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Oct. 18, 1851.] W!>t !,»»>»*» "7
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PROUDHON ON GOVERNMENT. Idee Generate de...
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KNIGHTS LAST SHAKSPERE. The National Edi...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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The Baroness Von Ijkck Case Still Excite...
in palaeozoic periods may be aphenomenon of the same order as the absence of palaeozoic forms in our present xoorU ? " In conclusion , we should observe that while demolishing the arguments of Lyell against progressive development , Owen is not to be counted as an advocate of the form of the hypothesis set forth in the Vestiges—a form we ourselves regard as imperfect and too metaphysical . But the differences are reconcileable between all forms of the development hypothesis directly we substitute for it the more abstract and comprehensive formula of the Law of Progressive Adaptation .
Oct. 18, 1851.] W!>T !,»»>»*» "7
Oct . 18 , 1851 . ] W !> t ! , »»>»*» " 7
Proudhon On Government. Idee Generate De...
PROUDHON ON GOVERNMENT . Idee Generate de la Revolution au XIX Sifcle . Par P . J . Proudhon . W . Jeffs . ( Fourth Notice . ) Our survey of this powerful and interesting book now brings us to one of Proudhon ' s most startling positions—the absolute and unequivocal denial of all Government . Perhaps , after his famous onslaught upon Property , nothing equals in its audacity and destructive vehemence this negation of the principle of Authority . It is no new outburst . In his first Memoir on Property it is as emphatically announced as in this his last work . What he means by it we shall endeavour to show , if we can disengage his meaning from the envelope of polemical and dialectical subtleties .
There has been lately , in France , considerable discussion on the principles of Government—discussion which has resulted in angry separation of the republican party into opposite camps ; Rittinghausen , Considerant , Ledru Rollin , and Girardin having been severally aiming at the destruction of representative government , and the erection of Direct Legislation—a scheme which Louis Blanc , in two pamphlets , Plus ds Girondins and La Republique Une et Indivisible , has flagellated with vigour . Proudhon , after flagellating them , turns upon Louis
Blanc , and is pitiless . Not only to them , but to the two great democratic idols , Rousseau and Robespierre , is Proudhon pitiless . Their admirers will read with indignation the fierce denunciations and sarcastic epithets Proudhon heaps upon the two tribuns ; and their enemies will chuckle , especially at the Carlylian epithets applied to Robespierre , " the bastard of Loyola , and tartufe de VEtre supreme ! " Take away from these pages the bilious vehemence of their polemic , and we may consider with profit their cyticism of Rousseau ' s Social Contract and Robespierre ' s democratic
tyranny . Government under all its forms he attacks as false in principle and vicious in effect . lie believes neither in Absolute Monarchy , in Constitutional Monarchy , nor in Democracy ; he admits no Divine Right , no Legal Right , no Right of Majorities . He only believes in the Right of Justicein the Empire of Reason . The principle of Authority he rejects in Politics as in Religion ; he will admit only Liberty' — -Reason . The purest , sinccrest form of Government is Absolutism—between that
and Anarchy he sees only transitional compromises . Absolutism is the initiatory state of Humanity , the final state is Anarchy . We caution the reader against a natural misapprehension of the word Anarchy , which is not used as synonymous with disorder ; but simply what the Greek word implies , vi / .., absence of Government—absolute . Liberty . Wherefore < lo all governments pretend to control tin ; actions of men ? To . secure order . So completely \ k the idea of order connected with that of
tfovermnent , tluit anarchy irresistibly calls up the j *" " » of disorder—the two become synonymes . lint /* he asks , " what proves that the true order () 1 . society is that which it pleases our ( jovei nors to •» km Ku to us ? " A question , indeed , which is implied ? " : ul political agitation , lie answers it by say-IU that true order must repose upon perfect libert y , whereas Force ( Government— -Laws- ) is a lwrpuliml negation of Liberty . 'iiiversal . NuHrage , or any other mode of ltcpre-^ ' "' mioii , lie regards with pity . What ! ho exclaims , J » a qutA , tio of thai , which is nearest and dearest , nie niy \ i ]) VA-iyf 1 U y l ; ihoUrj tli ,. subsistence , of my w » ' « and _ cTluuin , > j am t () ; u ! ,.,,, ) t Representation ntii
" i lit ; 11 ol a «| ¦ ¦• - without , knowing me , without hem ing 'Hat 1 have to say , pir <> nounce for or againnt mo , i ¦ \ Ti lHl' aCt HH th (' y . «*«« "i »»»« , »« l : lH * < lt 5 l « r->»»<'! vviiat is the relation b-. tween such a congress , IUe WIkiI guarantee does it oiler ? Wherefore i oulcl 1 8 ubnut to its ( luciHiuiiH respecting my in' * UHU » r And when tint ) congress after a wordy
debate , of which I understand no syllable , presents its decision in the shape of a law which it holds out to me on the point of a bayonet , I beg to know what becomes of my sovereignty if it be true that I am , one of the sovereign people ? Oho ! I have elected honourable M . P . ' s—the wisdom and probity of the Nation—the representatives of the Nation ; and by so doing I have delegated my sovereignty . But why must these wise and honest gentlemen necessarily know more than I do myself what my own interest is ? My labour , my subsistence , my whole activity , are to be settled according to their wisdom . If I am stupid enough not to see that they know better what is good for me than I know myself—there is the police and the County Gaol to enlighten me !
Hereupon follows a chapter on Universal Suffrage which Carlyle might have dictated . The conclusion is that neither the Divine right of bayonets , nor the wisdom of Delegates chosen by Universal Suffrage , can do anything more than impose Force upon Society—both are tyrannies which Liberty protests against . There is much that is true , much also that is sophistical and confused , in Proudhon ' s attacks upon Government , especially where he directs them against the principle of all Government which he rightly names Authority . We hold it to be quite certain that Government , as external Coercion , will
finally disappear . Herbert Spencer in his Social Statics has placed this point in so clear a light that we need only refer to his reasonings . But neither Herbert Spencer nor Proudhon take sufficient care to represent this condition as one indefinitely distant—as the goal of social development , not a condition practicable in our times ; above all , neither Spencer nor Proudhon has with sufficient distictness brought forward the internal Coercion ( so to speak ) , the Spiritual Authority which will replace the external or purely Physical force of Governments . Both have seen this principle , but neither has given it sufficient emphasis .
To us it is incontestible that in the Governmental , as in the Religious question , the principle of Liberty , as commonly understood , is a destructive , vicious principle . Auguste Comte has luminously shown the anarchial nature of this pretended Liberty , while admitting its importance and absolute necessity as a destructive and transitional principle . He truly says that liberty of private judgment is absurd in astronomy or physics—no man is free to doubt their demonstrated truths , unless he aspire
to the freedom of a lunatic asylum ; and this omnipotence of the Authority of Reason in matters of Science will be accompanied by an equal omnipotence in matters of Social life , when Social life has its Science . The anarchy of Liberty is only the transition to Faith . No man rebels against the tyranny of Science—no man rejects the inward coercion of his convictions ; but until that Faith is established , until the Empire of Reason is founded , the Empire of Force must prevail .
Proudhon had some glimmering of this when , in his first Memoir on Property , ho said that the science of government belongs by right to one of the sections of the Academy of the Sciences of which the secretaire perpetuel ( President ) becomes the prime minister ; and inasmuch aa every citizen may address a paper to that Academy , every citizen is a legislator ; but as no one's opinion counts for more than it is worth , i . s only acceptable in as far as if , is demonstrated , nobody can substitute his will in tlu : place of Reason—no one is King . But we arc speaking of a future , so distant , that " practical politicians" will impatiently shrug their shoulders . To them we will address a few words more immediate in their bearin . tr .
That Government , like Religion , like Property , and Home other " Sacred Institutions , " has undergone throughout the ; slow march of History a gradual disintegration , is a position demonstrable to every open mind . That it is no longer the Power it once was is patent to every understanding . No longer < lo the Nations believe ; that , * ' If the King but knew what misery they si die . ml , he would remedit do
y ; " no longer they look to kings or kaisers for-succour . Divine Right is no utterly discredited that the phrase which escaped Thiei « at the foot of the tribune , " The King reigns , but docs not govern , " llcw over ICurope as ^ the formula of the universal conviction . Hut if the King dues not govern , who does ? Have we , as I ' roudhon says , discredited Royalty to believe ' in the Royalty of the National Guard ? And if we behove in them , upon what basis reHts their authorit y ? rho moat important and far reaching change in
modern Europe is the change from a feudal and military condition to an Industrial condition . The Crystal Palace ^ is our Agincourt and Waterloo ! The rise of the Third Estate—the gigantic development of Commerce and Industry—have altered for ever the aspect of society . What a revolution is contained in that name—A Cotton Lord ! a revolution beside which all the other revolutions that have agitated Europe , are but as the street quarrels of a few turbulent men : a Cotton Lord—a chief , a legislator , once himself , perhaps , a miserable drudge at the loom , now sent up from the mills of Lancashire to influence the destinies of the world 1
It requires but a modicum of logic to perceive that in a society which has seen changes so vast , there must have been coextensive changes in the principles of Government ; and these changes we sum up in the " Safeguards of our Constitution " —and we express them when we say the King reigns , but does not govern . The Government that is to come must be an Organization of Industry , precisely because the social state which we are approaching must be preeminently industrial .
The Leader , therefore , in advocating the principles it does , is only leading the age in the very direction which it has inevitably entered on . And when we protest against any of the Socialist schemes , as premature and incomplete , we do so because they seem to us to violate one of the essential conditions of the social problem , and ignore the existence of much of the old leaven . Society is assuredly Industrial and not Military , if we consider it in its dominant aspect ; but the Industrial Phasis is far from complete , universal ; remnants of Feudalism , of Military feelings , thoughts , impulses , still powerfully operate , and find their expression in facts and institutions . These you cannot eradicate by a coup de main ; these cannot be suppressed by an edict .
Knights Last Shakspere. The National Edi...
KNIGHTS LAST SHAKSPERE . The National Edition of Shakspere Comedies Vol II . Edited by Charles Knight . C . Knight and Co . With Sliakspere , Goethe , and Comte , a thoughtful man has a magnificent library : there he may find food for endless meditation on humanity in all its complex and multiple manifestations , and on science in its encyclopa ? diacal grandeur . Probably Charles Knight , in his unwearied enthusiasm , would declare that Shakspere was alone a library . No man has worked so incessantly , none half so effectively , to get Shakspere a comfortable
niche in every house . Pictorial editions have tempted the craving eye of many ; library editions have graced the shelves of others ; pocket editions and one volume editions have risen up to claim their separate usefulness ; and here we have a sort of eclectic edition—the National Edition—uniting something of almost all the others . It is a book for the study or the drawing-room ; but is too bulky for the portmanteau ( an edition is announced for that purpose ) , and no pocket pretends to hold it . But on the table or desk it is handsome , useful , desirable . The text is printed across the page in fair type , not in double columns . The
loving vigilance and erudite care with which that text is composed are known to all students . If we sometimes openly rebel against his emendations and new readings , we always feel that he is guided by the earnest desire to settle what Shakspere actually wrote , and not by the poor desire of passing oil'his ingenuity ; in other words , we are constrained to differ from him—but always with respect . The principles upon which his text is founded have our entire concurrence ; but our poetical sense cannot be coerced by ten thousand manuscripts into accepting such a reading as Charles Knight has ventured on in King John . All the world knows and marvels at the sublime passage : —¦ " Here I and Sorrow sit ; . Here is my throne ; bid Kings come , bow to it . " This without a word of explanation , but doubtless following the first folio , he prints :- '" Here I awl sorrows sit !" Thus not only introducing a bis . sing difficulty into the verm ; , 1 ml , destroying the grand personification of Sorrow seated by the wretched Queen . Hut did Shakspere write . Sorrow ? I . s not sorrows the word he wrote ? Nobody < : 'tn decisively settle Much a point ; but poetic Justice insists upon the doubt being in favour of the author . Otherwise , what right haves we to Theobald ' s glorious reading oi Falstafl ' . s babbling of green fields ; or of that change from " dedicate her beauty to the same " into " And dedicate her beauty to the aun . "
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 18, 1851, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_18101851/page/17/
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