Studies in Literature and History

by Sir Alfred C. Lyall

If Joseph had written a treatise on the agrarian tenures of Egypt he might not have bought them up so easily at famine prices, and he might have entangled himself in a discussion upon peasant properties. The economist who makes an inductive demonstration of unalterable natural laws and propensities may be likened to the scientific legislator who undertakes to codify prevailing usages: he turns an elastic custom, constantly modified in practice by needs and sentiments, into an unbending statute, when the bare unvarnished statement of the principle produces an outcry. Natural processes will not bear calm philosophic explanations that are understood to imply approval of them as cruel but inevitable; not even in such an essentially moralistic argument as that of Butler's 'Analogy,' which some have regarded as a plea of ambiguous advantage to the cause of natural religion. Malthus, for example, proved undeniably the pernicious consequences of reckless propagation; but he who forces a great evil upon public attention is expected to find the practical remedy; and Malthus had little to prescribe beyond a few palliative measures and the expediency of self-restraint, while his proposal to abolish the poor laws in the interest of pauperism was interpreted as a recommendation that poor folk should be starved into prudential and self-reliant habits. Malthus held, indeed, that the improvement of the condition of the labouring classes should be considered as the main interest of society. But he also thought that

'to improve their condition, it is essential to impress them with the conviction that they can do much more for themselves than others can do for them, and that the only source of their permanent improvement is the improvement of their moral and religious habits. What government can do, therefore, is to maintain such institutions as may strengthen the vis medicatrix, or desire to better our condition, which poor laws had directly tended to weaken.'

There is much wisdom to be found in these counsels; but good advice rather excites than allays the ignorant impatience of acute suffering, and popular opinion soon began to inquire whether the vis medicatrix might not be administered in some more drastic form by the State. The conception of a rational government superintending, without interference, the slow evolution of morals, had a kind of correspondence, in the religious sphere, with the doctrine of pre-established harmonies so clearly ordained that to suggest any need of further Divine interposition to readjust them occasionally was a reflection upon the wisdom and foresight of Providence. But the stress and exigencies of modern party politics has rendered this attitude untenable for the temporal ruler.

The pure economists, however, prescribed moral remedies without investigating the elements of morality. They settled the laws of production and distribution as eliminated from the observation of ordinary facts; they corrected errors and registered the mechanical working of human desires and efforts. It is Mr. Stephen's plan, throughout this book, to show the bearing of philosophical speculation on practical conduct; and accordingly, after his chapter on Malthus and the Ricardians, he turns back again to philosophy and ethics. His clear and cogent exposition of the views and conclusions put forward on these subjects by Thomas Brown, with the express approval of James Mill, is an illustration of Coleridge's dictum regarding the connection between abstract theories and political movements. Admitting the connection, we may again observe that there is a certain danger in stating the theories too scientifically. Neither morals nor religion are much aided by digging down into their foundations. Yet the logical constructor of a new system usually finds himself driven by controversy into a discussion of ultimate ideas, though the Utilitarians refused to be forced back into metaphysics. No professor of philosophy, however, can altogether avoid asking himself what underlies experience and the formation of beliefs; and Brown did his best for the Utilitarians by defining Intuition as a belief that passes analysis, a principle independent of human reasoning, which 'does not allow us to pass a single step beyond experience, but merely authorises us to interpret experience.' It was James Mill's mission to cut short and to simplify philosophical aberrations for his practical purposes:

'As a publicist, a historian, and a busy official, he had not much time to spare for purely philosophic reading. He was not a professor in want of a system, but an energetic man of business, wishing to strike at the root of superstitions to which his political opponents appealed for support. He had heard of Kant, and seen "what the poor man would be at".'

His own views are elaborated in his book on the Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, for a close criticism of which we must refer readers to Mr. Stephen's second volume. The connection of these dissertations with the social and political ends of the Utilitarians lies, it may be said briefly, in the support which a purely experiential psychology gives to the doctrine that human character depends on external circumstance, and that such vague terms as the 'moral sense' only disguise the true identity of rules of morality with the considerations that can be shown to produce general happiness. Whenever there appears to be a conflict between these rules and considerations, utility is the only sure criterion. To the extreme situations in which casuistry revels, as when a man is called upon to sacrifice his life or his personal honour for his country's good, the Utilitarian would apply this unfailing test inexorably; in such cases a man ought to decide upon a calculation of the greatest happiness of the majority. He does not, in fact, apply this reckoning; he may possibly not have time, at the urgent moment, to work it out; his heroism is inspired by the universal praise or blame that reward self-devotion or punish shrinking from it, and thus render acts moral or immoral by the habitual association of ideas. The martyr or patriot does not, indeed, stop to calculate; he does not feel the subtle egoism that is hidden in the desire for applause; he believes himself to be acting with the perfect disinterestedness which can only be accounted for by superficial reasoners on the assumption of some such abstract notion as religion, moral sense, or duty. Since the behaviour of mankind at large, therefore, is invariably guided by a remote or proximate consideration of utility; since conduct depends upon character, and character is shaped by external conditions and positive sanctions, it is possible to frame, on utilitarian principles, scientific rules of behaviour which can be powerfully, though indirectly, promoted by legislation and a system of enlightened polity. For morality, it is argued, can be materially assisted by pointing to, or even providing, the serious consequences that are inseparable from human misdeeds, by proving that pain or pleasure follows different kinds of behaviour; while motives are so complex that they can never be verified with certainty, and must therefore be left out of account. This anatomy of the springs of action obviously lays bare some truths, although they fit in much better with the department of the legislator than of the moralist. As Mr. Stephen forcibly shows, although the consideration of motive may fall very seldom within the sphere of legislation, yet no theory which should exclude its influence on the moral standard could be tolerated, since the motive is of primary importance in our ethical judgment of conduct. Nor has motive, as discriminated from intention, ever been kept entirely outside the criminal law, notwithstanding the danger of admitting, as an extenuation of some violent crime, that the offender had convinced himself that some religious or patriotic cause would be served by it. James Mill's view of morals as theoretically coordinate with law—because in both departments the intention is the essential element in measuring actions according to their consequences—operated in practical contradiction to his principle of restraining State interference within narrow limits. It is this latter principle which has since given way. For the general trend of later political opinion has evidently been towards bringing public morality more and more under administrative regulation; and this manifestly indicates a growing expansion of ideas upon the legitimate duties and jurisdiction of the State.

Upon James Mill's psychology Mr. Stephen's conclusion, with which we may agree, is that his analysis of virtue into enlightened self-interest is unsuccessful, and we have seen that his conception of government, as an all-powerful machine resting upon, yet strictly limited by, public opinion, has failed on the side of the limitations. Yet although Mill could not explain virtue, he was, after his fashion, a virtuous man, whose life was conscientiously devoted to public objects.

'His main purpose, too, was to lay down a rule of duty, almost mathematically ascertainable, and not to be disturbed by any sentimentalism, mysticism, or rhetorical foppery. If, in the attempt to free his hearers from such elements, he ran the risk of reducing morality to a lower level, and made it appear as unamiable as sound morality can appear, it must be admitted that in this respect, too, his theories reflected his personal character.'

It is also probable that his theories, and his bitter controversies in defence of them, reacted on his personal character, and that both influences are to be traced beyond James Mill's own life, in the mental and social prepossessions which he bequeathed to his son.