both expressed in terms of personal courtesy, for which I am bound to
make my best acknowledgments, have reached me through the Editor of
the _London Magazine_. One of them refers me 'to the number of the
_New Monthly Magazine_ for March or April, 1821, for an article on
Malthus, in which the view' taken by myself 'of his doctrine, as an
answer to Godwin, seems to have been anticipated.' In reply to this I
have only to express my regret that my present situation, which is at
a great distance from any town, has not yet allowed me an opportunity
for making the reference pointed out.--The other letter disputes the
soundness of my arguments--not so much in themselves, as in their
application to Mr. Malthus: 'I know not that I am authorised to speak
of the author by name: his arguments I presume that I am at liberty to
publish: they are as follows:--The first objection appears untenable
for this reason: Mr. Malthus treats of the abstract tendency to
increase in Man, and in the Food of Man, relatively. Whereas you do
not discuss the abstract tendency to increase, but only the _measure_
of that increase, which is food. To the second objection I thus
answer: Mr. Godwin contends not (I presume) for abstract, essential
perfection; but for perfection relating to, and commensurate with, the
capabilities of an earthly nature and habitation. All this Mr. Malthus
admits _argumenti gratiâ_: and at the same time asserts that Mr.
Godwin's estimate in his own terms is incompatible with our state. 8th
October, 1823.'--To these answers my rejoinder is this:--The first
argument I am not sure that I perfectly understand; and therefore I
will not perplex myself or its author by discussing it. To the second
argument I reply thus: I am aware that whatsoever Mr. Malthus admits
from Mr. Godwin, he admits only _argumenti gratiâ._ But for whatsoever
purpose he admits it, he is bound to remember, that he _has_ admitted
it. Now what is it that he has admitted? A state of perfection. This
term, under any explanation of it, betrays him into the following
dilemma: Either he means _absolute_ perfection, perfection which
allows of no degrees; or he means (in the sense which my friendly
antagonist has supposed) _relative_ perfection, _quoad_ our present
state--_i. e._ a continual approximation to the ideal of absolute
perfection, without ever reaching it. If he means the first, then he
is exposed to the objection (which I have already insisted on
sufficiently) of bringing the idea of perfection under an inconsistent
and destructory predicate. If he means the second, then how has he
overthrown the doctrine of human perfectibility as he professes to
have done? At this moment, though the earth is far from exhausted (and
still less its powers), many countries are, according to Mr. Malthus,
suffering all the evils which they could suffer if population had
reached its maximum: innumerable children are born which the poverty
of their parents (no less fatal to them than the limitation of the
earth) causes to be thrown back prematurely into the grave. Now this
is the precise _kind_ of evil which Mr. Malthus anticipates for the
human species when it shall have reached its numerical maximum. But in
_degree_ the evil may then be much less--even upon Mr. Malthus's own
showing: for he does not fix any limit to the increase of moral
restraint, but only denies that it will ever become absolute and
universal. When the principle of population therefore has done its
worst, we may be suffering the same kind of evil--but, in proportion
to an indefinitely _in_creasing moral restraint, an indefinitely
_de_creasing degree of that evil: _i. e._ we may continually
approximate to the ideal of perfection: _i. e._ if the second sense
of perfection be Mr. Godwin's sense, then Mr. Malthus has not
overthrown Mr. Godwin.
X. Y. Z.
* * * * *
The following admirable letter[30] seems to refer to the observations
on Kant, contained in the Opium Eater's Letters. Perhaps that acute
logician may be able to discover its meaning: or if not, he may think
it worth preserving as an illustration of Shakspeare's profound
knowledge of character displayed in Ancient Pistol.
[Footnote 30: This is attached by the Editor of _The London
Magazine_.--H.]
* * * * *
Can Neptune sleep?--Is Willich dead?--Him who wielded the trident of
Albion! Is it thus you trample on the ashes of my friend? All the
dreadful energies of thought--all the sophistry of fiction and the
triumphs of the human intellect are waving o'er his peaceful grave.
'He understood not Kant.' Peace then to the harmless invincible. I
have long been thinking of presenting the world with a Metaphysical
Dictionary--of elucidating Locke's romance.--I await with impatience
Kant in English. Give me that! Your letter has awakened me to a sense
of your merits. Beware of squabbles; I know the literary infirmities
of man. Scott rammed his nose against mortals--he grasped at death for
fame to chaunt the victory.
THINE.
How is the Opium Eater?
THE SERVICES OF MR. RICARDO TO THE SCIENCE OF POLITICAL ECONOMY,
BRIEFLY AND PLAINLY STATED.[31]
(_March, 1824._)
I do not remember that any public event of our own times has touched
me so nearly, or so much with the feelings belonging to a private
affliction, as the death of Mr. Ricardo. To me in some sense it _was_
a private affliction--and no doubt to all others who knew and honoured
his extraordinary talents. For great intellectual merit, wherever it
has been steadily contemplated, cannot but conciliate some personal
regard: and for my own part I acknowledge that, abstracting altogether
from the use to which a man of splendid endowments may apply them--or
even supposing the case that he should deliberately apply them to a
bad one, I could no more on that account withhold my good wishes and
affection from his person--than, under any consideration of their
terrific attributes, I could forbear to admire the power and the
beauty of the serpent or the panther. Simply on its own account, and
without further question, a great intellect challenges, as of right,
not merely an interest of admiration--in common with all other
exhibitions of power and magnificence--but also an interest of human
love, and (where that is necessary) a spirit of tenderness to its
aberrations. Mr. Ricardo however stood in no need of a partial or
indulgent privilege: his privilege of intellect had a comprehensive
sanction from all the purposes to which he applied it in the course of
his public life: in or out of parliament, as a senator--or as an
author, he was known and honoured as a public benefactor. Though
connected myself by private friendship with persons of the political
party hostile to his, I heard amongst them all but one language of
respect for his public conduct. Those, who stood neutral to all
parties, remarked that Mr. Ricardo's voice--though heard too seldom
for the wishes of the enlightened part of the nation--was never raised
with emphasis upon any question lying out of the province in which he
reigned as the paramount authority, except upon such as seemed to
affect some great interest of liberty or religious toleration. And,
wherever a discussion arose which transcended the level of temporary
and local politics (as that for example upon corporal punishments),
the weight of authority--which mere blank ability had obtained for
him in the House of Commons--was sure to be thrown into that view of
the case which upheld the dignity of human nature. Participating most
cordially in these feelings of reverence for Mr. Ricardo's political
character, I had besides a sorrow not unmixed with self-reproach
arising out of some considerations more immediately relating to
myself. In August and September 1821 I wrote _The Confessions of an
English Opium-Eater_: and in the course of this little work I took
occasion to express my obligations, as a student of Political Economy,
to Mr. Ricardo's 'Principles' of that science. For this as for some
other passages I was justly[32] attacked by an able and liberal critic
in the _New Edinburgh Review_--as for so many absurd irrelevancies: in
that situation no doubt they were so; and of this, in spite of the
haste in which I had written the greater part of the book, I was fully
aware. However, as they said no more than was true, I was glad to take
that or any occasion which I could invent for offering my public
testimony of gratitude to Mr. Ricardo. The truth is--I thought that
something might occur to intercept any more appropriate mode of
conveying my homage to Mr. Ricardo's ear, which should else more
naturally have been expressed in a direct work on Political Economy.
This fear was at length realised--not in the way I had apprehended,
viz. by my own death--but by Mr. Ricardo's. And now therefore I felt
happy that, at whatever price of good taste, I had in some imperfect
way made known my sense of his high pretensions--although
unfortunately I had given him no means of judging whether my applause
were of any value. For during the interval between Sept. 1821 and Mr.
Ricardo's death in Sept. 1823 I had found no leisure for completing my
work on Political Economy: on that account I had forborne to use the
means of introduction to Mr. Ricardo which I commanded through my
private connections or simply as a man of letters: and in some measure
therefore I owed it to my own neglect--that I had for ever lost the
opportunity of benefiting by Mr. Ricardo's conversation or bringing
under his review such new speculations of mine in Political Economy as
in any point modified his own doctrines--whether as corrections of
supposed oversights, as derivations of the same truth from a higher
principle, as further illustrations or proofs of anything which he
might have insufficiently developed, or simply in the way of
supplement to his known and voluntary omissions. All this I should
have done with the utmost fearlessness of giving offence, and not for
a moment believing that Mr. Ricardo would have regarded anything in
the light of an undue liberty, which in the remotest degree might
seem to affect the interests of a science so eminently indebted to
himself. In reality candour may be presumed in a man of first-rate
understanding--not merely as a moral quality--but almost as a part of
his intellectual constitution _per se_; a spacious and commanding
intellect being magnanimous in a manner _suo jure_, even though it
should have the misfortune to be allied with a perverse or irritable
temper. On this consideration I would gladly have submitted to the
review of Mr. Ricardo, as indisputably the first of critics in this
department, rather than to any other person, my own review of himself.
That I have forfeited the opportunity of doing this--is a source of
some self-reproach to myself. I regret also that I have forfeited the
opportunity of perhaps giving pleasure to Mr. Ricardo by liberating
him from a few misrepresentations, and placing his vindication upon a
firmer basis even than that which he has chosen. In one respect I
enjoy an advantage for such a service, and in general for the polemic
part of Political Economy, which Mr. Ricardo did not. The course of my
studies has led me to cultivate the scholastic logic. Mr. Ricardo has
obviously neglected it. Confiding in his own conscious strength, and
no doubt participating in the common error of modern times as to the
value of artificial logic, he has taken for granted that the
Aristotelian forms and the exquisite science of distinctions matured
by the subtilty of the schoolmen can achieve nothing in substance
which is beyond the power of mere sound good sense and robust
faculties of reasoning; or at most can only attain the same end with a
little more speed and adroitness. But this is a great error: and it
was an ill day for the human understanding when Lord Bacon gave his
countenance to a notion, which his own exclusive study of one
department in philosophy could alone have suggested. Distinctions
previously examined--probed--and accurately bounded, together with a
terminology previously established, are the crutches on which all
minds--the weakest and the strongest--must alike depend in many cases
of perplexity: from pure neglect of such aids, which are to the
unassisted understanding what weapons are to the unarmed human
strength or tools and machinery to the naked hand of art, do many
branches of knowledge at this day languish amongst those which are
independent of experiment.
[Footnote 31: MR. J. R. MCCULLOCH in his _Literature of Political
Economy_ makes the following observations concerning DE QUINCEY'S
'Dialogues of Three Templars on Political Economy':--They are
unequalled, perhaps, for brevity, pungency, and force. They not only
bring the Ricardian theory of value into strong relief, but
triumphantly repel, or rather annihilate, the objections urged against
it by Malthus, in the pamphlet now referred to and his Political
Economy, and by Say, and others. They may, indeed, be said to have
exhausted the subject.]
[Footnote 32: Not so however, let me say in passing, for three
supposed instances of affected doubt; in all of which my doubts were,
and are at this moment, very sincere and unaffected; and, in one of
them at least, I am assured by those of whom I have since inquired
that my reviewer is undoubtedly mistaken. As another point which, if
left unnoticed, might affect something more important to myself than
the credit of my taste or judgment,--let me inform my reviewer that,
when he traces an incident which I have recorded most faithfully about
a Malay--to a tale of Mr. Hogg's, he makes me indebted to a book which
I never saw. In saying this I mean no disrespect to Mr. Hogg; on the
contrary, I am sorry that I have never seen it: for I have a great
admiration of Mr. Hogg's genius; and have had the honour of his
personal acquaintance for the last ten years.]
As the best consolation to myself for the lost opportunities with
which I have here reproached myself,--and as the best means of doing
honour to the memory of Mr. Ricardo,--I shall now endeavour to spread
the knowledge of what he has performed in Political Economy. To do
this in the plainest and most effectual manner, I shall abstain from
introducing any opinions peculiar to myself, excepting only when they
may be necessary for the defence of Mr. Ricardo against objections
which have obtained currency from the celebrity of their authors--or
in the few cases where they may be called for by the errors (as I
suppose them to be) even of Mr. Ricardo.--In using this language, I do
not fear to be taxed with arrogance: we of this day stand upon the
shoulders of our predecessors; and that I am able to detect any errors
in Mr. Ricardo--I owe, in most instances, to Mr. Ricardo himself.
X. Y. Z.
EDUCATION.
PLANS FOR THE INSTRUCTION OF BOYS IN LARGE NUMBERS.[33]
(_April and May, 1824._)
This is the work of a very ingenious man, and records the most
original experiment in Education which in this country at least has
been attempted since the date of those communicated by the Edgeworths.
We say designedly 'in this country;' because to compare it with some
continental schemes which have been only recently made known to the
English public (and not fully made known even yet) would impose upon
us a minute review of those schemes, which would be, _first_,
disproportionate to our limits--_secondly_, out of its best situation,
because it would be desirable to examine those schemes separately for
the direct purpose of determining their own absolute value, and not
indirectly and incidentally for the purpose of a comparison. The
Madras system, again, is excluded from the comparison--not so much for
the reason alleged (pp. 123-5), by the author before us--as though
that system were _essentially_ different from his own in its purpose
and application: the _purpose_ of the Madras system is not exclusively
economy of expense, but in combination with that purpose a far greater
accuracy (and therefore reality) in the knowledge communicated than
could be obtained on the old systems; on this account therefore the
possible _application_ of the Madras system is not simply to the
education of the poor, though as yet the actual application of it may
have been chiefly to them, but also to the education of the rich; and
in fact it is well known that the Madras system (so far from being
_essentially_ a system for the poor) has been adopted in some of the
great classical schools of the kingdom.[34] The difference is more
logically stated thus--that the Madras system regards singly the
quality of the knowledge given, and (with a view to _that_) the mode
of giving it: whereas the system, which we are going to review, does
not confine its view to _man as a being capable of knowledge_, but
extends it to _man as a being capable of action, moral or prudential_:
it is therefore a much more comprehensive system. The system before us
does not exclude the final purpose of the Madras system: on the
contrary, it is laudably solicitous for the fullest and most accurate
communication of knowledge, and suggests many hints for the attainment
of that end as just and as useful as they are enlightened. But it does
not stop here: it goes further, and contemplates the whole man with a
reference to his total means of usefulness and happiness in life. And
hence, by the way, it seems to us essential--that the whole child
should on this system be surrendered to the school; _i. e._ that there
should be no day-scholars; and this principle we shall further on
endeavour to establish on the evidence of a case related by the author
himself.[35] On the whole therefore we have designedly stated our
general estimate of the author's system with a reference to that of
the Edgeworths; not only because it has the same comprehensiveness of
object, and is in some degree a further expansion of their method and
their principles; but also because the author himself strikingly
resembles the Edgeworths in style and composition of mind; with this
single difference perhaps, that the good sense and perception of
propriety (of what in French would be called _les convenances_), which
in both is the characteristic merit (and, when it comes into conflict
with any higher quality, the characteristic defect),--in him is less
coloured by sarcastic and contemptuous feelings; which in all cases
are unamiable feelings, and argue some defect of wisdom and
magnanimity; but, when directed (as in the Edgeworths they sometimes
are) against principles in human nature which lie far beyond the field
of their limited philosophy, recoil with their whole strength upon
those who utter them. It is upon this consideration of his
intellectual affinity with the Edgeworths that we are the less
disposed to marvel at his estimate of their labours: that, for
instance, at p. 192 he styles their work on education 'inestimable,'
and that at p. 122, though he stops short of proposing 'divine
honours' to Miss Edgeworth, the course of his logic nevertheless binds
him to mean that on Grecian principles such honours are 'due to her.'
So much for the general classification and merits of the author, of
whom we know nothing more than--that, from his use of the
Scotticisms--'succumb,'--'compete,'--and 'in place of' for 'instead
of' he ought to be a Scotchman: now then for his system.
[Footnote 33: _Plans for the Government and Liberal Instruction of
Boys in large Numbers; Drawn from Experience._ London: 1822. 8vo.]
[Footnote 34: The distinguishing excellence of the Madras system is
not that it lodges in the pupils themselves the functions which on the
old systems belong to the masters, and thus at the same blow by which
it secures greater accuracy of knowledge gets rid of a great expense
in masters: for this, though a great merit, is a derivative merit: the
condition of the possibility of this advantage lies in a still
greater--viz. in the artificial _mechanism_ of the system by which,
when once established, the system works itself, and thus neutralises
and sets at defiance all difference of ability in the teachers--which
previously determined the whole success of the school. Hence is
obtained this prodigious result--that henceforward the blessing of
education in its elementary parts is made independent of accident, and
as much carried out of the empire of _luck_ as the manufacture of
woollens or cottons. That it is _mechanic_, is no conditional praise
(as alleged by the author before us), but the absolute praise of the
Madras system: neither is there any just ground of fear, as he and
many others have insinuated, that it should injure the freedom of the
human intellect.]
[Footnote 35: We have since found that we have not room for it; the
case is stated and argued in the Appendix (pp. 220-227); but in our
opinion not fairly argued. The appellant's plea was sound, and ought
not to have been set aside. [At the end of the Paper I have restored
this 'CASE OF APPEAL' from the original work.--H.]]
Of this we may judge by two criteria--experimentally by its result, or
_à priori_ by its internal aptitude for attaining its ends. Now as to
the result, it must be remembered that--even if the author of any
system could be relied on as an impartial witness to its result--yet,
because the result of a system of education cannot express itself in
any one insulated fact, it will demand as much judgment to abstract
from any limited experience what really _is_ the result as would have
sufficed to determine its merits _à priori_ without waiting for any
result. Consequently, as it would be impossible to exonerate
ourselves from the necessity of an elaborate act of judgment by any
appeal to the practical test of the result--seeing that this result
would again require an act of judgment hardly less elaborate for its
satisfactory settlement than the _à priori_ examination which it had
been meant to supersede,--we may as well do that at first which we
must do in the end; and, relying upon our own understandings, say
boldly that the system is good or bad because on this argument it is
evidently calculated to do good or on that argument to do evil, than
blindly pronounce--it is good or it is bad, because it has
produced--or has failed of producing--such and such effects; even if
those effects were easy to collect. In fact, for any conclusive
purpose of a practical test, the experience is only now beginning to
accumulate: and here we may take occasion to mention that we had
ourselves been misinformed as to the duration of the experiment; for a
period of four years, we were told, a school had existed under the
system here developed: but this must be a mistake, founded perhaps on
a footnote at p. 83 which says--'The plan has now been in operation
more than four years:' but the plan there spoken of is not the general
system, but a single feature of it--viz. the abolition of corporal
punishment: in the text this plan had been represented as an immature
experiment, having then 'had a trial of nine months' only: and
therefore, as more than three years nine months had elapsed from that
time to the publication of the book, a note is properly added
declaring that the experiment had succeeded, and that the author could
'not imagine any motive strong enough to force him back to the old
practice.' The system generally however must have existed now (_i. e._
November 1823) for nearly eight years at the least: so much is evident
from a note at p. 79, where a main regulation of the system is said to
have been established 'early in 1816.' Now a period of seven or eight
years must have been sufficient to carry many of the senior pupils
into active life, and to carry many of the juniors even into
situations where they would be brought into close comparison with the
pupils of other systems. Consequently, so much experience as is
involved in the fact of the systems outliving such a comparison--and
in the continued approbation of its founder, who is manifestly a very
able and a conscientious man,--so much experience, we say, may be
premised for the satisfaction of those who demand practical tests. For
ourselves, we shall abide rather in our valuation of the system by the
internal evidence of its composition as stated and interpreted by its
author. An abstract of all that is essential in this statement we
shall now lay before our readers.