out which he may readily trace for himself, in what has gone before, the outlines of a consistent body of anti-utilitarian ethics. In these there is little new, little that has not been anticipated by many an old-fashioned saw and antiquated apothegm—such as, Fiat justitia ruat cælum, 'Be just before you are generous,' and, I would fain add, 'Honesty is the best policy'-save that to that Utilitarianism may fairly lay equal claim. My modest ambition throughout this essay has been to vindicate some of the most momentous of primeval truths from the slights to which philosophy-not modern, indeed, but modernised and refurbished-is continually subjecting them, and I will not deny that I have modest assurance enough to believe that I have at least partially succeeded. I think I have shown that there are such things as abstract right and wrong, resting not on fancied intuition, but on a solidly rational basis, and supporting in turn abstract justice, whose guidance, whoever accepts it, will find to be as sure and as adequate as any that unassisted reason is capable of supplying. Anti-utilitarian justice never tries to look halfa-dozen different ways at once, never points at the same time in opposite directions, never issues contradictory mandates, never halts between two opinions. Her votaries, like other mortals, may often be in doubt as to accomplished facts; but, provided these be clear, their course is in general equally clear; there seldom remains aught to embarrass them. If they sincerely desire to ascertain what is due from them, they can seldom err, except on the right side, and they will never dream of disputing that whatever is due from them it must be their duty to do, without respect of consequences. These they will leave to the supreme controller of events, if they believe in one, and will leave to take their chance, if they do not so believe, feeling all the more certain in the latter case that to control events cannot, at any rate, be within their power. They never stop to calculate how much good may perhaps ensue if evil be done. Simple arithmetic, apart from faith, satisfies them that to add wrong to wrong cannot possibly augment the sum total of right. The prime article of their creed is the absolute obligation of paying debts-a piece of unworldly wisdom more than ever now to Jews a stumbling-block, and to Greeks foolishness, but not the less to all, whether Jews or Gentiles, who will accept it, a light to show through the mazes of life, a path so plainly marked that the foolishest of wayfaring men cannot greatly err therein. $4 CHAPTER II. HISTORY'S SCIENTIFIC pretensIONS. Warwick. There is a history in all men's lives, And weak beginnings, lie intreasured. Such things become the hatch and brood of time; King Richard might create a perfect guess, King Henry. Are these things, then, necessities? WHEN equally competent thinkers appear to take directly opposite views of a matter of purely speculative interest, it will commonly be found that their differences arise from their using the same words in different senses, or from their being, by some other cause, prevented from thoroughly apprehending each other's meaning. An illustration is afforded by the controversy regarding the possibility of constructing a Science of History, which could scarcely have been so much prolonged if all who have taken part in it had begun by defining their terms, had agreed to and adhered to the same definitions, and had always kept steadily in view the points really in debate. If the word 'science' had been used only in the restricted, though rather inaccurate sense in which it is sometimes employed by some of the most distinguished of the disputants, there would have been less question as to its applicability to history. No one doubts that from an extensive historical survey may be drawn large general deductions on which reasonable expectations may be founded. No one denies that the experience of the past may teach lessons of political wisdom for the guidance of the future. If it were not so, history would be as uninstructive as fairy lore; its chief use would be to amuse the fancy; and little more practical advantage could result from investigating the causes of the failure of James II.'s designs on civil and religious liberty, than from an inquiry into the artifices by which Jack-the-Giant-killer contrived to escape the maw of the monsters against whom. he had pitted himself. What is commonly understood, however, by a Science of History is something far beyond the idea entertained of it by such temperate reasoners as Mr. John Stuart Mill and Mr. Fitzjames Stephen. The science, for the reality of which M. Comte in France and Mr. Buckle in England have been the foremost champions, would bear the same relation to political events as Optics and Astronomy do to the phenomena of light and of the solar and sidereal systems. It would deal less with the conjectural and probable than with the predicable and positive. In the moral as in the physical world,' say its leading advocates, ' are invariable rule, inevitable sequence, undeviating regularity,' constituting 'one vast scheme of universal order.' The actions of men, and therefore of societies, are governed by fixed eternal laws,' which 'assign to every man his place in the necessary chain of being,' and 'allow him no choice as to what that place shall be.' One such law is that, 'in a given state of society, a certain number of persons must put an end to their own lives:' another, that a certain number of persons must commit murder; a third, that when wages and prices are at certain points, a certain number of marriages must annually take place, 'the number being determined not by the temper and wishes of individuals, but by large general facts, over which individuals can exercise no authority.' These are general laws; but the special question as to who shall commit the crimes or the indiscretion enjoined by them, 'depends upon special laws, which, however, in their total action must obey the large social law to which they are all subordinate.' A Science of History would consist of a collection of 'social laws,' duly systematised and codified, by the application of which to given states of society the historical student might predict the future course of political events, with a confidence similar to that with which he could foretell the results of familiar chemical combinations, or the movement of the planets.1 This is the theory which a few years ago was so much discussed, and against which, notwithstanding the singular fascination it evidently possesses for some minds, the moral sense of a much larger number indignantly revolts, rightly apprehending that its establishment would be subversive of all morality. For, if the actions of men are governed by 'eternal and immutable laws,' men cannot be free agents; and where there is not free agency there cannot be moral responsibility. Nor are the apprehensions entertained on this score to be allayed by the answer, ingenious as it is, which has been given to them by one of the ablest and most judicious apologists for the new creed. It is true that human actions can be said to be 'governed' only in the same metaphorical sense as that in which we speak of 1 Mr. Buckle's first chapter, passim. 2 Cornhill Magazine,' for June and July, 1861. |