reign, Coercion in all its forms— educational or other— is essen- tially vicious.
And here we are naturaUy led to remark once more the ne- cessary incongruity between the perfect law and the imperfect THE RIGHTS OF CHILDREN. 189 man. Whatsoever of Utopianism there may seem to \>e in the foregoing doctrines, is due not to any error in them but to faults in ourselves. A partial impracticability must not per- plex us; must, on tlie contrary, be expected. Just in propor- tion to our distance below the purely moral state, must be our difi&culty in acting up to the moral law, either in the treatment of children or in anything else. It is not for us, however, to magnify and ponder over this difficulty. Our course is simple. We have just to fulfil the law as far as in us lies, resting satis- fied that the limitations necessitated by our present condition win quite soon enough assert themselves.
Meanwhile let it be remarked that the main obstacle to the right conduct of education Ues rather in the parent than in the child. It is not that the child is insensible to influences higher than that of force, but that the parent is not virtuous enough to use them. Fathei-s and mothers who enlarge upon the trouble which filial misbehaviour entails upon them, strangely assume that aU the blame is due to the evil propensities of their ofispring and none to their own. Though on their knees they confess to being miserable sinners, yet to hear their complaints of undutrful sons and daughters you might suppose that they were them- selves immaculate. They forget that the depravity of their children is a reproduction of their own depravity. They do not recognise in these much-scolded, often-beaten Httle ones so many looking-glasses wherein they may see reflected their own selfish- ness. It would astonish them to assert that they behave as improperly to their children as their children do to them. Yet a little candid self-analysis would show them that half their commands are issued more for their own convenience or grati- fication than for corrective purposes. "I won'thave thatnoise!" exclaims a disturbed father to some group of vociferous juveniles: and the noise ceasing, he claims to have done something to- wards making his family orderly. Perhaps he has; but how? By exhibiting that same evil disposition which he seeks to check in his children — a determination to sacrifice to his own happiness the happiness of others. Observe, too, the impulse 190 THE RIGHTS OF CHILDREN.
under which a refractory child is punished. Instead of anxiety for the delinquent's welfare, that severe eye and compressed Hp denote rather the ire of an offended ruler — express some such inward thought as " You little wretch, we '11 soon see who is to he master." Uncover its roots, and the theory of parental au- thority will be found to grow not out of man's love for his offspring but out of his love of dominion. Let any one who doubts this hsten to that common reprimand " How dare you disobey me? " and then consider what the emphasis means. No no, moral-force education is widely practicable even now, if parents were civilized enough to use it.
But of course the obstacle is in a measure reciprocal. Even the best samples of childhood as we now know it will be occa- sionally unmanageable by suasion: and when inferior natures have to be dealt with, the difficulty of doing without coercion must be proportionably great. Nevertheless patience, self- denial, a sufficient insight into j-outhful emotions, and a due sympathy with them, added to a little ingenuity in the choice of means, will usually accompUsh all that can be wished. Only let a parent's actions and words and manner show that his ovm feeUng is a thoroughly right one, and he will rarely fail to awaken a responsive feehng in the breast of his child.
One further objection remains to be noticed. It wiU probably be said that if the rights of children are co-extensive with those of adults, it must follow that children axe equally entitled with adults to citizenship, and ought to be similarly endowed with political power. This inference looks somewhat alarming; and it is easy to imagine the triumphant air of those who draw it, and the smiles with which they meditate upon the absurdities it suggests. Nevertheless the answer is simple and decisive. There must go two things to originate an incongruity; and, before passing censure, it is needful to say which of the two incongruous things is in fault. In the present case the incon- THE RIGHTS OF CHILDREN. ' 191 gruity is between the institution of government on the one side, and a certain consequence of the law of equal freedom on the other. Which of the two is to be condemned for this? In the above objection it is tacitly assumed that the blame lies with this consequence of the law of equal freedom: whereas the fact is just the other way. It is with the institution of government that the blame lies. Were the institution of government an essentially right one, there would be reason to suppose that our conclusion was fallacious; but being as it is the offspring of immorality, it must be condemned for conflicting with the moral law, and not the moral law for conflicting with it. Were the moral law universally obeyed, government would not exist; and did government not exist, the moral law could not dictate the political enfranchisement of children. Hence the alleged absurdity is traceable to the present evil constitution of society, and not to some defect in our conclusion.
Concerning the extension of the law of equal freedom to children, we must therefore say, that equity commands it, emd that expediency recommends it. We find the rights of children to be deducible from the same axiom, and by the same argument as the rights of adults; whilst denial of them involves us in perplexities out of which there seems to be no escape. The association between filial subservience and barbarism — the evident kinship of fiUal subservience to social and marital slavery — and the fact that fiUal subservience declines with the advance of civUization, suggest that such subservience is bad. The viciousness of a coercive treatment of children is further proved by its utter failure to accomplish the chief end of moral education — the culture of the sympathies; by its tendency to excite feelings of antagonism and hate; and by the check which it necessarily puts upon the development of the all-import- ant faculty of self-control. Whilst, on the other hand, a non- coercive treatment being favourable to, and almost necessi- 192 THE RIGHTS OF CHILDREN.
tating, constant appeals to the higher feelings, must, by exer- cising those feelings, improve the character; and must, at the same time, accustom the child to that condition of freedom in which its after-Ufe is to he passed. It turns out, too, that the very need for a moral training of children is but temporary, and that, consequently, a true theory of the filial relationship must not presuppose Uke the command-and-obedience theory that such a need is permanent. Lastly, we find reason to attribute whatever of incompatibiUty there may be between these con- clusions and our daily experience, not to any error in them, but to the necessary incongruity between the perfect law and an imperfect humanity.
PART III.
CHAPTER XVIII.
POLITICAL RIGHTS.
Our principle is the primordial one. It is the first pre-re- quisite to the realization of the Divine -will. Every mode of interpreting that will points to this as the all-essential condition of its fulfilment. If we start with an a priori view of creative design, we are immediately led to the law of equal freedom (Chap. III). Do we appeal to the general character of the human constitution? the law of equal freedom is its corollary (Chap. IV). And when, pursuing the examination ftirther, we observe the detailed arrangements of that constitution, we dis- cover a faculty by which the law of equal freedom is recognised and responded to (Chap. V.). Otherwise viewed, this law is seen to be a direct deduction from the necessities of existence: as thus. Life depends upon the performance of certain actions. Abrogate entirely the Hberty to exercise the faculties, and we have death: abrogate it partially, and we have pain or partial death. This remains true of man whether he be savage or civilized — isolated or social. And as there must be hfe before there can be society, this first principle of hfe must take prece- dence of tiie first principle of society — must fix or govern it. Or, speaking definitely, as liberty to exercise the faculties is the first condition of individual hfe, the hberty of each, limited only by the like liberty of all, must be the first condition of social life.
Derived, therefore, as it is, directly from the Divine will, and underlying as-it does the right organization of society, the law of equal freedom is of higher authority than all other laws. The creative purpose demands that everything shall be subordi- ]90 POLITICAL EIGHTS.
nated to it. Institutions and social forms must just marshal themselves as it commands. It dates from the creation; they are of yesterday. It is constant; they are changeable. It appertains to the perfect; they to the imperfect. It is co- enduring with humanity; they may die to-morrow. As surely then as the incidental must how before the necessary, so surely must all conventional arrangements be subject to the absolute moral law.
Allusion has from time to time been made to a school of politicians, especially claiming for themselves the title of philo- sophical, who demur to this. They do not recognise any such supreme authority to which all human regulations must bend. Practically, if not professedly, they hold, with Archelaus, that nothing is intrinsically right or wrong; but that it becomes either by the dictum of the state. If we are to credit them government determines what shall be morality; and not morality what shall be government. They believe in no oracular principle by whose yea or nay we may be guided: their Delphi is the House of Commons. By their account man lives and moves and has his being by legislative permit. His freedom to do this or that is not natural, but conferred. The question — Has the citizen any claim to the work of bis hands? can only be decided by a parliamentary division. If " the ayes have it," he has; if " the noes," he has not.
The reader who has arrived thus far, needs not to have the fallacy of this doctrine pointed out. The expediency-system, of which it forms an essential part, has been repeatedly proved untenable, and with it must fall its dependent propositions. And having, moreover, been collaterally refuted in foregoing chapters, the notion that man has no rights save those of government manufacture, might safely be left where it lies. There are, however, additional evidences of its untruth, which it may be as well to state. And first let us inquire how it has originated.
POLITICAL RIGHTS. 197 Considering society as a corporate body, we may say that man, when he first enters into it, has the repulsive force in excess, wliilst in the cohesive force he is deficient. His passions are strong; his sympathies weak. Those propensities which fitted him for savage life necessarily tend to breed war between himself and his neighbours. His condition has been that of perpetual antagonism; and his antagonistic habits must of course accompany him into the social state. Aggression, dispute, anger, hatred, revenge — these are the several stages of the process by which the members of a primitive community are continually being sundered. Hence the smaUness of the first communities. Populations burst as fast as they increase. Eaces spUt into tribes; tribes into factions. Only as civilization advances do larger unions become possible. And even these have to pass through some such stage as that of feudalism, with its small chieftainships and right of private war, showing that the tendency to repel is still active.
Now, in proportion to the repulsive force subsisting between atoms of matter, must be the restraint required to keep them from exploding. And in proportion to the repulsive force sub- sisting between the units of a society must be the strength of the bonds rec[uisite to prevent that society from flying to pieces. Some powerful concentrative influence there must be to pro- duce even these smallest unions: and this influence must be strong in proportion to die savageness of the people; other- wise the unions cannot be maintained. Such an influence we have in the sentiment of veneration, reverence for power, loyalty, or, as Carlyle terms it — hero-worship. By this feeliag it is, that society begins to be organized; and where the bar- barism is greatest, there is this feeling strongest. Hence the fact that all traditions abound in superhuman beings, in giants and demigods.' The mythical accounts of Bacchus and Her- cules, of Thor and Odin, and of the various divine and half- divine personages who figure in the early histories of aU races.
198 POLITICAL RIGHTS.
merely prove the intensity of the awe with which superiority was once regarded. In that behef of some of the Polynesian Islanders that only their chiefs have souls, we find a still ex- tant example of the almost incredible influence which this sentiment of reverence has over savage men. Through it only does all authority, whether that of ruler, teacher, or priest, be- come possible. It was ahke the parent of behefs in the mira- culous conception of Gengis Khan, in the prophetic characters of Zoroaster, Confucius, and Mahomet, and in the infallibility of the Pope. Where it no longer deifies power, it associates it with divine attributes. Thus it was death for the Assyrian to enter unbidden into the presence of his monarch. The still stationary Orientals ascribe to their emperors celestial relationsliips. Schamyl, the prophet-chief of the Circassians, is beUeved to have entire union with the Divine essence. And the Eussian soldiers pray for their Czar as " our God upon earth." The fealty of vassal to feudal lord — the devotion of Highland Celt to chief — were exhibitions of the same feeling. Loyalty it made the brightest virtue, and treason the blackest crime.
With the advance of civilization this awe of power diminishes. Instead of looking up to the monarch as a God, it begins to view him as a man reigning by divine authority — as " the Lord's anointed." Submission becomes less abject. Subjects no longer prostrate themselves before their rulers, nor do serfs kiss their master's feet..Obedience ceases to be unlimited: men will choose their own faiths. Gradually, as there grow up those sentiments which lead each to maintain his own rights, and sympathetically to respect the rights of others — gradually as each, thus, by the acquirement of self-restraining power, be- comes fitted to live in harmony with liis fellow — so gradually do men cease to need external restraint, and so gradually does this feehng which makes them submit to that external restraint decrease. The law of adaptation necessitates this. The feeling must lose power just as fast as it. ceases to be needful. As the new regulator grows, the old one must dwindle. The first amehoration of a piu-e despotism is a partial POLITICAL RIGHTS. 199 supplanting of the one by the other. Mixed constitutions exhibit the two acting conjointly. And whilst the one advances to supremacy, the other sinks into decrepitude: divine right of kings is exploded, and monarchical power becomes but a name.
Although the adaptation of man to the social state has al- ready made considerable progress — although the need for ex- ternal restraint is less — and although consequently that rever- ence for authority which makes restraint possible, has greatly diminished — diminished to such an extent that the holders of power are daily caricatured, and men begin to listen to the National Anthem with their hats on — stiU the change is far from complete. The attributes of the aboriginal man have not yet died out. We stiU trench upon each other's claims — stQl pursue happiness at each other's expense. Our savage selfishness is seen in commerce, in legislation, in social arrange- ments, in amusements. The shopkeeper imposes on his lady customer; his lady customer beats down the shopkeeper. Classes quarrel about their respective " interests; " and cor- ruption is defended by those who profit from it. The spirit of caste morally tortures its victims with as much coolness as the Indian tortures his enemy. Gamblers pocket their gains with unconcern: and your share-speculator cares not who loses, so that he gets his premium. No matter what their rank, no matter in what they are engaged — whether in enacting a Com Law, or in strugghng with each other at the doors of a theatre — men show themselves as yet, little else than barbarians in broadcloth.
Hence we still require shackles; rulers to impose them; and power-worship to make those rulers obeyed. Just as much as the love of God's law is deficient, must the fear of man's law be called in to supply its place. And to the extent that man's law is needful there must be reverence for it to ensure the necessary allegiance. Hence, as men are still under the in- fluence of this sentiment, we must expect their customs,, creeds, and philosophies to testify of its presence.
200 POLITICAL RIGHTS.
Here, theD, we have a rationale of the expediency-idea of government. It is the latest and most refined form assumed hy this disposition to exalt the state at the expense of the indi- vidual. There have heen books written to prove that the monarch's will should be the subject's absolute law; and if in- stead of monarch we read legislature, we have the expediency- theory. It merely modifies "divine right of kings" into diviae right of governments. It is despotism democratized. Between that old eastern regime under which the citizen was the private property of his ruler, having no rights at aU, and that final state under which his rights will be entire and in- violable, there comes this intermediate state in which he is allowed to possess rights, but only by sufferance of parUament. Thus the expediency-philosophy falls naturally into its place as a phenomenon attending our progress from past slavery to future freedom. It is one of a series of creeds through which mankind have to pass. Like each of its predecessors, it is natural to a certain phase of human development. And it is fated to lose its hold as fast as our adaptation to the social state increases.
It is only by bearing in mind that a theory of some kind being needful for men tliey wiU espouse any absurdity in de- fault of something better, that we can understand how Kousseau's doctrine of Social Contract ever came to be so widely received. This fact remembered, however, the belief in such a doctrine becomes comprehensible. Here were men combined together under government and law. It seemed clear that the arrange- ment was on the whole a beneficial one. Hence the very natural, though erroneous, conclusion that state-authority was a moral institut€f. And state-authority being taken for a moral institute, it became needful to account for it, to defend it, to reconcile it with justice and truth. Under which stimulus there suggested itself this theory of a covenant originally entered into POLITICAL RIGHTS. 201 between individuals on the one hand, and the community, or agents acting for it, on the other, by -which allegiance was agreed to he exchanged for protection; and iu virtue of which supposed covenant governments continue to exercise power and demand obedience.
That such an explanation should have satisfied the unthink- ing, is not to be wondered at; but it is passing strange that it should have gained credence amongst educated men. Observe the battery of fatal objections which may be opened upon it.
In the first place, the assumption is a purely gratuitous one. Before submitting to legislative control on the strength of an agreement alleged to have been made by our forefathers, we ought surely to have some proof that such agreement was made. But no proof is given. On the contrary, the facts, so far as we can ascertain them, rather imply that under the earliest social forms, whether savage, patriarchal, or feudal, obedience to authority was given unconditionally; and that when the ruler afforded protection it was because he resented the attempt to exercise over one of his subjects a power similar to his own — a conclu- sion quite in harmony with what we know of oaths of allegiance taken in later times.
Again; even supposing the contract to have been made, we are no forwarder, for it has been repeatedly invalidated by the violation of its terms. There is no people but what has from time to time rebelled; and there is no government but what has, in an infinity of cases, failed to give the promised protec- tion. How, then, can this hypothetical contract be considered binding, when, if ever made, it has been broken by both parties?
But, granting the agreement, and granting that nothing positive has occurred to vitiate it, we have still to be shown on what principle that agreement, made, no one knows when, by no one knows/whom, can be held to tie people now hving. Dynasties have,, changed, and different forms of government have supplanted each other, since the alleged transaction could have taken place; -whilst, between the people who are supposed 202 POLITICAL EIGHTS.
to have been parties to it, and their existing descendants, unnumbered generations have lived and died. So we must assume that this covenant has over and over again survived the deaths of all parties concerned! Truly a strange power this which our forefathers wielded — to be able to fix the behaviour of their descendants for all futurity! What would any one think of being required to kiss the Pope's toe, because his great- great-great-grandfather promised that he should do so?
However, there never was such a contract. If there had been, constant breaches must have destroyed it. And even if undestroyed it could not bind us, but only those who made it.
The self-importance of a Malvoho is sufficientiy ludicrous; but we must go far beyond it to parallel the presumption of legislatures. Some steward who, deluded by an intense craving after dominion, and an impudence equal to his craving, should construe his stewardship into proprietorship, would more fitly illustrate it. Were such an one to argue that the estate he was appointed to manage had been virtually resigned into his possession — that to secure the advantages of his administration its owner had given up all titie to it — that he now lived on it only by his (the steward's) sufierance — and that he was in futiure to receive no emoluments firom it, except at his (the steward's) good pleasure — then should we have an appropriate travesty upon the behaviour of governments to nations; then should we have a doctrine perfectly analogous to this fashion- able one, which teaches how men on becoming members of a community, give up, for the sake of certain social advantages, their natural rights. Adherents of tliis fashionable doctrine will doubtless protest against such an interpretation of it. They have no reasonable cause for doing so, however, as will appear on submitting them to a cross-examination. Suppose we begin it thus: — "Your hypothesis that men, when they entered into the POLITICAL EIGHTS. 203 social state, surrendered their original freedom, implies that they entered into such state voluntarily, does it not? " " It does."
" Then they must have considered the social state preferable to that under which they had previously lived? " " Necessarily."
" Why did it appear preferable? " " Because it offered greater security."
" Greater security for what? " " Greater security for life, for property, for the things that minister to happiness."
" Exactly. To get more happiness: that must have been the object. If they had expected to get more ««happiness, they would not have wiUingly made the change, would they?"
"No."
" Does not happiness consist in the due satisfaction of all the desires? in the due exercise of all the faculties? " "And this exercise of the faculties is impossible without freedom of action. The desires cannot be satisfied without liberty to pursue and use the objects of them."
" True."
"Now it is this freedom to exercise the faculties within specific limits, which we signify by the term ' rights,' is it not? "