‘You will observe one curious trait,’ said Sidonia to Coningsby, ‘in the
history of this country: the depository of power is always unpopular;
all combine against it; it always falls. Power was deposited in the
great Barons; the Church, using the King for its instrument, crushed the
great Barons. Power was deposited in the Church; the King, bribing the
Parliament, plundered the Church. Power was deposited in the King; the
Parliament, using the People, beheaded the King, expelled the King,
changed the King, and, finally, for a King substituted an administrative
officer. For one hundred and fifty years Power has been deposited in the
Parliament, and for the last sixty or seventy years it has been becoming
more and more unpopular. In 1830 it was endeavoured by a reconstruction
to regain the popular affection; but, in truth, as the Parliament then
only made itself more powerful, it has only become more odious. As we
see that the Barons, the Church, the King, have in turn devoured each
other, and that the Parliament, the last devourer, remains, it is
impossible to resist the impression that this body also is doomed to be
destroyed; and he is a sagacious statesman who may detect in what form
and in what quarter the great consumer will arise.’
‘You take, then, a dark view of our position?’
‘Troubled, not dark. I do not ascribe to political institutions that
paramount influence which it is the feeling of this age to attribute to
them. The Senate that confronted Brennus in the Forum was the same body
that registered in an after-age the ribald decrees of a Nero. Trial
by jury, for example, is looked upon by all as the Palladium of our
liberties; yet a jury, at a very recent period of our own history, the
reign of Charles II., was a tribunal as iniquitous as the Inquisition.’
And a graver expression stole over the countenance of Sidonia as he
remembered what that Inquisition had operated on his own race and his
own destiny. ‘There are families in this country,’ he continued, ‘of
both the great historical parties, that in the persecution of their
houses, the murder and proscription of some of their most illustrious
members, found judges as unjust and relentless in an open jury of their
countrymen as we did in the conclaves of Madrid and Seville.’
‘Where, then, would you look for hope?’
‘In what is more powerful than laws and institutions, and without which
the best laws and the most skilful institutions may be a dead letter,
or the very means of tyranny in the national character. It is not in
the increased feebleness of its institutions that I see the peril of
England; it is in the decline of its character as a community.’
‘And yet you could scarcely describe this as an age of corruption?’
‘Not of political corruption. But it is an age of social
disorganisation, far more dangerous in its consequences, because far
more extensive. You may have a corrupt government and a pure community;
you may have a corrupt community and a pure administration. Which would
you elect?’
Neither,’ said Coningsby; ‘I wish to see a people full of faith, and a
government full of duty.’
‘Rely upon it,’ said Sidonia, ‘that England should think more of the
community and less of the government.’
‘But tell me, what do you understand by the term national character?’
‘A character is an assemblage of qualities; the character of England
should be an assemblage of great qualities.’
‘But we cannot deny that the English have great virtues.’
‘The civilisation of a thousand years must produce great virtues; but we
are speaking of the decline of public virtue, not its existence.’
‘In what, then, do you trace that decline?’
‘In the fact that the various classes of this country are arrayed
against each other.’
‘But to what do you attribute those reciprocal hostilities?’
‘Not entirely, not even principally, to those economical causes of which
we hear so much. I look upon all such as secondary causes, which, in a
certain degree, must always exist, which obtrude themselves in troubled
times, and which at all times it is the business of wise statesmen to
watch, to regulate, to ameliorate, to modify.’
‘I am speaking to elicit truth, not to maintain opinions,’ said
Coningsby; ‘for I have none,’ he added, mournfully.
‘I think,’ said Sidonia, ‘that there is no error so vulgar as to believe
that revolutions are occasioned by economical causes. They come in,
doubtless, very often to precipitate a catastrophe; very rarely do they
occasion one. I know no period, for example, when physical comfort
was more diffused in England than in 1640. England had a moderate
population, a very improved agriculture, a rich commerce; yet she was
on the eve of the greatest and most violent changes that she has as yet
experienced.’
‘That was a religious movement.’
‘Admit it; the cause, then, was not physical. The imagination of England
rose against the government. It proves, then, that when that faculty is
astir in a nation, it will sacrifice even physical comfort to follow its
impulses.’
‘Do you think, then, there is a wild desire for extensive political
change in the country?’
‘Hardly that: England is perplexed at the present moment, not inventive.
That will be the next phasis in her moral state, and to that I wish
to draw your thoughts. For myself, while I ascribe little influence to
physical causes for the production of this perplexity, I am still less
of opinion that it can be removed by any new disposition of political
power. It would only aggravate the evil. That would be recurring to
the old error of supposing you can necessarily find national content in
political institutions. A political institution is a machine; the motive
power is the national character. With that it rests whether the
machine will benefit society, or destroy it. Society in this country is
perplexed, almost paralysed; in time it will move, and it will devise.
How are the elements of the nation to be again blended together? In what
spirit is that reorganisation to take place?’
‘To know that would be to know everything.’
‘At least let us free ourselves from the double ignorance of the
Platonists. Let us not be ignorant that we are ignorant.’
‘I have emancipated myself from that darkness for a long time,’ said
Coningsby. ‘Long has my mind been musing over these thoughts, but to me
all is still obscurity.’
‘In this country,’ said Sidonia, ‘since the peace, there has been an
attempt to advocate a reconstruction of society on a purely rational
basis. The principle of Utility has been powerfully developed. I speak
not with lightness of the labours of the disciples of that school. I bow
to intellect in every form: and we should be grateful to any school of
philosophers, even if we disagree with them; doubly grateful in this
country, where for so long a period our statesmen were in so pitiable an
arrear of public intelligence. There has been an attempt to reconstruct
society on a basis of material motives and calculations. It has failed.
It must ultimately have failed under any circumstances; its failure in
an ancient and densely-peopled kingdom was inevitable. How limited is
human reason, the profoundest inquirers are most conscious. We are not
indebted to the Reason of man for any of the great achievements which
are the landmarks of human action and human progress. It was not Reason
that besieged Troy; it was not Reason that sent forth the Saracen
from the Desert to conquer the world; that inspired the Crusades; that
instituted the Monastic orders; it was not Reason that produced
the Jesuits; above all, it was not Reason that created the French
Revolution. Man is only truly great when he acts from the passions;
never irresistible but when he appeals to the imagination. Even Mormon
counts more votaries than Bentham.’
‘And you think, then, that as Imagination once subdued the State,
Imagination may now save it?’
‘Man is made to adore and to obey: but if you will not command him, if
you give him nothing to worship, he will fashion his own divinities, and
find a chieftain in his own passions.’
‘But where can we find faith in a nation of sectaries? Who can feel
loyalty to a sovereign of Downing Street?’
‘I speak of the eternal principles of human nature, you answer me with
the passing accidents of the hour. Sects rise and sects disappear. Where
are the Fifth-Monarchy men? England is governed by Downing Street; once
it was governed by Alfred and Elizabeth.’