Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

ends, but often drawn from the right, between the effect of written words, path by strong passions and strong which are perused and reperused in the temptations, have left to posterity a stillness of the closet, and the effect of doubtful and checkered fame.

GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND

STATE. (APRIL, 1839.)

The State in its Relations with the Church.
By W. E. GLADSTONE, Esq., Student of
Christ Church, and M.P. for Newark. 8vo.
Second Edition. London: 1839.
THE author of this volume is a young
man of unblemished character, and of
distinguished parliamentary talents, the
rising hope of those stern and unbend-
ing Tories who follow, reluctantly and
mutinously, a leader whose experience
and eloquence are indispensable to
them, but whose cautious temper and
moderate opinions they abhor. It would
not be at all strange if Mr. Gladstone
were one of the most unpopular men in
England. But we believe that we do
him no more than justice when we say
that his abilities and his demeanour
have obtained for him the respect and
good will of all parties. His first ap-
pearance in the character of an author
is therefore an interesting event; and
it is natural that the gentle wishes of the
public should go with him to his trial.

spoken words which, set off by the graces of utterance and gesture, vibrate for a single moment on the ear. He finds that he may blunder without much chance of being detected, that he may reason sophistically, and escape unrefuted. He finds that, even on knotty questions of trade and legislation, he can, without reading ten pages, or thinking ten minutes, draw forth loud plaudits, and sit down with the credit of having made an excellent speech. Lysias, says Plutarch, wrote a defence for a man who was to be tried before one of the Athenian tribunals. Long before the defendant had learned the speech by heart, he became so much dissatisfied with it that he went in great distress to the author. "I was delighted with your speech the first time I read it; but I liked it less the second time, and still less the third time; and now it seems to me to be no defence at all.” "My good friend," says Lysias, "you quite forget that the judges are to hear it only once." The case is the same in the English Parliament. It would be as idle in an orator to waste deep me ditation and long research on his speeches, as it would be in the manager We are much pleased, without any of a theatre to adorn all the crowd of reference to the soundness or unsound-courtiers and ladies who cross over the ness of Mr. Gladstone's theories, to see stage in a procession with real pearls a grave and elaborate treatise on an and diamonds. It is not by accuracy important part of the Philosophy of Government proceed from the pen of a young man who is rising to eminence in the House of Commons. There is little danger that people engaged in the conflicts of active life will be too much addicted to general speculation. The opposite vice is that which most easily besets them. The times and tides of business and debate tarry for no man. A politician must often talk and act before he has thought and read. He may be very ill informed respecting a question; all his notions about it may be vague and inaccurate; but speak he must; and if he is a man of ability, of tact, and of intrepidity, he soon finds that, even under such circumstances, it is possible to speak successfully. He finds that there is a great difference

or profundity that men become the masters of great assemblies. And why be at the charge of providing logic of the best quality, when a very inferior article will be equally acceptable? Why go as deep into a question as Burke, only in order to be, like Burke, coughed down, or left speaking to green benches and red boxes? This has long appeared to us to be the most serious of the evils which are to be set off against the many blessings of popular government. It is a fine and true saying of Bacon, that reading makes a full man, talking a ready man, and writing an exact man. The tendency of institutions like those of England is to encourage readiness in public men, at the expense both of fulness and of exactness. The keenest and most vigorous minds of every ge

neration, minds often admirably fitted | His mind is of large grasp; nor is he for the investigation of truth, are ha- deficient in dialectical skill. But he does bitually employed in producing argu- not give his intellect fair play. There is ments such as no man of sense would no want of light, but a great want of ever put into a treatise intended for what Bacon would have called dry publication, arguments which, are just light. Whatever Mr. Gladstone sees good enough to be used once, when is refracted and distorted by a false aided by fluent delivery and pointed medium of passions and prejudices. language. The habit of discussing His style bears a remarkable analogy questions in this way necessarily reacts to his mode of thinking, and indeed on the intellects of our ablest men, exercises great influence on his mode particularly of those who are introduced of thinking. His rhetoric, though often into parliament at a very early age, good of its kind, darkens and perplexes before their minds have expanded to the logic which it should illustrate. full maturity. The talent for debate is Half his acuteness and diligence, with developed in such men to a degree a barren imagination and a scanty vowhich, to the multitude, seems as mar-cabulary, would have saved him from vellous as the performance of an Italian Improvisatore. But they are fortunate indeed if they retain unimpaired the faculties which are required for close reasoning or for enlarged speculation. Indeed we should sooner expect a great original work on political science, such a work, for example, as the Wealth of Nations, from an apothecary in a country town, or from a minister ὦ γῆ τοῦ φθέγματος, ὡς ἱερὸν, καὶ σεμνὸν, in the Hebrides, than from a statesman who, ever since he was one-and-twenty, had been a distinguished debater in the House of Commons.

We therefore hail with pleasure, though assuredly not with unmixed pleasure, the appearance of this work. That a young politician should, in the intervals afforded by his parliamentary avocations, have constructed and propounded, with much study and mental toil, an original theory on a great problem in politics, is a circumstance which, abstracted from all consideration of the soundness or unsoundness of his opinions, must be considered as highly creditable to him. We certainly cannot wish that Mr. Gladstone's doctrines may become fashionable among public men. But we heartily wish that his laudable desire to penetrate beneath the surface of questions, and to arrive, by long and intent meditation, at the knowledge of great general laws, were much more fashionable than we at all expect it to become.

almost all his mistakes. He has one gift most dangerous to a speculator, a vast command of a kind of language, grave and majestic, but of vague and uncertain import; of a kind of language which affects us much in the same way in which the lofty diction of the Chorus of Clouds affected the simple-hearted Athenian.

καὶ τερατώδες.

When propositions have been established, and nothing remains but to amplify and decorate them, this dim magnificence may be in place. But if it is admitted into a demonstration, it is very much worse than absolute nonsense; just as that transparent haze, through which the sailor sees capes and mountains of false sizes and in false bearings, is more dangerous than utter darkness. Now, Mr. Gladstone is fond of employing the phraseology of which we speak in those parts of his works which require the utmost perspicuity and precision of which human language is capable; and in this way he deludes first himself, and then his readers. The foundations of his theory, which ought to be buttresses of adamant, are made out of the flimsy materials which are fit only for peroratinos. This fault is one which no subsequent care or industry can correct. The more strictly Mr. Gladstone reasons on his Mr. Gladstone seems to us to be, in premises, the more absurd are the conmany respects, exceedingly well quali-clusions which he brings out; and, fied for philosophical investigation. when at last his good sense and good

nature recoil from the horrible prac- | tical law. It is to be observed, that tical inferences to which this theory Mr. Gladstone rests his case on entirely leads, he is reduced sometimes to take refuge in arguments inconsistent with his fundamental doctrines, and sometimes to escape from the legitimate consequences of his false principles, under cover of equally false history.

It would be unjust not to say that this book, though not a good book, shows more talent than many good books. It abounds with eloquent and ingenious passages. It bears the signs of much patient thought. It is written throughout with excellent taste and excellent temper; nor does it, so far as we have observed, contain one expression unworthy of a gentleman, a scholar, or a Christian. But the doctrines which are put forth in it appear to us, after full and calm consideration, to be false, to be in the highest degree pernicious, and to be such as, if followed out in practice to their legitimate consequences, would inevitably produce the dissolution of society; and for this opinion we shall proceed to give our reasons with that freedom which the importance of the subject requires, and which Mr. Gladstone, both by precept and by example, invites us to use, but, we hope, without rudeness, and, we are sure, without malevolence. Before we enter on an examination of this theory, we wish to guard ourselves against one misconception. It is possible that some persons who have read Mr. Gladstone's book carelessly, and others who have merely heard in conversation, or seen in a newspaper, that the member for Newark has written in defence of the Church of England against the supporters of the voluntary system, may imagine that we are writing in defence of the voluntary system, and that we desire the abolition of the Established Church. This is not the case. It would be as unjust to accuse us of attacking the Church, because we attack Mr. Gladstone's doctrines, as it would be to accuse Locke of wishing for anarchy, because he refuted Filmer's patriarchal theory of government, or to accuse Blackstone of recommending the confiscation of ecclesiastical property, because he denied that the right of the rector to tithe was derived from the Levi

66

new grounds, and does not differ more widely from us than from some of those who have hitherto been considered as the most illustrious champions of the Church. He is not content with the Ecclesiastical Polity, and rejoices that the latter part of that celebrated work "does not carry with it the weight of Hooker's plenary authority." He is not content with Bishop Warburton's Alliance of Church and State. "The propositions of that work generally," he says, are to be received with qualification;" and he agrees with Bolingbroke in thinking that Warburton's whole theory rests on a fiction. He is still less satisfied with Paley's defence of the Church, which he pronounces to be "tainted by the original vice of false ethical principles," and "full of the seeds of evil." He conceives that Dr. Chalmers has taken a partial view of the subject, and "put forth much questionable matter." truth, on almost every point on which we are opposed to Mr. Gladstone, we have on our side the authority of some divine, eminent as a defender of existing establishments.

In

Mr. Gladstone's whole theory rests on this great fundamental proposition, that the propagation of religious truth is one of the principal ends of government, as government. If Mr. Gladstone has not proved this proposition, his system vanishes at once.

We are desirous, before we enter on the discussion of this important question, to point out clearly a distinction which, though very obvious, seems to be overlooked by many excellent people. In their opinion, to say that the ends of government are temporal and not spiritual is tantamount to saying that the temporal welfare of man is of more importance than his spiritual welfare. But this is an entire mistake. The question is not whether spiritual interests be or be not superior in importance to temporal interests; but whether the machinery which happens at any moment to be employed for the purpose of protecting certain temporal interests of a society be necessarily such a machinery as is fitted

to promote the spiritual interests of that | tured, to be robbed, to be sold into society. Without a division of labour slavery, these are evidently evils from the world could not go on. It is of very which men of every religion, and men much more importance that men should of no religion, wish to be protected; have food than that they should have and therefore it will hardly be disputed pianofortes. Yet it by no means fol- that men of every religion, and of no lows that every pianoforte-maker ought religion, have thus far a common into add the business of a baker to his terest in being well governed. own; for, if he did so, we should have both much worse music and much worse bread. It is of much more importance that the knowledge of religious truth should be wisely diffused than that the art of sculpture should flourish among us. Yet it by no means follows that the Royal Academy ought to unite with its present functions those of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, to distribute theological tracts, to send forth missionaries, to turn out Nollekens for being a Catholic, Bacon for being a methodist, and Flaxman for being a Swedenborgian. For the effect of such folly would be that we should have the worst possible Academy of Arts, and the worst possible Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge. The community, it is plain, would be thrown into universal confusion, if it were supposed to be the duty of every association which is formed for one good object to promote every other good object.

As to some of the ends of civil government, all people are agreed. That it is designed to protect our persons and our property; that it is designed to compel us to satisfy our wants, not by rapine, but by industry; that it is designed to compel us to decide our differences, not by the strong hand, but by arbitration; that it is designed to direct our whole force, as that of one man, against any other society which may offer us injury; these are propositions which will hardly be disputed.

But the hopes and fears of man are not limited to this short life and to this visible world. He finds himself surrounded by the signs of a power and wisdom higher than his own; and, in all ages and nations, men of all orders of intellect, from Bacon and Newton, down to the rudest tribes of cannibals, have believed in the existence of some superior mind. Thus far the voice of mankind is almost unanimous. But whether there be one God, or many, what may be God's natural and what His moral attributes, in what relation His creatures stand to Him, whether He have ever disclosed Himself to us by any other revelation than that which is written in all the parts of the glorious and well ordered world which He has made, whether His revelation be contained in any permanent record, how that record should be interpreted, and whether it have pleased Him to appoint any unerring interpreter on earth, these are questions respecting which there exists the widest diversity of opinion, and respecting some of which a large part of our race has, ever since the dawn of regular history, been deplorably in error.

Now here are two great objects: one is the protection of the persons and estates of citizens from injury; the other is the propagation of religious truth. No two objects more entirely distinct can well be imagined. The former belongs wholly to the visible and tangi le world in which we live; Now these are matters in which the latter belongs to that higher world man, without any reference to any which is beyond the reach of our senses. higher being, or to any future state, The former belongs to this life; the is very deeply interested. Every human latter to that which is to come. Men being, be he idolater, Mahometan, Jew, who are perfectly agreed as to the imPapist, Socinian, Deist, or Atheist, portance of the former object, and as naturally loves life, shrinks from pain, to the way of obtaining it, differ as desires comforts which can be enjoyed widely as possible respecting the latter only in communities where property is object. We must, therefore, pause beTo be murdered, to be tor-fore we admit that the persons, be they

secure.

who they may, who are intrusted with | vating the case of the holders of such power for the promotion of the former creed." "I do not scruple to affirm," object, ought always to use that power for the promotion of the latter object.

he adds, "that, if a Mahometan conscientiously believes his religion to come from God, and to teach divine truth, he must believe that truth to be beneficial, and beneficial beyond all other things to the soul of man; and he must therefore, and ought to de

Surely this is a hard saying. Before we admit that the Emperor Julian, in employing the influence and the funds at his disposal for the extinction of Christianity, was doing no more than his duty, before we admit that the Arian Theodoric would have commit

Mr. Gladstone conceives that the duties of governments are paternal; a doctrine which we shall not believe till he can show us some government which loves its subjects as a father loves a child, and which is as superior in intel-sire its extension, and to use for its exligence to its subjects as a father is to tension all proper and legitimate means; a child. He tells us in lofty though and that, if such Mahometan be a prince, somewhat indistinct language, that he ought to count among those means "Government occupies in moral the the application of whatever influence place of Tò Tâv in physical science." If or funds he may lawfully have at his government be indeed Tò Tâv in moral disposal for such purposes." science, we do not understand why rulers should not assume all the functions which Plato assigned to them. Why should they not take away the child from the mother, select the nurse, regulate the school, overlook the playground, fix the hours of labour and of recreation, prescribe what ballads shall ted a crime if he had suffered a single be sung, what tunes shall be played, believer in the divinity of Christ to what books shall be read, what physic hold any civil employment in Italy, shall be swallowed? Why should not before we admit that the Dutch Gothey choose our wives, limit our ex-vernment is bound to exclude from penses, and stint us to a certain num- office all members of the Church of ber of dishes of meat, of glasses of wine, and of cups of tea? Plato, whose hardihood in speculation was perhaps more wonderful than any other peculiarity of his extraordinary mind, and who shrank from nothing to which his principles led, went this whole length. Mr. Gladstone is not so intrepid. He contents himself with laying down this proposition, that whatever be the body which in any community is employed to protect the persons and property of The following paragraph is a specimen, that body ought also, in its cor- men of the arguments by which Mr. porate capacity, to profess a religion, Gladstone has, as he conceives, estato employ its power for the propaga-blished his great fundamental propotion of that religion, and to require sition :conformity to that religion, as an indispensable qualification for all civil office. He distinctly declares that he does not in this proposition confine his view to orthodox governments or even his property of right, however for a time to Christian governments. The cir- withholden or abused. Now this property cumstance that a religion is false does the will of the owner, when it is used for is, as it were, realised, is used according to not, he tells us, diminish the obligation the purposes he has ordained, and in the of governors, as such, to uphold it. If temper of mercy, justice, truth, and faith which he has taught us. But those printhey neglect to do so, we cannot, ciples never can be truly, never can be perhe says, "but regard the fact as aggra-manently entertained in the human breast,

66

[ocr errors]

England, the King of Bavaria to exclude from office all Protestants, the Great Turk to exclude from office all Christians, the King of Ava to exclude from office all who hold the unity of God, we think ourselves entitled to demand very full and accurate demonstration. When the consequences of a doctrine are so startling, we may well require that its foundations shall be very solid.

:

"We may state the same proposition in a more general form, in which it surely must command universal assent. Wherever there is power in the universe, that power is the property of God, the King of that universe

« ElőzőTovább »