[From _The Edinburgh Review_, 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 unbending 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 appearance 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.
We are much pleased, without any reference to the soundness or
unsoundness of Mr. Gladstone's theories, to see a grave and elaborate
treatise on an 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 between the effect of written words, which are perused and
reperused in the stillness of the closet, and the effect of 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.... 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
generation, minds often admirably fitted for the investigation of truth,
are habitually employed in producing arguments such as no man of sense
would ever put into a treatise intended for publication, arguments which
are just good enough to be used once, when aided by fluent delivery and
pointed language. The habit of discussing questions in this way
necessarily reacts on the intellects of our ablest men, particularly of
those who are introduced into parliament at a very early age, before
their minds have expanded to full maturity. The talent for debate is
developed in such men to a degree which, to the multitude, seems as
marvellous 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 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.
Mr. Gladstone seems to us to be, in many respects, exceedingly well
qualified for philosophical investigation. His mind is of large grasp;
nor is he deficient in dialectical skill. But he does not give his
intellect fair play. There is no want of light, but a great want of what
Bacon would have called dry light. Whatever Mr. Gladstone sees is
refracted and distorted by a false medium of passions and prejudices.
His style bears a remarkable analogy to his mode of thinking, and indeed
exercises great influence on his mode of thinking. His rhetoric, though
often good of its kind, darkens and perplexes the logic which it should
illustrate. Half his acuteness and diligence, with a barren imagination
and a scanty vocabulary, would have saved him from 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.
[Greek: o gae tou phthegmatos, os hieron, kai semnon, kai teratodes.]
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 perorations.
This fault is one which no subsequent care or industry can correct. The
more strictly Mr. Gladstone reasons on his premises, the more absurd are
the conclusions which he brings out; and, when at last his good sense
and good nature recoil from the horrible practical inferences to which
this theory 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 Levitical law. It is to be observed, that Mr. Gladstone
rests his case on entirely 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."
In 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.
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 society. Without
a division of labour the world could not go on. It is of very much more
importance that men should have food than that they should have
pianofortes. Yet it by no means follows that every pianoforte-maker
ought to add the business of a baker to his 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.
Now these are matters in which man, without any reference to any higher
being, or to any future state, is very deeply interested. Every human
being, be he idolater, Mahometan, Jew, Papist, Socinian, Deist, or
Atheist, naturally loves life, shrinks from pain, desires comforts which
can be enjoyed only in communities where property is secure. To be
murdered, to be tortured, to be robbed, to be sold into slavery, these
are evidently evils from which men of every religion, and men of no
religion, wish to be protected; and therefore it will hardly be disputed
that men of every religion, and of no religion, have thus far a common
interest in being well governed.
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 mortal 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 tangible world in
which we live; the latter belongs to that higher world which is beyond
the reach of our senses. The former belongs to this life; the latter to
that which is to come. Men who are perfectly agreed as to the importance
of the former object, and as to the way of obtaining it, differ as
widely as possible respecting the latter object. We must, therefore,
pause before we admit that the persons, be they who they may, who are
trusted with power for promotion of the former object, ought always to
use that power for the promotion of the latter object.
* * * * *
The truth is, that Mr. Gladstone has fallen into an error very common
among men of less talents than his own. It is not unusual for a person
who is eager to prove a particular proposition to assume a _major_ of
huge extent, which includes that particular proposition, without ever
reflecting that it includes a great deal more. The fatal facility with
which Mr. Gladstone multiplies expressions stately and sonorous, but of
indeterminate meaning, eminently qualifies him to practise this sleight
on himself and on his readers. He lays down broad general doctrines
about power, when the only power of which he is thinking is the power of
governments, and about conjoint action when the only conjoint action of
which he is thinking is the conjoint action of citizens in a state. He
first resolves on his conclusion. He then makes a _major_ of most
comprehensive dimensions, and having satisfied himself that it contains
his conclusion, never troubles himself about what else it may contain:
and as soon as we examine it we find that it contains an infinite number
of conclusions, every one of which is a monstrous absurdity.
It is perfectly true that it would be a very good thing if all the
members of all the associations in the world were men of sound religious
views. We have no doubt that a good Christian will be under the guidance
of Christian principles, in his conduct as director of a canal company
or steward of a charity dinner. If he were, to recur to a case which we
have before put, a member of a stage-coach company, he would, in that
capacity, remember that "a righteous man regardeth the life of his
beast." But it does not follow that every association of men must,
therefore, as such association, profess a religion. It is evident that
many great and useful objects can be attained in this world only by
co-operation. It is equally evident that there cannot be efficient
co-operation, if men proceed on the principle that they must not
co-operate for one object unless they agree about other objects. Nothing
seems to us more beautiful or admirable in our social system than the
facility with which thousands of people, who perhaps agree only on a
single point, can combine their energies for the purpose of carrying that
single point. We see daily instances of this. Two men, one of them
obstinately prejudiced against missions, the other president of a
missionary society, sit together at the board of a hospital, and
heartily concur in measures for the health and comfort of the patients.
Two men, one of whom is a zealous supporter and the other a zealous
opponent of the system pursued in Lancaster's schools, meet at the
Mendicity Society, and act together with the utmost cordiality. The
general rule we take to be undoubtedly this, that it is lawful and
expedient for men to unite in an association for the promotion of a good
object, though they may differ with respect to other objects of still
higher importance.
* * * * *
If, indeed, the magistrate would content himself with laying his
opinions and reasons before the people, and would leave the people,
uncorrupted by hope or fear, to judge for themselves, we should see
little reason to apprehend that his interference in favour of error
would be seriously prejudicial to the interests of truth. Nor do we, as
will hereafter be seen, object to his taking this course, when it is
compatible with the efficient discharge of his more especial duties. But
this will not satisfy Mr. Gladstone. He would have the magistrate resort
to means which have a great tendency to make malcontents, to make
hypocrites, to make careless nominal conformists, but no tendency
whatever to produce honest and rational conviction. It seems to us quite
clear that an inquirer who has no wish except to know the truth is more
likely to arrive at the truth than an inquirer who knows that, if he
decides one way, he shall be rewarded, and that, if he decides the other
way, he shall be punished. Now, Mr. Gladstone would have governments
propagate their opinions by excluding all dissenters from all civil
offices. That is to say, he would have governments propagate their
opinions by a process which has no reference whatever to the truth or
falsehood of those opinions, by arbitrarily uniting certain worldly
advantages with one set of doctrines, and certain worldly inconveniences
with another set. It is of the very nature of argument to serve the
interests of truth; but if rewards and punishments serve the interests
of truth, it is by mere accident. It is very much easier to find
arguments for the divine authority of the Gospel than for the divine
authority of the Koran. But it is just as easy to bribe or rack a Jew
into Mahometanism as into Christianity.
From racks, indeed, and from all penalties directed against the persons,
the property, and the liberty of heretics, the humane spirit of Mr.
Gladstone shrinks with horror. He only maintains that conformity to the
religion of the state ought to be an indispensable qualification for
office; and he would, unless we have greatly misunderstood him, think it
his duty, if he had the power, to revive the Test Act, to enforce it
rigorously, and to extend it to important classes who were formerly
exempt from its operation.
This is indeed a legitimate consequence of his principles. But why stop
here? Why not roast dissenters at slow fires? All the general reasonings
on which this theory rests evidently leads to sanguinary persecution. If
the propagation of religious truth be a principal end of government, as
government; if it be the duty of government to employ for that end its
constitutional power; if the constitutional power of governments
extends, as it most unquestionably does, to the making of laws for the
burning of heretics; if burning be, as it most assuredly is, in many
cases, a most effectual mode of suppressing opinions; why should we not
burn? If the relation in which government ought to stand to the people
be, as Mr. Gladstone tells us, a paternal relation, we are irresistibly
led to the conclusion that persecution is justifiable. For the right of
propagating opinions by punishment is one which belongs to parents as
clearly as the right to give instruction. A boy is compelled to attend
family worship: he is forbidden to read irreligious books: if he will
not learn his catechism, he is sent to bed without his supper: if he
plays truant at church-time a task is set him. If he should display the
precocity of his talents by expressing impious opinions before his
brothers and sisters, we should not much blame his father for cutting
short the controversy with a horse-whip. All the reasons which lead us
to think that parents are peculiarly fitted to conduct the education of
their children, and that education is the principal end of a parental
relation, lead us also to think that parents ought to be allowed to use
punishment, if necessary, for the purpose of forcing children, who are
incapable of judging for themselves, to receive religious instruction
and to attend religious worship. Why, then, is this prerogative of
punishment, so eminently paternal, to be withheld from a paternal
government? It seems to us, also, to be the height of absurdity to
employ civil disabilities for the propagation of an opinion, and then to
shrink from employing other punishments for the same purpose. For
nothing can be clearer than that, if you punish at all, you ought to
punish enough. The pain caused by punishment is pure unmixed evil, and
never ought to be inflicted, except for the sake of some good. It is
mere foolish cruelty to provide penalties which torment the criminal
without preventing the crime. Now it is possible, by sanguinary
persecution unrelentingly inflicted, to suppress opinions. In this way
the Albigenses were put down. In this way the Lollards were put down. In
this way the fair promise of the Reformation was blighted in Italy and
Spain. But we may safely defy Mr. Gladstone to point out a single
instance in which the system which he recommends has succeeded.
* * * * *
But we must proceed in our examination of his theory. Having, as he
conceives, proved that it is the duty of every government to profess
some religion or other, right or wrong, and to establish that religion,
he then comes to the question what religion a government ought to
prefer; and he decides this question in favour of the form of
Christianity established in England. The Church of England is, according
to him, the pure Catholic Church of Christ, which possesses the
apostolical succession of ministers, and within whose pale is to be
found that unity which is essential to truth. For her decisions he
claims a degree of reverence far beyond what she has ever, in any of her
formularies, claimed for herself; far beyond what the moderate school of
Bossuet demands for the Pope; and scarcely short of what that school
would ascribe to Pope and General Council together. To separate from her
communion is schism. To reject her traditions or interpretations of
Scripture is sinful presumption.
Mr. Gladstone pronounces the right of private judgment, as it is
generally understood throughout Protestant Europe, to be a monstrous
abuse. He declares himself favourable, indeed, to the exercise of
private judgment, after a fashion of his own. We have, according to him,
a right to judge all the doctrines of the Church of England to be sound,
but not to judge any of them to be unsound. He has no objection, he
assures us, to active inquiry into religious questions. On the contrary,
he thinks such inquiry highly desirable, as long as it does not lead to
diversity of opinion; which is much the same thing as if he were to
recommend the use of fire that will not burn down houses, or of brandy
that will not make men drunk. He conceives it to be perfectly possible
for mankind to exercise their intellects vigorously and freely on
theological subjects, and yet to come to exactly the same conclusions
with each other and with the Church of England. And for this opinion he
gives, as far as we have been able to discover, no reason whatever,
except that everybody who vigorously and freely exercises his
understanding on Euclid's Theorems assents to them. "The activity of
private judgment," he truly observes, "and the unity and strength of
conviction in mathematics vary directly as each other." On this
unquestionable fact he constructs a somewhat questionable argument.
Everybody who freely inquires agrees, he says, with Euclid. But the
Church is as much in the right as Euclid. Why, then, should not every
free inquirer agree with the Church? We could put many similar
questions. Either the affirmative or the negative of the proposition
that King Charles wrote the _Icon Basilike_ is as true as that two sides
of a triangle are greater than the third side. Why, then, do Dr.
Wordsworth and Mr. Hallam agree in thinking two sides of a triangle
greater than the third side, and yet differ about the genuineness of the
_Icon Basilike?_ The state of the exact sciences proves, says Mr.
Gladstone, that, as respects religion, "the association of these two
ideas, activity of inquiry, and variety of conclusion, is a fallacious
one." We might just as well turn the argument the other way, and infer
from the variety of religious opinions that there must necessarily be
hostile mathematical sects, some affirming, and some denying, that the
square of the hypothenuse is equal to the squares of the sides. But we
do not think either the one analogy or the other of the smallest value.
Our way of ascertaining the tendency of free inquiry is simply to open
our eyes and look at the world in which we live; and there we see that
free inquiry on mathematical subjects produces unity, and that free
inquiry on moral subjects produces discrepancy. There would undoubtedly
be less discrepancy if inquirers were more diligent and candid. But
discrepancy there will be among the most diligent and candid, as long as
the constitution of the human mind, and the nature of moral evidence,
continue unchanged. That we have not freedom and unity together is a
very sad thing; and so it is that we have not wings. But we are just as
likely to see the one defect removed as the other. It is not only in
religion that this discrepancy is found. It is the same with all matters
which depend on moral evidence, with judicial questions, for example,
and with political questions. All the judges will work a sum in the rule
of three on the same principle, and bring out the same conclusion. But
it does not follow that, however honest and laborious they may be, they
will all be of one mind on the Douglas case. So it is vain to hope that
there may be a free constitution under which every representative will
be unanimously elected, and every law unanimously passed; and it would
be ridiculous for a statesman to stand wondering and bemoaning himself
because people who agree in thinking that two and two make four cannot
agree about the new poor law, or the administration of Canada.
There are two intelligible and consistent courses which may be followed
with respect to the exercise of private judgment; the course of the
Romanist, who interdicts private judgment because of its inevitable
inconveniences; and the course of the Protestant, who permits private
judgment in spite of its inevitable inconveniences. Both are more
reasonable than Mr. Gladstone, who would have private judgment without
its inevitable inconveniences. The Romanist produces repose by means of
stupefaction. The Protestant encourages activity, though he knows that
where there is much activity there will be some aberration. Mr.
Gladstone wishes for the unity of the fifteenth century with the active
and searching spirit of the sixteenth. He might as well wish to be in
two places at once.
* * * * *
We have done; and nothing remains but that we part from Mr. Gladstone
with the courtesy of antagonists who bear no malice. We dissent from his
opinions, but we admire his talents; we respect his integrity and
benevolence; and we hope that he will not suffer political avocations so
entirely to engross him, as to leave him no leisure for literature and
philosophy.