lost all trust in principles. Now, this scepticism is tolerant enough about forms of faith, so long as the majority are not agreed about them. But in the meanwhile it indemnifies itself by tyrannising over the outer machinery of life. It does this upon the plea of the public good, the greater amount of happiness, and so on; but its inspiration is fear. It stands in terror of human nature; and, seeing no God-who shapes our ends, rough hew them as we will-it anticipates security in uniformity alone. All it cares for is to get along comfortably; its piety, if it pretends to any, is a piety of good taste; and it is capable of just as much persecution as the worst bigotry that ever swore by a relic or a victim's blood."

The other quotation will be more specific; it comes from articles written in June, 1868, and I have only now supplied half a dozen words at the opening:

"One of the most alarming signs of the times is a mixture of arrogance and pinchbeck tenderness which appears, in some inscrutable way, to affiliate itself to the continuity of force and the laws of heat. It begins by praying to oneself and loving Humanity, and it will end, if it runs its natural course, in the most merciless and horrible tyranny the world ever saw. It may run its natural course; but we object to its making the circuit in stolen terminology. There is no copyright in great truths, but there is in symbols and watchwords when fighting is to be done."

Again :

"It may be doubted whether a Liberal Government will find its hands as free as sincere Liberals hope. The Tory party have now had a long innings for them, and no man is more skilful in profiting by experience than Mr. Disraeli. The strong and rapidly growing reaction against laissez-faire is all in his favour; there is so much resemblance between a paternalGovernment Liberal and a rather liberalized Tory that, on certain questions of the very order which are sure to be prominent, confused fighting-confused from a party point of view-must inevitably follow. It is but too certain that the Liberal party are not awake to the gravity of the reaction in question, or of the facility with which they may be drifted or entrapped into positions in which they will look almost as strange as Tories passing a Reform Bill. The average working-man is at bottom a Tory and Protectionist. He has absolutely no Liberalism in him, except that which readily lends itself to the improvement of the condition of his own order, and he is quite capable to-morrow, if he had the power, of enacting sumptuary laws as contemptible as any that ever were framed. The Comtists know this fast enough-it was to women and workmen that Comte openly said he looked for the first proselytes to his new despotism. And it is from working men and women that the new dangers of Liberalism will arise, as fast as those classes get political power. Let us deny fair play to no human being, and let all fighting be on just terms; but let us know what we are about, and foresee our new perils if we can. The precise peril which we now signalize is that we are undoubtedly entering upon a time of reaction, in which Government interference in various shapes will be found forming part of programmes of progress called Liberal, and that the traditionally stupid party will be clever enough, for all its stupidity, to manipulate such programmes for its own ends."

On the subject of toleration there is something more to which I

crave attention. About thirteen years ago a book was published by Parker of the Strand, entitled "On Liberty." It was written by a Mr. John Stuart Mill. An enlightened press went into raptures over it. It was masterly, it was eloquent, it was subtle, it was profound, it was the most magnificent political apology ever seen since the days of Milton. Very good. Now, towards the end of this book-the publicists, who went into raptures over it, can of course remember the very wording of the passage-there was a paragraph in which this Mr. Mill denounced in the strongest terms the "language of downright persecution," into which the English press habitually broke out when Mormon polygamy was on the carpet. And he went on to stigmatize, as an infamous and cowardly persecution, any “civilizade” against that institution. Now, I have only two remarks to make, and I make them with an eye on what Mr. Helps has said as to the safeness of holding exceptional opinion in this country. First, then, during the recent anti-Mormon procedure in America, I asked a friend, who read more newspapers than I did, if he had seen in one single journal in this free country the faintest reminiscence of Mr. Mill's language,— which, by-the-by, went on to say that if civilization could not get the better of this polygamy without force, it was high time civilization received an infusion of fresh blood from energetic barbarians, such as were likely to practise the "peculiar institution." My friend, who is a humourist, wrote in reply: "Do you think any newspaper would dare to fly in the face of Providence by quoting those sentiments of Mill's?" Secondly, I undertake to say that so safe is it to hold exceptional opinion in this country, that if Mr. Mill had dared to utter at a public meeting that particular protest of his, neither his years, nor his achievements, nor his disinterested career, nor his special detestation of the "peculiar institution," would have saved him from being mobbed, to the danger of his limbs or his life; and that in six days it would have been generally believed in England that he had been in the habit of retiring to Avignon every year expressly for immoral purposes. For myself, I shall not condescend to say that my detestation of the "peculiar institution" is as great as any man's can be. But I will say this, that though Brigham Young ought long ago to have been hanged ten times over, it was not for having forty wives, if the forty wives were free agents, but for offences of a very different complexion. And if the Government had in this case previously interfered in the right place, it would have never had occasion to interfere in the wrong one.

I will conclude with two suggestions of a practical bearing,—the humourist will please to observe that I do not venture to call them practical suggestions.

I. There is, or was lately, existing somewhere a society bearing some such name as "The Public Rights Defence Association." My impression, perhaps a wrong one, is, that it has some sort of connection with the liquor trade. Whether it has or not, an Association for the defence of public rights and for the education of public opinion on certain questions would be a very proper and useful one. If it were constituted of intelligent men and women, perhaps Mr. Herbert Spencer would consent to allow his name to be used as that of Honorary President; but I speak entirely in the dark, and have myself no gift for forming associations.

II. Our "representative institutions" will, before long, be overhauled and revised in various ways. Whatever else may be in the air, something analogous to the following should be made constitutional, namely, that if a certain number of the "represented" in a certain number of the constituencies concur in demanding it, the passage of any Bill through the House of Commons may be suspended, in fact, that in case of need, the legislative powers of that House may be suspended,—until an understanding be come to between the intervening constituents and the members, or until the latter are, it may be, withdrawn from their seats by public vote. This is, of course, very roughly put, and there is no space here to discuss the possible bearings of such a plan in diminishing the gross evils of ordinary dissolutions and of party government. But the necessity for some check of the kind upon "the never-ending audacity of elected persons" grows every hour more plain.

HENRY HOLBEACH.

IF anyone interested in observing contemporary opinion were asked what was the prevailing moral system in England at the present day, he would probably answer Utilitarianism. And if anyone interested in promoting practical morality had to state the most radical and morally important of the differences among human dispositions, he would probably take occasion to contrast the selfish and sympathetic man. It is, therefore, somewhat singular that the former answer should be ambiguous precisely in respect of the contrast pointed in the latter that a "Utilitarian," in common usage, should nearly as often mean one who acts from self-interest as one who aims at the general good; and that in the writings of professed assailants, as well as professed defenders of Utilitarianism, the Egoistic and Altruistic principles should frequently appear inextricably blended, or at least indissolubly connected.

At the same time it is not difficult to find reasons for this close union between principles and systems from one point of view so antagonistic. In the first place, both are equally opposed to the "intuitional," or "common-sense" morality: and the alliances of doctrines as of nations are as often due to common enmity as to natural affinity. But, further, the systems of Epicurus and Bentham are essentially similar in being both dependent systems; that is, in prescribing actions as means to an end distinct from, and lying outside the actions; and

thus both consist of rules which are not absolute but relative, and only valid if they conduce to the end. Again, the ultimate end, or entity regarded as intrinsically good and desirable, is in both systems the same in quality, i.e., pleasure, or, more strictly, the maximum of pleasure attainable, pains being subtracted. Besides, it is of course to a great extent true that the conduct recommended by Egoistic Hedonism coincides with that inculcated by Universalistic Hedonism (as for comparison's sake we may term Bentham's Utilitarianism). Though it is only in an ideal polity that "self-interest well understood" leads to the perfect discharge of all social duties, still, in a tolerably well-ordered community it prompts to the fulfilment of most of them, unless under very exceptional circumstances. And, on the other hand, a sincere Benthamite may fairly hold that his own happiness is that portion of the universal good which it is most in his power to promote, and which therefore is most especially entrusted to his charge. And the practical blending of the two systems is sure to go beyond their theoretical coincidence. It is much easier for a man to move in a sort of diagonal between egoistic and universalistic hedonism, than to be practically a consistent adherent of either. Few men are so completely selfish, whatever their theory of morals may be, as not occasionally to seek the general good of some smaller or larger community from natural sympathetic impulse unsupported by Epicurean calculation. And probably still fewer are so resolutely unselfish as never to find all men's good in their own with rather too ready conviction.

In spite of all this, the distinction between one's own happiness and that of people in general is so natural and obvious, and so continually forced upon our attention by the circumstances of life, that some other reason is required to explain the persistent confusion between the systems that respectively adopt either end as furnishing the right and reasonable standard for each individual's conduct. And such a reason is found in the theory of human action propounded by Bentham, and, generally speaking, maintained by his disciples. Though ethically Epicureanism and Benthamism may be viewed as standing in polar opposition, psychologically Bentham is in fundamental agreement with Epicureans. He holds that a man ought to aim at the maximum felicity of men in general; but he holds, also, that he always does aim at what appears to him his own maximum felicity-that he cannot help doing this-that this is the way his volition inevitably acts. Bentham takes every opportunity of putting these two propositions with characteristic sharpness and clearness. "The greatest happiness of all those whose interest is in question is the only right and proper and universally desirable end of human action in every situation." But "in the general tenor of life,