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NO. I.

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RELIGIO LAICI.

By THOMAS HUGHES, Author of "TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS." [Ready.

NO. II. THE MOTE AND THE BEAM: A Clergyman's Lessons from the Present Panic.

By the REV. F. D. MAURICE, Incumbent of St. Peter's, Vere Street.

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NO. III. THE ATONEMENT AS A FACT AND AS A THEORY.

By the REV. FRANCIS GARDEN, Sub-Dean of the Chapel Royal.

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The title of this series will explain its general purpose. Each particular tract we hope will explain itself. They are suggested by the present condition of religious feeling in England. They will not be confined to the topics which are treated of in any particular volume. The writers will express frankly their differences from each other, but they do not shrink from the responsibilities which are involved in a joint publication.

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MACMILLAN'S MAGAZINE.

JUNE, 1861.

MR. MILL'S TREATISE ON REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT.

WE wish to direct attention to one of the most valuable and most suggestive works on Political Science that have appeared for many years.

The practical recommendations advoeated by Mr. Mill are well worthy of most serious consideration. But it

would be doing the work a great injustice to estimate its value by the measures of reform which would follow as a consequence of Mr. Mill's speculative considerations. Many writers and speakers have advocated the particular measures which Mr. Mill discusses; and therefore the hasty reader might lay aside the work with an ignorant confidence that he has heard enough about the extension of the suffrage, representation of minorities, the admission of women to the franchise, and vote by ballot. But the mind of a great philosopher can shed new light upon the most oft-discussed subjects; and no one can tell what his own opinions may be worth upon what foundation they rest-until he brings his convictions into contact with the reasonings of an accurate and philosophic thinker. Thus the Ballot is now a question which is treated with contemptuous indifference by the House of Commons. A serious discussion upon it will not be tolerated. Its advocates confess that they have nothing more to urge on its behalf, and its opponents defend their opposition by certain never-failing dogmas. Let any read the reasons upon which Mr. Mill No. 20.-VOL. IV.

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places his opposition to the ballot, and, whether a friend or a foe of secret voting he will receive invaluable instruction. The candid friend of the ballot will confess that Mr. Mill has removed the subject from the narrow basis on which it is usually discussed in the House of Commons; and the intelligent opponent will admit that his opposition may be made to rest on principles, and not on vague reasons of instinctive antipathy.

We make these preliminary remarks because it is not our intention to review Mr. Mill's work in the ordinary sense of the term. No idea of its merits can be formed by criticising the conclusions at which he arrives. Every page contains evidence of those remarkable powers of reflection which have been so abundantly shown in his previous writings; but, perhaps, no one of his other works affords a more striking example of harmonious development of mind, and of deep-seated love of truth. Mr. Mill is becoming better appreciated every year, and his influence is rapidly spreading. A constantly increasing number of the young men of the greatest promise at Oxford and Cambridge look to him as a master. When they first branch away from the special studies of their university course, he more than any other living author directs their tastes and moulds their opinions. Mr. Mill has sometimes suffered from that prejudice which is sure to be brought against every honest and fearless thinker; but bigotry cannot

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now assail the position he occupies. Statesmen of every shade of political opinion search eagerly for quotations from his works; and nothing can be a source of truer satisfaction to a writer than the consciousness that his works are training the minds of those who are just commencing the business of life: for the current of their action is yet to be determined. A quotation from Lord Bacon, which Mr. Mill applies to Coleridge, now more accurately describes his own position than that of any other living author. For, if it be true, as Lord Bacon affirms, "that a knowledge of "the speculative opinions of the men "between twenty and thirty years of age is the great source of political "prophecy," the existence of Mr. Mill will show itself by no slight or ambiguous traces in the coming history of our country; for no one has contributed more to shape the opinions of those among its younger men who can be said to have opinions at all.

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Mr. Mill's work opens with a complete refutation of the two opposite and extreme schools of the writers on government. Mr. Buckle is at the present time, perhaps, the best known advocate of the theory that the form of government which any nation possesses is the spontaneous and inevitable growth of the condition in which the nation may happen to be. An opposite school of thinkers profess that any form of government may be forced upon a nation. Government is conceived to be merely a means to an end; it is, in fact, like a machine, upon which ingenuity may be employed, so as to make it most completely perform, like any other machine, the practical purpose for which it has been constructed. Mr. Mill steers a happy mean between these conflicting theories. He rejects the errors of each, and discriminates the exact amount of truth they may each possess. And thus the singular justice of his mind is exemplified. Mr. Buckle is bewitched with the sweeping generalization with which a theory may provide him. He never stops to consider how much truth may be contained in the reasonings

of those who differ from him, but convinces the hasty reader by his confident assurance that no social theory was ever so ridiculous as the one which is opposed to his own. Truth is manysided; Mr. Mill's view of a question is so complete that he has the same intelligent appreciation of those opinions from which he differs as of those with

which he may agree. Thus Mr. Mill's early education was connected with all the associations of the philosophy of Mr. Bentham. He was regarded by the Bentham school as the most brilliant and promising disciple of their great master. Mr. Coleridge and Mr. Bentham were the representatives of opposite schools of philosophy. Two well-known essays on these celebrated men were written by Mr. Mill; and it would be difficult to show that the merits of Mr. Coleridge have ever been so justly appreciated even by his most devoted followers.

Mr. Mill, after having discussed the two theories which we have above alluded to, proceeds to show that there are certain conditions which every form of government must fulfil. "The peo"ple for whom the form of government "is intended must be willing to accept "it, or at least not so unwilling as to

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oppose an insurmountable obstacle to "its establishment. They must be will"ing and able to do what is necessary "to keep it standing. And they must "be willing and able to do what it "requires of them to enable it to fulfil "its purposes. The word do must be "understood as including forbear

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most rational choice of those improvements which are not only theoretically advantageous, but which also fulfil the conditions of practicability.

Mr. Mill devotes his second chapter to a discussion of the tests of good government. Order and Progress are commonly stated to be the characteristics of a good government; but the insufficiency of this analysis is amply exposed. Order and Progress ought not to be opposed to each other in the opposition of a contrast; for Order is an important requisite of Progress, and therefore Progress to a great extent includes Order. Mr. Mill emphatically insists that government ought to be tested by its aggregate effects on human beings, and he considers that the most important function that government can fulfil is to promote the virtue and intelligence of the people. A class of thinkers to whom we have already alluded consider that the form of a government is simply an inevitable effect of the condition in which the governed may happen to be. Forms of

government, and the condition of the governed, would, in deference to these opinions, be connected as effect and cause. But social phenomena ought rarely to be separated into distinct classes as effects and causes. The process is invariably one rather of action and reaction; for the effects modify the causes. And Mr. Mill, looking at the past, considers that governments have produced a most decided influence upon the condition of man, and he believes that constant efforts directed towards the introduction of the greatest possible improvements will most beneficially influence the future of each nation. Mr. Mill in this chapter remarks that antagonism of influences is absolutely necessary to progress. In bringing forward many examples to support his views, he places the history of the Jews in a singularly interesting aspect. "The "Jews had an absolute monarchy and a "hierarchy, and their organized institu"tions were as obviously of sacerdotal "origin as those of the Hindoos. These "did for them what was done for other "Oriental races by their institutions

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"subdued them to industry and order, "and gave them a national life. But "neither their kings nor their priests "ever obtained, as in those other coun"tries, the exclusive moulding of their "character. Their religion, which "enabled persons of genius and a high religious tone to be regarded, and to "regard themselves, as inspired from "heaven, gave existence to an inestima"bly precious unorganized institution"the order (if it may be so termed) of Prophets. Under the protection gene"rally, though not always, effectual, of "their sacred character, the Prophets

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were a power in the nation, often more "than a match for kings and priests, "and kept up in that little corner of "the earth the antagonism of influences "which is the only real security for "continued progress." Consequently the Jews, instead of being stationary like other Oriental nations, were, with the exception of the Greeks, the most progressive people of antiquity, and had been in conjunction with them "the "starting-point and main propelling "agency of modern cultivation."

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Mr. Mill next discusses what he conceives to be the ideally best form of government. He means by this expression the government which is best suited to the existing state of a nation. It is necessary for him to dispose of a radical error, which is not unfrequently professed even by those who live under free institutions. Men who are impressed with the advantage of a particular change are wearied and annoyed by the obstacles which oppose its introduction; and they sometimes express a desire for the strong will of the good despot, whose unchecked power would rapidly remove the impediments to the realization of their beneficent ideas. But the popular conception of this good despot is purely ideal. No such man ever has lived, for he would not only be a good but a perfect man. And, even admitting that such a despot could be secured-one so wise, so good, that his administration should be faultless—yet the consequences to those whom he governed would be disastrous in the

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