we say tarianism is worth much, except as a purely negative guide. That certain classes of acts are injurious to society is tolerably clear. That when that an act is injurious to society, we give certainly one very sensible reason why it should be avoided, also needs no demonstration. But these two statements seem to me to sum up very nearly all that utilitarianism has to tell us, and I have yet to learn that these propositions exhaust the field of moral philosophy, however profusely they may be illustrated, or however conclusively they may be established. When we say that an act is useful or, as the case may be, prejudicial to society, we have by no means exhausted the philosophy of the subject. That all the virtues have, either directly or indirectly, some effect upon society, is as undeniable as is the old paradoxical truism that a man cannot jump a yard without moving the whole earth, or that the destruction of a single atom of matter would be the annihilation of the universe but such statements are more true than important. Many virtues of the very highest kind exercise but very little influence, if indeed any at all, upon society at large. The real inducement to nobleness of character, the most important feature which it presents to the moral philosopher, is that, of itself and entirely independently of its results, it makes its possessor the happier.3 About this there cannot be the least possible doubt. But whether the world in general is a universal gainer, is a very doubtful question. Were the benefit of society at large to form the only inducement to the pursuit of bravery or of chastity, or were the only pleasure to be derived from philosophic investigations to consist in the contemplation of their useful ness to the world at large, then would bravery and chastity be rarer than they happily now are, and metaphysicians as a class would become extinct. Surely no man, unless interested in the defence of a paradox, would maintain that the main feature in the noble and almost divine life of Spinoza was its general utility to the world at large. As compared with the doings of Columbus, or of Guttenberg and Caxton, or of Watt and Stephenson, the pure and simple-minded labours of Spinoza would, if measured by the utilitarian standard of results, be estimated far below their real moral worth. It is fortunate, indeed, that there are other inducements to virtue than those that result from the consideration of its utility, as estimated by the 'metretik art.' 'The greatest happiness of the greatest number' sounds at first as if it denoted a something of great tangibility. In reality it is the name of a gigantic abstraction, far too shadowy and far too removed from realisation to exercise any perceptible influence upon our conduct. The equalisation of happiness, which, although nowhere definitely announced, seems to be the moral ideal of utilitarians, is a conception very like that of the equalisation of property, or of the stationary condition of society. Such notions are far too abstract to affect the practice of mankind, even if we say nothing of the fact that it is very doubtful how far their realisation is either desirable or approximately possible. One word more. Utilitarians are fond of representing their theory as being a philosophical expression of the cardinal truths of Christianity. I do not grudge them their argument, but, such as it is, it ought not to rest upon a passage of which only If it may possibly be doubted whether a noble character is always the happier for its nobleness, there can be no doubt that it makes other people happier, and that the world in general is a universal gainer.'-Utilitarianism, p. 16. I need not point out how entirely I disagree with this passage. half is quoted. A garbled quotation tells as much against as for him who uses it. It is true that we are told to love our neighbours as ourselves. But we are nowhere told that this precept exhausts the field of our duties. The love of our neighbour is our second duty, the love of God our first. In other words, the highest conceivable virtue and goodness must first be sought for its own sake, and then we must recollect that in the conduct of life the noblest type of character is that of him who promotes the happiness of others at the expense of his own. R. W. CAST-AWAY! I. I SEE with the eyes of the blind, I hear with the ears of the adder, II. I wander o'er hill and o'er dale with a vague and purposeless roaming, I pluck the heath-bells as I go, and I fling their blue petals away: I count the gold stars in the sky, as they light their pale lamps in the gloaming, And I think that beyond them must lie the land of illuminate day. III. I clasp my wee bud to my breast, as his little form shivers and trembles; Ah, darling! be thou never spurned by the short-sighted Children of Earth, For the sins of the traitor, whose face thine own tiny image resembles, For the sins of the once-blooming rose, who brought such a blossom to birth! IV. We know, not a sparrow can die, save by will of the tender Creator, greater, That He hath a rod for the Wrong, and that He hath a shield for the Right! THE IRISH CHURCH BILL. terms 'revolution' and its application to men of creative THE revolutionary have been indiscriminately applied to the Irish Church Bill: by Tories to raise a prejudice against it, by Liberals to elevate and recommend. Lord Shaftesbury, who belongs to neither side, regards it as being altogether the most revolutionary measure that has come under our consideration for many generations.' This is a gratuitous abuse of words. A sweeping and comprehensive measure, if peacefully and regularly carried, is no more a revolution than a transatlantic telegraph, a tubular bridge, or any other masterpiece of engineering science, is a miracle: the laws of nature not being infringed in the one case, nor the laws of the constitution in the other. Still, the Bill is one which not only effects great immediate changes, but is fraught with consequences of deep moment to society; it will form an epoch in our political annals; and we propose to sketch its history whilst the incidents are fresh. To say that the exigencies of party warfare gave rise to it, or that it was exclusively owing to Mr. Gladstone's desire of office, is preposterous. The public mind has been working up to it for more than thirty years, and waited only for the settlement of more pressing questions to pronounce for it loudly and decisively. 'The sun illuminates the hills whilst it is below the horizon; and truth is discovered by the higher minds a little before it becomes manifest to the multitude. This is the extent of their superiority. They are the first to catch and reflect a light which, without their assistance, must in a short time be visible to those who lie far beneath them.' Without admitting the justness of this beautifully expressed axiom in genius, it is clearly applicable to legislators and statesmen; whose distinctive excellence consists in determining the precise period when the people are ripe for any given change. This is the extent of their superiority. This, at all events, was the extent of Mr. Gladstone's, when, flinging off the fondly cherished predilections of his youth, he resolutely set to work to uproot and lay prostrate an institution on which an immense majority of the most enlightened writers and thinkers throughout the whole civilised world had pronounced sentence of condemnation without appeal. There is one unanswerable proof of the length of time that has elapsed since the disestablishment of the Irish Church was deemed a fitting topic for the hustings. It filled a place in that list of ultra-Liberal opinions which Mr. Disraeli professed before the electors of High Wycombe in 1835. Lord Grey is an unimpeachable witness on the point of time. Arguing against the probability of reaction, he said: "Will your lordships allow me very shortly to recall to your minds what has been the history of this great question? It is just thirty-five years since it was first mooted in the House of Commons. .. But in the meantime a great change of opinion was silently making its way. Discussions went on in the press, and occasionally petitions were presented to Parliament, while of the young men who came forward into active life a larger and larger portion was found to be impressed with the belief that things could not remain as they are, and every foreign writer of eminence, whether European or American, whether belonging to Catholic France or Protestant Prussia, with one voice declared that the maintenance of the Church of a small minority as an exclusive and wealthy State Church was contrary to all known principles of justice. This opinion, put forth at first only by a small minority, but a minority including some of the most distinguished thinkers of the day-such men as Sydney Smith, Dr. Arnold, and many others who might be named -this opinion of the necessity of a change of policy with regard to the Irish Church gradually made its way through the whole body of the nation, and when at last the opinion of the nation was tested, it was found that the notion that England and Scotland were hostile to the change was an utter delusion, and those who wished to maintain the Church as it stands were left in a miserable minority. Now, I submit that when an opinion is slowly and steadily formed, and when at length a tide sets in such as that which now seems to be setting in in favour of a change with regard to the Irish Church, such a tide of opinion will no more run backward than a river will run back from the sea. Opinion is progressive, and an opinion thus formed will not be altered.' It was in unconscious obedience to this opinion that the last Tory Government produced what Mr. Lowe aptly called their hot potato' policy for Ireland; a policy which they let drop so speedily that, had they not burnt their fingers, they might possibly have persuaded themselves, as they tried to persuade others, that they had never meddled with it at all. It was in prompt, eager, enlightened compliance with this same opinion that Mr. Gladstone brought this great question in all its bearings before the House of Commons which had just passed the Reform Bill, for the express purpose of compelling, not merely that House, but the enlarged constituencies, in other words, the en tire nation, to pronounce upon it. The extraordinary attempt made by Mr. Disraeli to deny that the dissolution-notoriously accelerated by the division which sent him to Windsor-took place in the ordinary course of things and had no special reference to the Irish Church, simply added (if that were possible) to the mocking incredulity which his peculiar memory almost invariably provokes when dealing with reminiscences or facts. The result of the appeal was the same, collectively or individually taken; there was a majority against the Irish Church in England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, respectively. Nor will any impartial observer, who analyses that majority, deny that it was returned not merely to disestablish but to disendow. How, then, was this national will, so distinctly and unequivocally declared, to be carried out? We were amongst those who hoped that, by an approximation to what is called concurrent endowment, the inevitable harshness of the measure might have been tempered to the Anglican Church whilst it was simultaneously made more acceptable to the Catholics and Presby terians. We thought that the most zealous Protestantism would not take alarm at the proposal to supply decent residences for the priests. Unless we are much misinformed, more than one member of the Cabinet thought the same: and it may be fairly inferred from what fell from the Home Secretary in Renfrewshire, that there was a time when he and his colleagues were hesitating whether, as regards parsonages and glebes, it would be best to level up or level down. But, in the first place, they felt bound by something very like a pledge that no part of the national funds about to be resumed should be applied to religious purposes; and, in the second place, they were not long in discovering that the No Popery feeling is still widely diffused, and, with small provocation, would swell into a cry. True, out of Scotland and part of Wales, it is no longer rabid against Maynooth'; but what Burke said of Irish disaffection caused by misgovernment, is equally true of bigotry: 'You destroy the body, but the spirit transmigrates: it walks abroad and continues its ravages, whilst you are gibbeting the carcass or demolishing the tomb.' Besides, there are a class of highly respectable opponents who cannot be charged with bigotry; who conceive that the growing emancipation of the laity from clerical control, with the daily increasing differences between both clergy and laity of every denomination admitting liberty of thought, must eventually lead to the discontinuance of all State endowment whatever. The tendency of sects and persuasions to break up into fractions, when not forced into real or pretended agreement by authority, was curiously illustrated by Sir Francis Heygate: There are in Ireland a large number of ministers belonging to religious denominations other than those of the Established Church, the Roman Catholic, and the Presbyterian, for whom, in the event of the principle of concurrent endowment being adopted, glebes and houses would have to be provided. Thus there were of the Remonstrant Synod of Ulster, 24 ministers; Presbytery of Antrim, 13; Northern Presbytery of Antrim, 7; United Presbytery of Munster, 5; Eastern Reformed Presbyterian Synod, 8; United Presbyterian Presbytery of Ireland, 10; United Presbyterian Church, Dublin, 1 ; Secession Church, 11; the Independent Church in Ireland, 28; Reformed Presbyterian Synod of Ireland, 32; Methodist Church, about 178; Primitive Wesleyan Methodist, 80; Methodist New Connexion, 7; Association of Baptist Churches of Ireland, 19;-total, 423, besides the Presbyterian ministers of the Church of Scotland and Roman Catholic priests. It would be most unjust not to provide houses and glebes for these ministers if they were to be provided for those of other religious denominations.' When Voltaire described England as a country with a hundred religions and one sauce (melted butter) he included the divisions existing within the bosom of the Establishment, which have hitherto been prevented from assuming their genuine character as separate sects by the convenient elasticity of the Articles; and perhaps at this moment the Church of Rome alone presents even the semblance of that unanimity which used to be deemed essential to Establishment. On general principles, therefore, no less than from respect to popular feelings, the Ministry were compelled to drop all notion of levelling up in any shape, and had to look about for another disposition of the anticipated surplus; the problem to be solved being, how it could be applied without offending any portion of their supporters. That the solution was no easy matter is proved by the undoubted fact that the press and the public remained completely in the dark till the ministerial scheme was laid before the House. No one had hit upon it: no one had suggested any employment of the funds which satisfied the indispensable condition of not risking the division of the Liberal majority, of not running counter to the feelings or principles of Episcopalians, Presbyterians or Catholics, English, Scotch, Welsh or Irish, or, in a word, any species or variety of which that medley majority was made up. The proposal to devote the surplus to the noblest and (what even a Malthusian would admit to be) the least objectionable sort of charity, was therefore hailed on its |