On this page
-
Text (3)
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
in rjalseozoic periods may be a phenomenon of the same Zder as the absence of paleozoic forms % n our present world ?" In conclusion , we should observe that while demolishing the arguments of Lyell against progressive development , Owen is not to be counted as an advocate of the form of the hypothesis set forth in the Vestiges—a form we ourselves regard as imperfect and too metaphysical . But the differences are reconcileable between all forms of the d evelopment hypothesis directly we substitute for it the more abstract and comprehensive formula of the Law of Progressive Adaptation .
Untitled Article
PROUDHON ON GOVERNMENT . Idee Ginerale de la Revolution au XIX Siecle . Par P . J . Proudhon . W . Jeffs . ( Fourth Notice . ) Our survey of this powerful and interesting book now brings us to one of Proudhon ' most startling positions—the absolute and unequivocal denial of all Government . Perhaps , after his famous onslaught upon Property , nothing equals in its audacity and destructive vehemence this negation of the principle of Authority . It is no new outburst . In his first Memoir on Property it is as emphatically announced as in this his last work . What he means by it we shall endeavour to show , if we can disengage his meaning from the envelope of polemical and dialectical subtleties .
There has been lately , in France , considerable discussion on the principles of Government—discussion which has resulted in angry separation of the republican party into opposite camps ; Ritting hausen , Considerant , Ledru Rollin , and Girardin having been severally aiming at the destruction of representative government , and the erection of Direct Legislation—a scheme which Louis Blanc , in two pamphlets , Plus ds Girondins and La Republique Une et Indivisible , has flagellated with vigour . Proudhon , after flagellating them , turns upon Louis
Blanc , and is pitiless . Not only to them , but to the two great democratic idols , Rousseau and Robespierre , is Proudhon pitiless . Their admirers will read with indignation the fierce denunciations and sarcastic epithets Proudhon heaps upon the two tribuns ; and their enemies will chuckle , especially at the Carlylian epithets applied to Robespierre , " the bastard of Loyola , and tartufe de VEtre supreme J" Take away from these pages the bilious vehemence of . their polemic , and we may consider with profit their criticism of Rousseau ' s Social Contract and Robespierre ' s democratic
tyranny . Government under all its forms he attacks as false in principle and vicious in effect . He believes neither in Absolute Monarchy , in Constitutional Monarchy , nor in Democracy ; he admits no Divine Right , no Legal Right , no Right of Majorities . He only believes in the Right of Justicein the Empire of Reason . The principle of Authority he rejects in Politics as in Religion ; he will admit only Liberty—Reason . The purest , sincerest form of Government is Absolutism—between that
and Anarchy he sees only transitional compromises . Absolutism is the initiatory state of Humanity , the final state is Anarchy . We caution the reader against a natural misapprehension of the word Anarchy , which is not used as synonymous with disorder ; but simply what the Greek word implies , viz ., absence of Government—absolute Liberty . Wherefore do all governments pretend to control the actions of men ? To secure order . So completely is the idea of order connected with that of
government , that anarchy irresistibly calks up the idea of disorder—the two become nynonyines . lint , " he asks , " what proves that the true order of society is that which it pleases our governors to assign to us ? " A question , indeed , which is implied in all political agitation . He answers it by saying , that true order must repose upon perfect Liberty , whereas Force ( Government—Laws ) is a perpetual negation of Liberty .
Universal JSuflrage , or any other mode of Itepre-Ncntation , lie regards with pity . What ! he exclaims , in a question of that which in nearest and dearest to mo my liberty , my labour , the subsistence : of my wife and children , 1 am to accept ReprcHentation m lieu of a direct compact ! When 1 wish to forma contract , you interpose , and insist upon my electing ; 'i'l ) iters , who , without knowing me , without hearing what 1 have to say , pronounce for or against me , 'm < l I must , act us they determine , not as 1 < Interim m : ! What , is the relation between such a congress and me ? What guarantee does it oiler ? Wherefore « l »<> uld 1 submit to its decisions respecting my inlerctjtH ? And when this congroBH after a wordy
debate , of which I understand no sy , presents its decision in the shape of a law which it holds out to me on the point of a bayonet , I beg to know what becomes of my sovereignty if it be true that I am one of the sovereign people ? Oho ! I have elected honourable M . P . ' s—the wisdom and probity of the Nation—the representatives of the Nation ; and by so doing I have delegated my sovereignty . But why must these wise and honest gentlemen necessarily know more than I do myself what my own interest is ? My labour , my subsistence , my whole activity , are to be settled according to their wisdom . If I am stupid enough not to see that they know better what is good for me than I know myself—there is the police and the County Gaol to enlighten me !
Hereupon follows a chapter on Universal Suffrage which Carlyle might have dictated . The conclusion is that neither the Divine right of bayonets , nor the wisdom of Delegates chosen by Universal Suffrage , can do anything more than impose Force upon Society—both are tyrannies which Liberty protests against . There is much that is true , much also that is sophistical and confused , in Proudhon ' s attacks upon Government , especially where he directs them against the principle of all Government which he rightly names Authority . We hold it to be quite certain that Government , as external Coercion , will
finally disappear . Herbert Spencer in his Social Statics has placed this point in so clear a light that we need only refer to his reasonings . But neither HerbertSpencernorProudhon take sufficient care to represent this condition as one indefinitely distant—as the goal of social development , not a condition practicable in our times ; above all , neither Spencer nor Proudhon has with sufficient distictness brought forward the internal Coercion ( so to speak ) , the Spiritual Authority which will replace the external or purely Physical force of Governments . Both have seen this principle , but neither has given it sufficient emphasis .
To us it is incontestible that in the Governmental , as in the Religious question , the principle of Liberty , as commonly understood , is a destructive , vicious principle . Auguste Cointe has luminously shown the anarchial nature of this pretended Liberty , while admitting its importance and absolute necessity as a destructive and transitional principle . He truly says that liberty of private judgment is absurd in astronomy or physics—no man is free to doubt their demonstrated truths , unless he aspire
to the freedom of a lunatic asylum ; and this omnipotence of the Authority of Reason in matters of Science will be accompanied by au equal omnipotence in matters of Social life , when Social life has its Science . The anarchy of Liberty is only the transition to Faith . No man rebels against the tyranny of Science—no man rejects the inward coercion of his convictions ; but until that Faith is established , until the Empire of Reason is founded , the Empire of Force must prevail .
Proudhon had some glimmering of this when , in his first Memoir on Property , he said that the science of government belongs by right to one of the sections of the Academy of the Sciences of which the secretaire perpeluel ( President ) becomes the prime minister ; and inasmuch as every citizen may address a paper to that Academy , every citizen in a legislator ; but as no one ' s opinion counts for more than it is worth , is only acceptable in as far an it is demonstrated , nobody can substitute his will in the place of Reason—no one is King . But we are speaking of a future so distant , that " practical politicians" will impatiently shrug their shoulders . To them we will address a few words
more immediate in their bearing . That Government , like Religion , like Property , and some other " Sacred Institutions , " has undergone throughout the slow march of History a gradual disintegration , is a position demonstrable to every open mind . . That , it , is no longer the Power it , once was is patent , to every understanding . No longer do the Nations believe that , " If the King but knew what misery they suffered , he would remedy if , ; " no longer do they look to kings or 'kaisers for Hiiccour . Divine Right is ho utterly discredited that the phrase which escaped Thiers at the foot , of the tribune , " The King reigns , but , docs not , govern , " flew over Europe- as the formula of the universal conviction . lint if the King docs not who does ? ih 1 rvui ii
govern , Have we . : . n .,,,..., .. „„ j ^ , > vuw « ii >»; m : liavO WC , US IVoudhon says , discredited Royalty to believe in the Royalty of f , he National Guard ? And if we believe m them , upon what basis rests their authority ? 1 'ho most important and far reaching change in
modern Europe is the change from a feudal and military condition to an Industrial condition . The Crystal Palace is our Agincourt and Waterloo ! The rise of the Third Estate—the gigantic development of Commerce and Industry—have altered for ever the aspect of society . What a revolution is contained in that name—A Cotton Lord ! a revolution beside which all the other revolutions that have agitated Europe , are but as the street quarrels of a few turbulent men : a Cotton Lord—a chief , a legislator , once himself , perhaps , a miserable drud ge at the loom , now sent up from the mills of Lancashire to influence the destinies of the world !
It requires but a modicum of logic to perceive that in a society which has . seen changes so vast , there must have been coextensive changes in the principles of Government ; and these changes we sum up in the " Safeguards of our Constitution " —and we express them when we say the King reigns , but does not govern . The Government that is to come must be an Organization of Industry , precisely because the social state which we are approaching must be preeminently industrial .
The Leader , therefore , in advocating the principles it does , is only leading the age in the very direction which it has inevitably entered on . And . when we protest against any of the Socialist schemes , as premature and incomplete , we do so because they seem to us to violate one of the essential conditions of the social problem , and ignore the existence of much of the old leaven . Society is assuredly Industrial and not Military , if we consider it in its dominant aspect ; but the Industrial Phasis is far from complete , universal ; remnants of Feudalism , of Military feelings , thoughts , impulses , still powerfully operate , and find their expression in facts and institutions . These you cannot eradicate by a coup de main ; these cannot be suppressed by an edict .
Untitled Article
KNIGHTS LAST SHAKSPERE . The National Edition of Shakspere . Comedies Vol II . Edited by Charles Knight . C . Knight and Co . With Shakspere , Goethe , and Comte , a thoughtful man has a magnificent library : there he may find food for endless meditation on humanity in all its complex and multiple manifestations , and on science in its encyclopsediacal grandeur . Probably Charles Knight , in his unwearied enthusiasm , would declare that Shakspere was alone a library . No man has worked so incessantly , none half so effectively , to get Shakspere a comfortable
niche in every house . Pictorial editions have tempted the craving eye of many ; library editions have graced the shelves of others ; pocket editions and one volume editions have risen up to claim their separate usefulness ; and here we have a sort of eclectic edition—the National Edition—uniting something- of almost all the others . It is a book for the study or the drawing-room ; but is too bulky for the portmanteau ( an edition is announced for that purpose ) , and no pocket pretends to hold it . But on the table or desk it is handsome , useful , desirable . The text is printed across the page in fair type , not in double columns . The
loving vigilance and erudite care with which that text is composed are known to all students . If we sometimes openly rebel against his emendations and new readings , we always feel that he is guided by the earnest desire to settle what Shakspere actually wrote , and not by the poor desire of passing oil" his ingenuity ; in other words , we are constrained to differ from him—but always with respect . The principles upon which his text is founded have our entire concurrence ; but our poetical sense cannot be coerced by ten thousand manuscripts into accepting such a reading as Charles Knight has ventured on in Kim / John . All the world knows and marvels at the sublime passage : —
" Hero I and Sorrow Hit . Hero is my throne ; bid Kin ^ s come bow to it . " This without a . word of explanation , but doubtless following the first folio , he prints : ¦—'" Here I tnid sorrows sit I " Thus not ordy introducing a hissing di / Jirulfy info the verso , but , destroying the grand personification of Sorrow seated by the wretched Queen . Hut did
Shakspere write Sorrow ? I . s not . sorrows the word ho wrote ; ? Nobody can decisively settle hiicIi a point ; but poetic- Justice ) insist . s upon the doubt being in favour of the author . Otherwise ! , what right , have wo to Theobalds g lorious reading or I ' alstali ' H babbling of green liolds ; or of that change from " dedicate her beauty to the ; same " into " And dedicato her boauty to tho sun . "
Untitled Article
O llable ct . , 1851 . ] gf | g ? tra&pr . 997
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 18, 1851, page 997, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1905/page/17/
-