he has found one, it will be very easy to show that it is false. The truth is, that the question admits of no such general solution; and Mr. Mill's search after one is a wild goose chase. The legislators of 1787, like most other sensible men, concluded, that the solution of this question must depend on the situation and the circumstances' of the people for whom it is intended. Hence, in their opinion, 'no two ages, and scarcely any two countries,' should decide it alike; and if the practical wisdom of their conclusion should be foolishness to Mr. Mill, this is only what should have been expected. The political visionary, of course, fails to comprehend the practical wisdom of statesmen, and sees only arbitrary foolishness in the legislation of all ages and countries. 'I write not,' says the great author of the Spirit of Laws, 'to censure anything established in any country whatsoever; every nation will here find the reasons on which its maxims are founded.' Mill, on the contrary, writes to censure every thing, and to show how all ages and nations should have determined 'the great question in human affairs.' The Spirit of Laws,' says Dugald Stewart, 'gives proofs in every page of the absurdity of all schemes of Universal Legislation.'* But when did the Spirit of Laws ever enter into the head, or the heart, or the imagination, of a Radical? He is always and everywhere afflicted with a scheme of 'universal legislation.'

Mr.

'What, then, is the rightful limit of the sovereignty of the individual over himself? Where does the authority of society begin?' (p. 44.) The answer to these questions, we say, depends, in each and every case, on the condition and circumstances of the individual and of the society to which he belongs. In some cases, indeed, neither the individual, nor the society, is fit to exercise authority or control over any one. In regard to such cases, a despotic government, with unlimited control over the individual, is the true answer to Mr. Mill's question. It is, in fact, the answer which he himself gives, in his work 'On Representative Government. In such cases,' says he, the people *Stewart's Works. Vol. VI, p. 180.

must have a government nearly, or quite, despotic.' (p. 44.) 'A constitution in any degree popular, dependent on the voluntary surrender by the different members of the community of their individual freedom of action, would fail to enforce the first lesson (obedience) which the pupils, in this stage of their progress, require. Accordingly, the civilization of such tribes, when not the result of juxtaposition with others already civilized, is almost always the work of an absolute ruler, deriving his power either from religion or military prowess; very often from foreign armies.' (p. 15.) But as the members of such a community become more and more civilized, or capable of self-control, the authority over them may be more and more limited, or relaxed from a despotic into a more popular form of government; a truth which is also recognized by Mr. Mill in his work 'On Representative Government.' 'Institutions,' says he, 'need to be radically different, according to the stages of advancement already reached. The recognition of this truth, though for the most part empirically rather than philosophically, may be regarded as the main point of superiority in the political theories of the present above those of the last age, in which it was customary to claim representative democracy for England or France by arguments which would equally have proved it the only fit form of government for Bedouins or Malays. The state of different communities, in point of culture and development, ranges downwards to a condition very little above the highest of the beasts. The upward range, too, is considerable, and the future possible extension vastly greater.'* That is, as the power of self-control, becomes more and more perfect in the members comprising a community, the more and more should the power of external control or authority be limited. Hence, it is perfectly evident, that Mr. Mill's question, he himself being the judge, admits of no general solution, but must be determined by the circumstances of each particular case. Thus, in his work On Representative Government,' 'the King of thinkers' sinks from the sublime speculation of his new gospel' of Liberty, and * Essay on Representative Government. Chap. II.

comes down to a level with the practical good sense of ordinary mortals.

But let us return to his new gospel,' and examine the general solution of the question, which constitutes the grand theme of his 'glad tidings.' He there tells us : That the only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to attain it.' (p. 8.) Again, 'The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over.himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.' (p. 6.) Now this general answer of Mr. Mill to his question is, in the first place, nothing at all new; and, in the second place, it is utterly false and deceptive.

It is, in the first place, nothing at all new. Rousseau, for one, says: Each person should be 'permitted to do whatever does not injure others. This is the invariable boundary, and it is impossible to fix it with greater precision.'* Here, then, is Mr. Mill's great principle for determining the limit of social authority, as clearly and as fully expressed as it is by himself. This principle, or rule, may be found in a hundred other celebrated writers, as well as in J. J. Rousseau. It is, indeed, one of the commonplaces of political speculation. Thus, having deplored the melancholy fact, that no age or nation has ever been blessed with a general rule to settle 'the principal question in human affairs,' Mr. Mill goes in search of one for the benefit of mankind, and, lo! after all, he lights on a mere commonplace as the very thing the world has so long needed! At once a new gospel and an old commonplace! The 'glorious evangel of the nineteenth century' and yet merely the threadbare patch of a threadbare philosophy! Peter Pindar compares the clouds of a certain painter to 'a resurrection of rags.' There are many such clouds in Mr. Mill's philosophy.

It is, in fact, out of the one stale principle above stated, that his gospel of liberty is manufactured. By the light Social Contract, Ch. VIII.

of this principle, he determines the liberty of thought and discussion,' and also the limits of the authority of society over the individual'; the two great themes of his book. We do not design to follow Mr. Mill into the details of his very heavy, not to say very dull, discussion, or to examine the various 'applications' of his great principle. On the contrary, passing by the manifold particular errors of his book, we mean to apply the knife to the common root from which they spring.

'In the part of the conduct of any one,' says Mr. Mill, 'which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.' Now this is not true. This corner-stone of his whole system, though confidently assumed as if it were incontestably true, is utterly false. The individual is not 'sovereign over himself, over his own body and mind.' God is sovereign over both. In regard to no part of his conduct, whether it relate to others or to himself, is the independence of the individual de jure absolute. God is the only absolute sovereign in the universe. When He created man, he made him a little lower than the angels,' and, having impressed the divine image of his nature, set him over this lower world as its lord and master. How magnificent his empire! How grand and glorious his dominion! But God did not give him 'the absolute and uncontrolled' right to do whatever he pleases, either with respect to others or to himself. His power is one thing, and his right another. This proud lord of creation is, after all, the servant of his Creator. He is a limited monarch, and as such bound by the law of his nature, or the moral law of the world, to be a wise, just, and beneficent sovereign, whether dealing with himself or with others. He may have the power, but he has not the right, to pursue 'his own happiness in his own way'; for he is bound to pursue it in the way pointed out by the Supreme Ruler of the universe, and in no way whatever inconsistent_with this. Every violation of the moral law of the world, is a wrong, not a right. The individual has, in fact, no more right to injure himself, than he has to injure his

neighbour. He may, it is true, most effectually ruin himself by indolence or vice; but to call this his right, or his freedom, is a gross abuse of language. To call it 'the only freedom which deserves the name,' (p. 8) betrays a profound misapprehension of the only liberty which constitutes the dignity and glory of a rational and immortal being. The great defect of Mr. Mill's principle is, that it ignores the existence of a God, and of His moral law and government of the world. It is not only false in itself; it is even atheistical in its origin and aims.

'The only freedom which deserves the name,' says Mr. Mill, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.' Is the freedom, then, which consists in pursuing our own good, not in our own way, but in the way prescribed by infinite wisdom, not worthy of the name? Is the freedom of thought which, rising above the dark dominion of ignorance and error, exults in the sublime conformity of itself to the thought of God himself, beneath the notice of Mr. Mill-'the King of thinkers'? The truth is, that the freedom to pursue our own good in our own way, is not liberty at all; it is merely license; the license of a little, egotistical, self-idolizing atom of a godless world. The only freedom which deserves the name is, in fact, that of pursuing our own good, as well as the good of others, in the way prescribed by the Supreme Ruler of the world.

Montesquieu, in one of his definitions of liberty, touches a higher truth than any that ever entered into the philosophy of Mr. Mill. Liberty, says he, is the power of doing all that we ought to be allowed to do.* We cannot regard this as a perfect definition of liberty; but it contains, at least, a shining fragment of truth, which neither Mr. Mill, nor Dr. Lieber, has had the grace to appropriate. Dr. Lieber, indeed, casts it aside with the pitch-fork of his criticism, just as if it were palpable and unmitigated error. To Montesquieu's definition, that Liberty is the power of doing all that we ought to be allowed to do,' he opposes, *Spirit of Laws. Book XI. Chap. III.