(Edinburgh Review, April, 1839.)
The {116}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
(1)_ 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.
{117}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. Lysias, says Plutarch, wrote a defence for a man who was to be
tried before one of the Athenian tribunals. Long before the defendant
had learned the speech by heart, he became so much dissatisfied with it
that he went in great distress to the author. “I was delighted with your
speech the first time I read it; but I liked it less the second time,
and still less the third time; and now it seems to me to be no defence
at all.”
“My good friend,” said Lysias, “you quite forget that the judges are to
hear it only once.” The case is the same in the English parliament. It
would be as idle in an orator to waste deep meditation and long
research on his speeches, as it would be in the manager of a theatre
to {118}adorn all the crowd of courtiers and ladies who cross over
the stage in a procession with real pearls and diamonds. It is not by
accuracy or profundity that men become the masters of great assemblies.
And why be at the charge of providing logic of the best quality, when a
very inferior article will be equally acceptable? Why go as deep into
a question as Burke, only in order to be, like Burke, coughed down, or
left speaking to green benches and red boxes? This has long appeared to
us to be the most serious of the evils which are to be set off against
the many blessings of popular government. It is a fine and true saying
of Bacon, that reading makes a full man, talking a ready man, and
writing an exact man. 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, {119}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 Blinking, 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
{120}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.
[Illustration: 0134]
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
his 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. {121}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 {122}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 {123}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 {124}as 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 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 moral
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 {125}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
intrusted with power for the promotion of the former object, ought
always to use that power for the promotion of the latter object.
‘Mr. Gladstone conceives that the duties of governments are paternal; a
doctrine which we shall not believe till he can show us some government
which loves its subjects as a father loves a child, and which is as
superior in intelligence to its subjects as a father is to a child. He
tells us in lofty, though somewhat indistinct language, that “Government
occupies in moral the place of [Greek] in physical science.” If
government be indeed [Greek] in moral science, we do not understand why
rulers should not assume all the functions which Plato assigned to them.
Why should they {126}not take away the child from the mother, select the
nurse, regulate the school, overlook the playground, fix the hours of
labour and of recreation, prescribe what ballads shall be sung, what
tunes shall be played, what books shall be read, what physic shall be
swallowed? Why should not they choose our wives, limit our expenses, and
stint us to a certain number of dishes of meat, of glasses of wine, and
of cups of tea? Plato, whose hardihood in speculation was perhaps more
wonderful than any other peculiarity of his extraordinary mind, and who
shrank from nothing to which his principles led, went this whole length.
Mr. Gladstone is not so intrepid. He contents himself with laying down
this proposition, that, whatever be the body which in any community is
employed to protect the persons and property of men, that body ought
also, in its corporate capacity, to profess a religion, to employ its
power for the propagation of that religion, and to require conformity to
that religion, as an indispensable qualification for all civil office.
He distinctly declares that he does not in this proposition confine
his view to orthodox governments or even to Christian governments. The
circumstance that a religion is false does not, he tells us, diminish
the obligation of governors, as such, to uphold it. If they neglect to
do so, “we cannot,” he says, “but regard the fact as aggravating the
case of the holders of such creed.”
“I do not scruple to affirm,” he adds, “that, if a Mahometan
conscientiously believes his religion to come from God, and to
teach divine truth, he must believe that truth to be beneficial, and
beneficial beyond all other things to the soul of man; and he must
therefore, and ought to desire its extension, and to use for its
extension all proper and legitimate means; and that, if such Mahometan
{127}be a prince, he ought to count among those means the application
of whatever influence or funds he may lawfully have at his disposal for
such purposes.”
Surely this is a hard saying. Before we admit that the Emperor Julian,
in employing the influence and the funds at his disposal for the
extinction of Christianity, was doing no more than his duty, before we
admit that the Arian Theodoric would have committed a crime if he had
suffered a single believer in the divinity of Christ to hold any civil
employment in Italy, before we admit that the Dutch Government is bound
to exclude from office all members of the Church of England, the King
of Bavaria to exclude from office all Protestants, the Great Turk to
exclude from office all Christians, the King of Ava to exclude from
office all who hold the unity of God, we think ourselves entitled to
demand very full and accurate demonstration. When the consequences of
a doctrine are so startling, we may well require that its foundations
shall be very solid.
The following paragraph is a specimen of the arguments by which Mr.
Gladstone has, as he conceives, established his great fundamental
proposition:--
“_We may state the same proposition in a more general form, in which
it surely must command universal assent. Wherever there is power in
the universe, that power is the property of God, the King of that
universe--his property of right, however for a time withholden or
abused. Now this property is, as it were, realised, is used according to
the will of the owner, when it is used for the purposes he has ordained,
and in the temper of mercy, justice, truth, and faith which he has
taught us; But those principles never can be truly, never can be
permanently, entertained in the human breast, except by a continual
reference to their source, and the supply of the Divine grace. The
powers, therefore, that dwell in individuals acting as a government, as
well as those that {128}dwell in individuals acting for themselves, can
only be secured for right uses by applying to them a religion._”
Here are propositions of vast and indefinite extent, conveyed in
language which has a certain obscure dignity and sanctity, attractive,
we doubt not, to many minds. But the moment that we examine these
propositions closely, the moment that we bring them to the test by
running over but a very few of the particulars which are included in
them, we find them to be false and extravagant. The doctrine which “must
surely command universal assent” is this, that every association of
human beings which exercises any power whatever, that is to say, every
association of human beings, is bound, as such association, to profess
a religion. Imagine the effect which would follow if this principle were
really in force during four-and-twenty hours. Take one instance out of
a million. A stagecoach company has power over its horses. This power is
the property of God. It is used according to the will of God when it
is used with mercy. But the principle of mercy can never be truly or
permanently entertained in the human breast without continual reference
to God. The powers, therefore, that dwell in individuals, acting as a
stage-coach company, can only be secured for right uses by applying
to them a religion. Every stage-coach company ought, therefore, in its
collective capacity, to profess some one faith, to have its articles,
and its public, worship, and its tests. That this conclusion, and
an infinite number of other conclusions equally strange, follow of
necessity from Mr. Gladstone’s principle, is as certain as it is that
two and two make four. And, if the legitimate conclusions be so absurd,
there must be something unsound in the principle. {129}We will quote
another passage of the same sort:--
“_Why, then, we now come to ask, should the governing body in a state
profess a religion? First, because it is composed of individual men; and
they, being appointed to act in a definite moral capacity, must sanctify
their acts done in that capacity by the offices of religion; inasmuch as
the acts cannot otherwise be acceptable to God, or any thing but sinful
and punishable in themselves. And whenever we turn our face away from
God in our conduct, we are living atheistically.... In fulfilment, then,
of his obligations as an individual, the statesman must be a worshipping
man. But his acts are public--the powers and instruments with which he
works are public--acting under and by the authority of the law, he moves
at his word ten thousand subject arms; and because such energies are
thus essentially public, and wholly out of the range of mere individual
agency, they must be sanctified not only by the private personal prayers
and piety of those who fill public situations, but also by public acts
of the men composing the public body. They must offer prayer and praise
in their public and collective character--in that character wherein
they constitute the organ of the nation, and wield its collective
force. Wherever there is a reasoning agency, there is a moral duty and
responsibility involved in it. The governors are reasoning agents for
the nation, in their conjoint acts as such. And therefore there must
be attached to this agency, as that without which none of our
responsibilities can be met, a religion. And this religion must be that
of the conscience of the governor, or none._”
Here again we find propositions of vast sweep, and of sound so orthodox
and solemn that many good people, we doubt not, have been greatly
edified by it. But let us examine the words closely; and it will
immediately become plain that, if these principles be once admitted,
there is an end of all society. No combination can be formed for any
purpose of mutual help, for trade, for public works, for the relief of
the sick or the poor, for the promotion of art or science, unless the
members of the combination agree in their theological {130}opinions.
Take any such combination at random, the London and Birmingham Railway
Company for example, and observe to what consequences Mr. Gladstone’s
arguments inevitably lead. “Why should the Directors of the Railway
Company, in their collective capacity, profess a religion? First,
because the direction is composed of individual men appointed to act in
a definite moral capacity, bound to look carefully to the property, the
limbs, and the lives of their fellow-creatures, bound to act diligently
for their constituents, bound to govern their servants with humanity and
justice, bound to fulfil with fidelity many important contracts. They
must, therefore, sanctify their acts by the offices of religion, or
these acts will be sinful and punishable in themselves. In fulfilment,
then, of his obligations as an individual, the Director of the London
and Birmingham Railway Company must be a worshipping man. But his
acts are public. He acts for a body. He moves at his word ten thousand
subject arms. And because these energies are out of the range of his
mere individual agency, they must be sanctified by public acts of
devotion. The Railway Directors must offer prayer and praise in their
public and collective character, in that character wherewith they
constitute the organ of the Company, and wield its collected power.
Wherever there is reasoning agency, there is moral responsibility. The
Directors are reasoning agents for the Company. And therefore there
must be attached to this agency, as that without which none of our
responsibilities can be met, a religion. And this religion must be that
of the conscience of the Director himself, or none. There must be public
worship and a test. No Jew, no Socinian, no Presbyterian, no Catholic,
no Quaker, must be permitted to be the organ of {131}the Company, and
to wield its collected force.” Would Mr. Gladstone really defend this
proposition? We are sure that he would not: but we are sure that to
this proposition, and to innumerable similar propositions, his reasoning
inevitably leads.