Part 13 (1/2)

Two curious economical questions arise laterally with respect to this branch of law, namely, the cost of crime, and the cost of judgment. The cost of crime is endured by nations ignorantly, that expense being nowhere stated in their budgets; the cost of judgment, patiently, (provided only it can be had pure for the money), because the science, or perhaps we ought rather to say the art, of law, is felt to found a n.o.ble profession and discipline; so that civilized nations are usually glad that a number of persons should be supported by exercise in oratory and a.n.a.lysis. But it has not yet been calculated what the practical value might have been, in other directions, of the intelligence now occupied in deciding, through courses of years, what might have been decided as justly, had the date of judgment been fixed, in as many hours. Imagine one half of the funds which any great nation devotes to dispute by law, applied to the determination of physical questions in medicine, agriculture, and theoretic science; and calculate the probable results within the next ten years!

I say nothing yet of the more deadly, more lamentable loss, involved in the use of purchased, instead of personal, justice--[Greek: ”epakto par allon--aporia oikeion.”]

117. In order to true a.n.a.lysis of critic law, we must understand the real meaning of the word ”injury.”

We commonly understand by it, any kind of harm done by one man to another; but we do not define the idea of harm: sometimes we limit it to the harm which the sufferer is conscious of; whereas much the worst injuries are those he is unconscious of; and, at other times, we limit the idea to violence, or restraint; whereas much the worse forms of injury are to be accomplished by indolence, and the withdrawal of restraint.

118. ”Injury” is then simply the refusal, or violation of, any man's right or claim upon his fellows: which claim, much talked of in modern times, under the term ”right,” is mainly resolvable into two branches: a man's claim not to be hindered from doing what he should; and his claim to be hindered from doing what he should not; these two forms of hindrance being intensified by reward, help, and fortune, or Fors, on one side, and by punishment, impediment, and even final arrest, or Mors, on the other.

119. Now, in order to a man's obtaining these two rights, it is clearly needful that the _worth_ of him should be approximately known; as well as the _want_ of worth, which has, unhappily, been usually the princ.i.p.al subject of study for critic law, careful hitherto only to mark degrees of de-merit, instead of merit;--a.s.signing, indeed, to the _De_ficiencies (not always, alas! even to these) just estimate, fine, or penalty; but to the _Ef_ficiencies, on the other side, which are by much the more interesting, as well as the only profitable part of its subject, a.s.signing neither estimate nor aid.

120. Now, it is in this higher and perfect function of critic law, _en_abling instead of _dis_abling, that it becomes truly Kingly, instead of Draconic: (what Providence gave the great, wrathful legislator his name?): that is, it becomes the law of man and of life, instead of the law of the worm and of death--both of these laws being set in changeless poise one against another, and the enforcement of both being the eternal function of the lawgiver, and true claim of every living soul: such claim being indeed strong to be mercifully hindered, and even, if need be, abolished, when longer existence means only deeper destruction, but stronger still to be mercifully helped, and recreated, when longer existence and new creation mean n.o.bler life. So that reward and punishment will be found to resolve themselves mainly[61] into help and hindrance; and these again will issue naturally from time recognition of deserving, and the just reverence and just wrath which follow instinctively on such recognition.

121. I say, ”follow,” but, in reality, they are part of the recognition.

Reverence is as instinctive as anger;--both of them instant on true vision: it is sight and understanding that we have to teach, and these _are_ reverence. Make a man perceive worth, and in its reflection he sees his own relative unworth, and wors.h.i.+ps thereupon inevitably, not with stiff courtesy, but rejoicingly, pa.s.sionately, and, best of all, _restfully_: for the inner capacity of awe and love is infinite in man, and only in finding these, can we find peace. And the common insolences and petulances of the people, and their talk of equality, are not irreverence in them in the least, but mere blindness, stupefaction, and fog in the brains,[62] the first sign of any cleansing away of which is, that they gain some power of discerning, and some patience in submitting to, their true counsellors and governors. In the mode of such discernment consists the real ”const.i.tution” of the state, more than in the t.i.tles or offices of the discerned person; for it is no matter, save in degree of mischief, to what office a man is appointed, if he cannot fulfil it.

122. III. GOVERNMENT BY COUNCIL.

This is the determination, by living authority, of the national conduct to be observed under existing circ.u.mstances; and the modification or enlargement, abrogation or enforcement, of the code of national law according to present needs or purposes. This government is necessarily always by council, for though the authority of it may be vested in one person, that person cannot form any opinion on a matter of public interest but by (voluntarily or involuntarily) submitting himself to the influence of others.

This government is always twofold--visible and invisible.

The visible government is that which nominally carries on the national business; determines its foreign relations, raises taxes, levies soldiers, orders war or peace, and otherwise becomes the arbiter of the national fortune. The invisible government is that exercised by all energetic and intelligent men, each in his sphere, regulating the inner will and secret ways of the people, essentially forming its character, and preparing its fate.

Visible governments are the toys of some nations, the diseases of others, the harness of some, the burdens of more the necessity of all.

Sometimes their career is quite distinct from that of the people, and to write it, as the national history, is as if one should number the accidents which befall a man's weapons and wardrobe, and call the list his biography. Nevertheless, a truly n.o.ble and wise nation necessarily has a n.o.ble and wise visible government, for its wisdom issues in that conclusively.

123. Visible governments are, in their agencies, capable of three pure forms, and of no more than three.

They are either monarchies, where the authority is vested in one person; oligarchies, when it is vested in a minority; or democracies, when vested in a majority.

But these three forms are not only, in practice, variously limited and combined, but capable of infinite difference in character and use, receiving specific names according to their variations; which names, being nowise agreed upon, nor consistently used, either in thought or writing, no man can at present tell, in speaking of any kind of government, whether he is understood; nor, in hearing, whether he understands. Thus we usually call a just government by one person a monarchy, and an unjust or cruel one, a tyranny: this might be reasonable if it had reference to the divinity of true government; but to limit the term ”oligarchy” to government by a few rich people, and to call government by a few wise or n.o.ble people ”aristocracy,” is evidently absurd, unless it were proved that rich people never could be wise, or n.o.ble people rich; and farther absurd, because there are other distinctions in character, as well as riches or wisdom (greater purity of race, or strength of purpose, for instance), which may give the power of government to the few. So that if we had to give names to every group or kind of minority, we should have verbiage enough. But there is only one right name--”oligarchy.”

124. So also the terms ”republic” and ”democracy”[63] are confused, especially in modern use; and both of them are liable to every sort of misconception. A republic means, properly, a polity in which the state, with its all, is at every man's service, and every man, with his all, at the state's service--(people are apt to lose sight of the last condition), but its government may nevertheless be oligarchic (consular, or decemviral, for instance), or monarchic (dictatorial). But a democracy means a state in which the government rests directly with the majority of the citizens. And both these conditions have been judged only by such accidents and aspects of them as each of us has had experience of; and sometimes both have been confused with anarchy, as it is the fas.h.i.+on at present to talk of the ”failure of republican inst.i.tutions in America,” when there has never yet been in America any such thing as an inst.i.tution, but only defiance of inst.i.tution; neither any such thing as a _res-publica_, but only a mult.i.tudinous _res-privata_; every man for himself. It is not republicanism which fails now in America; it is your model science of political economy, brought to its perfect practice. There you may see compet.i.tion, and the ”law of demand and supply” (especially in paper), in beautiful and unhindered operation.[64] l.u.s.t of wealth, and trust in it; vulgar faith in magnitude and mult.i.tude, instead of n.o.bleness; besides that faith natural to backwoodsmen--”luc.u.m ligna,”[65]--perpetual self-contemplation, issuing in pa.s.sionate vanity; total ignorance of the finer and higher arts, and of all that they teach and bestow; and the discontent of energetic minds unoccupied, frantic with hope of uncomprehended change, and progress they know not whither;[66]--these are the things that have ”failed” in America; and yet not altogether failed--it is not collapse, but collision; the greatest railroad accident on record, with fire caught from the furnace, and Catiline's quenching ”non aqua, sed ruina.”[67] But I see not, in any of our talk of them, justice enough done to their erratic strength of purpose, nor any estimate taken of the strength of endurance of domestic sorrow, in what their women and children suppose a righteous cause. And out of that endurance and suffering, its own fruit will be born with time; [_not_ abolition of slavery, however. See - 130.] and Carlyle's prophecy of them (June, 1850), as it has now come true in the first clause, will, in the last:--

”America, too, will find that caucuses, divisionalists, stump-oratory, and speeches to Buncombe will not carry men to the immortal G.o.ds; that the Was.h.i.+ngton Congress, and const.i.tutional battle of Kilkenny cats is there, as here, naught for such objects; quite incompetent for such; and, in fine, that said sublime const.i.tutional arrangement will require to be (with terrible throes, and travail such as few expect yet) remodelled, abridged, extended, suppressed, torn asunder, put together again--not without heroic labour and effort, quite other than that of the stump-orator and the revival preacher, one day.”

125.[68] Understand, then, once for all, that no form of government, provided it be a government at all, is, as such, to be either condemned or praised, or contested for in anywise, but by fools. But all forms of government are good just so far as they attain this one vital necessity of policy--_that the wise and kind, few or many, shall govern the unwise and unkind_; and they are evil so far as they miss of this, or reverse it. Not does the form, in any case, signify one whit, but its _firmness_, and adaptation to the need; for if there be many foolish persons in a state, and few wise, then it is good that the few govern; and if there be many wise, and few foolish, then it is good that the many govern; and if many be wise, yet one wiser, then it is good that one should govern; and so on. Thus, we may have ”the ant's republic, and the realm of bees,” both good in their kind; one for groping, and the other for building; and n.o.bler still, for flying;--the Ducal monarchy[69] of those

Intelligent of seasons, that set forth The aery caravan, high over seas.

126. Nor need we want examples, among the inferior creatures, of dissoluteness, as well as resoluteness, in government. I once saw democracy finely ill.u.s.trated by the beetles of North Switzerland, who by universal suffrage, and elytric acclamation, one May twilight, carried it, that they would fly over the Lake of Zug; and flew _short_, to the great disfigurement of the Lake of Zug,--[Greek: Kantharon limen]--over some leagues square, and to the close of the c.o.c.kchafer democracy for that year. Then, for tyranny, the old fable of the frogs and the stork finely touches one form of it; but truth will image it more closely than fable, for tyranny is not complete when it is only over the idle, but when it is over the laborious and the blind. This description of pelicans and climbing perch, which I find quoted in one of our popular natural histories, out of Sir Emerson Tennant's _Ceylon_, comes as near as may be to the true image of the thing:--

”Heavy rains came on, and as we stood on the high ground, we observed a pelican on the margin of the shallow pool gorging himself; our people went towards him, and raised a cry of 'Fish, fis.h.!.+' We hurried down, and found numbers of fish struggling upward through the gra.s.s, in the rills formed by the trickling of the rain. There was scarcely water to cover them, but nevertheless they made rapid progress up the bank, on which our followers collected about two baskets of them. They were forcing their way up the knoll, and had they not been interrupted, first by the pelican, and afterwards by ourselves, they would in a few minutes have gained the highest point, and descended on the other side into a pool which formed another portion of the tank. In going this distance, however, they must have used muscular exertion enough to have taken them half a mile on level ground; for at these places all the cattle and wild animals of the neighbourhood had latterly come to drink, so that the surface was everywhere indented with footmarks, in addition to the cracks in the surrounding baked mud, into which the fish tumbled in their progress. In those holes, which were deep, and the sides perpendicular, they remained to die, and were carried off by kites and crows.”[70]

127. But whether governments be bad or good, one general disadvantage seems to attach to them in modern times--that they are all _costly_.[71]

This, however, is not essentially the fault of the governments. If nations choose to play at war, they will always find their governments willing to lead the game, and soon coming under that term of Aristophanes, ”[Greek: kapeloi aspidon],” ”s.h.i.+eld-sellers.” And when ([Greek: pem epi pemati])[72] the s.h.i.+elds take the form of iron s.h.i.+ps, with apparatus ”for defence against liquid fire,”--as I see by latest accounts they are now arranging the decks in English dockyards--they become costly biers enough for the grey convoy of chief mourner waves, wreathed with funereal foam, to bear back the dead upon; the ma.s.sy shoulders of those corpse-bearers being intended for quite other work, and to bear the living, and food for the living, if we would let them.

128. Nor have we the least right to complain of our governments being expensive, so long as we set the government _to do precisely the work which brings no return_. If our present doctrines of political economy be just, let us trust them to the utmost; take that war business out of the government's hands, and test therein the principles of supply and demand. Let our future sieges of Sebastopol be done by contract--no capture, no pay--(I admit that things might sometimes go better so); and let us sell the commands of our prospective battles, with our vicarages, to the lowest bidder; so may we have cheap victories, and divinity. On the other hand, if we have so much suspicion of our science that we dare not trust it on military or spiritual business, would it not be but reasonable to try whether some authoritative handling may not prosper in matters utilitarian? If we were to set our governments to do useful things instead of mischievous, possibly even the apparatus itself might in time come to be less costly. The machine, applied to the building of the house, might perhaps pay, when it seems not to pay, applied to pulling it down. If we made in our dockyards s.h.i.+ps to carry timber and coals, instead of cannon, and with provision for the brightening of domestic solid culinary fire, instead of for the scattering of liquid hostile fire, it might have some effect on the taxes. Or suppose that we tried the experiment on land instead of water carriage; already the government, not unapproved, carries letters and parcels for us; larger packages may in time follow;--even general merchandise--why not, at last, ourselves? Had the money spent in local mistakes and vain private litigation, on the railroads of England, been laid out, instead, under proper government restraint, on really useful railroad work, and had no absurd expense been incurred in ornamenting stations, we might already have had,--what ultimately it will be found we must have,--quadruple rails, two for pa.s.sengers, and two for traffic, on every great line; and we might have been carried in swift safety, and watched and warded by well-paid pointsmen, for half the present fares. [For, of course, a railroad company is merely an a.s.sociation of turnpike-keepers, who make the tolls as high as they can, not to mend the roads with, but to pocket. The public will in time discover this, and do away with turnpikes on railroads, as on all other public-ways.]

129. Suppose it should thus turn out, finally, that a true government set to true work, instead of being a costly engine, was a paying one?

that your government, rightly organized, instead of itself subsisting by an income-tax, would produce its subjects some subsistence in the shape of an income dividend?--police, and judges duly paid besides, only with less work than the state at present provides for them.

A true government set to true work!--Not easily to be imagined, still less obtained; but not beyond human hope or ingenuity. Only you will have to alter your election systems somewhat, first. Not by universal suffrage, nor by votes purchasable with beer, is such government to be had. That is to say, not by universal _equal_ suffrage. Every man upwards of twenty, who has been convicted of no legal crime, should have his say in this matter; but afterwards a louder voice, as he grows older, and approves himself wiser. If he has one vote at twenty, he should have two at thirty, four at forty, ten at fifty. For every single vote which he has with an income of a hundred a year, he should have ten with an income of a thousand, (provided you first see to it that wealth is, as nature intended it to be, the reward of sagacity and industry--not of good luck in a scramble or a lottery). For every single vote which he had as subordinate in any business, he should have two when he became a master; and every office and authority nationally bestowed, implying trustworthiness and intellect, should have its known proportional number of votes attached to it. But into the detail and working of a true system in these matters we cannot now enter; we are concerned as yet with definitions only, and statements of first principles, which will be established now sufficiently for our purposes when we have examined the nature of that form of government last on the list in - 105,--the purely ”Magistral,” exciting at present its full share of public notice, under its ambiguous t.i.tle of ”slavery.”