LITERARY MEN IN PARLIAMENT.

NGLISHMEN are reputed to be a practical people. No revolution in their history has been the result of a desire on their part to effect constitutional changes

in order to obtain some contingent theoretical advantage. They are said to pride themselves on their inability to be influenced by an idea. Indifferent to abstractions, they are moved solely by practical, which mostly mean physical, reasons. Sometimes, indeed, out of a confused sense of duty, they attempt to act from other considerations, as on the occasion of the tercentenary of Shakespeare's birth. But it is in vain. The living Garibaldi will ever be more influential than the dead Shakespeare. Whatever they may profess to the contrary, however, they feel half ashamed of their stolidity. When rallied by their more enlightened friends on account of their inacces

sibility to advanced ideas in politics, they exouse themselves with the plea that the ideas have reference to what they do not understand, and decline to become converts till they are in a position to test the validity of the ideas in their own practical way. At this moment they have the unusual good-fortune to be presented with a cardinal opportunity of applying their favourite test. An eminent literary man, and one of the most prominent of the advanced philosophers, is a candidate for a seat in Parliament, and, having expressed his views on practical politics, he has furnished them with the means of examining his ideas when applied to a subject with which they conceive themselves to be familiar.

I have no desire to undervalue the high functions of the philosopher. In any estimate of the practical man, as compared with the man of thought, I agree with Mr. Emerson, that the ordering of a bale of goods from Smyrna to New York, or the running up and down to procure a company of subscribers to set going ten thousand spindles, or any other practical action, is not to be preferred to a life of contemplation. But I hold that the life of contemplation is an altogether different thing from the ordering of goods; that it requires in those by whom it is undertaken a different set of faculties; bespeaks a different training and a different experience; that

FUNCTIONS OF THE PHILOSOPHER. 49

success in one department depends upon the exercise of qualities of mind different from those which presumably and really make a man successful in the other; that, in a word, the theoretical is wholly distinct from the practical. The philosopher has to do with the discovery and elucidation of right principles of conduct. His function is to reason out what he conceives to be the best course for mankind. His attempts are directed to the discovery of a fixed standard of morals. He has in his calculations no respect for idiosyncrasies. To him the agriculturist of Suffolk is as the iron worker of Wales; the Catholic of Munster as the Protestant of Kent. He propounds theories. But theories, even But theories, even should they be correct, are not the most essential requisites in a legislator. No government that could be devised can be universally applied. So few are the general principles that have been ascertained, that regard must be had in legislation to the circumstances of the particular government. The condition of affairs must be thoroughly mastered; the aspect of the times and the temporary disposition of the nation must be considered. The mood of a people is evanescent, and, therefore, what is expedient to-day may be pernicious to-morrow. These popular barometrical changes the generator of correct principles is incapacitated from dealing with. He deals with

E

men as if they were counters of fixed value, whilst in practical legislation such a course would produce dangerous consequences. Here principles must vary, to be in harmony with the governed. It would obviously be injudicious, for instance, to apply the same laws to ourselves as to our Indian fellow-subjects, or to ourselves at one time as at another. At the present moment every Londoner is, politically speaking, in the possession of complete personal liberty; circumstances, however, may at any time arise when it will be found necessary to suspend the habeas corpus. Now the philosopher would, to judge from his antecedents, be an unfit person to determine the moment when the changed relations between the governors and the governed have reached the point to make the suspension necessary and salutary. For this duty another class of man intervenes. This is the

statesman. He does not profess to be guided by absolute right and wrong-is doubtful, indeed, if there is an absolute right and wrong-but his conduct is regulated by what is called Expediency. He makes a choice, that is, of what he judges to be the least of several evils. The philosopher, on the other hand, whose profession is to discover what is right, persists in advocating what is right, and disdains to concern himself with what is expedient. By à priori reasoning he has gone and discovered, for example,

PHILOSOPHER AND STATESMAN.

51

that every man and woman who can read and write should have a voice in governing the country. The practical man tells us such a notion, if carried into effect, would be dangerous to the State. Which of them is right?

Of the philosophers, the candidate for Westminster, Mr. John Stuart Mill, has for a long time been considered one of the most eminent. He is what, in the slang of his admirers, is termed "the greatest thinker" of the age. In strict accuracy he can only be credited with being the most eminent of the performing thinkers, of those, namely, that print their thoughts on philosophical questions; just as poor Tom Sayers-who, by the exaggeration of friends, was said to be the best man at fisticuffs in England

-was only the best of the ten or twelve that battered each other for the delectation of the public. But, admitting Mr. Mill's eminence in the direction and to the extent claimed, is it expedient for him or for us that he should hold a seat in Parliament?

All who appreciate the fact that the destiny of organized nature is amelioration, will agree that it is highly advantageous for the public that men are found to devote themselves to abstruse speculations, for the purpose of discovering the form and processes of this amelioration; and that it is well for the public to acknowledge their obligation. I must, however,