interest is connected with his own; and to engajje them to say, and the unreflecting multitude to believe, that the change in question is of the number of those in which the mischief attached to it is not accompa- nied by a preponderant mass of advantage.
148 FALLACIKS OV DANGER. [67/. 'J.
Incy.
Among the stories current in tlie profession of the law, is that of an attorney, who, when his client ap- plied to him for relief against a forged bond, advised him, as the shortest and surest course, to forge a release.
Thus, as a shorter and surer course than that of attempting to make men sensible of the imposture, this fallacy has been every now and then met by what may be termed its counter-fallacy. — Time itself is the arch-innovator. The inference is, the proposed change, branded as it has thus been by the odious appellative of innovation, is in fact no change; its sole effect being either to prevent a change, or to bring the mat- ter back to the good state in which it formerly was. This counter-fallacy, if such it may be termed, has not, however, any such pernicious properties or con- sequences attached to it as may be seen to be indi- cated by that name. Two circumstances, however, concur in giving it a just title to the appellation of a fallacy: one is, that it has no specific application to the particular measure in hand, and on that score may be set down as irrelevant; the other, that by a sort of implied concession and virtual admission, it gives colour and countenance to the fallacy to which it is opposed: admitting by implication, that if the appellation of a change belonged with propriety to the proposed measure, it might on that single account with propriety be opposed.
Sect. 3.] FALLACIES OF DANGER. 149 A few words, then, are now sufficient to strip the mask from this fallacy. No specific mischief, as likely to result from the specific measure, is alleged: if it were, the argument would not belong to this head. Wiiat is alleged is nothing more than that mischief, without regard to the amount, would be among the results of this measure. But this is no more than can be said of every legislative measure that ever did pass or ever can pass. If, then, it be to be ranked with arguments, it is an argument that involves in one common condemnation all political measures whatso- ever, past, present, and to come; it passes ccftidem- nation on whatsoever, in this way, ever has been or ever can be done, in all places as well as in all times. Delivered iVom an humble station, from the mouth of an old woman beguiling by her gossip the labours of the spinning-wheel in her cottage, it might pass for simple and ordinary ignorance: — delivered from any such exalted station as that of a legislative house or judicial bench, from such a quarter, if it can be re- garded as sincere, it is a mark of drivelling rather than is^norance.
But it may be said, " My meaning is not to con- demn all change, not to condemn all new institutions, all new laws, all new measures, — only violent and dangerous ones, such as that is which is now proposed." The answer is: Neither drawing or attempting to draw any line, you do by this indiscriminating appellative pai-s condemnation on all change; on every thing to ii'hicli any such epithet as 7iezv can with propriety be applied. Draw any such line, and the reproach of insincerity or imbecility shall be withholden: draw your line; but remember that whenever you do draw it, or so much as begin to draw it, you give up this your argument.
Alive to possible-imaginable evils, dead to actual ones, — eagle-eyed to future contingent evils, blind and insensible to all existing ones, — such is the cha- racter of the mind, to which a fallacy such as this can really have presented itself in the character of an argument possessing any the smallest claim to notice. To such a mind, that, by denial and sale of justice, anarchy, in so far as concerns nine-tenths of the people, is actually by force of law esta- blished, and that it is only by the force of morality, — of such morality as all the punishments denounced against sincerity, and all the reward applied for the encouragement of insincerity, have not been able to banish, that society is kept together; — that to draw into question the fitness of great characters for their high situations, is in one man a crime, while to question their fitness so that their motives remain unquestioned is lawful to another; — that the crime called libel re- mains undefined and undistinguishable, and the liberty of the press is defined to be the absence of that secu- rity which would be afforded to writers by the esta- blishment of a licenser; — that under a show of limi- tation, a government shall be in fact an absolute one, while pretended guardians are real accomplices, and at the nod of a king or a minister by a regular trained Sect. 4.] FALLACIES OF DANGER. 151 body of votes black shall be declared wliite; miscar- riage, success; mortality, health; disgrace, honour; and notorious experienced imbecility, consummate skill; — to such a mind, these, with other evils bound- less in extent and number, are either not seen to be in existence, or not felt to be such. In such a mind, the horror of innovation is as really a disease as any to which the body in which it is seated is exposed. And in proportion as a man is afflicted with it, he is the enemy of all good, which, how urgent soever n]ay be the demand for it, remains as yet to be done; nor can he be said to be completely cured of it, till he shall have learnt to take on each occasion, and without repugnance, general utility for the general end, and, to judge of whatever is proposed, in the charac- ter of a means conducive to that end.
Sect. 4. Sinister interests in which this fallacy has its source.
Could the wand of that magician be borrowed at whose potent touch the emissaries of his wicked an- tagonist threw off their several disguises, and made instant confession of their real character and designs; -—could a few of those ravens by whom the word in- novation is uttered with a scream of horror, and the approach of the monster Anarchy denounced, — be touched with it, we should then learn their real cha- racter, and have the true import of these screams translated into intelligible language.
1. I am a lawyer (would one of them be heard to sa^), a fee-fed judge, who, considering that the money I lay up, the power I exercise, and the respect and reputation I enjoy, depend on the undiminished con- tinuance of the abuses of the law, the factitious delay, vexation and expense with which the few who liave money enough to pay for a chance of justice are loaded, and by which the many who have not, are cut oft" from that chance, — take this method of deterring men from attempting to alleviate those torments in which my comforts have their source.
2. I am a sinecurist (cries another), who, being in the receipt of 38,000/. a year, public money, for doing nothing, and having no more wit tiian honesty, have never been able to open my mouth and pro- nounce any articulate sound for any other purpose, — vet, hearing a cry of " No sinecures!" am come to join in the shout of *' No innovation! down with the innovators!" in hopes of drowning, by these defensive sounds, the offensive ones which chill my blood and make me tremble.
3. I am a contractor (cries a third), who, Iiaving bought my seat that I may sell my votes; and in re- turn for them, being in the habit of obtaining with the most convenient regularity a succession of good jobs, foresee, in the prevalence of innovation, the de- struction and the ruin of this established branch of trade.
4. I am a country gentleman (cries^a fourth), who, observing that from having a seat in a certain assem- bly a man enjoys more respect than he did before, on Sect. [.] FA I, LAC IKS OF DANGt^lJ. 133 the turf, ill the dog-kennel, and in the stable, and having tenants and other dependents enough to seat me against their wills for a place in which I am detested, and hearing it said that if innovation were suffered to run on unopposed, elections would come in time to be as free in reality as they are in appearance and pretence, — have left for a day or two tiie cry of " Tally-ho!" and '* Hark forward I" to join in tiie cry of " No Anarchy! " " No innovation! " 5. I am a priest (says a tifth), who, having proved the Pope to be Antichrist to the satisfaction of all Orthodox divines whose piety prays for the cure of souls, or whose health has need of exoneration from the burthen of residence; and having read, in my edition of the Gospel, that the apostles lived in pa- laces, whicli innovation and anarchy would cut down to parsonage-houses, though grown hoarse by scream- ing out, " No reading!" " No writing!" " No Lan- caster!" and "No popery!" — for fear of coming change, am here to add what remains of my voice to the full chorus of "No Anarchy'" "No Innova- tion! " 154 FALLACllib or DANGEK. [Ch, 3.
CHAPTER III.
Fallacy of Distrust, o)\ JVhafs at the bottom?
Ad nietum.
E.vposition, Tins argument may be considered as a particular modification of the No-Innovatioti argument. An ar- rangement or set of arrangements has been proposed, so plainly beneficial, and at the same time so mani- festly innoxious, that no prospect presents itself of bringing to bear upon them with any effect the cry of No innovation. Is the anti-innovationist mute? no: he has this resource: — In what you see as yet (says he) there may perhaps be no great m.ischief; but de- pend upon it, in the quarter from whence these pro- posed innoxious arrangements come, there are more behind that are of a very different complexion; if these innoxious ones are suffered to be carried, others of a noxious character will succeed without end, and will be carried likewise.
Ea:posure.
The absurdity of this argument is too glaring to be susceptible of any considerable illustration from any thing that can be said of it.
1. In the first place, it begins with a virtual ad- mission of the propriety of the measure considered in itself; and thus, containing within itself a demonstra- Ch. 3.] FALLACIIS Ol" 1)ANGF^I{. \55 don of its own futility, it cuts up from under it the very ground which it is endeavouring to make: yet, from its very weakness, it is apt to derive for the mo- ment a certain degree of force. By the monstrosity of its weakness, a feeling of surprise, and thereupon of perplexity, is apt to he produced: and so long as this feeling continues, a ditiiculty of finding an appro- priate answer continues with it. For that which is itself nothing, what answer (says a man) can I find?
2. If two measures, G and B, were both brought forward at the same time, G being good and B bad, rejecting G because B is bad would be quite absurd enough; and at first view a man n)ight be apt to sup- pose that the force of absurdity could go no further.
But the present fallacy does in etfect go much fur- ther: — two measures, both of them brought upon the carpet together, both of them unobjectionable, are to be rejected, not for any thing that is amiss in either of them, but for something that by possibility may be found amiss in some other or others, that nobody knows of, and the future existence of which, without the slightest ground, is to be assumed and taken for granted.
In the field of policy as applied to measures, this vicarious reprobation forms a counterpart to vicarious punishment in the field of justice, as applied to persons.
The measure G, which is good, is to be thrown out, because, for aught we can be sure of, some day or other it may happen to be followed by some other measure B; which njay be a bad one. A man A, agains 156 FALLACIES OF DAMGEK. [C/l. 3.
whom there is neither evidence nor charge, is to be punished, because, for aught we can be sure of, some time or other there may be some other man who will have been guilty.
If on this ground it be right that the measure in question be rejected, so ought every other measure that ever has been or can be proposed: for of no measure can anybody be sure, but that it may be fol- lowed by some other measure or measures, of which, when they make their appearance, it may be said that they are bad.
If, then, the argument proves any thing, it proves that no measure ought ever to be carried, or ever to have been carried; and that, therefore, all things that can be done by law or government, and therefore law and government themselves, are nuisances.
This policy is exactly that which was attributed to Herod in the extermination of the innocents; and the sort of man by whom an argument of this sort can be employed, is the sort of man who would have acted as Herod did, had he been in Herod's place.
But think, not only what sort of man he must be who can bring himself to employ such an argument; but moreover, what sort df men they must be to whom he can venture to propose it; on whom he can expect it to make any impression, but such a one as will be disgraceful to himself. " Such drivellers," (says he to them in effect,) " such drivellers are you, so sure of being imposed upon, by any one that will attempt it, that you know not the distinction between good and Cti. 3.] FALLACIES OF DANGER. 157 bad: and when at the suggestion of this or that man you have adopted any one measure, good or bad, let but that same man propose any number of other mea- sures, whatever be their character, ye are such idiots and fools, that without looking at them yourselves, or vouchsafing to learn their character from others, you will adopt them in a lump." Such is the compliment wrapt up in this sort of argument.
L58 FALLACIES OF DANGER. \C//. 4.
CHAPTER IV.
Official Malefactor s Screen.
Ad metum. "Attack us, you attack Governnient."
E.Tposition.
The fallacy here in question is employed almost as often as, in speaking of the persons hy whom, or of the system on which, the business of the Govern- ment is conducted, any expressions importing con- demnation or censure are uttered. The fallacy con- sists in affecting to consider such condemnation or censure as being, if not in design, at least in tendency, pregnant with mischief to government itself: — " Op- pose us, you oppose Government;" " Disgrace us, you disgrace Government;" "Bring us into con- tempt, you bring Government into contempt; and anarchy and civil war are the immediate conse- quences." Such are the forms it assumes.
E.vposure.
Not ill-grounded^ most assuredly, is the alleged importance ot this maxim: to the class of persons by or for whom it is employed, it must be admitted to be well worth whatsoever pains can be employed in deck- ing it out to the best advantage.
Let but this notion be acceded to, all persons now partaking, or who may at any time be likely to par- Ch. 4.] FALLACIES OF DANGER. 159 take, in the business and profit of misrule, must, in every one of its shapes, be allowed to continue so to do without disturbance: all abuses, as well future as present, must continue without remedy. The most industrious labourers in the service of mankind will experience the treatment due to those to whose dis- social or selfish nature the happiness of man is an ob- ject of aversion or indifference. Punishment, or at least disgrace, will be the reward of the most exalted virtue; perpetual honour, as well as power, the reward of the most pernicious vices. Punishment will be, and so by English libel-law it is at this day, — let but the criminal be of a certain rank in the state, and the mischief of the crime upon a scale to a certain degree extensive, — punishment will be, not for him who com- mits a crime, but for him who complains of it.
So l&ng as the conduct of the business of the Go- vernment contains any thing amiss in it, — so long as it contains in it any thing that could be made better, — so long, in a word, as it continues short of a state of absolute perfection, — there will be no other mode of bringing it nearer to perfection, no other means of clearing it of the most mischievous abuses with which Government can be defiled, than the indication of such points of imperfection as at the time being exist, or are supposed to exist in it, which points of imper- fection will always be referable to one or other of two heads: — the conduct of this or that one of the indi- viduals by whom in such or such a department the business of Government is conducted; or the state of 160 lALLACIIvS OF DANGER. [67/. 4.
the system of administration under which they act. But neither in the system in question, nor in the con- duct of tlie persons in question, can any imperfection be pointed out, but that, as towards such persons or such system, in proportion to the apparent imj)ortance and extent of that imperfection, aversion or contempt must in a greater or less degree be produced.
In effect, this fallacy is but a mode of intimating in other words, that no abuse ought to be reformed: that nothing ought to be uttered in relation to the misconduct of any person in office, which may produce any sentiment of disapprobation.
In this country at least, few, if any persons, aim at any such object as the bringing into contempt any of those offices on the execution of which the maintenance of the general security depends; — any such office, for example, as that of king, member of parliament, or judge. As to the person of the king, if the maxim, "The king can do no wrong," be admitted in both its senses, there can be no need of imputing blame to him, unless in the way of defence against the impru- dence or the improbity of those who, by groundless or exaggerated eulogiums on the personal character of the individual monarch on the throne, seek to ex- tend his power, and to screen from censure or scru- tiny the misconduct of his agents.
But in the instance of any other office, to reprobate every thing, the tendency of which is to expose the officer to hatred or contempt, is to reprobate every thing that can be said or done, either in the way of Sect. 2.] FALLACIES OF DANGKR. \6\ complaint against past, or for the purpose of prevent- ing future transgressions; — to reprobate every thing the tendency of which is to expose the office to hatred or contempt, is to reprobate every thing that can be said or done towards pointing out the demand for re- form, how needful soever, in the constitution of the office.
If, in the constitution of the office in respect of mode of appointment, mode of remuneration, &c., there be any thing that tends to give all persons placed in it an interest acting in opposition to official duty, or to give an increased facility to the effective pursuit of any such sinister interest, every thing that tends to bring to view such sinister interest, or such facility, contributes, it may be said, to bring the office itself into contempt.
That under the existing system of judicature, so far as concerns its higher seats, the interest of the judge is, throughout the whole held of his jurisdiction, in a state of constant and diametrical opposition to the line of his duty; — that it is his interest to maintain undiminished, and as far as possible to increase, every evil opposite to the ends of justice, viz. uncertainty, delay, vexation and expense; — that the giving birth to these evils has at all times been more or less an object with every judge (the present ones excepted, of whom we sav notliins) that ever sat on a Westminster hall bench, and that under the present constitution of the office it were weakness to expect at the hands of a judge any thing better; — whilst, that of the above- M 162 FALLACIES OF DANGER. [C/l. 4.
mentioned evils, the load which is actually endured by the people of this country, is, as to a very small part only, the natural and unavoidable lot of human nature; — are propositions which have already in this work been made plain to demonstration, and in the belief of which the writer has been confirmed by the observa- tions of nearly sixty years; — propositions of the truth of which he is no more able to entertain a doubt than he is of his own existence.
But in these sentiments, has he any such wish as to see enfeebled and exposed to effectual resistance the authority of judges? of any established judicatory? of any one occupier of any such judicial seat? No: the most strenuous defender of abuse in every shape would not go further than he in wishes, and upon oc- casion in exertion, for its support.
For preventing, remedying, or checking transgres- sion on the part of the members of Government, or preventing their management of the business of Go- vernment from becoming completely arbitrary, the nature of things affords no other means than such, the tendency of which, as far as they go, is to lower either these managing hands, or the system, or both, in the affection and estimation of the people: which effect, when produced in a high degree, may be termed bringing them into hatred and contempt.
But so far is it from being true that a man's aver- sion or contempt for the hands by which the powers of Government^ or even for the system under which they are exercised, is a proof of his aversion or con- Sect. 2.] FALLACIKS OF DAXGEU. \6'5 tempt towards Government itself, that, even in pro- portion to the strength of that aversion or contempt, it is a proof of the opposite affection. What in con- sequence of such contempt or aversion he wishes for, is, not that there be no hands at all to exercise these powers, but that the hands may be better regulated; — not that those powers should not be exercised at all, but that they should be better exercised; — not that, in the exercise of them, no rules at all should be pursued, but that the rules by which they are exer- cised should be a better set of rules.
All government is a trust; every branch of govern- ment is a trust; and immemorially acknowledged so to be: it is only by the magnitude of the scale that public differ from private trusts.
I complain of the conduct of a person in the cha- racter of guardian, as domestic guardian, having the care of a minor or insane person. In so doing, do I say that guardianship is a bad institution? Does it enter into the head of any one to suspect me of so doing?
I complain of an individual in the character of a commercial agent, or assignee of the effects of an in- solvent. In so doing, do I say that commercial agency is a bad thing? that the practice of vesting in the hands of trustees or assignees the effects of an insolvent for the purpose of their being divided among his creditors, is a bad practice? Does any such con- ceit ever enter into the head of man, as that of sus- pecting me of so doing?
164 FALLACIES OF DANGEIJ. [C/i. 4.
I complain of an imperfection in the state of the law relative to guardianship. In stating this supposed imperfection in the state of the law itself, do I say that there ought to be no law on the subject? that no human being ought to have any such power as that of guardian over the person of any other? Does it ever enter into the head of any human being to suspect me so much as of entertaining any such per- suasion, not to speak of endeavouring to cause others to entertain it?
Nothing can be more groundless than to suppose that the disposition to pay obedience to the laws by which security in respect of person, property, reputa- tion and condition in life is afforded, is influenced by any such consideration as that of the fitness of the several functionaries for their respective trusts, or even so much as by the fitness of the system of regulations and customs under which they act.
The chief occasions in which obedience on the part of a member of the community in his character of subject is called upon to manifest itself, are the habi- tual payment of taxes, and submission to the orders of courts of justice: the one an habitual practice, the other an occasional and eventual one. But in neither instance in the disposition to obedience, is any varia- tion produced by any increase or diminution in the good or ill opinion entertained in relation to the offi- cial persons by whom the business of those depart- ments is respectively carried on, or even in relation to the goodness of the systems under which they act.
> Sect, 2.] FALLACIES OF DANGER. 165 Were the business of Government carried on ever so mucli worse than it is, still it is from the power of Government in its several branches that each man re- ceives whatsoever protection he enjoys, either against foreign or domestic adversaries. It is therefore by his regard for his own security, and not by his respect either for the persons by whom or the system accord- ing to which those powers are exercised, that his wish to see obedience paid to them by others, and his dis- position to pay obedience to them himself, are pro- duced.
Were it even his wish to withhold from them his own obedience, that wish cannot but be altogether in- effectual, unless and until he shall see others in suffi- cient number disposed and prepared to withhold each of them his own obedience; a state of things which can only arise from a common sense of overwhelming misery, and not from the mere utterance of complaint. There is no freedom of the press, no power to com- plain, in Turkey; yet of all countries it is that in which revolts and revolutions are the most frequent and the most violent.
Here and there a man of strong appetites, weak understanding, and stout heart excepted, it might be affirmed with confidence that the most indigent and most ignorant would not be foolish enough to wish to see a complete dissolution of the bonds of govern- ment. In such a state of things, whatsoever he might expect to grasp for the moment, he would have no assured hope of keeping. Were he ever so strong, 166 FALLACIES OP DANGER. [Ck. 4.
his strength, he could not but see, would avail him nothing against a momentarily confederated multi- tude; nor in one part of his field against a swifter in- dividual ravaging the opposite part, nor during sleep against the weakest and most sluggish: and for the purpose of securing himself against such continually impending disasters, let him suppose himself entered into an association with others for mutual security; he would then suppose himself living again under a sort of government.
Even the comparatively few who, for a source of subsistence, prefer depredation to honest industry, are not less dependent for their wretched and ever palpi- tating existence than the honest and industrious are for theirs, on that general security to which their prac- tice creates exceptions. Be the momentary object of his rapacity what it may, what no one of them could avoid having a more or less distinct conception of, is, that it could not exist for him further than it is secured against others.
So far is it from being true, that no Government can exist consistently with such exposure, no good Government can exist without it.
Unless by open and lawless violence, by no other means than lowering in the estimation of the people the hands by which the powers of Government are exercised, if the cause of the mischief consist in the unfitness of the hands; or the system of management under which they act, if the cause of the mischief lie in the system, — be the hands ever so unfit, or the sy- Sect. 2.] FALLACIES OF DANGER. \67 Stem ever so ill-constructed, — can there be any hope or chance of beneficial change.