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POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
POLITICS 
 AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANK PRESTON STEARNS 
 
 THE author's club, LONDON 
 
 Author of "The Mid-Summer of Italian Art," "The Life and 
 
 Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne," "The Real and Ideal 
 
 in Literature," "The Life of Tintoretto," Etc. 
 
 BOSTON: RICHARD G. BADGER 
 
 Toronto: The Copp Clark Co., Limited 
 
Copyright 1915, by Richard G Badger 
 All rights reserved 
 
 
 The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A. 
 
 JUL 2 1915 
 ©GI,A401604 
 
INSCRIBED TO 
 
 HENRY CABOT LODGE 
 
 A WORTHY SUCCESSOR 
 TO 
 
 Sumner and Wilson 
 
HEROISM 
 
 Ruby wine is drunk by knaves. 
 Sugar spends to fatten slaves. 
 Rose and vine-leaf deck bufoons. 
 Thunder clouds are Jove's festoons. 
 Drooping oft in wreaths of dread. 
 Lightning -knotted round his head. 
 The hero is not fed on sweets 
 Daily his own heart he eats; 
 Chambers of the great are jails 
 And head-winds right for royal sails. 
 
 Emerson. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 If there is a science of politics, it must be developed 
 as other sciences have been, by an examination and com- 
 parison of historical data with a view to the discovery of 
 the causes which underlie important political phenomena, 
 — and not, as is too often done, by judging of such phe- 
 nomena according to purely empirical rules. It is equally 
 fallacious to justify political action by its results, or to 
 condemn it on a priori grounds; and it is only by the 
 application of the inductive method that revolutionary 
 periods, like those of Machiavelli and Napoleon, can be 
 properly understood. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Politics 
 
 The Man of Destiny, 11 
 
 Napoleonic Mem<:>ries. 52 
 
 The Poetic Napoleon 68 
 
 Napoleon's Marshals 77 
 
 The Waterloo Campaign 87 
 
 The Politics of "The Divina Commedia" 101 
 
 Machiavelli's "Prince" 110 ' 
 
 The Ides of March 143 
 
 Goethe's Position in Practical Politics 147 
 
 Lynch Law 158 
 
 Dante's Political Allegory -164' ^'"V 
 
 Metaphysics 
 
 Mind and Brain 167 
 
 Space and Time 169 
 
 Pragmatism 182 
 
POLITICS 
 
POLITICS 
 AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 THE MAN OF DESTINY 
 
 THE French Revolution raged like an awful 
 conflagration, in which human beings, not 
 buildings, were consumed; and when it had 
 burned to ashes, there stood Napoleon, like a 
 compressed little god of war, the most perfectly developed 
 man of action in modern times. 
 
 Lord Bacon says, "Augustus Csesar was endowed, if 
 ever man was, with a greatness of mind, calm, serene, 
 and well ordered; witness the exceeding great actions which 
 he conducted in his early youth. " 
 
 This estimate of Bacon's applies even better to Napoleon 
 than to Augustus ; for the latter, though he showed remark- 
 able judgment and self-command at the time of his uncle's 
 death, was not the general who won the battle of Philippi. 
 It was Mark Anthony who carried the popular party safely 
 through that crisis, and historians have not yet given him 
 sufficient credit for this. The well-known bust of the 
 young Augustus, which is in the Capitoline Museum, bears 
 a resemblance to Napoleon, which all observers notice; 
 but at a later time his head did not develop to such full, 
 
 11 
 
12 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 well-rounded capacity. If in addition to the qualities men- 
 tioned by Bacon we make a list of other virtues, such as 
 diligence, punctuality, determination, readiness, versa- 
 tility, correct observation, mental composure, firmness, 
 and courage. Napoleon is one of the few historical char- 
 acters who possessed them all. Then if we add a vivid 
 imagination, a rare inventive faculty, and a ready appre- 
 ciation of fine and beautiful things, we may turn him about 
 and look at him, on every side, without finding a flaw 
 anywhere in him. He seems to be a complete man. If 
 not scrupulously veracious, he had at least a veracious 
 nature; the nature of a man who loves good work in him- 
 self and others. 
 
 No doubt he was ambitious, but of what sort was his 
 ambition? The quality of ambition, like the quality of 
 love, depends upon the individual. It may lead to the 
 loftiest virtue or the most contemptible vice. Ambition 
 is a plant which requires the sunshine of opportunity. 
 The more rapidly we succeed, the more ambitious we 
 become. In every college class there are men apparently 
 as ambitious as Napoleon was at his military school. 
 Some of them die of it. A cheap ambition for superiority 
 did not belong to him; his was of a more sohd kind. 
 
 To attempt to penetrate Napoleon's motives by a 
 preconceived opinion of him as an exceptional man, is 
 a vicious method. If we judge him at all, we must suppose 
 him to be actuated by the same motives which actuate 
 other men under like conditions. The early death of his 
 father left him with the responsibihty of providing for 
 four brothers, of whom Lucien alone possessed sufficient 
 talent to make his own way in life. His family, never 
 affluent, were obliged to be exceedingly economical. 
 Under these circumstances a virtuous boy, as Napoleon 
 
THE MAN OF DESTINY 13 
 
 certainly was, will feel that his first duty is to obtain a 
 foothold in the great world, from which he can hold out a 
 hand to the others. We hear that Napoleon was solemn 
 and taciturn, "prematurely grave," in his youth, and 
 this weight of responsibility is sufficient to account for 
 the fact, without seeking an explanation deduced from 
 the surprising events of his after life. It has even been 
 supposed that he stunted his figure by hard study and 
 exercise at the military school; but at the same time it is 
 certain that he did not injure his health. From the time 
 of his first military success Napoleon's personal ambition 
 is so interwoven with the necessities of his time and of his 
 country that it is impossible to separate one from the 
 other. 
 
 Perhaps the most remarkable trait in his character is 
 revealed in the fact that his confidence does not appear 
 to have been ever misplaced. He surrounded himself 
 with the most honest men in France, and though he also 
 made use of tricky and unprincipled persons, like Talley- 
 rand and Fouche, he always knew just how far they were 
 to be trusted. When during the hundred days Fouche 
 was playing a double part for his own safety. Napoleon 
 perceived it at once, and let him know that he understood 
 his position, and for that reason was not afraid of him. 
 How are we to account for this clear insight except by a 
 pure love of veracity. It is only that which guides the 
 historian, the philosopher, or the statesman through his 
 work. Penetration is also necessary, but penetration 
 is like a telescope which needs a human will behind it to 
 make it of service. Voltaire had also a penetrating mind, 
 but by no means a profound one. Napoleon was, after 
 all, the one solid entity among the Latin races. For the 
 same reason he was universally trusted. The French 
 
14 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 people clung to him as iron filings are attracted to a 
 magnet. 
 
 Napoleon's penetrating look has become historical, 
 — ^like that of Alexander of Macedon before him. That 
 it became a habit with him, so that he applied it to both 
 men and women in a manner which often seemed uncivil 
 is not to be denied; but in the confused condition of French 
 affairs after the Revolution, having to deal continually 
 with strange faces, it was the only way in which he could 
 judge of his customer. 
 
 The objection may be raised that we are describing an 
 ideal man and not the real Napoleon. This is quite true, 
 but without such an ideal there would never have been 
 any real Napoleon as we know him. The real is the ideal 
 Napoleon as conditioned by external events. It was the 
 ideality in him which gave the supernal beauty to his face 
 and illuminates the history that he made; for otherwise he 
 would have been merely a French oflScer, as Bliicher was 
 a Prussian officer, and never a genius and a world hero. 
 Veracity of fact is always superior to veracity of form. 
 It is not uncommon for people to have, and at the same 
 time disregard, such evidence and testimony as are indis- 
 pensable for sound judgment and right action. On the 
 other hand, it is impossible to deal with men on a large 
 scale, particularly in politics, without some faculty of 
 dissimulation, — enough at least to enable us to conceal 
 our thoughts; and Napoleon developed this faculty to 
 such perfection that the ablest diplomats in Europe were 
 not more than a match for this son of Mars, whose only 
 education had been in the art of war. 
 
 There are men and women whose inclinations follow 
 so closely the lines of the universal laws that ordinarily 
 they are not obliged to exercise much self-control. Napo- 
 
THE MAN OF DESTINY 15 
 
 leon was one of these: he did everything he undertook 
 in the very best manner, not as a matter of principle, but 
 as Raphael and Titian painted their pictures. He was 
 not only a great soldier, but a great artist; and this perfect 
 freedom of action endowed him with extraordinary power. 
 He could throw all the energy of his nature, without 
 reservation, into each particular act. This separated him 
 by a wide chasm from the ablest men about him, and 
 caused them to look upon him almost as a supernatural 
 personage. In the end, however, it exaggerated his self- 
 confidence almost to the extent of a religious superstition. 
 It was much to Napoleon's advantage — as it was to 
 Hamilton's — that he was born on an island, and of a 
 different race from the one with which he was afterwards 
 identified. He had thus an opportunity in the years of 
 formative intelligence of looking at France from an exter- 
 nal standpoint, and could see the French people more 
 exactly as they were, and are. Metternich remarked that 
 none of the sovereigns of France had understood the 
 French character, or had known how to deal with it so 
 well as Bonaparte. Louis XIV. might say, " I am France ;" 
 but Napoleon, in 1809, could have said, "France, I own 
 it. " He became more and more of a Frenchman as he 
 advanced in life; but was altogether more like an ancient 
 Roman dropped into the nineteenth century. He was 
 particularly fond as a boy of reading Plutarch's Lives; 
 and it can hardly be doubted that he derived his code of 
 morality from that source, although in the most atheistic 
 stage of the French Revolution he remained a stanch 
 Catholic and celebrated mass privately in his chamber 
 when it was dangerous to do so. One of Madame Bona- 
 parte's friends is reported to have spoken of her taciturn 
 son as "one of Plutarch's men." 
 
16 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 No man can escape altogether from the influence of 
 early surroundings. Modern ItaHans are well known to 
 be rather tricky and Corsica has also been noted for its 
 smugglers and even pirates. We sometimes trace the 
 germ of this moral dereliction in Napoleon's method of 
 dealing. He had not more of the lion in his composition 
 than he had of the fox. He won his most decisive battles 
 by tactical tricks which no one had ever thought of before; 
 and his practice of carrying off valuable works of art from 
 conquered cities, in order to give lustre to his administra- 
 tion, reminds one of those plundering Roman generals, 
 whom even the ancients could not justify. Occasionally 
 we perceive an element in him as if the pure brightness 
 of his intellect was momentarily shut out by a cloud. 
 The larger the diamond the more liable it is to some im- 
 perfection. 
 
 It is necessary to distinguish, however, between the 
 virtues of a retired life, in which there is always leisure 
 to reflect upon the consequences of our conduct, and the 
 life of those who act under continual pressure, and are 
 obliged to decide almost instantaneously on matters of 
 the highest importance. To judge Napoleon by the same 
 standard as Wordsworth, or Emerson, would be an 
 absurdity of logic. It would be hardly just to compare 
 him with Wellington or General Sherman. 
 
 We should always remember the element into which 
 he was plunged — so young and inexperienced. France 
 in the time of Henry IV. was the centre of civilization; 
 but it had become a civilization rotten at the core. Its 
 condition during the eighteenth century has become pro- 
 verbial, but Spain, Italy, and Portugal were even more 
 demorahzed. In all the Latin races vice was rampant 
 and virtue persecuted; but the vigorous struggle in France 
 
THE MAN OF DESTINY 17 
 
 between Huguenots and Catholics had helped to preserve 
 the intellectual energy of the French race. Although 
 Protestantism had been crushed out as a popular creed, 
 intellectual freedom continued to survive in the skepticism 
 of Voltaire and the encyclopaedists, while political indiffer- 
 ence tolerated theories of government of the most revolu- 
 tionary character. There were high-minded men in both 
 Spain and Italy, but they lived only to suffer. They 
 were isolated instances, and in neither country was there 
 sufficient vitality left to enact a revolution. When religion 
 becomes separated from morality — and it was just this 
 condition which Martin Luther rebelled against — civiliza- 
 tion has to decline and will continue to do so, until some 
 great physical shock brings the world to its senses, and 
 causes it to realize its true condition. 
 
 At that time it may fairly be stated that Prussia and 
 some other portions of Germany, with Sweden, Denmark, 
 Hungary, Scotland, and the eastern coast of North Ameri- 
 ca were the only nations in a healthy moral condition, — 
 the only countries where the commandments of Moses 
 were respected, and obeyed to any considerable degree. 
 England was in a midway condition between Scotland 
 and France. The body politic of Europe evidently re- 
 quired a surgeon, and Nature, not wishing her favorite 
 race to go to ruin, provided one at the right moment. 
 
 We read of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, 
 without realizing that a similar course of events has 
 taken place in recent times. There is now a united 
 Italy, and Spain has again obtained a constitutional 
 government, but the Italy of Michel Angelo and the 
 Spain of Cervantes exist no longer. Those nations have 
 gone down as Rome went down before them, and their 
 present influence on the course of civilization is little or 
 
18 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 nothing. France, Germany, and Great Britain are full 
 of intellectual energy, and each has had its complement of 
 great men during the present century. Italy has had 
 two or three, and Spain even less. Italian soldiers fought 
 bravely under Garibaldi, but were everywhere defeated 
 by the Austrians in 1866, from a lack of competent com- 
 manders; and the same incompetency was conspicuously 
 apparent in the late contest between Spain and the United 
 States. Men of superior character and nobility are to a 
 nation what lighthouses are to the seacoast. 
 
 It is a saddening investigation to trace the degradation 
 of Italian art and architecture from the pure, refined 
 taste of the fifteenth century, and the noble magnificence 
 of the sixteenth, through various transitions of demoraliza- 
 tion and reaction, until the series finally ends in the middle 
 of the eighteenth century with what might be called a 
 stony grin of horror. In the immediate vicinity of the 
 ducal palace at Venice, there is a head carved on the base 
 of a tower dedicated to St. Mary the Beautiful, which 
 Ruskin thus describes: "A head, — huge, inhuman, and 
 monstrous, — leering in bestial degradation, too foul to 
 be either pictured or described, or to be gazed at for more 
 than an instant: yet let it be endured for that instant; 
 for in that head is embodied the type of the evil spirit to 
 which Venice was abandoned in the fourth period of her 
 decline. " 
 
 Similar monstrosities are to be met with in Rome and 
 other Italian cities, and the funereal monuments in the 
 churches, of that period; and if not so indecent are equally 
 frivolous and distasteful. What more fitting prognostic 
 could there be of a great social upheaval. The concluding 
 lines of Byron's tragedy of "Marino Faliero" repeat the 
 same evidence, — a picture of social conditions which we 
 
THE MAN OF DESTINY 19 
 
 shudder to contemplate. When Napoleon arrived before 
 Venice with his army, a feeble revolution took place in his 
 favor within the city; so feeble that it might be compared 
 to the impotent struggles of a paralytic, but it served to 
 indicate the popular impulse of the time. Napoleon made 
 an end of the decrepit old republic, and almost immedi- 
 ately its inhabitants doubled in number. It was like a 
 surgeon lancing an ulcer. His disposing of the city after- 
 wards to the Austrians as a make-weight in the negotiations 
 for peace is not so creditable to him, but it is not likely 
 that he would have done this if it had been avoidable. 
 
 It has been supposed that Spanish dominion was the 
 ruin of Italy; but cities like Milan and Florence that were 
 under foreign government were more flourishing, and 
 preserved a better morale than Venice and Rome. After 
 the revolution came the virtuous, weak sentimentality of 
 Canova and the Italian opera, and in France the mild, 
 negative conservatism of Chateaubriand. The world had 
 begun to realize its wickedness, and was making a laudable 
 but not very earnest effort to behave itself again. 
 
 Previous to Napoleon, the whole continent of Europe 
 was covered with an iron network of institutions derived 
 from the feudal system, which were as unsuitable to 
 modern modes and customs as the armor of the Black 
 Prince would have been for General Grant. The human 
 race was not only spiritually miserable, but its limbs 
 were fettered. 
 
 Society in the feudal system was like an army in winter 
 cantonments. Warfare, though not so deadly nor carried 
 on so extensively as at present, was almost perpetual, so 
 that subordination and military discipline prevailed every- 
 where. Now, an officer in an army can strike a soldier, 
 and, if he does it without sufficient cause, the latter has a 
 
20 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 chance of redress by applying to his superior officer; but 
 if a private soldier strikes an officer, the latter has a right 
 to shoot him. This is necessary for military subordina- 
 tion; but apply it to civil affairs and what a condition of 
 things you will have. Voltaire was beaten by a French 
 lord as any slave might have been; but when he attempted 
 to obtain redress he was imprisoned for several months 
 to cure his insolence. Even in England a hundred years 
 ago there was no law which could compel a nobleman to 
 pay debts contracted to merchants or professional men. 
 The revolutions of the seventeenth century had mitigated 
 the evil largely in Great Britain; as did the law reforms of 
 Frederick in Prussia, and the reforms of Joseph II. in 
 Austria. It was accordingly these three nations which 
 formed the barrier against the extension of French influence 
 under Napoleon. 
 
 Heroes do not always appear when they are needed, 
 nor do they fit exactly the places which are assigned to 
 them. There are periods in history in which human 
 affairs seem to be given over to the sport of circumstances, 
 and a blind, deaf fate mocks all efforts to discover a 
 rational sequence of events. There are other periods 
 which seem to be in the care of a supernatural guidance; 
 when events take place as if according to a prearranged 
 plan, and great men appear unexpectedly to play their 
 parts in them, as actors come out from behind the scenery 
 of a theatre. Of the former sort, the Italian leagues of 
 the fifteenth century and the thirty years' war in Grer- 
 many are conspicuous examples: of the latter are the 
 struggle of the American colonies for independence, and 
 the consulate and empire in France. Napoleon's mission 
 in life was to knock the feudal system in the head. 
 
 Julius Csesar is the only famous man with whom we 
 can compare him. They are the two greatest soldiers in 
 
THE MAN OF DESTINY 21 
 
 history, and at the same time great lawgivers, writers, 
 and revolutionists. Wendell Phillips said, " Caesar crossed 
 the Rubicon borne in the arms of a people trodden into 
 the dust by a cruel and rapacious oligarchy;" and the 
 world is generally coming to that opinion. It was exactly 
 the same spirit which animated the soldiers of Napoleon 
 in his two Italian campaigns; but the difference was that 
 in his case the oligarchy was without France instead of 
 within it. All the kings of Europe were banded together 
 in support of hereditary privilege, and this "little cor- 
 poral" stood forth as the champion of character and 
 virtue. It was Thor again fighting the giants. 
 
 Carlyle calls him "the champion of democracy," but 
 that is not likely. As an army officer he would naturally 
 have more confidence in subordination as a political 
 principle than in equal rights. He was, however, the 
 champion of justice, and of equality for all classes before 
 the law. Wherever he went with his battalions he ap- 
 peared as a political reformer, — a reorganizer in the inter- 
 est of public morality; and this accounts partly for the 
 marvelous success of his early campaigns. The rank and 
 file of the enemy looked upon him as a liberator, and 
 actually wished for his success. The French fought for a 
 cause, but the Austrians fought because they had no 
 alternative. Napoleon was a hero in Vienna itself, and 
 Beethoven had already dedicated a symphony to him 
 when the news came that he had crowned himself at Fon- 
 tainebleau. If Napoleon had died before that event, 
 would he not have been considered one of the noblest 
 heroes of all time? 
 
 A government that will endure the storms of history 
 must be rooted like the oak. It must have its beginning 
 far back in the records of the nation, and be endeared to 
 the hearts of the people. It must grow underground, as 
 
22 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 it were, before it comes to the surface. The federal Con- 
 stitution of the United States was a natural outcome from 
 the colonial governments which preceded it; and these 
 were derived, with some simple modifications, from the 
 municipal and constitutional governments of England. 
 Such was not the case with the French Directory. It had 
 no historical basis, but was merely a temporary structure 
 raised upon the ruins of the old French monarchy. The 
 people of France were not accustomed to it. It was not 
 suited to their character and they distrusted it. It was 
 vicious and ineffective. Our foreign ambassadors soon 
 discovered what unprincipled men were elected to the 
 Directory. " Mirabeau, " said Napoleon, "was a rascal, 
 but a very smart one. There were as great rascals as he 
 on the Directory with me, but they were not half so smart." 
 The mercantile class distrusted the Directory from a lack 
 of faith in its continued existence: the poorer classes dis- 
 trusted it on account of its impersonal character. A fre- 
 quent change of rulers has its advantages, but it greatly 
 lessens executive responsibility. A reaction against the 
 Directory was inevitable, and it would have taken place 
 much sooner but for the bad diplomacy of Pitt and the 
 Austrian minister, Thugut. The wars that resulted from 
 this diplomacy in fact prevented just what the Austrian 
 and English governments wished to accomplish. But for 
 the brilliant campaigns of Moreau and Napoleon it is 
 highly probable that the Bourbon family would have been 
 reseated on the throne of France before the close of the 
 century. The course of history sometimes depends on a 
 single will. 
 
 About the year 1800 two counter-revolutions took place, 
 of opposite tendencies; one in France and the other in the 
 United States. Let us suppose that Napoleon was ambi- 
 tious to become dictator. The fact makes little diflference. 
 
THE MAN OF DESTINY 23 
 
 It was inevitable that he should become dictator whether 
 he wished it or not. The Romans were the most practical 
 people of antiquity, and none more jealous of absolute 
 power; and they knew well enough what they were doing 
 when in times of public danger they vested the supreme 
 authority in a single person. On Napoleon's return from 
 Egypt he found the government of his country equally 
 bankrupt in money and reputation; commerce was ruined; 
 and the armies of the republic defeated and demoralized. 
 There was hardly more than one opinion: that he was the 
 only man who could save the state in this emergency. 
 The result justified the measure: for no sooner had Na- 
 poleon been placed at the head of affairs than his electric 
 energy penetrated to the most distant provinces and 
 into every department of public activity. With incredible 
 quickness the treasury was filled, trade revived, fresh 
 armies equipped, and the right man was everywhere found 
 in his proper place. 
 
 After the victories of Marengo and Hohenlinden, Na- 
 poleon was confronted by even greater difficulties. There 
 was a political organization in France, but otherwise the 
 social fabric was everywhere disordered. The early re- 
 formers of the Revolution, especially the Girondists, 
 might be compared to the alchemist in Hawthorne's 
 fable who killed his wife in attempting to remove her 
 birthmark. They desired to abolish a debased govern- 
 ment, a superannuated religion, intolerable class distinc- 
 tions, and social disabilities; and for the time being they 
 quite destroyed government, religion, and good society. 
 Alison, a historian more just to Napoleon than some later 
 ones, says of France in 1801, "Not only had the throne 
 been overturned, the nobility exiled, and the landed 
 estates confiscated; but the institutions of religion, law, 
 commerce, and education were almost annihilated. Even 
 
24 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 the establishments of charity had shared in the general 
 wreck; the monastery no longer dispensed its munificence 
 to the poor, and the doors of the hospitals were closed 
 against the indigent sick and wounded." Napoleon per- 
 ceived that before he could govern France he must obtain 
 the co-operation of church and school. 
 
 There is nothing that a statesman dreads like interfering 
 in questions of religion; and many who have done so have 
 lost their lives in consequence. Napoleon, however, re- 
 stored Catholicism, which was the only practical course 
 to pursue, at a single stroke. The skepticism of Voltaire 
 had culminated in the nihilism of Paine and the atheism 
 of Robespierre, and a strong reaction had set in. If 
 Napoleon had attempted to introduce Protestantism as a 
 national faith, the French people would have become 
 divided into hostile camps, and would have fallen an easy 
 prey to their enemies. As it happened, there was strong 
 opposition in high places to Napoleon's course. Moreau, 
 who was the Pompey of his time, set himseK against it, 
 and ungraciously refused to attend the first mass which 
 was celebrated by the new government in Notre Dame. 
 He may have been more enlightened than Napoleon, but 
 he was not so wise — not so patriotic. The true patriot 
 knows by a sense of tact and instinct what is best to be 
 done in such cases. 
 
 Napoleon next restored the time-honored names of the 
 months and days of the week, for which revolutionary 
 epithets had been substituted. This he accomplished by 
 a single edict, and thereby won much credit for himself 
 from all parts of the world. He next recalled a hundred 
 and fifty thousand exiles who had been hving in England 
 and Germany since 1793, many of them in great destitu- 
 tion. He could not restore their confiscated estates to 
 them, though it cannot be doubted that they deserved a 
 
THE MAN OF DESTINY 25 
 
 partial indemnity; but he conciliated them as much as 
 possible in other ways. He restored good society by 
 recognizing those informal but sensible distinctions of 
 classes such as we respect in America; and, if his state 
 receptions were not so brilliant as those of Louis XIV., 
 they had at least a superior moral tone. Napoleon's 
 own conversation was delightful; the plain sense and 
 simple grandeur of his ideas captivated everybody; though 
 his methods of preserving decorum in the drawing-room, 
 and in his own household, were sometimes too much like 
 those of the camp. When his face grew dark, everybody 
 shivered, not knowing where the lightning would strike; 
 but his reprimands were always well deserved, and on the 
 whole salutary. It was his way of keeping order. His 
 brothers enjoyed a larger share of this than others, yet 
 they do not appear to have been much afraid of him. 
 
 We cannot but admire the clearness of judgment, 
 resolution, and decision, by which he effected these radical 
 changes. During the First Consulate, the French govern- 
 ment securities nearly trebled in value; and the only 
 question asked was, "How could this prosperity be main- 
 tained and made continuous. " Napoleon was only thirty- 
 two, and his fame was like that of Alexander. It is stated 
 that when Beethoven heard that Napoleon had obtained 
 for himself the office of life-consul, with power of nominat- 
 ing a successor, he cast the score of his heroic symphony 
 on the floor and allowed it to remain there for some days. 
 Napoleon's usurpation, as it has been called by his enemies, 
 has always been considered by republicans a severe blow 
 to liberal institutions; but if we compare it with Cromwell's 
 treatment of the British Parliament, we find similar under- 
 lying causes in both instances. There was the same 
 division of opinion and uncertainty in the councils of the 
 republican leaders in France as that which embarrassed 
 
26 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 Cromwell so much in managing the affairs of the Puritan 
 party. In both cases there was a strong military pressure 
 behind the usurper; and a strong external need of concen- 
 tration. Subsequent events proved that Cromwell's life 
 could only be safe by pursuing the course he adopted, and 
 we may suspect as much in regard to Napoleon. The 
 repetition of such events in history would seem to indicate 
 that they were unavoidable. No man could have suc- 
 ceeded in elevating himself to Napoleon's position through 
 personal ambition alone. As in Caesar's case, it was 
 necessary to have a strong political party behind him; 
 and to this end it was essential that he should assimilate 
 himself to the aims and purposes of his party. Not only 
 the French army wished for the life-consulship, but a large 
 majority of the French people wished it, — as was proved 
 by the vote that was taken in ratification of the change of 
 government. Napoleon must have been gratified by this 
 expression of public confidence, but, like every great con- 
 structor, he naturally desired to see the work he had be- 
 gun carried to its completion; and this was even of more 
 importance to him than honor. 
 
 If at the close of two years Napoleon had resigned the 
 consulship, which was really a dictatorship,* and the Direc- 
 tory had again come into power, what would have been 
 the consequences? What condition would France have 
 been in to withstand the next coaUtion of England, 
 Austria, and Russia? Every aristocrat in Europe was 
 determined to crush out the dangerous French innovation. 
 It is not likely that Napoleon would have found a place 
 in the Directory. He had proved his superiority to all of 
 the Frenchmen in public life; such superiority as is more 
 dangerous to the possessor than to others. He might 
 
 *I have since found that Napoleon gave the same explanation to 
 Count Las Cases. 
 
THE MAN OF DESTINY 27 
 
 have been exiled or even put to death. If the sole con- 
 sulship survived, Moreau would probably have been 
 elected in Napoleon's place. In 1800 Napoleon placed 
 Moreau in command of the best army that France 
 possessed, and went to the Marengo campaign with 
 a greatly inferior force. Is it likely that Moreau, who 
 was afterward implicated in the conspiracy of Cadoadal, 
 would have treated Napoleon with equal magnanimity? 
 It is more probable that Moreau would have stood in the 
 way of Napoleon's employment in any position where he 
 might have a chance to distinguish himself. The best 
 evidence of this is, that he afterwards fought against his 
 own country, in the army of the Tsar of Russia, which 
 can only be accounted for on the ground of a deep-seated 
 animosity toward Napoleon.* 
 
 Perhaps the best excuse for Napoleon's course at that 
 time was the codification of French law in the interest of 
 equality and universal justice. He felt especial interest 
 in this work, which has survived his battles, and embodied 
 the best fruits of the French Revolution. The codifica- 
 tion was almost too hastily accomplished, — for it was a 
 work of years, — and could only have been performed 
 under the supervision of a single mind. After the Code 
 Napoleon had been adopted, it was still necessary that 
 it should be sustained in practice until the legal profession 
 should become accustomed to it. Otherwise, a sudden 
 revolution of the most fickle people in Europe might 
 have overturned the whole structure of revolutionary 
 jurisprudence and left it sticking in the mire of reform. 
 The change from life-consul to emperor was little more 
 than a nominal one. Napoleon's power remained the 
 
 *Napoleon twice treated Moreau with exceptional magnanimity; and 
 Moreau was killed at Dresden in consequence of an order given by Na- 
 poleon himself. 
 
28 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 same, but it was surrounded by more formality and court 
 etiquette. He was virtually emperor already, and it was 
 better on many accounts that he should be recognized by 
 the proper title. He was not a man to care for names but 
 for realities. Before he returned from Egypt he wrote to 
 his brother, "At twenty-nine, I am already tired of glory. " 
 It is certain that the etiquette of court life was distasteful to 
 him. He repeated this several times, adding that elaborate 
 ceremonies were not becoming to a soldier. 
 
 The enlightened government of the future should be a 
 rational republicanism; a republicanism foimded not so 
 much on the rights of the individual as on duties to the 
 state ; and it would have been well if Napoleon could have 
 resigned his dictatorship, and assisted with his wise head 
 in framing a constitutional government which would have 
 united the best qualities of the Roman, the English, and 
 the American. Such an effort of his genius would be 
 more pleasant to contemplate than the long list of his 
 battles now carved on the Arc de Triomphe. This, how- 
 ever, was not to be; educated in the army instead of in the 
 law, his inclination undoubtedly favored a more military 
 form of government. If such a plan crossed his mind, we 
 may suppose that he dismissed it. There is always a 
 tendency to imperialism in democracy, and of this he was 
 ready enough to take advantage. It is only in the high 
 tides, or rather in the smooth waters of civilization, that 
 republican governments have proved to be possible; usual- 
 ly in communities favored by their geographical position. 
 Whether such could have succeeded in France at the 
 beginning of the nineteenth century is problematic and 
 could only be proved by experiment. We can thank our 
 isolated position in America for what was accomplished 
 here in 1787; accomphshed by the mighty exertions of men 
 
THE MAN OF DESTINY 29 
 
 trained and educated in English constitutional history. 
 It is safe to conclude that a slight external pressure at 
 that time would have prevented the adoption of our con- 
 stitution; and, indeed, such adoption was seriously threat- 
 ened by consideration of the slaveholder's interest. There 
 were in Napoleon's day not less than five political parties 
 in France, and of these the one which corresponded most 
 nearly to our Federalists counted the smallest number of 
 votes. To the confusion of the revolutionary period there 
 had s\icceeded a confusion of opinions. In the public 
 mind there is always uncertainty and indecision; and the 
 general public naturally turned for help to the man who 
 had a mind of his own, and was never found vacillating. 
 The problem of the hour was whether or no poor human 
 nature was to be crushed again beneath the juggernaut of 
 aristocratic privilege. Napoleon foresaw that this was 
 to be fought out in a long and bloody conflict, and he pre- 
 pared himseK for the coming struggle. 
 
 According to the Peace of Amiens, which followed the 
 French victories of Marengo and Hohenlinden, Napoleon 
 was to withdraw his forces from Switzerland and Italy; 
 and the British government on its part promised to restore 
 Cape Colony in Africa to Holland and the island of Malta 
 to the Knights of St. John, from whom it had been treach- 
 erously pirated. Malta, however, was an important 
 strategic position for the British cruisers, and possession 
 of the Cape of Good Hope secured the maritime highway 
 to India; so that public opinion in England was strongly 
 averse to having the conditions of the treaty carried into 
 effect; although Fox and the Liberals were anxious for 
 peace, and considered that the pledges of the treaty ought 
 to be kept. Having waited a reasonable time, therefore, 
 and finding that the British cabinet had no intention of 
 
30 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 acting in good faith with him, Napoleon marched his 
 troops back into Switzerland and Piedmont and took 
 possession again. This action was made an excuse at 
 Westminster for the renewal of hostilities; and it was at 
 this time that Napoleon used that celebrated phrase to 
 the English ambassador, "France may be destroyed, but 
 she cannot be intimidated." The true cause of the war 
 lay much deeper. Ever since the time of the Tudors it 
 had been a tradition of English foreign politics that the 
 possession of the Low Countries by a strong power would 
 be dangerous to English independence. Napoleon also 
 recognized this when he said, " Antwerp is a sword pointed 
 at the throat of England;" that is, at the mouth of the 
 Thames. It is true that Napoleon was in no wise 
 responsible for the annexation of Belgium or the French 
 protectorate in Holland, but he would have considered it 
 cowardly, as the great mass of the French people would, 
 to have surrendered those conquests. It would have been 
 considered a base desertion of the Dutch and Belgian 
 democrats. The same was true of northern Italy. Even 
 if Napoleon had been willing to return to the ancient 
 boundaries of France for the sake of peace and the balance 
 of power, it is not likely that this would have availed much. 
 In the temper of the French people at that time, excited 
 as they were with a rose-colored enthusiasm of reforming 
 the whole world, it could only have resulted in Napoleon's 
 overthrow, and transferring the reins of government to 
 less capable or less practical hands. Even Napoleon's 
 life would not have been safe imder such conditions. He 
 had to go on in the course which destiny had prescribed 
 for him, and was actually safer on the battlefield than he 
 would have been in Paris, if he had pursued the policy 
 which so many historians have since prescribed as the 
 
THE MAN OF DESTINY 31 
 
 proper course for him. He recognized this himself, and 
 frequently alluded to it; but few of those about him, and 
 still fewer afterwards were able to comprehend what he 
 meant. He was like a man between two fires, and this 
 situation explains the apparent recklessness with which 
 he often acted.* 
 
 In the coming struggle the French people were not only 
 obliged to contend against the fossilized principles of 
 mediaeval Europe, but against the living and highly active 
 principle of the balance of power, and the still more im- 
 portant principle of national independence. Did Napoleon 
 realize the task that was before him? Did he realize that 
 his enemies could not conclude a lasting peace so long as 
 Holland and western Germany were practically united to 
 France? No word ever escaped him from which we can 
 infer that he understood this supreme law of modern 
 international politics. Great actors in the world's drama 
 do not look too far ahead or consider too curiously. The 
 practical statesman turns from one object to another, 
 seizing always the one that is most prominent and im- 
 portant. Great events in those times pressed upon one 
 another so rapidly that men acted as it were from instinct, 
 and had hardly time to exercise forethought. The German 
 view of Napoleon is that he was an instrument in the 
 hands of fate, and like Michel Angelo (whose Christ in 
 the Last Judgment resembles him) built better "than he 
 knew." Napoleon's motives may not have been philan- 
 thropic; he may have desired the extension of French 
 interests more than the cause of equal rights, and his per- 
 sonal or family interests may have often obscured higher 
 objects in his mind. All we can say is that he pursued a 
 
 *Yet the French are the yeast of Europe and their heroic actions rival 
 those of the Greeks and Romans. 
 
32 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 well-defined course in a consistent manner, and should 
 receive credit for doing so.* 
 
 When a military genius is bom on a throne, or like 
 Cromwell obtains possession of one, the rest of the world 
 may well look out for itseK. If Napoleon had been ham- 
 pered by an Aulic council like that at Vienna, or had been 
 tied to a modem English ministry by submarine cables, 
 he might not have accomplished so very much. It was 
 certainly fortunate for the fame of Nelson and Wellington 
 that they were able to act in as independent a manner as 
 Napoleon himself. He often profited by the mistakes of 
 his adversaries, but it was more frequently the simple 
 grandeur of his ideas that defeated them. He calculated 
 his plans so exactly and carried them out to such minute 
 perfection that if it had not been for the disasters of his 
 Russian expedition, it is difficult to see how he could ever 
 have been overcome; but it might have happened in some 
 other manner, a stray bullet, or perhaps a fall from his 
 horse. The man who ruined him was the unknown person 
 who planned the burning of Moscow. That was a catas- 
 trophe which he had never thought of, and from that 
 hour his fall was certain. 
 
 His military movements have been criticised of late 
 even by his admirers; but too much, I think, according 
 to the methods of our own time. Napoleon does not 
 appear to me like a gambler in war, as M. Thiers and Mr. 
 Ropes are pleased to call him. Those who have suggested 
 
 *This and the foregoing statements concerning Napoleon's interference 
 in German affairs are fully supported by the best German historians. 
 Menzel's is, I believe, the only one yet translated into English, and it is 
 not first-rate, but his evidence is the more valuable because he belongs 
 to that class of German writers who have strong anti-Gallic sentiments. 
 He fumes over the French occupation of western Germany, but he admits 
 that Napoleon's government was just, and his reforms highly beneficial. 
 
THE MAN OF DESTINY 33 
 
 that in the campaign of 1805 he hazarded his communica- 
 tions to an attack in the rear from the Prussians, are not 
 so well informed as Napoleon was as to the condition of 
 the Prussian army. A year later Napoleon writes to his 
 brother, "The preparations that Prussia is making for 
 war are ridiculous." In 1805 Prussia was in no condition 
 to interfere with Napoleon. 
 
 It is true that he would have been defeated at Marengo 
 but for the fortunate arrival of Desaix, and Kellermann's 
 brilliant charge; but it was Napoleon who secreted Keller- 
 mann in the vineyard, and he evidently detached Desaix 
 to march on a parallel road so that he might fall on the 
 enemy's flank as soon as he heard the sound of the cannon. 
 It was an agreement like that between Blucher and Wel- 
 lington at Waterloo, and equally successful. He took 
 too large risks, perhaps, in his last German campaign, but 
 the result could hardly have been other than it was, and 
 the habit of playing a bold game had become fixed upon 
 him. During his captivity Napoleon often talked the 
 matter over with his_ companions, but never could see 
 how the campaign might have ended successfully. 
 
 Whatever special talent his adversaries possessed, that 
 Napoleon had also. He was in himself equal to all the 
 other generals in Europe. Wellington may have matched 
 him in handling troops on the battlefield; but Wellington 
 added nothing to the art of war, and as a strategist was 
 not even equal to Marmont. He had rare foresight and 
 
 In regard to the war of 1809, he flatly contradicts the statements of 
 English historians who allege that it was forced by Napoleon. He states 
 that it originated in an attempt by the Austrian government to excite an 
 uprising against Napoleon in central Germany, but this only resulted in 
 a few isolated outbreaks. He considers Napoleon the greatest hero of 
 modern times. See the American edition, pp. 1459, 1471, 1472, 1482, 
 1492, 1511, 1515. 
 
34 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 made a brave defense in Portugal; but he was afraid to 
 face Massena in the open field, and accomplished little in 
 Spain until Napoleon had withdrawn all the forces that 
 could be spared from the peninsula. Bliicher was as bold 
 and swift as Wellington was slow and cautious; but in 
 other respects the two were much alike. He defeated 
 Napoleon at Laon in 1814, — it is true with a superior 
 army, — and he saved the battle of Leipsic for the allies, 
 as he did afterward at Waterloo. 
 
 Next to Napoleon, the model soldier of the time was 
 the Archduke Charles of Austria. His campaign of 1809 
 was on both sides the most brilliant and bravely fought 
 of the present century. The series of actions from Eck- 
 muhl to Ratisbon, extending over a space of ten miles, 
 was such as only two commanders could perform who 
 perfectly understood each other. The Archduke, though 
 defeated, is admitted to have displayed great military 
 skill; and in the battle of Essling, which followed soon 
 after, he had much the best of the game, although the 
 sudden rising of the Danube prevented reinforcements 
 from reaching the French army. Wagram was one of 
 the most equal conflicts ever fought. There were ninety 
 thousand men on either side, and the level plain of the 
 Mayfield gave no advantage of position to one party or 
 the other. Napoleon was victorious by means of an 
 invention which had never before been thought of, and 
 which I believe has not been used since. He advanced 
 his cannon against the enemy's centre almost like a charge 
 of cavalry, — a movement which could only have succeeded 
 on perfectly level ground. 
 
 It is a mistake to suppose that Napoleon was lavish of 
 the lives of his soldiers. On the contrary, he was as 
 careful of them as possible. He overran both Austria 
 and Prussia with a loss of something like ten thousand 
 
THE MAN OF DESTINY 35 
 
 men. The desperate struggles of 1809, 1813, and 1815 
 caused a frightful loss of life to both sides; but there was 
 no help for it, and strange as it may seem, nobody was to 
 blame for this. 
 
 The Italian nationalists who supported Victor Emman- 
 uel and Garibaldi have admitted that Italy was never so 
 well governed before as under Napoleon's viceroy; though 
 particular cities like Florence and Venice had been better 
 governed. The numerous uprisings in Spain and Italy 
 during the Restoration between 1820 and 1848 all had 
 for their object constitutional government and a return 
 to the Code Napoleon. The enlightened princes of south- 
 western Germany, as well as the Duke of Weimar, adopted 
 the same platform of their own accord. The same in- 
 fluences prevailed even in Portugal after many turns of 
 fortune and an obstinate struggle with the nobles and 
 clergy. Napoleon's conquests were so beneficial that 
 they were even of advantage to countries which he treated 
 most severely. There is no evidence that he wished to 
 make war against Prussia. It was not for his interest to 
 do so. He could fight England, Austria, and Russia 
 together, but he foresaw if Prussia were added to these 
 three powers the struggle might be too much for him. 
 
 The Prussians, however, were in a vainglorious state 
 of mind, such as the French were in 1870. The passage 
 of Napoleon's army across an outlying piece of their 
 territory was not a sufficient offense of which to make a 
 casus belli. The truth appears to have been that they 
 were jealous of French victories and wished for a trial of 
 skill with the great conqueror. Napoleon certainly treated 
 Prussia with great severity, but the chastisement was not 
 without favorable results. It enabled Chancellor Stein 
 to enact the liberation of the serfs, and to settle the land 
 question in a manner greatly to the advantage of the 
 
36 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 common people. It is supposed that Frederick the Great 
 wished also to make these changes, but was deterred from 
 doing so on account of the opposition of his army officers, 
 who mostly belonged to the nobility. The present vigor- 
 ous and healthy condition of Prussia is owing in no small 
 measure to the catastrophe of Jena.* 
 
 Napoleon was also the liberator of Poland, and, in 
 spite of his severe military exactions, his all too brief 
 dominion there was looked upon as an oasis in the long 
 dreary desert of Russian absolutism. His government 
 was not despotic, for everything was done according to 
 law, and the capable Poles who took service under him 
 found their merits appreciated as quickly as if they had 
 been born Frenchmen. The burning of Moscow was a 
 greater misfortime to Poland than the burning of Warsaw 
 would have been. 
 
 It appears to have been during the Prussian campaign 
 of 1806 that Napoleon first conceived the idea of obtaining 
 peace by universal dominion. This, however, would 
 have been a positive misfortune to mankind, and it brought 
 him into conflict with two political principles, which he 
 could bend with his superhuman strength, but could not 
 break; so that they finally recoiled against him and cast 
 him from his throne. These were nationality, and the 
 balance of power. 
 
 To quote Hegel again, — and no one is better worth 
 quoting, — "It was against the rock of German nationality 
 that Napoleon shattered himself. " He might have added 
 also English and Spanish nationality. It has become a 
 fixed idea in the minds of a majority of men that a people 
 speaking the same language, of a common origin, and 
 common customs, have a right to a government of their 
 
 *See Professor Seeley's biography of Von Stein. 
 
THE MAN OF DESTINY 37 
 
 own. It is a principle which has been centuries in develop- 
 ing, but has acquired great power. The heart of humanity 
 is in sympathy with it. Consider what it has accom- 
 plished since 1820. Belgium has become independent, 
 and so have Servia and Bulgaria. Schleswig and Holstein 
 have been united with Germany, and Germany has become 
 united in itself. The Hungarians have obtained all the 
 independence they require, and Italy has become inde- 
 pendent and united. It was more this feeling that caused 
 the independence of the American colonies than any 
 decided misgovernment on the part of England. The 
 only exception to it has been the separation from France 
 of Alsace and Lorraine, whose inhabitants were originally 
 German, but had become Gallic through a long period of 
 French government. 
 
 There were two causes which may have prevented Napo- 
 leon from recognizing the right of nationality. In the 
 first place, he was without a country of his own. He 
 had adopted France and become identified with it; but 
 his father emigrated to Corsica at a time when there was 
 a bitter feeling on the island against the French, and 
 Corsica was not enough of itself to make a fatherland. 
 In the second place, from his early youth until middle 
 life the classes in all adjacent nations were so divided 
 against one another as for the time being almost to sup- 
 press the feeling for nationality. As these disputes, how- 
 ever, became finally adjusted, the love of one's own country 
 rose superior to the admiration for French liberalism, and 
 introduced into the affairs of Europe a new element on 
 which the great magician had not sufficiently counted. 
 
 Napoleon's enemies have always enumerated among 
 his imaginary crimes the removal of the king of Spain in 
 favor of his brother Joseph. Now, in reality to put an 
 end to such an effeminate, mendacious, and altogether 
 
38 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 disgraceful race as the line of Spanish sovereigns, from 
 Philip II. downward, was an act of beneficent manliness, 
 for which not only Spain, but all other nations ought to 
 have been thankful. Professor Seeley says : " The adminis- 
 tration of Spain had long been in the contemptible hands 
 of Manuel Godoy, supposed to be the queen's lover, yet 
 at the same time high in the favor of King Charles IV. 
 Ferdinand, the heir apparent, headed an opposition; but 
 in character he was not better than the trio he opposed, 
 and he had lately been put under arrest on suspicion of 
 designs upon his father's life." A precious family this, 
 truly, and one better suited to a house of correction than a 
 palace. The overthrow of Nero was not more perfectly 
 deserved, but Napoleon's peremptory method offended the 
 national pride of the Spanish people. They felt that 
 their rights as an independent state had been trampled 
 on; and the classes that would have been chiefly benefited 
 by the change were the foremost to revolt and showed 
 the most bitter opposition to it. Insurrections broke out 
 all over the country, and this lack of savoir faire gave 
 Napoleon more trouble and cost him more lives than ten 
 years of warfare with England. 
 
 The explanation of his severe treatment of Prussia is 
 simple enough. He said he* had "no ill-will against 
 Prussia; but if he could not remain at peace with her it 
 was necessary to crush her." He reduced the Prussian 
 army to twenty thousand men, ruined the commerce of 
 the country, and joined its eastern provinces to the king- 
 dom of Westphalia. He had not counted, however, on 
 Prussian nationality. In 1813 the people rose to a man, 
 and the nobles pawned their jewels for a war contribution. 
 They fought with the same desperation as the French did 
 in '95, and with even more stubbornness. Wherever 
 Napoleon was not present in person his troops were 
 
THE MAN OF DESTINY 39 
 
 defeated, and for the first time he discovered the differ- 
 ence between a heterogeneous empire and a substantial 
 nationahty. 
 
 No less important a principle is the balance of power. 
 Without this no country would feel safe from the attacks 
 of its neighbors. It is difficult enough to keep the peace 
 at any time between two or more rival nations, each with 
 its national prejudices, jealousies, and material interest; 
 but without the balance of power peace would be almost 
 impossible. Witness the hundred years of warfare between 
 England and France in the time of the Plantagenet kings. 
 Such purposeless, indiscriminate fighting would not be 
 permitted at the present day. The chief distinction be- 
 tween the politics of modern Europe and those of the 
 Grseco-Roman world consists in this principle. Universal 
 domination means political stagnation, the decline of 
 civilization, and barbarian conquest. The supremacy 
 of France in Europe, even of a French republic, or the 
 supremacy of any single nation, would be an international 
 misfortune. Among a family of nations, though there 
 may be contention and ill feeling, there is also that inde- 
 pendence of character and interchange of ideas which give 
 moral good health. We need the Englishman for his 
 manliness, the German for his sincerity and depth of 
 feeling, and the Frenchman for his social virtues. It has 
 been the very capstone of Bismarck's diplomacy that, 
 after having seriously disturbed the balance of power in 
 Europe, he was able to reconstruct it again on a firmer and 
 more rational basis than before. 
 
 It is far from pleasant to have to take sides against 
 such a magnificent man as Napoleon; but in the end we 
 are obliged to do this. He carried matters to such an 
 extreme that the minds of all men were in a state of tension, 
 so that they felt they could endure it no longer. Like 
 
40 POLITICS A^D METAPHYSICS 
 
 many another statesman, he was right in the beginning, 
 but wrong at the close of his career. Even his partisans 
 in France felt this. It seemed as if the iron network of 
 feudalism, which Napoleon had shattered, had been forged 
 again into a massive chain, which was twisted about the 
 whole of Europe, and was crushing out all freedom of 
 action and cheerful human activity. Carlyle, then a 
 student at Edinburgh, felt it with his keen, artistic sensi- 
 bility, and described in his old age how people woke up at 
 the fall of Napoleon as if from a hideous nightmare. Na- 
 poleon never perceived it himself; he had become too 
 much of a partisan; and perhaps could hardly distinguish 
 his own interests from those of his country. With all his 
 breadth of mind and clear penetration, he never could 
 place himself in the position of his adversaries. I do not 
 suppose any man could do it. He continued to the end 
 fighting the Russians and Prussians and Austrians in his 
 own mind. 
 
 The Russian campaign of 1812 was Napoleon's first 
 aggressive movement — if we except his occupation of Spain 
 — and the only one for which he can fairly be blamed. 
 Dr. Ropes brings forward evidence to prove that the Tsar 
 Alexander was meditating war and acting in a manner 
 hostile to his agreement with Napoleon, but it does not 
 seem likely that Alexander would have gone to war of his 
 own accord until he could have obtained the support of 
 Austria and perhaps of Prussia also.* Napoleon's ostensi- 
 ble complaint was that the Russian government permitted 
 the importation of English merchandise contrary to Na- 
 poleon's embargo. This is probable enough, but it was 
 much for Napoleon's interest that it should have been 
 
 *Menzel states, however, that the Russian campaign was caused by 
 Alexander's demand for the duchy of Warsaw, and his accumulation of 
 heavy forces on the PoUsh frontier. 
 
THE MAN OF DESTINY 41 
 
 permitted. Although there had not been since 1805 any- 
 direct commercial relations between England and France, 
 an immense smuggling traffic had been carried on by way 
 of Belgium, because Frenchmen wanted their coffee and 
 other tropical products, and Englishmen were equally 
 anxious for a supply of silks and brandy. The traffic that 
 was carried on through Russia between 1810 and 1812 was 
 of a similar character and served to content people on the 
 continent of Europe with the existing political order. 
 Green and other English historians have vainly imagined 
 that Napoleon's object was to humiliate their country; 
 but Napoleon's mind was too practical and his nature too 
 magnanimous for such idle folly. Metternich spoke of it 
 as the va hanque of a gambler whose head has been turned 
 by unlimited successes. At the same time, when consulted 
 by the Emperor Francis in regard to the probable issue of 
 the campaign, he expressed no doubt that Napoleon would 
 accomplish his object whatever that might be; and it is 
 well that those who look upon it now as a foolhardy 
 enterprise should remember this. I do not know that 
 Napoleon at any time gave an explanation of his reasons 
 for it, but we may gather them from casual observations 
 made at St. Helena. He told Dr. O'Meara, in a discourse 
 on Poniatowski, that he intended to have made him king 
 of Poland. This casts light on the subject at once. If 
 Poland could be reorganized under French protection, 
 perhaps with boundaries more extended than ever before, 
 and with the Code Napoleon and a land reform to satisfy 
 the cravings of the Polish people, it would form a strong- 
 hold in the east of Europe, on which the French emperor 
 could always rely for diplomatic support in peace and 
 military assistance in war. It would be a breakwater 
 against Russian aggression, and a military post in the rear 
 of Austria and Prussia. Such a government would prob- 
 
42 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 ably have satisfied the aspirations of the Poles for inde- 
 pendence, and would have been a very great advantage to 
 them. This evidently was Napoleon's plan, and if he had 
 succeeded in realizing it, it is difficult to imagine how his 
 enemies could ever have gotten the better of him.* 
 
 That Napoleon did not anticipate the burning of Moscow 
 is certain. He confessed that he never thought of it; and 
 it was perhaps the only large city in Europe that could 
 have been destroyed in that manner. It was composed 
 chiefly of wooden houses, and the weather of northern 
 Russia is subject to severe northwest winds which blow 
 from three to four days at a time. Such a conflagration 
 could not have happened in Paris or London. The fire 
 engines were of a primitive description, and had all been 
 cut so that even Napoleon's army was unable to stop the 
 conflagration. He described it as the grandest and most 
 terri|ble sight that he had ever witnessed. 
 
 The burning of Moscow was the last desperate resort 
 of the Russian government to drive Napoleon from the 
 country. In this it succeeded, but in the natural order of 
 events it would not have caused serious injury to the 
 French army, nor would it have prevented Napoleon from 
 opening a vigorous campaign on the Polish frontier the 
 following spring; and considering the immense destruction 
 of property, it was doubtful if the Russian cause would 
 on the whole have been improved by it. It was the pre- 
 mature and unprecedented cold during the French retreat 
 which so nearly destroyed the grande armee. The French 
 soldiers left their ranks, and wandered into farmhouses, 
 where they were easily captured by the Russians. "In 
 one night, " says Napoleon, " I lost forty thousand horses. " 
 
 *Menzel gives important evidence on this score, but his own reflec- 
 tions are neither judicious nor impartial. Pp. 1563-1565. 
 
THE MAN OF DESTINY 43 
 
 After this the cannon had to be left to the enemy, the 
 cavalry was dismounted, and the rear of Napoleon's 
 army was left unprotected. Multitudes were frozen to 
 death, and the wonder is that any escaped to tell the tale. 
 Yet when they reached the Beresina, one of the broadest 
 rivers of Europe, Napoleon was equal to the occasion, 
 and so manoeuvred as to deceive the Russian generals, and 
 effect a passage. He still remained equal to himself, but 
 fate was against him. Fortune, which had always favored 
 him thus far, even in the chances of escaping death on so 
 many battlefields, now smiled on him no longer. It was 
 as if the hand of destiny had set a mark beyond which he 
 could not go; and although this included the suffering of 
 millions, perhaps it was best that it should be so. The 
 pendulum of reform and revolution had swung too far, 
 and th,irty years of conservatism were needed to counter- 
 balance it. Napoleon had no chance after 1812, but the 
 Russians also suffered so severely that during the follow- 
 ing campaign they were able to accomplish little, and but 
 for the assistance of the Prussians must have been driven 
 out of Germany. In 1813 Napoleon won his first three 
 battles, with raw levies scarce twenty years of age. 
 
 His downfall was a most terribly magnificent spectacle. 
 Though he appears so hard-hearted, he really loved his 
 men, and the loss of his army in Russia was like a perpetual 
 bereavement. Still more keenly did he feel the immola- 
 tion of his old veterans at Waterloo. No wonder he said 
 to Fouche, on his last return to Paris, "Do not tell me to 
 dare; I have dared too much already." What could be 
 more tragical than his last look at France (as we may 
 fancy it), from the deck of the Northumberland! What 
 more pathetic than his memoirs ! A voice from St. Helena 
 warning Europe to beware of its two great dangers; the 
 "red cotton night-cap, " and the monstrous semi-barbarous 
 
44 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 power of Russia — two great avalanches ready to descend 
 on civilization. This supreme man of action wasting away 
 on a sultry tropical island! Certainly Csesar was more 
 fortunate to fall at the base of Pompey's statue. 
 
 For a time it seemed as if, after filling the world with 
 confusion for twenty years, he had disappeared and left no 
 result behind him. Europe needed rest in which to recup- 
 erate from her wounds, and this could only come through 
 a strong conservative reaction. The despotism of Met- 
 ternich and the Holy Alliance was more intolerable than 
 the severity of Napoleon, with his sumptuary laws and 
 constant military training; but it was inevitable and had 
 to be endured. It seemed for the time being as if the 
 whole continent would be Russianized; but the spirit of 
 equal rights was irrepressible. First came the revolution 
 at Naples; then in Piedmont, Spain, Portugal, and Greece; 
 and these were suppressed for the most part by Metternich 
 and the sentimental Chateaubriand, and many patriots 
 suffered martyrdom; yet a deep fermentation went on in 
 society, and at length the July revolution in Paris changed 
 the whole aspect of affairs in western Europe. 
 
 When a ship loaded with cotton happens to take fire it 
 will sometimes burn for days before this is discovered, 
 and for days afterwards, while all attempts to quench the 
 conflagration fail. When the deck begins to smoke and 
 becomes too hot for the sailors to stand on, they take to 
 their boats and escape as they best can. Such was the 
 political situation in Europe between 1820 and 1848; and 
 Metternich was the captain of the vessel. He strove man- 
 fully to quench the flames, but at length even conservative 
 Vienna became too hot for him, and he was obliged to 
 retire to the cool shadows of his castle on the Rhine. He 
 was a good man in himself and not without statesmanlike 
 ability, but much too superficial. To his mental vision 
 
THE MAN OF DESTINY 45 
 
 constitutional government must lead to republicanism, and 
 republicanism to socialism; just as our prohibitionists 
 suppose that drinking wine and beer leads to delirium 
 tremens. 
 
 After many vibrations of the political pendulum all 
 Europe except Russia has now adopted the constitutional 
 form, and the Code Napoleon is dominant from Munich 
 to Cadiz, and between Sicily and the Straits of Dover. 
 Napoleon is reported to have said that his laws would be 
 remembered after his victories were forgotten; but they 
 really belonged to one another, and the same principles 
 underlie them both. 
 
 He was not a scrupulous man, and, if he had been, would 
 never have accomplished the work he was given to do. 
 Like all great natures, he troubled himself little as to what 
 his contemporaries thought of him. He cared more to en- 
 act justice in this world than to have justice done him in 
 the next. It is true he was severe, but the times were 
 such as required severity; and I believe there is no instance 
 in which he refused to listen to a suggestion in behalf of a 
 revision of judgment. Metternich says that as a man he 
 was neither moral nor immoral; and this coming from so 
 vigorous an opponent has a good deal of value. Those 
 who have the cares of empires resting on them find little 
 leisure to be good according to the usual methods of human- 
 ity. He has suffered somewhat from the stories that 
 Madame Junot and other ladies of his court record of him; 
 and it is better to believe these, and give Napoleon the 
 full benefit of them, than to attempt any excuse for them. 
 They are not charges of a serious nature. 
 
 I was long troubled by hearing of Napoleon's crimes 
 until I found an opportunity to examine them; whereupon 
 they all became dissipated like morning mist. They are 
 crimes only from the standpoint of hereditary privilege. 
 
46 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 His removal of the incapable king of Spain, which was 
 already been commented on, is a typical instance of this. 
 It is true that the negro general Toussaint died in a French 
 prison, but we should be cautious about accepting Miss 
 Martineau's statement that his death was caused by ill 
 treatment. There was no reason why he should have 
 been treated differently from other political prisoners, and 
 Miss Martineau's writings are rarely exempt from the 
 influence of the various philanthropies of which she was 
 the champion. When a writer's sense of right and wrong 
 becomes so far perverted as to treat the protection of 
 national industries as a question of morality, there is no 
 reason why we should pay him or her serious consideration. 
 Napoleon's transportation of the Jacobin leaders to Guiana 
 was a relief to French politics, and a tardy act of justice 
 for the horrors of the Revolution, which could not have 
 been obtained in any other manner. The perfection of 
 government would only seem to be attained when there 
 is a power above the law to rectify and amend its deficien- 
 cies. 
 
 Madame De Stael was banished for her impertinence; 
 if it be not called downright impudence. A woman is 
 never so intolerable as when she imagines herself to be an 
 important political factor. Madame De Stael permitted 
 herself to become a puppet for Napoleon's enemies, and 
 no matter how powerful a chief magistrate may be he 
 cannot afford to have men or women treat him with dis- 
 respect. There was great rejoicing among sensible people 
 in Paris at her departure; as there was also in the duchy of 
 Weimar when she returned to her villa on the lake of Ge- 
 neva. Her exile was no great hardship, and but for its 
 long continuance might even be esteemed a blessing. 
 The French people as a rule know too little about other 
 coimtries, and her travels in Germany, Italy, and Eng- 
 
THE MAN OF DESTINY 47 
 
 land broadened her mind and improved the quaKty of 
 her writing. 
 
 Napoleon's nearest approach to crime, and the most 
 futile of his undertakings, was his divorce from Josephine. 
 That, at least, was an offense against society. Yet it was 
 not a crime, for many other men have done the same with- 
 out being regarded as criminals. On his return from 
 Egypt there was some trouble between them, but they 
 were reconciled by the mediation of Hortense and Eugene. 
 Again, when he became emperor he is reported to have 
 had a severe struggle over the right of succession; for 
 Josephine wished to have her own son take precedence of 
 Napoleon's brothers. This statement does not come from 
 very good authority, and may be incorrect. If the truth 
 were known, it would probably appear that the divorce 
 originated more from Napoleon's desire to have children 
 of his own than from a wish to become allied to the house 
 of Austria. There are many husbands who can sympathize 
 with such a feeling. 
 
 The cardinal sin of Napoleon's life, however, the one 
 his enemies lay the severest stress on, was the supposed 
 murder of the Due d'Enghien. There never was a much 
 clearer case of accessory before the act than is found in the 
 conduct of the duke. At the same time that Captain 
 Wright landed Cadoudal and his accomplices on the 
 French coast, the Due d'Enghien went to the duchy of 
 Baden and stationed himself close to the French border. 
 The duke was a fool to suppose he could make such a move 
 on the chessboard without attracting Napoleon's attention. 
 Its coincidence with the arrival of a number of mysterious 
 persons in Paris was also noticed. Spies were at once 
 set upon the duke's movements, and it was discovered 
 that he made nocturnal excursions into French territory. 
 He might have been arrested and condemned for this; 
 
48 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 but Napoleon waited until all the fish had been gathered 
 into his net. It is not certainly known that the duke 
 corresponded with Pichegru and Cadoudal; but no 
 sane person doubts that he was acquainted with their 
 movements. The British government might profess in- 
 difference as to the methods by which the conspirators 
 intended to overthrow Napoleon's government; but the 
 same excuse will not answer for the Due d'Enghien. If an 
 honest man is caught among thieves he suffers the penalty 
 of his folly. It was the duke's business to have known the 
 plans of the conspirators. He was court-martialed and 
 executed as the associates of Wilkes Booth were court- 
 martialed and executed for the murder of Lincoln. The 
 assassination of a chief magistrate is the most hideous of 
 all crimes, and the slightest effort towards it ought to be 
 punished with death.* 
 
 The massacre of his Turkish prisoners by Napoleon, in 
 Syria, was atrocious enough, but the act was decided upon 
 by a council of war, which Kleber, Junot, and other generals 
 of high character attended. They had no provisions 
 wherewith to feed the prisoners, and, if released, they would 
 have rejoined the forces of the enemy. Christian prisoners 
 might have been paroled, but for Turks that would have 
 been a useless and ridiculous ceremony. They were 
 treated as if their parole had already been broken; but 
 it was a bad situation of affairs. 
 
 The only act which appears to have caused him remorse 
 was breaking the ice at Austerlitz. The cries of the 
 drowning Russians haunted him. It was hardly worse 
 
 *Every one should read Napoleon's own account of this conspiracy, 
 (veracious on the very face of it) in the Voice from St. Helena, vol. i., p. 
 290, which I did not see myself until after this statement was written. 
 The English also consider the execution of Major Andre a crime of the 
 same sort. 
 
THE MAN OF DESTINY 49 
 
 than exploding the powder magazine of a frigate with hot 
 shot would have been. There is no other instance like it in 
 the history of warfare on land. Frederick or Marlborough 
 might have done the same. 
 
 Napoleon's civil administration is fairly exemplified by 
 his treatment of the Jews. When questioned at St. Helena 
 as to his reason for this liberality, he replied, "I wanted 
 to make them leave off usury and become like other men. 
 There were a great many Jews in the countries I reigned 
 over; by removing their disabilities, and by putting them 
 on an equality with Catholics, Protestants, and others, I 
 hoped to make them become good citizens, and conduct 
 themselves like others of the community. I believe that 
 I should have succeeded in the end. My reasoning with 
 them was — as their rabbins explained to them — that they 
 ought not to practice usury to their own tribes, but were 
 allowed to do so with Christians and others; that, there- 
 fore, as I had restored them to all their privileges, and 
 made them equal to my other subjects, they must consider 
 me to be the head of their nation, like Solomon or Herod, 
 and my subjects like brethren of a tribe similar to theirs; 
 that, consequently, they were not permitted to practice 
 usury with me or them, but to treat us as if we were of the 
 tribe of Judah; that having similar privileges to my other 
 subjects, they were in like manner to pay taxes and sub- 
 mit to the laws of conscription and others. By this I 
 gained many soldiers. Besides, I should have drawn great 
 wealth to France, as the Jews are very numerous and would 
 have flocked to a country where they enjoyed such superior 
 privileges. Moreover, I wanted to establish a universal 
 liberty of conscience. My system was to have no pre- 
 dominant religion, but to allow perfect liberty of conscience 
 and of thought, to make all men equal, whether Protest- 
 ants, Catholics, Mahometans, Deists, or others; so that 
 
50 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 their religion should have no influence in getting them 
 employment under government." It will be remembered 
 that Julius Caesar also wished to alleviate the condition 
 of the Jews. 
 
 What a man is this! What lofty thought and noble 
 statesmanship, expressed in sentences as chaste and fra- 
 grant as rose petals! It is the doctrine of Christ trans- 
 ferred into practical politics. There is nothing like it in 
 Bacon or Locke or Macaulay. Just an hour before read- 
 ing it I was perusing the Phsedo of Plato, and it was not 
 easy to believe that I had changed from one writer to 
 another. The powder-scorched man, with the marble 
 temperament, had a most beautiful human soul within 
 him. Such a man must either be an autocrat or noth- 
 ing; for where could he find others whom he might take 
 counsel with on equal terms. If he had not risen to 
 power his whole life would have been an exile. 
 
 Napoleon's bulletins are not so exaggerated as his 
 enemies would have you believe; and yet they do not 
 represent him fairly. They were written to suit the 
 taste of the French people, who, in spite of their realistic 
 art and literature, had so long been separated from reality 
 that the simple truth, would no longer satisfy them. He 
 must have smiled as he wrote them. In his letters to 
 Joseph and in his conversations at St. Helena we come 
 close to the man himself. The clearness of his thought 
 and force of his ideas are emphasized by the unpretending 
 directness of his style. It is like taking Manitou iron 
 water to read him. He infuses energy into every nerve. 
 If he had devoted himself to literature he would have 
 been the greatest of French writers as he is now one of the 
 best. He never composed any plays, but he knew human 
 nature better than Moliere, and his sentiment was purer 
 than Voltaire's or Racine's. He liked Eugene Beauhamais 
 
THE MAN OF DESTINY 51 
 
 as a youth, because he wept at the sight of his father's 
 sword. 
 
 Napoleon discipHned the whole of Europe, and filled 
 it with heroes. He aroused people from their slovenly, 
 mechanical ways, and instructed them to a.ct with energy 
 and precision; he woke them up from their drowsy, self- 
 complacent lucubrations and set them to thinking in 
 earnest. Wherever he went all idlers, parasites, vicious 
 and dissipated persons were sent about their business. He 
 disliked the monks because they lived in idleness, which 
 he considered the root of all evil. We are indebted to 
 Napoleon, not only for such grand characters as Ney, 
 Victor, Murat, Junot, and Soult, but Wellington, Blucher, 
 Canning, and Von Stein owe their places in history to him. 
 
 Nor can it be doubted that he exercised an influence 
 on great artists. It has been noticed that the best poetry 
 of Schiller, Goethe, Byron, and Wordsworth was written 
 between 1795 and 1810. Beethoven also intended at first 
 to dedicate his heroic symphony to Napoleon. When we 
 admire them we admire Napoleon also. A man, however, 
 who tries to change, remodel, and transform everything 
 must in the end set all the world against him. 
 
 What comprehensive wisdom in his last directions to 
 the child whom he had not seen for so many years: "My 
 son shall reign a mighty monarch. He shall do good 
 works and not attempt to avenge my death. To win 
 great battles would be but to ape me." 
 
 This did not come true of his son, but of his nephew; 
 and if Napoleon III. had paid more strict attention to it 
 he might not have died an exile in England. 
 
NAPOLEONIC MEMOIRS 
 I 
 
 MEMOIRS are not the most trustworthy of 
 historical documents. They are commonly 
 written in old age, long after the events 
 referred to have taken place, and it is one 
 of the peculiarities of our later years that the events of 
 our boyhood or girlhood reappear much more distinctly 
 to us "than those of mature life. Our imaginations also 
 play strange tricks with us at times. I have myseK some- 
 times supposed that I remembered an extract from a cer- 
 tain author with perfect distinctness, but, on looking it 
 up, I found the wording of it wholly different from what I 
 supposed. Memoirs are also more likely to be prejudiced 
 than any other form of composition, on account of the 
 nearness of the author to his or her subject. The remem- 
 brance of past favors, as well as grievances, trifling affairs 
 in themselves, which otherwise he would not think of 
 mentioning, enter into his mind and more or less influence 
 his judgment. Recently published American memoirs 
 like Conway's and White's are transparent enough with 
 the predilections of the writer — Conway's partiality for 
 his own section of the country, and White's feeling of 
 obligation to those to whom he owed his foreign appoint- 
 ments. A mischievous slander, played by a designing 
 person or an intentionally sincere one; like the horrid 
 calumny of Theodora, which was accepted by Gibbon, 
 may impose upon the public for centuries. 
 
 A review of the various memoirs concerning Napoleon 
 
 52 
 
NAPOLEONIC MEMOIRS 53 
 
 would constitute a large volume by itself. In fact, Rose- 
 bery's recent work on Napoleon is little more than a dis- 
 cussion of the records preserved by Napoleon's friends 
 who shared his imprisonment at St. Helena. It is a fair 
 and candid work for an Englishman, and a marked con- 
 trast to the misrepresentations of Macaulay, Green, and 
 Seeley; but it has limitations of its own which are worth 
 a passing notice. Of these, the two most important are 
 what he considers Napoleon's lack of judgment in his 
 choice of men, and the peculiarity of his religious opinions. 
 
 In regard to the first, I think it might almost be said 
 that no other man has recognized merit so quickly and 
 rewarded it so well as Napoleon did. It was largely to 
 this that he owed his earlier successes. It would be diffi- 
 cult to prove or disprove Rosebery's assertion. No one 
 can tell what there may be in the ocean; but what have 
 we ever heard of Wellington's or Blucher's subordinates? 
 Murat, Ney, Soult, Lannes, Massena, and Victor are 
 celebrated names in the history of those times ; and if they 
 did not always accomplish what Napoleon hoped of them 
 when they were fighting against the odds of two or three 
 to one, the fact is not surprising. 
 
 Massena was the only one of Napoleon's marshals, how- 
 ever, to whom military critics have given the credit of 
 being a great commander; and when we examine Napo- 
 leon's campaigns, we find that it was always to Massena 
 that he intrusted the most difficult commissions. He was 
 already an invalid in his Spanish campaign, but Massena 
 in his prime was probably a match for either Blucher or 
 Wellington. His defeat of Swanoff at Zurich was a 
 masterpiece of military skill. 
 
 In regard to Napoleon's religion or philosophy, Rose- 
 bery goes a long way off. He believes him to have been a 
 Mohammedan and a materialist. The terms are contra- 
 
54 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 dictory. Mohammedanism is a sensual religion, but sensu- 
 ality and materialism are not convertible terms, and for 
 absolute faith in the divine will there are none like the 
 followers of Islam. Materialism in philosophy invariably 
 leads to skepticism, and a skeptical Mohammedan is as 
 rare as a white blackbird. On the other side, sensuality 
 was hateful to Napoleon, as everything was which tended 
 to mental or physical weakness. His creed wa^ the gospel 
 of strength. He courted the favor of the Sheiks in Egypt 
 as Alexander did that of the Persian Magi, in order to 
 obtain political, as well as military, control of the country; 
 but there is no trustworthy evidence that he went so far in 
 this as to compromise himself as a Christian. What we 
 gather from the various comments on religious subjects 
 which have been reported of Napoleon, is that he had no 
 very definite religious creed, though a decided religious 
 faith. He makes some such statement of himself some- 
 where, and it is a very fine one. Such was the mental 
 attitude of Plato, Shakespeare, Goethe, and many others, 
 and it testifies to the depth and sincerity of Napoleon's 
 moral nature. As Goethe states it in Faust: "Who can 
 say I know Him, who can say I know Him not? " 
 
 He was too much of an idealist to be called a materialist; 
 too practical, perhaps, to be called an idealist. You 
 might call him an idealist-atihtarian. His mind always 
 preserved an equitable balance between theory and prac- 
 tice. He read little philosophy and had a particular horror 
 of what he called idealogues — doctrines such as Fourier and 
 John Stuart Mill. 
 
 Lord Rosebery , however, admits what Metternich denies 
 that Napoleon was a true statesman; that ths earlier period 
 of his government might be termed ideal; that he was by 
 nature of a kindly disposition and wished to do what was 
 right; that he preserved the fruits of the French Re volution 
 
NAPOLEONIC MEMOIRS m 
 
 to posterity; that he was the greatest of generals, and one 
 of the greatest of law givers; that his wars were mainly 
 forced upon him; and that he had only one fair opportuni- 
 ty of making peace (in the summer of 1806), which "either 
 his suspicion or his madness" prevented him from seizing. 
 
 It is generally supposed that the death of Charles James 
 Fox prevented Napoleon from making peace with Eng- 
 land in 1806, and Napoleon intimates this in a letter to 
 his brother, Joseph, written at the time; but it is not 
 probable that an enduring peace could have been con- 
 summated, so long as Holland, Belgium, and France re- 
 mained under the same government. 
 
 In regard to the numerous records of Napoleon's mourn- 
 ful life at St. Helena — ^the fifth act of the tragedy — ^Rose- 
 bery considers General Gourgand's diary to be the most 
 veracious and trustworthy, on the ground that it was 
 evidently not intended for publication. This, like the 
 others, cannot be proved, though he assigns plausible 
 reasons which have their value; but it seems like a nar- 
 row basis on which to form a judgment. In such cases 
 the character of the individual should always be taken 
 into account. General Gourgand was one of the bravest 
 and most devoted of Napoleon's personal adherents, but 
 his portrait, as well as his diary, indicates a man of not 
 more than mediocre intellect. He served the Emperor as 
 a sort of staff detective. He discovered the mines which 
 were intended to blow up Napoleon at Moscow, and 
 killed a dragoon who was attacking Napoleon at the battle 
 of Brienne. Once, when the Emperor's party were out 
 walking at St. Helena, they were threatened by a drunken 
 or insane British soldier, who leveled his musket and 
 ordered them to halt. Napoleon merely said: "General 
 Gourgand, take charge of that fellow. " Gourgand made 
 
56 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 a sort of flank movement, then suddenly darted on the 
 soldier and wrested his weapon from him in a twinkling. 
 
 This, however, would seem to have been the limit of his 
 capacity. Napoleon surely would not have approved of 
 the statement which Gourgand published concerning the 
 battle of Waterloo, that so offended the British ministry. 
 He was a forcible man, but narrow and unimaginative. 
 Napoleon could not have conversed with him on large 
 and important subjects as he did with Montholon and 
 Las Cases, and we consequently find that Gourgand's 
 reports are meager and not particularly interesting. The 
 most conspicuous fact in his diary is Napoleon's continual 
 effort to cheer and encourage the spirit of his companions. 
 Gourgand was still in the prime of life, and when other 
 methods failed. Napoleon held forth to him the prospect 
 of a favorable matrimonial alliance — ^which came to pass 
 some ten years later by Gourgand's marriage to a French 
 countess. 
 
 Lord Rosebery has examined the evidence in Surgeon 
 O'Meara's case against Sir Hudson Lowe and finds much 
 of it quite untrustworthy. This need not, however, make 
 any serious difference to us. The civilized world has 
 long ago condemned Sir Hudson Lowe, nor has he ever 
 found an apologist for his absurdly spiteful behavior, and 
 nobody cares to hear any further discussion in regard to 
 him. Rosebery himself admits that the general mass of 
 evidence is decidedly against Sir Hudson. What still 
 makes the "voice from St. Helena" interesting are Napo- 
 leon's commentaries on his battles and other important 
 matters which it contains. O'Meara could not have in- 
 vented these, and they agree remarkably well with the 
 statements made afterwards by Montholon and Las Cases. 
 O'Meara has this advantage over the others, that being 
 imacquainted with the history of those times, he could 
 
NAPOLEONIC MEMOIRS 57 
 
 ask Napoleon more direct and pertinent questions than 
 they very well could, from fear of inquiring about matters 
 which they might be supposed to know already. 
 
 The best of the Napoleonic memoirs are those by Las 
 Cases and Savary, both men of superior character and 
 intelligence. Savary, the Duke of Rovigo, was a brave 
 soldier, and brave men are much more likely to be truth- 
 ful than those whose courage has never been tested; 
 witness Grant and Sherman. Savary did not prove an 
 able commander, but Napoleon made use of him to dis- 
 cover the movements of the Russians at Friedland, and 
 to open communication with Davout at Eckmuhl — at the 
 risk of a dozen lives. His accoimts of the battle of Auster- 
 litz, Friedland, and Eckmiihl, although incomplete, have 
 the vitality of an eye-witness. After Fouche's retirement 
 Napoleon made Savary superintendent of pohce. He 
 followed the Emperor to England, but he was proscribed 
 by Louis XVIII. and the British government imprisoned 
 him at Gibraltar, when he afterwards escaped to Asia 
 Minor and returned to France after twelve years of exile. 
 His life was one of the most adventurous and interesting 
 of that stirring period. 
 
 He was a man of astute intelligence and his writing 
 has much of the frankness, directness, and perspicacity of 
 Napoleon's own. If he appears somewhat too favorable 
 to Napoleon, it is not in what he says, but in what he 
 leaves unsaid. His points are well taken, and his remarks 
 on the condemnation and execution of the Due d'Enghien 
 are the most judicious of any among his contemporaries. 
 
 Count Las Cases belonged to the old French nobility, 
 and his writing has the tone of high cultivation. He fled 
 to England at the outset of the Reign of Terror and sup- 
 ported himseK there by the publication of what he called 
 an atlas, but which would seem to have been an epitome 
 
58 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 of the history of nations.* He returned to France by 
 favor of Napoleon's amnesty, and soon became so con- 
 vinced of the good intentions of the Emperor that he ac- 
 cepted a position in the government. Napoleon, however, 
 saw or knew little of him, until after the battle of Waterloo 
 he was surprised by Las Cases 's determination to accom- 
 pany him in exile. Las Cases was sent away from St. 
 Helena by Sir Hudson for secret though perfectly honorable 
 communication with Napoleon's friends in Europe. Sir 
 Hudson made a mistake, and attempted to rectify it by 
 having Las Cases detained at the Cape of Good Hope for 
 some six months, during which time he suffered severely 
 from the vindictiveness of the British officials there. He 
 was not permitted to land in England for fear of the in- 
 formation he might circulate concerning the ill-treatment 
 of Napoleon, but he was hustled over to Rhenish Prussia 
 where he suffered similar grievances to those at the Cape. 
 His book bears every mark of an honorable man and a 
 conscientious writer. 
 
 *He afterwards republished this in Paris under a nom de plume, but 
 the French Academy frowned upon it. Las Cases reports that one of 
 the Academicians told him that " they did not believe in literary work 
 which emanated from the nobility." This was the way in which they 
 afterwards treated Dr. Morton, the discoverer of etherization. 
 
NAPOLEONIC MEMOIRS 
 II 
 
 BOURIENNE'S memoirs, mifortmiately, are not 
 to be trusted at all. Even if they were not 
 written, as Savary states, by an unknown person 
 and signed by Bourienne after he became de- 
 mented, the character of the man is very much against 
 them. He was discharged from Napoleon's service for 
 complicity in a shameful stock-jobbing operation; and 
 though Napoleon afterwards relented and sent him as 
 consul to Hamburg, he never permitted Bourienne to be 
 near him after that time. His story in regard to Napo- 
 leon's amour with the wife of a captain of infantry lacks 
 confirmation. His talk is too much like that of a dis- 
 charged servant. 
 
 Romancing comes naturally to a French woman. Both 
 Madame Junot and Madame de Remusat had grievances 
 of their own against the Emperor. It is well known that 
 the father of Madame de Remusat attached himself to 
 Talleyrand, and went out of office with him in 1810. 
 Madame Junot's grievance was of a more subtle kind. 
 Her husband was one of the Emperor's favorite com- 
 manders and yet he never was created a marshal of France. 
 A lack of dignified character may have been a sufficient 
 reason for this, but his wife, of course, could not under- 
 stand it, and unquestionably felt it as a slight. In her 
 earlier household reminiscences of Napoleon she appears 
 in quite an amiable light, but she did not sustain this 
 character in after life, and the Emperor spoke of her as 
 
 59 
 
60 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 rather a flashy sort of person. The society she moved in 
 certainly was not high-toned^ — witness the remark she 
 recounts, made in company, about Pauline Bonaparte's 
 ears — and her small animosities are sometimes very amus- 
 ing. One of the results of Madame de Remusat's memoirs 
 has been the republication of Las Cases's, O'Meara's, and 
 other memoirs more favorable to Napoleon. 
 
 It is impossible to determine what is fact and what may 
 be fiction in these feminine memoirs. 
 
 It is remarkable what a strong Creole element pervaded 
 Parisian society during the second empire. Madame de 
 Montholon was a Creole, and an English lady who resided 
 some time at St. Helena, considered her a very tyrannical 
 wife. Josephine could not very well be that; but all 
 accounts agree that she was one of the most extravagant 
 women ever known to the historical pen. Napoleon, after 
 praising her natural grace of manner, and the pleasantness 
 of her disposition to O'Meara, concluded with the blunt 
 remark that she rolled up mountains of debt and then 
 told lies about them. She probably prevaricated from 
 embarrassment, but all accounts agree that while Napoleon 
 was in Egypt she contracted a mass of debts equal to 
 several times the amount of his salary and if he had not 
 risen to autocratic power he never could have liquidated 
 them. False pride is the besetting sin of womankind. 
 Josephine considered herself above paying for the articles 
 that she purchased, or even inquiring their price. She 
 wished to please everybody, which is the same as pleasing 
 nobody; and she purchased almost every article that was 
 offered her. Las Cases states that she bought thirty-eight 
 hats in one month. Such a woman could have little depth 
 either of character or of affection. There was nothing 
 Napoleon hated so much as foolishness; and it is probable 
 
NAPOLEONIC MEMOIRS 61 
 
 that he contemplated separating from Josephine a long 
 time before he did so. 
 
 Marie Louise having been born to the purple, acted very 
 differently. She only purchased what she really wished 
 to have, and paid for it at the time. She showed true 
 dignity of character during the trying scenes of 1814, and 
 her only fault would seem to have been a lack of modesty — 
 natural enough considering the family she came from. 
 
 Napoleon did not often compare men to animals, but 
 when he did there was a reason for it. He thought Sir 
 Hudson Lowe looked like a tiger cat; and that is just what 
 he did look like according to the steel portrait in the last 
 edition of Las Cases's memoirs. A long lean neck, a shal- 
 low pate, and sharp angular features bespeak a most un- 
 amiable disposition. His face is a bad one, and the only 
 talent he seems to have possessed was that of tormenting 
 those who were under his authority. His detention of a 
 portrait of Napoleon's son, which was sent from Vienna 
 was typical of all his proceedings. Napoleon informed 
 him In their third and last interview that he and Lord 
 Bathurst would only be remembered by posterity for their 
 inhuman treatment of him. It was safe enough to predict 
 that. The British government spent between two and 
 three hundred thousand dollars a year to keep Napoleon 
 at St. Helena, and yet the rooms he occupied there were 
 like those of an American tenement-house; nor was his 
 table much better served. He certainly was not treated 
 like a gentleman; and who was ultimately responsible for 
 this so much as the Duke of Wellington? After O'Meara's 
 return to England the facts concerning Napoleon's confine- 
 ment became widely known, and it is not a supposable case 
 that Wellington should have been ignorant of them. He 
 was the autocrat of Great Britain for the time being, and 
 the thought of Napoleon must have been of daily occur- 
 
62 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 rence to him. As Rosebery says, Wellington was not a 
 generous adversary and Wellington was the real govern- 
 ment. 
 
 One other remark of Rosebery deserves a momentary 
 consideration. He speaks of Napoleon as not having a 
 good seat in the saddle. I suppose some Englishmen would 
 think more of this than they would of losing a battle. A 
 man with a figure like Napoleon's could hardly make a 
 fine-looking horseman; but he rode over more battlefields 
 than any commander before or since Julius Csesar, and 
 we do not hear that he was thrown except at Arcole, where 
 his horse was mortally wounded. At Arsis -Sur-Aube he 
 rode onto a bursting bombshell probably with the intention 
 of ending his life in that manner. His horse was disabled 
 by the explosion, and yet Napoleon kept his seat. He 
 depended largely on rapid riding to escape capture or 
 assassination. In this way he once arrived in Paris before 
 his ministers were cognizant that he had left Spain. 
 
 Thiers's "Consulate and Empire" derives great advan- 
 tage from the fact that the incidents of those times were 
 still fresh in the memories of the actors. Thiers could 
 obtain information from Napoleon's marshals, generals, 
 colonels, and even from the soldiers of the old guard. 
 This has given his account a freshness and pictorial liveli- 
 ness such as later writers will have to struggle for in vain, 
 unless they possess the genius of Tacitus or Carlyle. Karl 
 Lemeke, in his "Aesthetics" takes notice that Thiers knew 
 how to poetize; but the poetry was not in the man, but in 
 his subject- — the chivalrous crusade of a whole nation 
 fighting against mighty odds to liberalize Europe and 
 break the shackles of fossilized institutions. Thiers is by 
 no means a classic. He is a diffuse, watery writer, and 
 appears to have taken small pains with his sentences. His 
 worst fault, however, is the constant harping on Napoleon's 
 
NAPOLEONIC MEMOIRS 63 
 
 "inordinate ambition," which finally becomes as weari- 
 some as the sound of the Alpine horn to travellers over the 
 Wengern Alps. 
 
 Thiers understood politics too well to believe this him- 
 self, and the reason for it was obviously to obtain publica- 
 tion for his book, under a Bourbon king. Louis Philippe 
 was a liberal, but we could not expect him to be so liberal 
 as to permit the French people to understand that the 
 Bonapartes were right, and the Bourbons were wrong. 
 Thiers, therefore, compromised to suit the situation — no 
 doubt reluctantly enough. There are few histories which 
 do not suffer from similar perversions of the truth. 
 
 In spite of this we may fairly suppose that it was the 
 "Consulate and Empire" which upset Louis Philippe, and 
 made a final end of the Bourbons. Its publication was 
 of great assistance to Louis Napoleon's designs and this 
 may have been more than Thiers expected or wished for. 
 
 No man, since the world began, has ever been so lied 
 about as Napoleon. It is one measure of his importance. 
 The British officers on the Northumberland were never 
 tired of questioning Bertrand, Las Cases and the rest, 
 concerning the emperor's character, habits of living, etc., 
 and expressed much surprise at the replies they received. 
 They admitted that he had been grossly misrepresented. 
 This was the work of dishonest journalism, of which I have 
 noticed the effect, even to the present day — improbable 
 scandals, and stories of his cruelty and cowardice. 
 
 Five hundred people will read the newspapers while one 
 will read a dignified history; and of this five hundred 
 nine-tenths will believe what they read as if it were the 
 Gospel of St. Matthew, During the peace of Amiens 
 Napoleon complained to the British Ministry of the atro- 
 cious calumnies concerning him that were published in 
 English newspapers, but the ministry replied that they 
 
64 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 had no legal right to interfere with the liberty of the press 
 and his only remedy would be to enter a suit for libel in an 
 English court. This was true enough, but it is not sur- 
 prising that Napoleon should never afterwards have ap- 
 proved of that form of liberty. 
 
 Such calumnies would have been dangerous in Germany 
 as the death of the book-seller, Koch, afterward exemplified ; 
 but the Prussians circulated wood-cuts of the infant 
 Bonaparte coddled in the arms of a demon, and other 
 pictures of dark and dubious insinuation. Such black- 
 guardism always happens in time of war, but it has never 
 been so virulent or enduring as in Napoleon's case, and 
 this for most excellent reasons. The hereditary sover- 
 eigns and the titled aristocracy could only justify their 
 repeated attempts to suppress this champion of struggling 
 humanity and incite their subjects and serfs to fight against 
 him by the most shameless falsification. The same mis- 
 representation is now taking place in American history. 
 Slavery is dead, but the pro-slavery spirit still lives, and 
 sits in the professor's chair. They acted like the villain 
 in Moliere's play, who screened himself by bringing accusa- 
 tions against the persons he had injured. They had 
 however, this kind of justification, in fact, that even if the 
 peace of Amiens had been kept through Napoleon's life- 
 time, such a ruler would have made the French nation so 
 powerful that under a less judicious successor it would 
 have been dangerous to its neighbors. 
 
 O'Meara reports that Sir Hudson Lowe once remarked 
 to him that Napoleon's death "would be of little conse- 
 quence, compared with the mischief that might ensue if 
 he escaped — not so much of himself as in the revolutions 
 that would be excited in various parts of Europe. " This 
 would seem to indicate that even subordinate officers in 
 the British army understood the character of the conflict 
 
NAPOLEONIC MEMOIRS 65 
 
 they were engaged in better than they pretended. Na- 
 poleon only escaped in death; but the revolutions took 
 place, nevertheless, and continued to take place until 
 France, Spain, Italy, and even Prussia, were liberated 
 from the despotism of Metternich and the so-called Holy 
 Alliance. The Tory leader in Parliament even declared 
 at that time (1816) that the Anglo-Saxon race was the 
 only one fit for a constitutional government. 
 
 In Las Cases's memoirs there are statements made by 
 Napoleon himself, which strongly support the view I have 
 taken of him in the preceding lecture. He speaks of the 
 autocratic period of his government as a kind of dictator- 
 ship, like those of Sulla and Csesar, "which would have 
 come to an end when peace was firmly established." 
 " He was necessary for the defense of France, and to pre- 
 serve the principles of the Revolution. The coalition 
 always existed either openly or secretly." It was not 
 the crowned heads of Europe that hated him, "so nluch 
 as the aristocracy, which is always cold, implacable, and 
 vindictive." They want everything for themselves. If 
 he did dream of universal empire, it was his enemies that 
 led him into it. He did not like the ceremonial of court 
 life; and he had an idea if he lived long enough to abdicate 
 in favor of his son, and to spend the evening of his life 
 travelling from one capital to another examining into 
 public affairs, giving advice, and establishing new institu- 
 tions for the benefit of the people. Savary alleges that 
 Napoleon undertook his Egyptian expedition, for one 
 reason, because he considered the sword-points of the 
 enemy less dangerous than the jealousy of his fellow 
 directors; and that the overthrow of the Directory on his 
 return was a question of self preservation for himself and 
 his friends. Thiers was of opinion that it prevented the 
 
66 POIJTICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 establishment of a pretorian government by the army, — 
 like that of the Roman Empire. 
 
 Better than Savary, and perhaps the best of all memoirs 
 are Napoleon's own. They are said to be inaccurate, but 
 I, who have been over the whole subject seven or eight 
 times, have not noticed this. There are inaccuracies in 
 all histories, for three-fourths of history is written from 
 memory — either the writer's or some other person's. 
 Napoleon himself has pointed out mistakes in Heroditus, 
 which no Greek scholar would seem to have noticed; but 
 Napoleon's signal merit is that he understood human 
 nature. His account of the Marengo campaign is a match 
 for Thucydides's description of the Syracusean expedition. 
 John Ropes says that what happened at the battle of 
 Marengo will probably never be known, but Napoleon 
 gives such a clear and comprehensive account that we 
 cannot only see the man fighting — the rout of Victor's 
 divisions, and the charge of Kellermann's cuirassiers — but 
 we can perceive the working of Napoleon's mind and 
 understand the plans of his adversary. There is no 
 ambiguity in the tactics of this battle. Napoleon in his 
 anxiety for Suchet, who was on the other side of the enemy 
 pushed his right wing forward to Marengo, where it was 
 attacked the next morning by the whole Austrian army, 
 and was driven out in great confusion. The enemy next 
 fell upon Lannes, who commanded the centre, but Lannes 
 retreated in good order, always, as Napoleon says, refusing 
 his left wing; and the effect of this movement was to draw 
 the Austrians round in the arc of a circle; so that they 
 finally exposed their right fiank to the attack of Desaix 
 and Kellermann, who were not slow to take advantage of 
 this. Victor's division was reformed, and in less than an 
 hour the Austrian army had become a fiying mob. It is 
 a very rare book now, and ought to be republished with 
 
NAPOLEONIC MEMOIRS 67 
 
 notes and corrections. It would be a pleasant contrast 
 to the tame academic histories of the present day. 
 
 After Napoleon's death, Sir Hudson Lowe, wandered 
 about the earth ignored by his former employers, and 
 generally avoided almost like a discharged convict. 
 
 Napoleon was in all respects an exceptional man and 
 has to be viewed exceptionally. His powers of endurance 
 exceeded that of any other individual of whom there is 
 even a tradition. He worked with his secretaries until 
 they fell asleep from exhaustion; and at Arcole for four 
 nights he never took off his boots. Before he was twenty- 
 eight years old he had won seventeen battles. His features 
 were refined and classic, but his earlier coins represent him 
 with an uncommonly thick neck, and it may have been in 
 some exceptional structure of the spinal column that his 
 powers of endurance are to be accounted for. 
 
THE POETIC NAPOLEON 
 
 NO great man is complete without the poetic 
 element. It is to be found in Lincoln's Gettys- 
 burg address, and in Sumner's solemn affir- 
 mation before the Senate: "Thank God for 
 Massachusetts ! " It was in the poetic element that Demos- 
 thenes surpassed Cicero, and perhaps Webster. Victor 
 Hugo wrote to Garibaldi in his highflown manner, "There 
 was a lyre in the tent of Achilles." ^Eschylus fought at 
 Salamis and Dante at Campaldino. Frederick the Great 
 sent his verses to Voltaire, "Heroes or Poets." There 
 was not much poetry in Frederick, although he was fond 
 of scribbling verses, and Bismarck was also a rather 
 matter of fact character; but Napoleon was charged with 
 it; although he may never have composed a couplet. His 
 ambitions and successes were poetic, and so were his 
 failures; even his misdeeds (or mistakes) have that appear- 
 ance. His whole life was like the rising and setting of the 
 sun. His actions were poetic; he talked poetry; he was 
 continually meeting with poetic adventures; his whole 
 life was an epic, and some hundreds of years from now it 
 might become the subject of as grand an epic as Dante's 
 "Inferno" or Milton's "Paradise Lost." 
 
 The early incidents which Madam Junot relates of him 
 have a poetic character, — ^the Puss in Boots story, and his 
 mercifulness to Sallicetti because he had taken refuge in 
 the house of Napoleon's friends. Then what a picture we 
 have of this young artillery officer, with the big head and 
 
 68 
 
THE POETIC NAPOLEON 69 
 
 tapering figure, giving the word of command^ — only one 
 word — ^which puts an end to the Reign of Terror in France. 
 Again we see him in Italy, like Thor fighting the giants, 
 driving armies before him, two or three times the number 
 of his own. We see him leading his men across the bridge 
 of Lodi, and rescued by his devoted followers from the 
 swamps of Arcole. Homer represents Achilles as fighting 
 in impenetrable armor, which is his way of saying that 
 the hero was protected by divine intervention, and it 
 seems as if nothing less could have saved Napoleon in his 
 eighteen Italian battles. 
 
 His Egyptian expedition was like the voyage of Ulysses. 
 He eluded the Polyphemus Nelson, who proposed to shut 
 him up in an iron cage like Bajazet, and looking up at the 
 stars he said to the atheistic scientists about him, "You 
 may talk, gentlemen, but tell me who made all that," — 
 memorable words. When his regiments were drawn up 
 for the battle of the Pyramids, he said to them: "Soldiers, 
 forty centuries look down upon you." Like Moses of 
 old, he led them across the Red Sea, and saved them from 
 drowning by the miracle of his marvelous brain. He gives 
 up his horse to a womided soldier, and walks through the 
 desert with his infantry. He learns from an English 
 newspaper of the defeat of Moreau in Italy and the perilous 
 condition of France, and he flies to the rescue of his country 
 like a lover to his sweetheart. He overturns the incapable 
 Directory, establishes a sound government, and scatters 
 the enemies of France to the winds. Five times he does 
 this, in the space of fourteen years. 
 
 Crossing over the Alps he stops to listen to the tolling 
 of a monastery bell. "How sweetly that bell sounds," 
 he says, "in this desolate region." Savary found him in 
 the midst of the defeat at Marengo, before the final victory 
 lying on the ground and quietly studying a map of Italy. 
 
70 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 He replies to the envoys of the Venetians, "Your govern- 
 ment is superannuated. I will have no more Senate, no 
 more inquisitors. I will be an Attila to the Venetian 
 state, " — including the history of Venice in a single Shakes- 
 pearian sentence. Soon after he had disposed of their 
 superannuated government the population of Venice 
 doubled its numbers. 
 
 One of the finest of the Napoleonic anecdotes, and the 
 most significant in its character, is one that he told Las 
 Cases of himself at St. Helena. He was going on a jour- 
 ney to Italy, when walking beside the carriage up the 
 slope of Mount Talare, he overtook an old woman, hobbling 
 with a crutch, and said to her, "My good woman what 
 are you doing here, in this wild place?" "I have come, " 
 she replied, "in the hope of seeing the Emperor Napoleon 
 when he passes by." "What do you care for him?" said 
 the Emperor again. "You have only exchanged one 
 tyrant for another. It was formerly tyrant Louis, and 
 now it is Napoleon." "No!" responded the old woman. 
 "There is a great difference. Napoleon is the Emperor 
 of the people." 
 
 Here he breaks off and leaves us in the dark as to whether 
 the old dame discovered the identity of her chance acquain- 
 tance, but we may presume that she finally did, and that 
 she raised her apron to her face to conceal the tears of 
 joy. 
 
 It was Napoleon's practice (and I have never heard of 
 another commander who did the same) to ride over his 
 battlefields after a victory to see that the wounded men 
 were properly cared for. This, of course, greatly endeared 
 him to his soldiers, but it would be thinking evil to con- 
 sider that he did it on that account. He was riding over 
 the bloody field of Wagram in this manner, when he came 
 upon the dead body of a colonel who had done him an ill 
 
THE POETIC NAPOLEON 71 
 
 turn in earlier years. "Poor fellow," said Napoleon, 
 "there he lies; and I wish he knew that I had long since 
 forgiven him." A little farther he found a grenadier 
 lying on his back with a bullet hole in his forehead, and 
 the lower part of his face covered with dirt from the 
 explosion of a shell. The Emperor alighted from his horse 
 and wiped the dirt from the man's mouth and nose with 
 his handkerchief. The soldier opened his eyes, recognized 
 Napoleon, and wept. What a sight that must have been 
 to him — his last on this earth. 
 
 On another battlefield he came upon a dog mourning 
 over the body of his dead master, an Austrian officer, and 
 Napoleon, speaking of it afterward, said, "I was almost 
 ashamed to think that the devotion of that poor dog 
 affected me more deeply than anything else there. " Yet 
 many others would have felt as he did; and it is a poetic 
 picture that we have here — Napoleon stopping his horse to 
 reflect on the attachment and unhappiness of a poor dog. 
 
 Then, the burning of Moscow! None but the French 
 army and its commander, who called it the grandest, most 
 terrible sight ever beheld by man, witnessed this. It was 
 a presage of their coming misfortunes. Sixteen years of 
 uninterrupted success had reached its climax, and now 
 the change of fortunes was to be sharp and sudden. Na- 
 poleon's plans continued to be good, but some accident 
 always interfered to prevent their realization. 
 
 Armies alone could not defeat this man. The first 
 battle that he really lost, although he had rather the worst 
 of it at Essling, was the battle of Leipsic, the most terrible 
 battle of modern times. Napoleon was heavily outnum- 
 bered, but it was the desertion of the Saxon contingent of 
 fifteen thousand men who went over to the enemy with 
 sixty cannon that did the mischief. The transfer of such 
 a force to the opposite side was of less consequence than 
 
72 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 the disarrangement of Napoleon's plans, and its disheart- 
 ening effect upon the French. Yet the first day he gained 
 some slight success and held possession of his ground. On 
 the second day both armies rested from exhaustion and, 
 in order to bury the dead. Napoleon and his marshals 
 rode over the field. It was a terrible sight. Every face 
 was dark, and Napoleon was the first to say, "We shall 
 have to retreat. " On the third day he drew up his army* 
 in the concave order, and waited for the allies to attack 
 him. His position was not a strong one, but all the 
 nations of northern and eastern Europe were hurled 
 against it in vain. At nightfall his line was nowhere 
 broken. The battle was lost, but Napoleon was not 
 defeated. That evening he said to Murat, "I foresee 
 that you will desert me — ^but I forgive you." At day- 
 break he commenced his retreat, but the premature blow- 
 ing up of a bridge left one-third of his army at the mercy 
 of the enemy. Murat deserted him with nearly twenty 
 thousand men, and the Bavarian general. Von Werder, 
 with more than that number. 
 
 The king of Bavaria even contemplated a hideous pro- 
 ceeding. In order to curry favor with his former enemies 
 he ordered his army to the Rhine to intercept Napoleon 
 and make him a prisoner; but the French soldiers were 
 so enraged at being debarred from their own country that 
 they flung themselves upon the Bavarians like tigers, 
 slaughtered thousands of them and severely wounded 
 their commander. Von Werder. Murat, who tried a 
 similar game, was also defeated in Italy by Prince Eugene, 
 the magnanimous son of Josephine Beauharnais. 
 
 It should always be remembered that Napoleon made 
 overtures for peace, after the second day's battle at Leipsic 
 but this customary right of the vanquished was refused 
 
 *Nov. 4, 1813. 
 
THE POETIC NAPOLEON 73 
 
 him. Neither should we forget the names of his marshals 
 who remained constant to their duty in these dark days 
 of fortune. They were chiefly Davout, Soult, Ney, 
 Bestrand, Berthier, McDonald, Victor, Grouchy, Van- 
 damme, and Gerard. Massena's heart was true, but he 
 was now an invalid and retired from active service. 
 
 Read Thiers's account of the campaign of 1814, all the 
 more poetic from the prosaic nature of the politician, who 
 has here given us the plain, unvarnished facts that speak 
 so eloquently of themselves. That little army of heroes 
 contending against five times their own number, fighting 
 ten battles in six weeks, never fairly defeated, and several 
 times victorious, but losing strength even by their victories 
 — when has history seen the like of it? Under similar 
 conditions the army of Murat melted away like spring 
 snow, but we do not hear of any desertions from Napoleon's 
 ranks, hopeless as his soldiers may have considered the 
 cause, for which they spent their blood. At Montmirail 
 Napoleon captured one-fourth of the Prusso-Russian army, 
 and with an adequate force would have utterly destroyed 
 it. At Montreux he defeated the Austrians, and drove 
 them back to the boundaries of France; but his army 
 dwindled from fifty to forty thousand, and from forty to 
 thirty -three thousand. 
 
 All this time he was endeavoring to make peace, ready 
 to accept any terms that would be honorable to France; 
 but as often as he agreed to the offers of the allies, they 
 raised fresh objections, until it became evident that their 
 peace congress at Soissons was only intended to throw 
 dust in the eyes of the people. Napoleon must have felt 
 at this time like a man who is hunted by bloodhounds 
 and the ineffectual dose of laudanum at Fontainebleau 
 was the natural outcome of it. 
 
 Again we behold him on the island of Elba. The allies 
 
74 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 have not kept their faith with him. They have taken his 
 wife and child from him ; they have confiscated his proper- 
 ty; they have not paid the stipend which they agreed for 
 his support. He has escaped the Count d'Artois's assassin 
 by a trifling accident. Welhngton has proposed to the 
 Congress of Vienna to have him removed to the Azores 
 and to have Murat removed from the kingdom of Naples, 
 • — a most shameful breach of trust and good faith, without 
 which the battle of Waterloo might not have taken place. 
 What is Napoleon to do? Shall he submit tamely, and 
 await the fate before him, or shall he make one last desper- 
 ate plunge for independence? If he can regain his throne 
 even for a short period, he will be able to provide for his 
 brothers and their families.* 
 
 In this hard dilemma he consulted his mother, perhaps 
 for the first time in his life, and she said to him, " Go, my 
 son, and may God be with thee." Every one knows the 
 story of that wonderful return — ^the most marvelous of his 
 exploits. How he wound his way like a hare through the 
 dangers that surrounded him, — how the army that was 
 sent to capture him went over to him, and his soldiers 
 wept when they saw him again; how the Bourbons and 
 Talleyrand fled like frightened deer at his approach! 
 The army was with him and the people were with him, 
 but the shrewder sort of men feared only too correctly that 
 his triumph would be of short duration. There was no 
 one to receive him at the Tuilleries; and as he entered 
 those great silent halls, he felt a chill come over him, and 
 he said, "This is a fine escapade I have made." Yet it 
 was a triumph in its kind. 
 
 After Waterloo, when Napoleon was leaving Paris for 
 the last time, a crowd of mechanics and laborers gathered 
 
 *In his last letter to Joseph, in 1814, Napoleon admonished his brothers 
 to observe the strictest economy. 
 
THE POETIC NAPOLEON 75 
 
 abotit his carriage and cheered him as it drove away. 
 "Poor creatures," he said, "what do they owe to me? I 
 found them poor and I have left them poor." Nothing 
 else brings us so near to the heart of Napoleon as this 
 statement — his sympathy for those who labor and are 
 heavy laden, that a large proportion of mankind are 
 destined to this, and that it is impossible to prevent it. 
 The life of a soldier is much to be preferred, even with 
 its risk of death or mutilation, to that of the coal miner, 
 the marble worker, or the thread-lace maker. 
 
 The German soldiers who had been promised constitu- 
 tional government if they would conquer Napoleon, were 
 greatly disheartened on' their return home to find that the 
 old order of politics was everywhere to be restored. Old 
 Bliicher talked about "those rascals," and Goethe's son 
 openly declared that the Germans had driven out their 
 greatest benefactor. It is more than probable that the 
 king of Prussia would have kept his word to the Prussian 
 people if he had not been intimidated by Metternich and 
 Lord Castlereagh. The Uberal reforms instituted by the 
 king of Wiirtemburg and the duke of Weimar were im- 
 mediately suppressed by the Holy Alliance, 
 
 There are many, even among Napoleon's admirers 
 who have failed to realize the true nature and makeup of 
 the man. Dr. Ropes, whose excellent work on Napoleon 
 always deserves consideration, once said to me: " I do 
 not consider Napoleon personally interesting, and I doubt 
 if he was an agreeable companion. I have friends whom 
 I believe to be much more interesting than Napoleon was. 
 He was a sort of great, rough Silas Lapham. " Nothing 
 could be farther from the mark. It is doubtful if any 
 Frenchman would much resemble Howell's ideal Western- 
 er; as for Napoleon, his native gentleness, kindliness, and 
 amiabihty were almost feminine. Besides this, he was a 
 
76 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 man of superior refinement. Josephine once thought to 
 entertain him by introducing a diminutive dwarf into 
 his room. The dwarf was brought in in a covered basket 
 but Napoleon was not pleased at the sight of this abortion 
 of nature. "Take him away!" he said, " It is horrible." 
 What an improvement since the time when a dwarf and a 
 jester were considered essential to a royal household. 
 
 His manner became more dictatorial in course of time 
 but his numerous campaigns did not roughen him up, as 
 they did Frederick the Great. He disliked Rabelais and 
 all indecent conversation. 
 
 He was remarkably patient for a man who had such a 
 heavy burden on his shoulders — or rather on his brain. 
 That he sometimes lost patience is not surprising, but his 
 well-known bursts of anger were more often assumed than 
 real. It was the readiest way by which he could produce 
 the impression he desired. He once slapped a soldier in the 
 face and then pardoned him for striking an officer. The 
 fellow had been court-martialed and condemned to be shot. 
 
 Readers of the "Voice from St. Helena" will remember 
 that on one occasion Surgeon O'Meara having a fit of 
 indigestion, bled himself for it, according to the absurd 
 medical practice of the time, the consequence of which 
 was, that when he went to pay a visit to Napoleon he 
 fainted and fell flat on the floor. On coming to his senses 
 he saw the Emperor bending over him with an expression 
 of anxious solicitude which he never forgot. As soon as 
 he was in a condition to return to his quarters. Napoleon 
 ordered one of his attaches to accompany him for fear he 
 might have another fainting spell on the way. 
 
 Napoleon was kind to thousands; but the remarkable 
 part of it is that a man could be so kind and yet see men 
 dying about him on a battlefield without visible effect 
 upon his nerves. 
 
NAPOLEON'S MARSHALS 
 
 IT may not be out of order at this time to say some- 
 thing of Napoleon's marshals; and they certainly 
 deserve it. 
 Massena was the best of them; so it is easy to see, 
 from the use that Napoleon made of him. He may fairly 
 be termed a great general. His victory over Swaroff at 
 Zurich saved France from invasion and was fully equal 
 to some of Napoleon's best. The Austrians' plan in 1805 
 was to retard Napoleon in Southern Germany, while the 
 Archduke Charles re-conquered Italy. Massena spoiled 
 the latter part of this program, by a hard-fought, indecisive 
 battle, from which both commanders derived much credit. 
 In 1809, he saved the French army, on the terrible field 
 of Essling, by his indomitable courage and good judgment. 
 In 1810 he drove Wellington out of Spain, but was obliged 
 to retire from active service the following year. Napoleon 
 said of him: "Massena is covetous,* but he has qualities 
 as a soldier, before which we all should bow the head. " 
 
 Davout comes next to Massena. With twelve thousand 
 men he defeated the Duke of Brunswick at Auerstadt 
 with sixty thousand. There has been no other such 
 battle in modern tim6s; and it is difficult to understand it 
 for the Prussians were completely routed. In 1809 he 
 held the whole Austrian army at bay for two days, until 
 Napoleon could come to his assistance; for which service 
 
 *He robbed a church in Italy but Napoleon compelled him to make 
 restitution. 
 
 77 
 
78 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 he was created prince of Auerstadt and Eckmuhl, a two- 
 fold honor, not accorded to any other general of the 
 empire. It is thought that if Napoleon had employed 
 him in the Waterloo campaign, the result might have been 
 different. He was a severe disciplinarian, but a modest, 
 unpretending patriot. When the allies invaded France 
 in 1815 Davout, wanted to fight them and promised a 
 victory, if he was not killed in the first two hours. The 
 more cautious Soult, however, advised against it. 
 
 Lannes was a rough and ready soldier, but out of place 
 anywhere except in camp, He won the battle of Mon- 
 tibello from the Austrians, and completely dispersed the 
 Spanish army at Tudela. It was said of him that he 
 never would learn prudence, and yet it was by an act of 
 prudence that he lost his life. He was struck by a cannon- 
 ball while leading his horse across an exposed and danger- 
 ous position. 
 
 Murat is the most famous of cavalry leaders; though 
 perhaps not better than Ziethen or Seidlitz. Napoleon 
 said: "I would tell Murat to destroy four or five regiments 
 for me, and it was done on the instant. It is a wonder 
 that he was not killed, for he was a very conspicuous 
 object." What may have saved him was his constant 
 activity; wheeling about, and directing the movements 
 of his squadrons. His white plume is well known, but 
 he also dressed in a green coat and buff trousers. He 
 would seem to have been invincible in single combat. At 
 Aboukir he wounded and captured the commander of the 
 Turkish army; and on the retreat from Moscow he killed 
 a number of Cossacks with his own sabre. It is sad to 
 think that such a man should have disgraced himself by 
 treachery, at the termination of his life. He not only 
 deserted his great benefactor after the battle of Leipsic, 
 but issued a shameful proclamation against him. He 
 
NAPOLEON'S MARSHALS 79 
 
 did this in the vain hope of saving the crown which Napo- 
 leon had bestowed on him from the general wreck; but 
 by this double dealing, he lost both his kingdom and his 
 life. If he had been present at Montmirail with his thirty 
 thousand Italians, there would have been a favorable 
 chance of capturing the whole Prussian army. All that 
 Napoleon needed in 1814 was fifty thousand additional 
 troops to have given the allies a complete overthrow. 
 
 Murat was not killed by the hand of a peasant, as Byron 
 has it in his verses, but in compliance to a royal mandate. 
 Such false reports were freely circulated under the Restora- 
 tion. 
 
 Bessieres is but slightly known to fame, but he was a 
 worthy successor to Murat, and as a cavalry oflScer, fully 
 equal to Bliicher. 
 
 On the first day at Essling, Lannes sent him an order to 
 charge, and to charge home. Bessieres replied to the 
 aide-de-camp, "Tell the Marshal that I always charge 
 home;" and so he did. During the battle of Wagram, a 
 cannon-ball shattered the pistol which he held in his hand, 
 and then ran down his leg, without, however, doing him any 
 serious injury. Thiers says that he was killed at Boro- 
 dino, but this is a mistake. Bessieres returned in safety 
 from the Russian campaign to lose his life in a paltry 
 skirmish, the following year. 
 
 Soult, according to Savary, distinguished himseK above 
 all others at Austerlitz, and he has received commenda- 
 tion from German historians for his campaign against 
 Wellington in 1813, with a force greatly inferior in number 
 to the English. But Napoleon said that he was a much 
 better general to plan a battle, than to fight one. 
 
 Bernadotte was not so much of a Judas as Murat, but 
 more so than Marmont is supposed to have been. He 
 
80 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 must have possessed good ability to judge by the com- 
 mands with which Napoleon intrusted him, but there 
 remains a suspicion of treachery connected with his move- 
 ments in the campaign of 1807, and in 1809, when his 
 proclamation after the battle of Wagram savored of 
 insubordination. He was the only officer in the army 
 who considered that he knew more than the Emperor; 
 and as for Napoleon's nomination of him for King of 
 Sweden, one can plainly call that a mistake. There was 
 no necessity for Bernardotte's joining in the crusade 
 against France in 1813. It was sacrificing the interests 
 of Sweden for the benefit of Russia and Prussia. If he 
 had joined Napoleon in 1812, he might have recovered 
 Finland, besides helping to break up that pow:erful, semi- 
 civilized and dangerous empire. 
 
 Marmont was the best strategist among the marshals 
 but was unfortunate in his battles. He out-manoeuvered 
 Wellington at Salamanca, so that the latter was obliged, 
 either to win a victory or to surrender; but one of the 
 first cannon-balls from the English wounded Marmont 
 in the shoulder, so that he had to be carried off the field — • 
 a piece of unexampled good fortune for his antagonist. 
 Napoleon however blamed him for offering battle before 
 he had been joined by Soult. At Laon in 1814, after an 
 indecisive engagement Marmont was driven from his 
 position by a night attack of the Prussians, so that the 
 whole army was obliged to retreat. He is spoken of in the 
 Century life of Napoleon, as "the traitorous Marmont;" 
 but his treachery may have been patriotic enough. After 
 the allies had occupied Paris, he may have concluded that 
 further resistance would be merely a waste of human life; 
 but it was not for Marmont to decide this alone. It is a 
 poetic picture that we have of him fighting the battle of 
 
NAPOLEON'S MARSHALS 81 
 
 Paris against overwhelming odds with his back against 
 the wall of the city.* 
 
 Ney was the hero of the retreat from Moscow. He 
 won the title of Prince, by his bravery at Borodino, where 
 Napoleon lost twenty -eight generals, and the Russians 
 their commander, Bagration, with thirty thousand men. 
 At the passage of the Beresina, Ney was the last man to 
 cross the bridge in the face of the whole Russian army. 
 He is said to have had five horses killed under him at 
 Waterloo; but he was not an able commander. Napoleon 
 would seem to have been suspicious of this, for he did not 
 give Ney an independent command, until 1813, and then 
 Ney made a bad failure of it. His tragical fate has en- 
 deared him to the memory of mankind. Why should he 
 have been put to death, rather than Soult, Gerard, and 
 others who took part in the Waterloo campaign? The 
 Peter C. Ney of South Carolina, about whom there has 
 been so much written, would seem to have been a French 
 imposter, who assumed that name in order to give himself 
 distinction. It is possible that he may have been a Ney 
 of some other family; but if the man had been Marshal 
 Ney, there would have been nothing to prevent his return 
 to France after the Revolution of 1830. We may believe 
 that the good-hearted Louis Philippe would have been 
 proud to pardon him. 
 
 Marshal Victor is best known by his heroic reply to 
 the Emperor after the battle of Montreux. Victor had 
 failed to capture a bridge, whose possession by the French 
 
 * • 
 
 would have ruined the Austrian army, which was already 
 in retreat. It was a severe trial for Napoleon's nerves, 
 for his last hope of success depended upon that bridge; 
 and when Victor presented himself at the evening con- 
 ference the Emperor said: "Marshal Victor, you may 
 *At least, Thiers says so. 
 
82 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 leave the army." "No," replied Victor, "I will remain 
 and shoulder a musket, and die with my old comrades in 
 the Guard. " Nevertheless he did not support Napoleon 
 in the emergency of the hundred days. 
 
 Berthier was an excellent chief of staff, who carried out 
 Napoleon's directions with great exactness, and may have 
 made some suggestions of his own, but he was a hero 
 worshipper, and a woman worshipper, which is the same 
 as saying that he was not much of a hero himself. In- 
 stead of following Napoleon on the Waterloo campaign, 
 where he was greatly needed, he fled to Germany, and 
 after the campaign was over, filled with remorse, he com- 
 mitted suicide. Duroc was grand marshal of the palace, 
 and a most efficient one. He was killed by a cannon-ball 
 in 1813 when he was more than a mile from the enemy. 
 There was no one whose loss could have been more deeply 
 regretted by the Emperor. Bertrand was his worthy 
 successor. He accompanied Napoleon to St. Helena, 
 and never left him until he laid him in the grave. 
 
 Three of Napoleon's marshals were killed by cannon- 
 balls. Desaix was killed by a bullet at Marengo. Murat 
 and Ney were sentenced to be shot by court martial. 
 Berthier committed suicide at the time of the Waterloo 
 campaign; but Soult, Victor, Macdonald and the rest, 
 survived all the battles and political changes of their time, 
 and lived to a prosperous old age. Soult was Minister of 
 War in the reign of Louis Philippe. 
 
 Napoleon sometimes made use of men of whose character 
 he did not approve, simply because he could not find others 
 who were suitable. Such were Fouche and Talleyrand. 
 The latter would seem to have made a practice of extort- 
 ing money from foreign governments upon the pretext of 
 serving their interests at court. He began this practice 
 during the Directory, with the envoys of the United 
 
NAPOLEON'S MARSHALS 83 
 
 States, — ^the well-known x, y and z correspondence. 
 According to Napoleon he lost most of the money made 
 in that way in stock speciilations. He was exactly the 
 opposite of Napoleon, of whom Meneval says that the 
 expression of his face changed with every word he spoke; 
 that is, he acted out the thought of the moment, — and 
 there could be no better proof of his deeply rooted sincerity. 
 When he had anything to conceal he was absolutely 
 impenetrable. Talleyrand, on the contrary never had but 
 one expression to his face, much like that of a cat watching 
 for mice. It was a strange face he had, to judge from the 
 portraits; with neither manliness nor kindliness apparent 
 in it. Next to Metternich, who looked like a veritable 
 Mephistopheles, Talleyrand was the ablest diplomat of 
 his time, but he never had any policy of his own; he suited 
 himself to circumstances, and followed the lead of others. 
 
 The trite proverb, "set a thief to catch a thief, " applies 
 remarkably well to Fouche. Lie was one of the regicides 
 of Louis XVI. Nobody liked him; and he died in exile at 
 Trieste. 
 
 Napoleon was a sore trial to his brothers, for he wished 
 to give them positions for which they were not qualified 
 by nature. He perceived this himseK after the mischief 
 was done, but there was no remedy. Lucien was the only 
 one of them who possessed the capacity for a public life, 
 and he was of essential service to Napoleon in upsetting 
 the Directory; but after that time they never could agree. 
 Lucien opposed his brother's attempt to separate him 
 from his wife in a good manly spirit. 
 
 Napoleon said of Joseph, "He looks like me, but is 
 handsomer. His virtues are those of private life, and it 
 is for such he was intended." This describes the whole 
 man; but Savary gives him credit for inaugurating those 
 
84 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 salutary reforms in the kingdom of Naples, which were 
 afterwards carried out by Murat. 
 
 Louis and Jerome Bonaparte do not appear to have had 
 much character of any kind. Metternich speaks of Louis 
 in a favorable manner; but he finally ran away from his 
 kingdom of Holland, while Jerome commanded a division 
 at Waterloo, and did good service there. 
 
 Louis Bonaparte's eldest son was probably poisoned by 
 the direction of Metternich, — as Napoleon predicted in 
 regard to his own son. The latter, however, could not 
 very well have been disposed of tn that manner, and if he 
 was led astray by evil companions, he could not have been 
 much like his father who went unscathed through the 
 orgies of the Revolution. He looked like his father as a 
 boy, but not at all after he had grown to manhood. 
 
 In spite of all that Metternich and Alexander could do, 
 the Bonapartes finally regained their importance, and 
 they first attained to it through the medium of a demo- 
 cratic revolution. It were idle to discuss the question of 
 Louis Napoleon's legitimacy as a Bonaparte, for if his 
 keen-eyed uncle had not considered him so, he would not 
 have permitted him to be christened with his own name. 
 The great mass of the French people, both educated and 
 common believed him to be a genuine Bonaparte, and 
 Machiavelli \vould have said that Louis Napoleon's 
 enthusiastic Bonapartism was also much in his favor. 
 His ambition was certainly not that of a vulgar adven- 
 turer. 
 
 His reign was, in certain respects remarkably like that 
 of the great Napoleon. The first ten years was a brilliant 
 success. He obtained the support of the English tories 
 by a favorable commercial treaty. He regulated the 
 internal affairs of France as they never had been regulated. 
 He made Paris the finest city in the world. He encouraged 
 
NAPOLEON'S MARSHALS 85 
 
 the arts and sciences by magnificent and fairly judicious 
 patronage. French art owes its present ascendency chief- 
 ly to the impulse given it by Napoleon III.; and the archi- 
 tecture of his time has extended itself to Brussels, Turin, 
 Milan and Vienna. He humiliated Russia in the Crimean 
 war, and Austria in the Italian campaign. He avenged 
 his uncle in the death of the Czar Nicholas the son of the 
 first Napoleon's greatest enemy. His Mexican expedition, 
 however, shows that he had not learned from previous 
 experience to let the Spanish race alone; and according to 
 Bismarck he missed a rare opportunity in not taking 
 possession of Belgium during the war between Prussia 
 and Austria. Belgium naturally forms a portion of 
 France, and the union of the two countries would be of 
 great advantage to both. Instead of doing this he at- 
 tempted to detach Victor Emmanuel from his alliance 
 with Prussia by a gross fabrication, which was quickly 
 discovered, and which set the whole Italian nation against 
 him.* This was the first step towards his downfall. Too 
 much good was said of him in England, and too much evil 
 in America, especially by the New York Tribune. To 
 quote Bismarck again, "He never forgot a man who had 
 done him a service, " but on the whole his was not such a 
 character as one can cordially admire. His usurpation of 
 the government had not the excuse of public necessity 
 like that of the great Napoleon; although it was largely 
 approved by the French people. Many of Napoleon's 
 old soldiers and officers like Gourgand, lived to witness the 
 restoration of the Bonapartes, and one cannot help sym- 
 pathizing with them. 
 
 On the whole, France did not come off so badly from the 
 Napoleonic wars. The French won more than fifty vic- 
 tories; their opponents less than twenty; they had the 
 *See my life of Bismarck. 
 
86 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 satisfaction of knowing that it required all the other 
 nations of Europe to put them down; which was much 
 glory for them, and little enough for their enemies. They 
 were almost free from debt, while the English National 
 debt amounted to nearly three hundred millions sterling; 
 and the rebuilding of Moscow, alone, must have cost 
 several hundred millions of dollars. They retained the 
 boundaries of 1789, and the loss of life was quickly repaired 
 by nature's kindly method; for in a crowded country like 
 France, every man that dies makes room for another to be 
 born. In 1811 nearly one-fourth of the population of 
 Great Britain were paupers, and had to be supported by 
 government. This shows how closely the plans of Napo- 
 leon missed success; but he remained twelve days too long 
 at Moscow. 
 
THE WATERLOO CAMPAIGN 
 
 HUNDREDS of writers have treated this sub- 
 ject heretofore, and yet something always 
 remains to be said of it. It still continues 
 fresh and interesting. If nothing more, I can 
 at least expose some of the errors and misstatements of my 
 predecessors. This is not an enviable task, but it is a 
 useful one. 
 
 The Waterloo campaign is the most interesting one of 
 modern times, for its problematic character, the fearful 
 loss of life occasioned by it, and a certain dramatic quality, 
 like the fifth act of a tragedy, which reached its climax in 
 the consignment of Napoleon to St. Helena. 
 
 The political importance of the campaign has often 
 been estimated too highly. It was the battle of Leipsic 
 in 1813 that broke the power of Napoleon; and after that 
 he had nothing more than a ghost of a chance so long as 
 Austria, Prussia, and Russia remained united against him. 
 That they would have remained so is proved by the fact 
 that their alliance continued for more than thirty years 
 longer without any other object apparently than to pre- 
 serve the peace and prevent democratic revolutions. 
 Those who, like Byron, look upon Napoleon as a homicide 
 and butcher of mankind cannot be aware that after his 
 return from Elba he offered the allies peace during his own 
 and son's lifetime, and that they were even disposed to 
 consider these terms. Nothing but the terror of Napo- 
 leon's genius can excuse the great powers for declining his 
 
 87 
 
88 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 proposals; and it seems a shame that the man who proved 
 himseK foremost in the art of war should not have been 
 permitted to show what he could also do in the arts of 
 peace. But it is only on grand occasions that history ac- 
 complishes the best results ; and the lives of forty thousand 
 men were sacrificed within three days, in order to main- 
 tain the principle of hereditary right in politics. 
 
 No one knew better than Napoleon the desperate errand 
 on which he went'. Even if he had succeeded in driving 
 Wellington into the sea and pushing Bliicher across the 
 Rhine, there was little chance that he could sustain him- 
 self against the forces that would afterward have been 
 brought against him. Only a continuation of miraculous 
 successes could have saved him, and his fate was prac- 
 tically decided before the battle of Waterloo was half 
 finished. 
 
 It has been said that his army in this campaign was 
 one of the best he ever commanded; but this is hardly a 
 fair statement. The rank and file of his troops was largely 
 composed of veterans, but his best generals, with the ex- 
 ception of Ney and Soult, were gone. Massena was an 
 invalid, Junot and Lannes were dead, Murat was in Italy, 
 and Victor declined to serve. Dr. Ropes thinks Napoleon 
 made a mistake in stationing Davout at Paris, but it was 
 essential to have a reliable man in command at the seat of 
 government, and we should be cautious in judging such 
 matters in the light of subsequent events. To have re- 
 placed Grouchy with Massena and D'Erlon with Victor 
 might have made a great difference in the result of the 
 campaign. In addition to this, an American student 
 who was residing in Paris during the hundred days, and 
 in his old age wrote an account of it for "The Atlantic 
 Monthly, " noticed that the French cavalry were not well 
 mounted. This followed as a matter of course from the 
 
THE WATERLOO CAMPAIGN 89 
 
 immense destruction of horses during the retreat from 
 Moscow, and gave the Enghsh cavalry, charging down 
 the slope of Mont St. Jean, an easy superiority. 
 
 The Duke of Wellington was of opinion that Napoleon 
 would have succeeded better if he had invaded Belgium 
 by other lines than those of the Meuse and Sambre; and 
 he certainly could not have succeeded worse unless he and 
 his whole army had been captured. If it does not appear 
 that his chances might have been much improved by 
 pursuing a different course, if he had followed the line of 
 the Scheldt and attacked Wellington on the extreme right, 
 he might have cut the English from their base of supplies, 
 but at the same time would have been outflanked strate- 
 gically by Bliicher, a general who would not have been 
 slow to take advantage of the situation. If, on the con- 
 trary, Napoleon had marched against Bliicher's left wing, 
 he would thus have thrown the allies together, and have 
 been obliged to fight very much such a battle as General 
 Beauregard did at Shiloh. Prince Bliicher's biographer 
 blamed Wellington for declining to prearrange a point of 
 junction in case of Napoleon's advance; and Wellington 
 replied to this that such an attempt would probably have 
 led to a false position, than which nothing could be more 
 unfortunate for the allied cause. It would be interesting 
 to hear this question discussed by an impartial expert in 
 military affairs. 
 
 A statement by Napoleon's surgeon at St. Helena may 
 have misled some writers in regard to his plan of this 
 campaign. He is reported to have said that if his subordi- 
 nates had acted with as much energy as they did some- 
 times, Wellington's army would have been captured in 
 cantonments before he had a chance to strike a blow. 
 This, however, throws more light on Napoleon's manner 
 of talking than on the subject before us. Napoleon no 
 
90 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 doubt felt pretty sore over this defeat. For Marshal Ney, 
 with forty thousand men, to capture the Duke of Welling- 
 ton with twice that number of troops at his disposal, was 
 such a dream as no sane person would imagine. 
 
 Napoleon's plan was one which he had invented himself 
 in his first Italian campaign. It was very well known, 
 and Bliicher evidently expected from first to last that 
 Napoleon would act exactly as he did. Wellington, on 
 the other hand, seems to have looked for some new inven- 
 tion. 
 
 Napoleon directed his first attack against Bliicher, 
 because the Prussian army was stationed nearer to the 
 French frontier than Wellington's, and because he knew 
 that Bliicher was always ready for a fight. He directed 
 Ney to press forward on the road to Brussels and hold 
 Wellington in check, while he dealt with Bliicher himself. 
 Having defeated Bliicher, he would transfer the bulk of his 
 army to unite with Ney and fight Wellington. 
 
 Marshal Ney performed his part of the programme in 
 a satisfactory manner. It is thought that if he had at- 
 tacked Wellington at once at Quatre Bras he might have 
 defeated him; but what could Ney have gained by this? 
 If he had defeated the small force opposed to him and 
 pursued it, he would have run the risk of being overpowered 
 by a superior force coming to its support, while he would 
 be widening the distance between himseK and his own 
 reinforcements. That the whole body of Ney's troops 
 was not present at the battle was owing to a request which 
 Napoleon sent to him for assistance, which was delivered 
 to one of his subordinates. Wellington remained on the 
 defensive until the close of the day, when, having been 
 heavily reinforced, he ordered a forward movement, and 
 Ney's army retired from the field in good order. Welling- 
 
THE WATERLOO CAMPAIGN 91 
 
 ton, with a force numerically superior to his adversary, 
 gained no advantage except the possession of the ground. 
 
 Meanwhile, "Old Forwards" was carrying on with 
 Napoleon one of the toughest struggles of the times. 
 General Hambley avers that Napoleon directed his first 
 attack against Blticher because the French were accus- 
 tomed to defeating the Prussians. Such an opinion by a 
 writer on military affairs! The plain fact is that the 
 French have never defeated the Prussians except when 
 commanded by Napoleon, and at Davout's battle at 
 Auerstadt. Bliicher defeated them repeatedly in 1813, 
 and in 1814 he defeated Napoleon himself at Laon, though 
 it is true with some advantages on his side. 
 
 The Prussian army consisted of soldiers of two years' 
 service, and only three years' training. Bliicher's cavalry 
 may have been superior to Napoleon's, but he had no body 
 of trained veterans like the Old Guard or Wellington's 
 Highlanders. He was obliged to concentrate at or near 
 Ligny on the best ground he could find, and the position 
 was not a strong one. Otherwise he must have retreated 
 on the road to Liege and have been hopelessly separated 
 from Wellington. Bliicher's Prussian biographer com- 
 plained that Wellington did not come to the assistance of 
 the Prussians, but it is doubtful if Bliicher ever complained 
 of it. His army was larger than any force that Napoleon 
 would be able to bring against him, and why should he 
 require assistance?* 
 
 The battle of Ligny in its general character resembled 
 Wagram. Bliicher, like the Archduke Charles, attempted 
 to turn Napoleon's left wing; but at the very moment when 
 
 *Tlie story that Wellington examined Bliicher's ground and disap- 
 proved of it, contradicts itself, for it represents Wellington speaking as 
 if he had seen Blucher's army in position, which it was quite impossible 
 for him to have done. 
 
92 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 he seemed likely to succeed, Napoleon, by a sudden attack 
 of the Guards, captured the village of Ligny and compelled 
 him to retreat. Gustavus Adolphus gained the battle of 
 Britenfeld by similar tactics. If Blucher had merely stood 
 on the defensive, which it was all that was necessary to 
 do to block Napoleon's game, this might not have hap- 
 pened. Every nation has its style in war; and there are 
 no soldiers like the French for fighting in a street or storm- 
 ing a fortified position. Blucher does not appear to have 
 realized this. He charged at the captured position at the 
 head of his cavalry, but his horse was killed by the frag- 
 ment of a bombshell and the attack was repulsed. The 
 Prussians retreated in good order, and Napoleon appears 
 to have captured few guns and not many prisoners except 
 those who were wounded. The loss of the French was 
 about twelve thousand killed and wounded; that of the 
 Prussians from twelve to fifteen thousand.* 
 
 An incident occurred during this battle which proves 
 how narrow the line often is between success and failure. 
 Napoleon sent a request to Marshal Ney for a body of 
 eight or ten thousand men (if he could possibly spare them) 
 to attack the Prussians on the right wing. If this request 
 could have been complied with, Ligny would have been a 
 Waterloo for Blucher; a large portion of his left wing must 
 inevitably have been captured and his army compelled to 
 evacuate Belgium altogether. The request was delivered 
 to a general of division who was on the road to Quatre 
 Bras, and who undertook to fulfill it on his own responsi- 
 bility. He and his forces were already within sight of the 
 Prussians when the contrary order reached him to retrace 
 
 *Dr. Ropes places the Prussian loss on French authority at eighteen 
 or twenty thousand. German writers are much more trustworthy on 
 such points, however, than the French: witness the report of the Prussian 
 staff for the war of 1870 and 1871. 
 
THE WATERLOO CAMPAIGN 93 
 
 his step^s. Marshal d'Erlon is credited with having pre- 
 vented this stroke of genius, which otherwise might have 
 changed the current of French history. 
 
 The next forenoon Grouchy was sent in pursuit of the 
 Prussians with about thirty thousand men. According 
 to Thiers, Grouchy was a poHtical appointment, — ^the 
 sort that has often occasioned mischief in mihtary affairs. 
 He belonged to the old noblesse whom Napoleon was desir- 
 ous to conciliate; was a brave soldier and formerly com- 
 manded the Old Guard. Napoleon, however, was obliged 
 to choose between Grouchy, Vandamme, and Gerard. 
 The position was one of great delicacy and required a 
 skillful and experienced general. In 1809, after the battle 
 of Eckmuhl, Napoleon dispatched Massena in pursuit of 
 the Austrians, while he himself took the road to Vienna. 
 
 Grouchy did not at all like the commission that was 
 given him. He was no doubt very much afraid of Blucher 
 and with good reason. Blucher had an available force of 
 forty thousand more than he himself commanded, and 
 his own troops had suffered but little less than the Prussians 
 on the preceding day. What was there to prevent Blucher 
 from turning on him and overpowering him; Blucher was 
 originally a cavalry general, and possessed all the dash 
 and rapidity of action which belongs to that branch of 
 the service. The fact that on the afternoon of June 18 
 Grouchy was obliged to fight a battle with General Teile- 
 mann shows that if Blucher had not gone to Wellington's 
 assistance Grouchy would have been obliged at that time 
 to encoimter the whole Prussian force; and the destruction 
 of Grouchy's command would have been almost as severe 
 a blow to Napoleon as Waterloo itself. 
 
 In the vindication of his conduct, which he published 
 on his return from exile, Marshal Grouchy says of his last 
 interview with the Emperor: — 
 
94 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 I replied to him, that the Prussians had commenced 
 their retreat at ten o'clock the evening before; that much 
 time must elapse before my troops, who were scattered 
 over the plain, were cleaning their guns and making their 
 soup, and were not expecting to be called upon to march 
 that day, could be put in movement; that the enemy had 
 seventeen or eighteen hours' start of the troops sent in 
 pursuit; that although the reports of the cavalry gave no 
 definite information as to the direction of the retreat of 
 the mass of the Prussian army, it was apparently on Na- 
 mur that they were retiring; and that thus, in following 
 them, I should find myself isolated, separated from him, 
 and out of range of his movements. 
 
 "These observations," Marshal Grouchy states, "were 
 not well received; the emperor repeated his orders, adding 
 that it was for me to discover the route taken by Marshal 
 Bliicher."* 
 
 Grouchy's objections are valid enough, but unfortunate- 
 ly there was nothing else to be done. The wonder is that 
 Napoleon, finding that Grouchy did not like the business, 
 should not have superseded him at once. Vandamme was 
 an experienced officer, and might have understood the 
 situation better. Soult in such an undertaking might 
 have won great renown, but Napoleon retained Soult not 
 only for his knowledge of Wellington's tactics, but as the 
 best person to take command of the army in case of acci- 
 dent to himself. 
 
 At Gembloux, seven or eight miles from Ligny, the 
 highway divides going north and east. Grouchy ap- 
 parently spent the 17th of June in discovering which 
 direction Blucher had taken. Now any one who examines 
 the positions of the four armies on the morning of June 18 
 will perceive that Napoleon was in a trap. Blucher was 
 
 *The Campaign at Waterloo, J. C. Ropes, p. 207. 
 
THE WATERLOO CAMPAIGN 95 
 
 at Wavre, which is about fourteen miles from the field of 
 Waterloo; whereas Grouchy was fully eighteen miles from 
 Wavre, and twenty miles distant from Napoleon, who 
 probably delayed opening the battle on that account. 
 
 At half past eleven Grouchy had reached Walheim, 
 only six miles north of Gembloux, where he was greeted 
 with the sound of Napoleon's cannon at Mont St. Jean, 
 and as is well known was urged by Vandamme and Gerard 
 to go to his support. If Grouchy did not know where he 
 was and what he was doing, this was clearly his best line 
 of action, though Bliicher still had the inside track and 
 could have reached the field of battle nearly an hour before 
 Grouchy could. Yet in this case we ought to consider 
 not only what actually happened but what might have 
 happened. If Wellington's army had been defeated by 
 three o'clock in the afternoon, Grouchy 's assistance would 
 not have been required, and he would have found himself 
 awkwardly situated with regard to Bliicher. He would 
 seem to have been more culpable for the slowness of his 
 movements than for erroneous judgment. Why Bliicher 
 delayed so long to reinforce Wellington has not yet been 
 explained. One Prussian army corps arrived on the field 
 about five p. m., and seriously embarrassed Napoleon's 
 movements; but it was more than two hours later when 
 the main force of the Prussians attacked the right wing 
 of the French army. 
 
 The material of Wellington's force was not nearly so 
 good as Bliicher's. Only two-fifths of the troops drawn 
 up to oppose Napoleon at Mont St. Jean were British 
 soldiers, of which nearly a third were volunteers; one-fifth 
 was made up of Hanoverians and Brunswick Prussians; 
 and the remainder were Dutch and Belgians.* Welling- 
 
 *Tliis is General Hambley; but Mr. J. C. Ropes says about twenty- 
 four thousand British, twenty thousand Germans, and twenty-three 
 
96 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 ton's Highlanders, however, may be counted equal to 
 Napoleon's Old Guard, and he had also a very effective 
 cavalry force. Napoleon, of course, was aware of the 
 constitution of his opponent's army and probably expected 
 to defeat it quite easily. 
 
 The emperor alleges in his memoirs that he sent an order 
 to Grouchy on the evening of the seventeenth requesting 
 him to come to his assistance on the following day if he 
 could possibly do so without Bliicher's knowing it. The 
 truth of this has been doubted, and Grouchy has denied 
 ever receiving such a dispatch. It is possible that Napo- 
 leon intended to send such an order, that he neglected to 
 send it, and afterwards supposed that he had sent it; but 
 it is quite as possible that being sent to Wavre it fell into 
 the hands of the Prussians, or that Grouchy being at 
 Gembloux, Napoleon's orderly did not succeed in finding 
 him until late in the following afternoon. Thiers states 
 that a Polish ofiicer was intrusted with this dispatch, and 
 that he never afterwards was heard from. 
 
 Marshal Marmont, in his report on the battle of Sala- 
 manca, notices that Wellington had a faculty for selecting 
 strong positions, and his position at Mont St. Jean was 
 no doubt the strongest he ever occupied.* The farm of 
 Hougomont and the village of La Haye Sainte were like 
 two castles in front of his line, which protected it from 
 any immediate attack on the right and centre, while his 
 second line was posted in comparative security behind the 
 crest of the ridge. Yet Wellington did not anticipate 
 Napoleon's attack on his left wing, and stationed his 
 weakest troops there. 
 
 thousand Dutch and Belgian troops. English battles have always been 
 fought largely by soldiers of other nations. 
 
 *It was at Mont St. Jean the battle took place. Waterloo is more 
 than a mile on the road to Brussels. 
 
THE WATERLOO CAMPAIGN 97 
 
 He thus came very near being defeated at the outset. 
 According to the statement of his biographer. Rev. George 
 Robert Gleig, the Dutch and Belgian troops all ran away, 
 leaving only three or four thousand English soldiers to 
 contend with a column of twelve or fifteen thousand 
 French. General Pictou, who was in command, gave the 
 order to advance, and was instantly killed by a musket 
 ball. If this had happened before the order was given, it 
 seems likely that in the confusion that ensues at the death 
 of a commanding officer, the French attack would have 
 succeeded. 
 
 Marshal d'Erlon has been censured by all Napoleon's 
 sympathizers for the formation of the column with which 
 he made this attack. There can be no doubt that it was 
 not properly supported by cavalry; but why did not 
 Napoleon superintend such an important movement him- 
 self .f* A Prussian corjps d'armee had already been observed 
 on the heights of St. Lambert before the order for attack 
 was given. Napoleon ought to have realized the deadly 
 peril in which he and his army were placed. If Junot or 
 Victor had organized the movement, who can doubt but 
 that it would have succeeded? Why did not Napoleon 
 support it with Kellermann's cavalry division and six or 
 seven battalions of the middle guard? He might have 
 concentrated tv/o-fifths of his force on that single point 
 without danger to the rest of his hne, or if he had ad- 
 vanced his right wing in line for a determined conflict, 
 who can doubt that numbers and discipline combined 
 would have carried the day? 
 
 Napoleon's capture of La Haye Sainte two hours later 
 was a decided advantage, and gave him a second oppor- 
 tunity to win the battle. This, however, was neutralized 
 by the attack of the Prussian corps shortly afterward on 
 the right flank of the French. From this time forward 
 
98 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 Wellington had the advantage of numbers, and Napoleon's 
 army was in such a position that nothing but the blunders 
 of his opponents could save it from defeat. Napoleon was 
 obliged to withdraw troops from his centre to protect his 
 right wing, and thus weakened it too much for a vigorous 
 offensive movement. There were now more German than 
 English troops on the battlefield. 
 
 The failure of Ney's cavalry charges points directly to 
 the statements already made in regard to the weakness 
 of Napoleon's cavalry. Not a single square of the enemy 
 was broken by them, whereas in 1870 the Berlin Guards 
 rode down the French ranks at Gravelotte in spite of the 
 rapid firing of the infantry. The Dutch regiments on 
 Wellington's centre suffered most severely, but succeeded 
 in preserving their formation. 
 
 Dr. Ropes is the first writer in English who has given a 
 clear and satisfactory account of the close of the battle. 
 According to Thiers, the Guards made their attack in 
 column about the time of the arrival of Bliicher, when 
 the French line broke behind them and they were left at 
 the mercy of Wellington's cannon, and refusing to surren- 
 der were immolated on the field. This is melodramatic 
 enough, but in order to believe it we must suppose that 
 Napoleon delayed a final attack until the Prussian regi- 
 ments had begun to deploy on his right; which is the 
 same as supposing that Napoleon had suddenly lost his 
 senses. 
 
 Dr. Ropes 's account is supported by the statement of 
 a Captain Powell, who fought against Napoleon's Guard in 
 the Highlanders. It was not the Old Guard but the 
 Middle Guard which was defeated, and Captain Powell 
 attributes it to the sudden apparition of the Highlanders 
 (who had been lying on the ground) and the deadly volley 
 that they poured into the advancing column. This unex- 
 
THE WATERLOO CAMPAIGN 99 
 
 pected collision was caused by the volume of smoke which 
 rolled between the two armies, and as the Highlanders, had 
 orders to fire while the Guard had orders to reserve their 
 fire, the latter were taken at a disadvantage from which 
 they did not recover. 
 
 Captain Powell's testimony is valuable here. He states 
 that the Highlanders pursued the Middle Guard for nearly 
 a quarter of a mile, until finding themselves outflanked 
 by the advance of Napoleon's Old Guard they retired 
 again to their former position. 
 
 The Old Guard was itself outflanked in turn by a British 
 division coming up from Hougomont, and finding itself 
 caught in a trap wisely withdrew without serious loss. 
 
 Wellington's cavalry charge, by which he had recovered 
 La Haye Sainte, appears to have been contemporary with 
 Bliicher's attack on the French right. 
 
 I believe no authentic statement of the English loss at 
 Waterloo has ever been made public. Thiers places 
 Napoleon's loss at about thirty thousand killed and wound- 
 ed; the English at about the same; and the Prussians at 
 eight or ten thousand. This is nothing but national 
 vanity. The British loss is generally admitted to have 
 been over twenty thousand, but that it should be equal 
 to that of the French in such a conflict is incredible. The 
 Prussian loss may have been between three and five thou- 
 sand, but certainly not more. 
 
 Wellington's management of the battle after Napoleon's 
 first attack has never been found fault with. His subordi- 
 nates also were everywhere equal to the occasion. As a 
 defensive action, however, it was not so remarkable as 
 Napoleon's second day at Leipsic, when with an army 
 composed largely of French boys he preserved an unbroken 
 line against a force nearly twice as large as his own. 
 
 What Napoleon evidently did not reckon on in this 
 
100 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 campaign was the strategy of Bliicher. He supposed 
 after the battle of Ligny that Blticher would retreat on 
 Namur or Liege, and he misled Grouchy somewhat by 
 suggesting this. If he had foreseen Bliicher's action, he 
 would certainly have taken greater precautions against it. 
 We could admire Wellington more perfectly if he had 
 never pointed to the playground at Eton and said, "There 
 Waterloo was won." Napoleon would not have plumed 
 himself on such a victory. He does not appear to have 
 plumed himself on any of his exploits. The fame of forty 
 victories was no comfort to him at St. Helena. The man 
 was too great for that. 
 
THE POLITICS OF THE DIVINA COM MEDIA 
 
 WE are not accustomed to think of T. W. 
 Parsons as one of the foremost American 
 poets, and yet in his translation from 
 Dante, he has done the world a literary 
 service second to none of them. There have been many 
 translations hitherto of the great Italian epic, in English 
 prose and verse, but Parsons's is the only one that combines 
 the essential qualities of the original; its ease and grace 
 of movement, its earnest tone and delicacy of expression . 
 Before reading Parsons's translation I had given up hope 
 of enjoying any translation of Dante, except, perhaps, 
 John Carlyle's prose-poetic version of the Inferno. Carey 
 made the fatal mistake of attempting to render him into 
 English blank verse ; and Longfellow had already acquired 
 a style too far removed from that of the Divina Commedia. 
 The lack of any very definite style as a poet may have 
 been to Mr. Parsons's advantage as a translator. 
 
 No other modern language possesses equal advantages 
 with the Italian for the formation of smooth-flowing verse; 
 and the secret of Dante's graceful measure resides chiefly 
 in the cadence of his feminine rhymes, which fall over 
 from one line to another like the spray of a fountain. 
 This effect might have been reproduced in Spenser's time, 
 but doubtfully, in the present contracted state of the Eng- 
 lish language. Parsons very wisely did not attempt to 
 reproduce it, — though he has done so in places under 
 favorable conditions; but he has preserved the alternate 
 
 101 
 
102 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 rhymes of Dante's verse, which continue without a break 
 to the end of each canto. He has thus secured a sense 
 of movement, which, if it does not possess the noiseless 
 ghding of Dante's spirits, nevertheless carries the reader 
 along in a pleasant and unconstrained manner. In this 
 we recognize its advantage over English blank verse, which 
 is much better suited to the argument of the stage. Al- 
 though Parsons's lines are commonly a syllable shorter 
 than Dante's, he has rendered the first thirty-five verses 
 of the Inferno into twenty -eight English verses. 
 
 Considering the diflSculty of the work, the translation 
 is remarkably smooth and well sustained. That it should 
 be always equal to itself is more than we have the right to 
 expect. Parsons's account of the revenge of Ugolino is one 
 of his most fortunate passages, while he has treated the 
 pure and simple story of Francesca's love with a circum- 
 locution that requires too much for the imagination. 
 That the Purgaiorio remains unfinished is more to be re- 
 gretted than that Parsons should not have attempted 
 more than a few detached passages of the Paradiso. In 
 his exile Dante was no longer equal to a description of true 
 happiness. 
 
 This rare book, however, needs to be published with 
 explanatory notes. Dante appears to have had glimpses 
 of his own literary immortality, and yet no other poet 
 has written so distinctly and determinedly for his own 
 time and people. He is perhaps so much the better for 
 this; but whether he is a better poet for his extensive 
 scholarship may be considered doubtful. What the true 
 poet needs, is not scholarship but a manifold experience, 
 and it must be admitted that the scholarly character of 
 Dante's work makes it more difficult for us to com- 
 prehend. 
 
 To realize the full meaning and intention of the Divina 
 
POLITICS OF THE DIVINA COMMEDIA 103 
 
 Commedia, it is necessary to acquire some familiarity with 
 the tenets of mediaeval Christianity, to possess a college 
 graduate's knowledge of Greek mythology, and to be ac- 
 quainted with the course of Italian politics during the 
 thirteenth century. There is as little true philosophy in 
 his epic as in Homer's Iliad. It indicates an author of 
 wide observation and profound experience, but the scholas- 
 tic metaphysics with which he has impeded the movement 
 of his Purgatorio and Paradiso may well be left to the 
 initiated. Dante was not a thinker like Abelard, but a 
 poet par excellence. 
 
 Of these requisites the last has been the least understood, 
 even by Dante's most ardent admirers. His interference 
 in politics has been looked upon as the great mistake of 
 his life. It has been said that he placed his enemies in 
 hell and his friends in purgatory. It has been looked upon 
 as a natural piece of vindictiveness that he should have 
 placed his arch-enemy, Boniface VIII., in the third circle 
 of Malebolge. 
 
 Without entering too far into this branch of the sub- 
 ject, we may quote the following sentence from one of 
 the latest of his commentators: — 
 
 "It is, however, not easy to decide what the principle 
 is upon which he made his selection: some have thought 
 that it was personal, and that he allowed himself to 
 be guided throughout by motives of personal liking or 
 hatred."* 
 
 Suspicion is the child of ignorance and bad judgment. 
 Sound minds recognize one another; and if there had not 
 been a deep abiding sense of justice in Dante, he would 
 never have become a world poet. All human beings are 
 swayed more or less by personal feeling, but a close ex- 
 amination of Dante's judgments proves that he was neither 
 *Scartazzmi's Companion to Dante, trans, p. 429. 
 
104 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 partial to his friends, nor unfairly invidious to his enemies 
 and political opponents. The principle he evidently acted 
 upon was that a person who had committed one cardinal 
 sin, like the simony of Clement V. or Jason's desertion of 
 Hypsipyle, ought to be condemned to hell, no matter how 
 virtuous he might be otherwise. He has placed a number 
 of Ghibelines in the Inferno, with his instructor Brunetto 
 Latini and his friend Jacopo Rusticucci. Manfred is 
 placed in purgatory, to show that in spite of excommuni- 
 cation he is on the way to paradise. 
 
 Guelph and Ghibeline are still ominous words. They 
 represent the struggle between church and state in the 
 middle ages, which raged so fiercely in Germany and Italy 
 that other European nations were comparatively neg- 
 lected by the priesthood; and the reason for this was that 
 it was a struggle also for national independence against 
 national unity. Italy could have no central authority of 
 its own, so long as the pope held possession of Rome. He 
 could not be pope and king also; and this fact created 
 a demand for some supreme authority from the outside, 
 which might constitute a final court of appeal for the diflfi- 
 culties arising between the different states; and although 
 the papal government disliked this, it was considered pref- 
 erable to an Italian monarchy. The pope and the emperor 
 were like a married couple who can neither live together 
 nor live apart. 
 
 A nation without a central government can only main- 
 tain its independence so long as external circumstances 
 favor this. Pope Adrian I. was obliged to call in Charle- 
 magne to protect him against the Lombards; and John 
 XII. offered the imperial dignity to Otho I. on condition 
 that he would depose the usurper Berengarius. The 
 attacks of the Saracens on southern Italy, which once 
 placed Rome itself in serious danger, were a perpetual 
 
POLITICS OF THE DIVINA COMMEDIA 105 
 
 annoyance, and both Germans and Normans were called 
 upon to suppress them. The Italian people were perfectly 
 capable of defending themselves, but they lacked military 
 organization, and it was not for the interest of the papal 
 government that they should acquire this; and the grati- 
 tude of the popes to their deliverers gradually cooled after 
 the danger was over. 
 
 The terms Guelph and Ghibeline only originated when 
 the masterly Waiblingen family came to the German 
 throne, but the same parties existed before their time and 
 long afterward. The Guelphs were the patriotic party 
 who wished Italy to become independent; and the Ghibe- 
 lines were the party of law and order, who preferred pay- 
 ing a foreign tax to having continual rows with their 
 neighbors. As a matter of course the large cities like 
 Milan, Genoa, Florence, and Bologna were Guelphic; and 
 the smaller states, such as Verona, Padua, Arezzo, Cre- 
 mona, and Pisa, who were greatly afraid of their more 
 powerful neighbors, were Ghibeline. Naturally, in the 
 more powerful cities the opposition was Ghibeline, and in 
 the smaller ones it was Guelph. In Florence the Neri were 
 Guelph and the Bianchi Ghibeline, or allied with them. 
 In Florence the Ghibeline party acquired the ascendency 
 in 1260; for which event one of its streets was named the 
 Via Ghiabellina. 
 
 There is always a conflict external or internal in the 
 nation, the city, or the individual; but the manner in 
 which we conduct ourselves in the struggle is more im- 
 portant than the object or occasion of it. The occasion is 
 a variable, but our conduct is a function of our lives. 
 There was much useless bloodshed in the Guelph and 
 Ghibeline wars, as there was in other countries during the 
 middle ages, but in spite of this Italy prospered, improved, 
 and became wealthy. There were varying successors on 
 
106 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 both sides ; but the three powerful Hohenstaufen monarchs, 
 Frederick I., Henry VI., and Frederick II., coming in suc- 
 cession gave a preponderating advantage to the Ghibeline 
 cause, and reduced the temporal authority of the pope 
 almost to a nutshell. 
 
 This was particularly the case during the reign of Fred- 
 erick II., a ruler who united in himself the talents of 
 Louis XIV. and Frederick the Great, without the weak- 
 nesses of either, — one of the most complete men of whom 
 there is any record. At the age of eighteen he crossed 
 the Alps in disguise (for the Swiss were hostile to him) in 
 order to take possession of an empire which not only in- 
 cluded modern Germany, but Austria proper, Bohemia, 
 the Netherlands, Switzerland, Lombardy, and the king- 
 dom of Naples. For thirty-eight years he governed this 
 vast domain as if by magic. He was terrible in war, but 
 too wise to attempt conquests which he did not believe 
 could be retained. He carried the sword in his left hand 
 and the olive-branch in his right. He suppressed a rebel- 
 lion of the Lombards with Napoleon-like rapidity and 
 thoroughness; but when obliged to go on a crusade in order 
 to nullify the excommunication of the pope, he made 
 peace with Carmel the Great, the successor of Saladin, 
 and obtained from him larger concessions for the city of 
 Jerusalem than previous crusaders had won by hard fight- 
 ing. He founded a university, chartered free cities, and 
 enacted laws to ameliorate the condition of the peasantry. 
 Dr. Francis Lieber speaks of him as a man centuries in 
 advance of his own age; and Menzel says that the" lustre 
 of his seven crowns was far surpassed by his intellectual 
 gifts and graces. " 
 
 Against such a sovereign the pope had no weapons, 
 spiritual or temporal, that were of any avail, — Frederick's 
 son once captured the whole college of cardinals on their 
 
POLITICS OF THE DIVINA COMMEDIA 107 
 
 way from Avignon to Rome, — so the conclave of the Vati- 
 can came to the wicked determination to assassinate the 
 whole Hohenstaufen family.* Frederick's favorite son 
 Enzio, was captured by the Guelphs at Bologna and put 
 to death contrary to knightly customs and the right of bel- 
 ligerents. Frederick himself narrowly escaped poisoning, 
 and died soon afterward in his fifty-seventh year. His 
 son Conrad IV., and Conrad's brother Henry, were both 
 poisoned by the priests. His last son, Manfred, was killed 
 in battle, fighting against the Duke of Anjou, whom the 
 pope had called into Italy for the purpose, f His beauti- 
 ful wife died in prison, and his young children, brought 
 up in ignorance, became beggars in the streets. Three 
 years later Conrad V., who came to avenge Manfred's 
 death, was beheaded at Naples. So ended the Hohen- 
 staufens; and in the history of the Church of Rome there 
 is not a more hideous crime. 
 
 When base methods are resorted to it commonly indi- 
 cates a desperate condition of affairs. After the destruc- 
 tion of the noble Waiblingen family, the pope and his 
 cardinals found they had only changed a German for a 
 French master; for the evil was inherent in the political 
 situation. The execution of Conrad was avenged, as 
 Carlyle says, by "Sicilian Vespers," in which the French 
 were massacred, not only to a man, but to a woman. 
 Pope Celestine was "induced to resign," by Charles of 
 Anjou; and his successor, the infamous Boniface, was so 
 maltreated by Philip the Fair that he died in the fourth 
 year of Dante's exile. Such a course of events could only 
 serve to strengthen the Ghibelines in Italy. Many im- 
 
 *We regret to find a strict moralist like John Stuart Mill defending 
 this course on the groimd of necessity. The same reasoning would 
 exculpate the murderers of Cavendish and Burke. 
 
 fin 1265, the same year that Dante was bom. 
 
108 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 portant Guelphs went over to them from the fear of a 
 sacerdotal despotism, and among these was the poet Dante. 
 The succeeding pope, Clement V., favored the Ghibelines. 
 
 Such was the background upon which the Divina Corn- 
 media was written. In his youth, Dante was a soldier, 
 and had fought against the Ghibelines at Campaldino. 
 He next became a politician, but his poetic sense of justice 
 and devoted patriotism brought him into conflict with 
 greater forces than those which he could wield. If it had 
 not been for his exile we might never have read his poetry. 
 
 It must be confessed that his scheme of morals is rather 
 academic. According to modern standards, it would have 
 been more just to have represented Frederick II. in pur- 
 gatory, and Boniface VIII. in the lowest hell; for in cold- 
 blooded villainy Boniface was never surpassed by any 
 other pope, unless it were Alexander Borgia. We find 
 Frederick assigned to the circle of arch-heretics — which 
 was simply taking his enemies' accusations for truth. It 
 is evident that he was excommunicated for purely political 
 reasons, and that his severe edicts against heresy were 
 intended to counteract this. Dante may have known 
 less about him than the historian Hallam did. The real 
 heretic is he who refuses to believe the truth when it is placed 
 before his eyes; and Frederick was too enlightened to feel 
 implicit faith in the superstitious dogmas of his time. 
 
 Why Dante should have placed his friends, Teghiaio 
 Aldobrandi and Jacopo Rusticucci, in the Inferno is not 
 so clear; it was probably for reasons known only to con- 
 temporaries : so also of his preceptor Brunetto, — ^but they 
 were evidently excellent men or Dante would not have 
 foimd pleasure in recognizing them. 
 
 A still more pedantic instance of injustice is that of 
 Pietro della Vigne, in canto xiii, 55, who is incarcerated 
 in the trunk of a tree for having committed suicide. He 
 
POLITICS OF THE DIVINA COMMEDIA 109 
 
 had been minister of state to Frederick II., but was blinded 
 and imprisoned on suspicion of having attempted to 
 poison his master. Dante considered him innocent of 
 this accusation, but nevertheless consigned him to hell 
 for taking his own life in prison. Contrariwise he excul- 
 pates Cato, who was the most pedantic of suicides. 
 
 Dante's essay in praise of monarchy is readily explained. 
 He recognized the need of a national government for Italy, 
 and monarchy was the only form of centralization that 
 he could understand. The time for federalism had not 
 yet arrived. 
 
 He was not the greatest of poets. He may have ex- 
 celled Milton; but he is surpassed by Homer, Shakespeare, 
 and Goethe, — perhaps also by Sophocles and ^Eschylus. 
 Yet, we return to him continually, and we are not depressed 
 by the terrible scenes which he conjures up for us; for 
 they appear in an atmosphere of the tenderest pity, and 
 the light which illumines them comes from the life eternal. 
 The Divina Commedia is one of the watch-towers which 
 mark the progress of civilization, and, like Homer's Iliad, 
 it may still hold its place after the lingua Toscana has 
 ceased to be spoken. 
 
MACHIAVELLI'S "PRINCE" 
 
 MACHIAVELLI is one of the puzzles of me- 
 diaeval history. When some notable person 
 who has always appeared immaculate to the 
 public eye, one who has been long distin- 
 guished for the performance of pious works and the utter- 
 ance of patriotic sentiments, is discovered conniving at 
 fraud, or caught in the perpetration of some criminal act 
 himself, we are greatly shocked, it is true, but not alto- 
 gether surprised; for we know that such instances have 
 not been uncommon before, that self-interest is an ever 
 ready instructor of hypocrisy, and, if we are sufficiently 
 honest with ourselves, we realize how near at times the 
 tempter has been to each one of us. When, however, we 
 read of a man upon whose personal character there was 
 never a stain, and who devoted his life to the service of his 
 native city, who endured torture without complaint, and 
 died in poverty without reproach; and yet one who in his 
 writings advocated the most cruel, cold-blooded, and 
 atrocious principles, — of such a one what judgment are 
 we to make? What are we to think of a statesman who 
 advises us that "men must be either flattered or crushed; 
 for they will revenge themselves for small injuries, but 
 for heavy ones they cannot?" Such a piece of truculent 
 cynicism leaves Diogenes and his tub centuries behind. 
 
 "The Prince" differs in this respect from the "History 
 of Florence." The latter work may, in the portion of it 
 which comes closely to the author's own life, represent 
 
 110 
 
MACHIAVELLI'S "PRINCE" 111 
 
 partisan and prejudiced views, but this can only be proved 
 by a painstaking investigation of the subject. Otherwise 
 the spirit that animates it would seem to be that pure 
 love of exposition, which George Eliot has noticed as one 
 of Machiavelli's distinctive traits. After a recent perusal 
 I do not recollect a single passage in it which might be 
 called cynical or even sarcastic, and the satire which we 
 may occasionally meet with in it is of a most amiable and 
 refreshing kind. Nowhere does he descend in manner or 
 material from the dignity which belongs to historical com- 
 position, except in the fifth chapter of the eighth book, 
 where he evidently makes game of Roberto da Rimini. 
 He is always the friend of municipal independence, the 
 only form of civil liberty possible in Italy during the 
 Middle Ages, and always the admirer of healthy, vigor- 
 ous political action, whether by princes or popular govern- 
 ments. In the conduct of affairs he considers sagacity 
 the highest virtue and incapability the worst of evils. 
 
 This it is not difficult to perceive, though his usual 
 style is one of judicial indifference. He never palliates 
 the crimes of princes, nor excuses the sloth, negligence, 
 and presumption which have often accompanied the 
 inheritance of titles and high offices. Visionary schemes 
 of restoring an ideal past are to such a practical mind as 
 Machiavelli's of all things the most abhorrent. Yet he 
 speaks kindly of Stef ano Poreari, who attempted to revolu- 
 tionize Rome, after the fashion of Garibaldi and Mazzini, 
 but was betrayed and put to death by the pope in 1452. 
 "Though some may applaud his intentions," Machiavelli 
 says, "yet he is accountable for a deficiency of imder- 
 standing; for such attempts, although they may appear 
 glorious, are almost sure to be attended with ruin." In 
 the same narrative he refers to the dissolute manners of 
 the priesthood and the mischief which they occasioned 
 
112 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 among both nobles and commons. If he favors one form 
 of government more than another, it is that spontaneous 
 Periclean authority, conferred upon the Medici by the 
 citizens of Florence from the time of Cosmo the Great to 
 the unworthy son of Lorenzo, with whom it came un- 
 happily to an end.* It is a marvelous thing when a whole 
 people with one accord intrust the best man among them 
 with sole charge of their public affairs. It is something 
 better than either democracy or monarchy, for it is the 
 harmonious union of both. When the life of Lorenzo de' 
 Medici was in danger from the conspiracy of Sixtus Fourth 
 and the Pazzi, every Florentine citizen of any importance 
 whatever, says Machiavelli, waited upon him with the 
 offer of their life and property in his defense. The interests 
 of Florence and of the Medici would seem to have been 
 identical. 
 
 Macaulay, to whom much speaking gave readiness, 
 but writing not much exactness, states as a "notorious" 
 fact "that Machiavelli was, through life, a zealous republi- 
 can;" but this is saying a great deal too much. The only 
 support I can find for it is the internal evidence of the 
 History, and the fact that he was imprisoned and tortured 
 by the Medici in 1513 on suspicion of being concerned in 
 a conspiracy against them. The truth of this accusation 
 will never be known, for no confession could be extorted 
 from him; but the fact that the conspiracy was formed 
 only within a year after the dedication of his book to 
 Lorenzo the younger, would, to those who place any faith 
 in human nature, make it appear improbable. Nor is it 
 likely that Machiavelli would give a decided opinion in 
 favor of the republican form of government. He was a 
 trained diplomat, nursed in the school of the Borgias, and 
 ready to serve the state, whichever party happened to be 
 *This was also Aristotle's opinion. Politics, iii.y 13. 
 
MACHIAVELLI'S "PRINCE" 113 
 
 in power. As a diplomat, he would certainly be prudent 
 enough to preserve silence on so dangerous a subject. In 
 truth, this appears to have been a pretty bold guess on 
 Macaulay's part; for in his commentaries on Livy, Machia- 
 velli, after discussing the nature and special advantages 
 in each case of the monarchical, aristocratic, and demo- 
 cratic forms of government, and explaining in the clearest 
 manner how each has a peculiar weakness inherent in itself 
 which has always led finally to its corruption and debase- 
 ment, concludes at length that the most stable, efficient, 
 and just government will ultimately prove to be that which 
 <shall combine these three forms in nearly equal proportions. 
 The German philosopher Hegel was of a similar opinion. 
 According to him government ought to be composed of 
 the one, the few, and the many; who, each with well- 
 defined powers, should mutually support and restrict one 
 another. If the one should exceed his legitimate authority 
 and attempt to become autocratic, the few and the many 
 would combine to prevent this; and so with each in turn. 
 Now it happens that this is very much the sort of govern- 
 ment by which an united Italy is now being regenerated; 
 and it is a pity that Machiavelli should not know it; but 
 if he has gone to the place which most of his critics have 
 assigned to him, it is not likely that he does. 
 
 "The Prince" was written about ten years previous 
 to the "History of Florence," and perhaps represents 
 a different phase of the author's life. He does not at- 
 tempt in it to found a system of political science, but only 
 to discuss such problems as relate to the government of 
 absolute monarchies and autocratic principalities. Of 
 republican governments he has already treated in his 
 essay on Livy. As a matter of fact, he does not concern 
 himself with the affairs of large kingdoms, like France or 
 England, but with the formation of the small dukedoms 
 
114 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 which were then being estabhshed in Italy. He does 
 indeed contemplate the construction of a large central 
 power, sufficiently strong to resist foreign invasion, but 
 this is rather of the nature of a speculative afterthought. 
 It is evidently the government of Florence he is thinking 
 of. The scope of his treatise is narrow, and its details are 
 petty; broad, general views of political science do not 
 enter into it. The suppression of crime, the advancement 
 of learning, the extension of trade, the amelioration of 
 poverty, are subjects about which Machiavelli concerns 
 himself very little. Political economy, which now in its 
 arrogance threatens to cover our whole mental horizon, 
 was then unknown. The commerce of Italy was un- 
 bounded, and but for the frequent and devastating wars 
 between the different states, its prosperity would have 
 been as great as that of the United States of America is 
 now. The magnificent buildings erected in Italy during 
 the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries surpass those of any 
 other country. The great Cosmo provided for the mate- 
 rial interests of Tuscany upon the same principles that he 
 cojj|^[i^ted, the affairs of the Medici bank, and with equal 
 success ."Y No: the main argument of "The Prince" is how 
 to acquire political authority, and then how to maintain 
 it; the latter being a problem which it was constantly be- 
 coming more difficult to solve. \ When we consider the 
 book from this point of view, arid that it was written for 
 the benefit of a youthful autocrat, upon whose caprices 
 and immature judgment the welfare of Florence must 
 inevitably depend, we have at least obtained a basis from 
 which to judge fairly of its merits and defects. This, 
 Macaulay, who commences with the assumption that its 
 doctrines were intended for "the fundamental axioms of 
 all political science, " was quite unable to do. 
 
 There is much of the tone of a preceptor running through 
 
MACHIAVELLI'S "PRINCE" 115 
 
 the book. It is altogether too shrewd and knowing in its 
 style, and perhaps that is one reason why it was not re- 
 ceived by Lorenzo with more favor. Otherwise it must be 
 confessed that he gives his intended pupil a good deal of 
 sound and excellent advice. In the first place, a prince, 
 he says, should not give himself up to a life of idle and 
 luxurious enjoyment of his authority, not to speak of 
 wasting himself and his substance in dissipation; but 
 should make a specialty of those pursuit^g, which invigorate 
 the body and strengthen the mind. ' "A prince whose ^ 
 conduct is light, inconstant, pusillanimous, irresolute, 
 and effeminate, is sure to be despised: these defects he 
 ought to shun as he would so many rocks, and endeavor 
 to display a character for courage, gravity, energy, and 
 magnificence in all his actions.^ He should avoid com- i 
 mitting any action which might ^nd to make him despic- 
 able or odious: and "nothing is so likely to render a prince 
 odious, as the violation of the right of property and a 
 disregard for the honor of married women." Even in 
 those cases where he may be obliged to inflict the punish- 
 ment of death, he should invariably proclaim the reason 
 for it, so that his subjects may not feel that they are in 
 danger of their lives from the caprices of a cruel tyrant. 
 In regard to the confiscation of property, and attainder 
 of blood for high treason, he has anticipated a plank in 
 our own constitution. He shrewdly observes that people 
 sooner forget the loss of their relatives than the loss of 
 their property. (An angelic looking Chicago girl of ten 
 years, when instructed concerning the Southern rebellion, 
 said finally, "I should think it would be better for the 
 South to have lost more men and less money.") But 
 nothing infuriates men like the dishonor of their wives: a 
 glance through history shows a number of monarchs who 
 have upset themselves in this way. "A prince should 
 
116 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 earnestly endeavor to gain the reputation of kindness, 
 clemency, piety, justice, and fidelity to his engagement." 
 At the same time he should not carry these virtues so 
 far as to seriously prejudice his own interests, and those 
 of the state, — a plain truth which every prudent busi- 
 ness man is aware of. It is more important that a prince 
 should be feared than loved by his subjects; but he should 
 also cultivate their affections as far as may be consistent 
 with the preservation of his dignity; and in misfortune he 
 should rely on their good- will towards him, rather than 
 foreign alliances which are likely at any moment to prove 
 unstable. He should let his subjects know that he places 
 confidence in them, and rather take some personal risk 
 than show an unreasonable distrust of them. "Neither 
 should he lend too ready an ear to terrifying tales which 
 may be told him; but should temper his mercy with pru- 
 dence, in such a manner that too much confidence may 
 not put him off his guard, nor causeless jealousies make 
 him insupportable." He should practice economy in 
 times of prosperity and peace, in order to provide a full 
 treasury for wars and adversity; and should care little for 
 being accounted parsimonious, since munificent expendi- 
 tures must finally result in an increase of taxes and short- 
 lived popularity. Above all things, however, the prince 
 should give consideration to the military art, and make 
 himself in every way an accomplished soldier, so that he 
 may lead his own army and defend himself and his people 
 in person; for thus would he be the more respected by 
 them, and would have to depend no longer upon the 
 treacherous condottiero of that time. Machiavelli con- 
 demns the use of mercenary troops, and lays down the 
 principle, with emphasis, that it is safer for a sovereign 
 to instruct his people in the use of arms than to purposely 
 keep them in ignorance thereof. Here the sun fairly 
 
MACHIAVELLI'S "PRINCE" 117 
 
 shines through the clouds as he says, "There is no better 
 fortress for a prince than the affection of his people. If 
 he is hated by his subjects all other fortresses will be in 
 vain, for when they fly to arms there will be no want of 
 enemies without the walls to afford them assistance." 
 Parliaments, "whose object is to watch over the security 
 of the government and the liberties of the people, ' ' he 
 considers among the wisest of institutions. The effect of 
 these sage counsels on the reader is somewhat diminished 
 by their being presented in the guise of self-interest rather 
 than for any inherent value of their own; yet they show 
 what honest thought the man was capable of. Acting 
 upon such precepts, the HohenzoUern family have risen 
 to the highest position in Europe; while from a contrary 
 practice the Stuarts and Bourbons have gone down to 
 nothing, or next to nothing. 
 
 We in America have had very slight experience of 
 monarchical government, and yet it is easy for us to see 
 that the foregoing principles neither militate against 
 humanity nor good sense ; but there are also other passages 
 in "The Prince" of a widely different character. It is 
 these which give the book its peculiar tone, and have ob- 
 tained for it a celebrity much beyond that of better works 
 on political science. They have proved to be hard prob- 
 lems for the stoutest intellects. Not only do they seem 
 to be inhuman and atrocious, but they are also uttered 
 in a manner so easy and graceful as to add greatly to their 
 effectiveness. Their perfect coldness makes us shiver, and 
 in their keen precision we seem to feel the blade of the 
 headsman's axe. They impress us in a few words like the 
 last scene of Othello, or an account of the Lisbon earth- 
 quake. Lord Bacon shook his head over them and doubt- 
 ed if they were meant seriously. Frederick 11. accepted 
 it all in dead earnest, as he did everything, and while he 
 
118 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 was crown prince wrote a refutation of their doctrines. 
 Carlyle calls "The Prince, " " Machiavelli's little absurdity 
 of a book. " 
 
 He begins by dividing principalities into two classes; 
 those which are inherited and those which may be ac- 
 quired by conquest or revolution. To govern the former 
 IS not difficult, since the people, being accustomed to 
 obedience, will make no objection to the wishes of their 
 pnnce unless he becomes extremely unreasonable. In 
 the latter, it is true, more care and judgment are required; 
 but "if the family of the prince who last ruled over it be 
 extirpated," and the people are allowed to retain their 
 ancient customs and manners, there need be little fear of 
 insurrection or civil disturbance. If, however, a sub- 
 jugated city or state has once revolted, it is best to destroy 
 it, and colonize it with citizens from one's own country. 
 "The Romans, to make sure of Capua, Carthage, and 
 Numantia, destroyed them and did not lose them; and 
 they were compelled at last to destroy several cities in 
 Greece, in order to retain the country; and doubtless that 
 was the safest way, for otherwise whoever becomes master 
 of a free state and does not destroy it, may expect to be 
 ruined by it himself." Napoleon III., however, in his 
 "Life of Csesar," deplores the destruction of Carthage, 
 and gives the true cause for it, namely, that nations, like 
 individuals, sometimes lose their mental balance. Then, 
 after speaking of a prince's behavior towards his own 
 people, he says, "In short, it is always necessary to live 
 with the same people; but a prince has no occasion to 
 continue the same set of nobles, whom he can at pleasure 
 disgrace or honor, elevate or destroy." Csesar Borgia, 
 having conquered the Romagna, proceeded to root out the 
 old nobility of that province; "and there were f< / that 
 escaped him." He believes that a prince is n longer 
 
MACHIAVELLI'S "PRINCE" 119 
 
 obliged to keep his faith or engagements with others when 
 it has ceased to be his interest to do so, or when the con- 
 ditions upon which his promises were given shall have 
 materially changed. "I should be cautious," he says, 
 "in inculcating such a precept if all men were good; but 
 as the generality of mankind are wicked, and ever ready 
 to break their agreements, a prince should not pique 
 himself in keeping his more scrupulously, especially as it 
 is always easy to justify a breach of faith on his part." 
 These translated extracts and paraphrases, however, do 
 not convey the same dramatic effect as the original do, 
 separated from their natural surroundings. There are 
 not many of them, and I think that the one which I first 
 quoted, that '^men should either be flattered or crushed, " 
 rather takes the lead of the rest. 
 
 How then are we to account for this surprising contra- 
 diction? Does it consist in the nature of the man, or the 
 nature of his subject, or in the nature of his times? Was 
 it intentional or accidental? Had Machiavelli a hidden 
 purpose in giving his work an appearance of heartless in- 
 difference to humanity, an aristocratic air of sang froid: 
 or was he quite unconscious of the sensation that it would 
 produce? Had the man a perverted moral vision; or was 
 he, like Walt Whitman, possessed of a familiar demon 
 who put in a sentence occasionally to mar the perfection of 
 his pages? Macaulay, whose essay is the popular source of 
 information on this subject, finds an explanation, in the 
 fact that Machiavelli was an Italian, and that Italians 
 are by mental construction given to wiles, treachery, and 
 furtive homicide, to a degree which the Anglo-Saxon is 
 fortunately exempt from. Especially at this time they 
 were goin' through an historical process which made the 
 cultivatioi of certain vices a public necessity. They had 
 long since 5pensed with the courage of the lion, and were 
 
120 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 now compelled to rely on the cunning of the fox. Since 
 they could not crush their enemies with the strength of 
 the boa, they were driven to make use of the venom of 
 the cobra. Where an English gentleman smarting under a 
 grievance would have challenged his aggressor to mortal 
 combat, an Italian would have resorted to a hired assassin; 
 where the English yeoman would strike his adversary 
 with his fist, the Italian peasant would use a stiletto. As 
 a consequence of this, acts that in one country would be 
 considered cowardly and base would be accepted in the 
 other as a matter of course: England would condone the 
 youthful follies of Henry the Fifth, his cruelty, and his 
 ruthless invasion of France, for the sake of his matchless 
 valor and military skill. So would Italy forget the crimes 
 and perfidy of Borgia, in admiration for the boldness and 
 skill with which he surmounted all obstacles to his enor- 
 mous ambition. Then he passes from history to fiction. 
 Where an English audience, Macaulay says, would have 
 little but commiseration for the calamities which Othello 
 brings upon himself through jealousy and credulity, an 
 Italian audience would only feel contempt for the man 
 who allowed himself to be duped by one to whom he had 
 previously refused important favors. On the other hand, 
 they would no doubt applaud lago's shrewdness and dex- 
 terity — just as James Fiske, Jr., was formerly admired by 
 many Americans,— though they could not approve of his 
 methods. Machiavelli, when he calmly proposed the 
 extirpation of a noble family, could not have imagined 
 that posterity would be shocked by it. 
 
 I have substituted Csesar Borgia in this argument for 
 Francesco Sforza, who is Macaulay's example of a per- 
 fidious Italian, because Borgia is an example cited and 
 approved of by Machiavelli. Sforza committed some acts 
 of treachery and a few crimes, but would pass muster any- 
 
MACHIAVELLI'S "PRINCE" 121 
 
 where for as good a man as the hero of Trafalgar, whom 
 indeed he greatly resembles, both in his duplicity and his 
 brilliant fighting qualities. He cannot, therefore, serve 
 fairly as an illustration of the case. Altogether this argu- 
 ment seems overwrought, and strained from the point. 
 There is some truth in it, but not enough to cover the sub- 
 ject. It is undeniable that the Latin races, and particu- 
 larly the Italians, have a different ideal of morality from 
 the Teutonic races. They have special excellencies of 
 their own, and also certain vv^eaknesses. The reputation of 
 the Italians for their power of dissimulation has been quite 
 equal to that of the French for their lack of formal sincer- 
 ity. It is true, also, assassination, especially by poisoning, 
 has been more frequent and horrifying in the annals of 
 Italy than of any other Christian country. Yet do the 
 crimes of Alexander VI. surpass those of Richard III.; 
 and are either to be accounted for on the ground of nation- 
 al differences.? We know the poetic horror of Dante, 
 and the eloquent rage of Savonarola for the flagrant cor- 
 ruption of the papacy. The proceedings of the Borgias 
 were not without parallel in Italian history perhaps, but 
 they were without parallel in their own age. What has 
 made them famous but the horror which these excited, 
 for they finally accomplished little except to ruin them- 
 selves and their whole family. Their misdeeds were not 
 looked upon with indifference; and the popes who suc- 
 ceeded Alexander for the next half century were fairly 
 good men. Neither does it appear that the treachery of 
 Francesco Sf orza to the Venetians ' differs very much in 
 kind from Nelson's sudden seizure of the Danish fleet in 
 time of peace. Both were dictated by the law of self- 
 preservation. The shrewd Francesco foresaw that affairs 
 would soon take such a turn that his interests and the 
 Venetians would come into conflict. If he had not deserted 
 
122 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 them, they would have been forced to leave him in the 
 lurch. He acted thus, not as an Italian especially, but 
 as a general of hireling troops, and no better was to have 
 been expected of him. Even if Lorenzo the Magnificent or 
 Julius II. had done the same, the case would barely have 
 a national significance; but they were as a rule faithful 
 to their engagements. Since the invasion of the Lombards, 
 there has been no period of Italian history which equals 
 in horrors and atrocities the Wars of the Roses in England, 
 or of the period of the Reformation in France. 
 
 Now if "The Prince" represented the current opinion 
 of Italy in the sixteenth century, we should expect to find 
 the same "moral obliquity," not only in Machiavelli's 
 other writings, but in those of various authors of the same 
 period. In the discourses on Livy, it is true there are 
 two passages almost identical with those quoted from 
 "The Prince," and — let us note this as a characteristic 
 trait of the man — ^there is a tendency in it to vindicate 
 acts of the Roman conquerors when they carry matters 
 with a high hand; but he invariably excuses himself for 
 doing so, and alleges such reasons for his determination, 
 that even a strict moralist could not find them altogether 
 groundless. The tone of the work is different, and the 
 impression it leaves on the mind of the reader is much 
 pleasanter than that of "The Prince." How Machia- 
 velli's dramas can be brought into court on a question of 
 moral obliquity it is difficult to understand. It would be 
 as fair to hold Moliere responsible for the character of 
 Tartuffe, or Lessing for that of Marinelli. In regard to 
 the history of Florence, I lately made a series of refer- 
 ences while reading it under various headings, such as 
 "depravity," "evidences of a moral sense," "mistaken 
 judgment," and many others. Now under the head of 
 depravity there are no references to the "History," but 
 
INiACHIAVELLI'S "PRINCE" 123 
 
 there are nine or ten to "The Prince," while under evi- 
 dences of morahty there are ten references to the "His- 
 tory" and five to "The Prince." Nor do I believe there 
 can be found in the "History " a more pronounced instance 
 of moral obliquity than the statement of Thiers that the 
 combined losses of the Prussians and English at Waterloo 
 exceeded by ten thousand killed and wounded those of 
 the French; or than some of Macaulay's own statements 
 in regard to Lord Bacon, Frederick the Great, or in the 
 essay we are now considering.* Yet in this essay there 
 are also brilliant and valuable passages. In truth, what 
 he says of Machiavelli would apply with some modifica- 
 tion of tone to Macaulay himself. Qualities altogether 
 dissimilar are united in him. We are charmed by the 
 vigor of his writing, and repelled by the weakness of his 
 generalizations. In one paragraph he gives us the clearest 
 insight into the mechanism of political parties or dexter- 
 ously unravels court intrigues; in the next he stumbles 
 blindly over his subject, like an ambitious and self-sufficient 
 undergraduate. He astonishes us with the variety and 
 extent of his information, as well as by his lack of fixed 
 principles and a philosophical basis. He writes an essay 
 on Queen Elizabeth and calls it " Burleigh and his Times; " 
 he writes an account of the causes which led to the French 
 Revolution and names it "Mirabeau." There is nothing 
 to speak of about Burleigh or Mirabeau in either of them. 
 In many passages he shows a fine sense of character. 
 
 *After commenting on " the difference between the Italians and their 
 neighbors" (French, Spanish, and Greeks?), he moralizes thus: "A vice 
 sanctioned by the general opinion is merely a vice. The evil terminates 
 in itself. A vice condemned by the general opinion produces a pernicious 
 effect on the whole character. The former is a local malady, the latter a 
 constitutional taint." This surpasses Mephistopheles' advice to the 
 young student. 
 
124 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 especially a clear understanding of human weaknesses; 
 as his artistic delineation of Charles the Second is a good 
 witness. Against this we must place his uncharitable pre- 
 judices against William Penn and the Quakers. He shows 
 true penetration when he says that "a reforming age is 
 always fertile to impostors;" but what reckless political 
 judgment it is to call Csesar Borgia the greatest practical 
 statesman of his time. It would be difficult to improve 
 on his criticism of Machiavelli's comedies, but his remarks 
 on what he is pleased to call "the egotism of Petrarch" 
 prove that he wholly misconceived the nature of egotism, 
 and of subjective poetry as well. As a writer he is lively 
 and interesting, but without grace or elegance of style. 
 His talk is not like conversation in a parlor, but con- 
 versation on the sidewalk. Correct and upright in his 
 dealings with men, it is yet to be feared that his moral 
 sense was a good deal blunted by the late dinners and 
 fashionable society of his time. But this is a digression 
 not unlike some of his OT^^l. 
 
 As "The Prince" stands alone among Machiavelli's 
 works for its ethical peculiarities, so is its author also 
 without a counterpart among Italian writers of the best 
 quality. There is at least only one other, a composer of 
 squibs, epigrams, and pasquinades, the Venetian scourge, 
 Pietro Aretino, who resembles him at all in this respect; 
 but Aretino was notoriously immoral and unprincipled, a 
 sort of literary Cartouche. Ah, it is idle to suppose that a 
 great and glorious civilization, such as flourished in Italy 
 in the fifteenth century, could be based on habits of dis- 
 simulation, treachery, and cowardice. There can be no 
 great art without courage and sincerity. How evident 
 is the sincerity of Raphael; and how renowned that of 
 Michel Angelo. If these men had been alone in their day 
 they might be considered accidental; but they had hun- 
 
MACHIAVELLI'S "PRINCE" 125 
 
 dreds of followers, thousands of appreciative admirers; 
 there were others also very nearly their equals. If they 
 were exceptional geniuses, it may be said that only excep- 
 tional conditions make such men possible. Genius is the 
 gift of nature, but its development is the work of man: 
 it requires protection, patronage, and culture. It must 
 be self-reliant, but it also has to depend upon others. In 
 large part we are indebted for Michel Angelo to Lorenzo 
 de' Medici, Pope Julius and Pope Adrian, His most per- 
 fect work was done during the pontificate of Julius II., and 
 Grimm, his biographer, considers that the mental influence 
 of Julius (who according to Macaulay had an ill-regulated 
 mind) was necessary for this. These statesmen must 
 have shared largely in Michel Angelo's noble nature, as 
 Pericles did in that of Sophocles and Phidias, or else they 
 would have been repellent to him, and the relation would 
 not have borne good fruit. It was Lorenzo who took him 
 away from his father, and saved his lofty soul from being 
 crushed out by parental stupidity. Paris is now the chief 
 centre of the fine arts, but there a nature so susceptible 
 as that of Raphael or Correggio would become perverted 
 in its youth, and inevitably go to ruin. There would not 
 be sufficient moral health in the community to avert this. 
 In America they would suffer equally from a lack of 
 protection. Benvenuto Cellini, to whom Goethe paid the 
 highest of all compliments by translating his memoirs into 
 German, belonged to the lower middle class of Tuscany, 
 was without social refinement and with little education. 
 He was artist, soldier, musician; worked hard, fought 
 bravely, and enjoyed life in a hearty, sensible manner. 
 He is not a scrupulous fellow, but bears malice towards 
 none. He is the Fielding of Italian prose, and thoroughly 
 English in his frankness, directness, and good humor; and 
 yet he is not an exotic, for the people whom he describes 
 
126 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 breathe the same fresh air and enjoy the same healthy life 
 that he does. I think it must have been the perfect moral 
 sanity of the man, and of his writing, for which Goethe 
 liked him so well. 
 
 To make a fair estimate of Italy in the year 1500, we 
 must take into the account men like these, as well as the 
 Borgias and Aretinos. The sincerity of an artist is per- 
 haps the highest type of sincerity, for it consists in a 
 mental attitude which cannot be formulated. It is to be 
 hoped that the popular impression, that the life of an artist 
 is necessarily an effeminate and enervating one, has now 
 pretty much gone out of fashion. There aie many such, 
 but they are never of a high rank. Neither are great 
 artistic periods necessarily followed by a national decline, 
 as we see now in the vigorous internal development of 
 Germany. The fruit ripens and the leaves fall, but the 
 tree, unless it is exposed to too severe a winter, will again 
 put forth buds and blossoms in the spring. This is what 
 happened in Italy during the seventeenth century, though 
 in a rather abortive manner; for the eclectic school, found- 
 ed as it was upon a vicious principle, contained many men 
 of genius. There was no lack of courage, no lack of true 
 manliness among Machiavelli's countrymen. Take, as 
 an example, that Genoese mariner, the first to cross the 
 Atlantic, whose name is the plaything of every schoolboy; 
 or that other Genoese who was the first admiral of his age. 
 All the Medici were brave. Piero Capponi cowed the 
 French king in the city hall of Florence, and Francesco 
 Ferucci, whose death was the knell of Florentine liberty, 
 was nowise inferior to the modern Garibaldi. The north- 
 ern hirelings of Bourbon and Orange, who sacked Rome 
 and reduced Florence, were very roughly handled after- 
 wards by an army of Italians in the plains of Lombardy. 
 Cellini himself helped to defend the Castle of St. Angelo 
 
MACHIAVELLI'S "PRINCE" 127 
 
 against them. But the highest prize in this line must be 
 awarded to Julius II., who took Csesar Borgia into his 
 palace, and lived for weeks within striking distance of that 
 human cobra, before having him shut up in a Spanish 
 prison. Eighty years later the best general in the armies 
 of Philip II. was an Italian; and until the middle of the 
 eighteenth century the Piccolomini, Montecuculi, Eugene 
 of Savoy, and a score of lesser lights distinguished them- 
 selves in the service of Austria. It was not art which pre- 
 cipitated the decline of Italy. Jesuitism, and the blood- 
 stained gold of Mexico, which gave to the Spaniards an 
 overpowering political importance, were the twin causes 
 of its demoralization and disgrace. 
 
 Professor Reichert, when he commenced to investigate 
 the venom of the rattlesnake, found, to his surprise, that 
 instead of being a single uniform poison, it was composed 
 of three separate and wholly distinct poisons. The pro- 
 cesses of nature are not simple, as some of her admirers 
 would have us believe, but in most cases very complicated; 
 and it is the business of man, acting in a rational manner, 
 to bring order and simplicity out of the confusion about 
 him. As it is in external nature, so it is also in the human 
 mind. There is no more intricate study than metaphysics, 
 and if we could investigate the mental methods of a saint, 
 or of a country maiden, either would no doubt be found 
 to have a somewhat composite character. So if we con- 
 sider those sentences in Machiavelh's "Prince" which 
 seem most obnoxious to us, and treat them according to 
 the cautious and inquisitive principles of scientific re- 
 search, perhaps we miay find in them also that various 
 different influences have combined to produce a single 
 effect. It will be recognized that every man receives at 
 birth a certain mental bias which largely determines the 
 future course of his life; that his profession or occupation 
 
128 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 has also a modifying influence upon him and that he is 
 Hkely also to be prejudiced by the current beliefs and 
 opinions of his time. When these three do not, in some 
 measure, counteract one another, they cause a striking 
 deflection from the normal curve of human perfection. 
 
 In the first place, then, we notice that a slightly pessi- 
 mistic tone pervades the whole treatise; a lack of con- 
 fidence in human nature. This is not uncommon in 
 political writings among men who have had an extensive 
 experience in public affairs. Macaulay is by no means 
 free from it; Mettemich has been charged with it; and if 
 there is anything more pessimistic than J. Stuart Mill's 
 essay on government one would like to hear of it. His 
 fundamental axiom, that "one man if stronger than an- 
 other will take from him whatever that other possesses 
 and he desires," is worse than Machiavelli's proposition 
 that "the generality of mankind are wicked and ever 
 ready to break their word," because it denies the possi- 
 bility of justice or generosity except from interested mo- 
 tives. How many notable statesmen besides Webster 
 and Sumner and Beaconsfield have died gloomy and 
 despondent at the condition of affairs which they were 
 leaving. It says in the preamble to our Constitution, "in 
 order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure 
 domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, 
 promote the general welfare, etc, " and the main object of 
 government could hardly be stated better; but the largest 
 share of a statesman's work is of a very different kind. 
 He must keep these general priuciples in mind, like a sort 
 of north star to guide his course by, but it is no wonder 
 that he often loses sight of them. In politics the fiercest 
 passions of mankind come into play, scarcely less fierce 
 than those which are engendered by war. That the actions 
 of men are wholly prompted by self-interest is the shallow- 
 
MACHIAVELLI'S "PRINCE" 129 
 
 est sophistry; but they are largely so prompted, and it is 
 necessary and right that they should be. All the different 
 interests of the community meet in the political centre, 
 each represented by talented and able men, and each 
 pushing its claim to the utmost, regardless of all others, 
 and of the general welfare. This is the side of human 
 nature with which the statesman comes into daily con- 
 tact. To decide between different interests, and to curb, 
 control, and direct the energy with which they are forced 
 upon him is often cruelly hard work for the most high- 
 minded administrator; not unfrequently more than he is 
 able to accomplish. Whichever way he may look he sees 
 nothing but self-interest in human form, and it is no won- 
 der if at last he is driven to the conclusion that egotism 
 is the rule and patriotism the exception, — that it is only 
 "the remnant" that can be depended upon. Besides the 
 honest partisans who press their side issues with the zeal 
 of fana ticism, the patriot politician is also obliged to deal 
 with a class of people who are only more virtuous than 
 common criminals in that they are more prudent, who 
 take to intrigue, dissimulation, and the construction of 
 mischief as naturally as cold-blooded animals take to the 
 water. Such men may not be without a certain lukewarm 
 regard for their native country, but they do not let that 
 interfere with the advancement of their own fortunes by 
 the most unscrupulous means, and they find, in the con- 
 fusion and strain of political life, a fruitfxil field for the 
 cultivation of their peculiar talents. There are enough 
 of this sort to be found now in America, but in the Middle 
 Ages, when crime was more frequently avenged than 
 punished, they were much more bold and numerous. He 
 who has had experience of them cannot be altogether 
 blamed for exclaiming sometimes with Frederick II., "Of 
 what infernal stuff is human nature made?" 
 
130 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 But in Machiavelli's time politics were at their very 
 worst. It was the period of transition in Europe from the 
 pohty of the Middle Ages to that of modern times, and 
 the receding tide of the past was mingled in a surging 
 charybdis with the advancing flood of a new era. Every- 
 where in France, Spain, Italy, and Austria, local inde- 
 pendence was being crushed out, to be replaced by a 
 despotic centralization with the divine right of kings very 
 near at hand. During the last five centuries Italian 
 civilization had been wrought out in a conflict between 
 the pope and the German emperor. In 951 Otho I., having 
 been called into the country by Pope John XII. to restore 
 order and drive out the Saracens, was invested with the 
 imperial dignity. This he happily accomplished, and 
 under his protection Italy started forth into new life and 
 prosperity; but from this time the German emperors con- 
 sidered themselves entitled to superintend Italian affairs, 
 and by the customs of the feudal period they certainly had 
 the right to do so. This, however, was not agreeable to 
 the Italians, since no people will submit to being controlled 
 by a foreign power if they can possibly prevent it; and 
 hence arose the most peculiar system of politics of which 
 there is any record. The pope, in order to maintain 
 himself amongst the small Italian principalities, was 
 obliged to reinforce his temporal power and material 
 means. This brought him into immediate collision with 
 the emperor on questions of authority; for as the highest 
 spiritual potentate he could yield to no one else in dignity 
 of position. Legally his temporal and spiritual powers 
 might be distinguished, but with the public it was impos- 
 sible. His material means were insignificant compared 
 with the emperor's, but his spiritual influence over the 
 minds of men was enormous. This grew continually great- 
 er, as the crusades stirred up religious enthusiasm, until it 
 
MACHIAVELLI'S "PRINCE*' 131 
 
 overtopped everything. Alexander or Timour never en- 
 countered such a terrible adversary: it was like fighting 
 with an invisible enemy. He could unite the scattered 
 states of Italy against the emperor, and if that were not 
 enough call in the king of France to his aid. Then, if still 
 defeated, he would have recourse to the terrors of excom- 
 munication. In this manner the pope finally gained com- 
 plete ascendency, utterly destroying the magnificent 
 Hohenstaufen race, to the great injury of both Germany 
 and Italy. It was a policy like that of the viper towards 
 its benefactor, but had for its excuse the necessity of 
 national independence, without which there can be no 
 right development of a people. 
 
 Italian unity, however, did not exist, and it was not for 
 the pope's interest that it should exist. He could not be 
 the chief executive of tha country any more than an 
 English sovereign can be a leader in the House of Com- 
 mons. All Christendom would have cried out against it. 
 The emperor especially would have come down upon it 
 like the wolf on the fold. At the same time a king of 
 Italy was something which the supreme pontiff dreaded 
 more even than the emperor, who sometimes disappeared 
 beyond the Alps for several years together. Neither did 
 the small Italian states desire that the papacy should 
 become more powerful than any one of themselves. Ven- 
 eration for the papal office was always greatest at great 
 distances, — as commonly happens, — and the governments 
 of Milan, Venice, Florence, Bologna, and the rest were 
 jealous of the papacy and of one another. Both the pope 
 and the emperor encouraged the foundation of free cities 
 as a check upon the influence of the lesser princes; and 
 each city had its local politics of two inevitable parties, 
 one of which was supported in course of time by the 
 emperor and the other necessarily by the pope. The 
 
132 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 violence vnih. which Italy was racked during the Middle 
 Ages by the factions of Guelph and Ghibeline is thus ex- 
 plained. It is bad enough when a city possesses within 
 itself, as the Italian cities did, the power of banishment 
 and death for political offenses; but here, weighted on one 
 side by the authority of the pope and on the other by 
 power of the emperor, civil dissensions were raised to a 
 magnitude far beyond their true importance. The fires 
 of party passion were kept up with an oxy-hydrogen blow- 
 pipe. 
 
 This curious political fabric was particularly well 
 adapted to the fertile ingenuity and versatility of the 
 Italian mind. To form a league against the emperor, 
 and afterwards to set the most powerful members of it 
 fighting amongst themselves, was the pope's chief business. 
 Alliances were formed and dissolved again like smoke. 
 If a state or city became more prosperous and powerful 
 than its neighbors, it was certain to be attacked by them 
 in concert, and when upon the point of being crashed by 
 superior odds it was equally sure to be preserved by having 
 its cause espoused by a seceding minority of its adversaries. 
 Or at the last moment the emperor suddenly appeared 
 out of the Bremier Pass, and turned the tables for every- 
 body. The free cities made war on the coimtry nobility, 
 and compelled them to live inside of their walls; and the 
 nobles in revenge conspired together against the liberty of 
 the cities. No other country has ever been cursed with 
 such politics. Ancient Greece comes nearest to it, and 
 next Germany after the close of the Hohenstaufen dynasty. 
 Yet these three and the Netherlands are the only countries 
 in which the arts of design have reached a high degree of 
 perfection; and there may be some mysterious connection 
 between that fact and the absence of a centralized govern- 
 ment. The artist, at any rate, would not suffer from the 
 
MACHIAVELLI'S "PRINCE" 133 
 
 benumbing influence of the fashions in a great metropolis. 
 Whoever the persons are who set the fashions they are 
 not trained to a keen perception of the beautiful. 
 
 Certainly in Italian politics sincerity, fidelity, disinter- 
 estedness, would have been as much out of place as they 
 might be now among the stock gamblers of Wall Street. 
 Intrigue, dissimulation, and treachery were an absolute 
 necessity in such an element. A high-minded statesman 
 like Hildebrand, who reformed the Catholic Church, might 
 object to making use of these methods, and probably did so 
 a"^ rarely as possible; but to avoid them altogether was to be 
 left stranded in the shoals. The fear of treachery became 
 the father of treachery. The enemy of yesterday was 
 the friend of today and the traitor of tomorrow. Machia- 
 velli says in his "History of Florence" {B.I. 6): "Henry 
 of Luxemburg had been elected emperor, and came to 
 Rome for his coronation (1315 A. D.), although the pope 
 was not there. His coming occasioned great excitement 
 in Lombardy for he sent all the banished to their homes, 
 whether they were Guelphs or Ghibelines; and in conse- 
 quence of this, one faction endeavoring to drive out the 
 other, the whole province was filled with war and con- 
 fusion; nor could the emperor with all his endeavors abate 
 its fury. " This shows conclusively how hopeless it some- 
 times is in politics to attempt what is abstractly right. 
 
 This was the profession to which Machiavelli was 
 trained. The principles upon which Italian statesmen 
 had acted for centuries were accepted by him as a matter 
 of course. This explains, I think, the graceful sang froid 
 with which he sets them forth. Had he possessed more 
 of Dante's ethical quality, or Barbarossa's downright 
 sense of justice, he would probably have chosen a difiEerent 
 profession, and left the affairs of state to others. We can 
 be thankful that it was not so; that he could serve his 
 
134 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 native city well and bravely at a time when trustworthy 
 men were fortunately still in request, and that he could 
 bring the light of practical experience to bear on his histori- 
 cal studies. But this personal bias forms another element 
 in the alembic of "The Prince." The portrait of him 
 which has been preserved to us gives the impression of a 
 small, erect, determined-looking man, with an expression 
 on the face which reminds one slightly of the St. George 
 of Donatello: a man apparently of the nervous-bilious 
 temperament, inclined to look on the dark side and calcu- 
 late for the worst; a resolute, strong-headed fellow, seK- 
 eontained, who might go through life without asking or 
 giving sympathy. The rather small head, about the size 
 of Byron's, has a compressed look as if there were strong 
 forces within; the short, stout nose may perhaps indicate 
 obstinacy; and the eyes are steady, inscrutable, unflinch- 
 ing, in their gaze. It certainly is not a bad face, but neith- 
 er is it an attractive one. There is no aspect of humanity, 
 benevolence, or compassion in it — least of all a look of 
 spirituality. The man was a realist in the most limited 
 sense of the word. I feel as if his shell was harder than 
 that of other people. It is not a noble physiognomy. He 
 was neither an Aristides the Just nor a Henry IV. of 
 France; neither high-minded nor great-hearted; but most 
 like that keen, quick-witted, inflexible Frederick of Prussia, 
 "the steel-bright soul," as Carlyle calls him. There is 
 ample evidence of his realistic narrowness in a letter writ- 
 ten on the eighth of May, 1497, describing to a friend in 
 Rome one of the last of Savonarola's discourses in public 
 before the counter-revolution which destroyed him. 
 Machiavelli belonged to the party opposed to Savonarola, 
 which, it may be said, contained every person of sound 
 judgment in Florence, as well as all the profligate. His 
 practical good sense made clear to him how dangerous to 
 
MACHIAVELLI'S "PRINCE" 135 
 
 the public the daring moral absolutism of this eloquent 
 monk might become; but beyond that he could see nothing. 
 Of the purity of Savonarola's motives, of the sublime 
 religious elevation of his mind, which so charmed Michel 
 Angelo and even fascinated Lorenzo de' Medici, Machia- 
 velli had no conception. He even believed that Savona- 
 rola's enthusiasm was wholly a trick of rhetoric to inflame 
 the minds of the multitude, and secure himself in his 
 position of authority by undermining that of other in- 
 fluential citizens. After an account of the discourse, as 
 unfriendly as possible, Machiavelli finishes thus: "And 
 he (Savonarola) has turned all his fury against the pope 
 and his emissaries, terming him, as he does, the vilest of 
 men; it is thus that he veers from point to point, to paint 
 and color his fraud and cunning. " Now it was quite true 
 that the pope Alexander Borgia was one of the vilest of 
 men; and if Machiavelli had possessed spiritual insight 
 he never would have written a book like "The Prince." 
 
 Machiavelli was at this time in his twenty-ninth year. 
 Five years later he was sent by the Florentine government 
 as ambassador to Caesar Borgia, who was then at the 
 height of his power. The party which had accomplished 
 the downfall of Savonarola naturally became the ally of 
 Alexander, and of his son; and their opposition to the 
 return of the Medici was another good reason for it. Csesar 
 himself was very much such a man as Aaron Burr, of 
 brilHant intellect but of a coarse and ordinary nature. 
 Nature had lavished every bounty on him, excepting her 
 best, mental quality. He was born a prince, but had the 
 soul of a bull-fighter; the statue wa;s of heroic mould, but 
 its material was dross. There is no human combination 
 more dangerous to the man himself as well as others; for 
 it requires penetration, a sense of reality, to see the man 
 as he actually is . These natural impostors draw ambitious 
 
136 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 young men and giddy women about them, as a magnet 
 draws iron filings. Machiavelli understood diplomacy 
 too well to be overreached by Csesar, but he was evidently 
 fascinated by him. It is surprising that he should have 
 been; but the numerous passages in "The Prince" in which 
 he illustrates his theme by references to the policy of 
 Caesar Borgia, and even the exceptional tone of some of 
 them, leave no doubt of it. He even satisfied himself that 
 Csesar was acting from patriotic motives, that his severe 
 measures were needed for the public good. "Csesar Bor- 
 gia," he says, "was accoimted cruel; but it was to that 
 cruelty he was indebted for reuniting Romagna to his 
 other states, and establishing there the peace and tran- 
 quillity which it so much required. " One would think it 
 had been better to have taken his illustrations from the 
 career of Julius II. There must have been something in 
 Caesar's slashing methods peculiarly attractive to Machia- 
 velli's mind. 
 
 It is just in this that Borgia made his mistake in practice 
 and Machiavelli in theory. There have been occasions 
 in the world's history, and there may be again, when the 
 violation of a treaty, or the taking of human life without 
 form of law, has been necessary snd justifiable; exceptional 
 cases for which no rule would apply. That any system 
 or code of politics, however, could be based upon such 
 principles and bring benefit to mankind, is an error similar 
 to that of Ignatius Loyola. Machiavelli indeed antici- 
 pated Loyola; and in both cases it was largely the influence 
 of their different professions. What the Jesuits are to be 
 blamed for is not the doctrine that the end justifies the 
 means, but for making use of means which the end could 
 not justify. For in most cases it is only the end which does 
 justify the means. Wliat, for instance, justifies the whole- 
 sale slaughter of cattle and sheep except our use of them 
 
MACHIAVELLI'S "PRINCE" 137 
 
 as food? What justifies killing our enemies in war, unless 
 it be that we preserve the nation by doing so? What can 
 justify the small deceptions we practice upon children 
 but the necessity of preserving them from knowledge 
 which would be a certain injury to them? Indeed, if we 
 consider it well, what justifies the use we make of our time 
 in this world but those worthy objects to which we devote 
 it, — and it is to be feared that much of it is spent in a way 
 which will never be justified. There is no absolute stand- 
 ard of morality, and those who try to live by one do much 
 harm to themselves and often a good deal to other people. 
 Even hypocrisy, the most contemptible of vices, is some^ 
 times a virtue. There is no standard, but an ideal of 
 m6rality, to which we strive to conform as much as possi- 
 ble; and those who have lived the noblest lives are aware 
 how difficult that is. The captain of a sailing vessel wishes 
 to make a certain port in the shortest time, but he cannot 
 sail always straight towards it. He has to suit himself to 
 every wind that blows; to tack here and there; to lie to in 
 severe storms, or even to go wholly out of his course for 
 the chance of obtaining more favorable breezes. In like 
 manner are we obli^d to steer our course over the eternal 
 deep, sacrificing to adverse winds much or little according 
 to the force with which they blow. In a recent publica- 
 tion the lives of Longfellow and Goethe were compared 
 together, much to the advantage of the former; but it 
 would have been as just to compare a summer excursion 
 to the Azores with the circumnavigation of the globe. 
 There is a point, however, beyond which the sacrifice of 
 means to ends should never pass. Whenever one nearly 
 balances the other, whenever the gain and loss approach 
 to an equality, and this fact continually repeats itself, we 
 may know that our course is no longer upon the high seas 
 but towards some frozen and unnavigable northwest 
 
138 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 passage, — ^that the voyage we proposed has proved to be 
 impossible. 
 
 Such was the condition both of the CathoHc Church 
 and of Itahan poHtics at the commencement of the six- 
 teenth century. Each had become so bad that a violent 
 revolution alone could save it. Machiavelli saw this 
 plainly in the case of the papacy, but was blind to it in 
 his own profession. In his "Essay on Livy" he blames 
 the pope and cardinals for their evil practices and for hav- 
 ing caused the disintegration of Italy. With every polit- 
 ical structure there comes a time when it ceases to respond 
 sufficiently to the requirements for which it was instituted; 
 and then, unless it contains within itself the germs of a new 
 development, its end is near. 
 
 The spiritual authority of the pope, which had served 
 but poorly to maintain cohesion among the states of Italy 
 even at its height, had now declined to almost nothing. 
 What had been originally a badly constructed edifice was 
 now undermined and tottering to its fall. No human 
 power could save it: and with it must go all that was 
 beautiful and great in Italian life, A political vacuum 
 was being formed again in that devoted country after a 
 thousand years; the Frenchman and Spaniard were ready 
 to rush in. Who can blame Machiavelli for hoping against 
 what was hopeless, and dreaming of desperate measures 
 to save that which was doomed.? If Florence could no 
 longer preserve its independence by the wisdom and valor 
 of its first citizens, craft and dissimulation could not help 
 it long. If Italy could only be reformed by extirpating 
 the country nobility, reformation had come too late. The 
 sacrifice of means had become equal to the end in view: 
 the day of retribution was at hand. Machiavelli did not, 
 or would not, perceive this, but a certain monk in Witten- 
 berg knew it only too well, and with courage equal to his 
 
MACHIAVELLI'S "PRINCE" 139 
 
 insight struck the blow which has divided Europe ever 
 since. 
 
 It was the lack of Italian unity, rather than the inherent 
 weakness of the Italian character, which precipitated the 
 rapid decline of the following century. It was the Church 
 of Rome which prevented this unity. For the truth of 
 this there could be no better witness — if witness were 
 needed to so plain a proposition — than Machiavelli him- 
 self. In the discourses on Livy, book first and chapter 
 twelfth, he says: "We Italians then owe to the Church of 
 Rome and to her priests our having become irreligious and 
 bad; but we owe her a still greater debt, and one that will 
 be the cause of our ruin, namely, that the church has kept 
 and still keeps our country divided." Presumably it was 
 for this plain exposure that his writings were condemned 
 by the Council of Trent, and anathematized by several 
 following popes. Cardinal Pole, who was the first to ex- 
 claim against the atrocious doctrines in "The Prince," 
 and who afterwards helped to promote the human con- 
 flagrations at Smithfield, may have had a similar reason 
 at heart. It is well to note in this connection that, during 
 the long struggle between the pope and the emperor, the 
 bishops in the large cities of northern Italy were nearly 
 always to be found on the side of the latter; a fact which 
 the historian Hallam finds himself quite unable to account 
 for, as he is unable to account for the lack of concerted 
 action in ItaHan politics, except upon the ground of "dark, 
 long-cherished hatreds, and that implacable bitterness 
 which, at least in former ages, distinguished the private 
 manners of Italy." But such passions always come into 
 play when a people is divided into small independent 
 commimities. Petty local jealousies strike root and grow 
 to great dimensions, unless controlled by the stern man- 
 date of a higher authority. The Lombard cities preferred 
 
140 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 to dissipate their wealth in fighting with one another than 
 to pay a Hght tribute to the Hohenstaufens. 
 
 Lastly, we ought to remember that "The Prince" 
 was written for a special object. It was not published 
 until after Machiavelli's death, and possibly was not in- 
 tended by him for publication. The character of the man 
 to whom it was dedicated is also an element in the problem 
 but of that unhappily we know little. We have his statue 
 by Michel Angelo, an elegant biit muscular figure with a 
 long, sinewy neck and a head of the meanest dimensions. 
 If the face expresses anything, it is insensibility to danger. 
 There is no trace upon it of mental or moral endowment. 
 Perhaps it is not a good likeness, but it has certainly not 
 been idealized. The remark of the sculptor that in one 
 hundred years no one would care how those Medici looked, 
 that is, Lorenzo II. and Juliano, has a wide significance. 
 It seems likely there was little that could be said of him. 
 There are certain men of sordid nature to whom, though 
 not vicious themselves, all talk of virtue, morality, good- 
 ness, and especially reform, is instinctively hateful. They 
 dislike being made conscious of their deficiency in these 
 attributes, which they find it troublesome to imitate. 
 Lorenzo may have been one of this sort. If he was, it 
 would readily explain the tone of guarded concession to 
 morality which appears at intervals in "The Prince," as 
 for instance, "It is not necessary, however, for a prince 
 to possess all the good qualities I have enumerated, but 
 it is indispensable that he should appear to have them." 
 Counseling a narrow and dull-witted chief magistrate, 
 whether he be prince or president, must be somewhat like 
 driving a pig to market. Machiavelli had been too long 
 in politics to be able to keep out of them, for no other 
 human occupation is so absorbing. One of his cardinal 
 maxims is that a statesman must watch the changes of 
 
MACHIAVELLI'S "PRINCE" 141 
 
 his time and suit himself to them. He saw that the Medici 
 were carrying all before them in Rome, and that his only 
 chance hereafter for benefiting himseK or his country must 
 come through their hands. Let those blame him who are 
 without reproach themselves. 
 
 "The Prince," after all that we may say of it, remains 
 substantially a picture of the politics of those days. Ma- 
 chiavelli approved of dissimulation under certain circum- 
 stances, but he himself has told us the truth. Like Shake- 
 speare, he spoke out his mind with no reservation. What 
 a revelation of human nature is Henry VI. or Richard 
 III.! The poet has given us in dramatic form what 
 Machiavelli says in plain prose. In these plays we watch 
 the extirpation of the Plantagenet family as it proceeds 
 from one branch to another. Was it not the last of them, 
 the Countess of Salisbury, who was put to death for that 
 reason by Henry VIII.? The veneration for hereditary 
 right during the Middle Ages was so strong that it cannot 
 be doubted such acts were sometimes necessary for the 
 public good. Fortunately, they are so no longer; but we 
 can be grateful both to the poet and the historian, that 
 they saw the life before them without illusions, that they 
 comprehended it clearly, and that they concealed nothing 
 of it from us. Such a past seems more real than the 
 present. A faithful account of our politics now would 
 not wear so ferocious an aspect, but it might not be much 
 pleasanter to contemplate, and quite as startling to those 
 who dream that the millennium is close at hand. The 
 tricks of lobbyists, the artifices to win voters, the clap-trap 
 speeches, the boundless misrepresentations; the use of 
 calumny in political canvasses, — ^the pot calling the kettle 
 black a^ain; dreary congressional debates which end in 
 nothing and were intended mainly to end in nothing; 
 patriotic men, after vainly endeavoring to accomplish 
 
142 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 something, deafeated and driven into retirement; coarse 
 flattery of the pubHc, — all this forms a spectacle more 
 instructive than edifying. Tennyson was not far wrong 
 when he called the last general election in England "a 
 popular torrent of lies upon lies. " What is at first a slight 
 distortion, or exaggeration of facts, soon becomes a mental 
 habit, and in course of time neither orator nor audience 
 can distinguish longer what is real from what is imaginary. 
 In this manner political aspirants may attain the objects 
 of their ambition, but they lose by it that practical good 
 sense which is necessary for the conduct of affairs. The 
 perusal of Machiavelli's "Prince" might instruct them in 
 the awful seriousness of political responsibility, even if 
 statesmen are no longer in danger of losing their heads 
 for it. 
 
THE IDES OF MARCH 
 
 THE birthdays of few great men of antiquity 
 have been preserved for us, and in Julius Caesar's 
 case we are not even certain in regard to the 
 year of it; but every one knows the day when 
 he died, that is, the fifteenth or sixteenth of March. The 
 greatest writers have considered this one of the most 
 important events of history, and yet the world has never 
 come to a decided opinion in regard to its moral character. 
 Cicero, who two months previous had glorified Caesar 
 almost to the gods, three months afterwards glorified 
 Brutus and Cassius in a similar manner. Plutarch, a 
 hundred and fifty years later thought that Caesar's assas- 
 sination was displeasing to the gods. In the fourteenth 
 century Dante condemned Brutus and Cassias in a most 
 severe poetical manner by placing them nearly on an 
 equality with Judas Iscariot. Gibbon is rather non- 
 committal, but he condemned Augustus for making war 
 on his own country. Modem writers since Gibbon have 
 been equally divided on the subject. 
 
 However we may look at the act from a moral stand- 
 point, there can be no question that as a practical matter 
 it was a political blunder. 
 
 Nothing was gained by it, and many lives were lost. 
 It would seem to have accelerated the tendency to Caesar- 
 ism, which had been developing in Rome for the past 
 eighty years, and not only did it result in the death of all 
 the conspirators, but also of Cicero, Marcellus and two 
 
 143 
 
144 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 hundred other honorable members of the aristocratic 
 party, who would otherwise have hved as long as Caesar 
 did. 
 
 In fact it was wholly owing to the forbearance and 
 foresight of Mark Antony that the conspirators were not 
 put to death at once. 
 
 Lepidus marched his army into the Forum and was 
 going to have them tried by court martial; but Antony 
 persuaded him not to do this, and even invited Brutus 
 and Cassius to dine with him, which might be called the 
 summit of diplomacy. 
 
 I cannot discover any contemporary evidence that 
 Csesar intended to overturn the government of the Repub- 
 lic; though it is evident from Cicero's Orations that he was 
 suspected of this. It seems more likely that he was 
 assassinated in order to establish the supremacy of the 
 senate, rather than from political rancor, or as Shakespeare 
 supposes, from the spirit of envy. It is useless to speculate 
 on what Csesar intended to do, and it is highly probable 
 that he had not yet decided this for himself — so soon after 
 his return from the war in Spain; but there would seem to 
 have been only three courses open to him. He might 
 have followed the example of Sulla and resigned his dicta- 
 torship after the country became paciiBed; or he might 
 have retained it for an indefinite period; or he might have 
 devised a wholly new form of government, which would 
 have borne the stamp of his own genius. Froude states, 
 I do not know on what authority, that Julius Csesar in- 
 tended for his next move to take the field against the 
 Parthians who were ravaging the frontier of Asia Minor. 
 In that case he must have left the government of Italy 
 in the hands of the consul, and perhaps his adventurous 
 spirit would have led him like Alexander to make an 
 invasion of India; but it is impossible to tell. 
 
THE IDES OF MARCH 145 
 
 In order to obtain an idea of the government which 
 Augustus Caesar abolished we must imagine the whole of 
 the United States to be governed by the millionaires of 
 New York City, who were to appoint all the governors 
 and chief justices, and be responsible to no one; while the 
 city itself would be ruled by two mayors, holding office 
 on alternate days — one appointed by the millionaires and 
 the other by an assembly of the citizens in Central Park. 
 
 Tacitus says in his very first chapter that Augustus 
 claimed the tribunician power for the protection of the 
 common people, and this confession is more important 
 because Tacitus himself belonged to the aristocratic or 
 senatorial party. Besides this Augustus claimed the 
 presidency of the senate, and the command of the army. 
 He had no more external signs of power than the consuls 
 did formerly, and except that he held his position for life, 
 it did not differ essentially from the presidency of the 
 United States. It might have done well enough if all the 
 emperors had been like Augustus and Antoninus Pius; 
 but the wonder is that the Roman people did not rise up 
 en masse against the atrocities of Caligula and Nero. 
 
 It is true that they were finally assassinated, but this 
 required time. No Christian nation at the present day 
 would endure such political depravity, and it is true that 
 after the revolution of Constantine in 338 A. D. such 
 imperial monsters as Nero, and Commodus did not appear 
 any longer. As General Grant says; "Nations suffer for 
 their sins like individuals," and the bad emperors were 
 the price the Romans had to pay for the destruction of 
 Carthage and Corinth, and the sacking of Athens. 
 
 I am not superstitious; nor do I believe in omens, in 
 spiritualism, or Christian Science; but I have long been 
 convinced that there is a divine order in history. Acci- 
 dents and the imperfections of human nature give the 
 
146 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 affairs of men an irregular and unfinished appearance, but 
 one can discover a kind of logical sequence in it which 
 seems to indicate the presence of a guiding hand. Even 
 if we believe that the impulse to this originates in our 
 own hearts, we may well ask how did it come there, and 
 we should always remember Cromwell's saying, "That 
 he goes farthest who knows not whither he is going. " All 
 the great actors in the world's drama would seem to have 
 accepted this principle. Moreover how does it happen 
 that such men appear when they are most needed, and 
 do not turn up on other occasions. It is easy to see that 
 there has never been a place for such a man as Napoleon 
 in English history; and if General McClellan had proved 
 the military genius that his friends anticipated, the south- 
 ern confederacy would have been suppressed before the 
 abolition of slavery could have taken place. Thei'e may 
 be truth in the theory that the Roman Empire was neces- 
 sary for the extension of Christianity to the northern 
 nations of Europe. 
 
 The connection between Lincoln's assassination and 
 the play of "Julius Caesar" as was noticed by the English 
 press is startling. Wilkes Booth had acted in that play a 
 number of times, and on one occasion he became so excited 
 in the part of Cassius that the other actors are said to have 
 been afraid for their lives. He was a bad aotor and a 
 wild, disorderly fellow. Party passion is so perverting 
 to the moral sense that no doubt Booth considered Lincoln 
 one of the worst of tyrants. Both assassinations were 
 committed in the interest of plutocracy. 
 
GOETHE IN PRACTICAL POLITICS 
 
 GOETHE himself has said that the faults of 
 great men seem exaggerated as well as their 
 virtues; and if we apply this principle to his 
 own case, it ought to remove much of the odium 
 which rests on his name. Some of the accusations which 
 have been brought against him are undoubtedly just; 
 but it is equally certain that others have originated either 
 in party prejudice or from the jealousy of his literary con- 
 temporaries. He is certainly to blame for his desertion 
 of Frederika, and probably for other flirtations, — though 
 such behavior does not always seem to militate against a 
 man's character. Goethe's love affairs, though by no 
 means to his credit, were of quite a different sort from the 
 immorality of Byron, Burns, and Heine. The accusation, 
 however, that he was a selfish aristocrat, unpatriotic, 
 insensible to the sufferings of the poor, and opposed to the 
 popular and reformatory movements of his time, is untrue 
 and unjust, and can easily be disproved. That he was an 
 aristocrat cannot be doubted; but so was Walter Scott, 
 for they were both brought up and educated at a period 
 when aristocracy was considered the natural order of 
 society. 
 
 Of all classes of people, none would seem to be so unfitted 
 — from their tenderness of feeling, their pictorial habit of 
 mind, and their sensitive temperament — ^for practical 
 politics, as poets and artists; and they have generally recog- 
 nized this themselves. Emerson says: — 
 
 147 
 
148 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 If I leave my study for their politique, 
 
 Which at the best is trick. 
 
 The angry muse puts confusion in my brain. 
 
 There is scarcely a reflection in Shakespeare of the 
 religious and physical struggle in which he was born and 
 brought up; and though Milton accepted a position in 
 Cromwell's government, it proved more to his own disad- 
 vantage after the restoration of the Stuarts than for the 
 benefit of his country. The angry muse likewise drove 
 Dante into banishment for joining the party of the Ghib- 
 elines. 
 
 Yet there are occasions of public exigency when it is 
 the duty of every man, whatever his calling, to devote 
 himseK unreservedly to the welfare of the state. No one 
 was more ready than Goethe to admit the truth of this, 
 but the opportunity to prove his patriotism never came 
 to him. 
 
 He was born in a community more free than any city 
 in the United States, for there was neither state nor 
 national authority above it; but, as often happens in small 
 independent communities, public opinion was so tyrannical 
 there that Goethe was glad to escape from it, even to the 
 conventional atmosphere of the Weimar court. No per- 
 son, he says, was permitted to be conspicuous in Frank- 
 fort, either for good or for evil; but Goethe could not help 
 being conspicuous, any more than Arthur Plantagenet 
 could help being the son of Geoffrey. At Weimar, Goethe 
 was advanced from one position in the duke's service to 
 another, until at last he became minister of state, and was 
 the confidential adviser of his patron all through the 
 Napoleonic wars. 
 
 How was he to conduct himself in such a position? 
 How do the members of presidents' cabinets conduct 
 
GOETHE IN PRACTICAL POLITICS 149 
 
 themselves? Are they not as reticent as possible in re- 
 gard to all matters which are immediately under discus- 
 sion? They give an opinion, perhaps, in order to avoid 
 the appearance of secrecy, but they guard themselves 
 carefully against anything which might compromise the 
 administration. So anything which Goethe might have 
 said, any political opinion he might have uttered, would 
 at once be attributed to the grand duke, and pass current 
 over the whole of Em-ope. Under these circumstances, 
 he had no resource but absolute reticence; and for this 
 plain and self-evident reason almost nothing is known of 
 his opinions concerning the important events of his time. 
 It is one of the most common and stupid of blunders to 
 suppose that a silent man is an apathetic one. 
 
 Weimar is a small duchy, lying between two kingdoms; 
 but so great is the veneration of Germans for hereditary 
 right that its boundaries have always been respected. 
 There was no such feeling in Napoleon's composition; he 
 abrogated the charters of free cities, and exiled many 
 German princes from their dominions. There was danger 
 during his conflict with Prussia that Weimar would be 
 forcibly annexed to one side or the other on the ground of 
 military necessity. The only resource in such times for a 
 state without any military force was to be as cautiously 
 neutral as possible. That was the part which the grand 
 duke and Goethe were obliged to act, not only for their 
 own benefit, but for that of their people; and they would 
 seem to have played it to perfection. 
 
 Napoleon passed through Weimar in 1806 without 
 molesting man or property. He sent for Goethe to take 
 dinner with him; and then for the first and only time either 
 of them met his equal. They were more alike perhaps 
 than is generally supposed, — one the apostle of liberalism 
 (after a fashion) in politics, the other in intellectual life; 
 
150 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 Goethe was also a conqueror. The accusation that he 
 behaved in a servile manner toward Napoleon is too 
 grotesque to be considered for a moment. The emperor 
 said to his marshals after the poet had withdrawn from the 
 table, "There is a man for you. " 
 
 Goethe possessed the rare faculty of seeing both sides 
 of a question. It is a faculty which belongs by good right 
 to the dramatic poet, for it is only the dramatic habit 
 that will cultivate it. He was both liberal and conserva- 
 tive. He says in one of his brief proverbial poems, "Hold 
 fast to the old, but ever with open hand welcome the new. " 
 He has been blamed by his countrymen for his partiality 
 toward Napoleon, which was supposed to be the result of 
 personal admiration. There is quite as good reason for 
 believing that he had an equal sympathy with the reforms 
 which Napoleon enacted in Germany, Italy, and Spain. 
 Even the socialists admit that Napoleon conferred great 
 benefits on Western Germany. Could the impartial 
 Goethe be oblivious to what was taking place in the states 
 adjacent to Weimar.^ 
 
 Liberalism does not mean the same in Germany that it 
 does in the United States. Its aim is not a republic, but 
 rather a monarchical democracy like that in England. 
 In the revolution of 1848 the German republicans were 
 almost all socialists. In Goethe's time liberalism meant 
 the abolition of class privileges, the right of voting taxes 
 and armaments by elective assemblies, and freedom of the 
 press. In 1813 many of the German liberals, like the 
 enthusiastic Heine, took sides with Napoleon; but a larger 
 number joined the Prussians on the groimd of nationality, 
 being desirous to free themselves from French domination. 
 It is known that Goethe's son was at that time an ardent 
 Napoleonist, and that Goethe himself discouraged recruit- 
 ing for the Prussian army in Weimar. Surely the man 
 
GOETHE IN PRACTICAL POLITICS 151 
 
 who could predict an earthquake in Sicily was able to 
 foresee the tremendous conservative reaction which would 
 immediately follow Napoleon's downfall; but Goethe's 
 liberalism is not a matter of inference or conjecture. 
 
 Less than one year after the battle of Waterloo, j&rst of 
 all the German princes, the Duke Carl August of Weimar 
 granted his people a constitutional government which 
 admitted freedom of the press, the right of franchise for 
 all citizens, and the right of voting taxes. Can any one 
 suppose this was done in opposition to Goethe's advice? 
 We know the characters of the two men. Both were 
 reserved; but Goethe was kindly, conciliatory, and always 
 ready to listen to the opinions of others, while the duke was 
 naturally haughty, self-willed, and autocratic. It is thus 
 that Goethe represented him in the character of Thoas. 
 
 Unfortmiately, the Holy Alliance set its iron jack-boot 
 on this incipient growth of liberalism, and crushed it out. 
 Carl August was notified by the great powers that he must 
 abandon the position he had assumed, and no choice but 
 obedience was left him. With the spasmodic outbreaks 
 which followed during the next ten years, in various parts 
 of Germany, Goethe had little sympathy, for it was easy 
 to see that they aggravated the trouble instead of help- 
 ing it: he knew them to be as imprudent as they were 
 hopeless, and when they culminated in the foolish assassina- 
 tion of Kotzebue, (which is supposed to have prevented the 
 adoption of a liberal constitution in Prussia) there was 
 nothing he could do but avert his face in sorrow. Goethe 
 always preferred temperate measures and a gradual prog- 
 ress in reform to sharp and violent revolutions; but if he 
 had been a conservative in the usual meaning of the word, 
 he would have belonged to the party of Wellington and 
 Metternich, and would never have been reproached with 
 partiality for Napoleon. On the occasion of the small 
 
152 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 rebellion of the students at Jena, he said that the students 
 were right, but that the grand duke was also right and 
 must be obeyed. 
 
 I would compare Goethe in this respect with no less a 
 person than President Lincoln. What do we honor Lincoln 
 for so much as for his proclamation of freedom for the 
 slaves? And yet the politicians who nominated him at 
 Chicago hardly knew whether they were voting for an anti- 
 slavery candidate or not. They knew only that they were 
 voting for a man they could trust. Horace Greeley de- 
 clined to vote for him because Lincoln had not distinctly 
 committed himself on the slavery question. In his cam- 
 paign against Douglas he opposed in a vigorous and decided 
 manner the extension of slavery in the territories, especially 
 when the attempt was made to force it on the people, as 
 the government was doing in Kansas; but in his Cooper 
 Institute address he deprecated all legislation which might 
 interfere with slavery where it was already established. 
 Does any one doubt that Lincoln was at heart an anti- 
 slavery man.? The anti-slavery cause was part of the 
 great humanitarian movement of the nineteenth century; 
 and a man who was so magnanimous and compassionate as 
 Lincoln must certainly have felt this. He believed that 
 the cause could be promoted better by his silence than by 
 anything he could say. He waited his time until he should 
 be able to deal with the evil in a more effective manner 
 than by words; and the logic of events justified him. 
 
 Such an opportunity never came to Goethe; but we 
 read in " Wilhelm Meister's Indenture of Apprenticeship, " 
 "They who see the half of a matter are apt to talk and 
 say a great deal about it; but he who sees the whole of it 
 feels inclined to act, and speaks late or not at all." A 
 wise sentence, and of universal application. 
 
 Goethe did not, like Schiller, idealize the common 
 
GOETHE IN PRACTICAL POLITICS 153 
 
 people, but he always treated them in his writings with 
 respect, and strove to represent the good that is in them 
 as well as their peculiarities. There are many instances 
 of this, but especially the scene of Easter Sunday in the 
 first part of "Faust." "Hermann and Dorothea" is a 
 pastoral of humble life that never has been matched. If 
 the common people had not been interesting to Goethe 
 he could not have written it. When a lady of rank com- 
 plained that the characters in " Wilhelm Meister" did not 
 belong to good society, Goethe replied in a verse : 
 
 "I have sometimes been in society called good, from 
 which I could not obtain an idea for the smallest poem. " 
 
 There is substantial proof in Eckermann's Conversa- 
 tions, and in other records, that Goethe maintained a lively 
 interest in public affairs till the time of his death. 
 
 In the fearful cyclones on the coast of Asia which occur 
 during the changing of the monsoons, there is a central 
 space where the storm does not rage. So in the little 
 duchy of Weimar, while the wars of Napoleon were raging 
 all around, there was calmness and peace like that of the 
 mighty intellect which has made it famous. It was the 
 intellectual centre of Europe. 
 
DANTE'S POLITICAL ALLEGORY 
 
 DANTE evidently intended to illustrate his own 
 views in regard to the politics of his time by 
 the celebrated enigma in Purgatorio xxxii. 
 To describe this briefly in its main featm^s : 
 — he has placed a triumphal car, drawn by a griffon, be- 
 neath a tree loaded with flowers and fruit; an eagle comes 
 down crashing through the branches of the tree, and strikes 
 the car, making it rock from side to side, but without up- 
 setting it; then a fox comes, lean and hungry, who takes 
 possession of the car, but is driven away by the reproof of 
 Beatrice; then the eagle swoops down again, leaving the 
 car covered with its feathers; a dragon comes out of the 
 earth and rips up the floor of the car with its barbed tail. 
 Then the car, covered with feathers, puts forth seven 
 heads, with horns like beasts, at the four sides. Next 
 comes a giant in company with a harlot; the former pluck- 
 ing the leaves from the tree, and the latter seating her- 
 self in the car; but when the harlot turns her eyes on 
 Dante, the giant flogs her unmercifully, and drives the 
 equipage into a forest out of sight. 
 
 There have been numberless interpretations of this 
 allegory; but Dugdale, the English prose translator of the 
 Purgatorio, sums up the opinion of previous commentators 
 as follows: — 
 
 The tree is intended to represent Christ; and its flowers 
 are the foretaste of his glory. The triumphal car repre- 
 sents the Christian Church; the descent of the eagle into 
 
 154 
 
DANTE'S POLITICAL ALLEGORY 155 
 
 the tree, the persecution by the Roman emperors; the 
 fox is heresy; the second descent of the eagle, with the loss 
 of his feathers, represents the benefits conferred by Con- 
 stantine. The dragon is supposed to be either the Devil 
 or Mahomet; and the seven heads are supposed by some 
 to represent the seven deadly sins, and by others, the 
 seven sacraments. (Take your choice.) The giant is 
 evidently the king of France, and the harlot represents 
 the prostitution of the church to personal ends. The dis- 
 appearance in the woods signifies the transference of the 
 Holy See to Avignon. Beatrice represents theology. 
 
 Now, it is possible that Dante intended by this to repre- 
 sent the history of the church in allegorical form, but his 
 treatment is much too meagre for such a large subject. 
 Is it not more likely that he was minded to symbolize the 
 condition of the Church of Rome in his own time? Looked 
 at in this manner all the figures unite to form a perfect 
 whole. The tree cannot represent Christ and his heavenly 
 triumph, for Dante expressly states in the next canto that 
 it is the same tree from which Eve plucked the forbidden 
 fruit: canto xxxiii, 60. Inferentially it may be intended 
 for Christianity itself, by which the true knowledge of 
 good and evil was supposed to have been first divulged. 
 
 Neither is it likely that Dante would have made use of 
 a triumphal car as a symbol for the Christian Church. 
 The expression is lacking in humility. We may suppose 
 therefore, that Dante intended it for the temporal power 
 of the popes, which, when properly applied and directed 
 to Christian teaching and good works, caused the tree to 
 flourish, but when this was allied with the powers of dark- 
 ness its flowers drooped and its leaves withered. 
 
 The first descent of the eagle is not exactly a fair sym- 
 bol for the persecutions of the early Christians, for the 
 church withstood them like a rock. On the contrary, it 
 
156 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 serves remarkably well for the reign of Frederick II., who 
 repeatedly shook the papal government to its foundations, 
 without, however, quite carrying his point. 
 
 There is a significant allusion to the second descent of 
 the eagle, xxxii, 138, Forse con intenzione casta e henigna, 
 which would not apply to Constantine, the shrewd poli- 
 tician, but is quite what we should expect from Dante 
 concerning the chivalrous Henry VII., for whom it was 
 no doubt intended. 
 
 Here, as in the first canto of the Inferno, the fox is 
 probably intended for heresy; but it is a symbbl that would 
 be better suited to skepticism, which penetrates every 
 where but finds no permanent abiding-place. 
 
 Dugdale supposes that Beatrice represented theology; 
 and Scartazzini speaks of her as religious science, which 
 comes to the same purpose; but she appears everywhere 
 as the antagonist of science. Does she not rather repre- 
 sent religious faith, pure and simple, — man's recognition 
 of the divine love? Dante finds her seated under the tree 
 of Christianity. 
 
 I bblieve there is no difference of opinion in regard to 
 the meaning of the giant, the harlot, and the disappear- 
 ance of the strangely decorated car; but what does the 
 griffon stand for.? Dante speaks of him as a creature of 
 "twofold nature." May not this refer to the nature of 
 mankind in general, which is at once spiritual and car- 
 nivorous? 
 
 In the last canto of the Purgatorio, Beatrice propounds 
 a prophecy in the form of a riddle, to the effect that "a 
 messenger from God, "DUX,* will come to slay the giant 
 and his companion. This has been interpreted as refer- 
 ring to Can Grande of Verona; but the number is a remark- 
 able prophecy, for the first revolutions in Italy tending to 
 *RealIy, cinquecento died e cinque, equals D V X = Dux. 
 
DANTE'S POLITICAL ALLEGORY 157 
 
 national unity took place a little more than five hundred 
 years after Dante's death; and the Reformation began in 
 1520. 
 
 However, we are not to suppose that Dante possessed 
 such remarkable insight for future events as this would 
 indicate; and his immediate purpose was evidently the 
 organization of an Italian power that would be strong 
 enough both to repel foreign invaders, and to prevent 
 the pope from interfering in purely secular affairs. This 
 never came to pass until 1860, and since that time there 
 has been peace and prosperity in an united Italy. 
 
LYNCH LAW 
 
 THE Progressive party in 1912 put forward as 
 one of the propositions for the pubHc good the 
 suppression of the Lynch Law. 
 There could be no objection to this, so far as 
 the burning of southern negroes is concerned, but during 
 the year which I spent on the frontier in Kansas and 
 Colorado I made careful inquiries in regard to the criminal 
 practice there, and I became satisfied that Lynch Law was 
 not only the most efficient law, but quite as just and more 
 expeditious and vastly less expensive than the practice of 
 our eastern courts. In fact I could not learn of a single 
 instance where Lynch Law had been improperly applied. 
 At Abilene in western Kansas, I inquired if any murders 
 had been committed there recently. Yes, there had been 
 one about six months previously. Two men had a quarrel 
 and one shot the other without giving him any warning. 
 The quarrel did not appear to have been a very bad one, 
 but such as might have caused a year's estrangement 
 between gentlemen. If it was not murder in the first 
 degree it was certainly murder in the second. I inquired 
 what became of the homicide, "Oh, he was taken to 
 Kansas City and tried, but he was acquitted: he had too 
 many friends. " In fact he was not punished at all. 
 
 At Wallace I made the same inquiry with precisely the 
 same result, except that in this instance the murderer was 
 imprudent enough to return to Wallace, after he had 
 been acquitted at Kansas City. The night he arrived 
 
 168 
 
LYNCH LAW 159 
 
 there a vigilance committee was organized, and he was 
 hung before morning. My informant saw him hung. 
 
 At Lakin a hundred miles south of Wallace, and about 
 six months before the time I was there, a blacksmith shot 
 and killed the doctor of the place, and galloped off in the 
 direction of the Indian territory. When I visited Lakin 
 a year later he was supposed to be living with the Indians, 
 but no effort had been made to arrest him by the state 
 authorities. 
 
 Six months later Billy Larey and his brother, noted 
 stage robbers and murderers, were taken from the jail at 
 Del Norte by a vigilance committee and hung. I still 
 have a photograph of them somewhere taken after they 
 were dead. They had escaped from jail once and the 
 good people of Del Norte were determined that they 
 should not do so again. 
 
 It is evident from these four examples that without 
 Lynch Law no man's life would be safe on the frontier, as 
 it is or was at that time. At out-of-the-way places like 
 Lakin I never left the house without my rifle and the 
 savage looks which some of the cow-boys gave me showed 
 plainly the hostility they felt toward me. 
 
 At Manitou, Colorado, the previous July, one negro 
 porter had shot another merely because the latter had been 
 more highly favored by a party of distinguished eastern 
 men. He was only given two years in the State's prison 
 for it. An old New Yorker, who claimed to be a friend 
 of William Vanderbilt, said to me, "he was a good fellow 
 and they did not want to be hard on him, besides his family 
 would have to be supported by the state," but the hotel- 
 keeper's wife informed me that the porter had two thousand 
 dollars in the bank, at Colorado Springs, which dis- 
 appeared at the time of his trial, and was supposed to 
 have gone into the pocket of the judge. 
 
160 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 I attended a murder trial at Denver, of a man who had 
 been tried twice already, but the jury disagreed as they 
 often do in the west. It was purely a case of extenuat- 
 ing circumstances. I did not follow the case closely, but 
 Mr. Bristol of Stamford, Conn., did so, and told me, he 
 could not see any excuse for the murder and that the 
 defendant ought either to be hung or imprisoned for life. 
 Yet the man was acquitted, and I was informed that no 
 murderer had ever been hung in Colorado by regular pro- 
 cess of law. 
 
 The case of lynching in northern Colorado the following 
 winter was much discussed at our boarding place in Denver 
 and an Illinois lawyer gave his opinion that every person 
 concerned in the business ought to be hanged, but he did 
 not find any one to agree with him in this legal pedantry. 
 
 The summary execution of the man who shot the 
 Indian Chief, Johnson, in '82, was a case of Lynch Law 
 supported by government. It happened in this way. A 
 party of Indians with Johnson at their head were walking 
 their horses past a mining camp, when one of the miners, 
 seized with moral madness, caught up a rifle and shot him 
 through the neck. The other miners realizing that a 
 fearful deed had been committed, seized and bound the 
 offender and explained to the Indians (who behaved 
 remarkably well) that justice should be done. Both 
 parties proceeded to an encampment of U. S. soldiers 
 which happened to be nearby, and delivered their prisoner 
 to the Commander, who had him strung up at once, as 
 the only method of preventing an Indian outbreak. Yet 
 there was some palliation for the man's crime, since 
 Johnson was one of the leaders in the "Thornberg Mas- 
 sacre." I will introduce here an incident on a different 
 subject to show the pettiness of the law, in certain cases. 
 A Chinese wopian in Denver sold her younger sister to a 
 
LYNCH LAW 161 
 
 Chinaman for a wife; as she had a right to do by Chinese 
 custom; but the sister objected to this, being aheady in 
 love with another man. The elder sister accordingly 
 locked her up in the garret to bring her to terms, but the 
 younger one spoiled that game by getting out onto the 
 roof, sliding down a water spout and running off with her 
 own Chinaman. The Mayor of Denver however, had the 
 young couple brought back and imprisoned for several 
 weeks until the judge of probate finally decided that they 
 had a right to be married. 
 
 A case of shooting occurred in Denver, in the winter of 
 '81, which might have been used as a precedent at the 
 trial of Harry K. Thaw. 
 
 A man named Stickney, a Harvard graduate, who had 
 always borne a good character, was greatly annoyed by 
 the attentions of another man to his wife. He never 
 alleged that this had reached a criminal point, but only 
 that it caused gossip, and made his home intolerable. I 
 did not learn the final provocation, but one day Stickney, 
 seeing the objectionable man on the other side of the street, 
 fired at him with a revolver. The first shot missed its 
 object, and killed a lady who had come to Denver for her 
 health. 
 
 His second shot brought down the right victim. In the 
 trial that followed, the plea of insanity was of course 
 introduced, and Dr. Ira Russell of Winchendon, Mass., 
 who had known Stickney in previous years, was sent for 
 to assist him. Dr. Russell testified that Stickney was of 
 an emotional and excitable nature, and that in such 
 persons, under great mental excitement, the blood would 
 rush to the head, and compel the individual to act without 
 reflection, as a man does when he is struck in the face. 
 
 This appears to have satisfied the jury and Stickney was 
 discharged. Whether he would have been by an Eastern 
 
162 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 jury is uncertain, but his aggravation was much less than 
 Harry K. Thaw's and he had more time in which to reflect 
 on it. In fact it would be difficult to imagine a greater 
 aggravation than Thaw received from Stanford White. 
 It was certainly worse than assault and battery. Stokes, 
 the assassin of Jim Fiske, was pardoned by the Governor 
 of New York after two years imprisonment, and he had 
 less cause for grievance than either. 
 
 An officer in the U. S. army in 1886 shot a Southerner 
 (who had grossly insulted him) in the right shoulder and 
 for this he was first reprimanded, and when the man after- 
 ward died of a fever, he was imprisoned for one year by a 
 military court martial. 
 
 The palliation in his case was, that he evidently did not 
 intend to kill his antagonist, and the wound ought not to 
 have been fatal. He afterwards became a worthy citizen 
 of my own state, and at one time he was talked of as a 
 candidate for Governor. 
 
 Insanity as a plea in criminal cases has been worn thread- 
 bare. Elaborate arguments have been written to prove 
 that Martin Luther was insane, and that Napoleon was 
 insane; but such opinions always come from the opposition. 
 General Sherman was called insane simply because he was 
 far-sighted, and predicted the future. If Doctor Folsom 
 had been a Garfield Republican it is not likely that he 
 would have tried to prove that Guiteau was insane. 
 Neither do I believe in the abolition of capital punishment. 
 Joseph II. of Austria tried that experiment one hundred 
 and forty years ago, but crime increased so rapidly that 
 he was obliged to return to the old severe method. Reason 
 dictates, however, that the death penalty should be re- 
 served for the worst class of cases, and where there are 
 
LYNCH LAW 163 
 
 mitigating circumstances such should always be con- 
 sidered. 
 
 It is the law in Italy, that if a man kills another in a 
 duel, he is subjected to two years in prison for the privilege; 
 and this would seem to be both just and expedient. It 
 would be well if there were such a law in certain portions 
 of this country. The practice of shooting at sight is a 
 barbarous custom, and ought to be punished more severe- 
 ly. I should have given Thaw five years of imprisonment 
 and Stickney seven years. I think also that fatalities 
 from evident carelessness ought to be punished, like that 
 of the man who recently shot a young woman with a rifle 
 when she was working in the same room with him. That 
 will tend to make people more prudent. As the country 
 fills up Lynch Law will naturally disappear before the 
 advance of legalized order. 
 
 All the law is good for is to protect property and punish 
 crime. Justice can only be enacted by individual 
 judgment. 
 
METAPHYSICS 
 
 It is the Mind in the universe that makes it go. 
 
 Wasson. 
 
MIND AND BRAIN 
 
 I DO not believe that substantial progress will ever 
 be made in metaphysics until it has been decided 
 once for all whether the mind and the brain are one 
 and the same thing or two different things. To me 
 at least, it is evident that the mind and the brain are very- 
 different things. One reason for this I find in the fact that 
 the mind is a unit — there cannot be two minds in the same 
 person — whereas physiologists have now decided that the 
 brain has localized functions. For instance what was 
 formerly called violinist's rheumatism is now considered to 
 be the wearing out of the brain cells which govern the 
 motion of the right hand, but the mind is not similarly 
 affected. 
 
 It is likewise certain that an impulse given to the nerves 
 by the mind or will cannot be instantly recalled in the 
 same manner that our minds change. Every good pianist, 
 every fine engraver knows this; and I have noticed it 
 sometimes in shooting at birds with a rifle. 
 
 A lady once said to me while I was discoursing on 
 Italian art, "You are fortunate to carry a picture gallery 
 round in your head. " Then it occurred to me that our 
 brains are picture galleries, or photographic registers, of 
 all the impressions of our five senses, as well as our reflec- 
 tions, decisions and actions in regard to the same. If you 
 ask a recondite question of an eminent lawyer you may 
 observe an expression on his face as if he were looking for a 
 misplaced book in a library; and when the clerk of a large 
 hotel is asked for a quiet room it will seem as if his mind 
 
 167 
 
168 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 were running through all the chambers in the house. The 
 mind may occupy the brain much in the manner that 
 electricity has possession of the magnet, but with the 
 faculty of directing its attention to different portions 
 thereof. Thus the mind walks as it were through its 
 cerebral museum like a custodian; examining, comparing, 
 and classifying its vast and varied contents. This mental 
 comparison and classification is what we call logic or 
 reasoning. Correct reasoning however depends much 
 more on veracity of purpose than on any logical rules. 
 
 This scheme might or might not preclude a remembrance 
 of earthly affairs in a futm-e life — who knows all the pos- 
 sibilities of mind, — but it certainly would not preclude the 
 consciousness of our identity as individuals, a cognizance 
 which must even precede our birth, in the struggle of the 
 offspring for a separate existence. 
 
 Emerson says somewhere that the discovery of the 
 correlation and conservation of forces brings us very near 
 to God; that is, to the ultimate original force. In a similar 
 sense we can imagine from the Rontgen light how God 
 may look into our minds and see the thoughts that are 
 printed on the brain. Every man's head contains his 
 own biography; but — the love of a true woman, the 
 kindness of a good Samaritan, or an act of real heroism 
 brings us much nearer to God than the correlation and 
 conservation of forces. 
 
 Physical phenomena, like an earthquake or the fall of 
 an iron meteor, may have impressed the primitive man 
 with the idea of a power in the universe superior to him- 
 self, but they never could have given him the sense of an 
 all-wise beneficent Creator, such as we read of in the book 
 of Genesis — "and God saw that it was good. " 
 
 That could only have been derived from the dictates 
 of his own conscience — the soul of man inspired by God. 
 
SPACE AND TIME 
 
 HERBERT SPENCER has developed his 
 theory of space and time in some forty 
 printed pages without coming to any very 
 definite conclusion that I can discover, ex- 
 cept that we derive our notions of them from experience, 
 and that they are not, as Kant and Hamilton supposed, a 
 -priori cognitions or forms of thought. His statement has 
 throughout the character of an argument rather than of 
 an investigation; and Spencer would seem to have changed 
 his opinion during the course of this, for on the third 
 page of his chajpter on space he says : — 
 
 "If space be an universal form of the non ego, it must 
 produce some corresponding universal form in the ego a 
 a form which, as being the constant element of all im- 
 pressions presented in experience, and therefore of all 
 impressions represented in thought, is independent of 
 every 'particular impression;" 
 
 and again on page 233 : — 
 
 "With such further reasons for holding that space is 
 not a form of the non ego disclosed to us by experience 
 we may be encouraged to continue that analysis of our 
 perception of it collaterally entered upon in the last 
 chapter. " 
 
 This appears very much like a contradiction in terms, if 
 not in fact. In the revised edition of his Psychology — ^now 
 
 169 
 
170 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 a rare book — ^hie speaks of space as an "objective reality, " 
 and also as "an ability to contain bodies." He distin- 
 guishes between occupied and unoccupied space. He 
 thinks time may be converted into space. 
 
 In regard to unoccupied space it may as well be said at 
 once that we know nothing of it objectively. So far as 
 the Milky Way matter exterds, and, who can tell what is 
 beyond the universe? We do not even know what is 
 beyond our atmosphere. 
 
 Experience may be either subjective or objective. 
 Hunger is a subjective experience; cold an objective one. 
 Life itself is an experience and yet life precedes all expe- 
 rience. Investigaton of our mental faculties is an expe- 
 rience, and yet it is with these faculties that we make 
 the investigation. Spencer evidently thinks that our 
 experience of space and time is objective. 
 
 WHAT IS SPACE? 
 
 Following Shakespeare's suggestion that with a bait of 
 error one may catch a carp of truth, and without carping 
 at Mr. Spencer, who frequently uses this method himself, 
 we may, perhaps, learn something of the true character or 
 quality of space, by considering what is included in this 
 dictum. 
 
 An objective reality has been frequently defined as an 
 entity which is cognizable by the senses; and if this were 
 not so, it is quite impossible to imagine how we should 
 have experience of it, — how we could become conscious of 
 it. Now which of the senses brings us into relation with 
 the objective reality called space? We certainly do not 
 smell space; neither do we taste it, nor hear it. The 
 question remains whether we can feel it or see it. In 
 order to feel an object, however, it must have consistency 
 
SPACE AND TIME 171 
 
 or weight; in order to see an object it must have color. 
 This is a proposition which there is no disputing. Now 
 has any physicist ever succeeded in weighing space; has 
 any artist succeeded in painting a reproduction of it? 
 But the Spencerian repHes that if we cannot see space we 
 can see into it and through it; if we cannot feel space, as 
 we do a brick wall, we can feel the spaces on the wall 
 marked by the bricks with our eyes shut, and thus obtain 
 an idea of the division of space; that it is by noting the 
 relations of the different objects which we see, near and 
 far, that we obtain a conception of universal space. 
 
 Metaphysics is a science of delicate perceptions and a 
 strict definition of terms. What is customarily meant 
 by looking into space, is looking at the sky, and the sky 
 is an optical illusion. If the atmosphere had no color 
 we should see nothing there except the clouds. It is true 
 that we can look through a glass, and that glass is an ob- 
 jective reality; but we cannot at the same time look 
 through an object and be conscious of its existence, unless 
 we also see it. Unless we perceive that glass is glass, we 
 are liable to knock our heads against it, as birds do in a 
 conservatory. We commonly perceive reflections on the 
 glass, or the green color at its edges, which prevent our 
 doing this; but there are no reflections or coloring which 
 assist us to determine the objectivity of space. These 
 are proverbial expressions which cannot prudently be 
 used as the terms of a syllogism in philosophy. The same 
 is true of measuring spaces, on a wall, or clock, or any flat 
 surface. What is meant properly in this case is distance, 
 and not space in the abstract. Now distance is linear, 
 but space extends in every direction; it might be called an 
 abstract universal polygon. Marking distances on a 
 plane surface will assist us to obtain a conception of num- 
 ber, but not a conception of space. Shall we not conclude, 
 
172 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 thterefore, that space is not an objective reality, as air and 
 water are objective realities? 
 
 Herbert Spencer would seem to have been half conscious 
 of this, for we soon afterwards find him defining space 
 as "an ability to contain bodies." 
 
 Ability, however, is a force, — light is an ability of 
 combustion, and electricity is an ability, — ^and a necessity 
 of all forces is that they should be present in one place and 
 absent in another; whereas space is, as above mentioned 
 present everywhere, and always in an equal degree. No 
 writer has ever contended that space was a force, physical 
 or mental. 
 
 Herbert Spencer, indeed, begins with the assumption 
 that there is occupied space and unoccupied space, — ^that 
 is, bodies and vacua; but he soon loses sight of this distinc- 
 tion, and writes as if space and the atmosphere were 
 synonymous terms. This is the common materialistic 
 mistake in considering the subject. There is space for 
 human beings in the atmosphere, because it is our element; 
 but the atmosphere is a body as well as the earth, and if 
 space is likewise an objective reality it is difficult to under- 
 stand how the two can coexist in the same place. A metal 
 bar charged with electricity might seem an exception to 
 this, but all metals are more or less porous, and even the 
 densest can be penetrated by the electric fluid just as 
 granite absorbs water. The attempt to materialize space, 
 like the materialization of spirits, must always result in a 
 contradiction of this sort. If there is space in one body 
 there must be in another, even if the first is a gas and the 
 second a solid. If there is space in the atmosphere there 
 must also be space in the earth, and space in a cannon-ball. 
 Now a cannon-ball may be galvanized, but another ob- 
 jective reality can coexist in it only after a hole has been 
 bored in the metal. This would seem to reduce the ob- 
 
SPACE AND TIME 173 
 
 jective reality of space to an absurdity. On the other 
 hand, if space only exists in a vacuum, it may fairly be 
 contended that we neither know nor can we learn anything 
 about it. Some astronomers believe that there is no such 
 thing as an absolute vacuum, but that the universe is 
 filled with gases in a finely attenuated condition. 
 
 The truth would seem to be that space and time are 
 mental forms of measurement, and have no objective reality 
 whatever. The subject goes back to Plato's forms, which 
 really lie at the base of all metaphysical inquiry. Every- 
 thing created by man is composed of two distinct elements, 
 — an objective material and a subjective or intellectual 
 form. Thus a yardstick is an objective reality, but it 
 contains a subjective element, the yard, which taken by 
 itself has only a subjective existence. This becomes more 
 apparent when we consider a mile, a degree, or any larger 
 form of measurement, which never receives a concrete 
 form. It is the same with all other methods of measuring 
 distance or extension; and space, which might be defined 
 as universal extension, is the most abstract conception 
 of this class, and is the most purely and absolutely mental. 
 All universal conceptions, like all generalizations, are 
 mental and subjective; for in external nature we only meet 
 with individual and particular objects, which the mind 
 classifies by a mental method. The word universe itself 
 is used as an intellectual abstraction. 
 
 Considered relatively there is space for a man in the 
 atmosphere, for a fish in water, for a borer in wood, and 
 for angle worms in the earth. 
 
 What is commonly intended by space, is either room 
 to breathe, live, and move in, or the prospect subtended 
 by the angle of vision; and there is a significant relation 
 between these two meanings. That our notion of space is 
 called into activity by the external world cannot be doubt- 
 
174 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 ed, but like genius it must be in us before it ever could 
 come out. The same may be said of language. Even an 
 unlimited series of external impressions could never have 
 brought the language of the human race into existence, 
 unless we had already been endowed with the faculty for 
 it. A scientific investigation in either case would have 
 little value, since we are too remote from the period in 
 which we acquire our first perceptions of space and time to 
 obtain acciu-ate data concerning them. We can only 
 reason about them, as we reason concerning the constitu- 
 tion of the sun and the planets. This much, however, is 
 certain, that the infant child becomes conscious of space 
 as soon as he opens his eyes, just as he becomes conscious 
 of an external world by the sense of touch. The knowledge 
 is immediate and continuous, for doubt is an intellectual 
 process which can only arise at a later stage of his growth. 
 In order to doubt we must have experience of error. It 
 certainly seems as if a child must realize separation at the 
 first sight, and even if the object before him is but a few 
 feet away he must be conscious that it does not touch 
 him, as those things do which he feels with his hands and 
 body. At all events he learns this very quickly, and does 
 not require repeated experiments, like a natural philoso- 
 pher, to become convinced of it. 
 
 This visual angle is what we customarily mean when we 
 speak of space. If we go into a dark room where our 
 eyesight no longer avails and we are obliged to feel our 
 way, we still have the recollection of space to prevent our 
 losing the sense of it; and not alone that, but the fact that 
 only our hands and feet are in contact with external 
 objects — for we do not feel the atmosphere — shows us 
 that there must be space around us, without the assistance 
 of eyesight. Indeed, the sense of space, having once 
 originated, never can leave the human mind unless we 
 
SPACE AND TIME 175 
 
 are being drowned, or smothered in some other manner 
 when we return to the antecedent condition of the child 
 before his eyes are opened, and the two different meanings 
 in which space is accepted become reconciled.* It is 
 probable that persons born blind also acquire a sense of 
 space through unimpeded motion. 
 
 Space can only exist by division into spaces, and these 
 divisions are of human invention. Infinite space would 
 be simply nothing. It is impossible to conceive that space 
 has a limit or that it is without a limit; for as it exists only 
 in thought its limitations can only be those which are 
 imposed by the individual at any particular time. What 
 there may be beyond the range of human observation in the 
 external world we cannot know, and it is quite useless to 
 speculate. An infinity of thought is one thing, but an 
 infinity of matter is another, and the human mind shrinks 
 from the contemplation of it. 
 
 Space might be described as an imaginary sphere with 
 an infinite radius; but this infinity is subjective and not 
 objective. An objective infinity would in this case result 
 in the subordination of mind to matter and the extinction 
 of organic life. Dr. C. C. Everett says: "Space is simply 
 the possibility of infinite extension, or, what is the same 
 thing, the infinite possibility of extension. Space is in 
 itself nothing. If you imagine an object struck out of 
 existence, and nothing to take its place, that nothing 
 would be called space. f" Space as an objective reality 
 would be a materialized chimaera. 
 
 *De Qulncey's testimony in regard to space and time imder abnormal 
 conditions, is worth nothing, for he is hardly a trustworthy witness. 
 His description of a night under the influence of opium, in which he 
 seemed to live seventy years, and beheld a sea of human faces, is a pla- 
 giarism, perhaps unconscious, from Shakespeare's Richard III., where 
 it will be found in the prison scene of Clarence. 
 
 fEverett's Science of Thought. 
 
176 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 WHAT IS TIME? 
 
 As space has been defined as infinite extension, so time 
 may be termed infinite intension. It is the form of 
 measurement which we adopt for our internal fife. Space 
 is not an objective reahty, but it has an objective appHca- 
 tion, whereas the application of time is originally subjec- 
 tive. I do not think, however, that the sense of time re- 
 sults from the sequence of our intellectual operations, but 
 rather from the repetition of the same idea or necessary 
 consideration.* So long as man lives in a purely animal 
 condition, one day is like another, and there is no occasion 
 for counting them; but as soon as he seeks to improve his 
 mode of life, the necessity of time arises so that he may 
 regulate his life by it. The sun and moon do not mark 
 time for us, but we make use of them as measures of time. 
 Th^t this is the case ip evident from the fact that we cor- 
 rect the slight aberrations of the sun and moon, in order 
 to obtain mathematically perfect divisions of time. There 
 is always this close relation between the subjective and 
 the objective in practical affairs, for man is continually 
 obliged to adapt his life to external changes over which he 
 has no control; and it is this which has so often deceived 
 philosophers in regard to the true source of his mental 
 cognitions; but it should be remembered that if the long 
 periods of time are derived from the revolutions of the 
 earth, its smaller divisions into hours, minutes, and 
 seconds are purely arbitrary. 
 
 It is a popular mistake to suppose that time extends to 
 eternity. If time were to cease, eternity would begin; 
 but in such case time would be limited, would not extend 
 to infinity. Eternity is really the antipodes of time, or 
 as John Weiss said, " Eternity is now, " — a perpetual now. 
 
 *As, for instance, the necessity of obtaining food at regular intervab. 
 
SPACE AND TIME 177 
 
 Time may therefore be described by an imaginary line 
 extending from the eternal to the infinite. 
 
 The first cognition of a new-born child is that of life 
 which comes with his first scream. The next is objectivity 
 — what Professor James calls "otherness." The child's 
 third cognition must be that of objective self, derived from 
 the sense of hmiger; and its fourth that of space, from 
 sight or the free movements of its limbs; and its sense of 
 time is probably derived from the repeated sensations of 
 hunger. These experiences are, however, purely subjec- 
 tive. 
 
 Time and space are brought into relation with one anoth- 
 er through motion. Of space considered in the abstract, 
 there can be no motion, but motion produces a sense of 
 distance which is one of the attributes of space, and lapse 
 of time produces a sense of motion. It is thus that dis- 
 tances, miscalled spaces, serve to represent the lapse of 
 time on a clock; but even the face of a clock could not 
 properly be called a space, for, as before stated, space 
 extends in every direction . By no effort of the ima gination 
 can space be reduced to a single line, straight or curved, 
 and therefore all attempts to convert time into space will 
 invariably end in a confusion of language. Intension 
 cannot be converted into extension. We speak of a day's 
 journey to indicate the time we have spent in travelling, 
 but the earth's surface is never measured in that manner. 
 So also in Switzerland, travelling is estimated by hours, 
 because the country is so uneven that a statement in miles 
 would aflford no adequate impression of the journey. 
 Time is measured by distances, but no railroad train is 
 sufficiently accurate to measure distance by time. Only 
 the revolutions of the earth and planets — ^no human 
 invention — can be made to serve that purpose. 
 
 It is impossible to conceive of time as extending like 
 
178 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 space in every direction. It extends backward to infinity 
 and forward to infinity, — or rather from the inconceivable 
 to the inconceivable. It might be symbolized by a straight 
 line with ^ at either end. This is a grand idea, for it affords 
 an intimation of a higher intelligence than we mortals 
 possess, to which such a fact can be plainly perceptible. 
 
 As Kmio Fischer observes, the whole science of mathe- 
 matics is founded on space and time.* Space gives us 
 addition and subtraction; time, multiplication and divi- 
 sion. Multiplication results from the repetition of the 
 same spatial quantity, and, as has already been stated, 
 it is this repetition of a mental cognition which gives us 
 the sense of time. If the spaces are unequal, time 
 cannot affect them except by obtaining a new form of 
 measurement. Multiplication equals time plus addition. 
 Now a pure mathematics is an a priori science, an 
 emanation of the intellect which has no objective reality. 
 Numbers are abstract types. 
 
 There are no grand ideas in Herbert Spencer's psychol- 
 ogy; as there never can be in a materialistic philosophy. 
 It is true that he realizes that the quality of space and time 
 has some peculiarity which it is not easy to explain on the 
 principles he has adopted. He says (page 25): "Excep- 
 tion may be taken to this argument on several groimds — 
 on the ground that space and time, taken in the abstract, 
 are not strictly conceivable things in the sense that other 
 things are. " Here he evidently has obtained an intima- 
 tion of the truth, but he closes his mind to it in order to 
 hold fast to his preconceived opinions of mental evolution. 
 Time and space are subjective realities, or they could not 
 be conceived in the abstract. It is impossible to conceive 
 the sun, a tree, a lion, or any other purely objective reality 
 in the abstract. A man may be considered in the abstract 
 *Fischer on Kant's Kritik, p.49. 
 
SPACE AND TIME 179 
 
 in his subjective intellectual capacity, but not in his 
 objective animal capacity. A lion, also, may be treated 
 abstractly in art, for art always contains the subjective 
 element; and, moreover, art and metaphysics are two 
 very different subjects. Everything created by man, if 
 it be only a rude boundary mark, contains this union of 
 the subjective and objective, which distinguishes it in 
 kind from the purely natural. Man is at once his own 
 object and subject. "The great first cause" might be 
 defined as infinite subjectivity. 
 
 The English and Scotch schools of philosophy have 
 long been in opposition in regard to the reality of the ex- 
 ternal world. This time-honored discussion may have 
 borne its fruit in the German philosphy of reconciliation, 
 but it has always seemed to me a needless form of inquiry. 
 What difference does it make, so long as we are obliged 
 to deal with the external world as a reality, whether in 
 itself it is real or imaginary? The true question ought to 
 be, What do we know of matter, and what do we know 
 of mind, as distinguished from it? In Plato's time more 
 was probably known about mind than matter, but Aris- 
 totle soon after gave a powerful impetus to the investiga- 
 tion of physical causes. The truth would seem to be 
 that in the beginning men knew nothing of either, but 
 that we are gradually finding out the quality and attributes 
 of both. All the physical sciences are exemplifications of 
 matter, and help to instruct us what it is in itself. Much 
 has been accomplished in this direction, and much still 
 remains to be done. In like manner the whole science 
 of mathematics, as well as metaphysics and ethics, are 
 illustrative of mind, and instruct us concerning its true 
 nature. We might even assert that he who is not capable 
 of perceiving that mind is a reality as much as the ground 
 under his feet, is not fitted for the study of metaphysics. 
 
180 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 The philosopher who stated that mind and matter are 
 separated by the whole diameter of being, was right in 
 one sense, but does not seem to have realized that they 
 are perpetually in contact, and often so closely united that 
 many well educated persons are unable to think of them 
 separately. 
 
 The novelty of Spencer's philosophy is his introduction 
 of Darwinian evolution as an explanation of the growth 
 and development of intellectual life. This has its value, 
 and there are portions of his work on psychology which 
 no living writer on the subject can afford to disregard; 
 but his attempt in this direction also fails of complete- 
 ness because he passes over the origin of consciousness. 
 That marks a barrier between man and the brute, which 
 no scheme of physical evolution can explain; for physical 
 evolution is not in any manner required for it. The Dar- 
 winian theory serves very well as a physical explanation 
 of the origin of mankind, but it makes his intellectual 
 development all the more difficult to understand. The 
 origin of consciousness probably coincided with the origin 
 of language, for one necessitates the other; and if the 
 intellectual development of the lower animals coincided 
 with their physical development, we should expect to 
 find more highly developed faculties in the family of apes 
 than among dogs and elephants; but the reverse of this 
 would seem to be the case. Would we not also be justified 
 in expecting a higher degree of rudimentary language 
 among apes than other classes of animals? No evidence 
 has been discovered, however, to prove that there is any 
 further communication between apes than between a hen 
 and her chickens. The cries of animals are all interjec- 
 tions, and we have obtained no testimony as yet to show 
 that any animal makes use of a definite sound with 
 reference to a particular object; which, after all, is what 
 
SPACE AND TIME 181 
 
 constitutes language. This is the weak side of the Dar- 
 winian theory, and its advocates in England and America 
 try to avoid it as much as possible. Even if the Darwin- 
 ians succeed in bridging this chasm at a future time, the 
 transition from inorganic to organic matter will still 
 remain to be explained. If we even suppose that the 
 tendency to language and seK-consciousness was involved 
 in the nerve-cells of the very lowest organism, by what 
 means or power did those nerve-cells originally come to 
 exist? This we do not know, nor is it likely that we shall 
 ever discover it, so long as we are mortal men, but it is a 
 metaphysical fact of the highest importance that no 
 student of philosophy can safely disregard. The most 
 elaborate schemes, the most ingenious system of thought, 
 will ultimately come to nothing, unless this element be 
 included. The mathematician is constantly obliged to 
 deal with the infinite and the indeterminate, although he 
 can have but a faint conception of the significance of 
 either. So, likewise, the philosopher is obliged to deal 
 with existence in its twofold form, animate and inanimate 
 and make use of both as factors in his reasoning, although 
 they still remain to him incomprehensible. They are 
 difficult factors to deal with, and make the subject more 
 difficult to understand, but it will not do to shun them or 
 evade the conclusions which they force upon us. 
 
PRAGMATISM 
 
 THE eighteenth century was an age of skepticism 
 in France, and of a struggle between skepticism 
 and reahsm in England, while Germany evolved 
 a strong faith in the ideal, which crossed the 
 Atlantic under the name of transcendentalism. The 
 nineteenth century, however, is chiefly distinguished in 
 metaphysics by its materialistic schools, of which there 
 has been a regular succession, each bearing a definite 
 relation to the time in which it flourished. The first was 
 that of Auguste Comte, who argued that we possessed no 
 true knowledge except what is derived through the senses. 
 It might be termed skepticism based on materialism. The 
 next was the utilitarian school of John Stuart Mill, which 
 corresponded with the great mechanical expansion of that 
 time. After him came Herbert Spencer, who introduced 
 the theory of Darwinian evolution into metaphysics; and 
 since his time there have been materialistic philosophers 
 of every description; but the latest sensation of this kind 
 is the "pragmatism" of Professor William James, which 
 might be described succinctly as materialism based on 
 skepticism. 
 
 In order to understand a writer to the core, we have to 
 know his antecedents. Professor James began life as a 
 physician and served for a time in a lunatic asylum, but 
 he did not like the practice of his profession, and he had no 
 faith in the efficacy of medicine. As in all skeptical 
 natures, he continually shifted from one opinion to another. 
 
 182 
 
PRAGMATISM 183 
 
 He obtained the position of instructor of comparative 
 anatomy at Harvard, in which he developed an excellent 
 talent for lecturing. From this he rose to be assistant 
 professor of English metaphysics, and about the same time 
 he became the intimate friend of the late E. L. Godkin, 
 whom Senator Lodge, who knew him well, describes as a. 
 materialist pure and simple. The union of skepticism 
 and materialism in Professor James thus came about 
 naturally enough, and pragmatism is the final outcome 
 thereof. 
 
 I suppose that "pragmatism," in plain English, means 
 practicality. I do not find that Professor James makes 
 the sense in which he uses it perfectly clear to the general 
 reader. The word is derived from the Greek word " prang- 
 ma, " which our author translates incorrectly as "action" 
 — an abstract idea; and yet he defines pragmatism as 
 "the attitude of looking away from first principles, cate- 
 gories, supposed necessities, and of looking toward last 
 things, consequences and facts," that is, looking away 
 from the abstract to the concrete, or in other words, 
 from the pragmatic to pragmatism. Is pragmatism right 
 and the pragmatic wrong; or is one more right than the 
 other? If the pragmatic is not a first principle, what 
 kind of a principle is it.? Here we have a deep-seated 
 contradiction at the outset. "Practicality" results ua the 
 impracticable. 
 
 Nothing could be more impracticable than such a dogma 
 — for it is a dogma, although modified by the name of 
 mental attitude. We are told to look away from principles 
 to results; but a carpenter cannot build a fence without 
 having the principles in his mind on which a fence should 
 be constructed. A man cannot succeed in any kind of 
 business unless he acts according to certain rules which 
 serve as the principles of that business; and so it is from 
 
184 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 the lowest to the highest — ^f rom the commonest affairs to 
 law, philosophy, and religion. The principles of mercan- 
 tile business are not the first principles truly, but there 
 must be first principles somewhere. The higher intellec- 
 tual life of man is a perpetual striving for them : — 
 
 "So thou hast immortality in mind; 
 
 Hast grounds which will not let thee doubt it? 
 The best of groimd in this I find. 
 
 That man could never do without it." 
 
 Religious principles are like sheet anchors, which man 
 throws out in the storm and stress of life to save him from 
 drifting into the limitless ocean of disbelief, where no safe 
 harbor awaits him, but only the deadly rocks of despond- 
 ency and total discouragement. This is nothing new that 
 I am saying; but it is better to tell old truths than to invent 
 new subtleties. 
 
 Professor James' treatment of this all-important subject 
 is the cardinal pivot of his philosophy; and what we notice 
 primarily is his lack of reverence, of veneration. Goethe 
 says, the thrill of awe is the best endowment of human 
 nature; but James does not appear to share in this. I do 
 not find the word immortality in the index of his book — 
 that belonged to the ages of superstition; but he says, 
 page 121: "Other than this practical significance, that 
 is, as giving us pragmatic results, the words, God, free-will, 
 design, etc., have no significance." Such expressions as 
 the One, the infinitely perfect, the immutable, omniscient, 
 eternal, have no instructive definition for us. Unless 
 taken pragmatically, "they are a pompous robe of adjec- 
 tives. " Taken pragmatically, however, that is, for what 
 Mr. James calls "their cash value," they serve us off and 
 on to light up the darkness here "in the thicket of life." 
 
PRAGMATISM 185 
 
 And in another place, "Religious ideas are true, so far as 
 they are helpful and improving to us ; " but it is to be feared 
 that after such a disillusioning as this they will not remain 
 helpful very long. Professor James' theology is like the 
 course of the Flying Dutchman, which returns every night 
 over the same distance which it sailed the preceding day. 
 Skepticism serves sometimes an excellent purpose as a 
 disintegrating element, but it never makes any real 
 progress. 
 
 I suppose Prof. James would complain of me, as W. D. 
 Whitney did of Max Miiller, for an unfair use of "garbled 
 extracts," but I honestly believe that I have made his 
 meaning as clear as he has himself. His Browning-like 
 partiality for recondite figures of speech makes him a diffi- 
 cult writer to follow. In this respect he does not resemble 
 Mill and Spencer, who use very clear, simple English. 
 
 Froude said that there never has been any atheism like 
 Roman atheism : but I think there has, and it is the English 
 atheism of the present day, — the atheism of the English 
 rector who told Rev. Mr. Vickers that he was not paid 
 for believing the gospel, but for preaching it. I should 
 be loth to class Mr. James, who is a generous, large-hearted 
 man, in such a list, but he represents them more nearly 
 than any other American writer does. In 1872 Prof. 
 Tyndall, who was an Emersonian, came to Boston, and 
 was invited to deliver a course of lectures at the Lowell 
 Institute. He asked Judge Lowell if Emerson had ever 
 lectured there, and Lowell replied with a decided negative; 
 but the doors of the institute are thrown open to William 
 James, who is much more ultra than Emerson, and 
 fashionable people go there to hear him. Whether they 
 understand what he really means is another question. 
 He is not a metaphysician, but an anti-metaphysician. 
 "Pragmatism" is dedicated to the memory of John Stuart 
 
186 POLITICS AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 Mill, but it is doubtful if Mill, who was of a sincerely 
 religious nature and by no means a pure materialist, 
 would have approved of it. 
 
 An inevitable corollary on pragmatism is that this earth 
 has already seen its best days, the age of the megatherium 
 and the dinornis gigantea. Since then, animal and vege- 
 table life has visibly declined, and nature evidently made a 
 mistake when she created man. 
 
 "Erect as a sunbeam 
 
 Upspringeth the palm, 
 The elephant browses 
 Undaunted and calm. " 
 
 The elephant is a noble, sagacious, and harmless animal. 
 He believes in perfect social equality. He does not make 
 war or torture his fellow creatures. In these respects, as 
 well as in material bulk, the elephant surpasses man; 
 "but," says Elihu in Job, "there is a spirit in man; and 
 the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understand- 
 ing. " This is what St. Paul meant by the birth from 
 above (the spiritual birth) of man; and also what Descartes 
 meant by his "I am, because I think." Professor James 
 would not seem to have gone through this experience ; but 
 I believe his book will do good in an indirect way, by show- 
 ing that materialism taken by itself must lead to atheism 
 and nothing less. Professor James says that matter is 
 infinitely refined. And so it is, in certain cases, but in 
 others it is infinitely nasty. 
 
 Emerson was an idealist with his feet on firm ground. 
 James was a realist drifting in the clouds. 
 
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