No More Learning

With those who, like all the best and wisest of mankind, are
dissatisfied with human life as it is, and whose feelings are wholly
identified with its radical amendment, there are two main regions of
thought. One is the region of ultimate aims; the constituent elements of
the highest realizable ideal of human life. The other is that of the
immediately useful and practically attainable. In both these departments,
I have acquired more from her teaching, than from all other sources
taken together. And, to say truth, it is in these two extremes
principally, that real certainty lies. My own strength lay wholly in the
uncertain and slippery intermediate region, that of theory, or moral and
political science: respecting the conclusions of which, in any of the
forms in which I have received or originated them, whether as political
economy, analytic psychology, logic, philosophy of history, or anything
else, it is not the least of my intellectual obligations to her that I
have derived from her a wise scepticism, which, while it has not
hindered me from following out the honest exercise of my thinking
faculties to whatever conclusions might result from it, has put me on my
guard against holding or announcing these conclusions with a degree of
confidence which the nature of such speculations does not warrant, and
has kept my mind not only open to admit, but prompt to welcome and eager
to seek, even on the questions on which I have most meditated, any
prospect of clearer perceptions and better evidence. I have often
received praise, which in my own right I only partially deserve, for the
greater practicality which is supposed to be found in my writings,
compared with those of most thinkers who have been equally addicted to
large generalizations. The writings in which this quality has been
observed, were not the work of one mind, but of the fusion of two, one
of them as pre-eminently practical in its judgments and perceptions of
things present, as it was high and bold in its anticipations for a
remote futurity. At the present period, however, this influence was only
one among many which were helping to shape the character of my future
development: and even after it became, I may truly say, the presiding
principle of my mental progress, it did not alter the path, but only
made me move forward more boldly, and, at the same time, more
cautiously, in the same course. The only actual revolution which has
ever taken place in my modes of thinking, was already complete. My new
tendencies had to be confirmed in some respects, moderated in others:
but the only substantial changes of opinion that were yet to come,
related to politics, and consisted, on one hand, in a greater
approximation, so far as regards the ultimate prospects of humanity, to
a qualified Socialism, and on the other, a shifting of my political
ideal from pure democracy, as commonly understood by its partisans, to
the modified form of it, which is set forth in my _Considerations on
Representative Government_.

This last change, which took place very gradually, dates its
commencement from my reading, or rather study, of M. de Tocqueville's
_Democracy in America_, which fell into my hands immediately after its
first appearance. In that remarkable work, the excellences of democracy
were pointed out in a more conclusive, because a more specific manner
than I had ever known them to be, even by the most enthusiastic
democrats; while the specific dangers which beset democracy, considered
as the government of the numerical majority, were brought into equally
strong light, and subjected to a masterly analysis, not as reasons for
resisting what the author considered as an inevitable result of human
progress, but as indications of the weak points of popular government,
the defences by which it needs to be guarded, and the correctives which
must be added to it in order that while full play is given to its
beneficial tendencies, those which are of a different nature may be
neutralized or mitigated. I was now well prepared for speculations of
this character, and from this time onward my own thoughts moved more and
more in the same channel, though the consequent modifications in my
practical political creed were spread over many years, as would be shown
by comparing my first review of _Democracy in America_, written and
published in 1835, with the one in 1840 (reprinted in the _Dissertations_),
and this last, with the _Considerations on Representative Government_.

A collateral subject on which also I derived great benefit from the
study of Tocqueville, was the fundamental question of centralization.
The powerful philosophic analysis which he applied to American and to
French experience, led him to attach the utmost importance to the
performance of as much of the collective business of society, as can
safely be so performed, by the people themselves, without any
intervention of the executive government, either to supersede their
agency, or to dictate the manner of its exercise. He viewed this
practical political activity of the individual citizen, not only as one
of the most effectual means of training the social feelings and
practical intelligence of the people, so important in themselves and so
indispensable to good government, but also as the specific counteractive
to some of the characteristic infirmities of democracy, and a necessary
protection against its degenerating into the only despotism of which, in
the modern world, there is real danger--the absolute rule of the head
of the executive over a congregation of isolated individuals, all equals
but all slaves. There was, indeed, no immediate peril from this source
on the British side of the channel, where nine-tenths of the internal
business which elsewhere devolves on the government, was transacted by
agencies independent of it; where centralization was, and is, the
subject not only of rational disapprobation, but of unreasoning
prejudice; where jealousy of Government interference was a blind feeling
preventing or resisting even the most beneficial exertion of legislative
authority to correct the abuses of what pretends to be local
self-government, but is, too often, selfish mismanagement of local
interests, by a jobbing and _borne_ local oligarchy. But the more
certain the public were to go wrong on the side opposed to
centralization, the greater danger was there lest philosophic reformers
should fall into the contrary error, and overlook the mischiefs of which
they had been spared the painful experience. I was myself, at this very
time, actively engaged in defending important measures, such as the
great Poor Law Reform of 1834, against an irrational clamour grounded on
the anti-centralization prejudice: and had it not been for the lessons
of Tocqueville, I do not know that I might not, like many reformers
before me, have been hurried into the excess opposite to that, which,
being the one prevalent in my own country, it was generally my business
to combat. As it is, I have steered carefully between the two errors,
and whether I have or have not drawn the line between them exactly in
the right place, I have at least insisted with equal emphasis upon the
evils on both sides, and have made the means of reconciling the
advantages of both, a subject of serious study.

In the meanwhile had taken place the election of the first Reformed
Parliament, which included several of the most notable of my Radical
friends and acquaintances--Grote, Roebuck, Buller, Sir William
Molesworth, John and Edward Romilly, and several more; besides
Warburton, Strutt, and others, who were in parliament already. Those who
thought themselves, and were called by their friends, the philosophic
Radicals, had now, it seemed, a fair opportunity, in a more advantageous
position than they had ever before occupied, for showing what was in
them; and I, as well as my father, founded great hopes on them. These
hopes were destined to be disappointed. The men were honest, and
faithful to their opinions, as far as votes were concerned; often in
spite of much discouragement. When measures were proposed, flagrantly at
variance with their principles, such as the Irish Coercion Bill, or the
Canada Coercion in 1837, they came forward manfully, and braved any
amount of hostility and prejudice rather than desert the right. But on
the whole they did very little to promote any opinions; they had little
enterprise, little activity: they left the lead of the Radical portion
of the House to the old hands, to Hume and O'Connell. A partial
exception must be made in favour of one or two of the younger men; and
in the case of Roebuck, it is his title to permanent remembrance, that
in the very first year during which he sat in Parliament, he originated
(or re-originated after the unsuccessful attempt of Mr. Brougham) the
parliamentary movement for National Education; and that he was the first
to commence, and for years carried on almost alone, the contest for the
self-government of the Colonies. Nothing, on the whole equal to these
two things, was done by any other individual, even of those from whom
most was expected. And now, on a calm retrospect, I can perceive that
the men were less in fault than we supposed, and that we had expected
too much from them. They were in unfavourable circumstances. Their lot
was cast in the ten years of inevitable reaction, when, the Reform
excitement being over, and the few legislative improvements which the
public really called for having been rapidly effected, power gravitated
back in its natural direction, to those who were for keeping things as
they were; when the public mind desired rest, and was less disposed than
at any other period since the Peace, to let itself be moved by attempts
to work up the Reform feeling into fresh activity in favour of new
things. It would have required a great political leader, which no one is
to be blamed for not being, to have effected really great things by
parliamentary discussion when the nation was in this mood. My father and
I had hoped that some competent leader might arise; some man of
philosophic attainments and popular talents, who could have put heart
into the many younger or less distinguished men that would have been
ready to join him--could have made them available, to the extent of
their talents, in bringing advanced ideas before the public--could
have used the House of Commons as a rostra or a teacher's chair for
instructing and impelling the public mind; and would either have forced
the Whigs to receive their measures from him, or have taken the lead of
the Reform party out of their hands. Such a leader there would have
been, if my father had been in Parliament. For want of such a man, the
instructed Radicals sank into a mere _Cote Gauche_ of the Whig party.
With a keen, and as I now think, an exaggerated sense of the
possibilities which were open to the Radicals if they made even ordinary
exertion for their opinions, I laboured from this time till 1839, both
by personal influence with some of them, and by writings, to put ideas
into their heads, and purpose into their hearts. I did some good with
Charles Buller, and some with Sir William Molesworth; both of whom did
valuable service, but were unhappily cut off almost in the beginning of
their usefulness. On the whole, however, my attempt was vain. To have
had a chance of succeeding in it, required a different position from
mine. It was a task only for one who, being himself in Parliament, could
have mixed with the Radical members in daily consultation, could himself
have taken the initiative, and instead of urging others to lead, could
have summoned them to follow.

What I could do by writing, I did. During the year 1833 I continued
working in the _Examiner_ with Fonblanque who at that time was zealous
in keeping up the fight for Radicalism against the Whig ministry. During
the session of 1834 I wrote comments on passing events, of the nature of
newspaper articles (under the title "Notes on the Newspapers"), in the
_Monthly Repository_, a magazine conducted by Mr. Fox, well known as a
preacher and political orator, and subsequently as member of parliament
for Oldham; with whom I had lately become acquainted, and for whose sake
chiefly I wrote in his magazine. I contributed several other articles
to this periodical, the most considerable of which (on the theory of
Poetry), is reprinted in the "Dissertations. " Altogether, the writings
(independently of those in newspapers) which I published from 1832 to
1834, amount to a large volume. This, however, includes abstracts of
several of Plato's Dialogues, with introductory remarks, which, though
not published until 1834, had been written several years earlier; and
which I afterwards, on various occasions, found to have been read, and
their authorship known, by more people than were aware of anything else
which I had written, up to that time. To complete the tale of my
writings at this period, I may add that in 1833, at the request of
Bulwer, who was just then completing his _England and the English_ (a
work, at that time, greatly in advance of the public mind), I wrote for
him a critical account of Bentham's philosophy, a small part of which
he incorporated in his text, and printed the rest (with an honourable
acknowledgment), as an appendix. In this, along with the favourable,
a part also of the unfavourable side of my estimation of Bentham's
doctrines, considered as a complete philosophy, was for the first time
put into print.

But an opportunity soon offered, by which, as it seemed, I might have it
in my power to give more effectual aid, and at the same time, stimulus,
to the "philosophic Radical" party, than I had done hitherto. One of the
projects occasionally talked of between my father and me, and some of
the parliamentary and other Radicals who frequented his house, was the
foundation of a periodical organ of philosophic radicalism, to take the
place which the _Westminster Review_ had been intended to fill: and the
scheme had gone so far as to bring under discussion the pecuniary
contributions which could be looked for, and the choice of an editor.
Nothing, however, came of it for some time: but in the summer of 1834
Sir William Molesworth, himself a laborious student, and a precise and
metaphysical thinker, capable of aiding the cause by his pen as well as
by his purse, spontaneously proposed to establish a Review, provided I
would consent to be the real, if I could not be the ostensible, editor.
Such a proposal was not to be refused; and the Review was founded, at
first under the title of the _London Review_, and afterwards under that
of the _London and Westminster_, Molesworth having bought the
_Westminster_ from its proprietor, General Thompson, and merged the two
into one. In the years between 1834 and 1840 the conduct of this Review
occupied the greater part of my spare time. In the beginning, it did
not, as a whole, by any means represent my opinions. I was under the
necessity of conceding much to my inevitable associates. The _Review_
was established to be the representative of the "philosophic Radicals,"
with most of whom I was now at issue on many essential points, and among
whom I could not even claim to be the most important individual. My
father's co-operation as a writer we all deemed indispensable, and he
wrote largely in it until prevented by his last illness. The subjects of
his articles, and the strength and decision with which his opinions were
expressed in them, made the _Review_ at first derive its tone and
colouring from him much more than from any of the other writers. I could
not exercise editorial control over his articles, and I was sometimes
obliged to sacrifice to him portions of my own. The old _Westminster
Review_ doctrines, but little modified, thus formed the staple of the
_Review_; but I hoped by the side of these, to introduce other ideas and
another tone, and to obtain for my own shade of opinion a fair
representation, along with those of other members of the party. With
this end chiefly in view, I made it one of the peculiarities of the work
that every article should bear an initial, or some other signature, and
be held to express the opinions solely of the individual writer; the
editor being only responsible for its being worth publishing and not in
conflict with the objects for which the _Review_ was set on foot. I had
an opportunity of putting in practice my scheme of conciliation between
the old and the new "philosophic radicalism," by the choice of a subject
for my own first contribution. Professor Sedgwick, a man of eminence in
a particular walk of natural science, but who should not have trespassed
into philosophy, had lately published his _Discourse on the Studies of
Cambridge_, which had as its most prominent feature an intemperate
assault on analytic psychology and utilitarian ethics, in the form of an
attack on Locke and Paley. This had excited great indignation in my
father and others, which I thought it fully deserved. And here, I
imagined, was an opportunity of at the same time repelling an unjust
attack, and inserting into my defence of Hartleianism and Utilitarianism
a number of the opinions which constituted my view of those subjects, as
distinguished from that of my old associates. In this I partially
succeeded, though my relation to my father would have made it painful to
me in any case, and impossible in a Review for which he wrote, to speak
out my whole mind on the subject at this time.

I am, however, inclined to think that my father was not so much opposed
as he seemed, to the modes of thought in which I believed myself to
differ from him; that he did injustice to his own opinions by the
unconscious exaggerations of an intellect emphatically polemical; and
that when thinking without an adversary in view, he was willing to make
room for a great portion of the truths he seemed to deny. I have
frequently observed that he made large allowance in practice for
considerations which seemed to have no place in his theory. His
_Fragment on Mackintosh_, which he wrote and published about this time,
although I greatly admired some parts of it, I read as a whole with more
pain than pleasure; yet on reading it again, long after, I found little
in the opinions it contains, but what I think in the main just; and I
can even sympathize in his disgust at the _verbiage_ of Mackintosh,
though his asperity towards it went not only beyond what was judicious,
but beyond what was even fair. One thing, which I thought, at the time,
of good augury, was the very favourable reception he gave to
Tocqueville's _Democracy in America_. It is true, he said and thought
much more about what Tocqueville said in favour of democracy, than about
what he said of its disadvantages. Still, his high appreciation of a
book which was at any rate an example of a mode of treating the question
of government almost the reverse of his--wholly inductive and analytical,
instead of purely ratiocinative--gave me great encouragement. He also
approved of an article which I published in the first number following
the junction of the two reviews, the essay reprinted in the _Dissertations_,
under the title "Civilization"; into which I threw many of my new opinions,
and criticised rather emphatically the mental and moral tendencies of the
time, on grounds and in a manner which I certainly had not learnt from him.

All speculation, however, on the possible future developments of my
father's opinions, and on the probabilities of permanent co-operation
between him and me in the promulgation of our thoughts, was doomed to be
cut short. During the whole of 1835 his health had been declining: his
symptoms became unequivocally those of pulmonary consumption, and after
lingering to the last stage of debility, he died on the 23rd of June,
1836. Until the last few days of his life there was no apparent
abatement of intellectual vigour; his interest in all things and persons
that had interested him through life was undiminished, nor did the
approach of death cause the smallest wavering (as in so strong and firm
a mind it was impossible that it should) in his convictions on the
subject of religion. His principal satisfaction, after he knew that his
end was near, seemed to be the thought of what he had done to make the
world better than he found it; and his chief regret in not living
longer, that he had not had time to do more.

His place is an eminent one in the literary, and even in the political
history of his country; and it is far from honourable to the generation
which has benefited by his worth, that he is so seldom mentioned, and,
compared with men far his inferiors, so little remembered. This is
probably to be ascribed mainly to two causes. In the first place, the
thought of him merges too much in the deservedly superior fame of
Bentham. Yet he was anything but Bentham's mere follower or disciple.
Precisely because he was himself one of the most original thinkers of
his time, he was one of the earliest to appreciate and adopt the most
important mass of original thought which had been produced by the
generation preceding him. His mind and Bentham's were essentially of
different construction. He had not all Bentham's high qualities, but
neither had Bentham all his. It would, indeed, be ridiculous to claim
for him the praise of having accomplished for mankind such splendid
services as Bentham's. He did not revolutionize, or rather create, one
of the great departments of human thought. But, leaving out of the
reckoning all that portion of his labours in which he benefited by what
Bentham had done, and counting only what he achieved in a province in
which Bentham had done nothing, that of analytic psychology, he will be
known to posterity as one of the greatest names in that most important
branch of speculation, on which all the moral and political sciences
ultimately rest, and will mark one of the essential stages in its
progress. The other reason which has made his fame less than he
deserved, is that notwithstanding the great number of his opinions
which, partly through his own efforts, have now been generally adopted,
there was, on the whole, a marked opposition between his spirit and that
of the present time. As Brutus was called the last of the Romans, so was
he the last of the eighteenth century: he continued its tone of thought
and sentiment into the nineteenth (though not unmodified nor
unimproved), partaking neither in the good nor in the bad influences of
the reaction against the eighteenth century, which was the great
characteristic of the first half of the nineteenth. The eighteenth
century was a great age, an age of strong and brave men, and he was a
fit companion for its strongest and bravest. By his writings and his
personal influence he was a great centre of light to his generation.
During his later years he was quite as much the head and leader of the
intellectual radicals in England, as Voltaire was of the _philosophes_
of France. It is only one of his minor merits, that he was the
originator of all sound statesmanship in regard to the subject of his
largest work, India. He wrote on no subject which he did not enrich with
valuable thought, and excepting the _Elements of Political Economy_, a
very useful book when first written, but which has now for some time
finished its work, it will be long before any of his books will be
wholly superseded, or will cease to be instructive reading to students
of their subjects. In the power of influencing by mere force of mind and
character, the convictions and purposes of others, and in the strenuous
exertion of that power to promote freedom and progress, he left, as far
as my knowledge extends, no equal among men and but one among women.

Though acutely sensible of my own inferiority in the qualities by which
he acquired his personal ascendancy, I had now to try what it might be
possible for me to accomplish without him: and the _Review_ was the
instrument on which I built my chief hopes of establishing a useful
influence over the liberal and democratic section of the public mind.
Deprived of my father's aid, I was also exempted from the restraints and
reticences by which that aid had been purchased. I did not feel that
there was any other radical writer or politician to whom I was bound to
defer, further than consisted with my own opinions: and having the
complete confidence of Molesworth, I resolved henceforth to give full
scope to my own opinions and modes of thought, and to open the _Review_
widely to all writers who were in sympathy with Progress as I understood
it, even though I should lose by it the support of my former associates.
Carlyle, consequently became from this time a frequent writer in the
_Review_; Sterling, soon after, an occasional one; and though each
individual article continued to be the expression of the private
sentiments of its writer, the general tone conformed in some tolerable
degree to my opinions. For the conduct of the _Review_, under, and in
conjunction with me, I associated with myself a young Scotchman of the
name of Robertson, who had some ability and information, much industry,
and an active scheming head, full of devices for making the _Review_
more saleable, and on whose capacities in that direction I founded a
good deal of hope: insomuch, that when Molesworth, in the beginning of
1837, became tired of carrying on the _Review_ at a loss, and desirous
of getting rid of it (he had done his part honourably, and at no small
pecuniary cost,) I, very imprudently for my own pecuniary interest, and
very much from reliance on Robertson's devices, determined to continue
it at my own risk, until his plans should have had a fair trial. The
devices were good, and I never had any reason to change my opinion of
them. But I do not believe that any devices would have made a radical
and democratic review defray its expenses, including a paid editor or
sub-editor, and a liberal payment to writers. I myself and several
frequent contributors gave our labour gratuitously, as we had done for
Molesworth; but the paid contributors continued to be remunerated on the
usual scale of the _Edinburgh_ and _Quarterly Reviews_; and this could
not be done from the proceeds of the sale.

In the same year, 1837, and in the midst of these occupations, I resumed
the _Logic_. I had not touched my pen on the subject for five years,
having been stopped and brought to a halt on the threshold of Induction.
I had gradually discovered that what was mainly wanting, to overcome the
difficulties of that branch of the subject, was a comprehensive, and, at
the same time, accurate view of the whole circle of physical science,
which I feared it would take me a long course of study to acquire; since
I knew not of any book, or other guide, that would spread out before me
the generalities and processes of the sciences, and I apprehended that I
should have no choice but to extract them for myself, as I best could,
from the details. Happily for me, Dr. Whewell, early in this year,
published his _History of the Inductive Sciences_. I read it with
eagerness, and found in it a considerable approximation to what I
wanted. Much, if not most, of the philosophy of the work appeared open
to objection; but the materials were there, for my own thoughts to work
upon: and the author had given to those materials that first degree of
elaboration, which so greatly facilitates and abridges the subsequent
labour. I had now obtained what I had been waiting for. Under the
impulse given me by the thoughts excited by Dr. Whewell, I read again
Sir J. Herschel's _Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy_: and I
was able to measure the progress my mind had made, by the great help I
now found in this work--though I had read and even reviewed it several
years before with little profit. I now set myself vigorously to work out
the subject in thought and in writing. The time I bestowed on this had
to be stolen from occupations more urgent. I had just two months to
spare, at this period, in the intervals of writing for the _Review_. In
these two months I completed the first draft of about a third, the most
difficult third, of the book. What I had before written, I estimate at
another third, so that one-third remained. What I wrote at this time
consisted of the remainder of the doctrine of Reasoning (the theory of
Trains of Reasoning, and Demonstrative Science), and the greater part of
the Book on Induction. When this was done, I had, as it seemed to me,
untied all the really hard knots, and the completion of the book had
become only a question of time. Having got thus far, I had to leave off
in order to write two articles for the next number of the _Review_. When
these were written, I returned to the subject, and now for the first
time fell in with Comte's _Cours de Philosophie Positive_, or rather
with the two volumes of it which were all that had at that time been
published. My theory of Induction was substantially completed before I
knew of Comte's book; and it is perhaps well that I came to it by a
different road from his, since the consequence has been that my treatise
contains, what his certainly does not, a reduction of the inductive
process to strict rules and to a scientific test, such as the syllogism
is for ratiocination. Comte is always precise and profound on the method
of investigation, but he does not even attempt any exact definition of
the conditions of proof: and his writings show that he never attained a
just conception of them. This, however, was specifically the problem,
which, in treating of Induction, I had proposed to myself. Nevertheless,
I gained much from Comte, with which to enrich my chapters in the
subsequent rewriting: and his book was of essential service to me in
some of the parts which still remained to be thought out. As his
subsequent volumes successively made their appearance, I read them with
avidity, but, when he reached the subject of Social Science, with
varying feelings. The fourth volume disappointed me: it contained those
of his opinions on social subjects with which I most disagree. But the
fifth, containing the connected view of history, rekindled all my
enthusiasm; which the sixth (or concluding) volume did not materially
abate. In a merely logical point of view, the only leading conception
for which I am indebted to him is that of the Inverse Deductive Method,
as the one chiefly applicable to the complicated subjects of History and
Statistics: a process differing from the more common form of the
deductive method in this--that instead of arriving at its conclusions
by general reasoning, and verifying them by specific experience (as is
the natural order in the deductive branches of physical science), it
obtains its generalizations by a collation of specific experience, and
verifies them by ascertaining whether they are such as would follow from
known general principles. This was an idea entirely new to me when I
found it in Comte: and but for him I might not soon (if ever) have
arrived at it.

I had been long an ardent admirer of Comte's writings before I had any
communication with himself; nor did I ever, to the last, see him in the
body. But for some years we were frequent correspondents, until our
correspondence became controversial, and our zeal cooled. I was the
first to slacken correspondence; he was the first to drop it. I found,
and he probably found likewise, that I could do no good to his mind, and
that all the good he could do to mine, he did by his books. This would
never have led to discontinuance of intercourse, if the differences
between us had been on matters of simple doctrine. But they were chiefly
on those points of opinion which blended in both of us with our
strongest feelings, and determined the entire direction of our
aspirations. I had fully agreed with him when he maintained that the
mass of mankind, including even their rulers in all the practical
departments of life, must, from the necessity of the case, accept most
of their opinions on political and social matters, as they do on
physical, from the authority of those who have bestowed more study on
those subjects than they generally have it in their power to do. This
lesson had been strongly impressed on me by the early work of Comte, to
which I have adverted. And there was nothing in his great Treatise which
I admired more than his remarkable exposition of the benefits which the
nations of modern Europe have historically derived from the separation,
during the Middle Ages, of temporal and spiritual power, and the
distinct organization of the latter. I agreed with him that the moral
and intellectual ascendancy, once exercised by priests, must in time
pass into the hands of philosophers, and will naturally do so when they
become sufficiently unanimous, and in other respects worthy to possess
it. But when he exaggerated this line of thought into a practical
system, in which philosophers were to be organized into a kind of
corporate hierarchy, invested with almost the same spiritual supremacy
(though without any secular power) once possessed by the Catholic
Church; when I found him relying on this spiritual authority as the only
security for good government, the sole bulwark against practical
oppression, and expecting that by it a system of despotism in the state
and despotism in the family would be rendered innocuous and beneficial;
it is not surprising, that while as logicians we were nearly at one, as
sociologists we could travel together no further. M. Comte lived to
carry out these doctrines to their extremest consequences, by planning,
in his last work, the _Systeme de Politique Positive_, the completest
system of spiritual and temporal despotism which ever yet emanated from
a human brain, unless possibly that of Ignatius Loyola: a system by
which the yoke of general opinion, wielded by an organized body of
spiritual teachers and rulers, would be made supreme over every action,
and as far as is in human possibility, every thought, of every member of
the community, as well in the things which regard only himself, as in
those which concern the interests of others. It is but just to say that
this work is a considerable improvement, in many points of feeling, over
Comte's previous writings on the same subjects: but as an accession to
social philosophy, the only value it seems to me to possess, consists in
putting an end to the notion that no effectual moral authority can be
maintained over society without the aid of religious belief; for Comte's
work recognises no religion except that of Humanity, yet it leaves an
irresistible conviction that any moral beliefs concurred in by the
community generally may be brought to bear upon the whole conduct and
lives of its individual members, with an energy and potency truly
alarming to think of. The book stands a monumental warning to thinkers
on society and politics, of what happens when once men lose sight, in
their speculations, of the value of Liberty and of Individuality.

To return to myself. The _Review_ engrossed, for some time longer,
nearly all the time I could devote to authorship, or to thinking with
authorship in view. The articles from the _London and Westminster
Review_ which are reprinted in the _Dissertations_, are scarcely a
fourth part of those I wrote. In the conduct of the _Review_ I had two
principal objects. One was to free philosophic radicalism from the
reproach of sectarian Benthamism. I desired, while retaining the
precision of expression, the definiteness of meaning, the contempt of
declamatory phrases and vague generalities, which were so honourably
characteristic both of Bentham and of my father, to give a wider basis
and a more free and genial character to Radical speculations; to show
that there was a Radical philosophy, better and more complete than
Bentham's, while recognizing and incorporating all of Bentham's which is
permanently valuable. In this first object I, to a certain extent,
succeeded. The other thing I attempted, was to stir up the educated
Radicals, in and out of Parliament, to exertion, and induce them to make
themselves, what I thought by using the proper means they might become
--a powerful party capable of taking the government of the country, or
at least of dictating the terms on which they should share it with the
Whigs. This attempt was from the first chimerical: partly because the
time was unpropitious, the Reform fervour being in its period of ebb,
and the Tory influences powerfully rallying; but still more, because, as
Austin so truly said, "the country did not contain the men. " Among the
Radicals in Parliament there were several qualified to be useful members
of an enlightened Radical party, but none capable of forming and leading
such a party. The exhortations I addressed to them found no response.
One occasion did present itself when there seemed to be room for a bold
and successful stroke for Radicalism. Lord Durham had left the ministry,
by reason, as was thought, of their not being sufficiently Liberal; he
afterwards accepted from them the task of ascertaining and removing the
causes of the Canadian rebellion; he had shown a disposition to surround
himself at the outset with Radical advisers; one of his earliest
measures, a good measure both in intention and in effect, having been
disapproved and reversed by the Government at home, he had resigned his
post, and placed himself openly in a position of quarrel with the
Ministers. Here was a possible chief for a Radical party in the person
of a man of importance, who was hated by the Tories and had just been
injured by the Whigs. Any one who had the most elementary notions of
party tactics, must have attempted to make something of such an
opportunity. Lord Durham was bitterly attacked from all sides, inveighed
against by enemies, given up by timid friends; while those who would
willingly have defended him did not know what to say. He appeared to be
returning a defeated and discredited man. I had followed the Canadian
events from the beginning; I had been one of the prompters of his
prompters; his policy was almost exactly what mine would have been, and
I was in a position to defend it. I wrote and published a manifesto in
the _Review_, in which I took the very highest ground in his behalf,
claiming for him not mere acquittal, but praise and honour. Instantly a
number of other writers took up the tone: I believe there was a portion
of truth in what Lord Durham, soon after, with polite exaggeration, said
to me--that to this article might be ascribed the almost triumphal
reception which he met with on his arrival in England. I believe it to
have been the word in season, which, at a critical moment, does much to
decide the result; the touch which determines whether a stone, set in
motion at the top of an eminence, shall roll down on one side or on the
other. All hopes connected with Lord Durham as a politician soon
vanished; but with regard to Canadian, and generally to colonial policy,
the cause was gained: Lord Durham's report, written by Charles Buller,
partly under the inspiration of Wakefield, began a new era; its
recommendations, extending to complete internal self-government, were in
full operation in Canada within two or three years, and have been since
extended to nearly all the other colonies, of European race, which have
any claim to the character of important communities. And I may say that
in successfully upholding the reputation of Lord Durham and his advisers
at the most important moment, I contributed materially to this result.

One other case occurred during my conduct of the _Review_, which
similarly illustrated the effect of taking a prompt initiative. I
believe that the early success and reputation of Carlyle's _French
Revolution_, were considerably accelerated by what I wrote about it in
the _Review_. Immediately on its publication, and before the commonplace
critics, all whose rules and modes of judgment it set at defiance, had
time to pre-occupy the public with their disapproval of it, I wrote and
published a review of the book, hailing it as one of those productions
of genius which are above all rules, and are a law to themselves.
Neither in this case nor in that of Lord Durham do I ascribe the
impression, which I think was produced by what I wrote, to any
particular merit of execution: indeed, in at least one of the cases (the
article on Carlyle) I do not think the execution was good. And in both
instances, I am persuaded that anybody, in a position to be read, who
had expressed the same opinion at the same precise time, and had made
any tolerable statement of the just grounds for it, would have produced
the same effect. But, after the complete failure of my hopes of putting
a new life into Radical politics by means of the _Review_, I am glad to
look back on these two instances of success in an honest attempt to do
mediate service to things and persons that deserved it. After the last
hope of the formation of a Radical party had disappeared, it was time
for me to stop the heavy expenditure of time and money which the
_Review_ cost me. It had to some extent answered my personal purpose as
a vehicle for my opinions. It had enabled me to express in print much of
my altered mode of thought, and to separate myself in a marked manner
from the narrower Benthamism of my early writings. This was done by the
general tone of all I wrote, including various purely literary articles,
but especially by the two papers (reprinted in the _Dissertations_)
which attempted a philosophical estimate of Bentham and of Coleridge. In
the first of these, while doing full justice to the merits of Bentham, I
pointed out what I thought the errors and deficiencies of his
philosophy. The substance of this criticism _I_ still think perfectly
just; but I have sometimes doubted whether it was right to publish it at
that time. I have often felt that Bentham's philosophy, as an instrument
of progress, has been to some extent discredited before it had done its
work, and that to lend a hand towards lowering its reputation was doing
more harm than service to improvement. Now, however, when a
counter-reaction appears to be setting in towards what is good in
Benthamism, I can look with more satisfaction on this criticism of its
defects, especially as I have myself balanced it by vindications of the
fundamental principles of Bentham's philosophy, which are reprinted
along with it in the same collection. In the essay on Coleridge I
attempted to characterize the European reaction against the negative
philosophy of the eighteenth century: and here, if the effect only of
this one paper were to be considered, I might be thought to have erred
by giving undue prominence to the favourable side, as I had done in the
case of Bentham to the unfavourable. In both cases, the impetus with
which I had detached myself from what was untenable in the doctrines of
Bentham and of the eighteenth century, may have carried me, though in
appearance rather than in reality, too far on the contrary side. But as
far as relates to the article on Coleridge, my defence is, that I was
writing for Radicals and Liberals, and it was my business to dwell most
on that, in writers of a different school, from the knowledge of which
they might derive most improvement.

The number of the _Review_ which contained the paper on Coleridge, was
the last which was published during my proprietorship. In the spring of
1840 I made over the _Review_ to Mr. Hickson, who had been a frequent
and very useful unpaid contributor under my management: only stipulating
that the change should be marked by a resumption of the old name, that
of _Westminster Review_. Under that name Mr. Hickson conducted it for
ten years, on the plan of dividing among contributors only the net
proceeds of the _Review_ giving his own labour as writer and editor
gratuitously. Under the difficulty in obtaining writers, which arose
from this low scale of payment, it is highly creditable to him that he
was able to maintain, in some tolerable degree, the character of the
_Review_ as an organ of radicalism and progress. I did not cease
altogether to write for the _Review_, but continued to send it
occasional contributions, not, however, exclusively; for the greater
circulation of the _Edinburgh Review_ induced me from this time to offer
articles to it also when I had anything to say for which it appeared to
be a suitable vehicle. And the concluding volumes of _Democracy in
America_, having just then come out, I inaugurated myself as a
contributor to the _Edinburgh_, by the article on that work, which heads
the second volume of the _Dissertations_.




CHAPTER VII.
GENERAL VIEW OF THE REMAINDER OF MY LIFE.


From this time, what is worth relating of my life will come into a very
small compass; for I have no further mental changes to tell of, but
only, as I hope, a continued mental progress; which does not admit of a
consecutive history, and the results of which, if real, will be best
found in my writings. I shall, therefore, greatly abridge the chronicle
of my subsequent years.

The first use I made of the leisure which I gained by disconnecting
myself from the _Review_, was to finish the _Logic_. In July and August,
1838, I had found an interval in which to execute what was still undone
of the original draft of the Third Book. In working out the logical
theory of those laws of nature which are not laws of Causation, nor
corollaries from such laws, I was led to recognize kinds as realities in
nature, and not mere distinctions for convenience; a light which I had
not obtained when the First Book was written, and which made it
necessary for me to modify and enlarge several chapters of that Book.
The Book on Language and Classification, and the chapter on the
Classification of Fallacies, were drafted in the autumn of the same
year; the remainder of the work, in the summer and autumn of 1840. From
April following to the end of 1841, my spare time was devoted to a
complete rewriting of the book from its commencement. It is in this way
that all my books have been composed. They were always written at least
twice over; a first draft of the entire work was completed to the very
end of the subject, then the whole begun again _de novo_; but
incorporating, in the second writing, all sentences and parts of
sentences of the old draft, which appeared as suitable to my purpose as
anything which I could write in lieu of them. I have found great
advantages in this system of double redaction. It combines, better than
any other mode of composition, the freshness and vigour of the first
conception, with the superior precision and completeness resulting from
prolonged thought. In my own case, moreover, I have found that the
patience necessary for a careful elaboration of the details of
composition and expression, costs much less effort after the entire
subject has been once gone through, and the substance of all that I find
to say has in some manner, however imperfect, been got upon paper. The
only thing which I am careful, in the first draft, to make as perfect as
I am able, is the arrangement. If that is bad, the whole thread on which
the ideas string themselves becomes twisted; thoughts placed in a wrong
connection are not expounded in a manner that suits the right, and a
first draft with this original vice is next to useless as a foundation
for the final treatment.

During the re-writing of the _Logic_, Dr. Whewell's _Philosophy of the
Inductive Sciences_ made its appearance; a circumstance fortunate for
me, as it gave me what I greatly desired, a full treatment of the
subject by an antagonist, and enabled me to present my ideas with
greater clearness and emphasis as well as fuller and more varied
development, in defending them against definite objections, or
confronting them distinctly with an opposite theory. The controversies
with Dr. Whewell, as well as much matter derived from Comte, were first
introduced into the book in the course of the re-writing.

At the end of 1841, the book being ready for the press, I offered it to
Murray, who kept it until too late for publication that season, and then
refused it, for reasons which could just as well have been given at
first. But I have had no cause to regret a rejection which led to my
offering it to Mr. Parker, by whom it was published in the spring of
1843. My original expectations of success were extremely limited.
Archbishop Whately had, indeed, rehabilitated the name of Logic, and the
study of the forms, rules, and fallacies of Ratiocination; and Dr.
Whewell's writings had begun to excite an interest in the other part of
my subject, the theory of Induction. A treatise, however, on a matter so
abstract, could not be expected to be popular; it could only be a book
for students, and students on such subjects were not only (at least in
England) few, but addicted chiefly to the opposite school of
metaphysics, the ontological and "innate principles" school. I therefore
did not expect that the book would have many readers, or approvers; and
looked for little practical effect from it, save that of keeping the
tradition unbroken of what I thought a better philosophy. What hopes I
had of exciting any immediate attention, were mainly grounded on the
polemical propensities of Dr Whewell; who, I thought, from observation
of his conduct in other cases, would probably do something to bring the
book into notice, by replying, and that promptly, to the attack on his
opinions. He did reply but not till 1850, just in time for me to answer
him in the third edition. How the book came to have, for a work of the
kind, so much success, and what sort of persons compose the bulk of
those who have bought, I will not venture to say read, it, I have never
thoroughly understood. But taken in conjunction with the many proofs
which have since been given of a revival of speculation, speculation too
of a free kind, in many quarters, and above all (where at one time I
should have least expected it) in the Universities, the fact becomes
partially intelligible. I have never indulged the illusion that the book
had made any considerable impression on philosophical opinion. The
German, or _a priori_ view of human knowledge, and of the knowing
faculties, is likely for some time longer (though it may be hoped in a
diminishing degree) to predominate among those who occupy themselves
with such inquiries, both here and on the Continent. But the "System of
Logic" supplies what was much wanted, a text-book of the opposite
doctrine--that which derives all knowledge from experience, and all
moral and intellectual qualities principally from the direction given to
the associations. I make as humble an estimate as anybody of what either
an analysis of logical processes, or any possible canons of evidence,
can do by themselves towards guiding or rectifying the operations of the
understanding. Combined with other requisites, I certainly do think them
of great use; but whatever may be the practical value of a true
philosophy of these matters, it is hardly possible to exaggerate the
mischiefs of a false one. The notion that truths external to the mind
may be known by intuition or consciousness, independently of observation
and experience, is, I am persuaded, in these times, the great
intellectual support of false doctrines and bad institutions. By the aid
of this theory, every inveterate belief and every intense feeling, of
which the origin is not remembered, is enabled to dispense with the
obligation of justifying itself by reason, and is erected into its own
all-sufficient voucher and justification. There never was such an
instrument devised for consecrating all deep-seated prejudices. And the
chief strength of this false philosophy in morals, politics, and
religion, lies in the appeal which it is accustomed to make to the
evidence of mathematics and of the cognate branches of physical science.
To expel it from these, is to drive it from its stronghold: and because
this had never been effectually done, the intuitive school, even after
what my father had written in his _Analysis of the Mind_, had in
appearance, and as far as published writings were concerned, on the
whole the best of the argument. In attempting to clear up the real
nature of the evidence of mathematical and physical truths, the _System
of Logic_ met the intuitive philosophers on ground on which they had
previously been deemed unassailable; and gave its own explanation, from
experience and association, of that peculiar character of what are
called necessary truths, which is adduced as proof that their evidence
must come from a deeper source than experience. Whether this has been
done effectually, is still _sub judice_; and even then, to deprive a
mode of thought so strongly rooted in human prejudices and partialities,
of its mere speculative support, goes but a very little way towards
overcoming it; but though only a step, it is a quite indispensable one;
for since, after all, prejudice can only be successfully combated by
philosophy, no way can really be made against it permanently until it
has been shown not to have philosophy on its side.

Being now released from any active concern in temporary politics, and
from any literary occupation involving personal communication with
contributors and others, I was enabled to indulge the inclination,
natural to thinking persons when the age of boyish vanity is once past,
for limiting my own society to a very few persons. General society, as
now carried on in England, is so insipid an affair, even to the persons
who make it what it is, that it is kept up for any reason rather than
the pleasure it affords. All serious discussion on matters on which
opinions differ, being considered ill-bred, and the national deficiency
in liveliness and sociability having prevented the cultivation of the
art of talking agreeably on trifles, in which the French of the last
century so much excelled, the sole attraction of what is called society
to those who are not at the top of the tree, is the hope of being aided
to climb a little higher in it; while to those who are already at the
top, it is chiefly a compliance with custom, and with the supposed
requirements of their station. To a person of any but a very common
order in thought or feeling, such society, unless he has personal
objects to serve by it, must be supremely unattractive: and most people,
in the present day, of any really high class of intellect, make their
contact with it so slight, and at such long intervals, as to be almost
considered as retiring from it altogether. Those persons of any mental
superiority who do otherwise, are, almost without exception, greatly
deteriorated by it. Not to mention loss of time, the tone of their
feelings is lowered: they become less in earnest about those of their
opinions respecting which they must remain silent in the society they
frequent: they come to look upon their most elevated objects as
unpractical, or, at least, too remote from realization to be more than a
vision, or a theory, and if, more fortunate than most, they retain their
higher principles unimpaired, yet with respect to the persons and
affairs of their own day they insensibly adopt the modes of feeling and
judgment in which they can hope for sympathy from the company they keep.
A person of high intellect should never go into unintellectual society
unless he can enter it as an apostle; yet he is the only person with
high objects who can safely enter it at all. Persons even of
intellectual aspirations had much better, if they can, make their
habitual associates of at least their equals, and, as far as possible,
their superiors, in knowledge, intellect, and elevation of sentiment.
Moreover, if the character is formed, and the mind made up, on the few
cardinal points of human opinion, agreement of conviction and feeling on
these, has been felt in all times to be an essential requisite of
anything worthy the name of friendship, in a really earnest mind. All
these circumstances united, made the number very small of those whose
society, and still more whose intimacy, I now voluntarily sought.

Among these, by far the principal was the incomparable friend of whom I
have already spoken. At this period she lived mostly with one young
daughter, in a quiet part of the country, and only occasionally in town,
with her first husband, Mr. Taylor. I visited her equally in both
places; and was greatly indebted to the strength of character which
enabled her to disregard the false interpretations liable to be put on
the frequency of my visits to her while living generally apart from Mr.
Taylor, and on our occasionally travelling together, though in all other
respects our conduct during those years gave not the slightest ground
for any other supposition than the true one, that our relation to each
other at that time was one of strong affection and confidential intimacy
only. For though we did not consider the ordinances of society binding
on a subject so entirely personal, we did feel bound that our conduct
should be such as in no degree to bring discredit on her husband, nor
therefore on herself.

In this third period (as it may be termed) of my mental progress, which
now went hand in hand with hers, my opinions gained equally in breadth
and depth, I understood more things, and those which I had understood
before I now understood more thoroughly. I had now completely turned
back from what there had been of excess in my reaction against
Benthamism. I had, at the height of that reaction, certainly become much
more indulgent to the common opinions of society and the world, and more
willing to be content with seconding the superficial improvement which
had begun to take place in those common opinions, than became one whose
convictions on so many points, differed fundamentally from them. I was
much more inclined, than I can now approve, to put in abeyance the more
decidedly heretical part of my opinions, which I now look upon as almost
the only ones, the assertion of which tends in any way to regenerate
society. But in addition to this, our opinions were far _more_ heretical
than mine had been in the days of my most extreme Benthamism. In those
days I had seen little further than the old school of political
economists into the possibilities of fundamental improvement in social
arrangements. Private property, as now understood, and inheritance,
appeared to me, as to them, the _dernier mot_ of legislation: and I
looked no further than to mitigating the inequalities consequent on
these institutions, by getting rid of primogeniture and entails. The
notion that it was possible to go further than this in removing the
injustice--for injustice it is, whether admitting of a complete remedy
or not--involved in the fact that some are born to riches and the vast
majority to poverty, I then reckoned chimerical, and only hoped that by
universal education, leading to voluntary restraint on population, the
portion of the poor might be made more tolerable. In short, I was a
democrat, but not the least of a Socialist. We were now much less
democrats than I had been, because so long as education continues to be
so wretchedly imperfect, we dreaded the ignorance and especially the
selfishness and brutality of the mass: but our ideal of ultimate
improvement went far beyond Democracy, and would class us decidedly
under the general designation of Socialists. While we repudiated with
the greatest energy that tyranny of society over the individual which
most Socialistic systems are supposed to involve, we yet looked forward
to a time when society will no longer be divided into the idle and the
industrious; when the rule that they who do not work shall not eat, will
be applied not to paupers only, but impartially to all; when the
division of the produce of labour, instead of depending, as in so great
a degree it now does, on the accident of birth, will be made by concert
on an acknowledged principle of justice; and when it will no longer
either be, or be thought to be, impossible for human beings to exert
themselves strenuously in procuring benefits which are not to be
exclusively their own, but to be shared with the society they belong to.
The social problem of the future we considered to be, how to unite the
greatest individual liberty of action, with a common ownership in the
raw material of the globe, and an equal participation of all in the
benefits of combined labour. We had not the presumption to suppose that
we could already foresee, by what precise form of institutions these
objects could most effectually be attained, or at how near or how
distant a period they would become practicable. We saw clearly that to
render any such social transformation either possible or desirable, an
equivalent change of character must take place both in the uncultivated
herd who now compose the labouring masses, and in the immense majority
of their employers. Both these classes must learn by practice to labour
and combine for generous, or at all events for public and social
purposes, and not, as hitherto, solely for narrowly interested ones. But
the capacity to do this has always existed in mankind, and is not, nor
is ever likely to be, extinct. Education, habit, and the cultivation of
the sentiments, will make a common man dig or weave for his country, as
readily as fight for his country. True enough, it is only by slow
degrees, and a system of culture prolonged through successive
generations, that men in general can be brought up to this point. But
the hindrance is not in the essential constitution of human nature.
Interest in the common good is at present so weak a motive in the
generality not because it can never be otherwise, but because the mind
is not accustomed to dwell on it as it dwells from morning till night on
things which tend only to personal advantage. When called into activity,
as only self-interest now is, by the daily course of life, and spurred
from behind by the love of distinction and the fear of shame, it is
capable of producing, even in common men, the most strenuous exertions
as well as the most heroic sacrifices. The deep-rooted selfishness which
forms the general character of the existing state of society, is _so_
deeply rooted, only because the whole course of existing institutions
tends to foster it; and modern institutions in some respects more than
ancient, since the occasions on which the individual is called on to do
anything for the public without receiving its pay, are far less frequent
in modern life, than the smaller commonwealths of antiquity. These
considerations did not make us overlook the folly of premature attempts
to dispense with the inducements of private interest in social affairs,
while no substitute for them has been or can be provided: but we
regarded all existing institutions and social arrangements as being (in
a phrase I once heard from Austin) "merely provisional," and we welcomed
with the greatest pleasure and interest all socialistic experiments by
select individuals (such as the Co-operative Societies), which, whether
they succeeded or failed, could not but operate as a most useful
education of those who took part in them, by cultivating their capacity
of acting upon motives pointing directly to the general good, or making
them aware of the defects which render them and others incapable of
doing so.

In the _Principles of Political Economy_, these opinions were
promulgated, less clearly and fully in the first edition, rather more so
in the second, and quite unequivocally in the third. The difference
arose partly from the change of times, the first edition having been
written and sent to press before the French Revolution of 1848, after
which the public mind became more open to the reception of novelties in
opinion, and doctrines appeared moderate which would have been thought
very startling a short time before. In the first edition the
difficulties of Socialism were stated so strongly, that the tone was on
the whole that of opposition to it. In the year or two which followed,
much time was given to the study of the best Socialistic writers on the
Continent, and to meditation and discussion on the whole range of topics
involved in the controversy: and the result was that most of what had
been written on the subject in the first edition was cancelled, and
replaced by arguments and reflections which represent a more advanced
opinion.

The _Political Economy_ was far more rapidly executed than the _Logic_,
or indeed than anything of importance which I had previously written. It
was commenced in the autumn of 1845, and was ready for the press before
the end of 1847. In this period of little more than two years there was
an interval of six months during which the work was laid aside, while I
was writing articles in the _Morning Chronicle_ (which unexpectedly
entered warmly into my purpose) urging the formation of peasant
properties on the waste lands of Ireland. This was during the period of
the Famine, the winter of 1846-47, when the stern necessities of the
time seemed to afford a chance of gaining attention for what appeared to
me the only mode of combining relief to immediate destitution with
permanent improvement of the social and economical condition of the
Irish people. But the idea was new and strange; there was no English
precedent for such a proceeding: and the profound ignorance of English
politicians and the English public concerning all social phenomena not
generally met with in England (however common elsewhere), made my
endeavours an entire failure. Instead of a great operation on the waste
lands, and the conversion of cottiers into proprietors, Parliament
passed a Poor Law for maintaining them as paupers: and if the nation has
not since found itself in inextricable difficulties from the joint
operation of the old evils and the quack remedy it is indebted for its
deliverance to that most unexpected and surprising fact, the
depopulation of ireland, commenced by famine, and continued by
emigration.

The rapid success of the _Political Economy_ showed that the public
wanted, and were prepared for such a book. Published early in 1848, an
edition of a thousand copies was sold in less than a year. Another
similar edition was published in the spring of 1849; and a third, of
1250 copies, early in 1852. It was, from the first, continually cited
and referred to as an authority, because it was not a book merely of
abstract science, but also of application, and treated Political Economy
not as a thing by itself, but as a fragment of a greater whole; a branch
of Social Philosophy, so interlinked with all the other branches, that
its conclusions, even in its own peculiar province, are only true
conditionally, subject to interference and counteraction from causes not
directly within its scope: while to the character of a practical guide
it has no pretension, apart from other classes of considerations.
Political Economy, in truth, has never pretended to give advice to
mankind with no lights but its own; though people who knew nothing but
political economy (and therefore knew that ill) have taken upon
themselves to advise, and could only do so by such lights as they had.
But the numerous sentimental enemies of political economy, and its still
more numerous interested enemies in sentimental guise, have been very
successful in gaining belief for this among other unmerited imputations
against it, and the _Principles_ having, in spite of the freedom of many
of its opinions, become for the present the most popular treatise on the
subject, has helped to disarm the enemies of so important a study. The
amount of its worth as an exposition of the science, and the value of
the different applications which it suggests, others of course must
judge.

For a considerable time after this, I published no work of magnitude;
though I still occasionally wrote in periodicals, and my correspondence
(much of it with persons quite unknown to me), on subjects of public
interest, swelled to a considerable bulk. During these years I wrote or
commenced various Essays, for eventual publication, on some of the
fundamental questions of human and social life, with regard to several
of which I have already much exceeded the severity of the Horatian
precept. I continued to watch with keen interest the progress of public
events. But it was not, on the whole, very encouraging to me. The
European reaction after 1848, and the success of an unprincipled usurper
in December, 1851, put an end, as it seemed, to all present hope for
freedom or social improvement in France and the Continent. In England, I
had seen and continued to see many of the opinions of my youth obtain
general recognition, and many of the reforms in institutions, for which
I had through life contended, either effected or in course of being so.
But these changes had been attended with much less benefit to human
well-being than I should formerly have anticipated, because they had
produced very little improvement in that which all real amelioration in
the lot of mankind depends on, their intellectual and moral state: and
it might even be questioned if the various causes of deterioration which
had been at work in the meanwhile, had not more than counterbalanced the
tendencies to improvement. I had learnt from experience that many false
opinions may be exchanged for true ones, without in the least altering
the habits of mind of which false opinions are the result. The English
public, for example, are quite as raw and undiscerning on subjects of
political economy since the nation has been converted to free-trade, as
they were before; and are still further from having acquired better
habits of thought and feeling, or being in any way better fortified
against error, on subjects of a more elevated character. For, though
they have thrown off certain errors, the general discipline of their
minds, intellectually and morally, is not altered. I am now convinced,
that no great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible, until a
great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes
of thought. The old opinions in religion, morals, and politics, are so
much discredited in the more intellectual minds as to have lost the
greater part of their efficacy for good, while they have still life
enough in them to be a powerful obstacle to the growing up of any better
opinions on those subjects. When the philosophic minds of the world can
no longer believe its religion, or can only believe it with
modifications amounting to an essential change of its character, a
transitional period commences, of weak convictions, paralysed
intellects, and growing laxity of principle, which cannot terminate
until a renovation has been effected in the basis of their belief
leading to the evolution of some faith, whether religious or
merely human, which they can really believe: and when things are in this
state, all thinking or writing which does not tend to promote such a
renovation, is of very little value beyond the moment. Since there was
little in the apparent condition of the public mind, indicative of any
tendency in this direction, my view of the immediate prospects of human
improvement was not sanguine. More recently a spirit of free speculation
has sprung up, giving a more encouraging prospect of the gradual mental
emancipation of England; and concurring with the renewal under better
auspices, of the movement for political freedom in the rest of Europe,
has given to the present condition of human affairs a more hopeful
aspect. [3]

Between the time of which I have now spoken, and the present, took place
the most important events of my private life. The first of these was my
marriage, in April, 1851, to the lady whose incomparable worth had made
her friendship the greatest source to me both of happiness and of
improvement, during many years in which we never expected to be in any
closer relation to one another. Ardently as I should have aspired to
this complete union of our lives at any time in the course of my
existence at which it had been practicable, I, as much as my wife, would
far rather have foregone that privilege for ever, than have owed it to
the premature death of one for whom I had the sincerest respect, and she
the strongest affection. That event, however, having taken place in
July, 1849, it was granted to me to derive from that evil my own
greatest good, by adding to the partnership of thought, feeling, and
writing which had long existed, a partnership of our entire existence.
For seven and a-half years that blessing was mine; for seven and a-half
only! I can say nothing which could describe, even in the faintest
manner, what that loss was and is. But because I know that she would
have wished it, I endeavour to make the best of what life I have left,
and to work on for her purposes with such diminished strength as can be
derived from thoughts of her, and communion with her memory.

When two persons have their thoughts and speculations completely in
common; when all subjects of intellectual or moral interest are
discussed between them in daily life, and probed to much greater depths
than are usually or conveniently sounded in writings intended for
general readers; when they set out from the same principles, and arrive
at their conclusions by processes pursued jointly, it is of little
consequence in respect to the question of originality, which of them
holds the pen; the one who contributes least to the composition may
contribute more to the thought; the writings which result are the joint
product of both, and it must often be impossible to disentangle their
respective parts, and affirm that this belongs to one and that to the
other. In this wide sense, not only during the years of our married
life, but during many of the years of confidential friendship which
preceded, all my published writings were as much here work as mine; her
share in them constantly increasing as years advanced. But in certain
cases, what belongs to her can be distinguished, and specially
identified. Over and above the general influence which her mind had over
mine, the most valuable ideas and features in these joint
productions--those which have been most fruitful of important results,
and have contributed most to the success and reputation of the works
themselves--originated with her, were emanations from her mind, my part
in them being no greater than in any of the thoughts which I found in
previous writers, and made my own only by incorporating them with my own
system of thought! During the greater part of my literary life I have
performed the office in relation to her, which from a rather early
period I had considered as the most useful part that I was qualified to
take in the domain of thought, that of an interpreter of original
thinkers, and mediator between them and the public; for I had always a
humble opinion of my own powers as an original thinker, except in
abstract science (logic, metaphysics, and the theoretic principles of
political economy and politics), but thought myself much superior to
most of my contemporaries in willingness and ability to learn from
everybody; as I found hardly anyone who made such a point of examining
what was said in defence of all opinions, however new or however old, in
the conviction that even if they were errors there might be a substratum
of truth underneath them, and that in any case the discovery of what it
was that made them plausible, would be a benefit to truth. I had, in
consequence, marked this out as a sphere of usefulness in which I was
under a special obligation to make myself active; the more so, as the
acquaintance I had formed with the ideas of the Coleridgians, of the
German thinkers, and of Carlyle, all of them fiercely opposed to the
mode of thought in which I had been brought up, had convinced me that
along with much error they possessed much truth, which was veiled from
minds otherwise capable of receiving it by the transcendental and
mystical phraseology in which they were accustomed to shut it up, and
from which they neither cared, nor knew how, to disengage it; and I did
not despair of separating the truth from the error, and exposing it in
terms which would be intelligible and not repulsive to those on my own
side in philosophy. Thus prepared, it will easily be believed that when
I came into close intellectual communion with a person of the most
eminent faculties, whose genius, as it grew and unfolded itself in
thought, continually struck out truths far in advance of me, but in
which I could not, as I had done in those others, detect any mixture of
error, the greatest part of my mental growth consisted in the
assimilation of those truths, and the most valuable part of my
intellectual work was in building the bridges and clearing the paths
which connected them with my general system of thought. [4]

The first of my books in which her share was conspicious was the
_Principles of Political Economy_. The _System of Logic_ owed little to
her except in the minuter matters of composition, in which respect my
writings, both great and small, have largely benefited by her accurate
and clear-sighted criticism. [5] The chapter of the _Political Econonomy_
which has had a greater influence on opinion than all the rest, that on
'the Probable Future of the Labouring Classes,' is entirely due to her;
in the first draft of the book, that chapter did not exist. She pointed
out the need of such a chapter, and the extreme imperfection of the book
without it; she was the cause of my writing it; and the more general
part of the chapter, the statement and discussion of the two opposite
theories respecting the proper condition of the labouring classes, was
wholly an exposition of her thoughts, often in words taken from her own
lips. The purely scientific part of the _Political Economy_ I did not
learn from her; but it was chiefly her influence that gave to the book
that general tone by which it is distinguished from all previous
expositions of Political Economy that had any pretension to being
scientific, and which has made it so useful in conciliating minds which
those previous expositions had repelled. This tone consisted chiefly in
making the proper distinction between the laws of the Production of
Wealth--which are laws of nature, dependent on the properties of
objects--and the modes of its Distribution, which, subject to certain
conditions, depend on human will. The commom run of political economists
confuse these together, under the designation of economic laws, which
they deem incapable of being defeated or modified by human effort;
ascribing the same necessity to things dependent on the unchangeable
conditions of our earthly existence, and to those which, being but the
necessary consequences of particular social arrangements, are merely
co-extensive with these; given certain institutions and customs, wages,
profits, and rent will be determined by certain causes; but this class
of political economists drop the indispensable presupposition, and argue
that these causes must, by an inherent necessity, against which no human
means can avail, determine the shares which fall, in the division of the
produce, to labourers, capitalists, and landlords. The _Principles of
Political Economy_ yielded to none of its predecessors in aiming at the
scientific appreciation of the action of these causes, under the
conditions which they presuppose; but it set the example of not treating
those conditions as final. The economic generalizations which depend not
on necessaties of nature but on those combined with the existing
arrangements of society, it deals with only as provisional, and as
liable to be much altered by the progress of social improvement. I had
indeed partially learnt this view of things from the thoughts awakened
in me by the speculations of the St. Simonians; but it was made a living
principle pervading and animating the book by my wife's promptings. This
example illustrates well the general character of what she contributed
to my writings. What was abstract and purely scientific was generally
mine; the properly human element came from her: in all that concerned
the application of philosophy to the exigencies of human society and
progress, I was her pupil, alike in boldness of speculation and
cautiousness of practical judgment. For, on the one hand, she was much
more courageous and far-sighted than without her I should have been, in
anticipation of an order of things to come, in which many of the limited
generalizations now so often confounded with universal principles will
cease to be applicable. Those parts of my writings, and especially of
the _Political Economy_, which contemplate possibilities in the future
such as, when affirmed by Socialists, have in general been fiercely
denied by political economists, would, but for her, either have been
absent, or the suggestions would have been made much more timidly and in
a more qualified form. But while she thus rendered me bolder in
speculation on human affairs, her practical turn of mind, and her almost
unerring estimate of practical obstacles, repressed in me all tendencies
that were really visionary. Her mind invested all ideas in a concrete
shape, and formed to itself a conception of how they would actually
work: and her knowledge of the existing feelings and conduct of mankind
was so seldom at fault, that the weak point in any unworkable suggestion
seldom escapes her. [6]

During the two years which immediately preceded the cessation of my
official life, my wife and I were working together at the "Liberty. "
I had first planned and written it as a short essay in 1854. It was in
mounting the steps of the Capitol, in January, 1855, that the thought
first arose of converting it into a volume. None of my writings have
been either so carefully composed, or so sedulously corrected as this.
After it had been written as usual twice over, we kept it by us,
bringing it out from time to time, and going through it _de novo_,
reading, weighing, and criticizing every sentence. Its final revision
was to have been a work of the winter of 1858-9, the first after my
retirement, which we had arranged to pass in the south of Europe. That
hope and every other were frustrated by the most unexpected and bitter
calamity of her death--at Avignon, on our way to Montpellier, from a
sudden attack of pulmonary congestion.

Since then I have sought for such allevation as my state
admitted of, by the mode of life which most enabled me to feel her still
near me. I bought a cottage as close as possible to the place where she
is buried, and there her daughter (my fellow-sufferer and now my chief
comfort) and I, live constantly during a great portion of the year. My
objects in life are solely those which were hers; my pursuits and
occupations those in which she shared, or sympathized, and which are
indissolubly associated with her. Her memory is to me a religion, and
her approbation the standard by which, summing up as it does all
worthiness, I endeavour to regulate my life.

After my irreparable loss, one of my earliest cares was to print and
publish the treatise, so much of which was the work of her whom I had
lost, and consecrate it to her memory. I have made no alteration or
addition to it, nor shall I ever. Though it wants the last touch of her
hand, no substitute for that touch shall ever be attempted by mine.

The _Liberty_ was more directly and literally our joint production than
anything else which bears my name, for there was not a sentence of it
that was not several times gone through by us together, turned over in
many ways, and carefully weeded of any faults, either in thought or
expression, that we detected in it. It is in consequence of this that,
although it never underwent her final revision, it far surpasses, as a
mere specimen of composition, anything which has proceeded from me
either before or since. With regard to the thoughts, it is difficult to
identify any particular part or element as being more hers than all the
rest. The whole mode of thinking of which the book was the expression,
was emphatically hers. But I also was so thoroughly imbued with it, that
the same thoughts naturally occurred to us both. That I was thus
penetrated with it, however, I owe in a great degree to her. There was a
moment in my mental progress when I might easily have fallen into a
tendency towards over-government, both social and political; as there
was also a moment when, by reaction from a contrary excess, I might have
become a less thorough radical and democrat than I am. In both these
points, as in many others, she benefited me as much by keeping me right
where I was right, as by leading me to new truths, and ridding me of
errors. My great readiness and eagerness to learn from everybody, and to
make room in my opinions for every new acquisition by adjusting the old
and the new to one another, might, but for her steadying influence, have
seduced me into modifying my early opinions too much. She was in nothing
more valuable to my mental development than by her just measure of the
relative importance of different considerations, which often protected
me from allowing to truths I had only recently learnt to see, a more
important place in my thoughts than was properly their due.

The _Liberty_ is likely to survive longer than anything else that I have
written (with the possible exception of the _Logic_), because the
conjunction of her mind with mine has rendered it a kind of philosophic
text-book of a single truth, which the changes progressively taking
place in modern society tend to bring out into ever stronger relief: the
importance, to man and society of a large variety in types of character,
and of giving full freedom to human nature to expand itself in
innumerable and conflicting directions. Nothing can better show how deep
are the foundations of this truth, than the great impression made by the
exposition of it at a time which, to superficial observation, did not
seem to stand much in need of such a lesson. The fears we expressed,
lest the inevitable growth of social equality and of the government of
public opinion, should impose on mankind an oppressive yoke of
uniformity in opinion and practice, might easily have appeared
chimerical to those who looked more at present facts than at tendencies;
for the gradual revolution that is taking place in society and
institutions has, thus far, been decidedly favourable to the development
of new opinions, and has procured for them a much more unprejudiced
hearing than they previously met with. But this is a feature belonging
to periods of transition, when old notions and feelings have been
unsettled, and no new doctrines have yet succeeded to their ascendancy.
At such times people of any mental activity, having given up their old
beliefs, and not feeling quite sure that those they still retain can
stand unmodified, listen eagerly to new opinions. But this state of
things is necessarily transitory: some particular body of doctrine in
time rallies the majority round it, organizes social institutions and
modes of action conformably to itself, education impresses this new
creed upon the new generations without the mental processes that have
led to it, and by degrees it acquires the very same power of
compression, so long exercised by the creeds of which it had taken the
place. Whether this noxious power will be exercised, depends on whether
mankind have by that time become aware that it cannot be exercised
without stunting and dwarfing human nature. It is then that the
teachings of the _Liberty_ will have their greatest value. And it is to
be feared that they will retain that value a long time.

As regards originality, it has of course no other than that which every
thoughtful mind gives to its own mode of conceiving and expressing
truths which are common property. The leading thought of the book is one
which though in many ages confined to insulated thinkers, mankind have
probably at no time since the beginning of civilization been entirely
without. To speak only of the last few generations, it is distinctly
contained in the vein of important thought respecting education and
culture, spread through the European mind by the labours and genius of
Pestalozzi. The unqualified championship of it by Wilhelm von Humboldt
is referred to in the book; but he by no means stood alone in his own
country. During the early part of the present century the doctrine of
the rights of individuality, and the claim of the moral nature to
develop itself in its own way, was pushed by a whole school of German
authors even to exaggeration; and the writings of Goethe, the most
celebrated of all German authors, though not belonging to that or to any
other school, are penetrated throughout by views of morals and of
conduct in life, often in my opinion not defensible, but which are
incessantly seeking whatever defence they admit of in the theory of the
right and duty of self-development. In our own country before the book
_On Liberty_ was written, the doctrine of Individuality had been
enthusiastically asserted, in a style of vigorous declamation sometimes
reminding one of Fichte, by Mr. William Maccall, in a series of writings
of which the most elaborate is entitled _Elements of Individualism_: and
a remarkable American, Mr. Warren, had framed a System of Society, on
the foundation of _the Sovereignty of the individual_, had obtained a
number of followers, and had actually commenced the formation of a
Village Community (whether it now exists I know not), which, though
bearing a superficial resemblance to some of the projects of Socialists,
is diametrically opposite to them in principle, since it recognizes no
authority whatever in Society over the individual, except to enforce
equal freedom of development for all individualities. As the book which
bears my name claimed no originality for any of its doctrines, and was
not intended to write their history, the only author who had preceded me
in their assertion, of whom I thought it appropriate to say anything,
was Humboldt, who furnished the motto to the work; although in one
passage I borrowed from the Warrenites their phrase, the sovereignty of
the individual. It is hardly necessary here to remark that there are
abundant differences in detail, between the conception of the doctrine
by any of the predecessors I have mentioned, and that set forth in the
book.

The political circumstances of the time induced me, shortly after, to
complete and publish a pamphlet (_Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform_),
part of which had been written some years previously on the occasion of
one of the abortive Reform Bills, and had at the time been approved and
revised by her. Its principal features were, hostility to the Ballot (a
change of opinion in both of us, in which she rather preceded me), and a
claim of representation for minorities; not, however, at that time going
beyond the cumulative vote proposed by Mr. Garth Marshall. In finishing
the pamphlet for publication, with a view to the discussions on the
Reform Bill of Lord Derby's and Mr. Disraeli's Government in 1859, I
added a third feature, a plurality of votes, to be given, not to
property, but to proved superiority of education. This recommended
itself to me as a means of reconciling the irresistible claim of every
man or woman to be consulted, and to be allowed a voice, in the
regulation of affairs which vitally concern them, with the superiority
of weight justly due to opinions grounded on superiority of knowledge.
The suggestion, however, was one which I had never discussed with my
almost infallible counsellor, and I have no evidence that she would have
concurred in it. As far as I have been able to observe, it has found
favour with nobody; all who desire any sort of inequality in the
electoral vote, desiring it in favour of property and not of
intelligence or knowledge. If it ever overcomes the strong feeling which
exists against it, this will only be after the establishment of a
systematic National Education by which the various grades of politically
valuable acquirement may be accurately defined and authenticated.
Without this it will always remain liable to strong, possibly
conclusive, objections; and with this, it would perhaps not be needed.

It was soon after the publication of _Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform_,
that I became acquainted with Mr. Hare's admirable system of Personal
Representation, which, in its present shape, was then for the first time
published. I saw in this great practical and philosophical idea, the
greatest improvement of which the system of representative government is
susceptible; an improvement which, in the most felicitous manner,
exactly meets and cures the grand, and what before seemed the inherent,
defect of the representative system; that of giving to a numerical
majority all power, instead of only a power proportional to its numbers,
and enabling the strongest party to exclude all weaker parties from
making their opinions heard in the assembly of the nation, except
through such opportunity as may be given to them by the accidentally
unequal distribution of opinions in different localities.