Many persons hold by inheritance right principles into whose foundation they have never inquired. Investigation, if they entered upon it, would confirm their convictions, but not resting on examination, their nobler prepossessions may be displaced by passion. We all know in religion how vehemently adherents will vindicate questions of which they know only one side, and hold it to be sinful to inquire into the other. Such persons, when right, are unstable and liable to variableness under the glamour of unknown ideas. Mr. Cowen was well informed on Liberal principles and never took to Conservative views, and, save in antagonism, did not assist them.
The bent of his mind to paramountcy in ideas was shown in the extraordinary requirements he made, that Mr. Morley should disown the political friends who had invited him to Newcastle, and become the candidate of the Chronicle. Mr. Morley answered, "I will not do it, and that is flat" Then Mr. Cowen resolved that this refusal should cost him his seat, and ultimately he effected it, not from Conservative resentment, but from pride. Had Mr. Morley consented to this condition he would have remained member for Newcastle, supported with all the force of Mr. Cowen's splendid advocacy. Mr. Cowen always remained true to Home Rule for Ireland. But, as we have seen done in the case of others in Parliament, he assailed every one who held it not under his inspiration.
Mr. Cowen was naturally noble, and resentment never made him mean, but like any one to whom compliance with his essential convictions is a necessity of his mind, he was apt to regard non-concurring persons as better out of the way. He would not destroy them, but they were no longer objects of his solicitude.
Everybody who did not take this into account failed to understand Mr. Cowen's career. He sought nothing for himself—he refused everything offered to him, office included, and accepted no overture made to him. Whatever opinion he held, to whatever party he allied himself, he might, if he wished, have remained member for Newcastle all his life. He wanted no place in Parliament; all he wanted was his own way—compliance with his own opinions. He had no ambition in the ordinary sense—he had no sinister end to serve, and it was always his preference to promote liberty and progress, generosity and good faith in public affairs.
Conforming to no conventionality, never entering society, nor accepting any invitation to do it, in his attention to his collieries, his ships, his firebrick works, manufactory, newspaper and public meetings, he was occupied from early morning until late at night, without rest and without hurry. He was never exhausted and was never still. One evening he lay down on his sofa, fell asleep, and none around him knew that he was dead.
It would astonish the reader—were they all narrated—the considerable undertakings which he conducted and carried through at the same time. He was a great man of business, and had the management of heaven been consigned to him as a pleasure resort, he would have made it pay eventually. He was an apostle, not an apostate, but his apostleship was of his own ideas. He was no apostate of his party. Had he been in the celestial world when Lucifer revolted, Mr. Cowen might have aided Satan, from motives of resentment at being denied, by certain dissentient cherubim, ascendency himself. But he would never have joined the fallen angels, nor, as we have seen other politicians do, officially engage in their work, or identify himself with them.
CHAPTER XXIX. THE PERIL OF SCRUPLES
An outlaw is seldom considered a pleasant person, and naturally occupies a dubious place in public estimation. His position is worse than that of an exile, who, if once allowed to return, is reinstated in society, but the outlaw of opinion is never pardoned. Where justice turns upon the hinge of the oath, there is no redress for him who has scruples as to taking it. He who has scruples exposes himself to unpleasant comments. He is counted a sort of fastidious crank. All the while it is known that a man without scruples is a knave, who respects nothing save his own interests, and will do anything likely to promote them—even to the commission of robbery or murder—as police-courts disclose. To be scrupulous is to be solicitous as to the rightfulness of a thing proposed to be done. It is plainly the interest of society to encourage those who act upon honest scruples. Scruples may be trivial or unfounded—they may be open to objection on that account. Nevertheless, the habit of being scrupulous is to be tolerated as conducive to integrity, without which society would be insufferable. It is therefore not desirable that perils should accompany scrupulousness, as I have often seen them do.
The obligatory oath has always been detrimental to public morality. When one oath was imposed on all persons, it was repugnant to their individual sense of truth in many cases, and men, to protect their interests, began to tamper with veracity, and invent new meanings of the terms of the oath. Thus the fortunate fastidiousness of truth is broken down.