TOPICS OF THE DAY.
STATESMANSHIP.
A REVOLUTION awaits our statesmanship, from two causes —from the transmutation of parties which recent events have produced, and from the necessities of a loftier and more comprehensive civilization.
Hitherto, where statesmanship has not been an indolent habit
of patching, procrastination, and expedients, or the brilliant and daring individuality of a man of energy and genius, determined to carve out a path,,free, however erratic, for himself, it has been the application of certain maxims regarded infallible, which have been handed down from generation to generation. Of those maxims it may be said, as of the proverbs that compose the tra- ditional wisdom of the people, that some are eternally and univer- sally true, some partially true, some unquestionably false, and a large proportion nothing more than twaddle and absurdity. A profound knowledge of them all may render a great statesman greater ; but rather by saving him from blunders than by kindling happy inspirations in his mind. Most of them have fallen or are falling into discredit, less from any subtile analysis to which philosophers have submitted them, than because the in- stitutions that aimed at giving them embodiment and shape no longer rest on that popular faith which is the true strength of all government and law, and the only safe and lasting bond of society. That the institution itself should no longer be honoured and believed in, and yet that the maxim which is the philosophy of the institution should be found in the mouth of a statesman, is a more signal proof of his incapacity than if he were to stand forth as the champion of the institution for its own sake and on its own merits. Between the mere Tory and the mere Whig the difference is this—the first defends worn-out institutions, the second repeats hackneyed maxims ; and though neither possesses that courageous wisdom which the new and nobler wants of the community demand from public men, yet the balance of boldness and sagacity is clearly with the former.
Maxims, as the chief guide of statesmen, no longer being able
to maintain their authority and influence, it is attempted to sub- stitute for them, in England dogmas, in France theories. A dogma is the naked statement of a notion, in the construction of which the understanding alone has been consulted. A theory is the combined result of the understanding and the imagination : when we are conscious of our phantasies—when we give them concatenation and symmetry without poetical adornment—we create a theory. A political dogma and a .political theory have this in common—that neither has alarge basis of experience ; that they both sneer at the teachings of history ; both are ignorant of the causes and consequences of political revolutions. The theorist, however, has in general more genial and expansive elements in him than the dogmatist The first is a hopeful enthusiast; the second is a gloomy fanatic. We may convert the first to a wider and wiser political faith than that which he holds; the second may sink into political apathy or po- litical scepticism, but is seldom converted. The best, the most generous and philosophical of the French Liberals of the present day, have nearly all been theorists in their youth : time has enlightened their mind without chilling their ardour. How few of the English Chartists have outgrown the meagreness and the narrowness of their dogmatism I Those to whom Chartism was a theory, not a dogma, have risen to a higher faith ; but the rest, except such as have become wholly indifferent to politics, retain all the sombre fierceness of their fanaticism. We state this without intentional disrespect to the Chartists as a body, but solely as a deplorable.fact. It is not Chartist dogmas, how- ever, that will pierce first into our Senate, or be substituted in enunciation and application by our statesmen, for maxims, the pith, point, and whole import of which have passed away. There will be another memorable conflict on the subject of representa- tion, but it is not so near as many suppose. It will be rather the evils that a defective representation has made visible, than the representation itself, which will begin the thorough substitution of dogmas for maxims in the political affairs of our country. Theories are alien to the English mind ; and therefore, except as a French or German inoculation, we are never likely to see theory occupy a considerable place in the politics of England.
Political theories in France, political dogmas in England, will have their day, as political maxims have had ; but their dominion will be much shorter. A maxim, however false, has always some- thing largely human about it. Every maxim, whether uttered by an individual, by a nation, or by the world, bears the traces of man's varied powers. A dogma is the expression only of one, a theory only of two of man's faculties. But it is man with all his faculties, and with all the modifications and relations which a thou- sand circumstances, social and other, generate—nor one man, but millions of men, with all their prejudices and passions—for which a sage and energetic statesmanship has to provide. From the inaptitude of political dogmas and political theories to man's
diversified requirements, and their inevitable failure as in- struments of statesmanship, will consequently arise, sooner or later, what we may call the ideal in politics. This does not signify any tendency to abstractions, which politics altogether exclude ; but the active perception of such harmonious unity be- tween the past, the present, and the future, as not to treat them as separate entities, but to survey and traverse them as one mag- nificent gradation. A political maxim is the past applied to the
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present. A political dogma is the clear but narrow logic of the
present applied to the position of the present. A political theory is the future applied to the present. The ideal in politics studies the past, that it may better comprehend the present; looks far into the future, lest while healing the material woes of the present it should neglect its spiritual aimings and needs ; and grandly heralds the future, not by revelling in dreamy specula- tions, but by putting, as much as possible, into all laws and insti- tutions, that which has a permanent and not a transitory signifi- cance. Society is yearning for thee, 0 great man, whose destiny it is to realize this sublime ideal!
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