Book_j_ v. ESSAYS HENKY THOMAS BUCKLE, AUTHOR OP 'A HISTORY OF CIYILIZATION IN ENGLAND, WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR. ILLUSTRATED WITH A PHOTOGRAPHIC PORTRAIT. ISTEW YOEK : D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 443 & 445 BKOADWAY, 1863. LC Control Number tmp96 026796 CONTENTS. Biographical Sketch of Henry Thomas Buckle, . 7 Mill on Liberty, . . . . .39 The Influence of Women on the Progress of Knowledge, . . . . . .165 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF HENKY THOMAS BUCKLE. Ij^ the year 1485 there appeared in Flor- ence a young man who, from his illustrious birth and his natural endowments, would have attracted notice in any city, but whom that city of academies and home of the learned wel- comed w^ith instant wonder and applause. He was the most various, if not the most profound, scholar of his time. At the age of sixteen he ranked among the foremost canonists of Bo- logna. In the next six years he had ranged through all the circles of ancient and scholastic philosophy, and had explored the recesses of Jewish Cabbalism. His Latin compositions reflected the image of the Augustan age ; his Italian verses delighted at once the Court of the Medici and the people in the streets. In his twenty-third year he propounded at Borne O BIOGKAPHICAL SKETCH. nine hundred theses or questions, upon every one of which he offered to dispute with any opponent. In these questions he embraced every department of knowledge, as knowledge then was — metaphysics and ethics, theology and law, magic and mathematics. Of this challenge the issue is imperfectly recorded, but it at least alarmed the Church, since two Popes were constrained to protect the challenger with their sacerdotal purple. His projects were even more vast than his performances. He aimed at reconciling with one another all the systems of philosophy, from the days of the Athenian Sophists to those of the medieval doctors. He aspired to defend Christianity against every class of heretics and infidels— against the Greek Church on the one hand, and the colleges of Cordova and Bagdad on the other. He meditated an allegorical commen- tary on the Scriptures, and even with greater hardihood a scheme that by the force of mere syllogisms should compel all men to be of one mind in religion. Of labours so unintermitted, an early death was almost the inevitable result, and Giovanni Pico di Mirandula — c the phoenix of his age,' as he was called by his con- BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 9 temporaries — was cut off by a fever in his thirty-first year. With this universal student we are about to contrast a modern writer who, w T ithin the last few years, has achieved as sudden and nearly as extraordinary a reputation. The difference of the times in which they wrote is reflected in the different character of their works. The objects to which the Italian devoted himself comprised the learning and science of his time, and with that time they have for the most part passed away. The studies of the English- man, embracing as wide a circle, have in them the seeds of greater permanence, inas- much as they relate to the perpetual interests and not to the transient theories and opin- ions of mankind. In these respects these accomplished men resembled each other. Both of them had conceived the idea of a vast, perhaps an impracticable work ; and each had scarcely passed its portal when he was summoned to rest from his labours. Henry Thomas Buckle expired at Damas- cus on the last day of May in the present year. That they have been born and have died, is record enough for the greater portion of 10 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. mankind; and it is well when the interval between birth and death affords no materials for censure or compassion. But, in the pres- ent instance, a laborious life and lofty aims establish a claim to a register of greater length. There has passed away from the world one of the heroes, if not one of the martyrs, of learning. The claim is the more remarkable from its resting on no public services — unless, indeed, we account as such the conception and par- tial execution of an arduous and original work — on no official distinctions. Mr. Buckle was a man who trod in no one of the paths which confer early honours, and receive the sanction of the world. He was not, like Twed- dell or Kirke White, ' the young Lycidas ' of a university upon whose bier scholars strewed Greek and Latin elegies ; nor, like Shelley, a brilliant meteor of the poetical firmament ; nor, like Henry Martyn, the pioneer of a Church in ' perilous lands forlorn ; ' nor, like Francis Horner, a statesman struck down on the threshold of a political career. Mr. Buckle was no one of these; and yet the announcement of his death has cast a shadow BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 11 upon many who knew him only as an inde- fatigable wooer of knowledge, a bold explorer in the regions of historical and social science. His life, so far as regards the world, was uneventful. He was the son of a London merchant. He was born at Lee, in Kent, November 24th, 1822. He was placed at an early age at Gordon-house, Kentish Town, where, under the training of Dr. J. T. Hollo- way, he rapidly gained distinction. The in- stinct for self-education was, however, strong, and indeed irresistible, in him. Having gained a prize for mathematics, and being desired by his parents to name his own ad- ditional reward, he claimed the privilege of being removed from school, and receiving thenceforth his education at home. When he made this unusual request, he was in his four- teenth year. We have not the means of de- termining whether his parents were rash or discreet in granting it. Mr. Buckle, however, was either dissatisfied with his instructors, or resolved to be the sole architect of his own mind. His tutors were dismissed ; and he, a boy of fourteen years, set forth without a pilot upon the sea of knowledge. In about 12 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. four years Lis multifarious studies began to converge towards one focus — the intellectual progress and civilization of mankind. As soon as tlie idea of sucli a work presented itself distinctly to him, its fulfilment became the object of his life. Twenty years of labour, with scarcely an interval of rest, were de- voted to it. On this method of study, or the merit of his book, we shall express some opin- ion presently : the book itself must always be regarded as an extraordinary proof of a mind at once sanguine and persevering. As he rejected the assistance of masters in language or science, so he declined following the mer- cantile business he might have inherited from his father. In the good London merchant, who can scarcely be supposed to have watched without some misgivings his son's independent course, we are reminded of the lenient and trustful father of John Milton. He, too, per- mitted his studious son, after a university career of signal promise, to devote himself to ' a ceaseless round of study and reading ; ' nor did he require him to enter a profession by which the cost of his education might be reimbursed. Till Milton was over thirty-two BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 13 years of age, he did not earn a single penny for himself, and afterwards he travelled in France and Italy, also at the paternal expense, for a year and three months. From such care for the morrow as would have interrupted his daily studies, Mr. Buckle was happily released by his father's liberality ; and by his death, in 1840, he came into posses- sion of a handsome competence, of wealth, indeed, to one whose sole expenditure was upon books. These gradually lined the walls of his upper and low T er chambers, and even his out-buildings were turned into libraries. If he kept a journal in any degree commensurate with his commonplace-books, we may one day learn how often he withstood the temptation to rush into print : how often he experienced the feeling inseparable from the composition of a great work, that he was farther from the beginning, and still but little nearer the end. It is recorded of the first explorers of the Amazon and Orinoco, that after voyaging for weeks amid the primeval forests and far-stretching savannahs that embank these rivers, each time that the mighty flood spread itself into some gigantic basin or lagoon, the weary and won- 14 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH, dering adventurers deemed that they had at last reached the terminus of the ocean ; nor was it until the waters again narrowed their course, and ran once more under overshadow- ing trees, and with an accelerated current, that they discovered their real bourne to be still remote. So it is with adventurers on the great tributaries of the ocean of knowledge : the fountain-heads of the stream lie far beyond the eastern horizon ; but the time which marks the westering sun still lies far beyond the anxious gaze of the voyager. Mr. Buckle, 1 taking not rest, making not haste,' in the year 1857 — that is to say, about twenty years after the idea of a History of Human Progress in England first dawned upon him — committed the result of his steady ten-hours-a-day labour to the press, and followed the first volume with a second, published in 1861. The former of these volumes was at first received with in- difference, but it speedily aroused curiosity, and next no small degree of indignation and alarm. The second was more coolly welcomed in England, and deeply resented in Scotland. ' An author, 5 says Gibbon, speaking of the reception of the second and third volumes of BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 15 the Decline and Fall, c who cannot ascend will always appear to sink ; envy was now prepared for my reception, and the zeal of my religious, was fortified by the motives of my political, enemies.' Mr. Buckle had assailed more than one order of mankind : the political economist and the lawyer have, perhaps, long since ceased to resent, but the Scotch are not likely to forget, nor are the clergy prone to forgive, such an antagonist. The former of these volumes has this ex- pressive inscription : i To my mother I dedi- cate this, the first volume of my first work : ' the second is dedicated to her < memory.' With many readers the author has doubtless passed for a hard man, dealing with men's actions and thoughts as with so many links in the chain of causation, with the aspects of life as the mere products or phenomena of Fate or Necessity. In these inscriptions the rock is smitten, and the waters of love well freely forth. In this excellent mother, were centered the writer's affections : to her the philosopher became as a little child ; for her the soul that dwelt apart, reserved the treas- ures of his faith and love. Her death, and, 16 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. we believe, the harbingers of that death— long bodily and mental decay were most painful to witness — prostrated her son, already en- feebled in body by the unceasing strain of his mind. His body he from earliest youth had treated as a slave, his mind as a sovereign : for the one no sacrifice was too great ; for the other, no privations were thought excessive. It is in vain to inquire whether the usual sports of boyhood, and the manly exercises that prevail at our universities, might not have corroborated Jiis physical, without any sac- rifice of his mental, powers. Labour and sor- row had, however, done their work ; and leisure and foreign travel came too late to relieve his enfeebled forces. In this life, uneventful as it was, we have a very rare example of devotion to a fixed object, dating from a period at which literary plans are mostly dreams or Like the borealis race, That flit ere you can point their place. The pages which he gave to the world, as well as those which remained to be written, were planned by him at a time of life when to most men study is irksome ; and even to the BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 17 few who conquer indolence, is either a means to an immediate end, or a stepping-stone to wealth or worldly position. With powers that might have won for him the highest uni- versity honours, he turned aside from that near goal, and set before him one which he might never reach at all, and which it was not destined for him fully to embrace. Kor does it lessen the merit of his devotion to study, that circumstances relieved him from caring too much for the morrow. Competence, no less than wealth, is often a hindrance to continuous labour. He whose bread is pro- vided for him is too apt to say, with Easselas, that i the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow ; ' that he is not an athlete to whom every moment is precious. But none of these Siren voices had charms for the ear of Henry Thomas Buckle : and he steered by the fatal island where so much of youth — ' Youth on the prow and Pleasure at the helm' — has wrecked the hopes of life. In more than one memorable passage Cicero has put on record his own early diligence ; and we still read with pleasure the honest pride with which he recounts how he i scorned 18 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. delights, and lived laborious days'— liow he, a novus homo, raised himself to the ivory chair of high-born Fabii and Manlii. Many records, also, have we of men to whom to study was to be happy — by whom a day spent in what Ben Jonson calls ' the cold business of life ' — its ceremonies, holidays, and amusements — was reckoned a day lost. Isaac Casaubon's Ephemerides are full of lamentations for hours wasted on friends, kinsfolk, and acquaintance, instead of being turned to profit on Athenseus or Polybius. Adrien Baillet destroyed by intemperance in study the frail body that nature had bestowed on him. Robert Southey set a noble example to all who adopt the vo- cation of the scholar : the days of Immanuel Kant certified to each other of the duties and pleasures of the philosopher ; and the elder Pliny, both by his life and death, merited a name among the martyrs of science. But none of these earnest students surpassed Mr. Buckle in firmness of purpose or diligence in business. He discerned, or at least he im- agined, that a great void in the history of human progress awaited the filiing-up : and however opinions may vary upon his fitness BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 19 for his self-imposed task, there can be Mio question of the ardour and sincerity he brought to its performance. His recluse life entailed upon his writings some serious disadvantages. The ingenuous arts are not more effectual in softening men's manners than intercourse with society. If from his ' study ' he did not ' rail at human kind,' he formed, from his long commerce with books alone, harsh and one-sided opinions of classes, that earlier and more free intermixture with them would have softened or corrected. Of the clergy he saw only one, and that not the more favourable side. He regarded them as writers or preachers alone, and not as active and humanizing elements in society. He is right in ascribing to dogmatic theology, dark, cruel, ignorant and groundless theories, alike at variance with a divine Author and dishon- ourable to human nature. He is wrong when he represents the orator in the pulpit, or the scholar in the closet, as hard, bigoted, and severe as his doctrines. In the Confessions of Augustine we have the outpourings of a large and liberal heart : in his writings on Fate, Free Will, and Fore-knowledge, he appears 20 EIOGKAPHICAL SKETCH. only as the durus pater infantium, the pre- cursor of the implacable and gloomy Calvin. That the nature of Luther was more harmo- niously toned with nature and man than the nature of Erasmus, their writings do not per- mit us to doubt : but when Luther puts forth on the dark sea of theological speculation, he becomes, like his Genevan rival and contem- porary, stern, acrid, and rancorous. The most earnest and tender of philanthropists, a Penn or a Howard, was not more deeply imbued with the love of mankind, than were Richard Hooker and Jeremy Taylor : yet it would not be difficult to extract from their books pas- sages that, taken apart from the context, are equally shocking to our reason and affections. The extracts from the Scotch divines that fill so large a space in the notes of Mr. Buckleys second volume, are atrocious enough to prove that Torquemada and St. Dominic were not better disposed to rack and burn their fellow men, than were the Gillespies, the Guthries, the Haly burtons, and the Eutherfords, on some of whom Milton had already fixed the brand that ' new presbyter is but old priest writ large. 5 Yet, perhaps, many of these fiery BIOGKAPHICAL SKETCH. 21 tongues belonged to men abounding with active charities and sympathies, and illustrating by their lives the doctrines of peace and good will. Again, in his strictures on national character, Mr. Buckle employs an intellectual standard only. The moral compensations for imperfect knowledge and progress, he ignores or overlooks. His eye, directed to scientific progress alone, saw not many fertile spots that relieve even the barrenness between Dan and Beersheba. On various occasions, Mr. Buckle de- nounced the effects of seclusion and separation from human interests upon the monastic orders and the priesthood generally. He uncon- sciously partook of the mischief which he de- nounced. More acquaintance with practical life would have softened his asperities, and saved him from some hasty conclusions and even grave errors. One effect, indeed, of iso- lation which appears in the studious and soli- tary Benedictines, did not manifest itself in him. His heart was not closed nor narrowed to the great interests of his kind. He may have weighed classes of them in an ill-adjusted balance, but to the progress of men in what- 22 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. soever delivers tlie human race from bondage to idols of the market, of the temple, or the tribe, he was never indifferent. In the cause of what he believed to be civilization, his en- ergy was unflagging, his sympathy intense. Of the plan and execution of his History we are not in a condition to speak ; we have por- tions only of the Introduction to it. Much that in the Prolegomena is incomplete or in- accurate, crude or rash, would probably, after maturer experience and enlarged insight, have been supplied or corrected in the historical sequel. The following remarks accordingly have reference to the fragment alone of his scheme. First, the subject to which he devoted his life is vague. The term Civilization has a specious sound and a noble bearing ; but ob- jections to it instantly present themselves when we begin to ask its precise import. Can a History of Civilization, even in any one country, France or England, be comprised, like the Esprit * des Lois or the Politics of Aristotle, within scientific limits ? Does the term admit of definition ? Is it, in fact, more than a generality, coming under the legal ban BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH* 23 of ' Totus in omnibus nulliis in singulis* f One writer on such a theme might choose to regard civilization as the greatest happiness of the greatest number — that is, sufficient beef, pudding, shelter, and wages ; another might allege that man, not living by bread alone, requires, before he is civilized, a church es- tablishment in prime condition ; a third will say that neither the labour-market nor the meat-market, nor deans and chapters, and lawn sleeves alone make men happy and keep them so ; but that this boon must be expected from free trade, universal suffrage, and lightness of taxation. Jean Jacque sends us back to the time When wild in woods the noble savage ran ; and William Penn and John Bright look for- ward to the day when none shall refuse their cheek to the smiter. Again, conceding for the moment, that the term civilization is sufficiently intelligible, if not very precise, Mr. Buckle's manner of handling the subject is somewhat capricious and irregular. In history, we expect that the events recorded shall follow one another in the order of time, or if they depart from it 2i BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. and assume the order of space, that there shall be good reason for moving on parallel in- stead of direct lines. Gibbon was justified in leaving the main course of his narrative for such episodes as his chapters on the Northern nations, on the Monastic orders, or the rise and progress of Mohammedanism ; since the assaults of barbarians, the withdrawing from active life of so many thousands of able- bodied men, and the birth of a new and aggressive faith, were so many combined and collateral elements of the decline and fall of Rome. Montesquieu, again, was warranted in passing from China to Peru in search of analogies with the laws .of Europe, or of ex- amples of institutions unknown or alien to the western world. But the civilization of a single country does not admit of so devious a course. We require to have placed before us in their known succession each wave of the civilizing stream, to have marked out for us the effects of its spring and neap tides, and the several deposits which remain after the flood has subsided. Possibly- — indeed most probably — this defect, in the Introduction would have been corrected in the work to EIOGEAPHICAL SKETCH. 25 which the two volumes before are merely the porch ; but even the porch is irregularly built. Its foundation-stones are properly the universal questions of the food, climate, and physical circumstances that have attracted men to certain centres, or propelled them from those centres, or affected by various causes — abun- dance, privation, the possession -of ease, or the necessity for toil — their forms of government and their habits of life. When, however, we expect to pass from the incunahula of society to its earlier phases, we are suddenly trans- ported to the history or the preliminaries of the English Revolution of 1640, and the French Revolution of 1789 — crises in history, indeed, which mark beyond any others a new birth in each of the respective nations, but which belong to advanced and not to incepting civilization. These objections, however, apply to the first volume especially ; the second, being devoted to two opposite phases of religion, although, as regards a History of Civilization, its topics are somewhat prema- ture, is the more coherent of the two, both in respect of its premises and its conclusions. The second volume is, in fact, little more than 2 2G BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. an episode of the first ; with a few inconsid- erable changes, it might have stood alone as a record of the effects of perverted religion in Spain or Scotland. The discrepancies and inconveniences attendant on the vagueness of ' the term civilization might, in our opinion, have been avoided, had the work been en- titled a ' History of the Aspects of Society in England.' There would then 'have been no previous question about the import of a title sufficiently elastic to include the era when Britons painted their bodies with woad, and the era when they assumed trousers and pale- tots. The presentation of such aspects might have shifted without detriment to the work or inconvenience to the readers of it from direct to parallel lines, wiile the progress of civilization might have been traced or im- plied with equal, if not superior effect. The great bases of civilization — religion, law, commerce, arts and learning, with their sev- eral products and phenomena, and their mu- tual co-operation and counteraction — might have been exhibited in a series of osculating or concentric circles, while the laws of their generation or connexion would have appro- BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 27 priately formed, in Mr. Buckle's hands — and none were more able to supply it — a superb peroration. From what appear to us defects in the structure, we turn with pleasure to the sterling merits of the History of Civilization. As to its language, too much praise can hardly be award- ed to it. It is equal to the subject, precise enough for the demands of science, full, flow- ing, and flexible enough for every purpose of eloquence. Lucid, when the business of the writer is to state, explain, or illustrate, it as- cends, when anger at the oppressor or sympathy with the oppressed calls upon it, to notes worthy of Edmund Burke himself, denouncing the corruptions of England or the wrongs of India. Isor was such facility or such strength attained by a long apprenticeship in writing. Until 1857, when the first of these volumes was published, we believe that Mr. Buckle had not printed a line ; nor, with the exception of a lecture de- livered at the Royal Institution in March, 1858, and an essay or two in Fraser's Magazine, did he permit fugitive literature to interfere with the great task he had in hand His was the rare art of making immense reading subservient to 28 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. general instruction. The abundance of his materials neither perplexed nor burdened him ; the accumulated thoughts of others abated no jot from the freshness of his own. No sources of information were too mean, devious, or recondite for his searching gaze. His com- mand of ancient and modern languages, his bibliographical knowledge, were not less re- markable than Gibbon's or Southey's. Like theirs, his commonplace-books were well- ordered arsenals which yielded without stint or confusion the weapons and munitions re- quired by him. Of the duties and the province of the his- torian, he formed a conception most difficult, perhaps impossible, to realize ; but it was no- ble in itself, and honourable to him. He per- ceived that history in its best forms is but an imperfect record of the thoughts and deeds of men. The writers of it, even those w r hose works are possessions for ever, select some particular crisis, or some exceptional phase : a great war, a single revolution, a long series of national events, or periods of time in which long hostile or distant streams of action are forcibly or spontaneously diverted into a com- BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 29 mon channel. Of all narratives, none equal in tlieir comprehensive character those of Herod- otus and Gibbon. The one opens with that cycle of events which committed together for centuries of strife "Western Asia and Eastern Europe. The other begins with the breaking up of an empire which had slowly conquered and long held together with links of iron the civilized world. With Gyrus commences that fusion of the hill tribes with the dwellers in the plains that ended in the construction of the Great King's empire, ' a mighty maze ' of satrapies, each one in its dimensions a kingdom, l but not without a plan.' Then was put in act what was foreshadowed in the ten-years' siege of Troy, that mighty duel of opposing continents which was not destined to end before Home asserted at Actium the predominance of Europe over Asia. The roll- ing together and condensing of races by Cyrus is one terminus of the series, the great Actian triumph was the other. With Commodus, on the other hand, the curtain of history rises on the drama of dismemberment, and proceeds from act to act, until an unarmed priest fills the throne of the western Caesars, and an infidel 80 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. rides unchallenged through the Hippodrome of Constantinople, or profanes the great church in which Basil and Chrysostom preached. The latter is Gibbon's cycle, the former that of Herodotus and of those who continued his record of three of the empires of prophetic vision. But in these and in other narratives cer- tain elements are wanting, and Mr. Buckle, though not the first to perceive the defect, was among the first who attempted to supply it. War and peace, law and religion, forms of government, art, literature, and manners, are merely phenomena of national life, and presuppose the existence of laws which actuate and of conditions which shape and control them. It w r as Mr. Buckle's object to collect and place these phenomena upon a scientific basis, to discover the law of their growth, pro- gress, and decline, to show why on some soils they withered, why on others they bore fruit an hundred-fold. How far he failed or how far he succeeded in his attempt to construct a science of history, w r e do not pretend to de- termine : we are merely pointing to the. high and arduous object he set before himself. Secondly, he sinned the sin of excessive BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 31 generalization. It may be true that in certain cycles or shorter periods of time the sums of human acts are strangely alike. It may be true also that statistics afford to history one of its most sure and instructive auxiliaries. But it is no less certain that such tabular records are not only in their infancy, but as regards former times, either do not exist, or are most scanty and precarious aids to truth. At the best, also, they represent a few only of the elements of social life, and probably centuries of exact observation must elapse before they can be permitted to supersede the other grounds, moral, intellectual, and religious, on which history hitherto has been constructed. In his anxiety, if not indeed his determination, to find a comprehensive idea, Mr. Buckle often strains, if he does not mis* represent facts. He is too prone to assume that men under similar circumstances will be similar themselves, and leaves scarcely a mar- gin for the disturbances of passion, custom, or accident. Comets are tolerably regular in their paths ; but Wharton's are far from being plain in their motives or actions ; and if fashion be very potent, and 32 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. Lucullus, when frugality could charm, Had roasted turnips on his Sabine farm, yet it is unsafe to compute how many Lucul- luses are due at one period, or whether ' adust complexion ' or other causes invariably compel Charles to the convent, Philip to the field. We might proceed to specify other instan- ces in which the wide grasp of Mr. Buckle's theory defeats its own purpose, and leaves us disposed rather to abide by imperfect light than to follow a possible meteor. But we must abstain from comment on its merits and defects alike, and hasten to the conclusion. "We cannot, however, entirely omit mentioning Mr. Buckle's conversational qualities. He was not a sayer of smart or brilliant things : indeed, wit and humour w r ere not among his gifts. He w r as no granter of propositions ; nor had his conversations been reported, would his periods have been found to flow into the smooth and regular moulds of the late Lord Macaulay's social discourse. His voice w r as unmusical and his manner rather defiant. But one could not be five minutes in a room w T ith him without being aware that a talker unusually BIOGPwAPHICAL SKETCH. 33 informed with book knowledge was present. From the news of the morning to the most recondite and curious recesses of learning, Mr. Buckle ranged freely ; the topics of the day furnishing him with a wide round of illustra- tion and analogy, and not unfrequently with hardy speculations on the future. As, how- ever, he mixed more with his fellow men, the current of his conversation considerably abated in its volume. He grew more willing to listen, less disposed to controversy or to monologue. The softening effect of increased intercourse with society, as it appeared in his conversation, so would very probably have gradually in- fluenced the dogmatic and paradoxical tone of his writings. That the History of Civilization in England should have excited some angry surprises, if not a deep feeling of indignation, in many quarters, it was natural to expect. The doctrines of Auguste Comte are not palatable on this side of the Channel ; and although Mr. Buckle ac- cepted M. Comte's creed with reservation, he is indebted to it for some of his theories. He thus ran counter to an order of men not in- disposed to quarrel among themselves, as the 9* 34 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH* Court of Arches can at this moment testify, but which, as soon as its conventional opinions are attacked, forms a compact phalanx for its corporate defence. ' The Highlanders, 5 says Baillie Jarvie, ' may give each other an ill name and even a slash with a elavmore, but in the end they are sure to join against all cee- velised persons who have money in their purses and breeks on their hinder ends.' Equally sure were Mr. Buckle's strictures on the Kirk and Predestination to draw down upon him the wrath of North Britain. Hero-worshippers, again, have no reason to be pleased with his speculations, since he resolves the course of his- tory into cycles and a system, and ascribes but little permanent influence to individual soldiers, statesmen, or saints. Gibbon nettled the ecclesiastical body more by his inuendoes than by his direct imputations. Mr. Buckle fights against it, not with the foil of irony, but with the whole armoury of distrust and de- fiance. Some of the castigation he got, he mer- ited : for some of his charges were ill considered and unfounded ; but these, the faults of seclu- sion and inexperience, do not, in the main, affect his assertion, that no class of men is fit to be /* h&t ]0^H^ kf % BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 35 entrusted with irresponsible power, and of all classes, the clergy least. This, however, is not the place, even did our limits allow of it, for analysing Mr. Buckle's work. That has been done by other hands at a more convenient season. We have sought, in this slight sketch of him, to delineate the author, and not his book. That the latter will remain a fragment is probable — neither the man nor the circumstances which favoured or hindered it are likely soon to recur. ' Dat Galenus opes, dat Justinianus honores : ' we are not likely again to see so much learning and ability employed upon themes which re- munerate the student with neither present profit nor honour. Be what they may the faults of the book, the merits of the author are sterling. He sought knowledge for its own sake : for knowledge he gave up his youth, his talents, his fortune, and possibly his life. Truisms did not deter, nor shadows intimidate him ; what- ever, in his judgment, had hitherto retarded, or was likely to retard in future, the progress of men, he denounced ; whatever, in his opinion, was likely to accelerate or secure it, he ad- vocated. If we cannot inscribe it on the roll 36 BIOGEAPHICAL SKETCH. of historians or philosophers of the highest order, yet the name of Henry Thomas Buckle merits a high place on, the list of earnest seek- ers for Truth. MILL ON LIBERTY. MILL ON LIBERTY.* If a jury of the greatest European thinkers were to be impannelled, and were directed to declare by their verdict who, among our living writers, had done most for the advance of knowl- edge, they could hardly hesitate in pronouncing the name of John Stuart Mill. Nor can we doubt that posterity would ratify their decision. No other man has dealt with so many problems of equal importance, and yet of equal complex- ity. The questions which he has investigated, concern, on the one hand, the practical interests of every member of society, and, on the other hand, the subtlest and most hidden operations of the human mind. Although he touches the surface, he also penetrates the centre. Between * On Liberty. By John Stuart Mill. London : John W. Parker and Son, West Strand. 1859. 40 MILL ON LIBERTY. those extremes, lie innumerable subjects which, he has explored, always with great ability, often with signal success. On these topics, whether practical or speculative, his authority is con- stantly evoked ; and his conclusions are adopted by many who are unable to follow the argu- ments by which the conclusions are justified. Other men we have, remarkable for their depth of thought ; and others again who are remark- able for the utility of their suggestions. But the peculiarity of Mr. Mill is, that both these qualities are more effectively combined by him than by any one else of the present day. Hence it is, that he is as skilful in tracing the opera- tion of general causes, as in foreseeing the re- sult of particular measures. And hence, too, his influence is far greater than would otherwise be possible ; since he not only appeals to a Avider range of interests than any living writer can do, but by his mastery over special and practical details, he is able to show that principles, however refined they appear, and however far removed from ordinary appre- hension, may be enforced, without so danger- ous a disturbance of social arrangements, and without so great a sacrifice of existing insti- MILL ON LIBERTY. 41 tutions, as might at first siglit be supposed. By this means he has often disarmed hostility, and has induced practical men to accept con- clusions on practical grounds, to which no force of scientific argument, and no amount of scientific proof would have persuaded them to yield. Securing by one process the assent of speculative thinkers, and securing by another process the assent of working politicians, he operates on the two extremes of life, and ex- hibits the singular spectacle of one of the most daring and original philosophers in Europe, winning the applause of not a few mere legis- lators and statesmen who are indifferent to his higher generalizations, and who, confining themselves to their own craft, are incapable of soaring beyond the safe and limited routine of ordinary experience. This has increased his influence in more ways than one. For, it is extremely rare to meet with a man who excels both in practice and in speculation ; and it is by no means common to meet with one who desires to do so. Between these two forms of excellence, there is not only a difference, there is also an opposition. Practice aims* at what is imme- 42 MILL ON LIBERTY. cliate ; speculation at. what is remote. The first investigates small and special causes ; the other investigates large and general causes. In practical life, the wisest and soundest men avoid speculation, and ensure success because by limiting their range, they increase the tenacity with which they grasp events ; while in speculative lifo the course is exactly the reverse, since in that department the greater the range the greater the command, and the object of the philosopher is to have as large a generalization as possible ; in other words, to rise as high as he can above the phenomena with which he is concerned. The truth I apprehend to be that the immediate effect of any act is usually determined by causes peculiar to that act, and which, as it were, lie within it ; while the remote effect of the same act is governed by causes lying out of the act ; that is, by the general condition of the surrounding circumstances. Special causes produce their effect quickly ; but to bring general causes into play, we require not only width, of sur- face but also length of time. If, for instance, a man living under a cruel despotism were to inflict a- fatal blow upon the despot, the im- MILL ON LIBERTY. 43 mediate result — namely, the death of the tyrant — would be caused solely by circum- stances peculiar to the action, such as the sharpness of the weapon, the precision of the aim, and the part that was wounded. But the remote result — that is, the removal, not of the despot but of the despotism— would be governed by circumstances external to the particular act, and would depend upon whether or not the country was fit for liberty, since if the country were unfit, another despot would be sure to arise, and another despotism be established. To a philosophic mind the actions of an individual count for little ; to a practical mind they are everything. Whoever is ac- customed to generalize, smiles within himself when he hears that Luther brought about the Reformation ; that Bacon overthrew the an- cient philosophy ; that William III. saved our liberties ; that Rornilly humanized our penal code ; that Clarkson and Wilberforce destroyed slavery ; and that Grey and Brougham gave us Reform. He smiles at such assertions, because he knows full well that such men, useful as they were, are only to be regarded as tools by which that work was clone, which 44 MILL ON LIBERTY. the force and accumulation of preceding cir- cumstances had determined should he done. They were good instruments ; sharp and ser- viceable instruments, but nothing more. Not only are individuals, in the great average of affairs, inoperative for good ; they are also, happily for mankind, inoperative for evil. Nero and Domitian caused enormous mischief, but every trace of it has now disappeared. The occurrences which contemporaries think to be of the greatest importance, and which in point of fact, for a short time are so, in- variably turn out in the long run to be the least important of all. They are like meteors which dazzle the vulgar by their brilliancy, and then pass away, leaving no mark behind. Well, therefore, and in the highest spirit of philosophy, did Montesquieu say that the Roman Republic was overthrown, not, as is commonly supposed, by the ambition of Csesar and Pompey, but by that state of things w T hich made the success of their ambition pos- sible. And so indeed it was. Events which had been long accumulating and had come from afar, pressed on and thickened until their united force was irresistible, and the Republic MILL ON LIBERTY. 45 grew ripe for destruction. It decayed, it tot- tered, it was sapped to its foundation ; and then, when all was ready, and it was nod- ding to its fall, Csesar and Pompey stepped forward, and because they dealt the last blow, we, forsooth, are expected to believe that they produced a catastrophe which the course of affairs had made inevitable before they were born. The great majority of men will, however, always cling to Csesar and Pompey ; that is to say, they will prefer the study of proximate causes to the study of remote ones. This is connected with another and more fundamen- tal distinction, by virtue of which, life is re- garded by practical minds as an art, by spec- ulative minds as a science. And we find every civilized nation divided into two classes corresponding with these two divisions. "We find one class investigating affairs with a view to what is most special ; the other investi- gating them with a view to what is most gen- eral. This antagonism is essential, and lies in the nature of things. Indeed, it is so clearly marked, that except in minds not only of very great power, but of a peculiar kind of power, 46 MILL ON L1BEKTY. it is impossible to reconcile the two methods ; it is impossible for any but a most remarkable man to have them both. Many even of the greatest thinkers have been but too notorious for an ignorance of ordinary affairs, and for an inattention to practical every-day interests. While studying the science of life, they neglect the art of living. This is because such men, notwithstanding their genius, are essentially one-sided and narrow, being, unhappily for themselves, unable or unaccustomed to note the operation of special and proximate causes. Dealing with the remote and the universal, they omit the immediate and the contingent. They sacrifice the actual to the ideal. To their view, all phenomena are suggestive of science, that is of what may be known ; while to the opposite view, the same phenomena are suggestive of art, that is of what may be done. A perfect intellect would unite both views, and assign to each its relative importance ; but such a feat is of the greatest possible rarity. It may in fact be doubted if more than one instance is recorded of its being performed without a single failure. That instance, I need hardly say, is Shakspeare. ISTo other MILL ON LIBERTY. 47 mind lias thoroughly interwoven the remote with the proximate, the general with the special, the abstract with the concrete. No other mind has so completely incorporated the speculations of the highest philosophy with the meanest details of the lowest life. Shak- speare mastered both extremes, and covered all the intermediate field. He knew both man and men. He thought as deeply as Plato or Kant. He observed as closely as Dickens or Thackeray. Of whom else can this be said? Other philosophers have, for the most part, over- looked the surface in their haste to reach the summit. Hence the anomaly of many of the most profound thinkers having been ignorant of what it was shameful for them not to know, and having been unable to manage with suc- cess even their own affairs. The sort of advice they would give to others may be easily im- agined. It is no exaggeration to say that if, in any age of the world, one half of the sug- gestions made by the ablest men had been adopted, that age would Lave been thrown into the rankest confusion. Plato was the deepest thinker of antiquity ; and yet the proposals 48 MILL ON LIBERTY. which he makes in his Republic, and in his Treatise on Laws, are so absurd that they can hardly he read without laughter, Aristotle, little inferior to Plato in depth, and much his superior in comprehensiveness, desired, on purely speculative grounds, that no one should give or receive interest for the use of money : an idea, which, if it had been put into exe- cution, would have produced the most mis- chievous results, would have stopped the ac- cumulation of wealth, and thereby have post- poned for an indefinite period the civilization of the world. In modern as well as in ancient times, systems of philosophy have been raised which involve assumptions, and seek to compel consequences, incompatible with the practical interests of society. The Germans are the most profound philosophers in Europe, and it is precisely in their country that this tendency is most apparent. Comte, the most compre- hensive thinker France has produced since Descartes, did in his last work deliberately advocate, and wish to organize, a scheme of polity so monstrously and obviously impracti- cable, that if it were translated into English, the plain men of our island would lift their MILL ON LIBERTY. 49 eyes in astonishment, and would most likely suggest that the author should for his own sake be immediately confined. Not that we need pride ourselves too much on these matters. If a catalogue were to be drawn up of the practical suggestions made by our greatest thinkers, it would be impossible to conceive a document more damaging to the reputation of the speculative classes. Those classes are j always before the age in their theories, and \ behind the age in their practice. It is not, therefore, strange that Frederick the Great, who perhaps had a more intimate and personal knowledge of them than any other prince equally powerful, and who moreover admired them, courted them, and, as an author, to a certain slight degree belonged to them, should have recorded his opinion of their practical incapacity in the strongest terms he could find. i If, 7 he is reported to have said, ' if I wanted to ruin one of my provinces, I would make over its government to the philosophers.' This neglect of the surface of things is, moreover, exhibited in the peculiar absence of mind for which many philosophers have been remarkable. Newton was so oblivious 50 MILL ON LIBERTY. of what was actually passing, that he fre- quently overlooked or forgot the most neces- sary transactions, was not sure whether he had dined, and would leave his own house half naked, appearing in that state in the streets, because he fancied all the while that he was fully dressed. Many admire this as the sim- plicity of genius. I see nothing in it but an unhappy and calamitous principle of the con- struction of the human mind, which prevents nearly all men from successfully dealing both with the remote and the immediate. They who are little occupied with either, may, by virtue of the smallness of their ambition, some- what succeed in both. This is the reward of their mediocrity, and they may well be sat- isfied with it. Dividing such energy as they possess, they unite a little speculation with a little business ; a little science w T ith a little art. But in the most eminent and vigorous characters, we find, with extremely rare ex- ceptions, that excellence on one side excludes excellence on the other. Here the perfection of theory, there the perfection of practice ; and between the two a gulf which few indeed can bridge. Another and still more remarkable MILL Otf LIBERTY. 51 instance of this unfortunate peculiarity of our nature is supplied by the career of Bacon, who, though he boasted that he made philosophy practical and forced her to dwell among men, was himself so unpractical that he could not deal with events as they successively arose. Yet, he had everything in his favour. To genius of the highest order he added eloquence, wit, and industry. He had good connexions, influential friends, a supple address, an ob- sequious and somewhat fawning disposition. He had seen life under many aspects, he had mixed with various classes, he had abundant experience, and still he was unable to turn these treasures to practical account. Putting him aside as a philosopher, and taking him merely as a man of action, his conduct was a series of blunders. Whatever he most desired, in that did he most fail. One of his darling objects was the attainment of popularity, in the pursuit of which he, on two memorable occasions, grievously offended the Court from which he sought promotion. So unskilful, however, were his combinations, that in the prosecution of Essex, which w$s by far the most unpopular act in the reign of Elizabeth, he 52 MILL ON LIBERTY. played a part not only conspicuous and dis- creditable, but grossly impolitic. Essex, who was a high-spirited and generous man, was be- loved by all classes, and nothing could be more certain than that the violence Bacon displayed against him would recoil on its author. It was also well known that Essex was the intimate friend of Bacon, had exerted himself in every way for him, and had even presented him. with a valuable estate. For a man to prosecute his benefactor, to heap invectives upon him at his trial, and having hunted him to the death, publish a libel insulting his memory, was a folly as well as an outrage, and is one of many proofs that in practical matters the judgment of Bacon was unsound. Ingratitude aggravated by cruelty must, if it is generally known, always be a blunder as well as a crime, because it wounds the deepest and most universal feelings of our common nature. However vicious a man may be, he will never be guilty of such an act unless he is foolish as well as vicious. But the philosopher could not foresee those immediate consequences -which a plain man would have easily discerned. The truth is, that while the MILL ON LIBERTY. 53 speculations of Bacon were full of wisdom, liis acts were full of folly. He was anxious to build up a fortune, and he did what many persons have done both before and since : he availed himself of his judicial position to take bribes from suitors in his court. But here, again, his operations were so clumsy, that he committed the enormous oversight of ac- cepting bribes from men against whom he afterwards decided. He, therefore, deliber- ately put himself in the power of those whom he deliberately injured. This was not only because he was greedy after wealth, but also because he was injudiciously greedy. The error was in the head as much as in the heart. Besides being a corrupt judge, he was like- wise a bad calculator. The consequence was that he was detected, and being detected, was ruined. "When his fame was at its height, when enjoyments of every kind were thicken- ing and clustering round him, the cup of pleasure was dashed from his lips because he quaffed it too eagerly. To say that he fell merely because he was unprincipled, is pre- posterous, for many men are unprincipled all their lives and never fall at all. Why it is that 54 MILL ON LIBERTY. bad men sometimes flourish, and how sucli apparent injustice is remedied, is a mysterious question which this is not the place for dis- cussing ; but the fact is indubitable. In practical life men fail, partly because they aim at unwise objects, but chiefly because they have not acquired the art of adapting their means to their end. This was the case with Bacon. In ordinary matters he was triumphed over and defeated by nearly every one with whom he came into contact. His dependents cheated him With impunity ; and notwithstanding the large sums he received, he was constantly in debt, so that even while his peculations were going on, he derived little benefit from them. Though, as a judge, he stole the property of others, he did not know how to steal so as to escape detection, and he did not know how to keep what he had stolen. The mighty thinker was, in practice, an arrant trifler. He always neglected the immediate and the pressing. This was curiously exemplified in the last scene of his life. In some of his generalizations respecting putrefaction, it occurred to him that the process might be stopped by snow. He arrived at conclusions like a cautious and MILL ON LIBEETY. 55 large-minded philosopher : he tried them with the rashness and precipitancy of a child. "With an absence of common sense which would be incredible if it were not well attested, he rushed out of his coach on a very cold day, and neglecting every precaution, stood shiver- ing in the air while he stuffed a fowl with snow, risking a life invaluable to mankind, for the sake of doing what any serving man could have done just as well. It did not need the intellect of a Bacon to foresee the result. Before he had finished what he w T as about, he felt suddenly chilled : he became so ill as to be unable to return to his own house, and his worn-out frame giving way, he gradu- ally sank and died a week after his first seizure. Such events are very sad, but they are also very instructive. Some, I know, class them under the head of martyrdom for science : to me they seem the penalty of folly. It is at all events certain that in the lives of great thinkers they are painfully abundant. It is but too true that many men of the highest power have, by neglecting the study of proximate causes, shortened their career, diminished their useful- 56 MILL ON LIBERTY. ness, and, .bringing themselves to a premature old age, have deprived mankind of their services just at the time when their experience was most advanced, and their intellect most matured. Others, again, who have stopped short of this, have by their own imprudence become involved in embarrassments of every kind, taking no heed of the morrow, wasting their resources, squandering their substance, and incurring debts which they were unable to pay. This is the result less of vice than of thoughtlessness. Yice is often cunning and wary ; but thoughtlessness is always profuse and reckless. And so marked is the tendency, that ' Genius struggling with difficulties ' has grown into a proverb. Unhappily, genius has, in an immense majority of cases, created its own difficulties. The consequence is, that not only mere men of the world, but men of sound, useful understandings, do, for the most part, look upon genius as some strange and erratic quality, beautiful indeed to see, but dangerous to possess : a sparkling fire which consumes while it lightens. They regard it with curiosity, perhaps even with interest ; but they shake their heads ; they regret that MILL OK LIBERTY. 57 men who are so clever should have so little sense ; and, pluming themselves on their own superior sagacity, they complacently remind each other that great wit is generally allied to madness. Who can wonder that this should be? Look at what has occurred in these islands alone, during so short a period as three generations. Look at the lives of Fielding, Goldsmith, Smollett, Savage, Shen- stone, Budgell, Charnock, Churchill, Chatter- ton, Derrick, Parnell, Somerville, Whitehead, Coombe, Day, Gilbert Stuart, Ockley, Oldys, Boyse, Hasted, Smart, Thomson, Grose, Dawes, Barker, Harwood, Porson, Thirlby, Baron, Barry, Coleridge, Fearne, Walter Scott, Byron, Burns, Moore, and Campbell. Here yon have men of every sort of ability, distinguished by every variety of imprudence. What does it all mean? Why is it that they who might have been the salt of the earth, and whom we should have been proud to take as our guides, are now pointed at by every blockhead as proofs of the inability of genius to grapple with the realities of life? Why is it that against these, and their fellows, each puny whipster can draw his sword, and dullards 3* 58 MILL OK LIBERTY. / vent their naughty spite ? That little men should jeer at great ones, is natural ; that they should have reason to jeer at them is shameful. Yet, this must always be the case as long as the present standard of action exists. As long as such expressions as ' the infirmities of genius' form an essential part of our language — as long as we are constantly reminded that genius is naturally simple, guileless, and un- versed in the w T ays of the world— as long as notions of patronizing and protecting it con- tinue — as long as men of letters are regarded with pitying wonder, as strange creatures from whom a certain amount of imprudence must be expected, and in whom it may be tolerated —as long as among them extravagance is called generosity, and economy called meanness — as long as these things happen, so long will the evils that correspond to them endure, and so long will the highest class of minds lose much of their legitimate influence. In the same way, while it is believed that authors must, as a body, be heedless and improvident, it will likewise be believed that for them there must be pensions and subscriptions ; that to them Government and society should be bountiful ; MILL ON LIBERTY. 59 and that, on their behalf, institutions should be erected to provide for necessities which it was their own business to have foreseen, but which they, engaged in the arduous employ- ment of writing books, could not be expected to attend to. Their minds are so weak and sickly, so unfit for the rough usages of life, that they must be guarded against the conse- quences of their own actions. The feebleness of their understandings makes such precautions necessary. There must be hospitals for the intellect, as well as for the body ; asylums where these poor, timid creatures may find refuge, and may escape from calamities which their confiding innocence prevented them from anticipating. These are the miserable delu- sions which still prevail. These are the wretched infatuations by which the strength and majesty of the literary character are im- paired. In England there is, I rejoice to say, a more manly and sturdy feeling ,pn these sub- jects, than in any other part of Europe; but even in England literary men do not sufficiently appreciate the true dignity of their profession ; nor do they sufficiently understand that the foundation of all real grandeur is a spirit of 60 MILL ON LIBERTY. proud and lofty independence. In other countries, the state of opinion is most de- grading. In other countries, to have a pension is a mark of honour, and to beg for money is a proof of spirit. Eminent men are turned into hirelings, receive eleemosynary aid, and raise a clamour if the aid is not forthcoming. They snatch at every advantage, and accept even titles and decorations from the first foolish prince who is willing to bestow them. They make constant demands on the public purse, and then they wonder that the public respects them so little. In France, in particular, we have within the last year seen one of the most brilliant writers of the age, who had realized immense sums by his works, and who with com- mon prudence ought to have amassed a large fortune, coming forward as a mendicant^ avowing in the face of Europe that he had squandered what he had earned, and soliciting, not only friends, but even strangers, to make up the deficiency. And this was done without a blush, without any sense of the ignominy of the proceeding, but rather with a, parade of glorying in it. In a merchant, or a trades- man, such a confession of recklessness would MILL OK LIBERTY. 61 have been considered disgraceful ; and why are men of genius to have a lower code than merchants or tradesmen? "Whence comes this confusion of the first principles of justice? By what train of reasoning, or rather, by what process of sophistry, are we to infer, that when men of industry are improvident they shall be ruined, but that when men of letters are im- provident they shall be rewarded ? How long will this invidious distinction be tolerated? How long will such scandals last ? How long will those who profess to be the teachers of mankind behave like children, and submit to be treated as the only class who are deficient in foresight, in circumspection, in economy, and in all those sober and practical virtues which form the character of a good and use- ful citizen ? Nearly every one who cultivates literature as a profession, can gain by it an honest livelihood ; and if he cannot gain it, he has mistaken his trade, and should seek another. Let it, then, be clearly understood that what such men earn by their labour, or save by their abstinence, or acquire by lawful inheritance, that they can enjoy without loss of dignity. But if they ask for more, or if 62 MILL OK LIBERTY. they accept more, they become the recipients of charity, and between them and the beggar who walks the streets, the only difference is in the magnitude of the sum which is expected. To break stones on the highway is far more honourable than to receive such alms. Away, then, with your pensions, your subscriptions, your Literary Institutions, and your Literary Funds, by which you organize mendicancy into a system, and, under pretence of in- creasing public liberality, increase the amount of public imprudence. But before this high standard can be reach- ed, much remains to be done. As yet, and in the present early and unformed state of so- ciety, literary men are, notwithstanding a few exceptions, more prone to improvidence than the members of any other profession; and being also more deficient in practical knowl- edge, it too often happens that they are regarded as clever visionaries, fit to amuse the world, but unfit to guide it. The causes of this I have examined at some length, both because the results are extremely important, and be- cause little attention has been hitherto paid to their operation. If I were not afraid of being MILL ON LIBERTY. 63 tedious I could push the analysis still further, and could show that these very causes are themselves a part of the old spirit of pro- tection, and as such are intimately connected with some religious and political prejudices which obstruct the progress of society ; and that in the countries where such prejudices are most powerful, the mischief is most serious and the state of literature most unhealthy. But to prosecute that inquiry would be to write a treatise rather than an essay ; and I shall be satisfied if I have cleared the ground so far as I have gone, and have succeeded in tracing the relation between these evils and the gen- eral question of philosophic Method. The divergence between speculative minds and practical minds, and the different ways they have of contemplating affairs, are no doubt encouraged by the prevalence of false notions of patronage and reward, which, when they are brought to bear upon any class, inevitably tend to make that class unthrifty, and there- fore unpractical. This is a law of the human mind which the political economists have best illustrated in their own department, but the operation of which is universal. Serious, how- 64 MILL ON LIBERTY. ever, as this evil is, it only belongs to a very imperfect state of society, and after a time it will probably disappear. But the essential, and so far as I can understand, the permanent cause of divergence is a difference of Method. In the creation of our knowledge, it appears to be a fundamental necessity that the specula- tive classes should search for what is distant, while the practical classes search for what is adjacent, I do not see how it is possible to get rid of this antithesis. There may be some way, which we cannot yet discern, of recon- ciling the two extremes, and of merging the antagonistic methods into one which, being higher than either, shall include both. At present, however, there is no prospect of such a result. We must, therefore, be satisfied if from time to time, and at long intervals, a man rises whose mind is so happily constructed as to study with equal success the surface and the summit ; and who is able to show, by his single example, that views drawn from the most exalted region of thought, are applicable to the common transactions of daily life.. The only living Englishman who has achieved this is Mr. Mill. In the first place, MILL ON LIBERTY. 65 ' he is our only great speculative philosopher who for many years has engaged in public life. Since Ricardo, no original thinker has taken an active part in political affairs. Not that those affairs have on that account been worse admin- istered ; nor that Ave have cause to repine at our lot in comparison with other nations. On the contrary, no country has been better gov- erned than ours ; and at the present moment, it would be impossible to find in any one European nation more able, zealous, and up- right public men than England possesses. In such extremely rare cases as those of Brough- am and Macaulay, there are also united to these qualities the most splendid and captivat- ing accomplishments, and the far higher hon- our which they justly enjoy of having always been the eager and unflinching advocates of popular liberty. It cannot, however, be pre- tended that even these eminent men have added anything to our ideas ; still less can such a claim be made on behalf of their inferiors in the political world. They have popularized the ideas and enforced them, but never created them. They have shown great skill and great courage in applying the conceptions of others ; 6Q MILL ON LIBERTY. but the fresli conceptions, the higher and lar- ger generalizations, have not been their work. They can attack old abuses ; they cannot dis- cover new principles. This incapacity for dealing with the highest problems has been curiously exemplified during the last two years, when a great number of the most active and eminent of our public men, as well as several who are active without being eminent, have formed an Association for the Promotion- of Social Science. Among the papers published by that Association, will be found many curious facts and many useful suggestions. But Social Science there is none. There is not even a perception of what that science is. Not one speaker or writer attempted a scientific investigation of society, or showed that, in his opinion, such a thing ought to be attempted. Where science begins, the Association leaves off. All science is composed either of physical laws, or of mental laws ; and as the actions of men are determined by both, the only way of founding Social Science is to investigate each class of laws by itself, and then, after com- puting their separate results, coordinate the whole into a single study, by verifying them. MILL OK LIBERTY. 67 This is tlie only process by which highly complicated phenomena can be disentangled ; but the Association did not catch a glimpse of it. Indeed, they reversed the proper order, and proceeded from the concrete to the ab- stract, instead of from the abstract to the concrete. The reason of this error may be easily explained. The leading members of the Association being mostly politicians, fol- lowed the habits of their profession ; that is to say, they noted the events immediately surrounding them, and, taking a contemporary view, they observed the actual effects with a view of discovering the causes, and then remedying the evils. This was their plan, and it is natural to men whose occupations lead them to look at the surface of affairs. But to any mind accustomed to rise to a cer- tain height above that surface, and thoroughly imbued with the spirit of scientific method, it is obvious that this way of investigating social phenomena must be futile. Even in the limited field of political action, its results are at best mere empirical uniformities ; while in the immense range of social science it is altogether worthless. When men are col- 68 MILL ON LIBERTY. lected together in society, with their passions and their interests touching each other at every point, it is clear that nothing can hap- pen without being produced by a great va- riety of causes. Of these causes, some will be conflicting, and their action being neu- tralized they will often disappear in the pro- duct ; or, at all events, will leave traces too faint to be discerned. If, then, a cause is counteracted, how can you ascertain its ex- istence by studying its effect ? When only one cause produces an effect, you may infer the cause from the effect. But if several causes conspire to produce one effect, this is impossible. The most persevering study of the effect, and the most intimate acquaintance with it, will in such case never lead to a knowledge of the causes ; and the only plan is to proceed deductively from cause to effect, instead of inductively from effect to cause. Suppose for example, a ball is struck on different sides by "two persons at the same time. The effect will be that the ball, after being struck, will pass from one spot to another ; but that effect may be studied for thousands of years without any one being MILL ON LIBERTY. 69 able to ascertain the causes of the direction the ball took ; and even if he is told that two persons have contributed to produce the result, he could not discover how much each .person contributed. But if the observer, instead of studying the effect to obtain the causes, had studied the causes themselves, he would have been able, without going fur- ther, to predict the exact resting-place of the ball. In other words, by knowing the causes he could learn the effect, but by knowing the effect he could not learn the causes. Suppose, again, that I hear a musical in- strument being played. The effect depends on a great variety of causes, among which are the power possessed by the air of con- veying the sound, the power of the ear to receive its vibrations, and the power of the brain to feel them. These are vulgarly called conditions, but they are all causes ; inasmuch as a cause can only be defined to be an invariable and unconditional antecedent. They are just as much causes as the hand of the musician ; and the question arises, could those causes have been discovered merely by studying the effect the music produced upon 70 MILL ON LIBERTY. me? Most assuredly not. Most assuredly would it be requisite to study each cause separately, and then, by compounding the laws of their action, predict the entire effect. In social science, the plurality of causes is far more marked than in the cases I have men- tioned ; and therefore, in social science, the method of proceeding from effects to causes is far more absurd. And what aggravates the absurdity is, that the difficulty produced by the plurality of causes is heightened by another difficulty — namely, the conflict of causes. To deal with such enormous complications as politicians usually deal with them, is simply a waste of time. Every science has some hypothesis which underlies it, and which must be taken for granted. The hypothesis on which social science rests, is that the actions of men are a compound result of the laws of mind and the laws of matter ; and as that result is highly complex, we shall never understand it until the laws themselves have been unravelled by a previous and separate inquiry. Even if we could experi- ment, it would be different ; because by ex- perimenting on an effect we can artificially MILL ON LIBERTY. 71 isolate it, and guard against tlie encroachment of causes which we do not wish to investigate. But in social science there can be no experi- ment. For, in the first place, there can be no previous isolation ; since every interference lets into the framework of society a host of new phenomena which invalidate the experi- ment before the experiment is concluded. And, in the second place, that which is called an experiment, such as the adoption of a fresh principle in legislation, is not an experiment in the scientific sense of the word ; because the results which follow, depend far more upon the general state of the surrounding society than upon the principle itself. The surrounding state of society is, in its turn, governed by a long train of antecedents, each linked to the other, and forming, in their aggregate, an orderly and spontaneous march, which politicians are unable to control, and which they do for the most part utterly ignore. ^ This absence of speculative ability among politicians, is the natural result of the habits of their class ; and as the same result is almost invariably found among practical men, 72 MILL ON LIBERTY. I have thought the illustration just adduced might be interesting, in so far as it confirms the doctrine of an essential antagonism of Method, which, though like all speculative distinctions, infringed at various points, does undoubtedly exist, and appears to me to form the basis for a classification of society more complete than any yet proposed. Perhaps, too, it may have the effect of guarding against the rash and confident assertions of public men on miatters respecting which they have no means of forming an opinion, because their conclusions are vitiated by the adoption of an illogical method. It is, accordingly, a matter of notoriety that in predicting the results of large and general innovations, even the most sagacious politicians have been oftener wrong than right, and have foreseen evil when nothing but good has come. Against this sort of error, the longest and most extensive experience affords no protection. While states- men confine themselves to questions of detail, and to short views of immediate expediency, their judgment should be listened to with respect. But beyond this, they are rarely to be heeded. It constantly and indeed usually MILL Otf LIBERTY. 73 happens, that statesmen and legislators who pass their whole life in public affairs, know nothing of their own age, except what lies on the surface, and are therefore unable to calculate, even approximatively, remote and general consequences. Abundant evidence of their incapacity on these points, will present itself to whoever has occasion to read much of State Papers, or of parliamentary discus- sions in different ages, or, what is still more decisive, the private correspondence of eminent politicians. These reveal but too clearly, that they who are supposed to govern the course of affairs, are utterly ignorant of the direction affairs are really taking. What is before them they see ; what is above them they overlook. While, however, this is the deficiency of po- litical practitioners, it must be admitted that political philosophers are, on their side, equally at fault in being too prone to neglect the operation of superficial and tangible results. The difference between the two classes is analogous to that which exists between a gar- dener and a botanist. Both deal with plants, but each considers the plant from an opposite point of view. The gardener looks to its beauty 4 74 MILL