In the latest edition of his 'Principles of Geology,' Sir Charles Lyell seems, in at least one passage, to assume that this controversy is at an end.
'It must not be forgotten,' (these are his words) 'that the geological speculations still in vogue respecting the original fluidity of the planet, and the gradual consolidation of its external shell, belong to a period when theoretical ideas were entertained as to the relative age of the crystalline foundations of that shell wholly at variance with the present state of our knowledge. It was formerly imagined that all granite was of very high antiquity, and that rocks, such as gneiss, mica-schist, and clay-slate, were also anterior in date to the existence of organic beings on a habitable surface. It was, moreover, supposed that these primitive formations, as they are called, implied a continual thickening of the crust at the expense of the original fluid nucleus. These notions have been universally abandoned. It is now ascertained that the granites of different regions are by no means all of the same antiquity, and it is hardly possible to prove any one of them to be as old as the oldest known fossil organic remains. It is likewise now admitted, that gneiss and other crystalline strata are sedimentarydeposits which have undergone metamorphic action, and they can almost all be demonstrated to be newer than the lately-discovered fossil called Eozoon Canadense.'
"With all deference to one whom we acknowledge to be among the very ablest living geologists, we must say that this language strikes us as more emphatic than the state of the discussion warrants. We do not undertake absolutely to maintain the theory of central heat as explaining the formation of the granitic and metamorphic rocks, but we cannot admit, what Sir Charles seems to imply, that the time has arrived when investigation and experiment on the subject may be relinquished, and the tone of dogmatic confidence assumed. The reasonableness of permitting a certain degree of suspense of judgment regarding it becomes the more evident when we observe that Sir Charles is not prepared to maintain against astronomers that the planet was not originally fluid. 'The astronomer,' he says,
'may find good reasons for ascribing the earth's form to the original fluidity of the mass in times long antecedent to the first introduction of living beings into the planet; but the geologist must be content to regard the earliest monuments which it is his task to interpret as belonging to a period when the crust had already acquired great solidity and thickness, probably as great as it now possesses, and when volcanic rocks not essentially differing from those now produced, were formed from time to time, the intensity of volcanic heat being neither greater nor less than it is now.'
There can be no doubt that astronomers have been startled into something like general protest against the rigid uniformitarianism of Sir Charles Lyell. Differing as they do very widely in their conceptions of the probable manner in which planets are formed, they seem to agree that those bodies have their beginning in heat and in fusion. The phenomena of variable stars, taken in connection with the revelations of spectrum analysis, demonstrate that the combustion and the cooling of starry masses are occurrences not unknown in the economy of the universe. If Sir Charles declines to contest the astronomical position of the original fluidity of the planet, considerable plausibility will continue to attach to that geological doctrine which connects the crystalline rocks with the fluidity in question. Those rocks, from the most ancient granites to the most recent clay-slates, occupy a large proportion of the earth's surface. Their great general antiquity is indisputable. The theory that they furnish the link between the past and the present of the earth's crust—that they furnish the point where the lights of geological and of astronomical science meet—strongly commends itself to the mind.
These observations derive additional force from the circumstance that Sir Charles Lyell's doctrine of the modern and chemical origin of all crystalline rocks is dependent upon considerations which must be allowed to possess not a little of a hypothetical and precarious character. The phenomena of metamorphism, as arising from heat, from thermal springs, and so on, are well-known and important; but there is nothing like adequate evidence that they are capable of giving the crystalline rocks that structure and aspect under which we behold them. The chemical substances in the crust which Sir Charles presumes to be capable of forming seas of molten matter, five miles deep and 5,000 miles long, have never placed before human eyes a lake of fire three miles across; is there not a trace of arbitrary hypothesis in supposing that, during hundreds of millions of years, those chemical agencies have been providing, beneath the surface of the world, cauldrons of fire to melt the granites of all known ages, from the Laurentian to the Tertiary, to produce the twistings, undulations, contortions of the metamorphic strata throughout hundreds of thousands of cubic miles of rock, and to feed every volcano that ever flamed on the planet? Not even to that proposition which is avowedly at the basis of Sir Charles's theory, namely, that the solidified shell of the earth is at least from 800 to 1,000 miles thick, can absolute certainty be said to belong. We are willing to admit the distinguished ability of Mr. Hopkins; but it is a fatal mistake to impute to solutions of problems in mixed mathematics that character of certainty which belongs to the results of purely mathematical reasoning. Into every problem of mixed mathematics one element at least enters which depends for its correctness upon observation. In many cases this correctness depends on the perfect accuracy of instruments, and upon consummate skill in using them. A minute error in the original observation may produce comprehensive error in the conclusion. It is still fresh in the public memory that new and more accurate observation corrected by millions of miles a calculation comparatively so simple as the distance between the earth and the sun. The problem by the solution of which Mr. Hopkins determined that the minimum thickness of the crust is from 800 to 1,000 miles depends for its reliability on certain obscure phenomena connected with precession and nutation. Sir Charles Lyell admits that the problem is a 'delicate' one. Mr. Charles MacLaren remarked, and Millerquotes the remark with approval, that Mr. Hopkins's inference 'is somewhat like an estimate, of the distance of the stars deduced from a difference of one or two seconds in their apparent position, a difference scarcely distinguishable from errors of observation.' Add to this that opinions might be quoted from mathematicians of name as decidedly in favour of the theory that the geological changes which have taken place in the earth's crust are due to central heat, as the deduction of Mr. Hopkins is opposed to it. In the ninth edition of his 'Principles,'i.e., in the edition immediately preceding that now current, Sir Charles informs us that
'Baron Fourier, after making a curious series of experiments on the cooling of incandescent bodies, considers it to be proved mathematically, that the actual distribution of heat in the earth's envelope is precisely that which would have taken place if the globe had been formed in a medium of a very high temperature, and had afterwards been constantly cooled.'
Sir Charles replied to this in the same edition that, if the earth were a fluid mass, a circulation would exist between centre and circumference, and solidification of the latter could not commence until the whole had been reduced to about the temperature of incipient fusion. We fail to see that this is an answer to Baron Fourier. What necessity is there for supposing that the solidification of the crust commenced before the matter of the globe had been reduced throughout to about the temperature of incipient fusion? The water in a pond must be reduced to about the temperature of incipient freezing before ice can form on the surface, but this does not prevent the formation of a sheet of ice on the top.
In the article inNature, from which we have already quoted, Mr. David Forbes mentions that M. De Launay, Director of the Observatory at Paris, 'an authority equally eminent as a mathematician and an astronomer,' having carefully considered Mr. Hopkins's problem, decided that its data were incorrect, and that it could shed no light whatever on the question whether the globe is liquid or solid. There is some doubt, however, as to the import of M. De Launay's statement.
We may be the more disposed to wonder at the decision with which Sir Charles Lyell pronounces upon this subject in his latest edition, by the fact that, since the publication of the previous edition, he has modified, to a very serious extent, his conception of the evidence on which the theory which he adopts is based. In the ninth edition of the 'Principles' he laid so much stress on Sir Humphry Davy's hypothesis of an un-oxidized metallic nucleus of the globe, liable to be oxidized at any point of its periphery by the percolation of water, and thus to evolve heat sufficient to melt the adjacent rocks, that Hugh Miller, in contending against Sir Charles, selected this as an essential part of the argument. In his tenth edition Sir Charles does not even mention Sir Humphry Davy's theory. The star under the influence of which the tenth edition was prepared was that of Mr. Darwin. No brighter star may be above the geological horizon, and Sir Charles may have done well to own its influence, but we submit that opinions which undergo important modification within a few years ought hardly to be promulgated as marking the limit between the era of darkness and the era of light in geological discovery.
After all, however, the crucial question is, whether the theory of central heat has any positive evidence to support it. Here we meet, in the first place, with the undisputed fact that heat increases as we descend from the surface of the earth. Sir Charles Lyell admits that the fact of augmentation is proved. Experiment and observation, no doubt, have not yet enabled us to determine the ratio in which the heat increases as we penetrate into the crust; but this does not neutralise the force of the fact itself. Sir Charles endeavours to parry its effect by remarking that if we take a certain ratio of increase, a ratio which seems to be countenanced by experiment, we shall, 'long before approaching the central nucleus,' arrive at a degree of heat so great 'that we cannot conceive the external crust to resist fusion.' It is surely a sufficient reply to this to say that our conceptions as to the consequences arising from an admitted fact can neither invalidate its evidence nor annul the obvious inferences from it. The reader of the 'Principles of Geology,' besides, who has been told by Sir Charles Lyell that the interposition of a few feet of scoriæ and pumice enables him to stand without inconvenience on molten lava, may be permitted to form a high estimate of the power of many miles of stratified and unstratified rock to resist fusion by the internal fires. Sooth to say, however, it will be time to consider an objection grounded on the ratio of the increase in heat from the surface of the earth downwards, when the ratio in question has been ascertained. The fact of increase is admitted; the ratio of increase is an unknown quantity: it is curious logic to impugn the direct bearing of the former, on the strength of consequences conceived to arise from the latter.
Hugh Miller believed that the existence ofthe equatorial ring, in virtue of which the polar diameter of the earth is shorter than the equatorial, furnished explicit evidence that the planet once was molten.
'If our earth,' he wrote, 'was always the stiff, rigid, unyielding mass that it is now, a huge metallic ball, bearing, like the rusty ball of a cannon, its crust of oxide, how comes it that its form so entirely belies its history? Its form tells that it also, like the cannon-ball, was once in a viscid state, and that its diurnal motion on its axis, when in this state of viscidity, elongated it, through the operation of a well-known law, at the equator, and flattened it at the poles, and made it altogether the oblate spheroid which experience demonstrates it to be.'
In other planets, he urged, the same form is due manifestly to the action of the same law. Venus, Mars, Saturn, oblate spheroids all, have been similarly 'spun out by their rotatory motion in exactly the line in which, as in the earth, that motion is greatest.' In these, however, we can only approximately determine the lengths of the equatorial and polar diameters; 'in one great planet, Jupiter, we can ascertain them scarce less exactly than our own earth;' and Jupiter's equatorial diameter bears exactly that proportion to his polar diameter which 'the integrity of the law,' as exemplified in the relation between the equatorial and polar diameters of the earth demands. 'Here, then,' proceeds Miller, 'is demonstration that the oblate sphericity of the earth is a consequence of the earth's diurnal motion on its axis; nor is it possible that it could have received this form when in a solid state.'
Sir Charles Lyell holds that the excess of the equatorial diameter over the polar may be accounted for on uniformitarian principles. 'The statical figure,' he says, 'of the terrestrial spheroid (of which the longest diameter exceeds the shortest by about twenty-five miles), may have been the result of gradual and even of existing causes, and not of a primitive, universal, and simultaneous fluidity.' Miller denies this possibility; and we confess that the passage in which he assails the position of Sir Charles Lyell appears to us to have great force. Let us hear him:—
'The laws of deposition are few, simple, and well known. The denuding and transporting agencies are floods, tides, waves, icebergs. The sea has its currents, the land its rivers; but while some of these flow from the poles towards the equator, others flow from the equator towards the poles uninfluenced by the rotatory motion; and the vast depth and extent of the equatorial seas show that the ratio of deposition is not greater in them than in the seas of the temperate regions. We have, indeed, in the Arctic and Antarctic currents, and the icebergs which they bear, agents of denudation and transport permanent in the present state of things, which bring detrital matter from the higher towards the lower latitudes; but they stop far short of the tropics; they have no connection with the rotatory motion; and their influence on the form of the earth must be infinitely slight; nay, even were the case otherwise, instead of tending to the formation of an equatorial ring, they would lead to the production of two rings widely distant from the equator. And, judging from what appears, we must hold that the laws of Plutonic intrusion or upheaval, though more obscure than those of deposition, operate quite as independently of the earth's rotatory motion. Were the case otherwise, the mountain systems of the world, and all the great continents, would be clustered at the equator; and the great lands and great oceans of our planet, instead of running, as they do, in so remarkable a manner, from south to north, would range, like the belts of Jupiter, from west to east. There is no escape for us from the inevitable conclusion that our globe received its form, as an oblate spheroid, at a time when it existed throughout as a viscid mass.'
Accordingly, though admitting that 'there is a wide segment of truth embodied in the views of the metamorphists,' Miller declared his belief on the subject of central heat in these terms: 'I must continue to hold, with Humboldt and with Hutton, with Playfair and with Hall, that this solid earth was at one time, from the centre to the circumference, a mass of molten matter.' Hugh Miller saw the ninth edition of Sir Charles Lyell's 'Principles,' and seems to have had its reasonings in view in writing these and other passages; we cannot persuade ourselves that he would have recalled them if he had lived to see the tenth edition.
We wish to state in the clearest terms that, though we have stated some of the evidence which supports the ordinary geological doctrine of central heat, we do not adduce that evidence as absolutely conclusive. All we argue for is, that the question be not looked upon as decided in favour of the uniformitarians. It may be that more minute and comprehensive observation on the age of the crystalline rocks and on the phenomena of metamorphism will demonstrate that the condition of no system of rocks known to us can be traced to the influence of an originally molten state of the planet. It may be that what seems at present the unanimous opinion of astronomers, that 'the whole quantity of Plutonic energy must have been greater in past times than the present,' is a mistake; it may be, in the last place, that the primeval fusion of the planet ceased to act upon those parts of the crust which are accessible to geological observation before those causescame into operation to which their present state is due. But we deny that these positions are established. A writer in theEdinburgh Reviewdeclared, so recently as last year, that M. Durocher, in his 'Essay on Comparative Petrology,' has produced 'absolute proof that the earth was an incandescent molten sphere, before atmospheric and aqueous agencies had clothed it with the strata so familiar to our eyes.' Sir Roderick Murchison, who, as a student not only of books and museums, but of the rock-systems of the world in their own vast solitudes, is an authority as high as any living man, holds that 'the crust and outline of the earth are full of evidences that many of the ruptures and overflows of the strata, as well as great denudations, could not even in millions of years have been produced by agencies like those of our own time.' These statements may be correct or the reverse; but they prove, we submit, that the controversy respecting central heat is not at an end.
Those who hold that Hugh Miller's views as to the connection between an originally molten state of the planet and the most ancient rocks known to us, have been finally disposed of by Sir Charles Lyell, must, we think, admit that his interpretation of the six days' work can no longer be maintained. On the other hand, if his conception of the mode in which the crystalline rocks were formed can be shown to be substantially correct, we see not how any one can refuse to grant that those correspondences between the day-periods of Genesis and successive stages in the geological history of the globe, which he pointed out, are highly remarkable. Ten thousand omissions of detail go for nothing, if it can be proved that, although light existed in space, the condition of the atmosphere of this world prevented the sun's rays for myriads of ages from reaching the surface; that the same atmospheric conditions which excluded light from the planet favoured the development of vegetation in the Carboniferous epoch; that the day-period during which the sun and moon are stated in Genesis to have been set to rule the day and the night coincides with that geological era when light was first poured in clear radiance on our world; that the times of the Oolite and the Lias exhibited an enormous development of reptilian and ornithic existence inevitably suggestive of the creeping things, and fowls, and great sea-monsters of the fifth day-period; and that the predominance of mammalian life, of 'the beast of the earth after his kind, the cattle after their kind,' distinguished alike the latest of the great geological periods and the sixth day of the Mosaic record. Assuming the correctness of his fundamental conception of geological progression, Miller might challenge the geologist—confining himself to the number of words used by the Scriptural writers—to name phenomena, belonging to the successive geological epochs, more distinctive, impressive, and spectacular than those mentioned in the first chapter of Genesis. Admitting that life existed in the planet millions of years before the time which he assigns to the third day, Miller might ask whether the darkness, and the slow separation of cloud from wave, were not the unique and universal phenomena of those primeval ages. Granting that there was an important flora, as well as a large development of ichthyic life, in the Devonian epoch, he might ask whether, at any earlier period, the earth possessed forests comparable with those of the Carboniferous epoch; and if it were urged that the Carboniferous flora, consisting as it did in an immense proportion of ferns, cannot be regarded as corresponding to the 'grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after its kind, whose seed is in itself,' of the Mosaic record, he might still reply that thefactof vegetation, apart from botanical distinctions, was then the most conspicuous among the phenomena of the planet. In like manner, while granting that life—animal and vegetable, of many forms—existed in the Oolitic and Liassic ages, he might ask whether the presence in the planet of at least four unique orders of reptilia, to wit; Ichthyosauria, Plesiosauria, Pterosauria, Dinosauria, and perhaps, as Professor Huxley says, 'another or two,' was not the circumstance which a geologist would select as distinctive, and if so, whether the coincidence between these and the creeping things and great sea-monsters of the fifth Mosaic day is not striking. As we formerly remarked, Miller's geological interpretation of the fifth and succeeding day is independent of any theory as to the originally molten state of the planet. On the sixth day-period, both in Genesis and in the geological history of the world, we have a great development of mammalian life, and, finally, the appearance of man. There was a Tertiary flora, but it was not strongly marked off from other floras; there were Tertiary reptiles, but their place was subordinate; in respect of their beasts of the field, and in respect of the presence of man, the Tertiary ages stand alone. The mammoths and mastodons, the rhinoceri and hippopotami, 'the enormous dinotherium and colossal megatherium,' elephants whose bones, preserved in Siberian ice, have furnished 'ivory quarries,' unexhausted by the working of upwards of a hundred years, tigers as large again as thelargest Asiatic species, distinguish the Tertiary times from all others known to the geologist. In stating his views, Miller availed himself of the hypothesis, put forward by Kurtz and others, that the phenomena of the geological ages passed before the eyes of Moses by way of panoramic vision. This, we need hardly say, is a pure hypothesis, favourable to pictorial description, but not essentially connected with the logic of the question. Perhaps, the weakest point in Miller's theory—always presuming him to be right as to the originally molten state of the planet—is the apportionment of the present time to the seventh Mosaic day and to the Sabbatic rest of the Creator. Geologists would now, with one voice, refuse to admit that any essential alteration can be traced in the processes by which the face of the earth, and the character of its living creatures, are modified in the present geological epoch, as compared with those of, at least, the two or three preceding epochs. Man, doubtless, effects changes in the aspect of the world on a far greater scale than any other animal. He can reclaim wide regions from the sea, he can arrest the rains far up in the mountains, and lead them to water his terraces, he can temper climates, he can people continents with new animals and plants. It is allowable in Goethe, talking poetically, to style him 'the little god of earth.' But his entire activity, and its results, depend not upon a suspension of the laws and processes of nature—not upon a withdrawal of creative energy—but upon his capacity, as an observing, reasoning being, to ascertain the processes of nature, and use them for his own advantage.
The strongest objection in some minds to this scheme of reconciliation between Genesis and geology will be that it does not harmonise with the general method of Scripture. Miller was abreast of his time as a geologist, but from his complete unacquaintance with the original languages of Scripture and with the history of the canon, he could form a judgment only at secondhand on fundamental questions in theology. That the Bible is inspired—that it is pervaded by a Divine breathing—we have upon apostolic authority. In no part of Scripture, however, is the nature of this Divine breathing explained to us, or information given as to what it implies and what it does not imply. Without question, the inspired writers were neither turned into machines nor wholly disconnected from the circumstances, the prevailing scientific ideas, the modes of expression, of their time. It would seem, therefore, to be in contradiction to the analogy of Scripture that one of the most ancient books of the Bible should contain an elaborately correct presentation, by means of its cardinal facts, of the history of the world for hundreds of millions of years.
Many, therefore, while cherishing the firmest assurance that the Bible is the religious code of man, the inspired Word which authoritatively supplements man's natural light of reason and conscience, will believe that the first chapter of Genesis is a sublime hymn of creation, ascribing all the glory of it to God, wedding the highest knowledge of the primitive age in which it was written to awe-struck reverence for the Almighty Creator, but not containing any scientific account of the processes or periods of creation. To many it will convey the impression that its simplicity, childlike though sublime, and its grouping of natural phenomena, exceedingly noble and comprehensive but naïve and unsophisticated, are not inspired science, but inspired religion. It will appear to them that, looking out and up into the universe, feeling that it infinitely transcended the little might of man, thrilling with the inspired conviction that God had made it all, the poet-sage of that ancient time named in succession each phenomenon, or group of phenomena, which most vividly impressed him, and said or sang that God had called it into being. The beginning he threw into the darkness of the unfathomable past. What first arrested and filled his imagination in the present order of things, was that marvel of beauty and splendour which bathes the world at noontide, and lies in delicate silver upon the crags and the green hills at dawn, that mystery of radiance which is greater than the sun, or moon, or stars, greater than them and before them; and he uttered the words, 'God said, Let there be light, and there was light.' Then he thought of the dividing of the land from the sea, and of the separation between those waters which float and flow and roll in ocean waves and those waters which glide in filmy veils along the blue expanse, and in which God gently folds up the treasure of the rain. The sun and the moon he knew to be those natural ministers which mark off for man day and night, summer and winter, and he told how God had assigned to them this office. The creatures that inhabit the world were grouped for him, as for the young imagination in all ages, into the living things of the earth, cattle, and creeping things, and wild beasts; the living things of the sea, fish and mysterious monsters; the living things of the air, birds; and that vegetable covering which clothes the earth with flower and forest. All these, he said, owed their being to God. Man he discerned to be above nature. Shapedby God like other animals, he alone had the breath, of the Almighty breathed into his nostrils, and the image of his Maker stamped upon his soul. So be it. Such recognitions leave the religious character and authority of the Divine record untouched.
Art. IV.—Hereditary Legislators.
(1.)An Essay on the History of the English Government and Constitution, from the Reign of Henry VII. to the Present Time.ByJohn, Earl Russell. Longmans and Co.
(2.)Selections from Speeches of Earl Russell, 1817–1841.With Introductions. Longmans and Co.
It happens sometimes that political power is transferred from one set of hands to another without creating a panic, or even greatly startling society. Changes, of so much moment as almost to rank with revolutions, may be effected so calmly and quietly as to leave the society they affect unconscious of their full meaning. If the drums and the banners of revolution are beaten and displayed, and the other outward and visible signs of a violent dislocation of the compact of society are plainly to be discerned, the event takes its place as a revolution, and the nervous system of society is fluttered and shaken. But if the promoters of political change are content to leave undisturbed the ancient symbols, forms, and nomenclature of the past, the substantial alterations may be comparatively unheeded. For example, we are told by Tacitus, in few but pregnant words, that when political power was passing from the senate and the people of Rome into the hands of the Cæsars, the republican forms were so carefully preserved as to mask and veil that immense change. 'Domi res tranquillæ; eadem magistratuum vocabula;... Tiberius cuncta per consules incipiebat tanquam vetere republicâ.... At Romæ ruere in servitium consules, patres, eques.'[22]Thus, without appearing to override or annul the functions of the senate or the people, the Emperor made himself, in fact, 'the sole fountain of the national legislation.'[23]So, also, a vital change in the government of Florence was brought about in the same way. The form of government was ostensibly a republic, and was directed by a Council of ten citizens, and a chief executive officer, called the Gonfaliere. Under this establishment, the citizens imagined they enjoyed the full exercise of their liberties. But, in reality, the Medici, acting apparently in harmony with the Constitution, and working under the sanction of republican forms, names, and offices, and ever seeming to defer to public opinion, drew into their own hands, without fluttering or alarming the citizens, the reins of personal government.[24]It is even so with ourselves. The political transfer has taken place in an opposite direction to those which have just been alluded to. But though, in those instances, the tendency was towards the concentration of power, and in ours towards its diffusion, yet they closely resemble each other in that discreet preservation of ancient forms and legal nomenclature which intercepts a veil between the eyes of society and its real position. For the splendours of the royal court are as imposing and attractive as ever. People still talk complacently of royal prerogatives, the hereditary peerage, the House of Lords, and the many shadowy forms of ancient administration. The barriers and landmarks of fashionable society are but slightly altered. To the superficial observer, society presents a picture differing very little from that of earlier times. There are still some Sir Leicester Dedlocks, who live in the contemplation of their family greatness, and some Sir Roger de Coverleys, who sway their neighbourhoods with unresisted authority; and there are thousands of Englishmen who are constitutionally averse to the recognition of distasteful facts. Some persons refuse to perceive that children have become adults, and that they themselves are growing old and weak; and some do not choose to perceive that, despite the ancient names and forms of government, the constitution has been so completely re-cast that we seem destined to live for a time under the reign and influence of democracy.
It will be useful to refer very briefly to the two great statutes which have brought us to the present state of affairs. Prior to the Reform Bill of 1832, the real power of the State was lodged in the hands of certain wealthy and ennobled families, which numbered less than five hundred. This oligarchy, to be sure, was not a pure one, because there were some outlets for genuine popular feeling in a few free constituencies, whose decisions were always watched with special attention. Nottingham, Leicester,Norwich, Westminster, and Southwark had thoroughly popular elections; Liverpool and Bristol had the same privilege; but though these and some other constituencies constituted safety-valves, through which the popular feelings were relieved, yet the essential characteristic of the government was a disguised oligarchy—that is, the possession of political power by a few. Does this assertion seem incredible to our younger readers? Let them listen to the testimony of a witness of the highest authority, who lived in those times, and was profoundly versed in the history and mechanism of governments. 'It is difficult,' says Lord Macaulay, 'to conceive any spectacle more alarming than that which presents itself to us when we look at the two extreme parties in this country—anarrowoligarchy above, and an infuriated multitude below.'[25]This was a description of the British Government in 1831 by that very eminent man. And why did he venture to affirm that a narrow oligarchy was dominant in the State? Oligarchy is chiefly distinguished from aristocracy, by the smaller numbers of the governing body. Before the period of Lord Grey's Reform Bill, the signs and symbols of popular government (inherited from times when the shell contained a kernel) were allowed to appear, and be in use; but the substantial power was vested in the hands of the owners of rotten boroughs, and the great proprietors of estates in the counties. Notwithstanding a few free elections, and many popular rights, the voting power of practical politics was directed by that narrow oligarchy.
In the year 1792, a petition was presented by Mr. Grey, in which it was asserted, and proof was offered, that one hundred and fifty-four peers and rich commonersreturneda majority of the House of Commons. This statement may have been somewhat overdrawn, but it had a perfectly truthful basis. We summon the late Duke of Wellington as a witness to prove how boroughs were manipulated, negotiated, bought, and sold. When he was Chief Secretary for Ireland in the year 1807, he wrote the following words:—
'My dear Henry,—I have seen Roden this day about his borough. It is engaged for one more session to Lord Stair under an oldsalefor years, and he must return Lord Stair's friend, unless Lord Stair should consent to sell his interest for the session which remains.... Portarlington was sold at the late general election for a term of years ... &c.—Ever yours,Arthur Wellesley.'
And, again, he wrote as follows, in 1809:—
'My dear Sir Charles,—The name of the gentlemanto be returnedfor Cashel is Robert Peel, Esq., of Drayton Bassett, in the county of Stafford.—Ever yours, &c.,Arthur Wellesley.'[26]
Such were the methods by which the reigning oligarchy, operating hand in hand with the Sovereign, secured a majority in the House of Commons, and thus controlled the policy of the nation, under the false pretence that it emanated from the people. To a great extent this system was destroyed by the first Reform Bill. The great grievance of the day was redressed by a substantial measure. It is commonly said that the political effect of that statute was to assign the real power of the nation to the custody of the 'middle classes.' This is not a perfectly accurate statement of the change. The powers of the State were not made over by that measure to the merchants and tradesmen of the country, for the influence of the landed interest was even augmented by the Reform Act, and, though diminished, was not abolished in the boroughs. The effect of the new electoral law was made apparent by its securing for a time the preponderance of the popular and reforming party. It turned the scale for many years, and just enabled the Liberal party to carry a series of measures in harmony with intelligent public opinion. It was a tree of justice and freedom that bore abundant fruit. It is hardly too much to affirm thatevery great lawunder which we are now living and working was made or amended in the quarter of a century which followed the Reform Act, and is due to the Liberal party. But useful and fruitful as that measure was, it was not in the nature of things that it should be final. The opinions of enlightened men, and the desire of the masses, agreed in promoting some extension of the franchise, and after several futile attempts it was reserved for the Tories to effect it. The surrender was a strange and inexplicable transaction. Carlyle thus deals with it in that queer phraseology in which he chooses to address society:—
'Have I not a kind of secret satisfaction of the malicious, or even the judiciary kind (mischief-joy the Germans call it, but really it is justice-joy withal), that he they call "Dizzy" is to do it—a superlative conjuror, spell-binding all the great lords, great parties, great interests of England to his hand in this manner, and leading them by the nose like helpless, mesmerised, somnambulant cattle, to such issue?'[27]
In other words, we obtained from the natural opponents of constitutional change a political act which may be likened to the 'happy despatch,' and was hardly inferior to a revolution. The very centre of political gravity was displaced. The middle classes were dethroned. The late Lord Derby described his own operation as a 'leap in the dark,' and in a facetious mood is said to have confessed that it was intended 'to diddle the Whigs.' Surely this act of prodigious inconsistency was beyond justification or even excuse. The Liberal party would have shrunk from so vast a change until education had struck its roots more deeply into the unenfranchised population. The Tory party, on the contrary, determined to enfranchise the people, before they educated them, and it is our duty to acquiesce and realize our position. It is not for us to predict the future fate and fortunes of that incomprehensible party. They will gradually open their eyes to the full meaning of their own political deeds, and that meaning, expressed in one pregnant word, is Democracy.
But though we cannot reconcile the Conservative theories with Conservative practice, Tory professions with democratic statutes, it is not difficult to discover causes which pushed the party into such violent action. The obvious tendency of the age is to advance towards democratic institutions. Everywhere in Europe—Russia and Turkey excepted—power now springs from popular opinion and liberal institutions, of which the invariable impulse is not to rest, sleep, and be thankful, but to move, advance, and be doing.
'When a nation modifies the electoral qualification, it may easily be foreseen that sooner or later that qualification will be entirely abolished. There is no more invariable rule in the history of society. The further the electoral rights are extended, the more is felt the need of them; for after each concession the strength of the democracy increases, and its demands increase with its strength. Concession follows concession, and no stop can be made short of universal suffrage.'[28]
To apply this theory to the facts of Europe, it is evident that while at no distant period the policy of almost the whole continent was directed by the reigning sovereigns, we now discern the sovereignty of the people, inesseorposse, not less widely established. The causes which have led to this consummation are by no means obscure. The creation of municipal corporations introduced a democratic element into the area of despotisms. The invention of printing cheapened the diffusion of ideas. The post circulated information further and further, until its work seems to be almost perfected by steam and electricity. The Reformation lifted vast weights from the human mind. Slowly, but surely, the European populations have arrived at the comprehension of their just claims, and have decided that the end of government shall be the happiness of the people, and not the exaltation of the few. Thus it has come to pass that everywhere democracy is in the ascendant, and prerogative on the wane. Is not this assertion corroborated and exemplified in the political affairs of our own country? Can anyone honestly and fairly deny that the supremacy of the popular will is established? 'The people'—that mighty aggregate of millions of minds, whom Aristophanes delighted to caricature under thesobriquetof 'Demus'—is certainly invested with sovereign power. It may be that, like him, we are sometimes crotchety, sometimes too fond of oratorical blandishment, sometimes hasty in our judgments, and occasionally liable to panics. Notwithstanding these and other infirmities, public opinion, formed by the leading spirits of the day, 'rules and reigns without control.'
'You, Demus, have a nice domain!For all men fear you, and you reignAs though you were a king.'[29]
'You, Demus, have a nice domain!
For all men fear you, and you reign
As though you were a king.'[29]
It is true that we have to act by delegation, because we cannot meet to legislateen masse. It is also true that the authority of the people is veiled and masked by antiquated forms and customs, which, perhaps, are wisely retained. 'Why, every one,' says Monarchicus, 'calls it a monarchy.' 'It may be very audacious,' says Aristocraticus, 'but I consider it a republic. By a republic, I mean every government in which sovereign power is distributed in form and substance among a body of persons.' This was the language of the late lamented Sir George Cornewall Lewis before Mr. Disraeli's democratic change. How would he have made Aristocraticus describe the Constitution now? Not, surely, as a republic, but as a democratic republic. So, on the 17th of February, 1870, Lord Lyveden, speaking in the House of Lords, said,—'The real truth is that thegovernment is in the House of Commons.' If it be argued that the well-settled Crown and the hereditary peerage are incidents which still distinguish our constitution from those of republican and democratic states, we answer that theconstitution does not depend upon names, forms, and symbols, but upon the answer to this question, 'Where does the real power reside?' No candid and well-informed person would now attempt to contend that either the Crown or the peerage, or both, can offer any permanent obstruction to the measures desired and indicated by the popular will. With reference to the Crown, theTimeshas recently held the following remarkable language:—'What can one say but that the Crown has no right or will in this free country but that which is consistent, and does not clash with the rights and will of the people as represented in Parliament?' With reference to the House of Lords, it would be easy, if space were at our command, to cite sentence after sentence from speeches in that highly-educated assembly, which would show the opinion of its leading members that its functions are now limited to amendments, to modifications, and to postponements of measures, and do not extend to the act of thwarting or nullifying the clearly-expressed will of the representative House, with respect to any important subject. It is true that in one respect the democratic power seems to be kept in abeyance. We do not see the working man in Parliament. Plutocracy, or the money power, has still great influence in the representative House. The elections and the social position are too expensive for busy working people. But the pecuniary obstacles will be gradually removed, and many men of humble position, but real ability, will make their way into the House. This is a mere question of time. For the present, the representatives of the people must needs be wealthy. But the day is not distant when many a borough, and even some counties, will be represented by men of the class and order which form the basis of the constituencies. There cannot be a doubt that the work of a very few years will diminish, if not abolish, the expenses of elections, and make the all-powerful House almost as democratic as the constituencies.
It is under these circumstances that we approach two great questions, the public discussion of which cannot be much longer deferred. First, can the continuance of a purely hereditary and ennobled branch of the legislature be reconciled with the state of things we have portrayed? Secondly, ought the further and continuous creation of hereditary social honours to be permitted by the people of a free and substantially democratic state?
In dealing with the first of these inquiries, the thought that naturally comes into the mind is this—what a wonderful anomaly and apparent departure from sound sense is the creation of anhereditarylegislature! The function of making laws for millions of free people is calculated to tax to the utmost the mental energy of the ablest men. The high duties of a lawgiver have always, in theory at least, been entrusted by civilized states to their best and wisest citizens. But our knowledge of the laws of succession does not teach us that as a rule the wise beget the wise. On the contrary, experience continually confirms the truth of Solomon's lamentation, 'I hated all my labour which I had taken under the sun: because I should leave it unto the man that shall come after me, and who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a fool?'[30]'Fortes creantur fortibus et bonis,' said Horace. No doubt that is physically true to a great extent, but the transmission of intellect is a very different matter. We have heard it asserted that no bishop ever left an eminent son. The present Lord Ellenborough, a son of the late Bishop Law, is a signal exception; but where is another to be found? How many British peers whose honours are derived from ancestors of genius and capacity, who in their day rendered good service to the nation, are now contributing anything to the legislative power of the House of Lords? Do we now hear the senatorial utterances, or obtain any political counsels, from our contemporary Portland or Wellington, Bedford or Leeds, Exeter or Camden; Macclesfield or Oxford, Somers or Effingham; Sandwich, Hardwicke, Mansfield, or Eldon; Hood, St. Vincent, Exmouth, or Bridport; Kenyon, Erskine, Tenterden, or Wynford; Rodney, Abinger, Hill, or Keane? Yet all these are honourable titles held and enjoyed by men who inherited them from ancestors who deserved well of their country. Nor are these all the peers who have never done anything in public life to justify the hereditary honours bestowed on their meritorious ancestors. The list might be greatly enlarged. Others, again, may be counted by the hundred, whose honours have no nobler origin than Court favour or Parliamentary influence, and who utterly abdicate their legislative functions. In truth, the working department of the House of Lords is generally in the hands of five or six aged barristers, who have won their coronets by their brains, and a dozen or so of active peers, whose high attainments attract the confidence of their fellows. Is it possible to contend that this is a healthy organization of a co-ordinate branch of the imperial legislature? It is true that there are many men of great ability in the House, and many more of truly noble but retiring character,who reside wholly or for the most part on their estates. But of these a very small proportion take the trouble to attend the debates, and even in the present session, Lord Granville was obliged to remark, that 'the large number of peerswho do not attend the debatesought to be called upon to serve on committees.' There is no doubt that the peerage contains excellent materials for a senate, and that practically the power of the whole is now delegated to a part. But though this is the case under ordinary circumstances, it cannot be right that the majority of the House, idle hereditary legislators, should lie dormant and apart from the working bees during the ordinary days of the session, and only wake up and rush to town under the extraordinary pressure of a great party division. It may be argued, however, that a second chamber is a valuable element in the Constitution, and that the hereditary principle is of the very essence of our political system. As to the importance of a second chamber, we make no dispute. On the principle of a division of labour, it is wanted for the despatch of business, and it is also required for the interposition of discussion and delay between the hasty introduction of bills and the final act of legislation. As to the hereditary element, it cannot be denied that for several centuries it has been fully recognised and established. But there are good reasons to believe that it is part and parcel of a comparatively modern Constitution, and that it did not prevail in those days when the germs of our institutions were in their early growth. The fact is that all our titles of honour seem to have been originally derivedfrom offices. That of duke, the highest of the hereditary titles, is evidently derived from 'dux' and 'duc;' words used to signify a leader, and a man of merit. But this was a foreign use of the word which never obtained in England, and it was not introduced at all before the time of Edward the Black Prince. The title of 'marquess' designated originally the persons who had charge of the 'marches' of the country; that is, the boundaries,marks, or border lands between Scotland and England, and England and Wales. An earl derives his title from the earldorman of the Anglo-Saxons, and the earle of the Danes. It was afterwards adopted by the Conqueror, and both in his time and previously, was the designation of certain high officials. The viscount or vicecomes, was originally the deputy of the earl, count or comes, but its adoption as an English dignity is involved in some obscurity. The lowest of our hereditary titles is that of 'baron,' which originally designated those persons who held lands of a superior by military and other services, and who were bound to give attendance in the court of the superior, and assist in the business there transacted. In plain language, these ancient titles indicatedappointmentsfor life of various kinds, or duties connected with property which, as a rule, had been bestowed as a reward for merit.