Liberty, Equality, Fraternity

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LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY.

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CONTENTS

I. THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY IN GENERAL

IL THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 33-I04

in. THE DISTINCTION BETV^'EEN THE TEMPORAL

AND SPIRITUAL POWER .

IV. THE DOCTR[NE OF LIBERTY IN ITS APPLI-
CATION TO MORALS

V. EQUALITY .

Vn, CONCLUSION

NOTE ON UTILITARIANISM ,

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LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

JAMBS FITZJAMBS STEPHEN, Q.O.

livp e ^0x00 s eaic a fi to
ZifVa fOfi oil TpOfi luv

evarote tivav, Hpou (0

P I \ ^ T 'i3^H%

NEW YOEK

HOLT & WILLIAMS

1873.

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TO t'AR JOHN STRACHEY, K.C,S.I.

MV DEAR StRACIIEY,

I dedicate this boolc to you for three reasons:
First, as an expression of strong personal regard,
and of deep gratitude for great kindness, all the more
valuable because it resembled that which I received
from everyone with whom I had any relations in
India,

Secondly, in recollection of the month, after the
arrival at Calcutta of the news of Lord Mayo's
murder, when you acted as Governor-General. The
sorrow which we both felt for a man whom each of
us had so many grounds, both public and private, to
love and honour, and the anxiety and responsibility
which we shared during a very trying time, formed

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a tie between us which I am Kure you fee! as strongly
as I do.

Thirdly, because yon are one of the most dis-
tinguished of Indian civilians, and my Indian expe-
rience strongly confirmed the reflections which the
book contains, and which had been taking- shape
gradually in my mind for many years. The com-
monplaces and the vein of sentiment at which it is
levelled appeared peculiarly false and poor as I read
the European newspapers of 1870-1 at the head-
quarters of the Government of India.

The book was planned in India, and partly
written on my voyage home.

I am, my dear Strachey,

Your sincere friend and late colleague,

James Fitzjames Stephen.

h Gardens, SouTt
March 21, 1873,

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LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

CHAPTER I.

THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY IN GENERAL

The object of this work is to examine tlie doctrines
which are rather hinted at than expressed by the
phrase ' Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.' This
phrase has been the motto of more than one
Republic. It is indeed something more than a motto.
It is the creed of a religion, less definite than
any one of the forms of Christianity, which are in
part its rivals, in part its antagonists, and in part its
associates, but not on that account the less powerful.
It is, on the contrary, one of the most penetrating
influences of the day. It shows itself now and then
in definite forms, of which Positivism is the one best
known to our generation, but its special manifesta-
tions give no adequate measure of its depth or
width. It penetrates other creeds. It has often
transformed Christianity into a system of optimism,
which has in some cases retained and in others

B

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2 LIBERTY, PIQUALITY, FRATERNITY

rejected Christian phraseology. It deeply influences
politics and legislation. It has its solemn festivals,
its sober adherents, its enthusiasts, its Anabaptists
and Ar;tinomians. The Religion of Humanity is
perhaps as good a name as could be found for it,
i{ the expression is used in a wider sense than the
narrow and technical one associated with it by
Comte. It is one of the commonest beliefs of the
day that the human race collectively has before it
splendid destinies of various kinds, and that the road
to them is to be found in the removal of all restraints
on human conduct, in the recognition of a sub-
stantial equality between all human creatures, and in
fraternity or genera! love. These doctrines are in
very many cases held as a religious faith. They are
regarded not merely as truths, but as truths for which
those who believe in them are ready to do battle,
and for the establishment of which they are prepared
to sacrifice all merely personal ends.

Such, stated of course in the most general terms,
is the religion of which I take ' Liberty, Equality,
and Fraternity ' to be the creed. I do not believe it
for the following, amongst other reasons.

I am not the advocate of Slavei-y, Caste, and
Hatred, nor do I deny that a sense may be given
to the words. Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity,
in which they may be regarded as good. I wish to
assert with respect to them two propositions.

First, that in the present day even those who use
those words most rationally— that is to say, as the

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THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY IN GENERAL 3

names of elements of social life which, like others,
have their advantages and disadvantages according
to time, place, and circumstance — have a great dis-
position to exaggerate their advantages and to deny
tlie existence, or at any rate to underrate the im-
portance, of their disadvantages.

Next, that whatever signification be attached
to them, these words are ill-adapted to be the creed
of a religion, that the things which they denote are not
ends in themselves, and that when used collectively
the words do not typify, however vaguely, any state
of society which a reasonable man ought to regard
with enthusiasm or self-devotion.

The truth of the first proposition as a mere
general observation will not, in all probability, be dis-
puted ; but I attach to it a very much more specific
meaning than is conveyed by a mere commonplace.
I mean to assert that the most accredited current
theories upon this subject, and those which have
been elaborated with the greatest care, are unsound ;
and to give point to this, I say more specifically that
the theories advanced upon tlie subject by Mr. John
Mill in most of his later works are unsound. I have
several reasons for referring specifically to him. In
the first place, no writer of the present day has ex-
pressed himself upon these subjects with anything
like the same amount either of system or of ability.
In the second place, he is the only living author who
has handled the subject, with whom I agree sufii-
cienlly to differ from him profitably. Up to a cer-

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4 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, TRATERNITY

tain point I should he proud to describe myself as his
disciple, but tiiere is a side of his teaching which is
as repugnant as the rest of it is attractive to me, and
this side has of late years become by far the most
prominent. I do not say tiiat the teaching of his
worlds on Liberty, on Utilitarianism, and on the Sub-
jection of Women is inconsistent with the teaching of
his%vorks on Logic and Political Economy; but I wish
to show the grounds on which it is possible to agree
with the greater part of the contents of the two
works last mentioned, and even to maintain prin-
ciples which they rather imply than assert, and at the
same time to dissent in the strongest way from the
view of human nature and human affairs which per-
vades the works first mentioned.

No better statement ofthe popular view— I might,
perhaps, say of the religious dogma of liberty — is to
be found than that which is contained In Mr. Mill's
essay on the subject. His works on Utilitarianism
and the Subjection of Women afford excellent illus-
trations of the forms of the doctrines of equality
and fraternity to which I object. Nothing is further
from my wishes than to make a captious attack upon
the writings of a great man to whom I am in every
way deeply indebted ; but in stating the grounds of
one's dissent from wide-spread and influential opinions
it is absolutely necessary to take some definite state-
ment of those opinions as a starting point, and it is
natural to take tlie ablest, the most reasonable, and
the clearest.

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THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY IN GENERAL 5

To proceed, then. The following is, I think, a
fair abridgment of the introductory chapter of the
Essay on Liberty, which is much the most important
part of that work.

,/ ^' Civil or social liberty as distinguished from ' the
so-called liberty of the will' is its subject. The ex-
pression, Mr. Mill tells us, meant originally pro-
tection against the tyranny of political rulers. Their
power was recognized as a necessary evil, and its
limitation either by privilege or by constitutional
checks was what was meant by liberty. People
came in time to regard their rulers rather as their
own agents and the depositaries of their own power
than as antagonistic powers to be kept in check, and
it did not occur to them that tlieir own power exer-
cised through their own agents might be just as
oppressive as the power of their rulers confined
within closer or wider limits. By degrees, however,
experience showed that the whole might, and was by
no means disincUned to, tyrannize over the part, and
hence came the phrase ' tyranny of the majority.'
This tyranny of the majority has its root in ' the
feeling in each person's mind that everybody should
be required to act as he and those with whom he
sympathizes would like them to act.' After having
illustrated this Mr. Mill proceeds : ' Those who
have been in advance of society in thouglit and
feeling have left this condition of things unassailed
in principle, however they may have come into con-
flict with it in some of its details. They have occu-

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6 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

pied themselves rather in inquiring what things
society ought to hke and disUke, than in question-
ing whether its liliings or disHkings should be a law
to individuals.' He then enunciates his own view in
the following passage ; —

The object of this essay is to assert one very simple
principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of
society with the individual in tlie way of compulsion or
control, whether the means used be physical force in the
form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public
opinion. That principle is that the sole end for which
mankind are warranted individually or collectively in
interfering with the liberty of action of any of their
number is self-protection ; that the only purpose for which
power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a
civilized community against his will is to prevent harm to
others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a
sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to
do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so,
because it wiil make him happier, because in the opinions
of others to do so would be wise or even right. These are
good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with
him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for
compelling him, or visiting him with any evil in case he do
otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is
desired to deter him must be calculated to produce evil to
some one else. The only part of the conduct of any one
for which he is amenable to society is that which concerns
others. In the part which merely concerns himself his
independence is of right, absolute. Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.

He points out that ' this doctrine is meant to apply
only to human beings in the maturity oi their facul-

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THE DOCTRINE OF LIT.ERTY IN GENERAL '/

ties/ and that ' we may leave out of account thope
backward states of society In which the race itself
may be considered as in its nonage.' He then dis-
claims any advantage which could be derived to his
' argument from the idea of abstract right us a thing
independent of utility.' He adds : ' I regard utility
as the ultimate appeal on all ethical questions ; but
it must be utility in the largest sense grounded on
the permanent interests of a man as a progressive
being.' He concludes by specifying ' the appropriate
region of human Hberty. It comprises, first, the in-
ward domain of consciousness ; demanding liberty of
conscience in the most comprehensive sense, liberty
of thought and feeling ; absolute freedom of opinion
and sentiment on all subjects practical or speculative,
scientific, moral, or theological. The liberty of ex-
pressing and publishing opinions may seem to fall
under 'a different principle, since it belongs to that
part of the conduct of an individual which concerns
other people, but being almost of as much impor-
tance as the liberty of thought itself, and resting in
great part on the same reasons, is practically insepar-
able from it. Secondly, the principle requires liberty
of tastes and pursuits, of framing our plan of life to
suit our own character, of doing as we like, subject to
such consequences as may follow, without impedi-
ment from our fellow-creatures, so long as what we do
does not harm them — even though they should
think our conduct foolish, perverse, or wrong.
Thirdly, from this liberty of each individual follows

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a LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

the liberty within the same limits of combination
among individuals."

This, I think, is the substance of the doctrine of
the introductory chapter. It is the whole doctrine of
the essay, and it is remarkable that, having thus
fully and carefully enunciated his doctrine, Mr. Mill
never attempts to prove it, as a whole. Probably
the second, third, and fourth chapters are intended
as separate proofs of distinct parts of it. Chapter 1 1.
may thus be regarded as an argument meant to prove
that absolute liberty of thought and discussion is good.
Chapter III. in the same way is an argument to show
that individuality is an element of well-being, but it
assumes instead of proving that liberty is a condition
of individuality ; a point on which much might be
said. Chapter IV. is entitled, 'Of the Limits of the
Authority of Society over the Individual.' It is
little more than a restatement in detail of the general
principles stated in the introductory chapter. It adds
nothing to the argument, except this remark, which,
no doubt, is entitled to great weight : ' The strongest
of all the arguments against the interference of the
public with purely personal conduct is that when it
does interfere the odds are that it interferes wrongly
and in the wrong place.' Finally, Chapter V., en-
titled 'Applications,' consists, as might be expected
from its title, of the application of the general prin-
ciple to a certain number of specific cases.

There is hardly anything in the whole essay
which can properly be called proof as distinguished

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THE DOCTRINE OF LILERTV IN GENERAL 9

from enunciation or assertion of the ncnera! prin-
ciples quoted. I tiiink, however, that it will not be
difficult to show that the principle stands in much
need of proof. In order to make this clear it will be
desirable in the first place to point out the meaning
of the word liberty according to principles which
I think are common to Mr. Mill and to myself 1
do not think Mr. Mill would dispute the following
statement of the theory of human actions. All
voluntary acts are caused by motives. All motives
may be placed in one of two categories — hope and
fear, pleasure and pain. Voluntary acts of which
hope is the motive are said to be free. Voluntary
acts of which fear is the motive arc said to be done
under compulsion, or omitted under restraint. A
woman marries. This in every case is a voluntary
action. If she regards the marriage with the ordinary
feelings and acts from the ordinary motives, she is
said to act freely. If she regards it as a necessity, to
which she submits in order to avoid greater evil,
she is said to act under compulsion and not freely.

If this is the true theory of liberty — and, though
many persons would deny this, I do not think Mr.
Mill would — the propositions already stated will In a
condensed form amount to this : ' No one is ever
justified In trying to affect any one's conduct by ex-
citing his fears, except for the sake of self- protection ;'
or, making another substitution which he would also
approve — ' It can never promote the general happi-
ness of mankind that the conduct of any persons

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lO LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

should be affected by an appeal to their fears, except
in the cases excepted.'

Surely these are not assertions which can be re-
garded as self-evident, or even as otherwise than
paradoxical. What is all morality, and what are all
existing religions In so far as they aim at affecting
human conduct, except an appeal either to hope or
fear, and to fear far more commonly and far more
emphatically than to hope ? Criminal legislation
proper may be regarded as unimportant as an engine
of prohibition in comparison with morals and the
forms of morality sanctioned by theology. For one
act from which one person is restrained by the fear
of the law of the land, many persons are restrained
from innumerable acts by the fear of the disapproba-
tion of their neighbours, which is the moral sanction ;
or by the fear of punishment in a future state of ex-
istence, which is the religious sanction ; or by the
fear of their own disapprobation, which maybe called
the conscientious sanction, and may be regarded as
a compound case of the other two. Now, in the
innumerable majority of cases, disapprobation, or the
moral sanction, has nothing whatever to do with self-
protection. The religious sanction is by its nature
independent of it. Whatever special forms it may
assume, the fundamental condition of it is a being
intolerant of evil in the highest degree, and inexorably
determined to punish it wherever it exists, except
upon certain terms, I do not say that this doctrine
is true, but I do say that no one is entitled to assume

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THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY IM GENERAL 11

it without proof to be essentially immoral and mis-
chievous. Mr. Mill does not draw this inference, but
I think his theory involves it, for I know not what
can be a greater infringement of his theory of liberty,
a more complete and formal contradiction to it, than
the doctrine that there is a court and a judge in which,
and before whom, every man must give an account
of every work done in the body, whether self regard-
ing or not. According to Mr. Mill's theory, it ought
to be a good plea in the day of judgment to say ' I
pleased myself and hurt nobody else.' Whether or
not there will ever be a day of judgment is not the
question, but upon his principles the conception of a
day of judgment is fundamentally immoral. A God
who punished any one at all, except for the purpose
of protecting others, would, upon his principles, be
a tyrant trampling on liberty.

The application of the principle in question to the

moral sanction would be just as subversive of ail that

people commonly regard as morality. The only

moral system which would comply with the principle

stated by Mr. Mill would be one capable of being

I summed up as follows :— ' Let every man please

j himself without hurting his neighbour;' and every

; moral system which aimed at more than this, either

, to obtain benefits for society at large other than pro-

i tection against injury or to do good to the persons

affected, would be wrong in principle. This would

■ condemn every existing system of morals. Positive

morality is nothing but a body of principles and

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12 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

rules more or less vaguely expressed, and more or
less left to be understood, by which certain lines of
conduct are forbidden under the penalty of general
disapprobation, and that quite irrespectively of self-
protection. Mr. Tvlill himself admits this to a certain
extent. In the early part of his fourtli chapter he
says that a man grossly deiicient in the qualities
which conduce to his own good is ' necessarily and
properly a subject of distaste, or in extreme cases
even of contempt,' and he enumerates various incon-
veniences to which this would expose such a person.
He adds, however : ' The inconveniences which
are strictly inseparable from the unfavourable judg
ment of others are the only ones to which a person
should ever be subjected for that portion ef his con-
duct and character which concerns his own good, but
which does not affect the interests of others in
their relation with him.' This no doubt weakens the
effect of the admission ; but be this how it may,
the fact still remains that morality is and must
be a prohibitive system, one of the main objects of
which is to impose upon every one a standard of
conduct and of sentiment to whjch few persons would
conform if it were not for the constraint thus put
upon them. In nearly every instance the effects
of such a system reach far beyond anything that can
be described as the purposes of self-protection.

Mr. Mill's system is violated not only by every
system of theology which concerns itself with morals,
and by every known system of positive morality, but

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THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY IN GENERAL 1 3

by the constitution of hitman nature itself. There is
hardly a habit which men in general regard as good
■which is not acquired by a series of more or less
painful and laborious acts. The condition of human
life is such that we must of necessity be restrained^
and compelled by circumstances in nearly every"
action of our lives. Why, then, is Uberty, defined',
as Mr. Mill defines it, to be regarded as so precious ? ,
What, after all, is done by the legislator or by the
person who sets public opinion in motion to con-
trol conduct of which he disapproves — or, if the
expression is preferred, which he dislikes — which is
not done for us all at every instant of our lives by
circumstances ? The laws which punish murder or
theft are substitutes for private vengeance, which, in
the absence of law, would punish those crimes more
severely, though in a less regular manner. If there
were laws which punished incontinence, ghittony, or
drunkenness, the same might be said of them. Mr.
Mill admits in so many words that there are ' incon-
veniences which are strictly inseparable from the un-
favourable judgment of others.' What is the dis-
tinction in principle between such inconveniences
and similar ones organized, defined, and inflicted
upon proof that the circumstances which call for
their infliction exist ? This organization, definition,
and procedure make all the difference between the
restraints which Mr. Mill would permit and the
restraints to which he objects. I cannot see on what
the distinction rests. I cannot understand why it

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14 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, KRATERNITV

must always be wrong to punish habitual drunkenness
by fine, imprisonment, or deprivation of civil rights,
and always be right to punish it by the infliction of
those consequences which are 'strictly inseparable
from the unfavourable judgment of others.' It may
be said that these consequences follow, not because
we think them desirable, but in the common order
of nature. This answer only suggests the further
question, whether nature is in this instance to be
regarded as a friend or as an enemy ? Every reason-
able man would answer that the restraint which the
fear of the disapprobation of others imposes on our
conduct is the part of the constitution of nature which
we could least afford to dispense with. But if this
is so, why draw the line where Mr. Mill draws it ?
Why treat the penal consequences of disapprobation
as things to be minimized and restrained within the
narrowest limits ? What ' inconvenience,' after all, is
' strictly inseparable from the unfavourable judgment
of others ' ? If society at large adopted fully Mr.
Mill's theory of liberty, it would be easy to diminish
very greatly the inconveniences in question. Strenu-
ously preach and rigorously practise the doctrine that
our neighbour's private character is nothing to us,
and the number of unfavourable judgments formed,
and therefore the number of inconveniences inflicted
by them, can be reduced as much as we please, and
the province of liberty can be enlarged in a corre-
sponding ratio. Does any reasonable man wish for
this ? Could any one desire gross licentiousness,

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THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY IN GENERAL 1 5

monstrous extravagance; ridiculous vanity, or the
lilie, to be unnoticed, or, being known, to inflict no
inconveniences ?

If, however, the restraints on immorality arc the
main safeguards of society against influences which
might be fatal to it, why treat them as if they were
bad ? Why draw so strongly marked a line between
social and legal penalties i Mr. Mill asserts tlie ex-
istence of the distinction In every form of speech.
He makes his meaning perfectly clear. Yet from
one end of his essay to the other I find no proof and
11,0 attempt to give the proper and appropriate proof
of it. His doctrine could have been proved if it had
been true. It was not proved because it was not
true.

Each of these propositions may, I think, be esta-
blished by referring to the commonest and most
important cases of coercion for other purposes than
those of self-protection. The most important of them
are : —

1. Coercion for the purpose of establishing and
maintaining religions.

2. Coercion for the purpose of establishing and
practically maintaining morality.

3. Coercion for the purpose of mailing alterations
in existing forms of government or social institutions.

None of these can in the common use of language
be described as cases of self-protection or of the
prevention of harm to persons other than those
coerced. Each is a case of coercion, for the sake of

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l6 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERN1T\

what the persons who exercise coercive power regard
as the attainment of a good object, and each is
accordingly condemned, and the first and second
were no doubt intended to be condemned, by Mr.
Mill's principle. Indeed, as he states it, the prin-
ciple would go very much further. It would con-
demn, for instance, all taxation to which the party
taxed did not consent, unless the money produced
by it was laid out either upon mlHtary or upon police
purposes or in the administration of justice ; for
these purposes only can be described as self-pro-
tective. To force an unwilling person to contribute
to the support of the British Museum is as distinct
a violation of Mr. Mill's principle as religious perse-
cution. Me docs not, however, notice or insist upon
this point, and I shall say no more of it than that
It proves that his principle requires further limitations
than he has thought it necessary to express.

Returning, then, to the three kinds of coercion
mentioned, I say that It was Mr. Mill's business to
show not merely that they had had bad effects — It
would be as superfluous to show that surgical ope-
rations have bad effects — but that the bad eifects arose
from the coercion itself. Irrespectively of the objects
for which it was employed, and of the mista];;es and
excesses of those who employed It. He had to
show not that surgery Is painful, or that the loss of
a limb is a calamity, or that surgeons are often
unskilful or rash, but that surgery is an art bad In
Itself which ought to be suppressed. This, I say

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THE DOCTRINE 0¥ LIBERTY IN GENERAL 1 7

he has never attempted to show from the beginnino-
of the book to the end of it. If he had, he would
have found his task an impossible one.

As regards coercion for the purpose of establish-
ing and maintaining religions and systems of morality,
it would be waste of time to insist upon the prin-
ciple that both religion and morals are good on the
whole, notwithstanding the evils of various kinds
which have been connected with them. Nor need I
repeat what I have already said on the point that
both religion and morality are and always must be
essentially coercive systems. Taking these matters
for granted, however, it will be desirable to consider
somewhat more fully the nature of moral and reli-
gious coercion, and the manner in which they
operate. If Mr. Mill's view of liberty had always
been adopted and acted upon to its full extent — if it
had been the view of the first Christians or of the
first Mahommedans — every one can see that there
would have been no such thing as organised Chris-
tianity or Mahommedanism in the world. Even
after such success as these and other religions have
obtained, the morality of the vast mass of mankind
is simply to do what they please up to the point at
which custom puts a restraint upon them, arising
from the fear of disapprobation. The custom of /
looking upon certain courses of conduct with aver-'
sion is the essence of morality, and the fact that this
aversion may be felt by the very person whose
conduct occasions it, and maybe described as arising
c

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IS LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

from the action of his own conscience, makes no
difference which need be considered here. The im-
portant point is that such disapprobation could never
have become customary unless it had been imposed
upon mankind at large by persons who themselves felt
it with exceptional energy, and who were in a posi-
tion which enabled them to make other people adopt
their principles and even their tastes and feelings.

Religion and morals, in a word, bear, even
when they are at their calmest, the traces of having
been established, as we know that in fact they
were, by word of command. We have seen enough
of the foundation of religious to know pretty
well what is their usual course. A religion is
first preached by a single person or a small body
of persons. A certain number of disciples adopt
it enthusiastically, and proceed to force their views
upon the world by preaching, by persuasion, by
the force of sympatliy, until the new creed has '
become sufficiendy influential and sufficiently well
organised to exercise power both over its own
members and beyond its own sphere. This power,
in the case of a vigorous creed, assumes many forms.
It may be military power, if the early converts are
fighting men ; it may be power derived from threats
as to a future state — and this is the commonest and
most distinctive form of religious power of which we
have practical experience. It maybe power derived
from mere superior energy of will, or from organi-
sations which those who possess that energy are

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THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY IN GENERAL

able to set on foot by means of it. But, be the
special form of religious power what it will, the
principle is universally true that the growth of
religions is in the nature of a conquest made by a
small number of ardent believers over the luke-
warmness, the indifference, and the conscious igno-
rance of the mass of mankind. The life of the
great mass of men, to a great extent the life of all
men, is like a watercourse guided this way or that
by a system of dams, sluices, weirs, and embank-
ments. The volume and the quality of the different
streams differ, and so do the plans of the works by
which their flow is regulated, but it is by these
works — that is to say, by tlieir various customs and
institutions — that men's lives are regulated. Now
these customs are not only in their very nature
restraints, but they are restraints imposed by the
will of an exceedingly small numerical minority and
contentedly accepted by a majority to which they
have become so natural that they do not recognise
them as restraints.

As for the third set of cases in which coercion is
habitually employed — I mean coercion for the pur-
pose of making alterations in existing forms of
government and social institutions — it surely needs
no argument to show that . all the great political
changes which have been the principal subject of
European history for the last three centuries have
been cases of coercion in the most severe form,
although a large proportion of them have been

C 3

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20 LIBERTY, EQUALiTY, FRATERNITY

described as struggles for liberty by those who were,
in fact, the most vigorous wielders of power.

Mr. Mill and his disciples would be the last
persons in the world to say that the political and
social changes which have taken place in the world
since the sixteenth century have not on the whole
been eminently beneficial to mankind; but nothing
can be clearer than that they were brought about
by force, and in many instances by the force
of a minority numerically small, applied to the
conduct of an ignorant or very partially informed
and for the most part indifferent majority. It
would surely be as absurd to say that the Refor-
mation or the French Revolution was brought
about freely and not by coercion as to say that
Charles I. walked freely to the block. Each of
these and many other cases which might be men-
tioned were struggles for political power, efforts to
bring about a change in the existing state of things,
which for various reasons appeared desirable to
people who v/ere able to carry out their designs
more or less successfully.

To say that force was justifiable In none of these
cases would be a paradox which Mr. Mill would
probably be the last person to maintain. To say
that it vras justifiable only in so far as it was neces-
sary for self-protection would not explain the facts.
Take such a case as the establishment of a new
religion and the reduction of an old one to the
position of a permitted form of private opinion.

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Tllli DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY IN GKNKUAI, 2 1

Life has gone on for ages upon the supposition of
the truth of the old religion. Laws and institutions
of various kinds are founded upon it. The great
mass of the population of a country have no par-
ticular wish to disturb the existing state of things
even though they may be ceasing to believe in the
creed which it implies. Innovators arise who attack
corruptions and preach new doctrines. They are
punished. They resist, sides are formed, and the
results follow with which history is filled. In what
sense can it be said that the acts of violence which
take place on such occasions are acts done in self-
defence and in order to prevent harm ? They are
acts of aggression upon an established system which
is regarded as bad, and with a view to the substitu-
tion of a different system which it is supposed will
be better. If any one supposes that in regard to
such transactions it is possible to draw a line be-
tween what ought to be done and what ought not ;
if any one will undertake to say how the French
Revolution or the Reformation ought to have been
conducted so as to avoid all violence on both
sides and yet to have arrived at the desired con-
clusion, he will be able to give us a universal
political constitution and a universal code of laws.
People in such posidons as those of Charles V.,
Philip II., Henry VIII., Queen Elizabeth, Louis
XVI., and many others, must take a side, and must
back it vigorously against its antagonists, unless
they mean to be devoured themselves. The only

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2 2 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

way by which this can be reconciled with Mr. Mill's
principle is by describing such violence as a case of
self-protection, and if this is done it will follow that
if men happen to be living under a political or social
system with the principles or with the working of
which they are not satisfied, they may fight out
their difference, and the conqueror may determine
the matter in dispute according to his own will. In
other words, the principle eannot be applied to the
very cases in which it is most needed. Mr. Mill's
principle throughout assumes tlie existence of an
ideal state of things in which everyone has precisely
the position which, with a view to the general
happiness of the world, he ought to hold. If such a
state of things existed there would be some plausi-
bility in saying that no one ought to interfere with
anyone else except for the sake of protecting himself
against attack, by maintaining the existing state of
things. But as no such state of things exists or ever
yet existed in any age or country, the principle has
at present no /ocus standi.

Not only is an appeal to facts and experience
opposed to Mr. Mill's principle, but his essay con-
tains exceptions and qualifications which are really
inconsistent with It. He says that his principle 'Is
meant to apply to hum^n beings only in the maturity
of their faculties,' and, he adds, ' we may leave out
of account those backward states of society in which
the race itself may be considered in its nonage.'
Despotism, he says, ' is a legitimate mode of govern-
ment in dealing with barbarians, provided the end

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THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTV IN GENERAL 23

be their improvement, and the means justified by
actually effecting that end. Liberty as a principle
has no application to any state of things anterior to
the time when mankind have become capable of
being improved by free and equal discussion. Until
then there is nothing for them but implicit obedience
to an Akbar or a Charlemagne if they arc so fortu-
nate as to find one. But as soon as mankind have
attained the capacity of being guided to their own
improvement by conviction or persuasion (a period
long since reached in all nations with whom we
need here concern ourselves), compulsion is no
longer admissible as a means to their own good, and
is justifiable only for the security of others.'

It seems to me that this qualification either re-
duces the doctrine qualified to an empty common-
place which no one would care to dispute, or makes
an incredible assertion about the state of human
society. No one, I suppose, ever denied either in
theory or in practice that there is a sphere within
which the tastes of people of mature age ought not
to be interfered with, and within which differences
must be regarded as natural and inevitable — in
which better or worse means that which the indi-
vidual prefers or dislikes. On the other hand, no
one ever suggested that it was or could be good for
anyone to be compelled to do what he did not like,
unless the person compelling was not only stronger
but wiser than the person compelled, at all events in
reference to the matter to which tJie compulsion
'd pplied.

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24 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

Either, then, the exception means only that
superior wisdom is not in every case a reason why
one man should control another — which is a mere
commonplace, — or else It means that in all the
countries which we are accustomed to call civilised
the mass of adults are so well acquainted with their
own interests and so much disposed to pursue them
that no compulsion or restraint put upon any of them
by any others for tlie purpose of promoting their in-
terests can really promote them.

No one can doubt the importance of this asser-
tion, but where is the proof of it ? Let us consider
how it ought to have and would have been proved
if It had been capable of proof. Mr. Mill might
have specified the different classes of which some
considerable nation — our own, for instance — Is com-
posed. Then he might have stated what are the
objects which. If attained, would constitute the
happiness of each of those classes. Then he might
have shown that a knowledge of those interests, a
knowledge of the means by which they must be
attained, and a disposition to make use of the
means proper to obtain them, was so generally dif-
fused among each class that no compulsion put by
the other classes upon any one class as a whole, or
by any part of any class upon any other part of It,
could increase the happiness of the persons compelled
to such an extent as to overbalance the pain of the
compulsion itself. Before he affirmed that in Western
Europe and America the compulsion of adults for

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THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY IN GENERAL 25

their own good is unjustifiable, Mr. Mill ought to
have proved that there are among us no consi-
derable differences in point of wisdom, or that if there
are, the wiser part of the community does not wish
for the welfare of the less wise.

It seems to me quite impossible to stop short of
this principle if compulsion In the case of children
and 'backward' races is admitted to be justifiable ;
for, after alt, maturity and civilisation are matters of
degree. One person may be more mature at fifteen
than another at thirty. A nation or a particular part
of a nation may make such an advance in the arts of
life in half a century that other nations, or other
parts of the same nation, which were equally civilised
at the beginning of the period, may be relatively
barbarous at the end of it.

I do not overlook the qualification contained in
the passages quoted above. It fixes the limit up to
which compulsion is justifiable at the ' time when
mankind have become capable of being improved by
free and equal discussion.' This expression may
imply that compulsion is always or never justifiable,
according to the manner in which it is construed, I
am not quite sure that I know what Mr. Mill means
by ' equal ' discussion, but was there ever a time or
place at which no men could be improved on any
point by free discussion ? The wildest savages, the
most Immature youths, capable ofany sort of education,
are capable of being improved by free discussion upon
a great variety of subjects. Conipulsion, therefore,

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20 I.IBiilRTY, KQUALITY, FRATERNITY

in their own Interests would, at least in relation to
these subjects, be unjustifiable as regards them. If
boys in a school can be convinced of the -importance
of Industry, you must never punish them for Idleness.
Such an interpretation of the rule would practically
exclude compulsion together,

A narrower Interpretation would be as follows.
There Is a period, now generally reached all over
Europe and America, at which discussion takes the
place of compulsion, and in which people when they
know what is good for them generally do It. When
this period Is reached, compulsion may be laid aside.
[ To this I should say that no such period has as yet
been reached anywhere, and that there Is no prospect
of Its being reached anywhere within any assignable
time.

Where, in the very most advanced and civilised
communities, will you find any class of persons whose
views or whose conduct on subjects on which they are
Interested are regulated even in the main by the results
of free discussion ? What proportion of human mis-
conduct in any department In life is due to Ignorance,
and what to wickedness or weakness ? Of ten thou-
sand people who get drunk. Is there one who could
say with truth that he did so because he had been
brought to think on full deliberation and after free
discussion that It was wise to get drunk ? Would
not every one of the ten thousand, if he told the
real truth, say in some dialect or other — ' I got
drunk because I was weak and a fool, because I

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TJIE DOCTRINE OP I.IRERTY IN GENERAr, 2/

could not resist the immediate pleasure for the
sake of future and indefinite advantage ' ? If
we look at the conduct of bodies of men as expressed
in their laws and institutions, we shall find that,
though compulsion and persuasion go hand in
hand, from the most immature and the roughest
ages and societies up to the most civilised, the lion's
share of the results obtained is due to compulsion,
and that discussion is at most an appeal to the
motives by which the strong man is Jikely to be
actuated in using his strength. Look at our own
time and country, and mention any single great
change which has been effected by mere discussion.
Can a single case be mentioned in which the passions
of men were interested where the change was not
carried by force — that is to say, ultimately by the
fear of revolution ? Is it in any degree true that
when the brains are out a question dies ? Look at
small matters which involve more or less of a
principle, but do not affect many men's passions, and
see how much reasoning has to do with their settle-
ment. Such questions as the admission of Jews into
Paidiament and the legalisation of marriage between
brothers and sisters-in-law drag on and on after the
argument has been exhausted, till in course of time
those who take one view or the other grow into a
decided majority, and settle the matter their own
way. Parliamentary government is simply a mild
and disguised form of compulsion. We agree to
try strength by counting heads instead of breaking

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20 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

heads, but the principle is exactly the same. It is
not the wisest side which wins, but the one which
for the time being shows its superior strength (of
which no doubt wisdom is one clement) by enlisting
the largest amount of active sympathy in its support.
The minority gives way not because it is convinced
that it is wrong, but because it is convinced that it is
a minority.

This again suggests an observation on a different
part of the passage quoted from Mr. Mill. In rough
states of society he admits of Charlemagncs and
Akbars, if the world is so fortunate as to have them
at hand. What reason is there to suppose that
Charlemagnes or Akbars owe their power to en-
lightenment superior to that of the persons whom
they coerce ? They owe it to greater force of
character and to the possession of power. What
they did was to suppress anarchy — to substitute the
vigorous rule of one Sovereign for the jarring pre-
tensions of a crpwd of petty rulers. No doubt
powerfulmen are generally comparatively enlightened
men, as were both Charlemagne and Akbar, for
knowledge is a high form of power, as light implies
intense force. But power in whatever form is the
essential thing. Anarchy may be mischievous
in civilised as well as in uncivilised hfe, and
the only way out of it is by coercive power. To
direct that power aright is, I think, the principal
object of political argument. The difference be-
between a rough and a civilised society is not that

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THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY IK GENERAL 29

force is used In the one case and persuasion in tlie
other, but that force is (or ought to be) guided with
greater care in the second case than in the first.
President Lincoln attained his objects by the use of
a degree of force which would have crushed Charle-
magne and his paladins and peers like so many
eggshells.

The correctness of the assertion that ' in all
nations with whom we need here concern ourselves,*
the period at which ' mankind have become capable
of being improved by free and equal discussion has
long since arrived/ may be estimated by reference
to two familiar points :-—

I. Upon all the subjects which mainly interest
men as men — religion, morals, government — man-
kind at large are in a state of ignorance which in
favourable cases is just beginning to be conscious
that it is ignorance. How far will free discussion
carry such knowledge as we have on these stibjects ?
The very most that can be hoped for — men being
what they are— is to popularise, more or less, a
certain set of commonplaces, which, by the condition
of their existence, cannot possibly be more than
half-truths. Discussion produces plenty of effects,
no doubt. People hunger and thirst after theories
to such a degree that whatever puts their own
wishes into a compact and intelligible form will
obtain from them a degree of allegiance which may
be called either touching or terrible. Look at the
great popular movements which discussion has pro-

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30 LIEERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

voked, and consider what approach any one of them
made to the real truth. Innumerable creeds, rcH-
gious and poHtical, have swept across the world,
arguing, preaching, gesticulating, and fighting.
Compare the amount of recognition which the worst
of them has obtained and the devotion which it has
called forth with the degree of really intelligent
appreciation which has been awarded to science.
Millions upon millions of men, women, and children
believe in Mahommed to the point of regulating
their whole Hfe by his law. How many people
have understood Adam Smith ? Did anybody,
except perhaps Mr. Buckle, ever feel any enthu-
siasm about him ? If we wish to test the capacity
of mankind at large for any sort of abstract discus-
sion, we ought to consider the case of the minor
branches of human knowledge which have been
invested with some approach to a systematic cha-
racter. How many people are capable of under-
standing the fundamental principles of either political
economy or jurisprudence i* How many people can
understand the distinction between making the
fundamental assumptions of political economy for
the purpose of calculating the results of the un-
restrained action of the desire to get rich, and
regarding those assumptions as being true in fact
and capable of serving as the foundations of human
society ? One would have thought that it was easy
to distinguish between the proposition, ' If your
only object in trade is to make the largest possible

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THE DOCTr:nE of LUiERTY IN GENERAL 3 1

profit, you ought always to buy In the cheapest
market and sell in the dearest,' and the proposition,
* Ail men ought, under ail circumstances^ to buy all
things in the cheapest and sell them in the dearest
market.' Yet how many people do in fact distin-
guish them ? How many recognise in the faintest
degree the importance of the distinction ?

2. Men are so constructed that whatever theory
as to goodness and badness we choose to adopt,
there are and always will be in the world an enor-
mous mass of bad and indifferent people — people
who deliberately do all sorts of things wliich they
ought not to do, and leave undone all sorts of things
which they ought to do. Estimate the proportion
of men and women who are selfish, sensual, frivolous,
idle, absolutely commonplace and wrapped up in the
smallest of petty routines, and consider how far the '
freest of free discussion is likely to Improve them.
The only way by which it is practically possible to
act upon them at all is by compulsion or restraint.
Whether it is worth while to apply to them both or
either I do not now inquire ; I confine myself to
saying that the utmost conceivable liberty which
could be bestowed upon them would not in the least
degree tend to improve them. It would be as wise
to say to the water of a stagnant marsh, ' Why in
the world do not you run into the sea ? you are
perfectly free. There is not a single hydraulic work
within a mile of you. There are no pumps to suck
you up, no defined channel down which you are com-

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32 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

pelled to run, no harsh banks and mounds to confine
you to any particular course, no dama and no flood-
gates ; and yet there you He, putrefying and breeding
fever, frogs, and gnats, just as if you were a mere
slave ! ' The water might probably answer, if it knew
how, ' If you want me to turn mills and carry boats,
you must dig proper channels and provide proper
water-works for me.'

I ..Google

CHAPTER II

ON THE LIBERTY OF TiTOUGHT AND DISCUSSION.

Though, as I pointed out In my last chapter, Mr.
Mill rather asserts than proves his doctrines about
Hberty, the second chapter of his essay on the
Liberty of Thought and Discussion, and the third
chapter on IndividuaHty as one of the Elements of
Well-being — may be regarded as arguments to prove
certain parts or applications of the general principle
asserted in his introduction ; and as such I will
consider them. I object rather to Mr. Mill's theory
than to his practical conclusions. 1 hope to show
hereafter how far the practical difference between
us extends. The objection which I make to most
of his statements on the subject Is, that In order
to justify in practice what might be justified on
narrow and special grounds, he lays down a theory
incorrect in itself and tending to confirm views
which might become practically mischievous.

The result of his letter on Liberty of Thought
and Discussion is summed up, with characteristic
point and brevity, by himself in the following
words : —

D

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34 T.fllKRTV, EQL'ALITV, FRATKRNITY

We have now recognized the necessity to the mental
weU-being of mankhid (on which all their other well-being
depends) of freedom of opinion and freedom of the expres-
sion of opinion on four distinct grounds.

First, if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion
may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny
this is to assume our own infallibility.

Secondly, though the silenced opinion be an error, it
may, and very commonly does, contain a portion of truth ;
and since the general or prevailing opinion is rarely or
never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse
opinions that the remainder of the truth has any chance of
being supplied.

Thirdly, even if the received opinion be not only true,
but the whole truth, unless it is suffered to be and actually
is vigorously and earnestly contested, it will by most of
those who receive it be held in the manner of a prejudice,
with little comprehension or feeling of its rational grounds.

Fourthly, the meaning of the doctrine itself will be in
danger of being lost or enfeebled and deprived of its vital
eifect on the character and conduct ; the dogma becom-
ing a mere formal profession inefficacious for good, but
cumbering the ground, and preventing the growth of any real
and heartfelt conviction from reason or personal experience.

The chapter in question Is, I think, one of tlie
most eloquent to be found in its authors writings,
and it contains, as is not unfrf^qn'-.ntly the case with
him, illustrations which are even more valuable for
what they suggest than for what they say.

These illustrations are no doubt the part of this
chapter which made the deepest impression when it
was first published, and which have been most
vividly remembered by its readers. I think that for

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THE LIUERTV OF TnOUCHT ANO DISCUSSION 35

the sake of them most readers forget the logical
framework in which they were set, and read the
cliapter as a plea for greater freedom of discussion
on theological subjects. If Mr. Mill had limited
himself to the proposition that in our own time
and country it is highly important that the great
questions of theology should be discussed openly
and with complete freedom from all legal restraints,
I should agree with him. But the impression which
the whole chapter leaves upon me is that for the
sake of establishing this limited practical conse-
quence, Mr. Mill has stated a theory which is very
far indeed from the truth, and which, if generally
accepted, might hereafter become a serious em-
barrassment to rational legislation.

His first reason in favour of unlimited freedom
of opinion on all subjects is this : ' If any opinion is
compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we
can certainly tell, be true. To deny this is to
assume our own infallibility.'

He states fairly and fully the obvious objection
to this — that ' there is no greater presumption of
infallibility in forbidding the propagation of error
than in any other thing which is done by public
authority on its own judgment and responsibility.'
In other words, the assumption is not that the
persecutor is infallible, but that in this particular
case he is right. To this objection he replies as
follows : — ' There is the greatest difference between
prLsuming an opinion to be true because, with every

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3^ LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

opportunity for contesting It, it has not been refuted,
and assuming its trutli for tlie purpose of not per-
mitting its refutation. Complete liberty of contra-
dicting our opinion is the very condition which
justifies us in assuming its truth for purposes of
action ; and on no other terms can a being with
human faculties have any rational assurance of being
right'

This reply does not appear to be satisfactory.
It is not very easy to disentangle the argument on
which it rests, and to put it into a perfectly distinct
shape, but I think it will be found on examination
to involve the following propositions : —

1. No one can have a rational assurance of the
truth of any opinion whatever, unless he is infallible,
or unless all persons are absolutely free to contra-
dict it.

2. Whoever prevents the expression of any
opinion asserts by that act that he has a rational
assurance of the falsehood of that opinion.

3. At the same time he destroys one of the
conditions of a rational assurance of the truth of the
assertions which he makes, namely, the freedom of
Others to contradict him.

4. Therefore he claims infallibility, which is the
only other ground on which such an assurance of the
truth of those assertions can rest.

The first and second of these propositions appear
to me to be incorrect,

As to the first, I think that there are innumerable

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THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 37

propositions on which a man may have a rational
assurance that he is right whether others are or are
not at hberty to contradict him, and that although
he does not claim infallibility. Every proposition
of which we are assured by our own senses, or by
evidence which for all practical purposes is as strong
as that of our own senses, falls under this head.
There are plenty of reasons for not forbidding
people to deny the existence of London Bridge and
the river Thames, but the fear that the proof of
those propositions would be weakened or that the
person making the law would claim infallibility is
not among the number.

A asserts the opinion that B is a thief. B sues
A for libel. A justifies. The jury give a verdict
for the plaintiff", with ^i,ooo damages. This is
nearly equivalent to a law forbidding every one,
under the penalty of a heavy fine, to express the
opinion that in respect of the matters discussed
B is a thief Does this weaken the belief of
the world at large in the opinion that in respect of
those matters B is not a thief ? According to Mr.
Mill, no one can have a rational assurance upon the
subject unless every one is absolutely free to contra-
dict the orthodox opinion. Surely this cannot be so.

The solution seems to be this. The fact that
people are forbidden to deny a proposition weakens
the force of the inference in its favour to be drawn
from their acquiescence in it ; but the value of their
acquiescence considered as evidence may be vci^j'

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36 LIBERTY, KQUALITY, FRATERNITY

small, and the weight of other evidence, independent
of public opinion, may not only be overwhelming,
but the circumstances of the case may be such as
to be inconsistent with the supposition that any
further evidence will ever be forthcoming.
" Again, an opinion may be silenced without

, any assertion on the part of the person who
silences it that it is false. It may be suppressed
because it is true, or because it is doubtful whether it
is true or false, and because it is not considered
desirable that it should be discussed. In these cases
there is obviously no assumption of infallibility in
suppressing it. The old maxim, ' the greater the
truth the greater the libel,' has a true side to it, and
when it applies it is obvious that an opinion is
silenced without any assumption of infallibility. The
opinion that a respectable man of mature years led
an immoral life in his youth may be perfectly true,
and yet the expression of that opinion may be a
crime, if it is not for the public good that it should

- be expressed.

In cases in which it is obvious that no con-
clusion at all can be established beyond the reach of
doubt, and that men must be contented with pro-
babilities, it maybe foolish to prevent discussion and
prohibit the expression of any opinion but one, but
no assumption of infallibility is involved in so doing.
When Henry VIII. and Queen Elizabeth silenced
to a certain extent both Catholics and Puritans, and
sought to confine religious controversy within limits

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THE LIRKRTV Of THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 39

fixed by law, they did not assume themselves to be
infallible. What they thought — and it is by no
means clear that they were wrong— was that unless
religious controversy was kept within bounds there
would be a civil war, and they muzzled the dis-
putants accordingly.

There are, in short, two classes of cases to which,
as it appears to me, Mr. Mill's argument does not
apply — cases in which moral certainty Is attainable
on the evidence, and cases In which It Is not attainable
on the evidence.

Where moral certainty is attainable on the evi-
dence the suppression of opinion involves no claim
to infallibility, but at most a claim to be right in the
particular case.

Where moral certainty is not attainable on the
evidence the suppression of opinion Involves no claim
, to infallibility, because it docs not assert the false-
hood of the opinion suppressed.

The three remaining arguments in favour of
unlimited liberty of thought and discussion are :
I. That the silenced opinion maybe partially true
and that this partial truth can be brought out by dis-
cussion only. 2. That a true opinion when established
is not believed to be true unless it is vigorously
and earnestly contested. 3. That it comes to be
held in a dead conventional way unless it is discussed.

These arguments go to show, not that the sup-
pression of opinion can never be right, but that It
may sometimes be wrong, v/hich no one denies.

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40 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

None of them show — as the first argument would if
it were well founded — that persecution in all cases
proceeds on a process involving distinct intellectual
error. As to the first argument, it is obvious that if
people ai-e prepared to take the chance of persecut-
ing a proposition which may be wholly true as if it
were wholly false, they will be prepared to treat it in
the same manner though it is only partially true.
The second and third arguments, to which I shall
have to return hereafter, apply exclusively to that
small class of persons whose opinions depend prin-
y cipally upon the consciousness that they have reached
them by intellectual processes correctly performed.
The incalculable majority of mankind form their
opinions in quite a different way, and are attached
to them because they suit their temper and meet
their wishes, and not because and in so far as they
think themselves warranted by evidence in believing
them to be true, The notorious result of unlimited
freedom of thought and discussion is to produce
general scepticism on many subjects in the vast
majority of minds. If you want zealous belief, set
people to fight. Few things give men such a keen
perception of the importance of their own opinions
and the vileness of the opinions of others as the fact
that they have inflicted and suffered persecution for
"them. Unlimited freedom of opinion may be a very
good thing, but it does not tend to zeal, or even to a
distinct appreciation of the bearings of the opinions
■which are entertained. Nothing will give either but

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THE LIBERTY OF TJIOUGIiT AND DISCUSSION 4I

a deep interest in the subject to which those opinions
relate, and tliis is so personal and deeply seated a
matter that it is scarcely capable of being affected
by external restraints, unless, indeed, it is irritated
and so stimulated by them.

I pass over for the present the illustrations of
this chapter, which, as I have already said, are by far
the most important part of it ; and I proceed to the
chapter on IndividuaHty as one of the Elements of
Well-being.^2^-_^^/. jj,^, ^

The substance of the doctrine eloquently ex-
pounded in it is that freedom is essential to origi-
nality and individuality of' character. It consists,
however, almost entirely of eulogies upon individu-
ality, to which Mr. Mill thinks the world is indifferent.
He accordingly sets forth at length the advantage of
having vigorous impulses and plenty of them, of try-
ing experiments in life, of leaving every man of
genius free, not indeed ' to seize on the government
of the world and make it do his bidding in spite of
itself,' but to ' point out the way.' This individuality
and energy of character, he thinks, is dying out
under various depressing influences, ' The Calvinistic
theory' regards ' the crushing out the human facul-
ties, capacities, and susceptibilities, as ' no evil,' inas-
much as ' man needs no capacity but that of sur-
rendering himself to the will of God, and if he uses
any of his faculties for any other purpose but to do
that supposed will more effectually he Is better
without them.' Apart, however, from this, 'society

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42 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

has now fairly got the better of individuahty.' All
of us are enslaved to custom. ' Energetic characters
on any large scale are becoming merely traditional.
There is now scarcely any outlet for energy in this
country except business.' ' The only unfailing and
permanent source of improvement is Liberty, since
by it there are as many possible independent centres
of improvement as there are individuals.' Indivi-
duality, however, is at a discount with us, and we are
on the way to a Chinese uniformity.

Much of what I had to say on this subject has
been anticipated by an article lately published in
'Fraser's Magazine.'* It expands and illustrates
with great vigour the following propositions, which
appear to me to be unanswerable :^

I. Thegrowth ofHbertyinthesenseof democracy
tends to diminish not to increase originality and
individuality. ' Make all men equal so far as laws
can make them equal, and what does that mean but
that each unit is to be rendered hopelessly feeble in
presence of an overwhelming majority?' The
existence of such a state of society reduces indi-
viduals to impotence, and to tell them to be power-
ful, original, and independent is to mock them. It
is hke plucking a bird's feathers in order to put it on
a level with beasts, and then telling it to fly.

2. ' The hope that people are to be rendered
more vigorous by simply removing restrictions

* On ' Social Macadam isation,' by L. S., in Eraser's Magazine
for August, 1872.

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THE LIBERTY OK THOUGHT ANJ) DISCUSSION 43

seems to be as fallacious as the hope that a bush
planted in an open field would naturally develope into
a forest tree. It is the intrinsic force which requires
strengthening, and it may even happen in some cases
that force will produce all the more effect for not
being allowed to scatter itself.'

3. Though goodness is various, variety is not in
itself good. ' A nation in which everybody was
sober would be a happier, better and more progressive,
though a less diversified, nation than one of which
half the members were sober and the other half
habitual drunkards.'

I might borrow many other points from the ex-
cellent essay in question, but I prefer to deal with
the matter in my own way, and I will therefore add
some remarks in confirmation and illustration of the
points for which I am indebted to the writer.

The great defect of Mr. Mill's later writings
seems to me to be that he has formed too favour-
able an estimate of human nature. This displays itself
in the chapter now under consideration by the tacit
assumption which pervades every part of it that the
removal of restraints usually tends to invigorate cha-
racter. Surely the very opposite of this is the truth.
Habitual exertion is the greatest of all invigorators
of character, and restraint and coercion in one form
or another is the great stimulus to exertion, If you
wish to destroy originality and vigour of character,
no way to do so is so sure as to put a high level of
comfort easily within the reach of moderate and

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44 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

common -place exertion. A life made up of clanger,
vicissitude, and exposure is the sort of life whicii
produces originality and resource. A soldier or
sailor on active service lives in an atmosphere of
coercion by the elements, by enemies, by disease,
by the discipline to which he is subjected. Is he
usually a tamer and less original person than a com-
fortable London shopkeeper or a man with just such
an income as enables him to do exactly as he likes .''
A young man who is educated and so kept under
close and continuous discipline till he is twenty-two
"or twenty-three years of age will generally have
a much more vigorous and more original character
than one who is left entirely to his own devices at
an age when his mind and his tastes are unformed.
Almost every human being requires more or less
coercion and restraint as astringents to give him the
maximum of power which he is cap^ible of attaining.
The maximum attainable in particular cases depends
upon something altogether Independent of social
an-angements — namely, the nature of the human
being himself who is subjected to them ; and what
this Is or how It is to be affected are questions which
no one has yet answered.

This leads me to say a few words on Mr. Mill's
criticism on 'the Calvlnlstic theory.' He says:
' According to that the one great offence of man is
self-will. All the good of which humanity is capable
is comprised In obedience. You have no choice ;
thus you must do and no otherwise.' 'Whatever

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THE LIBEKXy OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 45

i'; not a duty is a sin.' ' Human nature being
radically corrupt, there is no redemption for any one
until human nature is killed within him.'

I do not profess to have a very deep acquaint-
ance with Calvin's works, but from what I do
know of them I should say that Mr. Mill uses the
word Calvinistic almost at random. Calvin's general
doctrine, as delivered in the first and second books
of the ' Institutes,' is something like this. The one
great offence of man lies in the fact that, having
before him good and evil, his weaker and worse
appetites lead him to choose evil. The best thing-
for him is to obey a divine call to choose good.
Man has a fearful disease, but his original con-
stitution is excellent. Redemption consists not
in killing but in curing his nature. Calvin describes
original sin as ' the inheritably descending per-
versencss and corruption (Book 2, ch. i, s. 8) of
our nature poured abroad into all the parts of the
soul,' bringing forth 'the works of the flesh,' or, in
other words, vice in all its forms. The result is
(ch. 2) that ' man is now spoiled of the freedom ol
his will and made subject to miserable bondage' to
his own vices. It is from this bondage, this pre-
ference of evil to good, that God rescues the elect,
I think that if Calvin were translated into modern
language it would be hard to deny this. Speak or
fail to speak of God as you think right, but the
fact that men are deeply moved by ideas about
power, wisdom, and goodness, on a superhuman

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46 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

scale which they rather apprehend than comprehend,
is certain. Speak of original sin or not as you
please, but the fact that all men are in some
respects and at some times both weak and wicked,
that they do the ill they would not do, and shun
the good they would pursue, is no less certain.
To describe this state of things as a ' miserable
bondage ' is, to say the least, an intelligible way of
speaking. Calvin's theory was that in order to
escape from this bondage men must be true to the
better part of their nature, keep in proper subjection
its baser elements, and look up to God as the source
of the only valuable kind of freedom — freedom to
be good and wise. To describe this doctrine as
a depressing influence leading to the crushing
out of the human faculties, capacities, and suscep-
tibihties, is to show an incapacity to separate from
theological and scholastic husks the grain on which
the bravest, hardiest, and most vigorous race of
men that ever trod the face of this earth were
nourished. No theory can possibly be right which
requires us to believe that such a man as John Knox
was a poor heartbroken creature with no will of his
own.

There is one more point in this curious chapter
which 1 must notice in conclusion. Nothing can
exceed Mr. IVHH's enthusiasm for individual great-
ness. The mass, he says, in all countries constitute
collective mediocrity. They never think at all, and
never rise above mcdiocriiy, 'except in so far as

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THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DIHCUS.SION 47

the sovereign many have let themselves be guided
and influenced (which in their best times they
always have done) by the counsels and influence
of a more highly gifted or instructed one or few.
The initiation of all wise or noble things comes and
must come from individuals ; generally at first
from some one individual.' The natural inference
would be that these individuals are the born rulers
of the world, and that the world should acknowledge
and obey them as such. Mr. Mill will not admit
this. All that the man of genius can claim is
' freedom to point out the way. The power of
compelling others into it Is not only inconsistent
with the freedom and development of all the rest,
but corrupting to the strong man himself.' This
would be perfectly true if the compulsion consisted
m a simple exertion of blind force, like striking a
nail with a hammer ; but who ever acted so on
others to any extent worth mentioning ? The way
in which the man of genius rules is by persuading
an efficient minority to coerce an indifferent and
self-indulgent majority, which is quite a different
process.

The odd manner in which Mr. Mill worships
mere variety, and confounds the proposition that
variety is good with the proposition that good-
ness is various, is well illustrated by the lines
which follow this passage :—' Exceptional Indi-
viduals . . . should be encouraged In acting dif-
ferently from the mass'— in order that there may be

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4S I.IJiERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

enough of them to ' point out the way.' Eccen-
tricity is much required in these days. Precisely
because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make
eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to
break tliroiigh that tyranny, that people should be
eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when
and where strength of character has abounded, and
the amount oi eccentricity in a society has generally
been proportioned to the amount of genius, mental
vigour, and moral courage it contained. That so
few now dare to be eccentric makes the chief
danger of the time.

If this advice were followed, we should have as
many little oddities in manner and behaviour as
we have people who wish to pass for men of genius.
Eccentricity is far more often a mark of weakness
tlian a mark of strength. Weakness wishes, as a
rule, to attract attention by trifling distinctions, and
strength wishes to avoid it. Originality consists in
thinking for yourself, not in thinking differendy from
other people.

Thus much as to Mr. Mill's view of this subject.
I will now attempt to explain my own views on
liberty in general, and in particular on liberty of
thought.

To me the question whether liberty is a good or
a bad thing appears as irrational as the question
whether fire is a good or a bad thing ? It is both
good and bad according to time, place, and circum-
stance, and a complete answer to the question, In

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THE LIBERTY OE THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 49

what cases is liberty good and in wliat cases is it
bad ? would involve not merely a universal history
of mankind, but a complete solution of the problems
which such a history would offer. I do not believe
that the state of our knowledge is such as to enable
us to enunciate any 'very simple principle as entitled
to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the
individual in the way of compulsion and control.'
We must proceed in a far more cautious way, and
confine ourselves to such remarks as experience
suggests about the advantages and disadvantages of
compulsion and liberty respectively in particular
cases.

The following way of stating the matter is not
and does not pretend to be a solution of the ques-
tion. In what cases is liberty good ? but it will serve
to show how the question ought to be discussed
when it arises. I do not see how Mr. Mill could
deny its correctness consistently with the general
principles of the ethical theory which is to a certain
extent common to us both.

Compulsion is bad— ■

1. When the object aimed at is bad.

2. When the object aimed at is good, but the
compulsion employed is not calculated to obtain it.

3. When the object aimed at is good, and the
compulsion employed is calculated to obtain it, but
at too great an expense.

Thus to compel a man to commit murder is
bad, because the object is bad.

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50 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

To inflict a punishment sufficient to irritate but
not sufficient to deter or to destroy for holding-
particular religious opinions is bad, because such
compulsion is not calculated to effect its purpose,
assuming it to be good.

To compel people not to trespass by shooting
them with spring-guns is bad, because the harm
done is out of all proportion to the harm avoided.

If, however, the object aimed at is good, if the
compulsion employed such as to attain it, and if the
good obtained overbalances the inconvenience of the
compulsion itself, I do not understand how, upon
utilitarian principles, the compulsion can be bad. I
may add that this way of stating the case shows
that Mr. Mill's ' simple principle ' is really a paradox.
It can be justified only by showing as a fact
' that, self-protection apart, no good object can be
attained by any compulsion which is not in itself a
greater evil than the absence of the object which the
compulsion obtains.

I will now proceed to apply the principles stated
to the case of compulsion applied to thought and
discussion. This Mr. Mill condemns in all cases.
I should condemn it in those cases only in which
the object itself is bad, or in which the means used
are not suited to its attainment, or in which, though
suited to its attainment, they involve too great an
expense. Compare the results of these two ways of
thinking. Few persons would be found, I suppose,
in these days to deny the paramount expediency,

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THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 5 1

the utility in the highest sense, of having true
opinions ; and by true I mean not merely honest,
but correct, opinions. To believe true statements,
to disbelieve false statements, to give to probable or
improbable statements a degree of credit pro[)or-
tloned to their apparent probability or improbability,
would be the greatest of intellectual blessings. Such
a state of mind is the idea! state which a perfectly
reasonable human being would regard as the one at
which he ought to aim, as we aim at all ideals — that
is to say, with a consciousness that we can never
fully attain them. The most active-minded, the
most sagacious, and those who are most favourably
situated for the purpose, are in practice altogether
unable to make more than an approximation to
such a result, in regard to some few of the in-
numerable subjects which interest them. I am, of
course, aware that this view is not universally ad-
mitted, but I need not argue at present with those
who deny it.

Assuming it to be true, it will follow that all
coercion which has the effect of falsifying the
opinions of those who are coerced is coercion for an
object bad in itself ; and this at once condemns all
cases of direct coercion in favour of opinions which
are not, to say the least, so probable that a reason-
able man would act upon the supposition of their
truth. The second condition — namely, that coer-
cion must be effective — and the third condition, that

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52 LIBERTY, EQUAr.TTY, FKATiaiNITY

it must not inflict greater evils than it avoids, con-
demn, when taken together, many other cases of
coercion, even when the object aimed at is good.
For instance, they condemn all coercion applied
directly to thought and unexpressed opinion, and all
coercion which must be carried to the point of
extermination or general paralysis of the thinking
powers in order to be effective. In the first case
the end is not attained. In the second it is attained
at too great an expense. These two considerations
are sufficient to condemn all the coarser forms of per-
secution. I have nothing to add to the well-known
commonplaces which bear upon this part of the
subject.

This being allowed, let us turn to the considera-
tion of the other side of the question, and enquire
whether there are no cases in which a degree of
coercion, affecting, though not directly appHed to,
thought and the expression of opinion, and not in
itself involving an evil greater than the evil avoided,
may attain desirable ends. I think that such cases
exist and are highly important. In general terms I
think that the legal establishment and disestablish-
ment of various forms of opinion, religious, political,
and moral, their encouragement and recognition by
law and public opinion as being true and useful, or
their discouragement by law and public opinion as
being false and mischievous, fall within this prin-
ciple. I think, that is, that they are cases of
coercion of which the object is or mav be yood, and

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THE LIliERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 53

in which the coercion is likely to be effective, and is
not an evil great enough to counterbalance the evil
which is avoided or the good which is attained. I
think, in short, that Governments ought to take the
responsibility of acting upon such principles, reli-
gious, political, and moral, as they may from time to
time regard as most likely to be true, and this they
cannot do without exercising a very considerable
degree of coercion. The difference between, I do
not say keeping up an Established Church at the
public expense, but between paying a single shilling
of public money to a single school In which any
opinion is taught of which any single taxpayer
disapproves, and the maintenance of the Spanish
Inquisition, is a question of degree. As the first
cannot be justified without infringing the principle
of liberty as stated by Mr. IVlill, so the last can be
condemned on my principles only by showing that
the doctrines favoured by the Inquisition were not
true, that the means used to promote them were
ineffective, or that their employment was too high a
price to pay for the object gained ; issues which I
should be quite ready to accept.

In order to show more distinctly what I mean
by coercion In favour of religious opinions, it is
necessary to point out that I include under the head
of religious opinions all opinions about religion, and
in particular the opinion that a given religious creed
is false, and the opinion that no religious creed is
absolutely true, as well as the opinions which col-

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54 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

lectively form any one of the many confessions of
faith adopted by religious bodies.

There are many subjects of legislation which
directly and vitally interest al! the members of
religious bodies as such. Of these marriage, educa-
tion, and the laws relating to reHgious endowments
are the most prominent. Suppose, now, that the
rulers of a nation were opposed to all religion, and
were prepared to and did consistently legislate upon
the principle that all religions are false. Suppose
that in harmony with this view they insisted in
every case on a civil marriage, and regarded it as
the only one legally binding, ahhough the addition
of religious ceremonies was not forbidden ; suppose
that they confiscated all endowments for religious
purposes, mailing provision for the life interests of
the actual incumbents. Suppose that they legislated
in such a way as to forbid all such endowments for
the future, so as to render the maintenance of
religious services entirely dependent on the temper
of the existing generation. Suppose that, in addi-
tion to this, they were to organize a system of
national education, complete in all its parts, from
universities and special colleges for particular pro-
fessions down to village day schools. Suppose
that in all of these the education was absolutely
secular, and that not a single shilling was allowed
to be appropriated out of the public purse to the
teaching of religion in any form whatever, or to the
education of persons intended to be Its ministers.

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THE IJBERTV OK THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 55

No one, I think, will deny either that this would be
coercion, or that it would be coercion likely to effect
its purpose to a greater or less extent by means not
in themselves productive of any other evil than the
suppression of religion which the adoption of these
means assumes to be a good. Here, then, is a case
in which coercion, likely to be effective at a not
inadequate price, is directed towards an end the
goodness or badness of which depends upon the
question whether religion is true or false. Is this
coercion good or bad ? I say good if and in
so far as religion is false ; bad if and in so far
as religion is true. Mr. Mill ought, I think, to
say that in every case it is bad, irrespectively of
the truth or falsehood of religion, for it is coercion,
and it is not self-protective.

That this is not an impossible case is proved by
the action of the British Empire in India, which
governs, not indeed on the principle that no religion
is true, but distinctly on the principle that no native
religion is true. The English have done, and are
doing, the following things in that country : —

1. They have forced upon the people, utterly
against the will of many of them, the principle that
people of different religions are to live at peace with
each other, that there is to be no fighting and no
oppression as between Mahommedans and Hindoos,
or between different sects of Mahommedans.

2. They have also forced upon the people the
principle that change of religion is not to involve

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56 LIBERTY, EQUAUTV, FRATERNITY

civil disabilities. The Act * by which this rule was
laid down utterly changed the legal position of one
of the oldest and most widespread religions in the
world. It deprived Brahminism of its coercive
sanction.

3. They have set up a system of education all
over the country which assumes the falsehood of the
creed of the Hindoos and — less pointedly, but not
less effectually — of the Mahommedans.

4. Whenever religious practices violate European
ideas of public morality up to a certain point, they
have, as in the cases of Suttee and human sacriiices,
been punished as crimes.

5. They compel the natives to permit the pre-
sence among them of missionaries whose one object
it is to substitute their own for the native religions,
and who do, in fact, greatly weaken the native
religions.

In these and in some other ways the English
Government keeps up a steady and powerful
pressure upon their Indian subjects in the direction
of those moral and religious changes which arc
incidental to, and form a part of what we understand
by, civilisation. It is remarkable that this pressure
is exerted, as it were, involuntarily. No act which
can in the ordinary use of language be described as
remotely resembling persecution can be laid to the
charge of the Government of India. The most

* Act xxi. of 1850. Commonlj', though not very correctly,
called the ' Lex Loi:i Act.'

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THE LICERTY OK 'IHOUGIIT AND DISCUSSION 57

solemn pledges to maintain complete impartiality
between different religious persuasions have been
given on the most solemn occasions, and they have
been observed with the most scrupulous fidelity.
Every civilian, every ■ person of influence and
authority, is full of a sincere wish to treat the
native religions with respect. It would be difficult
to find a body of men less disposed on the whole to
proselytize, or more keenly aware of the weak side
of the proselytizing spirit. Whatever faults the
English in India have committed, the fault of being
too ecclesiastically minded, of being too much led
by missionaries, is certainly not one of them. For
many years the bare presence of missionaries in
British India was not tolerated by the Indian
Government. The force of circumstances, however,
was too strong for them, and has put them, against
their will, at the head of a revolution. Little by
little they were forced to become the direct rulers of
the whole country, and to provide it with a set of
laws and institutions. They found, as every one
who has to do with legislation must find, that laws
must be based upon principles, and that it is im-
possible to lay down any principles of legislation at
all unless you are prepared to say, I am right, and
you are wrong, and your view shall give way to
mine, quietly, gradually, and peaceably ; but one of
us two must rule and the other must obey, and I
mean to n.de.

I might multiply to any conceivable extent ilkis-

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5B LIBERTV, EQUALITY, FKATKRNITY

trations of the propositions that all government has
and must of necessity have a moral basis, and that
the connection between morals and religion is so in-
timate that this implies a religious basis as well.
I do not mean by a religious basis a complete agree-
ment in religious opinion among either the gover-
nors or the persons governed, but such an amount
of agreement as is sufficient to determine the at-
titude of legislation towards religion. I think if
these lilustrations were fully stated and properly
studied they would establish some such general In-
ference as this :■ — ■

There are three relations and no more in which
legislation can stand towards religion in general, and
towards each particular religious opinion or form of
religion : —

1. It may proceed on the assumption that some
one religion is true and all others false.

2. It may proceed on the assumption that more
than one religion is, so to speak, respectable, and
it may favour them in the same or different degrees.

3. It may proceed on the assumption that all
religions or that some religions are false,

I beheve It to be simply impossible that legis-
lation should be really neutral as to any religion which
is professed by any large number of the persons legis-
lated for. He that is not for such a religion Is against
it. Real neutraUty is possible only with regard to
forms of religion which are not professed at all by the
subjects of legislation, or which are professed by so

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THE I.IBKRTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 59

few of them that their opinions can be regarded as
unimportant by the rest. English legislation in
England is neutral as to Mahommedanism and
Brahmlnism. English legislation in India proceeds on
the assumption that both are false. If it did not, it
would have to be founded on the Koran or the Insti-
tutes of Menu, If this is so, it is practically certain
that coercion will be exercised in favour of some reli-
gious opinions and against others, and the question
whether such coercion is good or bad will depend
upon the view of religion which is taken by different.'
people.

The real opinion of most legislators in the
present day, the opinion in favour of which they do,
in fact, exercise coercion, is the opinion that no reli-
gion is absolutely true, but that all contain a mixture
of truth and falsehood, and that the same is the case
with ethical and political systems. One inference
from this is that direct legislation against any reli-
gion as a whole Is wrong, and this is one great
objection to persecution. When you persecute a
religion as a whole, you must generally persecute
truth and goodness as well as falseliood. Coercion
as to religion will therefore chlefiy occur in the in-
direct form, in the shape of treating certain parts —
vital parts, it may be — of particular systems as
mischievous and possibly even as criminal falsehoods
when they come in the legislator's way. When
priests, of whatever creed, claim to hold the keys of
heaven and hell and to work Invisible miracles, it

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OO LIBERTY. riQUATJTY, I.RATl'KNITV

wiH practically become necessary for many purposes
to decide whedier they really are the representatives
of God upon earth, or whether they are mere im-
postors, for there is no way of avoiding the question,
and it admits of no other solution.

Many, perhaps most, of the extravagant theories
which have been and are maintained about liberty,
and in particular about the division between the tem-
poral and spiritual powers, have been devised by
persons who, holding this view and not choosing to
avow it, wished to discover some means of leaving
uncontested the claims to divine authority of various
rehgious systems, and of showing that an admission
of the truth of those claims would not involve the con-
sequences which those v/ho believed in them wished
to draw from it. It is for immediate practical pur-
poses highly convenient to say, Your creed is, no
doubt, divine, and you are the agents of God for
the purpose of teaching it, but liberty of opinion is
also more or less divine, and the civil ruler has his
own rights and duties as well as the successors of
the Aposdes. But, convenient as this is, it is a mere
compromise. The theory is untrue, and no one
really believes more than that half of it which suits
him. If spiritual means that which relates to thought
and feeling, every act of Hfe is spiritual, for in every
act there is a mental element which gives it its moral
character. If temporal means outward and visible,
then every act is temporal, for every thought and feel-
ing tends towards and is embodied inacdon. In fact.

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every human action is both temporal and spiritual.
The attempt to distinguish between temporal and
spiritual, between Church and State, is like the
attempt to distinguish between substance and form.
Formless matter or unsubstantial form are ex-
pressions which have no meaning, and in the same
way things temporal and things spiritual presuppose
and run into each other at every point. Human
life is one and indivisible, and is or ought to be regu-
lated by one set of principles and not by a multi-
tude. This subject, however, is too large and
important to be disposed of parenthetically. I pro-
, pose to discuss it separately.* With these pre-
liminary observations, I proceed to say a few words
on each of the three relations in which legislation
may stand to religion. It will be found that the
consideration of them will throw a strong light upon
many of the illustrations of this subject discussed by
Mr. Mill and others.

First, legislation may proceed on the assumption
that one religion is true and all others false. This
is the assumption which pervades nearly all early
Christian legislation. It is made so unconsciously
by Mahommedans and Hindoos that their law and
their rehgion are to a great extent one and the same
thing. Our own minds have become so much
sophisticated by commonplaces about liberty and
toleration, and about the division between the tem-
poral and spiritual power, that we have almost
" See chap. ifl. p. 105.

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02 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

ceased to think of the attainment of truth in religion
as desirable if it were possible. It appears to me
that, if it were possible, the attainment of religious
truth and its recognition as such by legislation would
be of all conceivable blessings the greatest. If we
were all of one mind, and that upon reasonable
grounds, about the nature of men and dieir relation
to the world or worlds in which they live, we should
be able at once with but little difficulty to solve all
the great moral and political questions which at pre-
sent distract and divide the world, and cause us to
waste in unfruitful though inevitable contests the
strength which might make life happy.

Even when a religion is only partially true, the
effect of a general and perfecdy sincere belief in it is
to give unity and vigour and a distinct and original
turn to the life of those who really believe it. Such
a belief is the root out of which grow laws, insti-
tutions, moral principles, tastes, and arts innumer-
able. The phrases about our common Christianity are
vague enough, but it was in religious beHefs common
to great masses of people that the foundations of all
that we most justly prize were laid. If from the fall
of the Roman Empire to the revival of learning
there had been no moral and spiritual unity in the
world, we should still, in all probability, have been
litde better than barbarians. If the divided forces
of mankind could now be based upon one foundation
of mora! and spiritual truth, and directed towards a
set of ends forming one harmonious whole, our de-

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scendants would probably surpass us quite as de-
cisively as we surpass the contemporaries of Alfred or
Gregory the Great. Progress has its drawbacks, and
they are great and serious ; but whatever its value
may be, unity in religious belief would further it.

The question how such a state of things is to be
produced is one which it is impossible not to ask
and equally impossible to answer, except by the words,
' the wind bloweth where it listeth, and ye know
not whence it cometh nor whither it gocth.' The
sources of religion lie hid from us. All that we
know is that now and again in the course of ages
some one sets to music tlie tune which is haunting
millions of ears. It is caught up here and there,
and repeated till the chorus is thundered out by a
body of singers able to drown all discords and to
force the vast unmusical mass to listen, to them.
Such results as these come not by observation, but
when they do come they carry away as with a flood
and hurry in their own direction all the laws and
customs of those whom they affect. To oppose Mr.
Mill's ' simple principle ' about liberty to such powers
as these is like blowing against a hurricane with a
pair of bellows. To take any such principle as a
rule by which such powers may be measured and
may be declared to be good or bad is hke valuing a
painting by adding together the price of the colours,
the canvas, and so much a day calculated on his ave-
rage earnings for the value of the artist's labour.

When the hearts of men are deeply stirred by

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64 LIEKRTV, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

what they regard as a gospel or new revelation, they
do as a fact not only believe it themselves, but com-
pel others to accept it, and this compulsion for ages
to come determines the belief and practice of enor-
mous multitudes of people who care very little about
the matter. Earth resembles heaven in one respect
at least. Its kingdom suffereth violence, and the
violent take it by force. That such violence is or
under circumstances may be highly beneficial to the
world is, I think, abundandy proved by history.
The evil and good done by it must in all cases be
measured by the principles laid down above. Was
the object good ? Did the means conduce to it ?
Did they conduce to it at an excessive price ?
Apply this to the case of the establishment of
Christianity as a State religion first in the Roman
Empire and afterwards in modern Europe. It is
obvious that we have before us the most intricate of
all conceivable problems, a problem which no single
and simple principle can possibly solve. Its so-
lution would require answers to the following,
amongst other questions :— i. What is Christianity ?
2. Mow far is it true and useful ? 3. How far was
it and how far was each part of it promoted by
coercion ? 4. What kinds of coercion promoted the
different parts of it .^ 5. What was the comparative
importance of the coercion applied and the results
obtained ? Most of these questions are obviously
insoluble.

The second case is that in which the Legislature

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THK LIBERTY OF TilOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 65

regards various creeds as respectable, and favours
them more or less according to circumstances, and
either equally or unequally. This is the present
state of things throughout the greater part of the
civilised world. It is carried out to its fullest
development In tills country and in the United
States, though in this country two State Churches
are specially favoured, while in America all Churches
stand upon the same footing as lawful associations
based upon voluntary contracts. The way in
which this arrangement is accepted as a final
result which is to last indefinitely has always
seemed to me to afford a strong illustration of the
manner in which people are disposed to accept as
final the temporary solutions of great questions
which are in fashion in their own days. The fatal
defect in die arrangement, which must sooner or
later break it up, is that it tends to emasculate both
Church and State. It cuts human life in two. It cuts
off religion from active life, and it reduces the State
to a matter of police. Moreover, it is but a
temporary and not a very honest device. To
turn Churches into mere voluntary associations,
and to sever the connection between them and
the State, is on the part of the State an act not of
neutrality but of covert unbelief. On the part of
the Churches which accept it it is a tacit admission
of failure, a tacit admission that they have no distinct
authoritative message from God to man, and that
they do not venture to expect to be recognised as

F

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66 miERTY, EQUALITY, FRATEliNlTY

institutions to which such a message has been con-
fided. But if this is not their character, there is no
other character for them to liold tlian tliat of human
institutions, like the old schools of philosopliy,
based upon various theories as to the nature, the
destiny, and the duties of men.

If this is the light in which Churches are to be
regarded, the division between Church and State,
the maxim of a free Church in a free State, will
mean that men in their political capacity are to have
no opinions upon the topics which interest them
most deeply ; and, on the other hand, that men of
a speculative turn are never to try to reduce their
speculations to practice on a large scale, by making
or attempting to make thcni the basis of legislation.
If this principle Is adopted and adhered to, one
of two results must sooner or later inevitably follow.
In so far as the principle is accepted and acted
upon with real good faith, the State will be degraded,
and reduced to mere police functions. Associations
of various kinds will take its place and push it on
one side, and completely new forms of society may
be the result. Mormonism is one illustration of this,
but the strong tendency which has shown itself on
many occasions both in France and America on the
part of enthusiastic persons to ' try experiments in
living,' by erecting some entirely new form of society,
has supplied many minor illustrations of the same
principle. St. Simonianism, families of love by
whatever name tlicy are called, are straws showing

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THE LIBERTY OK THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 67

the set of a wind which some day or other might
take rank among the fiercest of storms. Such ex-
periments as these have nothing whatever to do
with liberty. They are embryo governments, Uttle
States which in course of time may well come to be
dangerous antagonists of the old one.

Another possible result is that the State, finding
itself confronted by Churches at all sorts of points,
may at last renounce the notion that it is debarred
from forming an opinion upon moral and religious
problems, and from legislating in accordance with
the opinions so formed. If and in so far as the
State — that is to say, a number of influential
people sufficient to dispose of the public force —
arrives at distinct views upon these points, it must
of necessity revert from the provisional and neutral
attitude to a belligerent attitude. It must assume
the truth of some religious opinions, and as a
necessary consequence the falsehood of others, and
as to these last it will take up a position of hostility.
Cases may occur, as the state of our own time shows,
in which it Is extremely difficult to say what is true,
but comparatively easy to say what is false, and I
do not see why conscious ignorance upon some
points should interfere with or excuse people
from acting upon a distinct negative conviction
upon others.

Such a course necessarily encounters the most
virulent and passionate resistance. Unwelcome,
however, and thorny as this path Is, I believe that

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b6 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

it ought, when necessary, to be taken; that it is
desirable that legislators and their advisers should
not legislate on the supposition that all sorts of
conflicting creeds have an equal chance of being
true, but should consider the question of the truth
and falsehood of religious opinions ; that legislation
should when necessary proceed on distinct principles
in this matter, and that such a degree of coercion as
is necessary to obtain its end should be applied.
What I have already said shows that in fact this is
always done, though people are not always aware
of it.

As I have observed more than once, Mr. Mill's
illustrations of his principles are in some respects
the most attractive and effective parts of his book.
By far the most important passage of his ' Essay on
Liberty ' is the well-known one in which he argues
that people should be at perfect liberty to express
any opinions whatever about the existence of' God
and a future state, and that for doing so they
should neither be punished by law nor censured by
public opinion. In the practical result 1 agree
nearly, though not quite, but in order to set in as
clear a light as possible the difference between his
way of treating the subject and my own, I will deal
with it in my own way, noticing his arguments in
what I take to be their proper places.

The object of forbidding- men to deny the
existence of God and a future hfe would be to cause
those doctrines to be universally believed, and upon

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THE LIERRTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 69

my principles this raises three questions — i. Is the
object good ? 2. Are the means proposed likely
to be effective ? 3. What is the comparative im-
portance of the object secured and of the means
by which it is secured ? That the object is good if
the doctrines are true, admits, in my opinion, of no
doubt whatever. I entirely agree with the common-
places about the importance of these doctrines. If
these beliefs are mere dreams, life is a very much
poorer and pettier thing ; men are beings of much
less importance ; trouble, danger, and physical pain
are much greater evils, and the prudence of virtue is
much more questionable than has hitherto been sup-
posed to be the case. If men follow the advice so
often pressed upon them, to cease to think of these
subjects otherwise than as insoluble riddles, all the
existing conceptions of morality will have to be
changed, all social tendencies will be weakened.
Merely personal inclinations will be greatly strength-
ened. Men who say ' to-morrow we die,' will add
■ let us eat and drink.' It would be not merely diffi- \
cult but impossible in such a state of society to
address any argument save that of criminal law
(which Mr. Mill's doctrine about hberty would re-
duce to a minimum) to a man who had avowed to
himself that he was consistently bad. - A few people
love virtue for its own sake. Many have no par-
ticular objection to a mild but useful form of it if
they are trained to believe that it will answer in the
long run ; but many, probably most of thein, v;ould

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'JO LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

like it dashed witli a liberal allowance of vice if they
thought that no risk would be run by making the
mixture. A strong minority, again, are so viciously
disposed that all the considerations which can be
drawn from any world, present or future, certain or
possible, do not avail to hold them in. Many a man
too stupid for speculative doubt or for thought of
any kind says, ' I've no doubt at all I shall be
damned for it, but I must, and I will.' In short, all
experience shows that almost all men require at
times both the spur of hope and the bridle of fear,
and that religious hope and fear are an effective spur
and bridle, though some people are too hard-mouthed
and thick-skinned to care much for either, and though
others will now and then take the bit in their teeth
and rush where passion carries them, notwithstand-
ing both. If, then, virtue is good, it seems to me
clear tliat to promote the belief of the fundamental
doctrines of religion is good also, for I am convinced
that in Europe at least the two must stand or fall
togedier.

It is sometimes argued that these beliefs are
rather unimportant than either good or bad. It is
said that great masses of the human race have done
without any or with negative beliefs on these subjects.
Interesting sketches are given of the creeds or no
creeds of savage tribes, of educated men in classical
times, of Buddhists, and others. Here, it is said,
are cases of people living without reference to a
God or a future state. Why cannot you do the

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THE LIBERTY OF TnOUGIIT AKD DISCUSSION 7I

same ? A strong social impulse, a religion of hu-
manity will fill your sails as well as the old wind
which is dying away; and you will then think of
these questions which now seem to you all-important
as of insoluble riddles, mere exercises of ingenuity
with which you have nothing to do.

This argument falls wide of the mark at which
it seems to be aimed. Its object is to prove that
the fundamental problems of religion may and ought
to be laid aside as insoluble riddles on which it is
waste of time to think. The evidence to prove this
is that solutions of these problems, widely differing
from those which are established in this part of the
world, have been accepted in other countries 3Jid by
other races of men. No doubt this is true, but what
does it prove ? Taken in connection with other
facts equally notorious, it proves that as a man's re-
ligion is, so will his morals be. The Buddhists have
a religion and a morality which closely correspond.
How does diis show that European morality is not
founded on Christianity, and that you can destroy
the one without aifecting the other ? It proves the
reverse. If Buddhists became Christians or Chris-
tians became Buddhists, a corresponding moral
change would soon make itself felt. The difference
between Hindoo and Mahommedan morals closely
follows the difference between their creeds. Whether
Christianity is true or false, and whether European
morality is good or bad, European moraHty Is in
fact founded upon religion, and the destruction of

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72 LIBERTY, KQUALITY, FRATERNITY

the one must of necessity involve the reconstruction
of the other. Many persons in these days wish to
retain the morality which they like, after getting rid
of the religion which they disbelieve. Whether
they are right or wrong in disturbing the foundation,
they are inconsistent in wishing to save the super-
structure. If we are to think as Csesar thought of
God and a future state, we cannot avoid considering
the question whether Caesar's morals and principles
of action were not superior to the common moral
standards. Jesus Christ believed in God and a future
state, and preached the Sermon on the Mount. Julius
Caesar believed the questions about God and a iuture
state to be mere idle curiosities. He also preached
impressive sermons by example and otherwise.
Many persons in these days appear to me to think
that they can reconcile the morals of Jesus Christ
with the theology of Julius Caesar by masquerading
in the Pope's old clothes and asking the world at
large to take their word of honour that all is well.

To return to Mr. Mill. One of his arguments
tends to show that the object of promoting these
beliefs is bad. He considers that rulers ought not
to decide religious questions for others without
allowing them to hear what can be said on the
contrary side. I am not, I own, much moved by
this argument. It is what everyone does and must
of necessity be continually doing in nearly every
department of life. What is al! education except a
strenuous and systematic effort to give the whole

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THE LiBERTY Ol- THOUGHT AND DISCUS^TON 73

character a certain turn and bias which appears on
the whole desirable to the person who gives it ? A
man who did not, as far as he could, ' undertake to
decide ' for his children the questions whether they
should be truthful, industrious, sober, respectful, and
chaste, and that ' without allowing them to hear
what was to be said on the contrary side,' would be
a contemptible pedant. Legislators and the founders
of great institutions must to a very considerable
extent perform precisely the same task for the world
at large. Surely it is an idle dream to say that one
man in a thousand really exercises much individual
choice as to his religious or moral principles, and I
doubt whether it is not an exaggeration to say that
one man in a million is capable of making any very
material addition to what is already known or
plausibly conjectured on these matters. I repeat,
then, that the object of causing these doctrines to
be believed appears to me to be clearly good if
and in so far as the doctrines themselves are true.

It may perhaps be suggested, on the other hand,
that the object is good whether the doctrines are true
or false, and no doubt the necessity for compulsion is
greater if they are false ; but the suggestion itself
may be disposed of very shortly. It is a suggestion
which it is childish to discuss in public, because no one
could avow it without contradicting himself, and so
defeating his own object. No one can publicly and
avowedly ask people to believe a lie on the ground
of its being good for them. Such a request is like

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asking a man to iift himself off the ground by pulling
at his knees with his hands. The harder he tries to
raise his feet with his hands, the harder he has to
press his feet on the ground to get a purchase.
The more you try to believe a lie because it will do
you good, the more you impress on your mind the
fact that it is a lie and that you cannot beheve it.
A man who wishes to persuade his neighbours to
believe a lie must lie to them — he must say that the
lie is true ; and practically he must lie to himself in
the first instance, or he will not have the heart to go
on with his lie. There are ways of doing this so
very far below the surface that an ingenious person
may manage it with little or, perhaps, no conscious-
ness of the fact that he is lying. The favourite way
of doing it is by weaving metaphysical webs by
which it may be made to appear that the common
tests of truth, falsehood, and probability do not
apply to matters of this sort. But I need not
pursue this subject We are brought back, then, to
the question. Are these doctrines true ?

This is the vital question of all. It is the true
centre, not only of Mr. Mill's book upon liberty, but
ot ail the great discussions of our day and genera-
tion. Upon this hang all religion, all morals, all
politics, all legislation— everything which interests
men as men. Is there or not a God and a future
state ? Is this world all .■'

I do not pretend to have anything to add to
this tremendous controversy. It is a matter on

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which very few human beings have a rip-ht to be
heard.

I confine myself to asserting that the attitude
of the law and of pubhc authority generally towards
the discussion of this question will and ought to
depend upon the nature of the view which happens
to be dominant for the time being on the question
itself, modified in its practical application by con-
siderations drawn from the other two points above
stated — namely, the adaptation of themeans employed
to the object in view, and the comparative importance
of the measure of success which can be reasonably
expected, and of the expense of tlie means necessary
to its attainment. This, I say, is the only principle
which can either serve as a guide In reference to any
practical question, or enable us to do anything like
justice to the historical problems of which Mr. Mill
refers to one or two, and to which I propose to
return immediately ; and so much for the goodness
of the object.

The next questions are as to the effectiveness
and expense of the means, and these I will consider
together. It is needless to discuss the question of
legal prosecution in reference to these opinions.*

* There is a statute, 9 Will. III. c. 35, whicfi inflicts severe
penalties on persons ' who assert, or maintain, that there are more
Gods than one, or deny the Christian religion to be tme, or the
Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be of divine
authority ;' and blasphemy is an offence at common law; but I
believe tlie statute has never been enforced in modem times, and
it ought to be repealed. It is singular that the statute docs not
punish the profession of Atheism,

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Everj'one must admit that it is quite out of the
question. In the first place, it is Impossible ; and
in the next place, to be effective, it would have to
be absolutely destructive and paralysing, and it
would produce at last no result for which anyone
really wishes. I need not insist upon this point.

The real question is as to social intolerance.
Has a man who believes in God and a future state
a moral right to disapprove of those who do not,
and to try by the expression of that disapproval to
deter them from publishing, and to deter others
from adopting, their views ? I think that he has if
and in so far as his opinions are true. Mr. Mill
thinks otherwise. He draws a picture of social
intolerance and of its effects which nothing but
considerations of space prevent me from extracting
in full. It is one of the most eloquent and power-
ful passages he ever wrote. The following is its
key-note : —

Our merely social intolerance kills no one, roots out no
opinions, but induces men to disguise them, or to abstain
from any active efforts for their diffusion. With us heretical
opinions do not perceptibly gain or even lose ground in
each decade or generation ; they never blaze out far and
wide, but continue to smoulder in the narrow circles of
thinking and studious persons among whom they originate
without ever lighting up the general affairs of mankind
with either a true or a deceptive light. And thus is kept up
a state of things very satisfactory to some minds, because,
without the unpleasant process of fining or imprisoning
anybody, it nminlaiiis all prevailing opinions oiitwardly

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THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 77

undisturbed, while it does not absolutely interdict the
exercise of reason by dissentients afflicted with the malady
of thought. A convenient plan for having peace in the
intellectual world and keeping all things going on therein
very much as they do already. But the price paid for this
sort of intellectual pacification is the sacrifice of the entire
moral courage of the human mind.

The heretics, says Mr. Mill, are g^rievonsly
injured by this, and are much to be pitied, but ' the
greatest harm is done to those who are not heretics,
and whose whole mental development is cramped
and their reason cowed by the fear of heresy. Who
can compute what the world loses in the multitude
of promising intellects combined with timid charac-
ters, who dare not follow out any bold, vigorous,
independent train of thought lest it should land them
in something which would admit of being considered
irreligious or immoral ? '

On this point I am utterly unable to agree with
Mr. Mill. It seems to me that to publish opinions
upon morals, politics, and religion is an act as
important as any which any man can possibly
do ; that to attack opinions on which the frame-
work of society rests is a proceeding which both is
and ought to be dangerous. I do not say that it
ought not to be done in many cases, but it should
be done sword in hand, and a man who does it has
no more right to be surprised at being fiercely
resisted than a soldier who attacks a breach. Mr.
Mill's whole charge against social intolerance is that
it makes timid people afraid to express unpopular

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Opinions. An old ballad tells how a man, losing his
way on a hill-side, strayed into a chamber full of
enchanted knights, each lying motionless in complete
armour, with his war-horse standing motionless
beside him. On a rock lay a sword and a horn,
and the intruder was told that if he wanted to lead
the army, he must choose between them. He chose
the horn and blew a loud blast, upon which the
knights and their horses vanished in a whirlwind
and their visitor was blown back into common life,
these words sounding after him on the wind : —

Cursed be the coward that ever he was born

Who did not draw tlie sword before he blew the horn.

No man has a right to give the signal for such a
battle by blowing the horn, unless he has first drawn
the sword and knows how to make his hands guard,
his head with it. Then let him blow as loud and
long as he hkes, and if his tune is worth hearing he
win not want followers. Till a man has carefully
formed his opinions on these subjects, thought them
out, assured himself of their value, and decided to
take the risk of proclaiming them, the strong proba-
bility is that they are not much worth having.
Speculation on government, morals, and religion is
a matter of vital practical importance, and not mere
food for curiosity. Curiosity, no doubt, is generally
the motive which leads a man to study them ; but
till he has formed opinions on them for which he is
prepared to fight, there is no hardship in his being

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THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 79

compelled by social intolerance to keep them to
himself and to those who sympathise with him. It
should never be forgotten that opinions have a moral
side to them. The opinions of a bad and a good
man, the opinions of an honest and a dishonest man,
upon these subjects are very unlikely to be the same.
It is the secret consciousness of this which
gives its strange bitterness to controversies which
might at first sight appear as unlikely to interest the
passions as questions of mathematics or philology.
What question can appear to be more purely scien-
tific than the question whether people have or have
not innate ideas ? Yet it is constantly debated with
a persistent consciousness on the part of the dis-
putants that their argument is like a trumpery
dispute made the pretext for a deadly duel, the real
grounds of which are too delicate to be stated. The
advocate of innate ideas often says in his heart,
more or less distinctly, that his antagonist's real
object is to get all the mysteries of religion sub-
mitted to the common processes of the understand-
ing. The advocate of experience often says in his
heart of his antagonist, 'You are a liar; and the
object of your lie is to protect from exposure what
you ought to know to be nonsense.' As opinions
become better marked and more distinctly connected
with action, the truth that decided dissent from
them implies more or less of a reproach upon those
who hold them decidedly becomes so obvious that
everyone perceives it. The fact is that we all more

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or less condemn and blame each other, and this
truth is so unpleasant that oceans of sophistry have
been poured out for the purpose of evading or
concealing it. It is true, nevertheless. I cannot
understand how a man who is not a Roman Catholic
can regard a real Roman Catholic with absolute
neutrality. A man who really thinks that a wafer
is God Almighty, and who really believes that
rational men owe any sort of allegiance to any kind
of priest, is either right — in which case the man who
differs from him ought to repent in sackcloth and
ashes — or else he is wrong, in which case he is the
partizan of a monstrous imposture. How the ques-
tion whetlier he is right or wrong can be regarded
as one indifferent to his general character and to the
moral estimate which persons of a different way ol
thinking must form of him is to me quite incon-
ceivable. The converse is equally true. 1 do not
see how a man who deliberately rejects the Roman
Catholic religion can, in the eyes of those who
earnestly believe it, be other than a rebel against
God. Plaster them over as thick as you will,
controversies of this sort go to the very core and
root of life, and as long as they express the deepest
convictions of men, those who really differ are and
must be enemies to a certain extent, though they
may keep their enmity within bounds. When
religious differences come to be and are regarded
as mere differences of opinion, it is because the
controversy is really decided in the sceptical sense,

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TUK LIRKRTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 5 1

though people may not like to acknowledge it
fornially.

Let any one who doubts this try to frame an
argument which could have been addressed with
any chance of success to Philip II. against the
persecution of the Protestants, or to Robespierre and
Danton against the persecution of Catholicism and
the French aristocracy and Monarchy. Concede
the first principle that unfeigned belief in the Roman
Catholic creed is indispensably necessary to salva-
tion, or the first principle that the whole Roman
Catholic system is a pernicious falsehood and fraud,
and it will be found impossible to stop short of the
practical conclusions of the Inquisition and the
Reign of Terror. Every real argument against
these practical conclusions is an argument to show
either that we cannot be sure as to the conditions of
salvation, or that the Roman Catholic religion has
redeeming points about it. A man who cannot be
brought to see this will persecute, and ought to
pereecute — in the same sense of the word ought in
which we say that a man who believes that twice
two make five ought to believe that two and three
make six. The attainment or approximate attain-
ment of truth, and particularly the attainment of a
true conception of the amount and nature of our
own ignorance on religious subjects, is indispen-
sable to the settlement of religious disputes. You
can no more evade in politics the question, What is
true in religion ? than you can do sums right

G

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02 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

without prejudice to a difference of opinion upon the
multiplication table. The only road to peace leads
through truth, and when a powerful and energetic
minority, sufficiently vigorous to impose their will
on their neighbours, have made up their minds as
to what is true, they will no more tolerate error for
the sake of absti-act principles about freedom than
any one of us tolerates a nest of wasps in his garden.
Upon the question of the expense of persecution
Mr. Mill argues at great lengih, that perfect freedom
of discussion is essential to give a person a living
interest in an opinion and a full appreciation of Its
various bearings. This, I think, is an excellent
Illustration of the manner in which the most acute
intellect may be deceived by generalising upon its
own peculiar experience. That Mr. Mill should
feel what he describes is not, perhaps, unnatural,
but It is not every one whose intellect is so enor-
mously developed in proportion to his other faculties.
I should say that doctrines come home to people In
general, not if and in so far as they are free to discuss
all their applications, but if and In so far as they hap-
pen to interest them and appear to illustrate and inter-
pret their own experience. One remarkable proof
of this is taken from the whole history pf religious
controversy, and can hardly be better exemplified
than by Mr. Mill's own words. He remarks that
' all ethical doctrines and religious creeds .... are
full of meaning to those who originate them and to
the direct disciples of their originators ; their mean-
ing continues to be felt in undiminished strength,

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THE LIBERTY OF TJIOUGIIT AND DISCUSSION 83

and is perhaps brought out with even fuller con-
sciousness so long as the struggle lasts to give the
doctrine or creed an ascendency over other creeds.'
When the struggle is over the doctrine takes its
place as a received opinion ; ' from this time may
usually be dated the decline in its living power.'

I do not agree with this. A doctrine which
really goes to the hearts of men never loses its power
if true, and never even if it is false until it is sus-
pected or known to be false. There are in this day
innumerable persons to whom the worship of the
Virgin Mary and all the doctrines connected with it
have as much life and freshness as they ever had to
any one — a life and freshness from which the freest
and fullest discussion would rub off all the gloss,
even if it left the doctrine unimpaired. Millions of
men hold with the most living perception of their
truth the doctrine that honesty is the best policy, and
the doctrine, Speak truth, and shame the devil.
Experience and not discussion enforces maxims like
these. Every racy popular proverb is a proof of it.
If a dear friend, a man whom you have loved and
honoured, and who is a well-wisher and benefactor
to a large section of mankind, is stabbed to the
heart by an assassin, it will give a very keen edge
and profound truth to the maxim that murder is one
of the most detestable of crimes, though I do not
know that It admits of much discussion.

But whatever may be thought of the truth of Mr.
Mlil's statement, its logic is defective. The facts

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§4 LICEHTV, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

that whilst a doctrine is struggling for ascendency it
is full of meaning, and .that when it has become a re-
ceived opinion its living power begins to decline,
surely prove that coercion and not liberty is favour-
able to its appreciation. A ' struggle for ascendency *
does not mean mere argument It means reiterated
and varied assertion persisted in, in the face of the
wheel, the stake, and the gallows, as well as In the
face of contradiction. If the Protestants and Cath-
olics or the Christians and the Pagans had con-
fined themselves to argument, they might have
argued for ever, and the world at large would not
have cared. It was when it came to preaching and
fighting, to ' Believe, and be saved,' ' Disbelieve,
and be damned,' ' Be silent, or be burned alive,' ' I
would rather be burned than be silent,' that the
world at large listened, sympathized, and took one
side or the other. The discussion became free just In
proportion as the subjects discussed lost their Interest.
Upon the whole, it appears to me quite certain
that if our notions of moral good and evil are
substantially true, and if the doctrines of God and
a future state are true, the object of causing people
to believe in them Is good, and that social intole-
rance on the behalf of those who do towards those
who do not believe in them cannot be regarded
as involving evils of any great importance in
comparison with the results at which it aims. I am
quite aware that this is not a pleasant doctrine, and
that it is liable to great abuse. The only way of

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THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 85

guarding against Its abuse is by pointing out that
people should not talk about what they do not
understand. No one has a right to be morally
intolerant of doctrines which he has not carefully
studied. It is one thing to say, as I do, that after
careful consideration and mature study a man has a
right to say such and such opinions are dishonest,
cowardly, feeble, ferocious, or absurd, and the person
who holds them deserves censure for having shown
dishonesty or cowardice in adopting them, and quite
another thing to say that every one has a right to
throw stones at everybody who differs from himself
on religious questions, (The true ground of moral
tolerance In the common sense of the words appears
to me to lie in this — that most people have no right to
any opinions whatever upon these questions, except
in so far as they are necessary for the regulation of
their own affairs. When some wretched little curate
calls his betters atheists and the like, his fault is not
intolerance, but impudence and rudeness. If this
principle were properly carried out, it would leave
little room for moral Intolerance in most cases ; but
I think it highly important that men who really study
these matters should feel themselves at liberty not
merely to dissent from but to disapprove of opinions
which appear to them to require it, and should ex-
press that disapprobation.

I will now proceed to compare Mr. Mill's prin-
ciples and my own by contrasting the ways In which
our respective methods apply to the appreciation of

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the celebrated passages of history. He, as I under-
stand him, condemns absolutely all interference with
the expression of opinion. The judges of Socrates,
Pontius Pilate, Marcus Aurelius, Philip II., and the
rest are, when tried by his standard, simple wrong-
doers. Allowances may be made for them in con-
sideration of the temper of the times, but the
verdict is guilty, with or without, and generally
without, a recommendation to mercy. Their guilt
and shame is necessary in order to condemn the
principle on which they acted. They interfered with
liberty otherwise than for purposes of self-protection,
and they thus incurred such penalties as can be in-
flicted on the memory of the dead, however honest
they may have been, and whatever may have been
the plausibility of their opinions at the time. The law
must be vindicated, and the law — Mr. Mill's law —
is that nothing but self-protection can ever justify
coercion.

Once give up this, and where will you stop ?
Mr. Mill says, 'Aware of the impossibiHty of de-
fending the use of punishment for restraining irre-
ligious opinions by any arguments which will not
justify Marcus AureHus, the enemies of religious
freedom when hard pressed occasionally accept this
consequence, and say with Dr. Johnson that the
persecutors of Christianity were in the right; that
persecution is an ordeal through which truth ought
to pass, and always passes successfully.' This argu-
ment, says Mr. Mill, is ungenerous, but it also in-

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volvcs distinct error. That ' truth always triumphs
over persecution la ' a ' pleasant falsehood.' Truth
does not triumph ; on the contrary, a very little very
gentle persecution Is often quite enough to put it out.
Choose, saj's Mr. Mill in substance, between a prin-
ciple which will condemn Aurelius and a principle
which will justify Pontius Pilate. I will try to meet
this challenge.

Was Piiate right In crucifying Christ ? 1 reply,
Pilate's paramount duty was to preserve the peace
in Palestine, to form the best judgment he could as
to the means required for that purpose, and to act
upon it when it was formed. Therefore, if and in so
far as he believed in good faith and on reasonable
grounds that what he did was necessary for the pre-
servation of the peace of Palestine, he was right. It
was his duty to run the risk of being mistaken,
notwithstanding Mr. Mill's principle as to liberty.
He was in the position of a judge whose duty it is to
try persons duly brought before him for trial at the
risk of error.

In order to justify this view I must first con-
sider the question, In what sense can such words
as ' right ' and ' ought ' be applied to questions
of politics and government ? If in criticising
human history we are to proceed on the assumption
that every act and every course of policy was wrong
which would not have been chosen by an omnipo-
tent, omniscient, and perfectly benevolent man, if
such a being Is conceivable, I suppose no course of

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LIBKRTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

policy and no action of importance and on a larg-e
scale can be said to liave been right ; but, in ordei- to
take a step towards thie application of this method, it
is necessary to know what the history of mankind
ought; to have been from the earhest ages to the
present time. Even this is not enough. We ought
to know what it ought to have been after eacli
successive deviation from the highest possible stan-
dard. We ought to know not only what would have
happened if Eve had not eaten the apple, but what
would have happened if. Eve having eaten the apple,
Adam had refused to eat, or had eaten of the tree of
life; how it would have been if, when Adam and
Eve were expelled from Paradise, Cain had not
killed Abel, and so on. To take such a standard of
right and wrong is obviously absurd.

The words ' ought ' and ' right ' must then be
applied on a far more limited scale, and must in all
cases be interpreted with reference to the fact that
men inevitably are and always will be weak and
ignorant, and that their apparent and possibly their
real interests clash. If ' ought ' and ' right ' are con-
strued with reference to this consideration, it will
follow that duty will frequently bring individuals,
nations, and creeds into conflict with each other.
There is no absurdity in the conclusion that it may
be my duty to kill you if I can and your dut>^ to kill
mc if you can, tliat the persecutors and the Chris-
tians, Luther and Charies V., Philip II. and
William of Orange, may each Iiave Ijeen right, or may

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THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DlSCUSiilOX 09

each have been partly right and partly wrong.
When Hobbes taught that the state of nature is a
state of war, he threw an unpopular truth into a shape
liable to be misunderstood ; but can any one se-
riously doubt that war and conflict are inevitable so
long as men are what they are, except at the price of
evils which are even worse than war and conOict ?
— that is to say, at the price of absolute submission
to all existing institutions, good or bad, or absolute
want of resistance to all proposed changes, wise or
foolish. Struggles there must and always will be, un-
less men stick like limpets or spin like weathercocks.

I proceed to consider the case of the Romans
and the Christians, and more particularly the case
of Pilate.

It is for obvious reasons unnecessary to develope
the Christian side of the question. No one in these
days will deny that, taking the only view v/hich it is
fitting to take here, the purely human view of the
subject, Christ and his disciples were right in preach-
ing their religion at all risks. Apart from its super-
natural claims, its history is their justification ; no
rational man can doubt that Christianity, taken as a
whole and speaking broadly, has been a blessing to
men. From it not all, but most of, the things which
we value most highly have been derived.

Upon this it is needless to dwell. The Roman
view of the subject from the time of Pontius Pilate
to that of Diocletian requires more illustration.
The substance of what the Romans did was to treat

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Christianity by fits and starts as a crime. As to
the brutality of the punishments inflicted— cruci-
fixion, burning, and judicial tortures— all that need
be said is that it was the habit of the day. There
does not seem to have been any particular difference
made between the ti-eatment of the tliree persons
who were crucified on Calvary. What, then, was
the position of the Roman authorities when they
had to consider whether Christianity should be
treated as a crime ?

Ithasbeen often and truly pointed out that, humanly
speaking, the establishment of the Roman Empire
rendered Christianity possible, and brought about
the ' fulness of time ' at which it occurred. The Pax
Romana gave to all the nations which surrounded
the Mediterranean and to those which are bounded
by the Rhine and the Danube benefits closely re-
sembling those which British rule has conferred upon
the enormous quadrangle which lies between the
mountains on the north-east and north-west, and the
Indian Ocean on the south-east and south-west.
Peace reigned in the days of Pilate from York to
Jerusalem, which are about as far from each other as
Peshawur and Point de Galle, and from Alexandria
to Antwerp, which are about the same distance as
Kurrachce and the extreme east of Assam. This
peace actually was, and the more highly educated
Romans must have seen that it was about to become,
the mother of laws, arts, Institutions of all kinds,
under which our own characters have been moulded.

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TliK LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DIKCUSSION 9I

The Roman law, at that period as clumsy as
English law is at present, but nearly as rich, saga-
cious, and vigorous, was taking root in all parts
of the world under the protection of Roman armed
force, and all the arts of life, literature, philosophy,
md art were growing by its side. An Englishman
■nust have a cold heart and a dull imagination who
:annot underetand how the consciousness of this
nust have affected a Roman governor, I do not
envy the Englishman whose heart does not beat
high as he looks at the scarred and shattered walls
of Delhi or at the union jack flying from the fort at
Lahore. Such sights irresistibly recall lines which
no familiarity can vulgarize : —

Tu regere imperio populos, Romaiie, memento 1
Hffi tibi erunt artes ; pacisqiie imponere morem,
Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos.

Think how such words, when as new and fresh as
the best of Mr. Tennyson's poems to us, must have
come home to a Roman as he saw his sentries keep-
ing guard on the Temple. The position of Pilate
was not very unlike that of an English Lieutenant-
Governor of the Punjab. The resemblance would
be still closer if for a Ueutenant-governor we substi-
tute a Resident with a strong armed force under his
orders and Runjeet Singh by his side. At all events
Pilate, more or less closely associated with a native
ruler, was answerable for the peace probably of the
most dangerous and important province of the
empire. The history of the Jews shows what a

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nation they were. ' A people terrible from the
beginning,' and most terrible of all in matters of re-
ligion. It would not be difficult, nor would it be
altogether fanciful, to trace a resemblance between
the manner in which they would strike Pilate and
the manner in which the Afghans or the Sikhs
strike us ; and it may help us to appreciate Pilate's
position if we remember that, as we now look back
upon the Indian mutiny, he, if he was observant and
well informed, must have looked foi-ward to tliat
awful episode in Roman history which closed with
the siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of the
last vestiges of Jewish national independence. We
may be very sure that the predictions that not one
stone of the Temple should be left upon another,
that the eagles should be gathered together, that
there should be fire and blood and vapour of smoke,
were not isolated. Pilate and his successors must
have known that they sat on a volcano long before
the explosion came.

It was in such a state of things that Pilate
learned that a prophet who for some years had been
preaching in various parts of the province had
entered Jerusalem with some of the circumstances
which denote a powerful popular movement. Fur-
ther he received from the priests, from the head of
the established religion, complaints against the new re-
ligious reformer curiously like those which orthodox
Mahomniedans make against Waliabee preachers,
or orthodox Sikhs against Kookas. As to the de-

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THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 93

tail of the conduct which he pursued under these
circumstances, we have not, I think, the materials
for criticism. We know only one side of the story,
and that side is told by men whose view of thcir
position obviously is that they oughc to submit
with patient resignation to the deepest of all con-
ceivable wrongs. Pilate's reports to his superiors
and copies of the information on which he acted,
with descriptions by impartial observers of the state
of feeling in Palestine at the time, would be
absolutely essential to anything like a real judgment
on what he did. It may be true that he sacrificed
one whom he believed to be an innocent man to
pacify the priests, It may be that he was perfectly
convinced that the step taken was necessary to the
peace of the country, and he may have formed that
opinion more or less rashly. On these points wc
are and shall for ever continue to be as much in the
dark as on the merits of the quarrel which he is said
to have made up with Herod. We know nothing
whatever about it, nor is it material to the present
subject.

The point to which I wish to direct attention is
that Pilate's duty was to maintain peace and order
in Judea and to maintain the Roman power. It is
surely impossible to contend seriously that it was his
duty, or that it could be the duty of any one in his
position, to recognize in the person brought to his
judgment seat, I do not say God Incarnate, but the
teacher and preacher of a higher form of morals and

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a more enduring form of social order than that of
which he was himself the representative. To a man
in Pilate's position the morals and the social order
which he represents are for al! practical purposes
final and absolute standards. If, in order to evade
the obvious inference from this, it is said that Pilate
ought to have respected the principle of religious
liberty as propounded by Mr. Mill, the answer Is
that if he had done so he would have nm the risk of
setting the whole province in a blaze. It is only in
very modern times, and under the influence of modern
sophisms, that belief and action have come to be so
much separated in these parts of the world that the
distinction between the temporal and spiritual de-
partment of affairs even appears to be tenable ; but
this is a point for future discussion.

If this should appear harsh, I would appeal
again to Indian experience. Suppose that some
great religious reformer— say, for instance, some one
claiming to be the Guru of the Sikhs, or the Imam
in whose advent many Mahommedans devoutly
believe— were to make his appearance in the Punjab
or the North-West Provinces. Suppose that there
was good reason to believe— and nothing is more
probable — that whatever might be the preacher's own
personal intentions, his preaching was calculated to
disturb the public peace and produce mutiny and re-
bellion ; and suppose further (though the supposition
Is one which it is hardly possible to make even in
imagination), that a British officer, instead of doing

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whatever might be necessary, or executing whatever
orders he might receive, for the maintenance of
British authority, were to consider whether he ought
not to become a disciple of the Guru or Imam.
What course would be taken towards him ? He
would be instantly dismissed with ignominy from
the service which he would disgrace, and if he acted
up to his convictions, and preferred his religion toiiis
Queen and country, he would be hanged as a rebel
and a traitor.

But let us pass from Pilate to his successors, the
various persecutors who at intervals opposed the
progress of Christianity during the first three
centuries of its history. The charge against them is
that they interfered with liberty, that they exercised
coercion otherwise than for the purpose of self-
protection, that they ought to have acted with
absolute indifference and complete toleration. That
is certainly not the lesson which I should be in-
clined to draw from the history in question. It is, I
think, altogether unjust to blame them for maintain-
ing and defending their own view. The true charge
is, that they acted as if they had no such view to
maintain ; that, instead of offering an intelligent
opposition to Christianity in so far as they delibe-
rately thought it wrong, they inflicted on it occa-
sional brutalities, proceeding from a blind instinct of
fear and hatred, and unaccompanied by any sort of
appreciation of the existence of the problems which
Christianity was trying to solve. I should say that

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they were to blame quite as much for what they
left undone as for what they did. Neither Marcus
Aurelius nor his successors were wrong in seeing
that the Christian and the Roman ideas of life
differed widely, that there was not room for botli,
and that the two systems must of necessity struggle.
Their faults were these among others. In the first
place, their treatment of Christianity was, as far
as we can now judge, brutal and clumsy. They
persecuted just enough to irritate their antagonists,
to give them a series of moral victories, and not
enough to crush and exterminate. Atrocious as
an exterminating policy would have been, it would
probably have succeeded, in the same miserable
sense in v/hich the Spanish Inquisition succeeded,
but it would at all events have been intelligible.
The guilt incurred would not have been incurred
for nothing. It would not have defeated itself.

In the second place, they are to blame for not
having recognized the patent fact that Christianity
had an intensely strong hold on men, and for being
debarred by their pride and other evil tempers
from trying to discover its source. I do not
say that the Roman emperors and governors ought
all to have become Christians, but men worthy to be
regarded as rulers of men ought to have studied Chris-
tianity with deep attention. If it appeared to them
to be false, or to be true in part only, they ought to
have treated it as false, or partially true, and to
have made public and put on record the grounds on

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which they regarded other parts of it as fslse. It
may sometimes be necessary for Governments to
legislate directly against religions. It may often be
necessary for them to adopt a policy indirectly un-
favourable to them, but it never can be right or wise
to trust in such matters to sheer brute force produc-
ing bodily fear. Governments ought not only to
threaten, but to persuade and to instruct. The
Romans ought to have had a great deal more faith
in themselves and in their own principles of conduct
than they ever showed. They ought not to have left
the whole management of the human heart and soul
in the hands of devotional passion. They should
have stood forward as competitors with Christianity
in the task of improving the world which they had
conquered. They should have admitted fully and
at once the truth of one most important side of the
Christian religion, a side which has been far too
much forgotten— I mean its negative side. They
should have owned that idolatry had had its day,
that the Gods of their Pantheon, whatever they might
once have represented, v/ere mere dead Idols, lies in
marble and gold. They should have dethroned
Jupiter and his fellows, and stood forward frankly
and honourably to meet the new creed upon its
merits, resolved to learn, and no less resolved to
teach, for they had much to teach. If diey had
met as enemies in this spirit, would they not have
been generous enemies ? If there had been strife,
would It not have been a noble strife ? Would the

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Christian priests and bishops, full of religious
emotions, and ready, as the event showed, to degrade
the human race by wild asceticism and to bewilder
it with metaphysical dreams, have had nothing to
learn from the greatest masters of every form of
organised human effort, of law, of government, of
war, and of morals that the world has ever seen ?
In point of fact we know that the Church did learn
much from ancient Rome. It might have learned
much more, it might have unlearned much, if the
two great powers of the world had stood to eadi
other in the attitude of generous opponents, each
working its way to the truth from a different side,
and not in the attitudes of a touching though slightly
hysterical victim mauled from time to time by a
sleepy tyrant in his intervals of fury. In short, the
indifference of the Empire to the whole subject
of religion, which had grown out of its plethora of
wealth and power, was its real reproach.

This illustration of the way in which I look at
the history of religious struggles is enough for my
purpose. If it were thrown, as it easily might be,
into a logical shape, it would show that the merits
uf the attitude of the Empire towards Christianity
depend upon our estimate of the object in view, and
the efficiency and expense of the means adopted to
obtain it ; but this is of little importance. The
main fact to bear in mind is that there are and
there must be struggles between creeds and political
systems, just as there are struggles between different

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nations and classes if and in so far as their interests
do not coincide. If Roman and Christian, Trinita-
rian and Arian, Catholic and Protestant, Church
and State, both want the allegiance of mankind,
they must fight for it. No peace is possible for
men except upon one of two conditions. You may
purchase absolute freedom by the destruction of all
power, or you may measure the relative powers of
the opposing forces by which men are acted upon,
and conduct yourself accordingly. The first of
these courses is death. The second is harmonious
and well-regulated life ; but the essence of life is
force, and force Is the negation of liberty.

It may very naturally be asked upon this, Do
you then oppose yourself to the whole current of
civilised opinion for three" hundred years at least ?
Do you wish to go back to the Inquisition and
the war which desolated the Netherlands and
Germany for about eighty years ? Is the whole
theory and practice of EngUsh Liberalism a com-
plete mistake, and are writers like De Maistre
and his modern disciples and imitators our true
guides ?

To this I should answer most emphatically, No.
I do not object to the practice of modern Liberals.
Under great difficulties they have contrived to
bring about highly satisfactory and creditable results,
but their theories have presented those defects
which are inseparable from the theories of a weak
and unpopular party making its way towards power.

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lOO LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITV

They could persuade those whom they had to
persuade only by discovering arguments to show
how toleration could be reconciled with the admis-
sion of the absolute truth of religious dogmas.
They had to disconnect religious liberty from scepti-
cism, and it is pretty clear that they were not aware
of the degree in which they really are connected.
At all events, they avoided the admission of the
fact by resting their case principally on the three
following points, each of which would have its due
weight upon the theory which I have stated : —

The first point was that, though persecution
silences, it does not convince, and that what is
wanted is conviction and not acquiescence. This is
an argument to show that persecution does not effect
its purpose, and is answered, or at least greatly dimi-
nished in weight, by the consideration that, though
by silencing A you do not convince A, you make it
very much easier to convince B, and you protect B's
existing convictions against A's influence.

The second point was that people will not be
damned for bond-fide errors of opinion. This is an
argument to show that a severe and bloody persecu-
tion is too high a price to pay for the absence of
religious error.

The third point, which I am inclined to think
was in practice the most powerful of all with the
class who feel more than they think, was that to
support religion by persecution is alien to the senti-
ment of most religions, and especially to that of the

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THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION lOI

Christian religion, which is regarded as peculiai'Iy
humane. In so far as Christianity recognises and is
founded on hell, this has always appeared to me to
be an inconsistency, not in all cases unamiable when
genuine, but weak and often hypocritical. Whatever
its value may be, it falls under the same head as the
second point. It is an argument to show that
persecution is an excessive price to pay for religious
uniformity.

The true inference from the commonplaces about
the doubtfulness of religious theories, and the ineffi-
cacy of persecution as a means of obtaining the
object desired except at a ruinous price, is to modc-
mte the passions of the combatants, not to put an
end to the fight Make people understand that
there are other objects in life than the attainment of
religious truth ; that they are so ignorant and so
likely to be mistaken in their religious opinions that
if they persecute at all they are as likely to persecute
truth as falsehood ; that in order to be effectual a
persecution must be so powerful, so systematic, and
so vigorously sustained as to crush, paralyse, and
destroy ; and that the result when obtained will
probably be of exceedingly small importance, and
perhaps mischievous as far as it goes, and you teach
people not to live at peace, but to strive with
moderation, and with a better appreciation of the
character and importance of the contest, its intricacy,
its uncertainty, and the difficulty of distinguishing
friends from enemies, than Is possible in simpler

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102 LIMERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

times. Sceptical arguments in favour of moderation
about religion are the only conclusive ones.

If it should be supposed that moderation would
render controversy uninteresting or ineffective, it
should be remembered that there is a confusion in
common thought and language between brutality and
efficiency. There is a notion that the severest, the
most effectual contest is that in which the greatest
amount of bodily injury is done by the side which
wins to the side which loses ; but this is not the
case. When you want a fair and full trial of
strength, elaborate precautions are taken to make
the test real and to let the best man win. If prize-
fighters were allowed to give foul blows and hit or
kick a man when he is down, they would hurt each
other much more than they do, but their relative
strength and endurance would be far less effectually
tested. So with religions ; what is wanted is not
peace, but fair play.

De Maistre somewhere says that the perse-
cution which the Church had suffered from the
syllogism was infinitely worse than all that racks
and crosses could inflict ; and the remark, though
odd, is perfectly true. Modern religious struggles
— conducted by discussion, by legislation, by social
intolerance — are to the religious persecutions of
earlier times what modern war is to ancient war.
Ancient war meant to the defeated at best death,
at worst slavery, exile, and personal degradation.
Modern war Is far more effective, though the pro-

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THE LIBERTY OF TilOUGMT AND DISCUSSION I03

ccdurc is infinitely less brutal and degrading.
E idler the German or the French army in 1870-1
would have crushed the hordes which fought at
Chalons or Tours as a steam-engine cracks a nut.
The French armies were just as effectually defeated
and disabled by the Germans as if the prisoners
had been sold for slaves.

It is the same with controversy. Civil war,
legal persecution, the Inquisition, with all their
train of horrors, form a far less searching and
effective conflict than that intellectual warfare from
which no institution, no family, no individual man
is free when discussion is free from legal punishment.
Argument, ridicule, the expression of contempt for
cherished feelings, the exposure of cherished fallacies,
chilled or wounded affection, injury to prospects
public or private, have their terrors as well as more
material weapons and more definite wounds. The
result of such a warfare is that the weaker opinion
— the less robust and deeply seated feeling — is rooted
out to the last fibre, the place where it grew being
seared as with a hot iron ; whereas the prison, the
stake, and the sword only strike it down, and leave
it to grow again in better circumstances. A blow
bruises, and discolours for a time. Nitrate of silver
does not bruise, but it changes the colour of the
whole body for its whole life. It is impossible to
draw any definite line at which the sensation of
pressure becomes painful. It may be a touch just
sufficient to attract attention. It may inflict the

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104 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

most agonising pain in many different ways. It Is
the same with respect to the pain occasioned by
treating a man's opinions as false. The disagreement
may be pleasant, it may be of trifling importance,
It may cause intense pain, and this may be of many
different kinds, the immediate causes of which are
very various. Every mode of differing from a
man which causes him pain infringes his liberty
of thought to some extent. It makes it artifici-
ally painful for him to think in a certain way, and
so violates Mr. Mill's canon about liberty, unless
It is done for self-protection, which is seldom the
case. Mr. Mill's doctrines about liberty of opinion
and discussion appear to me to be a kind of Quaker-
-ism. They are like teaching that all revenge what-
ever, even in its mildest form. Is wrong, because
revenge carried to an extreme is destructive of
society.

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CHAPTER III.

ON THE DISTINCTION EETWEKN THE TEMPOKAL
AND SriRlTUAL FO\\^ER,

In the last chapter I more than once had to refer to
the question of the distinction between the spiri-
tual and the temporal power, or the spiritual and
temporal order. It plays so large a part in discus-
sions on this subject, that it will be worth while
to examine It with some degree of attention.

I think it would not be unfair to state the com-
mon view upon the subject somewhat as follows : —
Life may be divided into two provinces, the
temporal and the spiritual. In the temporal pro-
vince are Included all common affairs — war, com-
merce, inheritance ; all that relates to a man's body
and goods. Thought, feeling, opinion, religion, and
the like form the spiritual province. These two
provinces have usually been placed under separate
governments. Kings, parliaments, lawyers, soldiers
bear rule in the one ; some sort of priests bear rule
in the other, The recognition of this distinction and
the practice of attaching great importance to it is one

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lOO LIBERTY. EQUAr.lTY, FRATERNITY

of the curious bonds of union between Posltivists
and Roman Catholics. It is also one of the favourite
commonplaces of a large number of French political
writers, and in particular it is the very foundation of
the theories of Liberal Catholics, of those who try to
reconcile the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church
with modern notions about liberty.

\f I understand them rightly, the Ultramontane
party do not adopt this view, but take what to
me at least appears a far more rational one. It
might, I think, be expressed as follows :— The spiri-
tual and temporal power differ not in the province
which they rule, but in the sanctions by which
they rule It. Spiritual power means the power ot
the keys ; power to open and shut ; power in heaven,
purgatory, and hell ; possibly in some cases power
to interfere In a supernatural manner with the com-
mon course of nature. Temporal power means
power to deal with life and limb, goods, liberty, and
reputation— all the hopes and fears of this visible
world. Each of these may be so used as to affect
both opinions and actions. A man may be ex-
communicated or may be Imprisoned, either for
theft or for heresy. The two powers exercise a
concun-ent jurisdiction over men's conduct. In a
healthy state of things they ought to act in the same
direction. In an unhealthy state of things, they will
come into collision, and when they do so the stronger
of the two forces will overcome the other. They pro-
ceed to say that the penalties which the spiritual

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TEMPORAL AND SPIRITUAL POWER IO7

power can inflict are infinitely heavier than those
which the temporal power can inflict, which, if they
are real, is obviously true. The final inference is
that the Pope and his clergy are the rightful king and
rulers of the whole world.

This argument is surely altogether unanswerable
if its fundamental assumption is true ; and the at-
tempts of the Liberal Catholics to evade it by draw-
ing a line, not between the sanctions of which the
two powers dispose, but between the provinces over
which they reign, are excusable only on the ground
of their practical utility in the case of people who
want an excuse for civilly ousting the priests from
their position, and have not the moral courage to
look them straight in the face and tell them the
plain truth in plain words that their claims are
unfounded.

That this is so is obvious from the following con-
siderations. In the first place, human life forms a
whole. Thought, motive, wish, intention each run
into, and cannot be distinguished from, each other.
Whatever the spirit or sou! may be, it is not only
one, but the ultimate type of unity from which we
get the idea. It is the man himself as distinguished
from his organs through which it acts ; and the
stream (so to speak) of its operations is iminterrupted
from the first conception of a thought down to the
outward act in which it culminates. Every act is
spiritual. Every power is spiritual. Whether a
man is saying his prayers or buying an estate, it is he

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I Ob LII^ERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

the spirit or soul, whatever that may be, which prays
or buys. Whether he hopes for heaven or for
sensual pleasure, whether he fears hell hereafter or
bodily pam here, it is he the spirit or soul which
hopes or fears, and it is thus impossible to find either
centre or circumference for the two spheres of which
his life is said to consist, though it is easy to
imagine any number of classes of hopes and fears by
wiiich the whole of it may be acted upon.

If we approach the matter from the other end
and examine the attempts which have been made to
draw the line between the two provinces, we are led
back to the same result. No one has ever been able
to draw the line upon any inteihgible principle, or to
decide who ought to draw it. To take prominent
concrete cases, who can say whether laws about
marriage, education, and ecclesiastical property be-
long to the spiritual or to the temporal province ?
They obviously belong to each. They go down to
the very depths of the human soul. They affect the
most important outward actions of every-day life.
Again, if the two provinces exist, and if the temporal
and spiritual powers are independent, it is obvious
that the line between their territories must either be
drawn by one of them, or must be settled by agree-
ment between diem. If either has the power of
drawing it, that one is the superior of the other, and
the other has only to take what its superior leaves to
it. The result of this will be either that the Church
will be the ruler of the worid, and the State depen-

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TEMPORAL AND SPIRITUAL I'OWIJl lOg

dent on and subordinate to it, or that the State will
be the ruler and the Church a voluntary association
bound together by contracts dependent upon the
laws of the State. In other words, the powers
cannot be independent if either of them is to define
its own limits. If the limits are settled by agree-
ment {wliich has never yet been done in any part
of the world), you have no longer two provinces
divided by a natural boundary, but two conflicting
powers making a bargain. You have not a
Church and a State each with a province naturally
its own, but two States or two Churches — call
them which you please — of rather different cha-
racters coming into collision and making a treaty.
This is a merely conventional and accidental ar-
rangement, and does not answer, as according to
the theory it ought, to a distinction founded on
the nature of things.

For these reasons it appears to me that the
Ultramontane view of the relation between Church
and State is the true one ; that the distinction is one
of sanctions and not of provinces. If this is so, it
is obvious that the distinction will not affect the
question whether opinion is to be subject to coercion,
but only the question as to the sort of coercion to
which it is to be subject The object, or one of the
principal objects, for which the distinction between
the temporal and spiritual province is attempted to
be set up, is to secure a region for liberty. In the
spiritual province it is argued there should be no

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no LIBERTY, EQUALITY, I'-RATERNITV

temporal coercion. But opinion is in the spiritual
province. Therefore, there should be no temporal
coercion of opinion. If the whole of human life falls
within each province, it is obvious that this argument
cannot be applied.

The distinction of which I have thus denied the
existence has a very prominent place in the writ-
ings of Positivists, and the attention which they
have attracted in this country makes it desirable to
examine their views on the subject. I ought to say
that my notions as to their opinions are derived
mainly from the writings of the EngHsh members of
that body. I have read, I think, most of their writ-
ings, and have found in them, among other things,
many statements about Comte's views on this and
other matters. They have never persuaded me to
go very deep into Comte himself More reasons
than I can even glance at here have led me to the
conclusion that it would be an unprofitable invest-
ment of time to study his writings* What the
value of his speculations on natural science may have
been I do not pretend to guess, but the writings

* I will give one reason as a specimen. In Comte's ' Gene-
ral View of Positivism ' (tianskted by Dr. Bridges) there occure
the following cardinal statement : ' The great problem, then, is
to raise social feeling by artificial effort to the position which in
the natural condition is held by selfish feeling ' (' Gen. View,' p.
98). To me this is like saying, The great object of mechanics is
.to alter the laws of gravitation. I'he foUoiving passages in tlie
work quoted bear on the relation of the spiritual and temporal
powers, but I find no definition of the words spiritual and tem-
poral— pp. 81-4, 122-7, 144-8, 378-85.

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TEMPORAL AND SPIRITUAL POWER III

of his disciples, still more the exposition given by
iliem of his opinions, and perhaps, above all, their
accounts of his life, give me a strong impression
that his social and moral speculations will not ulti-
mately turn out to be of much real value. I
mention this because it is very possible that in
discussing his views to a great extent at second
hand I may not do them justice.

The writings, then, of his English disciples are
full of discourse on the relations of the spiritual and
the temporal power, which, as far as my experience
goes, tend in every case to lower the importance of
the latter and exalt the importance of the former. I
think, too, that the distinction is used for the purpose
of enforcing the universal duty of toleration on the
grounds just stated. These views coming from
Positivists are embarrassed by a difficulty, which to
me makes them unintelligible. I cannot understand
what, thinking as they think, is the nature of the
distinction.

What a believer in a future state of existence
means by a spiritual power as distinguished from the
temporal power is, as I have already shown, per-
fecdy plain. The difficulty arises when we find the
distinction insisted on by people whose leading doc-
trines are ; that there is no future state at all, or that,
if there is, we know nothing about it and have
nothing to do with it; that such words as 'spirit,'
' soul,' and the like are the names of figments
proper to what they describe as the metaphysical

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112 LIBERTV, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

Stage of thought. To find pci-sons who thhik
thus insisting on the distinction between spiritual
and temporal pov/er as inherent in the nature of
things, is as if an atheist were to make the love
of God the foundation of a system of morals,
or as if a disciple of Locke were to found his
philosophy upon a set of principles which he de-
clared to be innate.

The nearest approach to a meaning which I
can put upon the words as used by them is one
which would make spiritual and temporal power
correspond respectively to persuasion and force.
The spiritual power is the power of those who
appeal to and regulate public opinion. The tem-
poral power is the power of those who make laws
by which people are punished in body, goods,
and reputation. If my knowledge of Comte is
correct as far as it goes, his theory as to the
spiritual power was that a certain class of spe-
cially well-instructed persons were to speak with
the same sort of authority upon all the great ques-
tions of morals and politics as scientific bodies now
speak with as to such subjects as astronomy, and
that legislation and government, as we at present un-
derstand them, were to be carried on by an inferior
class of persons in obedience to the principles so laid
down for their guidance. I believe that he called
these two classes respectively the spiritual and
temporal powers, and justified his use of the ex-
pression by asserting that the real power of the

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TEMPORAL AND SPIRITUAL POWER I13

clergy over men's minds when at its highest lay in
the fact that they appealed to and represented public
opinion as it dien was, and not in the fact that they
were supposed to have power over the future pro-
spects of mankind, and even some degree of super-
natural influence over their ordinary concerns.

I do not think this was true in fact, but, however
that may be, the distinction thus expressed seems
to me to be altogether groundless and misleading.
To set up the temporal and spiritual powers thus
understood as two distinct agents by which mankind
are to be governed, each of which is to have its own
sphere of action, and is entitled to be respected by
the other so long as it keeps within that sphere, in-
volves several errors, each of which separately is
fatal to anything like an accurate view of the sub-
ject.

The first error is that the theory entirely miscon-
ceives the relation to each other of persuasion and
force. They are neither opposed to nor really
altogether distinct from each other. They are
alternative means of infiuencing mankind, which
may be, constantly are, and obviously ought to
be exercised by and upon the very same persons in
respect of the very same matter. To confine any
one who has to influence others in any capacity to
the use of one of them to the exclusion of the
other would be equivalent to destroying his in-
fluence. The old proverb which forbids the spurring
of willing horses is of universal application. No

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114 LIIiERTV, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

one applies force when persuasion will do, and
no sensible person applies force till persuasion has
failed. Persuasion, indeed, is an indispensable con-
dition to the application of force on any large
scale. It is essential to the direction of force ;
nor is it possible for any practical purpose to
separate the two. Whatever our spiritual power
may be, nobody would deny that Parliament is in
these islands the temporal power. It is only by
and with the consent of Parliament that anybody
can apply force in the ultimate form of legal
punishment to any one else for any purpose. How
much persuasion of every kind has to be em-
ployed before that consent can be obtained it is
needless to say. Forre, therefore, is dependent
upon persuasion, and cannot move without it.
Under a system of parliamentary government this is
a little more obvious than under other systems, but
the same is true in all cases. No one ever yet
ruled his fellow-men unless he had first, by some
means or other, persuaded others to put their force
at his disposal. No one ever yet used his force
for any considerable time, or on any considerable
scale, without more or less consultation as to the
direction in which and the purposes for which it
should be used.

Force thus implies persuasion acting in immediate
conjunction with it. Persuasion, indeed, is a kind
of force. It consists in showing a person the con-
sequences of his actions. It is, in a word, force

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TEMPORAL AND SPIIUTUAL POWER l I [^

applied through the mind. Force, on tiie other hand,
is a kind of persuasion. When a man is compelled
to act in a particular way by the fear of legal punish-
ment, he is persuaded by the argument, ' If you do not
act thus, you will be punished.' The argument is
extremely simple, and can be made intelligible by
gestures even to some animals ; but still it is an
argument. On the other hand, when a priest says,
'Vote a,s I tell you or you will be damned,' he
employs force just as much as if he held a pistol to
his parishioner's head, though the arguments through
which the force is applied are more elaborate than
in the other case. A surgeon tells a patient that he
will die unless he submits to a painful operation. Is
this persuasion or force ? No man would lose a limb
if he were not forced to do so by the fear of losing
what he values even more, but the surgeon would
usually be said to persuade his patient, and not to
compel him.

Take again this consideration. In almost every
instance in which force and persuasion are employed,
some persons are persuaded and others are forced to
the very same line of conduct by the very same act.
A father has two sons who will not learn their
lessons. He points out to both the importance of
industry, and tells both that if they are idle he will
punish them. One works and is not punished, the
other is Idle and is punished. Each has been ex-
posed to the same motives, and they may be said to
have persuaded the one and forced the other.

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Il6 LIBERTY, EQUALITV, FRATERXtTY

This is only an example in a single instance of the
action of civil society upon individuals. It presents
to every one a series of alternatives. On the one
side, health, wealth, honour, all the enjoyments o:
life; on the other, poverty, disgrace, and, in extreme
cases, legal punishment extending to death itself.
This is the net result of the whole working of social
institutions. They persuade in some directions, and
they threaten in others. Some of those who are
addressed listen to the pcisuasions ; others do not
listen to the threats, and have to take the conse-
quences in their various degrees. But every man
who lives in society is both persuaded and threat-
ened by society in every action of his life.

Now, if the spiritual power is the power which
works by persuasion, and the temporal power the
power which works by force, it will follow that every
society in the world is both spiritual and temporal ;
in other words, it will follow that the distinction is
unfounded. Every law and every institution in the
world will serve as an illustration of this. Take, forin-
stance, the great institution of private property. Pei--
suasion and force upon this matter cannot be divorced
from each other. The laws by which property is
secured both persuade and threaten. They enable
the owner of the property to enjoy it, and so per-
siia.lc people to acquire property. They threaten
those who infringe the rights of property, and
operate against them in the shape of force ; but they
are persuasion or force, they appeal to hope or to

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TEMPORAL AND SI'tRITUAL POWER llj

fear, according to the point of view from which they
are regarded.

If the attempt to make the spiritual and the
temporal power correspond with persuasion and
force breal<;s down, the only other common distinction
to which it can be assimilated is the distinction
between theory and practice. There is no particular
• reason why this familiar distinction should not be
called by its own name ; but if the common dis-
tinction between matter and spirit is to be given up
as exploded and unmeaning, there is no other mean-
ing which can be assigned to the words temporal
and spiritual. There is no doubt a certain sort of
uniformity with common usage in speaking of
general principles as spiritual and of their practical
application to details as temporal, and if it gives
people who do not believe in the distinction between
spirit and matter great pleasure to use the words
spiritual power and temporal power, this is, perhaps,
the least fallacious way of doing it. The objection
to such a mode of using language is that it is
peculiarly likely to be misunderstood. To speak of
theoretical and practical men as two powers opposed
to, or at all events independent of, each other, is to
revive all the old fallacies which are written in Ben-
tham's book of fallacies about the opposition between
theory and practice. The construction of theories
and their application to pracdce ought to go hand in
hand ; they ought to check and correct each other,
and ought never on any account to be permitted to

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I.IEERTY, EQUALITY, l.'RATKRNITY

be long or widely separated. The result of doing so
IS that practical men construct for themselves crude,
shallow, and false theories which react on their prac-
tice, and that theoretical men construct theories
which are very slightly connected with facts. A
society in which the two classes should form distinct
castes, the one being subordinated to the other,
looks like nothing better than a pedantic dream.

The general result is that the distinction between
spiritual and temporal power becomes unmeaning as
soon as we explode the distinction between spirit and
matter, time and eternity, the Church which has its
sanctions in the one, and the State which has its
sanctions in the other.

Why, then, it maybe asked, do Positivists attach
such importance to this distinction ? If it arises out of
a mere confusion of ideas, why has it such attractions
for them ? The passages referred to above "^ have led
me to doubt whether Comte really meant much more
than that his followers would do well under existing
circumstances to stand aloof from practical politics,
and to confine themselves to teaching the theory of
their creed. Speculative men constantly throw very
obvious remarks of this kind into the form of enor-
mously wide general assertions, as our own expe-
rience shows : but however this may be, all religious
reformers like to pour new wine into old bottles. In-
stances are to be found in abundance in the history

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AND SPIRITUAL POWER

of Speculation, and especially in the history of re-
ligious speculation, in which people have tried to
show that ail previous writers and thinkers were
merely their precursors, and that these precursors
were groping blindly after great truths, certain
aspects of which they dimly recognized, though the
full knowledge of them was reserved for the re-
formers themselves. ' See how my theory reconciles
and gives symmetry to all the great doctrines
which you, my predecessors, who were all very well
in your way, did not succeed in grasping,* is the
remark more or less emphatically made by many a
reformer when he looks on his work and, behold, it
is very good. This taste was strongly developed in
Comte, and as on the one hand he had a deep ad-
miration for certain sides of Catholicism, and on the
■>ther a conviction that the doctrine of a future state
and of the distinctions between spirit and matter as
usually understood were unfounded, he was obliged
either to invent some new meaning for the distinction
between spirit and matter and spiritual and temporal
power, or to admit that the Roman Catholic Church
was based upon a delusion. He preferred the first
branch of the alternative, and attempted to give a
theory about spirit and matter, spiritual and tem-
poral, which should replace and complete the old one.
Of this theory his disciples, so far as I know (for
I write under correction), have never given any dis-
tinct account, and the want of such an account
is closely connected with the objection to their

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I20 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATEKKITY

system, which has been continually made, and, so
far as I am aware, has never been answered. The
abjection is the familiar one that they expect the
clock to go when the weights are cut off. They woul d
like to have a priesthood and a spiritual rule after
they have denied the existence of the conditions
which make these things possible. The subject is
so important that it will bear a little remark.

All religions whatever, the professors of which
aspire to rule mankind, Iiave the same problem to
grapple with. Each has an ideal of human nature to
which its professors wish mankind In general to con-
form, or which they wish them, at all events, to
admit to be entitled to reverence, whether they con-
form to it or not. Each of these religions finds a
number of earnest and disinterested supporters, who
are so much struck with its moral beauty and its
inlierent essential attractions that they become con-
verts to it, as a lawyer would say, ' upon the view.
Christ would have many disciples and worshippers if
ail notion of individual profit or loss hereafter from
his worship were at an end. The earliest Buddhists
looked, and the purest Buddhists still look, for
nothing better for themselves than final absorption
or annihilation. The loving, trusting, believing
spirit wants neither reward nor punishment. He
falls in love with his creed as a man might fall in
love with a woman, without hope, but beyond the
possibility of recovery. Persons like these are the
core and heart of every great religion.

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TEMPORAL AND SPIRITUAL POWER 121

They, form, however, a very small minority of the
human race. The great mass of men is not capable
of this kind of disinterested passion for anything
whatever. On the otlier hand, they are open to
offers. They can be threatened or bribed into a
more or less nominal adherence to almost any creed
which does not demand too much of them. Indeed,
they like it rather than not ; but some degree of con-
sideration is essential. The real leading motives of
the mass of mankind are personal prudence and
passion. Their centre Is self; and every religion
which means to govern men must recognize this fact
and appeal to personal motives. It does not become a
spiritual power in the true sense of the word power —
it cannot, that is to say, Impose itself in invitos until it
has practically solved this problem. HowChristianity,
Mahonimedanism, and Brahmanism solved it we all
know. Even Buddhism had, after a time, to set up
its hell ; but to the worldly, the selfish, the indiiferent,
Positivism has nothing whatever to say. Considered
as an organized religion, it is superfluous to those who
like it, and impotent as against those who like It not,
and its attempts to attach new meanings to the word
' spiritual,' to arrogate to its professors spiritual
power, to sit in the seats of the priests whom It helps
to dethrone, are mere fictions meant to conceal its
fundamental Impotence. No Posltivist has ever yet
been able to answer the question, How do you pro-
pose to deal with a person who either thinks In his
heart or says boldly with his IJps, ' Tried by your

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122 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

Standard, I am a bad and selfish man. I mean to
be bad and selfish, and as for your spiritual power, I
set it and you at defiance, and I shall take my own
course in despite of you.' All that the Positivist
can say to such a person is, ' For the present, take
your own course. Our tastes differ. In time we
shall be a majority, and then we shall persuade others
to coerce you.' The answer to this is, ' I and people
like me form the incalculable majority of mankind,
and you will never persuade the mass of men or any
mass of men till you can threaten them. Here and
there a horse may be disposed to go by himself, but
you cannot drive a coach without reins and a whip.
Religious teachers who have no. hold on the selfish
must renounce the notion of being a power at all, either
spiritual or temporal ; for a power which can be
defied with Impunity Is no power, and as for you, you
win never be anything more than a Ritualistic Social
Science Association.'

I ..Google

CHAPTER IV.

THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY IN ITS APPLICATION TO
MORALS.

So far I have considered the theoretical grounds
of Mr. Mill's principle and its practical application to
liberty of thought and discussion. I now proceed
to consider its application to morals. It may be
well to restate it for fear that I may appear to be
arguing with an imaginary opponent ' The object
of this essay is to assert one very simple principle
as entitled to govern absolutely all the dealings of
society with the individual in the way of compulsion
and control, whether the means used be physical
force or the moral coercion of public opinion. That
principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are
warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering
with the liberty of action of any of their number is
self-protection.' A little further on we are told that
'from the liberty of each individual follows the
liberty within the same limits of combination among
individuals^freedom to unite for any purpose not
involving harm to others.'

The following consequences would flow legiti-

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124 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

mately from this principle. A number of persons
form themselves into an association for the purpose
of countenancing- each other in the practice of
seducing women, and giving the widest possible
extension to the theory that adultery Is a good
thing. They carry out these objects by organizing
a system for the publication and circulation of las
civious novels and pamphlets calculated to inflame
the passions of the young and inexperienced. The
law of England would treat this as a crime. It
would call such books obscene libels, and a combina
tion for such a purpose a conspiracy. Mr. Mill
apparendy, would not only regard this as wrong, but
he would regard it as an act of persecution if the
newspapers were to excite public indignation against
the parties concerned by language going one step
beyond the calmest discussion of the expediency of
such an ' experiment in living.' Such an association
would be impossible in this country, because if the
law of the land did not deal with it, lynch law
infallibly would. This Mr. Mill ought in consistency
to regard as a lamentable proof of our bigotry and
want of acquaintance with the true principles of
liberty.

The manner in which he discusses an iUus
tration closely analogous to this, and in which he
attempts to answer an objection which must suggest
itself to every one, throws the strongest possible
light on the value of his own theory. His illustra
tion is as follows : — ' Fornication must be tolerated

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LIBERTY IN RELATION TO MORALS 1 25

and so must gambling; but should a person be free
to be a pimp or to keep a gambling house?' He
puts the arguments on each side without drawing
any conclusion, and the strongest of them arc as
follows : —

On the side of toleration it may be said that if the
principles which we have hitherto defended are true, society
has no business as society to decide anything to be wrong
whicli concerns only the individual ; that it cannot go
beyond persuasion, and that one person should be as free to
persuade as another to dissuade. In opposition to this it
may be contended that, although the public or the State
are not warranted in authoritatively deciding for purposes
of repression or punishment that such or such conduct
affecting only the interests of the individual is good or bad,
they are fully Justified in assuming, if they regard it as bad,
that its being so or not is at least a disputable question ; that
this being supposed they cannot bo acting wrongly in
endeavouring to exclude the influence of solicitations which
are not disinterested, of instigators who cannot possibly
be impartial, who have a direct personal interest on one
side, and that the side which the State believes to be wrong,
and who confessedly promote it for personal objects only.

There is a kind of ingenuity which carries its
own refutation on its face. How can the State or the
public be competent to determine any question what-
ever if it is not competent to decide that gross vice
is a bad thing ? I do not think the State ought to
stand bandying compliments vith pimps. ' Without
offence to your better judgment, dear sir, and with-
out presuming to set up my opinion against yours,
I beg to observe that I am entitled for certain pur-

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126 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERXITY

poses to treat the question whether your views of
Hfe are right as one which admits of two opinions.
I am far from expressing absolute condemnation of
an experiment in living from which I dissent (I am
sure that mere dissent will not offend a person of
your liberality of sentiment), but still I am compelled
to observe that you arc not altogether unbiassed by
personal considerations in the choice of the course
of life which you have adopted (no doubt for reasons
which appear to you satisfactory, though tliey do not
convince me). I venture, accordingly, though with
the greatest deference, to call upon you not to exer-
cise your profession ; at least I am not indisposed to
think that I may, upon full consideration, feel myself
compelled to do so.' My feeling is that if society
gets Its grip on the collar of such a fellow it should
say to him, 'You dirty rascal, it may be a question
whether you should be suffered to remain in your
native filth untouched, or whether my opinion about
you should be printed by the lash on your bare baclc.
That question will be determined without the small-
est reference to your wishes or feelings ; but as to
the nature of my opinion about you, there can be no
question at all.'

Most people, I think, would feel that the latter
form of address is at all events the more natural.
Which is die more proper I shall try to show further
on, but by way of preface it will be as well to quote
the other passage from Mr. Mill to which I have
referred. After setting forth his theory as to per-

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LIBERTY IN RELATION TO MORALS 1 27

soiial vices being left to take their own course, he
proceeds as follows : —

The distinction here pointed out between the part of a
person's life which concerns only himself and that which
concerns others many persons will refuse to admit. How
(it may be asked) can any part of the conduct of a member
of society be a matter of indifference to tlie other members?
No person is an entirely isolated being ; it is impossible for
a person to do anything seriously or permanently hurtful to
himself without mischief reaching at least to his near con-
nections, and often far beyond them.

He proceeds to enforce this by highly appropriate
illustrations, which I need not quote. Further on
he quotes a passage from an advocate of the sup-
pression of intemperance, of which the following is
a sample : — ' If anything invades my social rights,
certainly the traffic in strong drink does, It invades
my primary right of security by constantly creating
and stimulating social disorder.' Upon this Mr.
Mill observes : —

A theory of 'social rights,' the like of which probably
never before found its way into distinct language, being
nothing short of this, that it is the absolute social right of
every individual that every other individual should act in
every respect precisely as he ought, that whosoever fails
thereof in the smallest violates my social right and entitles
me to demand from the Legislature the removal of the
grievance. So monstrous a principle is far more dangerous
than any single violation of liberty. . . . The doctrine
ascribes to all mankind a vested interest in each other's moral,
intellectual, and even physical perfection, to be defined by
each according to his own standard.

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ISO LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

At the risk of appearing paradoxical, I own that
the theory which appears to Mr. Mill so monstrous
appears to me defective only in its language about
rights and legislation, upon which I shall have more
to say hereafter. It is surely a simple matter of fact
that every human creature is deeply interested not
only in the conduct, but in the thoughts, feelings,
and opinions of millions of persons who stand in no
other assignable relation to him than that of being
his fellow-creatures. A great writer who makes a
mistake in his speculations may mislead multitudes
whom he has never seen. The strong metaphor
that we are all members one of another is litde more
than the expression of a fact A man would no
more be a man if he was alone in the world than a
hand would be a hand without the rest of the body.
I will now turn to the manner in which Mr. Mill
deals with the objection just stated, and I must
observe by the way that nothing proves his candour
and honesty so dearly as the force with which he
states objections to which he has no, or very weak,
answers to make. His answer is twofold. He first
admits that where 'by conduct of this sort' {i.e. self-
regarding vices) 'a person is led to violate a distinct
and assignable obligation to any other person or
persons, the case is taken out of the selfregarding
class, and becomes amenable to moral disapprobation
in the proper sense of the term. If, for example, a
man through intemperance .... becomes
unable to pay his debts, . . . . he is deservedly

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LIBERTY IK RELATION TO MORALS 1 29

reprobated, and might be justly punished, but It is
for the breach of duty , . . . to his creditors,
not for his extravagance.' A party of people get
drunk together at a public-house. Public opinion
ought to stigmatize those only who could not afford
it. The rest are 'trying an experiment In living'
which happens to suit their taste, and no one else
has anything to say to it.

So far Mr. Mill's plea is a qualified admission.
He admits that when one man's misconduct Injures
other definite persons in a definite way he may be
punished. ' But with regard to the merely con-
tingent, or, as It may be called, constructive injury
which a person causes to society by conduct which
neiUier violates any specific duty to the public, nor
occasions perceptible hurt to any assignable indi-
vidual except himself, the inconvenience is one
which society can afford to bear for the sake of
the greater good of human freedom.' It is natural
to ask why ? especially as the question is whether
'human freedom,' understood as Mr. Mill under-
stands it, is good or bad ? The answer to the
inquiry is twofold. First, ' Society has had absolute
power over all the early portion of their existence.
It has had the whole period of childhood and nonage
in which to try whether it could make them capable
of rational conduct in life.' The existing generation
being itself imperfect cannot indeed make its pupils
'perfectly wise and good," but it is well able to
make the rising generation as a whole as good as

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130 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

and a little better than itself. If society lets any
considerable number of its members grow up as
mere children incapable of being acted upon by
rational considerations of distant motives, society has
itself to blame for the consequences.' Secondly, by
issuing commands to grown-up people it will make
people rebel, and ' the strongest of all the arguments
against the interference of the public with purely per-
sonal conduct is that when it does interfere the odds
arc that it interferes wrongly and in the wrong place.'

This is Mr. Mill's whole case, and it appears to
me so weak that I fear that I may have misunder-
stood or understated it. If so, I have done so tn-
consciously. As it stands it seems to involve the
following errors.

First, there is no principle on which the cases in
which Mr. Mill admits the justice of legal punish-
ment can be distinguished from those in which he
denies it. The principle is that private vices which
are injurious to others may justly be punished, if the
injury be specific and the persons injured distinctly
assignable, but not otherwise. If the question were
as to the possibility in most cases of drawing an
indictment against such persons I should agree with
him. Criminal law is an extremely rough engine,
and must be worked with great caution ; but it is one
thing to point out a practical difficulty which limits
the application of a principle and quite another to
refute the principle itself Mr. Mill's proviso de-
serves attention in considering the question whether
a given act should be punished by law, but he

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I.IBERTY ]N RELATION TO MORALS r3I

applies it to ' the moral coercion of public opinion,'
as well as to legal coercion, and to this the practical
difficulty which he points out does not apply, A set
of young noblemen of great fortune and hereditary
influence, the representatives of ancient names, the
natural leaders of the society of large districts, pass
their whole time and employ all their means in gross
debauchery. Such people are far more injurious to
society than common pickpockets, but Mr. Mill says
that if any one having the opportunity of making
them ashamed of themselves uses it in order to
coerce them into decency, he sins against liberty,
unless their example does assignable harm to specific
people. It might be right to say, ' You, the Duke
of A, by extravagantly keeping four misti-esses— to
wit, B and C in London, and D and E in Paris — set
an example which induced your friend F to elope

with Mrs. G at — — on , and you are a great

blackguard for your pains, and all the more because
you are a duke.' It could never be right to say,
' You, the Duke of A, are scandalously immoral and
ought to be made to smart for it, though the law
cannot touch you.* The distinction is more likely to
be overlooked than to be misunderstood.

Secondly, the arguments against legal interference
in the cases not admitted to be properly subject to
it are all open to obvious answers,

Mr. Mill says that if grown-up people are grossly
vicious it is the fault of society, which therefore
ought not to punish them.

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j32 i.ieerty, equality, fraternity

This argument proves too much, for the same
may be said with even greater force of gross crimes,
and it is admitted tliat they may be punished.

It is iliogical, for it does not follow that because
society caused a fault it is not to punish it. A man
who breaks his arm when he is drunk may have to
have it cut off when he is sober.

It admits the whole principle of interference, for
jt assumes that the power of society over people in
their minority is and ought to be absolute, and
minority and majority are questions of degree, and
the line which separates them is arbitrary.

Lasdy, it proceeds upon an exaggerated estimate
of the power of education. Society cannot make
silk purses out of sows' ears, and there are plenty of
ears m the world which no tanning can turn even
into serviceable pigskin.

Mr. Mill's other arguments are, that compulsion
in such cases will make people rebel, and, above all,
that the moral persecutor himself may very probably
be mistaken.

This is true and important, but it goes to show
not that compulsion should not be used at all, but
that its employment is a delicate operation.

The Brahmins, it is said, being impressed with
the importance of catde to agriculture, taught people
to regard the bull as a holy beast. He must never
be thwarted, even if he put his nose into a shop
and ate the shopkeeper's grain. He must never be
killed, even in mercy to Iiimself. If he slips over a

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LIEERTY IN RELATION TO MORALS 1$$

cliff and breaks liis bones and the vultures arc pick-
ing out liis eyes and boring holes between his ribs,
he must be left to die. In several Indian towns the
British Government has sent half the holy bulls to
Mahommedan butchers, and the other half to draw
commissariat wagons. Many matters go better in
consequence of this arrangement, and agriculture in
particular goes no worse. Liberty is Mr. M ill's
Brahminee bull.

I find it difficult to understand how Mr. Mill's
doctrine about individual liberty is to be reconciled
with another of his theories to which I shall have
occasion to refer more fully farther on. This is
the theory about justice which is put forward in
his essay on Utilitarianism. After a long and in-
teresting discussion of the different senses in which
the word justice is used, he at last works out a
conclusion which is expressed as follows : — ' We
do not call anything wrong unless we mean to
imply that a person ought to be punished in some
way or other for doing it ; if not by law, by the
opinion of his fellow-creatures ; if not by opinion,
by the reproaches of his own conscience. This
seems the real turning point of the distinction be-
tween morality and simple expediency. It is part
of the notion of duty in every one of its forms that
a person may rightfully be compelled to do it.'. — -
(P. 72.) In other passages he says, ' The sentiment
of justice in that one of its elements which consists
of the desire to punish is thus, I conceive, the natural

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134 LIBERTY, KQUALITY, FRATEiiMTY

feeling of retaliation or vengeance rendered by in-
tellect and sympathy applicable to those injuries,
that Is to those hurts, which wound us through or in
common with society at large. This sentiment in
itself has nothing moral in it ; what is moral is the
exclusive subordination of it to the social sympathies,
so as to wait on and obey their call. For the natural
feeling tends to make us resent indiscriminately
whatever any one does that is disagreeable to us ;
but when moralized by the social feeling it only
acts in the directions conformable to the general
good.'

The passages seem to me to afhrm the very
principles for which I have been contending, and
to be totally inconsistent with the doctrine of the
essay on Liberty. The first passage involves the
following consequence : — Persons who call de-
bauchery wrong mean to imply that debauched
persons ought to be punished either by public opinion
or by their own consciences. The second passage
involves the following consequence : — The senti-
ment of justice when moraUzed by the social feeling
is the feeling of vengeance against a debauched
person acting in a direction conformable to the
general good — that is to say, acting in the direc-
tion of restraining him from following his vicious
habits, which set a bad example to people at large.
I do not know how it is possible to express in a
more emphatic way the doctrine that public opinion
ought to put a restraint upon vice, not to such an

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LIBERTY IN RELATION TO MORALS 135

extent merely as is necessary for definite self-protec-
tion, but generally on the ground that vice is a bad
thing from which men ought by appropriate means
to restrain each other.

It may perhaps be replied that this is small criti-
cism, and that Mr. IVIill might answer it conclusively
by striking out two or three lines of his essay on
Liberty, and by admitting that its doctrine is some-
what too widely expressed. I do not think that Is
the case. If the expressions in question were witli-
drawn from the essay on Liberty, the whole theory
would fall to the ground. Mr. Mill's writings form
chains of thought from which no link can be with-
drawn without destroying the value of the chain.
Erase the few lines In question from the essay on
Liberty and what remains Is a commonplace hardly
worth recording. The doctrine of the book would
in that case be as follows : — Men are not justified In
Imposing the restraint of criminal latv on each other's
conduct except for the purpose of self-protection, but
they are justified in restraining each other's conduct
by the action of public opinion, not only for the pur-
pose of self-protection, but for the common good,
including the good of the persons so restrained.
Now, this doctrine would be quite a different thing
from the one for which Mr. Mill contends. I do not
think It would be correct, but It would be hardly
worth discussing. It would not affect in practice
the questions of liberty of opinion and discussion.
The restraints of criminal law in these days are

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few, and most of them may be justified on any
one of several grounds. Moreover, there are many
reasons against extending the sphere of criminal
law which are altogether independent of general con-
siderations about liberty, as I shall show hereafter.
Criminal law, in short, has found its level in this
country, and, though In many respects of great im-
portance, can hardly be regarded as imposing any
restraint on decent people which is ever felt as such.
To the great mass of mankind a law forbidding
robbery is no more felt as a restraint than the neces-
sity of wearing clothes is felt as a restraint. The
only restraints under which any one will admit that
he frets are the resti'aints of public opinion, the
'social intolerance' of which Mr. Mill gives such a
striking account. This is the practically important
matter, this it is which formerly retarded (it does
not at present very much retard) the expression of
unusual opinions on religion, the adoption by women
of practices unusual among women, the modification
of existing notions as to ranks of society and the
like. This, in a word, is the great engine by which
the whole mass of beliefs, habits, and customs,
which collectively constitute positive morality, are
protected and sanctioned. The very object of the
whole doctrine of liberty as stated by Mr. Mill is to
lay down a principle which condemns all such in-
terference with any experiments in living which
particular people may choose to make. It is that
or it is nothing, for the wit of man cannot frame any

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LIBERTY IN RELATION TO MORALS 1 37

distinction between the cases In which moral and
physical coercion respectively are justifiable except
distinctions which arise out of the nature of criminal
law and the difficulty of putting it Into operation,
and this is a small and technical matter. The
result is that Mr. Mill's doctrine that nothing- but
self-defence can justify the imposition of restraint on
a man's self-regarding vices by public opinion Is not
merely essential to the coherence of his theory, but
is by far the most important part of it in practice.

1 now pass to what I have myself to offer on the
subject of the relation of morals to legislation, and
the extent to which people may and ought to be
made virtuous by Act of Pariiament, or by 'the
mora! coercion of public opinion.'

I have no simple principle to assert on this
matter. I do not believe that the question admits
of any solution so short and precise as that which
Mr. Mill supplies. I thinic, however, that the points
relevant to its solution may be classified, and its dis-
cussion simplified by the arrangement suggested in
previous chapters — namely, by considering whether
the object for which the compulsion is employed is
good ? whether the compulsion employed is likely to
be effective ? and whether It will be effective at a
reasonable expense ?

The object is to make people better than they
would be without compulsion. This statement is so
very general that it can scarcely be understood
without some preliminary observations as to the

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general position of morality in human affairs, and
the manner in which it is produced and acted upon.
Men are so closely connected together that it is
quite impossible to say how far the influence of acts
apparently of the most personal character may extend.
The sentiments of the founder of a great religion,
the reflections of a great philosopher, the calculations
of a great genera! may affect the form of the mould
in which the lives, thoughts, and feelings of hundreds
of milhons of men may be cast. The effect of
Hem-y VIII.'s personal feelings on the English
Reformation is only a single Illustration which hap-
pens to have come to light of the operations of a
principle which usually works in secret. There are
events In every man's life which might easily have
been otherwise, but which give their whole colour
to it. A happy marriage, which might have been
prevented by any one of numberless accidents, will
lead a man to take a cheerful view of life. Some
secret stab in the affections, of which two or three
people only are aware, may convert a man who
would otherwise have been satisfied and amiable
into a stoic, a sour fanatic, or a rebel against society,
as the case may be. If Dante had been personally
happy, or Shakspeare personally wretched, if Byron
had married Miss Chaworth, if Voltaire had met
with no personal ill-usage, their literary influence
would have been very different. The result is that
we can assign no limits at all to the importance to
each other of men's acts and thoughts. Still less

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i.niKRTv Tx rili.atiox to morals 139

can wc assign limits to that indefinable Influence
which they exercise over each other by their very
existence, by the fact of their presence, by the spirit
whicli shines through their looks and gestures, to
say nothing of their words and thoughts. If the
Inhabitants of the earth were all perfectly healthy
and robust in mind and body, if there were not too
many of them, if they rose rapidly to maturity and
died before they began to lose their faculties, each
man's happiness would be increased not only by the
difference between his present condition and the con-
dition in which he individually would then be placed,
but by the difference between the position of a
strong and healthy man living in a strong and
healthy world and the same man living in a sickly
world. It is easy to ride to death the analogy
between health and disease and virtue and vice.
They differ in several essential respects, but they
resemble each other in several leading points. Vice
, is as infectious as disease, and happily virtue is infec-
tious, though health is not. Both vice and virtue
are transmissible, and, to a considerable extent,
hereditary. Virtue and vice resemble health and
disease in being dependent upon broad general
causes which, though always present, and capable of
being greatly modified by human efforts, do not
always force themselves on our attention. Good air,
clean v/ater, and good food are now coming to be
recognized as the great conditions of health. The
maintenance of a high moral standard, the admira-

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140 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

tion and honour of virtue and the condemnation of
vice, what is called in a school or a regiment a good
moral tone, is the great condition of virtue. When
soldiers speak of an army which is thoroughly
frightened as ' demoralized,' they use an expression
which by its significance atones for its politeness.

Besides this, we must recollect that the words
virtue and vice, and their equivalents, have different
meanings in diiTerent parts of the world and in
different ages. I shall have occasion to speak else-
where of Mr. Mill's ethical opinions more fully, and
to say how far I agree with him and how far I dis-
agree on several points. For the present, it is
enough to say that 1 agree with him in taking its
tendency to produce happiness as the test of the
moral quality of an action, but this is subject to
several important c[ualifications, of which I may
mention one by way of illustration. Different people
form very different ideals of happiness. The ideals
of different nations, ages, and classes differ as much
as the ideals of different individuals. The Christian
ideal is not the Roman ideal, the Roman Catholic
ideal is not the Protestant ideal, nor is the ideal of
a lay Roman Catholic the same as that of a devotee.
Compare the morals of Corneille, for instance, with
the morals of Port Royal, or the morals of Port
Royal with those of the Jesuits. They differ like
the oak, the elm, and the larch. Each has a trunk
and leaves and branches and roots, and whatever
belongs to a tree : but the roots, the bark, the grain

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LUiERTY IN RELATION TO MORALS I4t

of the wood, the Jiliape of the leaves, and the brandies
differ in every particular.

Not only are the varieties of morality innumer-
able, but some of them are conflicting with each
other. If a Mahommedan, for instance, is fully to
realize his ideal, to carry out into actual fact his
experiment of living, he must be one of a ruling
race which has trodden the enemies of Islam under
their feet, and has forced them to choose between
the tribute and the sviford. He must be able to put
in force the law of the Koran both as to the faithful
and as to unbelievers. In short, he must conquer.
Englishmen come into a country where Mahomme-
dans had more or less realized their ideal, and pro-
ceed to govern it with the most unfeigned belief in
the order of ideas of which liberty is the motto.
After a time they find that to govern without any
principles at all is impossible, though they think it
v/ould be very pleasant, and they are thus practically
forced to choose between governing as Englishmen
and governing as Mahommedans. They govern as
Enghshmen accordingly. To suppose that this pro-
cess does not in fact displace and tend to subvert
Mahommedan ideas Is absurd. It Is a mere shrink-
ing from unpleasant facts.

This is only one illustration of the general
truth that tlie intimate sympathy and innumerable
bonds of all kinds by which men are united, and
the differences of character and opinions by which
tliey are distinguished, produce and must for ever

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142 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

produce continual struggles between them. They
are like a pack of hounds all coupled together
and all wanting to go different ways. Mr. Mill
would like each to take his own way. The advice
is most attractive, and so long as the differences
are not very apparent it may appear to be taken,
but all the voting in the world will not get the
couples off, or prevent the stronger dogs from having
their own way in the long run and making the
others follow them. We are thus brought to the
conclusion that in morals as well as in religion
there is and must be war and conflict between men.
The good man and the bad man, the men whose
goodness and badness are of different patterns, are
really opposed to each other. There is a real,
essential, and eternal conflict between them.

At first sight it may appear as if this was a
cynical paradox, but attention to another doctrine
closely connected with it will show that it is far less
formidable than it appears to be at first sight. The
influences which tend to unite men and which give
them an interest in each other's welfare are both
more numerous and more powerful than those which
throw them into collision. The effect of this is not
to prevent collisions, but to surround them with acts
of friendship and goodwill which confine them within
limits and prevent people from going to extremities.
The degree to which a man feels these conflicting
relations and practically reconciles them in his con-
duct is not at all a bad measure of the depth, the

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LIBERTY IN RELATION TO MORALS I43

sensibility, and the vigour of his character. The
play of contradictory sentiments gives most of its
interest to tragedy, and the conflict itself is the
tragedy of life. Take as one instance out of a mil-
lion the Cid's soliloquy on the alternative in which
he is placed between allowing the outrage offered
to his own father to go unpunished, and punishing
it by killing the father of his mistress —

Cher et cruel espoir d'une §.me genereuse

Mais ensemble anioureux,
Digne ennemi de mon plus grand bonheur ;

Fer, qui cause ma peine,
M'es-tu donne pour venger mon honneur?
M'es-tu doling pour perdre Chim&ne ?

This is a single illustration of the attitude of all man-
kind to each other. Complete moral tolerance is
possible only when men have become completely in-
different to each other — that is to say, when society
is at an end. If, on the other hand, every struggle
is treated as a war of extermination, society will come
to an end in a shorter and more exciting manner,
but not more decisively.

A healthy state of things will be a compromise
between the two. There are innumerable differences
which obviously add to the interest of life, and
without which it would be unendurably dull. Again,
there are differences which can neither be left- un-
settled nor be settled without a struggle, and a real
one, but in regard to which the struggle is rather
between inconsistent forms of good than between

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144 LIBERTY, EQUALiTY, FRATKRNITY

good and evil. In cases of this sort no one need see
an "occasion for anything more than a good-tempered
trial of strength and skill, except those narrow-
minded fanatics whose minds are incapable of taking
in more than one idea at a time, or of having a
taste for more things than one, which one thing is
generally a trifle, Thei-e is no surer mark of a
poor, contemptible, cowardly character than the in-
ability to conduct disputes of this sort with fairness,
temper, humanity, goodwill to antagonists, and a
determination to accept a fair defeat in good part
and to make the best of it. The peculiar merit of
English people, a virtue which atones for so many
vices that we are apt to misapprehend its nature and
forget its weak sides, is our general practical recog-
nition of this great truth. Every event of our lives,
from schoolboy games up to the most important
struggles of public life, even, as was shown in the
1 7th century, if they go the length of civil war, is a
struggle in which it is considered a duty to do your
best to win, to treat your opponents fairly, and to
abide by the result in good faith when you lose,
without resigning the hope of better luck next time.
War there must be, life would be insupportable
without it, but we can fight according to our national
practice like men of honour and people who are
friends at bottom, and without attaching an exagge-
rated value to the subject matter of our contention.
The real problem of liberty and tolerance is simply
this : What is the object of contention v;orth ? Is

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LIBERTY IN RELATION TO MORALS I45

the case one — and no doubt such cases do ocan— In
which all must be done, dared, a,nd endured that men
can do, dare, or endure ; or is it one hi which we can
honourably submit to defeat for the present subject
to the chance of trying again ? According to the
answer given to this question the form of the struggle
will range between internecine war and friendly
argument.

These explanations enable me to restate without
fear of misapprehension the object of morally in-
tolerant legislation. It is to establish, to maintain,
and to give power to that which the legislator re-
gards as a good moral system or standard. For the
reasons already assigned I think that this object is
good if and in so far as the system so established
and maintained is good. How far any particular
system is good or not is a question which probably
does not admit of any peremptory final decision ; but
I may obsei"ve that there are a considerable number
of things which appear good and bad, though no
doubt in different degree.s, to all mankind. For the
practical purpose of legislation refinements are of
little importance. In any given age and nation
virtue and vice have meanings which for that pur-
pose are quite definite enough. In England at the
present day many theories about morality are current,
and speculative men differ about them widely, but
they relate not so much to the question whether par-
ticular acts arc right or wrong, as to the question of
the precise meaning of the distinction, the manner

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146 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, KRATERNITV

in which the moral character of particular actions is
to be decided, and the reasons for preferring right to
wrong conduct. The result is that the object of
promoting virtue and preventing vice must be ad-
mitted to be both a good one and one sufficiendy
intelligible for legislative purposes.

If this is so, the only remaining questions will be
as to the efficiency of the means at the disposal of
society for this purpose, and the cost of their appli-
cation. Society has at its disposal two great instru-
ments by which vice may be prevented and virtue
promoted — namely, law and public opinion ; and law
is either criminal or civil. The use of each of these
mstruments is subject to certain limits and conditions,
and the wisdom of attempting to make men good
either by Act of Parliament or by the action of
public opinion depends entirely upon the degree in
which those hmlts and conditions are recognized
and acted upon.

First, I will take the case of criminal law. What
are the conditions under which and the limitations
within which it can be applied with success to the
object of making men better ? In considering this
question it must be borne in mind that criminal law
is at once by far the most powerful and by far the
roughest engine which society can use for .any pur-
pose. Its power is shown by the fact that it can and
does render crime exceedingly difficult and dangerous.
Indeed, in civilized society It absolutely prevents
avowed open crime committed with the strong hand,
except in cases where crime rises to the magnitude

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LIBERTY IN KKLATION TO MORALS I47

of civil war. I Es roughness hardly needs illustration.
It strikes so hard that it can be enforced only on the-
gravest occasions, and with every sort of precaution
against abuse or mistake. Before an act can be
treated as a crime, it ought to be capable of
distinct definition and of specific proof, and it
ought also to be of such a nature that it is worth
while to prevent it at the risk of inflicting great
damage, direct and indirect, upon those who
commit it. These conditions are seldom, if ever,
fulfilled by mere vices. It would obviously be im-
possible to indict a man for ingratitude or perfidy.
Such charges are too vague for specifiiC discussion
and distinct proof on the one side, and disproof on
the other. Moreover, the expense of the investiga-
tions necessary for the legal punishment of such
conduct would be enormous. It would be necessary
to go into an infinite number of delicate and subtle
inquiries which would tear off all privacy from the
lives of a large number of persons. These con-
siderations are, I think, conclusive reasons against
treating vice in general as a crime.

The excessive harshness of criminal law is also a
circumstance which very greatly narrows the range
of its application. It is the ratio ultima of the ma-
jority against persons whom its application assumes
to have renounced the common bonds which connect
men together. When a man is subjected to legal
punishment, society appeals directly and exclusively
to his fears. It renounces the attempt to work upon

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I4S LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

his affections or feelings. In other words, It puts
itself into distinct, harsh, and undisguised opposition
to his wishes ; and the effect of this will be to make
him rebel against the law. The violence of the re-
bellion will be measured partly by the violence of
the passion the indulgence of which is forbidden,
and partly by the degree to which the law can count
upon an ally in the man's own conscience. A law
which enters into a direct contest with a fierce im-
perious passion, which the person who feels it does
not admit to be bad, and which is not directly in-
jurious to others, will generally do more harm than
good ; and this is perhaps the principal reason why
it is impossible to legislate directly against unchastity,
unless it takes forms which every one regards as
monstrous and horrible. The subject is not one for
detailed discussion, but any one who will follow out
the reflections which this hint suggests will find that
they supply a striking illustration of the limits which
the harshness of criminal law imposes upon its range.
If we now look at the different acts which satisfy
the conditions specified, it will, I think, be found that
criminal law in this country actually is applied to the
suppression of vice and so to the promotion of virtue
to a very considerable extent ; and this I say is right.
The punishment of common crimes, the gross
forms of force and fraud, is no doubt ambiguous. It
may be justified on tlie principle of self-protection, and,
apart from any question as to their moral character.
It is not, however, difficuh to show that these acts

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LIBERTY IN RELATION TO MORALS 149

have in fact been forbidden and subjected to punish-
ment not only because they are dangerous to society,
and so ought to be prevented, but also for the sake
of gratifying the feeling of hatred— call it revenge,
resentment, or what you will — which the contempla-
tion of such conduct excites in healthily constituted
minds. If this can be shown, it will follow that
criminal law is in the nature of a persecution of the
grosser forms of vice, and an emphatic assertion of
the principle that the feeling of hatred and the desire
of vengeance above-mentioned are important ele-
ments of human nature which ought in such cases
to be satisfied in a regular public and legal manner.

The strongest of all proofs of this is to be found
in the principles universally admitted and acted upon
as regulating the amount of punishment. If ven-
geance affects, and ought to aifect, the amount of
punishment, every circumstance which aggravates
or extenuates the wickedness of an act will operate
in aggravation or diminution of punishment. If the
object of legal punishment is simply the prevention
of specific acts, this will not be the case. Circum-
stances which extenuate the wickedness of the crime
will often operate in aggravation of punishment If,
as I maintain, both objects must be kept in view,
such circumstances will operate in different ways
according to the nature of the case,

A judge has before him two criminals, one of
whom appears, from the circumstances of the case,
to be ignorant and depraved, and to have given way

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150 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNLrV

to very strong temptation, under the influence of the
other, who is a man of rank and education, and who
committed the offence of which both are convicted
under comparatively slight temptation. I will ven-
ture to say that if he made any difference between
them at all every judge on the Enghsh bench would
give the first man a lighter sentence than the second.
What should we think of such an address to the
prisoners as this ? You, A, are a most dangerous
man. You are ignorant, you are depraved, and you
arc accordingly peculiarly liable to be led into crime
by the solicitations or influence of people like your
accomplice B. Such influences constitute to men
like you a temptation practically all but irresistible.
The class to which you belong is a large one, and is
accessible only to the coarsest possible motives. For
these reasons 1 must put into the opposite scale as
heavy a weight as I can, and the sentence of the
court upon you is that you be taken to the place
from whence you came and from thence to a
place of execution, and that there you be hanged by
the neck till you are dead, As to you, B, you are
undoubtedly an infamous wretch. Between you and
your tool A there can, morally speaking, be no com-
parison at all. But I have nothing to do with that.
You belong to a small and not a dangerous class.
The temptation to which you gave way was slight,
and the impression made upon me by your conduct
is that you really did not care very much whether
you committed this crime or not. From a moral

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LIBERTY IN RELATION TO MORALS I51

point of view, this may perhaps increase your guilt ;
but it shows that the motive to be overcome is less
powerful in your case than in As. You belong,
moreover, to a class, and occupy a position in society,
in which exposure and loss of character are much
dreaded. This you will have to undergo. Your
case Is a very odd one, and it is not likely that you
will wish to commit such a crime again, or that
others will follow your example. Upon the whole,
I think that what has passed will deter others from
such conduct as much as actual punishment. It is,
however, necessary to keep a hold over you. You
will therefore be discharged on your own recogni-
zances to come up and receive judgment when called
upon, and unless you conduct yourself better for the
future, you will assuredly be so called upon, and if
you do not appear, your recognizances will be inex-
orably forfeited.

Caricature apart, the logic of such a view is
surely unimpeachable. If all that you want of crimi-
nal law is the prevention of crime by the direct fear
of punishment, the fact that a temptation is strong
is a reason why punishment should be severe. In
some instances this actually is the case. It shows
the reason why political crimes and offences against
mihtary discipline are punished so severely. But in
most cases the strength of the temptation operates
in mitigation of punishment, and the reason of this
is that criminal law operates not merely by produ-
cing fear, but also indirectly, but very powerfully, by

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153 LIIiKRTV, EQUALITY, FRATKRNITY

giving distinct shape to the feeHiig of anger, and a
distinct satisfaction to the desire of vengeance which
Clime excites in a iicalthy mind.

Other illustrations of the fact that English crimi-
nal law does recognize morality are to be found in
the fact that a considerable number of acts which
need not be specified are treated as crimes merely
because they are regarded as grossly immoral.

I have already shown in what manner Mr. Mill
deals with these topics. It is, I venture to think,
utterly unsatisfactory. The impression it makes
upon me is that he feels that such acts ought to be
punished, and that he is able to reconcile this with
his fundamental principles only by subtleties quite
unworthy of him. Admit the relation for which I
am contending between law and morals, and all be-
comes perfectly clear. All the acts referred to are
unquestionably wicked. Those who do them are
ashamed of them. They are all capable of being
clearly defined and specifically proved or disproved,
and there can be no question at all that legal punish-
ment reduces them to small dimensions, and forces
tlie criminals to carry on their practices with the
greatest secrecy and precaution. In other words,
the object of their suppression is good, and the
means adequate. In practice this is subject to
highly Important qualifications, of which I will only
say here that those who have due regard to the
incurable weaknesses of human nature v/ill be very
carefui how tlicy inflict penalties upon mere vice, if

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LliiERTY IN RELATION T(l ilORAr.S 153

even upon those who make a trade of promoting it,
unless special circumstances call for their infliction.
It is one thing however to tolerate vice so long as it
is inoffensive, and quite another to give it a legal
right not only to exist, but to assert itself in the face
of the world as an ' experiment in living ' as good as
another, and entitled to the same protection from law.
I now pass to the manner in which civil law may
and does, and as I say properly, promote virtue and
prevent vice. This is a subject so wide that I prefer
indicating its nature by a few illustrations to attempt-
ing to deal with it systematically, It would, how-
ever, be easy to show that nearly every branch of
civil law assumes the existence of a standard of moral
good and evil which the public at large have an
interest in maintaining, and in many cases enforcing
—a proceeding which is diametrically opposed to
Mr. Mill's fundamental principles.

The main subject with which law is conversant is
that of rights and duties, and all the commoner and
more important rights and duties presuppose some
theory of morals. Contracts are one great source of
rights and duties. Is there any country in the world
the courts of which would enforce a contract which
the Legislature regarded as immoral ? and is there
any country in which there v/ould be much difficulty
in specific cases in saying whether the object or the
consideration of a contract was or v/as not immoral ?
Other rights are of a more general nature, and are
liable to be violated by wrongs. Take the case of a

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154 LIBERTY, KQUALITY, FRATERNITY

man's right to his reputation, which is violated by
defamation. How, without the aid of some sort of
theory of morals, can it be determined whether the
publication of defamatory matter is justifiable or not ?

Perhaps the most pointed of all illustrations of the
moral character of civil law is to be found in the laws
relating to marriage and inheritance. They all pro-
ceed upon an essentially moral theory as to the re-
lation of the sexes. Take the case of illegitimate
children. A. bastard is filius nullms — he inherits
nothing, he has no claim on his putative father.
What is all this except the expression of the strong-
est possible determination on the part of the Legis-
lature to recognise, maintain, and favour marriage in
every possible manner as the foundation of- civilized
society ? It has been plausibly maintained that these
laws bear hardly upon bastards, punishing them for
the sins of their parents. It is not necessary to my
purpose to go into this, though it appears to me
that the law is right. I make the remark merely for
the sake of showing to what great lengths the law
does habitually go for the purpose of maintaining the
most important of all moral principles, the principle
upon which one great department of it is entirely
founded. It is a case in which a good object is pro-
moted by efficient and adequate means.

These illustrations are so strong that I will add
nothing more to them from this branch of the law, but
I may refer to a few miscellaneous topics which bear
on the same subject. Let us take first the case of

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LIliERTV IN RELATION TO MORALiJ 155

sumptuary laws. Mr. Mill's principles would no
doubt condemn them, and, as they have gone out
of fashion, it may be said, that unless my principle
does so too, it is the worse for my principle. I
certainly should not condemn sumptuary laws on
the principle that the object in view is either bad
or improper for legislation. I can hardly imagine
a greater blessing to the whole community than a
reduction in the lavish extravagance which makes
life so difficult and laborious. It is difficult for
me to look at a lace machine with patience. The
ingenuity which went to devise it might have made
human life materially happier in a thousand ways,
and its actual effect has been to enable a great
number of people to wear an imitation of an orna-
ment which derives what litde merit it has principally
from its being made by hand. If any one could
practically solve the problem of securing the devotion
of the higher forms of human ingenuity to objects
worthy of them, he would be an immense benefactor
to his species. Life, however, has become so com-
plicated, vested interests are so powerful and so
worthy of respect, it is so clear that the enforcement
of any conceivable law upon such a subject vrould
be impossible, that I do not think any one in these
days would be found to propose one. In a simpler
age of the world and in a smaller community such
laws may have been very useful. The same remarks
apply to laws as to the distribution of property and
to the regulation of trade.

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156 LIEER-rr, IlQUALITY, fraternity

Laws relating to education and to military service
and the discipline of the army have a moral side
of the utmost importance. Mr. MiJl would be tlie
first to admit this; indeed, in several passages of his
book he insists on the fact that society has com-
plete control over the rising generation as a reason
why it should not coerce adults into morality. This
surely is the very opposite of the true conclusion.
How is it possible for society to accept the position
of an educator unless it has moral principles on which
to educate ? How, having accepted that position
and having educated people up to a certain point,
can it draw a line at which education ends and per-
fect moral indifference begins ? When a private man
educates his family, his superiority over them is
founded principally on his superior age and expe-
rience ; and as this personal superiority ceases, the
power which is founded upon it gradually ceases also.
Between society at large and individuals the dif-
ference is of another kind. The fixed principles and
institutions of society express not merely the present
opinions of the ruling part of the community, but the
accumulated results of centuries of experience, and
these constitute a standard by which the conduct of
individuals inay be tried, and to which they are in a
variety of ways, direct and indirect, compelled to
conform. This, I think, is one of the meanings
which may be attached to the assertion that education
never ceases. As a child grows into a man, and ;!s
a youiig man grows into an old man, he is brouglit

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LIBERTY IN RELATION TO MORALS 1 57

under the influence of successive sets of educators,
each of whom sets its mark upon him. It is no un-
common thing to see aged parents taught by their
grown-up children lessons learned by the children in
their intercourse with their own generation. All of
us are continually educating each other, and in every
instance this is and must be a process at once moral
and more or less coercive.

As to Mr. Mill's doctrine that the coercive in-
fluence of public opinion ought to be exercised only
for self-protective purposes, it seems to me a paradox
so startling that it is almost impossible to argue
against it. A single consideration on the subject is
sufficient to prove this. The principle is one which
it is simply impossible to carry out. It is like telling
a rose that it ought to smell sweet only for the pur-
pose of affording pleasure to the owner of the ground
in which it grows. People form and express their
opinions on each other, which, collectively, form pub-
lic opinion, for a thousand reasons ; to amuse them-
selves ; for the sake of something to talk about ; to
gratify this or that momentary feeling ; but the effect
of siich opinions, when formed, is quite independent
of the grounds of their formation. A man is tried
for murder, and just escapes conviction. People
read the trial from curiosity ; they discuss it for the
sake of the discussion ; but if, by whatever means,
they are brought to think that the man was in all
probability guilty, they shun his society as they would
shun any other hateful thing. The opinion produces

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Its effect in precisely the same way whatever was its
origin.

The result of these observations is that both law
and public opinion do in many cases exercise a power-
ful coercive influence on morals, for objects which
are good in the sense explained above, and by means
well calculated to attain those objects, to a greater or
less extent at a not inadequate expense. If this is
so, I say law and public opinion do well, and I do
not see how either the premisses or the conclusion
are to be disproved.

Of course there are limits to the possibility of
useful interference with morals, either by law or by
public opinion; and it is of the highest practical
importance that these limits should be carefully ob-
served. The great leading principles on the subject
are few and simple, though they cannot be stated
with any great precision. It will be enough to men-
tion the following :— ■

I. Neither legislation nor public opinion ought
to be meddlesome. A very large proportion of the
matters upon which people wish to interfere with
their neighbours are trumpery little things which are
of no real importance at all. The busybody and
world-betterer who will never let things alone, or
trust people to take care of themselves, is a common
and a contemptible character. The commonplaces
directed against these small creatures are perfectly
just, but to try to put them down by denying the
connection between law and morals Is like shutting

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LIBERTY IN RELATION TO MORALS 1 59

all light and air out of a house in order to keep out
gnats and blue -bottle flies.

2. Both legislation and public opinion, but espe-
cially the latter, are apt to be most mischievous and
cruellyunjust if they proceed upon imperfect evidence.
To form and express strong; opinions aboutthe wicked-
ness of a man whom you do not know, the immoral-
ity or impiety of a book you have not read, the
merits of a question on which you are uninformed,
is to run a great risk of inflicting a great wrong. It
is hanging first and trying afterwards, or more fre-
quendy not trying at all. This, however, is no
argument against hanging after a fair trial.

3 Legislation ought in all cases to be graduated
to the existing level of morals in the time and coun-
try in which it is employed. You cannot punish
anything which pubhc opinion, as expressed in the
common practice of society, does not strenuously and
unequivocally condemn. To try to do so is a sure
way to produce gross hypocrisy and furious reaction.
To be able to punish, a moral majority must be over-
whelming. Law cannot be better than the nation in
which it exists, though it may and can protect an
acknowledged moral standard, and may gradually be
increased in strictness as the standard rises. V/e
punish, with the utmost severity, practices which in
Greece and Rome went almost uncensured. It is
possible that a time may come when it may appear
natural and right to punish adultery, seduction, or
possibly even fornication, but the prospect is, in the

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FRATERNITY

eyes of all reasonable people, indefinitely remote,
and it may be doubted whether we are moving in
that direction.

4. Legislation and public opinion ought in all
cases whatever scrupulously to respect privacy. To
define the province of privacy distinctly is impossible,
but it can be described in general terms. All the
more intimate and delicate relations of life are of
such a nature that to submit them to unsympathetic
observation, or to observation which is sympathetic
in the wrong way, inflicts great pain, and may inflict
lasting moral injury. Privacy may be violated not
only by the intrusion of a stranger, but by com-
pelling or persuading a person to direct too much
attention to his own feelings and to attach too much
importance to their analysis. The common usage of
language affords a practical test which is almost per-
fect upon this subject. Conduct which can be de-
scribed as indecent is always in one way or another
a violation of privacy.

There is one perfect illustration of this, of which
I may say a ftw words. It is the case of the con-
fessional and casuistry generally. So far as I have
been able to look into the writings of casuists, their
works appear to contain a spiritual penal code, in
which all the sins of act and thought, of intention
and imagination, which it is possible for men to com-
mit, are described with legal minuteness and with
specific illustrations, and are ranged under the two
heads of mortal and venial, according as they sub-

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LIBERTY IN RELATION TO MORALS l6l

ject the sinner to eternal damnation or only to p\v:-
gatory. Nothing can exceed the Interest and curiosity
of some of the discussions conducted in these strange
works, though some of them (by no means so large
a proportion as popular rumour would suggest) are
revolting. So far as my observation has gone, I
should say that nothing can be more unjust than the
popular notion that the casuists explained away
moral obligations. Escobar in particular (Pascal's
ie^e noire) gives mc rather the impression of a sort
of half-humorous simpUcity.

The true objection to the whole system, and
the true justification of the aversion with which it
has been regarded, is that it is perhaps the greatest
intrusion upon privacy, the most audacious and
successful invasion by law of matters which He
altogether out of the reach of law, recorded in
history, Of course if the postulate on which it is
founded is true — if, in fact, there is a celestial
penal code which classifies as felonies or misde-
meanours punishable respectively with hell or pur-
gatory all human sins — and If priests have the
power of getting the felonies commuted into mis-
demeanours by confession and absolution — there is
no more to be said; but this supposition need not be
seriously considered. It Is, I think, impossible to read
the books In question without feeling convinced that
a trial in a court which administers such laws upon
evidence supplied exclusively by the criminal must be
cither a mere form, a delusion of a very mischievous

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l62 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

kind, or a process which would destroy all die self-
respect of the person submitted to it and utterly con-
fuse all his notions of right and wrong, good and evil.
That justice should be done without the fullest possible
knowledge of every fact connected with every trans-
gression is impossible. That every such fact should
be recalled, analyzed, dwelt upon, weighed and
measured, without in a great measure renewing the
evil of the act Itself, and blunting the conscience as to
similar acts in future, seems equally impossible. That
any one human creature should ever really strip his
soul stark naked for the inspection of any other,
and be able to hold up his head afterwards, is not, I
suppose, impossible, because so many people profess
to do it; but to lookers-on from the outside it is
inconceivable.

The inference which I draw from this illustration
is that there is a sphere, none the less real because
it is impossible to define its limits, within which law
and public opinion are intruders likely to do more
harm than good. To try to regulate the internal
affairs of a family, the relations of love or friendship,
or many other things of the same sort, by law or by
the coercion of public opinion is like trying to pull
an eyelash out of a man's eye with a pair of tongs.
They may put out the eye, but they will never get
hold of the eyelash.

These, I think, are the principal forms in which
society can and actually docs promote virtue and
restrain vice. It is impossible to form any estimate

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LIBERTY IN RELATION TO MORALS 163

of the degree in which it succeeds in doing so, but
it may perhaps be said that the principal importance
of what is done in this direction by criminal law is
that in extreme cases it brands gross acts of vice
with the deepest mark of infamy which can be
'mpressed upon them, and that in this manner it
protects the public and accepted standard of morals
from being grossly and openly violated. In short,
it affirms in a singularly emphatic manner a principle
which is absolutely inconsistent with and contradic-
tory to Mr. Mill's — the principle, namely, that there
are acts of wickedness so gross and outrageous that,
self-protection apart, they must be prevented as far
as possible at any cost to the offender, and punished,
if they occur, with exemplary severity.

As for the influence of public opinion upon virtue
and vice, it is incalculably great, but it is difficult to
say much as to its extent, because its influence is
indefinite, and is shown in an infinite variety of ways.
It must also be observed that, though far more
powerful and minute than the influence of law, it is
infinitely less well instructed. It is also exceedingly
liable to abuse, for pubhc opinion is multiform, and
may mean the gossip of a vihage or the spite of a
coterie, as well as the deliberate judgment of a section
of the rational part of mankind. On the other hand,
Its power depends on its nature and on the nature
of the person on whom it acts. A calm, strong, and
-ational man will know when to despise and when to
'.-espect it, though no rules can be laid down on the

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l64 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

subject. It is, however, clear that this much may
be said of it in general. If people neitlier formed
nor expressed any opinions on their neighbours'
conduct except in so far as that conduct affected
them personally, one of the principal motives to do
well and one of the principal restraints from doing
ill would be withdrawn from the world.

I have now said what I had to say on the action
of law and of public opinion in regard to the en-
couragement of virtue and the prevention of vice ;
and I hope I have shown tiiat the object is one
which they can and do promote in a variety of
ways, the expense of which, if indeed it is to be
regarded as an expense at all, is by no means dis-
proportioned to the importance of the object in view.

Before taking leave of this part of the subject,
I will make some observations upon a topic closely
connected with it— I mean the compulsion which is
continually exercised by men over each other in the
sternest of all possible shapes — war and conquest.
The effects of these processes upon all that inte-
rests men as such can hardly be overrated. War
and conquest determine all the great questions of
politics and exercise a nearly decisive influence in
many cases upon religion and morals. We are
what we are because Holland and England in the
sixteenth century defeated Spain, and because Gus-
tavus Adolphus and others successfully resisted the
Empire in Northern Germany. Popular prejudice and
true political insight agree in feeling and thinking

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LIBERTY IN RELATION TO MORALS 165

that the moral and religious issues decided at
Sadowa and Sedan were more important than the
political issues. Here, then, we have compulsion
on a gigantic scale producing vast and durable
political, moral, and religious effects. Can its good
and evil, its right and wrong, be measured by the
single simple principle that it is good when required
for purposes of self-protection, otherwise not ?

I have more than once referred in passing to this
great question. I have already pointed out in gene-
ral terms the practical impossibility of applying Mr.
Mill's principle to it. The preceding observations
enable me to enter upon It more fully. First, then,
I would observe that, as has already been shown,
struggles in different shapes are inseparable from life
itself as long as men are interested in each other's
proceedings, and are actuated by conflicting motives
and views. The great art of life lies not in avoiding
these struggles, but in conducting them with as Httle
injury as may be to the combatants, who are, after
all, rather friends than enemies, and without attach-
ing an exaggerated importance to the object of con-
tention. In short, toleration is in its proper sphere
so long as its object is to mitigate inevitable
struggles. It becomes excessive and irrational if
and in so far as it aims at the complete suppression
of these struggles, and so tends to produce a state
of indifference and isolation, which would be the
greatest of all evils if it could be produced.

In a very large proportion of cases — it may perhaps

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l66 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

be said in the great majority of cases^these conflicts
can be carried on without resorting to physical force.
In each society taken by itself the class of cases in
which the use of physical force is necessary is de-
termined by the range of criminal law, and the prin-
ciple that criminal law ought to be employed only
for the prevention of acts of force or fraud which
injure others than the agent may be accepted as a
rough practical rule, which may generally be acted
upon, though, as I have shown, it is no more than
a practical rule, and even in that character is
subject to numerous exceptions.

When, however, we come to consider the re-
lations of independent nations to each other, a totally
different set of considerations present themselves.
Nations have no common superior. Their relations
do not admit of being defined with the accuracy
which the application of criminal law requires, nor
if they were so defined would it be possible to
specify or to Inflict the sanctions of criminal law.
The result of this Is that nations always do con-
sider for themselves in every particular case as it
arises how their interests are to be asserted and
protected, and whether or not at the expense of war.
Even in the case of such references to arbitration as
we have lately seen this Is true. The arbitrators
derive their whole authority from the will of the
parties, and their award derives its authority from
the same source.

Such being the relations between nation and

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UBEUTY IN RELATION TO MORALS 167

nation, all history, and especially all modern history,
shows that what happens in one nation affects other
nations powerfully and directly. Indeed, the question
what a nation is to be— how much or how little ter-
ritory how many or how few persons it is to compre-
hend — depends largely on the state of other nations.
A territory more or less compact, inhabited by a po-
pulation more or less homogeneous, is what we mean
by a nation ; but how is it to be determined where .
the lines are to be drawn ? Who is to say whether
the Rhine or the Vosges is to divide France from
Germany ?— whether the English and the Welsh,
the Scotch and the Irish, are or are not homogeneous
enough to form one body politic ? To these ques-
tions one answer only can be truly given, and that is,
Force, in the widest sense of the word, must decide
the question. By this I mean to include moral, in-
tellectual, and physical force, and the power and
attractiveness of the beliefs and ideas by which
different nations are animated. All great wars are
to a greater or less extent wars of principle and
sentiment : all great conquests embrace more or less
of a moral element. Given such ideas as those ol
Protestants and Catholics in the sixteenth century
suddenly seizing upon the nations of Europe, religious
wars were inevitable, and in estimating their cha-
racter we must take into account not merely the
question, Who was on the offensive ? Who struck
the first blow ? but much more the question, Which
of the conflicting theories of life, which of the

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1 68 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATKRNITY

Opposing principles brought into collision, was the
noblest, the truest, the best fitted for tlie develop-
ment of the powers of human nature, most in har-
mony with the facts which surround and constitute
human life ?

The most pointed and instructive modern illus-
tration of this that can possibly be given is supphed
by the great American civil war. Who, looking
at the matter dispassionately, can fail to perceive
the vanity and folly of the attempt to decide the
question between the North and the South by
lawyers' metapliysics about the true nature of sove-
reignty or by conveyancing subtleties about the
meaning of the Constitution and the principles on
which written documents ought to be interpreted ?
You might as well try to infer the fortunes of a
battle from the shape of the firearms. The true
question is. What was the real gist and essence
of the dispute ? What were the two sides really
fighting for ? Various answere may be given to
these questions which I need neither specify nor
discuss, but the answer to them which happens
to be preferred, will, I think, settle conclusively
the question which way the sympathies of the person
who accepts that answer should go.

It seems, tlien, that compulsion in its most
formidable shape and on the most extensive scale —
the compulsion of war— is one of the principles
which lie at the root of national existence. It
determines whether nations are to be and what

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LIBERTY IN RELATION TO MORALS 1 69

they arc to be. It decides what men shall believe,
how they shall live, in what mould their religion,
law, morals, and the whole tone of tlieir lives shall
be cast. It is the ratio ultima not only of kings,
but of human society in all its shapes. It de-
termines precisely, for one thing, how much and
how little individual liberty is to be left to exist at
any specific time and place.

From this great truth flow many consequences,
some of which I have already referred to. They
may all be summed up in this one, that power
precedes liberty — that liberty, from the very nature
of things, is dependent upon power ; and that it
is only under the protection of a powerful, well-
organized, and intelligent government that any
liberty can exist at all.

I will not insist further upon this, but I would
point out that the manner in which war is con-
ducted is worthy of much greater attention than it
has received, as illustrating the character and limits
of the struggles of civil life. The points to be
noticed are two. In the first place, in war defeat
after fair fight inflicts no disgrace, and the cheerful
acceptance of defeat is in many cases the part of
honourable and high-spirited men. Not many years
- ago an account was published of a great review held
by the Emperor of Russia. Schamyl, who had so
long defied him in the Caucasus, was said to have
come forward and declared that as the Emperor liad
aad no more obstinate enemy, so he should now

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170 LIBLIRTY, EQUALITV, FRATERNITY

have no more faithful subject than himself, that he
saw that it was God's will that Russia should rule,
and that he knew how to submit himself to the will
of God. If the story was true and the speech sincere,
it was the speech of a wise, good, and brave man.

In the second place, though war is the very
sternest form of coercion which can be devised, and
though the progress of civilization makes wars more
and more coercive as time goes on, there is at
all times some recognition of the principle that they
are not to be carried beyond certain bounds — a
principle which continually tends to assert itself
with increasing vigour and distinctness. The laws
of war, as they are called, show that even in that
extreme case of collision of interests there are
ties of good feeling which lie deeper than the
enmity, and are respected in spite of it. War is
the ultimate limitation upon freedom. From war
downwards to the most friendly discussion on a
question which must ultimately be decided one way
or another, there is an infinite series of degrees
each of which differs from the rest, and each of which
constitutes a distinct shade of coercion, a definite
restraint upon liberty. In most of these instances
anything which can be described as self-protection
plays an inappreciably small part, if it plays any.

So far I have been considering the theory about
liberty advanced by Mr. Mill, who is beyond all
comparison the most influential and also the most
reasonable of its advocates— I might say its wor-

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LIBERTY IN RELATION TO MORALS I 7 1

shippers. Mr. Mill, however, is far too rational to
be taken as an exponent of the popular sentiment
upon the subject, and upon this popular sentiment I
should like to make some observations. It is always
difficult to criticize sentiments, because they are so
indeterminate and shifting that to argue against them
is like firing a gun at a cloud. The words 'liberty'
and 'freedom' are used by enthusiastic persons in
all sorts of ways. Freedom sometimes means
simply victory. It sometimes means a government
which puts the restraints in the right place, and
leaves men free to do well. This is obviously the
Freedom of which Mr. Tennyson finely speaks as
the

Grave mother of majeslic works

From her isle altar gazing down,
Who godlike grasps the triple forks

And kinglike wears the crown.

Freedom often means authority, as when Roman
Catholic archbishops talk of the freedom or liberty
of the Church, and when Lord Clarendon (I think)
speaks of tlie kings of England as being ' as free
and absolute as any kings In the world.'

No way of using the word, however, is so common
as when it is used to signify popular government.
People who talk of liberty mean, as a general rule,
democracy or some kind of government which stands
rather nearer to democracy than the one under which
they are Hving. This, generally speaking, is the
Continental sense of tlie word. Now democracy

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173 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

has, as such, no definite or assignable relation to
liberty. The degree in which the governing power
interferes with individuals depends upon the size of
the country, the closeness with which people are
packed, the degree in which they are made con-
scious by actual experience of their dependence
upon each other, their national temper, and the like.
The form of the government has very little to do
with the matter.

It would, of course, be idle to suppose that you
can measure the real importance of the meaning of
a popular cry by weighing it in logical scales. To
understand the popular enthusiasm about liberty,
something more is wanted than the bare analysis of
the word. In poetry and popular and pathetic lan-
guage of every kind liberty means both more and
less than the mere absence of restraint It means
the absence of those restraints which the person
using the words regards as Injurious, and It gene-
rally Includes more or less distinctly a positive
element as well — namely, the presence of some dis-
tinct original power acting unconstralnedly in a
direction which the person using the word regards
as good. When used quite generally, and with
reference to the present state of the political and
moral world, liberty means something of this sort—
The forward impulses, the energies of human nature
are good ; they were regarded until lately as bad,
and they arc now in the course of shaking off tram-
mels of an injurious kind which had In former ap^es

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LIBERTY IN RELATION TO MORALS 1 73

been imposed upon them. The cry for liberty, in
short, is a general condemnation of the past and an
act of homage to the present in so far as it differs
from the past, and to the future in so far as its
character can be inferred from the character of the
present.

If it be asked, What is to be thought of liberty
in this sense of the word, the answer would obviously
involve a complete discussion of all the changes in
the direction of the diminution of authority which
have taken place in modern times, and which may
be expected hereafter as their consequence. Such
an inquiry, of course, would be idle, to say nothing
of its being impossible. A few remarks may, how-
ever, be made on points of the controversy which
are continually left out of sight

The main point is that enthusiasm for liberty in
this sense is hardly compatible with anything like
a proper sense of the importance of the virtue of
obedience, discipline in its widest sense. The atti-
tude of mind engendered by continual glorification of
the present time, and of successful resistance to an
authority assumed to be usurped and foolish, is almost
of necessity fatal to the recognirion of the fact that
to obey a real superior, to submit to a real necessity
and malte the best of it in good part, Is one of the
most important of all virtues — a virtue absolutely
essential to the attainment of anything great and
lasting. Every one would admit this when stated
in general terms, but the gift of recognizing the

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174 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

necessity for acting upon the principle when the case
actually arises is one of the rarest in the world. To
be able to recognize your superior, to know whom
you ought to honour and obey, to see at what point
resistance ceases to be honourable, and submission
in good faith and without mental reservation be-
comes the part of courage and wisdom, is supremely
difficult. All that can be said about these topics on
the speculative side goes a very little way. It is
like the difficulty which every one who has had any
experience of the administration of justice will re-
cognize as its crowning difficulty, the difficulty of
knowing when to believe and when to disbelieve a
direct assertion on a matter of importance made by
a person who has the opportunity of telHng a He if
he is so minded.

In ncariy every department of life we are brought
at last by long and laborious processes, which due
care will usually enable us to perform correctly,
face to face with some ultimate problem where
logic, analogy, experiment, all the apparatus of
thought, fail to help us, but on the value of our
answer to which their value depends. The questions,
Shall I or shall I not obey this man ? accept this
principle ? submit to this pressure ? and the like,
are of the number. No rule can help towards
their decision ; but when they are decided, the
answer determines the whole course and value of
the life of the man who gave it. Practically, the
effect of the popularity of the commonplaces about

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I.ILERTY IN RELATION TO MORALS 1 75

liberty has been to raise in the minds of ordinary
people a strong presumption against obeying any-
body, and by a natural rebound to induce minds of
another class to obey the first person who claims
their obedience with sufficient emphasis and self-
confidence. It has shattered to pieces most of the
old forms in which discipline was a recognized and
admitted good, and certainly it has not produced
many new ones.

The practical inference from this is that people
who have the gift of using pathetic language ought
not to glorify the word ' liberty ' as they do, but
ought, as far as possible, to ask themselves before
going into ecstasies over any particular case of it.
Who is left at liberty to do what, and what is the re-
straint from which he is liberated ? By forcing them-
selves to answer this question distinctly, they will
give their poetry upon the subject a much more defi-
nite and useful turn than it has at present.

Of course these remarks apply, as all such re-
marks must, in opposite directions. When liberty is
exalted as such, we may be sure that there will
always be those who are opposed to liberty as such,
and who take pleasure in dwelling upon the weak
side of everything which passes by the name. These
persons should ask themselves the converse ques-
tions before they glorify acts of power : Who is em-
powered to do what, and by what means ? or, if the
words chosen for eulogy are ' order ' and ' society, '
it would be well for them to ask themselves, What

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176 I.ICERTV, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

order and what sort of society it is to which their
praises refer ?

In illustration of these remarks, I would refer to
the works of two remarkable writers, Mr. Buckle
and De Maistre. They form as complete a contrast
as could be found in literary history. Each is a
Manichee — a believer in Arimanes and Oromasdes,
a good principle and a bad one ; but Mr. Buckle's
Arimanes, the past, the backward impulse, is De
Maistre 's Oromasdes; and De Maistre's Arimanes,
the present, the forward impulse, is Mr. Buckle's
Oromasdes. Mr. Buckle generalizes all history as
consisting in a perpetual struggle between the spirit
of scepticism, which is progress and civilization, and
the spirit of protection, which is darkness and error.
De Maistre does not draw out his opposition so
pointedly; but in his opinion the notion of progress,
the belief that the history of mankind is the history
of -a series of continual changes for the better, from
barbarism up to modem civilization, is the ' erreur
mere' of these days. His own behef (very cloudily
expressed) is that in ancient times men had a direct
vision of truth of all sorts, and were able to take the
a priori road to knowledge. It is impossible in a few
lines to do, or attempt to do, justice to De Maistre's
strange and versatile genius. For the purpose of my
illustration, therefore, I will confine myself to Mr.
Buckle, whose works are much better known in this
country and whose theories are more definite. I
mention De Maistre merely for the sake of the re-

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LIBEP.TV IN RELATION TO MORALS 177

mark that if it were worth while to do so, the con-
verse of the observations which I am about to make
on Mr. Buckle might be made upon him.

It seems to me, then, that Mr. Buckle's ardent
advocacy of scepticism and his utter condemnation *
of what he calls the spirit of protection is much as if
a man should praise the centrifugal at the expense of
the centripetal force, and revile the latter as a malig-
nant power striving to drag the earth into the sun.
It would be just as reasonable to reply, No, you, the
centrifugal force, are the eternal enemy. You want
to hurl the world madly through space into cold and
darkness, and would do it, too, if our one friend the
centripetal force did not persist in drawing it back
towards the source of light and heat. The obvious
truth is that the earth's orbit is a resultant, and that
whatever credit it deserves must be rateably divided
between its two constituent elements.

It surprises me that people should be enthusiastic
either about the result or about either of the causes
which have contributed to its production. As to the
general result, what is it ? Say, roughly, three hundred
million Chinese, two hundred million natives of India,
two hundred million Europeans and North Ameri-
cans, and a miscellaneous hundred million or two —
Central Asians, Malays, Borneans, Javanese, South
Sea Islanders, and all sorts and conditions of blacks ;
and, over and above all the rest, the library at the
British Museum. This is the net result of an inde-
finitely long struggle between the forces of men, and

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the weights of various kinds in the attempt to move
which these forces display themselves. Enthusiasts
for progress are to me strange enough. ' Glory,
glory: the time is coming when there will be six
hundred million Chine.se, five hundred million Hin-
doos, four hundred million Kuropeans, and Heaven
only knows how many hundred million blacks of
various shades, and when there will be two British
Museums, each with a library. " Yc unborn ages,
crowd not on my soul.'" This appears to me a very
strange psahn, but it becomes infinitely stranger when
a fiercer note is sounded : ' Yea, verily, and but for
the accursed restraints imposed by tyrants on the
powers of man, there would now have been eight
hundred million Chinese, seven hundred million
Hmdoos, and so on in proportion, all alive and
kicking, and making this world of ours like a Stilton
cheese run away with by its own mites,' To the
first enthusiast I feel inclined to say. There is no
accounting for tastes. To the second, You arc
unjust. Your cheese-mites owe their existence not
merely to impulse, but to that which resisted it.
The cheese confined while it fed them. Disembody
force, divorce it from matter and friction, in a word,
set it free, and it ceases to exist. It is a chimcera
bombinans in vactto.

If we apply these generalities to the more limited
and yet, in comparison to our capacity, boundless
field of political history, it surely needs little proof
that, whatever our present condition may be worth.

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LIBERTY IN RELATION TO MOKALS 179

we are what we are (to use Mr. Buckle's terms) by
virtue of protection as well as by virtue of scepticism.
If a stream of water flows down a hill, the amount
of fluid delivered at a given point depends upon
the friction of the sides and bottom of the channel
as well as upon the force of gravitation. It is
quite true that since the seventeenth century — to
go no farther back — the Puritan, the Whig, and
the Radical have been more successful than the
Cavalier, the Tory, and the Conservative ; but the
existing state of society is the result of each set of
efforts, not of either set by itself, and certainly not
the result of the forward effort by itself Unless a
man is prepared to say that all the existing evils of
society are due to our having moved too slowly^
that the clock is wrong solely because it has a pen-
dulum, and that to take off the pendulum and allow
the weights to pull the wheels round with no re-
striction at all will ensure universal happiness — he
has no right to regard the forward impulse as an
unmixed good. It appears to me that the errettr mire,
so to speak, of most modern speculations on political
subjects lies in the fact that nearly every writer is an
advocate of one out of many forces, which, as they
act in different directions, must and do come into
collision and produce a resultant according to the
direction of which life is prosperous or otherwise.

The same doctrine may be stated in less abstract
terms as foflows : — There are a number of objects
the attainment of which is desirable for men, and

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which collectively may be called good, happiness, or
whatever else you please so long as some word is
used which sufficiently marks the fact that there is a
real standard towards which human conduct must be
directed, if the wishes which prompt us to action,
and which are the deepest part of our nature— which
are, indeed, oar very selves in the attitude of wish-
ing—are to be satisfied. These objects are very
numerous. They cannot be precisely defined, and
they are far from being altogether consistent with
each other. Health is one of them. Wealth, to
the extent of such a command of material things as
enables men to use their faculties vigorously, is
another. Knowledge is a third. Fit opportunities
for the use of the faculties is a fourth. Virtue, the
state in which given sets of faculties are so related
to each other as to produce good results (whatever
good may mean), is the most important and the most
jiiultiform . and intricate of alL Reasonable men
pursue these objects or some of them openly and
avowedly. They find that diey can greatly help or
impede each gther in the pursuit by exciting each
other's hopes or fears, by promising payment for this
and threatening punishment for that, and by leaving
other matters to individual taste. This last depart-
ment of things is the department of liberty in the
proper sense of the word. Binding promises and
threats always imply restraint. Thus the question,
How large ought the province of liberty to be ? is
really identical with this : In what respects must men

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LIBI'RTY m RELATION TO MORALS lol

influence each other if they want to attain the objects
of life, and in what respects must they leave each other
uninfluenced ?

If the object is to criticize and appreciate his-
torical events, the question between liberty and law,
scepticism and protection, and the like, will have to
be stated tlius : What are the facts ? Which of
them were caused, and to what extent, by the in-
fluence of men on each other's hopes and fears ?
Which of them were caused by the unrestrained and
unlmpelled impulses of individuals towards particular
objects ? How far did each class of results con-
tribute to the attainment of the objects of life ? To
ask these questions is to show that they cannot be
answered. Discussions about liberty are in truth
discussions about a negation. Attempts to solve the
problems of government and society by such dis-
cussions are like attempts to discover the nature of
light and heat by inquiries into darkness and cold.
The phenomenon which requires and will repay
study is the direction and nature of the various
forces, individual and collective, which in their com-
bination or coliislon with each other and with the
outer world make up human life. If we want to
know what ought to be the size and position of a
hole in a water pipe, we must consider the nature
of water, the nature of pipes, and the objects for
which the water is wanted ; but we shall learn very
little by studying the nature of holes. Their shape
is simply the shape of whatever bounds them. Their

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152 LIBERTY', EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

nature is merely to let the water pass, and it seems
to me that enthusiasm about them is altogether thrown
away.

The result is that discussions about liberty are
either misleading or idle, unless we know who wants
to do what, by what restraint he is prevented from
doing it, and for what reasons it is proposed to re-
move that restmint.

Bearing these explanations in mind, I may now
observe that the democratic motto involves a con-
tradiction. If human experience proves anything at
all, it proves that, if restraints are minimized, if the
largest possible measure of liberty is accorded to all
human beings, the result will not be equality but
inequality reproducing itself in a geometrical ratio.
Of all items of liberty, none Is either so important
or so universally recognized as the liberty of ac-
quiring property. It is difficult to see what liberty
you leave to a man at all if you restrict him in this
matter. When Lord Byron called Sir Walter Scott
'Apollo's mercenary son,' Sir Walter replied, 'God
help the bear who may not lick his own paws.' All
private property springs from labour for the benefit
of the labourer ; and private property is the very
essence of inequality.

Assume that every man has a right to be on an
equality with every other man because all are so
closely connected together that the results of their
labour should be thrown into a common stock out of
which they are all to be maintained, and you eer-

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LIBERTY IN RELATION TO MORALS 1 83

talnly give a very distinct sense to Equality and
Fraternity, but you must absolutely exclude Liberty.
Experience has proved that this is not merely a
theoretical but also a practical difficulty. It is the
sianding and insuperable obstacle to all socialist
schemes, and it explains their failure.

The only manner in which the famous Republican
device can be rendered at once fully intelligible and
quite consistent is by explaining Liberty to mean
Democracy. The establishment of a Democratic
government, which proposes to recognize the uni-
versal brotherhood of mankind by an equal distri-
bution of property, is as definite a scheme as it is
possible to imagine, and when the motto is used in
real earnest and not as a piece of meretricious brag,
this is what it does mean. When so used the words
' or death ' should be added to the motto to give it
perfect completeness. Put together and interpreted
in the manner stated, these five words constitute a
complete political system, describing with quite suffi-
cient distinctness for all practical purposes the nature
of tlie political constitution to be established, the
objects to which it is to be directed, and the penalty
under which its commands are to be obeyed. It is a
system which embodies in its most intense form all
the bitterness and resentment which can possibly
be supposed to be stored up in the hearts of the
most disappointed envious and ferociously revenge-
fiil members of the human race against those whom
they regard as their oppressors. It is the poor

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I84 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATLRNITY

saying to the rich. We are mastere now by the
establishment of liberty, which means democracy,
and as all men are brothers, entided to share and
share alike in the common stock, we will make you
disgorge or we will put you to death. It is needless
to say more about this doctrine than that those who
are attracted by the RepuMican motto would do
well to ask themselves whether they understand by
it anything short of this ? and, if so, where and on
wliat principle they draw the line. I think any one
who has mind enough to understand the extreme
complexity of the problem will see that the motto
contributes eidier far too much or else nothing what-
^eyer_,towardS-ita.5aLutipn.

I have now said what I had to say-about liberty,
and I may briefly sum up the result. It is that, if
the word 'liberty" has any definite sense attached to
it, and if it is consistently used in that sense, it is
almost impossible to mal<e any true general assertion
whatever about it, and quite impossible to regard it
either as a good thing or a bad one. If, on the
other hand, the word is used merely in a general
popular way without attaching any distinct signi-
fication to it, it is easy to make almost any general
assertion you please about it ; but these assertions
will be incapable of either proof or disproof as they
will have no definite meaning Thus the word is
either a misleading appeal to passion, or else it em-
bodies or rather hints at an exceedingly complicated
assertion, the truth of which can be proved only by

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LIBERTY IN RELATION TO MORALS 185

elaborate historical investigations. ' The cause of
liberty, for which Hampden died on the field and
Sydney on the scaffold,' means either that Hampden
and Sydney were right in resisting Charles I. and
Charles H. respectively, or else merely that they did
as a fact die in resisting those kings. The first
assertion obviously requires, before it can be ac-
cepted, a fuii account of all the circumstances by
way of proof. The second tells us nothing worth
knowing except a bare matter of fact, and would be
consistent with Hampden's having being shot when
trying to rob on tlie highway and Sydney's having
been hanged for a highway robbery.

This may appear to be quibbling, but I believe
that it will be found on examination to be no more
than an illustration, and a very important one, of the
first condition of accurate and careful thought — the
precise definition of fundamental terms. Men have
an all but incurable propensity to try to prejudge all
the great questions which interest them by stamping
their prejudices upon their language. Law, in many
cases, means not only a command, but a beneficent
command. Liberty means not the bare absence of
restraint, but the absence of injurious restraint.
Justice means not mere impartiality m applying
general rules to particular cases, but impartiality in
applying beneficent general rules to particular cases.
Some people half consciously use the word ' true' as
meaning useful as well as true. Of course language
can never be made absolutely neutral and colourless ;

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l86 LlliF.RTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

but unless its ambiguities are understood, accuracy
of thought is impossible, and the injury done is pro-
portionate to the logical force and general vigour
of character of those who are misled. Not long
ao-o Mr. Mill gave an important illustration of this. A
political association forwarded to him some manifesto
of their views, in which appeared the phrase ' the
Revohition,' used in the sense in which French
writers are accustomed to use it. Mr. Mill very pro-
perly replied that the expression thus used was bad
English. ' The Revolution,' he said, always means
in English some particular revolution, just as ' the
man ' always means some particular man. To talk
■ of the English or the French Revolution is proper,
but to talk of the Revolution generally is to darken
counsel by words, which, in fact, are only the names
of certain intellectual phantoms. He advised his
correspondents to seek their political objects without
introducing into English phraseology one of the
worst characteristics of Continental phraseology, and
without depriving it of one of the most valuable of
Its own characteristics. The advice was admirable,
but ought not Mr. Mill to have remembered It
himself in writing as he does about liberty ?

It requires no great experience to see that, as a
mle, people advance both in speculation and in
politics principles of very great generality for the
purpose of establishing some practical conclusion of
a very narrow kind, and this, I think. Is the case in
this discussion about liberty. What specific thing

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LIBERTY IN RELATION TO MORALS 187

is there which any one is prevented from doing,
either by law or by public opinion, which any sensible
person would wish to do ? The true answer to
this is that thirteen years ago a certain number
of persons were, to a certain extent, deterred from
expressing a disbelief in common religious opinions
by the consciousness that their views were unpopular,
and that the expression of them might injure their
prospects in life. I have already said what I had to
say on this, and need not return to it. As to legisla-
tion intended to discourage vice, I do not believe
that any one would succeed in getting himself
listened to if he were to say plainly, ' I admit that
this measure will gready discourage and diminish
drunkenness and licentiousness. I also admit that
it will involve no cruelty, no interference with
privacy — nothing that can in itself be described as an
inadequate price for the promotion of sobriety or
chastity. I oppose it on the broad, plain ground,
that if people like to get drunk and to lead dissolute
lives, no one else ought to interfere. I advocate
liberty— to wit, the liberty of a set of lads and girls
to get drunk of an evening at a particular house of
entertainment specially provided for that and other
purposes ; and though I own that that evil can be
prevented by fining the person who keeps the house
5/,, the sacred principles of liberty forbid it, at least as
regards people over twenty-one. Virtue up to twenty-
one knows no compromise, but we must draw the
line somewhere, and when the twenty-first birthday

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lOS LIBERTY. EQUALITY, FRATERNITY.

is passed liberty claims her prey, and I concede the
demand. ' Fiat Hbertas ruat justitia.' 1 think the
public would say to such a speech, You and liberty
may settle the matter as you please, but we see our
way to a measure which will do no harm to any one,
and which will keep both young fools and old fools
out of iiarm's way. If freedom does not like it, let
her go and sit on the heights self-gathered in her
prophet mind, and send the fragments of her mighty
voice rolling down the wind. She will be better
employed in spouting poetry on the rocks of the
Mattcrhorn than in patronizing vice on the flags of
the Haymarket.

I ..Google

CHAPTER V.

EQUALITY.

The second great article of the modern creed
which I have undertaken to examine is Equahty.
It is at once the most emphatic and the least distinct
of the three doctrines of which that creed is com-
posed. It may mean that all men should be equally
subject to the laws which relate to all. It may mean,
that law should be impartially administered. It may
mean that all the advantages of society, all that men
have conquered from nature, should be thrown into
one common stock, and equally divided amongst
them. It may be, and I think it is in a vast number
of cases, nothing more than a vague expression of
envy on the part of those who have not against
those who have, and a vague aspiration towards a
state of society in which there should be fewer con-
trasts than there are at present between one man's
lot and another's, All this is so vague and unsatis-
factory that it is difficult to reduce it to a form
definite enough for discussion. It is impossible to
argue against a sentiment otherwise than by re-
peating commonplaces which are not likely to con-

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igO I-IBKRTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

vince those to whom they are addressed if they
require convincing, and which are not needed by
those who are convinced already.

In order to give colour and distinctness to what
is to be said on the one side, it is necessary to find
distinct statements on the other. The clearest state-
ment of the doctrine of equality with which I am
acquainted is to be found in Bentham's ' Principles
of Morals and Legislation.'"'^ It consists principally
of an expansion of the principle that a given quantity
of the material of happiness will produce the largest
amount of actual happiness when it is so divided
that eacli portion of it bears the largest possible ratio
to the existing happiness of those to whom it is
given. This, however, is subject to the remark that
you may cut it up so small that the parts are worth-
less. To give a hundred pounds apiece to ten people,
each of whom possesses a hundred pounds, doubles
the wealth of ten people. To give a thousand
pounds to a man who has already a thousand pounds
doubles the wealth of only one person. To give a
farthing to every one of 960,000 persons is to waste
1,000/. This argument no doubt shows that in so
far as happiness depends on the possession of wealth
by persons similarly situated in other respects, it is
promoted rather by a general high level of comfort
tiian by excessive accumulations of wealth in indi-
vidual hands ; but this is really a barren truth. It

* Dumont's Traith de L'egidalion, vol. i. p. rSc-ijr, ed. i8jo.

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EQUALITY 191

might be important if some benefactor of the human
race were to wake one morning with his pockets
stuffed full of money which he wished to distri-
bute so as to produce a maximum of enjoyment, but
it has very little relation to the state of the world as
we know it. Moreover, Bentham's whole conception
of happiness as something which could, as it were,
be served out in rations, is open to great objection,
though his way of using it gave extraordinary force
and distinctness to his views on many important
topics.

Upon this subject Mr. Mill has put forward a
theory which, if not quite so simple or so perfectly
distinct as his view about liberty, admirably serves
the purposes of discussion. The parts of his writings
to which I refer are part of the chapter in his essay
on Utilitarianism (ch. v.) 'On rhe Connection be-
tween Justice and Utility,' and the whole of his
work on the Subjection of Women. Though these
passages can hardly be said to give a definite theory
of equality, which, indeed, was not the object with
whicli they were written, they form a powerful and
striking expression and, so to speak, condensation of
a popular sentiment which in France and perhaps
in some other countries is in these days more power-
ful than that which is inspired either by liberty or by
fraternity.

Mr. Mill's views on this subject, then, seem to
be as follows. Having considered other matters
(.onncctcd with Utihtarianism (to some of which I

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192 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

shall have to refer in connection with Fraternity), he
proceeds to consider its connection with justice : —

In all ages of speculation (he says) one of the strongest
obstacles to the reception of the doctrine that utility or
happiness is the criterion of right or wrong has been drawn
from the idea of justice. The powerful sentiment and
apparently clear perception which that word recalls with a
rapidity and certainty resembling an instinct, have seemed
to the majority of thinkers to point to an inherent quality
in things, to show that the just must have an existence in
nature as something absokite, generically distinct from every
variety of the expedient, and in idea opposed to it, though
(as is commonly acknowledged) never in the long run dis-
joined from it in fact.

Commenting upon this, Mr. Mill proceeds to ex-
pound in a long and interesting chapter what I
think is the true theory of justice. It may be thus
stated : — Justice, like nearly every other word which
men use in ethical discussions, Is ambiguous, and Is ex-
ceedingly likely to mislead those who use It unless Its
ambiguity Is recognized and allowed for. It implies,
first, the Impartial application of a law to the par-
ticular cases which fall under it. It implies, secondly,
that the law so to be administered shall either be for
the general good, or at least shall have been enacted
by the legislator with an honest intention to promote
the good of those whom it is Intended to benefit.

The same thing may be stated otherwise, as
follows: — The words just and justice may refer
either to the judge who applies or to the legislator
who makes a law, or to the law itself The judge

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EQUALITY 193

is just if he enforces the law impartially. The legis-
lator is just if he enacts the law with an honest
intention to promote the public good. When the
law itself is called just or unjust, what is meant is
that it does or does not in fact promote the Interests
of those whom it affects.

The corn laws, for instance, were unjust if and in
so far as they were inexpedient. Those who passed
them were unjust if and in so far as they knew, or
ought to have known, that they were inexpedient.
If on any occasion they were carried out partially, or
if they were left unexecuted by those whose duty it
was to carry them out, the persons guilty of such
partiality or neglect were unjust, irrespectively of the
question whether the laws themselves and whether
the legislators who made them were just or unjust.

The principle as to morals Is precisely similar.
Justice In the common intercourse of society differs
from legal justice only in the circumstance that mo-
rality is less definite in its form than law, and more
extensive In Its range. A man withdraws his confi-
dence from his friend upon frivolous grounds. By
calling this an injustice we imply that there is a
known and well-understood though unwritten rule of
conduct, to the effect that confidence once reposed
by one person in another should not be withdrawn
except upon reasonable grounds, and that this rule
has not been impartially applied to the particular
case. A rule of positive morality may be called
unjust as well as a law. For Instance, there are in

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194 LllSKRTY, ¥QUH,1TY, f^^ATER5^1TY

most societies rules which impose social penalties on
persons who have been guilty of unchastity, and
these penalties are generally more severe upon
women than upon men. Those who think it on the
whole expedient to make the difference In question
will regard these rules as just Those who think it
inexpedient will regard them as unjust, but it is impos-
sible to discuss the question of their justice or injustice
apart from that of their expediency or inexpediency,
I need not point out at length the manner in
which Mr. Mill traces out the connection between
justice and expediency. He shows, as it appears to
me irresistibly, that justice means the impartial ad-
ministration of rules (legal or moral) founded on
expediency, and that it includes the idea of coercion
and of a desire of revenge against wrongdoers. He
also points out with great distinctness and force that
many of the most popular commonplaces on the
subject, which are often regarded as definitions or
quasl-definitions of justice, are merely partial maxims,
useful for practical purposes, but not going to the
root of the matter.

Most of the maxims of justice current in the wodd, and
commonly appealed to in its transactions, are simply
instrumental in carrying into effect the principles of justice
which we have now spoken of. That a person is only
responsible for what he has done voluntarily, or could
voluntarily have avoided ; that it is unjust to condemn any
person unheard ; that the punishment ought to be propor-
tioned to the offence, and the like, are maxims intended to
prevent the just principle of evil for evil from being

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EQUALITY 195

perverted to the infliction of evil without the Justification.
The greater part of these common maxims have come into
use from the practice of courts of justice, which have been
naturally led to a more complete recognition and elabora-
tion than was likely to suggest itself to others of the rules
necessary to enable them to fulfil their double function of
indicting punishment when due, and of awarding to each
person his right.

Thus far I have nothing to add to Mr. Mill's
statement. It may, I think, be put thus in other
words : — Justice involves the elements of power and
benevolence. Power acts by imposing general rules
of conduct on men, which rules may or may not be
benevolent and may or may not be impartially
executed. In so far as they are benevolent and im-
partially applied to particular cases, justice is said to
be done. Whether the law itself is just or unjust,
impartiality in its application is absolutely essential
to a just result. A general rule not applied impar-
tially is for practical purposes no rule at all.

So far, I have only to assent, but Mr. Mill's doc-
trine that the words just and unjust always involve
' a desire that punishment may be suffered by those
who infringe the rule ' calls, I think, for one impor-
tant remark. The doctrine does not apply to the
case in which the thing qualified as just or unjust is
. a law or rule. When a judge or a legislator is called
unjust, no doubt the word impHes personal censure,
and this involves more or less distinctly a wish for
the punishment of the unjust person. But to call a
law unjust seems to me to be the same thing as to

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ig6 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, TRATERNITY

call it inexpedient. You cannot punish a law, nor
would any rational person wish to punish a legislator
v/ho makes a bad law under an honest mistake.
Still less would it be reasonable to punish the judge
who applies a bad law impartially to a particular
case. Nor can it be said that an unjust law is a law
breaches of which ought not to be punished. To
free from punishment every person who breaks a bad
law would be to put an end to law altogether.

If the distinction between an unjust and an inex-
pedient law is to be maintained, it must be done by
the help of some such theory as is involved in the
expression ' rights of man.' It must be said that
there are rights which are not the creatures of law,
but which exist apart from and antecedently to it;
that a law which violates any of these rights is unjust,
and that a law which, without violating them, does
more harm than good is simply inexpedient. I need
not say how popular such theories have been or what
influence they have exercised in the world, nor need
I remind those who, like myself, have been trained
in the school of Locke, Bentham, and Austin, that
this theory is altogether irreconcilable with its funda-
mental doctrines. The analysis of laws (political or
ethical), according to that school, is as follows. The
first idea of all is force, the power to reward and
punish. The next idea is command. Obey and you
shall be rewarded. Disobey and you shall be
punished. Commands impose duties and confer
rights. Let A do what he will with this field, and

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EQUALITY 197

let no one else interfere with liim. A hereupon has
a right of property in the field, and the rest of the
world is under a duty to abstain from infringing that
right. This theory is irreconcilable with any notion
about natural rights which cannot be resolved into
general expediency. It may of course be said that
God Is the ultimate legislator, and that God has im-
posed laws on men which they must obey under
penalties. It may also be said, without using the
name of God, The course of nature is thus and not
otherwise, and If you do not adjust your institutions
to the course of nature, they will fall to pieces. I for
one do not quarrel with cither of these assertions ;
but each resolves right into general utility— general
as regards a larger or smaller class. If you regard
God as the ultimate legislator, what other criterion
of God's will can be discovered than the tendency of
a rule or law to promote tlie welfare of men in
general, or of such men as God is supposed to
favour ? If we take the course of nature as a guiJe
in legislation, our object Is simply to know how far
and on what terms we (that is, I in the plural) can
get what we want. On these grounds I think tliat
the justice and the expediency of a law are simply
two names for one and the same thing.*

I should certainly have expected that Mr. Mill
would be of the same opinion, but on carefully
reading his essay on Utilitarianism, and comparing

* As to the question whose happiness a utilitarian would wish
to consult, see post, ch. vi., p. 273.

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igS LIBERTY, EQUALITY, l.'RATERNITV

it with his essay on the Subjection of Women, it ap-
pears to me that, ttiough this is the opinion which all
the rest of his speculations would make it natural for
him to hold, he turns away from it in order to obtain
support for his doctrine about women ; 'an opinion,'
as he tells us, which he has 'held from the very
earliest period when' he ' had formed any opinions
at all on social and political matters, and which,
instead of being weakened and modified, has been
constantly growing stronger by the progress of
reflection and the experience of life '—in short, a pet
opinion, which when once embraced by a logical
mind is capable of turning all things unto itself This
opinion is — ' That the principle which regulates the
existing social relations between the two sexes, the
legal subordination of one sex to the other, is wrong
in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to
human improvement, and that it ought to be replaced
by a principle of perfect equality, admitting no power
or privilege on the one side nor disability on the
other.' I shall have more to say upon this hereafter.
At present I wish to point out how carefully the
foundation for it is laid in the essay on Justice. Al-
though, as I have shown, the whole drift, not only of
the particular argument, but of the doctrines of the
;;chool to which Mr. Mill belongs, and of which he
is beyond all question the most distinguished living
member, leads to the conclusion that equality is just
only if and in so far as it is expedient, Mr, Mill gives
to equality a character different from other ideas
connected with justice.

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The following extract will show this : — ■

Nearly allied to the idea of impartiality is that of
equality, which often enters as a component part both into
the conception of justice and into the practice of it, and in
the eyes of many persons constitutes its essence. But in
this, more than in any other case, the notion of justice
varies in different persons, and always conforms in its varia-
tions to their notion of utility. Each person maintains iJiat
equality is the dictate of justice except where he thinks that
expediency requires inequality. . , . Those who think that
utility requires distinctions of rank do not consider it unjust
that riches and social privileges should be unequally
dispensed, but those who think this inequality inexpedient
think it unjust also.

If this means that the word just as applied to a law
or an institution is identical in meaning with the ex-
pression ' generally useful,' I fully agree with it, but
I do not think this is the meaning. The words itali-
cized appear to convey something further, and to
imply that justice involves the notion that a presump-
tion is in all cases to be made in favour of equality
quite irrespectively of any definite experience of its
utility ; and if this is what Mr. Mill means, I disagree
with him. It appears to me that the only shape in
which equality is really connected with justice is this — .
justice presupposes general rules, legal or moral,
which are to be applied to particular cases, by those
who are in the position of judges with respect to
them. If these general rules are to be maintained
at all, it is obvious that they must be applied equally
to every particular case which satisfies their terms.

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200 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

The rule, ' All thieves shall be imprisoned,' is not
obsei'ved if A, being a thief, is not imprisoned. In
other words, it is not observed if it is not applied
equally to every person who falls within the defini-
tion of a thief, whatever else he may be. If the
rule were, ' All thieves except those who have red
hair shall be imprisoned, and they shall not,' the rule
would be violated if a red-haired thief were im-
prisoned as much as if a black-haired tliief were not
imprisoned. The imprisonment of the red-haired
thief would be an inequaUty in the application of the
rule ; for the equality consists not in the equal treat-
ment of the persons who are the subjects of law, but
in the equivalency between the general terms of the
law and the description of the particular cases to
v.'hich it is applied. ' All thieves not being red-haired
shall be imprisoned ' is equivalent to ' A being a thief
with brown hair, B being a thief with black hair, C
being a thief with white hair, &c., shall be imprisoned,
and Z being a thief with red hair shall not be im-
prisoned.' In this sense equa.Hty is no doubt of tlie
very essence of justice, but the question whether the
colour of a man's hair shall or shall not affect the
punishment of his crimes depends on a different set
of considerations. It is imaginable that the colour
of the hair might be an unfailing mark of peculiarity
of disposition which might require pecuHar treat-
ment. Experience alone can inform us whether this
is so or not.

The notion that apart from experience there is a

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presumption in favour of equality Eippears to me un-
founded. A presumption is simply an avowedly
imperfect generalization, and this must, of course,
be founded on experience. If you have occasion to
speak to a stranger in the streets of London, you
address him in English, because you presume that
he speaks that language ; but this is founded on ex-
perience of the fact that London is inhabited by
people who speak English. In precisely the same
way tlie presumption {if any) to be made in favour
of equality must be based upon experience, and as
equality is a word so wide and vague as to be by
itself almost unmeaning, the experience on which
the presumption is based must be experience of the
effects of that particular kind of equality to which
reference is made, or, at any rate, experience of facts
from which inferences can be drawn as to what the
effects of it would be like. In every view of the
case, therefore, we arc brought back to the result
tliat the justice of equality means merely that equal-
ity is as a fact expedient.

I do not overlook another and far more important
passage from the same chapter of Mr. Mill's writings
which bears upon this subject. It is as follows :—

This great moral duty [the adherence to maxims of
equality and impartiality] rests upon a stiU deeper founda-
tion, being a direct emanation from the first principle of
morals, and not a mere logical corollary from secondary or
derivative doctrines. It is involved in the very meaning of
utility, or the greatest-happiness principle. That principle

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202 LIBERTV, KQUAI.ITV, FRATERNITY

is a mere form of words without rational signification unless
one person's happiness supposed equal in degree (with the
proper allowance made for kind) is counted for exactly as
much as another's. Those conditions being supplied,
Bentham's dictum ' everybody to count for one, nobody for
more than one,' might be written under the principle of
utility as an explanatory commentary. The equal claim of
everybody to happiness in the estimation of the moralist
and the legislator involves an equal claim to all the means
of happiness, except in so far as the inevitable conditions
of human life, and the general interest in which that of
every individual is included, sets hmits to the maxim, and
those limits ought to be strictly construed. As every other
maxim of justice, so this is by no means to be held apphc-
able universally. On the contrary, as I have already
remarked, it bends to every person's ideas of social ex-
pediency. But in whatever case it is deemed applicable at
all it is held to be the dictate of justice. All persons are
deemed to have a right to equality of treatment except
where some recognized social expediency requires the
reverse, and hence all social inequalities which have ceased
to be considered expedient assume the character not of
simple inexpediency but of injustice, and appear so tyran-
nical that people are apt to wonder how they ever could
have been tolerated.

It is but very seldom that there is any difficulty
in understanding Mr. Mill, but I cannot understand
this passage. If justice, as applied to a law, is identi-
cal with expediency, how can a law be not simply
inexpedient but unjust ? If, in reference to a law,
justice has some other meaning than general expe-
diency, what is tliat meaning ? So far as I know,
Mr. Mill has nowhere explained in what it consists ;
but as I shall have occasion to show immediately, a

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EQUAIJTY 203

considerable part of his argument about the subjec-
tion of women assumes that there is such a dis-
tinction, and the feeling that there Js colours every
page of it.

With regard to the remainder of th i passage just
quoted, I will content myself for the present with
expressing my dissent from it. The reasons why I
dissent will appear in discussing the subject of
Fraternity. When stated I think they will show the
real root of the differences — I do not say between
Mr. Mill and myself, which is a matter of very small
importance, but of the difference between two very
large and influential classes of writers and thinlters
who are continually confounded together.

Having tried to show in what sense justice and
equality are connected, and in what sense they are
independent of each other, I proceed to examine the
question of the expediency of equality in some of its
more important features.

The doctrine upon this subject which I deny,
and which I am disposed to think Mr. Millafhrms —
though, if he does, it is with somewhat less than
his usual transparent vigour and decision — is that
equality is in itself always expedient, or, to say the
very least, presumably expedient, and that in every
case of inequality the burden of proof lies on those
who justify its maintenance,

I might give in proof or illustration of this the
whole of his essay on the Subjection of Women, a
work from which I dissent from the first sentence

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204 l.IKERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

to the last, but which I wil! consider on the present
occasion only with reference to the particular topic
of equality, and as the strongest distinct illustration
known to me of what is perhaps one of the strongest,
and what appears to me to be by far the most ignoble
and mischievous of all the popular feelings of the
age.

The object of Mr. Mill's essay is to explain
the grounds of the opinion that ' the principle which
regulates the existing social relations between the
two sexes, the legal subordination of one sex to
the other, is wrong in itself, and now one of the
chief hindrances to human improvement; and that
it ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect
equality, admitting no power or privilege on the one
side, or disability on the other.'

Mr. Mill is fully aware of the difficulty of his
task. He admits that he is arguing against 'an
almost universal opinion,' but he urges that it and
the practice founded on it is a relic of a bygone
state of things. 'We now live— that is to say, one
or two of the most advanced nations of the world
now live^n . a state in which the law of the
strongest seems to be entirely abandoned as the
regulating principle of the world's affairs. Nobody
professes it, and as regards most of the relations
between human beings, nobody is permitted to
practise it. ... lliis being the ostensible
state of things, people flatter themselves that the
rule of mere force is ended.' Still they do not

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know how hard It dies, and in particular they are
unaware of the fact that it still regulates the relations
between men and women. It is true that the
actually existing generation of women do not dis-
like their position. The consciousness of this
haunts Mr. Mill throughout the whole of his argu-
ment, and embarrasses him at every turn. He is
driven to account for it by such assertions as that
' each individual of the subject class is in a chronic
state of bribery and intimidation combined,' by
reference to the affection which slaves in classical
times felt for their masters in many cases, and by
other suggestions of the same sort. His great
argument against the present state of things is that
it is opposed to what he calls ' the modern conviction,
the fruit of a thousand years of experience :'—

That things in which the individual is the person directly
interested never go right "but as they are left to his own
discretion, and that any regulation of them fay authority
except to protect the rights of others is sure to be mis-
chievous. . . . The peculiar character of the modern world
... is that human beings are no longer born to their
place in life and chained down by an inexorable bond to
the place they arc born to, but are free to employ their
faculties and such favourable chances as offer, to acliieve
the lot which may appear to them most desirable. Human
society of old was constituted on a very different principle.
All were bom to a fixed social position, and were mostly
kept in it by law or interdicted from any means by which
they could emerge from it. . . . In consonance with this
doctrine it is felt to be an overstepping of the proper bounds
of authority to fix beforehand on some general presumption
that certain persons are not fit to do certain things. It is

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sob LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

now thoroughly known and admitted that if some such pre-
sumptions exist no such presumption is infallible. . . . Hence
we ought not . . . to ordain that to be bora a girl instead of a
boy shall decide the person's position all through life.

The result is that ' the social subordination of women
thus stands out as an isolated fact in modern social
institutions.' It is in ' radical opposition ' to ' the
progressive movement, which is the boast of the
modern world.' This fact creates a 'prima facie
presumption ' against it, ' far outweighing any which
custom and usage could in such circumstances create '
in its favoun

I will not follow Mr. Mill through the whole
of his argument, much of which consists of matter
not relevant to my present purpose, and not
agreeable to discuss, though many of his assertions
provoke reply. There is something — I hardly know
what to call it ; indecent is' too strong a word, but
I may say unpleasant in the direction of indecorum —
in prolonged and minute discussions about the
relations between men and women, and the character-
istics of women as such. I will therefore pass
over what Mr. Mill says on this subject with a mere
general expression of dissent from nearly every word
he says. The following extracts show the nature of
that part of his theory which bears on the question of
equality : —

The equality of married persons before the law ... is
the only means of rendering the daily life of mankind in
ar.y high sense a school of moral cultivation. Though the

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1:riitli may not be felt or generally acknowledged for gene-
rations to come, the only school of genuine moral sentiment
is society between equals. The moral education of man-
kind has hitherto emanated chiefly from the law of force,
and is adapted almost solely to the relations which force
creates. In the less advanced states of society, people
hardly recognize any relation with their equals. To be an
equal is to be an enemy. Society, from its highest place
to its lowest, is one long chain, or rather ladder, where every
individual is either above or below his nearest neighbour,
and wherever he does not command he must obey. Exist-
ing moralities accordingly are mainly fitted to a relation of
command and obedience. Yet command and obedience
are but unfortunate necessities of human life; society in
equality is its normal state. Already in modem life, and
more and more as it prc^ressively improves, command and
obedience become exceptional facts in life, equal associa-
tion its general rule. ... We have had the morahty of
submission and the morality of chivalry and generosity ; the
time is now come for the morality of justice.

In another part of the book this doctrine is stated
more fully in a passage of which it will be enough
for my purpose to quote a very few lines : —

There are many persons for whom it is not enough that
the inequality [between the sexes] has no just or legitimate
defence ; they require to be told what express advantage
would be obtained by abolishing it. To which let me first
answer, the advantage of having ail the most universal and
pervading of all human relations regulated by justice
instead of injustice. The vast amount of this gain to
human nature it is hardly possible by any explanation or
illustration to place in a stronger light than it is placed in
by the bare statement to any one who attaches a moral
meaning to words.

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.toS LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

These passages show what Mr. Mill's doctrine of
equality is, and hov/ it forms the very rooE, the
essence, so to spealc, of Ins theory about the sub-
jection of women. I consider it unsound in every
respect. I think that it rests upon an unsound view
of history, an unsound view of morals, and a gro-
tesquely distorted view of facts, and I believe that
its practical application would be as injurious as its
theory is false.

The theory may be shortly restated in the follow-
ing propositions, which I think are implied in or may
be collected from the extracts given above.

1. Justice requires that all people should live in
society as equals.

2. History shows that human progress has been
a progress from a ' law of force ' to a condition
In which command and obedience become ex-
ceptional.

3. The ' law of the strongest ' having in this and
one or two other countries been 'entirely abandoned'
in all other relations of life. It may be presumed not
to apply to the relation between the sexes.

4. Notorious facts as to the nature of that
relation show that in this particular case the pre-
sumption Is In fact well founded.

I dissent from each of these propositions. First,
as to the proposition that justice requires that all
people should live In society as equals. I have
already shown that this is equivalent to the proposi-
tion that It Is expedient that all people should live

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EQUALITY 20g

in society as equals. Can this be proved ? for it is
certainly not a self-evident proposition.

I think that if the rights and duties which laws
create are to be generally advantageous, they ought
to be adapted to the situation of the persons who
enjoy or are subject to them. They ought to recog-
nize both substantial equality and substantial in
equality, and they should from time to time be so
moulded and altered as always to represent fairly
well the existing state of society. Government, in
a word, ought to fit society as a man's clothes fit
him. To establish by law rights and duties which
assume that people are equal when they are not
is like trying to make clumsy feet look handsome
by the help of tight boots. No doubt it may be
necessary to legislate in such a manner as to correct
the vices of society or to protect it against special
dangers or diseases to which it is liable. Law in
this case is analogous to surgery, and the rights and
duties imposed by it might be compared to the irons
which are sometimes contrived for the purpose of
supporting a weak hmb or keeping it in some par-
ticular position. As a rule, however, it is otherwise.
Rights and duties should be so moulded as to clothe,
protect, and sustain society in the position which it
naturally assumes. The proposition, therefore, that
justice demands that people should live in society as
equals may be translated thus : — ' It is inexpedient
that any law should recognize any Inequality between
human beings.'

P

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210 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

This appears to me to involve the assertion,
' There are no inequahties between human beings of
sufficient importance to influence the rights and
duties which it is expedient to confer upon them.'
This proposition I altogether deny. I say that diere
are many such differences, some of which arc more
durable and more widely extended than others, and
of which some are so marked and so important that
unless human nature is radically changed, we cannot
even imagine their removal ; and of these the differ-
ences of age and sex are the most Important.

The difference of age is so distinct a case of
inequality that even Mr. Mill does not object to Its
recognition. He admits, as every one must, that
perhaps a third or more of the average term of
human life— and that the pordon of it in which the
strongest, the most durable, and beyond all com-
parison the most Important impressions are made
on human beings, the period In which character is
formed — must be passed by every one in a state of
submission, dependence, and obedience to orders the
objects of which are usually most imperfectly under-
stood by the persons who receive them. Indeed, as
I have already pointed out, Mr Mill is disposed
rather to exaggerate than to underrate the Influence
of education and the powers of educators. Is not
this a clear case of inequality of the strongest kind,
and does It not at all events afford a most in-
structive precedent in favour of the recognition by
law of a marked natural distinction ? If children

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were regarded by law as the equals of adults, the result
would be something infinitely worse than barbarism. It
would involve a degree of cruelty to the young which
can hardly be realized even in imagination. The pro-
ceeding, in short, would be so utterly monstrous and
irrational that I suppose it never entered into the
head of the wildest zealot for equality to propose it,

Upon the practical question all are agreed ; but
consider the consequences which it involves. It
involves the consequence that, so far from being
' unfortunate necessities,' command and obedience
stand at the very entrance to life, and preside
over the most important part of it. It involves
the consequence that the exertion of power and
constraint is so important and so indispensable in
the greatest of ali matters, that it is a less evil to
invest with it every head of a family indiscriminately,
however unfit he may be to exercise it, than to fail to
provide for its exercise. It involves the consequence
that by mere lapse of time and by following the
promptings of passion men acquire over others a
position of superiority and of InequaHty which all
nations and ages, the most cultivated as well as the
rudest, have done their best to surround with every
association of awe and reverence. The title of
Father is the one which the best part of the human
race have given to God, as being the least in-
adequate and inappropriate means of indicating the
union of love, reverence, and submission. Whoever
fi^'st gave the command or uttered the maxim, 'Honour

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212 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATJlRNITV

thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be
long in the land,' had a far better conception of the
essential conditions of permanent national existence
and prosperity than the author of the motto Liberty,
Equality, and Fraternity.

Now, if society and government ought to recog-
nize the inequality of ag-e as the foundation of an
inequality of rights of this importance, it appears to
me at least equally clear that they ought to recognize
the inequality of sex for the same purpose, if it is a
real Inequality. Is it one? There are some pro-
positions which it is difficult to prove, because they
are so plain, and this is one of them. The physical
differences between the two sexes affect every part
of the human body, from the hair of the head to
the sole of the feet, from the size and density of the
bones to the texture of the brain and die character
of the nervous system. Ingenious people may argue
about anything, and Mr. Mill does say a great num-
ber of things about women which, as I have already
observed, I will not discuss ; but all the talk in the
world will never shake the proposition that men are
stronger than women in every shape. They have
greater muscular and nervous force, greater intel-
lectual force, greater vigour of character. This ge-
neral truth, which has been observed under all sor;s
of circumstances and in every age and country, has
also in every age and country led to a division of
labour between men and women, the general outline
of which is as familiar and as universal as the ge-

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EQUALITY 213

neral outline of the differences between them. These
are the facts, and the question is whether the law
and public opinion ought to recognize this differ-
ence ? How it ought to recognize it, what difference
it ought to make between men and women as such,
is quite another question.

The first point to consider is whether it ought
to treat them as equals, although, as I have shown,
they are not equals, because men are the stronger.
I will take one or two illustrations. Men, no one
denies, may, and in some cases ought to be liable
to compulsory military service. No one, I suppose,
would hesitate to admit, that if we were engaged
in a great war it might become necessary, or that
if necessary it would be right, to have a conscription
both for the land and for the sea service. Ought
men and women to be subject to it indiscriminately ?
If any one says that they ought, I have no more
to say, except that he has got into the region at
which argument is useless. But if it is admitted
that this ought not to be done, an inequahty of
treatment founded on a radical inequality between
the two sexes is admitted, and if this admission is
once made, where are you to draw the line ? Turn
from the case of liability to military service to that
of education, which in Germany Is rightly regarded
as the other great branch of State activity, and the
same question presents itself in another shape. Are
boys and girls to be educated indiscriminately, and
to be instructed in the same things ? Are boys

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214 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

to learn to sew, to keep house, and to cook, and
are girls to play at cricket, to row, and be drilled
like boys ? I cannot argue with a person who says
Yes. A person who says No admits an inequality
between the sexes on which education must be
founded, and which it must therefore perpetuate and
perhaps increase.

Follow the matter a step further to the vita! point
of the whole question — marriage. Marriage is one
of the subjects with which it is absolutely necessary
both for law and morals to deal with in some way
or other. All that I need consider in reference to
the present purpose is the question whether the laws
and moral rules which relate to it should regard it
as a contract between equals, or as a contract between
a stronger and a weaker person involving subordin-
ation for certain purposes on the part of the weaker
to the stronger. I say that a law which proceeded
on the former and not on the latter of these views
would be founded on a totally false assumption, and
would involve cruel injustice in the sense of extreme
general inexpediency, especially to women. If the
parties to a contract of marriage are treated as equals,
it is impossible to avoid the inference that marriage,
like other partnerships, may be dissolved at pleasure.
The advocates of women's rights are exceedingly
shy of stating this plainly. Mr. Mill says nodiing
about it in his book on the Subjection of Women,
though in one place he comes very near to saying so,
but it is as clear an inference from his principles as

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EQUALITY 215

anything can possibly be, nor has he ever disavowed
it If this were the law, It would make women the
slaves of their husbands. A woman loses the quali-
ties which make her attractive to men much earlier
than men lose those which make them attractive to
women. The tie between a woman and young chil-
dren is generally far closer than the tie between them
and their father. A woman who is no longer young,
and who is the mother of children, would thus be
absolutely in her husband's power, in nine cases out
of ten, if he might put an end to the marriage when
he pleased. This is one inequality in the position
of the parties which must be recognized and provided
for beforehand if the contract is to be for their com-
mon good. A second inequality is this. V/hen a
man marries it Is generally because he feels himi;elf
established in life. He incurs, no doubt, a good
deal of expense, but he does not in any degree im-
pair his means of earning a living. When a woman
marries she practically renounces in all but the
rarest cases the possibility of undertaking any pro-
fession but one, and the possibility of carrying on
that one profession in the society of any man but
one. Here is a second Inequality. It would be
easy to mention others of the deepest importance,
but these are enough to show that to treat a contract
of marriage as a contract between persons who are
upon an equality in regard of strength, and power to
protect their interest, Is to treat it as being what it
notoriously is not.

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2l6 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

Again, the contract is one which involves sub-
ordination and obedience on the part of the
weaker party to the stronger. The proof of this
is, to my mind, as clear as that of a proposition in
Euclid, and it is this : —

1. Marriage is a contract, one of the principal
objects of which is the government of a family.

2. This government must be vested either by
law or by contract in the hands of one of the two
married persons.

3. If the arrangement is made by contract, the
remedy for breach of it must eillier be by law or by
a dissolution of the partnership at the will of the
contracting parties.

4. Law could give no remedy in such a case.
Therefore the only remedy for breach of the con-
tract would be a dissolution of tlie marriage.

5. Therefore, if marriage is to be permanent,
the government of the family must be put by law
and by morals in the hands of the husband, for no
one proposes to give it to tlie wife.

Mr. Mill is totally unable to meet this argument,
and apparently embraces the alternative that mar-
riage ought to be dissoluble at the pleasure of the
parties. After much argument as to contracts
■which appear to me visionary, his words are these : —
' Things never come to an issue of downright power
on one side and obedience on the other except
where the connection has been altogether a mis-
take and it would be a blessing to both parties to
be relieved from it'

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EQUALITY 217

This appears to me to show a complete mis-
apprehension of the nature of family government
and of the sort of cases in which the question
of obedience and authority can arise between
husband and wife. No one contends that a man
ought to have power to order his wife about lilie
a slave and beat her if she disobeys him. Such con-
duct in the eye of the law would be cruelty and ground
for a separation. The question of obedience arises
in quite another way. It may, and no doubt
often does, arise between the very best and most
affectionate married people, and it need no more
interfere with their mutual affection than the absolute
power of the captain of a ship need interfere with
perfect friendship and coniidence between himself
and his first lieutenant. Take the following set of
questions :— ' Shall we live on this scale or that .''
Shall we associate with such and such persons ?
Shall I, the husband, embark in such an under-
taking, and shall we change our place of residence
in order that I may do so ? Shall we send our
son to college ? Shall we send our daughters to
scliool or have a governess ? For what profession
shall we train our sons ? ' On these and a thousand
other such questions the wisest and the most affection-
ate people might arrive at opposite conclusions. What
is to be done in such a case ? for something must
be done. I say the wife ought to give way. She
ought to obey her husband, and carry out the view
at which he deliberately arrives, just as, when the
captain gives the word to cut away the masts, the

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21 8 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

lieutenant carries out his orders at once, though he
may be a better seaman and may disapprove them.
I also say that to regard this as a humiliation, as a
wrong, as an evil in itself, is a mark not of spirit and
courage, but of a base, unworthy, mutinous disposition
— a disposition utterly subversive of all that is most
■worth having in life. The tacit assumption involved
in it is that it is a degradation ever to give up one's
own will to the will of another, and to me this appears
the root of all evil, the negation of that which renders
any combined efforts possible. No case can be speci-
fied in which people unite for a common object from
making a pair of shoes up to governing an empire
in which the power to decide does not rest some-
where ; and what is this but command and obedience ?
Of course the person who for the time being is in
command is of all fools the greatest if he deprives
himself of the advantage of advice, if he is obstinate
in his own opinion, if he does not hear as well as de-
termine ; but it is also practically certain that his
inclination to hear will be proportioned to the degree
of importance which he has been led to attach to the
function of determining.

To sum the matter up, it appears to me that all
the laws and moral rules by which the relation
between the sexes is regulated should proceed upon
the principle that their object is to provide for the
common good of the two great divisions of mankind
who are connected together by the closest and most
durable of all bonds, and who can no more have
really conflicting interests than the different member;

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EQUALITY 219

of the same body, but who are not and never can be
equals in any of the different forms of strength.

This problem law and morals have solved by
monogamy, indissoluble marriage on the footing of
the obedience of the wife to the husband, and a divi-
sion of labour with corresponding differences in the
matters of conduct, manners, and dress. Substan-
tially this solution appears to me to be right and
true ; but I freely admit that in many particulars the
stronger party has in this, as in other cases, abused
his strength, and made rules for his supposed advan-
tage, which in fact are greatly to the injury of both
parties. It is needless to say anything in detail of
the stupid coarseness of the laws about the effects of
marriage on property, laws which might easily be
replaced by a general statutory marriage settlement
analogous to those which every prudent person makes
who has anything to settle. As to acts of violence
against women, by all means make the law on this
head as severe as it can be made without defeating
itself. As to throwing open to women the one or
two employments from which they are at present
excluded, it is rather a matter of sentiment than of
practical importance. I need not revive In this place
a trite discussion. My object at present is simply
to es.tablish the general proposition that men and
women are not equals, and that the laws which affect
their relations ought to recognize that fact.

I pass to the examination of the opinion that
laws which recognize any sort of inequality between
human beings are mere yestiges of the past, against

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220 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

which as such there lies the strongest o^ a!! pre-
sumptions.

Mr. Mill's view as exhibited in the passages
above quoted or referred to may, I think, be
reduced to these two propositions : — i . H istory
shows that human progress has been a progress from
a ' law of force ' to a condition in which command
and obedience become exceptional. 2. The 'law of
the strongest ' having in this and one or two other
countries been 'entirely abandoned' in all other re-
lations of life, it may be presumed not to apply to
the relations between the sexes.

I think these propositions completely unsound.
They appear to me to rest on a mistaken view cf
histoiy and on a misinterpretation of its facts.

In the first place they involve the assumption
that the progress of society is from bad to good ;
for to say that it is from good to bad, and that ue
ought to promote it, would be absurd. No doubt,
however, Mr. Mill's assumption is that the progress
of society is from bad to good ; that the changes of
the last few centuries in our own and the other leading
nations of Western Europe and in the United States
have been changes for the better.

This is an enormously wide assumption, and it is
one to which I certainly cannot assent, though I do
not altogether deny it. I think that the progress
has been mixed, partly good and partly '■ bad, I
suspect tliat in many ways it has been a progress
from strength to weakness; that people are more

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sensitive, less enterprising and ambitious, less ear-
nestly desirous to get what they want, and more
afraid of pain, both for themselves and others, than
they used to be. If this should be so, it appears to
me that all other gains, whether in wealth, know-
ledge, or humanity, afford no equivalent. Strength,
in all its forms, is life and manhood. To be less
strong is to be less of a man, whatever else you
may be. This suspicion prevents me, for one, from
feeling any enthusiasm about progress, but I do not
undertake to say it is well founded. It is not and it
cannot be more than a suspicion, and the fallacies of
the imagination in this matter are so obvious and so
nearly irresistible that it is impossible for any one
to be too much on his guard against giving way to
them. The doubt is enough, however, to stop en-
thusiasm. I do not myself see that our mechanical
inventions have increased the general vigour of
men's characters, though they have, no doubt, in-
creased enormously our control over nature. The
greater part of our humanity appears to me to be a
mere increase of nervous sensibility in which I feel
no satisfaction at all. It is useless to lament or
even to blame the inevitable. It is rash to draw
general conclusions as to the character of a process
extending over centuries from the observations
which one man can make in a few years, but it is at
least equally rash to rejoice over the inevitable, and
to assume that it is good. To observe and to take
our part in the changes in which we live is rational ;

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222 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FKATERNITY

but for my part I will neither bless them at all nor
curse them at all, and no one, I think, has a. right to
do otherwise without showing cause for what he
does. The inference applicable to the present
subject is that, even if the Inequality between men
and women is a vestige of the past, and is likely to be
destroyed by the same process which has destroyed
so many other things, that is no reason for helping
the process on. The proper reflection upon its
approaching removal may be. The more's the pity.
Mr. Woodhouse liked his gruel thin, but not too
thin. At a certain point of wateriness he would
probably have turned off the tap. If Emma had
been a disciple of Mr. Mill's, she might have re-
marked, ' Reflect, dear sir, that you are interrupting
the stream of progress. Such remains of cohesive-
ness as are exhibited by the grits which form the sub-
stratum of your simple meal are relics of the past, and
as such are probably defects in your gruel instead of
merits.'

Be this as it may, let us consider the question
whether the 'law of force' — the 'law of the strongest'
— really has been abandoned ? whether if it were
abandoned it would tend to produce equality ? and
whether the general course of events in recent times
has tended or does now tend to set it aside ? First,
and by way of introduction to the other questions,
let us consider what it Is.

Force is an absolutely essential element of all
law whatever. Indeed law is nothing but regu-

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EQUALITY 223

lated force subjected to particular conditions and
directed towards particular objects. The abolition
of the law of force cannot therefore mean the with-
drawal of the element of force from law, for that
would be the destruction of law altogether.

The general tenor of Mr. Tvlill's argument rather
indicates that by the ' law of force ' and the ' law of
tlie strongest ' he means force unregulated by any
law at all. If this was what he meant, he should
have said it ; but he could not have said it without
being at once involved in an obvious contradiction
to facts, for the marriage institutions of modern
Europe are anything but a case of force unregulated
by law. They are cases of laws which regulate in
the sternest way the most impetuous of human
passions. Can any one doubt that the principles
of monogamy and the indissolubility of marriage
effectually controlled the most ardent passions of
the strongest-willed races in the world during the
dark and the middle ages, or that the control so
exercised wns in its results eminently beneficial to
the human race at large and to women in particular?
Dc Maistre claims, and in this case I think justly,
great credit for the medireval clergy for having up-
held these principles, which are the central principles
of our version of morals, against the repeated attacks
which were made upon them by the passions of kings
and nobles in the most violent periods of history.

Assuming, then, that th« 'law of force' is a
somewhat indefinite expression for the general

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224 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

importance of force, and that Mr. Mill means to
assert that force tends to lose its importance, I
proceed to his whole conception of the theory of
equality and its history.

It is no doubt perfectly true that in all the insti-
tutions of the nations which principally interest us,
and in particular in such of their institutions as have
to do with law and government, there is a constant
tendency to the rejection of distinctions and to the
simplification of laws. This is due to a variety of
causes. In the first place the societies in question
have a tendency to increase. The different kingdoms
into which our own and the other great European
nations were subdivided in the early stages of our
history gradually ran into each other. The growth
of wealth, and changes in the habits of life proceeding
from an infinite number of causes, not only rendered
old institutions unsuitable for later times, but in many
cases made them unintelligible. Thus, for instance,
the word murder, which for centuries has been the
name of a crime, was, it seems, originally the name
of a fine laid upon a township in which a person un-
known was found slain, unless the legal presumption
that the unknown man was a Dane could be disproved
by positive testimony that he was an Englishman,
by a proceeding called a ' presentment of Englishry.'
The strange distinction introduced in favour of the
Danes, and maintained in favour of the French, was
not finally removed till the fourteenth year of Ed-
ward III. By that time the presentment of Englishry

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EQUALITY 225

hrid become unmeaning and was abolished, and the
name of the fine had passed into the name of the
crime in respect of which the fine was imposed.

This was one case out of a muhitude of the
growth of equahty, by the rejection of a distinction
between the murders of men of different races which
had become senseless. Probably every part of the
institutions of every nation in the world would afford
illustrations of the same principle. The history of
the Roman law from the days of the Twelve Tables
to the time of Justinian is little else than one con-
tinued illustration of it. Another, and one of the
. utmost importance, is afforded by a process which
Mr. Mill refers to in a passage quoted above
about the distinction which exists between the
present and the former arrangements of society for
the purpose of assigning to men their position in life.
In former times, Mr. Mil! tells us, ' all were born to
a fixed social position, and were mostly kept in it by
law or interdicted from any means by which they
could emerge from it.' Sir Henry Maine refers to,
and to a certain extent gives the theory of, this
matter in a passage which he sums up by saying,
' The movement of the progressive societies has
hitherto been a movement from status to contract '
— a movement, that is, from a condition of things in
which the relations between man and man are de-
termined by membership of a family or of a tribe, or
of a conquering or conquered race, towards a con-
dition of things in which they depend upon contract

Q

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226 LIBERTY, EQUAl.irV, IRATERXITV

This is no doubt quite true, and to Sir Henry
Maine's account of the matter, which is as interesting
as it is ingenious, I have no objection to mal^e, i
will only observe upon it that in this, as in other
cases, he confines himself to the investigation of or to
speculations about matters of fact; and neither says
nor, as it seems to me, assumes, as Mr. Mill always
does, that to show that the course of events has in
fact led from A to B, and appears to be in the direc-
tion of C, proves that B is better than A, and that C
is better than B.

The question with which I have to deal is whether
these facts authorize Mr. Mills two doctrines : —
namely, first, the doctrine that the law of the
strongest, or the law of force, has been abandoned
in these days — an assertion which, I think, must, for
the reasons already assigned, be taken to mean that
force tends to be less and less important in human
affairs ; and, secondly, the doctrine that this aban-
donment of the law of force is equivalent to the
growth of equality. Both of these doctrines I deny,
and I deny that the facts which I have admitted
tend even to prove them.

As to the first, I say that all that is proved by the
fact that status, to use Sir H, Maine's expression,
tends to be replaced by contract, is that force changes
its form. Society rests ultimately upon force in these
days, just as much as it did in the wildest and most
stormy periods of history. Compare Scotland in the
fourteenth century with Scotland in the nineteenth

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EQUALITY 227

century. In the fourteenth century the whole
country was a scene of wild confusion, of which one
of the most learned of Scott's novels (though it
was written after his genius had received its fatal
blow), ' The Fair Maid of Pertli,' gives a striking
picture. ' My name,' says one of the characters,
' is the Devil's Dick of Hellgarth, well known in
Annandalc for a gentle Johnstone. I follow the
stout Laird of Wamphray, who ride.'j with his kins-
man, the redoubted Lord of Johnstone, who is
banded with the doughty Earl of Douglas ; and
the Earl, and the Lord, and the laird, and I, the
esquire, fly our hawks where we find our game, and
ask no man whose ground we ride over.' Every
page of the book is full of the feuds of Highland
and Lowland, Douglas and March, burghers and
nobles. Clan Chattan and Clan Quhele. The first
impression on comparing this spirited picture with
the Scotland which we all know — the Scotland of
quiet industry, farming, commerce, and amusement,
is that the fourteenth century was entirely subject to
the law of force, and that Scotland in the nineteenth
century has ceased to be the theatre of force at all.
Look a little deeper and this impression is as false,
not to say as childish, as the supposition that a
clumsy rowboat, manned by a quarrelsome crew,
who can neither keep time with their oars, nor resist
the temptation to fight among themselves, displays
force, and that an ocean steamer which will carry
a townful of people to the end of the earth at

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22S LIBERTY, KQUALITY, FRATERNITY

the rate of three hundred miles a day so smoothly
that during- the greater part of the time they are un-
conscious of any motion or effort whatever, displays
none. The force which goes to govern the Scotland
of these days is to the force employed for the same
purpose in the fourteenth century what the force of a
line-of-battle ship is to the force of an individual
prize-fig-hter. The reason why it works so quietly
is that no one doubts either its existence, or Its
direction, or its crushing superiority to any individual
resistance which could be offered to it. The force of
the chain of champions of whom the Devil's Dick
was the last link is now stored up in the vast mass
of peaceable and rational men, who, In case of need,
would support the law, and from them it is drawn
off as required. It can be defied only on the smallest
possible scale, and by taking it at a disadvantage.
A criminal may overpower an isolated policeman
just as a pigmy might with his whole weight hold
down the last joint of the little finger of a giant's left
hand, if the hand were in a suitable position ; but
deliberate individual resistance to the law of the land
for mere private advantage is in these days an im-
possibility which no one ever thinks of attempting.
Force not only reigns, but in most matters it reigns
without dispute, but it does not follow that it has
ceased to exist.

This proposition is true, not merely in its general
and abstract shape, but also of every relation of life
in detail. Nowhere is it more strikingly illustrated

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KQUALtTV 229

than in the relation of marriage. Mr. Mill says : —
' I readily admit that numbers of married people,
even under the present law {in the higher classes of
England probably a great majority), live In the spirit
of a just law of equality. Laws never would be
improved if there were not numerous persons whose
mora! sentiments were better than the existing laws.'
This is an admission that most marriag'es under the
existing laws are happy. The reason, says Mr.
Mill, is because the moral tone of particular classes
is superior to the law, I say that it is because the
law is good, and the people in question obey It. I
go beyond Mr. Mill in his opinion about marriages,
1 should say that in all classes of life they are much
more often happy than otherwise; but I say that
is because as a general rule both husbands and
wives keep the solemn promises which they made
at their marriage, including the wife's promise to
obey her husband. Surely the natural inference to
draw from the fact that an institution works well
is that it is founded on true principles, and answers
its purpose. The administration of justice in this
country is singularly pure. The inference is, not
that the judges are superior to the law, but that the
law in which they are trained is favourable to the
pure administration of justice.

Mr. Mill is not quite consistent upon this head,
for he tells us distinctly that if the family in its best
forms is a school of sympathy and tenderness, 'it is
still oftener, as respects its chief, a school of wilful

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2jO LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

ness, overbearing-ness, unbounded self-indulgence,
and a double-dyed and idealized selfishness, of whicb
sacrifice itself is only a particular form;' the indi-
vidual happiness of the wife and children ' being
immolated in every shape to his [the head of the
family's] smallest preferences.' ' What better,' he
asks, 'is to be looked for under the existing form of
the institution ? ' If this is at all iike the truth,- I
cannot understand how marriage can be or ever can
have been anything but an odious tyranny and school
of every kind of vice ; nor can I reconcile such state-
ments with the one just quoted as to the general hap-
piness of marriage. Certainly the higher classes of
society in this country are not less strict in their views
as to the duties of married life than their inferiors.
Few ladies would like to be told that they were dis-
obedient wives. Few gentlemen would feel It other-
wise than a reproach to learn that they were not
masters in their own homes ; but how can this be, if
authority on the one side and obedience on the other
are fundamentally immoral ? Mr. Mill's theory in-
volves the absurd consequence that good fruit grows
on a bad tree. Mine involves the natural consequence
that a good institution produces good results. The
real reason why the marriages of sensible and well-
educated people in all ranks of hfe are happy, is
that people know their respective places, and act ac-
cordingly. The power exists and is exercised, but
as the right to exercise it is undisputed, and as its
exercise is unresisted, it acts smoothly, and the parties

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EQUALITY 231

concerned are seldom unpleasantly reminded of its

An exact parallel to the case of married life, is
lo be found in the common case of hospitality. You
gj into a handsome, well-appointed house, full of
well-behaved people. You observe that one of the
company exerts himself in every possible way to
, promote the enjoyment and to provide for the
amusement or occupation of the rest, and that he
in all cases studiously though unostentatiously takes,
in a certain sense, the lowest place. You are told
that this man has an undoubted legal right to order
all the rest out of his house at a moment's notice — •
say in a storm in the middle of the night — to forbid
them to touch an article of furniture, to open a book,
or to eat a crumb of bread : and this appears harsh ;
yet if he were deprived of that right, if the presence
of his guests rendered its existence doubtful for a
moment in any particular, not one of them would
cross his doors ; matters go well, not because ihe
master of the house has no powers, but because no
one questions them, and he wishes to use them for
the general comfort of the society,

To say that the law of force is abandoned because
force is regular, unopposed, and beneficially exercised,
is to say that day and night are now such well-
established institutions that the sun and moon are
mere superfluities.

It should be observed that though marriage is
the most important of all contracts, it is far from

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232 LIUERTV, EQUALITY, FRATERMTY

being the only one which confers upon one of the
parties authority over the other. Nearly every
contract does so. A man passes his life in a Govern-
ment office. He contracts to serve the public on
certain terms. Is there here no authority on the
part of the employer over the employed ? Dismissal
from such a post would be as severe a punishment,
in most cases, as could be inflicted on a man, a far.
more severe punishment than a short term of im-
prisonment or a heavy fine unaccompanied by dis-
missal. The power of a French Minister of the
Interior over an immense multitude of subordinates
is as real and quite as formidable as the power of a
feudal lord over his vassals ever was. It is true that
it is founded on contract and not on status. In the
one case the man was born to a certain position,
and in the other he entered into it by agreement,
but that ma!<es very little real difference between the
two cases. In each case there is a stronger and a
weaker person, and in each the weaker is subject to
the authority of the stronger.

The truth is that the change above referred to,
from status to contract, is very far indeed from
being universally favourable to equality. I will not
speculate on the nature of the change itself. It may
be the best and most glorious of all conceivable
states of society that all the relations between man
and man should be resolved into the single re-
lation of the earning and paying of wages in various
forms ; but whether this is so or not, it is perfecdy

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EQUALITV 233

certain that the result of the arrangement is to pro-
duce not equality but inequality in its harshest and
least sympathetic form. The process is this. Society
is converted into one immense machine, the powers
of which arc all concentrated into one body, which is
called the public force. It consists of a legislative
and an executive body backed up in case of need by
soldiers and policemen. The direction in which this
force is to act is ascertained by laws which apply
with continually increasing precision and inflexibility
to all sorts of cases. Each person is left to make
use of these laws for his own purposes in his own
way. They may be reduced to these four : —

I. Thou shalt not commit crimes. 2. Thou shalt
not inflict wrong. 3. Thou shalt perform thy con-
tracts. 4. Thou and thine may keep whatever you
can get. To say that such a state of society is
favourable to equality, that it tends to supersede
obedience and command, that it has superseded force,
and the like, sounds more like a poor kind of irony
than anything else. What equality is there between
the rich and the poor, between the strong and the
weak, between the good and the bad ? In particular,
what equality is there between the well-born and
well-bred man, the son of a good, careful, prudent,
prosperous parent, who has transmitted to him a
healthy mind and body, and given him a careful
education ; and the ill-born, ill-bred man whose parents
had nothing to teach which was not better unlearned,
and nothing to transmit which would not have been

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234 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

better uninherited. It is quite true that in these
days we have not much titular inequality. It is quite
true that we have succeeded in cutting political
power into very little bits, which with our usual
hymns of triumph we are continually mincing, till it
seems not unlikely that many people may come to
think that a single man's share of it is not worth
having at all. But with all this, real substantial in-
equalities in every respect, Inequalities of wealth,
inequalities of talent, of education, of sentiment, and
of religious belief, and therefore inequalities in the
most binding of all obligations, never were so great
as they are at this moment. I doubt much whether
the power of particular persons over their neighbours
has ever in any age of the world been so well defined
and so easily and safely exerted as It is at present.
If in old times a slave was Inattentive, his master
might no doubt have him maimed or put to death or
flogged ; but he had to consider that in doing so he
was damaging his own property, that when the slave
had been flogged he would still continue to be his
slave ; and that the flogging might make him mis-
chievous or revengeful, and so forth. If a modern
servant misconducts himself, he can be turned out of
the house on the spot, and another can be hired as
easily as you would call a cab. To refuse the dis-
missed person a character may very Hkely be equiva-
lent to sentencing him to months of suffering and
to a permanent fall In the social scale. Such punish-
ments are inflicted without appeal, without reflection,

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EQUALITY 235

without the smallest disturbance of the smooth surface
of ordinary life.

The older mode of organizing society has, like
other things, been made the subject of much
romantic exaggeration, but it is clear that it had a
side which was favourable to poverty and weakness,
though it produced its inequalities, as our own social
maxims do. To try to make men equal by altering
social arrangements is like trying to make the cards
of equal value by shuffling the pack. IVIen are
fundamentally unequal, and this inequality will show
itself arrange society as you like. If the object
were to secure the greatest amount of equality, the
way to do it would be by establishing a system of
distinctions, a social hierarchy corresponding as
nearly as possible to the real distinctions between
men, and by making the members of each class
equal among themselves. Something by no means
unlike this has actually been done by the caste
system in I ndia, and the result is that H indoo
society, though In some ways elastic and possessed
of a considerable power of assimilating new ideas,
is stable and conservative to a degree utterly
unknown and hardly even Imaginable In Europe.
If we were possessed of any test by which men
could be marshalled according to their Intrinsic
differences with unfailing accuracy, we should really
obtain the repose, the absence of conscious and pain-
ful restraint, the calm play of unresisted and ad-
mitted force which people appear to expect from

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236 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

the establishment of what they call equality. The
establishment of even this ideal state of things
would leave some of the most important of social
problems unsolved, but it is almost an identical
proposition that it would afford not merely the best
but the only full solution of the great problem of
harmonising self interest with the interests of the
public at large. A nation in which every one held
the position for which he was best fitted, and in
which every one was aware of that fact, would be a
nation in which every man's life would be passed in
doing that which would be at once most agreeable
to himself and most beneficial to his neighbours, and
such a nation would have solved at all events several
of the great problems of life.

It is needless to insist on the plain fact that
such an ideal Is unattainable; but the maintenance
of broad and well-marked distinctions which really
exist at a given time and place is a step towards It.
The distinctions of age and sex are universal.
Distinctions of race are at given times and places
most important, and the fact that they have been
exaggerated and abused is no reason for denying
their existence. Distinctions of wealth and of the
education and other qualities which are associated
with the acquisition and retention of wealth are no
less real. Such distinctions will continue to exist
and to produce Inequalities of every description,
whether or not they are recognized by law, and
whether or not they are permitted to affect the dls-

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EQUALITY 237

tribution of political authority. Leave them to find
tlieir own level by unrestricted competition and they
will display rhemselves In their most nailed and their
harshest foim.

Let us suppose, to take a single illustration,
tliat men and women are made as equal as law
can make them, and that public opinion followed
the law. Let us suppose that marriage became
a mere partnership dissoluble iike another ; that
women were expected to earn their living just iike
men; that the notion of anything like protection
due from the one sex to the other was thoroughly
rooted out; that men's manners to women became
identical with their manners to men ; that the
cheerful concessions to acknowledged weakness, the
obligation to do for women a thousand things which
It would be insulting to offer to do for a man, which
we inherit from a different order of ideas, were
totally exploded ; and what would be the result ?
The result would be that women would become
men's slaves and drudges, that they would be made
to feel their weakness and to accept its consequences
to the very utmost. Submission and protection are
correlative. Withdraw the one and the other is
lost, and force will assert itself a hundred times
more liarshly through the law of contract than ever
it did through the law of status. Disguise it how
you will, it is force in one shape or another which
determines the relations between human beings. It
is far less harsh when it is subjected to the pro-

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238 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

visions of a general law made with reference to
broad general principles than when it acts through
a contract, the terms of which are settled by in-
dividuals according- to their own judgment The
terms of the marriage relation as settled by the law
and religion of Europe are an ilkistration, of course
on an infinitely wider and more important scale, of
the very principle which in our own days has led to
the prohibition of the employment of little children
in certain classes of factories and of women in
coalpits.

To recapitulate, .1 think that equality has no
special connection with justice, except in the narrow
sense of judicial impartiality ; that it cannot be
affirmed to be expedient in the most important re-
lations of social life ; and that history does not
warrant the assertion that for a great length of time
there has been a continual progress in the direction
of the removal of all distinctions between man and
man, though it does warrant the assertion that
the form in which men's natural inequalities display
themselves and produce their results changes from
one generation to another, and tends to operate
rather through contracts made by individuals than
through laws made by public authority for the
purpose of fixing the relations between human beings.

I now proceed to the most important of the
remaining senses of the word 'equality' — the equal
distribution of political power. This Is perhaps the
most definite sense which can be attached to the

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vague general word ' equality.' It is undoubtedly
true that for several generations a process has been
going on all over our own part of the world which
may be described, not inaccurately, as the sub-
division of political power. The accepted tlieory of
government appears to be that everybody should
have a vote, that the Legislature should be elected
by these votes, and that it should conduct all the
public business of the country through a committee
which succeeds for the time in obtaining Its con-
fidence. This theory, beyond all question, has
gone forth, and is going forth conquering and to
conquer. The fact of its triumph Is as clear as
the sun at noonday, and the probability that its
triumphs will continue for a longer time than we
need care to tbinl: about is as strong as any such
probability can well be. The question is, what will
a reasonable man think of It ? I think he will
criticize it like any other existing fact, and with as
little partiality on either side as possible ; but I
am altogether at a loss to understand how it can
rouse enthusiastic admiration in any one whatever.
It certainly has done so for some reason or other.
Nearly every newspaper, and a very large pro-
portion of ■ modern books of political speculation,
regard the progress of democracy, the approaching
advent of universal suffrage, with something ap-
proaching to religious enthusiasm. To this I for
one object.

In the first place, it will be well to point out a

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240 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, TRATERKITY

distinction which, though perfectly clear and of
the utmost importance, is continually overlooked.
Legislate how you will, establish universal suffrage,
if you think proper, as a law which can never be
broken. You are still as far as ever from equality.
Political power has changed its shape but not its
nature. The result of cutting it up into little bits
is simply that the man who can sweep the greatest
number of tliem into one heap will govern the rest,
The strongest man In some form or other will always
rule. If the government is a military one, the
qualities which make a man a great soldier will
make him a ruler. If the government is a
monarchy, the qualities which kings value in coun-
sellors, in generals, in administrators, will give
power. In a pure democracy the ruling men will
be the wirepullers and their friends ; but they will
no more be on an equality with the voters than
soldiers or Ministers of State are on an equality
with the subjects of a monarchy. Changes in the
form of a government alter the conditions of superi-
ority much more than its nature. In some ages a
powerful character, in others cunning, in others
powers of despatching business, in others eloquence,
in others a good hold upon current commonplaces
and facility in applying them to practical purposes
will enable a man to climb on to his neighbours'
shoulders and direct them this way or that ; but in
all ages and under all circumstances the rank and
file are directed by leaders of one kind or another

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EQUALITY 241

who get the command of their collective force. The
leading men in a trade union are as much the
superiors and rulers of the members of the body at
large, and the general body of the members are as
much the superiors and rulers of each individual
member, as the master of a family or the head of a
factory is the ruler and superior of his servants or
workpeople.

In short, the subdivision of political power has
no more to do with equality than with liberty.
The question whether it is a good thing or a bad
one stands on its own ground, and must be decided
by direct reference to Its effects. They are infi-
nitely numerous and complicated, and it would be
idle to try to describe them fully or even to give full
illustrations of their character. The point to which
I wish to direct attention Is one which Is continually
overlooked because it Is unpleasant — namely, that
whatever may be the strong side of popular insti-
tutions as we know them, they have also a weak and
dangerous side, and by no means deserve that blind
admiration and universal chorus of applause with
which their progress Is usually received.

If I am asked, What do you propose to substitute
for universal suffrage .'' Practically, What have you
to recommend ? I answer at once. Nothing, The
whole current of thought and feeling, the whole
stream of human affairs, is setting with irresistible
force In that direction. The old ways of living,
many of which were just as bad In their time ar. any

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- 24-'i LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

of our devices can be in ours, are breal^ing down all
over Europe, and are floating this way and that like
haycocks in a flood. Nor do I see why any wise
man should expend much thought or trouble on
trying to save their wrecks. The waters are out
and no human force can turn them back, but I do not
see why as we go with the stream we need sing
Hallelujah to the river god. I am not so vain as to
suppose that anything that I can say will do either
good or harm to any perceptible degree, but an
attempt to make a few neutral observations on a
process which is all but universally spoken of with
passion on one side or the other may interest a few
readers.

The substance of what I have to say to the dis-
advantage of the theory and practice of universal
suffrage is that it tends to invert what I should have
regarded as the true and natural relation between
wisdom and folly. I think that wise and good men
ought to rule those who are foolish and bad. To
say that the sole function of the wise and good is to
preach to their neighbours, and that every one indis-
criminately should be left to do what he likes, and
should be provided with a rateable share of the
sovereign power in the shape of a vote, and that the
result of this will be the direction of power by
wisdom, seems to me to be the wildest romance that
ever got possession of any considerable number of
minds.

As to the character of our present rulers, let us

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EQUALITV 243

hear Mr. Mill. He Is speaking of the year 1859,
but I do not tliink matters have altered much since
then. Mr. Mill says (' Essay on Liberty,' chap, iil.)
of the governing class of England — meaning ' chiefly
the middle class'— ' Their thinking is done for
them by men much like themselves, addressing them
or speaking in their name on the spur of the mo-
ment through the newspapers.' ' I am not,' he adds,
' complaining of this. I do not assert that anything
better Is compatible as a general rule with the pre-
sent low state of the human mind. But that does
not hinder the government of mediocrity from being
mediocre government. No government by a demo-
cracy or a numerous aristocracy either in its political
acts or in the opinions, qualities, and tone of mind
which it fosters ever did or ever could rise above
mediocrity, except in so far as the sovereign many
have let themselves be guided (which in their best
times they always have done) by the counsels and
influence of a more highly gifted and instructed one
or few.' The parenthesis, I think, would apply
chiefly to a few years in the history of Athens ; but
be this as it may, 1 need not repeat the quotations
which I have already made from the same chapter
about the way in which ' society has now fairly got
the better of the Individual.' The substance of It Is
that we all live under a leaden iiile of petty con-
temptible opinions which crushes all individuality.
The moral Is this ; ' The greatness of England is
now all collective ; individually small, we only appear

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244 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

capable of anything great by our habit of combining- ;
and with this our mora] and rehgious philanthropists
are perfectly contented. But it was men of another
stamp than this that made England what it has been,
and men of another stamp will be needed to prevent
its decline.' ' The mind itself is bowed to the yoke ;
even in what people do for pleasure conformity is
the first thing thought of; they like in crowds; they
exercise choice only among things commonly done.'
There is much more to the same purpose which
I need not quote. It would be easy to show from
other parts of Mr. Mill's later works what a low
opinion he has of mankind at large. His whole
essay on the Subjection of Women goes to prove that
of the two sexes which between them constitute the
human race, one has all the vices of a tyrant, and the
other all the vices of a slave. Families are generally
schools of selfishness ' double dyed and idealized.'
All women are either bribed or intimidated, and men
have reduced them to that position. What the chil-
dren must be who have such homes and such
educat.rs it is needless to say. All this, and much
else of the same kind, appears to me to be harsh,
unjust, and exaggerated; but I am entitled to ask
how a man who thinks thus of his fellow-creatures
can, with any degree of consistency, be the advocate
of liberty in the sense of the negation of all govern-
ment, and of equality in any sense at all ? Given a
herd of stupid fools who are never to be coerced, and
who are to keep every one from rising above their

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EQUALITY 245

own level, and what will you ever get to the end of
time except a herd of stupid fools ? Mankind upon
this system would be like a set of what Strauss
calls the Ur-affen, or primeval apes of Mr. Darwin's
theory, with just sense enough to defeat the opera-
tion of natural selection. Their one maxim would
be to single out every ape who had got a few rudi-
ments of human qualities in him, and, instead of
making him their king, stone him to deadi. ' Non
meus hie sermo.' I merely point out the tendency
of a celebrated theory, but after it has been fully
discounted, I think that some truth unquestionably
remains in it,

I shouldcertainly notagreewithMr. MiU'sopinion
that English people in general are dull, deficient
in originality, and as like each other as herrings
ill a barrel appear to us. Many and many a fisher-
man, common sailor, workman, labourer, gamekeeper,
policeman, non-commissioned officer, servant, and
small clerk, have I known who were just as distinct
from each other, just as original in their own way,
just as full of character, as men in a higher rank of
life.

For my part I should limit myself to this, that
the number of people who are able to carry on any-
thing like a systematic train of thought or to grasp
the bearings of any subject consisting of several
parts is exceedingly small. I should add to this diat
the work of governing a great nation, if it is to be
done really well, requires an immense amount of

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246 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

special knowledge and the steady, restrained, and
calm exertion of a great variety of the very best
talents which are to be found in it.

I never yet met with any one who denied that if
the institutions by which this country is governed
were constructed solely with a view to the efficient
transaction of public business, they would have to
assume a very different shape from their present one.
No one can justify, though he may explain, upon his-
torical grounds, an arrangement by which the whole
government of the country is vested in a popular
assembly like the House of Commons, ruling as
king through a committee which may be dismissed at
a moment's notice. This committee, while it is in
power, has to work through a set of public offices,
hardly one of which has even any pretence to have
been specially adapted for its work, while all the
more important of them were established with re-
ference to a state of things which has long since
passed away. Some degree of permanence, some
amount of discretionary authority, some scope for the
formation and execution of considerable schemes,
are the very first essentials of good government.
Under the system which universal suffrage has given
and is giving to us they are all but entirely wanting.
Endless discussion, continual explanation, the con-
stant statement and re-statement to Parliament of
every matter on which government Is to act have
almost superseded the process of governing. No-
thing can be done at all till the importance of doing

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EQUALITY 247

it has been made obvious to the very lowest capa-
city ; and whatever can be made obvious to such
capacities Is sure in course of time to be done,
although it may be obvious to people capable of
taking a wider view that it ought not to be done.
When once done, it is the hardest thing in the world
to get it undone.

The net result of these evils, all of which are
the direct consequence of the system of having the
government of the country directly subordinated to
the rule of the majority of the voters for the time
being, of making it, in other words, as nearly as may
be a faithful reprepentative of the fluctuations of
public feeling and opinion, has never been fully stated,
nor do I think it can be so stated, A few observa-
tions on the subject will, however, be worth making,
as they will afford a general indication of the enor-
mous price which we pay for the advantages of ob-
taining the general consent to whatever is done and
of interesting a great many people in the transaction
of public affairs.

Assume that arrangements had been made by
which a body of able men were able to devote their
time continuously, steadily, and systematically to the
task of employing the public force for die general
welfare of the community, and assume that they
could follow out their views without being obliged
to be continually stopping to obtain the popular con-
sent at every step. Would there be no work for
them to do ? I say there would in every department

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24» LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

of the State be more work than any one generation
of such men could hope to accomplish, and I further
say that the greater part of it is going and will go
undone, and that much of it is ill done simply because
there is so little continuity, so little permanent author-
ity vested under our system in any one whatever.
In proof of this, I will refer shortly to the business
of the principal departments of government. I pass
over the Prime Minister with the remark that In the
present state of things his parliamentary qualities are
nearly everything and his administrative functions
comparatively small. After him the first great ofi^cer
of State is the Lord Chancellor. What with proper
assistance he might do in the way of law reform I
need not say. The reduction of the law and of the
judicial institutions of the country to a rational shape
is a question of time, labour, and special knowledge.
The real difficulty, I do not say an insuperable one,
but the real difficulty lies in the constitution of Par-
liament, and in the system of party government which
makes every man who is out of office pick holes in
the work of every man who is in office, and every
man who is in office consider, not what is the best
thing to be done, but what he is most likely to be
able to carry in spite of opposition. No one ac-
quainted with the subject can doubt that a systematic
reform of the law would facilitate every business
transaction in the country, add enormously to the
value of every acre of land in it, and convert law
into an embodiment of justice, a real standard of

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EQUALITY 249

conduct in every department of life, and so produce
a great effect on both the intellect and the morals of
the country.

Next to the Lord ChEincellor comes the Lord
President of the Council. One of the first things
which would occur to sucli a government as I have
supposed to exist (if indeed it would not be pre-
supposed in the establishment of such a government)
would be the reflection that the present constitution
of the Cabinet and the public offices is about as Ill-
conceived an arrangement for the real despatch of
business as could be contrived, however well it may
be adapted to the exigencies of party government.
The original idea of the Privy Council, as appears
from their proceedings, was far better suited to that
purpose, though I do not say it is fit for these times.
This is not the place for technicalities which scarcely
any one understands, but in genera! terms I may ob-
serve that a council for the real transaction of business
ought to exercise a direct superintendence over every
department of the government, and ought, either by
means of committees or otherwise, to be kept aware
of all the great executive questions which arise in
different parts of the government and to give orders
upon them. As matters now stand, each department
is a little State with its own little king for the time
being, and the control of the whole over the diffe-
rent parts is loosG and vague to the highest possible
degree. Each Minister may act as he likes in his
own dominions up to the point at which any question

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250 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

before him seems likely to attract the attention of
Parliament and threaten the stability of the Ministry.
This is not the way to get important questions well
settled. If the Cabinet were a real steady govern-
ing council whose duty it was to pass orders on all
the most important matters which might arise in the
different departments, Cabinet Ministers would have
to work a great deal harder than they do at present
at other matters than making speeches and pre-
paring to answer parliamentary questions.

After the President of the Council come the five
Secretaries of State. Of their offices, the Colonial
Office, the War Ofifice, the Admiralty, and the India
Office have, and can have, very little to gain and
they have everything to lose by uncertainty of tenure
and continual accountability to every voter in England
through his representatives. The relations between
England and the colonies, and England and India,
are relations which it is hardly possible to conduct
in a satisfactory way through Parliament. The best
thing that Parliament can do with these subjects,
generally speaking, is to let them alone, and to a
great extent it does so. A smaller and better in*
structed body, however, dealing with these matters
steadily and quiedy might render great services to
every part of the British Empire, or rather to every
part of the two Empires, colonial and Indian. With
regard to the organization of the army and navy, it
hardly admits of a question that they are special

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matters dependent upon special knowledge which has
hardly any connection at all with party politics.

The Home Office, perhaps, affords the strongest
of all possible illustrations of the extent of the field
which lies open for government. If any one were
to attempt to say what the internal government of
England is, how it is carried on, or how it is super-
intended, he would be smothered in the attempt
under a chaos of Acts, charters, commissioners,
boards, benches, courts, and vestries of all sorts and
conditions, which have no unity, are subject to no
central control in most instances, and are supposed
to atone for all their other defects by what French-
men praise as ' le self-government,' which not un-
frequently means the right to misgovern your Imme-
diate neighbours without being accountable for it to
any one wiser than yourself. Can any one doubt
that if this jungle of institutions were carefully ex-
amined by any one who had at once the will and the
power to set things to rights, the subjects of educa-
tion, crime, pauperism, health, and others too numer-
ous to mention or hint at, might be set in quite a new
light ? Even as things are, a great deal of late
years has been done in all these matters, and proba-
bly more will be done ; but it might be done infi-
nitely quicker and better If the consent of fewer
people was required to what, If not absolutely
necessary, is plainly desirable.

Foreign policy perhaps affords as strong an
illustration as can be given of the importance of

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2^2 hICERTY, EQUALITY, KRATEKNITY

Special knowledge. There is no department of
public affairs (if wc except Indian and colonial
affairs) in which the general level of knowledge is
so low. There is none in which popular passions
are so violent, so ill-instructed, or so likely to pro-
duce incalculable mischief. The intensity of the
ignorance of the great mass of English people about
France and Germany could only be equalled by the
fierce excitement and unruly and irrational state of
sympathy into which they were thrown by the pro-
gress of the war. In reference, however, to foreign
affairs, what is required is rather the acquisition of
knowledge than either administrative or legislative
activity. The organization of a diplomatic service,
which might be, so to speak, the eyes of the nation
as regarded foreign affairs, might often make the
difference between peace and war, and might even
enable us to avert Invasion.

As to financial affairs, of course popular consent,
given in some distinct and substantial form. Is
essential to taxation, and this Is the historical ex-
planation of the gradual assumption of sovereignty
by the House of Commons. This consideration, no
doubt, must always limit the extent to which govern-
ment by a well-instructed few could be carried, and
it is perhaps the most obvious and conclusive of the
many obvious and conclusive reasons why no great
change In the principles of the machinery of govern-
ment can be expected by any reasonable man. I do
not for a moment suggest that wc can be governed

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otherwise than we arc. I fully admit that for
practical purposes the best course is to get out of
our tools such work as is to be got out of them. I
merely wish to refer to the fact that there are two
sides to the account, and to excuse myself for not
sharing in the general enthusiasm on the subject
of our institutions. I do not say that any other in-
stitutions are or have been much better. The folly,
the weakness, the ignorance of men leave deep
marks on all human institutions, and they are quite
as legible here and now as in any other time or
place.

Equality, like liberty, appears to me to be a big
name for a small thing. The enthusiasm about it In
recent times seems to me to have been due princi-
pally to two circumstances : the invidious position
of the French privileged classes before the Revo-
lution, and the enormous development of wealth in
the United States. The first of these was, no
doubt, a case in which distinctions had been main-
tained long after they had ceased to have any
meaning whatever or to be of any sort of use.
Such cases are very common. Men have a passion
for pluming themselves upon anything which dis-
tinguishes them from their neighbours, and ex-
aggeration on one side is met by passion on the
other. The case of the French privileged classes
certainly was as gross a case of a distinction without
a difference as has ever occurred In the world, and
the French were just In the mood to become rhetor-

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254 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

ical about it, and to make it the subject not of rational
quiet alteration, but of outbursts of pathetic and
other nonsense, the effects of which will long be felt
in the world. Few things in history seem to me so
beggarly as the degree to which the French allowed
themselves to be excited about such things. It was
shameful to permit them to grow, and more shame-
ful not to be able to put them down in a quiet way
without fireworks and theatrical illusions.

The success of equality in America is due, I
think, mainly to the circumstance that a large
number of people, who were substantially equal in all
the more important matters, recognized that fact and
did not set up unfounded distinctions. How far
they actually are equal now, and how long they will
continue to be equal when the population becomes
dense, is quite another question. It is also a question,
which I cannot do more than glance at in two words
In this place, whether die enormous development of
equality in America, the rapid production of an
Immense multitude of commonplace, self-satisfied,
and essentially slight people is an exploit which the
whole world need fall down and worship.

Upon the whole, I think that what littie can be
truly said of equality is that as a fact human beings
are not equal ; that in their dealings with each other
they ought to recognize real inequalities where they
e.Kist as much as substantial equality where it exists.
That they arc equally prone to exaggerate real dis-
tinctions, which is vanity, and to deny their exis-

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EQUALITY 255

tence, ■which is envy. Each of these exaggerations
is a fault, the latter being a peculiarly mean and
cowardly one, the fault of the weak and discon-
tented. The recognition of substantial equality
where it exists is merely the avoidance of an error.
It does not in itself affect the value of the things
recognized as equals, and that recognition is usually
a step towards the development of inherent in-
equalities. If all equally are forbidden to commit
crime, and are bound to keep their contracts, the
sober, the far-seeing, and the judicious win, and the
flighty, the self-indulgent, and the foolish lose.
Equality, therefore, if not like liberty, a word of
negation, is a word of relation. It tells us nothing
definite unless we know what two or more things
are affirmed to be equal and what they are In them-
selves, and when we are informed upon these points
we get only statements about matters of fact, true
or false, important or not, as it may be.

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256 UBERTV, EQUAHTV, FRATERNITY

CHAPTER VL

FRATJvRNITY.

I NOW come to examine the last of the three
doctrines of the Democratic creed — Fraternity.
That upon some terms and to some extent it is
desirable that men should wish well to and should
help each other is common ground to every one.
At the same time I cannot but think that many per-
sons must share the feeling of disgust with which
I for one have often read and listened to expressions
of general philanthropy. Such love is frequently an
insulting intrusion, Lord Macaulay congratulated
England on having been hated by Barere. To
hate England was, he observed, the one small
service which Barere could do to the country. I
know hardly anything in literature so nauseous as
Rousseau's expressions of love for mankind when
read in the light of his confessions. ' Keep your
love to yourself, and do not daub me or mine with
it,' is the criticism which his books always suggest
to me. So far from joining in Mr. Swinburne's
odd address to France, ' Therefore thy sins which
are many are forgiven thee because thou hast loved
much,' it appears to me that the French way of

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FRATERNITY

-57

loving- the human race Is the one of their many-
sins which it is most difficult to forgive. It is
not love that one wanLs from the great mass of
mankind, but respect and justice. It would be
pedantic to attempt anything like a dcfmition of love,
but it may be said to include two elements at least-
first, pleasure in the kind of friendly intercourse,
whatever It may be, which is appropriate to the
position of the persons -who love each other ; and
next, a mutual wish for each other's happiness. If
two people are so constituted that such intercourse
between them as is possible is not agreeable to either
party, or if their views of what constitutes happiness
are conflicting, I do not see how they can love each
other. Take, on the one side, a Roman Catholic
priest passionately eager for the conversion of here-
tics, and deeply convinced that the greatest happiness
of a heretic Is that of being converted to the Roman
Catholic religion. Take, on the other hand, a per-
son who has long since made up his mind against
the Roman Catholic religion and wishes for no
further discussion upon the subject. The priest's
love to the heretic if he happened to love him would
be a positive nuisance to the heretic. The priest's
society would be no pleasure to the heretic, and that
which the priest would regard as the heretic's hap-
piness, the heretic would regard as misery.

Love between the sexes Is an evil If it is not
mutual. No honourable man or woman would desire
to be loved by a woman or man unless they Intended

3

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25B LlBKl^TV, KQUALITV, FRATERNITY

to return that love. Of course no one doubts that the
greater part of the happiness of mankind arises from
the various forms of friendly feeling which they enter-
tain towards each other, and the various services
which In consequence of it they do each other ; but
it is one thing to feel this, and quite another to
believe that a general love for all the human race
is destined to become a universal religion whicii
will supply the place of all the old ones.

This worship and service of humanity In the
abstract are taught In many shapes. The one which
I propose to examine Is to be found in Mr. Mill's
essay on Utilitarianism. It shares the merit which
is characteristic of all his writings of being the
gravest, the clearest, and the most measured state-
ment with which I, at all events, am acquainted of
the dogmatic form of the popular sentiment. The
following are the passages In which Mr. Mill states his
theory. They occur Iii the second, the third, and
the fifth chapters of his essay on Utilitarianism:

The utilitarian standard ... is not the agent's own
liappiness, but the greatest amount of happiness altogether :
and if it may possibly be doubted whether a noble charac-
ter is always the happier for its nobleness, there can be no
doubt that it makes other people happier, and that the
world in general is immensely a gainer by it. . . . As
between his own happiness and that of others, utilitarianism
requires him (the agent) to be as strictly impartial as a
disinterested and benevolent spectator. In the golden rule
of Jesus of Nazareth we read the complete spirit of the
ethics of utility. To do as one would be done by, and to

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FRATERNITY 259

love one's neighbour as oneself, constitute the ideal per-
fection of utilitarian morality. . . . The greatest-
happiness principle ... is a mere form of words
without rational signification unless one person's happiness
supposed equal in degree (with the proper allowance for
kind) is counted for exactly as much as another's. Those
conditions being supplied, Bentham's dictum, 'Everybody
to count for one, nobody for more than one,' might be
written under the principle of utility as an explanatory
commentary. The equal claim of everybody to happiness
in the estimation of the moralist and the legislator involves
an equal claim to al! the means of happiness, except in
so far as the inevitable conditions of human life and the
general interest in which that of every individual is included
set limits to the maxim ; and those hmits ought to be
strictly construed.

Such is Mr. Mill's answer to tlie question, What
is the object of morals ? What do you mean by
right and v/rong ? Let us see how he answers the
question, Why should we do right ? In the chapter
which he devotes to this subject he points out with
truth that the external sanctions of morals apply as
well to the utilitarian as to any other system, and
that the same may be said of the conscientious
sanction, but he finds the final sanction in an allied
though somewhat different order of ideas, which he
describes as 'a natural basis of sentiment for utili-
tarian niorahty.'

This it is which, when once the general happiness is
recognized as the ethical standard, will constitute the
strength of the utihtarian morahty. This firm foundation is

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26o LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

tliat of the social feelings of mankind — the desire to be
in unitywith our fellow- creatures, which is already a povv-er-
ful principle in human nature, and, happily, one of those
which tend to become stronger without express inculcation
from the influences of advancing civilization. The social
state is at once so natural, so necessary, and so habitual to
man, that, except in some unusual circumstances, or by an
effort of voluntary abstraction, he never conceives himself
otherwise than as a member of a social body ; and this
association is riveted more and more as mankind are
further removed from the state of savage independence.
Any condition, therefore, which is essential to a state of
society becomes more and more an inseparable part of
every person's conception of the state of things which
he ia born into, and which is the destiny of a human being.
Now, society between human beings, except in the relation
of master and slave, is manifestly impossible on any other
footing than the interests of all are to be consulted. Society
between equals can only exist on the understanding
that the interests of all are to be regarded equally. And
since, in all states of civilization every person except an
absolute monarch has equals, every one is obliged to live on
these terms with somebody ; and, in every age, some advance
is made towards a state in which it will be impossible to
live permanently on other terms with anybody. In this way
people grow up unable to conceive as possible to them a
total disregard of other people's interests. They are under
a necessity of conceiving themselves as at least abstaining
from all the grosser injuries, and (if only for their own pro-
tection) living in a state of constant protest against them.
, . . Not only does all strengthening of social ties and
all healthy growth of society give to each individual a
stronger personal interest in practically consulting the
welfare of others. It also leads him to identify his feelings
more and more with their good, or at least with an ever
greater degree of practical consideration for it. He comes

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FRATERNITY 26I

as though instinctively to be conscious of himself as a being
who of course pays a regard to others. Tiie good of others
becomes to him a thing naturally and necessarily to be
attended to like any of the physical conditions of our
existence.

Every one is interested in promoting this feeling
in otiiers even if he has it not himself. ' This mode
of conceiving ourselves and human life as civilization
goes on is felt to be more and more natural.' Ulti-
mately it may assume the character of a religion.
' If we now suppose this feeling of unity to be
taught as a religion, and the whole force of educa-
, tion, of institutions, and of opinion directed, as it
once was in the case of religion, to make every per-
son grow up from infancy surrounded on all sides
both by the profession and by the pmctice of it, I
think that no one who can realize this conception
will feel any misgiving about the sufficiency of the
ultimate sanction for the happiness morality.' Re-
ferring to Comte's ' Systeme de Politique Positive,'
Mr. Mill adds ;~

I entertain the strongest objections to the system ol
politics and morals set forth in that treatise ; but I think ii:
has superabundantly shown the possibility of giving to the
service of humanity, even without the aid of belief in
Providence, both the physical power and the social efficacy
of a religion ; making it take hold of human life and colour
all thought, feeling, and action in a manner of which tiii
greatest ascendency ever exercised by any religion may be
but a type and foretaste ; and of which the danger is not
that it should be insufficient, but that it should be so excca-

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sive as to interfere unduly with human freedom and indi-
viduaHty,

Neither is it necessary to the feeling which constitutes
the binding force of the utilitarian morality on those who
recognize it to wait for tlie social influences which would
make its obligation felt by mankind at large. In the com-
paratively early stage of human advancement in which we
now live a person cannot, indeed, feel that entireness of
sympathy with all others which would make any real di;;-
cordance in the general direction of their conduct in life
impossible ; but already a person in whom the social feel-
ing is at all developed cannot bring himself to think of the
rest of his fellow- creatures as struggling rivals with him for
the means of happiness, whom he must desire to see
defeated in their object in order that he may succeed in
his. The deeply rooted conception which every individual
even now has of himself as a social being tends to make
him feel it one of his natural wants that there should be
harmony between his feelings and aims and those of his
fellow-creatures. If differences of opinion and of mental
culture make it impossible for him to share many of their
actual feelings, perhaps make him denounce and defy those
feelings, he still needs to be conscious that his real aim and
theirs do not conflict ; that he is not opposing himself to
what they really wish for, namely, their own good, but is,
on the contrary, promoting it. This feeling In most
individuals is much inferior in strength to their selfish feel-
ings, and is often wanting altogether. But to those who
have it, it possesses all the characters of a natural feeling.
It does not present itself to their minds as a supersti-
tion of education, or a law despotically imposed by the
power of society, but as an attribute which it would not be
well for them to be without. This conviction is the ulti-
mate sanction of the greatest happiness morality. This it
is which, makes any mind of well-developed feelings work
v,-ith and not against the outv/ard motives to care for others,

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afforded by what I have called the external sanctions ; and
when those sanctions are wanting or act in an opposite
direction constitutes in itself a powerful internal binding
force in proportion to the sensitiveness and thought fulness
of the character. Since few but those whose mind is a
moral blank could bear to lay out their course of life on the
plan of paying no regard to others except so far as their
own private interest compels.

I have quoted these passages at a length which
would have been tedious but for their great intrinsic
merits. To one who for many years has studied
Mr. Mill's writings, and who has observed his public
career, it must be obvious that they express his
deepest and most abiding convictions. Those who
Jiavc done me the honour of following my speculations
thus far will not, I hope, accuse me of eg;otism for
observing that they also mark the point at which I
differ from Mr. Mill most deeply. The difference,
indeed, is one which lies altogether beyond the reach
of argument, and which no doubt colours the whole
of my opposition to his later teaching. He thinks
otherwise than I of men and of human life in gene-
ral. He appears to believe that if men are all
freed from restraints and put, as far as possible, on
an equal footing, they will naturally treat each other
as brothers, and work together harmoniously foi
their common good. I beheve that many men are
bad, a vast majority of men indifferent, and many
good, and that the great mass of indifferent peopk
sway this way or that according to circumstances,

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264 LIBERTY-, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

one of the most important of which circumstances is
the predominance for the time being of the bad or
good. I furtiier believe that between all classes of
men there are and always will be real occasions of
enmity and strife, and that even good men may be
and often arc compelled to treat each other as ene-
mies either by the existence of conflicting interests
which bring them into collision, or by their different
ways of conceiving goodness.

Mr. Mill's theory of Hfe, which seems to be ac-
quiring a sort of secondary orthodoxy, appears to
me, when reduced to its simplest elements, to be
something of this sort. On the one hand, we have
the external world, which in its relation to men may
be regarded as a mass of the materials of happiness.
On the other, an enormous number of human
creatures substantially equal, substantially alike,
substantiahy animated by the same desires and
impulses. Divide the materials of happiness equally
between them, and let them do as they like. They
will live at peace, and collectively increase each
other's happiness to an indefinite or indefinitely in-
creasing extent ; inasmuch as each human creature
possesses facuhies which, if fully developed to their
utmost extent, as they v/ill be upon this supposition,
will be an equal blessing to his neighbours and to
himself. Men are, or rather men if let alone will
after a time be found to be, disposed to work to-
gether for their common good. Let them alone
The great instrument for bringing about this result

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is a social sentiment already powerful in some minds,
and which will hereafter become a dominant religion,
I shall conclude this work by an attempt to give
the outline of what I myself think upon this subject,
but before doing so I will say why this view appears
to me untenable.

In the first place I do not agree with Mr. Mill's
statement of the standard of utilitarianism as being
'not the agent's own happiness, but the greatest
amount of happiness altogether,' or with Bentham's
doctrine, ' everybody to count for one, nobody for
more than one,' even when Mr. Mill's qualifications
are added to it. In a certain sense I am myself a
utilitarian.^^ That is to say, I think that from the
nature of the case some externa! standard must
always be supplied by which moral niles may be
tested ; and happiness is the most significant and
least misleading word that can be employed for that
purpose. It is, too, the only object to which it is
possible to appeal in order to obtain support. A
moral system which avowedly had no relation to
happiness in any sense of the word would be a mere
exercise of ingenuity for which no one would care.
I know not on what other footing than that of ex-
pediency, general in a wider or narrower sense, it
would be possible to discuss the value of a moral
rule or the provisions of a law.

It is also perfecdy true that it is impossible

* See note at llie end of the volume.

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2bb LIBERTY; EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

either in leg^islation or in ethical speculation, which
has much in common with legislation, to recognize
individual distinctions. ' Thou shalt do no murder '
must of necessity mean. No one shall do any act
which the law defines to be murder, and every one,
without exception, who does any such act shall be
punished. In the same way, ' It is wrong to iie '
means that certain kinds of untruths defined as lying
by the person who litters the maxim are morally
wrong, whoever makes use of them. Every law and
every moral rule must thus, of necessity, be a gene-
ral proposition, and as such must affect indiscrimin-
ately rather than equally the interests of as many
persons as are subject to its influence. To say,
however, that moral speculation or legislation pre-
supposes on the part of the moralist or legislator a
desire to promote equally the happiness of every
person affected by his system or his law is, I think,
incorrect. Laws and moral systems are conditions
of life imposed upon men either by political power
or by the force of argument. The legislator says
to his subjects. You shall — the moralist says to his
hearers or readers, I advise you to — live thus or
thus ; but each addresses himself to a body of men
whom he regards as a whole, upon whom he is to
impose, or to whom he Is to suggest, the way of life
which he wishes them to adopt, not the way which
he supposes them to wish to adopt. The character
of a code of laws or of morals is determined by the
ideal of human life which it assumes, and this is the

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ideal of its author, not the ideal of those to whose
conduct it applies.

In a word, the happiness which the lawgiver
regards as the test of his laws is that which he,
after attaching to their wishes whatever weight he
thinks proper, wishes his subjects to have, not
that which his subjects wish to have ; and this is
still more true of the moralist. The legislator is
always obliged to pay the utmost attention to the
wishes of his subjects, though in particular cases he
may be able to oppose, counteract, and sometimes
even to change them. As the moralist has to rely
entirely on persuasion, he is under no such restriction.
If he has sufficient confidence in his own views, or
if he is indifferent about their adoption by others, he
can erect his system upon a conception of happiness
as different from the common one of his own time
and country as he pleases, and such moral systems
are often by no means the least influential. As in-
dividual weakness is one of the conditions which
make law possible, so conscious ignorance is one
great source of the authority of moral systems. Men
feel conscious of their own weakness and ignorance,
and, at the same time, they feel that to live without
any sort of principle or rule of conduct, to be guided
as we suppose animals to be, merely by the impulse
of the moment, is morally impossible, and this feel-
ing predisposes them to accept what is prescribed to
them by persons who claim authority. If eveiy one

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205 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATIiRNTTV

knew his own mind with perfect distinctness, there
would be httle or no room for moral teaching.

For these reasons I should amend Mr. Mill's
doctrine tlius :— The utihtarian standard is not the
greatest amount of happiness altogether (as might be
the case if happiness was as distinct an idea as bodily
health), but the widest possible extension of the ideal of
life formed by the person who sets up the standard.
I am not quite sure whetlier or to what extent Mr.
Mill would dissent from this view. He insists on the
difference between kinds of happiness in several
passages, in one of which he remarks : ' Of two
pleasures, if there be one to which all or almost all
who have experience of both give a decided prefer-
ence irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation
to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure.'
This looks as If his opinion was that the legislator
and the moralist respectively are to decide what con-
stitutes the happiness which they are to promote.
If so, we are agreed, but in that case I think Mr.
Mill's way of expressing himself unfortunate. A
legislator may regard a meat diet as an element of
the happiness which he seeks to promote, but sheep,
oxen, and pigs can hardly look on the butcher as a
friend. The legislator may think it right that crim-
inals should be punished for their crimes. The
criminal classes would probably think otherwise.
The legislator may Include energy of character in
his ideal of happiness, and may seek to develope it
by establishing freedom of contract and compelling

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men to keep their contracts. The weak, the lan-
guid, and in some instances the enthusiastic and the
affectionate may feel that they would prefer a
system of law leaving less to individual taste and
interfering to a greater extent with the relations of
life. In all these and in numberless other cases
there is a conflict between man and man, both as to
the nature of happiness and as to the terms on which
it is to be enjoyed. To base a universal moral
system on the assumption that there is any one
definite thing, or any one dehnite set of things, which
can be denoted by the word happiness is to build on
the sand.

It is quite true that in every time and country all
existing communities have views upon the subject
sufficiendy distinct for ordinary practical purposes,
and this circumstance gives to such speculations as
Bentham's the immense practical importance which
belongs to them. Assume England, France, the
United States, and other nadons to be established
living communities in each of which a certain view
as to the nature and general objects of human ex-
istence has come to prevail, and Bentham's rules are
of the utmost value. Go a step farther and convert
those rules into a theory which is to explain and
account for the power of these sociedes and the
nature and comparative values of their views of
human life, and the rules not only break down, but
become contradictory ; for they begin by telling us
that every one's happiness is to coimt for one, and

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then proceed to lay down rules based on a concep-
tion of general happiness which makes and must
make all those who do not accept it unhappy. To
try to get out of this by telling those who disagree
with you that their notion of happiness is wrong and
yours right is a mere evasion. It is the shoemaker
telling the wearer of the shoe that it does not pinch.
It may be quite right that it should pinch, but on the
question whether it pinches or not the feelings of the
wearer are the only possible test. A friend of mine
was once remonstrating with an Afghan chief on the
vicious habits which he shared with many of his
countrymen, and was pointing out to him their enor-
mity according to European notions. ' My friend,'
said the Afghan, 'why will you talk about what you
do not understand ? Give our way of life a fair trial,
and then you will know something about it.' To say
to a man who is grossly sensual, false all through,
coldly cruel and ungrateful, and absolutely incapable
of caring for any one but himself. We, for reasons
which satisfy us, will in various ways discourage and
stigmatize your way of life, and in some cases pum&h
you for living according to your nature, is to speak
in an intelligible, straightforward way. To say to
him. We act thus because we love you, and with a
view to your own happiness, appears to me to be a
double untruth. In the first place, I for one do not
love such people, but hate them. In the second
place, if I wanted to make them happy, which I do

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FRATERNITY Syi

not, I should do so by pampering their vices, which
I will not.

It is perhaps a minor point that the application
of Mr. Mill's test about the different kinds of hap-
piness is impossible. Where are we to find people
who are qualified by experience to say which is the
happier, a man like Lord Eldon or a man like Shelley ;
a man like Dr. Arnold or a man like the late Mar-
quis of Hertford ; a very stupid prosperous farmer
who dies of old age after a life of perfect health, or
an accomplished delicate woman of passionate sen-
sibility and brilliant genius, who dies worn out before
. her youth is passed, after an alternation of rapturous
happiness with agonies of distress. Who can call up
Mdme. de la Valllere and ask her whether she was
happier as the mistress of Louis XIV. or as a peni-
tent in her convent ? and how are we to discover
what difference a conviction of the truth of atheism
would have made in her views on the subject ? To
ask these questions Is to show that they can never
be answered. They are like asking the distance
from one o'clock to London Bridge. The legislator
and the moralist no doubt may and must form their
own opinions on the subject of the life which is
suitable for that section of mankind with which
they are concerned, and must do what they can to
compel or persuade them to adopt it ; but they ought
to know what they are about. Their object is to get
people to accept their view of happiness, not to make
people happy in their own way. Love is far from

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272 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, i'-RATERNITV

being the only motive which leads them to undertake
this task. Their motives are innumerable and are
lii^e the motives which prompt men to other under-
takings — love of power, love of the exercise of
power, tlie gratification of curiosity, zeal for the
doctrines in which they believe, and a thousand other
things. No doubt interest in the human race and its
welfare, or in the welfare of certain parts of it on
certain terms, has its place among the rest, but it does
not stand alone.

This last remark introduces the second great quali-
fication to Mr. Mill's view which occurs to my mind.
It applies to his doctrine that, according to the utili-
tarian system of morals, each person's happiness ought
to count for exactly as much as another's, a 'proper
allowance' being made for kind. What allowance
would be proper or how it could be calculated I do
not stop to enquire, but the principle asserted appears
to mc to be purely gratuitous ; and, indeed, Mr.
Mill makes, so far as I know, no attempt to prove
it, and yet the objections to it are strong and obvious.
I repeat that laws and moral rules must from die
nature of the case be indiscriminate, and must in that
sense treat those who are subject to them as equals,
but in no other sense than this is it the case riiat
every one's happiness either is or ought to be re-
garded either by moralists or legislators or by any
one else as of equal importance. As I have already
shown, both the legislator and the moralist desire to
promote, not the happiness of men simply, but their

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FRATERNITY. 373

own conception of happiness, upon certain conditions.
They wish, for instance, men who will be truthful
and energetic to have those satisfactions which truth-
fulness and energy procure so long as they continue
to be truthful and energetic.

Apart, however, from this, both legislators and
moralists, as wel! as all other human creatures, care
for their own happiness and the happiness of their
friends and connections very much more than for the
happiness of others. Mr. Mill asserts as if it was an
obvious first truth that ' as between his own happi-
ness and that of others justice requires' (every one)
, ' to be as strictly impartial as a disinterested and bene-
volent spectator.' If this be so, I can only say that
nearly the whole life of nearly every human creature is
one continued course of injustice, for nearly every one
passes his life in providing the means of happiness
for himself and those who are closely connected with
him, leaving others all but entirely out of account.
Nay, men are so constituted that personal and
social motives cannot be distinguished and do not
exist apart. When and in so far as we seek to
please others, it is because it pleases us to give them
pleasure. A man who takes pleasure in pleasing
others is benevolent ; a man who takes no pleasure
in pleasing others is unkind or devoid of benevolence.
A man who takes pleasure in hurting others is
malignant ; but whenever it is necessary to determine
a person's character in regard to benevolence, it is

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necessary to determine the manner In which the
pleasures or the sufferings of others affect him. So
completely is every man his own centre that the
nature of his relations to those who stand closest to
him have to be expressed in terms of his own per-
sonal pleasure or pain. ' She was the very joy of
his heart,' ' He did not care a straw for her,' would
be natural ways of describing a most affectionate and
a most indifferent husband's feehngs towards their
respective wives.

That this is in fact the case, that self-love is
the fountain from which the wider forms of human
aifection flow and on which philanthropy itself is
ultimately based, is, I think, admitted by the whole
turn of the passage on the ultimate sanction of utili-
tarian morahty which I quoted above. The point at
■ which Mr. Mill and I should part company is his
belief that this natural feeling for oneself and one's
friends, gradually changing its character, is sublimated
into a general love for the human race ; and in that
shape is capable of forming a new religion, of which
we need only fear that it may be too strong for
human liberty and individuality.

Probably the best way of showing how and why
I differ from his view will be by stating my own
view positively, and noticing incidentally the view
to which I am opposed.

In general terms I think that morality depends
upon religion— that is to say, upon the opinions which
men entertain as to matters of fact, and particularly

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FRATERNITY 2 75

as to God and a future state of existence- — and that
it is incapable of being in itself a religion binding on
mankind at brge. I think that if we entirely dis-
miss from our minds not only the belief that there
are, but a doubt whether there may not be, a God
and a future state, the morality of people in general,
and in particular the view which people in general
will take of their relation to others, will have to be
changed. I admit that in the case of a few peculiarly
constituted persons it may be otherwise, but I think
that minds so constituted as to be capable of con-
verting morality pure and simple into a religion by
no means deserve unqualified admiration. I think
that the disposition and power to do so is in many
instances a case not of strength but of weakness, and
that it almost always involves a considerable amount
of self-deception.

Up to a certain point, I agree that the question
whether the fundamental doctrines of religion are
true is indifferent to morality. If we assume that this
life Is all, and that there is no God about whom we
need think or care, the moral system, which I may
call common, as opposed to Mr. Mill's transcendental,
utilitarianism will stand on its own foundations.
To give a specific illustration, Hume's doctrine,
' that personal merit consists entirely in the useful-
ness or agreeableness of qualities to the person him-
self possessed of them, or to others who have any
intercourse with him,' and that ' every man who has
any regard to his own happiness and welfare will

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276 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

best find his account in the practice of every moral
duty,' is quite independent of religion in my sense
of the word. That up to a certain point ' true self-
love and social are the same ' does not admit of
serious dispute. So far, therefore, I am on common
ground with Mr. Mill and with others who are even
more enthusiastic in what he calls the service of
humanity. The point at which the common utilitarian
doctrine, as I understand it, stops is that which is
marked by the word ' self-sacrifice ' ; and this is a word
with which so many false associations are connected
that I must shortly examine it before I proceed.

It is to me, and I should think from the general
tone of his speculations it would be to Mr. Mill,
impossible to use the word ' self-sacrifice ' as it some-
times is used, as if it were the name of some mys-
terious virtue. By self-sacrifice I understand simply
an instance in which, though the contrary is usually
the case, the motives which have reference to others
immediately and to self only mediately happen to be
stronger than the motives which have immediate
relation to self and only a mediate relation to others.
The pleasure of pleasing others by common acts of
courtesy is in most cases stronger than the trifling
pain of self-denial which it implies. I should not
therefore say that it was an act of self-sacrifice to
be polite. On the other hand, the pleasure of pro-
viding for destitute and disagreeable relations who
are dependent on you is usually a weaker motive than
the pain of foregoing a marriage into which fi man

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FRATKRNITY 277

wishes to enter. Therefore if a man abstained from
such a marriage for such a purpose I should call his
act one of self-sacrifice. This, however, seems to
me to mark the limit of self-sacrifice, i do not
believe that any one ever did or ever will, as long
as men are men, intentionally perform an act of abso
iute self-sacrifice — that is to say, hurt himself without
any reason whatever for doing so.

That any human creature ever, under any conceiv-
able circumstances, acted otherwise than in obedience
to that which for the time being was his strongest wish,
is to me an assertion as incredible and as unmeaning
as the assertion that on a particular occasion two
straight lines enclosed a space. If a mother were
cruelly to murder a child whom she idolised and
whom she had a thousand special reasons for
cherishing with peculiar tenderness and no motive
whatever for injuring, if she firmly believed al!
the while that in doing so she was acting most
wickedly and in a manner which would assuredly
be punished by her own eternal damnation, and
which would ensure the eternal damnation of the
child as well, and lastly if she had absolutely no
reason whatever for so acting, she would perform an
act of absolute self-sacrifice. I say that the occur-
rence of such an act is an impossibility. If circum-
stances occurred to which the description appeared
to apply, the inference would be cither that the
murderess had had some unknown motive of im-
mense power, such as vengeance, sudden anger,

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jealousy, or the like, or that the act was an act of
madness, which, properly speaking, is not an act at
all, but a mere event. If this Is admitted, the general
proposition that absolute self-sacrifice is impossible is
proved, and it follows that when we speak of self-
sacrifice we mean only that the person who is said to
have sacrificed himself was affected to an unusual
degree by some common wish or motive, or was
affected by some unusual wish or motive.

To return, then, to the assertion that common
utilitarianism stops short at self-sacrifice. The
meaning of it will be that tliat system affords no
reason why, if the system were generally adopted,
the common proportion between wishes and motives
which immediately regard oneself, and wishes and
motives which immediately regard others, should be
disturbed either in particular cases or in the race at
large. Common utilitarianism is simply a descrip-
tion in general terms of the ordinary current morality
which prevails amongst men of the world. It is a
morality which I do not in the least degree disparage.
I cordially approve it, and think it good as far as
it goes. The question is whether it ought to go
farther than it does. To this I say Yes, if there is a
God and a future state; No, if there is no God and
no future state. The positive half of this assertion
and its limitations I shall develope hereafter. For
the present I confine myself to the negative half, and
upon this I am at issue with Mr. Mill and many other
persons, who think that, irrespectively of what I

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understand by religion, the common current utilita-
rianism may, and probably will, be rendered very
mucli stricter tlian it is at present, and that the
existing balance between social and personal wishes
and motives may and probably will be considerably
altered so as to increase the relative power of the
former.

In examining the subject, it will be necessary in
the first place to take a short general view of the
extent to which common utilitarianism would go. It
seems to me that it fully accounts for and justifies all
the common instances of benevolence with which we
are familiar in every-day life ; for, like every other
moral system, it must, ff rationally worked, take ■
account of the two great factors of human conduct,
habit and passion. I do not think that in the
common relations of life it makes much difference
whether one moral system or another is adopted.
The feelings towards each other of husbands and
wives, parents and children, relations, friends, neigh-
bours, members of the same profession, business con-
nections, members of the same nation, and so forth,
grow up by themselves. Moral systems have to
account for and more or less to regulate them, but
human life forms the starting point of all systems worth
having. Now universal experience shows that some
of the wishes and motives which regard others more
obviously than self are in almost all men stronger than
some of the wishes and motives which regard self
more obviously than others, and that if we were

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to take an average indicating the comparative power
of the two classes of wishes and motives in ordinary
men, a very large number of individual exceptions
would always have to be made. In every army, for
instance, there is an average amount of courage on
which you may reckon with confidence in nearly
every soldier. But there are also in every army a
certain number of soldiers with whom the wishes
and motives which go to make up the habit of
courage rise to what we should call the pitch of
heroism, and there are also a certain number In
which they sink to the pitch of cowardice. Whether
you choose to say that a soldier who mounts a
breach at the imminent risk of his life does or does
not perform an act of self-sacrifice is a question of
taste and of propriety in the use of language. If
that expression is used, it will be consistent to say
that common utiUtarianism will provide for an
average amount of self-sacrifice. If that expression
is not used, we may say tliat common utilitarianism
stops short of self-sacrifice ; but whichever phrase be
employed, the same general meaning is conveyed.
It is that though the ordinary motives of human
society as we know it carry social benevolence — or
fraternity, if the word is preferred — up to a point,
they also stop at a point.

The point cannot be specifically fixed, and it varies
considerably according to the dispositions of particular
persons, but it may be negatively described thus.
Common utilitarianism does not in ordinary cases give

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FRATERNITY 20 1

people any reason for loving their neighbours as them-
selves, or for loving large numbers of people at ali,
especially those whose interests are in any way op-
posed to their own. Common utilitarianism, in a
word, comes to this : ' Thou shalt love thy neighbour
and hate thine enemy.' Love your neighbour in pro-
portion to the degree in which he approaches yourself
and appeals to your passions and sympathies. In
hating your enemy, bear in mind the fact that
under immediate excitement you are very likely
to hate him more than you would wish to do upon
a deliberate consideration of all his relations to your-
self and your friends, and of your permanent and
remote as compared with your immediate interest.
How religion affects this I shall consider hereafter.
At present I limit myself to the point that, however
this may be, Mr. Mill's theory supplies no ground
for thinking that common utilitarianism will in fact
be screwed up into transcendental utilitarianism,
except in a few particular cases, which deserve no
special admiration or sympathy.

Mr. Mill's theory is, shortly, that the progress of
civilization will lead people to feel a general love for
mankind so strong that it will in process of time
assume the character of a religion, and have an
influence greater than that of all existing religions.
Mr. Mill admits that the feeling is at present an
exceptional one. lie says, ' this feeling in most
individuals is much inferior in strength to their
selfish feelings, and is often wanting altogether.'

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He adds, 'to those who have it, it possesses all the
characters of a natural feeling,' which implies that he
knows what he feels like. I admit that there is a
real feeling which more or less answers the descrip-
tion given by Mr. Mill, but 1 think that those who
feel it deceive themselves as to its nature, as to
its importance, and as to the probability of its
increase.

First, as to its nature and importance. Mr. Mill
appears to assume that an earnest desire for the
good of other men is likely to produce their good.
How far this is consistent with his doctrine about
liberty I will not stop to enquire. He has misgivings
on the point, as he says that the danger is lest the
influence arising out of it should ' interfere unduly with
human freedom and individuality.' Be this as it may,
it is surely clear that you cannot promote a man's
happiness unless you know, to begin with, wherein it
consists. But apart from some few commonplace
matters, upon which men substantially agree, and
which society no doubt settles as it goes on, men's
notions of happiness differ widely. As to all that
part of our happiness which depends upon the general
organization of society, upon tlie sentiments with
which we are to regard each other, upon political
institutions of different kinds and the like, there are
many and conflicting theories. Self in respect to all
things, but above all in respect to these things, is
each man's centre from which he can no more dis-
place himself than he can leap off his own shadow.

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Milton's line about Presbyter and Priest thus applies
precisely to Humanity and Self. Humanity is only
I writ large, and love for Humanity generally means
zeal for my notions as to what men should be and
how they should live. It frequently means distaste
for the present. He that lovetli not his brother
whom he hath seen is peculiarly apt to suppose
that he loves his distant cousin whom he hath not
seen and never will see. Mr. Mill, for instance,
never loses an opportunity, of speaking with con-
tempt of our present ' wretched social arrangements,'
the low state of society, and the general pettiness
of his contemporaries, but he looks forward to an
age in which an all-embracing love of Humanity
will regenerate die human race.

On one who does not think thus the anticipations
of those who do produce a singular effect. They
look like so many ideai versions of what the world
wOuld be if it adopted universally the theorist's
views of human life. Love for Humanity, devotion
to the All or Universum, and the Uke are thus little,
if anything, more than a fanatical attachment to
some favourite theory about the means by which an
indefinite number of unknown persons (whose exis-
tence it pleases the theorist's fancy to assume) may
be brought into a state which the theorist calls happi-
ness. A man to whom this ideal becomes so far a
reality as to colour his thoughts, his feelings, his
estimate of the present and his action towards it, is
usually, as repeated experience has shown, perfectly

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ready to sacrifice that which living people do actually
regard as constituting their happiness to his own
notions of what will constitute the happiness of other
generations. It is, no doubt, true that in a certain
sense he does thus rise, or, at any rate, get out of
himself. Sympathy for others, interest in the affairs
of others, impatience of what he regards as the
wrongs of others do become far stronger motives to
him than they are to most men, and do affect his
conduct more powerfully, but this in itself is no merit.
It certainly gives no man a right to any other man's
confidence. Nothing, as I have already pointed out,
is a greater nuisance, or in many cases a greater
injury, than the love of a person by whom you do
not want to be loved. Every man's greatest happi-
ness is that which makes him individually most
happy, and of that he and he only can judge. If A
places his greatest happiness in promoting that which
he regards as B's greatest happiness, B never having
asked him to do so, and A having no other interest
in the matter than general feelings of sympathy, it is
a hundred to one that B will tell A to mind his own
business. If A represents a small class of men of
quick feelings and lively talents, and B a much
larger class of ignorant people, who, if they were let
alone, would never have thought of the topics which
their advisers din into their ears, the probability is
that the few will by degrees work up the many into
a state of violence, excitement, discontent, and cla-
morous desire for they know not what—which is

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neither a pleasant state in itself nor one fruitful of
much real good to any one whatever.

The man who works from himself outwards,
whose conduct is governed by ordinary motives, and
who acts with a view to his own advantage and the
advantage of those who are connected with himself
in definite, assignable ways, produces in the ordinary
course of things much more happiness to others (if
that is Che great object of life) than a moral Don
Quixote who is always liable to sacrifice himself and
his neighbours. When you have to deal with a man
who expects pay and allowances, and is willing to
give a fair day's work for it as long as the arrange-
ment suits him, you know where you are. Deal
with such a man fairly and in particular cases, if he
is a man of spirit and courage, he will deal with you
not only fairly but generously. Earn his gratitude
by kindness and justice, and he will in many cases
give you what no money could buy or pay for. On
the other hand, a man who has a disinterested love
for the human race— that is to say, who has got
a fixed idea about some way of providing for the
management of the concerns of mankind — is an un-
accountable person with whom it is difficult to deal
upon any well-known and recognized principles, and
who is capable of making his love for men in
general the ground of all sorts of violence against
men in particular.

Besides this, the great mass of mankind are and
always will be to a greater or less extent the avowed

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enemies of considerable sections of their f<;lIow-
creatures ; at all events, for certain purposes and up
to a certain point. Those who love the human race
as a whole must take sides in these enmities, pro-
bably against both parties, and this will increase the
original trouble. This introduces one vitally im-
portant question, at which I can only glance, but
which believers in the service of humanity and in
the religion of fraternity ought to solve before they
can find standing-room for their religion. The ques-
tion is this : Arc the interests of all mankind iden-
tical ? are we all brothers ? are we even fiftieth
cousins ? and, in any event, have we not a considerable
number of family quarrels which require to be set-
tled before the fact of our relationship (if any) can
be regarded in any other light than as a bone of
contention ?

These questions do not trouble a man who
starts from himself and his definite relations to
other people. Such a person can be content to let
sleeping dogs lie. He can say, ' I wish for my
own good ; I wish for the good of my family and
friends ; I am interested in my nation ; I will do acts
of good nature to miscellaneous people who come in
my way ; but if in the course of my life I come
across any man or body of men who treats me or
mine or the people I care about as an enemy, I shall
treat him as an enemy with the most absolute indif-
ference to the question whether we can or cannot trace
out a relationship either through Adam or through

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some primeval ape. Show me a definite person
doing a definite thing and I will tell you whether he
is my friend or my enemy ; but as to calling all
human creatures indiscriminately my brothers and
sisters, I will do no such thing. I have far too
much respect for real relations to give these endear-
ing names to all sorts of people of whom I know and
for whom, practically speaking, I care nothing at all.'

The believer in the religion of fraternity cannot
speak thus. He is bound to love all mankind. If
he wants me to do so too, he must show me a reason
why. Not only does he show me none, as a rule,
but he generally denies either the truth or the rele-
vancy of that which, if true, is a reason^tlie doctrine
that God made all men and ordered them to love
each other. Whether this is true is one question ;
how it is proposed to get people to love each other
without such a belief I do not understand. It
would want the clearest of all imaginable revelations
to make me to try to love a considerable number of
people whom it is unnecessary to mention, or affect
to care about masses of men with whom I have
nothing to do.

These are the grounds on which it appears to me
that there is a great deal of self-deception as to the
nature of fraternity, and that the mere feeling of
eager indefinite sympathy with mankind in those
cases in which it happens to exist is not deserving
of the admiration which is so often claimed for it.

I will say in concluding this topic a very few words

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on the opinion that the progress of civilization, the
growth of wealth and of physical science, and the
general diffusion of comfort will tend to excite or
deepen such sympathy. I think it more probable that
it will have exactly the opposite effect. The whole
tendency of modern civihzation is to enable each
man to stand alone and take care of his own interests,
and the growth of liberty and equality will, as I have
already shown, intensify these feeHngs. They will
minimize all restraints and reduce every one to a
dead level, offering no attractions to the imagination
or to the affections. In this state of society you
will have plenty of public meetings, Exeter Halls,
and philanthropic associations, but there will be no
occasion for patriotism or public spirit. France in
1870, with its ambulances and its representatives
of the Geneva Convention, did not show to advan-
tage in comparison with Holland three centuries
before. There are many commonplaces about the
connection between the decay of patriotism and
the growth of luxury. No doubt they have their
weak side, but to me they appear far more like the
truth than the commonplaces which are now so
common about the connection between civilization
and the love of mankind. Civilization no doubt
makes people hate the very thought of pain or dis-
comfort either in their own persons or in the case of
others. It also disposes them to talk and to potter
about each other's affairs in the way of mutual sym-
pathy and compliment, and now and then to get

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into states of fierce excitement about them ; but all
this is not love nor anything like it. The real trulh
is that the human race is so big, so various, so little
known, that no one can really love it. You can at
most fancy that you love some imaginary representa-
tion of bits of it which when examined are only your
own fancies personified. A progress which leads
people to attach increased importance to phantoms
is not a glorious thing, in my eyes at all events. It
is a progress towards a huge Social Science Associa-
tion embracing in itself all the Exeter Halls that
ever were born or thought of.

The general result of all this is, that fraternity,
mere love for the human race, is not fitted in itself
to be a religion. That is to say, it is not fitted to
take command of the human faculties, to give them
their direction, and to assign to one faculty a ranli in
comparison with others which but for such inter-
ference it would not have.

I might have arrived at this result by a shorter
road, for I might have pointed out that the most
elementary notions of religion imply that no one
human faculty or passion can ever in itself be a re-
ligion. It can but be one among many competitors.
If human beings are left to themselves, their facul-
ties, their wishes, and their passions will find a level
of some sort or other. They will produce some
common course of life and some social arrangement.
Alter the relative strength of particular passions,
and you will alter the soci.il result ; but religion

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means a great deal more than this. It means the
establishment and general recognition of some theory
about human hfe in general, about the relation of
men to each other and to the world, by which their
conduct may be determined. Every reUgion must
contain an element of fact, real or supposed, as well
as an element of feeling, and the element of fact is
the one which in the long run will determine the
nature and importance of the element of feeling.
The following are specimens of religions, stated as
generally as possible, but still with sufficient exact-
ness to show my meaning.

1. The statements made in the Apostles' Creed
are true. Believe them, and govern yourselves ac-
cordingly.

2. There is one God, and Mahomet is the
prophet of God. Do as Mahomet tells you,

3. All existence is an evil, from which, if you
knew your own mind, you would wish to be delivered.
Such and such a course of life will deliver you most
speedily from the misery of existence.

4. An infinitely powerful supreme God arranged
all of you whom I address in castes, each with its
own rule of life. You will be fearfully punished in all
sorts of ways if you do not live according to your caste
rules. Also all nature is full of invisible powers
more or less connected with natural objects, which
must be worshipped and propitiated.

All these are religions in the proper sense of the

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FRATERNITY 29I

word. Each of the four theories expressed in these
few words is complete in itself. It states propo-
sitions which are either true or false, but which, if
true, furnish a complete practical guide for life. No
such statement of what Mr. Mill calls the ultimate
sanction of the morals of utility is possible. You
cannot get more than this out of it : ' Love all man-
kind.' ' Influences are at work which at some remote
time will make men love each other.' These are
respectively a piece of advice and a prophecy, but
they are not religions. If a man does not take the
advice or believe in the prophecy, they pass by him
idly. They have no power at all in invitos, and the
great mass of men have always been inviii, or at the
very least indifferent, with respect to all religions
whatever. In order to make such maxims as these
into religions, they must be coupled with some state-
ment of fact about mankind and human life, which
those who accept them as religions must be prepared
to affirm to be true.

What statement of the sort is it possible to make ?
' The human race is an enormous agglomeration of
bubbles which are continually bursting and ceasing
to be. No one made it or knows anything worth
knowing about it. Love it dearly, oh ye bubbles.'
This is a sort of religion, no doubt, but it seems to
me a very silly one. ' Eat and drink, for to-morrow
yc die ;' ' Be not righteous overmuch, why shouldest
thou destroy thyself ? '

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Hue vina et unguenta et nimium brevis
Flores amcenos ferre jube rosEC,
Dum res et ECtas et Soronim
Fila trium patiuntur atra.

Omnes eodem cogimur.
These are also religions, and, if true, they are, I
think, infinitely more rational than the bubble theory.
As a fact they always have been, and in all proba-
bility they always will be, believed and acted upon
by a very large proportion of the human race. I
have never seen any serious answer whatever to
them, except the answer that the theory which they
presuppose is false in fact, that the two great fun-
damental doctrines of the existence of God and a
future state are either true or at all events reasonably
probable. To sec these doctrines denied can surprise
no rational man. Every one must be aware of the
difficulties connected with them. What does sur-
prise me is to see able men put them aside with a
smile as being unimportant, as mere metaphysical
puzzles of an insoluble kind which we may cease to
think about without producing any particular effect
upon morality. I have referred so often to Mr. Mill
that I must do him the justice to say that I do not
here refer to him. Though he does find the ultimate
sanction of morals in considerations which are inde-
pendent of religion, he nowhere, so far as I am aware,
underrates the importance of religious belief To
do so is the characteristic of minds of a different
order from his.

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FRATERNITY 2 93

It is not very easy to insist upon the connection
between morals and religion without running the
risk of failing into very obvious commonplace ; but
the extent to which the habit prevails of maintaining
that morals are independent of religion makes it
necessary to point out that it is impossible to solve
any one of the great questions which the word ' fra-
ternity ' suggests without distinct reference to the
fundamental questions of religion.

First, fraternity implies love for some one — a desire
to promote some one's happiness. But what is happi-
ness ? In particular, is anything which can properly
be called virtue essential to it ? — if so, what is virtue
— the way of life which becomes a man ? Every
answer which can be given to these questions depends
upon the further question, What are men ? Is this .
life all, or is it only a stage in something wider and
larger ? The great disproportion which exists be-
tween the stronger and more abiding human feelings
and the objects to which they relate has often been
used as an argument in favour of immortality.
Whether it is entitled to weight in that capacity I
need not enquire, but the fact on which the inference
is based is, I think, certain. We do care far more
about all sorts of things and people than is at all
rational if this life is all ; and I think that if
we dismiss from our minds every tliought of life
after death, if we determine to regard the grave as
the end of all things, it will be not merely natural
and proper to contract our sympathies and Interests,

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and to revise the popular estimate of the comparative
value of many things — health, for instance, and
honesty— but not to do so will be sim.ply impossible.
Our present conception of a virtuous man is
founded entirely on the opinion that virtue is higher
in kind than other objects which come into com-
petition with it. Every phrase which we use upon
such subjects, and, above all, tlie word ' I,' implies
permanence and continuity in individuals. Conscience
and self-respect imply that I am the same person as
I was twenty years ago and as I shall be twenty
years hence, if I am then in existence at all. The
immense importance which men attach to their cha-
racter, to their honour, to tlie consciousness of having
led an honourable, upright life, is based upon the
belief that questions of right and wrong, good and
evil, go down to the very man himself and concern
him in all that is most intimately, most essentially
himself; whereas other things, however distressing —
bodily disease, for instance, or poverty — are, in a
sense, external to him. The most memorable and
striking passage ever written by Mr. Mill refers to
this matter. It is as follows :^

The theory, therefore, which resolves Mind into a series
of feehngs, with a background of possibiHties of feeling,
can effectually withstand the most invidious of the argu-
ments directed against it. But, groundless as are the
extrinsic objections, the theory has intrinsic difficulties
which we have not yet set forth, and which it seems to me
beyond the power of metaphysical analysis to remove.
The thread of consciousness which composes the mind's

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phenomenal life consists not only of present sensations, but
likewise in part [rather all but entirely] of memories and
expectations. Now what are these ? . . . Nor can the
phenomena involved in these two states of consciousness be
adequately expressed without saying that the belief they
include is that I myself formerly had, or that I myself and
no other shall hereafter have, the sensations remembered
or expected. The fact believed is that the sensations did
actually form, or will hereafter form, part of the self-same
series of states or thread of consciousness of which the re-
membrance or expectations of those sensations is the part
now present. If, therefore, we speak of the Mind as a
series of feelings, we are obliged to complete the statement
by calling It a series of feelings which is aware of itself
as past and future, and we arc reduced to the alternative
of believing that the Mind or Ego is something diiferent
from any series of feeling or possibilities of them, or of
accepting the paradox [I should have said of making the
unmeaning and even contradictory assertion] that some-
thing which ex hypothesi is but a series of feelings can be
aware of itself as a series. The truth is, that we are here
face to face with that final inexplicability at which, as
Sir W. Hamilton observes, we inevitably arrive when we
reach ultimate facts, and in general one mode of stating it
only appears more incomprehensible than anotlier because
the whole of human language is accommodated to the one
and is so incongruous with the other that it cannot be
expressed in any terms which do not deny its truth. The
real stumbling-block is, perhaps, not in any theory of the
fact, but in the fact itself The true incomprehensibility,
perhaps, is that something which has ceased, or is not yet
in existence, can still be, in a manner present; that a series
of feelings, the infinitely greater part of which is past or
future, can be gathered up as it were into a single present
conception, accompanied by a belief of reality. I think by
far the wisest thing we can do is to accept the in-

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explicable fact without any theory of how it takes place,
and when we are obliged to speak of it in terms which
assume a theory, to use them with a reservation as to their
meaiiing'.

With the greater part of this I cordially agree,
but it appears to me that Mr. Mill avoids, with
needless caution, die inference which his language
suggests. His theory is this. All human language,
all human observation Implies that the mind, the I,
is a thing in itself, a fixed point in the midst of a
world of change, of which world of change Its own
organs form a part. It is the same yesterday, to-day,
and to-morrow. It was what it is when its organs
were of a different shape and consisted of different
matter from their present shape and matter. It will
be what it is when they have gone through other
changes. I do not say that this proves, but surely it
suggests, it renders probable, the belief that this
ultimate fact, this starting-point of all knowledge,
thought, feeling, and language, this ' final inexplica-
bility' (an emphatic though a clumsy phrase), is in-
dependent of its organs, that it may have existed
before they were collected out of the elements, and
may continue to exist after they are dissolved into
the elements.

The belief thus suggested by the most intimate,
the most abiding, the most widespread of all expe-
riences, not to say by universal experience, as recorded
by nearly every word of every language in the
world, is what I mean by a belief in a future state, if

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indeed it should not rather be called a past, present,
and future state, all in one — a state which rises above
and transcends time and change. I do not say that this
is proved, but I do say that it is strongly suggested by
the one item of knowledge which rises above logic,
argument, language, sensation, and even distinct
thought — that one clear instance of direct conscious-
ness in virtue of which we say ' I am.' This belief is
That there Is in man, or rather that man is, that which
rises above words and above thoughts, which are
but unuttered words ; that to each one of us ' I ' is
the ultimate central fact which renders thought and
language possible. Some, indeed, have even gone
so far as to say — and their saying, though very dark,
is not, I think, unmeaning — that the ' I ' Is even in
a certain sense the cause of the external world itself.
Be this how it may, it is surely clear that our words,
the sounds which we make with our lips, are but
very imperfect symbols, that they all presuppose
matter and sensation, and are thus unequal to the
task of expressing that which, to use poor but
necessary metaphors, lies behind and above matter
and sensation. Most words are metaphors from
sensible objects. 'Spirit' means breathing, but I
think no one will ever use words to much purpose
unless he can feel and see that eloquence is elo-
quence and logic logic only if and in so far as the
.skin of language covers firm bone and hard muscle.
It seems to me that we are spirits in prison, able
only to make signals to each other, but with a

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world of things to think and to say which our signals
cannot describe at all.

It is this necessity for working with tools which
break in your hand when any really powerful strain
is put upon them which so often gives an advantage
in argument to the inferior over the superior, to the
man who can answer to the purpose easy things to
understand over the man whose thoughts split the
seams of the dress in which he has to clothe them.
It also supplies the key to the saying 'Silence is
golden.' The things which cannot be adequately
represented by words are more important tlian diose
which can. Nay, the attempt, even the successful
attempt, to put into words thoughts not too deep for
them has its inconveniences. It is like selling out
stock which might have risen in value if it had been
left alone. This also is the reason why our language
on the deepest of all deep things is so poor and
unsatisfactory, and why poetry sometimes seems to
say more than logic. The essence of poetry is that
it is an appeal to the hearer's or reader's good faith
and power of perception. Logic drives its thoughts
into your head with a hammer. Poetry is like light.
You can shut your eyes to it if you will, but if
having eyes to open, you open them, it will show
you a world of wonders. I have quoted the pas-
sage which forms, so to speak, the last word on this
subject of the great logician of our age. I will
quote, in order to give form to what I have been
trying to say, a passage which is perhaps the most

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memorable utterance of its greatest poet. The
poetry seems to me to go far deeper into tlie heart of
the matter than the logic : —

It is mysterious, it is awful to consider that we not only-
carry each a future ghost within him, but are in very deed
ghosts. These limbs, whence had we them? this stormy
force, ihis life-blood with its burning passion.' They
are dust and shadow ; a shadow-system gathered around
our ME wherein through some moments or years the
Divine Essence is to be revealed in the flesh. That
warrior on his strong war-horse, fire flashes through his
eyes, force dwells in his arms and heart ; but warrior and
war-horse are a vision, a revealed force, nothing more.
Stately they tread the earth, as if it were a firm substance.
Fools ! the earth is but a film ; it cracks in twain, and warrior
and war-horse sink beyond plummet's sounding. Phimmet's ?
Fantasy herself will not follow them. A little while ago they
were not ; a little while and they are not, their very ashes
are not.

So has it been from the beginning, so will it be to the
end. Generation after generation takes to itself the form
of a body, and forth-issuing from Cimmerian night on
heaven's mission APPEARS, What force and fire is in each
he expends. One grinding in the mill of industry, one
hunter-like climbing the giddy Alpine heights of science,
one madly dashed in pieces on the rocks of strife in war
with his fellow, and then the heaven-sent is recalled, his
earthly vesture falls away and soon even to sense becomes
a vanished shadow. Thus, like some wild-flaming, wild-
thundering train of Heaven's artillery does this mysterious
MANKIND thunder and flame in long-drawn, quick suc-
ceeding grandeur through the unknown deep. Thus, like a
God-created, fire- breathing-spirit host, we emerge from the
inane, haste stormfuUy across the astonished earth, then

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plunge again into the inane. Earth's mountains are
levelled, and her seas filled up in our passage. Can the
earth, which is but dead and a vision, resist spirits which
have reality and are alive ? On the hardest adamant some
footprint of us is stamped in. The last rear of the host
will read traces of the earliest van. But whence ? Oh,
Heaven! whither? Sense knows not, faith knows not,
only that it is through mystery to mystery, from God and
to God.

We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

I quote this, of course, as poetry ought to be
quoted — that is to say, for the sake not of definite
propositions, but of vivid impressions. To canvass
its precise logical value would be to misunderstand it,
but I know of no statement which puts in so intense
and impressive a form the belief which appears to
me to lie at the very root of ail morals whatever —
the belief, that is, that I am one ; that my organs are
not I ; that my happiness and their well-being are
different and may be inconsistent with each other ;
that pains and pleasures differ in kind as well as in
degree ; that the class of pleasures and pains which
arise from virtue and vice respectively cannot be
measured against those say of health and disease,
inasmuch as they affect different subjects or affect
the same subjects in a totally different manner.

The solution of all moral and social problems
lies in the answer we give to the questions, What am
I ? How am I related to others ? If my body and I

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are one and the same thing-— if, to use a phrase in
which an eminent man of letters once summed up the
opinions which he believed to be held by an eminent
scientific man — we are all ' sarcoidous peripatetic fun-
guses,' and nothing more, good health and moderate
wealth are blessings infinitely and out of all com-
parison greater than any others. I think that a
reasonable fungus would systematically repress many
other so-called virtues which often interfere with
health and the acquisition of a reasonable amount of
wealth. If, however, I am something more than a
fungus — if, properly speaking, the fungus is not I at
all, but only my instrument, and if I am a myste-
riously permanent being who may be entering on
all sorts of unknown destinies — a scale is at once
established among my faculties and desires, and it
becomes natural to subordinate, and if necessary to
sacrifice, some of them to others.

To take a single instance. By means which may
easily be suggested, every man can accustom himself
to practise a variety of what are commonly called
vices, and, still more, to neglect a variety of what are
generally regarded as duties, without compunction.
Would a wise man do this or not ? If he regards
himself as a spiritual creature, certainly not, because
conscience is that which lies deepest in a man. It
is the most important, or one of the most important,
constituent elements of his permanence Indeed, if
there is any permanent element in him, his con-
science in all probability cannot be destroyed, al-

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302 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

though it can be covered up and disregarded. To
tamper witli it, therefore, to try to destroy it, is
of all conceivable courses of conduct the most
dangerous, and may prepare the way to a waken-
ing, a self-assertion, of conscience fearful to think
of But suppose that the fungus theory is the
true one. Suppose that man is a mere passing
shadow, and nothing else. What is he to say of his
conscience ? Surely a rational man holding such a
theory of his own nature will be bound in consistency
to try and to determine the question whether he oughf:
not to prune his conscience just as he cuts his hair and
nails. A man who regarded a cold heart and a good
digestion as the best possible provision for life would
have a great deal to say for his view. Each of these
blessings is capable of being acquired, and those who
do not regard them as the summum bonum can only
on the fungus theory say to those who do, ' Our
Uistes differ.'

From all this I conclude that the question. How
would fraternity induce us to act ? depends upon the
view which may be taken of the doctrine of a future
state as I have explained and stated it.

The question. Who is my brother ? depends
perhaps more obviously and directly upon the ques-
tion. Is there a God who cares for human society — a
Providence ? If not, morality is simply a matter of
fact. Certain rules of conduct do as a fact tend to
promote human happiness. The ultimate sanction
of these rules is individual taste. Those v/ho have

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a taste (which is admitted to be rare) for the good of
the race €is a whole can say to those who have it not,
' In our opinion you are brutes.' Those who care
only for themselves and their friends, and for others in
relation to them, may reply to this, ' In our opinion
you are fools,' and neither party can get any farther.

If, on the other hand, there is a Providence,
then morality ceases to be a mere fact and becomes
a law. The very meaning of a belief in a Providence
is that the physical and the moral world alike are
die sphere of conscious arrangement and design ; that
men, the members of the moral world, transcend the
material world in which they are placed, and that the
law imposed on them is this— Virtue, that is to say,
the habit of acting upon principles fitted to pro-
mote the happiness of men in general, and especially
those forms of happiness which have reference to the
permanent element in men, is connected with, and
will, in the long run, contribute to the individual
happiness of those who practise it, and especially to
tliat part of their happiness which is connected wiUi
the permanent elements of their nature. The con-
verse is true of vice.

This law is unwritten and unspoken, and its sanc-
tions {except for those who believe in a definite literal
heaven and hell) are indefinite. These circumstances
constitute the moral trial of life, and no doubt im-
mensely diminish the force of the law in question,
and enable any one who is disposed to do so to deny
its very existence. If, however, a man is led to

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304 LIliERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

accept this interpretation of life, it affords a real
sanction for morals. I cannot understand how a
person who believed that a being capable of arranging
the physical and moral world, as we know it had by so
arranging it tacitly commanded him thus to act, could
hesitate about the wisdom of obeying that command.
Utilitarianism appears to me to rest on its own
foundations. It is a consequence from the ultimate
fact that men have powers and wishes. Add a
future state, and you give to happiness a special
meaning, and establish a scale among different kinds
of happiness. Add a belief in God, and virtue
ceases to be a mere fact, and becomes the law of a
society, the members of which may by a strong-
metaphor be called brothers if and in so far as
they obey that law. Virtue as a law implies social
relations, and the law 'Be virtuous' can hardly be
obeyed except by a person who wishes good men to
be happy, and who also wishes to some extent to
make men good. Take away the belief in a future
state, and belief in God ceases to be of any practical
importance. Happiness means whatever each man
likes. Morality becomes a mere statement as to
facts— this is what you can get if you want it, and
this is the way to get it Love for mankind becomes
a matter of taste, sanctioned by the fear of being
called a fool or a brute, as the case may be, by
people who do not agree with you.

These two ways of looking at the world and at
morals are both complete, consistent, intelligible, and

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FRATERNITY 305

based upoa facts. The practical distinction between
them is that the first does and the second does not
give a rational account of the feeling that it is a duty
to be virtuous. If virtue is God's law, to be virtuous is
man's duty. Where there is no lawgiver there can
be no law ; where there is no law there can be no
duty, though of course there may be a taste for
doing what, if there were a law, would be a duty.
This taste may, for what I know, be inherited. I
think it a mere question of curiosity whether it is or
not, for when a man learns that his sense of duty
is a mere fact which, however convenient to others,
is apt to be very inconvenient to him, and rests upon
nothing, he will easily get rid of it. The fact that our
ancestors wore sword-belts may be a very good ex-
planation of the fact that tailors usually put buttons in
the small of the back of the coats of tlieir descendants.
So long as they look well and are not inconvenient
there let them stay, but if they were found inconvenient
they would be snipped off without mercy. Duty is so
very often inconvenient that it requires a present jus-
tification as well as an historical explanation, and no
such justification can be given to a man who wants
one except that God is a legislator and virtue a law
in the proper sense of the word.

It would be a matter of equal difficulty and
interest to trace out systematically the relation of
religious belief to a sense of duty. The relation, of
course, depends upon the nature of the religion.
Some forms of religion are distinctly unfavourable to

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306 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

a sense of social duty. Others have simply no rela-
tion to it whatever, and of those which favour it (as
is the case in various degrees with every form of
Christianity) some promote it far more powerfully
than others. I should say that those which promote
it most powerfully are those of which the central
figure is an infinitely wise and powerful Legislator
whose own nature is confessedly inscrutable to man,
but who has made the world as it is for a prudent,
steady, hardy, enduring race of people who are
neither fools nor cowards, who have no particular
love for those who are, who distinctly know what
they want, and arc determined to use all lawful
means to get it. Some such religion as this is the
unspoken deeply rooted conviction of the solid, es-
tablished part of the English nation. They form an
anvil which has worn out a good many hammers,
and will wear out a good many more, enthusiasts and
humanitarians notwithstanding.

Though the sense of duty which is jusdfied by this
form of religion has become instinctive with many of
those who feel it, I think that if the belief should ever
fail, the sense of duty which grows out of it would die
by degrees. I do not believe that any insdnct will
long retain its hold upon the conduct of a rational and
enterprising man when he has discovered that it is a
mere insdnct which he need not yield to unless he
chooses. People who think otherwise would do well
to remember that, though custom makes some duties
so easy to some people that they are discharged as a

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FRATERNITY

ZO7

matter of course, there are others which it is ex-
tremely difficult to discharge at all ; and that obvious
immediate self-interest, in its narrowest shape, is
constantly eating away the edges of morality, and
would destroy it if it had not something deeper for
its support than an historical or physiological explana-
tion. We cannot judge of the effects of Atheism
from the conduct of persons who have been educated
as believers in God and in the midst of a nation
which believes in God. If we should ever see a
generation of men, especially a generation of English-
men, to whom the word God had no meaning at all,
wc should get a light upon the subject which might
be lurid enough. Great force of character, restrained
and directed by a deep sense of duty, is the noblest
of noble things. Take off the restraint which a
sense of duty imposes, and the strong man is apt
to become a mere tyrant and oppressor. Bishop
Berkeley remarked on his countrymen in the early
part of the last century, ' Whatever may be the
effect of pure theory upon certain select spirits of a
peculiar make or in other parts of the world, I do
verily think that in this country of ours reason, reh-
gion, law are all together little enough to subdue the
outward to the inner man ; and that it must argue a
wrong head and weak understanding to suppose that
without them men will be enamoured of the golden
mean, to which my countrymen are perhaps less
inclined than others, there being in the make of an
English mind a certain gloom and eagerness which

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305 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

carries to the sad extreme.' The remark is as true
now as it was then.

A very important objection may be made to
these views, to which I shall be glad to do full
justice. I cannot quote any distinct expression of it,
but I have frequently observed, and the same obser-
vation, I think, must have been made by others, that
there are in these days a certain number of persons
who regard a belief in God not merely as untrue, but
as unfavourable to morality ; and In a matter which
does not admit of demonstration this of course
inclines them to take the negative side. A being in
any way responsible for such a world as ours would,
they think, be a bad being, and a morality based
upon the belief in such a being would be a vicious
morality. Put in the plainest words, this is the up-
shot of much modern writing. It supplies a curious
illustration of the persistency with which great moral
and religious problems reproduce themselves in all
sorts of shapes. The doctrine is Manicheeism with-
out the two gods. We must have both a bad and a
good god (said the Manichees), because there are in
the world both good and evil. A certain class of
persons in these days draw from the same premiss
the conclusion that no God is possible except a God
who would be worse than none.

This is not a view to be passed over lightly, nor
does it admit of being superficially answered. It
raises the question not of the origin of evil, but of the
attitude towards good and evil which is to be ascribed

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FRATERNITY 3O9

to God. It is idle to ask the question, How did evil
originate ? laecause it is impossible to answer it ; but
the question, What do you think of it now that it
is here ? is perfectly fair. Any one who holds the
views just stated is bound to say whether a God who
is responsible for this world must not be a bad
God ; whether a belief in such a God will not have
the effect of justifying many of the wrongs of life ;
whether the brotherhood which consists in a common
allegiance to the laws of such a God will not be
an association of enemies of the human race ?

Such questions imply a belief which, though
obscure, is not on that account the less influential, in
some sort of transcendental system of human rights.
God himself, some people seem to feel, must recog-
nize human equality, the equal right of human
creatures to happiness, and if men arc not equal in
fact, it is because they are the product not of will,
but of blind chance. Ratlier than acknowledge a
God who does not acknowledge the equality of men,
let us, they say, acknowledge no God at all, and esta-
bhsh human equality as far as we can, in despite of the
blind fate to which we owe our origin, and which we do
not and will not reverence. Man in the future, Man
as we would have him, is the object of our reverence
and love ; not any thing or any one who is outside
of Man, least of all any one who is in any way re-
sponsible for what we see around us.

This Is the deepest root of the revolutionary form
of modern humanitarianism. Those who think it, as

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3IO LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

I do, a baseless and presumptuous dream must not
shrink from the questions founded upon It. As to
loving man as man, the bad as well as the good,
others as well as myself, dreams about future genera-
tions as weli as actual generations past or present, I
have said what I had to say. ' Humanity' is as thin a
shadow to me as any God can be to others. Moreover,
it is a shadow of which I know the source and can
measure the importance. I admit, however, that any
one who cares for it is entided to an answer to the
questions stated.

The answer goes to the very root of things, yet I
think the moral difficulty of giving it is greater than
the intellectual one. If the order which we observe
m the physical universe and in the moral world
suggests to us the existence of God, we must not
shrink from the inference that the character of God,
in so far as we have anything to do with it, is to be
inferred from that order. To say that the Author of
such a worid is a purely benevolent being is, to my
mind, to say something which is not true, or, at the
very least, something which is highly improbable in
itself, impossible to be proved, and inconsistent with
many notorious facts, except upon hypotheses which
it is hardly possible to state or to understand, and
of which there is absolutely no evidence whatever.
Therefore, to the question, ' Admitting the existence
of God, do you believe him to be good ? ' I should
reply. If by ' good ' you mean ' disposed to promote
the happiness of mankind absolutely,' I answer No.

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FRATERNITY 3 I I

If by 'good* you mean virtuous, I reply, The ques-
tion has no meaning. A virtuous man is a being of
whom we can form an idea more or less distinct, but
the ideas of virtue and vice can hardly be attached to
a Being who transcends all or most of the conditions
out of which virtue and vice arise. If the further
question is asked, Then what moral attributes do you
ascribe to this Being, if you ascribe to him any at all ?
I should reply, I think of him as conscious and
having will, as infinitely powerful, and as one who,
whatever he may be in his own nature, has so ar-
ranged the world or worlds in which I live as to let
me know that virtue is the law which he has pre-
scribed to me and to others. If still further asked.
Can you love such a Being ? I should answer, Love
is not the word which I should choose, but awe.
The law under which we live is stern, and, as far
as we can judge, inflexible, but it is noble and
excites a feeling of awful respect for its Author
and for the constitution established in the world
which it governs, and a sincere wish to act up to and
carry it out as far as possible. If we believe in God
at all, this, I think, is the rational and manly way of
thinking of him.

This leads to the furdier question how belief in
such a Being would affect a man's view of this
present life. Would not such a behef, it may be
said, justify and sanctify much of the injustice and
many of the wrongs of life ? To this I answer thus.
The general constitution of things, by which some

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312 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

people are better off than others, and some very
badly off in all respects, is neither just nor unjust,
right nor wrong. It simply is. It affects die question
of the benevolence, not the question of the justice,
of its author. The idea of justice and right is sub-
sequent to the idea of law. It is, in the etymo^
logical sense of the word, preposterous to apply
those ideas to the state of things in which we live.
It is simply unmeaning to assert that A is wronged
because he is bom with a predisposition to cancer, or
that B ought to have had wings, or that C had a
right to a certain power of self-control. As against
God or fate, whichever you please, men have no
rights at all, not even the right of existence. Right,
wrong, and obligation begin after laws, properly so
called, have been established, and the first laws, pro-
perly so called, which we have anyreasonto believe
to exist are moral laws imposed upon beings, of whom
some are far more favourably situated for keeping
them than others. AH moral codes and customs are
so many different versions, more or less correct and
more or less fully expressed, of these laws. Accounts
of their administration are to be read in all human
history, from Cain and Abel to to-day's newspapers.
The answer, then, to the question, How docs a
belief in God thus explained affect our view of
human life ? is this : Every man born into the
world finds himself placed in a position in which he
has a variety of wants, passions, faculties, and powers
of various kinds, and in which some objects better or

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FRATERNITY 3I3

worse are attainable by him. Tlie religious theory
of life may be thrown into the shape of the following
command or advice : — Do the best you can for
yourselves, but do it in a definitely prescribed
manner and not otherwise, or it will be the worse
for you. Some of you are happy ; it is the better
for them. Some are miserable ; by all means let
them help themselves in the appointed manner;
let others help them on the appointed terms, but
when all is done much will remain to bear. Bear it
as you can, and whether in happiness or in misery,
take with you the thought that the strange world in
which you live seems not to be all, and that you
yourselves who are in it are not altogether of it.

The facts are the same upon any hypothesis, and
Atheism only makes the case utterly hopeless,
whereas the belief in a God and a future state does
throw some rays of light over the dark sea on which
we are sailing.

This does not show or tend to show that there
is a God, but only that the belief in God is not
immoral. That belief is immoral only if the un-
reserved acceptance of the terms on which life
is offered to us and an honest endeavour to live
upon those terms are immoral. If some theory
about human happiness and equality and fraternity
makes it our duty to kick against the pricks, to
live as rebels against that, whatever it is, in which
we find ourselves, a belief in God is immoral, but
not otherwise. To my mind the immoral and

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314 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

unmanly thing is revolt, impatience of inevitable
evils, gratuitous indiscriminate affection for all sorts
of people, whether tliey deserve it or not, and in
particular, a weak, ill-regulated sympathy for those
whose sufferings are their own fault. These are
sufferings which I, for one, should not wish either to
relieve or to avert. I would leave the law to take
its course. Why there should be wicked people in
the world is like the question, Why there should be
poisonous snakes in the world ? Though no men
are absolutely good or absolutely bad, yet if and in so
far as men are good and bad they are not brothers
but enemies, or, if the expression is preferred, they
are brothers at enmity whose enmity must con-
tinue till its cause is removed.

1 1 may again be asked — and this is the last question
of the kind which I shall attempt to consider — What
is the relation of all this to Christianity .'' Has not the
humanitarianism of which you think so ill a close
connection, both historically and theoretically, with
the Sermon on the Mount and the Parables ?

To this I reply : The truth of Christianity, consi-
dered as a divine revelation, depends uponquesdons
of fact which I certainly shall not at present discuss.
Who can add much to what has been said by Grotius,
Jeremy Taylor, Lardner, Paley, and their successors,
on the one side, or by a variety of writers from
Cclsus to Strauss on the other? ' Securus judicabit
orbis.' The witnesses have been examined, the
counsel have made their speeches, and the jury are

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FRATERNITY 315

considering their verdict. Whatever that verdicC
may be, one thing is quite clear. Ahnost any theo-
logical system and almost any moral system is con-
sistent with the Sermon on the Mount and the Para-
bles, They, as has been observed a thousand times,
are obviously not philosophical discourses. They
are essentially popular, and no one, with a few unim-
portant exceptions, has ever attempted to treat them
as a system of moral philosophy would be treated.
No doubt they express the charitable sentiment in
its most earnest and passionate form, but both the
theory and the practice of mankind show clearly that
this has been, as no doubt it will continue to be,
understood by those who believe in the supernatural
authority of Christ as a pathetic overstatement of
duties which every one would acknowledge to be
duties, and to be peculiarly likely to be neglected.
Everyone would admit that good men ought to love
many at least of their neighbours considerably more
than most men actually do, and that they are not likely
to be led into the error of loving them too much by
the Sermon on the Mount, or by any other sermon.
It must also be borne in mind that, though Chris-
tianity expresses the tender and charitable sentiments
with passionate ardour, it has also a terrible side.
Christian love is only for a time and on condition.
It stops short at the gates of hell, and hell is an essen-
tial part of the whole Christian scheme. Whether
we look at the formal doctrines or at the substance
of that scheme, the tenderness and the terrors

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3l6 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

mutually imply each other. There would be some-
thing excessive in such an outpouring of sympathy
and sorrow about mere transitory sufferings, which
do not appear after all to have been specially acute
or specially unrelieved with happiness in JudEca in
the first century. The horrors of the doctrine of hell
would have been too great for human endurance il
the immediate manifestations of the religion had not
been tender and compassionate.

Christianity must thus be considered rather as
supplying varied and powerful sanctions (love, hope,
and fear in various proportions and degrees) for
that view of morality which particular people may
be led to on other grounds than as imposing upon
them any particular moral system. There have
been Christian Stoics ; there have been Christian
Epicureans ; and immense numbers of people are,
or imagine themselves to be, in love with Christian
charity, although they never heard of and could
not understand any ethical system whatever. Chris-
tianity, in a word, in relation to morals, Is a
means whereby morality may be made transcen-
dental — that is to say, by which an infinitely greater
importance may be and is attached to the distinc-
tion between right and wrong (understand it as
you will) than reasonable men would attach to it
if they simply calculated the specific ascertainable
effects of right and wrong actions, on the supposi-
tion that this present world is the whole of life. The
weakest part of modern philanthropy Is that, while

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FRATERNITY 3 1 7

cilljng itself specially Christian, it has completely set
aside and practically denied the existence of that part
of Christianity which it does not like. If of a system
which is essentially an appeal to a variety of emo-
tions you adopt that part only which appeals to the
tender emotions, you misrepresent the whole.

As a matter of historical fact, no really consider-
able body of men either is, ever has been, or ever
has professed to be Christian in the sense of taking
the philanthropic passages of the four Gospels as the
sole, exclusive, and complete guide of their lives.
If they did, they would In sober earnest turn the
world upside down. They would be a set of pas-
sionate Communists, breaking down every approved
maxim of conduct and every human institution.
In one word, if Christianity really is what much of
the language which we often hear used implies, it
is false and mischievous. Nothing can be more
monstrous than a sweeping condemnation of man-
kind for not conforming their conduct to an ideal
which tliey do not really acknowledge. When, for
instance, we are told that it is dreadful to think that
a nation pretending to believe the Sermon on the
Mount should employ so many millions sterling per
annum on military expenditure, the answer is that no
sane nation ever did or ever will pretend to believe
the Sermon on the Mount in any sense which is in-
consistent with the maintenance to the very utmost
by force of arms of the national independence,
honour, and interest. If the Sermon on the Mount

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3lS LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

really means to forbid this, it ought to be disre-
garded.

I have now tried to perform the task which I
originally undertook, which was to examine the doc-
trines hinted at rather than expressed by the phrase
' Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity,' and to assert
with respect to them these two propositions : First,
that in the present day even those who use those
words most rationally — that is to say, as the names of
elements of social life which, like others, have their
advantages and disadvantages according to time,
place, and circumstance — have a great disposition to
exaggerate their advantages and to deny the exist-
ence, or at any rate to underrate the importance, of
their disadvantages. Next, that whatever signi-
fication be attached to them, these words are ill-
adapted to be tlie creed of a religion, that the things
which they denote are not ends in themselves, and
that when used collectively the words do not typify,
however vaguely, any state of society which a reason-
able man ought to regard with enthusiasm or self-
devotion.

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CHAPTER VII.

CONCLUSION.

Thrown into a positive form, the doctrine contended
for in the foregoing chapters is this :— .

1. The whole management and direction of human
life depends upon the question whether or not there
is a God and a future state of human existence. If
there Is a God, but no future state, God is nothing to
us. If there is a future state, but no God, we can
form no rational guess about the future state.

2. If there is no God and no future state, reason-
able men wil! regulate their conduct cither by in-
clination or by common utilitarianism {p. 278).

3. If there is a God and a future state, reason-
able men will regulate their conduct by a wider kind
of utHitarianism (p. 303-4).

4. By whatever rule they regulate their conduct,
no room is left for any rational enthusiasm, for the
order of ideas hinted at by the phrase 'Liberty,
Equality, and Fraternity ; ' for, whichever rule is ap-
plied, there are a vast number of matters in respect
of which men ought not to be free ; they are funda-
mentally unequal, and they are not brothers at all, or
only under qualifications which make the assertion
of their fraternity unimportant.

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330 LIBERTY, EQUAflTV, FRATERNITY

It is impossible to carry on speculations which
lead to such results without being led to ask one-
self the question whether they are or can be of any
sort of importance ? The questions which I have
been discussing have been debated in various forms
for thousands of years. Is this consistent with the
possibility that they can ever be solved, and, if not,
why should they be debated by any one who has
no taste for a conflict never ending, still beginning,
fighting still, and still destroying ?

The answer is, that though these speculations
may be expected to be endless, and though their re-
sults are mainly destructive, they are nevertheless of
great use, and, indeed, are absolutely necessary.
They can show that particular sets of opinions are
incoherent, and so, properly speaking, not opinions
at all. They can cut down to their proper pro-
portions exaggerated estimates of the probability of
particular systems and expose their pretensions to
attain to something more than probability. Lastly,
they can show how particular opinions are related to
each other. And this is a wide field. As long as
men have any mental activity at all, they will
speculate, as they always have speculated, about
themselves, their destiny, and their nature. They
will ask in different dialects the questions What ?
Whence ? Whither ? And their answers to these
questions will be bold and copious, whatever else
they may be. It seems to me improbable in the
highest degree that any answer will ever be devised

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CONCLUSION 321

to any one of these questions which will be accepted
by all mankind in all ages as final and conclusive.
The facts of life are ambiguous. Different infer-
ences may be drawn from them, and they do not
present by any means the same general appearance
to people who look at them from different points of
view. To a scientific man society has a totally dif-
ferent appearance, it is, as far as he is concerned,
quite a different thing, from what it is to a man
whose business lies with men.

Again, the largest and by far the most important
part of all our speculations about mankind is based
upon our experience of ourselves, and proceeds upon
the supposition that the motives and principles of
action of others are substantially the same as our own.
The degree to which tastes of all sorts differ is a stand-
ing proof of the truth that this assumption includes an
allowance of error, though it is error of a kind from
which it is impossible for any human creature to free
himself It would be easy to accumulate other ob-
servations of the same sort. It is enough for my
purpose to observe in general that mankind appear
to me to be in die following difficulty, from which I
see no means of extrication. Either they must con-
fine their conclusions to matters which can be verifiec!
by actual experience, in which case the questions
which principally interest them must be dismissed
from consideration as insoluble riddles ; or they must
be satisfied with probable solutions of them, in which
case their solutions will always contain a certain

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323 LIBEUTy, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

degree of error and will require reconstruction from
age to age as circumstances cliange. Moreover,
more solutions than one will always be possible, and
there will be no means of deciding conclusively
which is right Experience appears to me to show
that the second branch of the alternative is the one
which wil! be accepted by mankind, and I think it is
the one which reasonable people ought to accept. I
think they should accept it openly and with a distinct
appreciation of its nature and consequences.

As a matter of fact this conclusion has been and
is accepted, though in a strangely inverted form, by
many persons whom it would startle. The whole doc-
trine of faith involves an admission that doubt is the
proper attitude of mind about religion, if the sub-
ject is regarded from the intellectual side alone. No
human creature ever yet preached upon the virtue of
faith in Euclid's demonstrations. They, and many
other propositions far less cogently supported, speak
for themselves. People naturally believe them on
the evidence, and do not require to be exhorted to
believe them as a matter of religious duty. If a man
actually did rise from the dead and find himself in
a different world, he would no longer be told to
believe in a future state ; he would know it. When
St. Paul contrasts seeing in a glass darkly with seeing
face to face — when he says tliat now wc know in
part and believe in part — he admits that belief is not
knowledge ; and he would have found it impossible
to distinguish (at least no one has ever yet established

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CONCLUSrON 323

an intelligible distinction) between faith and acting on
a probability— in other words, between faith and a
kind of doubt. The difference between the two
states of mind is moral, not intellectual. Faith says,
Yes, I will, though I am not sure. Doubt says, No,
I will not, because I am not sure, but they agree in
not being sure. Both faith and doubt would be
swallowed up in actual knowledge and direct expe-
rience.

It is easy to understand why men passionately
eager about the propagation of their creed should
persistently deny the force of this argument, and
should try by every means in their power to prove
that in regard to religious subjects insufficient evi-
dence may and ought to produce an unnatural effect.
Their object is obvious. If an act is to be done, it.
is done equally, whatever may be the motive for
doing it, and a probable opinion may be an adequate
motive as well as demonstration. Perfect certainty
of the approach of death, or a doubt whether death
may not be approaching, are states of mind either
of which may cause a man to make his will, and
when he dies it will be equally vahd whether his
death was foreseen with confidence or indistinctly
apprehended. But it is otherwise with feeling. A
general knowledge of the uncertainty of life produces
very different feelings from an immediate and con-
fident expectation of death. In the same way the
apprehension that the leading doctrines of religion
may be true may be a motive to much the same line

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3^4 LIlSERTy, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

of conduct as the most certain conviction that they
are true, but it will produce a very different state of
mind and feeling, It will give life a very different
colour.

This does not justify the attempt to give evidence
a weight which does not belong to it. Our feelings
ought to be regulated by the facts which excite them.
It is a great mistake, and the source of half the
errors which exist in the world, to yield to the tempt-
ation to allow our feelings to govern our estimate of
facts. Rational religious feeling is that feeling,
whatever it may be, which is excited in the mind
by a true estimate of the facts known to us which
bear upon religion. If we do not know enough to
feel warmly, let us by all means feel calmly ; but it
is dishonest to try to convert excited feeling into
evidence of facts which would justify it. To say,
' There must be a God because I love him,' is just
like saying, ' That man must be a rogue because I
hate him,' which many people do say, but not wisely.
There are in these days many speculations by very
able men, or men reputed to be of great ability,
which can all be resolved into attempts to increase
the bulk and the weight of evidence by heating It
with love. Dr. Newman's 'Grammar of Assent,'
with all its hair-splitting about the degrees of assent,
and the changes which it rings upon certainty and
certitude, is a good illustration of this, but it is like
the wriggling of a worm on a hook, or like the
efforts which children sometimes make to draw

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CONCLUSION 325

two Straight lines so as to enclose a space, or to
make a cross on a piece of paper with a single
stroke of a pencil, not passing twice over any part
of the cross. Turn and twist as you will, you can
never really get out of the proposition that the
Christian history is just as probable as the evidence
makes it, and no more ; and that to give a greater
degree of assent to it, or, if the expression is pre-
ferred, to give an unreserved assent to the proposition
that it has a greater degree of probability than the
evidence warrants, is to give up its character as an
historical event altogether.

There is, indeed, no great difficulty in showing
that we cannot get beyond probability at all in
any department of human knowledge. One short
proof of this is as follows : The present is a mere
film melting as we look at it. Our knowledge
of the past depends on memory, our knowledge
of the future on anticipation, and both memory and
anticipation are fallible. The firmest of all conclu-
sions andjudgments are dependent upon facts which,
for aught we know, may have been otherwise in the
past, may be otherwise in the future, and may at this
moment present a totally different appearance to
other intelligent beings from that which they present
to ourselves. It is possible to suggest hypotheses
which would refute what appear to us self-evident
truths, even truths which transcend thought and logic.
The proposition tacitly assumed by the use of the
word ' I ' may be false to a superior intelligence seeing

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3^6 LIBERTY, KQUAI-ITY, FRATERNITY

m each of us, not individuals, but parts of some greater
whole. The multiplication table assumes a world
which will stay to be counted. ' One and one are
two' is either a mere deBnition of the word two, or
an assertion that each one is, and for some time con-
tinues to be, one. The proposition would never have
occurred to a person who lived in a world where
everything was in a state of constant (lux. It may
be doubted whether it would appear tme to a being
so constituted as to regard the universe as a single
connected whole.

But leaving these fancies, for they are little more,
it is surely obvious that all physical science is only a
probability, and, what is more, one which we have no
means whatever of measuring. The whole process
of induction and deduction rests on the tacit assump-
tion that the course of nature has been, is, and will con-
tinue to be uniform. Such, no doubt, is the impression
which it makes on us. It is the very highest proba-
bility to which we can reach. It is the basis of all
systematic thought. It has been verified with won-
derful minuteness in every conceivable way, and yet
no one has ever been able to give any answer at all
to the question. What proof have you that the uni-
formities which you call laws will not cease or alter
to-morrow ? In regard to this, our very highest
probability, we are like a man rowing one way and
looking another, and steering his boat by keeping her
stem in a line with an object behind him. I do not
say this to undervalue science, but to show the con-

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CONCLUSION 327

ditions of human knowledge. Nothing can be more
certain than a conclusion scientifically established. It
is far more certain than an isolated present sensation
or an isolated recollection of a past sensation, and
yet it is but a probabilitj'. In acting upon scientific
conclusions we arc exposed to a risk of error which
we have no means of avoiding and of which we can-
not calculate die value. If our conclusions about
matters of sense which we can weigh, measure,
and handle are only probable, how can speculations,
which refer to matters transcending sense, and which
are expressed in words assuming sense, be more than
probable ?

If upon this it is asked whether there is no such
thing as certainty? I reply that certainty orcerdtude
(for I do not care to distinguish between words be-
tween which common usage makes no distinction) is
in propriety of speech the name of a state of mind,
and not the name of a quality of propositions.
Certainty is the state of mind in which, as a fact, a
man does not doubt. Reasonable certainty is the
state of mind in which it is prudent not to doubt.
It may be produced in many different ways and may
relate to every sort of subject. The important thing
to remember is the truism that it does not follow
that a man is right because he is positive ; though it
may be prudent that he should be positive, and take
the chance of being wrong. The conditions which
make certainty reasonable or prudent in regard to
particular matters are known with sufficient accuracy

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328 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

for most purposes, though they do not admit of being
stated with complete precision; but the certainty
which they warrant is in all cases contingent and
Hable to be disturbed, and it ditfers in the degree of
Its stability indefinitely according to circumstances.
There are many matters of which we are certain
upon grounds which are, and which we know to be,
of the most precariotis kind. In these cases our
certainty might be overthrown as readily as it was
established. There arc other cases in which our
certamty is based upon foundations so broad that,
though it is no doubt imaginable that it might be
overthrown, no rational man would attach the smallest
practical Importance to the possibility. No one
really doubts of a scientific conclusion if he once
really understands what science means. No jury
would doubt a probable story affirmed by credible
witnesses whose evidence was duly tested. No
reasonable man in common hfe doubts either his own
senses or immediate inferences from them, or the
grave assertions of persons well known to him to be
truthful upon matters within their personal know-
ledge, and not in themselves as improbable. Yet
in each case, a modest and rational man would be
ready, if he saw cause, to admit that he might be
wrong. There is probably no proposition whatever
which under no imaginable change of circumstances
could ever appear false, or at least doubtful, to any
reasonable being at any time or any place.

There is, perhaps, hardly any subject about which
so many webs of sophistry have been woven as

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CONCLUSION 329

about this. I cannot notice more than one of them
by way of Illustration. It assumes every sort of form,
and is exemplified in a thousand shapes in die wri-
tings of modern Roman Catholics and of some
mystical Protestants. Itraay be thus stated. Where-
as certainty is often produced by probable evidence,
and whereas the propositions of which people are
rendered certain by probable evidence are frequently
true, therefore the weight of the evidence ought not
to be taken as a measure of the mental effect which
it ought to produce. The fallacy is exacdy like the
superstition of gamblers — I betted three times
running on the red. I felt sure I should win, and I
did win, therefore the pretence to calculate chances
is idle. Wiiat more could any such calculation give
any one than a certitude ? I got my certitude by an
easier process, and the event justified it. To guess
is often necessary. To guess right is always for-
tunate, but no number of lucky guesses alters the
true character of the operation or decreases the in-
security of the foundation on which the person who
guesses proceeds.

It may be objected to all this that I have myself
referred to some subjects as lying beyond the reach
both of language and even of thought, and yet as
being matters widi which we are intimately con-
cerned — more intimately and more enduringly Indeed
than with any other matters whatever. How, it may
be asked, can you admit that there are matters which
transcend all language and all thought, and yet
declare that we cannot get beyond probability ?

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330 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

I am, of course, well aware of the fact that a belief
in what are sometimes called transcendental facts —
facts, that is, of which sensation does not inform us — is
frequently coupled widi a belief that a certain set of
verbal propositions about these facts are not only
true, but are perceived to be true by some special
faculty which takes notice of them. This has always
seemed to be illogical. If there are facts of which
we are conscious, and of which sensation does not
inform us, and if all our language Is derived from
and addressed to our senses, it would seem to follow
that language can only describe in a very inadequate
manner, that it can only hint at and seek to express
by metaphors taken from sense things which lie
beyond sense. That to which the word ' I ' points
can neither be seen, touched, nor heard. 1 1 Is
an inscrutable mystery; but the image which the
word ' I ' raises in our minds Is the image of a
particular human body. Indeed, the opinion that the
facts with which we are most intimately concerned
tmnscend both language and thought, and the opinion
tliat words, whether spoken or unspoken, can never
reach to those facts, or convey anything more than
sensible Images of them, more or less incorrect, in-
adequate, and conjectural, are the opposite sides of
one and the same opinion. The true Inference from
the inadequacy of human language to the expression
of truths of this class Is expressed in the "words,
' He is in heaven and thou art on earth, therefore let
thy words be few.' As upon these great subjects we

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, CONCLUSION 331

have to express ourselves in a very Imperfect way,
and under great disadvantages, we shall do well to
say as litde as we can, and to abstain as far as
possible from the process of piling inference upon
inference, each inference becoming more improbable
in a geometrical ratio as it becomes more remote
from actual observation. As we must guess, let us
make our conjectures as modest and as simple as
we can. A probability upon a probability closely
resembles an improbability.

It must never be forgotten that it is one thing
to doubt of the possibility of exactly adjusting
words to facts, and quite another to doubt of the
reality and the permanence of the facts themselves.
Though, as I have said, the facts which we see
around us suggest several explanations, it is equally
true that of those explanations one only can be true.
When the oracle said to Pyrrhus ' Aio tc, .^acida,
Romanes vincere posse,' it meant, not that he could
conquer the Romans, but that the Romans could
conquer him, though to Pyrrhus the words would con-
vey either meaning; and, however fully we may
admit that the question whether men are spirits or
funguses is one which cannot be conclusively deter-
mined by mere force of argument, it is perfectly
clear that, if the one opinion is true, the other is false.
In nearly all tlie important transactions of life, indeed
in all transactions whatever which have relation to the
future, we have to take a leap in the dark. Though
life is proverbially uncertain, our whole course of life

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332 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

assumes that our lives will continue for a considerable,
ttiough for an indefinite, period. Wlien we are to
take any important resolution, to adopt a profession,
to make an offer of marriage, to enter upon a specu-
lation, to write a book — to do anything, in a word,
which involves important consequences— we have to
act for the best, and in nearly every case to act upon
very imperfect evidence.

The one talent which is worth all other talents
put together in all human affairs is the talent of
judging right upon imperfect materials, the talent
if you please of guessing right. It is a talent which
no rules will ever teach and which even expe-
rience does not always give. It often coexists with
a good deal of slowness and dulness and with a very
slight power of expression. All that can be said
about it is, that to see things as they are, without
exaggeration or passion, is essential to it; but how
can we see things as they are ? Simply by opening
our eyes and looking with whatever power we may
have. All really important matters are decided, not
by a process of argument worked out from adequate
premisses to a necessary conclusion, but by making
a wise choice between several possible views.

I believe it to be the same with religious belief.
Several coherent views of the matter are possible,
and as they are suggested by actual facts, may be
called probable. Reason, in the ordinary sense of
the word, can show how many such views there are,
and can throw light upon their comparative proba-

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CONCLUSION

bility, by discussing the diiTerent questions of fact
which they involve, and by tracing out their con-
nection with other speculations. It is by no means
improbable that the ultimate result of this process
may be to reduce the views of life which are
at once coherent and suggested by facts to a very
small number, but when all has been done that
can be done these questions will remain — What
do you think of yourself ? What do you think of
the world ? Are you a mere machine, and is your
consciousness, as has been said, a mere resultant ? Is
the world a mere fact suggesting nothing beyond
itself worth thinking about ? These are questions
with which all must deal as it seems good to them.
They are riddles of the Sphinx, and in some way or
other we must deal with them. If we decide to
leave them unanswered, that is a choice. If we
waver in our answer, that too is a choice ; but what-
ever choice we make, we make it at our peril. If a
man chooses to turn his back altogether on God and
the future, no one can prevent him. No one can
show beyond all reasonable doubt that he is mis-
taken. If a man thinks otherwise, and acts as he
thinks, I do not see how any one can prove that he
is mistaken. Each must act as he thinks best, and
if he is wrong so much the worse for him. We
stand on a mountain pass in the midst of whirling
snow and blinding mist, through which we get
glimpses now and then of paths which may be de-
ceptive. If we stand still, we shall be frozen to

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334 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNriT

death. If we take tlie wrong road, we shall be
dashed to pieces. We do not certainly know whether
there is any right one. What must we do ? 'Be
strong and of a good courage.'* Act for the best,
hope for the best, and take what comes. Above all,
let us dream no dreams, and tell no lies, but go our
way, wherever it may lead, with our eyes open and
our heads erect. If death ends all, we cannot meet
it better. If not, let us enter whatever may be the
next scene like honest men, with no sophistry in our
mouths and no masks on our faces.

* Deuteronomy, xxxi, 6 and 7. ' Be strong and of a good
courage, fear not nor be afraid of them.' It is the charge of Moses
to Joshua.

I ..Google

NOTE ON UTILITARIANISM.

[The following is the substance of two Articles which I
published in the 'Pall Mall Gazette,' in June 1869, on the
subject o£ ' Utilitarianism.' It was suggested by some
criticisms on a work of Mr. Lecky's, which have lost their
interest. I have accordingly omitted all reference to Mr.
Lecky and his critics, but I reprint the substance of the
Articles, because they explain systematically my views on
a subject which is glanced at in several places in this work.]

Ai! moral controversies may be reduced under four
general heads. First, what is the sphere of morals, what
part of human life do they cover, and of what other ele-
ments in human nature do they assume the existence ?
Secondly, what is the nature of the distinction between
right and wrong .' Thirdly, how are we to ascertain whether
given actions are right or wrong ? Fourthly, why should
we do what is right and avoid what is wrong ? Of these
four questions the second, third, and fourth have been dis-
cussed in every possible way from the most remote times.
The first, which is of extreme importance, has as yet been
hardly touched. It is in respect to the other three ques-
tions that the points of difference and agreement between
the two great schools of intuition and experience have
displayed and continue to display themselves.

It is necessary, in order to appreciate this, to show first
what is the meaning of the leading doctrine of tlie two
great schools in question, and next, how each of them
deals with each of the three questions above mentioned.
In the first place, it is obvious that there is no contradiction

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336 NOTE ON UTILITARIAKI5M

between intuition and experience, for all experience assumes
and presupposes intuition. All men in all ages have been
and are now profoundly affected by the contemplation of
the conduct of other men. There never was a time or
country in which people were in the habit of observing
each other's conduct with the indifference with which tliey
might watch the ebb and flow of the tide or the motions of
the heavenly bodies. However we may account for it,
the feelings which we call sympathy and antipathy, praise
and blame, love and hatred, arc, in fact, produced by ob-
serving particular kinds of conduct, and in each particular
man at any given time those sentiments are as involuntary
as the pain which follows a blow, or the pleasure produced
by an agreeable sound or taste. If, when it is asserted that
morality is intuitive or depends upon intuition, all that is
meant is that the contemplation of human conduct pro-
duces involuntary emotions of various kinds in every
spectator, Austin or Bentham would have admitted the
truth of those propositions as much as their most vigorous
opponents. They would even have gone a step farther
and have owned that there is, as a matter of fact, a broad
general resemblance between the acts which are regarded
with sympathy and antipathy, and which excite praise or
blame, in different generations and distant parts of the
world. No one ever doubted that some degree of indiffer-
ence to the infliction of suffering has at all times and places
been blamed as cruelty, or that a wish, under some circum-
stances or other, to promote the happiness of others has
always and everywhere received praise under the name of
benevolence. The controversy between the two schools of
morals relates not to the facts but to the manner in which
they are to be interpreted, and this will be best displayed
by considering the way in which each school would treat
each of the three questions above mentioned.

The first question is. What is the difference between
right and wrong .' As a fact, certain classes of actions are in

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NOTE ON UTILITARIANISM 337

popular language called right and wrong, and are regarded
by the world at large with praise or blame respectively.
Is this an ultimate fact beyond which we cannot go ?

The analogy which exists between this inquiry and
kindred questions on other subjects is often overlooked,
and ought to be observed. Take, for instance, such words
as 'heavy' and 'light,' ' up ' and 'down,' 'wet' and 'dry.' No
words can seem clearer ; yet experience has shown that it is
impossible to use them philosophically, or to get any but the
most confused, unintelligible results from the attempt to
throw them into systems, until they have been interpreted
by certain broad general principles which show their true
relation to each other. For instance, till it was proved that
all bodies attract each other under certain conditions, and
that the earth is a proximately spherical body revolving in
a certain course, it was impossible to use such words as
'up' and ' down,' 'heavy' and 'light' in a really scientific
manner. The utilitarian answer to the question, ' What is
tlie difference between right and wrong ? ' is an attempt —
successful or otherwise, as it may be — to do for ethics what
those who made the great elementary discoveries in physics
did for the mass of observed facts, and for the expressive
but indefinite words descriptive of those facts which the
unsystematic observation of ages had accumulated about
the heavenly bodies and common natural objects.

Of course, if we are content to confine ourselves upon
these subjects to inconclusive rhetoric, it is possible to do
so. There is no course of conduct for which dyslogistic or
eulogistic epithets may not be found. Any given act may
be described as severity or cruelty, courage or rashness,
obstinacy or firmness, gentleness or weakness, according to
the sympathy or antipathy which it happens to create in
the speaker; and in cases which present little difficulty, and
in which the only object is to bring public opinion to bear
upon some action as to the moral complexion of which
tiicre is no real question, little more is required. When,
Z

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338 NOTE ON UTILITARIANISM

howe/er, commonplaces can be plausibly adduced on both
sides, it becomes apparent that such language is useful only
as a relief to the feelings, and that it supplies no guide at
all to conduct. Take such a question, for instance, as alms-
giving. The beauties of charity on the one side and the
beauties of independence on the other, the claims of the
individual and the claims of the public, may be balanced
against each other indefinitely ; but the process can never
lead to any d.;finite result at all, unless some general prin-
ciple is laid down which enables us to affix a precise
meaning to the general words employed, into which, when
we wish to bring the controversy to a definite issue, they
may be translated.

The utilitarian answer to the question, .What is the
meaning of right and wrong? is an attempt, successful
or not, to supply this precise meaning to popular language.
The utilitarian says, I observe that, speaking broadly, men
desire the same sorts of things, and I call the attainment
of these objects of desire by the general name of hap-
piness. I also observe that certain courses of conduct tend
to promote, and that others tend to prevent or interfere
with, the attainment of these objects of desire by mankind,
and that tlie popular use of the words ' right ' and 'wrong '
has a marked general correspondence to these two classes
of conduct. Speaking generally, the acts which are called
right do promote or are supposed to promote general hap-
piness, and the acts which are called wrong do diminish or
are supposed to diminish it. I say, therefore, that this is
what the words 'right' and 'wrong' mean, just as the words
'up' and 'down' mean that which points from or towards the
earth's centre of gravity, though they are used by millions
who have not the least notion of the fact that such is their
meaning, and though they were used for centuries and
millenniums before any one was or even could be aware of
it. Our language begins by being vivid and inexact. We
are enabled to render it precise, and so to assign what may be

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NOTE ON UTILITARIANISM 339

conveniently called its true meaning, only when experience
has informed us of the relations of the subject-matter to
which it applies.

Believers in moral intuitions may answer the question,
What do you mean by right and wrong ? in one of two
ways. They may say you cannot get beyond the fact that
these words and their equivalents are, in fact, applied to
certain courses of conduct. Those who give this answer
are bound to go on to say that the courses of conduct to
which the words in question are applied are always and
everywhere the same, and that they denote a specific
quality like the words red or blue, which may be imme-
diately and distinctly perceived by every one who considei-s
the subject ; for, if they do not, the result will be that the
use of the words will denote nothing except the individual
sympathy or antipathy, as the case may be, of the persons
by whom they are used, and this confessedly varies from
time to time and place to place. On the other hand, they
may say that the words have the meaning which utili-
tarians assign to them, and may say nothing about their
moral intuitions till they come to the second of the ques-
tions referred to.

This second question is, How am I to know right from
wrong? It is independent of the first question, though
they are not unconnected. The utilitarian answer is, that
the knowledge of right and wrong does not differ from
other branches of knowledge, and must be acquired in the
same way. An intuitive moralist would say that there is
a special function of the mind— namely, conscience— which
recognizes at once the specific difference which is alleged
to exist between them, whether that difference consists in
their effect upon happiness or in anything else. It is,
however, to be observed that almost all utilitarians admit
the existence of conscience as a fact. They admit, that is,
that men do pass moral judgments on their own acts and
those of other people, that these moral jiidgmcnls are

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340 NOTE ON UTILITARIANISM

involuntary when tlic moral character is once formed, and
that whether they apply to the acts of the judge himself
or to the acts of other persons. They would say, for in-
stance, that an ordinary Englishman of our own time, who
shares the common opinion of his country as to monogamy
and polygamy, would be as unable to regard a given act
of bigamy with approval as to think that on a given day
the earth did not move round the sun. They deny, how-
ever, that conscience is the ultimate test of right and wrong
in the sense of being able to tell us with unerring certainty
whether a given action is or is not in accordance with a
rule calculated to promote the general happiness of man-
kind, or what in respect to a given subject matter those
rules are. They also deny that conscience recognizes any
specific difference between right and wrong actions, and
that there is any such specific difference other than the one
already stated to be recognized. It is also to be observed,
on the other hand, that there Is nothing inconsistent in be-
heving that right and wrong depend upon the tendency
of actions to produce happiness, and that we have in con-
science a specific quality or power which enables us to
recognize this tendency in any action to which we turn our
attention.

The third question is. Why should I do right ? Upon
this several observations arise which are continually over-
looked. The first is, that people usually write as if every
moralist were bound to supply a satisfactory answer to it ;
whereas, it is perfectly conceivable that there may be no
answer. A man may give a full definition of health, and
may point out the measures by which healthy symptoms
may be distinguished from the symptoms of disease, and he
may yet be quite unable to lay down rules by which health
can be secured. Thus it is possible that a consistent mean-
ing can be assigned to the words ' right ' and ' wrong,' and
that the appropriate means for distinguishing between them
may be pointed out, but that there may be no sufficient

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NOTE ON UTILITARIANISM 34!

reason why people in general should do right and avoid
doing wrong.

The second observation Is that the fact that there is so
mnch wrongdoing in the world seems difficult to reconcile
with the theory that right and wrong are recognized by
intuition ; and that as soon as the rightfulness of an action
is recognized the fact is of itself a sufficient reason why it
should be done.

The third observation is that the question itself cannot
be put except in a form which assumes that the utilitarian
answer is the only one which can possibly be given. That
answer is, I ought to do right, because to do right will con-
duce to my greatest happiness. It is impossible to assign any
other meaning than this to the words ' why should ' or to
any equivalent which can be devised for them. The words
'why should I' mean 'what shall I get by,' 'what motive
have I for' this or that course of conduct. The instant
you assign a motive of any sort whatever for doing rigjit,
whether it is the love of God, the love of man, the approval
of one's own conscience, or even the pleasure of doing right
itself, you admit the principle that the question relates to
the weight of motives. The only acts, if acts they can be
called, which do not fall under this principle are acts which
. cannot be helped. If upon recognizing a given course of
conduct as right a man had as little choice about doing it
as he has about dying of a mortal wound, it would be taken
out of the utilitarian principle, otherwise not.

These remarks bring us to tlie question itself, which is
beyond all doubt the most difficult as it is the most im-
portant of the great ethical questions. I have already
given the utilitarian answer, but, before noticing the standard
objection to it, it may be as well to expound it, so as to
show what it implies. It implies that the reasons for doing
right vary indefinitely according to the nature of the right
act to be done, and the circumstances of the person by
whom it is to be done. There is no one sanction which

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34- NOTE ON UTllJTARIAN'lSM

applies with precisely equal weight to every conceivable
case of doing right. For instance, why should not the
Lord Chancellor commit given theft? Because amongst
other things by committing theft he would fall from a
very high to a very low position. Why should not an
habitual pickpocket commit the same theft ? Because he
would confirm a wicked habit and risk punishment, but as
for his character and position he has none to lose. The
reasons, therefore, why the two men should or ought to
abstain, the elements of their respective obligations, are
different. To use Jeremy Taylor's appropriate though
obsolete expression, they are not 'tied by the same bands."
Obligation is simply a n\etaphor for tying. This of course
suggests the standard difficulty upon the subject. Wiiy
should A. B. do a specific right action when it happens to
be opposed to his interest ?

The answer usually given is not very satisfactory. It
is to the effect that the utihtarian standard is not the
greatest happiness of one man, but the greatest happiness
of men in general ; and that the rule of conduct which the
whole system supplies is that men ought to act upon those
rules which are found to produce general happiness, and
not that they ought in particular cases to calculate the
specific consequences to themselves of their own actions.
This answer is incomplete rather than untrue, for, after all,
it leads to the further question, Why should a man consult
the general happiness of mankind ? Why should he prefer
obedience to a rule to a specific calculation in a specific
case, when, after all, the only reason for obeying the rule
is the advantage to be got by it, which by the hypothesis
is not an advantage, but a loss in the particular ca^e i" A
given road may be the direct way from one place to another,
but that fact is no reason for follawing the road when you
are offered a short cut. It may be a good general rule
not to seek for more than 5 per cent, in investments, but
if it so happens that you can invest at 10 per cent, with

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NOTE ON UTILITARIANLSM 343

perfect safely, would not a man who rcfuscd to do so be
a foul ?

The answer to the question involves an examination of
the meaning of the word 'ought' and its equivalent
'should.' When they are freed from their latent ambigui-
ties the answer becomes easy. These words always de-
note that which would have happened if some principle
tacitly assumed by the speaker to be applied to the case
in question had been acted upon. It is true that most
frequently their use imphes that the speaker regards
with approval the application of the principle which he
assumes to the facts which he assumes, but this is not
always the case. The following examples illustrate this ; —
' Did my servant give you my message ? He ought to
have done so.' This implies that the servant was ordered
to give the message, and that if he had obeyed orders he
would have given it, and that the speaker would approve
of the regulation of the servant's conduct by the principle
of obedience to orders. ' They ought to be in town by
this time. The train left Paris last night." This implies
that the journey from Paris to London by a certain route
occupies a certain time under circumstances which the
speaker assumes to apply to the case of which he speaks.
' I ought to have five shillings in my purse, and there are
only three.' This implies that the speaker has made an
arithmetical calculation as to the money which he had at
a given time and the money which he had since spent,
and that, applying the rules of arithmetic to the facts known
to him, the result does not correspond. As no one doubts
the truth of the rules of arithmetic, it is a way of saying
that the facts assumed to exist are incomplete. In these
cases no approval on the part of the speaker is indicated
by the word ' ought.'

We can now answer the question, what is meant by such
expressions as 'He ought not to lie,' or 'He ought to
lie ' ? rhey mean, first, that the speaker assumes human

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344 NOTE ON LTII.JTARIANISM

conduct to be regulated by given principles, and that tlie
application of those principles to some state of facts will
or will not result in lying ; but they may mean, secondly,
that some one or other, the speaker or the person referred
to, would regard with approval such a course of proceeding.
Thus the word ' ought,' even when explained, is still equi-
vocal ; for it may refer either to the principles accepted
by the speaker himself or to those which are accepted by
the person referred to. Thus the expression, 'You, as
Christians, ought to love one another," is an argument ad
homines. You acknowledge principles which, if applied to
practice, would make you love one another. ' I cannot say
that a Mahometan ought not to practise polygamy,' would
not convey any approbation of polygamy on the part of
the speaker. It means merely that no principle admitted
by Mahometans condemns polygamy.

When, therefore, utilitarians are asked whether a man
who upon the whole thinks it for his advantage to commit
a gross fraud ought or ought not to commit it, the question
is ambiguous. It may mean either. Would utilitarians in
general blame a man who so acted ? or. Would the man
himself act inconsistently with any principle admitted by
him to be true .' To the first question the answer will be
that the man ought not to act as suggested. To the second,
the answer will be that he ought.

The explanation and illustration of the second answer
will serve to explain the first. A man who, upon the
whole and having taken into account every relevant con-
sideration, thinks it for his interest to do an act highly
injurious to the world at large, no doubt would do it. Bat
let us consider what would be the state of mind implied by
the fact that he did take this view of his interest. A man
who calmly and deliberately thinks that it is upon the
whole his interest to commit an assassination which can
never be discovered in order that he may inherit a fortune,
shows, in the first place, that he has utterly rejected every

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NOTE ON UTILITARIANISM ^.\j

form of the religious sanction ; next, that he has no con-
science and no self-respect ; next, that he has no bene-
volence. His conduct affords no evidence as to his fear of
leg'al punishment or popular indignation, inasmuch as by
the supposition he is not exposed to them. He has thus
no motive for abstaining from a crime which he has a
motive for committing ; but motive is only another name,
a neutral instead of a eulogistic name, for obligation or
tie. It would, therefore, be strictly accurate to say of
such a man that he — from his point of view and upon his
principles — ought, or is under an obhgation, or is bound
by the only tie which attaches to him, to commit murder.
But it is this very fact which explains the hatred and blame
which the act would excite in the minds of utilitarians in
general, and which justifies them in saying on all common
occasions that men ought not to do wrong for their own
advantage, because on all common occasions the word
' ought ' refers not to the rules of conduct which abnor-
mal individuals may recognize, but to those which are
generally recognized by mankind, ' You ought not to
assassinate,' means if you do assassinate God will damn
you, man will hang you if he can catch you, and hate you
if he cannot, and you yourself will hate yourself, and be
pursued by remorse and self-contempt all the days of your
life. If a man is under none of these obligations, if his
state of mind is such that no one of these considerations
forms a tie upon him, all that can be said is that it is
exceedingly natural that the rest of the world should regard
him as a public enemy to be knocked on the head like a
mad dog if an opportunity offers, and that for the very
reason that he is under no obligations, that he is bound
by none of the ties which connect men with each other,
that he ought to He, and steal, and murder whenever his
immediate interests prompt him to do so.

To regard such a conchision as immoral is to say that
to analyse morality is to destroy it ; tliat to enumerate its

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346 NOTE ON UTILITARIANISM

sanctions specifically is to take them away; that to say
that a weight is upheld by four different ropes, and to own
that if each of them were cut the weight would fall, is
equivalent to cutting the ropes. No doubt, if ail religion,
all law, all benevolence, all conscience, all regard for popu-
lar opinion were taken away, there would be no assignable
reason why men should do right rather than wrong ; but
the possibility which is implied in these ' ifs ' is too remote
to require practical attention.

This brings us to the consideration of the answer which
a believer in moral intuitions would return to the question.
Why should not I do wrong ? The answer must be, that
there is in man an irreducible sense of obligation or duty
— a sort of instinct — an intuitive perception of a higher
and lower side to our nature which forbids it. The objec-
tion to this answer is that it is not an answer at all.
Nothing is an answer which does not show that on full
computation the balance of motives will be in favour of
doing right. The existence of a sense of duty in most
men at most times and places is not in dispute. Upon
utilitarian principles it is one of the chief sanctions, in all
common cases it is the chief sanction, of morality ; but,
like all other motives, its force varies according to circum-
stances, and any one who will consider the matter for a
moment must see that it often is too weak to restrain men
from every sort of iniquity, even when it is backed by
all the sanctions of religion, conscience, law, and public
opinion.

What would it be if all these sanctions were withdrawn.'
It would be simply an irrational, instinctive shrinking
from a particular set of acts which men are prompted to
do by motives which in practice frequently prove strong
enough to overpower not only that instinct, but the fear
of punishment, of infamy, and of self-reproach as well.
Suppose that a man neither feared God nor cared for
man, but had a sensitive conscience, what reason can be

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NOTE ON UTILITARIANISM 347

assigned why he should not systematically blunt it? The
admission that conscience represents the higher side of our
nature, whatever that may mean, proves nothing. Con-
science is, no doubt, a motive of action, but it is impossible
to regard it as anything else ; and if it is regarded as
a motive, it must come into competition with other motives,
and so tlie utilitarian answer to the question, 'Why should
I do right ? ' must be given.

This review of the points at issue between believers in
the principle of expediency and believers in moral intuitions
shows where the real difference between them lies and how
far it extends. Unless those who believe in moral intui-
tions go so far as to assert the existence of specific moral
rules expressed in a definite form of distinctly inteUigible
words, capable of being applied at once to human conduct,
and perceived by some specific faculty of the mind to be
absolute unvarying ultimate trutlis, they assert nothing
which utilitarians are interested in denying. Probably no
one in these days would make such an assertion.

Again, as Bentham pointed out, the principle of moral
intuitions, or, as he called it, the principle of sympathy and
antipathy, never can, from the nature of the case, be so
applied as to lead to any definite result. It proposes no
external standard to which disputants can appeal, and its
adoption would involve as a necessary consequence the
hopeless perpetuation of all moral controversies.

It is impossible to express any proposition affecting
morals in words which are perfectly perspicuous and free
from metaphor, and it will be found that as soon as an
attempt is made to explain the words which are inevitably
employed, and so to reduce to a precise meaning the
propositions which are constructed out of them, it is ab-
solutely necessary to have recourse to the principle of
utility. A moral intuition, or any other intuition which
docs not go so far as to enunciate definite propositions in ex-
press words, is only a fine name for those inarticulate feelings

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