{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_11557/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_11557","id":"gutenberg_11557","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11557","summary":null,"tags":["Category: British Literature","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Compromise (Ethics)"],"text":"ON COMPROMISE\n\n  _'It makes all the difference in the world whether we put\n  Truth in the first place or in the second place.'_\n\n                                             WHATLEY\n\n\n\n\nON COMPROMISE\n\nBY\n\nJOHN MORLEY\n\nMACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED\n\nST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON\n\n1908\n\n_This Edition first printed 1886_\n\n\n\n\nNOTE.\n\nThe writer has availed himself of the opportunity of a new edition to\nadd three or four additional illustrations in the footnotes. The\ncriticisms on the first edition call for no remark, excepting this,\nperhaps, that the present little volume has no pretensions to be\nanything more than an Essay. To judge such it performance as if it\nprofessed to be an exhaustive Treatise in casuistry, is to subject it to\ntests which it was never designed to bear. Merely to open questions, to\nindicate points, to suggest cases, to sketch outlines,--as an Essay does\nall these things,--may often be a process not without its own modest\nusefulness and interest.\n\n_May 4, 1877._\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n  CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY.\n\n  Design of this Essay\n  The question stated\n  Suggested by some existing tendencies in England\n  Comparison with other countries\n  Test of this comparison\n  The absent quality specifically defined\n  History and decay of some recent aspirations\n  Illustrations\n  Characteristics of one present mood\n  Analysis of its causes\n    (1) Influence of French examples\n    (2) Influence of the Historic Method\n    (3) Influence of the Newspaper Press\n    (4) Increase of material prosperity\n    (5) Transformation of the spiritual basis of thought\n    (6) Influence of a State Church\n\n\n  CHAPTER II. OF THE POSSIBLE UTILITY OF ERROR\n\n  Questions of a dual doctrine lies at the outset of our inquiry\n  This doctrine formulated\n  Marks the triumph of _status quo_\n  Psychological vindication of such a doctrine\n  Answered by assertion of the dogmatic character of popular belief\n  And the pernicious social influence of its priests\n  The root idea of the defenders of a dual doctrine\n  Thesis of the present chapter, against that idea\n  Examination of some of the pleas for error\n      I. That a false opinion may be clothed with good associations\n     II. That all minds are not open to reason\n    III. That a false opinion, considered in relation to the general\n         mental attitude, may be less hurtful than its premature\n         demolition\n     IV. That mere negative truth is not a guide\n      V. That error has been a stepping-stone to truth\n  We cannot tell how much truth has been missed\n  Inevitableness is not utility\n\n\n  CHAPTER III. INTELLECTUAL RESPONSIBILITY AND THE POLITICAL SPIRIT.\n\n  The modern _disciplina arcani_\n  Hume's immoral advice\n  Evil intellectual effects of immoral compromise\n  Depravation that follows its grosser forms\n  The three provinces of compromise\n  Radical importance of their separation\n  Effects of their confusion in practical politics\n  Economy or management in the Formation of opinion\n  Its lawfulness turns on the claims of majority and minority over one\n    another\n  Thesis of the present chapter\n  Its importance, owing to the supremacy of the political spirit in\n    England\n  Effects of the predominance of this spirit\n  Contrasted with epochs of intellectual responsibility\n  A modern movement against the political spirit\n  An objection considered\n  Importance to character of rationalised conviction, and of ideals\n  The absence of them attenuates conduct\n  Illustrations in modern politics\n  Modern latitudinarianism\n  Illustration in two supreme issues\n  Pascal's remarks upon a state of Doubt\n  Dr. Newman on the same\n  Three ways of dealing with the issues\n  Another illustration of intellectual improbity\n  The Savoyard Vicar\n  Mischievousness of substituting spiritual self-indulgence for reason\n\n\n  CHAPTER IV. RELIGIOUS CONFORMITY.\n\n  Compromise in Expression\n  Touches religion rather than politics\n  Hume on non-resistance\n  Reason why rights of free speech do not exactly coincide with rights of\n    free thought\n  Digression into the matter of free speech\n  Dissent no longer railing and vituperative\n  Tendency of modern free thought to assimilate some elements from the\n    old faith\n  A wide breach still remains\n  Heresy, however, no longer traced to depravity\n  Tolerance not necessarily acquiescence in scepticism\n  Object of the foregoing digression\n  The rarity of plain-speaking a reason why it is painful\n  Conformity in the relationship between child and parent\n  Between husband and wife\n  In the education of children\n  The case of an unbelieving priest\n  The case of one who fears to lose his influence\n  Conformity not harmless nor unimportant\n\n\n  CHAPTER V. THE REALISATION OF OPINION.\n\n  The application of opinion to conduct\n  Tempering considerations\n  Not to be pressed too far\n  Our action in realising our opinions depends on our social theory\n  Legitimate and illegitimate compromise in view of that\n  The distinction equally sound on the evolutional theory\n  Condition of progressive change\n  A plea for compromise examined\n  A second plea\n  The allegation of provisional usefulness examined\n  Illustrated in religious institutions\n  In political institutions\n  Burke's commendation of political compromise\n  The saying that small reforms may be the worst enemies of great ones\n  In what sense true\n  Illustration in the Elementary Education Act\n  Wisdom of social patience\n  The considerations which apply to political practice do not apply to\n    our own lives\n  Nor to the publication of social opinions\n  The amount of conscience in a community\n  Evil of attenuating this element\n  Historic illustration\n  New side of the discussion\n  Is earnestness of conviction fatal to concession of liberty to others?\n  Two propositions at the base of an affirmative answer\n  Earnestness of conviction consistent with sense of liability to error\n  Belief in one's own infallibility does not necessarily lead to\n    intolerance\n  The contrary notion due to juristic analogies in social discussion\n  Connection between the doctrine of liberty and social evolution\n  The timid compromisers superfluous apprehension\n  Material limits to the effect of moral speculation\n  Illustration from the history of Slavery\n  Illustration from French history\n  Practical influence of a faith in the self-protecting quality of a\n    society\n  Conclusion\n\n\n  NOTE TO PAGE 242.\n\n  The Doctrine of Liberty\n\n\n\n\nON COMPROMISE.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\n\nINTRODUCTORY.\n\nThe design of the following essay is to consider, in a short and direct\nway, some of the limits that are set by sound reason to the practice of\nthe various arts of accommodation, economy, management, conformity, or\ncompromise. The right of thinking freely and acting independently, of\nusing our minds without excessive awe of authority, and shaping our\nlives without unquestioning obedience to custom, is now a finally\naccepted principle in some sense or other with every school of thought\nthat has the smallest chance of commanding the future. Under what\ncircumstances does the exercise and vindication of the right, thus\nconceded in theory, become a positive duty in practice? If the majority\nare bound to tolerate dissent from the ruling opinions and beliefs,\nunder what conditions and within what limitations is the dissentient\nimperatively bound to avail himself of this toleration? How far, and in\nwhat way, ought respect either for immediate practical convenience, or\nfor current prejudices, to weigh against respect for truth? For how much\nis it well that the individual should allow the feelings and convictions\nof the many to count, when he comes to shape, to express, and to act\nupon his own feelings and convictions? Are we only to be permitted to\ndefend general principles, on condition that we draw no practical\ninferences from them? Is every other idea to yield precedence and empire\nto existing circumstances, and is the immediate and universal\nworkableness of a policy to be the main test of its intrinsic fitness?\n\nTo attempt to answer all these questions fully would be nothing less\nthan to attempt a compendium of life and duty in all their details, a\nSumma of cases of conscience, a guide to doubters at every point of the\ncompass. The aim of the present writer is a comparatively modest one;\nnamely, to seek one or two of the most general principles which ought\nto regulate the practice of compliance, and to suggest some of the\nbearings which they may have in their application to certain\ndifficulties in modern matters of conduct.\n\nIt is pretty plain that an inquiry of this kind needs to be fixed by\nreference to a given set of social circumstances tolerably well\nunderstood. There are some common rules as to the expediency of\ncompromise and conformity, but their application is a matter of endless\nvariety and the widest elasticity. The interesting and useful thing is\nto find the relation of these too vague rules to actual conditions; to\ntransform them into practical guides and real interpreters of what is\nright and best in thought and conduct, in a special and definite kind of\nemergency. According to the current assumptions of the writer and the\npreacher, the one commanding law is that men should cling to truth and\nright, if the very heavens fall. In principle this is universally\naccepted. To the partisans of authority and tradition it is as much a\ncommonplace as to the partisans of the most absolute and unflinching\nrationalism. Yet in practice all schools alike are forced to admit the\nnecessity of a measure of accommodation in the very interests of truth\nitself. Fanatic is a name of such ill repute, exactly because one who\ndeserves to be called by it injures good causes by refusing timely and\nharmless concession; by irritating prejudices that a wiser way of urging\nhis own opinion might have turned aside; by making no allowances,\nrespecting no motives, and recognising none of those qualifying\nprinciples, which are nothing less than necessary to make his own\nprinciple true and fitting in a given society. The interesting question\nin connection with compromise obviously turns upon the placing of the\nboundary that divides wise suspense in forming opinions, wise reserve in\nexpressing them, and wise tardiness in trying to realise them, from\nunavowed disingenuousness and self-illusion, from voluntary\ndissimulation, and from indolence and pusillanimity. These are the three\ndepartments or provinces of compromise. Our subject is a question of\nboundaries.[1] And this question, being mainly one of time and\ncircumstance, may be most satisfactorily discussed in relation to the\ntime and the circumstances which we know best, or at least whose\ndeficiencies and requirements are most pressingly visible to us.\n\nThough England counts her full share of fearless truth-seekers in most\ndepartments of inquiry, yet there is on the whole no weakening, but a\nrather marked confirmation, of what has become an inveterate national\ncharacteristic, and has long been recognised as such; a profound\ndistrust, namely, of all general principles; a profound dislike both of\nmuch reference to them, and of any disposition to invest them with\npractical authority; and a silent but most pertinacious measurement of\nphilosophic truths by political tests. 'It is not at all easy, humanly\nspeaking,' says one who has tried the experiment, 'to wind an Englishman\nup to the level of dogma.' The difficulty has extended further than the\ndogma of theology. The supposed antagonism between expediency and\nprinciple has been pressed further and further away from the little\npiece of true meaning that it ever could be rightly allowed to have,\nuntil it has now come to signify the paramount wisdom of counting the\nnarrow, immediate, and personal expediency for everything, and the\nwhole, general, ultimate, and completed expediency for nothing.\nPrinciple is only another name for a proposition stating the terms of\none of these larger expediencies. When principle is held in contempt, or\nbanished to the far dreamland of the philosopher and the student, with\nan affectation of reverence that in a materialist generation is in truth\nthe most overweening kind of contempt, this only means that men are\nthinking much of the interests of to-day, and little of the more ample\ninterests of the many days to come. It means that the conditions of the\ntime are unfriendly to the penetration and the breadth of vision which\ndisclose to us the whole range of consequences that follow on certain\nkinds of action or opinion, and unfriendly to the intrepidity and\ndisinterestedness which make us willing to sacrifice our own present\nease or near convenience, in the hope of securing higher advantages for\nothers or for ourselves in the future.\n\nLet us take politics, for example. What is the state of the case with\nus, if we look at national life in its broadest aspect? A German has his\ndream of a great fatherland which shall not only be one and\nconsolidated, but shall in due season win freedom for itself, and be as\na sacred hearth whence others may borrow the warmth of freedom and order\nfor themselves. A Spaniard has his vision either of militant loyalty to\nGod and the saints and the exiled line of his kings, or else of devotion\nto the newly won liberty and to the raising up of his fallen nation. An\nAmerican, in the midst of the political corruption which for the moment\nobscures the great democratic experiment, yet has his imagination\nkindled by the size and resources of his land, and his enthusiasm fired\nby the high destinies which he believes to await its people in the\ncenturies to come. A Frenchman, republican or royalist, with all his\nfrenzies and 'fool-fury' of red or white, still has his hope and dream\nand aspiration, with which to enlarge his life and lift him on an ample\npinion out from the circle of a poor egoism. What stirs the hope and\nmoves the aspiration of our Englishman? Surely nothing either in the\nheavens above or on the earth beneath. The English are as a people\nlittle susceptible in the region of the imagination. But they have done\ngood work in the world, acquired a splendid historic tradition of stout\ncombat for good causes, founded a mighty and beneficent empire; and\nthey have done all this notwithstanding their deficiencies of\nimagination. Their lands have been the home of great and forlorn causes,\nthough they could not always follow the transcendental flights of their\nforeign allies and champions. If Englishmen were not strong in\nimagination, they were what is better and surer, strong in their hold of\nthe great emancipating principles. What great political cause, her own\nor another's, is England befriending to-day? To say that no great cause\nis left, is to tell us that we have reached the final stage of human\nprogress, and turned over the last leaf in the volume of human\nimprovements. The day when this is said and believed marks the end of a\nnation's life. Is it possible that, after all, our old protestant\nspirit, with its rationality, its austerity, its steady political\nenergy, has been struck with something of the mortal fatigue that seizes\ncatholic societies after their fits of revolution?\n\nWe need not forget either the atrocities or the imbecilities which mark\nthe course of modern politics on the Continent. I am as keenly alive as\nany one to the levity of France, and the [Greek: hubris] of Germany. It\nmay be true that the ordinary Frenchman is in some respects the victim\nof as poor an egoism as that of the ordinary Englishman; and that the\nAmerican has no advantage over us in certain kinds of magnanimous\nsentiment. What is important is the mind and attitude, not of the\nordinary man, but of those who should be extraordinary. The decisive\nsign of the elevation of a nation's life is to be sought among those who\nlead or ought to lead. The test of the health of a people is to be found\nin the utterances of those who are its spokesmen, and in the action of\nthose whom it accepts or chooses to be its chiefs. We have to look to\nthe magnitude of the issues and the height of the interests which engage\nits foremost spirits. What are the best men in a country striving for?\nAnd is the struggle pursued intrepidly and with a sense of its size and\namplitude, or with creeping foot and blinking eye? The answer to these\nquestions is the answer to the other question, whether the best men in\nthe country are small or great. It is a commonplace that the manner of\ndoing things is often as important as the things done. And it has been\npointed out more than once that England's most creditable national\naction constantly shows itself so poor and mean in expression that the\nrest of Europe can discern nothing in it but craft and sinister\ninterest. Our public opinion is often rich in wisdom, but we lack the\ncourage of our wisdom. We execute noble achievements, and then are best\npleased to find shabby reasons for them.\n\nThere is a certain quality attaching alike to thought and expression and\naction, for which we may borrow the name of grandeur. It has been\nnoticed, for instance, that Bacon strikes and impresses us, not merely\nby the substantial merit of what he achieved, but still more by a\ncertain greatness of scheme and conception. This quality is not a mere\nidle decoration. It is not a theatrical artifice of mask or buskin, to\nimpose upon us unreal impressions of height and dignity. The added\ngreatness is real. Height of aim and nobility of expression are true\nforces. They grow to be an obligation upon us. A lofty sense of personal\nworth is one of the surest elements of greatness. That the lion should\nlove to masquerade in the ass's skin is not modesty and reserve, but\nimbecility and degradation. And that England should wrap herself in the\nrobe of small causes and mean reasons is the more deplorable, because\nthere is no nation in the world the substantial elements of whose power\nare so majestic and imperial as our own. Our language is the most widely\nspoken of all tongues, its literature is second to none in variety and\npower. Our people, whether English or American, have long ago superseded\nthe barbarous device of dictator and Caesar by the manly arts of\nself-government. We understand that peace and industry are the two most\nindispensable conditions of modern civilisation, and we draw the lines\nof our policy in accordance with such a conviction. We have had imposed\nupon us by the unlucky prowess of our ancestors the task of ruling a\nvast number of millions of alien dependents. We undertake it with a\ndisinterestedness, and execute it with a skill of administration, to\nwhich history supplies no parallel, and which, even if time should show\nthat the conditions of the problem were insoluble, will still remain\nfor ever admirable. All these are elements of true pre-eminence. They\nare calculated to inspire us with the loftiest consciousness of national\nlife. They ought to clothe our voice with authority, to nerve our action\nby generous resolution, and to fill our counsels with weightiness and\npower.\n\nWithin the last forty years England has lost one by one each of those\nenthusiasms which may have been illusions,--some of them undoubtedly\nwere so,--but which at least testified to the existence among us, in a\nvery considerable degree, of a vivid belief in the possibility of\ncertain broad general theories being true and right, as well as in the\nobligation of making them lights to practical conduct and desire. People\na generation ago had eager sympathy with Hungary, with Italy, with\nPoland, because they were deeply impressed by the doctrine of\nnationalities. They had again a generous and energetic hatred of such an\ninstitution as the negro slavery of America, because justice and\nhumanity and religion were too real and potent forces within their\nbreasts to allow them to listen to those political considerations by\nwhich American statesmen used to justify temporising and compromise.\nThey had strong feelings about Parliamentary Reform, because they were\npenetrated by the principle that the possession of political power by\nthe bulk of a society is the only effective security against sinister\ngovernment; or else by the principle that participation in public\nactivity, even in the modest form of an exercise of the elective\nfranchise, is an elevating and instructing agency; or perhaps by the\nprinciple that justice demands that those who are compelled to obey laws\nand pay national taxes should have a voice in making the one and\nimposing the other.\n\nIt may be said that the very fate of these aspirations has had a\nblighting effect on public enthusiasm and the capacity of feeling it.\nNot only have most of them now been fulfilled, and so passed from\naspiration to actuality, but the results of their fulfilment have been\nso disappointing as to make us wonder whether it is really worth while\nto pray, when to have our prayers granted carries the world so very\nslight a way forward. The Austrian is no longer in Italy; the Pope has\nceased to be master in Rome; the patriots of Hungary are now in\npossession of their rights, and have become friends of their old\noppressors; the negro slave has been transformed into an American\ncitizen. At home, again, the gods have listened to our vows. Parliament\nhas been reformed, and the long-desired mechanical security provided for\nthe voter's freedom. We no longer aspire after all these things, you may\nsay, because our hopes have been realised and our dreams have come true.\nIt is possible that the comparatively prosaic results before our eyes at\nthe end of all have thrown a chill over our political imagination. What\nseemed so glorious when it was far off, seems perhaps a little poor now\nthat it is near; and this has damped the wing of political fancy. The\nold aspirations have vanished, and no new ones have arisen in their\nplace. Be the cause what it may, I should express the change in this\nway, that the existing order of facts, whatever it may be, now takes a\nhardly disputed precedence with us over ideas, and that the coarsest\npolitical standard is undoubtingly and finally applied over the whole\nrealm of human thought.\n\nThe line taken up by the press and the governing classes of England\nduring the American Civil War may serve to illustrate the kind of mood\nwhich we conceive to be gaining firmer hold than ever of the national\nmind. Those who sympathised with the Southern States listened only to\npolitical arguments, and very narrow and inefficient political\narguments, as it happened, when they ought to have seen that here was an\nissue which involved not only political ideas, but moral and religious\nideas as well. That is to say, the ordinary political tests were not\nenough to reveal the entire significance of the crisis, nor were the\npolitical standards proper for measuring the whole of the expediencies\nhanging in the balance. The conflict could not be adequately gauged by\nsuch questions as whether the Slave States had or had not a\nconstitutional right to establish an independent government; whether the\nFree States were animated by philanthropy or by love of empire; whether\nit was to the political advantage of England that the American Union\nshould be divided and consequently weakened. Such questions were not\nnecessarily improper in themselves, and we can imagine circumstances in\nwhich they might be not only proper but decisive. But, the\ncircumstances being what they were, the narrower expediencies of\nordinary politics were outweighed by one of those supreme and\nindefeasible expediencies which are classified as moral. These are, in\nother words, the higher, wider, more binding, and transcendent part of\nthe master art of social wellbeing.\n\nHere was only one illustration of the growing tendency to substitute the\nnarrowest political point of view for all the other ways of regarding\nthe course of human affairs, and to raise the limitations which\npractical exigencies may happen to set to the application of general\nprinciples, into the very place of the principles themselves. Nor is the\nprocess of deteriorating conviction confined to the greater or noisier\ntransactions of nations. It is impossible that it should be so. That\nprocess is due to causes which affect the mental temper an a whole, and\npour round us an atmosphere that enervates our judgment from end to end,\nnot more in politics than in morality, and not more in morality than in\nphilosophy, in art, and in religion. Perhaps this tendency never showed\nitself more offensively than when the most important newspaper in the\ncountry criticised our great naturalist's scientific speculations as to\nthe descent of man, from the point of view of property, intelligence,\nand a stake in the country, and severely censured him for revealing his\nparticular zoological conclusions to the general public, at a moment\nwhen the sky of Paris was red with the incendiary flames of the Commune.\nIt would be hard to reduce the transformation of all truth into a\nsubordinate department of daily politics, to a more gross and unseemly\nabsurdity.\n\nThe consequences of such a transformation, of putting immediate social\nconvenience in the first place, and respect for truth in the second, are\nseen, as we have said, in a distinct and unmistakable lowering of the\nlevel of national life; a slack and lethargic quality about public\nopinion; a growing predominance of material, temporary, and selfish\naims, over those which are generous, far-reaching, and spiritual; a\ndeadly weakening of intellectual conclusiveness, and clear-shining moral\nillumination, and, lastly, of a certain stoutness of self-respect for\nwhich England was once especially famous. A plain categorical\nproposition is becoming less and less credible to average minds. Or at\nleast the slovenly willingness to hold two directly contradictory\npropositions at one and the same time is becoming more and more common.\nIn religion, morals, and politics, the suppression of your true opinion,\nif not the positive profession of what you hold to be a false opinion,\nis hardly ever counted a vice, and not seldom even goes for virtue and\nsolid wisdom. One is conjured to respect the beliefs of others, but\nforbidden to claim the same respect for one's own.\n\nThis dread of the categorical proposition might be creditable, if it\nsprang from attachment to a very high standard of evidence, or from a\ndeep sense of the relative and provisional quality of truth. There might\neven be a plausible defence set up for it, if it sprang from that\nformulated distrust of the energetic rational judgment in comparison\nwith the emotional, affective, contemplative parts of man, which\nunderlies the various forms of religious mysticism. If you look closely\ninto our present mood, it is seen to be the product mainly and above all\nof a shrinking deference to the _status quo_, not merely as having a\nclaim not to be lightly dealt with, which every serious man concedes,\nbut as being the last word and final test of truth and justice. Physical\nscience is allowed to be the sphere of accurate reasoning and distinct\nconclusions, but in morals and politics, instead of admitting that these\nsubjects have equally a logic of their own, we silently suspect all\nfirst principles, and practically deny the strict inferences from\ndemonstrated premisses. Faith in the soundness of given general theories\nof right and wrong melts away before the first momentary triumph of\nwrong, or the first passing discouragement in enforcing right.\n\nOur robust political sense, which has discovered so many of the secrets\nof good government, which has given us freedom with order, and popular\nadministration without corruption, and unalterable respect for law along\nwith indelible respect for individual right, this, which has so long\nbeen our strong point, is fast becoming our weakness and undoing. For\nthe extension of the ways of thinking which are proper in politics, to\nother than political matter, means at the same time the depravation of\nthe political sense itself. Not only is social expediency effacing the\nmany other points of view that men ought to take of the various facts of\nlife and thought: the idea of social expediency itself is becoming a\ndwarfed and pinched idea. Ours is the country where love of constant\nimprovement ought to be greater than anywhere else, because fear of\nrevolution is less. Yet the art of politics is growing to be as meanly\nconceived as all the rest At elections the national candidate has not\noften a chance against the local candidate, nor the man of a principle\nagainst the man of a class. In parliament we are admonished on high\nauthority that 'the policy of a party is not the carrying out of the\nopinion of any section of it, but the general consensus of the whole,'\nwhich seems to be a hierophantic manner of saying that the policy of a\nparty is one thing, and the principle which makes it a party is another\nthing, and that men who care very strongly about anything are to\nsurrender that and the hope of it, for the sake of succeeding in\nsomething about which they care very little or not at all. This is our\nmodern way of giving politicians heart for their voyage, of inspiring\nthem with resoluteness and self-respect, with confidence in the worth of\ntheir cause and enthusiasm for its success. Thoroughness is a mistake,\nand nailing your flag to the mast a bit of delusive heroics. Think\nwholly of to-day, and not at all of to-morrow. Beware of the high and\nhold fast to the safe. Dismiss conviction, and study general consensus.\nNo zeal, no faith, no intellectual trenchancy, but as much low-minded\ngeniality and trivial complaisance as you please.\n\nOf course, all these characteristics of our own society mark tendencies\nthat are common enough in all societies. They often spring from an\nindolence and enervation that besets a certain number of people, however\ninvigorating the general mental climate may be. What we are now saying\nis that the general mental climate itself has, outside of the domain of\nphysical science, ceased to be invigorating; that, on the contrary, it\nfosters the more inglorious predispositions of men, and encourages a\nnative willingness, already so strong, to acquiesce in a lazy\naccommodation with error, an ignoble economy of truth, and a vicious\ncompromise of the permanent gains of adhering to a sound general\nprinciple, for the sake of the temporary gains of departing from it.\n\n\nWithout attempting an elaborate analysis of the causes that have brought\nabout this debilitation of mental tone, we may shortly remind ourselves\nof one or two facts in the political history, in the intellectual\nhistory, and in the religious history of this generation, which perhaps\nhelp us to understand a phenomenon that we have all so keen an interest\nboth in understanding and in modifying.\n\nTo begin with what lies nearest to the surface. The most obvious agency\nat work in the present exaggeration of the political standard as the\nuniversal test of truth, is to be found in some contemporary incidents.\nThe influence of France upon England since the revolution of 1848 has\ntended wholly to the discredit of abstract theory and general reasoning\namong us, in all that relates to politics, morals, and religion. In\n1848, not in 1789, questions affecting the fundamental structure and\norganic condition of the social union came for the first time into\nformidable prominence. For the first time those questions and the\nanswers to them were stated in articulate formulas and distinct\ntheories. They were not merely written in books; they so fascinated the\nimagination and inflamed the hopes of the time, that thousands of men\nwere willing actually to go down into the streets and to shed their\nblood for the realisation of their generous dream of a renovated\nsociety. The same sight has been seen since, and even when we do not see\nit, we are perfectly aware that the same temper is smouldering. Those\nwere premature attempts to convert a crude aspiration into a political\nreality, and to found a new social order on a number of umcompromising\ndeductions from abstract principles of the common weal. They have had\nthe natural effect of deepening the English dislike of a general theory,\neven when such a theory did no more than profess to announce a remote\nobject of desire, and not the present goal of immediate effort.\n\nIt is not only the Socialists who are responsible for the low esteem\ninto which a spirit of political generalisation has fallen in other\ncountries, in consequence of French experience. Mr. Mill has described\nin a well-known passage the characteristic vice of the leaders of all\nFrench parties, and not of the democratic party more than any other.\n'The commonplaces of politics in France,' he says, 'are large and\nsweeping practical maxims, from which, as ultimate premisses, men reason\ndownwards to particular applications, and this they call being logical\nand consistent. For instance, they are perpetually arguing that such and\nsuch a measure ought to be adopted, because it is a consequence of the\nprinciple on which the form of government is founded; of the principle\nof legitimacy, or the principle of the sovereignty of the people. To\nwhich it may be answered that if these be really practical principles,\nthey must rest on speculative grounds; the sovereignty of the people\n(for example) must be a right foundation for government, because a\ngovernment thus constituted tends to produce certain beneficial effects.\nInasmuch, however, as no government produces all possible beneficial\neffects, but all are attended with more or fewer inconveniences; and\nsince these cannot be combated by means drawn from the very causes which\nproduce them, it would often be a much stronger recommendation of some\npractical arrangement that it does not follow from what is called the\ngeneral principle of the government, than that it does,'[2]\n\nThe English feeling for compromise is on its better side the result of a\nshrewd and practical, though informal, recognition of a truth which the\nwriter has here expressed in terms of Method. The disregard which the\npolitical action of France has repeatedly betrayed of a principle really\nso important has hitherto strengthened our own regard for it, until it\nhas not only made us look on its importance as exclusive and final, but\nhas extended our respect for the right kind of compromise to wrong and\ninjurious kinds.\n\nA minor event, which now looks much less important than it did not many\nyears ago, but which still had real influence in deteriorating moral\njudgment, was the career of a late sovereign of France. Some apparent\nadvantages followed for a season from a rule which had its origin in a\nviolent and perfidious usurpation, and which was upheld by all the arts\nof moral corruption, political enervation, and military repression. The\nadvantages lasted long enough to create in this country a steady and\npowerful opinion that Napoleon the Third's early crime was redeemed by\nthe seeming prosperity which followed. The shocking prematureness of\nthis shallow condonation is now too glaringly visible for any one to\ndeny it. Not often in history has the great truth that 'morality is the\nnature of things' received corroboration so prompt and timely. We need\nnot commit ourselves to the optimistic or sentimental hypothesis that\nwickedness always fares ill in the world, or on the other hand that\nwhoso hearkens diligently to the divine voice, and observes all the\ncommandments to do them, shall be blessed in his basket and his store\nand all the work of his hand. The claims of morality to our allegiance,\nso far as its precepts are solidly established, rest on the same\npositive base as our faith in the truth of physical laws. Moral\nprinciples, when they are true, are at bottom only registered\ngeneralisations from experience. They record certain uniformities of\nantecedence and consequence in the region of human conduct Want of faith\nin the persistency of these uniformities is only a little less fatuous\nin the moral order than a corresponding want of faith would instantly\ndisclose itself to be in the purely physical order. In both orders alike\nthere is only too much of this kind of fatuousness, this readiness to\nbelieve that for once in our favour the stream shall flow up hill, that\nwe may live in miasmatic air unpoisoned, that a government may depress\nthe energy, the self-reliance, the public spirit of its citizens, and\nyet be able to count on these qualities whenever the government itself\nmay have broken down, and left the country to make the best of such\nresources as are left after so severe and prolonged a drain. This is the\nsense in which morality is the nature of things. The system of the\nSecond Empire was in the same sense an immoral system. Unless all the\nlessons of human experience were futile, and all the principles of\npolitical morality mere articles of pedantry, such a system must\ninevitably bring disaster, as we might have seen that it was sowing the\nseeds of disaster. Yet because the catastrophe lingered, opinion in\nEngland began to admit the possibility of evil being for this once good,\nand to treat any reference to the moral and political principles which\ncondemned the imperial system, and all systems like it, beyond hope or\nappeal, as simply the pretext of a mutinous or Utopian impatience.\n\nThis, however, is only one of the more superficial influences which have\nhelped and fallen in with the working of profounder causes of weakened\naspiration and impoverished moral energy, and of the substitution of\nlatitudinarian acquiescence and faltering conviction for the\nwhole-hearted assurance of better times. Of these deeper causes, the\nmost important in the intellectual development of the prevailing forms\nof thought and sentiment is the growth of the Historic Method. Let us\nconsider very shortly how the abuse of this method, and an unauthorised\nextension and interpretation of its conclusions, are likely to have had\nsomething to do with the enervation of opinion.\n\nThe Historic Method may be described as the comparison of the forms of\nan idea, or a usage, or a belief, at any given time, with the earlier\nforms from which they were evolved, or the later forms into which they\nwere developed, and the establishment, from such a comparison, of an\nascending and descending order among the facts. It consists in the\nexplanation of existing parts in the frame of society by connecting them\nwith corresponding parts in some earlier frame; in the identification of\npresent forms in the past, and past forms in the present. Its main\nprocess is the detection of corresponding customs, opinions, laws,\nbeliefs, among different communities, and a grouping of them into\ngeneral classes with reference to some one common feature. It is a\ncertain way of seeking answers to various questions of origin, resting\non the same general doctrine of evolution, applied to moral and social\nforms, as that which is being applied with so much ingenuity to the\nseries of organic matter. The historic conception is a reference of\nevery state of society to a particular stage in the evolution of its\ngeneral conditions. Ideas of law, of virtue, of religion, of the\nphysical universe, of history, of the social union itself, all march in\na harmonious and inter-dependent order.\n\nCuriosity with reference to origins is for various reasons the most\nmarked element among modern scientific tendencies. It covers the whole\nfield, moral, intellectual, and physical, from the smile or the frown on\na man's face, up to the most complex of the ideas in his mind; from the\nexpression of his emotions, to their root and relations with one another\nin his inmost organisation. As an ingenious writer, too soon lost to our\npolitical literature, has put it:--'If we wanted to describe one of the\nmost marked results, perhaps the most marked result, of late thought, we\nshould say that by it everything is made _an antiquity_. When in former\ntimes our ancestors thought of an antiquarian, they described him as\noccupied with coins and medals and Druids' stones. But now there are\nother relics; indeed all matter is become such. Man himself has to the\neye of science become an antiquity. She tries to read, is beginning to\nread, knows she ought to read, in the frame of each man the result of a\nwhole history of all his life, and what he is and what makes him so.'[3]\nCharacter is considered less with reference to its absolute qualities\nthan as an interesting scene strewn with scattered rudiments, survivals,\ninherited predispositions. Opinions are counted rather as phenomena to\nbe explained than as matters of truth and falsehood. Of usages, we are\nbeginning first of all to think where they came from, and secondarily\nwhether they are the most fitting and convenient that men could be got\nto accept. In the last century men asked of a belief or a story, Is it\ntrue? We now ask, How did men come to take it for true? In short the\nrelations among social phenomena which now engage most attention, are\nrelations of original source, rather than those of actual consistency in\ntheory and actual fitness in practice. The devotees of the current\nmethod are more concerned with the pedigree and genealogical connections\nof a custom or an idea than with its own proper goodness or badness, its\nstrength or its weakness.\n\nThough there is no necessary or truly logical association between\nsystematic use of this method rightly limited, and a slack and slipshod\npreference of vague general forms over definite ideas, yet every one can\nsee its tendency, if uncorrected, to make men shrink from importing\nanything like absolute quality into their propositions. We can see also,\nwhat is still worse, its tendency to place individual robustness and\ninitiative in the light of superfluities, with which a world that goes\nby evolution can very well dispense. Men easily come to consider\nclearness and positiveness in their opinions, staunchness in holding and\ndefending them, and fervour in carrying them into action, as equivocal\nvirtues of very doubtful perfection, in a state of things where every\nabuse has after all had a defensible origin; where every error has, we\nmust confess, once been true relatively to other parts of belief in\nthose who held the error; and where all parts of life are so bound up\nwith one another, that it is of no avail to attack one evil, unless you\nattack many more at the same time. This is a caricature of the real\nteaching of the Historic Method, of which we shall have to speak\npresently; but it is one of those caricatures which the natural sloth in\nsuch matters, and the indigenous intellectual haziness of the majority\nof men, make them very willing to take for the true philosophy of\nthings.\n\n\nThen there is the newspaper press, that huge engine for keeping\ndiscussion on a low level, and making the political test final. To take\noff the taxes on knowledge was to place a heavy tax on broad and\nindependent opinion. The multiplication of journals 'delivering brawling\njudgments unashamed on all things all day long,' has done much to deaden\nthe small stock of individuality in public verdicts. It has done much to\nmake vulgar ways of looking at things and vulgar ways of speaking of\nthem stronger and stronger, by formulating and repeating and\nstereotyping them incessantly from morning until afternoon, and from\nyear's end to year's end. For a newspaper must live, and to live it must\nplease, and its conductors suppose, perhaps not altogether rightly, that\nit can only please by being very cheerful towards prejudices, very\nchilly to general theories, loftily disdainful to the men of a\nprinciple. Their one cry to an advocate of improvement is some sagacious\nsilliness about recognising the limits of the practicable in politics,\nand seeing the necessity of adapting theories to facts. As if the fact\nof taking a broader and wiser view than the common crowd disqualifies a\nman from knowing what the view of the common crowd happens to be, and\nfrom estimating it at the proper value for practical purposes. Why are\nthe men who despair of improvement to be the only persons endowed with\nthe gift of discerning the practicable? It is, however, only too easy to\nunderstand how a journal, existing for a day, should limit its view to\nthe possibilities of the day, and how, being most closely affected by\nthe particular, it should coldly turn its back upon all that is general.\nAnd it is easy, too, to understand the reaction of this intellectual\ntimorousness upon the minds of ordinary readers, who have too little\nnatural force and too little cultivation to be able to resist the\nnarrowing and deadly effect of the daily iteration of short-sighted\ncommonplaces.\n\n\nFar the most penetrating of all the influences that are impairing the\nmoral and intellectual nerve of our generation, remain still to be\nmentioned. The first of these is the immense increase of material\nprosperity, and the second is the immense decline in sincerity of\nspiritual interest. The evil wrought by the one fills up the measure of\nthe evil wrought by the other. We have been, in spite of momentary\ndeclensions, on a flood tide of high profits and a roaring trade, and\nthere is nothing like a roaring trade for engendering latitudinarians.\nThe effect of many possessions, especially if they be newly acquired, in\nslackening moral vigour, is a proverb. Our new wealth is hardly leavened\nby any tradition of public duty such as lingers among the English\nnobles, nor as yet by any common custom of devotion to public causes,\nsuch as seems to live and grow in the United States. Under such\nconditions, with new wealth come luxury and love of ease and that fatal\nreadiness to believe that God has placed us in the best of possible\nworlds, which so lowers men's aims and unstrings their firmness of\npurpose. Pleasure saps high interests, and the weakening of high\ninterests leaves more undisputed room for pleasure. Management and\ncompromise appear among the permitted arts, because they tend to\ncomfort, and comfort is the end of ends, comprehending all ends. Not\ntruth is the standard, but the politic and the reputable. Are we to\nsuppose that it is firm persuasion of the greater scripturalness of\nepiscopacy that turns the second generation of dissenting manufacturers\nin our busy Lancashire into churchmen? Certainly such conversions do no\nviolence to the conscience of the proselyte, for he is intellectually\nindifferent, a spiritual neuter.\n\nThat brings us to the root of the matter, the serious side of a\nrevolution that in this social consequence is so unspeakably ignoble.\nThis root of the matter is the slow transformation now at work of the\nwhole spiritual basis of thought. Every age is in some sort an age of\ntransition, but our own is characteristically and cardinally an epoch of\ntransition in the very foundations of belief and conduct. The old hopes\nhave grown pale, the old fears dim; strong sanctions are become weak,\nand once vivid faiths very numb. Religion, whatever destinies may be in\nstore for it, is at least for the present hardly any longer an organic\npower. It is not that supreme, penetrating, controlling, decisive part\nof a man's life, which it has been, and will be again. The work of\ndestruction is all the more perturbing to timorous spirits, and more\nharassing even to doughtier spirits, for being done impalpably,\nindirectly, almost silently and as if by unseen hands. Those who dwell\nin the tower of ancient faiths look about them in constant\napprehension, misgiving, and wonder, with the hurried uneasy mien of\npeople living amid earthquakes. The air seems to their alarms to be full\nof missiles, and all is doubt, hesitation, and shivering expectancy.\nHence a decisive reluctance to commit one's self. Conscience has lost\nits strong and on-pressing energy, and the sense of personal\nresponsibility lacks sharpness of edge. The native hue of spiritual\nresolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of distracted, wavering,\nconfused thought. The souls of men have become void. Into the void have\nentered in triumph the seven devils of Secularity.\n\nAnd all this hesitancy, this tampering with conviction for fear of its\nconsequences, this want of faithful dealing in the highest matters, is\nbeing intensified, aggravated, driven inwards like a fatal disorder\ntoward the vital parts, by the existence of a State Church. While\nthought stirs and knowledge extends, she remains fast moored by ancient\nformularies. While the spirit of man expands in search after new light,\nand feels energetically for new truth, the spirit of the Church is\neternally entombed within the four corners of acts of parliament. Her\nministers vow almost before they have crossed the threshold of manhood\nthat they will search no more. They virtually swear that they will to\nthe end of their days believe what they believe then, before they have\nhad time either to think or to know the thoughts of others. They take\noath, in other words, to lead mutilated lives. If they cannot keep this\nsolemn promise, they have at least every inducement that ordinary human\nmotives can supply, to conceal their breach of it. The same system which\nbegins by making mental indolence a virtue and intellectual narrowness a\npart of sanctity, ends by putting a premium on something too like\nhypocrisy. Consider the seriousness of fastening up in these bonds some\nthousands of the most instructed and intelligent classes in the country,\nthe very men who would otherwise be best fitted from position and\nopportunities for aiding a little in the long, difficult, and plainly\ninevitable work of transforming opinion. Consider the waste of\nintelligence, and what is assuredly not less grave, the positive\ndead-weight and thick obstruction, by which an official hierarchy so\norganised must paralyse mental independence in a community.\n\nWe know the kind of man whom this system delights to honour. He was\ndescribed for us five and thirty years ago by a master hand. 'Mistiness\nis the mother of wisdom. A man who can set down half a dozen general\npropositions which escape from destroying one another only by being\ndiluted into truisms; who can hold the balance between opposites so\nskilfully as to do without fulcrum or beam; who never enunciates a truth\nwithout guarding himself against being supposed to exclude the\ncontradictory,--who holds that scripture is the only authority, yet that\nthe Church is to be deferred to, that faith only justifies, yet that it\ndoes not justify without works, that grace does not depend upon the\nsacraments, yet is not given without them, that bishops are a divine\nordinance, yet that those who have them not are in the same religious\ncondition as those who have,--this is your safe man and the hope of the\nChurch; this is what the Church is said to want, not party men, but\nsensible, temperate, sober, well-judging persons, to guide it through\nthe channel of no meaning, between the Scylla and Charybdis of Aye and\nNo.'[4] The writer then thought that such a type could not endure, and\nthat the Church must become more real. On the contrary, her reality is\nmore phantom-like now than it was then. She is the sovereign pattern and\nexemplar of management, of the triumph of the political method in\nspiritual things, and of the subordination of ideas to the _status quo_.\n\nIt is true that all other organised priesthoods are also bodies which\nmove within formularies even more inelastic than those of the\nEstablishment. But then they have not the same immense social power, nor\nthe same temptations to make all sacrifices to preserve it. They affect\nthe intellectual temper of large numbers of people, but the people whom\nthey affect are not so strongly identified with the greater organs of\nthe national life. The State Church is bound up in the minds of the most\npowerful classes with a given ordering of social arrangements, and the\nconsequence of this is that the teachers of the Church have reflected\nback upon thorn a sense of responsibility for these arrangements, which\nobscures their spirituality, clogs their intellectual energy and mental\nopenness, and turns them into a political army of obstruction to new\nideas. They feel themselves to a certain extent discharged from the\nnecessity of recognising the tremendous conflict in the region of belief\nthat goes on around them, just as if they were purely civil\nadministrators, concerned only with the maintenance of the present\norder. None of this is true of the private Churches. Their teachers and\nmembers regard belief as something wholly independent of the civil\nordering of things. However little enlightened in some respects, however\nhostile to certain of the ideas by which it is sought to replace their\nown, they are at least representatives of the momentous principle of our\nindividual responsibility for the truth of our opinions. They may bring\ntheir judgments to conclusions that are less in accord with modern\ntendencies than those of one or two schools that still see their way to\nsubscribing Anglican articles and administering Anglican rites. At any\nrate, they admit that the use of his judgment is a duty incumbent on the\nindividual, and a duty to be discharged without reference to any\nexternal considerations whatever, political or otherwise. This is an\nelevating, an exhilarating principle, however deficiencies of culture\nmay have narrowed the sphere of its operations. It is because a State\nChurch is by its very conception hostile to such a principle, that we\nare justified in counting it apart from the private Churches with all\ntheir faults, and placing it among the agencies that weaken the vigour\nof a national conscience and check the free play and access of\nintellectual light.\n\nHere we may leave the conditions that have made an inquiry as to some of\nthe limits of compromise, which must always be an interesting and\nimportant subject, one of especial interest and importance to ourselves\nat present. Is any renovation of the sacredness of principle a possible\nremedy for some of these elements of national deterioration? They will\nnot disappear until the world has grown into possession of a new\ndoctrine. When that comes, all other good things will follow. What we\nhave to remember is that the new doctrine itself will never come, except\nto spirits predisposed to their own liberation. Our day of small\ncalculations and petty utilities must first pass away; our vision of the\ntrue expediencies must reach further and deeper; our resolution to\nsearch for the highest verities, to give up all and follow them, must\nfirst become the supreme part of ourselves.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 1: See below, ch. iii.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _System of Logic_, bk. vi. ch. xi.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Bagehot.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Dr. J.H. Newman's _Essays Critical and Historical_, vol. i.\np. 301.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\n\nOF THE POSSIBLE UTILITY OF ERROR.\n\n  _Das Wahre f\u00f6rdert; aus dem Irrthum entwickelt\n        sich nichts, er verwickeltuns nur.--_\n        GOETHE.\n\nAt the outset of an inquiry how far existing facts ought to be allowed\nto overrule ideas and principles that are at variance with them, a\npreliminary question lies in our way, about which it may be well to say\nsomething. This is the question of a dual doctrine. In plainer words,\nthe question whether it is expedient that the more enlightened classes\nin a community should upon system not only possess their light in\nsilence, but whether they should openly encourage a doctrine for the\nless enlightened classes which they do not believe to be true for\nthemselves, while they regard it as indispensably useful in the case of\nless fortunate people. An eminent teacher tells us how after he had\nonce succeeded in presenting the principle of Necessity to his own mind\nin a shape which seemed to bring with it all the advantages of the\nprinciple of Free Will, he 'no longer suffered under the burden so heavy\nto one who aims at being a reformer in opinions, of thinking one\ndoctrine true, and the contrary doctrine morally beneficial.'[5] The\ndiscrepancy which this writer thought a heavy burden has struck others\nas the basis of a satisfactory solution.\n\n      Nil dulcius est bene quam munita tenere\n  Edita doctrina sapientum templa serena,\n  Despicere unde queas alios passimque videre\n  Errare atque viam palantes quaerere vitae.\n\nThe learned are to hold the true doctrine; the unlearned are to be\ntaught its morally beneficial contrary. 'Let the Church,' it has been\nsaid, 'admit two descriptions of believers, those who are for the\nletter, and those who hold by the spirit. At a certain point in rational\nculture, belief in the supernatural becomes for many an impossibility;\ndo not force such persons to wear a cowl of lead. Do not you meddle with\nwhat we teach or write, and then we will not dispute the common people\nwith you; do not contest our place in the school and the academy, and\nthen we will surrender to your hands the country school.'[6] This is\nonly a very courageous and definite way of saying what a great many less\naccomplished persons than M. Renan have silently in their hearts, and in\nEngland quite as extensively as in France. They do not believe in hell,\nfor instance, but they think hell a useful fiction for the lower\nclasses. They would deeply regret any change in the spirit or the\nmachinery of public instruction which would release the lower classes\nfrom so wholesome an error. And as with hell, so with other articles of\nthe supernatural system; the existence of a Being who will distribute\nrewards and penalties in a future state, the permanent sentience of each\nhuman personality, the vigilant supervision of our conduct, as well as\nour inmost thoughts and desires, by the heavenly powers; and so forth.\n\nLet us discuss this matter impersonally, without reference to our own\nopinions and without reference to the evidence for or against their\ntruth. I am not speaking now of those who hold all these ideas to be\ncertainly true, or highly probable, and who at the same time\nincidentally insist on the great usefulness of such ideas in confirming\nmorality and producing virtuous types of character. With such persons,\nof course, there is no question of a dual doctrine. They entertain\ncertain convictions themselves, and naturally desire to have their\ninfluence extended over others. The proposition which we have to\nconsider is of another kind. It expresses the notions of those who--to\ntake the most important kind of illustration--think untrue the popular\nideas of supernatural interference in our obscure human affairs; who\nthink untrue the notion of the prolongation of our existence after death\nto fulfil the purpose of the supernatural powers; or at least who think\nthem so extremely improbable that no reasonable man or woman, once\nawakened to a conviction of this improbability, would thenceforth be\ncapable of receiving effective check or guidance from beliefs, that\nwould have sunk slowly down to the level of doubtful guesses. We have\nnow to deal with those who while taking this view of certain doctrines,\nstill declare them to be indispensable for restraining from anti-social\nconduct all who are not acute or instructed enough to see through them.\nIn other words, they think error useful, and that it may be the best\nthing for society that masses of men should cheat and deceive themselves\nin their most fervent aspirations and their deepest assurances. This is\nthe furthest extreme to which the empire of existing facts over\nprinciples can well be imagined to go. It lies at the root of every\ndiscussion upon the limits which separate lawful compromise or\naccommodation from palpable hypocrisy.\n\nIt will probably be said that according to the theory of the school of\nwhich M. Renan is the most eloquent representative, the common people\nare not really cheating themselves or being cheated. Indeed M. Renan\nhimself has expatiated on the charm of seeing figures of the ideal in\nthe cottages of the poor, images representing no reality, and so forth.\n'What a delight,' he cries, 'for the man who is borne down by six days\nof toil to come on the seventh to rest upon his knees, to contemplate\nthe tall columns, a vault, arches, an altar; to listen to the chanting,\nto hear moral and consoling words!'[7] The dogmas which criticism\nattacks are not for these poor people 'the object of an explicit\naffirmation,' and therefore there is no harm in them; 'it is the\nprivilege of pure sentiment to be invulnerable, and to play with poison\nwithout being hurt by it.' In other words, the dogmas are false, but the\nliturgy, as a performance stirring the senses of awe, reverence,\nsusceptibility to beauty of various kinds, appeals to and satisfies a\nsentiment that is both true and indispensable in the human mind. More\nthan this, in the two or three supreme moments of life to which men look\nforward and on which they look back,--at birth, at the passing of the\nthreshold into fulness of life, at marriage, at death,--the Church is\npresent to invest the hour with a certain solemn and dignified charm.\nThat is the way in which the instructed are to look at the services of a\nChurch, after they have themselves ceased to believe its faith, us a\ntrue account of various matters which it professes to account for\ntruly.\n\nIt will be perceived that this is not exactly the ground of those who\nthink a number of what they confess to be untruths, wholesome for the\ncommon people for reasons of police, and who would maintain churches on\nthe same principle on which they maintain the county constabulary. It is\na psychological, not a political ground. It is on the whole a more true,\nas well as a far more exalted position. The human soul, they say, has\nthese lovely and elevating aspirations; not to satisfy them is to leave\nman a dwarfed creature. Why quarrel with a system that leaves you to\nsatisfy them in the true way, and does much to satisfy thorn in a false\nbut not very harmful way among those who unfortunately have to sit in\nthe darkness of the outer court?\n\nThis is not a proper occasion for saying anything about the adequateness\nof the catholic, or any other special manner of fostering and solacing\nthe religious impulses of men. We have to assume that the instructed\nclass believe the catholic dogmas to be untrue, and yet wishes the\nuninstructed to be handed over to a system that reposes on the theory\nthat these dogmas are superlatively true. What then is to be said of the\ntenableness of such a position? To the plain man it looks like a\ndeliberate connivance at a plan for the propagation of error--assuming,\nas I say, for the moment, that these articles of belief are erroneous\nand contrary to fact and evidence. Ah, but, we are told, the people make\nno explicit affirmation of dogma; that does nothing for them; they are\nindifferent to it. A great variety of things might be said to this\nstatement. We might ask, for instance, whether the people ever made an\nexplicit affirmation of dogma in the past, or whether it was always the\nhazy indifferent matter which it is supposed to be now. If so, whether\nwe shall not have to re-cast our most fundamental notions of the way in\nwhich Christian civilisation has been evolved. If not, and if people did\nonce explicitly affirm dogma, when exactly was it that they ceased to do\nso?\n\nThe answers to these questions would all go to show that at the time\nwhen religion was the great controlling and organising force in conduct,\nthe prime elemental dogmas were accepted with the most vivid conviction\nof reality. I do not pretend that the common people followed all the\ninferences which the intellectual subtlety of the master-spirits of\ntheology drew so industriously from the simple premisses of scripture\nand tradition. But assuredly dogma was at the foundation of the whole\nstructure. When did it cease to be so? How was the structure supported,\nafter you had altered this condition of things?\n\nApart from this historic issue, the main question one would like to put\nto the upholder of duality of religion on this plea, is the simple one,\nwhether the power of the ceremonial which charms him so much is not\nactually at this moment drawn wholly from dogma and the tradition of\ndogma; whether its truth is not explicitly affirmed to the unlettered\nman, and whether the inseparable connection between the dogma and the\nceremonial is not constantly impressed upon him by the spiritual\nteachers to whom the dual system hands him and his order over for all\ntime? If any one of those philosophic critics will take the trouble to\nlisten to a few courses of sermons at the present day, and the remark\napplies not less to protestant than to catholic churches, he will find\nthat instead of that '_parole morale et consolante_' which is so\nsoothing to think of, the pulpit is now the home of fervid controversy\nand often exacerbated declamation in favour of ancient dogma against\nmodern science. We do not say whether this is or is not the wisest line\nfor the clergy to follow. We only press the fact against those who wish\nus to believe that dogma counts for nothing in the popular faith, and\nthat therefore we need not be uneasy as to its effects.\n\nNext, one would say to those who think that all will go well if you\ndivide the community into two classes, one privileged to use its own\nmind, the other privileged to have its mind used by a priesthood, that\nthey overlook the momentous circumstance of these professional upholders\nof dogmatic systems being also possessed of a vast social influence in\nquestions that naturally belong to another sphere. There is hardly a\nsingle great controversy in modern politics, where the statesman does\nnot find himself in immediate contact with the real or supposed\ninterests, and with the active or passive sentiment, of one of these\nreligious systems. Therefore if the instructed or intellectually\nprivileged class cheerfully leave the field open to men who, _ex\nhypothesi_, are presumed to be less instructed, narrower, more\nimpenetrable by reason, and the partisans of the letter against the\nspirit, then this result follows. They are deliberately strengthening\nthe hands of the persons least fitted by judgment, experience, and\ntemper, for using such power rightly. And they are strengthening them\nnot merely in dealing with religious matters, but, what is of more\nimportance, in dealing with an endless variety of the gravest social and\npolitical matters. It is impossible to map out the exact dimensions of\nthe field in which a man shall exercise his influence, and to which he\nis to be rigorously confined. Give men influence in one matter,\nespecially if that be such a matter as religious belief and ceremonial,\nand it is simply impossible that this influence shall not extend with\nmore or less effect over as much of the whole sphere of conduct as they\nmay choose surrendering the common people without dispute or effort to\norganised priesthoods for religious purposes, you would be inevitably\nincluding a vast number of other purposes in the self-same destination.\nThis does not in the least prejudice practical ways of dealing with\ncertain existing circumstances, such as the propriety or justice of\nallowing a catholic people to have a catholic university. It is only an\nargument against erecting into a complete and definite formula the\ndivision of a society into two great castes, the one with a religion of\nthe spirit, the other with a creed of the letter.\n\nAgain, supposing that the enlightened caste were to consent to abandon\nthe common people to what are assumed to be lower and narrower forms of\ntruth,--which is after all little more than a fine phrase for forms of\nfalsehood,--what can be more futile than to suppose that such a\ncompromise will be listened to for a single moment by a caste whose\nfirst principle is that they are the possessors and ministers, not of an\ninferior or superior form of truth, but of the very truth itself,\nabsolute, final, complete, divinely sent, infallibly interpreted? The\ndisciples of the relative may afford to compromise. The disciples of the\nabsolute, never.\n\nWe shall see other objections as we go on to this state of things, in\nwhich a minority holds true opinions and abandons the majority to false\nones. At the bottom of the advocacy of a dual doctrine slumbers the idea\nthat there is no harm in men being mistaken, or at least only so little\nharm as is more than compensated for by the marked tranquillity in which\ntheir mistake may wrap them. This is not an idea merely that\nintellectual error is a pathological necessity of the mind, no more to\nbe escaped than the pathological necessities which afflict and finally\ndissolve the body. That is historically true. It is an idea that error\nsomehow in certain stages, where there is enough of it, actually does\ngood, like vaccination. Well, the thesis of the present chapter is that\nerroneous opinion or belief, in itself and as such, can never be useful.\nThis may seem a truism which everybody is willing to accept without\ndemur. But it is one of those truisms which persons habitually forget\nand repudiate in practice, just because they have never made it real to\nthemselves by considering and answering the objections that may be\nbrought against it. We see this repudiation before our eyes every day.\nThus for instance, parents theoretically take it for granted that error\ncannot be useful, while they are teaching or allowing others to teach\ntheir children what they, the parents, believe to be untrue. Thus\nhusbands who think the common theology baseless and unmeaning, are found\nto prefer that their wives shall not question this theology nor neglect\nits rites. These are only two out of a hundred examples of the daily\nadmission that error may be very useful to other people. I need hardly\nsay that to deny this, as the commonplace to which this chapter is\ndevoted denies it, is a different thing from denying the expediency of\nletting errors alone at a given time. That is another question, to be\ndiscussed afterwards. You may have a thoroughly vicious and dangerous\nenemy, and yet it may be expedient to choose your own hour and occasion\nfor attacking him. 'The passage from error to truth,' in the words of\nCondorcet, 'may be accompanied by certain evils. Every great change\nnecessarily brings some of these in its train; and though they may be\nalways far below the evil you are for destroying, yet it ought to do\nwhat is possible to diminish them. It is not enough to do good; one must\ndo it in a good way. No doubt we should destroy all errors, but as it is\nimpossible to destroy them all in an instant, we should imitate a\nprudent architect who, when obliged to destroy a building, and knowing\nhow its parts are united together, sets about its demolition in such a\nway as to prevent its fall from being dangerous.'[8]\n\nThose, let us note by the way, who are accustomed to think the moral\ntone of the eighteenth century low and gross compared with that of the\nnineteenth, may usefully contrast these just and prudent word? of\ncaution in extirpating error, with M. Renan's invitation to men whom he\nconsiders wrong in their interpretation of religion, to plant their\nerror as widely and deeply as they can; and who are moreover themselves\nsupposed to be demoralised, or else they would not be likely to\nacquiesce in a previous surrender of the universities to men whom they\nthink in mortal error. Apart however from M. Renan, Condorcet's words\nmerely assert the duty of setting to work to help on the change from\nfalse to true opinions with prudence, and this every sensible man\nadmits. Our position is that in estimating the situation, in counting up\nand balancing the expediencies of an attack upon error at this or that\npoint, nothing is to be set to the credit of error as such, nor is there\nanything in its own operations or effects to entitle it to a moment's\nrespite. Every one would admit this at once in the case of physical\ntruths, though there are those who say that some of the time spent in\nthe investigation of physical truths might be more advantageously\ndevoted to social problems. But in the case of moral and religious\ntruths or errors, people, if they admit that nothing is to be set to the\ncredit of error as such, still constantly have a subtle and practically\nmischievous confusion in their minds between the possible usefulness of\nerror, and the possible expediency of leaving it temporarily\nundisturbed. What happens in consequence of such a confusion is this.\nMen leave error undisturbed, because they accept in a loose way the\nproposition that a belief may be 'morally useful without being\nintellectually sustainable,' They disguise their own dissent from\npopular opinions, because they regard such opinions as useful to other\npeople. We are not now discussing the case of those who embrace a creed\nfor themselves, on the ground that, though they cannot demonstrate its\ntruth to the understanding, yet they find it pregnant with moralising\nand elevating characteristics. We are thinking of a very different\nattitude--that, namely, of persons who believe a creed to be not more\nmorally useful than it is intellectually sustainable, so far as they\nthemselves are concerned. To them it is pure and uncompensated error.\nYet from a vague and general idea that what is useless error to them may\nbe useful to others, they insist on doing their best to perpetuate the\nsystem which spreads and consecrates the error. And how do they settle\nthe question? They reckon up the advantages, and forget the drawbacks.\nThey detect and dwell on one or two elements of utility in the false\nbelief or the worn-out institution, and leave out of all account the\nelements that make in the other direction.\n\nConsidering how much influence this vague persuasion has in encouraging\na well-meaning hypocrisy in individuals, and a profound stagnation in\nsocieties, it may be well to examine the matter somewhat generally. Let\nus try to measure the force of some of the most usual pleas for error.\n\nI. A false opinion, it may be said, is frequently found to have\nclustering around it a multitude of excellent associations, which do far\nmore good than the false opinion that supports them, does harm. In the\nmiddle ages, for instance, there was a belief that a holy man had the\ngift of routing demons, of healing the sick, and of working divers other\nmiracles. Supposing that this belief was untrue, supposing that it was\nan error to attribute the sudden death of an incredible multitude of\ntroublesome flies in a church to the fact of Saint Bernard having\nexcommunicated them, what then? The mistaken opinion was still\nassociated with a deep reverence for virtue and sanctity, and this was\nmore valuable, than the error of the explanation of the death of the\nflies was noxious or degrading.\n\nThe answer to this seems to be as follows. First, in making false\nnotions the proofs or close associates of true ones, you are exposing\nthe latter to the ruin which awaits the former. For example, if you have\nin the minds of children or servants associated honesty, industry,\ntruthfulness, with the fear of hell-fire, then supposing this fear to\nbecome extinct in their minds,--which, being unfounded in truth, it is\nin constant risk of doing--the virtues associated with it are likely to\nbe weakened exactly in proportion as that association was strong.\n\nSecond, for all good habits in thought or conduct there are good and\nreal reasons in the nature of things. To leave such habits attached to\nfalse opinions is to lessen the weight of these natural or spontaneous\nreasons, and so to do more harm in the long run than effacement of them\nseems for a time to do good. Most excellences in human character have a\nspontaneous root in our nature. Moreover if they had not, and where they\nhave not, there is always a valid and real external defence for them.\nThe unreal defence must be weaker than the real one, and the\nsubstitution of a weak for a strong defence, where both are to be had,\nis not useful but the very opposite.\n\nII. It is true, the objector would probably continue, that there is a\nrational defence for all excellences of conduct, as there is for all\nthat is worthy and fitting in institutions. But the force of a rational\ndefence lies in the rationality of the man to whom it is proffered. The\narguments which persuade one trained in scientific habits of thought,\nonly touch persons of the same kind. Character is not all pure reason.\nThat fitness of things which you pronounce to be the foundation of good\nhabits, may be borne in upon men, and may speak to them, through other\nchannels than the syllogism. You assume a community of highly-trained\nwranglers and proficient sophisters. The plain fact is that, for the\nmass of men, use and wont, rude or gracious symbols, blind custom,\nprejudices, superstitions,--however erroneous in themselves, however\ninadequate to the conveyance of the best truth,--are the only safe\nguardians of the common virtues. In this sense, then, error may have its\nusefulness.\n\nA hundred years ago this apology for error was met by those high-minded\nand interesting men, the French believers in human perfectibility, with\ntheir characteristic dogma,--of which Rousseau was the ardent\nexpounder,--that man is born with a clear and unsophisticated spirit,\nperfectly able to discern all the simple truths necessary for common\nconduct by its own unaided light. His motives are all pure and unselfish\nand his intelligence is unclouded, until priests and tyrants mutilate\nthe one and corrupt the other. We who have the benefit of the historic\nmethod, and have to take into account the medium that surrounds a human\ncreature the moment it comes into the world, to say nothing of all the\ninheritance from the past which it brings within it into the world at\nthe same moment, cannot take up this ground. We cannot maintain that\neverybody is born with light enough to see the rational defences of\nthings for himself, without the education of institutions. What we do\nmaintain is--and this is the answer to the plea for error at present\nunder consideration--that whatever impairs the brightness of such light\nas a man has, is not useful but hurtful. Our reply to those who contend\nfor the usefulness of error on the ground of the comparative impotence\nof rationality over ordinary minds, is something of this kind.\nSuperstition, blind obedience to custom, and the other substitutes for a\nright and independent use of the mind, may accidentally and in some few\nrespects impress good ideas upon persons who are too darkened to accept\nthose ideas on their real merits. But then superstition itself is the\nmain cause of this very darkness. To hold error is in so far to foster\nerroneous ways of thinking on all subjects; is to make the intelligence\nless and less ready to receive truth in all matters whatever. Men are\nmade incapable of perceiving the rational defences, and of feeling\nrational motives, for good habits,--so far as they are thus\nincapable,--by the very errors which we are asked silently to\ncountenance as useful substitutes for right reason. 'Erroneous motives,'\nas Condorcet has expressed this matter, 'have an additional drawback\nattached to them, the habit which they strengthen of reasoning ill. The\nmore important the subject on which you reason ill, and the more you\nbusy yourself about it, by so much the more dangerous do the influences\nof such a habit become. It is especially on subjects analogous to that\non which you reason wrongly, or which you connect with it by habit, that\nsuch a defect extends most powerfully and most rapidly. Hence it is\nextremely hard for the man who believes himself obliged to conform in\nhis conduct to what he considers truths useful to men, but who\nattributes the obligation to erroneous motives, to reason very correctly\non the truths themselves; the more attention he pays to such motives,\nand the more importance he comes to attach to them, the more likely he\nwill be to go wrong.'[9] So, in short, superstition does an immense harm\nby enfeebling rational ways of thinking; it does a little good by\naccidentally endorsing rational conclusions in one or two matters. And\nyet, though the evil which it is said to repair is a trifle beside the\nevil which it is admitted to inflict, the balance of expediencies is\nafter all declared to be such as to warrant us in calling errors useful!\n\nIII. A third objection now presents itself to me, which I wish to state\nas strongly as possible. 'Even if a false opinion cannot in itself be\nmore useful than a true one, whatever good habits may seem to be\nconnected with it, yet,' it may be contended, 'relatively to the general\nmental attitude of a set of men, to their other notions and maxims, the\nfalse opinion may entail less harm than would be wrought by its mere\ndemolition. There are false opinions so intimately bound up with the\nwhole way of thinking and feeling, that to introduce one or two detached\ntrue opinions in their stead, would, even if it were possible, only\nserve to break up that coherency of character and conduct which it is\none of the chief objects of moralists and the great art of living to\nproduce. For a true opinion does not necessarily bring in its train all\nthe other true opinions that are logically connected with it. On the\ncontrary, it is only too notorious a fact in the history of belief, that\nnot merely individuals but whole societies are capable of holding at one\nand the same time contradictory opinions and mutually destructive\nprinciples. On the other hand, neither does a false opinion involve\npractically all the evil consequences deducible from it. For the results\nof human inconsistency are not all unhappy, and if we do not always act\nup to virtuous principle, no more do we always work out to its remotest\ninference every vicious principle. Not insincerity, but inconsistency,\nhas constantly turned the adherents of persecuting precepts into friends\nof tolerant practice.'\n\n'It is a comparatively small thing to persuade a superstitious person to\nabandon this or that article of his superstition. You have no security\nthat the rejection of the one article which you have displaced will lead\nto the rejection of any other, and it is quite possible that it may lead\nto all the more fervid an adhesion to what remains behind. Error,\ntherefore, in view of such considerations may surely be allowed to have\nat least a provisional utility.'\n\nNow undoubtedly the repudiation of error is not at all the same thing\nas embracing truth. People are often able to see the force of arguments\nthat destroy a given opinion, without being able to see the force of\narguments for the positive opinion that ought to replace it. They can\nonly be quite sure of seeing both, when they have acquired not merely a\nconviction that one notion is false and another true, but have\nfurthermore exchanged a generally erroneous way of thinking for a\ngenerally correct way. Hence the truly important object with every one\nwho holds opinions which he deems it of the highest moment that others\nshould accept, must obviously be to reach people's general ways of\nthinking; to stir their love of truth; to penetrate them with a sense of\nthe difference in the quality of evidence; to make them willing to\nlisten to criticism and new opinion; and perhaps above all to teach them\nto take ungrudging and daily trouble to clear up in their minds the\nexact sense of the terms they use.\n\nIf this be so, a false opinion, like an erroneous motive, can hardly\nhave even a provisional usefulness. For how can you attack an erroneous\nway of thinking except in detail, that is to say through the sides of\nthis or that single wrong opinion? Each of these wrong opinions is an\nillustration and type, as it is a standing support and abettor, of some\nkind of wrong reasoning, though they are not all on the same scale nor\nall of them equally instructive. It is precisely by this method of\ngradual displacement of error step by step, that the few stages of\nprogress which the race has yet traversed, have been actually achieved.\nEven if the place of the erroneous idea is not immediately taken by the\ncorresponding true one, or by the idea which is at least one or two\ndegrees nearer to the true one, still the removal of error in this\npurely negative way amounts to a positive gain. Why? For the excellent\nreason that it is the removal of a bad element which otherwise tends to\npropagate itself, or even if it fails to do that, tends at the best to\nmake the surrounding mass of error more inveterate. All error is what\nphysiologists term fissiparous, and in exterminating one false opinion\nyou may be hindering the growth of an uncounted brood of false opinions.\n\nThen as to the maintenance of that coherency, interdependence, and\nsystematisation of opinions and motives, which is said to make character\norganic, and is therefore so highly prized by some schools of thought.\nNo doubt the loosening of this or that part of the fabric of\nheterogeneous origin, which constitutes the character of a man or woman,\ntends to loosen the whole. But do not let us feed ourselves upon\nphrases. This organic coherency, what does it come to? It signifies in a\ngeneral way, to describe it briefly, a harmony between the intellectual,\nthe moral, and the practical parts of human nature; an undisturbed\ncooperation between reason, affection, and will; the reason prescribing\nnothing against which the affections revolt, and proscribing nothing\nwhich they crave; and the will obeying the joint impulses of these two\ndirecting forces, without liability to capricious or extravagant\ndisturbance of their direction. Well, if the reason were perfect in\ninformation and method, and the affections faultless in their impulse,\nthen organic unity of character would be the final consummation of all\nhuman improvement, and it would be criminal, even if it were possible,\nto undermine a structure of such priceless value. But short of this\nthere can be no value in coherency and harmonious consistency as such.\nSo long as error is an element in it, then for so long the whole product\nis vitiated. Undeniably and most fortunately, social virtues are found\nside by side with speculative mistakes and the gravest intellectual\nimperfections. We may apply to humanity the idea which, as Hebrew\nstudents tell us, is imputed in the Talmud to the Supreme Being. _God\nprays_, the Talmud says; and his prayer is this,--'Be it my will that my\nmercy overpower my justice.' And so with men, with or without their\nwill, their mercifulness overpowers their logic. And not their\nmercifulness only, but all their good impulses overpower their logic. To\nrepeat the words which I have put into the objector's mouth, we do not\nalways work out every vicious principle to its remotest inference. What,\nhowever, is this but to say that in such cases character is saved, not\nby its coherency, but by the opposite; to say not that error is useful,\nbut what is a very different thing, that its mischievousness is\nsometimes capable of being averted or minimised?\n\nThe apologist may retort that he did not mean answer to the argument\nfrom coherency of conduct. In measuring utility you have to take into\naccount not merely the service rendered to the objects of the present\nhour, but the contribution to growth, progress, and the future. From\nthis point of view most of the talk about unity of character is not much\nmore than a glorifying of stagnation. It leaves out of sight the\nconditions necessary for the continuance of the unending task of human\nimprovement. Now whatever ease may be given to an individual or a\ngeneration by social or religious error, such error at any rate can\nconduce nothing to further advancement That, at least, is not one of its\npossible utilities.\n\nThis is also one of the answers to the following plea. 'Though the\nknowledge of every positive truth is an useful acquisition, this\ndoctrine cannot without reservation he applied to negative truth. When\nthe only truth ascertainable is that nothing can be known, we do not, by\nthis knowledge, gain any new fact by which to guide ourselves.'[10] But\nlogical coherency, but a kind of practical everyday coherency, which\nmay be open to a thousand abstract objections, yet which still secures\nboth to the individual and to society a number of advantages that might\nbe endangered by any disturbance of opinion or motive. No doubt, and the\nmethod and season of chasing erroneous opinions and motives out of the\nmind must always be a matter of much careful and far-seeing\nconsideration. Only in the course of such consideration, let us not\nadmit the notion in any form that error can have even provisional\nutility. For it is not the error which confers the advantages that we\ndesire to preserve, but some true opinion or just motive or high or\nhonest sentiment, which exists and thrives and operates in spite of the\nerror and in face of it, springing from man's spontaneous and\nunformulated recognition of the real relations of things. This\nrecognition is very faint in the beginnings of society. It grows clearer\nand firmer with each step forward. And in a tolerably civilised age it\nhas become a force on which you can fairly lean with a considerable\ndegree of assurance.\n\nAnd this leads to the central point of the the negative truth that\nnothing can be known is in fact a truth that guides us. [Transcriber's\nnote: sic.] It leads us away from sterile and irreclaimable tracts\nof thought and emotion, and so inevitably compels the energies which\nwould otherwise have been wasted, to feel after a more profitable\ndirection. By leaving the old guide-marks undisturbed, you may give\nease to an existing generation, but the present ease is purchased at\nthe cost of future growth. To have been deprived of the faith of the\nold dispensation, is the first condition of strenuous endeavour after\nthe new.\n\nNo doubt history abounds with cases in which a false opinion on moral or\nreligious subjects, or an erroneous motive in conduct, has seemed to be\na stepping-stone to truth. But this is in no sense a demonstration of\nthe utility of error. For in all such cases the erroneous opinion or\nmotive was far from being wholly erroneous, or wholly without elements\nof truth and reality. If it helped to quicken the speed or mend the\ndirection of progress, that must have been by virtue of some such\nelements within it. All that was error in it was pure waste, or worse\nthan waste. It is true that the religious sentiment has clothed itself\nin a great number of unworthy, inadequate, depressing, and otherwise\nmisleading shapes, dogmatic and liturgic. Yet on the whole the religious\nsentiment has conferred enormous benefits on civilisation. This is no\nproof of the utility of the mistaken direction which these dogmatic or\nliturgic shapes imposed upon it. On the contrary, the effect of the\nfalse dogmas and enervating liturgies is so much that has to be deducted\nfrom the advantages conferred by a sentiment in itself valuable and of\npriceless capability.[11]\n\nYes, it will be urged, but from the historic conditions of the time,\ntruth could only be conveyed in erroneous forms, and motives of\npermanent price for humanity could only be secured in these mistaken\nexpressions. Here I would again press the point of this necessity for\nerroneous forms and mistaken expressions being, in a great many of the\nmost important instances, itself derivative, one among other ill\nconsequences of previous moral and religious error. 'It was gravely\nsaid,' Bacon tells us, 'by some of the prelates in the Council of Trent,\nwhere the doctrines of the Schoolmen have great sway; that the schoolmen\nwere like Astronomers, which did faigne Eccentricks and Epicycles and\nEngines of Orbs to save the Phenomena; though they know there were no\nsuch Things; and in like manner that the Schoolmen had framed a number\nof subtile and intricate Axioms and Theorems, to save the practice of\nthe Church.' This is true of much else besides scholastic axioms and\ntheorems. Subordinate error was made necessary and invented, by reason\nof some pro-existent main stock of error, and to save the practice of\nthe Church. Thus we are often referred to the consolation which this or\nthat doctrine has brought to the human spirit. But what if the same\nsystem had produced the terror which made absence of consolation\nintolerable? How much of the necessity for expressing the enlarged\nhumanity of the Church in the doctrine of purgatory, arose from the\nexistence of the older unsoftened doctrine of eternal hell?\n\nAgain, how much of this alleged necessity of error, as alloy for the too\npure metal of sterling truth, is to be explained by the interest which\npowerful castes or corporations have had in preserving the erroneous\nforms, even when they could not resist, or did not wish to resist, their\nimpregnation by newer and better doctrine? This interest was not\ndeliberately sinister or malignant. It may be more correctly as well as\nmore charitably explained by that infirmity of human nature, which makes\nus very ready to believe what it is on other grounds convenient to us to\nbelieve. Nobody attributes to pure malevolence the heartiness with which\nthe great corporation of lawyers, for example, resist the removal of\nsuperfluous and obstructive forms in their practice; they have come to\nlook on such forms as indispensable safeguards. Hence powerful teachers\nand preachers of all kinds have been spontaneously inclined to suppose\na necessity, which had no real existence, of preserving as much as was\npossible of what we know to be error, even while introducing wholesome\nmodification of it. This is the honest, though mischievous, conservatism\nof the human mind. We have no right to condemn our foregoers; far less\nto lavish on them the evil names of impostor, charlatan, and brigand,\nwhich the zealous unhistoric school of the last century used so\nprofusely. But we have a right to say of them, as we say of those who\nimitate their policy now, that their conservatism is no additional proof\nof the utility of error. Least of all is it any justification for those\nwho wish to have impressed upon the people a complete system of\nreligious opinion which men of culture have avowedly put away. And,\nmoreover, the very priests must, I should think, be supposed to have put\nit away also. Else they would hardly be invited deliberately to abdicate\ntheir teaching functions in the very seats where teaching is of the\nweightiest and most far-spreading influence.\n\nMeanwhile our point is that the reforms in opinion which have been\neffected on the plan of pouring the new wine of truth into the old\nbottles of superstition--though not dishonourable to the sincerity of\nthe reformers--are no testimony to even the temporary usefulness of\nerror. Those who think otherwise do not look far enough in front of the\nevent. They forget the evil wrought by the prolonged duration of the\nerror, to which the added particle of truth may have given new vitality.\nThey overlook the ultimate enervation that is so often the price paid\nfor the temporary exaltation.\n\nNor, finally, can they know the truths which the error thus prolonged\nhas hindered from coming to the birth. A strenuous disputant has\nrecently asserted against me that 'the region of the _might have been_\nlies beyond the limits of sane speculation.'[12] It in surely extending\noptimism too far to insist on carrying it back right through the ages.\nTo me at any rate the history of mankind is a huge _pis-aller_, just as\nour present society is; a prodigious wasteful experiment, from which a\ncertain number of precious results have been extracted, but which is\nnot now, nor ever has been at any other time, a final measure of all the\npossibilities of the time. This is not inconsistent with the scientific\nconception of history; it is not to deny the great law that society has\na certain order of progress; but only to urge that within that, the only\npossible order, there is always room for all kinds and degrees of\ninvention, improvement, and happy or unhappy accident. There is no\ndiscoverable law fixing precisely the more or the less of these; nor how\nmuch of each of them a community shall meet with, nor exactly when it\nshall meet with them. We have to distinguish between possibility and\nnecessity. Only certain steps in advance are possible at a given time;\nbut it is not inevitable that those potential advances should all be\nrealised. Does anybody suppose that humanity has had the profit of all\nthe inventive and improving capacity born into the world? That Turgot,\nfor example, was the only man that ever lived who might have done more\nfor society than he was allowed to do, and spared society a cataclysm?\nNo,--history is a _pis-aller_. It has assuredly not moved without the\nrelation of cause and effect; it is a record of social growth and its\nconditions; but it is also a record of interruption and misadventure and\nperturbation. You trace the long chain which has made us what we are in\nthis aspect and that. But where are the dropped links that might have\nmade all the difference? _Ubi sunt eorum tabulae qui post vota nuncupate\nperierunt_? Where is the fruit of those multitudinous gifts which came\ninto the world in untimely seasons? We accept the past for the same\nreason that we accept the laws of the solar system, though, as Comte\nsays, 'we can easily conceive them improved in certain respects.' The\npast, like the solar system, is beyond reach of modification at our\nhands, and we cannot help it. But it is surely the mere midsummer\nmadness of philosophic complacency to think that we have come by the\nshortest and easiest of all imaginable routes to our present point in\nthe march; to suppose that we have wasted nothing, lost nothing, cruelly\ndestroyed nothing, on the road. What we have lost is all in the region\nof the 'might have been,' and we are justified in taking this into\naccount, and thinking much of it, and in trying to find causes for the\nloss. One of them has been want of liberty for the human intelligence;\nand another, to return to our proper subject, has been the prolonged\nexistence of superstition, of false opinions, and of attachment to gross\nsymbols, beyond the time when they might have been successfully\nattacked, and would have fallen into decay but for the mistaken\npolitical notion of their utility. In making a just estimate of this\nutility, if we see reason to believe that these false opinions, narrow\nsuperstitions, gross symbols, have been an impediment to the free\nexercise of the intelligence and a worthier culture of the emotions,\nthen we are justified in placing the unknown loss as a real and most\nweighty item in the account against them.\n\nIn short, then, the utmost that can be said on behalf of errors in\nopinion and motive, is that they are inevitable elements in human\ngrowth. But the inevitable does not coincide with the useful. Pain can\nbe avoided by none of the sons of men, yet the horrible and\nuncompensated subtraction which it makes from the value and usefulness\nof human life, is one of the most formidable obstacles to the smoother\nprogress of the world. And as with pain, so with error. The moral of our\ncontention has reference to the temper in which practically we ought to\nregard false doctrine and ill-directed motive. It goes to show that if\nwe have satisfied ourselves on good grounds that the doctrine is false,\nor the motive ill directed, then the only question that we need ask\nourselves turns solely upon the possibility of breaking it up and\ndispersing it, by methods compatible with the doctrine of liberty. Any\nembarrassment in dealing with it, due to a semi-latent notion that it\nmay be useful to some one else is a weakness that hinders social\nprogress.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 5: Mill's _Autobiography_ p. 170.]\n\n[Footnote 6: M. Renan's _R\u00e9forme Intellectuelle et Morale de la France_,\np. 98.]\n\n[Footnote 7: _Etudes d'Histoire Religieuse_, Preface, p. xvi.]\n\n[Footnote 8: In 1779 the Academy of Prussia announced this as the\nquestion for their annual prize essay:--'_S'il est utile au peuple\nd'\u00eatre tromp\u00e9_.' They received thirty-three essays; twenty showing that\nit is not useful, thirteen showing that it is. The Academy, with an\nimpartiality that caused much amusement in Paris and Berlin, awarded two\nprizes, one to the best proof of the negative answer, another to the\nbest proof of the affirmative. See Bartholmess, _Hist. Philosophique de\nl'Acad\u00e9mie de Prusse_, i. 281, and ii. 278. Condorcet did not actually\ncompete for the prize, but he wrote a very acute piece, suggested by the\ntheme, which was printed in 1790. _Oeuv._ v. 343.\n\nTo illustrate the common fact of certain currents of thought being in\nthe air at given times, we may mention that in 1770 was published the\nposthumous work of another Frenchman, Chesneau du Marsais (1676-1756)\nentitled:--'_Essai sur les Pr\u00e9jug\u00e9s; ou de l'influence des Opinions sur\nles Moeurs et sur le Bonheur des Hommes_.' The principal prejudices to\nwhich he refers are classed under Antiquity--Ancestry--Native\nCountry--Religion--Respect for Wealth. Some of the reasoning is almost\nverbally identical with Condorcet's. For an account of Du Marsais, see\nD'Alembert, _Oeuv._ iii 481.]\n\n[Footnote 9: _Oeuv._ v. 354.]\n\n[Footnote 10: Mill's _Three Essays on Religion_, p.73. I have offered\nsome criticisms on the whole passage in _Critical Miscellanies, Second\nSeries_, pp. 300-304.]\n\n[Footnote 11: 'Enfin, supposons pour un instant que le dogme de l'autre\nvie soit de quelqu'utilit\u00e9, et qu'il retienne vraiment un petit nombre\nd'individus, qu'est-ce que ces foibles avantages compar\u00e9s \u00e0 la foule de\nmaux que l'on en voir d\u00e9couler? Contre un homme timide que cette id\u00e9e\ncontient, il en est des millions qu'elle ne peut contenir; il en des\nmillions qu'elle rend insens\u00e9s, farouches, fanatiques, inutiles et\nm\u00e9chants; il en est des millions qu'elle d\u00e9tourne de leurs devoirs\nenvers la soci\u00e9t\u00e9; il en est une infinit\u00e9 qu'elle afflige et qu'elle\ntrouble, sans aucun bien r\u00e9el pour leurs associ\u00e9s.--_Syst\u00e8me de la\nNature_, i. xiii.]\n\n[Footnote 12: Sir J.F. Stephen's _Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity_,\n2d. ed., p. 19, _note_.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\n\nINTELLECTUAL RESPONSIBILITY AND THE POLITICAL SPIRIT.\n\nWe have been considering the position of those who would fain divide the\ncommunity into two great castes; the one of thoughtful and instructed\npersons using their minds freely, but guarding their conclusions in\nstrict reserve; the other of the illiterate or unreflecting, who should\nhave certain opinions and practices taught them, not because they are\ntrue or are really what their votaries are made to believe them to be,\nbut because the intellectual superiors of the community think the\ninculcation of such a belief useful in all cases save their own. Nor is\nthis a mere theory. On the contrary, it is a fair description of an\nexisting state of things. We have the old _disciplina arcani_ among us\nin as full force as in the primitive church, but with an all-important\ndifference. The Christian fathers practised reserve for the sake of\nleading the acolyte the more surely to the fulness of truth. The modern\neconomiser keeps back his opinions, or dissembles the grounds of them,\nfor the sake of leaving his neighbours the more at their ease in the\npeaceful sloughs of prejudice and superstition and low ideals. We quote\nSaint Paul when he talked of making himself all things to all men, and\nof becoming to the Jews a Jew, and as without the Law to the heathen.\nBut then we do so with a view to justifying ourselves for leaving the\nJew to remain a Jew, and the heathen to remain heathen. We imitate the\nsame apostle in accepting old time-worn altars dedicated to the Unknown\nGod. We forget that he made the ancient symbol the starting-point of a\nrevolutionised doctrine. There is, as anybody can see, a whole world of\ndifference between the reserve of sagacious apostleship, on the one\nhand, dealing tenderly with scruple and tearfulness and fine sensibility\nof conscience, and the reserve of intellectual cowardice on the other\nhand, dealing hypocritically with narrow minds in the supposed interests\nof social peace and quietness. The old _disciplina arcani_ signified\nthe disclosure of a little light with a view to the disclosure of more.\nThe new means the dissimulation of truth with a view to the perpetuation\nof error. Consider the difference between these two fashions of\ncompromise, in their effects upon the mind and character of the person\ncompromising. The one is fully compatible with fervour and hopefulness\nand devotion to great causes. The other stamps a man with artifice, and\nhinders the free eagerness of his vision, and wraps him about with\nmediocrity,--not always of understanding, but that still worse thing,\nmediocrity of aspiration and purpose.\n\nThe coarsest and most revolting shape which the doctrine of conformity\ncan assume, and its degrading consequences to the character of the\nconformer, may be conveniently illustrated by a passage in the life of\nHume. He looked at things in a more practical manner than would find\nfavour with the sentimental champions of compromise in nearer times.\nThere is a well-known letter of Hume's, in which he recommends a young\nman to become a clergyman, on the ground that it was very hard to got\nany tolerable civil employment, and that as Lord Bute was then all\npowerful, his friend would be certain of preferment. In answer to the\nyoung man's scruples as to the Articles and the rest, Hume says:--\n\n'It is putting too great a respect on the vulgar and their superstitions\nto pique one's self on sincerity with regard to them. If the thing were\nworthy of being treated gravely, I should tell him [the young man] that\nthe Pythian oracle with the approbation of Xenophon advised every one to\nworship the gods--[Greek: nhom\u00f4 phole\u00f4s]. I wish it were still in my\npower to be a hypocrite in this particular. The common duties of society\nusually require it; and the ecclesiastical profession only adds a little\nmore to an innocent dissimulation, or rather simulation, without which\nit is impossible to pass through the world.'[13]\n\nThis is a singularly straightforward way of stating a view which\nsilently influences a much greater number of men than it is pleasant to\nthink of. They would shrink from throwing their conduct into so gross a\nformula. They will lift up their hands at this quotation, so strangely\nblind are we to the hiding-places of our own hearts, even when others\nflash upon them the terrible illumination that comes of calling conduct\nand motives by plain names. Now it is not merely the moral improbity of\nthese cases which revolts us--the improbity of making in solemn form a\nnumber of false statements for the sake of earning a livelihood; of\nsaying in order to get money or social position that you accept a number\nof propositions which in fact you utterly reject; of declaring expressly\nthat you trust you are inwardly moved to take upon you this office and\nministration by the Holy Ghost, when the real motive is a desire not to\nmiss the chance of making something out of the Earl of Bute. This side\nof such dissimulation is shocking enough. And it is not any more\nshocking to the most devout believer than it is to people who doubt\nwhether there be any Holy Ghost or not. Those who no longer place their\nhighest faith in powers above and beyond men, are for that very reason\nmore deeply interested than others in cherishing the integrity and\nworthiness of man himself. Apart, however, from the immorality of such\nreasoned hypocrisy, which no man with a particle of honesty will\nattempt to blink, there is the intellectual improbity which it brings in\nits train, the infidelity to truth, the disloyalty to one's own\nintelligence. Gifts of understanding are numbed and enfeebled in a man,\nwho has once played such a trick with his own conscience as to persuade\nhimself that, because the vulgar are superstitious, it is right for the\nlearned to earn money by turning themselves into the ministers and\naccomplices of superstition. If he is clever enough to see through the\nvulgar and their beliefs, he is tolerably sure to be clever enough from\ntime to time and in his better moments to see through himself. He begins\nto suspect himself of being an impostor. That suspicion gradually unmans\nhim when he comes to use his mind in the sphere of his own\nenlightenment. One of really superior power cannot escape these better\nmoments and the remorse that they bring. As he advances in life, as his\npowers ought to be coming to fuller maturity and his intellectual\nproductiveness to its prime, just in the same degree the increasing\nseriousness of life multiplies such moments and deepens their remorse,\nand so the light of intellectual promise slowly goes out in impotent\nendeavour, or else in taking comfort that much goods are laid up, or,\nwhat is deadliest of all, in a soulless cynicism.\n\nWe do not find out until it is too late that the intellect too, at least\nwhere it is capable of being exercised on the higher objects, has its\nsensitiveness. It loses its colour and potency and finer fragrance in an\natmosphere of mean purpose and low conception of the sacredness of fact\nand reality. Who has not observed inferior original power achieving\ngreater results even in the intellectual field itself, where the\nsuperior understanding happens to have been unequally yoked with a\nself-seeking character, over scenting the expedient? If Hume had been in\nthe early productive part of his life the hypocrite which he wished it\nwere in his power to show himself in its latter part, we may be\ntolerably sure that European philosophy would have missed one of its\nforemost figures. It has been often said that he who begins life by\nstifling his convictions is in a fair way for ending it without any\nconvictions to stifle. We may, perhaps, add that he who sets out with\nthe notion that the difference between truth and falsehood is a thing of\nno concern to the vulgar, is very likely sooner or later to come to the\nkindred notion that it is not a thing of any supreme concern to himself.\n\nLet thus much have been said as to those who deliberately and knowingly\nsell their intellectual birthright for a mess of pottage, making a\nbrazen compromise with what they hold despicable, lest they should have\nto win their bread honourably. Men need to expend no declamatory\nindignation upon them. They have a hell of their own; words can add no\nbitterness to it. It is no light thing to have secured a livelihood on\ncondition of going through life masked and gagged. To be compelled, week\nafter week, and year after year, to recite the symbols of ancient faith\nand lift up his voice in the echoes of old hopes, with the blighting\nthought in his soul that the faith is a lie, and the hope no more than\nthe folly of the crowd; to read hundreds of times in a twelvemonth with\nsolemn unction as the inspired word of the Supreme what to him are\nmeaningless as the Abracadabras of the conjuror in a booth; to go on to\nthe end of his days administering to simple folk holy rites of\ncommemoration and solace, when he has in his mind at each phrase what\ndupes are those simple folk and how wearisomely counterfeit their rites:\nand to know through all that this is really to be the one business of\nhis prostituted life, that so dreary and hateful a piece of play-acting\nwill make the desperate retrospect of his last hours--of a truth here is\nthe very [Greek: bdhelygma t\u00eas er\u00eamh\u00f4se\u00f4s], the abomination of\ndesolation of the human spirit indeed.\n\nNo one will suppose that this is designed for the normal type of priest.\nBut it is well to study tendencies in their extreme catastrophe. This is\nonly the catastrophe, in one of its many shapes, of the fatal doctrine\nthat money, position, power, philanthropy, or any of the thousand\nseductive masks of the pseudo-expedient, may carry a man away from love\nof truth and yet leave him internally unharmed. The depravation that\nfollows the trucking for money of intellectual freedom and self-respect,\nattends in its degree each other departure from disinterested following\nof truth, and each other substitution of convenience, whether public or\nprivate, in its place. And both parties to such a compromise are losers.\nThe world which offers gifts and tacitly undertakes to ask no questions\nas to the real state of the timeserver's inner mind, loses no less than\nthe timeserver himself who receives the gifts and promises to hold his\npeace. It is as though a society placed penalties on mechanical\ninventions and the exploration of new material resources, and offered\nbounties for the steadiest adherence to all ancient processes in culture\nand production. The injury to wealth in the one case would not be any\ndeeper than the injury to morality is in the other.\n\n\nTo pass on to less sinister forms of this abnegation of intellectual\nresponsibility. In the opening sentences of the first chapter we spoke\nof a wise suspense in forming opinions, a wise reserve in expressing\nthem, and a wise tardiness in trying to realise them. Thus we meant to\nmark out the three independent provinces of compromise, each of them\nbeing the subject of considerations that either do not apply at all to\nthe other two, or else apply in a different degree. Disingenuousness or\nself-illusion, arising from a depressing deference to the existing state\nof things, or to what is immediately practicable, or to what other\npeople would think of us if they knew our thoughts, is the result of\ncompromising truth in the matter of forming and holding opinions.\nSecondly, positive simulation is what comes of an unlawful willingness\nto compromise in the matter of avowing and publishing them. Finally,\npusillanimity or want of faith is the vice that belongs to unlawful\ncompromise in the department of action and realisation. This is not\nmerely a division arranged for convenience of discussion. It goes to the\nroot of conduct and character, and is the key to the present mood of our\nsociety. It is always a hardy thing to attempt to throw a complex matter\ninto very simple form, but we should say that the want of energy and\ndefiniteness in contemporary opinions, of which we first complained, is\ndue mainly to the following notion; that if a subject is not ripe for\npractical treatment, you and I are therefore entirely relieved from the\nduty of having clear ideas about it. If the majority cling to an\nopinion, why should we ask whether that is the sound and right opinion\nor the reverse? Now this notion, which springs from a confusion of the\nthree fields of compromise with one another, quietly reigns almost\nwithout dispute. The devotion to the practical aspect of truth is in\nsuch excess, as to make people habitually deny that it can be worth\nwhile to form an opinion, when it happens at the moment to be incapable\nof realisation, for the reason that there is no direct prospect of\ninducing a sufficient number of persons to share it. 'We are quite\nwilling to think that your view is the right one, and would produce all\nthe improvements for which you hope; but then there is not the smallest\nchance of persuading the only persons able to carry out such a view; why\ntherefore discuss it?' No talk is more familiar to us than this. As if\nthe mere possibility of the view being a right one did not obviously\nentitle it to discussion; discussion being the only process by which\npeople are likely to be induced to accept it, or else to find good\ngrounds for finally dismissing it.\n\nIt is precisely because we believe that opinion, and nothing but\nopinion, can effect great permanent changes, that we ought to be\ncareful to keep this most potent force honest, wholesome, fearless, and\nindependent. Take the political field. Politicians and newspapers almost\nsystematically refuse to talk about a new idea, which is not capable of\nbeing at once embodied in a bill, and receiving the royal assent before\nthe following August. There is something rather contemptible, seen from\nthe ordinary standards of intellectual integrity, in the position of a\nminister who waits to make up his mind whether a given measure, say the\ndisestablishment of the Irish Church, is in itself and on the merits\ndesirable, until the official who runs diligently up and down the\nbackstairs of the party, tells him that the measure is practicable and\nrequired in the interests of the band. On the one hand, a leader is\nlavishly panegyrised for his highmindedness, in suffering himself to be\ndriven into his convictions by his party. On the other, a party is\nextolled for its political tact, in suffering itself to be forced out of\nits convictions by its leader. It is hard to decide which is the more\ndiscreditable and demoralising sight. The education of chiefs by\nfollowers, and of followers by chiefs, into the abandonment in a month\nof the traditions of centuries or the principles of a lifetime may\nconduce to the rapid and easy working of the machine. It certainly marks\na triumph of the political spirit which the author of _The Prince_ might\nhave admired. It is assuredly mortal to habits of intellectual\nself-respect in the society which allows itself to be amused by the\ncajolery and legerdemain and self-sophistication of its rulers.\n\nOf course there are excellent reasons why a statesman immersed in the\nactual conduct of affairs, should confine his attention to the work\nwhich his hands find to do. But the fact that leading statesmen are of\nnecessity so absorbed in the tasks of the hour furnishes all the better\nreason why as many other people as possible should busy themselves in\nhelping to prepare opinion for the practical application of unfamiliar\nbut weighty and promising suggestions, by constant and ready discussion\nof them upon their merits. As a matter of fact it is not the men most\noccupied who are usually most deaf to new ideas. It is the loungers of\npolitics, the quidnuncs, gossips, bustling idlers, who are most\nindustrious in stifling discussion by protests against the waste of\ntime and the loss of force involved in talking about proposals which are\nnot exactly ready to be voted on. As it is, everybody knows that\nquestions are inadequately discussed, or often not discussed at all, on\nthe ground that the time is not yet come for their solution. Then when\nsome unforeseen perturbation, or the natural course of things, forces on\nthe time for their resolution, they are settled in a slovenly,\nimperfect, and often downright vicious manner, from the fact that\nopinion has not been prepared for solving them in an efficient and\nperfect manner. The so-called settlement of the question of national\neducation is the most recent and most deplorable illustration of what\ncomes of refusing to examine ideas alleged to be impracticable. Perhaps\nwe may venture to prophesy that the disendowment of the national church\nwill supply the next illustration on an imposing scale. Gratuitous\nprimary instruction, and the redistribution of electoral power, are\nother matters of signal importance, which comparatively few men will\nconsent to discuss seriously and patiently, and for our indifference to\nwhich we shall one day surely smart. A judicious and cool writer has\nsaid that 'an opinion gravely professed by a man of sense and education\ndemands always respectful consideration--demands and actually receives\nit from those whose own sense and education give them a correlative\nright; and whoever offends against this sort of courtesy may fairly be\ndeemed to have forfeited the privileges it secures.'[14] That is the\nleast part of the matter. The serious mischief is the eventual\nmiscarriage and loss and prodigal waste of good ideas.\n\nThe evil of which we have been speaking comes of not seeing the great\ntruth, that it is worth while to take pains to find out the best way of\ndoing a given task, even if you have strong grounds for suspecting that\nit will ultimately be done in a worse way. And so also in spheres of\nthought away from the political sphere, it is worth while 'to scorn\ndelights and live laborious days' in order to make as sure as we can of\nhaving the best opinion, even if we know that this opinion has an\ninfinitely small chance of being speedily or ever accepted by the\nmajority, or by anybody but ourselves. Truth and wisdom have to bide\ntheir time, and then take their chance after all. The most that the\nindividual can do is to seek them for himself, even if he seek alone.\nAnd if it is the most, it is also the least. Yet in our present mood we\nseem not to feel this. We misunderstand the considerations which should\nrightly lead us in practice to surrender some of what we desire, in\norder to secure the rest; and rightly make us acquiesce in a second-best\ncourse of action, in order to avoid stagnation or retrogression. We\nmisunderstand all this, and go on to suppose that there are the same\ngrounds why we should in our own minds acquiesce in second-best\nopinions; why we should mix a little alloy of conventional expression\nwith the too fine ore of conviction; why we should adopt beliefs that we\nsuspect in our hearts to be of more than equivocal authenticity, but\ninto whose antecedents we do not greatly care to inquire, because they\nstand so well with the general public. This is compromise or economy or\nmanagement of the first of the three kinds of which we are talking. It\nis economy applied to the formation of opinion; compromise or management\nin making up one's mind.\n\nThe lawfulness or expediency of it turns mainly, as with the other two\nkinds of compromise, upon the relative rights of the majority and the\nminority, and upon the respect which is owing from the latter to the\nformer. It is a very easy thing for people endowed with the fanatical\ntemperament, or demoralised by the habit of looking at society\nexclusively from the juridical point of view, to insist that no respect\nat all, except the respect that arises from being too weak to have your\nown way, is due from either to the other. This shallow and mischievous\nnotion rests either on a misinterpretation of the experience of\ncivilised societies, or else on nothing more creditable than an\narbitrary and unreflecting temper. Those who have thought most carefully\nand disinterestedly about the matter, are agreed that in advanced\nsocieties the expedient course is that no portion of the community\nshould insist on imposing its own will upon any other portion, except in\nmatters which are vitally connected with the maintenance of the social\nunion. The question where this vital connection begins is open to much\ndiscussion. The line defining the sphere of legitimate interference may\nbe drawn variously, whether at self-regarding acts, or in some other\ncondition and element of conduct. Wherever this line may be best taken,\nnot only abstract speculation, but the practical and spontaneous tact of\nthe world, has decided that there are limits, alike in the interest of\nmajority and minority, to the rights of either to disturb the other. In\nother words, it is expedient in certain affairs that the will of the\nmajority should be absolutely binding, while in affairs of a different\norder it should count for nothing, or as nearly nothing, as the sociable\ndependence of a man on his fellows will permit.\n\nOur thesis is this. In the positive endeavour to realise an opinion, to\nconvert a theory into practice, it may be, and very often is, highly\nexpedient to defer to the prejudices of the majority, to move very\nslowly, to bow to the conditions of the _status quo_, to practise the\nvery utmost sobriety, self-restraint, and conciliatoriness. The mere\nexpression of opinion, in the next place, the avowal of dissent from\nreceived notions, the refusal to conform to language which implies the\nacceptance of such notions,--this rests on a different footing. Here\nthe reasons for respecting the wishes and sentiments of the majority are\nfar less strong, though, as we shall presently see, such reasons\ncertainly exist, and will weigh with all well-considering men. Finally,\nin the formation of an opinion as to the abstract preferableness of one\ncourse of action over another, or as to the truth or falsehood or right\nsignificance of a proposition, the fact that the majority of one's\ncontemporaries lean in the other direction is naught, and no more than\ndust in the balance. In making up our minds as to what would be the\nwisest line of policy if it were practicable, we have nothing to do with\nthe circumstance that it is not practicable. And in settling with\nourselves whether propositions purporting to state matters of fact are\ntrim or not, we have to consider how far they are conformable to the\nevidence. We have nothing to do with the comfort and solace which they\nwould be likely to bring to others or ourselves, if they were taken as\ntrue.\n\nA nominal assent to this truth will be instantly given even by those who\nin practice systematically disregard it. The difficulty of transforming\nthat nominal assent into a reality is enormous in such a community as\nours. Of all societies since the Roman Republic, and not even excepting\nthe Roman Republic, England has been the most emphatically and\nessentially political. She has passed through military phases and\nthrough religious phases, but they have been transitory, and the great\ncentral stream of national life has flowed in political channels. The\npolitical life has been stronger than any other, deeper, wider, more\npersistent, more successful. The wars which built up our far-spreading\nempire were not waged with designs of military conquest; they were\nmostly wars for a market. The great spiritual emancipation of the\nsixteenth and seventeenth centuries figures in our history partly as an\naccident, partly as an intrigue, partly as a raid of nobles in search of\nspoil. It was hardly until the reformed doctrine became associated with\nanalogous ideas and corresponding precepts in government, that people\nfelt at home with it, and became really interested in it.\n\nOne great tap-root of our national increase has been the growth of\nself-government, or government by deliberative bodies, representing\nopposed principles and conflicting interests. With the system of\nself-government has grown the habit--not of tolerance precisely, for\nEnglishmen when in earnest are as little in love with tolerance as\nFrenchmen or any other people, but--of giving way to the will of the\nmajority, so long as they remain a majority. This has come to pass for\nthe simple reason that, on any other terms, the participation of large\nnumbers of people in the control and arrangement of public affairs\nimmediately becomes unworkable. The gradual concentration of power in\nthe hands of a supreme deliberative body, the active share of so many\nthousands of persons in choosing and controlling its members, the close\nattention with which the proceedings of parliament are followed and\nwatched, the kind of dignity that has been lent to parliamentary methods\nby the great importance of the transactions, have all tended in the same\ndirection. They have all helped both to fix our strongest and most\nconstant interests upon politics, and to ingrain the mental habits\nproper to politics, far more deeply than any other, into our general\nconstitution and inmost character.\n\nThus the political spirit has grown to be the strongest element in our\nnational life; the dominant force, extending its influence over all our\nways of thinking in matters that have least to do with politics, or even\nnothing at all to do with them. There has thus been engendered among us\nthe real sense of political responsibility. In a corresponding degree\nhas been discouraged, what it is the object of the present chapter to\nurge, the sense of intellectual responsibility. If it were inevitable\nthat one of these two should always enfeeble or exclude the other, if\nthe price of the mental alacrity and open-mindedness of the age of\nPericles must always be paid in the political incompetence of the age of\nDemosthenes, it would be hard to settle which quality ought to be most\neagerly encouraged by those who have most to do with the spiritual\ndirection of a community. No doubt the tone of a long-enduring and\nimperial society, such as Rome was, must be conservative, drastic,\npositive, hostile to the death to every speculative novelty. But then,\nafter all, the permanence of Roman power was only valuable to mankind\nbecause it ensured the spread of certain civilising ideas. And these\nideas had originated among people so characteristically devoid of the\nsovereign faculty of political coherency as were the Greeks and the\nJews. In the Greeks, it is true, we find not only ideas of the highest\nspeculative fertility, but actual political institutions. Still we\nshould hardly point to Greek history for the most favourable examples of\ntheir stable working. Practically and as a matter of history, a society\nis seldom at the same time successfully energetic both in temporals and\nspirituals; seldom prosperous alike in seeking abstract truth and\nnursing the political spirit. There is a decisive preponderance in one\ndirection or the other, and the equal balance between free and active\nthinking, and coherent practical energy in a community, seems too hard\nto sustain. The vast military and political strength of Germany, for\ninstance, did not exist, and was scarcely anticipated in men's minds,\nduring the time of her most strenuous passion for abstract truth and\ndeeper learning and new criticism. In France never was political and\nnational interest so debilitated, so extinct, as it was during the reign\nof Lewis the Fifteenth: her intellectual interest was never so vivid,\nso fruitful, or so widely felt.\n\nYet it is at least well, and more than that, it is an indispensable\ncondition of social wellbeing, that the divorce between political\nresponsibility and intellectual responsibility, between respect for what\nis instantly practicable and search after what is only important in\nthought, should not be too complete and universal. Even if there were no\nother objection, the undisputed predominance of the political spirit has\na plain tendency to limit the subjects in which the men animated by it\ncan take a real interest. All matters fall out of sight, or at least\nfall into a secondary place, which do not bear more or less directly and\npatently upon the material and structural welfare of the community. In\nthis way the members of the community miss the most bracing, widening,\nand elevated of the whole range of influences that create great\ncharacters. First, they lose sincere concern about the larger questions\nwhich the human mind has raised up for itself. Second, they lose a\nfearless desire to reach the true answers to them, or if no certain\nanswers should prove to be within reach, then at any rate to be\nsatisfied on good grounds that this is so. Such questions are not\nimmediately discerned by commonplace minds to be of social import.\nConsequently they, and all else that is not obviously connected with the\nmachinery of society, give way in the public consideration to what is so\nconnected with it, in a manner that cannot be mistaken.\n\nAgain, even minds that are not commonplace are affected for the worse by\nthe same spirit. They are aware of the existence of the great\nspeculative subjects and of their importance, but the pressure of the\npolitical spirit on such men makes them afraid of the conclusions to\nwhich free inquiry might bring them. Accordingly they abstain from\ninquiry, and dread nothing so much as making up their minds. They see\nreasons for thinking that, if they applied themselves seriously to the\nformation of true opinions in this or that department, they would come\nto conclusions which, though likely to make their way in the course of\nsome centuries, are wholly unpopular now, and which might ruin the\ninfluence of anybody suspected of accepting, or even of so much as\nleaning towards, them. Life, they reflect, is short; missionaries do\nnot pass for a very agreeable class, nor martyrs for a very sensible\nclass; one can only do a trifling amount of good in the world, at best;\nit is moral suicide to throw away any chance of achieving even that\ntrifle; and therefore it is best not only not to express, but not to\ntake the trouble to acquire, right views in this quarter or that, and to\ndraw clear away from such or such a region of thought, for the sake of\nkeeping peace on earth and superficial good will among men.\n\nIt would be too harsh to stigmatise such a train of thought as\nself-seeking and hypocritical. It is the natural product of the\npolitical spirit, which is incessantly thinking of present consequences\nand the immediately feasible. There is nothing in the mere dread of\nlosing it, to hinder influence from being well employed, so far as it\ngoes. But one can hardly overrate the ill consequences of this\nparticular kind of management, this unspoken bargaining with the little\ncircle of his fellows which constitutes the world of a man. If he may\nretain his place among them as preacher or teacher, he is willing to\nforego his birthright of free explanation; he consents to be blind to\nthe duty which attaches to every intelligent man of having some clear\nideas, even though only provisional ones, upon the greatest subjects of\nhuman interest, and of deliberately preferring these, whatever they may\nbe, to their opposites. Either an individual or a community is fatally\ndwarfed by any such limitation of the field in which one is free to use\nhis mind. For it is a limitation, not prescribed by absorption in one\nset of subjects rather than another, nor by insufficient preparation for\nthe discussion of certain subjects, nor by indolence nor incuriousness,\nbut solely by apprehension of the conclusions to which such use of the\nmind might bring the too courageous seeker. If there were no other ill\neffect, this kind of limitation would at least have the radical\ndisadvantage of dulling the edge of responsibility, of deadening the\nsharp sense of personal answerableness either to a God, or to society,\nor to a man's own conscience and intellectual self-respect.\n\nHow momentous a disadvantage this is, we can best know by contemplating\nthe characters which have sometimes lighted up the old times. Men were\nthen devoutly persuaded that their eternal salvation depended on their\nhaving true beliefs. Any slackness in finding out which beliefs are the\ntrue ones would have to be answered for before the throne of Almighty\nGod, at the sure risk and peril of everlasting damnation. To what\nquarter in the large historic firmament can we turn our eyes with such\ncertainty of being stirred and elevated, of thinking better of human\nlife and the worth of those who have been most deeply penetrated by its\nseriousness, as to the annals of the intrepid spirits whom the\nprotestant doctrine of indefeasible personal responsibility brought to\nthe front in Germany in the sixteenth century, and in England and\nScotland in the seventeenth? It is not their fanaticism, still less is\nit their theology, which makes the great Puritan chiefs of England and\nthe stern Covenanters of Scotland so heroic in our sight. It is the fact\nthat they sought truth and ensued it, not thinking of the practicable\nnor cautiously counting majorities and minorities, but each man\npondering and searching so 'as ever in the great Taskmaster's eye.'\n\nIt is no adequate answer to urge that this awful consciousness of a\ndivine presence and supervision has ceased to be the living fact it once\nwas. That partly explains, but it certainly does not justify, our\npresent lassitude. For the ever-wakeful eye of celestial power is not\nthe only conceivable stimulus to responsibility. To pass from those grim\nheroes of protestantism to the French philosophers of the last century\nis a wide leap in a hundred respects, yet they too were pricked by the\noestrus of intellectual responsibility. Their doctrine was dismally\ninsufficient, and sometimes, as the present writer has often pointed\nout, it was directly vicious. Their daily lives were surrounded by much\nshabbiness and many meannesses. But, after all, no temptation and no\nmenace, no pains or penalties for thinking about certain subjects, and\nno rewards for turning to think about something else, could divert such\nmen as Voltaire and Diderot from their alert and strenuous search after\nsuch truth as could be vouchsafed to their imperfect lights. A\ncatastrophe followed, it is true, but the misfortunes which attended it\nwere due more to the champions of tradition and authority than to the\nsoldiers of emancipation. Even in the case of the latter, they were due\nto an inadequate doctrine, and not at all either to their sense of the\nnecessity of free speculation and inquiry, or to the intrepidity with\nwhich they obeyed the promptings of that ennobling sense.\n\nPerhaps the latest attempt of a considerable kind to suppress the\npolitical spirit in non-political concerns was the famous movement which\nhad its birth a generation ago among the gray quadrangles and ancient\ngardens of Oxford, 'the sweet city with her dreaming spires,' where\nthere has ever been so much detachment from the world, alongside of the\ncoarsest and fiercest hunt after the grosser prizes of the world. No one\nhas much less sympathy with the direction of the tractarian revival than\nthe present writer, in whose Oxford days the star of Newman had set, and\nthe sun of Mill had risen in its stead. And it is needful to distinguish\nthe fervid and strong spirits with whom the revival began from the\nmimics of our later day. No doubt the mere occasion of tractarianism was\npolitical. Its leaders were alarmed at the designs imputed to the newly\nreformed parliament of disestablishing the Anglican Church. They asked\nthemselves the question, which I will put in their own words (_Tract_\ni.)--'Should the government of the country so far forget their God as to\ncut off the Church, to deprive it of its temporal honours and substance,\non what will you rest the claims to respect and attention which you make\nupon your flock? In answering this question they speedily found\nthemselves, as might have been expected, at the opposite pole of thought\nfrom things political. The whole strength of their appeal to members of\nthe Church lay in men's weariness of the high and dry optimism, which\npresents the existing order of things as the noblest possible, and the\nundisturbed way of the majority as the way of salvation. Apostolical\nsuccession and Sacramentalism may not have been in themselves\nprogressive ideas. The spirit which welcomed them had at least the\nvirtue of taking away from Caesar the things that are not Caesar's.\n\nGlaring as were the intellectual faults of the Oxford movement, it was\nat any rate a recognition in a very forcible way of the doctrine that\nspiritual matters are not to be settled by the dicta of a political\ncouncil. It acknowledged that a man is answerable at his own peril for\nhaving found or lost the truth. It was a warning that he must reckon\nwith a judge who will not account the _status quo_, nor the convenience\nof a cabinet, a good plea for indolent acquiescence in theological\nerror. It ended, in the case of its most vigorous champions, in a final\nand deliberate putting out of the eyes of the understanding. The last\nact of assertion of personal responsibility was a headlong acceptance of\nthe responsibility of tradition and the Church. This was deplorable\nenough. But apart from other advantages incidental to the tractarian\nmovement, such as the attention which it was the means of drawing to\nhistory and the organic connection between present and past, it had, we\nrepeat, the merit of being an effective protest against what may be\ncalled the House of Commons' view of human life--a view excellent in its\nplace, but most blighting and dwarfing out of it. It was, what every\nsincere uprising of the better spirit in men and women must always be,\nan effective protest against the leaden tyranny of the man of the world\nand the so-called practical person. The man of the world despises\ncatholics for taking their religious opinions on trust and being the\nslaves of tradition. As if he had himself formed his own most important\nopinions either in religion or anything else. He laughs at them for\ntheir superstitious awe of the Church. As if his own inward awe of the\nGreater Number were one whit less of a superstition. He mocks their\ndeference for the past. As if his own absorbing deference to the present\nwere one tittle better bottomed or a jot more respectable. The modern\nemancipation will profit us very little if the _status quo_ is to be\nfastened round our necks with the despotic authority of a heavenly\ndispensation, and if in the stead of ancient Scriptures we are to accept\nthe plenary inspiration of Majorities.\n\n\nIt may be urged that if, as it is the object of the present chapter to\nstate, there are opinions which a man should form for himself, and which\nit may yet be expedient that he should not only be slow to attempt to\nrealise in practical life, but sometimes even slow to express,--then we\nare demanding from him the performance of a troublesome duty, while we\nare taking from him the only motives which could really induce him to\nperform it. If, it may be asked, I am not to carry my notions into\npractice, nor try to induce others to accept them, nor even boldly\npublish them, why in the name of all economy of force should I take so\nmuch pains in forming opinions which are, after all, on these conditions\nso very likely to come to naught? The answer to this is that opinions do\nnot come to naught, even if the man who holds them should never think\nfit to publish them. For one thing, as we shall see in our next\ndivision, the conditions which make against frank declaration of our\nconvictions are of rare occurrence. And, apart from this, convictions\nmay well exert a most decisive influence over our conduct, even if\nreasons exist, or seem to exist, for not pressing them on others. Though\nthemselves invisible to the outer world, they may yet operate with\nmagnetic force both upon other parts of our belief which the outer world\ndoes see, and upon the whole of our dealings with it. Whether we are\ngood or bad, it is only a broken and incoherent fragment of our whole\npersonality that even those who are intimate with us, much less the\ncommon world, can ever come into contact with. The important thing is\nthat the personality itself should be as little as possible broken,\nincoherent, and fragmentary; that reasoned and consistent opinions\nshould back a firm will, and independent convictions inspire the\nintellectual self-respect and strenuous self-possession which the\nclamour of majorities and the silent yet ever-pressing force of the\n_status quo_ are equally powerless to shake.\n\nCharacter is doubtless of far more importance than mere intellectual\nopinion. We only too often see highly rationalised convictions in\npersons of weak purpose or low motives. But while fully recognising\nthis, and the sort of possible reality which lies at the root of such a\nphrase as 'godless intellect' or 'intellectual devils'--though the\nphrase has no reality when it is used by self-seeking politicians or\nprelates--yet it is well to remember the very obvious truth that\nopinions are at least an extremely important part of character. As it is\nsometimes put, what we think has a prodigiously close connection with\nwhat we are. The consciousness of having reflected seriously and\nconclusively on important questions, whether social or spiritual,\naugments dignity while it does not lessen humility. In this sense,\ntaking thought can and does add a cubit to our stature. Opinions which\nwe may not feel bound or even permitted to press on other people, are\nnot the less forces for being latent. They shape ideals, and it is\nideals that inspire conduct. They do this, though from afar, and though\nhe who possesses them may not presume to take the world into his\nconfidence. Finally, unless a man follows out ideas to their full\nconclusion without fear what the conclusion may be, whether he thinks it\nexpedient to make his thought and its goal fully known or not, it is\nimpossible that he should acquire a commanding grasp of principles. And\na commanding grasp of principles, whether they are public or not, is at\nthe very root of coherency of character. It raises mediocrity near to a\nlevel with the highest talents, if those talents are in company with a\ndisposition that allows the little prudences of the hour incessantly to\nobscure the persistent laws of things. These persistencies, if a man\nhas once satisfied himself of their direction and mastered their\nbearings and application, are just as cogent and valuable a guide to\nconduct, whether he publishes them _ad urbem et orbem_, or esteems them\ntoo strong meat for people who have, through indurated use and wont,\nlost the courage of facing unexpected truths.\n\nOne conspicuous result of the failure to see that our opinions have\nroots to them, independently of the feelings which either majorities or\nother portions of the people around us may entertain about them, is that\nneither political matters nor any other serious branches of opinion,\nengage us in their loftiest or most deep-reaching forms. The advocate of\na given theory of government or society is so misled by a wrong\nunderstanding of the practice of just and wise compromise in applying\nit, as to forget the noblest and most inspiring shape which his theory\ncan be made to assume. It is the worst of political blunders to insist\non carrying an ideal set of principles into execution, where others have\nrights of dissent, and those others persons whose assent is as\nindispensable to success, as it is impossible to attain. But to be\nafraid or ashamed of holding such an ideal set of principles in one's\nmind in their highest and most abstract expression, does more than any\none other cause to stunt or petrify those elements in character to which\nlife should owe most of its savour.\n\nIf a man happens to be a Conservative, for instance, it is pitiful that\nhe should think so much more of what other people on his side or the\nother think, than of the widest and highest of the ideas on which a\nconservative philosophy of life and human society reposes. Such ideas\nare these,--that the social union is the express creation and ordering\nof the Deity: that its movements follow his mysterious and fixed\ndispensation: that the church and the state are convertible terms, and\neach citizen of the latter is an incorporated member of the former: that\nconscience, if perversely and misguidedly self-asserting, has no rights\nagainst the decrees of the conscience of the nation: that it is the most\ndetestable of crimes to perturb the pacific order of society either by\nactive agitation or speculative restlessness; that descent from a long\nline of ancestors in great station adds an element of dignity to life,\nand imposes many high obligations. We do not say that these and the\nrest of the propositions which make up the true theoretic basis of a\nconservative creed, are proper for the hustings, or expedient in an\nelection address or a speech in parliament. We do say that if these high\nand not unintelligible principles, which alone can give to reactionary\nprofessions any worth or significance, were present in the minds of men\nwho speak reactionary language, the country would be spared the ignominy\nof seeing certain real truths of society degraded at the hands of\naristocratic adventurers and plutocratic parasites into some miserable\nprocess of 'dishing Whigs.'\n\nThis impoverishment of aims and depravation of principles by the triumph\nof the political spirit outside of its proper sphere, cannot\nunfortunately be restricted to any one set of people in the state. It is\nsomething in the very atmosphere, which no sanitary cordon can limit.\nLiberalism, too, would be something more generous, more attractive--yes,\nand more practically effective, if its professors and champions could\nallow their sense of what is feasible to be refreshed and widened by a\nmore free recognition, however private and undemonstrative, of the\ntheoretic ideas which give their social creed whatever life and\nconsistency it may have. Such ideas are these: That the conditions of\nthe social union are not a mystery, only to be touched by miracle, but\nthe results of explicable causes, and susceptible of constant\nmodification: that the thoughts of wise and patriotic men should be\nperpetually turned towards the improvement of these conditions in every\ndirection: that contented acquiescence in the ordering that has come\ndown to us from the past is selfish and anti-social, because amid the\nceaseless change that is inevitable in a growing organism, the\ninstitutions of the past demand progressive re-adaptations: that such\nimprovements are most likely to be secured in the greatest abundance by\nlimiting the sphere of authority, extending that of free individuality,\nand steadily striving after the bestowal, so far as the nature of things\nwill ever permit it, of equality of opportunity: that while there is\ndignity in ancestry, a modern society is only safe in proportion as it\nsummons capacity to its public counsels and enterprises; that such a\nsociety to endure must progress: that progress on its political side\nmeans more than anything else the substitution of Justice as a governing\nidea, instead of Privilege, and that the best guarantee for justice in\npublic dealings is the participation in their own government of the\npeople most likely to suffer from injustice. This is not an exhaustive\naccount of the progressive doctrine, and we have here nothing to say as\nto its soundness. We only submit that if those who use the watchwords of\nLiberalism were to return upon its principles, instead of dwelling\nexclusively on practical compromises, the tone of public life would be\nimmeasurably raised. The cause of social improvement would be less\nsystematically balked of the victories that are best worth gaining.\nProgress would mean something more than mere entrances and exits on the\ntheatre of office. We should not see in the mass of parliamentary\ncandidates--and they are important people, because nearly every\nEnglishman with any ambition is a parliamentary candidate, actual or\npotential--that grave anxiety, that sober rigour, that immense caution,\nwhich are all so really laughable, because so many of those men are only\nanxious lest they should make a mistake in finding out what the\nmajority of their constituents would like them to think; only rigorous\nagainst those who are indiscreet enough to press a principle against the\nbeck of a whip or a wire-puller; and only very cautious not so much lest\ntheir opinion should be wrong, as lest it should not pay.\n\n\nIndolence and timidity have united to popularise among us a flaccid\nlatitudinarianism, which thinks itself a benign tolerance for the\nopinions of others. It is in truth only a pretentious form of being\nwithout settled opinions of our own, and without any desire to settle\nthem. No one can complain of the want of speculative activity at the\npresent time in a certain way. The air, at a certain social elevation,\nis as full as it has ever been of ideas, theories, problems, possible\nsolutions, suggested questions, and proffered answers. But then they are\nat large, without cohesion, and very apt to be the objects even in the\nmore instructed minds of not much more than dilettante interest. We see\nin solution an immense number of notions, which people think it quite\nunnecessary to precipitate in the form of convictions. We constantly\nhear the age lauded for its tolerance, for its candour, for its openness\nof mind, for the readiness with which a hearing is given to ideas that\nforty years ago, or even less than that, would have excluded persons\nsuspected of holding them from decent society, and in fact did so\nexclude them. Before, however, we congratulate ourselves too warmly on\nthis, let us be quite sure that we are not mistaking for tolerance what\nis really nothing more creditable than indifference. These two attitudes\nof mind, which are so vitally unlike in their real quality, are so hard\nto distinguish in their outer seeming.\n\nOne is led to suspect that carelessness is the right name for what looks\nlike reasoned toleration, by such a line of consideration as the\nfollowing. It is justly said that at the bottom of all the great\ndiscussions of modern society lie the two momentous questions, first\nwhether there is a God, and second whether the soul is immortal. In\nother words, whether our fellow-creatures are the highest beings who\ntake an interest in us, or in whom we need take an interest; and, then,\nwhether life in this world is the only life of which we shall ever be\nconscious. It is true of most people that when they are talking of\nevolution, and the origin of species, and the experiential or\nintuitional source of ideas, and the utilitarian or transcendental basis\nof moral obligation, these are the questions which they really have in\ntheir minds. Now, in spite of the scientific activity of the day, nobody\nis likely to contend that men are pressed keenly in their souls by any\npoignant stress of spiritual tribulation in the face of the two supreme\nenigmas. Nobody will say that there is much of that striving and\nwrestling and bitter agonising, which whole societies of men have felt\nbefore now on questions of far less tremendous import. Ours, as has been\ntruly said, is 'a time of loud disputes and weak convictions,' In a\ngeneration deeply impressed by a sense of intellectual responsibility\nthis could not be. As it is, even superior men are better pleased to\nplay about the height of these great arguments, to fly in busy\nintellectual sport from side to side, from aspect to aspect, than they\nare intent on resolving what it is, after all, that the discussion comes\nto and to which solution, when everything has been said and heard, the\nbalance of truth really to incline. There are too many giggling\nepigrams; people are too willing to look on collections of mutually\nhostile opinions with the same kind of curiosity which they bestow on a\ncollection of mutually hostile beasts in a menagerie. They have very\nfaint predilections for one rather than another. If they were truly\nalive to the duty of conclusiveness, or to the inexpressible magnitude\nof the subjects which nominally occupy their minds, but really only\nexercise their tongues, this elegant Pyrrhonism would be impossible, and\nthis light-hearted neutrality most unendurable.\n\nWell has the illustrious Pascal said with reference to one of the two\ngreat issues of the modern controversy:--'The immortality of the soul is\na thing that concerns us so closely and touches us so profoundly, that\none must have lost all feeling to be indifferent as to knowing how the\nmatter is. All our actions and all our thoughts must follow such\ndifferent paths, according as there are eternal goods to hope for or are\nnot, that it is impossible to take a step with sense and judgment,\nwithout regulating it in view of this point, which ought to be our first\nobject.... I can have nothing but compassion for those who groan and\ntravail in this doubt with all sincerity, who look on it as the worst of\nmisfortunes, and who, sparing no pains to escape from it, make of this\nsearch their chief and most serious employment.... But he who doubts and\nsearches not is at the same time a grievous wrongdoer, and a grievously\nunfortunate man. If along with this he is tranquil and self-satisfied,\nif he publishes his contentment to the world and plumes himself upon it,\nand if it is this very state of doubt which he makes the subject of his\njoy and vanity--I have no terms in which to describe so extravagant a\ncreature.'[15] Who, except a member of the school of extravagant\ncreatures themselves, would deny that Pascal's irritation is most\nwholesome and righteous?\n\nPerhaps in reply to this, we may be confronted by our own doctrine of\nintellectual responsibility interpreted in a directly opposite sense. We\nmay be reminded of the long array of difficulties that interfere between\nus and knowledge in that tremendous matter, and of objections that rise\nin such perplexing force to an answer either one way or the other. And\nfinally we may be despatched with a eulogy of caution and a censure of\ntoo great heat after certainty. The answer is that there is a kind of\nDoubt not without search, but after and at the end of search, which is\nnot open to Pascal's just reproaches against the more ignoble and\nfrivolous kind. And this too has been described for us by a subtle\ndoctor of Pascal's communion. 'Are there pleasures of Doubt, as well as\nof Inference and Assent? In one sense there are. Not indeed if doubt\nmeans ignorance, uncertainty, or hopeless suspense; but there is a\ncertain grave acquiescence in ignorance, a recognition of our impotence\nto solve momentous and urgent questions, which has a satisfaction of its\nown. After high aspirations, after renewed endeavours, after bootless\ntoil, after long wanderings, after hope, effort, weariness, failure,\npainfully alternating and recurring, it is an immense relief to the\nexhausted mind to be able to say, \"At length I know that I can know\nnothing about anything.\" ... Ignorance remains the evil which it ever\nwas, but something of the peace of certitude is gained in knowing the\nworst, and in having reconciled the mind to the endurance of it.'[16]\nPrecisely, and what one would say of our own age is that it will not\ndeliberately face this knowledge of the worst. So it misses the peace of\ncertitude, and not only its peace, but the strength and coherency that\nfollow strict acceptance of the worst, when the worst is after all the\nbest within reach.\n\nThose who are in earnest when they blame too great haste after\ncertainty, do in reality mean us to embrace certainty, but in favour of\nthe vulgar opinions. They only see the prodigious difficulties of the\ncontroversy when you do not incline to their own side in it. They only\npanegyrise caution and the strictly provisional when they suspect that\nintrepidity and love of the conclusive would lead them to unwelcome\nshores. These persons, however, whether fortunately or unfortunately,\nhave no longer much influence over the most active part of the national\nintelligence. Whether permanently or not, resolute orthodoxy, however\nprosperous it may seem among many of the uncultivated rich, has lost its\nhold upon thought. For thought has become dispersive, and the\ncentrifugal forces of the human mind, among those who think seriously,\nhave for the time become dominant and supreme. No one, I suppose,\nimagines that the singular ecclesiastical revival which is now going on,\nis accompanied by any revival of real and reasoned belief; or that the\nopulent manufacturers who subscribe so generously for restored cathedral\nfabrics and the like, have been moved by the apologetics of _Aids to\nFaith_ and the Christian Evidence Society.\n\nObviously only three ways of dealing with the great problems of which we\nhave spoken are compatible with a strong and well-bottomed character. We\nmay affirm that there is a deity with definable attributes; and that\nthere is a conscious state and continued personality after the\ndissolution of the body. Or we may deny. Or we may assure ourselves that\nwe have no faculties enabling us on good evidence either to deny or\naffirm. Intellectual self-respect and all the qualities that are derived\nfrom that, may well go with any one of these three courses, decisively\nfollowed and consistently applied in framing a rule of life and a\nsettled scheme of its aims and motives. Why do we say that intellectual\nself-respect is not vigorous, nor the sense of intellectual\nresponsibility and truthfulness and coherency quick and wakeful among\nus? Because so many people, even among those who might be expected to\nknow better, insist on the futile attempt to reconcile all those\ncourses, instead of fixing on one and steadily abiding in it. They speak\nas if they affirmed, and they act as if they denied, and in their hearts\nthey cherish a slovenly sort of suspicion that we can neither deny nor\naffirm. It may be said that this comes to much the same thing as if they\nhad formally decided in the last or neutral sense. It is not so. This\nillegitimate union of three contradictories fritters character away,\nbreaks it up into discordant parts, and dissolves into mercurial\nfluidity that leavening sincerity and free and cheerful boldness, which\ncome of harmonious principles of faith and action, and without which men\ncan never walk as confident lovers of justice and truth.\n\n\nAmbrose's famous saying, that 'it hath not pleased the Lord to give his\npeople salvation in dialectic,' has a profound meaning far beyond its\napplication to theology. It is deeply true that our ruling convictions\nare less the product of ratiocination than of sympathy, imagination,\nusage, tradition. But from this it does not follow that the reasoning\nfaculties are to be further discouraged. On the contrary, just because\nthe other elements are so strong that they can be trusted to take care\nof themselves, it is expedient to give special countenance to the\nintellectual habits, which alone can check and rectify the constantly\naberrating tendencies of sentiment on the one side, and custom on the\nother. This remark brings us to another type, of whom it is not\nirrelevant to speak shortly in this place. The consequences of the\nstrength of the political spirit are not all direct, nor does its\nstrength by any means spring solely from its indulgence to the less\nrespectable elements of character, such as languor, extreme pliableness,\nsuperficiality. On the contrary, it has an indirect influence in\nremoving the only effective restraint on the excesses of some qualities\nwhich, when duly directed and limited, are among the most precious parts\nof our mental constitution. The political spirit is the great force in\nthrowing love of truth and accurate reasoning into a secondary place.\nThe evil does not stop here. This achievement has indirectly\ncountenanced the postponement of intellectual methods, and the\ndiminution of the sense of intellectual responsibility, by a school that\nis anything rather than political.\n\nTheology has borrowed, and coloured for her own use, the principles\nwhich were first brought into vogue in politics. If in the one field it\nis the fashion to consider convenience first and truth second, in the\nother there is a corresponding fashion of placing truth second and\nemotional comfort first. If there are some who compromise their real\nopinions, or the chance of reaching truth, for the sake of gain, there\nare far more who shrink from giving their intelligence free play, for\nthe sake of keeping undisturbed certain luxurious spiritual\nsensibilities. This choice of emotional gratification before truth and\nupright dealing with one's own understanding, creates a character that\nis certainly far less unlovely than those who sacrifice their\nintellectual integrity to more material convenience. The moral flaw is\nless palpable and less gross. Yet here too there is the stain of\nintellectual improbity, and it is perhaps all the more mischievous for\nbeing partly hidden under the mien of spiritual exaltation.\n\nThere is in literature no more seductive illustration of this seductive\ntype than Rousseau's renowned character of the Savoyard\nVicar--penetrated with scepticism as to the attributes of the deity, the\nmeaning of the holy rites, the authenticity of the sacred documents; yet\nfull of reverence, and ever respecting in silence what he could neither\nreject nor understand. 'The essential worship,' he says, 'is the worship\nof the heart. God never rejects this homage, under whatever form it be\noffered to him. In old days I used to say mass with the levity which in\ntime infects even the gravest things when we do them too often. Since\nacquiring my new principles [of reverential scepticism] I celebrate it\nwith more veneration: I am overcome by the majesty of the Supreme Being,\nby his presence, by the insufficiency of the human mind, which conceives\nso ill what pertains to its author. When I approach the moment of\nconsecration, I collect myself for performing the act with all the\nfeelings required by the church and the majesty of the sacrament. I\nstrive to annihilate my reason before the Supreme Intelligence, saying,\nWho art thou that thou shouldst measure infinite power?'[17]\n\nThe Savoyard Vicar is not imaginary. The acquiescence in indefinite\nideas for the sake of comforted emotions, and the abnegation of strong\nconvictions in order to make room for free and plenteous effusion, have\nfor us all the marks of a too familiar reality. Such a doctrine is an\neveryday plea for self-deception, and a current justification for\nillusion even among some of the finer spirits. They have persuaded\nthemselves not only that the life of the religious emotions is the\nhighest life, but that it is independent of the intellectual forms with\nwhich history happens to have associated it. And so they refine and\nsophisticate and make havoc with plain and honest interpretation, in\norder to preserve a soft serenity of soul unperturbed.\n\nNow, we are not at all concerned to dispute such positions as that\nFeeling is the right starting-point of moral education; that in forming\ncharacter appeal should be to the heart rather than to the\nunderstanding; that the only basis on which our faculties can be\nharmoniously ordered is the preponderance of affection over reason.\nThese propositions open much grave and complex discussion, and they are\nnot to our present purpose. We only desire to state the evil of the\nnotion that a man is warranted in comforting himself with dogmas and\nformularies, which he has first to empty of all definite, precise, and\nclearly determinable significance, before he can get them out of the way\nof his religious sensibilities. Whether Reason or Affection is to have\nthe empire in the society of the future, when Reason may possibly have\nno more to discover for us in the region of morals and religion, and so\nwill have become _emeritus_ and taken a lower place, as of a tutor whose\nservices the human family, being now grown up, no longer\nrequires,--however this may be, it is at least certain that in the\nmeantime the spiritual life of man needs direction quite as much as it\nneeds impulse, and light quite as much as force. This direction and\nlight can only be safely procured by the free and vigorous use of the\nintelligence. But the intelligence is not free in the presence of a\nmortal fear lest its conclusions should trouble soft tranquillity of\nspirit. There is always hope of a man so long as he dwells in the region\nof the direct categorical proposition and the unambiguous term; so long\nas he does not deny the rightly drawn conclusion after accepting the\nmajor and minor premisses. This may seem a scanty virtue and very easy\ngrace. Yet experience shows it to be too hard of attainment for those\nwho tamper with disinterestedness of conviction, for the sake of\nluxuriating in the softness of spiritual transport without interruption\nfrom a syllogism. It is true that there are now and then in life as in\nhistory noble and fair natures, that by the silent teaching and\nunconscious example of their inborn purity, star-like constancy, and\ngreat devotion, do carry the world about them to further heights of\nliving than can be attained by ratiocination. But these, the blameless\nand loved saints of the earth, rise too rarely on our dull horizons to\nmake a rule for the world. The law of things is that they who tamper\nwith veracity, from whatever motive, are tampering with the vital force\nof human progress. Our comfort and the delight of the religious\nimagination are no better than forms of self-indulgence, when they are\nsecured at the cost of that love of truth on which, more than on\nanything else, the increase of light and happiness among men must\ndepend. We have to fight and do lifelong battle against the forces of\ndarkness, and anything that turns the edge of reason blunts the surest\nand most potent of our weapons.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 13: Burton's _Lift of Hume,_ ii. 186-188]\n\n[Footnote 14: Isaac Taylor's _Natural History of Enthusiasm_, p. 226.]\n\n[Footnote 15: _Pens\u00e9es_, II. Art ii.]\n\n[Footnote 16: Dr. Newman's _Grammar of Assent_, p. 201.]\n\n[Footnote 17: _Emile_, bk. iv.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\n\nRELIGIOUS CONFORMITY.\n\nThe main field of discussion touching Compromise in expression and\navowal lies in the region of religious belief. In politics no one\nseriously contends that respect for the feelings and prejudices of other\npeople requires us to be silent about our opinions. A republican, for\ninstance, is at perfect liberty to declare himself so. Nobody will say\nthat he is not within his rights if he should think it worth while to\npractise this liberty, though of course he will have to face the obloquy\nwhich attends all opinion that is not shared by the more demonstrative\nand vocal portions of the public. It is true that in every stable\nsociety a general conviction prevails of the extreme undesirableness of\nconstantly laying bare the foundations of government. Incessant\ndiscussion of the theoretical bases of the social union is naturally\nconsidered worse than idle. It is felt by many wise men that the chief\nbusiness of the political thinker is to interest himself in\ngeneralisations of such a sort as leads with tolerable straightness to\npractical improvements of a far-reaching and durable kind. Even among\nthose, however, who thus feel it not to be worth while to be for ever\nhandling the abstract principles which are, after all, only clumsy\nexpressions of the real conditions that bring and keep men together in\nsociety, yet nobody of any consideration pretends to silence or limit\nthe free discussion of these principles. Although a man is not likely to\nbe thanked who calls attention to the vast discrepancies between the\ntheory and practice of the constitution, yet nobody now would\ncountenance the notion of an inner doctrine in politics. We smile at the\nline that Hume took in speaking of the doctrine of non-resistance. He\ndid not deny that the right of resistance to a tyrannical sovereign does\nactually belong to a nation. But, he said, 'if ever on any occasion it\nwere laudable to conceal truth from the populace, it must be confessed\nthat the doctrine of resistance affords such an example; and that all\nspeculative reasoners ought to observe with regard to this principle\nthe same cautious silence which the laws, in every species of\ngovernment, have ever prescribed to themselves.' As if the cautious\nsilence of the political writer could prevent a populace from feeling\nthe heaviness of an oppressor's hand, and striving to find relief from\nunjust burdens. As if any nation endowed with enough of the spirit of\nindependence to assent to the right of resistance when offered to them\nas a speculative theorem, would not infallibly be led by the same spirit\nto assert the right without the speculative theorem. That so acute a\nhead as Hume's should have failed to perceive these very plain\nconsiderations, and that he should moreover have perpetrated the\nabsurdity of declaring the right of resistance, in the same breath in\nwhich he declares the laudableness of keeping it a secret, only allows\nhow carefully a man need steer after he has once involved himself in the\nlabyrinths of Economy.[18]\n\nIn religion the unreasonableness of imposing a similar cautious silence\nis not yet fully established, nor the vicious effects of practising it\nclearly recognised. In these high matters an amount of economy and\nmanagement is held praiseworthy, which in any other subject would be\nuniversally condemned as cowardly and ignoble. Indeed the preliminary\nstage has scarcely been reached--the stage in which public opinion\ngrants to every one the unrestricted right of shaping his own beliefs,\nindependently of those of the people who surround him. Any woman, for\ninstance, suspected of having cast behind her the Bible and all\npractices of devotion and the elementary articles of the common creed,\nwould be distrustfully regarded even by those who wink at the same kind\nof mental boldness in men. Nay, she would be so regarded even by some of\nthe very men who have themselves discarded as superstition what they\nstill wish women to retain for law and gospel. So long as any class of\nadults are effectually discouraged in the free use of their minds upon\nthe most important subjects, we are warranted in saying that the era of\nfree thought, which naturally precedes the era of free speech, is still\nimperfectly developed.\n\nThe duties and rights of free speech are by no means identical with\nthose of independent thought. One general reason for this is tolerably\nplain. The expression of opinion directly affects other people, while\nits mere formation directly affects no one but ourselves. Therefore the\nlimits of compromise in expression are less widely and freely placed,\nbecause the rights and interests of all who may be made listeners to our\nspoken or written words are immediately concerned. In forming opinions,\na man or woman owes no consideration to any person or persons whatever.\nTruth is the single object. It is truth that in the forum of conscience\nclaims an undivided allegiance. The publication of opinion stands on\nanother footing. That is an external act, with possible consequences,\nlike all other external acts, both to the doer and to every one within\nthe sphere of his influence. And, besides these, it has possible\nconsequences to the prosperity of the opinion itself.[19]\n\nA hundred questions of fitness, of seasonableness, of conflicting\nexpediencies, present themselves in this connection, and nothing gives\nmore anxiety to a sensible man who holds notions opposed to the current\nprejudices, than to hit the right mark where intellectual integrity and\nprudence, firmness and wise reserve, are in exact accord. When we come\nto declaring opinions that are, however foolishly and unreasonably,\nassociated with pain and even a kind of turpitude in the minds of those\nwho strongly object to them, then some of our most powerful sympathies\nare naturally engaged. We wonder whether duty to truth can possibly\nrequire us to inflict keen distress on those to whom we are bound by the\ntenderest and most consecrated ties. This is so wholly honourable a\nsentiment, that no one who has not made himself drunk with the thin sour\nwine of a crude and absolute logic will refuse to consider it. Before,\nhowever, attempting to illustrate cases of conscience in this order, we\nventure to make a short digression into the region of the matter, as\ndistinct from the manner of free speech. One or two changes of great\nimportance in the way in which men think about religion, bear directly\nupon the conditions on which they may permit themselves and others to\nspeak about it.\n\n\nThe peculiar character of all the best kinds of dissent from the nominal\ncreed of the time, makes it rather less difficult for us to try to\nreconcile unflinching honesty with a just and becoming regard for the\nfeelings of those who have claims upon our forbearance, than would have\nbeen the case a hundred years ago. 'It is not now with a polite sneer,'\nas a high ecclesiastical authority lately admitted, 'still less with a\nrude buffet or coarse words, that Christianity is assailed.' Before\nchurchmen congratulate themselves too warmly on this improvement in the\nnature of the attack, perhaps they ought to ask themselves how far it is\ndue to the change in the position of the defending party. The truth is\nthat the coarse and realistic criticism of which Voltaire was the\nconsummate master, has done its work. It has driven the defenders of the\nold faith into the milder and more genial climate of non-natural\ninterpretations, and the historic sense, and a certain elastic\nrelativity of dogma. The old criticism was victorious, but after victory\nit vanished. One reason of this was that the coarse and realistic forms\nof belief had either vanished before it, or else they forsook their\nancient pretensions and clothed themselves in more modest robes. The\nconsequence of this, and of other causes which might be named, is that\nthe modern attack, while fully as serious and much more radical, has a\ncertain gravity, decorum, and worthiness of form. No one of any sense or\nknowledge now thinks the Christian religion had its origin in\ndeliberate imposture. The modern freethinker does not attack it; he\nexplains it. And what is more, he explains it by referring its growth to\nthe better, and not to the worse part of human nature. He traces it to\nmen's cravings for a higher morality. He finds its source in their\naspirations after nobler expression of that feeling for the\nincommensurable things, which is in truth under so many varieties of\ninwoven pattern the common universal web of religious faith.\n\nThe result of this way of looking at a creed which a man no longer\naccepts, is that he is able to speak of it with patience and historic\nrespect. He can openly mark his dissent from it, without exacerbating\nthe orthodox sentiment by galling pleasantries or bitter animadversion\nupon details. We are now awake to the all-important truth that belief in\nthis or that detail of superstition is the result of an irrational state\nof mind, and flows logically from superstitious premisses. We see that\nit is to begin at the wrong end, to assail the deductions as impossible,\ninstead of sedulously building up a state of mind in which their\nimpossibility would become spontaneously visible.\n\nBesides the great change which such a point of view makes in men's way\nof speaking of a religion, whose dogmas and documents they reject, there\nis this further consideration leaning in the same direction. The\ntendency of modern free thought is more and more visibly towards the\nextraction of the first and more permanent elements of the old faith, to\nmake the purified material of the new. When Dr. Congreve met the famous\nepigram about Comte's system being Catholicism minus Christianity, by\nthe reply that it is Catholicism plus Science, he gave an ingenious\nexpression to the direction which is almost necessarily taken by all who\nattempt, in however informal a manner, to construct for themselves some\nworking system of faith, in place of the faith which science and\ncriticism have sapped. In what ultimate form, acceptable to great\nmultitudes of men, these attempts will at last issue, no one can now\ntell. For we, like the Hebrews of old, shall all have to live and die in\nfaith, 'not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off,\nand being persuaded of them, and embracing them, and confessing that we\nare strangers and pilgrims on the earth.' Meanwhile, after the first\ngreat glow and passion of the just and necessary revolt of reason\nagainst superstition have slowly lost the exciting splendour of the\ndawn, and become diffused in the colourless space of a rather bleak\nnoonday, the mind gradually collects again some of the ideas of the old\nreligion of the West, and willingly, or even joyfully, suffers itself to\nbe once more breathed upon by something of its spirit. Christianity was\nthe last great religious synthesis. It is the one nearest to us. Nothing\nis more natural than that those who cannot rest content with\nintellectual analysis, while awaiting the advent of the Saint Paul of\nthe humanitarian faith of the future, should gather up provisionally\nsuch fragmentary illustrations of this new faith as are to be found in\nthe records of the old. Whatever form may be ultimately imposed on our\nvague religious aspirations by some prophet to come, who shall unite\nsublime depth of feeling and lofty purity of life with strong\nintellectual grasp and the gift of a noble eloquence, we may at least be\nsure of this, that it will stand as closely related to Christianity as\nChristianity stood closely related to the old Judaic dispensation. It is\ncommonly assumed that the rejecters of the popular religion stand in\nface of it, as the Christians stood in face of the pagan belief and\npagan rites in the Empire. The analogy is inexact. The modern denier, if\nhe is anything better than that, or entertains hopes of a creed to come,\nis nearer to the position of the Christianising Jew.[20] Science, when\nshe has accomplished all her triumphs in her own order, will still have\nto go back, when the time comes, to assist in the building up of a new\ncreed by which men can live. The builders will have to seek material in\nthe purified and sublimated ideas, of which the confessions and rites of\nthe Christian churches have been the grosser expression. Just as what\nwas once the new dispensation was preached _a Judaeos ad Judaeos apud\nJudaeos_, so must the new, that is to be, find a Christian teacher and\nChristian hearers. It can hardly be other than an expansion, a\ndevelopment, a readaptation, of all the moral and spiritual truth that\nlay hidden under the worn-out forms. It must be such a harmonising of\nthe truth with our intellectual conceptions as shall fit it to be an\nactive guide to conduct. In a world '_where men sit and hear each other\ngroan, where but to think is to be full of sorrow_,' it is hard to\nimagine a time when we shall be indifferent to that sovereign legend of\nPity. We have to incorporate it in some wider gospel of Justice and\nProgress.\n\nI shall not, I hope, be suspected of any desire to prophesy too smooth\nthings. It is no object of ours to bridge over the gulf between belief\nin the vulgar theology and disbelief. Nor for a single moment do we\npretend that, when all the points of contact between virtuous belief and\nvirtuous disbelief are made the most of that good faith will allow,\nthere will not still and after all remain a terrible controversy between\nthose who cling passionately to all the consolations, mysteries,\npersonalities, of the orthodox faith, and us who have made up our minds\nto face the worst, and to shape, as best we can, a life in which the\ncardinal verities of the common creed shall have no place. The future\nfaith, like the faith of the past, brings not peace but a sword. It is a\ntale not of concord, but of households divided against themselves. Those\nwho are incessantly striving to make the old bottles hold the new wine,\nto reconcile the irreconcilable, to bring the Bible and the dogmas of\nthe churches to be good friends with history and criticism, are prompted\nby the humanest intention.[21] One sympathises with this amiable anxiety\nto soften shocks, and break the rudeness of a vital transition. In this\nessay, at any rate, there is no such attempt. We know that it is the son\nagainst the father, and the mother-in-law against the daughter-in-law.\nNo softness of speech will disguise the portentous differences between\nthose who admit a supernatural revelation and those who deny it. No\ncharity nor goodwill can narrow the intellectual breach between those\nwho declare that a world without an ever-present Creator with\nintelligible attributes would be to them empty and void, and those who\ninsist that none of the attributes of a Creator can ever be grasped by\nthe finite intelligence of men.[22] Our object in urging the historic,\nsemi-conservative, and almost sympathetic quality, which distinguishes\nthe unbelief of to-day from the unbelief of a hundred years ago, is only\nto show that the most strenuous and upright of plain-speakers is less\nlikely to shock and wound the lawful sensibilities of devout persons\nthan he would have been so long as unbelief went no further than bitter\nattack on small details. In short, all save the purely negative and\npurely destructive school of freethinkers, are now able to deal with\nthe beliefs from which they dissent, in a way which makes patient and\ndisinterested controversy not wholly impossible.\n\nOne more point of much importance ought to be mentioned. The belief that\nheresy is the result of wilful depravity is fast dying out. People no\nlonger seriously think that speculative error is bound up with moral\niniquity, or that mistaken thinking is either the result or the cause of\nwicked living. Even the official mouthpieces of established beliefs now\nusually represent a bad heart as only one among other possible causes of\nunbelief. It divides the curse with ignorance, intellectual shallowness,\nthe unfortunate influence of plausible heresiarchs, and other\nalternative roots of evil. They thus leave a way of escape, by which the\nperson who does not share their own convictions may still be credited\nwith a good moral character. Some persons, it is true, 'cannot see how a\nman who deliberately rejects the Roman Catholic religion can, in the\neyes of those who earnestly believe it, be other than a rebel against\nGod.' They assure us that, 'as opinions become better marked and more\ndistinctly connected with action, the truth that decided dissent from\nthem implies more or less of a reproach upon those who hold them\ndecidedly, becomes so obvious that every one perceives it.' No doubt a\nprotestant or a sceptic regards the beliefs of a catholic as a reproach\nupon the believer's understanding. So the man whose whole faith rests on\nthe miraculous and on acts of special intervention, regards the strictly\npositive and scientific thinker as the dupe of a crude and narrow logic.\nBut this now carries with it no implication of moral obliquity. De\nMaistre's rather grotesque conviction that infidels always die of\nhorrible diseases with special names, could now only be held among the\nvery dregs of the ecclesiastical world.\n\nNor is it correct to say that 'when religious differences come to be,\nand are regarded as, mere differences of opinion, it is because the\ncontroversy is really decided in the sceptical sense.' Those who agree\nwith the present writer, for example, are not sceptics. They positively,\nabsolutely, and without reserve, reject as false the whole system of\nobjective propositions which make up the popular belief of the day, in\none and all of its theological expressions. They look upon that system\nas mischievous in its consequences to society, for many reasons,--among\nothers because it tends to divert and misdirect the most energetic\nfaculties of human nature. This, however, does not make them suspect the\nmotives or the habitual morality of those who remain in the creed in\nwhich they were nurtured. The difference is a difference of opinion, as\npurely as if we refused to accept the undulatory theory of light; and we\ntreat it as such. Then reverse this. Why is it any more impossible for\nthose who remain in the theological stage, who are not in the smallest\ndegree sceptical, who in their heart of hearts embrace without a shadow\nof misgiving all the mysteries of the faith, why is it any more\nimpossible for them than for us, whose convictions are as strong as\ntheirs, to treat the most radical dissidence as that and nothing other\nor worse? Logically, it perhaps might not be hard to convict them of\ninconsistency, but then, as has been so often said, inconsistency is a\ntotally different thing from insincerity, or doubting adherence, or\nsilent scepticism. The beliefs of an ordinary man are a complex\nstructure of very subtle materials, all compacted into a whole, not by\nlogic, but by lack of logic; not by syllogism or sorites, but by the\nvague.\n\nAs a plain matter of fact and observation, we may all perceive that\ndissent from religious opinion less and less implies reproach in any\nserious sense. We all of us know in the flesh liberal catholics and\nlatitudinarian protestants, who hold the very considerable number of\nbeliefs that remain to them, quite as firmly and undoubtingly as\nbelievers who are neither liberal nor latitudinarian. The compatibility\nof error in faith with virtue in conduct is to them only a mystery the\nmore, a branch of the insoluble problem of Evil, permitted by a Being at\nonce all-powerful and all-benevolent. Stringent logic may make short\nwork of either fact,--a benevolent author of evil, or a virtuous\ndespiser of divine truth. But in an atmosphere of mystery, logical\ncontradictions melt away. Faith gives a sanction to that tolerant and\ncharitable judgment of the character of heretics, which has its real\nsprings partly in common human sympathy whereby we are all bound to one\nanother, and partly in experience, which teaches us that practical\nrighteousness and speculative orthodoxy do not always have their roots\nin the same soil. The world is every day growing larger. The range of\nthe facts of the human race is being enormously extended by naturalists,\nby historians, by philologists, by travellers, by critics. The manifold\npast experiences of humanity are daily opening out to us in vaster and\nat the same time more ordered proportions. And so even those who hold\nfast to Christianity as the noblest, strongest, and only final\nconclusion of these experiences, are yet constrained to admit that it is\nno more than a single term in a very long and intricate series.\n\n\nThe object of the foregoing digression is to show some cause for\nthinking that dissent from the current beliefs is less and less likely\nto inflict upon those who retain them any very intolerable kind or\ndegree of mental pain. Therefore it is in so far all the plainer, as\nwell as easier, a duty not to conceal such dissent. What we have been\nsaying comes to this. If a believer finds that his son, for instance,\nhas ceased to believe, he no longer has this disbelief thrust upon him\nin gross and irreverent forms. Nor does he any longer suppose that the\nunbelieving son must necessarily be a profligate. And moreover, in\nninety-nine cases out of a hundred, he no longer supposes that infidels,\nof his own family or acquaintance at any rate, will consume for eternal\nages in lakes of burning marl.\n\nLet us add another consideration. One reason why so many persons are\nreally shocked and pained by the avowal of heretical opinions is the\nvery fact that such avowal is uncommon. If unbelievers and doubters were\nmore courageous, believers would be less timorous. It is because they\nlive in an enervating fool's paradise of seeming assent and conformity,\nthat the breath of an honest and outspoken word strikes so eager and\nnipping on their sensibilities. If they were not encouraged to suppose\nthat all the world is of their own mind, if they were forced out of that\natmosphere of self-indulgent silences and hypocritical reserves, which\nis systematically poured round them, they would acquire a robuster\nmental habit. They would learn to take dissents for what they are worth.\nThey would be led either to strengthen or to discard their own\nopinions, if the dissents happened to be weighty or instructive; either\nto refute or neglect such dissents as should be ill-founded or\ninsignificant. They will remain valetudinarians, so long as a curtain of\ncompromise shelters them from the real belief of those of their\nneighbours who have ventured to use their minds with some measure of\nindependence. A very brief contact with people who, when the occasion\ncomes, do not shrink from saying what they think, is enough to modify\nthat excessive liability to be shocked at truth-speaking, which is only\nso common because truth-speaking itself is so unfamiliar.\n\nNow, however great the pain inflicted by the avowal of unbelief, it\nseems to the present writer that one relationship in life, and one only,\njustifies us in being silent where otherwise it would be right to speak.\nThis relationship is that between child and parents. Those parents are\nwisest who train their sons and daughters in the utmost liberty both of\nthought and speech; who do not instill dogmas into them, but inculcate\nupon them the sovereign importance of correct ways of forming opinions;\nwho, while never dissembling the great fact that if one opinion is\ntrue, its contradictory cannot be true also, but must be a lie and must\npartake of all the evil qualities of a lie, yet always set them the\nexample of listening to unwelcome opinions with patience and candour.\nStill all parents are not wise. They cannot all endure to hear of any\nreligious opinions except their own. Where it would give them sincere\nand deep pain to hear a son or daughter avow disbelief in the\ninspiration of the Bible and so forth, then it seems that the younger\nperson is warranted in refraining from saying that he or she does not\naccept such and such doctrines. This, of course, only where the son or\ndaughter feels a tender and genuine attachment to the parent. Where the\nparent has not earned this attachment, has been selfish, indifferent, or\ncruel, the title to the special kind of forbearance of which we are\nspeaking can hardly exist. In an ordinary way, however, a parent has a\nclaim on us which no other person in the world can have, and a man's\nself-respect ought scarcely to be injured if he finds himself shrinking\nfrom playing the apostle to his own father and mother.\n\nOne can indeed imagine circumstances where this would not be true. If\nyou are persuaded that you have had revealed to you a glorious gospel of\nlight and blessedness, it is impossible not to thirst to impart such\ntidings most eagerly to those who are closest about your heart. We are\nnot in that position. We have as yet no magnificent vision, so definite,\nso touching, so 'clothed with the beauty of a thousand stars,' as to\nmake us eager, for the sake of it, to murder all the sweetnesses of\nfilial piety in an aggressive eristic. This much one concedes. Yet let\nus ever remember that those elders are of nobler type who have kept\ntheir minds in a generous freedom, and have made themselves strong with\nthat magnanimous confidence in truth, which the Hebrew expressed in old\nphrase, that if counsel or work be of men it will come to nought, but if\nit be of God ye cannot overthrow it.\n\nEven in the case of parents, and even though our new creed is but\nrudimentary, there can be no good reason why we should go further in the\nway of economy than mere silence. Neither they nor any other human being\ncan possibly have a right to expect us, not merely to abstain from the\nopen expression of dissents, but positively to profess unreal and\nfeigned assents. No fear of giving pain, no wish to soothe the alarms of\nthose to whom we owe much, no respect for the natural clinging of the\nold to the faith which has accompanied them through honourable lives,\ncan warrant us in saying that we believe to be true what we are\nconvinced is false. The most lax moralist counts a lie wrong, even when\nthe motive is unselfish, and springs from the desire to give pleasure to\nthose whom it is our duty to please. A deliberate lie avowedly does not\ncease to be one because it concerns spiritual things. Nor is it the less\nwrong because it is uttered by one to whom all spiritual things have\nbecome indifferent. Filial affection is a motive which would, if any\nmotive could, remove some of the taint of meanness with which pious\nlying, like every other kind of lying, tends to infect character. The\nmotive may no doubt ennoble the act, though the act remains in the\ncategory of forbidden things. But the motive of these complaisant\nassents and false affirmations, taken at their very best, is still\ncomparatively a poor motive. No real elevation of spirit is possible for\na man who is willing to subordinate his convictions to his domestic\naffections, and to bring himself to a habit of viewing falsehood\nlightly, lest the truth should shock the illegitimate and over-exacting\nsensibilities either of his parents or any one else. We may understand\nwhat is meant by the logic of the feelings, and accept it as the proper\ncorrective for a too intense egoism. But when the logic of the feelings\nis invoked to substitute the egoism of the family for the slightly\nnarrower egoism of the individual, it can hardly be more than a fine\nname for self-indulgence and a callous indifference to all the largest\nhuman interests.\n\n\nThis brings us to consider the case of another no less momentous\nrelationship, and the kind of compromise in the matter of religious\nconformity which it justifies or imposes. It constantly happens that the\nhusband has wholly ceased to believe the religion to which his wife\nclings with unshaken faith. We need not enter into the causes why women\nremain in bondage to opinions which so many cultivated men either reject\nor else hold in a transcendental and non-natural sense. The only\nquestion with which we are concerned is the amount of free assertion of\nhis own convictions which a man should claim and practise, when he knows\nthat such convictions are distasteful to his wife. Is it lawful, as it\nseems to be in dealing with parents, to hold his conviction silently? Is\nit lawful either positively or by implication to lead his wife to\nsuppose that he shares her opinions, when in truth he rejects them?\n\nIf it were not for the maxims and practice in daily use among men\notherwise honourable, one would not suppose it possible that two answers\ncould be given to these questions by any one with the smallest pretence\nof principle or self-respect. As it is, we all of us know men who\ndeliberately reject the entire Christian system, and still think it\ncompatible with uprightness to summon their whole establishments round\nthem at morning and evening, and on their knees to offer up elaborately\nformulated prayers, which have just as much meaning to them as the\nentrails of the sacrificial victim had to an infidel haruspex. We see\nthe same men diligently attending religious services; uttering assents\nto confessions of which they really reject every syllable; kneeling,\nrising, bowing, with deceptive solemnity; even partaking of the\nsacrament with a consummate devoutness that is very edifying to all who\nare not in the secret, and who do not know that they are acting a part,\nand making a mock both of their own reason and their own probity, merely\nto please persons whose delusions they pity and despise from the bottom\nof their hearts.\n\nOn the surface there is certainly nothing to distinguish this kind of\nconduct from the grossest hypocrisy. Is there anything under the surface\nto relieve it from this complexion? Is there any weight in the sort of\nanswer which such men make to the accusation that their conformity is a\nvery degrading form of deceit, and a singularly mischievous kind of\ntreachery? Is the plea of a wish to spare mental discomfort to others an\nadmissible and valid plea? It seems to us to be none of these things,\nand for the following among other reasons.\n\nIf a man drew his wife by lot, or by any other method over which neither\nhe nor she has any control, as in the case of parents, perhaps he might\nwith some plausibleness contend that he owed her certain limited\ndeferences and reserves, just as we admit that he may owe them to his\nparents. But this is not the case. Marriage, in this country at least,\nis the result of mutual choice. If men and women do as a matter of fact\nusually make this choice hastily and on wofully imperfect information of\none another's characters, that is no warrant for a resort to unlawful\nexpedients to remedy the blunder. If a woman cares ardently enough about\nreligion to feel keen distress at the idea of dissent from it on the\npart of those closely connected with her, she surely may be expected to\ntake reasonable pains to ascertain beforehand the religious attitude of\none with whom she is about to unite herself for life. On the other hand,\nif a man sets any value on his own opinions, if they are in any real\nsense a part of himself, he must be guilty of something like deliberate\nand systematic duplicity during the acquaintance preceding marriage, if\nhis dissent has remained unsuspected. Certainly if men go through\nsociety before marriage under false colours, and feign beliefs which\nthey do not hold, they have only themselves to thank for the degradation\nof having to keep up the imposture afterwards. Suppose a protestant\nwere to pass himself off for a catholic because he happened to meet a\ncatholic lady whom he desired to marry. Everybody would agree in calling\nsuch a man by a very harsh name. It is hard to see why a freethinker,\nwho by reticence and conformity passes himself off for a believer,\nshould be more leniently judged. The differences between a catholic and\na protestant are assuredly not any greater than those between a believer\nand an unbeliever. We all admit the baseness of dissimulation in the\nformer case. Why is it any less base in the latter?\n\nMarriages, however, are often made in haste, or heedlessly, or early in\nlife, before either man or woman has come to feel very deeply about\nreligion either one way or another. The woman does not know how much she\nwill need religion, nor what comfort it may bring to her. The man does\nnot know all the objections to it which may disclose themselves to his\nunderstanding as the years ripen. There is always at work that most\nunfortunate maxim, tacitly held and acted upon in ninety-nine marriages\nout of a hundred, that money is of importance, and social position is of\nimportance, and good connections are of importance, and health and\nmanners and comely looks, and that the only thing which is of no\nimportance whatever is opinion and intellectual quality and temper. Now\ngranting that both man and woman are indifferent at the time of their\nunion, is that any reason why upon either of them acquiring serious\nconvictions, the other should be expected, out of mere complaisance, to\nmake a false and hypocritical pretence of sharing them? To see how\nflimsy is this plea of fearing to give pain to the religious\nsensitiveness of women, we have only to imagine one or two cases which\ngo beyond the common experience, yet which ought not to strain the plea,\nif it be valid.\n\nThus, if my wife turns catholic, am I to pretend to turn catholic too,\nto save her the horrible distress of thinking that I am doomed to\neternal perdition? Or if she chooses to embrace the doctrine of direct\nillumination from heaven, and to hear voices bidding her to go or come,\nto do or abstain from doing, am I too to shape my conduct after these\nfancied monitions? Or if it comes into her mind to serve tables, and to\nlisten in all faith to the miracles of spiritualism, am I, lest I\nshould pain her, to feign a surrender of all my notions of evidence, to\npretend a transformation of all my ideas of worthiness in life and\nbeyond life, and to go to s\u00e9ances with the same regularity and\nseriousness with which you go to church? Of course in each of these\ncases everybody who does not happen to share the given peculiarity of\nbelief, will agree that however severely a husband's dissent might pain\nthe wife, whatever distress and discomfort it might inflict upon her,\nyet he would be bound to let her suffer, rather than sacrifice his\nveracity and self-respect. Why then is it any less discreditable to\npractise an insincere conformity in more ordinary circumstances? If the\nprinciple of such conformity is good for anything at all, it ought to\ncover these less usual cases as completely as the others which are more\nusual. Indeed there would be more to be said on behalf of conformity for\npoliteness' sake, where the woman had gone through some great process of\nchange, for then one might suppose that her heart was deeply set on the\nmatter. Even then the plea would be worthless, but it is more\nindisputably worthless still where the sentiment which we are bidden to\nrespect at the cost of our own freedom of speech is nothing more\nlaudable than a fear of moving out of the common groove of religious\nopinion, or an intolerant and unreasoned bigotry, or mere stupidity and\nsilliness of the vulgarest type.[23]\n\nAh, it is said, you forget that women cannot live without religion. The\npresent writer is equally of this opinion that women cannot be happy\nwithout a religion, nor men either. That is not the question. It does\nnot follow because a woman cannot be happy without a religion, that\ntherefore she cannot be happy unless her husband is of the same\nreligion. Still less, that she would be made happy by his insincerely\npretending to be of the same religion. And least of all is it true, if\nboth these propositions were credible, that even then for the sake of\nher happiness he is bound not merely to live a life of imposture, but in\nso doing to augment the general forces of imposture in the world, and to\nmake the chances of truth, light, and human improvement more and more\nunfavourable. Women are at present far less likely than men to possess a\nsound intelligence and a habit of correct judgment. They will remain so,\nwhile they have less ready access than men to the best kinds of literary\nand scientific training, and--what is far more important--while social\narrangements exclude them from all those kinds of public activity, which\nare such powerful agents both in fitting men to judge soundly, and in\nforming in them the sense of responsibility for their judgments being\nsound.\n\nIt may be contended that this alleged stronger religiosity of women,\nhowever coarse and poor in its formulae, is yet of constant value as a\nprotest in favour of the maintenance of the religious element in human\ncharacter and life, and that this is a far more important thing for us\nall than the greater or less truth of the dogmas with which such\nreligiosity happens to be associated. In reply to this, without\ntediously labouring the argument, I venture to make the following\nobservations. In the first place, it is an untenable idea that\nreligiosity or devoutness of spirit is valuable in itself, without\nreference to the goodness or badness of the dogmatic forms and the\npractices in which it clothes itself. A fakir would hardly be an\nestimable figure in our society, merely because his way of living\nhappens to be a manifestation of the religious spirit. If the religious\nspirit leads to a worthy and beautiful life, if it shows itself in\ncheerfulness, in pity, in charity and tolerance, in forgiveness, in a\nsense of the largeness and the mystery of things, in a lifting up of the\nsoul in gratitude and awe to some supreme power and sovereign force,\nthen whatever drawback there may be in the way of superstitious dogma,\nstill such a spirit is on the whole a good thing. If not, not. It would\nbe better without the superstition: even with the superstition it is\ngood. But if the religious spirit is only a fine name for narrowness of\nunderstanding, for stubborn intolerance, for mere social formality, for\na dread of losing that poor respectability which means thinking and\ndoing exactly as the people around us think and do, then the religious\nspirit is not a good thing, but a thoroughly bad and hateful thing. To\nthat we owe no management of any kind. Any one who suppresses his real\nopinions, and feigns others, out of deference to such a spirit as this\nin his household, ought to say plainly both to himself and to us that he\ncares more for his own ease and undisturbed comfort than he cares for\ntruth and uprightness. For it is that, and not any tenderness for holy\nthings, which is the real ground of his hypocrisy.\n\nNow with reference to the religious spirit in its nobler form, it is\ndifficult to believe that any one genuinely animated by it would be\nsoothed by the knowledge that her dearest companion is going through\nlife with a mask on, quietly playing a part, uttering untrue\nprofessions, doing his best to cheat her and the rest of the world by a\nmonstrous spiritual make-believe. One would suppose that instead of\nhaving her religious feeling gratified by conformity on these terms,\nnothing could wound it so bitterly nor outrage it so unpardonably. To\nknow that her sensibility is destroying the entireness of the man's\nnature, its loyalty alike to herself and to truth, its freedom and\nsingleness and courage--surely this can hardly be less distressing to a\nfine spirit than the suspicion that his heresies may bring him to the\npit, or than the void of going through life without even the semblance\nof religious sympathy between them. If it be urged that the woman would\nnever discover the piety of the man to be a counterfeit, we reply that\nunless her own piety were of the merely formal kind, she would be sure\nto make the discovery. The congregation in the old story were untouched\nby the disguised devil's eloquence on behalf of religion: it lacked\nunction. The verbal conformity of the unbeliever lacks unction, and its\nhollowness is speedily revealed to the quick apprehension of true\nfaith.[24]\n\nLet us not be supposed to be arguing in favour of incessant battle of\nhigh dialectic in the household. Nothing could be more destructive of\nthe gracious composure and mental harmony, of which household life ought\nto be, but perhaps seldom is, the great organ and instrument. Still less\nare we pleading for the freethinker's right at every hour of day or\nnight to mock, sneer, and gibe at the sincere beliefs and\nconscientiously performed rites of those, whether men or women, whether\nstrangers or kinsfolk, from whose religion he disagrees. 'It is not\nancient impressions only,' said Pascal, 'which are capable of abusing\nus. The charm of novelty has the same power.' The prate of new-born\nscepticism may be as tiresome and as odious as the cant of gray\northodoxy. Religious discussion is not to be foisted upon us at every\nturn either by defenders or assailants. All we plead for is that when\nthe opportunity meets the freethinker full in front, he is called upon\nto speak as freely as he thinks. Not more than this. A plain man has no\ntrouble in acquiring this tact of reasonableness. We may all write what\nwe please, because it is in the discretion of the rest of the world\nwhether they will hearken or not. But in the family this is not so. If a\nman systematically intrudes disrespectful and unwelcome criticism upon a\nwoman who retains the ancient belief, he is only showing that\nfreethinker may be no more than bigot differently writ. It ought to be\nessential to no one's self-respect that he cannot consent to live with\npeople who do not think as he thinks. We may be sure that there is\nsomething shallow and convulsive about the beliefs of a man who cannot\nallow his house-mates to possess their own beliefs in peace.\n\nOn the other hand, it is essential to the self-respect of every one\nwith the least love of truth that he should be free to express his\nopinions on every occasion, where silence would be taken for an assent\nwhich he does not really give. Still more unquestionably, he should be\nfree from any obligation to forswear himself either directly, as by\nfalse professions, or by implication, as when he attend services, public\nor private, which are to him the symbol of superstition and mere\nspiritual phantasmagoria. The vindication of this simple right of living\none's life honestly can hardly demand any heroic virtue. A little of the\nstraightforwardness which men are accustomed to call manly, is the only\nquality that is needed; a little of that frank courage and determination\nin spiritual things, which men are usually so ready to practise towards\ntheir wives in temporal things. It must be a keen delight to a cynic to\nsee a man who owns that he cannot bear to pain his wife by not going to\nchurch and saying prayers, yet insisting on having his own way,\nfearlessly thwarting her wishes, and contradicting her opinions, in\nevery other detail, small and great, of the domestic economy.\n\nThe truth of the matter is that the painful element in companionship is\nnot difference of opinion, but discord of temperament. The important\nthing is not that two people should be inspired by the same convictions,\nbut rather that each of them should hold his and her own convictions in\na high and worthy spirit. Harmony of aim, not identity of conclusion, is\nthe secret of the sympathetic life; to stand on the same moral plane,\nand that, if possible, a high one; to find satisfaction in different\nexplanations of the purpose and significance of life and the universe,\nand yet the same satisfaction. It is certainly not less possible to\ndisbelieve religiously than to believe religiously. This accord of mind,\nthis emulation in freedom and loftiness of soul, this kindred sense of\nthe awful depth of the enigma which the one believes to be answered, and\nthe other suspects to be for ever unanswerable--here, and not in a\ndegrading and hypocritical conformity, is the true gratification of\nthose spiritual sensibilities which are alleged to be so much higher in\nwomen than in men. Where such an accord exists, there may still be\nsolicitude left in the mind of either at the superstition or the\nincredulity of the other, but it will be solicitude of that magnanimous\nsort which is in some shape or other the inevitable and not unfruitful\nportion of every better nature.\n\nIf there are women who petulantly or sourly insist on more than this\nkind of harmony, it is probable that their system of divinity is little\nbetter than a special manifestation of shrewishness. The man is as much\nbound to resist that, as he is bound to resist extravagance in spending\nmoney, or any other vice of character. If he does not resist it, if he\nsuppresses his opinions, and practices a hypocritical conformity, it\nmust be from weakness of will and principle. Against this we have\nnothing to say. A considerable proportion of people, men no less than\nwomen, are born invertebrate, and they must got on as they best can. But\nlet us at least bargain that they shall not erect the maxims of their\nown feebleness into a rule for those who are braver and of stronger\nprinciple than themselves. And do not let the accidental exigencies of a\npersonal mistake be made the foundation of a general doctrine. It is a\npoor saying, that the world is to become void of spiritual sincerity,\nbecause Xanthippe has a turn for respectable theology.\n\n\nOne or two words should perhaps be said in this place as to conformity\nto common religious belief in the education of children. Where the\nparents differ, the one being an unbeliever, the other a believer, it is\nalmost impossible for anybody to lay down a general rule. The present\nwriter certainly has no ambition to attempt the thorny task of compiling\na manual for mixed marriages. It is perhaps enough to say that all would\ndepend upon the nature of the beliefs which the religious person wished\nto inculcate. Considering that the woman has an absolutely equal moral\nright with the man to decide in what faith the child shall be brought\nup, and considering how important it is that the mother should take an\nactive part in the development of the child's affections and impulses,\nthe most resolute of deniers may perhaps think that the advantages of\nleaving the matter to her, outweigh the disadvantages of having a\nsuperstitious bias given to the young mind. In these complex cases an\nhonest and fair-minded man's own instincts are more likely to lead him\nright than any hard and fast rule. Two reserves in assenting to the\nwife's control of early teaching will probably suggest themselves to\neverybody who is in earnest about religion. First, if the theology which\nthe woman desires to instill contains any of those wicked and depraving\ndoctrines which neither Catholicism nor Calvinism is without, in the\nhands of some professors, the husband is as much justified in pressing\nhis legal rights over the child to the uttermost, as he would be if the\nproposed religion demanded physical mutilation. Secondly, he will not\nhimself take part in baptismal or other ceremonies which are to him no\nbetter than mere mummeries, nor will he ever do anything to lead his\nchildren at any age to suppose that he believes what he does not\nbelieve. Such limitations as these are commanded by all considerations\nalike of morality and good sense.\n\nTo turn to the more normal case where either the man has had the wise\nforethought not to yoke himself unequally with a person of ardent belief\nwhich he does not share, or where both parents dissent from the popular\ncreed. Here, whatever difficulties may attend its application, the\nprinciple is surely as clear as the sun at noonday. There can be no good\nplea for the deliberate and formal inculcation upon the young of a\nnumber of propositions which you believe to be false. To do this is to\nsow tares not in your enemy's field, but in the very ground which is\nmost precious of all others to you and most full of hope for the future.\nTo allow it to be done merely that children may grow up in the\nstereotyped mould, is simply to perpetuate in new generations the\npresent thick-sighted and dead-heavy state of our spirits. It is to do\none's best to keep society for an indefinite time sapped by hollow and\nvoid professions, instead of being nourished by sincerity and\nwhole-heartedness.[25]\n\nNor here, more than elsewhere in this chapter, are we trying to turn\nthe family into a field of ceaseless polemic. No one who knows the stuff\nof which life is made, the pressure of material cares, the play of\npassion, the busy energising of the affections, the anxieties of health,\nand all the other solicitudes, generous or ignoble, which naturally\nabsorb the days of the common multitude of men--is likely to think such\nan ideal either desirable or attainable. Least of all is it desirable\nto give character a strong set in this polemical direction in its most\nplastic days. The controversial and denying humour is a different thing\nfrom the habit of being careful to know what we mean by the words we\nuse, and what evidence there is for the beliefs we hold. It is possible\nto foster the latter habit without creating the former. And it is\npossible to bring up the young in dissent from the common beliefs around\nthem, or in indifference to them, without engendering any of that pride\nin eccentricity for its own sake, which is so little likeable a quality\nin either young or old. There is, however, little risk of an excess in\nthis direction. The young tremble even more than the old at the\npenalties of nonconformity. There is more excuse for them in this. Such\npenalties in their case usually come closer and in more stringent forms.\nNeither have they had time to find out, as their elders have or ought to\nhave found out, what a very moderate degree of fortitude enables us to\nbear up against social disapproval, when we know that it is nothing more\nthan the common form of convention.\n\nThe great object is to keep the minds of the young as open as possible\nin the matter of religion; to breed in them a certain simplicity and\nfreedom from self-consciousness, in finding themselves without the\nreligious beliefs and customs of those around them; to make them regard\ndifferences in these respects as very natural and ordinary matters,\nsusceptible of an easy explanation. It is of course inevitable, unless\nthey are brought up in cloistered seclusion, that they should hear much\nof the various articles of belief which we are anxious that they should\nnot share. They will ask you whether the story of the creation of the\nuniverse is true; whether such and such miracles really happened;\nwhether this person or that actually lived, and actually did all that he\nis said to have done. Plainly the right course is to tell them, without\nany agitation or excess or vehemence or too much elaboration, the simple\ntruth in such matters exactly as it appears to one's own mind. There is\nno reason why they should not know the best parts of the Bible as well\nas they know the Iliad or Herodotus. There are many reasons why they\nshould know them better. But one most important condition of this is\nconstantly overlooked by people, who like to satisfy their intellectual\nvanity by scepticism, and at the same time to make their comfort safe by\nexternal conformity. If the Bible is to be taught only because it is a\nnoble and most majestic monument of literature, it should be taught as\nthat and no more. That a man who regards it solely us supreme\nliterature, should impress it upon the young as the supernaturally\ninspired word of God and the accurate record of objective occurrences,\nis a piece of the plainest and most shocking dishonesty. Let a youth be\ntrained in simple and straightforward recognition of the truth that we\ncan know, and can conjecture, nothing with any assurance as to the\nultimate mysteries of things. Let his imagination and his sense of awe\nbe fed from those springs, which are none the less bounteous because\nthey flow in natural rather than supernatural channels. Let him be\ntaught the historic place and source of the religions which he is not\nbound to accept, unless the evidence for their authority by and by\nbrings him to another mind. A boy or girl trained in this way has an\ninfinitely better chance of growing up with the true spirit and\nleanings of religion implanted in the character, than if they had been\neducated in formulae which they could not understand, by people who do\nnot believe them.\n\nThe most common illustration of a personal mistake being made the base\nof a general doctrine, is found in the case of those who, after\ncommitting themselves for life to the profession of a given creed, awake\nto the shocking discovery that the creed has ceased to be true for them.\nThe action of a popular modern story, Mrs. Gaskell's _North and South_,\nturns upon the case of a clergyman whoso faith is overthrown, and who in\nconsequence abandons his calling, to his own serious material detriment\nand under circumstances of severe suffering to his family. I am afraid\nthat current opinion, especially among the cultivated class, would\ncondemn such a sacrifice as a piece of misplaced scrupulosity. No man,\nit would be said, is called upon to proclaim his opinions, when to do so\nwill cost him the means of subsistence. This will depend upon the value\nwhich he sets upon the opinions that be has to proclaim. If such a\nproposition is true, the world must efface its habit of admiration for\nthe martyrs and heroes of the past, who embraced violent death rather\nthan defile themselves by a lying confession. Or is present heroism\nridiculous, and only past heroism admirable? However, nobody has a right\nto demand the heroic from all the world; and if to publish his dissent\nfrom the opinions which he nominally holds would reduce a man to\nbeggary, human charity bids us say as little as may be. We may leave\nsuch men to their unfortunate destiny, hoping that they will make what\ngood use of it may be possible. _Non ragioniam di lor_. These cases only\nshow the essential and profound immorality of the priestly\nprofession--in all its forms, and no matter in connection with what\nchurch or what dogma--which makes a man's living depend on his\nabstaining from using his mind, or concealing the conclusions to which\nuse of his mind has brought him. The time will come when society will\nlook back on the doctrine, that they who serve the altar should live by\nthe altar, as a doctrine of barbarism and degradation.\n\nBut if one, by refusing to offer a pinch of incense to the elder gods,\nshould thus strip himself of a marked opportunity of exerting an\nundoubtedly useful influence over public opinion, or over a certain\nsection of society, is he not justified in compromising to the extent\nnecessary to preserve this influence? Instead of answering this\ndirectly, we would make the following remarks. First, it can seldom be\nclear in times like our own that religious heterodoxy must involve the\nloss of influence in other than religious spheres. The apprehension that\nit will do so is due rather to timorousness and a desire to find a fair\nreason for the comforts of silence and reserve. If a teacher has\nanything to tell the world in science, philosophy, history, the world\nwill not be deterred from listening to him by knowing that he does not\nwalk in the paths of conventional theology. Second, what influence can a\nman exert, that should seem to him more useful than that of a protester\nagainst what he counts false opinions, in the most decisive and\nimportant of all regions of thought? Surely if any one is persuaded,\nwhether rightly or wrongly, that his fellows are expending the best part\nof their imaginations and feelings on a dream and a delusion, and that\nby so doing moreover they are retarding to an indefinite degree the\nwider spread of light and happiness, then nothing that he can tell them\nabout chemistry or psychology or history can in his eyes be comparable\nin importance to the duty of telling them this. There is no advantage\nnor honest delight in influence, if it is only to be exerted in the\nsphere of secondary objects, and at the cost of the objects which ought\nto be foremost in the eyes of serious people. In truth the men who have\ndone most for the world have taken very little heed of influence. They\nhave sought light, and left their influence to fare as it might list.\nCan we not imagine the mingled mystification and disdain with which a\nSpinosa or a Descartes, a Luther or a Pascal, would have listened to an\nexhortation in our persuasive modern manner on the niceties of the\npolitic and the social obligation of pious fraud? It is not given to\nmany to perform the achievements of such giants as these, but every one\nmay help to keep the standard of intellectual honesty at a lofty pitch,\nand what better service can a man render than to furnish the world with\nan example of faithful dealing with his own conscience and with his\nfellows? This at least is the one talent that is placed in the hands of\nthe obscurest of us all.[26]\n\nAnd what is this smile of the world, to win which we are bidden to\nsacrifice our moral manhood; this frown of the world, whose terrors are\nmore awful than the withering up of truth and the slow going out of\nlight within the souls of us? Consider the triviality of life and\nconversation and purpose, in the bulk of those whose approval is held\nout for our prize and the mark of our high calling. Measure, if you can,\nthe empire over them of prejudice unadulterated by a single element of\nrationality, and weigh, if you can, the huge burden of custom,\nunrelieved by a single leavening particle of fresh thought. Ponder the\nshare which selfishness and love of ease have in the vitality and the\nmaintenance of the opinions that we are forbidden to dispute. Then how\npitiful a thing seems the approval or disapproval of these creatures of\nthe conventions of the hour, as one figures the merciless vastness of\nthe universe of matter sweeping us headlong through viewless space; as\none hears the wail of misery that is for ever ascending to the deaf\ngods; as one counts the little tale of the years that separate us from\neternal silence. In the light of these things, a man should surely dare\nto live his small span of life with little heed of the common speech\nupon him or his life, only caring that his days may be full of reality,\nand his conversation of truth-speaking and wholeness.\n\nThose who think conformity in the matters of which we have been\nspeaking harmless and unimportant, must do so either from indifference\nor else from despair. It is difficult to convince any one who is\npossessed by either one or other of these two evil spirits. Men who have\nonce accepted them, do not easily relinquish philosophies that relieve\ntheir professors from disagreeable obligations of courage and endeavour.\nTo the indifferent person one can say nothing. We can only acquiesce in\nthat deep and terrible scripture, 'He that is filthy, let him be filthy\nstill.' To those who despair of human improvement or the spread of light\nin the face of the huge mass of brute prejudice, we can only urge that\nthe enormous weight and the firm hold of baseless prejudice and false\ncommonplace are the very reasons which make it so important that those\nwho are not of the night nor of the darkness should the more strenuously\ninsist on living their own lives in the daylight. To those, finally, who\ndo not despair, but think that the new faith will come so slowly that it\nis not worth while for the poor mortal of a day to make himself a\nmartyr, we may suggest that the new faith when it comes will be of\nlittle worth, unless it has been shaped by generations of honest and\nfearless men, and unless it finds in those who are to receive it an\nhonest and fearless temper. Our plea is not for a life of perverse\ndisputings or busy proselytising, but only that we should learn to look\nat one another with a clear and steadfast eye, and march forward along\nthe paths we choose with firm step and erect front. The first advance\ntowards either the renovation of one faith or the growth of another,\nmust be the abandonment of those habits of hypocritical conformity and\ncompliance which have filled the air of the England of to-day with gross\nand obscuring mists.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 18: It may be said that Hume meant no more than this: that of\ntwo equally oppressed nations, the one which had been taught to assent\nto the doctrine of resistance would be more likely to practise 'the\nsacred duty of insurrection' than the other, from whom the doctrine had\nbeen concealed. Or, in other words, that the first would rise against\noppression, when the oppression had reached a pitch which to the second\nwould still seem bearable. The answer to Hume's proposition, interpreted\nin this way, would be that if the doctrine of resistance be presented to\nthe populace in its true shape,--if it be 'truth,' as he admits,--then\nthe application of it in practice should be as little likely to prove\nmischievous as that of any other truth. If the gist of the remark be\nthat this is a truth which the populace is especially likely to apply\nwrongly, in consequence of its ignorance, passion, and heedlessness, we\nmay answer by appealing to history, which is rather a record of\nexcessive patience in the various nations of the earth than of excessive\npetulance.]\n\n[Footnote 19: There is another ground for the distinction between the\nconditions of holding and those of expressing opinion. This depends upon\nthe psychological proposition that belief is independent of the will.\nThough this or any other state of the understanding may be involuntary,\nthe manifestation of such a state is not so, but is a voluntary act,\nand, 'being neutral in itself, may be commendable or reprehensible\naccording to the circumstances in which it takes place.' (Bailey's\n_Essay on Formation of Opinion_, \u00a7 7).]\n\n[Footnote 20: The following words, illustrating the continuity between\nthe Christian and Jewish churches, are not without instruction to those\nwho meditate on the possible continuity between the Christian church and\nthat which is one day to grow into the place of it:--'Not only do forms\nand ordinances remain under the Gospel equally as before; but, what was\nin use before is not so much superseded by the Gospel ordinances as\nchanged into them. What took place under the Law is a pattern, what was\ncommanded is a rule, under the Gospel. The substance remains, the use,\nthe meaning, the circumstances, the benefit is changed; grace is added,\nlife is infused: \"the body is of Christ;\" but it is in great measure\nthat same body which was in being before He came. The Gospel has not put\naside, it has incorporated into itself the revelation which went before\nit. It avails itself of the Old Testament, as a great gift to Christian\nas well as to Jew. It does not dispense with it, but it dispenses it.\nPersons sometimes urge that there is no code of duty in the New\nTestament, no ceremonial, no rules for Church polity. Certainly not;\nthey are unnecessary; they are already given in the Old. Why should the\nOld Testament remain in the Christian church but to be used? _There_ we\nare to look for our forms, our rites, our polity; only illustrated,\ntempered, spiritualised by the Gospel. The preempts remain, the\nobservance of them is changed,'--Dr. J.H. Newman; _Sermon on Subjects of\nthe Day_, p. 205.]\n\n[Footnote 21: There is a set of most acute and searching criticisms on\nthis matter in Mr. Leslie Stephen's _Essays on Free-Thinking and\nPlain-Speaking_ (Longmans, 1873). The last essay in the volume, _An\nApology for Plain-Speaking_, is a decisive and remarkable exposition of\nthe treacherous playing with words, which underlies even the most\nvigorous efforts to make the phrases and formula of the old creed hold\nthe reality of new faith.]\n\n[Footnote 22: Upon this sentence the following criticism has been\nmade:--'Surely both of these so-called contradictions are deliberately\naffirmed by the vast majority of all thinkers upon the subject. What\northodox asserter of the omnipresence of a \"Creator with intelligible\nattributes\" ever maintained that these attributes could be \"grasped by\nmen\"?'--The orthodox asserter, no doubt, _says_ that he does not\nmaintain that the divine attributes can be grasped by men; but his\nhabitual treatment of them as intelligible, and as the subjects of\npropositions made in languages that is designed to be intelligible,\nshows that his first reservation is merely nominal, as it is certainly\ninconsistent with his general position. Religious people who warn you\nmost solemnly that man who is a worm and the son of a worm cannot\npossibly compass in his puny understanding the attributes of the Divine\nBeing, will yet--as an eminent divine not in holy orders has truly\nsaid--tell you all about him, as if he were the man who lives in the\nnext street.]\n\n[Footnote 23: That able man, the late J.E. Cairnes, suggested the\nfollowing objection to this paragraph. When two persons marry, there is\na reasonable expectation, almost amounting to an understanding, that\nthey will both of them adhere to their religion, just as both of them\ntacitly agree to follow the ways of the world in the host of minor\nsocial matters. If, therefore, either of them turns to some other creed,\nthe person so turning has, so to speak, broken the contract. The utmost\nhe or she can contend for is forbearance. If a woman embraces\ncatholicism, she may seek tolerance, but she has no right to exact\nconformity. If the man becomes an unbeliever, he in like manner breaks\nthe bargain, and may be justly asked not to flaunt his misdemeanour.\n\nMy answer to this would turn upon the absolute inexpediency of such\nsilent bargains being assumed by public opinion. In the present state of\nopinion, where the whole air is alive with the spirit of change, nobody\nwho takes his life or her life seriously, could allow an assumption\nwhich means reduction of one of the most important parts of character,\nthe love of truth, to a nullity.]\n\n[Footnote 24: The reader remembers how Wolmar, the atheistic husband of\nJulie in Rousseau's _New Helo\u00efsa_, is distressed by the chagrin which\nhis unbelief inflicts on the piety of his wife. 'He told me that he had\nbeen frequently tempted to make a feint of yielding to her arguments,\nand to pretend, for the sake of calming her sentiments that he did not\nreally hold. But such baseness of soul is too far from him. Without for\na moment imposing on Julie, such dissimulation would only have been a\nnew torment to her. The good faith, the frankness, the union of heart,\nthat console for so many troubles, would have been eclipsed between\nthem. Was it by lessening his wife's esteem for him that he could\nreassure her? Instead of using any disguise, he tells her sincerely what\nhe thinks, but he says it in so simple a tone, etc.--V. v. 126.]\n\n[Footnote 25: The common reason alleged by freethinkers for having their\nchildren brought up in the orthodox ways is that, if they were not so\nbrought up, they would be looked on as contaminating agents whom other\nparents would take care to keep away from the companionship of their\nchildren. This excuse may have had some force at another time. At the\npresent day, when belief is so weak, we doubt whether the young would be\nexcluded from the companionship of their equals in age, merely because\nthey had not been trained in some of the conventional shibboleths. Even\nif it were so, there are certainly some ways of compensating for the\ndisadvantages of exclusion from orthodox circles.\n\nI have heard of a more interesting reason; namely, that the historic\nposition of the young, relatively to the time in which they are placed,\nis in some sort falsified, unless they have gone through a training in\nthe current beliefs of their age: unless they have undergone that, they\nmiss, as it were, some of the normal antecedents. I do not think this\nplea will hold good. However desirable it may be that the young should\nknow all sorts of erroneous beliefs and opinions as products of the\npast, it can hardly be in any degree desirable that they should take\nthem for truths. If there were no other objection, there would be this,\nthat the disturbance and waste of force involved in shaking off in their\nriper years the erroneous opinions which had been instilled into them\nin childhood, would more than counter-balance any advantages, whatever\ntheir precise nature may be, to be derived from having shared in their\nown proper persons the ungrounded notions of others.]\n\n[Footnote 26: Miss Martineau has an excellent protest against 'the\ndereliction of principle shown in supposing that any \"Cause\" can be of\nso much importance as fidelity to truth, or can be important at all\notherwise than in its relation to truth which wants vindicating. It\nreminds me of an incident which happened when I was in America, at the\ntime of the severest trials of the Abolitionists. A pastor from the\nsouthern States lamented to a brother clergyman in the North the\nintroduction of the Anti-slavery question, because the views of their\nsect were \"getting on so well before!\" \"Getting on!\" cried the northern\nminister. \"What is the use of getting your vessel on when you have\nthrown both captain and cargo overboard?\" Thus, what signifies the\npursuit of any one reform, like those specified,--Anti-slavery and the\nWoman question,--when the freedom which is the very soul of the\ncontroversy, the very principle of the movement,--is mourned over in any\nother of its many manifestations? The only effectual advocates of such\nreforms as those are people who follow truth wherever it\nleads.'--_Autobiography_, ii. 442.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\n\nTHE REALISATION OF OPINION.\n\nA person who takes the trouble to form his own opinions and beliefs will\nfeel that he owes no responsibility to the majority for his conclusions.\nIf he is a genuine lover of truth, if he is inspired by the divine\npassion for seeing things as they are, and a divine abhorrence of\nholding ideas which do not conform to the facts, he will be wholly\nindependent of the approval or assent of the persons around him. When he\nproceeds to apply his beliefs in the practical conduct of life, the\nposition is different. There are now good reasons why his attitude\nshould be in some ways less inflexible. The society in which he is\nplaced is a very ancient and composite growth. The people from whom he\ndissents have not come by their opinions, customs, and institutions by a\nprocess of mere haphazard. These opinions and customs all had their\norigin in a certain real or supposed fitness. They have a certain depth\nof root in the lives of a proportion of the existing generation. Their\nfitness for satisfying human needs may have vanished, and their\ncongruity with one another may have come to an end. That is only one\nside of the truth. The most zealous propagandism cannot penetrate to\nthem. The quality of bearing to be transplanted from one kind of soil\nand climate to another is not very common, and it is far from being\ninexhaustible even where it exists.\n\nIn common language we speak of a generation as something possessed of a\nkind of exact unity, with all its parts and members one and homogeneous.\nYet very plainly it is not this. It is a whole, but a whole in a state\nof constant flux. Its factors and elements are eternally shifting. It is\nnot one, but many generations. Each of the seven ages of man is\nneighbour to all the rest. The column of the veterans is already\nstaggering over into the last abyss, while the column of the newest\nrecruits is forming with all its nameless and uncounted hopes. To each\nits tradition, its tendency, its possibilities. Only a proportion of\neach in one society can have nerve enough to grasp the banner of a new\ntruth, and endurance enough to bear it along rugged and untrodden ways.\n\nAnd then, as we have said, one must remember the stuff of which life is\nmade. One must consider what an overwhelming preponderance of the most\ntenacious energies and most concentrated interests of a society must be\nabsorbed between material cares and the solicitude of the affections. It\nis obviously unreasonable to lose patience and quarrel with one's time,\nbecause it is tardy in throwing off its institutions and beliefs, and\nslow to achieve the transformation which is the problem in front of it.\nMen and women have to live. The task for most of them is arduous enough\nto make them well pleased with even such imperfect shelter as they find\nin the use and wont of daily existence. To insist on a whole community\nbeing made at once to submit to the reign of new practices and new\nideas, which have just begun to commend themselves to the most advanced\nspeculative intelligence of the time,--this, even if it were a possible\nprocess, would do much to make life impracticable and to hurry on social\ndissolution.\n\n'It cannot be too emphatically asserted,' as has been said by one of\nthe most influential of modern thinkers, 'that this policy of\ncompromise, alike in institutions, in actions, and in beliefs, which\nespecially characterises English life, is a policy essential to a\nsociety going through the transitions caused by continued growth and\ndevelopment. Ideas and institutions proper to a past social state, but\nincongruous with the new social state that has grown out of it,\nsurviving into this new social state they have made possible, and\ndisappearing only as this new social state establishes its own ideas and\ninstitutions, are necessarily, during their survival, in conflict with\nthese new ideas and institutions--necessarily furnish elements of\ncontradiction in men's thoughts and deeds. And yet, as for the carrying\non of social life, the old must continue so long as the new is not\nready, this perpetual compromise is an indispensable accompaniment of a\nnormal development.'[27]\n\nYet we must not press this argument, and the state of feeling that\nbelongs to it, further than they may be fairly made to go. The danger in\nmost natures lies on this side, for on this side our love of ease\nworks, and our prejudices. The writer in the passage we have just quoted\nis describing compromise as a natural state of things, the resultant of\ndivergent forces. He is not professing to define its conditions or\nlimits as a practical duty. Nor is there anything in his words, or in\nthe doctrine of social evolution of which he is the most elaborate and\nsystematic expounder, to favour that deliberate sacrifice of truth,\neither in search or in expression, against which our two previous\nchapters were meant to protest.[28] When Mr. Spencer talks of a new\nsocial state establishing its own ideas, of course he means, and can\nonly mean, that men and women establish their own ideas, and to do that,\nit is obvious that they must at one time or another have conceived them\nwithout any special friendliness of reference to the old ideas, which\nthey were in the fulness of time to supersede. Still less, of course,\ncan a new social state ever establish its ideas, unless the persons who\nhold them confess them openly, and give to them an honest and effective\nadherence.\n\nEvery discussion of the more fundamental principles of conduct must\ncontain, expressly or by implication, some general theory of the nature\nand constitution of the social union. Let us state in a few words that\nwhich seems to command the greatest amount both of direct and analogical\nevidence in our time. It is perhaps all the more important to discuss\nour subject with immediate and express reference to this theory, because\nit has become in some minds a plea for a kind of philosophic\nindifference towards any policy of Thorough, as well as an excuse for\nsystematic abstention from vigorous and downright courses of action.\n\nA progressive society is now constantly and justly compared to a growing\norganism. Its vitality in this aspect consists of a series of changes in\nideas and institutions. These changes arise spontaneously from the\noperation of the whole body of social conditions, external and\ninternal. The understanding and the affections and desires are always\nacting on the domestic, political, and economic ordering. They influence\nthe religious sentiment. They touch relations with societies outside. In\nturn they are constantly being acted on by all these elements. In a\nsociety progressing in a normal and uninterrupted course, this play and\ninteraction is the sign and essence of life. It is, as we are so often\ntold, a long process of new adaptations and re-adaptations; of the\nmodification of tradition and usage by truer ideas and improved\ninstitutions. There may be, and there are, epochs of rest, when this\nmodification in its active and demonstrative shape slackens or ceases to\nbe visible. But even then the modifying forces are only latent. Further\nprogress depends on the revival of their energy, before there has been\ntime for the social structure to become ossified and inelastic. The\nhistory of civilisation is the history of the displacement of old\nconceptions by new ones more conformable to the facts. It is the record\nof the removal of old institutions and ways of living, in favour of\nothers of greater convenience and ampler capacity, at once multiplying\nand satisfying human requirements.\n\nNow compromise, in view of the foregoing theory of social advance, may\nbe of two kinds, and of these two kinds one is legitimate and the other\nnot. It may stand for two distinct attitudes of mind, one of them\nobstructive and the other not. It may mean the deliberate suppression or\nmutilation of an idea, in order to make it congruous with the\ntraditional idea or the current prejudice on the given subject, whatever\nthat may be. Or else it may mean a rational acquiescence in the fact\nthat the bulk of your contemporaries are not yet prepared either to\nembrace the new idea, or to change their ways of living in conformity to\nit. In the one case, the compromiser rejects the highest truth, or\ndissembles his own acceptance of it. In the other, he holds it\ncourageously for his ensign and device, but neither forces nor expects\nthe whole world straightway to follow. The first prolongs the duration\nof the empire of prejudice, and retards the arrival of improvement. The\nsecond does his best to abbreviate the one, and to hasten and make\ndefinite the other, yet he does not insist on hurrying changes which,\nto be effective, would require the active support of numbers of persons\nnot yet ripe for them. It is legitimate compromise to say:--'I do not\nexpect you to execute this improvement, or to surrender that prejudice,\nin my time. But at any rate it shall not be my fault if the improvement\nremains unknown or rejected. There shall be one man at least who has\nsurrendered the prejudice, and who does not hide that fact.' It is\nillegitimate compromise to say:--'I cannot persuade you to accept my\ntruth; therefore I will pretend to accept your falsehood.'\n\nThat this distinction is as sound on the evolutional theory of society\nas on any other is quite evident. It would be odd if the theory which\nmakes progress depend on modification forbade us to attempt to modify.\nWhen it is said that the various successive changes in thought and\ninstitution present and consummate themselves spontaneously, no one\nmeans by spontaneity that they come to pass independently of human\neffort and volition. On the contrary, this energy of the members of the\nsociety is one of the spontaneous elements. It is quite as\nindispensable as any other of them, if indeed it be not more so.\nProgress depends upon tendencies and forces in a community. But of these\ntendencies and forces, the organs and representatives must plainly be\nfound among the men and women of the community, and cannot possibly be\nfound anywhere else. Progress is not automatic, in the sense that if we\nwere all to be cast into a deep slumber for the space of a generation,\nwe should awake to find ourselves in a greatly improved social state.\nThe world only grows better, even in the moderate degree in which it\ndoes grow better, because people wish that it should, and take the right\nsteps to make it better. Evolution is not a force, but a process; not a\ncause, but a law. It explains the source, and marks the immovable\nlimitations, of social energy. But social energy itself can never be\nsuperseded either by evolution or by anything else.\n\nThe reproach of being impracticable and artificial attaches by rights\nnot to those who insist on resolute, persistent, and uncompromising\nefforts to remove abuses, but to a very different class--to those,\nnamely, who are credulous enough to suppose that abuses and bad customs\nand wasteful ways of doing things will remove themselves. This\ncredulity, which is a cloak for indolence or ignorance or stupidity,\noverlooks the fact that there are bodies of men, more or less numerous,\nattached by every selfish interest they have to the maintenance of these\nabusive customs. 'A plan,' says Bentham, 'may be said to be too good to\nbe practicable, where, without adequate inducement in the shape of\npersonal interest, it requires for its accomplishment that some\nindividual or class of individuals shall have made a sacrifice of his or\ntheir personal interest to the interest of the whole. When it is on the\npart of a body of men or a multitude of individuals taken at random that\nany such sacrifice is reckoned upon, then it is that in speaking of the\nplan the term _Utopian_ may without impropriety be applied.' And this is\nthe very kind of sacrifice which must be anticipated by those who so\nmisunderstand the doctrine of evolution as to believe that the world is\nimproved by some mystic and self-acting social discipline, which\ndispenses with the necessity of pertinacious attack upon institutions\nthat have outlived their time, and interests that have lost their\njustification.\n\nWe are thus brought to the position--to which, indeed, bare observation\nof actual occurrences might well bring us, if it were not for the\nclouding disturbances of selfishness, or of a true philosophy of society\nwrongly applied--that a society can only pursue its normal course by\nmeans of a certain progression of changes, and that these changes can\nonly be initiated by individuals or very small groups of individuals.\nThe progressive tendency can only be a tendency, it can only work its\nway through the inevitable obstructions around it, by means of persons\nwho are possessed by the special progressive idea. Such ideas do not\nspring up uncaused and unconditioned in vacant space. They have had a\ndefinite origin and ordered antecedents. They are in direct relation\nwith the past. They present themselves to one person or little group of\npersons rather than to another, because circumstances, or the accident\nof a superior faculty of penetration, have placed the person or group in\nthe way of such ideas. In matters of social improvement the most common\nreason why one hits upon a point of progress and not another, is that\nthe one happens to be more directly touched than the other by the\nunimproved practice. Or he is one of those rare intelligences, active,\nalert, inventive, which by constitution or training find their chief\nhappiness in thinking in a disciplined and serious manner how things can\nbe better done. In all cases the possession of a new idea, whether\npractical or speculative, only raises into definite speech what others\nhave needed without being able to make their need articulate. This is\nthe principle on which experience shows us that fame and popularity are\ndistributed. A man does not become celebrated in proportion to his\ngeneral capacity, but because he does or says something which happened\nto need doing or saying at the moment.\n\nThis brings us directly to our immediate subject. For such a man is the\nholder of a trust It is upon him and those who are like him that the\nadvance of a community depends. If he is silent, then repair is checked,\nand the hurtful elements of worn-out beliefs and waste institutions\nremain to enfeeble the society, just as the retention of waste products\nenfeebles or poisons the body. If in a spirit of modesty which is often\ngenuine, though it is often only a veil for love of ease, he asks why he\nrather than another should speak, why he before others should refuse\ncompliance and abstain from conformity, the answer is that though the\nmany are ultimately moved, it is always one who is first to leave the\nold encampment. If the maxim of the compromiser were sound, it ought to\nbe capable of universal application. Nobody has a right to make an\napology for himself in this matter, which he will not allow to be valid\nfor others. If one has a right to conceal his true opinions, and to\npractice equivocal conformities, then all have a right. One plea for\nexemption is in this case as good as another, and no better. That he has\nmarried a wife, that he has bought a yoke of oxen and must prove them,\nthat he has bidden guests to a feast--one excuse lies on the same level\nas the rest. All are equally worthless as answers to the generous\nsolicitation of enlightened conscience. Suppose, then, that each man on\nwhom in turn the new ideas dawned wore to borrow the compromiser's plea\nand imitate his example. We know what would happen. The exploit in\nwhich no one will consent to go first, remains unachieved. You wait\nuntil there are persons enough agreeing with you to form an effective\nparty? But how are the members of the band to know one another, if all\nare to keep their dissent from the old, and their adherence to the new,\nrigorously private? And how many members constitute the innovating band\nan effective force! When one-half of the attendants at a church are\nunbelievers, will that warrant us in ceasing to attend, or shall we\ntarry until the dissemblers number two-thirds? Conceive the additions\nwhich your caution has made to the moral integrity of the community in\nthe meantime. Measure the enormous hindrances that will have been placed\nin the way of truth and improvement, when the day at last arrives on\nwhich you and your two-thirds take heart to say that falsehood and abuse\nhave now reached their final term, and must at length be swept away into\nthe outer darkness. Consider how much more terrible the shock of change\nwill be when it does come, and how much less able will men be to meet\nit, and to emerge successfully from it.\n\nPerhaps the compromiser shrinks, not because he fears to march alone,\nbut because he thinks that the time has not yet come for the progressive\nidea which he has made his own, and for whose triumph one day he\nconfidently hopes. This plea may mean two wholly different states of the\ncase. The time has not yet come for what? For making those positive\nchanges in life or institution, which the change in idea must ultimately\ninvolve? That is one thing. Or for propagating, elaborating, enforcing\nthe new idea, and strenuously doing all that one can to bring as many\npeople as possible to a state of theory, which will at last permit the\nrequisite change in practice to be made with safety and success? This is\nanother and entirely different thing. The time may not have come for the\nfirst of these two courses. The season may not be advanced enough for us\nto push on to active conquest. But the time has always come, and the\nseason is never unripe, for the announcement of the fruitful idea.\n\nWe must go further than that. In so far as it can be done by one man\nwithout harming his neighbours, the time has always come for the\nrealisation of an idea. When the change in way of living or in\ninstitution is one which requires the assent and co-operation of numbers\nof people, it may clearly be a matter for question whether men enough\nare ready to yield assent and co-operation. But the expression of the\nnecessity of the change and the grounds of it, though it may not always\nbe appropriate, can never be premature, and for these reasons. The fact\nof a new idea having come to one man is a sign that it is in the air.\nThe innovator is as much the son of his generation as the conservative.\nHeretics have as direct a relation to antecedent conditions as the\northodox. Truth, said Bacon, has been rightly named the daughter of\nTime. The new idea does not spring up uncaused and by miracle. If it has\ncome to me, there must be others to whom it has only just missed coming.\nIf I have found my way to the light, there must be others groping after\nit very close in my neighbourhood. My discovery is their goal. They are\nprepared to receive the new truth, which they were not prepared to find\nfor themselves. The fact that the mass are not yet ready to receive, any\nmore than to find, is no reason why the possessor of the new truth\nshould run to hide under a bushel the candle which has been lighted for\nhim. If the time has not come for them, at least it has come for him. No\nman can ever know whether his neighbours are ready for change or not. He\nhas all the following certainties, at least:--that he himself is ready\nfor the change; that he believes it would be a good and beneficent one;\nthat unless some one begins the work of preparation, assuredly there\nwill be no consummation; and that if he declines to take a part in the\nmatter, there can be no reason why every one else in turn should not\ndecline in like manner, and so the work remain for ever unperformed. The\ncompromiser who blinds himself to all those points, and acts just as if\nthe truth were not in him, does for ideas with which he agrees, the very\nthing which the acute persecutor does for ideas which he dislikes--he\nextinguishes beginnings and kills the germs.\n\n\nThe consideration on which so many persons rely, that an existing\ninstitution, though destined to be replaced by a better, performs useful\nfunctions provisionally, is really not to the point. It is an excellent\nreason why the institution should not be removed or fundamentally\nmodified, until public opinion is ripe for the given piece of\nimprovement. But it is no reason at all why those who are anxious for\nthe improvement, should speak and act just as they would do if they\nthought the change perfectly needless and undesirable. It is no reason\nwhy those who allow the provisional utility of a belief or an\ninstitution or a custom of living, should think solely of the utility\nand forget the equally important element of its provisionalness. For the\nfact of its being provisional is the very ground why every one who\nperceives this element, should set himself to act accordingly. It is the\nground why he should set himself, in other words, to draw opinion in\nevery way open to him--by speech, by voting, by manner of life and\nconduct--in the direction of new truth and the better practice. Let us\nnot, because we deem a thing to be useful for the hour, act as if it\nwere to be useful for ever. The people who selfishly seek to enjoy as\nmuch comfort and ease as they can in an existing state of things, with\nthe desperate maxim, 'After us, the deluge,' are not any worse than\nthose who cherish present comfort and case and take the world as it\ncomes, in the fatuous and self-deluding hope, 'After us, the\nmillennium.' Those who make no sacrifice to avert the deluge, and those\nwho make none to hasten their millennium, are on the same moral level.\nAnd the former have at least the quality of being no worse than their\navowed principle, while the latter nullify their pretended hopes by\nconformities which are only proper either to profound social\ncontentment, or to profound social despair. Nay, they seem to think that\nthere is some merit in this merely speculative hopefulness. They act as\nif they supposed that to be very sanguine about the general improvement\nof mankind, is a virtue that relieves them from taking trouble about any\nimprovement in particular.\n\nIf those who defend a given institution are doing their work well, that\nfurnishes the better reason why those who disapprove of it and\ndisbelieve in its enduring efficacy, should do their work well also.\nTake the Christian churches, for instance. Assume, if you will, that\nthey are serving a variety of useful functions. If that were all, it\nwould be a reason for conforming. But we are speaking of those for whom\nthe matter does not end here. If you are convinced that the dogma is not\ntrue; that a steadily increasing number of persons are becoming aware\nthat it is not true; that its efficacy as a basis of spiritual life is\nbeing lowered in the same degree as its credibility; that both dogma and\nchurch must be slowly replaced by higher forms of faith, if not also by\nmore effective organisations; then, all who hold such views as these\nhave as distinctly a function in the community as the ministers and\nupholders of the churches, and the zeal of the latter is simply the most\nmonstrously untenable apology that could be invented for dereliction of\nduty by the former.\n\nIf the orthodox to some extent satisfy certain of the necessities of the\npresent, there are other necessities of the future which can only be\nsatisfied by those who now pass for heretical. The plea which we are\nexamining, if it is good for the purpose for which it is urged, would\nhave to be expressed in this way:--The institution is working as\nperfectly as it can be made to do, or as any other in its place would be\nlikely to do, and therefore I will do nothing by word or deed towards\nmeddling with it. Those who think this, and act accordingly, are the\nconsistent conservatives of the community. If a man takes up any\nposition short of this, his conformity, acquiescence, and inertia at\nonce become inconsistent and culpable. For unless the institution or\nbelief is entirely adequate, it must be the duty of all who have\nsatisfied themselves that it is not so, to recognise its deficiences,\nand at least to call attention to them, even if they lack opportunity or\ncapacity to suggest remedies. Now we are dealing with persons who, from\nthe hypothesis, do not admit that this or that factor in an existing\nsocial state secures all the advantages which might be secured if\ninstead of that factor there were some other. We are speaking of all the\nvarious kinds of dissidents, who think that the current theology, or an\nestablished church, or a monarchy, or an oligarchic republic, is a bad\nthing and a lower form, even at the moment while they attribute\nprovisional merit to it. They can mean nothing by classing each of\nthese as bad things, except that they either bring with them certain\nserious drawbacks, or exclude certain valuable advantages. The fact that\nthey perform their functions well, such as they are, leaves the\nfundamental vice or defect of these functions just where it was. If any\none really thinks that the current theology involves depraved notions of\nthe supreme impersonation of good, restricts and narrows the\nintelligence, misdirects the religious imagination, and has become\npowerless to guide conduct, then how does the circumstance that it\nhappens not to be wholly and unredeemedly bad in its influence, relieve\nour dissident from all care or anxiety as to the points in which, as we\nhave seen, he does count it inadequate and mischievous? Even if he\nthinks it does more good than harm--a position which must be very\ndifficult for one who believes the common supernatural conception of it\nto be entirely false--even then, how is he discharged from the duty of\nstigmatising the harm which he admits that it does?\n\nAgain, take the case of the English monarchy. Grant, if you will, that\nthis institution has a certain function, and that by the present chief\nmagistrate this function is estimably performed. Yet if we are of those\nwho believe that in the stage of civilisation which England has reached\nin other matters, the monarchy must be either obstructive and injurious,\nor else merely decorative; and that a merely decorative monarchy tends\nin divers ways to engender habits of abasement, to nourish lower social\nideals, to lessen a high civil self-respect in the community; then it\nmust surely be our duty not to lose any opportunity of pressing these\nconvictions. To do this is not necessarily to act as if one were anxious\nfor the immediate removal of the throne and the crown into the museum of\npolitical antiquities. We may have no urgent practical solicitude in\nthis direction, on the intelligible principle that a free people always\ngets as good a kind of government as it deserves. Our conviction is not,\non the present hypothesis, that monarchy ought to be swept away in\nEngland, but that monarchy produces certain mischievous consequences to\nthe public spirit of the community. And so what we are bound to do is to\ntake care not to conceal this conviction; to abstain scrupulously from\nall kinds of action and observance, public or private, which tend ever\nso remotely to foster the ignoble and degrading elements that exist in a\ncourt and spread from it outwards; and to use all the influence we have,\nhowever slight it may be, in loading public opinion to a right attitude\nof contempt and dislike for these ignoble and degrading elements, and\nthe conduct engendered by them. A policy like this does not interfere\nwith the advantages of the monarchy, such as they are asserted to be,\nand it has the effect of making what are supposed to be its\ndisadvantages as little noxious as possible. The question whether we can\nget others to agree with us is not relevant. If we were eager for\ninstant overthrow, it would be the most relevant of all questions. But\nwe are in the preliminary stage, the stage for acting on opinion. The\nfact that others do not yet share our opinion, is the very reason for\nour action. We can only bring them to agree with us, if it be possible\non any terms, by persistency in our principles. This persistency, in all\nbut either very timid or very vulgar natures, always has been and\nalways will be independent of external assent or co-operation. The\nhistory of success, as we can never too often repeat to ourselves, is\nthe history of minorities. And what is more, it is for the most part the\nhistory of insurrection exactly against what the worldly spirits of the\ntime, whenever it may have been, deemed mere trifles and accidents, with\nwhich sensible men should on no account dream of taking the trouble to\nquarrel.\n\n'Halifax,' says Macaulay, 'was in speculation a strong republican and\ndid not conceal it. He often made hereditary monarchy and aristocracy\nthe subjects of his keen pleasantry, while he was fighting the battles\nof the court and obtaining for himself step after step in the peerage.'\nWe are perfectly familiar with this type, both in men who have, and men\nwho have not, such brilliant parts as Halifax. Such men profess to\nnourish high ideals of life, of character, of social institutions. Yet\nthey never think of these ideals, when they are deciding what is\npractically attainable. One would like to ask them what purpose is\nserved by an ideal, if it is not to make a guide for practice and a\nlandmark in dealing with the real. A man's loftiest and most ideal\nnotions must be of a singularly ethereal and, shall we not say,\nsenseless kind, if he can never see how to take a single step that may\ntend in the slightest degree towards making them more real. If an ideal\nhas no point of contact with what exists, it is probably not much more\nthan the vapid outcome of intellectual or spiritual self-indulgence. If\nit has such a point of contact, then there is sure to be something which\na man can do towards the fulfilment of his hopes. He cannot substitute a\nnew national religion for the old, but he can at least do something to\nprevent people from supposing that the adherents of the old are more\nnumerous than they really are, and something to show them that good\nideas are not all exhausted by the ancient forms. He cannot transform a\nmonarchy into a republic, but he can make sure that one citizen at least\nshall aim at republican virtues, and abstain from the debasing\ncomplaisance of the crowd.\n\n\n'It is a very great mistake, said Burke, many years before the French\nRevolution is alleged, and most unreasonably alleged, to have alienated\nhim from liberalism: 'it is a very great mistake to imagine that\nmankind follow up practically any speculative principle, either of\ngovernment or of freedom, as far as it will go in argument and logical\nillation. All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment,\nevery virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and\nbarter. We balance inconveniences; we give and take;--we remit some\nrights that we may enjoy others.... Man acts from motives relative to\nhis interests; and not on metaphysical speculations.[29] These are the\nwords of wisdom and truth, if we can be sure that men will interpret\nthem in all the fulness of their meaning, and not be content to take\nonly that part of the meaning which falls in with the dictates of their\nown love of ease. In France such words ought to be printed in capitals\non the front of every newspaper, and written up in letters of burnished\ngold over each faction of the Assembly, and on the door of every bureau\nin the Administration. In England they need a commentary which shall\nbring out the very simple truth, that compromise and barter do not mean\nthe undisputed triumph of one set of principles. Nor, on the other hand,\ndo they mean the mutilation of both sets of principles, with a view to\nproducing a _tertium quid_ that shall involve the disadvantages of each,\nwithout securing the advantages of either. What Burke means is that we\nought never to press our ideas up to their remotest logical issues,\nwithout reference to the conditions in which we are applying them. In\npolitics we have an art. Success in politics, as in every other art,\nobviously before all else implies both knowledge of the material with\nwhich we have to deal, and also such concession as is necessary to the\nqualities of the material. Above all, in politics we have an art in\nwhich development depends upon small modifications. That is the true\nside of the conservative theory. To hurry on after logical perfection is\nto show one's self ignorant of the material of that social structure\nwith which the politician has to deal. To disdain anything short of an\norganic change in thought or institution in infatuation. To be willing\nto make such changes too frequently, even when they are possible, is\nfoolhardiness. That fatal French saying about small reforms being the\nworst enemies of great reforms is, in the sense in which it is commonly\nused, a formula of social ruin.\n\nOn the other hand, let us not forget that there is a sense in which this\nvery saying is profoundly true. A small and temporary improvement may\nreally be the worst enemy of a great and permanent improvement, unless\nthe first is made on the lines and in the direction of the second. And\nso it may, if it be successfully palmed off upon a society as actually\nbeing the second. In such a case as this, and our legislation presents\ninstances of the kind, the small reform, if it be not made with\nreference to some large progressive principle and with a view to further\nextension of its scope, makes it all the more difficult to return to the\nright line and direction when improvement is again demanded. To take an\nexample which is now very familiar to us all. The Education Act of 1870\nwas of the nature of a small reform. No one pretends that it is anything\napproaching to a final solution of a complex problem. But the government\ninsisted, whether rightly or wrongly, that their Act was as large a\nmeasure as public opinion was at that moment ready to support. At the\nsame time it was clearly agreed among the government and the whole of\nthe party at their backs, that at some time or other, near or remote, if\npublic instruction was to be made genuinely effective, the private,\nvoluntary, or denominational system would have to be replaced by a\nnational system. To prepare for this ultimate replacement was one of the\npoints to be most steadily borne in mind, however slowly and tentatively\nthe process might be conducted. Instead of that, the authors of the Act\ndeliberately introduced provisions for extending and strengthening the\nvery system which will have eventually to be superseded. They thus by\ntheir small reform made the future great reform the more difficult of\nachievement. Assuredly this is not the compromise and barter, the give\nand take, which Burke intended. What Burke means by compromise, and what\nevery true statesman understands by it, is that it may be most\ninexpedient to meddle with an institution merely because it does not\nharmonise with 'argument and logical illation.' This is a very different\nthing from giving new comfort and strength with one hand, to an\ninstitution whose death-warrant you pretend to be signing with the\nother.\n\nIn a different way the second possible evil of a small reform may be\nequally mischievous--where the small reform is represented as settling\nthe question. The mischief here is not that it takes us out of the\nprogressive course, as in the case we have just been considering, but\nthat it sets men's minds in a posture of contentment, which is not\njustified by the amount of what has been done, and which makes it all\nthe harder to arouse them to new effort when the inevitable time\narrives.\n\nIn these ways, then, compromise may mean, not acquiescence in an\ninstalment, on the ground that the time is not ripe to yield us more\nthan an instalment, but either the acceptance of the instalment as\nfinal, followed by the virtual abandonment of hope and effort; or else\nit may mean a mistaken reversal of direction, which augments the\ndistance that has ultimately to be traversed. In either of these senses,\nthe small reform may become the enemy of the great one. But a right\nconception of political method, based on a rightly interpreted\nexperience of the conditions on which societies unite progress with\norder, leads the wise conservative to accept the small change, lest a\nworse thing befall him, and the wise innovator to seize the chance of a\nsmall improvement, while incessantly working in the direction of great\nones. The important thing is that throughout the process neither of them\nshould lose sight of his ultimate ideal; nor fail to look at the detail\nfrom the point of view of the whole; nor allow the near particular to\nbulk so unduly large as to obscure the general and distant.\n\nIf the process seems intolerably slow, we may correct our impatience by\nlooking back upon the past. People seldom realise the enormous period of\ntime which each change in men's ideas requires for its full\naccomplishment. We speak of these changes with a peremptory kind of\ndefiniteness, as if they had covered no more than the space of a few\nyears. Thus we talk of the time of the Reformation, as we might talk of\nthe Reform Bill or the Repeal of the Corn Duties. Yet the Reformation is\nthe name for a movement of the mind of northern Europe, which went on\nfor three centuries. Then if we turn to that still more momentous set\nof events, the rise and establishment of Christianity, one might suppose\nfrom current speech that we could fix that within a space of half a\ncentury or so. Yet it was at least four hundred years before all the\nfoundations of that great superstructure of doctrine and organisation\nwere completely laid. Again, to descend to less imposing occurrences,\nthe transition in the Eastern Empire from the old Roman system of\nnational organisation to that other system to which we give the specific\nname of Byzantine,--this transition, so infinitely less important as it\nwas than either of the two other movements, yet occupied no less than a\ncouple of hundred years. The conditions of speech make it indispensable\nfor us to use definite and compendious names for movements that were\nboth tardy and complex. We are forced to name a long series of events as\nif they were a single event. But we lose the reality of history, we fail\nto recognise one of the most striking aspects of human affairs, and\nabove all we miss that most invaluable practical lesson, the lesson of\npatience, unless we remember that the great changes of history took up\nlong periods of time which, when measured by the little life of a man,\nare almost colossal, like the vast changes of geology. We know how long\nit takes before a species of plant or animal disappears in face of a\nbetter adapted species. Ideas and customs, beliefs and institutions,\nhave always lingered just as long in face of their successors, and the\ncompetition is not less keen nor less prolonged, because it is for one\nor other inevitably destined to be hopeless. History, like geology,\ndemands the use of the imagination, and in proportion as the exercise of\nthe historic imagination is vigorously performed in thinking of the\npast, will be the breadth of our conception of the changes which the\nfuture has in store for us, as well as of the length of time and the\nmagnitude of effort required for their perfect achievement[30].\n\nThis much, concerning moderation in political practice. No such\nconsiderations present themselves in the matters which concern the\nshaping of our own lives, or the publications of our social opinions. In\nthis region we are not imposing charges upon others, either by law or\notherwise. We therefore owe nothing to the prejudices or habits of\nothers. If any one sets serious value upon the point of difference\nbetween his own ideal and that which is current, if he thinks that his\n'experiment in living' has promise of real worth, and that if more\npersons could be induced to imitate it, some portion of mankind would be\nthus put in possession of a better kind of happiness, then it is selling\na birthright for a mess of pottage to abandon hopes so rich and\ngenerous, merely in order to avoid the passing and casual penalties of\nsocial disapproval. And there is a double evil in this kind of flinching\nfrom obedience to the voice of our better selves, whether it takes the\nform of absolute suppression of what we think and hope, or only of\ntimorous and mutilated presentation. We lose not only the possible\nadvantage of the given change. Besides that, we lose also the certain\nadvantage of maintaining or increasing the amount of conscientiousness\nin the world. And everybody can perceive the loss incurred in a society\nwhere diminution of the latter sort takes place. The advance of the\ncommunity depends not merely on the improvement and elevation of its\nmoral maxima, but also on the quickening of moral sensibility. The\nlatter work has mostly been effected, when it has been effected on a\nlarge scale, by teachers of a certain singular personal quality. They do\nnothing to improve the theory of conduct, but they have the art of\nstimulating men to a more enthusiastic willingness to rise in daily\npractice to the requirements of whatever theory they may accept. The\nlove of virtue, of duty, of holiness, or by whatever name we call this\npowerful sentiment, exists in the majority of men, where it exists at\nall, independently of argument. It is a matter of affection, sympathy,\nassociation, aspiration. Hence, even while, in quality, sense of duty is\na stationary factor, it is constantly changing in quantity. The amount\nof conscience in different communities, or in the same community at\ndifferent times, varies infinitely. The immediate cause of the decline\nof a society in the order of morals is a decline in the quantity of its\nconscience, a deadening of its moral sensitiveness, and not a\ndepravation of its theoretical ethics. The Greeks became corrupt and\nenfeebled, not for lack of ethical science, but through the decay in the\nnumbers of those who were actually alive to the reality and force of\nethical obligations. Mahometans triumphed over Christians in the East\nand in Spain--if we may for a moment isolate moral conditions from the\nrest of the total circumstances--not because their scheme of duty was\nmore elevated or comprehensive, but because their respect for duty was\nmore strenuous and fervid.\n\nThe great importance of leaving this priceless element in a community\nas free, as keen, and as active as possible, is overlooked by the\nthinkers who uphold coercion against liberty, as a saving social\nprinciple. Every act of coercion directed against an opinion or a way of\nliving is in so far calculated to lessen the quantity of conscience in\nthe society where such acts are practised. Of course, where ways of\nliving interfere with the lawful rights of others, where they are not\nstrictly self-regarding in all their details, it is necessary to force\nthe dissidents, however strong may be their conscientious sentiment. The\nevil of attenuating that sentiment is smaller than the evil of allowing\none set of persons to realise their own notions of happiness, at the\nexpense of all the rest of the world. But where these notions can be\nrealised without unlawful interference of that kind, then the forcible\nhindrance of such realisation is a direct weakening of the force and\namount of conscience on which the community may count. There is one\nmemorable historic case to illustrate this. Lewis XIV., in revoking the\nEdict of Nantes, and the author of the still more cruel law of 1724, not\nonly violently drove out multitudes of the most scrupulous part of the\nFrench nation; they virtually offered the most tremendous bribes to\nthose of less stern resolution, to feign conversion to the orthodox\nfaith. This was to treat conscience as a thing of mean value. It was to\nscatter to the wind with both hands the moral resources of the\ncommunity. And who can fail to see the strength which would have been\ngiven to France in her hour of storm, a hundred years after the\nrevocation of the Edict of Nantes, if her protestant sons, fortified by\nthe training in the habits of individual responsibility which\nprotestantism involves, had only been there to aid?\n\n\nThis consideration brings us to a new side of the discussion. We may\nseem to have been unconsciously arguing as strongly in favour of a\nvigorous social conservatism as of a self-asserting spirit of social\nimprovement. All that we have been saying may appear to cut both ways.\nIf the innovator should decline to practise silence or reserve, why\nshould the possessor of power be less uncompromising, and why should he\nnot impose silence by force? If the heretic ought to be uncompromising\nin expressing his opinions, and in acting upon them, in the fulness of\nhis conviction that they are right, why should not the orthodox be\nequally uncompromising in his resolution to stamp out the heretical\nnotions and unusual ways of living, in the fulness of his conviction\nthat they are thoroughly wrong? To this question the answer is that the\nhollow kinds of compromise are as bad in the orthodox as in the\nheretical. Truth has as much to gain from sincerity and thoroughness in\none as in the other. But the issue between the partisans of the two\nopposed schools turns upon the sense which we design to give to the\nprocess of stamping out. Those who cling to the tenets of liberty limit\nthe action of the majority, as of the minority, strictly to persuasion.\nThose who dislike liberty, insist that earnestness of conviction\njustifies either a majority or a minority in using not persuasion only,\nbut force. I do not propose here to enter into the great question which\nMr. Mill pressed anew upon the minds of this generation. His arguments\nare familiar to every reader, and the conclusion at which he arrived is\nalmost taken for a postulate in the present essay.[31] The object of\nthese chapters is to reiterate the importance of self-assertion,\ntenacity, and positiveness of principle. The partisan of coercion will\nargue that this thesis is on one side of it a justification of\npersecution, and other modes of interfering with new opinions and new\nways of living by force, and the strong arm of the law, and whatever\nother energetic means of repression may be at command. If the minority\nare to be uncompromising alike in seeking and realising what they take\nfor truth, why not the majority? Now this implies two propositions. It\nis the same as to say, first, that earnestness of conviction is not to\nbe distinguished from a belief in our own infallibility; second, that\nfaith in our infallibility is necessarily bound up with intolerance.\n\nNeither of these propositions is true. Let us take them in turn.\nEarnestness of conviction is perfectly compatible with a sense of\nliability to error. This has been so excellently put by a former writer\nthat we need not attempt to better his exposition. 'Every one must, of\ncourse, think his own opinions right; for if he thought them wrong, they\nwould no longer be his opinions: but there is a wide difference between\nregarding ourselves as infallible, and being firmly convinced of the\ntruth of our creed. When a man reflects on any particular doctrine, he\nmay be impressed with a thorough conviction of the improbability or even\nimpossibility of its being false: and so he may feel with regard to all\nhis other opinions, when he makes them objects of separate\ncontemplation. And yet when he views them in the aggregate, when he\nreflects that not a single being on the earth holds collectively the\nsame, when he looks at the past history and present state of mankind,\nand observes the various creeds of different ages and nations, the\npeculiar modes of thinking of sects and bodies and individuals, the\nnotions once firmly held, which have been exploded, the prejudices once\nuniversally prevalent, which have been removed, and the endless\ncontroversies which have distracted those who have made it the business\nof their lives to arrive at the truth; and when he further dwells on\nthe consideration that many of these, his fellow-creatures, have had a\nconviction of the justness of their respective sentiments equal to his\nown, he cannot help the obvious inference, that in his own opinion it is\nnext to impossible that there is not an admixture of error; that there\nis an infinitely greater probability of his being wrong in some than\nright in all.'[32]\n\nOf course this is not an account of the actual frame of mind of ordinary\nmen. They never do think of their opinions in the aggregate in\ncomparison with the collective opinions of others, nor ever draw the\nconclusions which such reflections would suggest. But such a frame of\nmind is perfectly attainable, and has often been attained, by persons of\nfar lower than first-rate capacity. And if this is so, there is no\nreason why it should not be held up for the admiration and imitation of\nall those classes of society which profess to have opinions. It would\nthus become an established element in the temper of the age. Nor need we\nfear that the result of this would be any flaccidity of conviction, or\nlethargy in act. A man would still be penetrated with the rightness of\nhis own opinion on a given issue, and would still do all that he could\nto make it prevail in practice. But among the things which he would no\nlonger permit himself to do, would be the forcible repression in others\nof any opinions, however hostile to his own, or of any kind of conduct,\nhowever widely it diverged from his own, and provided that it concerned\nthemselves only. This widening of his tolerance would be the natural\nresult of a rational and realised consciousness of his own general\nfallibility.\n\nNext, even belief in one's own infallibility does not necessarily lead\nto intolerance. For it may be said that though no man in his senses\nwould claim to be incapable of error, yet in every given case he is\nquite sure that he is not in error, and therefore this assurance in\nparticular is tantamount by process of cumulation to a sense of\ninfallibility in general. Now even if this were so, it would not of\nnecessity either produce or justify intolerance. The certainty of the\ntruth of your own opinions is independent of any special idea as to the\nmeans by which others may best be brought to share them. The question\nbetween persuasion and force remains apart--unless, indeed, we may say\nthat in societies where habits of free discussion have once begun to\ntake root, those who are least really sure about their opinions, are\noften most unwilling to trust to persuasion to bring them converts, and\nmost disposed to grasp the rude implements of coercion, whether legal or\nmerely social. The cry, 'Be my brother, or I slay thee,' was the sign of\na very weak, though very fiery, faith in the worth of fraternity. He\nwhose faith is most assured, has the best reason for relying on\npersuasion, and the strongest motive to thrust from him all temptations\nto use angry force. The substitution of force for persuasion, among its\nother disadvantages, has this further drawback, from our present point\nof view, that it lessens the conscience of a society and breeds\nhypocrisy. You have not converted a man, because you have silenced him.\nOpinion and force belong to different elements. To think that you are\nable by social disapproval or other coercive means to crush a man's\nopinion, is as one who should fire a blunderbuss to put out a star. The\nacquiescence in current notions which is secured by law or by petulant\nsocial disapproval, is as worthless and as essentially hypocritical, as\nthe conversion of an Irish pauper to protestantism by means of\nsoup-tickets, or that of a savage to Christianity by the gift of a\nstring of beads. Here is the radical fallacy of those who urge that\npeople must use promises and threats in order to encourage opinions,\nthoughts, and feelings which they think good, and to prevent others\nwhich they think bad. Promises and threats can influence acts. Opinions\nand thoughts on morals, politics, and the rest, after they have once\ngrown in a man's mind, can no more be influenced by promises and threats\nthan can my knowledge that snow is white or that ice is cold. You may\nimpose penalties on me by statute for saying that snow is white, or\nacting as if I thought ice cold, and the penalties may affect my\nconduct. They will not, because they cannot, modify my beliefs in the\nmatter by a single iota. One result therefore of intolerance is to make\nhypocrites. On this, as on the rest of the grounds which vindicate the\ndoctrine of liberty, a man who thought himself infallible either in\nparticular or in general, from the Pope of Rome down to the editor of\nthe daily newspaper, might still be inclined to abstain from any form of\ncompulsion. The only reason to the contrary is that a man who is so\nsilly as to think himself incapable of going wrong, is very likely to be\ntoo silly to perceive that coercion may be one way of going wrong.\n\nThe currency of the notion that earnest sincerity about one's opinions\nand ideals of conduct is inseparably connected with intolerance, is\nindirectly due to the predominance of legal or juristic analogies in\nsocial discussion. For one thing, the lawyer has to deal mainly with\nacts, and to deal with them by way of repression. His attention is\nprimarily fixed on the deed, and only secondarily on the mind of the\ndoer. And so a habit of thought is created, which treats opinion as\nsomething equally in the sphere of coercion with actions. At the same\ntime it favours coercive ways of affecting opinion. Then, what is still\nmore important, the jurist's conception of society has its root in the\nrelation between sovereign and subject, between lawmaker and those whom\nlaw restrains. Exertion of power on one hand, and compliance on the\nother--this is his type of the conditions of the social union. The\nfertility and advance of discussion on social issues depends on the\nsubstitution of the evolutional for the legal conception. The lawyer's\ntype of proposition is absolute. It is also, for various reasons which\nneed not be given here, inspired by involuntary reference to the lower,\nrather than to the more highly developed, social states. In the lower\nstates law, penalties, coercion, compulsion, the strong hand, a sternly\nrepressive public opinion, were the conditions on which the community\nwas united and held together. But the line of thought which these\nanalogies suggest, becomes less and less generally appropriate in social\ndiscussion, in proportion as the community becomes more complex, more\nvarious in resource, more special in its organisation, in a word, more\nelaborately civilised. The evolutionist's idea of society concedes to\nlaw its historic place and its actual part. But then this idea leads\ndirectly to a way of looking at society, which makes the replacement of\nlaw by liberty a condition of reaching the higher stages of social\ndevelopment.\n\nThe doctrine of liberty belongs to the subject of this chapter, because\nit is only another way of expressing the want of connection between\nearnestness in realising our opinions, and anything like coercion in\ntheir favour. If it were true that aversion from compromise, in carrying\nout our ideas, implied the rightfulness of using all the means in our\npower to hinder others from carrying out ideas hostile to them, then we\nshould have been preaching in a spirit unfavourable to the principle of\nliberty. Our main text has been that men should refuse to sacrifice\ntheir opinions and ways of living (in the self-regarding sphere) out of\nregard to the _status quo_, or the prejudices of others. And this, as a\nmatter of course, excludes the right of forcing or wishing any one else\nto make such a sacrifice to us. Well, the first foundation-stone for the\ndoctrine of liberty is to be sought in the conception of society as a\ngrowing and developing organism. This is its true base, apart from the\nnumerous minor expediencies which may be adduced to complete the\nstructure of the argument. It is fundamentally advantageous that in\nsocieties which have reached our degree of complex and intricate\norganisation, unfettered liberty should be conceded to ideas and, within\nthe self-regarding sphere, to conduct also. The reasons for this are of\nsome such kind as the following. New ideas and new 'experiments in\nliving' would not arise, if there were not a certain inadequateness in\nexisting ideas and ways of living. They may not point to the right mode\nof meeting inadequateness, but they do point to the existence and\nconsciousness of it. They originate in the social capability of growth.\nSociety can only develop itself on condition that all such novelties\n(within the limit laid down, for good and valid reasons, at self\nregarding conduct) are allowed to present themselves. First, because\nneither the legislature nor any one else can ever know for certain what\nnovelties will prove of enduring value. Second, because even if we did\nknow for certain that given novelties were pathological growths and not\nnormal developments, and that they never would be of any value, still\nthe repression necessary to extirpate them would involve too serious a\nrisk both of keeping back social growth at some other point, and of\ngiving the direction of that growth an irreparable warp. And let us\nrepeat once more, in proportion as a community grows more complex in its\nclasses, divisions, and subdivisions, more intricate in its productive,\ncommercial, or material arrangements, so does this risk very obviously\nwax more grave.\n\nIn the sense in which we are speaking of it, liberty is not a positive\nforce, any more than the smoothness of a railroad is a positive\nforce.[33] It is a condition. As a force, there is a sense in which it\nis true to call liberty a negation. As a condition, though it may still\nbe a negation, yet it may be indispensable for the production of certain\npositive results. The vacuity of an exhausted receiver is not a force,\nbut it is the indispensable condition of certain positive operations.\nLiberty as a force may be as impotent as its opponents allege. This does\nnot affect its value as a preliminary or accompanying condition. The\nabsence of a strait-waistcoat is a negation; but it is a useful\ncondition for the activity of sane men. No doubt there must be a\ndefinite limit to this absence of external interference with conduct,\nand that limit will be fixed at various points by different thinkers. We\nare now only urging that it cannot be wisely fixed for the more complex\nsocieties by any one who has not grasped this fundamental preconception,\nthat liberty, or the absence of coercion, or the leaving people to\nthink, speak, and act as they please, is in itself a good thing. It is\nthe object of a favourable presumption. The burden of proving it\ninexpedient always lies, and wholly lies, on those who wish to abridge\nit by coercion, whether direct or indirect.\n\nOne reason why this truth is so reluctantly admitted, is men's\nirrational want of faith in the self-protective quality of a highly\ndeveloped and healthy community. The timid compromiser on the one hand,\nand the advocate of coercive restriction on the other, are equally the\nvictims of a superfluous apprehension. The one fears to use his liberty\nfor the same reason that makes the other fearful of permitting liberty.\nThis common reason is the want of a sensible confidence that, in a free\nwestern community, which has reached our stage of development,\nreligious, moral, and social novelties--provided they are tainted by no\nelement of compulsion or interference with the just rights of others,\nmay be trusted to find their own level. Moral and intellectual\nconditions are not the only motive forces in a community, nor are they\neven the most decisive. Political and material conditions fix the limits\nat which speculation can do either good or harm. Let us take an\nillustration of the impotence of moral ideas to override material\ncircumstances; and we shall venture to place this illustration somewhat\nfully before the reader.\n\nThere is no more important distinction between modern civilised\ncommunities and the ancient communities than the fact that the latter\nrested on Slavery, while the former have abolished it. Hence there can\nhardly be a more interesting question than this--by what agencies so\nprodigious a transformation of one of the fundamental conditions of\nsociety was brought about. The popular answer is of a very ready kind,\nand it passes quite satisfactorily. This answer is that the first great\nstep towards free labour, the transformation of personal slavery into\nserfdom, was the result of the spiritual change which was wrought in\nmen's minds by the teaching of the Church. It is unquestionable that the\ninfluence of the Church tended to mitigate the evils of slavery, to\nhumanise the relations between master and slave, between the lord and\nthe serf. But this is a very different thing from the radical\ntransformation of those relations. If we think of society as an\norganism we instantly understand that so immense a change as this could\nnot possibly have been effected without the co-operation of the other\ngreat parts of the social system, any more than a critical evolution\ncould take place in the nutritive apparatus of an animal, without a\nchange in the whole series of its organs. Thus in order that serfage\nshould be evolved from slavery, and free labour again from serfage, it\ncould not be enough that an alteration should have been wrought in men's\nideas as to their common brotherhood, and the connected ideas as to the\nlawfulness or unlawfulness of certain human relations. There must have\nbeen an alteration also of the economic and material conditions. History\nconfirms the expectations which we should thus have been led to\nentertain. The impotence of spiritual and moral agencies alone in\nbringing about this great metamorphosis, is shown by such facts as\nthese. For centuries after the new faith had consolidated itself,\nslavery was regarded without a particle of that deep abhorrence which\nthe possession of man by man excites in us now. In the ninth and tenth\ncenturies the slave trade was the most profitable branch of the\ncommerce that was carried on in the Mediterranean. The historian tells\nus that, even so late as this, slaves were the principal article of\nEuropean export to Africa, Syria, and Egypt, in payment for the produce\nof the East which was brought from those countries. It was the crumbling\nof the old social system which, by reducing the population, lessening\nthe wealth, and lowering the standard of living among the free masters,\ntended to extinguish slavery, by diminishing the differences between the\nmasters and their bondsmen. Again, it was certain laws enacted by the\nRoman government for the benefit of the imperial fisc, which first\nconferred rights on the slave. The same laws brought the free farmer,\nwhose position was less satisfactory for the purposes of the revenue,\ndown nearer and nearer to a servile condition. Again, in the ninth and\ntenth centuries, pestilence and famine accelerated the extinction of\npredial slavery by weakening the numbers of the free population.\n'History,' we are told by that thoroughly competent authority, Mr.\nFinlay, 'affords its testimony that neither the doctrines of\nChristianity, nor the sentiments of humanity, have ever yet succeeded\nin extinguishing slavery, where the soil could be cultivated with profit\nby slave labour. No Christian community of slave-holders has yet\nvoluntarily abolished slavery. In no country where it prevailed has\nrural slavery ceased, until the price of productions raised by slave\nlabour has fallen so low as to leave no profit to the slave-owner.'\n\nThe moral of all this is the tolerably obvious truth, that the\nprosperity of an abstract idea depends as much on the medium into which\nit is launched, as upon any quality of its own. Stable societies are\namply furnished with force enough to resist all effort in a destructive\ndirection. There is seldom much fear, and in our own country there is\nhardly any fear at all, of hasty reformers making too much way against\nthe spontaneous conservatism which belongs to a healthy and\nwell-organised community. If dissolvent ideas do make their way, it is\nbecause the society was already ripe for dissolution. New ideas, however\nardently preached, will dissolve no society which was not already in a\ncondition of profound disorganisation. We may be allowed just to point\nto two memorable instances, by way of illustration, though a long and\nelaborate discussion would be needed to bring out their full force. It\nhas often been thought since, as it was thought by timorous\nreactionaries at the time, that Christianity in various ways sapped the\nstrength of the Roman Empire, and opened the way for the barbarians. In\ntruth, the most careful and competent students know now that the Empire\nslowly fell to pieces, partly because the political arrangements were\nvicious and inadequate, but mainly because the fiscal and economic\nsystem impoverished and depopulated one district of the vast empire\nafter another. It was the break-up of the Empire that gave the Church\nits chance; not the Church that broke up the Empire. It is a mistake of\nthe same kind to suppose that the destructive criticism of the French\nphilosophers a hundred years ago was the great operative cause of the\ncatastrophe which befel the old social r\u00e9gime. If Voltaire, Diderot,\nRousseau, had never lived, or if their works had all been suppressed as\nsoon as they were printed, their absence would have given no new life to\nagriculture, would not have stimulated trade, nor replenished the\nbankrupt fisc, nor incorporated the privileged classes with the bulk of\nthe nation, nor done anything else to repair an organisation of which\nevery single part had become incompetent for its proper function. It was\nthe material misery and the political despair engendered by the reigning\nsystem, which brought willing listeners to the feet of the teachers who\nframed beneficent governments on the simple principles of reason and the\nnatural law. And these teachers only busied themselves with abstract\npolitics, because the real situation was desperate. They had no\nalternative but to evolve social improvements out of their own\nconsciousness. There was not a single sound organ in the body politic,\nwhich they could have made the starting-point of a reconstitution of a\nsociety on the base of its actual or historic structure. The mischiefs\nwhich resulted from their method are patent and undeniable. But the\nmethod was made inevitable by the curse of the old r\u00e9gime.[34]\n\nNor is there any instance in history of mere opinion making a breach in\nthe essential constitution of a community, so long as the political\nconditions were stable and the economic or nutritive conditions sound.\nIf some absolute monarch were to be seized by a philanthropic resolution\nto transform the ordering of a society which seemed to be at his\ndisposal, he might possibly, by the perseverance of a lifetime, succeed\nin throwing the community into permanent confusion. Joseph II. perhaps\ndid as much as a modern sovereign can do in this direction. Yet little\ncame of his efforts, either for good or harm. But a man without the\nwhole political machinery in his power need hardly labour under any\napprehension that he may, by the mere force of speculative opinion,\ninvoluntarily work a corresponding mischief. If it is true that the most\nfervent apostles of progress usually do very little of the good on which\nthey congratulate themselves, they ought surely on the same ground to be\nacquitted of much of the harm for which they are sometimes reviled. In a\ncountry of unchecked and abundant discussion, a new idea is not at all\nlikely to make much way against the objection of its novelty, unless it\nis really commended by some quality of temporary or permanent value. So\nfar therefore as the mere publication of new principles is concerned,\nand so far also as merely self-regarding action goes, one who has the\nkeenest sense of social responsibility, and is most scrupulously afraid\nof doing anything to slacken or perturb the process of social growth,\nmay still consistently give to the world whatever ideas he has gravely\nembraced. He may safely trust, if the society be in a normal condition,\nto its justice of assimilation and rejection. There are a few\nindividuals for whom newness is a recommendation. But what are these\nfew among the many to whom newness is a stumbling-block? Old ideas may\nsurvive merely because they are old. A new one will certainly not, among\na considerable body of men in a healthy social state, gain any\nacceptance worth speaking of, merely because it is new.\n\nThe recognition of the self-protecting quality of society is something\nmore than a point of speculative importance. It has a direct practical\ninfluence. For it would add to the courage and intrepidity of the men\nwho are most attached to the reigning order of things. If such men could\nonly divest themselves of a futile and nervous apprehension, that things\nas they are have no root in their essential fitness and harmony, and\nthat order consequently is ever hanging on a trembling and doubtful\nbalance, they would not only gain by the self-respect which would be\nadded to them and the rest of the community, but all discussion would\nbecome more robust and real. If they had a larger faith in the stability\nfor which they profess so great an anxiety, they would be more free\nalike in understanding and temper to deal generously, honestly, and\neffectively with those whom they count imprudent innovators. There is\nnothing more amusing or more instructive than to turn to the debates in\nparliament or the press upon some innovating proposal, after an interval\nsince the proposal was accepted by the legislature. The flaming hopes of\nits friends, the wild and desperate prophecies of its antagonists, are\nfound to be each as ill-founded as the other. The measure which was to\ndo such vast good according to the one, such portentous evil according\nto the other, has done only a part of the promised good, and has done\nnone of the threatened evil. The true lesson from this is one of\nperseverance and thoroughness for the improver, and one of faith in the\nself-protectiveness of a healthy society for the conservative. The\nmaster error of the latter is to suppose that men are moved mainly by\ntheir passions rather than their interests, that all their passions are\npresumably selfish and destructive, and that their own interests can\nseldom be adequately understood by the persons most directly concerned.\nHow many fallacies are involved in this group of propositions, the\nreader may well be left to judge for himself.\n\nWe have in this chapter considered some of the limitations which are\nset by the conditions of society on the duty of trying to realise our\nprinciples in action. The general conclusion is in perfect harmony with\nthat of the previous chapters. A principle, if it be sound, represents\none of the larger expediencies. To abandon that for the sake of some\nseeming expediency of the hour, is to sacrifice the greater good for the\nless, on no more creditable ground than that the less is nearer. It is\nbetter to wait, and to defer the realisation of our ideas until we can\nrealise them fully, than to defraud the future by truncating them, if\ntruncate them we must, in order to secure a partial triumph for them in\nthe immediate present. It is better to bear the burden of\nimpracticableness, than to stifle conviction and to pare away principle\nuntil it becomes more hollowness and triviality. What is the sense, and\nwhat is the morality, of postponing the wider utility to the narrower?\nNothing is so sure to impoverish an epoch, to deprive conduct of\nnobleness, and character of elevation.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 27: _The Study of Sociology_, p. 396.]\n\n[Footnote 28: No one, for instance, has given more forcible or decisive\nexpression than Mr. Spencer has done to the duty of not passively\naccepting the current theology. See his _First Principles_, pt. i. ch.\nvi, \u00a7 34; paragraph beginning,--'Whoever hesitates to utter that which\nhe thinks the highest truth, lest it should be too much in advance of\nthe time, may reassure himself by looking at his acts from an impersonal\npoint of view,' etc.]\n\n[Footnote 29: _Speech on Conciliation with America_.]\n\n[Footnote 30: 'Toute \u00e9normit\u00e9 dans les esprits d'un certain ordre n'est\nsouvent qu'une grande vue prise hors du temps et du lieu, et ne gardant\naucun rapport r\u00e9el avec les objets environnants. Le propre de certaines\nprunelles ardentes est de franchir du regard les intervalles et de les\nsupprimer. Tant\u00f4t c'est une id\u00e9e qui retarde de plusieurs si\u00e8cles, et\nque ces vigoureux esprits se figurent encore pr\u00e9sente et vivante; tant\u00f4t\nc'est une id\u00e9e qui avance, et qu'ils croient incontinent r\u00e9alisable. M.\nde Coua\u00ebn \u00e9tait ainsi; il voyait 1814 d\u00e8s 1804, et de l\u00e0 une\nsup\u00e9riorit\u00e9; mais il jugeait 1814 possible d\u00e8s 1804 ou 1805, et de l\u00e0\ntout un chim\u00e9rique entassement.--Voil\u00e0 un point blanc \u00e0 l'horizon,\nchacun jurerait que c'est un nuage. \"C'est une montagne,\" dit le\nvoyageur \u00e0 l'oeil d'aigle; mais s'il ajoute: \"Nous y arriverons ce soir,\ndans deux heures;\" si, \u00e0 chaque heure de marche, il crie avec\nemportement: \"Nous y sommes,\" et le veut d\u00e9montrer, il choque les\nvoisins avec sa poutre, et donne l'avantage aux yeux moins per\u00e7ants et\nplus habitu\u00e9s \u00e0 la plaine.'--Ste. Beuve's _Volupt\u00e9_, p. 262]\n\n[Footnote 31: It is sometimes convenient to set familiar arguments down\nonce more; so I venture to reprint in a note at the end of the chapter a\nshort exposition of the doctrine of liberty, which I had occasion to\nmake in considering Sir J.F. Stephen's vigorous attack on that\ndoctrine.]\n\n[Footnote 32: Mr. Samuel Bailey's _Essays on the Formation and\nPublication of Opinions_, etc., p. 138, (1826.)]\n\n[Footnote 33: There is a sense, and a most important sense, in which\nliberty is a positive force. It is its robust and bracing influence on\ncharacter, which makes wise men prize freedom and strive for the\nenlargement of its province. As Mr. Mill expressed this:--'It is of\nimportance not only what men do, but what manner of men they are that do\nit,' Milton pointed to the positive effect of liberty on character in\nthe following passage:--'They are not skilful considerers of human\nthings who imagine to remove sin by removing the matter of sin. Though\nye take from a covetous man his treasure, he has yet one jewel left; ye\ncannot bereave him of his covetousness. Banish all objects of lust, shut\nup all youth into the severest discipline that can be exercised in any\nhermitage, ye cannot make them chaste that came not thither so. Suppose\nwe could expel sin by this means; look how much we thus expel of sin, so\nmuch we expel of virtue. And were I the chooser, a dram of well-doing\nshould be preferred before many times as much the forcible hindrance of\nevil-doing. For God sure esteems the growth and completing of one\nvirtuous person, more than the restraint of ten vicious.']\n\n[Footnote 34: There is, I think, nothing in this paragraph really\ninconsistent with De Tocqueville's well-known and striking chapter,\n'Comment les hommes de lettres devinrent les principaux hommes\npolitiques du pays, et des effets qui en r\u00e9sult\u00e8rent.' (_Ancien R\u00e9gime_,\niii. i.) Thus S\u00e9nac de Meilhan writes in 1795;--'C'est quand la\nR\u00e9volution a \u00e9t\u00e9 entam\u00e9e qu'on a cherch\u00e9 dans Mably, dans Rousseau, des\narmes pour sustenter le syst\u00e8me vers lequel entrainait l'effervescence\nde quelques esprits hardis. Mais ce ne sont point les auteurs que j'ai\ncit\u00e9s qui ont enflamme les t\u00eates; M. Necker seul a produit cet effet, et\nd\u00e9termin\u00e9 l'explosion,' ... 'Les \u00e9crits de Voltaire ont certainement nui\n\u00e0 la religion, et \u00e9branl\u00e9 la croyance dans un assez grand nombre; mais\nils n'ont aucun rapport avec les affaires du gouvernement, et sont plus\nfavorables que contraires \u00e0 la monarchie....' Of Rousseau's _Social\nContract_:--'Ce livre profond et abstrait \u00e9tait peu lu, et etendu de\nbien peu de gens.' Mably--'avait peu de vogue.' _De Gouvernment, etc.,\nen France_, p. 129, etc.]\n\n\n\n\nNOTE TO PAGE 242.\n\n\nTHE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY.\n\nMr. Mill's memorable plea for social liberty was little more than an\nenlargement, though a very important enlargement, of the principles of\nthe still more famous Speech for Liberty of Unlicensed Printing with\nwhich Milton ennobled English literature two centuries before. Milton\ncontended for free publication of opinion mainly on these grounds:\nFirst, that the opposite system implied the 'grace of infallibility and\nincorruptibleness' in the licensers. Second, that the prohibition of\nbold books led to mental indolence and stagnant formalism both in\nteachers and congregations, producing the 'laziness of a licensing\nchurch.' Third, that it 'hinders and retards the importation of our\nrichest merchandise, truth;' for the commission of the licenser enjoins\nhim to let nothing pass which is not vulgarly received already, and 'if\nit come to prohibiting, there is not aught more likely to be prohibited\nthan truth itself, whose first appearance to our eyes, bleared and\ndimmed with prejudice and custom, is more unsightly and unplausible\nthan many errors, even as the person is of many a great man slight and\ncontemptible to see to.' Fourth, that freedom is in itself an ingredient\nof true virtue, and 'they are not skilful considerers of human things\nwho imagine to remove sin by removing the matter of sin; that virtue\ntherefore, which is but a youngling in the contemplation of evil, and\nknows not the utmost that vice promises to her followers, and rejects\nit, is but a blank virtue, not a pure; her virtue is but an excremental\nvirtue, which was the reason why our sage and serious poet Spenser, whom\nI dare be known to think a better teacher than Scotus or Aquinas,\ndescribing true temperance under the form of Guion, brings him in with\nhis palmer through the cave of Mammon and the tower of earthly bliss,\nthat he might see and know and yet abstain.'\n\nThe four grounds on which Mr. Mill contends for the necessity of freedom\nin the expression of opinion to the mental wellbeing of mankind, are\nvirtually contained in these. His four grounds are, (1) that the\nsilenced opinion may be true; (2) it may contain a portion of truth,\nessential to supplement the prevailing opinion; (3) vigorous contesting\nof opinions that are even wholly true, is the only way of preventing\nthem from sinking to the level of uncomprehended prejudices; (4) without\nsuch contesting, the doctrine will lose its vital effect on character\nand conduct.\n\nBut Milton drew the line of liberty at what he calls 'neighbouring\ndifferences, or rather indifferences.' The Arminian controversy had\nloosened the bonds with which the newly liberated churches of the\nReformation, had made haste to bind themselves again, and weakened that\nauthority of confessions, which had replaced the older but not more\nintolerant authority of the universal church. Other controversies which\nraged during the first half of the seventeenth century,--those between\ncatholics and protestants, between prelatists and presbyterians, between\nsocinians and trinitarians, between latitudinarians, puritans, and\nsacramentalists,--all tended to weaken theological exclusiveness. This\nslackening, however, was no more than partial. Roger Williams, indeed,\nthe Welsh founder of Rhode Island, preached, as early as 1631, the\nprinciples of an unlimited toleration, extending to catholics, Jews, and\neven infidels. Milton stopped a long way short of this. He did not mean\n'tolerated popery and open superstition, which, as it extirpates all\nreligious and civil supremacies, so itself should be extirpate, provided\nfirst that all charitable and compassionate means be used to win and\nregain the weak and the misled: that also which is impious or evil\nabsolutely either against faith or manners no law can possibly permit\nthat intends not to unlaw itself.'\n\n\nLocke, writing five-and-forty years later, somewhat widened these\nlimitations. His question was not merely whether there should be free\nexpression of opinion, but whether there should furthermore be freedom\nof worship and of religious union. He answered both questions\naffirmatively,--not on the semi-sceptical ground of Jeremy Taylor, which\nis also one of the grounds taken by Mr. Mill, that we cannot be sure\nthat our own opinion is the true one,--but on the strength of his\ndefinition of the province of the civil magistrate. Locke held that the\nmagistrate's whole jurisdiction reached only to civil concernments, and\nthat 'all civil power, right, and dominion is bounded to that only care\nof promoting these things; and that it neither can nor ought in any\nmanner to be extended to the saving of souls. This chiefly because the\npower of the civil magistrate consists only in outward force, while true\nand saving religion consists in the inward persuasion of the mind,\nwithout which nothing can be acceptable to God, and such is the nature\nof the understanding that it cannot he compelled to the belief of\nanything by outward force.... It is only light and evidence that can\nwork a change in men's opinions; and that light can in no manner proceed\nfrom corporal sufferings, or any other outward penalties.' 'I may grow\nrich by an art that I take not delight in; I may be cured of some\ndisease by remedies that I have not faith in; but I cannot be saved by a\nreligion that at I distrust and a ritual that I abhor.' (_First Letter\nconcerning Toleration_.) And much more in the same excellent vein. But\nLocke fixed limits to toleration. 1. No opinions contrary to human\nsociety, or to those moral rules which are necessary to the preservation\nof civil society, are to be tolerated by the magistrate. Thus, to take\nexamples from our own day, a conservative minister would think himself\nright on this principle in suppressing the Land and Labour League; a\ncatholic minister in dissolving the Education League; and any minister\nin making mere membership of the Mormon sect a penal offence. 2. No\ntolerance ought to be extended to 'those who attribute unto the\nfaithful, religious, and orthodox, that is in plain terms unto\nthemselves, any peculiar privilege or power above other mortals, in\ncivil concernments; or who, upon pretence of religion, do challenge any\nmanner of authority over such as are not associated with them in their\necclesiastical communion.' As I have seldom heard of any sect, except\nthe Friends, who did not challenge as much authority as it could\npossibly get over persons not associated with it, this would amount to a\nuniversal proscription of religion; but Locke's principle might at any\nrate be invoked against Ultra-montanism in some circumstances. 3. Those\nare not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of God. The taking\naway of God, _though but even in thought_, dissolves all society; and\npromises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society,\nhave no hold on such. Thus the police ought to close Mr. Bradlaugh's\nHall of Science, and perhaps on some occasions the Positivist School.\n\nLocke's principles depended on a distinction between civil concernments,\nwhich he tries to define, and all other concernments. Warburton's\narguments on the alliance between church and state turned on the same\npoint, as did the once-famous Bangorian controversy. This distinction\nwould fit into Mr. Mill's cardinal position, which consists in a\ndistinction between the things that only affect the doer or thinker of\nthem, and the things that affect other persons as well. Locke's attempt\nto divide civil affairs from affairs of salvation, was satisfactory\nenough for the comparatively narrow object with which he opened his\ndiscussion. Mr. Mill's account of civil affairs is both wider and more\ndefinite; naturally so, as he had to maintain the cause of tolerance in\na much more complex set of social conditions, and amid a far greater\ndiversity of speculative energy, than any one dreamed of in Locke's\ntime. Mr. Mill limits the province of the civil magistrate to the\nrepression of acts that directly and immediately injure others than the\ndoer of them. So long as acts, including the expression of opinions, are\npurely self-regarding, it seems to him expedient in the long run that\nthey should not be interfered with by the magistrate. He goes much\nfurther than this. Self-regarding acts should not be interfered with by\nthe magistrate. Not only self-regarding acts, but all opinions\nwhatever, should, moreover, be as little interfered with as possible by\npublic opinion, except in the way of vigorous argumentation and earnest\npersuasion in a contrary direction; the silent but most impressive\nsolicitation of virtuous example; the wise and careful upbringing of the\nyoung, so that when they enter life they may be most nobly fitted to\nchoose the right opinions and obey the right motives.\n\nThe consideration by which he supports this rigorous confinement of\nexternal interference on the part of government, or the unorganised\nmembers of the community whose opinion is called public opinion, to\ncases of self-protection, are these, some of which have been already\nstated:--\n\n1. By interfering to suppress opinions or experiments in living, you may\nresist truths and improvements in a greater or less degree.\n\n2. Constant discussion is the only certain means of preserving the\nfreshness of truth in men's minds, and the vitality of its influence\nupon their conduct and motives.\n\n3. Individuality is one of the most valuable elements of wellbeing, and\nyou can only be sure of making the most of individuality, if you have an\natmosphere of freedom, encouraging free development and expansion.\n\n4. Habitual resort to repressive means of influencing conduct tends more\nthan anything else to discredit and frustrate the better means, such as\neducation, good example, and the like. (_Liberty_, 148.)\n\nThe principle which he deduces from these considerations is--'that the\nsole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively,\nin interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number is\nself-protection; the only purpose for which power can be rightfully\nexercised over any member of a civilised community, is to prevent harm\nto others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient\nwarrant. He cannot be rightfully compelled to do or forbear because it\nwill make him happier, because in the opinion of others to do so would\nbe wise or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with\nhim, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but\nnot for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil in case he do\notherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to\ndeter him must be calculated to produce evil to others.' (_Liberty_,\n22.)\n\n\nTwo disputable points in the above doctrine are likely at once to reveal\nthemselves to the least critical eye. First, that doctrine would seem to\ncheck the free expression of disapproval; one of the most wholesome and\nindispensable duties which anybody with interest in serious questions\nhas to perform, and the non-performance of which would remove the most\nproper and natural penalty from frivolous or perverse opinions and\nobnoxious conduct. Mr. Mill deals with this difficulty as follows:--'We\nhave a right in various ways to act upon our unfavourable opinion of any\none, not to the oppression of his individuality, but in the exercise of\nours. We are not bound, for example, to seek his society; we have a\nright to avoid it (though not to parade the avoidance) for we have a\nright to choose the society most acceptable to us. We have a right, and\nit may be our duty, to caution others against him, if we think his\nexample or conversation likely to have a pernicious effect on those with\nwhom he associates. We may give others a preference over him in optional\ngood offices, except those which tend to his improvement. In these\nvarious modes a person may suffer very severe penalties at the hands of\nothers for faults which directly concern only himself; but he suffers\nthese penalties only in so far as they are the natural, and as it were\nthe spontaneous, consequences of the faults themselves, not because they\nare purposely inflicted on him for the sake of punishment.' (_Liberty_,\n139.) This appears to be a satisfactory way of meeting the objection.\nFor though the penalties of disapproval may be just the same, whether\ndeliberately inflicted, or naturally and spontaneously falling on the\nobject of such disapproval, yet there is a very intelligible difference\nbetween the two processes in their effect on the two parties concerned.\nA person imbued with Mr. Mill's principle would feel the responsibility\nof censorship much more seriously; would reflect more carefully and\ncandidly about the conduct or opinion of which he thought ill; would be\nmore on his guard against pharisaic censoriousness, and that desire to\nbe ever judging one another, which Milton well called the stronghold of\nour hypocrisy. The disapproval of such a person would have an austere\ncolour, a gravity, a self-respecting reserve, which could never belong\nto an equal degree of disapproval in a person who had started from the\nofficious principle, that if we are sure we are right, it is straightway\nour business to make the person whom we think wrong smart for his error.\nAnd in the same way such disapproval would be much more impressive to\nthe person whom it affected. If it was justified, he would be like a\nfroward child who is always less effectively reformed--if reformable at\nall--by angry chidings and passionate punishments than by the sight of a\ncool and austere displeasure which lets him persist in his frowardness\nif he chooses.\n\n\nThe second weak point in the doctrine lies in the extreme vagueness of\nthe terms, protective and self-regarding. The practical difficulty\nbegins with the definition of these terms. Can any opinion, or any\nserious part of conduct, be looked upon as truly and exclusively\nself-regarding? This central ingredient in the discussion seems\ninsufficiently laboured in the essay on Liberty. Yet it is here more\nthan anywhere else that controversy is needed to clear up what is in\njust as much need of elucidation, whatever view we may take of the\ninherent virtue of freedom--whether we look on freedom as a mere\nnegation, or as one of the most powerful positive conditions of\nattaining the highest kind of human excellence.\n\nTo some persons the analysis of conduct, on which the whole doctrine of\nliberty rests, seems metaphysical and arbitrary. They are reluctant to\nadmit there are any self-regarding acts at all. This reluctance implies\na perfectly tenable proposition, a proposition which has been maintained\nby nearly all religious bodies in the world's history in their\nnon-latitudinarian stages. To distinguish the self-regarding from the\nother parts of conduct, strikes them not only as unscientific, but as\nmorally and socially mischievous. They insist that there is a social as\nwell as a personal element in every human act, though in very different\nproportions. There is no gain, they contend, and there may be much harm,\nin trying to mark off actions, in which the personal element decisively\npreponderates, from actions of another sort. Mr. Mill did so distinguish\nactions, nor was his distinction either metaphysical or arbitrary in its\nsource. As a matter of observation, and for the practical purposes of\nmorality, there are kinds of action whose consequences do not go beyond\nthe doer of them. No doubt, you may say that by engaging in these kinds\nin any given moment, the doer is neglecting the actions in which the\nsocial element preponderates, and therefore even acts that seem purely\nself-regarding have indirect and negative consequences to the rest of\nthe world. But to allow considerations of this sort to prevent us from\nusing a common-sense classification of acts by the proportion of the\npersonal element in them, is as unreasonable as if we allowed the\ndoctrine of the conservation of physical force, or the evolution of one\nmode of force into another, to prevent us from classifying the\naffections of matter independently, as light, heat, motion, and the\nrest. There is one objection obviously to be made to most of the\nillustrations which are designed to show the public element in all\nprivate conduct. The connection between the act and its influence on\nothers is so remote (using the word in a legal sense), though quite\ncertain, distinct, and traceable, that you can only take the act out of\nthe self-regarding category, by a process which virtually denies the\nexistence of any such category. You must set a limit to this 'indirect\nand at-a-distance argument,' as Locke called a similar plea, and the\nsetting of this limit is the natural supplement to Mr. Mill's 'simple\nprinciple.'\n\nThe division between self-regarding acts and others then, rests on\nobservation of their actual consequences. And why was Mr. Mill so\nanxious to erect self-regarding acts into a distinct and important\nclass, so important as to be carefully and diligently secured by a\nspecial principle of liberty? Because observation of the recorded\nexperience of mankind teaches us, that the recognition of this\nindependent provision is essential to the richest expansion of human\nfaculty. To narrow or to repudiate such a province, and to insist\nexclusively on the social bearing of each part of conduct, is to limit\nthe play of motives, and to thwart the doctrine that 'mankind obtain a\ngreater sum of happiness when each pursues his own, under the rules and\nconditions required by the rest, than when each makes the good of the\nrest his only object.' To narrow or to repudiate such a province is to\ntighten the power of the majority over the minority, and to augment the\nauthority of whatever sacerdotal or legislative body may represent the\nmajority. Whether the lawmakers be laymen in parliament, or priests of\nhumanity exercising the spiritual power, it matters not.\n\n\nWe may best estimate the worth and the significance of the doctrine of\nLiberty by considering the line of thought and observation which led to\nit. To begin with, it is in Mr. Mill's hands something quite different\nfrom the same doctrine as preached by the French revolutionary school;\nindeed one might even call it reactionary, in respect of the French\ntheory of a hundred years back. It reposes on no principle of abstract\nright, but, like the rest of its author's opinions, on principles of\nutility and experience. Dr. Arnold used to divide reformers into two\nclasses, popular and liberal. The first he defined as seekers of\nliberty, the second as seekers of improvement; the first were the goats,\nand the second were the sheep. Mr. Mill's doctrine denied the mutual\nexclusiveness of the two parts of this classification, for it made\nimprovement the end and the test, while it proclaimed liberty to be the\nmeans. Every thinker now perceives that the strongest and most durable\ninfluences in every western society lead in the direction of democracy,\nand tend with more or less rapidity to throw the control of social\norganisation into the hands of numerical majorities. There are many\npeople who believe that if you only make the ruling body big enough, it\nis sure to be either very wise itself, or very eager to choose wise\nleaders. Mr. Mill, as any one who is familiar with his writings is well\naware, did not hold this opinion. He had no more partiality for mob rule\nthan De Maistre or Goethe or Mr. Carlyle. He saw its evils more clearly\nthan any of these eminent men, because he had a more scientific eye, and\nbecause he had had the invaluable training of a political administrator\non a large scale, and in a very responsible post. But he did not content\nhimself with seeing these evils, and he wasted no energy in passionate\ndenunciation of them, which he knew must prove futile. Guizot said of De\nTocqueville, that he was an aristocrat who accepted his defeat. Mr. Mill\nwas too penetrated by popular sympathies to be an aristocrat in De\nTocqueville's sense, but he likewise was full of ideas and hopes which\nthe unchecked or undirected course of democracy would defeat without\nchance of reparation. This fact he accepted, and from this he started.\nMr. Carlyle, and one or two rhetorical imitators, poured malediction on\nthe many-headed populace, and with a rather pitiful impatience insisted\nthat the only hope for men lay in their finding and obeying a strong\nman, a king, a hero, a dictator. How he was to be found, neither the\nmaster nor his still angrier and more impatient mimics could ever tell\nus.\n\nNow Mr. Mill's doctrine laid down the main condition of finding your\nhero; namely, that all ways should be left open to him, because no man,\nnor majority of men, could possibly tell by which of these ways their\ndeliverers were from time to time destined to present themselves. Wits\nhave caricatured all this, by asking us whether by encouraging the tares\nto grow, you give the wheat a better chance. This is as misleading as\nsuch metaphors usually are. The doctrine of liberty rests on a faith\ndrawn from the observation of human progress, that though we know wheat\nto be serviceable and tares to be worthless, yet there are in the great\nseed-plot of human nature a thousand rudimentary germs, not wheat and\nnot tares, of whose properties we have not had a fair opportunity of\nassuring ourselves. If you are too eager to pluck up the tares, you are\nvery likely to pluck up with them these untried possibilities of human\nexcellence, and you are, moreover, very likely to injure the growing\nwheat as well. The demonstration of this lies in the recorded experience\nof mankind.\n\n\nNor is this all. Mr. Mill's doctrine does not lend the least countenance\nto the cardinal opinion of some writers in the last century, that the\nonly need of human character and of social institutions is to be let\nalone. He never said that we were to leave the ground uncultivated, to\nbring up whatever might chance to grow. On the contrary, the ground was\nto be cultivated with the utmost care and knowledge, with a view to\nprevent the growth of tares--but cultivated in a certain manner. You may\ntake the method of the Inquisition, of the more cruel of the Puritans,\nof De Maistre, of Mr. Carlyle; or you may take Mr. Mill's method of\ncultivation. According to the doctrine of Liberty, we are to devote\nourselves to prevention, as the surest and most wholesome mode of\nextirpation. Persuade; argue; cherish virtuous example; bring up the\nyoung in habits of right opinion and right motive; shape your social\narrangements so as to stimulate the best parts of character. By these\nmeans you will gain all the advantages that could possibly have come of\nheroes and legislative dragooning, as well as a great many more which\nneither heroes nor legislative dragooning could ever have secured.\n\nIt is well with men, Mr. Mill said, moreover, in proportion as they\nrespect truth. Now they at once prove and strengthen their respect for\ntruth, by having an open mind to all its possibilities, while at the\nsame time they hold firmly to their own proved convictions, until they\nhear better evidence to the contrary. There is no anarchy, nor\nuncertainty, nor paralysing air of provisionalness in such a frame of\nmind. So far is it from being fatal to loyalty or reverence, that it is\nan indispensable part of the groundwork of the only loyalty that a wise\nruler or teacher would care to inspire--the loyalty springing from a\nrational conviction that, in a field open to all comers, he is the best\nman they can find. Only on condition of liberty without limit is the\nablest and most helpful of 'heroes' sure to be found; and only on\ncondition of liberty without limit are his followers sure to be worthy\nof him. You must have authority, and yet must have obedience. The\nnoblest and deepest and most beneficent kind of authority is that which\nrests on an obedience that is rational and spontaneous.\n\n\nThe same futile impatience which animates the political utterances of\nMr. Carlyle and his more weak-voiced imitators, takes another form in\nmen of a different training or temperament. They insist that if the\nmajority has the means of preventing vice by law, it is folly and\nweakness not to resort to those means. The superficial attractiveness\nof such a doctrine is obvious. The doctrine of liberty implies a broader\nand a more patient view. It says:--Even if you could be sure that what\nyou take for vice is so--and the history of persecution shows how\ncareful you should be in this preliminary point--even then it is an\nundoubted and, indeed, a necessary tendency of this facile repressive\nlegislation, to make those who resort to it neglect the more effective,\nhumane, and durable kinds of preventive legislation. You pass a law (if\nyou can) putting down drunkenness; there is a neatness in such a method\nvery attractive to fervid and impatient natures. Would you not have done\nbetter to leave that law unpassed, and apply yourselves sedulously\ninstead to the improvement of the dwellings of the more drunken class,\nto the provision of amusements that might compete with the ale-house, to\nthe extension and elevation of instruction, and so on? You may say that\nthis should be done, and yet the other should not be left undone; but,\nas matter of fact and history, the doing of the one has always gone with\nthe neglect of the other, and ascetic law-making in the interests of\nvirtue has never been accompanied either by law-making or any other\nkinds of activity for making virtue easier or more attractive. It is the\nrecognition how little punishment can do, that leaves men free to see\nhow much social prevention can do. I believe, then, that what seems to\nthe criminal lawyers and passionate philanthropists self-evident, is in\ntruth an illusion, springing from a very shallow kind of impatience,\nheated in some of them by the addition of a cynical contempt for human\nnature and the worth of human existence.\n\nIf people believe that the book of social or moral knowledge is now\ncompleted, that we have turned over the last page and heard the last\nword, much of the foundation of Mr. Mill's doctrine would disappear. But\nthose who hold this can hardly have much to congratulate themselves\nupon. If it were so, and if governments were to accept the principle\nthat the only limits to the enforcement of the moral standard of the\nmajority are the narrow expediencies of each special case, without\nreference to any deep and comprehensive principle covering all the\nlargest considerations, why, then, the society to which we ought to look\nwith most admiration and envy, is the Eastern Empire during the ninth\nand tenth centuries, when the Byzantine system of a thorough\nsubordination of the spiritual power had fully consolidated itself!","title":"On Compromise","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":58185}