intelligence and in other important respects, and have on frequent occasions exhibited an amount of moderation and common sense which was greatly to their credit. In the main they do not follow mere demagogues, but think for themselves. The consequence is, that the single representative they have returned to Parliament-the member for Morpeth-is one of the most honest, thoughtful, and earnest Members of the present House of Commons. No one will dispute the statement that the working classes of this country are better able to judge of public questions than even the average of those who had the power of selecting Members of Parliament in the earliest days of the Septennial Act. Under Queen Victoria the skilled artisan, and even the common workman, often possesses a larger knowledge of books, a better acquaintance with science, and more taste for art, than would be found upon an average among the parochial clergy or the country gentlemen of England under George the Second."

Under the best of governments, the great mass of our people have many obstacles and hosts of difficulties and temptations, and it is but right that they should have frequent opportunities of guarding their interests by mending their choice of representatives; and this could tend to nothing but good, for it would be but giving the people a common, universal, and unanimous interest in the protection and prosperity of the country, which, indeed, is the only way to make a happy and a truly united people.

More frequent general elections would undoubtedly give rise to more frequent discussions as to the state of the people and the condition of the Empire; but when we reflect, and I think we may reflect with just pride, upon the moderation with which in this country discussions, whether in the House of Commons or out of it, are conducted, we cannot but believe that these discussions, carried on, as Lord Russell once wrote, 'with the whole nation for an audience, so far from being mischievous, tend to excite that spirit of inquiry and investigation which is necessary to the freedom of a free State.'

All parts of the country and all classes of the people have now a share in the election of Members of Parliament. It cannot but be of advantage to direct the attention of the people to the conduct of their representatives as the guardians of the public interest, and to canvass their actions. 'Confidence is good, but blind confidence in the depositors of power may be fatal to a free State.' The House of Commons should be, as Mr. Pitt said, an assembly united with the people by the closest sympathies.'

6

The people at present take but little interest in public questions. Were general elections rather more frequent, not only would they

8

Vaughan's Revolutions in English History, vol. iii. p. 647.

serve to prevent stagnation in the public mind, but they would tend to create that sympathy to which a century ago Mr. Pitt alluded. Such frequent discussions would promote an enlightened view of public duty, and be the truest safeguards of the best parts of a free constitution, and the surest protection to our liberties. Give me,' says Milton, the liberty to know, to utter and argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.'

JOHN HOLMS.

THE LOGIC OF TOLERATION.

(CONCLUDING PAPER OF SERIES.)

DURING the past two years I have been trying in some six papers— published most of them in this Review-to popularise a true and sober judgment of our modern positive thought, and the power of our modern positive thinkers. At present, as we all know, the school is possessed of the greatest weight. It has become the most active force now at work in the world. It claims the entire direction of the human mind, and of all human progress. If its claims be not fully made good yet, it boasts that before long they will be. And its strength is shown us by the fears of its enemies, even more clearly than by the hopes of its friends. Strength, however, is often nothing more than the reputation of strength; and it has been my aim to make clear, in the present case, how largely it consists of this. I am of course not speaking of the scientific school, in so far as it keeps within its own province. I am speaking of it only in so far as it quits this, and assumes to instruct the world upon wider mattersupon faith, and morals, and philosophy, or anything, in short, connected with the higher life of man. It has taught us many facts, it is true, that bear upon all these, and that some day or other will enlarge our views concerning them. It is impossible to deny this; and no one desires to deny it. All I have tried to make evident is, that those who have discovered the facts have been utterly incompetent to discern their true general bearing; and that though such men may be excellent servants to thought, they are very incapable masters of it. At present practically they are to a great extent its masters; and I desire to show on how hollow a basis their supremacy rests; how unable they will be to maintain it against any rational attack; and that their security depends chiefly on an intellectual panic. Their position is this. They have made astonishing conquests in the physical world, and they come to us laden with spoils, and formidable with the prestige of conquerors. By a kind of coup d'état they have taken possession of the spiritual world as well; and have ignorantly been working in it an incalculable ruin, by the aid of a false prestige. To destroy such prestige must be the first step in

the right direction. And since, to do this, nothing is really needed beyond a moderate amount of calm and sober reasoning, and a moderately comprehensive view of philosophy and human life, I do not consider myself presumptuous in my attempt to take a part in the work.

I have therefore taken the chief philosophical doctrines of the school in question, and compared them with the views set forth by its teachers as to the character and the conduct of life. I have done this in some detail, and with what accuracy I might. I have tried to be precise in my use of words, to banish all vague phrases, and to try our exact thinkers' by the rules of exact thought. I have taken their denials of God, of immortality, and in short of any supernatural order, and examined on what these denials are based; and I have applied the same tests to all human life as well. The result has been to show that faith and morals are of one and the same substance; and that the arguments that destroy the validity of the former, destroy the value of the latter. Our scientific philosophers have either established a great deal more than they imagine, or a great deal less. Their present position is at any rate untenable. It is both illogical and ludicrous.

In attempting to make this evident, a certain element of personality has entered into my writings; but this element has been as small as possible, and what there is of it has been there of necessity. The spread of modern unbelief, and the rational character it is supposed to have, are due largely to the personal character of its chief exponents-their character as excellent men, and as clear and profound thinkers. That they are excellent and estimable men no one would deny; nor in any case would there be any call to do so.1 But there is a distinct call to reduce to their true dimensions the other qualities with which they are so largely credited. I have therefore not hesitated in my attempt to make it evident that the men who are presenting themselves to the world now, as types and organs of clear and exact thinking, and as masters of all the vital knowledge that is yet attainable, are men really whose province of knowledge is an extremely small and limited one, who outside that province are enlightened but by the merest smattering of an education, and whose thinking on general matters is that rather of a bewildered woman than a keen and collected man. They themselves have often made charges of just the same nature against their opponents; so that they

1 In making such observations as these, it is the English scientific school that I must be understood to allude to. Of the same school on the Continent I cannot speak with the same knowledge or confidence. But it is not too much to say, as a general statement, that the scientific materialism of the present century owes much of the rapidity and ease of its victories to the fact that none of its most eminent exponents have done anything openly, either by word or by example, to disturb or revolutionise the moral ideas and the moral ideals that are at present dominant.

must admit that to make them is perfectly legitimate, and, if they can be substantiated, eminently useful. I am quite willing to agree that they have themselves often made them both with justice and utility. I have been trying to show only that they can be retorted back on the makers with greater justice, and with a far deeper meaning. I will take one example of the kind of charge I allude to. Let a man, says Dr. Tyndall, once get a real scientific grasp' of the ways of nature, and he will see and feel what drivellers even men of strenuous intellect may become, through exclusively dwelling and dealing with theological chimeras.' To this I answer, let a man once get even a moderate grasp of the nature of human knowledge, the motives of human action, and the analysis of human emotion, and he will see what drivellers even men of strenuous intellect may become, when they confront the problems of life, through exclusively dwelling and dealing with the phenomenal conditions of it.

My attempt, in my previous essays, to make this position good, has been necessarily, from their form and the circumstances of their publication, a very incomplete one, and there is one omission which I wish to supply here in this my concluding paper. Hitherto I have criticised the scientific school as though they were express deniers of the supernatural. Most of them, however, I know, disavow such a position as this, and apparently lay much stress on their doing so. They do not deny, they say; they only refuse to affirm. They are not Atheists, they are Agnostics. I myself consider that absolute doubt on such matters as these is practically equivalent to absolute denial; and have, in passing, several times said so. But such a mere expression of opinion is, of course, only provisional; of itself it goes for nothing. And since the state of mind in question is the object, in the present day, of so much eloquent intellectual admiration, so much solemn intellectual ambition, and apparently, when attained to, is the source of such secure spiritual satisfaction, I propose to devote a few pages to a more detailed examination of it. Having done this, I shall pass on to a kindred question, or rather to the same question under a different aspect. Suspense of the religious judgment will be the subject in both cases; but what I shall deal first with will be its theoretical aspect, which is called Agnosticism; what I shall deal with secondly will be its practical aspect, which is called toleration. Both essentially are one and the same thing. Agnosticism is theoretical toleration; toleration is practical Agnosticism.

The treatment of the first question has proved far easier than I had dared to hope it would. I had hardly begun to prepare the present paper when there appeared one from the pen of Dr. Tyndall, in the November number of this Review, with the title of Virchow and Evolution.' Dr. Tyndall there takes occasion to give a fresh summary of his philosophic views in general; and he has presented me, in so doing, with an example unexpectedly perfect of the special position I am about to criticise. Nor is this all he has done. He