What could have been the motive of his making so strange a confession, is a somewhat curious subject of inquiry. We think we recognise in it an attempt to establish a kind of vague compromise between insincerity and inconsistency. If his conduct were attributed to mere inconsistency, he must plead guilty to a long previous mistake, and must forfeit all pretensions to political prudence and foresight. If, however, it were thought that he had for a long time had a secret leaning in favour of the Catholic claims, and had only been waiting for the ripeness of public opinion to declare his real sentiments, then he would escape the charge of weakness and imprudence, and would only incur the blame of a beneficial insincerity. He would thus gain the good graces of all those whose strong attachment to the measure would make them overlook, in behalf of its importance, what they would consider a pardonable deceit.
This view, indeed, he could not explicitly state in so many words, as it would have laid him too open to the accusations of his opponents; but it can be hinted at, as in the above passage. For what intelligible meaning can be attached to that sentence, if it do not convey the idea that his inconsistency, after all, was not so flagrant as had been represented; that his mind for some time previously had been leaning that way, and that, to use his peculiar phrase, his course was “the same with that which suggested itself to his mind in the year 1825.” We believe this expression to be the most accurate that he could have used. The design of supporting the Catholic claims had not then fully ripened in his mind, he had not formed any accurate and deliberate plan of conduct; but the possibility of doing so at some future day secretly “suggested itself to his mind.” A scarcely audible voice whispered in his mind, “Perhaps, Peel, some time or other, in certain contingencies, State necessities, public duty, &c., may require that you should lend a favourable ear to the Catholic claims.” What these peculiar contingencies were would also be suggested by the same little voice, but in so low a tone and in such vague terms that he himself would not be able to render a definite account of them.
Whatever, however, be the real construction of the above passage, or of any other similar ones that may be met with among his speeches, we ourselves should not be disposed to attach too prominent an importance to them. Such confessions might be admirably fitted as a taunt to him, as an “argumentum ad hominem,” as a case of “habemus confitentem reum:” but it is not on his own verbal expressions that the judgment on his conduct is to be formed. Strange indeed would it be if a skilful orator should so blunder in his speech as openly to avow an act of duplicity and deceit; it is only matter of marvel how such expressions as that above quoted could ever have been used. But, in a case like this, if he wished fully to express all that he knew of his own intentions, if he desired to unburden his mind by the fullest possible confession, he would not be able accurately to do so, and his own estimate of his own character would be little worth. It is an unfailing consequence with those who practise hypocrisy in the view of deceiving others, that they also at the same time deceive themselves. One deliberate and systematic piece of deceit produces an incalculable amount of this subtler and unconscious hypocrisy. It is a kind of general veil or mantle in which the person walks, which conceals his soul even from his own view, and deceives him as to the motives of his own actions. Under its soothing influence no sense of insecurity is felt; and the man whose conduct is all the time biassed by some egotistical motive, walks in the proud conviction to himself that he is a model of patriotism and virtue. Such an hypocrisy, to take a prominent instance, is well exemplified in the case of Cromwell; but illustrations must be familiar to every one in the humbler walks of life, and if he have a difficulty in discerning it in others, he will have none if he knows how to examine himself. It is a tendency which exists in all, and requires strong efforts for its subjugation. All strong passions or desires carry it along with them, unless their deceptive influence be firmly counteracted by the stronger desire for truth and right.
In Sir Robert’s case we believe it to have arisen from the action of a strong egotistical desire of power and fame, unchecked by any heartfelt and earnest convictions with regard to the truth of his public principles. His whole career is a continuous proof of this defect of all genuine and lively seizure of the truth; for never does he advocate an opinion while it is weak, and never does he oppose it when it is strong. Owing to this, his principles, though he himself may have no distinct consciousness of it, have insensibly bent themselves to the stronger motives of ambition. He remains all the time in ignorance of the secret bias, and is by no means aware of how far from true patriotism he is.
Accustomed to rely on the opinions of others, from the absence of all earnest conviction in himself, he must be forced to trust to their voice even in matters relating to his own conduct; and, when he hears the cheers of the populace that salute him at the door of the House of Commons, he lays the flattering unction to his soul that he is a martyr and a patriot. How should it be otherwise? When he hears himself applauded as an eminently virtuous and injured man, what means is there of undeceiving him, if his own conscience be silent or confirm the delusion? I find it well remarked to my purpose by Mencius, the Chinese sage, speaking of some statesmen of his day, whom he declares to have had only a false appearance of virtue,—“Having had for a long time this false appearance, and not having made any return to sincerity and integrity, how could they know,” he asks, “that they did not possess it?”[18]
And when we speak of the weakness or servility of conviction, we would by no means be understood to mean a mere liability to change. The man of sincere and earnest mind frequently changes his opinions oftenest. The difference lies in the motives of the change. In the case of the earnest man these arise from his own mind, in the case of the servile-minded man from external circumstances. Such, for instance, are political advantages, or the number, or clamour, or strength of the advocates of an opinion. Circumstances generally enable us to discriminate pretty accurately. If a man always rejects an opinion when shared by few, and always adopts it when popular and dominant; if he has nothing to say to it when it is of no service to him, but embraces it when it is strong, and can give him renown and popularity, we shall not probably err in deeming that man to be of a servile mind, wanting in sincere and earnest convictions. The truthful-minded man at once avows his change, the servile-minded one cunningly conceals it till it suits his purpose. If, besides this, a man be cold, pompous, and an egotist, if his character be marked by duplicity, if his language be plausible, but unsatisfactory if he be found to pay more deference to his foes through fear than to his friends from affection, all these are corroborating tests of the servile character in question. Though it may be difficult to assign its precise tokens in words, there is less difficulty in discriminating it in practice.
It is this total want of all earnest and heartfelt conviction of the truth, which forms the key to the interpretation of the whole of Sir R. Peel’s career. Deciphered by this, all the tortuous inconsistencies of his course arrange themselves in systematic order, all the varied hieroglyphics of his mysterious conduct yield a clear and intelligible meaning. The man who is thoroughly convinced of the truth of his principles, labours unceasingly to impart them to others, to urge upon them the importance of his views, to point out the beneficial results which must flow from his course of policy. Such an earnest conviction animated Pitt in his resistance to the French Revolution, Canning in his advocacy of the Catholic claims, Wilberforce in his endeavours for Negro Emancipation; and lately, (if we may be pardoned somewhat of a bathos,) Cobden in his war against the Corn Laws. Without meaning to assimilate the merits, of these various efforts, they all serve as examples of the way in which men act when animated by a genuine and sincere conviction. But there is no principle, great or small, which has owed its advance in public opinion to one sentence of Peel’s. Say rather, there is none which while yet in its infancy, and in need of support, has not been opposed by him to the best of his power. While it is weak, he raises his tongue against it; while it is doubtful, he halts between two opinions, and watches the struggle in cautious silence; as soon as it has become dominant and can dispense with his support, he proffers his aid with copious professions of zeal, and seeks to fix on his inglorious brow the laurels that rightly belong to another.
Had he lived in the Roman world at an earlier age, when Christianity was yet striving against the secular powers, while it was weak and despised, who would have opposed it more loudly than the Robert Peel of the day? who would have more warmly urged its impracticability, its unfitness for the concerns of life? who would more eloquently have exhorted the Roman world to hold to the wisdom of their forefathers? As, however, the tide gradually and steadily rolled on, and day by day one conversion followed another, these eloquent protestations would begin somewhat to flag, and at length that plausible tongue would lie in silence. But when at last it began to make its way among the higher powers of the land, amid the eminent and wealthy; when finally it even penetrated into the Court of the Emperor, and rumours began to be whispered that he himself looked on it with no unfavourable eye, a few days before Constantine’s conversion Pellius would announce his formal adhesion to its principles, with an intimation that he had for some years been leaning that way, and that “a similar course had suggested itself to his mind,” even at the time when he took some part in the Dioclesian persecution.[19] A skilful management of “government influence,” pouring grace and unction on many benighted minds, would secure him a good claim to merit, and he would doubtless be rewarded for his seasonable change by a high post amid the officers of the regenerate Emperor.
This time-serving conduct, skilfully managed, will frequently succeed admirably with the world; for these children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light. The sincere advocates of principles through good and through bad report, are looked upon as unpractical and fanciful theorists; while those who carefully watch their opportunity, and conform themselves with good grace to the dominant tide of opinion, are hailed as able and practical men, and even obtain from the mass the praise of more than common honesty, inasmuch as they are not ashamed to avow a change in their opinions. It is of such as these that the wise Confucius pointedly says, “The most honest men of their time are the pest of virtue.”
“What!” asks the surprised disciple Wen-tchang, “whom do you call the most honest men of their time?”