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is both governor and priest;-preaches to them in | BENTHAM ON FALLACIES. (EDINBURGH REchurch, and directs all their proceedings in their

VIEW, 1825.)

Bentham. By a Friend. London, J. and H. L. Hunt. 1824.

working hours. In short, Rapp seems to have made The Book of Fallacies: from Unfinished Papers of Jeremy use of the religious propensities of mankind, to persuade one or two thousand fools to dedicate their lives to his service; and if they do not get tired and fling their prophet into a horse-pond, they will in all probability disperse as soon as he dies. Unitarians are increasing very fast in the United States, not being kept down by charges from bishops and archdeacons, their natural enemies.

The author of the Excursion remarks upon the total absence of all games in America. No cricket, football, nor leap-frog-all seems solid and profitable.

ten the childish amusements of our common ancestors.

In

THERE are a vast number of absurd and mischievous fallacies, which pass readily in the world for sense and virtue, while in truth they tend only to fortify error and encourage crime. Mr. Bentham has enumerated the most conspicuous of these in the book

before us.

Whether it is necessary there should be a middleman between the cultivator and possessor, learned economists have doubted; but neither gods, men, nor booksellers can doubt the necessity of a middle-man One thing that I could not help remarking with regard to between Mr. Bentham and the public. Mr. Bentham the Americans in general, is the total want of all those games is long; Mr. Bentham is occasionally involved and and sports which obtained for our country the appellation of "Merry England." Although children usually transmit stories obscure; Mr. Bentham invents new and alarming exand sports from one generation to another, and although many pressions; Mr. Bentham loves division and subdiviof our nursery games and tales are supposed to have been im- sion-and he loves method itself more than its conseported into England in the vessels of Hengist and Horsa, yet quences. Those only, therefore, who know his origiour brethren in the United States seem entirely to have forgot-nality, his knowledge, his vigour, and his boldness, will recur to the works themselves. The great mass of readers will not purchase improvement at so dear a rate; but will choose rather to become acquainted with Mr. Bentham, through the medium of reviewsafter that eminent philosopher has been washed, trimmed, shaved, and forced into clean linen. One great use of a review, indeed, is to make men wise in ten pages, who have no appetite for a hundred pages; to condense nourishment, to work with pulp and essence, and to guard the stomach from idle burden and unmeaning bulk. For half a page, sometimes for a whole page, Mr, Bentham writes with a power which few can equal; and by selecting and omitting, an admirable style may be formed from the text. Using this liberty, we shall endeavour to give an account of Mr. Bentham's doctrines, for the most part in his own words. Wherever any expression is particularly hap py let it be considered to be Mr. Bentham's-the dullness we take to ourselves.

America I never saw even the schoolboys playing at any game whatsoever. Cricket, foot-ball, quoits, &c., appear to be utterly unknown; and I believe that if an American were to see grown-up men playing at cricket, he would express as much astonishment as the Italians did when some Englishmen played at this finest of all games in the Cascina, at Florence. Indeed, that joyous spirit which, in our country, animates not only childhood, but also maturer age, can rarely or never be seen among the inhabitants of the United States.'—Excursion, PP 502, 503.

These are some of the leading and prominent circumstances respecting America, mentioned in the various works before us: of which works we can recommend the Letters of Mr. Hudson, and the Excursion into Canada, as sensible, agreeable books, written in a very fair spirit.

America seems on the whole, to be a country possessing vast advantages, and little inconveniences; they have a cheap government and bad roads; they Our Wise Ancestors-the Wisdom of our Ancestors pay no tithes, and have stage coaches without springs. They have no poor laws and no monopolies-but their-the Wisdom of Ages-venerable Antiquity-Wisdom inns are inconvenient, and travellers are teased with of Old Times.-This mischievous and absurd fallacy questions. They have no collections in the fine arts; springs from the grossest perversions of the meaning but they have no lord-chancellor, and they can go to of words. Experience is certainly the mother of wislaw without absolute ruin. They cannot make Latin dom, and the old have, of course, a greater experience verses, but they expend immense sums in the educa- than the young; but the question is, who are the old? tion of the poor. In all this the balance is prodigiously and who are the young? Of individuals living at the in their favour: but then comes the great disgrace same period, the oldest has, of course the greatest exand danger of America-the existence of slavery, perience; but among generations of men the reverse which, if not timously corrected, will one day entail of this is true. Those who come first (our ancestors) (and ought to entail) a bloody servile war upon the are the young people, and have the least experience. Americans-which will separate America into slave We have added to their experience the experience of states and states disclaiming slavery, and which re- many centuries; and, therefore, as far as experience The real feeling should be, not mains at present as the foulest blot in the moral cha- goes, are wiser, and more capable of forming an opiracter of that people. A high-spirited nation, who nion than they were. cannot endure the slightest act of foreign aggression, can we be so presumptuous as to put our opinions in and who revolt at the very shadow of domestic tyran- opposition to those of our ancestors? but can such ny-beat with cart whips, and bind with chains, and young, ignorant, inexperienced persons as our ances murder for the merest trifles, wretched human beings tors necessarily were, be expected to have understood who are of a more dusky colour than themselves; and a subject as well as those who have seen so much have recently admitted into their Union a new state, more, lived so much longer, and enjoyed the experi with the express permission of ingrafting this atro- ence of so many centuries? All this cant, then, about cious wickedness into their constitution! No one can our ancestors is merely an abuse of words, by trans admire the simple wisdom and manly firmness of the ferring phrases true of contemporary men to succeedAmericans more than we do, or more despise the piti-ing ages. Whereas (as we have before observed) of ful propensity which exists among government run- living men the oldest has, cæteris paribus, the most exners to vent their small spite at their character; but perience; of generations, the oldest has, cæteris parion the subject of slavery, the conduct of America is, bus, the least experience. Our ancestors, up to the and has been, most reprehensible. It is impossible to Conquest, were children in arms; chubby boys in the speak of it with too much indignation and contempt; time of Edward the First; striplings under Elizabeth; but for it, we should look forward with unqualified men in the reign of Queen Anne; and we only are the pleasure to such a land of freedom, and such a magni- white-bearded silver-headed ancients, who have treasured up, and are prepared to profit by, all the expeficent spectacle of human happiness. rience which human life can supply. We are not dis puting with our ancestors the palm of talent, in which they may or may not be our superiors, but the palm of experience, in which it is utterly impossible they can be our superiors. And yet, whenever the chancellor comes forward to protect some abuse, or to oppose some plan which has the increase of human happiness for its object, his first appeal is always to the wisdom

of our ancestors; and he himself, and many noble lords who vote with him, are, to this hour, persuaded that all alterations and amendments on their devices are an unblushing controversy between youthful temerity and mature experience !-and so, in truth, they are-only that much-loved magistrate mistakes the young for the old, and the old for the young--and is guilty of that very sin against experience which he attributes to the lovers of innovation.

learned, not only among crowned but among uncrowned heads, marking out for prohibition and punishment the practices of devils and witches, and without any the slightest objection on the part of the great characters of that day in their high situaof not being so well acquainted as he was with the composition tions, consigning men to death and torment for the misfortune of the Godhead.

tham, (no matter to what effect), is proposed to a leFallacy of irrevocable Laws.-A law, says Mr. Bengislative assembly, who are called upon to reject it, upon the single ground, that by those who in some former period exercised the same power, a regulation was made, having for its object to preclude for ever, gislators from enacting a law to any such effect as or to the end of an unexpired period, all succeeding lethat now proposed.

Under the name of exorcism the Catholic liturgy contains a form of procedure for driving out devils-even with the help of this instrument, the operation cannot be performed with We cannot of course be supposed to maintain that the desired success, but by an operator qualified by holy orour ancestors wanted wisdom, or that they were ne-ders for the working of this as well as so many other wondcessarily mistaken in their institutions, because their ed, and beyond comparison more effectually, by so cheap an ers. In our days and in our country the same object is attainmeans of information were more limited than ours. instrument as a common newspaper: before this talisman, not But we do confidently maintain that when we find it only devils but ghosts, vampires, witches, and all their kindred expedient to change any thing which our ancestors tribes, are driven out of the land, never to return again! The have enacted, we are the experienced persons, and touch of the holy water is not so intolerable to them as the Lot they. The quantity of talent is always varying in bare smell of printers' ink.--(pp. 74———77.) any great nation. To say that we are more or less able than our ancestors, is an assertion that requires to be explained. All the able men of all ages, who have ever lived in England, probably possessed, if taken altogether, more intellect than all the able men now in England can boast of. But if authority must be resorted to rather than reason, the question is, what was the wisdom of that single age which enacted the law, compared with the wisdom of the age which proposes to alter it? What are the eminent men of the one and the other period? If you say that our ancestors were wiser than us, mention your date and year. If the splendour of names is equal, are the circumstances the same? If the circumstances are the same, we have a superiority of experience, of which the difference between the two periods is the measure. It is necessary to insist upon this; for upon sacks of wool and on benches forensic, sit grave men, and agricolous persons in the Commons, crying out 'Ancestors, Ancestors! hodie non! Saxons, Danes, save us! Fiddle frig, help us! Howel, Ethelwolf, protect us.'-Any cover for nonsense-any veil for trash-any pretext for repelling the innovations of conscience and of duty!

of time, every legislature must be endowed with all Now it appears quite evident that, at every period those powers which the exigency of the times may require: and any attempt to infringe on this power is inadmissible and absurd. The sovereign power, at any one period, can only form a blind guess at the riod: but by this principle of immutable laws, the gomeasures which may be necessary for any future pevernment is transferred from those who are necessarily the best judges of what they want, to others who thirteenth century decides for the fourteenth. The can know little or nothing about the matter. The

hermetically seals up the sixteenth, which tyrannizes over the seventeenth, which again tells the eighteentn how it is to act, under circumstances which cannot be foreseen, and how it is to conduct itself in exigencies which no human wit can anticipate.

fourteenth makes laws for the fifteenth. The fifteenth

'So long as they keep to vague generalities-so long as the two objects of comparison are each of them taken in the lump -wise ancestors in one lump, ignorant and foolish mob of modern times in the other-the weakness of the fallacy may escape detection. But let them assign for the period of superior 'Men who have a century more of experience to ground wisdom any determinate period whatsoever, not only will the their judgments on, surrender their intellect to men who had a groundlessness of the notion be apparent (class being compar-century less experience, and who, unless that deficiency coned with class in that period and the present one), but, unless stitutes a claim, have no claim to preference. If the prior the antecedent period be comparatively speaking a very mod- gentleman were, in respect of intellectual qualification, ever ern one, so wide will be the disparity, and to such an amount in favour of modern times, that, in comparison of the lowest stood so much better than the subsequent generation itself the so much superior to the subsequent generation-if it under class of the people in modern times, (always supposing them interest of that subsequent generation-could it have been in proficients in the art of reading, and their proficiency employ- an equal degree anxious to promote the interest, and conseed in the reading of newspapers), the very highest and best quently equally attentive to those facts with which, though in informed class of these wise ancestors will turn out to be order to form a judgment it ought to have been, it is impossigrossly ignorant. ble that it should have been acquainted? In a word, will its love for that subsequent generation be quite so great as that same generation's love for itself?

Take, for example, any year in the reign of Henry the Eighth, from 1509 to 1546. At that time the House of Lords would probably have been in possession of by far the larger 'Not even here, after a moment's deliberate reflection, will proportion of what little instruction the age afforded: in the the assertion be in the affirmative. And yet it is their prodiHouse of Lords, among the laity, it might even then be a ques-gious anxiety for the welfare of their posterity that produces tion whether, without exception, their lordships were all of them able so much as to read. But even supposing them all in the fullest possession of that useful art, political science being the science in question, what instruction on the subject could they meet with at that time of day?

the propensity of these sages to tie up the hands of this same posterity for evermore-to act as guardians to its perpetual and incurable weakness, and take its conduct for ever out of its own hands.

'If it be right that the conduct of the 19th century should On no one branch of legislation was any book extant from be determined not by its own judgment, but by that of the which, with regard to the circumstances of the then present 18th, it will be equally right that the conduct of the 20th centimes, any useful instruction could be derived: distributive tury should be determined, not by its own judgment, but by law, penal law, international law, political economy, so far that of the 19th. And if the same principle were still pursued, from existing as sciences, had scarcely obtained a name: in all what at length would be the consequence?-that in process of those departments, under the head of quid faciendum, a mere time the practice of legislation would be at an end. The conblank the whole literature of the age consisted of a meagre duct and fate of all men would be determined by those who chronicle or two, containing short memorandums of the usual neither knew nor cared any thing about the matter; and the occurrences of war and peace, battles, sieges, executions, rev-aggregate body of the living would remain for ever in subjec els, deaths, births, processions, ceremonies, and other external tion to an inexorable tyranny, exercised as it were by the agevents; but with scarce a speech or an incident that could en-gregate body of the dead.'-(pp. 84-86.)

ter into the composition of any such work as a history of the

human mind-with scarce an attempt at investigation into The despotism, as Mr. Bentham well observes, of causes, characters, or the state of the people at large. Even Nero or Caligula, would be more tolerable than an irwhen at last, little by little, a scrap or two of political instruc- revocable law. The despot, through fear or favour, or tion came to be obtainable, the proportion of error and mis- in a lucid interval, might relent; but how are the Parchievous doctrine mixed up with it was so great, that whether liament, who made the Scotch Union, for example, to a blank unfilled might not have been less prejudicial than a be awakened from that dust in which they reposeblank thus filled, may reasonably be matter of doubt. the jobber and the patriot, the speaker and the doorkeeper, the silent voters and the men of rich allusions

If we come down to the reign of James the First, we shall find that Solomon of his time eminently eloquent as well as

144

-Cannings and cultivators, Barings and Beggarsmaking irrevocable laws for men who toss their remains about with spades, and use the relics of these legislators to give breadth to brocoli, and to aid the vernal eruption of asparagus?

preserve to the bishops and clergy of this realm the rights and privileges which by law appertain to them, and to preserve inviolate the doctrine, discipline, worship, and government of the church. It has been suggested that by this oath the king stands precluded If the law is good, it will support itself; if bad, it from granting those indulgences to the Irish Catholics, should not be supported by the irrevocable theory, which are included in the bill for their emancipation. which is never resorted to but as the veil of abuses. The true meaning of these provisions is of course to All living men must possess the supreme power over be decided, if doubtful, by the same legislative authortheir own happiness at every particular period. To ity which enacted them. But a different notion it suppose that there is any thing which a whole nation seems is now afloat. The king for the time being cannot do, which they deem to be essential to their (we are putting an imaginary case) thinks as an indi happiness, and that they cannot do it, because anoth-vidual, that he is not maintaining the doctrine, discier generation, long ago dead and gone, said it must pline, and rights of the Church of England, if he While you are captain grants any extension of civil rights to those who are not be done, is mere nonsense. of the vessel, do what you please; but the moment not members of that church, that he is violating his you quit the ship, I become as omnipotent as you. oath by so doing. This oath, then, according to this You may leave me as much advice as you please, but reasoning, is the great palladium of the church. As you cannot leave me commands; though, in fact, this long as it remains inviolate the church is safe. How, is the only meaning which can be applied to what are then, can any monarch who has taken it ever consent called irrevocable laws. It appeared to the legislature to repeal it? How can he, consistently with his oath for the time being to be of immense importance to for the preservation of the privileges of the church, make such and such a law. Great good was gained, contribute his part to throw down so strong a bulwark or great evil avoided by enacting it. Pause before as he deems his oath to be? The oath, then, cannot you alter an institution which has been deemed to be be altered. It must remain under all circumstances of of so much importance. This is prudence and com- society the same. The king, who has taken it, is mon sense; the rest is the exaggeration of fools, or bound to continue it, and to refuse his sanction to any the artifice of knaves, who eat up fools. What end- bill for its further alteration; because it prevents less nonsense has been talked of our navigation laws! him, and he must needs think, will prevent others from What wealth has been sacrificed to either before they granting dangerous immunities to the enemies of the were repealed! How impossible it appeared to church. Here, then, is an irrevocable law-a piece of absurd Noodledom to repeal them! They were considered of the irrevocable class-a kind of law over which the tyranny exercised by the rulers of Queen Anne's time dead were only omnipotent, and the living had no upon the government of 1825-a certain art of potting power. Frost, it is true, cannot be put off by act of and preserving a kingdom, in one shape, attitude, and Parliament, nor can spring be accelerated by any flavour-and in this way it is that an institution ap majority of both houses. It is, however, quite a mis- pears like old Ladies' Sweetmeats and made Wines→ take to suppose that any alterations of any of the arti- Apricot Jam 1822-Currant Wine 1819-Court of Chancles of union is as much out of the jurisdiction of Parlia cery 1427-Penal Laws against Catholics 1676. The ment as these meteorological changes. In every year, difference is, that the ancient woman is a better judge and every day of that year, living men have a right to of mouldy commodities than the illiberal part of his make their own laws, and manage their own affairs; majesty's ministers. The potting lady goes sniffing to break through the tyranny of the ante-spirants-about and admitting light and air to prevent the prothe people who breathed before them, and to do what gress of decay; while to him of the woolsack, all Such supreme power seems doubly dear in proportion as it is antiquated, they please for themselves. cannot, indeed, be well exercised by the people at worthless, and unusable. It ought not to be in the If the sovereign is large; it must be exercised therefore by the delegates, power of the sovereign to tie up his own hands, much or Parliament whom the people choose; and such less the hands of his successors. Parliament, disregarding the superstitious reverence to oppose his own opinion to that of the two other for irrevocable laws, can have no other criterion of branches of the legislature, and himself to decide what he considers to be for the benefit of the Protestant wrong and right than that of public utility. church, and what not, a king who has spent his whole life in the frivolous occupation of a court, may, by perversion of understanding, conceive measures most salutary to the church to be most pernicious; and per severing obstinately in his own error, may frustrate the wisdom of his Parliament, and perpetuate the most inconceivable folly! If Henry VIII. had argued in this manner, we should have had no reformation. If George III. had always argued in this manner, the Catholic code would never have been relaxed. And thus, a king, however incapable of forming an opinion upon serious subjects, has nothing to do but to pro nounce the word conscience, and the whole power of the country is at his feet.

When a law is considered as immutable, and the immutable law happens at the same time to be too foolish and mischievous to be endured, instead of being repealed, it is clandestinely evaded, or openly violated; and thus the authority of all law is weak

ened.

Where a nation has been ancestorially bound by foolish and improvident treaties, ample notice must be given of their termination. Where the state has made ill-advised grants, or rash bargains with individuals, The it is necessary to grant proper compensation. most difficult case, certainly, is that of the union of nations, where a smaller number of the weaker nation is admitted into the larger senate of the greater nation, and will be overpowered if the question comes to a vote; but the lesser nation must run this risk: it is not probable that any violation of articles will take place, till they are absolutely called for by extreme necessity. But let the danger be what it may, no danger is so great, no supposition so foolish, as to consider any human law as irrevocable. The shifting attitude of human affairs would often render such a condition an intolerable evil to all parties. The absurd jealousy of our countrymen at the union secured heritable jurisdiction to the owners; nine and thirty years afterwards they were abolished, in the very teeth of the act of union, and to the evident promotion of the public good.

Continuity of a Law by Oath.-The sovereign of England at his coronation takes an oath to maintain the laws of God, the true profession of the gospel, and the Protestant religion as established by law, and to

Can there be greater absurdity than to say that a man is acting contrary to his conscience who surren ders his opinion upon any subject to those who must understand the subject better than himself? I think I think my son capable of my ward has a claim to the estate; but the best law yers tell me he has none. undergoing the fatigues of a military life; but the best physicians say he is much too weak. My Parlia Am I acting contrament say this measure will do no harm; but I think it very pernicious to the church. ry to my conscience because I apply much higher intellectual powers than my own to the investigation and protection of these high interests?

According to the form in which it is conceived, any such cense under the appearance of a check, and for that very engagement is in effect either a check or a license:-8 lireason but the more efficiently operative.

Chains to the man in power? Yes:-but only such as

he figures with on the stage: to the spectators as imposing, to himself as light as possible. Modelled by the wearer to suit his own purposes, they serve to rattle, but not to restrain.

'Suppose a king of Great Britain and Ireland to have expressed his fixed determination, in the event of any proposed

The effect of such an argument is, to give men of good or reputed good character, the power of putting a negative on any question-not agreeable to their ininclinations.

In every public trust, the legislator should, for the purlaw being tendered to him for his assent, to refuse such as-pose of prevention, suppose the trustee disposed to break sent, and this not on the persuasion that he law would not the trust in every imaginable way in which it would be be "for the utility of the subjects," but that by his corona-possible for him to reap, from the breach of it, any personal tion oath he stands precluded from so doing the course advantage. This is the principle on which public institupointed out by principle and precedent, would be, a vote of tions ought to be formed; and when it is applied to all men abdication:-a vote declaring the king to have abdicated his indiscriminately, it is injurious to none. The practical inroyal authority, and that, as in case of death or incurable ference is, to oppose to such possible, (and what will always be mental derangement, now is the time for the person next in probable) breaches of trust, every bar that can be opposed, succession to take his place. consistently with the power requisite for the efficient and due discharge of the trust. Indeed, these arguments, drawn from the supposed virtues of men in power, are opposed to the first principles on which all laws proceed.

In the celebrated case in which a vote to this effect was actually passed, the declaration of abdication was in lawyers' language a fiction-in plain truth a falsehood-and that falsehood a mockery; not a particle of his power was it the wish of James to abdicate, to part with; but to increase it to a maximum was the manifest object of all his efforts. But in the case here supposed, with respect to a part, and that a principal part of the royal anthority, the will and purpose to abdicate are actually declared: and this, being such a part, without which the remainder cannot, "to the utility of the subjects," be exercised, the remainder must of necessity be, on their part and for their sake, added.'-(pp. 110, 111)

Such allegations of individual virtue are never supported by specific proof, are scarce ever susceptible of specific disproof; and specific disproof, if offered, could not be admitted in either house of Parliament. If attempted elsewhere, the punishment would fall, not on the unworthy trustee, but on him by whom the unworthiness had been proved.'-(pp. 125, 126.)

Fallacies of pretended Danger.-Imputation of bad design-of bad character-of bad motives-of incon

Self-trumpeter's fallacy.-Mr. Bentham explains the sistency-of suspicious connections. self-trumpeter's fallacy as follows:

There are certain men in office who, in discharge of their functions, arrogate to themselves a degree of probity, which is to exclude all imputations and all inquiry. Their assertions are to be deemed equivalent to proof; their virtues are guarantees for the faithful discharge of their duties; and the most implicit confidence is to be reposed in them on all occasions. If you expose any abuse, propose any reform, call for securities, inquiry, or measures to promote publicity, they set up a cry of surprise, amounting almost to indignation, as if their integrity were questioned, or their honour wounded. With all this, they dexterously mix up intimations, that the most exalted patriotism, honour, and perhaps religion, are the only sources of all their actions.'-(p. 120.)

Of course every man will try what he can effect by these means; but (as Mr. Bentham observes) if there be any one maxim in politics more certain than an other, it is that no possible degree of virtue in the governor can render it expedient for the governed to dispense with good laws and good institutions. Madame de Stael (to her disgrace) said to the Emperor of Russia, Sire, your character is a constitution for your country, and your conscience its guarantee.' His reply was,Quand cela serait, je ne serais jamais qu'un accident heureux ;' and this we think one of the truest and most brilliant replies ever made by mo

narch.

Laudatory Personalities. The object of laudatory personalities is to effect the rejection of a measure on account of the alleged good character of those who oppose it; and the argument advanced is, "The measure is rendered un necessary by the virtue of those who are in power-their opposition is sufficient authority for the rejection of the measure. The measure proposed implies a distrust of the members of his majesty's government; but so great is their integrity, so complete their disinterestedness, so uniformly do they prefer the public advantage to their own, that such a measure is altogether unnecessary. Their disapproval is sufficient to warrant an opposition; precautions can only be requisite where danger is apprehended; here, the high character of the individuals in question is a sufficient guarantee against any ground of alarm."'-(pp. 123, 124.)

ful men.

The object of this class of fallacies is to draw aside attention from the measure to the man, and this in such a manner, that, for some real or supposed defect in the author of the measure, a corresponding defect shall be imputed to the measure itself. Thus the author of the measure entertains a bad design; therefore the measure is bad. His character is bad, therefore the measure is bad; his motive is bad, I will vote against the measure. On former occasions, this same person who proposed the measure was its enemy, Therefore the measure is bad. He is on a footing of intimacy with this or that dangerous man, or has been seen in his company, or is suspected of entertaining some of his opinions, therefore the measure is bad. He bears a name that at a former period was borne by a set of men now no more, by whom bad principles were entertained-therefore the measure is bad!'

Now, if the measure be really inexpedient, why not at once show it to be so? If the measure is good, is it bad because a bad man is its author! If bad, is it good because a good man has produced it? What are these arguments, but to say to the assembly who are to be the judges of any measure, that their imbecility is too great to allow them to judge of the measure by its own merits, and that they must have recourse to distant and feebler probabilities for that purpose?

Allow

'In proportion to the degree of efficiency with which a man suffers these instruments of deception to operate upon his mind, he enables bad men to exercise over him a sort of power, the thought of which ought to cover him with shame. this argument the effect of a conclusive one, you put into the power of any man to draw you at pleasure from the support of every measure, which in your own eyes is good, to force you to give your support to any and every measure which in your own eyes is bad. Is it good!-the bad man embraces it, and, by the supposition, you reject it. Is it bad?-he vituperates it, and that suffices for driving you into its embrace. You split upon the rocks, because he has avoided them; you miss the harbour, because he has steered into it? Give yourself up to any such blind antipathy, you are no less in the power of your adversaries, than if, by a correspondently irrational sympathy and obsequiousness, you put yourself into the power of your friends.'-(pp. 132, 133.)

The panegyric goes on increasing with the dignity 'Besides, nothing but laborious application, and a clear and of the lauded person. All are honourable and delight- comprehensive intellect, can enable a man, on any giver subThe person who opens the door of the office ject, to employ successfully relevant arguments drawn from is a person of approved fidelity; the junior clerk is a the subject itself. To employ personalities, neither labour model of assiduity; all the clerks are models-seven nor intellect is required. In this sort of contest, the most idle years' models, nine years' models and upwards. The and the most ignorant are quite on a par with, if not superior to, the most industrious and the most highly gifted individuals. first clerk is a paragon-and ministers the very per- Nothing can be more convenient for those who would speak fection of probity and intelligence; and as for the without the trouble of thinking. The same ideas are brought highest magistrate of the state, no adulation is equal forward over and over again, and all that is required is to to describe the extent of his various merits! It is too vary the turn of expression. Close and relevant arguments condescending, perhaps, to refute such folly as this. have very little hold on the passions, and serve rather to quell But we would just observe that if the propriety of the than to inflame them; while in personalities there is always measure in question be established by direct argu-him who blames. Praise forms a kind of connection between something stimulant, whether on the part of him who praises or ments, these must be at least as conclusive against the the party praising and the party praised, and vituperation character of those who oppose it, as their character gives an air of courage and independence to the party who can be against the measure.

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blames.

Ignorance and indolence, friendship and enmity, concurring | people, a wish of dissolving the government, is either and conflicting interest, servility aud independence, all conspire artifice or error. The physician who intentionally to give personalities the ascendency they so unhappily main-weakens the patient by bleeding him has no intention tain. The more we lie under the influence of our own passions, he should perish. the more we rely on others being affected in a similar degree. A man who can repel these injuries with diguity, may often convert them into triumph: "Strike me, but hear," says he, and the fury of his antagonist redounds to his own discomfiture.'-(pp, 141, 142.)

No Innovation!-To say that all new things are bad, is to say that all old things were bad in their commencement: for of all the old things ever seen or heard of, there is not one that was not once new. Whatever is now establishment was once innovation. The first innovator of pews and parish clerks was no doubt considered as a Jacobin in his day. Judges, juries, criers of the court, are all the inventions of ardent spirits, who filled the world with alarm, and were considered as the great precursors of ruin and dissolution. No inoculation, no turnpikes, no reading, no writing, no popery! The fool sayeth in his heart, and crieth with his mouth, I will have nothing new! Fallacy of Distrust.- What's at the Bottom ? This fallacy begins with a virtual admission of the propriety of the measure considered in itself, and thus demonstrates its own futility, and cuts up from under itself the ground which it endeavours to make. measure is to be rejected for something that, by bare possibility, may be found amiss in some other mea. sure! This is vicarious reprobation; upon this principle Herod instituted his massacre. It is the argument of a driveller to other drivellers, who says, We are not able to decide upon the evil when it arisesour only safe way is to act upon the general appre

hension of evil.

A

Official Malefactor's Screen. Attack us-you at tack Government?!

If this notion is acceded to, every one who derives at present any advantage from misrule has it in feesimple; and all abuses, present and future, are without remedy. So long as there is any thing amiss in conducting the business of government, so long as it can be made better, there can be no other mode of bringing it nearer to perfection, than the indication of such imperfections as at the time being exist.

'But so far is it from being true, that a man's aversion or contempt for the hands by which the powers of government, or even for the system under which they are exercised, is a proof of his aversion or contempt towards the government itself, that, even in proportion to the strength of that aversion or contempt, it is a proof of the opposite affection. What, in consequence of that contempt or aversion, he wishes for, is not that there be no hands at all to excercise these powers, but that the hands may be better regulated; not that those powers should not be exercised at all, but that they should be better ercised; not that in the exercise of them, no rules at all should be pursued, but that the rules by which they are exercised should be a better set of rules.

'All government is a trust; every branch of government is a trust; and immemorially acknowledged so to be; it is only by the magnitude of the scale that public differ from private trusts. I complain of the conduct of a person in the character of guardian, as domestic guardian, having the care of a minor or insane person. In so doing, do I say that guardianship is a bad institution? Does it enter into the head of any one to suspect me of so doing? I complain of an individual in the character of a commercial agent, or assignee of the effects of an insolvent. In so doing, do I say that commercial agency is a bad thing? that the practice of vesting in the hands of trustees or assignees the effects of an insolvent, for the purpose of their being divided among his creditors, is a bad practice? Does any such conceit ever enter into the head of man, as that of suspecting me of so doing?'--(pp. 162, 163.)

The greater the quantity of respect a man receives, independently of good conduct, the less good is his behaviour likely to be. It is the interest, therefore, of the public, in the case of each, to see that the respect paid to him should, as completely as possible, depend upon the goodness of his behaviour in the execution of his trust. But it is, on the contrary, the interest of the trustee, that the respect, the money, or any other advantage he receives in virtue of his office, should be as great, as secure, and as independent of conduct as possible. Soldiers expect to be shot at; public men must expect to be attacked, and sometimes unjustly. It keeps up the habit of considering their conduct as exposed to scrutiny; on the part of the people at large, it keeps alive the expectation of wit. nessing such attacks, and the habit of looking out for them. The friends and supporters of government have always greater facility in keeping and raising it up, than its adversaries have for lowering it.

Accusation-scarer's Device. Infamy must attach somewhere.'

This fallacy consists in representing the character of a calumniator as necessarily and justly attaching upon him who, having made a charge of misconduct against any persons possessed of political power or influence, fails of producing evidence sufficient for their conviction.

'If taken as a general proposition, applying to all public accusations, nothing can be more mischievous as well as fallacious. Supposing the charge unfounded, the delivery of it may have been accompanied with mala fides (consciousness of its injustice), with temerity only, or it may have been perfectly with propriety attach upon him who brings it forward. A blameless. It is in the first case alone that any infamy can charge really groundless may have been honestly believed to be well founded, i. e., believed with a sort of provisional credence, sufficient for the purpose of engaging a man to do his part towards the bringing about an investigation, but without sufficient reasons. But a charge may be perfectly groundless brings it forward. Suppose him to have heard from one or without attaching the smallest particle of blame upon him who more, presenting himself to him in the character of percipient circumstances, though in circumstances of the most material witnesses, a story which, either in toto, or perhaps only in importance, should prove false and mendacious-how is the person who hears this, and acts accordingly, to blame? What who has no power that can enable him to insure correctness or sagacity can enable a man previously to investigation, a man completeness on the part of this extrajudicial testimony, to guard against deception in such a case?'-(pp. 185, 186.)

Fallacy of false Consolation. What is the matter with you? What would you have? Look at the people there, and there; think how much better off you are than they are. Your prosperity and liberty are objects of their envy; your institutions models of their imitation.'

It is not the desire to look to the bright side that is blamed: but when a particular suffering, produced by an assigned cause, has been pointed out, the object of many apologists is to turn the eyes of inquirers and judges into any other quarter in preference. If a man's tenants were to come with a general encomium on the prosperity of the country, instead of a specified sum, would it be accepted? In a court of justice, in an action for damages, did ever any such device occur as that of pleading assets in the hands of a third person? There is, in fact, no country so poor and so wretched in every element of prosperity, in which matter for There are no complaints against government in this argument might not be found. Were the prosper. Turkey-no motions in Parliament, no Morning Chro-ity of the country tenfold as great as at present, the nicles, and no Edinburgh Reviews: yet, of all countries in the world, it is that in which revolts and revolutions are the most frequent.

absurdity of the argument would not in the least de gree be lessened. Why should the smallest evil be endured, which can be cured; because others suffer It is so far from true, that no good government can patiently under greater evils? Should the smallest exist consistently with such disclosure, that no good improvement attainable be neglected, because others government can exist without it. It is quite obvious, remain contented in a state of still greater inferiority? to all who are capable of reflection, that by no other means than by lowering the governors in the estima-measure of relief, no, nor to the most trivial improvement, Seriously and pointedly in the character of a bar to any tion of the people, can there be hope or chance of can it ever be employed. Suppose a bill brought in for beneficial change. To infer from this wise endeavour converting an impassable road any where into a passable to lessen the existing rulers in the estimation of the one, would any man stand up to oppose it who could find