PREFACE. THOUGHT is the great power of life. Election implies the exercise of discriminative thought, and a vote is the practical and definite registration of the decision of the judgment on the matter at issue. There can be no genuine choice without reflective consideration, and the careful weighing and balancing of all the qualities that tell in favour of and against the subject submitted to the deliberative action of the understanding and will. "Wisdom, of what herself approves, makes choice, Nor is led captive by the common voice." To culture among men, a wise considerateness in estimating opinions, a careful deliberation in the weighing of arguments, and a cautious sifting of statements and inferences before accepting conclusions, are more than ever necessary, on account of the rapid and important changes which are taking place in social, political, religious, and intellectual life. Dogmatic thought is always fascinating to weak and facile minds, and those who are thankful for being spared the trouble of thinking for themselves. The intellect itself is too apt to take opinions in reliance on authority or prevalency, without rigorous investigation and calm but searching revision, and without inquiring how they can be co-ordinated and held together as a coherent system. But now, when crude and indigested thought, when casuistic speculations and doubtful opinions may seriously affect the nation's material and moral well-being, the need for practical education in controversy has become more than ever important. Public reforms, though initiated by individual thinkers, are shown to be advantageous by general discussion, and are brought into consideration and prominence by the tentative efforts of controversialists to procure a hearing for them. Public grievances have little hope of being redressed unless debate tasks their advocates, and overcomes their defenders. Hence we affirm that critical controversy has an important office to perform in Society, and in the Church, on the Platform and through the Press. The essence of political and social influence is the formation of independent judgments, and these cannot be formed by those who devote themselves to the associations of a clique, the leaders of a school, the tenets of a sect, the opinions of a party, or the hobby of a favourite politician. He who contents himself with one view of a question, or the averments and statements of a specific organ for the diffusion and inculcation of any definite opinion, virtually closes his eyes, shuts his ears, and refuses to give reasonable heed to the means by which the whole truth on a question may become known to him. The larger proportion of newspapers and periodical publications exist for the purpose of promoting some given view, and appeal to the adherents of special opinions. Our serial endeavours to hold an independent place in letters as the organ of no party or creed, but of genuine critical thought, as applied to all the debateable questions which arise in the course of reflective thought and actual life. This practical training of the mind in the art of placing the arguments in favour of, or opposed to, any opinion fairly before the mind side by side, so that their force, power, consistency, and accuracy, might be tested, The British Controversialist has been endeavouring to supply, for many years, with, we venture to say, happy results, not only to its readers but to the public interests so far as our readers have been concerned in them. In its pages there have been discussed several of the old standing controversies in regard to which every age has endeavoured to gain some available settlement, and many of the new and stirring questions which have arisen in the present time, and forced themselves into prominency as the topics of prevailing interest. So far as regards these, its past volumes are a storehouse, and a treasury of reasoned opinion and argumentative inference, and we hope that the present volume is not less engrossing in the merit and matter of the controversial writing it contains, than those of its numerous predecessors-volumes for which the demand has, in some cases, exhausted five editions, and of which the sale continues active still, though years have passed since their first issue. To the contributors, by whom the matter has been furnished which imparts a large portion of its usefulness and worth to this volume, the Conductors tender their own thanks, and they believe they may assure them of the esteem of their readers. The interest of public events, and the intense activity of political agitation having immediate ends in view, have, for a time, absorbed the attention felt in, and given to, theoretical discussions, but we presume that our controversial pages will be found to be fully impressed not only with the spirit of the times, but with the larger interest of a search for truth. Of the other departments, a slight notice only is required. "The Reviewer" has narrowed his range, but extended his labours, and has supplied several abstracts of good works, which should be useful to the reader. "The Inquirer" continues to give efficient help to those in need of advice and in quest of information, and we are happy to notice its increasing value and suggestiveness. In "Our Collegiate Course" the student of "his own land's language" and literature, is provided with careful and elaborate facts, references, illustrations, and assistance in connection with the past, while in our "Literary Notes" the history of letters in the present time is sketched in outline. "The Essayist," with more than usual fulness, directs attention to life, literature, and men, and in the section entitled, "Toiling Upward," exemplary biography has received some praiseworthy additions. "The Societies' Section" notices some phases of associative thought and effort, and "The Topic" brings before our minds some of the more immediate questions which have animated thought from month to month. In the leading papers the Conductors have had the aid of the same writer, who has from its earliest pages given so much of charm and novelty and worth to this serial. His exemplary fidelity to us, and his devotion to the interests and instruction of our readers, renew and increase our obligations to him. On the whole, we think that, on a fair comparison of the contents of the volume now laid before the reader with those which we have previously had the honour and pleasure of submitting to public judgment, as well as an impartial collation with its compeers, we may justly claim acceptance for this volume on its merits, and that we may venture to ask its readers and subscribers to encourage and promote the circulation of this magazine, as a serial helpful and useful to the student engaged in self-culture, interesting and valuable to the thoughtful inquirer, and worthy of the attentive perusal and study of all who delight in critical thought applied to the consideration and solution of the most important questions that can, or do, arise in art, science, philosophy, social life, politics, literature, and religion. THE BRITISH CONTROVERSIALIST. The Works of "Samuel Bailey, of Sheffield," "An able and zealous inquirer after truth."-J. F. Ferrier. "One who, on any subject on which he thinks fit to write, is entitled to a respectful hearing."-J. S. Mill. on their THE advocates of freedom in "the formation and publication of opinions" have, as Milton affirms, "light, truth, reason, and the practice and the learning of the best ages of the world" side. The right of free thought and fair discussion may in our day be regarded as theoretically conceded; and in some measure, as not only practically allowed, but absolutely provided for in the customs and laws (as now interpreted) of our country. Some thinkers have come to regard this right as a necessity to the wellbeing of our race and the development within man of all the powers tending to progress he possesses; and advocate its permission, assertion, and exercise on account of the benefits and advantages that must ultimately accrue from the thorough and fully argued consideration of every question. Others have risen to a higher form of thought regarding inquiry, debate, and investigation. They look on it not as a favour to be taken advantage of, as a necessity to be yielded to, or a right proper to be exercised, not even as a virtue to be displayed, but most truly as a duty to be performed. The duty of impartial inquiry is the novelty in the morality of our age. These advanced thinkers in "enforcing that neglected part of morality," insist on the constant exercise of "that earnestness and that sincerity, that strong love of truth, and that conscientious solicitude for the formation of just opinions, which are not the least virtues of men, but of which the cultivation is the more especial duty of all who call themselves philosophers," and of all those who would fulfil to their highest reach the duties incumbent on them as the worthy inheritors of the wisdom of past ages and the responsible preparers of the future of humanity. In this Apostolate of dutiful free thought and impartiality of investigation probably no living man has exerted so large an amount of "Samuel Bailey, of Sheffield," a directly formative influence as thinker who, almost half a century ago, won the admiration of Brougham and Mackintosh, Bentham and James Mill; whose works have since stirred the minds of the leaders of men, and acted upon the thoughts of Molesworth and Grote, J. S. Mill and W. J. B Fox, of Alex. Bain and John Austin; whose philosophical writings have excited to controversy De Quincey and Macculloch, Ferrier and Fraser, Mill and Herbert Spencer; and whose cogent arguments on the duty of the free publication of opinions had, if we are not much mistaken, a considerable effect in determining the promoters of The Westminster Review to commence that important literary undertaking. As the advocate of intellectual liberty he has been a most successful continuator of the labours of a long line of master spirits, and yet has been so effectively characterized by originality that he may justly be spoken of as the initiator of the modern doctrine of mental freedom, in as much as he took up what appears to us now to be "an obvious and familiar truth, which, till his time, had been a barren truism, and showed that it teemed with consequences." "It often happens that an important principle is vaguely apprehended, and incidentally expressed, long before it is reduced to a definite form or fixed by regular proof; but while it floats in this state on the surface of men's understandings, it is only of casual and limited utility; it is sometimes forgotten and sometimes abandoned, seldom pursued to its consequences, and frequently denied in its modifications. It is only after it has been clearly established by an indisputable process of reasoning, explored in its bearings, and exhibited in all its force that it becomes of uniform and essential service; it is only then that it can be decisively appealed to both in controversy and in practice, and that it exerts the whole extent of its influence on private manners and public institutions." It is because Mr. Bailey has accomplished this vitalization of an old common-place that one of his early reviewers (whom we guess to be J. S. Mill) has given the following enthusiastic estimate of his first production : "If a man could be offered the paternity of any comparatively modern books he chose, he would not hazard much by deciding that next after the "Wealth of Nations' he would request to be honoured with a relationship to the Essays on the Formation and Publication of Opinions.' It would have been a glorious thing to have been the father of the mathematics of grown gentlemen; to have saved nations from fraud, by inventing the science of detecting the pillage of the few upon the many, the practical men' protesting the while against its inferences, as defaulting purse-bearers protest against arithmetic. It would have been a splendid triumph to have set up the lever which will move the world,' and have originated the process of discovery which heads of houses are called on to prohibit, lest knowledge should become insupportable, and Oxford 'man have too much light.' But next to this, it would have been a pleasant and an honourable memory to have written a book so totus teres atque rotundus, so finished in its parts, and so perfect in their union, as the Essays on the Formation of Opinions. Like one of the great statues of antiquity, it might have been broken into fragments, and each separated limb would have pointed to the existence of some interesting whole, of which the value might be surmised from the beauty of the specimen."- Westminster Review, Oct., 1829, p. 477. It would be impossible to present in any brief space an outline of the progress of thought on the subject of free inquiry and the right |