On this page
- Departments (1)
-
Text (7)
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
/~ry *i. -VA*lY + -M--»*iV 4L IlFiUIIliw
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
these ideas find any favour in your sight , you will be pleased to exhibit them to that large body the public , for whose benefit you are now sitting . C . T .
Untitled Article
LAWS OF NATURE : POPULATION . June 11 , 1850 . Str . —Allow me to observe that the remarks in the last number of the Leader on my letter on the " Laws of Nature and Population , " appear to me to contain no answer to my positions , but only declamation instead of reason and facts , the usual fault of " sentimentalists . " By " sentimentalism" I mean the setting up of feeling or ** moral sense , " as a test of truth in opposition to reason , fact , and the laws of Nature . I have no objection to " sentiment" provided it be kept within due bounds by reason and knowledge ; otherwise it must lead to great and deplorable errors .
I argue that sentiment or moral sense must not be taken as our sole guide in principle or action , as the writer seems to contend , for he says , " nothing that our moral sense revolts against shall have our political approbation , " and " we oppose the unequivocal verdict of our most powerful feelings , " because the laws of Nature , which I regard as the only infallible test of truth , and from which there is no appeal , do often contradict our moral sense or sense of justice and humanity , as in the support of animal life by animal destruction , the innocent being involved in the punishment of the guilty in the operation of general laws , &c . &c . ; consequently it is very
possible that a principle or a law may offend our moral sense , and yet , being in accordance with the laws of Nature , must be incontestibly true . Our moral sense may mislead us , for it may be the result of erroneous instruction ; but the laws of Nature , being founded on universal facts , cannot err . Our moral sense may induce us to relieve the casual beggar ; but experience proves that in doing so , nine times out often , we encourage idleness and roguery . It will never be well for the cause of real humanity till philanthropists take counsel of the laws of Nature instead of their «• moral sense , " which experience proves to be a very fallacious guide .
With respect to the assertion of Malthus , as regards the rate of increase of population and subsistence , it has no necessary connection with the question . " Some , " says Mill { Political Economy ^ vol . 1 ., p . 421 ) , " have achieved an easy victory over a passing remark of Mr . Malthus , hazarded chiefly by way of illustration , that the increase of food may perhaps be assumed to take place in an arithmetical ratio while population increases in a geometrical , when every candid reader knows that Mr . Malthus laid no stress
on this unlucky attempt to give numerical precision to things which do not admit of it , and every person capable of reasoning must see that it is wholly superfluous to his argument . " The facts to be kept in mind are that land is limited and its productiveness is limited ; " this limited quantity of land , " says Mill , " and limited productiveness of it , are the real limits to the increase of production , " and that in all civilized countries the births exceed the deaths :
from those facts it seems to follow as a necessary consequence that , without the intervention of some checks which Nature seems to have provided , the population would ultimately exceed the means of subsistence . In proportion , therefore , as the physical checks are removed or mitigated , the mojal checks must be called into operation ; and I confess I have yet to learn that there is anything " immoral " or " revolting " in the exercise of prudence and self-restraint , or anything highly moral ( as seems implied ) in the free play of the animal instincts . It is true self-restraint maybe an evil , but it is one of the necessary characteristics of civilization which , says Mill , "in every one of its
aspects is a struggle against animal instincts , ' an evil which is counterbalanced by many advantages , and therefore to be submitted to unless we prefer the freedom of savage life . If philanthropists expect , as some seem to do , to frame a system of society that shall ho altogether or almost free from evil , Nature , I consider , pronounces them to be visionary and impracticable , for the system of Nature is one of compenvnion not of perfection . F . B . Barton .
Untitled Article
RIGHT OF THE SUFFRAGE . Dundee , May 26 , 1850 . Snt , —As one of the unfranchised who have always held the . suffrage to be the absolute natural right of every sound-minded adult man ( to say nothing of v run on at present ) would you allow me , through the medium of your Open Council , to put a few questions , &c , to your correspondent II . R ., who takes the opposite view .
And first , I would ask , has not every infant born an absolute natural right to life ? If not , who has a nVnt to tnko life away from it ? If it hao , has it not in equal right to its mother ' s fostering care , and to its natural sustenance ? Does not all humanity respond in the affirmative ? And if this be admitted , has not every adult man the samo absolute natural y i ^' ht to life and sustenance which he had when an infant , seeing that Nature which gives the right also
furnishes the means of exercising and enjoying it ? If not , again I ask , who has the right to withhold or destroy them ? If he has these absolute natural rights , and I affirm he has , is not the right to the suffrage equally natural and absolute as a consequence ? How can a man hold , and enjoy life as a man without the suffrage ? Is it not the suffrage , directly or indirectly , which disposes of his means of subsistence and enjoyment ? Does not the suffrage by its institutions , mark out the limits of his share of the surface of the earth—of his estate either in land , houses , or other property ? Does it not take from
him in the form of taxes as much , or as little , as is deemed requisite for the objects in view ? Does it not surround him with circumstances to enrich or to pauperize him ? Does it not , in short , dispose of his whole earthly interests ?—ay , and does it not attempt to influence the way he should go to secure his wellbeing hereafter ? Seeing , then , that the suffrage is so omnipotent for good or for evil throughout the lifetime of man , and seeing that the complete enjojrment of life depends so much upon its proper exercise , — who will say that I have not as much right to the suffrage as to my life ? and that that right is not at
once natural and absolute ? If I have not a right to the suffrage , who has ? And not only who has a right to their own personal suffrage , but who has the right to use that personal suffrage for the destruction or withholding of mine ? Am I to be denied my right to the suffrage by only my equal fellowman ? Is he to deprive me of the exercise of my suffrage , by the usurping power of his ; or is there any higher power to whom to appeal to settle the question ? H . It . tells us that " the suffrage is the right of those who desire it , and can use it advantageously for the community to which he belongs . " I cannot see what desire has to do with the principle of right—for example I have a complete and absolute natural right to bathe or wash myself in the sea
—yet I may have no desire to wash or bathe in itstill my right to do so remains the same , and then , who are the parties who are to judge of my fitness for the exercise of the suffrage—assuming me to be of sound mind ? Perhaps a set of men whose expansive views of humanity are such as to deem me unfit and dangerous to society on account of certain religious or social opinions—on account of my seeking to make every one as well to do in life as myself—they might see in my opinions or conduct something -which was dangerous to their class—and by consequence to society , and deem me not only unfit to exercise the suffrage—but deserving the gallows or the hulks . Such has been the state of matters—aye , such is the state of matters at the present moment .
If H . R / s views of this subject be correct , I am doubtful if there is any right in the case ; it simply resolves itself into the rule of might being the rule of right— " The good old plan Of him to take who has the power , And him . to keep who can . " But , dropping the question of right , I would ask if the suffrage were exercised by every adult male , is it not reasonable to conclude that every elector would
consult his own well-being in the exercise of it , and , if so , would not this result in what was best or most for the advantage of the community ? I should think so , but again the question is asked—would each elector know what was best for his own welfare—or would the majority of the electors know it ? I reply , they would at least have some inducement to find that out , and the greater probability is , that the majority would know what was best for their interests ; or which out of a number of canditatcs was the fittest
to legislate for the general well-being ; and even it they did not , they would not be long in finding it out and retracing their steps . They would do this , because , to say nothing of duty , their interest would indicate their course ; and I may add there is much more danger to society from knowing rogues with a restricted suffrage than from simple , well-intentioned ignorance with manhood suffrage , because the first is morally lost , but the latter , though they might have to grope their way , being morally sound , would find it in the end . I am , yours , respectfully , P .
Untitled Article
The Nation ' s Spring . —There comes frequently a spring in the life of a people , when the inner life , as it were , bursts its bands and blossoms forth vigorously . These are the times when a people creates energetically for itself a living unity as a people , an eternal , undying genius with a jjeculiar existence , a peculiar mission in the history of mankind . And such a time does not come all at once , as by a stroke of magic . No ! silent streams from the fountains of life , silent influences of the sun , quickening winds , storms , or zephyrs , prepare it long
beforehand . So in this case . All the pure patriotism , all the great capacity of the humanly great ; that which genius and virtue have effected through the men and women of Denmark ; which the great kings of this little country , its warriors and poets have accomplished , through the past centuries for the nation ' s honour , for the good of the people , for the advancement of this spring of which we speak , all this we must leave unmentioned ; little , indeed , of it has the historian recorded in any case . —Frederika Bremer ' s Easter Offering .
Untitled Article
Critics axe not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not make laws—they interpret ana try to enforce them . —Edinburgh Review .
Untitled Article
There is no more hopeful " sign of the times " than the growing strength and sweep of tolerance , the very heart ' s core of wisdom , which manifests itself daily in unexpected facts . To cite one typical example , Newman ' s Phases of Faith is to be had at the Circulating Libraries ! The book which of all others most penetratingly and securely saps the foundation of reigning dogmas , which
unequivocally says that the doctrine taught in Churches and high places is no longer the doctrine to animate men and society , —this book Englishmen are not only suffered to read , without having the finger of scorn pointed at them , but they may absolutely send to the library for it as for any of the " new publications . " There is strength in a society which can suffer such things ; there is hope for a nation , which can listen to the words of earnest men , even
when those men most oppose them . Compare such a spirit of tolerance with that which , peremptorily stifled the first germ of inquiry in Abe lard , which two centuries later lighted up Europe with its fagots—the blazing beacons of a society terrified to its very depths—which even in our own recent days took Shelley ' s children from him , and has ruined the prospects , embittered the lives , and maddened the hearts of hundreds . Think of such a book as the Phases of Faith being openly cited , openly read , twenty years ago ! We cannot despair when we know that such a . spirit is abroad ; when we 1 know that the earnest intellects , without
losing any earnestness , without losing even any dogmatism , are becoming more and more alive to the importance of absolute freedom in discussion , more and more alive to the fact that the moral qualities of men are not to be judged of according to any test of orthodoxy . Absolute Freedom , or the Inquisition : if you are logical you have no other alternative ! The right of free inquiry is absolute , or it is null . If any restrictions are to be placed on opinion , all restriction is justifiable , nay more , it is necessary .
Blindness or open daylight , choose ; twilight or coloured spectacles are feeble compromises , which can only end where all compromises end—in ruin . So true is it that the only alternative to absolute freedom is absolute interdiction , ' that in France at the present moment the " Party of Order , " as with profound but unconscious irony it styles itself , is employing great eloquence and ingenuity in rehabilitating the Inquisition ! and in Prussia the new laws of the press are even worse than the ancient censorship , virtually permitting Government to
suppress any opinion it pleases . Therefore we say to M . Ledru Rollin , in answer to his second volume just published , De la Decadence de V'Angleterre , that England has greater prospects of a peaceful and glorious career before it than France has , if only for two fundamental reasons : We have a more thorough sense and practice of liberty of the press , and a more deep-rooted and familiar power and practice of selfgovernment springing from a deeper sense of justice . But this is not the occasion for an argument .
Having named Ledhu Rollin ' s second volume as the . novelty in French literature , we may add that it is essentially a continuation of the volume already reviewed in our columns ; with the same ability , the same one-sidedness , and the same purpose . There is much truth in his denunciations ; but , when we see him so obstinatel y flattering France , we cannot but suspect his judgment . If England is in no very satisfactory condition , surely France is not more enviable . The book is a speech at a club—in two volumes , octavo .
The second volume of Eugene Sue ' s last novel , Los JSnfants da VAmour , has appeared , and our readers may be glad to know that it is simply a novel , without any of M . Sue ' s recent excursions into the regions of philosophy and philanthropy : if it would not have gained le prix Monthyon , neither would it have presented the author to the electors of Paris . The last Revue des Deux Mondes introduces to our notice a new authoress—a Dutchwoman . This
is Mademoiselle Toussaint , whose historical romance , JLeycester in Nederland , is very flatteringl y spoken of by M . J . J . Ampere j but we fear Dutch is by no means a general accomplishment , and no translator has been found . The Literary event in Germany has been the
Untitled Article
June 15 , 1850 . ] ©!> * 3 Lta $ teV . 279
/~Ry *I. -Va*Ly + -M--»*Iv 4l Ilfiuiiliw
Xitttatntt
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), June 15, 1850, page 279, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1842/page/15/
-