
+advocacy, but 'a philosophy of society in the only form in which it is
+yet possible, that of a philosophy of history.' Hence arose that
+'series of great writers and thinkers, from Herder to Michelet,' who
+have given to past history an intelligible place in the gradual
+evolution of humanity.[639] This very forcible passage is interesting
+in regard to Mill, and shows a very clear perception of some defects
+in his own philosophy. It also raises an important question.
+
+Accepting Mill's view, it is remarkable that the great error of his
+own school, which professed to be based upon experience, was the
+rejection of history; and the great merit of the _a priori_ and
+'intuitionist' school was precisely their insistence upon history. To
+this I shall have to return hereafter. Meanwhile, Mill proceeds to
+show how Coleridge, by arguing from the 'idea' of church and state,
+had at least recognised the necessity of showing that political and
+social institutions must have a sufficient reason, and be justified by
+something more than mere obstinate prejudice. Men like Pitt and Sir
+Robert Peel, if they accepted Coleridge's support, would have to alter
+their whole position. Coleridge's defence of his ideal church was at
+once the severest satire upon the existing body and a proof, as
+against Bentham and Adam Smith, of the advantages of an endowed class
+for the cultivation and diffusion of learning. Coleridge, moreover,
+though he objected to the Reform Bill, showed himself a better
+reformer than Lord John Russell. He admitted what the Whigs refused to
+see, the necessity of diminishing the weight of the landowner
+interest. Landowners were not to be ultimate sources of power, but to
+represent one factor in a reasoned system. In short, by admitting that
+all social arrangements in some sense were embodiments of reason, he
+admitted that they must also be made to conform to reason.
+
+Coleridge and Bentham, then, are not really enemies but allies, and
+they wield powers which are 'opposite poles of one great force of
+progression.'[640] The question, however, remains, how the philosophy
+of each leader is really connected with his practical conclusions.
+Mill's view would apparently be that Coleridge somehow managed to
+correct the errors or fill the gaps of the Utilitarian system--a very
+necessary task, as Mill admits--while Coleridge would have held that
+those errors were the inevitable fruit of the whole empirical system
+of thought. The Reason must be restored to its rightful supremacy over
+the Understanding, which had been working its wicked will since the
+days of Locke and eighteenth century. The problem is a wide one. I
+must be content to remark the inevitable antithesis. Whether enemies
+or allies, the Utilitarians and their antagonists were separated by a
+gulf which could not be bridged for the time. The men of
+common-sense, who had no philosophy at all, were shocked by the
+immediate practical applications of Utilitarianism, its hostility to
+the old order which they loved, its apparent helplessness in social
+questions, its relegation of all progress to the conflict of selfish
+interests, its indifference to all the virtues associated with
+patriotism and local ties. By more reflective minds, it was condemned
+as robbing the world of its poetry, stifling the religious emotions,
+and even quenching sentiment in general. The few who wished for a
+philosophy found the root of its errors in the assumptions which
+reduced the world to a chaos of atoms, outwardly connected and
+combined into mere dead mechanism. The world, for the poet and the
+philosopher alike, must be not a congeries of separate things, but in
+some sense a product of reason. Thought, not fact, must be the
+ultimate reality. Unfortunately or otherwise, the poetical sentiment
+could never get itself translated into philosophical theory.
+Coleridge's random and discursive hints remained mere hints--a
+suggestion at best for future thought. Mill's criticism shows how far
+they could be assimilated by a singularly candid Utilitarian. To him,
+we see, they represented mainly the truth that his own party,
+following the general tendency of the eighteenth century, had been led
+to neglect the vital importance of the constructive elements of
+society; that they had sacrificed order to progress, and therefore
+confounded progress with destruction, and failed to perceive the real
+importance in past times even of the institutions which had become
+obsolete. Social atomism or individualism, therefore, implied a total
+misconception of what Mill calls the 'evolution of humanity.' This
+marks a critical point. The 'Germano-Coleridgians' had a theory of
+evolution. By evolution, indeed, was meant a dialectical evolution;
+the evolution of 'ideas' or reason, in which each stage of history
+represents a moment of some vast and transcendental process of
+thought. Evolution, so understood, seemed rightly or wrongly to be
+mere mysticism or intellectual juggling. It took leave of fact, or
+managed by some illegitimate process to give to a crude generalisation
+from experience the appearance of a purely logical deduction. In this
+shape, therefore, it was really opposed to science, although the time
+was to come in which evolution would present itself in a scientific
+form.[641] Meanwhile, the concessions made by J. S. Mill were not
+approved by his fellows, and would have been regarded as little short
+of treason by the older Utilitarians. The two schools, if Coleridge's
+followers could be called a school, regarded each other's doctrines as
+simply contradictory. In appealing to experience and experience alone,
+the Utilitarians, as their opponents held, had reduced the world to a
+dead mechanism, destroyed every element of cohesion, made society a
+struggle of selfish interests, and struck at the very roots of all
+order, patriotism, poetry, and religion. They retorted that their
+critics were blind adherents of antiquated prejudice, and sought to
+cover superstition and despotism either by unprovable dogmatic
+assertions, or by taking refuge in a cloudy mystical jargon, which
+really meant nothing.
+
+They did not love each other.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[610] See _Dictionary of National Biography_, under 'George Grote.'
+Bentham's MS. is in the British Museum, and shows, I think, that
+Grote's share in the work was a good deal more than mere editing. I
+quote from a reprint by Truelove (1875). It was also privately
+reprinted by Grote himself in 1866.
+
+[611] Cf. Hobbes's definition: 'Fear of power invisible feigned by the
+mind, or imagined from tales publicly allowed, [is] Religion: not
+allowed, Superstition. And when the power imagined is truly such as we
+imagine, True Religion.'--_Works_ (Molesworth), iii. 45.
+
+[612] 'Philip Beauchamp,' ch. ii. pp. 11-15.
+
+[613] _Ibid._ p. 17.
+
+[614] 'Philip Beauchamp,' p. 21.
+
+[615] _Ibid._ pp. 22 and 104.
+
+[616] 'Philip Beauchamp,' ch. iii.
+
+[617] 'Philip Beauchamp,' ch. iv.
+
+[618] _Ibid._ p. 45, ch. v.
+
+[619] _Ibid._ p. 52, ch. vi.
+
+[620] 'Philip Beauchamp,' ch. viii.
+
+[621] _Ibid._ part ii. ch. i.
+
+[622] _Ibid._ p. 80, part ii. ch. ii.
+
+[623] 'Philip Beauchamp,' pp. 97, 99.
+
+[624] _Ibid._ p. 101.
+
+[625] _Ibid._ p. 103.
+
+[626] 'Philip Beauchamp,' p. 163.
+
+[627] _Ibid._ p. 122.
+
+[628] The writers were Chalmers, Kidd, Whewell, Sir Charles Bell,
+Roget, Buckland, Kirby, and Prout. The essays appeared from 1833 to
+1835. The versatile Brougham shortly afterwards edited Paley's
+_Natural Theology_.
+
+[629] 'Philip Beauchamp,' p. 88.
+
+[630] Froude's _Carlyle_, i. 215; ii. 93.
+
+[631] Mill's _Dissertations_, i. 235; ii. 130.
+
+[632] George Borrow's vehement dislike of Scott as the inventor of
+Puseyism and modern Jesuitism of all kinds is characteristic.
+
+[633] _Prelude_, bk. xiii.
+
+[634] Coleridge's _Letters_ (1890), pp. 643-49.
+
+[635] Mr. Hutchison Stirling insists upon this in the _Fortnightly
+Review_ for July 1867. He proves, I think, that Coleridge's knowledge
+of the various schemes of German philosophy and of the precise
+relation of Kant, Fichte, and Schelling was altogether desultory and
+confused. How far this is important depends upon whether we attach
+much or little importance to precise combinations of words used by
+these philosophers.
+
+[636] _Dissertations_, i. 392-474.
+
+[637] _Ibid._ i. 424.
+
+[638] _Dissertations_, i. 437.
+
+[639] _Ibid._ i. 425-27.
+
+[640] _Dissertations_, i. 437.
+
+[641] Coleridge's _Hints towards the Formation of a more Comprehensive
+Theory of Life_, edited by S. B. Watson, in 1848, is a curious attempt
+to apply his evolution doctrine to natural science. Lewes, in his
+_Letters on Comte's Philosophy of the Sciences_, says that it is a
+'shameless plagiarism' from Schelling's _Erster Entwurf_, etc. It
+seems, as far as I can judge, that Coleridge's doctrines about
+magnetism, reproduction, irritability, sensibility, etc., are, in
+fact, adapted from Schelling. The book was intended, as Mr. E. H.
+Coleridge tells me, for a chapter in a work on Scrophula, projected by
+Gillman. As Coleridge died long before the publication, he cannot be
+directly responsible for not acknowledging obligations to Schelling.
+Unfortunately he cannot claim the benefit of a good character in such
+matters. Anyhow, Coleridge's occasional excursions into science can
+only represent a vague acceptance of the transcendental method
+represented, as I understand, by Oken.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to her Majesty at the
+Edinburgh University Press
+
+
+
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