mation, having elected one person, another aspirant believed he had a better right to the episcopate on different grounds, or a different popular acclamation. That the maxim has a decidedly medieval air no one familiar with that age will doubt. The middle ages are, indeed, characterized by the fact that all Europe was parcelled out, not in states, but under a political system of graduated and encapsulated allegiance; but where this system failed to reach a sphere with its many ramifications, the same age bore a conclamatory character, especially in the earliest times. When a king was elected, it was by conclamation. The earliest bishops of Rome were elected or confirmed by conclamation of the Roman people. Elections by conclamation always indicate a rude or deficiently organized state of things; and it is the same whether this want of organization be the effect of primitive rudeness or of relapse. Now, the maxim we are considering has a strongly conclamatory character, and to apply it to our modern affairs is degrading rather than elevating them. How shall we ascertain, in modern times, whether anything be the voice of the people? And next, whether that voice be the voice of God, so that it may command respect? For, unless we can do this, the whole maxim amounts to no more than a poetic sentence expressing the opinion of an individual, but no rule, no canon. Is it unanimity that indicates the voice of the people? Unanimity in this case can mean only a very large majority. But even unanimity itself is far from indicating the voice of God. Unanimity is commanding only when it is the result of digested and organic public been fruitless. Sanderson, whom Mr. Hallam calls the most distinguished English casuist, treats of the maxim in his work De Conscientia. So I am informed by a learned divine. I have not seen the book. opinion; and even then, we know perfectly well that it may be erroneous, and consequently not the voice of God, but simply the best opinion at which erring and sinful men at the time are able to arrive. M. Say informs us that when the first cotton manufactures were introduced into France, petitions from all the incorporated large towns, from merchants and silk weavers, were sent to Paris, clamouring in vehement terms against the "ungodly calico prints." Rouen, now the busiest of all the French cotton manufacturing places, was among the foremost; and the petition of the united three corporations of Amiens ended thus: "To conclude, it is enough for the eternal prohibition of the use of printed calicoes, that the whole kingdom is chilled with horror at the news of their proposed toleration. Vox populi vox Dei." This might well be considered as sufficient to prevent every reflecting man from using the maxim. We now know that the cotton tissue has become one of the greatest blessings of our race, giving comfort, health and respectability, to entire masses of men formerly doomed to tatters, filth, and its fearful concomitants, typhus and vice; and we know too that cotton manufacture is one of the most lucrative branches of French industry. Unanimity of itself proves nothing worth being proved for our purpose. In considering unanimity, the first subject that presents itself to us is that remarkable phenomenon called Fashion-a phenomenon well-nigh calculated to baffle the most searching mind, and which has never received the attention it deserves at the hands of the philosopher, in every point of view, whether psychological, moral, economical or political. Unassisted by any public power, by the leading minds of the age, by religion, literature, or any concerted action, it neverthe less rules with unbending authority, often in spite of health, comfort, and taste, and it exacts tributes such as no sultan or legislature can levy. While it often spreads ruin among producers and consumers, it is always sure to reach the most absolute Czar, and subject his taste. Though the head may wear a crown, Fashion puts her shears to its hair, if she has a mind to do so. Far more powerful than international law, which only rules between nations, she brings innumerable nations into one fold, and that frequently the fold of acknowledged folly.. How can we explain this stupendous phenomenon? It is not necessary to do so here. The fact, however, must be acknowledged. It is the most remarkable instance of unanimity, but will any one say that Fashion is a vox Dei? The very question would be irreverent, were it not candidly made in a philosophical spirit. Nor is the dominion of fashion restricted to dress and furniture, nor to the palate and minor intercourse. Bitter as the remark may sound, it is nevertheless true that there are countries void of institutions, where a periodical on political fashions might be published, with the same variety of matter as the Petit Courrier des Dames. There was a fearful unanimity all over Europe in the sanguinary and protracted period of witch trials, joined in by churchmen and laymen, Protestant and Catholic, Teuton, Celt, and Sclavonic, learned and illiterate. If the fallacious and in some respects absurd "Quod ab omnibus, semper, ubique," ever seemed to find an application, it was in the witch trial from the earliest times of history, and in all countries down to the time when very slowly it began to be no longer ab omnibus, semper, ubique. But was Sprenger's sad Malleus Maleficarum on that account the voice of God ?3 What fearful fanati 3 It has been calculated that near nine millions of human beings have been sacrificed by witch trials in modern times. "The people's voice the voice of God we call ; Then sure they must have weight and truth withal." A very large class of proverbs is against peasants and the labouring classes; against women, lawyers, physicians indeed, against all the staple subjects of former satire. Whoever wishes to give great importance to a general movement, or sincerely believes it to be truly noble, calls it the voice of God. Pope Pius IX. in his proclamation of the 30th of March, 1848, says, in speaking of the general and enthusiastic movement of the Italians for Italy and Independence: "Woe to him who does not discern the Vox Dei in this blast," &c. It cannot be supposed that he now considers that blast to have been the Vox Dei. Sometimes the maxim is doubtless used in good faith, just as the French sometimes use that favourite expression of theirs-The instinct of the masses, without reserve; but generally I think Vox populi vox Dei is used either hypocritically, or when people have misgivings that all may not be right, pretty much in the same manner as persons say that an argument is unanswerable, when they have a strong foreboding that it may be very answerable. Vox populi vox Dei has never been used in France so frequently as after the second of December; yet there are unquestionably thousands in that country who would find their religious convictions much bewildered, if they Which might lead to this syllogism: Vox Populi Vox Dei, Proverbs are the voice of the people, were obliged to believe that it was the voice of God which spoke through ballot boxes under the management of the most centralized executive in existence; and that the voice of the Deity requires a thousand intrigues among men to be delivered. The doctrine Vox populi vox Dei is essentially unrepublican, as the doctrine that the people may do what they list under the constitution, above the constitution, and against the constitution, is an open avowal of disbelief in self-government. The true friend of freedom does not wish to be insulted by the supposition that he believes each human individual an erring man, and that nevertheless the united clamour of erring men has a character of divinity about it; nor does he desire to be told that the voice of the people, though legitimately and institutionally proclaimed and justly commanding respect and obedience, is divine on that account. He knows that the majority may err, and that he has the right and often the duty to use his whole energy to convince them of their error, and lawfully to bring about a different set of laws. The true and staunch republican wants liberty, but no deification either of himself or others; he wants a firmly built self-government and noble institutions, but no absolutism of any sort-none to practise on others, and none to have practised on himself. He is too proud for the Vox populi vox Dei. He wants no divine right of the people, for he knows very well that it means nothing but despotic power of insinuating leaders. He wants the real rule of the people, that is the institutionally organized country, which distinguishes it from the mere mob. For mob is an unorganic multitude, with a general impulse of action. Woe to the country in 7 The subject of Mobs has been enlarged upon in the Political Ethics. 7 BB |