as a Jew, has no interest hostile to that of the money-market, and the money-market may Christian, or even to that of the Churchman. govern the world. The minister may be in Un questions relating to the ecclesiastical doubt as to his scheme of finance till he has establishment, the Jew and the Churchman been closeted with the Jew. A congress of may differ. But they cannot differ more widely sovereigns may be forced to summon the Jew than the Catholic and the Churchman, or the to their assistance. The scrawl of the Jew on Independent and the Churchman. The princi- the back of a piece of paper may be worth ple that Churchmen ought to monopolize the more than the royal word of three kings, or whole power of the state would at least have the national faith of three new American rean inteligible meaning. The principle that publics. But that he should put Right HonourChristians ought to monopolize it has no mean- able before his name would be the most fright ing at all. For no question connected with ful of national calamities. the ecclesiastical institutions of the country It was in this way that some of our politican possibly come before Parliament, with re- cians reasoned about the Irish Catholics. The spect to which there will not be as wide a dif-Catholics ought to have no political power. ference between Christians as there can be The sun of England is set for ever if the between any Christian and any Jew.

Catholics exercise political power. Give the In fact, the Jews are not now excluded from Catholics every thing else; but keep political any political power. They possess it; and as power from them. These prise men did not long as they are allowed to accumulate large see that, when every thing else had been given, fortunes, they muat possess it. The distinction political power had been given. They conwhich is sometimes made between civil privi- tinued to repeat their cuckoo song, when it ieges and political powers is a distinction with was no longer a question whether Catholics put a difference. Privileges are power. Civil should have political power or not, when a and political are synonymous words, the one Catholic Association bearded the Parliament, derived from the Latin, the other from the when a Catholic agitator exercised infinitely Greek. Nor is this mere verbal quibbling. more authority than the lord-lientenant. If we look for a moment at the facts of the If it is our duty as Christians to exclude the case, we shall see that the things are insepara- Jews from political power, it must be our duty ble, or rather identical.

to treat them as our ancestors treated them, to That a Jew should be a judge in a Christian murder them, and banish them, and rob them, country would be most shocking. But he may For in that way, and in thai way alone, can we be a juryman. He may try issues of fact; really deprive them of political power. If we and no harm is done. But if he should be do not adopt this course, we may take away the suffered to try issues of law, there is an end shadow, but we must leave them the sube of the constitution. He may sit in a box stance. We may do enough to pain and irriplainly dressed, and return verdicts. But that tate them; but we shall not dc enough to he should sit on the bench in a black gown and secure ourselves from danger, if danger really white wig, and grant new trials, would be an exists. Where wealth is, there power must abomination not to be thought of among bap- inevitably be. tized people. The distinction is certainly most The English Jews, we are told, are not Eng. philosophical.

lishmen. They are a separate people, living What power in civilized society is so great locally in this island, but living morally and as that of the creditor over the debtor? If we politically in communion with their brethren take this away from the Jew, we take away who are scattered over all the world. An from him the security of his property. If we English Jew looks on a Dutch or a Portuguese leave it to him, we leave to him a power more Jew as his countryman, and on an English despotic by far than that of the king and all Christian as a stranger. This want of patrio. his cabinet.

tic feeling, it is said, renders a Jew unfit to It would be impious to let a Jew sit in Par-exercise political functions.

а liament. But a Jew may make money; and The argument has in it something plausible: money may make members of Parliament. but a close examination shows it to be quite Gatton and Old Sarum may be the property of unsound. Even if the alleged facts are admita Hebrew. An elector of Penryn will take ted, still the Jews are not the only people who ten pounds from Shylock rather than nine have preferred their sect to their country. The pounds nineteen shillings and eleven pence feeling of patriotism, when society is in a three farthings from Antonio. To this no ob- healthful state, springs up, by a natural and jection is made. That a Jew should possess inevitable association, in the minds of citizens the substance of legislative power, that he who know that they owe all their comforts and should command eight votes on every division pleasures to the bond which unites them in as if he were the great Duke of Newcastle one community. But, under a partial and op. himself, is exactly as it should be. But that pressive government, these associations cannot he should pass the bar and sit down on those acquire that strength which they have in a mysterious cushions of green leather, that he better state of things. Men are compelled to should cry " hear” and “order,” and talk about seek from their party that protection which being on his legs, and being, for one, free to they ought to receive from their country, and say this and to say that, would be a profana- they, by a natural consequence, transfer to their ririn sufficient to bring ruin on the country. party that affection which they would other.

That a Jew should be privy-councillor to a wise have felt for their country. The Hugue. Christian king

would be an eternal disgrace to nots of France called in the help of England the nation. But the Jew may govern the against their Catholic kings. The Catholios

now.

ef France called in the help of Spain against a | their countrymen. It will not be denied that Huguenot king. Would it be fair to infer, that they are far better aifected to the state than the at present the French Protestants would wish followers of Coligni or Vane. But they are to see their religion made dominant by the help not so well treated as the dissenting sects of of a Prussian or English army ? Surely not. Christians are now treated in Englanå; and And why is it that they are not willing, as they on this account, and, we firmly believe, on this formerly were willing, to sacrifice the interests account alone, they have a more exclusive of their country to the interests of their reli- spirit. Till we have carried the experiment gious persuasion ? The reason is obvious: they farther, we are not entitled to conclude that were persecuted then, and are not persecuted they cannot be made Englishmen altogether.

The English Puritans, under Charles The statesman who treats them as aliens, and the First, prevailed on the Scotch to invade then abuses them for not entertaining all the England. Do the Protestant Dissenters of our feelings of natives, is as unreasonable as the time wish to see the church put down by an tyrant who punished their fathers for not make invasion of foreign Calvinists? If not, to what ing bricks without straw. cause are we to attribute the change? Surely Rulers must not be suffered thus to absolve to this, that the Protestant Dissenters are far bei- themselves of their solemn responsibility. It ter treated now than in the seventeenth century. does not lie in their mouths to say that a sect Some of the most illustrious public men that is not patriotic. It is their business to make England ever produced were inclined to take it patriotic. History and reason clearly indi. refuge from the tyranny of Laud in North cate the means. The English Jews are, as far America. Was this because Presbyterians and as we can see, precisely what our government Independents are incapable of loving their has made them. They are precisely what any country? But it is idle to multiply instances. sect, what any class of men, treated as they Nothing is so offensive to a man who knows have been treated, would have been. If all the any thing of history or of human nature as 10 red-haired people in Europe had, during cenbear those who exercise the powers of govern- turies, been outraged and oppressed, banished ment accuse any sect of foreign attachments. from this place, imprisoned in that, deprived If there be any proposition universally true in of their money, deprived of their teeth, con. politics it is this, that foreign attachments are victed of the most improbable crimes on the the fruit of domestic misrule. It has always feeblest evidence, dragged at horses' tails, been the trick of bigots to make their subjects hanged, tortured, burned alive, if, when manmiserable at home, and then to complain that ners became milder, they had still been subject they look for relief abroad; to divide society, to debasing restrictions and exposed to vulgar and to wonder that it is not united; to govern insults, locked up in particular streets in some as if a section of the state were the whole, and countries, pelted and ducked by the rabble in to censure the other sections of the state for others, excluded everywhere from magistracies their want of patriotic spirit. If the Jews have and honours, what would be the patriotism of not felt towards England like children, it is gentlemen with red hair? And if, under such because she has treated them like a step- circumstances, a proposition were made for mother. There is no feeling which more cer- admitting red-haired men to office, how striking tainly developes itself in the minds of men a speech might an eloquent admirer of our living under tolerably good government than old institutions deliver against so revolutionary the feeling of patriotism. Since the beginning a measure ! “ These men,” he might say, of the world, there never was any nation, or “ scarcely consider themselves as Englishmen. any large portion of any nation, not cruelly They think a red-haired Frenchman or a redoppressed, which was wholly destitute of that haired German more closely connected with feeling, To make it therefore ground of ac- them than a man with brown hair born in their cusation against a class of men, that they are own parish. If a foreign sovereign patronizes not patriotic, is the most vulgar legerdemain red hair, they love him better than their own of sophistry. It is the logic which the wolf native king. They are not Englishmen: they employs against the lamb. It is to accuse the cannot be Englishmen: nature has forbidden mouth of the stream of poisoning the source. it: experience proves it to be impossible.

If the English Jews really felt a deadly hatred Right to political power they have none; for to England, if the weekly prayer of their syna- no man has a right to poiitical power. Let gogues were that all the curses denounced by them enjoy personal security; let their proEzekiel on Tyre and Egypt might fall on Lon-perty be under the protection of the law. But don, if, in their solemn feasts, they called down if they ask for leave to exercise power over a blessings on those who should dash our chil community of which they are only half mem. dren to pieces on the stones, still, we say, their bers, a community the constitution of which is hatted to their countrymen would not be more essentially dark-haired, let us answer them in intense than that which sects of Christians the words of our wise-ancestors, Nolumus leges have often borne to each other. But in fact Angliæ mutari.” the fecling of the Jews is not such. It is pre- But, it is said, the Scriptures declare that cisely what, in the situation in which they are the Jews are to be restored to their own counplaced, we should expect it to be. They are try; and the whole nation looks forward to treated far better than the French Protestants that restoration. They are, therefore, not so were treated in the sixteenth and seventeenth deeply interested as others in the prosperity of centuries, or than our Puritans were treated in England. It is not their home, but merely the the time of Laud. They, therefore, have no place of their sojourn, the house of their bonrancour against the gover..ment or against, dage. This argument, which first appeared in

a

the Times newspaper, and which has attracted which they have never done. She enjoins her a degree of attention proportioned not so much priests to observe strict purity. You are to its own intrinsic force as to the general always taunting them with their licentious. talent with which that journal is conducted, ness. She commands al her followers to fast belongs to a class of sophisms by which the often, to be charitable to the poor, to take no most hateful persecutions may easily be jus interest for money, to fight no duels, to see no fied. To charge men with practical conse- plays. Do they obey these injunctions? If it quences which they themselves deny, is disin- be the fact that very few of them strictly obgenuous in controversy; it is atrocious in serve her precepts, when her precepts are government. The doctrine of predestination, opposed to their passions and interests, may in the opinion of many people, iends to make not loyalty, may not humanity, may not the those who hold it vtterly immoral. And cer. love of ease, may not the fear of death, be tainly it would seem that a man who believes sufficient to prevent them from executing his eternal destiny to be already irrevocably those wicked" orders which she has issued fixed is likely to indulge his passions without against the sovereign of England ? When restraint and to neglect his religious duties. we know that many of these people do not If he is an heir of wrath, his exertions must be care enough for their religion to go without unavailing. If he is preordained to life, they beef on a Friday for it, why should we think must be superfluous. But would it be wise to that they will run the risk of being racked and punish every man who holds the higher doc- hanged for it? trines of Calvinism, as if he had actually com- People are now reasoning about the Jews as mitted all those crimes which we know some our fathers reasoned about the Papists. The Antinomians to have committed ? Assuredly law which is inscribed on the walls of the sy. not. The fact notoriously is that there are nagogues prohibits covetousness. But if we many Calvinists as moral in their conduct as were to say that a Jew mortgagee would not any Arminian, and many Arminians as loose foreclose, because God had commanded him as any Calvinist.

not to covet his neighbour's house, every body It is altogether impossible to reason from would think us out of our wits. Yet it passes the opinions which a man professes to his feel- for an argument to say that a Jew will take no ings and his actions; and in fact no person is interest in the prosperity of the country in ever such a fool as to reason thus, except when which he lives, that he will not care how bad he wants a pretext for persecuting his neigh-its laws and police may be, how heavily it bours. A Christian is commanded, under the may be taxed, how often it may be conquered strongest sanctions, to be just in all his deal- and given up to spoil, because God has proings. Yet to how many of the twenty-four mised that, by some unknown means, and at millions of professing Christians in these isl. some undetermined time, perhaps ten thousand ands would any man in his senses lend a thou- years hence, the Jews shall migrate to Pales. sand pounds without security? A man who iine. Is not this the most profound ignorance should act, for one day, on the supposition that of human nature? Do we not know that what all the people about him were influenced by is remote and indefinite affects men far less the religion which they professed, would find than what is near and certain ? himself ruined before night; and no man ever ment too applies to Christians as strongly as does act on that supposition in any of the ordi- to Jews. The Christian believes, as well as nary concerns of life, in borrowing, in lend- the Jew, that at some future period the presing, in buying, or in selling. But when any of ent order of things will come to an end. Nay, our fellow-creatures are to be oppressed, the many Christians believe that the Messiah will case is different. Then we represent those shortly establish a kingdom on the earth, and motives which we know to be so feeble for reign visibly over all its inhabitants. Whether good as omnipotent for evil. Then we lay to this doctrine be orthodox or not we shall not the charge of our victims all the vices and here inquire. The number of people who hold follies to which their doctrines, however re- it is very much greater than the number of motely, seem to tend. We forget that the same Jews residing in England. Many of those who weakness, the same laxity, the same disposi- hold it are distinguished by rank, wealth, and tion to prefer the present to the future, which ability. It is preached from pulpits, both of make inen worse than a good religion, make the Scottish and of the English church. No them better than a bad one.

blemen and members of parliament have writ. It was in this way that our ancestors rea- ten in defence of it. Now wherein does this soned, and that some people in our own time doctrine differ, as far as its political tendency still reason, about the Catholics. A Papist is concerned, from the doctrine of the Jews? believes himself bound to obey the pope. The If a Jew is unfit to legislate for us because he pope has issued a bull deposing Queen Eli. believes that he or his remote descendents will zabeth. Therefore every Papist will treat be removed to Palestine, can we safely open her grace as an usurper. Therefore every the House of Commons to a fifth monarchi Papist is a traitor. Therefore every Papist man who expects that, before this generation ought to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. To shall pass away, all the kingdoms of the earth this logic we owe some of the most hateful will be swallowed up in one divine empire ! laws that ever disgraced our history. Surely Does a Jew engage less eager.y than a Chris the answer lies on the surface. The church'tian in any competition which the law leaves of Rome may have commanded these men to open to him? Is he less active and regular in treat the queen as an usurper. But she has his business than his veighbours? Does he commanded them te dw many other things furnish his house meanly, because he is a pile

The argugrim and sojourner in the land? Does the ex. that crime which made the earth shake any pectation of being restored to the country of blotted out the sun from heaven! The same his fathers make him insensible to the fluctua- reasoning which is now employed to vindicats tions of the stock-exchange? Docs he, in ar- the disabilities imposed on our Hebrew coun. ranging his private affairs, ever take into the trymen will equally vindicate the kiss of Judas account the chance of his migrating to Pales- and the judgment of Pilate. “The Son of man tine? If not, why are we to suppose that feel goeth, as it is written of him; but woe to that ings which never influence his dealings as a man by whom the Son of man is betrayed." merchant, or his dispositions as a testator, will And woe to those who, in any age or in any acquire a boundless influence over him as soon country, disobey his benevolent commands un as he becomes a magistrate or a legislator ? der pretence of accomplishing his predictions

There is another argument which we would If this argument justifies the laws now existing dot willingly treat with levity, and which yet we against the Jews, it justifies equally all the scarcely know how to treat seriously. Scrip- cruelties which have ever been committec ture, it is said, is full of terrible denunciations against them, the sweeping edicts of banish against the Jews. It is foretold that they ment and confiscation, the dungeon, the rack, are to be wanderers. Is it then right to give and the slow fire. How can we excuse our them a home? It is foretold that they are to selves for leaving property to people who are be oppressed. Can we with proprieiy suffer " to serve their enemies in hunger, and in thirst, them to be rulers ? Tc admit them to the and in nakedness, and in want of all things ;" rights of citizens is manifestly to insult the for giving protection to the persons of those Divine oracles.

who are lo “ fear day and night, and to have We allow that to falsify a prophecy inspired none assurance of their life;" for not seizing by Divine Wisdom would be a most atrocious on the children of a race whose “sons and crime. It is, therefore, a happy circumstance daughters are to be given unto another people." for our frail species, that it is a crime which We have not so learned the doctrines of no man can possibly commit

. If we admit the Him who commanded us to love our neighJews to seats in Parliament, we shall, by so bour as ourselves, and who, when he was doing, prove that the prophecies in question, called upon to explain what He meant by a whatever they may mean, do not mean that the neighbour, selected as an example a heretic Jews shall be excluded from Parliament. and an alien. Last year, we remember, it was

In fact it is already clear that the prophecies represented by a pious writer in the John Bull do not bear the meaning put upon them by the newspaper, and by some other equally fervid respectable persons whom we are now answer. Christians, as a monstrous indecency, that the ing. In France and in the United States the measure for the relief of the Jews should be Jews are already admitted to all the rights of brought forward in Passion week. One of citizens. A prophecy, therefore, which should these humourists ironically recommended that mean that the Jews would never, during the it should be read a second time on Good Fri course of their wanderings, be admitted to all day. We should have had no objection; nor the rights of citizens in the places of their so- do we believe that the day could be commemojourn, would be a false prophecy. This, there- rated in a more worthy manner. We know of fore, is not the meaning of the prophecies of no day fitter for terminating long hostilities Scripture.

and repairing cruel wrongs, than the day on But we protest altogether against the prac. which the religion of mercy was founded. We tice of confounding prophecy with precept, of know of no day fitter for blotting out from the setting up predictions which are often obscure statute book the last traces of intolerance than against a morality which is always clear. If the day on which the spirit of intolerance proactions are to be considered as just and good duced the foulest of all judicial murders, the merely because they have been predicted, what day on which the list of the victims of intoler. action was ever more laudable than that crime ance, that noble list wherein Socrates and Morg which our bigots are now, at the end of eighteen are enrolled, was glorified by a yet greater and centuries, urging us to avenge on the Jews, I holier name.

43

MILL'S ESSAY ON GOVERNMENT.*

(EDINBURGH Review, March, 1829.)

Or those philosophers who call themselves them that the studies which they have neglected Utilitarians, and whom others generally call are of no value, puts five or six phrases into Benthamites, Mr. Mill is, with the exception of their mouths, lends them an odd number of the the illustrious founder of the sect, by far the Westminster Review, and in a month trans. most distinguished. The little work now before forms them into philosophers. Mingled with us contains a summary of the opinions held by these smatterers, whose attainmenis just suffice this gentleman and his brethren, on several to elevate them from the insignificance of subjects most important to society. All the dunces to the dignity of bores, and to spread seven Essays of which it consists, abound in dismay among their pious aunts and grandcurious matter. But at present we intend to mothers, there are, we well know, many well. confine our remarks to the Treatise on Govern- meaning men, who have really read and ment, which stands first in the volume. On thought much; but whose reading and medisome future occasion we may perhaps attempt tation have been almost exclusively confined to do justice to the rest.

to one class of subjects; and who, consequently, It must be owned, that, to do justice 10 any though they possess much valuable knowledge composition of Mr. Mill is not, in the opinion respecting those subjects, are by no means so of his admirers, a very easy task. They do well qualified to judge of a great system as if not, indeed, place nim in the same rank with they had taken a more enlarged view of literaMr. Bentham ; but the terms in which they ture and society. extol the disciple, though feeble when com- Nothing is more amusing or instructive than pared with the hyperboles of admiration em- to observe the manner in which people, who ployed by them in speaking of the master, are think themselves wiser than all the rest of the as strong as any sober man would allow him- world, fall into snares which the simple good self to use concerning Locke or Bacon. The sense of their neighbours detects and avoids. Essay before us is perhaps the most remarka. It is one of the principal tenets of the Utilita. ble of the works to which Mr. Mill owes his rians, that sentiment and eloquence serve only fame. By the members of his sect, it is con- to impede the pursuit of truth. They theresidered as perfect and unanswerable. Every fore affect a quakerly plainness, or rather a part of it is an article of their faith; and the cynical negligence and impurity of style. The damnatory clauses, in which their creed abounds strongest arguments, when clothed in brilliant far beyond any theological symbol with which language, seem to them so much wordy nonwe are acquainted, are strong and full against sense. In the meantime they surrender their all who reject any portion of what is so irre- understandings, with a facility found in no fragably established. No man, they maintain, other party, to the meanest and most abject who has understanding sufficient to carry him sophisms, provided those sophisms come before through the first proposition of Euclid, can them disguised with the externals of demonstra. read this master-piece of demonstration, and tion. They do not seem to know that logic has honestly declare that he remains unconvinced. its illusions as well as rhetoric,—that a fallacy

We have formed a very different opinion of may lurk in a syllogism as well as in a this work. We think that the theory of Mr. metaphor. Mill rests altogether on false principles, and Mr. Mill is exactly the writer to please people that even on those false principles he does not of this description. His arguments are staied reason logically. Nevertheless, we do not with the utmost affectation of precision : his think it strange that his speculations should divisions are awfully formal; and his style is have filled the Utilitarians with admiration. generally as dry as that of Euclid's Elements. We have been for some time past inclined to Whether this be a merit, we must be permitted suspect that these people, whom some regard to doubt. Thus much is certain, that the ages as the lights of the world, and others as incar- in which the true principles of philosophy nate demons, are in general ordinary men, with were least understood, were those in which the narrow understandings, and little information. ceremonial of logic was most strictly observed, The contempt which they express for elegant and that the time from which we date the rapid literature is evidently the contempt of igno- progress of the experimental sciences was also rance. We apprehend that many of them are the time at which a less exact and formal way persons who, having read little or nothing, are of writing came into use. delighted to be rescued from the sense of their The style which the Utilitarians admire, suits own inferiority, by some teacher who assures only those subjects on which it is possible to

reason a priori. It grew up with the verbal • Essays on Government, Jurisprudence, the Liberty of sophistry which flourished during the dark Lre Press, Prisons and Prison Discipline, Colonies, the Law ages. With that sophistry it fell before the of Nations and Education. By James Mill., Esq., author Baconian philosophy, in the day of the great of the History of British India. Reprinted by permission deliverance of the human mind. The induc. from the Supplement to the Encyclopædia Britannica. (Not for sale.) london. 1828

tive method not cnly endured, but require!,