A new Areopagitica, were it possible to write one, would surely be needless in our age of the world and in this country. And yet there still prevails, and that too amongst!men who plume themselves on their hberahty, no small amount of the feeling which Milton combated in his celebrated essay. Not- withstanding the abatement of intolerance, and the growth of free institutions, the repressive policy of the past has occa- sional advocates even now. Were it put to the vote, proba- bly not a few would say ay to the proposition, that the pubhc safety requires some restriction to be placed on the freedom of speech. The imprisonment of a sociaUst for blasphemy some few years since, called forth no indignant protest against the violation of " the hberty of unlicensed " speaking, but was even approved by staunch maintainers of rehgious freedom. Many would like to make it a penal offence to preach discontent to. the people; and there are not wanting others who would hang up a few demagogues by way of scarecrows. Let us look at what may be said by the advocates of a mild censorship on behalf of their opinions.
It is an assertion often made, as of indisputable truth, that government ought: to guarantee to its subjects " secuiity.and a sense of seourity^." From which maxim to the inference that it is the duty of the magistrate to keep an ear open to the say- ings of popular orators, and to stop violent declamation, as being calculated to create alarm, is an obvious step. Were the 150 THE RIGHT OF FEEE SPEECH.
premises good, the deduction might pass; but the premises are more than questionable. That it is the special function of the legislator to guard every man in the peaceable possession of his person and property, all admit; but that the legislator is called upon to quiet the fears aroused by every trifling excite- ment, is a notion almost too ridiculous for serious argument. Consider a moment to what it leads. Coupled as are the ideas " security and a sense of security," we must suppose that as governors are required to carry home " security" to every indi- vidual, so also may every individual claim the " sense of security " at their hands. Here is a pretty prospect for overburdened premiers! If such a doctrine be true, where shall the cares of the statesman end? Must he hsten to the apprehensions of every hypochondriac, in whose morbid imagination Eeform is pictured as a grim ogre of anthropophagous propensities, with pikes for claws and guillotines for teeth? If not, why not? " Sense of security" in such an one has been destroyed by the violent denunciations of some hot patriot; he wishes his trepi- dations allayed by the suppression of what he thinks dangerous speaking; and, according to the hypothesis, his wishes ought to be obeyed. On the same grounds all agitation should be extinguished, for there are invariably some — and not a small number either — who regard the discussion of every public question that comes uppermost with dread, and predict all kinds of disasters from its continuance. Old women of both sexes working themselves into a state of great tribulation over the terrible vaticinations of a Standard, or the melancholy waitings of a Herald, would fain have put down the Free Trade propaganda; and if their "sense of security" had been duly consulted, they should have had their way. Eeligious disabilities too ought, for the like reason, to have been stiU maintained, for the proposal to repeal them was productive of extreme consternation to multitudes of weak-minded people. Prophecies were rife of the return of papal persecutions; every horror narrated in the Btiok of Martyrs was expected to be acted over afresh; and an epidemic fright invalided its thousands.
THE EIGHT OF FREE SPEECH. 151 Credulous individuals listened with raised eyebrows and pendant jaws to the dismal tales of some incipient Titus Gates, and straightway had visions of fire and faggots; each saw himself in Smithfield with a stake at his back and a torch at his feet; or dreamed he was in the torture-chamber of an inquisition, and awoke iu a cold perspiration to find that he had mistaken the squeak of a mouse for the creak of a thumb-screw. Well, here was a woful loss of the " sense of security; " and therefore the authorities ought to have stopped the movement for CathoUc emancipation, by gagging all its advocates, fettering its press, and preventing its meetings.
It is useless to say that these are exaggerations, and that the alarms of nervous valetudinaiians or foolish bigots are to be disregarded. If the fears of a hundred are not to be attended to, why those of a thousand? If not those of a thousand, why those of ten thousand? How shall the Hne be drawn? where is the requisite standard? who shall teU when the sense of jwsecurity has become general enough to merit respect? Is it to be when the majority participate in it? If so, who shall decide when they do this? Perhaps it will be said that the apprehensions must be reasonable ones. Good; but who is to determine whether they are so or not? "Where is the pope who shall give an infallible judgment on such a matter? To all which questions those who would make the preservation of a "sense of security" the limit, to liberty of speech, must first find answers.
Of those animadversions upon state affairs which constitute the legal offence of bringing government into contempt, and of which offence, by the way, all parties might be accused, firom a chartist orator, to the leader of the opposition — fi-om the Times ^ with its burlesques upon the pitiful results of an annual "great talk," to its facetious contemporary who quizzes the eccen- tricities of a versatile ex-chancellor — of such animadversions the only needful question to be asked is — are they deserved? Are 152 THE RIGHT OF FREE SPEECH.
the allegations contained in them true? If it can be shown that they are not — that is, if it can he shown that the parties referred to have been unjustly aspersed — that is, if it can he shown that a violation of the law has been committed — there is an end of the matter, so far as the morahst is concerned. But, on the other hand, should they prove to he substantially correct, on what grounds shall the suppression of them be defended? That which is really contemptible ought to be exposed to con- tempt; and, if so, derogatory charges ought to have full pubhcity. To argue otherwise, is to take up the MacliiaveUian position, that it is right for the legislature to be an imposture, an "organized hypocrisy" — that it is necessary for a nation to be cheated by the semblance of virtue when there is no reahty — that pubHc opinion ought to be in error rather than in truth — or that it is well for the people to believe a lie!
There may be much danger in placing an invalid under the regimen proper to people in robust health. For a dyspeptic, chicken-broth may be in all respects better suited than more substantial fare.. And whoso is suffering under an attack of influenza, will do wisely to avoid a blustering north-wester, or even a gentle breeze from the south. But he would be thought more than silly who inferred from such facts that sohd food and fresh air are bad things. To ascribe any evil results to these, rather than to the unhealthy condition of the patients, would imply extremely crude ideas of causation.
Similarly crude, however, are the ideas of those who infer that unhmited hberty of speech is improper, because productive in certain states of society of disastrous results. It is to the abnormal condition of the body politic that all evils arising from an unrestrained expression of opinion must be attributed, and not to the unrestrained expression itself. Under a sound social regime and its accompanying contentment, nothing is to be reared from the most uncontrolled utterance of thought and THE RIGHT OF FEEE SPEECH. 163 feeling. On the other hand it may happen that where disease exists, exposure of the sore places of the state to the cold breath of criticism, -wiU superinduce alarming symptoms. But ■what then? A Louis PhDippe, a General Oavaignac, or a Louis Napoleon, may find excuse in a corrupted and disorganized state of things for espionnage, censorships, and the suppres- sion of public meetings. But what then? If a nation cannot be governed on principles of pure equity, so much the worse for the nation. Those principles remain true notwithstanding. As elsewhere pointed out (p. 37), there must necessarily exist incongruity between the perfect law and the imperfect man. And if e'nls are entailed upon a people by immediate and en- tire recognition of the law of equal freedom, in the matter of speech as well as in that of action, such evils are merely significant of the incomplete adaptation of that people to the social state, and not of any defect in the law.
CHAPTEK XV.
FURTHEK RIGHTS.
Did circumstances demand it, sundry other chapters of the same nature as the preceding ones, could be added. Were this France, it might he needfiil formally to deduce from the law of equal freedom, the right to move from place to place ■without leave of a government official. In addressing the Chinese, some proof that a man is at hherty to cut his clothes after whatever fashion may best suit him, would perhaps he called for. And, similarly, there might he found in different times and places, many other directions in which the law of equal freedom required asserting. But it is unnecessary now to repeat over again the reasoning so many times used. These that we call rights, are nothing but artificial divisions of the general claim to exercise the faculties — applications of that general claim to particular cases; and each of them is proved in the same way, by showing that the particular exercise of faculties referred to, is possible without preventing the hke exercise of faculties by other persons. The reader has already seen the most important rights thus estabUshed; and the establishment of such minor ones as have not been touched upon, may safely be left with himself CHAPTEK XVI.
THE EIGHTS OF WOMEN.
Equity knows no difference of sex. In its vocabulary the word man must be understood in a generic, and not in a spe- cific sense. The law of equal freedom manifestly applies to the whole race— female as well as male. The same a priori reasoning which estabUshes that law for men (Chaps. III. and IV.), may be used with equal cogency on behalf of women. The Moral Sense, by virtue of which the masculine mind responds to that law, exists in the feminine mind as well. Hence the several rights deducible from that law must apper- tain equally to both sexes.
This might have been thought a self-evident truth, needing only to be stated to meet with universal acceptation. There are many, however, who either tacitly, or in so many words, express their dissent from it. For what reasons they do so, does not appear. They admit the axiom, that human happi- ness is the Divine will; from which axiom, what we call rights are primarily derived. And why the dififerences of bodily or- ganization, and those trifling mental variations which distin- guish female from male, should exclude one half of the race from the benefits of this ordination, remains to be shown. The onus of proof lies on those who affirm that such is the fact; and it would be perfectly in order to assume that the law of equal freedom comprehends both sexes, until the con- trary has been demonstrated. But without taking advantage of this, suppose we go at once into the controversy.
Three positions only are open to us. It may be said that 156 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN.
women have no rights at all — that their rights are not so great as those of men — or that they are equal to those of men.
Whoever maintains the first of these dogmas, that women have no rights at all, must show that the Creator intended women to he wholly at the mercy of men — their happiness, their liherties, their lives, at men's disposal; or, in other words, that they were meant to be treated as creatures of an inferior order. Few will have the hardihood to assert this.
From the second proposition, that the rights of women are not so great as those of men, there immediately arise such queries as — If they are not so great, hy how much are they less? What is the exact ratio between the legitimate claims of the two sexes? How shall we tell which rights are com- mon to both, and where those of the male exceed those of the female? Who can show us a scale that wiU serve for the apportionment? Or, putting the question practically, it is required to determine by some logical method, [whether the Tiu"k is justified in plunging an ofiending Circassian into the Bosphorus? whether the rights of women were violated by that Athenian law, which allowed a citizen, under certain circumstances to sell his daughter or sisterPj whether our own statute, which permits a man to heat his wife in moderation, and to imprison her in any room in his house, is morally de- fensible? whether it is equitable that a married vjoman should be incapable of holding property? whether a husband may justly take possession of his wife's earnings against her will, as our law allows him to do? — and so forth. These, and a multitude of similar problems, present themselves for solution. Some principle rooted in the nature of things has to be found, by which they may be scientifically decided — decided, not on grounds of expediency, but in some definite, philosophical way. Does any one holding the doctrine that women's rights are not so great as men's, think he can find such a principle?
If not, there remains no alternative but to take up, the third position — that the rights of women are equal with those of men.
THK RIGHTS OF WOMEN. 157 Whoso urges the mental inferiority of women in bar of their claim to equal rights ■with men, may be met in various ways.
In the first place, the alleged fact may he disputed. A defender of her sex might name many whose achievements in government, in science, in literature, and ia art, have ob- tained no small share of renown. Powerful and sagacious queens the world has seen in plenty, from Zenohia, down to the empresses Catherine and Maria Theresa. In the exact sciences, Mrs. Somerville, Miss Herschel, and iliss Zomhn, have gained applause; in political economy. Miss Martineau; in general philosophy, Madame de Stael; in poUtics, Madame Eoland. Poetry has its Tighes, its Hemanses, its Landons, its Brownings; the drama its Joanna BaiUie; and fiction its Austens, Bremers, Gores, Dudevants, &c., without end. In sculpture, fame has been acquired by a princess; a picture hke "The Momentous Question" is tolerable proof of female capacity for painting; and on the stage, it is certain that women are on a level with men, if they do not even bear away the pahn. Joining to such facts the important consi- deration, that women have always been, and are stiU, placed at a disadvantage in every department of learning, thought, or skiU. — seeing that they are not admissible to the academies and universities in which men get their training; that the kind of life they have to look forward to, does not present so great a range of ambitions; that they are rarely exposed to that most powerful of all stimuh — necessity; that the education custom dictates for them is one that leaves uncultivated many of the higher faculties; and that the prejudice against blue-stockings, hitherto so prevalent amongst men, has greatly tended to deter women from the pursuit of literary honours; — adding these considerations to the above facts, we shall see good reason for thinking that the alleged inferiority of the feminine mind, is by no means self-evident.
But, waiving this point, let us contend with the proposition on its own premises. Let it be granted that the intellect of ir)8 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN.
woman is less profound than that of man — that she is more uniformly ruled by feeling, more impulsive, and less reflective, than man is — let all this be granted; and let us now see what basis such an admission aflFords to the doctrine, that the rights of women are not co-extensive with those of men.
1. If rights are to be meted out to the two sexes in the ratio of their respective amounts of intelligence, then must the same system be acted upon in the apportionment of rights between man and man. Whence must proceed aU those multiplied perplexities already pointed out. (See pp. 107 and 108.)
2. In Kke manner, it wiU follow, that as there are here and there women of unqnestionably greater ability than the average of men, some women ought to have greater rights than some men.
3. Wherefore, instead of a certain fixed allotment of rights to all males and another to all females, the hypothesis itself involves an infinite gradation of rights, irrespective of sex en- tirely, and sends us once more in search of those unattainable desiderata— a standard by which to measure capacity, and another by which to measure rights.
Not only, however, does the theory thus fall to pieces under the mere process of inspection; it is absurd on the very face of it, when freed firom the disguise of hackneyed phraseology. For what is it that we mean by rights? Nothing else than fireedom to exercise the faculties. And what is the meaning of the assertion that woman is mentally inferior to man? Simply that her faculties are less powerful. What then does the dogma, that because woman is mentally inferior to man she has less extensive rights, amount to? Just this,— that because woman has weaker faculties than man, she ought not to have like liberty with him, to exercise the faculties she has!
BeKef always bears the impress of character- is, in fact, its product. Anthropomorphism sufEiciently proves this. Men's wishes eventually get expressed in their faiths— their real faiths.
THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN. 159 that is; not their nominal ones. Pull to pieces a man's Theorj' of Things, and you will find it based upon facts collected at the suggestion of his desires. A fiery passion consumes all evi- dences opposed to its gratification, and fusing together those that serve its purpose, casts them into weapons by which to achieve its end. There is no deed so vicious but what the actor makes for himself an excuse to justify; and if the deed is often repeated, such excuse becomes a creed. The vilest trans- actions on record — Bartholomew massacres and the Uke — have had defenders; nay, have been inculcated as fulfilments of the Divine will. There is wisdom in the fable which represents the wolf as raising accusations against the lamb before devouring it. It is always thus amongst men. No invader ever raised standard, but persuaded himself that he had a just cause. Sacrifices and prayers have preceded every mihtary expedition, from one of Ceesar's campaigns, down to a border foray. God is on our side, is the universal cry. Each of two conflicting nations consecrates its flags; and whichever conquers sings a Te Deum. Attila conceived himself to have a "divine claim to the dominion of the earth: " the Spaniards subdued the Indians under plea of converting them to Christianity; hanging thirteen refractory ones in honour of Jesus Christ and his apostles: and we EngHsh justify our colonial aggressions by saying that the Creator intends the Anglo-Saxon race to people the world! An insatiate lust of conquest transmutes manslaying into a virtue; and, amongst more races than one, implacable revenge has made assassination a duty. A clever theft was praiseworthy amongst the Spartans; and it is equally so amongst Christians, provided it be on a sufiiciently large scale. Piracy was heroism with Jason and his followers; was so also with the Norsemen; is so stiU with the Malays; and there is never wanting some golden fleece for a pretext. Amongst money-hunting people a man is commended in proportion to the number of hours he spends in business; ia our day the rage for accrunulation has apotheosized work; and even the miser is not without a code of morals by which to defend his parsimony. The ruling 160 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN.
classes argue themselves into the hehef that property should be represented rather than person — that the landed interest should preponderate. The pauper is thoroughly persuaded that he has a right to reUef. The monks held printing to be an invention of the devil; and some of our modem sectaries re- gard their refractory brethren as under demoniacal possession*. To the clergy nothing is more obvious than that a state-church is just, and essential to the maintenance of rehgion. The sine- curist thinks himself rightly indignant at any disregard of his vested interests. And so on throughout society.
Perhaps the slave- owner's assertion that negroes are not human beings, and the kindred dogma of the Mahometans, that "women have no souls'", are the strangest samples of convic- tions so formed. In these, as in the foregoing cases, selfish- ness finds out a satisfactory reason why it may do what it wills — collects and distorts, exaggerates and suppresses, so as ulti- mately to cheat itself into the desired conclusion. Does any one doubt that men can really believe things thus palpably opposed to ^he plainest facts? Does any one assert that those who profess opinions so manifestly absurd must be hypocrites? Let bim beware. Let him consider whether selfishness has not deluded him into absurdities almost as gross. The laws of England, and the pubUc opinion of England, countenance doctrines nearly as preposterous as these that look to us incon- ceivable; nay, the very same doctrines somewhat softened down. For what, when closely examined, is this notion that the rights of women are not equal with those of men? Simply an evanescent form of the theory that women have no souls.
That a people's condition may be judged by the treatment which women receive under it, is a remark that has become " SpeecR of Mr. Garland, one of the Conference Methodists.
^ Though Washington Irving has pointed out that the Koran does not teach this, he has not shown that Mahomet's followers do not hold it. Most likely the Ma- hometan faith has undergone corraptions similar to those suffered by Christianity.
THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN. 161 almost trite. The facts, of which this remark is a generaUza- tion, are abundant enough. Look where we will, we find that just as far as the law of the strongest regulates the relationships between man and man, does it regiilate the relationships between man and woman. To the same extent that the triumph of might over right is seen in a nation's political institutions, it is seen in its domestic ones. Despotism in the state is neces^ sarUy associated with despotism in the family. The two being r.like moral in their origin, cannot fail to co-exist. Turkey,- Egypt, India, China, Eussia, the feudal states of Europe — it needs but to name these to suggest hosts of facts illustrative of such aa accordance.
Yet, strangely enough, almost all of us who let fall this obser- vation, overlook its application to ourselves. Here we sit over cur tea-tables, and pass criticisms upon national chaj:'a;cter, or Yjhilosophize upon the development of civilized institutions, quietly taking it for granted that we are ci^dlized — that the state of things we live under is the right one, or thereabouts. Although the people of every past age have thought the Hke and have been uniformly mistaken, there are still many to whom it nevef occurs that we may be mistaken too. Amidsf their strictures upon the ill-treatment of women in the East, and the unhealthy social arrangements impHed by it, most persons- do not see that the same connection between pohtical and domestic oppression exists in this England of ours at the present hour, and that in as far as our' laws and customs violate the rights of humanity by giving the richer classes power over the poorer, in so far do they similarly violate those rights by giving the stronger sex power over the weaken Yet, looking at the matter apart from prejudice, and considering all institutions to be, as they are, products of the popular character, we cannot avoid confessing that such must be the case. To the same extent that the old leaven of tyranny shows itself in the trans- actions of the senate, it wiU creep out in the doings of the household. If injustice sways men's public acts, it will in-' evitably sway their private ones also'. The mere fact, therefore,' M 102 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN.
that oppression marks the relationships of out-door life, is ample proof that it exists in the relationships of the fireside.
The desire to command is essentially a barbarous desire. Whether seen in tlie ukase of a Czar, or in the order of an Eton bully to his fag, it is alike significant of brutality. Command cannot be otherwise than savage, for it implies an appeal to force, should force be needful. Behind its " You shall," there lies the scarcely hidden " If you won't, I '11 make you." Command is the growl of coercion crouching in ambush. Or we might aptly term it — violence in a latent state. All its accessories — its frown, its voice, its gestures, prove it akin to the ferocity of the uncivilized man. Command is the foe of peace, for it breeds war of words and feelings — sometimes of deeds. It is inconsistent with the first law of morality. It is radically wrong.
All the barbarisms of the past have their types in the present. All the barbarisms of the past grew out of certain dispositions; those dispositions may be weakened, but they are not extinct; and so long as they exist there must be manifestations of them. What we commonly understand by command and obedience, are the modem forms of bygone despotism and slavery. Philosophically considered, they are identical with these. Despotism may be defined as the making of another's will bend to the fulfilment of our own: and its counterpart — slavery — as the having our own will subordinated to the will of another. True, we apply the terms only when the rule of one will over another is extreme — when the one wholly, or almost whoUy extinguishes the other. But if the sub- jection of man to man is bad when carried to its full extent, it is bad in any degree. If every man has freedom to exer- cise his faculties within specified Umits; and if, as we have seen (Chap. VIII.), slavery is wrong because it transgresses that freedom, and makes one man use his powers, to satisfy not his THE KIGHTS OF WOMEN. 163 own wants, but the wants of another; then, whatsoever involves command, or whatsoever imphes ohedience, is wrong also; seeiag that it too, necessitates the subserviency of one man's actions to the gratifications of another. " You must do not as you will, but as I wUl," is the basis of every mandate, whether used by a planter to his negi-o, or by a husband to his wife. Not satis- fied with being sole ruler over his own doings, the petty auto- crat oversteps the boundary dividing his sphere of action from his neighbour's, and takes upon himself to direct his or her doings also. It matters not, in point of principle, whether such domination is entire or partial. To whatever extent the win of the one is overborne by the will of the other, to that extent the parties are tyrant and slave.
There are, without doubt, many who wiU rebel against this doctrine. There are many who hold that the obedience of one human being to another is proper, virtuous, praiseworthy. There are many to whose moral sense command is not repug- nant. There are many who think the subjection of the weaker sex to the stronger legitimate and beneficial. Let them not be deceived. Let them remember that a nation's institutions and beUefs are determined by its character. Let them remember that men's perceptions are warped by their passions. Let them remember that our social state proves our superior feehngs to be very imperfectly developed. And let them remember that, as many customs deemed right by our ancestors, appear detestable to us, so, many customs which we think proper, our more civiUzed descendants may regard with aversion — even as we loathe those barbarian manners wliich forbid a woman to sit at table with her lord and master, so may mankind one day loathe that subserviency of wife to husband, which existing laws enjoin.