SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.
Poirrinsi. PHILOSOPHY, The Nature and Once of the State. By Andrew Coventry Dick. Black, Edinburgh-
FICTION,
The Victim of the Jesuits ; or Mourn.) Aillaga. I Romance, from the French of Eugene Scribe. By Charles Cocks, Translator of " Priests, Women, and Families," &c. In three volumes Bentley. Fora Ants, Sacred and Legendary Art. By Mrs. Jameson. In two volumes.• Lonyman and Co.
DICK ON THE NATURE AND OFFICE OF THE STATE.
THERE are two leading modes of proceeding to investigate the essential principles of anything : the a priori, which endeavours to discover some recondite or abstract law of being without much regard to experience or experiment ; the d posteriori, which makes experience or experiment all in all, striving to deduce the universal law from particular examples. Since the time of Bacon the latter mode has prevailed in physical science: in metaphysical, (using the word in its sense of opposed to physics,) the influence of Bacon is less felt, though not without effect even there. We do not trifle now like the Schoolmen of the middle ages; but there is still much of vagueness, assumption, or hypothesis, in discussing the prin- ciples of morals, politics, jurisprudence ; and that too without reaching the largeness and elevation which the it priori method might seem best fitted to attain.
Mr. Dick, in The Nature and Ofirtee of the State, has aimed at com- bining both methods; but without so much success as the design merited. His first principles are imperfect. He ascribes the fundamental origin of the state to two elements, dominion over territory and the command of physical force. These alone, however, rather apply to a government de facto than to a philosophical idea of the state; and even governments, with any pretension to civilization, advance beyond two such very mate- rial elements as power over earth and force. Hence, when the author goes on to compare the laws of civilized communities with the logical se- quences that follow his two primordia, the result is unsatisfactory. Thus the state, in Mr. Dick's idea, originating in physical force, it follows as.a sequence that the state by its laws can only deal with injuries arising from physical actions. Ingratitude, for example, though a grievous fault, is one which must be left to conscience and opinion. The instance is perhaps sound, though at least one ancient state punished certain moral offences by declaring the perpetrator infamous; and even under our laws there are offences where, though the instrument of the injury may be cor- poreal, the injury itself is mental. Mr. Dick's own instance of slander scarcely seems to be "physical," beyond the necessity imposed upon man of using some material instrument to utter his thoughts : yet Mr. Dick would punish slander. Blasphemy, again, is clearly-a mental offence : yet he holds that blasphemy may be punished. "That irreligion which vents itself in blasphemy or sacrilege, maliciously shocking the religious feelings of society, is not a moral sin simply, but a proper crime, as it is a fertile source of commotion and insubordination. Hence it is just that states should by law prohibit.and punish such offences against religion. It is plain, however, that it may not justly reckon a man a blasphemer, for instance, simply because he utters opinions which the neighbourhood or the public regard as blasphemous. The crime consists in the design and mode of utterance, and is committed only by one who, from positive malice to those around him, or with unjust regardlessness of their feelings, defames, ridicules, or insults the object of their faith or worship. For in a true juridical view, it is not the-utter- ing false religions opinions that is criminal, but the uttering religious opinions, whether true or false, with a design to give pain, and in.an irritating and offen- sive manner."
Not disputing the soundness of this opinion, we think the passage con- tab's a strange mixture of philosophical error (on the author's own prin- ciples) and legal casuistry. The mental suffering induced by the pro- mulgation of blasphemy is surely not greater than that occasionedly ingratitude, or other moral offences which the law does not notice. If turbulence or riot be induced by the blasphemer, punish him as the cause of it ; but it is manifestly unjust to punish a man for an act that may never ensue. Mr. Dick -has allowed his legal traiuing to overpower his logic and philosophy : the conclusion is on a par with that judicial dic- tum which pronounces truth to be a libel because it has a tendency.to provoke a breach of the peace. We are not arguing for the punishment of ingratitude, or denying that a needless outrage to the religious feeling of the community is an offence deservedly punished : we doubt the grounds of Mr. Dick's conclusions, not the conclusions themselves.
Similar inconsequence or contradiction frequently prevails, when the author brings his fundamental ideas to a touchstone they will not bear. It is also a question, (though not a vital objection,) that his two requi- sites of a state, territory and physical power, are grounded on mate- rialism and brute force : all idea of morality or justice is thus excluded from the origin of the state. This is surely a detect in dealing with the greatest human relation that we know or can conceive; the state being above the family and above society, which are indeed included in it. The origin of particular states, so far as history or tradition informs us, has indeed been bad enough ; fraud, or force, accompanied by injuries and cruelties, has been the beginning of most of them : but surely some other property than the possession of a quantity of land and the com- mand of physical force must enter into the essential principle of a state. Land and the power of enforcing obedience seem rather secondary than essential properties, always accompanying the state, but not constituting it. Something of a moral or at least an intelligent principle appears essential to its constitution. The idea of the state, the crowning feature of man's condition in this world, ought to be something more in- herent in man's nature,—an extension of the familyand of society, de- pending in the first instance upon ties of blood and language. These last, in fact, are the great bonds of a state. Snob, too, seems to be the gradual progress of peoples—the family, the society, the tribe, thirsue, and the state. It is race and language which is the political muse of the condition of Ireland; it is a main source of the present disturbances in Several great territorial divisions of the Continent. There can indeed be no state without territory of some kind, and force is equally necessary ; but so are men, so is food to sustain the men, air for them to breathe, and any other common matter essential to existence. This fundamental error, as we take it, is detrimental in a literary point of view, by inducing frequent discrepancies not only between the corol- laries of the author from his main positions, but in the ideas he maintains touching the duties of states,—such as that they have no business to in- terfere with education. Another defect is, that Mr. Dick does not confine himself to an exposition of the general principles of the state, or the forms of government in which the state may be embodied, but touches upon many subordinate points, without allowing himself sufficient space to discuss them fully. The book, though published in consequence of late events, was written long before; and it contains little more than a passing allusion to those disturbances which are straining governments and overturning dynasties, without, apparently, substituting any settled forms in their place. From these causes, The Nature and Office of the State does not offer much that is conclusive in its general theory, or novel in its particular views. The book, however, is valuable as the production of a thinker who furnishes the student with materials for reflection and suggests new trains of ideas, even when the reader may not be disposed to agree with the writer in his conclusions. There are also many passages of considerable power and value, having little relation to the writer's theory, or disconnected from it. The following very able review of the opinions of the ancients upon the state is of the first kind. In ascribing so comprehensive an end to the body politic as the 'wellbeing' of man or his perfection or happiness in general, the ancient theorists seem to have been inspired by a more rational and consistent philosophy than their follow- ers among the moderns. To this idea of it the Grecian philosophers were led by the experience of their political world. The smallness of the states composing their political system, and their active rivalry with each other, engendered in their members an intense spirit of civism, which made each man regard his state as a sort of impersonation of himself. Its security, independence, and glory, were near to his personal interests, and ever present to his mind; they could be maintained only by his constant personal care; and while engaged in this labour he was dis- charging the highest function of a man. In their estimation the state was every- thing, the individual nothing; and hence the whole public polity was to be directed to the single end of bringing each citizen into the highest condition of fitness for the public service. In order, therefore, that not one particle of the power and energy of any one individual might run to waste or be diverted, it was held to be the concern of the law, first, to devise the model of a perfect citizen, and next, by system of discipline, to mould, or rather to distort into agreement with it, the characters of all its members. For this purpose, the public discipline was to em- brace the whole life of a man, from his infancy up to his mature age, and all his conditions and relations, whether domestic, social, religious, industrial, or political. He was to be ever the servant, or rather instrument and slave of the state, neither retaining any personal independence nor owning any separate or even interme- diate authority; and reaping as the sole but sufficient reward of this abnegation of personality and freedom, the applause of his compatriots, and the public renown of his state. We may gain some insight into the principle from the example of the Spartan republic, which is well known to have been the admiration of Grecian political philosophy. In that strange community, a man was begotten' born, and suckled; he ate, drank, dressed; he thought, spoke, walked, worked, fought, di- verted himself; loved, married, worshiped—learned, in short, everything he knew, and executed everything he did, according to a political rule, the single aim of which was to make each citizen a fit instrument for public purposes. Living in a political system which induced this stern subjugation of all persons and things to the one great authority of the state, and where the Spartan people, among whom the subjugation was most thorough and firm long bore away the palm of civic glory from all competitors, it is dot wonderful :that the Grecian philosophers should have formed very exalted conceptions of the rights and functions of the body poli- tic. They held, accordingly, that the political was the perfect condition of man; not only crowning all others, and including all as the whole includes the parts, but in a manner extinguishing or superseding every other; so that a man, when he entered into it, seems to have ceased in their view to retain any personality, or at least any independent rights as an individual, or any independent relations, either domestic or social, with other men; but to have become in everything a mere limb or member of the state, bound to take from the public will the order of his whole life. With such experience and such ideas, it was natural that in their speculations they should assign the highest possible function to the political so- ciety, and hold it to embrace in its design nothing short of the whole 'well- being' of man."
After tracing the same idea in the Eastern monarchies, with the dif- ference of a religious instead of a political foundation, Mr. Dick passes on to their grand defect, and to the changes that the Roman rule intro- duced into the idea and practice of the state. "But if we consult experience, we shall perceive that the universal and in- timate control of the conduct of its subjects, which this is makes the business of the state, is incompatible with change,. and so is incompatible with the true function of a man, which is to grow in civilization. The condition of every people who are under such a rule must be a stationary one; as it is very evident that a change cannot take place by individual will, for thereby the sub- jects might escape from the public rule; and cannot be made by the state itself, for, implying, as it would do, previous error or imperfection, it would be at vari- ance with the necessary pretensions of the system to infallibility, and would strike at the root of its authority. Add to this, that even if otherwise unobjec- tionable, the extreme practical difficulty of getting a whole people to adopt a change with the necessary simultaneousness and unanimity would of itself pre- vent the attempt Whenever, accordingly, room is to be made for the advance of society, the public authority must retire within a narrowed jurisdiction, giving up for its impracticability, if for no better reason, the office of presiding over the whole life of its subjects. The progress of such a restriction of .its superintend- ence is, not indeed exemplified, but indicated, in the history of the Roman re- public. In its earlier ages, the public laws and customs partook of the educa- tional character of the Lycurgan and theocratic polity. But as the republic extended its territory, and brought under its dominion various tribes and nations, each having its own notions, manners, and laws, the Roman legislators rose in their ideas to a clear conception of the true rule of civil life; of which the fun- damental principle is the personal liberty of man. Thence, within the bosom of that republic was founded and built up that grand monument of human wis- dom the civil law; which, moulding itself by the standard of universal rea:on and equity, provided in its letter, and most probably secured in fact, a large measure of civil liberty to its subjects, of security in the possession and freedom in the use of property, as well as of freedom of industry and enterprise. Ostensibly, indeed, this law or rule of life still bore the appearance of state superintendence, inasmuch as it proceeded from the state as its author. But when examined, it was apparent that the state had, in its turn, taken it, in its great outlines, from the higher source of reason and general expedience, and that its real effect was to leave each individual man his own master within a certain wide sphere, and to give ample room for the spontaneous and undirected growth of nearly every kind and variety of civilization."
In the course of his work, more especially in that section devoted to "the Government of the State," Mr. Dick occasionally refers to the condition of things in England. The utility of his remarks is somewhat diminished by their halting, as it were, between theory and practice, like the argument of "virtual representation," or of working well," by which the rotten borough system was upheld. Thus we read Mr. Dick and jump to the conclusion—this is a hit at the power of the landlords over the agricultural voters; but when we reach his conclusion, we learn that practically matters are very well as they are. Even these parts, however, are always worth consideration ; though they are rather of the nature of essays on certain political conditions than an exposition of political philosophy. Some conflict of this kind, indeed, obtains through- out the volume, and frequently mars its effect. The book, in fact, is a collection of thoughts upon government in its essence, instead of an ex- position of that much higher and loftier thing we call the state.
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