in which the Ideal was embodied as an active and ever-present force, victory would follow the line of greatest power, and society would be given over to the arbitrament of brute force. But the ring of men and women, whose interests in each particular case are not directly affected, stand around as representatives of the Ideal, of the True, and by the weight they throw into the scale in the unequal contest between Might and Right, Justice is made to prevail.

From the above considerations it will naturally follow, that if any one class or order in the State is sufficient of itself to overpower all the rest combined, there can be no effective Public Conscience; and legislation accordingly will follow the interests of the dominant power. The history of the world has familiarized us with the spectacle of autocrats subordinating the welfare of nations to their imperious wills. At Rome, where the personal whims of the emperors were erected into imperial decrees, justice had to come, if it came at all, as a gift, a condescension; mercy and charity, as sputters or bubbles merely in the full-blooded tide of imperial passion. In England, from the Revolution of '88 to the time of the first Reform Bill, the aristocracy were the supreme and predominant power in the State, and legislation accordingly followed the interests of that powerful body. But since that time the preponderance of power has been in the hands of the middle classes, and legislation in consequence (as we may see in the repeal of the Corn Laws, in the Education Act, and in the Irish Land Act) has been busied with attempts to restore the balance of justice. While then the effective organ of justice, viz., public sentiment, is absent in autocracies and oligarchies, it is present and active in Parliamentary governments, where majorities rule, and all the various interests of the nation are fairly represented. For although members are returned to represent interests—primarily those of their party, and secondly those of one or other industry or locality—and legislation in consequence has a tendency, as we so constantly see, to follow the line of power rather than of

justice; nevertheless, there is always a ring of outlying members, disinterested, conscientious, and backed by public feeling who stand around as a palladium to guard the right, a barrier over which injustice cannot ride, a court not to be bribed or bent. The House of Lords, even, is a good illustration of the same principle. For when not engaged on questions of privilege, status, or land, it is a most honourable and disinterested public body; but the moment these, its dearest interests, are touched or threatened, members lose their heads, and become as impotent for ends of justice as so many Old-Bailey barristers.

And here the object of the chapter comes more distinctly into view. For if Justice is done, and Civilization rendered possible, by the pressure put on the moral nature of each individual by the general conscience of the community (through the concentration of individual ideals in a common sentiment of right), it is evident how supremely important it is that the general community should be instructed, in order that its moral judgments may be true and sound. When rival interests, for example, are clamouring for free trade' and 'fair trade' respectively, and victory is at the mercy of the most powerful. influence, how important it is that the public should be instructed in the great principles of Political Economy, in order that it may interpose, and by the weight it throws into the scale, turn legislation in the right path. These and many other like instances that might be adduced, teach us the importance of indoctrinating the public mind with true principles, and of giving to practical politics a wider horizon of scientific thought.

CHAPTER II.

THE

THE END OF CIVILIZATION.

HE first great question that must be scientifically determined the question into which all others finally mergeis, what is the goal of Civilization, and in consequence the end at which all Government should aim? It is evident that until this is settled, we cannot tell whether any particular religion, institution, or principle of government, is good or bad, because we cannot tell whether it really forwards or retards the true end. Did political parties not differ so widely as to the end to be attained by legislation, they would not differ so widely in the means they employ. But once determine the true end, by a just insight into the laws of the world and the human mind, we can then proceed to estimate the effects of different creeds, institutions, and forms of government on that end. We can determine also the effects of those smaller changes in legislation which are constantly arising, and which are insensibly affecting the constitution of States. We get, in short, a deeper than scientific, viz., a religious basis, for our political aspirations; we animate society with a living principle, and have already taken the first step towards attaining unanimity in the means employed to realise it. As the pole-star to the confused mariner, so a great political aim, running in a line with the real tendencies of Nature, gives to the embarrassed thinker a steady light by which to steer.

Now, all political schemes whatever, whether they be practical or speculative, have consciously or unconsciously as their object, one or other of the following ends-either the order, symmetry, and durability of society as a whole, or the elevation and expansion of the individual mind. Those who support the

one, would subordinate the enlargement and elevation of the individual to the order and symmetry of society as a whole; those who support the other, would postpone the symmetry and order of society to the elevation and expansion of the individual. The one would make each man a mere cog or wheel in the vast organized mechanism of society, the other would make him conversant with the highest his nature is capable of, and would make room for him to expand to the utmost limit of his being. Accordingly, the watchword of the one is Order, of the other, Progress; of the one, Despotism (more or less disguised perhaps); 'of the other, Liberty. The one would tighten the bonds that keep man dependent on and subservient to man; the other would relax them. The one preaches a religion of social duty; the other of individual expansion and enlargement. Among recent political thinkers, Comte and Carlyle have taken their stand on the one; Emerson, Mill, and Spencer on the other. In the present chapter, I shall endeavour to show that the ends of the latter are more in harmony with the constitution of the world and the nature of man than the former-that, in short, the elevation and expansion of the individual is the goal of Civilization, the true aim of Government, as indeed it is the end to which Nature works. This position I shall support, directly, by considerations drawn from observations of life and Nature, and, indirectly, by tracing the principles of the opposite school to their roots in the human mind, and pointing out the great laws of life which they have neglected-laws which neglected must doom all schemes founded in disregard of them to the limbo of utopia.

On taking a wide survey of the world, nothing is more striking than the efforts made by all creatures to fulfil the law of their existence to secure the free and unimpeded play of every power and native impulse, and to make for themselves room to expand to the full compass of their being. All alike, animals and men, are seen struggling for this much-desired end-the contests in which they are engaged being but a way

of determining who is to be leader, and who follower; who master, and who servant; who to follow the impulses of his own genius, the dictates of his own conscience, and who to obey the mandates of another, and bear stamped on his soul the impress of an alien personality. This deep-rooted desire in the heart of every man to be his own master, this never-ceasing struggle to rise to successive positions of less and less dependence, are the hints we have given us that the elevation and expansion of the individual mind, is the end that Nature has at heart. Money, position, and authority are prized, after all, not so much on their own account, as because they are means to the attainment of that great end. So deeply, indeed, is this desire for expansion rooted in the human heart, that when gratification is denied it in the actual world, it will be sought and found in the ideal. For man will deliver himself of his thought; if not openly, then secretly; if not by deed, then by word; if not directly, then indirectly-by fable or parable, on canvas or stone, in mimicry, poetry, and song. Not the most potent despot can repress the secret canvassing of his life and character by the lowest menial of his household. No negro slave so degraded and oppressed, but will manage to snatch from his captivity moments in which his nature will have free and unrestricted play; the rude songs and dances in which he revels giving him that elevation and expansion of mind and heart which Fate has denied him. The down-trodden serfs of the Middle Ages, too, had their legends of the saints and martyrs, which gave horizon and sky to their cramped and obstructed lives, and opened up to them a world of beautiful dreams in the dark night of oppression. Even the Heaven of the believer, what is it but a vision of what the soul shall be, when, unfettered by the clogs and conditions of Time, and untrammelled by the base restrictions of the world, it shall be free to mount and expand to the utmost possibilities of its nature? If, then, the elevation and expansion of the mind is the end of Nature, it must also be the end of Civilization and Govern