UbRARt
THE
F H I E N »:
A SERIES OF ESSAYS,
TO AID IN THE FORMATION OF FIXED PRINCIPLES
IN POLITICS, MORALS, AND RELIGION,
WITH
LITERARY AMUSEMENTS INTERSPERvS ED.
BY S. T. COLERIDGE, ESQ.
Accipe principium rursus, formamque coactam
Desere : mutata melior procede figura. claudian.
FIRST AMERICAN, FROM THE SECOND LONDON EDITION,
COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME.
4fifi77
BURLINGTON :
C H A U N C E Y GOODRICH.
1831.
i
Av^ic: dvagr;(j'si.c, Ispoj AOFfi Ipyov bvu(fag.
ZQPOA'HTPOT Aoyla.
-« I •
PREFACE
TO THE AMERICAN EDITIOiV.
The general character and purpose of the work here offered
to the American public are to some extent already known
among us. Many, to whom it has itself been inaccessible,
have learned enough of it to form a high estimate of its value,
and the demand for it of late is such as to show that their num-
ber is increasing. This state of things renders a republication
of the work obviously desirable, and must be gratifying to those
who are concerned for the advancement of truth, and who be-
lieve this work to contain a valuable exhibition of some of its
great and vital principles. When nearly two years ago the
" Aids to Reflection," another work of the same author, came
before the public, there were many occasions of doubt with re-
gard to its probable reception. Those doubts are now remo-
ved. The result has justified the most flattering anticipations,
and furnishes abundant proof, that the " fit audience" to be
found among us for works of this kind is not so small as had
been apprehended. Indeed the manner in which that work
has been received, the sentiments which it has awakened, and
the class of persons whose attention has been specially direct-
ed to it, are such as furnish the best security tor the success of
similar works in future. The work now republished, though
not fitted in some respects to excite so deep an interest, will be
found, like that, concerned with the dcvelopemcnt of funda-
. ' -J
vi
mental principles, and essentially connected with the same
views of trutli. It was designed obviously for more general
circulation, and great pains were taken by the author, both to
render his views intelligible, and to gain the attention of all>
who were capable of understanding them. To those who have
become acquainted with the " Aids to Reflection," it will be
acceptable both for its own sake and as a help in the study of
that work. To every scholar, and indeed to every man, who
would rightly apprehend the general principles and grounds of
obligation in politics, morals, and religion, it will be found a
safe and invaluable guide.
The edition now offered is simply a reprint of the English.
It was indeed intended to prefix an Essay of a general charac-
ter on the philosophical system of the author ; but the design
was abandoned, from a conviction that notbing worthy of the
subject could be given in the limits contemplated, or without
more time and labour than could now be devoted to its prepa-
ration. I shall therefore merely take the occasion to remark,
that his system is by no means, as some have alleged, essen-
tially the same with that of Kant. Although he acknowledges
his obligations to the writings of that philosopher, he is himself
sufficiently careful to inform us, that in regard to points of the
highest importance he follows a very diff"erent teacher. He dif-
ers from him, as Cudworth and More and the Platonizing divines
of the same age generally would have dilTered, and as some of
the most eminent German philosophers, as well as Tholuck
and other evangelical divines, of the present day, diifer from
him in their philosophical and theological views. Between the
views of Prof. Tholuck and those of Coleridge, indeed, there is
a very striking coincidence, as must have been obvious to all,
who are acquainted with the writings of both. This fact, con-
sidering the high reputation which Prof. Tholuck has in this
country, as an evangelical and zealous divine, I trust may serve
in some degree to diminish the fears, which good men still in-
dulge respecting the tendency of such speculations. The pre-
Vll
sent volume however contains little to excite the fears of any
with regard to the doctrines of religion. But in its bearing
upon the general principles of philosophy received among us, it
will be found of the same character with all the works of its
author, and I trust may be instrumental in hastening the change,
which is already taking place, in our views of logic and meta-
physics. The Essays in which he vindicates the philosophy of
Lord Bacon from the prevailing misapprehensions of its charac-
ter, by showing its coincidence with that of Plato, are especially
valuable in this point of view ; and I could only wish, that those
who read them would examine for themselves and without pre-
judice the language of Lord Bacon in regard to the great princi-
ples of philosophy. It is now no longer hazardous to one's
reputation to call in question the authority of those philoso-
phers who have been most popular among us; and the article
on Brown's theory of perception in a late number of the Edin-
burgh Review shows, that language and thoughts derived from
German metaphysics may now be used to a much greater ex-
tent, than they have been done by Coleridge — in a work, where
formerly they would have been rejected with contumely. It
shows, too — what is more important — the ignorance and incon-
sistency betrayed in a system, that is still received in some of
our schools, but which it is to be hoped will give place to works
less exposed to critical reproach. A perusal of that article, and
a little reflection upon this and other things of a like kind, as
indicating the tendency of present inquiries in Great Britian
and this country, may convince us, that one who would be
thought not ignorant of philosophy hereafter, must acquaint
himself with something beyond the empiricism, which has so
long assumed its name among us. It need not now be inqui-
red, whether the Friend and other works of Coleridge are fit-
ted in the best possible manner to supply our deficiencies and
guide us to a better knowledge. They are believed b}^ niany,
- who are well qualified to judge, to be the best we have, and
calculated at least to cherish an ingenuous and earnest love
via
ol the truth lor the truth's sake. As such, the present volume
commends itself to all who will attentively peruse it, but es-
pecially to the young men of our Colleges and higher schools.
At that period, when — more than at any other — they are forming
principles both of thought and action, and establishing — if they
ever do so — a character of their own, they will find it a wise
monitor and a faithful " Fhiend."
J. Marsh.
University of Vermont,
November, 1831.
EPISTLE DEDICATORY.
Friend ! were an Author privileged to name his own judge —
in addition to moral and intellectual competence, I should look
round for some man, whose knowledge and opinions had for
the greater part been acquired experimentally : and the practi-
cal habits of whose life had put him on his guard with respect
to all speculative reasoning, without rendering him insensible
to the desirableness of principles more secure than the shifting
rules and theories generalized from observations merely empi-
rical, or unconscious in how many departments of knowledge,
and with how large a portion even of professional men, such
principles are still a desideratum. I would select too one who
felt kindly, nay, even partially, toward me ; but one whose par-
tiality had its strongest foundations in hope, and more prospec-
tive than retrospective would make him quick-sighted in the
detection, and unreserved in the exposure of the deficiencies
and defects of each present work, in the anticipation of a more
developed future. In you, honored Friend ! I have found all
these requisites combined and realized : and the improvement,
which these Essays have derived from your judgment and ju-
dicious suggestions, would, of itself, have justified me in ac-
companying them with a public acknowledgment of the same.
1
2
But knowing, as you cannot but know, that I owe in great
measure the power of having written at all to your medical
skill, and to the characteristic good sense which directed its
exertion in my behalf; and whatever I may have written in
happier vein, to the influence of your society and to the daily
proofs of your disinterested attachment — knowing too, in how
entire a sympathy with your feelings in this respect the partner
of your name has blended the affectionate regards of a sister or
daughter with almost a mother's watchful and unwearied soli-
citude alike for my health, interest, and tranquillity ; — ^you will
not, I trust, be pained, you ought not, I am sure, to be surpris-
ed that
TO
MR. AND MKS. GI}Li.MAN,
OF HIGHGATE,
THESE VOLUMES ARE DEDICATED,
IN TESTIMONY OF HIGH
RESPECT
AND GRATEFUL. AFFECTION, BY THEIR
FRIEND,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
October 7, 1818.
Highgate.
THE FRIEND.
ESSAY I.
Orede mihi, non est parvceJiducuB, polliceri opem decertantibus, consilium dubiis^
lumen cwcis, spem dejectis, refrigerium fessis. Magna quidem hac sunt sijiant;
parva, si promittanlur. Verum ego non tarn aliis legem ponam, quam legem
vobis mece propria mentis exponam : quam qui probaverit, teneat ; cut non pla-
cu£7nt, abjiciat. Optarem, fateor^ talis esse, qui prodesse possem quam pluiimis.
Petrarch: "Do Vita Solitarin."
Antecedent to all History, and long glimmering through it
as a holy Tradition, there presents itself to our imagination an
indefinite period, dateless as Eternity, a State rather than a
Time. For even the sense of succession is lost in the unifor-
mity of the stream.
It was toward the close of this golden age (the memory of
which the self-dissatisfied Race of Men have everywhere pre-
served and cherished) when Conscience acted in Man with
the ease and uniformity of Instinct ; when Labor was a sweet
name for the activity of sane Minds in healthful Bodies, and
all enjoyed in common the bounteous harvest produced, and
gathered in, by common effort ; when there existed in the
Sexes, and in the Individuals of each Sex, just variety enough
to permit and call forth the gentle restlessness and final union
of chaste love and individual attachment, each seeking and
finding the beloved one by the natural afiinity of their Beings ;
when the dread Sovereign of the Universe was known only as
the universal Parent, no Altar but the pure Heart, and Thanks-
giving and grateful Love the sole Sacrifice
In this blest age of dignified Innocence one of their honored
Elders, whose absence they were beginning to notice, entered
with hurrying steps the place of their common assemblage at
noon, and instantly attracted the general attention and wonder
by the perturbation of his gestures, and by a strange trouble
both in his eyes and over his whole countenance. After a short
but deep silence, when the first buzz of varied inquiry was be-
coming audible, the old man moved toward a small eminence,
and having ascended it, he thus addressed the hushed and lis-
tening company.
" In the warmth of the approaching mid-day, as I was repo-
sing in the vast cavern, out of which, from its northern portal,
issues the river that winds through our vale, a voice powerful,
yet not from its loudness, suddenly hailed me. Guided by my
ear I looked toward the supposed place of the sound for some
Form, from which it had proceeded. I beheld nothing but the
glimmering walls of the cavern. Again, as I was turning round,
the same voice hailed me : and whithersoever I turned my face,
thence did the voice seem to proceed. I stood still therefore,
and in reverence awaited its continuation. ' Sojourner of Earth!
(these were its words) hasten to the meeting of thy Brethren,
and the words which thou now hearest, the same do thou re-
peat unto them. On the thirtieth morn from the morrow's sun-
rising, and during the space of thrice three days and thrice three
nights, a thick cloud will cover the sky, and a heavy rain fall
on the earth. Go ye therefore, ere the thirtieth sun ariseth,
retreat to the cavern of the river and there abide, till the clouds
have passed away and the rain be over and gone. For know
ye of a certainty that whomever that rain wetteth, on him, yea,
on him and on his children's children will fall — the spirit of
Madness.' Yes ! Madness was the word of the voice : what
this be, I know not ! But at the sound of the word trembling
came upon me, and a feeling which I would not have had ; and
I remained even as ye beheld and now behold me."
The old man ended, and retired. Confused murmurs suc-
ceeded, and wonder, and doubt. Day followed day, and every
day brought with it a diminution of the awe impressed. They
could attach no image, no remembered sensations to the threat.
The ominous morn arrived, the Prophet had retired to the ap-
pointed cavern, and there remained alone during the appointed
time. On the tenth morning, he emerged from his place of
shelter, and sought his friends and brethren. But alas ! how
affrightful the change ! Instead of the common children of one
great family, working towards the same aim by reason, even as
the bees in their hives by instinct, he looked and beheld, here
a miserable wretch watching over a heap of hard and unnutri-
tious substances, which he had dug out of the earth, at the cost
of mangled limbs and exhausted faculties. This he appeared
to worship, at this he gazed, even as the youths of the vale had
been accustomed to gaze at their chosen virgins in the first
season of their choice. There he saw a former companion
speeding on and panting after a butterfly, or a withered leaf
whirling onward in the breeze ; and another with pale and dis-
torted countenance following close behind, and still stretching
forth a dagger to stab his precursor in the back. In another
place he observed a whole troop of his fellow-men famishing
and in fetters, yet led by one of their brethren who had ensla-
ved them, and pressing furiously onwards in the hope of fam-
ishing and enslaving another troop moving in an opposite direc-
tion. For the first time, the Prophet missed his accustomed
power of distinguishing between his dreams and his waking
perceptions. He stood gazing and motionless, when several
of the race gathered around him, and enquired of each other,
who is this man ? how strangely he looks ! how wild ! — a worth-
less idler ! exclaims one : assuredly, a very dangerous madman!
cries a second. In short, from words they proceeded to vio-
lence ^^1 harassed, endangered, solitary in a world of forms
like his own, without sympathy, without object of love, he at
length espied in some foss or furrow a quantity of the madden-
ing water still unevaporated, and uttering the last words of
reason. It is in vain to be sane in a world of madmen,
plunged and rolled himself in the liquid poison, and came out
as mad and not more wretched than his neighbors and acquaint-
ance.
The plan of The friend is comprized in the motto to this
Essay.* This tale or allegory seems to me to contain the ob-
* {Translation.) — Believe mc, it requires no little confidence, to promise
Help to the Struggling, Coiuisel to tlie Doubtful, Light to the Blind, Hope to
the Despondent, Refieshment to the Weary. These are indeed great things,
if they be accomplished ; trifles if they exist but in a promise. I however
Eiim not so much to jirescribe a Law for others, as to set forth the Law of
my own Mind ; which let the man, who shall have approved of it, abide by ;
8
jections to its practicability in all their strength. Either, says
the Sceptic, you are the Blind offering to lead the Blind, or
you are talking the language of Sight to those who do not pos-
sess the sense of seeing. If you mean to be read, try to en-
tertain and do not pretend to instruct. To such objections it
would be amply sufficient, on my system of faith, to answer,
that we are not all blind, but all subject to distempers of " the
mental sight," differing in kind and in degree ; that though all
men are in error, they are not all in the same error, nor at the
, same time ; and that each therefore may possibly heal the other,
even as two or more physicians, all diseased in their general
health yet under the immediate action of the disease on dif-
ferent days, may remove or alleviate the complaints of each
other. But in respect to the entertainingness of moral writings,
if in entertainment be included whatever delights the imagi-
nation or affects the generous passions, so far from rejecting
such a mean of persuading the human soul, my very system
compels me to defend not only the propriety but the absolute
necessity of adopting it, if we really intend to render our fel-
low-creatures better or wiser.
But it is with dullness as with obscurity. It may be posi-
tive, and the author's fault ; but it may likewise be relative, and
if the author has presented his bill of fare at the portal, the
reader has himself only to blame. The main question then is,
of what class are the persons to be entertained ? — " One of the
later schools of the Grecians (says Lord Bacon) is at a stand to
think what should be in it that men should love lies, where
neither they make for pleasure, as with poets ; nor for advan-
tage, as with the merchant; but for the lie's sake. I cannot tell
why, this same truth is a naked and open day-light, that doth
not shew the masques and mummeries and triumphs of the
present world half so stately and daintily, as candle-lights.
Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that sheweth
best by day ; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or
carbuncle, which sheweth best in varied lights. A mixture of
lies doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt, that if there
and let him, to whom it shall appear not reasonable, reject it. It is my earn-
est wish, I confess, to emjjloy my understanding and acquirements in that
mode and direction, in which T may be enabled to benefit the largest number
possiblp of my ftllow-creaturrs.
9
were taken from men's minds vain opinions, flattering hopes,
false valuations, imaginations as one ivould^ and the like vinum
Daemonum (as a Father calleth poetry) but it would leave the
minds of a number of men poor shrunken things, full of me-
lancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves?"
A melancholy, a too general, but not, 1 trust, a universal
truth ! — and even where it does apply, yet in many instances
not irremediable. Such at least must have been my persuasion :
or the present volumes must have been wittingly written to no
purpose. If I belived our nature fettered to all this wretched-
ness of head and heart by an absolute and innate necessity, at
least by a necessity which no human power, no efforts of rea-
son or eloquence could remove or lessen ; I should deem it
even presumptuous to aim at other or higher object than that of
amusing a small portion of the reading public.
And why not? whispers wordly prudence- To amuse
though only to amuse our visitors is wisdom as well as good-
nature, where it is presumption to attempt their amendment.
And truly it would be most convenient to me in respects of no
trifling importance, if I could persuade myself to take the ad-
vice. Relaxed by these principles from all moral obligation,
and ambitious of procuring pastime and self-oblivion for a race,
which could have nothing noble to remember, nothing desirable
to anticipate, I might aspire even to the praise of the critics
and dilettante of the higher circles of society ; of some trusty
guide of blind fashion ; some pleasant Analyst of Taste, as it
exists both in the palate and the soul ; some living guage and
mete-wand of past and present genius. But alas ! my former
studies would still have left a wrong bias ! If instead of per-
plexing my common sense with the flights of Plato, and of stiffen-
ing over the meditations of the imperial Stoic, I had been labor-
ing to imbibe the gay spirit of a Casti, or had employed my
erudition, for the benefit of the favored few, in elucidating the
interesting deformities of ancient Greece and India, what might
I not have hoped from the suff"rage of those, who turn in weari-
ness from the Paradise Lost, — because compared with the pru-
rient heroes and grotesque monsters of Italian Romance, or even
with the narrative dialogues of the melodious Metastasio, — that
— "Adventurous Song,
" Which justifies the ways of God to Man"
2
10
has been found a poor substitute for Grimaldi, a most inapt
medicine for an occasional propensity to yawn ? For, as hath
been decided, to fill up pleasantly the brief intervals of fash-
ionable pleasures, and above all to charm away the dusky
Gnome of Ennui, is the chief and appropriate business of the
Poet and — the Novelist ! This duty unfulfilled, Appollo will
have lavished his best gifts in vain ; and Urania henceforth
must be content to inspire Astronomers alone, and leave the
Sons of Verse to more amusive Patronesses. And yet — and
yet — but it will be time to be serious, when my visitors have
sat down.
ESSAY II.
Sic oportct ad libnim, presertim miscellanei generis^ legendum accedere ledorem, ut
solet ad convivium conviva civilis. Convivaior annititur omnibus satisfacere :
et tamen si quid apponitur, quod hujus aid illius palato non respondeat, et hie
et ille urbane dissimidant, et alia fercida probant, ne quid contristent convivato-
rem. Quis enim eum convivam ferat, qui tantum hoc animo veniat ad mensam,
id carpens quce apponuntur nee vescatur ipse, nee alios vesci sinat ? et tamen his
quoque reperias inciviliores, qui palam, qui sine fine damnent ac lacercnt opus,
quod nunquam legerint. Jlst hoc plusquam sycoplianticuin est damnare quod
nescias. Erasmus.
The musician may tune his instrument in private, ere his
audience have yet assembled ; the architect conceals the foun-
dation of his building beneath the superstructure. But an au-
thor's harp must be tuned in the hearing of those, who are
to understand its after harmonies ; the foundation stones of his
edifice must lie open to common view, or his friends will hesi-
tate to trust themselves beneath the roof.
From periodical Literature the general Reader deems him-
self entitled to expect amusement, and some degree of infor-
mation ; and if the Writer can convey any instruction at the
same time and without demanding any additional thought (as
the Irishmen, in the hackneyed jest, is said to have passed oiF
a light guinea between two halfpence) this supererogatory
merit will not perhaps be taken amiss. Now amusement in
and for itself may be afforded by the gratification either of the
curiosity or of the passions. I use the former word as distin-
guished from the love of knowledge, and the latter in distinc-
tion from those emotions which arise in well-ordered minds,
from the perception of truth or falsehood, virtue or vice : —
emotions, which are always preceded by thought, and linked
with improvement. Again, all information pursued without
any wish of becoming wiser or better thereby, I class among
the gratifications of mere curiosity, whether it be sought for
12
in a light Novel or a grave History. We may therefore omit
the word Information, as included either in Amusement or In-
struction.
The present Work is an experiment; not whether a writer
may honestly overlook the one, or successfully omit the other,
of the two elements themselves, wliich serious Readers at
least persuade themselves, they pursue ; but whether a change
might not be hazarded of the usual order, in which periodical
writers have in general attempted to convey them. Having
myself experienced that no delight either in kind or degree,
was equal to that which accompanies the distinct perception of
a fundamental truth, relative to our moral being ; having, long
after the completion of what is ordinarily called a learned edu-
cation, discovered a new world of intellectual profit opening on
me — not from any new opinions, but lying, as it were, at the
roots of those which I had been taught in childhood in my Cate-
chism and Spelling-book ; there arose a soothing hope in my
mind that a lesser Public might be found, composed of persons
susceptible of the same delight, and desirous of attaining it by
the same process. I heard a whisper too from within, (I trust
that it proceeded from Conscience not Vanity) that a duty was
performed in the endeavor to render it as much easier to them,
than it had been to me, as could be effected by the united ef-
forts of my understanding and imagination.*
* In conformity with this anxious wish I shall make no apology for sub-
joining a Translation of my Motto to this Essay.
(Traiislatxon.) A reader should sit down to a book, especially of the mis-
cellaneous kind as a well-behaved visitor does to a banquet. The master of
the feasts exerts himself to satisfy all his guests; but if after all his care and
pauis there should still be something or other put on the table that does !iot
suit this or that person's taste, they j)o]itcly pass it over without noticing the
circtunstance, and commend other dishes, that they may not distress their
kind host, or throw any damp on his spiiits. For who could tolerate a guest
tliat accepted an invitation to your table with no other purpose but that of
finding faidt with eveiy thing put before him, neither eating himself; orsufTer-
hig others to cat in comfort. And yet you may fall in with a still worse set
than even these, — with churls that in all coni])anies and without stop or stay
will condenm and ]Mdl to pieces a work which they had never read. But
this sinks below the baseness of an /j!/br?«fr, yea, tiiough he were a false wit-
ness to boot ! The man, who abuses a thing of which he is utterly ignorant,
unites the infamy of both— and in addition to this, makes himself the i)ander
and sycophant of his own and other men's envy and malignity.
13
Actuated by this impulse, the Writer wishes, in the follow-
ing Essays, to convey not instruction merely, but fundamental
instruction ; not so much to shew my Reader this or that fact,
as to kindle his own torch for him, and leave it to himself to
choose the particular objects, which he might wish to examine
by its light. The Friexnd does not indeed exclude from his plan
occasional interludes ; and vacations of innocent entertain-
ment and promiscuous information, but still in the main he pro-
poses to himself the communication of such delight as rewards
the march of Truth, rather than to collect the flowers which di-
versify its track, in order to present them apart from the home-
ly yet foodful or medicinable herbs, among which they had
grown. To refer men's opinions to their absolute principles,
and thence their feelings to the appropriate objects, and in their
due degrees ; and finally, to apply the principles thus ascertain-
ed, to the formation of steadfast convictions concerning the most
important questions of Politics, Morality, and Religion — these
are to be the objects and the contents of this work.
Themes like these not even the genius of a Plato or a Ba-
con could render intelligible, without demanding from the
reader thought sometimes, and attention generally. By
THOUGHT I here mean the voluntary production in our ov/n
minds of those states of consciousness, to which, as to his fun-
damental facts, the Writer has referred us ; while attention
has for its object the order and connection of Thoughts and
Images, each of which is in itself already and familiarly known.
Thus the elements of Geometry require attention only ; but
the analysis of our primary faculties, and the investigation of
all the absolute grounds of Religion and Morals, are impossible
without energies of thought in addition to the effort of Atten-
tion. The Friend will not attempt to disguise from his Readers
that both Attention and Thought are Efforts, and the latter a
most difficult and laborious Effort ; nor from himself, that to
require it often or for any continuance of time is incompatible
with the nature of the present Publication, even were it less
incongruous than it unfortunately is with the present habits and
pursuits of Englishmen. Accordingly I shall be on my guard
to make the Numbers as few as possible, which would require
from a well educated Reader any energy of thought and volun-
tary abstraction.
But Attention, I confess, will be requisite throughout, except
14
in the excursive and miscellaneous Essays that will be found
interposed between each of the three main divisions of the
Work. On whatever subject the mind feels a lively interest,
attention though always an effort, becomes a delightful effort.
I should be quite at ease, could I secure for the whole Work as
much of it, as a card party of earnest whist-players., often ex-
pend in a single evening, or a lady in the making-up of a fash-
ionable dress. But where no interest previously exists, atten-
tion (as every schoolmaster knows) can be procured only by
terror : which is the true reason why the majority of mankind
learn nothing systematically, except as school-boys or apprenti-
ces.
Happy shall I be, from other motives besides those of self-
interest, if no fault or deficiency on my part shall prevent the
Work from furnishing a presumptive proof, that there are still
to be found among us a respectable number of Readers who
are desirous to derive pleasure from the consciousness of be-
ing instructed or ameliorated , and who feel a sufficient in/eres^
as to the foundations of their own opinions in Literature, Poli-
tics, Morals, and Religion, to afford that degree of attention,
without which, however men may deceive themselves, no ac-
tual progress ever was or ever can be made in that knowledge,
which supplies at once both strength and nourishment.
ESSAY III.
'--/Ar 'o)C TzaQsla^op rrfv tsxvtjv ttuqu aov" xonqofrov fiBV sv'-d'v^g
Oidov'oav'vno" xofinacjfia'toiv, xai 'grj/ua'tcov, inax^w'v,
"la/vavu /.lE^v -nqot'iiaTOV u'vjifv, xal to' ^ugog^acpeii^ov,
'EnvXXioic y.al nsgiTtu'TOig xui TevrXioiai fitxQoig
XvXoi'v StSov'g aiianvl^uTbiV, 'ano" ^i^lioji', ^anrjd'of'v.
Aristoph. Ran^.
Imitation.*
When I received the Muse from you, I found her puffed and pampered,
With pompous sentences and terms, a cumb'rous huge virago.
My first attention was applied to make her look genteelly,
And bring her to a moderate bulk by dint of lighter diet.
I fed her with plain household phrase, and cool familiar sallad,
With water-gruel episode, with sentimental jelly,
With moral mince-meat: till at length I brought her within compass.
Frere.
In the preceding Number I named the present undertaking
an Experiment. The explanation will be found in the follow-
ing Letter, written to a Correspondent during the first attempt,
and before the plan was discontinued from an original error
in the mode of circulation, as noticed in the Preface.
To R. L.
Deah Sir,
When I first undertook the present Publication for the sake
*This Imitation is printed here by permission of the Author, from a Series
of free Translations of selected Scenes from Arisiophanes : a work, of which
Ishould the Author be persuaded to make it public) it is my most dehberate
judgment, and inmost conviction, that it will form an important epoch in En-
glish Literature, and open out sources of metrical and rhythmical wealth in
the very heart of our language, of which few, if any, among us are aware.
s. T. a
16
and with the avowed object of referring men in all things to
Principles or fundamental truths, I was well aware of the ob-
stacles which the plan itself Avould oppose to my success.
For in order to the regular attainment of this object, all the
driest and least attractive Essays must appear in the first fif-
teen or twenty Numbers, and thus subject me to the neces-
sity of demanding effort or solicting patience in that part of
the Work, where it was most my interest to secure the confi-
dence of my readers by winning their favor. Though I dared
warrant for the pleasantness of the journey on the whole ;
though I might promise that the road would, for the far greater
part of it, be found plain and easy, that it would pass through
countries of various prospect, and that at every stage there
would be a change of company ; ii still remained a heavy
disadvantage, that I had to start at the foot of a high and
steep hill : and I foresaw, not without occasional feelings of
despondency, that during the slow and laborious ascent it would
require no common management to keep my passengers in good
humor with the vehicle and its driver. As far as this incon-
venience could be palliated by sincerity and previous confes-
sions, I have no reason to accuse myself of neglect. In the
prospectus of The Friend, which for this cause I re-printed
and annexed to the first Number, I felt it my duty to inform
such as might be inclined to patronize the publication, that I
must submit to be esteemed dull by those who sought chiefly
for amusement: and this I hazarded as a ^eneraZ confession,
though in my own mind I felt a cheerful confidence that it
would apply almost exclusively to the earlier Numbers. I
could not therefore be surprised, however much I may have
been depressed, by the frequency with which you hear The
Friend complained of for its abstruseness and obscurity ; nor
did the highly flattering expressions, with which you accompa-
nied your communication, prevent me from feeling its truth to
the whole extent.
An author's pen, like children's legs, improves by exercise.
That part of the blame which rests on myself, I am exerting
my best faculties to remove. A man long accustomed to silent
and solitary meditation, in proportion as he increases the pow-
er of thinking in long and connected trains, is apt to lose or
lessen the talent of communicating liio thoughts with grace
and perspicuity. Doubtless too, I have in some measure in-
17
jured my style, in respect to its facility and popularity, from
having almost confined my reading, of late years, to the works
of the Ancients and those of the elder Writers in the modern
languages. We insensibly imitate what we habitually admire ;
and an aversion to the epigrammatic, unconnected periods of
the fashionable Anglogallican taste has too often made me wil-
ling to forget, that the stately march and difficult evolutions,
which characterize the eloquence of Hooker, Bacon, Milton,
and Jeremy Taylor, are notwithstanding their intrinsic excel-
lence, still less suited to a periodical Essay. This fault I am
now endeavoring to correct ; though I can never so far sacrifice
my judgment to the desire of being immediately popular, as to
cast my sentences in the French moulds, or affect a style which
an ancient critic would have deemed purposely invented for
persons troubled with the asthma to read, and for those to
comprehend who labor under the more pitiable asthma of a
short-witted intellect. It cannot but be injurious to the hu-
man mind never to be called into effort ; the habit of receiving:
pleasure without any exertion of thought, by the mere excite-
ment of curiosity and sensibility, may be justly ranked among
the worst eff'ects of habitual novel reading. It is true that these
short and unconnected sentences are easily and iustanly under-
stood : but it is equally true, that wanting all the cement of
thoughts as well as of style, all the connections, and (if you.
will forgive too trivial a metaphor) all the hooks-and-eyes of the-
memory, they are as easily forgotten : or rather, it is scarcely
possible that they should be remembered. — Nor is it less true,
that those who confine their reading to such books dwarf their
own faculties, and finally reduce their understandings to a de-
plorable imbecility : the fact you mention, and which I shall
hereafter make use of, is a fair instance and a striking illustra-
tion. Like idle morning visitors, the brisk and breathless pe-
riods hurry in and hurry off" in quick and profitless succession ;
each indeed for the moments of its stay prevents the pain of
vacancy, while it indulges the love of sloth ; but all together
they leave the mistress of the house (the soul I mean) flat and
exhausted, incapable of attending to her own concerns, and un-
fitted for the conversation of more rational guests.
I know you will not suspect me of fostering so idle a hope, as
that of obtaining acquittal by recrimination ; or think that I am
attacking one fault, in order that its opposite may escape notice
o
18
in the noise and smoke of the battery. On the contrary, I
shall do my best, and even make all allowable sacrifices, to ren-
der my manner more attractive and my matter more generally
interesting. In the establishment of principles and fundamen-
tal doctrines, I must of necessity require the attention of my
reader to become my fellow-laborer. The primary facts essen-
tial to the intelligibility of my principles I can prove to others
only as far as I can prevail on them to retire into themselves
and make their own minds the objects of their steadfast attention.
But, on the other hand, I feel too deeply the importance of the
convictions, which first impelled me to the present undertaking,
to leave unattempted any honorable means of recommending
them to as wide a circle as possible.
Hitherto, my dear Sir, I have been employed in laying the
foundation of my work. But the proper merit of a foundation
is its massiveness and solidity. The conveniences and orna-
ments, the gilding and stucco work, the sunshine and sunny
prospects, will come with the superstructure. Yet I dare not
flatter myself, that any endeavors of mine, compatible with
the duty I owe to truth and the hope of permanent utility, will
render The Friend agreeable to the majority of what is call-
ed the reading public. I never expected it. How indeed could
I, when I was to borrow so little from the influence of passing
events, and when I had absolutely excluded from my plan all
appeals to personal curiosity and personal interests ? Yet even
this is not my greatest impediment. No real information can
be conveyed, no important errors rectified, no widely injurious
prejudices rooted up, without requiring some eflbrt or thought
on the part of the reader. But the obstinate (and toward a
contemporary Writer, the contem])tuous) aversion to all intel-
lectual eflbrt is the mother evil of all which I had proposed to
war against, the Queen Bee in the hive of our errors and mis-
fortunes, both private and national. To solicit the attention of
those, on whom these debilitating causes have acted to their
full extent, would be no less absurd than to recommend exer-
cise with the dumb bells, as the only mode of cure, to a patient
paralytic in both arms. You, my dear Sir, well know, that
my expectations were more modest as well as more rational.
I hoped, that my readers in general would be aware of the im-
practicability of suiting every ICssay to every taste in any pe-
riod of the work ; and that they would not attritbute wholly to
19 " "'
the author, but in part to the necessity of his plan, the austeri-
ty and absence of the lighter graces in the first fifteen or twenty
numbers. In my cheerful moods I sometimes flattered myself,
that a few even among those, who foresaw that my lucubrations
would at all times require more attention than from the nature
of their own employments they could afford them, might yet
find a pleasure in supporting the Friend during its infancy, so
as to give it a chance of attracting the notice of others, to
whom its style and subjects might be better adapted. But my
main anchor was the Hope, that when circumstances gradually
enabled me to adopt the ordinary means of making the publica-
tion generally known, there might be found throughout the
Kingdom a sufficient number of meditative minds, who, enter-
taining similar convictions with myself, and gratified by the
prospect of seeing them reduced to form and system, would
take a warm interest in the work from the very circumstance
that it wanted those allurements of transitory interests, which
render particular patronage superfluous, and for the brief season
of their blow and fragrance attract the eye of thousands, who
would pass unregarded
Flowers
Of sober tint, and Herbs of medicinal powers.
S. T. C.
In these three introductory Numbers, The Friend has en-
deavored to realize his promise of giving an honest bill of fare,
both as to the objects and the style of the Work. With refer-
ence to both I conclude with a prophecy of Simon Grynasus,
from his premonition to the candid Reader, prefixed to Fi-
cinus's translation of Plato, published at Leyden, 1557. How
far it has been gradually fulfilled in this country since the revo-
lution in 1688, I leave to my candid and intelligent Readers to
determine.
' Ac dolet mihi quidem deliciis literarum inescatos subito jam
homines adeoj esse, praesertim qui Christianos esse profitentur,
ut legere nisi quod ad presentem gustum facit, sustineant nihil :
unde et disciplina et philosophia ipsa jam fere prorsus etiam a
doctis negliguntur. Quod quidem propositum studiorum nisi
mature corrigetur, tam magnum rebus incommodum dabit, quam
dedit barbaries olim. Pertinax res barbaries est fateor ; sed
minus potest tamen, quam ilia persuasa literarum, prudentior si
20
RATioNE caret, sapientiae virtutisque specie misere lectores cir-
cumducens.
Succedet igitur, ut aihitror, baud ita multo post, pro rus-
ticana sseeuli nostri ruditate captatrix ilia blandi-loquentia, ro-
bur animi virilis onine, omnem virtutein masculum profligatura,
nisi cavetur.'
(Translation.) — In very trutb, it grieveth me that men,
those especially who profess themselves to be Christians,
should be so taken with the sweet Baits of Literature that
tbey can endure to read nothing but v/hat gives them imme-
diate gratification, no matter how low or sensual it may be.
Consequently, the more austere and disciplinary branches of
philosophy itself, are almost wholly neglected, even by the
learned. — A course of study (if such reading, with such a pur-
pose in view, could deserve that name) which, if not correct-
ed in time, will occasion worse consequences than even bar-
barism did in the times of our forefathers. Barbarism is, I
own, a wilful headstrong thing ; but with all its blind obstina-
cy it has less power of doing harm than this self-sufficient,
self-satisfied plain good common-sense sort of writing, this pru-
dent saleable popular style of composition, if it be deserted
by Reason and scientific Insight ; pitiably decoying the minds
of men by an imposing shew of aimableness, and practical
Wisdom, so that the delighted Reader knowing nothing knows
all about almost every thing. There will succeed therefore
in my opinion, and that too within no long time, to the rude-
ness and rusticity of our age, that ensnaring meretricious pojm-
larness in Literature, with all the tricksy humilities of the am-
bitious candidates for the favorable suffrages of the judicious
Public, which i( we do not take good care will break up and
scatter before it all robustness and manly vigor of intellect, all
masculine fortitude of virtue.
ESi^AY IV.
Si modo qiUB jYaturd et Ratione concessa sint, assumpserimus, PrjESumtionis sus-
picio a )iobis quam longissime abesse debet Multa Antiquitati, nohismet ni-
hil, nrrogamus. JViMlne vos ? JVihil mehercule, nisi quod omnia omni aniino
Veritati arrogamiis et Sanctirnonice.
Ulr, Rinov. De Controversiis.
(Translation.) — If we assume only what Nature and Reason have granted,
with no shadow of right can we be suspected of Presumption. To Antiquity
we arrogate many things, to ourselves nothing. Nothing? Aye nothing:
unless indeed it be, that with all our strength we arrogate all things to Truth
and Moral Purity.
It has been remarked by the celebrated Haller, that we
are deaf while we are yawning. The same act of drowsiness
that stretches open our mouths closes our ears. It is much the
same in acts of the understanding. A lazy half-attention
amounts to a mental yawn. Where then a subject, that de-
mands thought, has been thoughtfully treated, and with an ex-
act and patient derivation from its principles, we must be wil-
ling to exert a portion of the same effort, and to think with
the author, or the author will have thought in vain for us.
It makes little difference for the time being, whether there be
an hiatus oscitans in the reader's attention, or an hiatus lacry-
mabilis in the author's manuscript. When this occurs during
the persual of a work of known authority and established fame,
we honestly lay the fault on our own deficiency, or on the un-
fitness of our present mood ; but when it is a contemporary
production, over which we have been nodding, it is far more
pleasant to pronounce it insufferably dull and obscure. Indeed,
as charity begins at home, it would be unreasonable to expect
23
that a reader should charge himself with lack of intellect,
when the effect may be equally well accounted for by declar-
ing the author unintelligible ; or that he should accuse his own
inattention, Avhen by half a dozen phrases of abuse, as " hea-
vy stuffs metaphorical jargon^ &c., he can at once excuse his
laziness, and gratify his pride, scorn, and envy. To similar
impulses we must attribute the praises of a true modern rea-
der, when he meets with a work in the true modern taste :
videlicet, either in skipping, unconnected, short-winded asth-
matic sentences, as easy to be understood as impossible to be
remembered, in which the merest common-place acquires a
momentary poignancy, a petty titillating sting, from affected
point and wilful antithesis ; or else in strutting and rounded
periods, in which the emptiest truisms are blown up into illus-
trious bubbles by help of film and inflation. "Aye!" (quoth
the delighted reader) " this is sense, this is genius ! this I un-
derstand and admire ! I have thought the very same a hundred
times myself !'''' In other words, this man has reminded me of
my own cleverness, and therefore I admire him. ! for one
piece of egotism that presents itself under its own honest bare
face of " I myself I," there are fifty that steal out in the mask
of tuisms and ille-isms.
It has ever been my opinion, that an excessive solicitude
to avoid the use of our first personal pronoun more often has
its source in conscious selfishness than in true self-oblivion.
A quiet observer of human follies may often amuse or sadden
his thoughts by detecting a perpetual feeling of purest egotism
through a long masquerade of Disguises, the half of which, had
old Proteus been master of as many, would have wearied out
the patience of Menelaus. I say, \\\e patience only: for it would
ask more than the simplicity of Polypheme, with his one eye
extinguished to be deceived by so poor a repetition of Nobody.
Yet I can with strictest truth assure my Readers that with a
pleasure combined with a sense of weariness I see the nigh
approach of that point of my labors, in which I can convey my
opinions and the workings of my heart without reminding the
Reader obtrusively of myself. But the frequency, with which
I have spoken in my own person, recalls my apprehensions to
the second danger, which it was my hope to guard against ;
the probable charge of Arrogance, or presumption, both for
daring to dissent from the opinions of great authorities, and, in
23
my folIoAving numbers perhaps, from the general opinion con-
cerning the true value of certain authorities deemed great.
The word, Presumption, I appropriate to the internal feeling,
and Arrogance to the way and manner of outwardly expressing
ourselves.
As no man can rightfully be condemned without reference
to some definite law, by the knowledge of which he might
have avoided the given fault, it is necessary so to define the
constituent qualities and conditions of arrogance, that a reason
may be assignable why we pronounce one man guilty and ac-
quit another. For merely to call a person arrogant or most arro-
gant can convict no one of the vice except perhaps the ac-
cuser. I was once present, when a young man who had left
his books and a glass of water to join a convivial party, each
of whom had nearly finished his second bottle, was pronounced
very drunk by the whole party — "he looked so strange and
pale !" Many a man, who has contrived to hide his ruling pas-
sion or predominant defect from himself, will betray the same
to dispassionate observers, by his proneness on all occasions to
suspect or accuse others of it. Now arrogance and Presump-
tion, like all other moral qualities, must be shewn by some act
or conduct : and this too must be an act that implies, if not an
immediate concurrence of the Will, yet some faulty constitution
of the Moral Habits. For all criminality supposes its essentials
to have been within the power of the Agent. Either therefore
the facts adduced do of themselves convey the whole proof of
the charge, and the question rests on the truth or accuracy
with which they have been stated ; or they acquire their char-
acter from the circumstances. I have looked into a ponderous
Review of the Corpuscular Philosophy by a Sicilian Jesuit, in
which the acrimonious Father frequently expresses his doubt
whether he should pronounce Boyle or Newton more impious
than presumptuous^ or more presumptuous than impious. They
had both attacked the reigning opinions on most important sub-
jects, opinions sanctioned by the greatest names of antiquity,
and by the general suflrage of their learned Contemporaries or
immediate Predecessors. Locke was assailed with a full cry
for his presumption in having deserted the philosophical system
at that time generally received by the Universities of Europe ;
and of late years Dr. Priestly bestowed the epithets of arrogant
and insolent on Reid, Beattie, &c., for presuming to arraign
24
certain opinions of Mr. Locke, himself repaid in kind by many
of his own countrymen for his theological novelties. It will
scarcely be affirmed, that these accusations were all of them
just, or that any of them were fit or courteous. Must we there-
fore say, that in order to avow doubt or disbelief of a popular
persuasion without arrogance, it is required that the dissentient
should know himself to possess the genius, and foreknow that
he should acquire the reputation, of Locke, Newton, Boyle, or
even of a Reid or Beattie ? But as this knowledge and pre-
science are impossible in the strict sense of the words, and
could mean no more than a strong inw-ard conviction, it is
manifest that such a rule, if it were universally established,
would encourage the presumptuous, and condemn modest and
humble minds alone to silence. And as this silence could not
acquit the individual's own mind of presumption, unless it
were accompanied by conscious acquiescence ; Modesty itself
must become an inert quality, which even in private society
never displays its charms more unequivocally than in its mode
of reconciling moral deference with intellectual courage, and
general diffidence with sincerity in the avowal of the particular
conviction.
We must seek then elsewhere for the true marks, by which
Presumption or Arrogance may be detected, and on which the
charge may be grounded with little hazard of mistake or in-
justice. And as I confine my present observations to litera-
ture, I deem such criteria neither difficult to determine or to
apply. The first mark, as it appears to me, is a frequent bare
assertion of opinions not generally received, without condescen-
ding to prefix or annex the facts and reasons on which such
opinions were formed ; especially if this absence of logical cour-
tesy is supplied by contemptuous or abusive treatment of such
as happen to doubt of, or oppose, the decisive ipse dixi. But
to assert, however nakedly, that a passage in a lewd novel, in
which the Sacred Writings are denounced as more likely to
pollute the young and innocent mind than a romance notorious
for its indecency — to assert, I say, that such a passage argues
equal impudence and ignorance in its author, at the time of wri-
ting and publisiiing it — this is not arrogance ; although to a vast
majority of the decent part of our countrymen it would be su-
perfluous as a truism, if it were exclusively an author's business
to convey or revive knowledge, and not sometimes his duty to
25
awaken the indignation of his Reader by the expression of his
own.
A second species of this unamiable quality, which has been
often distinguished by the name of Warburtonian arrogance,
betrays itself, not as in the former, by proud or petulant omis-
sion of proof or argument, but by the habit of ascribing weakness
of intellect, or want of taste and sensibility, or hardness of heart,
or corruption of moral principle, to all who deny the truth of
the doctrine, or the sufficiency of evidence, or the fairness of
the reasoning adduced in its support. This is indeed not es-
sentially different from the first, but assumes a separate charac-
ter from its accompaniments : for though both the doctrine and
its proofs may have been legitimately supplied by the under-
standing, yet the bitterness of personal crimination will resolve
itself into naked assertion. We are, therefore, authorized by
experience, and justified on the principle of self-defence and
by the law of fair retaliation, in attributing it to a vicious tem-
per, arrogant from irritability, or irrita,ble from arrogance. This
learned arrogance admits of many gradations, and is palliated or
aggravated, accordingly, as the point in dispute has been more or
less controverted, as the reasoning bears a greater or smaller
proportion to the virulence of the personal detraction, and as the
persons or parties, who are the objects of it, are more or less
respected, more or less worthy of respect.*
*Ha(l the autlior of the Divine Legation of Moses more sliilfully appro-
priated his coarse eloquence of abuse, his customary assurance of the idiotcy,
both in head and heart, of all his opponents; if he had employed those vigor-
ous arguments of his own vehement humor in the defence of Truths ac-
knowledged and reverenced by learned men in general ; or if he had confi-
ned them to the names of Chubb, Woolston, and other precursors of Mr. Thom-
as Payne ; we should perhaps still characterize his mode of controversy by
its rude violence, but not so often have heard his name used, even by those
who have never read his writings, as a j)roverbial expression of learned Arro-
gance. But when a novel and doubtful hy})othesis of his own formation was
the citadel to be defended, and his mephitic hand-granados were thrown
with the fury of lawless despotism at the fair reputation of a Sykes and a
Lardner, we not only confirm the verdict of his inde]jendeiit contemporaries,
but cease to wonder, that arrogance should rendei- Jiian an object of contempt
in many, and of aversion in all instances, when it was capable of hurrying a
Christian teacher of equal talents and learning into a slanderous vulgarity,
which escapes our disgust only when we see the writer's own reputation the
sole victim. But throughout his great work, and the pamphlets in which he
4
26
Lasth', it must be admitted as a just imputation of presump-
tion when an individual obtrudes on the public eye, with all
the high pretensions of originality, opinions and observations,
in regard to which he must plead wilful ignorance in order to
be acquitted of dishonest plagiarism. On the same seat must
the writer be placed, who in a disquisition on any important
subject proves, by falsehoods either of omission or of positive
error, that he has neglected to possess himself, not only of the
information requisite for this particular subject, but even of those
ac(juirements, and that general knowledge, which could alone
authorize him to commence a public instructor : this is an office
which cannot be procured gratis. The industry, necessary for
the due exercise of its functions, is its purchase-money ; and
the absence or insufficiency of the same is so far a species of
dishonesty, and implies a pi'esumption in the literal as well as
the ordinary sense of the word. He has taken a thing before
he had acquired any right or title thereto.
If in addition to this unfitness which every man possesses
the means of ascertaining, his aim should be to unsettle a gen-
eral belief closely connected with public and private quiet ;
and if his language and manner be avowedly calculated for the
illiterate (and perhaps licentious) part of his contrymen ; dis-
gusting as his presumption must appear, it is yet lost or evan-
escent in the close neighbourhood of his guilt. That Hobbes
translated Homer in English verse and published his translation,
furnishes no positive evidence of his self-conceit, though it
implies a great lack of self-knowldege and of acquaintance with
the nature of poetry. A strong wish often imposes itself on
the mind for an actual power; the mistake is favored by tlie
innocent pleasure derived from the exercise of versification,
perhaps by the approbation of intimates ; and the canditate asks
from more impartial readers that sentence, which Nature has
not enabled him to anticipate. But when the philosopher of
Malmsbury waged war with Wallis and the fundamental truths
of pure geometry, every instance of his gross ignorance and
siipportpd it, ho always seems to write as if he had deemed it aduty of deco-
iian to jiuhhsh hisfaneies on the Mosaic Law, as the Law itself was dehvered,
that is, "in thunders and lightnings;" or as if he had applied to his own book
intsead of the sac-red mount, the nietiaee — Thtrt shall not a hand touch it but
he shall surely be stoned or shot through.
27
utter misconception of the very elements of the science he pro-
posed to confute, furnished an unanswerable fact in proof of his
high presumption ; and the confident and insulting language of
the attack leaves the judicious reader in as little doubt of his
gross arrogance. An illiterate mechanic, when mistaking some
disturbance of his nerves for a miraculous call proceeds alone
to convert a tribe of savages, whose language he can have no
natural means of acquiring, may have been misled by impulses
very different from those of high self-opinion ; but the illite-
rate perpetrator of " the Age of Reason," must have had his
very conscience stupified by the habitual intoxication of pre-
sumptuous arrogance, and his common-sense over-clouded by
the vapors from his heart.
As long therefore as I obtrude no unsupported assertions on
my Readers ; and as long as I state my opinions and the evidence
which induced or compelled me to adopt them, with calmness
and that diffidence in myself, w^hich is by no means incompatible
with a firm belief in the justness of the opinions themselves;
while I attack no man's private life from any cause, and detract
from no man's honors in his public character, from the truth of
his doctrines, or the merits of his compositions, without detail-
ing all my reasons and resting the result solely on the argu-
ments adduced ; while I moreover' explain fully the motives of
duty, which influenced me in resolving to institute such inves-
tigation ; while I confine all asperity of censure, and all expres-
sions of contempt, to gross violations of truth, honor, and de-
cency, to the base corrupter and the detected slanderer; while
I write on no subject, which I have not studied with my best at-
tention, on no subject which my education and acquirments
have incapacitated me from properly understanding ; and above
all while 1 approve myself, alike in praise and in blame, in close
reasoning and in impassioned declamation, a steady rRii:>;D to
the two best and surest friends of all men, Truth and Hoatestt ;
I will not fear an accusation of either Presumption or Arrogance
from the good and the wise : I shall pity it from the weak, and
despise it from the wicked.
ESSAY V.
In eodem pedore nullum est hoiiestorum turphimque consortium : et cogitare optima
simvl el deterrima non magis est wiius animce quam ejusdem hominis honum
esse ac malum. Quintilian.
There is no fellowship of honor and baseness in the same breast; and to com-
bine the best and the worst designs is no more possible in one mind, than
it is for the same man to be at the same instant virtuous and vicious.
Cognitio veritatis omnia falsa, si mode pro/erantur, eiiam quce pi'ius inaudita eranf,
et dijudicare et subvertere idonea est. Augustintjs.
A knowledge of the truth is equal to the task both of discerning and of con-
futing all false assertions and erroneous arguments, though never before
met with, if only they may freely be brought forward.
I have said, that my very system compels me to make every
fair appeal to the feelings, the imagination and even the fancy.
If these are to be withheld from the service of truth, virtue, and
happiness, to what purpose were they given ? in whose service
are they retained ? I have indeed considered the disproportion
of human passions to their ordinary objects among the strongest
internal evidences of our future destination, and the attempt to
restore them to their rightful claimants, the most imperious duty
and the noblest task of genius. The verbal enunciation of this
master-truth could scarcely be new to me at any period of my
life since earliest youth ; but I well remember the particular
time, when the words first became more than words to me,
when they incorporated with a living conviction, and took their
place among the realties of my being. On some wide com-
mon or open heath, peopled with Ant-hills, during some one
of the grey cloudy days of the late Autumn, many of my Rea-
ders may have noticed the effect of a sudden and momentary
flash of sunshine on all the countless little animals within his
view, aware too that the self-same influence was darted co-in-
39
stantaneously over all their swarming cities as far as his eye
could reach ; may have observed, with what a kindly force the
gleam stirs and quickens them all ! and will have experienced
no unpleasureable shock of feeling in seeing myriads of myriads
of living and sentient beings united at the same moment in one
gay sensation, one joyous activity ! But awful indeed is the
same appearance in a multitude of rational beings, our fellow-
men, in whom too the effect is produced not so much by the ex-
ternal occasion as from the active quality of their own thoughts.
I had walked from Gottingen in the year 1799, to witness the
arrival of the Queen of Prussia, on her visit to the Baron Von
Hartzberg's seat, five miles from the University. The spa-
cious outer court of the palace was crowded with men and
women, a sea of heads, with a number of children rising out of
it from their father's shoulders. After a buzz of two hours ex-
pectation, the avant-courier rode at full speed into the Court.
At the loud cracks of his long whip and the trampling of his
horse's hoofs, the universal shock and thrill of emotion — I have
not language to convey it — expressed as it was in such manifold
looks, gestures, and attitudes, yet with one and the same feeling
in the eyes of all ! Recovering from the first inevitable conta-
gion of sympath}^, I involuntarily exclaimed, though in a language
to myself alone intelligible, " man ! ever nobler than thy
circumstances ! Spread but the mist of obscure feeling over
any form, and even a woman incapable of blessing or of injury
to thee shall be welcomed with an intensity of emotion ade-
quate to the reception of the Redeemer of the world !"
To a creature so highly, so fearfully gifted, who, alienated as
he is by a sorcery scarcely less mysterious than the nature on
which it is exercised, yet like the fabled son of Jove in the
evil day of his sensual bewitchment, lifts the spindles and dis-
taffs of Omphale with the arm of a giant. Truth is self-restora-
tion : for that which is the correlative of Truth, the existence
of absolute Life, is the only object which can attract towards it
the whole depth and mass of his fluctuating Being, and alone
therefore can unite Calmness with Elevation. But it must be
Truth without alloy and unsophisticated. It is by the agency
of indistinct conceptions, as the counterfeits of the Ideal and
Transcendent, that evil and vanity exercise their tyranny on
the feelings of man. The Powers of Darkness are politic if
not wise ; but surely nothing can be more irrational in the pre-
30
tended children of Light, than to enlist themselves under the
banners of Truth, and yet rest their hopes on an alliance with
Delusion.
Among the numerous artifices, by which austere truths are
to be softened down into palateable falsehoods, and Virtue and
Vice, like the atoms of Epicurus, to receive that insensible
clinamen which is to make them meet each other half way, I
have an especial dislike to the expression, Pious Frauds.
Piety indeed shrinks from the very phrase, as an attempt to
mix poison with the cup of Blessing : while the expediency of
the measures which this phrase was framed to recommend or
palliate, appears more and more suspicious, as the range of our
experience widens, and our acquaintance with the records of
History becomes more extensive and accurate. One of the
most seductive arguments of Infidelity grounds itself on the
numerous passages in the works of the Christian Fathers, as-
serting the lawfulness of Deceit for a good purpose. That the
Fathers held, almost without exception, "That wholly without
breach of duty it is allowed to the Teachers and heads of the
Christian Church to employ artifices, to intermix falsehoods
with truths, and especially to deceive the enemies of the faith,
provided only they hereby serve the interests of Truth and the
advantage of mankind,"* is the unwilling confession of Rieof:
(Program, de Oeconomia Patrum.) St. Jerom, as is shewn by
the citations of this learned Theologian, boldly attributes this
management (falsitatem dispensativam) even to the Apostles
themselves. But why speak I of the advantage given to the
opponents of Christianity? Alas! to this doctrine chiefly, and
to the practices derived from it, we must attribute the utter
* Intes^nim omnino Dodorihiis ct ccetus Christiani Antistitibus esse, id dolos
versent, falsa veris intcrrniscant et imprimis religionis hostes J'uUani, elummodo
veritatis commodis et idilitati inservant. — I ti'iist, I need not udd, tliat tliu iiu-
j)iitatioii of such principles of actii^n to the first insjjired Propagators of
Christianity, is fonndod on the gross niisconstruction of tliose passages in the
writings of St. I'anl, in wliich the necessity of employing different argu-
ments to men of different cajtacities and prejudices, is supposed and acceded
to. In other words, St. Paul strove to speak intelligibly, willingly sacrificed
indifferent things to matters of importance, and acted courteously as a man,
in order to win attention as an Ai)ostlc. A traveller prefers for daily use the
coin of the nation through wliich ho is passing, to bullion or th<^ mintage of
his own countiy: and is this to justify n succeeding trnvelier in (ha use of
counterfeit coin ?
31
corruption of the Religion itself for so many ages, and even
now over so large a portion of the civilized world. By a sys-
tem of accommodating Truth to Falsehood, the Pastors of the
Church gradually changed the life and light of the Gospel into
the very superstitions which they were commissioned to disperse,
and thus paganized Christianity in order to christen Paganism.
At this very hour Europe groans and bleeds in consequence.
So much in proof and exemplification of the probable expedi-
ency of pious deception, as suggested by its known and record-
ed consequences. An honest man, however, possesses a clear-
er light than that of History. He knows, that by sacrificing
the law of his reason to the maxim of pretended prudence, he
purchases the sword with the loss of the arm that is to wield it.
The duties which we owe to our own moral being, are the
ground and condition of all other duties; and to set our nature
at strife with itself for a good purpose, implies the same sort of
prudence, as a priest of Diana would have manifested, who
should have proposed to dig up the celebrated charcoal foun-
dations of the mighty Temple of Ephesus, in order to furnish
fuel for the burnt-offerings on its altars. Truth, Virtue and
Happiness, may be distinguished from each other, but cannot
be divided. They subsist by a mutual co-inherance, which
gives a shadow of divinity even to our human nature. " Will
ye speak deceitfully for God ?" is a searching question, which
most affectingly represents the grief and impatience of an un-
corrupted mind at perceiving a good cause defended by ill
means : and assuredly if any temptation can provoke a well-regu-
lated temper to intolerance, it is the shameless assertion, that
Truth and Falsehood are indifferent in their own natures ; that
the former is as often injurious (and therefore criminal) and the
latter on many occasions as beneficial (and consequently meri-
torious) as the former.
I feel it incumbent on me, therefore, to place immediately be-
fore my Readers in the fullest and clearest light, the whole
question of moral obligation respecting the communication of
Truth, its extent and conditions. I would fain obviate all ap-
prehensions either of my incaution on the one hand, or of any
insincere reserve on the other, by proving that the more strictly
we adhere to the Letter of the moral law in this respect, the
more completely shall we reconcile the law with prudence ;
thus securing a purity in the principle without mischief from
32
fhe practice. I would not, I could not dare, address my coun-
trymen as a Friend, if I might not justify the assumption of that
sacred title by more than mere veracity, by open-heartedness.
Pleasure, most often delusive, may be born of delusion. Pleas-
ure, herself a sorceress, may pitch her tents on enchanted ground.
But Happiness (or, to use a far more accurate as well as more
comprehensive term, solid Well-being) can be built on Virtue
alone, and must of necessity have Truth for its foundation.
Add to the known fact that the meanest of men feels himself
insulted by an unsuccessful attempt to deceive him ; and hates
and despises the man who had attempted it. What place then
is left in the heart for Virtue to build on, if in any case we may
dare practice on others what we should feel as a cruel and con-
temptuous wrong in our own persons ? Every parent possesses
the opportunity of observing, how deeply children resent the
injury of a delusion ; and if men laugh at the falsehoods that
were imposed on themselves during their childhood, it is be-
cause they are not good and wise enough to contemplate the
past in the present, and so to produce by a virtuous and thought-
ful sensibility that continuity in their self-consciousness, which
Nature has made the law of their animal life. Ingratitude, sen-
suality, and hardness of heart, all flow from this source. Men
are ungrateful to others only when they have ceased to look
back on their former selves with joy and tenderness. They
exist in fragments. Annihilated as to the Past, they are dead
to the Future, or seek for the proofs of it everywhere, only not
(where alone they can be found) in themselves. A contem-
poraiy Poet has expressed and illustrated this sentiment with
equal fineness of thought and tenderness of feeling :
My heart leaps up when I l)eliold
A rain-how in the sky ?
So was it, when my life began ;
So is it now I am a man ;
So let it he, when I grow old,
Or let mc die.
The Child is Father of the Man,
And I icoxdd tvish. my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety*
Wordsworth.
* I am informed, that these very lines have been rited, as a specimen of
despicable puerility. So much the worse for the citer. Not willingly in his
Alas ! the pernicious influence of this lax morality" t»"ii» i^^
from the nursery and the school to the cabinet and senate. It
is a common weakness with men in power, who have used dis-
simulation successfully, to form a passion for the use of it, dupes
to the love of duping ! A pride is flattered by these lies. He
who fancies that he must be perpetually stooping down to the
prejudices of his fellow-creatures, is perpetually reminding
and re-assuring himself of his own vast superiority to them.
But no real greatness can long co-exist with deceit. The
whole faculties of man must be exerted in order to noble ener-
gies ; and he who is not earnestly sincere, lives in but half his
being, self-mutilated, self-paralyzed.
The latter part of the proposition, which has drawn me into
this discussion, that 1 mean in which the morality of intention-
al falsehood is asserted, may safely be trusted to the Reader's
own moral sense. Is it a groundless apprehension, that the
patrons and admirers of such publications may receive the pun-
ishment of their indiscretion in the conduct of their sons and
daughters ? The suspicion of methodism must be expected by
every man of rank and fortune, who carries his examination
respecting the books which are to lie on his breakfast-table,
farther than to their freedom from gross verbal indecencies, and
broad avowals of atheism in the title-page. For the existence
of an intelligent first cause may be ridiculed in the notes of
one poem, or placed doubtfully as one of two or three possible
hypotheses, in the very opening of another poem, and both be
considered as works of safe promiscuous reading "virginibus
puerisque :" and this too by many a father of a family, who
would hold himself highly culpable in permitting his child to
presence would I beliold the sun setting behind our mountains, or listen to a
tale of distress or virtue; I should bo ashamed of the quiet tear on my own
cheek. But let the dead l)ury the dead ! The Poet sang for tlie Living, Of
what value indeed, to a sane mind, are the likings or disJikings of one man,
grounded on the mere assertions of another ? Opinions formed fiom opin-
ions — what are they, but clouds sailing under clouds, which inij)ress shadows
upon shadows ?
Funguin pclle procul, jubeo ! nam quid mihi fungo?
Conveninnt stomacho non minus ista suo.
I was a'vvays i»leased with the motto placed under the figure of the Rose-
mary in old llerbals:
Sus, apage! Ilaud tibi spiro.
/
the praejtiits of familiar acquaintance with a person of loose ha-
bits, and think it even criminal to receive into his house a
private tutor without a previous inquiry concerning his opin-
ions and principles, as well as his manners and outward conduct.
How little I am an enemy to free inquiry of the boldest kind,
and where the authors have differed the most widely from my
own convictions and the general faith of mankind, provided
only, the enquiry be conducted with that seriousness, which
naturally accompanies the love of truth, and that it is evidently
intended for the perusal of those only, who may be presumed
to be capable of weighing the arguments, I shall have abund-
ant occasion of proving, in the course of this work. Qiiin
ipsa philosophia talibus e disputationibus non nisi beneficium
recipit. Nam si vera proponit homo ingeniosus veritatisque
amanSy nova ad earn accessio fiet : sin falsa, refutatione eorum
priores tanto magis stabilientur .* Galilei Syst. Cosm. p. 42.
The assertion, that truth is often no less dangerous than
falsehood, sounds less offensively at the first hearing, only be-
cause it hides its deformity in an equivocation, or double mean-
ing of the word truth. What may be rightly affirmed of truth,
used as synonymous with verbal accuracy, is transferred to it
in its higher sense of veracity. By verbal truth we mean no
more than the correspondence of a given fact to given words.
In moral truth, we involve likewise the intention of the speak-
er, that his words should correspond to his thoughts in the
sense in which he expects them to be understood by others :
and in this latter import we are always supposed to use the
word, whenever we speak of truth absolutely, or as a possible
subject of a moral merit or demerit. It is verbally true, that in
the sacred Scriptures it is written : " As is the good, so is the
sinner, and he that sweareth as he that feareth an oath. A
man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to
drink, and to be merry. For there is one event unto all : the
living know they shall die, but the dead know not any thing,
neither have they any more a reward." But he who should
* (Translation.) — Moreover, Pliilosoph}' itself cannot hut derive benefit from
such discussions. For if a man of genius and a lover of Truth brings just
positions before the Public, there is a fiesh accession to the stock of Philo-
Pf)phic Insight; but if erroneous positions, the former Truths will by their
confutation be establisjied so much the jnore firnilv.
35
repeat these words, with this assurance, to an ignorant man in
the hour uf his temptation, lingering at the door of the ale-
house, or hesitating as to the testimony required of him in the
court of justice, would, spite of this verbal truth, be a liar,
and the murderer of his brother's conscience. Veracity, there-
fore, not mere accuracy ; to convey truth, not merel}^ to say
it ; is the point of duty in dispute : and the only difficulty in
the mind of an honest man arises from the doubt, whether
more than veracity (i. e. the truth and nothing but the truth)
is not demanded of him by the law of conscience ; whether it
does not exact simjilicity ; that is, the truth only, and the
whole truth. If we can solve this difficulty, if we can deter-
mine the conditions under which the law of universal reason
commands the communication of the truth independently of con-
sequences altogether, we shall then be enabled to judge wheth-
er there is any such probability of evil consequences from such
communication, as can justify the assertion of its occasional
criminality, as can perplex us in the conception, or disturb us
in the performance, of our duty.
The conscience, or effective reason, commands the design of
conveying an adequate notion of the thing spoken of, when this
is practicable : but at all events a right notion, or none at all.
A school-master is under the necessity of teaching a certain
rule in simple arithmetic empirically, (do so and so, and the
sum will always prove true) the necessary truth of the rule
(i. e. that the rule having been adhered to, the sum must al-
ways prove true) requiring a knowledge of the higher mathe-
matics for its demonstration. He, however, conveys a right
notion, though he cannot convey the adequate one.
E88AY VI.
Uolvfiad-lij xu'qiu i^iEV McpeXtsi, y.u'qra 8e (HaitiBno'v e'xovTa 'wcfeX6Ei>
fiep TO V dt^Lo" t' "ui'dQix, ^Xu'niei, ds to' v ^rjtdiwg q)0)rev~viu nav Unog
xul iv Tiavil 8 rf 1.1(0. Xqif 8e xuioov' /ust^u si8eyuf oocpiijg )'uQ ou'^iog,
"oQog, "oi 8e ti.01 xutoov' Qtfaif jnovaixifv TTSTiPVftsi'Mg 'utiaojuif, d" u
nuQu8exovTui iv UQyirj yro)' fjyv, uheiv 8^ (melius utiiijr) t/ovav fio)giug.
Heraclitus apud Stobceum, (Serm. xxxiv.
Ed. Lgd. p. 216.;
( Trcmslfdion.) — General Knowledge and ready Talent maybe of verygi'eat
benefit, but they may likewise be of very great disservice to the possessor.
They are highly advantageous to the man of sound judgment, and dexterous
in applying thein ; but tlicy injure your fluent holder-fortli on all sulyects in
all companies. It is necessary to know the measures of the time and occa-
sion : for this is the very boundary of wisdom — (that by which it is defined,
and distinguished from mere ability.) But he, who without regard to the un-
fitness of the time and the audience "will soar in the high reason of his fan-
cies with his garland and singing rjbes about him," will not acquire the credit
of seriousness amidst frivolity, but will be condenmed for his silliness, as the
greatest idler of the company because the most unseasonable.
The Moral Law, it has J)een shewn, permits an inadequate
communication of unsophisticated jruth, on the condition that
it alone is practicable, and binds us to silence when neither is
in our power. We must first enquire then. What is necessary
to constitute, and what may allowably accompany, a right though
inadequate notion .'' And secondly, what are the circumstances,
from which we may deduce the impracticability of conveying
even a right notion ; the presence or absence of which circum-
stances it therefore becomes our duty to ascertain .'' In answer
to the first question, the conscience demands : 1. That it should
be the wish and design of the mind to convey the truth only ;
S7
that if in addition to the negative loss implied in its inadequate-
ness, the notion communicated should lead to any positive error,
the cause should lie in the fault or defect of the Recipient, not
of the Communicator, whose paramount duty, whose inaliena-
ble right it is to preserve his own Integrity * the integral char-
acter of his own moral Being. Self-respect ; the reverence
which he owes to the presence of Humanity in the person of
his neighbor ; the reverential upholding of the faith of man in
man ; gratitude for the particular act of confidence ; and reli-
gious awe for the divine purposes in the gift of language ; are
duties too sacred and important to be sacrificed to the guesses
of an individual, concerning the advantages to be gained by
the breach of them. 2. It is further required, that the suppos-
ed error shall not be such as will pervert or materially vitiate
the imperfect truth, in communicating which we had unwilling-
ly, though not perhaps unwittingly, occasioned it. A Barbari-
an so instructed in the power and intelligence of the Infinite
Being as to be left Avholly ignorant of his moral attributes,
would have acquired none but erroneous notions even of the
former. At the very best, he would gain only a theory to sa-
tisfy his curiosity with ; but more probably, would deduce the
belief of a Moloch or a Baal. (For the idea of an irresistible
*The best and most forcible sense of a word is often tbat, wbich is con-
tained in its Etymology. The Author of the Poems ( The Sij7iagog^ue) fre-
quently affixed to Herbert's " Temple," gives the original purport of the
word Integrity, in the following lines (fourth stanza of the eighth Poem.) '
Next to Sincerity, remember still,
Thou must resolve upon Integrity.
God will have all thou hast, thy mind, thy will.
Thy thoughts, thy words, thy works.
And again, after some verses on Constancy and Humility, the Poem con-
cludes with —
He tliat desires to sec
The face of God, in his religion must
Sincere, entire, constant and huml)le be.
Having mentioned tiie name of Herbed, that model of a man, a Gentle-
man, and a Clergyman, let me add, that the quaintness of some of his
thoughts not of his diction, than which nothing can be more pure, manly,
and unaffected, has blinded modern readers to the great general merit of his
Poenjs, which are for tha most part exquisite in their kind.
38
invisible Being naturally produces terror in the mind of unin-
structed and unprotected man, and with terror there will be
associated whatever had been accustomed to excite it, as anger,
vengeance, &c. ; as is proved by the Mythology of all barba-
rous nations.) This must be the case with all organized truths;
the component parts derive their significance from the idea of
the whole. Bolingbroke removed Love, Justice, and Choice,
from Power and Intelligence, and yet pretended to have left
unimpaired the conviction of a Deity. He might as consistent-
ly have paralyzed the optic nerve, and then excused himself by
affirming, that he had, however, not touched the eye.
The third condition of a right though inadequate notion is,
that the error occasioned be greatly outweighed by the impor-
tance of the truth communicated. The rustic would have little
reason to thank the philosopher, who should give him true con-
ceptions of the folly of believing in ghosts, omens, dreams, &c.
at the price of abandoning his faith in Providence and in the
continued existence of his fellow-creatures after their death.
The teeth of the old serpent planted by the Cadmuses of French
Literature, under Lewis XV. produced a plenteous crop of
Philosophers and Truth-trumpeters of this kind, in the reign
of his Successor. They taught many truths, historical, political,
physiological, and ecclesiastical, and diffused their notions so
widely, that the very ladies and hair-dressers of Paris became
fluent Encyclopedists : and the sole price which their scholars
paid for these treasures of new information, was to believe
Christianity an imposture, the Scriptures a forgery, the worship
(if not the belief) of God superstition, hell a fable, heaven a
dream, our life without Providence, and our death without hope.
They became as gods as soon as the fruit of this Upas tree of
knowledge and liberty had opened their eyes to perceive that
they were no more than beasts — somewhat more cunning per-
haps, and abundantly more mischievous. What can be conceiv-
ed more natural than the result, — that self-acknowledged beasts
should first act, and next suffer themselves to be treated as
beasts. We judge by comparison. To exclude the great is to
magnify the little. The disbelief of essential wisdom and good-
ness, necessarily prepares the imagination for the supremacy of
cunning with malignity. Folly and vice have their appropriate
religions, as well as virtue and true knowledge; and in some
39
way or other fools will dance round the golden calf, and wicked
men beat their timbrels and kettle-drums
To Moloch, horrid king, besmeared wiih blood
Of human sacrifice and paient's tears.
My feelings have led me on, and in my illustration I had
almost lost from my view the subject to be illustrated. One
condition yet remaims : that the error foreseen shall not be of
a kind to prevent or impede the after acquirement of that
knowledge which will remove it. Observe, how graciously
Nature instructs her human children. She cannot give us the
knowledge derived from sight without occasioning us at first to
mistake images of reflection for substances. But the very con-
sequences of the delusion lead inevitably to its detection ; and
out of the ashes of the error rises a new flower of knowledge.
We not only see, but are enabled to discover by what means
we see. So too we are under the necessity, in given cir-
cumstances, of mistaking a square for a round object: but
ere the mistake can have any practical consequences, it is not
only removed, but in its removal gives us the symbol of a new
fact, that of distance. In a similar train of thought, though more
fancifully, I might have elucidated the preceding condition, and
have referred our hurrying enlighteners and revolutionary am-
putators to the gentleness of Nature, in the oak and the beech,
the dry foliage of which she pushes off only by the propulsion
of the new buds, that supply its place. My friends! a cloth-
ing even of withered leaves is better than bareness.
Having thus determined the nature and conditions of a right
notion, it remains to determine the circumstances which tend
to render the communication of it impracticable, and oblige
us of course, to abstain from the attempt — oblige us not to
convey falsehood under the pretext of saying truth. These
circumstances, it is plain, must consist either in natural or mo-
ral impediments. The former, including the obA'ious gradations
of constitutional insensibility and derangement, preclude all
temptation to misconduct, as well as all probability of ill-con-
sequences from accidental oversight, on the part of the commu-
nicator. Far otherwise is it with the impediments from moral
causes. These demand all the attention and forecast of the
genuine lovers of truth in the matter, the manner, and the time
of their communications, public and private; and these are the
40
ordinary materials of the vain and the factious, determine them
in the choice of their audiences and of their arguments, and to
each argument give powers not its own. They are distinguish-
able into two sources, the streams from which, however, must
often become confluent, viz. hindrances from ignorance (I
here use the word in relation to the habits of reasoning as well
as to the previous knowledge requisite for the due comprehen-
sion of the subject) and hindrances from predominant pas5io?is.*
From both these the law of conscience commands us to ab-
stain, because such being the ignorance and such the passions
of the supposed auditors, we ought to deduce the impractica-
bility of conveying not onlj^ adequate but even right notions of
our own convictions : much less does it permit us to avail our-
selves of the causes of this impracticability in order to procure
nominal proselytes, each of whom will have a difterent, and all
a false, conception of those notions that were to be conveyed
for their truth's sake alone. Whatever is (or but for some de-
fect in our moral character would have been) foreseen as pre-
venting the conveyance of our thoughts, makes the attempt an
act of self-contradiction : and whether the faulty cause exist in
our choice of unfit words or our choice of unfit auditors, the
result is the same and so is the guilt. We have voluntarily
communicated falsehood.
Thus (without reference to consequences^ if only one short
digression be excepted) from the sole principle of self-consist-
ence or moral integrity, we have evolved the clue of right
reason, which we are bound to follow in the communication of
truth. Now then we appeal to the judgment and experience
of the reader, whether he who most faithfully adheres to the
letter of the law of conscience will not likewise act in strictest
correspondence to the maxims of prudence and sound policy.
I am at least unable to recollect a single instance, either in his-
tory or in my personal experience, of a preponderance of in-
jurious consequences from the publication of any truth, under
the observance of the moral conditions above stated : much less
can I even imagine any case, in which truth, as truth, can be
pernicious. But if the assertor of the indifferency of truth and
falsehood in their own natures, attempt to justify his position
* See the Author's Secoml Lay Sermon, from p. 10 to p. 2.'5.
41
by confining the word truth, in the first instance, to the cor-
respondence of given words to given facts, without reference
to the total impression left by such words ; what is this more
than to assert, that articulated sounds are things of moral in-
differency ? and that we may relate a fact accurately and nev-
ertheless deceive grossly and wickedly ? Blifil related accu-
rately Tom Jones's riotous joy during his benefactor's illness,
only omitting that this joy was occasioned by the physician's
having pronounced him out of danger. Blifil was not the less
a liar for being an accurate matter-of-fact liar. Tell-truths in
the service of falsehood we find every where, of various names
and various occupations, from the elderly young women that
discuss the love-afi'airs of their friends and acquaintance at the
village tea-tables, to the anonymous calumniators of literary
merit in reviews, and the more darling malignants, who dole
out discontent, innovation and panic, in political journals : and a
most pernicious race of liars they are ! But who ever doubted
it ? Why should our moral feelings be shocked, and the holiest
words with all their venerable associations be profaned, in or-
der to bring forth a Truism ? But thus it is for the most part
with the venders of startling paradoxes. In the sense in which
they are to gain for their author the character of a bold and
original thinker, they are false even to absurdity ; and the sense
in which they are true and harmless, conveys so mere a Tru-
ism, that it even borders on Nonsense. How often have we
heard "The Rights of Man — hurra! The Sovereign-
ty OF the People — hurra !" roared out by men who, if call-
ed upon in another place and before another audience, to ex-
plain themselves, would give to the words, a meaning, in which
the most monarchical of their political opponents would admit
them to be true, but which would contain nothing new, or
strange, or stimulant, nothing to flatter the pride or kindle the
passions of the populace.
6
E8SAY YII.
.^/ profanum vvlgiis lectorum quomodo arcendum est ? Lihnsne nostris juhca-
mit^, ut coram indignu obmutescant ? Si Unguis, ut dicitur, emoiluis utamWy
eheu ! ingenium quoque nobis emortuum jacet : sin aliter, Mmervce secreta eras-
sis ludihrium divtdgamus, d Dianam nostrum impuris hvjus swcidi Adaonihns
nudam proferimus. Rtspondeo : — ad incommoditates knjusmodi evitandas,
ntc Greece nee Latini scrihere opus est. SiiJUciet, nos sicca luce usos fuisse et
stnctiore argumentandi methodo. Siifficiet, innoeenter, utUiter scripsisse : even-
tus est apud lectorem. JVuper eynptum est a nobis Ciceronianum istud " de
ojficiis,'" opus quod semper pwne Christiano dignum putabamus. Mirinn ! libel-
lus factum J'uerat famosissimus. Credisne ? Vix : at quomodo ? Maligna
quodam, nescio quem, plena margine et super tergo, annotatum est et exeinplis,
calwmiiis potius, superfmtatum ! Sic et qui introrsum xiritur hiflammationes
aninii vel Catonianis (ne dicam, sacrosanctis) paginis accipit. Omni aiwd
mons, omnibus scriptis mens, igniia vcscitur.
RuDOLPHi Langii Epist: ad Amicuin qnemdam Italicum in qua
Lingute patrifie et hodierna> usiim dcfenilit et cniditis coinmendat.
JVec me fcdlit, ut in corponbus hominum sic in animis multiplici passione affectis,
medicamenta verborum multis inefficacia visum in. Sed nee illud quoque me
pndeiit, ut inviiihihs animorum 7norbos, sic invisibilia esse rcmedia. Falsis
opinionibus circumventi veris senteidiis liberandi sunt, ut qui audiendo ceci-
dcrant audiendo consurgant.
Petrarcha : Piefat. in lib. de renied. utriusqiie fortima?.
(Translation.) But liow are we to jruard against tlie herd of promiscuous
Readers? Can we bid our books he silent in the presence of the unworthy?
If we employ what are called the dead languages, our own geuiu.'^, alas!
becomes fljit and t]v;\i\ : and if we emi)ody our thoughts in the words native
to them or in which they were conceived, we divulge the secrets of Miner-
va to the ridicule of blockheads, and expose our Diana to tlic Actirons of a
sensual age. I reply : that in order to avoid inconvejiienccs of this kind, we
need write neither in Greek or in Latin. It will be enougli, if we abstain
from ajtpealing to the bad passions and low appetites, and confine ourselves
to a strictly consequent method of reasoning.
To iiave written innocently, and for wise purj)oses, is all that can be re-
quired of us: the event lies with the Reader. I purchased lately Cicero's
4n
O
work, de officiis, which I had always considered us iihiiost worthy of a
Christian. To my surprize it had i)econie a most flagrant hbel. Nay ! but
liow? — Some one, I know not who, out of the fruitfulness of his own maUg-
nity had tilled all the margins and other blank spaces with annotations — a
true supeifatation of examples, that is, of false and slanderous tales! In like
manner, the slave of impure desires will turn the pages of Cato, not to say.
Scripture itself, into occasions and excitements of wanton imaginations.
There is no wind but feeds a volcano, no work but feeds and fans a combus-
tible mind.
I am well aware, that words will appear to many as inefficacious medi-
cines when administered to minds agitated with manifold passions, as when
they are muttered by way of charm over bodily ailments. But neither does
it escape me, on the other hand, tliat as the diseases of the mind are invisi-
ble, invisble must the remedies likewise be. Those who have been entrapped
by false opinions are to be liberated by convincing truths: that thus having im-
bibed the poison through the car they may receive the antidote by the same
channel.
That our elder writers, to Jeremy Taylor inclusive, quoted
to excess, it would be the very blindness of partiality to deny.
More than one might be mentioned, whose works might be char-
acterized in the words of Milton, as "a paroxysm of citations,
pampered metaphors, and aphorisming pedantry." On the oth-
er hand, it seems to me that we now avoid quotations with an
anxiety that oil'ends in the contrary extreme. Yet it is the beau-
ty and independent worth of the citations far more than their
appropriateness which have made Johnson's Dictionary popular
even as a reading book — and the niottos with the translations
of them are known to add considerably to the value of the
Spectator. With this conviction I have taken more than com-
mon pains in the selection of the mottos for the Friend : and of
two mottos equally appropriate prefer always that froin the book
which is least likely to have come into my Reader's hands.
For I often please myself with the fancy, now that I may have
saved from oblivion the only striking passage in a whole volume,
and now that I may have attracted notice to a writer undeserve-
dly forgotten. If this should be attributed to a silly ambition in
the display of various reading, I can do no more than deny any
consciousness of having been so actuated : and for the rest, I
must console myself by the reflection, tltat if it be one of the
most foolish, it is at the same time one of the most harmless, of
human vanities.
44
The passages prefixed lead at once to the question, which
will probably have more than once occurred to the reflecting
reader of the preceding Essay. How will these rules apply to
the most important mode of communication ? to that, in which
one man may utter his thoughts to myriads of men at the same
time, and to myriads of myriads at various times and through
successions of generations ? How do they apply to authors,
whose foreknowledge assuredly does not inform them who, or
how many, or of what description their Readers will be ?
How do these rules apply to books, which once published, are
as likely to fall in the way of the incompetent as of the judi-
cious, and will be fortunate indeed if they are not many times
looked at through the thick mists of ignorance, or amid the glare
of prejudice and passion ? — We answer in the first place, that
this is not universally true. The readers are not seldom picked
and chosen. Relations of certain pretended miracles performed
a few years ago, at Holywell, in consequence of prayers to the
Virgin Mary, on female servants, and these relations moralized
by the old Roman Catholic arguments without the old protest-
ant answers, have to my knowledge been sold by travelling
pedlars in villages and farm-houses, not only in a form which
placed them within the reach of the narrowest means, but sold
at a price less than their prime cost, and doubtless, thrown in
occasionally as the make-weight in a bargain of pins and stay-
tape. Shall I be told, that the publishers and reverend au-
thorizers of these base and vulgar delusions had exerted no
choice as to the purchasers and readers? But waiving this, or
rather having first pointed it out, as an important exception, we
further reply : that if the Autlior have clearly and rightly es-
tablished in his own mind the class of readers, to which he
means to address his communications ; and if both in this
choice, and in the particulars of the manner and matter of his
work, he conscientiously observes all the conditions which rea-
son and conscience have been shewn to dictate, in relation to
those for whom the work was designed ; he will, in most in-
stances, have effected his design and realized the desired cir-
cumscription. 'J'he posthumous work of Spinoza [Ethica or-
dine geometrico demonstrata) may, indeed, accidentally fall into
the hands of an incompetent reader. But (not to mention,
that it is written in a dead language) it will be entirely harm-
less, because it must needs be utterly unintelligible. I ven-
45
ture to assert, that the whole first book, De Deo, might be read
in literal English translation to any congregation in the kingdom,
and that no individual, who had not been habituated to the
strictest and most laborious processes of reasoning, would even
suspect its orthodoxy or piety, however heavily the few who
listened would complain of its obscurity and want of interest.
This, it may be objected, is an extreme case. But it is not
so for the present purpose. We are speaking of the probability
of injurious consequences from the communication of Truth.
This I have denied, if the right means have been adopted, and
the necessary conditions adhered to, for its actual communica-
tion. Now the truths conveyed in a book are either evident of
themselves, or such as require a train of deductions of proof:
and the latter will be either such as are authorized and gener-
ally received ; or such as are in opposition to received and au-
thorized opinions ; or lastly, truths presented for the appropri-
ate test of examination, and still under trial (adhuc sub lite.)
Of this latter class I affirm, that in neither of the three sort can
an instance be brought of a preponderance of ill-consequences,
or even of an equilibrium of advantage and injury from a work,
in which the understanding alone has been appealed to, by re-
sults fairly deduced from just premises, in terms strictly appro-
priate. Alas ! legitimate reasoning is impossible without severe
thinking, and thinking is neither an easy nor an amusing em-
ployment. The reader, who would follow a close reasoner to
the summit and absolute principle of any one important subject,
has chosen a Chamois-hunter for his guide. Our guide will,
indeed, take us the shortest way, will save us many a weari-
some and perilous wandering, and warn us of many a mock road
that had formerly led himself to the brink of chasms and preci-
pices, or at best in an idle circle to the spot from whence he
started. But he cannot carry us on his shoulders : we must
strain our own sinews, as he has strained his ; and make firm
footing on the smooth rock for ourselves, by the blood of toil
from our own feet. Examine the journals of our humane and
zealous missionaries in Hindostan. How often and how feel-
ingly do they describe the ditiicuUy of maicing the simplest
chain of reasoning intelligible to the ordinary natives : the ra-
pid exhaustion of their whole power of attention, and with what
pain and distressful effort it is exerted, while it lasts. Yet it is
among this class, that the hideous practices of self-tortur« chief-
46
ly, indeed almost exclusively, prevail. if folly were no easier
than wisdom, it being often so very much more grievous, how
certainly might not these miserable men be converted to Chris-
tianity ? But alas ! to swing by hooks passed through the back,
or to walk on shoes with nails of iron pointed upward on the
soles, all this is so much less ditficult, demands so very inferior
an exertion of the w ill than to tfmik, and by thought to gain
Knowledge and Tranquility !
It is not true, that ignorant persons have no notion of the
advantages of Truth and Knowledge. They confess, they see
those advantages in the conduct, the immunities, and the supe-
rior powers of the possessors. Were these attainable by Pil-
grimages the most toilsome, or Penances the most painful, we
should assuredly have as many Pilgrims and as many Self-tor-
mentors in the service of true Religion and Virtue, as now ex-
ist under the tyranny of Papal or Brahman superstition. This
inefficacy of legitimate Reason, from the want of fit objects,
this its relative weakness and how narrow at all times its im-
mediate sphere of action must be, is proved to us by the impos-
tors of all professions. What, I pray, is their fortress, the rock
which is both their quarry and their foundation, from which
and on which they are built ? The desire of arriving at the
end without the effort of thought and will, which are the ap-
pointed means. Let us look backwards three or four centuiies.
Then, as now, the great mass of mankind were governed by the
three main wishes, the wish for vigor of body, including the
absence of painful feelings : for wealth, or the power of procur-
ing the internal conditions of bodily enjoyment: these during
life — and security from pain and continuance of happiness after
death. Then, as now, men were desirous to attain them by
some eaiser means than those of Temperance, Industry, and
strict Justice. They gladly therefore applied to the Priest, who
could ensure them happiness hereafter without the performance
of their duties here ; to the Lawyer who could make money a
substitute for a right cause ; to the Physician, whose medicines
promised to take the sting out of the tail of their sensual indul-
gences, and let them fondle and play wath vice, as with a
charmed serpent ; to the Alchemist, whose gold-tincture would
enrich them without toil or economy ; and to the Astrologer,
fioni whom they could purchase foresight without knowledge or
reflection. The established professions were, without exception,
no other than licensed modes of witchcraft. The Wizards,
41
who would now find their due reward in Bridewell, and their
appropriate honors in the pillory, sate then on episcopal thrones,
candidates for Saintship, and already canonized in the belief of
their deluded contemporaries ; while the one or two real teach-
ers and Discoverers of Truth were exposed to the hazard of fire
and faggot, a dungeon the best shrine that was vouchsafed to a
Roger Bacon and a Galileo !
ESSAY VIII.
Pray, Avhy is it, that people say that men are not such fools now-a-days as they
were in the days of yore ? I would fain know, whether you would have us
understand by this same saying, as indeed you logically may, that formerly
men were fools, and in this generation are grown wise ? How many and
what disjjositions made them fools ? How many and what dispositions
were wanting to make 'em wise ? Why were those fools ? How should
these be wise? Pray, how came you to know that men were formerly
fools ? How did you find, that they are now wise ? Who made them fools ?
Who in Heaven's name made us wise ? Who d'ye think are most, those
that loved mankind foolisii, or those that love it wise? How long has it
been wise? How long otherwise? Whence proceeded the foregoing fol-
ly ? Whence the following wisdom ? Why did the old folly end now and
no later ? Why did the noodern wisdom begin now and no sooner ? What
were we the worse for the former folly ? What the better for the suc-
ceeding wisdom ? How should the ancient folly have come to nothing?
How siiould this same new wisdom be started up and established ? Now
answer me, an't please you !
Fr. Rabelais' Preface to his 5th Book.
Monsters and Madmen canonized and Galileo blind in a
dungeon! It is not so in our times. Heaven be praised, that
in this respect, at least, we are, if not better, yetbetter off than
our foretathers. But to what, and to whom (under Provi-
dence) do we owe the improvement? To any radical change
in the moral affections of mankind in general ? Perhaps the
48
great majority of men are now fully conscious that they are
born with the god-like faculty of Reason, and that it is the bu-
siness of life to develope and apply it ? The Jacob's ladder of
Truth, let down from heaven, with all its numerous rounds, is
now the common highway, on which we are content to toil up-
ward to the object of our desires ? We are ashamed of expect-
ing the end without the means ? In order to answer these
questions in the affirmative, I must have forgotten the Animal
Magnetists ; the proselytes of Brothers, and of Joanna South-
cot ; and some hundred thousand fanatics less original in their
creeds, but not a whit more rational in their expectations ! I
must forget the infamous Empirics, whose advertisements pol-
lute and disgrace all our Newspapers, and almost paper the
walls of our cities ; and the vending of whose poisons and poi-
sonous drams (with shame and anguish be it spoken) support
a shop in every market-town? I must forget that other oppro-
brium of the nation, that Mother-vice^ the Lottery ! I must for-
get that a numerous class plead Prudence for keeping their
fellow-men ignorant and incapable of intellectual enjoyments,
and the Revenue for upholding such temptations as men so ig-
norant will not withstand — yes! that even senators and officers
of state hold forth the Revenue as a sufficient plea for uphold-
ing, at every fiftieth door throughout the kingdom, temptations
to the most pernicious vices, which fill the land with mourning,
and fit the laboring classes for sedition and religious fanaticism!
Above all I must forget the first years of the French Revolu-
tion, and the millions throughout Europe who confidently ex-
pected the best and choicest results of Knowledge and Virtue,
namely, Liberty and universal Peace, from the votes of a tu-
multuous Assembly — that is, from the mechanical agitation of
the air in a large room at Paris — and this too in the most light,
unthinking, sensual and profligate of the European nations, a
nation, the very phrases of whose language are so composed,
that they can scarcely speak without lying ! — No ! Let us not
deceive ourselves. Like the man who used to pull off his hat
with great demonstration of respect whenever he spoke of
himself, we are fond of styling our own the enlightened age :
though as Jortin, I think, has wittily remarked, the golden age
would be more appropriate. But in spite of our great scien-
tific discoveries, for which praise be given to whom the praise
is due, and in spite of that general indifference to all the truths
49
and all the principles of truth, that belong to our permanent
being, and therefore do not lie within the sphere of our senses,
(that same indifference which makes toleration so easy a virtue
with us, and constitutes nine-tenths of our pretended illumina-
tion) it still remains the character of the mass of mankind to
seek for the attainment of their necessary ends by any means
rather than the appointed ones ; and for this cause only, that
the latter imply the exertion of the Reason and the Will. But
of all things this demands the longest apprenticeship, even
an apprenticeship from Infancy ; which is generally neglected,
because an excellence, that may and should belong to all men,
is expected to come to every man of its own accord.
To whom then do we owe our ameliorated condition ? To
the successive Few in every age (more indeed in one genera-
tion than in another, but relatively to the mass of mankind al-
ways few) who by the intensity and permanence of their ac-
tion have compensated for the limited sphere, within which
it is at any one time intelligible ; and whose good deeds pos-
terity reverence in their result, though the mode, in which we
repair the inevitable waste of time, and the style of our addi-
tions, too generally furnish a sad proof, how little we under-
stand the principles. I appeal to the Histories of the Jewish,
the Grecian, and the Roman Republics, to the Records of the
Christian Church, to the History of Europe from the Treaty
of Westphalia (1648). What do they contain but accounts of
noble structures raised by the wisdom of the few, and gradual-
ly undermined by the ignorance and profligacy of the many?
If therefore the deficiency of good, which every- where sur-
rounds us, orginate in the general unfitness and aversions of
men to the process of thought, that is, to continuous reasoning,
it must surely be absurd to apprehend a preponderance of evil
from works which cannot act at all except as far as they call
the reasoning faculties into full co -exertion with them.
Still, however, there are truths so self-evident or so imme-
diately and palpably deduced from those that are, or are ac-
knowledged for such, that they are at once intelligible to all
men, who possess the common advantages of the social state ;
although by sophistry, by evil habits, by the neglect, false
persuasions, and impostures of an anti-christian priesthood join-
ed in one conspiracy with the violence of tyrannical governors,
the understandings of men may become so darkened and their
7
50
consciences so lethargic, that there may arise a necessity for
the republication of these truths, and this too with a voice of
loud alarm, and impassioned warning. Such were the doc-
trines proclaimed by the first Christians to the Pagan world ;
such were the lightnings flashed by Wickliff, Huss, Luther,
Calvin, Zuinglius, Latimer, &c. across the Papal darkness ; and
such in our own times the agitating truths, with which Thomas
Clarkson, and his excellent confederates, the Quakers, fought
and conquered the legalized banditti of men-stealers, the numer-
ous and powerful perpetrators and advocates of rapine, murder,
and (of blacker guilt than either) slavery. Truths of this kind
being indispensable to man, considered as a moral being,
are above all expedience, all accidental consequences : for as
sure as God is holy, and man immortal, there can be no evil so
great as the ignorance or disregard of them. It is the very
madness of mock prudence to oppose the removal of a poison-
ed dish on account of the pleasant sauces or nutritious viands
which would be lost with it ! The dish contains destruction
to that, for which alone we ought to wish the palate to be grati-
fied, or the body to be nourished.
The sole condition, therefore, imposed on us by the law of
conscience in these cases is, that we employ no unworthy and
heterogeneous means to realize the necessary end, that we en-
trust the event wholly to the full and adequate promulgation of
the truth, and to those generous aifections which the constitu-
tion of our moral nature has linked to the full perception of it.
Yet evil may, nay it will be occasioned. Weak men may take
offence, and wicked men avail themselves of it; though we
must not attribute to the promulgation, or to the truth promul-
gated, all the evil, of which wicked men (predetermined, like
the wolf in the fable, to create some occasion) may choose to
make it the pretext. But that there ever was or ever can be
a preponderance of evil, I defy either the Historian to instance
or the philosopher to prove. " Let* it fly away, all that chaff
of light faith that can fly off" at any breath of temptation ; the
cleaner will the true grain be stored up in the granary of the
Lord," we are entitled to say with Tertullian : and to ex-
* Avolent quantum volent palese levis fidei quocunque afflatu tentatinnum !
eo purior nriassa frumenti in horrea doinini reponetur. Tebtclliak.
51
claim with heroic Luther, " Scandal* and offence ! Talk not
to me of scandal and offence. Need breaks through stone-
walls, and recks not of scandal. It is my duty to spare weak
consciences as far as it may be done without hazard of my soul.
Where not, I must take counsel for my soul, though half or the
whole world should be scandalized thereby."
Luther felt and preached and wrote and acted, as beseemed
a Luther to feel and utter and act. The truths, which had been
outraged, he re-proclaimed in the spirit of outraged truth, at the
behest of his conscience and in the service of the God of truth.
He did his duty, come good, come evil : and made no question,
on which side the preponderance would be. In the one scale
there was gold, and the impress thereon the image and super-
scription of the Universal Sovereign. In all the wide and ev-
er widening commerce of mind with mind throughout the world,
it is treason to refuse it. Can this have a counter-weight ?
The other scale indeed might have seemed full up to the very
balance-yard ; but of what worth and substance were its con-
tents ? Were they capable of being counted or weighed against
the former? The conscience indeed is already violated when
to moral good or evil we oppose things possessing no moral in-
terest. Even if the conscience dared waive this her preven-
tive veto, yet before we could consider the twofold results in
the relations of loss and gain, it must be known whether their
kind is the same or equivalent. They must first be valu-
ed, and then they may be weighed or counted, if they are
worth it. Rut in the particular case at present before us, the
loss is contingent, and alien ; the gain essential and the tree's
own natural produce. The gain is permanent, and spreads
through all times and places ; the loss but temporary and, owing
its very being to vice or ignorance, vanishes at the approach of
knowledge and moral improvement. The gain reaches all good
men, belongs to all that love light and desire an increase of
light: to all and of all times, who thank Heaven for the gra-
cious dawn, and expect the noon-day ; who welcome the first
gleams of spring, and sow their fields in confident faith of the
* Aergerniss hin, Aergerniss her! Noth bricht Eisen, und hat kein Aerger-
niss. Ich soil der solnvachen Gewisseii schonen so fern es ohne Gefahr
meiner Seelen geschehn mag. Wo nicht, so soil ich meiuer Seelen rath«n«
©8 argere 6ich daran die ganze oder halba Walt.
52
ripening summer and the rewarding harvest-tide ! But the los^
is confined to the unenlightened and the prejudiced — say rather,
to the weak and the prejudiced of a single generation. The
prejudices of one age are condemned even by the prejudiced
of the succeeding ages: for endless are the modes of folly, and
the fool joins with the wise in passing sentence on all modes
but his own. Who cried out with greater horror against the mur-
derers of the Prophets, than those who likewise cried out, cruci-
fy him ! crucify him ! The truth-haters of every future genera-
tion will call the truth-haters of the preceding ages by their
true names: for even these the stream of time carries onward.
In fine, Truth considered in it itself and in the eifects natural
to it, may be conceived as a gentle spring or water-source,
warm from the genial earth, and breathing up into the snow
drift that is piled over and around its outlet. It turns the ob-
stacle into its own form and character, and as it makes its way
increases its stream. And should it be arrested in its course
by a chilling season, it suffers delay, not loss, and waits only for
a change in the wind to awaken and again roll onwards.
/ semplici pastori
Sul Vesolo nevoso
Fatti curvi e canuti,
Z)' alto stupor son viuti
Mirando alfonte omhroso
11 Po con pochi umori ,
Poscia udendo gli onori
DelV urna angusta e stretta, *
C/^e7 Adda che'l Tesino
Soverchia in siio camnwio,
Che ampio al mar'' s affrdta
Che si spimia, e si suona,
Che gli si da corona! * Chiabrera.
Literal Translation. " Tlie simple shepherds grown bent and hoary-head-
ed on the snowy Vesolo, are mute witli deep astonislinient, gazing in the
overshadowed fountain on the Po with his scanty waters ; then liearing of
the honors of his confined and narrow urn, how he receives as a sovereign
the Adda and the Tesino in liis course, how ample he hastens on to the sea,
how he foams, how mighty his voice, and that to liini the crown is assigned."
* I give literal translations of my poetic as well as prose quotations: be-
cause the propriety of their introduction often depends on the exact sense and
order of the words : which it is impossible always to retain in a metrical ver-
sion.
ESSAY IX.
Great men have livM among us, Heads tliat plann'd
And Tongues that utter'd Wisdom — better none.
*********
Even so doth Heaven protect us !
Wordsworth.
In the preceding Number I have explained the good, that is,
the natural consequences of the promulgation to all of truths
which all are bound to know and to make known. The evils
occasioned by it, with few and rare exceptions, have their ori-
gin in the attempts to suppress or pervert it ; in the fury and
violence of imposture attacked or undermined in her strong
holds, or in the extravagances of ignorance and credulity rous-
ed from their lethargy, and angry at the medicinal disturbance —
awakening not yet broad awake, and thus blending the mon-
sters of uneasy dreams with the real objects, on which the
drowsy eye had alternately half-opened and closed, again half-
opened and again closed. This re-action of deceit and super-
stition, with all the trouble and tumult incident, I would com-
pare to a fire which bursts forth from some stifled and ferment-
ing mass on the first admission of light and air. It roars and
blazes, and converts the already spoilt or damaged stuff" with all
the straw and straw-like matter near it, first into flame and the
next moment into ashes. The fire dies away, the ashes are
scattered on all the winds, and what began in worthlessness
ends in nothingness. Such are the evil, that is, the casual con-
sequences of the same promulgation.
It argues a narrow or corrupt nature to lose the general and
lasting consequences of rare and virtuous energy, in the brief
accidents, which accompanied its first movements — to set light-
54
\y by the emancipation of the human reason from a legion of
devils, in our complaints and lamentations over the loss of a
herd of swine ! The Cranmers, Hampdens, and Sidneys : the
counsellors of our Elizabeth, and the friends of our other great
Deliverer, the third William, — is it in vain, that these have
been our countrymen ? Are we not the heirs of their good
deeds ? And what are noble deeds but noble truths realized ?
As Protestants, as Englishmen, as the inheritors of so ample an
estate of might and right, an estate so strongly fenced, so rich-
ly planted, by the sinewy arms and dauntless hearts of o-ur
forefathers, we of all others have good cause to trust in the
truth, yea, to follow its pillar of lire through the darkness and
the desart, even though its light should but suffice to make us
certain of its own presence. If there be elsewhere men jeal-
ous of the light, who prophecy an excess of evil over good
from its manifestation, we are entitled to ask them, on what ex-
perience they ground their bodings ? Our own country bears
no traces, our own history contains no records, to justify them.
From the great seras of national illumination we date the com-
mencement of our main national advantages. The tangle of
delusions, which stifled and distorted the growing tree, have
been torn away ; the parasite Aveeds, that fed on its very roots,
have been plucked up with a salutary violence. To us there
remain only quiet duties, the constant care, the gradual im-
provement, the cautious unhazardous labors of the industrious
though contented gardener — to prune, to engraft, and one by
one to remove from its leaves and fresh shoots the slug and the
caterpillar. But far be it from us to undervalue with light and
senseless detraction the conscientious hardihood of our pre-
decessors, or even to condemn in them that vehemence, to
which the blessings it won for us leave us now neither tempta-
tion or pretext. That the very terms, with which the bigot or
the hireling would blacken the first publishers of political and
religious Truth, are, and deserve to be, hateful to us, we owe
to the effects of its publication. We ante-date the feelings in
order to criminate the authors of our tranquility, opulence, and
security. But let us be aware. Effects will not, indeed, im-
mediately disappear with their causes ; but neither can they
long continue without them. If by the reception of Truth in
the spirit of Truth, we became what we are: only by the re-
tention of it in the same spirit, can we remain what we are.
55
The narrow seas that form our boundaries, what were they in
times of old ? The convenient highway for Danish and Nor-
man pirates. What are they now? Still but "a Span of Wa-
ters." — Yet they roll at the base of the inisled Ararat, on
which the Ark of the Hope of Europe and of Civilization
rested !
Even so doth God protect us, if we be
Virtuous and Wise. Winds blow and Waters roll,
Strength to the Brave, and Power and Deity:
Yet in tiiemselves are nothing ! One Decree
Spake Laws to them, and said that by the Sold
Only the Nations shall be great and free !
Wordsworth.
ESSAY X.
I deny not but that it is of greatest concernment in the church and com-
monwealth to have a vigilant eye how books demean themselves as well
as men. For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a pro-
geny of life in them to be as active as that soul was v\ hose progeny the}'^ are.
I know they are as lively and as vigorously productive as those fabulous
dragon's teeth: and being sown up and down may chance to spring up arm-
ed men. And 3'et on the other liand, unless wariness be used, as good al-
most kill a man as kill a good book. Many a man lives a burthen to the
earth ; but a good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, em-
balmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. — Miltoj^'s Speech
for the Liberty of unlicensed Pnnting.
Thus far then I have been conducting a cause between an
individual and his own mind. Proceeding on the conviction,
that to man is entrusted the nature, not the result of his ac-
tions, I have presupposed no calculations. I have presumed
no foresight. — Introduce no contradiction into thy own con-
sciousness. Acting or abstaining from action, delivering or
withholding thy thoughts, whatsoever thou dost, do it in single-
ness 0/ heart. In alt things therefore let thy means correspond
56
to thy purpose, and let the purpose be one with the purport. —
To this principle I have referred the supposed individual, and
from this principle solely I have deduced each particular of his
conduct. As far, therefore, as the court of Conscience ex-
tends, (and in this court alone I have been pleading hitherto)
I have won the cause. It has been decided, that there is no
just ground for apprehending mischief from Truth communica-
ted conscientiously, (i. e. with a strict observance of all the
conditions required by the Conscience) — that what is not so
communicated, is falsehood, and that to the Falsehood, not to
the Truth, must the ill consequences be attributed.
Another and altogether different cause remains now to be
pleaded ; a different cause, and in a different court. The par-
ties concerned are no longer the well-meaning Individual and
his Conscience, but the Citizen and the State — The Citizen,
who may be a fanatic as probably as a philosopher, and the
State, which concerns itself with the Conscience only as far as
it appears in the action, or still more accurately, in the fact ;
and which must determine the nature of the fact not merely by
a rule of Right formed from the modification of particular by
general consequences, not merely by a principle of compromise,
that reduces the freedom of each citizen to the common mea-
sure in which it becomes compatible with the freedom of all ;
but likewise by the relation which the facts bear to its (the
State's) own instinctive principle of self-preservation. For
erery depository of the Supreme Power must presume itself
rightful : and as the source of law not legally to be endanger-
ed. A form of government may indeed, in reality, be most
pernicious to the governed, and the highest moral honor may
await the patriot who risks his life in order by its subversion
to introduce a better and juster constitution ; but it would be
absurd to blame the law by which his life is declared forfeit.
It were to expect, that by an involved contradiction the law
should allow itself not to be law, by allowing the State, of
which it is a part, not to be a State. For as Hooker has M^ell
observed, the law of men's actions is one, if they be respected
only as men ; and another, when they are considered as parts
of a body politic.
But though every government subsisting inlaw (for pure
lawless despotism grounding itself wholly on terror precludes
all consideration of duty) — though every government subsist-
57
ing in law must, and ought to, regard itself as the life of the
body politic, of which it is the head, and consequently must pun-
ish every attempt against itself as an act of assault or murder,
i. e. sedition or treason ; yet still it ought so to secure the life as
not to prevent the conditions of its growth, and of that adapta-
tion to circumstances, without which its very life becomes in-
secure. In the application, therefore, of these principles to
the public communication of opinions by the most efficient
means, the Press — we have to decide, whether consistently
with them there should be any liberty of the press ; and if this
be answered in the affirmative, what shall be declared abuses
of that liberty, and made punishable as such ; and in what way
the general law shall be applied to each particular case.
First then, should there be any liberty of the press .'' we
will not here mean, whether it should be permitted to print
books at all; (for our Essay has little chance of being read in
Turkey, and in any other part of Europe it cannot be supposed
questionable ) but whether by the appointment of a Censorship
the Government should take upon itself the responsibility of each
particular publication. In Governments purely monarchical
(i. e. oligarchies under one head) the balance of the advan-
tage and disadvantage from this monopoly of the press will un-
doubtedly be affected by the general state of information ;
though after reading Milton's " Speech for the liberty of unli-
censed Printing*" we shall probably be inclined to belive, that
the best argument in favor of licensing, &c. under any constitu-
tion is that, which supposing the ruler to have a different inter-
est from that of his country, and even from himself as a rea-
sonable and moral creature, grounds itself on the incompatibili-
ty of knowledge with folly, oppression, and degradation. What
our prophetic Harrington said of religious, applies eqally to li-
terary toleration. " If it be said that in France there is liberty
of conscience in part, it is also plain that while the hierarchy
is standing, this liberty is falling ; and that if on the contrary,
* II y a un voile qui doit toujour couvrir tout ce que I'on peut du-e et tout
ce qu' on peut croire du Droit des peuples et de celui des princes, que ne
s' accordent jamais si bien ensemble que dans le silence.
Menu du Card. de. Retz.
How severe a satire where it can be justly applied! how false and calum-
nious if meant as a general mnxim!
8
58
it comes to pull down the Hierarchy, it pulls down that Mon-
archy also ; wherefore the Monarcliy or Hierarchy will be be-
forehand with it, if they see their true interest." On the other
hand, there is no slight danger from general ignorance; and
the only choice, which providence has graciously left to a vi-
cious Government, is either to fall by the People, if they are
suffered to become enlightened, or ivith them, if they are kept
enslaved and ignorant.
The nature of our Constitution, since the revolution, the state
of our literature, and the wide diilusion, if not of intellectual
yet of literary power, and the almost universal interest in the
productions of literature, have set the question at rest relative-
ly to the British press. However great the advantages of pre-
vious examination might be under other circumstances, in this
country it would be both impracticable and inefficient. I need
only suggest in broken sentences — the prodigious number of
licensers that would be requisite — the variety of their attain-
ments, and (inasmuch as the scheme must be made consistent
with our religious freedom) the ludicrous variety of their prin-
ciples and creeds — their number being so great, and each ap-
pointed censor being himself a man of letters, quis custodiet
ipsos ciistodes ? — If these numerous licensers hold their offices
for life, and independent of the ministry pro tempore, a new
heterogeneous, and alarming power is introduced, which can
never be assimilated to the constitutional powers already ex-
isting: — if they are removeable at pleasure, that which is he-
retical and seditious in 1809, may become orthordox and loj^il
in 1810 — and what man, whose attainments and moral respec-
tability gave him even an endurable claim to this awful trust,
would accept a situation at once so invidious and so precarious ?
And what institution can retain any useful influence in so free
a nation, when its abuses have made it contemptible? — Lastly,
and which of itself would suffice to justify the rejection of such
a plan — unless all proportion between crime and punishment
were abandoned, what penalties could the law attach to the
assumption of a liberty, which it had denied, more severe than
those which it now attaches to the abuse of the liberty, which
it grants ? In all those instances at least, which it would be
most the inclination — perhaps the duty — of the State to prevent,
namely, in seditious and incendiary publications (whether ac-
tually such, or only such as the existing Government chose so
69
to denominate, makes no difference in the argument) the pub-
lisher, who hazards the punishment now assigned to seditious
publications, would assuredly hazard the penalties of unlicens-
ed ones, especially as the very practice of licensing would na-
turally diminish the attention to the contents of the works pub-
lished, the chance of impunity therefore be so much greater,
and the artifice of prefixing an unauthorised license so likely
to escape detection. It is a fact, that in many of the former
German States in which literature flourished, notwithstanding
the establishment of censors or licensors, three fourths of the
books printed were unlicensed — even those, the contents of
which were unobjectionable, and where the sole motive for eva-
ding the law, must have been either the pride and delicacy of
the author, or the indolence of the bookseller. So difficult
was the detection, so various the means of evasion, and worse
than all, from the nature of the law and the affront it offers to
the pride of human nature, such was the merit attached to the
breach of it — a merit commencing perhaps with Luther's Bible,
and other prohibited works of similar great minds, published
with no dissimilar purpose, and thence by many an intermedi-
ate link of association finally connected with books, of the very
titles of which a good man would wish to remain ignorant.
The interdictory catalogues of the Roman hierarchy always pre-
sent to my fancy the muster-rolls of the two hostile armies of
Michael and Satan printed promiscuously, or extracted at hap-
hazard, save only that the extracts from the former appear
somewhat the more numerous. And yet even in Naples, and
in Rome itself, whatever difficulty occurs in procuring any ar-
ticle catalogued in these formidable folios, must arise either
from the scarcity of the work itself, or the absence of all inter-
est in it. Assuredly there is no difficulty in procuring from the
most respectable booksellers the vilest provocatives to the ba-
sest crimes, though intermixed with gross lampoons on the
heads of the Church, the religious orders, and on religion it-
self. The stranger is invited into an inner room, and the loath-
some wares presented to him with most significant looks and
gestures, implying the hazard, and the necessity of secrecy.
A creditable English bookseller would deem himself insulted,
if such works were even inquiied after at his shop. It is a
well-known fact, that with the mournful exception indeed of
political provocatives, and the titillations of vulgar envy provi-
60
ded by our anonymous critics ; the loathsome articles are among
us vended and offered for sale almost exclusively by Foreign-
ers. Such are the purifying effects of a free Press, and the
dignified habit of action imbibed from the blessed air of Law
and Liberty, even by men who neither understand the princi-
ple or feel the sentiment of the dignified purity, to which they
yield obeisance from the instinct of character. As there is a
national guilt which can be charged but gently on each indi-
vidual, so are there national virtues, which can as little be im-
puted to the individuals, — no where, however, but in countries
where Liberty is the presiding influence, the universal medi-
um and menstruum of all other excellence, moral and intellec-
tual. Admirably doth the admirable Petrarch* admonish us :
Nee sibi vero quisquam falso persuadeat, eos qui pro lieer-
TATE excubant, alienum agere negotium non suum. In hac una
reposita sibi omnia n«5rint omnes, securitatem mercator, gloriam
miles, utilitatem agricola. Postremo, in eadem libertate Re-
ligiosi caerimonias, otium studiosi, requiem senes, rudimenta
disciplinarum puez'i, nuptias et castitatem puellas, pudicitiam
matronoe, pietatem et antiqui laris sacra patres familias spem
atque gaudium omnes invenient. Huic uni igitur reliquse ce-
dant curae ! Si hanc omittitis, in quanta libet occupatione nihil
agitis : si huic incumbitis, et nihil agere videmini, cumulate ta-
men et civium et virorum implevistis officia.
Petrarch^ Horta.
(Translation.) — Nor let any one falsely persuade himself,
that those who keep watch and ward for liberty, are med-
*I qiioto Petrarch often in the hope of drawing the attention of Scholars
to his inestiniahlc Latin Writings. Let me add, in the wish likewise of re-
comtncnding a Translation of select passages from his Treatises and Letters
to the London rnblishers. If I except tJie German writings and origina]
Letters of the heroic Luthei-, I do not remetnher a work from which so de-
lightful and instructive a volume might be compiled.
To give the true bent to the above extract, it is necessary to bear in mind,
that he who keeps watch and ward for Freedom, has to guard against two
enemies, t\n\ Despotism of the Few and the nesi)otism of the Many — but es-
pecially in the present day against the Syco|)hants of the Populace.
Licence thky mean, when tli(\y cry Liberty!
For who loves that, must first be wise and good.
61
diino' with things that do not concern them, instead of minding
their own business. For all men should know, that all bles-
sings are stored and protected in this one, as in a common re-
pository. Here is the tradesman's security, the soldier's honor,
the agriculturist's profit. Lastly, in this one good of Liberty
the Religious will find the permission of their rites and forms
of worship, the students their learned leisure, the aged their re-
pose, boys the rudiments of the several branches of their edu-
cation, maidens their chaste nuptials, matrons their womanly
honor and the dignity of their modesty, and fathers of families
the dues of natural affection and the sacred privileges of their
ancient home. To this one solicitude therefore let all other
cares yield the priority. If you omit this, be occupied as much
and sedulously as you may, you are doing nothing: If you ap-
ply your heart and strength to this, though you seem to be do-
ing nothing, you will, nevertheless, have been fulfilling the du-
ties of citizens and of men, yea, in a measure pressed down
and running over.
ESSAY XI.
Nemo vero fallatur, quasi minora sint animonun coiitagia quatu corporum.
Majora sunt; gravius Isedunt ; altius descendunt, serpuntque latent] us.
Petrarch, de Fit. Solit. L. 1. s. 3. c. 4.
(Translation.) — And let no man be deceived as if the contagions of the soul
were less than those of the body. They are yet greater ; they convey
more direful diseases ; they sink deeper, and creep on more unsuspectedly.
We have abundant reason then to infer, that the Law of
England has done well and concluded wisely in proceeding on
the principle so clearly worded by Milton ; that a book should
be as freely admitted into the world as any other birth ; and if
it prove a monster, who denies but that it may justly be burnt
or sunk into the sea ? We have reason then, I repeat, to rest
62
satisfied with our Laws, which no more prevent a book from
coming into the world unlicensed, lest it should prove a libel,
than a traveller from passing unquestioned through our turn-
pike-gates, because it is possible he may be a highwayman.
Innocence is presumed in both cases. The publication is a
part of the otience, and its necessary condition. Words are
moral acts, and words deliberately made public the law consid-
ers in the same light as any other cognizable overt-act.
Here however a difficulty presents itself. Theft, Robbery,
Murder, and the like, are easily defined : the degrees and
circumstances likewise of these and similar actions are defin-
ite, and constitute specific offences, described and punishable
each under its own name. We have only to prove the fact
and identify the offender. The intention too, in the great
majority of cases, is so clearly implied in the action, that the
Law can safely adopt it as its universal maxim, that the proof
of the malice is included in the proof of the fact : especially
as the few occasional exceptions have their remedy provided
in the prerogative of pardon entrusted to the supreme Magis-
trate. But in the case of Libel, the degree makes the kind,
the circumstances constitute the criminality ; and both degrees
and circumstances, like the ascending shades of color or the
shooting hues of a dove's neck, die away into each other, inca-
pable of definition or outline. The eye of the understanding,
indeed, sees the determinate difference in each individual case,
but language is most often inadequate to express what the eye
perceives, much less can a general statute anticipate and pre-de-
fine it. Again : in other overt-acts a charge disproved leaves
the Defendant either guilty of a different fault, or at best simply
blameless. A man having killed a fellow-citizen is acquitted of
murder — the act was Manslaughter only, or it was justifiable
Homicide. But when we reverse the iniquitous sentence passed
on Algernon Sidney, during our perusal of his work on Govern-
ment; at the moment we deny it to have been a traiterous Libel,
our beating hearts declare it to have been a benefaction to our
country, and under the circumstances of those times the perform-
ance of an heroic duty. P^rom this cause therefore, as well as
from a Libel's being a thing made up of degrees and circumstan-
ces (and these too discriminating oifence from merit by such dim
and ambulant boundaries) the intention of the agent, wherever
it can be independently or inclusively ascertained, must be al-
C3
lowed a great share in determining the character of the action,
unless the Law is not only to be divorced from moral Justice,*
but to wage open hostility against it.
Add too, that Laws in doubtful points are to be interpreted
according to the design of the legislator, where this can be
certainly inferred. But the Laws of England, which owe their
own present supremacy and absoluteness to the good sense
and generous dispositions diffused by the Press more, far more,
than to any other single cause, must needs be presumed fa-
vorable to its general influence. Even in the penalties attached
to its abuse, we must suppose the Legislature to have been ac-
tuated by the desire of preserving its essential privileges. The
Press is indifferently the passive instrument of Evil and of Good ;
nay, there is some good even in its evil. " Good and Evil,"
says Milton, in the Speech from which I have selected the Mot-
to of the preceding Essay, "in the field of this world, grow up
together almost inseparably : and the knowledge of Good is so in-
tervolved and interwoven with the knowledge of Evil, and in so
many cunning resemblances hardly to be discerned, that those
confused seeds which were imposed on Psyche as an incessant
labor to cull out and sort asunder, were not more intermixed.
As, therefore, the state of man now is, what wisdom can there
be to choose, what continence to forbear, without the knowl-
edge of Evil ? He that can apprehend and consider Vice with
all her baits and seeming pleasures and yet abstain, and yet
distinguish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he is the
true way-faring Christian. I cannot praise a fugitive and clois-
tered virtue, that never sallies out and sees her adversary : —
that which is but a youngling in the contemplation of Evil, and
knows not the utmost that Vice promises to her followers, and
rejects it, is but a blank Virtue, not a pure. — Since, therefore,
the knowledge and survey of Vice is in this world so necessa-
ry to the constituting of human Virtue, and the scanning of
Error to the confirmation of Truth, how can we more safely
and with less danger scout into the regions of Sin and Falsity,
than by reading all manner of Tractates, and hearing all man-
ner of reason ?" Again — but, indeed the whole Treatise is one
* Ar.conling to the old adage: you are not hung for stealing a horse, but
that horses may not be stolen. To what extent this is true, we shaJi have
occasion to examine hereafter.
64
strain of moral wisdom and political prudence — " Why should
we then affect a rigor contrary to the manner of God and of Na-
ture, by abridging or scanting those means, which Books, free-
ly permitted, are both to the trial of Virtue and the exercise of
Truth ? It would be better done to learn, that the Law must
needs be IVivolous, which goes to restrain things uncertainly,
and yet equally working to Good and to Evil. And were I
the chooser, a dram of well-doing should be preferred before
many times as much the forcible hindrance of Evil-doing. For
God sure esteems the growth and completion of one virtuous
person, more than the restraint of ten vicious."
The evidence of History is strong in favor of the same prin-
\y ciplcs, even in respect of their expediency. The average re-
sult of the Press from Henry VIII. to Charles I. was such a
diffusion of religious light as first redeemed and afterwards
saved this nation from the spiritual and moral death of Popery ;
and in the following period it is to the Press that we owe the
gradual ascendency of those wise political maxims, which cast-
ing philosophic truth in the moulds of national laws, customs,
and existing orders of society, subverted the tyranny without
suspending the government, and at length completed the mild
and salutary revolution by the establishment of the House of
Brunswick. To what must we attribute this vast over-balance
of Good in the general effects of the Press, but to the over-
balance of virtuous intention in those who employed the Press ?
The Law, therefore, will not refuse to manifest good intention
a certain weight even in cases of apparent error, lest it should
discourage and scare away those, to whose efforts we owe the
comparative infrequency and weakness of error on the whole.
The Law may however, nay, it must demand, that the external
proofs of the author's honest intentions should be supported by
the general style and matter of his work, and by the circum-
stances, and mode of its publication. A passage, which in a
grave and regular disquisition would be blameless, might be-
come highly libellous and justly punishable, if it were applied
to present measures or persons for immediate purposes, in a
cheap and popular tract. I have seldom felt greater indigna-
tion than at finding in a large manufactory a sixpenny pamph-
let, containing a selection of inflamatory paragraphs from the
prose-writings of Milton, without a hint given of the time, oc-
casion, state of government, &c. under which they were written
65
not a hint, that the Freedom, which we now enjoy, exceeds all
that Milton dared hope for, or deemed practicable ; and that
his political creed sternly excluded the populace, and indeed
the majority of the population, from all pretensions to political
power. If the manifest bad intention would constitute this
publication a seditious Libel, a good intention equally manifest
can not justly be denied its share of influence in producing a
contrary verdict.
Here then is the difficulty. From the very nature of a libel
it is impossible so to define it, but that the most meritorious
works will be found included in the description. Not from
any defect or undue severity in the particular Statute, but from
the very nature of the off'ence to be guarded against, a work
recommending reform by the only rational n ode of recommend-
ation, that is, by the detection and exposure of corruption,
abuse, or incapacity, might, though it should breathe the best
and most unadulterated English feelings, be brought within the
definition of libel equally with the vilest incendiary Brochure^
that ever aimed at leading and misleading the multitude. Not
a paragraph in the Morning Post during the peace of Amiens,
(or rather the experimental truce so called) though to the im-
mortal honour of the then editor, that newspaper was the chief
secondary means of producing the unexampled national una-
nimity, with which the war re-commenced and has since been
continued — not a paragraph warning the nation, as need was
and most imperious duty commanded, of the perilous designs
and unsleeping ambition of our neighbor, the mimic and cari-
caturist of Charlemagne, but was a punishable libel. The sta-
tute of libel is a vast aviary, which incages the awakening cock
and the geese whose alarum preserved the capitol, no less than
the babbling magpye and ominous screech-owl. And yet will
we avoid this seeming injustice, we throw down all fence and
bulwark of public decency and public opinion; political calum-
ny will soon join hands with private slander ; and every prin-
ciple, every feeling, that binds the citizen to his country and
the spirit to its Creator, will be undermined — not by reasoning,
for from that there is no danger ; but — by the mere habit of
hearing them reviled and scoffed at with impunity. Were we
to contemplate the evils of a rank and unweeded press only in
its eff"ects on the manners of a people, and on the general tone
of thought and conversation, the greater the love, which we
9
66
bore to literature and to all the means and instruments of hu-
man improvement, the greater would be the earnestness with
which we should solicit the interference of law : the more
anxiously should we wisli for some Ithureal spear, that might
remove from the ear of the public, and expose in their own
fiendish shape those reptiles, which inspiring venom and for-
ging illusions as they list^
thence raise,
At least distempered discontented thoughts,
Vain hopes, vain aims, inordinate desires.
Paradise Lost.
ESSAY XIT.
QuomoJo antem idfidunim sit, ne qitis mcredihUe arbUretur, osfendam. In pri-
mis viidtiplicabitur regnum, et summa rentm potestas per plurimos dissipata et
co7icisa mitiuttur. Tunc discordice civiles serentur, ntc idla reqxdes bellis exifi-
alibus erit, dum exercitibiis in immensum coactis, reges disperdent omnia, et com-
minuent : donee adversus eos dux potenlissimus a plebe orietui\ et assumetur in
socictatem a caicris, et princeps omnium consiituetur. Hie ins^tstentabili domi-
natione vexahit orbem, diinna et hnmana miscebit : infanda dictii et execrabilia
molietur : nova consUia in pectore stio vohdabit, id proprium sibi constituat im-
perium : leges commutabit, et siias sanciet, contaminabit, diripiet, spcliahit, occi-
det. Denique immutatis nomiyiibus, et impeiii sede iranslata, confusio ac per-
turbatio kumayii generis consequetiu: Turn vere dctestabile, et atqne abominan-
dum tcmpus cxistet, quo nidli hominum sit vita jucimda.
Lactantius de Vita Beata, lAb. vii. c. 16.
7
But lest this should be deemed incredible, I shew the manner in which it
is to take place. First, there will be a multiplication of independent sove-
reignties ; and the supreme magistracj' of the Empire, scattered and cut up in-
to fragments, will be enfeebled ui the exercise of power by law and authority.
Then will be sowed the seeds of civil discords, nor will there be any rest or
pause to wasteful and ruinous wars, while the solditiy kept together in im-
mense standing armies, the Kings will crash and lay waste at their will ; — un-
til at length there will rise uj) against them a most puissant military chieftain
of low birth, who will have acceded to him a fellowship with the other Sove-
reigns of the earth, and will finally be constituted the head of all. This-man
will hanoss the civilized world witli an insujiponable despotism, he will con-
67
found and commix all things spiritual and temporal. He will form plans and
preparations of the most execrable and sacrilegious nature. He will be for-
ever restlessly turning over new schemes in his imagination, in order that he
may fix the imperial power over all in his own name and possessions. He
will change the former laws, he will sanction a code of his own, he wll
contaminate, pillage, lay waste and massacre. At length, when he has suc-
ceeded in the change of names and titles, and in the transfer of the seat of
Empire, there will follow a confusion and perturbation of the human race ;
then will there be for a while an sera of horror and abomination, during which
no man will enjoy his Ufe in quietness.
I interpose this Essay as an historical comment on the words
" mimic and caricaturist of Charlemagne," as applied to the
despot, whom since the time that the words were first printed,
we have, thank heaven ! succeeded in incaging. The Motto
contains the most striking instance of an uninspired prophecy
fulfilled even in its minutiae, that I recollect ever to have met
with : and it is hoped, that as a curiosity it will reconcile my
readers to its unusual length. But though my chief motive was
that of relieving (by the variety of an historical parallel) the
series of argument on this most important of all subjects, the
communicability of truth, yet the Essay is far from being a di-
gression. Having in the preceding number given utterance
to quicquid in rem tarn malejicam indignatio dolorque dictarcnt^
concerning the mischiefs of a lawless Press, I held it an act of
justice to give a portrait no less lively of the excess to which
the remorseless ambition of a government might accumulate its
oppressions in the one instance before the discovery of Print-
ing, and in the other during the suppression of its freedom.
I have translated the following from a voluminous German
work, Michael Ignuz Schmidt's History of the Germans ; in
which this Extract forms the conclusion of the second chapter
of the third book, from Charles the Great to Conrade the First.
The late Tyrant's close imitation of Charlemagne was suffi-
ciently evidenced by his assumption of the Iron Crown of Italy ;
by his imperial coronation with the presence and authority of
the Holy Father; by his imperial robe embroidered with bees
in order to mark him as a successor of Pepin ; and even by his
ostentatious revocation of Charlemagne's grants to the Bishop
of Rome. But that the differences might be felt likewise, I
68
prefaced the translation here re-printed with the few following
observations.
Let it be remembered then, that Charlemagne, for the great-
er part, created for himself the means of which he availed
himself; that his very education was his own work, and that
unlike Peter the Great, he could find no assistants out of his
own realm; that the unconquerable courage and heroic dispo-
sitions of the nations he conquered, supplied a proof positive
of real superiority, indeed the sole positive proof of intellectual
power in a warrior : for how can we measure force but by the
resistance of it ? But all was prepared for Buonaparte ; Europe
weakened in the very heart of all human strength, namely, in
moral and religious principle, and at the same time accidentally
destitute of any one great or commanding mind : the French
people, on the other hand, still restless from revolutionary fana-
ticism ; their civic enthusiasm already passed into military pas-
sion and the ambition of conquest ; and alike by disgust, terror,
and characteristic unfitness for freedom, ripe for the reception
of a despotism. Add too, that the main obstacles to an unlimi-
ted system of conquest, and the pursuit of universal monarchy
had been cleared away for him by his pioneers the Jacobins,
viz. the influence of the great land-holders, of the privileged
and of the commercial classes. Even the naval successes of
Great Britain, by destroying the trade, rendering useless the
colonies, and almost annihilating the navy of France, were in
some respects subservient to his designs by concentrating the
powers of the French empire in its armies, and supplying them
out of the wrecks of all other employments, save that of agri-
culture. France had already approximated to the formidable
state so prophetically described by Sir James Stuart, in his Po-
litical Economy, in which the population should consist chiefly
of soldiers and peasantry : at least the interests of no other
classes were regarded. The great merit of Buonaparte has
been that of a skillful steersman, who with his boat in the most
violent storm still keeps himself on the summit of the waves,
which not he, but the winds had raised. I will now proceed
to my translation.
That Charles was an hero, his exploits bear evidence. The
subjugation of the Lombards, protected as they were by the
Alps, by fortresses and fortified towns, by numerous armies, and
by a great name ; of the Saxons, secured by their savage reso-
69
lutenees, by an untameable love of freedom, by their desart plains
and enormous foiests, and by their own poverty ; the humbling
of the Dukes of Bavaria, Aquitania, Bretagne, and Gascony ;
proud of their ancestry as well as of their ample domains ; the
^ almost entire extirpation of the Avars, so long the terror of Eu-
rope ; are assuredly works which demand a courage and a
firmness of mind such as Charles only possessed.
How great his reputation was, and this too beyond the
limits of Europe, is proved by the embassies sent to him out of
Persia, Palestine, Mauritania, and even from the Caliphs of
Bagdad. If at the present day an embassy from the Black or
Caspian Sea comes to a prince on the Baltic, it is not to be
wondered at, since such are now the political relations of the
four quarters of the world, that a blow which is given to any
one of them is felt more or less by all the others. Whereas in
the times of Charlemagne, the inhabitants in one of the known
parts of the world scarcely knew what was going on in the rest.
Nothing but the extraordinary, all-piercing report of Charles's
exploits could bring this to pass. His greatness, which set the
world in astonishment, was likewise, without doubt, that which
begot in the Pope and the Romans the first idea of the re-es-
tablishment of their empire.
Is it true, that a number of things united to make Charles a
great man — favorable circumstances of time, a nation already
disciplined to warlike habits, a long life, and the consequent
acquisition of experience, such as no one possessed in his whole
realm. Still, however, the principal means of his greatness
Charles found in himself. His great mind was capable of ex-
tending its attention to the greatest multiplicity of afi'airs. In
the middle of Saxony he thought on Italy and Spain, and at
Rome he made provisions for Saxony, Bavaria, and Pannonia.
He gave audience to the Ambassadors of the Greek emperor
and other potentates, and himself audited the accounts of his
own farms, where every thing was entered even to the number
of the eggs. Busy as his mind was, his body was not less in
one continued state of motion. Charles would see into every
thing himself, and do every thing himself, as far as his powers
extended : and even this it was too, w hich gave to his under-
takings such a force and energy.
But with all this the government of Charles was the gov-
ernment of a conqueror, that is splendid abroad and fearfully
70
oppressive at home. What a grievance must it not have been
for the people that Charles for forty years together dragged
them now to the Elbe, then to the Ebro, after this to the Po, and
from thence back again to the Elbe, and this not to check an
invading enemy, but to make conquests which little profited
the French nation ! Tliis must prove too much, at length, for
a hired soldier : how much more for conscripts, who did not
live only to fight, but who were fathers of families, citizens,
and proprietors? But above all, is it to be wondered at, that
a nation like the French, should suffer themselves to be used
as Charles used them. But the people no longer possessed
any considerable share of influence. All depended on the
great chieftains, who gave their willing suffiage for endless
wars, by which they were always sure to win. They found the
best opportunity, under such circumstances, to make themselves
great and mighty at the expense of the freemen resident with-
in the circle of their baronial courts; and when conquests
were made, it was far more for their advantage than that of the
monarchy. In the conquered provinces there was a necessity,
for dukes, vassal kings, and different high offices : all this fell
to their share.
I would not say this if we did not possess incontrovertible
original documents of those times, which prove clearly to us
that Charles's government was an unhappy one for the people,
and that this great man, by his actions, labored to the direct
subversion of his first principles. It was his first pretext to es-
tablish a greater equality among the members of his vast com-
munity, and to make all free and equalsub jects under a common
sovereign. And from the necessity occasioned by continual
war, the exact contrary took place. Nothing gives us a better
notion of the interior state of the French Monarchy, than the
third capitular of the year 811. [compare with this the four
or five quarto vols, of the present French Conscript Code.)
All is full of complaint ; the Bishops and Earls clamouring
against the freeholders, and these in their turn against the
Bishoj)S and Earls. And in truth the freeholders had no small
reason to be discontented and to resist, as far as they dared,
even the imperial levies. A dependant must be content to fol-
low his lord without further questioning : for he was paid for
it. But a free citizen, who lived wholly on his own property,
might reasonably object to suffer himself to be dragged about
n
in all quarters of the world, at the fancies of his lord : espe-
cially as there was so much injustice intermixed. Those who
gave up their properties entirely, or in part, of their own ac-
cord, were left undisturbed at home, while those, who refused
to do this, were forced so often into service, that at length, be-
coming impoverished, they were compelled by want to give up,
or dispose of their free tenures to the Bishops or Earls. (It
loould require no great ingenuity to discover j^orallels, or at
least^ equivalent hardships to these^ in the treatment of, and
regulations concerning the reluctant conscripts.)
It almost surpasses belief to what a height, at length, the
aversion to war rose in the French nation, from the multitude
of the campaigns and the grievances connected with them.
The national vanity was now satiated by the frequences of vic-
tories ; and the plunder which fell to the lot of individuals,
made but a poor compensation for the losses and burthens sus-
tained by their families at home. Some, in order to become
exempt from military service, sought for menial employments
in the establishments of the Bishops, Abbots, Abbesses, and
Earls. Others made over their free property to become te-
nants at will of such Lords, as from their age or other circum-
stances, they thought would be called to no further military
services. Others, even privately took away the life of their
mothers, aunts, or other of their relatives, in order that no
family residents might remain through whom their names might
be known, and themselves traced ; others voluntarily made
slaves of themselves, in order thus to render themselves inca-
pable of the military rank.
When this Extract was first published, namely, September 7,
1809, I prefixed the following sentence. "This passage con-
tains so much matter^br j>olitical anticipation and well-ground-
ed hope., that I feel no apprehension of the Reader's being dis-
satisfied with its length." I trust, that I may derive the same
confidence from his genial exultation, as a Christian ; and from
his honest ])ride as a Briton ; in the retrospect of its comple-
tion. In this belief I venture to conclude the Essay with the
following Extract from a " Comparison of the French Republic,
under Buonaparte, with the Roman Empire under tlie first
Cajsars," published by mc in the Morning Post, Tuesday,
21 Sept. 1802.
If then there is no counterpoise of dissimilar circumstances,
73
the prospect is gloomy indeed. The commencement of the
public slavery in Rome was in the most splendid sera of human
genius. Any unusually flourishing period of the arts and sci-
ences in any country, is, even to this day, called the Augustan
age of that country. The Roman poets, the Roman historians,
the Roman orators, rivalled those of Greece ; in military tac-
tics, in machinery, in all the conveniences of private life, the
Romans greatly surpassed the Greeks. With few exceptions,
all the emperors, even the worst of them, were, like Buona-
parte,* the liberal encouragers 'of all great public works, and
of every species of public merit not connected with the asser-
tion of political freedom.
O Juvenes, circumspicit ct agitat vos,
Materiamque sibi Ducis indulgentia qujerit
It is even so, at this present moment, in France, Yet, both
in France and in Rome, we havepearned, that the most abject
dispositions to slavery rapidly trod on the heels of the most
outrageous fanaticism for an almost anarchical liberty. Ruere
in servitium patres et populnm. Peace and the coadunation of
all the civilized provinces of the earth were the grand and plau-
sible pretexts of Roman despotism : the degeneracy of the hu-
man species itself, in all the nations so blended, was the melan-
choly effect. To-morrow, therefore, we shall endeavour to de-
* Imitators succeed l)etter in copying the vices tlian the excellences or their
archetypes. Where shall we find in the First Consul of France a counter-
part to the generous and dreadless clemency of the first Caesar? Acerbe lo-
quentibus satis habuit pro concione denunciare, ne persevarent. Aulique
CtEcinte criminosissinio libro, et Pitholai canniniljus malcdicentissimis lacera-
tam existiniationcm suani civili animo tiilit.
It deserves translation, for our English readers. " If any spoke bitterly
against him, he held it sufficient to conif)laiji of it publicly, to prevent them
from persevering in the use of such language. His character had been man-
gled in a most libellous work of Anlus C.vcina, and he had been grossly lam-
pooned in some verses by Pitholaus; but he boie both with the temper of a
good citizen."
For this part of the First Consul's character, if common report speaks the
truth, we must seek a parallel in tlie dispositions of the third Caesar, who
dreaded the pen of a paragraph writer, hlntin«- aught against his morals and
measures, with as great anxiety, and witli as vindiclive feelings, as if it h.id been
the dagger of an assassin lifted up against his life. From the third Ctesar, too,
he adopted the abrogation of all poj)ulor elections.
\
7i
tect all those points and circumstances of dissimilarity, which,
though they cannot impeach the rectitude of the parallel, for
the present, may yet render it probable, that as the same Con-
stitution of Government has been built up in France with in-
comparably greater rapidity, so it may have an incomparably
shorter duration. We are not conscious of any feelings of bit-
terness towards the First Consul ; or, if any, only that venial
prejudice, which naturally results from the having hoped proud-
ly of any individual, and the having been miserably disappoint-
ed. But we will not voluntarily cease to think freely and speak
openly. We owe grateful hearts, and uplifted hands of thanks-
giving to the Divine Providence, that there is yet one Europe-
an country (and that country our own) in which the actions of
public men may be boldly analyzed, and the result publicly
stated. And let the Chief Consul, who professes in all things
to follow his FATE, learn to submit to it if he finds that it is
still his FATE to struggle with the spirit of English freedom,
and the virtues which are the offspring of that spiiit ! If he
finds, that the Genius of Great Britain, which blew up his
Egyptian navy into the air, and blighted his Syrian laurels, still
follows him with a calm and dreadful eye ; and in peace, equal-
ly as in war, still watches for that liberty, in which alone the
Genius of our Isle lives, and moves, and has his being ; and
which being lost, all our commercial and naval greatness would
instantly languish, like a flower, the root of which had been
silently eat away by a worm ; and without which, in any coun-
try, the public festivals, and pompous merriments of a nation
present no other spectacle to the eye of Reason, than a mob of
maniacs dancing in their fetters.
10
ESSAY XIII.
Must there be still some discord mixt among
The harmony of men, whose mood accords
Best with contention tun'd to notes of wrong ?
That when War fails, Peace must make war with words.
With w ords unto destruction arm'd more strong
Than ever were our foreign Foemans' swords:
Making as deep, tho' not yet Weeding wounds ?
What War left scarless. Calumny confounds.
Truth lies entrapp'd where Cunning finds no har :
Since no proportion can there he betwixt
Our acti<jns which in endless motions are,
And ordinances which are always fixt.
Ten thousand Laws more cannot reach so far,
But Malice goes beyond, or lives conmiixt
So close with Goodness, that it ever will
CoiTupt, disguise, or counterfeit it still.
And therefore would our glorious Alfred, who
Join'd with the King's the good man's Majesty,
Not leave Law's labyrinth withont a clue —
Gave to deep Skill its just authority, —
But the lost .Tiidgnifiit (this his .Tury's jil.ui)
Left to the natural sense of Work-ilay IVfan.
Mapted from an elder Poet.
We recur to the dileinina stated in our eighth number. How
shall we solve this pro])lcni ? Its solution is to be found in that
spirit which, like the universal menstruum sought for by the old
alchemists, can blend and harmonize the most discordant ele-
ments — it is found to be in the spirit of a rational Freedom dif-
fused and become national, in the consequent influence and
control of public opinion, and in its most precious organ, the
7S
jury. It is to be found, wherever Juries are sufficiently en-
lightened to perceive the difference, and to comprehend thi.
origin and necessity of the difference, between libels and other
criminal overt-acts, and are sufficiently independent to act upon
the conviction, that in a charge of libel, the degree, the circum-
stances, and intention, constitute (not merely modify^) the of-
fence, give it its Being, and determine its legal name. The
words '■'■maliciously and advisedly," must here have a force of
their own and a proof of their own. They will consequently
consider the written law as a blank power provided for the pun-
ishment of the offender, not as a light by which they are to deter-
mine and discriminate the ojfence. The understanding and con-
science of the Jury are the Judges, in toto : the statute a blank
conge d'elire. The Statute is the Clay and those the Potter's
wheel. Shame fall on that Man, who shall labor to confound
what reason and nature have put asunder, and who at once, as far
as in him lies, would render the Press ineffectual and the Law
odious ; who would lock up the main river, the Thames of our
intellectual commerce ; would throw a bar across the stream, that
that must render its navigation dangerous or partial, using as his
materials the very banks, that were intended to deepen its chan-
nel and guard against its inundations ! Shame fall on him, and a
a participation of the infamy of those, who misled an English
Jury to the murder of Algernon Sidney !
But though the virtuous intention of the writer must be al-
io wed a certain influence in facilitating his acquittal, the degree
of his moral guilt is not the true index or mete-wand of his
condemnation. For Juries do not sit in a Court of Conscience,
but of Law ; they are not the representatives of religion, but
the guardians of external tranquillity. The leading principle,
the Pole Star, of the judgment in its decision concerning the
libellous nature of a published writing, is its more or less re-
mote connection with after overt-acts, as the cause or occasion
of the same. Thus the publication of actual facts may be, and
most often will be, criminal and libellous, when directed against
private characters : not only because the charge will reach the
minds of many who cannot be competent judges of the truth
or falsehood of facts to which themselves were not witnesses,
against a man whom they do not know, or at best know imper-
fectly ; but because such a publication is of itself a very serious
overt-act, by which the author without authority and without tri-
.7#
al, has inflicted punishment on a fellow subject, himself being
witness and jury, judge and executioner. Of such publications
there can be no legal justification, though the wrong may be
palliated by the circumstance that the injurious charges are not
only true but wholly out of the reach of the law. But in libels
on the government there are two things to be balanced against
each other : first, the incomparably greater mischief of the
overt-acts, supposing them actually occasioned by the libel —
(as for instance, the subversion of government and property,
if the principles taught by Thomas Paine had been realized, or
if even an attempt had been made to realize them, by the ma-
ny thousands of his readers;) and second, the very great im-
probability that such effects will be produced by such writings.
Government concerns all generally, and no one in particular.
The facts are commonly as well known to the readers, as to the
writer : and falsehood therefore easily detected. It is proved,
likewise, by experience, that the frequency of open political
discussion, with all its blameable indiscretion, indisposes a na-
tion to overt-acts of practical sedition or conspiracy. They
talk ill, said Charles the Fifth, of his Belgian Provinces, but
they suffer so much the better for it. His successor thought
differently: he determined to be master of their words and
opinions, as well as of their actions, and in consequence lost
one half of those provinces, and retained the other half at an
expense of strength and treasure greater than the original worth
of the whole. An enlightened Jury, therefore, will require
proofs of some more than ordinary malignity of intention, as
furnished by the style, price, mode of circulation, and so forth;
or of punishable indiscretion arising out of the state of the
times, as of dearth, for instance, or of whatever other calamity
is likely to render the lower classes turbulent and apt to be al-
ienated from the government of their country. For the absence
of a right disposition of mind must be considered both in law
and in morals, as nearly equivalent to the presence of a wrong
disposition. Under such circumstances the legal paradox, that
a libel may be the more a libel for being true, becomes strictly
just, and as such ought to be acted upon.
Concerning the right of punishing by law the authors of he-
retical or deistical writings, 1 reserve my remarks for a future
Essay, in which I hope to state the grounds and limits of tole-
ration more accurately than they seem to me to have been hith-
75
erto traced. There is one maxim, however, which T am
tempted to seize as it passes across me. If I may trust my
own memory, it is indeed a very old truth : and yet if the fash-
ion of acting in apparent ignorance thereof be any presumption
of its novelty, it ought to be new, or at least have become so
by courtesy of oblivion. It is this : that as far as human prac-
tice can realize the sharp limits and exclusive proprieties of
Science, Law and Religion should be kept distinct. There
IS, strictly speaking, no proper opposition but between the
TWO POLAR forces OF ONE AND THE SAME POWER.* If I Say
then, that Law and Religion are natural opposites, and that the
latter is the requisite counterpoise of the former, let it not be
interpreted, as if I had declared them to be contraries. The
Law has rightfully invested the Creditor with the power of
arresting and imprisoning an insolvent Debtor, the Farmer with
the Power of transporting, mediately at least, the Pillagers of
his Hedges and Copses ; but the Law does not compel him to
exercise that power, while it will often happen, that Religion
commands him to forego it. Nay, so well was this understood
by our Grandfathers, that a man who squares his conscience
by the Law was a common paraphrase or synonyme of a
wretch without any conscience at all. We have all of us
learnt from History, that there was a long and dark period,
during which the Powers and the Aims of Law were usurped
* Every Power in Nature and in Spirit must evolve an opposite, as the sole
means and condition of its manifestation: and all opposition is a tendencit
TO Re-union. This is the universal Law of Polarity or essential Dualism,
first i)rornulgated by Heraclilus, 2000 years afterwards re-published, and made
tlie foundation both of Logic, of Physics, and of Metaphysics by Giordano
linino. The Principle may be thus cxi)ressed. The Identity of Thesis and
Antithesis is the substance of all Being; their Opposition the condition of all
Existeiice, or Being manifested; and every Thing or Vhsenontenon is the Ex-
ponent of a Synthesis as long as the oi)posite energies are retained in that
Syntliesis. Thus Water is neither Oxygen nor Hydrogen, nor yet is it a
commixture of both ; but the Synthesis or Indifference of the two: and as
long as the copula endures, by which it becomes Water, or rather which
alone is Water, it is not less a simple Body than either of the imaginary Ele-
ments improperly called its Ingredients or Components. It is the ohj(!Ct of
the mechanical atomistic Psilosophy to •confound Synthesis with synartesis,
or rather with mere juxta-position of Corpuscles separated by inviiiible In-
terspaces. I find it difficult to determine, whether tliis theory contradicts
tlie Reason or tlie Senses most: for it is alike inconceivable and unimaginable.
78
in the name of Religion by the Clergy and the Courts Spiritu-
al : and we all know the result. Law and Religion thus in-
terpenetrating neutralized each other ; and the baleful product,
or tertium Aliquid, of this union retarded the civilization of
Europe for Centuries. Law splintered into the minutiae of Re-
ligion, whose awful function and prerogative it is to take ac-
count of every ^Hdle ivord,^^ became a busy and inquisitorial
tyranny : and Religion substituting legal terrors for the eno-
bling influences of Conscience remained Religion in name
only. The present age appears to me approaching fast to
a similar usurpation of the functions of Religion by Law : and
if it were required, I should not want strong presumptive
proofs in favor of this opinion, whether I sought for them in
the Charges from the Bench concerning Wrongs, to which Re-
ligion denounce the fearful penalties of Guilt, but for which
the Law of the Land assigns Damages only : or in sundry sta-
tutes, and (all praise to the late Mr. Wyndham, Romanorum
ultimo) in a still greater number of attempts towards new sta-
tutes, the authors of which displayed the most pitiable igno-
rance, not merely of the distinction between perfected and im-
perfected Obligations but even of that still more sacred dis-
tinction between Things and Persons. What the Son of Si-
rach advises concerning the Soul, everj^ Senator should apply
to his legislative capacity — Reverence it in meekness, know-
ing how feeble and how mighty a Thing it is !
From this hint concerning Toleration, we may pass by an
easy transitition to the, perhaps, still more interesting subject
of Tolerance. And here 1 fully coincide with Frederic H.
Jacobi, that the only true spirit of Tolerance consists in our
conscientious toleration of each other's intolerance. Whatever
pretends to be more than this, is either the unthinking cant of
fashion, or tl;ie soul-palsying narcotic of moral and religious in-
difference. All of us without exception, in the same mode
though not in the same degree, are necessarily subjected to the
risk of mistaking positive opinions for certainty and clear in-
sight. From this yoke we cannot free ourselves, but by ceas-
ing to be men ; and this too not in order to transcend but to
sink below our human nature. For if in one point of view it
be the mulct of our fall, and of the corruption of our will ; it
is equally true, that contemplated from another point, it is the
jprice and consequence of our progressiveness. To him who
79tf
is compelled to pace to and fro within the high walls and in
tlic narrow courtyard of a prison, all objects may appear clear
and distinct. It is the traveller journeying onward, full of
heart and hope, with an ever-varying horrizon, on the boundless
plain, that is liable to mistake clouds for mountains, and the
mirage of drouth for an expanse of refreshing waters.
But notwithstanding this deep conviction of our general fal-
libility, and the most vivid recollection of my own, I dare
avow with the German philosopher, that as far as opinions,
and not motives ; principles, and not men, are concerned ; I
neither am tolerant^ nor wish to be regarded as such. Accor-
ding to my judgment, it is mere ostentation, or a poor trick
that hypocrisy plays with the cards of nonsense, when a man
makes protestation of being perfectly tolerant in respect of all
principles, opinions and persuasions, those alone excepted which
render the holders intolerant. For he either means to say by
this, that he is utterly indifl'erent towards all truth, and finds
nothing so insufferable as the persuasion of their being any such
mighty value or importance attached to the profession of the
Truth as should give a marked preference to any one convic-
tion above any other ; or else he means nothing, and amuses
himself with articulating the pulses of the air instead of inha-
ling it in the more healthful and profitable exercise of yawning.
That which doth not withstand, hath itself no standing place.
To Jill a station is to exclude or repel others, — and this is not
less the definition of moral, than of material, solidity. We live
by continued acts of defence, that involve a sort of offensive
warfare. But a man's principles, on which he grounds his
Hope and his Faith, are the life of his life. We live by Faith,
says the philosophic Apostle ; and faith without principles is
but a flattering phrase for wilful positiveness, or fanatical bodily
sensation. Well, and of good right therefore, do we maintain
with more zeal, than we should defend body or e'state, a deep
and inward conviction, which is as the moon to us ; and like
the moon with all its massy shadows and deceptive gleams, it
yet lights us on our way, poor travellers as we are, and benight-
ed pilgrims. With all its spots and changes and temporary
eclipses, with all its vain halos and bedimming vapors, it yet
reflects the light that is to rise on us, which even now is rising,
though intercepted from our immediate view by the mountains
that enclose and frown over the vale of our mortal life.
This again is the mystery and the dignity of our human nature,
that we cannot give up our reason, without giving up at the
same time our individual personality. For that must appear to
each man to be his reason which produces in him the highest
sense of certainty; and yet it is 7iot reason, except as far as it
is of universal validity and obligatory on all mankind. There
is a one heart for the whole mighty mass of Humanity, and eve-
ry pulse in each particular vessel strives to beat in concert with
it. He who asserts that truth is of no importance except in
the sense of sincerity, confounds sense with madness, and fhe
word of God with a dream. If the power of reasoning be the
Gift of the Supreme Reason, that we be sedulous, yea, and
militant in the endeavor to reason aright, is his implied Com-
mand. But what is of permanent and essential interest to one
man must needs be so to all, in proportion to the means and op-
portunities of each. Woe to him by whom these are neglected,
and double woe to him by whom they are withheld ; for he robs
at once himself and his neighbor. That man's Soul is not dear
to himself, to whom the Souls of his Brethren are not dear.
As far as they can be influenced by him, they are parts and
properties of his own soul, their faith his faith, their errors his
burthen, their righteousness and bliss his righteousness and his
reward — and of their Guilt and Misery his own will be the echo!
As much as I love my fellow-men, so much and no more will I
be intolerant of their Heresies and Unbelief — and I will honor
and hold forth the right hand of fellowship to every individual
who is equally intolerant of that which he conceives such in me.
We will both exclaim — I know not, what antidotes among the
complex views, impulses and circumstances, that form your
moral Being, God's gracious Providence may have vouchsafed
to you against the serpent fang of this Error — but it is a viper,
and its poison deadly, although through higher influences some
men may take the reptile to their bosom, and remain unstung.
In one of these viperous Journals, which deal out Profane-
ness, Hate, Fury, and Sedition throughout the Land, I read the
following Paragraph. " The Brahman believes that every man
will be saved in his own persuasion, and that all religions are
equally pleasing to the God of all. The Christian confines
salvation to the Believer in his own Vedahs and Shasters.
Which is the more humane and philosophic creed of the two ?"
Let question answer question. Self-complacent Scoffer !
81
Whom meanest thou by God ? The God of Truth ? and can
He be pleased with falsehood and the debasement or utter sus-
pension of the Reason which he gave to man that he might re-
ceive from him the sacrifice of Truth ? Or the God of love and
mercy ? And can He be pleased with the blood of thousands
poured out under the wheels of Juggernaut, or with the shrieks
of children offered up as fire offerings to Baal or to Moloch ?
Or dost thou mean the God of holiness and infinite purity ? and
can He be pleased with abominations unutterable and more
than brutal defilements ? and equally pleased too as with that
religion, which commands us that we have no fellowship with
the unfruitful works of darkness but to reprove them ? With
that religion, which strikes the fear of the Most High so deeply,
and the sense of the exceeding sinfulness of sin so inwardly,
that the Believer anxiously enquires : " Shall I give my first-
born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my
soul ?" — and which makes answer to him. — " He hath shewed
thee, man, what is good ; and what doth the Lord require of
thee, but to walk justly, and to love mercy, and to walk hum~
bly with thy God." But I check myself. It is at once folly
and profanation of Truth, to reason with the man who cart
place before his eyes a minister of the Gospel directing th&
eye of the widow from the corse of her husband upward to his
and her Redeemer, (the God of the living and not of the dead)
and then the remorseless Brahmin goading on the disconsolate
victim to the flames of her husband's funeral pile, abandoned
by, and abandoning, the helpless pledges of their love — and
yet dare ask, which is the more humane and philosophic creed
of the two ? No ! No ! when such opinions are in question I
neither am, or will be, or wish to be regarded as, tolerant.
\\
ESSAY XIV.
Knowing the heart of Man is set to be
The centre of this world, about the which
These revohitions of disturbances
Still roll ; where al! th' aspects of misery
Predominate ; whose strong effects are such,
As he must bear, being powerless to redress :
And that unless above himself he can
Erect himself, how poor a thing is Man !
Daniel.
I have thus endeavoured, with an anxiety which may per-
haps have misled me into prolixity, to detail and ground the
conditions under which the communication of truth is com-
manded or forbidden to us as individuals, by our conscience;
and those too, under which it is permissible by the law wiiich
controls our conduct as members of the state. But is the
subject of suificient importance to deserve so minute an ex-
amination ? that my readers would look round the world, as
it now is, and make to themselves a faithful catalogue of its
many miseries! From what do these proceed, and on what do
they depend for their continuance ? Assuredly for the great-
er part on the actions of men, and those again on the want of
y a vital principle of action. We live by faith. The essence of
virtue consists in the principle. And the reality of this, as
well as its importance, is belived by all men in fact, few as
there may be who bring the truth forward into the light of dis-
tinct consciousness. Yet all men feel, and at times acknow-
ledge to themselves, the true cause of their misery. There is
no man so base, but that at some time or other, and in some way
or other, he admits that he is not what he ought to be, though
83
by a curious art of self-delusion, by an effort to keep at peace
with himself as long and as much as possible, he will throw off
the blame from the amenable part of his nature, his moral prin-
ciple, to that which is independent of his will, namely, the
degree of his intellectual faculties. Hence, for once that a
man exclaims, how dishonest I am, on what base and unwor-
thy motives I act, we may hear a hundred times, what a fool I
am ! curse on my folly?* and the like.
Yet even this implies an obscure sentiment, that with clearer
conceptions in the understanding, the principle of action would
become purer in the will. Thanks to the image of our Maker
not wholly obliterated from any human soul, we dare not pur-
chase an exemption from guilt by an excuse, which would place
our amelioration out of our own power. Thus the very man,
who will abuse himself for a fool but not for a villian, would
rather, spite of the usual professions to the contrary, be con-
demned as a rogue by other men, than be acquitted as a block-
head. But be this as it may, out of himself, however, he sees
plainly the true cause of our common complaints. Doubtless,
there seem many physical causes of distress, of disease, of po-
verty and of desolation — tempests, earthquakes, volcanoes, wild
or venomous animals, barren soils, uncertain or tyrannous cli-
mates, pestilential swamps, and death in the very air we breathe.
Yet when do we hear the general wretchedness of mankind
attributed to these? In Iceland, the earth opened and sent
forth three or more vast rivers of fire. The smoke and va-
pour from them dimmed the light of Heaven through all Eu-
rope, for months- even at Cadiz, the sun and moon, for sever-
al weeks, seemed turned to blood. What was the amount of
the injury to the human race ? sixty men were destroyed, and
of these the greater part in consequence of their own inspru-
dence. Natural calamities that do indeed spread devastation
wide, (for instance, the Marsh Fever,) are almost without ex-
ception, voices of Nature in her all-intelligible language — do
this I or cease to do that ! By the mere absence of one su-
* We do not consider as exceptions the tliousands tliat abuse themselves
by rote w'nh lii)-j)eniteiice, or the wild ravin<;s of fanaticism: for tJiese per-
sons at the very time they speak so vehemently of the wickedness and rot-
teness of their hearts, are then connnonly the warmest in their own good
opinion, covered round and comfortable in the wrap-rascal of self-hypocrisy.
84
perstition, and of the sloth engendered by it, the Plague would
cease to exist throughout Asia and Africa. Pronounce medita-
tively the name of Jenner, and ask what might we not hope,
what need we deem unattainable, if all the time, the effort, the
skill, which we waste in making ourselves miserable through
vice, and vicious through misery, were embodied and mar-
shalled to a systematic war against the existing evils of na-
ture ? No, " It is a wicked loorld /" This is so generally the
solution, that this very wickedness is assigned by selfish men,
as their excuse for doing nothing to render it better, and for op-
posing those who would make the attempt. What 'have not
Clarkson, Granville Sharp, Wilberforce, and the Society^of the
Friends, effected for the honor, and if we believe in a retribu-
tive providence, for the continuance of the prosperity of the
English nation, imperfectly as the intellectual and moral facul-
ties of the people at large are developed at present ? What
may not be effected, if the recent discovery of the means of
educating nations (freed, however, from the vile sophistications
and mutilations of ignorant mountebanks,) shall have been ap-
plied to its full extent ? Would I frame to myself the most in-
spiriting representation of future bliss, which my mind is ca-
pable of comprehending, it would be embodied to me in the
idea of Bell receiving, at some distant period, the appropri-
ate reward of his earthly labours, when thousands and ten
thousands of glorified spirits, Avhose reason and conscience had,
through Ms efforts, been unfolded, shall sing the song of their
own redemption, and pouring forth praises to God and to their
Saviour, shall repeat his " New name" in Heaven, give thanks
for his earthly virtues, as the chosen instruments of divine mer-
cy to themselves, and not seldom perhaps, turn their eyes to-
ward hiin^ as from the sun to its image in the fountain, with se-
condary gratitude and the perm.itted utterance of a human love !
Were but a hundred men to combine a deep conviction that
virtuous habits may be formed by the very means by which
knowledge is communicated, that men may be made better, not
only in consequence, but by the mode and in the process, of
instruction : were but an hundred men to combine that clear
conviction of this, which I myself at this moment feel, even as
I feel the certainty of my being, with the perseverance of a
Clarkson or a Bell, the promises of ancient prophecy would
disclose themselves to our faith, even as when a noble castle
85
hidden Irom us by an intervening mist, discovers itself by its
reflection in the tranquil lake, on the opposite shore of which
we stand gazing. What an awful duty, what a nurse of all
other, the fairest virtues, does not hope become ! We are bad
ourselves, because we despair of the goodness of others.
If then it be a truth, attested alike by common feeling and
common sense, that the greater part ot human misery depends
directly on human vices and the remainder indirectly, by what
means can we act on men so as to remove or preclude these
vices and purify their principle of moral election ? The ques-
tion is not by what means each man is to alter his own charac-
ter — in order to this, all the means prescribed and all the aid-
ances given by religion, may be necessary for him. Vain, of
themselves, may be,
the sayings of the wise
III ancient and in modern books inroUed
********
Unless he feel within
Some source of consolation from above —
Secret refreshings, that repair his strength
And fainting spirits uphold.
Samson Agomstes.
This is not the question. Virtue would not be virtue, could
it be given by one fellow-creature to another. To make use ol
all the means and appliances in our power to the actual attain-
ment of Rectitude, is the abstract of the Duty which we owe
to ourselves ; to supply those means as far as we can, comprizes
our Duty to others. The question then is, what are these
means? Can they be any other than the communication of
knowledge, and the removal of those evils and impediments
which prevent its reception ? It may not be in our power to
combine both, but it is in the power of every man to contribute
to the former, who is sufficiently informed to feel that it is his
duty. If it be said, that we should endeavour not so much to
remove ignorance, as to make the ignorant religious : Religion
herself, through her sacred oracles, answers for me, that all
effective faith pre-supposes knowledge and individual convic-
tion. If the mere acquiescence in truth, uncomprehended and
unfathomed, were sufficient, few indeed would be the vicious
and the miserable, in this country at least where speculative
infidelity is, Heaven be praised, confined to a small number.
86
Like bodily deformity, there Is one instance here and another
there ; but three in one place are already an undue proportion.
It is highly worthy of observation, that the inspired writings
received by Christians are distinguishable from all other books
pretending to inspiration, from the scriptures of the Bramins,
and even from the Koran, in their strong and frequent recom-
mendations of truth. I do not here mean veracity, which can-
not but be enforced in every code which appeals to the reli-
gious principle of man; but knowledge. This is not only ex-
tolled as the crown and honor of a man, but to seek after it is
again and again commanded us as one of our most sacred du-
ties. Yea, the very perfection and final bliss of the glorified
spirit is represented by the Apostle as a plain aspect, or intui-
tive beholding of truth in its eternal and immutable source.
Not that knowledge can of itself do all ! The light of religion
is not that of the moon, light without heat ; but neither is its
warmth that of the stove, warmth without light. Religion is
the sun, whose warmth indeed swells, and stirs, and actuates
the life of nature, but who at the same time beholds all the
growth of life with a master eye, makes all objects glorious on
which he looks, and by that glor}^ visible to all others.
But though knowledge be not the only, yet that it is an in-
dispensable and most effectual agent in the direction of our ac-
tions, one consideration will convince us. It is an undoubted
fact of human nature, that the sense of impossibility quenches
all will. Sense of utter inaptitude does the same. The man
shuns the beautiful flame, which is eagerly grasped at by the
infant. The sense of a disproportion of certain after-harm to
present gratification — produces effects almost equally uniform :
though almost perishing with thirst, we should dash to the
earth a goblet of wine in which we had seen a poison infused,
though the poison, were without taste or odour, or even added
to the pleasures of both. Are not all our vices equally inapt
to the universal end of human actions, the satisfaction of the
agent ? Are not their pleasures equally disproportionate to the
after-harm? Yet many a maiden, who will not grasp at the
fire, will yet purchase a wreath of diamonds at the price of her
health, her honor, nay (and she herself knows it at the mo-
ment of her choice) at the sacrifice of her peace and happiness.
The sot would reject the poisoned cup, yet the trembling hand
with which he raises his daily or hourly draught to his lips,
87
has not left him ignorant that this too is altogether a poison.
I know it will be objected, that the consequences foreseen
are less immediate ; that they are diffused over a larger space
of time ; and that the slave of vice hopes where no hope is.
This, however, only removes the question one step further :
for why should the distance or diffusion of known consequences
produce so great a difference ? Why are men the dupes of the
present moment ? Evidently because the conceptions are in-
distinct in the one case, and vivid in the other ; because all
confused conceptions render us restless ; and because restless-
ness can drive us to vices that promise no enjoyment, no not
even the cessation of that restlessness. This is indeed the
dread punishment attached by nature to habitual vice, that its
impulses wax as its motives wane. No object, not even the
light of a solitary taper in the far distance, tempts the benight-
ed mind from before ; but its own restlessness dogs it from be-
hind, as with the iron goad of Destiny. What then is or can
be the preventive, the remedy, the counteraction, but the ha-
bituation of the intellect to clear, distinct, and adequate con-
ceptions concerning all things that are the possible objects of
clear conception, and thus to reserve the deep feelings which
belong, as by natural right to those obscure ideas* that are neces-
sary to the moral perfection of the human being, notwithstand-
ing, yea, even in consequence, of their obscurity — to reserve
these feelings, I repeat, for objects, which their very sublimity
renders indefinite, no less than their indefiniteness renders them
sublime : namely, to the Ideas of Being, Form, Life, the Rea-
son, the Law of Conscience, Freedom, Immortality, God ! To
connect with the objects of our senses the obscure notions and
consequent vivid feelings, which are due only to immaterial
and pennanent things, is profanation relatively to the heart,
* I have not expressed myself as clearly as I could wish. But the truth of
the assertion, that deep feeling has a tendency to combine with obscure ideas,
in preference to distinct and clear notions, may be proved by the history of
I'"'auatics and Fanaticism in all ages and countries. The odiuni theologicum
is even proverbial: and it is the common complaint of Philosophers and phi-
losophic Historians, that the passions of the disputants are commonly violent
in proportion to the subUety and obscurity of the questions in dispute. Nor
is this fact confined to professional theologians : for whole nations have dis-
played the same agitations, and have sacrificed national policy to the more
powerful interest of a controverted obscurity.
88
and superstition in the understanding. It is in this sense, that
the philosophic Apostle calls Covetousness Idolatry. Could we
emancipate ourselves from the bedimming influences of custom,
and the transforming witchcraft of early associations, we should
see as numerous tribes o( Fetish- Worshippers in the streets of
London and Paris, as we hear of on the coasts of Africa.
ESSAY XV,
A palace when 'tis that which it Bhoiild be
Leaves growing, aiul stands such, or else decays
With him who dwells there, 'tis not so : for he
Should still urge upward, and his fortune raise.
Our bodies had their morning, have their noon,
And shall not better — the next change is night ;
But their fair larger guest, t'whom sun and moon
Are spai-ks and short-lived, claims another right.
The noble soul by age grows lustier.
Her aj)petite and her digestion mend ;
We must not starve nor hope to pamper her
With woman's milk and pap unto the end.
Provide you manlier diet ! Donne.
I am fully aware, that what I am writing and have written
(in these latter Essays at least) will expose me to the censure
of some, as bewildering myself and readers with JMetaphysics ;
to the ridicule of others as a school-boy declaimer on old and
worn-out truisms or exploded fancies ; and to the objection of
most as obscure. The last real or supposed defect has already re-
ceived an answer both in the preceding Numbers, and in page
34 of the Appendix to the Author's First Lay-Sermon, entitled
/
89
the Statesman's Manual. Of the two former, I shall take
the present opportunity of declaring my sentiments : especially
as I have already received a hint that my " idol, Milton, has
represented Metaphysics as the subjects which the bad spirits
in hell delight in discussing." And truly, if I had exerted my /
subtlety and invention in persuading myself and others that we
are but living machines, and that (as one of the late followers
of Hobbes and Hartley has expressed the system) the assassin
and his dagger are equally fit objects of moral esteem and ab-
horrence ; or if with a writer of wider influence and higher
authority, I had reduced all virtue to a selfish prudence eked
out by superstition, (for assuredly, a creed which takes its cen-
tral point in conscious selfishness, whatever be the forms or
names that act on the selfish passion, a ghost or a constable, can
have but a distant relationship to that religion, which places its
essence in our loving our neighbor as ourselves, and God above
all) I know not, by what arguments I could repel the sarcasm.
But what are my metaphysics ? merely the referring of the
mind to its own consciousness for truths indispensable to its own
happiness ! To what purposes do I, or am I about to employ
them ? To perplex our clearest notions and living moral in-
stincts ? To deaden the feelings of will and free power, to
extinguish the light of love and conscience, to make myself
and others worthless, soul-less, God-less ? No ! to expose the
folly and the legerdemain of those who have thus abused the
blessed machine of language ; to support all old and vener-
able truths ; and by them to support, to kindle, to project the
spirit ; to make the reason spread light over our feelings, to
make our feelings, with their vital warmth, actualize our reason ;
— these are my objects, these are my subjects, and are these
the metaphysics which the bad spirits in hell delight in ?
But how shall I avert the scorn of those critics who laugh at
the oldness of my topics, Evil and Good, Necessity and Arbi-
trament, Immortality and the Ultimate Aim ? By what shall I
regain their favor ? My themes must be new, a French con-
stitution ; a balloon ; a change of ministry ; a fresh batch of
kings on the Continent, or of peers in our happier island ; or
who had the best of it of two parliamentary gladiators, and
whose speech, on the subject of Europe bleeding at a thousand
wounds, or our own country struggling for herself and all hu-
man nature, was cheered by the greatest number of laughs, loud
12
90
laughs, and very loud laughs ; ( which, carefully marked by
italics, form most conspicuous and strange parentheses in the
newspaper reports.) Or if I must be philosophical, the last
chemical discoveries, provided I do not trouble ray reader with
the principle which gives them their highest interest, and the
character of intellectual grandeur to the discoverer ; or the last
shower of stones, and that they were supposed, by certain phi-
losophers, to have been projected from some volcano in the
moon, taking care, however, not to add any of the cramp rea-
sons for this opinion ! Something new, however, it must be, •
quite new and quite out of themselves ! for whatever is within
them, whatever is deep within them, must be as old as the first
dawn of human reason. But to find no contradiction in the
union of old and new, to contemplate the ancient of days
with feelings as fresh, as if they then sprung forth at his own
fiat, this characterizes the minds that feel the riddle of the
world, and may help to unravel it! To carry on the feelings of
childhood into the powers of manhood, to combine the child's
sense of wonder and novelty with the appearances which every
day for perhaps forty years had rendered familiar,
With Sun and Moon and Stars throughout the year,
And Man and Woman- •
this is the cbaracter and privilege of genius, and one of the
marks which distinguish genius from talents. And so to pre-
sent familiar objects as to awaken the minds of others to a like
freshness of sensation concerning them (that constant accom-
paniment of mental, no less than of bodily, convalescence) — to
the same modest questioning of a self-discovered and intelli-
gent ignorance, which, like the deep and massy foundations of
a Roman bridge, forms half of the whole structure [prudens in-
terrogatio dimidium sciential, says Lord Bacon ) — this is the
prime merit of genius, and its most unequivocal mode of mani-
festation. Who has not, a thousand times, seen it snow upon
water ? who has not seen it with a new feeling, since he has
read Burns' comparison of sensual pleasure.
To snow that falls \\\wn a river,
A moment white — then jjone for ever!
o^
In philosophy equally, as in poetry, genius produces the
strongest impressions of novelty, while it rescues the stalest
91
and most admitted truths from the impotence caused by the
very circumstance of their universal admission. Extremes
meet — a proverb, by the bye, to collect and explain all the in-
stances and exemplifications of which, would constitute and ex-
haust all philosophy. Truths, of all others the most awful and
mysterious, yet being at the same time of universal interest,
are too often considered as so true that they lose all the powers
of truth, and lie bed-ridden in the dormitory of the soul, side
by side with the most despised and exploded errors.
But as the class of critics, whose contempt I have anticipa-
ted, commonly consider themselves as men of the world, in-
stead of hazarding additional sneers by appealing to the au-
thorities of recluse philosophers, ( for such in spite of all histo-
ry, the men who have distinguished themselves by profound
thought, are generally deemed, from Plato and Aristotle to
Tully, and from Bacon to Berkeley) I will refer them to the
Darlingyaf the polished Court of Augustus, to the man, whose
works hav& been in all ages deemed the models of good sense,
and are still the pocket-companion of those who pride them-
selves on uniting the scholar with the gentleman. This ac-
complished man of the world has given us an account of the
subjects of conversation between himself and the illustrious
statesman who governed, and the brightest luminaries who then
adorned the empire of the civilized world :
Semio oiilur non de villis domibusve almiis
JVec, nude, nee ne lepus saltet. Sed quod inagis ad nos
Pertinet, et nescire mcdum est, agUamus : idrumne
Divitm homines, an sint virtide becdi'?
Et quo sit natura boni ? summumqiie quid eius ? -
HoRAT. Serm. L. 11. Sat. 6. v. 78.*
Berkeley indeed asserts, and is supported in his assertion by
the great statesmen, Lord Bacon and Sir Walter Raleigh, that
without an habitual interest in these subjects, a man may be a
dexterous intriguer, but never can be a statesman. Would to
Heaven that the verdict to be passed on my labors depended
* (Literal Translation.) Conversation arises not concerning the country
Beats or families of strangers, nor wlicther the dancing hare performed well
or ill. But we discuss what more nearly concerns ue, and which it is an evil ^
not to know : whether men are made happy by riches or by \ irtue ? And hi
what consists the nature of good ? and whet is the ultimate or suj remo ? (i. e.
the Sumnmm Bomtm.)
I
\
93
on those who least needed them ! The water lilly in the midst
of waters lifts up its broad leaves, and expands its petals at the
first pattering of the shower, and rejoices in the rain with a
quicker sympathy, than the parched shrub in the sandy desart.
God created man in his own image. To be the image of his
own eternity created he man ! Of eternity and self-existence
what other likeness is possible in a finite being, but immortali-
ty and moral self-determination ! In addition to sensation, per-
ception, and practical judgment (instinctive or acquirable)
concerning the notices furnished by the organs of perception,
all which in kind at least, the dog possesses in common with
his master ; in addition to these, God gave us reason, and
with reason he gave us reflective self-consciousness ; gave
us PRINCIPLES, distinguished from the maxims and generaliza-
tions of outward experience by their absolute and essential
universality and necessity ; and above all, by superadding to
reason the mysterious faculty of free-will and consequent per-
sonal amenability, he gave us conscience — that law of con-
science, which in the power, and as the indwelling word, of
an holy and omnipotent legislator commands us — from among
the numerous ideas mathematical and philosophical, which the
reason by the necessity of its own excellence creates for itself,
unconditionally commands us to attribute reality, and actual ex-
istencCy to those ideas and to those only, without which the con-
science itself would be baseless and contradictory, to the ideas
of Soul, of Free-will, of Immortality, and of God !
To God, as the reality of the conscience and the source of
all obligation ; to Free-will, as the power of the human being
to maintain the ob^L-L'Jti^ce, which God through the conscience
has commanded, against all the might of nature ; and to the
Immortality of the Soul, as a state in which the weal and woe
of man shall be proportioned to his moral worth.
With this faith all nature,
■ all the mighty world
Of eye and ear-
presents itself to us, now as the aggregated material of duty,
and now as a vision of the Most High revealing to us the mode,
and time, and particular instance of applying and realizing that
universal rule, pre-established in the heart of our reason !
" The displeasure of some Readers may, perhaps, be incur-
93
red by my having surprized them into certain reflections and
inquiries, for which they have no curiosity. But perhaps some
others may be pleased to find themselves carried into ancient
times, even though they should consider the hoary maxims, de-
fended in these Essays, barely as Hints to awaken and exer-
cise the inquisitive Reader, on points not beneath the atten-
tion of the ablest men. Those great men, Pythagoras, Plato,
and Aristotle, men the most consummate in politics, who found-
ed states, or instructed princes, or wrote most accurately on
public government, were at the same time the most acute at
all abstracted and sublime speculations : the clearest Hght being
ever necessary to guide the most important actions. And what-
ever the world may opine^ he who hath not much meditated up^
on God^ the Human Mind, and the Summum Bonum, may pos-
sibly make a thriving Earth-worm, but will most indubitably
make a blundering Patriot and a sorry statesman.''^
SiRis, § 350.
ESSAY XVI.
Blind is that soul wliicli from this truth can swerve,
No state stands sure, but on the grounds of right,
Of virtue, knowledge ; judgment to presei-ve,
And all the powers of learning requisite !
Though other shifts a present turn may serve,
Yet in the trial they will weigh too light.
Daniel.
I earnestly entreat the reader not to be dissatisfied eithei
with himself or with the author, if he should not at once under-
stand every part of the preceding Number ; but rather to con-
sider it as a mere annunciation of a magnificent theme, the dif-
ferent parts of which are to be demonstrated and developed,
explained, illustrated, and exemplified in the progress of the
94
work. I likewise entreat him to peruse with attention and with
candor, the weighty extract from the judicious Hooker, prefix-
ed as the motto to a following Number of the Friend. In works
of reasoning, as distinguished from narration of events or state-
ments of facts ; but more particularly in works, the object of
which is to make us better acquainted with our own nature, a
writer, whose meaning is every where comprehended as quick-
ly as his sentences can be read, may indeed have produced an
amusing composition, nay, by awakening and re-enlivening our
recollections, a useful one ; but most assuredly he will not have
added either to the stock of our knowledge, or to the vigor of
our intellect. For how can we gather strength, but by exercise }
JHow can a truth, new to us, be made our own without examin-
ation and self-questioning — any new truth, I mean, that relates
to the properties of the mind, and its various faculties and af-
fections ! But whatever demands effort, requires time. Igno-
rance seldom vaults into knowledge, but passes into it through
an intermediate state of obscurity, even as night into day
through twilight. All speculative Truths begin with a Postu-
late, even the Truths of Geometry. They all suppose an act
of the Will ; for in the moral being lies the source of the intel-
lectual. The first step to knowledge, or rather the previous
condition of all insight into truth, is to dare commune with our
very and permanent self. It is Warburton's remark, not the
Friend's, that " of all literary exercitations, whether designed
for the use or entertainment of the world, there are none of so
much importance, or so. immediately our concern, as those which
let us into the knowledge of our own nature. Others may ex-
ercise the understanding or amuse the imagination ; but these
only can improve the heart and form the human mind to wis-
dom."
The recluse Hermit oft'times more doth know
Of the woild's inmost wheels, than worldlings can.
As Man is of the World, the Heart of Man
Is an Epitome of God's great Book
Of Creatures, and Men need no further look.
Donne.
The higher a man's station, the more arduous and full of peril
his duties, the more comprehensive should his Foresight be,
the more rooted his tranquillity concerning Life and Death. But
these are gifts which no experience can bestow, but the ex-
95
perience from within : and there is a nobleness of the whole
personal being, to which the contemplation of all events and
phsenomena in the Light of the three Master Ideas, announced
in the foregoing pages, can alone elevate the spirit. Anima
sapiens^ (says Giordano Bruno, and let the sublime piety of the
passage excuse some intermixture of error, or rather let the
words, as they well may, be interpreted in a safe sense) Anima
sapiens non timet mortem^ immo interdum illam ultro appetite
illi ultro occurrit. Manet quippe substantiam omnem pro Du-
ratione Eternitas, pro Loco Immensitas, pro Actu Omniformi-
tas. Non levem igitur acfutilem, atqui gr avis simam p erf ecto-
que Homine dignissimam Contemplationis Partem persequimur
uhi divinitatiSj naturceque splendorem, fusionem, et communi-
cationem, non in Cibo, Potu, et ignobiliore quadam materia
cum attonitorum seculo perquirimus ; sed in augustd Omnipo-
tentis Regia^ immenso cetheris spacio, in injinita naturce gemi-
ncB omnia fientis et omnia facientis potentia, unde tot astrorumy
mundorum inquam et numinum, uni altissimo concinentium at-
que saltantium absque numero atquefine juxta propositos ubique
fines atque ordines^ contemplamur. Sic ex visibilium cBterno^
immenso et innumerabili ejfectu, sempiterna immensa ilia Ma-
jestas atque bonitas intellecta conspicitur, proque sua dignitate
innumerabilium Deorum (mundorum. dico) adsistentia^ conci-
nentia, et gloria, ipsius enarratione, immo ad occulos expressa
condone glorificatur. Cui Immenso mensum non quadrabit
Domicilium atque Temjjlum — ad cujus majestatis plenitudinem
a^noscendam atque percoleiidam, numerabilium ministorum
nullus esset ordo. Eia igitur ad omniformis Dei omniformem
Imaginem conjectemus oculos, vivum et magnum illius admire-
mar simulacrum ! — Hinc miraculum magnum a Trismegisto
appellabatur Homo, qui in Deum transeat quasi ipse sit Deus
qui conatur omnia fieri sicut Deus est omnia ; ad objectum sine
fine, ubique tamem finiendo, contendit, sicut infinitus est Deus
immensus, ubique totus.*
* Tmnslation. — A wise spirit does not fear death, nay, sometimes, [as in ca-
ses of voluntary martyrdom) seeks and goes forth to meet it, of its own accord.
For there awaits all actual beings, for duration and eternity, for place immen-
sity, for action onmiformity. We pursue, therefore a species of contemplation
not light or futile, but the weightiest and most worth j' of an accomplished
man, while we examine and seek for the splendor, the interfusion, and com-
munication of the Divinity and of Nature, not in meats or drink, or in any yet
96
If this be regarded as the fancies of an enthusiast, by such as
deem themselves most' free,
When they within this gross and visable sphere
Chain down the winged soul, scoffing ascent.
Proud in then- meanness,
by such as pronounce every man out of his senses who has not
lost his reason; even such men may find some weight in the
historical fact tliat from persons, who had previously strength-
ened their intellects and feelings by the contemplation of Prin-
ciples — Principles, the actions correspondent to which involve
one half of their consequences, by their ennobling influence on
the agent's own soul, and have omnipotence, as the pledge for
the remainder — we have derived the surest and most general
maxims of prudence. Of high value are they all. Yet there
is one among them Avorth all the rest, which in the fullest and
primary sense of the word, is indeed, the Maxim^ (i. e. the
Maximum) of human Prudence ; and of which History itself in
all that makes it most worth studying, is one continued comment
and exemplification. It is this : that there is a Wisdom higher
ignohlor matter, with tlie race of the thunder-stricken ; but in the august palace
of the Omnipotent, in the illimitable etherial space, in the infinite power,
that creates all things, and is the abiding being of all things.
There we may contemplate the Host of Stars, of Worlds and their guardi-
an Deities, numbers without number, each in its appointed sphere, singing
together, and dancing in adoration of the One Most High. Thus from the
perpetual, immense, and innumerable goings on of the visible world, that sem-
piternal and absolntply infinite Majesty is intellectually beheld, and is glorifi-
ed according to his gloiy, by the attendance and choral synii)honies of innu-
merable gods, who utter forth the glory of their ineffable Creator in the ex-
pressive language of Vision ! To him illimitable, a limited temple will not
correspond — to the acknowledgement and due worship of the Plentitude of
his Majesty there would be no ])roportion in any niunerable army of minis-
trant spirits. Let us then cast our eyes upon the omniform image of the At-
tributes of the all-creating Sufweme, nor admit any rejiresentation of his Ex-
cellency but the living Universe, which he has created! — Thence Was man
entitled by Trismegistus, "the gn at INliraclc, "inasmuch as he has been made
capable of entering into imion with God, as if he were himself a divine na-
tm"e ; tries to become all things, even as in God all things are; and in limitless
progression of limited Statis of Being, urges onward to the ultimate aim, even
as God is sinniltaneously infinite, and every where All!
In the last volume of the work, announced and its nature and objects ex-
plained, at the dose of the present, 1 purpose, to give an account of the life of
Giordano Bruno, the friend of Sir Philip Sidney, who was bunit under jho-
97
than Prudence, to which Prudence stands in the same relation
as the Mason and Carpenter to the genial and scientific Archi-
tect : and from the habits of thinking and feeling, that in this
Wisdom had their first formation, our Nelsons and Wellingtons
inherit that glorious hardihood, which completes the under-
taking, ere the contemptuous calculator (who has left nothing
omitted in his scheme of probabilities, except the might of the
human mind) has finished his pretended proof of its impossi-
bility. You look to Facts and profess to take Experience for
your guide. Well ! I too appeal to Experience : and let Facts
be the ordeal of my position! Therefore, although I have in
this and the preceding Numbers quoted more frequently and
copiously than I shall permit myself to do in future, I owe it to
the cause I am pleading, not to deny myself the gratification of
supporting this connection of practical heroism with previous
habits of philosophic thought, by a singularly appropriate pas-
sage from an author whose works can be called rare only from
their being, I fear, rarely read, however commonly talked of.
It is the instance of Xenophon as stated by Lord Bacon, who
would himself furnish an equal instance, if there could be found
an equal commentator.
" It is of Xenophon the Philosopher, who went from Socra-
tes's School into Asia, in the expedition of Cyrus the younger,
against King Artaxerxes. This Xenophon, at that time, was
very young, and never had seen the wars before ; neither had
any command in the army, but only followed the war as a vol-
unteer, for the love and conversation of Proxenus, his friend.
He was present when Falinus came in message from the king
tence of Atheism, at Rome, in the year IGOO; and of hig works, which are
perhaps the scarcest books ever printed. They are singularly interesting as
portraits of a vigorous mind struggling after truth, amid inany prejudices,
which from the state of the Roman Cliurch, in which he was born, have a
claim to much indulgence. One of them (entitled Ember Week) is curious
for its hvelyaccounts of the rude state of London, at that time, both as to the
streets and the manners of the citizens. The most industrious Historians of
speculative Philosophy, have not been able to procure more than a few of
his works. Accidentally I have been more fortunate in this respect, than
those who have written hitherto on the unhappy Philosopher of JVola : as out
of eleven works, the titles of which are preserved to us, I have had an op-
portunity of perusing six. I was told, when in Germany, that there is a com-
plete collection of them in the Royal Libraiy at Copenhagen. If so, it ia
unique.
13
98
to the Grecians, after that Cyrus was slain in the Field, and
they, a handful of men, left to themselves in the midst of the
King's territories, cut off from their country by many navigable
rivers, and many hundred miles. The message imported, that
they should deliver up their arms and submit themselves to the
King's mercy. To v*'hich message, before answer was made, di-
vers of the army conferred familiarly with Falinus, and amongst
the rest Xenophon happened to say: Why, Falinus! we have
now but two things left, our arras and our virtue ; and if we
yield up our arms, how shall we make use of our virtue ? Where-
to Falinus, smiling on him, said, 'If I be not deceived. Young
Gentleman, you are an Athenian, and I believe, you study
Philosophy, and it is pretty that you say ; but you are much
abused, if you think your virtue can withstand the King's pow-
er.' Here was the scorn : the wonder followed — which was,
that this young Scholar or Philosopher, after all the Captains
were murdered in parly, by treason, conducted those ten thou-
sand foot through the heart of all the King's high countries from
Babylon to Grecia, in safety, in despight of all the King's forces,
to the astonishment of the world, and the encouragement of the
Grecians, in times succeeding, to make invasion upon the kings
of Persia ; as was after purposed by Jason the Thessalian, at-
tempted by Agesilaus the Spartan, and achieved by Alexander
the Macedonian, all upon the ground of the act of that young
Scholar.'*^
Often have I reflected with awe on the great and dispropor-
tionate power, which an individual of no extraordinary talents
or attainments may exert, by merely throwing off all restraint
of conscience. What then must not be the power, where an
individual, of consummate wickedness, can organize into the
unity and rapidity of an individual will all the natural and arti-
ficial forces of a populous and wicked nation ? And could we
bring within the field of imagination, the devastation eflTected
in the moral world, by the violent removal of old customs, fa-
miliar sympathies, willing reverences, and habits of subordina-
tion almost naturalized into instinct; of the mild influences of
reputation, and the other ordinary props and aidances of our
infirm virtue, or at least, if virtue be too high a name, of our
well-doing; and above all, if we could give form and body
to all the effects produced on the principles and dispositions of
nations by the infectious feelings of insecurity, and the soul-
sickening sense of unsteadiness in the whole edifice of civil
99
society ; the horrors of battle, though tlie miseries of a whole
war were brought together before our eyes in one disastrous field,
would present but a tame tragedy in comparison. Nay, it would
even present a sight of comfoit and of elevation, if this field
of carnage were the sign and result of a national resolve, of a
general will, so to die, that neither deluge nor fire should take
away the name of Country from their graves, rather than to
tread the same clods of earth, no longer a country, and them-
selves alive in nature, but dead in infamy. What is Greece at
this present moment ? It is the country of the Heroes from
Codrus to Philopaemen ; and so it w^ould be, though all the sands
of Africa should cover its corn fields and olive gardens, and
not a flower were left on Hymettus for a bee to murmur in.
If then the power wdth which wickedness can invest the hu-
man being be thus tremendous, greatl}^ does it behove us to
enquire into its source and causes. So doing we shall quickly
discover that it is not vice, as vice, which is thus mighty ; but
systematic vice! Vice self-consistent and entire; crime corres-
ponding to crime ; villainy entrenched and barricadoed by vil-
lainy ; this is the condition and main constituent of its power.
The abandonment of all principle of right enables the soul to
choose and act upon a principle of wrong, and to subordinate to
this one principle all the various vices of human nature. For
it is a mournful truth, that as devastation is incomparably an
easier w'ork than production, so may all its means and instru-
ments be more easily arranged into a scheme and system. Even
as in a seige every building and garden, which the faithful go-
vernor must destroy, as impeding the defensive means of the
garrison, or furnishing means of offence to the besieger, occa-
sions a wound in feelings which virtue herself has fostered :
and virtue, because it is virtue, loses perforce part of her ener-
gy in the reluctance with which she proceeds to a business so
repugnant to her wishes, as a choice of evils. But He, who
has once said with his whole heart. Evil, be thou my Good ! has
removed a world of obstacles by the very decision, that he will
have no obstacles but those of force and brute matter. The
road of Justice
" Curves round the coni-fickl and the hill of vines
"Honoring the holy bounds of property!
But the path of the lightning is straight : and straight the fear-
ful path
100
"Of the cannon-ball. Direct it flies and rajjid
" Shatt'ring tiiatit wiai/ reacli, and shatt'ring what it reaches."*
Happily for mankind, however, the obstacles which a consist-
ently evil mind no longer finds in itself, it finds in its own un-
suitableness to human nature. A limit is fixed to its power:
but within that limit, both as to the extent and duration of its
influence, there is little hope of checking its career, if giant
and united vices are opposed only by mixed and scattered vir-
tues : and those too, probably, from the want of some combining
Principle, which assigns to each its due place and rank, at
civil war with themselves, or at best perplexing and counteract-
ing each other. In our late agony of glory and of peril, did we
not too often hear even good men declaiming on the horrors and
crimes of war, and softening or staggering the minds of their
brethren by details of individual wretchedness ? Thus under
pretence of avoiding blood, they were withdrawing the will
from the defence of the very source of those blessings without
which the blood would flow idly in our veins ! thus lest a few
should fall on the bulwarks in glory, they were preparing us to
give up the whole state to baseness, and the children of free
ancestors to become slaves, and the fathers of slaves !
Machiavelli has well observed, " Sono di tre generazione Cer-
velli : Puno intende per se ; Valtro intende quanto da altri gli
e mostro ; il terzo non intende ne per se stesso neper demostra-
zione d^altri.''^ " There are brains of three races. The one
understands of itself; the second understands as much as is
shewn it by others ; the third neither understands of itself nor
w^hat is shewn it by others." I should have no hesitation in
placing that man in the third Class of Brains, for whom the
History of the last twenty years has not supplied a copious
comment on the preceding Text. The widest maxims of pru-
dence are like arms without hearts, disjoined from those feelings
which flow forth from princijile as from a fountain. So little
*Wallenstein, from Schiller, by S. T. Coleridge. I return my thanks to
the unknown Author of Waverly, Guy Mannering, &c., for having (juoted
tliis free Translation from Schiller's best ;and therefore most neglected) Drama
with applause : and am not ashamed to avow, that I have derived a peculiar
gratification, that the first men of our age have united in giving no ordinary
praise to a work, which our anonymous critics were equally unanimous in
abusing as below all criticism : though they charitably added, that the fault
was, doubtless, chiefly if not wholly, in the Translator's dullness and inca-
pacity.
101
are even the genuine maxims of expedience likely to be per-
ceived or acted upon by those who have been habituated to ad-
mit nothing higher than expedience, that I dare hazard the as-
sertion, that in the whole Chapter-of-Contents of European
Ruin, every article might be unanswerably deduced from the
neglect of some maxim that had been repeatedly laid down,
demonstrated, and enforced with a host of illustrations, in some
one or other of the works of Machiavelli, Bacon, or Harring-
ton.* Indeed I can remember no one event of importance
which was not distinctly foretold, and this not by a lucky prize
drawn among a thousand blanks out of the lottery wheel of con-
jecture, but legitimately deduced as certain consequences from
established premises. It would be a melancholy, but a very
profitable employment, for some vigorous mind, intimately ac-
quainted with the recent history of Europe, to collect the
weightiest Aphorisms of Machiavelli alone, and illustrating by
appropriate facts the breach or observation of each, to render
less mysterious the present triumph of lawless violence. The
apt motto to such a work would be, — " The Children of Dark-
ness are wiser in their Generation than the Children of Light."
So grievously, indeed, have men been deceived by the showy
mock theories of unlearned mock thinkers, that there seems a
tendency in the public mind to shun all thought, and to expect
help from any quarter rather than from seriousness and reflec-
tion : as if some invisible power would think for us, when we
gave up the pretence of thinking for ourselves. But in the
first place, did those, who opposed the theories of invocators, |
conduct their untheoretic opposition with more wisdom or to a/
happier result ? And secondly, are societies now constructed
on principles so few and so simple, that we could, even if we
wished it, act as it were by instinct, like our distant Forefa-
thers in the infancy of States ? Doubtless, to act is nobler than
to think : but as the old man doth not become a child by means
of his second childishness, as little can a nation exempt itself
from the necessity of thinking, which has once learnt to think.
Miserable was the delusion of the late mad Realizer of mad
Dreams, in his belief that he should ultimately succeed in trans-
forming the nations of Europe into the unreasoning hordes of a
Babylonian or Tartar Empire, or even in reducing the age to
the simplicity, (so desirable for tyrants) of those times, when
* See The Statesman's Manual : a Lay Sermon by the Author.
102
the sword and the plough were the sole implements of human
skill. Those are epochs in the history of a people which hav-
ing been can never more recur. Extirpate all civilization and
all its arts by the sword, trample down all ancient Institutions,
Rights, Distinctions, and Privileges, drag us backward to our
old Barbarism, as beasts to the den of Cacus — deemed you that
thus you could re-create the unexamining and boisterous youth
of the world when the sole questions were — "What is to be
conquered ? and who is the most famous leader !"
In an age in which artificial knowledge is received almost
at the birth, intellect, and thought alone can be our upholder
and judge. Let the importance of this Truth procure pardon
for its repetition. Only by means of seriousness and medita-
tion and the free infliction of censure in the spirit of love, can
the true philanthropist of the present time, curb-in himself and
his contemporaries ; only by these can he aid in preventing the
evils which threaten us, not from the terrors of an enemy so
much as from our fears of our own thoughts, and our aversion
to all the toils of reflection ? For all must now be taught in
sport — Science, Morality, yea. Religion itself. And yet few
now sport from the actual impulse of a believing fancy and in
a happy delusion. Of the most influensive class, at least, of
our literary guides, (the anonymous authors of our periodical
publications) the most part assume this character from cowar-
dice or malice, till having begun with studied ignorance and a
premeditated levity, they at length realize the lie, and end in-
deed in a pitiable destitution of all intellectual power.
To many I shall appear to speak insolently, because the
PUBLIC, (for that is the phrase which has succeeded to " The
Town," of the wits of the reign of Charles the Second) — the
public is at present accustomed to find itself appealed to as the
infallible Judge, and each reader complimented with excellen-
cies, which if he really possessed, to what purpose is he a
reader, unless, perhaps, to remind himself of his own superiori-
ty ! I confess that I think widely difl"erent. 1 have not a deep-
er conviction on earth, than that the principles both of Taste,
Morals, and Religion, which are taught in the commonest books
of recent composition, are false, injurious, and debasing. If
these sentiments should be just, the consequences must be so
important, that every well-educated man, who professes them
in sincerity, deserves a patient hearing. He may fairly appeal
103
even to those whose persuasions are most opposed to his own,
in the words of the Philosopher of Nola : " Ad ist hocc qiiceso
vos, qvaliaciinquc primo videantur aspectu^ adtendite, ut qui
vohisforsan insanire videar, saltern quihus insaniamrationihus
cognoscatis.^'' What I feel deeply, freely will I utter. Truth
is not detraction ; and assuredly we do not hate him, to whom
we tell the Truth. But with whomsoever we play the deceiv-
er and flatterer, him at the hottom we despise. We are, in
deed, under a necessity to conceive a vileness in him, in or-
der to diminish the sense of the wrong we have committed, by
the worthlessness of the object.
Through no excess of confidence in the strength of my tal-
ents, but with the deepest assurance of the justice of my cause,
I bid deiiance to all the flatterers of the folly and foolish self-
opinion of the half-instructed Many ; to all who fill the air with
festal explosions and false fires sent up against the lightnings
of Heaven, in order that the people may neither distinguish
the warning Flash nor hear the threatening thunder ! How re-
cently did we stand alone in the word .'' And though the one
storm has blown over, another may even now be gathering :
or haply the hollow murmur of the Earthquake within the
Bowels of our own Commonweal may strike a direr terror than
ever did the Tempest of foreign Warfare. Therefore, though
the first quatrain is no longer applicable, yet the moral truth
and the sublime exhortation of the following Sonnet can never
be superannuated. With it I conclude this Number, thanking
Heaven ! that I have communed with, honored, and loved its
wise and high-minded author. To know that such men are
among us, is of itself an antidote against despondence.
Another year ! — another deadly blow !
Another mighty Emj)iro overthrown!
And we are left, or shall be left, alone ;
The last that dares to strnggle with the Foe.
'Tis well ! from this day forward we shall know ' ^ •
That in ourselves our safety must be sought;
That by our own right hands it must be wrought;
That we must stand unpropt or be laid low.
O Dastard! whom such foretaste doth not cheer!
We shall exult, if They, who rule the land,
Be Men who hold its many blessings dear,
Wise, upright, vahant ; not a venal Band,
Who are to judge of danger which they fear,
And honour, which they do not understand. Wordsworth.
THE
L.ANDINCJ-PL.ACE:
OR
ESSAYS
INTERPOSED
FOR AMUSEMENT, RETROSPECT,
AND
PREPARATION.
MISCELLANY THE FIRST.
Etiairi a mtisis si qimndo aninuun paulisper abducanius, apud Musas nihil-
ominus feriamur : at reclines quideiri, at otioeas, at de his et illis inter se li-
bere colloquentee.
w
14
ESSAY r.
O blessed Letters ! that combine iii one
All ages past, and make one live with all :
By you we do confer with who are gone
And the Dead-living unto Council call!
By you the Unborn shall have communion
Of what we feel and what doth us befall.
Since Writings are the Veins, the Arteries,
And undecaying Life-strings of those Hearts,
That still shall pant and still shall exercise
Their mightiest powers when Nature none imparts:
And the strong constitution of their Praise
Wear out the infection of distemper'd days.
Daniel's Musophilus.
The Intelligence, which produces or controls human actions
and occurrences, is often represented by the Mystics under the
name and notion of the supreme Harmonist. I do not myself
approve of these metaphors: they seem to imply a restlessness
to understand that which is not among the appointed objects of
our comprehension or discursive faculty. But certainly there
is one excellence in good music, to which, without mysticism, .'
we may find or make an analogy in the records of History. I
allude to that sense of recognition^ which accompanies our
sense of novelty in the most original passages of a great com-
poser. If we listen to a Symphony of Cimarosa, the present
strain still seems not only to recal, l)ut almost to renew^ some past
movement, another and yet the same ! Each present movement
bringing back, as it were, and embodying the spirit of some
lijelody that had gone before, anticipates and seems trying to
overtake something that is to come : and the musician has
reached the summit of his art, when having thus modified the
y.
108
Present by the Past, he at the same time weds the Past in the
Present to some prepared and corresponsive Future. The audi-
tor's thoughts and feelings move under the same influence : re-
trospection blends with anticipation, and Hope and Memory (a
female Janus) become one power with a double aspect. A simi-
lar effect the reader may produce for himself in the pages of His-
ory, if he will be content to substitute an intellectual compla-
cency for pleasurable sensation. /-The events and characters of
one age, like the strains in music, recal those of another, and
the variety by which each is individualized, not only gives a
charm and poignancy to the resemblance, but likewise renders
the whole more intelligible J Meantime ample room is afforded
for the exercise both of the judgment and the fancy, in distin-
guishing cases of real resemblance from those of intentional
imitation, the analogies of nature, revolving upon herself, from
the masquerade figures of cunning and vanity.
It is not from identity of opinions, or from similarity of events
and outward actions, that a real resemblance in the radical char-
acter can be deduced. fOn the contrary, men of great and stir-
ring powers, who are destined to mould the age in which they
are born, must first mould themselves upon it,^ Mahomet born
twelve centuries later, and in the heart of Europe, would not
have been a false Prophet ; nor would a false Prophet of the
present generation have been a Mahomet in the sixth century.
I have myself, therefore, derived the deepest interest from the
comparison of men, whose characters at the first view appear
widely dissimilar, who yet have produced similar eff'ects on
their different ages, and this by the exertion of powers which
on examination will be found far more alike, than the altered
drapery and costume would have led us to suspect. Of the
heirs of fame few are more respected by me, though for very
different qualities, than Erasipus and Luther : scarcely any one
has a larger share of my aversion than Voltaire ; and even of
the better-hearted Rousseau I was never more than a very
lukewarm admirer. I should perhaps too rudely affront the
general opinion, if I avowed my whole creed concerning the
proportions of real talent between the two purifiers of revealed
Religion, now neglected as obsolete, and the two modern con-
spirators against its authority, who are still the Alpha and Ome-
ga of Continental Genius. Yet when I abstract the questions of
evil and good, and measure only the effects produced and the
109
mode of producing them, I have repeatedly found the idea of
Voltaire, Rosseau, and Robespierre, recal in a similar cluster
and connection that of Erasmus, Luther, and Munster.
Those who are familiar with the works of Emsmu s, and who
know the influence of his wit, as the pioneer of the reformation ;
and who likewise know, that by his wit, added to the vast va-
riety of knowledge communicated in his works, he had won
over by anticipation so large a part of the polite and lettered
world to the Protestant party ; will be at no loss in discovering
the intended counterpart in the life and writings of the veteran
Frenchman, t^^hey will see, indeed, that the knowledge of
the one was solid through its whole extent, and that of the
other extensive at a cheap rate, by its superficiality ; that the
wit of the one is always bottomed on sound sense, peoples and
enriches the mind of the reader with an endless variety of
distinct images and living interests : and that his broadest
laughter is every where translatable into grave and weighty
truth; while the wit of the Frenchman, without imagery, with-
out character, and without that pathos which gives the magic
charm to genuine humor, consists, when it is most perfect, in
happy turns of phrase, but far too often in fantastic incidents,
outrages of the pure imagination, and the poor low trick of
combining the ridiculous with the venerable, where he, who
does not laugh, abhorSy Neither will they have forgotten, that
the object of the one was to drive the thieves and mummers
out of the temple, while the other was propelling a worse
banditti, first to profane and pillage, and ultimately to raze it.
Yet not the less will they perceive, that the effects remain par-
allel, the circumstances analagous, and the instruments the
same. In each case the effects extended over Europe, were at-
tested and augmented by the praise and patronage of thrones
and dignities, and are not to be explained but by extraordinary
industry and a life of literature ; in both instances the circum-
stances were supplied by an age of hopes and promises — the
age of Erasmus restless from the first vernal influences of real
knowledge, that of Voltaire from the hectic of imagined supe-
riority. In the voluminous works of both, the instruments em-
ployed are chiefly those of v/it and amusive erudition, and alike
in both the errors and evils (real or imputed) in Religion and
Politics are the objects of the battery. And here we must
stop. The two Men were essentially different. Exchange
no
mutually their dates and spheres of action, yet Voltaire, had he
been ten-fold a Voltaire, could not have made up an Erasmus ;
and Erasmus must have emptied himself of half his greatness and
all his goodness, to have become a Voltaire.
Shall we succeed better or worse with the next pair, in this
our new dance of death, or rather of the shadows which we
have brought forth — two by two — from the historic ark ? In
our first couple we have at least secured an honorable retreat,
and though we failed as to the agents, we have maintained a
fair analogy in the actions and the objects. Byt the heroic
Luther, a Giant awaking in his strength ! and the crazy
Rousseau, the Dreamer of love-sick Tales, and the spinner
of speculative Cobwebs; shy of light as the Mole, but as quick-
eared too for every whisper of the public opinion ; the Teacher
of stoic Pride in his principles, yet the victim of morbid Vani-
ty in his feelings and conduct. From what point of likeness
can we commence the comparison between a Luther and a
Rousseau? And truly had 1 been seeking for characters that,
taken as they really existed, closely resemble each other, and
this too to our first apprehensions, and according to the com-
mon rules of biographical comparison, I could scarcely have
made a more unlucky choice : unless I had desired that my
parallel of the German " Son of Thunder" and the Visionary of
Geneva, should sit on the same bench with honest Fluellin's
of Alexander the Great and Harry of Monmouth. Still, how-
ever, the same analogy would hold as in m}- former instance :
the effects produced on their several ages by Luther and Rous-
seau, were commensurate with each other, and were produced
in both cases by (what their contemporaries felt as) serious
and vehement eloquence, and an elevated (one of moral feel-
ing : and Luther, not less than Rousseau, was actuated by an
almost superstitious hatred of superstition, and a turbulent pre-
judice against prejudices. In the relation too which their wri-
tings severally bore to those of Erasmus and Voltaire, and the
way in which the latter co-operated with them to the same
general end, each finding its own class of admirers and Prose-
lytes, the parallel is complete.
I cannot, however, rest here ! Spite of the apparent incon-
gruities, I am disposed to plead for a resemblance in the Men
themselves, for that similarity in their radical natures, which
I abandoned all pretence and desire of shewing in the instances
'^
in
of Voltaire and Erasmus. But then my readers must think of
Luther not as he really was, hut as he might have been, if he
had been born in the age and under the circumstances of the
Swiss Philosopher. For this purpose I must strip him of many
advantages which he derived from his own times, and must
contemplate him in his natural weaknesses as well as in his
original strength. Each referred all things to his own ideal.
The ideal was indeed widely different in the one and in the
other : and this was not the least of Luther's many advantages,
or (to use a favorite phrase of his own) not one of his least
favors of preventing grace. Happily for him he had derived
his standard from a common measure already received by the
good and wise : I mean the inspired writings, the study of
which Erasmus had previously restored among the learned.
To know that we are in sympathy with others, moderates our
feelings, as well as strengthens our convictions : and for the
mind, which opposes itself to the faith of the multitude, it is
more especially desirable, that there should exist an object out
of itself, on which it may fix its attention, and thus balance its
own energies.
Rousseau, on the contrary in the inauspicious spirit of his age
and birth-place,* had slipped the cable of his faith, and steer-
ed by the compass of unaided reason, ignorant of the hidden
currents that were bearing him out of his course, and too proud
to consult the faithful charts prized and held sacred by his
forefathers. But the strange influences of his bodily tempera-
ment on his understanding ; his constitutional melancholy pam-
pered into a morbid excess by solitude ; his wild dreams of
suspicion ; his hypochondriacal fancies of hosts of conspirators
all leagued against him and his cause, and headed by some
arch-enemy, to whose machinations he attributed every trifling
mishap, (all as much the creatures of his imagination, as if in-
stead of Men he had conceived them to be infernal Spirits and
Beings preternatural) — these, or at least the predisposition to
them, existed in the ground-work of his nature : they were
* Infidelity was so common in Geneva about that time, that Voltaire in one
of his Letters exults, that in this, Calvin's own City, some half dozen on-
ly of the most ignorant believed in Christianity under any form. This was,
no doubt, one of Voltaire's usual lies of exaggeration : it is not however to
be denied, that here, and throughout Switzerland, he and the dark Master in
whose service he employed himself, had ample grounds of triumph.
112
parts of Rousseau himself. And what corresponding in kind
to these, not to speak of degree, can we detect in the character
of his supposed parallel ? This difficulty will suggest itself at
the first thought, to those who derive all their knowledge of
Luther from the meagre biography met with in " The Lives of
eminent Reformers," or even from the ecclesiastical Histories
of Mosheim or Milner : for a life of Luther, in extent and style
of execution proportioned to the grandeur and interest of the
subject, a Life of the Man Luther, as well as of Luther the
Theologian, is still a desideratum in English Literature, though
perhaps there is no subject for which so many unused materi-
als are extant, both printed and in manuscript.*
*Tlie affectionate respect in which I hold the name of Dr. Joitin (one of
the many iUustrious Nurslings of the College to which I deem it no small
honor to have belonged — Jesus, Cambridge) renders it painful to me to assert,
that the above remark holds almost equally true of a Life of Erasmus. But
every Scholai* well read in the writings of Erasmus and his illustrious Con-
temporaries, must have discovered, that Jortin had neither collected sufficient,
nor the best, materials for his work : and (jjerhaps from that very cause) he
grew weary of his task, before he had made a fidl use of the scanty materi-
als which ho had collected.
ESSAY II.
Is it, I ask, most itnportant to the best interests of Mankind, temporal aa
Avell as spiritual, tliat certain Works, the names and number of which are
fixed and unalterable, should be distinguished from all other Works, not
in a degree only but even in kind'} And that these, collectively should form
THE Book, to which in all the concerns of Faith and Morality the last re-
course is to be made, antl from the decisions of which no man dare appeal?
If the mere existence of a Book so called and charactered be, as the Koran
itself suffices to evince, a mighty Bond of Union, among nations whom all
other causes tend to separate ; if moreover the Book revered by us and our
forefathers has been the Foster-nurse of Learning in the darkest, and of
Civilization in the rudest, times; and lastly, if this so vast and wide a Bless-
ing is not to be founded in a Delusion, and doomed therefore to the Im-
permanence and Scorn in which sooner or later all delusions must end ;
how, I pray you, is it conceivable that this should be brought about and se-
cured, otherwise than by a special vouchsafement to this one Book, exclu-
sively, of that Divine Mean, that uniform and perfect middle ivay, which in all
points is at safe and equal distance from all errors whether of excess or de-
fect ? But again if this be true, (and what Protestant christian worthy of his
baptismal dedication will deny its truth) surely we ought not to be hard and
over-stern in our censures of the mistakes and infirmities of those, who pre-
tending to no wan'ant of extraordinaiy Inspiration have yet been raised up-
by God's providence to be of highest power and eminence in the reformation
of his Church. Far rather does it behove us to consider, in how many in-
stances the peccant humor native to the man had been wi'ought upon by tho
faithful study of that only faultless Model, and corrected into an unsinning,
or at least a venial, Predominance in the Writer or Preacher. Yea, that not
seldom the Infirmity of a zealous Soldier in the Warfare of Christ has been
made the very mould and ground-work of that man's peculiar gifts and vir-
tues. Grateful too we should be, that the very Faults of famous Men have
been fitted to the age, on which they were to act: and that thus the folly of
man has proved the wisdom of God, and been made the instrument of his
mercy to mankind. Anon.
Whoever has sojourned in Eisenach,* will assuredly have
*Durchflage durch Deutchland, die Niederlnnde und Frankreich : zweit. —
Theil. ]). 12fi.
15
114
visited the Warteburg, interesting by so many historical asso-
ciations, which stands on a high rock, about two miles to the
south from the City Gate. To this Castle Luther was taken on
his return from the imperial diet, where Charles the Fifth had
pronounced the ban upon him, and limited his safe convoy to one
and twenty days. On the last but one of these days, as he was
on his way to Waltershausen (a town in the dutchy of Saxe
Gotha, a few leagues to the south-east of Eisenach) he was
stopped in a hollow behind the Castle Altenstein, and carried
to the Warteburg. The Elector of Saxony, who could not
have refused to deliver up Luther, as one put in the ban by the
Emperor and the Diet, had ordered John of Berleptsch the
governor of the Warteburg and Burckhardt von Hundt, the
governor of Altenstein, to take Luther to one or the other
of these Castles, without acquainting him which ; in order that
he might be able, with safe conscience, to declare, that he did
not know where Luther was. Accordingly they took him to the
Warteburg, under the name of the Chevalier (Ritter) George.
To this friendly imprisonment the reformation owes many of
Luther's most important labours. In this place he wrote his
works against auricular confession, against Jacob Latronum, the
tract on the abuse of Masses, that against clerical and monastic
vows, composed his Exposition of the 22, 27, and 68 Psalms,
finished his Declaration of the Magnificat, began to write his
Church Homilies, and translated the New Testament. Here
too, and during this time, he is said to have hurled his ink-stand
at the Devil, the black spot from which yet remains on the stone
wall of the room he studied in ; which surely, no one will have
visited the Warteburg without having had pointed out to him by
the good Catholic who is, or at least some few years ago was,
the Warden of the Castle. He must have been either a very
supercilious or a very incurious traveller if he did not, for the
gratification of his guide at least, inform himself by means of
his pen-knife, that the said marvellous blot bids defiance to ail
the toils of the scrubbing brush, and is to remain a sign for
ever ; and with this advantage over most of its kindred, that
being capable of a double interpretation, it is equally flattering
to the Protestant and the Papist, and is regarded by the won-
der-loving zealots of both parties, with equal faith.
Whether the great man ever did throw his ink-stand at his
Satanic Majesty, whether he ever boasted of the exploit, and
115
himself declared the dark blotch on his Study-Wall in the
VVarteburg, to be the result and relict of this author-like hand-
grenado, (happily for mankind he used his ink-stand at other
times to better purpose, and with more effective hostility against
the arch-fiend) I leave to my reader's own judgment ; on con-
dition, however, that he has previously perused Lutlier's table-
talk, and other writings of the same stamp, of some of his most
illustrious contemporaries, which contain facts still more strange
and whimsical, related by themselves and of themselves, and
accompanied with solemn protestations of the Truth of their
statements. Luther's table-talk, which to a truly philosophic
mind, will not be less interesting than Rousseau's confessions,
I have not myself the means of consulting at present, and can-
not therefore say, whether this ink-pot adventure is, or is not,
told or referred to in it ; but many considerations incline me to
give credit to the story.
Luther's unremitting literary labor and his sedentary mode of
life, during his confinement in the Warteburg, where he was
treated with the greatest kindness, and enjoyed every liberty
consistent with his own safety, had begun to undermine his for-
mer unusually strong health. He suffered many and most dis-
tressing effects of indigestion and a deranged state of the di-
gestive organs. Melancthon, whom he had desired to consult
the Physicians at Erfurth, sent him some de-obstruent medi-
cines, and the advice to take regular and severe exercise. At
first he followed the advice, sate and laboured less, and spent
whole days in the chase ; but like the younger Pliny, he strove
in vain to form a taste for this favorite amusement of the " Gods
of the earth," as appears from a passage in a letter to George
Spalatin, which I translate for an additional reason : to prove
to the admirers of Rousseau, (who perhaps will not be less af-
fronted by this biographical parallel, than the zealous Luther-
ans will be offended) that ii' my comparison should turn out
groundless on the whole, the failure will not have arisen either
from the want of sensibility in our great reformer, or of angry
aversion to those in high places, whom he regarded as the op-
pressors of their rightful equals. " I have been," he writes^
" employed for two days in the sports of the field, and was wil-
ling myself to taste this bitter-sweet amusement of the great
heroes : we have caught two hares, and one brace of poor lit-
tle partridges. An employment this which does not ill suit
quiet leisurely folks : for even in the midst of the ferrets and
116
dogs, I have had theological fancies. But as much pleasure as
the general appearance of the scene and the mere looking on
occasioned me, even eo much it pitied me to think of the mys-
tery and emblem which lies beneath it. For what does this
symbol signify, but that the Devil, through his godless hunts-
man and dogs, the Bishops and Theologians to wit, doth privily
chase and catch the innocent poor little beasts ? Ah ! the simple
and credulous souls came thereby far too plain before my eyes.
Thereto comes a yet more frightful mystery : as at my earnest
entreaty we had saved alive one poor little hare, and I had con-
cealed it in the sleeve of my great coat, and had strolled off a
short distance from it, the dogs in the mean time found the poor
hare. Such, too, is the fury of the Pope with Satan, that he
destroys even the souls that had been saved, and troubles him-
self little about my pains and entreaties. Of such hunting then
1 have had enough." In another passage he tells his corres-
pondent, "you know it is hard to be a Prince, and not in some
degree a Robber, and the greater a Prince the more a Robber."
Of our Henry the Eighth, he says, " I must answer the grim
Lion that passes himself oft" for King of England. The igno-
rance in the Book is such as one naturally expects from a King ;
but the bitterness and impudent falsehood is quite leonine."
And in his circular letter to the Princes, on occasion of the
Peasant's War, he uses a language so inflammatory, and holds
forth a doctrine which borders so near on the holy right of in-
surrection, that it may as well remain untranslated.
Had Luther been himself a Prince, he could not have de-
sired better treatment than he received during his eight months
stay in the Warteburg ; and in consequence of a more luxuri-
ous diet than he had been accustomed to, he was plagued with
temptations both from the "Flesh and the Devil." It is evi-
dent from his letters* that he suffered under great irritability
of his nervous system, the common eff'ect of deranged digestion
in men of sedentary habits, who are at the same time intense
thinkers : and this irritability added to, and revivifying, the
* I can scarcely conceive a more delightful Volume than might be made
from Luther's Letters, especially from those that were written from the War-
teburg, if they were translated in the simple, sinewy, idiomatic, Aear^i/ mother-
tongue of the original. A difficult task I admit — and scarcely possible for any
man, however great hie talents in other respects, whose favorite reading has
not lain among the English writers fj-oni Edward the Sixth to Charles ths
First.
117
impressions made upon him in early life, and fostered by the
theological systems of his manhood, is abundantly sufficient to
explain all his apparitions and all his nightly combats with
evil spirits. I see nothing improbable in the supposition, that
in one of those unconscious half sleeps, or rather those rapid
alternations of the sleeping with the half-waking state, which
is the true witching time,
" the season
Wherein tlie spirits hold their wont to walk,"
the fruitful matrix of Ghosts — I see nothing improbable, that
in some one of those momentary slumbers, into which the sus-
pension of all Thought in the perplexity of intense thinking so
often passes ; Luther should have had a full view of the Room
in which he was sitting, of his writting Table and all the Im-
plements of Study, as they really existed, and at the same
time a brain-image of the Devil, vivid enough to have acquired
apparent Outness, and a distance regulated by the proportion
of its distinctness to that of the objects really impressed on the
outward senses.
If this Christian Hercules, this heroic Cleanser of the Au-
gean Stable of Apostacy, had been born and educated in the
present or the preceding generation, he would, doubtless, have
held himself for a man of genius and original power. But
with this faith alone he would scarcely have removed the
mountains which he did remove. The darkness and super-
stition of the age, which required such a Reformer, had mould-
ed his mind for the reception of ideas concerning himself, bet-
ter suited to inspire the strength and enthusiasm necessary for
the task of reformation, ideas more in sympathy with the spir-
its whom he was to influence. He deemed himself gifted with
supernatural influxes, an especial servant of Heaven, a chosen
Warrior, fighting as the General of a small but faithful troop,
against an Army of evil Beings headed by the Prince of the
Air. These were no metaphorical beings in his apprehension.
He was a Poet indeed, as great a Poet as ever lived in any
age or country ; but his poetic images were so vivid, that they
mastered the Poet's own jnind ! Pie was j^ossessed with them,
as with substances distinct from himself: Luther did not
write, he acted Poems. The Bible was a spiritual indeed but
not a figurative armoury in his belief; it was the magazine
118
of his warlike stores, and from thence he was to arm himself,
and supply both shield and sword, and javelin, to the elect.
Methinks 1 see him sitting, the heroic Student, in his Cham-
ber in the VVarterburg, with his midnight Lamp before him,
seen by the late Traveller in the distant Plain of Bischqfsroda,
as a Star on the Mountain ! Below it lies the Hebrew Bible
open, on which he gazes his brow pressing on his palm, brood-
ing over some obscure Text, which he desires to make plain
to the simple Boor and to the humble Artizan, and to transfer
its whole force into their own natural and living Tongue. And
he himself does not understand it ! Thick darkness lies on the
original Text , he counts the letters, he calls up the roots of
each separate word, and questions them as the familiar Spirits
of an Oracle. In vain ! thick darkness continues to cover it!
not a ray of meaning dawns through it. With sullen and an-
gry hope he reaches for the Vulgate, his old and sworn ene-
my, the treacherous confederate of the Roman Antichrist,
which he so gladly, when he can, re-rebukes for idolatrous
falsehoods, that had dared place
" Within the sanctuary itself their shrines,
Abominations!"
Now — thought of humiliation — he must entreat its aid. See !
there has the sly spirit of apostacy worked-in a phrase which
favors the doctrine of purgatory, the intercession of Saints,
or the efficacy of Prayers for the Dead. And what is worst
of all, the interpretation is plausible. The original Hebrew
might be forced into this meaning : and no other meaning
seems to lie in it, none to hover above it in the heights of
Allegory, none to lurk beneath it even in the depths of Caba-
la ! This is the work of the Tempter ! it is a cloud of dark-
ness conjured up between the truth of the sacred letters
and the eyes of his understanding, by the malice of the evil
one, and for a trial of his faith ! Must he then at length con-
fess, must he subscribe the name of Luther to an Exposition
which consecrates a weapon for the hand of the idolatrous Hie-
rarchy ? Never ! never !
There still remains one auxiliary in reserve, the translation
of the seventy. The Alexandrine Greeks, anterior to the
Church itself, could extend no support to its corruptions — the
Septuagint will have profaned the Altar of Truth with no in-
cense for the Nostrils of the universal Bishop to snuff up.
119
And here again his hopes are baffled ! Exactly at this per-
plexed passage had the Greek Translator given his understand-
ing a holiday, and made his pen supply its place. O honored
Luther ! as easily mightest thou convert the whole City of
Rome, with the Pope and the conclave of Cardinals inclusive
as strike a spark of light from the words, and nothing but ivords,
of the Alexandrine Version. Disappointed, despondent, en-
raged, ceasing to think, yet continuing his brain on the stretch
in solicitation of a thought ; and gradually giving himself up to
angry fancies, to recollections of past persecutions, to uneasy
fears and inward defiances and floating Images of the evil Be-
ing, their supposed personal author ; he sinks, without perceiv-
ing it, into a trance of slumber : during which his brain retains
its waking energies, excepting that what would have been
mere thoughts before now (the action and counterweight of
his senses and of their impressions being withdrawn ) shape and
condense themselves into things, into realities ! Repeatedly
half-wakening, and his eye-lids as often re-closing, the objects
which really surrounded him form the place and scenery of his-
dream. All at once he sees the Arch-fiend coming forth on the
wall of the room, from the very spot perhaps, on which his eyes
had been fixed vacantly during the perplexed moments of his
former meditation : the Ink-stand, which he had at the same
time been using, becomes associated with it : and in that strug-
gle of rage, which in these distempered dreams almost constant-
ly precedes the helpless terror by the pain of which we are
finally awakened, he imagines that he hurls it at the intruder,
or not improbably in the first instant of awakening, while yet
both his imagination and his eyes are possessed by the dream,
he actually hurls it. Some weeks after, perhaps, during which
interval he had often mused on the incident, undetermined
whether to deem it a visitation of Satan to him in the body or
out of the body, he discovers for the first time the dark spot
on his wall, and receives it as a sign and pledge vouchsafed
to him of the event having actually taken place.
Such was Luther under the influences of the age and coun-
trv in and for which he was born. Conceive him a citizen of
Geneva, and a contemporary of Voltaire : suppose the French
language his mother tongue, and the political and moral philos-
ophy of English Free-thinkers re-modelled by Parisian Fort
Esprits, to have been the objects of his study ; — conceive this
120
change of circumstances, and Luther will no longer dream of
Fiends or of Antichrist — but will we have no dreams in their
place ? His melancholy will have changed its drapery ; but
will it find no new costume wherewith to clothe itself? His
impetuous temperament, his deepworking mind, his busy and
vivid imaginations — would they not have been a trouble to
him in a world, where nothing was to be altered, where nothing
was to obey his power, to cease to be that which had been, in
order to realize his pre-conceptions of what it ought to be ?
His sensibility, which found objects for itself, and shadows of
human suii'ering in the harmless Brute, and even the Flowers
which he trod upon — might it not naturally, in an unspiritual-
ized age, have wept, and trembled, and dissolved, over scenes
of earthly passion, and the struggles of love with duty? His
pity, that so easily passed into rage, would it not have found
in the inequalities of mankind, in the oppressions of govern-
ments and the miseries of the governed, an entire instead of
a divided object ? And might not a perfect constitution, a gov-
ernment of pure reason, a renovation of the social contract,
have easily supplied the place of the reign of Christ in the
new Jerusalem, of the restoration of the visible Church, and
the union of all men by one faith in one charity? Hencefor-
ward then, we will conceive his reason employed in building
up anew the edifice of earthly society, and his imagination as
pledging itself for the possible realization of the structure.
We will lose the great reformer, who was born in an age
which needed him, in the Philosopher of Geneva, who was
doomed to misapply his energies to materials the properties of
which he misunderstood, and happy only that he did not live
to witness the direful effects of his system.
X' i
ESSAY III.
Pectora cui credam ? quis me leniro docebit
Monlaces ciiras, quis longas falleie noctes
Ex quo summa dies tulerit Dauwna sub umbras ?
Omnia paulatim consumit longior aetas,
Viveudoque simul morimur, rapimurque manendo.
Ite tamen, lacryma? ! purum colis sethera, Damon !
Nee mihi conveniunt lacryma?. Non omnia terrae
Obruta ! vivit amor, vivit dolor ! era negatur
Dulcia conspicere : flere et meminisse relictum est.
The two following Essays I devote to elucidation, the first of
the theory of Luther's Apparitions stated perhaps too briefly
in the preceding Number : the second for the purpose of re-
moving the only difficulty, which I can discover in the next
section of the Friend to the Reader's ready comprehension ot
the principles, on which the arguments are grounded. First, \
will endeavor to make my Ghost-Theory more clear to those of
my readers, who are fortunate enough to find it obscure in conse-
quence of their own good health and unshattered nerves. The
window of my library at Keswick is opposite to the fire-place,
and looks out on the very large garden that occupies the whole
slope of the hill on which the house stands. Consequently,
the rays of the light transmitted through the glass, (i. e. the
rays from the garden, the opposite mountains, and the bridge,
river, lake, and vale interjacent) and the rays reflected yrom
it, (of the fire-place, &c.) enter the eye at the same moment.
At the coming on of evening, it was my frequent amusement
to watch the image or reflection of the fire, that seemed burn-
ing in the bushes or between the trees in diftercnt parts of the
garden or the fields beyond it, according as there was more or
less light ; and which still arranged itself among the real objects
16
122
of vision, with a distance and magnitude proportioned to its
greater or lesser faintness. For still as the darkness encreased,
the image of the fire lessened and grew nearer and more dis-
tinct ; till the twilight had depened into perfect night, when
all outward objects being excluded, the window became a per-
fect looking-glass : save only that mj books on the side shelves
of the room were lettered, as it were, on their backs with
stars, more or fewer as the sky was more or less clouded, (the
rays of the stars being at that time the only ones transmitted.)
Now substitute the Phantom from Luther's brain for the ima-
ges of re^ec^ed light (the fire for instance) and the forms of
his room and his furniture for the transmitted rays, and you
have a fair resemblance of an apparition, and a just conception
of the manner in which it is seen together with real objects.
I have long wished to devote an entire work to the subject
of Dreams, Visions, Ghosts, Witchcraft, &c. in which I might
first give, and then endeavor to explain the most interesting
and best attested fact of each, Avhich has come within my
knowledge, either from books or from personal testimony. I
might then explain in a more satisfactory way the mode in
which our thoughts, in states of morbid slumber, become at
times perfectly drmnatic (for in certain sorts of dreams the
dullest Wight becomes a Shakespeare) and by what law the
Form of the vision appears to talk to us its own thoughts in a
voice as audible as the shape is visible ; and this too often-
times in connected trains, and not seldom even with a concen-
tration of power which may easily impose on the soundest
judgements, uninstructed in the Optics and Acoustics of the
inner sense, for Revelations and gifts of Prescience. In aid of
the present case, I will only remark, that it would appear in-
credible to persons not accustomed to these subtle notices of
self observation, what small and remote resemblances, what
mere hints of likeness from some real external object, especi-
ally if the shape be aided by colour, will suffice to make a
vivid thought consubstantiate with the real object, and derive
from it an outward perceptibility. Even when we are broad
awake, if we are in anxious expectation, how often will not
the most confused sounds of nature be heard by us as articu-
late sounds? For instance, the babbling of a brook will appear
for a moment the voice of a Friend, for whom we are waiting,
calling out our own names, &c. A short meditation, there-
123
fore, on the great law of the imagination, that a likeness in part
tends to become a likeness of the whole, will make it not on-
ly conceivable but probable, that the ink-stand itself, and the
dark-coloured stone on the wall, which Luther perhaps had
never till tiien noticed, might have a considerable influence in
the production of the Fiend, and of the hostile act by which
his obtrusive visit was repelled.
A lady once asked me if I believed in ghosts and apparitions.
I answered with truth and simplicity : No^ madam I I have
seen far too many myself. I have indeed a whole memorandum
book filled with records of these Phajnomena, many of them
interesting as facts and data for Psychology, and affording some
valuable materials for a theory of preception and its dependence
on the memory and imagination. " In omnem actum Percep-
tionis imaginatio influet efiicienter." — Wolfe. But He is no
more, who would have realized this idea : who had already
established the foundations and the law of the theory ; and for
whom I had so often found a pleasure and a comfort, even
during the wretched and restless nights of sickness, in watch-
ing and instantly recording these experiences of the world
within us, of the " gemina natura, quae fit et facit, et creat et
creatur !" He is gone, my friend ! my munificent co-patron,
and not less the benefactor of my intellect ! — He who, beyond
all other men known to me, added a fine and ever-wakeful sense
of beauty to the most patient accuracy in experimental Philoso-
phy and the profounder researches of metaphysical science ;
he who united all the play and spring of fancy with the subtlest
discrimination and an inexorable judgement; and who control-
led an almost painful exquisiteness of taste by a warmth of
heart, which in the practical relations of life made allowances
for faults as quick as the moral taste detected them; a warmth
of heart, which was indeed noble and pre-eminent, for alas !
the genial feelings of health contributed no spark toward it !
Of these qualities I may speak, for they belonged to all man-
kind. — The higher virtues, that were blessings to his friends,
and the still higher that resided in and for his own soul, are
themes for the energies of solitude, for the awfulness of pray-
er ! — virtues exercised in the barrenness and desolation of his
animal being ; while he thirsted with the full stream at his lips,
and yet with unwearied goodness poured out to all around him,
like the master of a feast among his kindred in the day of his
124
own gladness ! Were it but for the remembrance of him alone
and of his lot here below, the disbelief of a future state would
sadden the earth around me, and blight the very grass in the
field.
ESSAY IV.
Xuls^io" I', U)' Saiiio' rie, fuj" TraQudei'/'jiiacri, ^fgo/juevof ixuvurg epdfixpua-
O'ui It fw »■ i.ihi'Cfi' vi»v. xirdvrev'ei, yuQ rf fxotv txuqog oiov ''ovuq, eidut^g
'''uTTiefiu, Tiufi' u~v Tiu'lti' vj"a7itQ"v7iuQ u'yi'oeiv.
Plato, Polit. p. 47. Ed. Bip.
Translation. — It is iliflicult, excellent friend! to make any comprehensive
tnilh completely intelligible, unless we avail ourselves of an example.
Otiierwise we may as in a dream, seem to know all, and then as it were,
awaking find that we know nothing.
Plato.
Among my earliest impressions I still distinctly remember
that of my first entrance into the mansion of a neighboring
Baronet, awfully known to me by the name of The Great
House, its exterior having been long connected in my childish
imagination with the feelings and fancies stirred up in me by
the perusal of the Arabian Nights' Entertainments.* Beyond
* As 1 iiad read one volume of these tales over and over again before my
fifth birth-day, it may be readily conjectured of what sort these fancies and
f(.'elings mnf^t have been. Tlie Ijook, I well remember, used to lie in a cor-
ner of the parlour window at my dear Father's Vicarage-house : and lean
never forg(!t with what a strange mixUn-e of obscure dread and intense de-
sire I used to look at the volume and tvatch it, till the morning sunshine had
reached and nearly covered it, whfen, and not before, I felt the courage given
me to seize the precious treasure and hurry off with it to some sunny corner
in our play-ground.
125
all other objects, I was most struck with the magnificent stair-
case, relieved at well proportioned intervals by spacious land-
ing-places, this adorned with grand or shewy plants, the
next looking out on an extensive prospect through the stately
window with its side panes of rich blues and saturated amber
or orange tints : while from the last and highest the eye com-
manded the whole spiral ascent with the marbled pavement of
the great hall from which it seemed to spring up as if it merely
used the ground on which it rested. My readers will find no
difficulty in translating these forms of the outward senses into
their intellectual analogies, so as to understand the purport of
the Friend's jlanding-places, and the objects, he proposed to
himself, in the small groups of Essays interposed under this ti-
tle bet\w;en the main divisions of the work.
My best powers would have sunk within me, had I not sooth-
ed my solitary toils with the anticipation of many readers —
( whether during the Writer's life, or when his grave shall have
shamed his detractors into a sympathy with its own silence,
formed no part in this self-flattery ) who would submit to any
reasonable trouble rather than read " as in a dream seeming to
know all, to find on awaking that they know nothing." Hav-
ing, therefore in the three preceding numbers selected from my
conservatory a few plants, of somewhat gayer petals and a live-
lier green, though like the Geranium tribe of a sober character
in the whole physiognomy and odor, I shall first devote a few
sentences to a catalogue raisonne of my introductory lucubra-
tions, and the remainder of the Essay to the prospect, as far as
it can be seen distinctly from our present site. Within a short
distance, several ways meet : and at that point only does it ap-
pear to me that the reader will be in danger of mistaking the
road. Dropping the metaphor, I would say that there is one
term, the meaning of which has become unsettled. To differ-
ent persons it conveys a different idea, and not seldom to the
same person at different times ; while the force, and to a cer-
tain extent, the intelligibility of the following sections depend
on its being interpreted in one sense exclusively.
Essays from I. to IV. inclusive convey the design and con-
tents of the work ; the Friend's judgement respecting the style,
and his defence of himself from the charges of Arrogance and
Presumption. Say rather, that such are the personal threads
of the discourse : for it will not have escaped the Reader's ob-
126
servation, that even in these prefatory pages principles and
truths of general interest form the true contents, and that amid
all the usual compliments and courtesies of the The Friend's
first presentation of himself to his Reader's acquaintance the
substantial object is still to assert the practicability, without
disguising the difficulties, of improving the morals of mankind
by a direct appeal to their Understandings ; to shew the dis-
tinction between Attention and Thought, and the necessity of
the former as a habit or discipline without which the very
word. Thinking, must remain a thoughtless substitute for dream-
ing with our eyes open ; and lastly, the tendency of a certain
fashionable style with all its accommodations to paralyse the
very faculties of manly intellect by a series of petty stimulants.
After this preparation The Friend proceeds at once t» lay the
foundations common to the whole work by an inquiry into the
duty of communicating Truth, and the conditions under which
it may be communicated with safety, from the Fifth to the
Sixteenth Essay inclusive. Each Essay will, he believes, be
found complete in itself, yet an organic part of the whole con-
sidered as one disquisition. First, the inexpediency of pious
Frauds is proved from History, the shameless assertion of the
indifference of Truth and Falsehood exposed to its deserved
infamy, and an answer given to the objection derived from the
impossibility of conveying an adequate notion of the truths, we
may attempt to communicate. The conditions are then de-
tailed, under which, right though inadequate notions may be
taught without danger, and proofs given, both from facts and
from reason, that he, who fulfils the conditions required by
Conscience, takes the surest way of answering the purposes of
Prudence. This is, indeed, the main characteristic of the mor-
al system taught by the Friend throughout, that the distinct
foresight of Consequences belongs exclusively to that infinite
Wisdom which is one with that Almighty Will, on which all
consequences depend ; but that ybr Man — to obey the simple
unconditional commandment of eschewing every act that im-
plies a self-contradiction, or in other words, to produce and
maintain the greatest possible Harmony in the component im-
pulses and faculties of his nature, involves the effects of Pru-
dence. It is, as it were. Prudence in short-hand or cypher.
A pure Conscience, that inward something, that &£&? oixsjof,
which being absolutely unique no man can describe^ because
127
every man is bound to know, and even in the eye of the Law
is held to be a person no longer than he may be supposed to
know it — the Conscience, I say, bears the same relation to
God, as an accurate Time-piece bears to the Sun. The Time-
piece merely indicates the relative path of the Sun, yet we
can regulate our plans and proceedings by it with the same con-
fidence as if it was itself the efficient cause of light, heat, and
the revolving seasons; on the self-evident axiom, that in what-
ever sense two things (for instance, A. and c D E-) are both
equal to a third thing (B.) they are in the same sense equal to
each other. Cunning is circuitous folly. In plain English, to
act the knave is but a round about way of playing the fool ; and
the man, who will not permit himself to call an action by its
proper name without a previous calculation of all its probable
consequences, may be indeed only a coxcomb, who is looking
at his fingers through an opera glass ; but he runs no small risk
of becoming a knave. The chances are against him. Though
he should begin by calculating the consequences with regard to
others, yet by the mere habit of never contemplating an action
in its own proportions and immediate relations to his moral be-
ing it is scarcely possible but that he must end in selfishness :
for the YOU, and the they will stand on different occasions for
a thousand different persons, while the I is one only, and recurs
in every calculation. Or grant that the principle of expedien-
cy should prompt to the same outward deeds as are commanded
by the law of reason ; yet the doer himself is debased. But if
it be replied, that the re-action on the agent's own mind is to
form a part of the calculation, then it is a rule that destroys it-
self in the very propounding, as will be more fully demonstra-
ted in the second or ethical division of the Friend, when we
shall have detected and exposed the equivoque between an ac-
tion and the series of motions by which the determinations of
the Will are to be realized in the world of the senses. What
modification of the latter corresponds to the former, and is en-
titled to be called by the same name, will often depend on time,
place, persons, and circumstances, the consideration of which
requires an exertion of the judgement ; but the action itself re-
mains the same, and like all other ideas pre-exists in the rea-
son,* or (in the more expressive and perhaps more precise and
'See the Statesman's Manual, p. 2.3.
128
philosophical language of St. Paul) in the spirit, unalterable
because unconditional, or with no other than that most awful
condition, as sure as God liveth, it is so !
These remarks are inserted in this place, because the prin-
ciple admits of easiest illustration in the instance of veracity
and the actions connected with the same, and may then be in-
telligibly applied to other departments of morality, all of which
Wollaston indeed considers as only so many different forms of
truth and falsehood. So far the Friend has treated of oral
communication of the truth. The applicability of the same
principle is then tried and affirmed in publications by the
Press, first as between the individual and his own conscience
and then between the publisher and the state : and under this
head the Friend has considered at large the questions of a
free Press and the law of libel, the anomalies and peculiar
difficulties of the latter, and the only possible solution com-
patible with the continuance of the former : a solution rising
out of and justified by the necessarily anomalous and unique
nature of the law itself. He confesses, that he looks back on
this discussion concerning the Press and its limits with a satis-
faction unusual to him in the review of his own labours : and
if the date of their first publication (September, 1809) be re-
membered, it will not perhaps be denied on an impartial com-
parison, that he has treated this most important subject (so es-
pecially interesting in the present times) more fully and more
systematically than it had hitherto been. Interim tum recti
conscientia, tum illo me consolor, quod octimis quibusque certe
non improbamur, fortassis omnibus placituri, simul atque livor
ab obitu conquieverit.
Lastly, the subject is concluded even as it commenced, and
as beseemed a disquisition placed as the steps and vestibule of
the whole work, with an enforcement of tlie absolute necessi-
ty of principles grounded in reason as the basis or rather as the
living root of all genuine expedience. Where these are de-
spised or at best regarded as aliens from the actual business of
life, and consigned to the ideal world of speculative philosophy
and Utopian politics, instead of state-wisdom we shall have
state-craft, and for the talent of the governor the cleverness of
an embarrassed spendthrift — which consists in tricks to shift off
difficulties and dangers when they are close upon us, and to
keep them at arm's length, not in solid and grounded courses
129
to preclude or subdue them. We must content ourselves with
expedient-makers — with fire-engines against fires, Life-boats
against inundations : but no houses built fire-proof, no dams
that rise above the water-mark. The reader will have observ-
ed that already has the term, reason, been frequently contra-
distinguished from the understanding, and the judgement. If
the Friend could succeed in fully explaining the sense in which
the word Reason, is employed by him, and in satisfying the
reader's mind concerning the grounds and importance of the
distinction, he would feel little or no apprehension concerning
the intelligibility of these Essays from first to last. The fol-
lowing section is in part founded on this distinction : the which
remaining obscure, all else will be so as a system, however
clear the component paragraphs may be, taken separately. In "y
the appendix to his first Lay Sermon, the Author has indeed "^
treated the question at considerable length, but chiefly in rela-
tion to the heights of Theology and Metaphysics. In the next
number he attempts to explain himself more popularly, and
trusts that with no great expenditure of attention the reader
will satisfy his mind, that our remote ancestors spoke as men
acquainted with the constituent parts of their ow^n moral and
intellectual being, when they described one man as being out
his senses, another as out of his ivits, or deranged in his un~
derstanding, and a third as having lost his reason. Observe,
the understanding may be deranged, weakened, or perverted ;
but the reason is either lost or not lost, that is, wholly present
or wholly absent.
17
ESSAY V.
Man may rather be defined a religious than a rational character, in regard
that in other creatures there majf be something of Reason, but there ia
nothing of Religion.
Harrington.
If the Reader will substitute the word " Understanding" for
" Reason," and the word " Reason" for " Religion," Harring-
ton has here completely expressed the Truth for which the
Friend is contending. But that this was Harrington's meaning
is evident. Otherwise instead of comparing two faculties with
each other, he would contrast a faculty with one of its own ob-
jects, which would involve the same absurdity as if he had said,
that man might rather be defined an astronomical than a seeing
animal, because other animals possessed the sense of Sight, but
were incapable of beholding the satellites of Saturn, or the
nebulae of fixed stars. If further confirmation be necessary, it
may be supplied by the following reflections, the leading thought
of which I remember to have read in the works of a continen-
tal Philosopher. It should seem easy to give the definite dis-
tinction of the Reason from the Understanding, because we
constantly imply it when we speak of the difference between
ourselves and the brute creation. No one, except as a figure
of speech, eA'er speaks of an animal reason;* but that many
*I have this moment looked over a Translation of Bhnvicnbach's Physiolo-
gy by Dr. Elliotson, which forms a glaring exception, p. 45. I do not know
Dr. Elliotson, but I do know Professor Bhuncnbach, and was an assiduous
attendant on the Lectures, of whicli this classical work was tlie text-book:
and I know that that good and great man woukl start back with surprize and
indignation at the gross materialism morticed on to his work : the moro so
because during the whole period, in which the identification of Man with tho
131
animals possess a share of Understanding, perfectly distinguisha-
ble from mere Instinct, we all allow. Few persons have a fa-
vorite dog without making instances of its intelligence an oc-
casional topic of conversation. They call for our admiration of
the individual animal, and not with exclusive reference to the
Wisdom in Nature, as in the case of the storge or maternal in-
stinct of beasts ; or of the hexangular cells of the bees, and the
wonderful coincidence of this form with the geometrical demon-
stration of the largest possible number of rooms in a given space.
Likewise, we distinguish various degrees of Understanding
there, and even discover from inductions supplied by the Zoo-
logists, that the Understanding appears (as a general rule) in
an inverse proportion to the Instinct. We hear little or noth-
ing of the instincts of "the half-reasoning elephant," and as
little of the Understanding of Caterpillars and Butterflies.
(N. B. Though KEASONiNG does not in our language, in the
lax use of words natural in conversation or popular writings,
imply scientific conclusion, yet the phrase "half-reasoning" is
evidently used by Pope as a poetic hyperbole.) But Reason
is wholly denied, equally to the highest as to the lowest of the
brutes ; otherwise it must be wholly attributed to them, and
with it therefore Self -consciousness, and personality^ or Moral
Being.
I should have no objection to define Reason with Jacobi, and
with his friend Hemsterhuis, as an organ bearing the same re-
lation to spiritual objects, the Universal, the Eternal, and the
Necessary, as the eye bears to material and contingent phseno-
mena. But then it must be added, that it is an organ identical
with its appropriate objects. Thus, God, the Soul, eternal
Truth, &c. are the objects of Reason; but they are themselves
reason. We name God the Supreme Reason; and Milton says,
"Whence the Soul i?e«son receives, and Reason is her Being."
Brute in kind wsLSihe. fashion of Naturalists, Bluiucnbach remained ari/e?i< and
instant in controverting the opinion, and exposing its fallacy and falsehood,
both as a man of sense and as a Naturalist. I may truly say, that it was up-
permost in his htiart and foremost in his speech. Therefore, and from no hos-
tile feeling to Dr. Elliotson (wiiom I hear spoken of with great regard and
respect, and to whom I myself give credit for his manly openness in the avowal
of his opinions) I have felt the present aniniadversion a duty of justice asj
well as gratitude.
S. T. C. 8 April, 1817.
132
Whatever is conscious /S'eZ/'-knowledge is Reason ; and in this
sense it may be safely defined the organ of the Supersensuous ;
even as the Understanding wherever it does not possess or use
the Reason, as another and inward eye, may be defined the
conception of the Sensuous, or tlie faculty by which we gener-
alize and arrange the phrenomena of perception : that faculty,
the functions of which contain the rules and constitute the pos-
sibility of outward Experience. In short, the Understanding
supposes something that is understood. This may be merely
its own acts or forms, that is, formal Logic; but real objects,
the materials of substantial knowledge, must be furnished, we
might safely say revealed^ to it by Organs of Sense. The un-
derstanding of the higher Brutes has only organs of outward
sense, and consequently material objects only ; but man's un-
derstanding has likewise an organ of inward sense, and there-
fore the power of acquainting itself with invisible realities or
spiritual objects. This organ is his Reason. Again, the Un-
derstanding and Experience may exist* without Reason. But
Reason cannot exist without Understanding ; nor does it or can
it manifest itself but in and through the understanding, which
in our elder writers is often called discourse, or the discursive
faculty, as by Hooker, Lord Bacon, and Hobbes : and an un-
derstanding enlightened by reason Shakspeare gives as the con-
tra-distinguishing character of man, under the name discourse
of reason. In short, the human understanding possesses two
distinct organs, the outward sense, and " the mind's eye"
which is reason: wherever we use that phrase (the mind's
eye) in its proper sense, and not as a mere synonyme of the
memory or the fancy. In this way we reconcile the promise
of Revelation, that the blessed will see God, with the decla-
ration of St. John, God hath no one seen at any time.
We will add one other illustration to prevent any misconcep-
* Of this no one would feel inclined to doubt, who had seen the poodle dog
whom the celebrated BLUMErs'BACH,/a name so dear to science, as a pliytJiolo-
gist and Comparative Aiiatoinist, and not less dear as a man, to all Ihiglish-
nien who have ever resi<ic(l at Gottingen in the coiu'se of their education,
trained u]), not only to hach the eggs of the hen with all the mother's care
and patience, but to attend the chicken atlerwards, and find the food for them.
I have myself known a Newfcjundland dog, who watched and guarded a
family of young children with ail the intelligence of a nurse, during tlieir
walks.
133
tion, as it" we were dividing the human soul into different es-
sences, or ideal persons. In this piece of steel I acknowledge
the properties of hardness, brittleness, high polish, and the
capability of forming a mirror. 1 find all these likewise in the
plate glass of a friend's carriage ; but in addition to all these,
I find the quality of transparency, or the power of transmitting
as well as of reflecting the rays of light. The application is
obvious.
If the reader therefore will take the trouble of bearing in
mind these and the following explanations, he will have re-
moved before hand every possible difficulty from the Friend's
political section. For there is another use of the word, Rea-
son, arising out of the former indeed, but less definite, and
more exposed to misconception. In this latter use it means
the understanding considered as using the Reason, so far as by
the organ of Reason only we possess the ideas of the Necessa-
ry and the Universal ; and this is the more common use of the
word, when it is applied with any attempt at clear and distinct
conceptions. In this narrower and derivative sense the best de-
finition of Reason, which, I can give, will be found in the
third member of the following sentence, in which the under-
standing is described in its three-fold operation, and from each
receives an appropriate name. The sense, (vis sensitiva vel
intuitiva) perceives: Vis regulatrix (the understanding, in its
own peculiar operation) conceives: Vis rationalis (the Reason
or rationalized understanding) comprehends. The first is im-
pressed through the organs of sense, the second combines
these multifarious impressions into individual Notions^ and by
reducing these notions to Rules, according to the analogy of all
its former notices, constitutes Experience : the third subordi-
nates both these notions and the rules of Experience to abso-
lute Principles or necessary Laws : and thus concerning ob-
jects, which our experience has proved to have real existence,
it demonstrates moreover, in what v/ay they are possible^ and
in doing this constitutes Science. Reason therefore, in this
secondary sense, and used, not as a spiritual Organ but as a
Faculty (namely, the Understanding or Soul enlightened by
that organ) — Reason, I say, or the scientific Faculty, is the In-
tellection of the possibility or essential properties of things by
means of the Laws that constitute them, 'i'hus the rational
134
idea of a Circle is that of a figure constituted by the circum-
volution of a straight line with its one end fixed.
Every man must feel, that though he may not be exerting
different faculties, he is exerting his faculties in a different
way, when in one instance he begins with some one self-evi-
dent truth, (that the radii of a circle, for instance, are all equal,)
and in consequence of this being true sees at once, without any
actual experience, that some other thing must be true like-
wise, and that, this being true, some third thing must be equal-
ly true, and so on till he comes, we will say, to the properties
of the lever, considered as the spoke of a circle ; which is capa-
ble of having all its marvellous powers demonstrated even to a
savage who had never seen a lever, and without supposing
any other previous knowledge in his mind, but this one, that
there is a conceivable figure, all possible lines from the middle
to the circumference of which are of the same length : or
when, in the second instance, he brings together the facts of
experience, each of which has its own separate value, neither
encreased nor diminished by the truth of any other fact which
may have preceded it ; and making these several facts bear
upon some particular project, and finding some in favor of it^
and some against the project, according as one or the other class
of facts preponderate: as, for instance, whether it would be
better to plant a particular spot of ground with larch, or with
Scotch fir, or with oak in preference to either. Surely every
man will acknowledge, that his mind was very differently em-
ployed in the first case from what it was in the second, and all
men have agreed to call the results of the first class the truths
of science, such as not only are true, but which it is impossible
to conceive otherwise : while the results of the second class
are called facts, or things of experience : and as to these latter
we must often content ourselves with the greater probability,
that they are so, or so, rather than otherwise — nay, even when
we have no doubt that they are so in the particular case, we
never presume to assert that they must continue so always, and
under all circumstances. On the contrary, our conclusions de-
pe7id altogether on conting-ent circumstances. Now when the
mind is employed, as in the case first-mentioned, I call it Rea-
isoning, or the use of the pure Reason ; but, in the second
(Ease, the Understanding or Prudence.
IhiS i^ason applied to the motives of our conduct, aiid coiu-
- «•
135
billed with the sense of our moral responsibility, is the condi-
tional cause of Conscience^ which is a spiritual sense or testi-
fying state of the coincidence or discordance of the free will
with the REASON. But as the Reasoning consists wholly in a
man's power of seeing, whether any two ideas, which happen
to be in his mind, are, or are not in contradiction with each
other, it follows of necessity, not only that all men have reason,
but that every man has it in the same degree. For Reasoning
(or Reason, in this its secondary sense) does not consist in the
Ideas, or in their clearness, but simply, when they are in the
mind, in seeing whether they contradict each other or no.
And again, as in the determinations of Conscience the only
knowledge required is that of my own intention — whether in
doing such a thing, instead of leaving it undone, I did what I
should think right if any other person had done it ; it follows
that in the mere question of guilt or innocence, all men have
not only Reason equally, but likewise all the materials on
which the reason, considered as Conscience, is to work. But
when we pass out of ourselves, and speak, not exclusively of
the agent as meaning well or ill, but of the action in its con-
sequences, then of course experience is required, judgement
in making use of it, and ail those other qualities of the mind
which are so differently dispensed to different persons, both by
nature and education. And though the reason itself is the same
in all men, yet the means of exercising it, and the materials
(i. e. the facts and ideas) on which it is exercised, being pos-
sessed in very different degrees by different persons, the
practical Result is, of course, equally different — and the whole
ground work of Rousseau's Philosophy ends in a mere No-
thingism. — Even in that branch of knowledge, on which the
ideas, on the congruity of which with each other, the Reason
is to decide, are all possessed alike by all men, namely, in Ge-
ometry, (for all men in their senses possess all the component
images, viz. simple curves and straight lines) yet the power
of attention required for the perception of linked Truths, even i
oi such Truths, is so very different in A and in B, that Sir
Isaac Newton professed that it was in this power only that he
was superior to ordinary men. In short, the sophism is as gross
as if I should say — The Souls of all men liave the faculty of
sight in an equal degree — forgetting to add, that this faculty
cannot be exercised without eyes, and that some men are blind
136
and others short-sighted, &c. — and should then take advantage
of this my omission to conclude against the use or necessity of
spectacles, microscopes, &;c. — or of choosing the sharpest sight-
ed men for our guides.
Having exposed this gross sophism, I must warn against an
opposite error — namely, that if Reason, distinguished from
Prudence, consists merely m knowing that Black cannot be
White — or when a man has a clear conception of an inclosed
figure, and another equally clear conception of a straight line,
his Reason teaches him that these two conceptions are incom-
patible in the same object, i. e. that two straight lines cannot
include a space the said Reason must be a very insignifi-
cant faculty. But a moment's steady self-reflection will shew
us, that in the simple determination " Black is not White" — or
" that two straight lines cannot include a space" — all the pow-
ers are implied, that distinguish Man from Animals — first, the
power oi reflection — 2d. of comparison — 3d. and therefore of
suspension of the mind — 4th. therefore of a controlling will,
and the power of acting from notions, instead of mere images
exciting appetites ; from motives, and not from mere dark m-
stincts. Was it an insignificant thing to weigh the Planets, to
determine all their courses, and prophecy every possible rela-
tion of the Heavens a thousand years hence ? Yet all this
mighty chain of science is nothing but a linking together of
truths of the same kind, as, the ivhole is greater than its part :
— or, if A and B = C, then A = B — or 3 -*- 4 = 7, therefore
7 -*- 5 = 12, and so forth. X is to be found either in A or B,
or C or D : It is not found in A, B, or C, therefore it is to be
found in D. — What can be simpler? Apply this to an animal —
a Dog misses his master where four roads meet — he has come
up one, smells to two of the others, and then with his head
aloi't darts forward to the third road without any examination.
If this was done by a conclusion, the Dog would have Reason
— how comes it then, that he never shews it in his ordinary
habits ? Why does this story excite either wonder or increduli-
ty .^ — If the story be a fact, and not a fiction, I should say — the
Breeze brought his Master's scent down the fourth Road to the
Dog's nose, and that therefore he did not put it down to the
Road, as in the two former instances. So aweful and almost
miraculous does the simple act of concluding, that take 2> from
4, there remains one, appear to us when attributed to the most
sagacious of all animals.
THE FRIEND.
SECTION THE FIRST.
ON THE
PRINCIPLES
O F
POLITICAL KNOWLEDGE.
18
Hoc potissimum pacto felicem ac magnum regem se fore judicans : non si
quam plurimis sed si quam oplimis imperet. Proinde parum esse putat justis
prsesidiis regnum suum muniisse, nisi idem viris eriiditione juxta ac vitse integ-
ritate prJKcellentibus ditet atque honestet. Nimirum intelligit , haec demum
esse vera regni decora, has veras opes.
Erasmus : epist. ad Episc, Paris.
ESSAY I.
Dum PoLiTici scppiuscvle hominibus magis iiisidiaiitur quant consulunt, potius
callidiquam sapientcs ; Theoretici e contrano se rem divinam facere et sapi-
entim culmen attingcre credunt, qiwmdo humanam naturam, qua nvllihi est,
mvltis modis laudare, et earn, qua re vera est, didis lacessere nonmt. Unde
factum est, ut nunquatn Politicain concepennt qua. possit ad uswn revocari ;
sed qua in Utopia vel in illo poetarum aureo saculo, ubi scilicet minime necesse
erat, institui potuisset. At mild plane persuadeo, Experientiam omnia civita-
tum genera, qua concipi possunt id homines concorditer vivant, et siinul me-
dia, quibus midtitudo dirigi, seu quibus intra cetios limites contineri debeat,
ostendisse : ita ut non credam, nos posse aliquid, quod ab experientia sive,
praxi non abhorreat, cogitatione de hoc re assequi, quod nondum expertum com-
pertumque sit.
Cum igitur animum ad Pcliticam applicuerim, nihil quod novum vel inauditum
est ; sed tantw7i ea qua cum praxi optime conveniunt, certa et indubitata ra-
tixme demonstrare aid ex ipsa humana naiura conditione deducere, intendi.
Et ut ea quae ad hanc scientiam spectant, eadem animi libertate, qua res mathcma-
ticas solemus, inquirerem, sedulo ciiravi humanas actiones non ridere, non
lugere, neque detestari ; sed intelligere. JVec ad imperii securitatem refert
quo animo homines inducantur ad res recte administrandum, modo res recte ad-
ministrentur. Animi eniin libertas, seu fortitudo, privata virtus est; at impe-
rii virtus securitas.
Spinoza, op. Post. p. 267.
Translation. — While the mere practical Statesman too often rather plots
against mankind, than consults their interest, crafty not wise; the mere The-
orists, on the oTIicr hand, imagine that they are employed in a glorious
work, and believe themselves at the very summit of earthly Wisdom, when
they are able, in set and varied language, to extol that Hunian Nature, which
exists no where (except indeed hi their own fancy) and to accuse and vilify
our nature as it really is. Hence it has happened, that these men have never
conceived a practicable scheme of civil policy, but, at best, such forms of
Government onl}', as might have been instituted in Utopia, or during the gol-
den age of the poets : that is to say, forms of government excellently ada[)tcd
for those who need no government at all. But I am fully persuaded, that ex-
perience has already brought to light all conceivable sorts of political Institu-
tions under which human society can be maintained in concord, and like-
wise the chief means of directing the multitude, or retaining them within
given boundaries: so that I can hardly believe, that on this subject the deep-
est research would arrive at any result, not abhorrent tiom expei'ience and
f)ractice, which has not been already tried and jiroved.
140
When, therefore, I applied my thoughts to the study of Political Econo-
my, I ])roposed to myself nothing original or strange as the fruits of my re-
flections ; but simply to demonstrate from plain and undoubted principles, or
to deduce from the very condition and necessities of human nature, those
plans and maxims which square the best with piactice. And that in all
things which relate to this province, I might conduct my investigations with
the same freedom of intellect with which we jiroceed in questions of pure
science, I sedulously disciplined my mind neither to laugh at, or bewail, or
detest, the actions of men ; but to understand them. For to the safety of the
state it is not of necessaiy importance, what motives induce men to adminis-
ter public affairs rightly, provided only that public affairs be rightly adminis-
tered. For moral strength, or freedom from the selfish passions, is the virtue
of individuals; but security is the virtue of a state.
ON THE PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
All the different philosophical systems of political justice,
all the Theories on the rightful Origin of Government, are re-
ducible in the end to three classes, correspondent to the three
different points of view, in which the Human Being itself may
be contemplated. The first denies all truth and distinct mean-
ing to the words, Right and Duty, and affirming that the hu-
man mind consists of nothing, but manifold modifications of
passive sensation, considers men as the highest sort of ani-
mals indeed, but at the same time the most wretched ; inas-
much as their defenceless nature^ forces them into society,
while such is the multiplicity of wants engendered by the
social state, that the wishes of one are sure to be in contra-
diction with those of some otlicr. The assertors of this sys-
tem consequently ascribe the origin and contii^ance of Gov-
ernment to fear, or the power of the stronger, aided by the
force of custom. This is the systein of Hobbes. Its state-
ment is its confutation. It is, indeed, in the literal sense of
the word preposterous : for fear pre-supposes conquest, and
conquest a previous union and agreement between the con-
querors. A vast Empire ma?/ perhaps be governed by fear;
at least the idea is not absolutely inconceivable, under circum-
stances which prevent the consciousness of a common strength.
A million of men united by mutual confidence and free inter-
course of thoughts form one power, and this is as much a real
thing as a steam engine ; but a million of insulated individuals
is only an abstraction of the mind, and but one told so many
141
times over without addition, as an ideot would tell the clock
at noon — one, one, one, &c. But when, in the tirst instances,
the descendants of one family joined together to attack those of
another family, it is impossible that their chief or leader should
have appeared to them stronger than all the rest together :
thej must therefore have chosen him, and this as for particular
purposes, so doubtless under particular conditions, expressed
or understood. Such we know to be the case with the North
American tribes at present ; such we are informed by History,
was the case with our own remote ancestors. Therefore, even
on the system of those who, in comtempt of the oldest and
most authentic records, consider the savages as the first and
natural state of man, government must have originated in j
choice and an agreement. The apparent exceptions in Africa
and Asia are, if possible, still more subversive of this system :
for they will be found to have originated in religious imposture,
and the first chiefs to have secured a willing and enthusiastic
obedience to themselves, as Delegates of the Deity.
But the whole Theory is baseless. We are told by History,
we learn from our experience, we know from our own hearts,
that fear, of itself, is utterlj^ incapable of producing any regu-
lar, continuous and calculable effect, even on an individual ;
and that the fear, which does act systematically upon the mind
always presupposes a sense of duty, as its cause. The most
cowardly of the European nations, the Neapolitans and Sicili-
ans, those among whom the fear of death exercises the most
tyrannous influence relatively to their own persons, are the ve-
ry men who least fear to take away the life of a fellow citizen
by poison or assassination ; while in Great Britain, a tyrant
who has abused the power, which a vast property has given
him, to oppress a whole neighborhood, can walk in safety un-
armed, and unattended, amid a hundred men, each of whom
feels his heart burn with rage and indignation at the sight of
him. " It was this Man who broke my Father's heart" — or
" it is through Him that my Children are clad in rags, and cry
for the Food which I am no longer able to provide for them."
And yet they dare not touch a hair of his head ! Whence
does this arise ? Is it from a cowardice of sensihility that
makes the injured man shudder at (he thought of shedding
blood ? Or from a cowardice of selfishness which makes him
afraid of hazarding his own life ! Neither the one or the
142
other ! The Field of Waterloo, as the most recent of an hun-
dred equal proofs, has borne witness,
That " bring a Briton fra his hill,
*****
Say, such is Royal George's will,
And there's the foe,
He has nae thought but how to kill
Twa at a blow.
Nae cauld, faint-hearted doubtings tease him ;
Death comes, wi' fearless eye he sees him ,
Wi' bloody hand, a welcome gies him ;
And when he fa's
His latest draught o' breathin leaves him
In faint huzzas."
Whence then arises the difference of feeling in the formei
case ? To what does the oppressor owe his safety ? To the
spirit-quelling thought the laws of God and of my country
have made his life sacred ! I dare not touch a hair of his head !
— " Tis Conscience that makes Cowards of us all," — but ! oh !
it is Conscience too which makes Heroes of us all.
ESSAY II.
ht plus fort ri'est jamais assezfort pour Hre toujours le Tuaitre, s^U ne transforme
sa force en droit et Vobeissance en devoir. Rousseau.
Wr'ihus parantur provincia, ]nre retinentur. Igitur breve iff gaudium, qidppe
Gemiani victi magis, quam domiti. Flor. iv 12.
Translation. — The strongest is never strong enough to be alivm/s the mas-
ter, unless he transform his Power into Right and Obedience into Duty.
Rousseau.
Provinces are taken by force, but they are kept by right. This exultation
therefore was of brief continuance, inasmuch as the Germans had been
overcome, but not subdued. Florus.
A TRULT great man, (the best and greatest public character
that I had ever the opportunity of making myself acquainted
with) on assuming the command of a man of war, found a mu-
tinous crew, more than one half of them uneducated Irishmen,
and of the remainder no small portion had become sailors by
compromise of punishment. What terror could effect by se-
verity and frequency of acts of discipline, had been already
effected. And what was this effect ? Something like that of
a polar winter on a flask of brandy. The furious spirit concen-
tered itself with tenfold strength at the heart ; open violence
was changed into secret plots and conspiracies ; and the con-
sequent orderliness of the crew, as far as they were orderly,
was but the brooding of a tempest. The new commander in-
stantly commenced a system of discipline as near as possible
to that of ordinary law — as much as possible, he avoided, in
his own person, the appearance of any will or arbitrary power
to vary, or to remit, punishment. The rules to be observed
were afiixed (o a conspicuous part of the ship, with the particu-
lar penalties for the breach of each particular rule ; and care
was taken that every individual of the ship should know and
144
understand this code. With a single exception in the case of
mutinous behavior, a space of twenty-four hours was appointed
between the first charge and the second hearing of the cause,
at which time the accused person was permitted and required
to bring forward whatever he thought conducive to his defence
or palliation. If, as was commonly the case (for the officers
well knew that the commander would seriously resent in
them all caprice of will, and by no means permit to others
what he denied to himself) if no answer could be returned to
the three questions — Did you not commit the act ? Did you
not know that it was in contempt of such a rule, and in defi-
ance of such a punishment.^ And was it not wholly in your
own power to have obeyed the one and avoided the other.' —
the sentence was then passed with the greatest solemnity, and
another, but shorter, space of time was again interposed be-
tween it and its actual execution. During this space the feel-
ings of the commander, as a man, were so well blended with
his inflexibility, as the organ of the law ; and how much he
suffered previous to and during the execution of the sentence
was so well known to the crew, that it became a common say-
ing with them, when a sailor was about to be punished, " The
captain takes it more to heart than the fellow himself." But
whenever the commander perceived any trait of pride in the
off'ender, or the germs of any noble feeling, he lost no oppor-
tunity of saying, " It is not the pain that you are about to suf-
fer which grieves me ! You are none of you, I trust, such
cowards as to turn faint-hearted at the thought of that ! but
that, being a man and one who is to fight for his king and coun-
try, you should have made it necessary to treat you as a vi-
cious beast, it is this that grieves me."
I have been assured, both by a gentleman who was a lieu-
tenant on board that ship at the time when the heroism of its
captain, aided by his characteristic calmness and foresight,
greatly influenced the decision of the most glorious battle re-
corded in the annals of our naval glory ; and very recently by
a grey-headed sailor, who did not even know my name, or
could have suspected that I was previously acquainted with the
circumstances — I have been assured, I say, that the success of
this plan was such as astonished the oldest officers, and convin-^
ced the most incredulous. Ruffians, who like the old Buccan-
eers, had been used to inflict torture on themselves for sport, or
145
in order to harden themselves beforehand, were tamed and
overpowered, how or why they themselves knew not. From
the fiercest spirits were heard the most eaniest entreaties for
the forgiveness of their commander : not before the punish-
ment, for it was too well known that then they would have
been to no purpose, but days after it, when the bodily pain was
remembered but as a dream. An invisible power it was, that
quelled them, a power, which was therefore irresistible, be-
cause it took aw^ay the very will of resisting. It was the awe-
ful power of Law, acting on natures pre-configured to its influ-
ences. A faculty was appealed to in the Offender's own being;
a Faculty and a Presence, of which he had not been previously
made aware — but it answered to the appeal ! its real existence
therefore could not be doubted, or its reply rendered inaudible!
and the very struggle of the wilder passions, to keep upper-
most counteracted its own purpose, by wasting in internal con-
test that energy, which before had acted in its entirenes on
external resistance or provocation. Strength may be met with
strength ; the power of inflicting pain may be baffled by the
pride of endurance ; the eye of rage may be answered by the
stare of defiance, or the downcast look of dark and revengeful
resolve;, and with all this there is an outward and determined
object to which the mind can attach its passions and purposes,
and bury its own disquietudes in the full occupation of the
senses. But who dares struggle with an invisible combatant ?
with an enemy which exists and makes us know its existence
but where it is, we ask in vain. — No space contains it — time
promises no control over it — it has no ear for my threats — it
has no substance, that my hands can grasp, or my weapons find
vulnerable — it commands and cannot be commanded — it acts
and is insusceptible of my reaction — the more I strive to sub-
due it, the more am I compelled to think of it — and the more
I think of it, the more do I find it to possess a reality out of
myself, and not to be a phantom of my own imagination ; that
all, but the most abandoned men, acknowledge its authority,
and that the whole strength and majesty of my country are
pledged to support it ; and yet that for me its power is the
same with that of my own permanent Self, and that all the
choice, which is permitted to me, consists in having it for my
Guardian Angel or my avenging Fiend ! This is the Spirit of
Law ! the Lute of Amphion, the Harp of Orpheus ! This is
the true necessity, which compels man into the social state,
19
146
now and always, by a still-beginning, nerer-ceasing force of
moral cohesion.
Thus is man to be governed, and thus only can he be gov-
erned. For from his creation the objects of his senses were
to become his subjects, and the task allotted to him was to sub-
due the visible world within the sphere of action circumscribed
by those senses, as far as they could act in concert. What
the eye beholds the hand strives to reach ; what it reaches, it
conquers and makes the instrument of further conquest. We
can be subdued by that alone which is analogous in kind to
that by which we subdue: therefore by the invisible powers
of our nature, whose immediate presence is disclosed to our
inner sense, and only as the symbols and language of which all
shapes and modifications of matter become formidable to us.
A machine continues to move by the force which first set
it in motion. If only the smallest number in any state, pro-
perly so called, hold together through the influence of any fear
that does not itself presuppose the sense of duty, it is evident
that the state itself could not have commenced through animal
fear. We hear, indeed, of conquests ; but how does History
represent these ? Almost without exception as the substitu-
tion of one set of governors for another : and so far is the con-
queror from relying on fear alone to secure the obedience of
the conquered, that his first step is to demand an oath of feal-
ty from them, by which he would impose upon them the be-
lief, that they become subjects : for Avho would think of ad-
ministering an oath to a gang of slaves? But what can make
the difference between slave and subject, if ^lot the existence
of an implied contract in the one case, and not in the other.-*
And to what purpose would a contract serve if, however it
might be entered into through fear, it were deemed binding
only in consequence of fear .'' To repeat my former illustra-
tion — where fear alone is relied on, as in a slave ship, the
chains that bind the poor victims must be material chains : for
these only can act upon feelings which have their source wholly
in the material organization. Hobbes has said that Laws with-
out the sv/ord are but bits of parchment. Plow far this is true,
every honest man's heart will best tell him, if he will content
himself with asking his own heart, and not falsify the answer
by his notions concerning the hearts of other men. But were
it true, still the fair answer would be — Well ! but without the
Laws the sword is but a piece of iron. The wretched tyrant,
147
who disgraces the present age and human nature itself, had
exhausted the whole magazine of animal terror, in order to
consolidate his truly satanic Government. But look at the new
French catechism, and in it read the misgivings of the mon-
ster's mind, as to the insufiiciency of terror alone ! The sys-
tem, which I have been confuting, is indeed so inconsistent
with the facts revealed to us by our own mind, and so utterly
unsupported by any facts of History, that I should be censura-
ble in wasting my own time and my Reader's patience by the
exposure of its falsehood, but that the arguments adduced have
a value of themselves independent of their present application.
Else it would have been an ample and satisfactory reply to an
assertor of this bestial Theory — Government is a thing which
relates to men, and what you say applies only to beasts.
Before I proceed to the second of the three Systems, let me
remove a possible misunderstanding that may have arisen from
the use of the word Contract : as if I had asserted, that the
whole duty of obedience to Governors is derived from, and
dependent on, the fact of an original Contract. I freely ad-
mit, that to make this the cause and origin of political obliga-
tion, is not only a dangerous but an absurd Theory ; for what
could give moral force to the Contract ? The same sense of
Duty which binds us to keep it, must have pre-existed as im-
pelling us to make it. For what man in his senses would re-
gard the faithful observation of a contract entered into to plun-
der a neighbor's house but as a treble crime ? First the act,
which is a crime of itself: — secondlv, the enterina; into a Con-
tract which it is a crime to observe, and yet a weakening of one
of the main pillars of human confidence not to observe, and thus
voluntarily placing ourselves under the necessity of choosing
between two evils ; — and thirdly, the crime of chusing the
greater of the two evils, by the unlawful observance of an un-
lawful promise. But in my sense, the word Contract is mere-
ly synonimous with the sense of duty acting in a specific direc-
tion, i. e. determining our moral relations, as members of a
body politic. If I have referred to a supposed origin of Gov-
ernment, it has been in courtesy to a common notion : for I
myself regard the supposition as no more than a means of sim-
plifying to our apprehension the ever-continuing causes of social
union, even as the conservation of the world may be represented
as an act of continued Creation. For, what if an original
Contract had really been entered into, and formally recorded ?
148
Still it could do no more than bind the contracting parties to
act for the general good in the best manner, that the existing
relations among themselves, (state of property, religion, &c.)
on the one hand, and the external circumstances on the other
(ambitious or barbarous neighbors, &c.) required or permit-
ted. In after times it could be appealed to only for the gen-
eral principle, and no more than the ideal Contract, could
it affect a question of ways and means. As each particular
age brings with it its own exigencies, so must it rely on its
own prudence for the specific measures by which they are to
be encountered.
Nevertheless, it assuredly cannot be denied, that an original
(in reality, rather an ever-originating) Contract is a very natu-
ral and significant mode of expressing the reciprocal duties of
subject and sovereign. We need only consider the utility of
a real and formal State Contract, the Bill of Rights for in-
stance, as a sort of est demonstraium in politics ; and the con-
tempt lavished on this notion, though sufficiently compatible
with the tenets of a Hume, will seem strange to us in the wri-
tings of a Protestant clergyman, who surely owed some respect
to a mode of thinking which God himself had authorized by
his own example, in the establishment of the Jewish constitu-
tion. In this instance there was no necessity for deducing the
will of God from the tendency of the Laws to the general hap-
piness : his will was expressly declared. Nevertheless, it
seemed good to the divine wisdom, that there should be a co-
venant, an original contract, between himself as sovereign, and
the Hebrew nation as subjects. This, I admit, was a wriHen
and formal Contract ; but the relations of mankind, as mem-
bers of a body spiritual, or religious commonwealth, to the
Saviour, as its head or regent — is not this too styled a covenant,
though it would be absurd to ask for the material instrument
that contained it, or the time when it was signed or voted by
the members of the church collectively.*
* It is ])crl)aps to be regretted, that the words, Old and New Testament,
they having lost llie sense intended by the translators of the Bible, have not
been changed into the Old and New Covenant. We cannot too carehUly keep
in sight a notion, which appeared to the primitive church the fittest and mopt
scrij)tiiral uio<lo of representing the f>nm of the contents of the sacred wri-
tingp.
149
With this explanation, the assertion of an original (still bet-
ter, of a perpetual) Contract is rescued from all rational ob-
jection ; and however speciously it may be urged, that History
can scarcely produce a single example of a state dating its pri-
mary establishment from a free and mutual covenant, the answer
is ready : if there be any difference between a Government
and a band of robbers, an act of consent must be supposed on
the part of the people governed.
ESSAY
Human institutions cannot be whollj^ constructed on principles of Science,
which is proper to immutable olyccts. In the government of the visible
world the supreme Wisdom itself submits to be the Author of the J3etter:
not of the Best, but of tlie Best possible in the subsisting Relations. Much
more must all human Legislators give way to many Evils rather than en-
courage the Discontent that would lead to worse Remedies. If it is not in
the power of man to construct even the arch of a Bri«'!ge that shall exact-
ly correspond in its strength to the cal ulations of Geometry, how much
less can human Science construct a Constitution excef)t by rendering it-
self flexible to Experience and Exj)ediency : where so many things must
fall out SccidentaHy. and come not into any com])liance with the precon-
ceived ends; but men are forced to comply subsequently, and to strike in
with thnigs as they fall out, by after applications of them to their puri)osea,
or by framing their purposes to them. South.
Thk second system corresponds to the second point of view
under which the human being may be considered, namely, as
an animal gifted with understanding, or the faculty of suiting
measures to circumstances. According to this theory, every
institution of national origin needs no other justitution than a
160
proof, that under the particular circumstances it is expedient.
Having in my former Numbers expressed myself (so at least I
am conscious I shall have appeared to do to many persons) with
comparative slight of the understanding considered as the sole
guide of human conduct, and even with something like con-
empt and reprobation of the maxims of expedience, when
represented as the only steady light of the conscience, and the
absolute foundation of all morality; 1 shall perhaps seem guilty
of an inconsistency, in declaring myself an adherent of this sec-
ond system, a zealous advocate for deriving the origin of all gov-
ernment from human prudence^ and of deeming that to be just
which experience has proved to be expedient. From this
charge of inconsistency* I shall best exculpate myself by the
full statement of the third systera,^and by the exposition of its
grounds and consequences.
The third and last S}'»tem-4hen denies all rightful origin to
^Distinct notions do not suppose difterent things. WJicn we make a three-
fold distinction in Inurian nature, we are fully aware, that it is a distinction
not a division, and that in every act of Mind the Man unites the properties of
Sense, Understanding, and Reason. Nevertheless, it is of great practical im-
portance, that these distinctions should he made and understood, the igno-
rance or perversion of them being alike injurious; as the tirst French Con-
stitution has most lamentably proved. It was fashion in the profligate times
of Charles the Second, to laugh^at the Presbyterians, for distinguishing be-
tween the Person and the King; wiiile in fact they were ridiculing the most
venerable maxims of English Law ; — (the King never dies — the King can
do no wrong, &c.) and subverting the principles of genuine loyalty, in ord(U'
to prepare the minds of the peo])le for despotism.
Under the term Semse, I comprise, whatever is passive in our being, with-
out any reference to ths questions of ]\Iaterialism or Inmiaterialism ; all that
man is in conuncn with animals, in Jdnd at least — his sensations,' and impress-
ions, whether of his outward senses, or the inner sense of imagination. This
in the language of tlie Schools, was called the vis receptiva, or recipient pro-
perty of the soul, from the original constitution of which we perceive and
imagine all things under the forms of sp.ace and time. Byjhe u>'derstand-
iNG, 1 mean the facidty of thinking and forming judgments on the notices
furnished by the sense, according to certain rules existing in itself, which
rules constitute its distinct natm-e. By the pure Keasox, 1 mean the power
by which we become possess(!d of piinciple, (tiie eternal verities of Plato
and Descartes) and of ideas, (N. B. not images) as the ideas of a j)oint, a line,
a circle, in Mathematics; .and of Justice, Holiness, Free- Will, &c. in Mo-
rals. Hence in works of pure science the definitions of necessity precede
the reasoning, in other works the}' more a])tlyform the conclusion.
To marjy of my readers it will, I trust, be somc-reconimendation of these
151
government, except as far as they are derivable from principles
contained in the reason of Man, and judges all the relations
of men in Society by the Laws of moral necessity, according to
IDEAS (I here use the word in its highest and primitive sense, \
and as nearly synonimous with the modern word ideal) accord-
ing to archetypal ideas co-essential with the Reason, and the
consciousness of which is the sign and necessary product of its
full developement. The following then is the fundamental
principle of this theory: Nothing is to be deemed rightful in
civil society, or to be tolerated as such, but what is capable of
being demonstrated out of the original laws of the pure Rea-
son. Of course, as there is but one system of Geometry, so
according to this theory there can be but one constitution and
one system of legislation, and this consists in the freedom,
which is the common right of all men, under the control of that |
moral necessity, which is the common duty of all men. What-
ever is not every ivhere necessary, is no where right. On this .
assumption the whole theory is built. To state it nakedly is to/
confute it satisfactorily. So at least it should seem! But in
how winning and specious a manner this system may be repre-
sented even to minds of the loftiest order, if undisciplined and
unhumuled by practical experience, has been proved by the
general impassioned admiration and momentous effects of Rou-
seau's Du Contrat Social^ and the writings of the French
economists, or as they more appropriately entitled themselves,
distinctions, that they are more than once expressed, and every where sup-
posed, in the writings of St. Paul. I have no hesitation in undertaking to
prove, that every Heresy which has disquieted the Christian Churcli, from
Tritheism to Socinianisni, has originated in, and supported itself by, argu-
ments rendered plausible only by tlie confusion of these faculties, and thus
deznanding for the objects of one, a sort of evidence appropriated to those of
another faculty. — These disquisitions have the misfortune of being in ill-re-
I)ort, as dry and unsatisfactory ; but I hope, in the com-se of the work, to
gain tlieni a better character — and if elucidations of their practical impor-
tance from the most momentous events of History, can render them interesting,
to give them that interest at least. Besides, there is surely some good in the
knowledge of Truth, as Truth — (we were not made to live by Bread alone)
and in the strengthening of the intellect. It is an exellent Remark of Sca-
liger's — " Harum indagatio Subtilitafum, elsi non est idilis ad maclmias J'ari-
nuAas conficiendas, exuit animuvi tamen insciticB ruiigiiie acuitque ad aha."
ScALiG. Exerc. 307. §§ 3. i. e. The investigation of these subtleties, tliough
it is of no use to the construction of machines to grind corn with, yet clears
the mind from the rust of ignorance, and sharpens it for other thing*
152
Physiocratic Philosophers : and in how tempting and danger-
ous a manner it maybe represented to the populace, has been
made too evident in our own country by the temporary effects
of Paine's Rights of Man. Relatively, however, to this latter
work it should be observed, that it is not a legitimate offspring
of any one theory, but a confusion of the immorality of the
first system with the misapplied universal principles of the
last : and in this union, or rather lawless alternation, consists the
essence of Jacobinism, as far as Jacobinism is any thing but a
term of abuse, or has any meaning of its own distinct from de-
mocracy and sedition.
A constitution equally suited to China and America, or to
Russia and Great Brittain, must surely be equally unfit for both,
and deserve as little respect in political, as a quack's panacsea
in medical practice. Yet there are three weighty motives for
a distinct exposition of this theory,* and of the ground on
which its pretentions are bottomed: and I care aflirm, that for
the same reasons there are few subjects which in the present
state of the world have a fairer claim to the attention of every
serious Englishman, who is likely, directly or indirectly, as
partizan or as opponent, to interest himself in schemes of Re-
form.
The first motive is derived from the propensity of mankind
to mistake the feelings of disappointment, disgust, and abhor-
ance occasioned by the unhappy effects or accompaniments of
a particular system for an insight into the falshood of its princi-
ples which alone can secure its permanent rejection. For by
a wise ordinance of nature our feelings have no abiding-place
in our memory, nay the more vivid they are in the moment of
their existence the more dim and difScult to be remembered do
they make the thoughts which accompanied them. Those of
my readers who at any tinie of their life have been in the habit
of reading novels may easily convince themselves of this Truth
*As"MKTAPiiysics" aro the science wliich dotennincs what can, and what
cannot, be known of Being and the Laws of J5eing, a priori (that is from
those necessities of the mind or forms of tiiiiiking, wliich, though first re-
vealed to us by experience, must yet have pre-existed in order to make ex-
perience itself possi!)lc, even as the eye must exist previous to any particular
act of seeing, thnugli by sight only can we know that we have eyes) — so
might the philosophy of Rousseau and his followers not inaptly bo entitled
METAPOLrncs, and the Doctors of this School, 3Ietapoliticians.
153
by comparing their recollections of those stories, which inosl
excited their curiosity and even painfully affected their feel-
ings, with their recollections of the calm and meditative pathos
of Shakspeare and Milton. Hence it is that human experi-
ence, like the stern lights of a ship at sea, illumines only the
path which we have passed over. The horror of the Peasant's
War in Germany, and the direful effects of the Anabaptist te-
nets, which were only nominally different from those of Jacobin-
ism by the substitution of religious for philosophical jargon,
struck all Europe for a time with affright. Yet little more than
a century was sufficient to obliterate all effective memory of
those events: the same principles budded forth anew and pi'o-
duced the same fruits from the imprisonment of Charles the
First to the restoration of his Son. In the succeeding genera-
tions, to the follies and vices of the European Courts, and to
the oppressive privileges of the nobility, were again transfer-
ed those feelings of disgust and hatred, which for a brief while
the multitude had attached to the crimes and extravagances of
political and religious fanaticism : and the same principles aid-
ed by circumstances, and dressed out in the ostentatious garb
of a. fashionable philosophy, once more rose triumphant, and ef-
fected the French Revolution. That man has reflected little
on human nature who does not perceive that the detestable
maxims and correspondent crimes of the existing French des-
potism, have already dimmed the recollections of the democrat-
ic phrenzy in the minds of men ; by little and little, have
drawn off to other objects the electric force of the feelings,
which had massed and upheld those recollections; and that a
favourable concurrence of occasions is alone wanting to awak-
en the thunder and precipitate the lightning from the opposite
quarter of the political Heaven.* The true origin of human
events is so little susceptible of that kind of evidence which
can compel our belief even against our will ; and so many are
the disturbing forces which modify the motion given by the
first projection ; and every age has, or imagines it has, its own
circumstances which render past experience no longer applica-
ble to the present case ; that there will never be wanting an-
swers and explanations, and specious flatteries of hope. I
*The Reailer will recollect that thes^ Essays were first published in 1809.
20
154
well remember, that when the examples of former Jacobins,
Julius Caesar, Cromwell, &c. were adduced in France and En-
gland at the commencement of the French Consulate, it was
ridiculed as pedantry and pedants' ignorance, to fear a repeti-
tion of such usurpation at the close of the enlightened eighteenth
century. Those who possess the Monitew^s of that date will
find set proofs, that such results were little less than impossible,
and that it was an insult to so philosophical an age, and so en-
lightened a nation, to dare direct the public eye towards them
as lights of admonition and warning.
It is a common foible with official statesmen, and with those
who deem themselves honored by their acquaintance, to at-
tribute great national events to the influence of particular per-
sons, to the errors of one man and to the intrigues of another,
to any possible spark of a particular occasion, rather than to
the true cause, the predominant state of public opinion. I have
known men who, with most significant nods, and the civil con-
tempt of pitying half smiles, have declared the natural expla-
nation of the French Revolution, to be the mere fancies of Gar-
(/ retteers, and then with the solemnity of Cabinet Ministers,
have proceeded to explain the whole by anecdotes. It is so
stimulant to the pride of a vulgar mind, to be persuaded that
it knows what few others know and that it is the impor-
tant depository of a sort of state secret, by communicating
which it confers an obligation on others ! But I have like-
wise met with men of intelligence, who at the commence-
ment of the Revolution were travelling on foot through the
French provinces, and they bear witness, that in the remo-
test villages every tongue was employed in echoing and en-
forcing the doctrines of the Parisian Journalists, that the pub-
lic highways were crowded with enthusiasts, some shouting
the watch-words of the revolution, others disputing on the
most abstract principles of the universal constitution, which
they fully believed, that all the nations of the earth were short-
ly to adopt ; the most ignorant among them confident of his
fitness for the highest duties of a legislator; and all prepared
to shed their blood in the defence of the inalienable sovereign-
ty of the self-governed people. The more abstract the notions
were, with the closer affinity did they combine with the most
fervent feelings and all the immediate impulses to action.
The Lord Chancellor Bacon lived in an age of court intrigues,
and was familiarly acquainted with all the secrets of personal
155
influence. He, if any man, was qualified to take the guage
and measurement of their comparative power, and he has told
us, that there is one, and but one infallible source of political
prophecy, the knowledge of the predominant opinions and the
speculative principles of men in general, between the age of
twenty and thirty. Sir Philip Sidney, the favorite of Queen
Elizabeth, the paramount gentleman of Europe, the nephew,
and (as far as a good man could be) the confidante of the in-
triguing and dark-minded Earl of Leicester, was so deeply
convinced that the principles diffused through the majority of
a nation are the true oracles from whence statesmen are to
learn wisdom, and that " when the people speak loudly it is
from their being strongly possessed either by the godhead or
the daemon," that in the revolution of the Netherlands he con-
sidered the universal adoption of one set of principles, as a
proof of the divine presence. "If her majesty," '»ays he
" were the fountain, I would fear, considering what I daily
find, that we should wax dry. But she is but a means which
God useth." But if my Readers wish to see the question of
the efficacy of principles and popular opinions for evil and
for good proved and illustrated with an eloquence worthy of
the subject, I can refer them with the hardiest anticipation
of their thanks, to the late work " concerning the relations of
Great Britain, Spain and Portugal, by my honored friend,
William Wordsworth* quern quoties lego^ non verba mihi vi-
deor audire^ sed tonitrua !
* I consider this reference to, and strong recommendation of the Works
above mentioned, not as a vokmtary tribute of admiration, but as an act of
mere justice both to myself and to the readers of The Friend. I\ly own
heart bears me witness, that I am actuated by the deepest sense of the truth
of the principles, whicli it has been and still more will be my endeavor to
enforce, and of their paramoiuit importance to tlie well-being of Society at
tlie present juncture; and that the duty of making the attempt, and the hope
of not wholly falling in it, are, far more than the wish for the doubtful good
of literary reputation, or any yet meaner object, my great and ruling motives.
Mr. Wordsworth I deem a fellow-laborer in the same vineyard, actuated i)y
the same motives and teaching the same jjrinciples, but witli far greater pow-
ers of mind, and an eloquence more adequate to the importance and majesty
of the cause. I am strengthened too i)y the knowledge, that I am not un-
authorized by the sympathy of many wise and good men, and men acknow-
ledged as such by the Public, in my admiration of his pami)hlet, — JVcque enim
debet operibus ejit^ obesse, quod vivil. An si inter cos, quos nunquam vidimus.
156
That erroneous political notions (they having become general
and a part of the popular creed,) have practical consequences,
and these, of course, of a most fearful nature, is a truth as cer-
tain as historic evidence can make it : and that when the feel-
ings excited by these calamities have passed away, and the in-
terest in them has been displaced by more recent events, the
same errors are likely to be started afresh, pregnant with the
same calamities, is an evil rooted in Human Nature in the pre-
sent state of general information, for which we have hitherto
found no adequate remedy. (It may, perhaps in the scheme of
Providence, be proper and conducive to its ends, that no ade-
quate remedy should exist : for the folly of men is the wisdom
of God.) But if there be any means, if not of preventing, yet
JJoruisset, vo7i solum libros ejus, verum etiam imagines conquireremiis, cjiisdem
nunc honb'r prasentis, et gratia quasi satietale languescet? Jit hoc pravum, mal-
ignumque est, non adniirari hominem admiratione dignissimum, quia videre^
complect! , nee laudare iantum, verum etiam amare contingit, PLi?f. E[)ist. Lib. I.
It is hardly possible for a man of ingenuous mind to act under the fear that
it shall be suspected by honest men of the vileness of praising a work to the
public, nieroly because he happens, to be personally acquainted Avith the
Author. That this is so commonly done in Reviews, furnishes only an addi-
tional proof of the morbid hardness produced in the moral sense by the habit
of writing anonymous criticisms, especially under the further disguise of a
pretended board or association of Critics, each man expressing himself, to
use the words of Andrew Marvel, as a syncdical individuum. With regard
however, to the probability of the judgment being warped by partiality, I can
only say that I judge of all Works indifferently by certain fixed rules previ-
ously formed in my mind with all the power and vigilance of my judgment ;
and that I should certainly of the two apply them with greater rigor to the
production of a friend than that of a person indifllrent to me. But \a herever
I find in any Work all the conditions of excellence in its kind, it is not the
accider.t of the Author's being my cotemporary or even my friend, or the
sneers of bad-hearted men, that shall prevent me from speaking of it, as in
my inmost convictions I deem it deserves.
no, friend !
Though it be now the fashion to commend.
As men of strong minds, those alone who can
Censure with judgment, no such piece of man
Makes up my spirit : where desert does live.
There will I plant my wonder, and there give
My best endeavors to build up his glory,
That truly merits !
Recommendatory n?rse» to one of the old Plays'
157
of palliating the disease and, in the more favored nations, of
checicing its progress at the first symptoms ; and if these means
are to be at all compatible with the civil and intellectual free-
dom of mankind ; they are to be found only in an intelligible
and tiiorough exposure of the error, and, thiough that discove-
ry, of the source, from which it derives its speciousness and
powers of influence on the human mind. This therefore is
my first motive for undertaking tlie disquisition.
The second is, that though the French code of revolutionary
principles is now generally rejected as a system, yet everywhere
in the speeches and writings of the English reformers, nay, not
seldom in those of their opponents, I find certain maxims assert-
ed or appealed to, which are not tenable, except as constituent
parts of that system. INIanj^ of the most specious arguments in
proof of the imperfection and injustice of the present constitu-
tion of our legislature will be found, on closer examination, to
pre-suppose the truih of certain principles, from which the ad-
ducers of these arguments loudly profess their dissent. But in
political changes no permanence can be hoped for in the ed-
ifice, without consistency in the foundation.
The third motive is, that by detecting the true source of the
influence of these principles, we shall at the same time discover
their natural place and object : and that in themselves they are
not only Truths, but most important and sublime Truths ; and
that their falsehood and their danger consist altogether in their
misapplication. Thus the dignity of Human Nature will be
secured, and at the same time a lesson of humility taught to
each individual, when we are made to see that the universal,
necessary Laws, and pure ideas of Reason, were given us, not
for the purpose of flattering our Pride and enabling us to be-
come national legislators ; but that by an energy of continued
self-conquest, we might establish a free and yet absolute gov-
ernment in our own spirits.
ESSAY IV.
Albeit therefore, much of that we are to speak in this present cause, may
seem to a number perhaps tedious, j)erhaps obscure, dark and intricate, (for
many talk of the Truth, which never sounded the depth from whence it
springeth : and therefore, when they are led thereunto, they are soon weary,
as men drawn from those beaten paths, wherewith they have been inured ;)
yet this may not so far prevail, as to cut off that which the matter itself re-
quireth, howsoever the nice, humour of some be therewith pleased or no.
They unto whom we shall seem tedious, are in no wise injured by us, be-
cause it is in their own hands to spare that labor which they are not willing
to endure. And if any com})lain of obscurity, they must consider, that in
these matters it cometh no otherwise to pass, than in sundry the works both
of Art, and also of Natiue, where that which hath greatest force in the very
things we see, is, notwithstanding, itself oftentimes not seen. The stateliness
of houses, the goodliness of trees, when we behold them, delighteth the eye :
but the foundation which beareth up the one, that root which ministereth unto
the other nourishment and life, is in the bosom of the earth concealed, and
if there be occasion at any time to search into it, such labor is then more ne-
cessary than pleasant,]both to them which undertake it and for the lookers-on.
In like maimer, the use and benefit of good laws, all that live under them,
may enjoy with delight and comfort, albeit the grounds and first original
causes from whence they have sprung, be unknown, as to the greatest part
"of men they are. But when they who withdraw their obedience, pretend
that ihe laws which they should obey are corrupt and vicious: for better ex-
amination of their quality, it behoveth the very foimdation and root, the high-
est well-spring and fountain of them to be discovered. Which because we
are not oftentimes accustomed to do, when we do it, the pains we take are
more needful a great deal than acceptable, and the matters which we handle,
seem by reason of newness, (till ihe mind grow better acquainted with thcni)
dark, intricate, and unfiimiliar. For as much help whereof, as may be in this
case, I have endeavored throughout the body of this whole Discourse, that
every former part might give strength to all that follow, and every latter bring
some light to all before: so that if the judgments of men do but hold them-
selves in suspense, as touching tlicse first more general Meditations, till in or-
der they have i)erused the rest that ensue, what may seem dark at the first,
will afterwards be found more plain, even as the latter particular decisions
will appear, I doubt not, more strong when the other have been read before.
Hooker's Ecdcsiast. PoUty.
159
ON THE GROUNDS Or GOVERNMENT AS LAID EXCLUSIVELY IN
THE PURE reason; OR A STATEMENT AND CRITIQUE OF THE
THIRD SYSTEM OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY, VIZ. THE THEO-
RY OF ROUSSEAU AND THE FRENCH ECONOMISTS.
I return to my promise of developing from its embryo prin-
ciples the Tree of French Liberty, of which the declaration of
the Rights of Man, and the Constitution of 1791 were the leaves,
and the succeeding and present state of France the fruits.
Let me not be blamed, i(^ in the interposed Essays, introduc-
tory to this Section, I have connected this system, though on-
ly in the imagination, though only as a possible case, with a
name so deservedly reverenced as that of Luther. It is some
excuse, that to interweave with the Reader's recollections a
certain life and dramatic interest, during the perusal of the ab-
stract reasonings that are to follow, is the only means I pos-
sess of bribing his attention. We have most of us, at some
period or other of our lives, been amused with dialogues of the
dead. Who is there, that wishing to form a probable opinion
on the grounds of hope and fear for an injured people warring
against mighty armies, would not be pleased with a spirited
fiction, which brought before him an old Numantian discours-
ing on that subject in Elysium, with a newly-arrived spirit
from the streets of Saragossa or the Walls of Gerona ?
But I have a better reason. I wished to give every fair ad-
vantage to the opinions, which I deemed it of importance to
confute. It is bad policy to represent a political system as ha-
ving no charms but for robbers and assassins, and no natural
origin but in the brains of fools or mad-men, when experience
has proved, that the great danger of the system consists in the
peculiar fascination it is calculated to exert on noble and ima-
ginative spirits ; on all those, who in the amiable intoxication of
youthful benevolence, are apt to mistake their own best virtues
and choicest powers for the average qualities and attributes of
the human character. The very minds, which a good man
would most wish to preserve or disentangle from the snare,
are by these angry misrepresentations rather lured into it. Is
it wonderful, that a man should reject the arguments unheard,
when his own heart proves the falsehood of the assumptions
by which they are prefaced ? or that he should retaliate on the
aggressors their own evil thoughts ? I am well aware, that the
IGO
provocation was great, the temptation almost inevitable ; yet
still I cannot repel the conviction from my mind, that in part
to this error and in part to a certain inconsistency in his funda-
mental principles, we are to attribute the small number of con-
verts made by Burke during his life time. Let me not be
misunderstood. I do not mean, that this great man supported
different principles at different aeras of his political life. On the
contrary, no man was ever more like himself ! From his first pub-
lished speech on the American colonies to his last posthumous
Tracts, we see the same man, the same doctrines, the same
uniform wisdom of practical councils, the same reasoning and
the same prejudices against all abstract grounds, against all de-
duction of Practice from Theory. The inconsistency to which
I allude, is of a different kind : it is the want of congruity in
the principles appealed to in different parts of the same Work,
it is an apparent versatility of the principle with the occasion.
If his opponents are Theorists, then every thing is to be found-
ed on Prudence, on mere calculations of Expediency: and
every man is represented as acting according to the state of his
own immediate self-interest. Are his opponents calculators .'*
T/tCTi calculation itself is represented as a sort of crime. God
has given us Feelings, and we are to obey them ! and the
most absurd prejudices become venerable, to which these
Feelings have given consecration. I have not forgotten, that
Burke himself defended these half contradictions, on the pre-
text of balancing the too much on the one side by a too much
on the other. But never can 1 believe, but that the straight
line must needs be the nearest ; and that where there is the
most, and the most unalloyed truth, there will be the greatest
and most permanent power of persuasion. But the fact was,
that Burke in his public character found himself, as it were, in
a Noah's Ark, with a very few men and a great many beasts !
He felt how much his immediate power was lessened by the
very circumstance of his measureless superiority to those about
him : he acted, therefore, under a perpetual system of com-
promise — a compromise of greatness with meanness ; a com-
promise of comprehension with narrowness; a compromise of
the philosopher (who armed with the twofold knowledge of
History and the Laws of Spirit, as with a telescope, looked far
around and into the far distance) with the mere men of busi-
ness, or with yet coarser intellects, who handled a truth, which
161
they were required to receive, as they would handle an ox,
which they were desired to purchase. But why need I repeat
what has been already said in so happy a manner by Goldsmith,
of this great man :
"Who, bom for the universe narrow'd his mind,
And to party gave up wliat was meant for mankind.
TJio' fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat,
To persuade Tommy Townsend to give him a vote;
Who too deep for his hearers, still went on refining,
And tliought of convincing, while they thought of dining."
And if in consequence it was his fate to " cut blocks with a
razor^^^ I may be permitted to add, that in respect of Truth
though not of Genius, the weapon was injured by the misappli-
cation.
The Friend, however, acts and will continue to act under
the belief, that the whole truth is the best antidote to falsehoods
which are dangerous chiefly because they are half-truths : and
that an erroneous system is best confuted, not by an abuse of
Theory in general, nor by an absurd opposition of Theory to
Practice, but by a detection of the errors in the particular The-
ory. For the meanest of men has his Theory : and to think at
all is to theorize. With these convictions I proceed immedi-
ately to the system of the economists and to the principles on
which it is constructed, and from which it must derive all its
strength.
The system commences with an undeniable truth, and an im-
portant deduction therefrom equally undeniable. All voluntary
actions, say they, having for their objects, good or evil, are
moral actions. But all morality is grounded in the reason.
Every man is born with the faculty of Reason : and whatever
is without it, be the shape what it may, is not a man or person,
but a THING. Hence the sacred principle, recognized by all
Laws, human and divine, the principle indeed, which is the
ground-ivork of all law and justice, that a person can never
become a thing, nor be treated as such without wrong. But
the distinction between person and thing consists herein, that
the latter may rightfully be used, altogether and merely, as a
means ; but the former must always be included in the end, and
form a part of the final cause. We plant the tree and we cut
it down, we breed the sheep and we kill it, wholly as means to
our own ends. The wood-cutter and the hind are likewise em-
21
162
ployed as means, but on an agreement of reciprocal advantage,
■which includes them as well as their employer in the end.
Again : as the faculty of Reason implies free-agency, morality
(i. e. the dictate of Reason) gives to every rational being the
right of acting as a free agent, and of finally determining his
conduct by his own will, according to his own conscience : and
this right is inalienable except by guilt, which is an act of self-
forfeiture, and the consequences therefore to be considered as
the criminal's own moral election. In respect of their Reason*
all men are equal. The measure of the Understanding and of
all other faculties of man, is different in different persons : but
Reason is not susceptible of degree. For since it merely de-
cides whether any given thought or action is or is not in con-
tradiction with the rest, there can be no reason better, or more
reason, than another.
Reason ! best and holiest gift of Heaven and bond of union
with the Giver ! The high title by which the majesty of man
claims precedence above all other living creatures ! Myste-
rious faculty, the mother of conscience, of language, of tears,
and of smiles ! Calm and incorruptible legislator of the soul,
without whom all its other powers would " meet in mere
oppugnancy." Sole principle of permanence amid endless
change ! in a world of discordant appetites and imagined self-
interests the one only common measure ! which taken away,
"Force sliould be riglit ; or, rather right and wrong
(Between whose endless jar justice resides)
Should lose their names and so should justice too.
Then eveiy thing includes itself in power,
Power into will, will into appetite ;
And appetite, an universal wolf,
So doubly seconded with will and po\ver,
Must make perforce an universal prey !"
Thrice blessed faculty of Reason ! all other gifts, though goodly
and of celestial origin, health, strength, talents, all the powers
and all the means of enjoyment, seem dispensed by chance or
sullen caprice — thou alone, more than even the sunshine, more
than the common air, art given to all men, and to every man
alike ! To thee, who being one art the same in all, we owe
*Thi3 position has been already explained, and the sophistiy grounded on
it detected and exposed, in the last Essay of the Landing-Place, in this vol-
ume.
163
the privilege, that of all we can become one, a living whole!
that we have a Country ! Who then shall dare prescribe a
law of moral action for any rational Being, which does not flow
immediately from that Reason, which is the fountain of all mor-
ality ? Or how without breach of conscience can we limit or
coerce the powers of a free agent, except by coincidence with
that law in his own mind, which is at once the cause, the con-
dition, and the measure, of his free agency ? Man must be
free ; or to what purpose was he made a Spirit of Reason, and '
not a Machine of Instinct? Man must obey ; or wherefore has^
he a conscience ? The powers, which create this difficulty,
contain its solution likewise : for their service is perfect free-
dom. And whatever law or system of law compels any other
service, disennobles our nature, leagues itself with the animal
against the godliiie, kills in us the very principle of joyous
well-doing, and fights against humanity.
By the application of these principles to the social state there
arises the following system, which as far as respects its first
grounds is developed the most fully by J. J. Rousseau in his
work Du Contrat Social. If then no individual possesses the
right of prescribing any thing to another individual, the rule of
which is not contained in their common Reason, Society,
which is but an aggregate of individuals, can communicate this
right to no one. It cannot possibly make that rightful which
the higher and inviolable law of human nature declares con-
tradictory and unjust. But concerning Right and Wrong, the
Reason of each and every man is the competent judge : for how
else could he be an amenable Being, or the proper subject of
any law ? This Reason, therefore, in any one man, cannot
even in the social state be rightfully subjugated to the Reason ;
of any other. Neither an individual, nor yet the whole multi-
tude which constitutes the state, can possess the right of com-
pelling him 10 do any thing, of which it cannot be demonstrated
that his own Reason must join in prescribing it. If therefore
society is to be under a rightful constitution of government,
and one that can impose on rational Beings a true and moral
obligation to obey it, it must be framed on such principles that
every individual follows his own Reason while he obeys the
laws of the constitution, and performs the will of the state
while he follows the dictates of his own Reason. This is ex-
pressly asserted by Rousseau, who states the problem of a per-
164
feet constitution of government in the following words : Ti'ou-
verune forme d^ Association — par laquelle chacun s^ tmissant
dtous, n'oheisse pourtant qu* a lui meine, et reste aussi libre qu'
auparavant, i. e. To find a form of society according to
which each one uniting with the whole shall yet obey himself
only and remain as free as before. This right of the individu-
al to retain his w|iole natural independence, even in the social
state, is absolutely inalienable. He cannot possibly concede
or compromise it : for this very Right is one of his most sacred
Duties. He would sin against himself, and commit high trea-
son against the Reason which the Almighty Creator has given
him, if he dared abandon its exclusive right to govern his ac-
tions.
Laws obligatory on the conscience, can only therefore pro-
ceed from that Reason which remains always one and the
same, whether it speaks through this or that person : like the
voice of an external Ventriloquist, it is indifferent from whose
lips it appears to come, if only it be audible. The individuals
indeed are subject to errors and passions, and each man has
his own defects. But when men are assembled in person or
by real representatives, the actions and re-actions of individual
Self-love balance each other ; errors are neutralized by oppo-
site errors ; and the winds rushing from all quarters at once
with equal force, produce for the time a deep calm, during
which the general will arising from the general Reason dis-
plays itself. "It is fittest," says Burke himself, (see his Note
on his Motion relative to the Speech from the Throne, Vol. H.
Page 647, 4to. Edit.) " It is fittest that sovereign authority
should be exercised where it is most likely to be attended
with the most effectual correctives. These correctives are
furnished by the nature and course of parliamentary proceed-
ings, and by the infinitely diversified characters who compose
the two Houses. The fulness, the freedom, and publicity of
discussion, leave it easy to distinguish what are acts of power,
and what the determinations of equity and reason. There
prejudice corrects prejudice, and the different asperities of par-
ty zeal mitigate and neutralize each other."
This, however, as my readers will have already detected, is
no longer a demonstrable deduction from Reason. It is a mere
probability, against which other probabilities may be weighed :
as the lust of authority, the contagious nature of enthusiasm,
^'^.
165
and other of the acute or chronic diseases of deliberative as-
semblies. But which of these results is the more probable,
the correction or the contagion of evil, must depend on cir-
cumstances and grounds of expediency : and thus we already
find ourselves beyond the magic circle of the pure Reason, and
within the sphere of the understanding and the prudence. Of
this important fact Rousseau was by no means unaware in his
theory, though with gross inconsistency he takes no notice of
it in his application of the theory to practice. He admits the
possibility, he is compelled by History to allow even the pro-
bability^ that the most numerous popular assemblies, nay even
whole nations, may at times be hurried away by the same pass-
ions, and under the dominion of a common error. This will of
all is then of no more value, than the humours of any one in-
dividual : and must therefore be sacredly distinguished from
the pure will which ilows from universal Reason. To this
point then I entreat the Reader's particular attention : for in
this distinction, established by Rousseau himself between the
Volontc de Tous and the Volonte generate, (i. e. between the
collective will, and a casual overbalance of wills) the falsehood
or nothingness of the whole system becomes manifest. For
hence it follows, as an inevitable consequence, that all which
is said in the Contrat Social of that sovereign will, to which
the right of universal legislation appertains, applies to no one
Human Being, to no Society or assemblage of Human Beings,
and least of all to the mixed multitude that makes up the Peo-
ple : but entirely and exclusively to Reason itself, which, it
is true, dwells in every man potentially ^ but actually and in
perfect purity is found in no man and in no body of men. This
distinction the latter disciples of Rousseau chose completely to
forget and, (afar more melancholy case!) the constituent le-
gislators of France forgot it likewise. With a wretched par-
rotry they wrote and harrangued without ceasing of the Volon-
te generate — the inalienable sovereignty of the people : and by
these high-soundding phrases led on the vain, ignorant, and in-
toxicated populace to wild excesses and wilder expectations,
which entailing on them the bitterness of dissappointment
cleared the way for military despotism, for the satanic Govern-
ment of Horror under the Jacobins, and of Terror under the
Corsican.
Luther lived long enough to see the consequences of the
166
doctrines into which indignant pity and abstract ideas of right
had hurried hiin — to see, to retract and to oppose them. If
the same had been the lot of Rousseau, I doubt not that his
conduct would have been the same. In his whole system
there is beyond controversy much that is true and well reason-
ed, if only its application be not extended farther than the na-
ture of the case permits. But then we shall find that little or
nothing is won by it for the institutions of society ; and least of
all for the constitution of Governments, the Theory of which
it was his wish to ground on it. Apply his principles to any
ease, in which the sacred and inviolable Laws of Morality are
immediately interested, all becomes just and pertinent. No
power on earth can oblige me to act against my conscience.
No magistrate, no monarch, no legislature, can without tyranny
compel me to do any thing which the acknowledged law^s of
God have forbidden me to do. So act that thou mayest be
able, without involving any contradiction, to will that the max-
im of thy conduct should be the law of all intelligent Beings —
is the one universal and sufficient principle and guide of mo-
rality. And why ? Because the object of morality is not the
outward act, but the internal maxim of our actions. And so
far it is infallible. But with what shew of Reason can we
pretend, from a principle by which we are to determine the
purity of our motives, to deduce the form and matter of a
rightful Government, the main office of which is to regulate
the outward actions of particular bodies of men, according to
their particular circumstances ? Can we hope better of con-
stitutions framed by ourselves, than of that which was given by
Almighty Wisdom itself? The laws of the Hebrew^ common-
wealth, which tlowed from the pure Reason, remain and are
immutable ; but the regulations dictated by Prudence, though
by the Divine prudence, and though given in thunder from the
Mount, have passed away ; and while they lasted, were binding
only for that one state, the particular circumstances of which
rendered them expedient.
Rousseau indeed asserts, that thereis an inalienable sove-
reignty inherent in every human being possessed of Reason :
and from this the framers of the constitution of 1791 deduce,
that the people itself is its own sole rightful legislator, and at
most dare only recede so far from its right as to delegate to
chosen deputies the power of representing and declaring the
167
general will. But this is wholly without proof; for ft has al-
ready been fully shewn, that according to the principle out of
.which this consequence is attempted to be drawn, it is not the
actual man, but the abstract Reason alone, that is the sovereign
and rightful Lawgiver. The confusion of two things so differ-
ent is so gross an error, that the Constituent Assembly could
scarce proceed a step in their declaration of rights, without
some glaring inconsistency. Children are excluded from all
political power — are they not human beings in whom the faculty
of Reason resides ! Yes ! but in them the faculty is not yet
adequately developed. But are not gross ignorance, invete-
rate superstition, and the habitual tyranny of passion and sen-
suality, equal preventives of the developement, equal impedi-
ments to the rightful exercise of the Reason, as childhood and
early youth ? Who would not rely on the judgment of a well-'
educated English lad, bred in a virtuous and enlightened fami-
ly, in preference to that of a brutal Russian, who believes that
he can scourge his wooden idol into good humor, or attributes
to himself the merit of perpetual prayer, when he has fastened
the petitions, which his priest has written for him, on the wings
of a windmill ? Again : women are likewise excluded — a full
half, and that assuredly the most innocent, the most amiable
half, of the whole human race, is excluded, and this too by a
constitution which boasts to have no other foundations but those
of universal Reason ! Is Reason then an affair of sex ? No !
But women are commonly in a state of dependance, and are not
likely to exercise their Reason with freedom. Well! and does
not ihis ground of exclusion apply with equal or greater force
to the poor, to the infirm, to men in embarrassed circumstances,
to all in short whose maintenance, be it scanty or be it ample, de-
pends on the will of others ? How far are we to go ? Where must
we stop ? What classes should we admit ? Whom must we dis-
franchise ? The objects, concerning whom we are to determine
these questions, are all human beings and differenced from each
other by degrees only, these degrees too oftentimes changing.
Yet the principle on which the whole system rests is, that Rea-
son is not susceptible of degree. Nothing therefore, which
subsists wholly in degrees, the changes of which do not obey
any necessary law, can be subjects of pure science, or deter-
minable by mere Reason. For these things we must rely on
our Understandings, enlightened by past experience and ira-
168
mediate observation, and determining our choice by comparisons
of expediency.
It is therefore altogether a mistaken notion, that the theory
which would deduce the social Rights of Man and the sole
rightful form of government from principles of Reason, in-
volves a necessary preference of the democratic, or even
the representative, constitutions. Accordingly, several of the
French economists, although devotees of Rousseau and the
physiocratic system, and assuredly not the least respectable of
their party either in morals or in intellect ; and these too, men
who lived and wrote under the unlimited monarchy of France,
and who were therefore well acquainted with the evils connect-
ed with that system ; did yet declare themselves for a pure
monarchy in preference to the aristocratic, the popular, or the
mixed form. These men argued, that no other laws being al-
lowable but those which are demonstrably just, and founded in
the simplest ideas of Reason, and of which every man's reason
is the competent judge, it is indifferent whether one man, or
one or more assemblies of men, give form and publicity to them.
For being matters of pure and simple science, they require no
experience in order to see their Truth, and among an enlight-
ened people, by whom this system had been once solemnly
adopted, no sovereign would dare to make other laws than those
of Reason. They further contend, that if the people were not
enlightened, a purely popular government could not co-exist
with this system of absolute justice; and if it were adequately
enlightened, the influence of public opinion would supply the
place of formal representation, while the form of the govern-
ment would be in harmony with the unity and simplicity of its
principles. This they entitle le Despotisme legal sous V Em-
pire de V Evidence. (The best statement of the theory thus
modified, may be found in Mercier de la Riviere, Vordre naturel
el essentiel des societcs politiques.) From the proofs adduced in
the preceding paragrapli, to which many others might be added,
I have no hesitation in affirming that this latter party are the
more consistent reasoners.
It is worthy of remark, that the influence of these writings
contributed greatly, not indeed to raise the present emperor,
but certainly to reconcile a numerous class of politicians to his
unlimited authority : and as far as his lawless passion for war
and conquest allows him to govern according to any prin-
ciples, he favors those of the phystocratlo philosophers. His
early education must have given him a predilection for a theory
conducted throughout with mathematical precision ; its very
simplicity promised the readiest and most commodious machine
for despotism, for it moulds a nation into as calculable a power as
an army ; while the stern and seeming greatness of the whole,
and its mock-elevation above human feelings, flattered his pride,
hardened his conscience, and aided the efforts of self-delusion.
Reasoiv is the sole sovereign, the only rightful legislator : but
Reason to act on man must be impersonated. The Providence
which had so marvellously raised and supported him, had
marked him out for the representative of Reason, and had
armed him with irresistible force, in order to realize its laws.
In Him therefore Might becomes Right, and his cause and
that of destiny (or as the wretch now chooses to word it, ex-
changing blind nonsense for staring blasphemy) his cause and
the cause of God are one and the same. Excellent postulate
for a choleric and self-willed tyrant ! What avails the im-
poverishment of a few thousand merchants and manufacturers ?
What even the general wretchedness of millions of perishable
men, for a short generation? vShould these stand in the way
of the chosen conqueror, the " Innovator Mundi^ et Stupor Soe-
culorum,^^ or prevent a constitution of things, which erected on
intellectual and perfect foundations, " groweth not old," but like
the eternal justice, of which it is the living image,
■ " may despise
" The strokes of Fate and see tlie World's last boiir !"
For Justice, austere unrelenting Justice, is every where held
up as the one thing needful : and the only duty of the citizen,
in fulfilling which he obeys all the laws, is not to encroach on
another's sphere of action. The greatest possible happiness of
a people is not, according to this system, the object of a gov-
ernor ; but to preserve the freedom of all, by coercing within
the requisite bounds the freedom of each. Wliatever a gov-
ernment does more than this, comes of evil : and its best em-
ployment is the repeal of laws and regulations, not the estab-
lishment of them. Each man is the best judge of his own hap-
piness, and to himself must it therefore be entrusted. Remove
all the interferences of positive statutes, all monopoly, all boun-
ties, all prohibitions, and all encouragements of importation and
22
170
exportation, of particular growth and particular manufactures :
let the Revenues of the State be taken at once from the Produce
of the Soil ; and all things will find their level, all irregularities
will correct each other, and an indestructible cycle of harmoni-
ous motions take place in the moral equally as in the natural
world. The business of the Governor is to watch incessantly,
that the State shall remain composed of individuals, acting as
individuals, by which alone the freedom of all can be secured.
Its duty is to take care that itself remain the sole collective
power, and that all the citizens should enjoy the same rights,
and without distinction be subject to the same duties.
Splendid promises ! Can any thing appear more equitable
than the last proposition, the equality of rights and duties ? Can
any thing be conceived more simple in the idea ? But the exe-
cution — ? let the four or five quarto volumes of the Conscript
Code be the comment! But as briefly as possible I shall
prove, that this system, as an exclusive total, is under any
form impracticable ; and that if it were realized, and as far
as it were realized, it would necessarily lead to general
barbarism and the most grinding oppression ; and that the
final result of a general attempt to introduce it, must be a mil-
itary despotism inconsistent with the peace and safety of man-
kind. That Reason should be our guide and governor is an
undeniable Truth, and all our notion of right and wrong is built
thereon : for the whole moral nature of man originated and
subsists in his Reason. From Reason alone can we derive the
principles which our Understandings are to apply, the Ideal to
which by means of our Uunderstandings we should endeavor
to approximate. This however gives no proof that Reason
alone ought to govern and direct human beings, either as Indi-
viduals or as States. It ought not to do this, because it can-
not. The Laws of Reason are unable to satisfy the first condi-
tions of Human Society. We will admit that the shortest code
of law is the best, and that the citizen finds himself most at
ease where the Government least intermeddles with his affairs,
and confines its efforts to the preservation of public tranquillity
— we will suffer this to pass at present undisputed, though the
examples of England, and before the late events, of Holland
and Switzerland, (surely the three happiest nations of the
world) to which perhaps we might add the major part of the
former German free towns, furnish stubborn facts in presump-
tion of the contrary — yet still the proof is wanting that the first
171
and most general applications and exertions of the power ol
man can be definitely regulated by Reason unaided by the posi-
tive and conventional laws in the formation of which the Un-
derstanding must be our guide, and which become just because
they happen to be expedient.
The chief object for which men first formed themselves into
a State was not the protection of their lives but of their prop-
erty. Where the nature of the soil and climate precludes all
property but personal, and permits that only in its simplest
forms, as in Greenland, men remain in the domestic state and
form Neighbourhoods, but not Governments. And in North
America, the Chiefs appear to exercise government in those
tribes only which possess individual landed property. Among
the rest the Chief is their General ; but government is exer-
cised only in Families by the Fathers of Families. But where
individual landed property exists, there must be inequality of
property : the nature of the earth and the nature of the mind
unite to make the contrary impossible. But to suppose the
Land the property of the State, and the labor and the produce
to be equally divided among all the Members of the State, in-
volves more than one contradiction : for it could not subsist
without gross injustice, except where the Reason of all and
of each was absolute master of the selfish passions of sloth,
envy, &c.: and yet the same state v/ould preclude the greater
part of the means by which the Reason of man is developed.
In whatever state of society you would jilace it, from the most
savage to the most refined, it would be found equally unjust
and impossible ; and were there a race of men, a country, and
a climate, that permitted such an order of things, the same
causes would render all Government superfluous. To proper-
ty, therefore, and to its inequalities, all human laws directly or
indirectly relate, which would not be equally laws in the state
of Nature. Now it is impossible to deduce the Right of
Property* from pure Reason. The utmost which Reason could
give would be a property in the forms of things, as far as the
forms w^ere produced by individual power. In the matter it
*I mean, practically and with the incqualitiad inseparable from the actual
existence of Property. Abstractedly, the Right to Property is deducilde from
the Frec-ageucy of man. If to act freely be a Right, a sphere of action must
lie 60 too.
1T2
could give no property. We regard angels, and glorified spir-
its as Beings of pure Reason : and whoever thought of Proper-
ty in Heaven ? Even the simplest and most moral form of it,
namely, Marriage, (we know from the highest authority) is
excluded from the state of pure reason. Rousseau himself
expressly admits, that Property cannot be deduced from the
Laws of Reason and Nature ; and he ought therefore to have
admitted at the same time, that his whole theory was a thing of
air. In the most respectable point of view he could regard
his system as analogous to Geometry. (If indeed it be pure-
ly scientific, how could it be otherwise?) Geometry holds forth
an Ideal which can never be fully realized in Nature, even be-
cause it is Nature : because bodies are more than extension,
and to pure extension, of space only the mathematical theorems
wholly correspond. In the same manner the moral laws of the
intellectual world, as far as they are deducible from pure Intel-
'lect, are never perfectly applicable to our mixed and sensitive
nature, because Man is something besides Reason ; because his
Reason never acts by itself, but must clothe itself in the sub-
stance of individual Understanding and specific Inclination, in
order to become a reality and an object of consciousness and
experience. It wuU be seen hereafter that together with this,
the key-stone of the arch, the greater part and the most spe-
cious of the popular arguments in favour of universal suffrage
fall in and are crushed. I will mention one only at present.
Major Cartwright, in his deduction of the Rights of the Sub-
ject from Principles "not susceptible of proof, being self-evi-
dent — if one of which be violated all are shaken," aiTirms
(Principle 98th; though the greater part indeed are moral
aphorisms, or blank assertions, not scientific principles) "that
a power which ought never to be used ought never to exist."
Again he affirms that " Laws to bind all must be assented to
by all, and consequently every man, even the poorest, has an
equal right to suffrage :" and this for an additional reason, be-
cause " all without exception are capable of feeling happiness
or misery, accordingly as they are well or ill governed." But
are they not then capable of feeling happiness or misery ac-
cording as they do or do not possess the means of a comforta-
ble subsistence ? and who is the judge, what is a comfortable
subsistence, but the man himself? Might not then, on the same
or equivalent principles a Leveller construct a right to equal
17S
property? The inhabitants of this country witnout property
form, doubtless, a great majority : each of these has a right to
a suffrage, and the richest man to no more : and the object of
this suffrage is, that each individual may secure himself a true
efficient Representative of his Will. Here then is a legal
power of abolishing or equalizing property : and according to
himself, a power which ought never to he used ought not to
exist.
Therefore, unless he carries his system to the whole length
of common labour and common possession, a right to universal
suffrage cannot exist ; but if not to universal ^suffrage, there
can exist no natural right to suffrage at all. In whatever way
he would obviate this objection, he must admit expedience
founded on Experience and particular circumstances, which
will vary in every different nation, and in the same nation at
different times, as the maxim of all Legislation and the ground
of all Legislative Power. For his universal principles, as far
as they are principles and universal, necessarily suppose uni-
form and perfect subjects, which are to be found in the Ideas
of pure Geometry and (I trust) in the Realities of Heaven,
but never, never, in creatures of flesh and blood.
THE rMIE
ESSAY I.*
ON THE ERRORS OF PARTY SPIRIT: OR EXTREMES MEET.
" And it was no wonder if some good and innocent men, especially such as
lie (Lightfoot) who was generally more concerned about what was done
in Judea many centiu'ies ago, than what was transacted in his own time in
his own country — it is no wonder if some such were for a while borne
away to the approval of opinions which they after more sedate reflection
disowned. Yet his innocency fi-om any self-interest or design, together
with his learning, secured him from the extravagancies of tlemagogues, the
people's oracles." — Lightfoot's fForks, Publisher's Pre/ace to the Reader.
I have never seen Major Cartwright, much less enjoy the
honour of his acquaintance ; but I know enougli of his charac-
ter from the testimony of others and from his own writings,
to respect his talents, and revere the purity of his motives. 1
am fully persuaded, that there are few better men, few more
fervent or disinterested adherents of iheir country or the laws
of their country, of whatsoever things are lovely, of whatsoever
*Witli this Essay commences the second volume of the English edition uf
The Friend, to which the ibllovving (piotation is prefixed as a motto :
Imolcns, vichercule foret, omnia urhis alicujus cediftcia dirucrc, ad hoc solum id,
iisdem postea indiori ordine ct forma cxtrudi^, ejus platem pulchiores cvaderent.
Jit ccrte non insokns est dominum rmius domus ad illa^n destruendam adhortari,
ut ejus loco meliorem wdifwet. Immo sccpe vmlti hoc facere cogunlur nempe cum
(cdes hahent vclustate jam faliacentes, vel qtue injirmis fundamentis superslructie
ruinam mirumlur. Cartesius De Methodo.
175
things are honorable ! It would give mo great pain should I be
supposed to have introduced, disrespectfully, a name, which
from my early youth I never heard mentioned without a feel-
ing of affectionate admiration. I have indeed quoted from this
venerable patriot, as from the most respectable English advo-
cate for the Theory, which derives the rights of government,
and the duties of obedience to it, exclusively from principles
of pure Reason. It was of consequence to my cause that I
should not be thought to have been waging war against a straw
image of my own setting up, or even against a foreign idol that
had neither worshippers nor advocates in our own country ; and
it was not less my object to keep my discussion aloof from those
passions, which more unpopular names might have excited. I
therefore introduced the name of Cartwright, as 1 had previ-
ously done that of Luther, in order to give every fair advan-
tage to a theory, which I thought it of importance to confute ;
and as an instance that though the system might be made tempt-
ing to the Vulgar, yet that, taken unmixed and entire, it was
chiefly fascinating for lofty and imaginative spirits, who mistook
their own virtues and powers for the average character of
men in general.
Neither by fair statements nor by fair reasoning, should I
ever give offence to Major Cartv/right himself, nor to his judi-
cious friends. If I am in danger of offending them, it must
arise from one or other of two causes ; either that I have
falsely represented his principles, or his motives and the ten-
dency of his writings. In the book from which I quoted ("The
People's Barrier against undue Influence, &c." the only one of
Major Cartwright's which I possess) I am conscious that there
are six foundations stated of constitutional Government. There-
fore, it may be urged, the Author cannot be justly classed with
those who deduce our social Rights and correlative Duties
exclusively from principles of pure Reason, or unavoidable
conclusions from such. My answer is ready. Of these six
foundations three ire but dift'erent words for one and the same,
viz. the Law of Reason, the Law of God, and first Principles:
and the three that remain cannot be taken as different, in-
asmuch as they are afterwards aflirmed to be of no validity
except as far as they are evidently deduced from the former ;
that is, from the Principles implanted by God in the universal
Reason of man. These three latter foundations are, the gen-
176
eral customs of the realm, particular customs, and acts of Par-
liament. It might be supposed that the Author had not used
his terms in the precise and single sense in which they are de-
fined in my former Essay : and that self-evident Principles may
be meant to include the dictates of manifest Expedience, the
Inductions of the Understanding as well as the Prescripts of
the pure Reason. But no ! Major Cartwright has guarded
against the possibility of this interpretation, and has expressed
himself as decisively, and with as much warmth, against found-
ing Governments on grounds of Expedience, as the Editor of
The Friend has done against founding Morality on the same.
Euclid himself could not have defined his words more sternly
within the limit of pure Science : For instance, see the 1st.
2d. 3d. and 4th. primary Rules. " A Principle is a manifest
and simple proposition comprehending a certain Truth. Prin-
ciples are the proof of every thing : but are not susceptible of
external proof, being self-evident. If one Principle be viola-
ted, all are shaken. Against him, who denies Principles, all
dispute is useless, and reason unintelligible, or disallowed, so
far as he denies them. The Laws of Nature are immutable."
Neither could Rousseau himself (or his predecessors, the fifth
Monarchy Men) have more nakedly or emphatically identified
the foundations of government in the concrete with those of
religion and morality in the abstract : see Major Cartwright's
Primary Rules from 31 to 39, and from 44 to 83. In these it
is affirmed : that ihe legislative Rights of Every Citizen are
inherent in his nature ; that being natural Rights they must be
equal in all men ; that a natural right is that right which a Citi-
zen claims as being a Man, and that it hath no other foundation
but his Personality or Reason : that Property can neither in-
crease or modify any legislative Right ; that every one Man
shall have one Vote however poor, and for any one Man, how-
ever rich, to have any more than one Vote, is against natural
Justice, and an evil measure ; that it is better for a nation to
endure all adversities, than to assent to one evil measure ; that
to be free is to be governed by Laws, to which we have our-
selves assented, either in Person or by Representative, for
whose election we have actually voted : that all not having a
right of Suffrage are Slaves, and that a vast majority of the
People of Great Britain are Slaves ! To prove the total coinci-
dence of Major Cartwright's Theory with that which I have
177
stated (aiid I trust confuted) in the preceding Number, it only
remains for me to prove, that the former, equally v/ith the lat-
ter, confounds the sufficiency of the conscience to make every
person a moral and amenable Being, with the sufficiency of
judgment and experience requisite to the exercise of political
Riglit. A single quotation will place this out of all doubt,
which from its length I shall insert in a Note.*
Great stress, indeed, is laid on the authority of our ancient
Laws, both in this and the other works of our patriotic author ;
and whatever his system may be, it is impossible not to feel,
that the autlior himself possesses the heart of a genuine English-
man. But still his system can neither be changed nor modi-
* "But the equality (observe, that Major Cartwright ia here speaking of the
ncUural riglit to universal Suffrage and consequently of the universal right of
(."iigihility, as well as of election, independent of character or property) — the
('([uality and dignity of human nature in all men, whether rich or poor, is
placed in the highest point of view by St. Paul, when he reprehends the Co-
rinthian believers for their litigations one with another, in the Courts of Law
where unbelievers presided ; and as an argument of the competency of all men
to judge for theinsalves, he alludes to that elevation in the kingdom of heaven
which is promised to every man Vvfho shall bo virtuous, in the language of
that time, a Saint. ' Do ye not know,' says he, ' that the Sainta shall judge the
world ? And if the world shall be judged by you, are yo unworthy to judge
the smallest matters ? Know ye not that ye shall judge the angels ? How
much more thi7}gs that pcHain to this life T If after such autlioritics, such
manifestations of truth as these, any Christian through those prejudices,
which ai-e the etFccts of long habits of injustice and oppression, and teach us
to ' despise the poor,* shall still think it right to exclude tliat part of the com-
monalty, consisting of ' Tradesmen, Artificers, and Laborers,'' or any of them,
from voting in elections of members to serve in parliament, I must sincerely
lament such a persuasion as a misfortune both to himself and his country.
And if any man, (not having given himself the trouble to consider Avhether
or not the Scripture bo nn authority, but who, nevertheless, is a friend to
the rights of mankind) u[)on grounds of mere prudence, policy, or expedien-
cy, shall think it advisable to go against the whole current of our constitu-
tional and law maxims, by which it is self-evident that every man, as being a
MAN, is created free, born to freedom, and, without it, a Thing, a Slave, a
Beast ; and shall contend for dra^^■ing a line of exclusion at freeholders of
forty poimtfe a year, or forty shillings a year, or liouse-holders, or pot-boilers, so
that all who are below that line shall not have a vote in the election of a le-
gislative guardian, — which is taking fi-om a citizen the power even of self-
preservation, — such a man, I venture to say, is bolder than he who wrestled
with the angel; for ho wrestles with God himself, who established </)«.?« ;?rinct-
ples in the eiermd laws of nature, never to he viohded by any of his Creatures."
P. 23—24.
23
178
fied by these appeals : for among the primary maxims, which
form the ground-work of it, we are informed not only that
Law in the abstract is the perfection of Reason : but that the
Law of God and the Law of the Land are all one ! What ?
The Statutes against Witches? Or those bloody Statutes
against Papists, the abolition of which gave rise to the infamous
Riots in 1780? Or (in the author's own opinion) the Stat-
utes of Disfranchisement and for making Parliaments septen-
nial ? — Nay! but (Principle 28) "an unjust Law is no Law:"
and (P. 22.) against the Law of Reason neither prescription,
statute, nor custom, may prevail ; and if any such be brought
against it, they be not prescriptions, statute, nor customs, but
things void : and (P. 29.) " What the Parliament doth shall be
holdenfor naughty whensoever it shall enact that which is con-
trary to a natural Right !" We dare not suspect a grave wri-
ter of such egregious trifling, as to mean no more by these as-
sertions, than that what is wrong is not right; and if more
than this be meant, it must be that the subject is not bound
to obey any Act of Parliament, which according to his convic-
tion entrenches on a Principle of natural Right ; which natural
Rights are, as we have seen, not confined to the man in his
individual capacity, but are made to confer universal legislative
privileges on every subject of every state, and of the extent of
which every man is competent to judge, who is competent to
be the object of Law at all, i. e. every man who has not lost
his Reason.
In the statement of his principles therefore, I have not mis-
represented Major Cartwright. Have I then endeavored to
connect public odium with his honored name, by arraigning
his motives, or the tendency of his Writings ? The tendency
of his Writings, in my inmost conscience I believe to be per-
fectly harmless, and I dare cite them in confirmation of the
opinions which it was the object of my introductory Essays to
establish, and as an additional proof, that no good man commu-
nicating what he believes to be the Truth for the sake of Truth
and according to the rules of Conscience, will be found to
have acted injuriously to the peace or interests of Society.
The venerable State-Moralist (for this is his true character,
and in this title is conveyed the whole error of his system ) is
incapable of aiding his arguments by the poignant condiment
of personal slander, incapable of appealing to the envy of the
179
multitude by bitter declamation against the follies and oppres-
sions of the higher classes ! He would shrink with horror
from the thought of adding a false and unnatural influence to
the cause of Truth and Justice, by details of present calamity
or immediate suffering, fitted to excite the fury of the multi-
tude, or by promises of turning the current of the public Reve-
nue into the channels* of individual Distress and Poverty, so
as to bribe the populace by selfish hopes ! It does not belong
to men of his character to delude the uninstructed into the
belief that their shortest way of obtaining the good things of
this life, is to commence busy Politicians, instead of remaining
industrious Laborers. He knows, and acts on the knowledge,
that it is the duty of the enlightened Philanthropist to plead
for the poor and ignorant, not to them.
No ! — From Works written and published under the control
of austere principles, and at the impulse of a lofty and gener-
ous enthusiasm, from Works rendered attractive only by the
fervor of sincerity, and imposing only by the Majesty of Plain
Dealing^ no danger will be apprehended by a wise man, no
offence received by a good man. I could almost venture to
warrant our Patriot's publications innoxious^ from the single
circumstance of their perfect freedom from personal themes in
this AGE OF PERSONALITY, this age of literary and political
Gossiping^ when the meanest insects are worshipped with a
sort of Egyptian superstition, if only the brainless head be
atoned for by the sting oi personal malignity in the tail; when
the most vapid satires have become the objects of a keen pub-
lic interest purely from the number of contemporary characters
named in the patch-work Notes (which possess, however, the
comparative merit of being more poetical than the Text), and
because, to increase the stimulus, the Author has sagaciously
left his own 7iame for whispers and conjectures ! — In an age,
when even Sermons are published with a double Appendix
stuffed with names — in a generation so transformed from the
* I must again remind the Reader, that these Essays were Vv'ritten October
1809. If Major Cartwright however, since then acted in a different si)irit,
and tampered pei-sonally with the distresses, and consequent irritabihty of
the ignorant, tlie inconsistency is his, not the Author's. If M'hat I then bc-
heved and avowed should now appear a severe satire in tl)0 sliapo of a false
prophecy, any siianie I might feel for my luck of penetration would be lost
in the sincerity of my regret.
characteristic reserve of Britons, that from the ephemeral sheet
of a London Newspaper to the everlasting Scotch Professorial
Quarto, almost every publication exhibits or flatters the epidemic
distemper ; that the very " Last year's Rebuses" in the Lady's
Diary, are answered in a serious Elegy " On my Father'^s
Beath.,^'' with the name and habitat of the elegiac (Edipus sub-
scribed ; — and ^^ other ingenious solutions were likeioise given''''
to the said Rebuses — not, as heretofore, by Crito, Philander,
A B, X Y, &c. but by fifty or sixty plain English Sirnames at
full length, with their several places of abode ! In an age,
when a bashful Philalethes or Phileleutheros is as rare on the
title-pages and among the signatures of our Magazines, as a
real name used to be in the days of our shy and notice-shunning
grandfathers! When (more exquisite than all) I see an Epic
Poem ( Spirits of Maro and M«onides, make ready to welcome
your new compeer!) advertised with the special recommenda-
tion, that the said Epic Poem contains more than a hundred
names of living persons ! No — if Works as abhorrent, as those
of Major Cartwright, from all unworthy provocatives to the
vanity, the envy, and the selfish passions of mankind, could
acquire a sufficient influence on the public mind to be mis-
chievous, the plans proposed in his pamphlets would cease to
be altogether visionary : though even then they could not ground
their claims to actual adoption on self-evident principles of
pure Reason, but on the happy accident of the virtue and good
sense of that public, for whose suffrages they were presented.
(Indeed with Major Cartwright's p/ans I have no present con-
cern ; but with the principles, on which he grounds the obliga-
tions to adopt them.)
But I must not sacrifice Truth to my reverence for individual
purity of intention. The tendency of one good man's writ-
ings is altogether a different thing from the tendency of the sys-
tem itself, when seasoned and served up for the unreasoning
multitude, as it has been by men whose names I would not
honor by writing them in the same sentence with Major Cart-
wright's. For this system has two sides, and holds out very
different attractions to its admirers that advance towards it from
different points of the compass. It possesses qualities, that can
scarcely fail of winning over to its banners a numerous host of
shallow heads and restless tempers, men who without learning
(or, as one of my Friends has forcibly expressed it, " Strong
181
Book-mindedness*^ ) live as alms-folks on the opinions of their
contemporaries, and who, ( well pleased to exchange the humil-
ity of regret for the self-complacent feelings of contempt) re-
concile themselves to the sans-culotterie of their Ignorance, by
Bcoffing at the useless fox-brush of Pedantry.* The attach-
ment of this numerous class is owing neither to the solidity and
depth of foundation in this theory, or to the strict coherence
of its arguments ; and still less to any genuine reverence of
humanity in the abstract. The physiocratic system promises to
deduce all things, and every thing relative to law and govern-
ment, with mathematical exactness and certainty, from a few
individual and self-evident principles. But who so dull, as not
to be capable of apprehending a simple self-evident principle,
and of following a short demonstration ? By this system, the
SYSTEM, as its admirers were wont to call it, even as they na-
med the writer who first applied it in systematic detail to the
whole constitution and administration of civil policy, D. Ques-
noy to wit, le Docteur, or the Teacher ; — by this system the
observation of Times, Places, relative Bearings, History, na-
tional Customs and Character, is rendered superfluous : all, in
short, which according to the common notion makes the attain-
ment of legislative prudence a work of difficulty and long-con-
tinued effort, even for the acutest and most comprehensive
minds. The cautious balancing of comparative advantages, the
painful calculation of forces and counter-forces, the preparation
of circumstances, the lynx-eyed watching for opportunities, are
all superseded ; and by the magic oracles of certain axioms and
definitions it is revealed how the world with all its concerns
should be mechanised, and then let go on of itself. All the
positive Institutions and Regulations, which the prudence of
our ancestors had provided, ai'e declared to be erroneous or in-
*"Hc (Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk) knowing that learning hath no
enemy hut Ignorance, did susjject always tlic want of it in those men who
derided the habit of it in others: like the Fox in the Fable, who being without
a Tail, woukl persuade others to cutoff theirs as a burthen. But he liked well
the Philosoi)hcr's division of men into three ranks — some who knew good
and were willing to teach others ; those he said were like Gods among men —
others who tlK>ugh they knew not much yet were willing to learn ; these ho
said were like Men among Beasts — arid some who know not good and yet de-
spised such us should teach them ; these he esteemed as Beasts among Men."
LloycPs State Ivorthica, p. 3o.
182
terested perversions of the natural relations of man ; and the
whole is delivered over to the faculty, which all men possess
equally, i. e. the common sense or universal Reason. The sci-
ence of Politics, it is said, is but the application of the common
sense, which every man possesses, to a subject in which every
man is concerned. To be a Musician, an Orator, a Painter, a
Poet, an Architect, or even to be a good Mechanist, presuppo-
ses Genius ; to be an excellent Artizan or Mechanic, requires
more than an average degree of Talent ; but to be a legislator
requires nothing but common Sense. The commonest human
intellect therefore suffices for a perfect insight in the whole sci-
ence of civil Polity, and qualifies the possessor to sit in judg-
ment on the constitution and administration of his own country,
and of all other nations. This must needs be agreeable tidings
to the great mass of mankind. There is no subject, which men
in general like better to harangue on, than Politics : none, the de-
ciding on which more flatters the sense of self-importance. For
as to what Doctor Johnson calls plebeian envy, I do not believe
that the mass of men are justly chargeable with it in their po-
litical feelings ; not only because envy is seldom excited except
by definite and individual objects, but still more because it is a
painful passion, and not likely to co-exist with the high delight
and self-complacency with v/hich the harangues on States and
Statesmen, Princes and Generals, are made and listened to in
ale-house circles or promiscuous public meetings. A certain
portion of this is not merely desirable, but necessary in a free
country. Heaven forbid ! that the most ignorant of my coun-
trymen should be deprived of a subject so well fitted to
-"impart
I"
An hour's importance to the poor man's heait !
But a system which not only flatters the pride and vanity of men,
but which in so plausible and intelligible a manner persuades
them, not that this is wrong and that that ought to have been
managed otherwise ; or that Mr. X. is worth a hundred of Mr.
Y. as a Minister or Parliament Man, &c. &e. ; but that all is
wrong and mistaken, nay, all most unjust and wicked, and that
every man is competent, and in contempt of all rank and prop-
erty, on the mere title of iiis Personality, possesses the Right,
and is under the most solemn moral obligation, to give a help-
ing hand toward overthrowing it : this confusion of political
183
with religious claims, this transfer of the rights of Religion dis-
joined from the austere duties of self-denial, with which reli-
gious rights exercised in their proper sphere cannot fail to be
accompanied ; and not only disjoined from self-restraint, but
united with the indulgence of those passions (self-will, love of
power, &c.) which it is the principal aim and hardest task of
Religion to correct and restrain — this, I say, is altogether dif-
ferent from the Village Politics of Yore, and may be pronoun-
ced alarming and of dangerous tendency by the boldest Advo-
cates of Reform not less consistently, than the most timid es-
chewers of popular disturbance.
Still, however, the system had its golden side for the noblest
minds : and I should act the part of a coward, if I disguised
my convictions, that the errors of the Aristocratic party were
full as gross, and far less excusable. Instead of contenting
themselves with opposing the real blessings of English law to
the splendid promises of untried theory, too large a part of those,
who called themselves Aiiti- Jacobins^ did all in their power to
suspend those blessings ; and thus furnished new arguments to
the advocates of innovation, when they should have been an-
swering the old ones. The most prudent, as well as the most
honest mode of defending the existing arrangements, would
have been, to have candidly admitted what could not with
truth be denied, and then to have shewn that, though the
things complained of were evils, they were necessary evils ;
or if they were removable^ yet that the consequences of the
heroic medicines recommended by the Revolutionists would be
far more dreadful than the disease. Now either the one or the
other point, by the double aid of History and a sound Philoso-
phy, they might have established with a certainty little short
of demonstration, and with such colours and illustrations as
would have taken strong hold of the very feelings which had
attached to the democratic system all the good and valuable
men of the party. But instead of this they precluded the possi-
bility of being listened to even by the gentlest and most in-
genuous among the friends of the French Revolution, denying
or attempting to palliate facts, that were equally notorious and
unjustifiable, and supplying the lack of brain by an overflow of
gall. While they lamented with tragic outcries the injured Mon-
arch and the exiled Noble, they displayed the most disgusting
insensibility to the privations, sufferings, and manifold oppress-
184
ions of the great mass of the Continental population, and a
blindness or callousness still more offensive to the crimes* and
unutterable abominations of their oppressors. Not only was
the Bastile justified, but the Spanish Inquisition itself — and
this in a pamphlet passionately extolled and industriously circu-
lated by the adherents of the then ministry. Thus, and by
their infatuated panegyrics on the former state of France, they
played into the hands of their worst and most dangerous antag-
onists. In confounding the conditions of the English and the
French peasantry, and in quoting the authorities of Milton,
Sidney, and their immortal compeers, as applicable to the pres-
ent times and the existing government, the Demagogues ap-
peared to talk only the same language as the Anti-jacobins them-
selves employed. For if the vilest calumnies of obsolete big-
ots were applied against these great men by the one party, with
equal plausibility might their authorities be adduced, and their
arguments for increasing the power of the people be reapplied
to the existing government, by the other. If the most dis-
gusting forms of despotism were spoken of by the one in the
same respectful language as the executive power of our own
country, what wonder if the irritated partizans of the other
were able to impose on the populace the converse of the prop-
osition, and to confound the executive branch of the English
sovreignty with the despotisms of less happy lands ? The first
duty of a wise advocate is to convince his opponents, that he
understands their arguments and sympathizes with their just
feelings. But instead of this, these pretended Constitutional-
ists recurred to the language of insult, and to measures of per-
secution. In order to oppose Jacobinism they imitated it in its
worst features ; in personal slander, in illegal violence, and
even in the thirst for blood. They justified the corruptions of
the state in the same spirit of sophistry, by the same vague ar-
guments of general Reason, and the same disregard of ancient
ordinances and established opinions, with which the state it-
self had been attacked by the Jacobins. The wages of state-
dependence were represented as sacred as the property won
by industry or derived from a long line of ancestors.
* I do not incnn tlio Sovereigns, but the old Nobility of both Germany nnd
i'^rancc. The extravagantly false ;uul flattering i)ictur(>, which IJurke gave of
the French Nobility and llisrarrhy, has alwayw a]>i)ear<'d to me the greatest
dcli'ct of his, in po many rcsjx'ctri, mvaluable Work.
185
It was, indeed, evident to thinking men, that both parties
were playing the same game with ditl'erent counters. If the
Jacobins ran wild with the Rights of Man, and the abstract
sovereignty of the people, their antagonists flew off" as extrav-
agantly from the sober good sense of our forefathers, and idol-
ized as mere an abstraction in the Rights of Sovereigns. Nor
was this confined to Sovereigns. They defended the exemp-
tions and privileges of all privileged orders on the presumption
of their inalienable right to them, however inexpedient they
might have been found, as universally and abstractly as if these
privileges had been decreed by the Supreme Wisdom, instead
of being the offspring of chance or violence, or the inventions
of human prudence. Thus, while they deemed themselves de-
fending, they were in reality blackening and degrading the un-
injurious and useful privileges of our English nobility, which
(thank Heaven !) rest on nobler and securer grounds. Thus
too, the necessity of compensations for dethroned princes was
affirmed as familiarly, as if kingdoms had been private estates :
and no more disapprobation was expressed at the transfer of
five or ten millions of men from one proprietor to another, than
of as many score head of cattle. This most degrading and su-
perannuated superstition, or rather this ghost of a defunct ab-
surdity raised up by the necromancy of a violent re-action
(such as the extreme of one system is sure to occasion in the
adherents of its opposite ) was more than once allowed to reg-
ulate our measures in the conduct of a war on which the inde-
pendence of the British empire and the progressive civilization
of all mankind depended. I could mention possessions of par-
amount and indispensable importance to first-rate national in-
terests, the nominal sovereign of which had delivered up all
his sea-ports and strong-holds to the French, and maintained a
French army in his dominions, and had therefore, by the law of
nations, made his territories French dependencies — which poss-
essions were not to be touched, though the natural inhabitants
were eager to place themselves under our permanent protec-
tion — and why ? — They were the property of the king of !
All the grandeur and majesty of the law of nations, which
taught our ancestors to distinguish between a European sove-
reign and the miserable despots of oriental barbarism, and to
consider the former as the representative of the nation which
he governed, and as inextricably connected with its fortunes as
24
186
Sovereign, were merged in the basest personality. Instead of
the interest of mighty nations, it seemed as if a mere law-suit
were carrying on between John Doe and Richard Roe ! The
happiness of millions was light in the balance, weighed against
a theatric compassion for one individual and his family, who,
(I speak from facts that I myself know) if they feared the
French more, hated us worse. Though the restoration of good
sense commenced during the interval of the peace of Amiens,
yet it was not till the Spanish insurrection that Englishmen of
all parties recurred, m toto, to the old English principles, and
spoke of their Hampdens, Sidneys and Miltons, with the old
enthusiasm. During the last war, an acquaintance of mine
(least of all men a political zealot) had christened a vessel
which he had just built — The Liberty ; and was seriously
admonished by his aristocratic friends to change it for some
other name. What? replied the owner very innocently —
should I call it The Freedom ? That (it was replied) would
be far beter, as people might then think only of Freedom of
Trade ; Whereas Liberty has a Jacobinical sound with it !
Alas! (and this is an observation of Sir J. Denham and of
Burke) is there then no medium between an ague-fit and a
frenzy-fever ?
I have said that to withstand the arguments of the lawless,
the Anti-jacobins proposed to suspend the Law, and by the
interposition of a particular statute to eclipse the blessed light
of the universal Sun, that spies and informers might tyrrannize
and escape in the ominous darkness. Oh ! if these mistaken
men intoxicated with alarm and bewildered by that panic of
property, which they themselves were the chief agents in ex-
citing, had ever lived in a country where there was indeed a
general disposition to change and rebellion ! Had they ever
travelled through Sicily, or through France at the first coming
on of the Revolution, or even alas ! through too many of the
provinces of a sister-island, they could not but have shrunk
from their own declarations concerning the state of feeling and
opinion at that time predominant throughout Great Britain.
There was a time ( Heaven grant that that time may have pass-
ed by) when by crossing a narrow strait they might have learnt
the true symptoms of approaching danger and have secured
themselves from mistaking the meetings and idle rant of such
sedition as shrunk appalled from the sight of a constable, for
187
the dire murmuring and strange consternation which precedes
the storm or earthquake of national discord. Not only in Cof-
fee-houses and public Theatres, but even at the tables of the
wealthy, they w^ould have heard the advocates of existing Gov-
ernment defend their cause in the language and with the tone
of men, who are conscious that they are in a minority. But in
England, when the alarm was at the highest, there was not a
city, no, not a town in which a man suspected of holding dem-
ocratic principles could move abroad without receiving some
unpleasant proof of the hatred in which his supposed opinions
were held by the great majority of the people : and the only
instances of popular excess and indignation were on the side
of the Government and the Established Church. But why need
I appeal to these invidious facts ? Turn over the pages of His-
tory, and seek for a single instance of a revolution having been
effected witliout the concurrence of either the Nobles, or the
Ecclesiastics, or the monied classes, in any country in which the
influences of property had ever been predominant, and where
the interests of the proprietors were interlinked ! Examine the
revolution of the Belgic provinces under Philip the Second ;
the civil wars of France in the preceding generation, the his-
tory of the American revolution, or the yet more recent events
in Sweden and in Spain ; and it will be scarcely possible not to
perceive, that in England, from 1791 to the peace of Amiens,
there were neither tendencies to confederacy nor actual confe-
deracies, against which the existing Laws had not provided both
sufficient safeguards and an ample punishment. But alas ! the
panic of property had been struck in the first instance for party
purposes : and when it became general, its propagators caught
it themselves, and ended in believing their own lie : even as •
our bulls in Burrowdale sometimes run mad with the echo of
their own bellowing. The consequences were most injurious.
Our attention was concentrated to a monster which could not
survive the convulsions in which it had been brought forth,
even the enlightened Burke himself too often talking and rea-
soning as if a perpetual and organized anarchy had been a pos
sible thing ! Thus while we were warring against French doc-
trines, we took little heed whether the means by which we at-
tempted to overthrow them, were not likely to aid and augment
the far more formidable evil of French ambition. Like chil-
188
dren we ran away from the yelping of a cur and took shelter at
the heels of a vicious war horse.
The conduct of the aristocratic party was equally unwise in
private life and to individuals, especially to the young and inex-
perienced, whowere surely to be forgiven for having had their
imagination dazzled, and their enthusiasm kindled, by a novelty
so specious, that even an old and tried Statesman had pro-
nounced it " a stupendous monument of human wisdom and
human happiness." This was indeed a gross delusion, but as-
suredly for young men at least, a very venial one. To hope too
boldly of Human Nature is a fault which all good men have an
interest in forgiving. Nor was it less removable than venial,
if the party had taken the only way by which the error could
be, or even ought to have been, removed. Having first sym-
pathized with the warm benevolence and the enthusiasm for
Liberty, which had consecrated it, they should have then
shewn the young Enthusiasts that Liberty was not the only
blessing of Society ; that though desirable, even for its own
sake, it yet derived its main value as the means of calling forth
and securing other advantages and excellencies, the activities
of Industry, the security of Life and Property, the peaceful
energies of Genius and manifold Talent, the development of
the moral virtues, and the independence and dignity of the
nation in its relations to foreign powers : and that neither these
nor Liberty itself could subsist in a country so various in its
soils, so long inhabited and so fully peopled as Great Britain,
without difference of ranks and without laws which recognized
and protected the privileges of each. But instead of thus
winning them back from the snare, they too often drove them
into it by angry contumelies, which being in contradiction with
each other could only excite contempt for those that uttered
them. To prove the folly of the opinions, they were repre-
sented as the crude fancies of unfledged wit and school-boy
statesmen; but when abhorrence was to be expressed, the self-
same unfledged school-boys were invested with all the attri-
butes of brooding conspiracy and hoary-headed treason. Nay,
a sentence of absolute reprobation was passed on them ; and
the speculative error of Jabobinism was equalized to the mys-
terious sin in Scripture, which in some inexplicable manner
excludes not only mercy but even repentance. It became the
watch-word of the party, " once a Jacobin always a Jacob-
189
IN." And wherefore ?* (We will suppose this question asked
by an individual, who in his youth or earliest manhood had
been enamoured of a system, which for him had combined the
austere beauty of science, at once with all the light and colours
of imagination, and with all the warmth of wide religious chari-
ty, and who, ov'erlooking its ideal essence, had dreamt of ac-
tually building a government on personal and natural rights
alone.) And wherefore ? " Is Jacobinism an absurdity, and have
we no understanding to detect it with ? Is it productive of all
misery and all horrors, and have we no natural humanity to
make us turn away with indignation and loathing from it ? Up-
roar and confusion, insecurity of person and of property, the
tyranny of mobs or the domination of a soldiery; private
houses changed to brothels, the ceremony of marriage but an
initiation to harlotry, and marriage itself degraded to mere con-
cubinage — these, the wiser advocates of Aristocracy have said,
and truly said, are the effects of Jacobinism ! In private life,
an insufi'erable licentiousness, and abroad an intolerable despot-
ism ? " Once a Jacobin, always a Jocobin^^ — wherefore ? Is
it because the Creed which we have stated is dazzling at first
sight to the young, the innocent, the disinterested, and those,
who judging of men in general from their own uncorrupted
hearts, judge erroneously, and expect unwisely ? Is it, be-
cause it decieves the mind in its purest and most flexible pe-
riod ? Is it, because it is an error, that every day's experience
aids to detect ? An error against which all history is full of
warning examples ? Or is it because the experiment has been
tried before our eyes and the error made palpable .''
From what source are we to derive this strange phasnomenon,
that the young and the enthusiastic, who, as our daily exper-
ience informs us, are deceived in their religious antipathies, and
* The passage which follows was first published in the Morning Post, in
the year 1800, and contained, if I mistake not, the fii-st philosophical appopria-
tion of a precise import to the word Jacobin, as distinct from Republican,
Democrat, and Demagogue. The whole Essay has a peculiar interest to my-
self at the present moment, (1 May 1817) from the recent notorious publica-
tion of Mr. Southey's juvenile Drama, the Wat Tyler, and the consequent
assault on his character by an M. P. in his senatoiial capacity, to whom the
Publishers are doubtless knit by the two-fold tie of sympathy and gratitude.
The names of the Pubhshers are Sherwood, Nealy and Jones ; their bene-
factor's name is William Smith.
190
grow wiser ; in their friendships, and grow wiser ; in theii-
modes of pleasure, and grow wiser; should, if once deceived
in a question of abstract politics, cling to the error for ever
and ever? And this too, although in addition to the natural
growth of judgment and information with increase of years, they
live in the age in which the tenets have been acted upon ; and
though the consequences have been such, that every good man's
heart sickens, and his head turns giddy at the retrospect.
ESSAY II.
Truth I pursued, as Fancy sketcli'd the way, \
And wiser men than I went worse astray.
MSS.
I was never myself, at any period of my life, a convert to
the system. From my earliest manhood, it was an axiom
in Politics with me, that in every country where property
prevailed, property must be the grand basis of the government ;
and that that government was the best, in which the power or
political influence of the individual was in proportion to his
property, provided that the free circulation of property was
not impeded by any positive laws or customs, nor the tenden-
cy of wealth to accumulate in abiding masses undul}^ encoura-
ged. 1 perceived, that if the people at large were neither ig-
norant nor immoral, there could be no motive for a sudden
and violent change of government ; and if they were, there
could be no hope but of a change for the worse. " The Tem-
ple of Despotism, like that of the Mexican God, would be re-
built with human skulls, and more firmly, though in a different
191
architecture."* Thanks to the excellent education which I
had received, my reason was too clear not to draw this " circle
of power " round me, and my spirit too honest to attempt to
break through it. My feelings, however, and imagination did
not remain unkindled in this general conflagration ; and I con-
fess I should be more inclined to be ashamed than proud of
myself, if they had ! I was a sharer in the general vortex, though
my little world described the path of its revolution in an orbit
of its own. What I dared not expect from constitutions of
government and whole nations, I hoped from Religion and a
small company of chosen individuals, and formed a plan, as
harmless as it was extravagant, of trying the experiment of hu-
man perfectibility on the banks of the Susquehannah ; where
our little society, in its second generation was to have com-
bined the innocence of the patriarchal age with the knowledge
and genuine refinements of European culture : and where I
dreamt that in the sober evening of my life, I should behold
the Cottages of Independence in the undivided Dale of Industry,
"And oft, soothed sadly by some dirgefiil wind,
Muse on the sore ills I had left behind !"
Strange fancies ! and as vain as strange ! yet to the intense in-
terest and impassioned zeal, which called forth and strained
every faculty of my intellect for the organization and defence
of this scheme, I owe much of whatever I at present possess,
my clearest insight into the nature of individual man, and my
most comprehensive views of his social relations, of the true
uses of trade and commerce, and how far the wealth and re-
lative power of nations promote or impede their welfare and
inherent strength. Nor were tliey less serviceable in securing
myself, and perhaps some others, from the pitfalls of sedition :
and when we gradually alighted on the firm ground of common
sense, from the gradually exhausted balloon of youthful en-
thusiasm, though the air-built castles, which we had been pur-
suing, had vanished with all their pageantry of shifting forms
and glowing colours, we were yet free from the stains and im-
purities which might have remained upon us, had we been tra-
velling with the crowd of less imaginative malcontents, through
the dark lanes and foul bye roads of ordinary fanaticism.
* To the best of my recollection, these were Mr. Southey's words in the
year 1794.
192
But oh ! there were thousands as young and as innocent as
myself who, not like me, sheltered in the tranquil nook or in-
land cove of a particular fancy, were driven along with the
general current ! Many there were, young men of loftiest
minds, yea the prime stuff out of which manly wisdom and
practicable greatness is to be formed, who had appropriated
their hopes and the ardour of their souls to mankind at large,
to the wide expanse of national interests, which then seemed
fermenting in the French Republic as the main outlet and chief
crater of the revolutionary torrents ; and who confidently be-
lieved, that these torrents, like the lavas of Vesuvius, were
to subside into a soil of inexhaustible fertility on the circum-
jacent lands, the old divisions and mouldering edifices of which
they had covered or swept away — Enthusiasts of kindliest tem-
perament, who to use the words of the Poet (having already
borrowed the meaning and the metaphor) had approached
" the shield
Of human nature from the golden side,
And would have fought even to the death to attest
The quality of the metal which they saw."
My honored friend has permitted me to give a value and relief
to the present Essay, by a quotation from one of his unpublish-
ed Poems, the length of which I regret only from its forbidding
me to trespass on his kindness by making it yet longer. I trust
there are many of my Readers of the same age with myself
who will throw themselves back into the state of thought and
feeling in which they were when France was reported to
have solemnized her first sacrifice of error and prejudice on the
bloodless altar of Freedom, by an oath of peace and good-will
to all mankind.
Oh ! pleasant exercise of hope and joy !
For mighty were the auxijiars, which then stood
Upon our side, we who were strong in love !
BHss was it in that dawn to bo alive,
But to be yoinig was very heaxen ! oh ! times,
In wliich the meagre stale forl)idding ways
Of custom, law, and statute, took at once
The attraction of a coiuitry in Romance !
When Reason secm'd tlic most to assert her rights,
When most intent on making of herself
A prime Enchanter to assist the work,
193
Which then was going forward in her name !
Not favor'd spots alone, but the whole earth
The beauty wore of promise — that which sets
(To take an image which was felt no doubt
Among the bowers of Paradise itself)
The budding rose above the rose full blown.
What temper at the prospect did not wake
To ha})phiess unthougt of? The inert
Were roused, and lively natures rapt away !
Tliey who had fed their childhood upon dreams,
The play-fellows of fancy, who had made
All powers of swiftness, subtilty, and strength
Then* ministers, used to stir in lonily wise
Among the grandest objects of the sense
And deal with whatsoever they found there
As if they had within some lin-king right
To yield it ; — they too, who of gentle mood
Had watch'd all gentle motions, and to these
Had fitted their own thoughts, scliemers more mild
And m the region of their peaceful selves; —
Now was it that both found, the Meek and Lofty
Did both find helpers to their heart's desire
And stuff at hand, jilastic as they could wish !—
Were call'd upon to exercise their skill
Not in Utopia, subterraneous fields.
Or some secreted island, heaven knows where!
But ill the veiy world, which is the world
Of all of us, the place where in the end
We find our happiness, or not at all 1
Wordsworth.
The Peace of Amiens deserved the name of peace, for it
gave us unanimity at home, and reconciled Englishmen with
each other. Yet it would be as wild a fancy as any of which
we have treated, to expect that the violence of party spirit is
never more to return. Sooner or later the same causes, or their
equivalents, will call forth the same opposition of opinion, and
bring the same passions into play. Ample would be my recom-
pense, could I foresee that this present Essay would be the
means of preventing discord and unhappiness in a single fami-
ly ; if its words of warning, aided by its tones of sympathy,
should arm a single* man of genius against the fascinations of
his own ideal world, a single philanthropist against the enthusi-
asm of his own heart ! Not less would be my satisfaction, dared
I flatter myself that my lucubrations would not be altogether
without effect on those who deem themselves Men of Judgment,
23
194
faithful to the light of Practice and not to be led astray by the
wandering fires of Theory ! If I should aid in making these
aware, that in recoiling with too incautious an abhorrence from
the bugbears of innovation, they may sink all at once into the
slough of slavishness and corruption. Let such persons recol-
lect that the charms of hope and novelty furnish some pallia-
tion for the idolatry to which they seduce the mind ; but that
the apotheosis of familiar abuses and of the errors of selfishness
is the vilest of superstitions. Let them recollect too, that no-
thing can be more incongruous than to combine the pusillani-
mity, which despairs of human improvement, with the arro-
gance, supercilious contempt, and boisterous anger, which have
no pretensions to pardon except as the overflowings of ardent
anticipation and enthusiastic faith ! And finally, and above all,
let it be remembered by both parties, and indeed by controver-
sialists on all subjects, that every speculative error which boasts
a multitude of advocates, has its golden s.s well as its dark side ;
that there is always some Truth connected with it, the exclu-
sive attention to which has misled the Understanding, some mo-
ral beauty which has given it charms for the heart. Let it be
remembered, that no Assailant of an Error can reasonably hope
to be listened to by its Advocates, who has not proved to
them that he has seen the disputed subject in the same point
of view, and is capable of contemplating it with the same feel-
ings as themselves : (for why should we abandon a cause at the
persuasions of one who is ignorant of the reasons which have
attached us to it ?) Let it be remembered, that to write, how-
ever ably, merely to convince those who are already convin-
ced displays but the courage of a boaster ; and in any subject
to rail against the evil before we have inquired for the good,
and to exasperate the passions of those who think with us, by
caricaturing the opinions and blackening the motives of our an-
tagonists, is to make the Understanding the pander of the pas-
sions ; and even though we should have defended the right
cause, to gain for ourselves ultimately, from the good and the
wise no other praise than the supreme Judge awarded to the
friends of .Job for their partial and uncharitable defence of his
Justice : " My wrath is kindled against you, for ye have not
spoken of me rightfully.''^
ESSAY III.
ON THE VULGAR ERRORS RESPECTING TAXES AND
TAXATION*
' OnsQ yuQ 'oi T(e'; ey/eXeig ■d-rjQd)' j-ievoi nsnov&u;-
" Oiav fiep 'ij Xi/iiri] xuiui^if, Xa^iHu I'ovcnv o'vdev
Ea'v 8" ci'vb} re kui yu'rwio'v ^ooBooov xvyo) aiv,
yfl'oovar xui, av XuitSu'retg, ifr rrfv no'Xiv laou'rirjg.
Translation. — It is with you as with those that are hunting for eels. While
the pond is clear and settled, they take nothing ; but if they stir up the mud
high and low, then, they bring up the fish : — and you succeed only as far as
you can set the State in tumult and confusion.
In a passage in the last Essay, I referred to the second part
of the " Rights of Man," in which Paine assures his Readers
that their Poverty is the conseqtience of Taxation : that taxes
are rendered necessary only by wars and state corruption ; that
war and corruption are entirely owing to monarchy and aristo-
cracy ; that by a revolution and a brotherly alliance with the
French Republic, our land and sea forces, our revenue officers,
and three-fourths of our pensioners, placemen, &c. &c. would
be rendered superfluous ; and that a small part of the expences
thus saved, would suffice for the maintenance of the poor, the
infirm, and the aged, throughout the kingdom. Would to hea-
ven ! that this infamous mode of misleading and flattering the
lower classes were confined to the writings of Thomas Paine.
But how often do we hear, even from the mouths of our par-
liamentary advocates for popularity, the taxes stated as so much
money actually lost to the people ; and a nation in debt repre-
* For the moral effects of our present System of Finance, and its conse-
quences on the ivelfare of the Nation, as distinguished from its wealth, the
Reader is referred to the Author's Second Lay Sermon, and to the Section of
Morals in the Thkd Volume of this Work.
196
8€nted as the eame both in kind and consequences, aB an indi-
vidual tradesman on the brink of bankruptcy ? It is scarcely-
possible, that these men should be themselves deceived ; that
they should be so ignorant of history as not to know that the
freest nations, being at the same time commercial, have been
at all times the most heavily taxed : or so void of common
sense as not to see that there is no analogy in the case of a
tradesman and his creditors, to a nation indebted to itself.
Surely, a much fairer instance would be that of a husband and
wife playing cards at the same table against each other, where
what the one loses the other gains. Taxes may be indeed, and
often are injurious to a country : at no time, however, from
their amount merely, but from the time or injudicious mode in
which they are raised. A great Statesman, lately deceased, in
one of his antiministerial harangues against some proposed im-
post, said : the nation has been already bled in every vein, and
is faint with loss of blood. This blood, however, was circu-
lating in the mean time through the whole body of the state,
and what was received into one chamber of the heart was in-
stantly sent out again at the other portal. Had he wanted a
metaphor to convey the possible injuries of Taxation, he might
have found one less opposite to the fact, in the known disease
of aneurism, or relaxation of the coats of particular vessels,
by a disproportionate accumulation of blood in them, which
sometimes occurs when the circulation has been suddenly and
violently changed, and causes helplessness, or even mortal stag-
nation, though the total quantity of blood remains the same in
the system at large.
But a fuller and fairer symbol of Taxation, both in its possi-
ble good and evil effects, is to be found in the evaporation of
waters from the surface of the planet. The sun may draw up
the moisture from the river, the morass, and the ocean, to be
given back in genial showers to the garden, the pasture; and
the corn-field ; but it may likewise force away the moisture
from the fields of tillage, to diop it on the stagnant pool, the
saturated swamp, or the un])rofitable sand-waste. The gar-
dens in the south of Europe supply, perhaps, a not less apt
illustration of a system of Finance judiciously conducted, where
the tanks or reservoirs would represent the capital of a nation,
and the hundred rills hourly varying their channels and direc-
tions under the gardener's spade, give a pleasing image of the
197
dispersion of that capital through the .whole population, by the
joint effect of Taxation and Trade. For Taxation itself is a
part of Commerce, and the Government may be fairly consid-
ered as a great manufacturing house carrying on in different
places, by means of its partners and overseers, the trades of
the ship-builder, the clother, the iron-founder, &c. &c.
There are so many real evils, so many just causes of com-
plaint in the Constitution and Administration of Governments,
our own not excepted, that it becomes the imperious Duty of
every Well-wisher of his country, to prevent, as much as in
him lies, the feelings and efforts of his compatriots from losing
themselves on a wrong scent. Whether a Svstem of Taxation
is injurious or beneficial on the whole, is to be known, not by
the amount of the sum taken from each individual, but by that
which remains behind. A War will doubtless cause a stagna-
tion of certain branches of Trade, and severe temporary dis-
tress in the places where those branches are carried on ; but
are not the same effects produced in time of Peace by prohi-
bitory edicts and commercial regulations of foreign powers, or
by new rivals with superior advantages in other countries, or
in different parts of the same ? Bristol has, doubtless, been inju-
red by the rapid piosperity of Liverpool and its superior spirit
of Enterprize ; and the vast Machines of Lancashire have over-
whelmed and rendered hopeless the domestic industry of the
females in the Cottages and small farm-houses of Westmoreland
and Cumberland. But if Peace has its stagnations as well as
War, does not War create or re-enliven numerous branches of
Industry as well as Peace ? Is it not a fact, that not only our
own military and naval forces, but even a part of those of our
enemy are armed and clothed by British manufacturers ? It
cannot be doubted, that the whole of our immense military
force is better and more expensively clothed, and both these
and our sailors better fed than the same persons would be in
their individual capacities : and this forms one of the real ex-
pences of War. Not, I say, that so much more money is rai-
sed, but that so much more of the means of comfortable exist-
ence are consumed, than would otherwise have been. But
does not this, like all other luxury, act as a stimulus on the pro-
ducing classes, and this in the most useful manner, and on the
most important branches of production, on the tiller, on the
grazier, the clothier, and the maker of arms ? Had it been oth-
198
ervvise, is it possible that the receipts from the Property Tax
should have increased instead of decreased, notwitlistanding all
the rage of our enemy ?
Surely, never from the beginning of the world was such a
tribute of admiration paid by one power to another, as Bona-
parte within the last years has paid to the British Empire ! With
all the natural and artificial powers of almost the whole of con-
tinental Europe, with all the fences and obstacles of all public
and private morality broken down before him, with a mighty
empire of fifty millions of men, nearly two-thirds of whom speak
the same language, and are as it were fused together by the in-
tensest nationality ; with this mighty and swarming empire, or-
ganized in all its parts for war, and forming one huge camp,
and himself combining in his own person the two-fold power
of Monarch and Commander in Chief, with all these advantages
with all these stupendous instruments and inexhaustible resour-
ces of offence, this mighty Being finds himself imprisoned by
the enemy whom he most hates and would fain despise, insult-
ed by every wave that breaks upon his shores, and condemned
to behold his vast flotillas as worthless and idle as the sea-weed
that rots around their keels ! After years of haughty menace
and expensive preparations for the invasion of an island, the
trees and buildings of which are visible from the roofs of his
naval store-houses, he is at length compelled to make open
confession, that he possesses one mean only of ruining Great
Britain. And what is it ? The ruin of his own enslaved sub-
jects ! To undermine the resources of one enemy, he reduces
the Continent of Europe to the wretched state in which it
was before the wide difiiisions of Trade and Commerce, de-
prives its inhabitants of comforts and advantages to which they
and their fathers had been for more than a century, habituated,
and thus destroys, as far as his power extends a principal
source of civilization, the origin of a middle class throughout
Christendom, and with it the true balance of society, the parent
of international law, the foster-nurse of general humanity, and
(to sum up all in one) the main principle of attraction and re-
pulsion, by which the nations were rapidly though insensibly
drawing together into one system, and by which alone they
could combine the manifold blessings of distinct character and
and national independence, with the needful stimulation and
general influences of intercommunity, and be virtually united
190
without being crushed together by conquest, in order to waste
away under the tabes and slow putrefaction of a universal mon-
archy. This boasted Pacificator of the World, this earthly Pro-
vidence* as "his Catholic Bishops blasphemously call him, pro-
fesses to entertain no hope of purchasing the destruction of
Great Britain at a less price than that of the barbarism of all
Europe ! By the ordinary war of government against govern-
ment, fleets against fleets, and armies against armies, he could
eff"ect nothing. His fleets might as well have been built at his
own expence in our Dock-yards, as tribute-oflerings to the Mas-
ters of the Ocean : and his Army of England lay encamped on
his Coasts like Wolves baying the Moon !
Delightful to humraie and contemplative minds was the idea
of countless individual efforts working together by common in-
stinct and to a common object, under the protection of an un-
written code of religion, philosoph}^ and common interest,
which made peace and brotherhood co-exist with the most ac-
tive hostility. Not in the untamed Plains of Tartary, but in
the very bosom of civilization, and himself indebted to its fos-
tering care for his own education and for all the means of his
elevation and power, did this genuine offspring of the old ser-
pent warm himself into the fiend-like resolve of waging war
against mankind and the quiet growth of the world's improve-
ment, in an emphatic sense the enemy of the human race ! By
these means only he deems Great Britain assailable, (a strong
presumption, that our prosperity is built on the common inter-
ests of mankind !) — this he acknowledges to be his only hope —
and in this hope he has been utterly baffled !
To what then do we owe our strength and our immunity ?
The sovereignty of law: the incorruptness af its administra-
tion ; the number and political importance of our religious
sects, which in an incalculable degree have added to the dig-
nity of the establishment ; the purity, or at least the decorum
*It Jias been well remarked, tliat there is something far more shocking in
the tyrant's pretentions to tlic gracious attribntes of the Supreme Ruler, than
in his most remorseless cruelties. There is a sort of wild granduer, not im-
gratifying to the imagination, in the answer of Timur Khan to one who re-
monstrated with him on tlje inhumaniii/ of his devastations: cur mo hominem
putas, et uon polius irani Dei in terris agentem ob perniciem humani generis ?
Why do you deem mo a man, and not rather the incarnate wrath of God act-
ing on the eai'th for the ruin of mankind ?
200
of private morals, and the independence, activity, and weight,
of public opinion ? These and similar advantages are doubt-
less the materials of the fortress, but what has been the ce-
ment ? What has bound them together ? What has rendered
Great Britain, from the Orkneys to the Rocks of Scilly, in-
deed and with more than metaphorical propriety a body poli-
tic, our Roads, Rivers, and Canals being so truly the veins, ar-
teries, and nerves, of the state ; that every pulse in the metro-
polis produces a correspondent pulsation in the remotest village
on its extreme shores ! What made the stoppage of the na-
tional Bank the conversation of a day without causing one ir-
regular throb, or the stagnation of the commercial current in
the minutest vessel ? I answer without hesitation, that the
cause and mother principle of this unexampled confidence, of
this system of credit, which is as much stronger than mere
positive possessions, as the soul of man is than his body, or as
the force of a mighty mass in free motion, than the pressure of
its seperate component parts would be in a state of rest — the
main cause of this, I say, has been our national debt. What
its injurious effects on the Literature, the Morals, and religious
Principles, have been, I shall hereafter develope with the same
boldness. But as to our political strength and circumstantial
prosperity, it is the national debt which has wedded in indisso-
luble union all the interests of the state, the landed with the
commercial, and the man of independent fortune with the stir-
ring tradesman and reposing annuitant. It is the National
Debt, which by the rapid nominal rise in the value of things,
has made it impossible for any considerable number of men
to retain their own former comforts without joining in the
common industry, and adding to the stock of national produce ;
which thus first necessitates a general activity, and then by the
immediate and ample credit, which is never wanting to him,
who has any object on which his activity can employ itself,
gives each man the means not only of preserving but of en-
creasing and multiplying all his former enjoyments, and all the
symbols of the rank in Avhich he was born. It is this which
has planted the naked hills and enclosed the bleak wastes, in
the lowlands of Scotland not less than in the wealthier dis-
tricts of South Britain : it is this, which leaving all the other
causes of patriotism and national fervor undiminished and un-
injured, has added to our public duties the same feeling of ne-
201
cessity, the same sense of immediate self-interest, which in
other countries actuates the members of a single family in their
conduct toward each other.
Somewhat more than a year ago, I happened to be on a visit
with a friend, in a small market town in the South- West of
England, when one of the company turned the conversation to
the weight of Taxes and the consequent hardness of the times.
1 answered, that if the Taxes were a real weight, and that in
proportion to their amount, we must have been ruined long
ago : for Mr. Hume, who had proceeded, as on a self-evident
axiom, on the hypothesis, that a debt of a nation was the same
as a debt of an individual, had declared our ruin arithmetical-
ly demonstrable, if the national debt encreased beyond a cer-
tain sum. Since his time it has more than quintupled that
sum, and yet — True, answered my Friend, but the principle
might be right though he might have been mistaken in the
time. But still, I rejoined, if the principle were right, the
nearer we came to that given point, and the greater and the
more active the pernicious cause became, the more manifest
would its effects be. We might not be absolutely ruined, but
our embarrassments would encrease in some proportion to their
cause. Whereas instead of being poorer and poorer, we are
richer and richer. Will any man in his senses contend, that
the actual labor and produce of the country has not only been
decupled within half a century, but increased so prodigiously
beyond that decuple as to make six hundred millions a less
weight to us than fifty millions were in the days of our grandfa-
thers ? But if it really be so, to what can we attribute this stu-
pendous progression of national improvement, but to that sys-
tem of credit and paper currency, of which the National Debt
is both the reservoir and the water-works ? A constant cause
should have constant effects ; but if you deem that this is some
anomaly, some strange exception to the general rule, explain
its mode of operation, make it comprehensible, how a cause
acting on a whole nation can produce a regular and rapid en-
crease of prosperity to a certain point, and then all at once pass
from an Angel of Light into a Daemon of Destruction ? That
an individual house may live more and more luxuriously upon
borrowed funds, and that when the suspicions of the creditors
are awakened, and their patience exhausted, the luxurious
spendthrift may all at once exchange his Palace for a Prison — ■
26
202
this I can understand perfectly : for I understand, whence the
luxuries could be produced for the consumption of the individu-
al house, and who the creditors might be, and that it might be
both their inclination and their interests to demand the debt,
and to punish the insolvent Debtor. But who are a Nation's
Creditors? The answer is, every Man to every Man. Whose
possible interest could it be either to demand the Principal, or
to refuse his share toward the means of paying the Interest ?
Not the Merchant's : for he would but provoke a crash of
Bankruptcy, in which his own House would as necessarily be
included, as a single card in a house of cards ! Not the land-
holder's : for in the general destruction of all credit, how could
he obtain payment for the Produce of his Estates ? Not to
mention the improbability that he would remain the undisturbed
Possessor in so direful a concussion — not to mention, that on
him must fall the whole weight of the puplic necessities — not to
mention that from the merchant's credit depends the ever-en-
creasing value of his land and the readiest means of improving it.
Neither could it be the laborer's interest : for he must be either
thrown out of employ, and lie like the fish in the bed of a River
from which the water has been diverted, or have the value of his
labor reduced to nothing by the inruption of eager competitors.
But least of all could it be the wish of the lovers of liberty, which
must needs perish or be suspended, either by the horrors of
anarchy, or by the absolute Power, with which the Govern-
ment must be invested, in order to prevent them. In short,
with the exception of men desperate from guilt or debt, or mad
with the blackest ambition, there is no class or description of
men who can have the least Interest in producing or permit-
ting a Bankruptcy. If then, neither experience has acquainted
us with any national impoverishment or embarrassment from the
increase of National Debt, nor theory renders such eflorts com-
prehensible, (for the predictions of Hume went on the false
assumption, that a part only of the Nation was interested in the
preservation of the Public Credit) on what authority are we to
ground our apprehensions? Does History record a single Na-
tion, in which relatively to Taxation there were no privileged
or exempted classes, in which there Avere no compulsory prices
of labor, and in which the interest of all the different classes
and all the different districts, were mutually dependent and vi-
tally co-organized, as in Great Britain — has History, I say, re-
corded a single instance of such a Nation ruined or dissolved
20S
by the weight of Taxation ? In France there was no publie
credit, no communion of Interests : its unprincipled Govern-
ment and the productive and taxable Classes were as two Indi-
viduals with separate Interests. Its Bankruptcy and the con-
sequences of it are sufficiently comprehensible. Yet the Ca'ii-
ers, or the instructions and complaints sent to the National As-
sembly, from the Towns and Provinces of France, (an immense
mass of documents indeed, but without examination and patient
perusal of which, no man is entitled to write a History of the
French Revolution) these proved, beyond contradiction, that
the amount of the Taxes was one only, and that a subordinate
cause of the revolutionary movement. Indeed, if the amount
of the Taxes could be disjoined from the mode of raising them,
it might be fairly denied to have been a cause at all. Holland
was taxed as heavily and as equally as ourselves ; but was it
by Taxation that Holland was reduced to its present miseries?
The mode in which Taxes are supposed to act on the mar-
ketableness of our manufactures in foreign marts, I shall exa-
mine on some future occasion, when I shall endeavor to explain
in a more satisfactory way than has been hitherto done, to my
apprehension at least, the real mode in which Taxes act, and
how and why and to what extent they affect the wealth, and
what is of more consequence, the well-being of a nation. But
in the present exigency, when the safety of the nation depends,
on the one hand, on the sense which the people at large have
of the comparative excellencies of the Laws and Government,
and on the firmness and wisdom of the legislators and enlight-
ened classes in detecting, exposing, and removing its many
particular abuses and corruptions on the other, right views on
this subject of Taxation are of such especial importance ; and
I have besides in my inmost nature such a loathing of factious
falsehoods and moh-sycophancy^ i. e, the flattering of the mul-
titude by informing against their betters ; that I cannot but re-
vert to that point of the subject from which I began, namely,
that THE WEIGHT OF TaXES IS TO BE CALCULATED NOT BY
WHAT IS PAID, BUT BY WHAT IS LEFT. What matteis it to a
man, that he pays six times more Taxes than his father did, if,
notwithstanding, he with the same portion of exertion enjoys
twice the comforts which his father did ? Now this I solemnly
affirm to be the case in general, throughout England, according
to all the facts which I have collected during an examination of
204
years, wherever I have travelled, and wherever I have been re-
sident. (I do not speak of Ireland, or the lowlands of Scot-
land : and if I may trust to what I myself saw and heard there,
I must even except the Highlands.) In the conversation which
I have spoken of as taking place in the south-west of England,
by the assistance of one or other of the company, we went
through every family in the town and neighborhood, and my
assertion was found completely accurate, though the place had
no one advantage over others, and many disadvantages, that
heavy one in particular, the non-residence and frequent change
of its Rectors, the living being always given to one of the Ca-
nons of Windsor, and resigned on the acceptance of better pre-
ferment. It was even asserted, and not only asserted but pro-
ved, by my friend (who has from his earliest youth devoted a
strong, original understanding, and a heart warm and benevo-
lent even to enthusiasm, to the service of the poor and the la-
boring class,) that every sober Laborer, in that part of England
at least, who should not marry till thirty, might, without any
hardship or extreme self-denial, commence house-keeping at
the age of thirty, with from a hundred to a hundred and
twenty pounds belonging to him. I have no doubt, that on
seeing this Essay, my friend will communicate to me the proof
in detail. But the price of labor in the south-west of England
is full one-third less than in the greater number, if not all, of,
the Northern Counties. What then is wanting ? Not the re-
peal of Taxes ; but the increased activity both of the gentry
and clergy of the land, in securing the instruction of the lower
classes. A system of education is wanting, such a system as
that discovered, and to the blessings of thousands realized, by
Dr. Bell, which I never am, or can be weary of praising,
■while my heart retains any spark of regard for Human Nature,
or of reverence for Human Virtue — A system, by which in the
very act of receiving knowledge, the best virtues and most
useful qualities of the moral character are awakened, develo-
ped, and formed into habits- Were there a Bishop of Durham
(no odds whether a temporal or a spiritual Lord) in every
county or half county, and a Clergyman enlightened with the
views and animated with the spirit of Dr. Bell, in every par-
ish, we might bid defiance to the present w^eight of Taxes, and
boldly challenge the whole world to shew a Peasantry as well
fed and clothed as the English, or with equal chances of im-
205
proving thetr situation, and of securing an old age of repose
and comfort to a life of cheerful industry.
I will add one other anecdote, as it demonstrates, incontro-
vertibly, the error of the vulgar opinion, that Taxes make
things really dear, taking in the whole of a man's expen-
diture. A friend of mine, who had passed some years in Ame-
rica, was questioned by an American Tradesman, in one of
their cities of the second class, concerning the names and num-
ber of our Taxes and Rates. The answer seemed perfectly to
astound him : and he exclaimed, " How is it possible that men
can live in such a country ? In this land of liberty we never
866 the face of a Tax-gatherer, nor hear of a duty except in
our sea-ports." My friend, who was perfect master of the
question, made semblance of turning off the conversation to
another subject : and then, without any apparant reference to
the former topic, asked the American, for what sum he thought
a man could live in such and such a style, with so many ser-
vants, in a house of such dimensions and such a situation (still
keeping in his mind the situation of a thriving and respectable
shop-keeper and householder in different parts of England,)
first supposing him to reside in Philadelphia or New York, and
then in some town of secondary importance. Having received
a detailed answer to these questions, he proceeded to convince
the American, that notwithstanding all our Taxes, a man might
live in the same style, but with incomparably greater comforts,
on the same income in London as in New York, and on a con-
siderably less income in Exeter or Bristol, than in any Ameri-
can provincial town of the same relative importance. It would
be insulting my Readers to discuss on how much less a person
may vegetate or brutalize in the back settlements of the repub-
lic, than he could live as a man, as a rational and social being,
in an English village ; and it would be wasting time to inform
him, that where men are comparatively few, and unoccupied
land is in inexhaustible abundance, the Laborer and common
Mechanic must needs receive (not only nominally but really)
higher wages than in a populous and fully occupied country.
But that the American Laborer is therefore happier, or even in
possession of more comforts and conveniences of life than a
sober or industrious English Laborer or Mechanic, remains to
be proved. In conducting the comparison we must not how-
ever exclude the operation of moral causes, when these causes
206
are not accidental, but arise out of the nature of the country and
the constitution of the Government and Society. This being
the case, take away from the American's wages all the Taxes
which his insolence, sloth, and attachment to spiritous liquors
impose on him, and judge of the remainder by his house, his
household furniture, and utensils — and if I have not been grie-
vously deceived by those whose veracity and good sense I
have found unquestionable in all other respects, the cottage of
an honest English husbandman, in the service of an enlighten-
ed and liberal Farmer, who is paid for his labor at the price
usual in Yorkshire or Northumberland, would in the mind of a
man in the same rank of life, who had seen a true account of
America, excite no ideas favourable to emigration. This how-
ever, I confess, is a balance of morals rather than of circum-
stances : it proves, however, that where foresight and good mo-
rals exist, the Taxes do not stand in the way of an industrious
man's comforts.
Dr. Price almost succeeded in persuading the English nation
(for it is a curious fact, that the fancy of our calamitous situa-
tion is a sort of necessary sauce without which our real prospe-
rity would become insipid to us) Dr. Price, I say, alarmed the
country with pretended proofs that the island was in a rapid
state of depopulation, that England at the Revolution had been,
Heaven knows how much ! more populous ; and that in queen
Elizabeth's time or about the Reformation (!!!) the number of
inhabitants in England, might have been greater than even at
the Revolution. My old mathematical master, a man of an un-
commonly clear head, answered this blundering book of the
worthy Doctor's, and left not a stone unturned of the pompous
cenotaph in which the efhgy of the still living and bustling
English prosperity lay interred. And yet so much more suita-
ble was the Doctor's book to the purposes of faction, and to
the November mood of (what is called) the Public, that Mr.
Wales's pamphlet, though a master piece of perspicacity as well
as persi)icuity, was scarcely heard of. This tendency to politi-
cal night-mares in our countrymen reminds me of a supersti-
tion, or rather nervous disease, not uncommon in the highlands
of Scotland, in which men, though broad awake, imagine they
see themselves lying dead at a small distance from them. The
act of Parliament for ascertaining the population of the empire
has laid forever this uneasy ghost : and now, forsooth ! we are
207
on the brink of ruin from the excess of population, and he who
would prevent the poor from rotting away in disease, misery,
and wickedness, is an enemy to his country ! A lately decea-
sed miser, of immense wealth, is reported to have been so de-
lighted with this splendid discovery, as to have offered a hand-
some annuity to the Author, in part of payment, for this new
and welcome piece of heart-armour. This, however, we may
deduce from the fact of our increased population, that if cloth-
ing and food had actually become dearer in proportion to the
means of procuring them, it would be as absurd to ascribe this
effect to increased Taxation, as to attribute the scantiness of
fare, at a public ordinary, to the landlord's bill, when twice the
usual number of guests had sat down to the same number of
dishes. But the fact is notoriously otherwise, and every man has
the means of discovering it in his own house and in that of his
neighbors, provided that he makes the proper allowances for
the disturbing forces of individual vice and imprudence. If
this be the case, I put it to the consciences of our literary dem-
agogues, whether a lie, for the purposes of creating public dis-
union and dejection, is not as much a lie, as one for the purpose
of exciting discord among individuals. I entreat my readers to
recollect, that the present question does not concern the effects
of taxation on the public independence and on the supposed
balance of the free constitutional powers, (from which said ba-
lance, as well as from the balance of trade, I own, I have ne-
ver been able to elicit one ray of common sense.) That the
nature of our constitution has been greatly modified by the
funding system, I do not deny : whether for good or for evil, on
the whole, will form part of my Essay on the British Constitu-
tion as it actually exists.
There are many and great public evils, all of which are to
be lamented, some of which may be, and ought to be removed,
and none of which can consistently with wisdom or honesty be
kept concealed from the public. As far as these originate in
false Principles, or in tlie contempt or neglect of right ones
(and as such belonging to the plan of The Friend,) I shall
not hesitate to make known my opinions concerning them, with
the same fearless simplicity with which I have endeavoured to
expose the errors of discontent and the artifices of faction.
But for the very reason that there are great evils, the more
does it behove us not to open out on a false scent.
208
I will conclude this Essay with the examination of an arti-
cle in a provincial paper of a recent date, which is now lying
before me ; the accidental perusual of which, occasioned the
whole of the preceding remarks. In order to guard against a
possible mistake, I must premise, that I have not the most dis-
tant intention of defending the plan or conduct of our late ex-
peditions, and should be grossly calumniated if I were repre-
sented as an advocate for carelessness or prodigality in the
management of the public purse. The money may or may not
have been culpably wasted. I confine myself entirely to the
general falsehood of the principle in the article here cited; for
I am convinced, that any hopes of reform originating in such
notions, must end in disappointment and public mockery.
« OJ^LY A FEW MILLIOXS!
We have unfortunately of late been so much accustomed to read of mil-
lions being spent in one expedition, and millions being spent in another, that a
comparative insignificance is attached to an immense sum of money, by cal-
ling it only a few millions. Perhaps some of our readers may liave their judg-
ment a little improved by making a few calculations, like those below, on
the millions which it has been estimated will be lost to the nation by the
late expedition to Holland ; and then perhaps, they will be led to reflect on
the many millions which are annually expended in expeditions, which have
almost invariably ended in absolute loss.
In the first j)lace, with less money than it cost the nation to take Walcbe-
ren, &c. with the view of taking or destroying the French fleet at Antwerp,
consisUng of nine sail of the line, we could have completely built and equip-
ped, ready for sea, a fleet of ujiwards of one hundred sail of the line.
Or, secondly, a new town could be built in every county of England, and
each town consist of upwards of 1,000 substantial houses for a less sum.
Or, thirdly, it would have been enough to give 100/. to 2.000 i)oor fanjilies
in every county in England and Wales.
Or, fourtiily, it would be more than sufficient to give a handsome marriage
portion to 200,000 young women, who probably, if they had even less than
50Z. woidd not long remain unsolicited to enter the hajipy state.
Or, fifthly, a much less sum would enable the legislature to establish a life
boat in every port in the United Kingdom, and provide for 10 or 12 men to
be kept in constant attendance on each; and 100,000/. couKl be fimded, the
interest of which to be ajjplied in premiums, to those who should prove to
be particularly active in saving lives from wrecks, &c. and to provide for
the widows and children of those men who may accidentally lose dieir lives
in the cause of humanity.
This interrstiiig apjnopriation of 10 millions sterling, may lead our rea-
ders to think of the great good that can be done by only a few millions."
The exposure of this calculation will require but a few sen-
tences. These ten millions were expended, I presume, in arms,
J0»
artillery, ammunition, clothing, provision, &c. &e. for about one
hundred and twenty thousand British subjects : and I presume
that all these consumables were produced by, and purchased
from, other British subjects. Now during the building of these
new towns for a thousand inhabitants each in every county, or
the distribution of the hundred pound bank notes to the two
thousand poor families, were the industrious ship-builders, cloth-
iers, charcoal-burners, gunpowder-makers, gunsmiths, cutlers,
cannon-founders, tailors, and shoemakers, to be left unemploy-
ed and starving ? or our brave soldiers and sailors to have re-
mained without food and raiment ? And where is the proof,
that these ten millions, which (obseive) all remain in the king-
dom, do not circulate as beneficially in the one way as they
would in the other ? Which is better ? To give money to the
idle, the houses to those who do not ask for them, and towns to
counties which have already perhaps too many ? Or to afford
opportunity to the industrious to earn their bread, and to the en-
terprizing to better their circumstances, and perhaps found new
families of independent proprietors ? The only mode, not abso-
lutely absurd, of considering the subject, would be, not by the
calculation of the money expended, but of the labour o( which
the money is a symbol. But then the question would be remo-
ved altogether from the expedition : for assuredly, neither the
armies were raised, nor the fleets built or manned for the sake
of conquering the Isle of Walcheren, nor would a single regi-
ment have been disbanded, or a single sloop paid off, though
the Isle of Walcheren had never existed. The whole dispute,
therefore, resolves itself to this one question: whether our sol-
diers and sailors would not be better employed in making canals
for instance, or cultivating waste lands, than in fighting or in
learning to fight ; and the tradesman, &c. in making grey coats
instead of red or blue — and ploughshares, &c. instead of arms.
When I reflect on the state of China and the moral character of
the Chinese, I dare not positively affirm that it icould be better.
When the fifteen millions, which form our present population,
shall have attained to the same purity of morals and of primi-
tive Christianity, and shall be capable of being governed by the
same admirable discipline, as the Society of the Friends, I doubt
not that we should be all Quakers in this as in the other points
of their moral doctrine. But were this transfer of employment
desirable, is it practicable at present, is it in our power ? These
27
210
men know, that it is not. What then does all their reasoning
amount to ? Nonsense !
ESSAY IV.
I have not intentionally either hidden or disguised the Truth, like an advocate
ashamed of his client, or a bribed accomptant who falsifies the quotient to
make the bankrupt's ledgers square with the creditor's inventory. My con-
science forbids the use of falsehood and the arts of concealment: and were
it otherwise, yet I am persuaded, that a system which has produced and pro-
tected so great prosperity, cannot stand in need of them. If therefore Ho-
nesty and the Knowledge of the whole Truth be the things you aim at,
you will find my principles suited to your ends : and as I like not the demo-
cratic forms, so am I not fond of any others above the rest. That a suc-
ession of wise and godly men may be secured to the nation in the highest
power is that to which I have directed your attention in this Essay, which
if you will read, perhaps you may see the error of those j)rinciples which
have led you into errors of practice. I wrote it purposely for the use of the
multitude of well-meaning people, that are tempted in these times to usurp
authority and meddle with government before they have any call from duty
or tolerable understanding of its principles. I never intended it for learned
men versed in politics ; but for such as will be jjractitioners before they
have been students."
Baxter's Holy Commontvealth, or Political Aphorisms.
The metaphysical (or as I have proposed to call them, meta-
political) reasonings hitherto discussed, belong to Government
in the abstract. But there is a second class of Reasoners, who
argue for a change in our Government from former usage, and
from statutes still in force, or which have been repealed, (so
these writers affirm ) either through a corrupt influence, or to
ward off temporary hazard or inconvenience. This class, which
is rendered illustrious by the names of many intelligent and
virtuous patriots, are advocates for reform in the literal sense of
211
the word. They wish to bring hack the Government of Great
Britain to a certain /orm, which they affirm it to have once pos-
sessed ; and would melt the bullion anew in order to recast it
in the original mould.
The answer to all arguments of this nature is obvious, and to
my understanding appears decisive. These Reformers assume
the character of Legislators or of Advisers of the Legislature,
not that of Law Judges or appellants to Courts of Law. Sun-
dry statutes concerning the rights of electors (we will suppose)
still exist ; so likewise do sundry statutes on other subjects (on
witchcraft for instance) which change of circumstances have
rendered obsolete, or increased information shewn to be absurd.
It is evident, therefore, that the expediency of the regulations
prescribed by them, and their suitableness to the existing cir-
cumstances of the kingdom, must first be proved : and on this
proof must be rested all rational claims for the enforcement of
the statutes that have not, no less than for the re-acting of those
that have been, repealed. If the authority of the men, who
first enacted the Laws in question, is to weigh with us, it must
be on the presumption that they were wise men. But the wis-
dom of Legislation consists in the adaptation of Laws to cir-
cumstances. If then it can be proved, that the circumstances*,
under which those laws were enacted, no longer exist ; ana
that other circumstances altogether dift'erent, and in some in-
stances opposite, have taken their place ; we have the best
grounds for supposing, that if the men were now alive, they
would not pass the same statutes. In other words, the spirit of
the statute interpreted by the intention of the Legislator would
annul the letter of it. It is not indeed impossible, that by a
rare felicity of accident the same law may apply to two sets of
circumstances. But surely the presumption is, that regulations
well adapted for the manners, the social distinctions, and the
state of property, of opinion, and of external relations of Eng-
land in the reign of Alfred, or even in that of Edward the
First, will not be well suited to Great Britain at the close of
the reign of George the Third. For instance : at the time
when the greater part of the cottagers and inferior farmers
were in a state of villenage, when Sussex alone contained seven
thousand, and the Isle of Wight twelve hundred families of
bondsmen, it was the law of the land that every /ree»ian should
vote in the Assembly of the Nation personally or by his re-
212
presentative. An act of Parliament in the year 1660 confirm-
ed what a concurrence of causes had previously effected : — ^
every Englishman is now born free, the laws of the land are
the birth-right of every native, and with the exception of a few
honorary privileges all classess obey the same Laws. Now, ar-
gues one of our political writers, it being made the constitution
of the land by our Saxon ancestors, that every freeman should
have a vote, and all Englishmen being now born free, there-
fore, by the constitution of the land, every Englishman has now
a right to vote. How shall we reply to this without breach of
that respect, to which the Reasoner at least, if not the Reason-
ing, is entitled ? If it be the definition of a pun, that it is the
confusion of two ditferent meanings, under the same or similar
sound, we might almost characterize this argument as being
grounded on a grave pun. Our ancestors established the right
of voting in a particular class of men, forming at that time the
middle rank of society, and known to be all of them, or almost
all, legal proprietors — and these were then called the Freemen
of England : there/ore they established it in the lowest classes
of society, in those who possess no property, because these too
are now called by the same name !! Under a similar pretext,
grounded on the same precious logic, a Mameluke Bey extort-
ed a large contribution from the Egyptain Jews : " These books
(the Pentateuch ) are authentic ?" — Yes ! " Well, the debt then
is acknowledged : — and now the receipt, or the money, or your
heads! The Jews borrowed a large treasure from the Egyp-
tians ; but you are the Jews, and on you, therefore, I call for the
repayment." Besides, if a law is to be interpreted by the
known intention of its makers, the Parliament in 1660, which
declared all the natives of England freemen, but neither altered
nor meant thereby to alter the limitations of the right of elec-
tion, did to all intents and purposes except that right from the
common privileges of Englishmen, as Englishmen.
A moment's reflection may convince us, that every single
Statute is made under the knowledge of all the other Laws,
with which it is meant to co-exist, and by which its action is
to be modified and determined. In the legislative as in the
religious code, the text must not be taken without the context.
Now, I think, we may safely leave it to the Reformers them-
selves to make choice between the civil and political privileges
of Englishmen at present, considered as one sum total, and
213
those of our Ancestors in any former period of our History,
considered as another, on the old principle, take one and leave
the other ; hut whichever you take, take it all or none.
Laws seldom become obsolete as long as they are both useful
and practicable ; but should there be an exception, there is no
other way of reviving its validity but by convincing the exist-
ing Legislature of its undiminished practicability and expedi-
ence ; which in all essential points is the same as the recom-
mending of a new Law. And this leads me to the third class
of the advocates of Reform, those, namely, who leaving an-
cient statutes to Lawyers and Historians, and universal princi-
ples with the demonstrable deductions from them to the Schools
of Logic, Mathematics, Theology, and Ethics, rest all their
measures, which they wish to see adopted, wholly on their
expediency. Consequently, they must hold themselves pre-
pared to give such proof, as the nature of comparative expe-
diency admits, and to bring forward such evidence, as experi-
ence and the logic of probability can supply, that the plans
which they recommend for adoption, are : first, practicable ;
secondly, suited to the existing circumstances ; and lastly, ne-
cessary or at least requisite, and such as will enable the Gov-
ernment to accomplish more perfectly the ends for which it
was instituted. These are the three indispensable conditions
of all prudent change, the credentials, with which Wisdom
never fails to furnish her public envoys. Whoever brings for-
ward a measure that combines this threefold excellence, wheth-
er in the Cabinet, the Senate, or by means of the Press, mer-
its emphatically the title of a prtriotic Statesman. Neither are
they without a fair claim to respectful attention as State-Coun-
sellors, who fully aware of these conditions, and with a due
sense of the difficulty of fulfilling them, employ their time and
talents in making the attempt. An imperfect plan is not ne-
cessarily a useless plan : and in a complex enigma the great-
est ingenuity is not always shewn by him who first gives the
complete solution. The dwarf sees farther than the giant,
when he has the giant's shoulders to mount on.
Thus, as perspicuously as I could, I have exposed the erro-
neous principles of political Philosophy, and pointed out the one
only ground on which the constitution of Governments can be
either condemned or justified by wise men.
If I interpret aright the signs of the times, that branch of
214
politios which relates to the necessity and practicability of in-
fusing new life into our Legislature, as the best means of secu-
ring talent and wisdom in the Cabinet, will shortly occupy the
public attention with a paramount interest.* I would gladly
therefore suggest the proper state of feeling and the right pre-
paratory notions with which this disquisition should be entered
upon : and I do not know how I can eifect this more naturally,
than by relating the facts and circumstances which influenced
my own mind. I can scarcely be accused of egotism as in
the communications and conversations which I am about to
mention as having occurred to me during my residence abroad,
I am no otherwise the hero of the tale, than as being the pas-
sive receiver or auditor. But above all, let it not be forgotten,
that in the following paragraphs I speak as a Christian Moralist,
not as a Statesman.
To examine any thing wisely, two conditions are requisite :
first, a distinct notion of the desirable ends, in the complete
accomplishment of which would consist the perfection of such
;a thing, or its ideal excellence ; and, secondly, a calm and
Itindly mode of feeling, without which we shall hardly fail ei-
ther to overlook, or not to make due allowances for, the cir-
cumstances which prevent these ends from being all perfectly
realized in the particular thing which we are to examine. For
instance, we must have a general notion what a Man can be and
ought to be, before we can fitly proceed to determine on the
merits or demerits of any one individual. For thg examina-
tion of our own Government, 1 prepared my mind, therefore,
by a short Catechism, which I shall commum'cate in the next
Essay, and on which the letter and anecdotes that follow, will,
I flatter myself, be found an amusing, if not an instructive com-
mentary.
*I am ill doubt whether the five hundred petitions, presented at the same
time to the House of Commons by tlie Member for VV^estminster, are to he
considered as a fulfihncnt of this prophecy. I have heard the echoes of a
single bhmderbuss, on one of our Cumberland lakes, imitate the volley from
a whole regiment.
ESSAY V .
Hoc potissimum pacio felicem ac magnum regem se fore jitdicans : 7ion si quam
plurimis sed si quam optimis imperet. Proinde parum esse putal jiistis proesi-
diis rtgnum suum nmniisse, Jiisi idem viris eruditione juxta ac vita integritate
prczcellentihus ditet aique honestet. J^/imirum inttUigit hcsc demum esse vera
regni decora, has veras opes : hunc veram et mdlis unquam secidis cessuram glo-
riam. — Eras. Rot. R. S. Poncherio, Episc. Parisien. Ejtistola.
Translation. — Judging that he will have employed the most effectual means
of being a happj^ and powerful king, not by governing the most numerous
but the most moral people. He deemed of small sufficiency to have pro-
tected the country by fleets and garrison, unless he should at the same time:
enrich and ornament it with men of eminent learning and sanctity.
In what do all States agree.'' A number of men — exert —
power — in union. Wherein do they differ ? 1st. In the qua-
lity and quantity of the potvers. One possesses Chemists, Me-
chanists, Mechanics of all kinds, Men of Science ; and the arts
of war and peace ; and its Citizens naturally strong and of
habitual courage. Another State may possess none or a few
only of these, or the same more imperfectly . Or of two States
possessing the same in equal perfection the one is more numer-
ous than the other, as France and Switzerland. 2d. In the
more or less perfect union of these powers. Compare Mr.
Leckie^s valuable and authentic documents respecting the state
of Sicily with the preceding Essay on Taxation. 3dly. In the
greater or less activity of exertion. Think of the ecclesiasti-
cal State and its silent metropolis, and then of the county of
Lancaster and the towns of Manchester and Liverpool. What
is the condition of powers exerted in union by a number of
men .'' A Government. What are the ends of Government .-*
They are of two kinds, negative and positive. The negative
ends of Government are the protection of life, of personal
216
freedom, of property, of reputation, and of religion, from for-
eign and from domestic attacks. The positive ends are, 1st. to
make the means of subsistence more easy to each individual :
2d. that in addition to the necessaries of life he should derive
from the union and division of labour a share of the comforts
and conveniences which humanize and ennoble his nature ; and
at the same time the power of perfecting himself in his own
branch of industry by having those things which he needs pro-
vided for him by others among his fellow-citizens ; including
the tools and raw or manufactured materials necessary for his
own employment. / knew a profound mathematician in Sici-
ly, who had devoted a full third of his life to the perfecting
the discovery of the Longitude, and who had convinced not on-
ly himself but the principal mathematicians of Messina and
Palermo that he had succeeded ; hut neither throughout Sicily
or Naples could he find a single Artist capable of constructing
the instrument which he had invented.* 3dly. The hope of
bettering his own condition and that of his children. The civil-
ized man gives up those stimulants of hope and fear which
constitute the chief charm of the savage life : and yet his ma--
her has distinguished him from the brute that perishes, by ma-
king Hope an instinct of his nature and an indispensable con-
dition of his moral and intellectual progression. But a natu-
ral instinct constitutes a natural right, as far as its gratifica-
tion is compatible with the equal rights of others. Hence our
ancestors classed those who were bound to the soil (addicti gle-
bce) and incapable by law of altering their condition from that
of their parents, as bondsmen or villeins, however advantage-
*The good nirtn, wlio is ])oor. old, and blind, universally esteemed for the
innocence and austerity of his hfe not less than for his learning, and yet uni-
versally neglected, except hy persons almost as poor as himself, strongly i-e-
miiided me of a German epigram on Kepler, which may be thus translated ::
No mortal spirit yet had clomb so high
As Kepler — yet his country saw him die
For very want ! the ininds alone he fed,
And so the bodies left him without bread.
The good old man presented me with the book in which he has described
and demonstrated his invention: and I should with great pleasure transmit it
to any mathematician who would feel an interest in examining it and com-
niunicnting his opinions on ita merits.
217
ously they might otherwise he situated. Reflect on the direful
effects of casts in Hindostan, and then trasfer yourself infan-
cy to an English cottage^
" Where o'er the cradled Infant bending
Hope has fix'd her wishful gaze,"
and the fond mother dreams of her child^s future fortunes —
who knows but he may come home a rich merchant, like such a
one 9 or be a bishop or a judge ? The prizes are indeed few
and rare ; but still they are possible : and the hope is univer-
sal, and perhaps occasions more happiness than even its fulfil-
ment. Lastly, the developement of those faculties which are
essential to his human nature by the knowledge of his moral
and religious duties, and the increase of his intellectual powers
in as great a degree, as is compatible with the other ends of
social union, and does not involve a contradiction. The poor-
est Briton possesses much and important knowledge, ivhich he
would not have had, if Newton, Luther, Calvin, and their com-^
peers had not existed ; but it is evident that the means of sci-
ence and learning could not exist, if all men had a right to be-
made profound Mathematicians or men of extensive erudition..
Still instruction is one of the ends of Government : for it is-
that only which makes the abandonment of the savage state an
ABSOLUTE DUTY : and that Constitution is the best, under which
the average sum of useful knowledge is the greatest, and the
causes that aivaken and encourage talent and genius, the most
powerful and various.
These were my preparatory notions. The influences under
which I proceeded to re-examine our own Constitution, were
the following, which I give, not exactly as they occurred, but
in the order in which they will be illustrative of the different
articles of the preceding paragraph. That we are better and
happier than others is indeed no reason for our not becoming
still better ; especially as with states, as well as individuals,
not to be progressive is to be retrograde. Yet the comparison
will usefully temper the desire of improvement with love and
a sense of gratitude for what we already are.
218
I. A Letter received, at Malta from an Amej'ican officer of
high rank, ivho has since received the thanks and rewards of
the congress for his services in the Mediterranean.
Grand Cairo, Dec. 13, 1804.
Sir, — The same reason, which induced me to request letters
of introduction to his Britannic Majesty's Agents here, sug-
gested the propriety of shewing an English jack at the main
topgallant mast head, on entering the port of Alexandria on
the 26th ult. The signal was recognized ; and Mr. B was
immediately on board.
We found in port, a Turkish Vice Admiral, with a ship of
the line, and six frigates ; a part of which squadron is station-
ed there to preserve the tranquillity of the country ; with just
as much influence as the same number of Pelicans would have
on the same station.
On entering and passing the streets of Alexandria, I could
not but notice the very marked satisfaction, which every ex-
pression and every countenance of all denominations, of peo-
ple, Turks and Frenchmen only excepted, manifested under
an impression that we were the avant-courier of an English
army. They had conceived this from observing the English
jack at our main, taking our flag perhaps for that of a saint,
and because as is common enough every where, they were rea-
dy to believe what they wished. It would have been cruel to
have undeceived them : consequently without positively assum-
ing it, we passed in the character of Englishmen among the
middle and lower orders of society, and as their allies among
those of better information. Wherever we entered or where-
ever halted, we were surrounded by the wretched inhabitants ;
and stunned with their benedictions and prayers for blessings
on us. " Will the English come ? Are they coming ? God
grant the English may come ! we have no commerce — we have
no money — we have no bread ! When will the English ar-
rive !" My answer was uniformly. Patience ! The same tone
was heard at Rosetta as among the Alexandrians, indicative of
the same dispositions; only it was not so loud, because the in-
habitants are less miserable, although without any traits of hap-
piness. On the fourth we left that village for Cairo, and for
our security as well as to facilitate our procurement of accom-
modations during our voyage, as well as our stay there, the
resident directed his secretary, Capt. V , to accompa-
219
ny us, and to give us lodgings in his house. We ascended the
Nile leisurely, and calling at several villages, it was plainly
perceivable that the rational partiality, the strong and open ex-
pression of which proclaimed so loudly the feelings of the
Egyptians of the sea coast, was general throughout the coun-
try : and the prayers for the return of the English as earnest
as universal.
On the morning of the sixth we went on shore at the village
of Sabour. The villagers expressed an enthusiastic gladness
at seeing red and blue uniforms and round hats (the French, I
believe, wear three-cornered ones.) Two days befoie, five
hundred Albanian deserters from the Viceroy's army had pilla-
ged and left this village ; at which they had lived at free quar-
ters about four weeks. — The famishing inhabitants were now
distx-essed with apprehensions from another quarter. A com-
pany of wild Arabs were encamped in sight. They dreaded
their ravages and apprised us of danger from them. We were
eighteen in the party, well armed ; and a pretty brisk fire
which we raised around the numerous flocks of pigeons and
other small fowl in the environs, must have deterred them
from mischief, if, as is most probable, they had meditated any
against us. Scarcely, however, were we on board and under
weigh, when we saw these mounted marauders of the desert
fall furiously upon the herds of camels, buffaloes, and cattle of
the village, and drive many of them off wholly unannoyed on
the part of the unresisting inhabitants, unless their shrieks
could be deemed an annoyance. They afterwards attacked
and robbed several unarmed boats, which were a few hours
astern of us. The most insensible must surely have been
moved by the situation of the peasants of that village. The
while we were listening to their complaints, they kissed our
hands, and with prostrations to the ground, rendered more af-
fecting by the inflamed state of the eyes almost universal
amongst them, and which the new traveller might venially im-
agine to have been the immediate effect of weeping and an-
guish, they all implored English succour. Their shrieks at
the assault of the wild Arabs seemed to implore the same still
more forcibly, while it testified what multiplied reasons they
had to implore it. I confess, I felt an almost insurmountable
impulse to bring our little party to their relief, and might per-
haps have done a rash act, had it not been for the calm and
220
just observation of Captain V 's that " these were common
occurrences, and that any relief which we could afford, would
not merely be only tem])orary, but would exasperate the plun-
derers to still more atrocious outrages after our departure."
On the morning of the seventh we landed near a village.
At our approach the villagers fled : signals of friendship brought
some of them to us. When they were told that we were En-
glishmen, they flocked around us with demonstrations of joy,
offered their services, and raised loud ejaculations for our esta-
blishment in the country. Here we could not procure a pint
of milk for our coffee. The inhabitants had been plundered
and chased from their habitations by the Albanians and Desert
Arabs, and it was but the preceding day, they had returned to
their naked cottages.
Grand Cairo differs from the places already passed, only as
the presence of the tyrant stamps silence on the lips of misery
with the seal of terror. Wretchedness here assumes the form
of melancholy ; but the few whispers that are hazarded, con-
vey the same feelings and the same wishes. And wherein
does this misery and consequent spirit of revolution consist ?
Not in any form of government but in a formless despotism,
an anarchy indeed ! for it amounts literally to an annihilation of
every thing that can merit the name of government or justify
the use of the word even in the laxest sense. Egypt is under
the most frightful despotism, yet has no master ! The Turkish
soldiery, restrained by no discipline, seize every thing by vio-
lence, not only all that their necessities dictate, but whatever
their caprices suggest. The Mamelukes, who dispute with
these the right of domination, procure themselves subsistence
by means as lawless though less inssupportably oppressive.
And the wild Arabs availing themselves of the occasion, plun-
der the defenceless wherever they find plunder. To finish the
whole, the talons of the Viceroy fix on every thing which can
be changed into currency, in order to find the means of sup-
porting an ungoverned, disorganized banditti of foreign troops,
who receive the harvest of his oppression, desert and betray
him. Of all this rapine, robbery, and extortion, the wretched
cultivators of the soil are the perpetual victims. — A spirit of
revolution is the natural consequence.
The reason the inhabitants of this country give for prefer-
ring the English to the French, whether true or false, is as na-
221
tural as it is simple, and as influential as natural. " The En-
glish," say they, "pay for every thing — the French pay noth-
ing, and take every thing." They do not like this kind of de-
liverers.
Well, thought I, after the perusal of this Letter, the Slave
Trade (which had not then been abolished) is a dreadful crime,
an English iniquity ! and to sanction its continuance under full
conviction and parliamentary confession of its injustice and in-
humanity, is, if possible, still blacker guilt. Would that our
discontents were for a while confined to our moral wants !
whatever may be the defects of our Constitution, we have at
least an eflfective Government, and that too composed of men
who were born with us and are to die among us. We are at
least preserved from the incursions of foreign enemies ; the in-
tercommunion of interests precludes a civil war, and the volun-
teer spirit of the nation equally with its laws, give to the dark-
est lanes of our crowded metropolis that quiet and security
which the remotest villager at the cataracts of the Nile prays
for in vain, in his mud hovel !
JVot yet enslaved nor wholly vile,
O Albion, O my mother isle !
Thy vallies fair, as Eden's bowers.
Glitter green with sunny showers ;
Thy grassy uplands' gentle swells
Echo to the bleat of flocks ;
(Those grassy hills, those glitt'ring dulls
Proudly ramparted with rocks)
And ocean mid his uproar wild
Speaks safety to his island-child.
Hence for many a fearless age
Has social quiet lov'd thy shore ;
Nor ever sworded warrior's rage
Or sack'd thy towers or stain'd thy fields with gore.
Coleridge's Poems.
II. Anecdote of Buonaparte.
Buonaparte, during his short stay at Malta, called out the
Maltese regiments raised by the Knights, amounting to fifteen
hundred of the stoutest young men of the islands. As they
were drawn up on the parade, he informed them, in a bombastic
harangue, that he had restored them to liberty ; but in proof that
222
his attachment to them was not bounded by this benefaction,
he would now give them an opportunity of adding glory to free-
dom — and concluding by asking who of them would march for-
ward to be his fellow-soldier on the banks of the Nile, and con-
tribute a flower of Maltese heroism to the immortal wreaths of
fame, with which he meant to crown the pyramids of Egypt!
Not a man stirred : all gave a silent refusal. They were in-
stantly surrounded by a regiment of French soldiers, marched
to the Marino, forced on board the transports, and threatened
with death if any one of them attempted his escape or should
be discovered in any part of the islands of Malta or Goza. At
Alexandria they were always put in front, both to save the
French soldiery, and to prevent their running aw ay: and of the
whole number, fifty only survived to revisit their native coun-
try. From one of these survivors I first learned this fact which
was afterw^ards confirmed to me by several of his remaining
comrades, as well as by the most respectable inhabitants of Vi-
lette.
This anecdote recalled to my mind an accidental conversation
with an old countryman in a central district of Germany. I
purposely omit names because the day of retribution has come
and gone by. I was looking at a strong fortress in the distance,
which formed a highly interesting object in a rich and varie4
landscape, and asked the old man, who had stopped to gaze at
me, its name, &c. adding — how beautiful it looks ! It may be
well enough to look at, answered he, but God keep all chris-
tians from being taken thither! He then proceeded to gratify
the curiosity which he had thus excited, by informing me that
the Baron had been taken out of his bed at midnight and
carried to that fortress — that he was not heard of for nearly two
years, when a soldier who had fled over the boundaries sent in-
formation to his family of the place and mode of his imprison-
ment. As I have no design to work on the feelings of my
readers, I pass over the shocking detail: had not the language
and countenance of my informant precluded such a suspicion, I
might have supposed that he had been repeating some tale of
horror from a Romance of the dark ages. What was his crime !
I asked — The report is, said the old man, that in his capacity
as minister he had remonstrated with the concerning the
extravagance of his mistress, nn outlandish countess ; and that
223
she in revenge persuaded the sovereign, that it was the Baron
w^ho had communicated to a professor at Gottingen the particu-
lars of the infamous sale of some thousand of his subjects as
soldiers. On the same day I discovered in the landlord of a
small public house one of the men who had been thus sold. He
seemed highly delighted in entertaining an English gentleman,
and in once more talking English after a lapse of so many
years. He w'as far from regretting this incident in his life, but
his account of the manner in which they were forced away, ac-
corded in so many particulars with Schiller's empassioned de-
scription of the same, or a similar scene, in his Tragedy of
Cabal, and Love, as to leave a perfect conviction on my mind,
that the dramatic pathos of that description was not greater than
its historic fidelity.
As I was thus reflecting, I glanced my eye on the leading
paragraph of a London newspaper, containing much angry de-
clamation, and some bitter truths, respecting our military ar-
rangements. It were in vain, thought I, to deny that the in-
fluence of parliamentary interest, which prevents the immense
patronage of the crown from becoming a despotic power, is
not the most likely to secure the ablest commanders or the fit-
test persons for the management of our foreign empire. How-
ever, thank heaven ! if we fight, we fight for our own king and
country : and grievances which may be publicly complained of,
there is some chance of seeing remedied.
HI. A celebrated Professor in a German University, shewed
me a very pleasing print, entitled, " Toleration." — A Catholic
Priest, a Lutheran Divine, a Calvinist Minister, a Quaker, a
Jew, and a Philosopher, were represented sitting round the
same Table, over which a winged figure hovered in the atti-
tude of protection. For this harmless print, said my friend,
the artist was imprisoned, and having attempted to escape, was
sentenced to draw the boats on the banks of the Danube, with
robbers and murderers : and there died in less than two months,
from exhaustion and exposure. In your happy country, sir, this
print w ould be considered as a pleasing scene from real life :
for in every great town throughout your empire you may meet
with the original. Yes, I replied, as far as the the negative
ends of Government are concerned we have no reason to com-
plain. Our Government protects us from foreign enemies, and
234
our Laws secure our lives, our personal freedom, our property,
reputation, and religious rights, from domestic attacks. Our
taxes, indeed are enormous — Oh ! talk not of taxes, said my
friend, till you have resided in a country where the boor dis-
poses of his produce to strangers for a foreign mart, not to bring
back to his family the comforts and conveniences of foreign ma-
nufactures, but to procure that coin which his lord is to squan-
der away in a distant land. Neither can I with patience hear
it said, that your laws act only to the negative ends of govern-
ment. They have a manifold positive influence, and their in-
corrupt administration gives a colour to all your modes of think-
ing, and is one of the chief causes of your superior morality in
private as well as public life.*
My limits compel me to strike out the different incidents
which I had written as a commentary on the three former of the
positive ends of Government. To the moral feelings of my
Readers they might have been serviceable; but for their un-
derstandings they are superfluous. It is surely impossible to
peruse them, and not admit that all three are realized under
our Government to a degree unexampled in any other old and
long peopled country. The defects of our Constitution (in
which word I include the Laws and Customs of the Land as
well as its scheme of Legislative and Executive Power) must
exist, therefore, in the fourth, namely, the production of the
highest average of general information, of general moral and
religious principles, and the excitements and opportunities
which it affords to paramount genius and heroic power in a
*"The administration of justice throughout the Continent is partial, venal
and infamous. I have, in conversation with many sensible men, met with
sometliing of content with their governments in all other respects than this ;
but upon the question of expecting justice to be really and fairly administer-
ed every one confessed there was no such thing to be looked for. The con-
duct of the judges is profligate and atrocious. Upon almost every cause that
comes before them interest is openly made with the judges; and woe betide
tlie man, who, with a cause to support had no means of conciliating favour,
either by the beauty of a handsome wife, or by other methods." — This quo-
tation is confined in the original to France under the monarchy ; I have ex-
tended the application, and adopted the words as comprizing the result of my
own experience: and I take this opportunity of declaring, that the mosi im-
portant parts of Mr. Leckie's statement concerning Sicily I myself A;nou» to be
accurate, and am authorized by what I myself saw there, to rely on the whole
»s R fair and unexaggerated representation.
225
sufficient number of its citizens. These are points in which
it would be immorality to rest content with the presumption,
however well founded, that we are better than others, if we
are not what we ought to be ourselves, and not using the means
of improvement. The fii*st question then is, what is the fact ?
The second, supposing a defect or deficiency in one or all of
these points, and that to a degree which may affect our power
and prosperity, if not our aboslute safety, are the plans of Leg-
islative Reform that have hitherto been proposed fit or likely
to remove such defect, and supply such deficiency ? The
third and last question is — Should there appear reason to deny
or doubt this, are there then any other means, and what are
they ? — Of these points in the concluding Essay of this Sec-
tion.
A French gentleman in the reign of Lewis the 14th, was
comparing the French and English writers with all the boast-
fulness of national prepossession. Sir ! ( replied an Englishman
better versed in the principles of Freedom than the canons of
criticism) there are but two subjects worthy the human intel-
lect: Politics and Religion, our state here and our state
hereafter ; and on neither of these dare you write. Long may
the envied privilege be preserved to my countrymen of wri-
ting and talking concerning both ! Nevertheless, it behoves
us all to consider, that to write or talk concerning any suject,
without having previously taken the pains to understand it, is a
breach of duty which we owe to ourselves, though it may be
no offence against the laws of the land. The privilege of
talking and even publishing nonsense is necessary in a free
state ; but the more sparingly we make use of it the better.
29
ESSAY VI.
Then we may thank ourselves,
Who spell-bound by the magic name of Peace
Dream golden dreams. Go, warlike Biitain, go.
For the grey olive-branch change thy green laurels :
Hang up thy rusty helmet, that the bee
May have a hive, or spider find a loom !
Instead of doubling drum and thrilling fife
Be lull'd in lady's lap with amorous flutes.
But for Najjoleon, know, he'll scorn this calm :
The ruddy ])lanet at his birth bore sway.
Sanguine, a dust his htunor, and wild fire
His ruling clement. Rage, revenge, and cunning
Make up the temper of tliis captain's valor.
Adapted from an old Play.
Little prospective wisdom can that man obtain, who hurrying
onward with the current, or rather torrent, of events, feels no
interest in their importance, except as far as his curiosity is ex-
cited by their novelty ; and to whom all reflection and retro-
spect are wearisome. If ever there were a time when the
formation of just public principles becomes a duty of private
morality ; when the principles of morality in general ought to
be made to bear on our public sufiVages, and to affect every great
national determination ; when, in short, his country should
have a place by every Englishman's fire-side ; and when the
feelings and truths which give dignity to the fire-side and tran-
quillity to the death-bed, ought to be present and influencive
in the cabinet and in the senate — that time is now with us. As
an introduction to, and at the same time as a commentary on, the
subject of international law, I have taken a review of the cir-
rumstances that led to the Treaty of Amiens, and the recom-
227
mencement of the war, more especially with regard to the oc-
cupation of Malta.
In a rich commercial state, a war seldom fails to become un-
popular by length of continuance. The first, or revolution war
which toivards its close^ had become just and necessary, per-
haps beyond any former example, had yet causes of unpopular-
ity peculiar to itself. Exhaustion is the natural consequence of
excessive stimulation, in the feelings of nations equally as in
those of individuals. Wearied out by overwhelming novelties ;
stunned, as it were, by a series of strange explosions ; sick too
of hope long delayed ; and uncertain as to the real object and
motive of the war, from the rapid change and general failure
of its ostensible objects and motives ; the public mind for many
months preceding the signing of the preliminaries, had lost all
its tone and elasticity. The consciousness of Pxiutual errors and
mutual disappointments, disposed the great majority of all par-
ties to a spirit of diffidence and toleration, which, amiable as it
may be in individuals, yet in a nation, and above all in an opu-
lent and luxurious nation, iy c.lways too nearly akin to apathy
and selfish indulgence. An unmanly impatience for peace be-
came only not universal. After as long a resistance as the na-
ture of our Constitution and national character permitted or even
endured, the government applied at length the only remedy
adequate to the greatness of the evil, a remdey which the mag-
nitude of the evil justified, and which nothing but an evil of
that magnitude could justify. At a high price they purchased
for us the name of peace, at a time when the views of France
became daily more and more incompatible with our vital inte-
rests. Considering the peace as a mere truce of experiment,
wise and temperate men regarded with complacency the Trea-
ty of Amiens, for the very reasons that would have ensured
the condemnation of any other treaty under any other circum-
stances. Its palpable deficiencies were its antidote : or rather
they formed its ver}^ essence, and declared at first sight, what
alone it was, or was meant to be. Any attempt at that time
and in this Treaty to have secured Italy, Holland, and the Ger-
man Empire, would have been in the literal sense of the word,
preposterous. The Nation would have withdrawn all faith in
the pacific intentions of the ministers, if the negociation had
been broken off on a plea of this kind : for it had taken for
granted the extreme desirableness, nay, the necessity of a
228
peace, and, this once admitted, there would, no doubt, have
been an absurdity in continuing the war for objects which the
war furnished no means of realizing. If the First Consul had
entered into stipulations with us respecting the Continent they
would have been observed only as long as his interests from oth-
er causes miglit have dictated ; they would have been signed
with as much sincerity and observed with as much good faith
as the article actually inserted in the Treaty of Amiens, re-
specting the integrity of the Turkish empire. This article in-
deed was wisely insisted on by us, because it affected both our
national honor, and the interests of our Indian empire immedi-
ately ; and still more, perhaps, because this of all others was
the most likely to furnish an early proof of the First Consul's
real dispositions. But deeply interested in the fate oi the Con-
tinent, as we are thought to be, it would nevertheless have
been most idle to have abandoned a peace, supposing it at all
desirable, on the ground that the French government had re-
fused that which v/ouid have been of no value had it been
granted.
Indeed there results one serious disadvantage from insisting
on the rights and interests of Austria, the Empire, Switzerland,
&c. in a treaty between England and France : and, as it should
seem, no advantage to counterbalance it. For so, any attack on
those rights instantly pledges our character and national dignity
to commence a war, however inexpedient it might happen to be,
and however hopeless : while if a war were expedient any atttack
on these countries by France furnishes a justifiable cause of
war in its essential nature, and independently of all positive
treaty. Seen in this light, the defects of the treaty of Amiens
become its real merits. If the government of France made
peace in the spirit of peace, then a friendly intercourse and the
humanizing influences of commerce and reciprocal hospitality
would gradually bring about in both countries the dispositions
necessary for the calm discussion and sincere conclusion of a
genuine, efficient, and comprehensive treaty. If the contrary
proved the fact, the Treaty of Amiens contained in itself the
principles of its own dissolution. It was what it ought to be.
If the First Consul had both meant and dealt fairly by us, the
treaty would have led to a true settlement : but he acting as all
prudent men expected that he would act, it supplied just rea-
sons for the commencement of war — and at its decease left us,
as a legacy, blessings that assuredly far outweighed our losses
229
by the peace. It left us popular enthusiasm, national unani-
mity, and simplicity of object : and removed one inconvenience
which cleaved to the last war, by attaching to the right objects,
and enlisting under their proper banners, the scorn and hatred
of slavery, the passion for freedom, all the high thoughts and
high feelings that connect us with the honored names of past
ages ; and inspire sentiments and language, to which our Hamp-
dens, Sidneys, and Russels, might listen without jealousy.
The late Peace then was negociated by the Government, ra-
tified by the Legislature, and received by the nation, as an ex-
periment: as the only means of exhibiting such proof as would
be satisfactory to the people in their then temper ; whether
Buonaparte devoting his ambition and activity to the re-esta-
blishment of trade, colonial tranquillity, and social morals, in
France, would abstain from insulting, alarming and endanger-
ing the British empire. And these thanks at least were due
to the First Consul, that he did not long delay the proof.
With more than papal insolence he issued edicts of anathema
against us, and excommunicated us from all interferrence in
the affairs of the Continent. He insulted us still more inde-
cently by pertinacious demands respecting our constitutional
Laws and Rights of Hospitality ; by the official publication of
Sebastiani's Report; and by a direct personal outrage offered
in the presence of all the foreign ministers to the king, in the
person of his ambassador. He both insulted and alarmed us
by a display of the most perfidious ambition in the subversion
of the independence of Switzerland, in the avowal of designs
against Egypt, Syria, and the Greek Islands, and in the mission
of military spies to Great Britain itself. And by forcibly
maintaining a French army in Holland, he at once insulted,
alarmed, and endangered us. What can render a war just
(pre-supposing its expedience) if insult, repeated alarm, and
danger do not ? And how can it be expedient lor a rich, uni-
ted, and powerful Island-empire to remain in nominal peace
and unresenting passiveness with an insolent neighbor, who
has proved that to wage against it an unmitigated war of insult,
alarm, and endangerment is both his temper and his system?
Many attempts were made by Mr, Fox to explain away the
force of the greater number of the facts here enumerated : but
the great fact, for which alone they have either force or mean-
ing, the great ultimate fact, that Great Britain had been insult-
ed, alarmed, and endangered by France, Mr. Fox himself ex-
230
pressly admitted. But the opposers of the present war con-
centre the strength of their cause in the following brief argu-
ment. Supposing, say they, the grievances set forth in our
manifesto to be as notorious as they are asserted to be, yet
more notorious they cannot be than that other fact which utter-
ly annuls them as reasons for a war — the fact, that ministers
themselves regard them only as the pompous garnish of the
dish. It stands on record, that Buonaparte might have purchas-
ed our silence for ever, respecting these insults and injuries,
by a mere acquiescence on his part in our retention of Malta.
The whole treaty of Amiens is little more than a perplexed
bond of compromise respecting Malta. On Malta we rested
the peace : for Malta we renewed the war. So say the oppos-
ers of the present war. As its advocates we do not deny the
fact as stated by them ; but we hope to achieve all, and more
than all the purposes of such denial, by an explanation of the
fact. The difficulty then resolves itself into two questions :
first, in what sense of the words can we be said to have gone
to war for Malta alone ? Secondly, wherein does the impor-
tance of Malta consist ? The answer to the second will be
found in the third volume, in the Life of the Liberator and
Political Father of the Maltese : while the attempt to settle
the first question, so at the same time to elucidate the Law or
Nations and its identity with the Law of Conscience, will oc-
cupy the remainder of the present Essay.
L In what sense can we he offirmed to have renewed the war
for Malta alone ?
If we had known or could reasonably have believed, that the
views of France were and would continue to be friendly or
negative toward Great Britain, neither the subversion of the
independence of Switzerland, nor the maintenance of a French
army in Holland, would have furnished any prudent ground for
war. For the only way by which we could have injured France,
namely, the destruction of her commerce and navy, would in-
crease her means of continental conquests, by concentrating all
the resources and energies of the French empire in her military
powers : while the losses and miseries which the French peo-
ple would suffer in consequence, and their magnitude, compa-
red with any advantages that might accrue to them from the
extension of the name France, were facts which, we knew by
experience, would weigh as nothing with the existing Govern-
231
ment. It3 attacks on the independence of its continental neigh-
bors become motives to us for the recommencement of hostility,
only as far as they give proofs of a hostile intention toward
ourselves, and facilitate the realizing of such intention. If any
events had taken place, increasing the means of injuring this
country, even though these events furnished no moral ground
of complaint against France, (such for instance, might be the
great extension of her population and revenue, from freedom
and a wise government) much more, if they were the fruits of
iniquitous ambition, and therefore in themselves involved the
probability of an hostile intention to us — then, I say, every
after occurrence becomes important, and both a just and expe-
dient ground of war, in proportion, not to the importance of
the thing in itself, but to the quantity of evident proq/ afford-
ed by it of an hostile design in the Government, by whose
power our interests are endangered. If by demanding the im-
mediate evacuation of Malta, when he had himself done away
the security of its actual independence (on his promise of pre-
serving which our pacific promises rested as on their sole found-
ation) and this too, after he had openly avowed such designs on
Egypt, as not only in the opinion of our ministers, but in his
own opinion, made it of the greatest importance to this country,
that Malta should not be under French influence ; if by this
conduct the First Consul exhibted a decisive proof of his inten-
tion to violate our rights and to undermine our national inte-
rests ; then all his preceding actions on the Continent became
proofs likewise of the same intention ; and any one* of these
*An hundred cases might be imagined which v.ould place this assertion
in its true light. Su[)pose, for instance, a country according to the laws of
which a parent might not disinherit a son without having first convicted him
of some one of sundiy crimes enumerated in a specific statute. Caius, by a
series of vicious actions has so nearly convinced his father of his utter
worthlessness, that the father resolves on the next provocatiou to use the ve-
ly first opportunity of legally disinheriting this son. The provocation occurs,
and ill itself furnishes this op])orrunity, and Caius is disinherited, though for
an action much less glaring and intolerahle than most of his preceding de-
Jinqnencies had been. The advocates of Caius complain that he should be
thus punished for a comparative trifle, so many worse misdemeanors iiaving
been passed over. The father replies : " This, his last action, is not the cause
of the disinheritance ; but the means of disinheriting him. I pimished him
hy it rather than /or it. In truth it was not for any of his actions that I have thut
232
aggressions involves the meaning of the whole. Which of them
is to determine as to war must be decided by other and pru-
dential considerations. Had the First Consul acquiesced in our
detention of Malta, he would thereby have furnished such proof
of pacific intentions, as would have led to further hopes, as
would have lessened our alarm from his former acts of ambition,
and relatively to us have altered in some degree their nature-
It should never be forgotten, that a Parliament or national
Council is essentially different from a Court of Justice, alike in
its objects and its duties. In the latter, the Juror lays aside
his private knowledge and his private connections, and judges
exclusively according to evidence adduced in the Court : in
the former, the Senator acts upon his own internal convictions,
and oftentimes upon private information, which it would be
imprudent or criminal to disclose. Though his ostensible Reason
ought to be a true and just one, it is by no means necessary that
it should be his sole or even his chief reason. In a Court of
Justice, the Juror attends to the character and general inten-
tions of the accused party, exclusively, as adding to the proba-
bility of his having or not having committed the one particular
action then in question. The Senator, on the contrary, when
he is to determine on the conduct of a foreign power, attends
to particular actions, chiefly in proof of characler and existing
intentions. Now there were many and very powerful Reasons
why, though appealing to the former actions of Buonaparte, as
confirmations of his hostile spirit and alarming ambition, we
should nevertheless make Malta the direct object and final de-
terminant of the war. Had we gone to war avowedly for the
independence of Holland and Switzerland, we should have fur-
nished Bounaparte with a colourable pretext for annexing both
countries immediately to the French empire,* which, if he
punished liiin, but for his vices; tliat is, not so much for the injuries whicli I
have suffered, as for the dispositions which these actions evinced ; for the in-
solent and alaniiiiig intentions of which they are proofs. Now of this liabitu-
al temper, of these dangerous piu'poses, his last action is as true and complete
a manifestation as any or all of his preceding offences ; and it therefore may
and must be taken as their common representative.'''' '
* This disquisition was written in the year 1804, in Malta, at the request
of Sir Alexander Ball, [with the exception of the latter paragraphs, which I
have therefore included in crotchets.]
233
should do (as if his power continues he most assuredly will
sooner or later) by a mere act of violence, and undisguised ty-
ranny, there will follow a moral weakening of his power in the
minds of men, which may prove of incalculable advantage to
the independence and well-being of Europe; but which, un-
fortunately, for this very reason, that it is not to be calculated,
is too often disregarded by ordinary Statesmen. At all events,
it would have been made the plea for banishing, plundering,
and perhaps murdering numbers of virtuous and patriotic indi-
viduals, as being the partizans of " the Enemy of the Conti-
new^." Add to this, that we should have appeared to have
rushed into a war for objects which by war we could not hope
to realize ; we should have exacerbated the misfortunes of the
countries of which we had elected ourselves the champions ;
and the war would have appeared a mere w^ar of revenge and
reprisal, a circumstance always to be avoided where it is possi-
ble. The ablest and best men in the Batavian Republic, those
who felt the insults of France most acutely, and were suffering
from her oppressions the most severely, entreated our Govern-
ment, through their minister, that it would not make the state
of Holland the great ostensible reason of the war. The Swiss
patriots too believed, that we could do nothing to assist them at
that time, and attributed to our forbearance the comparatively
timid use which France has hitherto made of her absolute pow-
er over that country. Besides Austria, whom the changes on
the Continent much more nearly concerned than England, ha-
ving refused all co-operation with us, there is reason to fear
that an opinion (destructive of the one great blessing purcha-
sed by the peace, our national unanimity) would have takert
root in the popular mind, that these changes were mere pretexts.
Neither should we forget, that the last war had left a dislike in
our countrymen to continental interference, and a not unplausi-
ble persuasion, that where a nation has not sufficient sensibility
to its wrongs to commence a war against the aggressor, unbri-
bed and ungoaded by Great Britain, a war begun by the Go-
vernment of such a nation, at the instance of our Government,
has little chance of other than a disastrous result, considering
the character and revolutionary resources of the enemy. What-
ever may be the strength or weakness of this argument, it is
however certain, that there was a strong predilection in the
British people for a cause indisputably and peculiarly British.
30
234
And this feeling is not altogether ungrounded. In practical po-
litics and the great expenditures of national power, we must
not pretend to be too far-sighted : otherwise even a transient
peace would be impossible among the European nations. To
future and distant evils we may always oppose the various un-
foreseen events that are ripening in the womb of the future.
Lastly, it is chiefly to immediate and unequivocal attacks on
our own interests and honour, that we attach the notion of
Right with a full and efficient feeling. Now, though we may
be first stimulated to action by probabilities and prospects of
advantage, and though there is a perverse restlessness in human
nature, which renders almost all wars popular at their com-
mencement, yet a nation always needs a sense of positive Right
to steady its spirit. There is always needed some one reason,
short, simple, and independent of complicated calculation in or-
der to give a sort of muscular strength to the public mind,
when the power that results from enthusiasm, animal spirits,
and the charm of novelty, has evaporated.
There is no feeling more honourable to our nature, few that
strike deeper root when our nature is happily circumstanced,
than the jealousy concerning a positive right, independent of
an immediate interest. To surrender, in our national charac-
ter, the merest trifle, that is strictly our right, the merest rock on
which the waves will scarcely permit the seafowl to lay its eggs,
at the demand of an insolent and powerful rival, on a shop-
keeper's calculation of loss and gain, is in its final, and assured-
ly not very distant consequences, a loss of every thing — of na-
tional spirit, of national independence, and with these, of the
very wealth for which the low calculation was made. This feel-
ing in individuals, indeed, and in private life, is to be sacrific-
ed to religion. Say rather, that by religion, it is transmuted into
a higher virtue, growing on an higher and engrafted branch, yet
nourished from the same root : that it remains in its essence
the same spirit, but
Made pure by Thought, and naturalized in Heaven ;
and he who cannot perceive the moral diff'erences of national
and individual duties, comprehends neither the one or the
other, and is not a whit the better Christian for being a bad
patriot. Considered nationally, it is as if the captain of a man
of war should strike and surrender his colours under the pre-
235
tence, that it would be folly to risk the lives of so many good
Christian sailors for the sake of a/ew yards of coarse canvass !
Of such reasoners we take an indignant leave in the words of
an obscure poet.
Fear never wanted arguments : you do
Reason yourselves into a careful bondage,
Circumspect only to your Misery.
I could urge Freedom, Charters, Country, Laws,
Gods, and Religion, and such precious names —
Nay, what you value higher, Wealth ! But that
You sue for bondage, yielding to demands
As impious as they're insolent, and have
Only this sluggish name — to perish full !
Cartwright.
• And here we find it necessary to animadvert on a principle
asserted by Lord Minto, (in his speech, June 6th, 18U3, and
afterwards published at full length) that France had an un-
doubted right to insist on our abandonment of Malta, a right
not given, but likewise not abrogated, by the Treaty of Amiens.
Surely in this effort of candor, his Lordship must have forgot-
ten the circumstances on which he exerted it. The case is sim-
ply thus : the British government was convinced, and the French
government admitted the justice of the conviction, that it was
of the utmost importance to our interests, that Malta should re-
main uninfluenced by France. The French government binds
itself down by a solemn treaty, that it will use its best endea-
vors in conjunction with us, to secure this independence. This
promise was no act of liberality, no generous free-gift on the
part of France, No ] we purchased it at a high price. We dis-
banded our forces, we dismissed our sailors, and we gave up
the best part of the fruits of our naval victories. Can it there-
fore with a shadow of plausibility be affirmed, that the right to
insist on our evacuation of the island was unaltered by the
Treaty of Amiens, when this demand is strictly tantamount to
our surrender of all the advantages which we had bought of
France at so high a price ? Tantamount to a direct breach on
her part, not merely of a solemn treaty, but of an absolute bar-
gain? It was not only the perfidy of unprincipled ambition — the
demand was the fraudulent trick of a sharper. For what did
France ? She sold us the independence of Malta: then exerted
her power, and annihilated the very possibility of that indepen-
236
dence, and lastly, demanded of us that we should leave it bound
hand and foot for her to seize without trouble, wdienever her
ambitious projects led her to regard such seizure as expedient.
We bound ourselves to surrender it to the Knights of Malta —
not surely to Joseph, Robert or Nicolas, but to a known order,
clothed with certain powers, and capable of exerting them in
consequence of certain revenues. We found no such order.
The men indeed and the name we found : and even so, if we
Jiad purchased Sardinia of its sovereign for so many millions of
money, which through our national credit, and from the equiva-
lence of our national paper to gold and silver, he had agreed
to receive in bank notes, and if he had received them — doubt-
less, he would have the bank notes, even though immediately
after our payment of them we had for this very purpose forced
the Bank Company to break. But would he have received the
debt due to him ? It is nothing more or less than a practical
2nm, as wicked though not quite so ludricrous, as the (in all
senses) execrable pun of Earl Godwin, who requesting basium
(i. e. a kiss) from the archbishop, thereupon seized on the
archbishop's manor of Baseham.
A Treaty is a writ of mutual promise between two independ-
ent States, and the Law of Promise is the same to nations as
to indivdiuals. It is to be sacredly performed by each party in
that sense in which it knew and permitted the other party to
understand it, at the time of the contract. Any thing short of
this is criminal deceit in individuals, and in governments impi-
ous perfidy. After the conduct of France in the affair of the
guarantees, and of the revenues of the order, we had the same
right to preserve the island independent of France by a British
garrison, as a lawful creditor has to the household goods of a
fugitive and dishonest debtor.
One other assertion of his Lordship's, in the same speech,
bears so immediately on the plan of The Friend, as far as it
proposed to investigate the principle of international, no less
than of private morality, that I feel myself in some degree un-
der an obligation to notice it. A Treaty (says his Lordship)
ought to be strictly observed by a nation in its literal sense,
even though the utter ruin of that nation should be the certain
and fore-know'n consequence of that observance. Previous to
any remarks of my own on this high llight of diplomatic virtue,
we will hear what Harrington has said on this subject. " A
237
man may devote himself to death or destruction to save a na-
tion ; but no nation will devote itself to death or destruction to
save mankind. Machiavel is decried for saying, "that no
consideration is to be had of what is just or unjust, of what is
merciful or cruel, of what is honorable or ignominous, in case
it be to save a state or to preserve liberty :' which as to the
manner of expression may perhaps be crudely spoken. But to
immagine that a nation will devote itself to death or destruc-
tion any more after faith given, or an engagement thereto tend-
ing, than if there had been no engagement made or faith giv-
en, were not piety but folly." Crudely spoken indeed ! and
not less crudely thought : nor is the matter much mended by
the commentator. Yet every man, who is at all acquainted
with the world and its past history, knows that the fact itself
is truly stated : and what is more important in the present ar-
gument, he cannot find in his heart a full, deep, and downright
verdict, that it should be otherwise. The consequences of
this perplexity in the moral felings, are not seldom extensively
injurious. For men hearing the duties which would be bind-
ing on two individuals living under the same laws, insisted on
as equally obligatory on two independent states, in extreme
cases, where they see clearly the impracticability of realizing
such a notion ; and having at the same time a dim half-con-
sciousness, that two States can never be placed exactly on the
same ground as two individuals ; relieve themselves from their
perplexity by cutting what they cannot untie, and assert that
national policy cannot in all cases be subordinated to the
laws of morality : in other words, that a government may act
with injustice, and yet remain blameless. This assertion was
hazarded (I record it with unfeigned regret) by a Minister of
State, on the affair of Copenhagen. Tremendous assertion !
that would render every complaint, which we make, of the
abominations, of the French tyrant, hypocrisy, or mere incen-
diary declamation for the simple-headed multitude ! But, thank
heaven ! it is as unnecessary and unfounded, as it is tremend-
ous. For what is a treaty ? a voluntary contract between two
nations. So we will state it in the first instance. Now it is
an impossible case, that any nation can be supposed by any oth-
er to have intended its own absolute destruction in a treaty,
which its interests alone could have prompted it to make.
The verj> thought is self-contradictory. Not only Athens (we
- 238
will say ) could not have intended this to have been under-
stood in any specific promise make to Sparta ; but Sparta could
never have imagined that Athens had so intended it. And
Athens itself must have known, that had she even affirmed the
contrary, Sparta could not have believed — nay, would have
been under a moral obligation not to have believed her. Were
it possible to suppose such a case — for instance, such a treaty
made by a single besieged town, under an independent gov-
ernment as that of Numantium — it becomes no longer a state,
but the act of a certain number of individuals voluntarily sac-
rificing themselves, each to preserve his separate honor. For
the state was already destroyed by the circumstances which
alone could make such an engagement conceivable. — But we
have said, nations. — Applied to England and France, relative-
ly to treaties, this is but a form of speaking. The treaty is re-
ally made by some half dozen, or perhaps half a hundred indi-
viduals, possessing the government of these countries. Now
it is a universally admitted part of the Law of Nations, that an
engagement entered into by a minister with a foreign power,
when it was known to this power that the minister in so doing
had exceeded and contravened his instructions, is altogether
nugatory. And is it to be supj)osed for a moment, that a whole
nation, consisting of perhaps twenty millions of human souls,
could ever have invested a few individuals — whom, altogether
for the promotion of its welfare, it had intrusted with its gov-
ernment — with the right of signing away its existence ?
ESSAY VTI.
Arnicas reprehensiones gratissime accipiamiis, oportet : etiam si reprehendi nort
meruit opinio nostra, vel Jianc propter causam, quod recte defendi potest. Si
vero iiifirmitas vel humana vel propria, etiam cum veraciter arguitur, non potest
non aliquantulum conlristari, melius tumor dolet cum curatur, quam duni ei
parcitur et non sanatur. Hoc enim est quod acute vidit, qui dixit : utiliores esse
Imvd raro inimicos objurgantes, quam arnicas objurgare metuentes. llli enim
dwm rixantur, dicimt aliquando vera qitce corrigamus : isti autem minoremy
quam oportet, exhibent justitice libertatem, dum amicitice timent exasperare dul-
cedinem. — Augustinus Hieronymo : Epist. xciii. Hierou Opera. To/ii. ii. p>
233.
Translation — Censures offered in friendliness, we ought to receive with grati-
tude : yea, though our o])inions did not merit censure, we should still be
thankful for tlie attack on them, were it only that it gives us an opportu-
nity of successfully defending the same. (For never doth an impoHant truth
spread its roots so uide or clasp the soil so stuhhornly, as when it has braved the
winds of controversy. There is a stirring and a far-heard music sent forth from
the tree of sound knoioledge, when its branches are fighting ivith the storm, which
passing onward shrills out at once TrutKs tnumph and its own defeat.) But '\€
the infirmity of human nature, or of our own constitutional temperament,
cannot, even when we have been fairly convicted of error, but suffer some
small mortification, yet better suffer pain from its extirpation, than from the
consequences of its continuance, and of the false teridemess that had with-
held the remedy. This is what the ^oHto ol>&erver had in his mind, who
said, that upbraiding enemies were not seldom more profitable than friends
afraid to find fault. For the former amidst their quarrelsome invectives
may chance on some home truths, which we may amend in consequence ;
while the latter from an over delicate a])prehension of ruflling the smooth
surface of friendship shrink from its duties, and from the manly fi-eedom
which Truth and Justice demand.
Only a few privileged individuals are authorized to pass into
the theatre without stopping at the door-keeper's hox ; but ev-
ery man of decent appearance may put down the play-price there,
240
and thenceforward has as good a right as the managers them-
selves not only to see and hear, as far as his place in the house,
and his own ears and eyes permit him, but likewise to express
audibly his approbation or disapprobation of what may be go-
ing forv/ard on the stage. If his feelings happen to be in uni-
son with those of the audience in general, he may without
breach of decorum persevere in his notices of applause or dis-
like, till the wish of the house is complied with. If he finds
himself unsupported, he rests contented with having once ex-
erted his common right, and on that occasion at least gives no
further interruption to the amusement of those who feel differ-
ently from him. So it is, or so it should be, in Literature. A
few extraordinary minds may be allowed to pass a mere opin-
ion : though in point of fact those, vvho alone are entitled to
this privilege, are ever the last to avail themselves of it. Add
too, that even the mere opinions of such men may in general
be regarded either as promissory notes, or as receipts referring
to a former payment. But every man's opinion has a right to
pass into the common auditory, if his reason for the opinion is
paid down at the same time : for arguments are the sole cur-
rent coin of intellect. The degree of influence to which the
opinion is entitled, should be proportioned to the weight and
value of the reasons for it ; and whether these are shillings
or pounds sterling, the man, who has given them, remains
blameless, provided he contents himself with the place to which
they have entitled him, and does not attempt by the strength of
lungs to counterbalance its disadvantages, or expect to exert as
„„ -c i''"*i" «i^ influence in the back seats of the upper eallerv,
as il he haa p..,^ . , ^ , , , . , ,
n . r ^ , ;i gold and been seated in the stage box.
But unfortunateh , , , , , ..? ♦ ^^
I , , , ' ^nd here commence ^^-o r<-'inis oi dilier-
ence between the theatric and the Literary Public) in the o-reat
theatre of Literature there are no authorized door-keepers •
for our anonymous critics are self-elected. I shall not fear the
charge oi calumny if I add, that they have lost all credit with
wise men, by unfair dealing: such as their refusal to receive
an honest man's money, (that is, his argument) because they
anticipate and dislike his opinion, while others of suspicious
character and the most unseemly appearance, are suffered to
pass without payment, or by virtue of orders which they have
themselves distributed to known partisans. Sometime, the
honest's man's intellectual coin is refused under pretence that
241
it is light or counterfeit, without any proof given either by the
money scales, or by sounding the coin in dispute together with
one of known goodness. We may carry the metaphor still far-
ther. It is by no means a rare case, that the money is return-
ed because it had a different sound from that of a counterfeit,
the brassy blotches on which seemed to blush for the impudence
of the silver wash in which they were inisled, and rendered
the mock coin a lively emblem of a lie self-detected. Still
oftener does the rejection take place by a mere act of insolence,
and the blank assertion that the candidate's money is light or
bad, is justified by a second assertion, that he is a fool or knave
for offering it.
The second point of difference explains the preceding, and
accounts both for the want of established door-keepers in the
auditory of Literature, and for the practices of those, who un-
der the name of Reviewers volunteer this office. There is
no royal mintage for arguments, no ready means by which all
men alike, who possess common sense, may determine their
value and intrinsic worth at the first sight or sound. Certain
forms of natural Logic indeed there are, the inobservance of
which is decisive against an argument; but the strictest adhe-
rence to them is no proof of its actual (though an indispensable
condition of its possible) validity; in the arguer's own con-
science there is, no doubt, a certain value, and an infallible cri-
terion of it, which applies to all arguments equally : and this
is the sincere conviction of the mind itself. But for those to
whom it is offered, these are only conjectural marks ; yet such
as will seldom mislead any man of plain sense, who is both
honest and observant. These characteristics the Friend at-
tempted to comprize in the concluding paragraph of the Fourth
Essay of the Volume, and has described them more at large in
the Essays that follow, "On the communicating of Truth." If
the honest warmth, which results from the strength of the par-
ticular conviction, be tempered by the modesty which belongs
to the sense of general fallibility; if the emotions, which ac-
company all vivid perceptions, are preserved distinct from the
expression of personal passions, and from appeals to them in the
heart of others ; if the Reasoner asks no respect for the opinion,
as his opinion, but only in proportion as it is acknowledged by
that Reason, which is common to all men ; and, lastly, if he
supports an opinion on no subject which he has not previously
31
242
examined, and furnishes proof both that he possesses the means
of enquiry by his education or the nature of his pursuits, and
that he has endeavored to avail himself of those means ; then,
and with these conditions, every human Being is authorized to
make public the gi'owids of any opinion which he holds, and
of course the opinion itself, as the object of them. Conse-
quently, it is the duty of all men, not always indeed to attend
to him, but, if they do, to attend to him with respect, and with
a sincere as well as apparent toleration. I should offend against
my own Laws, if I disclosed at present the nature of my con-
victions concerning the degree, in which this virtue of tolera-
tion is possessed and practised by the majority of my contem-
poraries and countrymen. But if the contrary temper is felt
and shewn in instances where all the conditions have been ob-
served, which have been stated at full in the preliminary num-
bers that form the Introduction of this Work, and the chief of
which I have just now recapitulated; I have no hesitation in
declaring that whatever the opinion may be, and however op-
posite to the hearer's or reader's previous persuasions, one or
other or all of the following defects must be taken for granted.
Either the intolerant person is not master of the grounds on
which his own faith is built: which therefore neither is or can
be his own faith, tbough it may very easily be his imagined
intei'est, and his habit of thought. In this case he is angry, not
at the opposition to Truth, but at the interruption of his own
indolence and intellectual slumber, or possibly at the apprehen-
sion, that his temporal advantages are threatened, or at least the
ease of mind, in which he had been accustomed to enjoy them.
Or, secondly, he has no love of Truth for its own sake ; no re-
verence for the divine command to seek earnestly after it, which
command, if it had not been so often and solemnly given by
Revelation, is yet involved and expressed in the gift of Reason
and in the dependence of all our virtues on its developement.
He has no moral and religious awe for freedom of thought,
though accompanied both by sincerity and humility ; nor for
the right of free communication which is ordained by God, to-
gether with that freedom, if it be true that God has ordained
us to live in society, and has made the progressive improvement
of all and each of us depend on the reciprocal aids, which di-
rectly or indirectly each supplies to all, and all to each. But if
his alarm and his consequent intolerance, are occasioned by his
CM^^
243
eternal rather than temporal interests, and if as is most com-
monly the case, he does not deceive himself on this point,
gloomy indeed, and erroneous beyond idolatry, must have been
his notions of the Supreme Being ! For surely the poor Heathen
who represents to himself the divine attributes of wisdom, jus-
tice, and mercy, under multiplied and forbidden symbols in the
powers of Nature or the souls of extraordinary men, practises
a superstition which (though at once the cause and effect of
blindness and sensuality) is less incompatible with inward pie-
ty and true religious feeling, than the creed of that man, who
in the spirit of his practice, though not in direct words, loses
sight of all these attributes, and substitutes " servile and thrall-
like fear instead of the adoptive and cheerful boldness, which
our new alliance with God requires of us as Christians."* Such
fear-ridden and thence angry believers, or rather acquiescents^
would do well to re-peruse the book of Job, and observe the
sentence passed by the all-just on the friends of the sufferer,
who had hoped, like venal advocates, to pwchase the favor of
deity by uttering truths of which in their own hearts they had
neither conviction nor comprehension. The Truth from the
LIPS DID NOT ATONE FOR THE LIE IN THE HEART, wllilo the
rashness of agony in the searching and bewildered complainant,
was forgiven in consideration of his sincerity and integrity
in not disguising the true dictates of his Reason and Con-
science, but avowing his incapability of solving a problem by
his Reason, which before the Christian dispensation the Al-
mighty was pleased to solve only by declaring it to be beyond
the limits of human Reason. Having insensibly passed into a
higher and more serious style than I had first intended, I will
venture to appeal to these self-obscurants, whose faith dwells
in the Land of the Shadow of Darkness, these Papists without
* Milton'' s Rifonnation hi England. " For in very deed, the superstitious
man by liis good will is an Atheist ; but being scared from thence by the
pangs of conscience, shuffles up to himself such a God and such a Worship
as is most accordant to his fear : which fear of his as also his hope, being fix-
ed only ui)on the flesh, renders likewise the whole faculty of his ai)prehension
carnal, and all the inward acts of worship issuing from the native strength of
the Soul, j-un out lavishly to the upper skin, and there harden into a cruM of for-
mality. Hence men came to scan the Scriptures by the letter, ani in the co-
venant of our redemption magnified the external signs more than the quick-
ening power of the Spirit.
244
Pope, and Protestants who protest only against all protesting ;
and will appeal to them in words which yet more immediately
concern them as Christians, in the hope that they will lend a
fearless ear to the learned apostle, when he both assures and
labors to persuade them that they were called in Christ to all
perfectness in spiritual knowledge and full assurance of un-
derstanding in the mystery of God. There can be no end
without means : and God furnishes no means that exempt us
from the task and duty of joining our own best endeavors.
I'he original stock, or wild-olive tree of our natural powers,
was not given us to be burnt or blighted, but to be grafted on.
We are not only not forbidden to examine and propose our
doubts, so it be done with humility and proceed from a real
desire to know the Truth ; but we are repeatedly commanded
so to do : and with a most unchristian spirit must that man have
read the preceding passages, if he can interpret any one sen-
tence as having for its object to excuse a too numerous class,
who, to use the words of St. Augustine, qucerunt non ut fidem
sed ut infidelitatem inveniant : i. e. such as examine not to find
reasons for faith, but pretexts for infidelity.
ESSAY VIII.
Such is the iniquity of men, that they euck in opinions as wild asses do the
wind, without distinguishing the wholesome from the comipted air, and
then hve upon it at a venture : and when all their confidence is huilt upon
zeal and mistake, yet therefore because they are zealous and mistake n
they are impatient of contradiction. Taylor's Epist. Dedic. to the Lib-
erty of Prophesying.
"If," (observes the eloquent Bishop in the 13th section of
the work, from which my motto is selected) " an opinion plain-
ly and directly brings in a crime, as if a man preaches treason
or sedition, his opinion is not his excuse. A man is neverthe-
less a traitor because he believes it lawful to commit treason ;
and a man is a murtherer if he kills his brother unjustly, al-
though he should think that he was doing God good service
thereby. Matters of fact are equally judicable^ whether the
principle of them he from within or from without^
To dogmatize a crime, that is, to teach it as a doctrine, is it-
self a crime, great or small as the crime dogmatized is more or
less palpably so. You say (said Sir John Cheke, addressing
himself to the Papists of his day) that you rebel for your reli-
gion. First tell me, what religion is that which teaches you
to rebel. As my object in the present section is to treat of
Tolerance and Intolerance in the public bearings of opinions
and their propagation, I shall embrace this opportunity of se-
lecting the two passages, which I have been long inclined to
consider as the most eloquent in our English Literature, though
each in a very different style of eloquence, as indeed the au-
thors were as dissimilar in their bias, if not in their faith, as
two bishops of the same church can well be supposed to have
been. I think too, I may venture to add, that both the ex-
246
tracts will be new to a very great majority of my readers. For
the length I make no apology. It was part of my plan to allot
two numbers of The Friend, the one to a selection from our
prose writers, and the other from our poets; but in both cases
Irom works that do not occur in our ordinary reading.
The following passages are both on the same subject : the
first from Taylor's Dissuasive from Popery : — the second from
a Letter of Bishop Bedell's to an unhappy friend who had de-
serted the church of England for that of Rome.
1. The Rise and Progress of a controversy, from the specu-
lative Opinion of an Individual to the Revolution or Intestine
War of a Nation.
This is one of the inseparable characters of an heretic ; he
sets his whole communion and all his charity upon his article ;
for to be zealous in the schism, that is the characteristic of a
good man, that is his note of Christianity ; in all the rest he ex-
cuses you or tolerates you, provided you be a true believer ;
then you are one of the faithful, a good man and a precious,
you are of the congregation of the saints, and one of the god-
ly. All Solifidians do thus ; and all that do thus are Solifidians,
the church of Rome herself not excepted ; for though in words
she proclaims the possibility of keeping all the commandments ;
yet she dispenses easier with him that breaks them all, than
with him that speaks one word against any of her articles,
though but the least ; even the eating of fish and forbidding
flesh in Lent. So that it is faith they regard more than chari-
ty, a right belief more than a holy life ; and for this you shall
be with them upon terms easy enough, provided you go not a
hair's breadth from any thing of her belief. For if you do,
they have provided for you two deaths and two fires, both in-
evitable and one eternal. And this certainly is one of the
greatest evils, of which the Church of Rome is guilty : for this
in itself is the greatest and un worthiest uncharitableness. But
the procedure is of great use to their ends. For the greatest
part of Christians are those that cannot consider things leisure-
ly and wisely, searching their bottoms and discovering their
causes, or foreseeing events which are to come after ; but are
carried away by fear and hope, by affection and prepossession :
and therefore the Roman doctors are careful to govern them as
they will be governed. If you dispute, you gain, it may be,
one, and lose five ; but if ye threaten them with damnation,
247
you keep them in fetters ; for they that are, Hn fear of death,
are all their life time in bondage^* (saith the Apostle:) and
there is in the world nothing so potent as fear of the two
deaths, which are the two arms and grapples of iron by which
the church of Rome takes and keeps her timorous or conscien-
tious proselytes. The easy Protestant calls upon you from
scripture to do your duty, to build a holy life upon a holy faith,
the faith of the Apostles and first disciples of our Lord ; he
tells you if you err, and teaches ye the truth ; and if ye will
obey it is well, if not, he tells you of your sin, and that all sin
deserves the wrath of God ; but judges no man's person,
much less any states of men. He knows that God's judg-
ments are righteous and true ; but he knows also, that his mer-
cy absolves many persons, Avho, in his just judgment, were
condemned : and if he had a warrant from God to say, that he
should destroy all the papists, as Jonas had concerning the
Ninevites; yet he remembers that every repentance, if it be
sincere, will do more, and prevail greater, and last longer than
God's anger will. Besides these things, there is a strange
spring, and secret principle in every man's understanding, that
it is oftentimes turned about by such impulses, of which no
man can give an account. But we all remember a most won-
derful instance of it, in the disputation between the two Rey-
nolds's, John and William ; the former of which being a Papist,
and the latter a Protestant, met and disputed, with a purpose to
confute, and to convert each other. And so they did : for
those arguments, which were used, prevailed fully against
their adversary, and yet did not prevail with themselves. The
Papist turned Protestant, and the Protestant became a Papist,
and so remained to their dying day. Of which some ingen-
ious person gave a most handsome account in the following ex-
cellent Epigram,
Bella, inter geminos, plusquarn civilia, fratres
Traxerat ambiguiis Religionis apex.
Ille lefonnatae fidei propartibus instat :
Iste reformandain denegat esse fidem.
Propositis causae rationibus ; alter utrinque
ConcuiTere pares, et cecidere pai-es.
Quod fuit in votis, fratrem capit alter uterq ;
* Hebrews, ii. 15.
248
Quod fuit in fatis, perdit uterque fidem.
Captivi gemini sine captivante fuerunt,
Et victor victi transfuga castra petit.
Quod genTis hoc pugnae est, ubi victus gaudet uterq ;
Et tamen alteruter se superasse dolet ?
But further yet, he considers the natural and regular infirmi-
ties of mankind ; and God considers them much more ; he
knows that in man there is nothing admirable but his ignorance
and weakness ; his prejudice,^ and the infallible certainty of
being deceived in many things ; he sees, that wicked men of-
tentimes know much more than many very good men ; and that
the understanding is not of itself considerable in morality, and
effects nothing in rewards and punishments ; it is the will only
that rules man, and can obey God. He sees and deplores it,
that many men study hard, and understand little , that they dis-
pute earnestly, and understand not one another at all; that
affections creep so certainly, and mingle with their arguing, that
the argument is lost, and nothing remains but the conflict of
two adversaries' affections ; that a man is so willing, so easy, so
ready, to believe what makes for his opinion, so hard to under-
stand an argument against himself, that it is plain, it is the prin-
ciple within, not the argument without, that determines him.
He observes also that all the world (a few individuals except-
ed ) are unalterably determined to the religion of their country,
of their family, of their society ; that there is never any con-
siderable change made, but what is made by war and empire,
by fear and hope. He remembers that it is a rare thing, to see
a Jesuit of the Dominican opinion ; or a Dominican ( until of
late) of the Jesuit; but every order gives laws to the under-
standing of their novices, and they never change. He consid-
ers there is such ambiguity in words, by which all Lawgivers
express their meaning ; that there is such abstruseness in mys-
teries of religion, that some things are so much too high for us,
that we cannot understand them rightly ; and yet they are so
sacred, and concerning, that men will think they are bound to
look into them, as far as they can ; that it is no wonder if they
quickly go too far, where no understanding, if it were fitted for
it, could go far enough ; but in these things it will be hard not
to be deceived ; since our words cannot rightly express those
things. That there is such variety of human understandings,
that men's faces differ not so much as their souls; and that if
there were not so much difFicnlty in things, yet they could not
249
but be variously apprehended by several men. And hereto he
considers, that in twenty opinions, it may be that not one of
them is true ; nay, whereas Varro reckoned, that among the old
Philosophers there were eight hundred opinions concerning the
summum bonum, that yet not one of them hit the right. He
sees also that in all religions, in all societies, in all families,
and in all things, opinions differ ; and since opinions are too often
begot by passion, by passions and violence they are kept ; and
every man is too apt to overvalue his own opinion ; and out of
a desire that every man should conform his judgment to his that
teaches, men are apt to be earnest in their persuasion, and
overact the proposition ; and from being true as he supposes, he
w ill think it profitable ; and if you warm him either with con-
fidence or opposition, he quickly tells you it is necessary ; and
as he loves those that think as he does, so he is ready to hate
them that do not ; and then secretly from wishing evil to him, he
is apt to believe evil will come to him ; and that it is just it
should ; and by this time the opinion is troublesome, and puts
other men upon their guard against it ; and then while passion
reigns, and reason is modest and patient, and talks not loud like
a storm, victory is more regarded than truth, and men call God
into the party, and his judgments are used for arguments, and
the threatnings of the Scripture are snatched up in haste, and
men throw arrows, fire-brands, and death, and by this time all
the world is in an uproar. All this, and a thousand things more
the English protestants considering deny not their communion
to any Christian who desires it, and believes the Apostles'
Creed, and is of the religion of the four first general councils ;
they hope well of all that live well ; they receive into their bo-
som all true believers of w-hat church soever ; and for them
that err, they instruct them, and then leave them to their liber-
ty, to stand or fall before their own master. —
2. A Doctrine not the less safe for being the more charitable.
" Christ our Lord hath given us, amongst others, two infalli-
ble notes to know the church." "My sheep," saith he, " hear
my voice :" and again, " By this shall all men know that you
are my disciples, if ye love one another." — What, shall we stand
upon conjectural arguments from that which men say? We are
partial to ourselves, malignant to our opposites. Let Christ be
heard who be his, who not. And for the hearing of his voice —
O that it might be the issue ! But I see you decline it, there-
32
250
fore I leave it also for the present. That other is that which
now I stand upon : "the badge of Christ's sheep." Not a like-
lihood, but a certain token whereby every man may know them ;
"by this," saith he, "shall all men know that ye are my disci-
ples, if ye have charity one towards another." — Thanks be to
God, this mark of our Saviour is in us which you with our
schismaticks and other enemies want. As Solomon found the
true mother by her natural affection, that chose rather to yield
to her adversary's plea, claiming her child, than endure that it
should be cut in pieces ; so may it soon be found at this day
whether is the true mother. Ours, that saith, give her the
living child and kill him not ; or yours, that if she may not
have it, is content it be killed rather than want of her will.
Alas! (saith ours even of those that leave her) these be my
children ! I have borne them to Christ in baptism : I have nour-
ished them as I could with mine own breasts, his testaments.
I would have brought them up to man's estate, as their free
birth and parentage deserves. Whether it be their lightness or
discontent, or her enticing words and gay shews, they leave
me : they have found a better mother. Let them live yet,
though in bondage. I shall have patience; I permit the care
of them to their father, I beseech him to keep them that they
do no evil. If they make their peace with him, I am satisfied :
they have not hurt me at all. Nay, but saith yours, I sit alone
as Queen and Mistress of Christ's Family, he that hath not me
for his Mother, cannot have God for his Father. Mine there-
fore are these, either born or adopted : and if they will not be
mine they shall be none. So without expecting Christ's sen-
tence she cuts with the temporal sv.ord, hangs, burns, draM^s,
those that she perceives inclined to leave her, or have left her
already. So she kills with the spiritual sword those that sub-
ject not to her, yea thousands of souls that not only have no
means so to do, but many which never so much as have heard,
whether there be a Pope of Rome or no. Let our Solomon be
judge between them, yea, judge you, Mr. Waddesworth ! more
seriously and maturely, not by guesses, but by the very mark
of Christ, which wanting yourselves you have unawares disco-
vered in us : judge, I say, without passion and partiality, ac-
cording to Christ's word : which is his flock, which is his church.
ESSAY IX.
ON THE LAW OF NATIONS.
riQO'g Ttolsojg svduifioi'iuv xui dixuioav'vrjv itu via idico'rov tfinoaod-ev
riraytTui (pv'asi- to'vto)v de tu pei' "" av&Q(x)' mva dig tu x^iicc, la 8s
■d-eia eig lo'v 'r]ye/jo^ra No'vv Sv'finavTa dsi: ^Xiiteiv, o'v/ 'wg nQog
ageiyg il fiOQior, alXa nqo'g aQSiijf if ugsraig ast 'v7to/iBi'ou~(ruP, 'wi;
Tiqo'g vo\uoi' livu fOf^tod'SioTvi'iu.
nluiMV Tiegl Noi.imv.
Translation. — For all things that regard the well-being and justice of a State
are pre-ordained and established in the nature of the individual. Of these
it behoves that the merely human (the temporal andjluxional) should be re-
ferred and subordinated to the Divine in rnan, and the Divine hi like man-
ner to the Supreme Mind, so however that the State is not to regulate its
actions by reference to any particular form and fragment of virtue, but
must fix its eye on that virtue, which is the abiding spirit and (as it were)
substratum in all the virtues, as on a law that is itself legislative.
It were absurd to suppose, that individuals should be under
a law of Moral obligation, and yet that a million of the same
individuals acting collectively or through representatives, should
be exempt from all law : for morality is no accident of human
nature, but its essential characteristic. A being absolutely
without morality is either a beast or a fiend, according as we
conceive this want of conscience to be natural or self-produ-
ced ; or (to come nearer to the common notion, though with
the sacrifice of austere accuracy) according as the being is
conceived without the law, or in unceasing and irretrievable
rebellion to it. Yet were it possible to conceive a man wholly
immoral, it would remain impossible to conceive him without a
moral obligation to be otherwise ; and none, but a madman,
will imagine that the essential qualities of any thing can be al-
tered by its becoming part of an aggregate ; that a grain of
corn, for instance, shall cease to contain flour, as soon as it is
252
part of a peck or bushel. It is therefore grounded in the na-
ture of the thing, and not by a mere fiction of the mind, that
wise men, who have written on the h\w of nations, have al-
ways consideied the several states of the civilized world, as
so many individuals, and equally with the latter under a moral
obligation to exercise their free agency within such bounds, as
render it compatible with the existence of free agency in oth-
ers. We may represent to ourselves this original free agency,
as a right of commonage, the formation of separate states as
an enclosure of this common, the allotments awarded severally
to the co-proprietors as constituting national rights, and the
law of nations as the common register office of their title
deeds. But in all morality, though the principle, which is the
abiding spirit of the law, remains perpetual and unaltered,
even as that supreme reason in whom and from whom it has its
being, yet the letter of the law, that is, the application of it to
particular instances, and the mode of realizing it in actual
practice, must be modified by the existing circumstances. What
we should desire to do, the conscience alone will inform us ;
but how and when we are to make the attempt, and to what
extent it is in our power to accomplish it, are questions for the
judgment, and require an acquaintance with facts and their
bearings on each other. Thence the improvement of our
judgment, and the increase of our knowledge, on all subjects
included within our sphere of action, are not merely advanta-
ges recommended by prudence, but absolute duties imposed on
us by conscience.
As the circumstances then, under which men act as States-
men, are different from those under which they act as individu-
als, a proportionate difference must be expected in the practical
rules by which their public conduct is to be determined. Let
me not be misunderstood : I speak of a difference in the prac-
tical rules, not in the moral law itself which these rules point
out, the means of administering in particular cases, and under
given circumstances. The spirit continues one and the same,
though it may vary its form according to the element into
which it is transported. This dift'erence with its grounds and
consequences it is the province of the philosophical juspublic-
ist to discover and display : and exactly in this point (I speak
with unfeigned diffidence ) it appears to me that the Writers
253
on the Law of Nations,* whose works I have had the oppor-
tunity of studying, have been least successful. In what does
the Law of Nations differ from the Laws enacted by a particu-
lar State for its own subjects ? The solution is evident. The
Law of Nations, considered apart from the common principle
of all morality, is not fixed or positive in itself, nor supplied
with any regular means of being enforced. Like those duties
in private life which, for the same reasons, moralists have enti-
tled imperfect duties (though the most atrocious guilt may be
involved in the omission or violation of them,) the Law of
Nations appeals only to the conscience and prudence of the
parties concerned. Wherein then does it differ from the moral
laws which the Reason, considered as Conscience, dictates for
the conduct of individuals ? This is a more difficult question ;
but my answer would be determined by, and grounded on the
obvious differences of the circumstances in the two cases. Re-
member then, that we are now reasoning, not as sophists or
system-mongers, but as men anxious to discover what is right
in order that we may practice it, or at least, give our suffrage
and the influence of our opinion in recommending its practice.
We must therefore confine the question to those cases, in which
honest men and real patriots can suppose any controversy to
exist between real patriotism and common honesty. The ob-
jects of the patriot are, that his countrymen should as far as
circumstances permit, enjoy what the Creator designed for the
enjoyment of animals endowed with reason, and of course de-
veloped those faculties which were given them to be developed.
He would do his best that every one of his countrymen should
possess whatever all men may and should possess, and that a
sufficient number should be enabled and encouraged to acquire
those excellencies which, though not necessary or possible
for all men, are yet to all men useful and honorable. He
* Grotius, Bykenshoek, Puffendorf. Wolfe, and Vatel ; to wliose works I
must add, as coinj>rizing wliatever is most valuable in the preceding
Authors, with many important inipi-ovemcnts and additions, Robinson's Re-
ports of the Causes of tlie Court of Admiralty under Sir W. Scott: to whom
international law is under no less obligation than the law of commercial pro-
ceedings was to the late Lord Mansfield. As I have never seen Sir VV. Scott,
nor either by myself or my connections enjoy the honor of the remotest ac-
quaintance with him, I trust that even by those who may think my opinion
erroneous, I shall at least not be suspected of intentional flatteiy.
254
knows, that patriotism itself is a necessary link in the golden
chain of our affections and virtues, and turns away with indig-
nant scorn from the false Philosophy or mistaken Religion,
which would persuade him that Cosmopolitism is nobler than
Nationality, and the human race a sublimer object of love than
a people ; that Plato, Luther, Newton, and their equals, formed
themselves neither in the market nor the senate, but in the
world, and for all men of all ages. True ! But where, and
among whom are these giant exceptions produced ? In the wide
empires of Asia, where millions of human beings acknowledge
no other bond but that of a common slavery, and are distin-
guished on the map but by a name which themselves perhaps
never heard, or hearing abhor? No ! In a circle defined by hu-
man affections, the first firm sod within which becomes sacred
beneath the quickened step of the returning citizen — here,
where the powers and interests of men spread without confu-
sion through a common sphere, like the vibrations propagated
in the air by a single voice, distinct yet coherent, and all uni-
ting to express one thought and the same feeling ! here, where
even the common soldier dares force a passage for his comrades
by gathering up the bayonets of the enemy into his own breast :
because his country ^^ expected every man to do his duty /" and
this not after he has been hardened by habit, but, as probably,
in his first battle ; not reckless or hopeless, but braving death
from a keener sensibility to those blessings which make life
dear, to those qualities which render himself worthy to enjoy
them ? Here, where the royal crown is loved and worshipped
as a glory around the sainted head of Freedom ! Where the
rustic at his plough whistles with equal enthusiasm, " God save
the King^^'' and " Britons never shall he Slaves ;" or, perhaps,
leaves one thistle unweeded in his garden, because it is the sym-
bol of his dear native land !* Here, from within this circle de-
* I cannot here refuse myself the pleasure of recording a speech of the
Poet Burns, related to nie by the lady to whom it was addressed. Having
been asked by her, why in his more serious jjoems he had not changed the
two or three Scotch words which seemed only to disturb the purity of the
style ? the Poet ^vitll great sweetness, and in his usual hajipiness in reply
answered why in truth it would have been better, but —
The rough bur-thistle spreading wide
Aniang the bearded bear,
255
fined, as light by shade, or rather as light within light, by its
intensity, here alone, and only within these magic circles, rise
up the awful spirits, whose words are oracles for mankind,
whose love embraces all countries, and whose voice sounds
through all ages ! Here, and here only, may we confidently
expect those mighty minds to be reared and ripened, whose
names are naturalized in foreign lands, the sure fellow-travel-
lers of civilization ! and yet render their o-vvn country dearer
and more proudly dear to their own countrymen. This is in-
deed Cosmopolitism, at once the nursling and the nurse of pa-
triotic affection ! This, and this alone, is genuine Philanthro-
py, which like the olive tree, sacred to Concord and to Wis-
dom, fattens not exhausts the soil, from which it sprang, and in
which it remains rooted. It is feebleness only which cannot be
generous without injustice, or just without ceasing to be gene-
rous. Is the morning star less brilliant, or does a ray less fall
on the golden fruitage of the earth, because the moons of Sa-
turn too feed their lamps from the same Sun ? Even Germany,,
though curst with a base and hateftd brood of nobles and prince-
lings, cowardly and ravenous jackals to the very flocks en-
trusted to them as to shepherds, who hunt for the tiger and
whine and wag their tails for his bloody offal — even Germany,,
whose ever-changing boundaries superannuate the last year's
map, and are altered as easily as the hurdles of a temporary
sheep-fold, is still remembered with filial love and a patriot's
pride, when the thoughtful German hears the names of Luther
and Leibnitz. "Ah! why," he sighs, "why for herself in
vain should my country have produced such a host of immortal
minds !" Yea, even the poor enslaved, degraded, and barbarized
Greek, can still point to the harbour of Tenedos, and say, " there
lay our fleet when we were besieging Troy." Reflect a moment
on the past history of this wonderful people ! What were they
while they remained free and independent ? when Greece re-
sembled a collection of mirrors set in a single frame, each having
its own focus of patriotism, yei all capable, as at Marathon and
I tiirn'd the weeder-clips aside
An' spar'd the symbol dear.
An author may be allowed to quote from his own poe;ns, when he does it
with as much modesty and felicity as Burns did in this instance.
256
Platea, of converging to one point and of consuming a common
foe ? What were they then ? The fountains of light and civil-
ization, of truth and of beauty, to all mankind ! they were the
thinking head, the beating heart of the whole world ! They
lost their independence, and with their independence their pat-
riotism ; and became the cosmopolites of antiquity. It has been
truly observed (by the author of the work for which Palm was
murdered) that, after the first acts of severity, the Romans
treated the Greeks not only more mildly than their other slaves
and dependants, they behaved to them even affectionately and
with munificence. The victor nation felt reverentially the pre-
sence of the visible and invisible deities that give sanctity to
every grove, every fountain, and every forum. " Think (writes
Pliny to one of his friends) that you are sent into the province
of Achaia, that true and genuine Greece, where civilization,
letters, even corn, are believed to have been discovered; that
you are sent to administer the affairs of free states, that is, to
men eminently free, who have retained their natural right by
valor, by services, by friendship, lastly by treaty and by religion.
Revere the Gods, their founders, the sacred influences repre-
sented in those Gods, revere their ancient glory and this very
old age which in man is venerable, in cities sacred. Cherish
in thyself a reverence of antiquity, a reverence for their great
exploits, a reverence even for their fables. Detract nothing
from the proud pretensions of any state ; keep before thine
eyes that this is the land which sent us our institutions, which
gave us our laws, not after it was subjugated, but in compli-
ance with our petition."* And what came out of these men,
who were eminently free without patriotism, because with-
out national independence? (which eminent freedom, how-
ever, Pliny himself, in the very next sentence, styles the
shadow and residuum of liberty.) While they were intense
patriots, they were the benefactors of all mankind, legisla-
tors for the very nation that afterwards subdued and ensla-
ved them. When, therefore, they became pure cosmopolites,
and no partial aflections interrupted their philanthropy, and
when yet they retained their country, their language, and their
arts, what noble works, what mighty discoveries may we not
expect from them ? If the applause of a little city (a first rate
Plin. Epist. Lib. VIII.
257
town of a country not much larger than Yorkshire) and the
encouragement of a Pericles, produced a Phidias, a Sopho-
cles, and a constellation of other stars scarcely inferior in glo-
ry, what will not the applause of the world effect, and the
boundless munificence of the world's imperial master? Alas!
no Sophocles appeared, no Phidias was born ! individual genius
fled with national independence, and the best products were
cold and laborious copies of what their fathers had thought and
invented in grandeur and majesty. At length nothing remain-
ed, but dastardly and cunning slaves, who avenged their own
ruin and degradation by assisting to degrade and ruin their con-
querors ; and the golden harp of their divine language remain-
ed only as the frame on which priests and monks spun their
dirty cobwebs of sophistry and superstition !
If then in order to be men we must be patriots, and patriot-
ism cannot exist without national independence, we need no
new or particular code of morals to justify us in placing and
preserving our country in that relative situation which is more
favorable to its independence. But the true patriot is aware
that this subject is not to be accomplished by a system of gen-
eral conquest, such as was pursued by Philip of Macedon and
his son, nor yet by the political annihilation of the one state,
which happens to be its most formidable rival : the unwise
measure recommended by Cato, and carried into effect by the
Romans, in the instance of Carthage. Not by the latter: for
rivalry between two nations conduces to the independence of
both, calls forth or fosters all the virtues by which national se-
curity is maintained. Still less by the former : for the victor
nation itself must at length, by the very extension of its own
conquests, sink into a mere province ; nay, it v*'ill most probably
become the most abject portion of the Empire, and the most cru-
elly oppressed, both because it will be more feared and sus-
pected by the common tyrant, aiid because it will be the sink
and centre of his luxury and corruption. Even in cases of ac-
tual injury and just alarm the Patriot sets bounds to the repri-
sal of national vengeance, and contents himself with such se-
curities as are compatible with the welfare, though not with
the ambitious projects of the nation, whose aggressions had
given the provocation : for as patriotism inspires no super-hu-
man faculties, neither can it dictate any conduct which would
require such. He is too conscious of his own ignorance of the
S3
258
future, to dare extend his calculations into remote periods ;
nor, because he is a statesman, arrogates to himself the cares
of Providence and the government of the world. How does
he know, but that the very independence and consequent vir-
tues of the nation, which in the anger of cowardice he would
fain reduce to absolute insignificance, and rob even of its an-
cient name, may in some future emergence be the destined
guardians of his own country ; and that the power which now
alarms, may hereafter protect and preserve it? The experi-
ence of History authorizes not only the possibility, but even
the probability of such an event. An American commander,
who has deserved and received the highest honors which his
grateful country, through her assembled Representatives, could
bestow upon him, once said to me with a sigh : In an evil
hour for my country did the French and Spaniards abandon
Louisiana to the United States. We were not sufficiently a
country before ; and should we ever be mad enough to drive
the English from Canada and her other North American Prov-
inces, we shall soon cease to be a country at all. Without lo-
cal attachment, without national honour, we shall resemble a
swarm of insects that settle on the fruits of the eaith to cor-
rupt and consume them, rather than men who love and cleave
to the land of their forefathers. After a shapeless anarchy,
and a series of civil wars, we shall at last be formed into ma-
ny countries ; unless the vices engendered in the process should
demand further punishment, and we should previously fall be-
neath the despotism of some military adventurer, like a lion,
consumed by an inward disease, prostrate and helpless, be-
neath the beak and talons of a vulture, or yet meaner bird of
prey.
,--- ^
"u V
ESSAY X.
0,Ti jUEv TTQo'g ro'p tS d'lov nlo'viov, ftu IXov 8e ttqo" cjlcpuvjaa^u noXebig
anu'uTjg, o" nurruxv ^■'^' ovdu/ntf tci, (f^^si f.iu'ii'ijfiu xul eniTj/ devfiUf
Tov'xo xoifcfifiov y.ui aoipov tI do^ua&ijatTur jofv ds m'AAojj' xuruysXa'
o' TToliJixog- jnv'irjv nfv uniuv %Qif qa ranov' (ji]'ts u'D.o xaXor, fAj/rs
Tu ngo'g jo'v no'lef^oJ' (leyul.ongenwg "uaxeTr zug no'keig, Tofv noXl-
TWJ' jua'V ei'ioTB 'ovx uifuw'r d'l'TUjr, dv(TTV-(ov'rToi i' ye /"/''• Hufg
Xsyeig; JJuTg /iiey ov~v "uvrovg o' u Xeyoifi' av to naqa nuv du(nv;(fig,
olg ys ara'yxTj dlu Biov netvoj at nfv cpv;(ifv usi rifv <xvTi]r dia^eX-
■&EIV. JJluTQJV,
Translation. — Whatever study or doctrine bears upon the wealth of the
whole, say rather on a certain Phantom of a State in toto, whicJi is every
where and no where, this shall be deemed most useful and wise ; and all
else is the state-craftman's scorn. Tliis we dare pronounce the cause why
nations torpid on their dignity in general, conduct their wars so little in
a grand and magnanimous spirit, while the Citizens are too often wretched,
though endowed with high capabilities by Nature. Hoiv say you? Nay,
how should I not call them wretched, who are under the luirelenting neces-
sity of wasting away their life in the mere search after tlie means of sup-
porting it?
Plato, de Legibus, viii.
In the preceding Essay we treated of what may be wisely
desired in respect to our foreign relations. The same sanity of
mind will the true Patriot display, in all that regards the internal
prosperity of his country. He will reverence not only what-
ever tends to make the component individuals more happy, and
more worthy of happiness : but likewise whatever tends to
bind them more closely together as a people ; that as a multi-
tude of parts and functions make up one human body, so the
whole multitude of of his countrymen may, by the visible and
invisible influences of religion, language, laws, customs, and
260
the reciprocal dependence and re-action of trade and agri-
culture, be organized into one body politic. But much as he
desires to see all become a whole, he places limits even to
this wish, and abhors that system of policy, which would blend
men into a state by the dissolution of all those virtues which
make them happ}' and estima])le as individuals. Sir James
Stuart (Poiit. Econ. Vol. I. p. 8S.) after stating the case of the
vine-dresser, who is proprietor of a bit of land, on which grain
(enough, and no more) is raised for himself and family — and
who provides for their other wants of clothing, salt, &c. by his
extra labor, as a vine dresser, observes — " From this example
we discover the difference between Agriculture exercised as
a trade, and as a direct means of subsisting. We have the
two species in tlie vine-dresser : he labours the vineyard as a
trade, and his spot of ground for subsistence. We may farther
conclude, that as to the last part he is only useful to himself;
but as to the first, he is useful to the societv and becomes a
member of it ; consequently were it not for his trade the State
would lose nothing, although the vine-dresser and his land were
both swallowed up by an earthquake."
Now this contains the sublime philosophy of the sect of
Economists. They worship a kind of non-entity under the
different words, the State, the Whole, the Society, &c. and to
this idol they make bloodier sacrifices than ever the Mexicans
did to Tescalipoca. All, that is, each and every sentient Be-
ing in a given tract, are made diseased and vicious, in order
that eacli may become useful to all, or the State, or the Socie-
ty, — that is, to the word, all, the Word, State, or the word. So-
ciety. The absurdity may be easily perceived by omitting the
words relating to this idol — as for instance — in a former para-
graph of the same (in most respects) excellent work: " If it
therefore happens that an additional number produced do more
than feed themselves, then I perceive no advantage gained
from their production." What no advantage gained by, for
instance, ten thousand happy, intelligent, and immortal Be-
ings having been produced ? — yes ! but no advantage " to
this Society. — What is this Society ? this " Whole ?" this
" State ?" Is it any thing else but a word of convenience to
express at once the aggregate of confederated individuals liv-
ing in a certain district ? Let the sum total of each man's hap-
piness be supposed — 1000 ; and suppose ten thousand men pro-
duced, who neither made swords or poison, or found corn or
261
clothes for those who did — but who procured by their labor
food and raiment for themselves, and for their children — would
not that Society be richer by 10,000,000 parts of happiness?
And think you it possible, that ten thousand happy hu.-.ian Be-
ings can exist together without increasing each others happi-
ness, or that it will not overHow into countless channels,* and
diffuse itself througli the rest of the Society.
The poor vine-dresser rises from sweet sleep, worships his
Maker, goes with his wife and children into his little plot — re-
turns to his hut at noon, and eats the produce of the similar
labor of a former day. Is he useful? No ! not yet. Suppose
then, that during the remaining hours of the day he endea-
voured to provide for his moral and intellectual appetites, by
physical experiments and philosophical research, by acquiring
knowledge for himself, and communicating it to his wife and
children. Would he be useful then ? " He useful ? The
state would lose nothing although the vine-dresser, and his land
were both swallowed up by an earthquake !" Well then, in-
stead of devoting the latter half of each day to his closet, his
laboratory, or to neighborly conversation, suppose he goes to the
vineyard, and from the ground which would maintain in health,
virtue, and wisdom, twenty of his fellow-creatures, helps to
raise a quantity of liquor that will disease the bodies, and de-
bauch the souls of an hundred — Is he useful noio ? — yes !
— a very useful man, and a most excellent citizen !!
In what then does the law between state and^ state differ
from that between man and man ? For hitherto we seem to
have discovered no variation. The law of nations is the law of
common honestj^, modified by the circumstances in which States
differ from individuals. According to the friend's best un-
derstanding, the differences may be reduced to this one point:
that the influences of example in any extraordinary case, as the
possible occasion of an action apparently like, though in real-
* Well, and in the spirit of genuine philosopliy, does the poet describe
such beings as men
" Who being innocent do for that cause
Bestir them in good deeds"
Wordsworth.
Providence, by the ceaseless activity which it has implanted in our natm-e,
has sufficiently guarded against an innocence without virtue.
262
ity very different, is of considerable importance in the moral
calculations of an individual ; but of little, if any, in those of
a nation. The reasons are evident. In the first place, in
cases concerning which there can be any dispute between an
honest man and a true patriot, the circumstances, which at once
authorize and discriminate the measure, are so marked and
peculiar and notorious, that it is incapable of being drawn into
a precedent by any other state under dissimilar circumstances ;
except perhaps as a mere pretext for an action, w'hich had been
predetermined without reference to this authority, and which
w^ould have taken place, though it had never existed. But if
so strange a thing slioidd happen, as a second coincidence of
the same circumstances, or of circumstances sufficiently similar
to render the piior measure a fair precedent ; then if the one
action Avas justifiable, so will the other be ; and without any
reference to the former, which in this case may be useful as a
light, but cannot be requisite as an authority. Secondly, in
extraordinary cases it is ridiculous to suppose that the conduct
of states v/ill be determined by example. We know that they
neither will, nor in the nature of things can be determined by
any other consideration but that of the imperious circumstances
which render a particular measure advisable. But lastly, and
more important than ail, individuals are and must be under po-
sitive lavvs : and so very great is the advantage which results
from the regularity of legal decisions, and their consequent ca-
pability of being foreknown and relied upon, that equity itself
must sometimes be sacrified to it. For the very letter of a
positive law is part of its spirit. But states neither are, nor
can be, under positive laws. The only fixed part of the law
of nations is the spirit : the letter of the law consists wholly in
the circumstances to which the spirit of the law is applied. It
is mere puerile declamation to rail against a country, as having
imitated the very measures for which it had most blamed its
ambitious enemy, ii that enemy had previously changed all the
relative circumstr.nces which had existed for him^ and there-
fore rendered his conduct iniquitous ; but w hich, having been
remover^, however iniquitously, cannot w^ithout absurdity be
supposed any longer to control the measures of an innocent
nation, necessitated to struggle for its own safety : especially
when the measures in question were adopted for the very pur-
pose of restoring those circumstances.
263
There are times when it would be wise to regard patriotism
as a light that is in danger of being blown out, rather than as
a fire which needs to be fanned by the winds of party spirit.
There are times when party spirit, w^ithout any unwonted ex-
cess, may yet become faction ; and though in general not less
useful than natural in a free government, may under particular
emergencies prove fatal to freedom itself. I trust I am writing
to those who think with me, that to have blackened a ministry,
however strong or rational our dislike may be of the persons
who compose it, is a poor excuse and a miserable compensation
for the crime of unnecessarily blackening the character of our
country. Under this conviction, I request my reader to cast
his eye back on my last argument, and then to favor me with
his patient attention while I attempt at once to explain its pur-
port and to shew its cogenc}^
Let us transport ourselves in fancy to the age and country
of the Patriarchs, or, if the reader prefers it, to some small
colony uninfluenced by the mother country, which has not or-
ganized itself into a state, or agreed to acknowledge any one par-
ticular governor. We will suppose this colony to consist of from
twenty to thirty households or separate establishments, differing
greatly from each other in the number of retainers and in ex-
tent of possessions. Each household, however, possesses its
own domain, the least equally with the greatest, in full right ;
and its master is an independent sovereign within his own boun-
daries. This mutual understanding and tacit agreement we
may well suppose to have been the gradual result of many feuds,
which had produced misery to all and real advantage to none :
and that the same sober and reflecting persons, dispersed through
the different establishments, who had brought about this state of
things, had likewise coincided in the propriet}^ of some other
prudent and humane regulations, which from the authority of
these wise men on points, in which they were unanimous, and
from the evident good sense of the rules themselves, were ac-
knowledged throughout the whole colony, though they were
never voted into a formal law, though the determination of the
cases, to which these rules were applicable, had not been en-
trusted to any recognized judge, nor their enforcement delega-
ted to any particular magistrate. Of these virtual laws this,
we may safely conclude, would be the chief: that as no man
ought to interfere in the aff"airs of another against his will, so if
264
any master of a household, instead of occupying himself with
the improvement of his own fields and flocks, or with the bet-
ter regulation of his own establishment, should be foolish and
wicked enough to employ his children and servants in breaking
down the fences and taking possession of the lands and pro-
perty of a fellow-colonist, or in turning the head of the family
out of his house, and forcing those that remained to acknow-
ledge himself as their governor instead, and to obey whomever
he might please to appoint as his deputy — that it then became
the duty and interest of the other colonists to join against the
aggressor, and to do all in their power to prevent him from
accomplishing his bad purposes, or to compel him to make
restitution and compensation. The mightier the aggressor, and
the weaker the injured party, the more cogent would the mo-
tive become for restraining the one and protecting the other.
For it was plain that he who was suflered to overpower, one by
one, the weaker proprietors, and render the members of their
establishment subservient to his will, must soon become an
overmatch for those who were formerly his equals : and the
mightiest would differ from the the meanest only by being the
last victim.
This allegoric fable faithfully pourtrays the law of nations
and the balance of power among the European states. Let us
proceed with it in the form of History. In the second or third
generation the proprietors too generally disregarded the good
old opinion, that what injured any could be real advantage to
none ; and treated those, who still professed it, as fit only to
instruct children in their catechism. Ry the avarice of some,
the cowardice of others, and by the corruption and want of
foresight in the greater part, the former state of things had
been completely changed, and the tacit compact set at nought
the general acknowledgment of which had been so instrumen-
tal in producing this state and in preserving it, as long as it
lasted. The stronger had preyed on the weaker, whose wrongs,
however, did not remain long unavenged. For the same sel-
fishness and blindness to the future, which had induced the
wealthy to trample on the rights of the poorer proprietors, pre-
vented them from assisting each other effectually, when they
were themselves attacked, one after the other, by the most
powerful of all : and from a concurrence of circumstances at-
tacked so successfully, that of the whole colony few remained,
265
that were not, directly or indirectly, the creatures and depen-
dents of one overgrown establishment. Say rather, of its new
master, an adventurer whom chance and poverty had brought
thither, and who in better times w^ould have been employed in
the swine-yard, or the slaughter-house, from his moody tem-
per and his aversion to all tiie Arts that tended to improve either
the land or those that were to be maintained by its produce.
He was however eminent for other qualities, which w^ere still
better suited to promote his power among those degenerate co-
lonists: for he feared neither God nor his own conscience- The
most solemn oaths could not bind him ; the most deplorable ca-
lamities could not a^vaken his pity ; and when others were
asleep, he was either brooding over some scheme of robbery
and murder, or with a part of his banditti actually employed in
laying waste his neighbor's fences, or in undermining the walls
of their houses. His natural cunning, undistracted by any honest
avocations, and meeting with no obstacle either in his head or
heart, and above all, having been quickened and strengthened
by constant practice and favored by the times with all conceiva-
ble opportunities, ripened at last into a surprising genius for op-
pression and tyranny : and, as we must distinguish him by some
name we will call him IMisetes. The only estate, which remain-
ed able to bid defiance to this common enemy, w as that of Pam-
PHiLus, superior to Misetes in wealth, and his equal in strength ;
though not in the power of doing mischief, and still less in the
wish. Their characters were indeed perfectly contrasted : for
it may be truly said, that throughout the whole colony there was
not a single establishment which did not owe some of its best
buildings, the increased produce of its fields, its improved im-
plements of industry, and the general more decent appearance
of its members, to the information given and the encourage-
ments afforded by Pamphilus and those of his household. Who-
ever raised more than they wanted for their own establishment,
were sure to find a ready purchaser in Pamphiltis, and often-
times for articles which they had themselves been before accus-
tomed to regard as worthless, or even as nuisances : they recei-
ved in return things necessary or agreeable, and always in one re-
spect at least useful, that they roused the purchaser to industry
and its accompanying virtues. In this intercommunionall were
benefited : for the wealth of Pamphilus was increased by the in-
creasing industry of his fellow-colonists, and their industry need-
34
266
ed the support and encouraging influences of Pamphilus's capital.
To this good man and his estimable household Misetes bore the
most implacable hatred, and had publicly sworn that he would
root him out ; the only sort of oath which he was not likely to
break by any want of will or effort on his own part. But for-
tunately for Pamphilus, his main property consisted of one com-
pact estate divided from Misetes and the rest of the colony by a
wide and dangerous river, with the exception of one small
plantation which belonged to an independent proprietor whom
we will name Lathrodacnus : a man of no influence in the
colony, but much respected by Pamphilus. They were indeed
relations by blood originally and afterwards by intermarriages ;
and it was to the power and protection of Pamphilus that
Lathrodacnus o\%ed his independence and prosperity, amid the
general distress and slavery of the other proprietors. Not less
fortunately^ did it happen, that the means of passing the river
were possessed exclusively by Pamphilus and his above men-
tioned kinsman ; and not only the boats themselves, but all the
means of constructing and navigating them. As the very ex-
istence of Lathrodacnus, as an independent colonist, had no
solid ground, but in the strength and prosperity of Pamphilus ;
and as the interests of the one in no respect interfered with
those of the other; Pamphilus for a considerable time remained
without any anxiety, and looked on the river-craft of Lathro-
dacnus with as little alarm, as on those of his own establishment.
It did not disquiet him, that Lathrodacnus had remained neutral
in the quarrel. Nay, though many advantages, which in peace-
ful times w^ould have belonged to Pamphilus, were now trans-
ferred to his Neighbor, and had more than doubled the extent
and profit of his concern, Pamphilus, instead of repining at this,
was glad that some good at least to some one came out of the
general evil. Great then was his surprise, when he discover-
ed, that without any conceivable reason Lathrodacnus had em-
ployed himself in building and collecting a very unusual num-
ber of such boats, as were of no use to him in his traffic, but
designed exclusively as ferry-boats: and what was still stran-
ger and more alarming, that he chose to keep these in a bay
on the other side of the river, opposite to the one small plant-
ation, along side of Pamphilus' estate, from which plantation
Lathrodacnus derived the materials for building them. Willing
to believe this conduct a transient whim of his neighbor's, oc-
267
casioned partly by his vanity, and partly by envy ( to which
latter passion the want of liberal education, and the not suffi-
ciently cotuprehending the g'ounds of his own prosperity, had
rendered huu subject) Pamphilus contented himself for awhile
with urgent yet friendly remonstrances. The only answer,
which Lathrodacnus vouchsafed to return, was, that by the law
of the colony, which Pamphilus had made so many professions
of revering, every proprietor was an independent sovereign
within his own boundaries ; that the boats were his own, and
the opposite shore, to which they were fastened, part of a field
which belonged to him ; and, in short, that Pamphilus had no
right to interfere with the management of his property, which,
trifling as it might be, compared with that of Pamphilus, was
no less sacred by the law of the colony. To this uncourteous
rebuff Pamphilus replied with a fervent wish, that Lathrodacnus
could with more propriety have appealed to a law, as still sub-
sisting, which, he well knew, had been effectually annulled by
the unexampled tyranny and success of Misetes, together wi;h
the circumstances which had given occasion to the Lw, and
made it wise and practicable. He further urged, that this law
was not made for the benefit of any one man, but for the common
safety and advantage of all : that it was absurd to suppose that
either he (Pamphilus) or that Lathrodacnus himself, or any
other proprietor, ever did or could acknowledge this law in the
sense that it was to survive the very circumstances, of which
it was the mere reflex. Much less could they have even tacitly
assented to it, if they had ever understood it as authorizing one
neighbor to endanger the absolute ruin of another, who had
perhaps fifty times the property to lose, and perhaps ten times
the number of souls to answer for, and yet forbidding the in-
jured person to take any steps in his own defence ; and lastly,
that this law gave no right without imposing a corresponding
duty. Therefore if Lathrodacnus insisted on the 7'ights given
him by the law, he ought at the same time to perform the duties
which it required, and join heart and hand with Pamphilus in
his endeavors to defend his independence, to restore the former
state of the colony, and with this to re-enforce the old law in
opposition to Misetes who had enslaved the one and set at
nought the other. So ardently was Pamphilus attached to the
law, that excepting his own safety and independence there was
no price which he would not pay, no sacrifice Avhich he would
268
not make for its restoration. His reverence for the very me-
mory of the law was such, that the mere appearance of trans-
gressing it would be a heavy affliction to him. In hope there-
fore of gaining from the avarice of Lathrodacnus that consent
w^hich he could not obtain from his justice or neighborly kind-
ness, he offered to give hira in full right a plantation ten times
the value of all his boats, and yet, whenever the colony should
once more be settled, to restore the boats : if he would only
permit Pamphilus to secure them during the present state of
things, on his side of the river, retaining whatever he really
wanted for the passage of his own household. To all these per-
suasions and entreaties Lathrodacnus turned a deaf ear ; and
Pamphilus remained agitated and undetermined, till at length
he received certain intelligence that Lathrodacnus had called a
council of the chief members of his establishment, in conse-
quence of the threats of Misetes, that he would treat him as
the friend and ally of Pamphilus, if he did not declare himself
his enemy. Partly for the sake of a large meadow belonging
to him on the other side of the river which it was not easy to
secure from the tyrant, but still more from envy and the irrita-
ble temper of a proud inferior, Lathrodacnus, and with him the
majority of his advisers (though to the great discontent of the
few wise heads among them) settled it finally that if he should
be again pressed on this point by Misetes, he would join him
and commence hostilities against his old neighbor and kinsman.
It is indeed but too probable that he had long brooded over this
scheme : for to what other end could he have strained his in-
come, and over-worked his servants in building and fitting up
such a number of passage-boats ? As soon as this information
was received by Pamphilus, and this from a quarter which it
was impossible for him to discredit, he obeyed the dictates of
self-preservation, took possession of the passage-boats by force,
and brought them over to his own grounds ; but without any fur-
ther injury to Lathrodacnus, and still urging him to accept a com-
pensation and continue in that amity which was so manifestly
their common interest. Instantly a great outcry was raised
against Pamphilus, who was charged in the bitterest terms with
having first abused Misetes, and then imitated him in his worst
acts of violence. In the calmness of a good conscience Pam-
philus contented himself with the following reply : "Even so,
if I were out on a shooting party with a quaker for my com-
269
panion, and saw coming on towards us an old footpad and
murderer, who had made known his intention of killing me
wherever he might meet me ; and if my companion the Quaker
would neither give me up his gun, nor even discharge it as (we
will suppose) I had just before unfortuatelj discharged my own ;
if he would neither promise to assist me nor even promise to
make the least resistance to the robber's attempt to disarm him-
self; you might call me a robber for wresting this gun from
my companion, though for no other purpose but that I might at
least do for by myself, what he ought to have done, but would
not do either for or with me ! Even so, and as plausibly, you
might exclaim, O the hypocrite Pamphilus ! Who has not been
deafened with iiis complaints against robbers and footpads ?
and lo ! he himself has turned footpad, and commenced by rob-
bing his peaceful and unsuspecting companion of his double-
barrelled gun !" It is the business of The Friend to lay down
principles not to make the applications of them to particular,
much less to recent cases. If any such there be to which these
principles are fairly applicable, the reader is no less master of
the facts than the Writer of the present Essay. If not, the
principles remain ; and The Friend has finished the task which
the plan of his work imposed on him, of proving the identity
of international law and the law of morali(y in spirit, and the
reasons of their difference in practice, in those extreme cases
in which alone they have been allowed to differ.
POSTSCRIPT.
The preceding Essay has more than its natural interest for the
author from the abuse, which it brought down on him as the
defender of the attack on Copenhagen, and the seizure of the
Danish fleet. The odium of the measure rested wholly on the
commencement of hostilities without a previous proclamation
of war. Now it is remarkable, that in a work published ir.any
years before this event Professor Beck had made this very
point the subject of a particular chapter in his admirable Com-
ments on the Law of Nations : and every one of the circum-
stances stated by him as forming an except to the moral ne-
cessity of previous proclamation of war, concurred in the Co-
penhagen expedition. I need mention two only. First by the
act or acts, which provoked the expedition, the party attacked
270
had knowingly placed himself in a state of war. Let A stand
for the D.^nish, B for the British, government. A had done
that which he himself was iuHj aware would produce immedi-
ate hostilities on the p.u t of B, the moment it came to the
knowledge of the latter. Tae act itse f was a waging of war
against B on the part of A. B therefore was the party attack-
ed : and common sense dictates, that to resist and baiile an ag-
gression requires no proclamation to justify it. 1 perceived a
dagger aimed at my back, in consequence of a warning given
me, just time enough to prevent the blow, knock the assassin
down, and disarm him : and he reproaches me with treachery,
because forsooth I had not sent hiai a challenge ! Secondly,
when the object which justifies and necessitates the war would
be frustrated by the proclamation. For neither State or Indi-
vidual can be presumed to have given either a formal or a tacit
assent to any such modification of a positive Right, as would
suspend and virtually annul the Right itself: the Right of self-
preservation, for instance. This second exception will often
depend on the existence of the first, and must alv ays receive
additional strength and clearness from it. That both of these
exceptions appertained to the case in question, is now notori-
ous. But at the time 1 found it necessary to publish the fol-
lowing comment, which 1 adapt to the present rifacciamento
of The Friend, as illustrative of the fundamental principle of
public justice ; viz. that personal and national morality, ever
one and the same, dictate the same measures under the same
circumstances, and diderent measures only as far as the circum-
stances are dilferent.
As my limits will not allow me to do more in the second, or
ethical section of The Friend, than to propose and develope my
own system, without controverting the systems of others, I shall
therefore devote the Essay, which follows this Postscript, to
the consideration of the problem : How far is the moral na-
ture of an action constituted by its individual circumstances?
It was once said to me, when the Copenhagen affair was in
dispute, "Vou do not see the enormity, because it is an affair
between state and state : conceive a similar case between man
and man, and you would both see and abhor it." Now, I was
neither defending or attacking the measure itself. My argu-
ments were confined to the grounds which had been taken
both in the arraigning of that measure and in its defence, be-
271
cause I thought both equally untenable. I was not enough
master of facts to form a decisive opinion on the enterprize,
even for my own mind ; but I had no hesitation in affirming,
that the principles^ on which it was defended in the legislature,
appeared to me fitter objects of indignant reprobation than the
act itself. This having been premised, I replied to the asser-
tion above stated, by asserting the direct contrary : namely,
that were a similar case conceived between man and man, the
severest arraigners of the measure, would, on their grounds^
find notbing to blame in it. How was I to prove this assertion ?
Clearly, by imagining some case between individuals living in
the same relations toward each other, in which the several
states of Europe exist or existed. My allegory, therefore, so
far from being a disguise, was a necessary part of the main ar-
gument, a case in jjoint^ to prove the identity of the law of
nations with the law of conscience. We have only to conceive
Individ lals in the same relations as states, in order to learn
that the rules emanating from international law, diff"er from
those of private honesty, solely through the difference of the
circumstances.
But why did not the Friend avow the application of the
principle to the seizure of tlie Danish fleet ! Because I did
not possess sufficient evidence to prove to otheis, or even to
decide for myself, that my principle was applicable to this par-
ticular act. In (he case of Pamphilus and Lathrodacnus, the
prudence and necessity of the measure was certain ; and, this
taken for granted, I shewed its perfect rightfulness. In the
aft'air of Copenhagen, 1 had no doubt of our right to do as we
did, supposing the necessity, or at least the extreme prudence
of the measure; taking for granted that there existed a mo-
tive adequate to the action, and that the action was an ade-
quate means of realizing the motive.
But this I was not authorized to take for granted in the real,
as I had been in the imaginary case. I saw many reasons for the
affirmative, and many for the negative. For the former, the
certainty of an hostile design on the part of the Danes, the
alarming state of Ireland, that vulnerable heel of the British
Achilles ! and the immense difference between military and na-
val superiority. Our naval power collectively might have defi-
ed that of t!ie whole world ; but it was widely scattered, and a
combined operation from the Baltic, Holland, Brest, and Lisbon,
272
might easily bring together a fleet double to that which we could
have brought against it during the short time that might be ne-
cessary to convey thirty or forty thousand men to Ireland. On
the other hand, it seemed equally clear that Buonaparte needed
sailors rather than ships ; and that we took the ships and left
him the Danish sailors, whose presence in the fleet at Antwerp
turned the scale, perhaps, in favor of the worse than disastrous
expedition to Walcheren.
But I repeat, that the Friend had no concern with the mea-
sure itself; but only with the grounds or principles on which
it had been attacked or defended. Those who attacked it de-
clared that a right had been violated by us, and that no motive
could justify such violation, however imperious that motive
might be. In opposition to such reasoners, I proved that no
such right existed, or is deducible either from international law
or the law of private morality. Those again who defended the
seizure of the Danish fleet, conceded that it was a violation of
right; but afiirmed, that such violation was justified by the
urgency of Ihe motive. It was asserted (as I have before no-
ticed in the introduction to the subject) that national policy
cannot in all cases be subordinated to the laws of morality ; in
in other words, that a government may act with injustice, and
yet remain blameless. To prove this assertion as groundless
and unnecessary as it is tremendous, formed the chief object of
the whole disquisition. I trust then, that my candid judges
will rest satisfied that it is not only the profession and pretext
of The Friend, but his constant plan and actual intention, to
establish Principles ; that he refers to particular facts for no
other purpose than that of giving illustration and interest to
those principles : and that to invent principles with a view to
particular cases, whether with the motive of attacking or ar-
raigning a transitory cabinet, is a baseness which will scarcely
be attributed to the The Friend by any one who understands
the work, even though the suspicion should not have been pre-
cluded by a knowledge of the author.
ESSAY XI.
Ja, ich bin der Atheist und Gottlose, der einer imagiiiaren Berechnungslehre,
einer blosen Eiiiliildiing von allgemeinen Folgen, die nie folgen konnen,
zuwider — lugen will, wie Desdemoxa sterbend log ; lugen undbetrilgen will,
wie der fur Orest sich darstellende Pylades ; Tempelraul) unternehmen,
wie David; ja, Aehren aiisiaiifen am Saljbath, audi nur darum, weil mich
hungert, und das Gesetz um des menschen tvillen gemacht ist, nicht derMensch
um des Gezdzes willen. Jacobi an Fichte.
Translation. — Yes, I am that Atheist, that godless person, who in opposition
to an imaginary Doctrine of Calculation, to a mere ideal Fabric of gen-
eral Consequences, that can never be realized, would lie, as the djdng Des-
DEMOXA lied;* lie and deceive as Pylades when he personated Orestes;
would conmiit saorilcge with David; yea and pluck ears of corn on the
Sabbath, for no other reason than that I was fainting from lack of food,
and that the Law was made for Man and not Man for the Law.
Jacobi's letter to Fichte.
If there be no better doctrine, I would add — Much and of-
ten have I suffered from having ventured to avow my doubts
concerning the truth of certain opinions, which had been sanc-
tified in the minds of many hearers, by the authority of some
reigning great name ; even though in addition to my own rea-
sons, I had all the greatest names from the Reformation to the
* (Emilia. — O who hath done
This deed ?
Desd. Nobody. I myself. Farewell.
Commend me to my kind Lord. — O — farewell.
Othello. — You heard her say yourself, It was not I.
(Emilia. — She said so. I must needs report the truth.
Othello. — She's like a liar gone to burning hell !
'Twas I that killed her!
(EmUia. — The more angel she!
35
274
Revolution on my side. I could not, therefore, summon cour-
age, without some previous pioneering, to declare publicly, that
the principles of morality taught in the present work will be
in direct opposition to the system of the late Dr. Paley. This
confession I should have deferred to future time, if my opin-
ions on the grounds of international morality had not been con-
tradictory to a fundamental point in Paley's System of moral
and political Philosophy. I mean that chapter which treats of
GENERAL, CONSEQUENCES, as the chief and best criterion of the
right or wrong of particular actions. Now this doctrine I con-
ceive to be neither tenable in reason nor safe in practice : and
the following are the grounds of my opinion.
First ; this criterion is purely ideal, and so far possesses no
advantages over the former systems of Morality : while it la-
bours under defects, with which those are not justly chargea-
ble. It is ideal : for it depends on, and must vary with, the
notions of the individual, who in order to determine the nature
of an action is to make the calculation of its general conse-
quences. Here, as in all other calculation, the result depends
on that faculty of the soul in the degrees of which men most
vary from each other, and which is itself most affected by acci-
dental advantages or disadvantages of education, natural tal-
ent, and acquired knowledge — the faculty, I mean, of foresight
and systematic comprehension. But surely morality, which is
of equal importance to all men, ought to be grounded, if pos-
sible, in that part of our nature which in all men may and
ought to be the same : in the conscience and the common
sense. Secondly : this criterion confounds morality with law ;
and when the author adds, that in all probability the divine
Justice will be regulated in the final judgment by a similar
rule, he draws away the attention from the will, that is, from
the inward motives and impulses which constitute the essence
of morality, to the outward act : and thus changes the virtue
commanded by the gospel into the mere legality, which was
to be enlivened by it. One of the most persuasive, if not one
of the strongest, arguments for a future state, rests on the be-
lief, that although by the necessity of things our outward and
temporal welfare must be regulated by our outward actions,
which alone can be the objects and guides of human law, there
must yet needs come a juster and more appropriate sentence
hereafter, in which our intentions will be considered, and our
275
happiness and misery made to accord with the grounds of our
actions. Our fellow-creatures can only judge what we are by
what we do ; but in the eye of our Maker what we do is of
no worth, except as it flows from what we are. Though the
fig-tree should produce no visible fruit, yet if the living sap is
in it, and if it has struggled to put forth buds and blossoms
which have been prevented from maturing by inevitable con-
tingencies of tempests or untimely frosts, the virtuous sap will
be accounted as fruit : and the curse of barrenness will light
on many a tree, from the boughs of which hundreds have been
satisfied, because the omniscient judge knows that the fruits
were threaded to the boughs artificially by the outward work-
ing of base fear and selfish hopes, and were neither nourished by
the love of God or of man, nor grew out of the graces engraft-
ed on the stock by religion. This is not, indeed, all that is
meant in the apostle's use of the word, faith, as the sole prin-
ciple of justification, but it is included in his meaning and forms
an essential part of it, and I can conceive nothing more ground-
less, than the alarm, that this doctrine may be prejudicial to
outward utility and active well-doing. To suppose that a man
should cease to be beneficent by becoming benevolent^ seems to
me scarcely less absurd, than to fear that a fire may prevent
heat, or that a perennial fountain may prove the occasion of
drought. Just and generous actions may proceed from bad mo-
tives, and both may, and often do, originate in parts and as it
were fragments of our nature. A lascivious man may sacri-
fice half his estate to rescue his friend from prison, for he is
constitutionally sympathetic, and the better part of his nature
happened to be uppermost. The same man shall afterwards
exert the same disregard of money in an attempt to seduce that
friend's wife or daughter. But faith is a total act of the soul :
it is the whole state of the mind, or it is not at all ! and in this
consists its power, as well as its exclusive Avorth.
This subject is of such immense importance to the welfare of
all men, and the understanding of it to the present tranquillity
of many thousands at this time and in this country, that should
there be one only of all my Readers, who should receive con-
viction or an additional light from what is here written, I dare
hope that a great majority of the rest would in consideration of
that solitary effect think these paragraphs neither wholly unin-
teresting or altogether without value. For this cause I will
276
endeavor so to explain this principle, that it maybe intelligible
to the simplest capacity. The apostle tells those who would sub-
stitute obedience for faith (addiessing the man as obedience per-
sonified) " Know that thou bearest not the Root, but the ROOT
thee'''' — a sentence which, methinks, should have rendered all
disputes concerning faith and good woiks impossible among
those who profess to take the Scriptures for their guide. It
would appear incredible, if the fact were not notorious, that
two sects should ground and justify their opposition to each
other, the one on the words of the apostle, that we are justified
by faith, i. e. the inward and absolute ground of our actions ;
and the other on ti;e declaration of Christ, that he will judge
us according to our actions. As if an action could be either
good or bad disjoined from its principle ! as if it could be, in
the christian ar.d only proper sense of the word, an action at
all, and not rather a mechanic series of lucky or unlucky mo-
tions ! Yet it rany be well worth the while to shew the beauty
and harmony of these twin truths, or rather of this one great
truth considered in its two prin-wipal bearings. God will judge
each man before all men : consequently he will judge us rela-
tively to man. But man knows not the heart of man ; scarcely
/ does any one know his own. There must therefore be outward
' and visible signs, by which men may be able to judge of the
inward state : and thereby justify the ways of God to iheir own
spirits, in the reward or punishment of themselves and their
fellow-men. Now good works are these signs, and as such be-
come necessary. In short there are two parties, God and the
human race : and both are to be satisfied ! first, God, who seeth
the root and knoweth the heart : therefore there must be faith,
or the entire and absolute principle. Then man, who can judge
only by the fruits : therefore that faith must bear fruits of right-
eousness, that principle must mrnifest itself by actions. But
that which God sees, that alone justifies ! V/liat man sees, does
in this life shew^ that the justifying principle may be the root of
the thing seen; but in the final judgment the acceptance of
these actions will shew, that this principle actually ivas the
root. In this world a good life is a jxresumption of a good man :
his virtuous actions are the only possible, though still ambigu-
ous, manifestations of his virtue : but the absence of a good
life is not only a presumption, but a proof of the contrary, as
long as it continues. Good works may exist without saving
277
principles, and therefore cannot contain in themselves the prin-
ciple of salvation ; but saving principles never did, never can,
exist without good works. On a subject of such infinite impor-
tance, I have feared prolixity less than obscurity. Men often
talk against faith, and make strange monsters in their imagina-
tion of those who profess to abide by the words of the Apostle
interpreted literally: and yet in their ordinary feelings they
themselves judge and act by a similar principle. For what is
love without kind offices, wherever they are possible ? (and
they are always possible, if not by actions commonly so called,
yet by kind words, by kind looks ; and, where even these are
out of our power, by kind thoughts and fervent prayers ! ) yet
what noble mind would not be offended, if he were suppo-
sed to value the serviceable offices equally with the love that
produced them ; or if he were thought to value the love for
the sake of the services, and not the services for the sake of
the love ?
I return to the question of general consequences, considered
as the criterion of moral actions. The admirer of Paley's Sys-
tem is required to suspend for a short time the objection, which,
I doubt not, he has already made, that general consequences
are stated by Paley as the criterion of the action, not of the
agent. I will endeavor to satisfy him on this point, when I
have completed my present chain of argument, it has been
shewn, that this criterion is no less ideal than that of any for-
mer system : that is, it is no less incapable of receiving any ex-
ternal experimental proof, compulsory on the understandings
of all men, such as the criteria exhibited in chemistry. Yet,
unlike the elder Systems of Morality, it remains in the world
of the senses, without deriving any evidence therefrom. The
agent's mind is compelled to go out of itself in order to bring
back conjectures^ the probability of which will vary with the
shrewdness of the individual, Rut this criterion is not only
ideal : it is likewise imaginary. If we believe in a scheme of
Providence, all actions alike work for good. There is not the
least ground for supposing that the crimes of Nero were less
instrumental in bringing about our present advantages, than
the virtues of the Antonines. Lastly : the criterion is either
nugatory or false. It is demonstrated, that the ouly real conse-
quences cannot be meant. The individual is to imagine what
278
the general consequences would be, all other things remaining
the same, if all men were to act as he is about to act. I
scarcely need remind the reader, what a source of self delusion
and sophistry is here opened to a mind in a state of temptation.
Will it not say to itself, I know that all men will not act so:
and the immediate good consequences, which I shall obtain, are
reaZ, while the bad consequences are imaginary and improba-
ble ? When the foundations of morality have once been laid
in outward consequences, it will be in vain to recall to the mind,
what the consequences would be, were all men to reason in the
same way : for the very excuse of this mind to itself is, that
neither its action nor its reasoning is likely to have any conse-
quences at all, its immediate object excepted. But suppose the
mind in its sanest state. How can it possibly form a notion of
the nature of an action considered as indefinitely multiplied,
unless it has previously a distinct notion of the nature of the
single action itself, which is the multiplicand ? If I conceive a
crown multiplied a hundred fold, the single crown enables me
to understand what a hundred crowns are ; but how can the
notion hundred teach me what a crown is ? For the crown sub-
stitute X. Y. or abracadabra, and my imagination may multiply
it to infinity, yet remain as much at a loss as before. But if
there be any means of ascertaining the action in and for itself,
what further do we want ? Would we give light to the sun, or
look at our fingers through a telescope ? The nature of every
action is determined by all its circumstances : alter the circum-
stances and a similar set of motions may be repeated, but they
are no longer the same or similar action. What would a sur-
geon say, if he were advised not to cut off a limb, because if
all men were to do the same, the consequences would be dread-
ful ? Would not his answer be — " Whoever does the same un-
der the same circumstances, and with the same motives, will
do right ; but if the circumstances and motives are different,
what have I to do with it ?" I confess myself unable to divine
any possible use, or even meaning, in this doctrine of general
consequences, unless it be, that in all our actions we are bound
to consider the effect of our example, and to guard as much as
possible against the hazard of their being misunderstood. I will
not slaughter a lamb, or drown a litter of kittens in the pre-
sence of ray child of four years old, because the child cannot
understand my action, but will understand that his father has
279
inflicted pain, and taken away life from beings that had never
offended him. All this is true, and no man in his senses ever
thought otherwise. But methinks it is strange to state that as
a criterion of morality, which is no more than an accessary ag-
gravation of an action bad in its own nature, or a ground of
caution as to the mode and time in which we are to do or sus-
pend what is in itself good or innocent.
The duty of setting a good example is no doubt a most im-
portant duty ; but the example is good or bad, necessary or un-
necessary, according as the action may be, which has a chance
of being imitated. I once knew a small, but (in outward cir-
cumstances at least) respectable congregation, four-fifths of
whom professed that they went to church entij'ely for the ex-
ample's sake ; in other words to cheat each other and act a
common lie ! These rational Christians had not considered,
that example may increase the good or evil of an action, but
can never constitute either. If it was o. foolish thing to kneel
when they were not inwardly praying, or to sit and listen to a
discourse of which they believed little and cared nothing, they
were setting a foolish example. Persons in their respectable
circumstances do not think it necessary to clean shoes, that by
their example they may encourage the shoe-black in continuing
his occupation : and Christianity does not think so meanly of
herself as to fear that the poor and afflicted will be a whit the
less pious, though they should see reason to believe that those,
who possessed the good things of the present life, were deter-
mined to leave all the blessings of the future for their more
humble inferiors. If I have spoken with bitterness, let it be
recollected that my subject is hypocrisy.
It is likewise fit, that in all our actions we should have con-
sidered how far they are likely to be misunderstood, and from
superficial resemblances to be confounded with, and so appear
to authorize actions of a very different character. But if this
caution be intended for a moral rule, the misunderstanding must
be such as might be made by persons who are neither very
weak nor very wicked. The apparent resemblances between
the good action we were about to do and the bad one which
might possibly be done in mistaken imitation of it, must be ob-
vious : or that which makes them essentially different, must be
subtle or recondite. For what is there which a wicked man
blinded by his passions may not, and which a madman will not,
280
misunderstand ? It is ridiculous to frame rules of morality with
a view to those who are fit objects only for the physician or the
magistrate.
The question may be thus illustrated. At Florence there
is an unfinished bust of Brutus, by Michael Angelo, under
which a Cardinal wrote the following distich:
Diim Bruti effigicm sculptor tie luarmore finxit,
In menteni sceleris venit ; et absdnuit.
As the Sculptor ivas forming the effigy of Brutus, in marble, he recollected his
act of guilt and refrained.
An English Nobleman, indignant at this distich, wrote immedi-
ately under it the following :
Briitiun efRiixisset sculptor, sed mente recursat
Multa viri virtus; stetit et obstupuit.
The Scidptor looidd have framed a Brutus, but the vast and manifold virtue of
the man flashed upon his thought : he stopped and remained
in astonished admiration.
Now which is the nobler and more moral sentiment, the Ita-
lian Cardinal's, or the English Nobleman's ? The Cardinal
would appeal to the doctrine of general consequences, and pro-
nounce the death of Caesar a murder, and Brutus an assassin.
For (he would say) if one man may be allowed to kill another
because he thinks him a tyrant, religious or political phrenzy
may stamp the name of tyrant on the best of kings ; regicide
will be justified under the pretence of tyrannicide, and Brutus
be quoted as authority for the Clements and Ravilliacs. From
kings it may pass to generals and statesmen, and from these to
any man whom an enemy or enthusiast may pronounce unfit to
live. Thus we may have a cobbler of Messina in every city,
and bravos in our common streets as couimon as in those of
Naples, with the name Brutus, on their stilettos.
The Englishman would commence his answer by comment-
ing on the words "because he thinks him a tyrant." No ! he
would reply, not because the patriot thinks him a tyrant ; but
because he knows him to be so, and knows likewise, that the
vilest of his slaves cannot deny the fact, that he has by violence
raised himself above the laws of his country — because he knows
that all good and wise men equally with himself abhor the fact !
If there be no such state as that of being broad awake, or no
means of distinguishing it when it exists ; if because men
281
sometimes dream that they are awake, it must follow that no
man, when awake, can be sure that he is not dreaming ; if be-
cause an hypochondriac is positive that his legs are cylinders
of glass, all other men are to learn modesty, and cease to be so
positive that their legs are legs ; what possible advantage can
your criterion of general, consequences possess over any
other rule of direction ? If no man can be sure that w^hat he
thinks a robber with a pistol at his breast demanding his purse,
may not be a good friend enquiring after his health ; or that a ty-
rant (the son of a cobbler perhaps, who at the head of a regiment
of perjured traitors, has driven the representatives of his coun-
try out of the senate at the point of the bayonet, subverted the
constitulion which had trusted, enriched and honored him, tram-
pled on the laws which before God and Man he had sworn to
obey, and finally raised himself above all law) may not, in spite
of his own and his neighbors' knowledge of the contrary be a
lawful king, who has received his power, however despotic it
may be, from the kings his ancestors, who exercises no other
power than what had been submitted to for centuries, and been
acknowledged as the law of the country ; on what ground can
you possibly expect less fallibility, or a result more to be relied
upon in the same man's calculation of your general conse-
quences ? Would A,e, at least, find any difficulty in converting
your criterion into an authority for his act ? What should pre-
vent a man, whose perceptions and judgments are so strangely
distorted, from arguing, that nothing is more devoutly to be
wished for, as a general consequence, than that every man, who
by violence places himself above the laws of his country, should
in all ages and nations be considered by mankind as placed by
his own act out of the protection of law, and be treated by them
as any other noxious wild beast would be? Do you think it
necessary to try adders by a jury ? Do you hesitate to shoot a
mad dog, because it is not in your power to have him firil ii.'ed
and condemned at the Old Bailey? On the other hand, what
consequence can be conceived more detestable, than one which
w^ould set a bounty on the most enormous crime in human na-
ture, and establish as a law of religion and morality that the
accomplishment of the most atrocious guilt invests the perpe-
trator with impunity, and renders his person forever sacred and
inviolable ? For madmen and enthusiasts what avail your mo-
ral criterions ? But as to your Neapolitan Bravos, if the act
36
282
of Brutus who " In pity to the general ivrong of Rome, Sleia
his best lover for the good of Rome,'''' authorized by the laws
of his country, in manifest opposition to all selfish interests in
the face of the Senate, and instantly presenting himself and
his cause first to that Senate, and then to the assembled Com-
mons, by them to stand acquitted or condemned — if such an
act as this, with all its vast out-jutting circumstances of distinc-
tion, can be confounded by any mind, not frantic, with the
crime of a cowardly skulking assassin who hires out his dagger
for a few crowns to gratify a hatred not his own, or even with
the deed of that man who makes a compromise between his
revenge and his cowardice, and stabs in the dark the enemy
whom he dared not meet in the open field, or summon before
the laws of his country — what actions can be so different, that
they may not be equally confounded ? The ambushed soldier
must not fire his musket, lest his example should be quoted by
the villain who, to make sure of his booty, discharges his piece
at the unsuspicious passenger from behind a hedge The phy-
sician must not administer a solution of arsenic to the lep-
rous, lest his example should be quoted by professional poi-
soners. If no distinction, full and satisfactory to the con-
science and common sense of mankind be afforded by the de-
testation and horror excited in all men, (even in the meanest
and most vicious, if they are not wholly monsters) by the act
of the assassin, contrasted with the fervent admiration felt by
the good and wise in all ages when they mention the name of
Brutus ; contrasted with the fact that the honor or disrespect
with which that name w^as spoken of, became an historic crite-
rion of a noble or a base age ; and if it is in vain that our own
hearts answer to the question of the Poet
" Is tliere among the adamantine spheres
Wheehng unshalien through tlie boundless void,
Aught that witli half such majesty can fill
The human bosom, as when Brutus rose
Refulgent from the stroke of Caesar's fate
Amid the croud of Patriots ; and his arm
Aloft fxtoiidjng, hke eteriialJove,
When guilt brings down the thunder, call'd idoud
On Tully's name, and shook his crimson sword,
And bade the Father of his Country, Hail !
For lo the Tyrant prostrate on the dust
And Rome again is free !"
283
If, I say, all this be fallacious and insufficient, can we have any
firmer reliance on a cold ideal calculation of imaginary gen-
eral CONSEQUENCES, wliich, if they were general, could not bo
consequences at all : for they would be eft'ects of the frenzy or
frenzied wickedness, which alone could confound actions so ut-
terly dissimilar? No ! (would the ennobled descendant of our
Russels or Sidneys conclude) No! Calumnious bigot! never
yet did a human being become an assassin from his own or the
general admiration of the hero Brutus; but I dare not warrant,
that villains might not be encouraged in their trade of secret
murder, by finding their own guilt attributed to the Roman
patriot, and might not conclude, that if Brutus be no better
than an assassin, an assassin can be no worse than Brutus.
I request that the preceding be not interpreted as my own
judgment on tyranicide. I think.with Machiaveland with Spin-
osa for many and weighty reasons assigned by those philoso-
phers, that it is diificult to conceive a case, in which a good
man would attempt tryrannieide, because it is difficult to con-
ceive one, in which a wise man would recommend it. In a
small state, included within the walls of a single city, and where
the tyranny is maintained by foreign guards, it may be other-
wise ; but in a nation or empire it is perhaps inconceivable,
that the circumstances which made a tyranny possible, should
not likewise render the removal of the tyrant useless. The
patriot's sword may cut off the Hydra's head ; but he possesses
no brand to stanch the active corruption of the body, which is
sure to re-produce a successor.
I must now in a few words ansv/er the objection to the for-
mer part of my argument (for to that part only the objection
applies,) namely, that the doctrine of general consequences
was stated as the criterion of the action, not of the agent. I
might answer, that the author himself had in some measure jus-
tified me in not noticing this distinction by holding forth the
probability, that the Supreme Judge will proceed by the same
rule. The agent may then safely be included in the action, if
])oth here and hereafter the action only and its general conse-
quences will be attended to. Rut my main ground of justification
is that the distinction itself is merely logical, not real and vital.
The character of the agent is determined by his view of the
action ; and that system of morality is alone true and suited to
human nature, which unites the intention and the motive, the
284
warmth and the light, in one and the same act of mind. This
alone is worthy to be called a moral principle. Such a prin-
ciple may be extracted, though not without difficulty and dan-
ger, from the ore of the stoic philosophy ; but it is to be found
unalloyed and entire in the Christian system, and is there call-
ed Faith.
ESSAY XII.
The following Address was delivered at Bristol, in the year 1794-95. Tlie
only omissions regard the names of persons : and I insert them here in sup-
port of the assertion made by me, p, 190 — 194, and because this very Lectnre
has been referred to in an infamons Libel in proof of the Author's former
Jacobinism. Different as my present convictions are on the subject of philo-
sophical Necessity, I have for tliis reason left the last page unaltered.
Aet ynQ Tt]Q Elevd-e.Qutg ecpie^iur noXla de sr xai, TOtg q)t}.£Xsvd-eQOis
fiiarjiEtt, ui'islev&eQu.
Translation. — For I am always a lover of Liberty ; but in those who would
appropriate the Title, I find too many points destructive of Liberty and
hateful to her genuine advocates.
Companies resembling the present will, from a variety of
circumstances, consist chiefly of the zealous Advocates for
Freedom. It will therefore be our endeavor, not so much to
excite the torpid, as to regulate the feelings of the ardent :
and above all, to evince the necessity of bottoming on fixed
Principles, that so we may not be the unstable Pal riots of Pas-
sion or Accident, nor hurried away by names of which we have
not sifted the meaning, and by tenets of which we have not
285
examined the consequences. The Times are trying; and in
order to be prepared against their difficulties, we should have
acquired a prompt facility of adverting in all our doubts to some
grand and comprehensive Truth. In a deep and strong soil
must that tree fix its roots, the height of which is to " reach to
Heaven, and the sight of it to the ends of all the Earth."
The examj5le of France is indeed a " Warning to Britain."
A nation wading to their rights through blood, and marking the
track of Freedom by Devastation ! Yet let us not embattle our
Feelings against our Reason. Let us not indulge our malig-
nant passions under the mask of Humanity. Instead of railing
with infuriate declamation against these excesses, we shall be
more profitably employed in developing the sources of them.
French Freedom is the beacon which if it guides to Equality
should shew us likewise the dangers that throng the road.
The annals of the French Revolution have recorded in let-
ters of blood, that the knowledge of the few cannot counter-
act the ignorance of the many ; that the light of philosophy, when
it is confined to a small minority, points out the possessors as
the victims, rather than the illuminators, of the multitude.
The patriots of France either hastened into the dangerous and
gigantic error of making certain evil the means of contingent
good, or were sacrificed by the mob, with whose prejudices and
ferocity their unbending virtue forbade them to assimilate.
Like Sampson, the people w^ere strong — like Sampson, the
people were blind. Those two massy pillars of the temple of
Oppression, their Monarchy and Aristocracy,
With horrible Convulsion to and fro
They tugg'rl, tliey shook — till down they came and drew
The whole roof after them with burst of thunder
Upon the heads of all who sat beneath,
Lords, Ladies, Captains, Counsellors, and Priests,
Their choice nobility ! Milton. Sam. Agon.
The Girondists, who were the first republicans in power,
were men of enlarged views and great literary attainments ;
but they seem to have been deficient in that vigour and daring
activity, which circumstances made necessary. Men of genius
are rarely either prompt in action or consistent in general conduct.
Their early habits have been those of contemplative indolence ;
and the day-dreams, with which they have been accustomed
to amuse their solitude adapt them for splendid speculation
286
not temperate and practicable counsels. Brissot, the leader of
the Gironde party, is entitled to the character of a virtuous man,
and an eloquent speaker ; but he was rather a sublime visionary,
than a quick-eyed politician ; and his excellences equally with
his faults rendered him unfit for the helm in the stormy hour of
Revolution. Eobespierre, who displaced him, possessed a
glowing ardor that still remembered the end, and a cool feroci-
ty that never either overlooked, or scrupled the means. What
that end was, is not known : that it was a wicked one, has by
no means been proved. I rather think, that the distant pros-
pect, to which he was travelling, appeared to him grand and
beautiful ; but that he fixed his eye on it with such intense ea-
gerness as to neglect the foulness of the road. If however his
intentions were pure, his subsequent enormities yield us a me-
lancholy proof, that it is not the character of the possessor which
directs the power, but the power which shapes and depraves the
character of the possessor. In Robespierre, its influence was as-
sisted by the properties of his disposition. — Enthusiasm, even in
the gentlest temper, v.^ili frequently generate sensations of an un-
kindly order. If Vve clearly perceive any one thing to be of
vast and infinite importance to ourselves and all mankind, our
first feelings impel us to turn with angry contempt from those,
who doubt and oppose it. The ardor of undisciplined benevo-
lence seduces us into malignity : and whenever our hearts are
warm, and our objects great and excellent, intolerance is the sin
that does most easily beset us. But this enthusiasm in Robes-
pierre was blended with gloom, and suspiciousness, and inor-
dinate vanity. His dark imagination v.'as still brooding over
supposed plots against freedom — to prevent tyranny he became
a tyrant — and having realized the evils which he suspected, a
wild and dreadful tyrant. — Those loud tongued adulators, the
mob, overpowered the lone whispered denunciations of con-
science — he despotized in all the pomp of patriotism, and mas-
queraded on the bloody stage of revolution, a Caligula with the
cap of liberty on his head.
It has been afiSrmed, and I believe with truth, that the sys-
tem of Terrorism by suspending the struggles of contrariant
factions communicated an energy to the operations of the Re-
public, which had been hitherto unknown, and without which
it could not have been preserved. The system depended for
its existence on the general sense of its necessity and when it
287
had answered its end, it was soon destroyed by the same power
that had given it birth — popular opinion. It must not however
be disguised, that at all times, but more especially when the
public feelings are wavy and tumultuous, artful demagogues may
create this opinion : and they, who are inclined to tolerate evil
as the means of contingent good, should reflect, that if the
excesses of terrorism gave to the Republic that efficiency and
repulsive force which its circumstances made necessary, they
likewise afforded to the hostile courts the nxost powerful sup-
port and excited that indignation and horror, which every
where precipitated the subject into the designs of the ruler.
Nor let it be forgotten that these excesses perpetuated the war
in La Vendee and made it more terrible, both by the accession
of numerous partizans, who had fled from the persecution of
Robespierre, and by inspiring the Chouans with fresh fury,
and an unsubmitting spirit of revenge and desperation.
Revolutions are sudden to the unthinking only. Political
disturbances happen not without their warning harbingers.
Strange rumblings and confused noises still precede these earth-
quakes and hurricanes of the moral vrorld. The process of
revolution in France has been dreadful, and should incite us
to examine with an anxious eye the motives and manners of
those, whose conduct and opinions seem calculated to forward
a similar event in our own country. The oppositionists to
" things as they are," are divided into many and difl'erent class-
es. To delineate them with an unflattering accuracy may be a
delicate, but it is a necessary task, in order that we may en-
lighten, or at least beware of the misguided men who have en-
listed under the banners of liberty, from no principles or with
bad ones; whether they be those, who
admire they know not wliat,
And know not wlioni, but as one leads to the other :
or whether those,
Whose end is private hate, not help to fieedoni.
Adverse and turbulent when she would lead
To virtue.
The majority of democrats appear to me to have attained that
portion of knowledge in politics, which infidels possess in re-
ligion. 1 would by no means be supposed to imply, that the
288
objections of both are equally unfounded, but that they both
attribute to the system which they reject, a'l the evils existing
under it; and that both contemphiting truth and justice "in the
nakedness of abstraction," condemn constitutions and dispensa-
tions without having suificiently examined the natures, circum-
stances and capacities of their recipients. The first class among
the professed friends of liberty is composed of men, who un-
accustomed to the labor of thorough investigation, and not par-
ticularly oppressed by the burthens of state, are yet impelled
by their feelings to disapprove of its grosser depravities, and
prepared to give an indolent vote in favor of reform. Their
sensibilities unbraced by the co-operation of fixed principles,
they offer no sacrifices to the divinity of active virtue. Their
political opinions depend with weather-cock uncertainty on the
the winds of rumor, that blow from France. On the report of
French victories they blaze into republicanism, at a tale of
French excesses they darken into aristocrats. These dovgh-ba-
ked patriots are not however useless. This oscillation of political
opinion will retard the day of revolution, and it will operate as a
preventive to its excesses. Indecisiveness of character, though
the effect of timidity, is almost always associated with benevo-
lence.
Wilder ieatures characterize the second class. Sufficiently
possessed of natural sense to despise the priest, and of natural
feeling to hate the oppressor, they listen only to the inflamma-
tory harangues of some mad-headed enthusiast, and imbibe from
them poison, not food ; rage, not liberty. Unillumined by phi-
losophy, and stimulated to a lust of revenge by aggravated
wrongs, they would make the altar of freedom stream with
blood, while the grass grew in the desolated halls of justice.
We contemplate those principles with horror. Yet they pos-
sess a kind of wild justice well calculated to spread them among
the grossly ignorant. To unenlightened minds, there are terrible
charms in the idea of retribution, however savagely it be incul-
cated. The groans of the oppressors make fearful yet pleasant
music to the ear of him, whose mind is darkness, and into whose
soul the iron has entered.
This class, at present, is comparatively small — Yet soon to
form an overwhelming majority, unless great and immediate
efforts are used to lessen the intolerable grievances of our poor
brethren, and infuse into their sorely wounded hearts the healing
^9
qualities of knowledge. For can we wonder that men should want
humanity, who want all the circumstances of life that humanize ?
Can we wonder that with the ignorance of brutes they should
unite their ferocity ? Peace and comfort be with these ! But let
us shudder to hear from men of dissimilar opportunities senti-
I ments of similar revengefulness. The purifying alchemy of ed-
/ ucation may transmute the fierceness of an ignorant man into
' virtuous energy — but what remedy shall we apply to him, whom
plenty has not softened, whom knowledge has not taught bene-
volence ? This is one among the many fatal efifects which re-
sult from the want of fixed principles.
^ There is a third class among the friends of freedom, who
possess not the wavering character of the first description, nor
the ferocity last delineated. They pursue the interests of free-
dom steadily, but with narrow and self-centering views : they
anticipate with exultation the abolition of privileged orders, and
of acts that persecute by exclusion from the right of citizen-
ship. They are prepared to join in digging up the rubbish of
mouldering establishments, and stripping off the tawdry pa-
geantry of governments. Whatever is above them they are
most willing to drag dowai ; but every proposed alteration that
would elevate the ranks of our poorer brethren, they regard
with suspicious jealousy, as the dreams of the visionary ; as if
there were any thing in the superiority of Lord to Gentleman,
so mortifying in the barrier, so fatal to happiness in the con-
sequences, as the more real distinction of master and servant,
of rich man and of poor. Wherein am I made worse by my en-
nobled neighbor ? Do the childish titles of Aristocracy detract
from my domestic comforts, or prevent my intellectual acquisi-
tions ? But those institutions of society which should condemn
me to the necessity of twelve hours daily toil, would make my
soul a slave, and sink the rational being into the mere animal.
It is a mockery of our fellow creatures' wrongs to call them
equal in rights, when by the bitter compulsion of their wants
we make them inferior to us in all that can soften the heart, or
dignify the understanding. Let us not say that this is the work
of time — that it is impracticable at present, unless we each in
our individual capacities do strenuously and perseveringly en-
deavor to diffuse among our domestics those comforts and that
illumination which far beyond all political ordinances are the
true equalizers of men.
37
290
We turn with pleasure to the contemplation of that small but
glorious band, whom we may truly distinguish by the name of
thinking and disinterested patriots. These are the men who
have encouraged the sympathetic passions till they have become
irresistible habits, and made their duty a necessary part of their
self-interest, by the long-continued cultivation of that moral
taste which derives our most exquisite pleasures from the con-
templation of possible perfection, and proportionate pain from
the perception of existing depravation. Accustomed to regard all
the affairs of man as a process, they never hurry and they never
pause. Theirs is not that twilight of political knowledge which
gives us just light enough to place one foot before the other ; as
they advance the scene still opens upon them, and they press
right onward with a vast and various landscape of existence
around them. Calmness and energy mark all their actions.
Convinced that vice originates not in the man, but in the sur-
rounding circumstances ; not in the heart, but in the under-
standing ; he is hopeless concerning no one — to correct a vice
or generate a virtuous conduct he pollutes not his hands with the
scourge of coercion ; but by endeavouring to alter the circum-
cumstances would remove, or by strengthening the intellect,
disarms the temptation. The unhappy children ot vice and fol-
ly, whose tempers are adverse to their own happiness as well
as to the happiness of others, will at times awaken a natural
pang : but he looks forward with gladdened heart to that glo-
rious period when justice shall have established the universal
fraternity of love. These soul-ennobling views bestow the
virtues which they anticipate. He whose mind is habitually
imprest with them soars above the present state of humanity,
and may be justly said to dwell in the presence of the Most
High.
would the forms
Of servile custom cramp the patriot's power ?
Would sordid policies the barbarous growth
Of ignorance and rapine, bow him down
To tame pursuits, to indolence and fear ?
Lo ! he appeals to nature, to the winds
And roUing waves, the sun's lui wearied course
The elements and seasons — all declare
For wiiat the Eternal Maker has ordained
The powers of man : we ftcl within ourselves
His energy divnie: he tells the heart
291
He meant, he made us to behold and love
What he beholda and loves, the general orb
Of life and being — to be great like him,
Beneficent and active. Akensidb.
That the general illumination should precede revolution,
is a truth as obvious, as that the vessel should be cleansed be-
fore we fill it with a pure liquor. But the mode of diffusing it
is not discoverable with equal facility. We certainly should
never attempt to make proselytes by appeals to the selfish feel-
ings — and consequently, should plead ybr the oppressed, not to
them. The author of an essay on political justice considers
private societies as the sphere of real utility — that (each one
illuminating those immediately beneath him,) truth by a gra-
dual descent, may at last reach the lowest order. But this is
rather plausible than just or practicable. Society as at present
constituted does not resemble a chain that ascends in a contin-
uity of links. Alas ! between the parlour and the kitchen, the
tap and the coffee-room — there is a gulph that may not be pass-
ed. He would appear to me to have adopted the best as well
as the most benevolent mode of diffusing truth, who uniting the
zeal of the Methodist with the views of the Philosopher, should
be personally among the poor, and teach them their duties in
order that he may render them susceptible of their rights.
Yet by what means can the lower classes be made to learn
their duties, and urged to practise them ? The human race
may perhaps possess the capability of all excellence ; and truth,
I doubt not, is omnipotent to a mind already disciplined for its
reception ; but assuredly the over- worked labourer, skulking
into an ale-house, is not likely to exemplify the one, or prove
the other. In that barbarous tumult of inimical interests,
which the present state of society exhibits, religion appears to
offer the only means universally efficient. The perfectness of
future men is indeed a benevolent tenet, and may operate on
a few visionaries whose studious habits supply them with em-
ployment, and seclude them from temptation. But a distant
prospect which we are never to reach, will seldom quicken our
footsteps, however lovely it may appear ; and a blessing, which
not ourselves but posterity are destined to enjoy, will scarcely
influence the actions of any — still less of the ignorant, the pre-
judiced, and the selfish.
Go preach the Gospel, to the poor." By its simplicity it
(.(.
292
will meet their comprehension, by its benevolence soften their
affections, by its precepts it will direct their conduct, by the
vastness of its motives ensure their obedience. The situation
of the poor is perilous : they are indeed both
" fiom within and from without
Unarmed to all temptations."
Prudential reasonings will in general be powerless with them.
For the incitements of this world are weak in proportion as we
are wretched —
The world is not my friend, nor the world's law.
The world has got no law to make me rich.
They too, who live from hand to mouthy will most frequently
become improvident. Possessing no stock of happiness they ea-
gerly seize the gratifications of the moment, and snatch the froth
from the wave as it passes by them. Nor is the desolate state
of their famih'es a restraining motive, unsoftened as they are
by education, and benumbed into selfishness by the torpedo
touch of extreme want. Domestic affections depend on asso-
ciation. We love an object if, as often as we see or recollect
it, an agreeable sensation arises in our minds. But alas ! how
should he glow with the charities of father and husband, who
gaining scarcely more than his own necessities demand, must
have been accustomed to regard his wife and children, not as
^^he soothers of finished labor, but as rivals for the insufficient
meal ! In a man so circumstanced the tyranny of the Present
can be overpowered only by the ten-fold inightiness of the Fu-
ture. Religion will cheer his gloom with her promises, and by
habituating his mind to anticipate an infinitely great Revolution
hereafter, may prepare it even for the sudden reception of a
less degree of amelioration in this world.
But if we hope to instruct others, we should familiarize our
own minds to some fixed and determinate principles of action.
The world is a vast labyrinth, in which almost every one is
running a different way, and almost every one manifesting ha-
tred to those who do not run the same way. A few indeed
stand motionless, and not seeking to lead themselves or others
out of the maze, laugh at the failures of their brethren. Yet
with little reason : for more grossly than the most bewildered
wanderer does he err, who never aims to go ri^ht. It is more
293
honorable to the head, as well as to the heart, to be misled by
our eagerness in the pursuit of Truth, than to be safe from
blundering by contempt of it. The happiness of mankind is the
end of virtue, and truth is the knowledge of the means; which
he will never seriously attempt to discover, who has not habitu-
ally interested himself in the welfare of others. The searcher
after truth must love and be beloved ; for general benevolence
is a necessary motive to constancy of pursuit ; and this general
benevolence is begotten and rendered permanent by social and
domestic affections. Let us beware of that proud philosophy,
which affects to inculcate philanthropy while it denounces every
home-born feeling by which it is produced and nurtured. The
paternal and filial duties discipline the heart and prepare it for
the love of all mankind. The intensity of private attachments
encourages, not prevents, universal Benevolence. The nearer
we approach to the sun, the more intense his heat : yet what
corner of the system does he not cheer and vivify ? ~\.
The man who would find Truth, must likewise seek it with
an humble and simple heart, otherwise he will be precipitant
and overlook it ; or he will be prejudiced, and refuse to see it.
To emancipate itself from the tyranny of association, is the
most arduous effort of the mind, particularly in religious and
political disquisitions. The assertors of the system have asso-
ciated with it the preservation of order and public virtue ; the
oppugner of imposture and wars and rapine. Hence, when
they dispute, each trembles at the consequences of the other's
opinions instead of attending to his train of arguments. Of
this however we may be certain, whether we be Christians or
Infidels, Aristocrats or Republicans, that our minds are in a
state unsusceptible of Knowledge, when we feel an eagerness
to detect the falsehood of an adversary's reasonings, not a sin-
cere wish to discover if there be Truth in them ; — when we ex-
amine an argument in order that we may answer it, instead of
answering because we have examined it.
Our opponents are chiefly successful in confuting the Theory
of Freedom by the practices of its advocates : from our lives
they draw the most forcible arguments against our doctrines.
Nor have they adopted an unfair mode of reasoning. In a
science the evidence suffers neither diminution or increase from
the actions of its professors ; but the comparative wisdom of
political systems depends necessarily on the manners and ca-
294 ,
pacities of the recipients. Why should all things be thrown in-
to confusion to acquire that liberty which a faction of sensual-
ists and gamblers will neither be able or willing to preserve ?
A system of fundamental Reform will scarcely be effected by
massacres mechanized into Revolution. We cannot therefore
inculcate on the minds of each other too often or with too great
earnestness the necessity of cultivating benevolent affections.
We should be cautious how we indulge the feelings even of
virtuous indignation. Indignation is the handsome brother of
Anger and Hatred. The temple of Despotism, like that of Tes-
calipoca, the Mexican deity is built of human skulls, and ce-
mented with human blood ; — let us beware that we be not
transported into revenge while we are levelling the loathsome
pile ; lest when we erect the edifice of Freedom we but vary
the style of architecture, not change the materials. Let us not
wantonly offend even the prejudices of our weaker brethren,
nor by ill-timed and vehement declarations of opinion excite in
t?iem malignant feelings towards us. The energies of mind
are wasted in these intemperate effusions. Those materials of
projectile force, which now carelessly scattered explode with
an offensive and useless noise, directed by wisdom and union
might heave rocks from their base, — or perhaps (dismissing
the metaphor) might produce the desired effect without the
jconvulsion.
For this " subdued sobriety" of temper a practical faith in
the doctrine of philosophical necessity seems the only prepara-
tive. That vice is the effect of error and the offspring of sur-
rounding circumstsnces, the object therefore of condolence not
of anger, is a proposition easily understood, and as easily dem-
onstrated. But to make it spread from the understanding to
the affections, to call it into action, not only in the great exer-
tions of patriotism, but in the daily and hourly occurrences of
social life, requires the most watchful attentions of the most
energetic mind. It is not enough that we have once swallowed
these truths — we must feed on them, as insects on a leaf, till the
whole heart be coloured by their qualities, and shew its food
in every the minutest fibre.
Finally; in the words of an Apostle,
Watch ye ! Stand fast in the principles of which ye have
been convinced : Quit yourselves like men ! Be strong ! Yet let
all things be done in the spirit of love.
THE
SECOND
li A N D I K G-F L. A C E
OR
ESSAYS
INTERPOSED
FOR AMUSEMENT, RETROSPECT,
AND
PREP AR ATIO N.
MISCELLANY THE SECOND.
Etiam a musis si quando animum paulisper abducamus, apud Musas nihil-
ominus feriamur: at reclines quidem, at otiosas, at de his etillis inter se libere
coUoquentes.
ESSAY 1 .
It were a wantonness anil would demand
Severe reproof if we were men whose hearts
Could hold vain dalliance with the misery
l']ven of the dead ; contented thence to draw
A momentary pleasure, never mark'd
By reason, barren of all future good.
But we have known that there is often found
In mournful thoughts, and always might be found
A power to virtue friendly. Wordsworth. MSS.
I know not how I can better commence my second Landing
Place, as joining on to the section of Politics, than by the fol-
lowing proof of the severe miseries which misgovernment may
occasion in a country nominally free. In the homely ballad of
the Three Graves (published in my Sybilline Leaves) I
have attempted to exemplify the effect, which one painful idea
vividly impressed on the mind under unusual circumstances,
might have in producing an alienation of the understanding ;
and in the parts hitherto published, I have endeavored to trace
the progress to madness, step by step. But though the main
incidents are facts, the detail of the circumstances is of my
own invention : that is, not what I knew, but what I con-
ceived likely to have been the case, or at least equivalent to
it. In the tale that follows, I present an instance of the same
causes acting upon the mind to the production of conduct as
wild as that of madness, but without any positive or permanent
loss of the Reason or the Understanding ; and this in a real
occurrence, real in all its parts and particulars. But in truth
this tale overflows with a human interest, and needs no philo-
sophical deduction to make it itnpressive. The account was pub-
lished in the city in which the event took place, and in the
same year I read it, when I was in Germany, and the impres-
38
298
sion made on my memory was so deep, that though I relate it
in my own language, and with my own feelings, and in reliance
on the fidelity of my recollection, I dare vouch for the accura-
cy of the narration in all important particulars.
The imperial free towns of Germany are, with only two or
three exceptions, enviably distinguished by the virtuous and
primitive manners of the citizens, and by the parental charac-
ter of their several governments. As exceptions, however ,we
must mention Aix la Chapelle, poisoned by French manners,
and the concourse of gamesters and sharpers; and Nurem-
berg, whose industrious and honest inhabitants deserve a better
fate than to have their lives and properties under the guardian-
ship of a wolfish and merciless oligarchy, proud from ignorance,
and remaining ignorant through pride. It is from the small
States of Germany, that our writers on political economy might
draw their most forcible instances of actually oppressive, and
even mortal, taxation, and gain the clearest insight into the
causes and circumstances of the injury. One other remark,
and I proceed to the story. I well remember, that the event
I am about to narrate, called forth, in several of the German
periodical publications, the most passionate (and in more than
one instance, blasphemous) declamations, concerning the in-
comprehensibility of the moral government of the world, and
the seeming injustice and cruelty of the dispensations of Provi-
dence. But, assuredly, every one of my readers, however
deeply he may sympathize with the poor sufferers, will at once
answer all such declamations by the simple reflection, that no
one of these awful events could possibly have taken place un-
der a wise police and humane government, and that men have
no right to complain of Providence for evils which they them-
selves are competent to remedy by mere common sense, join-
ed with mere common humanity.
Maria Eleonora Schoning, was the daughter of a Nu-
remberg wire-drawer. She received her unhappy existence at
the price of her mother's life, and at the age of seventeen she
followed, as the sole mourner, the bier of her remaining parent.
From her thirteenth year she had passed her life at her father's
sick-bed, the gout having deprived him of the use of his limbs :
and beheld the arch of heaven only when she went to fetch
food or medicines. The discharge of her filial duties occupied
299
€ae whole of her time and all her thoughts. She was his only
nurse, and for the last two years they lived without a servant.
She prepared his scanty meal, she bathed his aching limbs, and
though weak and delicate from constant confinement and the
poison of melancholy thoughts, she had acquired an unusual
power in her arms, from the habit of lifting her old and suffer-
ing father out of and into his bed of pain. Thus passed away
her early youth in sorrow : she grew up in tears, a stranger to
the amusements of youth, and its more delightful schemes and
imaginations. She was not, however unhappy : she attributed,
indeed, no merit to herself for her virtues, but for that reason
were they the more her reward. The peace which passeih all
understanding , disclosed itself in all her looks and movements.
It lay on her countenence, like a steady unshadowed moon-
light ; and her voice, which was naturally at once sweet and sub-
tle, came from her, like the fine flute-tones of a masterly perfor-
mer which still floating at some uncertain distance, seem to be
created by the player, rather than to proceed from the instru-
ment. If you had listened to it in one of those brief sabbaths of
the soul, when the activity and discursiveness of the thoughts
are suspended, and the mind quietly eddies round, instead of
flowing onward — (as at late evening in the spring I have seen
a bat wheel in silent circles round and round a fruit-tree in full
blossom, in the midst of which, as within a close tent of the
purest white, an unseen nightingale was piping its sweetest
notes) — in such a mood you might have half-fancied, half-felt,
that her voice had a separate being of its own — that it was a
living something, whose mode of existence was for the ear on-
ly : so deep was her resignation, so entirely had it become the
unconscious habit of her nature, and in all she did or said, so
perfectly were both her movements and her utterance without
efibrt and without the appearance of effort ! Her dying father's
last words, addressed to the clergyman who attended him, were
his grateful testimony, that during his long and sore trial his
good Maria had behaved to him like an angel : that the most
disagreeable offices and the least suited to her age and sex,
had never drawn an unwilling look from her, and that whenev-
er his eye had met her's, he had been sure to see in it either
the tear of pity or the sudden smile expressive of her affection
and wish to cheer him. God (said he) will reward the good girl
for all her long dutifulness to me ! He departed during the in-
C)
300
ward pi^yer, which followed these his last words. His wfsh
will be fulfilled in eternity ; but for this world the prayer of
the dying man was not heard !
Maria sate and wept by the grave, which now contained her
father, her friend, the only bond by which she was linked to
life. But while yet the last sound of his death-bell was mur-
muring away in the air, she was obliged to return with two
Revenue Officers, who demanded entrance into the house, in
order to take possession of the papers of the deceased, and from
them to discover whether he had always given in his income,
and paid the yearly income tax according to his oath, and in
proportion to his property.* After the few documents had been
looked through and collated with the registers, the officers
found, or pretended to find, sufficient proofs, that the deceased
had not paid his tax proportionably, which imposed on them the
duty to put all the effects under lock and seal. They therefore
desired the maiden to retire to an empty room, till the Ransom
Office had decided on the afiair. Bred up in suffering, and ha-
bituated to immediate compliance, the affrighted and weeping
maiden obeyed. She hastened to the empty garret, while the
Revenue Officers placed the lock and seal upon the other doors,
and finally took away the papers to the Ransom Office.
Not before evening did the poor faint Maria, exhausted with
weeping, rouse herself with the intention of going to her bed :
but she found the door of her chamber sealed up and must pass
the night on the floor of the garret. The officers had had the
humanity to place at the door the small portion of food that hap-
pened to be in the house. Thus passed several days, till the
* This tax called the Losung or Ransom, in Niiremhiirir, was at first a vo-
luntary contrihution : every one gave aceordingto his liking or circumstances
but in the beginning of the 15th centui-y the heavy contribution levied for the
sei-vice of the empire, forced the magistiates to determine the proportions and
make the payment compulsory. At the time in which this event took place,
1787, every citizen must yearly take what was called his Ransom Oath (Los-
ungseid) that the sum paid by him had been in the strict determinate propor-
tion to his property. On the death of any citizen, the Ransom Office, or
commissioners for this income or projjeity tax, possess the right to examine
his books and papers, and to compare his yearly payment as found in their
registers with the j)roperty he appears to have possessed during that time. If
any disproportion ajipeared, if the yearly declarations of the deceased should
have been inaccurate in the least degree, his whole effects are confiscated, and
though ho should have left wife and child the state treasury becomes his heir.
301
officers returned with an order that Maria Elenora Schoiving
should leave the house without delay, the commission Court
having confiscated the whole property to the City Treasury.
The father before he was bed-ridden had never possessed any
considerable property; but yet, by his industry, had been able
not only to keep himself free from debt, but to lay up a small
sum for the evil day. Three years of evil days, three whole
years of sickness, had consumed the greatest part of this ; yet
still enough remained not only to defend his daughter from im-
mediate want, but likewise to maintain her till she could get
into some service or employment, and have recovered her spi-
rits sufficiently to bear up against the hardships of life. With
this thought the dying father comforted himself, and this hope
too proved vain !
A timid girl, whose past life had been made up of sorrow and
privation, she went indeed to solicit the commissioners in her
own behalf; but these were, as is mostly the case on the Con-
tinent, advocates — the most hateful class, perhaps, of human
society, hardened by the frequent sight of misery, and seldom
superior in moral character to English pettifoggers or Old Bai-
ley attornies. She went to them, indeed, but not a word could
she say for herself. Her tears and inarticulate sounds — for these
her judges had no ears or eyes. Mute and confounded, like an
unfledged dove fallen out from its mother's nest, Maria betook
herself to her home, and found the house door too now shut up-
on her. Her whole wealth consisted in the clothes she wore.
She had no relations to whom she could apply, for those of her
mother had disclaimed all acquaintance with her, and her father
was a Nether Saxon by birth. She had no acquaintance, for all
the friends of old Schoning had forsaken him in the first year of
his sickness. She had no play-fellow, for who was likely to
have been the companion of a nurse in the room of a sick man ?
Surely, since the creation never was a human being more soli-
tary and forsaken, than this innocent poor creature, that now
roamed about friendless in a populous city, to the whole of
whose inhabitants her filial tenderness, her patient domestic
goodness, and all her soft yet difficult virtues, might well have
been the model.
" But homeless near n thousand homes she stood,
And near a thousand tables pin'd and wanted food !"
302
The night came, and Maria knew not where to find a shelter.
She tottered to the ehurch-jard of the St. James' church in
Nuremberg, where the body of her father rested. Upon the
yet grassless grave she threw herself down ; and could anguish
have prevailed over youth, that night she had been in heaven.
The day came, and like a guilty thing, this guiltless, this good
being, stole away from the crowd that began to pass through the
church-yard, and hastening through the streets to the city gate,
she hid herself behind a garden hedge just beyond it, and there
wept away the second day of her desolation. The evening clo-
sed in : the pang of hunger made itself felt amid the dull ach-
ing of self-wearied anguish, and drove the sufferer back again
into the city. Yet what could she gain there ? She had not the
courage to beg, and the very thought of stealing never occurred
to her innocent mind. Scarce conscious whither she was going,
or why she went, she found herself once more by her father's
grave, as the last relict of evening faded away in the horizon.
I have sate for some minutes with my pen resting : I can scarce
summon the courage to tell, what I scarce know, whether I
ought to tell. Were I composing a tale of fiction, the reader
might justly suspect the purity of my own heart, and most cer-
tainly would have abundant right to resent such an incident, as
an outrage wantonly offered to his imagination. As I think of
the circumstance, it seems more like a distempered dream : but
alas ! what is guilt so detestable other than a dream of madness,
that worst madness, the madness of the heart ? I cannot but be-
lieve, that the dark and restless passions must first have drawn
the mind in upon themselves, and as with the confusion of im-
perfect sleep, have in some strange manner taken away the
sense of reality, in order to render it possible for a human being
to perpetrate what it is too certain that human beings have per-
petrated. The church-yards in most of the German cities, and too
often, I fear in those of our own country, are not more injuiious
to health than to morality. Their former venerable character
is no more. The religion of the place has followed its super-
stitions, and their darkness and loneliness tempt worse spirits
to roam in them than those whose nightly wanderings appalled
the believing hearts of our biave fore-fathers ! It was close by the
new-made grave of her father, that the meek and spotless daugh-
ter became the victim to brutal violence, which weeping and
watching and cold and hunger had rendered her utterly unable
303
to resist. The monster left her in a trance of stupefaction, and
into her right hand, which she had clenched convulsively, he had
forced a half-dollar.
It was one of the darkest nights of autumn : in the deep and
dead silence the only sounds audible were the slow blunt tick-
in"- of the church clock, and now and then the sinking down of
bones in the nigh charnel house. Maria, when she had in some
degree recovered her senses, sate upon the grave near which —
not her innocence had been sacrificed, but that which, from the
frequent admonitions, and almost the dying words of her father,
she had been accustomed to consider as such. Guiltless, she
felt the pangs of guilt, and still continued tp grasp the coin,
which the monster had left in her hand, with an anguish as sore
as if it had been indeed the wages of voluntary prostitution.
Giddy and faint from want of food, her brain became feverish
from sleeplessness, and this unexampled concurrence of calami-
ties, this complication and entanglement of misery in misery !
she imagined that she heard her father's voice bidding her leave
his sight. His last blessings had been conditional, for in his
last hours he had told her, that the loss of her innocence would
not let him rest quiet in his grave. His last blessings now
sounded in her ears like curses, and she fled from the church-
yard as if a dsemon had been chasing her; and hurrying along
the streets, through which it is probable her accursed violator
had walked with quiet and orderly step* to his place of rest
*It must surely have been after hearing of or witnessing some similar
event or scene of wretchedness, thattlie most eloquent of our Writers (I had
almost said of our Poets) Jeremy Taylor, wrote the following paragraph,
which at least in Longinus's sense of the word, we may place among the most
suhlime ])assages in English Literature. "He that is no fool, but can consider
wisely, if he be in love with this world we need not despair but that a witty
man might reconcile him with tortures, and make him think charira])ly of the
rack, and be brought to admire the liarmony that is made by a herd of eve-
ning wolves when they miss their draught of blood in their midnight revels.
The groans of a man in a fit of the stone are worse than all these ; and the
distractions of a troubled conscience are woise than those groans : andyet a
careless merry sinner is worse than all that. Rut if we could from one of the
battlements of Heaven espy, how many men and women at this time lie
fainting and dying for want of bread, how many young men are hewn down
by the sword of war ; how many orphans ai-e now weeping over the graves
of their fiither, by whose life they were enabled to eat ; if we could but hear
how many mariners and passengers are at this present time in a storm, and
304
and security, she was seized by the watchman of the night — a
welcome prey, as they receive in Nuremburg half a gulden from
the police chest, for every woman that they fmd^in the streets
after ten o'clock at night. It was midnight, and she was taken
to the next watch-house.
The sitting magistrate, before whom she was carried the next
morning, prefaced his first question with the most opprobrious
title that ever belonged to the most hardened street-walkers,
and which man born of woman should not address even to these,
were it but for his own sake. The frightful name awakened
the poor orphan from her dream of guilt, it brought back the
consciousness of .her innocence, but with it the sense likewise
of her wrongs and of her helplessness. The cold hand of death
seemed to grasp her, she fainted dead away at his feet, and was
not without difficulty recovered. The magistrate was so far
softened, and only so far, as to dismiss her for the present ; but
with a menace of sending her to the House of Correction if
she were brought before him a second time. The idea of her
own innocence now became uppermost in her mind ; but min-
gling with the thought of her utter forlornness, and the image of
her angry father, and doubtless still in a state of bewilderment,
she formed the resolution of drowning herself in the river Peg-
nitz — in order (for this was the shape which her fancy had ta-
ken) to throw herself at her father's feet, and to justify her in-
nocence to him in the World of Spirits. She hoped that her
father would speak for her to the Saviour, and that she should
be forgiven. But as she was passing through the suburb, she
was met by a soldier's wife, who during the life-time of her
father had been occasionally employed in the house as a chare-
woman. This poor woman was startled at the disordered ap-
parel, and more disordered looks of her young mistress, and
questioned her with such an anxious and heartfelt tenderness,
as at once brought back the poor orphan to her natural feelings
Khri(;k out b('raMS(^ their koel dashes against a rock, or bulges under them ;
how many peoi)lo there are that weep with want, and are mad with o])j)res-
sion, or are desperate by a too quick sense of a constant infehcity ; in all rea-
son we should be glad to be out of the noise and participation of so many
evils. This is a place of sorrows and tears, of great evils and constant cala-
mities: let us remove hence, ut least in aftl;cti(jns and prci)arations of u)ind.
Holy Dying, Chap. 1. Sect 5
305
and the obligations of religion. As a frightened child throws'
itself into the arras of its raother, and hiding its head on her
breast, half tells amid sobs what has happened to it, so did she
throw herself on the neck of the woman who had uttered the
the first words of kindness to her since her father's death, and
with loud weeping she related what she had endured and what
she was about to have done, told her all her affliction and mise-
ry, the wormwood and the gall ! Her kind-hearted friend min-
gled tears with tears, pressed the poor forsaken-one to her
heart ; comforted her with sentences out of the hymn-book ;
and with the most affectionate entreaties conjured her to give
up her horrid purpose, for that life was short, and heaven was
forever.
Maria had been bred up in the fear of God : she now trem-
bled at the thought of her former purpose, and followed her
friend Harlin, for that was the name of her guardian angel, to
her home hard by. The moment she entered the door she
sank down and lay at her full length, as if only to be motion-
less in a place of shelter had been the fulness of delight. As
when a withered leaf, that has been long whirled about by the
gusts of autumn, is blown into a cave or hollow tree, it stops
suddenly, and all at once looks the very image of quiet — such
might this poor orphan appear to the eye of a meditative ima-
agination.
A place of shelter she had attained, and a friend willing to
comfort her, all that she could : but the noble-hearted Harlin
was herself a daughter of calamity, one who from year to year
must lie down in weariness and rise up to labour ; for whom
this world provides no other comfort but sleep which enables
them to forget it ; no other physician but death, which takes
them out of it ! She was married to one of the city guards, who,
like Maria's father, had been long sick and bed-ridden. Him,
herself, and two little children, she had to maintain by wash-
ing and charing;* and sometime after Maria had been do-
mesticated with them, Harlin told her that she herself had been
once driven to a desperate thought by the cry of her hungry
children, during a want of employment, and that she had been
* I am ignorant, whether there be any classical authority for this word ; but
I know no other word that expresses occasional day labor in the houses of
others.
39
306
on the point of killing one of the little-ones, and then surren-
dering herself into the hands of justice. In this manner, she had
conceived, all would be well provided for ; the surviving child
would be admitted, as a matter of course, into the Orphan
House, and her husband into the Hospital ; while she herself
would have atoned for her act by a public execution, and together
with the child that she had destroyed, would have passed into
a state of bliss. All this she related to Maria, and those tragic
ideas left but too deep and lasting impression on her mind.
Weeks after, she herself renewed the conversation, by express-
ing to her benefactress her inability to conceive how it was
possible for one human being to take away the life of another,
especially that of an innocent little child. For that reason,
replied Harlin, because it was so innocent and so good, I wish-
ed to put it out of this wicked world. Thinkest thou then that
I would have my head cut off for the sake of a wicked child ?
Therefore it was little Nan, that I meant to have taken with
me, who, as you see, is always so sweet and patient ; little
Frank has already his humours aud naughty tricks, and suits
better for this world. This was the answer. Maria brooded
awhile over it in silence, then passionately snatched the child-
ren up in her arms, as if she would protect them against their
own mother.
For one whole year the orphan lived with the soldier's wife,
and by their joint labors barely kept off absolute want. As a
little boy (almost a child in size, though in his thirteenth year)
once told me of himself, as he was guiding me up the Brocken,
in the Hartz Forest, they had but " little of that, of which a
great deal tells but for little. But now came the second win-
ter, and with it came bad times, a season of trouble for this
poor and meritorious household. The wife now fell sick: too
constant and too hard labor, too scanty and too innutritions food,
had gradually wasted away her strength. Maria redoubled her
efforts in order to provide bread and fuel for their washing
which they took in; but the task was above her powers. Be-
sides, she was so timid and so agitated at the sight of stran-
gers, that sometimes, with the best good-will she was left with-
out employment. One by one, every article of the least value
which they possessed was sold off, except the bed on which the
husband lay. He died just before the approach of spring ; but
about the same time the wife gave signs of convalescence. The
307
physician, though ahnost as poor as his patients, had been kind
to them : silver and gold had he none, but he occasionally
brought a little wine, and often assured them that nothing was
wanting to her perfect recovery, but better nourishment and a
little wine every day. This, however, could not be regularly
procured, and Harlin's spirits sank, and as her bodily pain left
her she became more melancholy, silent, and self-involved. And
now it was that Maria's mind was incessantly racked by the
frightful apprehension, that her friend might be again medita-
ting the accomplishment of her former purpose. She had grown
as passionately fond of the two children as if she had borne
them under her own heart ; but the jeopardy in which she con-
ceived her friend's salvation to stand — this was her predomin-
ant thought. For all the hopes and fears, which under a hap-
pier lot would have been associated with the objects of the
senses, were transferred, by Maria, to her notions and images
of a future state.
In the beginning of March, one bitter cold evening, Maria star-
ted up and suddenly left the house. The last morsel of food
had been divided betw^ixt the two children for their breakfast ;
and for the last hour or more the little boy had been crying for
hunger, while his gentler sister had been hiding her face in
Maria's lap, and pressing her little body against her knees, in
order by that mechanic pressure to dull the aching from empti-
ness. The tender-hearted and visionary maiden had watched
the mother's eye, and had interpreted several of her sad and
steady looks according to her preconceived apprehensions.
She had conceived all at once the strange and enthusiastic
thought, that she would in some way or other offer her own
soul for the salvation of the soul of her friend. The money,
which had been left in her hand, flashed upon the eye of her
mind, as a single unconnected image : and faint with hunger
and shivering with cold, she sallied forth — in search of guilt !
Awful are the dispensations of the Supreme, and in his sever-
est judgments the hand of mercy is visible. It was a night so
wild with wind and rain, or rather rain and snow mixed toge-
ther, that a famished wolf would have stayed in his cave, and
listened to a howl more fearful than his own. Forlorn Maria !
thou wert kneeling in pious simplicity at the grave of thy fa-
ther, and thou becamest the prey of a monster ! Innocent thou
wert and without guilt didst thou remain. Now thou goest
308
forth of thy own accord — hut God will have pity on thoe !
Poor bewildered innocent ! in thy spotless imagination dwelt
no distinct conception of the evil which thou wentest forth to
brave ! To save the soul of thy friend was the dream of thy
feverish brain, and thou wert again apprehended as an outcast
of shameless sensuality, at the moment when thy too spirit-
ualized fancy was busied with the glorified forms of thy friend
and of her little ones interceding for thee at the throne of the
Redeemer !
At this moment her perturbed fancy suddenly suggested to her
a new mean for the accomplishment of her purpose : and she
replied to the night-watch, who with a brutal laugh bade her
expect on the morrow the unmanly punishment, which to the
disgrace of human nature the laws of Protestant states (alas!
even those of our own country,) inflict on female vagrants, that
she came to deliver herself up as an infanticide. She was in-
stantly taken before the magistrate, through as wild and pitiless
a storm as ever pelted on a houseless head ! through as black
and " tyrannous a night,^'' as ever aided the workings of a heat-
ed brain ! Here she confessed that she had been delivered
of an infant by the soldier's wife, Harlin, that she deprived it
of life in the presence of Harlin, and according to a plan pre-
concerted with her, and that Harlin had buried it somewhere
in the wood, but where she knew not. During this strange tale
she appeared to listen with a mixture of fear and satisfaction,
to the howling of the wind ; and never sure could a confession
of real guilt have been accompanied by a more dreadfully ap-
propriate music ! At the moment of her apprehension she had
formed the scheme of helping her friend out of the world in a
state of innocence. When the soldier's widow was confronted
with the orphan, and the latter had repeated her confession
to her face, Harlin answered in these words, " For God's sake,
Maria ! how have I deserved this of thee ?" Then turning to
the magistrate, said, " I know nothing of this." This was the
sole answer which she gave, and not another word could they
extort from her. The instruments of torture were brought, and
Harlin was warned, that if she did not confess of her own ac-
cord, the truth would be immediately forced from her. This
menace convulsed Maria Schoning with aff"right: her intention
had been to emancipate herself and her friend from a life of
unmixed suffering, without the crime of suicide in either, and
309
with no guilt at all on the part of her friend. The thought of
her friend's being put to the torture had not occurred to her.
Wildly and eagerly she pressed her friend's hands, already
bound in preparation for the torture — she pressed them in ago-
ny between her own, and said to her, " Anna ! confess it !
Anna, dear Anna ! it will then be well with all of us ! all, all
of us ! and Frank and little Nan will be put into the Orphan
House !" Maria's scheme now passed, like a flash of lightning
through the widow's mind, she acceded to it at once, kissed Ma-
ria repeatedly, and then serenely turning her face to the judge,
acknowledged that she had added to the guilt by so obstinate a
denial, that all her friend had said, had been true, save only
that she had thrown the dead infant into the river, and not bu-
ried it in the wood.
They were both committed to prison, and as they both perse-
vered in their common confession, the process was soon made
out and the condemnation followed the trial : and the sentence,
by which they were both to be beheaded with the sword, was or-
dered to be put in force on the next day but one. On the mor-
ning of the execution, the delinquents were brought together,
in order that they might be reconciled with each other, and join
in common prayer for forgiveness of their common guilt.
But now Maria's thoughts took another turn. The idea that
her benefactress, that so very good a woman, should be violent-
ly put out of life, and this with an infamy on her name which
would cling forever to the little orphans, overpowered her.
Her own excessive desire to die scarcely prevented her from
discovering the whole plan ; and when Harlin Was left alone
with her, and she saw her friend's calm and affectionate look,
her fortitude was dissolved : she burst into a loud and passion-
ate weeping, and throwing herself into her friend's arms ; with
convulsive sobs she entreated her forgiveness. Harlin pressed
the poor agonized girl to her arms; like a tender mother, she
kissed and fondled her wet cheeks, and in the most solemn and
emphatic tones assured her, that there was nothing to forgive.
On the contrary, she was her greatest benefactress and the in-
strument of God's goodness to remove her at once from a mise-
rable world and from the temptation of committing a heavy
crime. In vain ! Her repeated promises, that she would answer
before God for them both, could not pacify the tortured con-
science of Maria, till at length the presence of a clergyman and
310
the preparations for receiving the sacrament occasioning the
widow to address her thus — " See, Maria ! this is the Body and
Blood of Christ, which takes away all sin ! Let us partake to-
gether of this holy repast with full trust in God and joyful hope
of our approaching hyppiness." These words of comfort, ut-
tered with cheering tones, and accompanied with a look of
inexpressible tenderness and serenity, brought back peace for
a while to her troubled spirit. They communicated together,
and on parting, the magnanimous woman once more embraced
her young friend : then stretching her hand toward Heaven,
said, "Be tranquil, Maria ! by to-morrow morning we are there,
and all our sorrows stay here behind us."
I hasten to the scene of execution : for I anticipate my read-
er's feelings in the exhaustion of my own heart. Serene and
with unaltered countenance the lofty-minded Harlin heard the
strokes of the death bell, stood before the scaffold while the
staff was broken over her, and at length ascended the steps,
all with a steadiness and tranquillity of manner which was not
more distant from fear than from defiance and bravado. Alto-
gether different was the state of poor Maria : with shattered
nerves and an agonizing conscience that incessantly accused
lier as the murderess of her friend, she did not walk but stag-
gered towards the scaffold, and stumbled up the steps. While
Harlin, who went first, at every step turned her head round and
still whispered to her, raising her eyes to heaven, — "but a few
minutes, Maria ! and we are there !" On the scaffold she again
bade her farewell, again repeating " Dear Maria ! but one mi-
nute now, and we are together with God." But when she
knelt down and her neck v/as bared for the stroke, the unhap-
py giri lost all self-command, and with a loud and piercing
shriek she bade them hold and not murder the innocent. " She
is innocent ! I have borne false witness ! I alone am the mur-
deress !" She rolled herself now at the feet of the execution-
er, and now at those of the clergyman, and conjured them to
stop the execution : that the whole story had been invented by
herself; that she had never brought forth, much less destroyed,
an infant ; that for her friend's sake she had made this discove-
ry ; that for herself she wished to die, and would die gladly, if
they would take away her friend, and promise to free her soul
from the dreadful agony of having murdered her friend by false
witness. The executioner asked Harlin, if there were any
311
truth in what Maria Schoning had said. The Heroine answer-
ed with manifest reluctance : " most assuredly she has said the
truth: I confessed myself guilty, because I wished to die and
thought it best for both of us : and now that my hope is on the
moment of its accomplishment, I cannot be supposed to declare
myself innocent for the sake of saving my life — but any wretch-
edness is to be endured rather than that poor creature should
be hurried out of the world in a state of despair."
The outcry of the attending populace prevailed to suspend
the execution : a report was sent to the assembled magistrates,
and in the mean time one of the priests reproached the widow
in bitter words for her former false confession. " What," she
replied sternly but without anger, " what could the truth have
availed ? Before I perceived my friend's purpose I did deny it :
my assurance was pronounced an impudent lie : I was already
bound for the torture, and so bound that the sinews of my liands
started, and one of their worships in the large white peruke^
threatened that he would have me stretched till the sun shone
through me ! and that then I should cry out, Yes, when it was
too late." The priest was hard-hearted or superstitious enough
to continue his reproofs, to which the noble woman condescen-
ded no further answer. The other clergyman, however, was
both more rational and more humane. He succeeded in silen-
cing his colleague, and the former half of le long hour, which
the magistrates took in making speeches on the improbability:
of the tale instead of re-examining the culprits in person, he
employed in gaining from the widow a connected account of
all the circumstances, and in listening occasionally to Maria's
passionate descriptions of all her friend's goodness and magna-
nimity. For she had gained an influx of life and spirit from
the assurance in her mind, both that she had now rescued Har-
lin from death and was about to expiate the guilt of her purpose
by her own execution. For the latter half of the time the cler-
gyman remained in silence, lost in thought, and momentlj^ ex-
pecting the return of the messenger. All which during the
deep silence of this interval could be heard, was one exciama-
mation of Harlin to her unhappy friend — " Oh ! Maria ! Maria !
couldst thou but have kept up thy courage but for another mi-
nute, we should have been now in heaven ! The messenger
came back with an order from the magistrates to proceed
with the execution ! With re-animated countenance Harlin
312
placed her neck on the block and her head was severed from
her body amid a general shriek from the crowd. The execu-
tioner fainted after the blow, and the under hangman was or-
dered to take his place. He was not wanted. Maria was al-
ready gone : her body was found as cold as if she had been
dead for some hours. The flower had been snapped in the
storm, before the scythe of violence could come near it.
ESSAY II.
Tlie History of Times representetli the magnitude of actions and the pub-
lic faces or deportment of persons, and passeth over in silence the smaller
passages and motions of men and matters. But such being the workman-
ship of God, that he doth hang the greatest weight upon the smallest wires,
maxima e minimis suspendens : it comes therefore to pass, that Histories
do rather set fortii the pomp of business than the true and inward resorts
thereof But Lives, if they be well written, propounding to themselves a
person to represent in \ ',.0111 actions botii greater and smaller, public and
private, have a commixture, must of necessity contain a more true, native,
and lively representation. — Lord Bacon.
Mankind in general are so little in the habit of looking
steadily at their own meaning, or of weighing the words by which
they express it, that the writer, who is careful to do both, will
sometimes mislead his readers through the very excellence
which qualifies him to be their instructer : and this with no other
fault on his part, than the modest mistake of supposing in those,
to whom he addresses himself, an intellect as watchful as his own.
The inattentive Reader adopts as unconditionally true or per-
haps rails at his Author for having stated as such, what upon
examination would be found to have been duly limited, and
would so have been understood, if opaque spots and false re-
fractions were as rare in the the mental as in the bodily eye.
313
The motto, for instance, to this Paper has more than once ser-
ved as an excuse and authority for huge volumes of hiographi-
cal minutiae, which render the real character almost invisible,
like clouds of dust on a portrait, or the counterfeit frankincense
which sinoke-blacks the favorite idol of a Catholic village. Yet
Lord Bacon, by the words which I have marked in italics, evi-
dently confines the Biographer to such facts as are either sus-
ceptible of some useful general inference, or tend to illustrate
those qualities which distinguish the subject of them from or-
dinary men ; while the passage in general was meant to guard
the Historian against considering, as trifles, all that might ap-
pear so to tlioso who recognize no greatness in the mindj
and can conceive no dignity in any incident, which does not act
on their senses by its external accompaniments, or on their
curiosity by its immediate consequences. Things apparently
insignificant are recommended to our notice, not for their own
sakes, but for their bearings or influences on things of impor-
tance : in other words, when they are insignificant in appear-
ance only.
An inquisitiveness into the minutest circumstances and cas-
ual sayings of eminent contemporaries, is indeed quite natural',
but so are all our follies and the more natural they are, the
more caution should we exert in guarding against them. To
scribble trifles even on thj perishable glass of an inn window,
is the mark of an idler ; but to engrave them on the marble
monument, sacred to the memory of the departed Great, is
something worse than idleness. The spirit of genuine Biog-
raphy is in nothing more conspicuous, than in the firmnees with
which it withstands the cravings of worthless curiosity, as dis-
tinguished from the thirst after useful knowledge. For, in the
first place, such anecdotes as derive their whole and sole inter-
est from the great name of the person concerning whom they
are related, and neither illustrate his general character nor his
particular actions, would scarcely have been noticed or reraem-
bei'ed except by men of weak minds ; it is not unlikely there-
fore, that they were misapprehended at the time, and it is most
probable that they have been related as incorrectly, as they
were noticed injudiciously. Nor are the consequences of such
garrulous Biography merely negative. For as insignificant sto-
ries can derive no real respectability from the eminence of the
person who happens to be the subject of them, but rather an
40
314
additional deformity of disproportion, they are apt to have their
insipidity seasoned by the same bad passions that accompany
the habit of gossiping in general ; and the misapprehension of
weak men meeting with the misinterpretations of malignant
men, have not seldom formed the ground of the most grievous
calumnies. In the second place, these trifles are subversive of
the great end of Biography, which is to fix the attention, and to
interest the feelings, of men on those qualities and actions which
have made a particular life worthy of being recorded. It is,
no doubt, the duty of an honest Biographer, to portray the pro-
minent imperfections as well as excellencies of his Hero ; but
I am at a loss to conceive how this can be deemed an excuse
for heaping together a multitude of particulars, which can prove
nothing of any man that might not have been safely taken for
granted of all men. In the present age (emphatically the age
of personality !) there are more than ordinary motives for with-
holding all encouragement from this mania of busying ourselves
with the names of others, which is still more alarming as a
symptom, than it is troublesome as a disease. The Reader must
be still less acquainted with contemporary literature than myself
— a case not likely to occur — if he needs me to inform him, that
there are men, who trading in the silliest anecdotes, in unpro-
voked abuse and senseless eulogy, think themselves neverthe-
less employed both worthily and honorably, if only all this be
done " wi good set ierms,''^ and Irom the press, and of public
characters : a class which has increased so rapidly of late, that
it becomes difficult to discover what characters are to be consi-
dered- as private. Alas ! if these wretched misusers of lan-
guage, and the means of giving wings to thought, the means of
multiplying the presence of an individual mind, had ever known,
how great a thing the possession of any one simple truth is, and
how mean a thing a mere fact is, except as seen in the light of
some comprehensive truth ; if they had but once experienced
the unborrowed complacency, the inward independence, the
home-bred strength, with which every clear conception of the
reason is accompanied : they would shrink from their own pa-
ges as at the remembrance of a crime. For a crime it is, (and
the man who hesitates in pronouncing it such, must be ignorant
of what mankind owe to books, what he himself owes to them
in spite of his ignorance ) thus to introduce the spirit of vulgar
scandal and personal inquietude into the Closet and the Library,
315
environing with evil passions the very Sanctuaries, to which we
should flee for refuge from them ! For to what do these Publi-
cations appeal, whether they present themselves as Biography
or as anonymous Criticism, but to the same feelings which the
scandal-bearers and time-killers of ordinary life seek to gratify
in themselves and their listeners ? And both the authors and
admirers of such publications, in what respect are they less tru-
ants and deserters from their own hearts, and from their ap-
pointed task of understanding and amending them, than the
most garrulous female Chronicler, of the goings-on of yesterday
in the families of her neighbors and townsfolk ?
The Friend has reprinted the following Biographical sketch,
partly indeed in the hope that it may be the means of introdu-
cing to the Reader's knowledge, in case he should not have
formed an acquaintance with them already, two of the most in-
teresting biographical Works in our language, both for the
weight of the matter, and the mcuriosa felicitas of the style.
I refer to Roger North's Examen, and the Life of his brother,
the Lord Chancellor North. The pages are all alive with the
genuine idioms of our mother-tongue. -4-
A fastidious taste, it is true, will find offence in the occasion-
al vulgarisms, or what we now call slang, which not a few of
our writers, shortly after the Restoration of Charles the Sec-
ond, seem to have affected as a mark of loyalty. These in-
stances, however, are but a trifling drawback. They are not
sought for, as is too often and too plainly done by L'Estrange,
Collyer, Tom Brown, and their imitations. North never goes
out of his wav either to seek them or to avoid them ; and in
the main his language gives us the very nerve, pulse, and sinew
of a hearty healthy conversational English.
This is The Friend's first reason for the insertion of this
Extract. His other and principal motive may be found in the
kindly good-tempered spirit of the passage. But instead of
troubling the Reader with the painful contrast which so many
recollections force on my own feelings, I will refer the charac-
ter-makers of the present day to the Letters of Erasmus and
Sir Thomas More to Martin Dorpius, that are commonly annex-
ed to the Encomium Moriae ; and then for a practical comment on
the just and affecting sentiments of these two great men, to the
works of Roger North, as proofs how alone an English scholar
and gentleman will permit himself to delineate his contempora-
316
rjes even imdtir the strongest prejudices of party spirit, and
though employed on the coarsest subjects. A coarser subject
than L. C.J. Saunders cannot well be imagined ; nor does
North use his colors with a sparing or very delicate hand.
And yet the final impression is that of kindness.
EXTRACT FROM NORTH's EXAMEN.
The Lord Chief Justice Saunders succeeded in the room of
Pemberton. His character, and his beginning were equally
strange. He was at first no better than a poor boy, if not a
parish-foundling, without knowing parents or relations. He
had found a way to live by obsequiousness in Clement's Inn,
as I remember, and courting the attorney's clerks for scraps.
The extraordinary observance and diligence of the boy, made
the society willing to do him good. He appeared very ambi-
tious to learn to write, and one of the attorneys got a board
knocked up ai a window on the top of a stair-case; and that
was his desk, where he sat and wrote after copies of court, and
other hands the clerks gave him. He made himself so expert
a writer that he took in business, and earned some pence by
hackney-writing. And thus by degrees he pushed his faculties
and fell to forms, and by books that were lent him, became an
exquisite entertaining clerk ; and by the same course of improve-
ment of himself, an able counsel, first in special pleading, then at
large : after he was called to the Bar, had practice in the King's
Bench Court equal with any there. As to his person he was very
corpulent and beastly, a mere lump of morbid tiesh. He used
to say, by his troggs, (such an humorous way of talking he af-
fected) none could say he wanted issue of his body, for he had
nine in his back. He was a fetid mass, that offended his neigh-
bors at the bar in the sharpest degree. Those whose ill for-
tune it was to stand near him, were confessors, and in the sum-
mer time, almost martyrs. This hateful decay of his carcase
came upon him by continual sottishness ; foi- to say nothing of
brandy, he was seldom without a pot of ale at his nose, or near
him. That exercise was all that he used ; the rest of his life
was sitting at his desk or piping at home ; and that home was
a tailor's house, in Butcher Row, called his lodging, and the
man's wife was his nurse or worse ; but by virtue of his money,
of which he had made little account, tliough he got a great deal
he soon became master of the family; and being no changling
317
he never removed, but was true to his friends, and they
to him to the last hour of his life. So much for his person
and education. As for his parts none had them more lively
than he ; wit and repartee in an aflected rusticity were natural
to him. fie was ever ready and never at a loss ; and none
came so near as he to be a match for sergeant Mainerd. His
great dexterity was in the art of special pleading, and he would
lay snares that often caught his superiors who were not aware
of his traps. And he was so fond of success for his clients,
that rather than fail, he would set the court with a trick ; for
which he met, sometimes, with a reprimand which he would
ward off, so that no one was much ollended with him. But
Hales could not bear his irregularity of life ; and for that, and
suspicion of his tricks, used to bear hard upon him in the court.
But no ill-usage from the bench was too hard for his hold of
business, being such as scarce any could do but himself. With
all this he had a goodness of nature and disposition in so great
a degree, that he maybe deservedly styled a Philanthrope. He
was a very Silenus to the boys, as in this place I may term the
students of the law, to make them merry whenever they had a
mind to it. He had nothing of rigid or austere in him. If any
near him at the bar grumbled at his stench, he ever converted
the complaint into content and laughing with the abundance of
his wit. As to his ordinary dealing, he was as honest as the
driven snow w^as white ; and why not, having no regard for
money, or desire to be rich ? And for good nature and conde-
scension there was not his fellow. I have seen him for hours
and half-hours together, before the court sat, stand at the bar,
with an audience of Students over against him, putting of ca-
ses, and debating so as suited their capacities, and encouraged
their industry. And so in the Temple, he seldom moved with-
out a parcel of youths hanging about him, and he merry and
jesting with them.
It will be readily conceived that this man was never cut out
to be a Presbyter, or any thing that is severe and crabbed. In
no time did he lean to Inaction, but did his business without of-
fence to any. He put off officious talk of government or poli-
tics with jests, and so made his wit a catholicon or shield to co-
ver all his weak places or infirmities. When the court fell into
a steady course of using the law against all kinds of offenders,
this man was taken into the king's business; and had the part
318
of drawing, and perusal of almost all indictments and informa-
tions that were then to be prosecuted, with the pleadings there-
on, if any were special ; and he had the settling of the large
pleadings in the quo Warranto against London. His Lordship
had no sort of conversation with him but in the way of business
and at the bar ; but once, after he was in the king's business,
he dined with his Lordship, and no more. And there he shew-
ed another qualification he had acquired, and that was to play
jigs upon an harpsichord ; having taught himself with the op-
portunity of an old virginal of his landlady's ; but in such a
manner, not for defect, but figure, as to see him were a jest.
The king observing him to be of a free disposition, loyal, friend-
ly, and without greediness or guile, thought of him to the Chief
Justice to the King's Bench at that nice time. And the minis-
try could not but approve of it. So great a weight was then at
stake, as could not be trusted to men of doubtful principles, or
such as any thing might tempt to desert them. While he sat
in the Court of King's Bench, he gave the rule to the general
satisfaction of the lawyers. But his course of life was so dif-
ferent from what it had been, his business incessant and withal
crabbed ; and his diet and exercise changed, that the constitu-
tion of his body, or head rather, could not sustain it, and he
fell into an apoplexy and palsy, which numbed his parts ; and he
never recovered the strength of them. He outlived the judg-
ment in the quo Warranto ; but was not present otherwise than
by sending his opinion by one of the judges, to be for the king,
who at the pronouncing of the judgment, declared it to the
court accordingly, which is frequently done in like cases.
ESSAY III.
Proinde si videbilur, Jingant istl me latruncidis inteiim anhni causa Ittsisse, aut
si malint, equitdsse in anindine longa. JVam qua tandem est iiiiquitas, cum
omni vitce instituto suos lusus concedamus, studiis nullum omnino lusumpermit-
tere : maxime si ita tractentur ludicra, ut ex his aliquando plu^ frrigis rejerat
lector non omnino naris obesce quam ex quonmdum tetricis ac splendidis argu-
mentis. Erasjii Praif. ad Mor. Enc.
Translation. — They may pretend, if they like, that I amuse myself with
playing Fox and Goose, or, if they prefer it, equitasse in arundine longa,
that I ride the cock-horse on my grandam's crutch. But wliercin, I pray,
consists the unfairness or impropriety, when every trade and profession is
allowed its own sport and travesty, in extending the same permission to
literature : esiiecially if trifles are so handled, that a reader of tolerable
quickness may occasionally derive more food for {)rofitable reflection than
from many a work of grand or gloomy argument.^
Irus, the forlorn Irus, whose nourishment consisted in bread
and water, whose clothing of one tattered mantle, and whose
bed of an arm-full of straw, this same Irus, by a rapid transition
of fortune, became the most prosperous mortal under the sun.
It pleased the Gods to snatch him at once out of the dust, and
to place him by the side of princes. He beheld himself in the
possession of incalculable treasures. His palace excelled even
the temple of the gods in the pomp of its ornaments ; his least
sumptuous clothing was of purple and gold, and his table might
well have been named the compendium of luxury, the summary
of all that the voluptuous ingenuity of men had invented for the
gratification of the palate. A numerous train of admiring de-
pendents followed him at every step ; those to whom he vouch-
safed a gracious look, were esteemed already in the high road
of fortune, and the favored individual who was permitted to
kiss his hand, appeared to be the object of common envy. The
320
name of Irus sounding in his ears an unwelcome memento and
perpetual reproach of liis former poverty, lie for this reason na-
med himself Ceraunius, or the Lightning-flasher, and the whole
people celebrated this splendid change of title by public rejoic-
ings. The poet, who a few years ago had personified poverty it-
self under his former name of Irus, now made a discovery which
had till that moment remained a profound secret, but was now re-
ceived by all with implicit faith and warmest approbation. Ju-
piter, forsooth, had become enamored of the mother of Ceraun-
ius, and assumed the form of a mortal in order to enjoy her love.
Henceforward they erected altars .to him, they swore by his
name, and the priests discovered in the entrails of the sacrifi-
cial victim, that the great Ceraunius, this worthy son of
Jupiter, was the sole pillar of the western world. Toxaris, his
former neighbor, a man whom good fortune, unwearied industry,
and rational frugality, had placed among the richest citizens,
became the first victim of the pride of this new demi-god. In
the time of his poverty Irus had repined at his luck and pros-
perity, and irritable from distress and envy, had conceived that
Toxaris had looked contemptuously on him ; and now was the
time that Ceraunius would make him feel the power of him
whose father grasped the thunder-bolt. Three advocates, newly
admitted into the recently established order of the Cygnet gave
evidence that Toxaris had denied the gods, committed pecula-
tions on the sacred Treasury, and increased his treasure by acts
of sacrilege. He was hurried off to prison and sentenced to
an ignominious death, and his v/ealth confiscated to the use of
Ceraunius, the earthly representative of the deities. Ceraunius
now found nothing wanting to his felicity but a bride worthy of
his rank and blooming honors. The most illustrious of the land
were candidates for his alliance. Euphorbia, the daughter of
the noble Austrius, v/as honored with his final choice. To no-
bility of birth nature had added for Euphorbia a rich dowry of
beauty, a nobleness both of look and stature. The flowing
ringlets of her hair, her lofty forehead, her brilliant eyes, her
stately figure, her majestic gait, had enchanted the haughty
Ceraunius : and all the bards told what the inspiring muses had
revealed to them, that Venus more than once had pined with
jealousy at the sight of her superior charms. The day of es-
pousal arrived, and the illustrious son of Jove was proceeding
in pomp to the temple, when the anguish-stricken wife of Toxa-
321
aris, with his innocent children, suddenly threw themselvee at
his feet, and with loud lamentations entreated him to spare the
life of her husband. Enraged by this interruption, Ceraunius
spurned her from him with his feet and — Irus awakened, and
found himself lying on the same straw on which he had lain
down, and with his old tattered mantle spread over him. With
his returning reason, conscience too returned. He praised the
gods and resigned himself to his lot. Ceraunius indeed had
vanished, but the innocent Toxaris was still alive, and Irus poor
yet guiltless.
Can my reader recollect no character now on earth, who
sometime or other will awake from his dream of empire, poor
as Irus, with all the guilt and impiety of Ceraunius .''
P. S. The reader will bear in mind, that this fable was writ-
ten and iirst published at the close of 1809.
Qe-/d^ev 8s Ts PTj'niog eyi'Ct).
CHRISTMAS WITHIN DOORS, IN THE NORTH OF GERMANY.
EXTRACTED FROM SATYRANE's LETTERS.
Ratzehurg.
There is a Christmas custom here which pleased and interested
me. — The children make little presents to their parents, and to
each other ; and the parents to their children. For three or four
months before Christmas the girls are all busy, and the boys
save up their pocket-money, to make or purchase these pre-
sents. What the present is to be is cautiously kept secret, and
the girls have a world of contrivances to conceal it — such as
working when they are out on visits and the others are not with
them ; getting up in the morning before day-light, &c. Then
on the evening before Christmas day one of the parlors is light-
ed up by the children, into which the parents must not go. A
great yew bough is fastened on the table at a little distance from
the wall, a multitude of little tapers are fastened in the bough,
but so as not to catch it till they are nearly burnt out, and co-
loured paper, &c. hangs and flutters from the twigs. — Under
this bough the children lay out in great order the presents they
mean for their parents, still concealing in their pockets what
they intend for each other. Then the parents are introduced^-r-
and each presents his little gift — and then bring out the rest one
41
322
by one from their pockets, and present them with kisses and
embraces. — Where I witnessed this scene, there were eight or
nine children, and the eldest daughter and the mother wept
aloud for joy and tenderness ; and the tears ran down the face
of the father, and he clasped all his children so tight to his
breast — it seemed as if he did it to stifle the sob that was rising
within him. — I was very much affected. — The shadow of the
bough and its appendages on the wall, and arching over on the
ceiling, made a pretty picture — and then the raptures of the
very little ones, when at last the twigs and their needles began
to take fire and snap — it was a delight for them ! — On the
next day, in the great parlor, the parents lay out on the table the
presents for the children ; a scene of more sober joy succeeds,
as on this day, after an old custom, the mother says privately
to each of her daughters, and the father to his sons, that which
he has observed most praise-worthy and that which was most
faulty in their conduct. — Formerly, and still in the smaller
towns and villages throughout North Germany, these presents
were sent by ail the parents to some one fellow who in high
buskins, a white robe, a mask, and an enormous flax wig, per-
sonates Knecht Rupert, i. e. the servant Rupert. On Christ-
mas night he goes round to every house and says, that Jesus
Christ his master sent him thither — the parents and elder chil-
dren receive him with great pomp of reverence, while the little
ones are most terribly frightened — He then enquires for the
children, and according to the character which he hears from
the parent, he gives them the intended present as if they came
out of heaven from Jesus Christ. — Or, if they should have been
bad children, he gives the parents a rod, and in the name of
his master recommends them to use it frequently. — About seven
or eight years old the children are let into the secret, and it is
curious how faithfully they keep it !
CHRISTMAS OUT OF DOORS.
The whole Lake of Ratzeburg is one mass of thick transpa-
rent ice — a spotless mirror of nine miles in extent ! The low-
ness of the hills, which rise from the shore of the lake, pre-
clude the awful sublimity of Alpine scenery, yet compensate
for the want of it by beauties, of which this very lowness is a
323
necessary condition. Yester-morning I saw the lesser lake com-
pletely hid by mist ; but the moment the sun peeped over tho
hill, the mist broke in the middle, and in a few seconds stood
divided, leaving a broad road all across the lake ; and between
these two walls of mist the sunlight bitrnt upon the ice, forming
a road of golden fire, intolerably bright ! and the mist-walls
themselves partook of the blaze in a multitude of shining co-
lours. This is our second frost. About a month ago, before
the thaw came on, there was a storm of wind ; during the whole
night, such were the thunders and bowlings of the breaking ice,
that they have left a conviction on my mind, that there are
sounds more sublime than any sight can be, more absolutely sus-
pending the power of comparison, and more utterly absorbing
the mind's self-consciousness in its total attention to the object
working upon it. Part of the ice which the vehemence of the
wind had shattered, was driven shore-ward and froze anew.
On the evening of the next day, at sun-set, the shattered ice
thus frozen, appeared of a deep blue and in shape like an agi-
tated sea ; beyond this, the water, that ran up between the
great islands of ice which had preserved their masses entire
and smooth, shone of a yellow green : but all these scattered
ice-islands, themselves, were of an intensely bright blood co-
lour — they seemed blood and light in union ! On some of the
largest of these islands, the fishermen stood pulling out their
immense nets through the holes made in the ice for this pur-
pose, and the men, their net-poles, and their huge nets, were a
part of the glory ; say rather, it appeared as if the rich crimson
light had shaped itself into these forms, figures, and attitudes, to
make a glorious vision in mockery of earthly things.
The lower lake is now all alive with scaters, and with ladies
driven onward by them in their ice cars. Mercury, surely, was
the first maker of scates, and the wings at his feet are symbols
of the invention. In seating there arc three pleasing circumstan-
ces : the infinitely subtle particles of ice which the scate cuts up,
and which creep and run before the scate like a low mist, and
in sun-rise or sun-set become coloured ; second, the shadow of
the scater in the water, seen through the transparent ice ; and
third, the melancholy undulating sound from the scate, not with-
out variety; and when very many are seating together, the
sounds and the noises give an impulse to the icy trees, and the
woods all round the lake tinkle.
324
Here I stop, having in truth transcribed the preceding in
great measure, in order to present the lovers of poetry with a
descriptive passage, extracted, with the author's permission,
from an unpublished Poem on the Growth and Revolutions of
an Individual IMind, by Wordsworth.
an Orphic tale indeed,
A tale divine of high and passionate thoughts
To their own music chaunted ! S. T. C.
GROWTH OF GENIUS FROM THE INFLUENCES OF NATURAL OB-
JECTS, ON THE IMAGINATION IN BOYHOOD, AND EARLY YOUTH.
Wisdom ! and Spirit of the Universe !
Thou Soul, that art the Eternity of Thought !
And giv'st to forms and images a breath
And everlasting motion ! not in vain,
By day or star-light, thus from my first dawn
Of Childhood didst Thou intertwine for me
The passions that build up our human Soul,
Nor with the mean and vulgar works of man
But with high objects, with enduring things,
With Life and Nature : purifying thus
The elements of feeUng and of thought,
And sanctifying by such discipline
Both pain and fear, until we recognize
A grandeur in the beatings of the heart.
Nor was this fellowship vouchsaf 'd to me ^
With stinted kuidness. In November days
When vapors rolling down the vallies made
A lonely .scene more lonesome ; among woods
At noon, and mid the calm of summer nights,
When by the margin of the trembling lake,
Beneath the gloomy hills I homeward went
In solitude, such intercoui-se was mine ;
'Twas mine among the fields both day and night
And by the waters all the summer long.
And in the fi'osty season when the sun
Was set, and, visible for many a mile
The cottage windows through the twihght blazed,
I heeded not the summons : — happy time
It was indeed for all of us, to me
It was a time of rapture ! clear and loud
The village clock toU'd sLx! I wheel'd about,
Proud and exulting, like an untir'd horse
Thai car'd not for ita home. — All shod with stoel
W« hisa'd along the polish'd ice, iu games
325
Confederate, imitative of tlio chace
And woodland pleasures, the resounding horn,
The pack loud bellowing, and the liunted hare.
So through the darkness and the cold we flew,
And not a voice was idle : with the din
Meanwhile the precipices rang aloud.
The leafless trees and every icy crag
Tinkled like iron, while the distant hills
Into the tumult sent an alien sound
Of melancholy — not unnoticed, while the stars
Eastward, were spai-kling clear, and in the west
The orange sky of evening died away.
Not seldom from the uproar I retired
Into a silent bay or sportively
Glanc'd sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng
To cut across the image of a star
That gleam'd upon the ice : and oftentimes
When we had given our bodies to the wind,
And all the shadowy banks on either side
Came sweeping through the darkness spinning still
The rapid line of motion, then at once
Have I reclining back upon my heels
Stopp'd short : yet still the solitaiy cliflfs
Wheel'd by me even as if the earth had roU'd
With visible motion her diurnal round !
Behind me did they stretch in solemn train
Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watch'd
Till all was tranquil as a summer sea.
ESSAY I y.
Es ist fast traurig zu sehen, line man von der Hebraischen Quellen so ganz sich
ahgewendet hat. In JEgyptens selbst dunkeln unentrathselbaren Hieroglyphen
hoi man den Schliissel alter Weislieit suchen wollen ; jetzt ist von nichts als In-
diens Sprache und Weisheit die Rede ; aher die Rabbinische Schriften liegen
nnerforscht. Schelling.
Translation. — It is mournful to observe, how entirely we have turned our
backs oil the Hebrew sources. In the obscure iiisolvable riddles of the Egyp-
tian Hieroglyphics the Learned have been hoping to find the key of an-
cient doctrine, and now we hear of nothing but the language and wisdom
of India, while tlie writings and traditions of the Rabbins are consigned
to neglect witliout examination.
The lord helpeth man and beast.
During his march to conquer the world, Alexander the Ma-
cedonian, came to a people in Africa, who dwelt in a remote and
secluded corner in peaceful huts, and knew neither war nor
conqueror. They led him to the hut of their Chief, who re-
ceived him hospitably and placed before him golden dates, gol-
den figs, and bread of gold. Do you eat gold in this country .''
said Alexander. I take it for granted (replied the Chief) that
thou wert able to find eatable food in thine own country. For
what reason then art thou come among us .'' Your gold has not
tempted me hither, said Alexander, but I would willingly be-
come acquainted with your manners and customs. So be it,
rejoined the other, sojourn among us as long as it pleaseth thee.
At the close of this conversation two citizens entered as into
their Court of Justice. The plaintilTsaid, I bought of this man
a piece of land, and as I was making a deep drain through it I
found a treasure. This is not mine, for I only bargained for
the land, and not for any treasure that might be concealed be-
327
neath it : and yet the former owner of the land will not re-
ceive it. The defendant answered : I hope I have a con-
science as well as my fellow-citizen. I sold him the land with
all its contingent, as well as existing advantages, and conse-
quently the treasure inclusively.
The Chief, who was at the same time their supreme judge,
recapitulated their words, in order that the parties might see
whether or no he understood them aright. Then after some
reflection said : Thou hast a Son, Friend, I believe ? Yes !
And thou (addressing the other) a Daughter? Yes! — Well
then, let thy Son marry thy Daughter, and bestow the trea-
sure on the young couple for their marriage portion. Alexan-
der seemed surprized and perplexed. Think you my sentence
unjust ? the Chief asked him — O no, replied Alexander, but it
astonishes me. And how, then rejoined the Chief, would the
case have been decided in your country ? — To confess the truth,
said Alexander, we should have taken both parties into custo-
dy and have seized the treasure for the king's use. For the
king's use ! exclaimed the Chief, now in his turn astonished.
Does the sun shine on that country ? — Yes ! Does it rain
there ? — Assuredly. Wonderful ! but are there tame Animals
in the country that live on the grass and green herbs ? Very
many, and of many kinds. — Aye, that must be the cause, said
the Chief: for the sake of those innocent Animals the All-
gracious Being continues to let the sun shine and the rain drop
down on your country.
WHOSO HATH FOUND A VIRTUOUS WIFE HATH A GREATER TREA-
SURE THAN COSTLY PEARLS.
Such a treasure had the celebrated Teacher Rabbi Meir
found. He sate during the whole of one sabbath day in the
public school, and instructed the people. During his absence
from his house his two sons died, both of them of uncommon
beauty and enlightened in the law. His wife bore them to her
bed-chamber, laid them upon the marriage-bed, and spread a
white covering over their bodies. In the evening Rabbi Meir
came home. Where are my two sons he asked, that I may
give them my blessing ? They are gone to the school, was the
answer. I repeatedly looked round the school, he replied, and
328
I did not see them there. She reached to him a goblet, he
praised the Lord at the going out of the Sabbath, drank and
again asked : where are my Sons that they too may drink of the
cup of blessing ? They will not be far off, she said, and plac-
ed food before him that he might eat. He was in a glad-
some and genial mood, and when he had said grace after the
meal, she thus addressed him. Rabbi, with thy permission I
would fain propose to thee one question. Ask it then my love !
he replied : A few days ago, a person entrusted some jewels to
my custody, and now he demands them again : should I give
them back again ? This is a question, said Rabbi Meir, which
my wife should not have thought it necessary to ask. What,
wouldst thou hesitate or be reluctant to restore to every one
his own ? — No, she replied ; but yet I thought it best not to
restore them without acquainting thee therewith. She then
led him to their chamber, and stepping to the bed, took the
white covering from the dead bodies. — Ah, my Sons, my Sons,
thus loudly lamented the Father, my Sons, the Light of mine
Eyes and the Light of my Understanding, I was your Father,
but ye were my Teachers in the Law. The mother turned
away and wept bitterly. At length she took her husband by
the hand and said. Rabbi didst thou not teach me that we must
not be reluctant to restore that which was entrusted to our
keeping ? See the Lord gave, the Lord has taken away, and
blessed be the name of the Lord ! Blessed be the name of the
Lord ! echoed Rabbi Meir, and blessed be his name for thy
sake too ! for well is it written ; whoso hath found a virtuous
Wife hath a greater Treasure than costly Pearls ; She openeth
her mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue is the law of kind-
ness.
CONVERSATION OF A PHILOSOPHER WITH A RABBI.
Your God in his Book calls himself a jealous God, who can
endure no other God beside himself, and on all occasions makes
manifest his abhorrence of idolatry. How comes it then that
he threatens and seems to hate the W'orshippers of false Gods
more than the false Gods themselves. A certain king, replied
the Rabbi, had a disobedient Son. Among other worthless
tricks of various kinds, he had the baseness to give his Dogs
329
his Father's names and titles. Should the King show his anger
on the Prince or the Dogs ? — Well turned, rejoined the Philoso-
pher : but if your God destroyed the objects of idolatry he would
take away the temptation to it. Yea, retorted the Rabbi, if the
Fools worshipped such things only as were of no further use than
that to which their Folly applied them, if the Idol were always
as worthless as the Idolatry is contemptible. But they worship
the Sun, the Moon, the Host of Heaven, the Rivers, the Sea,
Fire, Air, and what not ? Would you that the Creator, for the
sake of these Fools, should ruin his own Works, and disturb
the laws appointed to Nature by his own Wisdom ? If a man
steals grain and sows it, should the seed not shoot up out of
the earth, because it was stolen ? no ! the wise Creator lets
Nature run her own course ; for her course is his own appoint-
ment. And what if the children of folly abuse it to evil ? The
day of reckoning is not far off, and men Avill then learn that
human actions likewise re-appear in their consequences by as
certain a law as the green blade rises up out of the buried
corn-seed.
42
INTRODUCTION.*
Jlaqa He^rov Tifv ivvoiav to~v xaTa (pvaiv tifv, iioX ro" ae^ivov u'tx-
Xu'gojg, o/'ce xoluy.eiag /lifp Ttc/ai/g ngoaaregsgni' sii'at rifi' 'ojuiXiai'
uvTO'v, a tSeatuoi'TUTOf de tcuq' avjo'v exeu'ov to'v xu'iqop eivut-
Kal u f.ia fief cC nud-equrov eiyai, a fia de cpiXogoqyo'iaiov xcxi to" I8eiv
u vd-QMTtov aixqpoj'g tku' /igoi' jm'p suvto'v •Auloff ifyovfisvov tj^V av-
lo'v TTolvjUu&iijv. M. ANTSIN. ^i^. a.
Translation. — From Sextus, and from the contemplation of his cliaracter, I
learnt what it was to live a life in harmony with nature ; and that seemli-
ness and dignity of deportment, which ensured the profoundest reverence
at the very same time that his company was more winning tlian all the flat-
teiy in the world. To him I owe likewise that I have known a man at
once the most dispassionate, and the most affectionate, and who of all his
attractions set the least value on the multiplicity of his literary acquisitions.
M. Anton. Book I.
To THE Editor of The Friend.
Sir,
I hope you will not ascribe to presumption, the liberty I
take in addressing you, on the subject of your Work. I feel
deeply interested in the cause you have undertaken to support ;
and my object in writing this letter is to describe to you, in
* With this introduction commences the third volume of the English edi-
tion of The Friend ; to which volume the following lines are prefixed as a
motto :
Now for the writing of this werke,
I, who am a lonesome clerke,
Piu'poscd for to write a book
After the world, that whilomc took
Its course in old(^ days long passed :
But for men sayn, it is now lasaed
331
j>art from my own feelings, what I conceive to be the state of
many minds, which may derive important advantage from your
instructions.
I speak, Sir, of those who, though bred up under our unfavora-
ble system of education, have yet held at times some intercourse
with nature, and with those great minds whose works have
been moulded by the spirit of nature : who, therefore, when
they pass from the seclusion and constraint of early study, bring
with them into the new scene of the world, much of the pure sen-
sibility which is the spring of all that is greatly good in thought
and action. To such the season of that entrance into the world
is a season of fearful importance ; not for the seduction of its
passions, but of its opinions. Whatever be their intellectual
powers, unless extraordinary circumstances in their lives, have
been so favorable to the growth of meditative genius, that their
speculative opinions must spring out of their early feelings,
their minds are still at the mercy of fortune ; they have no
inward impulse steadily to propel them : and must trust to the
chances of the world for a guide. And such is our present
moral and intellectual state, that these chances are little else
than variety of danger. There will be a thousand causes con-
spiring to coznplete the work of a false education, and by en-
closing the mind on every side from the influences of natural
feeling, to degrade its inborn dignity, and finally bring the heart
itself under subjection to a corrupted understanding. I am
anxious to describe to you what I have experienced or seen of
the dispositions and feelings that will aid every other cause of
danger, and tend to lay the mind open to the infection of all
those falsehoods in opinion and sentiment, which constitute the
degeneracy of the age. Though it would not be difficult to
prove, that the mind of the country is much enervated since
In worser plight than it was tho,
I thougiit me for to touch also
The woi'ld which neweth every day —
So, as I can, so as I may,
Albeit I sickness have and pain,
And long have had, yet would I fain
Do my mind's hest and bcsiness,
That in some part, so as I guess,
The gentle mind may be advised.
GowER, Pro. to tke Confess. JlmanUs.
332
the days of her strength, and brought down from its moral dig-
nity, it is not yet so forlorn of all good, — there is nothing in the
face of the times so dark and saddening, and repulsive — as to
shock the first feelings of a generous spirit, and drive it at once
to seek refuge in the elder ages of our greatness. There yet
survives so much of the character bred up through long years
of liberty, danger, and glory, that even what this age produces
bears traces of those that are past, and it still yields enough of
beautiful, and splendid, and bold, to captivate an ardent but
untutored imagination. And in this real excellence is the be-
ginning of danger : for it is the first spring of that excessive
admiration of the age which at last brings down to its own le-
vel a mind born above it. If there existed only the general
disposition of all who are formed with a high capacity for good,
to be rather credulous of excellence than suspiciously and sev-
erely just, the error would not be carried far: — but there are
to a young mind, in this country and at this time, numerous
powerful causes concurring to inflame this disposition, till the
excess of the afi:ection above the worth of its object, is beyond
all computation. To trace these causes it will be necessary to
follow the history of a pure and noble mind from the first mo-
ment of that critical passage from seclusion to the world, which
changes all the circumstances of its intellectual existence,
shews it for the first time the real scene of living men, and
calls up the new feeling of numerous relations by which it is
to be connected with them.
To the young adventurer in life, who enters upon his course
with such a mind, every thing seems made for delusion. He
comes with a spirit whose dearest feelings and highest thoughts
have sprung up under the influences of nature. He transfers
to the realities of life the high wild fancies of visionary boyhood :
he brings with him into the world the passions of solitary and
untamed imagination, and hopes which he has learned from
dreams. Those dreams have been of the great and wonderful,
and lovely, of all which in these has yet been disclosed to him :
his thoughts have dwelt among the wonders of nature, and
among the loftiest spirits of men — heroes, and sages, and saints ;
— those whose deeds, and thoughts, and hopes, were high
above ordinary mortality, have been the familiar companions of
his soul. To love and to admire has been the joy of his ex-
333
istence. Love and admiration are the pleasures he will de-
mand of the world. For these he has searched eagerly into the
ages that are gone : but with more ardent and peremptory ex-
pectation he requires them of that in which his own lot is cast :
for to look on life with hopes of happiness is a necessity of
his nature, and to him there is no happiness but such as is sur-
rounded with excellence.
See first how this spirit will affect his judgment of moral
character, in those with whom chance may connect him in the
common relations of life. It is of those with Avhom he is to
live, that his soul first demands this food of her desires. From
their conversation, their looks, their actions, their lives, she
asks for excellence. To ask from all and to ask in vain, would
be too dismal to bear : it would disturb him too deeply with
doubt and perplexity, and fear. In this hope, and in the revol-
ting of his thoughts from the possibility of disappointment, there
is a preparation for self-delusion : there is an unconscious de-
termination that his soul shall be satisfied ; an obstinate will to
find good every where. And thus his first study of mankind is
a continued effort to read in them the expression of his own
feelings. He catches at every uncertain shew and shadowy
resemblance of what he seeks ; and unsuspicious in innocence,
he is first won with those appearances of good which are in
fact only false pretensions. But this error is not carried far :
for there is a sort of instinct of rectitude, which like the pres-
sure of a talisman given to baffle the illusions of enchantment,
warns a pure mind against hypocrisy. — There is another delu-
sion more difficult to resist and more slowly dissipated. It is
when he finds, as he often will, some of the real features of
excellence in the purity of their native form. For then his
rapid imagination will gather round them all the kindred
features that are wanting to perfect beauty ; and make for him,
where he could not find, the moral creature of his expectation :
— peopling, even from this human world, his little circle of af-
fection, with forms as fair as his heart desired for its love.
But when, from the eminence of life which he has reached,
he lifts up his eyes, and sends out his spirit to range over the
great scene that is opening before him and around him, — the
whole prospect of civilized life — so wide and so magnificent: —
when he begins to contemplate, in their various stations of
power or splendor, the leaders of mankind — those men on
334
wbos^e wisdom are hung the fortunes of nations — those whose
genius and valor wield the heroism of a people ; — or those, in
no inferior "pride of place," whose sway is over the mind of
society, — chiefs in the realm of imagination, — interpreters of
the secrets of nature, — rulers of human opinion what won-
der, when he looks on all this living scene, that his heart
should burn with strong affection, that he should feel that his own
happiness will be forever interwoven with the interests of man-
kind ? — Here then the sanguine hope with which he looks on life,
will again be blended with his passionate desire of excellence ;
and he will still be impelled to single out some, on whom his
imagination and his hopes may repose. To whatever department
of human thought or action his mind is turned with interest, ei-
ther by the sway of public passion or by its own impulse, among
statesmen, and warriors, and philosophers, and poets, he will
distinguish some favored names on which he may satisfy his ad-
miration And there, just as in the little circle of his own ac-
quaintance, seizing eagerly on every merit they possess, he will
supply more from his own credulous hope, completing real with
imagined excellence, till living men, with all their imperfec-
tions, become to him the representatives of his perfect ideal
creation : — Till, multiplying his objects of reverence, as he
enlarges his prospect of life, he will have surrounded himself
with idols of his own hands, and his imagination will seem to
discern a glory in the countenance of the age, which is but the
reflection of its own effulgence.
He will possess, therefore, in the creative power of gene-
rous hope, a preparation for illusory and exaggerated admira-
tion of the age in which he lives : — and this pre-disposition
will meet with many favoring circumstances, when he has grown
up under a system of education like ours, which (as perhaps all
education must that is placed in the hands of a distinct and em-
bodied class, who therefore bring to it the peculiar and heredi-
tary prejudices of their order) has controled his imagination to
a reverence of former times, with an unjust contempt of his
own. — For no sooner does he break loose from this control,
and begin to feel, as he contemplates the world for himself,
how much there is surrounding him on all sides, that gratifies
his noblest desires, than there springs up in him an indignant
sense of injustice, both to the age and to his own mind : and he
is impelled warmly and eagerly to give loose to the feelings
335
that have been held in bondage, to seek out and to delight in
finding excellence that will vindicate the insulted world, while
it justifies too, his resentment of his own undue subjection, and
exalts the value of his new found liberty.
Add to this, that secluded as he has been from knowledge,
and, in the imprisoning circle of one system of ideas, cut off
from his share in the thoughts and feelings that are stirring
among men, he finds himself, at the first steps of his liberty,
in a new intellectual world. Passions and powers which he
knew not of, start up in his soul. The human mind, which he
had seen but under one aspect, now presents to him a thousand
unknown and beautiful forms. He sees it, in its varying pow-
ers, glancing over nature with restless curiosity, and with impe-
tuous energy striving for ever against the barriers which she has
placed around it ; sees it with divine power creating from dark
materials living beauty, and fixing all its high and transported
fancies in imperishable forms. — In the world of knowledge,
and science, and art, and genius, he treads as a stranger : —
in the confusion of new sensations, bewildered in delights, all
seems beautiful ; all seems admirable. And therefore he en-
gages eagerly in the pursuit of false or insufficient philosophy ;
he is won by the allurements 'of licentious art ; he follows
with wonder the irregular transports of undisciplined imagina-
tion. — Nor where the objects of his admiration are worthy, is
he yet skilful to distinguish between the acquisitions which the
age has made for itself, and that large proportion of its wealth
which it has only inherited ; but in his delight of discovery
and growing knowledge, all that is new to his own mind seems
to him new-born to the world, — To himself every fresh idea
appears instruction : every new exertion, acquisition of power:
he seems just called to the consciousness of himself, and to his
true place in the intellectual world ; and gratitude and rever-
ence towards those to whom he owes this recovery of his dig-
nity, tends much to subject him to the dominion of minds that
were not formed by nature to be the leaders of opinion.
All the tumult and glow of thought and imagination, which
seizes on a mind of power in such a scene, tends irresistibly
to bind it by stronger attachment of love and admiration to its
own age. And there is one among the new emotions which
belong to its entrance on the world — one — almost the noblest
of all — in which this exaltation of the age is essentially min-
336
gled. The faith in the perpetual progression of human nature
towards perfection, gives birth to such lofty dreams, as se-
cure to it the devout assent of imagination ; and it will be yet
more grateful to a heart just opening to hope, flushed with the
consciousness of new strength, and exulting in the prospect of
destined achievements. There is, therefore, almost a compul-
sion on generous and enthusiastic spirits, as they trust that
the future shall transend the present, to believe that the pre-
sent transends the past. It is only on an undue love and ad-
miration of their own age, that they can build their confidence
in the amelioration of the human race. Nor is this faith, —
which in some shape, will always be the creed of virtue, —
without apparent reason, even in the erroneous form in which
the young adopt it. For there is a perpetual acquisition of
knowledge and art, — an unceasing progress in many of the
modes of exertion of the human mind, — a perpetual unfolding
of virtues with the changing manners of society : — and it is not
for a young mind to compare what is gained with what has
passed away ; to discern that amidst the incessant intellectual
activity of the race, the intellectual power of individual minds
may be falling off; and that amidst accumulating knowledge
lofty science may disappear ; — and still less, to judge, in the
more complicated moral character of a people, what is progres-
sion, and what is decline.
Into a mind possessed with this persuasion of the perpetual
progress of man, there may even imperceptibly steal both from
the belief itself, and from many of the views on which it rests
— something like a distrust of the wisdom of great men of for-
mer ages, and with the reverence — which no delusion will ever
overpower in a pure mind — for their greatness, a fancied dis-
cernment of imperfection; — of incomplete excellence, which
wanted for its accomplishment the advantages of later improve-
ments : there will be a surprize, that so much should have been
possible in times so ill prepared ; and even the study of their
works may be sometimes rather the curious research of a specu-
lative enquirer, than the devout contemplation of an enthusiast;
the watchful and obedient heart of a disciple listening to the in-
spiration of his master.
Here then is the power of delusion that will gather round
the first steps of a youthful spirit, and throw enchantment over
the world in which it is to dwell. Hope realizing its own
3^7
dreams : — Ignorance dazzled and ravished with sudden sun-
shine : — Power awakened and rejoicing in its own conscious-
ness : — Enthusiasm liindling among multiplying images of great-
ness and beauty; and enamored, above all, of one splendid error:
and, springing from all these, such a rapture of life and hope,
and joy, that tlie soul, in the power of its happiness, transmutes
things essentially repugnant to it, into the excellence of its own
nature : — these are the spells that cheat the eye of the mind
with illusion. It is under these influences that a young man
of ardent spirit gives all his love, and reverence, and zeal, to
productions of art, to theories of science, to opinions, to sys-
tems of feeling, and to characters distinguished in the world,
that are far beneath his own original dignity.
Now as this delusion springs not from his worse but his bet-
ter nature, it seems as if there could be no warning to him from
within of his danger : for even the impassioned joy which he
draws at times from the works of Nature, and from those of
her mightier sons, and which would startle him from a dream
of unworthy passion, serves only to fix the infatuation : — for
those deep emotions, proving to him that his heart is uncorrupt-
ed, justify to him all its workings, and his mind confiding and
delighting in itself, yields to the guidance of its own blind im-
pulses of pleasure. His chance, therefore, of security, is the
chance that the greater number of objects occurring to attract
his honorable passions, may be worthy of them. But we have
seen that the whole power of circumstances is collected to ga-
ther round him such objects and influences as will bend his high
passions to unworthy enjoyment. He engages in it with a
heart and understanding unspoiled : but they cannot long be
misapplied with impunity. They are drawn gradually into clo-
ser sympathy with the falsehoods they have adopted, till, his
very nature seeming to change under the corruption, there dis-
appears from it the capacity of those higher perceptions and
pleasures to which he was born : and he is cast off from the
communion of exalted minds, to live and to perish with the age
to which he has surrendered himself.
If minds under these circumstances of danger are preserved
from decay and overthrow, it can seldom, I think, be to them-
selves that they owe their deliverance. It must be to a fortu-
nate chance which places them under the influence of some
more enlightened mind, from which they may first gain suspi-
43
338
cioii and afterwards wisdom. There is a philosophy, which,
leading them by the light of their best emotions to the princi-
ples which should give life to thought and law to genius, will
discover to them in clear and perfect evidence, the falsehood
of the errors that have misled them ; and restore them to them-
selves. And this philosophy they will be willing to hear and
wise to understand ; but they must be led into its mysteries by
some guiding hand ; for they want the impulse or the power to
penetrate of themselves the recesses.
If a superior mind should assume the protection of others
just beginning to move among the dangers I have described,
it would probably be found, that delusions springing from their
own virtuous activity, were not the only difficulties to be en-
countered. Even ai'ter suspicion is awakened, the subjection
to falsehood may be prolonged and deepened by many weak-
nesses both of the intellectual and moral nature ; weaknesses
that will sometimes shake the authority of acknowledged truth.
There may be intellectual indolence ; an indisposition in the
mind to the effort of combining the ideas it actually possesses,
and bringing into distinct form the knowledge, which in its ele-
ments is already its own : — there may be, where the heart re-
sists the sway of opinion, misgivings and modest self-mistrust,
in him who sees, that if he trusts- his heart, he must slight the
judgment of all around him : — there may be too habitual yield-
ing to authority, consisting, more than in indolence or diffi-
dence, in a conscious helplessness, and incapacity of the mind
to maintain itself in its own place against the weight of general
opinion ; — and there may be too indiscriminate, too undiscipli-
ned a sympathy with others, which by the mere infection of
feeling will subdue the reason. — There must be a weakness in
dejection to him who thinks, with sadness, if his faith be pure,
how gross is the error of the multitude, and that multitude how
vast : — a reluctance to embrace a creed that excludes so many
whom he loves, so many whom his youth has revered : — a diffi-
culty to his understanding to believe that those whom he knows to
be, in much that is good and honorable, his superiors, can be
beneath him in this which is the most impoitant of all : — a sym-
pathy pleading importunately at his heart to descend to the fel-
lowship of his brothers, and to take their faith and wisdom for
his own. — How often, when under the impulses of those solemn
hours, in which he has felt with clearer insight and deeper faith
339
his sacred truths, he labors to win to his own belief thoso whom
he loves, will he be checked by their indifference or their laugh-
ter ! and will he not bear back to his meditations a painful and
disheartening sorrow, — a gloomy discontent in that faith which
takes in but a portion of those whom he wishes to include in all
his blessings? Will he not be enfeebled by a distraction of in-
consistent desires, when he feels so strongly that the faith which
fills his heart, the circle within which he would embrace all
he loves — would repose all his wishes and hopes, and enjoy-
ments, is yet incommensurate with his affections ?
Even when the mind, strong in reason and just feeling united,
and relying on its strength, has attached itself to Truth, how
much is there in the course and accidents of life that is for ever
silently at work for its degradation. There are pleasures deem-
ed harmless, that lay asleep the recollections of innocence : —
there are pursuits held honorable, or imposed by duty, that op-
press the moral spirit • — above all there is that perpetual con-
nection with ordinary minds in the common intercourse of so-
ciety ; — that restless activity of frivolous conversation, where
men of all characters and all pursuits mixing together, nothing
mav be talked of that is not of common interest to all — nothina;,
therefore, but those obvious thoughts and feelings that float over
the surface of things : — and all which is drawn from the depth
of Nature, all which impassioned feeling has made original in
thought, would be misplaced and obtrusive. The talent that
is allowed to shew itself is that which can repay admiration by
furnishing entertainment : — and the display to which it is invi-
ted is that which flatters the vulgar pride of society, by aba-
sing what is too high in excellence for its sympathy. A dan-
gerous seduction to talents — which would make language — that
was given to exalt the soul by the fervid expression oi its pure
emotions — the instrument of its degradation. And even when
there is, as the instance I have supposed, too much uprightness
to choose so dishonorable a triumph, there is a necessity of
manners, by which every one must be controled w"ho mixes
much in society, not to offend those with whom he converses
by his superiority ; and whatever be the native spirit of a mind,
it is evident that this perpetual adaptation of itself to others —
this watchfulness against its own rising feelings, this studied
sympathy with mediocrity — must pollute and impoverish the
sources of its strength.
340
From much of its own vreaknees, and from all the errors of
its misleading activities, may generous youth be rescued by
the interposition of an enlightened mind ; and in some degree
it may be guarded by instruction against the injuries to which
it is exposed in the world. His lot is happy who owes this
protection to friendship: who has found in a friend the watch-
ful guardian of his mind. He will not be deluded, having that
light to guide : he will not slumber with that voice to inspire ;
he will not be desponding or dejected, with that bosom to lean
on. — But how many must there be whom Heaven has left un-
provided, except in their own strength ; who must maintain
themselves, unassisted and solitary, against their own infirmi-
ties and the opposition of the world ! For such there may be
yet a protector. If a teacher should stand up in their genera-
tion, conspicuous above the multitude in superior power, and
yet more in the assertion and proclamation of disregarded
Truth — to Him — to his cheering or summoning voice all hearts
would turn, whose deep sensibility has been oppressed by the
indifference, or misled by the seduction of the times. Of one
such teacher who has been given to our own age, you have de-
scribed the power when you said, that in his annunciation of
truths he seemed to speak in thunders. I believe that mighty
voice has not been poured out in vain : that there are hearts
that have received into their inmost depthsallits varying tones :
and that even now, there are many to whom the name of Words-
worth calls up the recollection of their weakness, and the
consciousness of their strength.
To give to the reason and eloquence of one man, this com-
plete control over the minds of others, it is necessary, I think,
that he should be born in their own times. For thus what-
ever false opinion of pre-eminence is attached to the Age, be-
comes at once a title of reverence to him: and when with dis-
tinguished powers he sets himself apart from the Age, and
above it as the Teacher of high but ill-understood Truths, he
will appear at once to a generous imagination, in the dignity of
one whose superior mind outsteps the rapid progress of socie-
ty, and will derive from illusion itself the power to disperse
illusions. It is probable too, that he who labors under the er-
rors I have described, might feel the power of Truth in a wri-
ter of another age, yet fail in applying the full force of his
principles to his own times : but when he receives them from
341
a Kving Teacher, there is no room for doubt or misapplica-
tion. It is the errors of his own generation that are denounc-
ed ; and whatever authority he may acknowledge in the ins-
tructions of his Master, strikes, with inevitable force, at his
veneration for the opinions and characters of his own times.-^
And finally there will be gathered round a living Teacher, who
speaks to the deeper soul, many feelings of human love, that
will place the infirmities of the heart peculiarly under his con-
trol ; at the same time that they blend with and animate the
attachment to his cause. So that there will flow from him
something of the peculiar influence of a friend : while his
doctrines will be embraced and asserted, and vindicated with
the ardent zeal of a disciple, such as can scarcely be carried
back to distant times, or connected with voices that speak only
from the grave.
I have done what I proposed. I have related to you as much
as I have had opportunities of knowing of the difficulties from
within and from without, which may oppose the natural devel-
opement of true feeling and right opinion, in a mind formed
with some capacity for good : and the resources which such a
mind may derive from an enlightened contemporary writer. —
If what I have said be just, it is certain that this influence will
be felt more particulary in a work, adapted by its mode of pub-
lication to address the feelings of the time, and to bring to its
readers repeated admonition and repeated consolation.
I have perhaps presumed too far in trespassing on your at-
tention, and in giving way to my own thoughts : but I was
unwilling to leave any thing unsaid which might induce you to
consider with favor the request I was anxious to make, in the
name of all whose state of mind I have described, that you
would at times regard us more particularly in your instructions.
I cannot judge to what degree it may be in your power to give
the Truth you teach, a control over understandings that have
matured their strength in error : but in our class I am sure
you will have docile learners. Mathetes.
The Friend might rest satisfied that his exertions thus far
have not been wholly unprofitable, if no other proof had been
given of their influence, than that of having called forth the
foregoing letter, with which he has been so much interested,
that he could not deny himself the pleasure of communica-
ting it to his readers. — In answer to his Corresdondent, it need
343
scarcely here be repeated, that one of the main purposes of
his work is to weigh, honestly and thoughtfully, the moral
worth and intellectual power of the age in which we live ; to
ascertain our gain and our loss; to determine what we are in
ourselves positively, and what we are compared with our an-
cestors ; and thus, and by every other means within his power,
to discover what may be hoped for future times, what and how
lamentable are the evils to be feared, and how far there is
cause for fear. If this attempt should not be made wholly in
vain, my ingenuous Correspondent, and all who are in a state
of mind resembling that of which he gives so lively a picture,
will be enabled more readily and surely to distinguish false
from legitimate objects of admiration : and thus may the per-
sonal errors which he would guard against, be more elfectually
prevented or removed, by the developeraent of general truth
for a general purpose, than by instructions specifically adapted
to himself or to the class of which he is the able representa-
tive. There is a lii'e and spirit in knowledge which we ex-
tract from truths scattered for the benefit of all, and which the
mind, by its own activity, has appropriated to itself — a life and
.spirit, which is seldom found in knowledge communicated by
formal and direct precepts, even when they are exalted and
endeared by reverence and love for the teacher.
Nevertheless, though I trust that the assistance which my
Correspondent has done me the honor to request, will in
course of time flow naturally from my labors, in a manner that
will best serve him, I cannot resist the inclination to connect,
at present, with his letter a few remarks of direct application
to the subject of it — remarks^ I say, for to such I shall con-
fine myself, independent of the main point out of which his
complaint and request both proceed, I mean the assumed infe-
riority of the present age in moral dignity and intellectual pow-
er, to those which have preceded it. For if the fact were
true, that we had even surpassed our ancestors in the best
of what is good, the main part of the dangers and impediments
which my Correspondent has feelingly portrayed, could not
cease to exist for minds like his, nor indeed would they be
much diminished ; as they arise out of the constitution of things,
from the nature of youth, from the laws that govern the growth
of the faculties, and from the necessary condition of the great
body of mankind. Let us throw ourselves back to the age of
Elizabeth, and call up to mind the heroes, the warriors, the
343
statesmen, the poets, the divines, and the moral philosophers,
with which the reign of the virgin queen was illustrated. Or
if we be more strongly attracted by the moral purity and
greatness, and that sanctity of civil and religious duty, with
which the tyranny of Charles the First was struggled against,
let us cast our eyes, in the hurry of admiration, round that
circle ot glorious patriots — but do not let us be persuaded, that
each of these, in his course of discipline, was uniformly helped
forward by those with whom he associated, or by those whose
care it was to direct him. Then as now, existed objects, to
which the wisest attached undue importance; then, as now,
judgement was misled by factions and parties — time wasted in
controversies fruitless, except as far as they quickened the
faculties ; then as now, minds were venerated or idolized,
which owed their influence to the weakness of their contem-
poraries rather than to their own power. Then, though great
actions were wrought, and great works in literature and sci-
ence produced, yet the general taste was capricious, fantasti-
cal, or groveling : and in this point as in all others, was youth
subject to delusion, frequent in proportion to the liveliness of
the sensibility, and strong as the strength of the imagination.
Every age hath abounded in instances of parents, kindred, and
friends, who, by indirect influence of example, or by positive
injunction and exhortation have diverted or discouraged the
youth, who, in the simplicity and purity of nature, had deter-
mined to follow his intellectual genius through good and
through evil, and had devoted himself to knowledge, to the
practice of virtue and the preservation of integrity, in slight
of temporal rewards. Above all, have not the common duties
and cares of common life, at all times exposed men to injury,
from causes whose action is the more fatal from being silent
and unremitting, and which, wherever it was not jealously
watched and steadily opposed, must have pressed upon and
consumed the diviner spirit.
There are two errors, into which we easily slip when thinking
of past times. One lies in forgetting in the excellence of what
remains, the large overbalance of worthlessness that has been
swept away. Ranging over the wide tracts of antiquity, the
situation of the mind may be likened to that of a traveller* in
* Vide Ashe's Travels in America.
344
some unpeopled part of America, who is attracted to the burhil
place of one of the primitive inhabitants. It is conspicuous
upon an eminence, " a mount upon a mount!" He digs into
it, and finds that it contains the bones of a man of mighty sta-
ture : and he is tempted to give way to a belief, that as there
were giants in those days, so that all men weie giants. But a
second and wiser thought may suggest to him, that this tomb
would never have forced itself upon his notice, if it had not
contained a body that was distinguished from others, that of a
man who had been selected as a chieftain or ruler for the very
reason that he surpassed the rest of his tribe in stature, and
who now lies thus conspicuously inhumed upon the mountain-
top, while the bones of his followers are laid unobtrusively
together in their burrows upon the plain below. The second
habitual error is, that in this comparison of ages we divide time
merely into past and present, and place these into the balance
to be weighed against each other, not considering that the pre-
sent is in our estimation not more than a period of thirty years,
or half a century at most, and that the past is a mighty accumu-
lation of many such periods, perhaps the whole of recorded
time, or at least the whole of that portion of it in which our
own country has been distinguished. We may illustrate this
by the familiar use of the words Ancient and Modern, when
applied to poetry — what can be more inconsiderate or unjust
than to compare a few existing writers with the whole succes-
sion of their progenitors ? The delusion, from the moment that
our thoughts are directed to it, seems too gross to deserve men.
tion ; yet men will talk for hours upon poetry, balancing against
each other the words Ancient and Modern, and be unconscious
that they have fallen into it.
These observations are not made as implying a dissent from
the belief of my Correspondent, that the moral spirit and in-
tellectual powers of this country are declining; but to guard
against unqualified admiration, even in cases where admiration
has been rightly fixed, and to prevent that depression, which
must necessarily follow, where the notion of the peculiar un-
favorableness of the present times to dignity of mind, has been
carried too far. For in proportion as we imagine obstacles to
exist out of ourselves to retard our progress, will, in fact, our
progress be retarded. Deeming then, that in all ages an ar-
dent mind will be baffled and led astray in the manner under
345
contctn])lation, though in various degrees, I shall at present
content myself with a few practical and desultory comments
upon some of those general causes, to which my correspondent
justly attributes the errors in opinion, and the lowering or dead-
ening of sentiment, to which ingenuous and aspiring youth is
exposed. And first, for the heart-cheering belief in the perpe-
tual progress of the species towards a point of unattainable
perfection. If the present age do indeed transcend the past
in what is most beneficial and honourable, he that perceives
this, being in no error, has no cause for complaint; but if it be
not so, a youth of genius might, it should seem, be preserved
from any wrong influence of this faith, by an insight into a
simple truth, namely, that it is not necessary, in order to satisfy
the desires of our nature, or to reconcile us to the economy of
providence, that there should be at all times a continuous ad-
vance in what is of highest worth. In fact it is not, as a wri-
ter of the present day has admirably observed, in the power of
fiction, to pourtray in words, or of the imagination to conceive
in spirit, actions or characters of more exalted virtue, than those
which thousands of years ago have existed upon earth, as we
know from the records of authentic history. Such is the inhe-
rent dignity of human nature, that there belong to it sublimities
of virtues which all men may attain, and which no man can
transcend : and though this be not true in an equal degree, of
intellectual power, yet in the persons of Plato, Demosthenes,
and Homer, — and in those of Shakespeare, Milton, and Lord
Bacon, — were enshrined as much of the divinity of intellect
as the inhabitants of this planet can hope wall ever take up its
abode among them. But the question is not of the power or
worth of individual minds, but of the general moral or intel-
lectual merits of an age — or a people, or of the human race.
Be it so — let us allow and believe that there is a progress in
the species towards unattainable perfection, or whether this be
so or not, that it is a necessity of a good and greatly-gifted na-
ture to believe it — surely it does not follow, that this progress
should be constant in those virtues, and intellectual qualities,
and in those departments of knowledge, which in themselves
absolutely considered are of most value — things indepcndant
and in their degree indispensable. The progress of the species
neither is nor can be like that of a Roman road in a right line.
It mav be more justly co'.upared to that of a river, which both
44
346
in its smaller reaches and larger turnings, is frequently forced
back towards its fountains, by objects which cannot otherwise
be eluded or overcome ; yet with an accompanying impulse that
will ensure its advancement hereafter, it is either gaining
strength every hour, or conquering in secret some difficulty, by
a labor that contributes as effectually to further it in its course,
as when it moves forward uninterrupted in a line, direct as that
of the Roman road with which we began the comparison.
It suffices to content the mind, though there may be an ap-
parent stagnation, or a retrograde movement in the species, that
something is doing which is necessary to be done, and the
effects of which, will in due time appear; — that something is
unremittingly gaining, either in secret preparation or in open
and triumphant progress. But in fact here, as every where,
we are deceived by creations which the mind is compelled to
make for itself: w^e speak of the species not as an aggregate,
but as endued with the form and separate life of an individual.
But human kind, what is it else than myriads of rational beings
in various degrees obedient to their Reason ; some torpid,
some aspiring ; some in eager chace to the right hand, some to
the left ; these wasting down their moral nature, and these
feeding it for immortality ? A w'hole generation may appear
even to sleep, or may be exasperated with rage — they that
compose it, tearing each other to pieces with more than brutal
fury. It is enough for complacency and hope, that scattered
and solitary minds are always laboring somewhere in the ser-
vice of truth and virtue ; and that by the sleep of the multitude,
the energy of the multitude may be prepared ; and that by the
fury of the people, the chains of the people may be broken.
Happy moment was it for England when her Chaucer, who has
rightly been called the morning star of her literature, appeared
above the horizon — when her Wickliff, like the sun," shot ori-
ent beams" through the night of Romish superstition ! — Yet
may the darkness and the desolating hurricane which immedi-
ately followed in the wars of York and Lancaster, be deemed
in their turn a blessing, with which the land has been visited.
May I return to the thought of progress, of accumulation, of
increasing light, or of any other image by which it may please
us to represent the improvement of the species ? The hundred
years that followed the usurpation of Henry the Fourth, were
a hurling-back of the mind of the country, a dilapidation, an
347
extinction ; yet institutions, laws, customs, and habits, were
then broken down, which would not have been so readily, nop
perhaps so thoroughly destroyed by the gradual influence of
increasing knowledge ; and under the oppression of which, if
they had continued to exist, the virtue and intellectual prowess
of the succeeding century could not have appeared at all, much
less could they have displayed themselves with that eager haste,
and with those beneficent triumphs which will to the end of
time be looked back upon with admiration and gratitude.
If the foregoing obvious distinctions be once clearly perceived,
and steadily kept in view, I do not see why a belief in the pro-
gress of human nature towards perfection, should dispose a youth-
ful mind, however enthusiastic, to an undue admiration of his
own age, and thus tend to degrade that mind.
But let me strike at once at the root of the evil complained
of in my Correspondent's letter. — Protection from any fatal
effect of seductions, and hindrances which opinion may throw
in the way of pure and high-minded youth, can only be obtain-
ed with certainty at the same price by which every thing great
and good is obtained, namely, steady dependence upon volun-
tary and self-originating effort, and upon the practice of self-ex-
amination, sincerely aimed at and rigorously enforced. But how
is this to be expected from youth ? Is it not to demand the fruit
when the blossom is barely put forth, and is hourly at the mer-
cy of frosts and winds ? To expect from youth these virtues
and habits, in that degree of excellence to which in mature
years they 'may be carried, would indeed be preposterous. Yet
has youth many helps and aptitudes, for the discharge of these
difficult duties, which are withdrawn for the most part from
the more advanced stages of life. For youth has its own wealth
and independence ; it is rich in health of body and animal
spirits, in its sensibility to the impressions of the natural uni-
verse, in the conscious growth of knowledge, in lively sympa-
thy and familiar communion with the generous actions recorded
in history, and with the high passions of poetry; and, above
all, youth is rich in the possession of time, and the accompany-
ing consciousness of freedom and power. The young man feels
that he stands at a distance from the season when his harvest
is to be reaped, — that he has leisure and may look around —
may defer both the choice and the execution of his purposes.
If he makes an attempt and shall fail, new hopes immediately
348
rush in, and new promises. Hence, in the happy confidence
of his feelings, and in the elasticity of his spirit, neither world-
ly ambition, nor the love of praise, nor dread of censure, nor
the necessity of wordly maintenance, nor any of those causes
which tempt or compel the mind habitually to look out of itself
for support ; neither these, nor the passions of envy, fear, ha-
tred, despondency, and the rankling of disappointed hopes,
(all which in after life give birth to, and regulate the efforts of
men, and determine their opinions) have power to preside
over the choice of the young, if the disposition be not natural-
ly bad, or the circumstances have not been in an uncommon
degree unfavorable.
In contemplation, then, of this disinterested and free condi-
tion of the youthful mind, I deem it in many points peculiarly
capable of searching into itself, and of profiting by a few sim-
ple questions — such as these that follow. Am I cliiefly gratified
by the exertion of my power from the pleasure of intellectual
activity, and from the knowledge thereby acquired ? In other
words, to what degree do I value my faculties and my attain-
ments for their own sakes ? or are they chiefly prized by me
on account of the distinction which they confer, or the superi-
ority which they give me over others ? Am I aware that im-
mediate influence and a general acknowledgement of merit, are
no necessary adjuncts of a successful adherence to study and
meditation, in those departments of knowledge which are of
most value to mankind ? that a recompence of honors and emol-
lumenls is far less to be expected — in fact, that there is little
natural connection between them ? Have I perceived this truth ?
and, perceiving it, does the countenance of philosophy conti-
nue to appear as bright and beautiful in my eyes .'' — Has no haze
bedimmed it ? has no cloud passed over and hidden from me
that look which was before so encouraging ? Knowing that it
is my duty, and feeling that it is my inclination, to mingle as a
social being with my fellow men ; prepared also to submit cheer-
fully to the necessity that will probably exist of relinquishing,
for the purpose of gaining a livelihood, the greatest portion of
my time to employments where I shall have little or no choice
how or when I am to act ; have I, at this moment, when I stand
as it were upon the threshold of the busy world, a clear intui-
tion of that pre-eminence in which virtue and truth (involving
in this latter word the sanctities of religion) sit enthroned above
349
all denominations and dignities which, in various degrees of
exaltation, rule over the desires of men ? — Do I feel that, if
their solemn mandates shall be forgotten, or disregarded, or de-
nied the obedience due to them when opposed to others, I shall
not only have lived for no good purpose, but that I shall have sa-
crificed my birth-right as a rational being ; and that every other
acquisition will be a bane and disgrace to me ? This is not spoken
with reference to such sacrifices as present themselves to the
youthful imagination in the shape of crimes, acts by which the
conscience is violated ; such a thought, I know, would be recoiled
from at once, not without indignation ; but I WTite in the spirit of
the ancient fable of Prodicus, representing the choice of Hercu-
les — Here is the wort.d, a female figure approaching at the head
of a train of willing or giddy followers : — her air and deportment
arc at once careless, remiss, self-satisfied, and haughty : — and
there is Intellectual, Prowess, with a pale cheek and serene
brow, leading in chains Truth, her beautiful and modest captive.
The one makes her salutation with a discourse of ease, pleas-
ure, freedom, and domestic tranquillity ; or, if she invite to la-
bor, it is labor in the busy and beaten tract, with assurance of
the complacent regards of parents, friends, and of those with
whom we associate. The promise also may be upon her lip of
the huzzas of the multitude, of the smile of kings, and the mu-
nificent rewards of senates. The other does not venture to
hold forth any of these allurements ; she does not conceal from
him w hom she addresses the impediments, the disappointments,
the ignorance and prejudice which her followsr will have to en-
counter, if devoted when duty calls, to active life ; and if to
contemplative, she lays nakedly before him, a scheme of solita-
ry and unremitting labor, a life of entire neglect perhaps, or
assuredly a life exposed to scorn, insult, persecution, and ha-
tred ; but cheered by encouragement from a grateful few, by
applauding conscience, and by a prophetic anticipation, perhaps,
of fame — a late, though lasting consequence. Of these two,
each in this manner soliciting you to become her adherent, you
doubt not w^hich to prefer, — but oh ! the thought of moment is
not preference, but the degree of preference ; the passionate
and pure choice, the inward sense of absolute and unchangea-
ble devotion.
I spoke of a few simple questions — the question involved in
this deliberation is simple ; but at the same time ii is high and
350
awful : and I would gladly know whether an answer can be re-
turned satisfactory to the mind. — We will for a moment suppose
that it cannot ; that there is a startling and a hesitation. — -Are
we then to despond ? to retire from all contest ? and to recon-
cile ouiselves at once to cares without a generous hope, and to
efforts in which there is no more moral life than that which is
found in the business and labors of the unfavored and unaspi-
ring many ? No — but if the inquiry have not been on just
grounds satisfactorily answered, we may refer confidently our
youth to that nature of which he deems himself an enthusias-
tic follower, and one who wishes to continue no less faithful
and enthusiastic. — We would tell him that there are paths which
he has not trodden ; recesses which he has not penetrated, that
there is beauty which he has not seen, a pathos which he has
not felt — a sublimity to v.'hich he hath not been raised. If
he have trembled because there has occasionally taken place
in him a lapse of which he is conscious ; if he foresee open or
secret attacks, which he has had intimations that he will neither
be strong enough to resist, nor watchful enough to elude, let
him not hastily ascribe this weakness, this deficiency, and the
painful apprehensions accompanying them, in any degree to the
virtues or noble qualities with which youth by nature is fur-
nished ; but let him first be assured, before he looks about for
the means of attaining the insight, the discriminating powers,
and the confirmed wisdom of manhood, that his soul has more
to demand of the appropriate excellencies of youth, than youth
has yet supplied to it ; — that the evil under which he labors is
not a superabundance of the instincts and the animating spirit
of that age, but a falling short, or a failure. — But what can he
gain from this admonition ? he cannot recall past time ; he can-
not begin his journey afresh ; he cannot untwist the links by
which, in no undelightful harmony, images and sentiments are
wedded in his mind. Granted that the sacred light of child-
hood is and must be for him no more than a remembrance. Pie
may, notwithstanding, be remanded to nature ; and with trust-
worthy hopes ; founded less upon his sentient than upon his in-
tellectual being — to nature, as leading on insensibly to the
society of reason ; but to reason and will, as leading back to
to the wisdom of nature. A re-union, in this order accomplish-
ed, will bring reformation and timely support ; and the two
powers of reason and nature, thus reciprocally teacher and
351
taught, may advance together in a track to where there is no
limit.
We have been discoursing (by implication at least) of in-
fancy, childhood, boyhood, and youth, of pleasures lying upon
the unfolding intellect plenteously as morning dew-drops — of
knowledge inhaled insensibly like the fragrance — of disposi-
tions stealing into the spirit like music from unknown quarters
— of images uncalled for and rising up like exhalations — of
hopes plucked like beautiful wild flowers from the ruined
tombs that border the highways of antiquity, to make a garland
for a living forehead : — in a word, we have been treating of na-
ture as a teacher of truth through joy and through gladness,
and as a creatress of the faculties by a process of smoothness
and delight. We have made no mention of fear, shame, sor-
row, nor of ungovernable and vexing thoughts ; because, al-
though these have been and have done mighty service, they
are overlooked in that stage of life when youth is passing in-
to manhood — overlooked, or forgotten. We now apply for
succor which we need, to a faculty that works after a different
course : that faculty is Reason : she gives more spontaneously,
but she seeks for more ; she works by thought, through feeling ;
yet in thoughts she begins and ends.
A familiar incident may elucidate this contrast in the opera-
tions of nature, may render plain the manner in which a process
of intellectual improvements, the reverse of that which nature
pursues is by reason introduced : There never perhaps existed
a school-boy who, having when he retired to rest, carelessly
blown out his candle, and having chanced to notice, as he lay
upon his bed in the ensuing darkness, the sullen light which
had survived the extinguished flame, did not, at some time or
other, watch that light as if his mind were bound to it by a
spell. It fades and revives — gathers to a point — seems as if it
would go out in a moment — again recovers its strength, nay
becomes brighter than before : it continues to shine with an
endurance, which in its apparent weakness is a mystery — it
protracts its existence so long, clinging to the power which
supports it, that the observer, who had laid down in his bed so
easy-minded, becomes sad and melancholy : his sympathies
are touched — it is to him an intimation and an image of depart-
ing human life, — the thought comes nearer to him — it is the
life of a venerated parent, of a beloved brother or sister, or of
352
an aged domestic ; who are gone to the grave, or whose desti-
ny it soon may be thus to linger, thus to hang upon the last
point of mortal existence, thus finally to depart and be seen no
more. This is nature teaching seriously and sweetly through
the affections — melting the heart, and, through that instinct of
tenderness, developing the understanding. — In this instance
the object of solicitude is the bodily life of another. Let us ac-
company this same boy to that period between youth and man-
hood, when a solicitude may be awakened for the moral life of
himself. — Are there any powers by which, beginning with a
sense of inward decay that affects not however the natural life,
he could call to mind the same image and hang over it with
an equal interest as a visible type of his own perishing spir-
it ? — Oh ! surely, if the being of the individual be under his
own care — if it be his first care — if duty begin from the point
of accountableness to our conscience, and through that, to God
and human nature ; — if without such primary sense of duty, all
secondary care of teacher, of friend, or parent, must be base-
less and fruitless ; if, lastly, the motions of the soul transcend
in worth those of the animal functions, nay give to them their
sole value ; then truly are there such powers : and the image
of the dying taper may be recalled and contemplated, though
with no sadness in the nerves, no disposition to tears, no un-
conquerable sighs, yet with a melancholy in the soul, a sink-
ing inward into ourselves from thought to thought, a steady
remonstrance, and a high resolve. — Let then the youth go back,
as occasion will permit, to nature and to solitude, thus admon-
ished by reason, and relying upon this newly acquired support.
A world of fresh sensations will gradually open upon him as
his mind puts off its infirmities," and as instead of being pro-
pelled restlessly towards others in admiration, or too hasty love,
he makes it his prime business to understand himself. New
sensations, 1 afiirm, will be opened out — pure, and sanctioned
by that reason which is their original author ; and precious
feelings of disinterested, that is self-disregarding joy and love
may be regenerated and restored : — and, in this sense, he may
be said to measure back the track of life he has trod.
In such disposition of mind let the youth return to the visi-
ble universe : and to conversation with ancient books ; and to
those, if such there be, which in the present day breathe the
ancient spirit : and let him feed upon that beauty which un-
353
folds itaelf, not to his eye as it sees carelessly the things which
cannot possibly go unseen, and are remembered or not as acci-
dent shall decide, but to the thinking mind ; which searches,
discovers, and treasures up, — infusing by meditation into the
objects with which it converses an intellectual life ; whereby
they remain planted in the memory, now, and for ever. Hith-
erto the youth, I suppose, has been content for the mostp art to
look at his own mind, after the manner in which he ranges
along the stars in the firmament with naked unaided sight :
let him now apply the telescope of art — to call the invisible
stars out of their hiding places; and let him endeavor to look
through the system of his being, with the organ of reason ; sum-
moned to penetrate, as far as it has power, in discovery of the
impelling forces and the governing laws.
These expectations are not immoderate : they demand no-
thing more than the perception of a few plain truths ; namely,
that knowledge efficacious for the production of virtue is the
ultimate end of all effort, the sole dispenser of complacency
and repose. A perception also is implied of the inherent su-
periority of contemplation to action. The Friend does not
in this contradict his own words, where he has said heretofore,
tliat " doubtless it is nobler to act than to think." In those words,
it was his purpose to censure that barren contemplation, which
rests satisfied with itself in cases where the thoughts are of such
quality that they may be, and ought to be embodied in action.
But he speaks now of the general superiority of thought to ac-
tion ; — as proceeding and governing all action that moves to
salutary purposes ; and, secondly, as leading to elevation, the
absolute possession of the individual mind, and to a consis-
tency or harmony of the being within itself, which no outward
agency can reach to disturb or to impair : — and lastly, as pro-
ducing works of pure science ; or of the combined faculties of
imagination, feeling, and reason ; — works which, both from
their independence in their origin upon accident, their nature,
their duration, and the wide spread of their influence, are enti-
tled rightly to take place of the noblest and most beneficent
deeds of heroes, statesmen, legislators, or warriors.
Yet, beginning from the perception of this established supe-
riority, we do not suppose that the youth, whom we wish to
guide and encourage, is to be insensible to those influences of
wealth, or rank, or station, by which the bulk of mankind are
45
354
Swayed. Our eyes have not been fixed upon virtue which lies
apart from human nature, or transcends it. In fact there is no
such virtue. "vVe neither suppose nor wish him to undervalue
or slight these distinctions as modes of power, things that may
enable him to be more useful to his contemporaries ; nor as
gratifications that may confer dignity upon his living person ;
and, through him, upon those who love him ; nor as they may
connect his name, through a family to be founded by his suc-
cess, in a closer chain of gratitude with some portion of poste-
rity, who shall speak of him, as among their ancestry, with a
more tender interest than the mere general bond of patriotism or
humanity would supply. We suppose no indiff"erence to, much
less a contempt of, these rewards ; but let them have their due
place ; let it be ascertained, when the soul is searched into, that
they are only an auxiliary motive to exertion, never the princi-
pal or originating force. If this be too much to expect from a
youth who, I take for granted, possesses no ordinary endowments,
and whom circumstances with respect to the more dangerous
passions have favored, then, indeed, must the noble spirit of
the country be wasted away : then would our institutions be
deplorable ; and the education prevalent among us utterly vile
and debasing.
But my Correspondent, who drew forth these thoughts, has
said rightly, that the character of the age may not without in-
justice be thus branded : he will not deny that, without speak-
ing of other countries, there is in these islands, in the depart-
ments of natural philosophy, of mechanic ingenuity, in the ge-
neral activities of the country, and in the particular excellence
of individual minds, in high stations civil or military, enough to
excite admiration and love in the sober-minded, and more than
enough to intoxicate the youthful and inexperienced. — I will
compare, then, an aspiring youth, leaving the schools in which
he has been disciplined, and preparing to bear a part in the con-
cerns of the world, I will compare him in this season of eager
admiration, to a newly-invested knight appearing with his blank
unsignalized shield, upon some day of solemn tournament, at
the Court of the Fairy-queen, as that sovereignty was concei-
ved to exist by the moral and imaginative genius of our divine
Spenser. He does not himself immediately enter the lists as a
combatant, but he looks round him with a beating heart : daz-
zled by the gorgeous pageantry, the banners, the impresses,
the ladies of overcoming beauty, the persons of the knights —
355
now first seen by him, the fame of whose actions is carried by
the traveller, like merchandize, through the world ; and re-
sounded upon the harp of the minstrel. — But I am not at liberty
to make this comparison. H a youth were to begin liis career
in such an assemblage, with such examples to guide and to ani-
mate, it will be pleaded, there should be no cause for appre-
hension : he could not falter, he could not be misled. But ours,
is notwithstanding its manifold excellencies, a degenerate age :
and recreant knights are among us far outnumbering the true.
A false Gloriana in these days imposes worthless services, which
they who perform them, in their blindness, know not to be such ;
and which are recorapenced by rewards as worthless — yet ea-
gerly grasped at, as if they were the immortal guerdon of vir-
tue.
I have in this declaration insensibly overstepped the limits
which I had determined not to pass ; let me be forgiven : for
it is hope which hath carried me forward. In such a mixed
assemblage as our age presents, v»'ith its genuine merit and its
large overbalance of alloy, I may boldly ask into what errors,
either with respect to person or thing, could a young man fall,
who had sincerely entered upon the course of moral discipline
which has been recommended, and to which the condition of
youth, it has been proved, is favorable ? His opinions could no
where deceive him beyond the point to which, after a season,
he would find that it was salutary for him to have been de-
ceived. For, as that man cannot set a right value upon
health who has never known sickness, nor feel the blessing of
ease who has been through his life a stranger to pain, so can
there be no confirmed and passionate love of truth for him who
has not experienced the hoUowness of error. — Range against
each other as advocates, oppose as combatants, two several in-
tellects, each strenously asserting doctrines which he sincerely
believes ; but the one contending for the worth and beauty
of that garment which the other has outgrown and cast away.
Mark the superiority, the ease, the dignity, on the side of the
more advanced mind, how he overlooks his subject, commands
it from centre to circumference, and hath the same thorough
knowledge of the tenets which his adversary, with impetuous
zeal, but in confusion also, and thrown oxT his guard at every
turn of the argument, is laboring to maintain ! If it be a ques-
tion of the fine arts (poetry for instance) the riper mind not
356 (
only sees that his opponent is deceived ; but, what is of far
more importance, sees how he is deceived. The imagination
stands before him with all its imperfections laid open ; as duped
by shews, enslaved by words, corrupted by mistaken delicacy
and false refinement, — as not having even attended with care
to the reports of the senses, and therefore deficient grossly in
the rudiments of her ov»n power. He has noted how, as a
supposed necessary condition.^ the understanding sleeps in or-
der that the fancy may dream. Studied in the history of socie-
ty and versed in the secret laws of thought, he can pass regu-
iary through all the gradations, can pierce infallibly all the wind-
ings, wdiich false taste through ages has pursued — from the very
time when first, through inexperience, heedlessness, or afl^ecta-
tion, she took her departure from tlie side of Truth, her origin-
al parent. Can a disputant thus accoutered be withstood?
— to whom, further, every movement in the thoughts of his
antagonist is revealed by the light of his own experience ; who,
therefore, sympathises with weakness gently, and wins his way
by forbearance ; and hath, when needful, an irresistible power
of onset, — arising from gratitude to the truth which he vindi-
cates, not merely as a positive good for mankind, but as his own
especial rescue and redemption.
I might here conclude : but my Correspondent towards the
close of his letter, has written so feelingly upon the advanta-
ges to be derived, in his estimation, from a living instructor,
that I must not leave this part of the subject without a word of
direct notice. The Friend cited, some time ago, a passage IVom
the prose works of Milton, eloquently describing the manner
in which good and evil grow up together in the field of the
world almost inseparably ; and insisting, consequently, upon
the knowledge and survey of vice as necessary to the constitu-
ting of human virtue, and the scanning of error to the confirma-
tion of Truth.
If this be so, and I have been reasoning to the same effect
in the preceding paragraph, the fact, and the thoughts which
it may suggest, will, if rightly applied, tend to moderate an
anxiety for the guidance of a more experienced or superior
mind. The advantage, where it is possessed, is far from be-
ing an absolute good : nay, such a preceptor, ever at hand,
might prove an oppression not to be thrown off, and a fatal
hinderance. Grant that in the general tenor of his intercourse
357
with his pupil he is forbearing and circumspect, inasmuch as
he is rich in that knowledge (above all other necessary for a
teacher) which cannot exist without a liveliness of memory,
preserving for him an unbroken image of the winding, excur-
sive, and often retrograde course, along which his own intel-
lect has passed. Grant that, furnished with these distinct re-
membrances, he wishes that the mind of his pupil should be
free to luxuriate in the enjoyments, loves, and admirations ap-
propriated to its age ; that he is not in haste to kill what he
knows will in due time die of itself; or be transmuted, and put
on a nobler form and higher faculties otherwise unattainable.
In a word, that the teacher is governed habitually by the wis-
dom of patience waiting with pleasure. Yet perceiving how
much the outward help of art can facilitate the progress of na-
ture, he may be betrayed into many unnecessary or pernicious
mistakes where he deems his interference warranted by sub-
stantial experience. And in spite of all his caution, remarks
may drop insensibly from him which shall wither in tlie mind
of his pupil a generous sympathy, destroy a sentiment of appro-
bation or dislike, not merely innocent but salutary; and for
the experienced disciple how many pleasures may thus be cut
off, what joy, what admiration and what love ! while in their
stead are introduced into the ingenuous mind misgivings, a
mistrust of its own evidence, dispositions to affect to feel where
there can be no real feeling, indecisive judgments, a super-
structure of opinions that has no base to support it, and words,
uttered by rote with the impertinence of a parrot or a mocking-
biid, yet which may not be listened to with the same indiffe-
rence, as they cannot be heard without some feeling of moral
disapprobation.
These results, I contend, whatever ma}^ be the benefit to be
derived from such an enlightened Teacher, are in their degree
inevitable. And by this process, humility and docile disposi-
tions may exist towards the Master, endued as he is with the
power which personal presence confers ; but at the same time
they will be liable to over-step their due bounds, and to dege-
nerate into passiveness and prostration of niind. This towards
him ! while, with respect to other living men, nay even to the
mighty spirits of past times, there may be associated with such
weakness a want of modesty and humility. Insensibly may
steal in presumption and a habit of sitting in judgment in cases
358
where no sentiment ought to have existed but diffidence or ve-
neration. Such virtues are the sacred attributes of Youth; its
appropiiate calling is not to distinguish in the fear of being de-
ceived or degraded, not to analyze with scrupulous minuteness,
but to accumulate in genial confidence ; its instinct, its safety,
its benefit, its glory, is to love, to admire, to feel, and to labor.
Nature has irrevocably decreed, that our prime dependence in
all stages of life after Infancy and Childhood have been passed
through (nor do I know that this latter ought to be excepted)
must be upon our own minds ; and that the way to knowledge
shall be long, difficult, winding, and oftentimes returning upon
itself.
What has been said is a mere sketch ; and that only of a part
of the interesting country into which we have been led : but
my Correspondent will be able to enter the paths that have
been pointed out. Should he do this and advance steadily for
a while, he needs not fear any deviations from the truth which
will be finally injurious to him. He will not long have his ad-
miration fixed upon unworthy objects ; he will neither be clog-
ged nor drawn aside by the love of friends or kindred, betray-
ing his understanding through his affections ; he will neither be
bowed down by conventional arrangements of manners produ-
-cing too often a lifeless decency : nor will the rock of his spirit
wear away in the endless beating of the waves of the world :
neither will that portion of his own time, which he must surren-
der to labors by which his livelihood is to be earned or his social
•duties performed, be unprofitable to himself indirectly, while it
is directly useful to others : for that time has been primarily
surrendered through an act of obedience to a moral law estab-
lished by himself, and therefore he moves then also along the
orbit of perfect liberty.
Let it be remembered, that the advice requested does not
relate to the government of the more dangerous passions, or
to the fundamental principles of right and wrong as acknow-
ledged by the universal conscience of mankind. I may there-
fore assure my youthful Correspondent, if he will endeavor to
look into himself in the manner which I have exhorted him to
do, that in him the wish will be realized, to him in due time
the prayer granted, which was uttered by that living Teacher
of whom he speaks with gratitude as a benefactor, when, in
his character of a philosophical Poet, having thought of Mora-
359
tity as implying in its essence voluntary obedience, and produ-
cing the effect of order, he transfers in the transport of imagi-
nation, the law of moral to physical natures, and having con-
templated, through the medium of that order, all modes of ex-
istence as subservient to one spirit, concludes his address to
the power of Duty in the following words :
To humbler functions, awful Power !
I call thee : I myself commend
Unto thy guidance from this hour ;
Oh, let my weakness have an end !
Give unto me, made lowly wise,
The spirit of self-sacrifice ;
The confidence of reason give !
And in the light of Truth thy Bondman let me live !
W. W.
THE FRIEND
SECTION THE SECOND.
ON THE
GROUND S
or
MORALS AND RELIGION,
AND THE
DISCIPLINE OF THE MIND REQUISITE FOR A TRUE UNDER-
STANDING OF THE SAME.
46
I know, tho seeming and self-pleasing wisflom of our times consists much
in cavilling and unjustly carping at all tilings that see hght, and that there
are many who earnestly hunt after the publicke fame of Learning and Judg-
ment by this easily trod and desjiicable path, which, notwithstanding, they
tread with as much confidence as folly : for that, ofltimes, which they vainly
and unjustly brand with opprobrie, outlives their fate, and flourisheth when
it is forgot that ever any such, as they, had Being. — Dedication to Lord Herbert
of Ambrose Farcy's Works by Tliomas Johison^ the Translator, 1634.
v^^
ESSAY I .
We cannot but look up with reverence to the advanced natures of the natu-
ralists and moralists in highest repute amongst us: and wish they had
been heightened by a more noble ])nneiple, which had crowned all their
various sciences with the principal science, and in their brave strayings
after truth helpt them to better fortune than only to meet with her hand-
maids, and kept them from the fate of Ulysses, who wandering through the
shades met all the ghosts, yet could not see the queen.
J. H. (John Hall?) hi^ Motion to the Parllameirt of Eng-
land'f concerning the Advancement of Learning.
The preceding section had for its express object the princi-
ples of our duty as citizens, or morality as applied to politics.
According to his scheme there remained for the friend first,
to treat of the principles of morality generally, and then on
those of religion. But since the commencement of this edi-
tion, the question has repeatedly arisen in my mind, whether
morality can be said to have any principle distinguishable from
religion, or religion any substance divisible from morality ? Or
should I attempt to distinguish them by their objects, so that
morality were the religion which we owe to things and persons
of this life, and religion our morality toward God and the per-
manent concerns of our own souls, and those of our brethren :
yet it would be evident, that the latter must involve the for-
mer, while any pretence to the former without the latter would
be as bold a mockery as, if having withheld an estate from the
rightful owner, we should seek to appease our conscience by the
plea, that we had not failed to bestow alms on him in his beg-
gary. It was never my purpose, and it does not appear to be
the want of the age, to bring together the rules and induce-
ments of worldly prudence. But to substitute these for the
SG4
laws of reason and conscience, or even to confound them un-
der one name, is a prejudice, say rather a profanation, which I
became more and more reluctant to flatter by even an appear-
ance of assent, though it were only in a point of form and tech-
nical arrangement.
At a time, when my thoughts were thus employed, I met with
a volume of old tracts, published during the interval from the
captivity of Charles the First to the restoration of his son.
Since my earliest manhood it had been among my fondest re-
grets, that a more direct and frequent reference had not been
made by our historians to the books, pamphlets, and flying sheets
of that momentous period, during which all the possible forms
of truth and error (the latter being themselves for the greater
part caricatures of truth) bubbled up on the surface of the pub-
lic mind, as in the ferment of a chaos. It would be difficult to
conceive a notion or a fancy, iu politics, ethics, theology, or
even in physics and physiology, which had not been anticipated
by the men of that age : in this as in most other respects sharply
contrasted with the products of the French revolution, which
was scarcely more characterized by its sanguinary and sensual
abominations than (to borrow the words of an eminent living
poet) by
A dreary want at once of books and men.
The parliament's army was not wholly composed of mere fana-
tics. There was no mean proportion of enthusiasts : and that
enthusiasm must have been of no ordinary grandeur, which
could draw from a common soldier, in an address to his com-
rades, such a dissuasive from acting in " the cruel spirit of fear !"
such words and such sentiments, as are contained in the following
extract which I would fain rescue from oblivion,* both for the
honor of our fore-fathers, and in proof of the intense difference
between the republicans of that period, and the democrats, or
rather demagogues, of the present. " I judge it ten times more
honorable for a single person, in witnessing a truth to oppose
* Tlie more so bccanse every year consumes its quota. The late Sir Wil-
fred Lawson'rf predecessor, from some pique or other, left a large and unique
collection, of the paniphlets''publi.shed from the commencement of the Parlia-
ment war to the restoration, to liis butler, and it supplied tlie chandlers' and
dniggists' shops of Penrith and Kendal for many years.
365
the world in its power, wisdom and authority, this standing tn
its full strength, and he singly and nakedly, than fighting many
battles by force of arms, and gaining them all. I have no life
but truth : and if truth be advanced by my suffering, then mj
life also. If truth live, I live : if justice live, I live : and these
cannot die, but by any man's suffering for them are enlarged,
enthroned. Death cannot hurt me. I sport with him, am above
his reach. I live an immortal life. What we have within, that
only can we see without. I cannot see death : and he that hath
not this freedom is a slave. He is in the arms of that, the phan-
tom of which he beholdeth and seemeth to himself to flee from.
Thus, you see that the king hath a will to redeem his present
loss. You see it by means of the lust after power in your own
hearts. For my part I condemn his unlawful seeking after it.
I condemn his falsehood and indirectness therein. But if he
should not endeavor the restoring of the kingliness to the
realm, and the dignity of its kings, he were false to his trust,
false to the majesty of God that he is intrusted with. The
desire of recovering his loss is justifiable. Yea, I should
condemn him as unbelieving and pusillanimous, if he should
not hope for it. But here is his misery and yours too at pre-
sent, that ye are unbelieving and pusillanimous, and are, both
alike, pursuing things of hope in the spirit of fear. Thus
you condemn the parliament for acknowledging the king's pow-
er so far as to seek to him by a treaty ; while by taking such
pains against him you manifest your own belief that he hath a
great power — which is a wonder, that a prince despoiled of all
his authority, naked, a prisoner, destitute of all friends and
helps, wholly at the disposal of others, tied and bound too with
all obligations that a parliament can imagine to hold him, should
yet be such a terror to you, and fright you into such a large re-
monstrance, and such perilous proceedings to save yourselves
from him. Either there is some strange power in him, or you
are full of fear that are so affecled with a shadow.
But as you give testimony to his power, so you take a course
to advance it ; for there is nothing that hath any spark of God
in it, but the more it is suppressed, the more it rises. If you
did indeed believe, that the original of power were in the peo-
ple, you would believe likewise that the concessions extorted
from the king would rest with you, as doubtless, such of them
as in righteousness ought to have been given, would do ; but
that your violent courses disturb the natural order of thinga,
3^6
an which they still tend to their centre : and so far from being the
way to secure what we have got, they are the way to lose them,
and (for a time at least) to set up princes in a higher form than
ever. For all things by force compelled from their nature will
fly back with the greater earnestness on the removal of that
force : and this, in the present case, must soon weary itself out,
and hath no less an enemy in its own satiety than in the disap-
pointment of the people.
Again : you speak of the king's reputation — and do not con-
sider that the more you crush him, the sweeter the fragrance
that comes from him. While he suffers, the spirit of God and
glory rests upon him. There is a glory and a freshness spark-
ling in him by sufFering, an excellency that was hidden, and
which you have drawn out. And naturally men are ready to
pity sufferers. When nothing will gain me, affliction will. I
confess his sufferings make me a royalist, who never cared for
him. He that doth and can suffer shall have my heart: you
had it while you suffered. But now your severe punishment of
him for his abuses in government, and your own usurpations,
will not only win the hearts of the people to the oppressed suf-
fering king, but provoke them to rage against you, as having
robbed them of the interest which they had in his royalty. For
the king is in the people, and the people in the king. The
king's being is not solitary, but as he is in union with his people,
who are his strength in which he lives ; and the people's being
is not naked, but an interest in the greatness and wisdom of the
king who is their honor which lives in them. And though you
will disjoin yourselves from kings, God will not, neither will I,
God is King of kings, kings' and princes' God, as well a peo-
ple's, theirs as well as ours, and theirs eminently (as the speech
enforces, God of Israel, that is, Israel's God above all other
nations : and so king of kings,) by a near and especial kindred
and communion. Kingliness agrees with all Christians, who
are indeed Christians. For they are themselves of a royal na-
ture, made kings with Christ, and cannot but be friends to it,
being of kin to it : and if there were not kings to honor, they
would want one of the appointed objects to bestow that fulness
of honor which is in their breasts. A virtue would lie unem-
ployed vi-ithiu them, and in prison, pining and restleps from the
want of it3 outv/ard correlative, it is a bastard religion, that
is inconsistent with the majesty and the greatness of the most
367
splendid monarch. Such spirits are strangers from the king-
dom of heaven. Either they know not the glory in which
God lives : or they are of narrow minds that are corrupt them-
selves, and not able to bear greatness, and so think that God
will not, or cannot, qualify men for such high places with cor-
respondent and proportionable power and goodness. Is it not
enough to have removed the malignant bodies which eclipsed
the royal sun, and mixed their bad influences with his.-' And
would you extinguish the sun itself to secure yourselves ?
this is the spirit of bondage to fear, and not of love and a
sound mind. To assume the office and the name of champions
for the common interest, and of Christ's soldiers, and yet to
act for self safety is so poor and mean a thing that it must
produce most vile and absurd actions, the scorn of the old pa-
gans, but for Christians who in all things are to love their
neighbor as themselves, and God above both, it is of all affec-
tions the unworthiest. Let me be a fool and boast, if so I may
shew you, while it is yet time, a little of that rest and security
which I and those of the same spirit enjoy, and which you have
turned your backs upon ; self, like a banished thing, Vv^andering
in strange ways. First, then, I fear no party, or interest, for I
love all, I am reconciled to all, and therein I lind all reconciled
to me. I have enmity to none but the son of perdition. It is
enmity begets insecurity : and while men live in the flesh, and
in enmity to any party, or interest, in a private, divided, and
self good, there will be, there cannot but be, perpetual wars :
except that one particular should quite ruin all other parts and
live alone, which the universal must not, will not suffer. For
to admit a part to devour and absorb the others, were to de-
stroy the whole, which is God's presence therein ; and such a
mind in any part doth not only fight with another part, but
against the whole. Every faction of men, therefore, striving
to make themselves absolute, and to owe their safety to their
strength, and not to their sympathy, do directly war against
God who is love, peace, and a general good, gives being to all
and cherishes all, and, therefore, can have neither peace or se-
curity. But we being enlarged into the largeness of God, and
comprehending all things in our bosoms by the divine spirit, are
at rest with all, and delight in all ; for we know nothing but
what is, in its essence, in our own hearts. Kings, nobles, are
much beloved of us, because they are in us, of us, one with ua,
368
we 36 Christians being kings and lords by the anointing af
God."
But such sentiments, it will be said, are the flights of Spe-
culative Minds. Be it so ! Yet to soar is nobler than to
creep. We attach, likewise, some value to a thing on the mere
score of its rarity ; and Speculative Minds, alas ! have been
rare, though not equally rare, in all ages and countries of civi-
lized man. With us the very word seems to have abdicated its
legitimate sense. Instead of designating a mind so constituted
and disciplined as to find in its own wants and instincts an
interest in truths for their truth's sake, it is now used to
signify a practical schemer, one who ventures beyond the
bounds of experience in the formation and adoption of new
ways and means for the attainment of wealth, or power. To
possess the end in the means, as it is essential to morality in
the moral world, and the contra-distinction of goodness from
mere prudence, so is it, in the intellectual world, the moral con-
stituent of genius, and that by which true genius is contra-dis-
tinguished from mere talent. (See the postsci'ipt at the end of
this essay.)
The man of talent, who is, if not exclusively, yet chiefly and
characteristically a man of talent^ seeks and values the means
wholly in relation to some object not therein contained. His
means may be peculiar ; but his ends are conventional, and com-
mon to the mass of mankind. Alas ! in both cases alike, in that
of genius, as well as in that of talent, it too often happens, that
this diversity in the " moruW of their several intellects, ex-
tends to the feelings and impulses properly and directly morale
to their dispositions, habits, and maxims of conduct. It char-
acterizes not the intellect alone, but the whole man. The one
substitutes prudence for virtue, legality in act and demeanor,
for warmth and purity of heart : and too frequently becomes
jealous, envious, a coveter of other men's good gifts, and a de-
tractor from their merits, open or secretly, as his fears or his
passions chance to preponderate.*
* According to the principles of Spurzhcim's Crauioscopy (a scheme, the
indicative or gnomoiik parts of vvliich have a stronger support in facts than
the theory in reason or common sense) we should find in the skull of such an
inflividunl the organs of circumspection and appropriation disproportionately
lar^e and prominent compared with those of ideality and benevolence. It is
359
The other, on the contrary, might remind us of the zealots
for legitimate succession after the decease of our sixth Edward,
who not content with having placed the rightful sovereign on
the throne, would wreak their vengeance on " the meek usurp-
er," who had been seated on it by a will against which she had
herself been the first to remonstrate. For with that unhealth-
ful preponderance of impulse over motive, which, though no
part of genius, is too often its accompaniment, he lives in con-
tinued hostility to prudence, or banishes it altogether ; and
thus deprives virtue of her guide and guardian, her prime
functionary, yea, the very organ of her outward life. Hence a
benevolence that squanders its shafts and still misses its aim, or
like the charmed bullet that, levelled at the wolf brings down
the shepherd ! Hence desultoriness, extremes, exhaustion
And thereof comes in the end despondency and madness !
Wordsworth.
Let it not be forgotten, however, that these evils are the dis-
ease of the man, while the records of biography furnish ample
proof, that genius, in the higher degree, acts as a preservative
against them : more remarkably, and in more frequent instan-
ces, when the imagination and preconstructive power have ta-
ken a scientific or philosophic direction : as in Plato, indeed in
almost all the first-rate philosophers — in Kepler, Milton, Boyle,
Newton, Leibnitz, and Berkley. At all events, a certain num-
ber of speculative minds is necessary to a cultivated state of
society, as a condition of its progressiveness : and nature her-
self has provided against any too great increase in this class of
her productions. As the gifted masters of the divining Rod to
the ordinary miners, and as the miners of a country to the
husbandmen, mechanics, and artisans, such is the proportion of
the Trismegisti, to the sum total of speculative minds, even of
those, I mean, that are truly such ; and of these again, to the
remaining mass of useful laborers r.nd " operatives''^ in science,
literature, and the learned professions.
certain that the organ of appropriation, or (more correctly) the part of the
skull asserted to be significant of that tendency anc. cciVespondent to the or-
gan, is strikingly large in a cast of the head of the famous Dr. Dodd ; and it
was found of equal dimension in a literary man, whose skull puzzled the
cranioscopist more than it did me. Nature, it should seem, makes no dis-
tinction between manuscripts and money-drafts, though the law does.
47
370
This train of thought brings to ray recollection a conversation
with a friend of my youth, an old man of humble estate ; but
in whose society I had great pleasure. The reader will, I
hope, pardon me if I embrace the opportunity of recalling old
affections, afforded me by its fitness to illustrate the present
subject. A sedate man he was, and had been a miner from his
boyhood. Well did he represent the old " lo7ig syne,^^ when
every trade was a mystery and had its own guardian saint ;
when the sense of self-importance was gratified at home^ and
Ambition had a hundred several lotteries, in one or other of
which every freeman had a ticket, and the only blanks were
drawn by Sloth, Intemperance, or inevitable Calamity ; when
the detail of each art and trade (like the oracles of the proph-
ets, interpretable in a double sense) was ennobled in the eyes
of its professors by being spiritually improved into symbols and
mementos of all doctrines and all duties, and every craftsman
had, as it were, two versions of his Bible, one in the common
language of the country, another in the acts, objects, and pro-
ducts of his own particular craft. There are not many things
in our elder popular literature, more interesting to me than
those contests, or Amoibean eclogues, between workmen for
the superior worth and dignity of their several callings, which
used to be sold at our village fairs, in stitched sheets, neither
untitled nor undecorated, though without the superfluous costs
of a separate title-page.
With this good old miner I was once walking through a corn-
field at harvest-time, when that part of the conversation, to
which I have alluded, took place. At times, said I, when you
were delving in the bowels of the arid mountain or foodless
rock, it must have occurred to your mind as a pleasant thought,
that in providing the scythe and the sword you were virtually
reaping the harvest and protecting the harvest-man. Ah! he
replied with a sigh, that gave a fuller meaning to his smile, out
of all earthly things there come both good and evil : the good
through God, and the evil from the evil heart. From the look
and weight of the ore I learnt to make a near guess, how much
iron it would yield ; but neither its heft, nor its hues, nor its
breakage would prophecy to me, whether it was to become a
thievish pick-lock, a murderer's dirk, a slave's collar, or the
woodman's axe, the feeding ploughshare, the defender's sword,
or the mechanic's tool. So perhaps, my young friend ! I have
371
cause to be thankful, that the opening upon a fresh vein gives
me a delight so full as to allow no room for other fancies, and
leaves behind it a hope and a love that support me in my labor,
even for the labor's sake.
As, according to the eldest philosophy, life being in its own
nature aeriform, is under the necessity of renewing itself by
inspiring the connatural, and therefore assimilable air, so is it
with the intelligential soul with respect to truth : for it is itself
of the nature of truth, revo.as'vv) hx hsupias^ y.ai 'hia\WL Ssrov, (fiidiv
ex^iM (piXo'hsoLiJ.ova u*ap5(ii. Plotinus. But the occasion and brief
history of the decline of true speculative philosophy, with the
origin of the separation of ethics from religion, I must defer to
the following number.
POSTSCRIPT.
As I see many good, and can anticipate no ill consequences,
in the attempt to give distinct and appropriate meanings to
words hitherto synonymous, or at least of indefinite and fluctu-
ating application, if only the proposed sense be not passed up-
on the reader as the existing and authorized one, I shall make
no other apology for the use of the word. Talent, in this pre-
ceding Essay and elsewhere in my works than by annexing the
following explanation. I have been in the habit of consider-
ing the qualities of intellect, the comparative eminence in
which characterizes individuals and even countries, under four
kinds — Genius, Talent, Sense, and Cleverness. The first
I use in the sense of most general acceptance, as the faculty
which adds to the existing stock of power, and knowledge by
new views, new combinations, &c. In short, I define Genius,
as originality in intellectual construction : the moral accompa-
niment, and actuating principle of which consists, perhaps, in
the carrying on of the freshness and feelings of childhood into
the powers of manhood.
By Talent, on the other hand, I mean the comparative fa-
cility of acquiring, arranging, and applying the stock furnished
by others and already existing in books or other conservato-
ries of intellect.
By Sense I understand that just balance of the faculties which
is to the judgment what health is to the body. The mind seems
372
to act en masses by a synthetic rather than an analytic process :
even as the outward senses, from which the metaphor is taken,
perceive immediately, each as it were by a peculiar tact
or intuition, v/ithout any consciousness of the mechanism by
which the perception is realized. This is often exemplified
in well-bred, unallected, and innocent women. I know a lady,
on whose judgment, from constant experience of its rectitude,
I could rely almost as on an oracle. But when she has some-
times proceeded to a detail of the grounds and reasons for her
opinion — then, led by similar experience I have been tempted
to interrupt her with — " I will take your advice," or, " I shall
act on your opinion : for I am sure, you are in the right. But
as to the jO}'s and becauses^ leave them to me to find out."
The general accompaniment of Sense is a disposition to avoid
extremes, whether in theory or in practice, with a desire to
remain in sympatiiy with the general mind of the age or coun-
try, and a feeling of the necessity and utility of compj'omise.
If Genius be the initiative, and Talent the administrative,
Sense is the conservative^ branch, in the intellectual re-
public.
By Clt:verness (which I dare not with Dr. Johnson call a
lota word, while there is a sense to be expressed which it alone
expresses) I mean a comparative readiness in the invention and
use of moans, for the realizing of objects and ideas — often of
such ideas, which the man of genius only could have origina-
ted, and which the clever man perhaps neither fully compre-
hends nor adequately appreciates, even at the moment that he
is prompting or executing the machinery of their accomplish-
ment. In short. Cleverness is a sort of genius for instrumen-
tality. It is the brain in the hand. In literature Cleverness is
more frequently accompanied by wit, Genius and Sense by hu-
mor.
If I take the three great countries of Europe, in respect of
intellectual character, namely, Germany, England, and France,
I should characterize them thus — premising only that in the
first line of the two first tables I mean to imply that Genius,
rare in all countries, is equal in both of these, the instances
equally numerous — and characteristic therefore not in relation
to each other, but in relation to the third country. The other
qualities are more general characteristics.
373
GEmMjVY.
Genius,
Talent,
Fancy.
The latter chiefly as exhibited in wild combination and in
pomp of ornament. N. B. Imagination is implied in Genius.
E^GLJUVD.
Genius,
Sense,
Humor.
FIL/IJVCE.
Cleverness,
Talent,
Wit.
So again with regard to the forms and effects, in which the
qualities manifest themselves, i. e. intellectually.
GERMANY.
Idea, or Law anticipated,*
Totality,!
Distinctness.
EMGLAJVD.
Law discovered,!
Selection,
Clearness.
* This as co-ordinate witii Genius in the first table, applies likewise to tho
few only: and conjoined with the two following qualities, as genera) charac-
teristics of German intellect, includes or supposes, as its consequences and
accompaniments speculation, system, method ; which in a somewhat lower
class of minds appear as notionality (or a predilection for noumena, mundua
intelligibilis, as contra-distinguished from phenomena, or mundus sensibilis)
scheme; arrangement; orderliness.
f In totality I imply encycloptedic learning, exhaustion of the subjects treat-
ed of, and the passion for completing and the love of the complete.
XSee the following Essays on Method. It might have been expressed — as the
contemplation of ideas objectively, as existing powers, while the German of
equal genius is predisposed to contemplate law subjectively, with anticipation
of a correspondent in nature.
374
FRAXCE.
Theory invented,
Particularity.*
Palpability.
Lastly, we might exhibit the same qualities in their moral,
religious, and political manifestations : in the cosmopolitism of
Germany, the contemptuous nationality of the Englishman, and
the ostentatious and boastful nationality of the Frenchman. The
craving of sympathy marks the German : inward pride the Eng-
lishman : vanity the Frenchman. So again, enthusiasm, vision-
ariness seems the tendency of the German : zeal, zealotry of
the English : fanaticism of the French. But the thoughtful
reader will find these and many other characteristicj points
contained in, and deducible from the relations in which the mind
of the three countries bears to Time.
GEmMMY.
Past and Future.
EMGLAJSTD.
Past and Present.
FRA^rCE.
The Present.
A whimsical friend of mine, of more genius than discretion,
characterizes the Scotchman of literature (confining his remark,
however, to the period since the Union) as a dull Frenchman
and a superficial German. But when I recollect the splendid ex-
ceptions of Hume, Robertson, Smollett, Reid, Thomson (if
* Tendency to individualize, embody, insulate, ex.gr. the vitreous and the
resinous fluids instead of the positive and negative forces of the power of
electricity. Thus too, it was not sufficient that oxygen was the principal,
and with one exception, the only then known acidifying substance ; the pow-
er and principle of acidification must be embodied and as it were impersona-
ted and hypostasized in this gas. Hence the idolism of the French, here ex-
pressed in one of its results, viz. palpability. Ideas are here out of the ques-
tion. I had almost said, that Ideas and a Parisian Philosopher are incompa-
tible terms, since the latter half, I mean, of the reign of Lewis XVI. But
even the Conceptions of a Frenchman, whatever lie admits to be conceivable
must be imageable, and the imageable must be fancied tangible — the non-appa-
rency of either or both being accounted for by the disproportion of our senses,
not by the nature of the conceptions.
375
this last instance be not objected to as savoring of geographical
pedantry, that truly amiable man, and genuine poet having been
born but a few furlongs from the English border,) Dugald
Stewart, Burns, Walter Scott, Hogg and Campbell — not
to mention the very numerous physicians and prominent dis-
senting ministers, born and bred beyond the Tweed — I hesitate
in recording so wild an opinion, which derives its plausibility,
chiefly from the circumstance so honorable to our northern sis-
ter, that Scotchmen generally have more, and a more learned,
education than the same ranks in other countries, below the
first class ; but in part likewise, from the common mistake of
confounding the general character of an emigrant, whose ob-
jects are in one place and his best affections in another, with
the particular character of a Scotchman : to which we may add,
perhaps, the clannish spirit of provincial literature, fostered un-
doubtedly by the peculiar relations of Scotland, and of which
therefore its metropolis may be a striking, but is far from being
a solitary, instance.
ESSAY II.
'H. "odog y.urio'
The road downward,
Heraclit. Fragment.
Amour de moi meme ; mais bien calcule : was the motto
and maxim of a French philosopher. Our fancy inspirited by
the more imaginative powers of hope and fear enables us to
present to ourselves the future as the present : and thence to
accept a scheme of self-love for a system of morality. And
376
doubtless, an enlightened self-interest would recommend the
same course of outward conduct, as the sense of duty would
do ; even though the motives in the former case had respect to
this life exclusively. But to show the desirableness of an ob-
ject, or the contrary, is one thing: to excite the desire, to con-
stitute the aversion, is another : the one being to the other as a
common guide-post to the " chariot instinct with spirit," which
at once directs and conveys, or (to use a more trival image) as
the hand, and hour-plate, or at the utmost the regulator, of a
watch to the spring and wheel work, or rather to the whole
watch. Nay, where the sufficiency and exclusive validity of
the former are adopted as the maxim (regula maxima) of the
moral sense, it would be a fairer and fuller comparison to say,
that it is to the latter as the dial to the sun, indicating its path
by intercepting its radiance.
But let it be granted, that in certain individuals from a hap-
py evenness of nature, formed into a habit by the strength of
education, the influence of example, and by favorable circum-
stances in general, the actions diverging from self-love as their
center should be precisely the same as those produced from the
Christian principle, which requires of us that we should place
our self and our neighbor at an equi-distance, and love both
alike as modes in which we realize and exhibit the love of God
above all : wherein would the difference be then? I answer
boldly : even in that, for which all actions have their whole
worth and their main value — in the agents themselves. So
much indeed is this of the very substance of genuine morality,
that wherever the latter has given way in the general opinion
to a scheme of ethics founded on utility, its place is soon chal-
lenged by the spirit of honor. Paley, who degrades the spir-
it of honor into a mere club-law among the higher classes ori-
ginating in selfish convenience, and enforced by the penalty of
excommunication from the society which habit had rendered
indispensable to the happiness of the individuals, has miscon-
strued it not less than Shaftsbury, who extols it as the noblest
influence of noble natures. The spirit of honor is more in-
indeed than a mere conventional substitute for honesty ; but
on the other hand instead of being a finer form of moral life, it
may be more truly described as the shadow or ghost of virtue
deceased. For to take the word in a sense, which no man of
honor would acknowledge, may be allowed to the writer of sa-
377
ttres, but not to the moral philosopher. Honor implies a rer-
erence for the invisible and supersensual in our nature, and so
far it is virtue ; but it is a virtue that neither understands it-
self or its true source, and therefore often unsubstantial, not
seldom fantastic, and always more or less capricious. Abstract
the notion from the lives of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, or
Henry the Fourth of France : and then compare it with the 1
Corinth, xiii. and the epistle to Philemon, or rather with the
realization of this fair ideal in the character of St. Paul* him-
self. I know not a better test. Nor can I think of any inves-
tigation, that would be more instructive where it would be sa/e,
but none likewise of greater delicacy from the probability of
misinterpretation, than a history of the rise of konor in the
European monarchies as connected with the corruptions of
Christianity ; and an inquiry into the specific causes of the in-
efficacy which has attended the combined efforts of divines
and moralists against the practice and obligation of duelling.
Of a widely different character from this moral K)ps(?J5, yet as a
derivative from the same root, we may contemplate the heresies
of the Gnostics in the early ages of the church, and of the fa-
* This has struck tlie better class even of infidels. Collins, one of the
most learned of our English Deists, is said to have declared, that contradic-
tory as miracles appeared to his reason, he would believe in them notwith-
standing, if it could be proved to him that St. Paul had asserted any one as
having been worked hy himself in the modern sense of the word, miracle ;
adding, "S. Paul tvas so perfect a gerdlemun and a man of honor!" When I
call duelling, and similar aberrations of honor, a moral heresy; I refer to the
force of the Greek 'aiQeaig as signifying a principle or opinion taken up by
THE WILL for the wilVs sake, as a proof and pledge to itself of its own power
of self-determination, independent of all other motives. In the gloomy grat-
ification derived or ruiticipated from the exercise of this aweful power — the
condition of all moral good while it is latent, and hidden, as it were, in the
center ; but the essential cause of fiendish guilt, v/hen^it makes itself exist-
ential and peripheric — si quando in circumferentiam erumpat: (in both cases
I have purposely adopted the language of the old mystic thcosophers)— I find
the only explanation of a moral phcenornenon not very uncommon in the last
moments of condemned felons — viz. the obstinate denial, not of the main guilt,
which might be accounted for by ordinai-y motives, but of some paiticularact
which had been proved beyond all ])ossibility of doubt, and attested by the
criminal's own accomplices and fellow sufferers in their last confessions: and
this too an act, the non-perpetration of wliich, if believed, could neither mit-
igate the sentence of the law, nor even the opinions of men after the sen- "
tence had been carried into execution.
48
378
mily of love, with other forms of Antinomianism, since the
Reformation to the present day. But lest in uttering truth I
should convey falsehood and fall myself into the error which it
is my object to expose, it will be requisite to distinguish an
apprehension of the whole of a truth, even where that appre-
hension is dim and indistinct, from a partial perception of the
same rashly assumed^ as a perception of the whole. The first
is rendered inevitable in many things for many, in some points
for all, men from the progressiveness no less than from the im-
perfection of humanity, which itself dictates and enforces the
precept. Believe that thou mayest understand. The most
knowing must at times be content with the facit of a sum too
complex or subtle for us to follow nature through the antece-
dent process. The Greek verb, rfuvi'svai, which we render by
the word, understand, is literally the same as our own idiomat-
ic phrase, to go along with. Hence in subjects not under the
cognizance of the senses wise men have always attached a high
value to general and long-continued assent, as a presumption of
truth. After all the subtle reasonings and fair analogies which
logic and induction could supply to a mighty intellect, it is yet
on this ground that the Socrates of Plato mainly rests his faith
in the immortality of the soul, and the moral Government of
the universe. It had been held by all nations in all ages, but
with deepest conviction by the best and wisest men, as a belief
connatural with goodness and akin to prophecy. The same ar-
gument is adopted by Cicero, as the principal ground of his ad-
herence to divination. Gentem quidem nullam video neque
tam immanem tamque barbaram, quae non significari futura et a
quibusdam intelligi prsedicique posse censeat.* I confess, I
*= (Translation) — I find indeed no people or nation, however civilized and
cultivated, or however wild and barbarous, but have deemed tliat there are
antecedent signs of future events, and some men ca])able of understanding
and predicting them.
I am tempted to add a passage from my own translation of Sciiiller's
Wallenstein, the more so that the work has been long ago ii^ed up, as ^^ wind-
ing sheets for pilchards," or extant only by (as I would fain flatter myself) the
kind partiality of tiie trunk-makers : though with rxcp|)tion of works for
which pubhc adniiration supersedes or includes individual commendations, I
scarce remember a book that has been more honored by the cxiuess attesta-
tions in its favor of eminent and even of pojjular literati, among whom I
take this oi)portunity of expressing my acknowledgements to the author of
379
can never read the De Divinatione of this great orator, states-
man, and patriot, without feeling myself inclined to consider
this opinion as an instance of the second class, namely, of
fractional truths integrated by fancy, passion, accident, and that
preponderance of the positive over the negative in the memo-
ry, vrhich makes it no less tenacious of coincidences than for-
getful of failures.
Countess. What? dost thou not believe, that oft in dreaina
A. voice of warning si)eaks prophetic to us ?
Wallenstein. I will not doubt that there have been such voices;
Yet I would not call them
Voices of ivarning, that announce to us
Only the inevitable. As the sun, *
Ere it is risen, sometimes paints its image
In the atmosphere : so often do the spirits
Of great events stride on before events
And in to-day already ivalks to-morrow.
That which we read of the Fourth Henry's death
Did ever vex and haunt me, like a tale
Of my own future destiny. The king
Felt iu his breast the phantom of the knife.
Long ere Ravaillac arm'd himself therewith.
His quiet mind forsook him: the phantasma
Started him in his Louvre, chaced him forth
Into the open air. Like funeral knells
Sounded that coronation festival;
And still with boding sense he heard the tread
Of tliose feet, that even then were seeking him
Throughout the streets of Paris.
Wallenstein, part ii. act v. scene i.
^O'
I am indeed firmly persuaded, that no doctrine was ever
widely diffused, among various nations through successive ages,
Waverly, Guy Mannering, &c. How (asked Ulysses, addressing his guar-
dian goddess) shall I be aiile to recognize Proteus, in the swallow that skims
round our houses whom I have been accustomed to behold as a swan of
Phcebus, measuring his movements to a celestial music ? In both alike, she
replied, thou canst I'ecognize the god.
So supported, I dare avow that I have thought my translation worthy of a
more favorable reception from the public and their literary guides and pur-
veyors. But when I recollect, that a much better and very far more valua-
ble work, the Rev. IMr. Carey's incomparable translation of Dante, had very
nearly met with the same fate, I lose all right, and, I trust, all inclinauon to
complain: an inchnation, which the mere sense of its folly and uselessneas
will not always sufBce to preclude.
380
and onder different religions (such, for instance, as the tenets
of original sin and of redemption, those fundamental articles of
every known religion professing to have been revealed), which
is not founded either in the nature of things, or in the necessi-
ties of human nature. Nay, the more strange and irreconcile-
able such a doctrine may appear to the understanding, the
judgments of which are grounded on general rules abstracted
from the world of the senses, the stronger is the presumption
in its favor. For whatever satirist may say, or sciolists ima-
gine, the human mind has no predilection for absurdity. I
would even extend the principle (proportionately I mean) to
sundry tenets, that from their strangeness or dangerous tenden-
cy, appear only to be generally reprobated, as eclipses in the
belief of barbarous tribes are to be frightened away by noises
and execrations; but which rather resemble the luminary itself
in this one respect, that after a longer or shorter interval of
occultation, they are still found to re-emerge. It is these, the
re-appearance of which (nomine lantum mutato), from age to
age, gives to ecclesiastical history a deeper interest than that of
romance and scarcely less wild, for every philosophic mind. I
am far from asserting that such a doctrine (the Antinomian,
for instance, or that of a latent mystical sense in the words of
Scripture, according to Emanuel Swedenborg) shall be always
the best possible, or not a distorted and dangerous, as well as
partial, representation of the truth, on which it is founded.
For the same body casts strangely different shadows in different
positions and different degrees of light. But I dare, and do,
affirm that it always does shadow out some important truth, and
from it derives its main influence over the faith of its adher-
ents, obscure as their perception of this truth may be, and
though they may themselves attribute their belief to the super-
natural gifts of the founder, or the miracles by which his
preaching had been accredited. See Wesley^s Journal. But
we have the highest possible authority, that of Scripture itself,
to justify us in putting the question: Whether miracles can,
of themselves, work a true conviction in the mind ? There are
spiritual truths which must derive their evidence from within,
which whoever rejects, " neither will he believe though a man
were to rise from the dead" to confirm them. And under the
Mosaic law a miracle in attestation of a false doctrine subjected
^he miracle-worker to death : whether really or only seemingly
381
supernatural, makes no difference in the present argument, its
power of convincing, whatever that power may be, whether
great or small, depending on the fulness of the belief in its
miraculous nature. Est quibus esse videtur. Or rather, that I
may express the same position in a form less likely to offend, is
not a true efficient conviction of a moral truth, is not "the cre-
ating of a new heart," which collects the energies of a man's
whole being in the focus of the conscience, the one essential
miracle, the same and of the same evidence to the ignorant and
learned, which no superior skill can counterfeit, human or dae-
moniacal ? Is it not emphatically that leading of the Father,
without which no man can come to Christ ? Is it not that im-
plication of doctrine in the miracle, and of miracle in the doc-
trine, which is the bridge of communication between the senses
and the soul ? That predisposing warmth that renders the un-
derstanding susceptible of the specific impression from the his-
toric, and from all other outward, seals of testimony ? Is not
this the one infallible criterion of miracles, by which a man can
know whether they be of God? The abhorrence in which the
most savage or barbarous tribes hold witchcraft, in which how-
ever their belief is so intense* as even to control the springs
of life, — is not this abhorrence of witchcraft under so full a
conviction of its reality a proof, how little of divine, how little
fitting to our nature, a miracle is, when insulated from spiritual
truths, and disconnected from religion as its end ? What then can
we think of a theological theory, which adopting a scheme of
prudential legality, common to it with " the sty of Epicurus"
as far at least as the S2)rings of moral action are concerned,
makes its whole religion consist in the belief of miracles ! As
well might the poor African prepare for himself a fetisch by
plucking out the eyes from the eagle or the lynx, and enshri-
ning the same, worship in them the power of vision. As the
tenet of professed christians (I speak of the principle not of
the men, whose hearts will always more or less correct the er-
rors of their understandings) it is even more absurd, and the
pretext for such a religion more inconsistent than the religion
itself. For they profess to derive from' it their whole faith in
* I refer the reader to Hearne'a Travels among the Copper Indians, and to
Bryan Edwards's account of the Oby in the West Indies, grounded on judicial
docAimentfl and personal observation.
383
that futurity, which if they had not previously believed on the
evidence of their own consciences, of Moses and the Prophets,
they are assured by the great Founder and Object of Christian-
ity, that neither will they believe it, in any spiritual and profit-
able sense, though a man should rise from the dead.
For myself, I cannot resist the conviction, built on particular
and general history, that the extravagances of Antinomianism
and Solifidianism are little more than the counteractions to this
Christian paganism : the play, as it were, of antagonist muscles.
The feelings will set up their standard against the understand-
ing, whenever the understanding has renounced its allegiance to
the reason : and what is faith but the personal realization of the
reason by its union with the will ? If we would drive out the de-
mons of fanaticism from the people, we must begin by exorcising
the spirit of Epicureanism in the higher ranks, and restore to their
teachers the true Christian enthusiasm,* the vivifying influences
of the altar, the censer, and the sacrifice. They must neither be
ashamed of, nor disposed to explain away, the articles of preve-
nient and auxiliary grace, nor the necessity of being born again
to the life from which our nature had become apostate. They
must administer indeed the necessary medicines to the sick, the
motives of fear as well as of hope ; but they must not withhold
from thera the idea of health, or conceal from them that the
medicines for the sick are not the diet of the healthy. Nay,
they must make it a part of the curative process to induce the
patient, on the first symptoms of recovery, to look forward with
prayer and aspiration to that state, in which perfect love shut-
teth out fear. Above all, they must not seek to make the
mysteries of faith what the world calls rational by theories of
original sin and redemption borrowed analogically from the im-
perfection of human law-courts and the coarse contrivances of
state expedience.
Among the numerous examples with which I might enforce
this warning, I refer, not without reluctance, to the most elo-
quent, and one of the most learned of our divines ; a rigorist,
indeed, concerning the authority of the Church, but a Latitudi-
narian in the articles of its f^iith ; who stretched the latter almost
* The oiiginal meaning of the Greek, Enthousiasmos, is ; the influence
of the divinity such as was supposed to take possession of the priest during
tlie performance of the services at the altar.
*^
38^
to the advancea posts of Socinianism, and strained the former
to a hazardous conformity with the assumptions of the Roman
hierarchy. With what emotions must not a pious mind peruse
such passages as the following : — " Death reigned upon them
whose sins could not be so imputed as Adam's was ; but although
it was not wholly imputed upon their own account, yet it was
imputed upon their's and Adam's. For God was so exaspera-
ted with mankind^ that being angry he would still continue
that punishment to lesser sins and sinners, which he had first
threatened to Adam only. The case is this ; Jonathan and Mi-
chael were Saul's children. It came to pass, that seven of Saul's
issue were to be hanged ; all equally innocent — equally culpa-
ble.* David took the five sons of Michael, for she had left him
unhandsomely. Jonathan was his friend, and therefore he
spared his son, Mephibosheth. Here it was indifferent as to
the guilt of the persons [observe^ no guilt was attached to
either of them) whether David should take the sons of Michael
or of Jonathan ; but it is likely that, as upon the kindness which
David had to Jonathan, he saved his son, so upon the just pro-
vocation of Michael, he made that evil to fall upon them, which,
it may be, they should not have suffered, if their mother had
been kind. Adam was to god, as Michael to David !!! (Tay-
lor's Polem. Tracts, p. 711.) And this, with many passages
equally gross, occurs in a refutation of the doctrine of original
sin, on the ground of its incongruity with reason, and its in-
compatibility with God's justice ! Exasperated with those
whom the Bishop has elsewhere, in the same treatise, declared
to have been " innocent and most unfortunate" — the two things
that most conciliate love and pity ! Or, if they did not re-
main innocent, yet, those whose abandonment to a mere na-
ture, while they Avere subjected to a law above nature, he af-
firms to be the irresistible cause that they, one and all did sin !
— and this at once illustrated and justified by one of the worst
actions of an imperfect mortal ! So far could the resolve to
coerce all doctrines within the limits of reason (i. e. the indi-
vidual's power of comprehension) and the prejudices of an
Arminian against the Calvinist preachers, carry an highly-gift-
* These two words are added without the least ground in scrii>turc, accord-
ing to which (2 Samuel, xxi.) no charge was laid to them but that they wore
the children of Saul ! and sacrificed to a point of state expedience.
364
cd and excmpUiy divine. Let us be on our guard, lest similar
effects should resist from the zeal, however well-srounded
in some respects, against the Church Calvinisis of our davs.
The writer s belief is perhaps, equi-distant from that of both
parties the Grotian and the Genevan. But, confinins mv re-
mark exclusively to the doctrines and the practical deductions
from them, I could never read Bishop Tavlor's Tract on the
doctrine and practice of Repentance, without being tempted to
characterize high Calvinism as ( comparatively) a lamb in woll^s
skin, and strict Arminianism as approachins to the reverse.
Actuated bv these motives, I have devoted the followins es-
say to a brief history of the rise and occasion of the Latitudin-
arian system in its first birth-place in Greece, and a faithful ex-
hibition both of its parentage and its offspring. The reader will
find it strictly correspondent to the motto of both essays, h hccc
—the wav downwards.
ESSAY III.
OS THE ORIGI5^ A3>D PHOGHESs OF THE SECT OF SOPHISTS LS
GREECE.
'H "oSo; xartb*.
The road dofmwaid.
H£&ACLiT. Pragatad.
As Pythagoras, f5S4 a. c.) declining the title of the wise
man, is said to have first named himself Philosopheb. or lo-
ver of wisdom, so Protagoras, followed by Gorgias, Prodicus,
. (444 A. c.) found even the former word too narrow for his
opinion of himself, and fir^ assumed the titie of Sophist ;
385
this word originallr signityins: one who professes the power of
making others wise, a wholesale and retail dealer in wisdom —
a wisdom-monger, in the same sense as we say, an iron-mon-
ger. In this and not in their abuse of the arts of reasoning,
hare Plato and Aristotle placed the essential of the sophistic
character. Their sophisms were indeed its natural products and
accompaniments, but must yet be distinguished from it, as the
fruits from the tree. 'Ex-'.^jC r.c, xirrX?^, a-T;^J.>.ri: TTji -X TTC
•-L'>7/ y^rT^Liarc — a vender, a market-man. in moral and intellect-
ual knowledges ( connoissances j — one who hires himself out
or puts himself up at auction, as a carpenter and upholsterer to
the heads and hearts of his customers — such are the phrases,
by which Plato at once describes and satyrizes the proper so-
phist. Nor does the StagArite fall short of his great master
and rival in the reprobation of these professors of wisdom, or
differ from him in the sn'ounds of it. He too s^^es the base-
ness of the motives joined with the impudence and delusive na-
ture of the pretence as the generic character.
Xext to this pretence of selling wisdom and eloquence, they
were distinguished by their itinerancy. Athens was. indeed,
their great emporium and place of rendezvous : but by no means
their domicile. Such were Protagoras. Gorgias. Prodicus, Hip-
pias, Polus, Callicles, Thrasymachus, and a whole host of so-
phists minorum gentium : and though many of the tribe, like
the Euthydemus and Dionysiodoras so dramatically portrayed
by Plato, were mere emty disputants, sleight -ot'-icord jugslers,
this was far from being their common character. Both Plat«
and Aristotle repeatedly admit the brilliancy of their talents
and the extent of their acquirements. The following passage
from the Timjeus of the former will be my best commentary
as well as authority. " The race of sophists, again, I acknow-
ledge for men of no common powers, and of eminent skill and
experience in many and various kinds of knowledge, and these
too not seldom truly fair and ornamental of our nature ; but I
tear that somehow, as being itinerants from city to city, loose
from all permanent ties of house and home, and everA"where
aliens, they shoot wide of the proper aim of man whether
as philosopher or as citizen." The few remains of Zeno
the Eleatic, his paradoxes against the reality of motion, are
mere identical propositions spun out into a sort of whimsical
conundrums, as in the celebrated paradox euiiikd Achilles and
49
386
the Tortoise, the whole plausibility of which rests on the trick
ef assuming a minimum of time while no minimum is allowed to
space, joined with that of exacting from Intelligibilia (N^fxsva)
the conditions peculiar to objects of the senses {(pumixsvu.) The
passages still extant from the works of Gorgias, on the other
hand, want nothing but the form* of a premise to undermine
by a legitimate deductio ad absurdum all the philosophic sys-
tems that had been hitherto advanced with the exception of the
Heraclitic, and of that too as it was generally understood and
interpreted. Yet Zeno's name was and ever will be held in
reverence by philosophers ; for his object was as grand as his
motives were honorable — that of assigning the limits to the
claims of the senses, and of subordinating them to the pure
reason : while Gorgias will ever be cited as an instance of pro-
stituted genius from the immoral nature of his object and the
baseness of his motives. These and not his sophisms constitu-
ted him a sophist, a sophist whose eloquence and logical skill
rendered him only the more pernicious.
Soon after the repulse of the Persian invaders, and as a
heavy counter-balance to the glories of Marathon and Platsea,
we may date the commencement of that corruption first in pri-
vate and next in public life, which displayed itself more or less
in all the free states and communities of Greece, but most of
all in Athens. The causes are obvious, and such as in popular
republics have always followed, and are themselves the effects
of, that passion for military glory and political preponderance,
which may be well called the bastard and the parricide of
liberty. In reference to the fervid but light and sensitive
Athenians, we may enumerate, as the most operative, the gid-
diness of sudden aggrandizement ; the more intimate connec-
tion and frequent intercourse with the Asiatic states ; the in-
trigues with the court of Persia ; the intoxication of the citi-
zens at large, sustained and increased by the continued allusions
to their recent exploits, in the flatteries of the theatre, and the
funereal panegyrics ; the rage for amusement and public shows ;
and lastly the destruction of the Athenian constitution by the
* Viz. If either the world itself as an animated whole, according to the
Italian school ; or if atoms, according Democritus ; or any one primal ele-
ment, as water or fii'c, according to Thalcs or Empedocles, or if a nous, as
eict'lsijied by Anaxagoras ; be assumed as the absolutely first ; then, &c.
387
ascendancy of its democratic element, During the operation
pf these causes, at an early period of the process, and no unr
important part of it, the Sophists made their first appearance^
Some of these applied the lessons of their art in their own per-
sons, and traded for gain and gainful influence in the character
of demagogues and public orators ; but the greater number of-
fered themselves as instructors, in the arts of persuasion and
temporary impression, to as many as could come up to the high
prices, at which they rated their services. Nswv xai 'h-XojCicajv sjj.-
fji-iffSoi 2rr)^euTai (these are Plato^s ivords) — Hireling hunters of
the young and rich, they offered to the vanity of youth and the
ambition of wealth a substitute for that authority, which by the
institutions of Solon had been attached to high birth and pro-
perty, or rather to the moral discipline, the habits, attainments,
and directing motives, on which the great legislator had calcu-
lated (not indeed as necessary or constant accompaniments, but
yet) as the regular and ordinary results of comparative opulence
and renowned ancestry.
The loss of this stable and salutary influence was to he sup-
plied by the arts of popularity. But in order to the success of
this scheme, it was necessary that the people themselves should
be degraded into a populace. The cupidity for dissipation and
sensual pleasure in all ranks had kept pace with the increasing
inequality in the means of gratifying it The restless spirit of
republican ambition, engendered by their success in a just war,
and by the romantic character of that success, had already form-
ed a close alliance with luxury in its early and most vigorous
state, when it acts as an appetite to enkindle, and before it has
exhausted and dulled the vital energies by the habit of enjoy-
ment. But this corruption was now to be introduced into the
citadel of the moral being,'^and to be openly defended by the
very arms and instruments, which had been given for the pur-
pose of preventing or chastising its approach. The understand-
ing was to be corrupted by the perversion of the reason, and
the feelings through the medium of the understanding. For
this purpose all fixed principles, whether grounded on reason,
religion, law or antiquity, were to be undermined, and then,
as now, chiefly by the sophistry of submitting all positions alike,
however heterogeneous, to the criterion of the mere under-
standing, disguising oi concealing the fact, that the rules which
alone they applied, were abstracted from the objects of the
38b
senses, and applicable exclusively to things of quantity and re-
lation. At ail events, the minds of men were to be sensualiz-
ed; and even if the arguments themselves failed, yet the prin-
ciples so attacked were to be brought into doubt by the mere
frequency of hearing all things doubted, and the most sacred
of all now openly denied, and now insulted by sneer and ridi-
cule. For by the constitution of our nature, as far a« it is hu-
man nature, so awful is truth, that as long as we have faith in
its attainability and hopes of its attainment^ there exists no
bribe strong enough to tempt us wholly and permanently from
our allegiance.
Religion, in its widest sense, signifies the act and habit of
reverencing the Invisible, as the highest both in ourselves
and in nature. To this the senses and their immediate objects
are to be made subservient, the one as its organs, the other as
its exponents : and as such therefore, having on their own ac-
count no true value, because no inherent ivorth. They are a
language, in short: and taken independently of their represen-
tative function, from words they become mere empty sounds,
and differ from noise only by exciting expectations which they
cannot gratify — lit ingredients of the idolatrous charm, the po-
tent Abracadabra, of a sophisticated race, who had sacrificed
the religion of faith to the superstition of the senses, a race of
animals, in whom the presence of reason is manifested solely
by the absence of instinct.
The same principle, which in its application to the whole of
our being becomes religion, considered speculatively is the ba-
sis of metaphysical science, that, namely, which requires an
evidence beyond that of sensible concretes, which latter the an-
cients generalized in the word, physica, and therel'ore (prefix-
ing the preposition, meta, i. e. beyond or transcending) named
the superior science, metaphysics. The Invisible was assumed
as the supporter of the apparent, -uv (paivof^s'vwv — as their substance,
a term which, in any other interpretation, expresses only the
striving of the imaginative power under conditions that involve
the necessity of its frustration. If the Invisible be denied, or
(which is equivalent) considered invisible from the defect of
the senses and not in its own nature, the sciences even of ob-
servation and experiment lose their essential copula. The com-
ponent parts can never be reduced into an harmonious whole,
but must owe their systematic arrangement to accidents of an
389
ever-shifting perspective. Much more then must this apply to
the moral world disjoined from religion. Instead of morality,
we can at best have only a scheme of prudence, and tliis too
a prudence fallible and short-sighted : for were it of such a
kind as to be bona fida coincident with morals in reference to
the agent as well as to the outward action, its first act would be
that of abjuring its own usurped primacy. By celestial ob-
servations alone can even terrestrial charts he constructed sci-
entifically.
The first attempt therefore of the sophists was to separate
ethics from the faith in the Invisible, and to stab morality
through the side of religion — an attempt to which the idolatrous
polytheism of Greece furnished too many facilities. To the
zeal with which he counteracted this plan by endeavours to pu-
rify and ennoble that popular belief, which, from obedience to
the laws, he did not deem himself permitted to subvert, did
Socrates owe his martyr-cup of hemlock. Still while any one
principle of morality remained, religion in some form or other
must remain inclusively. Therefore, as they commenced by
assailing the former through the latter, so did they continue
their warfare by reversing the operation. The principle was
confounded with the particular acts, in which under the guid-
dance of the understanding or judgment it was to manifest
itself.
Thus the rule of expediency, which properly belonged to
one and the lower part of morality, was made to be the whole.
And so far there was at least a consistency in this : for in two
ways only could it subsist. It must either be the mere servant
of religion, or its usurper and substitute. Viewed as princi-
ples^ they were so utterly heterogeneous, that by no grooving
could tlie two be fitted into each other — by no intermediate
could they be preserved in lasting adhesion. The one or the
other was sure to decompose the cement. We cannot have a
stronger historical authority for the truth of this statement,
than the words of Polybius, in which he attributes the ruin of
the Greek states to the frequenc}^ of perjur}^, which they had
learnt from the sophists to laugh at as a trifle that broke no
bones, nay, as in some cases, an expedient and justifiable ex-
ertion of the power given us by nature over our own words,
without which no man could have a secret that might not be
extorted from him by the will of others. In the same spirit.
390
the sage and observant historian attributes the growth and
strength of the Roman republic to the general reverence of tho
invisible powers, and the consequent horror in which the break-
ing of an oath was held. This he states as the causa causa-
rum, as the ultimate and inclusive cause of Roman grandeur.
Under such convictions therefore as the sophists labored with
such fatal success to produce, it needed nothing but the excite-
ment of the passions under circumstances of public discord to
turn the arguments of expedience and self-love against the
whole scheme of morality founded on them, and to procure a
favorable hearing of the doctrines, which Plato attributes to the
sophist Callicles. The passage is curious, and might be enti-
tled, a Jacobin Head, a genuine antique, in high preservation.
" By nature," exclaims this Napoleon of old, " the ivorse off is
always the more infamous, that, namely, which suffers wrong ;
but according to the law it is the doing of wrong. For no
man of noble spirit will let himself be wronged : this a slave
only endures, who is not worth the life he has, and under in-
juries and insults can neither help himself or those that belong
to him. Those, who first made the laws, were, in my opinion,
feeble creatures, which in fact the greater number of men are ;
or they would not remain entangled in these spider-webs.
Such, however, being the case, laws, honor, and ignominy
were all calculated for the advantage of the law makers. But
in order to frighten away the stronger, whom they could not
coerce by fair contest, and to secure greater advantages for
themselves than their feebleness could otherwise have procur-
ed, they preached up the doctrine, that it was base and contra-
ry to right to wish to have any thing beyond others ; and that
in this wish consisted the essence of injustice. Doubtless it
was very agreeable to them, if being creatures of a meaner
class they were allowed to share equally with their natural su-
periors. But nature dictates plainly enough another code of
right, namely, that the nobler and stronger should possess
more than the weaker and more pusillanimous. Where the
power is, there lies the substantial right. The whole realm of
animals, nay the human race itself as collected in independent
states and nations, demonstrate, that the stronger has a right
to control the weaker for his own advantage. Assuredly,
they have the genuine notion of right, and follow the law of
nature, though truly not that which is held valid in our govern-
391
ments. But the minds of our youths are preached aw ay from
them by declamations on the beauty and fitness of letting them-
selves be mastered, till by these verbal conjurations the no-
blest nature is tamed and cowed, like a young lion born and
bred in a cage. Should a man with full untamed force but
once step forward, he would break all your spells and conjura-
tions, trample your contra-natural laws under his feet, vault in-
to the seat of supreme power, and in a splendid style make
the right of nature be valid among you."
It would have been well for mankind, if such had always been
the language of sophistry ! A selfishness, that excludes partner-
ship, all men have an interest in repelling. Yet the principle
is the same ; and if for power we substitute pleasure and the
means of pleasure it is easy to construct a system well fitted to
corrupt natures, and the more mischievous in proportion as it is
less alarming. As long as the spirit of philosophy reigns in the
learned and highest class, and that of religion in all classes, a ten-
dency to blend and unite will be found in all objects of pursuit
and the whole discipline of mind and manners will be calcu-
lated in relation to the worth of the agents. With the preva-
lence of sophistry, when the pure will (if indeed the existence
of a will be admitted in any other sense than as the temporary
main current in the wide gust-eddying stream of our desires and
aversions) is ranked among the means to an alien end, instead
of being itself the one absolute end, in the participation of which
all other things are worthy to be called good — with this revolu-
tion commences the epoch of division and separation. Things
are rapidly improved, persons as rapidly deteriorated ; and for
an indefinite period the powers of the aggregate increase, as the
strength of the individual declines. Still, however, sciences
may be estranged from philosophy, the practical from the spe-
culative, and one of the two at least may remain. Music may
be divided from'poetry, and both may continue to exist, though
with diminished influence. But religion and morals cannot be
disjoined without the destruction of both : and that this does not
take place to the full extent, we owe to the frequency with which
both take shelter in the heart, and that men are always better
or worse than the maxims which they adopt or concede.
To demonstrate the hollowness of the present system, and to
deduce the truth from its sources, is not possible for me without
a previous agreement as to the principles of reasoning in gene-
392
ral. The attempt could neither be made within the limits of the
present work, nor would its success greatly affect the immediate
moral interests of the majority of the readers for whom this
work was especially written. For as sciences are systems on
principles, so in the life of practice is morality a principle with-
out a system. Systems of morality are in truth nothing more
than the old books of casuistry generalized, even of that casuis-
try, which the genius of protestantism gradually worked off from
itself like an heterogeneous humor, together with the practice
of auricular confession : a fact the more striking, because in
both instances it was against the intention of the first teachers
of the reformation : and the revival of both was not only urged,
but provided for, though in vain, by no less men than Bishops
Saunderson and Jeremy Taylor.
But there is yet another prohibitory reason — and this I can-
not convey more effectually than in the words of Plato to
Dionysius —
AXXw, iroliv Ti fxvjV tovt' sg'iv^ d Tf'a Ai'^jvurfiou xai Aw^j'(5o<:, to ipui-v^yM. K
Twv-rwv fij-riov ip xay.Cjv ; fj:<aXXcv (5i f; tsp; To'jrou wr5,y sv rij ■^v'XlJ syynvoij.s-
nXarwv Aiuvvo'uo s-Tfig" Ssjt.
(Translation) — But M'hat a question is lliis, wliich you propose, Oh son of
Dionysius and Doris! — ^\liJit is the origin and cause of all evil? But rather is
the darkness and tra^ail concerning this, that thorn in the sou] whicli luiless
a man shall have had removed, never can he partake of the truth that is verily
and indeed truth.
Yet that I may fulfil the original scope of the Friend, I shall
attempt to provide the preparatory steps for such an investiga-
tion in the following Essays on the Principles of Method com-
mon to all investigations : which I here present, as the basis of
my future philosophical and theological writings, and as the ne-
cessary introduction to the same. And in addition to this, I
can conceive no object of inquiry more appropriate, none which,
commencing with the most familiar truths, with facts of hourly
experience, and gradually winning its way to positions the most
comprehensive and sublime, will more aptly prepare the mind
for the reception of specific knowledge, than the full exposition
of a ])rinciplc which is the condition of all intellectual progiess,
and which may be said even to constitute the science of educa-
tion, alike in the narrowest and in the most extensive sense of
393
the word. Yet as it is but fair to let the public know before-
hand, what the genius of my philosophy is, and in what spirit
it will be applied by me, whether in politics, or religion, I con-
clude with the following brief history of the last 130 years, by
a lover of Old England :
Wise and necessitated confirmation and explanation of the
law of England, erroneously entitled The English Revohition
of 1G88 — Mechanical Philosophy, hailed as a kindred revolu-
tion in philosophy, and espoused, as a common cause, by the
partizans of the revolution in the state.
The consequence is, or was, a system of natural rights instead
of social and hereditary privileges — acquiescence in histoi;ic tes-
timony substituted for faith — and yet the true historical feeling,
the feeling of being an historical people, generation linked to
generation by ancestral repution, by tradition, by heraldry — this
noble feeling, I say, openly stormed or perilously undermined.
Imagination excluded from poesy ; and fancy paramount in
physics ; the eclipse of the ideal by the mere shadow of the
sensible — subfiction for supposition. Plehs pro Senatu Popu-
loque — the wealth of nations for the well-being of nations, and
of man !
Anglo-mania in France ; followed by revolution in America —
constitution of America appropriate, perhaps, to America ; but
elevated from a particular experiment to an universal model.
The word constitution altered to mean a capitulation, a treaty,
imposed by the people on their own government, as on a con-
quered enemy — hence giving sanction to falsehood, and uni-
versality to anomaly ! ! !
Despotism ! Despotism ! Despotism ! of finance in statis-
tics — of vanity in social converse — of presumption and over-
weening contempt of the ancients in individuals !
French Revolution ! — Pauperism, revenue laws, govern-
ment by clubs, committees, societies, reviews, and newspapers I
Thus it is that nation first sets fire to a neighbouring nation ;
then catches fire and burns backward.
Statesmen should know that a learned class is an essential
element of a state — at least of a Christian state. But you wish
for general illumination ! You begin with the attempt to popu-
larize learning and philosophy ; but you will end in the plehifi-
caiton of knowledge. A true philosophy in the learned class
is essential to a true religious feeling in all classes.
50
394
In fine, religion, true or false, is and ever has been the moral
centre of gravity in Christendom, to which all other things must
and will accommodate themselves.
ESSAY IV.
" O 8s Siy.aiov igt noieiv, u'aovs nofg /g?^ b/f.iv s/us y.ui as ngo^g^aXXj]-
Xovg. El fisv "oAwg (fiXoaocpiag xaruTtccpqo' vijy.ag, ear xaiqeiv ii ds
ttocq' steqov ^ay.jf y.oag if ^avjo'g ^elriova e'vQrjy.ag toTv ttuq^ ifid'i, sk-
Biva xifia- ii d' "aga tu nag'' 'jjfiw'i' aol 'ugecrxsi, ti,fii]Teov xal ifiB
fiu'i.iqa.
UAATJllV- JISIN: enic,- dsvrsga.
Translation. — ^Hear then what are the terms on which you and I ought to
stand toward each other. If you hold philosophy altogether in contempt,
bid it farewell. Or if you have heard from any other person, or have your-
self found out a better than mine, then give honor to that, whichever it be.
But if the doctrine taught in these our works please you, then it is but just
tliat you should honor nic too m the same proportion.
Plato's 2d Letter to Dion.
What is that which first strikes us, and strikes us at once,
in a man of education? And which, among educated men, so
instantly distinguishes the man of superior mind, that (as was
observed with eminent propriety of the late Edmund Burke)
" we cannot stand under the same arch-way during a shower of
rain, without finding him out 9^^ Not the weight or novelty of
his remarks ; not any unusual interest of facts communicated
by him ; for we may suppose both the one and the other preclu-
ded by the shortness of our intercourse, and the triviality of
the subjects. The difference will be impressed and felt, though
the conversation should be confined to the state of the weather
396
or the pavement. Still less will it arise from any peculiarity in
his words and phrases. For if he be, as we now assume, a well-
educated man as well as a man of superior powers, he will not
fail to follow the golden rule of Julius Csesar, Insolens verbum^
tanquam scopulum^ evitare. Unless where new things neces-
sitate new terms, he will avoid an unusual word as a rock. It
must have been among the earliest lessons of his youth, that the
breach of this precept, at all times hazardous, becomes ridicu-
lous in the topics of ordinary conversation. There remains but
one other point of distinction possible ; and this must be, and
in fact is, the true cause of the impression made on us. It is
the unpremeditated and evidently habitual arrangement of his
words, grounded on the habit of foreseeing, in each integral
part, or (more plainly) in every sentence, the whole that he
then intends to communicate. However irregular and desul-
tory his talk, there is method in the fragments.
Listen, on the other hand, to an ignorant man, though per-
haps shrewd and able in his particular calling ; whether he be
describing or relating. We immediately perceive, that his me-
mory alone is called into action ; and that the objects and
events recur in the narration in the same order, and with the
same accompaniments, however accidental or impertinent, as
they had first occurred to the narrator. The necessity of tak-
ing breath, the efforts of recollection, and the abrupt rectifica-
tion of its failures, produce all his pauses ; and v/ith exception
of the '■'•and then,^^ the ^'' and iliere,'^ and the still less signi-
ficant, '■^and so," they constitute likewise all his connections.
Our discussion, however, is confined to Method as employed
in the formation of the understanding, and in the constructions
of science and literature. It would indeed be superfluous to
attempt a proof of its importance in the business and economy
of active or domestic life. From the cotter's hearth or the
workshop of the artizan, to the palace of the arsenal, the first
merit, that which admits neither substitute nor equivalent, is
that every thing is in its place. Where this charm is wanting,
every other merit either loses its name, or becomes an addi-
tional ground of accusation and regret. Of one, by whom it is
eminently possessed, we say proverbially, he is like clock-
work. The resemblance extends beyond the point of regular-
ity, and yet falls short of the truth. Both do, indeed, at once
divide and announce the silent and otherwise indistinguishable
396
lapse of time. But the man of methodical industry and honor-
able pursuits, docs more : he realizes its ideal divisions, and
gives a character and individuality to its moments. If the
idle are described as killing time, he may be justly said to call
it into life and moral being, while he makes it the distinct ob-
ject not only of the consciousness, but of the conscience. He
organizes tlie hours, and gives them a soul : and that, the very
essence of which is to ileet away, and evermore to have been,
he takes up into his ow^i permanence, and communicates to it
the imperishableness of a spiritual nature. Of the good and
faithful servant, whose energies, thus directed, are thus metho-
dized, it is less truly affirmed, that He lives in time, than that
Time lives in him. His days, months, and years, as the stops
and punctual marks in the records of duties performed, will
survive the wreck of worlds, and remain extant when time it-
self shall be no more.
But as the importance of Method in the duties of social life
is incomparably greater, so are its practical elements propor-
tionably obvious, and such as relate to the will far more than to
the understanding. Henceforward, therefore, we contemplate
its bearings on the latter.
The difference between the products of a wxll-disciplined
and those of an uncultivated understanding, in relation to what
we will now venture to call the Science of Method, is often and
admirably exhibited by our Dramatist. We scarcely need re-
fer our readers to the Clown's evidence, in the first scene of
the second act of " Measure for Measure," or the Nurse in
" Romeo and Juliet." But not to leave the position, without
an instance to illustrate it, we will take the " easy-yielding "
Mrs. Quickley's relation of the circumstances of Sir John Fal-
staff's debt to her.
Falstaff. What is the gross sum that I owe thee ?
Mrs. QuicKLEY. Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyself and the money
too. Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in iny dolphin
chamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal tire, on Wednesday in Whitsun week
when the prince broke thy head for likening his father to a singing-man in
Windsor — thou didst swear to me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry
me and make me my lady thy wife. C mst thou deny it? Did not good-
wife Keech, the butcher's wife, come in then and call me gossip Quickley ? —
coming in to borrow a mess of vinegar: telling us she had a good dish of
prawns— whcrel)y thou didst desire to cat some— whereby I told thee they
were ill for a green wound, &c. &c. &c. Henry IV 1st. pt. act ii. ec. 1.
397
And this, be it observed, is so far from being carried beyond
the bounds of a fair imitation, that " the poor soul's" thoughts
and sentences are more closely interlinked than the truth of
nature would have required, but that the connections and se-
quence, which the habit of Method can alone give, have in this
instance a substitute in the fusion of passion. For the absence
of Method, which characterizes the uneducated, is occasioned
by an habitual submission of the understanding to mere events
and images as such, and independent of any power in the mind
to classify or appropriate them. The general accompaniments
of time and place are the only relations which persons of this
class appear to regard in their statements. As this constitutes
their leading feature, the contrary excellence, as distinguishing
the well-educated man, must be referred to the contrary habit.
Method, therefore, becomes natural to the mind which has
been accustomed to contemplate not things only, or for their
own sake alone, but likewise and chiefly the relations of things,
either their relations to each other, or to the observer, or to the
state and apprehension of the hearers. To enumerate and
analyze these relations, with the conditions under which alone
they are discoverable, is to teach the science of Method.
The enviable results of this science, when knowledge has
been ripened into those habits which at once secure and evince
its possession, can scarcely be exhibited more forcibly as well
as more pleasingly, than by contrasting with the former extract
from Shakspeare the narration given by Hamlet to Horatio of
the occurrences during his proposed transportation to England,
and the events that interrupted his voyage.
Ham. Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting
That would not let me sleep : niethoiight I lay
Worse than the mutines in the bilboes. Rashly,
And prais'd be rashness for it Ld us know,
Our indiscretion sometimes serves us ivell.
When our deep plots do /ail: and that shotdd teach us.
There's a divinity that shapes our ends.
Rough-hew them hoiv we ivill.
HoR. That is most certain.
Ham. Up from my cabin,
My sea-gown scarf 'd about me, in the dark
Gro])'d I to find out them ; had my desire ;
Fingcr'd their pocket; and, in fine, withdrew
To my own room again : rnakuig so bold,
My feurs forgetting munners, to unseal
398
Their grand commission ; where / found, Horatio,
A royal knavcr}'— an exact coniiiiand.
Larded tcith many several sorts of reasons,
Importing Denmark'' s health, and England's too,
Witii, ho! such bugs and goblins iu ?ft?/ life,
That on the supervize, no leisure bated,
No, not to stay the grinding of the axe,
My head should be struck off!
HoR. Is't possible ?
Ham. Here's the commission, — Read it at more leisure.
Act V. so. 2.
Here the events, with the circumstances of time andfplace,
are all stated with equal compression and rapidity, not one in-
troduced which could have been omitted without injury to the
intelligibility of the whole process. If any tendency is dis-
coverable, as far as the mere facts are in question, it is the ten-
dency to omission : and, accordingly, the reader will observe,
that the attention of the nanator is called back to one material
circumstance, which he was hurrying by, by a direct question
from the friend to whom the story is communicated, " How
WAS THIS SEALED ?" But by a trait which is indeed peculiarly
characteristic of Hamlet's mind, ever disposed to generalize,
and meditative to excess (but which, with due abatement and
reduction, is distinctive of every powerful and methodizing in-
tellect), all the digressions and enlargements consist of reflec-
tions, truths, and principles of general and permanent interest,
either directly expressed or disguised in playful satire.
-I sat me down ;
Devis'd a new commission ; wrote it fair,
I once did hold it, as our statists do,
A baseness to write fair, and laboured much
Hoiv to forget that learning: but, sir, now
It did me yeoman's service. Wilt thou know
The effect of what I wrote ?
HoR. Aye, good my lord.
Ham. An earnest conjuration from the king.
As England was his faithful tributary ;
As love between them, like the palm, might flourish ;
As peace should still her ivheaten garland ivear,
And vmny such like As's of great charge —
That On the view and knowing of these contents
He should the bearers put to sudden death.
No shriving time allowed.
HoR. How was tliis sealed ?
Ham. Why, even in that was heaven ordinant.
399
I had my father's signet in my purse.
Which was the model of that Danish seal:
Folded the wxit up in the form of the other ;
Subscribed it ; gave't the impression ; placed it safely,
The changeling never known. Now, the next day
Was our sea-fight ; and what to this was sequent,
Tliou knowest already.
HoR. So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to't ?
Ham. Why, man, they did make love to this emi)loyinont
They are not near my conscience : their defeat
Doth by their own insinuation grow.
'TYs dangerous when the baser nature cornea
Between the pass and fell incensed points
Of mighty apposites.
It would, perhaps, be sufficient to remark of the preceding
passage, in connection with the humorous specimen of narration,
" Fermenting o'er with frothy circumstances,"
in Henry IV. ; that if overlooking the different value of the
matter in each, we considered the form alone, we should find
both immethodical ; Hamlet from the excess, Mrs. Quickley
from the want, of reflection and generalization ; and that Method,
therefore, must result from the due mean or balance between
our passive impressions and the mind's own re-action on the
same. (Whether this re-action do not suppose or imply a pri-
mary act positively oi'iginating in the mind itself, and prior to
the object in order of nature, though co-instantaneous in its
manifestation, will be hereafter discussed.) But we had a fur-
ther purpose in thus contrasting these extracts from our " myriad-
minded Bard," (;j.u^iovous avvjp.) We wished to bring forward,
each for itself, these two elements of Method, or (to adopt an
arithmetical term) its two main/actors.
Instances of the want of generalization are of no rare occur-
rence in real life : and the narrations of Shakspeare's Hostess
and the Tapster, differ from those of the ignorant and unthink-
ing in general, by their superior humor, the poet's own gift
and infusion, not by their want of Method, which is not greater
than we often meet with in that class, of which they are the
dramatic representatives. Instances of the opposite fault, aris-
ing from the excess of generalization and reflection in minds
of the opposite class, will, like the minds themselves, occur
less frequently in the course of our own personal experience.
Yet they will not have been wanting to our readers, nor will
400
they have passed unobserved, though the great poet himself
( T-rjv savTou •vJ'^X''^^ '^'^^^ uXr,v Tiva d^ojiJMTov /J.opoai^ ntom'Kug fj.oP(pCi<jac:* )
has more conveniently supplied the illustrations. To complete,
therefore, the purpose aforementioned, that of presenting each
of the two components as separately as possible, we chose an
instance in which, by the surplus of its own activity, Hamlet's
mind disturbs the arrangement, of v/hich that very activity had
been the cause and impulse. Thus exuberance of mind, on
the one hand, interferes with the forms of Method ; but ste-
rility of mind, on the other, wanting the spring and impulse to
mental action, is w^holly destructive of Method itself. For in
attending too exclusively to the relations which the past or
passing events and objects bear to general truth, and the moods
of his own Thought, the most intelligent man is sometimes in
danger of overlooking that other relation, in which they are
likewise to be placed to the apprehension and sympathies of
his hearers. His discourse appears like soliloquy intermixed
with dialogue. But the uneducated and unreflecting talker over-
take all mental relations, both logical and psychological ; and
consequently precludes all Method, that is not purely acci-
dental. Hence the nearer the things and incidents in time and
place, the more distant, disjointed, and impertinent to each
other, and to any common purpose, will they appear in his nar-
ration : and this from the want of a staple, or starting-post, in
the narrator himself; from the absence of the leading Thought,
which, borrowing a phrase from the nomenclature of legisla-
tion, we may not inaptly call the Initiative. On the contra-
ry, where the habit of Method is present and efiective, things
the most remote and diverse in time, place, and outward cir-
cumstance, are brought into mental contiguity and succession,
the more striking as the less expected. But while we would
impress the necessity of this habit, the illustrations adduced
give proof that in undue preponderance, and when the prero-
gative of the mind is stretched into despotism, the discourse
may degenerate into the grotesque or the fantastical.
With what a proiound insight into the constitution of the hu-
man soul is this exhibited to us in the chararter of the Prince
of Denmark, where Hying from the sense of reality, and seek-
TVanslation. — He that moulded his own soul, as some incorporeal material,
into various forms. Themistius.
401
ing a reprieve from the pressure of its duties, in that ideal ac-
tivity, the overbalance of which, with the consequent indispo-
sition to action, is his disease, he compels the reluctant good
sense of the high yet healthful-minded Horatio, to follow him
in his wayward meditation amid the graves ? " To what base
uses we may return, Horatio ! Why may not imagination trace
the noble dust of Alexander, till he find it stopping a bung-
hole 9 HoR. It were to consider too curiously to consider so.
Ham. No, faith, not a jot ; but to follow him thither with
modesty enough and likelihood to lead it. As thus : Alexan-
der died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth to dust —
the dust is earth ; of earth lue make loam : and why of that
loam, whereto he was converted, might they not stop a beer^
barrel ?
Imperial Casar, dead and turned to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away /"
But let it not escape our recollection, that when the objects
thus connected are proportionate to the connecting energy, re-
latively to the real, or at least to the desirable sympathies of
mankind ; it is from the same character that we derive the ge-
nial method in the famous soliloquy, " To be 9 or not to be ?'*"
which, admired as it is, and has been, has yet received only the
first-fruits of the admiration due to it.
We have seen that from the confluence of innumerable im-
pressions in each moment of time the mere passive memory
must needs tend to confusion — a rule, the seeming exceptions to
which (the thunder-bursts in Lear, for instance) are really con-
firmations of its truth. For, in many instances, the predomi-
nance of some mighty Passion takes the place of the guiding
Thought, and the result presents the method of Nature, rather
than the habit of the Individual. For Thought, Imagination
(and we may add. Passion,) are, in their very essence, the 'first,
connective, the latter co-adunative : and it has been shown,
that if the excess lead to Method misapplied, and to connec-
tions of the moment, the absence, or marked deficiency, either
precludes Method altogether, both form and substance : or (as
the following extract will exemplify) retains the outward form
only.
My lii'ge and madam! to expostulate
What inajeMy shmdd he, what duty is,
51
402
Mliy day is day, night night, and time is time,
Were nothing hut to ivaste night, day and time.
Tlierefore — since brevity is the soul of unt,
And tediousness the limbs and outward Jlourishes,
I loill be brief. Your noble son is mad :
Mad call I it— for to define true madness,
What isH, but to be nothing else but mad!
But let that go.
Queen. More matter loith less art.
Pol. Madam! I swear, I use no art at all.
That he is mad, 'tis true : His true, His pity :
And pity His, His true (a foolish figure !
But farewell it, for I will use no art.)
Mad let us grant him then : and now remains,
Tltat tve find out the cause of this efi'ect :
Or rather say the cause of this defect :
For this effect defective comes by cause.
Thus it remains, and the remainder thus
Perpend !
Hamlet, act ii. scene 2.
Does not the irresistible sense of the ludicrous in this flourish
of the soul-surviving body of old Polonius's intellect, not less
than in the endless confirmations and most undeniable matters
of fact, of Tapster Pompey or " the hostess of the tavern "
prove to our feelings, even before the word is found which pre-
sents the truth to our understandings, that confusion and forma-
lity are but the opposite poles of the same null-point.
It is Shakspeare's peculiar excellence, that throughout the
whole of his splendid picture gallery (the reader Avill excuse
the confest inadequacy of this metaphor), we find individuality
every where, mere portrait no where. In all his various cha-
racters, we still feel ourselves communing with the same human
nature, which is every where present as the vegetable sap in
the branches, sprays, leaves, buds, blossoms, and fruits, their
shapes, tastes, and odours. Speaking of the effect, i. e. his works
themselves, we may define the excellence of their method as
consisting in that just proportion, that union and interpenetra-
tion of the universal and the particular, which must ever per-
vade all works of decided genius and true science. For Method
implies a progressive transition^ and it is the meaning of the
word in the original language. Tiie Greek MsSoVc, is literally a
way, or path of Transit. Thus we extol the Elements of Eu-
clid, or Socrates' discourse with the slave in the Menon, as me-
thodical, a term which no one who holds himself bound to think
403
or speak correctly, would apply to the alphabetical order or ar-
rangement of a common dictionary. But as, without continu-
ous transition, there can be no Method, so without a pre-con-
ception there can be no transition with continuity. The term,
Method, cannot therefore, otherwise than by abuse, be applied
to a mere dead arrangement, containing in itself no principle of
progression.
ESSAY V.
ScienUis idem quod planfis. Si plantd aliqua uti in animo habeas, de radice quid-
fiat, nil reftrt : si vero transferre cnpias in aliud solum, tidius est radicibus idi
quam surculis. Sic tradiiio, qua nunc in «Sii est, exhihct plane tanquam truncos
(pulchros illos quidem) scientiarum ; sed tanien absque radicibus fahro lignario
certe commodos, at plantaton inuiiks. (^uod si, disciplinoi ut crescant, tibi
cordi sit, de truncis minus sis solicitus : ad id curam adhibe, id radices illwscR
etiam cum aliquantulo terras adficerentis, extrahantur : dummodo hoc pacto et
scientiam propiiam revisere, vestigia que cognitionis luce remetiri possis ; ej
earn sic iransplantare in animum alienum, siciU crevit in tuo.
Baco de Augment. Sclent. 1. vi. c. ii.
[Translation.) — It is with science as with trees. If it be your purpose to make
some particular M5e of the tree, you need not concern yourself about the
roots. But if you wish to transfer it into another soil, it is then safer to em-
ploy the roots, than the scyons. Thus the mode of teaching most conunon
at present exhibits clearly enough the trunks, as it were, of the sciences,
and those too of handsome growth; but nevertheless, without the roots,
valuable and convenient as they undoubtedly are to the carpenter, they are
useless to the i)lanter. But if you have at heart the advancement of edu-
cation, as that which proposes to itself the general discipline of the mind
for its end and aim, be less anxious concerning the trunks, and let it be
your care, that the roots should l)e extracted entire, even though a small
portion of the soil should adhere to them : so tliat at all events you may be
able, by this means, both to review your own scientific acquirements, re-
ineasuring as it were the steps of your knowledge for your own satisfaction,
and at the same time to transplant it into the minds of others, just as it grew
in your own.
404
It has been observed, in a preceding page, that the rela-
tions of objects are prime materials of Method, and that the
contemplation of relations is the indispensable condition of
thinking methodically. It becomes necessary therefore to add,
that there are two kinds of relation, in which objects of mind
may be contemplated. The first is that of Law, which, in its
absolute perfection, is conceivable only of the Supreme Being,
whose creative idea not only appoints to each thing its posi-
tion, but in that position, and in consequence of that position,
gives it its qualities, yea, it gives its very existence, as that
particular thing. Yet in whatever science the relation of the
parts to each other and to the whole is predetermined by a
truth originating in the mind, and not abstracted or generalized
from observation of the parts, there we affirm the presence of
a law, if we are speaking of the physical sciences, as of As-
tronomy for instance ; or tlie presence of fundamental ideas, if
our discourse be upon those sciences, the truths of which, as
truths absolute, not merely have an independent origin in the
mind, but continue to exist in and for the mind alone. Such,
for instance, is Geometry, and such are the ideas of a perfect
circle, of asymptots, &c.
We have thus assigned the first place in the science of Me-
thod to Law ; and first of the first, to Laiv, as the absolute
kind which comprehending in itself the substance of every
possible degree precludes from its conception all degree, not
by generalization but by its own plenitude. As such, there-
fore, and as the sufficient cause of the reality correspondent
thereto, we contemplate it as exclusively an attribute of the
Supreme Being, inseparable from the idea of God : adding, how-
ever, that from the contemplation of law in this, its only per-
fect form, must be derived all true insight into all other
grounds and principles necessary to Method, as the science
common to all sciences, which in each Tvy-^uvsi uv aXko avrrig T^g
h'jdsriM?- Alienated from this (intuition shall we call it ? or sted-
fast faith?) ingenious men may produce schemes, conducive to
the peculiar purposes of particular sciences, but no scientific
system.
But though we cannot enter on the proof of this assertion,
we dare not remain exposed to the suspicion of having obtruded
a mere private opinion, as a fundamental truth. Our authorities
are such that our only difficulty is occasioned by their number.
405
The following extract from Aristocles (preserved with other
interesting fragments of the same writer by Eusebius) is as ex-
plicit as peremptory. 'E(piXo(j'o:pr)a's i^sv nXa-wv. si xai ris c/Xkos 'ruv
ituiforSj 'yvri(fiuc: xal -sXs'iws" -i^fis 5s ihrj Sdvaff'bai <ra txvSpwTiva xariShv y){i-a4^
h i^rj Tu SsFa "n-poTs^ov ocp^s'rf). EusEB. Praep. Evan. xi. 3,* And
Plato himself in his De Republica, happily still extant, evident-
ly alludes to the same doctrine. For personating Socrates
in the discussion of a most important problem, namely, whe-
ther political justice is or is not the same as private hones-
ty, after many inductions, and much analytic reasoning, he
breaks off with these words — s-l 7' i'tf^n, w rXawajv, us v ^V^ <5o|a,
AKPIBQ2 MEX TOXTO 'EK TOIOTTON MEGOAfiN, OIAI2; NTN
EN T0I2 AOrOI2 XPfiMEGA, OT MHnOTE AABQMEN- AAAA
TAP MAKPOTEPA KAI HAEIfiN 0a02 H EHI TOT TO AEOT-
2Af — not however, he adds, precluding the former (the ana-
lytic, and inductive, to wit) which have their place likewise,
in which (but as subordinate to the other) they are both use-
ful and requisite. If any doubt could be entertained as to the
purport of these words, it would be removed by the fact stated
by Aristotle in his Ethics, that Plato had discussed the prob-
lem, whether in order to scientific ends we must set out from
principles, or ascend towards them : in other words, whether
the synthetic or analytic be the right method. But as no such
question is directly discussed in the published works of the
great master, Aristotle must either have received it orally from
Plato himself, or have found it in the c.y^acpa doyixara, the private
text book or manuals constructed by his select disciples, and
intelligible to these only who like themselves had been en-
trusted with the esoteric (interior or unveiled) doctrines of
Platonism. Comparing this therefore with the writings, which
* {TVanslaiion. — Plato, wlio philosophized legitimately and perfectively if
ever any man did in any age, held it for an axiom, that it is not possible for us
to have an insight into things human (i. e. tlic nature and relations of man, and
the objects presented by nature for his investigation,) without any previous con-
templation (or intellectual vision) of things divine : that is, of truths that
are to be affirmed concemiing the absolute, as far as they can be made known
to us.
I (Translation). — Rut know well, O Glaucon, as my firm persuasion, that
by such methods, as we have liithnrto used in this inquisition, we can never
attain to a satisfactory insight : for it is a longer and ampler way that con-
ducts to this. — Plato De republican iv.
406
lie held it safe or not profane to make public, we may safely
conclude, that Plato considered the investigation of truth a
posteriori as that which is employed in explaining the results
of a more scientific process to those, for whom the knowledge
of the results was alone requisite and sufficient ; or in prepa-
ring the mind for legitimate method, by exposing the insuffi-
ciency or self-contradictions of the proofs and results obtained
by the contrary process. Hence therefore the earnestness with
which the genuine Platonists opposed the doctrine (that all de-
monstration consisted of identical propositions) advanced by
Stilpo, and maintained by the Megaric school, who denied the
synthesis and as Hume and others in recent times, held geom-
etry itself to be merely analytical.
The grand problem, the solution of which forms, according
to Plato, the final object and distinctive character of philoso-
phy is this : /or all that exists conditionally (i. e. the exis-
tence of which is inconceivable except under the condition
of its dependency on some other as its antecedent) to find a
ground that is unconditional and absolute, and thereby to re-
duce the aggregate of human knowledge to a system. For the
relation common to all being known, the appropriate orbit of
each becomes discoverable, together with its peculiar relations
to its concentrics in the common sphere of subordination.
Thus the centrality of the sun having been established, and
the law of the distances of the planets from the sun having
been determined, we possess the means of calculating the dis-
tance of each from the other. But as all objects of sense are
in continual flux, and as the notices of them by the senses
must, as far as they are true notices, change with them, while
scientific principles (or laws) are no otherwise principles of
science than as they are permanent and always the same, the
latter were appointed to the pure reason, either as its products
or as * implanted in it. And now the remarkable fact forces
itself on our attention, viz, that the material world is found to
* Which of these two (ioctriiies was Plato's own oj)ininon, it is hard to say.
In many passages of liis works, tl)e latter (i. e. the doctrine of innate, or ra-,
ther of connate, ideas) seems to be it ; but from the character and avowed
purpose of these works, as adressed to a promiscuous public, and therefore
j)reparatory and for the discipline of the mind rather than directly doctrinal,
it is not improbable that Plato chose it as the more popular representation,
and as belonging to the poetic drapery of his Philosophemeta,
407
obey the same laws as had been deduced independently from
the reason : and that the masses act by a force, which cannot be
conceived to result from the component parts, known or imagi-
nable. In the phaenomena of magnetism, electricity, gal-
vanism, and in chemistry generally, the mind is led instinctive-
ly, as it were, to regard the working powers as conducted,
transmitted, or accumulated by the sensible bodies, and not as
inherent. This fact has, at all times, been the strong hold
alike of the materialists and of the spiritualists, equally solva-
ble by the two contrary hypotheses, and fairly solved by neither.
In the clear and masterly* review of the elder philosophies,
which must be ranked among the most splendid proofs of judg-
ment no less than of genius; and more expressly in the critique
on the atomic or corpuscular doctrine of Democritus and his
followers as the one extreme, and that of the pure rationalism
of Zeno and the Eleatic school as the other, Plato has proved
* I can conceive no better remedy for the overweening self-complacency of
of modern philosopliy, than the annulment of its pretended originality. The
attempt has been made by Duiens, but he failed in it by flying to the opposite
extreme. When he should have coutined himself to the jjhilosophieSj
he extended his attack to the sciences and even to the main discoveries of
later times: and thus instead of vindicating the ancients, he became the ca-
lumniator of the moderns: as far at least as detraction is calunuiy. It is my
intention to give a course of lectures in the course of the present season, com-
prizing the origin, and |)rogress, the fates and fortunes of phi!oso|)liy, from
Pythagoras to Locke Avitlijthe lives and succession of the philosophers in each
sect: tracing the progress of speculative science chit fly in relation to the gra-
dual developmeiit of the human mind, but without omitting the favourable or
inauspicious iufluence of circumstance s and the accidents of individual genius.
The main divisions will be, 1. From Thales and Pythagoras to the appear-
ance of the Sophists. 2. And of Socrates. The character and effects of So-
crates' life and doctrines, illustrated in the instances of Xenoplion, as his most
faithful representative, and of Antislheues or the Cynic sect as the one par-
tial view of his philosophy, and of Aristippus or the Cyrenaic sect as the other
and opposite extreme. 3. Plato, and Platonism. 4. Aristotle and the Peri-
patetic school. 5. Zeno, and Stoicism, Epicurus and Ej)icurianism, with the
effects of these in the Roman Repuiilic and empire. G. The rise of the
Eclectic or Alexjindrian philosophy, the attempt to set up a pseudo-Platonic
Polytheism against Christianity, the degradation of philosophy itself into mys-
ticism and magic, and its final disappearance, as philosojjhy, under Justinian.
7. The resumption of riie Aristuteliun philosophy in the tliiiteenth century,
and the successive re-api)earance of the ditierent sects from the restoration of
hterature to om* own times. S. T. C.
408
incontrovertiblj, that in both alike the basis is too narrow to
support the superstructure ; that the grounds of both are false
or disputable ; and that, if these were conceded, yet neither the
one nor the other is adequate to the solution of the problem :
viz. what is the ground of the coincidence between reason and
experience ? Or between the laws of matter and the ideas of
the pure intellect ? The only answer which Plato deemed the
question capable of receiving, compels the reason to pass out of
itself and seek the ground of this agreement in a supersensual
essence, which being at once the ideal of the reason and the
cause of the material world, is the pre-establisher of the har-
mony in and between both. Religion therefore is the ultimate
aim of philosophy, in consequence of which philosophy itself
becomes the supplement of the sciences, both as the con-
vergence of all to the common end, namely, wisdom ; and as
supplying the copula, which modified in each in the comprehen-
sion of its parts to one whole, is in its principles common to all,
as integral parts of one system. And this is Method, itself a
distinct science, the immediate offspring of philosophy, and the
link or mordant by which philosophy becomes scientific and the
sciences philosophical.
The second relation is that of Theory, in which the exist-
ing forms and qualities of objects, discovered by observation
or experiment, suggest a given arrangement, of many under
one point of view : and this not merely or principally in order
to facilitate the remembrance, recollection, or communication
of the same ; but for the purposes of understanding, and in
most instances of controlling, them. In other words, all The-
ory supposes the general idea of cause and effect. The sci-
entific arts of Medicine, Chemistry, and Physiology in general,
are examples of a method hitherto founded on this second sort
of relation.
Between these tv.o lies the Method in the Fine Arts,
which belongs indeed to this second or external relation, be-
cause the effect and position of the parts is always more or
less influenced by the knowledge and experience of their pre-
vious qualities ; but which nevertheless constitute a link con-
necting the second form of relation with the first. For in all,
that truly merits the name of Poetry in its most comprehen-
sive sense, there is a necessary predominance of the Ideas
(i. e. of that which originates in the artist himself, and a com-
409
parative indifference of the materials. A true musical taste is
soon dissatisfied with the Harmonica, or any similar instrument
of glass or steel, because the body of the sound (as the Ital-
ians phrase it), or that effect which is derived from the mate-
rials, encroaches too far on the effect from the proportions of
the notes, or that which is given to Music by the mind. To
prove the high value as well as the superior dignity of the
first relation ; and to evince, that on this alone a perfect Meth-
od can be grounded, and that the Methods attainable by the
second are at best but approximations to the first, or tentative
exercise in the hope of discovering it, form the first object of
the present disquisition.
These truths we have (as the most pleasing and popular
mode of introducing the subject) hitherto illustrated from
Shakespeare. But the same truths, namely the necessity of a
mental Initiative to all Method, as well as a careful attention
to the conduct of the mind in the exercise of Method itself,
may be equally, and here perhaps more characteristically, pro-
ved from the most familiar of the Sciences. We may draw
our elucidation even from those which are at present fashiona-
ble among us : from Botany or from Chemisty. In the low-
est attempt at a methodical arrangement of the former science,
that of artificial classification for the preparatory purpose of a
nomenclature, some antecedent must have been contributed by
the mind itself; some purpose must have been in view ; or
some question at least must have been proposed to nature,
grounded, as all questions are, upon some idea of the answer.
As for instacce, the assumption,
" That two great sexes animate the world."
For no man can confidently conceive a fact to be universally
true who does not with equal confidence anticipate its necessity ,
and who does not believe that necessity to be demonstrable by
an insight into its nature, whenever and wherever such insight
can be obtained. We acknowledge, we reverence the obliga-
tions of Botany to Linnaeus, who, adopting from Bartholinus
and others the sexuality of plants, grounded thereon a scheme of
classific and distinctive marks, by which one man's experience
may be communicated to others, and the objects safely reasoned
on while absent, and recognized as soon as and whenever they
are met with. He invented an universal character for the lan-
32
V> 410
guage of Botany chargeable with no greater imperfections than
are to be found in the alphabets of every particular language-.
As for the study of the ancients, so of the works of nature, an
accidence and a dictionary are the first and indispensable requi-
sites : and to the illustrious Swede, Botany is indebted for both.
But neither was the central idea of vegetation itself, by the
light of which we might have seen the collateral relations of the
vegetable to the inorganic and to the animal world ; nor the
constitutive nature and inner necessity of sex itself, revealed
to Linnseus.* Hence, as in all other cases where the master-
* The word Nature has been used in two senses, viz. actively and pas-
sively ; enei-getic (^zfornia fonnans), and material (^forma fommta). In the
first (the sense in which the word is used in the text) it signifies the inward
principle of whatever is reqviisit^ fi)r the reality of a thing, as existent : while
the essence, or essential property, signifies the inner principle of all that ap-
pertains to the possihilitij of a thing. Hence, in accurate language we say the
essence of a niatheuiatica! circle or other geometrical figure, not the nature :
because in the conception of forms purely geometrical there is no expression
or implication of their real existence. In the second, or material sense, of
the word Nature, we mean by it the sum total of all things, as far as they are
objects of our senses, and consequently of possible experience — the aggre-
gate of phaeaomena, whether existing for our outward senses, or for our
inner sense. The doctrine concerning material nature would therefore (the
word Physiology being both ambiguous in itself, and already otherwise ap-
propriatedj be more properly entitled Phsenomenology, distinguished into its
two grand divisions, Somatalogy and Psychology. The doctrine concerning
enei'getic nature is comprised in the science of Dv^amics ; the union of which
with Phajnomenology, and the alliance of both with tlie sciences of the Pos-
sible, or of the Conceivable, viz. Logic and Mathematics, constitute Natural
Philosophy.
Having thus explained the term Nature, we now more especially entreat
the reader's attention to the sense, in vvhich here, and every where through
this Essay, we use the word Idea. We assert, that the very impulse to uni-
versalize any phtenomenoii involves the prior assumption of some cflicicnt
law in nature, which in a thousand different forms is evermore, one and the
same; entn-e in each, yet com]>re bending all ; and incapable of being abstract-
ed or generalized from any number of pliccnomena, because it is itself pre-
supposed in each and all as their common ground and condition ; and because
every definition of a genus is the adequate definition of the lowest sjiecies
alone, while the efficient law must contain the ground of all in all. It is attri-
butedf never derived. The utmost we ever venture to say is, that the falling
of an apple suggested the law of gravitation to Sir I. Newton. Now a law and
an idea are correlative terms, and differ only as object and sui)ject, as being
and truth.
Such is the doctrine of tlie Novum Organum of Lord Bacon, agreeing
411
light is missing, so in this : the reflective mind avoids Scylla
only to lose itself on Chaiybdis. If we adhere to the general
notion af sex, as abstracted from the more obvious modes and
forms in which the sexual relation manifests itself, we soon meet
with whole classes of plants to which it is fouiid inapplicable.
If arbitrarily, we give it infinite extension, it is dissipated into
the barren truism, that all specific products suppose specific
means of production.
(as we sliall more largely show in tlie text) in all essential points with the true
doctrine of Plato, the apparent difibrenccs being for the greater part occasion-
ed by the Grecian sage having ajiplied his principles chiefly to the investiga-
tion of the mind, and the method of evolving its powers, and tlje English
philosojdier to the devlo}>enient of natare. That our great countryman speaks
too often detractingly of the divine philosopher must: be explained, jjartly by
the tone given to thinking minds by the Reformation, the founders and fathers
of which saw in the Aristotelians, or schoolmen, the antagonists of Protestant-
ism, and in the Italian Platonists the despissrs and secret enemies of Christi-
anity itself; and partly, by his having formed his notions of Plato's doctrines
from the absurdities and phantasms of his misinterpreters, rather than fi-om
an unprejudiced study of "the original works.
ESSAY VI.
Seeking the reason of all things from without, they preclude reason.
Theoph. in Mel.
Thus a growth and a birth are distinguished by the mere
verbal definition, that the latter is a whole in itself, the former
not : and when we would apply even this to nature, we are
baffled by objects (the flower polypus, &c. &c.) in which each
is the other. All that can be done by the most patient and ac-
tive industry, by the widest and most continuous researches ;
all that the amplest survey of the vegetable realm, brought un-
der immediate contemplation by the most stupendous collections
of species and varieties, can suggest ; all that minutest dissec-
tion and exactest chemical analysis, can unfold ; all that varied
experiment and the position of plants and of their component
parts in every conceivable relation to light, heat, (and what-
ever else we distinguish as imponderable substances) to earth,
air, water, to the supposed constituents of air and water, sepa-
rate and in all proportions — in short all that chemical agents
and re-agents can disclose or adduce ; — all these have been
brought, as conscripts, into the field, with the completest accou-
trement, in the best discipline, under the ablest commanders.
Yet after all that was effected by Linnaeus himself, not to men-
tion the labours of Caesalpinus, Ray, Gesner, Tournefort, and
the other heroes who preceded the general adoption of the
sexual system, as the basis of artificial arrangement — after all
the successive toils and enterprises of Hedwig, Jussieu, Mir-
BEL, Smith, Knight, Ellis, &c. &c. — what is Botany at this
present hour ? Little more than an enormous nomenclature ;
a huge catalogue, hien arrange^ yearly and monthly augmented,
413
in various editions, each with its own scheme of technical me-
mory and its own conveniences of reference ! A dictionary
in which (to carry on the metaphor) an Ainsworth arranges
the contents by the initials ; a Walker by the endings ; a Sca-
pula by the radicals ; and a Cominius by the similarity of the
uses and purposes ! The terms system, method, science, are mere
improprieties of courtesy, when applied to a mass enlarging by
endless oppositions, but without a nerve that oscillates, or a
pulse that throbs, in sign oi growth or inward sympathy. The
innocent amusement, the healthful occupation, the ornamental
accomplishment of amateurs (most honorable indeed and de-
serving of all praise as a preventive substitute for the stall, the
kennel, and the subscription-room), it has yet to expect the
devotion and energies of the philosopher.
So long back as the first appearance of Dr. Darwin's Phy-
tonomia, the writer, then in earliest manhood, presumed to ha-
zard the opinion, that the physiological botanists were hunting
in a false direction ; and sought for analogy where they should
have looked for antithesis. He saw, or thought he saw, that
the harmony between the vegetable and animal world, was not
a harmony of resemblance, but of contrast ; and their relation
to each other that of corresponding opposites. They seemed
to him (whose mind had been formed by observation, unaided,
but at the same time unenthralled, by partial experiment) as
two streams from the same fountain indeed, but flowing the one
due west, and the other direct east ; and that consequently,
the resemblance would be as the proximity, greatest in the
first and rudimental products of vegetable and animal organiza-
tion. Whereas, according to the received notion, the highest
and most perfect vegetable, and the lowest and rudest animal
forms, ought to have seemed the links of the two systems,
which is contrary to fact. Since that time, the same idea has
dawned in the minds of philosophers capable of demonstrating
its objective truth by induction of facts in an unbroken series
of correspondences in nature. From these men, or from minds
enkindled by their labors, we hope hereafter to receive it, or
rather the yet higher idea to which it refers us, matured into
laws of organic nature ; and thence to have one other splendid
proof, that with the knowledge of Law alone dwell Power
and Prophesy, decisive Experiment, and, lastly, a scientific
method, that dissipating with its earliest rays the gnomes of
414
hypothesis and the mists of theory may, within a single gener-
ation, open out on the philosophic Seer discoveries that had
baflled the gigantic, but blind and guideless industry of ages.
Such, too, is the case with the assumed indecomponiblc sub-
stances of the Laboratory. They are the symbols of ele-
mentary powers and the exponents of a law, which, as the root
of all these powers, the chemical philosopher, whatever his
theory may be, is instinctively laboring to extract. This in-
stinct, again, is itself but the form, in which the idea, the
mental Correlative of the law, first announces its incipient ger-
mination in his own mind : and hence proceeds the striving af-
ter unity of principle through all the diversity of forms, with a
feeling resembling that which accompanies our endeavours to
reccoUect a forgotten name ; when we seem at once to have
and not to have it ; which the memory feels but cannot find.
Thus, as " the lunatic, the lover, and the poet," suggest each
other to Shakespeare's Theseus, as soon as his thoughts pre-
sent him the one form, of which they are but varieties ; so
water and flame, the diamond, the charcoal, and the mantling
champagne, with its ebullient sparkles, are convoked and fra-
ternized by the theory of the chemist. This is, in truth, the
first charm of chemistry, and the secret of the almost univer-
sal interest excited by its discoveries. The serious compla-
cency which is aftbrded by the sense of truth, utility, perma-
nence, and progression, blends with and enobles the exhilira-
ting suiprize and the pleasurable sting of curiosity, which ac-
company the propounding and the solving of an Enigma. It is
the sense of a principle of connection given by the mind, and
sanctioned by the correspondency of nature. Hence the strong
- hold which in all ages chemistry has had on the imagination.
If in Shakespeare v.e find nature idealized into poetry, through
the creative powder of a profound yet observant meditation, so
through the meditative observation of a Davy, a Woollas-
TON, or a Hatchett ;
" By some connatural force,
Powerful at greatest distance to unite
With secret amity things of like kind,"
we find poetry, as it were, substantiated and realized in nature:
yea, nature itself disclosed to us, geminam istam naturam,
qucB flit et facit, et creat et creafur, as at once the poet and
the poem!
ESSAY VII.
Tavirf Tolri'v dicclgu) /o'^tc /^e>', ov^g vv~v dif tlF.ysg cpilo&su f.iova. g re,
xui (filore/iovg, y.cd nQuxTixovg, xul x^^'Q'S ^^~ '^^Q'' ^>'' '" Ao yog, ov g
fio' rovg ut' rig o'g&iog nqoaeinoi, cpiloao (povg, w'g ^liv yiyvwaxuvjug,
ili'og tc,i>' BTn^ifiiij iy.it c,}} tov'zmv toj v emcrjjULO)', o' Tvy/u'vei d'v
alio avTifg Tifgcnigrj' /^irjg. FIAATRN.
(Translation-) — In the following then I distinguish, first, those whom you in-
deed may call Philotheorists, or Philotechnists, or Practicians, and se-
condly those whom alone you may rightly denominate Philosophers, as
knowing what the science of all these branches of science is, which may
prove to be something more than the mere aggregate of the knowledges
in any particular science. — Plato.
From Shakspeare to Plato, from the philosophic poet to the
poetic philosopher, the transition is easy, and the road is crowd-
ed with illustrations of our present subject. For of Plato's
works, the larger and more valuable portion have all one com-
mon end, which comprehends and shines through the particular
purpose of each several dialogue ; and this is to establish the »
sources, to evolve the principles, and exemplify the art of Me- /
THOD. This is the clue, without which it would be difficult to /
to exculpate the noblest productions of the divine philosopher
from the charge of being tortuous and labyrinthine in their pro-
gress, and unsatisfactory in their ostensible results. The latter
indeed appear not seldom to have been drawn for the purpose
of starting a new problem, rather than that of solving the one
proposed as the subject of the previous discussion. But with
the clear insight that the purpose of the v.'riter is not so much
to establish any particular truth, as to remove the obstacles, the
continuance of which is preclusive of all truth ; the whole
scheme assumes a different aspect, and justifies itself in all its
dimensions. We sec, that to open anew a v.-ell of springing
416
water, not to cleanse the stagnant tank, or fill, bucket by buck-
et, the leaden cistern ; that the Education of the intellect, by
awakening the principle and method of self-developement, was
his proposed object, not any specific information that can be
conveyed in it from without : not to assist in storing the passive
mind with the various sorts of knowledge most in request, as if
the human soul were a mere repository or banqueting-room, but
to place it in such relations of circumstance as should gradually
excite the germinal power that craves no knowledge but what
it can take up into itself, what it can appropriate, and re-pro-
duce in fruits of its own. To shape, to dye, to paint over, and
to mechanize the mind, he resigned, as their proper trade, to
the sophists, against whom he waged open and unremitting war.
For the ancients, as well as the moderns, had their machinery
for the extemporaneous mintage of intellects, by means of
which, off-handy as it were, the scholar was enabled to make a
figure on any and all subjects, on any and all occasions. They
too had their glittering vapors, that (as the comic poet tells us)
fed a host of sophists —
fieya'Xav &eai, avSqa aiv agyotg
Alneq yrco/iijjv xal diaXe^iv xul vov v if fiiv nage^ovaiVj
Kul leqajEiav xal nsgiXa^iv xui xqov'aiv xal xona'h^xpiv.
^ API^TOlJ. Nscp. 2x. d.
IMITATED.
Great goddesses are they to lazy folks,
Who pour down on us gifts of fluent speech,
Sense most sententious, wonderful fine effect,
And how to talk ahout it and ahout it,
Thoughts brisk as bees, and pathos soft and thawy.
In fine, as improgressive arrangement is not Method, so nei-
ther is a mere mode or set fashion of doing a thing. Are fur-
ther facts required ? We appeal to the notorious fact that
Zoology, soon after the commencement of the latter half of
the last century, was falling abroad, weighed down and crush-
ed, as it were, by the inordinate number and manifoldness of
facts and pha^nomena apparently separate, without evincing the
least promise of systematizing itself by any inward combination,
any vital interdependence of its parts* John Hunter, who
appeared at times almost a stranger to the grand conception,
which yet never ceased to work in him as his genius and go-
417
verning spirit, rose at length in the horizon of physiology and
comparative anatomy. In his printed works, the one directing
thought seems evermore to flit before him, twice or thrice on-
ly to have been seized, and after a momentary detention to
have been again let go : as if the words of the charm had been
incomplete, and it had appeared at its own will only to mock
its calling. At length, in the astonishing preparations for his
museum, he constructed it for the scientific apprehension out
of the unspoken alphabet of nature. Yet notwithstanding the
imperfection in the annunciation of the idea, how exhilarating
have been the results ! We dare appeal to* Abernethy, to
EvERARD Home, to Hatchett, whose communication to Sir
Everard on the egg and its analogies, in a recent paper of the
latter (itself of high excellence) in the Philosophical Trans-
actions, we point out as being, in the proper sense of the term,
the development of a fact in the history of physiology, and to
which we refer as exhibiting a luminous instance of what we
mean by the discovery of a central phenomenon. To these
we appeal, whether whatever is grandest in the views of Cu-
viER be not either a reflection of this light or a continuation of
its rays, well and wisely directed through fit media to its ap-
propriate object. f
We have seen that a previous act and conception of the mind
is indispensable even to the mere semblances of Method ; that
neither fashion, mode, nor orderly arrangement can be produc-
ed without a prior purpose, and " a pre-cogitation ad intentio-
nem ejus quod queer itur^'''' though this purpose may have been it-
* Since the first delivery of this sheet, Mr. Abernethy has realized this an-
ticipation, dictated solely by the writer's wishes, and at that time justified on-
ly l)y his general admiration of Mr. A's talents and princii)les ; but composed
without the least knowledge that he was then actually engaged in proving
tlie assertion here hazarded, at large and in detail. See his eminent "Phy-
siological Lectures," lately published in one \olume octavo.
f Nor should it be wholly unnoticed, that Ciivier, who, we understand, was
not born in France, and is not of unmixed French exti-action, had prepared
himself for his illustrious lal)ors (as we learn from a reference in the first
chapter of his great work, and should have concluded from the general style
of thinking, though the language betrays suppression, as one who doubted
the symi)athy of his readers or audience) in a very different school of metho-
dology and philosophy than Paris could have afforded.
53
418
self excited, and this " pre-cogitation" itself abstracted from the
perceived likenesses and differences of the objects to be arrang-
ed. But it has likewise been shown, that fashion, mode, or-
donnance, are not Method, inasmuch as all Method supposes a
PRINCIPLE or UNITY WITH PROGRESSION ; iu othor words, pro-
gressive transition without breach of continuity. But such a
principle, it has been proved, can never in the sciences of ex-
periment or in those of observation be adequately supplied by
a theory built on generalization. For what shall determine the
mind to abstract and generalize one common point rather than
another ? and within what limits, from what number of indivi-
dual objects, shall the generalization be made .'' The theory
must still require a prior theory for its own legitimate construc-
tion. With the mathematician the definition makes the object,
and pre-establishes the terms which, and which alone, can oc-
cur in the after-reasoning. If a circle be found not to have the
radii from the centre to the circumference perfectly equal, which
in fact it would be absurd to expect of any material circle, it fol-
lows that it was not a circle : and the tranquil geometrician would
content himself with smiling at the Quid pro Quo of the simple
objector. A mathematical theoria seu contemplatio may there-
fore be perfect. For the mathematician can be certain, that he
has contemplated all that appertains to his proposition. The ce-
lebrated EuLER, treating on some point respecting arches, makes
this curious remark, " All experience is in contradiction to this ;
sed potius fidendum est analysi ; i. e. but this is no reason for
doubting the analysis." The words sound paradoxical ; but in
truth mean no more than this, that the properties of space are not
less certainly the properties of space because they can never be
entirely transferred to material bodies. But in physics, that is, in
all the sciences which have for their objects the things of nature,
and not the entia rationis — more philosophically, intellectual acts
and the products of those acts, existing exclusively in and for
the intellect itself — the definition must follow, and not precede
the reasoning. It is representative not constitutive, and is in-
deed little more than an abbreviature of the preceding obser-
vation, and the deductions therefrom. But as the observation
though aided by experiment, is necessarily limited and imper-
fect, the definition must be equally so. The history of theories,
419
and the frequency of their subversion by the discovery of a single
new fact, supply the best illustrations of this truth.*
As little can a true scientific method be grounded on an hy-
pothesis, unless where the hypothesis is an exponential image
or picture-language of an idea which is contained in it more or
less clearly ; or the symbol of an undiscovered law, like the
characters of unknown quantities in algebra, for the purpose of
submitting the ph£enomena to a scientific calculus. In all other
instances, it is itself a real or supposed pha^nomenon, and there-
fore a part of the problem which it is to solve. It may be
among the foundation-stones of the edifice, but can never be
the ground.
But in experimental philosophy, it may be said how much do
we not owe to accident ? Doubtless : but let it not be for-
gotten, that if the discoveries so made stop there ; if they do
* The following extract from a most respectable scientific Journal contains
an exposition of the impossibility of a perfect Theory in Physics, the more
striking because it is directly against the purpose and izitention of the writer.
We content ourselves with one question, What if Kepler, what if Newton
in his investigations concerning the Tides, had held tiieniselves bound to this
canon, and instead of propounding a law, had employed themselves exclu-
sively in collecting materials for a Theory?
" The magnetic influence has long been known to have a variation which
is constantly changing ; but that change is so slow, and at the same time so
different in various (different'}) parts of the world, that it v.'ould be in vain to
seek for the t-^eans of reducing it to established rules, until all its local and
particular cir' umstances are clearly ascertained and recorded bj" accurate ob-
servations made in various parts of tJie globe. The necessity and importance
of such observations are now pretty generally understood, and they have been
actually cainying on for some years past ; but these {and by pcuity of reason the
incomparably greater number thai remain to be made) must be collected, collated,
proved, and afterwards brought together into one focus before ever a founda-
tion can be f()rmcd upon which any thing like a sound and stable Theory can
be constituted for the explanation of such changes." — Journal of Science and
the Arts, No, vii. p. 103.
An intelligent friend, on reading the words " into one focus," observed :
But wliat and where is the lens ? I however fully agree with the writer. All
this and much more must have been atchieved before " a sound and stable
Theory" could be " constituted'' — which even then (except as far as it might
occasion the discovery of a law) might possibly explain ( ex \)\^\c\s plana red-
dere\ but never account for, the facts in question. But the most satisfactory
comment on these and similar assertions woidd be afforded by a matter of
fact history of the rise and progress, tlie accelerating and retarding momenta,
of science in the civilized world.
420
not excite to some master idea ; if they do not lead to some
LAW (in what ever dress of theory or hypotheses the fashion
and prejudices of the time may disguise or disfigure it:) the
discoveries may remain for ages limited in their uses, insecure
and unproductive. How many centuries, we might have said
millennia, have passed, since the first accidental discovery of
the attraction and repulsion of light bodies by rubbed amber,
&c. Compare the interval with the progress made within less
than a century, after the discovery of the phsenomena that led
immediately to a theory of electricity. That here as in many
other instances, the theory was supported by insecure hypothe-
ses ; that by one theorist two heterogeneous fluids are assumed,
the vitreous and the resinous ; by another, a plus and minus of
the same fluid ; that a third considers it a mere modification of
light ; while a fourth composes the electrical aura of oxygen,
hydrogen, and caloric : this does but place the truth we have
been evolving in a stronger and clearer light. For abstract
from all these suppositions, or rather imaginations, that which
is common to, and involved in them all ; and we shall have nei-
ther notional fluid or fluids, nor chemical compounds, nor ele-
mentary matter, — but the idea of two — opposite— for-ces^ tend-
ing to rest by equilibrium. These are the sole factors of the
calculus, alike in all the theories. These give the law^ and
in it the method^ both of arranging the phsenomena and of sub-
stantiating appearances into facts of science ; with a success
proportionate to the clearness or confusedness o£' the insight
into the law. For this reason, we anticipate the greatest im-
provements in the method^ the nearest approaches to a system
of electricity from these philosophers, who have presented the
law most purely, and the correlative idea as an idea : those,
namely, who, since the year 1798, in the true spirit of experi-
mental dynamics, rejecting the imagination of any material sub-
strate, simple or compound, contemplate in the pbsenomena of
electricity the operation of a law which reigns through all na-
ture, the law of polarity, or the manifestation of one pow-
er by opposite forces : who trace in these appearances, as the
most obvious and striking of its innumerable forms, the agency
of the positive and negative poles of a power essential to all
material construction ; the second, namely, of the three prima-
ry principles, for which the beautiful and most appropriate sym-
bols are ^ven by the mind in three ideal dimensions of space.
491
The time is, perhaps, nigh at hand, when the same compari-
son between the results of two unequal periods ; the interval be-
tween the knowledge of a fact, and that from the discovery of
the law, will be applicable to the sister science of magnetism.
But how great the contrast between magnetism and electricity,
at the present moment ! From the remotest antiquity, the attrac-
tion of iron by the magnet was known and noticed ; but cen-
tury after century, it remained the undisturbed property of
poets and orators. The fact of the magnet and the fable of
phoenix stood on the same scale of utility. In the thirteenth
century, or perhaps earlier, the polarity of the magnet and its
communicability to iron was discovered ; and soon suggested a
purpose so grand and important, that it may well be deemed
the proudest trophy ever raised by accident * in the service of
mankind — the invention of the compass. But it led to no idea,
to no law, and consequently to no Method : though a variety of
phsenomena, as startling as they are mysterious, have forced on
us a presentiment of its intimate connection with all the great
agencies of nature ; of a revelation, in ciphers, the key to
which is still wanting. We can recall no incident of human
history that impresses the imagination more deeply than the
moment when Columbus, f on an unknown ocean, first perceiv-
* If accident it were : if the compass did not obscurel}' travel to us from
the remotest east : if its existence tiiere docs not point to an a<,^e and a race,
to which scholars of liighest rank in the world of letters, Sir W. Jones,
Bailly, Schlegel have attached faith ! That it was known before the sera gen-
erally assumed for its invention, and not spoken of as a novelty, has been
proved by Mr. Southey and others.
fit cannot be deemed alien from the purposes of this disquisition, if we
are anxious to attract the attention of our readers to the importance of spe-
culative meditation, even for tlie loorlUy interests of mankind ; and to that
concurrence of nature and historic event with the great revolutionaiy move-
■ ments of individual genius, of which so many instances occur in tlie study
of History— how nature (why should we licsitate in saying, that which in
nature itself is more than nature ?) J5ccms to come forward in order to meet,
to aid, and to reward everj' idea excited by a contemplation of her methods
in the spirit of filial care, and with the humility of love ! It is with this view
tliat we extract from an ode of Chiabrera's the following lines, which, in the
strength of the thought and the lofty majesty of the poetiy, has but "few
peers in ancient or in modern song."
Columbus.
Oei?to dal cor, eh' alto Destin non ecelse,
423
ed one of these startling facts, the change of the magnetio
needle !
In what shall we seek the cause of this contrast between
the rapid progress of electricity and the stationary condition of
magnetism? As many theories, as many hypotheses, have
been advanced in the latter science as in the former. But the
theories and fictions of the electricians contained an idea^ and
all the same idea, which has necessarily led to Method ; im-
plicit indeed, and only regulative hitherto, which requires lit-
tle more than the dismission of the imagery to become constit-
uent like the ideas of the geometrician. On the contrary, the
assumptions, of the magnetists (as for instance, the hypothe-
sis that the planet itself is one vast magnet, or that an im-
mense magnet is concealed within it ; or that of a concentric
;globe within the earth, revolving on its own independent axis)
are but repetions of the same fact or phsenomenon looked at
through a magnifying glass ; the reiteration of the problem,
not its solution. The naturalist, who cannot or will not see,
ihat one fact is often worth a thousand, as including them all
Son 1' imprese magnanime neglette ;
Ma le bell' aline alle bell' opre elette
Sanno gioir nelle fatiche eccelse :
Ne biasmo popolar, frale catena,
Spirto d' onore il suo cammin rafFrena.
Cosi liinga stagion per modi indegni
Emopa disprezzo 1' inclita spenie :
Schernendo il vulgo (e seco i Regi insieme)
Nudo nocchier promettitor di regni ;
Ma per le sconosciute onde marine
L' inviua prora ei pur sospinse al fine.
Qual uom, die torni al gentil consorte,
Tal ei da sua magion spiego 1' antenne ;
L' ocean corse, e i turbini sostenne,
Vinse le crude iinagini di morte ;
Poscia, dell' ami)io mar spenta la guerra,
Scorse la dianzi favolosa Terra.
Alior dal cavo Pin scende veloce
E di grand' Orma il nuovo mondo imprime ;
Ne men ratto per I'Aria crge sublime,
Segno del Ciel, insuperabil Croce ;
E porse umile esempio, onde adorarla
Debba sua Gente.
Chiabrera, vol. i.
423
in itself, and that it first makes all the others facts ; who has
not the head to comprehend, the soul to reverence, a central
experiment or observation (what the Greeks would perhaps
have called a protophcBuomon); will never receive an auspicious
answer from the oracle of nature.
ESSAY VIII.
The sun doth give
Brightness to the eye: and some may say, that the sun
If not enlightened by the intelligence
That doth inhaliit it, would shine no more
Than a dull clod of earth.
Cartwright.
It is strange, yet characteristic of the spirit that was at work
during the latter half of the last century, and of which the
French revolution was, we hope the closing monsoon^ that the
writings of Plato should be accused of estranging the mind from
sober experience and substantial matter-of-fact^ and of debauch-
ing it by fictions and generalities. Plato, whose method is in-
ductive throughout, who argues on all subjects not only from,
but in and 61/, inductions of facts ! Who warns us indeed against
that usurpation of the senses, which quenching the " lumen sic-
cum " of the mind, sends it astray after individual cases for their
own sakes ; against that tenuem et manipularem experuntiamP^
which remains ignorant even of the transitory relations, to which
the " pauca particularia" of its idolatory not seldom owe their
fluxional existence ; but who so far oftener, and with such un-
mitigated hostility, pursues the assumptions, abstractions, gene-
434
ralities, and verbal legerdemain of the sophists ! Btrange, but
still more strange, that a notion so groundless should be entitled
to plead in its behalf the authority of Lord Bacon, from whom
the Latin words in the preceding sentence are taken, and
whose scheme of logic, as applied to the contemplation of nature,
is Platonic throughout, aud differing only in the mode : which
in Lord Bacon is dogmatic, i. e. assertory, in Plato tentative,
and (to adopt the Socratic' phrase) obstetric. We are not the
first, or even among the first, who have considered Bacon's
studied depreciation of the ancients, with his silence, or worse
than silence, concerning the merits of his contemporaries, as
the least amiable, the least exhilarating side in the character of
our illustrious countryman. His detractions from the Divine
Plato it is more easy to explain than to justify or even than to
palliate : and that he has merely retaliated Aristotle's own
unfair treatment of his predecessors and contemporaries, may
lessen the pain, but should not blind us by the injustice of the
aspersions on the name and works of this philosopher. The
most eminent of our recent zoologists and mineralogists have
acknowledged with respect, and even with expressions of won-
der, the performances of Aristotle, as the first clearer and
breaker-up of the ground in natural history. It is indeed scarce-
ly possible to peruse the treatise on colors, falsely ascribed to
Theophrastus, the scholar and successor of Aristotle, after a due
consideration of the state and means of science at that time,
without resenting the assertion, that he had utterly enslaved his
investigations in natural history to his own system of logic (lo-
gicse suae prorsus mancipavit). Nor let it be forgotten that the
sunny side of Lord Bacon's character is to be found neither in
his inductions, nor in the application of his own method to par-
ticular phajnomena, or particular classes of physical facts, which
are at least as crude for the age of Gilbert, Galileo, and Kepler,
as Aristotle's for that of Philip and Alexander. Nor is it to be
found in his recommendation (which is wholly independent of
scientific method ) of tabular collections of particulars. Let any
unprejudiced naturalist turn to Lord Bacon's questions and pro-
posals for the investigation of single problems ; to his Discourse
on the Winds ; or to the almost comical caricature of this scheme
in the " Method of improving Natural Philosophy;" (page 22
to 48), by Robert Hooke (the history of whose multifold inven-
tions, and indeed of his whole philosophical life, is the best
4^6
answer to the scheme, if a scheme so palpably impracticable needs
any answer), and put it to his conscience, whether any desira-
ble end could be hoped for from such a process ; or inquire of
his own experience, or historical recollections whether any im-
portant discovery was ever made in this way.* For though
Bacon never so far deviates from his own principles, as not to
admonish the reader that the particulars are to be thus collect-
ed, only that by careful selection they may be concentrated into
universals ; yet so immense is their number, and so various and
almost endless the relations in which each is to be separately
considered, that the life of an ante-deluvian patriarch would be
expended, and his strength and spirits have been wasted, in
merely polling the votes, and long before he could commence
* We refer the reader to the Posthumous Works of Robert Hooke, M. D.
F. R. S. &c. Folio, published under the auspices of the Royal Society, by
Richard Waller: and especially to die pages from p. 22 to 42 inclusive, as con-
containing the preluninary knowledges requisite or desirable for the naturalist,
before he can form " even a foundation upon which any thing like a sound
and stable Theory can be constituted." As a small specimen of this appalling
catalogue of preliminaries with which he is to make himself conversant, take
the following : — " The history of potters, tobacco-pipe-makers, glaziers, glass-
grinders, looking-glass-makers or foilers, spectacle-makers, and optic-glass-
makers, makers of counterfeit pearl and precious stones, bugle-makers, lamp-
blowers, colour-makers, colour-grinders, glass-painters, enamellers, vamishers,
colour-sellers, painters, limners, picture-drawers, makers of baby-heads, of little
bowling-stones or marbles, fustian-makers, (query whether poets are included
in this trade ?) music-masters, tinsey-makers, and taggers. — The histoiy of
schoolmasters, writ-ng-masters, printers, book -binders, stage-players, dancing-
masters, and vaulters, apothecaries, chirurgeons, seamsters, butchers, barbers,
laun-dressers, and cosmetics .' &c. &c. &c. &c. (the true nature of which be-
ing actually detcrmmed) will hugely facilitate our inquiries m philo-
sophy ! ! !"
As a summary of Dr. R. Ilooke'smidtifarious recipe for the growth of Sci-
ence may he fairly placed that of the celebrated Dr. Watts for the improve-
ment of the mind, which was thought by Dr. Knox, to be worthy of inser-
tion in the Elegant Extracts, Vol. ii. p. 456, under the head of
Directions concerning our Ideas.
"Furnish yourselves with a rich variety of Ideas. Acquaint yourselves with
things ancient and modern ; things natural, civil, and religious ; things of your
native land, and of foreign countries ; things domestic and national ; things pre-
sent, past, and future ; and above all, be well acquainted witli God and your-
selves ; with animal nature, and the workings of your own spirits. Such a
general acquaintance with tMngs will be qf very great advanlage.'^
54
426
the process of simplification, or have arrived in sight of the law
which was to reward the toils of the over-tasked Psyche.*
We yield to none in our grateful veneration of Lord Bacon's
philosophical writings. We are proud of his very name, as
men of science : and as Englishmen, we are almost vain of it.
But we may not permit the honest workings of national attach-
ment to degenerate into the jealous and indiscriminate partial-
ity of clanship. Unawed by such as praise and abuse by
wholesale, we dare avow that there are points in the character
of our Verulam, from which we turn to the life and labors of
John Kepler,f as from gloom to sunshine. The beginning
and the close of his life were clouded by poverty and domestic
troubles, while the intermediate years were comprised within
the most tumultuous period of the history of his country, when
the furies of religious and political discord had left neither eye,
ear, nor heart for the Muses. But Kepler seemed born to
prove that true genius can overpower all obstacles. If he
gives an account of his modes of proceeding, and of the views
under which they first occurred to his mind, how unostentatious-
ly and in transitu^ as it were, does he introduce himself to our
notice : and yet never fails to present the living germ out of
which the genuine method, as the inner form of the tree of
science, springs up ! With what affectionate reverence does he
express himself of his master and immediate predecessor,
Tycho Brake ! with what zeal does he vindicate his services
iagainst posthumous detraction ! How often and how gladly
does he speak of Copernicus ! and with what fervent tones of
faith and consolation does be proclaim the historic fact that the
great men of all ages have prepared the way for each other, as
pioneers and heralds ! Equally just to the ancients and to his
contemporaries, how circumstantially, and with what exactness
of detail, does Kepler demonstrate that Elucid copernicises —
ws 'Jf^o Tou Ko'jrs^v/xou xoits^vixi^si EuxX£i(5>is ! and how elegant the com-
pliments which he addresses to Porta ! with wliat cordiality
* See the beautiful allegoric tale of Cupid and Psyche, in the original of
Apuleius. The tasks imposed on her by the jealousy of her mother-in-law,
and the agcncj^ by which they are at length self-pcrfonned, are noble instan-
ces of that hidden wisdom, " where more is meant than meets the ear."
fBorn 1571, ton years after Lord Bacon: died 1630, four years after the
death of Bacon.
427
he thanks him for the invention of the camera obscura, as en-
larging his views into the laws of vision ! But while we can-
not avoid contrasting this generous enthusiasm with Lord Ba-
con's cold invidious treatment of Gilbert, and his assertion
that the works of Plato and Aristotle had been carried down
the stream of time, like straws, by their levity alone, when
things of weight and worth sunk to the bottom : still in the Foun-
der of a revolution, scarcely less important for the scientific,
and even for the commercial world, than that of Luther for
the world of religion and politics, we must allow much to the
heat of protestation, much to the vehemence of hope, and
much to the vividness of novelty. Still more must we attrib-
ute to the then existing and actual state of the Platonic and
Peripatetic philosophy, or rather to the dreams or verbiage
which then passed current as such. Had he but attached to
their proper authors the schemes and doctrines which he con-
demns, our illustrious countryman would, in this point at least,
have needed no apology. And surely no lover of truth, con-
versant with the particulars of Lord Bacon's life, with the ve-
ry early, almost boyish age, at which he quitted the university,
and the manifold occupations and anxieties in which his public and
professional duties engaged, and his courtly, — alas ! his servile,
prostitute, and mendicant — ambition, entangled him in his after
years, will be either surprised or oilended, though we should avow
our conviction, that he had derived his opinions of Plato and
Aristotle from any source, rather than from a dispassionate and
patient study of the originals themselves. At all events it will
be no easy task to reconcile many passages in the De Augmen-
tis, and the Redargutio Philosophiarum, with the author's own
fundamental principles, as established in his Novum Organum,
if we attach to the words the meaning which they may bear,
or even, .in some instances, the meaning which might appear
to us, in the present age, more obvious ; instead of the sense
in which they were employed by the professors, whose false
premises and barren methods Bacon was at that time contro-
verting. And this historical interpretation is rendered the
more necessary by his fondness for point and antithesis in his
style, where we must often disturb the sound in order to arrive
at the sense. But with these precautions ; and if, in collating
the philosophical works of Lord Bacon with those of Plato,
we, in both cases alike, seperate tiie grounds and essential
428
principles of their philosophic systems from the inductions
themselves ; no inconsiderable portion of which, in the British
sage, as well as in the divine Athenian, is neither more nor
less crude and erroneous than might be anticipated from the
infant state of natural history, chemistry, and physiology, in
their several ages ; and if we moreover separate their princi-
ples from their practical application, which in both is not sel-
dom impracticable, and, in our countryman, not always recon-
cileable with the principles themselves : we shall not only ex-
tract that from each, which is for all ages, and which consti-
tutes their true systems of philosophy, but shall convince our-
selves that they are radically one and the same system : in that
namely, which is of universal and imperishable worth ! — the
science of Method, and the grounds and conditions of the sci-
ence of Method.
ESSAY IX.
A great authority may be a poor proof, but it is an excellent presumption :
ami few tilings give a wise man a truer delight than to reconcile two gi-eat
authorities, that had been commonly but falsely held to be dissonmit.
Stapylton.
Under a deep impression of the importance of the truths we
have essayed to develope, we would fain remove every preju-
dice that does not originate in the heart rather than in the un-
derstanding. For Truth, says the wise man, will not enter a
malevolent spirit.
To offer or to receive names in lieu of sound arguments, is
only less reprehensible than an ostentatious contempt of the
great men of former ages ; but we may well and wisely avail
ourselves of authorities, in confirmation of truth, and above all,
in the removal of prejudices founded on imperfect information.
429
We do not see, therefore, how we can more appropriately con-
clude this first, explanatory and controversial section of our
inquiry, than by a brief statement of our renowned country-
man's own principles of Method, conveyed for the greater part
in his own words. Nor do we see, in what more precise form
we can recapitulate the substance of the doctrines asserted and
vindicated in the preceding pages. For we rest our strongest
pretensions to a calm and respectful perusal, in the first in-
stance, on the fact, that we have only re-proclaimed the coin-
ciding prescripts of the Athenian Verulam, and the British
Plato — genuinam scilicet Platonis Dialecticem ; et Methodo-
logiam Principialem
FRANCISCI DE VERULAMIO.
In the first instance, Lord Bacon equally with ourselves, de-
mands what we have ventured to call the intellectual or mental
initiative, as the motive and guide of every philosophical ex-
periment ; some well-grounded purpose, some distinct impres-
sion of the probable results, some self-consistent anticipation
as the ground of the *■'- prudens qumstio''' (the fore-thoughtful
query), which he affirms to be the prior half of the knowl-
edge sought, dimidium scienticB. With him, therefore, as
with us, an idea is an experiment proposed, an experiment is
an idea realized. For so, though in other words, he himself
informs us : " neque scientiam molimur tam sensu vel instru-
mentis quam expeiHmentis ; etenim experimentorum longe ma-
jor est subtilitas quam sensus ipsius, licit instrumentis exquisitis
adjuti. Nam de Us loquimur experimentis qua ad intentionem
ejus quod qcBvitur perite et secundum artem excogitata et ap-
posita sunt. Itaque pereeptioni sensus immediatae et propriae
non multum tribuimus : sed eo rem deducimus, ut sensus tan-
tum de experimento, experimentum de rejudicet^ This last
sentence is, as the attentive reader will have himself detected
one of those faulty verbal antitheses, not unfrequent in Lord
Bacon's writings. Pungent antitheses, and the analogies of
wit in which the resemblance is too often more indebted to
the double or equivocal sense of a word, than to any real con-
formity* in the thing or image, form the dulcia vitia of his style,
* Thus (to take the first instance tliat occurs), Bacon says, that some knowl-
edges, Uke the stars, are so high that they give no light. Where the word
"high," means deep or sublime, "in the one case and distant" in the other.
430
the Dalilahs of our philosophical Sampson. But in this in-
stance, as indeed throughout all his works, the meaning is clear
and evident — namely, that the sense can apprehend, through the
organs of sense, only the phaenomena evoked by the experiment:
vis vero mentis ea, quie experimentum excogitaverat, de Re ju-
dicet : i. e. that pov/er which, out of its own conception had
shaped the experiment, must alone determine the true import
of the phaenomena. If again we ask, what.it is which gives birth
to the question, and then ad intentionem quffistionis suae experi-
mentum excogitat, unde de Re judicet, the answer is : Lux In-
tellectiis, lumen siccimi, the pure and impersonal reason, freed
from all the various idols enumerated by our great legislator of
science [idola tribuc, specus^ fori, theatri) ; that is, freed
from the limits, the passions, the prejudices, the peculiar ha-
bits of the human understanding, natural or acquired ; but
above all, pure from the r\rrogance, which leadsman to take the
forms and mechanism of his own mere reflective faculty, as the
measure of nature and of Deity. In this indeed we find the
great object both of Plato's and of Lord Bacon's labors. They
both saw that there could be no hope of any fruitful and secure
method, while forms merely subjective, were pi-esumed as the
true and proper moulds of objective truth. This is the sense in
which Lord Bacon uses the phrases, — intellectus humanus,
mens hominis, so profoundly and justly characterized in the
preliminary (Distributio Operis) of his De Augment. Scient.
And with all right and propriety did he so apply them : for this
was, in fact, the sense in which the phrases were applied by
the teachers, whom he is controverting ; by the doctors of the
schools ; and the visionaries of the laboratory. To adopt the
bold but happy phrase of a late ingenious French writer, it is
the homme particulier, as contrasted with I'homme generate ;
against which, Ileraclitus and Plato, among the ancients, and
among the moderns, Bacon and Stewart (rightly under-
stood), warn and pre-admonish the sincere inquirer. Most
truly, and in strict consonance with his two great predecessors,
does our immortal Verulam teach — that the human understand-
ing, even independent of the causes that always, previously to its
purification by philosophy, render it more or less turbid or une-
ven, "ipsa sua natura radios ex figura et sectione propria immu-
tat :" that our understanding not only reflects the objects subjec-
tively, that is, substitutes, for the inherent laws and properties of
431
the objects the relations which the objects bear to its own par-
ticular constitution ; but that in all its conscious presenta-
tions and reflexes, it is itself only a phaenomenon of the inner
sense, and requires the same corrections as the appearances
transmitted by the outward senses. ' But that there is poten-
tially, if not actually, in eA^ery rational being, a somewhat, call
it what you will, the pure reason, the spirit, lumen siccura,
vou?, cpug vofc-^^ov, intellectual intuition, $ic. kc. ; and that in this
are to be found the indispensable conditions of all science, and
scientific research, whether meditative, contemplative, or ex-
perimental ; is often expressed, and every where supposed, by
Lord Bacon. And that this is not only the right but the possi-
ble nature of the human mind, to which it is capable of being
restored, is implied in the various remedies prescribed by him
for its diseases, and in the various means of neutralizing or
converting into useful instrumentality the imperfections which
cannot be removed. There is a sublime truth contained in his
favorite phrase — Idola intellectus. He thus tells us, that the
mind of man is an edifice not built with human hands, which
needs only be purged of its idols and idolatrous services to
become the temple of the true and living Light. Nay, he has
shown and established the true criterion between the ideas
and the idola of the mind — namely, that the former are mani-
fested by their adequacy to those ideas in nature, which in and
through them are contemplated. " Non leve quiddam interest
inter humanse mentis idola et divinse mentis ideas, hoc est,
inter placita quaedam inania et veras signaturas atque impress-
iones factas in creaturis, prout Ratione sana et sicci luminis^
quam docendi causa interpretem naturse vocare consuevimus,
inveniuntur." Novum Organum xxiii. & xxvi. Thus the
difference, or rather distinction between Plato and Lord Bacon
is simply this : that philosophy being necessarily bi-polar, Pla-
to treats principally of the truth, as it manifests itself at the
ideal pole, as the science of intellect (i. e. de mundo intelligi-
bili); while Bacon confines himself, for the most part, to the
same truth, as it is manifested at the other, or material pole,
as the science of nature (i. e. de mundo sensibili). It is as
necessary, therefore, that Plato should direct his inquiries
chiefly to those objective truths that exist in and for the intel-
lect alone, the images and representatives of which we con-
struct for ourselves by figure, number, and word ; as that Lord
432
Bacon should attach his main concern to the truths which have
their signatures in nature, and which (as he himself plainly
and often asserts) may indeed be revealed to us through and
withj but never by the senses, or the faculty of sense. Other-
wise, indeed, instead of being more objective than the former
(which they are not in any sense, both being in this respect
the same), they would be less so, and, in fact, incapable of be-
ing insulated from the " Idola tribus quae in ipsa natura fun-
data sunt, atque in ipsa tribu seu gente hominum : cum omnes
perceptiones tam sensus quam mentis, sunt ex analogia hominis
non ex analogia universi." (N. 0. xli.) Hence too, it will
not surprise us, that Plato so often calls ideas living laws, in
which the mind has its whole true being and permanence ; or
that Bacon, vice versa, names the laws of nature, ideas ; and
represents what we have, in a former part of this disquisition,
called /acis of science and central phcenomena^ as signatures,
impresssions, and symbols of ideas. A distinguishable power
self-affirmed, and seen in its unity with the Eternal Essence, is,
according to Plato, an Idea : and the discipline, by which the
human mind is purified from its idols (tifJwXa) and raised to the
contemplation of Ideas, and thence to the secure and ever pro-
gressive, though never-ending, investigation of truth and real-
ity by scientific method, comprehends what the same philoso-
pher so highly extols under the title of Dialectic. According to
Lord Bacon, as describing the same truth seen from the oppo-
site point, and applied to natural philosophy, an idea would be
defined as — Intuitio sive inventio, quae in perceptione sensus
non est (ut quae purse et sicci luminis Intellectioni est propria)
idearum divinae mentis, prout in creaturis per signaturus suas
sese patefaciant. That (saith the judicious Hooker) which doth
assign to each thing the kind, that which determines the force
and power, that which doth appoint the form and measure of
working, the same we term a Law.
We can now, as men furnished with fit and respectable cre-
dentials, proceed to the historic importance and practical appli-
cation of Method, under the deep and solemn conviction, that
without this guiding Light neither can the sciences attain to
their full evolution, as the organs of one vital and harmonious
body, nor that most weighty and concerning of all scien-
ces, the science of Education, be understood in its first ele-
433
ments, much less display its powers, as the nisus formativus* of
social man, as the appointed protoplast of true humanity.
* So our medical writere commonly translate Professor Bliimenbach's BU-
dungstrieb, the vis plastica, or vis vJta3 formatrix of the eldest ])hysiologists,
and the life or living principle of John Hunter, the profoundest, we had al-
most saifl the only, ])hysiological philosopher of the latter half of the ])rece-
ding century. For in what other sense can ivc understand either his asser-
tion, that this principle or agent is "independent of organization," which yet
it animates, sustains, and repairs, or the purport of that magnificent commen-
taiy on his system, the Hunterian MusfBum, in Lincoln's Inn Fields. The
Hunterian idea of a life or vital principle, "independent of the organization"
yet in each organ working instuictively towards its preservation, as the ants
or termites in repairing the nests of their own fabrication, demonstrates that
John Hunter did not, as Stahl and others had done, individualize, or make an
hypostasis of the principles of life, as a somewhat manifestable per se, and
consequently itself a Phsenomenon ; the latency of which was to be attribu-
ted to accidental, or at least contingent causes, ex. gr. ; the limits or imper-
fection of our senses, or the inaptness of the media: but that herein he phi-
losophized in the spirit of the purest Newtonians, who in like manner refu-
sed to hypostasize the law of gravitation into an ether, which even if its ex-
istence were conceded, would need another gravitation for itself. The Hun-
terian position is a genuine philosophic idea, the negative test of which as of
all Ideas is, that it is equi-distant from an ens logicum (= an abstraction,) an
ens reprsesentativum (= a generalization,) and an ens phantosticum (= an
imaginary thing or pheenomenon.)
Is not the progressive enlargement, the boldness without temerity, of chi-
rurgical views and chirurgical practice since Hunter's time to the present day,
attributable, in almost every instance, to his substitution of what may per-
haps be called experimental Dynamic, for the mechanical notions, or the less
injurious traditional empiricism, of his predecessors? And this, too, though
the light is still struggling through a cloud, and though it is shed on many who
see either dimly or not at all the Idea from which it is eradicated? Willingly
would we designate, what we have elsewhere called the mental initiative, by
some term less obnoxious to the a)iti-Platonic reader, than this of Idea — ob-
noxious, we mean, as soon as any ])recise and peculiar sense is attached to
the sound. Willingly would we exchange the Term, might it be done with-
out sacrifice of the Import: and did we not see, too, clearty, that it is the
meaning, not the word, that is the object of that aversion, which, fleeing from
inward alarm, tries to shelter itself in outward contempt — that is at once folly
and a stumbling-l)Iock to the partizans of a crass and sensual materialism
the advocates of the Nihil nisi ab extra.
They, like moles.
Nature's mute monks, live mandrakes of the ground,
Shrink fi-om the light, then listen for a sound ;
Sue but to dread, and dread they know not why,
The natural alien of their negative eye ! S. T. C.
h5
434
Never can society comprehend fully, and in its whole practical
extent, the permanent distinction, and the occasional contrast,
between cultivation and civilization ; never can it attain to a
due insight into the momentous fact, fearfully as it has been,
and even now is exempiiiied in a neii^hbor country, that a na-
tion can never be a too cultivated, but may easily becom.e an
over-civilized, race: while we oppose ourselves voluntarily to
that gr:\nd prerogative of our nature, a hungering and thirst-
ing AFTER TRUTH, as tlie appropriate end of our intelligential,
and its point of union with, our moral nature ; but therefore
after truth, that must be found within us before it can be infel-
ligibly reflected back on the mind from without, and a religious
regard to which is indispensable, both as a guide and object to
the just formation of the human being, poor and rich : while,
in a word, we are blind to the master-light, which we have al-
ready presented in various points of view, and recommended
by whatever is of highest authority with the venerators of the
ancient, and the adherents of modern philosophy.
ESSAY X.
I7o).uua\}irj I'oov ov 8it)aoy.fi- eivui yao ev to aoqor^ Fni^ua&ui vvo^trfV
'tjts tyy.vSa^t'Tjai'.i rruviu 8iu ttuitvii-'.
(Trandation.) — The effsctive education of th?; reason is not to be supplied
by multifarious accpiirements ; for tliere is but one knowledge that merits to
be called ^visdonl, a knowledge that is !-ne with a law which shall govern
all ill and through all.
IIerac. aj)ud Diogenem Laert. ix. § 1
HISTORICAL AND ILLUSTRATIVE.
There is still preserved in the Royal Observatory at Rich-
mond the model of a bridge, constructed by the late justly
celebrated Mr. Atwood (at that time, however, in the decline
of life), in the confidence, that he had explained the wonder-
ful properties of the arch as resulting from compound action of
simple wedges, or of the rectilinear solids of which the mate-
rial arch was composed : and of which supposed discovery, his
model was to exhibit ocular proof. Accordingly, he took a suffi-
cient number of wedges of brass highly polished. Arranging
these at first on a skeleton arch of wood, he then removed this
scaffolding or support ; and the bridge not only stood firm,
without any cement between the squares; but he could take
away any given portion of them, as a third and a half, and ap-
pending a correspondent weight, at either side, the remaining
part stood as before. Our venerable sovereign, who is known
to have had a particular interest and pleasure in all works and
discoveries of niechanic science or ingenuity, looked «t it for
awhile steadfastly, and, as his manner was, with quick and bro-
ken expressions of praise and courteous approbation, in the
form of answers to his own quesiions. At length turning to
the constructor, he said, " But, Mr. Atwood, you have presum-
ed the figure. You have put the arch first in this wooden ske-
436
leton. Can you build a bridge of the same wedges in any oth-
er figure ? A straight bridge, or with two lines touching at the
apex ? If not, is it not evident, that the bits of brass derive
their continuance in the present position from the property of the
arch, and not the arch from the property of the wedge ?" The
objection was fatal ; the justice of the remark not to be resist-
ed ; and we have ever deemed it a forcible illustration of the
Aristotelian axiom, with respect to all just reasoning, that the
whole is of necessity prior to its parts ; nor can we conceive a
more apt illustration of the scientific principles we have already
laid down.
All method supposes a union of several things to a common
end, either by disposition, as in the works of man ; or by con-
vergence, as in the operations and products of nature. That
we acknowledge a method^ even in the latter, results from the
religious instinct which bids us " find tongues in trees ; books
in the running streams; sermons in stones: and good (that is,
some useful end answering to some good purpose) in every
thing." In a self-conscious and thence reflecting being, no
instinct can exist, without engendering the belief of an object
corresponding to it, either present or future, real or capable of
being realized : much less the instinct, in which humanity itself
is grounded : that by vvhich, in every act of conscious perception,
we at once identify our being with that of the world without
us and yet place ourselves in contra-distinction to that world.
Least of all can this mysterious pre-disposition exist without
evolving a belief that the productive power, which is in nature
as nature, is essentially one (i. e. of one kind) with the intel-
lio-ence, which is in the human mind above nature : however
disfigured this belief may become, by accidental forms or ac-
companiments, and though like heat in the thawing of ice, it
may appear only in its eflects. So universally has this convic-
tion leavened the ver}^ substance of all discourse, that there is
no language on earth in winch a man can abjure it as a preju-
dice, without employing terms and conjunctions that suppose its
reality, with a feeling very different from that which accom-
panies a figurative or metaphorical use of words. In all aggre-
'■•ates of construction, therefore, which we contemplate as
wholes, whether as integral parts or as a system, we assume
an intention, as the initiative, of which the end is the correla-
tive.
\
437
Hence proceeds the introduction of final causes in the works
of nature equally as in those of man. Hence their assumption,
as constitutive and explanatory by the mass of mankind ; and
the employment of the presumption, as an auxiliary and regula-
tive principle, by the enlightened naturalist, whose office it is
to seek, discover, and investigate the efficient causes. Without
denying, that to resolve the efficient into the final may be the
ultimate aim of philosophy, he, of good right, resists the sub-
stitution of the latter for the former, as premature, presumptu-
ous, and preclusive of all science ; well aware, that those sci-
ences have been most progressive, in which this confusion has
been either precluded by the nature of the science itself, as in
pure mathematics, or avoided by the good sense of its cultivator.
Yet even he admits a teleological ground in physics and physiolo-
gy : that is, the presumption of something analogous to the caus-
ality of the human will, by which, without assigning to nature, as
nrture, a conscious purpose, he may yet distinguish her agency
from a blind and lifeless mechanism. Even he admits its use,
and, in many instances, its necessity, as a regulative principle ;
as a ground of anticipation, for the guidance of his judgment
and for the direction of his observation and experiment : brief-
ly in all that preparatory process, which the French language
so happily expresses by s''orienter, i. e. to find out the east for
one's self. When the naturalist contemplates the structure of
a bird, for instance, the hollow cavity of the bones, the position
of the wings for motion, and of the tail for steering its course,
&c. he knows indeed that there must be a correspondent me-
chanism, as the nexus effectivus. But he knows, likewise, that
this will no more explain tho particular existence of the bird,
than the principles of cohesion, &c. could inform him why of
two buildings, one is a palace, and the other a church. Nay,
it must not be overlooked, that the assumption of the nexus ef-
fectivus itself originates in the mind, as one of the laws under
which alone it can reduce the manifold of the impression from
without into unity, and thus contemplate it as one thing ; and
could never (as hath been clearly proved by Mr. Hume) have
been derived from outward experience, in which it is indeed
presupposed, as a necessary condition. Notio nexus causalis
non oritur, sed supponitur, a sensibus. Between the purpose
and the end the component parts are included, and thence re-
ceive their position and character as means, i. e. parts contem-
\
\
438
plated as parts. It is in this sense, we will affirm, that the
parts, as means to an end, derive their position, and therein
their qualities (or character) nay, we dare add, their very ex-
istence — as particular things — from the antecedent method, or
self-organizing purpose ; upon which therefore we have dwelt
so long.
We are aware, that it is with our cognitions as with our
children. Ti.ere is a period in which the method of nature is
working for them ; a period of aimless activity and unregula-
ted accumulation, during which it is enough if we can pre-
serve them in health and out of harm^s way. Again, there is
a period of orderliness, of circumspection, of discipline, in
which we purify, separate, deflne, select, arrange, and settle
the nomenclature of communication. There is also a period
of dawning and twilight, a period of anticipation, afibrding
trials of strength. And all these, both in the growth of the
sciences, and in the mind of a jightly-educated individual, will
precede the attainment of a scientific Method. But, notwith-
standing this, unless the importance of the latter be felt and
acknowledged, unless its attainment be looked forward to and
from the very beginning prepared for, there is little hope and
small chance that any education will be conducted aright ; or
will ever prove in reality worth the name.
Much labor, much wealth may have been expended, yet the
final result will too probably warrant the sarcasm of the Scythian
traveller : " Vse ! quantum nihili !" and draw from a w ise
man the earnest recommendation of a full draught from Lethe,
as the first and indispensable preparative for the waters of the
true Helicon. Alas ! how many examples are now present to
our memory, of young men the most anxiously and expensive-
ly be-schoolmastered, be-tutored, be-lectured, any thing but
educated ; who have received arms and ammunition, instead of
skill, strength, and courage ; varnished rather than polished ;
perilously over-civilized, and most pitiably uncultivated ! And
all from inattention to the method dictated by nature herself, to
the simple truth, that as the forms in all organized existence,
so must all true and living knowledge proceed fiom within ;
that it may be trained, supported, fed, excited, but can never
be infused or impressed.
Look back on the history of the Sciences. Review the Me-
thod in which Providence has brought the more favored portion
439
of mankind to the present state of Arts and Sciences. Lord
Bacon has justly remarked, Antiquitas temporis juventus mun-
di et ScienticB — Antiquity of time is the youth of the world and
of Science. In the childhood of the human race, its education
commenced with the cultivation of the moral sense ; the object
proposed being such as the mind only could apprehend, and the
principle of obedience being placed in the will. The appeal
in both was made to the inward man. "Through faith we un-
derstand that the worlds were framed by the word of God ; so
that things which were seen were not made of things which do
appear." (The solution of Phmiomena can never be derived
from Phcenomena.) Upon this ground, the writer of the epis-
tle to the Hebrews (chap, xi.) is not less philosophical than
eloquent. The aim, the method throughout was, in the first
place, to awaken, to cultivate, and to mature the truly human
in human nature, in and through itself, or as independently as
possible of the notices derived from sense, and of the motives
that had reference to the sensations ; till the time should arrive
when the senses themselves might be allowed to present sym-
bols and attestations of truths, learnt previously from deeper
and inner sources. Thus the first period of the education of
our race was evidently assigned to the cultivation of humanity
itself; or of that in man, which of all known embodied crea-
tures he alone possesses, the pure reason, as designed to regu-
late the will. And by what method was this done? First, by
the excitement of the idea of their Creator as a spirit, of an
idea which they were strictly forbidden to realize to themselves
under any image ; and, secondly, by the injunction of obedi-
ence to the will of a super-sensual Being. Nor did the method
stop here. For, unless we are equally to contradict Moses and
the New Testament, in compliment to the paradox of a War-
burton^ the rewards of their obedience were placed at a dis-
tance. For the time present they equally with us were to
" endure^ as seeing him who is invisible." Their bodies
they were taught to consider as fleshly tents, which as pilgrims
they were bound to pitch wherever the invisible Director of
their route should appoint, however barren or thorny the spot
might appear. " Few and evil have the days of the years of
my life been," says the aged Israel. But that life was but "his
pilgrimage ; and he trusted in the promises^
Thus were the very first lessons in the Divine School assign-
440
ed to the cultivation of the reason and of the will : or rather
of both as united in Faith. The common and ultimate object
of the will and of the reason was purely spiritual.^ and to be
present in the mind of the disciple — /xo'vov Iv Io='*/, [j/qdaiui] iiSuXixus
i. e. in the idea alone, and nevei" as an image or imagination.
The means too, by which the idea was to be excited, as well
as the symbols by which it was to be communicated, were to be,
as far as possible, intellectual.
Those, on the contrary, who willfully chose a mode opposite
to this method, who determined to shape their convictions and
deduce their knowledge from without, by exclusive observa-
tion of outward and sensible things as the only realities, be-
came, it appears, rapidly civilized ! They built cities, invent-
ed musical instruments, were artificers in brass and in iron, and
refined on the means of sensual gratification, and the conven-
iences of courtly intercourse. They became the great masters
of the AGREEABLE, which fraternized readily with cruelty and
rapacity : these being, indeed, but alternate moods of the
same sensual selfishness. Thus, both before and after the
flood, the vicious of mankind receded from all true cultivation,
as they hurried towards civilization. Finally, as it was not in
their power to make themselves wholly beasts, or to remain
without a semblance of religion ; and yet continuing faithful to
their original maxim, and determined to receive nothing as
true, but what they derived, or believed themselves to derive
from their senses, or (in modern phrase) what they could
prove a posteriori, — they became idolaters of the Heavens
and the material elements. From the harmony of operation
they concluded a certain unity of nature and design, but were
incapable of finding in the facts any proof of a unity of per-
son. They did not, in this respect, pretend to find what they
must themselves have first assumed. Having thrown away the
clusters, which had grown in the vineyard of revelation, they
could not — as later reasoners, by being born in a Christian
country, have been enableld to do — hang the grapes on thorns,
and then pluck them as the native growth of the bushes. But
the men of sense, of the patriarchal times, neglecting reason
and having rejected faith, adopted what the facts seemed to in-
volve and the most obvious analogies to suggest. They ac-
knowledged a whole bee-hive of natural Gods ; but while they
441
were employed in building a temple* consecrated to the mate-
rial Heavens, it pleased divine wisdom to send on them a con-
fusion of lip^ accompanied with the usual embitterment of con-
troversy, where all parties are in the wrong, and the grounds
of the quarrel are equally plausible on all sides. As the modes
of error are endless, the hundred forms of Polytheism had each
its group of partizans who, hostile or alienated, henceforward
formed separate tribes kept aloof from each other by their am-
bitious leaders. Hence arose, in the course of a few centuries,
the diversity of languages, which has sometimes been confoun-
ded with the miraculous event that was indeed its first and
principal, though remote, cause.
Following next, and as the representative of the youth and
approaching manhood of the human intellect, we have ancient
Greece, from Orpheus, Linus, Musseus, and the other mytholo-
gical bards, or perhaps the brotherhoods impersonated under
those names, to the time when the republics lost their indepen-
dence, and their learned men sunk into copyists and commenta-
tors of the works of their forefathers. That we include these as
educated under a distinct providential, though not miraculous,
dispensation, will surprise no one, who reflects that in whatever
has a permanent operation on the destinies and intellectual con-
dition of mankind at large — that in all which has been mani-
festly employed as a co-agent in the mightiest revolution of the
moral world, the propagation of the Gospel ; and in the intel-
lectual progress of mankind, the restoration of Philosophy,
Science, and the ingenuous Arts — it were irreligion not to ac-
knowledge the hand of divine Providence. The periods, too,
join on to each other. The earliest Greeks took up the religious
*AVe are fur from being Hiitchinsonians, nor have we found much to res-
pect in the twelve volumes of Hutchinson's works, either as biblical com-
ment or natural ])liilos()]iliy: though we give him credit for orthodoxy and
good intentions. But his interpretation of the first nine verses of Genesis
xi. seems not only rational in itself, and consistent with after accounts of the
sacred historian, but proved to be the literal sense of the Hebrew text. His
explanation of the cherubim is pleasing and plausible: we dare not say more.
Those who would wish to learn the most important points of the Hutchin-
sonian doctrine in the most favorable form, and in the shortest possil)le space,
we can refer to Duncan Forbes's Letter to a bishop. If our own judgement
did not withhold our assent, we should never be ashamed of a conviction
held, professed, and advocated by so good, and wise a man, as Duncan
Forbes.
56
442
and lyrical poetry of the Hebrews ; and the schools of the
Prophets were, however partially and imperfectly, represented
by the mysteries, derived through the corrupt channel of the
Phoenicians. With these secret schools of physiological theo-
logy the mythical poets were doubtless in connection : and it
was these schools, which prevented Polytheism from producing
all its natural barbarizing effects. The mysteries and the my-
thical Hymns and Pagans shaped themselves gradually into
epic Poetry and History on the one hand, and into the ethical
Tragedy and Philosophy on the other. Under their protection,
and that of a youthful liberty secretly controlled by a species of
internal Theocracy, the Sciences and the sterner kinds of the
Fine Arts ; viz. Architecture and Statuary, grew up together :
followed, indeed, by Painting, but a statuesque and austerely
idealized painting, which did not degenerate into mere copies
of the sense, till the process, for which Greece existed, had
been completed. Contrast the rapid progress and perfection of
all the products, which owe their existence and character to
the mind's own acts, intellectual or imaginative, with the rude-
ness of their application to the investigation of physical laws and
phsenomena: then contemplate the Greeks (Feaio' «£' irai5sg) as
representing a portion only of the education of man : and the
conclusion is inevitable.
In the education of the mind of the race, as in that of the indi-
vidual, each different age and purpose requires dift'erent objects
and different means : though all dictated by the same principle,
tending toward the same end, and forming consecutive parts of
the same method. But if the scale taken be sufficiently large to
neutralize or render insignificant the disturbing forces of acci-
dent, the degree of success is the best criterion by which to
appreciate, both the wisdom of the general principle, and the
fitness of the particular objects to the given epoch or period.
Now it is a fact, for the greater part of universal acceptance, and
attested as to the remainder by all that is of highest fame and
authority, by the great, wise, and good, during a space of at
least seventeen centuries — weighed against whom the opinions
of a few distinguished individuals, or the fashion of a single
age, must be held light in the balance,— that whatever could
be educed by the mind out of its own essence, by attention to
its own acts and laws of action, or as the products of the same ;
and whatever likewise could be reflected from material masses
443
transformed as it were into mirrors, the excellence of which is
to reveal, in the least possible degree, their own original forms
and natures — all these, whether arts or sciences, the ancient
Greeks carried to an almost ideal perfection : while in the appli-
cation of their skill and science to the investigation of the laws
of the sensible world, and the qualities and compositio«i of ma-
terial concretes, chemical, mechanical, or organic, their essays'
were crude and improsperous, compared with those of the mo-
derns during the early morning of their strength, and even at
the first re-ascension of the light. But still more striking will
the difference appear, if we contrast the physiological schemes
and fancies of the Greeks with their own discoveries in the re-
gion of the pure intellect, and with their still unrivalled success
in arts of imagination. In the aversion of their great men from
any jiractical use of their philosophic discoveries, as in the well-
known instance of Archimedes, " the soul of the world" was
at work ; and the few exceptions were but as a rush of billows
driven shoreward by some chance gust before the hour of tide,
instantly retracted, and leaving the sands bare and soundless
long after the momentary glitter had been lost in evaporation.
The third period, that of the Romans, was devoted to the
preparations for preserving, propagating, and realizing the la-
bors of the preceding ; to war, empire, law ! To this we may
refer the defect of all originality in the Latin poets and philo-
sophers, on the one hand, and on the other, the predilection of
the Romans for astrology, magic, divination, in all its forms. It
was the Roman instinct to appropriate by conquest and to give
fixture by legislation. And it was the bewilderment and pre-
matur'ity of the same instinct which restlessly impelled them
to materialize the ideas of the Greek philosophers, and to ren-
der them practical by superstitious uses.
Thus the Hebrews may be regarded as the fixed mid point of
the living line, toward which the Greeks as the ideal pole, and
the Romans as the material, were ever approximating ; till the
co-incidence and final synthesis took place in Christianity, of
which the Bible is the law, and Christendom the phsenome-
non. So little confirmation from History, from the process of
education planned and conducted by unerring Providence, do
those theorists receive, who would at least begin (too many,
alas! both begin and end) with the objects of the senses ; as
if nature herself had not abundantly performed this part of
444
the task, by continuous, irresistible enforcements of attention
to her presence, to the direct beholding, to the apprehension
and observation, of the objects that stimulate the senses! as if
the cultivation of the mental powers, by methodical exercise
of their own forces, were not the securest means of forming the
true correspondents to them in the functions of comparison,
judgment, and interpretation.
ESSAY XI.
Sapiinus aniino, fruimur anima : sine ammo anima est debilis.
L. Accii Fragmenta.
As there are two wants connatural to man, so are therp
main directions of human activity, pervading in modern .-v;S
the whole civilized world ; and constituting and sustaining that
nationality which yet it is their tendency, and, more or less,
their effect^ to transcend and to moderate — Trade and Litera-
ture. These were they, which, after the dismemberment of the
old Roman world, gradually reduced the conquerors and the
conquered at once into several nations and a common Chris-
tendom. The natural law of increase and the instincts of fam-
ily may produce tribes, and under rare and peculiar circum-
stances, settlements and neighborhoods : and conquest may form
empires. But without trade and literature, mutually commin-
gled, there can be no nation ; without commerce and science,
no bond of nations. As the one hath for its object the wants
of the body, real or artificial, the desires for which are for the
greater part, nay, as far as respects the origination of trade
and commerce, altogether excited from without ; so the other
bas for its origin, as well as for its object, the wants of the mind.
445
the gratification of which is a natural and necessary condition of
its growth and sanity. And the man (or the nation, considered
according to its predominant character as one man) may be re-
garded under these circumstances, as acting in two forms of me-
thod, inseparably co-existent, yet producing very different effects
according as one or the other obtains the primacy.* x\s is the
rank assigned to each in the theory and practice of the governing
classes, and, according to its prevalence in forming the foundation
of their public habits and opinions, so will be the outward and
inward life of the people at large : such will the nation be.
In tracing the epochs, and alternations of their relative sover-
eignty or subjection, consists the Philosophy of History. In
the power of distinguishing and appreciating their several re-
sults consists the historic Sense. And that under the ascen-
dency of the mental and moral character the commercial rela-
tions may thrive to the utmost desirable point, while the re-
verse is ruinous to both, and sooner or later effectuates the fall
or debasement of the country itself — this is the richest truth
obtained for mankind by historic Research : though unhappily
it is the truth, to which a rich and commercial nation listens
with most reluctance and receives with least faith. Where
the brain and the immediate conductors of its influence re-
main healthy and vigorous, the defects and diseases of the eye
will most often admit either of a cure or a substitute. And so
is it with the outward prosperity of a state, where the well-be-
ing of the people posesses the primacy in the aims of the
governing classes, and in the public feeling. But what avails
the perfect state of the eye,
Tho' clear
To outward view of blemish or of spot,
where the optic nerve is paralyzed by a pressure on the brain ?
And even so is it not only with the well-being, but ultimately
with the prosperity of a people, where the former is consider-
ed (if it be considered at all) as subordinate and secondary to
wealth and revenue.
In the pursuits of commerce the man is called into action
* The senses, the memory, and the nnderstaiiding (i. e. tlie retentive, reflec-
tive, and judicial functions of his mind) l)eing common to both methods.
446
from without, in order to appropriate the outward world, as far
as he can bring it within his reach, to the purposes of his sen-
ses and sensual nature. His ultimate end is — appearance and
enjoAMiient. Where on the other hand the nurture and evolu-
tion of humanity is the final aim, there will soon be seen a
general tendency toward, an earnest seeking after, some ground
common to the w'orld and to man, therein to find the one prin-
ciple of permanence and identity, the rock of strength and re-
fuge, to which the soul may cling amid the fleeting surge-like
objects of the senses. Disturbed as by the obscure quickening
of an inward birth ; made restless by swarming thoughts, that,
like bees when they first miss the queen and mother of the
hive, with vain discursion seek each in the other what is
the common need of all ; man sallies forth into nature — in na-
ture, as in the shadows and reflections of a clear river, to dis-
cover the originals of the forms presented to hira in his own
intellect. Over these shadows, as ii they were the substantial
powers and presiding spirits of the stream. Narcissus like, he
hangs delighted : till finding nowhere a representative of that
free agency w'hich yet is a fact of immediate consciousness
sanctioned and made fearfully significant by his prophetic con-
science, he learns at last that what he seeks he has left behind
and but lengthens the distance as he prolongs the search. Un-
der the tutorage of scientific analysis, haply first given to him
by express revelation (e ccelo descendit, rNQQI liEATTON) he
separates the relations that are wholly the creatures of his
own abstracting and comparing intellect, and at once discovers
and recoils from the discovery, that the reality, the objective
truth, of the objects he has been adoring, derives its whole
and sole evidence from an obscure sensation, which he isalike
unable to resist or to comprehend, which compels him to con-
template as without and independent of himself what yet he
could not contemplate at all, were it not a modification of his
nwn beinK. ■
'O*
Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own ;
Yearnings she liath in her own natural kiud,
And, even with something of a Mother's mind,
And no unworthy aim,
The homely Nurse doth all she can
To make her Foster-child, hor Inmate Man,
Forget the glories lie Ijath known,
447
And tliat iniporial palace whence he came.
* * * * *
O joy ! that in our embers
Is something that doth liv^e,
Tliat nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive !
The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Peqietual benedictions : not indeed
For that which is most worthy to be blest ;
Delight and liberty, the simple creed
Of childhood, whether busy or at rest,
With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast : —
Not for these I raise
The song of thanks and praise ,
But for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outwaid things,
Fallings from us, vanishings ;
Blank misgivings of a Creature
Moving about in worlds not realized,
High instincts, before which our mortal Nature
Did tremble like a guilty Thing surprized !
But for those first affections,
Those shadowy recollections,
Which, be they what they may.
Are yet the fountain light of all our day.
Are yet a master light of all our seeing ;
Uphold us — cherish — and have ]50wer to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal Silence : truths that wake.
To perish never ;
Which neither hstlessness, nor mad endeavour,
Nor Man nor Boy,
Nor all tliat is at enmity with joy.
Can utterly abolish or destroy!
Hence, in a season of calm weather.
Though inland fiir we be.
Our soids have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither ;
Can in a moment travel thither —
And see the Children sjjort upon the shore.
And hear the mighty waters rolhng evermore.
Wordsworth. *
* During my residence ui Rome I had the pleasure of reciting this sublime
ode to the illustrious Baron Von Humboldt, then the Prussian minister at the
papa] court, and now at the court of St. James's. By those who knew and
448
Long indeed will man strive to satisfy the inward querist with
the phrase, laws of nature. But though the individual may rest
content with the seemly metaphor, the race cannot. If a law
of nature he a mere generalization, it is included in the above
as an act of the mind. But if it be other and more, and yet
manifestable only in and to an intelligent spirit, it must in act
and substance be itself spiritual : for things utterly heteroge-
neous can have no intercommunion. In order therefore to the
recognition of himself in nature man must first learn to com-
prehend nature in himself, and its laws in the ground of his
own existence. Then only can he reduce Phsenomenato Prin-
ciples — then only will he have achieved the method, the self-
unravelling clue, which alone can securely guide him to the
conquest of the former — when he has discovered in the basis
of their union the necessity of their differences ; in the prin-
ciple of their continuance the solution of their changes. It is
the idea of the common centre, of the universal law, by which
all power manifests itself in opposite yet interdependent forces
(t) ya^ ATA2 a;i ira^a Movcc5i xa&rjra;, y.ai vos^aig c.g'^a'TfTEi roaaic: ) that en-
lightening enquiry, multiplying experiment, and at once inspir-
ing humility and perseverance will lead him to comprehend
gradually and progressively the relation of each to the other,
of each to all, and of all to each.
Such is the second of the two possible directions in which
the activity of man propels itself: and either in one or other
of the sechannels — or in some one of the rivulets which not with-
standing their occasional refluence (and though, as in successive
schematisms of Becher, Stahl, and Lavoisier, the varying stream
honored both the brothers, tl)e talents of the ])lenipotenti<'xry were held equal
to those of the scientific traveller, his judgment superior. I can only say, that
I know few Englishmen, whom I could compare with him in the extensive
knowledge and just ai)preciation of English literature and its various epochs.
He listened to the ode with evident delight, and as evidently not wi hoiit sur-
prise, and at the close of the recitation exclaimed, " And is this the work of a
living English poet? I should have attributed it to the age of Elizabeth not
that 1 recollect any writer, whose style it resembles ; but rather with wonder;
that so great and original a poet should have escaped my notice." — Often as I
repeat passages from it 1o myself" I recur to the words of Dante:
Canzon ! io eredo, che saraimo radi
Che tua ragione bene intenderanno :
Tanto lor sei faticoso ed alto.
449
may for a time appear to comprehend and inisle some particular
department of knowledge which even then it only peninsulates)
are yet flowing towards this mid channel, and will ultimately fall
into it — all intellectual method has its bed, its banks, and its
line of progression. For be it not forgotten, that this discourse is
confnied to the evolutions and ordonnance of knowledge, as pre-
scribed by the constitution of the human intellect. Whether there
be a correspondent reality, whether the Knowing of the Mind
has its correlative in the Being of Nature, doubts may be felt.
Never to have felt them, would indeed betray an unconscious
unbelief, which traced to its extreme roots will be seen ground-
ed in a latent disbelief. How should it not be so ? if to conquer
these doubts, and out of the confused multiplicity of seeing with
which " the films of corruption" bewilder us, and out of the
unsubstantial shows of existence, which, like the shadow of an
eclipse, or the chasms in the sun's atmosphere, are but nega-
tions of sight, to attain that singleness of eye, with which ^^ the
whole body shall be full of light,'''' be the purpose, the means,
and the end of our probation, the method which is "profitable
to all things, and hath the promise in this life and in the life to
come!" Imagine the unlettered African, or rude yet musing
Indian, poring over an illumined manuscript of the inspired vo-
lume, with the vague yet deep impression that his fates aud for-
tunes are in some unknown manner connected with its contents.
Every tint, every group of characters has its several dream.
Say that after long and dissatisfying toils, he begins to sort,
first the paragraphs that appear to resemble each other, then
the lines, the words — nay, that he has at length discovered that
the whole is formed by the recurrence and interchanges of a
limited number of cyphers, letters, marks, and points, which,
however, in the very height and utmost perfection of his attain-
ment, he makes twenty fold more numerous than they are, by
classing every different form of the same character, intentional
or accidental, as a separate element. And the whole is with-
out soul or substance, a talisman of superstition, a mockery of
science : or employed perhaps at last to feather the arrows of
death, or to shine and flutter amid the plumes of savage vanityj
The poor Indian too truly represents the state of learned and
systematic ignorance — arrangement guided by the light of no
leading idea, mere orderliness without method !
But see ! the friendly missionary arrives. He explains to him
57
450
the nature of written words, translates them for him into his
native sounds, and thence into the thoughts of his heart — how
many of these thoughts then first evolved into consciousness,
which yet the awakening disciple receives, and not as aliens !
Henceforward, the book is unsealed for him ; the depth is
opened out ; he communes with the spirit of the volume as a
living oracle. The words become transparent, and he sees
them as though he saw them not.
We have thus delineated the two great directions of man
and society with their several objects and ends. Concerning
the conditions and principles of method appertaining to each,
we have affirmed (for the facts hitherto adduced have been ra-
ther for illustration than for evidence, to make our position
distinctly understood rather than to enforce the conviction of
its truth ) that in both there must be a mental antecedent ; but
that in the one it may be an image or conception received
through the senses, and originating from without, the inspirit-
ing passion or desire being alone the immediate and proper
offspring of the mind ; while in the other the initiative thought,
the intellectual seed, must itself have its birth-place within,
whatever excite ;ent from without may be necessary for its
germination. Will the soul thus awakened neglect or under-
value the outward and conditional causes of her growth ? For
rather, might we dare borrow a wild fancy from the Mantuan
bard, or the poet of Arno, will it be with her, as if a stem or
trunk, suddenly endued with sense and reflection, should con-
template its green shoots, their leaflets and budding blossoms,
wondered at as then .first noticed, but welcomed nevertheless
as its own growth : while yet with undiminished gratitude, and
a deepend sense of dependency, it would bless the dews and
the sunshine from without, deprived of the awakening and fos-
tering excitement of which, its own productivity would have
remained for ever hidden from itself, or felt only as the ob-
scure trouble of a bafiled instinct.
Hast thou ever raised thy mind to the consideration of ex-
istence, in and by itself, as the mere act of existing? Hast
thou ever said to thyself thougiitfully, it is ! heedless in that
moment, whether it were a man before thee, or a flower, or a
grain of sand ? Without reference, in short, to this or that par-
ticular mode or form of existence ? If thou hast indeed at-
tained 10 this, thou wilt have felt the presence of a mystery,
451
which must have fixed thy spirit in awe and wonder. The ve-
ry words, There is nothing ! or, There was a time, when there
was nothing ! are self-contradictory. There is that within us
which repels the proposition with as full and instantaneous
light, as if it bore evidence aginst the fact in the right of its
own eternity.
Not TO BE, then, is impossible : TO, BE, incomprehensi-
ble. If thou hast mastered this intuition of absolute existence,
thou wilt have learnt likewise, that it was this, and no other,
which in the earlier ages seized the nobler minds, the elect
among men, with a sort of sacred horror. This it was which
fust caused them to feel within themselves a something ineffa-
bly greater than their own individual nature. It was this
which, raising them aloft, and projecting them to an ideal dis-
tance from themselves, prepared them to become the lights and
awakening voices of other men, the founders of law and re-
ligion, the educators and foster-gods of mankind. The power,
which evolved this idea of Being, Being in its essence, Be-
ing limitless, comprehending its own limits in its dilatation,
and condensing itself into its own apparent mounds — how shall
we name it? The idea itself, which like a mighty billow at
once overwhelnjs and bears aloft — what is it ? Whence did it
come ? In vain would we derive it from the organs of sense :
for these supply only surfaces, undulations, phantoms ! In vain
from tiie instruments of sensation : for these furnish only the
chaos, the shapeless elements of sense ! And least of all may
we hope to find its origin, or sufficient cause, in the moulds
and mechanism of the understanding, the whole purport and
functions of which consists in individualization, in outlines and
differ encings by quantity, quality and relation. It were wiser
to seek substance in shadow, than absolute fulness in mere ne-
gation.
We have asked then for its birth-place in all that constitutes
our relative individuality, in all that each man calls exclusively
himself. It is an alien of which they know not : and for them
the question itself is purposeless, and the very words that con-
vey it are as sounds in an unknown language, or as the vision
of heaven and earth expanded by the rising sun, which falls
but as warmth on the eye-lids of the blind. To no class of
phenomena or particulars can it be referred, itself being none :
therefore, to no faculty by which these alone are apprehend-
453
ed. As little dare we refer it to any form of abstraction or gen-
eralization : for it has neither co-ordinate or analogon ! It is ab-
solutely one, and that it is, and affirms itself to be, is its only
predicate. And yet this power nevertheless, is! In eminence
of Being it IS ! And he for whom it manifests itself in its
adequate idea, dare as little arrogate it to himself as his own,
can as little appropriate it either totally or by partition, as he
can claim owneiship in the breathing air, or make an enclo-
sure in the cope of heaven.* He bears witness of it to his
own mind, even as he describes life and light : and, with the
silence' of light, it describes itself and dwells in us only as far
as we dwell in it. The truths which it manifests are such as
it alone can manifest, and in all truth it manifests itself. By
what name then canst thou call a truth so manifested ? Is it
not REVELATION ? Ask thysclf whether thou canst attach to
that latter word any consistent meaning not included in the
idea of the former. And the manifesting power, the source
and the correlative of the idea thus manifested — is it not GOD .''
Either thou knowest it to be GOD, or thou hast called an idol
by that awful name ! Therefore in the most appropriate, no
less than in the highest, sense of the word were the earliest
teachers of humanity inspired. They alone were the true seers
of GOD, and therefore prophets of the human race.
Look round you and you behold every where an adaptation
of means to ends. Meditate on the nature of a Being whose
ideas are creative, and consetjuently more real, more substan-
tial than the things that, at the height of their creaturely state,
aie but their dim reflexes :f and the intuitive conviction will a-
*Sec p. 11 — 19 of the Appendix to the Statesman's Manual ; and p. 47 —
59 of the second Lat-Sermon.
f If we may not rathei- resem])le them to the resurgent ashes, with which
(according to the tales of the later alchemists) the substantial forms of bird
and flower made themselves visible,
'/2c Tu y.dxtfg "vh]g fiXagi]' /taia )(g7]gu y.itl eaO^lu'.
A.nd let me be permitted to add, in especial reference to this passage, a pre-
monition quoted from the same work (Zoroastri Oracula, Francisci Patririi)
"A Nov~; IsyPt, tco voo'vi'Tt d)f nn leys v.
Of the flower apparitions so solemnly aflii-med by Sir K. Bigby, Kcrcher,
Ilclmont, &:r. see a full and most interesting account in Southey's Omniana,
with a probable solution of this chemical marvel.
453
rise that in such a Being there could exist no motive to the cre-
ation of a machine for its own sake ; that therefore, the mate-
rial work! must have been made for the sake of man, at once
the high-priest and representative of the Creator, as far as he
partakes of that reason in which the essences of all things co-
exist in all their distinctions yet as one and indivisible. But
I speak of man in his idea, and as subsumed in (he divine hu-
manity, in whom alone God loved the world.
If then in all inferior things, from the grass on the house top
to the giant tree of the forest, to the eagle which builds in its
summit, and the elephant which browses on its branches, we
behold — first, a subjection to the universal laws by which each
thing belongs to the Whole, as interpenetrated by the powers
of the Whole ; and, secondly the intervention of particular
laws by which the universal laws are suspended or tempered
for the weal and sustenance of each particular class, and by
which each species, and each individual of every species, be-
comes a system in and for itself, a world of its own — if we
behold this economy everywhere in the irrational creation,
shall we not hold it probable that a similar temperament of uni-
versal and general laws by an adequate intervention of appro-
priate agency, will have been effected for the permanent inter-
est of the creature destined to move progressively towards that
divine idea which we have learnt to contemplate as the final
cause of all creation, and the centre in which all its lines con-
verge ?
To discover the mode of intervention requisite for man's de-
velopement and progression, we must seek then for some gen-
eral law by the untempered and uncounteracted action of which
both would be prevented and endangered. But this we shall
find in that law of his understanding and fancy, by which he is
impelled to abstract the outward relations of matter and to ar-
range these phenomena in time and space, under' the form of
causes and eff"ects. And this was necessary, as being the con-
dition under which alone experience and intellectual growth
are possible. But, on the other hand, by the same law he is
inevitably tempted to misinterpret a constant precedence into
positive causation, and thus to break and scatter the one divine
and invisible lii'e of nature into countless idols of the sense ;
and falling prostrate before lifeless images, the creatures of his
own abstraction, is himself sensualized, and becomes a slave
454
to the things of which he was formed to be the conqueror and
sovereign. From the fetisch of the imbruted African to the
soul debasing errors of the proud fact-hunting materialist we
may trace the various ceremonials of the same idolatry, and
shall find selfishness, hate and servitude as the results. If,
therefore, by the over-ruling and suspension of the phantom-
cause of this superstition ; if by separating effects from their
natural antecedents ; if by presenting the phenomena of time (as
far as is possible) in the absolute forms of eternity ; the nurs-
ling of experience should, in the early period of his pupilage,
be compelled, by a more impressive experience, to seek in the
invisible life alone for the true cause and invisible Nexus of the
things that are seen, we shall not demand the evidences of or-
dinary experience for that which, if it ever existed, existed as
its antithesis and for its counteraction. Was it an appropriate
mean to a necessary end ? Has it been attested by lovers of
truth ; has it been believed by lovers of wisdom ? Do we see
throughout all nature the occasional intervention of particular
agencies in counter-check of universal laws? (And of what
other definition is a miracle susceptible ?) These are the ques-
tions : and if to these our answer must be affirmative, then we
too will acquiesce in the traditions of humanity, and yielding,
as to a high interest of our own being, will discipline ourselves
to the reverential and kindly faith, that the guides and teachers
of mankind were the hands of power, no less than the voices
of inspiration : and little anxious concerning the particular
forms and circumstances of each manifestation we will give an
histoiic credence to the historic fact, that men sent by God
have come with signs and wonders on the earth.
If it be objected, that in nature, as distinguished from man,
this intervention of particular laws is, or with the increase of
science will be, resolvable into the universal laws which they
had appeared to counterbalance — we will reply : Even so it
may be in the case of miracles ; but wisdom forbids her children
to antedate their knowledge, or to act and feel otherwise, or
further than they know. But should that time arrive, the sole
difference, that could result Irom such an enlargement of our
view, would be this : that what we now consider as miracles
in opposition to ordinary experience, we should then reverence
with a yet higher devotion as harmonious parts of one great
complex miracle, when the antithesis between experience and
455
belief would itself be taken up into the unity of intuitive rea-
son.
And what purpose o{ philosophy can this acqiescence answer ?
A gracious purpose, a most valuable end : if it prevent the en-
ergies of philosophy from being idly wasted, by removing the
opposition without confounding the distinction between philoso-
phy and faith. The philosopher will remain a man in sympa-
thy with his fellow men. The head will not be disjoined from
the heart, nor will speculative truth be alienated from practical
wisdom. And vainly without the union of both shall we ex-
pect an opening of the inward eye to the glorious vision of
that existence which admits of no question out of itself, ac-
knowledges no predicate but the I AM IN THAT I AM !
0aufJ!.a^ovT£g (piXorfocpSfxev (piXorfoip'Jja'avTSg Sa|x/3S(xsv. \\\ wonder [tco "^om-
(jia^siv) says Aristotle does philosophy begin : and in astound-
ment (tm aajx/Ssiv) says Plato, does all true philosophy .^nisA-. As
every faculty, with every the minutest organ of our nature,
owes its whole reality and comprehensibility to an existence
incomprehensible and groundless, because the ground of all
comprehension : not without the union of all that is essential
in all the functions of our spirit, not without an emotion tran-
quil from its very intensity, shall we worthily contemplate in
the magnitude and integrity of the world that life-ebullient
stream which breaks through every momentary embankment,
again, indeed, and evermore to embank itself, but within no
banks to stagnate or be imprisoned.
But here it behooves us to bear in mind, that all true reality
has both its ground and its evidence in the will, without which
as its complement science ilself is but an elaborate game of
shadows, begins in abstractions and ends in perplexity. For
considered merely intellectually, individuality, as individuality,
is only conceivable as with and in the Universal and Infinite,
neither before or after it. No transition is possible from one
to the other, as from the architect to the house, or the watch to
its maker. The finite form can neither be laid hold of, nor is
it any thing of itself real, but merely an apprehension, a frame-
work which the human imagination forms by its own limits, as
the foot measures itself on the snow; and the sole truth of
which we must again refer to the divine imagination, in virtue
of its omniformity ; even as thou art capable of beholding the
transparent air as little during the absence as during the pre-
456
sence of light, so canst thou behold the finite things as actually
existing neither with nor without the substance. Not without,
for then the forms cease to be, and are lost in night. Not
with it, for it is the light, the substance shining through it,
which thou canst alone really see.
The ground-work, therefore, of all true philosophy is the full
apprehension of the difference between the contemplation of
reason, namely, that intuition of things, which arises when we
possess ourselves, as one with the whole, which is substantial
knowledge, and that which presents itself when transferring
reality to the negations of reality, to the evervarying frame-
work of the uniform life, we think of ourselves as separated
beings, and place nature in antithesis to the mind, as object to
subject, thing to thought, death to life. This is abstract know-
ledge, or the science of mere understanding. By the former,
we know that existence is its own predicate, self-affirmation,
the one attribute in which all others are contained, not as parts,
but as manifestations. It is an eternal and infinite self-rejoi-
cing, self-loving, with a joy unfathomable, with a love all com-
prehensive. It is absolute ; and the absolute is neither singly
that which affirms, nor that which is affirmed ; but the identity
and living copula of both.
On the other hand, the abstract knowledge which belongs to
us as finite beings, and which leads to a science of delusion
then only, when it would exist for itself instead of being the
instrument of the former — instead of being, as it were, a trans-
lation of the living word into a dead language, for the purpos-
es of memory, arrangement, and general communication — it is
by this abstract knowledge that the understanding distinguishes
the affirmed from the affirming. Well if it distinguish without
dividing ! Well ! if by distinction it add clearness to fulness,
and prepare for the intellectual re-union of the all in one, in
that eternal reason whose fullness hath no opacity, whose
transparency hath no vacuum.
Thus we prefaced our inquiry into the Science of Method
with a principle deeper than science, more certain than demon-
stration. For that the very ground, saith Aristotle, is ground-
less or self-grounded, is an identical proposition. From the in-
demonstrable flows the sap, that circulates through every branch
and spray of the demonstration. To this principle we referred
the choice of the final object, the control over time — or, to
457
comprize all in one, the Method of the will. From this Wv
started (or rather seemed to start: for it still moved before us,
as an invisible guardian and guide), and it is this whose re-ap-
pearance announces the conclusion of our circuit, and wel-
comes us at our goal. Yea (saith an enlightened physician),
there is but one principle, which alone reconciles the man with
himself, with others and with the world ; which regulates all
relations, tempers all passions, and gives power to overcome or
support all suffering ; and which is not to be shaken by aught
earthly, for it belongs not to the earth — namely, the principle
of religion, the living and substantial faith "which passeth all
understanding^'''' as the cloud piercing rock, which overhangs
the strong-hold of which it had been the quarry and remains
the foundation. This elevation of the spirit above the sem-
blances of custom and the senses to a world of spirit, this life
in the idea, even in the supreme and godlike, which alone
merits the name of life, and without which our organic life is
but a state of somnambulism ; this it is which affords the sole
sure anchorage in the storm, and at the same time the substan-
tiating principle of all true wisdom, the satisfactory solution of
all the contradictions of human nature, of the whole riddle of
the world. This alone belongs to and speaks intelligibly to all
alike, the learned and the ignorant, if but the heart listens.
For alike present in all, it may be awakened, but it cannot be
given. But let it not be supposed, that it is a sort of knowl-
edge : No ! it is a form of being, or indeed it is the only
knowledge that truly ««, and all other science is real only as
far as it is symbolical of this. The material universe, saith a
Greek pjiiloscpher, is but one vast con)plex Mythos (i. e.
symbolical representation) : and mythology the apex and com-
plement of all genuine physiology. But as this principle can-
not be implanted by the discipline of logic, so neither can it be
excited or evolved by the arts of rhetoric. For it is an immu-
table truth, that what comes fkom the heart that alone
GOES TO the heart : WHAT PROCEEDS FROM A DIVINE IM-
PULSE, THAT THE GODLIKE ALONE CAN AWAKEN.
68
THE
THIRD
L. A N D I N G-P LACE:
OR
ESSAYS
MISCELLANEOUS.
Etiam a musis si quando animum paulieper abducamus, apud Musas nihil-
ominus feriamur; at reclines quidem, at otiosas, at de his et illis inter se libe-
ra colloquentes.
ESSAY 1.
Fortuna plerurnque est veluti
Galaxia qiiarundarn obscurarum
Viftutum sine nomine. Verulam.
(Translation.) — Fortune is for tJie most part but a galaxy or milky way, as it
were, of certain obscure virtues without a name.
^^ Does fortune favor fools? or how do you explain the ori-
gin of the proverb, which, differently worded, is to be found
in all the languages of Europe ?"
This proverb admits of various explanations, according to
the mood of mind in which it is used. It may arise from pity,
and the soothing persuasion that Providence is eminently
watchful over the helpless, and extends an especial care to
those who are not capable of caring for themselves. So used,
it breathes the same feeling as " God tempers the wind to the
shorn lamb" — or, the more sportive adage, that " the fairies
take care of children and tipsy folk." The persuasion itself, in
addition to the general religious feeling of mankind, and the
scarcely less general love of the marvellous, may be account-
ed for from our tendency to exaggerate all effects, that seem
disproportionate to their visible cause, and all circumstances
that are in any way strongly contrasted with our notions of the
persons under them. Secondly, it arises from the safety and
success which an ignorance of danger and difficulty sometimes
actually assists in procuring ; inasmuch as it precludes the
despondence, which might have kept the more foresighted from
undertaking the enterprize, the depression which would retard
its progress, and those overwhelming influences of terror in
cases where the vivid perception of the danger constitutes the
greater part of the danger itself. Thus men are said to have
swooned and even died at the sight of a narrow bridge, ov»r
462
which they had rode, the night hefoie, in perfect safety ; or at
tracing the footmarks along the edge of a precipice which the
darkness had concealed from them. A more obscure cause,
yet not wholly to be omitted, is afforded by the undoubted fact,
that the exertion of the reasoning faculties tends to extinguish
or bedim those mysterious instincts of skill, which, though for
the most part latent, we nevertheless possess in common with
other animals.
Or the proverb may be used invidiously : and folly in the
vocabulary of envy or baseness may signify courage and mag-
nanimity. Hardihood and fool-hardiness are indeed as different
as green and yellow, yet will appear the same to the jaundiced
eye. Courage multiplies the chances of success by sometimes
making opportunities, and always availing itself of them : and
in this sense fortune may be said to favor fools by those, who,
however prudent in their own opinion, are deficient in valor
and enterprize. Again : an eminently good and wise man,
for whom the praises of the judicious have procured a high
reputation even with the world at large, proposes to himself
certain objects, and, adapting the right means to the right
end, attains them ; but his objects not being what the world
calls fortune, neither money nor artificial rank, his admitted
inferiors in moral and intellectual worth, but more prosperous
in their wordly concerns, are said to have been favored by for-
tune and he slighted : although the fools did tlie same in their
line as the w ise man in his ; they adapted the appropriate
means to the desired end and so succeeded. In this sense
the proverb is current by a misuse, or a catachresis at least, of
both the words, fortune and fools.
How seldom friend ! a good great man inherits
Honor or wealth with all his worth and pains !
It sounds, like stories from the land of spirits,
if any man obtain that which he merits,
Or any merit that which be obtains.
REPLY.
For shame, dear friend ! renounce this canting strain
What would'st thou have a good gi*eal man obtain .'
Place? titles ? salaiy ? a gilded chain.''
Or throne of corses which his sword hath slain ?
Greatness ^nd goo.lness ai'e iiot means but cnda!
Ilath he not always treasures, always friend%
463
The good great man? Threo treasures, love and
LIGHT,
And CALM THOUGHTS fcgular as infant's hreatli :
J And three firm friends, more sure than day and uight^
Himself, his Maker, and the angel Death.
s. T, c.
But, lastly, there is, doubtless, a true meaning attached
to fortune, distinct both from prudence and from cour-
age ; and distinct too from that absence of depressing or
bewildering passions, which (according to my favorite pro-
verb, " extremes meet,") the fool not seldom obtains in
as great perfection by his ignorance, as the wise man by
the highest energies of thought and self-discipline. Luck
has a real existence in human affairs from the infinite number
of powers, that are in action at the same time, and from the
co-existence of things contingent and accidental (such as to
MS at least are accidental) with the regular appearances and
general laws of nature. A familiar instance will make these
words intelligible. The moon waxes and wanes according to
a necessary law. — The clouds likewise, and all the manifold
appearances connected with them, are governed by certain laws
no less than the phases of the moon. But the laws which de-
termine the latter, are known and calculable : while those of
the former are hidden from us. At all events, the number and
variety of their effects baffle our powers of calculation : and
that the sky is clear or obscured at any particular time, we
speak of, in common language, as a matter of accident. Well !
at the time of full moon, but when the sky is completely cov-
ered with black clouds, I am walking on in the dark, aware of
no particular danger : a sudden gust of wind rends the cloud
for a moment, and the moon emerging discloses to me a chasm
or precipice, to the very brink of which I had advanced my
foot. This is what is meant by luck, and according to the more
or less serious mood or habit of our mind we exclaim, how
lucky I or, how providential ! The co-presence of numberless
phsenomena, which from the complexity or subtlety of their
determining causes are called contingencies , and the co-exis-
tence of these with any regular or necessaiy phaenomenon (as
the clouds with the moon for instance) occasion coincidences^
which, when they are attended by any advantage or injury,
and are at the same time incapable of being calculated or fore-
seen by human prudence, fori© good or ill luck. On a hot
sunshiny afternoon came on a sudden storm and spoilt the far-
464
raer's hay : and this is called ill luck. We will suppose the
event to take place, when meteorology shall have been perfect-
ed into a science, provided with unerring instruments; but
which the farmer had neglected to examine. This is no longer
ill luck, but imprudence. Now apply this to our proverb.
Unforeseen coincidences may have greatly helped a man, yet if
they have done for him only what possibly from his own abili-
ities he might have effected for himself, his good luck will ex-
cite less attention and the instances be less remembered.
That clever men should attain their objects seems natural, and
we neglect the circumstances that perhaps produced that suc-
cess of themselves without the intervention cf skill or foresight ;
but we dwell on the fact and remember it, as something strange,
when the same happens to a weak or ignorant man. So too,
though the latter should fail in his undertakings from concur-
rences that might have happened to the wisest man, yet his
failure being no more than might have been expected and ac-
counted for from his folly, it lays no hold on our attention, but
fleets away among the other undistinguished waves in which the
stream of ordinary ilfe murmurs by us, and is forgotten. Had
it been as true as it was notoriously false, that those all-em-
bracing discoveries, which have shed a dawn of science on the
art of chemistry, and give no obscure promise of some one great
constitutive law, in the light of which dwell dominion and the
power of prophecy ; if these discoveries, instead of having been
as they really were preconcerted by meditation, and evolved
out of his own intellect, had occured by a set of lucky accidents
to the illustrious father and founder of philosopic alchemy ; if
they had presented themselves to Professor Davy exclusively
in consequence of his luck in possessing a particular galvanic
battery; if this battery, as far as Davy was concerned, had
itself been an accident^ and not (as in point of fact it was)
desired and obtained by him for the purpose of ensuring the
testimony of experience to his principles, and in order to bind
down material nature under the inquisition of reason, and force
from her, as by torture, unequivocal answer io prepared and pre-
conceived questions — ^yet still they would not have been talked
of or described, as instances of luck^ but as the natural results
of his admitted genius and known skill. But should an acci-
dent have disclosed similar discoveries to a mechanic at Bir-
mingham or Sheffield, and if (he man should grow rich in con-
4Go
sequence, and partly by the envy of his niegbors, and partly
with good reason, be considered by them as a man below par
in the general powers of his understanding ; then, " O what a
lucky fellow ! — Well, Fortune does favor fools — that's for cer-
tain ! — It is always so !" — And forthwith the exclaimer relates
half a dozen similar instances. Thus accumulating the one
sort of facts and never collecting the other, we do, as poets in
their diction, and quacks of all denominations do in their rea-
soning, put a part for the whole, and at once soothe our envy
and gratify our love of the marvellous, by the sweeping pro-
verb, " Fortune favors fools."
ESSAY II
Quod me non movet eestimationc :
Verum, est fivijfioovvov mei sodalis.
Catull xii.
(Translalion.) — It interested not by any conceit of its value ; but it is a
remembrance of my honored friend.
The philosophic ruler, who secured the favors of fortune by
seeking wisdom and knowledge in preference to them, has pa-
thetically observed — " The heart knoweth its own bitterness ;
and there is a joy in which the stranger intermeddleth not."
A simple question founded on a trite proverb, with a discur-
sive answer to it, would scarcely suggest, to an indifferent per-
son, any other notion than that of a mind at ease, amusing it-
self with its own activity. Once before (I believe about this
time last year) I had taken up the old memorandum book, from
which I transcribed the preceding Essay, and that had then
attracted my notice by the name oi the illustrious chemist
mentioned in the last illustration. Exasperated by the base
59
4G6
and cowardly attempt, that had been made, to detract from the
honors due to his astonishing genius, I had slightly altered the
concluding sentences, substituting the more recent for his ear-
lier discoveries ; and without the most distant intention of pub-
lishing what I then wrote, I had expressed my own convictions
for the gratification of my own feelings, and finished by tran-
quilly paraphrasing into a chemical allegory ,the Homeric ad-
venture of Menelaus with Proteus. Oh ! with what difierent
feelings, with what a sharp and sudden emotion did I re-peruse
the same question yester-morning, having by accident opened
the book at the page, upon which it was written. I was mov-
ed : for it was Admiral Sir Alexander Ball, who first proposed
the question to me, and the particular satisfaction, which he
expressed, had occasioned me to note down the substance of
my reply. I was moved : because to this conversation, I was
indebted for the friendship and confidence with which he af-
terwards honored me ; and because it recalled the memory of
one of the most delightful mornings I ever passed ; when as
we were riding together, the same person related to me the
prnicipal events of his own life, and introduced them by ad-
verting to this conversation. It recalled too the deep impres-
sion left on my mind by that narrative, the impression, that I
had never known any analogous instance, in which a man so
successful, had been so little indebted to fortune, or lucky ac-
cidents, or so exclusively both the architect and builder of his
own success. The sum of his history may be comprised in this
one sentence : Hcee, sub numine, nobismet fecimus, sapientia
duce, fortuna permittente. (i. e. These things, under God,
we have done for ourselves, through the guidance of wisdom,
and with the permission of fortune.) Luck ^aye him nothing:
in her most generous moods, she only worked with him as
with a friend, not for him as for a fondling : but more often
she simply stood neuter and suff'ered him to work for himself.
Ah ! how could I be otherwise than affected, by whatever re-
minded me of that daily and familiar intercourse with him which
made the fifteen months from May 1801, to October 1805, in
many respects, the most memorable and instructive period of
my life ? — Ah ! how could I be otherwise than most deeply af-
fected : when there w^as still lying on ray table the paper which,
the day before, had conveyed to me the unexpected and most
awful tid'ngs of this man's death ! his death in the fulness of all
467
his powers, in the rich autumn of ripe yet undecaying man-
hood! I once knew a lady, who after the loss of a lovely child con-
tinued for several days in a state of seeming indifference, the
weather, at the same time, as if in unison with her, being calm,
though gloomy : till one morning a burst of sunshine breaking
in upon her, and suddenly lighting up the room where she
was sitting, she dissolved at once into tears, and wept passion-
ately. In no verj- dissimilar manner, did the sudden gleam of
recollection at the sight of this memorandum act on myself. I
had been stunned by the intelligence, as by an outward blow, till
this trifling incident startled and disentranced me : (the sud-
den pang shivered through my whole frame : ) and if I repress-
ed the outward shows of sorrow, it was by force that I repres-
sed them, and because it is not by tears that I ought to mourn
for the loss of Sir Alexander Ball.
He was a man above his age : but for that very reason the age
has the more need to have the master-features of his character
portrayed and preserved. This I feel it my duty to attempt,
and this alone : for having received neither instructions nor
permission from the family of the deceased, I cannot think
myself allowed to enter into the particulars of his private his-
tory, strikingly as man}^ of them would illustrate the elements
and composition of his mind. For he was indeed a living con-
futation of the assertion attributed to the Prince of Conde,
that no man appeared great to his valet de chambre — a saying
which, I suspect, owes it's currency less to it's truth, than to
the envy of mankind and the misapplication of the word, great,
to actions unconnected with reason and free will. It will be
sufficient for my purpose to observe, that the purity and strict
propriety of his conduct, which precluded rather than silenced
calumny, the evenness of his temper and his attentive and af
fectionate manners, in private life, greatly aided and increased
his public utility : and, if it should please Providence, that a
portion of his spirit should descend with his mantle, the virtues
of Sir Alexander Ball, as a master, a husband, and a pa-
rent, will form a no less remarkable epoch in the moral history of
the Maltese than his wisdom, as a governor, has made in that
of their outward circumstances. That the private and per-
sonal qualities of a first magistrate should have political effects,
will appear strange to no reflecting Englishman, who has at-
tended to the workings of men's minds during the first ferment
468
of revolutionary principles, and must therefore have witness-
ed the influence of our own sovereign's domestic character in
counteracting them. But in Malta there were circumstances
which rendered such an example peculiary requisite and bene-
ficent. The very existence, for so many generations, of an
Order of Lay Cselibates in that island, who abandoned even
the outward shows of an adherence to their vow of chastity,
must have had pernicious effects on the morals of the inhabi-
tants. But when it is considered too that the Knights of
Malta had been for the last fifty years or more a set of use-
less idlers, generally illiterate,* for they thought literature no
part of a soldier's excellence ; and yet effeminate, for they
were soldiers in name only : when it is considered, that they
were, morover, all of them aliens^ who looked upon them-
selves not merely as of a superior rank to the native nobles,
but as beings of a different race (I had almost said, species)^
from the Maltese collectively ; and finally that these men pos-
sessed exclusively the government of the Island : it may be
safely concluded that they were little better than a perpetual
influenza, relaxing and diseasing the hearts of all the families
within their sphere of influence. Hence the peasantry, who
fortunately were below their reach, notwithstanding the more
than childish ignorance in which they were kept by their
priests, yet compared with the middle and higher classes, were
both in mind and body, as ordinary men compared with dwarfs.
Every respectable family had some one night for their patron,
as a matter of course ; and to him the honor of a sister or a
daughter was sacrificed, equally as a matter of course. But
why should I thus disguise the truth ? Alas ! in nine in-
stances out of ten, this patron was the common paramour of ev-
ery female in the family. Were I composing a state memo-
rial, I should abstain from all allusion to moral good or evil,
as not having now first to learn, that with diplomatists, and
*The personal effects of every kniglit were, after his death, appropriated to
the Order, and his books, if he had any, devolved to the i)iihlic library.
This library therefore, which has been accumulating from the time of their
first settlement in the island, is a fair criterion of the nature and degree of
their literary studies, as an average. Even in respect to works of military
science, it is contemptible — as the sole publicjibrary of so numerous and
opulent an order, most contemptible — ard in all other departments of litera-
ture it is below contempt.
469
with practical statesmen of every denomination, it would pre-
clude all attention to its other contents, and have no result but
that of securing for its author's name the official private mark of
exclusion or dismission, as a weak or suspicious person. But
among those for whom I am novv writing, there are, I trust,
many who will think it not the feeblest reason for rejoicing in
our possession of Malta, and not the least worthy motive for
wishing its retention, that one source of human misery and cor-
ruption has been dried up. Such persons will hear the name
of Sir Alexander Ball with additional reverence, as of one
who has made the protection of Great Britain a double bless-
ing to the Maltese, and broken, " the bonds of iniquity'''' as
well as unlocked the fetters of political oppression.
When we are praising the departed by our own fire-sides,
we dwell most fondly on those qualities which had won our
personal affection, and which sharpen our individual regrets.
But when impelled by a loftier and more meditative sorrow,
we would raise a public monument to their memory, we praise
them appropriately when we relate their actions faithfully :
and thus preserving their example for the imitation of the liv-
ing, alleviate the loss, while we demonstrate its magnitude.
My funeral eulogy of Sir Alexander Ball, must therefore be a
narrative of his life : and this friend of mankind will be de-
frauded of honor in proportion as that narrative is deficient
and fragmentary. It shall, however, be as complete as my
information enables, and as prudence and a proper respect
for the feelings of the living permit me to render it. His
fame (1 adopt the words of our elder writers) is so great
throughout the world that he stands in no need of an encomi-
um : and yet his worth is much greater than his fame. It is
impossible not to speak great things of him, and jet it will be
very difficult to speak what he deserves. But custom requires
that something should be said : it is a duty and a debt which
we owe to ourselves and to mankind, not less than to his memo-
ry ; and I hope his great soul, if it hath any knowledge of
what is done here below, will not be offended at the small-
ness even of my offering.
Ah ! how little, when among the subjects of The Friend
I promised " Characters met with in Real Life," did I antici-
pate the sad event, which compels me to weave on a cypress
branch, those sprays of laurel, which I had destined for his bust,
470
not his monument ! He lived as we should all live ; and, I
doubt not, left the world as we should all wish to leave it.
Such is the power of dispensing blessings, which Providence
has attached to the truly great and good, that they cannot even
die without advantage to their fellow-creatures : for death con-
secrates their example ; and the wisdom, which might have
been slighted at the council-table, becomes oracular from the
shrine. Those rare excellencies, which make our grief poign-
ant, make it likewise profitable ; and the tears, which wise
men shed for the departure of the wise, are among those that
are preserved in heaven. It is the fervent aspiration of my spir-
it, that I may so perform the task which private gratitude, and
public duty impose on me, that " as God hath cut this tree of
paradise down, from its seat of earth, the dead trunk may yet
support a part of the declining temple, or at least serve to
kindle the fire on the altar."*
*Ei). .Ter. Taylor.
ESSAY III.
Si partem tactiisse veliin, qiiodeunique relinqiiani,
Majus erit. Veteres actus, primainquc juventani
Prosequar? Ad sese mentem proesentia ducunt.
Narrem justitian? Resplendet gloria Martis.
Ai'mati referam vires ? Plus egit inermis.
CLAUDI.4jy DE LACD. STIL.
(Translation.) — If I desire to pass over a part in silence, whatever I omit, will
seem the most worthy to have been recorded. Shall I pursue his old ex-
ploits and early youth ? His recent merits recall the mind to them-
selves. Shalt I dwell on his justice ? The glory of the warrior rises before
me resplendent. Shall I relate his strength in arms ? He performed yet
greater things unarmed.
There is something (says Harrington in the Preliminaries
of the Oceana) first in the making of a commonwealth, then in
the governing of it, and last of all in the leading of its armies,
■which though there be great divines, great lawyers, great men
in all ranks of life, seems to be peculiar only to the genius of a
gentleman. For so it is in the universal series of history that if
any man has founded a commonwealth, he was first a gentleman.
Such also he adds as have got any fame as civil governors have
been gentlemen, or persons of known descent. Sir Alexander
Ball was a gentleman by birth ; a younger brother of an old and
respectable family in Gloucestershire. He went into the navy
at an early age from his own choice, and as he himself told me,
in consequence of the deep iafpression and vivid images left on
his mind by the perusal of Robinson Crusoe. It is not my in-
tention to detail the steps of his promotion, or the services in
which he was engaged as a subaltern. I recollect many par-
ticulars indeed, but not the dates with such distinctness as would
472
enable me to state them (as it would be necessary to do if I
stated them at all) in the order of time. These dates might
perhaps have been procured from the metropolis : but incidents
that are neither characteristic nor instructive, even such as
would be expected with reason in a regular life, are no part of
my plan ; while those which are both interesting and illustra-
tive I have been precluded from mentioning, some from motives
which have been already explained, and others from still higher
considerations. The most important of these may be deduced
from a reflection with which he himself once concluded a long
and affecting narration : namely that no body of men can for any
length of time be safely treated otherwise than as rational be-
ings ; and that therefore the education of the lower classes was of
the utmost consequence to the permanent security of the empire,
even for the sake of our navy. The dangers apprehended from
the education of the lower classes, arose (he said) entirely
from its not being universal, and from the unusualness in the
lowest classes of those accomplishments, which He, like Doctor
Bell, regarded as one of the means of education, and not as edu-
cation itself.* If, he observed, the lower classes in general pos-
sessed but one eye or one arm, the few who were so fortunate
as to possess two, would naturally become vain and restless,
and consider themselves as entitled to a higher situation. He
illustrated this by the faults attributed to learned women, and
that the same objections were formerly made to educating wo-
men at all : namely, that their knowledge made them vain, af-
fected, and neglectful of their proper duties. Now that all
women of condition are well-educated, we hear no more of
these apprehensions, or observe any instances to justify them.
Yet if a lady understood the Greek one-tenth part as well as
the whole circle of her acquaintances understood the French
language, it w-ould not surprise us to find her less pleasing from
the consciousness of her superiority in the possession of an un-
usual advantage. Sir Alexander Ball quoted the speech of an
old admiral, one of whose two great wishes was to have a ship's
* Which consists in educing, or to adopt Dr. Boll's own expression, eliciting
the faculties of the luiinan mind, and at the same time subordinating them to
the reason and conscience ; varying the means of this common end accor-
ding to the sphere and particular mode in which the individual is likely to
act and become useful.
473
crew composed altogether of serious Scotchmen. He spoke
with great reprobation of the vulgar notion, the worse man, the
better sailor. Courage, he said, was the natural product of fa-
miliarity with danger, which thoughtlessness would oftentimes
turn into fool-hardiness; and that he had always found the most
usefully brave sailors the gravest and most rational of his crew.
The best sailor, he had ever had, first attracted his notice by
the anxiety which he expressed concerning the means of re-
mitting some money which he had received in the West Indies^
to his sister in England ; and this man, without any tinge of me-
thodisra, was never heard to swear an oath, and was remarkable
for the firmness with which he devoted a part of every Sunday
to the reading of his Bible. I record this with satisfaction as a
testimony of great weight, and in all respects unexceptionable ;
for Sir Alexander Ball's opinions throughout life remained un-
warped by zealotry, and were those of a mind seeking after
truth, in calmness and complete self-possession. He was much
pleased with an unsuspicious testimony furnished by Dampier.
(Vol. ii. Part 2, page 89). " I have particularly observed,"
writes this famous old navigator, " there and in other places, that
such as had been well-bred, were generally most careful to im-
prove their time and would be very industrious and frugal where
there was any probability of considerable gain ; but on the con-
trary, such as had been bred up in ignorance and hard labor
when they came to have plenty would extravagantly squander
away their time and money in drinking and making a bluster.'''*
Indeed it is a melancholy proof, how strangely power warps
the minds of ordinary men, that there can be a doubt on this
subject among persons who have been themselves educated. It
tempts a suspicion, that unknown to themselves they find a com-
fort in the thought that their inferiors are something less than men;:
or that they have an uneasy half-consciousness that, if this were
not the case, they would themselves have no claim to be their
superiors. For a sober education naturally inspires self-respect.
But he who respects himself will respect others, and he who
respects both himself and others, must of necessity be a brave
man. The great importance of this subject, and the increasing
interest which good men of all denominations feel in the bring-
ing about of a national education, must be my excuse for having
entered so minutely into Sir Alexander Ball's opinions on this
head, in which, however, I am the more excusable, being now
60
474
on that part of his life which I am obliged to leave almost a
blank.
During his lieutenancy, and after he had perfected himself in
the knowledge and duties of a practical sailor, he was compel-
led by the state of his health to remain in England for a consid-
erable length of time. Of this he industriously availed himself
to the acquirement of substantial knowledge from books ; and
during his whole life afterwards, he considered those as his
happiest hours, which, without any neglect of olficial or profes-
sional duty, he could devote to reading. He preferred, indeed
he almost confined himself to, history, political economy, voy-
ages and travels, natural history, and latterly agricultural
W'orks : in short, to such books as contain specific facts, or prac-
tical principles capable of specific application. His active life,
and the particular objects of immediate utility, some one of
which he had always in his view, precluded a taste for works
of pure speculation and abstract science, though he highly hon-
ored those who were eminent in these respects, and considered
them as the benefactors of mankind, no less than those who af-
terwards discovered the mode of applying their principles, or
■who realized them in practice. Works of amusement, as nov-
els, plays, &c. did not appear even to amuse him : and the on-
ly poetical composition, of which I have ever heard him speak,
was a manuscript* poem written by one of my friends, which I
read to his lady in his presence. To my surprise he after-
wards spoke of this with warm interest ; but it was evident to
me, that it was not so much the poetic merit of the composition
that had interested him, as the truth and psychological insight
with which it represented the practicability of reforming the
most hardened minds, and the various accidents which may
awaken the most brutalized person to a recognition of his no-
bler being. I will add one remark of his own knowledge ac-
quired from books, which appears to me both just and valuable.
The prejudice against such knowledge, he said, and the custom
of opposing it to that which is learnt by practice, originated in
those times when books w^ere almost confined to theology, and
to logical and metaphysical subtleties; but that at present there
is scarcely any practical knowledge, which is not to be found
* Though it remains, I believe, iny:)ubHsliecl, I cannot resist the temptation
of recording tJiat it was Mr. Wordsworth's Peter Bell.
475
in books : The press is the means by which intelligent men
now converse with each other, and persons of all classes and
all pursuits convey, each the contribution of his individual ex-
perience. It was therefore, he said, as absurd to hold book-
knowledge at present in contempt, as it would be for a man to
avail himself only of Ins own eyes and ears, and to aim at no-
thing which could not be performed exclusively by his own
arms. The use and necessity of personal experience consisted
in the power of choosing and applying what had been read,
and of discriminating by the light of analogy the practicable
from the impracticable, and probability from mere plausibility.
Without a judgment matured and steadied by actual experience,
a man would read to little or perhaps to bad purpose ; but yet
that experience, which is exclusion of all other knowledge has
been derived from one man's life, is in the present day scarce-
ly worthy of the name — at least for those who are to act in the
higher and wider spheres of duty. An ignorant general, he
said, inspired him with terror ; for if he were too proud to take
advice he would ruin himself by his own blunders ; and if he
were not, by adopting the worst that was offered. A great
genius may indeed form an exception ; but we do not lay down
rules in expectation of wonders. A similar remark I remem-
ber to have heard from a gallant officer, who to eminence in
professional science and the gallantry of a tried soldier, adds
all the accomplishments of a sound scholar, and the powers of
a man of genius.
One incident, which hapened at this period of Sir Alexan-
der's life, is so illustrative of his character, and furnishes so
strong a presumption, that the thoughtful humanity by which he
was distinguished, was not wholly the growth of his latter
years, that though it may appear to some trilling in itself, I will
insert it in this place, with the occasion on which it was com-
municated to me. In a large party at the Grand Master's pal-
ace, I had observed a naval officer of distinguished merit lis-
tening to Sir Alexander Ball, whenever he joined in the con-
versation, with so marked a pleasure, that it seemed as if his
very voice, independent of what he said, had been delightful
to him : and once as he fixed his eyes on Sir Alexander Ball, I
could not but notice the mixed expression of awe and affection,
which gave a more than common interest to so manly a counte-
nance. During his stay in the island, this ofl&cer honored me
476
not unfrequently with his visits ; and at the conclusion of my
last conversation with him, in which I had dwelt on the wisdom
of the Governor's* conduct in a recent and difficult emergency,
he told me that he considered himself as indebted to the same
excellent person for that which was dearer to him than his life.
Sir Alexander Ball, said he, has (I dare say) forgotten the cir-
cumstance ; but v/hen he was Lieutenant Ball, he was the offi-
cer whom I accompanied in my first boat expedition, being then
a midshipman and only in my fourteenth year. As we were
rowing up to the vessel which we were to attack, amid a dis-
charge of musquetry, I was overpowered by fear, my knees
trembled under me, and I seemed on the point ot fainting away.
Lieutenant Ball, who saw the condition I was in, placed himself
close beside me, and still keeping his countenence directed
toward the enemy, took hold of my hand, and pressing it in the
most friendly manner, said in a low voice, " Courage, my dear
boy don't be afraid of yourself ! you will recover in a minute or
so — I was just the same, when I first went out in this w^ay."
Sir, added the officer to me, it was as if an angel had put a
new soul into me. With the feeling, that I was not yet dis-
honored, the whole burthen of agony was removed ; and from
that moment I was as fearless and forward as the oldest of the
boat's crew, and on our return the lieutenant spoke highly of me
to our captain. I am scarcely less convinced of my own being,
than that I should have been what I tremble to think of, if, in-
stead of his humane encouragment, he had at that moment scoff-
ed, threatened, or reviled me. And this was the more kind in
him, because, as I afterwards understood, his own conduct in his
first trial, had evinced to all appearances the greatest fearless-
ness and that he said this therefore only to give me heart, and
restore me to my own good opinion. — This anecdote, I trust, will
^' Such Sir Alexander Ball was in reality, and such was his general appel-
lation in the Mediterranean: I adopt this title therefore, to avoid the un-
graceful repetition of his own name on the one hand, and on the other the
confusion of ideas, which might arise from the use of his real title, viz. "His
Majesty's civil Commissioner for the Island of Malta and its dependencies;
and Minister Plcnipotentiaiy to the Order of St. John." This is not the place
to expose tlie timid and unsteady pohcy which continued the latter title, or
the petty jealousies which interfered to prevent Sir x\lexander Ball from
having the title of Govenor from one of the very causes which rendered him
fitted for the oflic
477
hare some weight with those who may have lent an ear to any of
those vague calumnies from which no naval commander can
secure his good name, who knowing the paramount necessity of
regularity and strict discipline in a ship of war, adopts an ap-
propriate plan for the attainment of these objects, and remains
constant and immutable in the execution. To an Athenian,
who, in praising a public functionary had said, that every one
either applauded him or left him without censure, a philoso-
pher replied — " How seldom then must he have done his
duty !"
Of Sir Alexander Ball's character, as Captain Ball, of his
measures as a disciplinarian, and of the wise and dignified prin-
ciple on which he grounded those measures, I have already
spoken in a former part of this work, and must content myself
therefore with entreating the reader to re-peruse that passage
as belonging to this place, and as a part of the present narration.
Ah ! little did I expect at the time I wrote that account, that
the motives of delicacy, which then impelled me to withhold
the name, would so soon be exchanged for the higher duty
which now justifies me in adding it ! At the thought of such
events the language of a tender superstition is the voice of na-
ture itself, and those facts alone presenting themselves to our
memory which had left an impression on our hearts, we assent
to, and adopt the poet's pathetic complaint :
" O Sir ! the good die,
And those whose hearts are diy as summer dust
Burn to the socket." '
Thus the humane plan described in the pages now referred
to, that a system in pursuance of which the captain of a man
of war uniformly regarded his sentences not as dependent on his
own will, or to be affected by the state of his feelings at the
moment, but as the pre-established determinations of known
laws, and himself as the voice of the law in pronouncing the
sentence, and its delegate in enforcing the execution, could
not but furnish occasional food to the spirit of detraction, must
be evident to every reflecting mind. It is indeed little less
than impossible, that he, who in order to be effectively humane
determines to be inflexibly just, and v.ho is inexorable to his
own feelings when they would interrupt the course of justice ;
who looks at each particular act by the light of all its conse-
478
quenees, and as the representative of ultimate good or evil ;
should not sometimes be charged with tyranny by weak minds.
And it is too certain that the calunmny will be willingly be-
lieved and eagerly propagated by all those, who would shun
the presence of an eye keen in the detection of imposture, in-
capacity, and misconduct, and of a resolution as steady in their
exposure. We soon hate the man whose qualities we dread,
and thus have a double interest, an interest of passion as well
as of policy, in decrying and defaming him. But good men
will rest satisfied with the promise made to them by the divine
Comforter, that by her children shall wisdom be justi-
fied.
ESSAY lY.
the generous spirit, who, when brought
Among the tasks of real Hfe, hath wrouglit
Upon the plan that pleas'd his childish thought:
Whose higli endeavors are an inward light
That make the path before him always bright ;
Who doom'd to go in company with Pain,
And Fear and Bloodshed, miserable train !
Turns his necessity to glorious gain ;
By objects, which might force the soul to abate
Her feeling, render d more compassionate
Wordsworth.
At the close of the American war, Captain Ball was en-
trusted with the protection and convoying of an immense mer-
cantile fleet to America, and by his great prudence and unex-
ampled attention to the interests of all and eaeh, endeared his
name to the American merchants, and laid the foundation of
that hi"-h respect and predilection which both the Americans
and their government ever afterwards entertained for him.
My recollection does not enable me to attempt any accura-
cy in the date or circumstances, or to add the particulars of
479
his services in the West Indies ; and on the coast of America,
I now therefore merely allude to the fact with a prospec-
tive reference to opinions and circumstances, which I shall
have to mention hereafter. Shortly after the general peace
was established, Captain Ball, who was now a married man,
passed some time with his lady in France, and, if I mistake not
at Nantz. At the same time, and in the same town, among
the other English visitors Lord (then Captain) Nelson, hap-
pened to be one. In consequence of some punctilio, as to
whose business it was to pay the compliment of the first call,
they never met, and this trifling affair occasioned a coldness be-
tween the two naval commanders, or in truth a mutual preju-
dice against each other. Some years after, both their ships
being together close off Minorca and near Port Mahon, a vio-
lent storm nearly disabled Lord Nelson's vessel, and in addi-
tion to the fury of the wind, it was night-time and the thickest
darkness. Captain Ball, however, brought his vessel at length
to Nelson's assistance, took his in tow, and used his best en-
deavors to bring her and his own vessel into Port Mahon. The
difficulties and the dangers increased. Nelson considered the
case of his own ship as desperate, and that unless she was imme-
diatly left to her own fate, both vessels would inevitably be
lost. He, therefore, with the generosity natural to him, repeat-
edly requested Captain Ball to let him loose ; and on Captain
Ball's refusal, he became impetuous, and enforced his demand
with passionate threats. Captain Ball then himself took the
speaking-trumpet, which the fury of the wind and the waves
rendered necessary, and with great solemnity and without the
least disturbance of temper, called in reply, " I feel confident
that I can bring you in safe ; I therefore must not, and, by the
help of Almighty God ! I will not leave you !" What he pro-
mised he performed ; and after they were safely anchored,
Nelson came on board of Ball's ship, and embracing him with
all the ardor of acknowledgement, exclaimed — " a friend in
need is a friend indeed !" At this time and on this occasion
commenced that firm and perfect friendship between these two
great men, which was interrupted only by the death of the
former. The pleasing task of dwelling on this mutual attachment
I defer to that part of the present sketch which will relate to
Sir Alexander Ball's opinions of men and things. It will be
sufficient for the present to say, that the two men, whom Lord
480
Nelson especially honored, were Sir Thomas Troubridge and
Sir Alexander Ball ; and once, when they were both present,
on some allusion made to the loss of his arm, he replied,
" Who shall dare to tell me that I want an arm, when I have
three right arms — this (putting forward his own) and Ball and
Troubridge ?"
In the plan of the battle of the Nile it was Lord Nelson's de -
sign, that Captains Troubridge and Ball should have led up the
attack. The former was stranded ; and the latter, by accident
of the wind, could not bring his ship into the line of battle till
some time after the engagement had become general. With
his characteristic forecast and activity of (what may not im-
properly be called ) practical imagination, he had made arrange-
ments to meet every probable contingency. All the shrouds and
sails of the ship, not absolutely necessary for its immediate man-
agement, were thoroughly wetted and so rolled up, that they
were as hard and as little inflammable as so many solid cylinders
of wood ; every sailor had his appropriate place and function and a
certain number were appointed as the firemen, whose sole duty it
was to be on the watch if any part of the vessel should take fire :
and to these men exclusively the charge of extinguishing it was
committed. It was already dark when he brought his ship into
action, and laid her alongside I'Orient. One particular only I
shall add to the known account of the memorable engagement
between these ships, and this I received from Sir Alexander
Ball himself. He had previously made a combustible prepara-
tion, but which from the nature of the engagement to be ex-
pected, he had purposed to reserve for the last emergency. But
just at the time when, from several s3^mptoms, he had every rea-
son to believe that the enemy would soon strike to him, one of
the lieutenants, without his knowledge, threw in the combustible
matter ; and this it was that occasioned the tremendous explo-
sion of that vessel, which, with the deep silence and interruption
of the engagement which succeeded to it, has been justly
deemed the sublimest war incident recorded in history. Yet
the incident which followed, and which has not, I believe, been
publicly made known, is scarcely less impressive, though its
sublimity is of a different character. At the renewal of the
battle Captain Ball, though his ship was then on fire in three
different parts laid her alongside a French eighty-four: and a
second longer obstinate contest began. The firing on the part
481
and then altogether ceased, and yet no sign given of surrender,
the senior lieutenant came to Captain Ball and informed him,
that the hearts of his men were as good as ever, but that they
were so completely exhausted, that they were scarcely capable
of lifting an arm. He asked, therefore, whether, as the enemy
had now ceased firing, the men might be permitted to lie down
by their guns for a short time. After some reflection, Sir Alex-
ander acceded to the proposal, taking of course the proper pre-
cautions to rouse them again at the moment he thought requi-
site. Accordingly, with the exception of himself, his officers,
and the appointed watch, the ship's crew lay down, each in the
place to which he was stationed, and slept for twenty minutes.
They were then roused ; and started up, as Sir Alexander expres-
sed it, more like men out of an ambush than from sleep, so coin-
stantaneously did they all obey the summons ! They recommen-
ced their fire, and in a few minutes the enemy surrendered ; and
it was soon after discovered, that during that interval, and almost
immediately after the French ship had first ceased firing, the
crew had sunk down by their guns, and there slept almost by
the side, as it were, of their sleeping enemy.
ESSAY V.
Whose powers shed round him m the common strife,
Or mild concerns, of ordinaiy hfe
A constant influence, a peculiar gi-ace ;
But who if he be call'd upon to face
Some awful moment, to which heaven has join'd
Great issues, good or bad for human kind,
Is happy as a lover, is attired
With sudden brightness like a man inspired ;
And through the heat of conflict keeps the law
In calnmess made, and sees what he foresaw.
Wordsworth.
An accessibility to the sentiments of others on subjects of
importance often accompanies feeble minds, yet it is not the less
a true and constituent part of practical greatness, when it exists
wholly free from that passiveness to impression which renders
61
482
counsel itself injurious to certain characters, and from that weak-
ness of heart which, in the literal sense of the word, is always
craving advice. Exempt from all such imperfections, say rather
in perfect harmony with the excellencies that preclude them,
this openness to the influxes of good sense and information, from
whatever quarter they might come, equally characterized both
Lord Nelson and Sir Alexander Ball, though each displayed it
in the way best suited to his natural temper. The former with
easy hand collected, as it passed by him, whatever could add to
his own stores, appropriated what he could assimilate, and levied
subsidies of knowledge from all the accidents of social life and
familiar intercourse. Even at the jovial board, and in the height
of unrestrained merriment, a casual suggestion, that flashed a
new light on his mind, changed the boon companion into the
hero and the man of genius ; and with the most graceful transi-
tion he would make his company as serious as himself. When
the taper of his genius seemed extinguished, it was still sur-
rounded by an inflammable atmosphere of its own and rekind-
led at the first approach of light, and not seldom at a distance
which made it seem to flame up self-revived. In Sir Alexander
Ball, the same excellence was more an aff'air of system : and
he would listen, even to weak men with a patience, which, in
so careful an economist of time, always demanded my admira-
tion, and not seldom excited my wonder. It was one of his
maxims, that a man may suggest what he cannot give : adding
that a wild or silly plan had more than once, from the vivid
sense, and distinct perception of its folly, occasioned him to
see what ought to be done in a new light, or with a clearer in-
sight. There is, indeed, a hopeless sterility, a mere negation
of sense and thought, which, suggesting neither difference nor
contrast, cannot even furnish hints for recollection. But on
the other hand, there are minds so whimsically constituted that
they may sometimes be profitably interpreted by contraries, a
process of which the great Tycho Brache is said to have avail-
ed himself in the case of the little Lackwit, who used to sit and
mutter at his feet while he was studying. A mind of this sort we
may compare to a magnetic needle, the poles of which had been
suddenly reversed by a flash of lightning, or other more ob-
scure accident of nature. It may be safely concluded, that to
those whose judgment or information he respected, Sir Alexan-
483
der Ball did not content himself with giving access and atten-
tion. No ! he seldom failed of consulting them whenever the
subject permitted any disclosure ; and where secrecy was ne-
cessary, he well knew how to acquire their opinion without
exciting even a conjecture concerning his immediate object.
Yet, with all this readiness of attention, and with all this zeal
in collecting the sentiments of the well informed, never was a
man more completely uninfluenced by authority than Sir Alex-
ander Ball, never one who sought less to tranquillize his own
doubts by the mere suffrage and coincidence of others. The
ablest suggestions had no conclusive weight with him, till he
had abstracted the opinion from its author, till he had reduced
it into a part of his own mind. The thoughts of others were
always acceptable as affording him at least a chance of adding
to his materials for reflection ; but they never directed his judg-
ment, much less superseded it. He even made a point of
guarding against additional confidence in the suggestions of his
own mind, from finding that a person of talents had formed the
same conviction : unless the person, at the same time, furnished
some new argument or had arrived at the same conclusion by a
different road. On the latter circumstance he set an especial
value, and, I may almost say, courted the company and conver-
sation of those, whose pursuits had least resembled his own,
if he thought them men of clear and comprehensive faculties.
During the period of our intimacy, scarcely a week passed in
which he did not desire me to think on some particular subject,
and to give him the result in writing. Most frequently by the
time I had fulfilled his request, he would have written down his
own thoughts, and then, with the true simplicity of a great
mind, as free from ostentation, as it was above jealousy, he
would collate the two papers in my presence, and never ex-
pressed more pleasure than in the few instances in which I had
happened to light on all the arguments and points of view which
had occurred to himself, with some additional reasons which
had escaped him. A single new argument delighted him more
than the most perfect coincidence, unless, as before stated the
train of thought had been very different from his own and jct
just and logical. He had one quality of mind, which I have
heard attributed to the late Mr. Fox, that of deriving a keen
pleasure from clear and powerful reasoning for its own sake, a
484
quality in the intellect which is nearly connected with veracity
and a love of justice in the moral character.*
Valuing in others merits which he himself possessed, Sir Al-
exander Ball felt no jealous apprehension of great talent. Un-
like those vulgar functionaries, whose place is too big for them,
a truth which they attempt to disguise from themselves, and
yet feel, he was under no necessity of arming himself against
the natural superiority of genius by factitious contempt and an
industrious association of extravagance and impracticability,
with every deviation from the ordinary routine ; as the geogra-
phers in the middle ages used to designate on their meagre
maps, the greater part of the world, as desarts or wildernesses,
inhabited by griffins and chimseras. Competent to weigh each
system or project by its own arguments, he did not need these
preventive charms and cautionary amulets against delusion. He
endeavored to make talent instrumental to his purposes in what-
ever shape it appeared, and with whatever imperfections it
might be accompanied ; but wherever talent was blended with
moral worth, he sought it out, loved and cherished it. If
it had pleased Providence to preserve his life, and to place
him on the same course on which Nelson ran his race of glory,
there are two points in which Sir Alexander Ball would most
closely have resembled his illustrious friend. The first is, that
in his enterprizes and engagements he would have thought
nothing done, till all had been done that was possible:
" Nil actum I'eputans, si quid superesset agendum."
The second, that he would have called forth all the talent and
* It may not be amiss to add, tliat the pleasure from the perception of truth
was so well poised and regulated by the equtil or greater delight in utility, that
his love of real accuracy was accompanied with a proportionate disUke of
that hollow appearance of it, which may be produced by tmns of phrase,
words placed in balanced antithesis and those epigrammatic points that pass
for subtle and luminous distinctions with ordinary readers, but are most com-
monly translatable into mere truisms or trivialities if indeed they contain any
meaning at all. Having observed in some casual conversation, that though
there were doutbless masses of matter unorganized, I saw no ground for
asserting a mass of unorganized maiter ; Sir A. B. paused and then said to
me, with that frankness of manner which maile his very rebukes gratifying,
" The distinction is just; and now 1 understand you, abundantly obviousj but
hardly worth tho trouble of your inventing a puzzle of worda to make it op^
pear otherwise." I Uiist the relwike waa not lost on me.
485
virtue that existed within his sphere of influence, and created
a band of heroes, a gradation of officers, strong in head and
strong in heart, worthy to have been his companions and his
successors in fame and public usefulness.
Never was greater discernment shown in the selection of
a fit agent, than ^vhen Sir Alexander Ball was stationed off the
coast of Malta to intercept the supplies destined for the French
garrison, and to watch the movements of the French com-
manders, and those of the inhabitants who had been so basely
betrayed into their power. Encouraged by the well-timed
promises of the English captain, the Maltese rose through all
their casals (or country towns) and themselves commenced
the work of their emancipation, by storming the citadel at Ci-
vita Vecchia, the ancient metropolis of Malta, and the central
height of the island. Without discipline, without a military
leader, and almost without arms, these brave peasants succeed-
ed, and destroyed the French garrison by throwing them over the
battlements into the trench of the citadel. In the course of this
blockade, and of the tedious siege of Vallette, Sir Alexander
Ball displayed all that strength of character, that variety and
versatility of talent, and that sagacity, derived in part from ha-
bitual circumspection, but which, when the occasion demand-
ed it, appeared intuitive and like an instinct ; at the union of
which, in the same man, one of our oldest naval commanders
once told me, "he could never exhaust his wonder." The
citizens of Vallette v/ere fond of relating their astonishment,
and that of the French, at Captain Ball's ship wintering at an-
chor out of the reach of the guns, in a depth of fathom unex-
ampled, on the assured impracticability of which the garrison had
rested their main hope of regular supplies. Nor can I forget, or
remember without some portion of my original feeling, the so-
lemn enthusiasm with which a venerable old man, belonging to
one of the distant casals, showed me the sea coombe, where
their father Ball, (for so they commonly called him) first
landed ; and aftervtards pointed out the very place, on which
he first stepped on their island, while the countenances of his
townsmen, v»'ho accompanied him, gave lively proofs, that the
old man's enthusiasm was the repiesentative of the common
feeling.
There is no reason to suppose, that Sir Alexander Ball was
at any time chargeable with that weakness so frequent in En-
48G
glishraen, and so injurious to our interests abroad, of despising
the inhabitants of other countries, of losing all their good
qualities in their vices, of making no allowance for those vi-
ces, from their religious or political impediments, and still
more of mistaking for vices, a mere difference of manners and
customs. But if ever he had any of this erroneous feeling, he
completely freed himself from it, by living among the Maltese
during their arduous trials, as long as the French continued
masters of the capital. He witnessed their virtues, and learnt
to understand in what various shapes and even disguises the
valuable parts of human nature may exist. In many individu-
als, whose littleness and meanness in the common intercourse
of life would have stamped them at once as contemptible and
w^orthless, with ordinary Englishmen, he had found such vir-
tues of disinterested patriotism, fortitude, and self-denial, as
would have done honor to an ancient Roman.
There exists in England, a gentlemanly character, a gentle-
manly feeling, very different even from that, which is the most
like it, the character of a well-born Spaniard, and unexampled in
the rest of Europe. This feeling probably originafedin the for-
tunate circumstance, that the titles of our English nobility fol-
low the law of their property, and are inherited by the eldest
sons only. From this source, under the influences of our con-
stitution, and of our astonishing trade, it has diffused itself in dif-
ferent modifications through the Avhole country. The uniformity
of our dress among all classes above that of the day laborer,
while it has authorized all classes to assume the appearance of
gentlemen, has at the same time inspired the wish to conform
their manners, and still more their ordinary actions in social
intercourse, to their notions of the gentlemanly ,^ the most com-
monly received attribute of which character, is a certain gener-
osity in trifles. On the other hand, the encroachments of the
lower classes on the higher, occasioned, and favored by this
resemblance in exteriors, by this absence of any cognizable
marks of distinction, have rendered each class more reserved
and jealous in their general communion, and far more than our
climate, or natural temper, have caused that haughtiness and re-
serve in our outward demeanor, which is so generally complain-
ed of among foieigners. Far be it from me to depreciate the
value of this gentlemanly feeling : I respect it under all its
forms and varieties, from the House of Commons to the gentle-
487
men in the one shilling gallery. It is always the ornament of
virtue, and oftentimes a support ; but it is a wretched substitute
for it. Its ivo7'th, as a moral good, is by no means in proportion
to its value, as a social advantage. These observations are not
irrelevant : for to the want of reilxion, that this didusion of
gentlemanly feeling among us, is not the growth of our moral ex-
cellence, but the effect of various accidental advantages peculiar
to England ; to our not considering that it is unreasonable and un-
charitable to expect the same consequences, where the same
causes have not existed to produce them : and, lastly, to our
proneness to regard the absence of this character (which, as I
have before said, does, for the greater part, and, in the common
apprehension, consist in a certain frankness and generosity in
the detail of action) as decisive against the sum total of personal
or national worth ; we must, I am convinced, attribute a large
portion of that conduct, which in many instances has left the in-
habitants of countries conquered or appropriated by Great Bri-
tain, doubtful whether the various solid advantages which they
derived from our protection and just government, were not
bought dearly by the wounds inflicted on their feelings and pre-
judices, by the contemptuous and insolent demeanor of the En-
glish as individuals. The reader who bears this remark in
mind, will meet, in the course of this narration, more than one;
passage that will serve as its comment and illustration.
It was, I know, a general opinion among the English in the
Mediterranean, that Sir Alexander Ball thought too well of the
Maltese, and did not share in the enthusiasm of Britons, concern-
ing their own superiority. To the former part of the charge, I
shall only reply at present, that a more venial, and almost de-
sirable fault, can scarcely be attributed to a governor, than that
of a strong attachment to the people whom he was sent to
govern. The latter part of the charge is false, if we are to
understand by it, that he did not think his countrymen superior
on the whole to the other nations of Europe ; but it is true, as far
as relates to his belief, that the English thought themselves still
better than they are ; that they dwelt on, and exaggerated their
national virtues, and weighed them by the opposite vices of
foreigners, instead of the virtues which those foreigners pos-
sessed, and they themselves wanted. Above all, as statesmen,
we must consider qualities by their practical uses. Thus — he
entertained no doubt, that the English were superior to all
488
others in the kind, and the degree of their courage, which is
marked by far greater enthusiasm, than the courage of the Ger-
mans and northern nations, and by a far greater steadiness and
selfsubsistence, than that of the Fiench. It is more closely
connected with the character of the individual. The courage of
an English army (he used to say) is the sum total of the courage
which the individual soldiers bring with them to it, rather than
of that which they derive from it. This remark of Sir Alex-
ander's was forcibly recalled to my mind, when I was at Na-
ples. A Russian and an English regiment were drawn up to-
gether in the same square — " See," said a Neapolitan to me,
who had mistaken me for one of his countrymen, " there is but
one face in that whole regiment while in thaV^ (pointing to
the English) " every soldier has a face of his own." On the
other hand, there are qualities scarcely less requisite to the
completion of the military character, in which Sir A. did not
hesitate to think the English inferior to the continental nations:
as for instance, both in the power and the disposition to endure
privations ; in the friendly temper necessary, when troops of
different nations are to act in concert ; in their obedience to
the regulations of their commanding officers, respecting the
treatment of the inhabitants of the countries through which
they are marching ; as well as in many other points, not imme-
diately connected with their conduct in the field : and, above
all, in sobriety and temperance. During the siege of Vallette,
especially during the sore distress to which the besiegers were
for some time exposed from the failure of provision, Sir Alex-
ander Ball had an ample opportunity of observing and weigh-
ing the separate merits and demerits of the native, and of
the English troops ; and surely since the publication of Sir John
Moore's campaign, there can be no just offence taken, though
I should say, that before the walls of Vallette, as well as in
the plains of Gallicia, an indignant commander might, with too
great propriety, have addressed the English soldiery in the
words of an old Dramatist —
Will you still owe your virtues to your bellies ?
And only then think nobly when y'arc full?
Doth fodder keep you lionest? Arc you bad
When out of Flesh ? And think you't an excuse
Of vile and ignominious actions, that
Y' are lean and out of liking ?
Cartwkight's Love's Convert.
489
From the first insurrectionary movement to the final depart-
ure of the French from the Island, though the civil and milita-
ry powers and the whole of the Island, save Vallette, were in
the hands of the peasantry, not a single act of excess can be
charged against the Maltese, if we except the razing of one
house at Civita Vecchia belonging to a notorious and abandon-
ed traitor, the creature and hireling of the French. In no in-
stance did they injure, insult, or plunder, any one of the na-
tive nobility, or employ even the appearance of force toward
them, except in the collection of the lead and iron from their
houses and gardens, in order to supply themselves with bul-
lets : and this very appearance was assumed from the gener-
ous wish to shelter the nobles from the resentment of the
French, should the patriotic efforts of the peasantry prove un-
successful. At the dire command of famine the Maltese troops
did indeed once force their wav to the ovens, in which the
bread for the British soldiery was baked, and were clamorous
that an equal division should be made. I mention this unpleas-
ant circumstance, because it brought into proof the firmness of
Sir Alexander Ball's character, his presence of mind, and gen-
erous disregard of danger and personal responsibility, where
the slavery or emancipation, the misery or the happiness, of an
innocent and patriotic people were involved ; and because his
conduct in this exigency evinced, that his general habits of
circumspection and deliberation were the result of wisdom
and complete self-possession, and not the easy virtues of a
spirit constitutionally timorous and hesitating. He was sitting
at table with the principal British ofiicers, when a certain gen-
eral addressed him in strong and violent terms concerning this
outrage of the Maltese, reminding him of the necessity of ex-
erting his commanding influence in the present case, or the
consequences must be taken. " What," replied Sir Alexander
Ball, " would you have us do ? Would you have us threaten
death to men dying with famine ? Can you suppose that the
hazard of being shot will weigh with whole regiments acting
under a common necessity ? Does not the extremity of hun-
ger take away all difference between men and animals ? and is
it not as absurd to appeal to the prudence of a body of men
starving, as to a herd of famished wolves ? No, general, I will
not degrade myself or outrage humanity by menacing famine
with massacre ! More effectual means must be taken." With
62
490
these words he rose and left the room, and having first consult-
ed with Sir Thomas Troubridge, he determined at his own
risk on a step, which the extreme necessity warranted, and
which the conduct of the Neapolitan court amply justified. For
this court, though terrror-stricken by the French, was still ac-
tuated by hatred to the English, and a jealousy of their pow-
er in the Mediterranean : and this in so strange and senseless
a manner, that we must join the extremes of imbecility and
treachery in the same cabinet, in order to find it comprehensi-
ble.* Though the very existence of Naples and Sicily, as a
nation, depended Avholely and exclusively on British support ;
though the royal family owed their personal safety, to the Brit-
ish fleet ; though not only their dominions and their rank, but
the liberty and even the lives of Ferdinand and his family,
were interwoven with our success ; yet with an infatuation
scarcely credible, the most affecting representations of the dis-
tress of the besiegers, and of the utter insecurity of Sicily if
the French remained possessors of Malta, were treated with ne-
glect ; and the urgent remonstrances for the permission of im-
porting corn from Messina, were answered only by sanguinary
edicts precluding all supply. Sir Alexander Ball sent for his
senior lieutenant, and gave him orders to proceed immediately
to the port of Messina, and there to seize and bring with him
to Malta the ships laden with corn, of the number of which
Sir Alexander had received accurate information. These or-
ders were executed without delay, to the great delight and
profit of the ship owners and proprietors ; the necessity of rai-
sing the siege was removed ; and the author of the measure
* It cannot be doubted, that the sovereign himself was kept in a state of
delusion. Both his undcistanding and his moral principles are far better than
could reasonably be expected from the infamous mode of his education : if
indeed the systematic preclusion of all knowledge, and the unrestrained in-
dulgence of his passions, adopted by the Spanish court for the purposes of
preserving liim dependent, can be called by the name of education. Of
the other influencing persons in the Neapolitan government, Mr. Leckie has
given us a true and lively account. It will be greatly to the advantage of the
present narration, if the i-eader should have previously iJerused Mr. Leckie's
pamphlet on the state of Sicily : the facts which I shall have occasion to
mention hereafter will reciprocally confirm and be confirmed by the docu-
ments I'urnishcd in that most interesting work ; in which I sec but one blem-
ish of importance, namely, that the author appears too frequently to consider
justice and tiue policy as capabable of being contradistinguished.
491
wafted in calmness for the consequences that might result to
himself personally. But not a complaint, not a murmur pro-
ceeded from the court of Naples. The sole result was, that
the governor of Malta became an especial object of its hatred,
its fear, and its respect.
The whole of this tedious siege, from its commencement to the
signing of the capitulation, called forth into constant activity
the rarest and most difficult virtues of a commanding mind ;
virtues of no show or splendor in the vulgar apprehehsion, yet
more infallible characteristics of true greatness than the most
unequivocal displays of enterprize and active daring. Scarce-
ly a day passed, in which Sir Alexander Ball's patience, for-
bearance, and inflexible constancy, were not put to the severest
trial. He had not only to remove the misunderstandings that
arose between the Maltese and their allies, to settle the differ-
ences among the Maltese themselves, and to organize their
efforts: he was likewise engaged in the more difficult and un-
thankful task of counteracting the weariness, discontent, and
despondency, of his own countrymen — a task however, which
he accomplished by management and address, and an alternation
of real firmness with apparent yielding. During many months
he remained the only Englishman who did not think the siege
hopeless and the object worthless. He often spoke of the
time in which he resided at the country seat of the grand master
at St. Antonio, four miles from Vallette, as perhaps the most
trying period of his life. For some weeks Captain Vivian was
his sole English companion, of whom., as his partner in anxiety,
he always expressed himself with affectionate esteem. Sir Al-
exander Ball's presence was absolutely necessary to the Mal-
tese, who, accustomed to be governed by him, became incapable
of acting in concert without his immediate influence. In the
out-burst of popular emotion, the impulse, which produces an
insurrection, is for a brief while its sufficient pilot : the attrac-
tion constitutes the cohesion, and the common provocation, sup-
plying an immediate object, not only unites, but directs, the
multitude. But this first impulse had passed away, and Sir Al-
exander Ball was the one individual who possessed the general
confidence. On him they relied with implicit faith : and even
after they had long enjoyed the blessings of British government
and protection, it was still remarkable with what child-like help-
lessness they were in the habit of applying to him, even in
492
their private concerns. It seemed as if they thought him made
on purpose to think for them all. Yet his situation at St. An-
tonio was one of great peril : and he attributed his preservation
to the dejection, wliich had now begun to prey on the spirits
of the French garrison, and which rendered them unenterpri-
zing and almost passive, aided by the dread which the nature
of the country inspired. For subdivided as it was into small
fields, scarcely larger than a cottage garden, and each of these
little squares of land enclosed with substantial stone walls ;
these too from the necessity of having the fields perfectly level,
rising in tiers above each other; the whole of the inhabited part
of the island was an effective fortification for all the purposes
of annoyance and offensive warfare. Sir Alexander Ball exer-
ted himself successfully in procuring information respecting the
state and temper of the garrison, and by the assistance of the
clergy and the almost universal fidelity of the Maltese, contriv-
ed that the spies in the pay of the French should be in truth
his own most confidential agents. He had already given splen-
did proofs that he could outfight them ; but here, and in his af-
ter diplomatic intercourse previous to the recommencement of
the war, he likewise out-witted them. He once told me with
a smile, as we were conversing on the practice of laying wa-
gers, that he was sometimes inclined to think that the final
perseverance in the siege was not a little indebted to several
valuable bets of his ov/n, he well knowing at the time, and
from information which himself alone possessed, that he should
certainly lose them. Yet this artifice had a considerable effect
in suspending the impatience of the officers, and in supplying
topics for dispute and conversation. At length, however, the
two French frigates, the sailing of which had been the subject
of these wagers, left the great harbour on the 24th of August,
1800, with a part of the garrison: and one of them soon be-
came a piizc to the English. Sir Alexander Ball related to
me the circumstances which occasioned the escape of the oth-
er ; but I do not reccollect them with sufficient acuracy to dare
repeat them in this place. On the 15th of September follow-
ing, the capitulation was signed, and after a blockade of two
years the English obtained possession of Valette, and remain-
ed masters of the whole island and its dependencies.
Anxious not to give offence, but more anixous to communi-
cate the truth, it is not without pain that I find myself under
493
the moral obligation of remonstrating against the silence con-
cerning Sir Alexander Ball's services or the transfer of them
to others. More than once has the latter roused my indigna-
tion in the reported speeches of the house of Commons; and
as to the former, I need only state that in Rees's Cyclopaedia
there is an historical article of considerable length under the
word Malta, in which vSir Alexander's name does not once oc-
cur ! During a residence of eighteen months in that island, I
possessed and availed myself ot the best possible means of
information, not only from eye-witnesses, but likewise from
the principal agents themselves. And I now thus publicly and
unequivocally assert, that to Sir A. Ball i^re-eminently — and if
I had said, to Sir A. Ball alone, the ordinary use of the word
under such circumstances would bear me out — the capture and
the preservation of Malta was owing, with every blessing that
a powerful mind and a wise heart could confer on its docile
and grateful inhabitants. With a similar pain I proceed to
avow my sentiments on this capitulation, by which Malta was
delivered up to his Britannic Majesty and allies, without the
least mention made of the Maltese. With a warmth honorable
both to his head and his heart. Sir Alexander Ball pleaded, as
not less a point of sound policy than of plain justice, that the
Maltese, by some representatives, should be made a party in
the capitulation, and a joint subscriber in the signature. They
had never been the slaves or the property of the knights of St.
John, but freemen and the true landed proprietors of the coun-
try, the civil and military government of which, under certain
restrictions, had been vested in that order; yet checked by the
rights and influences of the clergy and the native nobility, and
by the customs and ancient laws of the island. This trust the
knights had, with the blackest treason and the most profligate
perjury, betrayed and abandoned. The right of government of
of course reverted to the landed proprietors and the clergy.
Animated by a just sense of this right, the Maltese had risen
of their own accord, had contended for it in defiance of death
and danger, had fought bravely, and endured patiently. With-
out undervaluing the military assistance afterwards furnished
by Great Britain (though how scanty this was before the arrival
of General Pigot is well known,) it remained undeniable, that
the Maltese had taken the greatest share both in the fatigues
and in the privations consequent on the siege ; and that had
494
not the greatest virtues and the most exemplary fidelity been
uniformly displayed by them, the English troops (they not be-
ing more numerous than they had been for the greater part of
the two years) could not possibly have remained before the
fortifications of Valette, defended as that city was by a French
garrison, that greatly outnumbered the British besiegers. Still
less could there have been the least hope of ultimate success ;
as if any part of the Maltese peasantry had been friendly to the
French, or even indiilerent, if they had not all indeed been
most zealous and persevering in their hostility towards them, it
would have been impracticable so to blockade that island as to
have precluded the arrival of supplies. If the seige had pro-
ved unsuccessful, the Maltese were well aware that they
should be exposed to all the horrors which revenge and woun-
ded pride could dictate to an unprincipled, rapacious, and san-
guinary soldiery ; and now that success has crowned their ef-
forts, is this to be their reward, that their own allies are to
bargain for them with the French as for a herd of slaves,
whom the French had before purchased from a former proprie-
tor ? If it be urged, that there is no established government
in Malta, is it not equally true, that through the whole popu-
lation of the island there is not a single disentient ? and thus
that the chief inconvenience, which an established authority is
to obviate, is virtually removed by the admitted fact of their
unanimity ? And have they not a bishop, and a dignified cler-
gy, their judges and municipal magistrates, who were at all
times sharers in the power of the government, and now, sup-
ported by the unaniinous suffrage of the inhabitants, have a
rightful claim to be considered as its representatives ? Will it
not be oftener said than answered, that the main difference be-
tween French and English injustice rests in this point alone,
that the French seized on the Maltese without any previous
pretences of friendship, while the English procured possession
of the island by means of their friendly promises, and by the
co-operation of the natives afforded in confident reliance on
these promises ? -The impolicy of refusing the signature on
the part of the Maltese was equally evident : since such re-
fusal could answer no one purpose but that of alienating their
affections by a wanton insult to their feelings. For the Mal-
tese were not only ready but desirous and eager to place them-
selves at the same time under British protection, to take the
495
oaths of loyalty as subjects of the British crown, and to ac-
knowledge their island to belong to it. These representations,
however, were over- ruled : and I dare affirm, from my own
experience in the Mediterranean, that our conduct in this in-
stance, added to the impression which had been made at Cor-
sica, Minorca, and elsewhere, and was often referred to by
men of reflection in Sicily, who have more than once said to
me, " a connection with Great Britain, with the consequent
extension and security of our commerce, are indeed great bless-
ings : but who can rely on their permanence ? or that we shall
not be made to pay bitterly for our zeal as partizans of En-
gland, whenever it shall suit its plans to deliver us back to our
old oppressors?"
ESSAY VI.
The way of ancient ordinance, though it winds
Is yet no devious way. Straight forward goes
Tlie hghtning's path ; and straight the fearful path
Of the cannon-ball. Direct it flies and rapid,
Shattering that it may reach, and shattering what it reaches.
My son! the road, the human being travels.
That on which Blessing conies and goes, doth follow
The river's course, the valley's playful windings.
Curves round the corn-field and the hill of vines,
Honoring the holy boiuuls of property!
There exists
An higher than the warrior's excellence.
Wallje>"stein.
Captain Ball's services in Malta were honored wih his
sovereign's approbation, transmitted in a letter from the Secreta-
ry Dundas and with a baronetcy. A thousand pounds * were at
* I scarce know whether it be worth mentioning, that this sum remained
undemanded till the spring of the year 1805 : at which time the writer of
these sketches, during an examination of the treasui-y accounts, observed the
circumstance and noticed it to the Governor, who had suffered it to escape
496
the same time directed to be paid him from the Maltese trea-
sury. The best and most appropriate addition to the applause
of his king and his country, Sir Alexander Ball found in the
feelings and faithful affection of the Maltese. The enthusiasm
manifested in reverential gestures and shouts of triumph when-
ever their friend and deliverer appeared in public, was the ut-
terance of a deep feeling, and in no wise the mere ebullition of
animal sensibility ; which is not indeed a part of the Maltese
character. The truth of this observation will not be doubted
by any person, v/ho has witnessed the religious processions in
honor of the favorite saints, both at Vallette and at Messina
or Palermo, and who must have been struck with the contrast
between the apparent apathy, or at least the perfect sobriety,
of the Maltese, and the fanatical agitations of the Sicilian po-
pulace. Among the latter each man's soul seems hardly con-
tainable in his body, like a prisoner, whose jail is on fire, flying
madly from one barred outlet to another ; while the former
might suggest the suspicion, that their bodies were on the
point of sinking into the same slumber with their under-
standings. But their political deliverance was a thing that
came home to their hearts, and intertwined with their most
empassioned recollections, personal and patriotic. To Sir Al-
exander Ball exclusively the Maltese themselves attributed
their emancipation : on him too they rested their hopes of the
future. Whenever he appeared in Vallette, the passengers on
each side, through the whole length of the street stopped, and
remained uncovered till he had psssed : the very clamors of the
altogether from his memory, for the latter years at least. The value attach-
ed to the present by tlie receiver, must have depended on his construction
of its purpose and meaning: for in a pecuniaiy point of view, the sum was
not a moiety of what Sir Alexander had expended from his private fortune
during the blockade. His innnediate appointment to tiie government of
the island, so earnestly prayed for by the Maltese, would doubtless have furnish-
ed a less questionable proof that his services were as highly estimated by the
minsitry as they were graciously accepted by his sovereign. But this was
■withheld as long as it remained possible to doubt,whether great talents, join-
ed to local experience, and the confidence and affection of the inhabitants,
miglit not be dispensed with in the ])er.son entrusted with that government.
Crimen ingrati animi quod magnis Ingeniis hand raro objicitur, saepius nil
aliud est quam perspicacia quaedam in causam beneficii collati. See VVal-
liENSTEiiV, Part I. p. 177.
497
market-place were hushed at his entrance, and then exchanged
for shouts of joy and welcome. Even after the lapse of years
he never appeared in any one of their casals,* ^vhich did not
lie in the direct road between Vallette and St. Antonio, his
summer residence, but the women and children, with such of
the men who were not at labor in their fields, fell into ranks,
and followed, or preceded him, singing the Maltese song which
had been made in his honor, and which was scarcely less fami-
liar to the inhabitants of Malta and Goza, than God save the
King to Britons. W/ien he went to the gate through the city,
the youns; men refrained talking ; and the aged arose and stood
up. When the ear heard, then it blessed him ; and when the eye
saw him, it gave witness to him : because he delivered the poor
that cried, and the fatherless, and those that had none to help
them. The blessing of them that were ready to perish come
upon\him ; and he caused the widow'' s heart to sing for joy.
These feelings were afterwards amply justified by his admin-
istration of the government ; and the very accesses of their
gratitude on their first deliverance proved, in the end, only to
be acknowledgments antedated. For some time after the de-
parture of the French, the distress was so general and so se-
vere, that a large proportion of the lower classes became
mendicants, and one of the greatest thorough fares of Vallette
still retains the name of the " Nix Mangiare Stairs,''^ from
the crowd who used there to assail the ears of passengers with
cries of " nix mangiare," or " nothing to eat," the former word
nix being the low German pronunciation of nichts, nothing.
By what means it was introduced into Malta, I know not ; but
it became the common vehicle both of solicitation and refusal,
the Maltese thinking it an English word, and the English sup-
posing it to be Maltese. I often felt it as a pleasing remembrancer
of the evil day gone by, when a tribe of little children, quite
naked, as is the custom of that climate, and each with a pair
* It was the Governor's custom to visit every ca.sal througliout the island
once, if not twice, in the course of each summer ; and during my residence
there, I had the honor of being his constant, and most often, liis only com-
l)anion in these rides ; to which I owe some of the happiest and most instruc-
tive hours of my hfe. In the poorest house of the most distant casal two
rude paintings were sure to be found : A picture of the Virgin and Child ;
and a portrait of Sir Alexander Ball.
63
498
of gold ear-rings in its ears, and all fat and beautifully propor-
tioned, would suddenly leave their play, and, looking round to
see that their parents were not in sight, change their shouts of
moiriment for " nix mangiare /" awkwardly imitating the
plaintive tones of mendicancy ; while the white teeth in their
little swarthy faces gave a splendor to the happy and confes-
sing laugh, with which they received the good-humored re-
buke or refusal, and ran back to their former sport.
In the interim between the capitulation of the French garri-
son and Sir Alexander Ball's appointment as his Majesty's civil
commissioner for Malta, his zeal for the Maltese was neither
suspended nor unproductive of important benefits. He was
enabled to remove many prejudices and misunderstandings ; and
to persons of no inconsiderable influence gave juster notions of
the true importance of the island to Great Britain. He dis-
played the magnitude of the trade of the Mediterranean in its
existing state ; showed the immense extent to which it might be
carried, and the hollowness of the opinion, that this trade was
attached to the south of France by any natural or indissoluble
bond of connection. I have some reason likewise for believing,
that his wise and patriotic representations prevented Malta from
being made the seat and pretext for a numerous civil establish-
ment, in hapless imitation of Corsica, Ceylon, and the Cape
of Good Hope. It was at least generally rumoured, that it had
been in the contemplation of the ministry to appoint Sir Ralph
Abercrombie as governor, with a salary of 10,000Z. a year;
and to reside in England, while one of his countrymen was
to be the lieutenant-governor, at 5,000Z. a year ; to which
were added a long et cetera of other offices and places of
proportional emolument. This threatened appendix to the state
calendar may have existed only in the imaginations of the re-
porters, yet inspired some uneasy apprehensions in the minds
of many well-wishers to the Maltese, who knew that — for a
foreign settlement at least, and one too possessing in all the
ranks and functions of society an ample population of its own —
such a stately and wide-branching tree of patronage, though de-
lightlul to the individuals who are to pluck its golden apples,
sheds, like the manchinecl, unwholesome and corrosive dews
on the multitude who are to rest beneath its shade. It need
not however, be doubted, that Sir Alexander Ball would exert
himself to preclude any such intention, by stating and evincing
499
the extreme impolicy and injustice of the plan, as well as its
utter inutility, in the case of Malta. With the exception of the
governor, and of the public secretary, both of whom undoubtedly
should be natives of Great Britain, and appointed by the British
government, there was no civil office that could be of the remo-
test advantage to the island which was not already filled by the
natives and the functions of which none could perform so well as
they. The number of inhabitants (he would state) was prodi-
gious compared with the extent of the island, though from the
fear of the Moors one-fourth of its surface remained unpeopled
and uncultivated. To deprive, therefore, the middle and low-
er classes of such places as they had been accustomed to
hold, would be cruel ; while the places held by tlie no-
bility, wcie, for the greater part, such as none but natives
could perform the duties of. By any innovation we should
affront the higher classes and alienate the affections of all,
not only without any imaginable advantage but with the cer-
tainty of great loss. Were Englishmen to be employed, the
salaries must be increased four-fold, and would yet be scarce-
ly worth acceptance ; and in higher offices such as those of
the civil and criminal judges, the salaries must be augment-
ed more than ten-fold. For, greatly to the credit of their
patriotism and moral character, the Maltese gentry sought
these places as honorable distinctions, which endeaied them to
their fellow-countrymen, and at the same time rendered the
yoke of the order somewhat less grievous and galling. With
the exception of the Maltese secretarj', whose situation was one
of incessant labor, and who at the same time performed the
duties of law counsellor to the government, the highest salaries
scarcely exceeded lOOl. a year, and were barely sufficient to
defray the increased expenses of the functionaries for an addi-
tional equipage, or one of more imposing appearance. Besides,
it was of importance that the person placed at the head of that
government, should be looked up to by the natives, and possess
the means of distinguishing and rewarding those who had been
most faithful and zealous in their attachment to Great Britain,
and hostile to their former tyrants. The number of the em-
ployments to be conferred would give considerable influence
to his Majesty's civil representative, while the trifling amount
of the emolument attached to each precluded all temptation of
abusing it.
500
Sir Alexander Ball would likewise, it is probable, urge that
the commercial advantages of Malta, which were most intelli-
gible to the English public, and best fitted to render our reten-
tion of the island popular, must necessarily be of very slow
growth, though finally they would become great, and of an ex-
tent not to be calculated. For this reason, therefore, it was
highly desirable, that the possession should be, and appear to
be, at least inexpensive. After the British Government had
made one advance for a stock of corn sufficient to place the
island a year before-hand, the sum total drawn from Great
Britain need not exceed 25, or at most 30,000/. annually ; ex-
cluding of course the expenditure connected with our own
military and navy, and the repair of the fortifications, which
latter expense ought to be much less than at Gibraltar, from
the multitude and low wages of the laborers in Malta, and from
the softness and admirable quality of the stone. Indeed much
more might safely be promised on the assumption, that a wise
and generous system of policy were adopted and persevered
in. The monopoly of the Maltese corn-trade by the govern-
ment formed an exception to a general rule, and by a strange,
yet valid, anomaly in the operations of political economy, was
not more necessary than advantageous to the inhabitants. The
chief reason is, that the produce of the island itself ha 'Ay
suffices for one-fourth of its inhabitants, although fruits ana vege-
tables form so large a part of their nourishment. Meantime
the harbors of Malta, and its equi-distance from Europe, Asia,
and Africa, gave it a vast and unnatural importance in the pre-
sent relations of the great European powers, and imposed on
its government, whether native or dependent, the necessity of
considering the whole island as a single garrison, the provis-
ioning of which could not be trusted to the casualties of ordi-
nary commerce. What is actually necessary is seldom injuri-
ous. Thus in Malta bread is better and cheaper on an aver-
age than in Italy or the coast of Barbary : while a similar in-
terference with the corn trade in Sicily impoverishes the inha-
bitants and keeps the agriculture in a state of barbarism. But
the point in question is the expense to Great Britain. Wheth-
er the monopoly be good or evil in itself, it remains true, that
in this established usage, and in the gradual enclosure of the
uncultivated district, such resources exist as without the least
oppression might render the civil government in Valette inde-
501
pendent of the Treasury at home, finally taking upon itself
even the repair of the fortifications, and thus realize one in-
stance of an important possession that cost the country noth-
ing.
But now the time arrived, which threatened to frustrate the
patriotism of the Maltese themselves and all the zealous efforts
of their disinterested friend. Soon after the war had for the
first time become indisputably just and necessary, the people
at large and a majority of independent senators, incapable, as
it might seem, of translating their fanatical anti-jacobinism into
a well grounded, yet equally impassioned, anti-Gallicanism,
grew impatient for peace, or rather for a nanie^ under which
the most terrific of all war would be incessantly waged against
us. Our conduct was not much wiser than that of the weary
traveller, who having proceeded half way on his journey, pro-
cured a short rest for himself by getting up behind a chaise
which was going the contrary road. In the strange treaty of
Amiens, in which we neither recognized our former relations
with France or with the other European powers, nor formed
any new ones, the compromise concerning Malta formed the
prominent feature : and its nominal re-delivery to the Order of
St. John was authorized in the mind of the people, by Lord
Nelson's opinion of its worthlessness to Great Britain in a po-
litical or naval view. It is a melancholy fact, and one that must
often sadden a reflective and philanthropic mind, how little moral
considerations weigh even with the noblest nations, how vain
are the strongest appeals to justice, humanity, and national hon-
or, unless v.'hen the public mind is under the immediate influ-
ence of the cheerful or vehement passions, indignation or av-
aricious hope. In the whole class of human infirmities there
is none, that makes such loud appeals to prudence, and yet sO;
frequently outrages its plainest dictates, as the spirit of fear.
The worst cause conducted in hope is an overmatch for the no-
blest managed by despondence : in both cases an unnatural
conjunction that recals the old fable of Love and Death, taking
each the arrows of the other by mistake. When islands that
had courted British protection in reliance upon British honor,
are with their inhabitants and proprietors abandoned to the re-
sentment wiiich we had tempted them to provoke, what wonder,
if the opinion becomes general, that alike to England as to
France, the fates and fortunes of other nations are but the
502
counters, with which the bloody game of war is played : and
that notwithstanding the great and acknowledged difference be-
tween the two governments during possession, yet the protec-
tion of France is more desirable because it is more likely to
endure ? for what the French take, they keep. Often both in
Sicily and Malta have I heard the case of Minorca referred to,
where a considerable portion of the most respectable gentry
and mercbants (no provision having been made for their pro-
tection on the re-delivery of that island to Spain) expiated in
dungeons the warmth and forwardness of their predilection for
Great Britain.
It has been by some persons imagined, that Lord Nelson was
considerably influenced, in his public declaration concerning
the value of Malta, by ministerial flattery, and his own sense
of the great serviceableness of that opinion to the persons in
ofiice. This supposition is, however, wholly false and ground-
less. His lordship's opinion was indeed greatly shaken after-
wards, if not changed ; but at that time he spoke in strictest cor-
respondence with his existing convictions. He said no more
than he had often previously declared to his private friends : it
was the point on which, after some amicable controversy, his
, lordship and Sir Alexander Ball had '■^agreed to differ''\ Though
the opinion itself may have lost the greatest part of its inter-
est, and except for the historian is, as it were, superannuated;
yet the grounds and causes of it, as far as they arose out of
Lord Nelson's particular character, and may perhaps tend to
re-enliven our recollection of a hero so deeply and justly be-
loved, will for ever possess an interest of their own. In an
essay, too, which purports to be no more than a series of
sketches and fragments, the reader, it is hoped, will readily ex-
cuse an occasional digression, and a more desultory style of
narration than could be tolerated in a work of regular biography.
Lord Nelson was an admiral every inch of him. He looked
at every thing, not merely in its possible relations to the na-
val service in general, but in its immediate bearings on his
squadron ; to his officers, his men, to the particular ships them-
selves, his affections were as strong and ardent as those of a
lover. Hence, though his temper was constitutionally irritable
and uneven, yet never was a commander so enthusiastically
loved by men of all ranks, from the Captain of the fleet to the
youngest ship-boy. Hence too the unexampled harmony which
503
reigned in his fleet, year after year, under circumstances that
might well have undermined the patience of the best-balanced
dispositions, much more of men with the impetuous character of
British sailors. Year after year, the same dull duties of a
wearisome blockade, of doubtful policy — little if any oppor-
tunity of making prizes ; and the few prizes, which accident
might throw in the way, of little or no value — and when at last
the occasion presented itself which would have compensated
for all, then a disappointment as sudden and unexpected as it
was unjust and cruel, and the cup dashed from their lips ! —
Add to these trials the sense of enterprizes checked by fee-
bleness and timidity elsewhere, not omitting the tiresomeness
of the Mediterranean sea. sky, and climate ; and the unjarring
and cheerful spirit of affectionate brotherhood, which linked
together the hearts of that whole squadron, will appear not
less wonderful to us than admirable and affecting. When the
resolution was taken of commencing hostilities against Spain,^
before any intelligence was sent to Lord Nelson, another ad-
miral, with two or three ships of the line, was sent into the
Mediterranean, aud stationed before Cadiz, for the express
purpose of intercepting the Spanish prizes. The admiral dis-
patched on this lucrative service gave no information to Lord
Nelson of his arrival in the same sea, and five weeks elapsed
before his lordship became acquainted with the circumstances.
The prizes thus taken were immense. A month or two sufficed
to enrich the commander and officers of this small and highly-
favored squadron : while to Nelson and his fleet the sense of hav-
ing done their duty, and the consciousness of the glorious ser-
vices which they had performed, were considered, it must be
presumed, as an abundant remuneration for all their toils and
long suffering! It was indeed an unexampled circumstance,
that a small squadron should be sent to the station which had
been long occupied by a large fleet, commanded by the darling of
the navy, and the glory of the British empire, to the station
where this fleet had for years been wearing away in the most
barren, repulsive, and spirit-trying service, in Avhich the navy
can be employed ! and that this minor squadron should be
sent independent of, and without any communication with the
commander of the former fleet, for the express and solitary
purpose of stepping between it and the Spanish prizes, and as
soon as this short and pleasant service was performed, of bring-
504
fng home the unshared booty with all possible caution and dis-
patch. The substantial advantages of naval service were per-
haps deemed of too gross a nature for men already rewarded
with the grateful affections of their own countrymen, and the
admiration of the whole world ! They were to be awarded,
therefore, on a principle of compensation to a commander less
rich in fame, and whose laurels, though not scant}^, were not
yet sufficiently luxuriant to hide the golden crown, which is the
appropriate ornament of victory in the bloodless war of com-
mercial capture ! Of all the wounds which were ever inflicted
on Nelson's feelings (and there were not a few), this was the
deepest ! this rankled most ! " I had thought," (said the gallant
man, in a letter written on the first feelings of the affront) — " I
fancied — but nay, it must have been a dream, an idle dream —
yet, I confess it, I did fancy, that I had done my country service —
and thus they use me. Jt was not enough to have robbed me
once before of my West-India harvest — now they have taken
away the Spanish — and under what circumstances, and with
what pointed aggravations ! Yet, if I know my own thoughts,
it is not for myself, or on my own account chiefly, that I feel
the sting and the disappointment ; no ! it is for my brave officers !
for my noble-minded friends and comrades — such a gallant set
of fellows ! such a band of brothers ! My heart swells at the
thought of them !" ■
This strong attachment of the heroic admiral to his fleet,
faithfully repaid by an equal attachment on their part to their
admiral, had no little influence in attuning their hearts to each
other ; and when he died it seemed as if no man was a stran-
ger to another : for all were made acquaintances by the rights
of a common anguish. In the fleet itself, many a private quar-
rel was forgotten, no more to be remembered ; many, who had
been alienated, became once more good friends ; yea, many a
one was reconciled to his very enemy, and loved, and (as it
were) thanked him, for the bi(terness of his grief, as if it had
been an act of consolation to himself in an intercourse of pri-
vate sympathy. The tidings arrived at Naples on the day that
I returned to that city from Calabria : and never can I forget
the sorrow and consternation that lay on every countenance.
Even to this day there are times when I seem to see, as in a
vision, separate groupes and individual faces of the picture.
Numbers stopped and shook hands with me, because they had
505
seen the tears on my cheek, and conjectured, that 1 was an En-
glishman ; and several, as they held my hand, burst, themselves,
into tears. And though it may awake a smile, yet it pleased
and affected me, as a proof of the goodness of the human heart
struggling to exercise its kindness in spite of prejudices the
most obstinate, and eager to carry on its love and honor into
the life beyond life, that it was whispered about Naples, that
Lord Nelson had become a good Catholic before his death.
The absurdity of the fiction is a sort of measurement of the
fond and affectionate esteem which had ripened the pious wish
of some kind individual through all the gradations of possibility
and probability into a confident assertion believed and affirmed
by hundreds. The feelings of Great Britain on this awful
event, have been described well and worthily by a living poet,
who has happily blended the passion and wild transitions of lyric
song with the swell and solemnity of epic narration.
Thou art fall'n ! fall'n, in the lap
Of victoiy. To thy country thou cam'st back,
Thou conqueror, to tiiumphal Albion caui'st
A corse ! I saw before tliy hearse pass on
The comrades of thy perils and renown.
The frequent tear upon their dauntless breasts
Fell. I beheld the pomp thick gather'd round
The trophy'd car that bore thy grac'd remaina
Thro' arm'd ranks, and a nation gazing on.
Bright glow'd the sun, and not a cloud distain'd
Heaven's arch of gold, but all was gloom beneath.
A holy and untterable pang
Thrill'd on the soul. Awe and mute anguish fell
On all, — Yet high the public bosom throbb'd
With triumjjh. And if one, 'mid that vast pomp,
If but the voice of one bad shouted forth
The name of Nelson : Thou hadst past along,
Thou in thy hearse to burial past, as oft
Before the van of battle, proudly rode
Thy prow, down Britain's hne, shout after shout
Rending the air with triumph, ere thy hand
Had lanc'd the bolt of victory.
SoTHEBY (Saul, p. 80.)
I introduced this digression with an apology, yet have ex-
tended so much further than I had designed, that I must once
more request my reader to excuse me. It was to be expected
64
506
(I have said) that Lord Nelson would appreciate the isle of
Malta from its relations to the British fleet on the Mediterra-
nean station. It was the fashion of the day to style Egypt the
key of India, and Malta the key of Egypt. Nelson saw the
hoUowness of this metaphor : or if he only doubted its appli-
cability in the former instance, he was sure that it was false in
the latter. Egypt might or might not be the key of India ; but
Malta was certainly not the key of Egypt. It was not intend-
ed to keep constantly two distinct fleets in that sea ; and the
largest naval force at Malta would not supersede the necessity
of a squadron off" Toulon. Malta does not lie in the direct
course from Toulon to Alexandria : and from the nature of
the winds (taking one time with another) the comparative
length of the voyage to the latter port will be found far less
than a view of the map would suggest, and in truth of little
practical importance. If it were the object of the French fleet
to avoid Malta in its passage to Egypt, the port-admiral at Val-
lette would in all probability receive his first intelligence of
its course from Minorca or the squadron off" Toulon, instead of
communicating it. In what regards the refitting and provis-
ioning of the fleet, either on ordinary or extraordinary occa-
sions, Malta was as inconvenient as Minorca was advantage-
ous, not only from its distance (which yet was sufficient to
render it almost useless in cases of the most pressing necessi-
ty, as after a severe action or injuries of tempest) but likewise
from the extreme difficulty, if not impracticability, of leaving
the harbour of Valette with a N. W. wind, which often lasted
for weeks together. In all these points his lordship's observa-
tions were perfectly just : and it must be conceded by all per-
sons acquainted with the situation and circumstances of Malta,
that its importance, as a British possession, if not exaggerated
on the whole, was unduly magnified in several important par-
ticulars. Thus Lord Minto, in a speech delivered at a county
meeting and afterwards published, affirms, that supposing (what
no one could consider as unlikely to take place) that the court
of Naples should be compelled to act under the influence of
France, and that the Barbary powers were unfriendly to us ei-
ther in consequence of French intrigues or from their own ca-
price and insolence, there would not be a single port, harbor,
bay, creek, or road-stead in the whole Mediterranean, from
which our men of war could obtain a single ox or an hogshead
507
of fresh water : unless Great Britain retained possession of
Malta. The noble speaker seems not to have been aware, that
under the circumstances supposed by him, Odessa too being
closed against us by a Russian war, the island of Malta itself
would be no better than a vast almshouse of 75,000 persons,
exclusive of the British soldiery, all of whom must be regu-
larly supplied with corn and salt meat from Great Britain or
Ireland. The population of Malta and Goza exceeds 100,000 :
while the food of all kinds produced on the two islands would
barely suffice for one-fourth of that number. The deficit is
procured by the growth and spinning of cotton, for which corn
could not be substituted from the nature of the soil, or were it
attempted, would produce but a small proportion of the quan-
tity which the cotton raised on the same fields and spun* into
thread, enables the Maltese to purchase, not to mention that
the substitution of grain for cotton would leave half of the in-
habitants without employment. As to live stock, it is quite out
of the question, if we except the pigs and goats, which per-
form the office of scavengers in the streets of Valette and the
towns on the other side of the Porto Grande.
Against these arguments Sir A. Ball placed the following
considerations. It had been long his conviction, that the Medi-
terranean squadron should be supplied by regular store-
ships, the sole business of which should be that of carriers for
the fleet. This he recommended as by far the most economic
plan, in the first instance. Secondly, beyond any other it
would secure a system and regularity in the arrival of supplies.
And, lastly, it would conduce to the discipline of the navy,
and prevent both ships and officers from being out of the way
on any sudden emergence. If this system were introduced,
* The Maltese cotton is naturally of a deep buff, or dusky orange color, and
by the laws of the island, must be spun before it can be exported. I have
heard it asserted, by persons apparently well informed on the subject, that
the raw material would fetch as high a price as the thread, weight for
weight : the thread from its coarseness being applicable to few purposes. It
is manufactured likewise for the use of the natives themselves into a coarse
nankin, which never loses its color by washing, and is durable beyond any
cloathing I have ever known or heard of. The cotton seed is used as a food
for the cattle that are not immediately wanted for the market: it is very nu-
tritious, but changes the fat of the animal into a kind of guct, congealing
quickly, of an adhesive substance.
508
the objections to Malta, from its great distance, &c. would
have little force. On the other hand, the objections to Min-
orca he deemed irre move able. The same disadvantages which
attended the getting out of the harbor of Vallette, applied to
vessels getting into Port Mahon ; but while fifteen hundred or
two thousand British troops might be safely entrusted with the
preservation of Malta, the troops for the defence of Minorca
must ever be in proportion to those which the enemy may be
supposed likely to send against it. It is so little favored by
nature or by art, that the possessors stood merely on the level
with the invaders. Cseteris paribus, if there 12,000 of the
enemy landed, there must be an equal number to repel them ;
nor could the garrison, or any part of it be spared for any sud-
den emergence without risk of losing the island. Previously
to the battle of Marengo, the most earnest representations
were made to the governor and commander at Minorca, by the
British admiral, who offered to take on himself the whole re-
sponsibility of the measure, if he would permit the troops at
Minorca to join our allies. The governor felt himself com-
pelled to refuse his assent. Doubtless, he acted wisely, for re-
sponsibility is not transferable. The fact is introduced in proof
of the defenceless state of Minorca, and its constant liability
to attack. If the Austrian Army had stood in the same rela-
tion to eight or nine thousand British soldiers at Malta, a sin-
gle regiment would have precluded all alarms, as to the island
itself, and the remainder have perhaps changed the destiny of
Europe. What might not, almost I would say, what must not
eight thousand Britons have accomplished at the battle of Ma-
rengo, nicely poised as the fortunes of the two armies are now
known to have been ? Minorca too is alone useful or desirable
during a war, and on the supposition of a fleet off Toulon.
The advantages of Malta are permanent and national. As a
second Gibraltar, it must tend to secure Gibraltar itself; for if
by the loss of that one place we could be excluded from the
Mediterranean, it is diificult to say what sacrifices of blood and
treasure the enemy would deem too high a price for its con-
quest. Whatever Malta may or may not be respecting Egypt,
its high importance to the indej)endence of Sicily cannot be
doubted, or its advantages, as a central station, for any portion
of our disposable force. Neither is the influence which it
will enable us to exert on the Barbary powers, to be wholly
609
neglected. I shall only add, that during the plague at Gibral-
ter, Lord Nelson himself acknowledged that he began to see
the possession of Malta in a different light.
Sir Alexander Ball looked forward to future contingencies
as likely to increase the value of Malta to Great Britain. He
foresaw that the whole of Italy would become a French pro-
vince, and he knew, that the French government had been
long intriguing on the coast of Barbary. The Dey of Algiers
was believed to have accumulated a treasure of fifteen millions
sterling, and Buonaparte had actually duped him into a treaty,
by which the French were to be permitted to erect a fort on
the very spot where the ancient Hippo stood, the choice be-
tween which and the Hellespont as the site of New Rome, is
said to have perplexed the judgment of Constantino. To this
he added an additional point of connection with Russia, by
means of Odessa, and on the supposition of a war in the Baltic,
a still more interesting relation to Turkey, and the Morea, and
the Greek islands. — It has been repeatedly signified to the Brit-
ish government, that from the Morea and the countries adjacent,
a considerable supply of ship timber and naval stores might be
obtained, such as would at least greatly lessen the pressure of
a Russian war. The agents of France were in full activity in
the Morea and the Greek islands, the possession of which, by
that government, would augment the naval resources of the
French to a degree of which few are aware, who have not made
the present state of commerce of the Greeks, an ( bject of par-
ticular attention. In short, if the possession of Malta were ad-
vantageous to England solely as a convenient watch-tower, as a
centre of intelligence, its importance would be undeniable.
Although these suggestions did not prevent the signing away
of Malta at the peace of Amiens, they doubtless were not with-
out effect, when the ambition of Buonaparte had given a full
and final answer to the grand question : can we remain in peace
with France ? I have likewise reason to believe, that Sir Alex-
ander Ball, baffled by exposing an insidious proposal of the
French government, during the negociations that preceded the
re-commencement of the war — that the fortifications of Malta
should be entirely dismantled, and the island left to its inhabi-
tants. Without dwelling on the obvious inhumanity and flagi-
tious injustice of exposing the Maltese to certain pillage and
slavery, from their old and inveterate enemies, the Moors, ho
510
showed that the plan would promote the interests of Buonaparte
even more than his actual possession of the islands, which
France had no possible interest in desiring, except as the means
of keeping it out of the hands of Great Britain.
But Sir Alexander Ball is no more. The writer still clings
to the hope, that he may yet be enabled to record his good
deeds more fully and regularly ; that then with a sense of com-
fort not without a subdued exultation, he may raise heavenward
from his honored tomb the glistening eye of an humble, but
ever grateful Friend.
^§7
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