matter, and in the terrible abundance and multiformity of bewildering, deadening, and misleading influences. But the lengthening shadows warn me to have done, and I shall deal briefly with the closing part of Sir James Stephen's article.

With a clearness which leaves nothing to be desired, he contends 42 (1) that authority is only another name for the evidence of experts; (2) that assent upon authority is only warrantable when the assenting person has some knowledge of the principles of the subject and of the methods pursued; so that it is his knowledge, not his ignorance, which gives the evidence its value. Considered in respect to the subject at large, these assertions appear to me far too sweeping. Many persons, not without cultivation, are totally ignorant of the principles and methods of physics, but they may still act rationally in giving credit to a prediction by the storm-signal; or, even without view, to what Tyndall would tell them on the severance of heat and light, or Whitworth on his millionth of an inch. Or again, to take Sir James Stephen's own illustration, they would reasonably assent to an astronomer predicting an eclipse; for they would know that he was acting within his own science, without presumable cause of deviating from its laws, laws recognised by the general assent of the persons either specially or generally competent. But his belief in an astrologer predicting a birth would be irrational; for neither the opinion of the instructed nor the opinion of mankind at large asserts or allows the existence of a science of astrology, and without it there cannot even be an expert. In every case where authority is to be pleaded, there must be a primâ facie case, a point of departure, involving certain conditions, of which the first seems to be that the existence of a subject-matter, of a possible science, should be recognised. Here there is no point of departure, no primâ facie case. It is true then, as my opponent asserts, that it is by knowledge and not by ignorance that we accept authority, but untrue that it must be a knowledge of the principles and methods of the particular subject. It may be a mediate, not an immediate knowledge, a knowledge of the general rules of good sense and experience, according to which an authority ought to know, and probably does know, and thus knowing supplies us with a ground of action or belief reasonable, and if reasonable then so far obligatory.

I have thought it a fundamental defect in my opponent's philosophy, that it does not seem to recognise the vast diversities which have place in the forms of evidence according to diversities of subject-matter. There are sciences in which light is entirely with the few whom we call experts; for example, pure mathematics, and I am disposed to add philology. There are sciences in which a little light is given to all, by all meaning always all such as are not without good sense:

42 Pp. 286-97.

as such in the material order I might name medicine; still more, when we pass out of the material order, the three great branches of politics, morals, and religion.

In these branches of knowledge it is not possible to lay down a fast and clear line between experts and non-experts, more than between day and night. With mathematicians or philologists we are slow to interfere, but with those who teach in politics, in morals, or in religion, we interfere very freely. In these departments especially it is that ignorant self-assertion prevails, but in these also it is that the most fatal dangers attend upon an invasion of just liberty; and, as is common in human affairs, that which is in itself an excess counteracts or neutralises another and opposite excess, yet more injurious.

In the case of these subjects, I can approximate to the two propositions of my opponent now under discussion. Here, too, there are experts, and there are non-experts: there is a line between them, as between day and night, real, though indeterminate. The non-expert of average qualities in modern Christendom has a general knowledge of the subject-matter, not in the scientific forms, but yet in the elementary notions which those scientific forms are intended to methodise, conserve, develope, and apply. And woe were it to him, if he were not thus far at least equipped. For he has come into a world where he finds his life conditioned by the family and the State, by the Bible and the Christian Church; which touch him at a thousand points, and take a large share in the government of his life. As food and liquids are a necessity for all, nature provides all with some knowledge how to eat and drink. As society, personal duty, and religion make urgent demands on him, some of which cannot be rejected, while the rest are not always easy to reject, nature does not leave him wholly destitute of the primary instruments for handling these subjects in the practical forms suited to his condition, and he is thus placed in more or less of possible relation to their more developed aspects. Such knowledge as he has of his own disposes and helps him to recognise authority, to recognise an authority that proceeds both from experts and from the race; for few will assert that St. Augustine wrote nonsense when he wrote the remarkable, though indeterminate, words: securus judicat orbis terrarum.

I contend, then, that there is no reason why a trustworthy authority should not be generated in an appropriate manner for the benefit of mankind in these matters of universal concern-politics, morals, and religion. As to the limits of this authority in religion, I refer to my former paper, where this topic is partially considered. But I am anxious here to insist on the close analogy, which prevails between the three subjects. That analogy there seems to be, on the 'other side' generally, an indisposition either to recognise or to deny. To assert a trustworthy authority in morals would sadly damage the

argument, historical or philosophical, for denying a trustworthy authority in religion. To deny a trustworthy authority in morals would probably too much alarm the age. But Sir James Stephen justly observes upon the great progress of disintegration in religious thought during the twenty-eight years which have passed since Lewis published in 1849. In twenty-eight more years, perhaps, those of us who may be alive will have nerve to look in the face the proposal that the unreal theory, which separates religious doctrine and practice, shall be allowed to go the way of all flesh; and that the doctrine of a trustworthy authority in morals shall be abandoned, as well as that of a trustworthy authority in religion.

Using his happy faculty of illustration, Sir James Stephen closes with two parables.43 In the latter, one of two seeing men lays claim to a superior kind of sight, called 'intueing,' and not possessed by all, which discloses to him what is passing in sun, moon, and stars. Such a parallel emphatically convicts pretenders to a transcendental faculty. But against those who take their stand, in good faith, on the general constitution, which God has given to His human creatures, it is really a pointless dart. There are some philosophies, which maim this constitution by declining to take account of some of its most important offices and organs. He who argues against the Hedonist, that there is such a thing discerned or discernible by men as good apart from pleasure, asserts nothing for himself which he does not assert for humanity at large. All or most faculties may indeed enlarge, multiply, and vary their powers by vigorous and judicious exercise; or may stunt and finally lose them by disuse. But the starting-point is the same if the goal is not, and the race is run along level ground on even terms. By intuition I only mean mental sight, the faculty common to us all. I do not ask how far it is an original power, or how far it is one trained or reached by the exercise of other powers. How we know God, this is hardly the place to inquire. But it may be the place to say I cannot assert any method of knowing Him otherwise than by operations in strict conformity with the general laws of our nature. I agree with the deceased Mr. Dalgairns, that my knowledge of God is as real as my knowledge of man;' and bold, or more than bold, is he who affirms that his knowledge of man is limited to what his senses can discern in man.

The disintegration of belief, to which Sir James Stephen refers, is, I believe, very largely exaggerated in the estimates of some of those who have suffered it; but is yet in itself both remarkable and ominous. Among the special causes which have promoted or favoured it has probably, I admit, been that unusual rapidity of material progress, to stimulating which a great portion of my own life and efforts, in the line of my public duty, have been directed. In extremely kind terms, Sir James Stephen challenges me on this subject. I do

43 P. 297.

not deny the fact, nor my own relation to it. I plead, however, first, that whatever zeal I had in the cause was inspired by the hope, not of our increasing the wealth or weight of the wealthy, but of our bringing millions upon millions out of a depressing poverty into a capacity at least of tolerable comfort; and that, in acting otherwise, I should have been like a physician refusing to use the appropriate means for bringing back to health a patient of questionable habits, lest he should misuse the blessing when attained. There can be little doubt that, with this abnormal rapidity in the creation of masses of wealth, there has come a shock to moral and mental equilibrium, and a perceptible overweight of material objects and pursuits. But on the other hand it may be allowed us at least to hope that the effect of such a shock may pass away, like an atmospheric disturbance, when it has produced its proper amount either of discomfort or of mischief. But here again we stand at the door of a large subject, which it would be especially unsuitable to prosecute at the end of a paper already carried to an extent that may well have exhausted the patience of the most willing reader. I shall close with a single remark on the celebrated dictum of Vincentius, quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus; on which Lewis has offered critical observations that, in the letter, it would be difficult to dispute. My remarks shall be not on its positive but on its negative value. It supplies, or ought to supply, an useful safeguard against the mental panic to which some give way when they perceive, or think they perceive, some violent rush of popular opinion. It is a good antidote against the sentiment which has not yet assumed the form of a counter-adage, but which may be fairly expressed in the words quod nunc, quod hic, quod a paucis. It may supply some fresh securities for our mental freedom against the hurried and crowded, and yet rather too imperious, demands of our own day and place; and may remind us that the promises and purposes of the Creator are not for an age but for the ages, and not for a tribe but for mankind.

W. E. GLADSTONE.

NOTE. In an article on 'The Abuses of a Landed Gentry,' which appeared in the May number of this Review, a Public Drainage Loan is mentioned, and the question is put: 'What did the landed gentry do with it? Mr. Caird tells us that they borrowed at 6 per cent. from the Government, and lent at 7 per cent. to their tenants.' We are requested by Mr. Caird to state that he has been erroneously quoted as the authority for that general statement, which, though it may be true in some few exceptional and unimportant cases, is to his knowledge inapplicable and unjust to the landed gentry as a whole.'—ED.

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INDEX TO VOL.
VOL. I.

The titles of articles are printed in italics.