THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE
 
 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 A STUDY OF THEIR POLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY
 
 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 a Stu^^ Of tbclr political ps^cbolo^^ 
 
 BY \P 
 
 EMILE^^ BOUTMY 
 
 MEMBER OF THE FRENCH INSTITUTE 
 
 AUTHOR OP "the ENGLISH CONSTITUTION," AND "STUDIES IN 
 
 CONSTITUTIONAL LAW— FRANCE, ENGLAND, AND 
 
 THE UNITED STATES" 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY E. ENGLISH 
 
 WITH AN 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 JOHN EDWARD COURTENAY BODLEY 
 
 CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE FRENCH INSTITUTE 
 
 AUTHOR OF "FRANCE" 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 NEW YORK AND LONDON 
 
 Zbc "Rnlckerbockcr press 
 
 1904
 
 JH5Z7
 
 Introduction 
 
 I. 
 
 When the publisher of this volume invited me to 
 write a preface to it I felt that there was some measure 
 of presumption in accepting the invitation, there being 
 no need to introduce to the English public the author 
 of the original work, as the following anecdote will 
 testify. Some years ago M. Emile Boutmy received 
 at Oxford the honorary degree of Doctor of Civil 
 Law, and the way in which the University was moved 
 to confer that distinction upon him was in this wise. 
 Another Frenchman, who had written upon English 
 institutions, thought that the crimson and scarlet of 
 the Oxford doctorate would appropriately adorn his 
 labours. He therefore appealed to M. Boutmy to 
 lay his claims before the academical authorities. But 
 Oxford, better acquainted with the work of the self- 
 effacing advocate than of the less modest claimant, 
 replied to the former in the words of the Puritan 
 maiden of Longfellow's metrical prose, " Why don't 
 you speak for yourself, John .? " Hence it was that in 
 the Sheldonian Theatre the acts and words of M. Emile
 
 vi INTRODUCTION 
 
 Boutmy were lauded in that artless Latin with which 
 Encoenia keeps alive the memory of Thomas Kerchever 
 Arnold. 
 
 The story was told to me on the shores of the Lake 
 of Annecy. Thither I had gone the year after the 
 death of Taine, to stay with his stricken family in their 
 Savoyard homestead, a peaceful and picturesque dwell- 
 ing of monastic origin, and to study in his deserted 
 library, among his annotated books, the methods by 
 which he had compiled that monument of industrious 
 research and inductive science, " Les Origines de la 
 France Contemporaine," His most intimate friend, of 
 the long last period of his life in which he wrote that 
 work, was M. Boutmy, who, in the hope of passing 
 many summers in his neighbourhood, had built a 
 cottage at Menthon. Before the house was finished 
 the pleasing prospect from its windows included the 
 burial-place of Taine, on a wooded knoll between the 
 green waters of the lake and the Alpine slopes which 
 rise above the venerable birthplace of St. Bernard. It 
 was in this beautiful corner of Savoy that in 1892 I 
 had already, through Taine, made the acquaintance of 
 the author of this volume. I had taken a villa on the 
 lake in order to spend the summer months near the 
 historian and philosopher, whose counsel and conversa- 
 tion would be of service to me in the work which I had 
 recently commenced. His health was already failing, 
 though no one feared that the end was only a few 
 months' distant ; and on the too rare occasions that he 
 gave me the benefit of his advice he was usually accom- 
 panied by M. Boutmy. The last long conversation I
 
 INTR on UCTION vii 
 
 ever had with Taine was on one of those golden Septem- 
 ber days of transparent atmosphere which are frequent in 
 Savoy, when he had walked with his friend to see me 
 at Veyrier, along the beautiful lakeside road, familiar to 
 readers of the " Confessions " of Jean-Jacques. Then, 
 as always, I was struck by the air of confidence with 
 which the older man treated the younger, who had 
 been his pupil before I was born, in the first days 
 of the Second Empire. At that distant time Taine, 
 who was himself only on the confines of manhood, 
 and who was soon to have his public teaching 
 restrained by the restored autocracy, inspired at once 
 in his disciple an admiration, soon to ripen into an 
 intimate friendship, which was never interrupted till 
 his death forty years later. 
 
 There were three principal points of sympathy be- 
 tween these two conscientious students of the human 
 race. In the first place, M. Boutmy's independent 
 temperament enabled him to be at once the critic 
 and the complement of his master's genius. From 
 the earliest hours of their friendship Taine took con- 
 stant pleasure in conversing with his pupil, not only 
 advising him on his work, but confiding in him and 
 discussing with him his own intellectual doubts and 
 difficulties. M. Boutmy was at that period more pro- 
 foundly penetrated with the ideas and the methods of 
 Taine than later in their careers, but no philosophical 
 divergencies ever interfered with their mutual relations. 
 
 In the second place, M. Boutmy's habits of thought 
 and attitude as a Protestant of the liberal school were 
 welcome to Taine. The historian of the " Origins of
 
 viii INTRODUCTION 
 
 Contemporary France " was not a croyant, to use the 
 French term, which has not the canting sound of the 
 English word " believer." But as years went on, when, 
 under the Third Republic, it became evident that French 
 " freethought " was fated to belie its name and to be 
 identified with illiberal sectarianism of the narrowest 
 intolerance, Taine — in spite of his friendship with 
 Renan — lost all sympathy with the anti-clerical party, 
 which he recognised as being imbued with the spirit of 
 the Jacobins, whose conquest of the great Revolution 
 had inspired the most striking chapters of his last 
 work. Consequently, he felt the necessity of giving 
 to his children a religious training. But while his 
 passionless study of the educational manuals authorised 
 by the French episcopate moved him to deem it 
 impossible to submit their minds to the discipline of 
 Catholic instruction, his objection to purely secular 
 education had become deeply rooted. It was with 
 the aid of his friend M. Boutmy, who was the son-in- 
 law of the eloquent Pastor Bersier, that he had his 
 children instructed in the elements of faith and religion 
 as taught by the French Reformed Church — an act of 
 paternal inconsistency which, executed with less frank- 
 ness, has its counterpart in very many English 
 families. 
 
 The third bond of sympathy between the two 
 philosophers was associated with the foundation by 
 M. Boutmy of the Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques, 
 of which he is still the director. During the war of 
 1870 he had come to the conclusion that the misfor- 
 tunes which had fallen upon France were in some
 
 INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 degree due to the insufficient knowledge possessed by 
 the French upper and middle classes of what was 
 going on in foreign lands. In seeking a remedy for 
 this he was encouraged by Taine, whose works on 
 English literature and on Italian art had displayed his 
 mastery of the psychological aspects of foreign peoples, 
 and who during the war had further pursued his 
 studies abroad by completing his " Notes " on 
 England. The consequence was that M. Boutmy 
 founded the now famous school of the rue Saint 
 Guillaume, which, though a private venture, unsup- 
 ported by and independent of the State — as its name of 
 " Ecole Libre " indicates — has become the recognised 
 training college for the diplomatic service and the higher 
 branches of the civil administration. In a land where 
 the " University " once had the monopoly of secondary 
 and superior education, and where the tendency of 
 recent legislation is to revive that monopoly, this 
 private institution, with its advanced course of 
 training in modern languages, in comparative legislation, 
 and in the political and constitutional history of foreign 
 nations, is regarded without jealousy by the official 
 Faculties of letters and of jurisprudence. They rather 
 consider the Ecole Libre as a necessary complement to 
 their less specialised classes. Nearly five hundred can- 
 didates for public employment take advantage annually 
 of the education imparted by a staff of forty professors, 
 which includes some of the most eminent historians, 
 jurists, and economists of France and of Europe, who 
 give their services on such generous terms that their 
 teaching is placed within the reach of students of
 
 X INTRODUCTION 
 
 modest resources by a system of almost nominal 
 fees. 
 
 If I have mentioned the chief bonds of sympathy 
 which united the lives of these profound thinkers, it 
 is because they indicate certain special qualifications 
 possessed by M. Boutmy for analysing the elements of 
 the British nation. There are not many books which 
 have more effectively penetrated the psychology of a 
 people than has Taine's " Histoire de la litterature 
 anglaise." His method of tracing the natural history 
 of the mind and soul of a nation, adown the ages, may 
 be open to objection — indeed, its defects have been 
 pointed out by M. Boutmy himself. But it is manifest 
 that intimate and constant intercourse with the creator 
 of that work which, when it appeared in 1863, seemed 
 to mark a new era in philosophical criticism, was an 
 incomparable training for one who was moved to study 
 the undercurrents as well as the superficial phenomena 
 of the English people. 
 
 The second point to which I referred, the Protes- 
 tantism of theauthor of the following work, is likewise 
 an advantageous quality in a French critic of England. 
 Before long I hope to expound the peculiar position 
 of the Protestant community in France, which is unlike 
 that held by any religious sect in the United Kingdom. 
 Here it must suffice to say that it places Protestants 
 in an attitude of detachment from certain national 
 prejudices, which has laid them open to the unjust 
 reproach of being deficient in patriotism. Far from 
 that reproach being founded this detached attitude has 
 enabled them to perform signal services to France, even
 
 INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 in the direction of defending their hereditary adversaries 
 — witness the courageous opposition to intolerant anti- 
 clericalism displayed by certain Protestant poHticians at 
 a crisis when Catholic voices have been dumb or inco- 
 herent in defence of their Church. In a short monograph 
 in memory of Edmond Scherer — the brilliant rival of 
 Sainte Beuve, who became a critic when he ceased to be 
 a Protestant pastor and a Christian — M. Boutmy has 
 given an example of this power of detachment. "In 
 contrasting the somewhat parallel cases of Renan and 
 of Scherer he draws a fine comparison between the 
 spiritual declensions of a Catholic and of a Protestant, 
 when faith is waning and " intellectual liberation " is 
 at hand. But there is nothing in the picture to denote 
 the religious origin of the artist except its air of 
 detached impartiality. Now this quality is of the 
 highest utility in one who gives himself to the study 
 of a neighbouring nation. There is, however, a further 
 advantage possessed by a French Protestant when the 
 object of his inquest is England. For a Frenchman 
 who is a devout Catholic or a sceptical freethinker — 
 unless he have the genius of a Voltaire or of a Taine — 
 it is almost impossible to make a just appreciation of 
 the influence which religion has had on our national 
 character. By such, English Christianity is regarded as 
 little more than a veil for dissimulating a moral standard 
 which, neither higher nor lower tha^i that of other 
 nations, is steeped in self-righteousness. That form 
 of British pharisaism, which of late years has been 
 ascribed to " the Nonconformist conscience " — though 
 it is not the monopoly either of English Dissenters or
 
 xii INTRODUCTION 
 
 of English Protestants — is a phenomenon difficult to 
 explain to the best-disposed foreigner who has visited 
 our cities or read our law reports. But a French 
 Protestant, whether of the liberal or of the orthodox 
 school, knows from the hereditary education he has 
 received that, while religious profession in England 
 may have less relation with moral conduct than for- 
 merly, the religious instincts and practises of the nation 
 are not the outcome of calculating insincerity, but form 
 part of its historical character. He is further aware 
 that that character cannot be understood without 
 reference to the position held by various and rival 
 forms of Christianity, in the hearts of the people, 
 during the centuries of national development since 
 the Renaissance. Hence a French writer of the origin 
 and training of M. Boutmy, from the outset of his 
 studies, is able to reach the deepest springs of our 
 national existence, and at the same time to avoid 
 certain misunderstandings which sometimes lead his 
 countrymen, ultramontane and infidel, to distort their 
 view of English life 
 
 The third point which I mentioned, M. Boutmy's 
 connection with the Ecole Libre, enabled him to devote 
 a large portion of his busy life to the special study of 
 English institutions. No foreigner since Delolme has 
 acquired a profounder knowledge of the British Con- 
 stitution. But M. Boutmy's works display more 
 penetration and are of wider scope than the forgotten 
 treatises of the Swiss publicist, though they are less 
 pretentious. Some of his little volumes relating to 
 England and to English-speaking nations, though
 
 INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 manifestly only revised issues of his lectures to young 
 French students, can be read with profit even by those 
 ^\\o deem themselves experts in the subjects treated. 
 One of them, his "Etudes de Droit Constitutionnel," 
 laid me under a debt of gratitude to the author which I 
 am glad to have the opportunity of confessing. In 
 1895 ^ ^^*^ been studying France without interruption 
 for nearly five years. So rich was the material I had 
 amassed that to organise it seemed an almost hopeless 
 task. The difficulty was how to make a start of 
 writing the long-projected work. It was soon after 
 the lamented death of P. G. Hamerton, and some 
 volumes from his well-chosen library had come into 
 my hands. When the parcel of books reached me the 
 first which I chanced to open was this manual of 
 Constitutional Law. Turning over its pages I fell 
 upon a passage wherein an idea was formulated which 
 had been flitting through my mind for many a month. 
 My starting-point was at last clearly indicated, and 
 three years later the work was completed, though the 
 chapter which was thus initiated stood eventually in 
 the centre and not at the beginning of my book. 
 
 II. 
 
 The personal experience which I have ventured to 
 relate furnishes a just testimony to the suggestiveness 
 of M. Boutmy's work. But though its lucid ex- 
 position and its clearly-cut formulae may inspire an 
 English writer with new ideas, or reveal to him in a 
 fresh guise old ones already vaguely conceived, it will 
 never lead him to adopt the method which the author
 
 xiv INTR OD UCTION 
 
 has followed with striking effect in this volume. For 
 in some respects it is a handbook to explain why French 
 and English can never completely understand one 
 another's ways of thought, can never mount or 
 descend to the same standpoint for their view of 
 humanity. 
 
 This opposition of the two races is constantly present 
 in the mind of the author while composing his work. 
 It provides the prevailing theme which runs through 
 his pages ; it forms the basis of not a few of his 
 arguments ; it accounts for many a pregnant conclusion 
 which will impress the English reader the more pro- 
 foundly because it never occurred to him in his 
 unaided study of his own people and of their insti- 
 tutions. M. Boutmy at the outset of his treatise does 
 not hesitate to commit himself to a formula which, in 
 his opinion, indicates the impassable gulf dividing the 
 mental habits of the two peoples. He finds it ready 
 to hand in the sayings of a great English orator and 
 of a French statesman, born a generation later. 
 Edmund Burke, he says, did not disguise his hatred 
 for abstractions ; while Royer-CoUard, who also had 
 witnessed the French Revolution, and who under the 
 Restoration, if he did not invent the term " doc- 
 trinaire " was the chief of the group which bore that 
 name, boasted of his contempt for facts. These two 
 opinions sum up, in the author's view, the opposing 
 qualities of the two peoples. 
 
 This theme is repeated again and again in different 
 forms throughout the volume. In one place attention 
 is called to the lack of aptitude which the English have
 
 INTRODUCTION xv 
 
 for metaphysical speculation ; in another passage is 
 described the laborious difficulty which the pursuit 
 of abstractions causes to British mentality. In the 
 latter connection M. Boutmy remarks upon • the 
 inability of the English mind to generalise. This is 
 probably true ; but it may perhaps be retorted that the 
 disadvantage of the French tendency to generalise is 
 seen in certain sweeping arguments which he draws 
 from the general proposition that Englishmen are 
 incapable of abstract speculation. In this he seems 
 to follow the earlier method of Taine, whose plan, 
 in the first period of his work, was to seek out a 
 general idea around which he could group harmoniously 
 the results of his researches. In a letter to Cornelius 
 de Witt, written in 1853, on the eve of the publi- 
 cation of his " Essai sur Tite-Live," which first brought 
 him into fame, he says : " The difficulty which I 
 experience in an investigation is to discover a 
 characteristic and dominant feature from which every- 
 thing can be geometrically deduced — in a word, what 
 I need is to have the formula of my subject. It seems 
 to me that that of Livy is the following : an orator 
 who becomes an historian. All his faults, all his 
 qualities, the influence which he contracted from his 
 education, from his family, from his career, from the 
 genius of his nation and of his epoch, all may be traced 
 to that." In the same way many of M. Boutmy's 
 illuminating conclusions are deduced from the formula 
 that an Englishman is an animal incapable of abstract 
 speculation. 
 
 The foregoing letter is taken from a volume of the
 
 xvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 correspondence of Taine which has been recently 
 published, and which his widow sent to me since I 
 wrote the first pages of this preface. In a later letter, 
 of the same collection, addressed to William Guizot, 
 the kinsman of his other correspondent, Taine throws 
 a light on another phase of French methods of study 
 and research. As M. Boutmy, in the production of 
 his excellent series of philosophical works has followed, 
 if I am not mistaken, the method here indicated by his 
 friend and master, it will be interesting to quote a 
 passage. Taine was in England in the summer of 1 860, 
 preparing his "Notes sur I'Angleterre," and he writes: 
 " I am now at Manchester, studying the working 
 classes, and I may tell you that I have conceived the 
 highest esteem for literature and the information which 
 one can gather from it. It seems to me that the 
 judgments to which it guided me when I was in Paris 
 were by no means erroneous. The sight of things has 
 in no wise controverted my forecasts formed in a 
 library; but while this has confirmed and developed 
 them, I am persuaded that my general formulas remain 
 entirely accurate. From this I conclude that the 
 opinions which we are able to form on ancient Greece 
 and Rome, on Italy, Spain, and England of the 
 Renaissance, are correct." 
 
 With all due respect to the opinion of Taine, it 
 seems to me obvious that ancient Greece and Rome, 
 Europe of' the Renaissance, and contemporary life in 
 the civilised world stand in three distinct categories 
 as regards the fidelity with whicjj an historian can 
 treat them. My impression is that it is beyond
 
 INTR OD UCTION xvii 
 
 the power of the most profound and painstaking 
 humanist, steeped in the classical literature of antiquity, 
 to reconstitute the lives of the Greeks and the 
 Romans as they were really lived. It has been 
 said that the most polished exercises in Greek and 
 Latin prose and verse, executed by the best modern 
 scholars, would, to an Athenian of the age of Pericles, 
 or to a Roman of the age of Augustus, have a sound 
 similar to that which an essay in Baboo English 
 produces on our own ears. In the same way it is 
 probable that Beckker's " Gallus," or Bulwer's " Last 
 Days of Pompeii " (to mention two very dissimilar 
 efforts to make antiquity live again) call forth genial 
 mirth in the Elysian Fields, if the Immortals are 
 permitted to take an interest in modern literature. 
 So vague are the notions of antiquity possessed even 
 by classical experts, that the other day I saw in a 
 couple of recent Latin text-books published by an 
 eminent English firm, one of them Dr. Rutherford's 
 excellent edition of Caesar's " Gallic War," the other 
 Livy's "Second Punic War," edited by a Rugby 
 master, the self-same illustration serving to mislead 
 schoolboys as to what Roman uniforms were like. It 
 was as though the same picture were used to represent 
 the Battle of the Boyne and the Charge at Balaclava. 
 
 The Renaissance is not in the same case. We 
 have the paintings of that glorious age which show 
 us how its men and women looked and dressed. 
 We have examples of its domestic architecture, not 
 ruined fragments buried beneath earth or volcanic 
 larva for nearly a score of centuries, but dwelling-
 
 xviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 places in which life has gone on uninterrupted, from 
 the time when the stones were piled to the present 
 hour. The languages which Englishmen and French- 
 men talk to-day took definite form in that period : 
 the printing-press stereotyped them and put on record 
 the daily round of our not-distant ancestors, which we 
 can follow in its minutest details. All the same, if 
 the most industrious student of the Renaissance, 
 French or English, could be transported back through 
 the centuries to Sir Thomas More's parlour at Chelsea, 
 or to the boudoir of Diane de Poictiers on the Loire, 
 it is more than likely that he would find himself 
 among surroundings entirely unfamiliar and unex- 
 pected. 
 
 The study of a contemporary people by a student 
 belonging to another nation of equal civilisation, with 
 the aid of books and other printed documents, stands 
 on quite a different footing. The progress of civili- 
 sation is a great international leveller. While, as we have 
 seen, the mental habits of two neighbouring peoples may 
 be entirely different, while their social ways in all 
 classes may present marked dissimilarities, there are in 
 our time a number of features and institutions, of 
 modern growth, which have become common to all 
 civilised nations. Such are the public press, the 
 railway, the postal service, the telegraph and all the 
 applications of steam and electricity to means of 
 communication. Such, again, are the various forms 
 of representative government which, since the French 
 Revolution ; have come into existence in all lands 
 reckoned as civilised with the exception of Russia.
 
 INTRODUCTION xix 
 
 If, therefore, a person of trained intellect be thoroughly 
 acquainted with the language and history of a country 
 not his own, he can before visiting it by an assiduous 
 study of all branches of its contemporary literature, 
 and by a constant perusal of its journals, arrive at a 
 knowledge of the inner economy of its people which 
 was not within the reach of stay-at-home travellers in 
 the eighteenth century. Such an one on arriving 
 in the land which he has studied in his library, 
 provided he is able to converse in the language of its 
 people, may experience to a greater degree the 
 sensations which Taine described in his letter from 
 England in i860, as in the intervening period the 
 points of resemblance in the material existence of 
 civilised nations have become more numerous. 
 
 There is, however, one set of phenomena which 
 may have a bewildering effect on the stranger best 
 equipped for studying a foreign country. When 
 he first sets foot in it the outward aspect of his 
 new surroundings may so work upon his mind as 
 to modify the result of many years' reading in a distant 
 library. Even now, when Paris is practically nearer 
 to London than was Brighton within living memory, 
 and in spite of the increasingly cosmopolitan character 
 of the boulevards, the English traveller, most familiar 
 with the easy journey between the two capitals of 
 Western Europe, cannot fail to be struck with the 
 spectacle greeting his eye on the Parisian streets, which 
 denotes that here the conditions of life are, in some 
 respects, totally different to those he left behind a few 
 hours before on the banks of the Thames.
 
 XX INTR OD UCTION 
 
 Visual impressions such as these can have had no effect 
 on the appreciations of M. Boutmy, either to complete 
 or to disturb them. For the author of these graphic 
 pages, though he has four or five times visited England, 
 has never seen the superficial aspect of our national life 
 of which he has detected the innermost workings. He 
 is not afflicted with the total eclipse which turned 
 Milton's view from the political movement of the 
 world to the contemplation of the heavenly vision. 
 He can walk abroad unattended. He can discern 
 the verdure of the trees by day and the stars as 
 they shine by night. He can faintly distinguish the 
 features of a person who is talking to him at very 
 close quarters. But the general aspect of the world is 
 hidden from him, while reading and writing are both 
 entirely beyond his powers. It is doubtful if there has 
 ever been another case of one thus afflicted who, 
 conquering his infirmity, has been able to study 
 minutely and accurately the elements of a nation to 
 which he is a stranger. I do not know of another 
 example of one so situated even attempting the arduous 
 feat. Henry Fawcett, a generation ago, won the 
 admiration of his countrymen by the courage with 
 which, overcoming his blindness, he became a master of 
 economic science, an active politician, and the capable 
 administrator of a department of the State. But in his 
 case the subjects in which he attained high eminence, 
 under his aflliction, had been familiar to him before he 
 lost his eyesight ; and when incidentally he dealt with 
 what was occurring in distant lands, it was only in the 
 same way in which all politicians or publicists habitually
 
 INTRODUCTION xxi 
 
 treat of the affairs of countries which they have never 
 seen. M. Boutmy seems to present an unique example 
 of one deprived of the use of his eyes who has essayed 
 and brought to a successful issue the analysis of the 
 elements of a contemporary nation not his own. The 
 readers of this volume, who do not turn to the preface 
 until they have mastered the text of the work, will not 
 suspect that it was produced by one stricken with 
 complete literary blindness. On every page, if the 
 translator has conveyed thither the spirit of the original, 
 the reader will detect signs that it is from the pen of 
 one whose habits of thought are not those of an English 
 philosopher, for which cause the book abounds in 
 conclusions as unexpected as they are interesting and 
 suggestive. But there is nothing in it to show that 
 it was the work of one who was not In full possession 
 of all the senses which Taine enjoyed when he composed 
 his famous " Notes " on England, according to the 
 method which I have already indicated. 
 
 While profoundly admiring the results which eminent 
 Frenchmen, such as these, have obtained by their 
 method of studying foreign countries, I confess myself 
 entirely incapable of following it. The plan which we 
 found Taine pursuing at Manchester nearly half a 
 century ago is precisely that of M. Boutmy, as he 
 described it to me in a recent letter — making allowance 
 for the visual infirmity of the latter. For each of his 
 journeys to England he prepared himself with con- 
 scientious care. The questions which he proposed to 
 put to representative Englishmen, the problems of our 
 national life which he wished to solve, were all arranged,
 
 xxii INTRODUCTION 
 
 according to categories, in note-books, at the head of 
 blank pages to be filled in as his information was 
 acquired. That his literary studies of political and 
 social England before his arrival on our shores had 
 been profound, that his native guides were well chosen, 
 that the examination to which he submitted them was 
 penetrating, cannot be doubted by any English reader of 
 his perspicuous pages. But such an excellent and 
 enlightening result could have never been obtained 
 by an Englishman studying the institutions of a 
 foreign country by the means which our French critic 
 adopted. 
 
 My own method is almost entirely the reverse of that 
 pursued by Taine and his distinguished disciple. When 
 I first settled in France in 1890, with a determination to 
 know its people and its institutions, I set to work to 
 strip myself of all my preconceived ideas of that country, 
 whether acquired as a casual traveller in earlier years or 
 from my previous reading of French literature in many 
 branches. I resolved to lead the life of the French 
 people, to mix with all classes of its society, to scale the 
 standpoint from which with varying view they regarded 
 the human movement within their frontiers. Especi- 
 ally I sought to familiarise myself with the settings of 
 the different scenes of daily national life, so that I 
 might retain in my mind's eye the aspect of the 
 legislative chambers, the village municipal council, 
 the presbytery of the parish priest, the salons of the 
 republican prefecture or of the reactionary chateau, the 
 polling-place at a contested election. My purpose was 
 that when I read a newspaper, a parliamentary report, a
 
 INTRODUCriON xxiii 
 
 chapter of modern history, a philosophical essay, or 
 even a novel, I might mentally reconstitute the scene, 
 seeing and hearing French men and women, amid 
 their usual surroundings, acting and speaking as they 
 were wont to do in the course of their daily existence. 
 
 I will give a concrete example to illustrate my prac- 
 tice. The writings of the Abbe Loisy and their 
 condemnation by the Holy See have attracted almost 
 as much attention in England as in France. It is 
 obviously not necessary to live in the native land of 
 that bold ecclesiastic in order to comprehend the 
 attitude of the Roman Catholic Church towards the 
 critical exegesis of the canon of Holy Scripture. But 
 some days which I spent last autumn in a cathedral 
 town of Languedoc made me understand more clearly 
 the bearings of the controversy on the relations of the 
 Church and people in France than six months' study in 
 a library of all the documents relating to it. In the 
 course of a tour through several southern departments, 
 which I made for the purpose of seeing if provincial 
 sentiment had been roused by the religious crisis in the 
 country and by the ecclesiastical policy of the Govern- 
 ment, I came to the city of Albi. There in the 
 mediaeval fortress, which is the archiepiscopal palace, I 
 found the learned and liberal pastor of the diocese, 
 Mgr. Mifrnot. 
 
 In the Archbishop's library the ancient walls were 
 lined not only with the French and Latin books 
 which form the usual literary armoury of the Galil- 
 ean Church, but with every theological work of note 
 produced in Great Britain by Anglican and Presby-
 
 xxiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 terian divines since the Oxford Movement. There I 
 listened to the wise words with which the prudent 
 yet courageous prelate summed up the controversy 
 aroused by the advanced theories of the Abbe Loisy 
 and his school. The hours which passed in such 
 discourse were marked by the booming of the 
 great bell of the rose-tinted cathedral reared superb 
 on the banks of the Tarn. Across the river stretched 
 the undulating lands towards the quiet village, 
 where two generations ago Eugenie de Guerin wrote 
 the journal and the letters which have perpetuated 
 the tradition of Catholic piety as it was practised 
 in the land of the Revolution, before the railway 
 and the cheap press had produced effects more dis- 
 turbing than those of 1789. In the other direction 
 lay the modernised provincial capital. In the main 
 boulevard stood the prefecture, where the agent of the 
 centralised Government issued his orders for the 
 closing of a chapel or the expulsion of a sisterhood, and 
 where the next week a Minister was to expound the 
 anti-clerical policy of his Government, supported by 
 the Socialist deputies of the region. The other side 
 of the street was lined by a row of cafes thronged with 
 chattering sons of the South, who, to judge from their 
 clamorous conversation, were as indifferent to the 
 politics of the Republic as they were to the perils 
 which beset the Church from without and within. 
 Swinging down the middle of the road, a regiment of 
 the line tramped in from the manoeuvres, weary and 
 dusty but buoyant ; and the crowds which rushed to 
 salute the colours, when they heard the strains of the
 
 INTRODUCTION xxv 
 
 march named after the revolutionary army of the 
 Sambre and Meuse, denoted the only institution in the 
 country capable of rousing the population of France 
 from the indifference into which it has fallen with 
 regard to all public • matters under the Third 
 Republic. 
 
 To have heard the controversy which is exercising 
 the Catholic Church in France expounded by the most 
 competent voice of the Galilean episcopate amid these 
 surroundings, which tell of the past history of the 
 nation, which indicate its present condition, and which 
 foreshadow to some extent its future, did not equip me 
 with any new arguments for or against the position 
 taken up by the advanced school of French theologians. 
 I acquired no new knowledge on the historical truth 
 of the Book of Genesis or on the doctrinal value of 
 the Fourth Gospel. But I left Albi with a clearer 
 understanding of some of the extraneous causes which 
 have induced the growth of liberalism within the 
 Church in France ; I had new light thrown on the 
 policy of the opponents of that movement ; I saw at 
 work the forces which are equally hostile to all super- 
 natural religion, liberal or orthodox. My talk with the 
 inhabitants of the town and my observation of their 
 doings enlightened me as to the attitude of a French 
 population towards all forms of belief, religious, politi- 
 cal, or patriotic. I was in a region teeming with 
 associations of the past ; I had before my eyes monu- 
 ments and institutions which, in a land of revolution, 
 represented traditions handed down the course of ages 
 during which the French nation had been formed.
 
 XX vi INTRODUCTION • 
 
 I do not relate the foregoing as a mere personal 
 experience, which would have only a limited interest, 
 but rather as displaying the method followed by an 
 Englishman desirous of fathoming the depths of 
 national existence in a country not his own, in contrast 
 to the system which a Frenchman would pursue under 
 analogous circumstances. A little boy to whom I am 
 related, whose travels abroad have been more extensive 
 than those of most children of his age, was asked, 
 during a visit to England, by a patronising elder, what 
 books he used for his lessons in geography. *' I use 
 no books," he replied proudly ; " I go to the places." 
 The boy by his answer showed himself, in spite of his 
 birth and residence abroad, an Englishman, by inborn 
 instinct opposed to the methods of the French among 
 whom he had passed his childhood. I do not follow 
 him to the extent of using no books. Of late years I 
 have spent days and hours in a library sufficient to 
 justify the name which I bear. But my reading is 
 complementary to my personal observation, rather than 
 a preparation for it. The reason why Macaulay com- 
 pelled the admiration not only of his countrymen but 
 of foreign critics and historians, such as Taine, whose 
 methods had nothing in common with his, was that he, 
 the greatest repository of book-learning of his age, did 
 not rely upon his stores of erudition alone for exer- 
 cising his faculty of reviving historic scenes. His 
 most durable pages of history were those which he 
 wrote after studies made on the spots where the incidents 
 he portrayed were enacted. Macaulay, spending weeks 
 in remote Somersetshire villages in order to reconsti-
 
 ^ INTRODUCTION xxvii 
 
 tiite the scene of the battle of Sedgemoor, was a model 
 for all English historians in the manner in which they 
 most signally excel. The rise of a more scientific 
 school of historical writing has put Macaulay out of 
 fashion in his own country ; but not one of our more 
 recent historians has attained a position higher than 
 that which he still maintains in foreign critical opinion 
 as a characteristic product of British genius. 
 
 The books which Englishmen write about France 
 and which Frenchmen write about England continue 
 to the present day the traditional methods of their 
 respective nations. During the last fourteen years I 
 have had sent to me, with few exceptions, all the works 
 published in England and in France which come under 
 these two categories. The former have been the more 
 numerous ; the latter have been the more interesting. 
 Out of the many books which English writers have 
 published upon French subjects in that period, the few 
 pages which I have discovered of suggestive value, to 
 one already familiar to the country and its people, 
 were all written by persons who had dwelt for a con- 
 siderable time in France. The French books written 
 about England were, with one exception, the work of 
 authors tvhose personal experience of our country was 
 brief, and whose methods were similar to those followed 
 by M. Boutmy. The monographs thus produced 
 were less profound than his treatises on England ; the 
 conclusions found in them, some of an amazing nature, 
 displayed the danger into which the French faculty for 
 generalisation leads a writer. But on the whole the 
 French work was valuable in revealing certain phases
 
 xxviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 of our national character which, though not patent to 
 ourselves, immediately strike the view of a foreigner 
 whose powers of observation have been prepared by a 
 study of our contemporary literature and of our 
 periodical press. If with this preparation French 
 writers of minor rank can produce meritorious work 
 after a superficial glance at England and its institu- 
 tions, it becomes less surprising to find that physical 
 infirmity, which would have been an insurmountable 
 obstacle to an Englishman essaying a similar task, has 
 not hindered an author of the intellect and experience 
 of M. Boutmy from accomplishing a searching analysis 
 of the elements composing the British nation. 
 
 While EngUshmen chiefly excel in describing and 
 analysing what they have seen and studied with their 
 eyes, it must be confessed that, with increased facilities 
 for travel, only a very minute proportion of those who 
 go abroad take the trouble to learn anything at all about 
 the foreign countries which they visit. As we are here 
 deaUng only with England and with France, it will 
 suffice to compare the habits of the travellers of the 
 two nations who visit one another's shores. The 
 number of educated Frenchmen who come to England 
 for purposes other than those of commerce is, in spite 
 of the easiness of the journey, extremely small ; but of 
 that small number a considerable proportion observe 
 with intelligence the working of our institutions or the 
 political and social questions at issue. The number of 
 educated Englishmen who go to France for their own 
 pleasure amounts to tens of thousands every year, and 
 not one in five hundred takes the opportunity of his
 
 INTRODUCTION ' xxix 
 
 sojourn in a foreign land to gain any acquaintance with 
 its people and their institutions. It was not always so. 
 The English traveller of the days when travel was 
 difficult and expensive was as assiduous in his observa- 
 tions of the people among whom he moved as was the 
 French explorer of England. In the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, as in the twentieth, the citizens of each nation 
 maintained their respective methods of study. Montes- 
 quieu and Voltaire regarded England through the eyes 
 of philosophers ; Arthur Yourtg explored France as a 
 practical Englishman, noting every phenomenon which 
 met his view, though disdainful of the abstract doc- 
 trines which were then broadcast in that country. 
 The journals of the Suffolk agriculturist, though the 
 best of their kind, were only, in an extended form, 
 what every English traveller brought back from his 
 foreign tour, and the practice continued for another 
 half century. Mr. Gladstone, in the last words which 
 he ever published, described the superior advantages of 
 travel abroad in the days of his youth, when every 
 stage of the journey was an education in the manners 
 and customs of the land through which the post-chaise 
 was passing. 
 
 No doubt the rapidity of transit, which permits a 
 tourist to travel five hundred miles away from England 
 on the day of his departure from his native land, 
 tends to destroy many of the distinctive impressions 
 formerly associated with a journey abroad. An 
 Englishman who travels with a trainload of English 
 and American people to the extremity of France, 
 there to find a cosmopolitan hotel, inhabited by
 
 XXX " INTRODUCTION 
 
 English-speaking idlers or health-seekers, and flanked 
 on one side by a British club and on the other by an 
 Anglican chapel, may perhaps have some excuse for 
 not realising that he is visiting a foreign land. At 
 the same time the determination with which English 
 people abroad refuse to know anything of the lan- 
 guage, the traditions, the institutions, and the con- 
 temporary history of the most accessible countries of 
 the Continent which they visit, is worthy of a better 
 purpose. For some years I have lived not far from a 
 resort much frequented by them during several months 
 of the year. The official registers of the commune 
 show that no less than four thousand British subjects 
 are annually lodged within its gates. As my purpose 
 for residing in France is not that of studying the 
 habits of my compatriots, it is from a respectful 
 distance that I observe the ways of these itinerant 
 British legions, which with open purse annex certain 
 corners of the Continent, and show by their 
 masterful gait how the Anglo-Saxon race has gained 
 the primacy of the world, and how it has not inspired 
 the love of mankind in its path of conquest. One 
 little investigation I have permitted myself to make 
 with regard to the lack of effort of these good people 
 to acquaint themselves with what is going on in the 
 land of their temporary possession. It so happens 
 that in this particular region circulate two of the best- 
 informed provincial journals in France. From' in- 
 quiries which I have made, from newsvendors and 
 others, I gather that not forty of the four thousand 
 British tourists and residents take in a French journal,
 
 INTRODUCTION xxxi 
 
 although by so doing they could get their news from 
 all quarters of the world thirty hours sooner than 
 they obtain it from the English papers which they 
 receive from London, to say nothing of the national 
 and local information which they would incidentally 
 acquire. 
 
 Perhaps it would be too much to expect the modern 
 Briton, visiting the Continent in search of health or of 
 sunshine, to remember that in the countries of their 
 sojourn there are populations whose daily life, in all 
 classes, present features of high interest to all students 
 of the human race. Perhaps they have some excuse 
 for believing that the only institutions of importance 
 in these lands are the golf-links, the bridge-table, and 
 the tea-party, imported from England, together with the 
 casino as representing the iiational genius of the soil ; 
 for in France, at all events, the unoccupied upper class 
 — which is the most conspicuous French element at the 
 winter and summer resorts of fashion in^hat country 
 — forgetful of its ancient civilisation, proclaims its 
 decadence by its efforts to adopt English diversions 
 as the gravest pursuit of life. Yet English people, 
 who are not casual pleasure-seekers, but are settled in 
 foreign lands for serious purposes sometimes, are as 
 insensible to the local and national interest of what is 
 going on around them as are the holiday-makers and 
 amateurs of climate in a watering-place. An eminent 
 authority on education in England once asked me to 
 give him some aid in a tour he was undertaking, in 
 order to make a report to the Education Office upon a 
 certain category of schools in provincial France. He
 
 xxxii INTRODUCTION 
 
 informed me that a bishop had given him for this purpose 
 letters of introduction to the chaplains of the Anglican 
 churches in France. I took the liberty of telling him 
 that for a person engaged in an inquest upon French 
 education, letters of introduction to the English 
 chaplains in France would not be more serviceable than 
 to a Frenchman arriving in London, to inquire into 
 our parliamentary system, would be similar letters of 
 recommendation to the French milliners of Bond Street. 
 My remark erred if anything on the side of under- 
 statement, as it is possible that a French milliner in 
 London might be acquainted, in some capacity, with 
 a member of Parliament. But I doubt If an Anglican 
 chaplain in France ever occupied his extended leisure in 
 cultivating relations with a French schoolmaster. 
 
 Even the men and women of our nation who go to 
 France for the express purpose of seeing something of 
 French life, and of displaying the cordiality of their 
 sentiments for the French people, take ^with them, on 
 their missionary tour of international comity, their 
 British habits, which they never lay aside in any country 
 or in any clime. A number of English legislators, 
 accompanied by wives and daughters, made a journey 
 through France last autumn, in response to an invita- 
 tion from certain FVench senators and deputies who 
 had been entertained in London earlier in the year. 
 In a tournament of mutual hospitality the French 
 were resolved to be the victors. Not content with 
 banqueting their guests in Paris, they conveyed them 
 all around France to every important centre of in- 
 dustry. In the course of the tour the parliamentary
 
 INTRODUCTION xxxiii 
 
 caravan arrived at Bordeaux, where an ancient tradition 
 of amity with England is based on the genial taste of 
 our forefathers for the generous wines of the Gironde. 
 The historic Chateau Laffitte opened its gates to the 
 visitors. From the sacred recesses of its cellars were 
 brought forth precious vintages not offered to mortal 
 palates twice in a generation. But the British guests, 
 unmindful of the unique privilege, demanded whiskey. 
 Saddened though the Medoc was at the slight offered 
 to its priceless products, the hospitable inhabitants took 
 no umbrage at the inappreciative thirstiness. A leading 
 journal of Bordeaux went so far as to blame the 
 organisers of the feast. The first law of hospitality, it 
 said, is to study the* tastes of a guest, and the entertainers 
 ought to have known that no midday meal in England 
 is complete without its proper complement of "whiskey, 
 tea, and porter." Far from the incident marring 
 the success of the pacific expedition, the general com- 
 ment seemed to be that thus to cling to native habits 
 amid strange surroundings, and under circumstances of 
 peculiar temptation, was the mark of a mighty nation, 
 whose sons and daughters had changed the face of the 
 globe by ever refusing to assimilate with other peoples 
 on whom they imposed their language, their manners, 
 and even their social usages. 
 
 Although the majority of English men and women 
 pass through the countries of the world without taking 
 much notice of what is going on within their frontiers, 
 it cannot be denied that we do take a literary interest 
 in foreign lands. While this volume deals with 
 British institutions in their relation with British cha-
 
 xxxiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 racter and British life, every page shows it to be the 
 work of an alien hand. The unexpected appreciations 
 and criticisms which it contains not only call attention 
 to features of our national existence which in many 
 cases will have escaped our own attention, they also 
 indicate the standpoint from which a Frenchman 
 regards social and political phenomena. Hence, the 
 perusal of this book, which is primarily a psychological 
 analysis of the British people, may lead its English 
 readers to an understanding of certain points of French 
 character which will never have struck them during 
 their passage over French territory. 
 
 J. E. C. BODLEY. 
 February i, 1904.
 
 Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION ..... v 
 
 PART I 
 
 THE NATIONAL TYPE 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT . . . .3 
 
 II. THE IDEAL IN ITSELF . , . 21 
 III. THE IDEAL IN ITS APPLICATIONS . . • 3^ 
 
 PART II 
 
 THE HUMAN ENHRONMENT 
 
 I. THE ALIEN RACES . . . ■ . 57 
 
 II. THE INDIGENOUS RACES . . . '74 
 
 PART III 
 THE ENGLISHMAN: MORAL AND SOCIAL 
 
 I. THE englishman: ISOLATED AND SUBJECTIVE IO5 
 
 35
 
 xxxvi CONTENTS 
 
 PART IV 
 
 THE ENGLISHMAN JS POLITICIAN 
 
 CHAPTER FAGK 
 
 I. THE CITIZEN ..... 12$ 
 
 II. THE PARTY MAN .... I4I 
 
 III. THE STATESMAN ..... I52 
 
 IV. THE LAW AND PUBLIC OPINION . . 163 
 V. ROYALTY ...... 180 
 
 PART V 
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 
 
 I. THE INDIVIDUAL AND HIS FUNCTION IN THE 
 
 STATE . . . . . 197 
 
 II. THE STATE AND ITS FUNCTION AT HOME . 266 
 
 III. THE STATE AND ITS FUNCTION ABROAD . 288
 
 PART I 
 
 THE NATIONAL TTPE
 
 The English People 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT 
 
 I,— The Will. 
 
 Among the influences which mould a nation natural pheno- 
 mena have most weight and efficacy ; such phenomena, for 
 •nstance, as the shape of the country, the relative positions of 
 mountains and rivers, of land and sea, the mildness or severity 
 of the climate, and the abundance or scarcity of the fruits of 
 the earth. These influences are as old as mankind ; going 
 back over the centuries we can find no period when they were 
 non-existent. They have not varied to any extent, and if a 
 change has taken place, it is in man himself, subject as he now 
 is to an infinity of other impressions. In the beginning they 
 were almost the sole forces acting upon a newly created and 
 sensitive being, and thus produced effects which to-day we 
 deem improbable. These influences are what Taine, in his 
 notable theory of 1863, calls the "milieu." But the race 
 which he separates from them ought to be restored to them ; 
 it is but the prehistoric product of these natural phenomena, 
 operating at a time when the first ideas and sentiments of 
 humanity were still shifting, and not consolidated into any 
 monument worthy of commemoration. Such monuments —
 
 4 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 customs, laws engraved on stone, religious rites, epic poems, 
 &c. — were, even in the beginning, the products of physical 
 environment, and it was in the course of time only that, 
 having acquired consistency and individual entity, they them- 
 selves became capable of engendering impressions and modify- 
 ing the effects of the great natural influences. But the great 
 natural influences continue to exist, and enclose on every side 
 that human society which they initiated. Even now, by 
 the force of their number and unchangeable nature, they 
 perpetuate and re-create, after a momentary effacement, the 
 deeply-scored characters and hereditary marks which they 
 stamped upon the first generations in their beginnings. 
 
 England is a northern country ; but, among the northern 
 countries, she occupies a place apart. Her most distinctive 
 feature is her climate, which does not vary to any great extent, 
 the United Kingdom enjoying the almost unvarying tempera- 
 ture which characterises maritime countries. In climate 
 England, more than Scotland or Ireland, resembles the Con- 
 tinent, yet twenty-eight of her counties out of the fifty-two 
 are washed by the sea. Scotland and Ireland have a still 
 larger proportion. The northern isothermal lines rise without 
 interruption as they approach the British Isles. As the curve 
 nears New York and Newfoundland it ascends, passing by 
 Ireland, towards Norway, leaving the whole of the United 
 Kingdom untouched. The temperature at fifty-two degrees 
 of latitude is similar to that at thirty-two degrees of latitude 
 in the United States, a difference of nine hundred and 
 fifty-six miles. What is particularly remarkable is the 
 temperature in winter of the whole of Ireland and 
 Scotland and the West of England. The isothermal 
 lines, instead of being parallel to the equator, are parallel to 
 the meridian. A mean temperature of four degrees extends 
 from Bristol to Thurso and the Orkneys. Over an area of 
 five hundred and fifty-nine miles, from south to north, the 
 climate in winter is invariable. The inhabitants of the British
 
 PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT 5 
 
 Isles can travel from one end of the country to the other 
 without experiencing any change of temperature ; and, on 
 the other hand, the climate of England largely justifies the 
 saying of Charles II., that " it invited men abroad more 
 days in the year and more hours in the day than another 
 country." 
 
 The second peculiarity which distinguishes England from 
 most of the northern countries is the indentation of her coast- 
 line and the fertility of her soil. Quite different, for instance, 
 is Northern Prussia, with its long sandy deserts terminated 
 only by the Baltic, and still more dissimilar are the cold wastes 
 of Central Russia. M. A. Leroy-Beaulieu is of opinion 
 that the extreme severity of the climate in the Muscovite 
 plains, and the great variation between the maximum and 
 minimum temperatures, enervate and depress man instead of 
 stimulating him. He has pointed out, moreover, that all 
 spirit of enterprise is discouraged by the arid and barren soil 
 of that vast empire, wjth its infrequent and scanty patches of 
 cultivation, and the impossibility of conveying overland from 
 any distance such things as are necessary for life and progress. 
 The Russians have, therefore, no temptation to expend their 
 energies in extensive enterprises ; the resulting profit is too 
 uncertain. They prefer to devote their time to the ethical 
 labour of inuring themselves to resignation, renunciation and 
 patience. One of the most popular diversions in Russian 
 villages is a kind of boxing match, in which the victor is not 
 he who deals the largest number of blows, but he who uncom- 
 plainingly receives them. No less an effort of will is required 
 to reduce the spirit to this state of passive stoicism than to 
 work off its superfluous energy in violent action. 
 
 The condition of the Englishman is directly opposed to 
 that of the Russian. Nature speaks to him somewhat after 
 this fashion : " If you relax your efforts destruction will 
 overtake you, but if you take pains your reward will be a 
 thousandfold." This certainly is a most serious dilemma.
 
 6 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 The atmosphere is charged with moisture to a degree which, at 
 times, renders respiration difficult, and the enfeebled body can 
 only maintain its normal temperature by a large amount of 
 exercise ; but, for this very reason, England abounds in big, 
 vigorous men, and she can bring forward perhaps more old 
 men than the most highly favoured of the Continental 
 countries. The soil, moistened by fogs and drowned in 
 showers, requires incessant drainage and clearing to prevent its 
 reconquest by the marsh and forest ; but the labour involved 
 in reclaiming and rendering it fertile is crowned with 
 admirable results. An abundant and chiefly animal food is 
 indispensable to the natives, but there is much rich pasture- 
 land for the breeding of flocks ; and the sea, which abounds 
 in fish, finds its way into innumerable inlets completely around 
 the territory of Great Britain. The constant presence of 
 moisture in the atmosphere, the feebleness of the sun, whose 
 rays are softened by the mist, and the gloom which sometimes 
 overcasts the day, make the tasks of clothing, housing, 
 warming and lighting himself peculiarly laborious to the 
 Englishman. He requires an impervious material for his 
 clothes and thick walls for his house. A large portion of his 
 time must be spent in weaving, distilling, and extracting coal 
 or peat from the earth. How different from the man of the 
 South, who needs but one square of linen to cover his 
 nakedness, and another to shelter him from the sun. If the 
 Englishman does not find all that is necessary for his comfort 
 in his own country, the prodigious mineral riches that He 
 beneath the soil furnish him with ample means of exchange, 
 and, transport by sea being easy and particularly cheap, he is 
 able to obtain what he requires in large quantities. In short, 
 an almost unlimited production, and exceptional facilities for 
 export and import, whereby are supplied the necessaries of a 
 more active and less circumscribed existence than is elsewhere 
 to be found — these are the economic conditions of life in the 
 United Kingdom. This brings us back to the promise and'
 
 PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT 7 
 
 menace addressed by Nature to the inhabitants : the promise 
 of a rich harvest if they persevere in their efforts, the menace 
 of an inevitable decay if they relax these efforts. It would be 
 difficult to conceive a more imperious ultimatum, and at the same 
 time a more seductive invitation, addressed to the human vi^iil. 
 It is evident that for the English people Nature has been 
 a school of initiation in activity, foresight and self-control, 
 and, as always happens, these virtues have eventually become 
 independent of the reasons for self-preservation and well-being 
 which gave them rise. By a process easy of comprehension 
 they have gradually acquired an individual value and character. 
 To begin with, it was to the advantage of the community that 
 the individual should practise them, and an instinctive mutual 
 conspiracy was formed to render them indispensable, and to 
 rank them high among the moral ideals of the race. In the 
 second place, the struggle for existence, unusually violent in 
 England, tended to eliminate, by a sort of natural selection, 
 those who were not endowed with the essential virtues — viz., 
 the infirm, the feeble, the timid and the idle. The strong, 
 the prudent, and the industrious alone remained to perpetuate- 
 the race and to transmit their qualities to posterity. This is 
 the reason why the desire for action, vigorous, untiring, 
 effective action has acquired the tenacity of an hereditary 
 instinct, the compass of a national characteristic, the position 
 and authority of the most imperative of moral obligations. It 
 is often said that the English nation is, above all things, utili- 
 tarian. This is true in the letter, though not in the spirit, if 
 it means that the primary motives actuating the race are 
 necessity and self-interest, all other motives being secondary ; 
 this is the case with every form of moral obligation, historically 
 it originates in a question of utility. On the other hand it is 
 inexact, if it means that such considerations are still the 
 mainsprings of action, the guiding principles of every 
 Englishman's life. A motive power of a totally different 
 character is noyv first and foremost ; author and "generator of
 
 8 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 every action, source of every impulsion — viz., the spontaneous 
 desire, the gratuitous passion of effort for the sake of effort. 
 The most cursory glance will suffice to confirm this 
 conclxision. 
 
 The prevailing tendency in the vi^hole political life of the 
 English nation, from which every suggestion or original action 
 emanates, is the desire to exert strength, to give vent to 
 energy, heedless of result. An unforewarned observer, 
 travelling from one end of the country to the other, will at 
 every step encounter illustrations of this desire for physical 
 activity ; it is like a curious disquiet in the muscles of the 
 people. Bicycles are to be met on every road in England ; 
 cycling is so general that, as one Englishman said, it would be 
 less trouble to name those who do not practise it than those 
 who do. At Oxford, the cricket matches and boat races, 
 which are a far greater stimulant to the student than the 
 ambition to obtain honours, are watched by large crowds. 
 The traveller may have the good fortune to witness a ladies' 
 archery meeting on the banks of the Isis, and for a whole 
 morning watch a hundred of them shooting, with perfect 
 gravity, at targets placed in front of them, crossing the field 
 at intervals to pick up their arrows, and retracing their steps 
 to take aim again without any sign of fatigue or ennui. 
 In Northumberland, the working man devotes himself to 
 quoits whenever he has a moment to spare, and becomes very 
 expert at the game. In Lancashire, boxing has the preference 
 of the majority. The story goes that an American boxer 
 crossed the sea to measure his strength with an Englishman, 
 and a certain Saycrs, accepting the challenge, came off vic- 
 torious. The victor, as a national hero, was summoned to 
 Liverpool, and there received by an immense crowd, who went 
 to meet him playing on musical instruments. A similar 
 occurrence took place in Florence in the fourteenth century. 
 The people came out of the towji in a body, and journeyed 
 to a little village, which thereafter took the name of Borgho-
 
 PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT 9 
 
 Allegri ; but their pilgrimage was in honour of a masterpiece 
 of contemporary Art, a Virgin by Cimabue. In short, our 
 chronicler would return from his tour in England with the 
 impression that sport in that country is more than a diversion ; 
 it is the satisfaction of a physical need as imperative as hunger 
 or thirst. The Englishman throws himself with the same 
 zest and eagerness into work. Who does not remember 
 . having encountered in the streets of London the individual, 
 hastening along with rapid and even step, who, as Hamilton 
 would say, has every appearance of being in search of the 
 accoucheur ? He goes straight on his way, absorbed in his 
 object, and heedless of any distraction. He is the real business 
 man, whom we call riiomme /V affaires ; and notice the volume 
 of meaning conveyed by the word " business " as compared 
 with our word " affaires " — the idea and conception of an 
 urgent task which occupies the entire attention of the worker. 
 The word " busy " signifies actively employed, or much 
 occupied. Let us follow the man we have encountered and 
 penetrate into his office. He begins his work immediately, 
 giving it his whole attention ; he does not raise his head, as a 
 Frenchman would, to watch a fly, or to follow out a thought 
 which distracts him for the moment from what he has in hand. 
 There is not the slightest interruption in his assiduity, nor 
 relaxing of his application to the task he has determined to 
 accomplish. One of the generally accepted arguments in 
 favour of the high wages received by the English working 
 man is, that he is an admirable working machine ; he brings to 
 his work not only a far greater amount of energy, but also a 
 far greater capability than, for instance, an Irishman or a 
 German. It is because the moments of his activity are much 
 closer together, i.e.^ there are no vacant intervals, no half 
 seconds occupied by a sort of stoppage while the thoughts 
 wander. This is the true basis of the Englishman's character, 
 so far as my observation has gone when visiting London on 
 more than one occasion.
 
 lo THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 This peculiar temperament is to be found in every class, and 
 even among those who seem most unlikely to fulfil any expec- 
 tation of vigorous activity. Our young girls in France would 
 consider it inconsistent with their rank, and with the reserve 
 becoming to their sex^ if they sought for masculine or arduous 
 occupation outside their own homes. In England they are 
 daunted neither by the difficulty of establishing and organising 
 a charity mission, nor by the amount of time and perseverance 
 inevitable in a work of social relief entailing incessant inquiry, 
 nor by the repugnant duties which fall to the lot of a nurse in 
 a hospital. It is their means of escape from the ennui of an 
 aimless life. There are nearly fifty thousand women in 
 England who have responded to the appeal of the Liberal 
 party and have become members of various associations. 
 They have set themselves up in opposition to the dames of the 
 Primrose League, who led the way witli this kind of society. 
 They never seem to dread the ridicule which, in France, would 
 too certainly attend such demonstrations. In the same way, 
 the excessive piety, which, in France, disarms the penitent 
 and casts him naked at the feet of his God, rapt m the silence 
 of contemplation and prayer, arms the English missionaries tor 
 their difficult struggle. With us this piety is accompanied 
 with intense fervour, visions of another world, and, in this 
 one, a sort of quietism which alters the moral principles of 
 existence. With our neighbours it is accompanied with joy, 
 rapture, an incessant activity of body and soul which enables 
 them to face solitude with cheerfulness, and a breadth of 
 doctrine which allows them to take part in political schemes of 
 a purely mundane nature. It is remarkable that England can 
 scarcely furnish a single example of a community devoted to 
 prayer, seclusion, and communion alone with God, and always 
 brings in, as it were, a third party, a leaven of the world, 
 an element of everyday life, which she sets to work to 
 transform. 
 
 In short, activity is more concentrated and continuous
 
 PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT ii 
 
 in Eneland than elsewhere, because there is a reluctance 
 to interrupt it, as we do, with moments of relaxation ; it 
 is more general, because it includes even that class of persons 
 which, in France, always abstain from it. The inclination 
 for, and habit of effort must be considered as an essential 
 attribute, an inherent and spontaneous quality of the race ; 
 present with the Englishmen wherever he goes, a secret 
 reason for his resolutions, the key to many of his actions, 
 fulfilling in every circumstance the duties of an omni-present, 
 unrelaxing motive power, as often to be found as the 
 English themselves over the whole surface of the globe. 
 
 The causes which produced the need of activity in this 
 particular section of the human race have lost much of their 
 virtue. The accumulation of intellectual and material 
 wealth has augmented the number of the very rich, and 
 gradually weakened, in a section of the nation, the hereditary 
 instinct which makes man recognise and accept the laws of 
 labour. Further, under these new conditions the idle and 
 the weak have more chance of existence, of perpetuating 
 themselves, and constituting a permanent ethnical element ; for, 
 to begin with, the State and the local authorities offered them 
 daily increasing advantages under the form of gratuitous 
 public services ; and afterwards, those more favoured by 
 fortune bestowed on them some of their superfluity. The 
 observer should note this evolution and its probable effects, 
 but he must not underrate the greater import of those early 
 instincts which became formed under the operation of first 
 causes. 
 
 2. — Sensation and Perception. 
 
 The conditions or external perception are neither less 
 characteristic nor of less consequence. 
 
 The climate in England has a considerable influence on 
 the sensibilities of the inhabitants, and their capacity for 
 experiencing sensations. In countries where a dry atmo-
 
 12 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 sphere, charged with electricity, expands the skin and 
 contracts the tissues, impressions are received far more 
 rapidly. The response they provoke is almost instantaneous. 
 The solemn gravity of the Arab chief conceals a hidden fire, 
 which flashes out in rapid decisive movement and violent, 
 passionate action. The vivacity of the southern Frenchman 
 betrays an acute sensibility, conscious of the lightest touch, 
 springing up or recoiling at a word. The sensibilities of the 
 English are less acute and less prompt to respond. In these 
 big, whire-skinned bodies, bathed in an atmosphere of 
 perpetual moisture, sensations are experienced far more 
 slowly, the " circulus " of reflection takes longer to complete. 
 Their impressions and perceptions are certainly less numerous 
 and acute. Like their sensibilities, their physical imagination 
 — I mean the faculty of consciously visualising sensations — is 
 lethargic and dull. This is one of the reasons why surgical 
 operations are more successful on an Englishman than on an 
 Italian, for instance — the former excites and agitates himself 
 far less than the latter. The imperturbability of the English 
 Grenadiers under fire, in Spain, at Waterloo, at Inkerman, has 
 extorted the admiration even of their enemies : unimpeachable 
 witnesses. They are not compelled, like the Frenchman, to 
 try and forget in the excitement, the hurry and the "quick 
 march," the vivid images their brain conjures up of the bullet 
 whistling past their ears, the fractured limb, and the spasmodic 
 agony. Any one who has spent a week in London cannot 
 have failed to notice the usual method of advertising, which 
 consists in the senseless and incessant repetition of the same 
 word, the name of a candidate perhaps, posted up by hundreds 
 over huge spaces. Our livelier minds are wearied and stunned 
 by it, but these thousand repetitions are absolutely necessary in 
 order to penetrate the thick covering which, with the English 
 envelopes the organ of perception. Our literary taste is 
 offended by the exaggerated and distorted types, over- 
 coloured pictures, and venomous coarse irony, which are to be
 
 PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT 13 
 
 found in the works of even their most cultured authors. If 
 such characteristics were not sufficiently accentuated to jar on 
 our sensibilities, theirs would be left untouched. Their 
 "humour" is sometimes a fantasy, exquisite, soaring, 
 unfettered ; yet it is obvious that the brilliant effect is 
 obtained by the mind's momentary divorce from reason, 
 reality, and limit ; with the simple desire of appearing to the 
 best advantage, it chooses a seeming vacuity for the display of 
 its evolutions. At other times their humour is but a gloomy 
 and tedious buffoonery, ambling ponderously and per- 
 severingly along under its load, between the real gravity 
 of its basis and the mock gravity of its form. Our wit is of 
 an entirely different calibre ; it resembles neither the bird in 
 flight nor the beast of burden dragging along its load ; 
 rather must it be compared to a plant, rising up from the 
 earth, with a graceful calyx airily poised upon a stem, whose 
 flower exhales the most delicate quintessence of good sense 
 and good taste. In short, with the English it is necessary to 
 strike hard, or repeatedly, in order to reach their perceptions ; 
 like a bell, the sound of which, deeper and more muffled than 
 that of other bells, is the result of ampler and more prolonged 
 vibrations. 
 
 3. — The Creative Imagination. 
 
 Let us imagine a cluster of primitive men cast upon a 
 shore in a dry and temperate clime ; perhaps Italy, or Greece. 
 The limpidity of the atmosphere, through which surrounding 
 objects are seen, the beauty of the light in which they are 
 bathed, the exquisite gradation of shades, the delicacy of out- 
 line, the brilliancy and variety of colour — all these are a feast 
 for the eye. Vivid sensations in endless variety occupy and 
 enthrall the soul, which becomes absorbed in the magic of 
 the outer world. 
 
 From these varying impressions, so sharply defined yet so
 
 14 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 graduated, arises a conglomeration of clear ideas which group 
 themselves of their own accord in the brain. The mind takes 
 pleasure in reviewing these ideas, in arranging them. The 
 mouth loves to express them in beautiful language, many- 
 syllabled, joyous, deep-sounding, lingeringly uttered in the 
 still atmosphere which conveys them slowly to the ear. In 
 such countries as these, thought, expressed or unexpressed, is 
 naturally analytical ; it is both a true presentment and 
 an enchanted vision ; one after the other it unfolds, as in a 
 play, images and ideas, which are to some extent a part of 
 Nature herself. Receiving so many varied and delicate 
 impressions, man reluctantly leaves them for action, and 
 eagerly takes the first opportunity to return to the living 
 pictures which Nature and his own fancy can conjure up 
 before him at will. A kind of passive and refined dilettantism 
 is the source from whence he derives his greatest pleasures. 
 Under British skies intellectual development proceeds in 
 another fashion. In that atmosphere, misty or clouded with 
 rain, outlines grow indistinct, shades merge one in the other, 
 and delicate colours become a uniform grey. The clamour of 
 red and green alone resists the deadening influence ; and these 
 are the colours for England. A sensation habitually sad, 
 monotonous and uninteresting, quickly loses its hold upon the 
 human soul, which turns to things more seductive. The 
 spiritual world attracts and absorbs it, and if a reaction 
 afterwards takes place through some sudden enlightenment, or 
 the unexpected appeal of a more definite and attractive 
 impression, it is accompanied by an increased capacity for 
 appreciation, evidenced by the vigour and depth of the 
 sentiment, and often, perhaps always, by images and ideas 
 rendered vivid by long abstraction ; these the soul brings out 
 of its own depths, giving full and free expression to them. 
 Never has man's sensibility received less from the outer world, 
 nor appreciated more intensely in its own way the little 
 which it chanced to obtain. In no other country have
 
 PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT 15 
 
 external impressions been more intensified by the imagination 
 forced back upon itself, and steeped in the very inmost soul of 
 man. In Wordsworth's verses on a sunrise the description is 
 all of spiritual impressions, there is barely reference to visible 
 form or colour. Shelley saw in Nature only his dreams. The 
 painter's brush is guided by the poet soul, the poet speaks and 
 sings with the feeling of the psychologist or the moralist. 
 The whole of the imaginative literature of England bears 
 evidence of this inner life, which continually reacts and 
 encroaches on the material world with a singular power of 
 transformation and interpretation. Thus there is in it no 
 light and smiling dilettantism ; its joys are tragic and profound, 
 its sufferings deep-rooted and violent. The imagination is not 
 content to reproduce, with a mere difference of arrangement, 
 the impressions resulting from perception, but rather does a 
 powerful and original invention develop in the twilight of the 
 inner life a whole efflorescence of shapes, which shoot up in 
 the light, dragging with them the scanty real impressions 
 which gave them birth. There could be no greater contrast 
 to the easy receptivity of the man of the South, who, like a 
 strip of photographic paper, unrolling itself before the physical 
 world, slowly and faithfully presents a perfect reproduction 
 of it. 
 
 This rich poetry of soul, which has produced many 
 incomparable works, is confined to a few highly gifted or 
 extremely cultured minds. To the masses, mental pictures 
 are almost unknown and always disquieting ; vague and con- 
 fused as the perceptions which furnish their substance. The 
 imagination, without earthly guide or model, without rich 
 skeins of colour, cannot weave its brilliant veil, and sometimes 
 even forgets the art of spinning. Words, abortive and cold, 
 cannot describe nature by mere analysis. The Englishman 
 rapidly launches his dull monosyllables on the cold air, and 
 entrenches himself again in his silence. The power of 
 expression, like that of sensation and thought, becomes facile
 
 1 6 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 and brilliant in an atmosphere of comfort and ease : it 
 develops in the sunshine of riches and leisure. A kind of 
 second human nature, the product of art and of will, can 
 nurture in its freshly turned soil the delicate seeds, which 
 would germinate but rarely in the solid, compact ground of 
 the original stock. To the igross-minded even now they do 
 not yield all their flowers. " Hesitating, humming and 
 drawling are the three Graces of the English conversation," 
 as a wit once said. No other people can furnish in the same 
 degree the contrast and paradox of genius — and an incompar- 
 able poetic sensibility in the chosen few — with an extraordinary 
 dulness and cerebral aridity in the masses. 
 
 Does this mean that no ideal exists for the unfortunate 
 masses ? They have an ideal, a sovereign good ; one which we 
 have already pointed out. It matters little that, for the bulk 
 of the English people, the world of visible perception and the 
 world of pure thought, are two meagre worlds, unattractive, 
 unpromising. As a matter of fact this poverty of mind merely 
 compels them to have recourse to the personal joy of action, 
 the poetry of the will. The tonos becomes the ideal of the 
 stoical utilitarian. In default of that subtle enlightenment which 
 makes plain the exquisite harmony of the universe, the English 
 people for centuries past have been stimulated by the dim 
 warmth developed by voluntary action. It seems as if the 
 tension of the muscles quickens the life in their apathetic 
 nerves, as if the tension of the whole moral being, in the 
 moment of action, affords the most vivid and acute joy to these 
 people, driven back upon themselves as they are by unsympa- 
 thetic Nature, and cut off from their due expansion. And 
 what they glory in, is not only the action of the will upon 
 outward things, moulding, transforming, and leaving its 
 imprint upon them ; but the action of the will, by an effort 
 certainly not less, nor less meritorious, upon the spirit which it 
 brings into subjection, placing its seal thereon. This brings to 
 mind the notable saying borrowed by Taine from Tom Brown s
 
 PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT 17 
 
 School Days^ " the consciousness of silent endurance, so dear to 
 every Englishman — of standing out against spmething, and not 
 giving in." This is the true key to the English character. 
 Tennyson expressed the same thought in the magnificent lines 
 of his poem " Ulysses." He tells how the indefatigable circum- 
 navigator, weary of Ithaca and Penelope, and yielding to the 
 nostalgia of travel, drags his followers on to fresh enterprises, 
 reckless of his diminished forces ; — 
 
 " How dull it is to pause, to make an end ; 
 To rust, unburnish'-d, not to shine in use ! 
 As tho' to breathe were life . . . 
 . . . That which we are, we arc. 
 One equal temper of heroic hearts, 
 Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will 
 To strike, to seek to find and not to yield." 
 
 4, — The Power of Abstraction. 
 
 In order to arrive at the root of the relative inability of the 
 English people to formulate general ideas, and of their dislike 
 for theories and systems, we must follow the operations of the 
 guiding principle through the innermost workings of the 
 mind, as well as in external developments. The conditions 
 which hinder or facilitate the powers of generalisation are 
 obvious. All generalisation must have a perfectly definite 
 element of abstraction, which is more easily recognisable, and 
 stands out in greater relief, the more free a man is to yield 
 himself up, wholly and continuously, to the impressions which 
 partake of it. But this element of abstraction is lacking in 
 England, where people are incessantly absorbed in, or called 
 elsewhere by, the necessity for action. Every generalisation 
 implies a more or less arbitrary extension. Every abstraction 
 infers a more or less inexact simplification. Therefore 
 N generalisation, or the power of abstraction, for they are one 
 and the same thing, can only have free play when the mind 
 is not incessantly impelled towards concrete realities by this 
 
 C
 
 1 8 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 necessity for action. Concrete realities compel the intellect to 
 bring to a perpetual and discouraging test, the erroneously 
 simple, and practically false elements in any assertion which 
 aspires to be at all comprehensive. 
 
 The people who excel in the production of general ideas, or 
 the construction of theories, are those whose sensations are so 
 numerous and distinct that they can visualise to themselves 
 without effort any number of perceptions, acute, definite, and 
 varied. An admirable example of this is to be found among 
 the ancient Greeks. Their minds were stored with a limitless 
 series of imaginary impressions^ each of which, reacting upon 
 the others, produced an endless number of abstract ideas in the 
 ever-present intelligence. Like a swarm of bees, or a flight of 
 birds, they soared aloft and built a kind of independent city, a 
 town of birds, so to speak, where the mind took pleasure in 
 the review of general propositions, which arranged, opposed, 
 and grouped themselves according to their own laws of 
 equilibrium, following a sort of abstract eurythmy ; building 
 themselves up in stages, ranging themselves in facades, and 
 spacing themselves out in noble architecture. The require- 
 ments of the world of action place a gulf between it and this 
 purely speculative construction. It is only when the order of 
 the parts has been determined, and received the inviolable seal 
 of harmony, that man returns to the realities of life, and under- 
 takes to adjust their infinite diversity to all these wise, uniform, 
 and unchangeable elevations. 
 
 With the Englishman, the rarity and original indefiniteness 
 of the mind's imaginings, and their heavy and vmcertain gravi- 
 tation, hinder the formation of repeated and varied conjunctions, 
 from which abstractions would be evolved in abundance. 
 Springing up here and there in obscure isolation, they do not 
 form an organised group, capable of movement, sufficiently 
 well ordered and concerted to raise itself as a whole into higher 
 regions, where it can be devoted to the building up of great 
 abstract structures. Besides, the imperious necessity for action
 
 PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT 19 
 
 and the concentration required to secure its intensity, con- 
 tinuity, and efficacy take entire possession of him, and cut 
 off, as it were, the horizon around him. Generah'sation, 
 captive and parasite of action, finds no space in which to 
 expand, nor sufficient strength to develop beyond the limits of 
 a narrow circumference. It stops short directly the mind feels 
 a foreboding that in developing further it would weaken the 
 spring which causes the expansion of human activity. All 
 the natural tendencies of the power of generalisation are there- 
 fore curbed and forced back upon themselves. It aspires to be 
 universal and eternal, but action only occupies a point in space, 
 a moment in time. It proceeds from abstraction, simplifica- 
 tion ; but action is complex, mixed, heterogenous. Generali- 
 sation rises only to fall back again, and, springing forward, hurls 
 itself against a barrier. It is not surprising that intelligences 
 which for centuries have worked under this discipline should 
 have become almost incapable of generalising, and, for the very 
 good reason, that absolute principles, theories and systems, if it 
 does produce them, engender in it a sort of unconscious 
 distrust, a deep and instinctive uneasiness. 
 
 The penetrating and cold mind of a Royer-Collard took 
 pleasure in the formula, "I disdain a fact." The fiery genius 
 of a Burke did not hide its distaste for abstractions. "I hate," 
 said he, " the very sound of them." These two opinions 
 admirably sum up the conflicting views of the two nations. 
 But do not mistake mc : I do not mean that in England 
 there is an organic infirmity of the generalising faculty, but 
 rather that the faculty of abstraction passively depends upon, 
 and subordinates itself to, a limited aim, which prevents it 
 from working except for clearly defined ends, and renders it 
 at other times passive.^ The practical mind is one in which 
 
 ' It is not only abstract ideas which are distasteful to the English, hut 
 anything which represents a whole. As soon as they encounter ©ne they 
 divide it and cut it up into fragments. " They feel instinctively,'' said a 
 great observer, "that if they are conscious of all the various points of
 
 20 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 ideas, instead of freely classifying themselves with all their 
 possible affinities — a delicate, laborious, and slow process — 
 connect themselves simply with one aim, with a certain type 
 of life, like an accepted " postulum." The power of generali- 
 sation is not necessarily weak, but it is limited and self- 
 contained, it awaits a signal to exercise itself; when the signal 
 does come, however, it exercises itself with singular propriety, 
 assurance, and efficacy. It resembles, not the general who 
 commands the whole army, conceives the plan of attack, and 
 enjrafres in battle, but the officer who, at a distance from the 
 field, holds a reserve corps in readiness to help in time of need. 
 This officer may not be qualified to join in the exploits of the 
 vanguard, but he is unrivalled in his ability to obtain a strong 
 position at the outposts and hold it against the attacking force. 
 In such case, though there may be metaphysics, they will be 
 limited in interest, destined to establish a rule of life, as is the 
 case with a religion ; there may be political ideology, but it 
 will only be a subordinate ideology, which busies itself in 
 drawing up justifications and apologies after a defeat. 
 
 view which are connected with their thought, the certainty, immutability 
 and direct continuity of their effort to attain a practical end will be 
 weakened."
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE IDEAL IN ITSELF 
 
 I.— The World of the Spirit. 
 
 The cultivation of will power, the feebleness and rarity of 
 sensations, and, among highly-gifted minds, the instinctive 
 presentment of those pictures which rise up in the mind and 
 seek outward expression, and, lastly, the weakness and 
 inferiority of the faculty of abstraction — these are the causes 
 which, by force of numbers or the influence of master minds, 
 largely determine the conception English people form of the 
 world of the Spirit, the true, the beautiful, and the good. We 
 must follow this operation in their inner lives, and shall then 
 the more surely be able to recognise its reproduction in 
 politics. 
 
 When sensations are habitually rich and varied, man, 
 interested and absorbed, cannot detach himself without an 
 effort from Nature, which is reflected in his senses. He 
 imagines himself one of the personages in an endless procession, 
 another drop in the flood of manifestations, a mirror in which 
 the co5?nos sees and admires itself. He " places " the 
 universe, and seeks a position for himself in the general plan of 
 things. A materialistic conception of life is in some degree 
 suggested to him by all his surroundings. In England, where 
 sensations are weak and vague, interrupted and broken, man 
 does not become absorbed in the outer world ; on the 
 contrary, he seeks refuge in the inner life ; he soon learns to
 
 22 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 "place" himself independently of Nature, intrenches himself 
 in his own consciousness, and there remains ; if he again 
 ventures forth he deigns to recognise only his immediate 
 environment. Naturalism is entirely foreign to the English 
 mind, and metaphysical speculation absolutely contrary to it. 
 Both infer a sort of prolonged impersonality on the part of the 
 thinker, a forgetfulness, a detachment, an alibi. He must 
 come out of himself in order to attempt to complete, either on 
 earth or in the clouds, any great and permanent structure. 
 The building up of such a structure, if an Englishman 
 attempts it, w^ill of necessity be disturbed or interrupted by his 
 strong conviction that the human being ought to occupy the 
 first plane, by the persistent idea that he ought to be a part of 
 it all, by the question, a hundred times repeated, What have I 
 to gain by all this labour ? With the Englishman the wings 
 of the spirit have not finished growing ; they do not lend 
 themselves to any great flights ; they simply help it to walk ; 
 if it rises for an instant it falls back again to earth the instant 
 after, in the consciousness of a personality that does not allow 
 itself to forget. This personality derives considerable force 
 from the powerful interests which, as we have pointed out, 
 attract it to them, dominating it by the prestige of an immense 
 and sure success, occupying it without intermission, keeping it 
 near the earth. The intensity of his material wants, the rich 
 promise of his country's soil, the facilities arising from its 
 geographical position, all the consciousness of wealth and 
 power, create for the Englishman an ideal within reach of his 
 eyes and hands, and urge him to unceasing activity. He has 
 no time to follow vain phantoms ; they are too far removed 
 from earth, too alien to life here below, to its conditions and 
 necessities. Naturalism and metaphysics kept at a distance, or 
 used merely as a background for the perpetually moving 
 human microcosm, sink to the level of religion, and religion 
 that plays the part of a trusted guide, specially esteemed for its 
 common sense — maghter vitce. Even in matters of faith
 
 THE IDEAL IN ITSELF 23 
 
 the Englishman hardly gets beyond the horizon of the 
 circumstantial psychologist and moralist, of the earth, earthy. 
 He is in no sense a pantheist, a mystic, or a sceptic. 
 
 This growth apart of the inner life — the imagination and 
 the will — and the strong resistance it opposes to external 
 impressions, produce a mental and moral equilibrium very 
 different from what is observable among those whose hearts and 
 minds, wide open to outside influences, have been educated 
 through the senses. With these latter the idea prevails that 
 those things which are manifest — I mean everything which 
 comes within the range of the senses, actions and abstract 
 conceptions — have by themselves and in themselves alone a 
 considerable value, a high significance, an individual virtue 
 and an intrinsic force, and that there is a certain correspon- 
 dence between the order in which they present themselves and 
 the more mysterious order of the Divine Laws. With the 
 English, on the contrary, it seems that such things have no 
 significance except by their relation to spiritual forces, or more 
 exactly speaking, to a certain spiritual equilibrium, a state of 
 absolute consciousness, from whence comes all their virtue, 
 and from whence they derive an artificial life. Are examples 
 required ? Ceremonies can have merit without piety, toler- 
 ation can exist without purity of heart, works without faith, 
 absolution without repentance, rhyme without poetry, laws 
 without the support of morals, diverse beliefs proceeding from 
 one and the same cause : the premature occupation of the 
 human heart by an immense army of perceptions — articulate 
 sounds, images of objects or of actions defiling in perfect 
 order, before the mind has been able to take possession of 
 itself, arrange its means of resistance, and protect itself against 
 so powerful an influence. All the Englishman's strength has 
 its source in his inner moral being ; with him everything 
 depends on a general inspiration and impetus which are 
 generated in those obscure precincts. There, where they 
 operate, space does not allow of a lingering over the detail of
 
 24 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 actions, over the form, the words, or the absolute rules by 
 which they put in motion their accomplishment ; they will 
 easily adapt the means to their end. If faith is granted, works 
 will follow ; anything that is lacking it will supply. In 
 politics the sure guardian of the liberties of the subject will 
 not be the careful text of a constitution in which every 
 emergency has been foreseen and provided against, but, behind 
 vague tradition, beneath the insufficient and out-of-date for- 
 mulas of the old byways, the constant presence of an unsleeping 
 will, ready to be on the defensive at the smallest indication of 
 the infringement of its ancient liberties. 
 
 2. — The True. The Beautiful. The Good. 
 
 With the man of the South external perceptions are 
 reflected in the mind in a series of images, both distinct and 
 numerous. They are distinct, i.e.^ their limits are sharply 
 defined and thoroughly obvious ; they are numerous, i.e.^ in 
 the unity of time, a long series of images follow one another in 
 the mind, aiding in the exercise of the faculty of abstraction. 
 We have seen that this faculty in the countries where the 
 sun has most power is more active than in others. The mind 
 contemplates with serenity this infinity of perceptions. They 
 superpose one upon another a large number of times, with such 
 effect that finally a common part detaches itself from the mass, 
 and one single word, a, substantive or a verb, is chosen to 
 designate it. During the process of superposition these 
 perceptions become separated one from the other, and other 
 words, adjectives, adverbs and adverbial phrases, are used to 
 designate the differentiated part. With the Englishman the 
 mechanism of perception is totally different ; the images it 
 presents to the mind are confused and rare. They are confused, 
 i.e.^ their outlines are blurred by the mist, and it is not possible 
 to say exactly where one ends and the other begins ; they are 
 rare, i.e.^ in the unity of time only a few are produced. The
 
 THE IDEAL IN ITSELF 25 
 
 faculty of abstraction, when it is applied to these intermittent 
 perceptions, encounters difficulties which hinder its operation. 
 Such perceptions do not lend themselves to repeated super- 
 positions. Produced at first singly, they make a profound 
 impression on the human heart, and provoke a powerful 
 response on the part of the imagination, which emphasises the 
 individuality of the impression, and renders it less liable to 
 become confused with others. Finally, supposing that super- 
 position is possible, another difficulty is encountered : the 
 absence of precise limits, of definite outline, makes it impossible 
 to distinguish and name each of the differentiated parts which 
 the inhabitants of the countries of the sun designate by 
 adjectives or adverbs. These parts adhere to the common 
 part, and a separate word — a noun or a verb — must be used to 
 designate each whole. 
 
 One example will suffice to demonstrate the different 
 operations of the two minds. Let us take in French the 
 word regarder. This word in our language is only a relic ; 
 the survivor of many superpositions from which has been 
 evolved, among several variations, a common part now 
 definitely designated by this word. The differentiated parts 
 have either undergone depreciation, as in the words guigner 
 rcluquer^ toiser^ which have become familiar or fallen into 
 disuse ; or else they have disappeared altogether, in which case 
 they have been replaced by adjectives, adverbs, or adverbial 
 phrases, as in regarder fixement^ or par celllades^ or avec 
 hauteur^ or en tapinoh^ &c. Now take the English verb 
 " to look." I notice in this connection two classes of 
 facts : (i) The simple variations of the action of looking are 
 expressed by the post-positions which almost correspond to the 
 pre-positions included in the Latin verb, only they do not 
 modify the sense to nearly the same extent. The words res- 
 picere^ desp'uere^ suspicere^ introsp'icere^ cover in their figurative 
 sense a very wide field, whilst the words, " to look up," 
 "down," "-away," "round," &c., are as a rule limited
 
 26 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 to the literal sense. (2) These compounds of the verb "to 
 look " do not exclude other synonyms used to express the 
 subtler shades of meaning and further variations of the action 
 of looking : — 
 
 To stare regarder fixement. 
 
 To glance regarder par oeillades. 
 
 To gaze regarder avec ebabissement ou admiration. 
 
 To glare devorer des yeux. 
 
 To wink regarder du coin de I'oeil. 
 
 To survey dominer du regard. 
 
 To peep dominer en tapinois. 
 
 It is easy to see that these synonyms have retained, and keep 
 inseparably blended with the principal sense, the differentiated 
 parts vv^hich the French at first separated from the verb, but 
 aftervi^ards restored to it in order to complete the sense. 
 
 Moreover, we cannot fail to recognise, when observing the 
 actual position of an idea, and the words which express it, in 
 the two languages, that the dissection of the idea by analysis 
 and the omission or altered classification of certain words by 
 means of abstraction, are far more advanced in French than in 
 English. Let us take, for example, the synonyms df the word 
 br'iller : to shine. In French we find only nine, of which 
 six have a general sense, which is applicable, so to speak, to 
 them all ; these are : luire^ kinceler^ Jiamhoyer^ rayonner^ 
 respkndir^ sclntiller ; three, on the contrary, are more or less 
 particularised, and some of them, viz., chatoyer^ miro'iter^ papil- 
 loter^ are fast becoming obsolete. In English there are no less 
 than sixteen synonyms of the word to shine. Most of these 
 words have retained a certain speciality, which gives them a 
 particular meaning and prevents their being used for any 
 object which shines. To glow indicates a light accompanied 
 by warmth, and cannot be applied to water, a diamond, nor a 
 star. Similarly, the word to glare is applicable only to the 
 sun, or to the eyes of a wild beast, shining in the dark. The 
 word to gloom has a very particular sense : wz., to emit a dull
 
 THE IDEAL IN ITSELF 27 
 
 light, &c. We might add to these observations the simple 
 remark that, of the sixteen words used as synonyms of to shine, 
 there are nine : to glint, to glitter, to glisten, to glimmer, to 
 glimpse, to gleam, to glare, to glow, to gloom, which appear 
 to have the same root, and to be fundamentally the same word. 
 But abstraction is powerless to reduce these different expres- 
 sions in such a way as to leave only two or three, as would 
 have been the case, for instance, in French. 
 
 If from the vocabulary we pass to the complete sentence, 
 we find quite as many marked differences. I will only mention 
 one, which relates to the conjunctions. In French the 
 generality of the conjunctions include the word que or are 
 followed by it, so that we havq no doubt of their use in the 
 phrase ; they introduce a subordinate sentence into it in 
 addition to the principal sentence. The words, lorsque^ apres 
 que^ depuis que^ puisquBy pourvu que^ vu que^ attendu que^ tant que^ 
 jusqua ce que^ &c., are all examples of this. Nothing of the 
 kind occurs in English ; with the exception of the word " why," 
 which is the auxiliary of " who," the other conjunctions, 
 " when," " while," " since," " after," "till," " though," " if," 
 are independent of the relative "that." If a word is needed to 
 express a limit and another a period of duration the Englishman 
 forthwith makes use o^ uW^jusqua ce que^ and ^\\\\cy pendant que ; 
 he is careful not to add anything that would illuminate the 
 conjunctive character of these words. If we also take into 
 consideration the fact that the French language undoubtedly 
 contains a larger number of conjunctions than the English, we 
 must come to the double conclusion that the Englishman is 
 less convinced, not only of the necessity of linking his phrases 
 together, but of clearly demonstrating the link which connects 
 them. 
 
 We shall not therefore be surprised at the tardy develop- 
 ment of prose in England. The simple, animated and vivid 
 phraseology suited to the story, for example, which we have 
 possessed since the thirteenth century, the English had not
 
 28 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 mastered even in the seventeenth century. i Precise expressions, 
 very exactly determined sense, and rather colourless vv^ords 
 which appeal more to the intelligence than to the passions, 
 are essential. The English language by no means fulfilled 
 these conditions ; it only contained words highly charged with 
 colour, which could with difficulty be constrained into the 
 expression of abstractions, and were so unmanageable that, 
 even when uttered, they gave play not to flights of volatile 
 ideas flitting across the sky, but to a swarm of intense emotions 
 whirling round a concrete image. They were lacking in the 
 qualities of taste, the easy method and occasional flight of the 
 storyteller ; their qualities became defects, dulling the charm 
 of their style, and making it incoherent, like a nightmare. 
 We may observe with Taine that even Bacon, who was 
 accounted the chief English prose writer of his time, was not 
 master of his own language, and continually betrayed himself a 
 poet and visionary ; he was ill at ease with the abstract vocabu- 
 lary, and, though esteemed a philosopher, was a mere dialec- 
 tician. In short, at this period thought in England had not 
 completely issued from its natural indivision ; ideas arose from 
 the depth of the mind like a thick tuft of grass, still adhering 
 to the turf from which it had sprung ; very different from 
 our harvested sheaf, which might be untied, spread out, beaten 
 and made up neatly again, after sorting. 
 
 These are the elementary tendencies which invariably 
 appear in every work of art. The Englishman is rather pos- 
 sessed by them than possesses them, for they operate in him and 
 guide him like instincts. But, above the tyranny of instinct, 
 rises the liberty of the spirit. From the elements of which a 
 subject is composed, the intelligence chooses one conscien- 
 tiously and voluntarily, embracing it with fervour, developing 
 it with pleasure : making it an ideal. Beauty is the sensible 
 expression of the causes and conditions from whence happiness 
 
 ' " An English Froissart at this period (fourteenth century) had written 
 in Latin" (Jusserand, Literature anglaisc, p. 417).
 
 THE IDEAL IN ITSELF 29 
 
 arises. The idea of beauty is therefore connected witli that of 
 sovereign good. Placed under the necessity of supplementing 
 the poverty, monotony, and incoherence of external perception, 
 the Englishman has not lacked great artists, who have created 
 for him, out of their own souls, a whole unreal world. They 
 iiave conceived of themselves and displayed for his benefit a 
 great series of magnificent pictures. But, as a rule, reality 
 only provides them with a point of departure or a nucleus, 
 not a model, not even a rule nor a bridle. Order, proportion, 
 and fitness cannot be attributes prized and sought after, in the 
 absence of material examples, qualified to demonstrate the value 
 of temperance and good taste. On the one hand intensity of 
 life and movement, on the other the majesty and power of the 
 will, giving a force to impulse or lightly curbing it — this is 
 what the Englishman contemplates with interest in himself, 
 and which it pleases him to find in others. It is the double 
 ideal his poets incessantly pursue. They expressed the first, 
 in the time of " Merry England," with an illimitable richness, 
 an immeasurable profusion, a fantasy creating haphazard and 
 without stint. But, as is natural, neither the accumulated 
 wealth of the imagination, nor its wildest caprices, have com- 
 pletely succeeded in satisfying the profoundest yearnings of 
 man, or in dissipating the sadness which, from the heavy, 
 lowering sky, seems to pour down upon his heart, vaguely 
 oppressing it. The Englishman finds a surer and more per- 
 sonal pleasure in studying and representing the play of moral 
 forces, but even in this he lacks the sense of order and dis- 
 cretion. The Englishman is more of a poet than the Latin, 
 because he is more creative ; he is less of an artist ; he is rarely 
 a virtuoso. Less occupied in trying to reproduce visible Nature 
 under the veils in which she is wrapped, he trusts more to his 
 invention ; less accustomed to appreciate the harmony and 
 exactness of affinities, owing to their lack ot ordinary manifes- 
 tation, or in default of leisure to analyse them, he cares little 
 that they should control his inventions ; this results in a
 
 30 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 freedom and arbitrariness in the method of explanation, the 
 order of succession of parts, and the choice of forms ; a 
 disdain for perspicuity, eurvthmy, and verisimilitude, which, 
 to classic minds, has the effect of being contrary to Art. 
 Something of Art exists, however, since there is the desire for, 
 and the pursuit of unity ; the poet pursues it, and finds it in 
 depths where it escapes us, but he has no scruple in breaking 
 and confusing, time after time, the external unity which holds 
 us in thrall. Everything in his case comes from within. The 
 imagination — an imagination without master or model — has 
 been compelled to project outwardly an entire world of its 
 own creation, where man alone is what it chooses to behold 
 and demonstrate, where it pursues no other ideal than the 
 tumultuous expression of force and life, where it seeks and 
 experiences the calm of the sea, quivering with subsiding 
 waves, which has been stilled by a sign from the sovereign 
 will. 
 
 The history of the various branches of literature and all 
 other departments of human thought — the fine arts, exact 
 sciences, moral sciences, philosophy, religion — afford us con- 
 clusive proof of this theory. The sensibility and thought 
 displayed therein have grown up under the strict discipline 
 of action. Certainly, nearly every direction in which the 
 understanding and the imagination can be exercised and ex- 
 panded have been represented in England by great examples ; 
 but the result of a happy chance or the energetic effort of 
 individual genius, can easily be distinguished from the natural 
 and spontaneous production of the national genius. Con- 
 sidered in the whole course of its history, English literature 
 is certainly one of the most admirable, opulent and varied in 
 Europe, but there can be no doubt as to the kind of work in 
 which it excels, and the sort of subjects towards which a 
 secret instinct continually impels it. Its vocation is to depict 
 either the concentrated tension of the power of the will, or the 
 vigorous display of human activity. It only demands a vast
 
 THE IDEAL IN ITSELF 31 
 
 and picturesque arena in the outward and visible world. 
 Shakespeare pictures the human will : he represents it in 
 manifestations of scornful and sudden spontaneity, troubled by 
 visions, struggling with overwhelming influences, or vanquished 
 by a blind fatality. Milton uplifts against God the "un- 
 conquerable will " of his Satan. It is the concentrated pathos 
 of moral struggles which a Currer Bell, a George Eliot, and a 
 Mrs. Gaslcell endow with a powerful reality founded on life. 
 On the first plane, in all these creations, we meet the will, 
 considered in its passionate or rational inception, its evolution 
 and phases, its incentives and mainspring, its perturbations and 
 errors, its qualifications and effects. A law has recently been 
 discovered in chemistry by which, several bodies being present 
 and several different combinations possible, the combination 
 produced is that which entails the greatest expenditure of heat. 
 An analogous formula might be applied to the English, to the 
 effect that, in every case, the creation of the mind — or the 
 manner of regarding it — which finds in them the strongest 
 affinity — is that most qualified to develop and stimulate human 
 activity and render it effective.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE IDEAL IN ITS APPLICATIONS 
 
 I. — Criticism and History. The Drama and the Novel. 
 
 Another characteristic, emanating from a different psycho- 
 logical cause, is strikingly apparent in criticism and history. 
 Owing to the feebleness and aridity of their faculty of abstrac- 
 tion, the English deal with these subjects from a singularly 
 narrow and partial point of view. Take, for example, the 
 work of Buckle, and the contrast of its immense erudition and 
 prodigious mass of reading matter with the unique and 
 inferential thesis they serve to establish. As a rule, English 
 historians see, beyond the pictures they paint, the image of 
 contemporary interests, and, too often, look upon it as a part 
 of them. This, in different ways, is the case with Grote, 
 Macaulay, Freeman, and Froude. They have neither the 
 temptation nor the ability to emerge from their country and 
 their times for the pure pleasure of contemplation and know- 
 ledge. They do not know how to create an alibi in the 
 manner of the true historian. They are always more or less 
 chained to their soil and captives of the present. 
 
 If we want an even more forcible and perfect example of the 
 superior gifts and peculiar weaknesses of the English genius, 
 we must consider the two indubitably most original sections of 
 English literature : the plays of Shakespeare in the sixteenth 
 century, and the novel in the nineteenth century. These two 
 groups of works present a contrast to the literary productions 
 
 32
 
 THE IDEAL IN ITS APPLICATIONS 33 
 
 of the Latin races, in that, wise disposition of material, exact 
 placing of relative parts, methodical sequence and easily grasped 
 unity, are merits less esteemed than vigour and glow, life and 
 breadth. A play of Shakespeare's is a world in itself, and yet 
 at first sight it seems a chaos ; because parts of it are hewn out 
 of a complex reality ; because the unity introduced into it by 
 the opposing individualities of the principal characters is more 
 or less broken by the number of secondary personages, repeated 
 shiftings of the scene, and disconcerting discrepancies of tone 
 and style. No drama exists which depends more on the 
 imagination of the public, nor introduces it with less prepara- 
 tion into the presence of infinitely varied situations. The 
 public was neither disturbed nor offended by the incessant 
 strain put upon them. Like the poet himself, in the intensity 
 of the life, the force of the passions, and the individual reality 
 of the characters, they saw the miracle of art ; like him, they 
 disported themselves in time and space. No one is more 
 realistic than Shakespeare in depicting souls, and yet less 
 careful of the probability of external circumstances ; farther 
 from abstract types, and yet more idealistic and even visionary. 
 Let us consider how the tendency of the poet, in proportion 
 with the development of his genius, is to rid himself of all 
 restrictions. This is evident even in his prosody. In his 
 second manner he adopts the blank verse of Marlowe ; he no 
 longer employs rhyme, except for the production of a certain 
 effect ; he breaks the rhythm and varies it to such an extent 
 that his poetry has the same varieties of tone as harmonious 
 prose ; he carries on his meaning from stanza to stanza, 
 stopping short in a verse when other characters interrupt, and 
 not completing it, save by a compensatory syllable at the end ; 
 playing as he pleases with accepted forms. Meanwhile the 
 analytic phrase and elegant turn of the sentence, borrowed 
 from the Latin, become contracted and broken. The pre- 
 decessors of the poet used tliem out of all measure and to 
 satiety ; he renounced them. Outbursts and sudden gusts of 
 
 D
 
 34 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 passion, and the imperious concentration of the will, cannot be 
 adapted to them ; they compress language into synthetical 
 expressions. " In conversing with the meanest of the 
 Lacedemonians," said Socrates, "he appears at first awkward 
 in speech, but suddenly flings into the conversation a note- 
 worthy, swift phrase, mustering all his forces, like a warrior 
 hurling his javelin." 
 
 The two races born and bred for action, the English and 
 the Spartan, are recognisable in this description. 
 
 After the death of Shakespeare we witness a phenomenon 
 unparalleled in history. Dramatic art, which had hitherto 
 shown itself so vigorous, so free in its choice of subjects, so 
 fruitful in the invention of poetic forms, began to wither and 
 dry up, gradually losing its vital force and hold on the 
 public mind, until finally it became incapable of aught save 
 clumsy imitations, and imperfectly conceived adaptations of 
 our popular pieces : proof positive of its utter sterility. But 
 meanwhile another form of literary expression, the novel, 
 began to develop marvellously. It was as if by the side of a 
 branch that was dead another branch had grown, covered with 
 flowers and fruit : the immense quantity of sap ebbing from 
 the literature of the drama, flowed into the novel, and burst 
 out into luxuriant foliation. 
 
 Considered merely as a form of the work of art, the novel is 
 indeed the successor of Shakespeare's plays ; it reproduces their 
 general tendencies, and external effects. In the most finished 
 specimens of this class a Frenchman is struck, not only by the 
 large number of personages, but also by the frequency and 
 abruptness with which the narrative is interrupted and broken 
 
 ' Another analogy : the literary tendency of which I have spoken was 
 greatly strengthened by the immense diffusion of the Old Testament and 
 universal Biblical education. But the Bible has always been popular 
 because the Hebraic imagination, with its profusion of allegory, the 
 profundity of its thoughts, the weakness of its dialectic, its brusque 
 ejaculations, belongs to the same order as the English imagination. There 
 is a congenital conformity of some sort between the two geniuses.
 
 THE IDEAL IN ITS APPLICATIONS 35 
 
 off, and the reader transported from one place to another ; he 
 is no sooner placed in communication with one set of figures, 
 than a change of scene causes them to disappear and introduces 
 new characters surrounded by different circumstances. The 
 English novelist is quite at ease among this extraordinary 
 medley of types and incidents ; he is like Shakespeare fronting 
 Ills public ; he does not feel that he demands too great an effort 
 on the part of the reader whom he whirls along with him. 
 
 This only applies to the external, general, and superficial 
 construction of the work of art. If we go deeper into the 
 matter, we shall recognise that the ideal of the English novel 
 is to represent real life in all its bearings and infinite diversity. 
 In this our French novels differ in a striking degree from 
 English ones. In France our best novelists confine them- 
 selves to placing in full relief two or three principal characters 
 who are surrounded by others in diminishing degrees of impor- 
 tance, until certain of them have but one word to say, and the 
 harmony would be marred if they uttered two. This seems 
 to us the fundamental principle, the sign of the true work or 
 art. We make these two or three essential figures move, 
 encounter and run foul of one another, until a final crisis, to 
 lead up to which, in the most natural manner in the world, the 
 novelist employs his whole art ; and the denouement of this 
 crisis leaves us with exactly the same impression as we experi- 
 ence after witnessing the fifth act in one of our plays. The 
 amount of character which we develop in eacli personage 
 varies in proportion with what is necessary to lead up to the 
 crisis, or what will serve to render them more interesting and 
 truly pathetic. The crisis, therefore, limits the development 
 of character. Nearly all our novels are uniformly constructed 
 on this plan, which Taine declared to be classic ; life is 
 thereby simplified to the point of impoverishment, and the 
 supreme desire for clearness and harmony which possesses us 
 makes us indulgent spectators, almost accessories, of this 
 elevated conception of Art, so strong in its unity.
 
 36 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 In England no one troubles to place the characters under 
 any kind of hierarchy, making some stand out in strong relief 
 and throwing others into the shade. The Englishman paints 
 all the figures, if not with the same breadth, at least with a 
 care, attention, and insistence which is unnecessary for the 
 secondary characters. Each appears to have an equal claim on 
 the interest of the reader, because each has an equal share 
 in the intense life with which the work is deeply imbued. 
 Further, in English novels there is no unique crisis towards 
 which all the characters insensibly drift, and to which they are 
 subordinated. As a matter of principle the Englishman does 
 not demand dramatic unity in a novel ; his chief desire is to be 
 presented with successive glimpses of real life, in all their truth 
 and profundity. When the author has finished unrolling his 
 pictures, the reader does not think of reproaching him for 
 having produced a work which has, as it were, several central 
 groups of characters ; he would accuse himself of pedantry if 
 he bargained for his own pleasure. With the English novelist 
 this results in a very free and independent style of narration. 
 He does not submit to the restriction of a particular unity of 
 style or conformity to a set design ; it would weary and fetter 
 him in his conception of the subject and impoverish his style. 
 He is not disturbed and preoccupied with a crisis which he 
 cannot bring to a head. He does not feel compelled to deter- 
 mine the due importance of each figure and its claim on 
 the attention of the reader in the part which it is called upon 
 to play in the crisis. There are few concise pictures in 
 English novels : what they convey is an impression of growth 
 and expansion by reason of the intensity of life which pervades 
 them. 
 
 2. — The Fine Arts. 
 
 It is remarkable that neither painting, in which the Dutch 
 have excelled to the same extent as the English, nor music, in 
 which the Germans, their fellows, have incontestably the
 
 THE IDEAL IN ITS APPLICATIONS 37 
 
 mastery, nor architecture, in spite of the admirable models left 
 them by the conquering Normans, nor, finally, sculpture, has 
 had any original efflorescence in England. This is explained 
 by the fact that all these arts have grown up under the jealous 
 discipline of action, which at first thwarted or hindered their 
 development, and afterwards supplied the artist with a public 
 which was a slave to the same necessity for action and incapable 
 of throwing off its fetters for the purpose of admiring freely. 
 But here a more particular and deeper cause intervened, which, 
 as it were, sterilised all the arts of design. Nature in England 
 presents none of the conditions which generate a great art. It 
 does not surround man with an atmospheric environment 
 in which every object is visible, each in its proper place, where 
 hues are infinite, and diminutions of light and shade imper- 
 ceptible, where the whole chromatic scale is illuminated by a 
 brilliant light, and is visible and beautiful even in the far 
 distance. The Englishman mostly sees nature through fog or 
 mist ; objects disappear under this veil, or rather their outlines 
 seem confused and blurred ; their colouring becomes dull ; the 
 delicate tints have not sufficient vibration and brilliancy to 
 burst through the cloud and appeal to the eyes. The violent 
 colours only — red and green, for instance — can triumph over the 
 thickness of the veils. The Englishman is therefore educated, 
 even by circumstances, to comprehend Art imperfectly, or at 
 least to interpret it quite differently, for instance, from an 
 Italian. He gets little from the sterile nature surrounding 
 him, and either ignores his imperfect model, filling up with the 
 creationsof his imagination the blanks and hiatuses that a simple 
 copy would leave in his picture, or else essays a literal imitation 
 which is as remote from nature as the types he evolves in his 
 own imagination ; for it is purely abstract and scientific, and 
 in no degree represents what would be seen by a normal and 
 natural vision. The designer of a plate for a manual of botany, 
 minutely representing the five petals, the three stamens with 
 the anthers, &c., is he not as far from the picturesque reality as
 
 38 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 the man who dreams of a chimerical plant, the model for which 
 exists only in his imagination ? 
 
 Liberty in fantasy, or servility in imitation, are the two 
 extremes between which art oscillated in the hands of the painters 
 who adorned the end of the last century. Reynolds and Gains- 
 borough were only isolated personalities, without masters or 
 pupils ; Rossetti, Watts, and Burne-Jones were the masters of 
 a powerful and self-confident school whose articles of belief 
 were drawn up by Ruskin. This is the only true English 
 school of which history makes mention, the first in date of 
 time in which the national genius can be recognised and 
 grasped. Ford Madox Brown, who was the originator of the 
 pre-Raphaelite and realistic style, visited Paris in 1844. He 
 loudly proclaimed that everything he saw there inspired him 
 with an invincible repugnance, and it was this absolutely 
 negative sentiment which decided him to create a new art. 
 Ford Madox Brown assuredly knew what he did not want, 
 viz., conventional posing, traditional mixing of colours, all the 
 characteristics of academic Art ; he believed he knew what he 
 did want, viz., a return to nature. But what could these 
 words convey to a race whose eyes had been accustomed for 
 centuries to see every object unsubstantial and unrelieved, 
 blurred and discoloured by the mist ; whose imagination was 
 wearied with a vain search in the barren reality of nature for 
 the wealth essential in a picture ; whose taste, habituated to a 
 single sensation, was incapable of receiving several at a time, 
 harmonising and blending them in a happy and plastic unity ; 
 whose art had not discovered the secret of separating parts by 
 innumerable delicate shades, nor of making each take its proper 
 place in the picture ? The words of Ford Madox Brown 
 were, fundamentally, only an abstract and sententious formula ; 
 his art bears strong evidence of this : it wavered incessantly 
 between a painstaking copy or the living model and an 
 entirely imaginative interpretation of its subject ; it sought 
 Nature only to lose her, shaking off all traditional fetters the
 
 THE IDEAL IN ITS APPLICATIONS 39 
 
 better to pursue her ; and finding, at the end of the quest, that 
 instead of the Nature it had followed, a mere fiction was within 
 its grasp. 
 
 It is another toiccn of the same incapacity that the painters 
 of the pre-Raphaelite school were as a rule either poets, savants, 
 or writers, and did not drop their profession when they took up 
 the brush. They could not be simply and solely artists ; in 
 order that Art might flower, it had to be transplanted to a 
 different soil and grow up in a strange land before entering on 
 its own inheritance. English Art was at first entirely a literary 
 art, a poetry which employed form and colour for its own satis- 
 faction, making use at the same time, with more or less 
 freedom, of other mediums proper to poetry. 
 
 Are proofs required ? English painting is essentially inten- 
 tionist, /.(?., it pursues an end other than that of mere painting. 
 The operation of painting must be coerced into attaining this 
 end and fulfilling this intention. Art in England, therefore, 
 has not the ease and happy freedom which characterise it when 
 it is its own master and has only itself to satisfy ; this is a first 
 and obvious defect. Further, every means by which it can 
 arrive at the desired end is considered worthy, i.e.^ an attempt 
 would not be made to attain this end by the mere general effect 
 of a landscape or the physiognomies of the various figures ; but 
 it would also be suggested by the material objects with which 
 the idea of the desired end was habitually connected ; in other 
 words, by symbols. Painting in such case is therefore not 
 only intcntionist, but symbolic. "All great art is didactic," 
 cried Ruskin, the prophet of the new faith ; by which he 
 meant that a good picture should not only represent, but 
 demonstrate something, that it should have not only a subject, 
 but an object, and that that object, instead of being one 
 with the outlines and the colours, should be distinct from them, 
 and dominate them from the standpoint of a philosophical 
 conception. 
 
 Further proof of this is to be found in the otiicr cluuacter-
 
 40 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 istics of the work of art. For instance, there is no balance in 
 contemporary English painting, nothing which approaches the 
 centralisation of effects. The figures may be grouped in one 
 corner, leaving the rest of the canvas empty. If thereby the 
 idea which the painter has in his mind appears with greater 
 distinctness, of what has the spectator to complain ? Similarly, 
 the Englishman does not hesitate to place discordant colours in 
 juxtaposition ; he displays them and contrasts them with bold 
 touches, without taking into consideration hierarchy and the 
 blending of tints. This strife of colours, which delights the 
 eye unaccustomed to such striking tones, destroys the unity of 
 the picture ; but it does not destroy the unity of the idea that 
 the picture is intended to convey. In the same way the 
 canvasses are usually longer or shorter on one side of the line 
 of the horizon than the other ; the Englishman does not 
 endeavour to reproduce the natural environment of which the 
 figure is the centre, to make it proportionate with the room in 
 which it stands, or with the landscape in which it seems some- 
 times lost ; he suppresses the actuality of the environment, 
 depicting above the head of his figures little of the cloudy sky 
 or ornamental ceiling which would furnish a sentimental or 
 magnificent accessory to the scene ; he multiplies his figures, 
 taken out of their natural setting ; he groups them together, 
 huddles them one against the other, and crowds them into a 
 narrow space ; all the figures are animated, all the faces speak ; 
 each plays his part in one of tiie three or four distinct actions 
 which divide the attention of the spectator, for the Englishman 
 freely composes his picture of as many separate parts as he 
 pleases ; he only requires that they shall be interesting, he feels 
 under no compulsion to make a choice among them. 
 
 Is it necessary to mention a final trait ? Ruskin, without 
 taking into consideration the efi^cct of the whole, made it a 
 rule that each flower, or butterfly, should be exactly copied in 
 such a way that there could be no doubt as to what it was, nor 
 even as to the particular species to which the object belonged.
 
 THE IDEAL IN ITS APPLICATIONS 41 
 
 " It is," he said magnificently, " the homage due to the 
 Creator." But who cannot see where this rule is harmful 
 to the painter ? It might be to his interest to disguise the 
 individuality of the plant or the insect, by modifying or slurring 
 over certain parts, so that they should only produce in the 
 whole the impression he has proportioned out to them. 
 
 I will say no more with regard to this school, which was 
 one of the glories of England in the nineteenth century. 
 The great artists who adorned it made themselves remark- 
 able by the profundity of their conceptions, the novelty of 
 their posing, and the singularly original beauty of the human 
 form in the figures which they multiplied. But all these 
 elements of a great art lacked the attraction and magnetism 
 which would bind them together, form them into groups, and 
 make them one with surrounding nature. The grandeur of 
 their conceptions rendered these poets careless of the distinc- 
 tion between truly pictorial ideas, which are naturally rendered 
 by form and colour, and other ideas which can only be repre- 
 sented in a picture by symbols and delicate allusions. Their 
 pictures are lacking in the profound unity of matter and idea. 
 At first they conceived matter and idea apart, and though 
 afterwards they tried to bring them together with the aid of 
 unusual talent, they could never make them seem closely 
 united. I 
 
 3. — Philosophy. Science. Religion. 
 
 English philosophers have been distinguished from the very 
 first by a trait peculiar to themselves : they have no inclina- 
 tion nor capacity for metaphysics. In the course of two and 
 a half centuries there have only been three serious English 
 metaphysicians — viz., Hobbes, Locke,^ and Spencer. No philo- 
 sopher has contented himself with pure speculation. Most of 
 them — Hobbes, Locke, the two Mills, Spencer — have found it 
 
 ' K. dc la Si/ciannc, La pciutnrc air^lnisc coiilciupoitjiiic. 
 - Berkeley belonged to Ireland and Hume to Scotland.
 
 42 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 interesting to follow out their principles in politics and to 
 utilise their deductions in the service of the government of 
 their country ; they tried to excuse their excursions into the 
 abstract by demonstrating that there was a practical use in 
 soaring above the regions of common sense for their postu- 
 lates. It is possible to soar above and then descend towards 
 the earth, as these great thinkers have made perfectly clear by 
 their anxiety or their haste to return to the objects which have 
 a surer interest for their contemporaries. It is remarkable, 
 moreover, that the one great philosophical enthusiasm which 
 possessed England during the course of the last century had 
 for its object the very man who had most completely shaken 
 off metaphysical absorption, Auguste Comte. In England, 
 far more than in his own country, Auguste Comte found 
 bigoted disciples, and admirers sufficiently enthusiastic to pen- 
 sion him in his distress. Even now the Positivist doctrine, 
 almost forgotten in France, awakes a living faith like a religious 
 enthusiasm in more than one English heart. The care John 
 Stuart Mill took to distinguish himself on certain points from 
 Auguste Comte, permits us to conjecture that at a certain period, 
 hke a dutiful pupil, he imbibed most of the master's inspirations. 
 His correspondence, recently published, confirms this supposi- 
 tion. Herbert Spencer and Bain have drawn largely from the 
 same source. A philosophy like Positivism, which, unlike 
 any other, professes to supersede metaphysics, was like a 
 revelation to the English ; it responded so perfectly, so com- 
 pletely to their secret and profound desires, to those blind 
 instincts which supply man with the private reasons for his 
 predilections. The posthumous adoption of Comte's ideas 
 in England, and the immense influence they still exercise 
 in this country, are sure proofs of the feeble capacity of 
 the English for metaphysical speculation and of their joy at 
 being delivered from it by the authority of philosophy itself. 
 In experimental psychology the Englishman is incontestably 
 first. There is no experimental psychology in Italy ; the
 
 THE IDEAL IN ITS APPLICATIONS 43 
 
 people are too frivolous, too imaginative. Occupied with 
 the outer world, they have no time to analyse and under- 
 stand the inner. In France this psychology is three-quarters 
 logic. Accumulated facts, which make of it a different thing, 
 are distasteful to us ; they incline towards the indefinite, and 
 lend themselves to too many exceptions. We want definite 
 divisions, brief, clear formulas. "Germany, who can adapt 
 herself to everything, even to experimental psychology, finds 
 her true sphere in, and inclination towards, metaphysics." ^ 
 Experimental psychology, on the other hand, finds its proper 
 place in England ; it proceeds from the same fundamental 
 tendency as spiritual poetry and the novel. I mean the inclina- 
 tion towards the inner life, the frequent retreat into itself 
 which is one of the most distinguishing traits of the British 
 character. 
 
 So much for the development, obviously unequal, of the 
 different branches of philosophy. Let us now consider the 
 ideas themselves, and find out their individual significance. 
 In this connection is it not curious that four of the greatest 
 thinkers in England have all agreed in disputing the trans- 
 cendent character either of innate ideas or of a priori synthetic 
 ideas ? The contingent and the relative alone found access to 
 their city of philosophy. Locke in his time combated with sin- 
 gular vivacity the doctrine of innate ideas professed by Leibnitz ; 
 James Mill, pure logician as he was, appears to ignore the 
 importance of the question. He limits himself to one short 
 chapter, entitled "Some Names which require a Particular 
 Explanation, Time, Motion, &c." John Stuart Mill maintained 
 in his system that everything is the result of experience. Our 
 belief in the absolute is an illusion ; it is simply the fre- 
 quency or incessant repetition of two successive facts which 
 leads us to expect, with a sort of certainty, the second with 
 the first, and gives us the impression of a necessity which links 
 them together. Herbert Spencer explains in the same hap- 
 ' Th. Ribot, Psychologic aiiglaisc.
 
 44 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 hazard way the ideas of time and space. The two latter 
 philosophers, and also Bentham, approach one another in 
 their system of ethics. They can be characterised by the 
 same word ; they are all utilitarians. The origin of every 
 moral idea is, according to them, a conception founded on 
 experience. This conception, in the system of the last-named 
 philosopher, is likened to a slow deposit, transmitted by heredity, 
 and enveloped in the prestige of custom and tradition. It is a 
 fact that neither the absolute nor the transcendent have ever 
 really found a place in this purely contingent philosophy. 
 
 Is a final characteristic required to show the native tendency 
 of the English mind ? It will be sufficient to examine 
 the point of view of the most subtle thinkers in regard 
 to God, a Creator, Providence. Huxley said somewhere 
 that though offensive and coarse atheism shocks the English, 
 agnosticism, a mild atheism which clings to forms, neither 
 offends nor convinces them. A single and very simple ob- 
 jection upsets this doctrine and its arguments. "It is not 
 practical, it has no present application ; we are pledged, the 
 necessities of life concern and occupy us ; we have not leisure 
 to change the habits of our mind, nor remove the foundations 
 of our moral instincts." The majority of the English are 
 unconscious of tliis little inward monologue, their faith is 
 protected by a sort of cant which cannot be analysed nor 
 abruptly disjjlaced. Moreover, the two thinkers, who in 
 France would have been professed atheists, have been par- 
 ticularly careful to avoid disturbing the traditional beliefs of 
 the public to whom they address their writings in the hope 
 that they will be read to the end. John Stuart Mill inter- 
 prets his positivism in such a manner that the question of the 
 spiritual world, though eliminated from science, is still a sub- 
 ject of legitimate speculation to those who have a taste that 
 way. Mill reproached Auguste Comte for not leaving the 
 question open. He did not abjure metaphysics, he considered 
 it a matter of personal feeling, and did not cavil at the process
 
 THE IDEAL IN ITS APPLICATIONS 45 
 
 of reasoning which every individual is at liberty to apply to it. 
 He believed he could conciliate the majority of his com- 
 patriots by this concession, and it sufficed, indeed, to prevent 
 the prohibition which would certainly have been attached to 
 his books if he had frankly published his true thouo;hts. Still 
 more characteristic was the manner in which Herbert Spencer 
 treated the idea of God when he encountered it on the summit 
 of his metaphysics. He endeavoured, with characteristic insis- 
 tence, to show that the God of evolution is infinitely superior 
 to the mechanical God of Paley. P'urther, did he not endeavour 
 to make his Unknowable a Being, substantial, active, and 
 creative, of which it cannot be said that it does not possess 
 the intellectual and sensible attributes of God, because there is 
 nothing to be said of it, and of which the philosopher himself, 
 however, ventured to say that what is to be found in it is not 
 less than personality, but more than personality ? It was a 
 strange necessity which compelled him to set up, not only for 
 himself but for others, an absolute, substantial, and more or 
 less individualised Being, which could be adored, and to which 
 religious people might raise temples and altars. 
 
 The attitude of the English towards the mathematical, 
 physical, and biological sciences was, until i860, characterised 
 by indifference, and even a sort of hostile disdain. The 
 physical and biological sciences were generally considered 
 likely to lead the mind to anti-religious conclusions, and were 
 not approached without trembling. It is remarkable that, 
 until the middle of the century, there were in the universi- 
 ties no courses of lectures on these subjects, so successfully 
 cultivated in Germany and France. When the State or 
 private individuals judged it proper to organise the lacking 
 instruction they did not usually collect more than three or 
 four candidates. If all the men were passed in review who, 
 during the last hundred years, had distinguished themselves in 
 the sciences, we should be surprised to see how manv of tliem 
 had obtained their knowledge outside the schools, and how few
 
 46 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 had followed a regular course of study in the sciences in which 
 afterwards they made their mark. Where could they find 
 such a course ? Nothing of the kind existed in England. 
 It was just chance which, seconded by natural talent, indi- 
 cated to them the department of science in which they would 
 excel. They were first attracted by a particular point of view 
 which seemed unusual, and perhaps a little narrow, and, follow- 
 ing it up, they expanded it by dint of study and research ; 
 they did not approach science in her commonplace and wider 
 aspect, like our pupils when a classical treatise or manual is 
 placed in their hands. Their intelligence did not command 
 the superficial and encyclopaedic information which is a means 
 of strength, by reason of the numberless correspondences of 
 which it gives an idea, and a weakness, by reason of the indefi- 
 niteness and incompleteness of that idea. In accordance with 
 their requirements, they carefully grouped the other sciences 
 or sections of science round the one they had chosen, and 
 from out a deep experience, undisturbed by the words of a 
 master, they brought forth singular and unexpected Hnks to 
 connect these fragments of knowledge together. Faraday, 
 Huxley, Tyndall, Darwin, and Spencer began in this way, 
 and the conditions under which science appeared to them 
 stamped all their work with a profoundly original character. 
 I have used the word "disdain." For the bulk of the 
 nation science, considered as science, did not exist ; it was 
 valued merely on account of its use to the engineer, the 
 doctor, &c., in the course of their practical work ; and for that 
 reason alone was it esteemed by practical minds. It would 
 have been considered a slur and a grave error of judgment to 
 introduce into the title of a practical institution anything 
 which might be considered as disinterested science. When 
 the School of Mines was reorganised in Jcrmyn Street, great 
 care was taken to admit nothing into the new name bestowed 
 upon the Institution, from which it could be deduced that the 
 teaching would cease to be entirely material. In England,
 
 THE IDEAL IN ITS APPLICATIONS ^y 
 
 science is not divided into pure science and applied science, as 
 it is in France, where it forms the basis of two distinct and 
 successive courses of instruction, first in the Polytechnic School 
 and afterwards in the special schools. Pure science and applied 
 science are considered as one and the same thing, and the 
 English professor digging deeply, hollows out a dwelling-place 
 therein for himself, in which he lives shut up, unmindful of 
 his surroundings. Huxley told me one day that a Cambridge 
 professor, noted for his good work in physics, had never seen 
 a prism in his life. Natural philosophers may be found who 
 have no knowledge of chemistry nor of natural history, and 
 naturalists who have no idea of medicine. It is not only in 
 another branch of his special subject that the man of science 
 is wanting. It might even be maintained that among English 
 professors there is none of that elevating intercourse and 
 exchange of general ideas which only the possession of a sort 
 of common language renders possible and easy. Many savants 
 lack what might be called the enlightenment of a general 
 education : these are pure specialists. A man eager for 
 information might apply in vain to the most eminent scholars 
 in England ; if he tried to engage in a conversation on pure 
 science he would find no one to speak to ; his interlocutors 
 would not answer him. 
 
 It is interesting to note how the Englishman constructs a 
 theory from a class of facts in a particular science. With us 
 Frenchmen such a theory is an explanation, i.e., a connecting 
 of the principles and hypotheses on which the class of facts 
 rests to the principles and the hypotheses on which the whole 
 of the science rests. This operation is performed by means 
 of abstractions linked one to the other by a subtle and trans- 
 cendent logic. Which means that they simply appeal to our 
 reason, and we are only satisfied when we can thereby go 
 from one end of the science to the other, without encountering 
 any contradictions or hiatuses whatsoever. 
 
 In England, the theory based on any class of facts has neither
 
 48 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 the same appearance, nature, nor aim ; it is not an explanation, 
 but a representation ; and a representation which is not 
 intended to demonstrate the link which unites the class of 
 facts to others, but only to render it intelligible in itself and, 
 therefore, imaginable by means of what the English natural 
 philosophers call a ynodel. Where the French or German 
 natural philosopher perceives a group of lines of force, the 
 English natural philosopher imagines a packet of elastic threads, 
 attached at the extremities to the various points of conducting 
 surfaces, and endeavouring both to contract and expand. In 
 the work by Sir Oliver Lodge, in which the modern theories 
 of electricity are set forth, it is only a matter, he declares, of 
 ropes which move on pulleys, which cause the drums to 
 revolve, of some tubes through which water is pumped and 
 others which inflate and contract. " It seems to me," 
 said the great natural philosopher. Lord Kelvin, " that 
 the true meaning of the question, ' Do you understand a 
 particular subject in natural philosophy ? ' is ' Can you make 
 a corresponding mechanical model ? ' I am never satisfied 
 until I am able to make a mechanical model of the object. If 
 I can make a mechanical model, I understand ; but if I 
 cannot make a mechanieal model, I do not understand." It is 
 " imagine," and not " understand," that Lord Kelvin means in 
 this passage, and the kind of rough candour with which he 
 repeats to satiety the word " understand " is proof positive 
 that he has no idea of the more refined and spiritualised sense 
 we have given to it.^ 
 
 There is another and even clearer evidence that the English- 
 man does not comprehend science generally as we do. The 
 unity of each individual science, and the unity of science 
 considered as a whole, are, in our eyes, essential attributes, 
 without wliich we are unable to comprehend the scientific 
 order. These attributes are even part of its substance. It is 
 
 ' Max Leclerc, L'cilncuiion dcs classes moycnncs ct dirigeatitcs en 
 A ngletcrre.
 
 THE IDEAL IN ITS APPLICATIONS 49 
 
 towards unity that the theories of our scholars incessantly tend, 
 and unity, which is the last word of their researches, is the first 
 word of metaphysics ; the two orders of speculation meet at 
 this point. There is nothing of the kind in England. The 
 representations by means of which scholars demonstrate any 
 section of science whatsoever, are pictures intended only for 
 the imagination, having no other object than its satisfac- 
 tion ; but for the imagination scientific unity does not exist, 
 it comprehends singly each class of facts. When it has 
 explained one of these classes by means of figurations based on 
 certain principles or hypotheses, it passes on to another, without 
 considering itself pledged in any way by the work it has just 
 accomplished, and for the explanation of the new class it 
 brings forward other principles and hypotheses ; the necessity 
 for any link existing between the two orders of speculation is 
 looked upon as outside the question, and incoherence reigns 
 supreme. Further, the speculation, which at one time was 
 based on a certain conception of matter, makes way without 
 opposition for a speculation based on an entirely different 
 conception, incompatible with the first. This incompatibility 
 would oflFend our reason, the constant effort of which is to 
 combine laws and reduce their number ; it would seem like a 
 contradiction in science itself. But, on the other hand, it is 
 only a harmless variety in the eyes of the English imagination, 
 the characteristic of which is to comprehend thoroughly each 
 concrete whole and give so vivid a presentment of it as, for 
 the time, to efface all the rest. Hence, in the works of 
 Lord Kelvin and Maxwell, each chapter can and even ought 
 to be read separately, for it often happens that if the first is 
 founded on a conception of matter which admits the immobility 
 of inert particles, the second will infer on the contrary the 
 extreme mobility and perpetual circulation of atoms. The 
 imagination, passing from one to the other, enters each time 
 on an entirely new phase ; just like a bird organ, which, when 
 the cylinder has been advanced a peg, warbles a new air, 
 without any echo of the preceding airs. E
 
 so THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 Another indication informs us that the imagination is not 
 only uncontrolled by, but governs science, and instead of being 
 in subjection to the spirit of unity and synthesis, imposes 
 silence upon it. The subjects which Lord Kelvin, Maxwell, 
 &c., treat w^ith most complacency are those on the borders of 
 science which touch on the insoluble question of origins. 
 The molecular constitution of matter, the distance between 
 imponderable particles, and the nature of light and electricity, 
 have been treated by them with an audacity which fearlessly 
 handles a thousand millions of atoms and, as it were, sports 
 with time and eternity. The reason of this, is that these 
 questions have a side which touches on the infinite, i.e.^ on a 
 domain of which the imagination is sole sovereign. Moreover, 
 certain scholars, such as Lodge and Tait, are accessible to such 
 hypotheses as spiritualism, magic, &c., which a more rational 
 conception of method would have made them avoid. ^ With 
 a perfect tranquillity of mind they take their point of departure 
 outside science ; they unconsciously step over the boundary 
 which separates the certain from the probable, the probable 
 from the imaginary and chimerical. 
 
 But it is especially in matters of positive faith that this 
 tendency in the British character is chiefly remarkable. 
 Michelet made a distinction between the people who love 
 nature and the people who love books. This division coincides 
 in a general way with another and more significant. Lovers 
 of beauty who only comprehend the idea of law through the 
 order and harmony of nature arc to be found all over the 
 world. Others there are, inclined towards action and efficiency, 
 whose first and chief requirement is an inward strength which 
 gives them complete command over themselves, and enables 
 them to rally all their energies and master reality. Of these 
 are the English. An active rather than a contemplative race, 
 they were predestined to throw off the yoke of Rome and 
 reject the Catholic faith. 
 
 ' Duhcm's L'Ecole auf^laisc cl Ics theories physiques.
 
 THE IDEAL IN ITS APPLICATIONS 51 
 
 Catholicism is not merely a religion of the heart and 
 conscience ; a strongly organised spiritual power, it also 
 presents the external appearance of an imposing political 
 institution which demands and obtains obedience. By means 
 of its local sanctuaries with their particular cult and special 
 virtues, and its various half-divine types, which recall the 
 heroes and demigods of Greece and Rome, it links itself to 
 historical tradition, and forms a natural sequence to the 
 paganism it has destroyed. On the other hand the mysticism 
 blended with its faith, the sensuality and suave poetry of its 
 creed, its talismans, sacred playthings, magic formulas, and 
 numberless sacraments, by means of which the awful God, 
 brought into everyday life, seems to grow kindly and familiar, 
 respond to a somewhat whimsical aesthetic sense in man, a 
 delicately feminine conception of things. In its semi-pelagian 
 theory of Grace, and reluctance to exalt faith above liberty 
 and works, it approaches the masculine and simple doctrine of 
 rationalism. It is a truly human religion, inasmuch as it 
 accepts man as a whole, reconciles his antinomies, respects his 
 habits, humours his weaknesses, and shows appreciation of his 
 natural intelligence. These contradictory qualities entail a 
 certain infirmity. Catholicism supplies the will rather with 
 a series of particular recipes, adapted to the various necessities 
 of life, than with a broad and elastic code of regulation. 
 
 Sometimes it helps man to escape from the intolerably 
 burdensome or vulgar duties which society imposes upon him ; 
 guides the strong and urges him on to the attainment of the 
 sublime virtues of renunciation and holiness ; and offers the 
 weak a refuge in the narrow life and indolent idealism of the 
 cloister. Sometimes it acts the part of a too indulgent doctor 
 to human infirmity, and by ingenious sophistries reconciles the 
 law of Christ and mundanity. Charity is its triumph. But 
 is not charity as interpreted by Catholicism an encouragement 
 to improvidence and self-surrender ? Instead of forcing the 
 heart to examine itself and face actualities, it falsifies the moral
 
 52 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 problem by simplifying it, evades, disguises, and misrepresents 
 it by bringing in the priest and the sacrament ; and eventually 
 resolves it, as it were, mechanically. An ingenious eclecticism, 
 which appeals to the imagination, the senses and the heart 
 without too great a strain on the reason, Catholicism does not 
 supply the invigorating atmosphere which is necessary to 
 strengthen the character and adapt it to the usages of our 
 present existence. 
 
 Protestantism of the most pronounced type and in its most 
 popular forms furnishes strict discipline for the will. Angli- 
 canism is merely a combination of statesmen, a Church rather 
 than a religion, and the Church of a caste. We must seek for 
 the heart of the nation among the Dissenters. It throbs in 
 Puritanism, Presbyterianism, and Wesleyanism. There is no 
 connection between these beliefs and classic religion or 
 philosophy. Protestantism has not received from tradition the 
 historical and universal character which imprints a Roman 
 stamp on the religion of the Vatican. It is rather a species of 
 purified and transfigured Judaism revived after fifteen centuries. 
 Far from appealing to every man, its aridity, austerity, dislike 
 or disdain for forms, and its iconoclastic tendencies, make it a 
 gehenna for the imagination and the sensibility. It prides 
 itself on placing or leaving man in normal and customary con- 
 ditions, supplying him with a fund of strength which is 
 regulated by nature for expenditure in practical life. The 
 doctrine of justification by works allows man to repose upon 
 the merit of external and intermittent actions, and atoning by 
 them for others less commendable, he makes up the account of 
 his hours. Justification by faith places him in the grip of a 
 rigid ultimatum, a moral " all or nothing." To those who 
 believe, God gives everything, and no one truly believes if he 
 does not entirely surrender himself in return. By faith, 
 things which were the same become different, altering in 
 significance and worth ; without faith, nothing is of any 
 importance because everything is valueless. The signification
 
 THE IDEAL IN ITS APPLICATIONS 53 
 
 of actions gives place therefore to a general signification of the 
 will and the conscience. The deep conviction of a new inner 
 life renders the homage man accords to common sense mean- 
 ingless and insignificant, and abolishes the futile balance he 
 established between his merits and his faults. Justification by 
 faith is a glorification : it is like a new birth which creates a 
 right of primogeniture for its elect, thereby becoming a school 
 of moral strength and liberty. It conceals pride under humility. 
 A Catholic, the more surely to gain heaven, simply flies temp- 
 tation ; if he does act, the more painful and useless his actions 
 are, the less notice they attract, and the less fruit they bear, 
 the nearer to sanctity he believes himself to be. The chosen 
 ideal of life in Catholicism has always been asceticism. The 
 Calvinist begins by conquering his will by grace, thus placing 
 it in harmony with the will of God. He goes forth into 
 action fearlessly and triumphantly, having entered into an 
 alliance with an infinite power. He approaches the combat 
 like a man who wears divine and impenetrable armour ; he 
 exercises his energy regardless of the temptations thereby 
 incurred and the moral deficit which would constitute him a 
 debtor. He sets out ransomed, free and secure. 
 
 In short, Catholicism is the religion of a puissant spiritual 
 power which legislates, prohibits, and punishes ; it has a State 
 policy of its own to which the individual bows. Protestantism 
 is the religion of spiritual " self-government." One is 
 eminently the creator of order and rule ; the other is eminently 
 the preserver and renewer of energy, and the religion most 
 suited to a people born for action.
 
 PART II 
 
 THE HUMAN ENVIRONMENT
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE ALIEN RACES 
 
 General Observations. 
 
 After the natural environment, formed by physical causes, 
 comes the human environment, formed by the collection or 
 people around each man. Take a race as it issues from pre- 
 historic shades : it is already divided into tribes, which possess 
 the rudiments of institutions, a supreme ruler, ranks, heads or 
 families, and religious beliefs and superstitions. These things, 
 which we comprehend in the vague idea of race, are, as a 
 matter of ract, the effect of the successive physical environ- 
 ments traversed by migrations, and the fortuitous circumstances 
 encountered by man during his progress. The fertility of the 
 soil, the form of the continents, the quality of the light, the 
 proximity of warlike tribes or civilised nations, &c., are 
 apparently the causes which have brought the people to the 
 degree of development indicated by the signs we have men- 
 tioned. The causes operated with the more effect that man 
 was newly created, and the freshness of his sensibility and the 
 pliancy of his organism rendered him easily receptive. As 
 yet external sensations would not encounter in him a large and 
 compact mass of acquired habits, capable of resisting pressure 
 and refusing to receive impressions. The climate and other 
 material agents have therefore played a chief part in the 
 fashioning of human nature ; they have left profound traces on 
 it, such as wc should not expect in the present day from these 
 
 57
 
 58 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 causes now almost ineffective : their effects are perpetuated in 
 individuals ; they have triumphed by the v\^eight of large 
 numbers or the influence of the elect. It was to this deg;ree 
 of civilisation that the Germans of Caesar and Tacitus had 
 attained when they formed the first nucleus of the Anglo- 
 Saxon race. 
 
 The race now enters and comes forward into history : it 
 has arrived at its last halting-place and is established in the 
 country where its destinies v,^ill be worked out. We see this 
 new historical unit, of which heretofore there existed only the 
 germs and tissues branching out in all directions, in the shape 
 of institutions, traditions, and customs. Supreme power is 
 concentrated in the government, religion in the Church ; 
 literature has its monuments, the number of which grows from 
 century to century ; and public education develops in accor- 
 dance with a pre-arranged system. In a word, all the germs 
 which had hitherto been separated and incoherent have now 
 combined and form a resistant and compact mass, rebellious to 
 the action of material causes. Among the causes which can 
 still transform the human environment I see scarcely anything 
 except invasions, which bring it into direct contact with 
 another people, and into personal relations with a civilisation 
 developed elsewhere under totally different conditions. We 
 shall have to take note of this influence, which was never 
 more apparent than in the conquest of 1066. This conquest 
 was the last in order of date, and after it the human environ- 
 ment became still more modified by such imperceptible 
 changes as when from an agricultural nation it became com- 
 mercial and colonising, and later, in the eighteenth century, 
 when, though still commercial and colonising, it became 
 industrial. Even more productive of results was the Reforma- 
 tion, which, while operating profoundly on the individual, 
 brought to light the virile qualities of a sleeping race. Among 
 decisive influences may be ranked the two acts of union, after 
 which first Scotland and then Ireland began a sort of invasion
 
 THE ALIEN RACES 59 
 
 of England, which ended in the blending of the three races, 
 and the progressive enrichment of the English type. These 
 facts and the causes which led up to them are worth studying, 
 both in themselves and their consequences, for they have all 
 had their share in the far-reaching and profound modification 
 of the race —in other words, the human environment. Some- 
 times, by facilitating certain relations and repeating occasions 
 for intercourse, they have given rise to customs, encouraged 
 tendencies, and brought to light qualities to which they gave 
 scope ; sometimes by sowing in certain men a doctrine capable 
 of propagation by the influence of example and the infection 
 of self-sacrifice, they have renewed, rejuvenated, and trans- 
 formed the heart of the nation. 
 
 I. — The Germans. 
 
 First of all, let us consider the ancient Germans in their 
 native land as Caesar and Tacitus represented them. They 
 had something of the savage and the beast ; characteristics 
 which were partly the result of a backward state of civilsiation, 
 and partly of an ingrained nature which reappeared again and 
 again after centuries of culture and refinement. Wine, 
 gaming, and sleep entirely occupied these brutes in time of 
 peace. At banquets they made their great resolutions and 
 decided for peace or war ; to make up their minds they 
 required the excitement of food and the fumes of wine. But 
 instead of discussions there were quarrels. Without a word 
 having passed they would come to blows, and sometimes when 
 they recovered from their intoxication they would kill or injure 
 those who did not agree with them. 
 
 Puberty was backward among the Germans, and all the 
 stronger and more vigorous on account of its long maturing. 
 The women were chaste, the family sacred. Good manners 
 supplied the lack of good laws. Each house was isolated ; the 
 attraction of a wood or the proximitv of a stream determined
 
 6o THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 the situation ; and large spaces separated each house from its 
 neighbour. Even at banquets each diner had his own table. 
 The nation was possessed by a horror of inactivity, thereby 
 differing from the Gauls, who were reproached by Tacitus for 
 their indolence. The Germans jealously guarded their liberty ; 
 this is why they took two or three days to present themselves 
 at political gatherings ; they did not wish to appear as if under 
 orders to attend. They allowed their priests to be the leaders 
 of their political meetings, and to reprimand and strike them 
 in battle, so that the chastisement seemed to come direct from 
 God. Resolutions were moved by the chiefs, whose words had 
 weight according to their age, nobility, and eloquence ; they 
 adopted the tone of the orator who tries to convince, not that 
 of the master who commands. The soldiers reserved the right 
 of option. Hidden behind their bucklers, they signified their 
 refusal or assent by a prolonged murmur or clash of arms. 
 
 The political constitution of the Germans in the time of 
 Tacitus was absolutely rudimentary, but Fustel assures us that 
 the same might be said of all the races which had arrived at 
 the same degree of civilisation. As a constitution the State 
 was unknown ; and that representative of the State, the official, 
 was non-existent. The Gauls were very different ; both in 
 France and Italy at this period they used to canvass for and 
 obtain numerous public offices which had been instituted by 
 the Romans. Some of the tribes had no king ; others sur- 
 rounded royalty with the respect demanded by birth, which 
 constituted the sole title to this dignity. Further, with the 
 Germans the king had no arbitrary power ; his authority was 
 strictly limited ; limited also was the authority of the princ'ipes^ 
 who were chosen by the soldiers on account of their courage. 
 They did not command in battle, simply taking the lead by 
 force of example and great deeds accomplished. They were 
 chiefs by right of admiration. Each of these personages was 
 surrounded by a certain number of soldiers chosen by himself. 
 They were not ashamed to follow in his train, and to form his
 
 THE ALIEN RACES 6i 
 
 comitatus. They considered themselves bound to him by an 
 oath of allegiance, and gloried in being killed or wounded in his 
 defence. They pledged their faith not to the individual only, 
 but also to his posterity, and the oath of allegiance they swore 
 extended even to his younger children. Finally, religion 
 ranked high in their life and thought ; but it was a religion 
 which owed nothing to plastic forms. God was the sovereign. 
 He ruled behind those who were in command, and the excom- 
 munication of the impure gave the finishing touch to the 
 perfectly moral character of this unbcautified religion. 
 
 I will not vouch for the significance and import of any of 
 these peculiarities considered separately, but I certainly am 
 struck by the effect they produce as a whole, particularly 
 when I recognise trait after trait, more or less transformed, 
 in contemporary English civilisation. What man, having lived 
 in England for a long time, can deny the materialism of the 
 larger part of the nation ? To-day, as heretofore, sport, 
 betting, and drinking must be reckoned among the most 
 appreciated pleasures of the English ; to-day, as heretofore, 
 the plenitude of a satisfied stomach is required for the uplift- 
 ing of their genius ; and, if a statesman at the beginning of 
 the last century is to be believed, the most important resolu- 
 tions and ingenious schemes are formed in the half-hour after 
 dinner which Englishmen devote to hard drinking and smoking- 
 room conversation. Tardy puberty, chastity of the women, 
 and large families are characteristics of modern England, just 
 as they were of ancient Germany. What observer has not 
 noticed the small detached houses which, even in the towns, 
 are portioned out at the rate of one to each family, and the 
 clubs where the table cPhote is unknown ? A desire for 
 contention and effort still animates the race. The results of 
 their activity are in evidence over the entire globe. But what 
 may be traced throughout English history right up to our own 
 days is the same striking antinomy as that which existed 
 between the German's profound devotion and strict obedience
 
 62 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 to his chief and his chief's family and his instinct of revolt and 
 reluctance to conform to the wiser discipline of which the 
 State was the centre and mainspring. The sentiment of 
 personal fidelity to a man and his posterity which the Germanic 
 follower felt for his chief has passed more or less into the 
 profound loyalty of the English subjects to the race and blood 
 of their princes. And yet what people have more frequently 
 rebelled against their kings and molested, offered violence to, 
 imprisoned, deposed, and put them to death ? The irritable 
 pride of the free man has been tragically manifested side by 
 side with many proofs of an extraordinary attachment to the 
 dynasty. 
 
 Similarly, the pride of the German, impatient of all assumed, 
 improvised, or uncertain authority, and, on the other hand, his 
 innate respect for all superiority having a solid foundation in a 
 traditional social order, may be reckoned among the causes 
 which in England have arrested the development of the 
 administrative monarchy, and established in its place a powerful 
 political aristocracy. Thence has arisen the local self-govern- 
 ment in which, until lately, bureaucracy was unknown and 
 the official hardly appeared, no special countenance being 
 granted to him, whilst for centuries the English subject 
 readily accepted what appears to be a far more questionable 
 hierarchy, and patiently submitted to the quasi-paternal authority 
 of his neighbour, who, though a great landed proprietor, was a 
 private individual like himself. The Englishman is for anti- 
 equality, in the sense that he wants perfectly distinct classes in 
 society, and even several degrees in his own class ; he admits 
 the hereditary transmission of titles, but will not allow that 
 birth is the one thing needful ; he believes that merit may, 
 some time or other, claim part in them. No one has a greater 
 respect for rank, yet no one is less familiar with the spirit or 
 caste. He is not averse to privileges, but he will not tolerate 
 them as simple immunities ; he joins with them compulsory 
 duties and obligations. These characteristics are substantially
 
 THE ALIEN RACES 63 
 
 the same as those contained in the description which Tacitus 
 has left us of Germany. The same double and contradictory 
 tendency reappears throughout the whole of the political class, 
 which, while closely restricting the royal power, was careful 
 not to destroy nor depreciate it, and which substituted parlia- 
 mentary government — i.e.^ government by discussion and per- 
 suasion — for the sway of a single man. Again, this tendency 
 reappears in the religious class, which threw off the yoke of 
 sacerdotalism, once so powerful, and took away the authority 
 of the confessional and the prestige of the real presence, bring- 
 ing religion down to the level of the simple believer, so that 
 the clergy entirely ceased to be intermediaries and the believers 
 tolerated nothing but the sacred text between them and their 
 one Master, God. 
 
 2. — Anglo-Saxons and Celts. DaneSy Normans. 
 
 The English nation, of which the Anglo-Saxon race formed 
 the first stock, presents this peculiarity, that it is the least 
 mixed and most homogeneous of nations. The English are the 
 Germans of the North. Among the Germans they had for 
 ancestors the Angles, the Jutes, and the Saxons, who all 
 belonged to the same Low German stock. The last-comers, 
 the Danes and the Normans, were branches separated from the 
 same trunk which for a long time had been nourished by the 
 same sap ; no events were needed to graft them one on the 
 other. The first-comers found Great Britain occupied by a 
 Celtic population ; but the slowness and brutality of the con- 
 quest and the energy of the resistance ended in the extermina- 
 tion or rigorous cantonment of the conquered, and for a long 
 time no fusion was possible between the invaders and the first 
 occupants. The reverse was the case in the Germanic inva- 
 sions on the Continent. The Franks, for example, melted 
 rapidly into the subjugated population, adopted its idioms and 
 religion, and formed a mixed race. What happened in Great 
 Britain's early days was repeated later on in the English
 
 64 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 colonial settlements. The inferior races never mingled with 
 their conquerors, and disappeared, leaving no trace. 
 
 Some of the highest authorities have delighted in proving 
 that the Celts have not been exterminated, but continue to 
 exist unnoticed, cultivating the land for their German masters, 
 and that, chiefly through the serving-w^omen, the two races 
 have become inextricably blended. They go even further : 
 they give us to understand that the genius of the Celts has 
 passed with their blood into the veins of the Anglo-Saxon 
 people, citing in support of this theory the insatiable curiosity, 
 the rich invention, and even the art of dialogue and the 
 picturesque setting to be found in the first monuments of their 
 literature. I do not deny that the germs, rather than the full 
 flower, of these qualities is to be found in the Irish narratives 
 attributed to the seventh and eighth centuries, and founded 
 upon yet more ancient originals, which the transcriber felt 
 bound to embellish with the ornaments and artifices proper to 
 his time ; neither do I deny the absence of the same gifts in 
 the old Anglo-Saxon poems, the greater number of which 
 originally came from Iceland [Beowulf^ which is considered 
 the most important by the English, is attributed to the eighth 
 century). It requires a scholar's utmost temerity to ground 
 conclusions on so fragile a basis. But this contrast — taken for 
 what it is worth — may it not be due to the fact that the 
 Anglo-Saxons were for a long time mere barbarians, and that 
 their civilisation was perhaps two or three centuries behind 
 that of Ireland, whose adm.irable religious system rivalled, it 
 is said, for a while even that of Rome ? The richness of 
 invention, the art of dialogue and of picturesque setting were, 
 in the case of the Irish, merely the effects of a culture and 
 development about three centuries in advance of that of the 
 conquerors of Great Britain. 
 
 I willingly admit that those Celtic populations which re- 
 tained their independence were able to exercise some sort 
 of superficial, tardy, and transitory influence on the invaders ;
 
 THE ALIEN RACES G5 
 
 but I have difficulty in believing that the Anglo-Saxons owed 
 nothing of their genius to the Britons who were subjugated 
 on their own soil. The intellectual type of a race is, in 
 the beginning, the product of the natural environment ; after- 
 wards it is chiefly the product of the slowly progressive human 
 environment — a compound of mental habits which become 
 fixed, sustained, and inveterate by the continuous circulation 
 of certain modes of thought, reasoning, and feeling. The 
 same habits become enfeebled, infrequent, and finally non- 
 existent if the circulation is hindered or interrupted. Language 
 and literature are the depositories of this spiritual capital, the 
 vehicles of this intercourse. When, in the case of a subjugated 
 race, they have been violently and absolutely abolished, it is 
 like the destruction of a museum the models in which have 
 been incessantly copied, moulding all men in the likeness of 
 the same image ; the original social mould perishes. The 
 scattered and oppressed individuals of the vanquished race 
 submit, as in the past, to the action of the natural environ- 
 ment. But the moral environment is entirely transformed ; 
 it is now that of the conquering race — full, free, and vigorous. 
 The bulk of the vanquished race melts rapidly away under the 
 powerful influence, until it can no longer be reckoned with as 
 a cause or scientifically appreciable element. 
 
 This is precisely what happened to the Celts in England. 
 All the indications are contrary to the hypothesis of a fruitful 
 survival of their intellectual type. When the vanquished have 
 a superior religion they generally win their masters over to 
 it. The Anglo-Saxons, who, since 449, were in contact 
 with a Christian population more civilised than themselves, 
 remained heathens until the middle of the seventh century 
 (579-681). They owed their tardy conversion to a mission 
 which came from the Continent. The vanquished, before 
 mingling with their conquerors, often for a long while sing 
 softly among themselves of the exploits, the glory, and the 
 misfortunes of their race ; history retains the echo of these 
 
 F
 
 66 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 deep, dull murmurs. In this case not a Celtic verse survived 
 the conquest. Language is the keeper of national traditions, 
 the mirror in which the ethnical type learns to recognise itself. 
 The subjugated Britons immediately and completely unlearnt 
 theirs ; they passed nothing, even of their second language, 
 Latin, except a little ecclesiastical jargon, into the idiom of 
 the conquerors. M. Jusserand believes that until the eleventh 
 century no single trait of their genius reappeared in Anglo- 
 Saxon literature, which in inspiration and in style was entirely 
 Germanic. So nothing outward and visible has survived, and 
 everything has to be inferred from the mingling of blood in 
 some unknown but probable fornications. That these obscure 
 and dumb vehicles also transported a portion of the Celtic 
 spirit is possible, but in any case it is only an hypothesis, and 
 an hypothesis without any great interest, it seems to me. 
 Moreover, it is an hypothesis unsusceptible of scientific proof, 
 like those specious etymologies, the intermediary forms of which 
 the linguist has not been able to trace in the evolution of the 
 .anguage. That the intermixing should continue for five cen- 
 turies without one of the elements betraying itself by any sign 
 to the outside world seems almost impossible, and the conjec- 
 ture is the more unlikely that the first supposed manifestation 
 of the Celtic genius must have been made after the Norman 
 invasion, i.e.^ at an epoch when a new, weighty, and influential 
 cause supervened, which would easily account by itself for 
 anything open to question. 
 
 Before quitting this point I must make one or two remarks. 
 The first is, that all the successive occupants of British 
 territory, issuing from the same stock, who helped to form the 
 English nation, were, without exception, adventurers, pirates 
 and fortune-seekers, who may have had diverse motives for 
 leaving their native land, but all of whom possessed the 
 requisite energy to do so. A struggle at once took place 
 between the first arrivals and the successive new-comers, in- 
 congruous elements as they were, yet all equally remarkable for
 
 THE ALIEN RACES 67 
 
 physical vigour and exceptional morals. This struggle was 
 characterised by extreme barbarism and inhumanity. In the 
 end a great and favourable elimination was accomplished : the 
 feeble were cut down ; and only the most obstinate, intrepid, 
 and strongest remained to form families. And so a nation was 
 formed which, in spite of ethnical differences and diversity of 
 latitude, presents a striking analogy to ancient Rome, which 
 in the beginning was peopled with bandits and rebels, and, by 
 disciplining their energies very gradually, finally dominated the 
 whole world, thanks to these brute forces deposited in her 
 cradle. Emerson made the following forcible remark on this 
 subject: "Nature held counsel with herself and said, 'My 
 Romans are gone. To build my new Empire, I will choose a 
 rude race, all masculine, with brutish strength. I will not 
 grudge a competition of the roughest males. Let buffalo gore 
 buffalo, and the pasture to the strongest ! For I have work 
 that requires the best will and sinew.' " 
 
 The second remark is, that the Latin education of Great 
 Britain was twice begun — first in the time of the Britons, 
 second in the time of Bede and Alcuin — and that on both 
 occasions it was interrupted, and its effects totally obliterated, 
 by the terrible invasions of barbarism, from whicli it did not 
 thoroughly recover until the eleventh century, since when it 
 has progressed up to the present time. It was in the short 
 interval between the last Danish invasion, that of Harold 
 Hardrada, and the expedition of William the Bastard, that the 
 die was thrown on which had been staked the future of 
 English civilisation. Pure Germanism was the loser, Latinity 
 the winner; and so the foundation was laid of a mixed 
 civiHsation, a rich and original combination of traditions and 
 capabilities. Yet in spite of this the Anglo-Saxon race, so 
 long a stranger to Christianity, was later than others in enter- 
 ing into continued intercourse witli this Latin civilisation, 
 which was like an accumulated treasure from whence Italy and 
 France borrowed ready-made ideas, and in which they early
 
 68 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 found rules of life and principles of organisation greatly 
 superior to their own social state. The first education — or 
 rather apprenticeship — of the Anglo-Saxon race was the 
 rough result of circumstances, and derived no sustained assist- 
 ance from the common patrimony of Latinity. Its case might 
 be likened to that of those young men who, prevented by a 
 reverse of fortune from following the regular course of their 
 studies, and early thrown into practical life among adventurers 
 in distant lands, grow up there fashioned by circumstances 
 and the force of their own individuality. The Anglo-Saxon 
 race was, in many respects, almost adult when it definitely 
 received its share of the Greco-Latin inheritance. The 
 consequences of this delay can be felt even to-day. Like the 
 men to whom I compare it, the nation has acquired a powerful 
 originality. Like them, it lacks, and perhaps will always lack, 
 what France and Italy owe to their uninterrupted intercourse 
 with antiquity : the simplified mode of thought, classic 
 principle, sobriety, Atticism and refinement of taste, which 
 were derived by these nations from a sort of previous existence, 
 from which England finds herself cut off, or the consciousness 
 of which came to her too late. As a set-off, she has escaped 
 what is artificial and conventional, and overmuch pruned, 
 purged, clarified, and consequently impoverished, in the 
 literatures derived from the Latin and Greek. If English 
 literature generally gives the impression of an overflowing 
 virility and inexhaustible vigour rather than that of perfec- 
 tion ; if force is more evident than exact proportion and 
 exquisite arrangement in the work of the great writers on the 
 other side of the Channel ; if our appreciation of the shades 
 of difference in manner and style has never been properly 
 experienced in England, if it disappears in the broad, robust 
 and healthy realism and opulent confusion which distinguishes 
 their most original creations, it is chiefly owing to the repeated 
 abortion of the Latin education, and to the first practical 
 education by life and circumstances, which surrendered minds
 
 THE ALIEN RACES 69 
 
 already formed and resistant to the influence of the antique 
 models. 
 
 Though these may be good reasons for disputing the 
 invisible survival of the Celtic genius on English soil, how can 
 we disregard the immense and noisy diffusion of the Norman 
 spirit and its action on the semi-barbarous mass out of which 
 the English nation has been formed ? The conquest of 1066 
 simply dug the bed for the broad human current which, 
 taking its rise on the Continent, flowed on for several 
 centuries. The name Norman is only the condensed and 
 localised term applied to a people which comprehended, besides 
 the Frenchified followers of RoUo, adventurers from all the 
 adjacent provinces, Anjou, Brittany, Maine, Poitou, and later 
 on, more remote places such as Provence and Savoy. The 
 name French, which has been applied to the conquerors since 
 the time of William, is the only one which is approximately 
 accurate. Yet it must be understood less as signifying an 
 ethnical group than a certain type of civilisation and method, 
 of imagination and sensibility, extremely different from those 
 which had already taken shape among the Anglo-Saxons. 
 
 Parallel with the invasion of men was the curious invasion 
 of many new forms of literature ; the knightly epic poem, in 
 which love held a chief place, romances, allegories, and 
 moralities, satires, songs, fables, biographies, philosophic and 
 judicial treatises. ... It seemed as if a second army of 
 adventurers had set forth, agile and joyous, like the archers 
 whose light arrows bore down the heavy axes of Harold's 
 followers, and scattering themselves gaily over the surface of 
 the Germanic minds, drove hither and thither their heavy 
 lyricisms. For three centuries these new forms of literature 
 were in vogue, and the turn of mind which prompted them 
 dominant, and when a return was made at length to the 
 primitive type, to it were adapted many of the characteristics 
 of this mask which had been so long applied to the face, as 
 almost to have become part of it.
 
 ;o THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 I am tempted to say, finding no better way of characterising 
 it, of the whole of this period, in which French and Latin 
 writings abounded, whilst the native tongue almost dis- 
 appeared, that it is in a certain sense prel'iterary^ and that, 
 literally speaking, it is not national. The internationality "of 
 this free country and this religious world," to which we owe 
 nearly all the great intellectual production of the middle ages, 
 has been very justly pointed out ; in truth, they have no limits. 
 Nearly all the authors of mark born on British soil studied or 
 taught in Paris, travelled in Italy, stayed in Rome, and passed 
 years, or even the whole of their lives, on the Continent. 
 If they espoused the interests of their fellow-countrymen it 
 was with reluctance and indifference. They were half 
 denationalised. They were less English than European, 
 citizens of the great religious and literary republic of which 
 the Court of Rome and the University of Paris were the 
 capitals. All those in Europe who wrote, corresponded one 
 with the other in whatever countries they might be ; they 
 drew largely from the same sources, indefatigably treated the 
 same subjects, and copied each other or some common model. 
 Few and faint were the indications of the great national 
 literature shortly to arise. 
 
 It must also be noted that England, destined hereafter 
 to excel by reason of the powerful originality of her work, 
 showed herself particularly servile and maladroit in these 
 continual imitations and plagiarisms. We can scarcely 
 entitle " literature " a collection of works to which invention, 
 talent, and style were all wanting. How, indeed, could 
 literary gifts develop among the three languages which 
 divided the future nation, separating the upper class from 
 the mass of the people, and the scholars and lettered from 
 both ? Each of these languages was necessarily special and 
 incomplete, incapable of giving the creative imagination 
 the sentiment of unrestricted intercourse with a powerful 
 body of men, all having the same glorious destiny. There
 
 THE ALIEN RACES 71 
 
 are three things which spring up together and of which each 
 is the condition, the forerunner, and alternately the cause 
 and effect of the others : a national language, a national 
 literature, and, around them, a common life and a collective 
 consciousness, which maintains them, supplies them with 
 subjects, and opens to them a field for expansion, full of 
 prolonged echoes. A national language assumes literary- 
 consistency only under the pressure of ideas and new 
 emotions, which passionately seek expression, divining that there 
 exists a large public half unconsciously disposed to receive 
 them, prepared to see itself in them, to be penetrated by 
 them, and to become conscious through them of its profound 
 unity, which they will enlarge and establish yet more firmly. 
 The sign that the evolution is complete and that a conscious 
 nation has definitely separated itself from ethnical groups, is 
 the accession of prose to literary dignity ; and, as a rule, such 
 accession coincides with a vigorous poetic efflorescence. But, 
 until the time of WyclifFe, there was no real English prose, 
 and even his prose can hardly pretend to be literary. Nor, 
 until the same epoch, was there any poetry. The great 
 majority of authors, both French and English, employed 
 rhymthic or rhymed verse which, properly speaking, was 
 neither prose nor poetry. Intervals, echoes, consonances, 
 convey to us nothing of the music we know, designed to 
 arouse harmonious sensations around each thought ; they are 
 merely points in the data of mnemonics, scanning for the ear 
 the monotonous and interminable prattle that was poured out 
 on every subject. It was not until 1350 that the river 
 of English thought divided itself into two arms, to make 
 room for the abundance and impetuosity of the waters which 
 a single bed could not contain. 
 
 Nothing is more interesting than the process by which this 
 new nation and new language were evolved. Little by little, 
 the conquerors and the conquered became blended, a single 
 mass was formed, and they could no longer be distinguished
 
 72 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 one from the other. After the invasion the enormous power 
 of the prince and his inclination to play the despot with his 
 own Norman vassals brought them nearer to the Saxons, with 
 w^hom they became united by the common interest of self- 
 defence, afterwards voiced by Parliament. On the other hand, 
 the insular isolation of the people, who had become very 
 sedentary, inclined them to conceive themselves homogeneous 
 and set up a wholesale opposition to the Continental nations. 
 Finally, the pretensions of their kings to the throne of France 
 were to them an occasion for feeling themselves one in their 
 proud individuality ; and therefore they protested by the voice 
 of the Commons against a union of the two crowns, which 
 would have made England a dependent of her neighbour 
 (1340). In the same year disappeared the prhentement 
 d Englescherie^ the most striking of the legal inequalities 
 existing between Francigena and Jnglicus. It is probable that 
 this procedure had for a long while fallen into desuetude : for 
 abrogation by law generally followed abrogation by custom. 
 
 The language gives curious evidence of the complete fusion 
 of the two races. For more than two centuries French had 
 continually gained ground. With the aid of Latin it supplied 
 and maintained the vocabulary of higher culture — political, 
 legal, financial, and theological. Further, the whole weight of 
 its influence was felt over an even wider area, replacing the 
 Anglo-Saxon dialects in such a degree that it was entitled the 
 "common language." It seemed probable that the German 
 clement would disappear as the Celtic had done. This, how- 
 ever, was not the case ; but it helps to explain the peculiar 
 formation of the language which took place in the fourteenth 
 century. The uncultivated classes did not cling tenaciously to 
 the use of the original idiom. They tried to speak French, 
 perverting it in the attempt ; dropping some portions, ty 
 maladroit handling, and retaining others, which became indis- 
 solubly blended with their jargon. When the Anglo-Saxon 
 element, which had remained intact under compression, re-
 
 THE ALIEN RACES 73 
 
 ascended after the manner of a geological strata upheaved by 
 an internal force, French was not like a superficial crust which 
 the inferior language uplifted, detached, and threw off in its 
 entirety ; rather did it resemble the concretions, debris or 
 crumbs which shoot up with the • ascendant element, or the 
 large seams which form part of its substance. Anglo-Saxon 
 itself sustained crushing and erosion. Both idioms emerged 
 with the loss of part of their grammatical and prosodical forms. 
 Thus it was that, confused by the genders of nouns, which 
 were not the same in Anglo-Saxon and French, the new 
 people despaired of ever understanding them, and instead of 
 making a selection called them all neuter. From this upheaval 
 the English language finally emerged, with its simplified 
 grammar, its structure which at first did not lend itself to 
 prose, and its triple and abundant vocabulary : French, Latin, 
 German, each still distinct and recognisable. This composite 
 formation made it possible for the writer, and still more for the 
 poet, to give his style an absolutely individual colour simply by 
 the choice of words. The intermixture and varying propor- 
 tions of these three elements undoubtedly furnished a long and 
 rich gamut of colours. The language of a Tennyson or a 
 Miss Martincau can be recognised and appreciated before the 
 force of their thoughts and the beauty of their images strike 
 the observer. 
 
 After the first literary efflorescence in which flowered, 
 though still very near the soil and the roots, the light blue of 
 Chaucer, the dark violet of Langland, and the sombre red of 
 Wycliffe, these corollas withered, fell off and were not 
 replaced. A sad autumn began, prolonged by a sterile winter, 
 in which all vegetation and life seemed to stop ; it was the 
 fourteenth century. Then suddenly there burst out on the 
 full-grown stem, in a magnificent cluster, the genius of 
 Shakespeare, and the literature springing from the same afflux 
 of sap. The national mind had definitely taken possession of 
 itself during its long sleep ; henceforth it produced works 
 of extraordinary individuality.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE INDIGENOUS RACES 
 
 I . — Agricultural England. 
 
 The English nation had no longer invasion to fear ; it had its 
 own language and institutions, and was in possession of its 
 own genius. We must now take note of the more important 
 characteristics by which it was distinguished. 
 
 After 1066 the nation began to lose its mihtary character, 
 and to acquire the habits of an agricultural population. The 
 Normans, established in their insular territory, began to mix 
 with the Saxons. At the end of a century and a half the 
 fusion was complete, and the two races could no longer be 
 distinguished one from the other. The Continental wars, just 
 commencing, attracted only the more turbulent of the barons ; 
 the others remained at home, mixing with the bulk of the 
 people, and, like them, leading an entirely rural existence — a 
 mode of life which gradually altered their habits. In the 
 fifteenth century even foreigners noticed the change. Poggio 
 writes, " After the French come the inhabitants of Britain, 
 who are now called the English ; they do not consider it 
 correct for a noble to live in a town ; they all live shut in by 
 their fields, forests, and pastures ; they measure nobility by 
 fortune, and concentrate their energies on the cultivation of 
 the land ; they trade in wool and lambs, and see nothing im- 
 proper in sharing the profits of agriculture." The remnant 
 of the ancient nobility perished in the War of the Roses, and 
 
 74
 
 THE INDIGENOUS RACES 7S 
 
 henceforward the gentleman farmer led the way. No rudiments 
 of manufacturing industry as yet existed in the Island. The 
 English sold their wool to the Flemish, and received manu- 
 factured goods in exchange. It was not until 1589 that 
 refugees from Flanders began to teach the insular workers the 
 art of manufacturing woollen goods. The Norwich period 
 now commenced, and lasted throughout the seventeenth 
 century. It is noteworthy that the first motive for this industry 
 was one of the natural products of British soil, and that prac- 
 tically it was only an extension of the agricultural industry : 
 the English were none the less a race of labourers and shef>- 
 herds, who settled for the most part in the South of England, 
 and were remarkable for their gaiety, these southern counties 
 becoming the Merry England of the chroniclers. From the 
 documents of the fifteenth century we gather that they dropped 
 the habit of intense practical work and led a life wholly 
 " spiritual and refined." In nothing that we know of them 
 can we find any trace of the continued and pertinacious effort 
 and activity which distinguish the English of our time. 
 
 Some are pleased to say that the English in all ages have 
 proved themselves worthy descendants of the Vikings of 
 Norway, and that the rare qualities they display to-day in 
 commerce and navigation are the heritage, transmitted from 
 century to century, of this race of heroes. Nothing could be 
 more untrue. The Angles and Saxons, in whose veins flowed 
 the restless blood of these adventurers, became the possessors of 
 an extraordinarily fertile country, and eventually succumbed 
 to the temptation of a tranquil life and easily attainable riches. 
 Some centuries later we cannot but be astonished at the 
 awkwardness and incuriosity of their first attempts on the high 
 seas — attempts in which we find no evidence of atavism to 
 experienced pirates or the premonition of a great future. In 
 the middle of the fifteenth century Henry V. borrowed ships 
 from Holland for his expeditions against France. Prior to this 
 epoch the country had no navy to protect her coasts ; the
 
 ye THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 maritime towns protected themselves as best they could. The 
 foreign commerce of Great Britain was entirely in the hands 
 of the Dutch, the Lombards and the Hansards, who were 
 attracted by the bait of immunities and advantages refused to 
 English merchants on English soil, and for which they were 
 not indemnified by reciprocity in the native countries of the 
 privileged foreigners. It was only under Richard II. that there 
 grew up a desire to protect the British flag ; but the measures 
 taken to this end had little or no practical effect until the reign 
 of Henry VII. The English did not begin to colonise until 
 the last years of Elizabeth. When the seventeenth century 
 opened they had no possessions outside Europe ; they had 
 allowed themselves to be outstripped by the other Powers who 
 bordered the Atlantic. At the end of the sixteenth century 
 we find a very definite statement made by one of the few sea- 
 faring men the country possessed at that time — Sir Walter 
 Raleigh. The English navy, he writes, cannot enter into 
 comparison with that of the Dutch. " Following the example 
 of the ancient city of Tyre and the more modern Venice, 
 Holland has become the storehouse of all foreign commodities, 
 the one hundredth part of which are not used in the country. . . . 
 They come to trade with us in 500 or 600 vessels every year, 
 and we send them perhaps thirty or forty. The Dutch trade 
 into all cities and port towns in France, and we with five or six 
 only. . . . They have of their own as many vessels as eleven 
 kingdoms of Christendom have and build a thousand ships a 
 year, and yet there is not one tree in the whole country, and 
 their products would not fill a hundred vessels." This passage 
 is all the more significant for having emanated from the pen of 
 one of the destroyers of the invincible Armada. The disper- 
 sion of the Spanish fleet has been considered by more than one 
 writer, as the beginning of English dominion over the seas. 
 This is a grave mistake. It was the tempest, not the English 
 or Dutch ships, which put an end to the Armada. The 
 Lord sent His wind and scattered them. Drake was only a
 
 THE INDIGENOUS RACES 77 
 
 buccaneer, who abandoned the pursuit as soon as the wind got 
 up ; and when nothing remained of the expedition England 
 was left with the feeling of a Iiappy chance rather than the 
 consciousness of true maritime K'tatncss. 
 
 2. — Erighuid''s Cotmncrce and Colonies. The Puritans. 
 
 Two notable events succeeded in changing the character and 
 destinies of England. The first was the discovery of America 
 in 1492. Up to this period European commerce had been 
 concentrated in Genoa, Pisa, Florence, Venice, Augsburg, 
 Troyes, and the Hanse towns : it was essentially Mediterranean 
 and continental. Columbus's discovery opened new markets : 
 it became oceanic, and passed into the hands of the five Powers 
 which bordered on the Atlantic. This displacement was quite 
 natural ; but in connection with it one fact is somewhat 
 surprising. Portugal was the first to enter on the scene ; then 
 Spain, then Holland. These three Powers were at the zenith 
 of their colonial prosperity during the second half of the 
 sixteenth century. France began to move later, but even then 
 she was in advance of England. This latter country was the 
 last to appear, and a century was required for her to make up 
 for lost time. It was only at the Peace of Utrecht in 171 3 that 
 she became recognised as a great naval Power which aspired to 
 the dominion of the seas. 
 
 This delay was the more surprising because England was 
 admirably situated to profit by American commerce. Of the 
 five Powers whose ports opened on the Atlantic, she was the 
 nearest to the New World. Her coastline is more than two 
 thousand miles in extent — nearly double that of the shores of 
 France. An Englishman set down anywhere on the British 
 mainland would never be more than twenty-five leagues from 
 the coast. The ports are numerous ; the mouths of the rivers 
 form deep roadsteads. The tide ascends to a great distance 
 from the sea, bringing vessels into the capital as far as London
 
 78 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 Bridge, and into Bristol three leagues beyond the point of 
 junction of the Severn and the Avon. In addition to these 
 natural advantages there were other circumstances vv^hich, in 
 the long run, would infallibly give England the upper hand in 
 a struggle for possessions beyond the seas. Portugal and 
 Holland have Continental bases too circumscribed to seat a great 
 colonial Empire. Spain and France were divided between two 
 interests : the Continental interest, which was the mainspring 
 of their politics ; and the colonial interest, which simply 
 furnished them with extra supplies. It was of far more 
 consequence to a Spaniard to preserve his Italian possessions 
 than to augment his possessions in America. It was far less 
 important to France to create an empire on the St. Lawrence 
 than to extend her empire in Europe as far as the Rhine or the 
 Pyrenees, thereby filling in Nature's framework. From all 
 these points of view England had obvious advantages. She 
 had the extent and heart of a great Power. For centuries she 
 had occupied the whole of her island ; there was nothing more 
 to covet, for her limits were natural ones. She could not 
 extend her boundaries, and to aggrandise herself, what was 
 there she could demand on the Continent in the sphere of 
 influence of one of the great European States ? When the 
 hour of division came she was therefore forced to cast her eyes 
 on some colonial possession. It was ceded to her without 
 regret, and once ceded was too far removed to be worth the 
 trouble of taking back. England, it might be said, was fated 
 to see her possessions beyond the seas suddenly growing ; in 
 spite of herself she was thrust into the role of a great colonial 
 Power. 
 
 We may therefore be somewhat surprised that the seven- 
 teenth century should have come and gone before England was 
 installed and recognised in her position of aspirant to the 
 dominion of the seas. As we have said, in 1600 she had no 
 possessions outside Europe. During the first half of the 
 century, the occupation of New England and the growth of
 
 THE INDIGENOUS RACES 79 
 
 Virginia were chiefly owing to the persecutions which, in turns, 
 rendered England uninhabitable for the Puritans and the 
 Cavaliers. The grant to Lord Baltimore of a fief in Maryland 
 can hardly be counted among the enterprises stamped with the 
 true colonial spirit. The restless spirit of the age caused men 
 to make up their minds and act with promptitude. In the year 
 1625 the number and variety of publications on commerce 
 were extraordinary. The effect was soon seen ; from 1590 to 
 1 64 1 the Custom House duties rose from ^14,000 to 
 _^ 500,000. A new era began with the Act of Navigation, 
 In spite of more than one annulment and amendment, this Act 
 had the direct effect of suppressing the profitable monopoly of 
 the coasting trade which the Low Countries carried on with 
 the English ports, and of chasing away the hardy bands of 
 Dutch fishermen who cast their nets round the shores of Great 
 Britain, selling in the very country itself the fish which the 
 inhabitants had not as yet thought of disputing with them. 
 The acquisition of Jamaica rendered the last years of Cromwell 
 illustrious ; it was confirmed under Charles II. in 1670. In 
 the time of the two Stuarts the greater part of the coastline 
 between Massachusetts and Virginia was conquered by the 
 English, who established themselves in New York, Delaware, 
 New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Colonisation had not, as yet, 
 been begun in other parts. Bombay, ceded to Charles II. in 
 1 66 1, was practically the only settlement of the East India 
 Company ; and Fort William, in 1688, gave little indication 
 of the immense development of Calcutta in the near future. 
 It is difficult to understand this slow progress on the part of a 
 people endowed, in an unusual degree, with the necessary 
 qualifications. 
 
 However, other significant facts explain why the work of 
 colonisation was retarded. The law with regard to landed 
 property, for example, was adapted to the requirements of an 
 agricultural population. Whilst the Dutchman, when short of 
 money, easily mortgaged his domain, his neighbours found it
 
 8o THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 very difficult — indeed, almost impossible — to raise a mortgage. 
 In Holland, money could be borrowed at 3 per cent., and even 
 less. In England, the legal and actual interest was 8 per cent. 
 The sole money-lenders of the kings were the goldsmiths, and 
 it was not until 1694 that, by the founding of the Bank of 
 England, they were able to obtain larger amounts than the sum 
 of one year's revenue. England had, as it were, by breaking 
 the chain of venerable habits, made a past for these new 
 traditions. The transformation was complete in 1700. For a 
 certain period the English had the same sovereign as the Dutch. 
 They were able to study at first hand and to imitate the 
 methods of this leading mercantile nation. When the link was 
 broken, Amsterdam ceased to be the commercial capital of the 
 world, and London soon succeeded her. Henceforward Holland 
 steadily declined, and in the struggle which ensued between 
 France and Great Britain she took little part. France in her 
 turn was conquered and despoiled : one after the other she 
 yielded up Acadia, Canada and the Empire of the Indies, and 
 could no longer be reckoned as a colonial Power of the first 
 rank. England stood alone and without a rival. In 17 1 3 her 
 supremacy was recognised, but she had as yet only her equal 
 share in the possessions over-seas. In 1763 the equilibrium 
 was destroyed ; outside Europe the Spanish colonies alone 
 rivalled in greatness those of the British Empire. This result 
 was not attained merely by treaties following on memorable 
 wars ; England meanwhile had traversed seas hitherto unknown 
 and established flourishing settlements which linked her store- 
 houses together, and consolidated her dominion. 
 
 By degrees there grew up a race composed of bold sailors, 
 intrepid colonists, and merchants eager for gain ; honest in 
 trade, because good faith is a condition of commerce, dishonest 
 in everything else ; heedless of their obligations to other powers, 
 and inhuman and cruel beyond all expression. Under 
 Cromwell they prepared an expedition with the avowed object 
 of taking the Spanish galleons by surprise, and chance only
 
 THE INDIGENOUS RACES 8i 
 
 hindered its fulfilment. Simultaneously with the peace of 
 Utrecht, they concluded with Spain the treaty of Assiento, by 
 which the slave trade with the Spanish colonies passed into 
 their hands ; and on this trade they based the whole of their 
 policy during the eighteenth century. This race, unknown in 
 preceding generations, embarked upon a career of unbridled 
 pride and insatiable avidity ; and the spirit which animated and 
 sustained them now inspires, after a period of stagnation and 
 doubt, what we call imperialism. They were persuaded of their 
 vocation to the empire of the seas and expressed it with a naive 
 and brutal arrogance, sincerely believing that to come under 
 English dominion was for any barbarous country a normal 
 event, and the happiest that could befall it. To them there 
 was something more important than the spirit and letter of 
 treaties ; viz., the necessity, which they proclaimed upon the 
 housetops, that the English should hold sway in certain parts of 
 the earth. The highest aim of their missionaries was, not to 
 convert the heathen, but to place them under the protection of 
 a people chosen by God. The sudden explosion of these 
 sentiments was the result of two centuries of preparation, which 
 had wrought up to the highest degree of intensity passions to 
 which England, prior to 1500, had been absolutely a stranger. 
 But it was not external conditions alone which had an effect 
 on the nation, furnishing the mould for a new race ; another 
 cause intervened, which operated in the depths of the individual 
 conscience. This cause, which altered men's outlook on the 
 world, toleration of human passions, and acceptance of life and 
 of death, was the Reformation. It too created a new people, 
 composed of all those who came under its influence. This 
 extraordinary growth was not due to Anglicanism, for that 
 had not the requisite efficacy. In the beginning Anglicanism 
 was merely an expedient for passing the authority of the Church 
 out of the hands of the Pope into those of the King. All that 
 was possible was retained from Catholicism — the episcopal 
 hierarchy, the apostolic transmission, and a large number of 
 
 G
 
 82 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 rites. For the greater security, a minimum of Calvinism was 
 introduced, as a guarantee and safeguard against a return to 
 Papistry. Anglicanism was, in the main, merely a more or less 
 reasonable compromise, a religion of gentlemen and men of the 
 world who required a certain luxury of collective ceremonies to 
 fill the place of the individual faith so often absent, and who 
 attached themselves to a liturgy in order to retain the illusion 
 that they believed in something. It is remarkable that the two 
 phases of belief into which the extreme forms of Anglicanism 
 have constantly been tempted to resolve, are on the one side 
 Puseyism and even Catholicism, and on the other the Broad 
 Church : on the one side a poetic flight which led the English 
 back to the ancient institutions of the Middle Ages, the 
 cenobitical life, the care of the poor, and, first and foremost, 
 the antiquity of tradition ; on the other, a positive mind, which, 
 in enlarging its doctrines, impaired their foundations, leaving 
 only vain symbols standing. Thus the natural tendency of 
 Anglicanism was not to fortify belief, but rather to weaken it, 
 as was rendered peculiarly obvious by the perseverance with 
 which it repulsed Wesley. Of the two sides its instinctive 
 inclination is, either to stifle faith under forms to which 
 tradition alone lent some life, or to ruin it by an analysis which 
 leaves only the empty moulds standing. 
 
 Very different was the effect of Puritanism, of the Baptists, 
 and some of the other reformed sects. Puritanism was, above 
 all things, religious individualism. What the Independents 
 most vehemently rejected was the yoke of the State, the' 
 control of a civil power which regarded itself as holder and 
 dispenser of the truth. The idea of a material authority 
 clumsily and brutally handling a man's most sacred feelings 
 and personal convictions inspired them with a sort of horror. 
 Therefore it is by no means astonishing to find nothing among 
 them resembling a profession of faith. They did not conceive 
 one Church, but Churches ; and if on one occasion, at the 
 Conference of Savoy, they hazarded a sort of confessional
 
 THE INDIGENOUS RACES 83 
 
 declaration, it might have been asked what power would be 
 sufficiently well equipped to constrain a congregation which 
 had sincerely seceded from it. Thus the Puritan realised this 
 antinomy : to have a common faith which linked him to other 
 men, and which permitted numerous congregations all over the 
 country to hear the same name, and, on the other hand, to 
 preserve the local and individual character of this faith, making 
 it so personal and intimate an operation of each conscience, 
 that it seemed to owe nothing to tradition. The Baptists 
 went even further. They recognised as a supreme guide, 
 sudden inspiration, the direct calling of the heart by God 
 Flimself. 
 
 But it was not only his jealous love of independence which 
 distinguished the Puritan and constituted his strength ; it was 
 the intensity of his faith, the omnipresence of a belief which 
 coloured his whole life and interposed at every turn. This it 
 was which made the Puritan an incomparable colonist. 
 Doubtless his belief did not render him exceptionally apt at 
 ploughing a furrow, housing his corn, and making exact 
 calculations, but it gave him a moral stamina which was 
 always perceptible under his qualities as a man of business. 
 The emigrant launched himself upon the unknown ; with 
 him was God his Saviour. He could face death with serenity ; 
 it had no terrors for him. Life appeared to him as a suc- 
 cession of duties which could be fulfilled without scenic 
 effects, or a thought as to what the world would say. It was 
 sufficient if God and his ever-present conscience were satisfied. 
 Of such individuals as this was that Puritan stock constituted 
 which had so large a share in the building up of American 
 greatness. We cannot follow their progress in history for 
 two or three centuries, beginning with the landing of the 
 M.a\Jiowcr^ without feelijig ourselves in the presence of a 
 young or rejuvenated race, which had drawn an austere 
 freshness of impression, a vigour, constancy, and unusual 
 tenacity from the revived source of Christianity. Before and
 
 84 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 after the Declaration of Independence they were everywhere 
 to be found ; foremost in emigration and colonisation, and in 
 the front of every enterprise, a part of the ferment of the 
 New World. There is no exaggeration in saying that 
 Puritanism, the creed of the Baptists, and, later, Presby- 
 terianism and Wesleyanism, were pre-eminently the creeds of 
 the emigrants. The population of the New World, and of 
 the English possessions outside Europe, was made up for the 
 most part of these Dissenters. The Wesleyans and the 
 Baptists are relatively small communities in England ; but 
 they are in reality immense communities, the greatness of 
 which can only be appreciated when they convoke a meeting 
 in London of the delegates of their adherents all the world 
 over. At such times they must be recognised as a special race 
 which, originating in the Reformation, took upon itself the 
 work of colonisation and made it a success, where, at the same 
 epoch, and on the same territory, the French and the Spanish 
 failed. In the Mother Country, where they have remained in 
 the minority, they constitute a serious, ardent, and earnest 
 element, which had formerly been lacking in Merry England. 
 How can we estimate and gauge the efficacy of this new 
 element ? It can be done by comparing England as a 
 colonising power, for the most part Puritan, with Spain, 
 obdurately impregnated with Catholicism and Jesuitism. 
 Spain no longer added to the immense empire she had con- 
 quered, even allowing portions to slip out of her hands. Gold 
 and spices were all she obtained from it, and the chief feature 
 of the government she imposed on the native population was 
 passive obedience. Thus she renounced progress. With 
 England, the reverse was the case. Her emigrant was a man 
 who had escaped from the prison called civilised society ; who 
 had broken all the bonds which attached him to the State and 
 ecclesiastical authority ; who was free, save, perhaps, for the ties 
 he himself had formed. For tiie first time social obligations 
 seemed on the point of being recognised. This brusque
 
 THE INDIGENOU'S RACES 85 
 
 individuality, this personality all angles and corners, made a 
 compact with his fellows to respect the rights of each 
 individual. In the beginning this compact was confined 
 to a parish, and thus the emigrants lived for a time ; then 
 one parish combined with another, separated again, reunited, 
 and finally the State was formed. We, on the contrary, find 
 already formed the State of which we are to become part ; 
 they were anterior and superior to their State, and made a 
 place for it, whereas our State makes a place for us. 
 
 3. — IVesJey. Industrial England. 
 
 After the Restoration the favourites of Charles II. returned 
 from exile with an ungovernable desire for enjoyment, and 
 abandoned themselves to it without restraint. Society adopted 
 the tone of a courtesan ; the contagion spread little by little, 
 and even the chief citizens were affected by it. It was a 
 period of licence, cynicism, and utter impiety. Noncon- 
 formity, compromised by the revolutionary excesses, had lost 
 its hold on the hearts of the people. The inferior classes, 
 terribly ignorant, opposed a wall of stupidity to all spiritual 
 teaching. "In England there is no religion at all," Montes- 
 quieu said ; and Voltaire wrote about the same time, "They are 
 so lukewarm in England that a new or revived religion would 
 have only the shadow of a chance." It was at this juncture 
 that Wesley appeared. It is curious that the movement to 
 which he gave his name took its rise in the bosom of Angli- 
 canism, i.e.^ a communion in which faith and piety no longer 
 existed. Wesley undertook to restore these virtues without 
 changing its articles of faith, or establishing a new sect. With 
 laudable obstinacy he refused to separate himself from the 
 Established Church. He began by soliciting the favour of 
 permission to preach in the Anglican places of worship, and 
 would not be rebuffed by the contemptuous refusals his sugges- 
 tion received. Later on, when he did organise a separate
 
 86 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 foundation for his numerous followers, he would not allow the 
 sacraments to be administered to them in the Wesleyan 
 chapels ; they had to demand and receive them in the 
 churches dependent on the State. It was not until four years 
 after his death that, owing to the stubborn ill-will of the bishops, 
 the council which exercised the powers of government in 
 Wesley's stead allowed the communion to be administered to 
 those who expressed a desire to receive it ; but even this 
 permission was accorded with hesitation and extreme caution. 
 
 Wesley was neither an heresiarch nor the founder of a sect. 
 He did not hold with the doctrine of the Established Church. 
 He paid no heed to the Thirty-nine Articles, apparently ignoring 
 their existence. He always refused to give a profession of 
 faith to his followers in England. When he felt it incumbent 
 upon him to draw one up for the United States, he contented 
 himself with cutting out the dogmatic part of the Thirty-nine 
 Articles, and arranging the remainder as well as he could in 
 the form of a declaration. Orthodoxy, he said, cannot trans- 
 form the moral being ; rather is it the transformed moral 
 being which confers a value on orthodoxy. Hence it is 
 man himself and the force of his conviction which give a 
 high significance to faith. The important point is to renew 
 the living sources of piety, not to be over-particular regarding 
 the terms of a declaration of belief. Moreover, all extreme 
 opinions were repugnant to Wesley. On the one hand he 
 repudiated antinomianism, and the quietism of the Moravians ; 
 and, on the other, the exaggerated Calvinism of Whitefield. 
 Religion, as conceived by him, free from all subtlety and 
 theological singularity, could be understood even by the 
 simplest intelligences, and was specially adapted to the men of 
 the middle and lower classes to whom he addressed his 
 teaching. 
 
 The fate of the Reformation, and consequently of England 
 herself, was hanging in the balance. If the Anglican Church 
 had yielded to the solicitations of Wesley and given him the
 
 THE INDIGENOU.S RACES 87 
 
 charge of a parish, there would have been an end to the great 
 movement vi^hich w^as to originate u^ith him and make his 
 name illustrious. The narrow-mindedness and obstinacy of 
 the Anglicans decided it otherwise. Wesley was forced to 
 organise the multitude of the faithful who trod in his footsteps 
 outside the Established Church, and he did it freely and fully. 
 He had no ecclesiastical habits to overcome when he formed 
 the corps of itinerant ministers who had the universe for a 
 parish, and hardly knew in the morning where, when the 
 evening came, they would lay their heads. Truly it was 
 necessary that these men, to whom were shut the doors of 
 every place of worship with roof and walls, should resign 
 themselves to speak to the people in the fields and at the 
 crossways. Finally, Wesley did not associate himself, for the 
 purpose of preaching, even with the auxiliary laity who, in 
 time, played so considerable a part in the Church ; they, 
 doubtless, would have been turned aside by the prejudice of 
 custom and the jealousy of class if Wesley had been forced 
 into the position of putting them to the proof. In short, he 
 set to work to establish the communion of his followers as he 
 would have done, not for a dissenting Church, but for a great 
 society of religious propaganda ; and on it he expended his 
 indefatigable energy and his talent for organisation. The 
 three great innovations of which I have spoken were institu- 
 tions obviously adapted to a period of missions, an apostleship 
 amongst a xxqw people, the United States of America for 
 instance, where, as a matter of fact, they have been preserved, 
 whilst in England they became modified, and gradually gave 
 rise to the regular medium of a Church. 
 
 It was not to the frivolous and corrupt upper classes that 
 Wesley addressed his teaching, but rather to the middle classes, 
 and more especially to artisans. Amongst them he found a 
 virgin force, a singular emotional activity, and an ingenuous- 
 ness which no objections could trouble nor hinder in a desire 
 for belief; qualities which, maintained by an absolute and
 
 88 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 sovereign ignorance, caused him to disdain reason and ignore 
 science. It was, moreover, a fact eminently characteristic of 
 England that in 1740 a man as eminent as Wesley, destined to 
 exercise a profound influence both on his ow^n century and 
 afterwards, could be so entirely destitute of all scientific know- 
 ledge, so impervious to all argument and refutation dictated 
 either by good sense or mental culture. Wesley played his 
 part in the world to the accompaniment of miracles, visions 
 and revelations from afar. His preachings on hell and 
 damnation provoked in his audiences nervous seizure, convul- 
 sions and hysteria : these he witnessed without disturbance or 
 disgust, and with an invincible self-confidence. Satan occupied 
 a large place in his thoughts ; he frequently declared he 
 believed in magic ; accusations against witches did not 
 displease him, rather the contrary. Lastly, the extreme 
 narrowness of his mind was manifested in his criticisms of 
 the antique statues representing images of the gods. Such 
 ideas readily take root in virgin and uncultivated minds, side 
 by side with two beliefs which continue to exist even when 
 education has done its work, viz., a belief in sin and in justifi- 
 cation by faith. Though exposed in the beginning to the 
 railleries and contempt of the upper classes, Wesley eventually 
 obtained a certain authority over them by his tenacity and 
 conscientious perseverance. During an existence, the active 
 part of which lasted for more than fifty years, his sincerity and 
 earnestness knew no change ; and this it was which won the 
 heart of the English and convinced them more than the most 
 weighty arguments could have done. Wesley and his followers 
 founded in Wales, England, the United States and Canada a 
 great Church numbering four million believers, and influencing 
 more than twenty million people. Its progress has been con- 
 tinuous. But what was more decisive still was the change this 
 serious conception and clear view of life made even in those 
 who did not participate in it : the upper classes, who, by 
 reason of the superficial idea they had formed of the spiritual
 
 THE INDIGENOUS RACES 89 
 
 world, found facile reasons for disdaining these austere and 
 smileless men, little by little changed their tone when they 
 came into contact with Wcsleyan gravity. Even without 
 leaving their own Church they began to understand its 
 teachings ; their ministers had more trouble in dealing with 
 their awakened consciences, and gradually the English 
 became the reflective, serious and sincere people whom we 
 have learned to esteem. In this sense we can say that the 
 Reformation of Wesley created a new race of men, very 
 different, in truth, from that known to a Bolingbroke or a 
 Fielding. 
 
 Parallel with this moral and inner revolution was an out- 
 ward one equally remarkable in its results, viz., the industrial 
 revolution of the eighteenth century. In 1600 England ceased 
 to be a purely agricultural country ; she became mercantile 
 and colonising. Shortly before 1800 her transformation was 
 complete ; her characteristics were more than ever those of a 
 pastoral people. The 160,000 petty proprietors, who, with 
 their families made up a seventh of the total population, were 
 gradually eliminated : the bailiffs of the great lords seduced 
 them with advantageous offers, and soon the immense fields of 
 the lat'ifundia covered the ground but lately occupied by the 
 habitations of a vanished race. On the other hand, this 
 change in the ownership of the land threw out of work a large 
 number of people who turned for employment to the manu- 
 facturing industry. This industry assumed an entirely 
 different aspect ; the prospect of a steady wage attracted to it 
 the miserable labourers who had hitherto partly subsisted on 
 alms. The discoveries of Kay and Arkwright had substituted 
 the weaving machine for the loom, the apparatus worked by 
 steam for that put in motion by the energy of man ; large 
 sections of the working population, clustered around the 
 horizontal shaft and living on their wages, for the various 
 labourers scattered about the country and subsisting chiefly on 
 the products of their plot of ground. A class sprang up which
 
 90 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 rapidly peopled a part of England that had hitherto lain waste. 
 In 1685 there were only four towns besides London, which 
 had more than ten thousand inhabitants : Bristol, Exeter, 
 Norwich, and York, all in the south or east of England. 
 This new class, on the other hand, settled in the midlands and 
 north, in villages hitherto nameless, or in fresh districts : 
 Birmingham, Manchester, and Liverpool — to name simply the 
 three greatest urban agglomerations — became centres of 
 teeming life, where work was done shoulder to shoulder, and 
 human intercourse was continuous. Personal matters were the 
 chief topic of conversation, and they all held themselves on the 
 defensive ; they had something to say on spiritual matters ; they 
 formed their own conception of their duties, rights and dignity, 
 surrounding it with an atmosphere of religion, and blending 
 with it an afterthought for their health. They were English, 
 i.e.j they needed a Church of their own, distinct from that of 
 the other classes. They welcomed Independent, Wesleyan, 
 and Baptist ministers, who adapted their teachings to their new 
 followers. A certain earnestness and ingenuous faith took root 
 in their hearts, together with a dislike for rites and ceremonies, 
 a sort of iconoclastic superstition. At the beginning of the 
 century the transformation was accomplished : England was a 
 different country, inhabited by a population whose existence 
 had hitherto been unsuspected, and whose position in fifty years 
 had become consolidated even to the shores of the great British 
 Isle. This new England came forward with economic condi- 
 tions, political pretensions, moral customs, a religious ideal, a 
 conscience and virtues which had hitherto been ignored by the 
 rest of the country : truly it was a new race grafted on to the 
 old one. I can only compare it to a colony of emigrants, who, 
 after settling themselves over-seas in a sparsely populated 
 country, and adopting a mode of existence for which they had 
 no precedent, social customs unknown in the old world, and a 
 conception of life from a new point of view, were suddenly 
 re-united to the mother country in consequence of a geological
 
 THE INDIGENOUS RACES 91 
 
 upheaval, and became so completely a part of her that their 
 general interests and government merged into one. 
 
 4. — Wales^ Scotland^ and Ireland. 
 
 The last influence apparently exercised over England was 
 that of the Celtic populations, who had fallen under her 
 dominion and made part of the same insular group, Wales 
 and Scotland, as it were, adhere to the flanks of the English 
 mainland ; Ireland is only separated by a narrow channel. 
 These three countries are concealed and cut off from other 
 nations by the vast triangle interposed between them and 
 Europe. The ocean completes their isolation. Geography 
 and history have spared them a tete-a-tete of several centuries 
 with their powerful and only neighbour. Scotland is the one 
 exception to the rule : she has had some relations with 
 France ; but the fusion of races by the mingling of men ought 
 to have taken place .chiefly in England. 
 
 It is rather singular that these conditions, so favourable to 
 reciprocity, and, in the long run, close union between the 
 vanquished peoples and their conquerors, should have had such 
 abortive and tardy results. We find a reason for it in the 
 character of the Englishman. Let us take these peoples in 
 their own countries, as the Englishman has had to do ; it is 
 easy to see that what is most characteristic in his ideas, 
 feelings, and habits of life has had no serious influence on the 
 Scotch, Welsh, or Irish. The Englishman is haughty and 
 taciturn ; he does not voluntarily explain the reason of his 
 actions ; he has no pity nor sympathy, he is even deficient in 
 good manners and good temper. He docs not possess that 
 indescribable amiability and charm which characterise a 
 Frenchman's every action, and any evidence he may give of 
 redeeming qualities is discounted by his arrogant and con- 
 temptuous manner. The effect of general civilisation has been 
 felt in the three countries ; during the last century they have
 
 92 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 progressed in their relations with England because they have 
 progressed in their relations with the whole world. These 
 peoples have grown to resemble each other ; but the influence 
 of the English has had no part in the transformation ; even 
 now they excite the same dislike and encounter the same 
 opposition as in the past. 
 
 This is markedly evident throughout the entire history of 
 Ireland. The Englishman established himself in that country 
 by force, and, significant fact, governs it by force. He began 
 by driving the Irish back beyond the pale, and a little later 
 became master of the whole island. He cemented his 
 dominion under Elizabeth and Cromwell by conscientious 
 massacres. On the field of battle he made no prisoners ; he 
 hunted the fugitives like wild beasts, and transported the 
 inhabitants of an entire district to Barbadoes as slaves. It was 
 a war of extermination. The virile and adult portion of the 
 population almost entirely disappeared, and after every rebellion 
 the nation took longer to recover itself. At these crises the 
 language retrograded, and eventually made way for the 
 English lanp;uao:e, all the o:rown men and old men, who could 
 speak it and teach it to their children, having been killed. It 
 rested with England to conciliate by good treatment all the 
 survivors of the vanquished race, making of them a new 
 people, more susceptible to the attraction of a superior 
 civilisation than to the remembrance of an ancient enmity. 
 This the Englishman did not attempt, and would not have 
 succeeded in doing. He could never bring himself to imitate 
 the familiarity and easy good nature of the Irishman ; he has 
 always considered the conquered nation as an inferior and con- 
 temptible race, who could only be maintained in subjection by 
 a code of barbarous laws which, to a certain extent, place it 
 outside the pale of common equity. It has never for a 
 moment occurred to him that this system of extreme 
 oppression, instead of suppressing smouldering rebellion, main- 
 tains, perpetuates, and exasperates its causes. Besides this,
 
 THE INDIGENOUS RACES 93 
 
 private spoliations and legal confiscations and dispossessions 
 extending sometimes to a whole district, have gradually 
 reduced the masters of the soil to the condition of simple 
 proletarians who can no longer dwell on the lands of their 
 fathers save by cultivating them on behalf of the stranger lord. 
 This eviction has been so general that there are very few old 
 Irish families who now own a portion of the national territory. 
 Tiiose who still live on, cultivating their land for the usurper, 
 feel in the depths of their hearts that they are the lawful 
 owners, and that the day must come when the estates of their 
 ancestors will again be theirs, and they will chase away the 
 insolent possessors of the hour. Thus they continue to exist, 
 a dull anger burning in their hearts. The relations of Ireland 
 with England for several centuries have been those of the 
 captive and his gaoler, the victim and his executioner. 
 
 Wales was joined to England at the end of the thirteenth 
 century, and in the sixteenth century her representatives first 
 took their seats in Parliament. The expression "England and 
 Wales" conveys the idea that the two countries are one from the 
 point of view of the legislator and the statesman. Scotland 
 was definitely annexed in 1603 by a dynastic union, and in 
 1707 the two Parliaments were merged into one. Finally, the 
 union with Ireland dates back just a century. Is it possible to 
 imagine France occupying the position towards one of her 
 dependencies which England has adopted towards these three 
 Celtic countries : certainly she would not have taken a century 
 to m.erge their individuality in her own and efl^ace the 
 differences which might hinder the establishment of a general 
 system of government. England in this connection has shown 
 herself the solitary and unsociable nation we have described j 
 she has disdained to mingle with her Celtic subjects, or to 
 make them her equals ; she has isolated herself in her pride. 
 
 How many diflferences, as a matter of fact, still exist between 
 one people and the other ! In the first place the three 
 countries of which I have spoken profess a different religion to
 
 94 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 that of their conquerors : Ireland is Catholic, Wales to a great 
 extent Methodist, and Scotland Presbyterian. The latter even 
 regards the Presbyterian as her Established Church. This 
 democratic form of belief, which admits no human authority 
 and will not tolerate any civil power above the Church of 
 Jesus Christ, has received all the privileges of the Established 
 Church on the other side of the Tweed ; and yet if a member 
 of this Church crosses the frontier he finds himself looked 
 down upon and classed among the Dissenters whom the State 
 refuses to recognise. These different denominations must not 
 be considered merely as the sign of each people's preference for 
 a certain mode of conceiving religion and its relations with the 
 State. There is something more in it than that. The Irish, 
 the Scotch, and the Welsh have each clung to their creed, 
 partly from a spirit of contradiction ; professing it with the 
 more fervour because it is not that of the English ; in it they 
 have found a sure means of separating themselves from a 
 detested race, even though it be in prayer, which should make 
 all men equal and brothers before God. 
 
 The second point that should be noted is the manner in 
 which Parliament legislates for the different parts of the United 
 Kingdom. There is not merely one universal code of laws. 
 Besides those laws which embrace the whole of the United 
 Kingdom, there are some which only apply to Great Britain, 
 others to England, and others again to Scotland ; finally, there 
 are some which only concern Ireland. Of these different 
 sections of the legislative work, the four last are not the least 
 numerous ; on the contrary, the rule is, that the majority of 
 statutes are not applicable to the whole of the United Kingdom. 
 The consequence is that, with the exception of Wales, which 
 has been almost invariably identified with England for nearly 
 four centuries, the countries which go to make up the United 
 Kingdom can, on a great number of points, exhibit statutes 
 which simply concern themselves. No circumspection has 
 been employed in dealing with Ireland ; as a conquered country
 
 THE INDIGENOUS RACES 95 
 
 she has to submit to the hiw of the conqueror. The civil and 
 penal laws of England have been imposed upon her ; and yet 
 how far she is from being a mere fraction, indistinguishable 
 from other fractions in the group of the United Kingdom. 
 The application of the English criminal laws, particularly the 
 Habeas Corpus Act, has so often been suspended that arbitrary 
 arrests seem quite in the natural order of things and in 
 accordance with the law ; further, the department of the public 
 ministry has been placed on a permanent footing. The law 
 of property is complicated with ideas handed down from the 
 time of the clans, ideas to which the English find no parallel 
 in their own past. The thoroughly Irish system prevailing in 
 Ulster has been extended to the whole country ; local ad- 
 ministration has been constructed on a different plan to that in 
 vogue on the other side of the St. George's Channel, and the 
 special titles of the officials, as well as the compass of their 
 prerogatives, attest the fiict that here we enter another 
 world. Scotland for a long time, both in her customs and her 
 laws, differed essentially from England. During the last fifty 
 years she has made great strides towards a more complete 
 union, but many differences still separate the two countries. 
 For instance, the Scotch have never recognised the distinction 
 between law and equity ; even now they have no Habeas 
 Corpus Act. I The public ministry is strongly represented at 
 headquarters by the Lord Advocate and his colleagues, and in 
 the provincial towns by the procurators fiscal. Examination is 
 conducted in private. In former days Scotland had a special 
 civil law, which, in process of time, has lost its most striking 
 peculiarities. There were perpetual amendments to it, the 
 number of which was not limited until 1848, in imitation of 
 the English amendments. Scotch marriages used to be con- 
 cluded without forms or the intervention of guardians, but the 
 law intervened in 1878 to encourage "regular marriages." 
 The laws regulating commerce are by no means identical in 
 the three countries. The system of parliamentary elections did 
 
 ' Translator's Note. — Scotland has the equivalent of Habeas Corpus 
 in an Act 19 & 20 Vict. cap. 56, sec. 17.
 
 96 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 not become universal until 1868, or rather 1884. Municipal 
 organisation, founded on that of England, was adopted by 
 Scotland in 1885, and by Ireland in 1899. The separation 
 between Scotland and England is made particularly evident 
 by the fact that the Scotch law has no judiciary value in the 
 English courts of justice, where it is regarded merely as a 
 point the authority of which is entirely dependent on 
 evidence.! 
 
 The third point to be noted is the almost ineradicable differ- 
 ence in manners and customs. Neither the Scotch, the Irish, 
 nor the Welsh have borrowed anything from the English. 
 Wales, although in many respects now identified with 
 England, has yet always been a kind of enigma to her neigh- 
 bour, which the latter does not condescend to decipher. The 
 English, as Mr. Osborne Morgan said, are better acquainted 
 with the Soudan than with W^les ; and by the English he did 
 not mean those who occasionally spent their vacations in the 
 principality, but those who had lived there for long years; they 
 regard the Welsh, he said, as a peculiar species of Englishmen 
 living in a town the name of which it is impossible to 
 pronounce, and preferring a musical festival to a horse- 
 race. 
 
 It is sufficient to hear an English gentleman speak of his 
 Irish and English tenants in order to perceive that he considers 
 the first as foreigners, in connection with whom all the laws, 
 human and divine, which he is accustomed to obey in dealing 
 with the latter, lose their authority and cease to restrain him. 
 The Irish, on the other hand, have always considered the 
 annexation of their country by England as a scandalous act, 
 which could only have been consummated by the most bare- 
 faced corruption : they have never ceased to protest against it. 
 The Scotch were, at first, decidedly hostile to the treaty of 1 707, 
 but eventually accepted it. The memory of it was hateful a 
 hundred years later to her more enlightened citizens — Smollct, 
 ' Stephen's Coitimctitarics, vol. i. Iiilnxl., sect. iv. p. 90.
 
 THE INDIGENOUS RACES 97 
 
 for example, and Walter Scott. At the epoch when the treaty 
 was concluded, Scotland was still very poor while England was 
 excessively rich. The Scotch peer could not come to London 
 to take part in the Parliamentary debates without the assistance 
 of the Oueen. It is said that at this time verv few from the 
 Highlands and even from the Lowlands had crossed the Tweed 
 and returned from England with a gayer mien. Then again, 
 Scotland, who, since the time of John Knox, had been plunged 
 in a sombre theological dream, and preoccupied, even in her 
 lowest classes, with subtle interpretations of the sacred Book, 
 was incapable of comprehending the ideas, sentiments and 
 customs of a nation more at one with the world, more sensible 
 of material interests, less infatuated with religion and, in short, 
 more prone to scepticism. Two centuries did not efface these 
 differences nor soften the dislike of one nation for the other. 
 Some years ago Mr. Lowe testified to the fact that when the 
 Scotch come to London they lodge in Scotch hotels and 
 employ Scotch tradesmen. Li fact, an absence of all 
 sympathy with the English and their customs is apparent in 
 every word and deed of Scotch, Irish, and Welsh. 
 
 But the enmity of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales towards their 
 conquerors is particularly marked in questions of government, 
 and here Ireland appears more and more as a foreign nation. 
 Against five millions of Irish in the island adjacent to England, 
 there are ten millions in America, still wholly subject to the 
 customs, passions, and prejudices peculiar to their native land, 
 in the United States the great majority of the Irish find ease 
 or riches, and a boundless liberty which can be enjoyed without 
 let or hindrance. Certain that England cannot touch them, 
 they encourage their European brothers in criminal and revolu- 
 tionary enterprises, helping them largely from their own 
 resources. Ireland once succeeded, thanks to certain favourable 
 circumstances, in gaining over the first statesman in England 
 to her side and with him nearly the whole Whig party ; she 
 will never forget that Home Rule has figured on the pro- 
 
 H
 
 98 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 gramme of the Liberal party, that the majority voted for it, 
 and that no one can now treat it as a chimera without accusing 
 Mr. Gladstone of frivolity or inconsequence. Further, nearly 
 all the representatives of Scotland and Wales declared with the 
 Irish in favour of this measure, and it is evident that every part 
 of the United Kingdom, with the exception of England, has a 
 decided inclination towards the federative system, and would be 
 disposed to welcome any organisation by which the weakening 
 of the central power would lead to a greater independence and 
 almost autonomy on the part of the local power in each of the 
 three countries. In fact Scotland is already in possession of 
 this autonomy. Her representatives in the House of Commons 
 form a group who are allowed to settle the questions which 
 interest their nation almost as they will. It is a little Parlia- 
 ment in the big one, and a sort of Home Rule by tacit consent. 
 Is it not singular that in two centuries the community of 
 interests has made so little progress, and that even now Scot- 
 land, under the veil of a Parliamentary fiction, is not allowed 
 to settle finally the questions which are her own concern? 
 
 It has been said more that once that Great Britain is only a 
 geographical expression ; this is true of the United Kingdom 
 as a whole : it does not constitute a political unity, and still less 
 a moral unity. Each of its four parts feels its own individuality, 
 and is conscious of a distinct life. It forms a whole more than 
 federative and less than federal. 
 
 England, while pre-eminently unsociable abroad, is at home 
 most liberal, hospitable and easy with strangers. The Scotch, 
 Welsh, and Irish, who energetically oppose the adoption of any 
 British customs in their own countries, are by no means insen- 
 sible to the conveniences of residence which England offers 
 them, and the number of those who live there varies between 
 750,000 and 850,000, a figure which corresponds to a tenth of 
 the population of the two countries. In England they enjoy 
 absolute liberty. The English character, therefore, is, to a 
 certain extent, complicated. Once there was only one national
 
 THE INDIGENOUS RACES 99 
 
 mind in England, because there was only one nation. Now 
 there arc, psychologically and morally, three nations in one. 
 By the union of races Scotland and Ireland have more or less 
 enriched the common fund with their particular endowments, 
 and, in the same way, their failings have been more or less 
 propagated in the mass of the people. The Irish are like the 
 Italians of the United Kingdom, and the Scotch like the 
 Germans. The influence of the first has been felt more 
 especially in their gift of writing for, and speaking to, the 
 masses. To mention only the most striking example of this 
 influence we may say, that it was their natural talent in the 
 preparation of pamphlets which, utilised in every cause, con- 
 tributed more than all else to the development of the empire of 
 that fourth power — the Press. It was chiefly their oratorical 
 intemperance and disdain of rules which completely altered 
 Parliamentary manners and decorum, rendered the system of 
 closure indispensable, and hastened the day when the House of 
 Commons ceased to be a salon of correct and self-confident 
 gentlemen and became a forum in which the police were 
 required. The Scotch inoculated England with learned poli- 
 tical economy and philosophy. They supplied her with the 
 exalted experimentalism which has become superposed upon 
 her flat empiricism. 
 
 5. — Insularity. The Provincial in Europe. 
 
 Here is a river, a mountain, and a plateau which separate two 
 nations. On cither side of this boundary extends a zone the 
 inhabitants of which, in consequence of uninterrupted inter- 
 course, resemble their compatriots in a far smaller degree than 
 their immediate neighbours. The traveller, on returning to 
 his own country, first encounters this degradation of the exotic 
 type which is imperceptibly reproduced in a gradation towards 
 the national type. The opposing traits of race and nationality 
 are therefore less decided here than elsewhere ; a foreigner is
 
 lOO THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 not necessarily a dissimilar being, rendered hateful by the effect 
 of his dissimilarity ; he is by no means the hostis in the 
 primitive sense of the word in whom each man sees an enemy. 
 On the contrary, in an arm of the sea like the Channel the 
 imperceptible line traced between the two countries first of all 
 separates two zones of uninhabited stormy wave. This pontus 
 dissodabilis forms a more effective barrier between the two 
 nations than the highest chain of mountains. The man who 
 has to cross the sea to return to his native land and watches 
 the shore fading behind him in the distance, feels himself an 
 absolute stranger to everything outside the girdle of moving 
 water. In any part of his island, he feels far more at home and 
 different to other men, than a Frenchman feels on any part of 
 the strip of territory which borders his frontier. England is 
 not only an island, but a continent. No other country has so 
 loudly protested that she is sufficient for herself, nor regarded 
 with greater suspicion the ideas and manners of Europe. She 
 has sometimes imitated other countries, but the imitation has 
 generally been as fleeting as a fantasy and superficial as a 
 fashion ; the multitude has not been affected by it, remaining 
 faithful to its original character. In short, for a long period 
 opportunities of contact between foreigners and the masses 
 were rare in England ; rare too were the forms of activity by 
 which the stimulated intelligence escapes to a certain extent 
 from itself. The first training of the English nation took place 
 in a comparatively circumscribed area ; at first they breathed a 
 heavy and changeless atmosphere. There is no other nation 
 in whose case the progress of the great majority has been so long 
 retarded, who is younger in civilisation, or in whom the strong, 
 coarse simplicity of the primitive type has been less untouched. 
 Neither is there any people in whom the individual bias of the 
 national mind and character has had more opportunity of 
 becoming individualised and solidified ; and the result of all 
 this is, that the English genius has assumed an exceptional 
 individuality and tenacity. Even in the present day in the
 
 THE lAWIGENOUS RACES loi 
 
 uijsheltcred, hurried life of the contemporary Englishman, the 
 extremely resistant individuality of his character retains the 
 traces of this unique training. Who has not encountered on 
 the Continent the tourist whose clothes exhale a peculiar 
 odour brought from London ? In the same way be brings 
 with him a spiritual atmosphere not easily penetrated, which 
 keeps ideas, like men, at a distance, and behind which the moral 
 and intellectual life handed down to him by his father flows 
 changelessly on. Setting aside all differences, he might be 
 compared to the French native of a region remote from the 
 metropolis who, before the invention of railways, might have 
 visited the great city. The " provincial in Paris " might have 
 had that curious, attentive and excited air of a man undergoing 
 a profound experience ; in reality, it has no effect upon him, he 
 returns to his native land with the turn of mind, which had 
 been slowly formed and transmitted down the ages, absolutely 
 intact. The Englishman is always more or less the " provincial 
 in Europe." His spirit is like a liquor which, having for a long 
 time been preserved from shaking, becomes concentrated and 
 thickened, until it has no longer sufficient fluidity to mingle 
 with others. 
 
 This peculiar trend and want of affinity in the English 
 character plays an important part in the progress and effects 
 of British colonisation. The English have never formed a 
 mongrel race with the autochthonic population of any country 
 they have subjugated. They resemble a metal, the point of 
 fusion of which is too high : it cannot be alloyed. They have 
 never placed a conquered people on an equality with them- 
 selves, nor have they any conception of the art of conciliating 
 them. They only know how to oppress them, make use of 
 them, crush or destroy them. The French were loved by the 
 Indians of North America, and found in them faithful allies. 
 The Spanish, by intermixing with the natives of Mexico, Peru 
 and Central America, formed a race which by degrees became 
 initiated in the highest European culture. The Redskins, on 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY O? CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE
 
 I02 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 the contrary, who lived on the borders of the United States, 
 were cantoned, demoralised, and decimated, and finally dis- 
 appeared. Ezra-Seaman drew attention to the fact that while 
 in two hundred and fifty years only some hundred thousand 
 Indians were partly licked into shape and civilised by the Eng- 
 lish, twelve millions of aborigines were in the same time raised 
 by Catholic Spain to a far higher degree of civilisation. 
 The same inability to comprehend the inferior race, to stoop 
 towards them so as to raise them up and place them on a level 
 with themselves, is strikingly apparent in all the lamentable 
 history of Ireland, in that of India and in the present adminis- 
 tration of Egypt. The English have secured material benefits 
 to these populations : order, security and riches. Their 
 authority in Hindustan, for example, is exercised in all good 
 faith, honestly and justly ; but though a century has gone by 
 they still hold among the mass of the natives the position of an 
 isolated company, in that they have no adherents. Foreigners 
 are they still, and a cry of deliverance would salute their 
 departure, even if they took with them well-being and peace. 
 The dominion of the English overwhelms the inferior race ; it 
 is oppressive, even deadly, when they cannot appeal, as they 
 would in England, to the initiative and energy of the indi- 
 vidual. They do not possess the secret of making their 
 protectorship acceptable, nor can they adapt themselves to 
 the insignificant and weak. They do not represent themselves 
 in their true light, nor do they care to understand any but 
 their peers and their equals.
 
 PART III 
 
 THE ENGLISHMAN: MORAL AND SOCIAL
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE englishman: isolated and SUBJEC'ITVE 
 
 I. — LovCy Sy?npcithy^ Pride and Sincerity. 
 
 Let us turn our attention from natural environment and race 
 to individual man. To begin with, we perceive a certain 
 hiatus in the English character in place of an essential quality. 
 The Englishman is less social than men of any other 
 nationality ; I mean, he is less conscious of the ties that bind 
 humanity together, his moral formation owes little to his 
 relations with other men, he scarcely troubles himself about 
 what they think, and if he ever considers the matter at all, it 
 makes no difference in his sentiments and actions. In short, 
 the Englishman is to a large extent a recluse ; he is more aloof 
 from the world in which he lives, and the neighbours whom 
 he elbows, than men of any other nationality. What he 
 experiences in himself is seldom a representation of what he 
 sees with his outward eyes. This is owing no doubt to the 
 essential peculiarity that his imagination is formed mostly 
 from within, by an inward operation which gains from inter- 
 mittent sensations simply the points of departure and some 
 rapidly transformed rudiments. His character is like a fruit 
 which has grown up under the bark or in a sort of shell : it 
 does not reproduce, like the skin of the peach, every impression 
 that variety of situation and the course of the sun imprints on 
 its alternately pale and reddened exterior. In short, the 
 Englishman is far more of an individual than the Frenchman
 
 io6 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 or the Italian, for example ; and it is in this sense that we 
 must understand the fundamental individualism which is 
 rightly said to be one of the attributes of British genius. 
 
 The manner in which the English regard sexual relations is 
 significant. The needs and appetites experienced by the 
 whole of humanity are the basis of these relations. But with 
 the man of the South, these needs are refined, these appetites 
 become more delicate, in consequence of the numerous and 
 vivid impressions which are blended with his whole life, and 
 become by degrees, not only the condition, but a part of all 
 his pleasures. This blending of voluptuousness with natural 
 desires is carried to such an extent that the French, for 
 instance, delay, under the pretext of rendering it more 
 exquisite, the satisfaction of the senses, deferring it so long 
 that it becomes simply the limit, situated in infinity, of a long 
 voyage to the country of the affections : it was this which 
 produced chivalry in the midst of the coarse Middle Ages ; it is 
 this which produced the Hotel de Rambouillet in a more 
 cultured and polite society. The Englishman knows nothing 
 of such things. Chivalry appeared for a moment in England, 
 but proved miserably abortive. CUlie and the Grand CyrnSy 
 which were the delight of our ancestors, have never been 
 imitated, and apparently are not read now in good society. 
 Voluptuousness in England is not intermingled with the 
 fine impressions, light diversions, and pleasures of conversation 
 which in France make part of it. The Englishman makes 
 straight for the object of his desires. He goes for it as if there 
 were nothing in the world but himself and the object ; he 
 enjoys it without making any difficulties. 
 
 Let us consider the period when manners were most corrupt 
 in England, viz., from the reign of Charles II. to that of 
 Oucen Anne. Under Charles II. the corruption, which in 
 the PVench Court was cloaked by an appearance of style and a 
 certain air of dignity, appeared simply as abandoned libertinism 
 on the other side of the Strait. The Memoirs of Gratnmont
 
 rim ENGLISHMAN 107 
 
 give us a picture of society tainted with the hypocrisy wliich is 
 the last homage vice renders to virtue. These memoirs, 
 written in French, at least introduce a h'ttle wit into the 
 narration of events of a doubtful character. Under Oueen 
 Anne, words were as coarse as deeds. The scenes in novels 
 were often laid in disorderly houses ; prostitutes were the chief 
 characters, filling the air with their slang, and displaying their 
 pantomime unabashed. Under the veneer of cant, things are 
 very much the same to-day. The Pall Mall Gazette recently 
 revealed the existence of some obscure haunts where the upper 
 classes secretly indulge in brutality and depravity. English 
 sensuality is merely cloaked by a dull Pharisaism ; in itself it 
 has none of those refinements which would prevent it from 
 descending to bestiality. 
 
 The same defect in man in his relations with his fellows is 
 to be found in the inhumanity of which in all ages the English 
 have given examples that can never be forgotten. It bears no 
 sort of resemblance to the artistic cruelty of the Italian and the 
 Spaniard. Their cruelty is that of men who are acutely con- 
 scious of the sufferings of others, but the impression, as it 
 reaches them through their nerves, entirely alters its character, 
 and instead of the torments which should arouse sympathy 
 they experience a feeling of joy. The impression that the 
 Englishman receives of the suffering of others is quite the 
 reverse ; to him it is simply a spectacle, he does not feel it 
 reproduced in his own body, and has no occasion to ask him- 
 self whether it would be a torture or a pleasure ; his nerves 
 receive no thrill. Lieutenant Jameson, coolly witnessing the 
 sacrifice of a little native girl, and treating the exhibition of 
 anthropophagy as a mere object of curiosity, a noteworthy 
 incident in an interesting journey, is a good example of this 
 condition of the senses and heart. English masters were guilty 
 only of the same incapacity for emotion in the long years 
 during which they tolerated the barbarous treatment endured 
 by women and children in the mines and manufactories. They
 
 io8 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 knew of and allowed it — inquiries leave us no doubt under 
 this head. Their consciences did not force them to speak, nor, 
 indeed, warn them, for such warning could only be received 
 by those who suffered sympathetically at the sight or narration 
 of sorrow and misery. How many facts we could adduce to 
 prove that the Englishman is more or less isolated from the 
 world through which he travels, cut oiF by the defectiveness of 
 his senses from the greater number of the impressions which 
 come to us from external things, exempt from the weaknesses 
 to which those impressions render us liable, and able and free 
 to form a definite opinion by more abstract reasoning, in 
 which flesh and blood have no part ! For though he may 
 have none of the sensibility which is afFected by particular 
 cases, he possesses the sentimentality which is aroused by 
 general questions, and, his passion for action urging him on, 
 he becomes capable of great acts of philanthropy, such as the 
 suppression of the slave trade and the abolition of slavery, 
 which it is vain to try to represent as purely utilitarian 
 actions. From such instances as these we obtain a fair idea 
 of the Englishman's defective sociability ; by temperament he 
 is solitary, and through indifference, independent. 
 
 In everyday life inhumanity becomes coarseness and 
 brutality. Fortescue relates how in his time the Englishman 
 did not hesitate to take by force the property of others which 
 he coveted ; he held that to do so was to act as becomes a 
 man : in his eyes it was simply a very laudable trait. Is it not 
 remarkable that he put himself quite naturally into the place 
 of the robber, not in that of the robbed ? The Englishman 
 always conceives himself as a man of action ; in every age he 
 has been the man represented by Hobbes. We can find 
 proofs of this in every century. I will merely recall how some 
 years ago the Dally News declared that the Englishman of the 
 lower classes did not know how to amuse himself except in 
 coarse and brutal fashion. What forces, moral or social, can 
 control such savage energies ? The written law is merely a
 
 THE ENGLISHMAN 109 
 
 method of general restraint, i.c.^ commonplace restraint ; the 
 policy of a government is merely a method of human restraint, 
 usually arbitrary ; both arc external methods, and the abrupt 
 outbreak of energies, that it is desired to restrain, will very 
 rapidly carry away the inadequate barrier which keeps them 
 within bounds. The only bonds sufficiently resistant to restrain 
 such energies are those which each man laboriously fashions 
 out of his own moral substance and imposes upon himself. If 
 a society composed of such elements does not dissolve, it is 
 because it has drawn a principle of order and pacification from 
 this inner source. On one side we see political liberty ; on the 
 other the voluntary servitude of faith — self-government out- 
 wardly, self-control inwardly. The race is religious, for the 
 simple reason that, being by nature violent and brutal, it 
 has special need of discipline. The force of their tempera- 
 ment and the sort of physical and moral pride which causes 
 them to chafe under the restraint of human authority, induces 
 them to include a similar discipline in their conception of the 
 Divine world, and there, and there only, to suffer it gladly. 
 
 It may cause surprise that a race which possesses the pride 
 of life in such a degree should seek refuge in a religion of 
 humility, the first step in which casts the believer, a suppliant, 
 at the feet of Jesus. The fundamental principle of Christianity, 
 and especially of Protestant Christianity, is that all force comes 
 from grace to impotent human liberty ; but we must not 
 believe that a Protestant, after his voluntary abasement, finds 
 no means of raising himself up and standing erect ; he does 
 not know that craving weakness which continually applies to 
 the Creator, again becoming conscious of its infirmity directly 
 the memory of the transient help has faded away. The 
 weakness of the Englishman is acknowledged once and for all, 
 then he forms an alliance with the Almighty, and ever after 
 is filled with His strength. Grace is in his heart and never 
 leaves it ; to this everything he does bears witness. 
 
 Is a final proof required of the incompleteness of the English-
 
 no THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 man considered socially, signifying that there is a lack of impres- 
 sions from the outside world, which, in our own opinion, would 
 complete him ? I will confine myself to a single example. 
 A young man and girl are walking together in a garden. 
 Suddenly the young girl becomes conscious that her companion 
 is going to make her a proposal of marriage which she might 
 accept. What would be the sentiments and attitude of a 
 Frenchwoman surprised by such an unexpected declaration ? 
 We can hardly doubt that the thoughts which would agitate 
 htr would result from her method of imagining the impressions 
 and judgment of a certain number of young men and women 
 present at the interview : she sees them quietly exchange an 
 opinion which she divines, disapproving the manner or admir- 
 ing the propriety of the responses which her scanty disconcerted 
 experience improvises ; the next instant she imagines she has 
 taken refuge with her parents and listens, blushing and with 
 lowered eyes, to the prudent words uttered by the maternal 
 voice. Even her timidity is nothing but the result of the 
 cruel uncertainty she feels, while vainly endeavouring to find 
 a method of response which shall conform to the conventions 
 and not excite the contemptuous smiles of the imaginary 
 public she supposes present at the interview. In short, the 
 sentiments of the French girl are derived entirely from her 
 outward circumstances. With the ideal English girl matters 
 are reversed. Margaret Hall, at the first words of her 
 interlocutor, experiences, it is true, a desire to escape from 
 him, and to feel herself under the protection of her father 
 or her mother ; but this is momentary : almost immediately 
 her pride reasserts itself ; she is conscious of ability to resolve 
 the present difficulty herself. Yes, she knows what to reply, 
 her answer will be a fitting one, and a sentiment of modern 
 pride, " the consciousness of her high dignity as a young 
 girl," rises in her heart, and brimming o\c\ inspires the 
 words which the trembling lips pronounce. No support nor 
 counsel are at hand, because she docs not need them.
 
 THE ENGLISHMAN in 
 
 Margaret rejects her lover in words which seem to us almost 
 cruel, and neither her mother nor her father will ever divine 
 the struggle from which she has just emerged. This is 
 the little inner drama on which Mrs. Gaslcell counted to 
 excite the interest of the English public. It has no 
 connection with the outer world ; the whole thing takes 
 place in the inner consciousness. Margaret does not even 
 dream of alluding to it afterwards in conversation with a 
 friend. The ordeal is enveloped in perpetual silence. This 
 is a good example of the victory of the individual over the 
 conventional being, of the spontaneity of a proud heart over 
 artificial forms. The whole conduct of Margaret is profoundly 
 individual, because it is profoundly subjective ; there is no 
 suspicion, however small, of social obligations. The solitary 
 being, which every Englishman is in his heart, is here 
 presented with force and distinctness. 
 
 Thus we begin to form a picture in our minds of this 
 individual : on the one hand, sensual, brutal, inhuman ; on 
 the other, capable of concentrating his forces and constrain- 
 ing his pride in such a way as to give admirable examples 
 of nobility. To complete this first picture I need only 
 bring forward his sincerity. With us, the principal obstacle 
 encountered by sincerity is the knowledge we have of the 
 effect it will produce on other men and of the wounds 
 their vanity will receive from it. The Englishman is not 
 hindered by anything of the kind : he does not appreciate 
 the impression his words produce ; he has only a vague 
 and fleeting feeling with regard to it, a feeling which is 
 the less likely to assume precision and permanence the 
 thicker the skin of his interlocutors, and the less vulnerable 
 their sensibility. This is the first cause of English 
 sincerity. It is another illustration of the relative 
 incapacity of these people to picture to themselves the 
 emotions of others : an incapacity which causes the individual 
 to court isolation and shun his fellows, even while dwellini>
 
 112 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 in their midst. However that may be, this race can furnish 
 the largest number of examples of a sincerity which is 
 sometimes noble to sublimity, sometimes intimate to friend- 
 liness, sometimes brutal to rudeness. The English consider 
 it the evidence of a strong will, which is unfettered by a 
 desire to please, and makes little account of offending others, 
 provided it can thereby the more directly attain its end. 
 
 In October, 1885, an official banquet was held at Crewe. 
 His Worship the Mayor, an ex-mechanic, proposed a toast to 
 *' The Oueen " without further beatinir about the bush, 
 praising her as a good mother and a good wife. That was all. 
 Of the then Prince of Wales he said, that he had closely 
 followed his progress, and was happy to say that there had 
 been progress ; at a certain period he had not had a very high 
 opinion of the Prince : believing that he cared more for his 
 pleasures, and even what might be termed his vices, than for 
 the duties of his high position. But he was heartily glad to 
 think that in proportion as the Prince advanced in years he 
 grew wiser and showed signs of improvement. He believed 
 he might now be considered the worthy son of a worthy 
 father and mother, and he felt confident he would worthily 
 occupy the throne to which he was destined ; therefore he 
 proposed his health. The same manly and fraternal frankness 
 was apparent in the toast to the Mayor proposed by one of the 
 aldermen, who said he would not flatter his Worship ; he 
 would not know how to, and it would not please him. His 
 administration as Mayor was the best evidence in his favour. 
 The fact that he had twice been elected showed the esteem in 
 which he was held by his colleagues. Naturally they had 
 their disagreements. His Worship had often been at variance 
 with them, and sometimes said things which hurt ; but he had 
 always done what he considered right without any respect of 
 persons, and never allowed differences of opinion to influence 
 his private relations. His Worship was a gentleman it took 
 time to know ; he was not an expansive sort of man, but 
 those who did get to know him deeply respected him.
 
 THE ENGLISHMAN 113 
 
 Thus true men speak to one another. Those I have 
 mentioned possessed civil courage in the highest degree, and 
 were thereby enabled to make those they lived among fear, 
 esteem and respect them. They lacked a certain delicacy, but 
 they had the healthy rudeness and noble freedom of behaviour 
 and language which distinguishes the citizen. It is said that 
 in 1864, when John Stuart Mill was a candidate for West- 
 minster, one of the bystanders put a question to him with the 
 evident intention of embarrassing him : Was it true he had 
 said that English working men were addicted to lying ? The 
 audience was chiefly composed of the working classes ; but 
 they were no more accustomed to listen to adroit flatteries 
 than Mill to utter them. He did not hesitate for a moment ; 
 "Yes, I said it," he replied. It is not difficult to imagine 
 the clamours and protestations with which such a reply would 
 be received by a French audience. In London tumultuous 
 applause drowned the voice of the speaker. Is it credible 
 that so offensive an accusation could please English working 
 men, even if they deemed it merited ? No, indubitably ; 
 what made them enthusiastic was the simple moral courage 
 with which Mill was beforehand with their displeasure. The 
 subtle explanations into which a Frenchman would have 
 undoubtedly plunged would have neither contented nor 
 pleased them. Their robust candour required rougher fare. 
 For such a nation there is less danger than for others in giving 
 itself over to democracy ; it may at times be the dupe, but 
 never the accomplice, of a demagogue. The multitude, like 
 other multitudes, will go astray ; it will allow itself to be 
 hurried along ; but the day must come when, addressed by 
 some great citizen, it will admiringly receive his rough and 
 downright words, forsaking for him the beguilers of a day. 
 
 2. — Unsociohility. 
 
 The almost impenetrable reserve of the f^nglish, and what 
 might be called their taciturnity, are not without important 
 
 I
 
 114 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 consequences. A great thinker of the last century contrasted 
 the nations who talk with those who do not talk. The degree 
 of sociability of any race, the more or less imperious need they 
 have to see their fellows, associate with them, exchange ideas 
 with them, receive their sympathy, and give their own in 
 return, partly determines their destinies. The Englishman 
 feels no weariness in living alone, no desire to tell his affairs to 
 others, nor to hear about theirs. Apart from what touches 
 him directly, he interests himself solely in public matters 
 which affect him indirectly in his character of citizen. 
 " Every one of these islanders," said Emerson, " is an island 
 himself. ... In a company of strangers you would think him 
 deaf; ... he does not give you his hand. He does not let 
 you meet his eye. . . . At the hotel he is hardly willing to 
 whisper it (his name) to the clerk at the book office." 
 " The Frenchman cannot make friends in England," 
 Montesquieu remarks, adding, " How can the English 
 love foreigners ? They do not love one another. How 
 can they give us dinners ? They do not dine amongst them- 
 selves. We must do as they do, take no heed of others, 
 neither love any one nor count upon any one. ^ . . The 
 Englishman wants a good dinner, a woman and the comforts 
 of life ; and as these things limit his desires, and he does not 
 care for society, when he loses his fortune and can no longer 
 obtain them, he either kills himself or becomes a thief.''^ A 
 hundred and fifty years after Montesquieu, Mill, in much the 
 same way, contrasted French sociability and good humour 
 with the distrust and egoism of his compatriots. "Every- 
 body acts," he said, " as if everybody else were an enemy or a 
 bore." It is a more than singular fact that in all the years 
 they passed together in the House of Commons, Lord John 
 Russell had no personal relations with Sir Robert Peel. He 
 gives evidence of this in one of his Essays. This attitude 
 
 ' " A tiler," he says again, " takes his newspaper on the roof to read." 
 A Frenchman would soon come down to talk politics with his comrades.
 
 THE ENGLISHMAN 115 
 
 towards their fellows is due in part to timidity, mingled 
 with a certain coldness of temperament and some aridity 
 of heart. 
 
 In short, the English unite for action, and keep company 
 with one another the better to combine their forces and the 
 more surely to attain a certain end ; they do not assemble for 
 the purpose of talking or to pass the time agreeably in 
 conversation. They leave the Frenchman to sacrifice to 
 this superfluity, which in his eyes forms the charm and 
 prize of life, more actual and necessary advantages. 
 
 The effects of such a disposition are considerable. Volney 
 regarded it as the reason of Englishmen's success in agricul- 
 ture, commerce, and industry. Their silence, he said, enables 
 them to concentrate their ideas, and gives them leisure to 
 work them out and to make exact calculations of their 
 expenses and returns ; they acquire a greater clearness in 
 thought, and consequently in expression, which results in a 
 greater precision and assurance in their whole system of 
 conduct, both public and private. This observer attributes 
 to the same cause the unequal fortunes of the English and 
 French colonies in the United States. " The French colonist," 
 he said, " takes counsel with his wife as to what he shall do ; 
 he asks her opinion, and it would be a miracle if they always 
 agreed. The wife comments, criticises, disputes ; the 
 husband persists or gives in, becomes angry or disheartened : 
 sometimes the house becomes intolerable to him, he takes his 
 gun and goes out shooting or travelling, or to talk with his 
 neighbours ; sometimes he stays at home and spends his 
 time in good-humoured conversation, or in quarrelling and 
 fault-finding." "To visit his neighbours," he says again, "is 
 so imperious an habitual necessity to the Frenchman that we 
 cannot find a single instance of a colonist belonging to our 
 nation settling out of hearing and sight of others, on any of 
 the borders of Louisiana and Canada. In several places, 
 when I asked at what distance the most remote colonist had
 
 ii6 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 settled : they answered, " He is in the desert with the bears, a 
 league from any habitation, and has no one to talk to." The 
 slow and taciturn American colonist (read English) passes the 
 whole day in an uninterrupted succession of useful work ; 
 after breakfast he frigidly gives orders to his wife, who receives 
 them with timidity and coldness and executes them without 
 comment. If the weather is fine he goes out and works, cuts 
 down trees and makes fences ; if the weather is bad he makes 
 an inventory of the house, the barn, and the stables, mends 
 the doors and makes chairs. If he has an opportunity he will 
 sell his farm and go into the woods ten or twenty leagues from 
 the frontier, and there make for himself a new habitation. 
 
 Carlyle, who apparently had not read Volney, sums up what 
 he says in one sentence : "The English are a dumb people," 
 and admirably expounds this saying by adding that silence 
 places them in touch and harmony with what the tongue does 
 not express — "a congruity with the unuttered." I do not 
 believe any thinker has described the English character with 
 greater justice. 
 
 With colonisation we have entered the economic sphere, 
 and here the characteristics of the race have other and very 
 remarkable effects. It may cause astonishment that a people 
 so independent of social relations should be unusually addicted 
 to the formation of societies. The reason of this is that to 
 assemble for the purpose of aimless conversation and to unite 
 for the purpose of obtaining a certain result are two very 
 different, and, in a sense, opposite things. The man who 
 rejoices in putting forth his strength experiences a tranquil and 
 complete pleasure in feeling himself part of a powerful collec- 
 tive agency. Others, more indolent, in order to obtain due 
 satisfaction from an activity which costs them something, must 
 set it by itself, throw it into relief, and glorify it in itself and 
 for itself alone. To the former this reward is superfluous ; he 
 can do without it. To an obscure workman the knowledge that 
 he adequately fulfils his allotted task is sufficient to make him
 
 THE ENGLISHMAN 117 
 
 happy. Vanity, which finds him ahx'ady satisfied, has but 
 h'ttle hold over him. This accounts for the readiness with 
 which the Eng;hshman assumes an incognito for some social 
 reason. The newspapers, for example, have always remained 
 faithful to the custom of unsigned articles. This custom 
 could never become the rule in our country, because the 
 Frenchman docs not really love action for its own sake ; the 
 velocity acquired by a collective entity of which he is part 
 seldom carries him off" his feet and sweeps him irresistibly 
 along. He can always extricate himself, and, reassuming his 
 identity at will, easily forfeit his anonymity. In England, 
 when a man has once surrendered his identity, it never occurs 
 to him to withdraw from the contract. The English, though 
 profoundly individual, are nevertheless peculiarly qualified for 
 collective operations ; they have a superior power of coalition 
 and ability to work collectively which is unknown among 
 races who arc less active and more absurdly vain. 
 
 3. — The Spirit of /Adventure and the Spirit of Self- 
 Preservation. 
 
 In England, the spirit of adventure always proceeds from the 
 same source, and from this source it derives its character. 
 The love of novelty and desire for the unknown have one 
 hindrance — the Englishman is always English and leads a 
 thoroughly English life wherever he goes. The main fact 
 and distinctive trait of his spirit of adventure, the turning- 
 point, so to speak, is that the prospective risks involved dis- 
 courage him less easily than the Frenchman or the Italian, for 
 instance. To the prudent man, all risks resolve themselves into 
 prospective superfluous anxieties, and efforts towards anticipat- 
 ing or counterbalancing them. The individual who does not 
 fear trouble takes his share in these chances lightly. Love of 
 repose does not make him exaggerate the attraction and value 
 of security. The surplus energy and disposable force he feels
 
 ii8 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 conscious of possessing, engender a sort of optimism which, in 
 his imagination, diminishes the probability of misfortune and 
 relegates to eternity the moment when he expects to encounter 
 weariness. The manners and customs of the English bear 
 continual evidence of this disposition of mind. The young 
 man bravely marries the undowered woman ; he does not 
 hesitate to double or treble his burdens at the commencement 
 of life. The manufacturer essays a new process with a con- 
 fidence and expenditure of capital which startle us. He knows 
 that he will have recuperated himself before another improve- 
 ment intervenes and puts his on the shelf. The emigrant 
 embarks with a tiny hoard which his laborious obstinacy will 
 force to yield a hundred per cent. 
 
 Besides this first cause there is a second, which I have 
 already pointed out, viz., the passion — I was going to say the 
 mania — for action and movement, the unreasoning desire of 
 effort for the sake of effort. In the very depths of his being 
 this great mainspring of the Englishman's activity is at a 
 tension. It begins as a wholly physical need, in some degree a 
 muscular one ; the impetus of the nerves is not required to 
 call it abruptly into activity nor cause it to relax ; it assumes 
 the initiative in this homogeneous and single soul, which is 
 neither enriched nor diversified by visible impressions from the 
 outer world ; which is essentially inflexible, not composed 
 of mobile elements, capable of resisting the general impulsion 
 they receive. The necessity for action is a force which 
 overrules every inclination. We cannot help noting that 
 the majority of the English employ a sustained activity in 
 directions already known and sanctioned by custom ; they 
 keep to the old highway along which they have travelled for 
 centuries ; they do not favour by-paths. Only a feeble 
 minority undertake the modification of arrangements handed 
 down by tradition, and they do not attempt more than one 
 point at a time ; on this they expend all their force, allowing 
 their name to be attached to it and refusing to be seduced by
 
 THE ENGLISHMAN 119 
 
 the idea of wider and more fruitful fields for their energy ; 
 they invariably remain faithful to their crotchet. Until his 
 last hour Mr. PlimsoU was the representative and supporter of 
 the navy versus the merchant service ; from year to year Sir 
 Wilfrid Lawson indcfatigably renews his Local Option Bill ; 
 each devoted himself to one question. In France, these 
 circumscribed and persevering activities are unknown ; they 
 would not be estimated at their proper value. With our 
 neighbours, men who employ their whole lives in this way arc 
 looked upon as honourable and well employed. 
 
 The missionaries deliberately choose a distant sphere of 
 work, ignoring other spheres also under the eye of God. 
 They yield themselves up wholly to their daily task, obtaining 
 from it personal satisfactions which do not require the enhance- 
 ment of pleasing surroundings. Further, it is by no means 
 apparent that they have journeyed to the very horizon in 
 the search for and contemplation of an ideal purpose, capable 
 of raising them above their earthly work. " It is part of the 
 day's work ; it comes in the day's work." This thoroughly 
 English expression is what we hear from the kind of man who 
 examines his conscience every evening, regulates his accounts 
 with his God, and goes to sleep completely satisfied. He is 
 not possessed by the despairing idea of a remote object which 
 must be attained or a good work he has not time to accom- 
 plish. It is the day's work ; night and sleep limit both his 
 desires and his efforts. 
 
 The reason of this difference between the two nations is 
 apparent. With us, the incentive and stimulus of the necessity 
 for action are not only the greatness and force of this necessity, 
 but come from a higher and more remote source ; the spirit 
 itself gives the impulsion, and with a power and variety which 
 is in proportion to its own fulness and richness of life, con- 
 cealing more than one contradiction. Moreover, the principle 
 from which it proceeds is often an abstract idea, which raises 
 several questions at the same time and on which depends the
 
 I20 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 solution of more than one problem. The mind also is more 
 prone to change its designs and discontinue its efforts. The 
 speculative spirit of the thinker and the searcher carries him 
 rapidly from one novelty to another and multiplies the points 
 at which it deviates from tradition. In England, the thinker 
 and the searcher have little occasion to intervene ; they appear 
 for a moment at the appeal of the necessity for action by w^hich 
 every individual is possessed ; they point out, if need be, a 
 question, one only, which seems to them worthy of a persistent 
 effort ; then, having put in motion an activity which is suffi- 
 cient in itself and needs no further assistance from them, they 
 re-enter their silence and semi-slumber. This is the reason 
 why England can number so many original characters, and not 
 one revolutionary spirit. The original character is one which 
 has thrown off the shackles of a given law, yet recognises the 
 authority of every other law ; at one point it is emancipated, 
 but only to be more servilely submissive to tradition in general ; 
 it is always the upholder of the statu quo. The revolutionary 
 spirit is exactly the reverse of the original character ; it is a 
 partisan of all, or nearly all, novelties ; to it, rightly or wrongly, 
 they seem linked together and mutually sustained ; religion, 
 literature, and politics it always seeks to reform ; it is a spirit, 
 and therefore mobile and subtle ; from one problem it passes to 
 another, embracing them all in a somewhat superficial survey. 
 Intelligences of this stamp are naturally rare in England. The 
 genius of a Saint-Simon could not have expanded on the other 
 side of the Channel ; what chance of developing would it have 
 had in a country where Mill himself felt obliged to use cir- 
 cumspection and euphemisms ? Persons like Blanqui and 
 Barbes could not have adopted in England the attitude which 
 characterised them in France ; instead of the sympathy and 
 respect they encountered among certain of the public they 
 would only have excited universal repugnance and contempt. 
 This is the reason why England has the reputation of being 
 a country of tradition, averse even to the most necessary
 
 THE ENGLISHMAN 121 
 
 changes. To three-quarters of the population the idea of 
 introducing a modification into any of the laws or customs 
 does not occur ; they are creatures of habit in the highest 
 degree. At particular points the other quarter admit innova- 
 tions, which, however, cover a very limited field ; they devote 
 themselves to these innovations, pursuing them with ardour ; 
 but on all other points they are as sheeplike as the rest of the 
 nation. It was therefore with justice that Carlyle cried out : 
 " Bull is a born Conservative. . . . All great peoples are 
 conservative, slow to believe in novelties, patient of much 
 error in actualities, deeply and for ever certain of the greatness 
 that is in law, in custom, once solemnly established and now 
 long recognised as just and final." 
 
 The English people has had to do violence to itself in order 
 to achieve the greater part of that material progress by which 
 it now profits with its customary practical superiority. It 
 began by regarding with contempt, anxiety, and sometimes 
 even horror, the most innocent and useful discoveries : the 
 use of steam by Arkwright and the submarine telegraph, 
 the Suez Canal and the Universal Exhibition, the postal 
 reform and the Channel tunnel. With greater reason 
 organic reforms in the Government have always been 
 treated as views and dangerous experiments for quite a long 
 time. In the same way " cant," that sort of hypocrisy 
 peculiar to the English, sets new philosophical theories 
 aside without discussion. 
 
 It may appear extraordinary that a race which possesses 
 in so large a measure the passion for liberty, courage, and 
 initiative, which has little scruple in altering its conception 
 of heaven and adventures boldly into the unknown, should 
 profess so much respect for the past and cling to a super- 
 stitious continuance of its ancient customs. The antinomy 
 is only superficial, and arises from the fact that an inclina^ 
 tion towards action and movement is easily confounded with 
 an inclination towards novelty. It is the passive characters
 
 122 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 who require novelty. Stationary themselves, they want a 
 world of animation around them, a continually changing 
 scene which, without effort on their part, maintains the 
 interest of life ; theories and actualities which create as by 
 magic the true and the good, without demanding from 
 them a tithe of patient labour. On the other hand, .those 
 for whom concentrated and continued effort is the supreme 
 joy, seek in it alone efficiency and success ; they are inclined 
 to the belief that there is little difference in the virtue and 
 usefulness of one mechanism and another, independently of 
 the impulse and direction they receive from man. Moreover, 
 they instinctively desire that the ideas and actualities which 
 give the impetus and direction to their activity should change 
 no more than is indispensable, in order that the movement 
 they produce should not be hindered nor weakened, but 
 follow the precise course they have marked out for it. Finally, 
 what force can counterbalance that of custom and foreknow- 
 ledge when great generalisations do not intoxicate, nor the 
 mirage of system exercise a supreme seduction ? What dis- 
 solvent other than that of abstract principles is capable of 
 disaggregating such hard basalts ? It is precisely because 
 the race is active and energetic that it remains so faithfully 
 attached to its traditional institutions.
 
 PART IV 
 
 THE ENGLISHMAN AS POLITICIAN
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE CITIZEN 
 
 I. — Liberty and the Revolutionary Spirit. 
 
 At a first glance we do not receive the impression that the 
 English nation is easy to govern. The muscular vigour of 
 the race — their taste for violent exercise, such as boxing ; 
 for cruel amusements, such as cock-fighting and, in former 
 times, bull-fights — and their habits of intemperance, are not 
 reassuring conditions : they do not promise much breathing 
 time for authority. There is no medium in England between 
 the domestic hearth and the exchange or the forum. The 
 desire for ideas simply as ideas has not sufficient strength to 
 make men seek each other's society in order to talk ; the 
 desire for action for its own sake is the one thing capable 
 of bringing them together. Social life is therefore summed 
 up in industrial, commercial, and, more especially, political 
 life. Now political life in England is characterised by violent 
 and incessant agitation. In one week an observer can witness 
 in London numerous electoral meetings, when the crowd 
 expend their breath in hurrahing and chaff, corporation 
 meetings, banquets with toasts and acclamations, gigantic 
 processions of petitioners with banners, and noisy, enthu- 
 siastic receptions of any illustrious foreigner. To these 
 might have been added not long ago the tumult of the 
 hustings, with its flights of sarcasm and showers of bad 
 eggs and mud falling on the candidates. Regarded at close
 
 126 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 quarters, all this is not very alarming. In such agitations 
 the blind and absolutely physical emotion is greatly in excess 
 of the passionate or deliberate. The Englishman's first 
 instinct is to exercise his members and use his lungs, and 
 this he does lustily for the benefit of the person or question 
 which circumstances, tradition, and custom point out to him. 
 Three-quarters of his enthusiasm is simply a species of sport ; 
 grave conviction and deep feeling make up the remaining 
 quarter. Foreign refugees such as Orsini, and, before him, 
 Kossuth, vi'ho took seriously their prodigious success as popular 
 orators, and believed in a movement of public opinion in favour 
 of their political dreams, were singularly deceived in the event. 
 They only stirred up the animal spirits of the crowd ; funda- 
 mentally, their cause was a matter of indifference to the people. 
 What the populace cheered was the man of action, not his 
 cause. Moreover, it gave them the pleasure of gulping down 
 air and emptying their lungs, and warming themselves by 
 clapping their hands and stamping their feet. 
 
 We touch here on one of the reasons why liberty of com- 
 bination and assemblage is regarded as innocuous in England, 
 and even included among guarantees of order and methods of 
 pacification. It is too great a risk to entrust guns to people 
 eager to load with shot, and have something definite at which 
 to aim ; but there is sensibly less risk with those who find 
 almost as much pleasure in shooting with powder and in the 
 air. An Englishman, on the return of a fruitless political 
 procession, does not experience, like the Frenchman, a fever 
 of disappointment and redoubling of excitement ; on the 
 contrary, he feels a sense of cessation, of peace and content- 
 ment. This is because the procession has really attained its 
 end, in that it has given him the opportunity of expending his 
 superfluous physical energy. Liberty of assemblage therefore, 
 acts as a regulator racier than a basin in which the force of 
 the current is concentrated : it resembles a canal for the 
 reception and discharge of water, which moderates the
 
 THE CITIZEN 127 
 
 effect of the rising flood, and allows only a harmless stream 
 to flow between the banks. 
 
 This is the reason why the suppression of the hustings 
 was one of the most remarkable steps in the direction of 
 universal suffrage and democracy. The law of 1872 attacked 
 what seemed to be only a farce in the worst of taste ; but this 
 farce of a day, during which the crowd satisfied to repletion its 
 brutal appetite for power, shrouded the real act of sovereignty, 
 to all appearance mean and insignificant, in a veil of dust, noise 
 and intoxication, which prevented their attaching due value to 
 it, and grudging the ballot to the freehold electors. The system 
 of secret voting, while it deprived the people of their few hours 
 of power during which they exhausted their superfluous 
 bestiality, also unwisely took -away from them that participa- 
 tion which rendered them less sensible to, and that com- 
 pensation which softened, the bitter sentiment of inequality 
 and exclusion of which they were conscious. The levelling 
 of electoral franchise of necessity followed close on so im- 
 prudent a measure. 
 
 It is a peculiarity of the English that the communication 
 between the organs of contemplation and action is naturally 
 imperfect. The impressions received from the outside world 
 are reproduced in the nerves and brain of this people with less 
 rapidity and certainty than is the case with other nations ; and 
 the effect of such impressions, like that of the ideas themselves, 
 is more tardily felt in the mechanism set in motion by the will. 
 The impulses of an Englishman either remain dormant or do 
 not move him to action until a long time afterwards. The ease 
 with which duelling was discouraged, not only among civilians 
 but also in the army, is a good illustration of this native passive- 
 ness. The anger provoked by an outrage flares up less rapidly 
 in England than elsewhere. This is the reason why, in a 
 country where the classes which work and suffer have the 
 right of assembling in almost unlimited numbers, there is yet 
 no disorder which a policeman cannot control. But we must
 
 128 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 not be deceived ; this passiveness has nothing in common with 
 the inertia which, with other races, proceeds from want of tone 
 and energy in the operation of the will. In England, it simply 
 renders the will stronger and more efficient because it is freer 
 to pursue with steadfastness the object it has in view. No 
 fleeting incident goads or distracts it ; no lateral attraction 
 turns it from the straight line. It is like a spring which 
 works with perfect regularity between the thick cushions 
 of an insensibility which deadens shocks from the outer world. 
 We must therefore, realise, that passiveness of this nature is an 
 aid to the police, but it certainly does not contribute to political 
 authority, nor does it lighten the task of government. The 
 populace is generally more amenable in England than else- 
 where ; it is not so liable to outbursts of anger ; but this 
 does not mean that the nation is more manageable and easily 
 satisfied on subjects which it has most at heart. The fact that 
 rioting is infrequent is no guarantee against political agitation 
 nor even revolution. The people who quietly disperse at the 
 sight of a constable, are as rock to statesmen who try to move 
 them when they have made up their minds on any given 
 point ; particularly is this the case with that obstinate demand 
 of theirs for a free field for demonstration, protest, and struggle. 
 Serenely they use their right to assemble and combine, and 
 whoever essays to deprive them of it will immediately become 
 conscious of the depths of vehement passion and tenacity which 
 this serenity conceals. 
 
 I will now proceed to demonstrate that the political fran- 
 chises of England are conquests which have adroitly been 
 made to pass as an immemorial heritage. The Declaration 
 of 1688, which refused the King power to maintain troops 
 without special permission, claimed for English subjects the 
 right to carry arms. This is nothing less than the right of 
 rebellion with power to make reservations and demand 
 guarantees. This right has never been explicitly proclaimed, 
 but although seldom mentioned, it is none the less an element
 
 THE CITIZEN 129 
 
 of the Constitution, a basis for other rights. It might best be 
 likened to a reserve battalion, which, though separated from the 
 main force and placed a little in the rear, is yet within range of 
 voice and command. In more recent years this right was 
 referred to in a speech by no less an orator than Gladstone. 
 The President of the Board of Trade, Mr. Chamberlain, was 
 accused in the House of Commons of having alluded to, and 
 more or less provoked, in an extra-parliamentary harangue, a 
 descent of the inhabitants of Birmingham on the Palace of 
 Westminster. The Prime Minister took vip the defence of 
 his colleague, saying, that though it might be well to bid the 
 people love order and hate violence, that was not the only thing 
 necessary. Certainly, he said, he was averse to the employment 
 of force, but he could not, and would not, adopt those forms of 
 effeminate language by which the consoling fact was concealed 
 from the nation, that they might find encouragement in the 
 thought of their previous struggles, the recollection of the 
 great attainments of their ancestors, and the consciousness 
 that these attainments were still theirs. 
 
 2. — Inequality of Conditions. 
 
 Activity without interruption or limit, and competition 
 without truce or pity, for ten centuries these have been the 
 most obvious characteristics of economic England. The 
 natural consequence of activity without interruption or limit is 
 an enormous accumulation of capital. The natural conse- 
 quence of competition without truce or pity is a very unequal 
 distribution of these immense riches. In England the feeble, 
 the infirm, the timid and the idle are lost. Just as in a crowd 
 which presses on towards a goal : whoever once gets the 
 start is swept forward and carried to the end of the course ; 
 whoever slackens is soon outstripped and forced far back by 
 the eddies of the human wave ; whoever misses a step is 
 knocked over, trampled under foot and forgotten. This 
 
 K
 
 I30 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 occurs so frequently that Society has been compelled to 
 assume the duty of picking up and setting aside those who are 
 injured and mutilated in the feverish struggle ; and hence the 
 laws relating to the poor. The indigent are picked up, put away 
 in decent houses, and no longer in evidence. In these asylums 
 generations silently pass away. In no other country does 
 humanity present the spectacle of a harder "struggle for life," 
 of a more merciless selection. It is noticeable that in England 
 the climate is on the side of the strong. The individual and 
 the species in this latitude and these fogs cannot be preserved 
 without abundant nourishment, precautions and a hygiene 
 which infers a certain degree of wealth. Whoever falls below 
 this degree decays, degenerates, and eventually perishes. Careful 
 observers who know England can remember, and to a certain 
 extent have still before their eyes, the striking results of this 
 unbroken selection. They have all noticed the two races, if I 
 may so designate them, who, at a first glance, are characterised 
 by two physical types as different as the greyhound and the 
 bull-dog, with whom they have more than one trait in common. 
 The one, slender, vigorous, agile, with fresh colouring and 
 animated physiognomy ; the other, cadaverous, with leaden 
 eyes and concentrated, or rather sunk, in himself ; the first 
 maintained with infinite care, thanks to an abundant and 
 wholesome diet, continuous exercise and habits of decorum 
 and restraint ; the second, deformed, wasted and ruined in less 
 than a generation by insufficient nourishment, and the abuse 
 of strong liquors, unrelaxing labour and insufficient recreation, 
 and finally and chiefly by self-abandonmGnt and a sort of 
 callous indifference, which are vices common to all the 
 wretched, and allow man to succumb without an effort to the 
 destructive operation of natural causes. 
 
 Further, riches have been elevated into a quasi virtue whilst 
 poverty is considered a vice and disgrace. This is because 
 riches are the reward of that effort and industry which are 
 regarded in England as the sovereign good, and moreover they
 
 THE CITIZEN 131 
 
 form an indispensable environment if man is to preserve the 
 integrity of his person and faculties. Again, poverty is the 
 sign of a thing particularly to be detested, viz., idleness ; and 
 it is but a short journey from indolence, which docs not take 
 life seriously, to the degradation of the human being. This 
 moral consideration joins the harshness of a conscientious 
 judgment to the natural passiveness of the British race when 
 forced into an acknowledgment of the injustice of fate. Not 
 only are favourites of fortune lacking in feeling, but they 
 generally condemn the unfortunate and those who have in- 
 curred what is often unmerited disgrace ; they more frequently 
 feel inclined to profit by than ameliorate it, and they only 
 suggest a remedy with obvious contempt to those who have 
 failed in life. Nothing can exceed the brutal insensibility of 
 the conduct of those English masters, which was brought to 
 light by agricultural and industrial inquiries, during the earlier 
 part of the last century. We recognise in it not only a certain 
 native slowness in receiving impressions, but also the absorbed 
 indifference of the man of* action, too occupied with his aims to 
 be attentive to those ills of others of which he is the cause. 
 It is like the half irresponsible callousness of the hurried 
 traveller who crushes an ant-heap rather than hinder himself 
 by a step. 
 
 In short, the basis of the English character is that proauced 
 by the most eager competitions, and deafest and blindest 
 of "struggles for life." Although the development of riches 
 has sensibly diminished the violence of the struggle, and 
 allowed the augmentation of the gratuitous part of advantages, 
 at the same time as the protection assured to the feeble a 
 marked inequality in conditions is none the less apparent, so 
 to speak, in the force of things, and equality, if an effort is 
 made to re-establish it, continuously tends towards its own 
 destruction. 
 
 It is a paradox confirmed by fact? that any excess there may 
 be in the inequality between the classes creates a condition by
 
 132 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 which the evil may be more patiently supported by those who 
 endure it. Below a certain degree of degradation and misery, 
 man loses hope, will, and even the idea of improving his 
 condition j he becomes a prey to the stupefying intoxication 
 of misfortune and falls into a sort of insensibility. The life 
 which is in him becomes purely mechanical ; he imagines and 
 desires nothing but what he is, for what is, is fated to be, and 
 this to an obtuse intelligence is confounded with what ought 
 to be. When the inequality is sufficiently accentuated to be a 
 source of suffering, and yet is not too great to remove all hope 
 of banishing it, then only does it provoke jealousy and resistance. 
 This has been the case in France. Tocqueville made the pro- 
 found observation that the Revolution burst forth there and 
 not elsewhere, because France was the country where the 
 lower classes had made the most progress in ease and comfort. 
 They could form a better idea of what they still lacked ; they 
 could more easily imagine a condition in which what was 
 lacking would be bestowed on them. Moreover, they ex- 
 perienced an ill the cure of which appeared to them easy. 
 
 The majority of the working classes in England, and 
 especially the intelligent few who march at their head, are at 
 present in much the same case ; they have passed the limit 
 beyond which suffering is wholly conscious, reaction against 
 the evil determined and deliberate, and the means employed 
 sure and effective. The perfected organisation of the trade 
 unions betrays a people who know the value of their rights 
 and have made an art of employing them. 
 
 The fact that England is a northern country indubitably 
 adds to the reasonableness of these demands and aggravates 
 their danger. In the South, man has but icw wants, subsists 
 on little and lives out of doors ; the magnificence with which 
 Nature freely surrounds him is the source of an enjoyment far 
 more intense than that derived from the costly luxury and 
 laboured comfort of human habitations. That which the rich 
 have more than the poor becomes in such case a futile super-
 
 THE CITIZEN 133 
 
 fluity, of which the poor take no heed. In a country like 
 England, where riches are an essential condition of happiness, 
 the social hierarchy which sanctions and perpetuates unequal 
 distribution must weigh heavily on those whom it does not 
 favour. How can those classes who have the lesser portion 
 avoid continually comparing themselves with others ? How 
 can they possess the faculty of not being acutely conscious of 
 the inferiority of their lot and of supporting the partial 
 distribution with equanimity ? 
 
 A people like the English, who find their chief source of 
 enjoyment in action, are secure to a certain extent from this 
 feeling of discontent. Personal contentment, the sort of 
 growth of being which the man who acts vigorously experiences 
 in himself, has nothing whatever to do with differences of 
 condition and fortune ; it is an entirely subjective enjoyment, 
 measurable solely by the intensity and efficacy of the effort 
 accomplished. It is equally complete and acute whatever the 
 object of the effort, and as varied in its nature as are external 
 circumstances. Here, then, is to be found a prime fund of 
 happiness within the reach of every one, a first dividend for all, 
 which, to a certain extent, softens the bitterness of the feeling 
 of the injustice of this world. However mediocre the position 
 of an Englishman in Society, however humble his profession, 
 the mere fact that he has a profound consciousness of the 
 individual pleasure attached to effort, renders him in a sense 
 the equal of princes, and inferior to none. 
 
 It is perfectly obvious why the men of the English working 
 classes have hitherto evinced little desire to change the aristo- 
 cratic constitution of society ; they have a secret compensa- 
 tion which is not to be found amongst those of their own 
 standing in other countries. In the social hierarchy they are 
 conscious of a fair division of labour rather than of an unjust 
 distribution of enjoyment. They are occupied in proportioning 
 the extent of their effort rather than in comparing their lot 
 with that of others, or if they do indeed take themselves as a
 
 134 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 subject for comparison, it is with their fellows in the same 
 class, and the parallel bears on the energy and success of each 
 individual's activity. In England, many Hves which are very 
 humble, narrow, laborious, and made up, to all appearance, of 
 a succession of futile efforts and mediocrity, would, if closely 
 analysed, be found to yield a satisfaction as full, and a felicity as 
 complete, as that of the titled heir to one of the great English 
 fortunes. George Eliot reproduced this type with an indelible 
 pencil in the person of Tom Tulliver. The desire for action 
 and effort places this happiness within the reach of each indi- 
 vidual, and renders it inaccessible to none. It will be impos- 
 sible to comprehend the singular mansuetude and endurance 
 on the part of the poorer classes unless we free ourselves frorr\ 
 the accepted ideas regarding the practical turn of mind and 
 utilitarianism of the race, and recognise that there is in their 
 hearts, subduing bitter and trivial impulses, an inward source of 
 contentment and a relative indifference to social inequalities. 
 
 There is another reason why the English have less difficulty 
 than, for instance, the French, in accommodating themselves 
 to a political system founded on privilege. This tolerant 
 disposition may be traced to several causes. The English 
 people are naturally unmannerly and uncouth ; they have no 
 instinctive knowledge of the rules of polite society, and to 
 make them conform to it they need a long course of discipline, 
 and the hereditary accumulation of impressions, which 
 gradually, as generations go by, assume the ascendancy, and 
 effect a change of conditions. The slight stiffness and self- 
 consciousness in the irreproachable correctness of the English 
 upper classes betrays how arduous has been the victory of art 
 and will over nature. The original defects of a people do not 
 always provoke consequences which, added to their causes, 
 magnify the defects and render them fatal to society. By the 
 force of reaction an opposite ideal is frequently created which, 
 in the case of a select few, corrects or tempers these defects, 
 and engenders certain particularly exquisite specimens of
 
 THE CITIZEN 135 
 
 qualities denied to the masses. It is because the Engh'shman 
 is not natiu-ally a gentleman that there is m England a class of 
 gentlemen. These creations generally bear traces of the 
 effort which produced them. Hence a natural consequence : 
 the men of the lower classes feel the vast difference between 
 themselves and these products of art, education and heredity ; 
 the gulf to be bridged over between them is too great, they 
 are too keenly conscious of the disadvantages under which 
 they labour, to have any ambition to ascend to the plane of 
 the upper classes, besides whose ease their awkwardness would 
 be painfully apparent. 
 
 Now in France — especially in the South — and in Italy, the 
 small peasants and artisans, with their quick minds and supple 
 natures, easily adopt the tone of any society into which they 
 may chance to be thrown. Poets and orators from birth, they 
 even occasionally possess a grand air and grace of manner ; 
 they believe themselves to be immediately, and indeed are, on 
 a level with our educated men. Lack of instruction and 
 education vainly retards their progress ; the gifts of nature 
 make up the deficiency, and enable them to retrieve at least 
 half what they have lost. A few months of intercourse with 
 educated people does the rest. Such men are ready made 
 and fully equipped rivals of our upper classes, and it is easy 
 to understand they impatiently support social inequalities. 
 They feel themselves at the very first equal to any one. 
 English artisans, with their solid qualities and heavy common 
 sense, are not conscious of any right to such pretensions. 
 The prospect of a seat in Parliament, when they have 
 obtained a majority amongst the electors, rather alarms 
 than tempts them. They themselves at present form by far 
 the greater proportion of the electors ; but I doubt if the 
 facility with which they can now become leaders makes them 
 more desirous of obtaining such a position than they used to 
 be. They cannot imagine themselves entering and figuring 
 in such a sphere ; they know that too much time would be
 
 136 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 required, in fact that the whole of their lives would not suffice 
 to give them the tone of the place, and enable them to com- 
 port themselves with that discreet ease, abandonment without 
 vulgarity, and gravity tempered by humour, which the gentle- 
 man owes to his education, the consciousness of his rank and 
 the habit of riches. They foresee the cold stare and com- 
 pressed lips of their future colleagues. The habits of urbanity, 
 which in France so quickly obliterate social distinctions, are 
 unknown to the well-brought-up Englishman. Every man, 
 therefore, keeps to himself, and does not soar above the class 
 to which he belongs ; his sons or grandsons, perhaps, step up a 
 degree and reap the fruits of his industrious moderation. In 
 France, in each generation, the lower classes produce individual 
 and richly endowed men who, at the first onset, enter into 
 competition with the upper classes. They are capable of 
 immediately assuming the position of citizen, deputy, or 
 ordinary minister. In England, the lower classes do not feel 
 capable of equipping their elect for the struggle in less than 
 two or three generations of gradual and gentle ascent. The 
 cause and effect of this are obvious. The cause is that the 
 natures of the English are less supple, their genius slower ; 
 the effect is that the hierarchy and privileges of the various 
 classes are accepted with greater readiness and endured with 
 greater equanimity. 
 
 3. — Tradition and Innovation. 
 
 The same democracy which tolerates the inequalities of an 
 aristocratic system of society has hitherto accepted without 
 remonstrance the dilatoriness and hesitations of an equally 
 balanced government. The system of the two Houses, in 
 particular, has never raised the objections nor excited the 
 dislike it has had to encounter with us. It may appear 
 singular that a nation unusually alive to the wisdom of the 
 axiom, "Time is money," should arrange its affairs on a
 
 THE CITIZEN 137 
 
 system which allows the postponement of a reform, held to 
 be wise and urgent by the popular majority, for several years. 
 This is due to the fact that, in spite of the generally received 
 opinion, the English are not pure utilitarians. In their eyes 
 human activity is more or less an end in itself. The prospect 
 of a practical result adds a stimulus and lends a precise direc- 
 tion to the effort ; it is an essential element, but the chief 
 impulse to which man is subject arises from his vivid concep- 
 tion of the joys to be derived from concentrated and combative 
 action. The surmountable obstacles he encounters on his 
 road are therefore not entirely displeasing to him ; though 
 they may retard success, yet they force him to concentrate 
 his will, render him more acutely conscious of its vehemence 
 and vigour, and place at its disposal a wider field of action. 
 The man, without over much regret, sees the course of 
 activity lengthen out before him, his one stipulation being 
 that no effort shall be altogether without result, and that 
 every step he takes shall diminish the distance between himself 
 and his goal. 
 
 There are others to whom activity, considered in itself, 
 appears as a painful necessity. Far from delighting in it, 
 man is impatient to escape from it by means of success ; he 
 hastens to have done with it. In this disposition of mind the 
 desire to attain the tn^ becomes the sole and only impulse, 
 and naturally man is irritated by the feeblest obstacles, and 
 angered by the smallest causes of delay. He will only accept 
 a constitution where everything is hurried forward. This is 
 why the system of one Chamber still finds many partisans in 
 France. Its history is too well known for me to have to 
 dwell upon it now. Hitherto the violent outbursts of anger 
 on the part of the English nation against the House of Lords 
 have only been a method of intimidating and constraining it, 
 and have never betrayed a deep-seated animosity nor permanent 
 incompatibility of temper. 
 
 The same opposite tendencies of the two nations are rcpro-
 
 138 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 duced in their legislative procedure, which with us is relatively 
 expeditious, while England has suffered, and even up till 1887 
 appeared to desire, hers to be slow and dilatory. A crying 
 disproportion must exist between the number of urgent require- 
 ments developed by a complicated civilisation and the parlia- 
 mentary methods of providing for them in due season, in order 
 to force the House of Commons to accept closure and admit, 
 under a still cumbersome and intricate form, the principle of 
 special committees. 
 
 I might, moreover, cite the process by which reforms are 
 effected in the two countries. The English make for their 
 goal, indefatigably and unweariedly, by the circuitous route of 
 agitation ; articles in the papers, distribution of brochures, 
 meetings, demonstrations in the streets, monster petitions ; 
 all the trouble they give themselves is a source of pleasure 
 to them. Mr. Herbert Spencer relates how, on one occasion, 
 on entering the office of an association which had been estab- 
 lished for the reform of a certain law, he found every one in a 
 state of perplexity — president, secretaries, and members of the 
 council. The reform had been passed in Parliament. The 
 society was henceforth objectless. It is by no means certain 
 that their dismay was merely the disappointment of the para- 
 site defrauded of the question on which it had counted to live ; 
 but there was indubitably mingled with it the disappointment 
 of the industrious man who sees himself shut out of the parti- 
 cular field of activity which he has reserved for himself, and 
 who is consequently compelled to seek elsewhere an outlet for 
 his energy. In France we are supremely conscious of the 
 tedium and irritation of these circumlocutions. One thought 
 alone occupies our mind : how to escape from this gehenna ; 
 and with an impatience which is partly due to our intolerance 
 we hurry forward by the short road of revolution. 
 
 There have always been, and still arc, in the English Par- 
 liament men thoroughly serious and respected, who devote 
 themselves to some particular project of reform. From year
 
 THE CITIZEN 139 
 
 to year, impervious to weariness and careless of ridicule, they 
 bring up some little motion, and again and again it is set 
 aside. They do not modify it, and experience no temptation 
 to enlarge its scope. They never weary of it, nor does their 
 interest in it slacken. Some occupy a whole lifetime in this 
 way, considering it well spent. It may be said that they 
 deliberately choose a line of action which, with a minimum 
 of alteration, necessitates a maximum of activity. It might 
 also be said that their intention is not so much to convince 
 people by the force and profundity of their reasoning as to 
 familiarise them by repetition with the proposed measure, 
 creating for it a sort of past amongst the subjects which 
 have alternately occupied the public mind, and thereby 
 diminishing the kind of discredit which is attached to a too 
 recent novelty. We should find in France neither assiduous 
 orators nor patient auditors for reforms thus presented. This 
 state of things is peculiar to England. 
 
 Other less narrow innovations have been silently introduced 
 into the very heart of the Constitution through the medium of 
 long possession and desuetude. It is the strongest power which 
 by degrees advances and gains ground, and the weakest which 
 retreats and abandons it. Here we have no test ; it is time 
 which confirms these slow conquests and these silent abandon- 
 ments. There is no exact moment when the right of the one 
 is actually extinguished or set aside for the benefit of the right 
 of the other. When the moment has arrived for the removal 
 of the last doubt regarding the new outline of the limit between 
 the two rights, an indeterminate number of years will be found 
 to have already elapsed during which the limit has been imper- 
 ceptibly shifting and changing position. It is in this way 
 that the equilibrium of the great constitutional factors has 
 become modified during the last century. It has been 
 entirely readjusted, so to speak, and yet so unobtrusively, by 
 such imperceptible oscillatory movements, under cover of 
 appearances so happily invariable, that certain lawyers occu-
 
 I40 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 pied with the letter and inattentive to the spirit, have been 
 unable to perceive any alteration. The requisite transforma- 
 tion has been accomplished in such a w^ay that the man 
 engaged in a life of activity is never conscious of the dis- 
 turbing impression that something essential behind him is 
 no longer the same, nor thinks of asking himself if he ought 
 not to stop and turn round in order to reconsider the general 
 conditions of the environment in vi^hich his activity is 
 exercised. 
 
 The Frenchman is like a mechanician infatuated with a 
 theory, who sets to work to alter his machine in accordance 
 with the model of a diagram he is incessantly endeavouring to 
 perfect. The Englishman, on the other hand, resembles a 
 practitioner who is always trying to get the utmost possible 
 result from his apparatus. He is careful not to alter the posi- 
 tion nor the motors. To do so he knows would necessitate a 
 suspension of the working, and both time and the interest of 
 a certain capital would be wasted. He also knows that any 
 check on the action, resulting from an improvised adaptation, 
 would mean less production during a certain period. If he 
 decides to adopt some modification he carries it out, or allows 
 it to be carried out, by slipping the straps of the old wheel 
 on to the new wheels, without stopping the movement or 
 interrupting the production.
 
 CHAPTER 11 
 
 THE PARTY MAN 
 
 I. — The Choice of an Opinion and the Liberty of Indifference. 
 
 I HAVE pointed out elsewhere that the English have a predi- 
 lection for contention and movement ; they like to act for the 
 sake of action, even independently of results. It is a kind of 
 idealism peculiar to themselves ; and seems to denote the 
 practical turn of their mind. The two things are so indis- 
 solubly blended in the English character that casual observers 
 confuse the one with the other ; but in reality they are entirely 
 different. In order thoroughly to comprehend the English 
 character it is necessary to distinguish them, and to appreciate 
 at its proper value this disinterested belief in action, this poetry 
 of the will, insistent though half disguised by the many efforts 
 calculated with a view to a practical termination. 
 
 Another and equally distinguishing characteristic of the 
 English is their inability to generalise broadly and logically ; 
 they quickly grow weary of the pursuit of abstractions and 
 experience great relief in halting half way on the steep slope, 
 at a point where we should find it infinitely more difficult to 
 stop than to slide to the bottom. This idealism on the one 
 hand, and incapacity on the other, through the medium of 
 their indirect consequences, have exercised a remarkable 
 influence on the organisation and maintenance of the great 
 parties into which England is divided. 
 
 How does man select the ideas which shall direct the course 
 
 141
 
 142 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 of his activity ? Here, again, we find a preponderance of the 
 same dominating force. The choice is made in the presence, 
 and, as it were, under the eyes of an impatient third party : the 
 desire for action, always anxious for a field for expansion. The 
 weight of arguments or flawless evidence are not in them- 
 selves sufficient to decide him ; he does not allow them the 
 opportunity of operating freely and at leisure. Certainly they 
 weigh in his final determination, but on the condition that the 
 examination does not demand too much study and time, nor 
 entail overmuch hesitation in arriving at action. The intelli- 
 gence of the Englishman is too slow to allow of the delay of 
 a prolonged deliberation. He is too much in haste to deter- 
 mine the direction of his will, so that its course may be the 
 sooner commenced, and therefore he curtails the preliminaries. 
 The marvels of logical deduction which we meet among 
 English publicists are no contradiction of this theory. In fact 
 they usually assume the form of a laborious confirmation of an 
 adopted thesis, rather than a prolonged search for a truth which 
 but slowly obtains the acquiescence of the mind. It is the 
 condensed logic of the apologist, rather than the facile inves- 
 tigation of the thinker. In short, let us say at once that the 
 choice or a political creed in England is, as a rule, hasty, super- 
 ficial, and in a certain sense fantastic. There is always an 
 inner voice which urges that the important thing is not to 
 select the best cause, but having selected one, whatever it may 
 be — provided it be plausible — to adhere to it tenaciously and 
 at all costs. The paucity of general ideas and the suspicion 
 which absolute propositions excite in England, help to make 
 the choice of opinions to a large extent arbitrary. Absolute 
 propositions alone can have absolute contradictions, between 
 which and themselves they destroy all equilibrium, throwing 
 on one side or the other the whole weight of the will and the 
 mind. Considerations of practical utility alone retain an even 
 balance, comprehending and reconciling to a certain extent 
 the for and the against ; thus too often the mind is left in g,
 
 THE PARTY MAN 143 
 
 sort of liberty of indifference, and then it is that the choice 
 between opinions of almost equal possibilities is left to circum- 
 stance and self-interest. Absolute propositions might be 
 compared to a peak the sides of which are precipitous slopes ; 
 each drop of water which falls down them must hurry direct 
 to the bottom of the valley. Considerations of practical 
 utility, on the other hand, resemble a lightly undulating 
 plateau, where the line of division wavers between the two 
 sides of the gentle declivity ; local accident alone determines 
 down which of the two each streamlet shall flow. 
 
 To sum up, the political convictions of Englishmen are 
 neither so deep, deliberate, nor imperative as those of other 
 nations, and the reasons which determine them are not of the 
 most elevated character. Rapidly conceived, arbitrarily 
 chosen, they are none the less tenacious and permanent, 
 because the same need and impatience for action which cuts 
 short the deliberation during which they are evolved resists 
 any interruption of the action for the purpose of further 
 study. This tenacity has its origin in a consideration of 
 practical utility, rather than in the force of intellectual com- 
 pliance. 
 
 2. — The " Pressure from without " and the " Concessionary 
 Principle." 
 
 Let us apply the foregoing considerations to the statesman. 
 All his thoughts and actions proceed, as we shall see, from 
 this abstract psychology ; they confirm and verify it. 
 
 In the first place, his chief care is to be always upon the 
 parliamentary tapis, by means of any bills which happen to 
 interest the public. The leaders of the party in power know 
 that there is at least one thing the people will not tolerate, 
 viz., an appearance of inactivity or impotence. Even if they 
 have but few matured or practical ideas they nevertheless 
 draw up a programme crowded with measures relating to both
 
 144 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 foreign and home policy ; and they take a pride in carrying 
 it out in its entirety. The Duke of Richmond, wishing to 
 justify the small eclat of a session during which the Cabinet 
 had been composed of himself and his friends, exclaimed, 
 " After all, we have passed as many Bills as our predecessors." 
 Thus he gloried in the production for the sake of the pro- 
 duction, apart from the importance of its results, the expen- 
 diture of brute force apart from useful effect. 
 
 Another source of impulsion, the efficacy of which is 
 deepened by the indifference of this political scepticism, is 
 the activity displayed by agitators outside Parliament in favour 
 of such and such a measure, and the noise it makes, the 
 emotion it excites among the populace. Nothing is more 
 remarkable than the kind of fatalism with which the British 
 statesmen witness these demonstrations, watching them grow 
 and preparing to give way to them. This is because they 
 have no abstract principles which might be for them the object 
 of a personal faith, and give them the strength to say " No," 
 resolutely and indefinitely. It is also because a courageous 
 and tenacious will, to whatever end it may be directed, exer- 
 cises in England the influence we only accord in France to 
 right and justice valued for their own sake. Whoever in 
 England desires a thing obstinately and vehemently is on 
 that account alone presumed to have right on his side. When 
 men who have the responsibility of power take the initiative, 
 it is never on the sole impulse of a personal theoretical con- 
 viction ; they wait until some doctrine or other has taken 
 consistency and solidity among the people themselves, and a 
 \pressure from without — this is the phrase hallowed by custom — 
 joins its ardent force to the feeble authority of principles. 
 This condition fulfilled, they obey, or allow it to be under- 
 stood they will obey. Doubtless the resistance of the Govern- 
 ment to certain innovations might be serious, vehement, and 
 prolonged ; but it never would be expressed by a non possurnus. 
 On the contrary, there is a universal consciousness from the
 
 THE PARTY MAN I45 
 
 very beginning that they have made up their minds to give in 
 some day, after the expedient of adjournments is exhausted ; 
 and all the work then consists, if the reform is deemed dan- 
 gerous, in contriving a method of amending the law, or inter- 
 preting its clauses in such a way as to limit the anticipated 
 evil. In France, our statesmen have never felt, or at least have 
 never displayed, this somewhat servile deference to the mere 
 wishes of the populace, apart from the rights of which they 
 may be the expression, and to the partial and irregular mani- 
 festations by which the populace tentatively make their wishes 
 known outside the official channels provided by the consti- 
 tution. In England the "concessionary principle" (Disraeli's 
 phrase) has inspired the politics of each party in power 
 successively. There is, practically, a tacit compact between 
 the Government and the men who organise the pressure from 
 without. Provided the latter succeed in maintaining and 
 strengthening this pressure for a more or less lengthened 
 period, it is understood that satisfaction will eventually be 
 granted to them ; and so agitation has become a regular 
 institution in England, with an organised system, recognised 
 rights, and an assured success. Perhaps it would have seemed 
 puerile to us to hear the papers, in 1867, enumerate and cast 
 up the sums subscribed for or against an amendment of the 
 electoral law, calculate the number of those present at the 
 meetings of the respective parties, and dispute the length of 
 the processions formed by the petitioners. But these futile 
 debates were only the outward expression of a desire to establish 
 an unassailable argument, of the self-assertion of a powerful 
 and active will, which was gradually mastering the whole 
 country. 
 
 3. — Division of the Aristocracy. 
 
 Another striking characteristic of the English political 
 world is the perfect ease and nonchalant audacity with which 
 one half of the upper class separates itself from the other, 
 
 L
 
 146 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 enters the camp of the Radicals, converts their principles to its 
 own use, and commences a half-hearted attack upon its own 
 privileges, without renouncing any of the customs, feelings 
 and relations by which the unity of the caste are preserved. 
 It is like a tacit understanding by which, while some of the 
 garrison continue to hold out, others feign disloyalty, mingle 
 with the assailants, ardently espouse their cause, and yet, in 
 order to prevent the ruin and sack of the town, a catastrophe 
 for all concerned, endeavour to gradually turn the siege into a 
 blockade, delaying the attacks, sparing the citadel as long as 
 possible, and delaying, and finally humanising the inevitable 
 victory. One day, in my presence, a noble lord of the Whig 
 party compared Parliament to a traveller in a sledge, pursued 
 by a band of famished wolves. From time to time he throws 
 them quarters of venison to distract their attention and keep 
 them back, so that, half satiated, they may be less ferocious 
 when they gain the horse's head. Of course it is necessary to 
 husband the venison, and make it last as long as possible by 
 cutting it up into little pieces. Part of our nobility, he said, 
 meritoriously devote themselves to this ungrateful task. 
 Although this statement may be an exaggeration, there is 
 truth in it, and it is impossible not to admire in this role^ 
 which is accepted and filled by the Liberal fraction of the 
 English aristocracy, on the one hand the decision, constancy 
 and simplicity which they bring to it, and on the other, its 
 leaven of political scepticism, elasticity of ideas, and, in a word, 
 the option of indifference between two contrary doctrines. 
 
 The feeling which animates the ruling classes in England 
 is tinged with the bold, almost reckless, optimism of which I 
 have already made mention. They are convinced that a 
 strong will can coerce both man and things, that there is no 
 difficulty it cannot surmount, no situation so unfortunate it 
 cannot extract some good from it, no mischievous institution 
 the influence of which it cannot correct, and that nothing 
 need be despaired of nor compromised with whilst the will still
 
 THE PARTY MAN 147 
 
 holds its own. The Conservative party, believing itself to be 
 endowed with this powerful corrective, this remedy for every 
 ill, naturally regards the measures which the Radical party 
 force upon it from an entirely different standpoint to that of 
 our reactionaries. It may disapprove of the measures ; when 
 they triumph it is not discouraged ; it never regards them as 
 containing the ineluctable essence of dissolution and death ; 
 and it does not believe that they are destined to destroy every- 
 thing unless it prevents them by repeal. In its opinion an 
 Act of Parliament, a paper with black, marks, cannot possess so 
 much virtue that human energy cannot out-do it. Thus it 
 comes about that England has never known those laws ot 
 reaction which have so uselessly disfigured and dishonoured 
 our Parliamentary history. The Conservative party has always 
 refused to look back or to retrace its steps along a road it has 
 already travelled over. It settles down each time in the 
 situation that the last reforms accomplished have made for it ; 
 because its abstract convictions to the contrary have not 
 sufficient distinctness and intolerant vigour to enable it to 
 regard these reforms as absolutely preposterous and detestable; 
 and also because its confidence in the empire of the discreet 
 and persevering will prevents it from believing that all will be 
 lost if they continue in force. It takes the helm and hoists 
 the sail in order to tack about, and thus the less swiftly be 
 carried along by the current ; it never takes an oar and tries 
 to go back. We should form a false idea of the political 
 history of England if we did not take into consideration this 
 curious psychological combination m which optimism and scep>- 
 ticism are blended with a relative indifference in regard to 
 principles and an ardent faith in the resources of human energy. 
 
 4. — Electoral Reforms and the Representation of the 
 Minorities. 
 
 Let us no longer ask what is the general impulse by which 
 rulers are swayed, but what determines the direction in which
 
 148 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 they are impelled by opinion. We can find no clearer nor 
 more significant illustration of this subject than the history of 
 electoral reforms. In all the discussions to which this question 
 has given rise, both in Parliament and outside it, before and 
 after 1832, the natural rights of man, which in France are the 
 basis of such debates, are alluded to merely by chance. In 
 1867 we get the valuable evidence of the Honourable George 
 Brodrick, who set at defiance the adversaiies of the proposed 
 extension by pointing out that one publicist alone had 
 presented the franchise as a natural right of the citizen. It is 
 at least the invariable rule that neither Conservatives nor 
 Liberals, nor even many Radicals, consent to admit as a 
 substantial political element the individual regarded in the 
 inanity of his general conception. It seems to them an 
 abstraction pushed too far, void of all substance and so 
 trifling that they are not conscious of holding anything when 
 such rarified matter is all they have in their hands. Certainly 
 they do not forego all exercise of the faculty of abstraction, 
 but thev instinctively stop half way through the operation, on 
 arriving at a point where concrete reality still holds the chief 
 place. They do not go beyond the idea of classes, particular 
 corporations, and towns, which are merely assemblages of 
 certain persons, or of certain districts which can be considered 
 one by one. The discussions which have been held since 1854 
 on proportional representation are in this connection very 
 instructive. One of the objections continually raised against 
 the clause of minorities, which was eventually included in the 
 Act of 1867, was that the House represents not individuals 
 but representative bodies.^ As Gladstone said, the principle of 
 Parliamentary representation is, that each assembly of electors 
 must be considered as forming an entity in itself, a moral 
 personality. What is wanted in the House is to know the 
 ruling opinion of each community. He further declared that 
 the clause meant the substitution of the representation of 
 Mr. Hardcastlc.
 
 THE PARTY MAN 149 
 
 citizens for th:it of communities, which had hitherto been the 
 rule. Another member added that if of the three seats 
 assigned to Manchester one was in the minority, two of the 
 three members neutraHsed each other's suffrage, with the result 
 that this great community had practically only one voice in 
 Parliament. The desire was to augment the influence of the 
 great towns, but it was done in such a way that the metropolis 
 of Lancashire did not weigh heavier in the scale of Parlia- 
 mentary votes than Arundel, and if the clause of minorities 
 were allowed to stand it would weigh even less. In these 
 remarks the inability and disinclination of the English mind 
 to pursue abstractions to the end is clearly evident, as is also 
 the ease with which it will stop and attach itself to those 
 intermediary divisions where the particular is seen and felt in 
 the very midst of an average generality. The other con- 
 siderations which, in 1832 and 1884, were introduced into the 
 discussion on electoral reform are equally alien to the law of 
 abstraction ; they are entirely practical. An attentive analysis 
 shows them to be two in number, and common to reformers 
 and their opponents: (i) What is the surest means of 
 forming a good government, a government equal to its 
 responsibilities? (2) What is the surest means of main- 
 taining an educative political activity among the popular 
 masses ? Reformers, in order to democratise the franchise, 
 cite the force that a more extended representation would give 
 the Government, the presumable sagacity of the classes for 
 which it is desired to obtain the right of suffrage, and the 
 public interests which would be furthered by such participation 
 in the constitution of authority. Others set against these 
 advantages the danger of submerging the enlightened classes 
 in the flood of the unenlightened, of placing the Government 
 at the mercy of the prejudices and passions of the ignorant 
 and partial masses, and of exposing the masses themselves to 
 the deplorable suggestions of the omnipotent power. Neither 
 the reformers nor their opponents ever dream of aspiring to an
 
 150 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 ideal proportionality in the prerogative of the franchise and 
 the division of electoral power, or even of seeking the least 
 imperfect approximations to these ends. We have seen that 
 of proportional representation, which is a principle, in 1867 
 only the representation of the minorities, which is an 
 expedient, was still in existence. It had been retained in the 
 form of a strictly limited exception, applicable to only a few 
 assemblies of electors ; and it was from contempt, indolence, 
 and a desire to finish with the Bill, that the great majority of 
 the House of Commons, Disraeli and his Government, Glad- 
 stone and the bulk of the Opposition, all equally hostile to the 
 clause, resigned themselves to allowing this fantasy of Lord 
 Cairns to pass, ratified by a vote of emergency in the House 
 of Lords. The clause has disappeared ; it was dropped 
 directly the electoral law was again taken up. 
 
 In reality, the dislike it inspired was chiefly owing to its 
 pretension to diminish the excitement and heat of political 
 struggles. The English would prefer it to render them more 
 ardent. And here we touch on the second consideration that 
 I have pointed out. The answer over and over again has been, 
 echoing Cobden's saying, that the minority has only one right, 
 viz., to use every effort to become in its turn the majority ; and 
 it is not good for it to be spared these efforts. To assure for it 
 in every place a representation proportionate to the number of 
 its adherents would be to take away from it the-source of its 
 energy and passion, its eagerness to persuade, to dominate, or 
 to escape from the domination of others ; it would become 
 accustomed to reap, without any output of energy, the fruits 
 of the law, and we should soon witness the disappearance of 
 the " healthy activity " which the elections maintain in all 
 parts of the country when the local majority in each place 
 alone profits by them. The consequences of such a 
 generalised system would be a growing languor in political 
 life, a stoppage of the national will. In Parliament itself a 
 stagnant representation, or one with little fleeting, flickering
 
 THE PARTY MAN 151 
 
 waves, would replace the powerful current, the impetus of 
 which sustains and urges forward the statesmen, and renders 
 them capable of a broad and steadfast policy. We can see the 
 general tone of the reasoning by which the English mind is 
 swayed. The idea of equity has no part in it. Moral effects 
 alone are regarded. These optimists believe that liberty is 
 sufficient to assure the supremacy of the best. Certainly it is 
 not contempt of minorities which transpires in the arguments 
 I have repeated : in no country is more attention paid to their 
 proceedings and their progress. But much less consideration 
 is devoted to their abstract rights than to the means of keeping 
 them active, deliberate and progressive. They do not receive 
 their due in order that they may strive to claim and take it. 
 We recognise here again the twofold character of indifference 
 to rational principles, and of confident and passionate interest 
 attaching to the energetic exercise of the human will.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE STATESMAN 
 
 I. — The Division of Men into Parties. 
 
 I HAVE shown in a previous work the fortunate conjunction 
 of historical circumstances which assisted the development of 
 the system of parties into its present form.^ But for the 
 oligarchal organisation of society which prevailed at the end 
 of the eighteenth century it would have been difficult for the 
 parties in the State to have been reduced to two and main- 
 tained at that number ; to have taken consistency and become 
 accustomed to discipline under a chief ; and difficult, too, 
 would it have been to consummate the formation of two 
 compact groups of statesmen whose uninterrupted alternation 
 in power has become an established fact, a rule accepted and 
 observed. But the historical circumstances were seconded by 
 causes even more profound — I mean the peculiar qualities 
 and defects of the national character. Here, again, we find the 
 impatient need to exercise force, and lack of inclination and 
 ability to generalise, or to be guided by those generalisations 
 which originally determined the method of accepting certain 
 reasons for acting in concert, viz., hy a properly constituted 
 party with leaders at its head. None the less has it a subtle 
 secret psychology which must be separated, analysed and 
 pursued to its final consequences. 
 
 ' See in Lc Dcveloppcment <lc la Constitution ct dc la Socictc politique en 
 Anglclcur, the chapter eiitilled, " OU.ULiichie et le regime parlementairc." 
 
 15-!
 
 THE STATESMAN 153 
 
 The whole organisation and liistory of the two political 
 parties bears the imprint of the character I have just defined. 
 There are few, if any, neutrals in England. Every man is 
 enrolled in some party, for the simple reason that he thus finds 
 himself provided with a ready-made sphere of activity. In 
 the choice of a party he is singularly free from hindrances in 
 following cither the traditions of his family, the antecedents 
 of his local following, or the interests of his career. In 
 England there are assemblies of electors which arc Liberal 
 or Conservative, simply because they began with a certain 
 political creed, and, in the case of the immense majority, the 
 general reasons for changing it have never been sufficiently 
 defined nor strong enough to rob them of the creditable desire 
 to remain faithful to their past. When young Coningsby, the 
 hero of one of Disraeli's novels, took it into his head to form a 
 deliberate conviction, his grandfather cried : " You go with 
 your family, sir, like a gentleman ; you are not to consider 
 your opinions, like a philosopher 01 a political adventurer," 
 
 In substance, therefore, the parties, rather than resembling 
 two groups of believers endeavouring to propagate a doctrine, 
 are like two groups of combatants contesting a field of action, 
 who inscribe a device on their standard by which they may be 
 identified. It is a well-known fact that both Pitt and Fox 
 hesitated for some time at the outset of their careers, and 
 finally joined a party which they afterwards forsook. 
 Evidently the differences in political credos were insignifi- 
 cant in their eyes. The one important thing was to open a 
 career for their young abilities which they were eager to have 
 an opportunity of exercising and putting to the test ; they 
 both esteemed power to render service to their country as 
 much under the banner of the Tory as that of the Whig. 
 
 Between the Whigs and the Tories a complete exchange of 
 doctrines was effected in tiie course of a century without a 
 similar exchange of names. Lord Mahon pointed out the 
 significant fact that the opinions of a Tory in 17QO were
 
 154 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 exactly the same as those of a Whig in 1890, and vice vend — • 
 proof positive that these opinions do not of necessity enter 
 into the definition of the two terms.^ Must I recall how Sir 
 Robert Peel on two occasions presented to Parliament, and 
 supported with the whole weight of his authority as leader of a 
 party, the important measures which that party and he had 
 spent years in contesting and denouncing : the emancipation 
 of the Catholics and the abolition of the Corn Laws ? At the 
 time when the latter of these measures was passed, Lord 
 Wellington expressed the opinion that if the House of Lords 
 represents conservatism in the Constitution, this conservatism 
 ought to be subordinated to the interests of the public and the 
 " march of affairs." The obligation the two Houses are under 
 " to insure that the Queen's Government will be carried on " 
 was in the eyes of this statesman an interest excelling all 
 others ; thus he ranked a practical result, the efficiency of the 
 Government, far above fidelity to the principles of the party of 
 which he was the leader. In more recent times the Con- 
 servatives have been known to borrow the measures of the 
 advanced Liberals without any embarrassment. The Derby- 
 Disraeli ministry imitated the great electoral reform of 1867, 
 which far exceeded anything the Radical Bright himself had 
 ever demanded. It was at this juncture Lord Derby said he 
 did not intend to allow the Liberals to have the monopoly of 
 Reform measures ; the Tories must have their share in them. 
 
 But it was chiefly in 1885 that the Tory party, like the 
 Liberal party, allowed its supreme and cynical indifference to 
 all the principles on which the unity of a party can be built up 
 to appear. In 1885 Parnell disposed of Ireland ; after the 
 elections he found himself at the head of a compact following 
 of eighty-six members, a very obvious interest would therefore 
 
 ' Lecky has disputed Lord Mahon's assertion ; he certainly liad yielded 
 more or less to the fascination of paradox, but, t^rantinj* all the amend- 
 ments, the assertion remains exact in substance, at least in the proportion 
 necessary to justify our statement.
 
 THE STATESMAN 155 
 
 be served in gaining him over. Without hesitation or em- 
 barrassment tlie Tory party renounced all its traditions ; the 
 special legislation for the repression of crime was not renewed 
 in Ireland. Negotiations cloaked in mystery were opened 
 with Parnell. The hope that they would obtain more from 
 the Tories than the Liberals was carefully fanned among the 
 Irish members.^ The suspicion cast on the administration of 
 the former viceroy of Ireland, Lord Spencer, was said to be 
 well founded, and a wrongful pretence was made of consenting 
 to the re-examination of the acts of this statesman. As Mr. 
 Chamberlain said, the Tories might form the ministry, but the 
 Radicals were in power. However, Gladstone intended that 
 his opponents should incur all the responsibility of having 
 allowed the Act for the repression of crimes to expire ; he 
 insinuated that he would have preserved certain of its clauses, 
 especially those for the punishment of boycotting. He 
 asserted the necessity of maintaining in the code of laws for 
 Ireland the supremacy of the Crown, the unity of the empire, 
 and the authority of Parliament, which is the one effectual 
 guarantee of the latter. On these conditions only could an 
 extended local self-government be granted. Parnell invited 
 Gladstone to draw up a scheme, and the latter haughtily 
 refusing, the leader of the Irish party in the next elections went 
 over with all his forces to the side of the Tories. 
 
 Immediately after the elections Lord Salisbury, like the 
 practical man he was, recognised the futility of continuing an 
 alliance all the advantages of which he had exhausted. Even 
 with the support of the eighty-six Irish his continuance in power 
 would not be secured. He therefore deliberately turned against 
 them and proclaimed measures of repression against the Irish 
 National League. Gladstone, in his turn, ignoring his recent 
 declarations, opened negotiations with Parnell, and threw in 
 
 ' Lord Carnarvon, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, made them understand 
 that if necessary he would go as far as Parnell. At least, this was the 
 uncontradicted testimony of a member worthy to be believed.
 
 156 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 his lot with him. The Bill he presented on April 8, 1886, 
 sanctioned Home Rule in another guise. It was thrown out, 
 and on this occasion the late Tory, once leader of the Whigs, 
 and afterwards of the Liberals, employed the language of the 
 Radical and the demagogue. He blindly appealed to the 
 "masses" against the enlightened "classes," and proclaimed 
 with a mysticism which seemed borrowed from Victor Hugo, 
 his belief in the unerring nature of the popular instinct. More 
 and more he inclined towards the side for which he had already 
 a penchant, and eventually he became the defender and surety 
 of the National League he had once inexorably opposed. On 
 the other hand, whilst Lord Salisbury, again in power, returned 
 to the traditions of his party by setting in motion a special 
 system of prevention and repression in Ireland, his most 
 influential colleague, Lord Randolph Churchill, leader of the 
 Tories in the House of Commons, indubitably deviated from 
 the lines laid down by the Conservatives. Without laying 
 himself open to the disavowal of his chief, he took up the 
 principal measures he had ardently combated when the 
 Liberals were in the Government and he was in the 
 Opposition : the closure to the simple majority ; new facilities 
 granted through the medium of the local authorities for making 
 the agricultural labourers proprietors or holders of lots of land 
 (in this connection the orator acknowledged Mr. Jesse Collings 
 and Mr. Chamberlain as the initiators of this reform, the self- 
 same one which had overthrown the Tory Cabinet) ; the sale 
 of glebe lands ; a re-modelling of the tithes, which in future 
 were to be paid by the proprietors ; a revision of the railway 
 tariff (project borrowed from the Liberal minister, Mr. 
 Mundella), the establishment of a really popular form of local 
 government in England, and an analogous reform in Ireland ; 
 and the development of popular education (there is nothing to 
 prevent us from supposing that free education was to be in- 
 cluded among the projected improvements). Politics is not a 
 science of the past, added the orator, but a science of the
 
 THE STATESMAN T57 
 
 future ; it does not consist in looking behind, but makes a 
 business of progress. 
 
 Is a last trait required, the most striking of all ? 
 
 A year later the Lord High Chancellor of the same Con- 
 servative Cabinet initiated a motion, two clauses of u^hich 
 dealt with the suppression, one of entails, and the other of the 
 right of primogeniture, in succession to landed property 
 ab intestat. Two of the most powerful supports of the landed 
 aristocracy shaken by those whose official duty it was to 
 protect them ! What could be more unexpected ? The 
 paradox was made complete by the ministerial Act concerning 
 local government, which removed from the landed proprietors 
 their administrative powers in the counties, transferring them 
 to an elective council ; and thus the third support of the 
 oligarchy of land tottered and fell. The Bill was an effectual 
 diversion; it threw the Irish question into the shade, but at 
 what cost ? The divergence of doctrines is obviously of such 
 secondary importance that there is perhaps no single measure, 
 however characteristic and extreme it may be in a certain 
 sense, of which it can be confidently asserted that it will 
 never figure in the programme of one of the two parties. 
 Option in the choice of opinions, rarity of profound conviction, 
 the obstinacy of the wrestler rather than the stability and 
 tenacity of the believer, the universal empire and exterior 
 permanence of the parties, the inward variability of their 
 doctrines, and finally the reign of opportunism — ^expediency — 
 unshackled by its principles, concealed under a specious 
 appearance and an orderly method of procedure capable of 
 deceiving the superficial observer ; these are the facts which a 
 careful study of the mechanism of the will reveal to us. 
 
 2. — Androlatry. 
 
 We must not be persuaded, however, that the English 
 political world has no serious object in view, no ideal that it 
 contemplates with fervour. But, owing to the lack of interest
 
 158 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 ill general ideas, this object, this ideal, is not a doctrine, but a 
 man, the protagonist and hero. The English nation could 
 more readily dispense with belief in an abstraction than with 
 belief in a personality. At almost every epoch in its existence 
 it has been possessed by the image of some citizen, brave, 
 assiduous, energetic, always ready to step into the breach, a 
 type of the active virtues which the race conceives to be the 
 highest of moral perfections. The disproportionate place 
 which biographies hold in English literature testifies to this 
 sort of political anthropomorphism : the preponderance of the 
 individual over the idea. We shall have no difficulty in per- 
 ceiving the immense import of its consequences. 
 
 In every form of government there are three essentials, viz., 
 that the supreme power should be undivided in spirit, resolute 
 in action, and energetic in movement. But of all forms of 
 government, that by a Parliament is perhaps the least capable 
 of fulfilling these conditions, when the cohesion of political 
 parties, indispensable mediums of this particular form of 
 government, is solely maintained by community of doctrines. 
 Doctrinal convictions are, as a matter of fact, self-opinionated 
 and unreasonable ; they combine the literal creed of their 
 formulas with an irritable realisation of the almost imper- 
 ceptible differences which distinguish them. Their invariable 
 tendency is to cause internal division in each party in such a 
 way that it is impossible for the Government to be anything 
 but the feeble result of a compromise or the fragile result of a 
 coalition. Further, each of the divisions thus created un- 
 ceasingly puts forward its theoretic scruples and endeavours to 
 exact conditions in such a way that the Government is 
 frequently driven into a resolution by the threat of secession, 
 and is obliged to adopt half-hearted and complex measures, 
 instead of the free and simple methods which are the con- 
 ditions of all great success, f^inally, devotion to a doctrine is 
 as intolerant and unreasonable as devotion to a religion. The 
 members of a party among whom it forms the sole connecting
 
 THE STATESMAN 159 
 
 link always have an invincible reluctance to suffer their leader 
 to compound w^ith events, or to admit that he can learn any- 
 thing from time and experience ; they will not tolerate in him 
 any infidelity, however fleeting, to their principles ; if he 
 sincerely modifies his opinions they immediately disown him and 
 refuse to follow him one step along the new path on which he 
 has set out. 
 
 The preponderance of the individual over the doctrine has 
 safeguarded England against any troublesome results from the 
 Parliamentary system. It is one of the miracles of political 
 history that this country has been able to preserve, in a 
 Government at the mercy of parties, the singleness of outlook, 
 certainty in action, and capability of evolution, which formed 
 a compensation for the arbitrary power of the old monarchic 
 institution. The secret of this miracle is to be found in the 
 sort of fetichism with which the nation regards the personalities 
 of her great men. There is no country where public opinion 
 places on a higher pinnacle the citizen esteemed worthiest to 
 govern, invests him more ostentatiously with omnipotent 
 power, or more urgently bids his fellows obey him. It was no 
 Whig or Liberal Parliament that the nation elected in 1841, 
 1857, and 1880, but a Peelite, a Palmerstonian and a Glad- 
 stonian Parliament. Each of these elections was in reality a 
 plebiscite establishing a temporary dictatorship for the benefit 
 of one man. These three personages were real Premiers, 
 principeSy ministerial Caesars, active and omnipotent, by the 
 side of an Augustan dynasty fallen into decay. 
 
 Here, indeed, we find personal unity of supreme authority. 
 On the other hand, the unity of each party being founded on 
 loyalty to an individual rather than on attachment to a doctrine, 
 theoretical divergences are powerless to divide it up, a glance 
 or an imperious word from the leader being sufficient to recall 
 the dissentients to their duty.^ It is remarkable that since the 
 
 ' One day Lord Althorp, findini^ liiinsclf unable to refute the ari^uments 
 of the Leader of tlie Opposition, frankly confessed to his followers that, at
 
 i6o THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 beginning of the century, except after 1840 and in our own 
 times, the English Parliament has never known a third party, 
 not even little groups proceeding from the disintegration of the 
 two great parties, Whig and Tory ; I d rot count the Irish, 
 who must be considered as an outside faction. We cannot 
 but remember the fatal influence intermediary factions have 
 exercised in our Parliaments. In England no such dissolvent 
 exists, doctrinal divergences are obliterated by an overwhelming 
 sentiment of allegiance to the Premier, The preponderance 
 of this sentiment was made manifest in recent years by the 
 extreme perplexity and half-ashamed attitude of the Unionist 
 party at the moment of its formation, and by the adherence of 
 the immense majority of the Liberal party to Gladstone at a 
 time when a question was raised in which all the traditions and 
 instincts of the country were arrayed against him, and any one 
 but himself would have been in the lowest minority. 
 
 Finally, and for the same reason, every English statesman 
 has at his command a large credit of inconsequence and 
 inconstancy, on the sole condition that his alternations of 
 opinion do not appear to spring from a failure of will power 
 or self-abandonment. The latter is the only fault the country 
 will not tolerate in those it has exalted above their fellows. No 
 other nation has shown itself more indulffcnt to the recantations 
 of its political men, nor followed them with greater docility, once 
 they had been elected leaders, through evolutions which to us 
 would seem extravagant. Lord Salisbury and Lord Randolph 
 Churchill began by being the enfants tcrrihles of their parties, 
 but that did not prevent their eventually becoming official and 
 esteemed representatives. The public lives of Sir Robert Peel, 
 Disraeli and Gladstone furnish illustrations of the lengths to 
 
 the moment, he was incompetent to reply, but, lie added, he knew he had 
 once conceived good reasons for the opposite point of view, which would 
 have obtained the acquiescence of the House ; he asked the Liberal party 
 to take his word for this, and to base their decision, not so much on the 
 reasons he was unable to produce, as on a blind confidence in the loyalty 
 and ability of their leader. This appeal was understood.
 
 THE STATESMAN i6i 
 
 which this extraordinary tolerance will go, and of the kind of 
 optimistic and contented androlatry which disposes the public to 
 take in good part anything its favourites may do. The career 
 of Mr. Chamberlain provides us with a recent and striking 
 example of the immovable fidelity of once formed public 
 opinion to a man who is himself unfaithful to his principles. 
 Mr. Chamberlain began by counselling the abandonment of 
 Egypt, finally he recommended its unlimited occupation ; he 
 began by opposing all colonial expansion, finally he declared 
 that the possessions over-seas formed the principal and most 
 enduring element of the national grandeur ; he began by 
 championing a system of Home Rule for Ireland, finally he 
 became its most outspoken opponent; in 1881 and 1884. he 
 was a member of the Cabinet which signed the two treaties 
 assuring the independence of the Transvaal : some years later 
 he was associated with the Jameson Raid and openly opposed, 
 in the course of long and treacherous negotiations, the autonomy 
 of the South African Republic. Not one of these alternations, 
 to all appearance scandalous, has been able to impair his 
 popularity, and this because the man himself remains 
 unchanged ; his speeches are as cutting, his criticisms as 
 sarcastic, his apostrophes as insolent as ever : he is still as 
 addicted to parliamentary irregularities and diplomatic incon- 
 gruities, as self-willed in the reverses which fortune thrusts upon 
 him, and as convinced that the end justifies the means. With 
 equal enthusiasm he has embraced restricted Radicalism and 
 extravagant Imperialism : the two manifestations of contem- 
 porary democracy. It is this identity of the man with himself, 
 this perpetuity of tenacity and force, even when applied 
 to objects unworthy in themselves, which are the cause of his 
 extraordinary influence and inexplicable good fortune. 
 
 Whoever measures in thought the facilities which this turn 
 of mind secures to a Parliamentary government is tempted to 
 ask himself if it is not a condition, not only favourable but 
 essential and necessarv, ami if the deformations of type which
 
 i62 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 this system of government has sustained in other countries, or 
 the hindrances it has encountered there, are not simply due to the 
 fact that this solid sentimental basis is lacking to the liberty and 
 authority of the supreme power. England is assuredly a 
 country of good sense and practical mind. But to assure the 
 discipline of the various parties it is not enough to oppose 
 practical sense and experience to the pretensions and arrogance 
 of doctrinal convictions. Practical sense demands too sustained 
 an effort on the part of the attention and the will, conse- 
 quently its action is too interrupted ; and it is too liable to be 
 undermined and combated by sophistry to furnish a durable 
 foundation for a political institution. No lasting organisation 
 can be established on a mere sentiment, or a moral force, the 
 operation of which is unconscious and mechanical. This it is 
 which gives its immense value to what I call the political 
 androlatry of the English, the idealism of a personal object 
 which is like an ethnical tendency, a blind and deep-rooted 
 instinct of the race.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE LAW AND PUBLIC OPINION 
 
 We should be greatly deceived if we supposed that the word 
 " law " finds an exact equivalent in the French " loiT The 
 French word has a more restricted, a more definite sense. 
 When we speak of a law we mean an imperative rule, every 
 word of which has been weighed ; a rule that has been 
 promulgated on a certain date, and is the fruit of the 
 deliberation of the authority which we believe to be the most 
 capable of drawing up reasonable rules ; it embodies the deliberate 
 will ofthisauthority. The word " law " certainly has this signifi- 
 cation, but in common with many others. Besides the Parlia- 
 mentary law which answers to our /?/, it embraces the common 
 law, made up of customs and precedents, the judge-made law, 
 made up of jurisprudence, and the subject-made law, made 
 up of resolutions voted among themselves by the subjects of the 
 Oueen, relating chiefly to commercial matters. All this is law, 
 and therefore the word corresponds more to the word *•'• droit " 
 in French or Latin than to the word " /o/." 
 
 The different categories into which the loi^ or rather the 
 droit^ is divided in England, merit some attention. The 
 common law forms the basis of all civil and criminal legislation ; 
 and is rendered complete and definite by the jurisprudence of 
 the courts of common law and the jurisdiction of equity. 
 Nothing is lacking to its constitution as a complete and 
 
 independent law. Only in those matters which at the outset 
 
 103
 
 i64 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 were not regulated by the civil law was the Parliamentary law 
 able to intervene ; but, having once gained a footing, its 
 supremacy, which in other countries is uncertain and fitful, 
 soon became recognised in all those departments of the law 
 with which, at first, it had nothing to do. Let us take, for 
 example, the position of the married woman ; this position was 
 originally determined by the common law ; but the day came 
 when the women of the upper classes could no longer endure 
 it. Was Parliament called upon to interfere ? Certainly not. 
 The court of equity brought its jurisprudence to bear upon the 
 modification and mitigation of the original semi-barbarous 
 regulations, and the first law worthy of the name was put into 
 force in 1870. This provides an almost complete illustration 
 of the exact position and importance of each different section 
 of the law. What we should consider an imperfect and 
 superannuated disposition of justice, to be replaced without 
 delay by practical laws, is from the English point of view 
 adequate in every sense and equal, or even preferable, to justice 
 practically applied ; the English only formulate a law when the 
 common law or the Pretorian law diverge too flagrantly from 
 the legal system they are desirous of upholding. 
 
 Is a further illustration necessary ? Let us consider the 
 criminal law. In France, we have drawn it up in such a way 
 that, in the category of causes which concern the honour and 
 life of our citizens, every detail is regulated by an exact text ; 
 nothing is left to the discretion of the judge. In England, the 
 opposite method has been followed. The criminal law belongs 
 almost entirely to the common law ; and every care has been 
 taken to leave it untouched. It has been considered wise to 
 complete it by a long series of judgments covering every 
 possible case. The pliability and variety of this method of 
 jurisprudence is considered best fitted for so delicate a matter ; 
 the trenchant language of the law being thereby avoided. 
 
 Wc must now explain the general aspect presented, not by 
 the law but by British legislation. At a first glance the most
 
 THE LAW AND PUBLIC OPINION 165 
 
 stn'Icing thouo;h negative trait which characterises English 
 statutory legislation is, that the necessity for logical sequence 
 and uniformity is weak or non-existent. Parliament has no 
 hesitation in admitting some of the corollaries of a general 
 truth, while rejecting or adjourning others, although they may 
 all appear to obtrude with an equally urgent logical necessity. 
 When to introduce a reform, it begins with a limited number 
 of facts, or a certain province, it feels in no way obliged, urged, 
 nor even tempted to include every other fact in connection 
 with the subject, or every other province to which precisely 
 the same reasons apply, and which decided it to intervene. At 
 the end of the eighteenth century a comparatively liberal 
 legislation for the cotton industry, and a legislation which was 
 extravagantly protectionist and minutely regulative for the 
 woollen industry, existed side by side. Such a contradiction 
 was in no way repellant to the English mind ; the faculty of 
 generalisation being too weak to raise any protest against it. 
 During the whole of the long period when the Parliamentary 
 statutes comprehended a systematic and rigorous regulation of 
 labour, the jurisprudence of the tribunals was invariably 
 conducted on the principle that labour ought to be free. 
 This discrepancy and disorder in the sphere of authority 
 created no surprise, nor was any impatience felt at its pro- 
 longation. Since 18 19 innumerable factory acts have essayed 
 to limit the hours and fix the conditions of labour for women 
 and children in the manufactories, the only debatable point 
 apparently being whether the State is under an obligation to 
 protect the feeble and helpless against the egotism of those who 
 would take advantage of them ; but even when this point was 
 admitted, the law was merely a general one, no distinction at all 
 being made between the various manufacturing industries. 
 The English legislator began with a single industry, that of 
 cotton, to this he successively added those of wool, silk, linen, 
 the coal mines, the iron mines, the dye works, the match 
 factories, the potteries, and last of all, attendance in shops. A
 
 i66 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 final Act in 1878 consolidated all these partial regulations. 
 Instead of generalising in the beginning, and applying the 
 regulation to the whole field over which the effects of the 
 principle were felt, Parliament drew up a series of sectional 
 and arbitrary laws, which it eventually combined and 
 summarised. The antinomy caused no uneasiness nor did 
 any one feel the necessity of resolving it. 
 
 If the necessity for logic is so small, the necessity for 
 uniformity is even smaller ; this is but natural. The 
 magnificent development of English history has only been 
 possible because the exclusive privileges granted to trade and 
 commercial enterprises have been limited to certain places, and 
 have never assumed the character of a general legislation. 
 The new manufactories were established in little towns placed 
 outside the radius of these regulations ; there they could thrive 
 unchecked, and gathered around them an immense working 
 population ; this is the reason why to-day, with the exception 
 of London, the most important manufacturing centres are not 
 to be found in the towns which, at the beginning of the 
 eighteenth century, were esteemed the most populous and 
 flourishing. 
 
 It is not irrelevant to observe that most of the principal 
 English laws have been drawn up in consequence of, and in 
 accordance with, the results of an inquiry. Now, it is 
 difficult to extend an inquiry to every class of facts ; for 
 example, to every branch of industry comprised under the 
 general heading of industrial labour; and it is necessary, if the 
 inquiry is to be followed up, to limit it either to the mines, 
 the cotton-spinning mills, the dye-works or the shops, in 
 connection with which the inquiry has been made. It is 
 therefore unusual for a general legislation to result from the vast 
 mass of documents thus accumulated. On the other hand, the 
 statute which results from the inquiry presents none of those 
 qualities of connection and sequence which characterise French 
 law. The inquiry is a whole collection of little facts, and when
 
 THE LAW AND PUBLIC OPINION 167 
 
 an endeavour is made to draw conclusions from it, on one 
 point the evidence is found to be contradictory and therefore a 
 solution one way or the other would tc unjustifiable ; on another 
 point the evidence is insufficient, the question is not ripe ; and 
 on a third, reasons of a general order prevent the adaptation of 
 the exceedingly categorical conclusions contained in more than 
 a hundred concordant answers. Nothing is left, therefore, as a 
 matter of fact, to form the object of a legislation except a very 
 small number of reasons, picked out at random, and without 
 any consecutive order from the picture in which they all figure. 
 How different from French law ! We always bear in mind 
 when we take up legislation some general principle from which 
 we deduce formulas of a more limited character. All w^e ask 
 from the inquiry, when one has been made, is an insight into 
 the whole matter, confirming or negativing this general 
 principle. Thus, without an effort, we command a view or 
 the whole field of the law, and are never hindered by 
 insufficient or contradictory results from an inquiry on any 
 given point ; for on such a point, as on every other, our 
 certainty comes to us from an all-embracing standpoint, and 
 the whole statute is evolved, without encountering any con- 
 tradiction, from the abstract idea which served us as the point 
 of departure. 
 
 Let us now closely examine the varying character of the law 
 considered in itself, and see under what form it appears. The 
 French laws are, as a rule, limited to certain imperative, but 
 simple provisions; they refer the care of organising the working 
 out of detail to the executive power, which meets every 
 requirement by regulations. The English are of opinion that 
 the legislative power, even in its subordinate departments, 
 should not be delegated ; Parliament expects to have the entire 
 control ; itself, as a rule, enacting the necessary regulations and 
 embodying them in the law, in a series of interminable, rami- 
 fied, confused and diffused texts. Sec, for example, the Act of 
 1834 relating to municipal corporations, with its 141 Articles,
 
 1 68 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 some of which are as long as a clause in the Code Napoleon. 
 See the three great electoral laws of 1832, 1867 and 1872 ; 
 which are overwhelming volumes in themselves ; the last con- 
 taining several addenda, the first of which in sixty-six articles 
 is a regular set of laws in itself, covering every detail in 
 connection with elections. It must be recognised that if there 
 is one thing a body of 658 members, who have come from 
 every part of the country, are unfitted for, it is to draw up a 
 code of laws. But the English have made their choice between 
 two evils. Hitherto they have exposed themselves to the 
 inconveniences of an overloaded yet incomplete text, rather 
 than allow the law to be interpreted by the administrative and 
 official authority. 
 
 It has become the custom, in our time, to delegate a large 
 proportion of administrative power to certain ministerial depart- 
 ments, particularly the department of Commerce, and the 
 Local Government Board. They may draw up provisional 
 orders to be laid upon the table in Parliament, which assume 
 the force and authority of a law, and after a certain time pass 
 into currency without opposition. Parliament therefore, in 
 principle, is always the supreme authority ; it alone has the 
 power of conferring a legal value upon provisional orders drawn 
 up by responsible bodies. Nothing could be more unlike laws 
 enacted by decrees or drawn up in the form of regulations 
 relating to public administration, which may be ignored by th^ 
 Houses, and are complete without their confirmation. 
 
 The second point to be noticed is, that in the making of his 
 laws the Englishman proceeds by enumerating cases, persons, 
 or titles — which, however numerous they may be, are never 
 complete — instead of proceeding by general enunciations. If, 
 for instance, the matter under consideration is a robbery com- 
 mitted in a mine, he will enumerate the various kinds of ore 
 capable of being worked and liable to be stolen : calamine, 
 manganese, blacklead, coal, &c. Similarly, in the construction 
 of houses, the legislator himself makes a list of the incom-
 
 THE LAW AND PUBLIC OPINION 169 
 
 bustible materials. Surely this is a great mistake, for such 
 enumerations are restrictive without being complete. It is true 
 that the legislator generally follows up the catalogue of par- 
 ticular cases by a general provision covering other cases of the 
 same kind. But this raises the question, Why, then, is the 
 general provision not sufficient for him ? Here is proof of 
 weakness in the faculty of generalisation ; the mind of an 
 Englishman cannot make use all at once of abstract statements. 
 Before he can handle them with ease he makes experiments 
 with particular cases ; he needs assurance that his formula is 
 not an empty one but applicable to actual facts. 
 
 The third point which should be noted is the tendency of 
 the English to avoid all general laws, viz., those which com- 
 prehend a matter in its entirety, and place it on a regular and 
 definite footing. Perhaps this tendency is partly due to their 
 consciousness that such a law, being of necessity long, compli- 
 cated — particularly with their system of compilation — and rich 
 in innovations and abrogations, would never be able to sur- 
 mount the obstacles encountered in legislative procedure. 
 They make it a rule to confine the legislation within the 
 narrowest possible limits to points exactly specified, leaving 
 the rest to be provided for by former texts. Run through the 
 list of statutes for a year, 1868-69 ^o'' example. Deduct the 
 Acts which relate to finance, and little more than a hundred 
 will remain, forty-six of which were amendments or exten- 
 sions of existing laws. The laws are frequentlv permissive 
 or adoptive, particularly in matters of local administration ; 
 signifying that the legislator limited himself to describina; a 
 certain organisation, which urban corporations, for example 
 could adopt or reject at will. The Bill passes ; the Press discuss 
 it ; a corporation chances it ; the thing succeeds ; an example 
 is set, and opinion formed. When the movement is in working 
 order, but not till then, the law is converted into a compulsory 
 law. In like manner the laws are frequently temporary, a 
 thing unknown among us since the Restoration. They are
 
 I70 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 frankly put forward as trial laws. For example, the law 
 relating to secret voting. A careful study of the Statute book 
 will show us that, even with permanent laws, the English make 
 no pretension to what might be called finality, i.e.^ to having 
 made a law which may be taken as final and leaves no margiji 
 for appreciable modification. This emanates from a sense of 
 equity. The Englishman is conscious of human inability to 
 comprehend a considerable space or time ; he feels the necessity 
 of taking things quietly and by degrees, of proceeding by curves 
 of wide radius so that there is no risk of the locomotive being 
 upset by too sharp a turn. Our neighbours have profited by 
 this circumspection. Their laws have not suffered revolution 
 any more than their political institutions. I mean that a 
 statute is rarely a direct contradiction to the statute it replaces ; 
 it is merely an amendment. But who cannot see that this must 
 result in the division of the legislation into minute sections, and 
 the enormous accumulation of legislative texts in force, at the 
 same time, and on the same subject ? Quite recently a parish 
 having occasion to ascertain their rights in a question of public 
 hygiene, their counsel discovered that there were twentj^-seven 
 laws on the subject, wholly or partially in force, to which it 
 was necessary to refer. In 1873, at a meeting of the London 
 Statistical Society, it was pointed out that the laws on marriage 
 were contained in about thirty statutes, which had to be applied 
 by 15,000 clergymen and 2,000 or 3,000 civil officials. Further, 
 many sections of these statutes having been repealed or fallen 
 into disuse, it was often difficult to distinguish them ; the 
 result being the gravest irregularities in this very important 
 matter. 
 
 The law was not only divided up and scattered over an 
 infinity of little statutes, but its phraseology was very defective, 
 by which. I mean that not only was one law often in con- 
 tradiction to other laws still in force, but the end was often in 
 direct opposition to the beginning. This was largely owing to 
 the fact that the English did not, like us, have special com-
 
 THE LAW AND PUBLIC OPINION 171 
 
 misblons made up as far as possible of men who were authorities 
 ou the subject ; they simply held committees of the whole 
 House, distinguishable from the sittings of the House itself only 
 by the presidentship, which devolved not on the Speaker but 
 on some other member, and by the procedure, which afforded 
 greater facilities for conversation and the observations of the 
 various members ; but the composition was the same, i.e.^ all 
 the members of the House might be present and take part in the 
 discussion if they wished. The result was that, either during 
 the committee or the ensuing sitting of the House, every one 
 of the 658 members was tempted to have his say, and, without 
 any preparation, to propose an amendment, thereby disturbing 
 the constitution of a law which he had not comprehended in 
 its entirety, and with all the parts of which he was not 
 acquainted. It was evident that there was a danger in this 
 which was increased and aggravated in proportion to the 
 number of members present. The laws evolved by so com- 
 plicated an elaboration were naturally extremely confused ; 
 they were thrown back into indecision by the superabundance 
 and lack of harmony of the provisions which were supposed to 
 make every part of them clear. Lord Brougham criticised 
 this manner of law-making with his customary bitterness. 
 The inconvenience of it grew to such a pitch that in 1850 it 
 was considered obligatory to vote for a statute revising another 
 statute, which had been incautiously voted for in the same year ; 
 which, however, did not prevent the judges from sharply criti- 
 cising the legislation emanating from Parliament with their 
 accustomed freedom of speech. In 1873 the Lord Chief 
 Justice declared that no other act was more complicated and 
 perplexing than the Licensing Act. The legislator must have 
 intended sometJiing, but what it was he intended the judge 
 was incapable of discovering. Thereupon Mr. Justice Black- 
 burne from his commanding position began to speak, saying 
 tliat he agreed with the learned Lord in the general tenor of 
 his observations, but did not admit that the Act in question was
 
 172 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 the most confused specimen of modern legislation ; that qualifi- 
 cation he considered ought to be applied to the two Acts con- 
 cerning the public health. 
 
 The English, however, were sensible of these defects in their 
 legislation ; they tried the system of special commissions, but 
 so awkwardly that the remedy did not seem applicable to the 
 evil. John Stuart Mill suggested a specious remedy when he 
 demanded that a permanent commission of Lords and members 
 of Parliament should be constituted, consisting of the highest 
 authorities, to whom it would be compulsory to refer every 
 bill emanating from either private initiative or from the Govern- 
 ment, All the legislation would thus pass through the same 
 hands, every part would be placed in harmony with every other 
 part, and a tradition created. But hitherto nothing of the kind 
 has been attempted. 
 
 It seems as if many of these inconveniences might have been 
 removed by the codification or consolidation of the law carried 
 out in certain of its branches. Attempts from this point of 
 view and to this end have more than once been made, but they 
 have all ended in nothing, the English people being decidedly 
 hostile to the idea. In the more recent attempts at codifica- 
 tion or consolidation it was quite apparent that the most 
 violent opposition was not offered by lawyers, bankers, mer- 
 chants, nor even statesmen : the real obstacle was the invincible 
 reluctance of the public. Certain political men were in every 
 case exceptions to this rule. Lord Selborne, for instance, 
 who gave little encouragement to a deputation from the 
 Chamber of Commerce, soh"citing the codification of the laws 
 relating to commerce ; and again, Lord Bramwell, when the 
 codification of the criminal law was attempted by Stephen. 
 The principal difficulty by which enterprises of this character 
 are met, is peculiar to England ; it originates in the prodigious 
 copiousness, and, at the same time, the prodigious variety and 
 incoherence of the common law, complicated by equity. The 
 reluctance of the public is doubtless the effect of this sub-
 
 THE LAW AND PUBLIC OPINION 173 
 
 conscious reasi ning : the confusion is too great ; if you take it 
 in hand you cannot tell whither it will lead you ; you will 
 eliminate the needful parts ; the order you try to introduce will 
 prove to be another kind of disorder, and a disorder of which 
 neither the judges nor the parties concerned will be able to 
 make head or tail. The machinery works in this way : leave 
 us the chaos to which we are accustomed — it is the safest. 
 
 Efforts have been made, nevertheless, particularly of late 
 years, to find a remedy for the incoherence of the law. The 
 codifications, or rather consolidations, effected present the follow- 
 ing characteristics : (i) They seem to be merely an improved 
 version of the text or of existing customs, and make no attempt 
 at the modification, systematisation, and subordination common 
 to positive principles. (2) They seem to bear only on com- 
 mercial law and administrative law. Criminal law and civil 
 law have been carefully omitted. With regard to criminal 
 law, a noteworthy attempt was nevertheless made by Stephen : 
 he applied to the problem a consummate science and a mind 
 trained in every judicial subtlety, but these advantages shrank 
 into nothingness before the inextricable difficulties of the 
 common law. I must dwell for a moment on this singular 
 incident. 
 
 The history of the attempted codification of the law on 
 homicide is very instructive ; it throws light on the structure 
 and turn of the English mind. It too depends upon the 
 common law. It distinguishes between murder and man- 
 slaughter ; but it only defines them indirectly in the two 
 formulas of indictment. The essential difference in the two 
 formulas consists in the words " malice aforethought," which 
 is to be found in the indictment of murder and not in the 
 indictment of manslaughter. But it so happened that the 
 judges, when pronouncing on each case, were guided first of 
 all by the circumstances of the case and their own feeling of 
 equitv ; and then they set to work and distorted the expression 
 " malice aforethought " in order to make it appear compatible
 
 174 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 with their decision. This led to a regular chaos of exceptions 
 and qualifications, and it was never certain that a criminal act, 
 replaced in the formula of indictment of murder, would not 
 eventually be considered as murder and punished as such. 
 
 The method employed by Stephen was significant. A 
 lawyer named Russell examined all the cases of homicide 
 which, in the course of many years, had been tried in the 
 courts of justice, probably exhausting the list. Stephen pro- 
 posed to find formulas appropriate to the various cases 
 enunciated by Russell, so that in the new code the same solu- 
 tion would be found which had already been given to them by 
 the judge. He did not trouble to find out whether any of 
 these cases were exceptional, or the solutions contradictory in 
 principle. He made an epitome of them in spite of all his 
 conclusions and formulas, and thus arrived at an extremely 
 laborious, confused and subtle definition, complicated by 
 numberless restrictions, which in its turn was nothing but 
 chaos. 
 
 Stephen was naturally led to detail the different reasons for 
 excuse or modification and to set them up as general rules. 
 Now the danger of this was, that these rules might cover a 
 large number of cases where there was in reality no room for 
 excuse nor reason for softening the penalty, all of which 
 goes to prove how much better it would have been to start 
 with the unmistakable general principles which command 
 the whole subject. Generalisation was to a certain extent 
 exercised, on account of the use of formulas, but it was applied 
 to individual cases, which led to the involuntary inclusion of 
 cases that should be excluded, and the exclusion of cases that 
 should be included. In Stephen's method there was an interior 
 antinomy. Directly an effort is made to base all conclusions 
 on examples and particular cases, care must be taken not to 
 deduce from them general formulas. The sole method in 
 harmony with this proceeding is for the judge to decide accord- 
 ing to the analogy of the case which is submitted to him with
 
 THE LAW AND PUBLIC OPINION 175 
 
 such other cases as he has encountered in legal precedents. 
 He goes from particular to particular, not from general to 
 particular. 
 
 The criticisms formulated by the Commission, especially by 
 Lord B ram well, were to the effect that the common law had 
 a valuable elasticity, which would disappear, leaving nothing to 
 compensate for its loss, if codification in rigid formulas were 
 adopted. It is remarkable that not one single member of the 
 Commission pointed out the real defect of the method, and 
 freed the normal rules by generalisation applied to the codifi- 
 cation of a subject. The chief point of these rules consists, 
 not in finding a formula which includes every individual case 
 furnished by jurisprudence, but in ignoring and eliminating 
 everything which, in these individual cases, is exceptional and 
 secondary, and in retaining in the formula only what is 
 essential. The commission, in adopting the project, made two 
 significant observations : ( i ) They declared that though in 
 principle they had no objection to a partial codification, still 
 they could not but perceive that a partial codification, in the 
 sense in which it is necessary to understand the word " codifica- 
 tion," presents more difficulties than a general codification ; 
 (2) They considered that before attempting the codification of 
 a matter so important as criminal law, it would be necessary 
 to prove and perfect the method in connection with less 
 important questions. In this we see a point of view peculiar 
 to the English mind. Now in France, on the contrary, we 
 should say that the more important the subject the more 
 necessary it is not to delay its judicious regulation ; smaller 
 questions could wait. 
 
 We have at last arrived at a point when we are in a position 
 to sum up the obvious and intrinsic characteristics of the law 
 in England. These, to a certain extent, are the reverse of 
 what may be observed in our own country. The French law 
 owes its authority to justice, of which, presumably, it is the 
 expression ; it aims at being reason written down. It emanates
 
 176 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 from the one authority adjudged the most qualified to elaborate 
 proper rules ; it is a philosophic and academic piece of work. 
 The law in England is chiefly a matter of opinion of more or less 
 ancient date. The statutory law is but the youngest branch 
 of a family in which jurisprudence and customs still flourish 
 with a superior dignity, if not an equal authority. The judge- 
 made law, the subject-made law, and the common law, with 
 the aforesaid branch of equity, have an extraordinary amplitude 
 and influence in England ; they fill up all the interstices in 
 parliamentary legislation. 
 
 In France, the statutory law affects a certain elevation of 
 tone, a certain solemnity of form, and, so to speak, a serene 
 faith in its right to be obeyed. In England, appearances are 
 quite the reverse. The legislator seems to doubt himself ; he 
 is visibly impressed by the suspicious or absolutely relative 
 character of his work. The French law is always imperative : 
 it orders ; it enjoins. The English law is very often optional : 
 it suggests ; it recommends a system which the citizens can use 
 or not at their pleasure. French law is voted for an indefinite 
 period ; it is always presented as a solution. English law is 
 often voted for a limited period ; it is presented humbly on 
 trial. A French law is complete in itself and exhausts its 
 subject ; after a miscarriage it is completely transformed, and 
 the new text in its turn is charged with the same assurance 
 and decisive pretensions as the old one. The statute book in 
 England is a mosaic of little statutes, which one by one are 
 timorously amended, first on one point, then on another, and 
 convey the impression of being always in a provisional state. 
 To sum up, on the one side we have a composition, conceived 
 at a sitting, and boldly carried out ; on the otlier, a sketch 
 indefinitely overloaded with touchings up and "repentances." 
 On a first inspection it may be urged that the authority, 
 majesty and prestige which surround the law in France are 
 not to be found in the same degree in England ; and this, in 
 fact, is what an attentive observation proves, contrary to
 
 THE LA IV AND HUBLIC OPINION 177 
 
 current opinion. There is no country where the judges, i.e.^ 
 the persons whose duty it is to administer the law, criticise it 
 with more irony, or ridicule it with more humour, and that 
 from the bench, in the presence of the litigants. There is no 
 country where more statutes have fallen into desuetude or been 
 set at naught by contrary practices which those in authority 
 have given up endeavouring to repress or alter ; and these are 
 the tribunals which, thanks to a legal fiction, are censors or 
 revisors of the law and, at the same time, accessories to the 
 opposition of the public. 
 
 At the time of the great Parliamentary reform the pub- 
 lishers of newspapers and tracts intended for working men, 
 finding themselves hampered by the increase of the stamp duty 
 in the continuance of their useful publications, left off stamp- 
 ing them. They were put m prison, but their papers con- 
 tinued to be printed and circulated. They were sentenced to 
 fines, but the fines were paid off by subscriptions. In four 
 years over five hundred were deprived of their liberty, but 
 their opposition had not diminished. Finally, Parliament gave 
 in, and lowered the stamp duty. The illegal perseverance of 
 a few citizens had swept away the general and fiscal motives 
 which had inspired the legislator, and which he still considered 
 equitable. 
 
 The reason of this is, that a law drawn up by Parliament is, 
 in reality, nothing but a suggestion, which has more or less 
 weight in proportion to the vehemence with which public 
 opinion has already decided on the question, but which, 
 absolutely compulsory as it may be in strict justice, only 
 acquires and maintains its moral authority by acquiescence in 
 the inclinations and opinion of the public. Those to whom 
 the law is displeasing feel themselves at liberty to combat it by 
 the method commonly opposed to undesirable customs, viz., 
 the negation by contrary practice of the precept on which it 
 is based. Such conduct does not necessarily disturb the con- 
 sciences of political men ; on the contrary, it makes them 
 
 N
 
 178 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 first attentive, then uneasy, and finally often complaisant to 
 the breach of legality which has opened their eyes to the 
 rights of the case. Recently the Saturday Review complained 
 that the remarkable number of cases in which the law had 
 been violated had been cited as an argument against the Deceased 
 Wife's Sister's Bill (which, at the time, there was a question 
 of modifying). The argument criticised was perfectly in 
 accordance with the entirely practical idea the English have 
 formed of the law. Reason and justice, considered in them- 
 selves are not the venerated source of the law ; rather is it the 
 energetic and persevering action : indirect sign and evidence of 
 their presence. 
 
 Moreover, there have never been wanting in England 
 thinkers, who are ready to call those who systematically violate 
 the law good servants to the public. They take an honourable 
 and prearranged part in the work of legislation, and form a 
 counterpoise tc^ the political men who systematically uphold 
 unwise laws because they are unable to foresee whither a first 
 reform, no matter how humble and moderate, will lead them. 
 
 Honour to those who, like Wallace, from pure love of 
 justice have put on the uniform of transgressors of the law. 
 The doctrine that the laws must be obeyed, even the bad ones, 
 and no matter to what extent they may have been modified or 
 abrogated, should be accepted with great reservations. Some 
 of the most salutary reforms in the history of England were 
 brought about by opposition to bad laws, and it is certain that 
 without such opposition they would never have been effected, 
 or would have been effected too late to cure the evil. It was 
 by a flagrant violation of the law that O'Connell and the 
 electors of the county of Clare brought about the Catholic 
 emancipation. It was the verdicts returned by humane juries, 
 despite their oaths, which led to the abolition of the atrocious 
 penal laws which disgraced the statute book fifty years ago. 
 Lawyers, merchants, and landlords successfully combated this 
 reform for a long time. "The learned judges," said Chief
 
 THE LAW AND PUBLIC OPINION 179 
 
 Justice Ellenborough in the House of Lords, "are unanimous 
 in their opinion that justice and the public safety require that 
 the death penalty should not be remitted in cases which come 
 under this section of the communal law (/.r,, the theft of an 
 article exceeding the value of forty shillings). If we suffer this 
 Bill to pass we shall not know where we are, and whether we 
 arc standing on our heads or our heels." ' 
 
 ' Sir James Mackintosh.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 ROYALTY 
 
 It has been said, with as much accuracy as there can be in so 
 general a statement, that England is in reality a republic 
 wearing the semblance and invested with the forms of a 
 monarchy. What substance is there in this semblance and 
 these forms ? What degree of consistency and tenacity, what 
 probable stability do they contain ? What services do they 
 still render, what can they set against the growing need of 
 returning to fact, and harmonising appearances with actuality ? 
 These are delicate questions, which resolve themselves into the 
 question of what hold royalty still has upon the masses ? The 
 civilian and the statesman receive their word of command from 
 the " man in the street." In a community which is becoming 
 more and more democratic, the judicial and political conception 
 of the crown cannot continue to differ essentially from the 
 popular conception. Its tendency is to become but a more 
 educated expression of the same idea. The future of the 
 monarchic institution depends on the extent to which it 
 responds to the requirements of the imagination, the bias of 
 the feelings, the method and operation of the mind, the 
 individual conception and the hereditary instincts of the name- 
 less crowd. 
 
 Monarchy has one very considerable advantage over all other 
 political systems : it is the form of government which is most 
 intelligible to the masses, the only one that is visible. It 
 conveys to those who think only through sensations — and
 
 ROYALTY i8i 
 
 their number is still very large — a direct and simple demon- 
 stration of authority. That a House comprised of six hundred 
 and seventy members is the effective legislative force in a 
 country, the sovereign author of every general precept which 
 each person must obey, is a complex, oblique, and artificial 
 idea, calculated to disturb and disconcert minds which are not 
 trained in analysis. If they obtained their conception of " the 
 law " from it alone, they might regard Parliament as the 
 outward presentment and embodiment of supreme power, with 
 the requisite tone, accent, and perhaps gesture of command, 
 but for them it would never possess the great soul of authority, 
 that inexplicable essence before which the individual will is 
 instinctively prostrated. What an exercise of the faculty of 
 abstraction is required in order to comprehend that after a 
 debate which, whether viewed from a distance or close at 
 hand, seems the acme of confusion, a surplus of votes thrown 
 into an urn, or of persons passing through a door, can produce 
 an order^ i.e., a thing complete in itself, homogeneous, cate- 
 gorical, decisive, conquering, arrogant, which claims nothing 
 less than the right to deprive each man of self-government, 
 and forces upon him the sacrifice of his preferences ! What a 
 superabundance of vigour is required for such a victory, pro- 
 ceeding from an abstract operation of addition and subtraction, 
 after a vote as hazardous as a throw of the dice ! It is indeed 
 a paradox. On the other hand, no exercise of the faculty of 
 abstraction is necessary in order to understand that such an 
 on/er can proceed, resounding and irresistible, from the mouth 
 of a single indi\idual. With a considerable majority of the 
 English people, especially the two millions of new rural 
 electors, the fact of a vote in an assembly does not enter into, 
 nor become part of, their ordinary conception of the law, 
 which they picture to themselves, either after the manner ot 
 their ancestors, as a custom valuable from the force of habit, 
 and the mystery of remote origins, or as the personal and 
 present will of the sovereign.
 
 i82 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 What has just been said of the legislator can with still 
 greater reason be said of the executive. Kings readily call 
 themselves the fathers of their people ; and whether they are 
 or not, it is unquestionable that the monarchic institution was 
 originally copied from paternal authority, ?'.<?., from a model 
 with which every man is acquainted in infancy and many 
 realise afterwards on their own account. It is enough for 
 each citizen to look at himself in the midst of his belongings 
 in order to form, not a precise idea, but some idea of monarchic 
 organisation. Parliamentary government has no prototype so 
 well known and familiar to all those from whom it claims 
 submission. Bagshott made the very apposite remark that 
 when Louis Napoleon invited the French to choose between 
 him and the Assembly, it was as if he had given them the 
 choice, not only between dictatorship and liberty, but between 
 the clear and the obscure, the certain and the nameless, 
 between a government and an interregnum or vacuum. They 
 could imagine a Bonaparte on horseback, stretching out his 
 hand, and raising his voice in command. The Assembly, it 
 they imagined it at all, must have appeared to them like *a 
 concourse or crowd, such as they themselves often made in 
 the streets, from which nothing proceeded but confused 
 clamourings and meaningless directions. Observe, too, that in 
 England royalty retains the semblance of supreme authority, 
 though its power is no longer absolute. The observances with 
 which the royal person is surrounded, the mode of speech 
 adopted in addressing him, the pompous dress or military 
 uniform worn in his presence, all help to make him the living 
 image of authority, obedience to whom is to a certain extent 
 the first impulse. On the other hand, obedience to the 
 President of a Republic, or the President of a Council, must 
 of necessity be deliberate, and supported by reason, he being 
 practically on. a level with his -ministers and the Assembly 
 itself. The labourer or the rustic from the fields lets his eyes 
 wander over the black-coated figures without clearly distin-
 
 ROYALTY 183 
 
 guishing which is the leader. Even now many English 
 peasants cannot conceive of any effective power except that of 
 the King ; in their eyes Parliament is only an assembly of 
 delegates whose duties are to bring complaints to the foot of 
 the throne, and control the public expenditure, the ministers 
 being mere councillors and agents of the Crown. It would be 
 useless to try and make these wtf//" interpreters of the Constitu- 
 tion understand that the effective power is entirely in the 
 hands of Parliament and the Cabinet. Similarly, what the 
 educated gentleman calls public order sanctioned by law is 
 even now to many a labourer in the country the " King's 
 peace." To correct his formula on this subject would not 
 rectify the idea he has formed of ^he thing he endeavours to 
 express, but merely obscure it — in other words, set it at naught ; 
 for he is not able to grasp it more precisely or correctly. 
 
 This powerful basis for the monarchic institution naturally 
 becomes undermined and weakened in proportion as minds 
 learn to exercise themselves, to shake off their limitations, and 
 to make use of the faculty of abstraction. The more parlia- 
 mentary mechanism is illuminated by the progress of education 
 and reason, the more royalty is thrown into the shade. A 
 singular circumstance must be noted in this connection. 
 Societies and meetings, of which there are a far greater 
 number in England than elsewhere, are like so many copies 
 of Parliament, and explain its operations in some sort of 
 fashion by a daily demonstration. Gradually the confusion 
 ceases, the various parts of the machinery become distinct, 
 and the complicated apparatus is in its turn an object for 
 representation, an image. The Englishman is like a man 
 who, by a daily study of a miniature steam-engine, at length 
 becomes acquainted with all its parts, pictures them in motion 
 and comprehends its power. When Homer, in saying that the 
 Cyclops had no assemblies, by his astonishment betrayed the 
 strength of the need and custom of meeting together among 
 the Hellenic races, he tacitly limited the future and fortune of
 
 1 84 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 the royal power in Greece and unconsciously predicted the 
 republican transformation of its system of government. 
 Similarly it may be said that each fresh society, each new 
 meeting since 1769, the date of the first public assembly, has 
 helped to render the monarchic fiction superfluous, and to lead 
 up to its abandonment, because parliamentary government is 
 thereby simplified to the mind, and the reality, at first unintel- 
 ligible and disturbing, which is hidden behind the throne, 
 becomes familiarised and more surely imaginable. 
 
 Happily for the English monarchy it has some psychological 
 supports which are less easily shaken and more permanent. I 
 have explained elsewhere the reasons why, in a nation eager 
 for action, the majority is relatively exempt from envy in 
 regard to the upper classes. Effort being in itself a good 
 thing, the inequalities of condition which condemn the bulk 
 of the people to effort, partly lose their irritating effect ; the 
 impression they produce has no bitterness ; consequently they 
 are nothing more than the source of an interesting variety in 
 the picture society presents before the eyes of each individual. 
 The Frenchman cannot think of his superiors for any length 
 of time without returning to himself ; a proceeding which 
 often results in spite and anger. The person and conduct of 
 the local squire, great noble, or prince has a great and 
 impersonal interest for the Englishman, just in the same way 
 as a theatrical representation. The bitterness of envy being 
 left out of the question, the hearts and minds of the vulgar are 
 free to be devoted to the performance of the various actors, 
 from which they extract amusement at little expense ; it forms 
 a soothing recreation after days of incessant hard work, and 
 satisfies the commonplace curiosity and rather insipid senti- 
 mentality of the nation. This has never been so obvious as in 
 the last reign. The sex of the sovereign, which naturally 
 diminished the import of her public acts, did not perceptibly 
 diminish the interest which the most insignificant details of 
 her private life excited. Above the world of politics and
 
 ROYALTY 185 
 
 business, with its arid atmosphere and dim, grey light, it is 
 delightful to catch sight of a splendour of magnificence, a feast 
 for the eyes ; but it is even more delightful to find at such an 
 altitude, a real romance, the introduction to a great " family 
 picture." " Madam," said Lord Melbourne to Oueen 
 Victoria, " do you know why your marriage has produced 
 such an impression of radiant fehcity ? Because it is evidently 
 a very different thing to a mere affair of State." The Oueen 
 responded to this sentiment with touching confidence, when, 
 after her trip to Scotland with Prince Albert, she published the 
 diary which was so void of interest and infantile in art, but 
 succeeded on account of its very simplicity. In the times of 
 the constitutional monarchy in France no one would have 
 ventured to print such a book, any more than the Cruise of 
 the " Bacchante^'' in 1886, which was an account of the journey 
 the two sons of the Prince of Wales had just taken throughout 
 the British Empire. The princes observed, took notes, and 
 listened to pedantic explanations from the mouths of their 
 preceptors, which were conscientiously reproduced in the text ; 
 at Haiti they bought parallel bars for gymnastics ; they went 
 in for steeplechases at Gibraltar . . . The reader is spared 
 nothing. The publication of this wearisome pot-pourri is 
 evidence of the value which in England rank and title lend 
 to the smallest detail in the life of a prince. The English 
 narrator confidently reckoned on arousing interest and wrote 
 down everything ; whereas a Frenchman at the very first word 
 would have had a presentiment of ridicule and given up all 
 idea of the work. 
 
 Another disposition of mind, which is peculiar to the English, 
 helps to preserve the monarchy. The taste for philosophy is 
 extremely rare and limited among the English. Generalisation 
 pushed to extremes causes them a sort of uneasiness ; they 
 prefer ideas of average compass, accepting them as first and 
 indissoluble elements. Naturally this precludes any equalised 
 conception of society. The peoples inspired by the true spirit
 
 1 86 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 of equality are those who, when confronted by the varied 
 elements that go to make up a political nation, untiringly 
 analyse and separate them, never satisfied until they have 
 arrived at that simplest element of all, the individual. The 
 intermediary groups and agglomerations left by history do not 
 stop, hardly delay them ; they press eagerly forward. Only 
 the individual is in accord with Nature. When the limit of 
 the operation has been reached the human molecule stands 
 alone, in its identity, among the millions of copies reproducing 
 it. Equality is the essential law of a society in which the 
 thinker places the synthesis at the end, among the results of 
 the most careful analysis. It is perfectly evident that, on so 
 level a surface, there can be no place particularly designed by 
 nature, and effectively sheltered, for the throne. If royalty 
 exists at all it appears isolated and exposed, there is nothing to 
 proclaim its existence nor surround it with observances. 
 
 The English have neither the desire nor the curiosity to 
 penetrate so deeply ; they would learn how to reach the very 
 source of vital force in the social body they probe, if they were 
 not so careful in the handling of the scalpel ; but they fear lest 
 their dissection should result in a corpse if they push it as far as 
 the primordial cell. It is one of the most significant traits of 
 their political generalisations that the individual has but 
 recently begun to figure in them, even in a small degree. 
 They consider the individual as an element, not natural^ but 
 artificial ; not as a result of a precise analysis, but as the 
 residuum of an exaggerated disintegration. The society they 
 picture to themselves is not an agglomeration of human 
 persons, but a system of superposed classes, and juxtaposed 
 corporations. Classes and corporations are, or have for a long 
 time been, the extreme and indivisible terms of their analysis. 
 These terms, furnished by history, have been perpetuated just 
 as they are by a vigorous practical philosophy, without any 
 examination of their substance. A feeble speculative philosophy 
 without breadth or exigencies, has not thought of demanding
 
 ROYALTY 187 
 
 a more profound investigation. The nation has therefore 
 been apprehended as a vast hierarchy rising liice a pyramid, 
 of vv^hich the King is the apex. Royalty is merely the most 
 elevated in dignity of the corporations ^ w^hich, taken in the 
 aggregate, make up the political world ; it is an essential part 
 of a living whole, sustained by its bulk and justified by its 
 continuance ; it participates in the stability of the entire 
 system, and, like it, appears to be " in accord with nature " ; 
 it shares the great esteem and general belief that is bestowed 
 upon this work of the centuries. There is the same dif- 
 ference between our monarchy of July and the monarchy or 
 Queen Victoria, so analogous in many respects, as there is 
 between the capital of a column which rises, slender and alone, 
 from the emptiness of a horizontal platform, and the im- 
 movable summit of a mountain, which in endless undulations 
 of lesser chains and little hills, extends to the very horizon, 
 before the plain begins. 
 
 There is another principle of life and tenacity proceeding 
 from the same cause : in England, royalty is not only part of 
 a vast whole, but part — in fact, the beginning, of a series, the 
 first link in a long chronological chain, the point of departure 
 and basis of national history. France no longer experiences 
 this impression of continuity ; she is unconscious of any 
 such necessity. The present moment, which is already an 
 abstraction, is still further stripped by our rationalist politicians, 
 who separate it from everything that indicates its place in the 
 series ; they pretend to nothing less than to issue from time 
 and to enter the absolute. The Englishman does not consider 
 that truth should be sought outside reality and life. He does 
 not endeavour to subtilise this abstraction of the present moment 
 still further, bu.t to give it weight, body and substance, by 
 
 ' It is well known that the word " corporation " in English means, not 
 only the social entity formed by the combination of several persons living 
 at the same moment, but also that which is formed by a series of in- 
 dividuals, succeeding one another, as, for example, in the life interest of 
 a benefice.
 
 1 88 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 attaching to it as extended a past as he is able to conceive. 
 Incapable of widening his horizon by philosophical generalisa- 
 tion, he enlarges it by a sort of historical generalisation. 
 He demands from the indefinitude of the centuries the 
 majesty that we demand from the abstract indefinitude of 
 our conceptions. 
 
 This mode of thought forms an almost impregnable support 
 for the monarchic system. Under such conditions royalty is 
 not only an element in a complex yet comprehensive system, 
 but the most ancient element of that system, the emblem of its 
 antiquity and continuity. It is the centre and core of the 
 political constitution, the whole of which nominally proceeds 
 from it, and thereon it affixes the seal of the past, extending 
 the magic of its immemoriality over the institutions that are the 
 latest of its offshoots, and even over the liberties that have been 
 snatched from its grasp. The English, in their passion for 
 antedating whatever they intend to hold up to respect, 
 continually bring forward this venerable evidence, whether or 
 no they have documents to support it ; as ally or adversary 
 they insist on its taking an active part in all their struggles 
 and a share in all their contracts, deeming it a stronger 
 evidence of antiquity than the strips of parchment on which 
 their claims are based. It is by a vain and hollow fiction that 
 the monarchic party in France represent the throne as the 
 guarantee of public liberties ; engendered as they are by reason 
 and abstract justice, such dependence on its protection is 
 violently repudiated. In England, royalty and liberties issued 
 together from the shades of history and thenceforward have 
 marched side by side ; so long has been the journey which has 
 riveted their union and, in a certain sense blended their 
 images in a vague and traditional memory, that the question 
 of separating one from the other has never arise;i. 
 
 Royalty is not only the image of authority, but the author 
 and symbol of national unity. Without it, in the past, the 
 incongruous elements of which the nation is composed could
 
 ROYALTY 189 
 
 never have mingled one with the other ; and those which have 
 not yet been absorbed and resist absorption would disaggregate. 
 Parh'amcnt, in its hour, and to the extent of its abihty, has 
 contributed to the unity of the English people ; but it could 
 not have consolidated it single-handed. Even now the bulk 
 would suffer disruption, and entire sections become detached, 
 if Parliament alone occupied the province of supreme power. 
 This is easy of comprehension. In an assembly which is the 
 highest visible authority, everything is decided by the majority 
 of votes. A province, or colony, the representatives of which 
 found themselves in the minority in the sovereign house, 
 owing to the adverse agreement of the remaining members 
 on a question of vital interest, would be in the condition of a 
 people subjected to the worst, most humiliating and intolerable 
 of tyrannies, that of another people ; they would experience 
 the sensations of a conquered race which no longer belonged 
 to itself, and was governed by its conquerors. Royalty more 
 or less conceals this oppression. Those who are sacrificed 
 accept their part in the sacrifice with greater willingness, 
 and their opposition is not so liable to degenerate into seces- 
 sion, when it is made easy for them to believe that they have 
 to do with a single man, their own traditional sovereign, a 
 master who is also the master of their adversaries. They 
 bow, but not in despair, and stand erect again, uninspired by 
 inexpiable hatred, before the will which to-day oppresses them, 
 but to-morrow will oppress others, and perhaps protect them. 
 Parliamentary oppression, confronted in its actuality, docs 
 not allow them the resource of such illusions ; it is servi- 
 tude without cloak or euphemism — systematic, implacable 
 despotism. 
 
 It is more than probable that if the North American colonies 
 had had grievances only against a king, violator of the charters 
 granted by himself, the most vigorous and legalised opposition 
 would not have degenerated into national war, nor the disturb- 
 ances have assumed the aspect of a revolution. But by the
 
 I90 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 side of the King they saw Parliament, representing a people to 
 whom each generation as it passed made them more remote ; 
 behind Parliament they imagined they could hear even the 
 scum of this nation saying with a swagger, " Our American 
 subjects," and glorying in the fact that they were a people who 
 could be taxed at will. It was this which rendered grievances, 
 in substance light, insupportable to three millions of men, 
 material ready made for a nation ; grievances which, if they 
 had been attributable to the prince alone, would, in all pro- 
 bability, have provoked mere irritation and momentary violence. 
 They saw no option but to fight, disputing the ground step by 
 step ; they would not accept another day of bondage. As a 
 matter of fact, the unconcealed and too plainly irresistible pre- 
 ponderance of the House of Commons in the Government was, 
 without any shadow of doubt, one of the causes which rendered 
 the gradual emancipation of the great North American, South 
 African, and Australian colonies inevitable. Under the acknow- 
 ledged sovereignty of a British parliament the dependence of 
 nation on nation became too apparent and galling ; the bonds 
 had to be loosened. On the other hand, it was, thanks to the 
 authority — though purely official and formal — preserved by the 
 Crown, that the remnant of this dependence was accepted by 
 some selt-assertive populations, who, becoming from day to day 
 more definitely separated from the mother country by their 
 interests and customs, began to form new races and found a 
 distinct nationality. Without this kind of dynastic union, 
 which waived their scruples and saved their dignity, their 
 grievances would have been too blatant and schism inevitable. 
 They agreed philosophically that the choice of their governor 
 and the refusal of laws voted by their individual parliaments 
 should be nominally in the hands of the King ; if, in appear- 
 ance as in reality, they had been under the dominion of the 
 British Parliament neither Canada, the Cape, nor Australia 
 would have borne their yoke with patience. 
 
 In short, it may be said that in a country like the British
 
 ROYALTY 191 
 
 Empire, where so many incongruous elements are in juxta- 
 position, the pure parliamentary system without a king, or 
 with a king in name only — in other words, government by a 
 Convention — could only have led to a series of tense and 
 patent struggles, which, in the beginning, would have hindered 
 the consolidation of unity, and later on would have rendered it 
 altogether impossible, if the more or less approved expedient of 
 a purely dynastic bond had not been adopted. The presence 
 of the King, and the authority he still retains under the wing 
 of Imperial Parliament, has often robbed contests of the 
 inexpiable character of a struggle of people with people, a sort 
 of struggle for life. Royalty, which in the beginning afforded 
 leisure for the reproduction and consolidation of moral and 
 political homogeneity, even now, by means of the fictions of 
 which it is the basis, delays the moment when the unabsorbed 
 and inharmonious elements shall make their secession. Every 
 Englishman who proudly surveys the immensity of the British 
 Empire feels that royalty largely contributes to the equili- 
 brium of this extraordinary fabric, and the feeling awakens a 
 vague consciousness of his debt to this institution in the past. 
 The monarchic form is like an old-established and respected 
 firm, which in no way incommodes its partners, who, by 
 reason of its inoffensive prestige, are deterred from urging a 
 speedy liquidation. The day on which the official government 
 of England becomes republican will be closely followed by one 
 on which Canada, the Cape, and the Australian states will 
 proclaim their complete autonomy, and Scotland, and perhaps 
 Wales, will demand a federation on the basis of equality, even 
 as Ireland has done. 
 
 Finally, the throne, judged from the religious standpoint, is 
 the symbol of national independence. The English, morally 
 as well as geographically, are insular. They have a dislike 
 and natural distrust for the foreigner ; he is their enemy ; 
 they suspect him. If this outlaw, under the fire of hostile 
 glances, interferes in their affairs, arrogates their rights, and
 
 192 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 claims a share in the sovereignty of their territory, they are 
 more seriously angry and resist the attempt with greater 
 energy than any other nation. The interference of the Court 
 of Rome has never been more resented. The prodigious 
 success of the ecclesiastical schism brought about by Henry 
 VIII. was largely due to the fact that he gave the English a 
 national God, a Church of their own, a Pope to themselves, 
 and a king with no visible superior. Anglicanism had not 
 then assumed an individually dogmatic character ; it was only 
 distinguishable from Catholicism at one point — viz., that the 
 prince occupied the place of the sovereign pontiff. Jealous 
 guardians of their private liberties though they were, the 
 English people forgot them for the moment in the immense 
 satisfaction of being no longer dependent on any person outside 
 their own frontiers. It concealed from them, or at least 
 appeared a sufficient compensation for the evils of a revolu- 
 tion resulting from the elevation and illimitable extension of 
 the royal power. The care with which the second of the 
 Tudors caused the " imperial " character of the throne of 
 England to be twice proclaimed, thereby asserting his equality 
 with any foreign potentate whatsoever, clearly indicated the 
 goal towards which the chief of the new Church was at once 
 urged and followed by the whole nation. Schism could have 
 had no greater encouragement. It responded to the passion 
 for national autonomy with which every Englishman was at 
 the time possessed. Later on, less for its own sake than on 
 account of its eligibility as a protection against the common 
 enemy, Calvinism was introduced into a constitution which 
 was not ready to receive it. Religious feeling began to 
 develop with undeniable sincerity and ardour ; but in the 
 revival of dogmatic interest the interests of the State were not 
 lost sight of, for had it not set the ball rolling ? The act of 
 national emancipation, essentially political as it was, never 
 forfeited its place in the public esteem. It was to the English 
 what the Declaration of Independence has been to the
 
 ROYALTY 193 
 
 Americans since 1776. The fervour of feeling it awakened 
 has known no abatement, and its strength and tenacity saved 
 the position in the Revolution of 1534, when religious belief 
 was at its lowest ebb. 
 
 All the force and prestige royalty owed, and continues to 
 owe to this conception is plainly evident. For the King to be 
 spiritual head of the Church was an assurance that the abhorred 
 pretensions of the See of Rome would not be revived ; the 
 position filled was a more certain guarantee than the position 
 vacant. If the throne disappeared what would become of the 
 Episcopal Church left to itself? Who can tell? An irresis- 
 tible gravitation might perhaps restore it to its traditional 
 centre. The Oxford Movement, that of Pusey and Newman, 
 seemed evidence in this direction. Sombre and terrifying is 
 the dream. The throne is like a counterpoise which drags 
 this great moral force in the opposite direction, or a centre of 
 attraction which retains it within the orbit of national life. 
 
 At the present juncture this powerful interest seems on the 
 wane. Tolerance reigns supreme in every British law ; no 
 official position is closed to Dissenters ; Parliament is com- 
 posed of men belonging to every creed ; Jew and atheists 
 elbow each other without oflFence at the promiscuity, and, 
 finally, the Church of Ireland has quite recently been dis- 
 established — all these are signs that the question no longer 
 holds the same position in the political world, nor arouses the 
 same apprehensions as it used to do ; that the public mind no 
 longer requires the same reassurance of " royal supremacy," 
 symbol and surety of independence, wherewith to face the See 
 of Rome. If ever the State policy, in which the Revolution or 
 1534 originated, loses its last hold on public opinion, if the 
 actual decline ot faith, or the development of independent sects, 
 causes the idea to prevail that the change of front of a Church 
 in decline would not be without precedent — and this scornful 
 conviction would assure to the nation, under another form 
 the political security she prizes so highly — royalty would lose 
 
 O
 
 194 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 much of the extraordinary esteem, power, and influence it has 
 enjoyed for three centuries in its theocratic role as guarantee 
 of the imperial autonomy so dear to every British subject ; 
 and one of the chief pillars of the monarchic institution would 
 give way.
 
 PART V 
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE
 
 CHAPTER 1 
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND HIS FUNCTION IN THE STATE 
 
 Looking at the English political world from a distance, the 
 eye is irresistibly attracted to the two poles which occupy the 
 extreme points. On the one side, is the enormous body of 
 public authorities with their agencies, delegations, and sub- 
 divisions, the whole designated by a single collective title — 
 the State. On the other, is the individual, first with the 
 appendages which are merely an extension, or, as it were, 
 excrescence of himself, and afterwards in the groups which 
 he helps to form for the purpose of augmenting his forces 
 and making the utmost use of his energy. What are the 
 surface characteristics, fundamental nature, and actual 
 essence of these two great factors ? In what light does each 
 regard itself and the other ? What respective domains do 
 they occupy ? In what directions and with what circum- 
 locutions do they alter their boundaries ? These are the 
 questions I propose to discuss. They only partially touch on 
 constitutional law, but constitutional law in its entirety is 
 affected by the solution of these questions. 
 
 It is not easy to arrive at a solution. England's trans- 
 formation is rapid. To give an exact sketch of this little 
 world in the process of evolution is as difficult as to photo- 
 graph a troop advancing at a run, and not only advancing, 
 but wheeling round without stopping or breaking line until 
 it has almost faced about. On the outside the order is 
 
 197
 
 198 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 unchanged, while the inner files gradually make a half turn 
 and begin to march in another direction. The complexity 
 of this double movement would make any simple description 
 unintelligible ; we must analyse it and represent it by two 
 distinct images. The most reliable method is to begin by 
 depicting the characteristics, situations, and relations resulting 
 from general, potent, and established facts, which were still in 
 the ascendency less than half a century ago. Afterwards we 
 can point out which of these facts have been more or less 
 undermined, overturned and disturbed, and ascertain the 
 direct- or indirect effects of the work of dislocation. The 
 effects are generally slower and more interrupted than would 
 have been expected from such strong dissolvent forces. An 
 influence which has long been exerted under the action of a 
 powerful cause, is maintained by force of habit long after the 
 cause has lost its vigour and virtue. On the other hand, our 
 logic is too anxious to sum up the inevitable consequences 
 contained in a new situation. The fruit will come out of 
 the flower, and the flower out of the bud ; but our imagination 
 peeps into the bud, and plucks the fruit before the right time 
 has come, judging it to be already ripe. It must have time to 
 ripen. 
 
 I. — The Individual. 
 
 In a methodical study the individual comes first. 
 
 Other nations resign themselves to action for the sake of 
 the credit attaching to it, the repose following it, or the 
 enjoyments procured by it ; but the English love action for 
 its own sake. This is evident to any attentive observer 
 who has spent a little time in the country. The best proof 
 of it is furnished by the classes who control their own 
 destinies. I mean those whom an hereditary opulence 
 renders independent of labour. Averse to indolence, they 
 allow no relaxation to their bodies. Cricket, yachting, 
 rowing, shooting, lawn tennis and riding, occupy the greater
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 199 
 
 part of their time. Hunting has an equal charm for them, 
 and when the season comes public affairs have little chance of 
 competing with grouse shooting. Games of football and the 
 Oxford and Cambridge regattas are no mere diversions for 
 lads ; the Derby is not simply an amusement for the un- 
 occupied and frivolous ; it is a national solemnity in which 
 all England is interested ; the Olympian games in miniature. 
 Articles devoted to sport occupy a disproportionate space in 
 English newspapers. The London journals confine themselves 
 to ten or twelve /:olumns a week against twenty-five or thirty 
 occupied by leading articles ; but even this would ■ seem 
 excessive to French readers. The provincial papers far 
 exceed this proportion : The Scotsman devotes forty-five 
 columns to sport, while the leading articles only occupy 
 forty-seven. The English gentleman eagerly devours this 
 literature. Outside sport, which consumes a large portion of 
 the leisure of the upper classes, we find a gentleman, in 
 London or the country, expending a superfluity of energy in 
 the nobler branches of human activity. In the House of 
 Commons able members are not content with the work of 
 Parliamentary sittings. A large portion of the day, while 
 the Ministers are superintending the despatch of affairs, they 
 sit on committees, debating a host of minor questions of 
 detail concerning local legislation. In the evening ministers 
 and members meet together and discuss subjects of general 
 interest with lucidity until midnight. No one, until quite 
 recently, ever seriously complained that the burden was too 
 heavy for him, and demanded for mundane diversions or 
 slumber the hours that in other countries were not claimed 
 by politics. In provincial England there is not a single 
 personage of any standing but willingly devotes much of 
 his time and thought to the afiairs of the parish, the district, 
 or the county, and yet fails to attend the meetings of a 
 large number of voluntary associations. While he, of his 
 own free will, undertakes these labours, one of his sons is
 
 200 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 perhaps in Australia or Manitoba, leading the hard life of 
 a shepherd on the borders of civilisation ; and another is a 
 missionary at the Cape — his life as a shepherd of men being 
 no less toilsome than that of his brother. 
 
 I have now made plainly evident the imperious need for 
 movement and action which dominates the English nation 
 from one end of the world to the other. When we witness 
 their extravagant expenditure of force in every direction, with 
 or without personal or public profit, we cannot doubt that it 
 is the outcome of some profound and invincible tempera- 
 mental necessity, traces of which must be obvious in the 
 political customs and tendencies of the nation. 
 
 If we consider this microcosm perpetually revolving in the 
 centre of a circle of other bodies : the relations established 
 between it and them : the personality of the individual, 
 extended by his family, and fortified by riches, as exemplified 
 in the classes into which the citizens are divided : we shall 
 see at what points the individual comes into close contact 
 with the State. 
 
 2. — Personal Liberty. 
 
 The general of an army before he advances, assures himself 
 that he has control of his base of operations. Man only acts 
 with decision, vigour, and perseverance when the free dis- 
 position of his body and the free use of his own property are 
 assured to him. This condition is an essential preliminary : 
 to provide it is the business of public authorities. But the 
 Government can turn against their object the means of action 
 which have been granted to them for its attainment. The 
 Englishman has always foreseen and feared this perversion. 
 His disposition to fear and avert it has been strengthened from 
 the very beginning by historical causes which date back to the 
 Norman Conquest. 
 
 The power of the State in England was, at an early date, 
 incorporated in a prince, who was invested with immense
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 201 
 
 power and inclined to all the excesses of a despot. The first 
 necessity, therefore was to be protected against him. British 
 law bears traces in all its branches of this primitive fear and 
 defiance. Parliament forms a protection for the individual 
 against the Crown — the judges against Parliament and its 
 officials — and the jury against the judges. Parliamentary 
 procedure, over-zealous in protecting the rights of the 
 members — ^judicial procedure, over-zealous in the defence of 
 the accused, are the outcome of a belief that the means of 
 intimidation and corruption at the disposition of supreme 
 power are immense ; that every official appointed to share in 
 the control of supreme power is liable to become its accomplice ; 
 that the interest of supreme power is, in the immense majority 
 of cases, in opposition to the interest of the citizen ; that in 
 every case supreme power is tempted to oppress some citizens 
 at the instigation of others, and that no precaution should be 
 neglected to ensure protection against so formidable and 
 perverse a neighbour. The English never willingly call upon 
 the State to assure fair play between individuals. They 
 always have a fear lest its protection should degenerate into 
 oppression ; as a rule they prefer to run the risk of an unequal 
 struggle with private individuals on a level with themselves, 
 rather than summon an ally or even a judge from the camp 
 which might assume the mastery over both themselves and 
 their opponents. If there were no worse evil than to be 
 constrained by a higher power to act contrary to one's own 
 wishes or intentions, the State, most powerful among powers, 
 most irresistible by reason of its prestige and habit of 
 command, the great names of those it represents, and the 
 public welfare of which it is the organ, is assuredly the most 
 to be dreaded. 
 
 The protection of person and property against the Govern- 
 ment assured to the individual is civil liberty. The English 
 in very early days coveted, seized, planted and firmly rooted 
 it in the common law. Up to the present century other
 
 202 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 liberties were protected in England much as they are else- 
 where, and it is by the protection and help it secured to the 
 individual for the safe keeping of his person and his goods that 
 the common law has been distinguished from time immemorial 
 from the laws and customs of the Continent. As a general 
 rule the subject was entrusted to the arbitration of supreme 
 power. It was decreed in England in the thirteenth century 
 that (i) no one could be taxed except by the vote of the 
 representatives of the nation ; (2) arrested, except on a 
 warrant from a duly qualified magistrate ; (3) deprived of his 
 property and imprisoned except after sentence by a competent 
 tribunal in accordance with the verdict of the jury ; (4) 
 detained without trial for an offence if he offered to furnish 
 bail, or for a crime after a certain lapse of time. Between the 
 thirteenth and nineteenth centuries the nation never lost an 
 opportunity of reasserting and acting upon these principles, 
 and vehemently insisting that they should be acknowledged 
 and confirmed by the authorities ; afterwards in a moment of 
 laxness they were allowed to drop. Taxation by vote finally 
 disappeared with Charles I. ; monopolies, a form of indirect 
 taxation, were proscribed by law under James I., and no effort 
 was made to revive them. The only opening for arbitrary 
 arrest was closed when it was recognised that the warrants 
 must name the persons to be seized, and specify the motives 
 for the act of constraint. The two laws of " habeas corpus " 
 (31 Ch. II. ch. 2, and 56 Geo. III. c. 100) likewise set 
 aside anything which could justify or facilitate arbitrary 
 detention. Criminal suits were planned essentially on the 
 assumption that they conceal an attempt on the part of the 
 strong and the knavish to persecute the innocent and the weak. 
 The accused is treated with a half-tender indulgence, and all 
 the machinery of the law is put into motion on his behalf ; 
 it is the accuser who would seem to be the culprit, to such an 
 extent is he hurried, vexed, circumvented, harassed, and 
 threatened with all the penalties of perjury. It was necessary
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 203 
 
 that the judge, administrator of all these indemnifications, 
 should be upright, independent of circumstances, and free in 
 relation to the supreme power ; the Bill of Rights proscribed 
 the setting aside of a law in any case whatsoever, and the 
 Act of Establishment confirmed the irremovability of the 
 magistrates in the higher Courts.^ In spite of this the judge 
 appointed by the Crown, being a State personage is suspected, 
 and a jury of a dozen individuals now pronounce on the case 
 and on the title of the case. 2 As even in such case corruption 
 might procure a certain deference to power, unanimity has 
 been made an essential of each verdict. One patriotic juror 
 is enough to baffle the intrigues of an oppressive Government, 
 It is a sort of judicial Uberian veto. Finally, no privileged juris- 
 diction is admitted for the official nor for the administrative 
 act ; neither are covered by the order of a superior. The 
 administrative act comes within the cognisance of the ordinary 
 courts, and the official is under their jurisdiction. The State 
 itself is on a level with him in their pretorium, and like him is 
 justiceable. The whole system is upheld and inspired by the 
 same spirit, which has not flagged for one day in the course of 
 centuries. The members of our Constituent Assembly of 
 1789 were justly reproached with having based their political 
 system on a resolution of distrust of the supreme power; the 
 English founded their whole administrative and judicial 
 system on a similar resolution. 
 
 As a matter of fact, these fundamental indemnifications were 
 not much good except to rich and leisured persons. Ordinary 
 judges were few in number, and jurisdictions of appeal remote. 
 The expenses of justice attained enormous figures. Poor people 
 
 ' Irremovability was not enough. There should be no temptation in 
 the way of advancement or promotion. It is now the general rule, to 
 which there have been few exceptions, that once appointed they are 
 not removed. 
 
 * This second prerogative, disputed in affairs of the press, was con- 
 firmed in 1792 by an Act which claimed to be a simple declaration of 
 an immemorial right.
 
 204 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 had no means of paying them ; they were obliged to forego 
 justice in order to escape a ruin worse than the individual 
 violence, or partial despoliation of which they were the victims. 
 All administrative policy and local justice were in the hands of 
 the great landed proprietors ; they exercised it uncontrolled. 
 Even in the present day it is pervaded with a certain arbi- 
 trariness. NeverthelesSj protection was sufficiently extended 
 to cover all the classes whose voice is heard in history, and it 
 largely contributed to the maintenance of a strong public 
 feeling, which imbued the authorities and every class down 
 to the very outcasts, with the illusion, desire for and pride of 
 English liberty. 
 
 The guarantees of personal liberty and property in England 
 give occasion for a last remark. The feeling they inspire is 
 stronger in that counftry than elsewhere, because its force and 
 impetus are derived from two well-springs whose waters rarely 
 mingle — revolution and tradition. On the Continent the 
 same guarantees, in the imperfect degree in which they 
 existed under the old system of government, were based 
 on precedents preserved in some local custom or judicial 
 jurisprudence ; no resounding voice proclaimed them to the 
 world. Sometimes they were the result of a royal motu 
 propria^ which could be withdrawn or modified at any time 
 by the prince or his successors. Mandatories, accredited by 
 the entire nation, did not formulate them sword in hand, 
 register them in contract form, and set them down in in- 
 violable ordinances. Every effort of the States General in 
 this direction proved miserably abortive. The English, by 
 a singular chance, ever since the thirteenth century, had been 
 in possession of a solemn Declaration of Rights, formulated 
 by the representatives of the nation, and accepted, or rather 
 tacitly countenanced, by the Crown. This they renewed and 
 completed in 1627 ^"^ 1688, after which it passed into the 
 common law, transferred red hot from the revolutionary melt- 
 ing-pot, and receiving the indelible impression ot the new
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 205 
 
 mould. Round this impression feebler traditions crystallised 
 without disguising it ; the course of time perpetuated with- 
 out impairing the strength of the design received at its origin. 
 Tile common law, properly speaking, contains no trace of this 
 design. It is enshrined in custom, not a part of it ; a Vul- 
 canlan rock lost in a Neptunian sea. Under the uniform 
 patina of the centuries a powerful alloy can be recognised, 
 the fusion of which was once the national work par excellence. 
 No other part of the common law rings with the same sound 
 as these four or five great maxims ; and that they have pene- 
 trated deep into the English heart and become one, as it were, 
 with the public honour, is because revolution still vibrates 
 under tradition. The long toil and labour which go to the 
 formation of custom would not have sufficed to thus set free 
 and exalt it. 
 
 On the other hand, these maxims were destined to become 
 customs. To-day each bears witness to the accumulatory 
 power of heredity. In France, liberty was the birth of yes- 
 terday ; it is a doctrine, but not only a doctrine. It has all 
 the excitement of novelty, and, moreover, the vibrating 
 sonorousness and faculty of expansion which are charac- 
 teristic of abstract formulas. But it has not had time to 
 reach and rally the obscure and secret forces of our nature. 
 The French for centuries were accustomed to seek refuge 
 from a despotism, merciless, near at hand, and arbitrary, in 
 a despotism gentler, more remote and more methodical. 
 They escaped from a feudal sovereign only to fall into the 
 clutches of royalty. It was still despotism, changed in nothing 
 except form, degree, and exercise. In the progress from the 
 worse to the lesser evil no feeling of resentment was connected 
 even with the principle of liberty ; the principle was not as 
 yet involved. Besides, our instincts are not forearmed against 
 despotism ; but the judgment and passions it calls into play 
 violently rebel against servitude ; a revolt that does not date 
 back further than the eighteenth century. The fundamental
 
 2o6 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 nature of man, his spontaneous inclination, or what might be 
 called his unconscious and involuntary mind, rather tend to 
 appeal to, and desire the protection of the State. 
 
 In England, the State is confronted by some individuals who, 
 from time immemorial and from father to son, have been 
 accustomed to think and repeat that their person, their purse, 
 and their house are inviolable, and chiefly threatened by the 
 State ; that they must keep a close watch upon it, and arm 
 themselves against it. Person, purse, and house are to every 
 English subject three fortresses which must not be approached 
 without an authorisation from himself or his fellows. This 
 develops a certain trait in his character, which becomes 
 slowly accentuated, intensified, and solidified from generation 
 to generation. The instinctive resistance it offers to pressure 
 from without has none of the irregularities and interrup- 
 tions of calculated and deliberate resistance. It is like the 
 difference between the compact and solid bone which main- 
 tains its position, and the strained muscle which may weary 
 and relax. The slow operation of time has thus procured for 
 the English subject an advantage over the Frenchman in their 
 respective struggles with the State. In the case of both 
 nations liberty has won a brilliant victory, more recent in 
 the one, in the other more ancient, but ever present in the 
 minds of the masses, as their revolutionary records prove. 
 Further, the influence of a long past has intensified the 
 Englishman's instincts, and affected even the " unconscious " 
 depths of his nature. The horror of servitude is firmly 
 implanted in his temperament. His need of independence, 
 like the spring of a native and spontaneous passion, sets him 
 going on occasion. All the forces of heredity struggle in him 
 and for him against the despotism of the State. 
 
 3. — Political Liberties. 
 
 It is not enough to wring from authority a promise to respect 
 civil liberty ; it must be guaranteed by methods the operation
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 207 
 
 of which is more regular and peaceful than a revolution, and 
 less exhausting for the community. This is the object of 
 political liberties. I place under this head, first, the right of 
 association and assembly and the liberty of the Press ; and, 
 second, a national representation founded on a widely ex- 
 tended electoral franchise. Through the medium of meet- 
 ings, grievances take shape, and begin to assume a collective 
 character. Through the medium of the Press, the voice of 
 the orator, and the dumb thought of the philosopher, penetrate 
 to the extreme limits of the country, sowing everywhere 
 identical convictions and concordant desires. By means of 
 association, these desires become united and summarised, and 
 an exact impression of their force is obtained. Finally, the 
 representative system obtains them admittance to the sphere 
 of authority and activity in the government. 
 
 Between the last mentioned of these liberties and the others, 
 several marked distinctions may be noted. I will not, how- 
 ever, dwell on them now, but will limit myself to two remarks 
 which bear directly on my subject. The first is, that the 
 right of association and assembly and the liberty of the press 
 have always been regarded in England, not as political liberties, 
 but as civil liberties. They have never been included with 
 the right of suffrage in the difficult problem, overloaded with 
 words and often irrelevant, the object of which is to establish 
 a good system of government. They have never been raised 
 to the dangerous dignity of constitutional prerogatives ; but 
 have been left in the position of purely private rights. They 
 have always been regarded as corollaries contained in the 
 fundamental postulat of personal liberty from which they 
 have become separated. The right of assembly proceeds 
 directly from the right every man has to come, go, or stay 
 where he likes. The right of association is simply a develop- 
 ment of the right to enter into contracts. The liberty of the 
 Press is a particular example of the liberty to think and speak. 
 There is no occasion to grant these rights expressly, nor to
 
 2o8 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 define them ; they are tacitly implied. The series of statute 
 books have nothing to show in any way resembling our in- 
 numerable laws on these important matters ; not one of the 
 English declarations of law contain any mention of them. 
 The question is understood as settled in advance ; its perfectly 
 simple solution is implied in the principle of the liberty of 
 the subject, and the most elementary logic will suffice for its 
 deduction. 
 
 In France, we have always held that the Press, associations, 
 and assemblies, so powerful both for good and evil, must be 
 considered in themselves, judged from the point of view of 
 their practical effects, and controlled by special regulations. 
 Is it not singular that the nation which is credited with an 
 inclination towards abstract principles and reasoning by deduc- 
 tion, should be the very one which carefully ignores them in 
 connection with so important a subject ? Our legislators 
 have made it a rule to join the three great liberties to the 
 constitutional problem, considering the matter as a whole, 
 and resolving it by a compromise between all the necessities 
 it presents. On the other hand, the nation which, as a rule, 
 has little liking for generalities and pure logic, relies implicitly 
 on these discredited methods, this baseless dialectic, to establish 
 the titles of the most essential public liberties. However that 
 may be, these liberties have gained enormously by issuing from 
 the turbulent sphere of politics, getting clear of the intrigues 
 attendant on State policy, and entering the quieter judicial 
 region, where they are consubstantial with the immemorial 
 axioms which safeguard personal freedom of action. The 
 most universal and protective of organic laws is as nothing 
 to them in comparison with this putting out of court, which 
 indicates their position near, but outside, the forum. 
 
 The system of political liberties, which secures to the indi- 
 vidual the enjoyment of his private rights, is perfected by the 
 representative form of government. An elected Parliament 
 makes the laws and controls the Government. For more
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 209 
 
 than fifty years noteworthy statutes have successively ex- 
 tended the limits of the electoral body ; the suffrage finally 
 becoming almost universal. For more than fifty years the 
 House of Commons has not contented itself with controlling 
 the Government ; it forms the ministries, the Prince having 
 only the power to countersign the list of official councillors 
 to the Crown, who are appointed his gaolers and masters. 
 It is currently believed that personal liberty will not be pro- 
 tected without the guarantee of an elective body having the 
 prestige and position of great power ; that this sole guarantee 
 efficiently protects it ; and, finally, that the efficiency of the 
 protection is in proportion to the extension, completeness, and 
 fidelity of the representation. The first point is obvious ; on 
 the second an understanding is necessary ; the third cannot be 
 admitted without restrictions. Liberty is, in different ways, 
 equally threatened, whether the sovereignty belongs to a 
 single individual without check, to several without division, 
 or to the majority of the whole nation without a counter- 
 balance. It is always threatened when, in the equilibrium ot 
 social forces, the balance is too much on one side. A unitarian 
 constitution, whatever its principle, allows it no protection 
 beyond that of public custom. Let us confine ourselves to the 
 consideration of three periods. 
 
 Under the Tudors and the first two Stuarts royalty was omni- 
 potent. I have pictured it elsewhere, laden with spoils, gorged 
 with riches, sacrosanct, impeccable, elevated in a sort of 
 assumption. Erect, intact, it stood alone, while the other 
 social forces around it were decimated, disorganised, and 
 abased ; a House of Lords where, at the feet of great prostrate 
 oaks, mushroom peers began to spring up ; a House of 
 Commons composed of the creatures of the Prince, laden with 
 his gifts and yet unsatisfied ; a people weary of civil wars, 
 and deprived of their ordinary leaders, both temporal and 
 spiritual, by the overthrow of feudalism and the downfall of 
 the Roman Church. A period began when royal despotism 
 
 V
 
 210 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 no longer encountered any opposition, and flourished : a mag- 
 nificent, paternal despoiler. Justice was extinguished in 
 tyranny, and liberty was on the point of perishing, when a 
 mighty revival of public spirit saved England from servitude. 
 
 Towards 1800 the scene changed. The House of 
 Commons ceased to be a body representative of the nation. 
 It merely represented a limited number of important electors, 
 rich landed proprietors who surrogated themselves for the 
 people in the exercise of the franchise. This oligarchy, which 
 also ruled in the Upper House, engaged in a struggle with 
 royalty. For the moment it triumphed over George HI., but 
 circumstances were adverse ; it beat a retreat, conquered and 
 captive, though not as yet owning it. Partial measures began 
 to abound, the " legislation of class " as it is called on the 
 other side of the Channel, i.e.^ in favour of one class only. 
 The justice of the peace, a unique figure in the world, charac- 
 terised this period, an embodiment of its noblest traits. To 
 the landed proprietors were given great advantages, and all 
 the influence ; to the manufacturers and traders, as the price 
 of their abdication and at the expense of the entire nation, all 
 the protections and prohibitions they demanded ; to the 
 common people the duty of obedience, but also the right to 
 live. On the one hand, repressive and preventive statutes of 
 extreme rigour, veritable laws of servitude of which the " Six 
 Acts " have remained as a memorable example ; on the other, 
 official alms offered as a consolation to the immense pauperism 
 which was the outcome of the institutions themselves. It was 
 a period of magnificence like the preceding one, but its 
 external glory, though it attracted all eyes, could not hide, 
 even in England, the horrible sufferings, extreme degradation, 
 and eclipse of ancient liberties. 
 
 In 1B32 a new age began. The half-open door allowed the 
 leading manufacturers and traders to penetrate into the legal 
 country. The popular masses, following closely after them, 
 threw their weight against the door and successively forced an
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 211 
 
 entry. In 1884 they were all admitted into the electoral 
 enclosure, which, like a fortified country town in the 
 Middle Ages, seeing its outskirts peopled and its suburbs 
 extending, threw down its ramparts, pushed back its walls, 
 and finally took in a whole district. Royalty and aristocracy 
 were in the position of an ancient urban community, 
 surrounded by a crowd of new residents. They could only 
 maintain the position they appeared to enjoy by being silent 
 with regard to their privileges, avoiding any mention of 
 them to the less favoured, and yielding, or letting it be 
 understood that they would yield, on any occasion when 
 the exercise of their rights might create complications or 
 appear obtrusive. The ancient influence, possession, and 
 empire their title had once conveyed still kept them erect on 
 a soil which was undermined and full of catacombs ; they 
 escaped collapse simply by immobility. Brilliant also, but 
 more especially fruitful, was this period of preparation, in which 
 the nation learned how to command its destiny. An incal- 
 culable amount of iniquity, barbarism, misery, servility, and 
 corruption had been eliminated ; the black and bloody stains 
 could not resist the full light of discussion in a Parliament 
 representative of the majority of the people. On the other 
 hand an incalculable amount of justice, well-being, happiness, 
 and liberty had been poured out upon British soil, and each 
 subject participated in it. As a matter of fact, all these things 
 had been accomplished by Houses and ministries, the leaders of 
 which belonged not only to the middle, but even more to the 
 upper classes. The nation had given suggestions, but neither 
 it nor representatives chosen from its ranks had carried 
 them out. Further, it was confronted by the shadow and 
 the substance of two great Powers : a royalty in decline, 
 which had just made some sort of figure with George III., 
 and an aristocracy, glorious, enlightened, liberal, and opulent, 
 which owned the greater part of the soil, and thereby had 
 already, in a certain sense, obtained citizenship in the economic
 
 212 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 city in which modern society was gradually being swallowed 
 up. To-day the substance has become rarified, and the 
 shadow wavers ; democracy advances over ground that has 
 been levelled before it ; each day as it goes by, each fresh 
 action performed, revives and strengthens its feeling of omni- 
 potence. For the third time England is about to adopt a 
 political system of government which is unitarian and without 
 counterbalance. What has liberty to fear from a government 
 of each by all, in which the popular majority exercises an 
 unlimited power ? 
 
 The popular majority may encounter no outward obstacle 
 in the free play of its will, but within it has a bridle and a 
 regulator ; though, as a matter of fact, the bridle may not 
 curb, and the regulator is sometimes defective, time and ex- 
 perience will perfect their operation and make it more constant 
 and sure. The interests of an autocracy or body of privileged 
 persons are in frequent opposition to the interests of the entire 
 nation. The interests of the great majority, on the contrary, 
 coincide to a very considerable extent with the interests of the 
 whole. This coincidence is essential, profound, and evident ; 
 and when men do not recognise it of their own free will, they 
 are forced to do so by circumstances. There is elementary 
 political economy, intelligible even to uneducated minds, in 
 such maxims as this : the spoliation of riches, in all the extent 
 of their superfluity, will, when divided, yield but a miserable 
 dividend. The superfluity provides most of the capital by 
 which labour is maintained ; divided, it would be but crumbs, 
 and these crumbs would not fulfil the functions of the capital ; 
 they would be rapidly consumed in unproductive enjoyments. 
 An unjust taxation, say for instance, the progressive tax 
 pushed to extremes, discourages economy and disturbs all those 
 who have possessions ; capital leaves the country or does not 
 become formed. An artificial rise in wages increases the net 
 cost of production, restricts the market, thereby reducing the 
 demand for labour, and everything ends in a return to the
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 213 
 
 former state of things, aggravated by the ruinous effect of the 
 disorder into which economical relations have been thrown. 
 Only extreme ignorance or want of forethought could be 
 blind to these consequences, and a cynically brutal egoism face 
 them. The progress of enlightenment, the publicity of dis- 
 cussions, and the strong light they project on doctrines and 
 motives, raise obstacles, daily more powerful, in the way of 
 such attempts. The English need scarcely fear them except 
 at one point, viz., the regime of landed property, and that 
 because they have to put right an abnormal situation : legacy 
 of the oligarchic period and result of a partial legislation. I 
 fear the attempts of a policy philanthropical and reformatory, 
 optimistic and credulous, busy and meddlesome, which will not 
 recognise the necessary quota of imperfection in everything 
 human, invents remedies for every ill, and makes use of the 
 State to produce a small amount of material advantage, dearly 
 bought by the simultaneous expenditure of the vital force of 
 the individual, far more than the effects of a directly tyrannical 
 and rapacious policy. 
 
 A curious thing may be noted. This danger has been 
 increasing for the last fifty years in the same proportion as 
 Parliament has been growing more universally and completely 
 representative of the nation. Before 1832, at a time when the 
 immense majority of the people was unrepresented in the 
 House of Commons, and had no voice in the formation of the 
 Cabinets, public opinion, already conscious of its own force, 
 kept a vigilant and jealous watch rather over the Acts of 
 Parliament which contained a set of regulations or a hint of 
 coercion, than over the statutes which granted additional 
 powers to the ministers and their agents. Any intervention 
 on the part of the law disquieted the nation, because the 
 makers of the law were like strangers to them ; they were 
 averse to all adm..iistrative protection, because the bureaucracy 
 seemed like the hand of a government in which they had no 
 part nor lot. At the present day, on the contrarv, England
 
 214 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 can regard the House of Commons as a reproduction in 
 miniature of the entire nation, and the Cabinet as a repro- 
 duction in miniature of the House of Commons. In the laws 
 the nation recognise their own work : the indirect outcome 
 of their will. In the ministers and administrative personnel 
 they recognise men taken from their own ranks, who represent 
 them in some way or another, and hold a power of attorney 
 as their elect. Measures of intervention, therefore, do not 
 arouse the same suspicion, nor the action of the bureaucracy 
 the same offence. As a matter of fact, the prejudices of the 
 preceding period have not yet disappeared, but they have 
 diminished and continue to diminish daily, as is always the 
 case with effects which survive their cause. In virtue of this, 
 the plenitude and exactitude of Parliamentary representation 
 has singularly lessened the moral obstacles encountered until 
 quite recently by governmental protection ; it has to a certain 
 extent brought into prominence the liberty of the individual 
 by softening the instinctive dislike and reasoned apprehension 
 which struggle for it. Instead of the spontaneous determi- 
 nation not to receive it, by which every attempt to draw up a 
 scheme of government based on statutes and controlled by 
 officials was received, discreet suggestions, definite invitations, 
 and finally urgent summons begia to appear, addressed to the 
 legislator and the government. The nation who recognise 
 themselves in these personages are no longer warned and fore- 
 armed as was the case when they represented one or two 
 classes only, and not the whole of the people. They do not 
 consider it excessive that the legislator should prohibit or 
 prescribe certain actions to the individual, or that the Govern- 
 ment should control, prevent, coerce, and play the part of 
 arbitrator and judge. Nothing but a long education by means 
 of facts will exhaust this credit open to authority, and insure 
 the reappearance of the well-founded aversion, which formerly 
 protected liberty by the sure and deep-seated instinct of the 
 masses, in the form of the studied objections of the best 
 informed and most enlightened public opinion.
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 215 
 
 4. — The Family. 
 
 The Englishman has a family. The judicial ties, which in 
 England unite the wife to the husband and the children to the 
 father, are of a very special nature. Since 17B9 French family 
 life has been organised on the model of a constitutional 
 monarchy, with more or less of a leaning towards the republic. 
 Up to our own days English family life has retained all the 
 characteristics of an absolute monarchy. Let us try to picture 
 it to ourselves as it was thirty years ago. As a rule the wife 
 had no dowry ; it was the custom among those who were rich 
 or in comfortable circumstances, to settle the estates on the 
 eldest son, and divide the bulk of the personal property 
 between him and the younger brothers. The daughter 
 received what was called a portion ; generally a scanty income 
 drawn from the paternal revenues. This undowered condition 
 is very easily accounted for. With a dowry a woman would 
 have claims, and a certain appearance of legal rights. The 
 male desired to be the sole author of the welfare and riches of 
 his family ; it ensured his being sole master. Supposing the 
 woman by chance had great possessions. Marriage robbed 
 her of them ; her capital, the revenues of her estates, the 
 proceeds of her labour fell to her husband ; she could dispose 
 of nothing, the making of a will was denied her. Her judicial 
 personality was sunk in that of the father of the family ; she 
 could not even distinguish herself from him in order to enter 
 into a mutual agreement with him. She was not the legal 
 guardian of her children. Legally she was not consulted when 
 there was a question of their marriage. In fact, the manus 
 was not heavier upon the Roman wife. It was the most 
 severe law in all this legislation of statutes and immemorial 
 usages, no natural generosity softened it ; chivalry, which had 
 so greatly ameliorated the condition of women on the Con- 
 tinent, only glanced over this race virile to brutality, leaving 
 nothing behind to lessen the arrogance and temper the de-
 
 2i6 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 liberate egotism of the male. It owed its virtue to the great 
 value attached to action which it alone had the power of 
 diminishing. The woman was only permitted to be a faithful 
 and submissive helpmate ; she accepted the role and adapted 
 herself to it. 
 
 Feelings of deference and habits of subordination became 
 largely developed under this legal regime. The English wife 
 was humble and timorous in the presence of her lord and 
 master. Wherever he went she followed, even into the most 
 unhealthy climates, leaving her children behind her. She was 
 wife first and mother afterwards. " How do you pass your 
 time, madame ? " asked Tocqueville of an American woman, 
 at a time when the Anglo-Saxon element still predominated in 
 the United States. " We admire our husbands " : the answer 
 might have come from an Englishwoman. Habits so con- 
 firmed would yield but slowly to the operation of a new 
 judicial system. In 1870 and 1882 the legislator sowed the 
 germs of an immense moral revolution. Already the equity of 
 jurisprudence had seemingly modified the harshness of the 
 regulations which placed the interests of the wife at the discre- 
 tion of the husband ; but only women in easy circumstances 
 could utilise the expensive procedure involved. The two latest 
 statutes enfranchised women of every class ; they were per- 
 mitted to have property of their own, and attend to the 
 administration of their own estates. Their liberty to dispose 
 of, their ability to acquire, and their lesponsibility in the 
 management of their property was absolute ; the formula 
 which reappeared in every article of the law was " as if 
 they were not married." In 1886 the law went a step 
 further ; the mother was declared the legal guardian of her 
 children. She might appoint a guardian to act in con- 
 junction with the guardian appointed by the father, or, 
 which is more significant, with the father himself. It was 
 a sudden transition, a jump from excessive subordination to 
 a very wide independence. It is a serious question to know
 
 Tim INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 217 
 
 what in the long run the effect will be on the wife, and 
 what her attitude in regard to the head of the family, when 
 instead of encountering in the laws the repeated admonition 
 that her duty is to efface herself and be useful, she finds a 
 sort of exhortation to consider herself as one of two un- 
 fettered and equal contracting parties, a judicial personality 
 with distinct interests over which she has entire control and 
 can manage as she likes. 
 
 The children, who are more numerous than in France, are 
 brought up apart in the nursery. No enervating tenderness 
 falls to their share ; they do not feel that they come before 
 their father in the affections of their mother. The former 
 sees little of them, and is always something of a stranger to 
 them. They allude to him ironically as "the governor"- — 
 a French boy would say " le patron^ The term implies 
 the idea that the supreme authority is in his hands, and that 
 he is the master of the house. The master is a person of 
 whom ill is always spoken. The son, who in France feels 
 unconstrained and at home under the paternal roof, the lad 
 whose irreverent familiarity of manner makes us smile, is 
 rarely to be met with in England. The amiable comrade, 
 the pleasant and approving critic of his parents' methods 
 of acting, already half-master of the house, ready like a partner 
 or party legally interested to estimate or discount the inheri- 
 tance of which he can be deprived but in part, is hardly known 
 in England. There the most ordinary type is the young man 
 of determined character, who only thinks of himself, makes his 
 own plans for the future, gets engaged without consulting his 
 parents, even, if necessary, marries without their consent, and 
 regards the paternal home as the bird, with outstretched wings, 
 regards the nest from which he means to fly away at the first 
 pufFof wind. The father is not confronted, as in France, with 
 those legal parasites, the heirs on whom the property is settled. 
 He exercises uncontrolled what I might call testamentary 
 magistracy. Except in the case of entail, and with the
 
 2i8 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 exception of the property entailed, he can freely dispose 
 of his fortune, divide it equally or unequally among his 
 children, bequeath it all to a stranger, or largely endow 
 some public institutfon. His decision is law ; it is not 
 subjected to any restriction. It is not supervised, examined, 
 and even judged and criti'cised by those who have the 
 consciousness of a sort of natural or prior right, on the 
 strength of which they may be tempted to thwart him. 
 Taking everything into consideration and all differences apart, 
 I know no personage in the modern world who puts me 
 more in mind of the ancient Roman paterfamilias than the 
 head of an English family ; not so much on account of 
 the effectiveness of his authority, since the son, more often 
 than not, escapes it by an exodus, as of his importance, inde- 
 pendence, and undisputed sovereignty in the interior of the 
 home. He is a monarch reverenced in his own kingdom, 
 almost a monarch by divine right. Compared with him the 
 Frenchman seems like the President elected by a critical 
 Parliament. Picture them both on the eve of engaging in 
 a hazardous enterprise. The Frenchman is first of all obliged 
 to use up some of his force in order to win over his wife and 
 adult sons to the project, and overcome the persistent opposition 
 he encounters every evening at his fireside. The French wife 
 has a clear head, reasoning powers and courage of her own. 
 Her husband finds in her a judicious coinisellor, sometimes no 
 mean critic, often a sensible colleague, but seldom the moral 
 comfort of complete agreement. Too often he is discouraged, 
 or else time goes by and the opportunity is lost. If he persists, 
 he does not feel that there is behind him a safe retreat in case 
 of rebuff, a place where he can recover'himself with a com- 
 panion who blindly believes in him, and will give him back his 
 faith in himself. The stability of his resolutions, the sureness 
 of his hand are profoundly affected. The tlnglishman en- 
 counters neither opposition nor resistance in his liome. His 
 wishes are undisputed. His sons, if present, respect them j if
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 219 
 
 absent, ignore them. His wife associates herself with liim. 
 He feels himself approved and followed, though it may be a 
 little passively. In this clearly recognised authority, complete 
 autonomy, and high responsibility there is the principle of an 
 unusual force, importance, and energy. The family who have 
 accustomed the English child to discipline, and habituated him 
 when adolescent to liberty and responsibility, form him in 
 the role of father and husband to take the initiative and to 
 command. 
 
 The laws of succession and testamentation in England have 
 effects which are felt beyond the precincts of the home. We 
 have seen that under the terms of the law the sons are not 
 secure of any part in the paternal inheritance. This un- 
 certainty accustoms them to the idea that man must count 
 only on himself; it develops virile qualities in them. Testa- 
 mentary liberty, if Nature were not occasionally rebellious, 
 should produce as many distinguished men as there are sons. 
 In large families of great wealth the law of entail has virtually 
 restored the privileges of the eldest son. Every year the 
 younger sons of the family, with the advantage of a good 
 education but no fortune, go forth from the home which can 
 no longer shelter them. They go to seek wealth in Canada, 
 Australia, and at the Cape. Their presence helps to raise or 
 maintain the moral tone of the more or less mixed and doubtful 
 society in such places. In other countries they would live in 
 bare competence on their share of the paternal inheritance ; in 
 England they receive but a meagre pittance, and feel the 
 necessity of creating an inheritance for themselves by their 
 own industry. They expend themselves in enormous efforts, 
 which are generally crowned with success. They, in their 
 turn, found a family in which they reign supreme. 
 
 While the younger sons are thus furnishing recruits for 
 every hazardous enterprise, conscious of more advantage 
 accruing to them through their connection with a great 
 house than a more considerable share of the paternal inheri-
 
 220 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 tance would afford them, the heir elect remains in the home 
 of his fathers. The testamentary liberty does not affect him 
 less profoundly than his brothers. Completed by the law of 
 entail, it concentrates in the hands of a single individual, from 
 one generation to another, an increasing and accumulating 
 inheritance, the revenues of which exceed the ordinary limits 
 of individual power of enjoyment. The heart of the possessor 
 succumbs to the attraction of power exercised for good, and 
 becomes ennobled by the idea of a social mission. Thanks to 
 this same liberty, the citizen can pass the limits of his own life 
 in his benevolent ambitions ; in fact, he can endow useful 
 institutions to perpetuity without rendering them liable to a 
 reduction or inopportune withdrawal of his bequest. In the 
 same way the pretorian expedient of trusts enables him to 
 constitute social bodies having a quasi-civil ctiaracter of 
 indefinite duration. Trusts complete his ability to include 
 the future by making it one with the past, and thus he is 
 encouraged to conceive great designs. Finally, the liberties of 
 the Press, assemblage, association, and even federation give him 
 the means of extending the circumference of his field of action 
 in the same way as he has extended it from the point of view 
 of duration, including in his sphere of operation the whole 
 territory of the United Kingdom, and sometimes even of the 
 whole world, as in the case of great missionary societies. 
 All these are reasons why human personality in England is 
 unusually ample, vigorous, and hardy. In no other country 
 does the individual appear to be better endowed and equipped, 
 whether for resisting the State and keeping a check upon it, or 
 for supplying its deficiencies, and participating to a considerable 
 extent in its work. 
 
 5. — Property. 
 
 Wealth is an instrument of power, security, and liberty to 
 the Individual. The English territory abundantly furnishes 
 the raw material which incessant labour fashions and trans-
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 221 
 
 forms. There is no country where, in the same degree and 
 within the same narrow limits, a very healthy climate, fertile 
 soil, adapted both for corn and pasture, and an unusually rich, 
 varied, and deep mineral subsoil, are to be found in conjunction. 
 Tin, iron, and coal are piled in layers of prodigious thickness 
 and expansion. Coal, which is used in all the manufactories, 
 is everywhere within reach. It has been calculated that the 
 yield of the coal mines alone, expressed in human labour, 
 reaches the same figure as the production of a population 
 covering forty-four and a half millions of acres. It is almost 
 as if every inhabitant of the United Kingdom were provided 
 with a slave labouring solely for his master's benefit. More- 
 over, England, by her geographical position in relation to the 
 New World, Europe and the great ocean currents, and by the 
 expansion and indentation of her coasts, seems preordained to 
 become the mart of universal commerce. The activity of the 
 natives has therefore at hand a material all ready to be turned 
 to account j a never-failing spring of opulence from which 
 every individual may draw, and many have drawn, with 
 eagerness. 
 
 I have previously shown, and will endeavour to make it 
 still clearer, that in the last two centuries the interval between 
 one cbss and another has sensibly increased, and a gulf opened 
 between their conditions and fortunes. This inequality has a 
 profound effect upon the character of the citizen, on the means 
 he has at his disposal, and consequently on the attitude he is 
 led to adopt in regard to the State. In a country where some 
 have nothing to lose, and others arc so superfluously endowed 
 that they can risk a great deal without any fear that their 
 habits may be disarranged or their welfare affected, the spirit of 
 initiative is far more general, and venturesome enterprises more 
 numerous, than can be the case where riches are more equallv 
 divided. England has shown herself excellently apt at com- 
 merce, speculation, colonisation, and the emigration of both 
 rich and poor. This superior aptitude proceeded originally
 
 222 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 from historical causes, but it has undoubtedly been confirmed 
 and developed by the outrageously disproportionate distribution 
 of this world's goods. From this point of view it is a favour- 
 able circumstance that the preponderant element in society, 
 that which gives tone to its character, is not based on those 
 average fortunes which encourage people to be content with 
 little, to live on what they have, to grow rich by daily saving, 
 and not to desert the certain for the uncertain. 
 
 In addition to this, man is inclined to conceive and propose 
 to himself ends in proportion to the greatness of the means he 
 has at his disposal. Individuals, who command revenues 
 comparable to those of a little State, acquire a quasi-royal 
 sense of their omnipotence and social duties, and willingly 
 undertake works of a public character and interest. In other 
 countries such works have to be left to the charge of the 
 general budget, in default of volunteers. In England there 
 are those who voluntarily dispute them with the authorities, 
 and take advantage of the procrastination of the latter to be 
 beforehand with them. The activity and power of interven- 
 tion of the State are circumscribed by the alacrity of these 
 auxiliaries or competitors, who offer or force themselves upon 
 it. We call to mind the immense canal constructed at the 
 end of the last century by the care and at the expense of the 
 Duke of Bridge water. In France, for such a work, even in 
 the present day, it would be necessary to attack the Chambers 
 and the general Councils interested, promote a law, form a 
 company, and put the bureaucracy and the department of the 
 Ponts-et-Chauss6es in motion. In England, the initiative and 
 power of a single man are sufficient for the task. 
 
 One of the most characteristic signs of this economic 
 condition is to be found in the history of commercial legisla- 
 tion. France, country of small patrimonies, was, at an early 
 date, compelled to organise, even for modest enterprises, the 
 association of capital with limited liability. Besides the joint 
 stock companies, a form indispensable in great transactions,
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 223 
 
 and known even under the old regime by the name of chartered 
 companies, she has authorised, since 1807, the limited liability- 
 company. England also, at an early date, legalised the joint 
 stock company for enterprises of exceptional importance, but 
 did not favour companies of limited liability. During the 
 first half of the century she continued to recognise for ordinary 
 transactions only those companies in which each shareholder 
 accepted the entire burden of unfortunate speculation or bad 
 management. With the exception of railways, nearly all the 
 manufacturing companies and all the banking companies were 
 composed of very large shareholders, sufficiently few in number 
 to know each other well, and to arrive at a mutual under- 
 standing ; sufficiently well informed to be able to keep a close 
 watch on the conduct of business ; and, for these two reasons, 
 having no thought nor wish to avoid an unlimited and joint 
 liability. The limited liability company is suited to people 
 with small means, who, occupied with their own affairs, and 
 incapable, even if they wished it, of having a voice in the 
 management, comfort themselves with the thought that they 
 have risked little, and only pledged themselves to what they 
 can afford to lose. The great English capitalists did not 
 require the same security as these ignorant and pusillanimous 
 gamblers. They rejected it as likely to bring discredit on 
 their enterprises. Even after 1862, when the law allowed the 
 free formation of joint-stock companies with limited liability, 
 the unlimited liability companies were still numerous, the 
 banks, in particular, were mostly in this position, and it was 
 only in 1879, consequent on a disastrous failure, that they 
 solicited facilities for applying the new regime to themselves.^ 
 
 ' An excellent little book, The Money Market, characterises their attitude 
 and claims as follows .- — " The great capitalists, with few exceptions, are 
 leagued against the principle of association of capital and limited 
 liability." When unlimited liability was the only legal company system, 
 none but the richest men could embark in great enterprises, the result 
 being that the great houses became greater, and the rich richer, which led 
 to the gradual elimination of the middle classes of commerce. In fact,
 
 224 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 About this time little groups of financiers began to grow up, 
 more powerful and concentrated than had hitherto been 
 known, forming an elite of capitalists, backed by immense 
 resources, equipped for great undertakings, and prepared for 
 heavy responsibilities — worthy rivals of the State. 
 
 The enormous difference in social conditions enabled many 
 to enter into competition with the public authorities, restricting 
 their power of action on the one hand, but, on the other, 
 obliging them to intervene as arbitrators and redressers of 
 wrongs. Inequality in England is, indeed, in the force of 
 things ; I have shown how it originated in the extraordinarily 
 active temperament of the race. Everywhere throughout the 
 country equality is, as it were, against nature, and if an 
 attempt is made to restore it, it tends to self-destruction more 
 rapidly than would be the case elsewhere. In other words, if 
 ever the English democracy, assuming control of its own 
 destiny, is to undertake to correct so profoundly natural a 
 disorder by means of the legislator, and to establish artificially 
 a more equitable distribution, ^ it must have a Socialism more 
 
 mercantile transactions became so colossal that these latter classes were 
 in danger of being absolutely exterminated. It was at this moment that 
 the joint-stock principle came to their aid. It is significant that the 
 manufacturers and traders should so long have accepted without com- 
 plaint a code of regulations framed for the convenience of a financial 
 oligarchy, and that they should have so marvellously prospered under a 
 system which inferred a very large fund of fearlessness and spirit of 
 adventure. 
 
 ' It appears, however, that for some years past the inequality of fortune 
 has been gradually diminishing. According to a communication from 
 Mr. Goschen to the Statistical Society (December, 1887), the large and 
 small incomes have diminished in number, to the advantage of the 
 average income. From the figures furnished by several large companies 
 it may be seen that whilst their realised capital increased 25 per cent, in 
 ten years, the number of shareholders increased 72 per cent., so that the 
 average value of the shares fell from ^^443 to £323. Similarly, the 
 average value of the insurance policies fell from ;^492 to £466. The 
 incomes between ^150 and ^1,000 increased in number, while those 
 above ;f 1,000 decreased. Mr. Giffen, on his side, is known to have 
 arrived at a similar conclusion. Such an evolution could certainly not
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 225 
 
 decided in its aims, more powerful in its methods, and more 
 constant in its operations than is to be found among other 
 nations. The importance of this deduction cannot be estimated 
 unless a distinction is made between the various kinds of 
 wealth. There is not only a difference, greater than is usually 
 the case, between opulence and poverty, but between the two 
 great classes of property, personal and landed, there is a 
 difference from the legal point of view which is unknown to 
 us, at least, in the same degree. The Roman and French 
 idea of inheritance, which made no distinction between the 
 various kinds of property, has no part in English law. In 
 every estate there are certain regulations for landed property, 
 and others for personal property. These two are quite 
 distinct, and the first has the chief consideration of the law. 
 A succession is opened ah intestat : the conditions are not the 
 same for the land, and the money or investments. The land 
 always goes to the eldest ; the money and the shares are 
 divided. For every succession, even testamentary, the public 
 treasury until quite lately used two different systems of weights 
 and measures, and the balance was all in favour of the land ; 
 in fact, up to 1853, nothing had to be paid on it, and after- 
 wards only a third of the amount paid on personal property. 
 
 proceed from a single cause. It might be partly due to the measures of 
 protection and regulation, already more or less socialistic in character, 
 which the Icgislatcjr had been prodigal of for some years past, on behalf 
 of the hitherto cruelly neglected working classes. A hand was held out 
 to the working man ; he received new facilities for the protection of his 
 interests and the alleviation of his miserable condition, which led to a 
 marked rise in small incomes. The same evolution, in so far as it affected 
 the decrease of large incomes, might result from the actual crisis, which 
 weighed more heavily on the proprietors and the capitalists than on the 
 wage-earners. The increase in the number of limited liability companies 
 betrayed a people who intended to limit their risks more and more, and 
 regarded the shares they took in a concern as so many lottery tickets. 
 Finally, the rapid increase in the number of branches of the savings 
 banks furnishes an equally significant sign in the same direction. But 
 the inherent character of the nation is too strong to yield without 
 resistance to the effect of these comparatively ephemeral causes.
 
 226 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 It was not until 1894 that the successions to landed property 
 and personal property were assimilated, and both became equally 
 responsible to the public treasury. Even then there existed 
 a difference between them, a survival of the obsolete past, viz., 
 that the landed part of each estate should be treated as a 
 usufruct for life, and enjoy a delay of from four to eight years 
 before it is completely free ; we have nothing similar in 
 France. Need I recall the civil privileges which protected 
 the land against the plea of the creditor, the economic 
 privileges which burdened with a premium on the profit of its 
 products, the products of every other industry, the political 
 privileges which conferred on those who enjoyed them almost 
 arbitrary powers of administration and policy in the provinces ? 
 Even in the present day, and under the democratic law ot 
 1 88 1, is it not remarkable that the right of suffrage rests 
 solely on the possession and occupation of land or house, and 
 that personal property, were it even that of a Rothschild, 
 cannot entitle a man to be an elector? 
 
 Personal property is unlimited ; the inequality of fortunes 
 composed of personal property therefore, causes only moderate 
 grievances. The share that falls to the jot of the favoured 
 does not debar others from the attainment of equals possessions. 
 Landed property, on the. contrary, is limited in accordance 
 with the land that may be turned to account. The share that 
 falls to the lot of the few cannot be overmuch increased 
 without depriving others of their heritage, and creating a 
 monopoly which is certain to excite hatred. The losers 
 instinctively seek for some one to redress their wrongs ; they 
 find, willingly recognise, and soon call to their aid, the State 
 and the law. This is what has come to pass in England. 
 During the whole of the eighteenth century the class of great 
 rural proprietors, known by the collective title of the gentry, 
 set themselves systematically to work to acquire all the arable 
 land. At the end of the seventeenth century there were still 
 a large number of small proprietors, harassed, vexed in a
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 227 
 
 thousand ways, tempted by advantageous offers, finally sold 
 their land, and the boundary was removed between their 
 domains and the latifundia^ already extended by the division of 
 the pasture land. The cultivation of these large territories, in 
 the same way, was acquired by a i^^N proprietors, and the little 
 farms disappeared. The ruined farm buildings may still be 
 seen here and there, in cases where they were not razed to the 
 ground. The humble tenants of former years were compelled 
 to go forth like bands of emigrants, and their places were filled 
 by a few great capitalist farmers. The agricultural labourers 
 followed them. Pasturage and flocks to a large extent replaced 
 the cornfields, which meant a great economy of manual 
 labour, and led to the exodus of a whole population of 
 agricultural labourers. The latifundla^ cleared of men, with 
 here and there a lonely building standing out against the 
 horizon, gave an impression of solitude and silence. The 
 ownership of land, thus concentrated, had the detestable 
 character of a monopoly, and received the even more sus- 
 picious character of a mortmain from the custom of legal entails. 
 The settlements usual in all great families assured the integral 
 transmission of the patrimonial domain from generation to 
 generation. Two-thirds of the soil were thus debarred from 
 commerce. 
 
 In the face of so many abuses we cannot be surprised that 
 the law and the State were called upon to intervene and 
 redress the grievances caused by existing institutions and 
 customs. A number of settled estate Acts furnished a remedy 
 for the anti-economic omnipotence of those who owned land 
 under settlements by authorising the heir of entail, with the 
 acquiescence of the Lord High Chancellor, to perform all the 
 acts necessary for conservation ; in particular to sell one part 
 of the property in order to obtain funds for the improvement 
 of the other, to consent to leases longer in point of time than 
 his own possession, and even to part with the land entirely. 
 The tenant in tail is now as free as any tenant in fee simple
 
 228 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 whatsoever ; further, a Conservative Lord High Chancellor 
 could suggest, without creating any sensation, the abolition of 
 the right of primogeniture, and the prohibition of all settle- 
 ments for the future. In Ireland, the system followed in 
 Ulster has been taken up by the whole country, and dual 
 ownership, a result of it, has served as a starting-point for the 
 three F.'s— free-sale, which allows the farmer to sell his 
 interest in the property when he wishes ; fair rent ; and fixity 
 of tenure — which aim a formidable blow at liberty of agree- 
 ment by substituting the decision of a committee of arbitrators 
 for the free-will of the proprietor. Further, an universal 
 expropriation of the real owners has been undertaken by the 
 State, which supplies the funds to the farmers who wish to 
 become purchasers, demanding reimbursement only by small 
 and deferred payments, covering the original sum advanced 
 and interest on the same. Very much the same thing has 
 been done in Scotland for the benefit of the crofters. In 
 England, protective laws give the farmer right to rid himself of 
 game which damages his property ; and other laws guarantee 
 him, in case of eviction or retirement, compensation for any 
 permanent improvements he may have made, at his own 
 expense, in the land he has cultivated. Finally, quite recently, 
 the statutes of 1 888-1 892-1 894 granted generally to County 
 Councils extended rights of expropriation which they must put 
 ijito force in order to institute, for the benefit of the poor, 
 either recreation grounds or small dwelling-houses. In such 
 cases the State, through the medium of the county, intervenes 
 as a benevolent lender who, by agreeing to long-deferred 
 payments, reduces the sums owing by the farmer who borrows 
 from him to a minimum. It is noteworthy that the larger 
 number of these reforms strike at the very principle of 
 prcjperty ; they deny the landlord his right to use and abuse, 
 refuse him liberty to regulate the condition of his land by free 
 contract, and even grant the tenant indemnities for improve- 
 ments he may have made unknown to or against the wish of
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 229 
 
 the proprietor. Finally, they furnish some sort of extenuating 
 circumstances for the economic position of the land, resulting 
 from the small number of those who hold it ; and, as a kind 
 of excuse and commencement of reparation, offer the right of 
 expropriation, which is made dependent on three elective 
 committees nominated by practically universal suffrage, i.e.^ 
 composed chiefly of non-proprietors. All this is an indication 
 of disquiet in the minds of the people, a sort of uneasiness in 
 their consciences ; it is a state of things which cannot 
 endure. 
 
 6. — Groups : the Race. 
 
 The family is not the only group in which the activity of 
 the individual is employed and concentrated, and finds a point 
 of support against the State. His activity also finds vent in 
 other natural and more extended groups. I call them natural 
 because they belong to those which " the Jaw finds and does 
 not create." They are in fact organised by individuals ; but 
 they proceed from necessities superior to individual wills, and 
 all the power of governments cannot prevent them from run- 
 ning their course. Local, provincial and national groups merit 
 separate study ; but space fails me in this work and I will limit 
 myself to considering the race, the various classes of society, 
 and the religious sects. The two latter groups interest us in 
 two ways, by their relation to the State, and their effect on 
 the individual. The State is compelled to regard them as 
 organised and independent forces, capable of energetic and 
 deliberate opposition. It is obliged to reckon with them ; they 
 dictate to it, limit, constrain, or second it, or supply its 
 deficiencies. On the other hand, man finds in them a sphere 
 of collective life other than that of public life ; he acquires 
 the sentiment of duties other than those of the subject and the 
 citizen ; he becomes inspired by other impersonal aims, all of 
 which are so many powers and forces, titles and arguments, 
 against the claims of the State. These groups may become
 
 230 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 the agents of tyranny ; each of them is strong enough to 
 influence the public authorities and dictate the law. So long 
 as they maintain an equilibrium amongst themselves they are 
 doubly the agents of liberty ; they form material and moral 
 centres of opposition and hold the central authority in check. 
 They inspire man with noble passions, and he refuses to be 
 coerced by the injunctions of State policy. 
 
 Above these two groups is a third, more comprehensive 
 than the nation itself, "u/z., the race. England is not only a 
 nation and an empire, it is an ethnical quantity^ composed of 
 distinct aggregrates, scattered over every continent, divided by 
 institutions, separated by interests, yet bound together by unity 
 of origin, identity of blood and language and by a common 
 fund of ideas and tendencies. Such in former days were the 
 United States, and such to-day are Canada, the Cape and 
 Australia. The Frenchman seeking air and liberty encounters 
 in his country's rare colonies the same Government, even 
 more arbitrary in its methods, that he desired to escape ; and 
 if he goes further afield he is chilled by the cold of a vast 
 world where the oui is never heard. The Englishman of the 
 United Kingdom, who does not find his position to his taste 
 or is not satisfied with the political regime^ has a second and 
 larger country, the different provinces of which offer him every 
 degree of free government and the most varied economic con- 
 ditions. He can leave British soil, and settle in numberless 
 places in the two hemispheres, without ever feeling that he is 
 a foreigner among his new fellow-citizens. This ability to 
 steal away and escape, peculiar to countries which have 
 colonies peopled by autonomous populations, assists the vigorous 
 development of a feeling of individual independence. It 
 reconstitutes, as it were, between each citizen and his govern- 
 ment the conditions antecedent to the free social contract. 
 The political regime is not imposed, but proposed. Each man 
 has the right to adhere to or reject it, for other forms of govern- 
 ment are within reach. Political conditions of another type are
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 231 
 
 open to him in countries where he will have no need to feel 
 that he is a stranger. In England, therefore, we shall not 
 encounter the habit of resigned submission, peculiar to countries 
 which the dissatisfied citizen rarely leaves, because by leaving 
 he would have to face an unknown, or at least a foreign land. 
 The very diffusion of the race is a guarantee of liberty. 
 
 7. — The Classes. 
 
 I have related elsewhere ^ the history of the classes in 
 England. I will not take it up again in this work, but 
 only add a few remarks bearing directly on my subject. 
 
 First, the English government has, as an essential charac- 
 teristic, an oscillation which places the supreme authority 
 alternately in the hands of two opposing political parties. If 
 one of these parties simply represented a certain class that 
 class would have an opportunity of freely furthering its interests 
 in the legislation and administration, and an oppressive system 
 of government would ensue. Happily for the English, the 
 parties, on the other side of the Channel, have a past, regard 
 for which is a bond between their members, and the tra- 
 dition of which, handed down, has attached certain families and 
 localities to one cause from time immemorial, and united them 
 against the opposing cause, independently of any present 
 utility. The stratification of the parties is largely historic, 
 whilst the stratification of the classes is essentially economic. 
 There may have been from time to time an approximative 
 correspondence of the divisions between the superposed strata ; 
 there has never been continuity or combination. In this way 
 the prestige of history and veneration for the past have acted, 
 and continue to act as safeguards of individual liberty. 
 
 But it is not probable that the distinction between the 
 political parties and the social classes can be maintained ^n 
 
 ' See Lc Dcvcloppanciit dc la Constitution ct dc la Socictc politique en 
 A u'^lctcrrc.
 
 232 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 contemporary society. The classes are gradually becoming 
 transformed into parties. In the struggle for existence, every 
 day more violent, present interests create affinities which 
 outweigh all others, and historic bonds become unloosed at the 
 smallest pressure. Political society in the present day is like a 
 heterogeneous and moving mass, divided into blocks which con- 
 tinually knock one against the other. At the beginning of 
 modern times the social classes so nearly encroached one upon 
 the other, the barrier between them was so low and easy to 
 surmount, that they might have been considered for the moment 
 as a single class with interior subdivisions. I have shown how 
 the smooth ascent which, beginning at the humblest, does not 
 stop until it arrives at the highest dignity, was interrupted in 
 the eighteenth century by the immense expansion of industry, 
 and how the commercial disorder was aggravated by the 
 enterprises of the landed aristocracy. A gulf has opened 
 between the great proprietor and the farmer, between the 
 farmer and the labourer, between the master and the workman, 
 between the rich manufacturer and the wealthy owner of the 
 soil. The opposition and strife among the different classes 
 have usually resulted in an appeal to the State, which is the 
 natural arbitrator of conflicting claims, or a pressure brought 
 to bear upon the State making it an instrument for power and 
 profit. Each class now attempts to make use of the law to 
 protect itself, to fortify its position, to trouble or weaken its 
 adversaries and to offer to neutrals the inducement of certain 
 advantages, thereby lulling their grievances or assuring their 
 alliance. The historical parties still exist, but they have 
 become mere playthings ; the flatterers and instruments of the 
 passions of each class. They yield themselves up to the law, 
 and naturally liberty has to pay the cost of such collusion. 
 The bulk, the force, the evolution and the tendencies of each 
 class are therefore of great importance to the future of British 
 liberty. We will endeavour to characterise them briefly.
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 233 
 
 A. — TJie Gentry. 
 
 Looking at it from a distance, English society appears to be 
 divided into two distinct "nations" — the rural and the manu- 
 facturing. At the head of the first are the gentry, i.e.^ the 
 class of great landed proprietors. The influence of this 
 intelligent, enlightened and educated class enormously increased 
 during the whole of the eighteenth century and up to 1H32. 
 I have shown I these 150,000 gentlemen, shut up in their 
 indivisible latifund'ui^ and masters of the whole rural district. 2 
 The civil law confirmed their position ; no tax was laid upon 
 them by the public treasury ; the statutes relating to excise 
 and customs protected the products of their land against com- 
 petition. It seemedas if the word " land " had a peculiar virtue 
 of its own which carried with it certain privileges. Elsewhere, 
 such privileges are conferred by birth ; here, the land secures 
 them, and, as it were, drops them into the hand of the legis- 
 lator. To get a complete idea of that personage, the squire, 
 (gentleman proprietor), we must consider him in his relations, 
 not only to things, but also to the men who surround him. 
 Every one, without exception, is dependent upon him — the 
 clergyman, who in one case out of two is chosen by him ; the 
 farmer, to whom he can give six months' notice ; and the 
 agricultural labourer, whom he houses by the week. He has 
 still further power over these men by right of his administrative 
 and judicial authority. In the county he exercises part at 
 least of the powers we divide between the conseil de prefecture, 
 the recteur, the ingenicur des Ponts-et-Chaussdes, &c. He 
 also exercises those of a Justice of the Peace, examining magis- 
 trate, commissary of police and preliminary court of justice. 
 Whether it be alone, at the Petty Sessions, the Special Sessions, 
 
 ' In 1877, 37,409 possessed twenty-five millions of acres out of thirty 
 millions. 
 
 See Lc DcvcloppcDwiit dc la Constitution ct dc la Socictc politique en 
 Anglctenc, i vol., Librairie Armand Colin.
 
 234 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 or the Quarter Sessions, he is always to be found on the Bench, 
 deciding the different cases, and discharging the duties of his 
 high position. His jurisdiction has not been controlled by any 
 superior instance since the end of the seventeenth century, 
 neither has it been subjected to the writ of certiorari by which 
 important questions are called up before the Courts of West- 
 minster. The methods of summary justice have been 
 gradually introduced into the cases submitted to him, and in 
 the same proportion those whom he judges have had their pro- 
 tection withdrawn. Nevertheless, in most cases it is enough 
 for him to allege his good faith in order to avoid repression, 
 and all action against him is suspended for six months. 
 
 A crowning act, which w^as being led up to during the 
 whole of the eighteenth century and part of the nineteenth, 
 made him absolute master of those surrounding him. Legis- 
 lation under Elizabeth had placed parish autonomy upon a 
 firm footing ; legislation in the eighteenth century took an 
 opposite course to that of the preceding century ; and the 
 parish magistrates were deprived of their prerogatives, which 
 were transferred to the justices of the peace. These justices 
 determined the assessment of the poor-rate and the distribution 
 of charity. Meantime, the poor-rate became a topic of local 
 taxation, the stem on which additional fractions of a penny 
 were grafted. A large proportion of the public money was 
 therefore under the direction, not of those who contributed it, 
 according to the English principle, but of an authority chosen 
 from the upper classes. It is true that the land, or rather the 
 proprietors of the land, bore the whole burden of this tax, and 
 therefore had a right to a voice in the matter of the employ- 
 ment of the public money. 
 
 A final privilege completed and confirmed the situation. 
 Landed proprietors alone have access to the House of Lords, 
 the possession of a great estate being the first condition of their 
 patent. The rise of the land census made only landed pro- 
 prietors eligible for the House of Commons. They have,
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND TIIR STATE 235 
 
 moreover, pocket boroughs, the houses and land of which 
 belong to them, "nursed boroughs" and even great towns, 
 the venal corporations of which they buy for cash. A figure 
 expresses this situation and sums it up. At the beginning of 
 the nineteenth century 487 members out of 658 were 
 virtually elected by the Lords and rich squires. 
 
 This enormous growth of the power of the gentry has led to 
 their occupying a unique position in the midst of the new 
 nation developing around them, and the part they play in it 
 has become more and more contradictory and inconsistent. 
 Landed property and its owners even now constitute a world 
 apart, surrounded by a different atmosphere and governed by 
 laws of gravitation which are not in accordance with those of 
 modern economic society. That a thing so necessary to all 
 parties as that the land should become a matter of monopoly 
 by systematic and concerted concentration in certain hands, 
 that it should be withheld to a certain extent from traffic by 
 the law of entail, that it should be worked as a whoie to its 
 utmost capacity — that is to say, with large application of 
 capital, and under the most precarious conditions — yearly 
 rent — that it should eventually lose, by the political and social 
 advantages appertaining to the possession of the soil, the actual 
 value determined by the size and security of its revenues, and 
 that it should assume the fantastic value of a fancy article, are 
 so many conditions which have thrust, and continue to thrust, 
 landed property into a sphere of facts and ideas as completely 
 isolated economically as it is judicially. 
 
 It is impossible that a class so highly favoured and firmly 
 established on the soil should not be prejudiced to some extent 
 against the disturbances resulting from letting others do as 
 they like. How can they understand the advantages of the 
 "struggle for life" which is the principle of all improvement, 
 and at the same time the highest guarantee of individual 
 liberty ? They take no interest iK)r part in the social move- 
 ment caused by each man seeking to employ his abilities and
 
 236 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 the shifting of property until it falls into the hands most 
 capable of making use of it. They have always dreamed and 
 still dream of a firmly established world, in which the privileged 
 positions are upheld by the law and magnificently purchased by 
 voluntary or compulsory philanthropy. Their instincts have 
 always inclined them towards a patriarchal system of govern- 
 ment and humanitarian system of legislation. Patriarchal 
 government — they conceive it in an exclusively English 
 form, by the combination and concentration of all authority 
 in the hands of the justice of the peace. Of yesterday's growth 
 alone is their comprehension that the administrative authority 
 is too technical, complicated and circumstantial for them, 
 and they resigned it, not from weakness or lack of courage, 
 but from a deliberate consciousness of their incompetence. 
 Humanitarian legislation : the first poor-rate under Elizabeth 
 was mostly paid by the gentry, who even by degrees took upon 
 themselves all the expenses of relief, contrary to the purport of 
 the original statute which taxed personal as well as landed 
 property. Under Charles II. they added to the text of the 
 anti-economic clauses, notably by the article relating to indoor 
 relief At the end of the eighteenth century they protested 
 by an Act of Parliament against that worst of socialisms which 
 cynically metes out alms in accordance with necessities. No 
 more open encouragement to improvidence, idleness and 
 misconduct was ever given. The re-establishment of indoor 
 relief was also due to them and bore the same fruits of cor- 
 ruption, and yet they did not take the warning to heart. 
 All this philanthropy which was sincere, yet self-interested, 
 aimed instinctively at averting the vigilance of the legislator 
 by correcting the most crying abuses of the landed property 
 system. The means, equally with the object, proved abortive. 
 The gentry simply gave an example to the public authorities 
 and furnished them with the idea to their own detriment. 
 Philanthropy in the hands of the individual is in reality an 
 accomplice of the State, always ready to play the part of
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 237 
 
 deserter, or at least to treat with the enemy. The landed 
 proprietors did not incur the reproach of inconsistency when, 
 in the Reformist Parliament of 1832 they undertook the 
 administration of the Factory Bills.^ These they passed in 
 spite of the opposition of the manufacturers, thereby subjecting 
 this, the chief of all industries, to minute regulations, and the 
 superintendence of the State. However, this diversion, in 
 which the pleasures of retaliation were mingled with the 
 noblest and sincerest motives, did not protect them from the 
 attentions of the legislator. In short, the whole rural organisa- 
 tion was presented in the form of a paradox which aimed at 
 establishing order in accordance with the principles governing 
 the surrounding world. Not only did this paradox appeal to 
 and invite the interference of the State, but furnished it in 
 advance with a sort of apology. The powerful position of the 
 landed gentry conferred on them almost absolute authority over 
 the whole surrounding neighbourhood. Official protection could 
 not be charged with depriving liberty of what liberty deprives 
 this other equally arbitrary authority. At bottom it matters 
 little to the individual whether it is the proprietor of a district 
 who deprives him of his licence to sell drink, simply because it 
 is his pleasure to do so, or the State by a temperance law ; in 
 reality there is no difference. If, on the other hand, the law 
 intervenes beneficiallv, as in the case of forcing a landlord to 
 sell lots of ground for the erection of places of worship for the 
 Dissenters, or in order to prevent an abusive system of regula- 
 tion regarding the alignment of houses in a quarter of the town 
 belonging to a single proprietor, would not Parliament and the 
 State be considered as deliverers? Would they be accused of 
 infiinging private rights ? The natural effect of liberty, 
 exercised amid exceptional circumstances, was an unexpected 
 
 ' In 1846, the Six Hours' Bill, supported by Lord Morpeth, Lord John 
 Russell, Sir Robert Peel, and Lord John Manners, was opposed by 
 Messrs. Hume, John Bright, Roebuck, Cobden, and thrown out by a 
 majority of ten. In 1844, Cobden refrained from voting on the Twelve 
 Hours' Bill presented by Sir John Graham (a Conservative).
 
 238 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 development of arbitrariness and even tyranny. This effect 
 eventually compromised liberty itself, and covered up the 
 defects of socialistic expedients. 
 
 In short, the gentry may resent the interference of supreme 
 authority in certain questions ; they never openly resent it. 
 They have a vague feeling that the over-accentuation of their 
 economic situation justifies the moderating and arbitral inter- 
 vention of the legislator. Their habits of protection, and 
 their humanitarian instincts, which are the outcome of the 
 situation, are not essentially antagonistic to the interference of 
 the State. 
 
 These are the strongly marked and still existing character- 
 istics of the local gentry, too firmly ingrained and inveterate to 
 disappear in a day, even when the position which gave rise to 
 them has been considerably impaired and shaken and its chief 
 foundations menaced with ruin. The great and all-important 
 change which has been eflFected is that, though the actual 
 extent of landed properties remain the same, their relative 
 importance has been singularly diminished by the development 
 of funded property. The depopulation of the country has 
 deprived the rural world, headed by the gentry, of the prestige 
 of a numerical majority. The centre of gravity of the mass 
 has passed from this rarified body to another body denser and 
 ampler, which recognises other chiefs and regards the gentry 
 as strangers. Economically, the abolition of the Corn Laws 
 in 1846 took away one of the privileges granted to landed 
 property and placed it under the regime of the common law. 
 Since this epoch, the landlords have seen a gradual fall in the 
 value of rents, a depreciation which in no way determined 
 them to demand a revocation of the law ; they contented 
 themselves with timidly recommending fair trade and 
 applauding the fruitless attempts of the British Zollverein, 
 which have been the result of Imperialism. Politically, the 
 decline was longer and more hesitating and yet equally irrepar- 
 able. The law of 1832, however, might pass for a Conserva-
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 239 
 
 live measure in intention, although Liberal in its effects, it was 
 completed by the laws of 1867 and 1884 which permitted 
 access to the electoral body, the former for town labourers and 
 the latter for country labourers. England novf hzs practically 
 universal suffrage. Two complementary laws — the Ballot Bill 
 and the Act against corruption — seriously impaired the influence 
 of the gentry by suppressing intimidation and the sale of votes. 
 All these laws have helped to constitute an England, legally, 
 if not morally, new. They have prepared a transformation 
 which will not be completed — I mean will not become 
 permanent — for half a century. But the movement is betrayed, 
 year after year, by statutes more and more openly democratic, 
 and recently by the degradation of foreign policy, which has 
 been brought down to the level of popular intelligence and 
 passions. Royalty, however, has not disappeared, as in France 
 or Spain, nor has a republican party become leagued against it ; 
 the House of Lords has not been seriously threatened, and the 
 inner world of politics has not opened wide its ranks to men 
 of another class, the class whose wishes would henceforward 
 be its law. Finally, administratively, the gentry have unre- 
 sistingly accepted a dispossession which has left them with only 
 their judicial powers, the police and the grant of licences, 
 transferring all the rest of their prerogatives to the elective 
 local corporations. This dispossession was still further 
 characterised by the allocation, made in the counties, of 
 certain parts of the general taxation (licences, aliquot parts of 
 the rights on testamentary succession and of excise on beer, 
 and of additional duty on alcohol) on the condition that the 
 product may be applied to an expenditure determined by the 
 law. 
 
 The jealous care with which the county squires avoided 
 the subsidies of the State has been plainly evident in higher 
 circles. But here it is no longer the gentry, but an elective 
 and popular authority which receives the subsidies and 
 determines their use. This, indeed, is the most important
 
 240 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 revolution which has disturbed England, for here the law has 
 come into direct contact with customs, and attempted to 
 modify them. To begin with, the landed aristocracy, hitherto 
 without competitors, were confronted in each county, district, 
 and parish with bodies animated by a different spirit to their 
 own. A rapidly increasing bureaucracy kept it in check, 
 because the legislation governing these bodies is so arranged 
 that elements are included which do not cut much of a figure: 
 the petty townspeople in the county councils and the labourer 
 in the parish councils. These new-comers do not fail to grow 
 bolder with time, and to exercise the influence belonging to 
 the majority. That unique and central personage, the justice 
 of the peace on his seat, whom a Lord Chancellor, at a period 
 of crisis, characterised by the sentence : " The only question 
 is to know whether the Justices of the Peace will or will not 
 do their duty," no longer exists constitutionally ; the people, 
 with the acquiescence of the law, surround and press upon 
 him, climbing up the degrees which placed him above them. 
 It is especially in local administration that one can predict to 
 a certainty and shortly a decisive change, a new departure 
 which, far from reserving for the gentry a distinct rble^ thrusts 
 them like a nameless element into a democracy which will 
 henceforward control their destinies. 
 
 B. — The Farmers and the Agricultural Class. 
 
 Below the great landed proprietors are the great moneyed 
 
 farmers, a small class which steadily increases at the expense of 
 
 the small farmers.^ This class, also, as it were, was somewhat 
 
 ' Between 1851 and 1876 the number of small farms (under 100 acres) 
 fell from 39,1.39 to 33,132 ; the number of large farms (over 1,000 acres) 
 rose from 492 to 582. The Journal of the Royal Statistical Society (for 
 1897) stated that between 1885 and 1895 the small estates (betvi^een 50 
 and 300 acres) increased in number by 2j per cent., with a corresponding 
 decrease of 3 per cent, in the number of estates of 300 acres and 
 upwards. What, on the other hand, is the explanation of the fact that 
 the number of farmers steadily decreased .' It fell from 371.700 in 1851 
 to 318,500 in 1876, and iu 290,800 in 1891.
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 241 
 
 out of the economic perpendicular, which caused a certain 
 obscurity and distortion in their ideas, regarding the role of the 
 State. The natural ambition of this class was to secure their 
 own progress by obtaining a firmer hold over the land, the 
 actual possession of which was as yet denied them. The law 
 had already assured them compensation for any improvements 
 they might make on the farms, and authorised them, in 
 accordance with the circumstances of each particular case, to 
 carry out such improvements regardless of the approval of the 
 proprietor. The security of a long lease being unobtainable, 
 they set to work, and, impelled by their desires beyond the 
 limit of a reasonable guarantee, went to the length of claiming 
 that their possession should be transformed into quasi owner- 
 ship. Fixity of tenure, a kind of modified confiscation, and 
 the determination of the price of rents by official arbitration, 
 which was a patent infringement of the right to enter into an 
 agreement, both figured on the programme of the Farmers' 
 Alliance. Here, again, the socialism of the State did not 
 encounter any resolute opponents.^ 
 
 The moneyed farmers, as remote socially as the proprietors 
 from the agricultural labourers, did not fill up the immense 
 gulf between the two classes. Compelled to take up their 
 position at the very foot of the ladder, the latter class counted 
 for and weighed less and less in the sum and equilibrium of 
 political forces. It is well known that the development of the 
 great manufactories in England was extraordinarily expansive, 
 vigorous, and rapid. The same effects that elsewhere we have 
 seen sluggish, slow and interrupted, were in this case powerful, 
 concentrated, and intense. The growth of the urban, and 
 depopulation of the rural, districts progressed with extra- 
 ordinary celerity. The rural population made up at one time 
 the whole of England, and not only was the proportion 
 
 ' See Mr. Howard's address to the Farmers' Congress in 1885. 
 These demands were a new departure for the English " Alliance." 
 The Scotch " Alliance " had formulated them long before. 
 
 R
 
 242 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 between it and the urban population reversed, but the former 
 fell to a proportionately miserable percentage, and is still 
 declining. The last census shows it as losing nearly a tenth 
 during the decade 1881-1891, and representing only io*36 
 per cent, of the active population. Again, in 1881 it fell from 
 3*95 to 3*25 per hundred acres ; and during the last ten years 
 it shows a still further decrease. Not only in numbers has it 
 lost, but the petty proprietors have departed, followed by the 
 small farmers, the big farmers and agents now occupying 
 nearly the whole territory. 
 
 Finally, let us consider the agricultural labourers. The 
 towns attracted the healthiest, strongest, and most active ; 
 they swarmed thither in great numbers, leaving behind to 
 found families those who were unable to follow them, the 
 timid, the weak and the idle. " We have only old men left," 
 sadly exclaimed a farmer in the inquiry of 1877. Each 
 exodus was thus signalised by a selection favourable to the 
 urban population and destructive to the rural population. 
 After each departure, the remaining population was less long- 
 lived, capable of filling up the gaps, and becoming physically 
 regenerated by procreation. In many places the peasantry 
 could only furnish degenerate specimens of the species. After 
 Tory Socialism, the poor-rate and the workhouse put the 
 finishing touch to their enfeeblement and degradation. In 
 addition to this, the relative salubrity of rural life, in their 
 case, lost half its reparative virtue. I have drawn a picture 
 elsewhere of these wretched creatures living in slums, three or 
 four miles from the scene of their agricultural labours, less 
 exhausted, perhaps, by actual toil than by the length of 
 their journey every morning and evening, and nights of 
 promiscuousness in time of infection. This state of things is 
 gradually becoming more and more rare ; but who can 
 calculate the length of time necessary to recover from its 
 hereditary effects ? In short, in the last hundred years the 
 centre of social gravity has not only been displaced, but has,
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 243 
 
 as it were, been transferred from one pole to the other. In 
 the country districts the State could no longer reckon upon a 
 middle class composed of prosperous and active men, indepen- 
 dent of the freeholders, such as in former years had furnished 
 the soundest portion of the Parliamentary representation ; it 
 had to fall back all of a sudden on the reduced and debilitated 
 population, who were like strangers on a soil which did not 
 belong to them, and in cottages which, as a rule, they rented 
 by the week — a population almost as shifting as that of the 
 manufacturing districts. The large, narrow-minded, eager, 
 avaricious and hard-working class, which forms the basis of our 
 French political world, made up of petty rural proprietors and 
 labourers living in their own cottages, as much a part of the 
 land as a statue of the marble from which it has been hewn, 
 more sensible of local than of class interest, trustees and 
 guardians of the Conservative interest, an admirable dead 
 weight opportunely restoring the disturbed equilibrium, has 
 nothing analogous in England. It is in England rather than 
 in France that the inferior rural strata has become a dust 
 which a breath of wind will scatter, or rather, perhaps, a thin 
 mud which adheres to the soil by virtue merely of its own 
 weight. 
 
 Shrewd landed proprietors tried to fix this population by 
 assigning them cottages with plots of ground. In 187 1 an 
 organisation similar to that of the trade unions was 
 inaugurated by Mr. Arch among the peasantry. It did not 
 succeed in taking root and expanding. Not till 1884 did the 
 legislator first begin to take a public interest in this too long 
 neglected class. The field labourers formed the great majority 
 of the million and a half on whom the electoral statute 
 bestowed the right to vote, and in his programme Gladstone 
 avowed the intention of strengthening the body of electors by 
 adding to it a half-educated class, whose education would be 
 furthered by their consciousness of having a new duty to 
 perform. Two other laws ficilitated the constitution of
 
 244 ■ THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 allotments and small holdings ; whether by private purchase or, 
 in certain cases, by expropriation, was decided by an elected 
 local authority. Finally, the last law relating to parish 
 councils brought the elective assemblies down to the level of 
 these obscure masses, giving the latter a chance of obtaining a 
 place in the former, which they could not reasonably hope to 
 obtain in the case of county and district councils. The office 
 of the parish councillor naturally appealed, it is easy to believe, 
 to the ambition of the field labourer, and his election did not 
 have the effect of taking him out of his class. It could not, 
 therefore, be said that the public authorities were still 
 indifferent to the rural working population, and had not held 
 out a hand to raise them up ; but up to the present every 
 effort made on their behalf has proved futile. It is by no 
 means evident that their participation in electoral power has 
 made any difference in the result of the elections. The two 
 parties, Liberal and Tory, have found them neutral, which 
 signifies that they have nothing in common with the ideas and 
 passions dominating either of these two parties. M. de 
 Rousiers, on a recent journey, was struck by the sort of 
 unconsciousness and stupefaction into which the rural labourer 
 is plunged, and out of which he cannot rouse himself. If a 
 final example of his want of intelligence and apathy is 
 required, it will be found in the statistics which set forth the 
 private or forced sales that have been made with a view ro 
 creating allotments or small holdings. These transactions 
 have been extremley infrequent. In two years and a half 
 (December, 1894-June, 1897) ^^^7 ^'*^ "^^ exceed 15,000 
 acres in round numbers ; and what is even more remarkable is 
 that the expropriations made by authority were precisely nil ; 
 there was not a single case of compulsory purchase, and only 
 five of compulsory hiring. As to the small holdings, they did 
 not exceed a hundred and twenty acres, bought by three 
 counties, in six parishes. We must wait ; the forces which the 
 law has set in motion will eventually realise their own power ;
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 245 
 
 the sentiments and methods of action of the rural population 
 will, in tlie long run, harmonise with their interests. 
 
 C. — The Leaders of Industry and the Operative Class. 
 
 The industrial population is animated by a totally different 
 spirit. At their head are the upper manufacturing classes, 
 who, in 1832, obtained a position of authority, and since 1846 
 have led the way almost unopposed. 
 
 Prior to the great mechanical inventions of the eighteenth 
 century, and even for a short time afterwards, these upper 
 classes were not exempt from any of the errors with which 
 prevailing political economy was pervaded. The great 
 economic truths, entirely abstract and theoretic, were in 
 frequent contradiction with the deductions suggested by a 
 brief and restricted experience, and the appearances at 
 which ordinary common sense stopped short. It was not 
 without difficulty that they obtained the assent of the public, 
 and even that of the classes whose interest it was to discern 
 them. Until after the commencement of the last century all 
 England believed that wealth consisted essentially in precioiis 
 metals ; that it was the interest of the State to keep them in 
 the country ; that the enrichment or impoverishment of the 
 country might be measured by the relative importance of the 
 imports and the exports, and that the gain realised by one 
 nation always corresponded with the loss sustained by another ; 
 that custom house duties must necessarily benefit the people 
 whose government collects them ; that the production per- 
 mitted to certain industries is a hindrance to other national 
 industries ; and that labour, production and consumption must 
 he regulated at home. It was only between 1820 and 1825 
 that the merchants and manufacturers, becoming aware of 
 their power, repudiated these doctrines and disclaimed pro- 
 tection. Surrounded by every natural advantage, they believed 
 themselves capable of making their way unaided. Protection
 
 246 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 implies certain restrictions ; they preferred to yield on occasion 
 to the claims of the stronger rather than be continually 
 escorted, guarded, and protected against themselves on the 
 assumption that they were always the weaker. Year after 
 year would-be protective laws which regulated the manu- 
 factures, prohibited or enjoined the use of certain products, 
 hindered the traffic of merchandise, the removal of workmen, 
 the exportation of machines, &c., were struck out of the 
 statute book. I I have described the evolution elsewhere. 
 The immense results it achieved encouraged the whole of the 
 upper industrial and commercial class to adopt the principle of 
 Free Trade. It is a strange thing that no principle has been 
 brought forward under a more absolute and generalised form, 
 based more exclusively on deduction, and with greater dis- 
 regard for facts, than in England, the native land of induction. 
 " Political economy," Senior said, " is independent of facts." 
 Its abstract character was preserved from the time of Ricardo, 
 who initiated it, up to the time of John Stuart Mill, passed on 
 by McCulloch, Miss Martineau, and others. The principle 
 of competition became inflated by success, enlarged by 
 practice, elevated and defined by deep thought ; and it was 
 finally resolved into the general maxim that the free fight is of 
 necessity a law of human society, and that the survival of 
 the strongest and most capable is the real sovereign good. 
 Liberty had no argument more decisive for declining the 
 intervention of the State. For forty years the big manu- 
 facturers and merchants remained faithful to their ideas. 
 They defended them with all the eagerness of the convert 
 who has faith in his formula, and the anti-humanitarian scorn 
 of the combatant who knows himself capable of conquering. 
 They struggled against the Factory Acts, and submitted to 
 them without accepting their principle. It was not until 
 after 1867 that the admittance of workmen into the " legal 
 
 ' See Lc Dcvcloppcmcnt de la Constiiiitioii ct dc la Socicld politique en 
 Angletcrre. Part III. chap. vi.
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 247 
 
 country" changed tlicir methods, though not their convictions. 
 Since that period electoral interests have forced them to pay 
 more attention to men and facts. Even philanthropy was not 
 unknown among them ; at times it inspired them and faintly 
 coloured their policy, though never forming its basis. The 
 State, as a rule, had to recognise them as resolute or resigned 
 opponents, approving or sceptical critics, of its measures of 
 intervention in the interests of the working classes. 
 
 The history of the lower manufacturing classes during the 
 last hundred years is significant and full of instruction. At 
 the end of the last century public opinion was undergoing a 
 complete and vigorous reaction against the ideas of the French 
 Revolution. In 1799 and 1800 some manufacturers passed 
 two statutes completing the dependence and oppression of the 
 working classes ; one of these classed under the head of 
 conspiracy and punished with three months' imprisonment with 
 hard labour, any measures taken by a workman to combine 
 with his comrades with a view to obtaining an increase of 
 wages ; combination being regarded as a criminal act. The 
 other statutes visited with severe correctional penalties any 
 breach of contract on the part of the workman. The master 
 loudly proclaimed his intention to treat separately with each 
 individual in search ot employment, and to keep him, once 
 engaged, to the conditions which a single man, without 
 resources, could not refuse. The workman was not only 
 circumvented and outraged, but humiliated and degraded ; law 
 and customs combined to make him, in a very general way, a 
 contributor to the public welfare. The Statutes of 1782 and 
 1796, by organising outdoor relief, made charity a complement 
 of wages ; t.e.^ it was not the wages which were increased by 
 the play of economic forces, but the expenses of public charity ; 
 the poor-rate went up enormously in nearly every parish, and 
 industrial England offered the almost unique spectacle of a huge 
 mass, not of free workmen, but or paupers, which the force ot 
 circumstances and the severity and hypocritical humanity of
 
 248 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 the laws kept in a condition of misery to a certain extent 
 official. 
 
 In 1815 public opinion in England had completely recovered 
 from the effects of the Revolution, but Liberal doctrines did 
 not regain their sway until 1820 ; between which date and 
 1823 they were manifested in several laws of enfranchisement 
 of the strictly economic order. The last of these was passed 
 in 1825 ; it allowed workmen to combine for the purpose of 
 obtaining an increase of wages. But all this legislation, 
 marked as it was by a high degree of comprehension of the 
 conditions of commerce and manufacture, did not really benefit 
 the lower classes. Legal penalties still visited any breach 
 of contract with an employer, and workmen were exposed, 
 indeed practically condemned, to the debasing effect of public 
 charity in the form or outdoor relief. Their situation was 
 more intolerable than ever, as the inquiries of the period bear 
 witness. After the terrible report of the Commission of 1833 a 
 kind of shame seized the community : it was recognised that 
 the necessary reform could no longer be delayed. The law of 
 1834 perfected the system of workhouses : the sick and the 
 old were collected together in these institutions ; and, what 
 was far more important, outside relief was prohibited. From 
 this time forward, the question of wages was entirely separate 
 from that of charity; and the rate fluctuated in accordance 
 with the law of demand and supply. The factory laws com- 
 pleted the reform movement ; one by one the industries were 
 brought within the jurisdiction of the law, and the humane 
 treatment assured to women and children which their helpless- 
 ness prevented them from claiming. I'he series of factory laws 
 is still incomplete. During the period which lasted till 1867 
 working men were in the position of a class rapidly on the 
 ascendant ; the fierce and brutal strikes common among them 
 at the beginning of the century became more and more 
 infrequent, and they began to form associations which the 
 legislator pretended to ignore, but the masters recognised and
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 249 
 
 sometimes even acknowledged. It was the better-class work- 
 men who constituted these associations, and their subscriptions 
 by degrees built up a considerable capital, not unworthy to be 
 ranked beside that of their employers. During the third of a 
 century, extending from 1834 to 1867, legislation maintained 
 the same course, and even the abolition of the corn laws must 
 bQ regarded as a measure in favour of the masters. Neverthe- 
 less, the position and circumstances of the lower classes 
 improved with incredible rapidity : their aspirations and pre- 
 tensions increased ; they enjoyed an elevated and tranquil 
 consciousness of their value in the community, and largely 
 merited the esteem and deference professed for them by 
 statesmen in the Parliamentary debates. 
 
 The year 1867 was a memorable one in the history of the 
 industrial classes ; in this year, reform, brought about almost un- 
 consciously by the Conservatives, invested them with electoral 
 rights, followed by laws which still further emancipated them. 
 A number of Bills in the interests of these classes were passed ; 
 evidence of the eagerness of the members to gain the favour 
 of their new constituents. Between 1867 and 1875 the 
 inequality, which in the eyes of the law existed between 
 master and man, finally disappeared. Coalitions of working 
 men were no longer threatened by the conspiracy law, and 
 they had only civil suits to fear as a result of breach of contract. 
 Penal actions were still in force, but were directed against the 
 employer who failed in his legal duty towards his employees. 
 Thus the parts were reversed : the stern attention of the 
 legislator was devoted to the conduct of the master, who, 
 in his turn, was liable to legal penalties for unfulfilled 
 responsibilities. The trade unions were now recognised as 
 having civil rights : for instance, they could prosecute a 
 defaulting cashier in a court of law. From 1875 to 1889 
 the factory laws, particularly those in the interest of women 
 and children, continued in force ; but they gradually lost the 
 character of academic regulations proposed to, rather than
 
 250 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 imposed on, the masters. Two institutions ensured the 
 efficiency of these regulations : inspections, which became more 
 and more general, and the power of the Secretary of State to 
 regulate the laws, which soon became extended to every 
 department of the legislature. In 1889 a point which had 
 first been considered in 1872 assumed a prominent position 
 in the deliberations of the legislature, viz., sanitary regulations ; 
 it was determined that those regulations, the efficiency of 
 which had been recognised, should be enforced throughout the 
 country, and not left to the option of the inhabitants. Between 
 1889 and 1895 statutes were passed in quick succession, 
 multiplying the precautions to be taken, heaping injunctions on 
 the employers, and increasing ad infinitum the number of cases 
 in which they laid themselves open to penal liabilities. Finally, 
 in 1897, the law intervened for the second time in the matter 
 of labour contracts ; in 1880 a first attempt was made to modify 
 the terribly conservative jurisprudence of the courts ; and in 
 1897, for the first time, employers' liability was considered in 
 all its bearings. A priori^ the masters were made legally 
 responsible for accidents, and compelled to make compensation 
 if they could not prove that the workman, through some 
 clumsy mistake, had been the cause and the victim. 
 
 The class which benefited by these laws was remarkable for 
 certain qualities. First, it was the product of a natural selection 
 exercised at the expense of the agricultural class. Only the 
 strongest and most resistant had quitted the rural for the 
 urban districts, and they were also the best and most honest ; 
 so much so that, up to 1840, pauperism and criminality were 
 more frequent in the country than in the towns. They had 
 another and no less laudable quality, that of temperance : 
 the consumption of alcohol during twenty-five years did not 
 vary in England in proportion to the population. In the 
 almost universal progress of alcoholism this stationary position 
 constituted an honourable exception. The nation which could 
 thus stave off the two scourges of drunkenness and crime is 
 most undoubtedly worthy of some consideration.
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 251 
 
 After the selection which separated the workman from the 
 field labourer came that which separated the skilled workman 
 from the ordinary mechanic. The working classes had 
 acquired the position and qualities of a superior class : loyalty 
 and fidelity to contracted engagements. They had also a 
 very strong sense of what was due to them. They argued 
 in forcible but perfectly polite language : so much we learn 
 from the report on the inquiry made in connection with the 
 mechanics' strike. They were also remarkable for a sense of 
 dignity and a determination to accept nothing but their rights. 
 At the International Congress at Aix-la-Chapelle, in May, 
 1896, a French revolutionary having claimed that the 
 employer's liability ought to obtain in every case, even when 
 the workman had committed some clumsy error, the English 
 representatives indignantly protested against a theory which 
 deprived the workman of the responsibility of his actions. 
 
 Their physical and moral qualities are not all. The pro- 
 longed operation of certain laws may also have helped to 
 decide some tendencies among working men which would 
 not have been developed under a different system of government. 
 The peculiar and decided character which makes the English 
 workman so striking a contrast to the workman of our 
 country can be summed up in few words. In France, the 
 political emancipation of the industrial classes dates from 1848 ; 
 their economical emancipation only dates from 1864, and was 
 not completed till 1884 : it is therefore quite recent. In 
 England economical emancipation dates back to the year 
 1828 ; after which the workmen waited patiently for almost 
 forty years — until 1867 — for the beginning of a political 
 enfranchisement which was not complete until 1884. It is 
 impossible to imagine two classes called upon to educate them- 
 selves, decide their tastes, and form their manners, in more 
 diverse circumstances. Let us consider the consequences. In 
 1848 the French working men were provided, by the indis- 
 cretion of the legislation, with a formidable weapon, the law,
 
 252 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 whilst for another sixteen years they were bound in the most 
 absolute economic servitude ; they had become accustomed 
 to hope everything from class legislation, and to expect every- 
 thing from the intervention of the State. The English 
 working men had been accustomed, for forty years, to dispute 
 such questions as the rate of wages, sub-contracts, piece work, 
 overtime, &c., with their masters. They expended as much 
 passion over these absolutely local interests, which did not 
 come under the cognisance of the State, as if they constituted 
 a law which set in motion all the national authorities. The 
 French working men, when for the first time economic liberty 
 was offered them, regarded it with a kind of contempt : they 
 were already in possession of political liberty. They looked 
 upon the .new gift bestowed upon them merely as a weapon, 
 and used it to threaten their masters. The English working 
 men, when political liberty was accorded to them, had long 
 been in enjoyment of the comparative freedom conferred upon 
 them by the extra legal trade unions which, by sheer force of 
 energy, they had made their masters accept, the Government 
 tolerate, and the magistracy spare. They were obliged to 
 divest themselves of their prejudices in order to comprehend 
 and appreciate the fact, that the advantages they had obtained 
 and maintained by an unceasing struggle could be confirmed 
 and consolidated by the mere force of the law. The French 
 masters had for a long time been accustomed, and even after 
 1884 continued to look upon those who took part in a strike 
 as malefactors and rebels.- English masters, on tlie other hand, 
 treated them as free men who sought a legal means of 
 bettering their position. Similarly, while the French workmen 
 regarded the masters who withstood them as irreconcilable 
 adversaries, the English workmen saw in them only honest 
 manufacturers, who had good reason to protect their purses. 
 After the understanding which terminated the conflict, 
 friendly relations existed among our neighbours, whereas with 
 us rancour, envy and even vengeance were only postponed to
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 253 
 
 the next occasion. In a word, the French regarded tlieir 
 economic rights, acquired too late, as a means of hastening 
 the moment, still far distant, when they would realise their 
 political day-dream, England did not place her hopes in so 
 distant a future ; her chief belief was in force, her chief desire 
 to achieve results; when the working men received economic 
 powers they became far more moderate ; violent measures fell 
 into disuse, and forms were observed. The industrial classes 
 regarded the political future as too remote for present con- 
 sideration. 
 
 We need not, therefore, be astonished that it was in the 
 trade unions, which were occupied exclusively with the 
 relations between master and man, that the working men 
 displayed the most initiative. In each of these associations 
 their activity was incessant, and depended largely on the 
 secretary, who was their mouthpiece. We cannot gauge it 
 merely by the strikes which broke out, but must take into 
 consideration those which a skilful negotiation avoided, and 
 the difficulties which were resolved by arbitration. In such 
 contests as these the local union, as a rule, had only the master 
 to deal with. The more widely extended it was by the 
 amalgamations and federations of which it was the nucleus, the 
 more it appeared to increase in power and influence ; but, on 
 the other hand, the greater the stake at issue, the slower and 
 more impeded were its operations and the more liable they were 
 to be disputed and interrupted, the members becoming con- 
 scious of the difficulty of reconciling their own differences of 
 opinion and maintaining their union in face of a struggle. It 
 is in their struggles with the employer that working men 
 are upheld by the recollection of their heroic age ; they 
 displayed a rough sincerity, a disposition to call things by their 
 names, and, at the same time, a good-humour, an absence of 
 rancour and ill-will, which, disagreements once removed, assured 
 the renewal of friendly relations in the new conditions created 
 by a mutual understanding. This manner of settling their
 
 254 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 disputes has become a habit of theirs ; the law, if there be 
 one which touches the matter, seems to them to furnish solu- 
 tions too general for the local and special nature of the 
 problem. 
 
 The questions or common interest which call for the 
 solution of principles and form the subject of the laws relating 
 to the working man, have been discussed in the Congresses of 
 the trade unions which have been held without a break since 
 1868, the date of the first of these assemblies. At a first 
 glance it is evident how small a part discussions play in the 
 proceedings at these Congresses. To begin with there are a 
 considerable number of expressions of opinion which, directly 
 they have been given vent to, are put to the vote. It is what 
 might almost be called the incendiary part of the work of 
 the Congress which is treated with this indifference : the 
 nationalisation of the land, a common stock of instruments of 
 labour, &c., are examples of the rapid and superficial motions 
 which are passed without arousing or arresting attention. 
 Socialism appears only for the purpose of a rapid and decent 
 burial. The same indifference may be remarked at the inter- 
 national Congresses. At the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 
 1896, the English voted for the nationalisation of the mines, 
 practically without taking part in the debate ; in the same way 
 they tacitly rejected the international Ministry of Industry 
 proposed by the French ; finally, the question of the working 
 man's insurance was discussed by the Germans without 
 provoking an acquiescence or objection on the part of the 
 proved mutualists from the other side of the Channel. More 
 important and interesting to the Congress is the work of the 
 Parliamentary Committee. It is remarkable that its report 
 contains no trace of a struggle of classes, it is essentially 
 neutral, prudent, and pacific. A Frenchman, looking at the 
 matter, could not fail to be struck by two things. First, the 
 insignificance of the questions raised, the disposition of the 
 Parliamentary Committee to be content with little, and to
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 255 
 
 concentrate their eflForts every year on a few subject^;, 
 adjourning the others indefinitely. It is curious to note the 
 satisfaction with which the Committee speaks of the Bills voted 
 at a first reading, as if they were ignorant of the fact that it 
 was a simple mark of courtesy which would not be taken as a 
 precedent. It is equally curious to note the equanimity with 
 which working men receive such a confession of impotence, 
 as if the fact that the incessant activity of their Committee 
 resulted in nothing hardly concerned them. It is unquestion- 
 able that, since 1875, the only law, outside some of the factory 
 laws, of which it can be said that it was obtained by the Com- 
 mittee, is that of 1897, after an interval of twenty-two years. 
 Is there not also occasion for some surprise in the fact that the 
 miners of Northumberland recently raised the question whether 
 there were not occasion to save the expense of a Parliamentary 
 representation ; they consulted Mr. John Bright on the subject 
 and he confirmed their view. The other point on which I 
 wish to lay stress is the frequency of the formulas which sum up 
 the practical part of a reform. The economists of the working 
 classes are adepts at finding two or three words, the " three- 
 eighth," " standard of life," " living wage," &c., which serve as 
 a rallying-cry for the whole class, and also point out definitely 
 and unmistakably the end they have in view, keeping it clear of 
 principles which they could not understand, and general ideas 
 of which they could but be suspicious. But how remote are 
 these very general formulas from the detail of a precise law ! 
 The initiative, too, rests with the middle and upper classes of 
 which Parliament is composed. It is they who, slowly but 
 with sustained effort, make a large number of partial laws, one 
 after the other, consolidating them at lengthened intervals. No 
 one really disputes the principle which inspires these laws : it 
 is not even discussed as soon as proof is to hand that opinion is 
 ripe and the nation has made up its mind. The vigilance of 
 the Parliamentary Committee simply maintains it without 
 endeavouring to force its operation. Thus we see them
 
 256 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 displaying a tranquil activity, seeming in no haste to achieve a 
 result, or to concern themselves with giving a definite form to 
 the laws in which they are interested. That task devolves 
 upon the classes who are practised in Parliamentary usages, and 
 they accomplish it at their leisure. 
 
 This narrow and positive, egotistic and limited trade 
 unionism has, in our time, undergone the test of a double 
 transformation. On the one hand, amalgamated societies and 
 federations have greatly increased and now number more than a 
 million members. This is the reason why they are more 
 powerful in the struggle, and yet more cautious at the outset ; 
 also why they have a higher standpoint and appreciate things 
 in a less narrow and more comprehensive spirit. The second 
 transformation, which has been in process of evolution for ten 
 years, is the introduction of what is called neo-trade unionism. 
 A new doctrine came into vogue with the general use of 
 machinery. Wherever a machine has replaced the working 
 man the skilled labourer has given place to the unskilled. 
 There is no need for special training in order to be able to guide 
 a mechanical apparatus, while a long apprenticeship is necessary 
 to enable a man to accomplish with tools the work executed by 
 such an apparatus. The result of this, is that the demand for 
 skilled labourers has decreased, and the masters have evinced 
 an inclination to replace them by ordinary workmen at a lower 
 rate of wage. As a proof of this I need only mention the 
 hostility exhibited by working men towards machines in recent 
 years. What is even clearer evidence of the desideratum of the 
 working men is, that they have gradually come round to 
 demand that the machinery should always be placed in the 
 charge of skilled labourers. It is nevertheless evident to what 
 economical progress has led : a smaller demand for skilled 
 labourers and a greater demand for ordinary mechanics. On 
 the other hand, public feeling inclined towards the latter. In 
 1889, the dockers, ordinary labouring men hired by the day, 
 fell out with their employers. Public sympathy was wholly on
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 257 
 
 their side, and they obtained an easy victory. This gave an 
 impetus to the whole body of unskilled labourers. 
 
 Neo-trade unionism was remarkable in three ways. First, 
 the new associations gave up all pretension to being friendly 
 societies ; their object was no longer to relieve the working 
 man in cases of accident or illness ; all their financial force was 
 concentrated on promoting strikes. In the second place, the 
 subscriptions were reduced to a very modest figure, pro- 
 portionate with what a man receiving average wages could 
 afford to pay. Neo-trade unionism was in this way reduced 
 to the role of an engine of war, in connection with which only 
 sufficient provisions had been laid in to last for a day. The 
 working men were not retained in the society by their know- 
 ledge of the great capital they had contributed to form and 
 could dispose of as they would. Finally, in the third place, 
 neo-trade unionism was led by this very irresponsibility into 
 formulating its desiderata more largely, and including more 
 principles and general ideas in its programme. The events 
 which followed its entry on the scene were not favourable to 
 it. Between 1887 and 1894 a strong wave of feeling caused 
 the unskilled labourers to combine, and a fair number of 
 unions were formed with great hopes. But if we consider the 
 present-day fruit of these hopes, we must admit that neo- 
 trade unionism has proved wholly abortive. In 1894 the 
 agricultural labourers in England and Wales constituted nine 
 unions, with 6,600 members ; in the following year they had 
 only seven, with 1,000 adherents, while in 1898, they were but 
 two in number with 171 followers. The mechanics' unions 
 kept up their numbers better, although not without difficulty. 
 In 1892 they had 100,900 members, and at the end of 1897 
 only 97,000 of these still remained. The transport industry 
 decreased in almost the same proportion, from 154,000 to 
 147,300 members, while, in the same space of time, the 
 building trades unions went up from 160,400 strong to 
 235,000 members; the miners from 315,000 to 352,000; 
 
 S
 
 258 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 the workers in metal from 278,000 to 308,000 ; and the 
 weavers from 204,000 to 213,000. Meantime but few of 
 the older societies revised their rules with the idea of admitting 
 the unskilled as members. No trace of this movement now 
 remains, unless it be found in a better knowledge of the great 
 problems and a practice of regarding questions from a more 
 general point of view and seeking less narrow solutions to them. 
 It is difficult for a society with local, or, if not local, special 
 aims, established for the purpose of promoting the interests of a 
 community, to rise to the height of abstract principles ; it is 
 easy, on the contrary, and perfectly natural for the members of 
 such societies to share the same opinions and beliefs. Socialism, 
 so far as it is represented in England, is more remarkable in 
 many centres by reason of the force of certain personalities 
 than the number of their adherents or the results they achieve ; 
 this is the case, for instance, with the Social Democratic 
 Federation, the Fabian Society, the Labour Church League, 
 the English Land Restoration League and the Independent 
 Labour Party. All these societies owe their inception to the 
 teachings of Karl Marx and Hyndman between 1880 and 
 1883, and were founded subsequent to that date. Some of 
 them are under the leadership of distinguished men, such as 
 Mr. Sidney Webb, president of the Fabian Society, Mr. 
 Barnes, of the Independent Labour Party, &c. ; otherwise they 
 would hardly have much weight with the nation. In vain the 
 majority of them have cut out of their programmes the more 
 abstract aims of Socialism ; what still remains is sufficient to 
 repel and hold at a distance so profoundly individualistic a 
 nation. The Social Democratic P^ederation only numbers 
 11,000 members; the Fabian Society, which derives its name 
 and methods from Fabius Cuiictator, makes this an excuse for 
 its tardy progress, at least to its own satisfaction ; its sole object 
 is the municipalisation of certain industries and it places itself 
 in opposition to public feeling by demanding the admittance 
 of the poor into the electoral body, and the confiscation of
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 259 
 
 property by a progressive taxation of entailed estates. The 
 English Land Restoration League has the advantage of a 
 special object, viz., the reduction of landlordism ; its activity is 
 displayed by numerous debates, which in one year recently 
 reached the figure of 350. But the Lidependent Labour 
 Party is the one most likely to throw dust in the eyes of a 
 Frenchman by the impetuosity and hardihood with which it 
 launches itself into controversy. Its programme includes 
 almost every section in a perfect scheme of social reform, even 
 outside the limits of a particular country ; viz., the suppression 
 of land monopoly, the natioiialisation of railways and canals, 
 old age pensions, tlie law of labour, and the extinction of war 
 by arbitration. But there are strong reasons why it cannot 
 gain the public ear : it takes up too many subjects for any one 
 to seriously believe that it is likely to be successful in a single 
 case. From the English point of view it is neither positive nor 
 practical ; up to the present day its meetings have never 
 numbered more than 1 2,000 members, and when in the last 
 electoral struggle it essayed to calculate its forces, the result 
 was that not one of the twenty-two candidates it put forward 
 were returned. ^ The 50,000 votes it possesses were unequally 
 distributed among the thirty-nine constituencies in which they 
 had been given in. Li sliort. Socialism is never likely to make 
 much of a figure in England, at least in the form under which 
 it is known in France and Germany. The trade unions 
 occupy the ground, and it is improbable they would allow 
 themselves to be distracted from the immediate and practical 
 objects they have in view, merely to lose themselves in space 
 in the pursuit of unsubstantial dreams. 
 
 8. The Religious Sects. 
 
 The Churches and religious communities form a second 
 
 ' These fads relate to 1895. The party does not appear to have had 
 better fortune in the election of October, 1900 : it sent in seven candidates, 
 only one of whom was returned.
 
 26o THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 special group, quite as natural and full of life as the social 
 classes. A curious antinomy forms the basis of their relations 
 with the individual and the State. The faith which unites the 
 members of this group forms a powerful support for " the 
 liberty of the subject." The collective beings here encoun- 
 tered by public authority are not brought together by a 
 temporal interest, comparable with, and inferior to, that of 
 the State. Their aim, their goal, is the highest to which the 
 heart of man can aspire. It is beyond the earth, above the 
 skies. The civil powers can bring into competition with it 
 only the most important of earthly interests, which are im- 
 potent to detach from it the imagination of those who have 
 dreamed of it, the will of those who have vowed to attain it. 
 Here we find a principle of energy, and a school of high 
 independence. The man who has obtained a glimpse of the 
 infinite stands erect ; no threat nor seduction of things earthly 
 can make him bend his head. 
 
 But if religious faith is in one sense an agent of liberty, in 
 another it is an agent of tyranny. Intolerance is an essential 
 feature of all belief based on the assumption of having grasped 
 absolute truth and absolute good ; for the very fact of their 
 being absolute justifies the means employed to make them 
 prevail, and to root out the sin and evil which obstruct their 
 progress. This cynical idealism is particularly characteristic of 
 dawning or new faith. Such faith has, what might be called 
 the defect of its age, the imperturbable and pitiless logic of the 
 adolescent. Sometimes, after a long series of reciprocal and 
 futile persecutions between the churches, tolerance appears 
 under the form of lassitude and disgust. It appears, but only 
 for a while, if the society of the age happens to be a religious 
 one ; and after a period of relaxation oppression recommences. 
 In short, all living religious faith has, like civil authority, a 
 natural affinity for tyranny. The two powers instinctively 
 draw near together, and nothing is more threatening to the 
 liberty of the subject than such an alliance, when heavenly
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 261 
 
 interests and the welfare of the State are banded together 
 against the individual. 
 
 An alliance of this kind was concluded in England in the 
 sixteenth century. Henry VIII. had merely intended to effect 
 a schism. Anglicanism was, as a matter of fact, simply 
 Catholicism minus the Pope, with the king as spiritual head. 
 The English accepted the substitution without a murmur ; 
 their hatred of the foreigner and satisfaction at having an 
 " English God " concealed the danger from them. Later on, 
 the Crown judged it wise policy to allow Anglicanism the 
 support of the creed which at that time held Papistry in check 
 throughout the whole of Europe, and Anglicanism became 
 Calvinistic. But Calvinism in England was regarded by those 
 who invoked its aid as merely a religious garrison, whose duty 
 it was to defend a hastily constructed political institution. A 
 degraded episcopacy placed its theology at the service of 
 royalty. All this accorded with the interests and wishes of 
 the civil power. On the one hand, the Church made use of 
 the strength of the secular arm, and on the other, the State 
 imitated the Church by claiming the right to search closely 
 into men's consciences, and to chain down thought, in its 
 habit of considering dissent as a crime. All resistance to 
 ecclesiastical commands was treated as high treason, all oppo- 
 sition to the commands of the prince was regarded as sacrilege; 
 nothing was wanting to render tyranny omnipotent, all- 
 enveloping, and intolerable. 
 
 The energy of the Dissenters saved English liberty. They 
 were not, either theoretically or instinctively, more liberal 
 than the Anglicans ; this they made clear in every place, and 
 on every occasion that they found themselves masters, in 
 Scotland, in Massachusetts, and in Connecticut. Authority, 
 as they conceived it, had the charge of consciences, and a 
 mission to constrain people to the right way of thinking. 
 But the power was in the hands of their opponents ; they 
 needed liberty, and had to be content to form the bulk of the
 
 262 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 army which, on two occasions, overturned an irreclaimable 
 dynasty. 
 
 Under Charles 11. there was a terrible recrudescence of 
 persecution among the Dissenters : they were hunted down in 
 the person of the Roundheads : the followers or partisans of 
 Cromwell. Not until after 1688 did a first measure of toler- 
 ance come into force on their behalf. It was in this way 
 that William III. discharged his debt to his political allies, and 
 strengthened the irreconcilable adversaries of the fallen dynasty. 
 It is noteworthy that at the same time, and to their great 
 satisfaction, the Papists were more molested than ever. They 
 would have protested to a man if the indulgence by which 
 they profited had been set up as a general principle and 
 extended to the Catholics. For reasons of an equally political 
 nature, persecution recommenced against all the Noncon- 
 formists under Oueen Anne. In the midst of these scandalous 
 fluctuations indifference gained ground, and scepticism took 
 possession of the upper classes. It was inevitable ; religious 
 liberty could only be established by a preliminary period of 
 doubt and strong criticism. Scepticism formed, as it were, an 
 atmosphere around the believers, enveloping, penetrating, and 
 imperceptibly mitigating the excessive rigidity of their zeal. 
 It had another merit : it threw into relief, sincerity, dis- 
 interestedness, and the social utility of serious conclusions, 
 independently of the purport of the doctrines on which they 
 were based. To the sceptic all religious beliefs are on the 
 same footing and outside question, the value of moral motives 
 and effects therefore is his sole concern, and for that very 
 reason appear to him all the more striking, and set apart for 
 attention and respect. This important change was the work 
 of the eighteenth century. Towards 1750 the last hopes of 
 the Stuarts and their partisans vanished, which was another 
 reason why a more general tolerance should pervade the 
 legislative system. Under George II. a first attempt was made 
 to mitigate the severity of the laws in the form of bills of
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 263 
 
 indemnity ; the Nonconformists were exempted ex post 
 facto from the penalties to which they were liable for having 
 filled offices closed to them under the law. Under George III. 
 a sentiment of fidelity to the Hanoverian dynasty was common 
 among all the religious denominations. State policy, therefore, 
 had no longer a motive for enjoining, intolerance. The philo- 
 sophy of common sense and humanitarian sentimentality were 
 both urged upon Parliament by the outside world, and forced 
 it to mitigate the rigour of the law. The English Catholics, 
 least favoured of all the denominations, were the first to reap 
 a small benefit from this in 1778 ; then the Protestant Non- 
 conformists of Ireland (1779), who, scattered among a Papist 
 population, were led by circumstances to be the supporters of 
 the Crown, and were admitted to official positions ; then the 
 Episcopalians of Scotland, who had been maltreated as partisans 
 of the fallen dynasty ; from this time forward they did not 
 insist on praying for the Stuarts, and were protected against 
 persecution. Finally in 1793 the Irish Catholics obtained the 
 right to vote, and admittance to many official positions. In 
 1829 the act of emancipation granted to all Roman Catholics, 
 without distinction, most of the rights hitherto denied to them, 
 and consequently the English and Scotch Catholics obtained 
 the benefit of civil and political equality — an equality now 
 almost perfect. The secularisation of all civil and political 
 appointments progressed in the same ratio. Quakers, Catholics, 
 Dissenters, and Jews were successively admitted to municipal 
 offices, and within the doors of Parliament, which now 
 remained closed only to declared atheists. For the first time, 
 a short while ago, an Israelitish peer took his seat in the House 
 of Lords. A profession of Anglicanism was required only 
 from the Sovereign and some great dignitaries. In 1837 and 
 1852 civil marriage was organised, and divorce cases and 
 testamentary documents which had been under the jurisdiction 
 of an ecclesiastical court, were transferred to a lay court 
 (1857). ^^Q Universities and all their degrees were opened
 
 264 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 to Dissenters, who up till now had been excluded from them. 
 A clause, called the conscience clause, guaranteed religious 
 liberty in the primary schools. Taxes for the maintenance of 
 Church and State became optional. Interments in consecrated 
 ground ceased to be the monopoly of the Anglican Church. 
 It was a gradual transposition of the Church and the laity, and 
 little was required to complete it. This movement was ter- 
 minated, as must have been foreseen, and was inevitable, by 
 the separation of the Church and the State, already essayed, 
 and not without success, in Ireland. Henceforth no religious 
 belief whatsoever was legally an obstacle or imparted a degree 
 of inferiority to those who professed it ; this was also true of 
 the absence of all belief. 
 
 In short, in this country, where the supreme chief of the 
 civil power is still the supreme chief of the Church, no 
 remnant of theocratic despotism still exists. Liberty of con- 
 science and creed are now as complete as imagination could 
 conceive. The main point is that this liberty has not been 
 consummated at the expense of religious sentiment. Faith 
 has been attacked only on the outside of her fortress. Toler- 
 ance and faith seem equally necessary to these free people. A 
 man who may not choose and profess his belief possesses only 
 the half of his soul. Men who do not believe in the spiritual 
 world will for years to come be found lacking in moral force. 
 To the English, theology is not an object of contemplation 
 and elevated thought ; they believe it to be an inexhaustible 
 source of strength, a bond which links their forces together 
 and assures the efficacy of their united action. It is chiefly 
 as a point of support that they seek it, and because this is so, 
 the Englishman will always be more inclined to religion than 
 to philosophy. Philosophy is light without warmth ; religion 
 is warmth without light, or with a chequered, reflected, and 
 refracted light. But warmth is essentially movement, and a 
 source of movement. The Englishman cares less for enlighten- 
 ment than for strength, vigour, and progress, which is the
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 265 
 
 reason wliy this race, so pre-eminently active, have always 
 held faith in the highest esteem. After a period of unbelief 
 and rationalism, the Wesleyan movement stirred the nation to 
 its depths. The Oxford Movement was less extended but of 
 equal force. The only difference between the eighteenth 
 century and our own is, that faith among believers is now 
 pervaded by the sort of worldly wisdom which emanates from 
 an ambient scepticism; it no longer dreams of conquering the 
 world by force, nor does it aspire to an alliance with the State 
 and the \ise of the secular arm. It reigns by force of per- 
 suasion and grace. It inspires and links together those who 
 look above the world for the powerful and ardent motives 
 governing their actions ; and this is why State policy, a sub- 
 lunary interest, has not the power to sway them. It is perhaps 
 too much to say that a democracy cannot understand how to 
 be free if it is not religious ; but a democracy which has 
 never ceased to be religious has certainly a superior capacity 
 for resistance against the despotism of civil government.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE STATE AND ITS FUNCTION AT HOME 
 
 England is generally conceded to be the country in which 
 individualism has obtained the firmest and deepest hold. This 
 is true if it is understood aright ; but nothing would be more 
 false and deceptive than to conceive the individual as powerful 
 and equipped, and the State as feeble and uncertain of its 
 rights ; they must both be considered as having an equal 
 consciousness of their strength, their sphere and their 
 vocation. 
 
 Historically, this view is confirmed by the whole political 
 past of England ; in no other country is the idea of the State 
 as sovereign so ancient and undisputed. As a consequence of 
 the Norman invasion England almost immediately became an 
 homogeneous nation and a relatively centralised country. In 
 France the provinces were acquired by the King one by one, 
 and on each occasion the treaties or charters granted to them 
 confirmed their ancient liberties, or bestowed on them special 
 immunities which tended to perpetuate the consciousness of 
 their distinct past and separate interests. They were annexed 
 rather than incorporated in the kingdom, and a revolution, 
 which obliterated even their names, was necessary in order that 
 they might become part of the national unity. In England the 
 territory was acquired in the bulk. After the Conquest, the 
 counties appeared as purely administrative divisions analogous 
 to our departements and present-day arrondissements ; they were
 
 TUE STATE'S FUNCTION AT HOME 267 
 
 governed by one law, and few, if any, had special and re- 
 markable privileges. In France, the great feudatories were 
 quite independent, in fact sovereigns over domains almost 
 as excluded and compact as the royal domain ; each could 
 entrench himself in his own little realm and defy the power 
 of the King. They were overcome one by one, ccepit vesci 
 singulis^ and eventually the King became sole lord. The direct 
 vassals of William I. received many small manors, scattered 
 over the country from one end to the other ; but not even 
 the most powerful among them was strong enough to engage 
 alone in a rebellion against the sovereign. From such an 
 enterprise not one of them but would have come forth van- 
 quished, unless he had combined with the others. Opposi- 
 tion could only be effective if concentrated, even as the 
 power which it sought to overawe. In the thirteenth century 
 it crystallised into a regular organ near the throne ; viz.. Parlia- 
 ment. In very early days the modern conception of the State 
 exercising a sovereign authority over the whole territory, 
 under the sole control of the deputies of the nation, un- 
 reservedly superseded in England the anarchical idea of the 
 feudal hierarchy, which continued to exist in a greater or less 
 degree in other countries, where it retarded and perverted a 
 similar evolution. After careful study we cannot find that 
 the central government has been so strongly organised in any 
 other country since the Middle Ages, nor had a clearer con- 
 sciousness, quite apart from the national character, of its 
 mission and the unlimited extent of its power. It gave un- 
 equivocal signs of this, in the time of Elizabeth, in a multitude 
 of paternal and circumstantial laws full of prohibitions and 
 claims, which regulated matters of private interest even to the 
 smallest details, giving extraordinary proof of the Socialism of 
 the State. The most characteristic example of this legislation 
 was the poor-rate. Whoever has turned over the leaves of 
 the statute book of the period must have been disabused of 
 the current idea that in Enirland the State is a timid and
 
 268 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 prudent power, uncertain of its rights and anxious not to 
 exceed the narrow limits of its sphere. 
 
 Yet we do not expect to see this bold and omnipotent State 
 practically superseded by individuals. Every time it attempted 
 to create an office, for which money would be required, the 
 citizens took the initiative, tied its hands, as it were, assumed 
 control and prevented the creation of a bureaucracy. From 
 the top to the bottom of the ladder of authority this spirit 
 of baulked activity was visible. Whereas in France the in- 
 difference of the great vassals allowed the Court of Peers to 
 become confused and lost to sight among a parliament of 
 legists, from which a council of administrators was afterwards 
 evolved, to the great advantage of the professional element, in 
 England the parliament of lords became consolidated and 
 perfected by the representatives of the smaller estates and 
 towns, absorbed the officials of the palace and obtained 
 supremacy over every other body political or legal. In France, 
 the central authority multiplied and strengthened without 
 ceasing, under names which varied with the period, the agents 
 who represented it in the different localities, and eventually it 
 instituted intendants, who were the precursors of our prefects. 
 In England, the powers of the sheriff, a kind of elementary 
 intendant, very powerful in the time of Henry III., were 
 restricted and reduced from day to day, and where this official 
 was gradually disappearing, the magistrates, who were simply 
 private individuals receiving no salary and so extraneous to the 
 bureaucracy that no administrative superior could be pointed 
 out on whom they were dependent, had their prerogatives 
 extended until the whole government of the county was in 
 their hands. These magistrates, who were great lords and 
 landed proprietors, were not in the beginning accounted 
 capable of performing their functions unassisted, and, for the 
 same reason that in France the bailiffs were authorised or 
 rather compelled to allow themselves to be seconded by a 
 professional assistant, the English magistrates, by the terms of
 
 THE STATE'S E UNCTION AT HOME 269 
 
 the commission delivered into their hands, were not allowed to 
 hold a court without tiie presence of some one among them 
 who belonged to the class of professional jurists. This was 
 the object of what was called the clause of the quorutn^ in 
 which were inscribed the names of those specially qualified 
 whose presence was requisite to insure the legality of the 
 deliberations. But whereas in France the nominal bailiff, 
 indolent, or occupied with other cares, allowed himself to be 
 supplanted in all his functions by his professional coadjutors, in 
 England it was the magistrate, i.e.^ the private individual, with- 
 out capability or special qualifications, who gradually elbowed 
 out his jurist colleagues. Since the beginning of the eighteenth 
 century the quorum clause has included the name of every 
 magistrate without distinction. The signification of these 
 facts is perfectly apparent. They make us understand how it 
 is a bureaucracy has not arisen or developed in England : it 
 is not that the State had no clear idea on the subject, nor 
 sufficient force and claim, but because every time there was 
 occasion to establish an administrative office active private 
 individuals offered to fill it gratuitously. 
 
 There were even offices which the individual was so anxious 
 to obtain, and in the acquisition of which he so forestalled the 
 State, that their unquestionably public character was lost sight 
 of for centuries. This is why, up to our own times, there has 
 been no public ministry to represent outraged and threatened 
 members of society before the courts of justice, interested 
 parties having supplied its place. In 1839 there were more 
 than 500 voluntary societies whose object was the arrest and 
 pursuit of criminals, in fact the fulfilment by individuals of 
 the first duty of a civilised government. The rules of several 
 of these societies contained articles of mutual insurance 
 guaranteeing a partial compensation for losses caused by theft. 
 It seemed to be taken for granted that the State was not 
 constituted for the purpose of attending to such accidents 
 as these, and that it was the duty of private individuals to
 
 270 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 regulate their own affairs. Even in the present day what 
 England has borrowed from France and Scotland is the shadow 
 and name rather than the reality of public action. It was 
 these early proceedings which exempted the English from 
 maintaining a regular police. We may recall the remark of 
 a personage who had been robbed on the high way : " At 
 least," he cried, " we have no Marshalsea ! " This exclama- 
 tion would have been appropriate in almost any part of 
 England. In 1 839-1 840 a law rendered possible the establish- 
 ment of bodies of police in every county where they did not 
 exist, but the farmers did not rise to the occasion, esteeming 
 the precaution too costly, if not unnecessary. It was not 
 until 1857 that a police system was made compulsory in each 
 county and the public safety secured by the hand of the State. 
 The establishment of railways was permitted by the parlia- 
 mentary tribune without reference to any minister competent 
 to decide on such a question, just as if no public interest were 
 involved in the decision, and it was solely a matter of recon- 
 ciling two private interests, or giving a casting vote one way 
 or the other. It was surprising to see these immense mono- 
 polies granted to perpetuity on very imperfect conditions and 
 no adequate guarantee, either in the interest of the individual 
 and commerce, or for the safety of travellers."^ Similarly, the 
 ports were for the most part in the hands of individual com- 
 panies. Up till 1834 the Treasury did not expend a single 
 farthing on popular education. Private companies, ancient 
 corporations independent of the State, filled the duties of this 
 great public office, which undoubtedly requires endowment by 
 a higher power. 
 
 ' For the last few years a competent minister ha? been called at regular 
 intervals before the committees who sit on the questions of the railways. 
 He has then an opportunity of S'ving his advice. Further, in certain 
 cases he has now the right to determine such questions by a provisional 
 order which is made permanent at the end of the Session if Parliament 
 is not averse to it. In spite of these amendments, the organisation is in 
 no sense bureaucratic ; it is parliamentary in principle and judicial in 
 operation.
 
 THE STATE'S E UNCTION AT HOME 271 
 
 What must be noted in these encroachments of the in- 
 dividual, as in those of the State, is that they have never 
 encountered any objection based on the nature of the office. 
 The State allows the individual all that the individual can and 
 will take, whether it be public or private work. Even in the 
 present day the offices it withdraws from, or denies to him, 
 are only those which exceed the sphere of activity of a private 
 individual, or demand a special and professional ability. We 
 may further note that it is never a question of right between 
 them ; the second point is the natural consequence of the first. 
 Such a dispute as that which was raised in France over the 
 surrender of the royal prerogatives of the State to mixed 
 juries could not have taken place in England. It supposed 
 a boundary philosophically and judicially determined between 
 what is public and what is private. In England the only 
 boundary is that which marks the point where the will or the 
 capacity of the individual stops. The State solely occupies 
 what the individual has abandoned through indifference or 
 impotence. 
 
 Conversely, there is no province with clearly defined boun- 
 daries which belongs theoretically to private individuals alone, 
 and access to which is, in principle, denied to the State. This 
 is because no liberty in England has the character and prestige 
 of an abstract and superior law. The idea of the natural 
 rights of the man and the citizen is foreign to the British 
 mind. Even civil liberties are, in the eyes of our neighbours, 
 not the law of all society, but a historical fact peculiar to their 
 country, not a right which every man coming into this world 
 may claim, but the great heritage of a particular race, a legacy 
 of the past, surrounded by glorious memories and maintained 
 by an hereditary tendency towards activity and effort. 
 
 The absence of theoretical ideas, or the small esteem in 
 which they are held in most English parliamentary discussions, 
 has often been pointed out. The abolition of the censorship 
 furnished a first noteworthy example of it. A Frenchman
 
 272 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 would have looked in vain, in the parliamentary debate which 
 was held on this occasion, for elevated ideas or lofty phrases 
 regarding the part played by the Press, the progress, and the 
 natural selection which takes place among opinions publicly 
 stated and contested. The Englishman did not trouble him- 
 self v/ith all these subtleties. He beheld a man entering his 
 house and rummaging among his papers ; this fancy occasioned 
 him a kind of horror. The general warrant empowered the 
 man to act in this way, therefore the general warrant must be 
 suppressed. This and an infinity of other little negligible 
 details, hindrances or difficulties, stains of rust which set off 
 the type which had been kept standing too long, &c., were 
 what these publishers had to encounter. Here is evidence of 
 the feebleness of the faculty of abstraction, which could by a 
 mental picture rise to the general warrant, but could not attain 
 by the idea to the principle of the freedom of the Press. In 
 the Times report of a debate held in the House of Commons 
 in 1857 o^ capital punishment the principle of the inviola- 
 bility of human life was not once mentioned. I have already 
 recalled how in 1867 an eminent publicist, Mr. George 
 Brodrick, set at defiance the opposers of the reform, then 
 in preparation, by citing a single reformer who considered 
 electoral franchise as a right inherent in the individual. In 
 the article published at this period, as in those to which 
 Gladstone's Reform Bill have more recently given rise, the 
 only questions were, to preserve an equitable balance between 
 the different classes, to obtain an enlightened parliament, and 
 to propagate a healthy activity and interest in the public 
 welfare among the lower classes of the nation. These entirely 
 political considerations alone found an echo in the public mind. 
 In such case where the idea of abstract rights had so little 
 force and ascendency, considerations of utility had naturally 
 the greatest weight. From whence arose the apparent anti- 
 nomy, at bottom very easy to resolve, that England is the 
 country where the sphere of activity of the State is usually
 
 THE STATE'S E UNCTION AT HOME 273 
 
 most restricted, and yd where State policy, when there is 
 occasion to exercise it, has most authority and encounters 
 least opposition. 
 
 The sphere of activity of the State was usually restricted 
 because the activity of the individual was as a matter of fact 
 very eager, energetic, and extended, and because the main- 
 tenance of each citizen's qualities of initiative and perseverance 
 was looked upon as most essential for the public welfare, so 
 that even State policy counselled authority to abstain as far as 
 possible in order to leave the field free for private efforts. 
 But, on the other hand, in exceptional cases, when there was 
 a real reason why authority should intervene, its intervention 
 was of necessity less scrupulous, more decided and more 
 radical, than is elsewhere the case, because it came into 
 collision, not with an idea of absolute and distinctly imperative 
 right, but with venerable historical precedent. 
 
 This explains many curious lapses of respect for individual 
 liberty ; for example, the press-gang, which was never legally 
 abolished, and, at the end of the last century, was the terror 
 of both town and country — inhuman captures of poor men, 
 who were surrounded, driven to the waterside like a herd 
 of cattle and finally transported on board the men-of-war, 
 never to return. These operations were entrusted to agents 
 of the State who did not even have to reckon with the habeas 
 corpus, it being suppressed for the occasion. Thus, the 
 respect for individual liberty and its most elementary guarantee 
 were not able to balance for a moment the necessity of 
 recruiting, at any price, the equipment of the fleet. The 
 interest of the navy, so essential and vital for a nation which 
 laid claims to the empire of the universe, easily triumphed 
 over the unconditional and absolute right that each has over 
 his own person, and practically established on the soil of 
 England the methods employed to procure slaves in the land 
 of Africa. This right, moreover, is not so conceived by the 
 English mind, which regards it merely as a second interest, 
 
 T
 
 274 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 in opposition to and on a level with the first, without other 
 virtue or reason for preference than that of its utility. We 
 might also cite those imprisonments, sometimes enduring for 
 a lifetime, which were brought about without proof, on the 
 bare oath of the creditor. In this case the State only inter- 
 vened, as it were, as an obliging intermediary ; it did not fulfil 
 the role which of right belonged to it, and made no attempt to 
 control the legality of the prosecution and prevent tyranny ; 
 it was only a summary executor supporting the will of the 
 rich against the poor. A mitigation of this oppressive law 
 resulted, between 1813 and 1820, in setting at liberty 50,000 
 persons. 
 
 The two examples I have quoted are taken from the past, 
 but if I wished to find in the present a positive proof that the 
 State has the same need of activity as the individual, and does 
 not allow itself to be stopped by the superstition of any collec- 
 tive or individual right commanding respect, I shall only have 
 to take and rapidly analyse the laws relating to public hygiene. 
 England is, we have often been told, a country of decentralisa- 
 tion ; well, the local authorities are compelled, whatever the 
 circumstances or cash at their disposal, to carry out the work 
 necessary to procure an adequate provision of water for each 
 habitation, and to secure the ejection of all waste matter by a 
 proper system of drainage. If they refuse to take upon them- 
 selves this exorbitant expense they are arraigned before the 
 court and served by a mandamus with the order' to comply. 
 In this way Lincoln, after a desperate resistance on the part 
 of the Council and the majority of the inhabitants, found itself 
 burdened with an expense of not less than ^138,750. Coer- 
 cion in this case was exercised only on a corporation, a moral 
 entity. Is an individual case required ? Let us take the very 
 frequent and ordinary one of an illness regarded as contagious — 
 cholera, typhus, diphtheria, small-pox, puerperal fever, &c. At 
 first it was enough to inform the authorities, at the moment 
 of decease, of the illness which had caused it, and then the
 
 THE STATE'S FUNCTION AT HOME 275 
 
 most indispensable measures were taken. But in accordance 
 with the law passed in 1887 the obligation to make a circum- 
 stantial declaration is imposed upon the head of the family, or, 
 failing him, upon the nearest relatives who are in the house or 
 taking care of the sick person ; in default of relatives, upon 
 any one charged with the care of the sick person, and in 
 default of any such person upon the principal tenant. The 
 doctor who has been called in to the sick person is compelled 
 by law to inform the medical officer of health immediately, 
 and the latter is obliged to visit the locality and house affected 
 without delay, inquire into the cause of the illness, indicate the 
 measures to be taken to avoid its spread and, as far as possible, 
 assist in their due performance. He must endeavour to secure 
 the isolation of the sick person. If this isolation appears 
 impracticable at home and a hospital is within reach he must 
 advise the conveyance of the sick person thither after con- 
 sulting with the doctor in attendance. If he is of opinion that 
 the house or any objects whatsoever which are in the house 
 ought to be disinfected, the local authority compels the 
 proprietor or tenant to perform the disinfection, which is 
 carried out officially in case of refusal, and at the expense of 
 the local authority if the parties concerned are too poor to pay 
 for it. The local authority may even, on the notification of 
 the sanitary officer, order the destruction of the bed linen and 
 other objects infected, for which he indemnifies the proprietor. 
 If we consider the long list of illnesses covered by the 
 statute and the still longer list of cases against which the 
 legislator intended to provide, we must perforce recognise in 
 circumstances which may be qualified as ordinary, the employ- 
 ment of a power of coercion which has no parallel in France : 
 strict orders which leave no opening for the exercise of indi- 
 vidual discretion, an almost complete denial of each man's 
 right over his house and what takes place therein, and, finally, 
 the insolent and arbitrary intervention of the officer of health, 
 who prescribes by minute regulations which the law lays down
 
 276 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 only in principle, all that ought to be done in the interest of 
 the public health. He is like a skilled pilot whose presence 
 suspends the rights of the captain ; the captain, in this case, 
 standing for the mere citizen, master on board, and deciding 
 his own affairs for himself. 
 
 It is in the matter of landed property that the absence of 
 this absolute idea of right is chiefly felt, and we see how, 
 in a sense, abstract principles may become protective and 
 conservative. Throughout the whole of the United Kingdom 
 the proprietary right of the landlord over the land is attacked 
 by two sorts of enemies : first, by the various occupiers and 
 exploiters of the soil (and here it must be remarked that this 
 category of aggressors can only obtain satisfaction when the 
 State acts as judge and sovereign arbiter) ; the proprietary right 
 is also attacked by the State, on its own account, without the 
 excuse of claims brought forward by private individuals whose 
 interests it espouses. In the matter of landed property, therefore, 
 the State intervenes twice and in virtue of two rights. It 
 intervenes in its political character on behalf of individuals 
 whose cause it adopts, and it intervenes in its judicial character 
 for the satisfaction of its own claims and for its own aggran- 
 disement. 
 
 Let us follow the fluctuations of the struggle in Ireland, 
 Scotland, and England. It assumed a different aspect in 
 accordance with the region the legal position of which was 
 the question at issue ; for there was lacking to the law that 
 inspired it the complete unity resulting from the right at 
 which it struck. This right, indeed, was not founded on an 
 abstract and general idea, nor was it everywhere the same ; 
 but everywliere it was lacking in consistency, force, and 
 authority. 
 
 In Ireland, the vague idea of an ownership in common 
 between the head of the clan and its members, has been 
 confused with the idea, to which the farmer has grown 
 accustomed, of his right over the land he farms. The peasant
 
 THE STATE'S FUNCTION AT HOME 277 
 
 believes that his interest in the land is as worthy of respect 
 as that of the landlord ; he places the two interests side by 
 side in working the property. Public opinion also was greatly 
 divided when, in i860, the law undertook to institute single 
 ownership (wliich allows only one proprietor for each estate), 
 and the right to enter into an agreement. These two 
 conditions, which with us are a matter of common justice, 
 were new law to Ireland, to which her customs rendered her 
 averse. Ten years passed before she came round. In 188 1 a 
 new legislative measure returned to the paths of tradition by 
 imitating the system which obtained in Ulster, in the principle 
 of dual ownership (which allows two proprietors for each 
 estate), and applying it to the whole of Ireland. The second 
 ownership, that of the peasant, was manifested by the "three 
 F's " — fixity of tenure, which aimed a heavy blow at the 
 proprietor's right of eviction ; free sale, which secured the 
 farmer who left or was turned out the equivalent of his share 
 in the property, paid either by the farmer coming in or the 
 proprietor, in virtue of his right of pre-emption ; finally, fair 
 rent, which deprived the proprietor of the right to make his 
 own scale of rents, which he had been at liberty to do under 
 the former r^gime^ and appointed an Agrarian Commission to 
 settle equitably the figure of the rent to be paid. This system, 
 instead of quieting the complaints of the Irish, made them 
 louder than ever, for they conceived the hope of soon being 
 able to eliminate the landlord altogether, by increasing their 
 share in the property at the expense of his. This inexpiable 
 struggle still continues. The Conservative Government 
 endeavoured to put an end to it by a series of legislative 
 measures ; but although it has restored single ownership in 
 principle, it could not undertake to upset the whole of the 
 legal condition which successive statutes have developed 
 around the opposing principle ; in fact it was led into ratifying 
 them and deducing new conclusions from them ; several 
 passages in its last law (1896) merely reproduce the provisions
 
 278 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 of Mr. Morley's Bill, presented and rejected in the preceding 
 year ; further, it engaged in a vast landed and financial enter- 
 prise, the object of which was to transfer to the farmers the 
 ownership of the estates they cultivated. The State began 
 by advancing a part of the price to the purchasers, it now 
 advances the whole of it. The repayment is effected in forty- 
 seven yearly payments at 2^ per cent. The Government thus 
 endeavours to lure the desires and ambitions of the Irish into 
 a new path ; it aims at diverting them from political demands 
 and making them forget Home Rule, by which they had been 
 for a time intoxicated. In any case this enterprise, cha- 
 racterised by the creation of an agrarian fund, which England 
 started by depositing ten million pounds, is nothing less than 
 a friendly expropriation of the rural gentry, set on foot by the 
 law and carried out with the assistance of public favour. 
 
 In Scotland the Government has observed the same policy in 
 regard to the crofters who occupy some of the northern 
 islands and the adjacent counties. In this case, too, the 
 principles of entire possession and free contract have been 
 violated in the person of the proprietor. The crofter, if he 
 fulfils his obligations, cannot be turned out by the landlord, nor 
 can his rent be increased ; he must pay up arrears ; a Land 
 Commission decides, without appeal, on the cases of dispute 
 between landlords and crofters, its authority embracing 
 almost every detail of cultivation, particularly the improve- 
 ments the crofter may have effected without consulting 
 his landlord, and for which he demands compensation at 
 the end of his tenancy. The tenure of the crofter can in no 
 case be lessened, but it may be extended in consequence of an 
 order, addressed to the proprietor, to let to the crofter the 
 unoccupied land in the neighbourhood. In this case likewise 
 the Commission intervenes. But what was most remarkable in 
 the long debate which preceded the passing of the law was, that 
 the right of property never figured therein, either as principle 
 or objection ; contingent circumstances — the condition of agri-
 
 THE STATE'S EUNCTION AT HOME 279 
 
 culture and the state of manners and customs — alone were taken 
 into consideration. The chief care was to give satisfaction to 
 the crofters in accordance with the comparatively old-fashioned 
 ideas they had preserved up to the verge of modern times. 
 This seemed the practical, positive, and expedient course, and 
 this expediency inspired the speeches of every statesman and 
 directed the operations of the legislator. In this respect there 
 is no difference between Conservatives and Liberals. 
 
 In England the idea of clan, which implies ownership origi- 
 nally enjoyed by its members in common, is not only eclipsed, 
 it is totally absent ; but the principle of individual ownership, 
 full and entire, has not thereby gained ground. The idea 
 which presents itself to the legislator is that of mere possession, 
 of a tenure, subject in principle to certain conditions which 
 render it precarious. A discussion was recejitly raised between 
 two distinguished legists on the question of whether the 
 English were true proprietors or simply holders, and he who 
 advanced the former argument could only repeat that, the pre- 
 eminent dominion of the sovereign having disappeared, tenures 
 were so nearly akin to full ownership that the two might be 
 confused. However, the English, when they have to decide 
 the legal position of estates, do not come into collision in any 
 way with the solid and undeviating principle of full dominion. 
 They have before them, nominally, an incomplete ownership, 
 a possession which time and circumstances alone have rendered 
 similar to full ownership. It is quite natural that so feeble and 
 abbreviated a conception of the right of the landlord should offer 
 but a feeble resistance to the eager desires and hopes of the 
 farmers, and encourage them to believe that they too have a 
 right over the land made fruitful by their labour and their 
 money. The transformation of copyholds into freeholds by 
 the redemption of manorial rights had already been to them a 
 singularly suggestive precedent. At all events, the English 
 landlords have not found themselves better prepared for a resist- 
 ance of principle, when it is a matter of protecting the culti-
 
 28o THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 vator against the depredations occasioned by game, than when 
 it is one of the permanent improvements he has made at his 
 own expense. In this case, too, the liberty of agreement is 
 openly attacked. At present there are rights which the farmer 
 may not forego by contract, there are improvements which he 
 may make unsanctioned by the landlord without losing his right 
 to an indemnity determined by arbiters. Yet on learning the 
 complaints of the class which has benefited by the law, and 
 reading the propositions of the publicists, it would seem that the 
 Act relating to agricultural tenures is only a timid introduction 
 to more radical measures. The design to reduce the landlord 
 to the condition of a mere debtee of a ground rent is perfectly 
 obvious, and we may look forward to the day when, under the 
 eyes of the impotent onlooker, the tenants will cultivate his 
 estate in their own way and transmit it themselves from one to 
 another. 
 
 This is not, however, the only threat hanging over landed 
 property. Nearly seventeen years ago some influential political 
 personages, Conservative as well as Liberal, expressed a desire 
 that portions of land adapted for cultivation should be placed at 
 the disposition of labourers in suburban districts. This idea 
 was taken up by the legislator, and, in 1887, formed the basis 
 of a measure afterwards extended to provincial districts. Every 
 parish is now authorised, with the approval of the County 
 Council, to compel the landlords within their circuit to let out 
 lands to them, which they divide into allotments and sublet to 
 urban or rural labourers ; and every District Council is autho- 
 rised, on the initiative of the Parish Council, to obtain an order 
 of expropriation from the County Council, and thus acquire by 
 force lands which they let out on lease after a similar division 
 into allotments. A resolution of even more importance was 
 taken in 1892. The County Councils were authorised to 
 acquire by amicable arrangement lands which they divided into 
 small or middle-sized lots, not exceeding fifty acres. These 
 lots, which correspond in size to every degree of condition of
 
 THE STATE'S FUNCTION AT HOME 281 
 
 the peasant proprietor, are destined, in the idea of the legis- 
 lator, to reconstitute the class of yeomen which the political 
 oligarchy of the eighteenth century caused to disappear. 
 Exceptionally favourable terms were granted to the purchaser 
 for the payment of the purchase money. The Council 
 were also authorised to advance four-fifths of the pur- 
 chase money to tenants who desired to acquire the lands 
 they cultivated. The Government lent the necessary 
 sums when required. It is true the legislator has protected 
 himself, at least for the present, against the abuse most 
 to be apprehended. He makes it a condition that every 
 such transaction shall be arranged on the basis of a price or 
 rate of interest sufficient to cover all expenses. Further, he 
 has prescribed minute formalities, establishing a complete hier- 
 archy of control, which ascends from the District Council to the 
 County Council, and from the County Council to the Local 
 Government Board, or even to Parliament. Nevertheless, it is 
 to be feared that even such curbs as these will hardly restrain 
 the pressure of the three local assemblies when they combine. 
 Henceforward these assemblies were elected by a suffrage which 
 closely resembles and cannot but become still more akin to 
 universal suffrage. It is in fact to people, the majority or 
 whom do not possess the land, that a right of expropriation has 
 been granted against those who do possess it. The local 
 councils will indubitably hasten to demand an extension of 
 their powers ; they will be urged to the attempt by their con- 
 stituents, and pledged to it by the legislator himself. The Act 
 of 1892 in particular contains a tacit but unmistakable acknow- 
 ledgment that the preseiit regime of land property is abusive 
 and contrary to public interest, that the economic work of the 
 eighteenth century has, at the very least, gone beyond its 
 object, and that a remodelling is necessary. It is perfectly 
 apparent that this inea culpa will be heard, and some day the 
 suggestion may well serve as the rallying-cry of reformers, 
 more impatient than the present legjslatc^r and more inclined to 
 pursue their ends by radical methods.
 
 282 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 Up to this point the State only intervened as a political 
 sovereign authority, whose endeavour was to allay, by a new 
 division, the irritable grievances which it could only but 
 inflame ; the time now comes when it enters on the scene in 
 its own personality and loudly declares its claim to become one 
 of the interested parties in this property, the possession of which 
 it had usually left to others. Towards 1848 John Stuart Mill 
 said "These are the reasons which form the justification, in an 
 economical point of view, of property in land. It is seen that 
 they are only valid, in so far as the proprietor of land is its 
 improver. Whenever, in any country whatsoever, the pro- 
 prietor, generally speaking, ceases to be the improver, political 
 economy has nothing to say in defence of landed property as 
 there established. In no sound theory of private property was 
 it ever contemplated that the proprietor of land should be 
 merely a sinecurist quartered on it." This reasoning might 
 serve to justify the farmer's contention against the landlord, 
 and the worker's contention against the idle ; but John 
 Stuart Mill pushed it too far. He proceeded to assign to 
 the State, under the name of unearned increment, all the 
 surplus revenue which is neither a result of the industry 
 of the landlord and the farmer nor of the employment of 
 their capital, and is simply produced by time and circum- 
 stances. This theory furnished the point of departure for the 
 physiocratic doctrines of Henry George, which were adopted 
 in England by Wallace, the emulator of Darwin. It pre- 
 pared men's minds to receive these doctrines, and contributed 
 largely to their success. It lies at the root of the nationali- 
 sation of the soil, a formula which constantly figures in the 
 programme of the congresses of the trade unions. This 
 theory goes right down to the economic basis of individual 
 property. Property is individual, and must remain so as long 
 as society finds what it expects in the proprietor as an in- 
 dividual ; but when the individual fails in what is expected of 
 him, society has no longer any reason to support him j all it
 
 THE STATE'S FUNCTION AT HOME 283 
 
 has to do is to takeaway from him the right of property, which 
 it assigns to the State. 
 
 More significant still, because in a sense more abstract, is the 
 theory which the then Chancellor of the Exchequx^r — Sir 
 William Harcourt — put before Parliament as a justification of 
 his progressive tax on succession. It was no question of 
 economic interest, but a right of the Crown which gave rise to 
 it. The right which the State possesses over the accumulated 
 property of the deceased, the minister said, is antecedent to any 
 other. Nature, indeed, gives man no power over his terrestrial 
 goods beyond the terms of his natural life. The right of a 
 dead man to dispose of his goods proceeds solely from the law, 
 and the State has power to stipulate the conditions and reserva- 
 tions under which this right may be exercised. The right to make 
 a will, he also said, is a creation of the written law. In default 
 of testamentary dispositions the State determines the destina- 
 tion which must be given to property. 
 
 The effects of the law after it had been in force for two or 
 three years were as threatening as these declarations were per- 
 emptory. The opponents of Sir William Harcourt sincerely 
 believed that the new fiscal system would not yield the results 
 expected of it. Sir William Harcourt himself was not very 
 sure of a superior value. The proceeds of the tax equalled and 
 soon exceeded expectation : the first year it yielded only a 
 million pounds, having been in force but partially for seven 
 months ; but the following year it put into the coffers of the 
 Treasury more than fourteen millions, a figure which was soon 
 surpassed, for in 1898-99 the receipts attained the extravagant 
 figure of j^ 1 5,563,000 sterling. The memory of this fortunate 
 miscalculation will never be effaced ; it will be present in the 
 mind of every financier who endeavours to find a taxable 
 subject unlikely to disappear, and taxpayers who cry out for 
 form's sake. These are qualities which strongly recom- 
 mend a tax at a time when the increase in all the Budgets, 
 resulting from the expenses of the Army and Navy, place
 
 284 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 statesmen under the necessity of finding new sources of 
 revenue. 
 
 But it is specially in its relation with the Established Church 
 that the State has exhibited the lofty consciousness of an 
 omnipotence before which the most inveterate rights and 
 venerable traditions give way. Ecclesiastical property had 
 for centuries been subjected to a legal regime which the 
 Government undertook to re-model. State policy and 
 Socialism have perhaps never received more sureties than on 
 this occasion. The Anglican Church, considered as a whole, 
 is not qualified to hold possession. Bishoprics, chapters, 
 livings, and benefices, as represented by their incumbents, 
 each have a separate civil personality, and they only can be 
 proprietors. What is called the property of the Church is 
 only the arithmetical sum of all these private properties, and 
 the Church as a whole has no more right over the glebe and 
 tithes of any parson whatsoever than over the estates of any 
 squire, be he who he may. It is only by a misuse of language 
 that any one could be led to believe that the lands, capital, 
 and revenues possessed by ecclesiastics are, in any degree, part 
 of a collective property or great domain belonging to the 
 Church. 
 
 In principle it appears that the State has no more right than 
 the Church over such properties of tiie latter as have been 
 legally and regularly acquired. As a rule these properties 
 were donations made by private individuals to a living, or a 
 certain community, or else they are grounded on immemorial 
 rights held by the Church for centuries. Such was the case 
 in PVance under the old regime. There was a strong feeling 
 against the attempted spoliation in and after 1789, which 
 placed the properties of the French Church at the disposal 
 of the public Treasury. The respect and consideration with 
 which religious foundations are surrounded in England was 
 brought forward as a contrast to this act of violence. This was 
 a complete mistake. The most distinguished British statesmen
 
 THE STATE'S EUNCTION AT HOME 285 
 
 have not hesitated to declare that all ecclesiastical goods are 
 the property of the State. Tiiese were the very terms made 
 use of by Lord Palmerston, and he gave it as his opinion that 
 the legislature has the right and power to do with these goods 
 according to the necessities of the moment. If people, said 
 Lord Coleridge on his part (1870), make a donation to the 
 Church, and the Church accepts it, the donation is made and 
 accepted subject to the sovereign control of the State, and in 
 accordance with the conditions determined by the State in 
 every age — conditions which are liable to modification by the 
 power which determines them. This theoretical declaration 
 did not end the matter. The administration of private estates 
 was removed from the lawful possessors and placed in the 
 hands of a higher Commission, in which a number of secular 
 members, especially the principal ministers, began by figuring, 
 but which was afterwards chiefly composed of ecclesiastics. 
 The Commission was appointed to make a new division of 
 the lands or revenues thus collected together, curtailing the 
 inordinately large and adding to the inadequately small : con- 
 scientiously elaborating a more equitable distribution. This 
 task was accomplished to the great advantage of the Church 
 and the country. Following this evolution step by step, and 
 minutely analysing its processes, is it not, for a certain class 
 of property, precisely that economic revolution of which the 
 Socialists dream for all classes of property ? The fortunes of 
 private individuals declared to be in principle the property 
 of the State, taken back from its holders, administered by a 
 bureaucracy : the revenues divided anew by a higher authority, 
 not in proportion to existing rights, but in proportion to neces- 
 sities in accordance with justice and conjectured expediency ; 
 what more do the disciples of Henry George in the United 
 States and England demand ? The English Parliament, with 
 perfect tranquillity, has furnished them with an example and 
 most encouraging precedent under the form of a law-type 
 which, up to the present, is special, but which could be applied
 
 286 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 to-morrow without any change of phraseology to the latifundia 
 of the great English landowners. 
 
 These examples are dangerously attractive to the legislator, 
 all the more so because circumstances seem made to dispose 
 him to take advantage of them. The position is not without 
 a certain gravity in the present day, when civilisation has 
 multiplied and complicated the wants of mankind, while the 
 superfluity of comforts and enjoyments has gradually deadened, 
 in a whole section of society, the inclination for earnest and 
 unprofitable activity. The statutes are as circumstantial 
 to-day as in the past ; the legislative intemperance of Par- 
 liament is not yet of that order which touches on everything, 
 but what it does touch on it expressly regulates in the smallest 
 detail. Further, a bureaucracy unknown in preceding cen- 
 turies has begun to be organised, its justification being not 
 only the increasing number and extent of public offices, 
 but their increasingly complete and technical nature, which 
 demands a special training and professional knowledge on the 
 part of those who would fill them. The future is therefore 
 not without a cloud. Yet has not the English legislator 
 already been seen to retrace his steps and re-establish the 
 liberty he had for a moment sacrificed ? For instance, a law 
 which, for the protection of a certain class of individuals, 
 authorised the inspection of women by the agents of the 
 police was recently revoked ; and, in the same way, after 
 the enormous success of vaccination. Parliament's first step 
 was to prevent those who objected from being compelled to 
 undergo it, by declaring it optional. 
 
 In short, the intervention of the State is rarer in England 
 than in France, and doubtless it will never become so universal 
 there as in our country, because the extraordinarily active 
 temperament of tlie English people renders it, as a rule, use- 
 less and unwelcome ; but when it is exercised the effect is less 
 disturbing. The State intervenes with less hesitation and in a 
 more absolute form than in France, because what it has to face
 
 THE STATE'S FUNCTION AT HOME 287 
 
 are contingent facts, not imperative principles ; a venerable 
 possession not a sacred property. If the great qualities of the 
 English character — energy, the passion for action, and the 
 desire for responsibility — become weakened by lapse of time 
 England will not be as well protected as we arc against the 
 exaggerations of a State Socialism, which these forces alone 
 keep within bounds, and which will never be faced by the 
 great abstractions, the cult of which in France is an inveterate 
 tradition.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE STATE AND ITS FUNCTION ABROAD 
 
 The State has a similar ideal abroad and at home ; the motive 
 is the same, but the consequences seem reversed. In essence 
 the duties of the State may be summed up in one : to do 
 everything in its power to procure for the nation the largest 
 possible amount of the species of happiness it prefers. Now 
 in England this happiness is action. Consequently, nothing is 
 more natural and harmonious at bottom than the two ideas, 
 apparently contradictory, which the English profess regarding 
 the role of the State at home and abroad. At home and 
 towards the citizens they desire it to be prudent, circum- 
 spect, and even passive ; abroad and towards foreign nations 
 they desire it to be active, easily offended, jealous, and 
 ever ready to raise difficulties. This is because the State 
 cannot intervene at home without restricting the field of 
 action of each individual ; abroad it must intervene in order 
 to keep open and continually extend his field of action in the 
 five sections of the world. Every step taken by the Foreign 
 Office is towards this end. " Foreign affairs," said Disraeli, 
 "are the affairs of the English with the foreigner." It is, 
 therefore, at bottom the same sentiment which restrains the 
 State at home and prompts it to interference abroad. 
 
 The world to the English is like an immense motive for 
 exertion. Hence the two types of statesmen who arc in 
 
 opposition to each other, and alternate in power. The first 
 
 288
 
 THE STATE'S E UNCTION All ROAD 289 
 
 is represented by such personages as Sir Robert Peel and, more 
 especially, Gladstone. The school of Manchester imbues them, 
 sometimes in spite of and unknown to themselves, with its 
 doctrines ; it gives the keynote of their politics. They 
 intend to remain the masters of the world by the sole excel- 
 lence of a production on which they concentrate all their 
 resources and care ; their sovereign good is peace, which 
 opens all the markets of the world to their merchandise. 
 Peace, free trade, and the good-will of nations one towards 
 the other, characterises and sums up their method of conduct- 
 ing affairs. They fear, instead of desiring, an extension of tiie 
 Empire ; they foresee in it a source of new perplexities, of 
 daily difficulties with other nations ; they would readily give 
 up the Ionian Islands ^ and the Soudan and recognise the inde- 
 pendence of the Transvaal. They believe they have some- 
 thing better to do than to add to their territories — which 
 means the multiplication of occasions for disagreement and 
 strife — viz., to diminish by every possible means the net cost 
 price of English products, and to master the whole of the 
 inhabited world, not by force of arms, but by cheapness. 
 
 The other type of statesman has always been in favour with 
 the Tory party. Palmerston, who was a moderate Whig, 
 Disraeli, and Lord Salisbury sum up the principal traits of the 
 cliaracter. They believe that the Englishman may be well off 
 with other people, but that he will be still better off at home, 
 and consequently there ought to be no hesitation in extending 
 the frontiers of the ]3ritish Empire. To this end they employ 
 an unscrupulous diplomacy, and, at need, arms. Throughout 
 the universe they may be heard answering the weaker nations 
 in sharp, incisive tone, an echo of which still sounds in their 
 voice when they come into contact with the stronger nations. 
 Wherever their interest is concerned they claim it as we should 
 a right sanctioned by a solemn treaty. They make themselves 
 hated by every other nation, and this they know and glory 
 in. They are the chosen people, the pre-ordained masters, the 
 
 ' Translatok's Note. — The Ionian Islands were ceded to Greece in 1864.
 
 290 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 appointed protectors of the weak. They feel that, in this 
 character, they ought neither to commit themselves with 
 their inferiors nor become over-much entangled with their 
 equals, A " splendid isolation " is natural to them. At 
 bottom, it is in the Tory method of procedure that the 
 true heart of the nation is to be found, and though at times 
 it may wander, it always returns thither in spite of utilitarian 
 statesmen. 
 
 This is what came to pass with Gladstone. He entered, 
 without willing it, upon the venturesome, long-aspersed paths of 
 his illustrious opponent. As the Pall Mall Gazette said in 1 884 : 
 " Here we have a Cabinet which, when it arrived at power, 
 was animated by the passionate desire to restrict our responsi- 
 bilities and lighten the burdens of the Empire. No one, even 
 in the Opposition which makes an everlasting crime of its 
 desire to diminish rather than enlarge the Empire, can throw 
 a doubt on the sincerity of the Cabinet. It has sought to rid 
 itself honestly of the burden which, like a new Atlas, it bears 
 upon its shoulders. It has evacuated Candahar and abandoned 
 the Transvaal. No English Cabinet has ever given such 
 proofs of its desire to stay the aggrandisement of the Empire. 
 Yet it has increased, and increased more rapidly under Mr. 
 Gladstone than under Lord Beaconsfield. We have not 
 annexed Egypt, but we hold a garrison there ; we have not 
 absorbed the Soudan, but an English army is on the road to 
 Khartoum. We have annexed a third of Zululand, the whole 
 of Bcchuanaland, and all the coast of South Africa from the 
 Orange River to Cunem, with the exception of Angra pequeria. 
 We have rounded off our possessions in West Africa by the 
 annexation of a belt of coast near Sierra Leone. We had 
 sanctioned the annexation of Cameron, but the Germans 
 having anticipated us in taking possession, we found a com- 
 pensation in the annexation of the delta of the Niger. We 
 have established a new East India Company in the northern 
 part of Borneo, and to-day wc have given the order to pro-
 
 THE STATE'S FUNCTION ABROAD 291 
 
 claim the Britisii protectorate over tiie eastern half of New 
 Guinea. This has no parallel in our times. There is not 
 another nation in the world which can offer a similar phe- 
 nomenon. England takes to expansion, and the more she is 
 restrained by her rulers the more she tries to extend herself. 
 In presence of this great universal movement Mr, Gladstone, 
 in spite of the almost absolute power which the nation has en- 
 trusted to him, in spite of his almost passionate desire to stand 
 still, is as powerless as a child. The expansion of England 
 escapes the will of those who govern her." 
 
 If the Pall Mall Gazette had made a general review of 
 the English acquisitions, it ought to have spoken of Cyprus, 
 which became an English island by a secret agreement (1878), 
 made public at the Treaty of Berlin. If it had included our 
 own times it ought to have mentioned the conquests of the 
 Soudan, Zanzibar, Uganda, and Matabeleland — all now 
 English provinces — the Transvaal deprived of its indepen- 
 dence, and the English possessions at the mouth of the Niger 
 recognised by a treaty with France, who, threatened at 
 Fashoda, was obliged to surrender Egypt and her dependencies. 
 In short, two-thirds — and the best part — of the African con- 
 tinent are occupied not only by the interests, but by the troops 
 of the British Empire. In this summary review, which only 
 takes account of the great facts, we should perhaps pass over in 
 silence Wei-Hai-Wei and the province of Shantoung, which 
 make England one of the heirs-presumptive of China. The 
 Tory system has decidedly carried the day in the councils of 
 England, and is arrogantly displayed over the whole surface of 
 the globe. 
 
 In short, the Anglo-Saxon race, eager for action, with 
 difficulty endures even the semblance of indolence and renun- 
 ciation in the collective entity which bears its name. It does 
 not desire to be conqueror merely in fact, but also ostcn 
 sibly active, exacting, and menacing. It is pleased that it 
 should have a certain quarrelsome combativcness. The policy
 
 292 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 of results does not content it. When Palmerston said that 
 man is a combative and quarrelsome animal, he defined himself, 
 and not only himself, but every statesman whose policy is likely 
 to obtain the unconscious and ardent sympathies of the English 
 people. The caprices and litigious ardour of this disagreeable, 
 bad-tempered person responded to something in the profoundest 
 depths of British egoism. That is why he was so popular, or, 
 to put it better, so national. Further, the inability to conceive 
 principles in the independence of their absolute form introduces 
 into the foreign policy of the English the ingenuous lack of 
 probity which forms a most singular contrast to their clear- 
 sighted morality in private relations, the pitiless "each-for- 
 himself," the harshness to the weak, and the lack of justice 
 and generosity, of which they have too often given proof. 
 The more contemplative races rapidly obtain the idea of man 
 in general, and this idea gives rise to another — that of a con- 
 solidated humanity, each member of which has a right to a 
 uniform treatment at the hands of all the rest. This absolutely 
 ideal conception they bring to bear more or less upon the 
 relation of nation to nation. They consider each state more 
 or less as a member of the great human family ; they enjoin 
 upon their government more or less the duties of honour, 
 loyalty, and justice towards other nations ; they even delight 
 in their being sometimes disinterested, generous, and chivalrous, 
 and are with them heart and soul when they thus play the 
 dupe. The sentiments of France towards Poland, oppressed 
 Italy, and even Germany, torn by internal disagreements, are 
 comprehensive examples of this contemplative philanthropy. 
 The English know nothing of it. The idea of industrious 
 and fruitful activity occupies all the avenues of their minds, 
 and any idea incompatible with it they will not entertain. 
 They do not conceive the State in any sort of way as one of 
 the members of a vague humanitarian federation ; to them it 
 is simply a powerful organ of protection and security for a 
 certain group of associated workers ; and, as in every financial
 
 THE STATE'S FUNCTION ABROAD 293 
 
 company, the members intend that the council of administra- 
 tion — in this case the Government — shall conceive its duty 
 solely towards them, without a thought to the public. There- 
 fore, while the sentiment of national solidarity has more vigour 
 in England than in any other country, the sentiment of human 
 solidarity or of the sympathetic unity of the civilised world is 
 completely absent. 
 
 The Englishman — I have described him elsewhere and will 
 not repeat myself — is unprovided with physical sensibility ; he 
 has, therefore, no sympathy, but he is nevertheless capable of 
 rising to a sincere sentimentality, to which Christianity lends 
 its force. To this sentimentality was due the passing of the 
 two great measures which abolished the slave trade in 1B07, 
 and slavery in 1B33. But we must not be surprised if during 
 the same period we encounter in individual cases examples of 
 impassivity and barbarity, giving the lie to the supposed senti- 
 ments of the bulk of the people with regard to these two laws, 
 which were unanimously demanded and approved. In Jamaica, 
 on the first signs of insurrection, the English organised the 
 most cruel man-hunts against their late slaves ; army officers 
 appeared to delight in these undertakings as a sort of sanguinary 
 sport, and some of them even boasted of monstrous acts which 
 they had not committed. In Africa Jameson, one of Stanley's 
 lieutenants, demanded or received permission to be present at 
 a cannibal feast ; a little girl was seized, dismembered, and 
 ripped open before his eyes without his moving a finger to 
 snatch her from her fate. The double circular of the Disraeli 
 Cabinet in 1875-6, which took away from slaves the rights of 
 refuge on English ships, was finally rejected by public opinion, 
 but the mere thought that it might be accepted without 
 exciting objection indicates that a whole enlightened section 
 of the nation did not recognise the authority of the principles, 
 and only admitted them for the sake of decorum. 
 
 With regard to the conquered races who retained some 
 sort of footing in their own lands, the conduct ot the English
 
 294 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 has not been very different. In no single instance, neither in 
 Canada, the United States, India, nor Egypt, have the English 
 mingled vi^ith the natives and formed a mixed race ; they only 
 understood how to destroy or make use of them. The first of 
 these tvi^o solutions thev applied to the Redskins, the second to 
 the Hindoos, and both alternately to the Irish. Burke has 
 described with picturesque eloquence the young English 
 officials who burst upon India with all the avarice of the 
 century and the impetuosity of youth : the natives had nothing 
 to look forward to but the indefinite and hopeless prospect of 
 birds of prey and of passage continually swooping down upon 
 them with ever eager appetites. And, in order that there 
 should be no misconception in the matter, Burke adds that, 
 having rapidly acquired a fortune by these criminal methods, 
 the Englishman, on again setting foot on his native soil, re- 
 assumed the virtues which caused him to make the most noble 
 use of this scandalously acquired wealth in such a way that the 
 working man and the labourer blessed the just hand which in 
 India had snatched away the linen cloth from the loom, 
 depriving the Bengal peasant of his scanty portion of rice and 
 salt. At the time of the insurrection of the Sepoys a young 
 officer named Hodson took upon himself to condemn and 
 execute the princes of Delhi, who, through treachery, had 
 fallen into his hands ; and McCarthy testifies that this act 
 was generally appreciated in England as " praiseworthy and 
 patriotic." When the news of the bombardment of Alexandria 
 was made public in the House of Commons the declaration 
 was received by an outburst of spontaneous and resounding 
 joy — "a ringing cheer," such as might have been expected 
 from schoolboys at an exhibition of fireworks, not of an 
 assembly of intelligent. Christian men who had just been told 
 that a town of two hundred thousand souls had been deliberately 
 fired upon and bombarded. The same indecent joy was 
 manifested by the Tory party when a telegram from Captain 
 Plunkett was read before the House to the following effect :
 
 THE STATE'S FUNCTION ABROAD 295 
 
 " Don't hesitate to shoot if necessary." It was the equivalent 
 of another telegram which made some noise in its time : 
 "Shoot me these people." But besides the fact that Challemer- 
 Lacour, who wrote these regrettable words, might have been a 
 prey at the time to the intemperate passions which are the 
 result of a civil war succeeding a foreign war, we may say that 
 the message was received in the French Chamber only by men 
 who had made up their minds either to condemn him severely 
 or to make a humble apology to him. They were not a 
 hundred political men, habituated to self-control, who mani- 
 fested by exclamations they could not keep back the funda- 
 mental basis of a natural barbarity. These men evidently 
 considered the Irish not as fellow-creatures, but an inferior 
 race against whom anything was permissible. 
 
 But the English do not merely consider or feel themselves 
 exempt from the duties of humanity towards other nations ; 
 where such are concerned they break the rules by which long 
 habit has bound them and the principles which they consider 
 their special heritage and make their boast. The revelation of 
 civil liberty was granted to them in early days ; they have 
 brought the protection of the law to a singular perfection ; 
 they have recognised on British soil the rights of prisoners and 
 accused. Well, all these rights and sureties, which reverence 
 for the past would seem to protect, vanish into thin air directly 
 it becomes a question of benefiting men of another race. I 
 need not go back so far as Warren Hastings ; sixty years ago 
 we find in a distinguished statesman, ex-member of the Cabinet 
 and ex-ambassador in Russia, this singular absence of scruple. 
 Appointed governor of Canada, Lord Durham arrived there 
 accompanied by a law which expressly limited his powers. 
 He had barely set foot in the country when he ordered the 
 prisoners in his hands to be sent to the Bermudas, and declared 
 that any who had gone into self-imposed exile would be liable 
 to the death penalty if they returned to the colony. This, as 
 Lord Durham knew perfectly well, was totally at variance
 
 296 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 with common law and even the most elementary common 
 sense. Lord Durham could not legally transport any one to 
 the Bermudas and had no authority to delegate to the officials 
 in the Bermudas which would empower them to detain any 
 political prisoners whatsoever. Neither had he any right to 
 declare that any prisoners whatsoever who returned to the 
 colony should undergo capital punishment. There was not a 
 single English law which regarded a convict's return even to 
 England as a capital crime. Both these actions were a 
 flagrant contradiction of English law, but Lord Durham did 
 not regard them in that light. From the day when he had 
 quitted English soil to enter upon Canadian soil he looked 
 upon himself as a dictator and acknowledged the restraint of 
 neither text nor precedent ; he felt at liberty to go to the 
 length of the most absolute despotism without exciting any 
 objection. A political cabal was formed against him in 
 England, but it did not prevent this " Lord High Seditioner," 
 as the Times called him, whose last act in Canada was to 
 appeal to the feelings of the colony against the conduct of 
 Her Majesty's ministry, from being welcomed at Plymouth with 
 all the enthusiasm which a victorious Nelson or Wellington 
 would have received. 
 
 In like manner, after the riots which took place in Jamaica, 
 in the time of Governor Eyre (1865), the latter arrested a 
 citizen of the name of Gordon. He had him transported 
 from a district where the ordinary law still obtained to one 
 where martial law had been established. There the 
 unfortunate man found a court formed in total disregard 
 of the law and without any legal authorisation. He appeared 
 before this court, which judged him on inadmissable evidence 
 and condemned him to death. This sentence was ratified by 
 the Government. Eyre, who was removed by a committee 
 of inquiry in consequence of these illegal acts, returned to 
 England. There, while one committee was formed to attack 
 him, another was constituted in his defence, the latter includ-
 
 THE STATE'S FUNCTION ABROAD 297 
 
 ing the most illustrious names in England — Carlyle, Tenny- 
 son, Raskin, &c. The Government refused to bring him to 
 justice, the Grand Jury invariably rejected the demands for 
 prosecution, and the Treasury reimbursed him for the expenses 
 which these rash law suits had cost him. 
 
 The remark has been made that many ot our most 
 extreme Revolutionists and ruthless Jacobins might have 
 been faultless officials, affectionate fathers of families and 
 kindly neighbours, had it not been for the great events which 
 plucked them from the conditions of everyday life. In the 
 same way, the Englishmen I have mentioned were and might 
 have remained scrupulous, liberal, and humane personages if 
 they had only had to do with their own countrymen. Once 
 having passed the frontier — only St. George's Channel — and 
 brought face to face with strangers, they felt themselves as it 
 were freed from every-day morality. They were outside the 
 grip of national solidarity, and yet had not entered into that 
 wider kingdom governed by the sentiment of human solidarity. 
 Their actions had no law but that of interest, and for what 
 they might do a public opinion could always be found ready 
 to absolve them. 
 
 We have hitherto observed the English only at home or in 
 their own colonics, struggling with races conquered before- 
 hand, whose independence was swallowed up in the immensity 
 of the Colonial Empire. But the whole foreign policy of 
 the English Government, both in the theory and practice of 
 international law, bears the same stamp. Loyalty, veracity, 
 humanity, and generosity towards the weak are with them 
 " truth on this side of the Channel, error on the other." I 
 will not go back to the seizure of the Spanish vessels before 
 the declaration of war, nor to tlie bombardment of Copen- 
 hagen. But in more recent times how can the conduct of 
 the Cabinet of Westminster towards Greece in the Pacifico 
 affair, or the unwarrantable injury which gave rise to the first 
 war with China, be recalled without shame ? This un-
 
 298 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 scrupulous policy was not merely excused, but even honoured 
 in the person of Palmerston in the General Election of 1857, 
 when nearly all those who had criticised the policy of the 
 ministry lost their seats in Parliament. Two years afterwards 
 Palmerston was compelled to retire owing to the adverse 
 voting of the House, which had been elected in his own 
 image, he having allowed it to be understood that he was 
 disposed to comply with the demands of France in regard to 
 the plots hatched on British soil against the foreigner, and he 
 dared not again appeal to the nation in the matter. This is 
 a striking example, but less so perhaps than that of Mr. 
 Chamberlain, of which I shall speak later. 
 
 It need not cause surprise that such tendencies should not 
 only be felt in practice, but also appear more or less in the 
 theories of jurisconsults regarding the law of nations. A 
 recent book, that of M. Dupuis, on maritime jurisprudence,^ 
 furnishes several instructive examples in support of such con- 
 siderations. The Englishman approaches questions regarding 
 the law of nations in a very different spirit from ours. He is 
 openly averse to the multiplication of absolute principles, and 
 the strict application of exact rules proceeding from these 
 principles. Abstraction causes him a kind of embarrassment and 
 uneasiness, he dreads lest abstract opinions should govern him 
 and force him to certain conclusions : he intends to keep his 
 liberty. This is why he admits at most a vague and very 
 comprehensive principle, drawing from deductions, which he 
 modifies in accordance with circumstances ; he resolves the 
 greatest problems as if they were questions of individual 
 cases. 
 
 At the end of the last century we appeared very eager to 
 adopt Rousseau's axiom : to wit, that war exists between 
 the military forces of the states and not between their civil 
 elements. In other words, in Rousseau's eyes, the soldier 
 
 • Ch. Dupuis, " Lc droit dc la guerre maritime d'apres les doctrines 
 angiaises contemporaries," in-yo° (Paris, itsyB).
 
 THE STATE'S FUNCTION ABROAD 299 
 
 alone is an enemy and ought to be treated as such ; the 
 private individual being a sort of neutral who ought to have 
 all the advantages of such a position. This ingenious anti- 
 thesis interested, captivated, and convinced us, in consequence 
 whereof we found ourselves pledged to the observance of two 
 contradictory rules, and were drawn into conclusions which 
 did not harmonise with French interests. The abstract and 
 subtle conception of Rousseau had no power over the English 
 mind, which rejected it in its entirety, only admitting one 
 principle, thatof the state of war, and accepting the consequences 
 thereof as affecting private individuals as much as the State. 
 Thus it has come about that the British Government hems 
 private individuals in with very strict regulations, which it can 
 alternatively enforce or relax in accordance with circumstances 
 and the interests of the moment. France and most of the 
 other Powers have risen to an increasingly broad and general 
 conception of the position of neutrals ; they looked upon the 
 case of the belligerents as an exception, and took measures to 
 restrict this exception as much as possible. During the whole 
 course of the nineteenth century their efforts constantly tended 
 to localise the necessities of war — e.g.^ to allow the commerce 
 of the neutrals to circulate unhindered around the vessels 
 engaged in the struggle. The English method proceeds from 
 a totally different conception. The English belligerent only 
 beholds the commerce of the neutrals as an inconvenience it is 
 necessary to avoid, a danger it is necessary to anticipate ; he 
 regards commerce as the exception ; the condition of the 
 belligerent appears to him to be the rule. Now let us look at 
 the consequences : France reduces the list of objects which 
 constitute the contraband of war as far as possible ; she only 
 allows arms and ammunition — or at most rice in her quarrel 
 with China ; — she publishes this list at the beginning of 
 hostilities and does not touch it again. England includes in 
 her list, besides the objects enumerated in the French list, 
 an indefinite quantity of commodities which might be useful
 
 300 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 in carrying on the war or in the maintenance of the belligerents ; 
 this list is not closed, and an order from the Crown can 
 complete it at any time. France only allows the strictly 
 effective blockade, which is necessarily limited to certain points 
 on the coast ; England, on the other hand, allows a blockade 
 which may embrace a long line of coast. France permits 
 only vessels taking a part in the blockade to pursue a ship 
 which tries to force the passage ; England permits any vessel 
 belonging to her to enter upon this pursuit to the death. 
 Similarly, was it not England who rejected the proposal to apply 
 the articles of the Geneva Convention to naval war, although 
 it was accepted by all the other Powers ? On one occasion 
 only did she decide in favour of humanity and civilisation, and 
 that was when she abolished privateering ; but no one can deny 
 that in 1856 privateering was the one thing to be feared for 
 Great Britain, all that the world had to throw into the scale to 
 balance her naval supremacy ? It was therefore her own 
 interest which she served when appearing to defend the cause 
 of civilisation. Turning over the leaves of M. Dupuis' book 
 in this way we find all the Powers, and France in particular, 
 yielding themselves up more and more to abstract and generous 
 conceptions, linking them together with maxims of dis- 
 interestedness, and confirming and consolidating them into 
 principles, whose only claims to acceptance are the progress of 
 reason, a nicer sense of justice and a wider comprehension of 
 reciprocity. We find England, on the contrary, imbued 
 with a half-unconscious egoism, bent on considering the 
 foreigner as an enemy, rebellious and even impervious to every 
 idea which might help to wrest questions relating to the law 
 of nations from the judgment of private interest and place 
 them before a higher tribunal. England knows and feels her 
 force and desires to retain the liberty of abusing it. 
 
 For twenty years these tendencies have been taking ever 
 deeper root, and in proportion with the advance of civilisation 
 in the direction of intellectuality and refinement they have
 
 THE STATE'S FUNCTION ABROAD 301 
 
 become more marked and been displayed with a more ingenuous 
 arrogance. This is largely due to the reforms of 1867 and 
 1884. The electoral right was then conferred on men who 
 had no personal culture ; an abrupt extension, or — shall 
 we say ? — lowering of the base of power, which led to the 
 reappearance in politics, in an age when science and its 
 methods reigned supreme, of psychological conditions unknown 
 for several centuries. Whereas a class of facts, like hygiene, 
 for example, received a number of solutions which were the 
 fruit of conscientious and prolonged labour in the laboratories, 
 a question like that of Fashoda would be decided definitively 
 by peasants and working men who have remained practically 
 the same for more than four hundred years, and whose 
 stock of requirements has been limited by the imperfection 
 of their sensibilities ; they have been brought into but a 
 momentary contact with a civilisation which has glided over 
 them, leaving no trace behind. After the electoral reform 
 they did not realise at once the proper method of using their 
 vote, they neither knew what opinion to have nor how to 
 demonstrate it ; their self-confidence dates but from yester- 
 day, and of yesterday also was the reappearance, as in a stock 
 long unproductive, of the concentrated, strong passions, violent 
 prejudices and abbreviated methods of thought, feeling and 
 judgment, which were characteristic of the fourteenth and 
 fifteenth centuries. A popular conclusion is characterised 
 by the fact that it usually springs from a single idea. An 
 intelligence which is seldom exercised has a difficulty in find- 
 ing or retaining several ideas which limit and conflict with one 
 another. The one idea therefore develops with concentrated 
 intensity, encountering no contradiction ; further, it becomes 
 attached to some image or phrase instead of remaining a 
 simple idea and, for the same reason as I have already given, it 
 tenaciously adheres thereto. Finallv, the nation has a special 
 predilection for anything bearing the emblem of strength and 
 victory. Even though it be strength unmingled with pity.
 
 302 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 and victory unmingled with justice. In this it resembles a 
 child, and like a child does not detest oratorical bombast, but 
 applauds the miles gloriosus. This was the new factor which 
 was introduced into the politics of England twenty years ago, 
 and which, in the guise of ancient Conservative institutions, 
 suddenly took in hand the conduct of affairs ; statesmen always 
 have to reckon with it before arriving at any decision, vying 
 with each other in the attempt to satisfy it ; for on it, after all 
 is said and done, depends the destiny of a statesman, his 
 lengthened stay in power, and the eclipse of his colleagues by 
 a will which in reality is the will of the people. 
 
 Thus, a first fact : the abrupt installation of the democracy 
 as supreme arbiter in politics, and as trustee of the " last 
 word " ; a second fact : the invincible determination on the 
 part of all English statesmen to conform their resolutions to 
 the supposed desires of the people and to give way to the mass 
 and to the number, encounter a third fact : British Imperialism, 
 radically affecting it in substance, language, and methods of 
 procedure. Imperialism developed first of all in the ranks of 
 the upper class ; it united the roughness inseparable from the 
 manifestations of a strong race with that inexpressible cold- 
 ness and disdain characteristic of aristocracy alone ; a breadth 
 and variety of combination which did not even exclude a 
 certain intelligent generosity. Imperialism was then a doctrine 
 of gentlemen. The democracy, in bringing it down to its 
 level, caused it to lose these elevated attributes ; and hence- 
 forward it was merely "jingoism," an American word which 
 betrays its popular origin and nature by the vulgarity of its 
 articulation and the discord of its clashing syllables. 
 
 This transformation and its causes were rendered apparent 
 by the choice of arguments brought up by either side in the 
 debate on the endowment of Lord Kitchener. The conduct 
 of this general in regard to the Mahdists lost among the sands 
 of the desert has never fully been brought to light. The 
 telegrams received in England emanated in every case from
 
 THE STATE'S FUNCTION ABROAD 303 
 
 Englisliincn whose interest it was to put a good complexion on 
 the affair. There is, however, reason to bch'cve that the Sirdar 
 gave the order that no prisoners were to be made, and that 
 every Dervish who fell into the hands of his troops was to be 
 massacred without pity. Several newspapers stated that after the 
 talcing of Khartoum, instructions given by the absent general 
 allowed the English to violate the sepulchre of the Mahdi ; 
 the head was separated from the trunk and delivered to 
 Gordon's nephew, who kept it for some time as a curiosity ; 
 moreover, the officers fashioned amulets and trinkets for their 
 watch-chains out of the prodigiously long nails of the prophet. 
 The motion of Mr. John Morley, who, with respect to these 
 scandalous actions, invoked the natural humanity and piety or 
 the English, only obtained 51 votes against 393. "It will be a 
 day of evil omen," added this profound and sagacious observer in 
 conclusion, " when we have two consciences, one for the Mother 
 Country, and the other for the vast territory which the eye 
 cannot encompass." It is interesting to note Mr. Balfour's 
 answer. He made no attempt to take up the line of argument 
 adopted by his opponent. Humanity and piety did not enter 
 into his speech ; the justification he brought forward was based 
 on the simple fact that Lord Kitchener had acted according 
 to his conscience, and authorised only what he believed would 
 be to the political advantage of the country which he served. 
 Perhaps, added Mr. Balfour, with a slight show of embarrass- 
 ment, it may not have been " in very good taste," i.e.y good 
 manners had not been observed. This was the only point the 
 orator found it necessary to reprove in these hateful puerilities 
 and revolting profanations. He thus evinced the barely con- 
 cealed contempt and discomfort of the gentleman saddled with 
 the defence of conduct he knew he must reprove as lightly as 
 possible, otherwise he would find himself out of harmony with 
 the democracy, thenceforward sole judge both of men and 
 things. 
 
 On the same day and in the course of the same sitting I
 
 304 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 find one simple word used in which the feeling and language 
 of the democracy were equally apparent. It was in connection 
 with the dum-dum bullets, on the subject of which Mr. Dillon 
 brought forward a collection of evidence and demanded certain 
 explanations. Lord George Hamilton replied by the 
 euphemism, which at another time might have seemed 
 exaggerated, that ordinary balls were not sufficient protection 
 for the troops who used them. So that this terrible projectile, 
 prepared with the object of dealing the greatest possible 
 number of mortal wounds, was looked upon merely as a pro- 
 tection. The Englishman averted his eyes from the wounded 
 as they were borne away, and those wounds so strangely 
 aggravated which no one could cure ; if he did consent to let 
 his eyes rest on them, he would simply say that the Afridis 
 and the Boers have firmer flesh than Europeans and to produce 
 equivalent wounds the use of an extensible bullet is only fair. 
 In this point of view we recognise by indubitable signs the 
 sentiment and opinion of the lower classes. 
 
 The upper classes viewed the two nations in conjunction, 
 compared one with the other, and almost immediately came to 
 the conclusion that the English were the superior. The mass 
 of the people went further ; they saw nothing but the English 
 troops ; the Afridis and the Boers in the background were 
 hidden by dust and smoke ; what happened to them they 
 cared not, ignoring and desiring to ignore it. If an apostle of 
 the law of nations, coming from the enemy's camp, had repre- 
 sented to the English the horror of the wounds they had 
 caused, they would have listened without comprehension, as if 
 he had spoken to them of abstract beings. Nothing was real 
 and substantial to them but the Tom and Jack they knew, 
 men who carried the English colours ; every method of " pro- 
 tecting" them must be good. 
 
 It will be said that the leaders of the two great parties, 
 Tory and Whig, were conscious of the sort of degradation, or, 
 at least, lowering of tone, their policy had undergone. They
 
 THE STATE'S FUNCTION ABROAD 305 
 
 experienced the feeling very strongly, but with a certain con- 
 temptuous superciliousness, regardless who cared to indicate 
 the personage to whom the language and lesson were 
 applicable. These are the very words used by Lord 
 Salisbury : " I have a strong belief that there is danger 
 of the public opinion of this country undergoing reaction 
 from the Cobdenite doctrines of thirty or forty years ago, 
 believing that it is our duty to take everything we can, to 
 fight everybody, and make quarrels when we can — that 
 seems to me a very dangerous doctrine, not merely because 
 it might incite other nations against us, though that is not a 
 consideration to be neglected. The kind of reputation we are 
 at present enjoying on the continent of Europe is by no means 
 pleasant, by no means advantageous ; but there is a much more 
 serious danger, and that is lest we should overtax our strength. 
 However strong you may be, man or nation, there is a point 
 beyond which your strength will not go, and it is madness and 
 it ends in ruin if you allow yourself to pass beyond it. This 
 rashness has been the ruin of nations as great and powerful as 
 ourselves." 
 
 After having quoted these blunt and impulsive words, Sir 
 William Harcourt added : " That is a lesson which it is well 
 for us all to learn. We have been told that we shall derive 
 many lessons from the war — lessons in the art of military and 
 naval preparations. But there is another lesson which far more 
 concerns the safety of this country, and that is not to exasperate 
 by an arrogant and insolent demeanour those whom we desire 
 to be our friends, not to abuse and insult those with whom we 
 have influence, and to carry ourselves with that moderation, 
 prudence, and self-control which truly befits the dignity of an 
 Empire which is conscious of its own greatness and of its own 
 strength." 
 
 It is remarkable that it was the chief of the Conservative 
 Party who characterised the policy of the day with so much 
 clearness and correctness, and that the late leader of the Liberal 
 
 X
 
 3o6 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 Party found nothing better to do than to quote and repeat it. 
 They both defined or described the manner of feeling, speak- 
 ing and acting proper to an aristocratic people, rapidly 
 becoming transformed into a democratic. One pointed out 
 the quarrelsome temper of the nation, its disposition to fight 
 against the whole world, its passion for annexation and appro- 
 priation at all times and in all places, and the rashness and 
 want of foresight which prevents it from calculating its forces, 
 and causes it to over-estimate their capacity. The other dwelt 
 in particular upon the necessity of preserving the conventions, 
 of not irritating and embittering friendly nations, nor even 
 inferior races who were disposed to recognise the British 
 protectorship, by offensive words ; he recommended to states- 
 men, doubtless because he saw they lacked such qualities, 
 discretion, propriety, and above all, the self-possession and self- 
 control which have for so long been included among the 
 characteristics of English politicians and diplomatists. 
 
 In the face of these criticisms a man was wanted who would 
 concentrate in himself and deliberately embody the faults of a 
 democracy, and insist on their acceptance in the province of 
 power, who at one stroke would sweep away the pet aversions 
 of long-established parties, and knew how to effect their 
 eclipse, so that all the representatives of the nation, with the 
 exception of a feeble minority, would set out on paths along 
 which they would be impelled by the mass of the people and 
 their conductor. Such a man has arisen, viz., Mr. Chamber- 
 lain. I have no intention of taking up in detail in this book 
 all the affairs in which he has been concerned ; in every case 
 he was the voice of the people, and embodied the passions of 
 the people. Arrogance ? Who has shown it more than he, 
 when behind the curtain he directed the negotiations entered 
 into with France on the subject of Fashoda ? When he 
 insisted that the claims of England, perfectly legitimate at 
 bottom, should be set forth in humiliating terms, at the risk 
 of war — his secret desire. In each of his successive speeches
 
 THE STATE'S FUNCTION ABROAD 307 
 
 we see the same absence of restraint ; it might be said that he 
 inaugurated, as it were, a new diplomatic language, unknown 
 to his predecessors. The bulk of the people trouble themselves 
 little about motives, but much about results, or, to put it in 
 another way, their only motive is the very result at which they 
 aim — an all-powerful England, to speak frankly. This was 
 Mr. Chamberlain's sole aim and object, when. Fiance having 
 given in, he continued the preparations for war, knowing full 
 well that it wanted nothing but these preparations and the 
 sentiments they excited to place peace at the mercy of an 
 incident ; he meant to make war for the sake of war, he wished 
 to attack France, no longer on account of a grievance, for that 
 had evaporated, but in view of certain practical advantages 
 upon which he counted, and at the exact moment when he 
 belived it to be conquered beforehand by the enormous 
 superiority of the English naval forces. 
 
 Nothing could be more surprising to, and calculated to 
 baffle, a jurisconsult than the negotiations with the Transvaal; 
 here again the result was the motive — i.e.^ the maintenance of 
 the English supremacy in South Africa was the explanation 
 given of the policy followed by the Government. Lord 
 Salisbury and his colleagues said the same thing, and all the 
 Press repeated it. The Jameson incident was particularly 
 significant. To-day it seems to every educated man that 
 deliberately formed public opinion must consider the Raid as 
 a flagrant violation of the law of nations, and indubitably an 
 act of outlawry. Four centuries ago the entire Spanish nation 
 accompanied with their prayers and regarded with unmixed 
 admiration the expeditions of a Cortez or Pizarro, and it is 
 certain that those obscurest classes of the English nation, 
 which have recently been brought into prominence, were 
 similarly one at heart with the new adventurer. Mr. Cham- 
 berlain realised this, and in all probability was the instigator of 
 the audacious attempt, though when the Jameson case came 
 on he feebly denied it, or, to be more correct, he con-
 
 308 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 temptuously admitted the part he had taken in it. " We 
 should have been applauded if it had succeeded," was the 
 substance of what his apologists said. " We do not consent 
 to humble ourselves because it miscarried," these bold words 
 practically expressed the feeling of the whole nation. 
 
 In the negotiations with Kruger it is impossible to follow 
 Mr. Chamberlain. At the Bloemfontein conferences the list 
 of conditions on which he had apparently decided to make 
 peace was reported, but when Kruger, after some demur, 
 agreed to them, it was Mr. Chamberlain who found them 
 inadequate, and wanted more. Settlement by arbitration had 
 been accepted at the Hague on the initiative of England, but 
 in vain the two Republics offered to have recourse to it. The 
 suzerainty of England came to an end in 1884 ; not only was 
 no mention made of it in the last treaty, but in the negotia- 
 tions it was simply touched upon for the purpose of declaring 
 that it was now null and void. Mr. Chamberlain insisted to 
 the end on suzerainty, because he knew it was repugnant to 
 the Boers and that they would never ratify it. In these and 
 similar instances we see a cynical disregard for conventions. 
 He is like a strong man who refuses to allow himself to be 
 bound and gets his hands free ; his conscience is tranquil 
 because the premise he went upon was, that the Dutch nation 
 must not form an obstruction to the English nation, but, on 
 the contrary, must bow to British supremacy. 
 
 Therefore Mr. Chamberlain's faults never, at any point, 
 give offence to the democracy. It is characteristic of the 
 people to evince in their demands more impatience and angry 
 bitterness than the upper classes ; Mr. Chamberlain is noted 
 for the same traits. It is characteristic of the people to take 
 their desires for realities. Did not Mr. Chamberlain do likewise 
 in the speech at Leicester, when he represented Germany and 
 the United States as allies, and posed as an intimate of the 
 Emperor ? It is characteristic of the people to object to their 
 mouthpiece retracting anything he has said ; when this ex-
 
 THE STATE'S EUNCTION ABROAD 309 
 
 traordinary and universally censured speech was attacked in 
 the House of Commons, Mr. Chamberlain gloried in every 
 word he had uttered and declared that he would not retract a 
 single syllable. I It is characteristic of the people in a whole 
 situation to consider only the thing they have most at heart ; 
 their sole thought was for the Transvaal, they did not trouble 
 about anything else. Was not this the case with Mr. Chamber- 
 lain when he emptied England of her troops and last cannon, 
 when he hastily concluded treaties which had been dragging 
 on for a long time, when he yielded to the claims of Germany 
 over Samoa, and the United States over the Nicaragua Canal, 
 when he passively allowed other nations to ta.ke the lead — 
 France at Insalah and Shanghai, Russia in China and Persia? 
 It is characteristic of the people to ignore rebuffs, to half con- 
 sciously allow itself to be duped, to keep its eyes fixed on the 
 future and the success attending an immense output of force. 
 Is not this what Mr. Chamberlain did when, having carelessly 
 acknowledged that some faults had been committed, he took 
 refuge in the belief that they would shortly be repaired ; 
 when, for example, he spoke of the 180,000 men Lord 
 Roberts had at his disposal ; when he and his colleagues 
 deemed it the mere pursuance of a law of nature that 
 England should always begin with a defeat, in order the 
 more completely to triumph in the end ; when, having 
 simultaneously received news of a victory and a defeat follow- 
 ing it, he only published the first in order to give the public 
 at least twenty-four hours of rejoicing ? Little or nothing 
 of all this would have been possible twenty-five years ago ; 
 the Tories and the Whigs would have directed the policy of 
 the country over the heads of the multitude, and would not 
 
 ' At the* time of the Boiilanger affair tlie General's carrias^e happeninij 
 to pass through the Place du Carrousel, he abruptly stood up and ga/ed 
 around on the assembled crowds. He was in full uniform. " I like that," 
 said a man of the people beside me, " it's bravado." Mr. Chamberlain's 
 reply too was mere bravado ; and in this we find the reason why the 
 nation is always ready to echo him.
 
 3IO THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 have stooped to consult the passions and prejudices of the 
 people ; something in them would have resisted the desire to 
 please the multitude and humour the man in the street. The 
 underlying omnipotence of the democracy has brought about 
 the change in their method of procedure ; powerless to stop 
 themselves, they hurry down the slope towards which the 
 reckless and cynical personality of a Chamberlain has led 
 them. He is like a comet which, coming within the radius 
 of a brilliant and fixed constellation, has involved it in a head- 
 long flight. 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 Englana, at the beginning of the twentieth century, is very 
 different from what it was a hundred years ago. In fact it is 
 another country altogether. Material civilisation has made 
 immense progress between the two dates. In 1800, only a 
 coach service connected the larger towns ; now the smallest 
 localities have their railway lines. In 1800, postage was costly, 
 and letters few and far between ; now the penny and half- 
 penny post daily conveys to all parts of England millions of 
 letters, despatches, and packets, the number of which increases 
 annually. The telegraph places under the eye of the reader 
 the thought which an hour before flashed into a mind 
 thousands of leagues off; the telephone adds intonation and 
 accent. In 1800, no one would have believed it possible that 
 distances could thus be effaced and the intercourse of minds 
 established, as one might say, from mouth to ear, between any 
 place whatsoever in the world and its antipodes. Travelling 
 has become very general, on account of its cheapness. The 
 newspaper press, which by reason of its high price, increased 
 by the Stamp Duty, used to be confined to the middle classes, 
 has penetrated through the medium of the halfpenny paper 
 into every stratum of the population, even the most miserable ; 
 and the man who has only threepence to spend every morning 
 gives a penny for a paper : he thus becomes acquainted with
 
 THE STATE'S FUNCTION AH ROAD 311 
 
 what happened in London the day before, and what happened 
 two days before in any part of the world. England has be- 
 come more and more comparable to a vast city — London, for 
 example, with Newcastle and Manchester as its suburbs ; it 
 now takes less time for visits and communications between 
 these towns than it did a century ago between the West End 
 and the East End. Men especially have become more like 
 one another. A common type has been formed, defined, and 
 determined by the Press, towards which every individual is 
 attracted and by which he is fashioned. This, as we might 
 call it, urban nature of the relations between the inhabitants 
 of a country 89,000 square miles in extent is certainly the 
 most remarkable that is revealed to us by observation. 
 
 The basis of society has undergone a change similar to that 
 of its exterior conditions. How many diflPerences have arisen in 
 this interval of a hundred years? From the eighteenth century 
 we received an aristocracy : the twentieth century gives us a 
 democracy. In 1800, the imposing figure of the justice of the 
 peace still dominated rural life, now he is shorn of all adminis- 
 trative authority : in the parish, the district, and the county, 
 elected Boards fill his place. In 1800, an almost incredible 
 distribution of the franchise restricted the suffrage to a few 
 privileged persons, now four million electors are crowded 
 within the precincts of the "legal country." In 1800, the 
 working men had not one single material right recognised by 
 the common law and the statutes : now they are on a level 
 with the other classes, and as regards them and their masters 
 the roles have been reversed to their advantage. Supremacy, 
 after escaping from the oligarchy, remained but for a moment 
 in the hands of the middle classes : henceforward it belongs to 
 the greatest number. 
 
 It is not only by this change in the disposition of rights, in- 
 fluence, and power that the new century is distinguished from 
 the one which preceded it, but also by the ends to which it 
 intends to apply its recently acquired forces and by the
 
 312 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 sovereign good which the nation now regards as its ideal. 
 Gladstone absolutely deceived himself when, in 1867, by the 
 Reform Bill, the articles of which, in spite of the Conserva- 
 tives, he drew up in the most approved Liberal fashion, and in 
 1884, in the statute to which he gave his name, he called 
 upon the working men of the towns and the labourers of the 
 fields to take their place once and for all in the "legal 
 country." He believed he was simply making a political 
 reform : unconsciously he brought about a social revolution ; 
 he flattered himself he was only altering the balance of 
 parliamentary equilibrium : he renewed the spirit by which 
 the legislature and the Government henceforward were swayed; 
 he imagined that the new electors would regulate all their 
 proceedings by their class interests : he formed no idea of the 
 immense recoil which would be caused in the political world 
 by this sort of invasion of savages, who were more sensible of 
 impressions than ideas, of colour than form, and accustomed to 
 think according to instincts which could with difficulty be 
 reconciled to the logic of the classes hitherto in possession of 
 power. These lower classes, abruptly brought into prominence, 
 and called upon to take their share in their country's work, 
 were slow, awkward, and indifferent to everything save their 
 daily needs. In England, more than in any other country, 
 they had formed a compact mass, impervious to the manner of 
 feeling and reasoning of the elect. The mass became friable 
 and disaggregated. By means of education and the news- 
 papers each molecule of the mass was brought into contact 
 with new ideas. It might have been thought that the Press 
 would take upon itself the task of enlightening and forming 
 public opinion. It has done nothing of the kind. It aims 
 not at instructing and improving the individual, but at be- 
 coming the mouthpiece of the thoughts, good or evil, which 
 have some influence over him. In obedience to its own 
 interests it says to each one what he will be pleased to 
 hear. Therefore, instead of ridding man of his errors, it
 
 THE STATE'S FUNCTION ABROAD 313 
 
 rather tends to flatter, strengthen, and furnish him with 
 excuses for them. The numerous and rapid veliicles of 
 opinion, which should be admirable mediums for the diffusion 
 of knowledge, are employed rather in propagating the 
 blindest, most selfish, and unscrupulous of passions, viz., the 
 fever for pre-eminence, contempt for justice, inclination to 
 ignore traditional conventions and to judge of the strength 
 of a country by the violence of its language, determina- 
 tion never to be put in the wrong, and abbreviated and simpli- 
 fied logic, incapable of comprehending the rich diversity 
 of a complex reality. The Press has become the auxiliary 
 of barbarity. Propagated by the newspapers, which should 
 correct and reform them, these tendencies have become by 
 degrees the characteristic traits of the new democracy. 
 
 Our object in this volume has not been to cast the horo- 
 scope of the future, nor have we endeavoured, as will be 
 recognised, to bring to light the causes already comparatively 
 deep and remote which have, in a hundred years, completely 
 transformed the State, the nation, and the country. Our aim 
 has been a different one : we have sought further back than 
 the moving picture of the world for the first causes, the 
 governing causes, which are immutable ; we have followed 
 them in their effects, which likewise escape the varia- 
 tions of external circumstances. These effects present 
 this peculiarity, that they may be followed and re- 
 cognised in the nation, transformed in all outward seem- 
 ing, who have just begun as we might say a new history. 
 What we have endeavoured to grasp is tlie fundamental 
 basis of the English character, that part of it which, for 
 all time, and through each change of government — 
 democracy, oligarchy, monarchy, republic, free trade or pro- 
 tective rights — will remain the same. Indeed, in spite of the 
 enormous differences of character that it presents from one 
 century to another, the English people has remained and will 
 remain in a high degree individualised, incapable of, and in-
 
 314 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 
 
 different to sympathy, very proud even in the humility of 
 an intense devotion, contemptuous of other nations and 
 unfitted to mix vv^ith them, incapable of comprehending, 
 even from a distance, the solidarity of the civilised world, 
 inclined to divide questions into sections, considering them 
 bit by bit, vi^ith no thought of combining them in the 
 harmony of a vast synthesis, employing logic rather in framing 
 excuses than in discovering nevv^ horizons, more inclined to 
 follow the fluctuations of a distinguished statesman than to 
 pull him up by a strict adherence to principles, free from all 
 trace of a revolutionary spirit and yet abounding in original 
 
 personalities I must stop. I have said enough in the pre- 
 
 ceeding pages to enable those desirous to grasp, under the 
 changing mask, the permanent features of which the physi- 
 ognomy of the Englishman is composed. These features are 
 the effect of the causes which from remotest centuries have 
 affected the play, always interesting, of its history, political, 
 administrative, economical and social, and which, moreover, to 
 a large extent gives the movement and even the direction of 
 this history. 
 
 It is to these causes that, in the future, as in the past, the 
 rich originality of England will be due.
 
 INDEX
 
 INDEX 
 
 ( The Roman Numerals refer to the Pages of the Introduction^ 
 the Arabic to those of the Work J) 
 
 Abstraction not an Eno-lish 
 characteristic, xv, 22 seq. 
 
 Act of Navigation destroys the 
 Dutch carrying monopoly, 
 
 79 
 
 Age of the Later Stuarts, man- 
 ners of, 106 
 
 Agitation marks political life, 
 125 ; all-powerful in Eng- 
 land, 144 
 
 Aix-la-Chapelle, International 
 Congress of, 251, 254 
 
 Alexandria, bombardment of, 
 how received in the Com- 
 mons, 294 
 
 Alliance, the Farmers', its pro- 
 gramme, 241 
 
 Althorp, Lord, his appeal for 
 personal confidence, 159, note 
 
 Androlatry in English politics, 
 
 157 
 Anglican Church not qualified 
 
 to hold possession, 284 
 
 Anglicanism characterised, 52 ; 
 at first a mere expedient, 81 ; 
 in the main a compromise, 
 82 ; its attitude to Wesley, 
 82, 86 seq. ; dependent on 
 the Throne, 193 ; how it 
 became Calvinistic, 261 
 
 Antiquity, the life of, impossible 
 of accurate reconstitution, 
 xvi seq. 
 
 Arch, Joseph, his work, 243 
 
 Armada, the, its dispersion not 
 the beginning of English 
 naval supremacy, 76 
 
 Aristocracy, the, why still un- 
 attacked, 133; division of, 
 145 ; Liberal fraction of, its 
 ro/c, 146 ; optimism domina- 
 ting, 146 
 
 Art, English, its impulses and 
 character, 29 seq. ; servility 
 to literal imitation exempli- 
 fied, 37 ; at first merely
 
 3i8 
 
 INDEX 
 
 literary, 39 ; essentially in- 
 tentionist and symbolic, 39 ; 
 contemporary, lacks balance, 
 40 ; has no actuality of en- 
 vironment, 40 ; its employ- 
 ment of discordant colours, 
 40 
 
 Arts, Fine, no original efflor- 
 escence in England, 37 
 
 Assemblage, liberty of, why in- 
 nocuous in England, 126 
 
 Assiento, the, 81 
 
 Association and assembly, right 
 of, a civil not political liberty, 
 207 
 
 Athletics fostered by conditions 
 of physical existence, 8 ; their 
 vogue in England, 198 
 
 Author, story of the conferring 
 of the OxfordD.C.L.upon,v ; 
 intimate friend of Taine, vi 
 seq. ; and Taine, points of 
 sympathy between, vii seq.-^ 
 founder and director of the 
 Ecole Libre des Sciences 
 Politiques, viii seq. ; his Pro- 
 testanism, x ; his knowledge 
 of the British Constitution, 
 xii ; Mr. Bodley's indebted- 
 ness to his " Etudes de Droit 
 Constitutionnel," xiii ; his 
 blindness, xx ; his method 
 identical with Taine's, xxi 
 
 Authority, its present un- 
 limited credit, 213 
 
 Bacon a mere dialectician, 28 
 Bain influenced by Comte, 42 
 Balfour, Mr. A. J., his reply to 
 Mr. Morley re Khartum, 
 
 303 
 Barbarity, English, in Jamaica 
 
 and Africa, 293 
 Beauty defined, 28 
 Bentham a utilitarian, 44 
 Bible, the, one reason why 
 
 popular in England, 34, note 
 Biology, English attitude to- 
 wards until i860, 45 
 Blockade,respective English and 
 
 French attitude towards, 300 
 Bloemfontein Conference, Mr. 
 
 Chamberlain's conditions at, 
 
 308 
 Bodley, Mr. J. E. C.,his method 
 
 of work, xxii ; exemplified, 
 
 xxiii seq. 
 Bramwell, Lord, his criticism of 
 
 Stephen's codification, 172, 
 
 175 
 Brodrick, the Hon. G., on the 
 
 principle of parliamentary 
 
 representation (1867), 148 
 Bronte, Charlotte, paints pathos 
 
 of moral struggles, 31 
 Brougham, Lord, his criticism 
 
 of English law-making, 171 
 Brown, Ford Madox, founder of 
 
 the pre-Raphaelite School, 
 
 38 ; his antagonism to the 
 
 French School, 38
 
 INDEX 
 
 319 
 
 Buckle narrow in outlook, 32 
 
 Bureaucracy, how prevented in 
 England, 268, seq. ; begun of 
 late years, 286 
 
 Burke, his dislike of abstrac- 
 tions, xiv, 19 ; on young 
 English officials in India, 294 
 
 Burne-Jones a pupil of Ruskin, 
 
 Business energy, English, ex- 
 emplified, 9 
 
 C-ffiSAR on the ancient Ger- 
 mans, referred to, 58 seq. 
 
 Cairns, Lord, and proportional 
 representation, 150 
 
 Calvinism, how regarded in 
 England, 261 
 
 Cant, English, protects the 
 national faith, 44; its attitude 
 to new philosophical theories, 
 121 
 
 Carlyle on English reserve, 
 116; on conservatism, 121 
 
 Catholicism characterised, 51 ; 
 compared with Protestantism, 
 
 53 
 Celts, the, how far blended 
 
 with the Anglo-Saxons, 63 
 seq. ; no intellectual influence 
 on the Anglo-Saxons, 65 seq. 
 Chamberlain, Mr. J., defended 
 by Gladstone re inciting to 
 violent demonstration, 129 ; 
 his unfaithfulness to party 
 
 principles, 161 ; the embodi- 
 ment of the faults of the 
 democracy, 306 seq.; probable 
 instigator of the Raid, 307 ; 
 his cynical disregard for con- 
 ventions, 308 ; his concessions 
 to foreign nations sum- 
 marised, 309 
 
 Character, English, generali- 
 sation lacking in, 17 ; silent 
 endurance the true key to, 17 
 
 China, first war with, caused 
 by an unwarrantable injury, 
 297 
 
 Churchill, Lord Randolph, his 
 unfaithfulness to party prin- 
 ciple exemplified, 156 ; /'en- 
 fant terrible of his party, 160 
 
 Class inequalities increasing, 
 1 30 seq.^ 22 1 
 
 Classes the, gradually becom- 
 ing parties, 231 seq. 
 
 Climate, responsible for the 
 creative imagination, 13 
 
 Climate, English, its normality, 
 4 ; influences adversely sen- 
 sation and perception, 1 1 ; 
 induces religious thought, 14, 
 introspection, 15, taciturnity, 
 16 ; its effects on the fine arts, 
 
 37 
 
 Coast-line, English, its indent- 
 ation, 5 
 
 Cobden quoted, "the minority 
 has only one right," 150
 
 320 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Coleridge, Lord, on ecclesiasti- 
 cal property, 285 
 
 Colonisation, causes of its slow 
 progress, 79 seq. ; transforms 
 the English character, 80 
 seq. 
 
 Combination of workmen, legis- 
 lation against, 247 
 
 Commercial legislation in Eng- 
 land, 222 seq. 
 
 Competition characteristic of 
 economic England, 129 
 
 Comte, Auguste, his influence 
 in England, 42 ; reproached 
 by Mill re spiritual world, 
 
 44 
 Conquest, the, fusion after, how 
 
 fostered, 72 ; when complete, 
 
 74 
 Contemporary life abroad, why 
 
 easy to understand, xviii 
 
 seq. 
 Coolness, English, due to dul- 
 
 ness of physical imagination, 
 
 12 
 
 Darwin, his method of study, 
 
 46 
 
 Declaration of Right, the, in- 
 volves the right of rebellion, 
 128 
 
 Degeneration of the agricul- 
 tural labourers, 242 
 
 Democracy, its advent to power, 
 210 ; the supreme arbiter in 
 
 politics, 302 ; its attitude to 
 the enemy in war, 304 
 
 Democratic supremacy, dangers 
 of, 212 
 
 Dillon, Mr. J., on use of Dum- 
 dum bullets, 304 
 
 Disraeli (Lord Beaconsfield), 
 " his concessionary princi- 
 ple " characteristic of both 
 parties, 145 ; and propor- 
 tional representation, 150 ; 
 tolerance of his inconstancy 
 to principles, 160 ; refuses 
 slaves right of refuge on 
 English ships, 293 
 
 Dissent saved English liberty, 
 261 ; history of, a summary, 
 261 seq. 
 
 " Don't hesitate to shoot if 
 necessary," 295 
 
 Dum-dum bullets, British use 
 of, 304 
 
 Dupuis, M., his book on mari- 
 time jurisprudence, examples 
 from, 298 seq. 
 
 Durham, Lord, his treatment 
 of Canadian prisoners, 295 
 
 Ecclesiastical Commission 
 
 Court, 285 
 Electoral reform and the 
 
 representation of minorities, 
 
 147 
 Eliot, George, paints pathos of 
 moral struggles, 31 ; her Tom
 
 INDEX 
 
 321 
 
 TuUiver an example of satis- 
 fied life, 134 
 
 Ellen borough, Lord, on the 
 death penalty, 179 
 
 Emerson on the piratic settlers 
 of Britain, quoted, 67 ; on 
 English reserve, quoted, 1 14 
 
 Empire, British, impossible 
 without the King, 191 
 
 Energy, English, its causes 
 ceasing to operate, 11 
 
 England, agricultural and 
 pastoral, 75 ; not first in the 
 field of civilisation, 77 ; her 
 natural advantages in Ame- 
 rican colonisation described, 
 77 seq. ; supreme over seas, 
 80 ; and Spain as colonising 
 powers, contrasted, 84 ; when 
 and how ceasing to be purely 
 agricultural, 89 ; her treat- 
 ment of her Celtic neigh- 
 bours, 93 ; contrasted with 
 the other members of the 
 United Kingdom, 93 seq. ; 
 how indebted to Scotland and 
 Ireland, 99 ; not only an is- 
 land but a continent, lOO ; 
 under absolute rule, 209, an 
 oligarchy, 210, the demo- 
 cracy, 210 ; an ethnical 
 quantity, 230 ; lacks probity 
 in foreign relations, 292 ; 
 progress of, since 1 800, sum- 
 marised, 310 ad fin. 
 
 English legislators in France 
 (1903) illustrate a national 
 foible, xxxii 
 
 Englishman, the, learns little 
 by travel, xxviii seq. ; his 
 habits abroad, xxix seq. ; 
 under fire, 12; his cant 
 protects his faith, 44 ; at 
 home, liberal, hospitable, and 
 easy, 98 ; " the provincial in 
 Europe," loi ; a foreigner 
 everywhere, 102 ; his indi- 
 vidualism, 105 ; his attitude 
 to sexual relations, 106 ; his 
 inhumanity, 107 seq.; his 
 coarseness and brutality, 108 ; 
 permanence of his religious 
 feeling, 109 ; his lack of 
 external impressions exem- 
 plified, 1 10 ; his sincerity, 1 1 1 ; 
 his frankness, striking exam- 
 ples of, 112 seq. ; unsociable, 
 114; various quotations re- 
 specting, 11^ seq.; his love of 
 an incognito, 117; his love of 
 adventure and fearlessness of 
 the unknown characterised, 
 117 seq.y what due to, 118, ex- 
 emplified,! 1 9,contrasted with 
 the French, 1 1 9 ; his conserva- 
 tism only superficial, 121 ; his 
 first attitude to discoveries and 
 inventions,i2i; ascitizen,i25 
 seq. ; not naturally a gentle- 
 man, 134 ; not a pure utili-
 
 322 
 
 INDEX 
 
 tarian, 137 ; loves action for 
 its own sake, 198 ; his choice 
 of political regime^ 2 30 ; 
 capable of sincere sentimen- 
 tality, 293 ; does not mix 
 with native races, 294 ; has 
 no love for abstract principles, 
 298 
 
 Exodus from the land, some 
 causes of, 226 $eq. ; its extent, 
 241 seq. 
 
 Expansion, British, a summary 
 of recent, 290 seq. 
 
 Expansionist type of statesman 
 characterised, 289 
 
 Expropriation of land, com- 
 pulsory, recognised by the 
 State, 280 seq. 
 
 Eyre, Governor, in Jamaica, 296 
 
 Ezra-Seaman on England's 
 colonising power, quoted, 
 102 
 
 F's, the Three, in Ireland, 228, 
 
 277 
 Factory legislation supported by 
 
 the landowners, 237 
 Factory Laws, their effects, 248 
 
 seq. 
 Faith, religious, sometimes an 
 
 agent of tyranny, 260 ; 
 
 necessary to the English and 
 
 why, 264 
 Family life until recently an 
 
 absolute monarchy, 215 
 
 Farmers' Alliance, the, its pro- 
 gramme, 241 
 
 Farmers and agricultural class, 
 240 
 
 Farms, large, are they increas- 
 ing ? 240, note 
 
 Faraday, his method of study, 
 
 46 
 
 Fashoda affair decided by pea- 
 sants and workmen, 30 1 j 
 Mr. Chamberlain directs ne- 
 gotiations concerning, 306 
 
 Father, " the governor " in 
 England, 217 ; the English, 
 a Roman paterfamilias^ 218 ; 
 contrasted with the French, 
 218 
 
 Foreign policy, England's, in- 
 creasingly arrogant and why, 
 301 
 
 Fortescue on the Englishman 
 as a robber, quoted, 108 
 
 Freeman narrow in outlook, 
 
 32 
 French and English, opposition 
 
 in methods of thought, xiv 
 Froude narrow in outlook, 32 
 
 Gainsborough an isolated per- 
 sonality, 38 
 
 Gaskell, Mrs., paints pathos of 
 moral struggles, 31 ; her 
 Margaret Hall types the 
 English lack of external im- 
 pressions, 1 10
 
 INDEX 
 
 323 
 
 Generalisation, power of, limi- 
 ted in English character, xv, 
 17, 20 ; its disadvantages 
 exemplified by the author 
 and by Taine, xv ; PVench 
 method of, criticised, xvi 
 ieq. ; Greek, exemplified, 
 18 ; opposed to action, 19 ; 
 English weakness of, mani- 
 fested in legislation, 166 
 
 Gentry, landed, of the eigh- 
 teenth century, 233 seq. 
 
 George, Henry, his doctrines 
 recognised in principle, 285 
 
 Germans, ancient, their institu- 
 tions described, 59 seq. ; their 
 traits contrasted with those 
 of the modern English, 61 
 seq. 
 
 Giffen, Sir R., on diminishing 
 inequality of fortune, 224, 
 note 
 
 Gladstone, W. E., and Home 
 Rule, 97, 155 ; defends Mr. 
 Chamberlain when charged 
 with inciting to rebellion, 
 129 ; on the principle of 
 Parliamentary representation, 
 148 ; and proportional repre- 
 sentation, 150 ; attitude of 
 early Unionists towards, 160 ; 
 tolerance of his inconstancy 
 to principles, 160 ; his reason 
 for giving labourers the fran- 
 chise, 243 ; of the Man- 
 
 chester School, 289 ; enters 
 on a policy of expansion, 
 290 ; self- deceived in his 
 franchise extension, 312 
 
 Goschen, G. J. (now Lord), 
 on diminishing inequality of 
 fortune, 224, note 
 
 Government, essentials of all 
 forms of, 158 J centralised, 
 its unique antiquity in Eng- 
 land, 267 
 
 Grote narrow in outlook, 32 
 
 Groups : the race, 229 ; the 
 classes, 231 ; the gentry, 
 233; the farmers and agricul- 
 tural class, 240 ; the leaders 
 of industry and the operative 
 class, 245 ; the religious sects, 
 259 
 
 Guarantees of personal liberty 
 and property, 202 seq. 
 
 Hamilton, Lord George, his 
 reply to Mr. Dillon re Dum- 
 dum bullets, 304 
 
 Harcourt, Sir Wm., his justifi- 
 cation of Succession Duties, 
 283 ; on the dangers of 
 aggressiveness, quoted, 305 
 
 Henry VHL, his assumption of 
 the Supremacy, why success- 
 ful, 192 
 
 Historians, English, influenced 
 by contemporary interests, 
 32
 
 324 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Hobbes an English metaphysi- 
 cian, 41 
 
 Hodson, his execution of the 
 princes of Delhi, 294 
 
 Homogeneity of the English of 
 ancient date, 266 seq. 
 
 House of Lords, not an object 
 of deep-seated animosity, 137 
 
 Humanitarian legislation of the 
 gentry, 236 
 
 Humanity consolidated, the 
 English have no idea of, 
 292 
 
 Humour, English, its charac- 
 teristics, 13; compared with 
 French wit, 13 
 
 Hustings, suppression of, its 
 real significance, 127 
 
 Huxley, on distinction between 
 atheism and agnosticism, 
 quoted, 44 ; his method of 
 study, 46 ; his anecdote of a 
 Cambridge professor, 47 
 
 Hygiene, laws relating to, ana- 
 lysed, 274 seq. 
 
 Imperialism, its development, 
 
 302 
 Independent Labour Party 
 
 criticised, 259 
 Individual, the, and his function 
 
 in the State, 197 ; unfettered 
 
 by the State, 271 
 Industrial centres, rise and 
 
 character of, 90 
 
 Influences moulding a country, 
 3 seq. J general, shaping a 
 nation, 58 
 
 Innovations, their slow but sure 
 movement, 139 
 
 Ireland, always regarded as 
 inferior and contemptible, 92, 
 295 ; the conquest of, a war 
 of extermination, 92 ; Eng- 
 lish confiscations in, 93 ; 
 her treatment by Parliament, 
 94 seq. ; a foreign country 
 to the English, 96 seq. ; and 
 Home Rule, 97 seq. ; the 
 struggle for the land in, 
 examined, 277 
 
 Jamaica, man-hunting in, 293 
 Jameson Raid, the, Mr. Cham- 
 berlain probable instigator of, 
 
 307 
 Jameson, Stanley's lieutenant, 
 
 his conduct in Africa, 293 
 Jingoism the imperialism of the 
 
 democracy, 302 
 Judge, the, his discretionary 
 
 power, 164 
 Jusserand, M., on Celtic intel- 
 lectual influence, referred to, 
 66 
 
 Khartum, the truth about, not 
 
 known, 302 
 King, the national symbol of 
 
 authority, 182 ; the apex of
 
 INDEX 
 
 325 
 
 a pyramid, 187 ; necessary 
 
 to the unity of the Empire, 
 
 191 
 Kitchener, Lord, arguments on 
 
 his endowment, 302 
 Kruger, Mr. Chamberlain's 
 
 negotiations with, 308 
 
 Labour, parliamentary con- 
 trasted with legal attitude 
 towards, 165 
 
 Labourers, agricultural, their 
 degeneration, 242 
 
 Land, exodus from, some causes 
 of, 226 seq. ; purchase in 
 Ireland, 228 ; its anomalous 
 position characterised, 235 ; 
 proprietory right in, how 
 interfered with by the State, 
 276 ; struggle for in Ireland 
 examined, 277 ; tendency to 
 peasant ownership of, 277, 
 280 ; crofters' struggle for 
 in Scotland, 278 ; compul- 
 sory letting and expropria- 
 tion of, 280 seq. ; nationali- 
 sation, theory of, started by 
 Mill, 282 
 
 Landowner, the English, his 
 intense conservatism, 235 ; 
 his humanitarian legislation, 
 236 ; his support of factory 
 legislation, 237 ; his support 
 of the Six Hours' Bill, 237, 
 note; why he recommends 
 
 Protection, 238 ; his admini- 
 strative dispossession, 239 
 
 Language, English, its shaping, 
 72 seq. 
 
 Latin civilisation, English inter- 
 course with, how and when 
 begun, 67 seq. 
 
 Latin influence on the earlier 
 English w^riters, 70 
 
 Law, various forms of, 163 ; 
 common, basis of civil and 
 criminal legislation, 163 ; 
 in England, not allowed to be 
 interpreted by the adminis- 
 trative authority, 167 ; its 
 making does not proceed by 
 general enunciations, 168 ; 
 its defective phraseology, 
 how caused, 170 ; abortive 
 attempts at codification of, 
 172 ; criminal, Stephen's 
 attempted codification of, 
 173; English and French 
 contrasted, 175 ; influence 
 of public opinion on, exem- 
 plified, 177; its frequent 
 transgression leads to reform, 
 177 seq. 
 
 Laws, frequently temporary, 
 169 ; general, avoided in 
 England, 169 ; their com- 
 plexity and accumulation, 
 170 
 
 Leaders of Industry and the 
 Operative Class, 245
 
 326 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Legislation, manifests English 
 weakness of generalisation, 
 1 66 ; English, contrasted 
 with French, 167 ; commer- 
 cial, its history in England, 
 222 %eq. 
 
 Legislative procedure, why 
 dilatory, 136 seq. 
 
 Leibnitz opposed by Locke, 43 
 
 Liability, unlimited, whv 
 defended, 223 
 
 Liberty of assemblage, and the 
 revolutionary spirit, 125; why 
 innocuous in England, 126 ; 
 liberty, civil, defined, 201 ; 
 personal, how protected, 201, 
 209 ; civil, summary of laws 
 securing, 202 seq. ; English 
 and French contrasted, 205 
 seq. ; a civil not political 
 liberty, 207 ; not necessarily 
 perfect because protected by 
 full representation, 209 ; testa- 
 mentary, discussed, 217 seq. 
 
 Liberties, political, summarised, 
 207 ; political, how per- 
 fected, 208 ; civil, a historic 
 fact not a natural heritage, 
 271 
 
 Literature, English, its leading 
 characteristics, 30 ; early 
 English, characterised, JO seq. 
 
 Local Government Act passed 
 by Conservatives, 157 ; legis- 
 lation, why a revolution, 239 
 
 Locke an English metaphy- 
 sician, 41 ; opposes the doc- 
 trine of innate ideas, 43 
 
 Lodge, Sir Oliver, his work on 
 electricity, 48 ; his views on 
 spiritualism, 50 
 
 Loisy, the Abbe, how regarded 
 in France by clergy and laity, 
 xxiii seq. 
 
 Macaulay illustrates the Eng- 
 lish historian's method, xxvi ; 
 narrow in outlook, 32 
 
 Manchester School, the, charac- 
 terised, 289 
 
 Manufacturers, their attitude to- 
 wards labour legislation, 246 
 
 Married Women's Propertv 
 Acts, 216 
 
 Martineau, Harriet, beauty of 
 her language, 73 
 
 Maxwell, how his works should 
 be read, 49 ; on the question 
 of origins, 50 
 
 Melbourne, Lord, on Queen 
 Victoria's marriage, quoted, 
 
 Metaphysicians, English : 
 Hobbes, Locke, Spencer, 41 
 
 Metaphysics contrary to the 
 English mind, xiv, 22 
 
 Method, literary, English and 
 French contrasted, xxvi seq. 
 
 Mill, James, ignores the doc- 
 trine of innate ideas, 43
 
 INDEX 
 
 327 
 
 Mill, John Stuart, influenced by 
 Comte, 42 ; maintains that 
 everything is the result of 
 experience, 43 ; his attitude 
 towards the spiritual world, 
 44 ; anecdote of his frank- 
 ness, 113; contrasts English 
 reserve with French socia- 
 bility, 114; his remedy for 
 defective phraseology in law, 
 172 ; on ownership of land, 
 quoted, 282 
 
 Milton paints the influence of 
 the will, 31 
 
 Mind, operations of the, English 
 and French compared, 25 seq. 
 
 Missionaries, English, their 
 characteristics, 10 ; English, 
 examples of the national spirit 
 of adventure, 119 
 
 Monarchy, the form of govern- 
 ment most intelligible to the 
 masses, 1 80 ; its psychological 
 supports in England, 184 ; 
 the basis of English national 
 history, 187; the most ancient 
 element of theEnglishsystem, 
 188 ; the symbol of national 
 unity, 188 ; the symbol of 
 national independence, 191 ; 
 its character when omnipo- 
 tent, 209 
 
 Montesquieu on religion in Eng- 
 land, quoted, 85 ; on English 
 reserve, quoted, 114 
 
 Moral being, the source of 
 English strength and ideals, 
 
 23 
 Morley, Mr. John, on British 
 
 inhumanity at Khartum, 303 
 
 Native races, no mixing with 
 by English, 294 
 
 Naturalism foreign to the Eng- 
 lish mind, 22 
 
 Navigation, Act of, destroys 
 the Dutch carrying mono- 
 poly, 79 
 
 Neo-trade unionism, its ideas, 
 256, and failure, 257 
 
 Neutrals, British attitude to- 
 wards contrasted with foreign, 
 299 
 
 Nonconformists, summary of 
 Acts relieving, 263 teq. 
 
 Normans, the, their various 
 elements, 69 
 
 North American Colonies, 
 some reasons for their revolt, 
 189 
 
 Novel, English, succeeds Shake- 
 speare, 34 ; character of, 35 
 seq. ; represents real life, 35 ; 
 compared with French, 35 ; 
 no dramatic unity in, 36 
 
 Oligarchy, England gov- 
 erned by, 210 
 
 Opportunism in party politics 
 exemplified, 154 seq.
 
 328 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Outdoor relief, its effect on the 
 working classes, 247 seq. 
 
 Fall Mall Ga%ette quoted re 
 Gladstone's change of front 
 in foreign policy, 290 
 
 Palmerston, Lord, on ecclesias- 
 tical property, 285 ; an ex- 
 ample of British combative- 
 ness, 292 ; his lack of scrupu- 
 lousness condoned, 298 
 
 Parish Councils, their effect, 244 
 
 Parliament represents classes, 
 not individuals, 148 ; does not 
 fulfil the essential conditons 
 of government, 158 ; why 
 England has never suffered 
 from its inherent weakness, 
 159 ; has never known a 
 third party, and why, 160 ; 
 claims complete control of 
 legislation, 167 
 
 Parnell and his negotiations 
 with English parties, 154 
 
 Parties, division of men into, 
 how brought about, 152; 
 their cynical indifference to 
 principle exemplified, 1 54 seq.^ 
 161 
 
 Party, choice of, how made, 
 142, and why, 153 
 
 Passivity, English, its effects 
 and real significance, 127 
 
 Peasantry, English, its degene- 
 ration, 243 
 
 Peel, Sir R., tolerance of his 
 inconstancy to principles, 
 160 
 
 Perception, its images confused 
 and rare in the Englishman, 
 24 ; mechanism of, English 
 compared with French, in 
 vocabulary, 25 seq.^ in the 
 sentence, 27 
 
 Philosophers, English, not meta- 
 physicians, 41 
 
 Physical conditions in England 
 compel constant effort, 6 seq.^ 
 and induce effort for the sake 
 of effort, 8 
 
 Physical imagination, English, 
 lethargic and dull, 12 
 
 Physics, English attitude to- 
 wards until i860, 45 
 
 Poggio, on the English of the 
 fifteenth century, quoted, 74 
 
 Political life in England marked 
 by agitation, 125 ; convictions 
 not deep in England, 143 
 
 Politicians, certain, their per- 
 sistence in particular reforms, 
 
 139 
 
 Poverty a disgrace in England, 
 and why, 130 
 
 Pre-Raphaelite School not sim- 
 ply artists, 39 seq. 
 
 Prhentement tV Englescherie dis- 
 appears, 72 
 
 Press, freedom of, a civil not 
 political liberty, 207
 
 INDEX 
 
 329 
 
 Press-gang, how defended, 273 
 
 Privateering, why abohshed by 
 England, 300 
 
 Probity, Engh'sh lack of in 
 foreign relations, 292 
 
 Property, distinction between 
 landed and personal in Eng- 
 land, 225 ; landed, its privi- 
 leged position, 226 ; recent 
 legislation striking at the 
 root of, 228 ; landed, causes 
 of its depreciation, 238 
 
 Proportional representation, why 
 unknown in England, 149 
 
 Prose, its tardy development in 
 England, 27 seq. 
 
 Protection, why supported by 
 the landowners, 238 ; why 
 disclaimed, 245 %eq. 
 
 Protestant, French, his ad- 
 vantages, xi seq. 
 
 Protestantism characterised, 52 
 
 Psychology, experimental, 
 
 England first in, 42 
 
 Puritanism a religious indivi- 
 dualism, 82 ; its intensity of 
 faith made fine colonists, 83; 
 pre-eminently the creed of 
 the early emigrants, 84 
 
 Raleigh, Sir Walter, his con- 
 trast of the English and 
 Dutch navies, quoted, 76 
 
 Reformation, the, creates a 
 new people, 81 
 
 Religion, Anglicanism, 52, 81 
 seq.^ 193, 261, 284 ; Calvin- 
 ism, 261 ; Catholicism, 51 
 leq.; Dissent, 261 seq. ; Faith, 
 260, 264 ; Protestantism, xi, 
 52 ; Puritanism, 82 seq.; Re- 
 formation, 81 ; Wesley, 85 
 seq. [See under respective 
 heads.) 
 
 Renaissance, the, difficult to 
 reconstitute, xvii seq. 
 
 Revolution, the industrial, of 
 the 1 8th century, 89 seq. 
 
 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, an iso- 
 lated personality, 38 
 
 Riches a quasi virtue in Eng- 
 land, 130 
 
 Right, no absolute idea of, in 
 England, 271 seq. 
 
 Rossetti a pupil of Ruskin, 
 
 38 
 Rousseau, his theory of war 
 
 rejected by the English, 299 
 Royer-Collard, referred to, xiv ; 
 
 on the power of abstraction, 
 
 quoted, 19 
 Ruskin, his pupils, 38 ; on the 
 
 purpose of art, quoted, 39,41 
 
 Salisbury, Lord, and the Irish 
 Party, 155 ; I' enfant terrible 
 of his party, 160 ; on the 
 dangers of aggressiveness, 
 quoted, 305 
 
 Scepticism characterised, 262
 
 330 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Science, English method of 
 treatment of, 47 ; its ultimate 
 ends, English ideas of, 48 
 
 Scientific study, English method 
 of, 46 ; order and unity, how 
 understood in England, 48 
 
 Scotland, her laws and customs, 
 wherein differing from the 
 English do., 95 seq. ; her 
 antipathy to English ideas, 
 sentiments, and customs, 97 
 
 Sects, the religious, 259 
 
 Sensations feeble and rare in 
 the English, 21 seq. 
 
 Sentimentality, English, abo- 
 lishes Slave Trade and slavery, 
 
 293 
 Settlers, early, in Britain, pirates, 
 
 66 
 
 Sexual relations, how regarded 
 by the Englishman, 106 
 
 Shakespeare, pictures the human 
 will, 31 ; instances the gifts 
 and weakness of English 
 genius, 32 ; a depictor of 
 souls, 33 ; his prosody, 33 ; 
 the novel succeeds his plays, 
 
 34 
 
 Shelley sees in Nature only his 
 
 dreams, 15 
 Six Hours' Bill (1846) supported 
 
 by the landowners, 237, note 
 Slavery, abolition of, 293 
 Slaves refused right of refuge in 
 
 English ships, 293 
 
 Socialism,Continental,too flabby 
 for the English, 225 ; in 
 England described, 258 seq. 
 
 Soldiers, English, their coolness 
 what due to, 12 
 
 Soil, English, its fertility, 6 
 
 Spartans, English comoared 
 with, 34 
 
 Spencer, Herbert, an English 
 metaphysician, 41 ; in- 
 fluenced by Comte, 42 ; a 
 utilitarian, 43 ; his treatment 
 of the idea of God, 45 ; his 
 method of study, 46 ; his 
 story of the association de- 
 prived of its raison cCetre^ 1 38 
 
 Sport in England, the satisfac- 
 tion of a physical need, 9 ; 
 its vogue, 198 
 
 Squire, the, from 1 700 to 1832, 
 his unique position, 233 
 
 State, the, functions of, dis- 
 charged by individuals, e.g.^ 
 police, 269, railways, ports, 
 education, 270 ; its inter- 
 vention often unscrupulous 
 and radical, 273 seq.-, its 
 lofty omnipotence exempli- 
 fied, 282 seq. ; has control of 
 all ecclesiastical property, 
 285 ; its intervention rarer 
 in England than in France, 
 286 
 Statesmen, English, their care 
 to have a programme, 143 ;
 
 INDEX 
 
 331 
 
 their fatalism in the face of 
 agitation, 144; two types of, 
 288 
 
 Succession and testamentation, 
 English laws of, their effects, 
 219 ; Succession Duties, the, 
 283 
 
 Suffrage, the, continually wide- 
 ning, 209 ; effect of its 
 widening on foreign policy, 
 301 ; the widening of, in 
 1867 and 1884 a social 
 revolution, 312 
 
 Supremacy, the Royal, no longer 
 necessary, 193 
 
 Survival of the fittest charac- 
 teristic of English life, 130 
 
 Tacitus on the ancient Ger- 
 mans, referred to, 58 seq. 
 
 Taine, an intimate friend of 
 the author, vi seq. ; and 
 author, points of sympathy 
 between, vii seq. ; and the 
 religious training of his 
 children, viii ; his method in 
 the " Histoire de la littera- 
 ture anglaise," x ; his method 
 in the first period of his 
 work, XV ; criticised, xvi seq. ; 
 his quotation from " Tom 
 Brown's Schooldays," 1 7 ; on 
 Bacon, 28 ; on the novel, 35 
 
 Tait and his views on spirit- 
 ualism, &c., 50 
 
 Tenant in tail, his freedom, 227 
 
 Tennyson, his " Ulysses " 
 quoted, 17 ; beauty of his 
 language, 73 
 
 Testamentary liberty in Eng- 
 land, discussed, 217 seq. 
 
 Theoretical ideas, absence of, 
 in Parliamentary discussion, 
 exemplified, 271 
 
 Thompson, William, how his 
 works should be read, 49 ; . 
 on the question of origins, 50 
 
 Tocqueville, on the French 
 Revolution, quoted, 132 ; 
 his query to an American 
 woman, 216 
 
 Trades Unions, their perfected 
 organisation, 132 ; their ac- 
 tivity and difficulties, 253; 
 character of their Congresses, 
 254 ; their Parliamentary com- 
 mittee and its work, 254 seq. 
 
 Transvaal, Mr. Chamberlain's 
 conduct of negotiations with, 
 
 307 
 Tyndall, his method of study, 46 
 
 Unearned increment the 
 starting-point for land na- 
 tionalisation, 282 
 
 United Kingdom, the, neither 
 a political nor moral unity, 98 
 
 VoLNEY on English reserve, 
 quoted, 115
 
 332 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Voltaire on religion in England, 
 
 quoted, 85 
 Voluntary action the national 
 
 ideal, 16 
 
 Wages dissociated from charity, 
 248 
 
 Wales first represented in Par- 
 liament, 93 
 
 Watts, Mr. G. F., a pupil of 
 Ruskin, 38 
 
 War : British attitude towards 
 neutrals, 299 ; blockade, 
 how regarded by England, 
 
 Wealth, Britain's great natural, 
 221 ; inequality of, now di- 
 minishing, 224, note ; national' 
 ideas of in the eighteenth 
 century, 245 
 
 Wesley opposed by the Angli- 
 cans, 82 ; aims only at a 
 revival of religion, 85 seq. ; 
 character of his religious 
 opinions, 86 ; consequent 
 results, 86 seq. ; his narrow- 
 ness exemplified, 88 ; in- 
 
 fluence of his earnestness 
 and sincerity, 88 seq. 
 
 Will, human, as depicted in 
 English literature, 31 
 
 Woman, English, her energy 
 exemplified, 10 ; married, 
 why dowerless in England, 
 215 ; a revolution in her 
 legal position, 216 
 
 Wordsworth depicts spiritual 
 impressions, 15 
 
 Workmen, English, superior 
 energy of, 9 ; legislation for 
 benefit of, summarised, 250 ; 
 contrasted with French, 25 1; 
 character of, 251 ; and 
 French, their differing eco- 
 nomic attitude, 252 
 
 Workmen's combination, legis- 
 lation against, 247 
 
 Wycliffe, his prose referred to, 
 
 71.73 
 
 Yeomen, measure to recon- 
 
 situte, 280 
 Young man, the English, 217 
 Younger sons, their value, 219
 
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 What iVI. de Molinari writes under this head is of the utmost value, andwill 
 strengthen the hands of those engaged in the crusade of peace._ Taking it as 
 a whole, it is a valuable work treating of the moral, political and social 
 dangers which menace human society and of the best way of dealing with 
 them. 
 
 A History of Mediaeval Political Theory 
 In the West 
 
 By R. W. Carlyle, C. I. E., and A. J. Carlyle, M.A., 
 Chaplain and Lecturer of University College, 
 Oxford. 3 volumes. 8°. Each . . net $3-5o 
 
 ( Volume I. ready ; Volume II. ready shortly. 
 
 A companion work to Bryce's " Holy Roman Empire." 
 
 The subject which is dealt with is strictly a history of theory, not of insti- 
 tutions. In the Middle Ages, as at other times, the two things are closely re- 
 lated to each other, — theory never moves very far away from the actual con- 
 ditions of public life; but yet the two things are distinct, if not separate. 
 
 The work commences with the second century and comes down to the work 
 of the political theorists of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries < — 
 that is, to the time when the specific characteristics of modern political theory 
 began to take shape. 
 
 The Wealth of Nations 
 
 By Adam Smith. Edited by Professor Edwin 
 Cannan. Two volumes. 8°. 
 
 This famous work by the father of modern political economy has continued 
 a standard for more than a century. A new edition is now offered, carefully 
 prepared, with elaborate notes by Professor Edwin Cannan, who is a well- 
 known English authority on political economy. 
 
 New York-G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS— London
 
 
 Date Due 
 
 
 DEC 3 -^t 
 
 
 
 
 MAY 2 9 
 
 1980 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 <|) 
 
 

 
 JN327 
 
 B6 
 
 Bontmj^, E.G. 
 
 The English people.