§ 6.

And yet it will still be thought unreasonable to deny discretionary power in this matter. Neglecting prudential considerations in the endeavour to put society on a purely equitable basis, will probably be demurred to, as implying an entire abandonment of private judgment. It must be confessed that it does so. But whoso urges this objection, may properly ask himself how much his private judgment, as applied to such a subject, is worth?

What is the question he proposes to solve? Whether it is, or is not, the time for some desired change to be made?—whether the people are, or are not, fit for some higher social form than they have hitherto lived under? Where now are his Edition: current; Page: [472] qualifications for answering this question? Has he ever seen the millions for whom he would prescribe? Some tenth part of them perhaps. How many of these does he recognise? Probably of one or two thousand he can tell you the names and occupations. But with how many of these is he acquainted? Several hundreds, it may be. And of what fraction of them does he personally know the characters? They are numbered by tens. Then it must be by what he reads in books and newspapers, witnesses at meetings, and hears in conversation that he judges? Partly so: from the salient points of character thus brought under his notice, he infers the rest. Does he then find his inferences trustworthy? On the contrary, when he goes amongst men he has read of, or heard described, it usually turns out that he has got quite a wrong impression of them. Does this evidence from which he judges lead all persons to like conclusions? No: with the same sources of information open to them, others form opinions of the people widely different from those he holds. Are his own convictions constant? Not at all: he continually meets with facts which prove that he had generalized on insufficient data; and which compel a revision of his estimate. Nevertheless, may it not be that by averaging the characters of those whom he personally knows, he can form a tolerably correct opinion of those whom he does not know? Hardly: seeing that of those whom he personally knows, his judgments are generally incorrect. Very intimate friends occasionally astound him by quite unexpected behaviour; even his nearest relatives—brothers, sisters, and children do so: nay, indeed, he has but a limited acquaintance with himself; for though from time to time he imagines very clearly how he shall act under certain new circumstances, it commonly happens that when placed in these circumstances his conduct is quite different from that which he expected.

Now of what value is the judgment of so circumscribed an intelligence upon the question—Is the nation ready for such Edition: current; Page: [473] and such measures of reform, or is it not? Here is one who professes to say of some thirty millions of people, how they will behave under arrangements a little freer than existing ones. Yet nine-tenths of these people he has not even seen; can identify only a few thousands of them; personally knows but an infinitesimal fraction; and knows these so imperfectly that on some point or other he finds himself mistaken respecting nearly all of them. Here is one who cannot say even of himself how certain untried conditions will affect him, and yet who thinks he can say of a whole nation how certain untried conditions will affect it! Surely there is in this, a most absurd incongruity between pretension and capability.

When the contrast between present institutions and projected ones is very great—when, for example, it is proposed to change at once from pure despotism to perfect freedom—we may, indeed, prophesy with certainty that the result will not fulfil expectation. For whilst the success of institutions depends on their fitness to popular character, and whilst it is impossible for popular character to undergo a great change all at once, it must follow that to suddenly substitute for existing institutions others of a quite opposite nature, will necessitate unfitness, and, therefore, failure. But it is not in cases like this that the power of judging is contended for. As elsewhere shown (p. 432), one of these extreme changes is never consequent upon that peaceful expression of opinion presupposed by the hypothesis that the citizen should be cautious in advocating reform; on the contrary, it is always a result of some revolutionary passion which no considerations of policy can control. Only when an amelioration is being peaceably discussed and agitated for—that is, only when the circumstances prove its advent at hand—can the proposed discretion be exercised: and then does the right use of this discretion imply an acquaintance with the people accurate enough to say of them, “Now they are not fit;” and, again, “Now they are fit”—an acquaintance which it is preposterous to assume—an acquaintance which nothing short of omniscience can possess.

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Who, then, is to find out when the time for any given change has arrived? No one: it will find itself out. For us to perplex ourselves with such questions, is both needless and absurd. The due apportionment of the truth to the time is already provided for. That same modification of man’s nature which produces fitness for higher social forms, itself generates the belief that those forms are right (p. 427), and by doing this brings them into existence. And as opinion, being the product of character (pp. 25, 159), must necessarily be in harmony with character, institutions which are in harmony with opinion, must be in harmony with character also.