'^s. ite':^V::r>?4'firfU"rii^V;V/t^^r^.^rl^ THE MINOR WORKS OF GEORGE GROTE. LONDON" : PRINTED BY WII.I.TA:*! CLOWES AND SONS, stamfo;:d strf.f.t and ciiarixg cross. r 'U'fJZfA^^U^' ^^ ^ Zi^n^'^n J'hn,Murrav ^ie'narle /JireeiJiS^. THE MINOE WOBKS GEORGE GROTE. CRITICAL REMAEKS ON HIS IJ^TELLECTUAL CHARACTER, WRITINGS, "AND SPEECHES, By ALEXANDER BAIN. LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1873. The rigid inion. Unless the penal code can be turned into a useless "scroll, it follows that from no one crime are WEITINGS FROM 1820 TO 1830. [5] we sufficiently guaranteed by the avenging murmurs and by the uplifted arm of the public. Far less would public opinion maintain a vigilant censorship on an evil-intentioned government. As a preventive of private enormities — a rape or a murder — public opinion acts with the greatest advan- tage: no corrupt associations distort our sentiments, no expectations of profit from connivance can dull the horror of the act ; the sympathy is kindled by the concentration of the suffering ; the act itself is distinct and conspicuous ; the character of the deed is flagrant ; the criminal is a marked man ; and, finally, public opinion has an ally in the injured party or those connected with him. Now, mark the deduc- tions to be made from all these counts, when the same check is intended to subdue the sinister interest of a government. Experience attests our indulgence and even admiration of robbery and murder when on a grand scale ; our feelings are averted from the injustice and desolation of a war to par- take in the triumph of the general, and extol the terrific power that has' done the work. The majesty of power that veils from our eyes its flagrant enormities completely white- washes the more insignificant minutiae of oppression ; not to speak of the hopes of place and profit to individuals. The extortion of a politic government, may impose but a trifling privation on each member of the community ; the evil may be enormous in the sum, but it appeals rather to cool reflec- tion than to our excited sensibilities. Again, the acts are of a kind very difficult to detect ; how can public opinion keep steadily in view the nice boundary between necessary and unnecessary taxation ? Farther, the body to be acted on is numerous, and forms the most opulent, powerful and best instructed class in the community. Their mutual interest creates a train of peculiar feeling, and a perverted standard of conduct, rendering them insensible to reproach, at least until it swells to the loudest pitch. Mere languid dis- •approbation is insufficient ; the feeling must be kindled into animosity and menace, and England stimulated into a [6] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. clamorous effervescence, from the Thames to the Tay. During this time, the partisans of the government intersect the popular sentiment in all directions ; perplex and disturb its unison, counterwork its effect on the timid and the in- different, by impeaching the designs of its adversaries, and by setting up, on their own side, a still louder cry of impiety and rebellion. If reduced to yield, they find means by adroit concessions to retain part of their ground : and as opinion cannot long keep its lofty pitch, if the government can hold on for a limited period, the threats of the public will quickly subside. Even, if the public opinion should thwart any pernicious measures, it inflicts no punishment, and impresses no motive for the future. Again, as abuses seldom press signally on one individual, or on a small knot of persons, they do not draw forth a leader ; so that public opinion is left to organise itself in desultory detachments. To all which we must add, that as laws are made because an injured person would inflict excessive punishment on his enemy, an incensed people triumphing in a successful insur- rection cannot be expected to impose a stricter rein on their resentment. The impotence of the check is proved by the amplest testimony, seeing that it is the one check that springs up everywhere. Yet when we unrol the great mass of mankind, how striking and irresistible are the proofs of its incompetency ! That it is an insufficient check upon the present governing class in England, we are informed by the most satisfactory evidence. The Whig members of Par- liament expatiate upon the defiance of the popular senti- ments by the Ministry ; and the Ministers, while confessing that the many are against them, declare that the sound, the rational part of the community, those alone hiotvn to the Constitution are in their favoui-. Others maintain that the people are too ignorant to detect misgovernment. The remedy is — let them see only the good ; present to men of ability no hope of reward from misrule. The author now considers the Keviewer's plan for a WRITINGS FROM 1820 TO 1830. [7] Representation of Classes. The proposal is to examine the variety of local and professional interests composing the general interest, and to give to each of these suitable repre- sentatives. In order to consider the effect of this plan, the author takes a simple case : let a community consist of three classes — lawyers, landholders, merchants — each returning a member to make a governing body. What will be the course of this triumvirate ? Each deputy is devoted to his class, but he can do nothing singly ; but if he combine with another, the concurrence of the third is of no importance, and his interest is disregarded. That equal protection to all classes, which the theory supposes, is in practice unattain- able. The interests of no class can be protected unless they can return a majority of the governing body. All that one class can do is to combine with other classes, merging what interest it has in opposition to these, and standing up only for what the united classes have in common; and if a majority is formed, that common interest will be secured. The ancient Eoman class-system was in the Eeviewer's model ; and the two wealthiest of the six classes were able to outvote all the rest, while these included an overwhelming majority of the people. The second half of the pamphlet takes account of the Reviewer's Objections to a thorough Parliamentary Reform. And first, his objections to Universal Suffrage. The Reviewer supposes Ireland to be an independent state, with four-fifths of the population Catholics, and a government elected by universal suffrage ; where, in that case, would the Protestants be ? The author retorts, where would they be on the class system ? As the whole island is composed of Protestants and Catholics, under every possible system one or other sect must have the majority, and must dominate the other. The Reviewer seems fully aware that universal suffrage would entail a neglect of the interests of the few ; he omits to remark that the return of a majority by the few woidd produce the same inattention to the interests of the many. When the rivalry in the state is merely as to the [8] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. l>osses8ion of good tilings, there will be a partial rermnciation of interest, so as to appease the discordance ; but an iin- oontpun-able antipathy like that between Protestants and Catholics, blacks and whites, is irremediable. In the case between the many and the few, it may be undeniably proved that a majority chosen by the many will pursue the interest that the many have in common with the few. This position the author explains at length. The most interesting and original part of the argument is where he deals with the common allegation that the many would not respect property. He points out the insidious attempt to restrict this word to the large proprietors. Strictly speaking, the poorest labourer has property, for which he needs the full protection of the law ; and the laws for protecting large properties must equally protect the small. Mr. Grote, as we shall see, on subsequent occasions reverts to this fallacy. (See on this point, p. 53 et seq.) A considerable portion of the pamphlet is occupied with the Reviewer's attack on the Ballot. The line of attack is rather strange. The Eeviewer thinks it a fallacy that the value of popular elections depends on the exercise of a deliberate judgment by the electors ; the real value is in diffusing puhlie spirit. The author deals with this in his most vigorous style, shewing that it essentially consists in assigning to the general public the very worst part that they can play — the part of mobs. It is the result of the existing state of things, that the bulk of the community have inter- fered in national affairs by a display of physical force ; and reasoners have thereby been led to consider collective agency as an essential requisite of their political life. But the display of physical force should no more enter into politics than into mutual protection against lawlessness. The Reviewer still farther urges the loss of excitement and heat through secret voting,— the lifelessness and want of motive to go to the poll ; the virtues of the community do not arise from secret meditation, and do not flourish in solitude. The replies are sufficiently telling ; and although WRITINGS FROM 1820 TO 1830. [9] the author's illustration, every time he touches this question is fresh and racy, I shall defer the specimens of his handling until I come to the speeches in Parliament. The vigour of the pamphlet furnished a new weapon to the friends of Reform. The 'Examiner' styled it "a very able and a very seasonable pamplilet," and regarded the defence of the Ballot as the most comprehensive and useful part of the work ; adding that " Reformers have paid too little attention to this excellent plan for curbing the sinister and immoral exercise of bribery and intimidation on the part of the great." We may see that Mr. Grote's studies in politics, theoretical and practical, were now well advanced. He had thoroughly imbibed the method and views of James JVIill, which he developed by resources peculiar to himself. On the 25th of April, 1822, Lord John Russell moved in the House of Commons, " That the present state of the repre- sentation of the people in Parliament requires the most serious consideration of this House." A long debate ensued, in which Mr. Canning delivered an elaborate oration. The motion was rejected by 269 to 164. Mr. Canning's speech drew out from Mr. Grote a letter published in the ' Morning Chronicle,' full of his usual argu- mentative power and vigour of language. We need not reproduce it in full, but one or two extracts will be useful in showing the author's intensity of feeling on Reform. The introduction is to this effect : — " That Mr. Canning's eloquence should prove triumphant in an assembly, so large a portion of which is ' self-elected ' (to use the unanswered and unanswerable phrase of Lord John Russell), can excite no surprise whatever. His task is indeed an easy one on the floor of 8t. Stephen's. Would he but condescend to essay his powers on the other side of the [10] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. question, would he persuade gentlemen to surrender close, privileged, and hereditary seats, accompanied with a lucrative expenditure of 22,000,000/. per annum, and as much or as little to do as they please ; and to descend into the character of industrious, economical, and responsible legislators — tliis indeed would be an aim worthy of the rhetorician. And I much question whether even Mr. Canning's eloquence, if exerted on this side, would produce quite so many cheers, and such frequent laughter, as it seems to do at present. " To appreciate duly the extent of this gentleman's oratory, let us remove it from the circle of sympathising and con- fidential critics among whom it was delivered, and measure its effect upon the larger public without. Will his speech impel their minds in the proportion of 269 to 164, as it has already won the House of Commons? Let us review its contents briefly, with reference to that public for whose benefit the debate is imagined to have taken place." The essence of the speech, he states, as consisting of three arguments. The first is " Keformers do not agree in their proposals : Ergo, there ought to be no reform." The second is " A Eeform in the Parliament would depress and extinguish the Crown." The writer remarks — " This is an unqualified avowal, that monarchical govern- ment is highly injurious to the people. For such a decla- ration, I or any one else, anybody except Mr. Canning or Mr. r. Eobinson, would be prosecuted. ' Any Legislature,' says the former, ' really elected by the people, responsible to them, and therefore promoting solely and exclusively the public good, would abrogate the Royal Prerogative. The latter, therefore, is irrecoucileably at variance with the public happiness and interests.' Such is the view entertained by Mr. Canning, and by the Parliament who second Mr. Can- ning, of the genuine value of Monarchical Government. A more severe condemnation of the Throne cannot be pro- nounced, than this assertion, that an assembly aiming at the public happiness would never retain it." " Next comes an argument cogent indeed, but not easily WRITINGS FROM 1820 TO 1830. [11] referable to any known rules of logic : — ' The present con- stitution is the one under which Mr. Canning was born, and which therefore ought on no account to be changed.' When an infant of celebrity is born, we are commonly flattered with the hopes of some striking improvement which he is to accomplish — a reproduction of the golden age or of the Saturnian system of government. But Mr. Canning's god- fathers and godmother appear to have vowed in his name, that the world should be bound fast exactly in the position which it held when that gentleman first saw the light." Canning's fourth argument — " that it is not a good thing that the House of Commons should be so constituted as to coincide with the sentiments of the people " — is dealt with as we should expect. The concluding paragraph is — " Having thus anatomised the chief part of Mr. Canning's speech, I may venture to predict that it will not divide the nation in the proportion of 269 to 164. But this will be only a fresh demonstration of that general incapacity of the British race, which Mr. Canning so pointedly notices — from the melancholy effects of which we are providentially extricated by possessing a Legislature wise by blood and by inheritance." Among some essays, preserved in MSS. of the date 1822, there is a short paper wherein Mr. Grote refutes the alleged hostility of the bulk of the people to property, as inferred from occasional popular injustices. He meets the charge by several arguments. In the first place, he remarks, while so much stress is laid on the individual rich man whom the people have despoiled, no notice is taken of the many rich whom they have left untouched. Secondly, in order to predict the behaviour of any man or body of men, we must consider what their permanent interest points to. Thirdly, if it were admitted "that because the people have com- mitted occasional violations of property, therefore the people are hostile to property," the same might be equally affirmed of every other form of government. We ought to compute [12] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. the instances of spoliation, under governments responsible to the people, and those under governments of one, or a few, in order to decide the question with perfect accuracy. But as this proceeding is impracticable, tliere remains one other metliod, namely, to apply the maxim " that every man will pursue his own interest," under which it will appear that the bulk of the people have a most essential interest in strengthening the motives to the accumulation of capital, because upon that depends the demand for labour. It is the very poorest that have the strongest interest in pro- moting accumulation. On the other hand, a monarch or an aristocracy, or both allied, have an interest directly at variance with the public happiness. They have an interest in plundering and degrading the community to the deepest extent, and in forcing the subjects to toil in their behalf; this being the mode by which they will reap the largest harvest of wealth and power. Lastly, an attack of the people upon the property of an individual rich man no more proves that the people are hostile to the laws of property, than their attack upon his life would prove that they were inimical to the laws protecting life. In both instances, they may be misled to make a particular exception, but this does not prove them insensible to the value of the laws of property and life, or to the importance of adhering to them on other occasions. In the ' Westminster Eeview,' for April, 1826, appeared the celebrated article on Mitford's ' History of Greece.' It already evinces both the extent of his minute research and the decision of his views on Grecian politics. Whilst his democratic sympathies were engendered by the studies pur- sued in preparation for the History, his controversial faculty was aroused by the misstatements of this widely-read His- torian ; Mitford being at this period in possession of the educational field, as well in the universities as in family circles. WRITINGS FROM 1820 TO 1830. [13] The introduction to tlie article is a clear and condensed statement of the chain of cause and effect in the evolution of the Grecian mind. First of all was the subdivision of the Grecian population into a great number of distinct city-com- munities. The smalluess of these communities brought the whole of the members into intimate fellowship and personal communication of views upon the public situation. In such a state of things, a hereditary chief, or mere head of a clan, could not hold his ground ; and the collective govern- ment of the state superseded personal government. The executive function was much better administered, being under the eye of the whole community. Moreover, every- thing in the condition of the Greeks favoured publicity of life, and interest in affairs. The desire of applause acquired extraordinary ascendency : and in this motive lay the sti- mulus to individual excellence in whatever accomplishments the public held in esteem. The extinction of the hereditary chiefs threw open the supreme power of the state to rivalry and competition ; and, when the circumstances excluded the agency of mere force, the grand and foremost engine was the power of persuasion, particularly as applied to assembled multitudes. The materials of persuasive address consisted of all manner of facts, analogies, and reasonings, bearing on the eligibility of any public measures ; involving a strong in- terest in contemporaneous critical history, the first specimen of which we owe to Thucydides. When these various mental acquisitions were sought as means of ascendency, esteem was conferred on the man that could teach them. Numerous instructors arose, in Khetoric chiefly and avowedly, but indi- rectly in all the branches of knowledge then existing ; and the success of those instructors in money and in fame was very great. But the teaching of the persuasive art led the way to the philosophy of the mind ; and it was amidst the intellectual excitement of ancient Greece that this master- science had its beginning. The field for the observation of human beings was no less ample than interesting: the variety of laws and institutions, the number of social experi- [14] CHARACTEE AND WRITINGS. ments so to speak, the contentions of parties, the criticism of public men^ the diversities of individual excellence, in oratory, in poetry, in war, in legislation, stimulated critical enquiry into the causes of success. Superior men arose, with the aptitude for system and science ; by these the special experiences were converted into general rules; and there thus gradually emerged the sciences of rhetoric, politics, ethics, and logic. Another influence was derived from the religious festivals and gatherings. To these we apply the inadequate word games; the real term was contests (dyo)V€<;). The appetite for glory was greatly fostered at such gatherings ; while the chief attention was given to gymnastic exercises ; but the garland was also bestowed for music and poetry. " Considering the Grecian institutions as having brought into operation these incentives to individual excellence, they will appear without a parallel in the history of humanity ; and judging by the same standard, too, it is abundantly certain that democracies were by far the best among all the Grecian governments ; nor will it be too much to affirm, that had it not been for democracy, and that approximation to democracy which a numerous and open aristocracy pre- sents, this wonderful precocity of intellectual development among the Greeks would have been impracticable, and that people would have been now forgotten amidst so many others who have marched only with the average pace of human improvement. Publicity and constant discussion of all matters relating to the general interest — accessibility of the public esteem, which could not be thoroughly monopolised by any predominant few — intense demand for those great political qualities which are fitted to command the respect and assent of the general community — encouragement to eloquence, and to all those acquirements which eloquence presupposes, as well as to that system of instruction and mental philo- sophy which follows in its train — all these characteristics were to be found in the democracies more completely than in any other Grecian governments, and these, as we have above WRITINGS FROM 1820 TO 1830. [15] sliown, were the great stimulating causes of Grecian eminence. Where a state was under the close government of one or of a few, circumstances were highly unfavourable to the develop- ment of individual superiority; the ruling powers not only held out no encouragement to it, but even interfered to sup- press and banish it by force as a rival to their own monopoly." It was never Mr. Grote's custom to advance positions of this nature without supporting them by facts: and his ex- posure of Mitford gives him an opportunity of unfolding his resources. I shall select only t)ne point, because of its paramount interest, and because it is one of Grote's charac- teristic points of political doctrine. After giving a series of facts to set forth the atrocities of ancient oligarchy, he adds a testimony of tremendous and indisputable force. This is the oath (apparently the sena- torial oath) cited by Aristotle as formally sworn among some of the ancient oligarchies, containing these words — "J will he evil-minded toicards the people, and icill hring upon them hy my counsel ivhatever mischief I can." The philosopher's own remark is not less significant : his suggestion to the oligarchs being — " Let them misgovern if they choose ; but let them at least employ some decent pretences to delude the people into a belief of the contrary." But for our ex- perience of the irresistible effect of the habit of submission among men, we might wonder that any government thus affected towards its subjects could be suffered to exist a single month. Yet the subversion of the oligarchies almost always arose, not so much from popular resistance as from dissensions among the leading men themselves ; there being always room for aspiring nobles to acquire popularity by appearing to act as protectors of the oppressed many. Thus were formed two aristocratic parties — denominated by Mitford the party of the poor, and the party of the rich ; appellations employed both by Plato and by Aristotle, but yet involving an important mistake. The party called the " party of the poor," ought to be called the community minus the rich. Rich and not-rich are the proper terms for bisecting the [16] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. community. The classification into rich and poor is a fal- lacy, the source of many most erroneous political reasonings. Thus, according to Aristotle, Oligarchy has a place when the wealthy few possess the government, and employ their power for their own ends, not for the public good ; Demo- cracy is when the poor many, possessing the powers of government, use these powers for their own interest, not the public interest. The philosopher seems to imagine that if the wealthy as a class possess no distinct privileges, the government is necessarily in the hands of the poor, and that the poor have an interest contrary to the public interest. Now the word " poor " is here used in a double sense : it signifies at one time the whole community excepting the rich; and at another time the destitute poor. Only ia this last sense can the poor ever be said to have an interest distinct from the public interest ; the whole community ex- cluding the rich has obviously the same interest as the whole community including the rich. As not more than one man in a hundred can be called rich, ninety-nine hundredths of the community are poor ; and the interest of ninety-nine hundredths of the community must always be the same as the interest of the whole community. There can be little doubt that the persistent denunciations of Grecian democracy, of which Mitford's book is a notable sample, were kept up for the sake of their application to modern instances; and Mr. Grote, by his vindication of Athens, has powerfully counterworked one of the machina- tions for retarding the growth of popular government in the present day. He is, however, fully alive to the weaknesses and defects of the old democracies, just as he is sensible of many defects in the popular constitutions of our own time ; but, " taking these defects at the utmost, and comparing the Grecian democracies with any other form of government, either existing in ancient times, or projected by the ancient philosophers, we have no hesitation in pronouncing them decidedly and unquestionably superior. That the securities they provided for good government were lamentably de- WRITINGS FROM 1820 TO 1830. [17] fident, we fully admit ; but the oligarchies and monarchies afforded no securities at all." The complaint made against these democracies, by Xenophon and Aristotle, was not that they missed their own end, but that they aimed at, and to a certain degree attained, the happiness of all the free citizens, minus the rich, to the prejudice of the separate interests of the rich. His replies to Mitford's other charges, — that the popular assemblies were fickle in their decisions ; that the democra- cies were unstable and torn with dissensions ; that, in them rich men were unduly taxed (as by the liiurgies at Athens) ; that unjust accusations were prevalent ; that re-division of the lands was a favourite measure of democracy, — are over- whelming from the array of counter facts to every one. The latter half of the article is occupied with exposing the gross perversions in Mitford's narrative of transactions. This we need not exemplify ; for although the calumnies against democracy have a permanent vitality, the historical blunders of such writers as IMitford are dead and decomposed. It is not often that the mild temper of Mr. Grote permitted of sarcasm, so we may quote this sentence from the criticism of Mitford's inaccuracies respecting the early proceedings of Philip of Macedon : — " Ancient ^ riters have left us lament- ably in the dark respecting many most important parts of ancient history ; but we ought not to be severe upon tliem for their want of minuteness in describing plans which were never concerted, and treaties which were never entered into." The article concludes thus : — " It is sufficiently obvious that the historian who can thus deviate from his authorities in recounting specific facts, is still less to be relied upon for accuracy in any general views, where the result arising from a comparison of several different authorities, not separately assignable, is to be laid before the reader. If partiality can discolour the former, it will prevent any approximation to truth in the latter. And should Grecian history ever be re-written with care and fidelity, we venture to predict that c [18] CHAEACTER AND WRITINGS. Mr. Mitford's reputation, for tliese as well as for other de- sirable qualities, will be prodigiously lowered. That it should have remained so long exalted, is a striking proof how much more apparent than real is the attention paid to Greek literature in this country ; and how much that atten- tion, where it is sincere and real, is confined to the techni- calities of the language, or the intricacies of its metres, instead of being employed to unfold the mechanism of society, and to bring to view the numerous illustrations which Grecian phenomena aiFord, of the principles of human nature. It is not surprising, indeed, that the general views of Mr. Mitford should be eminently agreeable to the reigning interests in England ; nor that instructors devoted to those interests should carefully discourage all those mental quali- ties which might enable their pujiils to look into evidence for themselves, and to deduce just inferences from the Greek authors who are put into their hands. But though such instructors cannot be prevented from teaching superficially, they may at least be deprived of the credit of teaching otherwise than superficially ; and few works would more effectually conduce to this end than a good history of Greece." * * It ought to be mentioned, in recording the literary labours of Mr. Grote during this decade, that ho bestowed much time upon some MSS. of Jeremy Bentham's, which the venerable sage en- treated his young disciple to put into a readable form. The pile of materials being carefully digested and arranged by George Grote, he produced in 1822 a small octavo volume, -nath the following title : " Analysis of the Influence of Natural Religion on the Temporal Happiness of Mankind, by Philip Beauchamp." The MS. was handed to Mr. Place, who employed Eichard Carlile to print the tract ; the reason being that Carlile was lying in Dorchester gaol, and thus safe from farther prosecution. At that period the London booksellers were afraid of having anything to do with writings wherein Eeligion was in question. The original papers, in Bentham's handwriting, became the property of Mrs. George Grote under the Author's will, and are still extant, as well as the letter to G. Grote which accompanied the packet. SPEECHES ON THE BALLOT. [19] CHAPTEE II. SPEECHES ON THE BALLOT. On the 25th of April, 1833, Mr. Grote made his first motion in favour of the Ballot. At the outset of his speech he quotes Lord John Eussell's expression in originally proposing the Eeform Bill : — " So constituting this House, as that it should enjoy, and com- mand, and deserve, the confidence of the people." He calls on the House now to review the mode of taking votes upon the same simple, precise, and momentous principle. The Eeform Bill has given a numerous and intelligent commu- nity, say a million of voters. What would have been said if there had been a clause in the bill dividing that constituency into two classes — one class free, the other subject voters ? What if the bill had numbered all the tenants on a great man's estate, and all occupiers of houses under him, as so many lip-voters, necessary, indeed, as mechanical instru- ments for transmitting his will to the hustings, but legally incapable of expressing any determination but his ? But it is not by law alone that the freedom of voting is subverted ; natural causes may work the same thing. One half of the present constituency are unable to call their votes tlieir own. No doubt there are some splendid examples of political virtue — men who give an honest vote and incur the con- sequent hazard ; but the larger number stifle the voice of conscience, and give way before an overruling destiny. The public mischief thus arising is that the House does not command the confidence of the people ; the elective system is a failure and a nullity ; for the only characteristic dis- tinguishing it from a vain mummery is the genuine suffrage of each qualified voter. The private mischiefs are the solemn falsehoods at the poll, the sense of self-abasement at being c 2 [20] CHARACTEE AND WRITINGS. the instrument of another's Mill, the political apathy and recklessness, the thousand angiy feelings everywhere accom- panying private terrorism. Kow, whatever be the sources of this evil, the condition of its agency is publicity of votes. The Ballot may not put an end to all persecution for political sentiments, but it will put an end to compulsory and insincere voting. In France, during the last ten years, the Ballot proved the single guarantee against an overwhelming govern- ment ascendency. Under the Ballot individual bribery could have no place ; collective bribery would be hazardous and difficult. But for one vote perverted by bribery, twenty are perverted by in- timidation. He next deals with the objections to secrecy, as tending to mendacity and promise-breaking. Now it is true that a tenant voting by Ballot may thus break his promise, but why should you suppose that he ivill do so ? There is only one answer; the promise has been given contrary to his genuine and conscientious feeling. Preferring A in his conscience, the elector has beencon strained to promise that he will vote for B ; such a promise involves the necessity of lying one way or the other ; either to his country, if he keeps the promise, or to his superior, if he breaks it. But what falsehood can be worse than a dishonest vote at the poll ? If a juror who gives a dishonest verdict, or a witness who de- poses an untruth, sins in poisoning the fountains of justice, the electoral trust-breaker sins scarcely less in poisoning the fountains of legislation. The opponents of the Ballot talk as if the only falsehood a voter can tell is the breaking faith with one who has extorted from him a dishonest promise. There is another and greater wrong, the breaking faith with the public. What this House should recognise is the superior obligation of the public trust to the private pledge. The promise is bad enough ; the act would be far worse. All that can be said against the Ballot is, that it enables these compulsory and immoral promises to be violated with imj)u- nity ; thus getting rid of the more noxious of the two lies. SPEECHES ON THE BALLOT. [21] But this is not the fair way of looking at the effect of the secret vote. The compulsory and dishonest promises, whence the lying proceeds, will seldom be exacted. To tie a man down to a hateful pledge, when you cannot ascertain whether he keeps it, is a fruitless affront ; tending to rouse the galling ideas of coercion, without attaining a real hold over the conduct. Even now, is there no promise-breaking under the open vote? Does it not eternally happen that a dependent is compelled by his superior to break a promise already voluntarily made to another ? Speaking in a whisper is not synonymous with lying; much less is speaking aloud synonymous with openness of heart and truth-telling. There are cases where secrecy conduces to fraud ; there are cases where it is the only sure road to truth. When a witness deposes to facts, it is essential that his testimony should be public ; but when you wish a man's private unbiassed judgment, you will be nearer your end by making his communication strictly con- fidential. This last is the situation of an elector at the poll. He then proceeds to another favourite objection. The elective franchise, it is said, is a trust ; every elector is responsible for the way that he exercises it ; publicity is a necessary consequence, for the sake of the non-electors. ■ He admits that there would be great weight in the argument, if the objector could show that open voting was either a benefit or a security to the non-electors. He thinks he can prove that the reverse is the fact. He assumes that the electoral trust means this, namely, that an elector shall deliver his genuine and conscientious opinion at the poll, whether it agrees or disagrees with that of other people. Now this can be obtained only by his own free will ; no extremity of force can wring it from him. The open vote cannot convert a single voter from dishonesty to honesty ; but it makes thousands of honest voters dishonest against their inclinations. Every voter becomes controllable by one or a [22J CHAEACTER AND WRITINGS. few private masters, who exercise over his comfort a para- mount influence. Under the mask of responsibility to the public, you fasten round his neck the base and dismal chain of private dependence. Moreover, is it really contended that non-voters are competent to exercise control or super- vision over the voters ? The only reason for setting them aside as non- voters, is their presumed incapacity of judging on political subjects. When the non-electors do intermeddle it is as ardent partisans, and in a manner pm-ely mis- chievous. Dictation by a private individual, the vultus instantis tijramii, and dictation by an assembled crowd, the civium ardor ])rava juhentmm, end in the same deplorable result — spurious and insincere voting. If the voters are sufficiently numerous, and well-dis- tributed, so as to have collectively the same interests as the community, they can have no wish except to choose honestly ; and this is the only ground on which the recent extension of the constituency can be vindicated. If respon- sibility had to be relied upon, as the guarantee for honest voting, any extension of the constituency would have been absurd and injurious ; a small constituency is far more pointedly responsible than a numerous one ; every step in enlarging the electoral body, is a step in diminution of the responsibility of each individual elector. Nay, upon this principle, the single-headed constituency of Old Sarum would have been the best in the whole kingdom. Another argument is that the influence of rich men over voters is a very salutary thing, and that the Ballot is mis- chievous as tending to abridge it. " How much influence over voters ought a rich man to have ? As much as he can purchase ? No, certainly — for even the present law forbids all idea of his purchasing any influence. Not as much as he can purchase, but as much as he deserves, and as much as unconstrained freemen are willing to pay him. Amongst unconstrained freemen, the man of recognised superiority will be sure to acquire spon- taneous esteem and deference ; these are his just deserts, SPEECHES ON THE BALLOT. [23] and they come to him unbidden and unbespoken. But they will come to him multiplied tenfold, if along with such intrinsic excellencies, he possesses the extrinsic recom- mendations of birth and fortune — if he be recommended to the attention of his neighbours by the conspicuous blazon of established opulence and station — and if he be thus fur- nished with the means of giving ample range and effect to an enlightened beneficence. This is the meed which awaits men of birth and station, if they do but employ their faculties industriously and to the proper ends. Poorer men may, doubtless, attain it also ; but with them the ascent is toilsome, the obstnictions numerous, and the success at best uncertain : to the rich man the path is certain and easy — the willing public meet him half way, and joyfully hail the gradual opening of his virtues. He is the man to whom they delight to pay homage ; and their idolatrous fancy forestalls and exaggerates his real merits. " This, Sir, is, in my opinion, the legitimate influence of wealth and station; to serve as the passport, the ally, and the handmaid, of superior worth and talent. This influence is as gentle and kindly as it is lasting and infallible ; it is self-created and self-preserving ; and it is, morever, twice blest, for it blesses as well the few who exercise it, as the many over whom it is exercised." But it is the curse and misery of our species that the great and wealthy choose to govern by mere dint of wealth and station, unallied with those beneficent ingredients. Wealth, in any hands, carries with it the power of befriend- ing one man, and injuring another ; it can extort the votes that the possessor has not virtue enough to earn. This is the illegitimate influence of wealth and station — when it supersedes and disenthrones the diviner qualities of the man and the hero. Under open voting, the influence of wealth is alike in every hand ; nay, the worse a man is, the more effectively he will employ the bad weapons. The Ballot decomposes the mixture of good and evil, with the exactness of a chemical agent. The man that employs wealth and [24] CHAEACTER AND WRITINGS. station as they ought to be employed will not lose a particle of influence ; his standard is planted in the interior of men's bosoms ; his ascendency is as sure and as operative in the dtirk as in the light. And what would be the harm, if that coarser and baser influence, which cannot subsist witiiout coercive force, were suppressed and extirpated altogether? The question was started by Berkeley, " Whether an un- educated gentry are not tlie greatest of all natural evils ?" The counter part of the proposition is no less true — That a gentry well-educated and of enlarged sympathies, are among the foremost of national blessings. The most effectual way of preserving that blessing will be to render the vote of an elector inaccessible to all coercion, and attainable only by such as have gained his genuine esteem. This is the only prize that can stimulate the listlessness, or soften the natural pride, of one w^hose wealth places him above the equal communion of his fellow-men ; and by rendering the suffrage secret, you lock this precious prize in a casket, which can neither be stolen by fraud, nor ravished by tyranny ; you reserve it in the inmost sanctuary, as a free- will offering to ascertained merit, and as a stimulus to all noble aspirations. In the peroration, he says : — " If ever there was a case in which the address to your reason was vehemently and powerfully seconded by the appeal to your feelings, that case is the emancipation of honest voters — the making peace between a man's duty and his worldly cares — the rescue of political morality from the snares which now beset it, and from the storms which now lay it prostrate. You are called upon to protect the rights, and to defend the integrity, of the electoral conscience ; to shield the innocent from perse- cution at the hands of the guilty ; to guard the common- wealth against innumerable breaches of trust, committed by the reluctant hands of well-meaning citizens. You are called upon to bridle the tyranny of those who violate, by the same blow, their duty to their neighbour and their duty to their country. You are called upon to encourage the SPEECHES ON THE BALLOT. [25] formation of an electoral conscience in those bosoms where it has as yet had no existence ; and to cure that recklessness and immorality with which unprincipled voters now prosti- tute their franchise, in order to conciliate custom or pro- motion. Above all, you are called upon to make this House, what it professes and purports to be, a real emanation from the pure and freespoken choice of the electors ; an assembly of men commanding the genuine esteem and confidence of the people, and consisting of persons, the fittest which the nation affords, for executing the true end and aim of government. When all these vast interests, collective and individual, are at stake in this one measure, am I not justified in demanding from you not merely a cold and passive attention, but an earnest sympathy and solicitude ? " The motion was vigorously supported, in a short speech, by Dr. Lushington. Mr. Cobbett replied to the objections founded on the American use of the Ballot, Daniel O'Counell made a short and telling speech, which brought up Sir Robert Peel, who dwelt upon the apathy and dead languor that would take place if canvassing were put an end to ; the impossibility of preserving secrecy ; the evil of making the House more democratic than it is. It was merely absurd to say that a man with ten thousand a year should not have more influence over the Legislature of the country than a man of ten pounds a year. He thought universal suffrage more plausible than vote by Ballot. There were arguments in favour of extending the franchise to women, to which it was no easy matter to find any logical answer : other and more important duties were intrusted to women ; women were allowed to hold property, to vote on many occasions in virtue of that property — nay, a woman might inherit the Throne, and perform all the functions of the first office of the State. The electoral system had not had a fair trial ; and members would be better employed in reading the report of the Poor- Law Commissioners, and considering some remedies for the evils there depicted. [26] CHAEACTER AND WRITINGS. The vote was — Ayes, 106 ; Noes, 211 ; Pairs, 26. The second occasion of bringing on the motion was on the 3rd of June, 1835. He had the advantage of being able to appeal to the recent election as furnishing abundant instances of gross intimidation, and by the help of these, and by vary- ing his illustrations, he contrived to impart a degree of freshness that was not apparent in any of the speeches in reply. He began by assuming that in conferring upon any man the title and functions of an elector, you really intend to invest him with a substantive and independent character. The contrary would imply, that Parliament, while pretending to bestow a vote upon him, designs, in fact, to bestow under- hand a second vote upon somebody else. If the law intends to play this trick with voters, the sooner it is proclaimed the better. The secret voter may give a wrong judgment, but at all events his vote is his own determination. Publicity of the suffrage enables intermeddlers from without to work on the hopes and fears of individual electors. Referring to the recent election, he observed that the newspapers of every party abounded with complaints of undue influence ; 60 familiar was it, that it seemed the ordinary course of nature in the electioneering world. Sometimes a landlord generally notified to his tenants that he did not mean to interfere with their votes ; but this edict of manumission would appear both preposterous and insulting, if the pre- existing dependence had not been felt. The voters seem to be considered as lawful prize and prey, mutum ac turpe pecus, belonging of right to that party which can drag them with the greatest violence. It is but too evident that the efforts of the imperative classes of society to subjugate the will of the humbler voters are nowise Likely to be suspended or relaxed for the future. He next criticised a bill brought in by the member for Shaftesbury (jMi-. Poulter), for making intimidation penal, and concluded with a reply to the stock of objections to the Ballot (its being un-English ; causing SPEECHES ON THE BALLOT. [27] promises to be broken ; withdrawing responsibility from the voter ; reducing the influence of the wealthy.) Lord Howick insisted that the machinery of the Ballot was impracticable. Lord John Russell saw no hope of improvement, except in the better dispositions of the men of property themselves. Lord Stanley was at much pains to show that the Grey cabinet when they carried the Eeform Bill, had come under a pledge to go no farther. Sir Kobert Peel spoke at some length, but with no originality. Division, 146 for, to 319 against. The following year (1836) on the 23rd of June, instead of a motion declaratory of the principle of the Ballot, Mr. Grote brought in a bill containing the provisions and machinery for secret voting. It would be superfluous, he remarks, to insist upon what all constitutional writers admit, that the primary condition of representative government is the efiicient operation of the elective principle. It is therefore no waste of time to con- sider the question of freedom or purity of election. What are the facts at present? So notorious are the evils and abuses that they are come to be treated as light and familiar. In introducing the Reform Act, Lord Grey proclaimed that nomination of members of Parliament should cease to exist. It is time to fulfil this beneficent pledge. The reality and prevalence of election abuses can now be made to rest on the testimony of Committees of the House, which have brought out a body of dark and infamous details, showing the springs and working of what we extol and sanctify under the name of representation. All parties make loud complaints of intimidation. Much is made, in the Irish elections, of intimi- dation by the people and the priests, but still more frequent is the dictation of landlords and agents, and of the rich in general. Irish abuses are only English abuses on a gigantic scale. The clergy of the Church of England have not been behindhand in their zeal at the critical moment of an election ; the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge dis- [28] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. missed his gardener for refusing to vote for the present member for that town. But the nation in its collective majesty has a paramount title to the free and independent suffrage of each separate elector. It is time for the House to interpose a remedy when the distempers of our electoral system have been proclaimed by its own authority. Have gentlemen made up their minds to see this leprosy cleave to us and to our posterity for ever? The remedy is secret voting. It trenches on no existing rights. Voting by Ballot is unfettered and unbiassed voting ; when Cicero, in speaking of the Ballot at Eome, calls it Tahellee, vindex tacitse libertatis — the upholder of silent liberty — he says what is emphatically true. He next goes on to reply to objections. It is said, tbat however an elector may vote, people will guess or suspect how he has voted. Why so? Because his sentiments are known, and he has no motive to depart from them. There is an eternal and indissoluble alliance between secrecy and freedom. Gentlemen make intimidation by the mob an object of abhorrence ; they may abolish it by a measure that protects from all modes of intimidation at once. The much- extolled responsibility of the elector is either a phantom or a mask for the precise mischief of intimidation. The pub- licity of the votes of members of Parliament rests on three distinct grounds, all absent in the case of the electors. The smallness of their number gives them an interest of their own, apart from, and often hostile to, the community; the same smallness enables the public to watch their conduct ; lastly, the speciality and continuity of their functions also enable the public to judge wliether they discharge their duties. But, on the other hand, how idle to talk of the responsibility of seven or eight hundred thousand persons. Lord John Russell had said the Ballot would remove the electors from good and improving influences. But what are the good influences that can operate upon a man apart from his own conscience and conviction? The good in- fluences will really be expanded and fostered. The SPEECHES ON THE BALLOT. [29] specific agency of the Ballot is against intimidation; its effect is not so conclusive, but will still be powerful against bribery. There may be a corrupt agreement in a small constituency ; but this proves only that small constituencies are faulty. Surely it is a noble object to watch over and cherish the honest and untainted portion of the constituency. As to the breaking of promises, the first purpose of a repre- sentation is to collect the real sense of the qualified voters ; the duty towards a private party is a secondary object. Yet the Ballot does not command any man to break his promise ; it merely enjoins him to perform the act of voting without a witness. Promise-breaking in this situation is the proof that the voter has been constrained. To tell the intimidator — because you have compelled a voter to promise against his will, therefore you have acquired a good title to compel him to vote, — is to guarantee the last stage of tyranny out of respect to the first. Then as to the influence of property, there is only one influence that will be withdrawn — the power of rewarding or punishing electors according to their vote. Does the House recognise in any one citizen of this community — a peer or commoner, titled or untitled — a legi- timate authority to reward or punish electors for their votes ? Leader seconded the motion in a speech of some length, and Charles Villiers spoke with his wonted ability in the course of the debate. None of the Whig or Tory leaders spoke. The House divided— Ayes 88 ; Noes 139. On the 8th of Blarch, 1837, the motion was next brought forward, also in the shape of a bill ; but the speech abstained from the explanation of the machinery in detail, I select a few of the points. It is not enough to say that secret voting disengages you altogether from the disorderly tumult and vexatious obstruc- tion inseparable from the pronouncing of a candidate's name at the hustings, and from the continuous proclamation of the varying state of the poll. The main purpose is to procure [30] CHAEACTER AND WEITINGS. free, sincere, and independent voting. This ought to secure for it the consent of all parties ; for how can any man repu- diate the principle of general freedom of votes, without assuming to himself a despotism little less monstrous than the ancient inquisition in matters of religion ? Free agency is the very soul of voting. Such is the English constitution in theory at least. Listen to Blackstone, and you will be beguiled into the belief that every man's vote is his own vote ; descend into the committee-room, and you will find that the canvassers of election rack their ingenuity to dis- cover, not modes of persuasion, but modes either of com- pulsion or of seduction. It was acknowledged by the present Prime Minister only last year, that the great evil of the day is that every one thinks he has a right to employ his influence over another. In an article in the ' Edinburgh Eeview ' against the Ballot (written by Lord Brougham), tlie extent of intimidation at elections is described in language which it is impossible to surpass. On this point the reports of the committees of this House afford materials enough for the most insatiable appe- tite. Wherever any man possesses the means of inflicting injury on another, or withholding benefits, the power is used for electioneering purposes. As to exclusive dealing, the Tory organs are preaching it openly as a matter of political obligation. For all this, no one else has suggested any remedy. The Ballot will be an act of emancipation for all dependent voters. Some gentlemen tell us that while averse to theoretical or organic reforms, they burn with zeal for the removal of all proved abuses. Let them peruse the report of the Intimidation Committee, and they will find a harvest of proved abuses, rank, and pining for the sickle. Whence is it that election abuses in all their grossness and variety, at least three parts out of four, take their origin ? It is from the struggles of extraneous tyranny to grasp the vote of the voter. Now the surest mode of warfare against crime is to disappoint the criminal of his expected booty. Instead of secrecy being dishonourable, it is used in every private SPEECHES ON THE BALLOT. [31] association, and its introduction is only treading in the beaten path of sound and practical legislation. Objectors, putting aside freedom of election as a light and worthless consi- deration, reproach the Ballot with multiplying false promises and false declarations. What then ? Is there to be no privacy anywhere because falsehoods may be made and remain undiscovered ? The secrecy of the post opens a door to falsehood ; yet if there be any act of despotism that excites peculiar abhorrence it is the breaking the seal of private letters. Persecutors of every class may well be angry with the Ballot; it enables the voter to do his duty without baring his bosom to the assault of private malice. The victims of religious oppression in all ages have carried on their worship secretly, and no historian has ever dared to revile them. Is it an unpardonable sin, under the pressure of penalties, to combine outward conformity with secret dis- sent ? Secrecy is the refuge of the weak against the strong. Publicity enables the political prosecutor to combine with the hundred arms of Briareus, the hundred eyes of Argus. If the Ballot makes hypocrites, open voting makes hypocrites, at least as many in number and much more in kind. Under the Ballot influence will be futile : when the process of intimidation is forbidden to be consummated, it will not be begun. Then, as to bribery. A voter accustomed to take bribes will feel that his market is struck from under him when he is directed to vote in secrecy. In ensuring ignorance of the poll, it prevents the candidate from knowing how many votes he must buy to secure his majority. Next, as to the argument from responsibility. You cannot make the elector responsible for voting ill ; for where is the standard ? Among Tories, to vote ill is to vote for a Whig or a Eadical, and conversely. As to the multitude that have no votes, why are they excluded ? What arguments should we hear in reply to a motion for universal suffrage ? But if these men are to coerce the voters, admit then at once they are the superior party of the two. If the non-electors acted generally on the invitation given to them, we should have universal suffrage [32] CHAKACTER AND WRITINGS. practically, but brought about by the most violent and un- warrantable means. The unrepresented classes have nothing to lose and much to gain, from placing every qualified voter in circumstances for an honest and conscientious use of his franchise ; it concerns them that the poorer voters should not be subservient to the richer; that the franchise should be kept at least as wide as at present. At one time the Ballot is assailed because it will extinguish the influence of wealth ; at another time because it will extinguish the influence of disfranchised poverty. If you insist that the elector shall be responsible to the people at large, you are bound to pro- tect him against the tyranny of the great man in his neigh- bourhood. Coercion and counter-coercion are assumed to be the essential and tutelary forces which keep the electors in their proper orbit. It often happens that the pressure from two opposing quarters is so violent that the elector knows not which he ought to obey. The concluding sentences are : — " I feel that in advocating the Ballot, I am upholding nothing less than the sacred right of free judgment and free utterance in political mattei-s. I am treading in the steps of those illustrious men who have rescued the individual conscience from its trammels, and vindicated its liberty and inviolability in matters of religion. I am striving to bafile the guilty efforts of that spirit of persecution which still harasses the political world, and still defiles the sincerity and solemnity of the elective franchise. If, Sir, you can break the sword of the persecutor, and assure freedom of election, without the aid of the Ballot, proceed to the task without delay, for never was there a case of more pressing necessity. But when it is notorious that this can- not be done, and when the alternative of the Ballot is ready within your reach, I beseech you to consider whether you can, with a safe conscience, license and perpetuate the count- less mischiefs of an unprotected suffrage." The debate was short, and the opposition was somewhat milder in tone than ia former years. The House divided — Ayes, 155 ; Noes, 267 ; Pairs, 5. SPEECHES ON THE BALLOT. [33] The motion was renewed in the recently elected Parlia- ment of 1838 (16th of February) ; and the mover availed himself of the experience at the elections. If it were proposed to cut down the present number of seven hundred thousand qualified electors to four hundred thousand, the attempt would be resisted alike by those who desired to adhere to the present fi-anchise, and those who desired to enlarge it. Yet open voting is a practical dis- franchisement to hundreds and thousands of electors. Many decline to exercise the franchise at all : and with regard to those who do vote, what is the difference between taking away the vote and taking away the voter's liberty of voting as he inwardly prefers ? There is little difference of opinion as to the main purposes of a representative government ; it is to get a House of Commons possessing the confidence of the people ; for this we go through the harassing and costly business of a general election. Does the practical working conform to this ? Tlie evidence shows that the existing system is not a representative system. Many votes are given, of all shades of party, that express the genuine senti- ments of the electors ; with respect to a large proportion, the reverse is the truth. The innumerable discourses of candidates on the hustings during the late election, the daily criminations and recriminations of all the newspapers — Whig, Tory, and Eadical — all certify the virulence of the evil. He quoted a number of individual testimonies — Lord Palmerston at Tiverton, the Whig and Tory versions of the election in the West Eiding of Yorkshire, and others. The number of ejectments, notices to quit, changes of dealing and dismissals of employment, if it could be collected, would be large and remarkable ; and as one punishment inflicted corresponds to a thousand persons deterred, these acts are but a small proportion of the cases of undue interference. In many cases, the franchise is hated as a burden. An election sheds a disastrous twilight over all the relations of social life, — tyranny, ruin for conscientious behaviour, success of unprincipled compliance, suspension of inter- d [34] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. . course, factitious riot and disorder. If no protection be allowed, the franchise must fall into the same degeneracy and disgrace as the old system before 1831. Lord John Eussell had expressed his strong sense of the " terrible position " of the landlords, and rather than that it should continue, he would adopt the Ballot. Since then, there have been two general elections, and the terrible position is un- affected. If the supporters of the Eeform Act wish to reap the good they have sown, they must adopt the inexpugnable safeguard of the secret vote. As knowledge is power, absence of knowledge is absence of power. It is in vain to reason with the intimidator, to cajole him, to cry shame upon him, to hold out legal penalties. Intimidation is too gentlemanlike and fashionable to be subdued by such leaden weapons. It is the inmate of courts and manor-houses : the cherished companion of lordly bosoms : all the pride of wealth and rank, and all the fierceness of political bigotry conspire to uphold it; the clergyman who discourses elo- quently in the pulpit on charity and forgiveness of enemies, neither enjoins nor manifests any such dispositions during a contested election ; even ladies of high fashion are not ashamed to direct with their own delicate hands, the instant discontinuance of a tradesman who has dared to vote for the shocking Eadical. Under the Ballot those who now dictate votes by means of servile and selfish fears must resort to other methods of guidance : if they disdain to substitute persuasion for control, they will be left, as they ought to be, to impotent and unavailing complaints. Some persons maintain, that secret voting will be inoperative unless canvassing is also prohibited. The word " canvassing " is equivocal ; it includes something that is harmless and even indispensable, and much that is revolting and odious. Under the Ballot, you would have a committee and a canvass ; to consult the prevailing sentiment, to communicate informa- tion, to rectify mistakes, and to convince, as well as might be, such as are adverse. Beyond these limits begins the odious part of the practice. In no scene on the face of the • SPEECHES ON THE BALLOT. [35] earth are the harassing and ungenerous arts of enforcing constrained compliance more skilfully practised than at an English election. Then as to violation of promises. What is the behaviour of a country gentleman when the Tory canvassers tell him that Farmer So-and So, his tenant, has promised his vote to the Eadical candidate ? To hear the arguments against the Ballot, one would think an election by open voting was a school of probity and veracity. Instead of that, the promise of a dependent voter is respected just so far as it coincides with the will and dictates of his superior. The promises now broken are precisely the best class of promises. The elector is under a paramount obligation, from which no act of his own can discharge him, to give his vote according to his own conscientious preference. A promise to vote contrary to his own judgment, is a premedi- tated breach of solemn public duty. If there be in human affairs an unlawful covenant, that is one of the deepest dye ; wrong in the man who gives the pledge, wrong in the highest degree, and altogether without excuse or extenuation, in the man who extorts it. The responsibility of the elector is an abuse of terms. It is seduction and intimidation under another name. The debate that followed was well sustained. The motion was seconded by Mr. Ward, in an effective speech. Mr. James referred to a time some years ago, when he presented a petition in favour of the Ballot, which was received with shouts of laughter. Lytton Bulwer spoke in favour of the motion. Lord John Russell replied at some length. It was on this occasion that Sir Robert Peel made his principal speech on the subject ; merely the old topics more elabo- rately worded. He treated the position of the elector and of the member of Parliament as the same ; he declared that the best institutions had their abuses; the abuses in elections were greatly exaggerated ; secret voting is at variance with the institutions, usages, and feelings of the people, and with free discussion ; then, there will be no secrecy with the Ballot ; on the day of election, the doubtful voter will be d 2 [36] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. asked to stay away; the voter will as a rule keep his promise, or else blab to his wife or somebody, who will tell the agent ; there may be great political outbursts, when the public are so unreasonably prejudiced, that they need enlightened control; the Ballot has not worked well in other countries, nor did it in Eome; it will have to be followed by universal suffrage. The Division stood— Ayes, 200 ; Noes, 317. The sixth and last time the motion was made, was on the 18th of June, 1839. The speech introducing it was less than a column of the newspaper report. Apologising for iteration, he said his historical experience had taught him that it was not the introduction of novel arguments which political truth depended upon for its success, but in having the proper arguments frequently brought forward and con- sidered. It was not fruitfuluess of invention that enabled the advocates of Catholic emancipation to carry their point : the novelty of every argument had been exhausted long before the final triumph. Even though they meant the Keform Act to be final, did they mean also to embalm its deformities ? As the evils were fully admitted, why did not some one propose a remedy different from the Ballot? He could not understand the objection of its being too demo- cratic a measure, unless the objectors held that democratical opinions prevailed amongst the majority of the electors throughout the country, and that the Ballot would enable them to vote more freely in favour of their opinions. The measure was indispensable to any state of the franchise — household, educational, or universal. He did not envy the feelings of any gentleman, who, after having witnessed a contested election, did not feel for the hardships to which many persons were exposed, and who did not wish that some measure of protection should be extended to them. The undue interference with the exercise of the suffrage was not consistent with the perfect freedom of the country ; the Ballot was the only antidote against the taint which SPEECHES ON THE BALLOT. [37] poisoned the life-blood of the representative system. It might be rejected, but it would not be rejected long. The debate was enlivened by the brilliancy of Macaulay in support of the motion. He began with a long apology for open questions, as the Ballot was now made in the cabinet. He admitted that the Ballot would take from the voter some good, while it destroyed many bad motives. There was a time when he hoped that the evil of intimida- tion would yield to the force of public opinion and the progress of intelligence ; he had, however, been compelled to relinquish that view. The evil had increased within the last seven years — within the last three years ; and he attributed the increase in some measure to the Keform Bill. In saying so, he was only charging the Reform Bill with what accom- panied every measure of improvement ; the Eeformation in the .Church, and the Revolution both gave rise to new evils. The Reform Bill had extended the suffrage to thousands who were open to intimidation ; and better be elected for Old Sarum than owe a seat to fear-extorted votes. All tyranny was bad, but the worst kind of tyi-anny was that which used the machinery of freedom. Intimidation was corruption in its worst and most loathsome form — it was corruption stripped of every blandishment and grace — of every savour- ing of hospitable bounty and good humour. He was opposed to the reconstruction of the Reform Bill, but to make that Bill effectual they should not allow nomination to remain in an altered and more odious form. Lord John Russell made a laboured reply to Macaulay, and was himself severely handled by Shell. Sir James Graham went into the vexed historical question, often brought up in the Ballot debates, as to what was the understanding of the original framers of the Reform Bill on the subject of the Ballot. Sir Robert Peel in a short speech lectured the cabinet on their doctrine of open questions. On a division, the Ayes were 216 ; Noes, 333. [38] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. CHAPTER III. MISCELLANEOUS SPEECHES. 1833. Mr. Grote's maiden speech was delivered on the 22nd of February, in support of a motion to refer to the committee then sitting on J\Iunicipal Corporations, a petition from the Merchant Tailors' Company of the City of London. It had been denied that the City Companies were corporations in the same sense as the municipal corporations. Mr. Grote contended that as they were not companies in the commercial sense of the term, and as they passed regulations for par- ticular trades, they exercised powers belonging properly to a municipal corporation. More important was the occasion of his next speech, five days later, in opposition to the Irish Coercion Bill. In spite of his respect for the quarter whence the measure came, he could not approve of it. It contained some wise and tutelary provisions ; but as a whole it would not answer its end. He could not speak of it but as a most revolting measure. He had listened patiently to the catalogue of enormities detailed by the noble lord (Althorp). This was nothing new to him ; the Irish had ever been a lawless people, a fact not sufficiently dwelt upon. They (the legislature) should strengthen the hands of justice under the existing tribunals. The proposed courts-martial would not be impartial courts ; and their mistakes would be on the side, not of mercy, but of severity. These courts-martial were held responsible only to higher courts-martial, which was no guarantee, for the condemnation of one military man by another would be prevented by the esprit de corps among officers. He objected to the Bill on two distinct grounds. The first was subjecting Ireland to MISCELLANEOUS SPEECHES. [39] the government of military tribunals ; the next was the pro- hibition of public meetings, and the right to petition. " He was sure that they had not arrived yet at the period when the relations between the governors and the governed in that country were so pure, and so free from suspicion, as to enable the people to dispense with all the bulwarks of the constitu- tion." There were abundance of grievances yet to redress in that country of long standing, and it would be wise as well as delicate in the Government to pause before they shut the door against all the public complaints from the people of Ireland. On the following day he presented a petition from a num- ber of persons called Separatists, who sought to be exempted, like the Quakers, from taking oaths. (This was afterwards done by Act 3 & 4 Will. IV., c. 82.) On the 7th of March he presented a petition from Norwich, stating that the return of Lord Stormont and Sir James Scarlett had been effected by means of bribery and cor- ruption, and praying that a Parliamentary Commission might be sent down, fully and fairly to enquire into and expose the system. He supported the prayer of the petition ; but the Solicitor-General objected to it as irregular. On the 18th he presented a petition from Marylebone against the Irish Coercion Bill, and gave his cordial support to the prayer of the petition. On the 31st of May, he spoke on Lord Althorp's resolutions for a renewal of the Bank Charter. He concurred generally in the resolutions ; but, on the 1st of July, in . the debate on the second resolution, which made the promissory notes of the Bank of England a legal tender (although always payable in gold at the Bank itself, or any of its branches), he avowed an entire change of opinion, on the ground that in the poor districts there would not be an adequate supply of specie ; tliere would, in fact, be a commission charged for gold over wliat would be demanded for notes. The clause would also hinder small depositors — men who had their thirty or Ibrty pounds — from carrying gold to the country bank. He hud a [40] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. farther distrust of the measure from its being adopted and praised by gentlemen who held certain opinions on the ques- tion of the currency, sincerely enough, he had no doubt, but in his view injurious if adopted. Lord Althorp followed, and declared that he had himself been much influenced by Mr. Grote's former opinions, given in evidence before the Committee on the Bank Charter, and could not concur in his new views. Mr. Clay thought that the manly and noble conduct of the honourable member for London, in thus frankly avowing what he now considered to be an error of opinion, was above all praise ; and, instead of de- tracting from his character for talent and judgment, would only increase his deservedly high reputation. On Lord Althorp's fourth resolution, fixing the allowance to the Bank of England for managing the public debt, Mr. Clay moved an amend- ment in favour of reduction. Mr. Grote spoke in favour of another amendment for postponing the resolution, and making further investigation before fixing the allowance, which he did not think too great. On the 19th of June, on the resumption of a debate on the claims of English subjects on the Danish Government, he presented a petition from claimants in the City of London ; and contended that the case was one of great injustice. On the 21st, in Committee on the Church Temporalities (Leland) Bill, on clause 147 (application of monies arising from sale of perpetuities) being read, Mr. Secretary Stanley proposed the omission of the clause. A very excited debate followed. O'Connell indulged in his bitterest taunts. Dr. Lushingtou said he had never heard a discussion in which the decency of parliamentary language, or the courtesy of public life had been so much departed from. The question in dispute was the alienation of Church property to secular purposes. The clause involved this alienation in a small degree. At the same time the Government got out of the difficulty by maintaining that the funds alluded to were not Church property. Still, the clause was now surrendered. Mr. Grote spoke shortly, but with more than his accustomed MISCELLANEOUS SPEECHES. [41] point and terseness. He did entertain an objection to the Bill in the first instance, because it "did not, in his opinion, go the length that people expected it would go towards rectifying that great ecclesiastical enormity of Europe — the Irish Church." Still, knowing the difficulties the ministers would have to contend with in getting it passed, he felt anxious to suppoi-t it ; but when he found that, defective as it was, it was to be robbed of one of its chiefest members, lie felt bound to oppose the withdrawal of the clause. The supposition was that the withdrawal had a view to Avhat might happen in the Lords ; but what worse could the Lords do than send the Bill back, and then they might consider the omission of the clause. His advice to ministers was, instead of offering a few crumbs of reform to the people, and afterwards endeavouring to pare down even those few, to give such measures as they might think just and necessary, with- out any reference to what might be the conduct of another assembly. Lord John Eussell " confessed he turned with gratification from the frothy declamation which had so lavishly been bestowed on the subject, to the calm, and as usual, rational arguments which had been addressed to the House by the honourable member for London." The gist of his speech was to avoid a contest Avith the Lords until there was a ques- tion of still greater impoiiance to contend for ; " he was of opinion that this country could not stand a revolution once a-year." On the 2nd of July he presented a petition from the merchants of London, trading with Oporto, complaining of the losses undergone by them in the struggle existing for the last ten months in Portugal. On the 30th Mr. Koebuck moved that the House would, with the smallest delay possible, consider the means of establishing a system of national education. Mr. Grote seconded the motion, in the belief that two things were per- fectly true ; the first, that the present system of education was defective: the other, that the defects could not be [42] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. remedied without the assistance of Government. He refen-ed in terms of great commendation to Cousin's book on ' Educa- tion in France.' On the 7th of August, on the third reading of the Customs' Duties Bill, after commenting on the enormous duty on cur- rants — 44s. 4d. per cwt. — he moved its reduction to 28s. ; the motion was defeated by a small majority. On the 9th, on a clause in the Eenewal of the Bank Charter, continuing the renewal for ten years, he urged that seven years would be a sufficiently long period. On the 10th he recommended that the variations in the Bank circulation should be published weekly in the Gazette. 1834. The opening days of this session were troubled with the discussion of a charge made against Mr. Sheil, that while voting against the Irish Coercion Bill of last session, he had privately expressed himself to the effect, that Ministers ought to press the Bill, and that it is impossible to live in Ireland without it. An extraordinary personal altercation took place between Lord Althorp and Mr. Sheil ; and they were both ordered into the custody of the Serjeant-at-arms until they gave assurances that they would take no steps outside the House. Mr. O'Connell moved the appointment of a Com- mittee of Privileges to investigate the charge, which was carried by a large majority. Mr. Grote was made chairman of the committee. On the 12th of February he rose in the House to move, by request of the committee, that Mi. O'Connell's name be now added to the committee ; he having, in his motion, declined to name himself. After some stick- ling, the motion was agreed to. On the 14th Mr. Grote brought up the report of the committee, which was a com- plete vindication of Mr. Shell's character. On the 20th of February he presented a petition from the parishioners of Allhallows, Lombard Street, disapproving of .MISCELLANEOUS SPEECHES. [43] the conduct of the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury, in [)re- ferring to the incumbency of the parish a non-resident ; and took the opportunity of making some remarks on the neces- sity of an early measure of Church Eeform. In a speech palliating the appointment, Sir E. Inglis acknowledged the calm and temperate manner in which Mr. Grote had discussed what persons, not of his temper and discretion, would have made an occasion to provoke other sentiments than he had roused. On the 18th of March he took part in a debate on the Tea Duties. On the 14th of April, in Committee of Supply, he objected strongly to the amount of the vote for the Consular Depart- ment, and also to the discrepancies of the salaries. The fol- lowing day, on a vote of £20,000 for education, he was of opinion that the Government ought to extend the vote. On the 30th he opposed the second reading of Sir A. Agnew's Bill for the Observance of tlie Sabbath. He con- sidered it nothing more or less than a sentence of imprison- ment upon the working classes of society upon the Sabbath. " Religion to be effective must be spontaneous and sincere." On the 9th of May, Lord Althorp moved the second reading of the Poor Laws Amendment Bill. Mr. Grote was an active supporter of the measure in all its stages. In the debate on the second reading, he spoke with intense fervour on the necessity of the change. He had perused with de- liberate attention all the Reports of the Commission of Inquiry. Even the vast and abusive expenditure under the present law was as dust in the balance compared with the evil effect on the character and comfort of the labouring classes. He was aware of the great jealousy expressed at the powers to be vested in the Commissioners; but the question was, did the urgency of the case require them? His concluding sentences are : — " Entertaining a strong and decided opinion on this subject, I have done my best to persuade the House to read this Bill a second time. I know that I have done this at no small risk of favour and pupu- [44] CHAHACTER AND WRITINGS. lavity to myself; for I understand that a petition was this day presented from my own constituents, directed strongly against the passing of this Bill. Sir, it is not without the deepest regret and concern that I find myself opposed to constituents ta whom I am attached by every tie, and to whom I owe the honourable station which I now occupy. But so strong is my conviction of the absolute necessity of some large remedial measure as an antidote to the over- whelming evil of pauperism — so firm is my belief of the necessity of some central supervising agency to secure the fulfilment of any salutary provisions which the legislature may prescribe — so strong is my conviction on these cardinal points, that if it were to cost me the certain sacrifice of my seat, I should feel bound to tell my constituents that I dis- sented from them, and that I would do my best to promote the attainment of this necessary, and, in the main, valuable remedy. In doing so, I should feel with pain that I had decided contrary to the opinion of my constituents ; but I should also feel, that I had decided in unison with the best interests of my country." In Committee, he spoke frequently on the details. He opposed the concession of the Government to limit the appointment of the Commissioners to five years. On the bastardy clauses he complained that Lord Althorp was making concessions to the public feeling rather than to reason or argument. On the 27th of May, Mr. Ward brought forward his motion for reducing the revenues of the Irish Church. Mr. Grote was to second the motion. Those who sought to identify the two Churches of England and Ireland would degrade the one church without elevating the other. There was only one case in Europe where the temporalities of the established church went, not to a majority, but to a small minority of the people, and that was Ireland. In France, under the bigoted reign of Charles X., the cost of religious worship to the State was less than one shilling a head ; in Ireland it was one pound ten shillings a head. Some contended MISCELLANEOUS SPEECHES. [45] that the State had no right to touch the property of the Irish Church, or to apply it to other than religious purposes. This might be maintained by a Koman-Catholic, but every Protestant must be aware that in the progress of the Re- formation church property had been diverted to other pur- poses. If the legishiture attempted to continue the Irish Church in its present magnitude, the legislature would share in its unpopularity ; it was considered a grievance upheld only by the irresistible influence of English connexion. When the advocates of the repeal of the Union put forward the evils of the Irish Church establishment, no man replied. Although this speech was composed and appears in Hansard, it was not delivered (see " Life," p. 90.) On the 8th of July, he supported Mr. Ward's motion for taking authentic lists of the divisions of the House. The motion was carried ; and from that time commenced the recording of the names of those that vote in the divisions. On the 25th, on the Order of the Day for the House to resolve itself into a Committee of W^ays and Means, Mr. Goulburn made an attack upon the Government for increas- ing offices, by Commissions and otherwise, and particularly instanced an office held by Macaulay. Mr. Grote defended the expenditure upon Commissions of Inquiry, but with regard to the salary given to Mr. Macaulay, with all his admiration for that excellent and most gifted individual, he could not but consider it extravagant. 1835. Sir Eobert Peel was now in office, and the opening of the Session was marked by an animated debate. In the Commons an Amendment on the Address was moved by Lord Morpeth, strongly expressing the desirableness of prosecuting measures of reform, and condemning the recent dissolution of Parlia- ment. Mr. Pemberton replied to the very vigorous attack of Lord Morpeth. Mr, Ewart sjjoke for the amendment. [46] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. Mr. Richards made an apology for ministers, on* the ground that the late Government itself was not giving satisfaction to reformers ; among other illustrations, he quoted their recep- tion of the Ballot. Mr. Grote then rose. He said his reform principles conducted him to very different conclusions from the member who had just sat down. As a reformer, he could not consent to look for a ministry in the ranks of the party ever the most hostile to reform. If his present vote would have the effect of displacing the present Government, that would be an additional reason for giving it. Lord Grey's adminis- tration had been slow in making reforms, but that could not be said of Lord Melbourne's, seeing it had not been allowed that fair trial for which the advocates of the present Govern- ment were so clamorous. Great public excitement had been created, which could be allayed only by the assurance, con- tained in the Amendment, that the cause of reform was not to suffer. The Royal Speech, if it had come from a ministry he confided in, would not have given him satisfaction, but coming from a ministry in which he had no confidence at all, was still more objectionable. Its defects would have justified a still stronger amendment. He could not forget their acts previous to 1830. The Government of Lord Grey was the first that had openly approved of and acted on the principles of Reform ; it did not come up to his wishes ; but however slow, it would never stand still. The mover of the address had spoken of a morbid desire for change ; what he found was an ardent wish for improving our institutions. Whoever asserted that there was anything incompatible with law and government was guilty of a calumny upon the body of the people. Reformers had been taunted with want of unanimity, but they had quite enough of sense and reflection to pursue the stream of Reform peaceably and calmly, without even allowing the impediments that they might meet with to force them out of their channel, or to make them fret and foam with vexation. He thought the defence of the ministry by a reference to the King's prerogative, would soon lead the prerogative itself to be questioned. MISCELLANEOUS SPEECHES. [47] The Amendment was carried by 309 to 302. On the lOtli of March, in a debate on the Malt Duties, Sir James Graham had made allusion to a change of mi- nistry, and said " they had been told of, or rather threatened with, a Grote and Warburton Administration." Mr. Grote rose in consequence. He said a friend " had been pleased to connect his name with a possible ministry : he, however, regretted such a fancy had ever been started, inasmuch as such a situation was as much above his ambition, as it would be foreign to his taste, his pursuits, and his interests." More- over, on the present question, he dissented from the very persons that were to be coupled with him in the supposed ministry. He objected to the repeal of the Malt Duties, and considered Sir Robert Peel's arguments to be unanswer- able, and rejoiced that he had dispersed so many of the agricultural fallacies so often put forth in the House. The following night. Sir George Grey moved for a Com- mittee to enquire into the most effectual method to put a stop to bribery at elections. Mr. Grote expressed himself willing to go into the Committee with the fullest disposition to consider any remedy that might be proposed, apart from the Ballot, and trusted that if they were unsuccessful, they would follow the example of the member for Edinburgh, and get over their former scruples and objections to the Ballot. The Committee was appointed. On the 18th, Sir Jolm Campbell moved the second reading of the Imprisonment for Debt Bill. The Bill abolished im- prisonment, except in the cases of fraud. Mr. Grote said the Bill was recommended both by policy and by humanity : and he was more convinced of this by the speech (hostile) of the President of the Board of Trade than by any other reasoning on the subject. He was better pleased that his views should be sustained by the failure of his opponent's arguments, than by the success of his own. On the 27th of May, Mr. Shaw presented several petitions expressing, in somewhat violent language, alarm and dismay at the proposed measure respecting the Irish Church. [48] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. Various members commented upon the language of the petitions. Mr. Grote would make only one observation on the subject. Much had often been said as to the ferocious language of the Radicals and the working classes : but no petition coming from these ever abounded in such calumnious assertions, and imputation of the worst motives as the petition cow coming from the Conservatives of South Lanca- shire, and likewise the petition from Durham. It was right that the same character should be applied to violent lan- guage, whether it came from the ultra-Pious or the ultra- Radical. On the 15th of June, the Municipal Corporation Bill v^as unanimously" read a second time. Mr. Grote, commenting upon a speech of Lord Stanley's, objected to the large number of councillors allowed by the Bill ; and advocated the removability of charitable trustees, and also of the recorder. He also protested against a proposal for retaining the franchise of the freemen. Both on this occasion, and afterwards in Committee, he opposed the qualification of a three years' occupancy. On the 26th of June, he presented a petition from Great Yarmouth, praying for the Ballot, in consequence of the drunkenness, riot and corruption at the last election there. He should have wished the petition referred to a Select Committee, but he was personally overcharged with Com- mittee business, and could not attend to it. On the 1st of July, in Committee on the Municipal Corporation Bill, on clause 23, providing that one-third of the Town Councils should go out of office annually, an amendment was moved by Mr. Charles Buller, to the eftect that the whole be elected annually. Mr. Grote supported the principle of annual election, and from the experience of the City of London, refuted the objection that it would cause a continual influx of new and inexperienced men. The same evening he moved, in a short speech, the introduction of the Ballot at Municipal Elections ; but did not press the motion to a vote. MISCELLANEOUS SPEECHES. [49] On the 31st of August, there came on for consideration the Lords' Amendments to the Municipal Corporations Bill. Considerable public excitement had been aroused by these amendments. Lord John Russell stated what points the Government would, and what they would not, surrender. Sir Robert Peel followed and assisted in compromising the differences. Mr. Hume objected to the amount of the con- cessions. Mr. Grote still more emphatically. Whatever he might think of the proceedings of the House of Lords in other respects, he was bound to acknowledge that they had resolutely adhered to their independent character; and it would not be amiss if the Commons would do the same. It would ill become the dignity of that House — the assembled representatives of the people of England — to yield important principles merely for the purpose of conciliating the other House of Parliament. When the people of England were fully and justly represented in that House, there ought to be no other power in the State which should be able to stand against them. He complained that Lord John Russell, in one or two of his concessions, had gone the length of vindi- cating the Lords' amendments on their merits. He would rather wait for a better Bill than barter away the best principles of the measure for the purpose of getting the immediate consent of the other House. Both on that occasion and next night, he objected strongly to the test of pecuniary qualification, which Lord John Russell agreed to retain with a modification suggested by Sir Robert Peel. He had come down to the House with the full intention of dividing upon this question, but had been induced, in consequence of the observations he had heard, to alter his purpose. Still he was anxious to give his reasons, namely, his repugnance to the principle of qualification, and his sense that the concession was too great. He thought tlie tone of the present debate was calculated to have no other effect than to give the Lords a power of legislating over this House, and to make the country believe that this House would not stand by any great principle which it had on- [50] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. deavoured to establish. He could not see what the country had gained by the Reform Bill, which had in a great degree put an end to the system of filling the House with nomi- nees of the Lords, if the other House was to exercise its power in another way, by enabling minorities of the Commons to triumph over decided majorities of the repre- sentatives of the people. 1836. On the 20th of April, a keen discussion arose as to members of the House voting on Private Bills wherein they had a pecuniary interest. Mr. Grote agreed in the prin- ciple, but did not see how it could be fully carried out. The inference that he would draw was that Committees of that House were not fit tribunals for deciding private business. The same night, in presenting a petition from sixty merchants of the City of London, complaining of the ill effects, on our commerce with Turkey, of the overbearing interference of Russia, — he deprecated any course that would involve this country in a war with Russia. It had of late become the custom to use very unmeasured language as to the aggressions of Russia, respecting which, whatever opinion he might entertain as a private individual, he considered unwise and impolitic when expressed in the House. On the 22nd, a motion was made to inculpate Mr, O'Connell for his sliare in making a corrupt bargain at the Carlow election, notwithstanding that a Select Committee had sat upon the transaction and given in a Report in an opposite sense. It was a purely party move. Mr. Grote stood upon the decision of the Committee, as being cool and impartial, whereas the present motion had the character of political hostility to O'Connell. It was somewhat remark- able that hon. gentlemen opposite, who were now so anxious to preserve the purity of election, had taken a very different course last year when the York and Great Yarmouth cases MISCELLANEOUS SPEECHES. [51] were under discussion. The House on that occasion was content with pronouncing a slight censure on the parties implicated ; but it' the hon. members on that (the Ministerial) side of the House had insisted on dragging those men up again, would it not have been denounced as an act of the grossest partiality, emanating from a low spiteful feeling of personal hostility ? On the 29th, he presented a petition for the equalisation of the duty on East and West India sugars ; and thouglit that they were called by every reason of justice, fairness and policy to abolish the discriminating duty in favour of the West Indies. On the 9th of June, the House had to consider the Lords' Amendments to the Municipal Corporations (Ireland) Bill ; the debate lasting two nights. Lord John Kussell, on the part of the Government, took a more decided tone on th}s occasion than in the case of the English bill ; but yet prcf- posed certain concessions. Mr. Grote spoke as usual shortly, but with increased emphasis on the hostile attitude of the Lords. He would have preferred that the Lords' Amend- ments should have been at once rejected, unless they had found any one that they could in their consciences approve. If ever there was a Bill, on which the House should look to its own dignity, it was the one now before them, for it had been dealt with by the other House in a manner in which no Bill had ever before been treated. The representatives of the people might have been spared the pain of making con- cessions to those who had declined, he might almost say exultingly declined, to make anything like concessions to them. He did not wish to speak lightly of a collision between the two Houses of Parliament; but let the collision come when it might, it never would arise on a more noble or a more natural object than the present. Tlie fact that they must meet with the same spirit of opposition from their Lordships on all important measures, rendered him less solicitous than he might otherwise have been for the settle- ment of the difference between the two Houses on tliis e2 [52] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. particular subject. When he -saw the House of Commons perpetually considering upon all measures of reform, not how much they ought in justice to give, but how much the Lords would be disposed to grant, he thought that the time was come when they ought to inform their constituents of that melancholy truth, and let them decide whether they would be governed on the principles avowed by the House of Lords, or on those acted on by the House of Commons. On the 16th of July, in Committee on the Stamp Duties Bill, he strongly trusted the time would soon arrive when the Chancellor of the Exchequer would propose the abolition of the penny duty, and thereby remove every obstacle to the diffusion of knowledge throughout the country. On the 25th the Established Church Bill was read a third time. In the debate Mr. Grote protested against the allow- ances to the bishops. The very lowest salary granted by the bill he held sufficient for the Archbishop of Canterbury, instead of 15,O00Z. a year as proposed. Why, was it possible to conceive any set of duties which could be more easily or tranquilly performed, or which were more exempt from all those difficulties that required labour, assiduity and talent to surmount them, than those allotted to the Archbishop of Canterbury? It was impossible not to draw a comparison between those incomes and the miserable stipends of the working clergy. It was said lOOZ. or 150Z. a year was enough for a curate, yet the Archbishop of Canterbury was not in anywise the superior of the humbler individuals so remu- nerated. 1837. In April this year came up the Canada Kesolutions, on which Mr. Grote spoke repeatedly in opposition to the Government. His first and longest speech was on the 21st, in answer to Sir Robert Peel's criticism of ]\Ii'. Eoebuck's proposal that the Upper House of Assembly should be merely advisers to the governor and not a co-ordinate branch of the MISCELLANEOUS SPEECHES. [53] legislature. He considered that the exercise of a veto upon the popular assembly by such a council as was proposed was infinitely more obnoxious than the veto of the governor, who had the prestige of a representative of the power and majesty of the king. On the bringing up of the Report of the Reso- lutions on the 28th, he declared his continued, regret at the decision of the House regarding them. On the 10th of May he supported a bill for abolishing the qualification arising out of the payment of rates and taxes, required by the Reform Act for borough, but not for county voters. On the 22nd, in Committee on the Bill for abolishing the Punishment of Death in the Burning or Destroying Build- ings and Ships, he urged that if the punishment of death was to be retained, it would be better that it should be inflicted in private, as public executions were never attended with beneficial results. The death of the king having led to a dissolution of Par- liament on the 17th of July, the Houses reassembled on the 15th of November. On the 20th was moved the address to the Queen's Speech. On that night, and on the following, Lord John Russell gave answers to the complaints made by the advanced liberals, that the Government was backward in measures of further reform. Mr. Grote gave the noble lord credit for his candour, but could not award him any higher commendation. He complained that the noble lord had regarded the Ballot as inseparable from the two other ques- tions of extension of the sufirage and rejieal of the Septennial Act. He w'as favourable to the two last measures, but would bring forward the Ballot on its own independent merits. If such arguments as were now used by the noble lord had been allowed to prevail on a former occasion, the Reform Bill itself would never have passed. He felt deeply sorry for the declarations just made by the noble lord ; they would pro- duce a greater and much more jtainful sensation than the Duke of Wellington's celebrated declaration against the Reform Bill. [54] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. On the 4th of December, on going into Committee upon the Municipal Officers' Declaration Bill, framed for the relief of Quakers and Moravians, Mr. Grote moved that the bill be extended to all classes of Her Majesty's subjects. The extension was meant for the Jews. The amendment was lost by a majority of 16. On the 13th of December, in a speech of great delicacy and tact, he took exception to a proposal for granting an addition of 8000Z. a year to the income of the Ducliess of Kent. He was one of those who took the strongest view of the duty of economising the public money. He often, there- fore, felt bound to resist the claims made on the public purse by those in the middle station, and in that more humble than it. He could not take that course with satisfaction to his own feelings and conscience, unless he was prepared to exercise the same scrutinising investigation into the claims of those who filled an exalted station. On the 15th the Civil List had to be voted. Mr. Hume moved the reduction of the vote to Her Majesty (385,000 Z.) by 50,000Z. Mr. Grote would most willingly support every- thing that could add not only to the comfort and elegance, but also to the dignity and splendour of the Sovereign ; yet he was of opinion that the best friends to the respectability of the Crown were those who were most anxious that it should not appear in the light of an odious and unnecessary burden on the shoulders of the people. On the 19th he made a motion to remove from the Civil List the sum allotted to pensions. He argued against those pensions in a speech of some length. His objections were that no adequate public advantage accrued from the fund ; that it involved a double and conflicting reference to the reward of merit and the relief of distress ; that in this last application it was in contradiction to the strict principle involved in the Poor Law Amendment Act ; and that it was a means of patronage to the Government of the day. On the 22nd, a debate was brought in by Mr. Leader on the affairs of Canada, now in a state of rebellion. Mr. Grote MISCELLANEOUS SPEECHES. [55] traced the present calamities to last year's resolutions: he would not have these resolutions on his conscience for any- thing that could be offered him. He regretted to find the confidence prevailing on both sides of the House, that the expression of a strong opinion from a large majority in the British Parliament, was alone necessary to put down at once all idea of resistance in the minds of the people of Canada. Many had said that there was no analogy between the present state of Canada and that of the provinces of the United States in 1774. He contended that the grievances in both cases were the same, the principal being the right of the British Government to take the people's money. He had listened with surprise to the member for Newark (Mr. Gladstone) when he said it was not a mere specidative grievance, or grievance of principle, but a series of pro- tracted oppressions, which had led the United States of America to shake off the yoke of Britain. That statement was entirely inaccurate. The British Legislature had assumed over Canada, as it had done over the United States, a right of control, which however the noble lord (Lord John Kussell) might regard it, he was sure would have been considered by the Lord Kussell of former days, and by Algernon Sydney, as equal to a sentence of slavery. 1838. Canada was the first subject of this session. On the 16th of January, Lord John Eussell moved an Address to the Queen, expressing regret at the Canadian re- bellion, and assuring Her Majesty "that while this House is ever ready to afford relief to real grievances, we are fully determined to support the efforts of Her Majesty for the sup- pression of revolt and the restoration of tranquillity." Mr. Grote used very strong language in disapproving of the Government for the absence of all conciliating measures, while bent upon the employment of iorce to su]»prcss the [56] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. rebellion. He unfavourably criticised the whole policy of the Home Government in the treatment of the colony. He could see no benefit from severity and coercion, whilst it must produce the great evil of continuing in the minds of the inhabitants a feeling of despair that justice would be done to their country. Next day, he presented and supported a petition from IMr. Koebuck, praying that he might be heard at the bar in the defence of the House of Assembly of Lower Canada, and in opposition to the measure of " impolicy and injustice " which Government meant to introduce with regard to that country. The petition was ordered to be printed. On the 22nd, he formally proposed " that John Arthur Roebuck, Esq., be heard at the bar of the House, as the agent of the Assembly of Lower Canada, against the Canada Bill, on the second reading thereof." As the Bill meant to sus- pend the constitution of the colony, which was, in fact, a suspension of the House of Assembly, it was a matter of justice to give the agent of that body an opportunity of de- fending the body at the bar of the House. Mr. Gladstone followed, and while agreeing that it would be most desirable to hear Mr. Roebuck, protested against recognising him as " the agent of the House of Assembly." After speeches by Lord John Russell, Lord Stanley, and others, on the technical form of the proposal, the House de- cided in favour of hearing Roebuck. Accordingly, on the Order of the Day for the second reading of the Lower Canada Government Bill, he advanced to the bar, and addressed the House. On his retiring, the debate commenced on a motion that the House go into committee on the Bill. On the second night of the debate (23rd of January) Mr. Grote spoke. He concurred in the propriety of sending out Lord Durham as Governor of Canada ; and he could also express his satisfaction at the announcement of the intention of the Government to exercise clemency towards those who had been engaged in the late revolt. He complained, however, that the chances of Lord Dm'ham's success were very much MISCELLANEOUS SPEECHES. [57] spoiled by the suspension of the Assembly. He had before expressed an opinion, which was not very favourably received in the House, but which he, nevertheless, sincerely enter- tained, that a separation between the colony and the mother- country was the most desirable thing that could happen, both for the mother-country and for the colony. Already there was the commencement of a feeling of sympathy be- tween the Canadas and the people of the United States. If they would have colonial possessions such as Canada, they had this difficult problem to solve — they had to maintain the supremacy of this country, and at the same time to give satisfaction to the Canadian people. It was usual to make severe remarks on the speeches of what is called the Eadical party in the House (of Commons), and to speak contemptu- ously of the smallness of their numbers, although he was rather surprised, if the Radical party were reaUy so small and contemptible, that honourable members should find so much in their speeches worthy of comment; but he must say, that of the speeches in the House that were likely to alienate the feelings of the colonists, it was not those that spoke for them, but those that spoke against them, which were more likely to produce such a result. On the 29th, there was a debate on the third reading of the Canada Bill. Mr. Grote spoke with the same, emphasis as, before. He saw in the Bill no remedy proposed for any of the evils that now constituted the grievances of the Canadians, while he saw in it one great grievance added to those already existing, of which, even those that had hitherto abstained from taking part in these matters must feel the burden. The representation of the people in Canada would now be a name and a shadow. In answer to the allegation that the consti- tution had become unworkable, he blamed the Executive Government for not using its prerogative in the appointment of members such as would be acceptable to the majority of the people. They might foresee the difficulties of suspending an existing constitution, when they heard the proposition of a supporter of the Government to saddle the colony with an [58] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. Established Church. The same reasons that led him to wish to improve the representative institutions in this country, which imj)erfectly and unfaithfully represented the people, induced him to be strenuous in preserving the Canadian Assembly, which really did represent the people. He doubted and mistrusted the power of the Government to restore the Assembly, and he did not feel confident that they wished it,; the more so, when he observed that the Govern- ment had to conciliate Sir Eobert Peel, and to obtain his support, in whatever new constitution might be given to Canada. On the 25th of April Mr. Serjeant Talfourd moved the second reading of his Copyright Bill, which was to extend the term of copyright to sixty years. Mr. Grote opposed the measure as replete with mischief to the public, doubtful in its pecuniary results as to the authors themselves, and calcu- lated to rob those authors of what, he was persuaded, they set a greater value upon than any pecuniary gain — a wide and enduring circle of literary and intrinsic admiration. On the 19th of July, on a proposition of Lord John Eussell for an additional advance of money to the relief of the owners of compositions for tithes in Ireland, he offered his strenuous resistance, confessing, however, that after the sur- render of the appropriation clause, he had ceased to take any interest in the Tithe Bill. At the same time, when he found that a large sum of money was to be paid out of the pockets of the people of England, he was bound to declare that no proposition had ever been submitted to the House since he became a member to which he felt a more unqualified oppo- sition. Lord John Russell replied in the usual strain, that the Government could not, in their circumstances, with the hostility they encountered both in tlie Commons and in the Lords, do more than they had done. On the 26th, the Irish Tithe Bill was read a third time. The debate was stormy. Mr. Grote excelled himself in the energy of his denunciation of the measure. The Bill would only raise increased odium to the existing constitution of MISCELLANEOUS SPEECHES. [59] the Irish Church. Now he had been as unreserved as any man in the exjsression of his abhorrence of the monstrous principle, and the equally monstrous effects of that esta- blishment, but he would not for that reason support a Bill which he conscientiously objected to. If any settlement of the Irish Church question were proposed, founded on just principles, and likely to be final, he would not object to a grant for closing a wound that had so long been bleeding. On the 15th of August, on the Order of the Day for the third reading of the Canada Government Declaratory and Indemnity Bill, he declared his satisfaction at being one of the inconsiderable minority that had opposed the Act for the temporary government of Lower Canada, out of which had arisen the necessity for this Bill. He could not recon- cile the Bill with the encomiums passed by its supporters on Lord Durham ; if the noble lord deserved those en- comiums, that Bill was not necessary ; and if he had been guilty of illegal acts, the encomiums could not be right. 1839. Parliament was opened on the 5th of February, but Mr. Grote's name does not appear in the debates, till the 5th of March. On that day he supports Mr. j\Iilner Gibson, in urging Lord Palmerston to counteract the Eussian influence that had been brought to bear on Sweden against making Slito a free port. On the 12th of March, Mr. Villiers brought on a motion on the Corn Laws, which led to a five nights' debate. On the second night, Mr. Grote supported the motion in a speech occupying ten pages of Hansard. His characteristics as a debater — the mastery and handling of facts, the argu- mentative vigour and point, the telling retort of the allega- tions on the other side — are fully displayed on this occasion. But in a subject so completely thrashed out, it is not advisable to occupy space with an analysis of the speech. [60] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. On tlie 19th, there was a debate, introduced by Lord Sandon, on the French blockade of the Mexican ports. Mr. Grote took part, and after unfavourably criticising the French proceeding, he found fault with Lord Palmerston for the tardiness of his interference. On the 21st, Mr. Hume made a motion in favour of House- hold Suffrage, and prefaced it by an elaborate speech. Lord John Russell followed Mr. Hume, and was followed by Blr. Grote. The noble lord, he said, had dwelt very much on the mischiefs of the future changes, and the danger of un- settling the principles of the Eeform Act ; and he must say that the noble lord had borrowed many of his observations from the speeches made by the opponents of his own Bill in 1831 and 1832. He did not think the noble lord would carry the public with him by simply telling them that they had got the Reform Bill, and must be content to take it for better or for worse. He could not consent to treat the Reform Act as a kind of canon of Scripture, which was to have nothing added and nothing taken away. He saw no valid reason for withholding the elective suffrage from any man, unless it could be proved, or a strong presumption could be raised, that he was unfit to exercise it ; that was the view of representative government in every nation that possessed one. The householders under £10 were men labouring assiduously every day, discharging faithfully all the obligations of private life, having the greatest possible interest in the inviolability of the laws that ensured the stability of property and secured the earnings of industry. Instead of having the interest imputed to them by the noble lord of defrauding tlie public creditor, the working classes would lend no approbation or acceptance to a measure so injurious to themselves. On the 15th of April, in consequence of Lord Roden's motion carried in the House of Lords to appoint a Select Committee to enquire into the state of Ireland, Lord John Russell, in a very long speech, asked the House to express approval of the Irish administration of the Government. MISCELLANEOUS SPEECHES. [Gl] On the third night of the debate that followed, ^Ir. Grote spoke shortly. He said that if the question now at issue were simply the conduct of the Irish executive under the Marquis of Normanby, he should have no hesitation in giving his vote in favour of the resolution. He must, however, guard himself against being supposed to go beyond the letter of the resolution, or to express confidence in Lord Melbourne's Government generally. The Irish executive administration is in truth almost the only remnant of Liberalism which now distinguishes ministers from the gentlemen opposite ; and for this reason it has been most abundantly attacked. What is the doctrine of finality so often preached from the Treasury bench, but the Con- servative principle announced in all its plenitude and in all its vigour ? For the first time in modern English history, we have neither a Liberal Ministry nor a Liberal Oppo- sition. On the 3rd of May, Lord John Russell moved that the House go into Committee on the Jamaica Bill, by which it was proposed to suspend for a time the Legislative Assembly. Mr. Grote, as might have been expected, strongly opposed the Bill, both on the score of justice and on the score of wisdom. The smallness of the ministerial majority (5), led to the resignation of Ministers, and to Sir Robert Peel's attempt to form a Government, which was frustrated by the Queen's refusing to part with her ladies of the bedchamber. On the 8th of July, Mr. Hume moved for a Committee on the whole history and constitution of the Bank of England. Mr. Grote approved of an enquiry, but con- sidered it too wide in its scope to be undertaken at so late a period of the session. 1840, During this session, Mr. Grote spoke but seldom. On the Ist of April, he took part in the three days' debate [62] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. on the Corn Laws, raised on a motion by Mr. Charles Villiers. On the 15th of May, in the debate on the Budget, he urged the removal of the stamp duty on policies of marine insurance. The only other speech was with reference to a motion by Lord Althorp (10th of March) for a Committee to enquire into the effects produced by the note-issuing banking esta- blishments. Mr. Grote was favourable to the appointment of the Committee, and mentioned the points that he thought it should take up, and also those that he thought it should avoid. 1841. In the debate on the Address, on the 26th of January, Mr. Grote made a noted speech on the Syrian question. He could not forget that we have been exerting our force against persons with whom we have not the slenderest grounds of quarrel : neither Mehemet Ali nor his supporters, nor any other person in Syria, has done the least injury to English men or to English interests : nay, we have been gainers by the government of the Pasha in Syria. We are told the expedition was undertaken for maintaining the integrity of the Ottoman empire, under a treaty of July, 1839. Setting aside the French opposition to the treaty, and our dangers arising therefrom, he disputed the wisdom of the guarantee. He asked whether we have fully viewed the extent of the consequences of this guarantee. It was often said that we should interfere in Turkey, to prevent Kussia from inter- fering. If the only method of excluding the Emperor Nicholas from Constantinople is to keep constantly ahead of him in devoted offers to the Sultan, our chance is but slender. The real security is the direct terror of our arms. But as to our Syrian expedition, Eussia is herself the grand projector of the enterprise. We are consulting the very MISCELLANEOUS SPEECHES. [63] party whom we suspect of entertaining thievish designs as to the best means of locking up and preserving our treasure. We have been hurriel to the verge of an European war. The rupture between England and France is a signal calamity for both. The initial cause of so fatal a change — the tropical point from which the sun of peace began to avert his cheering rays from the latitude of Europe, is to be found in the treaty of last July, and in our Syrian expe- dition which followed it. The Foreign Secretary has cured, or professes to have cured, a distemper in the extremities of the Continent ; but the medicine has driven the distemper into the heart and vitals. If the noble lord has accom- plished a new settlement of the Ottoman empire, he has at the same time forcibly abrogated a pre-existing settlement, to which he himself had assented. That we should under- take to maintain the integrity of the Ottoman empire, both against foreign invaders and against itself and its own internal causes of disruption, he must record his deliberate protest, as well as against our recent embodiment of the principle in the Syrian expedition. If, in respect to our internal affairs, we are destined to obtain no farther progress; if the cold shadows of finality have at length closed in around us, and intercepted all visions of a brighter future ; if the glowing hopes once associated with a Keform Ministry and the reformed Parliament have perished like an exploded bubble, — at least in regard to our foreign affairs, let us preserve from shipwreck that which is the first of all blessings and necessities ; that which was bequeathed to us by the ante-Keform Ministry and the unreformed Parliament — I mean peace and accord with the leading nations of Europe, but especially with our nearest and greatest neigh- bour, France. On the 15th of March, he strongly supported a motion by Lord John Russell, for a loan to the colony of South Australia, to rescue it from pressing financial difficulties. He had been one of the original supporters of the plan for forming the colony, and although he had no pecuniary in- [64] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. terest in it, he considered, in opposition to many members, that the colony had not been a failure. In the discussions connected with the Poor Law Amend- ment Bill, Mr. Grote took an active part. He uniformly defended the principles of the Bill, and supported its most stringent provisions ; in Committee he suggested a number of amendments. In replying to Mr. Duncombe's attacks on the Commissioners, he remarked, that he had supported the Bill of 1834, in opposition to his own constituency ; but he had now the satisfaction of knowing that in the City of London the law was favourably regarded by the great body of the ratepayers. On the 25th of March (and again on the 22nd of April) he brought forward a series of resolutions relative to New South Wales. The resolutions^ were grounded on the com- plaint that our Government had thrown upon the colony the whole burden of the gaols and police, rendered necessary for the convicts sent out from this country, and had appropri- ated for that purpose the money arising from the land and emigration fund. He proposed that the charge should be in some way apportioned between the colony and the mother- country. A considerable debate ensued, but the motion was negatived by 54 to 10. His final effort in Parliament was in the great Sugar Duties debate on the 11th of May of this year. He put forth all his argumentative power on this occasion. At the commencement he descanted on Free Trade generally, and forcibly urged the mischiefs of protection in corn ; the alter- nate hot and cold fits of the corn-trade must be regarded by every one as a serious evil. Applying himself to the Sugar question, he took up the protectionist's favourite argument from the encouragement of slavery, and turned it over on every side. His own abhorrence of slavery is expressed in terms of unmistakeable sincerity ; while he exposes all the subterfuges of protection in claiming to discourage the slave- labour of Brazil and Cuba. As regards our home population, he did not wish to draw pictures of distress, or to move the MISCELLANEOUS SPEECHES. [65] feelings of the House by describing the circumstances of those whose condition is the least comfortable. He never thought that a just or deliberate judgment upon any contro- verted question could be promoted by such a mode of treat- ing it. It was enough for his argument to state the plain matter of fact, that there are millions of persons in these realms to whom the difference in the price of sugar is most sensibly felt in their morning and evening meals. / [66J CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. CHAPTER IV. 'THE HISTORY OF GREECE.' The actual composition of the * History of Greece '— such as it appeared in a published form in 1846 — was commenced in 1842. The preparation for the work may be shortly summed up thus : — First, in the reading, re-reading, and cogitation of the original sources and authorities, together with the study of the commentators, critics, and interpreters of the facts. For many years had he pondered the authors of classical Greece ; his interest not being limited to historical narrative, but extending to the literature for its own sake, and still more to the philosophy for its own sake. His desire from the beginning w-as to realise not merely the events, but also the manners, habits, modes of life, and institutions, private as well as public. On all these matters he had already composed methodical and, as far as possible, exhaustive sketches. He had also systematically gone through a wide course of reading of the manners, habits, customs, institutions, and peculiarities of all other recorded nations, especially at the earlier stages of civilization. In his commonplace books and references he had a very great collection of such facts, and the ' History ' itself is strewn with illustrative allusions from that source. Of late years, still greater attention has been paid to this region of historical wealth ; and the available material has been considerably augmented; while novel inferences have been drawn from the experience thus brought to view. Mr. Grote possessed that essential quality of a historian — THE HISTORY OF GREECE. [07] the historical or narrative interest. In school days he devoured novels ; in later life the place of these was taken by histories and biographies relating to every nation and time. He felt and avowed tlie still more peculiar interest in the process of growth or evolution, whether in political insti- tutions, in literature, or in philosophy and science. The historical taste was thus with him a very wide and mixed susceptibility, and his narrative compositions became corre- spondingly varied in their interest. His earnest devotion to mental science, in all depart- ments — psychology, ethics, metaphysics, and logic — had no small share in the characteristic excellencies of his historical compositions. Very few metaphysicians have become historians on the great scale ; the most conspicuous examples are Hume and James Mill. To these authors lias always been attributed, among other merits, a peculiar subtlety in the dissection of motives and the exhibition of character. Metaphysical superiority is the cause (or, at all events, the evidence) of one great quality of the historian — the analytic aptitude or faculty. Science and analysis are nearly convertible terras. The chain of cause and effect in phenomena or events is enveloped and en- tangled in a mass of irrelevant or unconcerned accompani- ments. The scientific explanation of a fact is the separating of the essential from the casual antecedents ; an effort very severe and uncongenial to the untutored mind, being an- tagonistic to our habits and to many of our strongest feelings, which are mainly gratified by lacts in the lump or the undissected concrete. There is a favourite rhetorical comparison of history to the course of a noble river; the poet exhibits the river in the scenic grandeur of its totality ; but if we wish to explain scientifically its different aspects — the volume of its waters, the speed of its current, its sedi- ment, its saline constituents, and its temperature — we must pei-form an operation repugnant to the natural mind ; we must resolve the imposing aggregate into the abstractions of magnitude, gravity, force, solubility, and make a like /2 [68] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. analysis of the rocks and soil in its bed and on its banks. This analysis is not indeed the consummation of scientific discovery, but it is the indispensable preparation ; the deeper, the correcter the analysis, the greater the chances of a ])rofound and just explanation of the phenomena. The philosophical historian of the French Eevolution has to disentangle, in the antecedent history and condition of France, the productive from the unproductive circumstances — performing a conjoint operation of analysis and proof, for which, apart from other qualifications, few historians have had the requisite scientific steadiness. Moreover, the final terms of a historical analysis are, facts and laws of the human mind ; in these, therefore, all historical explanation nmst centre ; and he that adds, to the ample experience of an observing man of the world, the precise handling of the psychologist, must be, of all others, the best fitted for the highest part of the historian's duties. Had Mr. G-rote written only the * History,' a lengthened discourse might have been required to show that he was in no mean degree an accomplished and original psychologist and logician. The proofs might have been conclusively drawn from the ' History,' but they would have been mostly inferential and indirect. In regard to psychology, or the science of mind strictly viewed, we could point to his studies on the influence of the feelings in matters of truth and false- hood, which studies gave the master-key to the legendary or mytliical ingredients of the Grecian story. The corruption of the intellect by the emotions and passions was one of his earliest and most strongly iterated themes. Under logic proper we should naturally have to advert to his theory and standard of evidence, which, was up to the severest demands of historical accuracy. This high standard, however, had various determining motives. He notices, in the preface, the growing strictness of historians in their exaction of evidence, and quotes individual instances. Special to himself was a severe regard to truth, as opposed alike to the false and to the vague. There can be nothing THE HISTORY OF GREECE. [69] deserving of the name of truth without preciseness in the use of leading terms, and this condition is never lost sight of in Grote's writings. His early logical training bore this fruit ; and at a later period he entered with avidity into the principles and methods of inductive evidence as ela- borated in the 'Logic' of John Stuart Mill. His career as an English politician and member of Par- liament, during a great democratic struggle, was necessarily of the greatest value for understanding the free governments of antiquity. This has often been remarked upon as a point in his favour when compared with the erudite German professors, who had never '' learned from personal experience the nature of a popular deliberative body." Such experience, however, would have availed but little, had it been unaccom- panied with intense popular sympathies. The democracies of Greece had commended themselves to his ardent feelings for human improvement ; they were not always what he could have wi:?hed, though greatly in advance of anything that the world had seen before them, and of the greater number of the polities that came after them. Athens — the eye of Greece, Mother of arts and eloquence — Was the democracy by pre-eminence, the object of his special interest and affection. He found (he used to say) many admirers of Athens, but no one possessed with a strong philo- Athenian sentiment. He avowed himself, at the outset of his work, as the historian of Grecian freedom ; the plan, as stated in his own words, was to " exhaust the free life of collective Hellas." For the ancient world and ancient modes of thinking, in some of their contrasts with the modern, he had a strong predilection ; and hence he turned Grecian studies to their proper end of correcting tlie one-sidedness of our prevailing notions and usages. This he esteemed the great recom- mendation of classical culture, and the motive for its being retained in general education. More especially did he [TOj CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. regard the ancient ethics as an essential supplement of our modern views ; but, unfortunately, we are precluded from knowing, exce})t in a general way, to what extent and on what points. A rapid survey of the leading features of the ' History ' will enable us to note its characteristic merits, as settled by the judgment of competent critics, while alluding at the same time to the points whereon opinions are still divergent.' As to the general effect, perhaps the most emphatic testimony was given by Mr. Mill, in these words : — " Though the statement has the air of an exaggeration, yet, after much study of Mr. Grote's book, we do not hesitate to assert, that there is hardly a fact of importance in Grecian history which was perfectly understood before his re-examination of it." The opening of the ' History ' is marked by the peculiar mode of dealing with legendary Greece. The author had already published an article giving his views as to the origin of the Legends ; that paper is reprinted in the present volume, as containing illustrations not wholly superseded by the fuller handling in the first volume of the ' History.' I summarise his later positions, nearly in his own words : — Having regard to the standard of evidence recognised for modern events, " I begin the real history of Greece with the first recorded Olympiad, or 776 B.C. To such as are accus- tomed to the habits once universal, and still not uncommon, in investigating the ancient world, I may appear to be striking off one thousand years from the scroll of history ; but to those whose canon of evidence is derived from Mr. Hallam, M. Sismondi, or any other historian of modern events, I am well assured that I shall appear lax and credulous rather than exigent or sceptical. For the truth is, that historical records, properly so called, do not begin until long after this date ; nor will any man, who candidly considers the extreme paucity of attested facts for the cen- turies after 776 B.C., be astonished to learn that the state of Greece " for seven or more centuries previous " cannot be described upon anything like decent evidence." THE HISTORY OF GREECE. [71] " The times which I thus set apart from the region of history are discernible only through a different atmosphere — that of epic poetry and legend. To confound together these disparate matters is, in my judgment, essentially un- philosophical. I describe the earlier times by themselves, as conceived by the faith and feeling of the first Greeks, and known only through their legends, witliout presuming to measure how much or how little of historical matter these legends may contain. If the reader blame me for not assist- ing him to determine this — if he ask me why I do not undraw the curtain and disclose the picture, I reply in the words of the painter Zeuxis, when the same question was addressed to him on exhibiting his master-piece of imitative art — ' The curtain is the picture.' What we now read as poetry and legend was once accredited history, and the only genuine history which the first Greeks could conceive or relish of their past time ; the curtain conceals nothing behind, and cannot by any ingenuity be withdrawn. I undertake only to show it as it stands, not to efface, still less to re-paint, it. " Three-fourths of the two volumes now presented to the public are destined to elucidate this age of historical faith, as distinguished from the later age of historical reason : to exhibit its basis in the human mind — an omnipresent reli- gious and personal interpretation of nature ; to illustrate it by comparison with the like mental habit in early modern Europe ; to show its immense abundance and variety of narrative matter, with little care for consistency between one story and another : lastly, to set forth the causes which over- grew and partially supplanted the old epical sentiment and introduced, in the room of the literal faith, a variety of compromises and interpretations." The author's peculiarity lay in illustrating the origination of tradition, whether with or without foundation of fact, in the emotional tendencies of the mind. By no one had this mental operation been hitherto made fully apparent; since his exposition, it has become a received doctrine of human [72] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. nature. " The influence of imagination an 1 feeling is not confined simply to the process of retouching, transferring, or magnifying narratives originally founded on fact ; it will often create new narratives of its own, without any such preliminary basis." Whenever any body of sentiment is widely prevalent, all incidents in conformity with that senti- ment are eagerly believed. If real incidents are not at hand, their place will be supplied by impressive fictions ; the perfect harmony of such fictions with the general feeling stands in place of testimony ; and to question them is to incur obloquy. In the innumerable religious legends — deriving their origin not from facts misreported, but from pious feelings pervading the society — not merely the inci- dents, but often even the personages, are unreal ; the gene- rating sentiment being conspicuously discernible, and pro- viding its own matter as well as its own form. We have now the word " Myth " or mythus, to express not a mere fiction, falsification, or untruth, but a narrative shaped to suit a strong sentiment or feeling, and believed in solely through the influence of that feeling. In accordance with this view, the Historian occupies his first volume with detailing the chief legendary tales and narratives of Greece, first as regards the gods, and next as regards heroes and men : following a systematic order so as to connect each locality with its own legends. The two con- cluding chapters are devoted to the discussion of the Grecian myths. The one chapter takes them up as understood, felt, and interpreted by the Greeks themselves, and traces the altered state of the Grecian mind respecting them, from the unflinching credence of the early Greeks to the altera- tion of view following the influence of extended commerce and the development of physical science, together with the advanced ethical standard of later times. The subject is illustrated by the author's usual thoroughness and exhaustive leai-ning, and the chapter, when read for the first time, is one to leave an indelible impression. The concluding chapter is "The Grecian Mythical View Compared with that of THE HISTORY OF GREECE. [73] Modern Europe." The author here pursues the illustration through the Middle Ages, adverting to the Legends of the Saints, the Eomances of Chivalry, the Teutonic and Scan- dinavian Epic, and our early English history. Taken in their proper character, the Grecian myths con- stitute an important chapter in the history of the Grecian mind, and of the human race. The faith of the Greeks in their historical narratives is as much subjective and peculiar as their faith in their religion ; the two are intimately con- joined, and cannot be separated without yiolence. Gods, heroes and men, religion and patriotism, matters divine, heroic, and human — were all woven together into one indivi- sible web, in which the threads of truth and reality, whatever they might originally have been, were not intended to be, and were not in fact, distinguishable. To realise to himself, and to bring before the reader, the religious feelings of the Greek mind at its different stages was regarded by Mr. Grote as an indispensable portion of his duty as a historian. He never loses an opportunity for this end ; and his success has been admitted. The work has been done once for all. On one point, however, subsequent inquirers have not coincided with him. He maintained, with emphasis, that we could not go back beyond the legends as they stand. " The legendary age had its antecedent causes and deter- mining conditions, but of these we know nothing, and we are compelled to assume it as a primary fact for the pur- pose of following out its subsequent changes. To conceive •absolute beginning or origin is beyond the reach of our faculties ; we can neither apprehend nor verify anything beyond progress, or development, or decay — change from one set of circumstances to another, operated by some defi- nite combination of physical or moral law^s. In the case of the Greeks, the legendary age, as the earliest in any way known to us, must be taken as the initial state from which this series of changes commences." This view is remark- ably characteristic of the author's thorough appreciation of. [74] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. and acquiescence in, the limitation of the human faculties. In resignation to the inevitable, at all points, he had effec- tually schooled himself; and the triumph of his discipline is best seen in matters of knowledge. The despair of ascending beyond the recorded legends has not been shared by all inquirers. Comparative philology has been invoked to show the connection between the Greek legends and the Hindu mythology; the names and functions of the deities have been found to be strikingly allied. Again, the very incidents of legendary narrative are shown in various instances to be of wide-spread occurrence over different countries, pointing to some remote common origin. Moreover, the attempt had often been made to assign a speculative origin to the polytheistic creed, in accordance with known laws and tendencies of the human mind. Comte's three stages have become familiar to the public mind, and were well known to Mr. G-rote. An interesting statement of the theoretical development of religious belief up to the point of the Grecian legends was given in Mr. Mill's review of the first and second volumes of the ' History.' Since then, minute attention to the records of primitive societies has greatly advanced these speculations. Within the last few years the writings of Sir John Lubbock, Tylor, and M'Lennan have thrown new light upon the stages antecedent to the Greeks. Had these works appeared before Mr. Grote wrote the early chapters, he would have studied them most carefully, and have extracted from them whatever satisfied his judg- ment as bearing on the anterior stages of religious belief. He was, however, slow to admit the sufficiency of the evi- dence for such theories : and at the time when he wrote there was nothing that he could rely upon for carrying him back beyond the stage of the legends. One great advantage has been gained from his taking up this position, namely, perfect impartiality in representing the facts as they are actually recorded. It is true that, even THE HISTORY OF GREECE. [75] when he had a theory to support, he was scrupulous to a degree in his statement of facts : yet, our satisfaction is here unalloyed by the possibility of suspicion. Consequently, the comparative mythologists and speculators can accept his rendering of Grecian facts as authentic data, of equal value with the original records; while his empirical generalities meet tlie other theorisers half way. I cannot help referring to one singular and undesigned coincidence between one of his generalities and a theory derived from a totally different region of facts. He remarks in the worship of the Greeks a concurrence of three things in the objects of worship, whether gods, demi-gods, or heroes — the tribal name, the deity worshipped, and the fact of descent : all this is conjoined in the " eponymos " of each tribe. The Herakleids, besides bearing the name, deified Herakles, and called themselves his descendants. Now Mr. M'Lennan has generalised the same coinci- dence under the name " totemism," derived from the word " totem," among the American Indians, absurdly rendered " medicine " by the early travellers. He shows that the " totem," which may be various in kind, but draws largely from the lower animals, is the tribal name, the ancestor, and the object of worship : and " totemism," in the shape of animal worship more particularly, is traced by him as a phenomenon of wide-spread occurrence, and comprising a very large department of the religious worship of early nations. In the twentieth chapter of his work, Mr. Grote endea- vours to derive from the Homeric poems an account of the state of society in legendary Greece. The attempt had been often made ; still, in the author's treatment there is considerable freshness and many new suggestions. The triple political institution — hasileus (king), houle (senate), agora (assembly) — he minutely examines, as the precursor of the democracies of later Greece. One of the favourite extracts of the reviewers is that passage where he traces to the infancy of the nation " the employment of public [76] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. speaking as the standing engine of government and the proximate cause of obedience." He also takes great pains to illustrate the character of the moral sentiment in the ages depicted by Homer. The keynote is struck thus : — " There is no sense of obligation, then, existing between man and man, as such, and very little between each man and the community of which he is a member ; such sentiments are neither operative in the real world nor present to the imaginations of the poets." Personal feelings either towards the gods, the king, or some near and known individual fill the whole of a man's bosom. While copiously illustrating, by citations from the his- tories of early society, the features and peculiarities of the Homeric Greeks, he still refrains from speculating on the anterior stages ; and the remark already made, as to his voraciousness of rendering, is equally applicable here. In this department, too, much has been done to elucidate the condition of primitive man, but hitherto the researches have not sufficed to assign a situation immediately preceding that given in the Homeric poems. In a chapter on the internal structure of the Iliad and Odyssey, he maintains that, while the Odyssey possesses a unity throughout, the Iliad bears traces of the combination of two separate poems, one an Achilleid, having for its subject the wrath of Achilles, the other (Books 2-7 and 10) an addition converting the Achilleid into an Iliad. The evidence is drawn from the internal structure of the poem, a kind of evidence that he himself always held to be ex- tremely precarious. He accordingly treated his view as having merely a probability superior to any other. Ko part of the history, however, was more frequently dissented from by critics ; but though he perused all the hostile criticisms, he saw no sufficient reason for giving up his case. The entire comj)ass of the Homeric field has been more recently surveyed by Mr. Gladstone, in an exceedingly care- ful and elaborate disquisition, entitled ' Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age.' He devotes one volume to the THE HISTOKY OF GEEECE. [77] ethnology of the Greek races ; another to the religion and morals of the Homeric age; in a third, he inquires into the polities, or political constitutions, compares the Trojans and Greeks, discusses tlie geography of the Odyssey, and expatiates on the artistic merits of Homer. On various points he comes into collision with Mr. Grote. He takes very high ground as to the historical value of Homer, main- taining that in regard to the religion, history, ethnology, polity, and life at large, his poems stand far above any later traditions; that of all the ages that have passed since Homer, not one has produced a more acute, accurate, and comprehensive observer ; and that he alone was imbued from head to foot with the spirit and the associations of the heroic time. He thinks that a great error has been committed in not distinguishing Homer by a broad line from all the other sources of legendary narrative — namely, Hesiod, the trage- dians and the minor Greek poets, the scattered notices of the historians, the antiquarian writers near the Christian era, and the scholiasts. He considers that Mr. Grote's treatment of the legends has countenanced this error, and he opens up for consideration the question whether the personality of Agamemnon and Achilles has no better root in history than that of Pelasgus, of Prometheus, or of Hellen ; and whether all these are no more than equal in credit to Ceres, Bacchus, or Apollo. While Mr. Grote regards as hopeless any inquiry into the ante-Hellenic Pelasgians, Mr. Gladstone undertakes to show, fiom Homer, that two distinct races appear on the stage, a superior and an inferior; the superior were the Hellenes, represented by the Greeks, the besiegers of Troy; the inferior, the Pelasgi, represented by the Trojans. The Hellenes culminated in Attica, the Pelasginns in Arcadia. The two races had distinctive aptitudes, and the Greek mind in its highest development combined the two. Mr. Gladstone's account of the religion consists in a minute examination of all the deities introduced by Homer. Starting from the idea that the Homeric theology is a cor- [78] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. ruption or defacement of the primitive Scriptural traditions, he shows by what downward steps the true and pure idea of God became transformed into the imperfect deities of Homer. He distinguishes what he considers the traditive from the inventive element of the theogony. In passing from the theology to the morals, he replies with some warmth to Mr. Grote's remark that the Greek terms for good and evil (ayaOo^, ia6\o^ and KaKo seK-sufficing, self-acting, self-judging, &c. Of the figures of Ehetoric, he freely indulged in similes and metaphors, of which he had a good command. His only other figurative device was the manipulation of abstract nouns and adjectives for brevity : — as " a standing protest against forward affirmation," " dilatory tactics," " mature divine efficiency," " the negative vein." The bolder figures THE HISTORY OF GREECE. [101] — epigram, hyperbole, interrogation, climax, are scarcely ever used. He has one notable epigram for the myth — "a past that never was present." Antithesis, or pointed balance, so abundant in Macaulay, is entirely wanting. His sentences are generally simple and intelligible in arrangement; sometimes periodic, but more commonly loose. They are tolerably, but not studiously, various in plan ; and long and short are freely intermingled. Their flow is easy and unaffected. Of the expository qualities of style, precision and per- spicuity took precedence. Extreme simplicity, or the being intelligible to the lowest capacity through the employment of homely and familiar phrases, was not aimed at. As regards the emotional qualities, he could, on occasions, command strength and pathos alike, and both impart their charm to the ' History.' Humour he never sought to attain. His touches of high poetic elegance, if not numerous, are sometimes exquisite in quality. The chief complaint against the style generally is that it is not continuously artistic ; and this must be ad- mitted. The remark is also made that, iu the distribution of the materials, the author allows the discussions, au- thorities, and quotations, to hang like a weight on the narrative ; that he has both repetitions and dislocations. To all which the reply is, that his mind was occupied, in the first instance, with other objects than the making of a work of art : — the getting at truth by laboriously silting in- sufficient materials, the elucidation of political principles, the inculcation of ethical and political lessons. There is a limit to the capacity of the greatest mind. Had he bestowed an additional quarter of a year on every volume, with an eye to the form and language solely, he might have improved the ' History ' as a composition ; but it is doubtful whether this would have been the most useful occupation of his time. It was not his habit to re-write his works ; he did so readily, if he discovered anything defective in the matter or in the general arrangement ; but as regarded mere expression, he [102] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. was satisfied with the revision of the manuscript and the careful correcting of the proofs. The greatest virtue of a writer undoubtedly is to rise to the occasion, and this can fearlessly be predicated of Mr. Grote. In October 1847 appeared the Letters on Switzerland, printed first in the Spectator and afterwards in a small 8vo. volume. In August of that year Mr. Grote made an excursion to Swit- zerland, in order to observe, close at hand, the nearest modem analogue of the Grecian republics. His visit coincided mth the crisis of the Swiss revolution. I quote from the Preface his own account of the purpose of tlie visit : — " The inhabitants of the twenty-two cantons of Switzer- land are interesting on every ground to the general intelli- gent public of Europe. But to one whose studies lie in the contemplation and interpretation of historical phenomena, they are especially instructive — partly from the many speci- alities and differences of race, language, religion, civilization, wealth, habits, &c., which distinguish one part of the popula- tion from another, comprising, between the Rhine and the Alps, a miniature of all Europe, and exhibiting the fifteenth century in immediate juxtaposition with the nineteenth — partly from the free and unrepressed action of the people, which brings out such distinctive attributes in full relief and contrast. To myself in particular they present an addi- tional ground of interest from a certain political analogy (nowhere else to be found in Europe) with those who pro- minently occupy my thoughts, and on whose history I am still engaged — the ancient Greeks. " In listening not only to the debates in the Diet, but also to the violent expressions of opposite sentiment manifested throughout the country during the present summer, I felt a strong impulse to understand how such dispositions had arisen ; to construe the present in its just aspect as a sequel to the past: and to comprehend that past itself in con- LETTEES ON SWITZERLAND. [103] junction with the feelings which properly belong to it, not under the influence of feelings belonging to the present. The actual condition, and reasonable promise, of Swiss federal politics were different ^in 1841 and 1844, and have become again materially ditierent in 1847. ^Ye have to study each period partly in itself, partly with reference to that which preceded it, and out of which it grew. " A man must have little experience of historical pheno- mena to suppose that in any violent political contention all the right is likely to lie on one side and all the wrong on the other. I have not disguised my conviction that both the Swiss parties have committed wrong; nor is my statement likely to give satisfaction to either of them : to show the pro- lific power of ^vrong deeds in generating their like, is, in my judgment one of the most important lessons of history." The Letters may be fairly regarded as a masterly unravel- ling of Swiss politics, in which the author traces the chain of events from the fu-st inflammatory incident — the election of Dr. Strauss to a chair in the University of Zurich — and shows that the moving power throughout was the aggressive action of the Roman Catholic Church. The work will remain as an interesting chapter on Swiss history, and as one of the many narratives illustrating the disturbance of civil politics by the cry of " Eeligion in danger." The writer holds the scales with the hand of Jastice herself, showing at what points both parties overstepped the bounds of political morality. His dread of foreign intervention, and his strong condemnation and distrust of M. Guizot, are very expressive of his way of looking at foreign politics. The familiar spectacle of the great Powers overbearing the small was to him a source of unmitigated repugnance. [104] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. CHAPTER V. WORK ON PLATO. In Blay 1865, nine years after the completion of the ' His- tory of Greece,' appeared ' Plato and the other Companions of Socrates.' The Preface puts the reader at once into possession of the author's leading aims and peculiarities. His point of de- parture, in rendering an account of the Platonic Philosophy, is Socrates himself. Connected with him is the large inter- mixture of the negative vein in Plato's 'Dialogues,' which the author for the first time brings into the foreground. The setting forth of the negative side of all doctrines — the argu- ments against as well as the arguments for — he considers as uot merely a distinction of these two philosophers, but as an essential of pliilosophy itself. Discussion, polemic, dis- sent, are the marks whereby the habits of the philosopher are distinguished from the unreasoned acquiescence of the mul- titude in the traditional and prevalent beliefs. It was, more- over, a trait of Socrates, maintained in one half of the Platonic Dialogues, to terminate a discussion in a purely negative result, to unsettle without settling. It was a farther following up of the same peculiarity in Plato to start different, and even opposing, views in his different com- positions, and to leave behind him inconsistencies never reconciled. The perception of these inconsistencies has led critics either to force them into harmony by subtle con- siderations, or to make a choice among the Dialogues, accept- ing some as the real Platonic compositions and rejecting the others as spurious. Mr. G-rote, on the contrary, recognises such inconsistencies as facts, and as very interesting facts, of WORK ON PLATO. [105] the philosopliical character of his author. Once more, the career of Plato shows two stages, the first marked by the confessed ignorance and philosophical negative of Socrates ; the last, with the peremptory, dictatorial, affirmative of Lycurgus. The Preface closes with the following reflections : — " The philosophy of the fourth century B.C. is peculiarly valuable and interesting, not merely from its intrinsic speculative worth — from the originality and grandeur of its two principal heroes — from its coincidence with the full display of dramatic, rhetorical, artistic genius — but also from a fourth reason not unimportant — because it is purely Hellenic; preceding the development of Alexandria and the amalgamation of Oriental views of thought with the inspirations of the Academy or the Lyceum. The Oroutes and the Jordan had not yet begun to flow westward and to impart their own colour to the waters of Attica and Latium. Not merely the real world, but also the ideal world, present to the minds of Plato and Aristotle, were purely Hellenic. Even during the cen- tury immediately following, this had ceased to be fully true in respect to the philosophers of Athens ; and it became less and less true with each succeeding century. New foreign centres of rhetoric and literature — Asiatic and Alexandrian Hellenism — were fostered into importance by regal encourage- ment. Plato and Aristotle are thus the special representatives of genuine Hellenic philosophy. The remarkable intellectual ascendency acquired by them in their own day, and main- tained over succeeding centuries, was one main reason why the Hellenic vein was enabled so long to maintain itself, though in impoverished condition, against adverse influences from the East, ever increasing in force. Plato and Aristotle outlasted all their Pagan successors — successors at once less purely Hellenic and less highly gifted. And when Saint Jerome, near 750 years after the decease of Plato, com- memorated with triumph the victory of unlettered Chris- tians over the accomplishments and genius of Paganism, he illustrated the magnitude of the victory by singling out [lOG] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. Plato and Aristotle as the representatives of vanquished philosophy." It has been a very common remark that Mr. Grote, from his peculiar turn of mind and his doctrinal views, was not the most qualified person to comment upon Plato, while he would be quite in his element with Aristotle. The remark is somewhat infelicitous and misplaced; the semblance of foundation for it being both insignificant and unreal. The interest and admiration felt by him for the' Platonic writings as a whole could not be surpassed by anyone, although he d'iffered from many as to the nature of Plato's merits. Far from being unpoetical in his own tastes, he was all his life a lover of poetry ; he could have said with Plato, " I myself might have become a tragic poet." He relished the dramatic beauties of the ' Dialogues,' and emulated in his own style the happy illustrative similes of his author. But the rack could not have extorted from him the admission that poetry is truth, that emotion is evidence. For imagination working in its own sphere, and also as lending itself to the elucidation and adornment of the results of the scientific reason, he had the greatest respect; for imagination taking the place of reason he had no respect, whether in Plato, in Aristotle, or in any other man. The work begins with an exhaustive review of early Greek Philosophy, from Thales to Democritus. A second chapter contains an interesting commentary on the position and points of view of these primitive thinkers, and prepares the way for the next stage of Grecian thought, by the remark that com- mon to them all was the absence of Dialectic, or systematic negative criticism. The inventor of dialectic, we are told by Aristotle, was Zeno ; and his extant philosophy and method are described by Mr. Grote with a detail corresponding to his sense of the momentous nature of the innovation. The opening of the negative vein imparts from this time forward a new character to Grecian philosophy — a character never present in the most advanced Oriental speculation. The positive and negative forces, emanating from different » WOKK ON PLATO. [107] aptitudes of the human mind, are, henceforth, both of them actively developed, and in strenuous antithesis to each other. It is not enough to propound a theory in obscure, oracular metaphors and half-intelligible aphorisms, like Heracleitus, or in verse, more or less impressive, like Parmenides or Empedocles. Every theory must be sustained by proofs, guarded against objections, defended against imputations of inconsistency, compared with other rival theories. From this quarter we have to approach both Socrates and Plato. The life of Plato is next reviewed. In making the most of the scanty notices preserved, Mr. Grote is careful to place before the reader the political surrounding of the period from his nineteenth to his twenty-fifth year (409-403), a period of extraordinary disaster for Athens, and involving, among other things, the severest strain upon all able-bodied citizens for military service. Philosophical study must have been very much restricted ; moreover, as Plato entertained at first a political ambition, he would not think of philosophy until he failed in that object. His studious life, when it began, had no marked interruption but the episode of his Sicilian visits. He was the founder of the earliest establish- ment for philosophical teaching — a building with grounds, lecture-room, and library. This was the Academy. In chapter iv. the author considers the Platonic Canon. Both ancients and moderns were at one as to the real works of Plato, down to the end of the last centm-y. During the present century, the genuineness of many of the alleged works ha^ been called in question : in consequence of which, Mr. Grote examines at length the external evidence for the received canon, which evidence he regards as peculiarly strong, being far above what we possess for the works of Demosthenes, Euripides, Aristophanes, Isocrates, or Lysias. The great point in the argument is the perpetuation of the Academy, with its library, up to the date of the foundation of the Alexandrine Collection, which collection would acquire a well-guaranteed set of the genuine Platonic writings ; while our present canon rests on the authority of that collection and its librarians. [108] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. In a separate chapter, Mr. Grote considers tlie grounds of the recent objections to the time-honoured canon. The new turn was given by Schleiermacher, who began by assum- ing as fundamental postulates — first, a systematic unity of scheme and purpose, running through all the Dialogues; secondly, an intentional order, with a view to this scheme. Upon these two assumptions he classifies the Dialogues, rejecting some that do not fall within the scheme. He is followed by other critics, who, Avithout agreeing altogether in his assumptions, are yet more sweeping in their rejections. Against all these critics Mr. Grote produces reasons that seem irresistible. The diiferent theories laid down respecting the general and systematic purposes of Plato, he regards as uncertified and gratuitous ; the " internal reasons " are only another phrase for expressing each critic's opinion respecting Plato as a philosopher and a writer. " Considering that Plato's period of philosophical composi- tion extended over fifty years, and that the circumstances of his life are most imperfectly known to us, it is surely hazardous to limit the range of his varieties on the faith of a critical repugnance, not merely subjective and fallible, but Avithal entirely of modern growth : to assume, as basis of reasoning, the admiration raised by a few of the first dia- logues — and then to argue that no composition inferior to this admired type, or unlike to it in doctrine or handling, can possibly be the work of Plato. ' The Minos, Theages, Epistolse, Epinomis, &c, are unworthy of Plato : nothing so inferior in excellence can have been composed by him. No dialogue can be admitted as genuine which contradicts another dialogue, or which advocates any low or incorrect or un-Platonic doctrine. No dialogue can pass which is adverse to the general purpose of Plato as an improver of morality and a teacher of the doctrine of Ideas.' On such grounds as these we are called upon to reject various dialogues ; and there is nothing upon which,- generally speaking, so much stress is laid as upon inferior excellence. For my part, I cannot recognise any of them as sufficient grounds of excep- WOEK ON PLATO. [109] tion. I have no difficulty in believing not merely that Plato (like Aristophanes) produced many successive novelties — * not at all similar one to the other, and all clever ' — but also that among these novelties there were inferior dialogues as well as superior : that in different dialogues he worked out different, even contradictory, points of view — and among them some which critics declare to be low and objectionable ; that we have among his works unfinished fragments and abandoned sketches, published without order, and perhaps only after his death." Mr. Jowett's remarks on this perplexed theme are as follows : — " I cannot agree with Mr. Grote in admitting as genuine all the writings commonly attributed to Plato in antiquity, any more than with Schaarschmidt and some other German critics, who reject nearly half of them On the other hand, Mr. Grote trusts mainly to the Alexandrian canon. But I hardly think that we are justified in attributing much weight to the authority of the Alexandrian librarians in an age when there was no regular publication of books and every temptation to forge them, and in which the writings of a school were naturally attributed to the founder of the school. And even without inteutional fraud there was an inclination to believe rather than to inquire. Would Mr. Grote accept as genuine all the writings which he finds in the lists of learned ancients attributed to Hippocrates, to Xenophon, to Aristotle? The Alexandrian canon of the Platonic writings is deprived of credit by the admission of the ' Epistles,' which are not only unworthy of Plato, but in several places plagiarised from him and flagrantly at vari- ance with historical fact." To the query of Mr. Jowett, " Would Mr. Grote accept as genuine all the writings attributed to Hippocrates," &c., an answer was given in anticipation, grounded on the special preservation of the Platonic writings in the library of the Academy, no similar advantage belonging to the other writers. Mr. Jowett rejects, not without hesitation, Lesser Hippias, [110] CPIARACTER AND WRITINGS. First Alcibiades, and Menexenus. He considers it right, however, to give them a place in his work. He is thus sub- stantially at one with Mr, Grote on the Dialogues, but not on the Epistles, whose genuineness is supported by Mr. Grote, both in the ' History ' and in the * Plato,' by arguments of no small cogency, which we should like to see Mr. Jowett answer in detail. Bentley, the crusher of spurious Epistles, allowed the Epistles of Plato : his extraordinary learning did not enable him to detect in them " flagrant violations of historical fact." Subsequent scholars, while denying their genuineness, allow them to be the work of early and well-informed authors. The seventh epistle especially is, by Boeckh, considered genuine, and by Ueberweg, the work of a well-informed contemporary. Cicero, Plutarch, Aristeides, &c., all attest facts on the authority of these Epistles. The chief objections to them by critics generally are founded on their being unworthy of Plato. Mr. Grote does not think himself competent to determine a priori what the style of Plato's letters may have been ; he has no difficulty in believing that Plato may have expressed himself with as much mysticism and obscurity as we now read in the second and seventh epistles : he is not surprised at the allusions to details which critics who look upon him altogether as a spiritual person, disallow as mean and unworthy. It is curiously remarked by Ueberweg that Mr. Grote's " accepting as genuine all the dialogues accredited by Thra- syllus has caused him to lose sight of the essential unity present in Plato's thought and tvorlis, and to admit in its stead a multifariousness ahounding in change and contradiction.^' The real fact is, Mr. Grote is not blinded by his acceptance of the canon of Thrasyllus. He sees no possibility of gaining the " unity " by any number of rejections ; he has followed the upholders of unity through all their clashing experiments, and found only confusion and contradiction. The regaining of unity and consistency in Plato's waitings, by rejecting a sufficient number of dialogues, involves an entirely new theory of the tactics of a forger of writings, WOEK ON PLATO. [Ill] namely, that he should contradict all the leading doctrines of the author imitated. Now, although it is one of the usual marks of a spurious writing to contain inconsistencies unfelt by the writer, but detected by well-informed critics, it is surely not the practice of any forger to make such open and vital contradictions as those existing between the sup- posed spurious and the real dialogues of Plato. How should a forger of epistles of Paul expect to succeed by maintaining a series of doctrines in marked opposition to all the charac- teristic views of the apostle ? There is but one conceivable situation suitable to this policy : namely, where there was a wish to gain the weight of a great name to certain views special to the forger, and where all external circumstances were so far favourable to the reception of the forgery as to outweigh the internal discordance. In chapter vi., entitled " Platonic Compositions Generally," Mr. Grote gives his views as to the method of Plato. Although on isolated points others have agreed with him, yet the general strain of the criticisms on Plato's plan and purpose has the character of novelty. The first impression produced by the Platonic writings is their exceeding variety; no one epithet can describe them all. Some critics in an- tiquity described Plato as essentially a searcher or inquirer, and as never reaching any certain result. This is going too far ; he is sceptical in some dialogues, dogmatical in others. Again, Aristotle characterised his style of writing as some- thing between poetry and prose, and declared that the doctrine of Ideas obtained all its plausibility from metaphors. This is also true to a certain extent ; many of the dialogues possess a degree of poetic exuberance condemned as exces- sive by contemporary and subsequent critics, who had before them, for comparison, the most finished compositions of Greece. Moreover, the power of his dramatic situations ■would have carried away the prizes at the Dionysiac festivals, if he had followed the drama as a profession. But these poetic attributes are not found in all the Dialogues. Plato was sceptic, dogmatist, religious mystic, and inquisitor, [112] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. mathematician, philosopher, poet (erotic as well as sati- rical), rhetor, artist, all in one — or at least, all in turn, — throughout the fifty years of his philosophical life. So much appears in his published Dialogues. But he was a lecturer besides, and of his lectures we have no record, ex- cepting only a tantalizing observation of Aristotle. The only occasions where he lays aside the pen of " Imaginary Conversations " and speaks in his own person, are in the much repudiated Epistles, from which Mr. Grote brings before us some singular views as to the mode of communi- cating knowledge. He peculiarly disclaims written com- positions, and regards oral communications and debate, coupled with intense meditation apart, as the only effective mode of intellectual illumination. Also his standard of mastery of any subject Avas that the learner shall be able to endure from others, and himself apply to others, a Socratic elenchus, or cross-examination as to all the difiSculties. In classifying the Dialogues, our author starts from one of the divisions given by Thrasyllus — the two-fold division of Dialogues of Search and Dialogues of Exposition, setting aside the Apology of Socrates and the Menexenus as com- positions apart. Deviating from Thrasyllus in the detailed enumeration, he gives nineteen Dialogues of Search and fourteen of Exposition. The most elaborate example of Search is Thesetetus. Among Expository dialogues, Timseus is a marked example, being devoid of all negative criticism. Many are not purely of either character. Mr. Grote's strong point, as is already apparent, lies in his rendering of the Search Dialogues. This is a species of com- position now rare and strange : modern readers do not understand what is meant by publishing an inquiry without any result — a story without an end. To settle a question and finish with it — to get rid of the debate, as if it were a troublesome temporary necessity — is not what Plato desires ; the torpedo shock of conscious ignorance is what he, after Socrates, aims at imparting. He tells us himself that he is a searcher, and has not made up his own mind ; WOUK OX PLATO. [113] critics generally will not believe him ; Mr. Grote does. Most historians of ancient philosophy fail to realise, because themselves disliking, the process of mere negation. They would tolerate it in small doses, and as an aid to affir- mation; requiring that, when you deprive a man of one affirmative solution, you must be prepared at once with another. "Le Eoi est Mort; Vive le Eoi!" the dogmatic throne must never be empty. The claims of the objector must be satisfied before the affirmer can be held solvent. For the mere evoking of literary charm, Plato was attached to the polemic form. He feels a strong interest in the pro- cess of enquiry, in the debate ])er se ; and he presumes the like interest in his readers. He has no wish to shorten the process; he claims it as the privilege of philosophical dis- cussion that the speakers are not tied to time by the Klepsydra. And he really succeeded in inspiring readers with something of his o\vu interest in the dialectical process. The charm imparted by him to the process of philosophising is one main cause of the preservation of his writings from the terrible shipwreck that has overtaken so much of the abun- dant contemporary literature. But the most important consideration, in Mr. Grote's view, still remains. It is the special ground assigned by Socrates for his negative procedure, namely, that chronic and deep- seated malady of the human mind, the false persuasion of luiowledge. To this state Socrates applied his Elenchus, making people explain what they meant by Justice, Tem- perance, Courage, Law, and other iamiliar terms. The answers elicited were simple expressions of the ordinary prevalent belief in matters wherein each community pos- sesses established dogmas, laws, customs, sentiments, fashions, points of view belonging to itself; many of them diametri- cally opposed to what is accepted in other communities. There can be no philosophy unless these consecrated opinions are to be freely canvassed and disturbed. Philosophy is thus the proclaimed enemy of orthodoxy ; the philosopher, by the [114] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. law of his being, is a dissenter. Accordingly the indictment airaiust Socrates ran thus : " Socrates commits crime, inas- much as he does not believe in the gods in whom the city believes, but introduces new religious beliefs." Nomos (Law and Custom) King of All (to borrow the phrase cited by Herodotus from Pindar) exercises plenary power, spiritual as well as temporal, over individual minds ; moulding the emotions as well as the intellect according to the local type ; determining everyone's sentiments, belief, and predispositions to believe ; fashioning thought, speech, and points of view, no less than action ; yet reigning under the appearance of habitual self-suggested tendency. Never before did King Nomos meet with such an adversary as Socrates. In these very decided views as to the Platonic position in the Dialogues of Search, Mr. Grote has as yet very little following. Mr. Jowett, alluding to the Gorgias, one of the Dialogues emphasised by our author as putting forward the right of dissent or private judgment, regards this mode of stating the question as really opposed both to the spirit of Plato and of ancient philosophy generally ; so far from advocating toleration or free thought, Plato (in the Laws) has laid him- self open to the charge of intolerance ; no speculations had as yet arisen respecting the liberty of prophesying. Now, it must be distinctly allowed that Mr. Grote, being himself an ardent apostle of free enquiry, is naturally pre- disposed to find allies among the greatest of mankind. He may, therefore, somewhat overstrain tlie amount of support lent to individual freedom by Socrates and Plato. Yet his case is far stronger than IMr. Jowett would lead us to suppose. As regards Socrates, it is seemingly irresistible. In Plato it does not rest on the Gorgias alone. There, indeed, does Mr. Grote find the remarkable expression put into the mouth of Socrates : " You, Polus, bring against me the authority of the multitude, as well as of the most eminent citizens, all upholding your view. But I, one man standing here alone, do not agree with you." In the Phc-edon, also, Socrates is made to give a dying testimony to the freedom of debate : WORK OK PLATO. [115] "If I appear to you to affirm any tiling tnily, attend to me ; but, if not, oppose me with all youi* powers of reasoning." A very emphatic passage to the same effect occurs in the Politicus, the chief spokesmen being made to complain of the interdict maintained against adverse criticism of the legal and consecrated doctrines. Mr. Grote admits the change that had come over Plato when he wrote the Laws. Instead of adducing it, however, to neutralise the animated protests in favour of liberty in the Gorgias and the Ph^edon, so as to show that Plato, taken as a whole, was indifferent in the matter, he deplores it as the most repulsive feature of Plato's senility. After all, Mr. Jowett cannot be far off from Mr. Grote's views, when he allows himself to represent Plato " as assert- ing the duty of the one wise and true man to dissent from the folly and falsehood of the many." Occasions necessarily arise for adverting to Plato's treat- ment of the Sophists, on which modern historians of philo- sophy have bettered the instruction. The author repeats, that the charges made against the Sophists (as well as the Megarics), namely corrupting youth, perverting truth and morality, by making the worse appear the better reason, subverting established beliefs, — were all urged against Plato himself by his contemporaries, and indeed against all the philosophers indiscriminately. They are outbursts of feeling natliral to the jjractical, orthodox citizen, who represents the common sense of the time and place ; declaring his anti- pathy to those speculative, freethinking innovations of theory, Avhich challenge the prescriptive maxims of traditional cus- tom by a theoretical standard. In point of fact, the persons commonly called Sophists did far less violence to the orthodox sentiments than either Socrates or Plato. Indeed Plato's dislike to the Sophists was part and parcel of his dislike to the general multitude of Athenians. In the Re- public, he says emphatically, that the Sophists teach nothing but the opinions of the multitude, and call those wisdom. jMr. Jowett so far agrees with Mr. Grote that the Sophists i 2 [116] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. did not, as so generally alleged, corrupt the youth ; the Athenian youth were no more corrupted in the time of Demosthenes than in the time of Pericles. He puts the question, however, — "Would an Athenian, as Mr. Grote supposes, in the fifth century before Christ, have included Socrates and Plato, as well as Gorgias and Protagoras, under the specific class of Sophists ? " and answers " No." " The man of genius, the great original thinker, the disinterested seeker after truth, the master of repartee whom no one ever defeated in an argument, was separated, even in the mind of the vulgar Athenian, by an ' interval which no geometry can express,' from the balancer of sentences, the interpreter and reciter of the poets, the divider of the meanings of words, the teacher of rhetoric, the professor of morals and manners." Now, there was one marked peculiarity of the Sophists : they received regular pay; Socrates and Plato merely accepted presents. But in the eyes of both Socrates and Plato, teaching for pay was exceedingly discreditable ; we are not told to what length the Athenian public shared in this anti- pathy. As to any of the other points mentioned, it is exceed- ingly difficult to discover why the vulgar Athenian should set up Socrates and Plato as immeasurably superior to the general body of teachers, called Sophists. Mr. Grote thinks highly of the Athenians, but he utterly refuses to accredit them with a fine sense of what distinguished the true philo- sopher from the eloquent repeater of commonplace. It is in the present work that Mr. Grote has found oppor- tunities of unfolding a number of his own philosophical views. He has indicated his tenets in some of the highest questions of Psychology, Logic, Ethics, and Metaphysics. I shall here briefly sketch his leading positions as a philosophical thinker. In adhering to experience as the sole fountain of legi- timate belief, and to utility, as the sole criterion of what is morally right, he was thorough-going and consistent. He disclaimed the criterion of Intuition or Instinct in botlx spheres ; and, incidentally in commenting on Plato and on WORK ON TLATO. [117] Aristotle, has argued with uo little force in favour of his own side. He embraced with eagerness several of the most important aspects of the great law or doctrine of Kelativity, respecting which many sagacious glimpses appear in ancient philosophy. Mr. Jowett speaks too lightly of the import of this doctrine, when he calls it a truism of the present time. No doubt it is well enougli recognised in a few familiar appli- cations such as pleasures and pains, fine art, and some aspects of knowledge ; but I doubt if in its iull compass, any great number of persons would either understand it or tolerate all its legitimate consequences. Yet it is one of those cardinal doctrines that must be true universally, or not at all. It is in the exposition of Aristotle's Categories that the author takes note of Relativity as the essential fact of all Knowledge or Cognition. Every fact or quality exists only with reference to some other fact or quality, as its correla- tive or opposite — light, dark : cold, hot ; up, down ; wise, foolish. This is the most fundamental of all the aspects of the doctrine. A more restricted but exceedingly momentous aspect is largely dwelt on by Mr. Grote ; the correlation of subject and object in perception; the mutual implication of the per- cipient mind with the thing perceived — the ^ercijpiens and the ])ercejptum. His mode of handling this antithesis in connec- tion with the Berkeleian idealism is most fully shown in one of the essays in the present volume (p. 332). The mode of Relativity most forcibly stated in the ' Plato,' is the relativity of truth or belief to the affirming or believing subject. This is dwelt upon in the commentary on The^e- TETUS, as the most probable rendering of the Protagorean dictum — homo mensura, "man is a measure to himself." As he understands the doctrine, Mr. Grote is thoroughly at one with Protagoras, although the view was impugned by both Plato and Aristotle. He attributes no small import- ance to the doctrine ; it being, in his opinion, the philoso- phical formula of the right of private judgment, as opposed to the assumed infallibility of some one man or body of men. [118] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. In this grand chef-d'oeuvre of Plato, Mr. Grote's philo- sophical handling everywhere appears to full advantage, and the student will find a rewarding exercise in comparing him with the other commentators on the dialogue. His opposition to the a priori philosophy is stated in the discussion on the meanings of Cause, in the Phsedon. Following Hume and Brown, he understands "by causes nothing more than phenomenal antecedents constant and unconditional, ascertainable by experience and induction." In connexion with the Protagoras, the Gorgias, and the Kepublic he sets forth certain ethical points of view that he lays great stress upon. In Protagoras, Plato affirms the doctrine that good and evil are identical with pleasurable and painful, and that virtue is an aifair of measurement and computation. Mr. Grote, in like manner, holds that there is no intelligible standard of reference for application of the terms good and evil, except the tendency to produce happi- ness or misery ; if this standard be rejected, ethical debate ceases to be a matter of rational discussion, and becomes only an enunciation of the different sentiments, authoritative and self-justifying, that are prevalent in each community. An important qualification, however, has been omitted by Plato. His measurement omits to take account of man as a member of society, and to value the pleasures and pains of others. This is one of the defects of Plato's ethical theory. In Gorgias he takes a totally different view of virtue — the preservation of a high tone of mental health. Vice he treats as a kind of disease, and the eradication of this taint or disease is what the virtuous man must aim at. Mr. Grote tries to give a meaning to what lies under this high- flown metaphor ; remarking how our being is divided between the transient impressions made upon us, and a certain permanent element, namely, the established cha- racter, habits, dispositions, intellectual requirements — the accumulated mental capital of the past life. This permanent element must be kept in good condition ; we must not for the sake of present and transitory pleasure impair the WORK ON PLATO. [119] general stock of pleasurable accumulations. Still, the per- manent itself derives all its substance and value from the regard to pleasures and the avoidance of pains. In the first book of the Republic, which is occupied with a stirring polemic on the nature of justice, Plato, in oppo- sition to the received opinions of mankind, declares that justice is a good thing in itself, without regard to the consequences. This is the first statement of the doctrine, afterwards insisted on by the Stoics, and repeated in modern ethics, that virtue is all-sufficient to the happiness of the virtuous agent, whatever be his fate in other respects. As a counter thesis, Mr. Grote strikingly illustrates the essential recii^roeity of virtuous conduct — one of the many phases of the Law of Relativity. Plato has endeavoured to accredit a fiction misrepresenting the constant phenomena and standing conditions of social life. Among these conditions, reciprocity of services is fundamental. Each individual has both duties and rights : each is required to be just to others : others are required to be just to him. The rights and obligations of any one towards the rest are inseparably correlated ; without this the terms " right " and " obligation " are void of meaning. In Plato we have the first faint indications of what is now called Teleology, or a science of Ends, as distinct from the sciences of the Order of Nature. Aristotle was more explicit ; he being the first to shape the practical sciences of ethics, politics, and rhetoric, into whose definition there entered a statement of the End. Mr. Grote, at an early period of his studies, worked out this conception of the practical sciences, and I believe instigated Mr. ]Mill to compose that striking chapter, added to the second edition of his Logic, entitled * The Logic of Practice.' [120] CHARACTER. AND WRITINGS. CHAPTER YI. WORK ON ARISTOTLE. Me. Grote began the 'Aristotle' in his seventy-first year. His preparatory studies had been ample, including a life-long acquaintance with most of the Aristotelian treatises. All his accumulated knowledge on ancient Greece as a whole, and his persistent devotion to philosophy in its modern as well as its ancient phases, could be now brought to bear on his concluding and most laborious task. That his unremitted exertions for six years at an ad- vanced age should terminate in a fragment only, is matter of lasting regret, but not of astonishment. The difficulties of the subject are great; and his mode of dealing with it, combining lucid interpretation with critical comparison, could cost nothing less than a protracted effort. Ten years of his prime would have scarcely suflSced to complete the projected survey of Aristotle and his contemporaries, as a parallel to Plato. The two volumes that have been published are mainly occupied with the logical treatises of the great philosopher. Prefixed to the account of these are two chapters — one on the life of Aristotle, the other on the Canon. The extant notices of Aristotle's career are very un- satisfactory. The facts are few, and many of them doubtful from conflicting testimonies. The biographer's task is chiefly made up of the sifting of authorities, and the comparing of the statements with the history of the time as otherwise known. The opening paragraph deserves to be quoted, as a bird's- WORK ON ARISTOTLE. [121] eye view of the situation of philosophy in tlie Aristotelian age:— " In my preceding work, 'Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates,* I described a band of philosophers differing much from each other, but all emanating from Sokrates as common intellectual progenitor ; all manifesting themselves wholly or principally in the composition of dialogues ; and all living in an atmosphere of Hellenic freedom, as yet untroubled by any overruling imperial ascendency from without. From that band, among whom Plato is facile ^rincej)s, I now proceed to another, among whom the like pre-eminence belongs to Aristotle. This second band knew the Sokratic stimulus only as a historical tradition ; they gradually passed, first from the Sokratic or Platonic dialogue — dramatic, colloquial, cross-examining — to the Aristotelian dialogue, semi-dramatic, rhetorical, counter-expository ; and next to formal theorising, ingenious solution and divination of special problems, historical criticism and abundant collec- tions of detailed facts : moreover, they were witnesses of the extinction of freedom in Hellas, and of the rise of the Mace- donian kingdom out of comparative nullity to the highest pinnacle of supremacy and mastership. Under the suc- cessors of Alexander, this extraneous supremacy, inter- meddling and dictatorial, not only overruled the political movements of the Greeks, but also influenced powerfully the position and working of their philosophers ; and would have become at once equally intermeddling even earlier, under Alexander himself, had not his whole time and personal energy been absorbed by insatiable thirst for Eastern con- quests, ending with an untimely death." Among the most interesting aspects of the philosopher's life are those opened up by Mr. Grote, through the con- temporary history. \A'hile attending the school of Plato, he contracted intimacy with a fellow-pupil, Hermeias, a man of great ability and energy, who became despot of two little towns in Asia IMiuor, Atarneus and Assos (opposite the island of Lesbos). In consequence of a hurt when a child, [122] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. he Avas known to be a eunuch, and bad become the slave of the prior despot of Atarueus. On Plato's death, Aristotle left Athens and accepted an invitation to reside with Hermeias, during which residence he married Pythias, the despot's niece. The happy intimacy was put an end to by the treachery of the Persian general in command of the neighbouring region, who decoyed Hermeias into his grasp and sent him up to the Persian king, by whom he was put to death. Aristotle's deep grief is permanently recorded in a hymn or poean composed to the memory of his friend. The Persians took possession of the towns of Hermeias, and Aristotle went to Mitylene. His next recorded movement is to the Macedonian court, as tutor to the youthful Alexander; an appointment partly owing (we may suppose) to his i'ather's having been Philip's court physician, and partly to his own already acquired reputation for philosophy. His residence at Pella, the Macedonian capital, and his instruc- tions to Alexander, continued, with occasional interruptions, till Alexander's accession to the throne in 336 B.C. In the year following, which saw the completion of the preparations for invading Persia, he went to Athens, and opened a new school of philosophy, as a rival to the Academy, still kept up by the successors to Plato ; in that school he spent the remaining thirteen years of his life. Apart from his philo- sophic teaching and pursuits, he had by no means an easy time. He was under Macedonian patronage ; he was still consulted by Alexander, and maintained a constant corre- spondence with Antipater, Alexander's deputy or viceroy in the government of Macedonia and its dependencies. He was thus in a position of antagonism to the sentiments of the majority of the Athenian public. " It wiU thus appear, that though all the preserved writings of Aristotle are imbued with a thoroughly inde- pendent spirit of theorising contemplation and lettered industry, uncorrupted by any servility or political bias — yet his position during the twelve years between 335-323 B.C. inevitably presented him to the Athenians as the Mace- WOEK ON AEISTOTLE. [123] (Ionising philosopher, parallel with Phokion as the Macedon- ising politician, and in pointed antithesis to Xenokrates at the Academy, who was attached to the deraocratical consti- tution, and refused kingly presents. Besides that enmity Avhioh he was sure to incur, as an acute and self-thinking philosopher, from theology and the other anti-philosophical veins in the minds of ordinary men, Aristotle thus became the object of unfriendly sentiment from many Athenian patriots, who considered the school of Plato generally as hostile to popular liberty, and who had before them examples of individual Platonists, ruling their respective cities with a sceptre forcibly usurped." The death of Alexander at Babylon, in June 323 B.C., came upon the world with a shock : and gave hopes of deliverance to enslaved Greece. There was an anti-Mace- donian rising at Athens ; Phocion and the other Macedonian leaders went for safety to Antipater ; and xVristotle's enemies thought the moment opportune for an onslaught on him. Following the Socratic precedent, the chief priest of the Eleusinian temple entered against him an indictment for impiety. The grounds of the indictment were peculiar ; consisting mainly of the Hymn to Hermeias, and the in- scription on a statue to Hermeias at Delphi. To this was added the citation of certain heretical doctrines from his published writings, of which the chief seems to have been a declaration against the efficacy of prayers and sacri- fices. On this curious indictment Mr. Grote remarks that the hymn or paean in honour of Hermeias would be more offensive to the feelings of an ordinary Athenian than any philosophical dogma extracted from the cautious prose com- positions of Aristotle. Such hymns had been previously composed in honour of individual Greeks by Pindar and others; the same lofty and exaggerated comparison to deities had been indulged in: yet tlie searching eye of the historian of Greece discloses a difference. Hermeias was a compound of three enormities — a eunuch, a slave, and a despot. He was not a despot pure and simple, but a [124] CHARACTER AND AVKITINGS. eumich-despot, beginning from a slave ; while there was no redeeming public exploit that would have softened the harshness of the combination. A groundwork of political antipathy, overlaid by such a charge, gave Aristotle small chance at that moment ; he bowed to the storm, which he knew could not last, retired from Athens, and would have soon returned, but for his death. A sentence of his com- posed defence is j)reserved, wherein he rebuts the charge of deifying Hermeias (ranking him in the ode with Herakles, and others) by alleging that he had notoriously erected a tomb, and performed funeral ceremonies to him as a mortal. Mr. Grote remarks, that this did not meet the case : the Athenians would not have felt the logical inconsistency of the two proceedings ; what they felt was the worthlessness of Hermeias, to whom he rendered these great honours, whether as divinity or as human being. The solemn measure and character of a ptean was disgraced by being applied to so vile a person. Mr. Grote has farther supplied illustrative comments on the position of Aristotle with reference to the rival schools, namely, of Isocrates and of Plato ; and gives what evidence remains of his feelings towards his rivals, on which bitter reflections were common. The second chapter is entitled the 'Aristotelian Canon.' The problem of what are Aristotle's genuine writings has far greater complication than attends the Platonic canon ; and Mr. Grote exhausts his learning and acumen in the attempt to unravel it. We shall not follow him in this research, but shall advert only to his concluding dissertation on the exact meaning of the renowned distinction between Esoteric and Exoteric doctrine. The basis of explanation of these words, as occm-ring in Aristotle's own writings, is exceedingly narrow. The word ' Exoteric ' occurs in eight passages of the extant works (taking in the Eudemian Ethics, which is disputed by some critics) ; seven of these are indecisive ; but reasoning from the eighth, Mr. Grote thinks that the word means dialectical debate as contrasted with demonstration ; .a funda- WORK ON ARISTOTLE. [125] mental distinction with Aristotle. This is very different from tlie common acceptation of the two contrasting terms — exo- teric and esoteric. According to Mr. Grote, the ' esoteric ' is the essence of science or philosophy itself, in its deductive, demonstrative, or syllogistic march ; the ' exoteric ' is some- thing lying outside of this, extrinsic, but yet a valuable province in itself, the province of the probable, the disput- able, where there is no proper demonstration, but a series of arguments ^ro and con. The Organon or Methodised Eatiocination of Aristotle, fell under corresponding heads, the one (Demonstrative) represented by the Aualytica, the other (Dialectic) by the Topica. Of the prodigious total of works composed by Aristotle, the larger number have perished. There still remain about forty treatises, of authenticity not open to any reasonable suspicion, attesting the grandeur of his intelligence, in respect of speculative force, positive and negative, system- atizing patience, comprehensive curiosity as to matters of fact, and diversified applications of detail. In the order of study most generally agreed upon, the first place is given to the collection of treatises called the Organon, six in number : — The Categories ; De luterpretatione or De Enun- ciatione ; AnalyticaPriora; Analy tica Posteriora ; Topica ; De Sophisticis Elenchis. The last, although a short treatise, is very important ; it forms naturally a part of the Topica ; so that, in fact, there are five distinct treatises : each having a well-marked subject. Mr. G-rote's greatest originality as an expositor appears in his account of the first treatise — Categorize, the Cate- gories. It corresponds to the logical department of Terms, although the best known logicians have discarded Aristotle's treatment, and have usually given in some detached chapter a List of the Categories without connecting explanation, often accompanied with an insinuation that the subject does not belong to Logic. Nevertheless, the nature of Terms, and their various distinctions, liavc their beginning in the book of the Categories. Aristotle was the first to distinguish [120] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. terms as Equivocal and TJnivocal, and to regard predication or the proposition as made up of terms. The Ten Categories or Predicaments are a comprehensive ehissification of all things that enter into a proposition, either as Subject or as Predicate. They are : — " 1. Essence or Substance ; such as, man, horse. 2. Row much, or Quan- titij ; such as, two cubits long, three cubits long. 3. miat manner of or Quality ; such as, white, erudite. 4. Ad aliquid — To sometliing or Relation ; such as, double, half, greater. 5. Wliere ; such as, in the market-place, in the Lykeium. 6. When ; such as, yesterday, last year. 7. In what posture ; such as, he stands up, he is sitting down. 8. To have ; such as, to be shod, to be armed. 9. Activitij ; such as, he is cutting, he is burning. 10. Passivity ; such as, he is being cut, he is being burned." " In this enumeration, Aristotle takes his departure, not from any results of prior research, but from common speech ; and from the dialectic, frequent in his time, which debated about matters of common life and talk, about received and current opinions. We may presume him to have studied and compared a variety of current propositions, so as to discover the different relations in which subjects and predicates did stand or could stand to each other ; also the various ques- tions which might be put respecting any given subject, with the answers suitable to be returned. " The chief stress of Aristotle's exposition rests upon the first four categories — Substance, Quantity, Quality, Relation; as to the six last — Where, When, Posture, Having, Activity, Passivity, he says little upon any of them ; upon some nothing at all. The cardinal explanation of the whole scheme turns upon the First Category — Substance or Essence. From the prevailing signification of this term, as the most extreme and attenuated of all abstractions, we are unprepared for the meaning given to it by Aristotle, namely, the Concrete Individual. The First Ens or First Essence — that which is Ens in the fullest sense — is the individual concrete person or WORK OX ARISTOTLE. [127] thing in nature ; Sokrates, Bukephalus, this man, tliat horse, that oak-tree, &c. This First Ens is inrlispensable as Sub- ject or Substratum for all the other Categories, and even for predication generally. It is a subject only ; it never appears as a predicate of anything else. Having defined in tliis fashion substance or First Essence, by which he placed himself in diametrical opposition to Plato's Ideas, Aristotle states what he means by a Second Essence, namely the species that a thing belongs to ; Sokrates First Essence; man or animal — Species or Second Essence. Here in reality, he is going on another tack, mixing up with the categories a different set of distinctions; these terms, liowever, — First and Second Essences, are of vital moment in the Aristotelian philosophy. The proper antithesis to SuBSTAXCE is seen in the remaining nine Categories — Quantity, Quality, &c, which are predicates for clothing the First Essence, or Individual. An individual man, horse, building, possesses Quantity in various ways ; also Quality as white, living, costly. Aristotle discusses and classifies the modes of Quantity, as shown in the mathematical sciences, and in the adjectives of degi-ee little, much, &c. He then proceeds to Relation, and gets out of his depth, not seeing that relation instead of being a property co-ordinate with Quantity, Quality, and the rest, is at the foundation of tlie whole, as Mr. Grote amply shows. The ancient philoso- phers had far-seeing glimpses into the principle of Relativity, but usually broke down at some point or other, and landed themselves in confusion and even contradiction ; and the present attempt of Aristotle is a signal example. In seeking a clue to what was in the mind of Aristotle when he drew up this very imperfect classification of things entering into either the Subject or the Predicate of propo- sitions, Mr, Grote points out the last as the most suggestive. Ivvery one is astonished, after surveying the sweeping generalities — Quantity, Quality, and Belation, to come down to Posture (sitting, lying), Haviny (possessing shoes or arms); f(jr while the higher, and gi-ander attributes, include every- [128] CHARACTEK AND WRITINGS. tiling in their sweep, the last can apply only to some human beinir or animal. We infer from this that Aristotle had in his mind chiefly some individual man, and put all the dif- ferent questions that could be answered respecting that individual. The caprice in choosing the number Ten, was the remains in Aristotle's mind of the fascination for particular numbers, which so largely affected the Pythagoreans, and after them, Plato. The number might easily have been extended, or it might have been contracted, as it was by the Stoics, who recognised only Four : while Plotinus and Galen each made out Five. " He was, as far as we can see, original in taking as the point of departure for his theory, the individual man, horse, or other perceivable object ; in laying down this Concrete Particular with all its outfit of details, as the type of Ens proper, complete and primary ; and in arranging into classes the various secondary modes of Ens according to their different relations to the primary type and the mode in which they contributed to make up its completeness. He thus stood opposed to the Pythagoreans and Platonists, who took their departure from the Universal, as the type of full and true Entity ; while he also dissented from Demokritus> who recognised no true Ens except the underlying, imper- ceptible, eternal atoms and vacuum. Moreover, Aristotle seems to have been the first to draw up a logical analysis of Entity in its widest sense, as distinguished from that meta- physical analysis which we read in his other works ; the two not being contradictory, but distinct and leading to different purposes. Both in the one and in the other, his principal controversy seems to have been with the Platonists, who dis- regarded both individual objects and accidental attributes ; dwelling upon Universals, Genera, and Species, as the only real Entia capable of being known." The second treatise of the Ortranon is called De Inter- PRETATIONE, the doctrine of the Proposition. Tliis, with the WORK ON ARISTOTLE. [129] * Analytica Priora/ is the source of the theory of Propo- sitions in modern Logic. Denial or negative affirmation was in a very confused state in the philosophies prior to Aristotle ; and although his terminology is not in all respects fully developed, he made the great step of distinguishing the Quantity of Propositions — as Universal or Particular, from Avhich followed the two modes of denial, Contrary and Con- tradictory, The Maxim or Law of Contradiction was a part of this theory, which Mr. Grote attributes exclusively to Aristotle, in opposition to Sir W. Hamilton's attempt to trace it up to Plato. A considerable portion of the treatise is devoted to the so-called Modal Propositions — the Possible and the Neces- sary — and rings all the changes growing out of their oppo- sites. Much dissension has taken place among logicians as to these modals. Mr. Grote shows that they have a place in Logic, but have not been satisfactorily dealt with by Ai'istotle, being a very serious clog in his handling, both of the proposition and the syllogism. Next follows the Analytica Prioea containing the theory of the syllogism. This great artiiicial construction is claimed by Aristotle, as exclusively his own, and there is no reason to contest his claim. He had no model to proceed upon except geometry, which had already in his time been cast into its present form, although not with Euclid's system. By examining a vast number of examj)les of reasoning or arguments, he had detected the uniform presence of two primary propositions, related to each other, and to the proposition to be proved, in certain definite ways. He provided technical language for expressing the consti- tuent propositions and terms, and found out nearly all the modes of relationship of the premises that would give true conclusions. He prepared the way for the mutual resolution of argumentative forms (called reduction) by laying down the laws of the Conversion of Propositions, although his attempts to prove these laws are a manifest failure. He [130] CHAKACTER AND WRITINGS. characterised Figure by the position of the Middle Term, and worked out by trial all the valid moods in the Three Figures (the Fourth was a later addition). He was the first to employ alphabetical letters to abbreviate the state- ment of propositional forms, having seen something of the same sort in geometry. He set great store upon the supe- riority of the First Figure, as the only one wherein we can prove the Universal Affirmative, — the great aim of scientific research. His exposition is not always satisfactory, and is greatly encumbered by the introduction of Modal Pro- positions. He exemplifies the dialectical applications of the syllogism, still farther carried out in the treatise called Toxica : and handles various forms of fallacy. Mr. Grote is always careful to remark Aristotle's admission that the jprincipia or premises of demonstration are furnished by experience and induction, each separate science con- tributing its own quota ; astronomical observation and expe- rience furnishing the basis of astronomical laws, and so on. This was one of his marked points of opposition to Plato. Nevertheless, he was very far from steady in his hold of induction. In the second book of ' Analytica Priora,' occurs his attempt to give induction the form of syllogism, which Mr. Grote fully shows to be utterly fallacious, although renewed by most formal logicians down to Whately. It was the distinguishing glory of John Stuart Mill to show the relation of Induction to Deduction, and Mr. Grote zealously adopted his explanation. Aristotle, as Mr. Grote points out, was not wedded exclusively to the deductive formalities. In his numerous treatises on other subjects, scarcely any allusion is made to the syllogism, nor to its rules as laid down in the ' Analytica.' He held that the deductive process was only the last half of the process of inference, and presupposed a foregone induction. It was the deductive portion that he himself analysed, and if any one had performed a similar analysis of the other half, we may fairly believe that he would have welcomed it, as filling up a gap in the complete theory of reasoning. WORK ON ARISTOTLE. [IHl] Various leading points of Aristotelian doctrine, occurring in the ' Analytica Priora,' are elucidated in Mr. Grote's com- mentary. The antithesis of notior nobis, and notior naiurd, is strongly insisted on in many of Aristotle's writings. Here it is expounded by the contrast between example or induction, and deduction. The distinction is intelligible enough, but the phraseology is somewhat strained and figurative, and is not employed in modern philosophy. The ' Analytica Priora ' is intended to give the complete theory of the syllogism, or deductive reasoning. There are two great applications of the syllogism — demonstration and dialectic — processes fundamentally contrasted by Aristotle. To the first, demonstration, he devotes a treatise called 'Analytica Posteriora;' to the second a still larger treatise, the ' Topica.' The Posterior Analytics — ostensibly devoted to demon- strative or scientific truth, and the processes implicated in demonstration — is somewhat miscellaneous in its character; it contains a good deal of foreign matter, although all of interest in the Aristotelian philosophy. Mr. Grote takes pains, at the outset of his commentary on this treatise, to illustrate the distinction between science and dialectic. Science or demonstration meant with Aristotle, as with us, the region of knowledge laid out by special inquirers after careful examination ; it is confined to a small number of subjects ; it has recognised principia, or first principles to start from; these principles are universally and essentially true, and admitted by all ; they are obtained from the induc- tion of particulars. On the other hand, dialectic is common sense or opinion, the knowledge of general society ; it extends to all mimner of subjects ; its principles are the received opinions of the community, or the dicta of individuals of more or less weight; these are at best but probable. I'oth departments agree in coming imder the scope of the Hvllogism. It was a feature of Aristotle's business-like sagacity or ]c2 [132] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. practical good sense, always to be aware of the comparative degree of certainty attainable in different subjects. There were two extremes — the exact sciences of demonstration, and the utterly loose and undigested opinions of the multitude upon complicated and difficult topics ; between these two extremes lay a middle region, represented by his various miscellaneous treatises on topics theoretical and practical. For demonstration he takes the best illustrative type, Geometry. The learner of a demonstrative science must possess certain jprsecognita, in the shape of definitions and axioms, on which the teacher is to proceed. But then arises the Platonic paradox : learning is an impossible act ; for either you know a thing already, or you don't know it ; if you don't know it, how can you go in search of a thing that you are wholly ignorant of? Aristotle shows the way out of this puzzle by distinguishing between imperfect and perfect knowledge. He then deals \\ ith a different class of objectors, persons that failed to see the cardinal property of demon- stration ; one set maintaining the possibihty of demonstrating backward ad infinitum; the other contending for tlie legi- timacy of reasoning in a circle. Again, in demonstration, the principles must be necessary or essential, and not concomitant or accidental (this is not the case.) He next contends, very properly, that the 'principia should be of the very highest universality, not inferior or derivative principles, which of course are them- selves demonstrable. Further, in demonstration, the con- clusion must follow necessarily from the premises. Again, the premises must be appropriate to the matter in hand. Moreover, the process of demonstration, although requiring universal propositions, neither requires nor countenances the Platonic theory of ideas — universal substances beyond and apart from particulars. Once more, the grand fundamental maxim of contradiction, appealed to in demonstrating by redudio ad absurdum, is not enunciated in any special science, but is a point of contact or communion of all the sciences ; it belongs to the First Philosophy, and is not to be made the WORK ON ARISTOTLE. 1_133] subject of scrutiny by the geometer or other specialist as such. In dialectical disputation, the questions and answers should always be kept within the limits of the science ; hence it is futile to discuss geometry ^^ith persons that are not geometers. Mr. Grote follows this treatise through its numerous wind- ings and repetitions, and succeeds in making plain the author's drift, even when he is crude and inconsistent. There is some confusion of thought in applying the syllo- gistic designation, the middle term, to intermediate links in physical cause and effect, and the celebrated four causes are brought in to explain the meanings of knowledge. Generally speaking Aristotle has a good grasp of the main conditions of demonstration : he is less steady, but still very knowing, in the niceties of definition. From our present logical point of view we can see distinctly what he is aiming at,. and where he misses : and the interest of the work consists in tracing the struggles of an original mind. The concluding chapter of the treatise discusses the mental origin of the -princiina of demonstration themselves. Mr. Grote gives a careful rendering of Aristotle's view of this disputed problem, showing that he cannot be ranked with intuitionists, inasmuch as he held these first principles to be acquired ; still he regarded the inductive process as cul- minating in the infallible Nous, or theorising intelligence. The TopiCA is a very remarkable treatise. It is the working out of an artificial scheme for conducting dialectical debates, in which Aristotle exhausts all the resources of his logical subtleties. In this, as in the syllogism itself, he claims entire originality. He found teachers of contentious dialogue, as well as of rhetoric, but they knew nothing of the theory of their art; he compares them to a teacher of shoe-making that should merely show his jJupils ready- made shoes. Long and elaborate as this treatise is, Mr. Grote follows it through all the details, and leaves a very fresh and vivid [134] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. impression of Aristotle's genins for fine distinctions and technical abstractions. The first book is preparatory. It repeats the contrast between demonstration and dialectic, showing in particular the foundation of dialectic in common opinions instead of scientific principles. But not content with drawing the real distinction between the demonstrative and the dialectical syllogism, Aristotle makes a farther distinction between dialectic and eristic, on which Mr. Grote remarks that he is here carried away by his fixed determination to damage the Sophists — a pui'pose manifested at intervals throughout the treatise, and involving him in frequent inconsistencies. The Aristotelian name for the first principles in dialectic debate is endoxa, meaning opinions more or less authoritative, being fortifiel by a certain amount of prevailing belief or acceptance, and therefore possessing a certain presump- tion in their favour. These endoxa are opposed to adoxa, propositions wanting in authority, of which the extreme variety is named paradoxa, which have the predominant authority of opinion against them. We have naturalised this last class in our word imradox ; we ought also to have endox and adox, the endox especially is necessary to the un- derstanding of the present treatise. '• The essential feature of the endoxon is, that it has acquired a certain amount of recognition among the mass of opinions and beliefs floating and carrying authority at the actual time and place. When Josephus distinguished himself as a disputant in the schools of Jerusalem on points of law and custom, his arguments must have been chiefly borrowed from the endoxa or preva- lent opinions of the time and place ; but these must have differed widely from the endoxa found and argued upon by the contemporaries of Aristotle at Athens. "It is within the wide field of floating opinions that dialectical debate and rhetorical pleading are carried on. Dialectic supposes a questioner or assailant, and a respon- dent or defendant. The respondent selects and proclaims a problem or thesis, which he undertakes to maintain ; the WORK ON ARISTOTLE. [135] assailant puts to him successive questions, with the view of obtaining concessions which may serve as premisses for a counter-syllogism, of which the conclusion is contradictory or contrary to the thesis itself, or to some other antecedent premiss which the respondent lias already conceded. It is the business of the respondent to avoid making any answers which may serve as premisses for such a counter-syllogism. If he succeeds in this, so as not to become implicated in any contradiction with himself, he has baffled his assailant, and gained the victory. There are, however, certain rules and conditions, binding on both parties, under which the debate must be carried on. It is the purpose of the Topica to in- dicate these rules ; and, in accordance therewith, to advise both parties as to the effective conduct of their respective cases — as to the best thrusts and the best mode of parrying. The assailant is supplied with a classified catalogue of ma- terials for questions, and with indications of the weak points which he is to look out for in any new subject which may turn up for debate. He is further instructed how to shape, marshal, and disguise his questions, in such a way that the respondent may least be able to foresee their ultimate bearing. The respondent, on his side,^ is told what he ought to look forward to and guard against. Such is the scope of the present treatise; the entire process being considered in the large and comprehensive spirit customary with Aristotle, and distributed according to the Aristotelian terminology and classification." The debate is valuable, first, as a stimulating mental ex- ercise ; next, as facilitating our intercourse with the multi- tude, whose opinions we should know and be able to modify ; lastly, in the scrutiny of the principles of science proper. The first head is substantially the Platonic view of the Dia- logues of Search. The second is characteristic of Aristotle, who was careful to collect the current opinions of the multi- tude on all matters. Ho is also careful to lay out the class of problems suitable for debate ; they must neither be what all persons believe, [136] CHAKACTER AND WRITINGS. " nor what no one believes ; there must be doubts and diffi- culties, and yet the premisses needed for their solution must not be far-fetched or recondite. The plan of the treatise follows that fourfold division of propositions, known as the predicables, which, in later times, were enumerated as five. Looking to the nature of a pro- position, as made up of two things — subject and predicate, the ordinary case should be that the subject means one thing, the predicate another ; '• generalship needs long ex- perience ; " " generalship " means one property, " needs long experience " means another ; and the coupling of the two is a piece of information or communicated knowledge. Now the proposition appears in its full character, when the two meanings are wholly unconnected by nature, so that we should never by considering one arrive at the other ; of such kind are propositions as to the original locality of minerals, plantsi, or animals ; for by looking at a mineral specimen we have no means of telling where it came from. To this extreme dis- connection of subject and predicate Aristotle gave the name concomitant predication ; it re^Jresents the proposition in its highest reality as imparting knowledge. Another case is where subject and predicate are distinct in meaning, but yet so far iavolved in one another, that by a full study of the subject, one might discover or discern the predicate. Such are the proj)ositions as to geometrical figures. In a triangle the sum of two sides is greater than the third. Now a triangle means a three-sided figure, and that is all ; the fact that the combined length of two sides exceeds the third side is a distinct fact, but yet it is impli- cated in, or grows out of, the essential nature of the triangle, the three-sided j)roperty. For this new mode of predication Aristotle invented a term translated prop'ium or property ; and the distinction reflects honour on his subtlety. Con- comitant and property are thus the two modes of real predi- cation. But this is not all. People are very often ignorant of the meaning of the subject itself, or if not wholly ignorant? they may be imperfectly cognizant of its exact and full WORK ON ARISTOTLE. [137] meaning. Hence many propositions are framed, not to unite a subject and a predicate as distinct facts, but to declare the meaning of a subject : " a triangle is a three-sided figure," "generalship is the art of commanding of an army" — are propositions of this nature. Here is an entirely new mode of predication, it has the form and not the reality of a pro- position. Some other name must be found for this third situation ; we call it now definition, verbal predication, essen- tial predication. This threefold distinction in the forms of predication is most important ; it was made by Aristotle, and constitutes the predicables. But for the third mode he used two desig- nations — definition and genus ; the later logicians perplexed the matter still more by using three heads, genus, species, difference ; their reason, probably, being that definition was explained by Aristotle as i^er genus et differentiam — stating first the genus of a thing and next its specific difference. It is obvious to us now that the verification of these three modes of predication proceeds by quite different routes. In the totally disconnected propositions — those of circumstance or accident, the proof (in the last resort) must be observa- tion of fact ; in the propria, observation may be brought in, but is not essential ; a skilful inference from the meaning of the subject evolves the predicate. In the third kind, we have not to deal with truth or falsehood, but with conformity between particulars and a general statement. Aristotle was very far from discerning fully the exact nature or conditions of each of these three modes of predi- cation ; yet he had marvellously shrewd glimpses of their respective characteristics. Farther: each of the predicables must fall under one or other of his Ten Categories, which gives enlarged scope for multiplying distinctions. Occasionally Aristotle makes this . reference to some of the categories, but to no good purpose ; the categories themselves are too roughly laid out for any pregnant application. Aristotle's acutencss discovered another circumstance in [138J CHAHACTEIl AND WRITINGS. connection with the debating of true and false, namely, that the question often turned upon an ideniihj ; whereupon, as usual, he takes to dividing the modes or kinds of identity — identity (1) numero, (2) specie, (3) genere. This also survived iu the schools as he gave it. Finally : " What helps are available to give to the dialec- tician a ready and abundant command of syllogisms ? Four distinct helps may ba named : (1) he must make a large col- lection of propositions ; (2) he must study and discriminate the different senses in which the terms of these propositions are used ; (3) he must detect and note differences ; (4) he must investigate resemblances." This is bravely sketched ; but the filling up disappoints us. The first and second helps are fairly discussed ; the two last — to our present apprehension, the most vital and funda- mental facts of knowledge — are merely made the ground of some remarks upon classification and induction. Aristotle saw that induction, syllogism, and definition, were all pro- cesses of resemblance ; and he brought under the same head, as an endoxon, that what happens in any one of a string of similar cases, will happen in the rest. The meaning of io]pos (which gives the title Topiea), in Latin locus, is a place where may be found arguments or modes of arguing, suited to each purpose or occasion — sedes argumentorum. A short exemplification of Aristotle's copious detail of Loci, will show his meaning. Beginning with those theses where the predicate of the proposition to be impugned is Concomitant or Accident — the real proposition in the strictest sense — he enumerates no less than thirty-seven distinct loci, or argumentative points of view regarding it. Most of them suggest modes of assailing the thesis ; but there are also occasional intimations to the respondent in the debate, how he may best guard himself. Of the thirty-seven Mr. Grote recounts twenty-two, remarking, that '• there are some items repetitions of each other, or at least not easily distinguishable " — a serious derogation from x\ristotle's logical acuteness. WORK ON AlilSTOTLE. [139] The first locus is highly to the purpose. The supposition and preteusion is that the proposition is one of Concomi- tance. Let the assailant, therefore, look and see whether in point of fact it does not fall under some of the other predicables ; whether the predicate may not be of the genus, essence, or definition of the subject itself; the very common mistake of confounding a real with a verbal pro- position. If the proposition. White is a colour, be given as a Concomitant, it can be impugned and shown to be an affirmation of the genus of the subject, for " white " is a species under * the genus " colour." By showing this, an opponent may gain a dialectical victory. The second locus goes to the truth or falsehood of a uni- versal proposition, affirmative or negative, and declares the real basis or proof of a universal, namely, the truth of the particulars. This is of course the foundation of all inductive proof. Out of this arises at once the policy of an assailant or objector — review the particulars, and if any of them is untrue, the proposition is broken down. Or, instead of reviewing the ultimate particulars which might be endless or impossible — take them in genera and species, or sub- propositions; inasmuch as the higher generalities are fre- quently an aggregate of inferior, having a smaller compass ; " all bodies gravitate " (highest universal) : solids gravitate, liquids gravitate, airs gravitate (sub-propositions). Aristotle's own example is a favourite doctrine of his, belonging to the Eelativity of Knowledge. — The cognition of opposites is one ; and he divides Opposites into the several species, Belata, and Correlaia, Contraries, Contradictories, and opposites re- specting Habitus and Privatio. Instead of dealing with this locus as merely one out of thirty- seven, Aristotle should have made it the head and front of the whole dialectic of Concomitant Affirmation. The proof or disproof of a universal, by examination of particulars, is the alpha and omega of science, proof, or certainty in knowledge. His third locus is also fundamental, but it should have been first — to define the terms used both in the subject and [140] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. in the predicate. Not a step should be taken with any proposition till its terms are defined. Moreover, definition is a branch of logic by itself, and in the sequel, Aristotle has a vast number of loci bearing upon definition, this being one of his predicables or divisions, so that he need not have introduced the process, except by reference, among the loei of concomitance. A fourth locus, both for assailant and for respondent, is to discriminate the cases where the authority of the multitude is conchisive from those where it is not ; a rather trying operation, although exceedingly to the purpose." This should have been done once or for all by philosophers like Aristotle himself ; there should have been provided a set of canons of autliority, to be applied by the disputants whom the present treatise addresses. Aristotle gives more than one suggestion as to cases where the terms of a universal thesis have a double or triple sense. This should come under definition ; for the carrying out of the process of defining discloses double meanings and equivo- cation. When there is an equivocation, a wary disputant can make use of it against an unwary opponent. Consent is obtained to the proposition under one meaning of a term, and then extorted for the other meaning. The refutation of a universal, by quoting contradictory particulars, unavoidably comes up again and again, and ought to have been consecutive and systematic. Thus, if a predicate is a generic quality, as in "the soul is moved," some of the specific modes must be applicable — some kno\vn variety of motion, as increase, destruction, generation, &c. If none of the recognised modes of motion apply to the soul, then the thesis is refuted. A very pertinent locus is, look to the antecedents and consequents of the thesis — what things it assumes, and what will follow from it ; if any of these can be disproved, the thesis fails. This is repeated, without material difierence, in a subsequent loctis. A locus belonging to the tactics or management of a WOEK ON ARISTOTLE. [141] debate (called by Aristotle a sojohistieal procedure) is to transfer the debate to some point where we happen to be more at home. It may be advantageous in attacking the thesis, to construe the terms in their strict etymological sense, rather than according to usage. This is merely a repetition of the loei bearing upon equivocation or double meanings of words. The predicate may belong to its subject either necessarily or usually, or by pure hazard. Here Aristotle forgets the nature of concomitance, which is to exclude necessary con- nexions ; or else he repeats his first locus. The thesis may have predicate and subject exactly syno- nymous, so that the same thing will be affirmed as an accident of itself. Grows also out of attention to the mean- ing of the terms, or definition. A number of loci bear upon the nature of oiiposita, ac- cording to Aristotle's classification of them, which he handled dexterously, and for the most part soundly. Very properly, he has a locus for reasoning by analogy, although imperfectly appreciating the nature and limitations of the process. He had also a considerable mastery of the argument from concomitant variations, or the proof from more or less ; out of which he extracts a highly serviceable locus. An argument described by Aristotle as ex adjuncto, is something like what we now call the method of difference. " If the subject, prior to adjunction of the attribute, be not white or good, and if the adjunction of the attribute makes it white or good, then you may argue that the adjunct itself must be white or good." ♦ The foregoing selection contains the leading points of the second book of the * Topica,' perhaps the most remarkable book of the ten, when we consider that it sets forth, in a crude condition, the principal canons of inductive logic. These statements cannot be called germs, for they never germinated ; inductive logic was developed from other sources ; they are rather crumbs and crudities, examples [142] CHARAOTEK AND WETTINGS. of the numerous great truths that Aristotle touched in his speculative course. The third book carries out the same predicable, viz., accident or concomitant, to the practical department of good or evil, expetenda and fugienda ; the question being, of two or more distinct subjects which is the better or more desir- able. This is really an abuse of the forms of logic, which Aristotle is guilty of in the Ethics also, to suppose that they could be applied with any advantage to determining good and evil. There are doubtless certain formal maxims and criteria that may be laid down in this department, but the logical technicalities, accident, proprium, genus, species, are much better away' from all that class of discussions. That such topics should be frequent in the dialectical debating at Athens was inevitable. They came closest home to every bosom. And as Aristotle himself was intensely practical, and the author of the best treatises in antiquity on ethics and on politics, he could bring his sagacity to bear upon the modes of comparing different ends of pursuit. Accordingly he here casts into the form of loci for debate a number of his views and theories. For example : — " Of two good subjects compared, that is better and more desirable which is the more lasting, or which is preferred by the wise and good man, or by the professional artist in his own craft, or by right law, or by the multitude, all or most of them. That is absolutely or simply better and more desirable, which is declared to be such by the better cognition ; that is better to any individual which is better by his own cognition." A thing is more desirable when good on its own account than when good by accident. What is good to all and at all times is better than what is good only for a special occasion or individual ; to be in good health is better than to be cut for the stone. What is good by nature, as justice, is better than what is good by artifice or acquisition, as the just individual, whose character must have been acquired. Good in the primary and more exalted elements of any subject, is more desirable than good belonging to the derivative, secondary. WORK ON ARISTOTLE. [143] and less exalted ; health, which resides in the fundamental constituents of the body (wet, dry, hot, cold) is better than strength or beauty, residing in the hues and muscles. An end is superior to the means. These are a few out of a prolix enumeration of loci for good and evil ; they are given in the common forms of ethical disquisition, but in the latter portion of the book the language of formal logic is made to apply to this class of questions. For example. He supposes the thesis to be propounded to be a particular proposition. In that case we can apply the logical rule that the universal proves the particular, affirmative or negative. So the loci from oj)j)Osites can be applied to particulars of the present class. It is a locus of contraries, if all pleasure is good, then all pain is evil ; hence if some pleasure is good, some jjain is evil. Again, there is an argument, a fortiori, thus: if some capacity is a less good than science, while yet some capacity is good, then some science is good. A debater may propound a thesis with the assumption that, if true or false in any one case, it shall be accepted as true or false universally (if the human soul is immortal, all other souls are immortal). This is evidently to extend the particular into an universal, and the respondent must try to prove the negative in some particular case. These and other cases where the forms of logic are applied, might have been introduced into the previous book. The criteria special to a practical question are not brought for- ward at all : the propositions are treated purely in the logical aspect. The fourth book of the Topica is occupied with the pre- dicable " genus." It is really an excursus upon the relations of genus and species, of which Aristotle had an adequate mastery. Simple as the relationship is, it might be very readily blundered, especially in abstruse instances, so that many debates would arise upon the referring of a species to its proper genus. Suppose A is declared to be genus of B ; if now there be any members of B that cannot come under genus A, then B is not species of A, that is, A is not genus [144] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. of B. Again, the species has all the attributes of the genus and something more ; if, then, an alleged species has not all the generic qualities, it is not a species of that genus. Farther, the same species cannot be in two distinct genera, unless either one of the two be subordinate to the other, or both are comprehended under some common higher genus [not always then]. Thus the thesis may declare that justice is science ; now justice is in the distinct genus " virtue " ; but as both science and virtue can be referred to one and the same higher genus, the thesis " justice is science " is not open to i-efutation. As usual, he makes this predicate run the gauntlet of his contraries, but does not clearly extricate the situations that he creates. He supposes cases where the species has some contrary, but the genus has not, and vice versa ; sickness in general (he says) has for its contrary health in general, but particular species of sickness, as fever, gout, &c., have no contrary. In all this part, he goes astray from defective views of contrariety and correlation. Altogether, his handling of genus is historically curious, but uninstructive to the modern reader. The fifth book, devoted to " proprium " as a predicable, is not satisfactory. It was a great stroke of subtlety to chalk out this predicable, but his hold of it is very loose. His re- finements and distinctions violate the true nature of the pro- prium, and he admits irrelevant matter without knowing it. He distinguishes a proprium semper from a proprium occa- sional ; it is the proprium semper of a god to be immortal ; it is the proprium sometimes of a man to be walking in the market place. Now while it is a nice point to determine whether immortality be the essence (definition) of a god or the proprium ; the modern logician would regard " walking in the market place " as accident or concomitant of a man, although the power or capability of walking would be regarded as proprium. Among things of doubtful relevance is the prescription that the proprium should be better known than the subject whereof it is predicated ; the suitable place WORK ON ARISTOTLE. [14.")] for this remark is under definition, where also it is given. There is farther a locus or caution against equivocal terms, which applies alike to every mode of predication. A pro- prium^may be impeached, in debate, if it belongs to other subjects equally with the one that you attacli it to. Perhaps the correctest observation respecting the proprium, as expressly defined by himself is this :— To set out the pro- prium well, the predicate ought to reciprocate and ought to be co-extensive with the subject, but it ought not to affirm the essence thereof, as " man is an animal by nature gentle," where the predicate is co-extensive with the subject and yet does not declare the essence. The loci regarding proprium are numerous and prolix, and the repetitious and inconsistencies have incurred strictures from the commentators. He does not fail to ring the changes in his opposita ; he introduces his locus of more and less, and brings in the still more abstruse distinctions of his philosophy, as his favourite esse and fieri. The sixth book, the predjcable of " definition," is a grand effort of logical manipulation. The author shows his usual minuteness of distinction, and copiousness of enumeration, with the same faults of confusion and irrelevance. Mr. Grote follows him through thirty-six different loci bearing on the matter or substance of definition, while there are others bearinof on the expression. From a few examples, the reader can ima- gine the general drift of the book as rendered by Mr. Grote. In debates respecting definition, the attack or defence may turn upon one or other of five points ; — the alleged definition may not apply to the subject at all ; a genus may have been given (defining being per genus et differentiam) but not the right genus ; the definition may include extraneous matter ; it may not declare the essence ; it may be good in substance but badly expressed or set out. The tiiree first points belong to the previous books, the two remaining are the subject-matter of the present book. Of these two, one relates to the substance of definition, the other to the form or expres- sion. The last is taken first. I [146] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. Bad expression may appear in two ways; tliere may be indistinctness ; and there may be redundancy. Indistinctness may arise from equivocal terms; from the misuse of meta- phors ; from employing terms that are far-fetched ot little known (exemplified from Plato) ; from not making clear the contrary of the defining quality ; lastly, when the defining marks are insufficient to make known the thing meant (a criterion which Aristotle's own definitions often lamentably fail to satisfy). Bedundancy arises if the terms include other things besides the object defined (this error is not well described by "redundancy"); and if the same attribute be predicated twice over. Much more numerous, as well as more interesting, are the loci bearing on the substance of the definition. As in the other predicables, Aristotle puts his best foot foremost ; his first loci generally touch the fundaimeutal conceptions of the subject. He starts with the sweeping requirement that the matter of the definition must be prius and notius as com- pared with the definiend. One pf his favourite distinctions is between things more known absolutely, or hy nature, and things more known to us ; by nature, the point is better known than the line, the line than the surface, the surface than the solid ; to us, the solid is best known ; we begin by conceiving the concrete solid ; and afterwards attain to the abstractions — surface, line, point. Too plainly, a definer may commit many sins against such an abstruse require- ment as this ; and hence the scope for an acute opponent fitted out from the Aristotelian armoury. A second locus impugns a definition that does not mention the genus ; a third is aimed at insufficiency of enumeration — there being three or four facts, and only one mentioned. The genus may be properly given, while there are faults in giving the differentiae. A definition may be exclusively negative, e. g., a line is length without breadth. If the subject be relative, so must the dififerentise. If the subject admits of More and Less, the definition must say so. When a relatum has to be defined, the true correlate must be given. As usual, all WORK ON ARISTOTLE. [147] modes of opposition furnish loci. The terms of a definition must not conjoin incompatible facts ; white has been defined, colour mingled with fire ; now colour is incorporeal, and cannot be mingled with fire which is corporeal. It is a mistake to define a subject by what is its highest excellence, a rhetor is one that omits nothing that can be plausibly said for a cause. You may not be able to attack a definition as a whole, but may successfully impugn some of its parts. More- over, you may take an adroit advantage of obscurity or intelligibility, by clearing it up so as to suit your own purpose. The seventh book continues the theses on definition, and enters upon the important collateral question of identity or sameness, already discriminated by Aristotle with sameness numero, and sameness specie or genere. His close observation of the field of logical proof could not but disclose to him this property, just as he obtained an insight into the fact of relativity ; but he necessarily failed to put both facts into their position as the fundamentals of all cognition. The predicables are now finished, and the eighth book brings us back to the kind of general considerations advanced in the first. What is the order of procedure most suitable; first, for the questioner or assailant ; next, for the respondent or defender ? This order is different for the dialectician and for the man of science or philosopher. Aristotle classifies the different purposes of the debate, and claims oi-iginality in so doing, as well as in prescribing rules for each kind sepa- rately. He administers counsel to both partners in the conduct of the debate ; he indicates the mode of approaching it by preparatory questions ; these fall under the four heads — induction of particulars, maintaining the dignity of the dis- course, concealment, and the imparting of clearness. What he has to say about induction has already been noted; of dignity he says little ; the arts of concealment are detailed at great length, and include deception of manner as well as masking of operations ; for clearness he prescribes the use of familiar examples taken from well-known poets like Plomer. / 2 [148] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. He instructs the respondent separately, and with considerable minuteness, although, in point of fact, the equipment for both partners must be very much the same. Towards the close of the book the dialectic shades off into the syllogistic logic, with which it is more or less implicated, the logical fallacies being also dialectical fallacies. In the present book he treats of ;peUtio principii, and petitio contrariorum as occurring in dialectic. His concluding remarks consist of sound advice for exercise and practice in debate. The ninth and last book of the 'Topica' illustrates the remark just made as to the interlacing of logic and dialectic. So thoroughly has this been regarded as a logical treatise, that it has been adopted as a constituent part of the syllo- gistic or scholastic logic, and is the classical dissertation on fallacies slavishly retained in its minutest details to our own time. None of the other books of the ' Topica' have found a place in our modern education ; the scheme of the predicables has been borrowed from it, but without Aristotle's copious elucidations and applications of them. Although Mr. Grote's analysis of the SopMstici elenchi will be found to contain fresh points of view, even to those that have studied the ' Fallacies' in ' Whately ' or any other work on the scholastic model, we shall do no more than call atten- tion to the chapter as concluding the author's vindication of the Sophists. It never occurred to any one before Mr. Grote to remark on the extraordinary liberty taken by Aristotle with the so- called Sophists, when he used their name to designate the entire body of fallacies, or intellectual errors and weaknesses, which it was the object of a logical discipline to provide against and correct. " Fallacy," he said, '•' thy name is Sophist." If there had been one special mode of error in- dulged in by the Sophists as a class, or in any way identified with their vocation, as when philosophers are styled theo- retical, or when politicians are said to take low views of human nature, there might have been a show of propriety in calling such error by their name. The disparaging word WORK ON AEISTOTLE. [149 "empiric" was first given by Hippocrates to the medical men of his own time, because they did not combine general views or theories with their practice. But to gather together every known species of error, to compile a treatise professedly exhaustive of the violations of sound reasoning, and to name the whole after the Sophists, as if they alone were guilty of such transgressions, and the rest of the world were infallible, was a proceeding equally strange and reprehensible. Aristotle adopted Plato's dislike of the Sophists. One might perhaps suppose that they had better reasons for thinking badly of the class than Mr, Grote has for dissenting from their concurrent view on such a matter. But the in- consistencies of both philosophers in maintaining their ill opinion of these men are enough to rouse suspicion. The Sophist, according to Aristotle, is one who makes money by a show of wisdom without the reality. The ostensible purpose of the present treatise, judging from its title, is to expose the bad arts and unsound arguments of this personage ; the actual contents of the treatise must be regarded as, for the time, an admirable classification of logical fallacies, executed at no small cost of time and labour. The Sophistical Elenchus or refutation, being a delusive semblance imposing on ordinary men, cannot be understood without the theory of Elenchus in general ; and this theory cannot be understood without the entire theory of tlie syllo- gism, of which the Elenchus is one variety. We must know the conditions of a good and valid syllogism before we can study the tests of a valid elenchus, which last must be known as a preparation for the pseudo-elenchus' — the sophistical, invalid, or sham — refutation. There are four species of debate : (1) didactic, (2) dialectic, (3) peirastic, (4) eristic or sophistic. Between the two first, Mr. Grote remarks, there is a real antithesis, much dwelt upon by Aristotle ; but the peirastic and the eristic are mere aspects or varieties of dialectic. Dialectic is essentially gymnastic and peirastic ; gymnastic in reference to the two [150] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. debaters, and peirastic in reference to the arguments and doctrines made use of. Victory is the aim of the disputants in every case, but the arts employed may be honest and creditable, exemplifying the worthy debate. If, however, the assailing champion, bent upon victory at all cost, has re- course to dishonest interrogative tricks, or the defensive champion to perverse and obstructive negations, beyond the prescribed boundary, the debate is called by Aristotle eristic or contentious, from the undue predominance of the con- troversial spirit and purpose; also sophistic, from the fact that there existed (as he asserts) a class or profession of persons called Sophists, who regularly studied and practised these culpable manoeuvres, first with a view to reputation, and ultimately with a view to pecuniary profit, being pre- tenders to knowledge and wisdom without any justifying reality. It must be apparent that no man, not even Aristotle him- self, could consistently carry out this distinction. In the first place, it is altogether irrelevant to the scope of logic, which considers the value of arguments and not their purpose. In the next place, the line between the worthy and the unworthy disputant is impossible to draw. Mr. Grote's concluding observations on Aristotle's false position in this whole matter are irresistible and yet mild : — " I think it a mistake on the part of Aristotle to treat the fallacies incidental to the human intellect as if they were mere traps laid by Sophists and litigants; and as if they would never show themselves, assuming dialectical debate to be conducted entirely with a view to its legitimate pur- poses of testing a thesis and following out argumentative consequences. It is true that, if there are infirmities inci- dental to the human intellect, a dishonest disputant will be likely to take advantage of them. So far it may be well to note his presence. But the dishonest disputant does not originate these infirmities ; he finds them already existing, and manifested undesignedly not merely in dialectical debate, but even in ordinary discourse. It is the business of those WORK ON ARISTOTLE. [151] who theorize on the intellectual processes to specify and discriminate the fallacies as liabilities to intellectual error among mankind in general, honest or dishonest, with a view to precaution against their recurrence, or correction, if they do occur ; not to present them as inventions of a class of j)ro- fessional cheats, or as tares sown by the enemy in a field where the natural growth could be nothing but pure wheat. "In point of fact the actual classification of fallacies given by Aristotle is far sounder than his announcement would lead us to expect. Though he entitles them sophistical refuta- tions, describing them as intentionally cultivated and exclu- sively practised by professional Sojjhists for gain, or by unprincipled litigants for victory, yet he recognises them as often very difficult of detection, and as an essential portion of the theory of dialectic generally. The various general heads under which he distributes them are each characterised by intellectual or logical marks." The Topica completes the Organon or logical treatises of Aristotle. It was Mr. Grote's intention to add here a chapter of his own on the modern logic as compared with the Aristotelian ; bnt the time already consumed upon a single department of his author warned him that he must proceed to other subjects. Next to the Organon came the Meta- physics. Of this department he takes a very enlarged view. To attain supreme and commanding generalities has been the aim of great thinkers in all ages. The first Greek philosophers were distinguished by their search after some all-embracing unity ; they thought to comprehend the Universe under a single idea. In Aristotle's time the plurality of the sciences was recognised; the mathematical, the physical, and the biological departments were separately sketched, while the mental department was seen to be dis- tinct and unique. Nevertheless, it was felt by Aristotle that there must still be a central or master science, some common ground where all the departments come together, as one in [152] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. the many. By the search after such a science the philosopher was distinguished from the specialist. For the construction of this first philosophy, as he called it, Aristotle laid hold of the logical maxim called the prin- ciple of contradiction, and took much pains to expound it, and to vindicate it against some of his predecessors who seemed to deny it. He took a very just view of the nature of this maxim ; he regarded it as common to all reasoning, in every department, and as in itself indemonstrable. In addition to the purely logical law of contradiction, he em- braced, as suitable for his first philosophy, liis four causes, the distinction between potential and actual, and the abstrac- tions form, matter, and privation, which play a great part in his philosophy. The treatises termed (by an accident) Metaphysica are occupied with the numerous discussions raised upon these points, and with criticisms upon the views of the preceding philosophers respecting them. Since, however, the Physica, although nominally the special department treating of the physical phenomena of the universe — motion, force, &e., is really expounded in the strain of the Metaphysica, Mr. Grote couples the two, and entitles his account of them * Physica and Metaphysica'. Unfortunately he has executed only one chapter of this design, which, however, taken along with a free translation of the six leading books of the Metaphysica, will convey to the reader a very distinct view of the Aristo- telian handling of the highest abstractions of philosophy. These treatises are the classical authority for the opinions of the early Greek philosophers, and in that view alone must always be resorted to by the student of the history of phi- losophy, and Mr. Grote has done much to satisfy the desire of the English reader for this information. Mr, Grote had formerly prepared an account of the very difficult treatise on the Soul (De Anima), Although not so full as he might have made it, had he come upon the subject in regular course, and with time and strength at his com- WORK ON ARISTOTLE. [153] mancl, it embraces all the leading and difficult points of Aristotle's Psychology. While working on this treatise, he repeatedly stated that he had gained new insight into the fundamental positions of the Aristotelian philosophy. More particularly he was led to see that one pervading conception of Aristotle's mind was the notion of the Celestial Body — a mixture of science and emotion — which was to him Loth a philosophy and a theology. His vital distinction of Form and Matter was invoked to express the relation of Soul and Body. The Soul was *' Form " ; and the grand region of Form, in the Universe, is the Celestial Body — the vast, deep, circular, perceivable mass circumscribing the Kosmos, and en- closing, in and around its centre. Earth with the three other elements (Water, Air, Fire), tenanted by substances gene- rated and perishable. This celestial body is the abode of Divinity, including many divine beings who take part in its eternal rotations — the Sun, Moon, Stars, and other gods. Every Soul (there being a hierarchy of souls from the Plant upwards), every Form that animates tlie matter of a living being, derives from this celestial region its vitalising influence. This doctrine of the divine body, as the source of Soul, is not stated in the ' De Anima,' but imported from other treatises, to supply gaps in the information ; and the appli- cation is a novelty. It is carried out still farther into the vexed question of Aristotle's opinions as to the highest human soul — the Nous, or thinking principle, divided into two functions, receptive (Intellectus Patiens) and constructive or theorising {Intellectus Agens). Of the two, the last — Intellectus Agens — is the more venerable ; it is pure intel- lectual energy, unmixed, unimpressible from without, and separable from all animal body. It is more especially iden- tified with the celestial substance, and is eternal and im- mortal. But this immortality is not conferred on individuals, or on the thedrising Nous as it exists in Socrates, Plato, or any other man : the individualities of these men perish with the body. Such is Mr. Grote's rendering of Aristotle's [154] CHARACTER AND AVRITINGS. obscure indications on this subject. Otber interpreters sup- pose that the doctrine of a personal or individual immortality can be inferred from certain passages. Sir A. Grant puts stress upon tlie remark, — " It is uncertain whether the soul be not the actuality of the body. in the same way as the sailor is the actuality of his hoat" from which the inference might be, although it is not drawn by Aristotle, that the sailor could, at the end of his voyage, step out of his boat. Of one thing we may be tolerably confident, that Aristotle would not pro- nounce a decided opinion against so venerated a doctrine as our continued existence after death ; although he makes very little of it as a motive, in the Ethics, There are included in the work, several polemical dis- cussions as to Aristotle's doctrines respecting Universals and the mental origin of First Principles. The paper on Universals brings out the contrast of Plato and Aristotle on Universals, shown chiefly from the Categories, wherein the Platonic ideas are met by the Aristotelian doctrine of Substance, in the First Category, as being constituted by a particular or concrete individual, of which the universals were predicable. The *' Hoc Aliquid " is the only complete " Ens " or substance, and the Universal exists along with it, as a predicate, but is nothing in itself apart. As regards the mental origin of our knowledge of First Principles, or Axioms, this is the question debated in modern times under the designation Intuitions as opposed to Ex- perience. The supporters of intuitive or innate ideas, or common sense, have often claimed Aristotle as on their side, and Sir W. Hamilton in particular, has produced an array of thirteen citations to that effect. Mr. Grote ex- amines all these citations, and shows that in only one of them does Aristotle appear as the champion of authoritative common sense. The other twelve citations, he maintains either to have no bearing upon the point, or to indicate the very reverse ; and he charges Hamilton in regard to many of them, with mistaking or misrepresenting Aristotle's meaning. WORK ON AllISTOTLE. [155] : In a separate dissertation, he gathers together the state- ments of Aristotle respecting first, the authority of common sense; and secondly, the origin, in the mind, of the axioms or principia of science. The result arrived at on the first head, is that common sense is an inferior authority, as com- pared with science. The second head involves a difficult psychological enquiry, that Aristotle was very imperfectly qualified to resolve. He evidently inclines to the inductive origin of first principles. In the Analytica, he states that axioms are derived by induction, from particulars of sense, and are apprehended or approved by the Nous or intellect ; which leaves an undecided maro:in between the two origfins — a posteriori and a priori : and it is not possible to extract a definite settlement of the question from his conflicting modes of representation. It has been made a complaint against Mr. G-rote, and is the principal objection taken against his work, that while rebutting Hamilton's appropriation of Aristotle to the modern sect of intuition ists, he is himself guilty of the like offence in forcing his author to speak in the language of the a pos- teriori school, to which he was attached. I think the charge misapprehends Mr. Grote's way of looking at the great philo- sophers of the past. It was certainly agreeable to find Plato or Aristotle holding his own favourite opinions (more espe- cially on ethical subjects) ; but he studied and admired their writings altogether irrespective of this consideration. More- over, he would not have been flattered by their adhesion to his views, in the absence of valid reasons ; his idea of philo- sophy was emphatically Ferrier's "reasoned truth." He never looked to Aristotle to confirm his own opinions ; and would not have considered himself a gainer by forcing a coincidence of view out of precarious and vacillating state- nients. At the same time, seeing that authority is one of tho strongholds of the belief in innate ideas (being homogeneous with the doctrine it!«elf), he considered it worth his wliile to show that Aristotle could not be fairly enrolled among the •* testimonies " for thut creed. 1 o{5] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. In Mr. Grote's exposition of the Aristotelian doctrines there is nothing more characteristic than the stress he lays upon Substance as equivalent to the Individual Concrete, basing on the opposition in which the first of the Categories is made to stand to all the rest. Objection has been taken to this interpretation on the ground that the treatise Cate- gorise is of doubtful authenticity, if not certainly spurious. The answer is twofold. In the first place, Mr. Grote did by no means overlook the question of the authenticity of the Categoriae, as is clear from his note in Vol. i. p. 80, where he says that he is not convinced by the arguments that have been urged against the treatise. And, secondly, the same note claims that in any case the treatise should be considered, because the doctrine of the Categories is indisputably Aris- totelian. As touching the nature of Substance this is so true that from others of the works never suspected, there is no difficulty in establishing the identification with the Individual Concrete, or at least in arguing as strongly as Mr. Grote argues for it. Complaint has also been made by the critics that the dis- cussion on the Canon in Chap. ii. is inadequate to the sub- ject, all questions as to the received works being waved aside with the general remark that about forty treatises remain of authenticity not open to any reasonable suspicion. The objection is in so far well founded that there is room for much remark both as to the genuineness of some of the printed works and as to the form and exact constitution of others. Mr. Grote, however, in p. 59 gives it plainly to be understood that at the particular places he meant to discuss such matters, adding that he should not be able to fall back, as for Plato, upon a single authoritative catalogue of the works. Besides, it remains uncertain whether he did not intend to devote a part of the treatise of three chapters left in the MS. between his second chapter and the chapter on the Categoriae to farther consideration of the Canon in general. With the opinion that he certainly had of the authenticity of the chief works, he might well be anxious, at his time of WORK ON ARISTOTLE. [157] life^ to postpone external discussions till he had worked out his exposition of the works themselves. The frequently-expressed regret that Mr. Grote had not undertaken the Politics and the Ethics is natural and just. With respect to the Politics, it was not merely that he had been long conversant with both the theory and the practice of politics, and without bias except towards the interests of the people as a whole : there was a still deeper reason for the regret. Aristotle's leaning as a theorist in politics must have been qualified by his own position in Athens, the greatest of existing democracies. He was "semi-Macedo- nian in his sympathies. He had no attachment to Hellas as an organised system, autonomous, self-acting, with an Hellenic city as president." He had no love for the democratical constitution as such, and probably contem- plated with satisfaction its approaching extinction. Yet our present knowledge assures us that but for the demo- cratical system of Greece, philosophy would never have reached the point that it did in his person ; no despotism would have been so tolerant of philosophers as was the Athenian people. Now the Politics of Aristotle was written under circum- stances rendering it scarcely possible to do justice to demo- cracy. He professes to be an impartial critic of all political systems, and probably is so to a very considerable degree ; but he wants to be carefully tracked by some one thoroughly conversant (as far as a modern can be) with the workings of the Greek governments. No man has yet appeared so com- petent for this task as Mr. Grote ; with the utmost respect and tenderness towards Aristotle himself, he combined an exact view of his political situation, and all the attainable knowledge of the political facts of Grecian history. He had occasion to challenge Aristotle's estimate of Nikias, as com- pletely belied by the facts before us. And there might have been still more to say on his political theories — his search after the phantom of a golden mean in political constitutions that could always be a tyrant's plea against the popular priu- [158] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. ciple, which alone liad been identified (as Mr. Grote believed) with the superiority of Greece, and whose extinction by Aristotle's patrons had permanently depressed the condition of the world, both politically and intellectually. As regards the Ethics, there can be no doubt that Mr. Grote's handling of Aristotle's doctrines would have been unique. Those doctrines he regarded as not only a great advance upon Socrates and Plato, but as in various respects superior to some of our modern conceptions. His leanings as an ethical theorist are shown in the ' Plato,' both with reference to Plato himself and in the delineation of the Cyrenaics and Cynics ; while the present work contains brief though expressive notices of Epicurus and the Stoics. But the work of Aristotle, so minute in its detail of points re- specting virtues, conduct, and happiness, would have afforded numerous openings for fresh remarks on the questions that come home to every one. Many have asked why he might not have postponed, or contracted, the Logic, so as to secure the Politics and the Ethics. To reply that he followed a natural order of the works would not be the whole explanation. The fact must be told, that, while he had no small interest in ethics and politics, he had a fascination for logic and metaphysics. He was one — " That unto logic hadde long y-go." LATEK PUBLIC LIFE. [159] CHAPTER VII. LATER PUBLIC LIFE. Mr. Geote was one of the ori2:iual founders of the London University, afterwards called University College, and was an active member of Council from the commencement, in 1827, up to the year 1831. He entered with zeal into the scheme, as proposing to impart an education that should be at once extensive and unsectarian. He again joined the Council in 1849, and from that time till his death took a leading part in the administration of the College. In 1860 he became Treasurer ; and on the death of Lord Brougham, in 1868, he was elected President. His was one of seven names added by the Crown, on the 19th of March, 1850, to the Senate of the University of London, the others being Lords Monteagle and Overstone, Sir James Graham, Thomas B. Macaulay, Sir George Corne- wall Lewis, and Henry Hallam. From the date of his ap- pointment he gave unremitting attention to the business of the Senate, entering into every question that arose, and taking a lead in the most critical decisions of the University during the twenty-one years of his connexion with it. The first subject of great importance that came up after Mr. Grote's appointment was the admission of the Graduates to a position in the government of tlie University. On the 26th of February, 1850, there was laid before tiie Senate a declaration and statement, signed by 361 Graduates, desiring that the Graduates might be admitted into the corporate body. This was the commencement of a protracted agitation and struggle, terminated, in 1858, by the issue of a new Charter, [160] CHARACTER AND \YR1TIKGS. conceding what had been fought for. Mr. Grote cordially supported the claims of the Graduates. His aid in this cause was warmly acknowledged in a resolution of the Annual Committee of Conv^ocation passed shortly after his death. On the 1st of February, 1851, a memorial was presented to the Senate, signed by eleven persons (including Sir Row- land Hill and his three brothers, and Mr. William Ellis), in favour of throwing open the degrees of the University to all classes, irrespective of the manner or place of their education. On the 5th of April was presented another petition to the same effect, more numerously signed. No notice appears to have been taken of these applications. On the 19th of November, 1856, the Senate admitted the London Working Men's College among the affiliated colleges of the University. Mr. Grote opposed this step, on the ground that so long as the Uni- versity required attendance on classes, a line should be drawn between those who could give up their whole time to study and those that spent their day in industrial avocations. He had been hitherto favourable to the combining of certified class instruction with examinations as requisites to the de- grees. The admission of the Working Men's College (carried chiefly by members of Senate opposed to the restricting of the degrees to students in the affiliated colleges) shook his faith in the value of the class certificates. About the same time it became known to the Senate that certificates were granted by some of the affiliated colleges on mere nominal studentship. This completed the conviction in Mr. Grote's mind that the degrees should be thrown open, and granted on the exclusive test of examinations. Accordingly, when the subject came up in connexion with the Draft Charter, by which the Graduates were to be admitted, he supported the insertion of a clause for abrogating the original constitution as to affiliated colleges ; which clause was carried in the Senate by a large majority. Many remonstrances followed this decision, especially from the affiliated colleges. The Senate entrusted to Mr. Grote and ISlv. Warburton the drawing up a report on these remonstrances, which was presented to LATER PUBLIC LIFE. [161] the Senate on the 22ud of July, 1857. This report was Mr. Grote's composition, and contains an exhaustive discussion of the arguments of the remonstrants. On the 8th of July, 1857, while the Draft Charter was under discussion, a memorial was laid before the Senate, signed by twenty-four men of science, Fellows of the Eoyal Society, suggesting the institution of degrees and honours for proficiency in mathematical and physical science. On the 14th of April, 1858, the Senate appointed a Committee to consider the propriety of establishing degrees in science ; of this Committee Mr. Grote was a member, along with the Chancellor, Mr. Warburton, Sir James Clark, Dr. Arnott, Mr. Faraday, Mr. Brande, Mr. Walker, and Mr. Hopkins. The Committee held a series of meetings, and examined the memorialists individually as to their views and wishes, and afterwards drew up a report in favour of the principle of degrees in science. Being reappointed by the Senate to prepare a definite scheme, the Committee agreed that there should be a Bachelor's Degree, which should rest ou a broad and comprehensive basis of scientific acquirement, and a Doctor's Degree for eminence in special branches, A draft- scheme for the several Degrees was, at the Committee's request, prepared by Dr. Arnott. It was very much owing to Mr. Grote's advocacy that the Moral Sciences were re- tained in the programme, several members of the Committee being disposed to limit the subject of examination to the Physical and Natural-History Sciences. On the 7th of July, the Senate, with one dissentient voice, adopted the report. The degrees were instituted accordingly. The other uni- versities are slowly entering upon a similar course. On the 27th of February, 1862, he succeeded Sir John Lefevre as Vice-Chancellor. It was a singular testimony to the largeness of his views, that Mr. Grote's life-long classical studies and associations left him free to appreciate fully the great importance of science in education. In point of fact, however, he combined with his own erudite pursuits an intense avidity for the phy- [162] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. sical sciences, along with the metaphysical, and they formed a considerable portion of his reading to the last. He uni- formly resisted all proposals to limit the study of logic and moral philosophy, or to lower its position in the degrees where it had obtained a place ; and, generally, he was an advocate for the breadth of culture maintained in the Matri- culation and Degree Examinations, as contrasted with the restricted number of subjects required for the Oxford and Cambridge degrees. Another subject that he lost no opportunity of pressing was the Education of Women. The Senate had been advised that, under the terms of the original charter of the University, women were inadmissible to the examinations, and when Miss Elizabeth G-arrett, in 1862, applied to be admitted as a candidate for matriculation, the application was refused by a majority of seven to six. At a subsequent meeting of the senate a memorial was presented from Mr. Newson Garrett and others, in favour of procuring such an alteration of the charter as would extend to women the privileges of the University. This memorial was taken into consideration on the 7 th of May, and Mr. Grote moved : — " That the senate will endeavour, as far as their powers reach, to obtain a modification of the charter, rendering female students admissible to the degrees and honours of the University of London, on the same conditions of examination as male students, but not rendering them admissible to become Members of Convocation." The motion was lost by the casting vote of the Chancellor. Mr. Grate's speech on the occasion, as preserved in his own handwriting, was to the following effect : — " I am glad that the senate, by the vote which they have passed at an earlier period of this meeting, have agreed to maintain the matriculation examination as it now stands, with its full curriculum and requirements. In my concep- tion the first duty of the senate is to keep up a high standard of liberal education, and make their certificates and degrees LATER PUBLIC LIFE. [163] attainable only by a large and comprehensive range of study. Subject to this primary condition, their second duty is to throw open their examinations to all who have gone through the prescribed studies, and who are prepared to give proof of their having done so with diligence and efficacy. " My present motion is consequent upon Mr. Garrett's letter, which stands on the minutes of this day, wherein he intimates that his daughter, Miss Elizabeth Garrett, has gone through the studies which give her a prospect of passing the matriculation examination of the University of London, and his hope that the technical legal objection, which now excludes her as well as other women from the examination, may be removed by a modification of the charter. The senate will recollect that the application of Miss Garrett came before us at a former meeting, and that doubts were then entertained by various persons whether the legal inter- pretation of our charter did exclude women from our exami- nations. Since then all doubt has been terminated by the opinion of the Attorney-General (taken, not by us, but by those who desire to obtain admission). He pronounces that such is the legal interpretation, and that females are at present inadmissible. " Though I accept this as the unquestionable legal inter- pretation, I think that Mr. Garrett is perfectly right in callinfj it technical. It is altogether at variance with the spirit of the charter, as expressed in the large words of the second clause : 'Her Majesty deems it to be the duty of her royal office, for the advancement of religion and morality and the promotion of useful knowledge, to hold forth to all classes and denominations of her faithful subjects, without any distinction whatsoever, an encouragement for pursuing a regular and liberal course of education.' After reading these words, I say, whicli express the most unequivocal totality, and forbid the introducing of any distinction whatsoever, no one would imagine that the first step would be to take a distinction so important and so far reaching, that it strikes off one half of Her Majesty's faithful subjects, and those, too. [164] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. all the members of her own sex. The motion which I am now about to make is in full conformity with the spirit and with the ordinary meaning of those most comprehensive phrases. It goes only to make the legal interpretation of the charter harmonise with its sj)irit. "It is known to every one, however occasionally over- looked, that the cultivators of literature and science, though the majority of them are men, include also in their ranks a minority of women. Among this minority of women, some have rendered essential service to science and to all who seek for scientific instruction. The great French astronomer Laplace acquired imperishable renown by the profound and original researches of his ' Mecanique Celeste ' ; but an English lady, Mrs. Somerville, rendered a service, though inferior, not less real, by doing what few men were com- petent to do, by adapting that work to English readers in her book called the 'Mechanism of the Heavens' ; and she rendered a still greater service by her better-known works — * The Connection of the Physical Sciences,' and ' Physical Geography' — to which works a large circle of readers, males as well as females, have been greatly indebted for instruction. The fact thus stands upon record, and is undeniable, that there exists a female minority who cultivate literature and science, and that some of the members of that minority have entitled themselves to take rank along with the most eminent men, even in the most abstruse and difficult branches of science. " Such being the case, I maintain that when an university is constituted, as ours is, for the express purpose of en- couraging a high measure of scientific and literary studies, the plainest principles of justice require that we should take the literary and scientific world as it is and deal equally with both sexes ; that we should acknowledge the female minority as weU as the male majority : and that, after having deter- mined proper conditions of examination, we should admit individuals of the sex of Mrs. Somerville to be examined, as well as individuals of the sex of Laplace. The onus p'ohandi LATER PUBLIC LIFE. [165] lies on those who contend that the female minority should be excluded from our examinations, and none but members of our own sex admitted, and a masculine type, and that to admit women to the studies suitable for men would be con- founding a distinction important to uphold. Gentlemen who hold this opinion have undoubtedly a full right to judge for themselves on the type of female education, and I am quite aware tliat a very respectable portion of the community judge as they do about it. But I dissent from them : I hold the opposite opinion ; and another portion of the community, equally respectable, hold the opinion along with me. I believe that the studies included in our curriculum are improving and beneficial in their effect upon the minds of women, where women are disposed and able to appropriate them, as well as upon the miuds of men. Now those females who hold the same views as I do on feminine education, and their fathers or guardians, are powerfully interested in the admission of women to our examinations ; but those who adopt the same opinion as Lord Overstoue have really no interest in the question at all. Whether the University is open or closed to women, these females will pursue their own educational march in a different direction, without being affected by our regulations. They have a full right to do this ; but they have no right to make their own opinions upon female education binding on all, whether assentient or dissentient ; they have no locus standi entitling tliem to insist on closing the doors of our University against all those other females who approve and desire to pursue the studies which it prescribes. " I make no 'pretensions to exalt my own opinion on female education, and that of those wlio agree with me, as a type of orthodoxy, but neither can I admit the right of any other person to stigmatise it as heresy. " Mr. Garrett says to us : — ' My daughter is devoting her- self to those studies which your charter declares to bo laudable and to deserve encouragement ; she has qualified herself by diligent application to fulfil the requirements of [166] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. your matriculation curriculum. I ask you to allow her pro- ficieucy to be tested at your examinations, and to give lier a certificate if she can answer the questions satisfactorily ; she, as well as myself, considers that the certificate will be an honour and credit to her, and an advantage to her future plans of life.' Now to this request on the part of Mr. and IMiss Garrett the senate are called upon to reply : — ' We cannot admit Miss Garrett to be examined. We consider our studies as laudable and deserving encouragement only for men ; we consider them not laudable, and we intend to discountenance them, in women. We cannot grant any academical honours and advantages which will tend to encourage what is a bad and wrong type of education for women.' " This is the answer which the senate are called upon to make in declining to admit Miss Garrett, and I maintain that it is an answer which the senate is not warranted in returning. The senate, in making such an answer, and in enforcing an exclusion justified by it, would be usurping a right of determining by authority a point which Mr. Garrett and his daughter have full discretion to determine for them- selves. " I contend that every female (assisted in the cases of those in statu ])uinllari by parent or guardian) has a right to choose for herself among the various types of education, which of them will best suit her own aptitudes, tastes, or plans of life. The choice will of course be different under different circumstances. One woman may prefer a highly ornamental education, exuberant in accomplishments ; an- other may study the full perfection of domestic management and housewivery ; a third may take to modern languages ; a fourth may. address herself to science and the severe depart- ments of literature : and, lastly, others may blend all these different matters in every conceivable proportion. All these varieties will co-exist ; I lay down no uniform rule, nor do I imagine that any one rule can be laid down. My argument is that the choice between them all lies with the female LATER PUBLIC LIFE. [167] herself; and that if, among the various types, she prefers that which coincides with our curriculum, we ought to be the last persons to discountenance or discredit her for doing so. It is enough for me to show that our type is one among many admissible types of feminine education ; one which any woman may choose, if she feels in herself a vocation for it, and a capacity of going through the study and application which it involves. " If gentlemen will look at the question fairly and impar- tially, I think they will see that the objections in detail against admitting females to our examinations are not less untenable than the objections on principle. Our University would come to consist of graduates and matriculated students, in majority male, in minority female. How it can be less respectable in any one's eyes from this conjunction of female names with male names in our printed calendar, I am at a loss to understand. In my eyes it would be more respect- able, because I should feel that we had done our best to recompense and to encourage intellectual power, combined with steady application, wheresoever and in whomsoever it was to be found. The only case in which I see the possibility of inconvenience from a minority of females is in the mem- bership of Convocation. That case I exj^ressly except in the words of my motion. The functions of Convocation are con- ducted by public meeting and public debate. I see no advantage to women in assigning to them a share in those debates, nor do I anticipate that they would themselves wish it. The great recompense and privilege to tliem is that which they will share with male graduates — authentic record of their proficiency, upon proof given of diligent and success- ful study. " It is well known to all that, as matters now stand, a large proportion of the business of teaching in this country is per- formed by women : moreover, no small proportion of current and periodical literature is also furnished by women. Who- ever goes to the great reading-room at the British Museum, as I do very frequently, will see there every day of the week [168] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. a considerable number of females among the various readers who avail themselves of the privilege of visiting that large stock of books. He will farther see these females in the reading- room engaged not simply in reading, but in writing : employed with manuscript and copy-book, and surrounded by books of reference, which plainly indicate that they are occupied with some literary work. Now, seeing that this literary work and this teaching work is at present actually performed by females, it will undoubtedly be better performed by instructed females than by the uninstructed. To open for females, as our examinations would do, a test for distinguishing the most instructed from the least instructed, would be a benefit alike to them and to the public. To the superior and the best qualified teachers, who look to that profession as their means of living and their ground of personal importance, we should be rendering one of the most valuable services which could be rendered. We should enable them to distinguish them- selves, by an honourable and unequivocal characteristic, from the number of other women who, as it is but too well known, undertake the duty of teaching without any intellectual preparation for it, often simply through pecuniary misfor- tunes in their families, which throw upon them the unex- pected necessity of living by their own exertions. Our certificate would afford to them an improved chance of obtaining that preference which they deserve for a profes- sional appointment in their own line ; and we should furnish to those, with whom the appointment is vested, the best evidence of intellectual fitness which can guide their choice. " The conviction has spread much, and is spreading more, among both sexes, that women must be taught much more than they have been, to earn for themselves and by their own efforts an honourable and independent living. There is a larger proportion of women now than formerly who are dissatisfied with a life of mere dependence, without any active purposes or prospects. To throw open to them the field of professional competition more largely than is now done appears to me most desirable as well as most equitable ; LATER PUBLIC LIFE. [169] but it is an essential preliminary to success in any line that habits of steady, accurate application should be formed at an early period of life. Wherever a female has that genuine aspiration to attain an independent and self-maintaining position, which in my judgement is a virtue alike in both sexes, the prospect of access to our examinations and certi- ficates will tend to stimulate that diligent and serious application in early life which is now wanting, because it goes untested and unrewarded. Complaints of the general inaccuracy of women's minds are sufficiently frequent to have reached every one. Let those women who are superior to this very frequent infirmity, and who are prepared to prove them- selves superior, have the opportunity of doing so by admis- sion to our examinations. " An objection will probably be taken against me from the other side. It may be said that if females were admitted, few would come, and scarcely any one would pass, because our examinations are too severe. I might reply by saying, that, assuming none to come, we should stand only as we are now, with the advantage of having abolished a harsh and unfair exclusion. The fact, if it be a fact, is no valid objec- tion against my proposition. I am prepared to admit that at first very few females will come. It cannot be otherwise : for our examinations cannot be approached by persons of either sex without careful and special preparation. But I do not believe that this will last long. How many will come, no one can know until the experiment is tried. We are sure that the females will always be a minority as compared to the numbers of our sex. But they will be a distinguished and valuable minority who have proved their worth, their superiority, and their title to confidence by diligent applica- tion, and by the fact of having attained, under disadvantages of education, an amount of proficiency which even persons of our sex, with far greater advantages, have to work hard for. "I will now submit my motion as it stands here to the decision of the senate. Our present exclusion, on the simple ground of sex, appears to me unfair and objectionable, [170J CTIAViACTER AND WRITINGS. and I trust tliat the senate will weigh attentively and dis- passionately the strong reasons which exist for abolishing it." On the death of Henry Hallam, in 1 859, Mr. Grote became ^ Trustee of the British Museum, and, as in the case of University College and the University of London, he gave unfailing attendance on the meetings of the trustees, and sat on the most laborious committees. In 1864 he was also elected a trustee of the Hunterian Museum. Mr. Grote's published writings, coupled with the record of his life and work, reveal the lineaments of a great character, the intellectual and the moral ingredients supporting each other. In his public career, and in his wide literary research, a clear, powerful, and originating intellect was guided by the purest aims and the most scrupulous arts. With scholarly resources of language, his rhetoric is the servant of trutli. At all points merging his own self-importance, he takes account of all opposing considerations, and does justice to every rival. The reverse of sanguine as to human progress, he yet laboured for every good cause that satisfied his mind, — science, education, and the self-acting judgment of the individual. Differing in many points from the prevailing opinions of the time, he avoided giving needless offence, and co-operated with men of all shades of doctrine, political and religious. In tlie depths of his character there was a fund of sympathy, generosity, and self-denial rarely equalled among men ; on the exterior, his courtesy, affability, and delicate consideration of the feelings of others were indelibly impressed upon every beholder; yet this amiability of demeanour was never used to mislead, and in no case relaxed his determination for what he thought right. Punctual and exact in his engagements, he inspired a degree of confidence and respect which acted most beneficially on all the institu- tions and trusts that he took a share in administering ; and his loss to them was a positive calamity. ESSENTIALS OP PAKLIAMENTAKY EEFORM. 1831. PREFACE. The extraordinary advance of the public mind, on the subject of Parliamentary Reform, within the last two or three years, is such as the most careless observer cannot overlook or dispute. Even the warmest friends of the ex- isting system of representation are among the first to confess and to lament this ominous change ; and those who recorded their disapprobation of the system, at a time when its deformities were less acknowledged, may congratulate themselves that their efforts, aided by recent events, have not been thrown away. To any one who examines the signs of the times, there will appear a remarkable analogy between the present period and that which in France preceded the first French Eevo- lution. The supreme power — the source of all the painful restraints and burdens imposed upon society — has lost its hold on our moral feelings, and is becoming worn out and discredited. From ancient habit, and fi-om the imperious necessity of one known standard of action, men still pay their taxes and obey the commands of the Legislature ; and they have done so from the Revolution of 1688 to the last few years, without ever seriously asking themselves what title that Legislature possessed to their confidence. The mere name of Parliament has sufficed to strike them with awe : a body of English gentlemen, variable under certain conditions, and bearing the same denomination as those assemblies which fought the battles of the people against the Stuart princes, has always been and still is sitting at Westminster ; and the mass of the people, as it commonly B 2 4 ESSENTIALS ' happens, liave been slow to perceive that the relations of that assembly towards them are the very reverse of what they were in the seventeenth century. A partial community of interest between the House of Commons and the people, prior to 1688, was created, not by the mode of their election, but by common fear of the Crown : and so soon as the alliance — equally profitable to both parties — between the House of Commons and the Crown, was organized,»the divorce of the former from the people was an immediate and inevi- table result. But no glaring evidence of such a divorce appeared on the face of affairs : on the contrary, the atten- tion of intelligent observers was called more to the im- provement in the administration of the Crown, than to the deterioration in the character of the House. Nor can we wonder at the general inattention to this latter fact, when we recollect that the formalities of election remained un- altered : — that the great and wealthy, and all the talented dependents on greatness and wealth, had the strongest in- terest in upholding the degenerated assembly, and in con- tinuing to cry up the blessings of securities against the Crown, when the Crown, as a sej)arate enemy, had ceased to be formidable ; and farther, that the English Government during the last century was really both good and free, in comparison with even the best of those on the Continent. During the last forty years two circumstances have been simultaneously operating to sharpen the insight of the English people into the real character of their Constitution — diffusion of knowledge, and increase of burdens. The number of those who read and talk politics has been pro- digiously multiplied : newspapers, though their circulation is studiously restricted by a pernicious tax, are now num- bered among the aliments of life by the population of every considerable town ; and an extensive class of independent thinkers, unconnected with the leading strugglers for power, and refusing to be regimented either as "Whig or Tory, has grown up all around. While political knowledge and feel- ings were monopolised by a small knot of gentlemen, the OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 5 whole of their narrow circle, whatever might be their dis- sensions amongst themselves, had a separate and exclusive interest as against the whole community, and their debates were shaped accordingly. But the circle has now been so enlarged, as no longer to have any interest at variance with the whole community ; and the tone of political dis- cussion, instead of being purely personal and factious, has consisted, to a great degree, of principle and philosophy, making their way by slow degrees against established cor- ruptions and ancient prejudice. Whoever has watched the proceedings in Parliament during the last ten years, on the subjects of Law Reform and Commercial Eeform, must have seen ample evidence of this truth. But, even if the intelligence of the English people had continued unexcited and stationary, it is scarcely possible that such taxation as ours could have been permanently endured without impairing their good will towards the Go- vernment which imposed it. The amount of money drawn from the nation and expended by the English Government, since the year 1793, is something which defies all power of conjecture, and which we can scarcely believe even when the Parliamentary returns are summed up before our eyes. No conqueror ever wrung from vanquished and despised aliens so severe a tribute as the Englisli Aristocracy have extorted from their subjects and fellow-countrymen. During the war, men paid without murmuring, on the assurance that such exorbitant demands would only bo temporary, and that jieace would bring with it relief and abimdance : during the first years of peace, promises of retrenchment in progress ope- rated to appease their discontent ; but when year after year passes, and the amount of taxation is still found most weighty and distressing, the sufferers become painfully dis- appointed and clamorous. Even the most patient and reve- rential men begin to inquire into the system which bears upon them so heavily, and to look with an invidious eye on the receivers of the public money. They judge of the tree by its fruits : their painful sense of the effects is trans- 6 ESSENTIALS ferred to the cause. They listen with attention to criticisms on the Constitution, and a new light beams within them, when the character, the interest, and the working, of the House of Commons, as at present constructed, are made evi- dent. Nothing short of impenetrable stupidity could make the English people continue to trust a House to which they owe such immoderate burdens, and from which they have at length ceased to expect relief. These two causes taken together — diffusion of knowledge, and unrelenting taxation — sufficiently explain the growing dis- credit of that system which passed current with tlie thinking men of the last century. Taken as it now stands in public opinion, the English Government seems approaching to the condition of the old despotism of France, prior to the Eevo- lution of 1789. Its anomalies, its abuses, its want of system and coherence throughout, its immoral and corruptive effects upon the whole community — are becoming too palpable and revolting to make it suffice as an engine of taxation. The men of wit and eloquence, like Mr. Canning, who undertook to deck out all these hideous deformities — areem facere ex cloaca — have passed away, and few new orators venture to risk their reputation on the same dangerous ground. We may even congratulate ourselves on possessing a Ministry whose disapprobation of the existing system has been un- equivocally proclaimed. At such a juncture, therefore, there is every reason to expect that the perilous consequences of keeping up the disgraced machinery will be duly appreci- ated, and that some attempts to amend it will no longer be postponed. But whether such attempts will be sincere or deceptive — judicious or mistaken — comprehensive or superficial — is a point by no means equally certain. It is nevertheless of incalculable consequence. For, if the real defects of the existing representation are not accurately conceived — if the general principles, from whence alone these defects arise, are not laid bare and kept in mind — we run much risk of having some new delusion palmed upon us, ecjually objectionable OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 7 in substance with the present, whereby niisgovernment may be rendered, for another half century, decorous and endurable. The workings of the sinister interest may be reproduced imder another name, and with a slight variation in the external forms, unless the public are taught to recognise and detect the seeds of evil in an untried scheme, before its bitter fniits shall have been actually tasted. There is much reason to fear that the amendments con- templated by the Whig Ministry will be of this insufficient description — that they will apply themselves rather to clear away the obnoxious symptoms of a rotten system, than to redress the real source of mischief. The various speeches of Whig Eeformers within the last ten years, and the doc- trines broached in the great Party Eeview, display so errro- neous a conception of the real vices of our representative system, and so decided an aversion to the only eifectual remedies, that gentlemen of that school can scarcely bo expected to recommend any such Reform as will really im- part a new heart and spirit to the Sovereign Council. It will be something, indeed, to obtain even a partial Reform ; and when we reflect on the opposition which the Borough- hulders are likely to offer, a Ministry may deserve our thanks for accomplishing something widely removed from perfection. JBut it is of the last importance that the public should accept such a Reform only for what it is worth — that they sliould not mistake it for the whole im[)rovement requisite — and that they should continue to withhold their confidence from the Parliament until it be so elected as to afford tliem full and adequate securities for good govern- ment. It is to assist in guarding against this error that the present pamphlet is composed. Assuming that some Reform is admitted to be necessary, I am anxious to place in relief the leading features which are essential to its efficacy — to expose those mis-statements of its real end, and those sophisns as to the means, whc^reby half niiglit bo passed upon us fur the whole, or changes of name and form for 8 ESSENTIALS, ETC. newly acquired securities — and to signalize, especially, some of the fallacies which I think most likely to mislead a Whig Ministry. In the year 1821, I published a pamphlet entitled 'Statement of the Question of Parliamentary Keform,' in refutation of an article in No. 61 of the 'Edin- burgh Eeview.' That article, ostensibly a review of Mr. Bentham's work on Radical Reform, contained an elaborate exposition of the Reviewer's ideas on the subject of Parlia- mentary Reform, and an earnest and deliberate recom- mendation of the theory of representation by classes, as the best security for a good Parliament. Some of the remarks which I then offered, in reply to that Reviewer, appesr to me suitable to the present juncture, and I shall embody the substance of them in the following pages. ESSENTIALS PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. When a people first awake to a strong feeling of discontent against Institutions of long standing, their indignation will seldom be directed in dne proportion against all the ob- jectionable parts. Accident brings to their view some one of the many ramifications of evil in a glaring manner, and at an opportune moment : while others, no less mischievous in themselves, either are not obtruded so indecently on the public, or find it otherwise occupied, and thus escape notice. This disproportionate and partial perception not only has the effect of retarding the proper outcry against unobserved abuses, but tends farther to keep out of view those great principles which connect one abuse with another, and which form the common source of all of them. Where the evil is thus imperfectly conceived, the remedies demanded are likely to be equally incomplete and superficial. Something of this sort is discernible in the clamours raised against the Kepresentative System. Meji fasten upon some special incongruity or abomination, as if the removal of it were the grand object to be effected by a Reform. Manchester, Leeds, and Birmingham, are great cities, important enough to have their interests protected by Keprcsentatives of their own : Old Sarum, Gatton, and Weobly arc insignificant hamlets, yet their interests are 10 ESSENTIALS better protected than those of the three greatest manufac- turing cities in England. As long as the argument for Reform is thus put, its opponents meet it satisfactorily, by showing that, if the suffrage were transferred from the three hamlets to the three cities above-mentioned, all things else remaining unchanged, the residents in the latter would be neither better nor worse protected than they are at present. In like manner some persons exclaim against the open bribery at the Liverpool election, or against the severity of the Duke of Newcastle in expelling his tenants at Newark, and are anxious that such transactions should be prevented in future. But here, too, it is easy to reply, that little would be gained by tying men down to bribe in secret, and with some degree of coyness and ceremony. Nor is it without reason that the Duke of Newcastle complains of having been held up as a single and unique tyrant, while other landlords are accomplishing the same end with greater certainty and good fortune. Such abuses are indeed indefensible ; but they ought to be attacked, not as vicious excrescences on a system sound in the main, but as symptoms, rather gross and magnified, of widespread internal corruption. The system of representa- tion should be surveyed, conceived, and criticised, as a whole : the purposes which it ought to answer should be compared with its actual workings ; and it should be ac- counted a blessing or an injury according as the one of these coincides with or departs from the other. No Eeform can be treated as complete which does not render the Eepre- sentative Body on the whole an efficient and trustworthy instrument of good government. That which the people require at the hands of their Government is, protection for their persons, their earnings, and their inheritances : good, accessible, cheap, and speedy justice, for settling private disputes, and for bringing offenders to punishment : together wdth an adequate public force, for ensuring execution of the laws, and for keeping off external enemies. No less sacred is the duty, though OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 11 reserved for unborn statesmen to fulfil, of ensuring to the poorer classes universally the largest attainable amount of instruction ; I would add, of protecting them against indigence, were I not persuaded that well directed instruc- tion would implant in them the habit of regulating their own numbers, and thus of maintaining wages, by their own prudence, at the proper level. To pay for all these services, adequate taxes — not insignificant in amount, even under the best management — must, of course, be levied. All this may be summed up in a few comprehensive M'ords : but, in reality, it comprises an unceasing series of laborious acts and painful supervision, sufficient to weary the zeal and fret the temper of benevolence itself: it calls for complete devotion of time, on the part of some of the ablest heads in the community : nor has the man ever yet existed, who could continue engaged in such employments without wishing to leave them half-performed. The natm-e of the case forbids that free competition, which ensures steady perseverance in the most repulsive private pro- fessions : for every public servant is necessarily a temporary monopolist. On the other liand, if there be this temptation to elude the obligations incident to office, there is a motive yet more unconquerable to multiply demands for taxes : to create pretences for palliating unlimited expenditure ; and to acquire ascendency, or gratify liberality, at the expense of the public purse. To counteract, as much as may be, such overwhelming temptations, a feeling of anxious responsibility must be kept up in the minds of Government functionaries ; and the romancers of the last age, complimenting the House of Commons at the expense of King, Peers, and subordinates, were pleased to assign that House as the body through whom responsibility was to be ensured. Not that Members of Parliament were supposed to be endued with any inborn virtue greater than that of gentlemen in office whom it was their business to watcli : but their aptitude was affirmed to be derived from their being elected periodically by tlic 12 ESSENTIALS people. Election by the people, real or supposed, was the ultimate source of security. The framers of this seducing picture, misled by common parlance and tradition, overlooked the fact that elections by the people were a pure fiction : that the persons who elected formed only a fraction of the people ; and that to this electoral fraction, in the last resort, all the security was to be traced. According as the majority of the electors had interests identified with or opposed to the people, would be the security for good government arising from election. If the former, then secui-ity would be real and efficacious : if the latter, then not only would there be no real security to the people, but the pretended security would be a source of great separate evil, inasmuch as the House of Commons would be under the same temptations to neglect and abuse their trust as the functionaries whom they were assumed to control. To take precautions against King, Peers, and Public Officers in general, is sufficiently difficult : but if the House of Commons and the electors be also interested in mis-government, the very idea and possibility of precaution becomes extinct ; and the phalanx against the people is multiplied, strengthened, and rendered more irresistible than it could be by any other contrivance imaginable. If the electors form only a small fraction of the people, they and the persons whom they choose must inevitably have a greater interest in conniving at misgovernment and sharing in its benefits, than in the obnoxious task* which a rigid duty towards the people would impose upon them. A small fraction, set apart and vested with power, may at particular emergencies act in behalf of the people against some common enemy : as the old French Pailiaments occa- sionally resisted the enormities of the court ; but their uniform tendency, here and elsewhere, now and in ancient times, has been directly opposite. It is fruitless to search for any peculiar set of men, exempted by peculiar virtue, or by station in society, from this predominant disposition. Individuals, superior to these and even to greater temp- OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 13 tations, may doubtless be accidentally found : but if our earth were blest with any such celestial breed, elections and electors would be superfluous altogether. Government officers might on that supposition be trusted to perform their duties without any control, or a King and Peers to control them without any Commons. It really implies an insult both to King and to Peers to suppose that they can derive any accession of virtue from Commons chosen by a narrow electoral fraction, and thus under the same mis- leading influences as themselves. Whoever is of this opinion, must imagine the King and the Peers to be worse than ordinary men : a supposition which the true theories of Government do not by any means countenance. The great question, therefore, with regard to the electoral body, will always be, are they few or many ? Do they form a large or a small proportion of the people ? If many in name and appearance, are they all so protected that each elector counts for a separate and independent unit ? Unless such questions can be satisfactorily answered, the whole process of election will certainly be useless, and, probably, worse than useless ; productive by its own working of much separate and peculiar evil. How they are to be answered in England, Lord Grey in vain warned the country by his memorable Petition of 1793. The truth then proclaimed, is now better known and less disputed. Less than 200 families, partly Peers, partly Com- moners, return the majority of the Lower House. Of the remaining minority, a large proportion owe their return to money or local influence — to electors who vote from liope of gain or from fear of loss : and the handful which remains, chosen by a few electoral bodies under very peculiar cir- cumstances, serve only to show what the House might be if tlie whole system were amended. When this wonderful paucity of the real, determining, electors is thus made out to us, we see at once that the Constitution is now and long has been only an oligarchy governing under certain forms and ceremonies. So long as 14 ESSENTIALS it retains this character, no improvement is to be hoped for. So long as the House of Commons is chosen by a small fraction of the community, the commimity will derive from its existence no security which they would not have enjoyed equally well without it, from King and Peers only. Paucity of the real electors is the grand, the specific evil: multi- plication of the real electors, until they cease to have a separate interest from the community, must be the vital, the effectual remedy. Nothing short of this can regenerate the body chosen. It is useless to substitute one small body in place of another, under pretence of picking out rich or enlightened individuals : it is useless to render the small body a trifle larger, until they become ^auci, instead of jpauciores or ^aucissimi : it is equally useless to prescribe new forms, or to invent new fictions, by way of giving respect- ability to their proceedings. Let other circumstances be as they may, if the electors remain a narrow minority, elections will be in the last result just what they are now : and the tree, deriving nutriment from the same pernicious soil — raclice in Tartara ienclens — will still continue to bear its bitter and poisonous fruits. Among those doctrines, which divert the public eye from the real vices of our representation, there is none more current or more easily received than that of founding the Kepresentative System on property — of making property tlie lasts of the elective franchise. The sense put upon these words, indeed, is neither uniform nor well-defined: but all the fluctuations in their meaning appear reducible to two leading distinctions, which I propose successively to examine. Some persons, when they afSrm that property is the only suitable basis for representation, seem to intend that every man should be vested with an elective power proj)ortioned to his fortune — that the weight of each in determining the members to be chosen should be measured by the amount of property which he possesses. Because (they maintain), the richer a man is, the greater the stake which he has in the OF PARLIAMENTAKY REFORM. 15 country — the greater his interest in the preservation and augmentation of its wealth and j^ower. If this principle were openly followed out, without equivocation or disguise, we should see the votes of men graduated and valued : there would be voters of one star, two stars, three stars, and so on, as there are in the lists of East India Proprietors: and perhaps Sir Eichard Arkwright, and Mr. Alexander Baring, by virtue of the countless stars which would stand opposite to their names, might be deemed qualified to return a member between them. But the reasoning, on which any such preference to great proprietors is foimded, is altogether untenable and fallacious. Not only is it untrue that they have a greater interest than small proprietors, or non-proprietors, in good government, but it may be clearly shown that they have much less. Among all the obligations which a good government ought to discharge towards a body of citizens, there is none of W'hich the omission will not be far more painfully felt by the small than by the great proprietor. Suppose the course of justice to be dilatory, expensive, or corrupt. By all these circumstances the small proprietor is ruinously aggrieved: the course of his industiy is interrupted or cut ofif: that constant aggregation of petty savings, without which he cannot leave his family in the condition occupied by himself, is rendered impossible ; and if he escapes loss or fraud in his own person, he is sure to be called on to rescue less fortunate friends or kinsmen. The great proprietor, on the other hand, is far less exposed to injury from such sources : he is embarrassed by no daily calling : his wealth attracts around him a host of private dependants, who conspire to protect him against the world without, and enable him almost to dispense with the shield of law : while he acquires a power, frightful indeed to society, but profitable to himself, of dealing out unredressed outrage to others. The state of society throughout Europe during the middle ages amply attests that which is here stated : and if the administration of our law were to recede from what it is now to what it was 16 ESSENTIALS three or four centuries ago, the blow to the middling and the poor would be inconceivably severe, while the great proprietors would gain in one way as much as they lost in the other. Take, again, the economy of the public revenue. It is the small, not the great, proprietor, whose interest in this desirable object is most powerful. For though the latter pays a larger positive sum in the shape of taxes, yet any given proportion of a large income subtracts much less from the enjoyments of the possessor than the same proportion of a small one : and, what is more important still, whenever excessive taxes are raised, it is the great proprietor who stands the best chance of determining the parties to be benefited by them. High taxation is to the rest of the community pure, uncompensated, sacrifice : to the great proprietor it is sacrifice on the one side, with the prospect of patronage on the other. In no case is he injured by this description of misgovernment so much as the small pro- prietor : frequently, he proves a considerable gainer by it. But if the great proprietor is less interested than the small in the performance of the obvious duties of government, still more is this true with regard to the remote and exalted obligations. What member of the community has so little to gain by diffusing instruction among the poor, as a very rich man ? He sees and hears less of them than any one else : and as he is always able to pay for the services of the choice few among them, his comfort is scarcely at all affected by the good or bad character of the mass. With respect, again, to the moral effect of the government — to its influence, so prodigious either to good or to evil on the minds and character of the citizens. Is the great proprietor more interested than others in so constructing all its machinery as to encourage probity, industry, and self-denial, and to discountenance fraud, rapacity, and improvidence ? In this, as in the other cases, he will be found to have little or no interest in that salutary moral teaching which would be the first of all blessings to every other man in the community. OF PAELIAMENTAEY EEFOEM. 17 To him the prevalence of such habits would be a loss of consequence, of ascendancy, of admiration. His position commands him to cherish far more unworthy and immoral dispositions among the community : to spread abroad that overweening and prostrate veneration of wealth, which not only softens all scruples as to the mode of acquisition, but effaces true dignity of character, and renders men the pliant instruments of any one who can help them on in life : to plant in every one's bosom a passion for that show and osten- tation, which none indeed can successfully exhibit except the rich themselves, but which every one may pant after and affect, until he loses both the relish for simple and accessible enjoyments, and the feeling of sympathy and brotherhood with men of inferior style. How lamentably such defects eat up the happiness and taint the springs of beneficence among the middling and the poor, is abundantly manifest : how they have been fostered in England under the baneful ascendency of wealth in large masses, is matter of remark to all who compare it with the Continent. It is then demoustrable, that the great proprietors are the precise persons in the nation to whom good government in all its branches is the least essential. And, if so, what pre- tence remains for arming them with any peculiar influence in the choice of members of Parliament? Loose language, assisted by rooted habits of deference and idolatry, have cast a dense cloud in men's minds over this important subject. Our terminology rudely bisects the community into rich and poor — men of property and men of no property : and hence an association grows up in our thoughts between men of property and the institution of property. The deep respect, which deservedly belongs and has always been paid to that inestimable institution, is transferred mechanically to those who are surnamed after it : they come to be considered as its guardian angels and natural protectors : while such as refuse submission to them are vilified as if destitute of the just feelings towards property . But the truth is, that these men of property have no other interest in the institution of c 18 ESSENTIALS property than that which they possess in common with the mass of smaller proprietors, whom we so vaguely huddle together as men of no property. To become an instrument of benefit to his country, a great proprietor ought to act, not upon that narrow interest which connects him with other great proprietors, but upon that more extended interest which binds him to all proprietors whatever. He must con- descend to confound himself with their ranks, to join in the prosecution of objects by which he benefits only in common with them, and to catch a portion of the modesty, the assiduous habits, and the demand for unbought sympathy appertaining to their station. In place of that curse of English society — small proprietors apeing the imperfections of the great — true benevolence would teach the great pro- prietors to imbibe the virtues of the small. But never will they do this so long as a peculiar and privileged interference in elections is reserved for them : so long as peculiar elec- toral rights fence them off conspicuously from the remain- ins: communitv, and thus both entice and enable them to conspire for their separate interest ; and so long as un- principled expectants are tempted to look to them for promotion, apart from the approving voice of public opinion. But if there be no ground for privileging great proprietors on pretence of superior interest in good government, as little reason is there for doing so on the score of superior know- ledge and intelligence. Admitting it for the present to be true, that without such aids as can only be procured by persons possessing a certain moderate income, such as 100/. per annum, no one can acquire sufficient instruction to per- form the fimctions of elector — admitting that moderate in- come affords a just presumption of capacity as compared with very low income — yet to rate the understandings of men throughout the whole scale in proportion to their wealth, would be a measurement altogether perverse and un- warrantable. Superior income is not only an inaccurate test in individual cases, but it affords no ground for guessing at the capacities of men, even as a general rule. A man of OF PAELTAMENTARY REFORM. 19 100/. or 200Z. a-year, who lives in a considerable city, enjoys opportunities for mental improvement, not perhaps equalling those which richer men might command, but far exceeding those which the majority of them ever turn to account. Individuals who will labour to instruct themselves are in- deed rare in this class : but they are also rare amongst the classes who possess 1000?., 2000Z., or 5000Z. per annum ; and the ordinary literature and periodicals form the stock read- ing of the one as well as of the other. In comparing men of middling incomes, from lOOZ. per annum upwards, there is no presumption of superior capacity on either side : but when we reach the very high figures in the scale, it will be found that not only is there no presumption in favour of mental eminence, but there is a probability not easy to be rebutted against it. The position and circumstances of a very rich man cut off all motive to mental laboiu- : he is caressed and deified by his circle without any of those toils whereby others purchase an attentive hearing ; and the purple, the fine linen, and the sumptuous fare every day, of Dives, are impediments to solid improvement, hardly less fjital than the sores and wretchedness of Lazarus. I trust that I have now shown that neither on the ground of special interest in favour of good government nor on that of presumed mental superiority, are the great proprietors entitled to privilege or ascendency in the representative system. Protection they will of course receive, in common with all other proprietors : but if they seek pre-eminence, they must be content to eani it by evidences of superior worth and ability. Equalize their political position as much as you will, the prejudices of mankind are sure to turn the scale more or less in their favour : their private munificence confounds itself with and enhances their public services ; and the eyes of the imambitious many eagerly look for merit where they are predisposed to pay deference. That property should be the basis of representation, then, in such sense as to award greater elective influence to the large proprietor than to the small, is a proposition altogether c 2 20 ESSENTIALS inadmif.sible. No sacrifice, indeed, can be too great to pro- tect property; but as this institution is of incalculable benefit to the whole mass of smaller proprietors, a legislature chosen by all of them together, great and small alike, is as sure to protect property, as to guard personal safety. And the great proprietors will be no less certain of enjoying security in common with the rest, than of being debarred from all undue usurpations beyond ; for the same insti- tutions which shut them out from the 'latter, guarantee to them the former. There is another sense in which some persons propose to make property the hasis of representation. They are of opinion that no one who does not enjoy an income of a certain given amount, ought to exercise any political rights : to all above that minimum, they Avould award equal, not graduated, elective power ; all below it they would dis- franchise without exception. Some indeed are more in- dulgent, others more rigorous in determining the point of actual exclusion : but the principle of exclusion is the same with all. The reasonings sometimes advanced on behalf of this opinion appear to imply that no person below the appointed minimum has any interest in preserving property : that property is an institution beneficial indeed to a fortunate minority, but injurious and oppressive to the remaining multitude ; and that if the interest of the latter were con- sulted, not only existing possessions would be divided but the institution itself would be swej)t away. This theory of pro- perty, fatal as it would prove to the continuance of the insti- tution, except in the most degraded state of the human intelligence, is not unfrequently resorted to by aristocratical advocates, when they wish to alarm the middling classes into uncomplaining submission. It is fortunate that a just comprehension of the interests of all holds out brighter prospects. So far from being injured by the institution of property, the multitude have a deep and lasting interest in its continuance. No set of men, OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 21 whether all poor, or all rich, or some poor and some ricli, can possibly live together in society without some rules to define what shall be enjoyed by one and what by another. One man, by virtue of these rules, may acquire a greater amount of enjoyment than another, but the fixity and ob- servance of the rules is as much necessary to the continuous sequence of smaller acquisitions as to the safe enjoyment of the greater. One man, in like manner, may turn the air and the sun to greater account than another ; but these beneficent influences are alike indispensable to all. Here and there a being may be discovered so destitute and un- happy as to be inaccessible to any additional suffering : to have no enjoyment open to him, except that which he can find unappropriated, or that which he can snatch by force : to be, in other words, in the position to which all man- kind would be reduced, if no laws of property were known or respected. But such cases are rare exceptions to the ordinary lot of the many, w^ho derive a steady subsistence from the uninterrupted exercise of their industry. Scanty as this subsistence too frequently is, it would be intercepted altogether if the safety of property became a matter even of reasonable doubt : for it arises from the outlay of capitalists, made only under assured prospect of return, and ready to be withheld the moment future acquisitions can no longer be reckoned on. Deprived of all means of recruiting his little fund, the poor labourer passes from assured subsistence into absolute and irremediable starvation. The disfranchisement of the body of the poor, thou, cannot for a moment be sustained on the pretence that they have no interest in the maintenance of property. They have at least as great an interest in its stability as the rich : for even a temporary suspension of its laws would deprive them of existence, while the rich might stand some feeble chance of defending and reserving to themselves their pre-existing hoard. But arc the poor wise enough to recognise and act upon tliis interest? Many reasoners contend that they are not; 22 ESSENTIALS and hence, in general, the reluctance to bestow on theni political rights : though there are not wanting persons who, inconsistently enough, protest against universal suffrage, both on one ground and on the other ; insisting on the one hand that the body of the poor have a real interest hostile to property, and reproaching the poor on the other for their brutish ignorance in not venerating so sacred and beneficent an institution. The ignorance of the body of the people is a ground for their disfranchisement far more plausible than the former, because, to a certain extent, the fact is undeniable. No one can dispute that they ought to be, and might be, much more carefully educated than they are at present. Yet I feel well persuaded that their ignorance, comparatively to other classes, has been greatly over-stated, and in parti- cular that no evidence can be adduced of unfriendly feel- ings, in the generality of them, towards the institution of property. Is there any error or prejudice now current among the poorer classes, to which a parallel cannot be produced among the richer ? If they are taunted with their hostility to machinery, may they not recriminate on the landlords by pointing to the Usury Laws and to the Corn Laws ? If their misapprehension of the principle of population is cited as an evidence of stupidity, how will the squires and parsons, and the parochial chiefs in general, stand exonerated from the like imputation ? To me it appears that the poorer classes in general have an understanding sufficiently just, docile, and unprejudiced, to elect, and to submit to, the same legislators whom the middling classes themselves, if they voted apart and voted secretly, would single out. But assuming the contrary to be the fact, as so many sincere reformers believe and lament — admitting that the poor are at the present moment un- prepared for the elective franchise— expedients may yet be found for allaying the apprehensions of the middling classes, without either degrading the lower by perpetual exclusion, OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 23 or neglecting to provide for the duties of Government towards them. Eeasouing on this admission, we should of course acquiesce, under a certain modification, in the principle that property should at present form the basis of rejjresentation, — not under the belief that men of property had any superior interest in good government, but because, under the exist- ing difSculties in obtaining, and carelessness in diffusing, knowledge, few persons below a certain amount of income could be presumed to have yet acquired mental aptitude for the elective function. It cannot with any pretence of reason be maintained, that a man of lOOZ. annual income has not enjoyed full facilities for instructing himself up to the requisite pitch. A pecuniary qualification, there- fore, if fixed at lOOZ. annual income, would embrace no one, as far as could be reasonably presumed, unworthy of the trust. It has been stated that a qualification of 1001. annual income would comprehend a million of electors : but if the conjecture were not confirmed by actual returns, I should think it requisite to lower the qualification until that number was attained. No number of voters falhng much short of a million, could possibly put out of sight and out of apprehension that first of all evils, a separate interest from the community; and in order to purchase such a certainty, it would be well worth while to submit to such slight depression in the scale of instruction as might be incurred by introducing persons of an income the next degree below lOOZ. per annum. Nor could any reasonable alarmist anticipate either hostility to property, or general unsoundness of views, from the richest million in the country. They might as soon be imagined to surrender England to a foreign enemy, or to plant in it the seeds of an epidemic disease, as to invade or unsettle the sanctity of jjroperty. A representative system including one million of votcis, j)ropcrly distributed and protected, would be that "almost 24 ESSENTIALS all " in Parliamentary Reform which a distinguished orator* unworthily predicated of the proposal to admit members from three or four great towns. It would purify the Government, thoroughly, at once and for ever, of that deep and inveterate oligarchical taint which now infects it in every branch. The Old Man of the Sea would be shaken from our backs, never more to resume his gripe. The interest and well-being of the middling classes would become the predominant object of solicitude, and would be followed out with earnest and single-hearted perse- verance. Economy in the state expenditure; unremitting advance towards perfection in the law and in the adminis- tration of justice ; entire abstinence from ambitious or un- necessary wars : all these great results would be ensured by such a legislature as completely as the most ardent patriot could desire. Nor would it fail to operate a wholesome change in the public sentiment, and to root out or mitigate many of our wide-spread national vices. It would suppress that avidity for patronage which now renders so many fathers of families petitioners at the doors of the neigh- bouring great : it would lower the value of the rich man's nod, and teach men to earn advance in the world, not by clinging to his skirts, but by their own industry and their own frugality ; and it would eradicate the proneness to local jobbing which the imj)erfect constitution of parishes and corporate bodies so fatally implants and so abundantly remunerates. Legislators so chosen must be men of first- rate intfeUigence, whose discussions would rectify and elevate the tone of political reasoning throughout the whole country — men in whom the accident of birth and connection would be eclipsed by the splendour of their personal qualities — identified in heart and spirit with the happiness of the middling classes — and no less qualified, by laborious com- pletion of their own mental training, to serve as an example and an incentive to aspiring youth. * H. Brougham, 1830. OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 25 A constituency of one million of voters would infallibly bring about these signal and beneficent results, without the slightest loss or peril to any one, except to those who are receiving undue gains or exercising a malignant influence. The very idea of peril to the middling classes is unreason- able and absurd : they would themselves form the con- stituent body, and the acquisition to them in every way would be incalculable. Nor would it j)rove injurious to the tranquil man, who enjoys his afiluence apart, without seeking to club with the oligarchical confederacy. Such a person has really no interest distinct from that of the middling class ; he suffers at present under their grievances, and would partake in their benefits under an improved system. To wealthy individuals of superior ability and benevolence, it would be highly gratifying and consolatory : since it would cut off the perennial source of those abuses against Avhich they have been vainly striving in detail. There needs but one addition to render such an electoral system every thing which the widest philanthropy could aim at. A provision should be annexed to it, gradually lowering the qualification at tlie end of certain fixed periods, so as to introduce successively fresh voters, and after a certain period to render the suffrage nearly co-extensive with the community. The interval might be employed in improving and extending education, so as to remove the only valid ground which is now supposed to command the disfranchise- ment of the poor.* This very deficiency in the poor, on which the necessity of their present exclusion is founded, demonstrates the vast importance of impressing on the Government peculiar mo- tives to enlighten them. What portrait shall v^e draw of a government, under which four-fifths of the male adults are so degraded in understanding, as to be incapable of formiuo- any opinion on the laws to which their obedience is exacted, * I owe the suggestion of this gradual enlargement of the franchise to au excellent weekly journal — the Examiner. 26 ESSENTIALS and to be destitute, therefore, of that rational attachment towards them which assists and seconds so materially the operations of justice ? If their stupidity be really so de- plorable, as to leave them ignorant whether they owe grati- tude or execration to their laws and their legislators, it is impossible to make exertions too speedy or too strenuous to amend it. Under a government faithful and energetic in the performance of all its duties, such mental darkness would be rapidly dispelled, and the reason for continued dis- franchisement would disappear along with it. But inasmuch as among all the duties of Government, those which it owes to the poor are the most liable to be neglected, the deter- mination of periods for gradually extending to them the suffrage would serve as a spur to quicken inactivity, and as an admonition to prevent forgetfulness. And it is but too possible, that a body of representatives, perfect and admir- able for the middling classes, might be less keenly alive to the importance of elevating the condition and assuring the independence of the laborious many. If they seriously con- templated perpetual disfranchisement — if they considered the many, not as minors requiring farther tuition, but as half-witted by nature and smitten with inherent incapacity — they would be slow in communicating to them acquire- ments not deemed available to any ultimate end, and only sharpening the sense of an humiliating exclusion. A constituency of a million of voters, however, even taken apart and without any such gradual enlargement, would effect a change so great and desirable, that I should deeply regret to abate the demand for it by thus showing that it would not accomplish every thing. The poor, though not permitted to vote, would partake in its benefits : not merely by the diminution of taxes, and by such amendments in the law as would open to them the avenues of justice, but also by the improved character of the wealthy and middling class, and by the more frequent prevalence of sober and useful virtues in the place of ostentatious frivolity. If it be once determined that the constituency shall in- OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 2/ elude a million of voters, it is better to select tliem by an uniform income qualification than by any other. No just excuse can be given for preference on such an occasion, except jjresumed mental superiority : and though the infer- ence derived from income is by no means free from objection, I know not any better which can be obtained. If the aggregate of voters were smaller, certain professions and occupations might be resorted to, as affording adequate evidence of mental capacity : but it will be found that the richest million will embrace all those whose occupation or j)rofession could have been thus singled out as presumptive testimony. The endless varieties of qualification in different English boroughs appear more like an olio of anomalous customs, than like the methodical workings of a reasonable Legis- lature. But the principle of uniform qualification has been impugned, and that of multiform qualification maintained, by some reasoners of note, who have insisted on the propriety of rendering the representative system a representation of classes, not of individuals. That theory I shall now examine. In combating the principle of strengthening the great proprietors at elections, I have supposed it to be acted upon openly and avowedly, by allotting a number of votes to each man proportioned to the amount of his property. Such a regulation, however, is repugnant to the general habits of English elections. Immense as the influence of great proprietors is at present, it is still exercised under a thin disguise, which enables men to quibble about its amount, and sometimes, when it suits their purpose, even to contest its reality. The conditions under which it is exer- cised, unhappily, aggravate its inherent mischief: for while they nowise serve to restrain or purify the oligarchical influence, they render its modus oj^erandi such as to keep tlio minds of the people venal, open to intrigue in ail shapes, athirst for irregular patronage, and insensible to any public 28 ESSENTIALS principle. But English thinkers have become familiar with this practice of attaining by stealth ends obnoxious to avow : and those who, in their plans of reform, leave the olig- archical preponderance still unabated, usually seek for some new contrivance to screen its working, and to mystify its real character. WTiat is called the class system of repre- sentation, advocated in the 'Edinburgh Eeview,' as well as in other places, is a contrivance of this description. The plan of the class system is to divide the citizens into various classes; each consisting of individuals bound together by some interest common to them all, but separate from the rest of the citizens. Thus we are to have one class of merchants, and another of landholders : and each of these is to elect representatives, intended to watch specially over the interests of their several classes, and to see that those interests are adequately protected in parliament. Each repre- sentative is supposed peculiarly cognizant of the interests of his own class, and under special obligation to promote and prefer them. No uniform qualification for voters (we are told), either founded on property or on any other prin- ciple, could ensure the election of members either acquainted with the interests of these various classes, or animated with competent zeal to watch over them. The interests of the class of merchants will not be protected imless that class elects representatives : the same with the class of landholders, and with the rest. Whoever would see this theory explained and vindicated at length, should consult the article on Eeform in Xo. 61 of the ' Edinburgh Review.' Let us consider the simplest particular case which can be imagined to answer the conditions of the theory. Suppose three classes, landholders, merchants, and lawyers, each returning one member, or each an equal number of members, to form a governing body. Each member comes exclusively devoted to the service of his own class : but as no measure can be adopted without a majority, t\\o out of the trium- virate must combine : and that combination can only take place by mutual concessions on the part of the two allies, OF TAELIAMEXTAKY KEFORM. 29 eacli consenting to drop such part of his respective class interest as may interfere with tlie class interest of the other. Those two out of the three will combine whose alliance can be accomplished with the smallest sacrifice of their respective class interests. But when two out of the three have com- bined, the concurrence of the third becomes a matter of no importance. His interest, therefore, and the interest of his class, is completely disregarded. The two allies, who, as a majority, are in possession of the governing power, would be unfaithful deputies of their respective classes, were they to concede anything in favour of a colleague with whose co- operation they can dispense. How then is the end answered of affording protection to each of the separate class interests ? It is so far from being attained, that each and every one of them remains mipro- tected. The moment that the members begin discussion, it must become apparent that each class interest excludes the rest : and that to ensure protection to one of them is to deny it to the others. Either the assembly has a majority of its members returned by one particular class, or it has not. If the fonner, then the dominant class interest is indeed sedulously provided for, but all the classes in the minority are neglected and trampled upon. If tlie latter, then it is not the separate interest of any class whatever \\hich is pro- tected, but the common interest of those two or more classes who combine to form a majority; all the classes in the minority being neglected as in the previous case. Perhaps the partisans of this system may reply, that they never imagine a deputy to seek protection for his class in- terest at the expense of other classes, but only so far as the interest of other classes can be made to coincide with it. But on this supposition the cardinal principle of the system is infringed, and the deputy ceases at once to be a class deputy. He does no more for the class by whom he is re- turned than for the other classes by whom he is not returned. He becomes, what he ought assuredly under every good system to be, a deputy devoted to the service of the country ; 30 ESSENTIALS for the interest which all classes have in common is the interest of the coiintrj^ The fundamental error of the class system consists in a wrong concejjtion of what constitutes the interest of the country. " We must divide the people into classes (observes the Edinburgh Reviewer) and examine the variety of heal and ^professional ijiieresis of which the general interest is com- posed." Now the general interest, far from being composed of various local and professional interests, is not only distinct from, but exclusive of, every one of them. The interest of an individual by himself apart — the interest of the same man jointly with any given fraction of his fellow-citizens — and his interest jointly with the whole body of his fellow-citizens — all these are distinct objects, abhorrent and irreconcileable in general, coinciding occasionally by mere accident. To promote the joint interest of any given class, you do not set about first to promote the separate interest of one member of it, then the separate interest of another member, and so on. You neglect all these, to fix your eyes on an inde- pendent end, the joint interest of all the members of the class one with another. Just so it is with that grand aggre- gate of classes, the community. The general interest is not to be attained by pursuing first the separate interest of one class, then the separate interest of another, but must be studied as an object apart from all these. Individuals com- pose the class, but the interest of the class is not the sum total of the separate interests of all its members : classes compose the community, but the interest of the community is not the sum total of the separate interests of all its classes. And a governing body which would promote the universal interest, must discard all inclination to the separate interest of any class whatever. What would be the result of the class representation, as its partisans apply their principles, it is not difficult to trace. The great body of the community — the multitude^are con- sidered to be one class, and are as such empowered to return certain representatives. The remaining minority are then OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 31 subdivided into a great number of different classes, each of which is to elect members of its own and for its own benefit. From this nice subdivision many of the electing classes be- come of course numerically small. And is it not manifest that these numerically small classes will combine to form a majority in the assembly ? and that the classes not included in the majority — the multitude among the number — will receive no more protection than if their deputies had never been elected ? The oligarchical Proteus thus reappears, in another of his ever-varying shapes : and the result of the system may be described in the words used by Livy (i. 43) when he is explaining the Eoman class system ascribed to Servius Tullius — " Gradus facti, ut neque exclusus quisquam suffragio videretur, et vis omnis penes primores civitatis esset." Votes are given to the people, not as a security for good government, but as a sop to delude and quiet them : the real power remains, where it would be if they had no votes, vested in the few of rank and property. It may be urged, indeed, that this result arises, not from the inherent principles of the class system, but from a vicious distribution of the people into disproportionate classes : that if the separate classes framed were more equal, and each numerically 'large, no majority in the assembly could com- bine without including a number so large as to coincide in interest with the whole community. Such an arrangement is indeed conceivable : but if, in the last result, the deputies are neither able nor inclined to follow out any other interest than that of the community, what is gained by the pecu- liarity of the system — that of calling the electors together in classes — and what would be lost by abandoning it ? Would not the same result be equally assured if the same number of electors voted in sections not coinciding with each man's class or profession, and not suggesting the idea of any distinct principle of union among themselves? Not merely would the result be equally assured : it Avould be far more infallil^le and far more complete. The general interest will bo most certain of receiving paramount nnd 32 ESSENTIALS undeviating attention, when it stands forth prominently and conspicuously as the single purpose of delegation — when it enters into every man's feelings of duty — and when it is least traversed and overlaid by other objects of pursuit. All these essential requisites are frustrated by summoning the electors to vote in groups, each animated by a peculiar interest dis- tinct from the community. Each class, convoked apart, will dwell upon and magnify its own separate interests, which it will treat as at least co-ordinate in importance with the general interest ; the minds of individuals will be engrossed by the feelings of their rights and obligations as fellow- classmen ; and the sentiment of a common interest with the whole nation will be to a great degree obliterated. A member thus elected will carry to Parliament the sentiments of his constituents respecting the treatment wliich their class ought to receive : the interest of the class will be his first duty, that of the country his second : at any rate, the two conflicting obligations will divide his soul, and drive him to perpetual trimming and evasion. No sincere or single- hearted patriot can be seen in the assembly. Instead of an union of wise and incorruptible legislators, agreeing in one common end, and only differing as to the means of pro- moting it — Parliament would become an arena for rival con- spirators or opposing counsel, each engaged in serving a separate client ; each seeking to twist a grant or to qualify a restriction, in his own peculiar sense ; and no two con- curring in devotion to the same ultimate objects. Such would be the tendency of a representative system, under which each member should be chosen by a peculiar class, and should be recognised as the special guardian of the interest of his class. The more strongly and intimately the members of each choosing body are knit together, the more perniciously would this anti-social taint infect the legislative assembly. I grant indeed that vestiges of it may still remain — that it will not be entirely extirpated — under the best electoral svstem conceivable. For as each member must be chosen OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 33 by a particular body of electors, and those too voting in one neighbourhood, their own separate interest may occasionally pervert their ju^lgment, and lead them to elect with little reference to their obligations as citizens of the community. But under good electoral arrangements this cannot happen often, nor in many places at once ; and the more its mis- chievous tendency is denounced, the less likely it will be to occur at all. Instead of trying to guard against such a tendency, and only submitting to it where precautions prove ineffectual, the class system actually recognises it as a sound and bene- ficial principle of action, and is built upon it as upon a corner-stone. Independent of all other objections, the mon- strous immorality of the system cannot be too earnestly exposed. It treads out and extinguishes every spark of a general interest: it disavows all idea of the rights and obli- gations attached to citizenship : and those feelings which bind us to our community, the source of so many exalted virtues, become obsolete and unknown. In place of an imited and harmonious nation, what does the system present to us ? A mere congeries of unfriendly confederacies, each combating for its own separate ends : the strong classes combining to prey upon the weak, and grasping at the Legislature as an engine of usurpation : the weak submitting from inability to resist, and hating a Legislature from whence they derive no protection : the members of each class deeming the others legitimate plunder, and treating them in effect as aliens under the cheat of a common country. All these conse- quences are infallible, if Parliament is to be corrupted into a congress of class deputies, instead of an assembly of citizen legislators. A salutary Reform ought to proceed on principles the very reverse of the class system. Far from encouraging the exercise of the elective franchise by local bodies and corpora- tions, every such union ought to be studiously dissevered, so that an electoral section which returns one member may seldom or never consist of individuals already united by any partial D M ESSENTIALS tie. It is the individual judgment of each voter which is required : a certain number of voters must concur to return the same candidate, in order to answer the purpose of attest- ing his competence ; but it is neither necessary nor desirable that all of them should vote in the same place. By proper distribution of the electoral bodies and places of voting, each elector might vote with little personal inconvenience, and disengaged from any corporate bias. In speaking thus respecting local and partial associations, I would by no means be understood to dispute their great utility when limited to their proper sphere. For local purposes, they are excellent and indispensable : and their organization ought to be revised and purified with much greater solicitude than has ever been hitherto manifested. In England the old institutions have lingered on from gene- ration to generation untouched by the hand of philosophy : salutary in their first commencement, they have not only outlived their period of utility, but have passed into instru- ments of jobbing and abuse. The history of a corporation is the history of the English Parliament. The rise and pro- gress of these bodies in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries forms an epoch in the history of society : without them the blessings of security would have been unknown ; and the European countries might still have been groaning under the tyranny of local barons, contentious indeed as against each other, but animated with a common spirit of insolence and rapacity towards the people. Against such enemies, every individual in the nascent town had a joint interest : and very imperfect corporate institutions sufiiced, \\hile the idea of danger to all from the same quarter was predominant and overpowering. But when the enemy without ceased to be formidable, the leading men in a town found themselves possessed of established ascendency over their fellow towns- men, which it was tempting to convert to their own account. The once useful corporation gradually degenerated into a field of disunion and intrigue : freemen remaining distin- guished by an indefensible line, and by still more indefensible OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 35 . privileges, from non-freemen ; and a select junto mal-admi- nistering over them all. The subject of good municipal institutions and assemblies, which is now attracting so much attention in France, deserves no less serious consideration in England : but however these bodies may be constituted, whether well or ill, it will still be essential to exclude their interference as much as possible in elections for the general legislature. The use and abuse of corporate bodies, and the pernicious tendency of the class system in general, is a topic deserving of the deeper attention, as the existing English representa- tive system is in effect a class government, of which the landholders form the preponderating partners. Hence such plans of Eeform, as retain the class system unchanged, and profess merely to vary and remodel its component parts, come recommended by the imposing assertion, that the principle on which they proceed has already been tried, and is familiar to the Constitution. It has, indeed, been abundantly tried, and its baneful workings are easy to be detected ; not merely in the details of misgovernment, but also in the perverted tone of the current politics. What more common than to hear the country described as composed of so many " interests " — some more or less great and valuable than others — the landed interest and the manufacturilig interest — the East Indian and the West Indian interest — the Ship interest, and the Wool interest ! Some persons even speak as if they imagined that Parliament met for no other purpose than to watch over these great interests; each of which is constantly complaining that it does not receive adequate protection, and that " rival interests " return so many members to Parliament as to stifle its just claims. Such pretensions involve the fundamental fallacy of the class system. Landlords or manufacturers have sacred claims on the Legislature in common with the general body of citizens, but they acquire no new and peculiar claims by the fact of their sharing in the same occupation or in the same descrip- D 2 . 36 ESSENTIALS tion of revenue. Protection to themselves, as individuals, is their indisputable right : protection to their " interest " as a sej)arate interest, is a privilege over their fellow citizens — a monstrous injustice and usurpation. Because a hundred or a thousand men choose to band together, to give them- selves a common name, and to talk of themselves as an interest, is the Ijcgislature to make separate terms with them, and to grant them concessions at the expense of the modest citizen, who seeks only a citizen's share in the benefits of good government ? Yet such concessions, teeming as they do with evil, are in the ordinary spirit and track of the Eoglish Parliament. Its constitution, tainted with the inherent vice of the class system, has caused it to be pulled hither and thither by the great rival " interests : " it has been a theatre for their selfish struggles among themselves, as well as for their common encroachments on the body of the people, who, as they bear not the name and the banners of any particular "interest," have been treated as if they needed no " protection " at all. No man can have atten- tively studied the English Government without learning, that the path of advancement and honour has been mono- polized by these potent fraternities, and that the character of a private citizen was of little account. Hence the fatal temptation, so prevalent wherever we look, to join some one of them in intriguing for privilege or undue gain, and to renounce all sense of obligation towards the people as a body. Even virtuous men, who would shudder at injustices for their own individual benefit, become perverted with the class-morality, and act agreeably to the memorable declara- tion of Lord Grey, when he set his order against and above his country. \ abstain from touching, as I might well do, on the en- couragement which such a state of the representation affords to the most mischievous tenets of the mercantile system. Though not chargeable with having given birth to them, it has assuredly retarded their extirpation. The body of con- sumers — the general public, — who are interested in low OF PARLIAMENTAEY EEFORM. 37 and steady prices, especially of necessaries — constitute no " interest," and are never seen in battle array. It is in vain that political economy advocates their cause against the sellers, not only forward in associating and loud in complaint, but favoured by the erroneous disposition of ordinary men to sympathise only with a special and recognised class. Having established the necessity of a total number of voters, so great as not to be capable of having a separate interest from the country, and of taking their votes, not in classes, but as individuals, I come to the important question of open or secret voting. There is every possible reason for taking the votes by Ballot : not one single reason, so far as I can discern, for taking them openly. This question has been so admirably handled in the ' Westminster Eeview ' of last July, that I might be satisfied with referring to the demonstration there given : but it is impossible to pass over a subject of such incalculable moment without a few addi- tional words to elucidate and enforce it. Without ballot, the most extensive provisions of Eeform in other respects would be nullified : for the creation of new open votes would be only an empty multiplication of names, leaving the band of real choosers scarcely larger than it was before. Under secret suffrage, every man who has a vote is a real chooser : he votes from genuine, intrinsic, preference, well or ill founded, for his candidate. His vote can neither oblige nor offend : it is an act purely public, and counts as a separate grain of evidence to attest the competency of the person whom he supports. Under open voting, the reverse is true in all points. The number of nominal voters does not afford any test of the number of real choosers : out of a thousand voters there may not be fifty who have any genuine preference for their candidate, or any sincere per- suasion of his fitness for the trust. Provided only be be exempt from notorious disgrace or indisputable imbecility,' the grades of superiority above that low minimum are never 38 ESSENTIALS scrutinised. And the election of a candidate, even by a considerable number of open votes, far from furnishing presumption of his competency, proves only that he has either many dependents, or an unusual number of influ- ential private friends, who are willing to make his cause their own. If reasons were needed against open voting, the disgusting details of an English election would abunrlantly supply them. The candidate convenes an active committee of pri- vate friends, who look over the list of voters, and set about to consider by what weapons or baits each of them is assail- able. Some of them are known to be openly venal : others are dependent tenants on the estate of Lord A., or Mr, B. : a third class are tradesmen, and supply the families of Lord C. and Mr. D. : of the remainder, several are comfortable in their incomes, but are fond of shooting, and prize highly the permission of going upon a neighbouring manor, or are anx- iously seeking intimacy with some families wealthier than themselves. To track out all these ramifications of each voter's peculiar interest — to penetrate the hidden sources of his hopes and fears — and to hook his vote through the me- dium of one or the other — is the business of an election com- mittee. It is futile to prohibit any part of their proceedings, while the means and the motive to practise them are left open : and however the number of open voters may be mul- tiplied, it will only become more troublesome, but by no means less practicable, to govern the majority of them by pri- vate hopes and fears. At certain grand periods of excitement numerous voters may break loose, and give open utterance to their faith with the exalted constancy of martyrs ; in ordinary times, they are tame and sequacious, and a thou- sand of them are marshalled with hardly less facility than a hundred. In spite of the crooked manoeuvres so universal in elec- tioneering, there are persons who dwell much on the empty and fallacious distinction between dependent and independent voters. A poor voter, they affirm, is by his station depen- OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 39 dent, and this is urged as one reason for withholding votes from the poor : while a person of greater affluence is spoken of as if his position afibrded security for his independence. But the test here assumed, for measuring dependence and in- dependence, is equivocal to a high degree. That man is the most dependent who is liable to suffer the gi'eatest and most irreparable evil at the hands of some one or some few others ; and many who enjoy a most eligible position are, for that very reason, exposed to far more alarming liability of evil than simple poverty ever entails. A poor artisan or labourer may be displaced, but the number of equally good situations open to him is so considerable, that he may speedily hope to repair his loss. But the higher and better paid officers have more to lose by dismissal, while the number of such places is so limited as to afford them little chance of an equivalent elsewhere. It seems evident, therefore, that shop- men, clerks, and highly paid functionaries of every de- scription, being greater sufferers by arbitrary displacement, are really more dependent than artisans or servants, and consequently that poverty is no measure of the degree of dependence. But it is superfluous to verify the graduation of the scale, if we can satisfy ourselves that he who is called thoroughly independent is exposed to powerful private influence, more than sufficient to pervert any open vote. I would fain ask whose position is so fortunate as to enable him to deny this ? Look at the tradesman who is making 600Z. or 1000?. per annum, and the manufacturer or merchant who is making 2000/. or 3000?. Each of them acquires his income out of fractions, some large, some small, arising from connections profitable in various degrees ; and the best of these connections think themselves fully entitled to ask for his vote, whenever they take interest in an election. If the request be refused merely on public grounds^ displeasure and provocation are infallible: and the refuser incurs the chance of pecuniary loss, of seeing himself supplanted by rivals, and of being stigmatised as ungrateful. How is this 40 ESSENTIALS consistent with the pretended independence of his position ? Even the man whose income is already treasured up, finds many individuals around him whom it is exquisitely pleasing to oblige and highly distressing to offend, though their political views may be such as he entirely disaj)proves. Is it not true, then, that the man most independent by position and circumstances is yet so fettered and so vulnerable, as to lay him under temptations far too strong for average political integrity ? So long as voting is open, therefore, the votes of the middling and of the affluent will be determined, in the majority of cases, by some one of the innumerable varieties of private influence : nor is the Ballot less essential to purify their votes than to liberate those of the poor. I duly ap- preciate the beneficial effects of the private sympathies, and of that readiness to oblige and to requite, without which life would be a desert : but if the business of voting is to be subservient to a public end, it ought to be abstracted alto- gether from the sphere of their interference. Is it at all less detrimental to the main purpose of voting — the advance- ment of the wisest and best men in the community into the Legislative Assembly — that I should vote to please a friend, to return an obligation, or to conciliate a customer, than that I should sell my vote for ten pounds, or for a place in the Excise? It is melancholy to confess that on this im- portant topic the morality both of rich and poor has yet to be formed, nor can we hope ever to see it formed except by means of the Ballot. Most men consider their vote merely as a means of rendering service to a friend ; and dispose of it exactly on the same principles as they would bestow any other favour. How abominable would be the course of justice, if they forgot their trust as jurors in the same cool and systematic manner : if one man thought himself au- thorized to solicit, and another to grant, a verdict in favour of plaintiff or defendant ! Yet the function of voter is no less a public trust than that of juror : nor would the mischief of corrupt juries, prodigious as it is, surpass that of corrupt OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 41 voting. It is fruitless to admonish men on the pernicious tendency of what is daily before their eyes, so long as the misleading influence is left in full vigour and application : but if the door be once shut against such influence, there is nothing to prevent voting from being assimilated to other public trusts, and from becoming really conducive to its peculiar and all-important purpose.* * The duty of a voter to the public has been banished, not only out of fact and society, but also out of political reasonings and conceptions. Hence the extraordinary difference in the public senti- ment between the promise made by a voter to support a particular candidate, and the promise made by a jiu'or to deliver a particiUar verdict. To be known to have made such a promise as jui'or, would suffice to brand a man with infamy. But assuming that he has been guilty enough to make it, and that he repents prior to the verdict, will it not be generally considered that he commits less evil by breaking his promise than by consummating an injustice? The indignation of mankind is directed, not against the violation of such a promise, but against the making it and the asking it. Were voting considered as a public trust, the like feeliug would prevail with respect to a voter. But it is considered as a matter pui-ely private and optional ; so that all which the public exacts of a voter is that he shall keep a promise when he has once made it ; and strenuous opposition has been raised to the Ballot, on the groimd that it woidd permit him to violate his promise without detection. Objectors on this ground forget that no promise, interfering with the due execution of a public trust, can be innocently made ; and that with respect to culpable j)romises, the desii'able object is to prevent them from being ever asked or ever made, not to ensure their strict observance after they are made — to preserve men from ever entangling themselves in that trying position, wherein they can only choose between violating a promise or forfeiting a trust. Now it is obvious that electors are much less likely to be called upon to promise when they vote secretly, than when they vote openly : and where few promises are asked, few jiromises can be broken : so that the fact which the objection assumes, that pro- mises will be habitually broken, is really untrue ; while the end is also attained, of removing one great temptation to an imdue species of promise. 42 ESSENTIALS I had the opportunity of being, present, a little before the French elections of June, 1830, at a private preliminary meeting of French electors in one of the arrondissements not far from Paris. About thirty electors met, to estimate the chances and to concert measures for the success of their candidate in the approaching contest. They called over the electoral list, and each person present pronounced respecting those whom he knew or those who lived near him, whether they were likely to be supporters or opponents. For such as were not thoroughly known, attempts were made to guess at their political sentiments or at their private partialities. But never was the slightest hint started of winning over a questionable voter by solicitation and intrigue, or of ap- proaching his bosom by those invisible bye-paths which an English electioneerer so skilfully explores. Such artifices appear to have been considered in France too degrading for any one except the agents of Charles X., who did indeed employ them as much as was practicable, and who of course spared no pains to nullify and elude the Ballot. Among the several objections- urged against the Ballot, there is one which not only admits, but is even founded upon, the marvellous debasement produced by the English system of open voting. Some persons allege that imder secret voting scarcely any elector would go to the poll : that when his vote could neither gratify a friend nor repay a benefactor, he could not be induced by a " cold sense of duty " to undertake the inconsiderable labour of going occasionally to a neighbouring voting place. So low is their estimate of the strength of the public affections amongst a community whom yet they describe as pre-eminently virtuous, and under a Government which they extol as little short of perfection ! To me such eulogies either on the people or on the Government seem little better than a childish self-adulation : yet I never could have supposed an average Englishman so dead to all public feeling, as to think a good member too dearly purchased at the cost of a short walk or ride — (for the labour of voting need be no OF TAELTAMENTARY REFORM. 43 greater) — once every year, or every two or three years. Assuming the fact, however, to be true, the expediency of a secret suffrage is not impeached by it. Though few votes be actually given, yet as every vote denotes a genuine preference and esteem, some rational ground is really ac- quired for believing the person chosen to be a superior man : whereas a hundred times the number of privately-determined votes proves literally nothing in favour of his competency as a Legislator. Better take the evidence of ten sincere truth-tellers, than that of a thousand suborned witnesses, who sj)eak without caring whether what they attest is true or false. Others object that the Ballot will be found in practice not to produce secrecy, inasmuch as a man may tell and will tell how he has voted. They omit to indicate at the same time the test whereby they mean to determine whether he speaks truth or falsehood. Of what value is a man's statement, when he may violate truth without any chance of detection, and when he has a direct interest in repelling tyrannical inquisition by justifiable deceit ? His vote may perhaps be guessed : but that is not enough ; it must be actually and positively known, before a patron can make his displeasure or his satisfaction contingent on the direction of it. And, indeed, the virulent opposition of the vote-commanders to the Ballot, plainly demonstrates how little faith they them- selves repose in this miserable quibble. There are others who exclaim loudly against the mischiefs of secrecy, and against the lying and hypocrisy of the Ballot, forgetting that they are themselves habitually employing it in their clubs, and that they can therefore scarcely be treated as serious when they brand it with such contumelious epithets elsewhere. Secrecy is good or bad according as it conduces to a good or a bad end : and in the case of voting, it may be proved to be essential to the most beneficent of all ends. And as a vote given by Ballot quickly comes to be ranged among matters unbecoming to pry into — ^just as no man ever thinks himself entitled to ask about the tenor 44 ESSENTIALS of his friend's will, or the amount of his property — so there really would be neither lying nor hypocrisy, except where a shameful intrusion had been employed to wring from the voter his secret, and where the lie was a pardonable shelter against the greater evil of oppression. " In order that all men (observes Dr. Johnson)* may be taught .to speak the truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it." When gentleness, sympathy, and tolerance of dissent shall liave become habits of action in the superior, evasion and concealment in the inferior will disappear of themselves. But until the former has thrown away his spear, it is monstrous to call upon the latter to perform his duty without a shield. But there is one argument against the Ballot which I never hear advanced without indignation. It is to be with- held because it would cut down the influence of the great proprietors. AVheresoever we turn in Eeform, these tre- mendous giants are posted to bar our progress — " Apparent dir« facies, inimicaque TrojaB Numina magna Deum." It is indeed true that the Ballot would materially abridge their influence : and any reform which did not effect that end would be hollow and delusive. Far from denying or disguising such a result, the advocates of the Ballot avow and exult in it. And they ask at the same time what peril would ensue if the influence of the great proprietors were so far cut down as to be proportioned to their individual wisdom and merit, not to the size of their rent-rolls ? In order that this class, against whom mankind have never yet provided adequate safeguards — insolent bullies and ravishers in the Grecian States; cruel ejectors of neigh- bouring poor proprietors in the Roman Republic; sticklers for the Fist-rightjt in the middle ages, against the growing * Bamhler, No. 96. t I take the liberty of translating literally the significant German compoimd Faust-recht. OF PAKLIAMENTAEY KEFORM. 45 ideas of law and order in the cities ; spoilers of the church property, for their own benefit, in the sixteenth century; auxiliaries of Charles Stuart against English liberty in the seventeenth ; authors, in the eighteenth and nineteenth, of the devouring war and the Corn Laws ; in an age of crime, the most high-handed criminals; in an enlightened time, the most obstinate foes of improvement. In order that this class may outbid friendless merit and ride down con- scientious opposition, are we to dupe the people with the spurious forms instead of the essence and virtue of an electoral security ? To cheat them with the outward and visible sign, while we rob them of the inward and spiritual grace ? To invest them with an important public trust, designing beforehand that they should barter it away each to his patron-aristocrat, and thus to efface in their minds, by Legislative authority, the idea of obligation to the com- munity ? The influence of these elevated beings must indeed be as the dew from Heaven, if it be worth purchasing at the cost of all the evils of a simulated suffrage. If tliey must have more votes than one — for the influence which they claim means nothing else — let them become three-star, four-star, or twenty-star men, leaving to the humbler citizen his one poor vote secret and free. It will be bad enough to exalt them thus into a privileged few : they may spare us the bitterness of making them, besides, extorters and corrupters of other men's votes. The importance of the Ballot, on every ground, as well in its direct and immediate as in its remote and in- direct effects, appears to me vast and overwhelming. But it cannot, undoubtedly, be rendered efiicacious, if the number of voters who concur to return a single member is permitted to be small. In that case, an opulent man might bribe them in the mass, covenanting to pay to each a certain sura after his election. But if the number be large, it will become too expensive thus to pay all in order to [)urchase a njajority. In my opinion, no section or district which returns a member ou";ht ever to consist of less than 2000 46 ESSENTIALS voters : every section ought to include an equal or nearly an equal number ; and if the necessity of obtaining a certain aggregate of returns out of a certain aggregate of voters permitted, it would be an improvement to make the number of voters in each electoral section even greater than 2000. Every increase in the number of secret votes, whereby a candidate is chosen, furnishes increased presumption of his superior qualifications. In this point of view, the number of members in the House of Commons becomes an important subject of dis- cussion, because the smaller its total, the greater the number of voters who can be allotted to each separate returning body. The present House would be found far too numerous for the dispatch of business, if all the members were con- stant at their posts. The real working persons in it are notoriously a very small proportion : two hundred, members constitute a large, three hundred a very large, attendance ; and questions which draw together a greater number than three hundred are rare and unusual indeed. Three hundred really assiduous members appear to me amply sujBScient to prosecute the business of legislation : and the surplus above that number, if any there were, would be found rather to impede than to forward the ends for which they are assembled. To lessen the total number of members, too, as much as can be done without delaying the public busi- ness, is advantageous in other ways: it renders the post itself more conspicuous and honourable: it fastens public attention more steadily upon each member's parliamentary conduct ; and it will of course be easier to find three hun- dred highly qualified persons in the country than five hundred, so as to avoid the necessity of resorting to a lower scale of intellect. If the aggregate of voters were a million, and the members returned to Parliament 300, no returning body need include less than 3300 voters : if the members of OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 47 Parliament were 500 in number, each returning body might then have 2000 voters allotted to it. A body of 2000 electors, voting secretly, and voting so as to occasion no expense, could not be tampered with by the most expert electioneerer. The member whom a majority of these return, must be a person of some public reputation ; a person believed to possess talent and worth, not merely equal, but much superior, to the average of his fellow-citizens. In looking over the manifold enormities of our present system of rejiresentation, it will generally be found that any one defect, if left uncorrected, suffices to neutralize the remedies applied to the rest. If voters are habitually called upon to vote at a distance, one of two consequences will ensue : either they will not vote at all, or they will find means to shift upon some one else the expense of their journey. In the first case, the benefit of their judgment is lost : in the second, solicitation, intrigue, and preponderance of the half-qualified rich man, are revived and rendered available. It is essential to any good system of voting, that an elector should vote at or near the place of his habitual residence. Any parish, any fraction of a parish, or any cluster of parishes, which comprised 200 voters, might have a separate polling-place, with proper apparatus : ten such being combined to form one returning body. Less than 200 (or such a proportion of them as chose to come) ought not to make use of the same ballotting-box : with a number smaller than this, secrecy could not be effectually guaran- teed. All the votes might thus be taken on the same day, with little inconvenience to any one, and hardly any neces- sary expense. The existing distinction into Town and County Elections, without any reference to the number of voters contained in each county or in each town, appears to me indefensible and injuri(nis in every way. The grand circumstance to be con- sidered in the electoral sub-divisions is the number of voters 48 ESSENTIALS included in each returning body, so as to ensure that no Member enters the House of Commons who has not ob- tained a certain minimum of votes, and so as to equalize, besides, the value of each man's vote, or the elective force vested in each voter. For, if one man votes in a returning body of 200, and another in a returning body of 2000, — the vote of the iii'st is worth ten times as much as the vote of the second : and comparing the elective force assigned to each, or the total effect which each is allowed to produce upon the representative body, the result is, as if the first man had ten votes and the second only one. It is obvious that such inequality, if pushed to a certain extent, would of itself be enough to corrupt a system of representation in- volving all the other requisite conditions ; nor can any reason be given why even a small inequality should be allowed. When the voters are polled in small fractions, at different places, and all on the same day, the enormous evils attending populous elections as now transacted would altogether dis- appear. The saturnalia of our present elections are enough to shock any reasonable man, and to alienate him, not only from the external show of popular control, but even from the people themselves. The riot, drimkenuess, and fighting in the streets, form an appropriate parallel and accompaniment to the low manoeuvres of electioneering leaders behind the scenes. Yet there are those who contend that these dis- graceful and noxious tumults are essential to the existence of public spirit, and that they serve to nurture both the sublime emotions and the sense of mutual right and duty which con- nect a man with his fellow-citizens. To me they appear no less inconsistent with genuine patriotism than with private decency. A great public question is discredited and rolled in the dirt by being converted into the war-whoop of a hired mob, in whom the fiction of a piiblic concern serves only to supersede the restraints of private life, without substituting any better feeling than that of devotion to their temporary employer. The band of sicarii organised by Clodius against OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 49 his enemies at Eome coiild not be more destitute of attach- ment to the public welfare. Indeed, the whole transaction is more akin to a pugilistic contest or a horse race, than to a selection between two opponents, each professing to be qualified for the grandest function which society has to fill up. The resemblance would be complete in almost all points, if the backers of pugilists were to carry into the ring banners inscribed with some popular question or high sounding abstract word : — Dutch Sam and the Ee volution of 1688! Neal and Purity of Election ! When the knuckles and wind of Dutch Sam had achieved a triumph, his friends would retire, confirmed in their attachment to the Revolution of 1688, and exulting in the idea that the victory just gained would do much to imprint its benefits on the public mind. There are some few cases of exception, even as matters are at present, where the population really take a sincere interest in the event of the election. But the evil of fixing one single place of voting, and of congregating men in large numbers about it, is still very great, though of a different character. Inflamed by one common sentiment, the crowd cannot be restrained from venting, either by words or by action, their antipathy against opposite voters, who are abused or pelted, so as to drive away the timid, and to furnish a pretence to the indolent for remaining at home. Such bursts of wrath, where no effective and tranquil system of control has as yet been organised on behalf of the people, may perhaps be pardonable against a flagitious statesman : against a private citizen, they are altogether vicious and inexcusable, and they fatally counteract the salutary lesson, so hardly learnt by any one, of tolerance towards disin- terested dissent. Nor does an election, so taken, exhibit a fair result of the judgment of all the voters nominally appealed to. Every evil incidental to elections would be done away with, and the eflicacy of the system as a means to good government greatly strengthened, if voters polled secretly, in small bodies, and in different places at the same time, E 50 ESSENTIALS One more fiddition remains to be made to the essentials of Parliamentary Reform : — increased frequency of election. A peaceful citizen, accustomed to elections as they are now, •may well feel repugnant to such invasions of his comfort at shorter periods; but when it has been■sho^vn that voting may be so conducted as to molest no man's tranquillity, a most injurious prepossession will be dispelled, on this truly important part of the field. Election for seven years certain has almost the same effect as election for life. So faintly is the imagination affected by a contingency seven years removed, that if a man can be trusted to do well for that long period, he might also be trusted to do well, though chosen for life. What would be said of the prudence of any one, who, having selected a particular attorney or physician, should enter into a contract binding himself to resort to no other for the same space of seven years? Would he not be universally considered to have taken the most effectual measure for making them remiss and indifferent ? On the other hand we find, in the actual course of affairs, that although a man may change his lawyer or physician any day, he very rarely does change : because these practi- tioners, knowing that if they do not give satisfaction, they will immediately lose business, take care to be attentive and zealous in their duty. I think it may be stated, as a general fact, that when a trust is revocable at pleasure, the person entrusted acts so as not to deserve displacement, and in general is not displaced. This is precisely what we desire to see happen with respect to Members of Parliament : and the mode of ensuring it will be, as in other cases, by conferring on them their trust for very short fixed periods. One year, in my opinion, would be quite sufficient, and better than any longer period : two years would be tolerable ; three years seriously objectionable on account of its length ; and any period longer than three years not to be entertained for a moment. Many persons are alarmed at the idea of annual elections. OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 51 as if they imported actual change of members every year. This would, indeed, be a very formidable evil, — an evil only less than that of retaining dishonest or incompetent members. I feel persuaded that their real operation would be directly the reverse : that a member would retain his seat longer under annual elections than under any other, because the security for his good conduct would be so much more com- plete. The ideas of accountability and obligation, and the necessity of maintaining a high reputation Avith the public, could never be absent from his mind : the shortness of the period would leave him little hope of making up the negli- gence of one month by increased diligence during the re- mainder; and as he would indulge a reasonable hope of re-election, if he only avoided occasioning painful disappoint- ment to his constituents, the motives to zeal and good con- duct would be really at their maximum. If a man possesses the confidence of an electoral body in 1831, and is under such paramount and continuous motives to do his very best, can he be supposed likely to lose it in 1832, except by some most rare and unusual occurrence ? On the other hand, if the certain duration of his trust be lengthened, the motives to the best possible discharge of it are proportionally en- feebled, and he is more likely to do or to omit something whereby he would deserve to forfeit, and would really forfeit, the confidence of his constituents. It is only under the shorter duration that the desirable result will be ensured, of members being continued, simply because they deserve to be continued, in possession of their trust. Some persons apprehend that annual elections would make a member too attentive to the approaching end of his trust, and that they would subjugate the independence of his private judgment too much to the voters by whom ho was to be re-choson or displaced. But it is to be recollected that a voting section constituted as I have supposed — voting by ballot, in small divisions, and without any separate local tie — would be nothing more than a fraction of the general public, and that, consequently, the same behaviour which E 2 52 ESSENTIALS sustained his reputation with the general public, would also sustain it with his own peculiar voters. The only prejudices, therefore, to which he will be called upon to bend, are those of the general public. To these every man must bend, more or less : and the only person who can hope to combat them effectually and beneficially? Avill be he who has established a high reputation on other grounds for wisdom and virtue. The motive to establish and sustain such a reputation will be highest in the bosom of the member chosen for a year, whose authority will therefore will be the greater when he stands up against any special prejudice. Nor do I imagine that he would be backward in such an opposition, so far as prudence will permit. For if he timidly chimes in with the prejudice, and if some bolder rival takes out of his hands the task of enlightening the public, comparative discredit is sure to await him. The path of evasion will be found hardly less dangerous, and far less elevating and satisfactory, than that of sincerity. Perhaps it may be contended, that according to the principles on which I have reasoned, annual elections would not be sufficiently frequent, and that monthly elections ought to be regarded as still better. To this I reply, first, that monthly elections would be a vast additional trouble to voters, without any adequate benefit. Secondly, that there are reasons which make a year preferable for this purpose to any shorter period. For it is desirable that the voters, when they exercise their privilege of re-choosing a member, should fix their eyes on his general reputation for worth and ability, more than on his conduct with reference to any particular question. This general estimate is the resulting impression, formed by surveying and laying to heart succes- sively a series of his acts and speeches, assisted by the criticisms which each of them may provoke from the organs of public discussion. The seat of the member ought, there- fore, to be assured for a period sufficiently long to include a certain number of various acts and speeches, so as to serve as a basis for that general estimate on which the voters ousjht OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 63 to proceed, and so as to prevent their judgment from being unduly absorbed by any one particular question. A year, in my opinion, is long enough to answer this condition per- fectly, and short enough to keep alive the most earnest sense of obligation in the bosom of the member. Though I regard a year as the best period, and any period longer than two years as seriously objectionable, yet I am far from denying that even triennial parliaments would be a prodigious improvement, in comparison with septennial, which are, as I have before observed, scarcely less pernicious than nominations for life. The conditions, then, of an effectual Parliamentary Keform, without alarming the middling classes by multiplying very poor voters in their present state of intelligence, are the following : — 1. An aggregate of voters not less than one million, formed of all persons enjoying the largest income. It has been stated that a pecuniary qualification of £100 annual income would embrace one million of voters: whether this be the fact or not, can only be verified by actual returns : but I think the qualification ought to be so adjusted as to be sure of embracing such an aggregate. 2. This aggregate of one million distributed into electoral divisions of equal or nearly equal numbers, coinciding as little as possible with separate class interests, or local inte- rests, and each voting for one member. 3. Electors to vote by ballot: in small bodies and at separate polling places, yet so that no body smaller than 200 shall be assigned to the same ballotting-box. Each election to be concluded in one day. 4. Parliaments on no consideration longer than triennial : better far, if biennial : better still, if annual. By these provisions alone, an enormous and incalculable gain would be assured : Ijut, to render them quite complete, they ought to be accompanied with a farther provision for 64 ESSENTIALS gradually lowering the suffrage at the end of some fixed period, say five years, so as to introduce successively new voters at the end of every five years, and to render the suffrage at the end of twenty or twenty-five years, nearly co-extensive with the community. The interval would be more than sufficient so to educate and prepare the minds of the poorer voters, as to obviate all ground for alarm on the part of the richer. It is but too certain, however, that we shall not at the present moment acquire even our million of voters with the requisite accompanying precautions : so that it becomes a matter important to determine, since all of the first four provisions cannot be obtained, which of them can be least injuriously postponed, and which of them ought to be most strenuously insisted on. AVhatever else may be postponed, let no man for a moment think of laying aside the Ballot. This is the vast and grand amendment, in the absence of which every other concession would be imavailing and nugatory. Without secret voting there cannot be public-minded voting : and without public- minded voting, men worthy to be legislators can neither be singled out nor preferred — scarcely even created. Under a numerous and equally distributed open suffrage, it is possible that the mutes and idlers in the present House might be replaced by active and stirring gentlemen, and that what Mr. Tennyson calls " the inert physical mass " of the Hous© might thus be lightened. But the voters, though increased in number, would still persist in their rooted habit of voting from desire to oblige, from fear to offend, or from personal sympathy or kindness of one description or another: the election committee and the canvass would still be the grand instruments of success ; and the most promising candidate would be he who, steering his political course midway between truth and falsehood, so as to offend no one, could create the most favourable impression by seducing manners, by overflowing politeness, and by officious attentions. It is not from such a school that the men are to be drawn, OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 55 uuder whose guardianship we may lay down our heads in peace, and to whose mandates or exactions we should cheerfully submit, under the conviction that they emanated from tried wisdom and benevolence. It is only when the vote, secured by secrecy, stands upon grounds quite distinct from the ordinary track of private affections and sympathies, that the elector will look out for that assemblage of public qualities which the magnitude of the trust really calls for. Then only will such qualities be sought, and then only will they be found. To gain the Ballot, it would be amply worth while to make concessions as to the number of voters, if we were compelled to take our choice between the two. Though I could not place full confidence in an aggregate of voters much smaller than a million, I should greatly prefer 500,000 voters, qualified by superiority of income, along with the Ballot, to 2,000,000 of voters without it. If the House of Commons were reduced in number to 300, an aggregate of 500,000 voters would allow of 1660 voters for each electoral division. A suffrage, narrowed even to this nearly oligar- chical limit, but accompanied by the Ballot and by triennial parliaments, would afford a great and salutary opening to superior minds and to men of public reputation, and a com- fortable foretaste of better things to come. NOTICE SIR WILLIAM MOLES WORTH'S EDITION WORKS OF HOBBES. {The 'Si'eotatur' Newspajier, 1839.) NOTICE SIE WILLIAM MOLESWORTH'S EDITION WORKS OF HOBBES. The pliilosopliical public are much iudebted to Sir William Moleswortli for this new edition of the works of Hobbes,* which he is in course of publishing, and of whicli two volumes, one English and one Latin, are now lying on our table. A complete body of the worlcs of this eminent man has be- come almost unattainable. No full and authorised collection of them was ever published : and the only two partial col- lections that appeared — the two Latin volumes in quarto, printed at Amsterdam in 16G8, and the English volume in folio, printed in London in 1750 — are each very scarce and extravagantly dear. There are, besides, many other tractates, which exist only in their separate state, and cannot be pro- cured at all without much difficulty. No new edition, even of the best and most instructive of Hobbes's treatises, has ever been presented to the public for the last century and a half, with the single exception of the English folio in 1750. This neglect is not very creditable to the intellectual character of the nation ; and the causes of it, when we trace them out * Tliomas, Hohhes Malmeshuriensis Opera Philosophica quoi Lafine scripsit Omnia, in unum corpus muic primum collccta studio et luboi'o Guliclmi Molcswortb. Vol. I. " . " :" The Erujllsh Works of TJiomas Ilohhes of Malmesbunj ; now first collcctod and edited hy Sir William Molesworth, Bart. Vol. I. 60 NOTICE OF MOLESWORTH'S EDITION in detail, suggest very discouraging conclusions as to tlie spirit infused into the English reading classes by our systems of education. It is indeed ti-ue, that, in regard to physical and mathe- matical researches, Hobbes and all his contemporaries (if we except only Newton) have been so much outstripped and left behind by succeeding inquirers, as to leave to their works no other interest than that of historical curiosity. There is, moreover, interspersed throughout tlie works of Hobbes, a good deal of the theological polemics so fashionable in his time — controversies respecting the interpretation of Scriptural passages, and attempts to show that his conclusions in morals and politics are sustained by the authority of the sacred writings, or at least are perfectly reconcileable with that authority. In the same age, and in a similar spirit, Algernon Sydney, throughout his ' Treatise on Government,' seeks to demonstrate at length that Democracy is the form of polity which the Scriptures especially sanction. Such references to the facts and sayings of the Bible, although they have now passed out of date and are no longer regarded as relevant to political discussions, were almost universal in the controversies of the seventeenth century. These considerations in part explain the little attention which has been paid to Hobbes's writings by the ages which have succeeded him. But let it be observed, that both the imperfection in the mode of physical reasoning and the intermixture of Scriptural polemics, is more predominant in the writings of Lord Bacon than in those of Hobbes ; yet the former nevertheless occupies a prominent place in the library of reading men, and is constantly cited with a kind of superstitious reverence as the " Master of Wisdom," to use an expression of the late Sir James Mackintosh, in his Pre- liminary Dissertation to the Encyclopaedia. There is doubt- less much of striking remark, of enlarged anticipation and of aphoristic and illustrative expression, scattered throughout Lord Bacon's works ; but we venture to affirm, that in all those qualities which go to make up the philosophical inves- OF THE WORKS OF IIOBBES. 61 tigator — in the clear apprehension and searching analysis of intellectual difficulties, in systematic following out of deduc- tions from his premises, in perspicuous exposition of the most perplexed subjects, and in earnest application of his mind to the discovery of the truth, whether the truth when attained be of a welcome or of an unwelcome character — in all these great mental endowments, the superiority of Hobbes to Bacon is most decisive and unquestionable. If we look even for short and pithy sentences, fit to be quoted with efifect, we shall find at least as many in the works of the former as in those of the latter. To what causes, then, are the marked neglect and the comparative discredit of Hobbes to be attributed ? Had the tendency of English education been such as to inspire the reading public with any sincere love of truth, or with any- serious anxiety to verify their own conclusions on the most important topics connected with human society — had it not been unfortunately the fact, as Bishop Butler has remarked, that even amongst the number of persons who desire to know ivhat has heen said, not one in a hundred cares to find out ivhat is true — we are persuaded that the moral, the meta- physical, and the political works of Hobbes would have been considered as entitled to a very distinguished place in the esteem of every instructed man. For, in order to peruse them with interest and advantage, it is by no means neces- f5ary that the reader should sit down with the submissive faith of a disciple, or that he should acquiesce implicitly in the conclusions which he finds laid out for him. No frame of mind can be less suitable for the perusal of Hobbes, who addresses himself exclusively to the rational convictions of every man, and who disdains, more perhaps than any other philosopher ancient or modern, all indirect and underhand methods of procuring mere passive adhesion. There is a fearless simplicity and straightforwardness in his manner, "which, while it conveys his own meaning without reserve, operates at the same time most powerfully to awaken a train of original reflection in the reader ; and this fruit of his G2 NOTICE OF MOLESWOETH'S EDITION writings, rare and valuable to the last degree, is admitted even by the least friendly critics. " Hobbes is a writer," says Dugald Stewart, " who redeems his wildest paradoxes by the new lights which he strikes out in defending them." Mr. Stewart's eulogy is qualified by a censure which is alto- gether undeserved ; for there is nothing in Hobbes's opinions which can with any justice be called wild paradox. There are some conclusions which are untrue, and others which are only partially true ; there are also some which appear to be paradoxical because the qualifications necessary to be annexed to them are not carefully stated. The most unsound of all his opinions is the fiction of an original covenant as the proximate basis of government and of its obligations ; but this is neither a discovery of his own nor does he stand at all alone in the support of it. The remark just cited from Dugald Stewart, less unjust, indeed, than the greater number of the criticisms levelled at Hobbes, exhibits one of the many impediments which have circumscribed the reputation and the influence of this eminent thinker amongst those who succeeded him. He dared to depart from received opinions ; and not only from those opinions which were current among the Aristotelians of liis own day (for that would have been considered by Mr. Stewart as a title to admiration), but also from the opinions prevalent among the greater number of metaphysical writers of the present day, and Avhich the Scotch school, the least analytical of all writers who ever meddled with philo- sophy, have taken under their especial protection. But it is not simply to his deviation from received and popular methods of thinking, that the subsequent discredit of Hobbes as a philosoj)her is to be attributed. He not only questioned customary prejudices, but he also exasperated powerful classes of men, and especially that class which is rarely offended with impunity — the priests. It was essential to his principles of government to j^rove that there could be only one supreme power in the state, and that the eccles- iastical power both must be and ought to be subordinate to OF THE WOEKS OF HOBBES. 63 the civil. Such a doctrine was well calculated to rouse the antipathies both of the Roman Catholic and of the Pres- byterian clergy ; but we might have expected that the clergy of the Church of England would have listened to it witli patience since they could not well forget that their brethren, from the time of Henry the Eighth down to Elizabeth, had altered more than once both their faith and their discipline in obedience to the secular authority. Yet so it happened, that the clergy of the Church of England were no less irritated than the Eoman Catholics with this doctrine of the inherent supremacy of the civil power ; and Hobbes became the object of fierce hatred from ecclesiastics of all deno- minations. He tells us, in his own curious autobiography, written in Latin verse, which appears in the first volume of Sir William Molesworth's edition, page xciv— " Leviathan clerum at totum mihi fecerat hostem ; Hostis Theologum nidus uterque fuit. Nam dura Papalis Kcgni contrecto tumorem, Hos, licet abscisses, Ifedere visus eram. Contra Leviathan, jH'imo, convicia scribimt, Et causa, ut tanto j^lus legeretur, erant." Whatever effect the clergy may have unintentionally pro- duced in promoting the circulation of the ' Leviathan ' during Hobbes's life, has been effectually reversed since his death. Their unanimous outcry has branded him with the stigma of impiety and atheism, and placed his writings on the index of prohibited books. Nevertheless, there is not, so far as we are aware, a single sentence in his writings which either discloses such sentiments in himself, or is calculated to in- spire them in others : the tone in which he speaks both of religion and of the Divine Being is uniformly reverential. But the denimciations of the clergy, however unfounded, have not been the less successful : the works of Hobbes have been decried as irreligious, and this is one powerful reason why they have been comparatively so little studied. We may add, that Hobbes incurred the enmity of the clergy, not 64 NOTICE OF MOLESWORTH'S EDITION simply by overthrowing their pretensions to a jurisdiction independent of the civil power, but also by exposing their glaring defects as teachers of youth and administrators of the Universities. The passages in which this exposure is performed are among the most striking and emphatic of all his writings. It might have been anticipated that the man who incurred so much obloquy by his protest against sacerdotal ascend- ency, would at least have been signally extolled by that civil power the importance of which he took so much pains to magnify. But no such countenance was shown to him. And it is a remarkable testimony to the single-minded purpose and really philanthropic spirit which pervade his works, that they have never found favour with the common- place rulers of mankind. A sovereign like Frederick the Second of Prussia, both animated with beneficent intentions towards his subjects and possessing sufficient force of per- sonal character to conceive and work out his designs, might perhaps take delight in the relation of subject and govern- ment as depicted by Hobbes. But the monarchical form, as it has commonly existed, and still continues to exist, in most countries of Europe, has been a government not of the monarch alone, but of the monarch in confederacy with various powerful classes and fraternities, which have aided him in keeping down the people, and whose interest has been much more at variance with the public good than the interest of the monarch himself. Now the doctrine of Hobbes, despotic as it may be, is at any rate an equalizing doctrine ; not sanctioning the en- thronement of any favoured or predominant class to inter- cept for themselves the rays emanating from the governing power, but enforcing a like claim on the part of every subject to partake in this common benefit. Such recognition of a supreme power nakedly and simply, apart from its accom- panying congeries of auxiliary sinister interests, and exerting itself without favour or preference for the protection of the entire people, might have found favour at court had it OF THE WORKS OF HOBBES. 65 been published under the vigorous and self-directing Queen Elizabeth ; but it was not likely to be of much avail to its author, either during the precarious tenure of the Common- wealth or amidst the intrigues and personal helplessness of Charles the Second.* In truth, it is this repudiation of all * The Leviathan was published in London in 1652, during the time of the Commonwealth, while Charles the Second was an exile at Paris, and while Hobbes was at Paris also. The expatriated Eoyalists who surrounded Charles, many of them zealous Church- men and scholars of the Universities, read it with the strongest repugnance, and denounced it as an apology for Cromwell. Hobbes became the object of their bitter enmity, and was even forbidden to appear in presence of the young king, though he had jjreviously officiated as his mathematical teacher. So violent was the enmity of the Eoyalists, that Hobbes was actually afraid that they would assassinate him ; and he called to mind the fate of Dr. Dorislaus and Mr. Ascham, ambassadors of the English Commonwealth at the Hague and Madrid, who had both been murdered by Eoyalist assassins in those capitals. Such was his apprehension, that he, the loyal tutor of Charles the Second, foimd himself compelled to leave Paris immediately, and to seek protection under the Common- wealth of England. It was mid-winter, and the snow was on the ground : he had to undertake the joui'uey at this inclement season, though he was then sixty-four years of age, with bad roads and upon a tumbledown horse. On arriving in London he rei)orted himself to the Council of State ; who did not in any way molest him : every man in England (he says) might study or write what he chose, provided he would be content to live " more loci." His own account of these events — his estimate of the morality of the Eoyalists, and his idea of the character of those councillors by whom both Charles the First and Charles the Second were guided — is eminently curious : — " Lutetiam ad regem multis vcnit indo scholaris Expulsus patria, tristis, egcims, onuH. Hue fiiit usque meis studiis pax, multiplicata Dum faoerent annos octo per octo mcos : Sed meus ille liber [i.e. Leviathan] simul atque scholaribns illis Lectus erat, Jani dissi lucre fores. Nam Regi accuser falsr), quasi facta probarcm Impia Cromwelli, jus sceleriquc darem. 66 NOTICE OF MOLESWORTH'S EDITION idea of privileged classes — falsely calling themselves checks upon the supreme power, but in reality fraternising with it and perverting it to their own purj)oses — which has con- tributed to render the political theories of Hobbes odio«s in England, quite as much as his denial of constitutional securities to the people at large. He has paid the forfeit of his anti-oligarchical as much as of his anti-popular ten- dencies. Again, it is a standing reproach against his political writings, that they degrade the dignity of mankind : and this imputation may be well founded, if we compare them with the best and most liberal theories of government. But if we compare them with any political doctrines which have ever been generally recognised or practically acted upon in England, we shall find them the very reverse of degrading. The system of Hobbes is based wholly upon the willing and deliberate submission of the people to their existing rulers ; which he professes to obtain simply by appealing to their reason, and by demonstrating that submission is essential to their safety as well as to their comfort. Such a doctrine both supposes and favours the widest diffusion of intelligence among the body of the people ; and the French Economists, who reproduced a similar system in the last half of the eighteenth century, laid greater stress upon this necessary basis of universal instruction, than upon any other part of their reasonings. Contrast the state of passive and animal subservience to which the non-voting multitude have always been held bound in the theories most current among English CredituT ; adversis in partibus esse videbar ; Perjietutj jubeor Regis abesse domo. Tunc venit in mentem mihi Dorhlaus, et AscJiam Tanquam proscripto terror ubique aderat. Nee de rege queri lictiit. Nam tunc adolescens Credidit ille, quibus credidit ante pater. In patriam redeo tutelae uon bene certus, Sed nullo potui tutior esse loco : Frigus erat, nix alta, senex ego, ventus acerbus ; Vexat equus sternax et salebrosa via." — (P. xciii.) OF THE WORKS OF HOBBES. 67 politicians, with the rational obedience and exercised under- standing supposed by Hobbes and the French Economists, and we are very sure that it is not the latter who will appear chargeable with inculcating principles debasing to the human race. The persons most interested in these writings, within our own observation, have usually been men of Radical principles, who entertained the loftiest ideas both of the functions of government and of the possible training of the people — men who agreed with Hobbes in his antipathy to those class-interests which constitute the working forces of modern pseudo-representative monarchy — but who differed from him by thinking that their best chance for combining rational submission on the part of the governed with enlarged and beneficent views on the part of the governors, was to be found in a well-organised representative system. The moral and metaphysical doctrines of Hobbes have not escaped similar charges to those which have been advanced against his politics. He deduced all the passions, appetites, and sympathies of man from the simple feelings of pleasure and pain ; he derived moral obligation from the rational desire entertained by every man of his own conservation and happiness ; he judged of moral right and wrong by the test of utility. These doctrines are disagreeable to a large pro- portion of readers and writers, as giving a degrading repre- sentation of the human race ; and the censure which they have drawn upon the author has been another of the causes which have operated to restrict the circle of his readers. Woe to the philosopher who will not condescend to flatter in his picture of man ! Divines in the pulpit may depict the incorrigible wickedness of man in tlie darkest and most over- charged colours, and their sermons are extolled by every religious person ; but let any moralist so conduct his analysis of the human heart, as to bring out a result not congenial to the sympathies of sentimentalists, and he sets the reading public against him ; he is refuted beforehand, or worse than refuted, for he is laid aside unread. It seems to us that this disposition — to test metaphysical tenets by examining, nut F 2 " 68 NOTICE OF MOLESWORTH'S EDITION wliether they are true and can be substantiated by sufficient evidence, but whether the admission of them as truths would tend to exhibit man as a better and more admirable being — has become more fashionable of late years than ever it was before ; at least it has been largely adopted by the Scotch metaphysicians, as well as by the modern French school (an emanation from the Scotch), in their multiplied attacks on the French pliilosophy of the eighteenth century. And the frequency of such attacks is to us a proof that, however much physical science, which has no adverse predispositions to conquer, may have been enlarged and perfected in its details, there is very little of reverence among us for the purity of philosophical truth. For the argument really in- volved in this mode of handling the question is, that the truth or falsehood of any position in morals is a matter of small moment ; that although it be true, it ought to be stifled and put down, if the belief of it would tend to lower our estimate of human nature ; and that although, it be false, it ought to be held sacred and unquestioned, if it would lead us to entertain a higher notion of our species. This is not indeed expressly stated, perhaps it is not deliberately in- tended, by those who run down Hobbes as preaching tenets debasing to human nature ; but unless it be assumed as a postulate, the cry against him on such a groimd can hare neither force nor meaning. To admit or reject particular doctrines, not on account of the weight of affirmative or negative evidence, but on accoimt of the inferences to which they may give rise respecting the excellence or turpitude of human nature, is in effect to sub- vert the whole scientific edifice of moral and metaphysical philosophy — to degrade the science into a mere assemblage of conventional fictions, which it is dangerous to scrutinise and criminal to overthrow. The less analytical philosophers have been generally but too ready to employ this method of discrediting those who pushed the process of analysis further than themselves, unconscious that they were at the same time undermining the fabric and destroving the trust- OF THE WORKS OF HOBBES. 6U worthiness even of such doctrines as were common to both. If Hobbes had spoken of human nature in terms of the most stinging Cynicism, or with the sternness of an Antinomian divine, it would still have been unworthy of sound philo- sophy to employ this method of refuting him ; but, in reality, he has dealt in no such unmeasured censure. He speaks of mankind like a shrewd and penetrating observer, applying his remarkable powers of analysis to the phenomena which he saw before him. Sir James Mackintosh complains that Hobbes " strikes the affections out of his map of human nature : " and others have alleged in like manner that he denies the existence of any benevolence in man, because he treats the benevolent as well as the other affections as being not inherent or original, but as derivative, and resolvable into the primary sentiments of pleasure and pain. It is common with metaphysicians of the Scotch school to rej^re- sent such a doctrine as tantamount to a denial of the exist- ence and efficacy of the benevolent affections: but this is a great injustice ; for our compound and derivative feelings are just as real, and just as much a part of human nature, as our simple and original feelings. And it would be full as reasonable to say that Bishop Berkeley, when he showed that the perception of distance by the eye 'nas not original, but acquired, denied the reality of the visual power in human nature — as to accuse Hobbes of disputing the fact that there were benevolent affections, because he disputes their title to originality. Undeserved as the accusations against Hobbes are, they have been repeated by so many mouths, and echoed so loudly by the many powerful classes whose hostility he provoked, that he has been condemned to comparative oblivion and discredit with posterity : a memorable contrast to the incessant controversial attack of which he was the object throughout the greater part of his life. He followed the impulse of his own fearless and original intellect, without taking any pains to conciliate the distributors of fame ; and assuredly he has found no mercy at their hands. The 1 NOTICE OF MOLESWORTH^ EDITION injustice of which they have been guilty towards him, however, may even yet he partially repaired ; at least the chance of such reparation will be increased by this new and convenient edition of his works. The long life of Hobbes, from 15S8 to 1679. covered most remarkable changes both in politics and in philosophy. He was the son of a clergyman at Malniesbury ; was sent early to Oxford ; and was recommended on leaving Magdalen College to be the tVllow-student and companion of the Earl of Devonshire, with whom he passed no less than twenty veai-s, until the Earl's decease, — years, as he himself says, by far the happiest of his whole life, which often afforded him ijrateful dreams in his old age ; for he had ample leisure, a large command of books, and the opportunity of travelling with his patron and friend over a large portion of the Conti- nent. On the death of this nobleman, after a short interval spent at Paris, he officiated as tutor to the young Earl ; in wliich capacity he remained seven years, partly occupied in travelling with his pupil. His studies during this early part of his life seem to have been chiefly classical and literary ; and it was during this period that he executed his translation of Thucvdides, in whom he delighted more than in any other Grecian author, and who confirmed him in that aversion to democracy and civil broils to which his constitutional timiditv naturally predisposed him. It was not before the age of fortv that he began to addict himself to mathematical or philosophical studies. When about that age, according to Aubrev, in the library of a friend he accidentally opened a copy of Euclid at the 47th Proposition of the 1st Book; and on reading the Theorem, he was so astonished that he exclaimed — " Bv God, this is impossible!" nor was he satisfied until he had studied the preceding demonstrations back to the commencement. From henceforward his meditations were larfjelv turned towards mathematics and physics ; a dispo- sition which was much encouraged by the convei-sation of Father Merst-nne at Paris. Father Mersenne formed the centre of a philosophical society in that capital ; and Hobbes OF THE WORKS OF HOBBES. 71 dwells with deliglit and gratitude both on his devotion to science, and on the disinterested zeal with which he bent himself to promote the studies of his friends. The physical ind mathematical reasonings of Hobbes were embodied in :he treatise ' De Corpore ; ' the completion of w hich, however, .vas long postponed and much interrupted, first by the -reatise ' De Give,' next by the ' Leviathan,' lastly by the 3ssays ' On Human Nature ' and ' De Corpore Politico.' The last two, together with the ' Discourse on Liberty and Neces- sity,' constitute what is called the ' Tripos.' In 1640, he quitted England for Paris, in consequence of the menacing aspect of politics and the approach of the civil war. In 1652, the offence caused to the Royalists at Paris by the publication of the ' Leviathan ' compelled him, as we have already mentioned, to return to England ; which he never afterwards quitted. His declining years, to the time af his death, were passed at Chatsworth. The former Earl of Devonshire, with whom he had passed twenty years as a com- panion, had bequeathed to him an annuity, which sufficed for his very modest wants, and even enabled him to make over his small landed patrimony to his nephew. We have left ourselves no space for any detailed account 3f the contents of the two volumes which Sir William Moles- worth has already published. The treatise ' De Corpore ' is contained in both, the Latin in one, the English in the other : to the first is prefixed his Latin biography, together with the ' Yitse Hobbianse Auctarium,' which had already appeared in the previous folio edition. We will ouly remark, that the first two sections of the treatise ' De Corpore,' entitled ' Com- putatio, sive Logica,' and 'Philosophia Prima,' appear to us among the most instructive and valuable of his works ; exhi- biting a rare combination of analytical sagacity with condensed and perspicuous expression, and assisting most poweri'uUy to unravel those extreme abstractions, without the compre- hension of which no man can successfully cope with the diiliculties of mental philosophy. We trust it will enter into the scheme of fSir William 72 NOTICE OF THE WORKS OF HOBBES. IMolesworth to annex to his edition of this distinguished man a critical biography and a coherent exposition of the sequence and modifications of his philosophical tenets. The great lines Avhich connect them with each other are indeed sufficiently marked out by Hobbes — De Corpore, De Homine, De Give : but much might be done by an able biographer in furnishing the requisite illustrations and elucidations ; and a more stirring period, either in politics or in philosophy, is scarcely to be found throughout the range of history. It seems highly probable, that if the English political troubles had not broken out in 1640, the whole intellectual career of Hobbes would have been greatly altered : he woidd have been much more eminent as a mathematician and physical philosopher, and much less known as a writer on politics. Both the treatise ' De Give ' and the ' Leviathan ' were the direct offspring of the English civil war ; and he himself tells us that they broke very unseasonably the continuity of his mathematical and physical studies. GRECIAN LEGENDS AND EAELY HISTORY. (Wedmiitster Bevieio, 1843.) GRECIAN LEGENDS AND EARLY HISTORY. The short volume* which we here introduce to the notice of our readers derives its principal value from the great name of its author — a name which no man who takes interest in historical studies can pronounce without veneration and gratitude. If we regard Niebuhr with reference to erudition alone — copious, accurate, and available erudition — he oc- cupies a place in the foremost rank, and few indeed are the authors entitled to a station along with him. But when we consider, besides, his wonderful ingenuity in combining scattered facts, his piercing eye for the detection of latent analogies, and for the separation of leading points of evidence from that crowd of accessories under which they often lie concealed, his power of recomposing the ancient world by just deduction from small fragments of history, like the inferences of Cuvier from the bones of fossil animals — when we take these rare mental attributes, operating upon the vast mass of materials which his erudition supplied to them, he seems to us to stand alone, even among so many distin- guished countrymen and contemporaries. Moreover, the moral nature of Niebuhr was distinguished not only by a fearless love of truth, but by a quality yet more remarkable among literary men — by a hearty sympathy with the mass of the people — a disposition not simply to compassionate them as sentients, which is sufficiently common, but to ap- * Griechische Heroen GescMchten. Von B. G. Niebuhr an scinen Sohn crzfihlt. Hamburg, 1842. Grecian Heroic Stories ; related by B. G. Niebulir to hi« Son. 76 GRECIAN LEGENDS preciate them candidly as agents, — to treat their sentiments and motives with respect, and even their mistakes with charitable censure. We are not disposed to maintain that Niebuhr is always right in his judgments ; far from it : but even the errors of so original a mind are constantly sug- gestive ; and we feel assured, that to every person who has studied his writings with attention, the evidences respecting the ancient world of Greece, as well as of Kome, will aj)pear in a point of view totally different to that in which they had presented themselves before. Like our own lamented Dr. Arnold, a worthy second both in historiographic intellect and in moral candour, Niebuhr was snatched from the world in the full maturity of his career, before he had had time to bring his great work to completion. To these two capital losses we have to add that of K. O. Miiller, best known to the English world by his history of the Dorians — an author of great performance and still greater promise, cut off in the prime of life, a victim to his zeal for the prosecution of personal researches in Greece. Fatally have the arrows of Apollo told, during tlie last few years, among the chiefs of the classical camp ! The volume before us contains portions of the early heroic legends of Greece, prepared by Niebubr himself for the special purpose of being recounted to his son Marcus, then a very young boy. From a short preface by the son, who has now published them, we learn the vivid and ineffaceable impression which they made upon his youthful feelings ; enforced as the narratives were by the earnest interest both of the father and of the philologer, and illustrated by those references to the visible remains of antiquity which a resi- dence in Rome abimdantly furnished. Marcus Niebuhr dwells emphatically on the delight which he recollects to have felt when he discovered, or thought that he discovered, the cave of Cacus on the Aventine Mount ; and the endless comparisons, suggested by his father's stories about Her- t.'ules, with the bas-reliefs and sarcophagi in the Vatican. Niebuhi- has prepared, for the object here described, three AND EARLY HISTOEY. 77 separate narratives : — 1. The expedition of the Argonauts. — 2. The various legends of Hercules. — 3. The Heracleids and Orestes : — but the narratives do, in point of fact, run over a much wider field of Grecian heroology, comprising more or less reference to the hunting of the Calydonian boar, the two sieges of Thebes, and the second siege of Troy by Agamemnon, as well as the first by Hercules. The recital is simple, neat, and we may even say, touching ; displaying great address in presenting the stories so as to be clearly apprehended by a very young boy, and forming a remarkable contrast to the difficulty which we often lament to find in the style of his elaborate work. More interesting narratives, for boy as well as man, no book of fairy tales can supply : nor do we know where a father or a preceptor can find them so fitly arrayed as in this affectionate memento of the illustrious historian of Kome. One farther merit they have, which we may call peculiarly Niebuhrian. They are given in their literal integrity as legends, instead of being squeezed and tortured into au- thentic history ; they preserve all the fanciful sequences, the supernatural meddling, and the predominance of indi- vidual personality, which characterise the former, and are no way tamed down into the measured march, the constant laws of nature, and the political aim and agency, which prevail throughout the latter. We call this distinction between legend and history Niebuhrian, because we believe that the first volume of the history of Eome originally enforced it \\ ith fulness and efficiency on the literary world, though it has now been adopted by various eminent names, and has become at least extensively imderstood, though not universally admitted. Dr. Arnold has carried it thoroughly out in the early part of his Roman history, and Mr. JMacaulay, in the preface to his beautiful ' Lays of Ancient Rome,' has illustrated it by many striking observations, to which we rejoice to think that his book \\ill give extensive currency. • Dr. Thirlwall's ' History of Greece,' in which the primitive 78 GRECIAN LEGENDS ages are most correctly appreciated,, and the translation of K. 0. MUller's * History of the Dorians,' ought to have familiarised the English reader with the distinction between legend and history in regard to Greece, no less than in regard to Rome. But we suspect that the result produced in this direction has hardly been commensurate with the merit of these two excellent works. The idea of a basis of authentic matter of fact, pervading the Grecian heroology, and only transformed into the shape in which we read it by amplification, or poetical ornament, or mistake, — is so deeply rooted in the English mind, that reasonings on the opposite side require to be often repeated before they work con- viction. Certain it is that every youth who goes through a classical education repeats the date of the sieges of Troy and Thebes with as much confidence in the reality of those events as in that of the siege of Syracuse by Nicias. More- over, the recent work on Grecian chronology by Mr. Fynes Clinton, — so full both of condensed learning and of valuable reasoning in respect to the historical ages, — retains to a great degree what we think ancient errors in regard to the heroic ages ; it carries up the series of real personages to a period 800 years earlier than the first Olympiad, and it recites even Hercules, the hero of these tales of Niebuhr, and Phoroneus, the Argeian Adam, as if they were certified flesh and blood, the genuine predecessors of those who lived and moved during the Peloponnesian war ; while the partial concessions which the author makes to the opposite opinion serve only to render his remaining positions inconsistent as well as untenable. Considering the well-earned authority of Mr. Clinton's Chronology, we think it not altogether superfluous to employ a few pages in illustrating the true cha- racter of early Grecian history ; and the Heroen Geschichten of Niebuhr forms a suitable text to awaken such reflections. Obvious as the remark seems, it still requires to be re- peated, we are sorry to say, in regard to Grecian history — that the onus prohandi as to every alleged matter of fact rests upon the historian. AND EARLY HISTORY. 79 Now, when any statement is brought before the public as alleged matter of fact, there is a disposition almost universal to believe, that, though the whole be not deserving of credit, a part of it at least must be true — that, though allowance is to be made, more or less as the case may be, for exaggera- tion or perversion, there must be some foundation of reality upon which the narrative has been raised. The maxim, " Fortiter calumniare, semper aliquid restat," is founded upon a just estimate of human impressibility : and the most mendacious and discredited newspaper exercises on the long run more influence over men's belief than they are at all willing to admit. Taking this as a mere general presumption, we allow that it is more frequently correct than erroneous — at least with reference to contemporary matters, and in an age of copious historical investigation and criticism like the present. But though, under such limitations, we concede the reasonable- ness of the general presumption, we think that it is even now cai'ried much farther than it ought to be. Distributing all the accredited narratives which float in society into three classes — accurate matter of fact, exaggerated matter of fact, and entire, though plausible, fiction — the last class will be found to embrace a very considerable proportion of the whole. They are tales which grow out of, and are accom- modated to, the prevalent emotions of the public among whom they circulate : they exemplify and illustrate the partialities or antipathies, the hopes or fears, the religious or political sentiments of a given audience. There is no other evidence to certify them, indeed, except their plausibility : but that title is amply sufficient ; the man who recounts what seems to fill up gaps or solve pre-existing difficulties in the minds of his hearers, runs little risk of being cal!ed upon to name an auctor secundus for his story. The love of new plausibility is as common as the love of genuine and ascertained truth is rare ; questions of positive evidence are irksome to almost every one : and the historian, wlio desires general circulation, casts all such discussions into an 80 GRECIAN LEGENDS appendix, of which he knows that the leaves will remain uncut. What is worse still — when one of these verisimilia has once been comfortably domiciled in a man's mind, if you proceed to apply to it the test of positive evidence, in all probability he will refuse to listen to you ; but should you unhappily succeed in showing, that the story includes some chronological or geographical inconsistencies which no sub- tlety can evade, be assured that he will look upon you with emotions not very different from those with which he con- templates the dentist — if he be not ready " to bite you outright " (to use the homely phrase of Socrates in Plato's Theaetetus, c. 22), he will at least alter his course the next time he sees you afar off in the street. To illustrate what we have just laid down — the genesis of this specious and plausible fiction, so radically distinct from exaggerated or misreported reality — we will cite an example having reference to a celebrated genius, not very long de- ceased. In the works of Lord Byron, j)ublished by Mr. Moore (vol. xi, p. 72), we find the ' Manfred ' of the great English poet criticised by one greater than himself — by a person no less than Goetlie. A portion of that criticism runs as follows : " We find thus, in this tragedy, the quintessence of the most astonishing talent born to he its own tonneutor. The character of Lord Byron's life and poetry hardly permits a just and equitable appreciation. He has often enough confessed what it is that tor- ments him.^ There are, properly speaking, two females whose phantoms for ever haunt him, and icliich [we cite the translation as we find it]- in this piece also, j)erform principal parts — one under the name of Astarte, — the other without form or presence, and merely a voice. Of the horrid occurrence which took place with the former, the following is related : — When a hold and enterprising young man, lie won the affections of a Florentine lady. Her husband discovered the amour, and murdered his icife ; hut tJie murderer teas the same night found dead in the street, and there icas no one on whom suspicion could he attached. Lord Byron removed from Florence, and these spirits haunted him all his life after. This romantic incident is rendered highly probable by innumerable allusions to it in his poems." AND EARLY HISTORY. 81 Such is Goethe's criticism ; now come the remarks of Mr. Moore, the biographer and personal friend of Lord Byron. " The grave confidence with which the venerable critic [Goethe] traces the fancies of his brother poet to real persons and events, making no difficulty even of a double murder at Florence to fur- nish grounds for his theory, aifords an amusing instance of the disposition so prevalent throughout Europe to pictui'e Byron as a man of marvels and mysteries, as well in his life as in his poetry. To these exaggerated, or wholly false, notions of him, the numerous fictions palmed upon the icorld of his romantic tours and wonderful adventures in plaees he never saw, and icith persons that never existed, have no doubt considerably contributed ; and the consequence is, so utterly out of truth and nature are the representations of his life and character long current on the Continent, that it may be ques- tioned whether the real 'flesh and blood' hero of these pages — the social, practical-minded, and, with all his faults and eccentricities, English Lord Byron — may not, to the over-exalted imaginations of most of his foreign admirers, appear but an ordinary, unromantic, and prosaic personage." Here we have specimens of genuine legend or myihus, such as HekataBus, Herodotus, and Thucydides, found so largely in possession of the Grecian mind, and such as even now, in the age of Blue Books and Statistical Societies, holds divided empire with reality — pullulating anew and in imexpected comers, as fast as the old plants are stifled by the legitimate seeds of history. It is not often that we have the oppor- tunity of confronting thus nakedly the mythographer with the autoptic historian : and of demonstrating by so clear an example, that even where the mythical subject is indis- putably real, the mythical predicates bear no resemblance to reality, but have their root in something generically different from actual matters of fact. Even with regard to places and persons in tliese narratives, the places were such as Byron had never seen, the persons such as had never existed. Our readers, however, will not require to be told that the mytluis differs essentially from accurate and well-ascertained G 82 GRECIAN LEGENDS history. What we wish to enforce upon them is, that it differs not less essentially from inaccurate and iU-ascertained history ; and the case just cited brings out the distinction forcibly. The story which Goethe relates of the intrigue and double murder at Florence, is not a mis-reported fact : it is a pure and absolute fiction. It is not a story of which one part is true and another part false, nor in which you can hope, by removing ever so much of superficial exaggeration, to reach at last a subsoil of reality. All is alike untrue, the basis as well as the details. In the mind of the original in- ventor, the legend derived its birth, not from any erroneous description which had reached his ears respecting adven- tures of the real Lord Byron, but from the profound and vehement impression which Lord Byron's poetry had made both upon him and upon all others around him. The poet appeared to be breathing out his own soul and sufferings in the character of his heroes — we ought rather to say of his hero, TToWcbv ovofidroiv /xopcfir] jxia — he seemed like one struck down, as well as inspired, by some strange visitation of destiny. In what manner, and from what cause, had the Eumenides been induced thus to single him out as their victim ? A large circle of deeply-moved readers, and amonofst them the greatest of all German authors, cannot rest until this problem be solved : either a fact must be discovered, or a fiction in- vented, for the solution. ThQ minds of all being perplexed by the same mystery and athirst for the same explanation, nothing is wanted except a ^rima vox: some one, more forward or more felicitous than the rest, imagines and pro- claims the tragical narrative of the Florentine married couple. So happily does the story fit in, that the inventor seems only to have given clear utterance to that which others were dimly shadowing out in their minds: the lacerated feelings of the poet are no longer an enigma ; the die which has stamped upon his verses their peculiar impress, has been discovered and exhibited to view. If, indeed, we ask what is the authority for the tale — to speak in the Homeric lan- guage, it has been suggested by some God, or by the airy- AND EARLY HISTORY. 83 tongued Ossa, the bearer of encouragement and intelligence from Omniloquent Zeus ; * to express the same idea in * Homer, Odyss. i. 280 : Mentor advises Telemaehus (also ii. 216)— *Ep;^eo TrevaofLcvo's Trarpos Brjv ol)(Ofji.ivoLO' *Hv Tt's Tot eLTrr]aL (SpoTwv, y] Ocrcrav okovo-tjs 'Ek Atos, 1] T£ fxdXiaTa ({i4peL /cXeog av9pu)Troi(rt. So in the Iliad, ii. 95, when the heralds hy Agamemnon's direction have proclaimed a public meeting, the Grecian soldiers crowd like bees to the agora : 'Os Twv eOvea ttoXXo. vewv aTro kol KAtcrtaaJv 'H'iovos TTpoTrdpoiOe fSaOeirjs eoTt^^owvTo IA.aSov ets ayoprjv jxeTo. §€ ai(rLV ' Ocrcra SeSrjet OTpvpov(T lei/ai, Atos ayycXoq. "Oo-o-a ayyeAos appears also in Odyss. xxiv. 413. And Iliad, viii. 251 — Omniloquent Zeus — Ev^a iravofiffiaLO} Zrjvl pe^eaKOV A)(clloi. Buttman (Lexilogus, sect. 9 ; compare also the Venetian Scholia ad Iliad, i. 105) is certainly right in distinguishing "Ocrcra in the Iliad and Odyssey, from ressiou made upon the internal man by this divine agent, without any present or material cause, wherein sight is not clearly distinguished from hearing (Odyss. i. 115 ; xx. 81): a parallel to " I hear a voice thou canst not hear, That says I must not stay : I see a form thou canst not see. That beckons me away." o 2 84 GBECIAN LEGENDS homely and infantine English, it has been whispered by a little bird. But we may be pretty well assured that few of the audience will raise questions about authority ; the story From hence the word oo-cro/xai passes to signify any vague, in- distinct presentiment. The 4>VM of Hesiod (0pp. et D. 761) is different, and really bears the meaning which Buttman assigns to the Homeric "Ocrcra — f^-qjxyj S orrts TTafLTTav a.it6WvTai yjvnva ttoAAoi Aaot cprjiXL^ovar 6e6<; vv Tt5 ecrri Kat avrr}. Here the heavenly origin is struck off : the vox populi is exalted into the vox Dei. ^schines, in a very curious passage too long to he here cited, rather reverts to the old idea of ^rjjxT] (cont. Timarch. c. 27). And in the account which Herodotus gives of the battle of Mycale, we have the Homeric "Oaa-a, the messenger of Zeus, decidedly reproduced. The battle of Mycale on the coast of Asia Minor, and that of Plataea in Boeotia, were fought on the same day : the foiiner in the afternoon — the latter in the morning. Previous to the onset at Mycale, the Greeks were in much appre- hension respecting their countrymen in Boeotia, who were exposed to the very superior force under Mardonius. But just as the Mycalean Greeks were preparing to attack, " there flew into the whole camp a voice, and a herald's staff appeared lying on the beach : and the voice went through them to this effect, that the Greeks in Boeotia were then conquering the army of Mardonius. Many indeed are the evidences by which divine phenomena manifest themselves ; since on this occasion, the defeats of Mycale and Plataea happening on the same day, the voice came over to the Greeks in Asia so as to inspire new courage into their army."— Herod, ix. 100 : iovai 8e o"<^t 'f^VI^V '''^ IcrhrraTO cs to oTpaTOTreSov TTttv — 4'Vf'-V Totcrt EX\r](TLv icraTrLKero. Hv 8e apptuSir] i Trplv TTjv r]iJiriv ia-aTTLKeaOaL — 77/x,77 or kXt^Siov of Herodotus, is a voice sent by the Gods across the ^geian sea, to make known to the Asiatic Greeks the victory then just accomplished by their brethren in Boeotia. Tbe difference between Herodotus and Homer is chiefly this : that Homer gives Ossa directly, simply, and familiarly, as the messenger of Zeus : whereas Herodotus introduces the Gods as a pious in- AND EARLY HISTOKY. 85 drops into its place like the key-stone of an arch, and ex- actly fills the painful vacancy in their minds ; it seems to carry with it the same sort of evidence as the key which imparts meaning to a manuscript in cypher, and they are too well pleased wdtli the acquisition to be very nice as to the title. Nay, we may go further and say, that the man who demonstrates its falsehood will be the most unwelcome of all instructors ; so that we trust, for the comfort of Goethe's last years, that he was spared the pain of seeing his interesting mythus about Lord Byron contemptuously blotted out by Mr. Moore. It argues no great discernment in Mr. Moore's criticism, that he passes with disdain from these German legends to some majestic sentences extracted from Lord Jeffrey and the ' Edinburgh Review,' as the more worthy encomiasts of J3yron. Now, the legends themselves shall be rational or absui'd as you will ; but the glory of the poet consists in his having planted in so many intellectual minds, Goethe included, the oestrus for creating and the appetite for believing them. Li our view, this is a more unequivocal proof of his potent influence over the emotions, and a far higher compliment to his genius, than the most splendid article ever turned out in the blue and yellow clothing. Father JMalebranche, in discussiug the theory of morals, has observed, that our passions all justify themselves ; tliat is, they suggest to us reasons for justifying them. He might with equal justice have remarked, and it is the point which we have sought to illustrate by the preceding remarks on the Byronian legends, that all our strong emotions, when shared in common by a circle of individuals or a community. fcrence, with some degree of circumlocution, as if tlieir intervention required proof. In analysiug the sources of fabulous narrative, it is quite essential to take account of tlicse ideas of sui)erbuiuan comiuiuii- cations and authority, prevalent in the ancient world, and super- seding so constantly the necessity for positive testimony as a condition of belief. 86 GRECIAN LEGENDS will not only sanctify fallacious reasonings, but also call into being, and stamp with credibility, abundance of narratives purely fictitious. Whether the feeling be religious, or poli- tical, or aesthetic — love, hatred, terror, gratitude, or admi- ration — it will find or break a way to expand and particularise itself in appropriate anecdotes ; it serves at once both as demand and supply ; it both emboldens the speaker to invent, and disposes the hearers to believe him without any further warrant. Such anecdotes are fictions from begin- ning to end, but they are specious and impressive fictions ; they boast no acknowledged parentage, but they are the adoj)ted children of the whole community ; they are em- braced with an intensity of conviction quite equivalent to the best authenticated facts. And let it be always recol- lected — we once more repeat — that they are radically distinct from half-truths or mis-reported matters of fact ; for upon this distinction will depend the different mode which we shall presently propose of dealing with them in reference to Grreeian history. In no point is the superiority of modern times over ancient so remarkable — we may add the superiority of the present time over all preceding — as in the multiplication and im- provement of exact means of information as to matters of fact, physical as well as social. In former days the Floren- tine intrigue, and the other stories noticed by Mr. Moore, would have obtained undisputed currency as authentic mate- rials for the life of Lord Byron ; then would have succeeded rationalizing historians, who, treating the stories as true at the bottom, would have proceeded to discriminate the basis of truth from the accessories of fiction. One man would have disbelieved the supposed murder of the wife, another that of the husband ; a third would have said that, the intrigue having been discovered, the husband and wife had both retired into convents, the one under feelings of deep distress, the other in bitter repentance, and that, the fleshly lusts having been thus killed, it was hence erroneously stated that the husband and wife had themselves been killed. AND EARLY HISTORY. 87 If the reader be not familiar with the Greek >Scholiasts, we are compelled to assure him that the last explanation would have found much favour in their eyes, inasmuch as it saves the necessity of givinu' the direct lie to any one, or of saying that any portion of the narrative is absolutely unfounded. The misfortime is, that though the story would thus be divested of all its salient featm*es and softened down into something very sober and colourless, perhaps even edifying, — yet it would not be one whit nearer to actual matter of fact. Something very like what we have been describing, however, would infallibly have taken place, had we not been protected by a well-informed biographer, and by the copious memoranda of a positive age. Takino: the agfe as it now stands, and with reference to contemporary matters, we have already said that we consider the judgment of the public, which presumes some foun- dation in fact for every current statement, to be in the majority of cases a just one. Fiction, though still powerful and active, is in a minority — on the whole, in a declining minority. In her old time-honoured castles, she does indeed preserve unshaken authority ; but her new conquests, if not difficult to be made, are at least difficult to be maintained. So much with reference ttj the present age. But when we transport ourselves back to ancient times — to the early dawn of Grecian history — the above presumption becomes directly and violently reversed. Here we find mythus omnipotent ; positive knowledge and recorded matter of fact scarcely exist, even in the dreams of the wisest individuals. With what consistency can you lequire that a community which either does not command the means, or has not learned the necessity, of registering the phenomena of its present, should possess any hnowleilge of the phenomena of its past ? We say advisedly hnoicledge, traceable to some competent and trustworthy source, and deducible by some reasonable chain of collated evidence. The mental processes, upon which the verification of positive matter of fact depends, are of slow growth and painful acqui- 88 GEECIAN LEGENDS sition : men only apply them to the past after having pre- viously applied them to the present ; and at the dawn of Grecian history, say at the commencement of the Olympiads in 776 B.C., they were as much untrodden ground as the propositions of geometry. Knoidedge with respect to the past, we have said, a com- munity so circumstanced will neither possess nor desire ; but feelings with respect to the past they doubtless will possess — feelings both fervent and unanimous. And these feelings will provide abundant substitutes for knowledge ; they will pour themselves out in legends or mythi requiring no evidence beyond their own intrinsic beauty and plausibility ; so that the mythopoeic propensity thus exhibits a past time of its own, suitably coloured and peopled, and thoroughly satisfactory to the popular religious and patriotic faith, though the actual past with its commonplace realities be altogether buried and forgotten. Such tales are embraced and welcomed from their entire harmony with all the general sentiments and belief: if there be no positive evidence to sustain them, there is none to contradict them ; they work upon the convictions of an unrecording age with the irresist- ible force of autlienticated truth. Add to this the presence of individual bards or poets, endowed with a genius adequate to the occasion, and nothing more is wanting to bring into exist- ence a body of historical m}thus or mythical history, some- thing which is not degenerated matter of fact, but legitimate and genuine fiction, though accepted and believed as history. The personages who alone stand conspicuous in this sup- posed mythical past, are such as we should expect from the feelings out of which the tales grew. They are the Gods and Heroes reverenced among the present community, ac- knowledged in their prayers, invoked as their protectors in the hour of danger, and presiding in spirit at their festi- vals and scenes of public enjoyment.* The people in the * Hesiod represents the men who carried on the sieges of Troy and Thebes as belonging to a special race, totally difierent AND EARLY HISTORY. 89 ancient epic are introduced merely as a nameless crowd {o fill the scene ; they serve as instruments to execute the orders, or as subject-matter to bring out the potent per- sonality, of their divine or heroic commanders. The ^olic or Ionic colonists, to whom the Iliad was addressed, neither saw nor wished to see, in the past, men of their own stature and proportions : if you could have produced to them a history of their own real fathers, framed with all the care of Thucydides, distributed according to summers and winters, and embodying nothing but strictly human agency and positive motives, they would have turned from it with indif- ference, even though it had been animated by all that graphic power with which Thucydides has described the last combat of the Athenian fleet in the harbour of Syracuse. Such narratives presuppose a certain thirst of rational curi- osity — a sentiment which had not yet been aroused among the hearers of the ancient epic. To captivate their emotions as well as to win their belief, you must address to them legends, of which the foundation is already laid in their religious feelings ; legends exiiibiting both the agents and the mode of agency, superhuman ; legends cast back into an undefined past, the interval between which and the present no one then cares to fathom, when the heroes whose conse- crated groves they now see before them were treading the same earth, and aided by the same Gods as themselves. To treat Grecian history without Grecian religion, is to render it essentially acephalous : when we follow the stream upwards until it becomes thoroughly scanty and uurefreshiug, we find that it loses itself amidst a sea of fiction, even then both from his own degenerate contemporaries, and extinct before Lis time. 'AvSpwv r]pw(jjv Oelov yevos, ot KaXiovrat. 'HfJitOeoL Trporiprj yf-virj kut aireipova yatai/ — 0pp. ct D. 146—156. The words ■r]ju6i(x)v ycVog avZpwv — Homer, Iliad xii. 23, express the same idea ; the Homeric phrase — olot vvv fSporoL eicri — signi- ficant of present degeneracy, is of familiar occurrence. 90 GRECIAN LEGENDS abundant and relishing to the taste. First, we have pure fiction passing under the name and colours of past reality: next, we have reality clouded and perverted by fiction: lastly, we have reality by itseK — not indeed unmingled with fiction, but under such forms that we can tolerably well discriminate the one from the other. Our first glimpse of the Grecian world begins with the Iliad and Odyssey. Of these glorious and imperishable productions we know scarcely anything, except such information as the poems themselves furnish : nor shall we now discuss the various hypotheses which have been proposed respecting their authorship and promulgation. It is certain that they suppose a pre-existing epical literature, now lost — songs or poems of a similar character, but of what merit we cannot judge. Both the Ante-Homeric and the Post-Homeric epical compositions have been withheld from us by the envious hand of fate : of the latter we have the names and a few scanty fragments — the Cypria, the Lesser Iliad, the De- struction of Troy, the -lEthiopis, the Return of the Grecian Heroes, the Thebais, the Epigoni, the Titanomachia, the Capture of CEchalia, the Telegonia, the CEdipodia, the Hera- cleia, the Minyas, &c. Of these compositions several passed under the venerated name of Homer, and all appear to have been put together, more or less successfully, with a view to a certain poetical integrity, like the Iliad and the Odyssey. But there was also another class of poems, more nakedly narrative and genealogical, without any pretensions to poetical unity — pedigrees given in verse of the divine and heroic person- ages belonging to the various Grecian communities, con- necting the contemporaries of the poet with those Gods in whom their retrospective vision always terminated. The Catalogue of Women, and the Great Eoe^e, seem to have been two long and desultory poems, ascribed to Hesiod, the author of the Theogonia and the Shield of Hercules, and containing a variety of heroic genealogies : the ^Egi- mius and the marriage of Ceyx are alluded to also as AND EARLY HISTORY. 91 productions of Hesiod, but it is difficult to identify the many scattered allusions made by later Greek authors to the name of that poet. The Naupaktian verses, and the poems of Eumelus, Cinfethon, and Asius, bore the same genea- logising character : none of them have been preserved to modern times. Of the lyric, iambic, and elegiac poetry, once so abundant and so celebrated, a considerable portion was devoted to events of the time, and would thus have carried with it a certain historical evidence, if it had been preserved. Archi- lochus, Alcman, Tyrta?us, Alcteus, Sappho, all handled con- temporary subjects, commemorating their affections as well as their antipathies, and blending, like Pindar, the persons and circumstances of the moment with suitable comparisons out of the ancient legends. The remains of Solon and Theognis seem like moral discourses in verse, conceived in a spirit not much exalted above the level of ordinary prose : in fact, the elaborate prose of Isocrates probably cost more care in the preparation than the elegiac or iambic verse of the Gnomic poets. The various poets here alluded to, and others of similar genius and character, filled up the interval of two centuries and a half between the first authenticated chronological epoch (b.c. 776), and the first commencement of prose writing. So much new imagination having thus been applied to the ancient legends, the number of them became considerably multiplied, and the confusion and divergence among them proportionally augmented. And in estimating this number and confusion — a fact which bore materially upon the con- tinuance of the ancient faith, we are not to forget that the legends which passed through the hands of the poets formed but a small proportion of the total number of analogous legends current in Greece. In each of the many autonomous communities into which that country was divided, a distinct and peculiar crop of local mythus was be found. There were presiding Heroes, like Patron Saints, not merely for each state aoart from the rest, but for each separate sub- 92 „ GRECIAN LEGENDS division of the same state distinct from the other sub- divisions : every Demus in Attica, — and every Gens or extended family union, — every fraternity of men allied for a common purpose and bearing a common name, — recognised some divine or semi-divine Eponymus, who was supposed to have originally bestowed the name, and to extend a watchful protection towards his special flock. All the numerous temples, consecrated groves, and festivals, were rich in ex- planatory mythi : the exegetes had always a suitable tale at hand to show you why it was peculiarly proper to carry a branch of laurel or to offer a honeyed cake : some adventure of the God or the Hero was perpetually forthcoming to justify every detail of the practised ritual. The periegesis of Pausanias is especially valuable, as it gives us some insight into these more obscure mythi, accredited and reverenced each in its own peculiar comer, but prevented from circu- lating through the general Grecian world by the want of some " sacred poet " to give it currency : if the many similar works, prepared at earlier periods by others, had been pre- served to us, we should have acquired a fuller conception of the exuberance of the aggregate stock. Now, these legends, though infinitely diversified in their details, were all cast in moulds to a great degree analogous ; all had their root in the public feehng and were consecrated by the public faith ; they cleared up, or seemed to clear up, those incognita respecting which real curiositv was enter- tained ; and they composed, when taken together, the poli- tical and religious antiqiuties of the people — a pseudo- historical past suited to the non-historical mind. They were the spontaneous, indigenous growth of the earliest Grecian thought and feeling, antecedent to all record of actual fact or consecutive exercise of reason. This last was a gradual progress, emanating from the superior minds of the com- munity : a new and artificial influence, whereby the mythus was partially dispossessed of its hold on the people: but had we been able to obtain a periegesis of Greece for the year 776 B.C., we should have discovered from one end of the AND EARLY HISTORY. 93 country to the other nothins: but legends, preached by the men of genius, received both with earnest emotion and with sincere faith by the hearers. Transporting ourselves back to this early period, near to the time when the Iliad and Odyssey seem to have been first promulgated, there is every reason to presume that these poems were then listened to as something much greater and more sacred than poems in the modern sense of the word. They were accepted as inspired legends, describing events which had really taken place in a distant past; and they Avere believed quite as literally as the history of Herodotus 400 years afterwards, when he recited it at the Olympic games. To a modern reader, this idea may seem extra- vagant : much as he may admire these productions as poems, as real histories they will appear to him absurd : the line between fact and fiction is clearly drawn in his mind, and the inspiration of the poet has long ceased to be anything beyond an immeaning phrase. But with the early hearers of the Iliad, both the point of view and the preliminary state of mind were essentially different. What was there to induce them to treat descriptions conveyed to them in the most vivid narrative poetry ever poured into human ears, as a pure invention ? or to draw the distinction between a basis of truth and a superstructure of poetical ornament ? One or other of these they must do — if we reject the supposition of entire faith in what they heard ; both of them are at variance as well with the capacities as with the inclinations of an age neither able nor willing to discriminate between authen- ticated trutli and plausible fiction. Inspiration from the Gods or from the Muse, coming upon the poet so as to reveal to him either the past or the future, is with them a belief both sincere and familiar :* the course of nature, as they conceive * The Muses, says Hesiocl, Tlacogon. 33, iviTTVivaav St /xol aiSyjv &€ir}v, ws KXeiofJLL TO. T iaao/xa^a irpo t tovra Kfxi fji KeX-ovd vjxvilv fxaKapiov ycVos aiev eovTwv, etc. 94 GRECIAN LEGENDS it, is something not positive and regular, but subject to perpetual jerks and breaks, and modiiied incessantly by the special intervention of a God or a Hero. And those por- tions of the Iliad which, to our view, divest it so much of the semblance of matter of fact — the repetition of super- human agency and miracles — these phenomena were not only thoroughly consonant to their general belief as to the past, but were by far the most impressive and predominant of the whole, sinking deeper into the mind and raising emotions more powerful than the rest : insomuch that the subtraction of such phenomena, far from procuring for the narrative a more unhesitating assent, would have rendered it at once less plausible to their reason, and less affecting to their feelings. So great is the contrast between the tone of mind of a primitive Homeric audience, and the preface of Thucydides. The feelings of the Jews, in reference to the miracles of their early history, present a fair standard of comparison to illustrate the sentiments here ascribed to the early Greeks : and these feelings we can perfectly measure, since the idea of Again, line 38, about the Muses — EtpcSfrat to. t iovra, to. t icraofxeva, irpo t lovTa. The Homeric Muses are omniscient — 'Y/A£ts yap 6f.aL care, TrapecrTe re, tare re Travra. — Iliad, ii. 484. Their inspiration imparts to the poet, and enables him to com- municate to his hearers, both what is past and what is to come. His statements are not merely agreeable fiction, they are borrowed from this inspired soiu'ce, like those of the prophet or the sooth- sayer. The inspiration of Calchas the prophet is described in the Hiad almost in the same words as those employed by the poet Hesiod with regard to himself. Iliad, i. 70. 'Os tjSt; Ta T lovra, to. t icaofieva, irpo t iovra, '^Hv Slol ixavToavvrjv, Tt]v oX Tropt $01)805 AttoA-Awv- The hard and the prophet are privileged co-recipients of commmii- catiou from the Gods. AND EARLY HISTORY. 95 past historical facts, not known upon human authority, but revealed by Divine inspiration, as well as that of constant miraculous interference — is familiar and admitted amongst us as it was amongst the ancient Jews, in reference to the Jewish history. We need not employ many words to ex- plain in what light any proposition to write the Jewish history without miracles would now appear to us, or would have appeared of old to the Jews. The whole vitality of the history would have seemed to them to have been removed : the narrative would lose its hold upon their feelings, and the explanations substituted in place of the miracles would ap- pear more incredible than the miracles themselves. Nay, the mere suggestion that in this or that particular case it is not necessarytto suppose a miracle, and that some natm*al solution of the phenomena recited may be practicable, is even at present not a little offensive, and is often sharply censured as a " lowering tone of explanation." Mr. Milman's * History of the Jews,' written in a perfectly religious spirit, but exhibiting some disposition to economise the supernatural energy, has, by that single circumstance, been deprived of much of its legitimate success. Miracles, where the mind is animated by a living religious faith, appear quite as credible as ordinary facts, and far more impressive : and the multitude of them which occur in the Iliad forms not the smallest reason for doubting that the primitive Homeric audience literally and faithfully believed the events recited to them. If there be one miracle more than another, throughout the Iliad, which would appear to a modern critic unlikely to be accepted as a real fact by the audience, it is the speech of the horse Xanthus, one of the immortal pair who draw the chariot of Achilles. Every reader of Homer will appreciate the epical interest and beauty of this incident. Xanthus and Balius, offspring of Zephyrus and the Harpy Podarge, fleet as the wind, unmanageable by ordinary hands, and exempt from old ago as well as from death — have been presented by the special favour of Zeus to Peleus, though almost too precious 96 GRECIAN LEGENDS to partake in the sorrowful existence of miserable man : * they have been lent by Achilles to carry Patroclus to the field, and have manifested, even by tears, a vehement afflic- tion and sympathy for his death. The fierce Achilles, when mounting his chariot for the purpose of re-entering the war, under all the stimulus of furious grief and unsatisfied re- venge, discharges his anger partly upon the horses — " Now take better care to bring me safe back out of the battle, and do not leave me dead on the field, as you left Patroclus." So poignant and unmerited an insult is intolerable: and the kindness of the Goddess Here lends to Xanthus a voice for the purpose of replying to it, which he does in terms full of dignity and emphasis. The moment the reply is finished, the Erinnyes repress his voice. (Iliad, xix, 407-418.) If there could have been introduced among the primitive hearers of the Iliad, at the festivals of Smyrna or Chios, in the eighth century before the Christian era, a critic of the temper of Thucydides, who would have said — " This incident is very good as a poetical incident, but no one can believe it to have really occurred " — what would have been the reply made to him ? It would have been made in terms such as the reproof by wliich Athene dispels the scepticism of Telemachus (Odyss. iii, 230), and substantially similar to the observation of the learned and pious Le Clerc, when he comments upon that narrative of the Old Testament where- * Homer, Iliad xvii. 442, shortly after the death of Patroclus — Mvpofxevw 8' apa Twye (the horses) tSoJV i\er](T€ KpovtW, Kivrytras Se Kapr], irporl ov p.v6i]craT0 Ovfxov ^A SeiAo), Tt o-v(T€V, says Phemius in the Odyssey (xxii. 347). The self-taught bard, whose nature is penetrated in all directions by the heavenly inspiration, is in this state of the public mind the most irresistible of all vvitnesses ; his information, like that of the prophet and the soothsayer, is eagerly caught at by the auditors as proceeding from that source in which they most implicitly and unhesitatingly confide. But the religious feeling, though at that time stronger, more pervading, and more prolific than any other, has yet no exclusive privilege to create accredited fiction. Other feelings, when earnest and diffused, will produce the same result, though religion blends itself and coalesces more or less with them all. An abundant growth of mythi, semi- AND EARLY HISTORY. 117 divine and semi-human, is the spontaneous produce of such a soil — mytbi quite as much independent of matter of fact as the legend of Zeus and Here — mythi which spring out of, and are sustained by, some prevailing hopes, fears, sym- pathies, admiration, antipathy, — any sentiment whatever, provided only it be fervent and shared by a considerable number of persons. To this latter class the early poetical legends of Greece seem to us to belong — the Trojan war, the Argonautic voyage, the hunt of the Calydonian boar, the labours and sufferings of Hercules, the tales of Cadmus and QSdipus, the invasion of Attica by the Amazons, with several others. It is from the aggregate of mythi such as these, that what is called the history of Greece prior to the commencement of the Olympiads has been made out. In respect of beauty of incident and genius of combination, there are very great differences between these various legends : in respect of evidence, homogeneous origin, and common influence over Grecian sentiment, they are all in the main alike. They constitute the heroic antiquities of Greece, a world com- pletely distinct from the world of historical fact, and con- nected with it only by that thread of genealogy which the great families in every Grecian community prided themselves in tracing up to the heroes and the gods. Of the particular circumstances which originally deter- mined these legendary creations of the Grecian mind, our means of knowledge do not enable us to speak ; but the Trojan war, the most memorable of them all, belongs to a class of which several parallels can be produced. To the iEolic and Ionic colonists, a cluster of men from various Grecian tribes who had migrated to Asia Minor and acquired for themselves settlements by extruding the prior occupants, it was pleasing to imagine a supposed expedition of their gods and their heroes to the same shores in some distant period of the unknown past: the victory so obtained by these superliuman persons gave to their descendants what may bo called a mythical title to the territory which they 118 GRECIAN LEGENDS occupied. The gods and heroes, those who were worshipped in the festivals of the Asiatic Grecian islands and towns, as well as in the gentile sacrifices of the illustrious families, constituted the prime agents in this supposed past expe- dition ; the conductors of the tEoL'c emigration were con- sidered as the personal descendants of Agamemnon (Strabo, xiii. p. 582), and the rights acquired by the conquest of the latter were believed to have been transmitted to his progeny. This seems to have been the basis of a legend, afterwards expanded and adorned to so prodigious an extent by the splendour of the Grecian epic. The idea of a right to the soil, deduced from such legendary events, occurs not tmfre- quently in Grecian proceedings. The Athenians contended that their right to Sigeium was as good as that of the Mity- lenajans, because their progenitors had taken part in the Trojan war (Herodot. v. 94). According to the Cyrenian legends, Apollo had carried off the nymph Cyrene from Pelion, in Thessaly, taken her into Africa, and established her as mistress of the soil on which the city stood (Pindar, Pyth. ix. 5). When Dorieus, the younger brother of Cleo- menes, king of Sparta (and of course of Heracleidan descent), was about to lead out a colony, he was apprised by persons familiar with current oracular dicta or prophecies, that the territory round Mount Eryx, in Sicily, belonged of right to the descendants of Hercules, because Hercules himself had acquired it by his victory over the indigenous Eryx ; and he was determined by this announcement to conduct his colonists to the spot (Herodot. v. 43). But perhaps the most curious example of the application of a legend to sustain pretended right to territory, is to be found in the case of the Athenians in regard to AmjDhipolis. The first attempt made by the Athenians to establish this important settle- ment, on the river Stiymon, in the territory then belonging to the Edonian Thracians, dates in the year B.C. 465, fifteen years after the battle of Plataa and the expulsion of the Persians from Greece; the first settlers perished, but a second body under Agnon permanently maintained the post AND EARLY HISTORY. 119 and built the city, which became both powerful and popu- lous. In the eighth year of the Peloponnesian war, it was surprised and taken by the Lacedaemonian general Brasidas ; conformably to the stipulations of the peace of Nicias, it ought to have been restored to Athens, but the restitution was never consummated. It continued for the next half- century as an independent city, in spite of various unavail- ing attempts on the part of Athens, until at length it fell into the hands of Philip of Macedon among his early con- quests ; but the Athenians did not even then abandon their pretensions to it, and their ambassadors were instructed to acquaint him that he had taken a town which of right belonged to them, ^schines, one of the ambassadors, re- counts to the Athenian public assembly the arguments by which he had tried to convince the conqueror, and amongst them he says — {Ilepl irapairpea^eia'i, c. 14) — " Eespecting our original acquisition of the territory, and re- specting the sons of Theseus — one of whom, Acamas, is stated to have received this territory as a dowry with his wife — it was then a suitable occasion to speak, and I enlarged upon the matter as accurately as I could ; now, however, I must compress my discourse, and I will mention only those evidences (of our rights) derived, not from the ancient mythi, but from the events of our o^\'n day." Here are two remarkable points to be noticed. First, we find a narrative, purely legendary or mythical, placed at the head of a territorial abstract of title ; and that too in a thoroughly business-like discussion between the Athenian ambassadors and Philip. Next, it is certain that this narra- tive must either have been originally invented, or at least applied to the territory in question, posterior to the time when the Athenians established themselves at Amphipolis, since B.C. 465 ; for before that time there was nothing what- ever to connect Athenian legends with a spot both remote and barbarous. And this illustrates forcibly the point maintained by C. O. Miiller, in his learned ' Prolegomena zu einer wissenschaftlichen Mythologie ' — that genuine and original legendary inventions continued to be made through- 120 GRECIAN LEGENDS out the historical ages — new matter added to the ancient mythi (though Miiller has not included it amongst his citations, Prolegg., cap. 6, p. 132). If we were in possession of the reply of Philip, which j3^]schines compliments for its pertinence and completeness, we should probably find that he too was provided with a counter-legend, justifying his acquisition of Amphipolis by some ancient mythical grant — perhaps from his ancestor Hercules. In canvassing the historical value of Grecian legend, we have confined our attention chiefly to the early ante-historical class; those of which the scene is laid in the remote past, anterior to the first Olympiad, or 776 B.C. ; such as the siege of Troy, the Argonautic expedition, the Calydonian boar-hunt, the legends of Hercules, Cadmus, (Edipus, Theseus, &c. But new original mythi continued to be invented throughout the subsequent ages of positive history; and the example which we have cited, in reference to Lord Byron, proves that the earth out of which such plants spring is far from being yet effete. Of these new creations, some were aggregated on to the old ante-historical stock, as in the case of the Amphipolitan legend connected with the son of Theseus ; but others were interpolated into the positive history, and fastened on to the ascertained historical persons of the succeeding age. Take, as an example, the story of Arion, the celebrated harper and dithyrambic poet, recounted by Herodotus (i. 21). Arion had gone from Corinth, where he was much protected and favoured by the despot Periander, on an excursion to the Grecian cities in Italy ; having made large gains in the exercise of his profession, he was carrying them back to Corinth in a Corinthian ship ; the seamen, eager to possess themselves of his gold, compel him to leap overboard in mid- sea on pain of being killed, but first grant him permission to clothe himself in his solemn costume, to stand upon the rowers' bench, and sing the Orthian nome. Having done this Arion jumped into the sea ; but a dolphin, attracted by his strains, took him on his back and landed him safely at Cape Teenarus in the south of Laconia, from whence he made AND EARLY HISTORY. 121 his way back, clothed in his full costume, to Corinth. There stood at Taenarus, iu the days of Herodotus, a small brazen statue, the oifering of Arion, representing a man silting on a dolphin. Such was the legend respecting the great dithyrambic composer Arion. When we add that it was recounted and believed, both by the Lesbians and by the Corinthians, in the time of Herodotus — two communities, certainly, among the most wealthy and intelligent of Greece, our readers will not think it wonderful that the primitive Homeric audience should have accepted the Iliad as a literal history of the past. Now this story is a precise counterpart of the various legends to which we have alluded concerning Lord Byron. It contains a basis of authentic fact — perhaps a superstruc- ture of exaggerated or misreported fact — and certainly a portion of genuine mythus. Arion, like Byron, is ah un- questionably historical person — a friend of the Corinthian Periander, and a great and original dithyrambic poet. Perhaps the story of his voyage from Tarentum may be mis- reported fact — of this we do not speak with confidence — yet, probably a vessel returning from Tarentum to Corinth would enter by the Gulf of Corinth, instead of going round Pelo- ponnesus, and braving the proverbial dangers of Cape Maleia. But it would be a great mistake to treat the story of the danger of Arion, and his salvation by the dolphin, as a mere exaggeration and mis-report of fact ; it is a mythus quite as marked and unequivocal as the Florentine intrigue and. murders associated with Lord Byron, and traceable to a very analogous source. It is composed mainly to illustrate the prodigious and superhuman effect of the dithyrambs of Arion. and especially of the nomus Orthius, upon men's hearts and imaginations ; it is calculated to satisfy the feelings, and win the belief, of Greeks who were not less profoundly impressed with these lyric efforts, than the German legend-makers were with the poems of Lord Byron ; it brings out, in a secondary way, the fancy entertained in antiquity, that the dolphin was of an affectionate temper and fond of music (ty' 6 (f)iXau\o. 115 (ix. 1), "the ante-Solonian mina had disappeared in the money-weight, but still continued in use as commercial weight " (down to the period at least to which the inscrip- tion refers). A mina of money, or 100 drachma) of silver, came by the depreciation of Solon to weigh ^, of an ^gina^an mina : but a mina weight of tin, iron, or any other com- modity, remained iis it was before, not 4^ of an Tl^^giiinean m2 164 REVIEW OF BOECKH ON ANCIENT WEIGHTS, mina, but f of it. Consequently, the appeal which M. Boeckh makes to the original ratio of the -.iEginaean and Attic weights, distinctly contradicts his position — that the Attic cubic measures were in the ratio of 3 : 5 to the ^ginsean. In order to maintain the doctrine here alluded to, M. Boeckh is driven to the inadmissible hypothesis that Solon, when he created the ratio of 3 : 5 between the Attic money- talent and the -^ginfean talent, altered at the same time the Attic metretes and medimnus, so as to introduce the same ratio to the corresponding iEginaean denominations, " When Solon," (he says) " diminished the Attic money-weight to 4- of the ^Eginsean, he at the same time enlarged the measures, as we are told by Plutarch on the authority of Androtion. This enlargement once appeared to me a doubt- ful point : but if the Attic measure had been before purely accidental and local, without any correspondence with the weight, it may, doubtless, have been smaller than the new Solonian measure : at any rate, we learn from this statement that Solon established a new metrical scale." (ix. 2. p. 276). Here M. Boeckh overthrows the fundamental assumption on which his previous argument had rested. He had before told us that we might safely presume the Attic and ^ginsean measures to be in the same ratio as the respective weights : now he intimates, that the primitive Attic measures may have been " purely local and accidental, without any corre- spondence with the weights." The argument derived from internal probability, on wliich he before dwelt, is here for- mally discarded ; and we are left, not only without any positive testimony, but without any rational ground for presuming a j^riori, that the Attic medimnus and metretes were to the ^ginsean in the ratio of 3 : 5. I believe that the statement of Androtion, as quoted by Plutarch {Solon, c. 15), has no reference to the medimnus and metretes, and that we cannot even deduce from it the vague inference last intimated by ISl. Boeckh — .viz., that Solon made some new arrano^ement of the measures. The COINS, AND MEASURES. 1(35 \Aords of Plutarch are — koI rrjv a/Ma tovtw jevofMeviju rwv re fierpav eirav^cnv Kal rov vofj,Lafj,aTOvX.aKa Kol Brj/jiiovpyov vvkt6<; re kol rj/ji,epapovpr]- TLKfjv T'^S avaKVKXrjcreoiS twv oAojv. Here Proklus recognizes the efi&cacy of the axis in producing and maintaining the revolution of the Kosmos, but he does not remark that it initiates this movement by i-evolving itself. The HeoTr;s, wliich ProkluK ascribes to the axis, is invested in the earth packed round it, by tlic I'latonic Timceus. 248 PLATO'S DOCTRINE very root of the kosmic soul (Plato, TimaBUs, p. 34 B). It is even " packed close round the axis," in order to make sure that the axis shall not be displaced from its proper situation and direction. The earth is thus not merely active and influential, but is really the chief regulator of the march of the kosmos, being the immediate neighbour and auxiliary of the kosmic soul. Such a function is worthy of " the first and eldest of intra-kosmic deities," as Plato calls the earth. With perfect propriety he may say that the earth, in the exercise of such a function, " is guardian and artificer of day and night." This is noway inconsistent with that which he says in another passage, that the revolutions of the outer sidereal sphere determine day and night. For these revo- lutions of the outer sidereal sphere depend upon the revolu- tions of the axis, which latter is kept in uniform position and movement by the earth grasping it round its centre and revolving with it. The earth does not determine days and nights by means of its own rotations, but by its continued influence upon the rotations of the kosmic axis, and (through this latter) upon those of the outer sidereal sphere. It is important to attend to the circumstance last men- tioned, and to understand in what sense Plato admitted a rotatory movement of the earth. In my judgment, the con- ception respecting the earth and its functions, as developed in the Platonic Timaeus, has not been considered Avith all its points taken togethei*. One point among several, and that too the least important point, has been discussed as if it were the whole, because it falls in with the discussions of subsequent astronomy. Thus Plato admits the rotation of the earth, but he does not admit it as producing any eff'ects, or as the primary function of the earth : it is only an in- direct consequence of the position which the earth occupies in the discharge of its primary function — of keeping the cosmical axis steady, and maintaining the uniformity of its rotations. If the cosmical axis is to revolve, the earth, being closely packed and fastened round it, must revolve along with it. If the earth stood still, and resisted all rotation of its own. ON THE ROTATION OF THE EARTH. 249 it would at the same time arrest the rotations of the cosmical axis, and of course those of the entire kosmos besides. The above is the interpretation which I propose of the passage in the Platonic Timsus, and which I shall show to coincide with Aristotle's comment upon it. Messrs. Boeckh and Martin interpret differently. They do not advert to the sense in which Plato conceives the axis of the kosmos — not as an imaginary line, but as a solid revolving cylinder ; and moreover they understand the function assigned by the Platonic Timaeus to the earth in a way which I cannot admit. They suppose that the function assigned to the earth is not to keep up and regularize, but to withstand and countervail, the rotation of the kosmos. M. Boeckh com- ments upon Gruppe, who had said (after Ideler) that when the earffti is called Tiyu.ai'o> yeypainai. Such is the reading of Bekker in the Berlin edition: but he gives various readings of two different MSS. — the one having iWeaOai kol Kiveiadcu — the other eiXeladac kol KLvelaOai. 2. The second stands, beginning chap. 14 — ?;/xet? 8e Xeyco/xev ON THE ROTATION OF THE EARTH. 255 irpoiTOv irorepov (the earth) ej^ei Kivrjaiv rj fiever KadaTrep ae ij.7\tto6\ ois iyw^ Aihs yviiifi-qv oi'j8ou 5' a5i\(p7iv '"Apre^iv Tifxa, fX€yi(TT7]y 5aifx6v even in the midst of his inconsistencies, when a new growth of opinions is unexpectedly pushed up, on ground which we supposed to be already pre-occupied by another both older and different. And we find this same judgment implied in the discriminating remarks upon his philoso- phical procedure made by Mr. Mill himself — (pp. 271, 272). For example, respecting Causality and the Freedom of the Will, we detect no want of activity and fertility, though marked evidence of other defects — especially the unconrli- tional surrender of a powerful mind to certain privileged insjnrations, worshipped as " necessities of thought." Wiiile thus declaring how far we concur in the parallel here drawn of Sir ^V. Hamilton with Brown and Whately, we must at the same time add that the comparison is taken under circumstances unduly favourable to these two last. Tliere has been no exposure of their errors and incon- ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF SlPt W. HAMILTON. 329 sistencies, equal in penetration and completeness to the crushing volume which 'Mr. Mill has devoted to Sir W. Hamilton. To make the odds fair, he ought to furnish a similar systematic examination to Brown and Whately ; enabling us to read their works (as we now do those of Sir W. Hamilton) with the advantage of his unrivalled micro- scope, which detects the minutest breach or incoherence in the tissue of reasoning, and of his large command of philo- sophical premisses, which brings into full notice what the author had overlooked. Thus alone could the competition between the three be rendered perfectly fair. We regret, as Mr. Mill does, that Sir W. Hamilton did not undertake the composition of a history of philosophy. Nevertheless we must confess that we should hardly feel such regret, if we could see evidence to warrant Mr. Mill's judgment (p. 554) that Sir W. Hamilton was "indifferent to the SioTi of a man's opinions, and that he was incompetent to draw up an estimate of the opinions of any great thinker," &c. Such incompetence, if proved to be frequent and con- siderable, would deprive an author of all chance of success in writing a history of philosophy. But the study of Sir W. Hamilton's works does not prove it to us, though Mr. Mill has convicted him of an erroneous estimate of Leibnitz. We say frequent and considerahle, because no historian of philosophy is exempt from the defect more or less ; or rather (to pass out of the self-confidence of the Absolute into the modesty of the Kelative) we seldom find any historian whose estimate of great philosophical thinkers does not often diifer from our own. Hence we are glad when ample and original extracts are produced, enabling us to test the historian, and judge for ourselves — a practice which Sir W. Hamilton would have required no stimulus to enforce upon him. There ought, indeed, to be various histories of philosophy, com- posed from different points of view ; for the ablest historian cannot get clear of a certain exclusiveness belonging to himself. But so far as we can conjecture what Sir W. Hamilton vould or could have done, we think that a history 330 REVIEW OF JOHN STUART MILL. of philosophy composed by him would have surpassed any work of the kind in our language. We trust that Sir W. Hamilton's works will long continue to be read, along with Mr. Mill's examination of them ; and we should be glad if the works of other philosophers could be read along with a comment of equal acuteness and impartiality. Any point of view which could command the adherence of such a mind as Sir W. Hamilton's, deserves to be fully considered. Moreover, the living force of philosophy, as directress of human intelligence, depends upon keeping up in each of her devotees a full mastery of many divergent and opposite veins of reasoning — a knowledge, negative and affirmative, of tlie full case of opponents as well as of his own. It is to Philosophy alone that om- allegiance is sworn, and while we concur mostly with Mr. Mill's opinions, we number both him and Sir W. Hamilton as a noble pair of brethren, serving alike in her train. Amicus Hamilton ; magis amicus Mill ; arnica ante omnes Philosojphia. PAPEES ON PHILOSOPHY. (^From the Author's MSS.) PAPERS ON PHILOSOPHY. Undee, the date 1822, Mrs. Grote has preserved a fascicuhis of very interesting essays on Metaphysics, Mr. Grote's earliest productions in that walk. They prove both the extent of his reading, and the subtlety and the depth of his own reflections. The longest and best essay is entitled " Object and Extent of Metaphysics." It not only raises the most difficult questions in the philosophy of mind, but shows that he had already made up his mind, and taken his side, on the con- troversies that divide the schools. Five years before, he represented himself as half-convinced by Berkeley ; he is now a Berkleian, and something more. He comes at once to the point — What is the meaning of 'External body'? and answers it according to Berkeley, although with a more advanced psychology. He expands in his own way the Berkleian motto — esse est jyereipi — and does not shirk any of the difficulties. The following extracts are a specimen : — When the word Carlton-house is pronounced, a certain set of visible and tangible sensations is re-kindled in my mind — that is, I fancy myself again seeing or touching Carlton- house. When the word is pronounced, I myself supply un- consciously the act of seeing or touching, by virtue of wliich such a sound excites the idea habitually associated witli it. And when I say, " CarUon-house exists " — the full and accurate description of my statu of mind is, " I fancij that 334 TAPERS ON PHILOSOPHY. I see Carlton-house — I remeniber to have lately seen it — or I now see it, &c" But it will doubtless be asked, " Does not Carlton-house exist when I am not thinking of it? Would it not exist though I were annihilated ?" This question, if strictly analysed, will appear to be an utter sophism — involving conditions which preclude the possibility of replying to it either in the affirmative or negative. How can I frame any kind of affirmation or denial on a subject, on which I am interdicted from employ- ing my thoughts ? I am forbidden to think upon Carlton- house — yet I am desired, notwithstanding, to say whether it exists or not. I am to suppose my mind and powers of judging annihilated — yet I am required to deliver a judg- ment on a subject placed before me. Now surely when these self-contradicting conditions are exposed, this question, which is usually the experimentum crucis of the Materialist, shrinks into an unmeaning puzzle. In order to reply to a question regarding Carlton-house, it is obvious that I must employ my thoughts about it. My decision, therefore, whether affirmative or negative, implies uniformly two things — first, that my mind is in action, i.e., not annihilated, secondly, that it is employed upon that particular subject and upon nothing else. In other words, any conceivable answer which I may return must imply two conditions the direct reverse of that which the question demands. If indeed I am asked, " whether Carlton-house cannot exist except ivhen I am looking at it" I readily answer, that it may exist just as much when I do not see it, as when I do. But when I say this, the whole amount of my affirmation is, that I remember distinctly to have seen it, and expect fully that I may see it again — and that without at present looking upon it. The states of mind which I call remembrance and expectation may doubtless occur separately from what is usually termed perception, and may kindle a lively belief in the existence of the thing so remembered and expected. EXTERNAL PERCEPTION. 335 But this feeling of remembrance, expectation, and belief, is precisely as strong in the case of other sensations, when constant, as it is in those of sight and touch. My remem- brance and belief that the noise of a cataract, which I have visited formerly, now exists, is just as strong as my remem- brance and belief that the water or the rocks exist. I have as full a conviction that I may again hear the one, as that I may again see the other. Should it be asked, whether there is any noise when I am not near to hear it, I should answer, that there unquestionably was. It matters not whether I actually hear it or not. I remember to have heard it and expect to hear it again. There is not a shade of difference in my feelings with regard to the sound, and with regard to the rocks. I have already remarked that partly from their perma- nence, partly from their urgency, the visual and tactile sensations come to exercise prodigious ascendency over our minds. All our other states of mind are viewed with refer- ence to these others, as antecedents or concomitants or consequents, and the visual and tactile sensations thus appropriate and enslave all the rest. But these two pre- dominant classes of sensations acquire, as I have endeavoured to explain, a seeming independence of our mental modifi- cations, and appear to have an existence distinct from and without our minds. Hence, since a powerful interest con- tinually impels us to consider all our sensations with refer- ence to the visual and tactile, and since these appear to exist distinct from the mind — we contract an habitual desire of tracing our states of mind up to something distinct from and independent of ourselves. We search about for an external something to which we may attribute any mental affection of which we are conscious ; and when the latter has once been fastened and domiciliated with any external something, the process of the mind appears to be performed, its dissatisfaction is appeased, and it is set at rest. The early growth of this tendency is of infinite and melan- 336 PAPERS ON PHILOSOPHY. choly importance. It thrusts itseK upon us upon all occa- sions, as an operation of primary necessity ; it perverts our views of what is desirable or practicable to know, and distorts altogether the application of the power of thought ; and it casts so deep a mist over all the proceedings of the understanding, as no subsequent reflexion can entirely dissipate. When a state of mind occurs which is not fami- liar to us, and which we desire to explain, we are drawn away from that path of observation and comparison which alone can conduct us to a solid result ; we do not think of comparing the different trains of which it forms a member, in order to separate its casual from its constant companions. We instantly look for an external something on which we may hitch it, and if none such presents itself, we slide easily into the process of creation, and fasten that which is to be accounted for upon some fictitious and imaginary entity. Of these numberless mistakes the source is to be sought iu that early habit which bestows upon the visual and tactile sensations so complete an ascendency over the mind, and which leads us to father all our other mental modifications upon them alone. I cannot depart from this topic without offering a few remarks on the controversy between Berkeley and Reid, with regard to which much misconception appears to have arisen. The merits of the latter have been blazoned forth, and his refutation paraded far and wide as victorious and irresistible, by his disciple and expositor, Mr. Stewart, whereas the treatise of the former has been left an orphan (to use a beautiful expression of Plato) and defenceless, and seems to have met with few who could comprehend its bearings, or disengage the truth which its author so suc- cessfully struck out, from the errors which particular pre- judices led him to array by its side. Few treatises ever stood more in need of such a commentator ; for the mixture which it presents is indeed singular. It is remarkable, that both Berkeley and Eeid (as each has left upon record) were EXTERNAL PERCEPTION. 337 led into their different and contradictory trains of thought by the very same motive — an aversion to Atheism, and a zeal for the maintenance of reh'gious belief. To place religion on a firm and unassailable foimdation, the Bishop thouglit it requisite to refute the supposition that there was any unthinking substance existing without the perceiving mind, and to prove that only spiritual or thinking substances could be thus independently existent. AYhile, in pursuance of these views, he adheres to the former track, his reasonings are strikingly ingenious and original. He insists forcibly on the impossibility of seeing anything unseen, hearing anything unheard, conceiving anything un- conceived, &c., which is what is meant by affirming that the objects of sight, of touch, of conception, or of any other mental feeling whatever, exist independent of the mind. I shall not dwell acy longer upon this part of his writings, because I have endeavoured to enforce the same line of argument in various parts of these Essays, and because perhaps the very best statement of the doctrine, which Berkeley's book affords, is a passage already cited. But when, in furtherance of his original plan, tlie Bishop sought to evade the application of these reasonings to the case of Spirit, it is melancholy to observe the confusion which begins to overcloud his mind, and the unreal dis- tinctions which appear to satisfy his once piercing and irresistible scrutiny. " A spirit (said he) cannot be known by way of idea ; it is a simple, undivided, active Being, per- cipient of ideas, but not itself perceived, like an Idea. We know a Spirit immediately by way of notion. Now though it is impossible that an Idea, whose esse is percij)i, should exist without being perceived ; yet it is not imjiossible that a Spirit, whose esse is percipere, should exist without being perceived." Such was the distinction by whicli Berkeley strove to shelter Spirit from the arguments by which he had attacked matter, A very cursory inspection will discover its in- sufficiency. For cither the word Spirit means nothing, or z 338 PAPERS ON PHILOSOPHY. else it means something conceived, believed, imagined, sup- posed, &c., call the state of mind what you will. To say, that my ideas may be perceived by another percipient, is merely to say, that I may conceive, or believe, or know, or suppose, &c., that they are perceived by another percipient. Another percipient is, in other words, something known or conceived as perceiving. And it is impossible that anything known or conceived can have an existence independent of the knowing or conceiving mind. At any rate, it makes no difference whether the thing known be thinking or un- thinking. If the independent existence of the latter is impossible, that of the former is equally so ; if that of the former be possible, so is that of the latter. Now as this line of distinction could not be maintained, it was obvious that Berkeley's doctrine was self-contradictory. The question was, which half of it should destroy the other. Viewing the controversy simply as it stood between Reid and Berkeley, it must be owned that the inconsistency, which so glaringly pervades the doctrine of the latter, placed his adversary upon a ground of attack singularly advan- tageous. The admissions, in which the Bishop had so liberally indulged towards Spirit, were perfectly sufficient to vindicate the existence of Matter, if they could be shewn to apply equally to it — that is, if the distinction which Berkeley had drawn between the two could be removed. But this distinction consisted in the hj^othesis, that we knew matter by way of ideas, or of an intervening something immediately perceived by the mind — Nvhile we knew spirit immediately, or without any such intervention. This was the ideal theory, and Dr. lleid directed the whole force of his reasonings against it. " We are admitted (said he) to know Spirit immediately ; what reason is there for supposing that we know Matter in any other way ? Why should not our apprehension of the one be as direct and immediate as that of the other? Can any evidence be adduced of the intervention of an idea, in the case of material substance ?" EXTERNAL PERCEPTION. 339 It was perfectly true that no such evidence could be adduced. And as far as regards Berkeley, or any one who coincides with Berkeley's admissions concerning Spirit, I think the arguments of Keid are decisive and invincible. But his advantage over the Bishop merely arose from his consistency in vindicating two errors, which must stand or fall together ; while his adversary, in dismissing one, cluno- with increased vehemence and pertinacity to the other. By the removal, therefore, of the ideal theory, it must be allowed that the repugnance and self-contradiction of Berkeley's system was demonstrated, and the controversy decided in favour of Eeid. Not so the controversy about the independent existence of material substance. The real value of Berkeley's argu- ments on the negative side of this question is not at all impaired, because they happened in his mind to be closely knit together with certain errors, which rendered it in- consistent in him to maintain them. And the actual force of these arguments is so far from depending on the ideal theory (on the destruction of which Mr. Stewart rests the celebrity of Eeid), that they must, if received, exclude and nullify that theory altogether. For the ideal theory is nothing but a supposition framed to explain the mode in which we perceive external objects. Now if there exist no objects independent of the mind, the ideal theory becomes altogether useless and unmeaning, inasmuch as the difficulty, which it was destined to explain, is terminated. When I affirm that I am conscious of nothing but my own states of mind or mental modifications — wlietlier called sensations, conceptions, acts of belief, or by any other name, this general statement of fact is certainly no theory at all ; but least of all is it the ideal theory, which is of a nature and purpose altogether inconsistent with this statement of fact. The truth is, that if the ideal theory is an unsupported hypo- thesis, 80 also is the supposition of external independent objects. If the ideas, of which I am conscious, are really nothing, distinot from and independent of the conscious z 2 340 PAPERS ON PHILOSOPHY. mind — then neither are the external objects, which I per- ceive, anything distinct from and independent of the perceiving mind. To say that there may exist objects without my mind, distinct from its perceptions ; but that there cannot possibly exist any objects within my mind, distinct from its consciousness, is an assumption destitute of all evidence, and virtually predetermining the very question in dispute, by introducing the expressions, ^vithout and within the mind ; a phraseology altogether unmeaning, if the hypothesis of external objects be rejected. [In 1860, there occurred an interesting correspondence on the same subject, which is here reproduced in full. The ostensible start was from the concluding chapter of Pro- fessor Bain's work, 'The Emotions and the Will,' where a criticism was made on Ferrier's ' Institutes,' from the point of view of the Eelativity of all Knowledge ; the Subject-and- Object Relativity being only one example, although posses- sing an altogether exceptional importance. In point of fact, however, Mr. Grote had of his own motion been meditating intently on the correlation of the Subject and Object in per- ception, and took this opportunity to put do^vn his thoughts in writing,] SUBJECT AND OBJECT. There are portions of your section on this subject which do not quite satisfy me. I coincide more fully with your treatment of the same matter (or the branch of the same matter which relates to the material world), in your first volume [' The Senses and the Intellect '], pp. 366-376. The relativeness of Subject to Object, as I conceive it, stands singly and by itself, apart from all relativeness between two or more diverse objects of cognition. Whether cognition be only possible under the assumption of a known contrast between two different objects, as you imagine — or SUBJECT AND OBJECT. 341 whether it be also possible with only one object, not con- sciously contrasted with any foil, as I incline to believe — in either case the cognizant subject is the same, equally present and incorporated in the fact of cognition. An act of cog- nition has no meaning without a cognizing subject and a cognitum object : the former always the same, the latter variable : both being opposite points of view (or poles) of the same indivisible fact of mind. If, in addition to this, it be true that there must be two distinct objects, known in antithesis to each other by the cognizant subject, let the position be proved : but it seems to me distinct from, and independent of, the position above laid do^vn respecting subject and object. The two positions ought to be affirmed and reasoned upon apart from each other : not thrown together under one general head. You say truly (vol. i. p. 376) that to speak of a cognitum apart from a cognoscens is " self-contradiction ;" but it is surely no self-contradiction (whether exact or not) to say that we can know red without green, or light without darkness. You seem to consider the antithesis of subject and object, as coinciding with that of ideal and real — mind and matter — internal and external. I cannot but think that subject and object is more general and fundamental than this. The dis- tinction Subject — Object belongs to the ideal world, as well as to the sensational. John Mill says in his * Logic ' (Book i. c. iii. p. 55) — " Even imaginary objects, which are said to exist only in our ideas, are to be distinguished from our ideas of them. The hobgoblin which never existed is not the same thing with my idea of a hobgoblin. They are all, not thoughts, but objects of thought, though all the objects are alike non- existent." Plato's archetypal Ideas were Objects, though neither material nor extended. The act of Conception, as well as the act of Perception, is in itself indivisible : but both the one and the other may be looked at either in the subjective or in the objective point of view. The Subject is that which either one or the other has in common with all the other acts of our mind or 342 PAPERS ON PHILOSOPHY. consciousness — the indeterminate Ego. The Object is that which either one or the other has either peculiar to itself, or common only to a select fraction of our acts of consciousness: it is tlie varying Ego, or the principle of variation and specialisation in Ego. We cannot properly speak of it as iVbw-Ego : it involves, not a negation, but a simple modifi- cation and determination, of the Subject. The antithesis of Ego and Non-Ego, Avhich some writers adopt, involves an illusion : the real antithesis is between Ego determinate and Ego indeterminate: the determinate Ego being the com- plete mental fact, from which the indeterminate Ego is the highest abstraction. There seem to be various sources of confusion in reference to this antithesis of Subject — Object. 1. Our own bodies. I apprehend that the earliest con- ception of Subject, that which prevails in unreflecting minds, is the distinction between each man's body and matter external to his body. He considers his body to be Subject — that is, himself. What is external to his body is Object, or not himself. This distinction gets early and powerful hold upon the mind. But it is evidently an objective distinction, between two different objects : for each man's body is object to himself as Subject : it is seen and felt, and the boundary between it and what is beyond it can be traced by sensation and movement. The body partakes of the nature both of Subject and Object. Considered as object, the distinction between our body and matter extraneous to our body, is not only clear and marked but highly important : it is the most familiar and indispensable of all distinctions. WTiat is ex- traneous to our own body, is extraneous to ourselves as Subject : for the Subject is identical with the body, or at least co-extensive with it. What is really an antithesis between two objects, is converted into antithesis or divorce between object and subject. 2. The second source of confusion is, that we look back upon our own |jas^ s6usations, perceptions, and mental acts generally. When I recollect or conceive an object which I SUBJECT AND OBJECT. 343 saw or touched an hour ago, I know that I am not now seeing or touching it. My ^ercijnent Subject forms no part of the recollection: and it appears as if that which I recollect or conceive was Object pure and simple, without a Subject. But there is here an illusion : because my Subject, though not interfering as percipient, interferes as reminiscent or concijnent, and forms an equally essential part of the real fact. To our memory, or conception, is present only the objective point of view of the past sensation; but the memory or conception itself forms the subjective to correlate with it. 3. A third source of confusion relates to the distinction between myself and other subjects. I believe that other subjects are often affected in the same manner as I am — often not so. But in making this comparison, it is plain that I regard my own subject as an object. Other persons can be only objects to me : and when I compare myself to them, I become an object to myself : that is my past sensa- tions and mental acts pass under my review, or become objects to my reminiscent or reflecting subject. I, the Subject, am in this way, as it were, counted twice over : once as reflecting, once again as object reflected upon ; and it is in the latter capacity alone that I am compared with other subjects. The distinction, or resemblance, which I note between my sensations and those of other men, is in reality an objective distinction, noted by myself as com- paring subject between myself and others as compared objects. But the fact that I am the comparing subject passes un- noticed and out of sight : all that is usually noticed is, the two compared objects, myself and others. It is forgotten that this comparison cannot be made without myself as subject to make it. The subject, as such, is overlooked : it cannot come into separate consciousness : it can only bo understood by comparing together some or all of our past mental acts and attending to that which they all have in common. But in this process, my past self becomes an Object, to my present self as Subject: my 344 PAPERS ON PHILOSOPHY. present self being of necessity implied, but not consciously present. James Mill (' Analysis', vol. i. pp. 244, 245, 249) adverts to this distinction between jiast se?/ and present self. He seems however to think that ^present seZ/" can come into separate consciousness as well as ])ast self. If he means this, I cannot asree with him. I think that self onlv comes into conscious- ness as an object — ])ast or future self: as subject, or present self, it is implied, but never revealed or discernible. The distinction between past self, or object, and present self, or subject, enables us to criticise Ferrier's position, that " every cognition must involve a cognition of self." If he had said, that " every cognition must involve self as the cognizant," I think he would have been perfectly correct. The self, present self or subject, is constant and indispensable as the cognoscens, but cannot become the cognitum. The present self forms one constant and unalterable pole of the indivisible act of cognition. Our past self, on the contrary, belongs to the other or objective pole. But even in this sense of the objective self, Ferrier's position is not exact. It is not true that every cognition must involve a cognition of self. In many cognitions, the objective self is not at all included. I know many things, which I do not at all recol- lect to have seen, or heard, or discovered, or reasoned out, by my past or objective self. Of some cognitions, this past self makes a part ; but not of all. But the present self belongs to all. The distinction between these two sorts of cognitions is important to bear in mind, because it contributes materially to generate the illusion of an Objective Absolute. Because many of my cognitions include no reference to a (past or objective) self, and are in this respect distinguishable from those which do include such reference — it is imagined that the first class are wholly divorced from self ; that they are complete and independent absolutes. It is forgotten that the present or subjective self is implicated alike in both the two classes. SUBJECT AND OBJECT. 345 In explaining this abstruse point of psychological theory, the first great problem is, to find means of bringing the forgotten 'present or subjective self into notice. It cannot be known by direct and immediate consciousness, in reference to any present sensation or cognition. It can only be known by inference from the sum total of our past mental states, and by appeal to the fact of cognition as the radical or primordial element from which psychology takes its start. Instead of pretending to explain this primordial fact by the hypothesis of an Absolute Object acting upon an Absolute Subject to generate cognition, we have to take the cognition itself as an indivisible act capable of being looked at from two sides — either from the side common to all cognitions, or from that which varies from time to time in each particular case. The second problem is, while rescuing the subjective self from oblivion, to bring it into notice as not isolated but always incorporated with some particular object, with which it is fused in one and the same mental act. Every mental act or condition — be it sensation, perception, conception, emotion, volition, belief, intuition, ratiocination — includes the subject determined by its object, and may be looked at from one or from the other point of view. If I speak of an Object of perception, of belief, of intuition, of ratiocination — I myself am present, in the mental state which dictates the speech, as percipient, credent, intuent, ratiocinant : the Object is relative to me^ in one or other of these capacities ; and I am relative to that as to other objects. The Noumena require a Nous to api^rehend them, and reciprocally the Nous requires Noumena to enable it to come into act: so also the Percepta and Percipiens mutually imply each other, and are two modes of looking at the same real fact. The distinction between the Real and the Ideal is doubt- less very important to be maintained : but it does not turn upon the distinction between Object and Subject. It turns on the distinction between Sentient Subject and Couci])ient or Cogitant Subject, or (which is equivalent) between 346 PAPERS ON PHILOSOPHY. Objectum Sensum and Objectuin Cogitatum or Conception — between the act of Sensation and the act of Ideation. Sub- ject and Object are each common to both : but in the one class, I am sentient subject, in the other class, cogitant subject : in the one class the object is an object of per- ception, in the other an object of conception or an Ens Kationis. I am myself the true and fundamental subject of all my propositions : every proposition announces by impli- cation — I feel, I think, I believe, and so and so. There are many propositions in which this is not directly included in the formal enunciation : but it is not the less really under- stood in all, without exception. In explaining the nature of propositions, this ineffaceable subjective basis ought to be formally and emphatically laid down. In practice men lose sight of it, because of its universality : but these forgotten but constant elements are the very matters which the analysing philosopher should take the most pains to bring clearly into view. [The foregoing was transmitted to Professor Ferrier, who made to it the reply published in his Remains, vol. I. The interest of that reply will be greatly enhanced by its being read in connection with Mr. Grote's paper.] " The point at issue between Mr. G-. and me is this : — He " holds that the jaresent self is never the object, or any part " of the object, of our consciousness. I venture to hold the " opposite opinion, and have given expression to it in my '• openhig proposition, in which it is maintained that the self " and the not-self are always apprehended simultaneously, " although I admit that the self is usually no prominent or " explicit portion of the cognition. " In Mr. G.'s paper there is a certain ambiguity (as I dare- " say there are plenty on my side of the question), something " at least about which I am in doubt, and which must be " cleared up before any progress can be made in the discus- " sion ; in fact, before there can be either any disagreement SUBJECT AND OBJECT. 347 " or any agreement between us. I shall endeavour, at the " outset, to explain what this ambiguity or inconsistency is. " In every case of cognition more is implied than is " expressly known. For instance, when I look at a tree, all " that I am expressly cognisant of is the tree. This at least " is usually the whole — the whole that is explicit. But " much more is implied. I am implied, seeing is implied, a " retina is implied, a hrain is implied. All these are impli- '* cated in the process. They are present and instrumental, " but the tree alone is expressly known. So far, I think, " Mr. Gr. and I will agree ; so far there is no ambiguity. " But a question here arises. Are these implicated ele- '* ments not known at all, or are they only not known ex- "pressly 9 In other words, may not that which is not known " expressly or explicitly be nevertheless known — known " implicitly ? "This is an important question. In reference to the " present discussion it is all-important, and it must be an- " swered unambiguously. For myself, I answer the question " in the affirmative. I argue for implicit, as well as for " explicit cognition. And I maintain that some of the ele- " ments above referred to, as implicated in my cognition of " the tree, are known implicitly, and that others of them are "not known at all. 'I' and 'seeing' are known implicitly " in and along with my explicit knowledge of the tree ; " ' retina ' and ' brain ' are not known at all. And the " ground of the distinction is this, that reflection enables me " to recover and render explicit ' me ' and ' seeing ' — a cir- "cumstance which to my mind proves that these were " already known implicitly, although overlooked at the time ; " whereas no power of reflection can reveal to me a retina or " brain as having been concerned in the operation. To dis- " cover these I must have recourse to renewed observation " and anatomy. " But what I am at a loss about is the answer which Mr. G. " gives to this important question. This is the article in " regard to which I venture to think that he is ambiguous. 348 PAPERS ON PHILOSOPPIY. " From the general purport of the remarks in which he con- " troverts my position, I would conclude that he is opposed " to the doctrine of ' implicit cognitions. ' But there are " expressions in his note which seem to point to the opposite " conclusion. He says that the ego ' is understood in all " propositions, ' understood, of course, by itself and to itself ; " that is to say, known implicitly and in the present time. " And in his last sentence he says, ' In practice men lose " sight of it (the ego) because of its universality ; but these " forgotten but distinct elements are the very matters which "the analysing philosopher should take the most pains to " bring clearly into view. ' On this I would remark that it is " not possible for the analysing philosopher to bring clearly " into view any element of consciousness which was not •' known obscurely beforehand. Eeflection is his only instru- " ment ; and reflection cannot originate knowledge : it can " only make us know clearly and explicitly what we already " know confusedly and implicitly. " The result is, that I am in doubt as to the ground occu- " pied by Mr. G. in reference to implicit cognitions. Does "he deny them altogether? Must all cognition be either "express or null ? In that case, he will find it very difficult, " or rather impossible, to explain how a reflective analysis " can go to work upon its materials, these being, on this " supposition, the absolutely unknown. On the other hand, " does he admit implicit cognition ? In that case, I think " that there cannot be any very great difference between us ; " and that, with a little explanatory coaxing, he might be " brought roimd to my side of the question : for if a man "admits any implicit cognitions, or, I should rather say, " implicit elements of cognition, he may surely accept the e^o " as among the number. But until I know whether, and to " what extent, Mr. G. accepts or rejects the doctrine of im- " plied cognitions, I do not see how he and I can properly " join issue, either in the way of agreement or disagreement. " So much in reference to the ambiguity of which I com- " plain. SUBJECT AND OBJECT. 349 " For the reason given I shall not go much into argument "on the point more particularly in dispute. Let me just " say that Mr. G.' s doctrine, that we have no cognisance of " our present, but only of our past self, is, in my opinion, " untenable, for these among other reasons : — " First, I cannot have any cognisance of my past self *' without distinguishing myself as past from myself as pre- " sent. But I cannot make this distinction without being " cognisant of my present self. Therefore, in being cognisant " of my past self, I must always be cognisant (implicitly it " may be) of my present self. Secondly, would the words ' I " am' have any meaning, except in reference to a self cog- " nised in the present ? Thirdly, it would not be possible for " a man to le cognisant of his past self unless he had heen " cognisant of his present self. What a man remembers is, " that certain sensations were his, that certain events befell " him ; that is, he remembers both himself and those events, " and the connection between him and them. If he had not " been cognisant of himself in the present (which is now " past), he either would remember only the events, and their " having happened to nobody, at least not to him (which is " absurd), or he would not have remembered them at all, " which is the more probable alternative, But he does re- " member them ; and he remembers, moreover, that they " happened to him, which seems to me to prove that he was " cognisant (however inexplicitly) of himself at the time. " But I have exhausted my paper, and I daresay your " patience, so I shall say no more at present, except that I " cannot think that Mr. G.' s position is not blasted, or that " mine is shaken, by anything that has been as yet advanced. " Perhaps he thinks that a contradiction is involved in sup- " posing that the cognoseens can be in the same instant the " cognition. But tliat is precisely the idea and definition of "the ego, that it is at once its own subject and its own "object — not, however, without a contrasting element, the " non-ego." 350 PAPERS ON PHILOSOPHY. [To this Mr. Grote rejoined.] I have read with much interest the paper of Professor Ferrier. He has handled this abstruse subject with great acuteuess, and in a manner which, if it does not bring about agreement between two dissentients, enables both of them to understand better both the grounds and the measure of their dissent. The point at issue between us is brought to view more distinctly in the concluding sentence of his letter than in the preceding parts. He there says — " Perhaps he (G-.) thinks, that a contradiction is involved in supposing that the cognoscens can be in the same instant the cognitum. But that is precisely the idea and definition of the Ego — that it is at once its own subject and its own object — not however without a contrasting element, the non- Ego." The question between Mr. F. and myself, as I conceive it, is, whether this " idea and definition of the Ego " be a correct one : whether there be really any such duplication or double function of the Ego, in the same instant or in the same act of present cognition. In my judgment, such dupli- cation or double function belongs, not to present cognition, but to reflex cognition only. On two points, I think, we are both agreed. First, there is in every act of cognition an essential impli- cation of Cognoscens and Cognitum — Subject and Object. Secondly, there is in every act of reflex cognition a dupli- cation of the Ego. Here it is at once Cognoscens and Cog- nitum. The case which Mr. F. states, about " seeing the tree," illustrates this perfectly ; and I quite agree with the manner in which he states it. In reflection, I disimpUcate that which in the act itself had been implicated. My reflect- ing Ego is the cognoscens : the Ego of my previous act of vision is the cognitum. On these points Mr. F. and I concur : but our difference lies in the manner of conceiving and statin^; the elements SUBJECT AND OBJECT. 351 really implicated in the original, present, act of cognition (or vision). He maintains that the duplication or double function of the Ego occurs in the original act of cognition as well as in the reflex act : and he argues that it could not occur in the reflex unless it had previously occurred in the original. I submit that this argument is not satisfactory. That which in the original cognition had been simply Ego cognoscens, would present itself as Ego cognitus to the new Ego cognoscens acting in the work of reflection. It is by no means necessary to assume, that in the original act of cognition, the Ego must have been at once cognoscens and cognitus. In Mr. F.'s theory, the Ego is counted twice over in the original act of cognition — where, as I think, it really occurs only once : while no account is taken of the new Ego cognoscens which appears in the act of reflection. The inter- vention of this new Ego cognoscens makes an important difference between the act of reflection and the act of pre- sent cognition. It is an additional element, blending itself with the revived elements of the previous cognition, and generally with other cognitions brought into comparison with this latter. And it is moreover an essential condition, enabling us to disiraplicate elements which had been essen- tially implicated in the act of cognition itself. I will not go so far as to affirm " that a contradiction is involved in supposing that the cognoscens can be in the same instant the cognitum." But it appears to me, that this hypothesis assumes more in the act of cognition than really belongs to it. The implication, in that act, of the cognoscens with the cognitum, is indisputable : not so, when we come to assume the triple implicate — cognoscens, cognoscens cog- nitum, and cognitum. Here we count the cognoscens twice over : not upon any evidence of direct consciousness (which is inapplicable to the case), but as an inference from what occurs in the act of reflection. The grounds upon wJiicJi Mr. F. rests this inference appear to me insufficient, and it is upon this point that I join issue with him. What occurs in the act of reflection would, in my judgment, occur equally, 352 PAPERS ON PHILOSOPHY. if we admit in the primaiy act of cognition nothing more than an implication of the cognoscens with some oognitum — suhjed tvith object. I do not use the terms Ego and Non-Ego, because they appear to me less appropriate. The last is as much positive as the first, though it is variable, while the first is constant. ^ If I am right, this implication of subject with object is the simplest and most universal statement of what is common to all acts of cognition : whether in its ruder form, as among children and animals — or in its more complicated form, as among reflecting and analysing students. We cannot abolish either of the two without dismissing mind altogether : though we may look at cognitions from either of the two points of view, leaving out for the time the consideration of the other. In such processes of abstraction, comparison, reflection, we disimplicate the two elements of those cognitions which we compare and reflect upon. But we do not even here disimplicate the process of cognition: for our reflecting or comparing Ego becomes itself implicated in the act of reflexion or comparison. With reference to the reasoning in Mr. F.'s fourth page (p. 349), I would say, that the present self is present as cognizing, not as cognized : and that the words Jam, though they include the present self, include a great deal more besides. Mr. F. says : " Thirdly, it would not be possible for a man to be cognizant of his past self, unless he had been cognizant of his present self." I incline to believe that the reverse of the proposition is more accurate, and that we are cognizant of our present self only through inferences from our past self. I see the books in my study now before me — I hear the noise of carriages in the street — I meditate on Mr. F.'s paper now on my table — but all this while my present self never shews himself as a part of the scene, or as an object of cognition or consciousness. In fact, it seems to me that self is a complicated word, which requires many comparisons before its meaning can be understood, and which cannot be understood except as including more than the present SUBJECT AND OBJECT. 353 moment. I cannot conceive my present self except as the continuance of an unbroken line from the past. I am con- scious of my present act of cognition : but that which is present to my consciousness is, simply the object cognized : by reflection on past acts, I know that the cognizing subject must be present and implicated — but I know it in no other way. On looking over again Mr. F.'s letter (Mr. Grote con- tinues), before sending off my reply, I perceive that I have dwelt rather too exclusively on the fourth page. I will therefore add a few words, answering more directly the question in page 2. I admit that there are implicit cognitions : that is, as I understand it, cognitions of which we have no conscious- ness distinct at the time or capable of being remembered afterwards — but which nevertheless may be proved, by evi- dence aliunde, to have been objects of consciousness and to have left their effects behind. You give in your first volume (' Senses and Intellect,' p. 390) an interesting example of this kind, in reference to the intellectual discrimination between different sensations of touch, such sensations being undistinguishable both emotionally and volitionally. But while I admit this as a fact of frequent occurrence in the human mind, and therefore as a legitimate explanation in various obscurities of mental philosophy, I must at the same time add, that the onus prohandi lies upon him who advances the explanation. He must produce evidence to prove that these implicit cognitions have really been in the mind as cognitions. Now the evidence produced by Mr. F. does not appear to me sufficient to prove the point, in his particular case. Again, he remarks upon a phrase of mine in my first paper — " G. says that the Ego is understood in all propositions — understood (F. remarks) of course by itself and to itself — that is to say, known implicitly " (bottom of page 2). In regard to this, I would say, that I do not clearly remember 2 A 354 PAPERS ON PHILOSOPHY. the phrases in my first paper, but I presume that I meant understood in the sense of the Latin word suhauditum, not intelledum : as the knowing element tacitly implied, and essentially as a condition, in all present knowledge, but not knowable itself except through reflex view upon past acts of knowledge. Pray read the above remarks, and forward them to Mr. F., if you think they deserve it. I am much obliged to him for the trouble he has taken in drawing up the paper of criticism on my former remarks. I hope he will accept the present communication as a mark both of gratitude and respect. [In the months of February and March, 1871, when the fatal malady was making progress, Mr. Grote read with avidity and with much admiration the work of M. Taine, ' De rintelligence.' He still kept up undiminished his life- long interest in Logical and Psychological discussions, and could give forth his thoughts with clearness and vigom*, as will be seen from the following observations, being the text of letters written on such parts of Mr. Taine's work as related to the fundamental notions and the axioms of science. These were the last rays of the setting sun.] Taine seeks to rehabilitate the Absolute, or an external self-existent, under the attenuated form of Motion reduced to its lowest terms of Order and Number, and divested of everything which distinguishes one case of Motion from another. His argument appears to me very inconclusive in these thirteen pages : for while he in several passages admits (to all appearance) the fundamental reference to ourselves and our own sensations — he in other passages professes to point out other characteristics which lie apart from this reference : the truth being, that these latter characteristics involve the same reference, just as much as the former, only ON M. TAIXE ' DE L'lXTELLTGENCE.' 355 that it lies behind, and requires rather more attention to see it : Avhich attention Taine does not bestow. Thus {e.g.) look at p. 54, where he professes to discriminate the cha- racteristics relative to us from those which are absolute and have no reference to us. For example, he says : — " Le moi est un reactif entre cent millions d'autres. — A ses notations, nous substituons d'autres notations equivalentes, et nous definissons les proprietes des corps, non plus par nos evene- mens, mais par certains de leurs evenemens. Au lieu de 7iotre sensation de temperature, nous prenons pour indice I'elevation ou I'abaissement de I'alcohol dans le ther- mometre." Taine here overlooks the fact that the rise or fall of alcohol in the thermometre is only another variety of our sensations : au application of our sense of vision appealed to in place of our sense of temperature, and certifying comparison of temperature inferentially instead of directly. The case is the same with the other example* cited by Taine — the rise or fall in one of the scales of a balance, informing us of comparative weights, much better than could be done by our own muscular sensations when we support the two bodies with our hands. Here again appeal is made to another variety of otir sensations : what Taine says — " nous definissons les proprietes des corps, non plus par nos evene- mens, mais par leurs evenemens," — is not true. We do not, and cannot, leave out nos evenemens. It appears as if Taine thought, that whenever we had recourse to an indirect and inferential measure respecting the properties of a body, we thereby departed from the principle of Relativity. In this I tliink he is quite mis- taken : and moreover inconsistent with himself. For we read, p. 57, the ibllowing passage — " Entre les diverses classes d'evenemens par lesquels on peut defiuir les choses, I'homme en choisit une, y ramene la plupart des autres, suppose qu'il pourra un jour y ramoner le reste. 3Iais, si Ton analyse celui qu'il a choisi, on decouvre que tons les elemens originels et constitutifs de sa definition, corame de la definition de tous les autres, ne sont jamais que des 356 PAPERS ON PHILOSOPHY. sensations, ou des extraits plus ou moins elabores de sensa- tions." Surely it is impossible to declare universal Relativity — the universal implication of us tlie sentients, and of our sensations, in every definition — in plainer language than this. Again, I cannot but question the manner in which Taine conceives and defines Motion (p. 55) — " una serie de sensa- tions successives interposees entre les momens de depart et d'arrivee — une serie d'etats successifs interposes entre les momens de depart et d'arrivee." Surely Motion is con- tinuous between departure and arrival : there is no series or succession of states in Motion. There is a series or order in the ijJaces through which the Motum passes — but in the fact of Motion itself, there is no series or succession. Motion is essentially continuous, from departure to stoppage : it is the very type of continuity : in order that you may have suc- cession of states or of sensations, you must have stoppage and recommencement of motion. I consider it a contradictio in adjecto when Taine (p. 63) talks of '•' la serie continue des evenemens successifs qui constituent le mouvement d'une pierre transportee par notre main — cette serie continue de sensations musculaires successives qui constituent pour nous le mouvement de notre main." When I aflirm continuity, I virtually deny succession — and vice versa. We are all moving along with the Earth in its two uniform motions of rotation and translation : but we have no consciousness of successive sensations constituting this motion. The terms series and succession belong, not to the motion itself, but to the places through which the Motum passes, or to the collateral sensations which attach to those places respec- tively : as when we move from light to dark, from cold to hot, &c. Number and Order, to which Taine professes to reduce the fact of Motion when pared down by abstraction, do not (in my opinion) belong to Motion at all, unless you include along with it certain concomitant sensations which are not of the essence of Motion, and which may be absent as well as present. In regard to Taine's reasoning, from p. 57 to p. 65, where ON M. TAINE 'DE L'INTELLIGENCE.' 357 he attempts to erect an Absolute on the back of Mill's theory and yours, I consider it altogether fallacious. I admit indeed that it holds good as an argumentuin ad hominem. If I granted the absolute and independent exist- ence of minds other than my own, I should be prepared also to grant the absolute and independent existence of rocks and trees. Indeed I think the reasons for granting it in the latter case are stronger than those applying to the former. For I have no direct knowledge or commerce with another man's mind, but only with his body : before I can infer the absolute existence of his mind, I must begin by recognizing the absolute existence of his body : and when once I have done that, I cannot refuse absolute existence to rocks and trees. Taine takes for granted this recognition of absolute exist- ence of other minds, by all the followers of Berkeley. This is really his one and only argument, which he puts forward with easy confidence — " legitimement (pp. 58, 59) sur preuves valables," p. 62. He certainly is right in supposing that Berkeley recognises this doctrine, and I think (without being quite sure) that John Mill recognises it : but I dissent from it entirely. Indeed I think that the common, un- philosophical, opinion of the absolute existence of the material world generally, is more consistent and tenable than the opinion which restricts absolute existence to minds only, our own and all others besides. No one has done more than Taine to illustrate the frequent illusions of the mind in assuming, as external and independent, what is merely subjective. But in this particular case, he cannot bear to admit " une Ulusion de I'esprit humain " (p. 58), which he has shown to be omnipotent in so many other cases. Yet many of his sentences appear to be written as if he held the same opinion as we do. For example (p. G8) — " II essaye de considerer a part et en soi ce quelque chose independant et permanent qu'il n'a isole que par un ouhli. II cree ainsi la substance vide : sur cctto entite la metaphysique tra- vaille et batit ainsi ses chateaux do cartes: pour Ics fairc 2 B 358 PAPERS ON PHILOSOPHT. tomber, ce n'est pas trop de I'analyse la plus rigoureuse." This sentence expresses my opinion, and I think very well : the ouhli of -which he speaks, is intended by him to express only the objective attributes from which la svhsiance vide is detached : but I should extend the meaning so as to include also the judging and believing Subject ; which, though omni- present and inseparable, is just as much forgotten and put out of sight as if it had no existence. Taine's highly abstract attenuation of Motion is a fetch of Realism. It is on a par with la svhsiance vide in the passage last cited. How few philosophers are there who carry out consistently the doctrine which Aristotle took so much pains to inculcate — that reality is to be sought in the concrete and particular, not in the abstract and universal ! In the attempt made by Taine to bring the geometrical and arithmetical Axioms under the head of Analytic Pro- positions instead of Synthetic, he reasons in direct opposition to John Mill's argument in the second chapter of his second book : Taine adopts what Mill there calls " the ultra-Nomin- alism of Hobbes and Condillac " (p. 199) : Taine considers " that the process of arriving at new truths by reasoning consists in the mere substitution of one set of arbitrary signs for another " and a substitution, in fact, is Taine's favourite phrase for the function of general words in carrying on rea- sonings. I do not admit the justice of Taine's reasoning (p. 341) upon the Maxim of Contradiction : he forgets that many philosophers in the time of Aristotle, together with Hegel and others in recent years, disallowed and denied this maxim : and that they would have equally disallowed Taine's proof of it : they would not have admitted his assertion that present meant not absent — and that absent meant not present. You can only prove the maxim by uncontradicted repetition of appeals to particular facts of sense ; and if your opponent will not admit these facts of sense, you cannot prove it at all. The aggregate effect on the memory and belief of these multiplied repetitions constitutes what Taine calls (p. 312) ON M..TAINE 'DE L'lXTELLIGENCE.' 359 " Teficacite des idees laientes " : a phrase not psychologically correct, nor at all proper for a work on reasoned truth, seeing that he puts the grounds of belief in axiomatic truths on a level with emotional fancies and prejudices. That these idees latentes (p. 342-343) do as a matter of fact very often determine our belief, he tells us very truly : but the charac- teristic feature of reasoned truth is that those secret grounds of belief shall be brought out into distinct consciousness and critically appreciated : seeing that in their latent state, they are available alike for support either of true or false belief, and carry no authority. In p. 344, Taine says (in proceeding to discuss the Axiom that * the sums of equals are equal ' and the differences of equals also equal) — " Certainement, nous pouvons former ces deux propositions par I'induction ordinaire : et tres probablement, c'est de cette maniere qu'elles s'etablissent d'abord dans notre esprit. — Toutes les fois que j'ai pratique dans des conditions semblables des operations semblables, j'ai verifie que Tissue etait semblable " (344, bottom). — There cannot be a clearer admission that these Axioms both may be and are of inductive origin. But in the next page, he tells us that they may also be formed without induction (346-347). The very supposition that there are truths proveable by Induction, (including, as Taine justly says verification) but which are also proveable without Induction — appears to me a strange one, and most unnecessary. His attempt to shew it is by resolving Equality into Sameness, and Inequality into Difference : and by saying that two lines which are capable of exactly coinciding " ne font plus qu'une seule et meme ligne (350) — sont les memes — " while, if not so capable, they are different. It appears to me that this is a new definition of equality, which goes far to abolish it as a real attribute, and which is at the same time incorrect. Two lines capable of coinciding are equal : this is a concep- tion essentially different from, and opposed to, the concep- tion of two lines merged and confounded into one and the same line : the first of the two conceptions involves duality 360 PAPERS ON PHILOSOPHY. of the objects compared, the second abolishes it. You may say that twelve is the same as twelve, or as duodecim, douze, zivolf, &c. : here is one and the same thing either described twice over by different names, or the same name repeated both in subject and predicate — a mere tautology. But yon cannot with propriety say — twelve is eqiml to twelve, duo- decim ; here are no two objects to compare : the proposition twelve is equal to itself — is either unmeaning, or metaphorical. In framing any equation of which twelve forms one side, you must find some different number to place on the other side : 12 = ?^ = ^=4x3 = 6x2=\/ 144— and so forth. 2 4 ^ Here you predicate of 12, that it is equal to the result of a certain operation performed upon some other number : that it is equal to a function of that other number, arising in a certain way. Here are always two different real terms com- pared ; and the number as well as variety of such compari- sons might be infinitely multiplied. Taine says (p. 353) — " Sous le mot egal, reside le mot meme : voila le mot essentiel : telle est Videe latente incluse dans I'idee d'egalite. Degagee et suivie a travers plusieurs propositions intermddiaires, elle ramene I'axiome a une pro- position analytique. Par elle nous relions I'attribut au sujet: nous la voyons presente dans les deux: mais avant de I'y voir, nous I'y pressentions : elle y etait et temoignait de sa presence par la contrainte qu'elle exergait sur notre affir- mation : quoique non demelee, elle faisait son ofiice. — Nous devinions avec certitude, mais sans pouvoir preciser les choses, que dans les deux donnees et dans les deux operations, il y uvait du meme : I'analyse n'a fait qu'isoler ce meme, et nous montrer a I'etat distinct la vertu qu'il y avait en nous a I'etat latent." This paragraph seems to me incorrect : Equality seems to me to exclude sameness, instead of implying it : moreover we see here what an arbitrary proceeding it is to invoke these idees latentes, and to ascribe to their influence '' la contrainte exercee sur notre ajjirmation." ON M. TAINE ' DE L'lNTELLIGENCE.' 361 It is here formally announced that these axioms are no- thing more than analytical propositions. Taine ought to have tried his hand upon the Axiom — "Things which are equal to the same are equal to one another " — before he meddled with the more advanced pro- position — The sums of equals are equal. Suppose that a person puts before you two propositions thus framed : — 1. If there be two magnitudes A and B, both of them equal to a third magnitude C, one of those two magnitudes will be equal to the other. 2. If there be two magnitudes A and B, both of them greater than a tliird magnitude C, one of those two magni- tudes will be greater than the other. On hearing these two propositions for the first time, who can tell that the first is true, and the second not true, except by trying both one and the other in application to a string of particular cases ? What idees latentes are there in each, to enable him to make this distinction? Taine's appeal (p. 347), that we should shut our eyes and reflect upon the meaning of the terms will certainly not enable us to do this, unless we employ the interval of closed eyes in imagining a variety of triplets conforming to Propositions 1 and 2, and, examining mentally what the results would be in each case. Proposition 1, though true, is not an analytic Proposition, but synthetic. Its contradictory includes no contradiction in terms. Proposition 2 is alike synthetic, and can only be shewn to be false generally, by the production of some par- ticular case in which observation attests it as false. Taine's exposition and criticism of the definition oi jparallds (355 — 363) are also unsatisfactory to me : there is the same gratuitous substitution of same distance between the parallels of equal distance. Also about straight line, (356)1 agree with what he says (355) about Legendre's definition (shortest distance between two points). His own exposition liowever (356) implies the very same antithesis (" en remurquaut la ligue que trace le 362 - PAPERS ON PHILOSOPHY. premier point lorsqu'il se meut vers le second et vers le second seulement, par ojojoosition a la ligne qu'il trace lorsqu'- avant de se mouvoir vers le second, il se meut soit vers un autre, &c."). In this exposition, the idea of direction is assumed as already acquired and familiar. In fact, it is the idee latenie which Taine is fond of assuming arbitrarily in other cases, but which really exists in our minds in this case as the true constituent of the straight line. Taine cannot resolve direc- tion into anything more simple and fundamental: but he ought to have brought it out into clearer light by varied exposition and illustration. Sameness (of direction) is here in its right place : while employed as an exponent of equality, it is quite out of place and misleading. Direction and Distance are both of them distinct aspects of the fact of motion ; but both of them are fundamental and universal ; neither of them can be resolved into the other. Legendre's definition of the straight line (above noticed) attempts to resolve direction into distance ; and is for that reason inad- missible as a definition, though true as an affirmation. One and the same du-ection is known by immediate consciousness, farther illustrated by contrast with a difierent immediate consciousness — varying direction — from and towards. All that can be done towards defining a straight line is, to state and illustrate this consciousness and contrast in the most perspicuous manner. As to Taine's demonstration (p. 371 seq.) that several or all of the principles of mechanics are not merely truths of experience or inductively established, but also analytical jpro- j)ositions, I think it quite unsatisfactory : indeed I consider it as among the worst parts of his book. The demonstration is founded upon the same abusive appeal to "la meme" (p. 373) which he had reasoned upon before. It is no better than the presumption of Aristotle, that the celestial bodies moved in perfect circles, because it was their nature so to move. To say that because a moving body has moved two inches in the same direction, we are entitled to presume, ON M. TAINE 'DE L'INTELLIGENCE.' 363 and even required to believe, that it will continue to move onward in the same uniform direction and velocity, unless some disturbing cause intervene — to say that this is an axiom of which we can neither conceive nor believe the contrary (p. 38t)), when he had before said (p. 370) that Aristotle and the philosophers prior to G-alileo all did believe the contrary — seems to me an exaggeration of bold and unwarranted assertion. It is indeed well calculated "to increase in an infinite measure the powers of our minds " (la portee de notre esprit s'accroit a I'infini — p. 392), and to give us knowledge not relative, but absolute, without doubts or conditions (" ne souftrent ni doutes, ni limites, ni conditions, ni restrictions " — p. 393). Now that, after truths have been for a long time unknown or disallowed, and only built up in the face of. able opponents by laborious induction, a philosopher should come forward and say that the induction was altogether super- fluous, and that the conclusion was really contained in, and inseparable from, the premisses — appear to me assertions no less incredible than anything which we read in Aristotle ' De Ccelo.' In all your remarks about the Postulate of the Uniformity of Nature I perfectly concur. But we must remember that Aristotle and the Peripatetics not only did not aUowthis Pos- tulate, but affirmed another Postulate distinctly contradicting it, viz. : That there were some sequences essentially regular, others essentially irregular and unpredictable. The Postulate of Uniform Nature has been ascertained and verified bv a larcre and ever increasing sweep of Induction, and is now well entitled to overbear the counter-presumption which Aristotle in his day admitted as dividing with it the empire of phe- nomena. But it derives its certainty and authority entirely from Induction : and the last Chapter of Taine's book ap- pears to me extremely misleading, inasmuch as it is a hazy maze of words tending to make you believe that there is a distinct authority co-operating with and even superior to Induction — viz, : " la raison explicative, la soudure," between the separate links of the Inductive process. This extra- 364 PAPERS ON PHILOSOPHY. physical authority is alleged by Taine to do what Induction cannot do : that is, it gives us knowledge absolute and unconditional, which we can never obtain by Induction. Taine cites (with praise) Mill's Chapter on the Explanation of Laws of Nature : but he either misunderstands, or delibe- rately departs from, the main doctrines of that valuable Chapter : which presents in the clearest manner the true relation between the more comprehensive and the less comprehensive theorems in science. Taine speaks as if he thought that whenever we study one particular property of objects apart from the rest, we desert the path of Induction, and enable ourselves to discover and handle extra-physical entities such as le mime, la soudure, &c., thus putting ourselves on a platform above the inductive process. This last chapter of Taine appears to me a surrender of Mill' s Logic to the a priori of Leibnitz. It really contains some things which surprise me. " Nos yeux ne peuvent percevoir I'etendue que comme coloree : de meme, notre intelligence ne pent concevoir des faits que comme expli- cables. II n'y a de concevable pour nous que ce qui est explicable ; comme il n'y a de visible pour nous que ce qui est coloree" (p. 481). He forgets that Aristotle and the Peripatetics distinctly held the contrary, and treated this position as itself incredible. The last page of Taine's book (491, 492) I do not clearly understand, but it seems to invest a i^riori procedure with a degree of power which enables it to dispense with experience altogether, and to determine beforehand, among the entire catalogue of possible existences, which of them (or how many among them) admit of becoming real. Taine then suggests that the enterprise of Hegel should be re-attempted with greater precautions. 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