"In Warwickshire, far above half the population is comprised in large towns, including, of course, the immense metropolis of one great branch of our manufactures, Birmingham. In the county of Stafford, besides the large and populous towns in its iron districts, situated so close together as almost to form, for considerable distances, a continuous street; there is, in its potteries, a great population, recently acc.u.mulated, not included, indeed, in the towns distinctly enumerated in the censuses, but vastly exceeding in its condensation that found in the places to which the Reviewer alludes. In Lancashire, again, to which he also appeals, one-fourth of the entire population is made up of the inhabitants of two only of the towns of that county; far above half of it is contained in towns, compared with which those he refers to are villages: even the hamlets of the manufacturing parts of Lancashire are often far more populous than the places he mentions. But he presents us with a climax of absurdity in appealing lastly to the population of Surrey as quite rural compared with that of the twelve towns having less than 5000 inhabitants in their respective jurisdictions, such as Saffron-Walden, Monmouth, etc. Now, in the last census, Surrey numbered 398,658 inhabitants, and to say not a word about the other towns of the county, much above two hundred thousands of these are WITHIN THE BILLS OF MORTALITY! "We should, therefore, be glad to know" how it is utterly inconsistent with my principle that the fecundity of Guildford, which numbers about 3000 inhabitants, should be greater than the average fecundity of Surrey, made up, as the bulk of the population of Surrey is, of the inhabitants of some of the worst parts of the metropolis? Or why the fecundity of a given number of marriages in the eleven little rural towns he alludes to, being somewhat higher than that of an equal number, half taken, for instance, from the heart of Birmingham or Manchester, and half from the populous districts by which they are surrounded, is inconsistent with my theory?
"Had the Reviewer"s object, in this instance, been to discover the truth, or had he known how to pursue it, it is perfectly clear, at first sight, that he would not have inst.i.tuted a comparison between the prolificness which exists in the small towns he has alluded to, and that in certain districts, the population of which is made up, partly of rural inhabitants and partly of acc.u.mulations of people in immense ma.s.ses, the prolificness of which, if he will allow me still the use of the phrase, is inversely as their magnitude; but he would have compared these small towns with the country places properly so called, and then again the different cla.s.ses of towns with each other; this method would have led him to certain conclusions on the subject."
Now, this reply shows that Mr Sadler does not in the least understand the principle which he has himself laid down. What is that principle?
It is this, that the fecundity of human beings ON GIVEN s.p.a.cES, varies inversely as their numbers. We know what he means by inverse variation.
But we must suppose that he uses the words, "given s.p.a.ces," in the proper sense. Given s.p.a.ces are equal s.p.a.ces. Is there any reason to believe, that in those parts of Surrey which lie within the bills of mortality, there is any s.p.a.ce equal in area to the s.p.a.ce on which Guildford stands, which is more thickly peopled than the s.p.a.ce on which Guildford stands? We do not know that there is any such. We are sure that there are not many. Why, therefore, on Mr Sadler"s principle, should the people of Guildford be more prolific than the people who live within the bills of mortality? And, if the people of Guildford ought, as on Mr Sadler"s principle they unquestionably ought, to stand as low in the scale of fecundity as the people of Southwark itself, it follows, most clearly, that they ought to stand far lower than the average obtained by taking all the people of Surrey together.
The same remark applies to the case of Birmingham, and to all the other cases which Mr Sadler mentions. Towns of 5000 inhabitants may be, and often are, as thickly peopled "on a given s.p.a.ce," as Birmingham. They are, in other words, as thickly peopled as a portion of Birmingham, equal to them in area. If so, on Mr Sadler"s principle, they ought to be as low in the scale of fecundity as Birmingham. But they are not so. On the contrary, they stand higher than the average obtained by taking the fecundity of Birmingham in combination with the fecundity of the rural districts of Warwickshire.
The plain fact is, that Mr Sadler has confounded the population of a city with its population "on a given s.p.a.ce,"--a mistake which, in a gentleman who a.s.sures us that mathematical science was one of his early and favourite studies, is somewhat curious. It is as absurd, on his principle, to say that the fecundity of London ought to be less than the fecundity of Edinburgh, because London has a greater population than Edinburgh, as to say that the fecundity of Russia ought to be greater than that of England, because Russia has a greater population than England. He cannot say that the s.p.a.ces on which towns stand are too small to exemplify the truth of his principle. For he has himself brought forward the scale of fecundity in towns, as a proof of his principle. And, in the very pa.s.sage which we quoted above, he tells us that, if we knew how to pursue truth or wished to find it, we "should have compared these small towns with country places, and the different cla.s.ses of towns with each other." That is to say, we ought to compare together such unequal s.p.a.ces as give results favourable to his theory, and never to compare such equal s.p.a.ces as give results opposed to it.
Does he mean anything by "a given s.p.a.ce?" Or does he mean merely such a s.p.a.ce as suits his argument? It is perfectly clear that, if he is allowed to take this course, he may prove anything. No fact can come amiss to him. Suppose, for example, that the fecundity of New York should prove to be smaller than the fecundity of Liverpool. "That," says Mr Sadler, "makes for my theory. For there are more people within two miles of the Broadway of New York, than within two miles of the Exchange of Liverpool." Suppose, on the other hand, that the fecundity of New York should be greater than the fecundity of Liverpool. "This," says Mr Sadler again, "is an unanswerable proof of my theory. For there are many more people within forty miles of Liverpool than within forty miles of New York." In order to obtain his numbers, he takes s.p.a.ces in any combinations which may suit him. In order to obtain his averages, he takes numbers in any combinations which may suit him. And then he tells us that, because his tables, at the first glance, look well for his theory, his theory is irrefragably proved.
We will add a few words respecting the argument which we drew from the peerage. Mr Sadler a.s.serted that the peers were a cla.s.s condemned by nature to sterility. We denied this, and showed from the last edition of Debrett, that the peers of the United Kingdom have considerably more than the average number of children to a marriage. Mr Sadler"s answer has amused us much. He denies the accuracy of our counting, and, by reckoning all the Scotch and Irish peers as peers of the United Kingdom, certainly makes very different numbers from those which we gave. A member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom might have been expected, we think, to know better what a peer of the United Kingdom is.
By taking the Scotch and Irish peers, Mr Sadler has altered the average.
But it is considerably higher than the average fecundity of England, and still, therefore, const.i.tutes an unanswerable argument against his theory.
The shifts to which, in this difficulty, he has recourse, are exceedingly diverting. "The average fecundity of the marriages of peers," said we, "is higher by one-fifth than the average fecundity of marriages throughout the kingdom."
"Where, or by whom did the Reviewer find it supposed," answers Mr Sadler, "that the registered baptisms expressed the full fecundity of the marriages of England?"
a.s.suredly, if the registers of England are so defective as to explain the difference which, on our calculation, exists between the fecundity of the peers and the fecundity of the people, no argument against Mr Sadler"s theory can be drawn from that difference. But what becomes of all the other arguments which Mr Sadler has founded on these very registers? Above all, what becomes of his comparison between the censuses of England and France? In the pamphlet before us, he dwells with great complacency on a coincidence which seems to him to support his theory, and which to us seems, of itself, sufficient to overthrow it.
"In my table of the population of France in the forty-four departments in which there are from one to two hectares to each inhabitant, the fecundity of 100 marriages, calculated on the average of the results of the three computations relating to different periods given in my table, is 406 7/10. In the twenty-two counties of England in which there is from one to two hectares to each inhabitant, or from 129 to 259 on the square mile,--beginning, therefore, with Huntingdonshire, and ending with Worcestershire,--the whole number of marriages during ten years will be found to amount to 379,624, and the whole number of the births during the same term to 1,545,549--or 407 1/10 births to 100 marriages!
A difference of one in one thousand only, compared with the French proportion!"
Does not Mr Sadler see that, if the registers of England, which are notoriously very defective, give a result exactly corresponding almost to an unit with that obtained from the registers of France, which are notoriously very full and accurate, this proves the very reverse of what he employs it to prove? The correspondence of the registers proves that there is no correspondence in the facts. In order to raise the average fecundity of England even to the level of the average fecundity of the peers of the three kingdoms, which is 3.81 to a marriage, it is necessary to add nearly six per cent. to the number of births given in the English registers. But, if this addition be made, we shall have, in the counties of England, from Huntingdonshire to Worcestershire inclusive, 4.30 births to a marriage or thereabouts: and the boasted coincidence between the phenomena of propagation in France and England disappears at once. This is a curious specimen of Mr Sadler"s proficiency in the art of making excuses. In the same pamphlet he reasons as if the same registers were accurate to one in a thousand, and as if they were wrong at the very least by one in eighteen.
He tries to show that we have not taken a fair criterion of the fecundity of the peers. We are not quite sure that we understand his reasoning on this subject. The order of his observations is more than usually confused, and the cloud of words more than usually thick. We will give the argument on which he seems to lay most stress in his own words:--
"But I shall first notice a far more obvious and important blunder into which the Reviewer has fallen; or into which, I rather fear, he knowingly wishes to precipitate his readers, since I have distinctly pointed out what ought to have preserved him from it in the very chapter he is criticising and contradicting. It is this:--he has entirely omitted "counting" the sterile marriages of all those peerages which have become extinct during the very period his counting embraces. He counts, for instance, Earl Fitzwilliam, his marriages, and heir; but has he not omitted to enumerate the marriages of those branches of the same n.o.ble house, which have become extinct since that venerable individual possessed his t.i.tle? He talks of my having appealed merely to the extinction of peerages in my argument; but, on his plan of computation, extinctions are perpetually and wholly lost sight of. In computing the average prolificness of the marriages of the n.o.bles, he positively counts from a select cla.s.s of them only, one from which the unprolific are constantly weeded, and regularly disappear; and he thus comes to the conclusion, that the peers are "an eminently prolific cla.s.s!" Just as though a farmer should compute the rate of increase; not from the quant.i.ty of seed sown, but from that part of it only which comes to perfection, entirely omitting all which had failed to spring up or come to maturity. Upon this principle the most scanty crop ever obtained, in which the husbandman should fail to receive "seed again," as the phrase is, might be so "counted" as to appear "eminently prolific" indeed."
If we understand this pa.s.sage rightly, it decisively proves that Mr Sadler is incompetent to perform even the lowest offices of statistical research. What shadow of reason is there to believe that the peers who were alive in the year 1828 differed as to their prolificness from any other equally numerous set of peers taken at random? In what sense were the peers who were alive in 1828 a.n.a.logous to that part of the seed which comes to perfection? Did we entirely omit all that failed? On the contrary, we counted the sterile as well as the fruitful marriages of all the peers of the United Kingdom living at one time. In what way were the peers who were alive in 1828 a select cla.s.s? In what way were the sterile weeded from among them? Did every peer who had been married without having issue die in 1827? What shadow of reason is there to suppose that there was not the ordinary proportion of barren marriages among the marriages contracted by the n.o.blemen whose names are in Debrett"s last edition? But we ought, says Mr Sadler, to have counted all the sterile marriages of all the peers "whose t.i.tles had become extinct during the period which our counting embraced;" that is to say, since the earliest marriage contracted by any peer living in 1828. Was such a proposition ever heard of before? Surely we were bound to do no such thing, unless at the same time we had counted also the children born from all the fruitful marriages contracted by peers during the same period. Mr Sadler would have us divide the number of children born to peers living in 1828, not by the number of marriages which those peers contracted, but by the number of marriages which those peers contracted added to a crowd of marriages selected, on account of their sterility, from among the n.o.ble marriages which have taken place during the last fifty years. Is this the way to obtain fair averages? We might as well require that all the n.o.ble marriages which during the last fifty years have produced ten children apiece should be added to those of the peers living in 1828. The proper way to ascertain whether a set of people be prolific or sterile is, not to take marriages selected from the ma.s.s either on account of their fruitfulness or on account of their sterility, but to take a collection of marriages which there is no reason to think either more or less fruitful than others. What reason is there to think that the marriages contracted by the peers who were alive in 1828 were more fruitful than those contracted by the peers who were alive in 1800 or in 1750?
We will add another pa.s.sage from Mr Sadler"s pamphlet on this subject.
We attributed the extinction of peerages partly to the fact that those honours are for the most part limited to heirs male.
"This is a discovery indeed! Peeresses "eminently prolific," do not, as Macbeth conjured his spouse, "bring forth men-children only;" they actually produce daughters as well as sons!! Why, does not the Reviewer see, that so long as the rule of nature, which proportions the s.e.xes so accurately to each other, continues to exist, a tendency to a diminution in one s.e.x proves, as certainly as the demonstration of any mathematical problem, a tendency to a diminution in both; but to talk of "eminently prolific" peeresses, and still maintain that the rapid extinction in peerages is owing to their not bearing male children exclusively, is arrant nonsense."
Now, if there be any proposition on the face of the earth which we should not have expected to hear characterised as arrant nonsense, it is this,--that an honour limited to males alone is more likely to become extinct than an honour which, like the crown of England, descends indifferently to sons and daughters. We have heard, nay, we actually know families, in which, much as Mr Sadler may marvel at it, there are daughters and no sons. Nay, we know many such families. We are as much inclined as Mr Sadler to trace the benevolent and wise arrangements of Providence in the physical world, when once we are satisfied as to the facts on which we proceed. And we have always considered it as an arrangement deserving of the highest admiration, that, though in families the number of males and females differs widely, yet in great collections of human beings the disparity almost disappears. The chance undoubtedly is, that in a thousand marriages the number of daughters will not very much exceed the number of sons. But the chance also is, that several of those marriages will produce daughters, and daughters only. In every generation of the peerage there are several such cases.
When a peer whose t.i.tle is limited to male heirs dies, leaving only daughters, his peerage must expire, unless he have, not only a collateral heir, but a collateral heir descended through an uninterrupted line of males from the first possessor of the honour. If the deceased peer was the first n.o.bleman of his family, then, by the supposition, his peerage will become extinct. If he was the second, it will become extinct, unless he leaves a brother or a brother"s son. If the second peer had a brother, the first peer must have had at least two sons; and this is more than the average number of sons to a marriage in England. When, therefore, it is considered how many peerages are in the first and second generation, it will not appear strange that extinctions should frequently take place. There are peerages which descend to females as well as males. But, in such cases, if a peer dies, leaving only daughters, the very fecundity of the marriage is a cause of the extinction of the peerage. If there were only one daughter, the honour would descend. If there are several, it falls into abeyance.
But it is needless to multiply words in a case so clear; and, indeed it is needless to say anything more about Mr Sadler"s book. We have, if we do not deceive ourselves, completely exposed the calculations on which his theory rests; and we do not think that we should either amuse our readers or serve the cause of science if we were to rebut in succession a series of futile charges brought in the most angry spirit against ourselves; ignorant imputations of ignorance, and unfair complaints of unfairness,--conveyed in long, dreary, declamations, so prolix that we cannot find s.p.a.ce to quote them, and so confused that we cannot venture to abridge them.
There is much indeed in this foolish pamphlet to laugh at, from the motto in the first page down to some wisdom about cows in the last. One part of it indeed is solemn enough, we mean a certain jeu d"esprit of Mr Sadler"s touching a tract of Dr Arbuthnot"s. This is indeed "very tragical mirth," as Peter Quince"s playbill has it; and we would not advise any person who reads for amus.e.m.e.nt to venture on it as long as he can procure a volume of the Statutes at Large. This, however, to do Mr Sadler justice, is an exception. His witticisms, and his tables of figures, const.i.tute the only parts of his work which can be perused with perfect gravity. His blunders are diverting, his excuses exquisitely comic. But his anger is the most grotesque exhibition that we ever saw.
He foams at the mouth with the love of truth, and vindicates the Divine benevolence with a most edifying heartiness of hatred. On this subject we will give him one word of parting advice. If he raves in this way to ease his mind, or because he thinks that he does himself credit by it, or from a sense of religious duty, far be it from us to interfere. His peace, his reputation, and his religion are his own concern; and he, like the n.o.bleman to whom his treatise is dedicated, has a right to do what he will with his own. But, if he has adopted his abusive style from a notion that it would hurt our feelings, we must inform him that he is altogether mistaken; and that he would do well in future to give us his arguments, if he has any, and to keep his anger for those who fear it.
MIRABEAU. (July 1832.)
"Souvenirs sur Mirabeau, et sur les deux Premieres a.s.semblees Legislatives". Par Etienne Dumont, de Geneve: ouvrage posthume publie par M.J.L. Duval, Membre du Conseil Representatif du Canton du Geneve. 8vo. Paris: 1832.
This is a very amusing and a very instructive book: but even if it were less amusing and less instructive, it would still be interesting as a relic of a wise and virtuous man. M. Dumont was one of those persons, the care of whose fame belongs in an especial manner to mankind. For he was one of those persons who have, for the sake of mankind, neglected the care of their own fame. In his walk through life there was no obtrusiveness, no pushing, no elbowing, none of the little arts which bring forward little men. With every right to the head of the board, he took the lowest room, and well deserved to be greeted with--Friend, go up higher. Though no man was more capable of achieving for himself a separate and independent renown, he attached himself to others; he laboured to raise their fame; he was content to receive as his share of the reward the mere overflowings which redounded from the full measure of their glory. Not that he was of a servile and idolatrous habit of mind:--not that he was one of the tribe of Boswells,--those literary Gibeonites, born to be hewers of wood and drawers of water to the higher intellectual castes. Possessed of talents and acquirements which made him great, he wished only to be useful. In the prime of manhood, at the very time of life at which ambitious men are most ambitious, he was not solicitous to proclaim that he furnished information, arguments, and eloquence to Mirabeau. In his later years he was perfectly willing that his renown should merge in that of Mr Bentham.
The services which M. Dumont has rendered to society can be fully appreciated only by those who have studied Mr Bentham"s works, both in their rude and in their finished state. The difference both for show and for use is as great as the difference between a lump of golden ore and a rouleau of sovereigns fresh from the mint. Of Mr Bentham we would at all times speak with the reverence which is due to a great original thinker, and to a sincere and ardent friend of the human race. If a few weaknesses were mingled with his eminent virtues,--if a few errors insinuated themselves among the many valuable truths which he taught,--this is a.s.suredly no time for noticing those weaknesses or those errors in an unkind or sarcastic spirit. A great man has gone from among us, full of years, of good works, and of deserved honours. In some of the highest departments in which the human intellect can exert itself he has not left his equal or his second behind him. From his contemporaries he has had, according to the usual lot, more or less than justice. He has had blind flatterers and blind detractors--flatterers who could see nothing but perfection in his style, detractors who could see nothing but nonsense in his matter. He will now have judges.
Posterity will p.r.o.nounce its calm and impartial decision; and that decision will, we firmly believe, place in the same rank with Galileo, and with Locke, the man who found jurisprudence a gibberish and left it a science. Never was there a literary partnership so fortunate as that of Mr Bentham and M. Dumont. The raw material which Mr Bentham furnished was most precious; but it was unmarketable. He was, a.s.suredly, at once a great logician and a great rhetorician. But the effect of his logic was injured by a vicious arrangement, and the effect of his rhetoric by a vicious style. His mind was vigorous, comprehensive, subtile, fertile of arguments, fertile of ill.u.s.trations. But he spoke in an unknown tongue; and, that the congregation might be edified, it was necessary that some brother having the gift of interpretation should expound the invaluable jargon. His oracles were of high import; but they were traced on leaves and flung loose to the wind. So negligent was he of the arts of selection, distribution, and compression, that to persons who formed their judgment of him from his works in their undigested state he seemed to be the least systematic of all philosophers. The truth is, that his opinions formed a system, which, whether sound or unsound, is more exact, more entire, and more consistent with itself than any other. Yet to superficial readers of his works in their original form, and indeed to all readers of those works who did not bring great industry and great acuteness to the study, he seemed to be a man of a quick and ingenious but ill-regulated mind,--who saw truth only by glimpses,--who threw out many striking hints, but who had never thought of combining his doctrines in one harmonious whole.
M. Dumont was admirably qualified to supply what was wanting in Mr Bentham. In the qualities in which the French writers surpa.s.s those of all other nations--neatness, clearness, precision, condensation--he surpa.s.sed all French writers. If M. Dumont had never been born, Mr Bentham would still have been a very great man. But he would have been great to himself alone. The fertility of his mind would have resembled the fertility of those vast American wildernesses in which blossoms and decays a rich but unprofitable vegetation, "wherewith the reaper filleth not his hand, neither he that bindeth up the sheaves his bosom." It would have been with his discoveries as it has been with the "Century of Inventions." His speculations on laws would have been of no more practical use than Lord Worcester"s speculations on steam-engines. Some generations hence, perhaps, when legislation had found its Watt, an antiquarian might have published to the world the curious fact that, in the reign of George the Third, there had been a man called Bentham, who had given hints of many discoveries made since his time, and who had really, for his age, taken a most philosophical view of the principles of jurisprudence.
Many persons have attempted to interpret between this powerful mind and the public. But, in our opinion, M. Dumont alone has succeeded. It is remarkable that, in foreign countries, where Mr Bentham"s works are known solely through the medium of the French version, his merit is almost universally acknowledged. Even those who are most decidedly opposed to his political opinions--the very chiefs of the Holy Alliance--have publicly testified their respect for him. In England, on the contrary, many persons who certainly entertained no prejudice against him on political grounds were long in the habit of mentioning him contemptuously. Indeed, what was said of Bacon"s philosophy may be said of Bentham"s. It was in little repute among us, till judgments in its favour came from beyond sea, and convinced us, to our shame, that we had been abusing and laughing at one of the greatest men of the age.
M. Dumont might easily have found employments more gratifying to personal vanity than that of arranging works not his own. But he could have found no employment more useful or more truly honourable. The book before us, hastily written as it is, contains abundant proof, if proof were needed, that he did not become an editor because he wanted the talents which would have made him eminent as a writer.
Persons who hold democratical opinions, and who have been accustomed to consider M. Dumont as one of their party, have been surprised and mortified to learn that he speaks with very little respect of the French Revolution and of its authors. Some zealous Tories have naturally expressed great satisfaction at finding their doctrines, in some respects, confirmed by the testimony of an unwilling witness. The date of the work, we think, explains everything. If it had been written ten years earlier, or twenty years later, it would have been very different from what it is. It was written, neither during the first excitement of the Revolution, nor at that later period when the practical good produced by the Revolution had become manifest to the most prejudiced observers; but in those wretched times when the enthusiasm had abated, and the solid advantages were not yet fully seen. It was written in the year 1799,--a year in which the most sanguine friend of liberty might well feel some misgivings as to the effects of what the National a.s.sembly had done. The evils which attend every great change had been severely felt. The benefit was still to come. The price--a heavy price--had been paid. The thing purchased had not yet been delivered.
Europe was swarming with French exiles. The fleets and armies of the second coalition were victorious. Within France, the reign of terror was over; but the reign of law had not commenced. There had been, indeed, during three or four years, a written Const.i.tution, by which rights were defined and checks provided. But these rights had been repeatedly violated; and those checks had proved utterly inefficient. The laws which had been framed to secure the distinct authority of the executive magistrates and of the legislative a.s.semblies--the freedom of election--the freedom of debate--the freedom of the press--the personal freedom of citizens--were a dead letter. The ordinary mode in which the Republic was governed was by coups d"etat. On one occasion, the legislative councils were placed under military restraint by the directors. Then, again, directors were deposed by the legislative councils. Elections were set aside by the executive authority.
Ship-loads of writers and speakers were sent, without a legal trial, to die of fever in Guiana. France, in short, was in that state in which revolutions, effected by violence, almost always leave a nation. The habit of obedience had been lost. The spell of prescription had been broken. Those a.s.sociations on which, far more than on any arguments about property and order, the authority of magistrates rests, had completely pa.s.sed away. The power of the government consisted merely in the physical force which it could bring to its support. Moral force it had none. It was itself a government sprung from a recent convulsion.
Its own fundamental maxim was, that rebellion might be justifiable. Its own existence proved that rebellion might be successful. The people had been accustomed, during several years, to offer resistance to the const.i.tuted authorities on the slightest provocation, and to see the const.i.tuted authorities yield to that resistance. The whole political world was "without form and void"--an incessant whirl of hostile atoms, which, every moment, formed some new combination. The only man who could fix the agitated elements of society in a stable form was following a wild vision of glory and empire through the Syrian deserts. The time was not yet come, when
"Confusion heard his voice; and wild uproar Stood ruled:"
when, out of the chaos into which the old society had been resolved, were to rise a new dynasty, a new peerage, a new church, and a new code.
The dying words of Madame Roland, "Oh, Liberty! how many crimes are committed in thy name!" were at that time echoed by many of the most upright and benevolent of mankind. M. Guizot has, in one of his admirable pamphlets, happily and justly described M. Laine as "an honest and liberal man, discouraged by the Revolution." This description, at the time when M. Dumont"s Memoirs were written, would have applied to almost every honest and liberal man in Europe; and would, beyond all doubt, have applied to M. Dumont himself. To that fanatical worship of the all-wise and all-good people, which had been common a few years before, had succeeded an uneasy suspicion that the follies and vices of the people would frustrate all attempts to serve them. The wild and joyous exaltation, with which the meeting of the States-General and the fall of the Bastile had been hailed, had pa.s.sed away. In its place was dejection, and a gloomy distrust of suspicious appearances. The philosophers and philanthropists had reigned. And what had their reign produced? Philosophy had brought with it mummeries as absurd as any which had been practised by the most superst.i.tious zealot of the darkest age. Philanthropy had brought with it crimes as horrible as the ma.s.sacre of Saint Bartholomew. This was the emanc.i.p.ation of the human mind. These were the fruits of the great victory of reason over prejudice. France had rejected the faith of Pascal and Descartes as a nursery fable, that a courtezan might be her idol, and a madman her priest. She had a.s.serted her freedom against Louis, that she might bow down before Robespierre.
For a time men thought that all the boasted wisdom of the eighteenth century was folly; and that those hopes of great political and social ameliorations which had been cherished by Voltaire and Condorcet were utterly delusive.
Under the influence of these feelings, M. Dumont has gone so far as to say that the writings of Mr Burke on the French Revolution, though disfigured by exaggeration, and though containing doctrines subversive of all public liberty, had been, on the whole, justified by events, and had probably saved Europe from great disasters. That such a man as the friend and fellow-labourer of Mr Bentham should have expressed such an opinion is a circ.u.mstance which well deserves the consideration of uncharitable politicians. These Memoirs have not convinced us that the French Revolution was not a great blessing to mankind. But they have convinced us that very great indulgence is due to those who, while the Revolution was actually taking place, regarded it with unmixed aversion and horror. We can perceive where their error lay. We can perceive that the evil was temporary, and the good durable. But we cannot be sure that, if our lot had been cast in their times, we should not, like them, have been discouraged and disgusted--that we should not, like them, have seen, in that great victory of the French people, only insanity and crime.
It is curious to observe how some men are applauded, and others reviled, for merely being what all their neighbours are,--for merely going pa.s.sively down the stream of events,--for merely representing the opinions and pa.s.sions of a whole generation. The friends of popular government ordinarily speak with extreme severity of Mr Pitt, and with respect and tenderness of Mr Canning. Yet the whole difference, we suspect, consisted merely in this,--that Mr Pitt died in 1806, and Mr Canning in 1827. During the years which were common to the public life of both, Mr Canning was a.s.suredly not a more liberal statesman than his patron. The truth is that Mr Pitt began his political life at the end of the American War, when the nation was suffering from the effects of corruption. He closed it in the midst of the calamities produced by the French Revolution, when the nation was still strongly impressed with the horrors of anarchy. He changed, undoubtedly. In his youth he had brought in reform bills. In his manhood he brought in gagging bills. But the change, though lamentable, was, in our opinion, perfectly natural, and might have been perfectly honest. He changed with the great body of his countrymen. Mr Canning on the other hand, entered into public life when Europe was in dread of the Jacobins. He closed his public life when Europe was suffering under the tyranny of the Holy Alliance. He, too, changed with the nation. As the crimes of the Jacobins had turned the master into something very like a Tory, the events which followed the Congress of Vienna turned the pupil into something very like a Whig.
So much are men the creatures of circ.u.mstances. We see that, if M.
Dumont had died in 1799, he would have died, to use the new cant word, a decided "Conservative." If Mr Pitt had lived in 1832, it is our firm belief that he would have been a decided Reformer.
The judgment pa.s.sed by M. Dumont in this work on the French Revolution must be taken with considerable allowances. It resembles a criticism on a play of which only the first act has been performed, or on a building from which the scaffolding has not yet been taken down. We have no doubt that, if the excellent author had revised these Memoirs thirty years after the time at which they were written, he would have seen reason to omit a few pa.s.sages, and to add many qualifications and explanations.
He would not probably have been inclined to retract the censures, just, though severe, which he has pa.s.sed on the ignorance, the presumption, and the pedantry, of the National a.s.sembly. But he would have admitted that, in spite of those faults, perhaps even by reason of those faults, that a.s.sembly had conferred inestimable benefits on mankind. It is clear that, among the French of that day, political knowledge was absolutely in its infancy. It would indeed have been strange if it had attained maturity in the time of censors, of lettres-de-cachet, and of beds of justice. The electors did not know how to elect. The representatives did not know how to deliberate. M. Dumont taught the const.i.tuent body of Montreuil how to perform their functions, and found them apt to learn.
He afterwards tried, in concert with Mirabeau, to instruct the National a.s.sembly in that admirable system of Parliamentary tactics which has been long established in the English House of Commons, and which has made the House of Commons, in spite of all the defects in its composition, the best and fairest debating society in the world. But these accomplished legislators, though quite as ignorant as the mob of Montreuil, proved much less docile, and cried out that they did not want to go to school to the English. Their debates consisted of endless successions of trashy pamphlets, all beginning with something about the original compact of society, man in the hunting state, and other such foolery. They sometimes diversified and enlivened these long readings by a little rioting. They bawled; they hooted; they shook their fists. They kept no order among themselves. They were insulted with impunity by the crowd which filled their galleries. They gave long and solemn consideration to trifles. They hurried through the most important resolutions with fearful expedition. They wasted months in quibbling about the words of that false and childish Declaration of Rights on which they professed to found their new const.i.tution, and which was at irreconcilable variance with every clause of that const.i.tution. They annihilated in a single night privileges, many of which partook of the nature of property, and ought therefore to have been most delicately handled.
They are called the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly. Never was a name less appropriate. They were not const.i.tuent, but the very reverse of const.i.tuent. They const.i.tuted nothing that stood or that deserved to last. They had not, and they could not possibly have, the information or the habits of mind which are necessary for the framing of that most exquisite of all machines--a government. The metaphysical cant with which they prefaced their const.i.tution has long been the scoff of all parties. Their const.i.tution itself,--that const.i.tution which they described as absolutely perfect, and to which they predicted immortality,--disappeared in a few months, and left no trace behind it.
They were great only in the work of destruction.
The glory of the National a.s.sembly is this, that they were in truth, what Mr Burke called them in austere irony, the ablest architects of ruin that ever the world saw. They were utterly incompetent to perform any work which required a discriminating eye and a skilful hand. But the work which was then to be done was a work of devastation. They had to deal with abuses so horrible and so deeply rooted that the highest political wisdom could scarcely have produced greater good to mankind than was produced by their fierce and senseless temerity. Demolition is undoubtedly a vulgar task; the highest glory of the statesman is to construct. But there is a time for everything,--a time to set up, and a time to pull down. The talents of revolutionary leaders and those of the legislator have equally their use and their season. It is the natural, the almost universal, law, that the age of insurrections and proscriptions shall precede the age of good government, of temperate liberty, and liberal order.
And how should it be otherwise? It is not in swaddling-bands that we learn to walk. It is not in the dark that we learn to distinguish colours. It is not under oppression that we learn how to use freedom.
The ordinary sophism by which misrule is defended is, when truly stated, this:--The people must continue in slavery, because slavery has generated in them all the vices of slaves. Because they are ignorant, they must remain under a power which has made and which keeps them ignorant. Because they have been made ferocious by misgovernment, they must be misgoverned for ever. If the system under which they live were so mild and liberal that under its operation they had become humane and enlightened, it would be safe to venture on a change. But, as this system has destroyed morality, and prevented the development of the intellect,--as it has turned men, who might under different training have formed a virtuous and happy community, into savage and stupid wild beasts,--therefore it ought to last for ever. The English Revolution, it is said, was truly a glorious Revolution. Practical evils were redressed; no excesses were committed; no sweeping confiscations took place; the authority of the laws was scarcely for a moment suspended; the fullest and freest discussion was tolerated in Parliament; the nation showed, by the calm and temperate manner in which it a.s.serted its liberty, that it was fit to enjoy liberty. The French Revolution was, on the other hand, the most horrible event recorded in history,--all madness and wickedness,--absurdity in theory, and atrocity in practice.