the question, when military genius, even for civil purposes, has
regained its ascendancy in the person of the Duke of Wellington? When
the world has shown that it cannot do without him? When whigs, radicals,
liberals of all sorts, have proved to be but idle talkers, in comparison
with this man of few words and many deeds?" I answer, that it remains to
be proved whether the ascendancy be gained or not; that I have no belief
it will be regained; and that, in the meanwhile, never was time fitter
for questioning the merits of war, and, by inference, those of its
leaders. The general peacefulness of the world presents a fair
opportunity for laying the foundations of peaceful opinion; and the
alarm of the moment renders the interrogation desirable for its
immediate sake.
The re-appearance of a military administration, or of an administration
_barely civil_, and military at heart, may not, at first sight, be
thought the most promising one for hastening a just appreciation of
war, and the ascendancy of moral over physical strength. But is it, or
can it be, lasting? Will it not provoke--is it not now provoking--a
re-action still more peremptory against the claims of Toryism, than the
state of things which preceded it? Is it anything but a flash of
success, still more indicative of expiring life, and caused only by its
convulsive efforts?
If it be, this it is easy enough to predict, that Sir Robert Peel,
notwithstanding his abilities, and the better ambition which is natural
to them, and which struggles in him with an inferior one, impatient of
his origin, will turn out to be nothing but a servant of the
aristocracy, and (more or less openly) of a barrack-master. He will be
the servant, not of the King, not of the House of Commons, but of the
House of Lords, and (as long as such influence lasts, which can be but
a short while), of its military leader. He will do nothing whatsoever
contrary to their dictation, upon peril of being treated worse than
Canning; and all the reform which he is permitted to bring about will be
only just as much as will serve to keep off the spirit of it as long as
possible, and to continue the people in that state of comparative
ignorance, which is the only safeguard of monopoly. Every unwilling step
of reform will be accompanied with some retrograde or bye effort in
favour of the abuses reformed: cunning occasion will be seized to
convert boons, demanded by the age, into gifts of party favour, and
bribes for the toleration of what is withheld; and as knowledge proceeds
to extort public education (for extort it it will, and in its own way
too at last), mark, and see what attempts will be made to turn knowledge
against itself, and to catechise the nation back into the schoolboy
acquiescence of the good people of Germany. Much good is there in that
people--I would not be thought to undervalue it--much _bonhommie_--and
in the most despotic districts, as much sensual comfort as can make any
people happy who know no other happiness. But England and France, the
leaders of Europe, the peregrinators of the world, cannot be confined to
those lazy and prospectless paths. They have gone through the feudal
reign; they must now go through the commercial (God forbid that for any
body's sake they should stop there!), and they will continue to advance,
till all are instructed, and all are masters; and government, in however
gorgeous a shape, be truly their servant. The problem of existing
governments is how to prepare for this inevitable period, and to
continue to be its masters, by converting themselves frankly and truly
into its friends. For my part, as one of the people, I confess I like
the colours and shows of feudalism, and would retain as much of them as
would adorn nobler things. I would keep the tiger's skin, though the
beast be killed; the painted window, though the superstition be laid in
the tomb. Nature likes external beauty, and man likes it. It softens the
heart, enriches the imagination, and helps to show us that there are
other goods in the world besides bare utility. I would fain see the
splendours of royalty combined with the cheapness of a republic and the
equal knowledge of all classes. Is such a combination impossible? I
would exhort the lovers of feudal splendour to be the last men to think
so; for a thousand times more impossible will they find its retention
under any other circumstances. Their royalties, their educations, their
accomplishments of all sorts, must go along with the Press and its
irresistible consequences, or they will be set aside like a child in a
corner, who has insisted on keeping the toys and books of his brothers
to himself.
Now, there is nothing that irritates a just cause so much as a
threatening of force; and all impositions of a military chief on a
state, where civil directors will, at least, do as well, is a
threatening of force, disguise it, or pretend to laugh at it, as its
imposers may. This irritation in England will not produce violence.
Public opinion is too strong, and the future too secure. But deeply and
daily will increase the disgust and the ridicule; and individuals will
get laughed at and catechised who cannot easily be sent out of the way
as ambassadors, and who might as well preserve their self-respect a
little better. To attempt, however quietly, to overawe the advance of
improvement, by the aspect of physical force, is as idle as if soldiers
were drawn out to suppress the rising of a flood. The flood rises
quietly, irresistibly, without violence--it cannot help it--the waters
of knowledge are out, and will "cover the earth." Of what use is it to
see the representative of a by-gone influence--a poor individual mortal
(for he is nothing else in the comparison), fretting and fuming on the
shore of this mighty sea, and playing the part of a Canute reversed,--an
antic really taking his flatterers at their word?
The first thirty-five years of the nineteenth century have been rich in
experiences of the sure and certain failure of all soldiership and
Toryism to go heartily along in the cause of the many. There has been
the sovereign instance of Napoleon Bonaparte himself--of the allies
after him--of Charles the Tenth--of Louis Philippe, albeit a
"schoolmaster,"--and lastly, of this strange and most involuntary
Reformer the Duke of Wellington, who refused to do, under Canning, or
for principle's sake, what he consented to do when Canning died, for the
sake of regaining power, and of keeping it with as few concessions as
possible. Canning perished because Toryism, or the principle of power
for its own sake, to which he had been a servant, could not bear to
acknowledge him as its master. His intellect was just great enough (as
his birth was small enough) to render it jealous of him under that
aspect. There is an instinct in Toryism which renders pure intellect
intolerable to it, except in some inferior or mechanical shape, or in
the flattery of voluntary servitude. But, by a like instinct, it is not
so jealous of military renown. It is glad of the doubtful amount of
intellect in military genius, and knows it to be a good ally in the
preservation of power, and in the substitution of noise and show for
qualities fearless of inspection. Is it an ascendancy of this kind which
the present age requires, or will permit? Do we want a soldier at the
head of us, when there is nobody abroad to fight with? when
international as well as national questions can manifestly settle
themselves without him? and when his appearance in the seat of power
can indicate nothing but a hankering after those old substitutions of
force for argument, or at best of "an authority for a reason," which
every step of reform is hoping to do away? Do we want him to serve in
our shops? to preside over our studies? to cultivate "peace and good
will" among nations? wounding no self love--threatening no social?
There never was a soldier, purely brought up as such--and it is of such
only I speak, and not of rare and even then perilous exceptions,--men
educated in philosophy like Epaminondas, or in homely household virtues
and citizenship like Washington--but there never was a soldier such as I
speak of, who did more for the world than was compatible with his
confined and arbitrary breeding. I do not speak, of course, with
reference to the unprofessional part of his character. Circumstances,
especially the participation of dangers and vicissitude, often conspire
with naturally good qualities to render soldiers the most amiable of
men; and nothing is more delightful to contemplate than an old military
veteran, whose tenderness of heart has survived the shocks of the rough
work it has been tried in, till twenty miserable sights of war and
horror start up to the imagination as a set-off against its
attractiveness. But, publicly speaking, the more a soldier succeeds, the
more he looks upon soldiership as something superior to all other kinds
of ascendancy, and qualified to dispense with them. He always ends in
considering the flower of the art of government as consisting in issuing
"orders," and that of popular duty as comprised in "obedience." Cities
with him are barracks, and the nation a conquered country. He is at best
but a pioneer of civilization. When he undertakes to be the civilizer
himself, he makes mistakes that betray him to others, even supposing
him self-deceived. Napoleon, though he was the accidental instrument of
a popular re-action, was one of the educated tools of the system that
provoked it,--an officer brought up at a Royal Military College; and in
spite of his boasted legislation and his real genius, such he ever
remained. He did as much for his own aggrandizement as he could, and no
more for the world than he thought compatible with it. The same military
genius which made him as great as he was, stopped him short of a greater
greatness; because, quick and imposing as he was in acting the part of a
civil ruler, he was in reality a soldier and nothing else, and by the
excess of the soldier's propensity (aggrandizement by force), he
over-toppled himself, and fell to pieces. Soldiership appears to have
narrowed or hardened the public spirit of every man who has spent the
chief part of his life in it, who has died at an age which gives final
proofs of its tendency, and whose history is thoroughly known. We all
know what Cromwell did to an honest parliament. Marlborough ended in
being a miser and the tool of his wife. Even good-natured, heroic Nelson
condescended to become an executioner at Naples. Frederick did much for
Prussia, as a power; but what became of her as a people, or power
either, before the popular power of France? Even Washington seemed not
to comprehend those who thought that negro-slaves ought to be freed.
In the name of common sense then, what do we want with a soldier who was
born and bred in circumstances the most arbitrary; who never advocated a
liberal measure as long as he could help it; and who (without meaning to
speak presumptuously, or in one's own person unauthorized by opinion) is
one of the merest soldiers, though a great one, that ever
existed,--without genius of any other sort,--with scarcely a civil
public quality either commanding or engaging (as far as the world in
general can see),--and with no more to say for himself than the most
mechanical clerk in office? In what respect is the Duke of Wellington
better fitted to be a parliamentary leader, than the Sir Arthur
Wellesley of twenty years back? Or what has re-cast the habits and
character of the Colonel Wellesley of the East Indies, to give him an
unprofessional consideration for the lives and liberties of his
fellow-creatures?
And yet the Duke of Wellington (it is said) _may_, after all, be in
earnest in his professions of reform and advancement. If so, he will be
the most remarkable instance that ever existed, of the triumph of reason
over the habits of a life, and the experience of mankind. I have looked
for some such man through a very remarkable period of the world, when
an honest declaration to this effect would have set him at the top of
mankind, to be worshipped for ever; and I never found the glorious
opportunity seized,--not by Napoleon when he came from Elba,--not by the
allies when they conquered him,--not by Louis Philippe, though he was
educated in adversity. I mean that he has shown himself a prince born,
of the most aristocratic kind; and evidently considers himself as
nothing but the head of a new dynasty. When the Duke of Wellington had
the opportunity of being a reformer, of his own free will, he resisted
it as long as he could. He opposed reform up to the last moment of its
freedom from his dictation; he declared that ruin would follow it; that
the institutions of the country were perfect without it; and that, at
the very least, the less of it the better. And for this enmity, even if
no other reason existed,--even if his new light were sincere,--the Duke
of Wellington ought not to have the _honour_ of leading reform. It is
just as if a man had been doing all he could to prevent another from
entering his own house, and then, when he found that the by-standers
would insist on his having free passage, were to turn to them, smiling,
and say, "Well, since it must be so, allow me to do the honours of the
mansion." Everybody knows what this proposal would be called by the
by-standers. And if the way in which greatness is brought up and spoilt
gives it a right to a less homely style of rebuke (as I grant it does),
still the absurdity of the Duke's claim is not the less evident, nor the
air of it less provoking.
I can imagine but two reasons for the remotest possible permission of
this glaring anomaly--this government of anti-reforming reformers--this
hospital of sick guides for the healthy, supported by involuntary
contributions: first, sheer necessity (which is ludicrous); and second,
a facilitation of church reform through the Lords and the bench of
Bishops; the desirableness of which facilitation appears to be in no
proportion to the compromise it is likely to make with abuses. I have
read, I believe, all the utmost possible things that can be said in its
favour, the articles, for instance, written by the _Times_ newspaper
(admirable, as far as a rotten cause can let them be, and when not
afflicted by some portentous mystery of personal resentment); and though
I trust I may lay claim to as much willingness to be convinced, as most
men who have suffered and reflected, I have not seen a single argument
which did not appear to me fully answered by the above objection alone
(about the "honour"); setting aside the innumerable convincing ones
urged by reasoners on the other side: for as to any dearth of statesmen
in a country like this, it never existed, nor ever can, till education
and public spirit have entirely left it. There have been the same
complaints at every change in the history of administrations; and the
crop has never failed.
Allow me to state here, that any appearance of personality in this book
is involuntary. Public principles are sometimes incarnate in individual
shapes; and, in attacking them, the individual may be seemingly
attacked, where, to eyes which look a little closer, there is evidently
no such intention. I have been obliged to identify, in some measure, the
Power of the Sword with several successive individuals, and with the
Duke of Wellington most, because he is the reigning shape, and includes
all its pretensions. But as an individual who am nothing, except in
connexion with what I humanly feel, I dare to affirm, that I have not
only the consideration that becomes me for all human beings, but a
flesh and blood regard for every body; and that I as truly respect in
the Noble Duke the possession of military science, of a straight-forward
sincerity, and a valour of which no circumstances or years can diminish
the ready firmness, as I doubt the fitness of a man of his education,
habits, and political principles, for the guidance of an intellectual
age.
I dislike Toryism, because I think it an unjust, exacting, and
pernicious thing, which tends to keep the interests of the many in
perpetual subjection to those of the few; but far be it from me, in
common modesty, to dislike those who have been brought up in its
principles, and taught to think them good,--far less such of them as
adorn it by intellectual or moral qualities, and who justly claim for
it, under its best aspect in private life, that ease and urbanity of
behaviour which implies an acknowledgment of its claims to respect,
even where those claims are partly grounded in prejudice. I heartily
grant to the privileged classes, that, enjoying in many respects the
best educations, they have been conservators of polished manners, and of
the other graces of intercourse. My quarrel with them is, that the
inferior part of their education induces them to wish to keep these
manners and graces to themselves, together with a superabundance, good
for nobody, of all other advantages; and that thus, instead of being the
preservers of a beautiful and genial flame, good for all, and in due
season partakeable by all, they would hoard and make an idolatrous
treasure of it, sacred to one class alone, and such as the diffusion of
knowledge renders it alike useless and exasperating to endeavour to
withhold.
I will conclude this Postscript with quotations from three writers of
the present day, who may be fairly taken to represent the three
distinct classes of the leaders of knowledge, and who will show what is
thought of the feasibility of putting an end to war,--the Utilitarian,
or those who are all for the tangible and material--the Metaphysical, or
those who recognize, in addition, the spiritual and imaginative wants of
mankind--and lastly (in no offensive sense), the Men of the World, whose
opinion will have the greatest weight of all with the incredulous, and
whose speaker is a soldier to boot, and a man who evidently sees fair
play to all the weaknesses as well as strengths of our nature.
The first quotation is from the venerable Mr Bentham, a man who
certainly lost sight of no existing or possible phase of society, such
as the ordinary disputants on this subject contemplate. I venture to
think him not thoroughly philosophical on the point, especially in what
he says in reproach of men educated to think differently from himself.
But the passage will show the growth of opinion in a practical and
highly influential quarter.
"Nothing can be worse," says Mr Bentham, "than the
general feeling on the subject of war. The Church,
the State, the ruling few, the subject many, all
seem to have combined, in order to patronise vice
and crime in their very widest sphere of evil.
Dress a man in particular garments, call him by a
particular name, and he shall have authority, on
divers occasions, to commit every species of
offence, to pillage, to murder, to destroy human
felicity, and, for so doing, he shall be rewarded.
"Of all that is pernicious in admiration, the
admiration of heroes is the most pernicious; and
how delusion should have made us admire what
virtue should teach us to hate and loathe, is
among the saddest evidences of human weakness and
folly. The crimes of heroes seem lost in the
vastness of the field they occupy. A lively idea
of the mischief they do, of the misery they
create, seldom penetrates the mind through the
delusions with which thoughtlessness and falsehood
have surrounded their names and deeds. Is it that
the magnitude of the evil is too gigantic for
entrance? We read of twenty thousand men killed in
a battle, with no other feeling than that 'it was
a glorious victory.' Twenty thousand, or ten
thousand, what reck we of their sufferings? The
hosts who perished are evidence of the
completeness of the triumph; and the completeness
of the triumph is the measure of merit, and the
glory of the conqueror. Our schoolmasters, and the
immoral books they so often put into our hands,
have inspired us with an affection for heroes; and
the hero is more heroic in proportion to the
numbers of the slain--add a cypher, not one iota
is added to our disapprobation. Four or two
figures give us no more sentiment of pain than one
figure, while they add marvellously to the
grandeur and splendour of the victor. Let us draw
forth one individual from those thousands, or tens
of thousands,--his leg has been shivered by one
ball, his jaw broken by another--he is bathed in
his own blood, and that of his fellows--yet he
lives, tortured by thirst, fainting, famishing. He
is but one of the twenty thousand--one of the
actors and sufferers in the scene of the hero's
glory--and of the twenty thousand there is
scarcely one whose suffering or death will not be
the centre of a circle of misery. Look again,
admirers of that hero! Is not this wretchedness?
Because it is repeated ten, ten hundred, ten
thousand times, is not this wretchedness?
"The period will assuredly arrive, when better
instructed generations will require all the
evidence of history to credit, that, in times
deeming themselves enlightened, human beings
should have been honoured with public approval, in
the very proportion of the misery they caused, and
the mischiefs they perpetrated. They will call
upon all the testimony which incredulity can
require, to persuade them that, in passed ages,
men there were--men, too, deemed worthy of popular
recompense--who, for some small pecuniary
retribution, hired themselves out to do any deeds
of pillage, devastation, and murder, which might
be demanded of them. And, still more will it shock
their sensibilities to learn, that such men, such
men-destroyers, were marked out as the eminent and
the illustrious--as the worthy of laurels and
monuments--of eloquence and poetry. In that better
and happier epoch, the wise and the good will be
busied in hurling into oblivion, or dragging forth
for exposure to universal ignominy and obloquy,
many of the heads we deem _heroic_; while the true
fame and the perdurable glories will be gathered
around the creators and diffusers of
happiness."--_Deontology._
Our second quotation is from one of the subtilest and most universal
thinkers now living--Thomas Carlyle--chiefly known to the public as a
German scholar and the friend of Goethe, but deeply respected by other
leading intellects of the day, as a man who sees into the utmost
recognized possibilities of knowledge. See what he thinks of war, and of
the possibility of putting an end to it. We forget whether we got the
extract from the _Edinburgh_ or the _Foreign Quarterly Review_, having
made it sometime back and mislaid the reference; and we take a liberty
with him in mentioning his name as the writer, for which his zeal in the
cause of mankind will assuredly pardon us.
"The better minds of all countries," observes Mr
Carlyle, "begin to understand each other, and,
which follows naturally, to love each other and
help each other, by whom ultimately all countries
in all their proceedings are governed.