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The state in its Relations with the church. By W. E. Gladstone, Esq. Student of
Christ Church, and M.P. for Newark. 8vo. Second Edition. London: 1839.
The author of this volume is a young man of unblemished character, and of
distinguished parliamentary talents, the rising hope of those stern and
unbending Tories who follow, reluctantly and mutinously, a leader whose
experience and eloquence are indispensable to them, but whose cautious temper
and moderate opinions they abhor. It would not be at all strange if Mr.
Gladstone were one of the most unpopular men in England. But we believe that we
do him no more than justice when we say that his abilities and his demeanor have
obtained for him the respect and goodwill of all parties. His first appearance
in the character of an author is therefore an interesting event; and it is
natural that the gentle wishes of the public should go with him to his trial.
We are much pleased, without any reference to the soundness or unsoundness of
Mr. Gladstone's theories, to see a grave and elaborate treatise on an important
part of the Philosophy of Government proceed from the pen of a young man who is
rising to eminence in the House of Commons. There is little danger that people
engaged in the conflicts of active life will be too much addicted to general
speculation. The opposite vice is that which most easily besets them. The times
and tides of business and debate tarry for no man. A politician must often talk
and act before he has thought and read. He may be very ill informed respecting a
question; all his notions about it may be vague and inaccurate; but speak he
must; and if he is a man of ability, of tact, and of intrepidity, he soon finds
that, even under such circumstances, it is possible to speak successfully. He
finds that there is a great difference between the effect of written words,
which are perused and reperused in the stillness of the closet, and the effect
of spoken words which, set off by the graces of utterance and gesture, vibrate
for a single moment on the ear. He finds that he may blunder without much chance
of being detected, that he may reason sophistically, and escape unrefuted. He
finds that, even on knotty questions of trade and legislation, he can, without
reading ten pages, or thinking ten minutes, draw forth loud plaudits, and sit
down with the credit of having made an excellent speech. Lysias, says Plutarch,
wrote a defense for a man who was to be tried before one of the Athenian
tribunals. Long before the defendant had learned the speech by heart, he became
so much dissatisfied with it that he went in great distress to the author. "I
was delighted with your speech the first time I read it; but 1 liked it less the
second time, and still less the third time; and now it seems to me to be no
defense at all." "My good friend," says Lysias, "you quite forget that the
judges are to hear it only once." The case is the same in the English
Parliament. It would be as idle in an orator to waste deep meditation and long
research on his speeches, as it would be in the manager of a theatre to adorn
all the crowd of courtiers and ladies who cross over the stage in a procession
with real pearls and diamonds. It is not by accuracy or profundity that men
become the masters of great assemblies. And why be at the charge of providing
logic of the best quality, when a very inferior article will be equally
acceptable? Why go as deep into a question as Burke, only in order to be, like
Burke, coughed down, or left speaking to green benches and red boxes? This has
long appeared to us to be the most serious of the evils which are to be set off
against the many blessings of popular government. It is a fine and true saying
of Bacon, that reading makes a full man, talking a ready man, and writing an
exact man. The tendency of institutions like those of England is to encourage
readiness in public men, at the expense both of fullness and of exactness. The
keenest and most vigorous minds of every generation, minds often admirably
fitted for the investigation of truth, are habitually employed in producing
arguments such as no man of sense would ever put into a treatise intended for
publication, arguments which are just good enough to be used once, when aided by
fluent delivery and pointed language. The habit of discussing questions in this
way necessarily reacts on the intellects of our ablest men, particularly of
those who are introduced into Parliament at a very early age, before their minds
have expanded to full maturity. The talent for debate is developed in such men
to a degree which, to the multitude, seems as marvelous as the performance of an
Italian Improvisatore. But they are fortunate indeed if they retain unimpaired
the faculties which are required for close reasoning or for enlarged
speculation. Indeed we should sooner expect a great original work on political
science, such a work, for example, as the Wealth of Nations, from an apothecary
in a country town, or from a minister in the Hebrides, than from a statesman
who, ever since he was one-and-twenty, had been a distinguished debater in the
House of Commons.
We therefore hail with pleasure, though assuredly not with unmixed pleasure, the
appearance of this work. That a young politician should, in the intervals
afforded by his parliamentary avocations, have constructed and propounded, with
much study and mental toil, an original theory on a great problem in politics,
is a circumstance which, abstracted from all consideration of the soundness or
unsoundness of his opinions, must be considered as highly creditable to him. We
certainly cannot wish that Mr. Gladstone's doctrines may become fashionable
among public men. But we heartily wish that his laudable desire to penetrate
beneath the surface of questions, and to arrive, by long and intent meditation,
at the knowledge of great general laws, were much more fashionable than we at
all expect it to become.
Mr. Gladstone seems to us to be, in many respects, exceedingly well qualified
for philosophical investigation. His mind is of large grasp; nor is he deficient
in dialectical skill. But he does not give his intellect fair play. There is no
want of light, but a great want of what Bacon would have called dry light.
Whatever Mr. Gladstone sees is refracted and distorted by a false medium of
passions and prejudices. His style bears a remarkable analogy to his mode of
thinking, and indeed exercises great influence on his mode of thinking. His
rhetoric, though often good of its kind, darkens and perplexes the logic which
it should illustrate. Half his acuteness and diligence, with a barren
imagination and a scanty vocabulary, would have saved him from almost all his
mistakes. He has one gift most dangerous to a speculator, a vast command of a
kind of language, grave and majestic, but of vague and uncertain import; of a
kind of language which affects us much in the same way in which the lofty
diction of the Chorus of Clouds affected the simple-hearted Athenian:
O ge ton phthegmatos os ieron, kai semnon, kai teratodes.
When propositions have been established, and nothing remains but to amplify and
decorate them, this dim magnificence may be in place. But if it is admitted into
a demonstration, it is very much worse than absolute nonsense; just as that
transparent haze, through which the sailor sees capes and mountains of false
sizes and in false bearings, is more dangerous than utter darkness. Now, Mr.
Gladstone is fond of employing the phraseology of which we speak in those parts
of his works which require the utmost perspicuity and precision of which human
language is capable; and in this way he deludes first himself, and then his
readers. The foundations of his theory, which ought to be buttresses of adamant,
are made out of the flimsy materials which are fit only for perorations. This
fault is one which no subsequent care or industry can correct. The more strictly
Mr. Gladstone reasons on his premises, the more absurd are the conclusions which
he brings out; and, when at last his good sense and good nature recoil from the
horrible practical inferences to which this theory leads, he is reduced
sometimes to take refuge in arguments inconsistent with his fundamental
doctrines, and sometimes to escape from the legitimate consequences of his false
principles, under cover of equally false history.
It would be unjust not to say that this book, though not a good book, shows more
talent than many good books. It abounds with eloquent and ingenious passages. It
bears the signs of much patient thought. It is written throughout with excellent
taste and excellent temper; nor does it, so far as we have observed, contain one
expression unworthy of a gentleman, a scholar, or a Christian. But the doctrines
which are put forth in it appear to us, after full and calm consideration, to be
false, to be in the highest degree pernicious, and to be such as, if followed
out in practice to their legitimate consequences, would inevitably produce the
dissolution of society; and for this opinion we shall proceed to give our
reasons with that freedom which the importance of the subject requires, and
which Mr. Gladstone, both by precept and by example, invites us to use, but, we
hope, without rudeness, and, we are sure, without malevolence.
Before we enter on an examination of this theory, we wish to guard ourselves
against one misconception. It is possible that some persons who have read Mr.
Gladstone's book carelessly, and others who have merely heard in conversation,
or seen in a newspaper, that the member for Newark has written in defense of the
Church of England against the supporters of the voluntary system, may imagine
that we are writing in defense of the voluntary system, and that we desire the
abolition of the Established Church. This is not the case. It would be as unjust
to accuse us of attacking the Church, because we attack Mr. Gladstone's
doctrines, as it would be to accuse Locke of wishing for anarchy, because he
refuted Filmer's patriarchal theory of government, or to accuse Blackstone of
recommending the confiscation of ecclesiastical property, because he denied that
the right of the rector to tithe was derived from the Levitical law. It is to be
observed, that Mr. Gladstone rests his case on entirely new grounds, and does
not differ more widely from us than from some of those who have hitherto been
considered as the most illustrious champions of the Church. He is not content
with the Ecclesiastical Polity, and rejoices that the latter part of that
celebrated work "does not carry with it the weight of Hooker's plenary
authority." He is not content with Bishop Warburton's Alliance of Church and
State. "The propositions of that work generally," he says, "are to be received
with qualification"; and he agrees with Bolingbroke in thinking that Warburton's
whole theory rests on a fiction. He is still less satisfied with Paley's defense
of the Church, which he pronounces to be "tainted by the original vice of false
ethical principles, and full of the seeds of evil." He conceives that Dr.
Chalmers has taken a partial view of the subject, and "put forth much
questionable matter." In truth, on almost every point on which we are opposed to
Mr. Gladstone, we have on our side the authority of some divine, eminent as a
defender of existing establishments.
Mr. Gladstone's whole theory rests on this great fundamental proposition, that
the propagation of religious truth is one of the principal ends of government,
as government. If Mr. Gladstone has not proved this proposition, his system
vanishes at once.
We are desirous, before we enter on the discussion of this important question,
to point out clearly a distinction which, though very obvious, seems to be
overlooked by many excellent people. In their opinion, to say that the ends of
government are temporal and not spiritual is tantamount to saying that the
temporal welfare of man is of more importance than his spiritual welfare. But
this is an entire mistake. The question is not whether spiritual interests be or
be not superior in importance to temporal interests; but whether the machinery
which happens at any moment to be employed for the purpose of protecting certain
temporal interests of a society be necessarily such a machinery as is fitted to
promote the spiritual interests of that society. Without a division of labor the
world could not go on. It is of very much more importance that men should have
food than that they should have pianofortes. Yet it by no means follows that
every pianoforte maker ought to add the business of a baker to his own; for, if
he did so, we should have both much worse music and much worse bread. It is of
much more importance that the knowledge of religious truth should be wisely
diffused than that the art of sculpture should flourish among us. Yet it by no
means follows that the Royal Academy ought to unite with its present functions
those of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, to distribute
theological tracts, to send forth missionaries, to turn out Nollekens for being
a Catholic, Bacon for being a Methodist, and Flaxman for being a Swedenborgian.
For the effect of such folly would be that we should have the worst possible
Academy of Arts, and the worst possible Society for the Promotion of Christian
Knowledge. The community, it is plain, would be thrown into universal confusion,
if it were supposed to be the duty of every association which is formed for one
good object to promote every other good object.
As to some of the ends of civil government, all people are agreed. That it is
designed to protect our persons and our property; that it is designed to compel
us to satisfy our wants, not by rapine, but by industry; that it is designed to
compel us to decide our differences, not by the strong hand, but by arbitration;
that it is designed to direct our whole force, as that of one man, against any
other society which may offer us injury; these are propositions which will
hardly be disputed.
Now these are matters in which man, without any reference to any higher being,
or to any future state, is very deeply interested. Every human being, be he
idolater, Mahometan, Jew, Papist, Socinian, Deist, or Atheist, naturally loves
life, shrinks from pain, desires comforts which can be enjoyed only in
communities where property is secure. To be murdered, to be tortured, to be
robbed, to be sold into slavery, these are evidently evils from which men of
every religion, and men of no religion, wish to be protected; and therefore it
will hardly be disputed that men of every religion, and of no religion, have
thus far a common interest in being well governed.
But the hopes and fears of man are not limited to this short life and to this
visible world. He finds himself surrounded by the signs of a power and wisdom
higher than his own; and, in all ages and nations, men of all orders of
intellect, from Bacon and Newton, down to the rudest tribes of cannibals, have
believed in the existence of some superior mind. Thus far the voice of mankind
is almost unanimous. But whether there be one God, or many, what may be God's
natural and what His moral attributes, in what relation His creatures stand to
Him, whether He have ever disclosed Himself to us by any other revelation than
that which is written in all the parts of the glorious and well-ordered world
which He has made, whether His revelation be contained in any permanent record,
how that record should be interpreted, and whether it have pleased Him to
appoint any unerring interpreter on earth, these are questions respecting which
there exists the widest diversity of opinion, and respecting some of which a
large part of our race has, ever since the dawn of regular history, been
deplorably in error.
Now here are two great objects: one is the protection of the persons and estates
of citizens from injury; the other is the propagation of religious truth. No two
objects more entirely distinct can well be imagined.
The former belongs wholly to the visible and tangible world in which we live;
the latter belongs to that higher world which is beyond the reach of our senses.
The former belongs to this life; the latter to that which is to come. Men who
are perfectly agreed as to the importance of the former object, and as to the
way of obtaining it, differ as widely as possible respecting the latter object.
We must, therefore, pause before we admit that the persons, be they who they
may, who are entrusted with power for the promotion of the former object, ought
always to use that power for the promotion of the latter object.
Mr. Gladstone conceives that the duties of governments are paternal; a doctrine
which we shall not believe till he can show us some government which loves its
subjects as a father loves a child, and which is as superior in intelligence to
its subjects as a father is to a child. He tells us in lofty though somewhat
indistinct language, that "Government occupies in moral the place of to pan in
physical science." If government be indeed to pan in moral science, we do not
understand why rulers should not assume all the functions which Plato assigned
to them. Why should they not take away the child from the mother, select the
nurse, regulate the school, overlook the playground, fix the hours of labor and
of recreation, prescribe what ballads shall be sung, what tunes shall be played,
what books shall be read, what physic shall be swallowed? Why should not they
choose our wives, limit our expenses, and stint us to a certain number of dishes
of meat, of glasses of wine, and of cups of tea? Plato, whose hardihood in
speculation was perhaps more wonderful than any other peculiarity of his
extraordinary mind, and who shrank from nothing to which his principles led,
went this whole length. Mr. Gladstone is not so intrepid. He contents himself
with laying down this proposition, that whatever be the body which in any
community is employed to protect the persons and property of men, that body
ought also, in its corporate capacity, to profess a religion, to employ its
power for the propagation of that religion, and to require conformity to that
religion, as an indispensable qualification for all civil office. He distinctly
declares that he does not in this proposition confine his view to orthodox
governments or even to Christian governments. The circumstance that a religion
is false does not, he tells us, diminish the obligation of governors, as such,
to uphold it. If they neglect to do so, "we cannot," he says, "but regard the
fact as aggravating the case of the holders of such creed." "I do not scruple to
affirm," he adds, "that if a Mahometan conscientiously believes his religion to
come from God, and to teach divine truth, he must believe that truth to be
beneficial, and beneficial beyond all other things to the soul of man; and he
must therefore, and ought to desire its extension, and to use for its extension
all proper and legitimate means; and that, if such Mahometan be a prince, he
ought to count among those means the application of whatever influence or funds
he may lawfully have at his disposal for such purposes."
Surely this is a hard saying. Before we admit that the Emperor Julian, in
employing the influence and the funds at his disposal for the extinction of
Christianity, was doing no more than his duty, before we admit that the Arian
Theodoric would have committed a crime if he had suffered a single believer in
the divinity of Christ to hold any civil employment in Italy, before we admit
that the Dutch Government is bound to exclude from office all members of the
Church of England, the King of Bavaria to exclude from office all Protestants,
the Great Turk to exclude from office all Christians, the King of Ava to exclude
from office all who hold the unity of God, we think ourselves entitled to demand
very full and accurate demonstration. When the consequences of a doctrine are so
startling, we may well require that its foundations shall be very solid.
The following paragraph is a specimen of the arguments by which Mr. Gladstone
has, as he conceives, established his great fundamental proposition:
We may state the same proposition in a more general form, in which it surely
must command universal assent. Wherever there is power in the universe, that
power is the property of God, the King of that universe--his property of right,
however for a time withholden or abused. Now this property is, as it were,
realized, is used according to the will of the owner, when it is used for the
purposes he has ordained, and in the temper of mercy, justice, truth, and faith
which he has taught us. But those principles never can be truly, never can be
permanently entertained in the human breast, except by a continual reference to
their source, and the supply of the Divine grace. The powers, therefore, that
dwell in individuals acting as a government as well as those that dwell in
individuals acting for themselves, can only he secured for right uses by
applying to them a religion."
Here are propositions of vast and indefinite extent, conveyed in language which
has a certain obscure dignity and sagacity, attractive, we doubt not, to many
minds. But the moment that we examine these propositions closely, the moment
that we bring them to the test by running over but a very few of the particulars
which are included in them, we find them to be false and extravagant. The
doctrine which "must surely command universal assent" is this, that every
association of human beings which exercises any power whatever, that is to say,
every association of human beings, is bound, as such association, to profess a
religion. Imagine the effect which would follow if this principle were really in
force during four-and-twenty hours. Take one instance out of a million. A
stage-coach company has power over its horses. This power is the property of
God. It is used according to the will of God when it is used with mercy. But the
principle of mercy can never be truly or permanently entertained in the human
breast without continual reference to God. The powers, therefore, that dwell in
individuals, acting as a stage-coach company, can only be secured for right uses
by applying to them a religion. Every stage coach company ought, therefore, in
its collective capacity, to profess some one faith, to have its articles, and
its public worship, and its tests. That this conclusion, and an infinite number
of other conclusions equally strange, follow of necessity from Mr. Gladstone's
principle, is as certain as it is that two and two make four. And, if the
legitimate conclusions be so absurd, there must be something unsound in the
principle.
We will quote another passage of the same sort:
"Why, then, we now come to ask, should the governing body in a state profess a
religion? First, because it is composed of individual men; and they, being
appointed to act in a definite moral capacity, must sanctify their acts done in
that capacity by the offices of religion; inasmuch as the acts cannot otherwise
be acceptable to God, or anything but sinful and punishable in themselves. And
whenever we turn our face away from God in our conduct, we are living
atheistically. . . . In fulfillment, then, of his obligations as an individual,
the statesman must be a worshipping man. But his acts are public--the powers and
instruments with which he works are public--acting under and by the authority of
the law, he moves at his word ten thousand subject arms; and because such
energies are thus essentially public, and wholly out of the range of mere
individual agency, they must be sanctified not only by the private personal
prayers and piety of those who fill public situations, but also by public acts
of the men composing the public body. They must offer prayer and praise in their
public and collective character--in that character wherein they constitute the
organ of the nation, and wield its collective force. Wherever there is a
reasoning agency there is a moral duty and responsibility involved in it. The
governors are reasoning agents for the nation, in their conjoint acts as such.
And therefore there must be attached to this agency, as that without which none
of our responsibilities can be met, a religion. And this religion must be that
of the conscience of the governor, or none."
Here again we find propositions of vast sweep, and of sound so orthodox and
solemn that many good people, we doubt not, have been greatly edified by it. But
let us examine the words closely; and it will immediately become plain that, if
these principles be once admitted, there is an end of all society. No
combination can be formed for any purpose of mutual help, for trade, for public
works, for the relief of the sick or the poor, for the promotion of art or
science, unless the members of the combination agree in their theological
opinions. Take any such combination at random, the London and Birmingham Railway
Company for example, and observe to what consequences Mr. Gladstone's arguments
inevitably lead. Why should the Directors of the Railway Company, in their
collective capacity, profess a religion? First, because the direction is
composed of individual men appointed to act in a definite moral capacity, bound
to look carefully to the property, the limbs, and the lives of their
fellow-creatures, bound to act diligently for their constituents, bound to
govern their servants with humanity and justice, bound to fulfill with fidelity
many important contracts. They must, therefore, sanctify their acts by the
offices of religion, or these acts will be sinful and punishable in themselves.
In fulfillment, then, of his obligations as an individual, the Director of the
London and Birmingham Railway Company must be a worshipping man, But his acts
are public. He acts for a body. He moves at his word ten thousand subject arms.
And because these energies are out of the range of his mere individual agency,
they must be sanctified by public acts of devotion. The Railway Directors must
offer prayer and praise in their public and collective character, in that
character wherewith they constitute the organ of the Company, and wield its
collective power. Wherever there is reasoning agency, there is moral
responsibility. The Directors are reasoning agents for the Company, and
therefore there must be attached to this agency, as that without which none of
our responsibilities can be met, a religion. And this religion must be that of
the conscience of the Director himself, or none. There must be public worship
and a test. No Jew, no Socinian, no Presbyterian, no Catholic, no Quaker, must,
be permitted to be the organ of the Company, and to wield its collected force."
Would Mr. Gladstone really defend this proposition? We are sure that he would
not; but we are sure that to this proposition, and to innumerable similar
propositions, his reasoning inevitably leads.
Again
"National will and agency are indisputably one, binding either a dissentient
minority or the subject body, in a manner that nothing but the recognition of
the doctrine of national personality can justify. National honor and good faith
are words in every one's mouth. How do they less imply a personality in nations
than the duty towards God, for which we now contend? They are strictly and
essentially distinct from the honor and good faith of the individuals composing
the nation. France is a person to us, and we to her. A willful injury done to
her is a moral act, and a moral act quite distinct from the acts of all the
individuals composing the nation. Upon broad facts like these we may rest,
without resorting to the more technical proof which the laws afford in their
manner of dealing with corporations. If, then, a nation have unity of will, have
pervading sympathies, have capability of reward and suffering contingent upon
its acts, shall we deny its responsibility; its need of a religion to meet that
responsibility? . . A nation, then, having a personality, lies under the
obligation, like the individuals composing its governing body, of sanctifying
the acts of that personality by the offices of religion, and thus we have a new
and imperative ground for the existence of a state religion."
A new ground we have here, certainly, but whether very imperative may be
doubted. Is it not perfectly clear, that this argument applies with exactly as
much force to every combination of human beings for a common purpose, as to
governments? Is there any such combination in the world, whether technically a
corporation or not, which has not this collective personality, from which Mr.
Gladstone deduces such extraordinary consequences? Look at banks, insurance
offices, dock companies, canal companies, gas companies, hospitals,
dispensaries, associations for the relief of the poor, associations for
apprehending malefactors, associations of medical pupils for procuring subjects,
associations of country gentlemen for keeping fox-hounds, book societies,
benefit societies, clubs of all ranks, from those which have lined Pall-Mall and
St. James's Street with their palaces, down to the Free-and-easy which meets in
the shabby parlor of a village inn. Is there a single one of these combinations
to which Mr. Gladstone's argument will not apply as well as to the State? In all
these combinations, in the Bank of England, for example, or in the Athenaeum
club, the will and agency of the society are one, and bind the dissentient
minority. The Bank and the Athenaeum have a good faith and a justice different
from the good faith and justice of the individual members. The Bank is a person
to those who deposit bullion with it. The Athenaeum is a person to the butcher
and the wine-merchant. If the Athenaeum keeps money at the Bank, the two
societies are as much persons to each other as England and France. Either
society may pay its debts honestly; either may try to defraud its creditors;
either may increase in prosperity; either may fall into difficulties. If, then,
they have this unity of will; if they are capable of doing and suffering good
and evil, can we to use Mr. Gladstone's words, "deny their responsibility, or
their need of a religion to meet that responsibility?" Joint-stock banks,
therefore, and clubs, "having a personality, lie under the necessity of
sanctifying that personality by the offices of religion;" and thus we have "a
new and imperative ground" for requiring all the directors and clerks of
joint-stock banks, and all the members of clubs, to qualify by taking the
sacrament.
The truth is, that Mr. Gladstone has fallen into an error very common among men
of less talents than his own. It is not unusual for a person who is eager to
prove a particular proposition to assume a major of huge extent, which includes
that particular proposition, without ever reflecting that it includes a great
deal more. The fatal facility with which Mr. Gladstone multiplies expressions
stately and sonorous, but of indeterminate meaning, eminently qualifies him to
practice this sleight on himself and on his readers. He lays down broad general
doctrines about power, when the only power of which he is thinking is the power
of governments, and about conjoint action when the only conjoint action of which
he is thinking is the conjoint action of citizens in a state. He first resolves
on his conclusion. He then makes a major of most comprehensive dimensions, and
having satisfied himself that it contains his conclusion, never troubles himself
about what else it may contain: and as soon as we examine it we find that it
contains an infinite number of conclusions, every one of which is a monstrous
absurdity.
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