The functions attached to the situation of a mem- ber of parliament may be included, most or all of them, under three denominations — the legislative^, the judicial, and the inquisitorial: the legislative, in virtue of which, in each house, each member that pleases takes a part in the making of laws: the judicial, which, whether penal cases or cases non-penal be con- sidered, is not exercised to any considerable extent but by the House of Lords: and the inquisitorial, the exercise of which is performed by an inquiry into facts, with a view to the exercise either of legislative authority, or of judicial authority, or both, whichever the case may be found to require. To the exercise of either branch may be referred what is done, when, on the ground of some defect either in point of moral or intellectual fitness, or both, application is made by either house for the removal of, any member or mem- bers of the executive branch of the official establisli- ment, any servant or servants of the crown.
But for argument sake, suppose the above-mention- ed extreme case to be realized, all these functions are equally nugatory. Whatever law is acceptable to the crown, will be not only introduced but carried. No law that is not acceptable to the crown, will be so much as introduced. Every judgment that is accept- 228 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [Ch. 2.
able to the crown will be pronounced. No judgment that is not acceptable to the crown will be pronounced. Every inquiry that is acceptable to the crown will be made. No inquiry that is not acceptable to the crown will be made; and in particular, let, on the part of the servants of the crown, any or all of then), misconduct in every imaginable shape be ever so enormous, no application that is not acceptable to the crown will ever be made for their removal: that is, no such application will ever be made at all; for in this state of things, supposing it in the instance of any servant of the crown to be the pleasure of the crown to remove him, he w^ill be removed of course; nor can any such application be productive of any thing better than needless loss of time.
Raised to the pitch supposed in this extreme case, there are not, it is supposed, many men in the country by whom the influence of the crown, of that sort which is exercised by the will of the crown on the wills of members of parliament, would not be really regarded as coming under the denomination of sinister in- fluence; not so much as a single one by whom its title to that denomination would be openly denied.
But among members of parliament, many there are on whom, beyond possibility of denial, this sort of in- fluence— influence of vvill on will — is exerted: since no man can be in possession of any desirable situation from which he is removable, without its being exerted on him; say rather, without its exerting himself on him, for to the production of the full effect of in- Ch. 2.] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 229 fluence, no act, no express intimation of will on the part of any person, is in any such situation necessary.
Here, then, comes the grand question in dispute. In some opinions, of that sort of influence of will on will, exercising itself from the crown on a member of parliament, or at any rate on a member of the House of Commons composed of the elected representatives of the people, not any the least particle is necessary, — not any the least particle is in any way beneficial, — not any the least particle, in so far as it is opera- tive, can be other than pernicious.
In the language of those by whom this opinion is held, every particle of such influence is sinister in- fluence, corrupt or corruptive influence, or in one word corruption.
Others there are in whose opinion, or at any rate, if not in their opinion, in whose language, of that in- fluence thus actually exercising itself, the whole, or some part at any rate, is not only innoxious but bene- ficial, and not only beneficial but, to the maintenance of the constitution in a good and healthful state, ab- solutely necessary: and to this number must natu- rally be supposed to belong all those on whom this obnoxious species of influence is actually exercising itself.
230 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. \Ch. 3.
CHAPTER III.
Vague Generalities.
Ad judicium.
E.vpositio?i.
Vague generalities comprehend a numerous class of fallacies resorted to by those who, in preference to the most particular and determinate terms and expres- sions which the nature of the case in question admits of, employ others more general and indeterminate.
An expression is vague and ambiguous when it de- signates, by one and the same appellative, an object which may be good or bad, according to circumstances; and if, in the course of an inquiry touching the quali- ties of such an object, such an expression is employed without a recognition of this distinction, the expres- sion operates as a fallacy.
Take, for instance, the terms, government^ lawSy morals, religion. The genus comprehended in each of these terms may be divided into two species — the good and the bad; for no one can deny that there have been and still are in the world, bad governments, bad laws, bad systems of morals, and bad religions. The bare circumstance, therefore, of a man's attack- ing government or law, morals or religion, does not of itself afford the slightest presumption that he is en- gaged in any thing blameable: if his attack is only Ch. 3.] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 231 directed against that which is bad in each, his efforts may be productive of good to any extent.
This essential distinction the defender of abuse takes care to keep out of sight, and boldly imputes to his antagonist an intention to subvert all governments, laws, morals, or religion.
But it is in the way of insinuation, rather than in the form of direct assertion, that the argument is in this case most commonly brought to bear. Propose any thing with a view to the improvement of the existing practice in relation to government at large, to the law, or to religion, he will treat you with an ora- tion on the utility and necessity of government, of law, or of religion. To what end? To the end that of your own accord you may draw the inference which it is his desire you should draw, even that what is proposed has in its tendency something which is pre- judicial to one or other or all of these objects of gene- ral regard. Of the truth of the intimation thus con- veyed, had it been made in the form of a direct asser- tion or averment, some proof might naturally have been looked for. By a direct assertion, a sort of no- tice is given to the hearer or reader to prepare him- self for something in the shape of proof: but when nothing is asserted, nothing is on the one hand offer- ed, nothing on the other expected, to be proved.
'23'2 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [Cli. 3.
Exposure.
1. Order.
Among the several cloudy appellatives which have been commonly employed as cloaks for misgovern- inent, there is none more conspicuous in this atmo- sphere of illusion than the word Order.
The word order is in a peculiar degree adapted to the purpose of a cloak for tyranny; — the word order is more extensive than law, or even than government. But, what is still more material, the word order is of the eulogistic cast; whereas the words government and lan\ howsoever the things signified may have been taken in the lump for subjects of praise, the complexion of the signs themselves is still tolerably neutral: just as is the case with the words constitu- tion and institutions.
Thus, whether the measure or arrangement be a mere transitory measure or a permanent law, if it be a tyrannical one, be it ever so tyrannical, in the word order you have a term not only wide enough, but in every respect better adapted than any other which the language can supply, to serve as a cloak for it. Sup- pose any number of men, by a speedy death or a lin- gering one, destroyed for meeting one another for the purpose of obtaining a remedy for the abuses by which they are suffering, what nobody can deny is, that by their destruction, order is maintained; for the worst order is as truly order as the best. Accordingly, a clearance of this sort having been effected, suppose in Sect. I.] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 233 the House of Commons a Lord Castlereagh, or in the House of Lords a Lord Sid mouth, to stand up and insist that by a measure so undeniably prudential order was maintained, with what truth could they be contradicted? And who is there that would have the boldness to assert that order ought not to be main- tained?
To the word <9;Weradd the word good, the strength of the checks, if any there were, that were thus ap- plied to tyranny would be but little if at all increased. By the word good, no other idea is brought to view than that of the sentiment of approbation, as attached by the person by whom it is employed to the object designated by the substantive to which this adjunct is applied. Order is any arrangement which exists with reference to the object in question; — good order is that order, be it what it may, which it is my wish to be thought to approve of.
Take the state of things under Nero, under Cali- gula: with as indisputable propriety might the word order be applied to it as to the state of things at present in Great Britain or the American United States.
What in the eyes of Bonaparte was good order? — That which it had been his pleasure to establish.
By the adjunct social, the subject ojYler is perhaps rendered somewhat the less fit for the use of tyrants, but not much. Among the purposes to which the word social is employed, is indeed that of bringing to view a state of things favourable to the happiness of 234 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [Ch, 3.
society: but a purpose to which it is also employed, is that of bringing to view a state of things no other- wise considered than as having place in society. By the war which, in the Roman history, bears the name of the social war, no great addition to the happiness of society was ever supposed to be made, yet it was not the less a social one.
As often as any measure is brought forward having for its object the making any the slightest defalcation from the amount of the sacrifice made of the interest of the many to the interest of the few, social is the adjunct by which the order of things to which it is pronounced hostile is designated.
By a defalcation made from any part of the mass of factitious delay, vexation and expense, out of which and in proportion to which lawyers' profit is made to flow, — by any defalcation made from the mass of needless and worse than useless emolument to office, with or without service or pretence of service, — by any addition endeavoured to be made to the quantity or improvement in the quality of service rendered, or time bestowed in service rendered in return for such emolument, — by every endeavour that has for its ob- ject the persuading the people to place their fate at the disposal of any other agents than those in whose hands breach of trust is certain, due fulfilment of it morally and physically impossible, — social order is said to be endangered, and threatened to be de- stroyed.
Proportioned to the degree of clearness with which I Sect. Q.] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 235 the only true and justifiable end of government is held up to view in any discourse that meets the public eye, is the danger and inconvenience to which those rulers are exposed, who, for their own particular interest? have been engaged in an habitual departure from that only legitimate and defensible course. _ Hence it is, that, when compared with the words order, mainte- nance oj order J the use even of such words as happi- ness, welfare, xvell-being, is not altogether free from danger, wide-extending and comparatively indetermi- nate as the import of them is: to the single word hap- piness substitute the phrase greatest happiness of the greatest number, the description of the end becomes more determinate and even instructive, the danger and inconvenience to misgovernment, and its authors, and its instruments still more alarming and distress- ing; for then, for a rule whereby to measure the good- ness or badness of a government, men are referred to so simple and universally apprehensible a standard as the numeration table. By the pointing men's atten- tions to this end, and the clearness of the light thus cast upon it, the importance of such words as the word order, which by their obscurity substitute to the offensive light the useful and agreeable darkness, is njore and more intimately felt.
2. Establishment.
In the same way again. Establishment is a word in use, to protect the bad parts of establishments, by 236 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [Ch. 3.
charging those who wish to remove or alter them with the wish to subvert all establishments, or all good establishments *.
3. Matchless Constitutioti.
The constitution has some good points; it has some bad ones: it gives facility and, until reform — radical reform, shall have been accomplished, security and continual increase to waste, depredation, oppression and corruption in every department, and in every variety of shape.
Now in their own name respectively, waste, depre- dation, oppression, corruption, cannot be toasted: gentlemen would not cry, Waste for ever! Depreda- tion for ever! Oppression for ever! Corruption for ever! But The constitution for ever! this a man may cry, and does cry, and makes a merit of it.
* In the church estabHshment, the bad parts are: — 1. Quantity and distribution of payment; — its inequahty creating opposite fauhs — excess and deficiency. The excessive part calHng men off from their duty, and, as in lotteries, tempting an excessive number of adventurers: the defect deterring men from engaging in the duty, or rendering them unable to perform it as it ought to be performed.
2. Mode of payment; — tithes, a tax on food, which discourages agri- cultural improvements, and occasions dissention between the minis- ter and his parishioners.
3. Forms of admission, compelling insincerity, subversive of the basis of morality. As to purely speculative points, no matter which side a man embraces, so he be sincere, but highly mischievous that he should maintain even the right side (where there happens to be any) when he is not sincere.
Sect. 3.] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 237 Of this instrument of rhetoric, the use is at least as old as Aristotle. As old as Aristotle is even the re- ceipt for making it; for Aristotle has himself given it: and of how much longer standing the use of it may have been, may baffle the sagacity of a Mitford to de- termine. How sweet are gall and honey? how white are soot and snow?
Matchless constitution! there's your sheet-anchor! there's your true standard! rally round the constitu- tion: that is, rally round waste, rally round depreda- tion, rally round oppression, rally round corruption, rally round election terrorism, rally round imposture; — imposture on the hustings, imposture in honourable house, imposture in every judicatory.
Connected with this toasting and this boasting is a theory, such as a Westminster or Eton boy on the sixth form, aye, or his grandmother, might be ashamed of. For among those who are loudest in crying out theory (as often as any attempt is made at reasoning, any appeal made to the universally known and indis- putable principles of human nature), always may some silly sentimental theory be found.
The constitution, why must it not be looked into? why is it that under pain of being ipso facto anarchist convict, we must never presume to look at it other- wise than with shut eyes? Because it was the work of our ancestors: — of ancestors, of legislators, few of whom could so much as read, and those few had no- thing before them that was worth the reading. First theoretical supposition, wisdom of harharian ancestors.
238 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [Ch. '3.
Wiien from their ordinary occupation, their order of the day, the cutting of one another's throats, or those of Welchinen, Scotchmen, or Irishmen, they could steal now and then a holiday, how did they employ it? In cutting Frenchmen's throats in order to get their money; this was active virtue: — leaving Frenchmen's throats uncut was indolence, slumber, inglorious ease. Second theoretical supposition, vir- tue of barbarian ancestors.
Thus fraught with habitual wisdom and habitual virtue, they sat down and devised; and setting before them the best ends, and pursuing those best ends by the best means, they framed in outline, at any rate, they planned and executed our matchless constitution: — the constitution as it stands, — and may it for ever stand 1 Planned and executed? On what occasion? on none. At what place? at none. By whom? by no- body.
At no time? Oh yes, says every-thing-as-it-should- be Blackstone. Oh yes, says Wliig after Whig, after the charming commentator, anno Domini 1660, then it is that it was in its perfection, about fourteen years before James the Second mounted the throne with a design to govern in politics as they do in Mo- rocco, and in religion as they do at Rome; to govern without parliament, or in spile of parliament: a state of things for which, at this same era of perfection, a preparation was made by a parliament, which, being brought into as proper a state of corruption as if Lord Sect. 3.] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 9,'30 Castlereagh had had the management of it, was kept on foot for several years together, and would have been kept a-foot till the whole system of despotism had been settled, but for the sham popish plot by which the fortunate calumny and subornation of the Whigs defeated the bigotry and tyranny of the Tories.
What then says the only true theory, — that theory which is uniformly confirmed by all experience?
On no occasion, in no place, at no time, by no person possessing any adequate power, has any such end in view as the establishing the greatest happiness of the greatest number, been hitherto entertained: on no occasion on the part of any such person has there been any endeavour, any wish for any happiness, other than his own and that of his own connexions, or any care about the happiness or security of the subject ■ many, any further than his own has been regarded as involved in it.
Among men of all classes, from the beginning of those times of which we have any account in history, among all men of all classes, an universal struggle and contention on the part of each individual for his own security and the means and instruments of his own happiness, for money, for power, for reputation natu- ral and factitious, for constant ease, and incidental vengeance. In the course of this struggle, under fa- vourable circumstances connected with geographical situation, this and that little security has been caught at, obtained, and retained by the subject many, against the conjoined tyranny of the monarch and his aristo- 210 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [67/. 3.
cracy. No plan pursued by any body at any time; — the good established, as well as the bad remaining, the result of an universal scramble, carried on in the storm of contending passions under favour of opportu- nity: — at each period, some advantages which former periods had lost, others, which they had not gained.
But the only regular and constant means of security being the influence exercised by the will of the people on the body which in the same breath admit them- selves and deny themselves to be their agents, and that influence having against it and above it the cor- ruptive and counter-influence of the ruling few, the servants of the monarchy and the members of the aristocracy, — and the quantity of the corruptive mat- ter by which that corruptive influence operates being every day on the increase, hence it is, that while all names remain unchanged, the whole state of things grows every day worse and worse, and so will continue to do till even the forms of parliament are regarded as a useless incumbrance, and pure despotism, unless arrested by radical reform, takes up the sceptre with- out disguise.
While the matter of waste and corruption is con- tinually accumulating, while the avalanche composed of it is continually rolling on, that things should continue long in their present state seems absolutely impossible. Three states of things contend for the ultimate result: — Despotic monarchy undisguised by form; Repre- sentative democracy under the form of monarchy; Representative democracy under its own form.
Sect. S.] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 241 In this, as in every country, the Government has been as favourable to the interests of the ruhng few, and thence as unfavourable to the general interests of the subject many, or in one word as bad, asthe sub ject many have endured to see it, have persuaded themselves to suffer it to be. No abuse has, except under a sense of necessity, been parted with: no re- medy, except under the like pressure, applied. But under the influence of circumstances in a great de- gree peculiar to this country, at one time or another the ruling few have found themselves under the ne- cessity of sacrificing this or tiiat abuse, of instituting or suffering to grow up this or that remedy.
It is ihus, that under favour of the contest be- tween Whigs and Tories, the hberty of the press, the foundation of all other liberties, has been suffered to grow up and continue. But this liberty of the press is not the work of institution, it is not the work of law; what there is of it that exists, exists not by means, but in spite, of law. It is all of it contrary to law; by law there is no more liberty of the press in En- gland, than in Spain or Morocco. It is not the con- stitution of the Government, it is not the force of the law; it is the weakness of the law we have to thank for it. It is not the Whigs that we have to thank for it, any more than the Tories. The Tories, that is, the supporters of monarchy, would destroy it, sim- ply assured of their never being in a condition to have need of it. The Whigs would with equal readiness R £42 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [Ch, 3.
destroy it, or concur in destroying it, could tliey pos- sess that same comfortable assurance. But it has never been in their power: and to that impotence is it that we are indebted for their zeal for the liberty of the press and the support they have given to the people in the exercise of it. Without this arm they could not fight their battles: without this for a trumpet they could not call the people to their aid.
Such corruption was not, in the head of any original framer of the constitution, the work of design: but were this said without explanation, an opinion that would naturally be supposed to be implied in it, is, that the constitution was originally in some one head, the whole, or the chief part of it, the work of design. The evil consequence of a notion pronouncing it the work of design, would be, that, such a design being infinitely beyond the wisdom and virtue of any man in the present times, a planner would be looked out for in the most distant age that could be found, — thus the ancestor-wisdom fallacy would be the ruling principle, and the search would be fruitless and end- Jess. But the non-existence of any determinate de- sign in the formation of the constitution may be proved from history. The House of Commons is the cha- racteristic and vital principle. Anno 1258 the man by whom the first gei^m was planted, was Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, a foreigner and a rebel. In this first call to the people there was no better nor steadier design than that of obtaining momentary sup- Sect. 3.] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 243 port for rebellion. The practice of seeing and hear- ing deputies from the lower orders before money was attempted to be taken out of their pockets, having thus sprung up, in the next reign Edward the First saw his convenience in conforming; to it. From this time till Henry the Sixth's, instances in which laws were enacted by kings, sometimes without consulting commons, sometimes without consulting them or lords, are not worth looking out. Henry the Sixth's was the first reign in which the House of Commons had really a part in legislation; till then they had no part in the penning of any laws; no law was penned till after they were dissolved: here then, so late as about 1450 (between 1422 and 1459), the House of Commons as a branch of the legislature was an in- novation, till then, (Anno 1450) constitution (if the House of Commons be a part of it) there was none. Parliament? yes: consisting of king and lords, legis- lators; deputies of commons, petitioners. Even of this aristocratical parliament the existence was pre- carious: indigence or weakness produced its occa- sional reproduction; more prudence and good fortune would have sufficed for throwing it into disuse and oblivion: like the obsolete legislative bodies of France and Spain, it would have been reduced to a possibi- lity. All this while, and down to the time when the re-assembling of parliaments was imperfectly secured by indeterminate laws occasioned by the temporary iwture of pecuniary supplies, and the constant cra- 244 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [Ch. 3.
vings of royal paupers; had the constitution been a tree, and both houses branches, either or both might have been lopped off, and the tree remain a tree still. '^ After the bloody reigns of Henry the Eighth, and Mary, and the too short reign of Edward the Sixth, comes that of Elizabeth, who openly made a merit of her wish to govern without parliament: members pre- suming to think for themselves, and to speak as they thought, were sent to prison for repentance. After the short parliaments produced in the times of James the First, and Charles the First, by profusion and di- stress, came the first long parliament. Where is now the constitution? Where the design? — the wisdom? — The king having tried to govern without lords or commons, failed: the commons having extorted from the king's momentary despair, the act which converted them into a perpetual aristocracy, tried to govern without king or lords, and succeeded. In the time of Charles the Second, no design but the king's de- sign of arbitrary government executed by the instru- mentality of seventeen years long parliament. As yet, for the benefit of the people, no feasible design, » Between Henry the Third, and Henry the Sixth (Anno 1258 to 1422) it is true there were frequent acts ordaining annual and even oftener than annual parhaments *. Still these were but vague promises, made only by the king, with two or three i)etty princes: the commons were not legislators, but petitioners: never seeing till after enactment the acts to which their assent was recorded.
* See Christian on Blackstone.
Sect. 3.] FALLACIES Of CONFUSION. 245 but in the seat of supreme power; and therCy concep- tion of any such design scarce in human nature.
The circumstance to which the cry of matchless constitution is in a great degree indebted for its per- nicious efficiency, is — that there was a time in which the assertion contained in it was incontrovertibly true. Till the American colonies threw off the yoke and became independent states; no political state pos- sessed of a constitution, equalling it or approaching it in goodness, was any where to be found.
]^ut from this its goodness in a comparative state, no well-grounded argument could at any time be af- forded against any addition that could at any time be made to its intrinsic goodness. Persons happier than myself ai'e not to be found any where: in this obser- vation, supposing it true, what reason is there for my forbearing to make myself as much happier than I am at present, as I can make myself?
This pre-eminence is therefore nothing to the pur- pose; for of the pains taken in this way to hold it up to view, the design can be no other than to prevent it from being ever greater than it is.
But another misfortune is, that it is every day growing less and less: so that while men keep on vaunting this spurious substitute to positive goodness, sooner or later it will vanish altogether.
The supposition always is — that it is the same one day as another. But never for two days together has this been true. Since the revolution took place, never, for two days together, has it been the same: 246 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. \Ch. 3.