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party to another, is effected by means of violence. But in both instances the fact remains unaltered, that the man, or combination of men, who possess the largest amount of stored-up capital, the greatest quantity of practical talent for managing men, and by those means the services of the greatest number of the strong and resolute men of a country, always exercise, directly or indirectly, in their own names or in the name of some other person, the sovereign power in that country.

It is clear from this analysis that the source of all political power is intellectual ability; that the means by which all numerous bodies of men are kept in obedience, is their being led to believe in the ability of their rulers-led to believe that it is more for their advantage to obey them than to resist them. In other words, the only means by which a government can establish its power upon a stable and permanent foundation, is, by making the great body of the people feel or believe that it contributes to their happiness. We certainly read of nations which have submitted to the exactions, oppressions, and contumelies of despots and powerful aristocracies, but on closer examination we will see that even there benefits real or imaginary were the influences which kept the people in subjection. The uncivilised man is incapable of looking beyond the necessities of the day-of making arrangements with a view to provide for the security and comfort of years-of sacrificing the gratification of the moment to ensure a greater and more lasting pleasure at a future time. A class of men a little more enlightened than the rude crew we have been describing, can easily, by conferring upon them cheap immediate pleasures, incline them to submit to lasting sacrifices; and when a portion of them experience a passing discontent, put them down with the aid of those of their own number who happen to be satisfied at the moment. A few capable of making combinations can thus hold in check a multitude less enlightened. But still their chief engine of authority is their ability to persuade at least a portion of their subjects that they are kind to them. They may cheat them in the bargain; but still the bargain is, "Do us good, and rule over us." But comparatively highly civilised nations, it will be said, have been seen tamely submitting to tyranny, as was the case in France before the revolution. In such cases, it will be found, either that the rulers have flattered the vanity of the people, paid them in false coin which they took for sterling, or that the people have thrown themselves into the arms of a despotism as a refuge from evils of which, having experimental knowledge, they were more afraid -invasions, it may be, by foreigners, or internal anarchy. Still, the prospect of advantage to themselves was the source of the subjects' allegiance; they acted upon the principle-of two evils, choose the least.

Having thus attempted to show what government is, in answer to the first question proposed in the introduction, we now proceed to try to solve the questions involved in the second branch of our inquiry:—By what means the beneficial tendencies of government may be increased to the greatest extent, and any mischievous tendencies it may have most effectively neutralised? These questions constitute the next two heads of this division of our subject.

2. In what Cases is the Interference of a Government, with a view to control its Subjects' Liberty of Action, calculated to be productive of Good to the great Body of Society, or the Con

trary?

In attributing "liberty of action" to individual members of society, we do not pretend to decide upon the knotty question of the liberty or necessity of human actions. We use the word liberty merely to express a man's freedom from physical control exercised by others-his power of action in conformity to the dictates of his own will, whether that will be a free or a necessary agent. We find, on looking to the practice of different governments, that some have been accustomed to command or prohibit actions, which others have left their subjects free to perform or leave undone

as their own choice determined. The laws of Chira are said to prescribe the very forms of domestic mouruing for the loss of relations-matters which with us are left to the discretion of individuals or to the vague un authoritative laws of fashion. On the other hand, the imperfect regulations of the old feudal governments of Europe allowed a latitude of action to the powerful barons, which seems to us incompatible with the exist ence of an efficient government or the security of private citizens. Again, some governments leave the specula tions of commerce to be regulated by the judgment of the merchant; others take upon them to teach him which channels of trade are most advantageous, and to order him to abstain from some and embark in others. All nations, however, have practically declared that there ought to be limits placed to a government's right or power of controlling its subjects' actions. We are now about to inquire whether this opinion be wel founded, and what actions ought to be left free, what subjected to regulation.

Among the actions over which almost all govern ments have attempted to exercise a control, are those actions or operations of the mind by means of which men's opinions are formed. Penalties have been attached to the avowal of certain opinions; nay, tribunals have been established (as, for example, the Spanish Inquisition) with a view, by cunningly devised ques tions, and even by the application of torture, to extort from men confessions that they entertained opinions which they had jealously concealed from all the world. It is not probable that any person who peruses these pages will require any argument to show the imposs bility of preventing men from forming opinions. Opinions are not matter of choice; a man cannot think or believe what he pleases; punishment cannot deter him from forming opinions, which come upon him whether he will or not. Again, opinions kept to a man's self do harm to no one. If they are of a nature to incline him to commit dishonest actions, these actions are punishable, and that punishment is a sufficient safeguard against his depraved inclinations. Penalties attached to the secret entertaining of obnoxious opinions are, therefore, at once unnecessary and incapable of producing any effect. To punish men for holding opinions, the utterance of which can only be wrung from them by deceit and cruelty, is to inflict suffering on human beings for no purpose-it is a wanton waste of cruelty. The case of individuals who not only entertain but openly avow their opinions, and seek to gain converts to them, is somewhat different. It is possible to deter men from uttering certain opinions; and it is possible that men may seek to disseminate opinions, which, acted upon, must do harm. Even in this case, however, serious difficulties present themselves. Who are to decide what opinions are dangerous? Is punishment an efficient method of checking opinions admitted to have a bad tendency? History furnishes us with numerous examples to show that it is unsafe to leave to government the determination as to what opinions are dangerous. Bad and unjust governments necessarily think or pretend all opinions mischievous which have a tendency to make their actions appear in their true e lours. Again, most men are afraid of novelty of any kind in matters of thought, and ready to condemn an opinion as dangerous, merely because it is contrary to some that they entertain. Socrates, and a greater still, are not the only persons who have suffered for teaching truths with benevolent intentions, in consequence rulers taking upon themselves to punish men for utter ing opinions which they thought, or pretended to think, dangerous. To place in any human hands a power of punishing the promulgators of opinion, is a step quite as likely to repress true and useful opinions as the which are false and dangerous. Again, no opinion was ever put down otherwise than by fair argument. Punishments may have impeded the progress of an opinion, but they have more frequently, by raising up martyrs, given it a more rapid currency. The rega of error is necessarily of short duration, and it has

of

never been abridged by penalties; the reign of truth, once established, is eternal; it has been postponed, but never hastened, by the operation of penal laws. Laws commanding the punishment of avowed opinions, are quite as unavailing as those which command the punishment of concealed ones. The only possible effect of either is to make martyrs or hypocrites. Here, then, we have broad and marked limitation of the power of government. Whenever government interferes to repress free thought, or the free utterance of opinions, it does harm. What the lawyers call "overt acts"actions in the common acceptation of the term, physical actions, or words which may injure the reputation and feelings of others—are the only legitimate objects of government control.

the tendency of which is to increase the happiness of
the person receiving the benefit, in a less degree than
it diminishes the happiness of the person conferring it.
These are intricate and delicate questions, regarding
which even the parties mentioned can scarcely ascer
tain the truth, much less any third party, and least of
all a government encumbered with a multiplicity of
distracting calls upon its attention.
The safest way
for the government is to leave the performance of
benevolent actions to the consciences of its subjects: by
trying to enforce the performance of them, it is quite as
likely to create unhappiness as the reverse.

There remains a numerous class of actions which contemplate neither good nor harm to a man's neighbours. To this belong all pursuits of enjoyment by Turning our attention next to actions, properly so means which injure no man-all attempts to increase called, we find that, with regard to some even of them, a man's fortune by perfectly just and honest means, there has always existed in men's minds a jealousy of though without any reference to the advantage of others. the interference of government. Is that jealousy well It might appear an unnecessary affectation of omitting or ill founded and in what cases? The power of go- nothing, to state that government ought in no way to invernment, we have seen, is derived from the conviction terfere with actions of this class, to hinder, promote, or entertained by the subjects, that they derive benefit direct them; and yet the sheer love of meddling, so from being subjected to its control. There are some strong in some men, has constantly led governments to actions, regarding which it is at once apparent to dis- transgress this law of common sense. If the hunter after passionate minds that all have an interest in govern- pleasure, by means which harm no one, seek it where it ment interfering to prevent them. Thus, when two is not to be found, it is only his own loss: no one can say men quarrel, and proceed to blows, it is clear that if positively that another cannot find pleasure in certain one of them be dangerously or fatally wounded, it would pursuits, for no one can know how another's mind is conhave been for his advantage had government interfered stituted; and therefore to prescribe to him that he shall to prevent their fighting. But as a general rule, every abstain from such and such pursuits, is to run the risk person has an interest in government preventing fight-of diminishing his happiness. It is also, on the part of ing among its subjects; for it is more for a man's ad- the government, wasting time that might be better emvantage to be secured from the danger of being hurt ployed. In the pursuit of wealth by honest industry and killed, than it is to retain the power of hurting and and enterprise, a man's whole attention is generally killing others. It is clearly for the good of all, that severely tasked; the government, encumbered with government should interfere to prevent any one of its other affairs, is not likely to discover what he, whose subjects from hurting, or killing, or committing any eyes are sharpened by self-interest, has overlooked. injury upon the person of any other. In the same way, The meddling of governments with the mercantile spemight be shown that every body will derive benefit culations of their subjects, has its origin in the absurd from government interfering to prevent any one of its notion that what is one man's gain must be another's subjects depriving any other of his property by force or loss-in forgetfulness of the truth, that the wealth of fraud. In a virtuous and highly civilised community, the whole community is merely the sum of the fortunes the chastity of its women, and the purity of both sexes, of all the individuals composing it, and that to impede are so clearly recognised to be advantages of which the the gains of any one is to diminish the total increase. owners ought not to be forcefully or fraudulently dispossessed, that the enforcement of laws forbidding such offences is acknowledged by all to be generally beneficial. A man's (or woman's) reputation for integrity, is not only an object of commendable pride, and therefore a possession the loss of which must occasion pain, but a valuable property for all who are engaged in business. There is, therefore, a universal assent given to the laws which inflict punishment upon those who defame their neighbours. This brief retrospect is sufficient to show that the whole community will be benefited by government interfering to prevent any one citizen injuring another-in person, property, or reputation; and to oblige him who has inflicted an injury upon his neighbour, in these respects, to make amends as far as he can. It is evidently for the advantage of the criminal, that his punishment, and the reparation he is to make, shall be decided by an impartial third party, not by the person injured; and but little reflection is required to show that even the party in jured will derive benefit from such an arrangement, inasmuch as, where no man is allowed to take the law into his own hands, there can be no colourable excuse invented for the aggression made upon him, while he is, at the same time, secure from the after dangers incurred by all in his position in those countries where retaliation is tolerated by the government.

An opinion has been very commonly entertained, that government can benefit society, not only by prohibiting men from doing injury to one another, but by obliging them to do good to one another. The fallaciousness of this opinion can be easily demonstrated. The aggregate happiness of the community cannot be increased by any man doing good to another at the expense of injuring himself. It cannot even be increased by any action,

It appears sufficiently, from these considerations, that the interference of government with the conduct of its subjects one to another, ought to be cautiously guarded, in order to secure their prosperity and happiness. It ought to be restricted almost exclusively to what is, in the technical language of the laws of England, called "preserving the peace." This opinion does not necessarily imply what imaginative enthusiasts would call low and narrow views of the capacity and destiny of man. To say that security in person, property, and reputation, is the highest benefit that can be bestowed upon man through the instrumentality of a government, is not to say that these are the utmost benefits man is capable of receiving. Government cannot make a man wise; that must be accomplished by the exertion of his own intellectual faculties. Government cannot make a man good; that must be the consequence of the habitual regulation and control of his feelings and actions, by the efforts of his own will, directed by his own reason. Government cannot make a man rich (except by making others poorer); that must be the result of his own sagacious and persevering industry. But though government cannot make any man wealthy, wise, and good, it may render it more easy for the great body of its citizens to become all three, by establishing security of person, property, and reputation, for all who act honestly and peaceably, and thus removing temptations to do wrong, diminishing the dangers against which men must guard, and leaving them a greater amount of leisure to devote to industrious pursuits, or to the cultivation of wisdom and virtue.

What has already been said, has included both what government must do and abstain from, in so far as its own subjects are concerned, in order to promote their happiness. It has also in its power to contribute to

their prosperity, by guarding them against injuries at the hands of those who are not its subjects. It can watch the approach of danger from without, and take precautions to avert it. It can organise, arm, and discipline its subjects, to defend their homes, or to extend their protection to their fellow-citizens engaged in the pursuit of their honest industry on the ocean or in foreign countries. With a view to the defence of the country from foreign aggression, the government may, to a limited extent, and generally for a limited period of time, interfere with the actions of its citizens, in a greater degree than could with propriety be conceded, when the internal relations of rulers and subjects alone were taken into consideration. The nature and limits of this more extended interference will appear from the discussion of the topics which occur under the next division of our subject.

3. By what Means can Government be Rendered Capable of Accomplishing the Greatest Possible Amount of Good, and most Effectually Prevented from doing Harm?

contumacious. The means by which government defends
its subjects against aggression from foreigners, or pro-
cures them redress for injuries done by foreigners, are
twofold. They are either peaceable, that is, by the way
of representation, persuasion, and argument; or they
are forcible, that is, by the way of war. The manage
ment of the former mode of averting or redressing
injury, belongs to the diplomatic; the latter, to the war
department. The business of government, like all other
kinds of business, requires money to defray its expenses,
and this renders necessary another department-that of
finance. It appears from this review that the great
natural departments among which the business of
government falls to be distributed, are as follows:-
The HOME DEPARTMENT, which resolves itself into the
Legislative, Judicial, and Executive Departments.
The FOREIGN DEPARTMENT, which resolves itself into
the Diplomatic and War Departments.
The FINANCIAL DEPARTMENT.

These embrace all the necessary, essential functions of a government. Even in rude tribes, among whom one ruler takes upon him the whole task of government, and A government is an association of men with all the finds it too little to occupy the whole of his time, he feelings of other men. They are possessed of power, must, in a scrambling way, discharge all the offices of and liable, in consequence of the propensities of human these departments, though he never thinks of distin nature, to abuse it in two ways:-By indolence, or guishing and classifying them. He must lead or send neglecting to use their power-that is, by not perform- out the warriors of his tribe to drive away intruders ing the duties of their station; by excessive or wrong upon their hunting-grounds; he must treat with the exercise of their power-that is, by meddling where sachems of neighbouring tribes, when the hatchet is to they can only do mischief, or by acting, with a short-be buried or dug up; he must devise laws, decide be sighted selfishness, in a manner injurious to the great body of the nation. The only way of guarding against these abuses, is by instructing the people, in the first place, accurately as to what are the duties of government; and by furnishing them, in the second place, . with some plan, which may be easily understood, and worked by men of average capacity, for checking government when it exceeds its powers, or urging it on when it is lazy, by orderly and legitimate means.

tween litigants, and enforce his own decision; he must levy his "ways and means"-the duty least seldom neglected. Even among highly civilised states, limited in point of territory and population-although, for the sake of order and the facility it gives in the transaction of business, the offices of these departments and their records will be kept separate-it will sometimes be found, for the sake of economy, or because there is not enough of business in any one of them to occupy a man's whole time, that the duties of more than one are dis charged by the same person. On the other hand, in large and powerful states like our own, it is found necessary still further to subdivide them. Thus, instead of a simple war department, we have an admiralty, a secre

The general abstract view of the principles of government, laid down in the preceding head, will not be found sufficient for the purpose of informing the people what are the duties of government, so as to enable them to say, at any given time, government is doing what is right, or government is exceeding its powers, or govern-tary-at-war with the Horse Guards, and an ordnance ment is neglecting its duty. No one man can, in his own person, execute all the functions of government. Its members must take different departments, and be assisted in them by a number of clerks and other subordinate officers. But as the great end of government is one-to protect its subjects in the full enjoyment of security in person, property, and reputation—and as all these departments are only of use in so far as they contribute to that end, there must be one master-mind controlling and directing them all, taking care that they do not clash with or counteract each other. It is only when people know what are the different departments of government, and what is the proper task of each, that they can mark the exact points in which government is negligent or oppressive, lay the blame upon the real defaulters, and thus make such applications for redress, so clearly stated, that it is impossible to evade them.

In watching over the security of its subjects, government has to guard it against attacks from two quarters -from violence offered by one citizen to another; from violence offered to one or more citizens by persons who are not its subjects-by foreigners. The discharge of the former duty belongs to what is called the home department or domestic affairs; the latter to the foreign department. The great engine by which a government preserves security of person, property, and reputation, to its subjects, in so far as these are threatened by disputes among themselves, is the law. To the production of a good and efficient body of law there are requisite first, the legislator, or law-maker; second, the judge, or the person who declares in what manner the general precepts of the law apply to particular cases; third, the executive power, which enforces the decision of the judge when the party against whom it is given proves

department. The number of offices, of departments
(of bureaux, to adopt the French phraseology), is com
paratively unimportant; the great matter is to have the
business of government so distributed that every man,
knowing exactly what he has to do, may set about it
with the least possible degree of confusion and embar
rassment, and that all men knowing what he has to do,
the force of public opinion may more easily be brought
to bear upon him if he exceed his powers or neglect his
duty. Some of these departments, however, from the
peculiar nature of their duties, ought never to be in-
trusted to the same individual. For example, the office
of making the laws ought never to be intrusted to the
person who has the charge of explaining and applying
them; and neither task ought to be intrusted to him
who is called upon to enforce them. When the judge is
not the law-maker, he will interpret the law according
to its apparent tenor; but if the law-maker be judge, he
may say, I meant so and so, and explain it in a way
nobody ever suspected. If the judge is law-maker, be
may take upon him to supply deficiencies in the law on
the spur of the moment, and thus expose citizens to the
injustice of being tried by a law not in existence at the
time they are said to have offended. The qualities
required in a good executive or police minister are quite
different from those required in the judge or law-giver,
and rarely combined with them in the same person.
Above all, however, the functions of finance minister
ought never, in whole or in part, to be intrusted to the
minister of any other department. The practice which
prevails in many governments, of allowing office-bearers
to pay themselves, and intrusting the collection of dif
ferent branches of the revenue to various departmenta
of government, is sure to lead to extortion and pecu

lation, to profligate waste of money, and oppression of the subject.

These are the essential departments of a government -their duties are those which, however rudely or confusedly, must be discharged wherever there is any government at all. There are other departments, not certainly of less importance, but without which many governments have been carried on; and the duties of which have been discharged by private exertions, but which may with advantage be discharged by the general government. The departments to which we allude are those which have the charge of national education and the provision for the poor.

The circumstance of the state or government taking upon it to direct the education of the whole people, has been brought about, in point of fact, by a variety of contradictory causes. Among heathen people it was owing to the strong influence acquired, at a very early stage of civilisation, by the priesthood; the continuance of the power of a priestly caste depended upon the people continuing to believe in their pretensions to supernatural power and more than ordinary virtue. The most natural way to keep up this belief was by graving it deeply on the minds of the young. In the small states of Greece, as they advanced in civilisation, the secular statesmen emancipated themselves from the alliance of the priests; and, in consequence, we find the influence of the latter as teachers superseded to a great extent, especially at Athens and in the small Greek kingdoms erected out of the fragments of Alexander's empire, by philosophers in the pay of the government. In the great Roman empire, which incorporated into itself all those Greek and many other minor heathen states, both the philosophers and the priests ceased to be the authorised immediate agents of a government education, though in the provinces they continued to teach. The founders of the Christian religion disclaimed such connexion with the state as had been maintained by the priests who preceded them; accidental circumstances, however, connected with the decline of the Roman empire, united again, in the persons of the dignitaries of the Christian church, the offices of teachers and rulers. In the countries throughout which the Mahommetan religion gained the ascendancy, that modification of the Christianity of the time has become, as among heathen nations, an engine of government. Among the nations of Europe, and those which have been planted in different parts of the world within the few last centuries by Europeans, the progress of science has produced an effect analogous to that mentioned as having been produced by it armong the small Greek states of antiquity. It has shaken, not the belief in the Christian religion, but the opinion of the benefit derived from making it, like the old heathen religions, an engine of government. At the same time, the opinion of the importance of civilising the whole body of the people by the influence of education, has led men to inquire whether government could not with advantage undertake the task of educating them. The decided advocates of a dominant church fear secular education, as calculated to encourage a spirit of free inquiry inconsistent with implicit belief in a state creed. Many advocates of secular education, irritated by this opposition, see in the established clergy nothing but a body of men who would put down all instruction except what is calculated to impress ineffaceably the belief of their peculiar dogmas on the infant mind. The discussion regarding the utility of a national system of education, and the best kind of national education, has hitherto been conducted with too exclusive a reference to the partisan views of these opposing parties.

This historical retrospect has been introduced for the purpose of placing the present state of the controversy in a clear light. It must be argued differently if we are to arrive at a true and practical conclusion. The success of state religions, in diffusing such a general knowledge of their dogmas among the community as is requisite to enable men to conform to them in outward appearance, is a proof that an organised government

possesses great powers for the diffusion of information. By intrusting the superintendence of national instruction to a separate board, there will be no interference with, or obstruction of, the discharge of the other duties of government. Arrangements for providing a supply of competent teachers, books, instruments, &c., will be, as on a grander scale, more efficient, as they will at the same time be more economical than the desultory efforts of private individuals. So far the advantages of a national system of education are apparent. The difficulty is here: harm is done whenever government interferes with the free formation and expression of opinion, and it is difficult to teach without giving a bias to opinions. Out of this difficulty we are rescued by a suggestion derived from viewing the question in another point of view. It is part of the essential duties of a government to take care that its laws are made known to all who are called upon to obey them, and that competent officers are intrusted with the management of the details of government. The invention of printing enables government to multiply to any extent the copies of its laws; but this is not enough, unless that the persons among whom these copies are distributed are able to read and understand them. The simplest mode by which a government can ensure the complete publication of its laws, is by teaching all the people the elementary branches of knowledge-reading, writing, and the grammar of their native language. Again, with a view to secure efficient officers of government, they must be educated for their employments: no one ought to be employed in any office under government who cannot show that he possesses the requisite knowledge. High schools or universities, supported out of the national funds, will be found the cheapest method of putting the means of acquiring this knowledge within the reach of the able and aspiring of all classes. There the lawyer, the soldier, the diplomatist, the lawgiver, the financier, the elementary schoolmaster, may procure the deeper scientific learning necessary to the right discharge of their respective duties, in the highest perfection, and at the least expense. At these institutions, the young clergy of all churches might acquire their literary and scientific instruction; their peculiar theology might be taught them at institutions supported by their respective sects. A competent number of such elementary schools and universities, teaching only those branches of knowledge in which there is no sectarianism, would be for the advantage of all sects, and would interfere with the peculiar views of none. They are of the class of institutions which government has a right to establish, and neglects its duty if it does not.

The propriety of government taking upon it to raise and distribute funds for the support of the poor, admits of being more briefly illustrated. In all countries there has ever been, and as long as human nature continues what it is, there ever will be, a certain number of destitute poor-of paupers; and this number will be greater in proportion as population becomes more dense. The indolent, the weak-minded, the slaves of sensual passion, will remain in native poverty, or drift down into pauperism from a more affluent condition. It is in vain to say that it is their own fault. The revolutions of a commercial system like ours, so mighty and complicated that it sways those involved in it blindfold hither and thither amid its waves, often throw thousands at once out of employment and bread, without any fault of theirs. Even the dissolute and imbecile have their degrees of criminality-the guilt of omission, varying from highly culpable to venial. Human nature revolts from the thought of denying them relief; but if it be left to casual charity to relieve them, the donations will be insufficient to supply the wants of all; and the burden of supporting these incumbrances upon the public which supports itself, will be unequally distributed. The humane will be oppressed, while the callous pass free. But the main argument for imposing upon government the charge of supplying the wants of the paupers, is the fact, that, apart from all considerations of humanity, the relief of their necessities is a preca".

tion tending to give additional security to persons and property. It is want that is the chief prompter to turbulence, violence, and dishonesty. It is among the classes who are dependent upon a precarious supply of food to relieve their daily necessities, that the halfsavages are found, who prowl, in quiet times, under the shade of night, in search of plunder, and, in times of pub-quence, tranquilly, upon the government. There is lic excitement, rush from their hiding-places as infuriated mobs. It is among their squalid haunts that are engendered the pestilence and diseases which from time to time strike whole nations. It is the duty of government, in its office of preserver of the lives and properties of its subjects, to take measures for rendering this class less dangerous, by diminishing their temptations to dishonesty, and relieving them from that state of squalid destitution which endangers the health of the whole community.

When in any country the different labours of government have been parcelled out in the manner here suggested, and allotted to different functionaries, each having attached to him a sufficient staff of assistants, each being subjected to one recognised head of the government, whose business it is to watch over all their proceedings, to urge on the indolent, to check the erring, to appoint to vacancies, and remove offenders, a great step has been taken towards securing a just and efficient government. The peculiar and limited duties of government have been indicated to all, and the persons pointed out upon whom devolve the responsibility of discharging them. There remains, however, this danger to guard against. All men love ease, and all men love to have their own way. Again, men united for any purpose the pursuit of either a business or a pleasure common to them all-immediately contract what the French call esprit de corps-a clannish or corporation spirit. They act and feel as having a common interest opposed to the interests of all who do not belong to their body. This clique or coterie spirit, animated by the love of ease, and the self-will more or less natural to all men, has a tendency to convert every organised government into a knot of oppressors. This reflection carries us, by a natural transition, to the remaining inquiry under the present head-By what means a government is to be kept in the line of its proper duties.

It cannot have escaped the notice of the reader, that every government acts upon its subjects by means of themselves; it employs its subjects to keep its subjects in obedience. The consequence of this is, that in every country, and in all ages, the most seeming despotic government is kept in check by the opinions of its subjects. No government has ever with impunity set at defiance the opinions, be they well-grounded or be they prejudices, moral and religious, of its subjects. The Ottoman sultan, at the time when his power was greatest, never dared to act contrary to the law of the Koran. Henry II. of England was obliged to humble himself before the religious sentiments of his age, outraged in the person of Thomas-à-Becket. Thomas Moore, in his Tables for the Holy Alliance, has ludicrously but aptly illustrated this truth, by figuring the soldiers kept on foot by the monarchs of the Holy Alliance, as extinguishers made of combustible materials, and the military insurrection which brought about the Spanish revolution of 1821, as these extinguishers set on fire by the light they were meant to put out. This is no statement of what ought or ought not to be; it is a statement of what is a fact that exists whether men affirm or deny it. Civil government-political action -is human ingenuity working by human means. It is this necessity under which every government lics, of governing its subjects by its subjects, which puts the whole community in possession of an engine, by the proper application of which, government may be obliged to work for the general good.

We have already pointed out what is necessary to enable the government to make justice and the good the community its aim: it is to organise the governas to render its netion easy and powerful, and

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to enlighten it as to its duties. The same process is to be followed with the community, in order to enable it to act as a check upon the government when it is inclined to go wrong, and to organise the community in such a manner that its opinions and wishes may be brought to operate easily, powerfully, and, by conse another object to be gained by thus enlightening and organising the people, besides that of making them an efficient check upon government when it goes wrong; it is only by enlightening and organising the people that they can be rendered capable of lending due force to the operations of government, when these are what they ought to be. An unenlightened people is quite as likely to entertain mistaken notions of what is for its good as correct ones; it is quite as likely to oppose government when it tries to do what is right, and to support it when it tries to do what is wrong, as the reverse. Government was in the right when, about the year 1780, it repealed some of the worst enactments against the Catholics; but the people were so far from heartily approving of this act of justice, that Lord George Gordon's riots in London, and the rabbling of Catholic chapels in Edinburgh, had nearly frightened govern ment out of its good intentions.

The first step, then, in making such arrangements as are necessary for keeping government in its just and useful line of action, is to enlighten the people. There goes more towards enlightening the people than merely school-mastering them. It is not enough that the teacher tell what he knows, repeat line upon line and precept upon precept, or even make his pupil repeat what he has told him, to show that he remembers it The pupil must himself be active, and make exertions to catch the true meaning of what he is taught; and in this he will not always, in spite of his best efforts, suc ceed at first. Every person who has exerted himself to master any branch of knowledge, must remember instances of this kind, where he has pored for hours, day after day, upon some dark passage in a book-some step in the reasoning which he must understand, or all that followed would be dark-and yet could not get at its meaning, till some time, when he was thinking of nothing less, taking a walk, and looking at trees or the running stream, or engaged in striking a bargain, some chance word or stray thought has recalled the puzzl ing passage to his mind, and all at once a light has broke in upon him. His previous reflections had not been so useless as they seemed; they had been gradually opening his mind, and had so far succeeded, that nothing but an accidental impulse from without was wanting to make him see his way. It is knowledge gained after this fashion that really instructs and forms the mind: information thus earned, we may say, in the sweat of a man's brow, is too deeply graven on his memory ever to be forgotten, and the rude exercise his struggles to understand have given his mind, strengthens and invigorates it for future exertions. All that teachers can do in the way of instruction, is to show their pupil what is to be learned, to tell him how to set about learning, and to watch over him, and, by motives either of pain or pleasure, to stimulate him to perseverance in the work. All the rest must be his own doing. Hence it is that some pass through the hands of a teacher and learn less than those who, from poverty and strong desire of learning, have been driven to teach themselves, with no other assistance than occasional hints. Hence it is, as most men who have received a regular education and made good use of it must be aware, that the most important part of their education is that which they have given themselves after leaving school, availing themselves of what they remembered of their teacher's precepts to enable them to acquire a complete understanding of what they had only repeated like parrots, and immediately in a great measure forgotten.

Our object in this seeming digression is to make as clear as we can that mere communication of instru tion, which is all one human being can do for another,

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