APPENDIX.

I HAVE alluded in my Inaugural Lecture to authorities deserving of all respect which maintain the doctrine of Warburton, that "the object of political society is the preservation of body and goods." I alluded particularly to the Archbishop of Dublin, and to the author of a Review of Mr. Gladstone's book, "The State in its Relations with the Church," in the 139th number of the Edinburgh Review. It is due to such opponents not to pass by their arguments unnoticed; it is due to them, and still more to myself, lest I should be suspected of leaving them unanswered because I could not answer them.

It appears to me that the Reviewer is led to maintain Warburton's doctrine, chiefly in consequence of certain practical difficulties which seem to result from the doctrine opposed to it. He does not wish to restrict the state from regarding religious and moral ends; but fearing that its regard for them will lead to practical mischief, he will only allow it to consider them in the second place, so far, that is, as they do not interfere with its primary object, the protection of persons and property. The Warburtonian theory appears not to be the natural conclusion of inquiries into the object of governments, but an ingenious device to enable us to escape from some difficulties which we know not how to deal with. If the opposite theory can be freed from these difficulties, it may be believed that the Reviewer would gladly sacrifice the theory of Warburton.

1 regard the theory of government, maintained in my Lecture, to be a theory which we can in practice only partially realize. This I quite allow, at least with regard either to the present, or to any future, which we can as yet venture to anticipate. It is a theory which, nowhere perfectly realized, is realized imperfectly in very different degrees in different times and countries. It must not be forced upon a state of things not ripe for it, and therefore its most zealous advocates must often be content to tolerate violations of it more or less flagrant. All this is true; but yet I believe it to be the true theory of government, and that by acknowledging it to be so, and keeping it therefore always in sight, we may be able at last to approach indefinitely near to it.

The moral character of government seems to follow necessarily from its sovereign power; this is the simple ground of what I will venture to call the moral theory of its objects. For as in each individual man there is a higher object than the preservation of his body and goods, so if he be subjected in the last resort to a power incapable of appreciating this higher object, his social or political relations, instead of being the perfection of his being, must be its corruption; the voice of law can only agree accidentally with that of his conscience, and yet on this voice of law his life and death are to depend; for its sovereignty over him must be, by the nature of the case, absolute.

The Reviewer's distinction between primary and secondary ends, and his estimate of physical ends as primary and moral as secondary, may apply perfectly well to any society, except that which is sovereign over all human life; because so long as this sovereign society preserves the due order of objects, postponing the physical to the moral, other societies may safely in their subordinate sphere reverse it, the check upon them being always at hand; the confession theoretically, and the care practically, that the physical end shall

take precedence of the moral only at certain times and in certain instances, but that the rule of life is the other way.

And again, that singleness of object which the Reviewer considers so great an excellence, "every contrivance of human wisdom being likely to answer its end best when it is constructed with a single view to that end," belongs it is true to subordinate societies or contrivances, but ceases to exist as we ascend from the subordinate to the supreme. This is the exact difference between teaching and education; a teacher, whether it be of Latin and Greek, or of French and German, or of geography and history, or of drawing, or of gymnastics, has nothing to think of beyond his own immediate subject; it is not his concern if his pupil's tastes and abilities are more adapted to other studies, if that particular knowledge which he is communicating is claiming a portion of time more than in accordance with its value. He has one single object, to teach his own science effectually. But he who educates must take a higher view, and pursue an end accordingly far more complicated. He must adjust the respective claims of bodily and mental exercise, of different kinds of intellectual labour;-he must consider every part of his pupil's nature, physical, intellectual, and moral; regarding the cultivation of the last, however, as paramount to that of either of the others. (1) Now, according to the Reviewer's theory, the state is like the subordinate teacher; according to mine it is like the educator, and for this very reason, because its part cannot be subordinate; if you make the state no more than a particular teacher, we must look for the educator elsewhere; for the sovereign authority over us must be like the educator, it must regulate our particular lessons, and determine that we shall study most what is of most value.

But I believe that the moral theory of the objects of a state, expressed as I have here expressed it, would in itself

never have been disputed. It is considered to be objectionable and leading to great practical mischief, when stated somewhat differently; when it is said, that the great object of a state is to promote and propagate religious truth; a statement which yet appears to be identical, or nearly so, with the moral theory; so that if it be false, the moral theory is thought to be overturned with it. But it has always appeared to me that here precisely we find the great confusions of the whole question; and that the substitution of the term "religious truth" in the place of "man's highest perfection" has given birth to the great difficulties of the case. For by "religious truth" we immediately understand certain dogmatical propositions on matters more or less connected with religion; these we connect with a certain creed and a certain sect or church, and then the theory comes to be, that the great object of a state is to uphold some one particular church, conceived to be the true one, and to discountenance all who are not members of it; a form in which I do not wonder that the moral theory should be regarded as most objectionable.

All societies of men, whether we call them states or churches, should make their bond to consist in a common object and a common practice, rather than in a common belief; in other words, their end should be good rather than truth. We may consent to act together, but we cannot consent to believe together; many motives may persuade us to the one; we may like the object, or we may like our company, or we may think it safest to join them, or most convenient, and any one of these motives is quite sufficient to induce a unity of action, action being a thing in our own power. But no motives can persuade us to believe together; we may wish a statement to be true, we may admire those who believe it, we may find it very inconvenient not to believe it; all this helps us nothing; unless our own mind is freely con

vinced that the statement or doctrine be true, we cannot by possibility believe it. That union in action will in the end lead very often to union of belief is most true; but we cannot ensure its doing so; and the social bond cannot directly require for its perfectness more than union of action. It cannot properly require more than it is in the power of men to give; and men can submit their actions to a common law at their own choice, but their internal convictions they cannot.`

Such a union of action appears historically to have been the original bond of the Christian church. Whoever was willing to receive Christ as his master, to join His people, and to walk according to their rules, he was admitted to the Christian society. We know that in the earliest church there existed the strangest varieties of belief, some Christians not even believing that there would be a resurrection of the dead. Of course it was not intended that such varieties should be perpetual; a closer union of belief was gradually effected but the point to observe, is that the union of belief grew out of the union of action: it was the result of belonging to the society rather than a previous condition required for belonging to it. And it is true farther, that all union of action implies in one sense a union of belief; that is, they who agree to do a certain thing must believe that in some way or other, either as a positive good or as the lesser evil, it is desirable for them to do it. But belief in the desirableness of an act differs greatly from belief in the truth of a proposition; even fear may give unity of action, and such unity of belief as is implied by it: a soldier is threatened with death if he does not fight, and so believing that to fight is now desirable for him, as a less evil than certain death, he stands his ground and fights accordingly. But fear, though it may make us wish with all our hearts that we could believe the truth of a proposition, yet cannot enable or compel us to believe it.