Mr. Grote's youth, more than forty years since, this party pamphlet was in orthodox England received history, and he determined to reply to it. The original design of the twelve volumes, which begin at Troy and end with the death of Alexander, was to refute the accusations of Mitford against Greek Liberals, and expose the false panegyrics of Mitford upon Greek aristocrats. There is much else, of course, in Grote's history, much else far more valuable. This was the first thought, the young man's dream of what it was to be.

Mr. Grote was peculiarly likely to write such a reply, for he belonged to a remarkable class of most vigorous Liberals. They were called the "Philosophic Radicals" forty years ago, and had a curious, hard, compact, consistent creed. They were in the most anomalous position possible as politicians. They were unpopular Democrats; they liked the people, but the people did not like them or their ideas; they said that the mass of the nation ought to have direct conclusive power, but the mass of the nation said they would not on any account have such power. To preach that the numerical majority ought to rule to a numerical majority which does not wish to rule is painful. A barbarous demagogue, no doubt, will shout till the people hears. But the "Philosophic Radicals" were not barbarous demagogues, but grave, careful reasoners. They might defend Cleon in theory, but they had no tinge of the Cleon in practice. Some, Mr. Grote even perhaps, would not have borne at all easily the liberties which Cleon would have taken with him. The philosophic Radicals had a lesson to teach the people which the people did not wish to learn, and they were decidedly the last sort of people to make them learn it. It was natural that a man like Mr. Grote, with ample leisure and conscious of great literary power, should turn to a more congenial occupation.

Around the original anti-Mitford thesis Mr. Grote accumulated the most enormous store of miscellaneous knowledge. There was perhaps no subject that he could possibly bring into his theme which he did not bring in, and on which he did not write as fully as it was decent to write. Nor does the trumpet ever give an uncertain sound. Sir George Lewis

justly said that Dr. Thirlwall was like Lord Eldon; "he even used his acuteness in order to avoid coming to a decision ". But no one would say this of Mr. Grote. Perhaps he discusses a million subjects or more, and has expressed more than a million distinct opinions. No doubt this omnivorous discussion and this universal copiousness have impaired the merits of the History. The main subject is buried under the collateral, and only a very careful reader can always bear in mind whence he came or perceive why he is going where he seems to be taken. Nor has Mr. Grote, as a mere narrator, any peculiar charm; he tells his story plainly aad fairly, but he does not make you read for the sake of the story. In ancient history, however, mere narrative is almost a secondary element. So many cardinal facts are omitted, and so many important inferences denied, that a perpetual disquisition must be mixed with the regular narrative, and in disquisition Mr. Grote has been very rarely equalled, and never surpassed. That Macaulay's famous criticism, "too many plums and no suet," is applicable to Grote's history is certain, but Greek history is of necessity almost entirely "plums ".

That the political part of Grote's history is much better than most of the other parts every one will admit. Scarcely any one will now think the treatment of the mythology sufficient. "Prehistoric" speculation, as we now call it, might be made to elucidate the opening part of Greek history. But comparative mythology and prehistoric speculation are subjects which have been quite elaborated afresh since Mr. Grote dealt with the earliest Greece. If they had been known in 1846, we should have had an ample dissertation on them; probably many dissertations. There are defects of omission, and there are other (as most people will think) defects of commission. To estimate Grote's great work, the greatest philosophical problems and the deepest religious questions must be discussed; on almost every one of them he has expressly given his opinion, or not obscurely hinted it. But we cannot deal with these great subjects now. Gibbon said he was sustained by the hope that" a hundred years hence I might still continue to be abused ". Abuse is not the word for Mr. Grote, but a

hundred years hence his writings will ground of controversy and the basis of d ship and the mode of teaching grave be judged of hereafter by the History a any other work. "Those who go d Mr. Disraeli, both wittily and wisely planets," and Mr. Grote will be one of tion.

ON THE EMOTION OF CONVICTION.

(1871.)

WHAT we commonly term Belief includes, I apprehend, both an Intellectual and an Emotional element; the first we more properly call "assent," and the second "conviction". The laws of the Intellectual element in belief are "the laws of evidence," and have been elaborately discussed; but those of the Emotional part have hardly been discussed at all-indeed, its existence has been scarcely perceived.

In the mind of a rigorously trained inquirer, the process of believing is, I apprehend, this: First comes the investigation, a set of facts are sifted and a set of arguments weighed; then the intellect perceives the result of those arguments, and, we say, assents to it. Then an emotion more or less strong sets in, which completes the whole. In calm and quiet minds, the intellectual part of this process is so much the strongest that they are hardly conscious of anything else; and as these quiet, careful people have written our treatises, we do not find it explained in them how important the emotional part is.

But take the case of the Caliph Omar, according to Gibbon's description of him. He burnt the Alexandrine Library, saying: "All books which contain what is not in the Koran are dangerous; all those which contain what is in the Koran are useless". Probably no one ever had an intenser belief in anything than Omar had in this. Yet it is impossible to imagine it preceded by an argument. His belief in Mahomet, in the Koran, and in the sufficiency of the Koran, came to him probably in spontaneous rushes of emotion; there may have been little vestiges of argument floating here and there, but they did not justify the strength of the emotion, still less did they create it, and they hardly even excused it.

There is so commonly some considerable argument for our

modern beliefs, that it is difficult now-a-days to isolate the emotional element, and therefore, on the principle that in Metaphysics "egotism is the truest modesty," I may give myself as an example of utterly irrational conviction. Some years ago I stood for a borough in the West of England, and after a keen contest was defeated by seven. Almost directly afterwards there was accidentally another election, and, as I would not stand, another candidate of my own side was elected, and I of course ceased to have any hold upon the place, or chance of being elected there. But for years I had the deepest conviction that I should be "Member for Bridgwater"; and no amount of reasoning would get it out of my head. borough is now disfranchised; but even still, if I allow my mind to dwell on the contest,-if I think of the hours I was ahead in the morning, and the rush of votes at two o'clock by which I was defeated,—and even more, if I call up the image of the nomination day, with all the people's hands outstretched, and all their excited faces looking the more different on account of their identity in posture, the old feeling almost comes back upon me, and for a moment I believe that I shall be Member for Bridgwater.

The

I should not mention such nonsense, except on an occasion when I may serve as an intellectual “specimen,”1 but I know I wish that I could feel the same hearty, vivid faith in many conclusions of which my understanding says it is satisfied, that I did in this absurdity. And if it should be replied that such folly could be no real belief, for it could not influence any man's action, I am afraid I must say that it did influence my actions. For a long time the ineradicable fatalistic feeling, that I should some time have this constituency, of which I had no chance, hung about my mind, and diminished my interest in other constituencies, where my chances of election would have been rational at any rate.

This case probably exhibits the maximum of conviction with the minimum of argument, but there are many approximations to it. Persons of untrained minds cannot long live

1 It should be stated that this essay was originally read as a paper before a society which discussed subjects of a metaphysical nature.