THE PHILOSOPHERS AND THE PEOPLE.
1R. DISRAELI does not often spoil a new idea or a great epigram by misapplication for temporary purposes, but he did spoil one in his great speech of Thursday. He wanted to warn the House, and more especially his own party, of a new fact in English politics, the junction which has been effected between the " Philosophers " and the People,—a great and, as he would have put it if unembarrassed by the necessities of debate, a very striking truth. He wished, how- ever, to create an aristocratic prejudice against the disendow- meat of the Irish Church, and therefore put his thesis in this, way :—" But the Nonconformists in the present day have- allies that in the days of the Stuarts they did not possess. They have a body, very limited in number, but very in- fluential from their intellect, and from another cause to which I will advert in a moment—I mean the philosophers. Now, the philosophers must always be very limited in number, but they are necessarily, from their character and pursuits, men of great intellect and intelligence, and they always exercise a great influence over the Press. They exercised a great in- fluence over the Press before the French Revolution by means of the Encyclopaedia, and in England at the present day there is not a leading article that strikes you that you may not almost always trace to a philosopher. The philosophers• assist the Nonconformists, and though they have not a single point in sympathy, this union between the Nonconformists- and the philosophers makes a most active and influential body in the State." Nothing can be more inaccurate than the- form in which this thought is expressed, nothing sounder- than the thought itself. Not only is there no general sym- pathy between the philosophers and the Nonconformists, but there is very seldom any power of united action. In this very case of the Irish Church, for example, the philosopher& would most of them be ready to endow Catholicism, a measure which the Nonconformists would resist to the death, which disgusts and irritates them until they have scarcely patience- to discuss it, and are ready to break with their best allies for' merely considering it reasonable. But it is true that a long sequence of causes has induced the "philosophers,"—that is, the men disposed to settle political questions by reference to utility in its highest sense, to first principles,—and the masses of the people to join hands, and that their union makes a new and most effective power. The cause of this junction is not far to seek. For the first time in English history, though not for the first time in the his- tory of the world, the class which is more or less accurately described as the philosophers, the men who have made of politics a study, who have thought out the propositions which the majority of minds simply accept or resist, have become imbued with the passion of sympathy for those " common millions," their dreary lives, their closed opportunities, their ceaseless toil ; and this sympathy, next perhaps to faith, is the strongest of mental forces. It has impelled them, properly men of the closet, into action, and Parliamentary action hav- ing been forbidden by an aristocratic regime,—a regime which fines a member for serving his country on the average 1,0001. a year,—they have addressed themselves, as Mr. Disraeli truly enough says, to the Press. The change which has in consequence come over the tone of the Press is per- fectly marvellous. With the single exception of the Times, which reflects, as it has always reflected, the ideas of the upper section of the middle class,—always Philistine, and for the future to be nearly powerless,—every paper, Tory, Whig, or Radical, strives, with more or less of success, to settle every question by an appeal to first principles, to go to the roots of things, to consider on every possible occasion what is best for the millions around, without reference to anything except the relation between means and ends. They differ, of course, as to means most violently, and in one solitary case, that of the Negro, as to ends ; but in all there is a new spirit, a new habit of mind, a new and terribly solvent method of considering public questions. The Tory journals try Mr. Mill's proposals by Mr. Mill's own methods, and the Radical journals apply their ultimate principles to resist the concession of Radical demands. Read the articles now published in journals of all shades of opinion on foreign affairs, on education, on trade unions, on endowments, on creeds, and you will find in all, the Times excepted, a distinct proclivity towards the philosophical mode of treatment, rigid inquiry into facts, rigid induction from the facts, rigid effort to bind the contending parties to the single issue, that the republic benefit. Reflect for a moment on the absolute extinction of " spread-eagleism " in the papers, on the desperately literal way in which our external power is dis- cussed, a way which frequently becomes deceptive, because journalists in their desire to be realistic ignore all latent pos- sibilities of power. Remember the way in which the Tory papers upheld household suffrage, when it had once been pro- posed by their leaders, as the only possible resting-place for a Constitution which could no longer be balanced on the old and narrow ledge. Look at the desperate fight for the representa- tion of minorities, in which Peers and Reds, the Standard and the Spectator, men like Lord Cairns and men like Mr. Mill, all found themselves contending side by side acrainst those of both parties who resisted innovation. We venture to say that when the fight comes on about the Irish Church, the most Tory or the most Churchy paper in England will wage its war on totally new ground, will talk very little of history, and less of dogma, will say nothing about the Sovereign's oath, or the intrigues of Jesuits, or the "glorious and immortal memory ;" but will endeavour to prove, with more or less of moderation in thought, if not in words, that the doomed insti- tution is beneficial in a high sense to the people of Ireland. Action will have to be decided, by Tory as well as Liberal consent, on grounds of "utility,"—we use the word in its highest sense,—and not of sentiment or of prejudice. The arguments of a hundred thinkers outside Parliament, men who, -whatever their vocation, are in Mr. Disraeli's sense " philo- sophers,"—lawyers, professors, clergymen, poets, or whatever they may be,—will be published, will be heard, and will be answered with a new respect. Dr. Temple, Mr. Gold win Smith, Mr. F. Harrison, Mr. Greg, Mr. Matthew Arnold, and a hundred more (we quote only typical names) now intervene in a debate as effectively as Members of Parliament, and nine times out of ten they intervene to express and solidify the otherwise fluid thought of the mass of the people. Time was when every one of the thirty or forty propositions for revolu- tionizing Irish tenure would have been set down as "socialist," and summarily dismissed. Now, even statesmen and squires, always impatient of abstract thought, perceive that behind the philosophers is the multitude, that through their often scrannel pipes is pouring the irresistible volume of the popular voice, and they argue instead of sneering. For good or for evil, the masses have found generals, the leaders armies, and neither armies nor generals can ever again be contemptuously set aside. Lord Stanley still talks of quackeries, but Lord Stanley is none the less compelled to study which of these quackeries will least injure the system he has at heart, and Whig nobles, as indisposed as he to quacks, are going to admit all revolutionary principles at once by trying new ex- periments in tenure, par preNrence on Bishops estates ! Verily, as Mr. Disraeli sees, the "philosophers " with the people behind them are strong.
Whether the ultimate results of this junction will be good or bad we do not just now attempt to foretell ; but this much at least is certain, they will be great. Two forces, each in itself essentially revolutionary, that is, disposed to consider the benefit of the people—utility in its highest sense—as the sole earthly law, have at last just joined hands, and mutually sup- ply each other's deficiencies in power. The " philosophers ' of to-day are instinctively opposed to compromises, to half- measures, to leave inefficiencies in existence because it is easier to let them exist ; and so, for different reasons, are the,nasses of the people. Ask a crowd anywhere i-j England their
opinion on such and such a scheme for- reform " of the Irish Church, or redistribution of its revenues, and they have none to offer. But ask them whether we shall disestablish or continue that institution, and the roar of reply for or against will be unmistakably loud. The philosophers, for totally different reasons, are of precisely the same temper. The thing is either bad or good. If good, keep it ; if bad, abolish it, that is their syllogism, modified only by the new power of allowing for popular prejudices which has accrued to them from their new sympathy with popular needs. We venture to say that thirty years ago a possible Premier in Mr. Gladstone's position would have proposed half-a-dozen com- promises between ascendancy and equality before he came to the naked proposition, " The Irish Church as a State Establishment must cease to exist." And we venture to say that the Mr. Mills of thirty years ago would not have cared so jealously for life interests, patrons' rights, and claims of long establishment ; but would have regarded all such con- cessions, concessions as they now think to simple justice, as com- promises with wrong. Look at this matter of education. In an hour, as it were, the true logical or philosophic idea, compulsion, for one generation at least, has come to the front, and the most abstract of principles, as squires think, a principle which but yesterday exposed its advocates to the charge of "intellectual fanaticism," is to-day the cry of the masses. They will go as far as the philosophers, and further than the statesmen. Mr. Bright says Mr. Mill's scheme for the refor- mation of the land tenure " goes too far." Possibly ; does it go too far for the masses of Irishmen who under the new Reform Bill should elect all the Irish representatives? It will be the same with other questions. The "philosophers" who want affairs put as right as they can be put, and not merely as right as they can be put without innovations, will not estimate antiquity at more than its value, or conserve anything which cannot be proved to be useful, or make compromises unless absolutely needful ; and will the people ? Why should they ? What have they to gain by abstaining from carrying ideas to their logical or, as it may be described, their revolutionary limit ? Take as an example the Army. The " philosophers " will, undoubtedly, demand that the Army become an ordinary department of the State, directly responsible to Parliament ; that all restrictions upon the promotion of soldiers, whether arising from law or prejudice, cease ; that the Army become a profession in which efficiency for battle shall be the solitary end of organization. Is it from the people that there will be resistance to that logical and extreme view, or is it not also theirs ? They, at all events, want no compromise between the ideas of privilege and of careers open to all alike. They will open them com- pletely, logically, because it is their interest, just as the philo- sophers will because it is their conviction. We remember that Mr. Mill was once asked by a Committee of the House of Commons if he really thought a horse couper's son a fitting member of the Indian Civil Service, and his reply, "Yes, if he is qualified," was considered quite fanatical,—dictated by a philosophical, and therefore absurd, theory of equality. What are the millions now enthroned likely to think about that? With Mr. Mill. Or with Lord Ellenborough ? That scheme of distri- buting office according to intellectual qualification alone may be wise or foolish,—we are not enthusiastic for it,—but it cer- tainly was the scheme of the " philosophers " of the day, as opposed to the politicians, and now—just try to get India out of the Householders' grip ! The thought of the thinker and the interest of the taxpayer are running iu the same groove, and privilege is powerless to defend itself. It cannot hope to answer its antagonists, and as to despising them,—the tread of the multitude is not a sound at which statesmen laugh, and it is the multitude which is behind the Encyclopaedists. To-day, Mr. Disraeli can still excite roars of laughter by saying that the philosophers and the people have joined hands ; to- morrow, which will help a candidate best, a recommendation signed by a Peer, or a recommendation signed by Mr. Mill?
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