testified, "on the point of receiving" a seat; and the object of this letter was to learn whether, along with the seat, "the power of thinking for himself" might be included in the grant; the question being accompanied with a request that, in case of the negative, some other nominee might be the object of his lordship's "confidence."

The request was inadmissible, and the confidence found some other object.

It is in the hope of substituting men to puppets, and the will of the people to the will of noble lords, puppets themselves to ministers or secret advisers, that parliamentary reform has of late become once more an object of general desire: but parliamentary reform was that sort of thing which "he would sooner," he said, "suffer his hand to be cut off than vote for a " whether it was before or after the experiment that this magnanimity was displayed, the editor has not informed us.

The present which the world received in the publication of this work may on several accounts be justly termed a valuable one. The only cause of regret is, that the editor should, by the unqualified approbation and admiration bestowed upon it, have made the principles of the work as it were his own.

True it is, that where instruction is given, showing how mischief may be done or aimed at, whether it shall serve as a precept or a prohibition, depends in

the upshot, upon the person on whom it operates with effect:

Many a dehortation that not only has the effect of an exhortation, but was designed to have that effect; - Instructions how to administer poisons with success, may on the other hand have the effect of enabling a person who takes them up with an opposite view, to secure himself the more effectually against the attack of poisons;

But by the manner in which he writes, by the accessory ideas presented by the words in which the instruction is conveyed, there can seldom be much difficulty in comprehending in the delivery of his instructions whether the writer wishes that the suggestions conveyed by them should be embraced or rejected:

If occasionally there can be room for doubt in this respect, at any rate no room can there be for any in the case of Gerard Hamilton. As little can there be in the case of his editor and panegyrist: Qui mihi discipulus puer es, cupis atque doceri, Huc ades, hæc animo concipe dicta tuo: The object or end in view is, on occasion of a debate in Parliament,-in a supreme legislative assembly,-how to gain your point, whatever it be. The means indicated as conducive to that end are sometimes fair ones, sometimes foul ones; and be they fair or foul, they are throughout delivered with the same tone of seriousness and composure.

Come unto me all ye who have a point to gain, and I will show you how: bad or good, so as it be not parliamentary reform, to me it is matter of indifference.

Here then, whatever be the influence of authority, authority in general, and that of the writer in particular, it is in the propagation of insincerity (of insincerity to be employed in the service it is most fit for, and in which it finds its richest reward,) that throughout the whole course of this work, and under the name of Gerard Hamilton, not to speak of his editor and panegyrist, such authority exerts itself.

To secure their children from falling into the vice of drunkenness, it was the policy we are told of Spartan fathers to exhibit their slaves in a state of inebriation, that the contempt might be felt to which a man stands exposed when the intellectual part of his frame has been thrown into the disordered state to which it is apt by this means to be reduced. An English father, if he has any regard for the morals of his son, and in particular for that vital part in which sincerity is concerned, will perhaps no where else find so instructive an example as Gerard Hamilton has rendered himself by this book in that mirror may be seen to what a state of corruption the moral part of man's frame is capable of being reduced; to what a state of degradation, in the present state of parliamentary morality, a man is capable of sinking even when sober, and without any help from wine; and with what deliberate zeal he may himself exert his powers in the endeavour to propagate the infection in other minds.

PART THE FIRST.

FALLACIES OF AUTHORITY,

The subject of which is Authority in various shapes, and the object, to repress all exercise of the reasoning faculty.

WITH reference to any measures having for their object the greatest happiness of the greatest number, the course pursued by the adversaries of such measures has commonly been, in the first instance, to endeavour to repress altogether the exercise of the reasoning faculty, by adducing authority in various shapes as conclusive upon the subject of the measure proposed.

But before any clear view can be given of the deception liable to be produced by the abuse of the species of argument here in question, it will be necessary to bring to view the distinction between the proper and the improper use of it.

In the ensuing analysis of Authority, one distinction ought to be borne in mind;—it is the distinction between what may be termed a question of opinion, or quid faciendum; and what may be termed a question of fact, or quid factum. Since it will frequently happen, that whilst the authority of a person in respect to a question of fact is entitled to more or less regard, it is not so entitled in respect of a question of opinion.

CHAPTER I.

Sect. 1. Analysis of Authority.

Sect. 2. Appeal to Authority, in what cases fallacious.

I. WHAT on any given occasion is the legitimate weight or influence of authority regard being had to the different circumstances in which a person, the supposed declaration of whose opinion constitutes the authority in question, was placed at the time of the delivery of such declaration?

1st. Upon the degree of relative and adequate intelligence on the part of the person whose opinion or supposed opinion constitutes the authority in question, -say of the persona cujus, 2dly, Upon the degree of relative probity on the part of that same person, 3dly, Upon the nearness or remoteness of the relation between the immediate subject of such his opinion and the question in hand, 4thly, Upon the fidelity of the medium, through which such supposed opinion has been transmitted (including correctness and completeness),-upon such circumstances, the legitimately persuasive force of the authority thus constituted, seems to depend such are the sources in which any deficiency in respect of such persuasive force is to be looked for.

Deficiency of attention, i. e. intensity and steadiness of attention with reference to the influencing circumstances on which the opinion in order to be correct, required to be grounded; deficiency in respect