2 a Patriot King. He, and he alone, can save a country when its ruin is so far advanced' as (so we may interpret his language) is implied by the rule of a Walpole and a George II.1 Corruption will cease when the patriot reaches the throne, and the 'panacea is applied.' The spirit of liberty will revive, and the devil be exorcised. For, and the reason is slightly discouraging, a patriot king is 'a sort of standing miracle,' 12 so rarely seen and so little understood that his appearance will encourage the innocent, astonish the guilty, and secure universal acquiescence. Bolingbroke tells us how the ideal monarch is to begin his reformation. He is to begin 'to govern as soon as he begins to reign,'3 and first (and here we may be sure that Bolingbroke is sincere) to dismiss the old ministers, leaving some to be punished, and employ new, who are to be wise, instead of cunning. He is to be for a state, not for a party; to unite instead of dividing; to uphold the constitution where it does not admit of improvement; to redress grievances and punish guilty officials; to gain the hearts of his people by withdrawing favour from evildoers and satisfying just complaints; and thus, though he cannot alter human nature, he may stem the corrupt course of human affairs. He is to encourage commerce, on which power depends, and to cherish the navy, for England is an island. And, finally, the patriot king is not to have a pedantic regard for chastity (so Bolingbroke appears to insinuate in a long and involved passage), but to have a strict regard for decorum. When these expectations are realised, 'concord will appear, brooding peace and prosperity on the happy land;' joy sitting in 'every face, content in every breast;' and, in short, England will be honoured and prosperous. In those blessed days, people will remember, with some tenderness of sentiment,' a man who, in all sincerity, contributed his mite to carry on so good a work,' and 'who desired life for nothing so much as to see a king of Great Britain the most powerful man in the country, and a patriot king at the head of a united people.'' The unconscious irony is not complete unless we remember that this consummation was to arrive when Bolingbroke should 'Bolingbroke's Works, iii. 73, 'Patriot King.' 2 lb. iii. 75. VOL. II. 5 Ib. iii. 125. 3 Ib. iii. 77. 4 Ib. iii. 125. 1 be Prime Minister of that greatest and most glorious of human beings' (such was to be the patriot king) the poor Prince Fred who was alive and is dead.' All will be well, so Bolingbroke tells us, when we have an angelic ruler, who, by some undefined method, is to provide perfect laws, and carry out an unerring policy at the head of a wise and virtuous people. Bolingbroke's last paper, some unfinished reflections on the present (1749) state of the nation, records his final disappointment, and the meagre results of the downfall of Walpole. 3 53. Perhaps in this mass of insincere platitudes one genuine vein of sentiment may be detected. The disappearance of party, which he professed to desire, meant the advent to power of the 'country party.' The phrase is ambiguous, as country is opposed to party or to court. Bolingbroke, in fact, adopts the theory long held by reformers, which regarded the independent members as the sound part of the constitution, and which prompted Chatham's plan for reforming parliament by adding to the representation of the counties. The landed men,' he says in his last reflections, are the true owners of our political vessel; the moneyed men, as such, are but passengers in it.' 2 In his earlier days he told Sir William Windham that the Tories represented the bulk of the landed interest.' In fact, the moneyed men were regarded as a kind of excrescence, in spite of the recognised and even exaggerated value of trade; and the prevalent corruption was supposed to have its root in the machinations of the growing class. The 'great source of corruption' introduced by the revolution was the public debt; and it was by dexterously manipulating those mysterious creations-the Funds-that Walpole worked his nefarious schemes. The whole art of stockjobbing, the whole mystery of iniquity,' arose from the debt, and 'the mainsprings that turn, or may turn, the artificial wheel of credit, and make the paper estates that are fastened to it rise and fall, work behind the veil of the treasury.' A new power was making itself felt in politics, and Walpole's supposed intimacy with its secrets, and skill in turning them to account, was one great source of his power. The phenomenon, like other novelties, seemed strange and portentous, and the ' Bolingbroke's Works, iii. 123, 'Patriot King.' Ib. ii. 243, 'Dissertation on Parties.' 2 Ib. iii. 174. • Ib. i. 9. • Ib. ii. 245. old aristocracy looked askance upon that new plutocracy which was gradually coming into being. The consequences of that change were not then-perhaps they are not even now-fully appreciated. 54. Meanwhile, Bolingbroke's showy philosophy passed muster for a time. Great changes were slowly operating in that political interregnum. Society was slowly heaving and changing. Politicians looked on idly, and squabbled for places; facile theorists neatly vamped up old formulæ left as a legacy from more stirring times; and, on the whole, decided that there was no particular principle in politics beyond preserving a tolerably stable equilibrium, and maintaining (for it would be unjust to overlook the favourable side) a wide toleration, verging only too closely on indifference. Bolingbroke's writings, valuable for little else, contributed in some degree, under the good natured king of Cockaigne rule of Walpole, to make the power of the press more distinctly felt, and so aided the development of a new force side by side with the growing power of the purse. Yet, of Bolingbroke one can say little, but that he adds one more instance of wasted talents and unaccepted tasks. 55. A far keener intellect than that of Bolingbroke was pondering the same questions. The problem which lay before Hume, as well as Bolingbroke, was how to make a rope of sand, and to frame a political theory out of theoretical and practical scepticism. Hume's power as a destroyer is contrasted with his weakness as a creator, even more conspicuously in his political than in his other writings. The old theories are slain at a blow. The divine right of kings is a futile doctrine, for whatever actually happens is comprehended under the general plan or intention of Providence;' and thus, the greatest and most lawful prince has no more peculiar sacredness than a usurper or a pirate;' whilst 'a constable, no less than a king, acts by a divine commission, and possesses an indefeasible right.' The more popular social contract theory vanishes as soon as it is challenged. The imaginary contract has confessedly no place in history, and it is easy to show that it can have as little in philosophy. The 1 Hume's Works, iii. p. 444. duties of allegiance and of fidelity to promises rest on the same foundation of utility, and to deduce one from the other is mere logical legerdemain. As soon as the question is asked, Why should I keep my word? the only possible answer is, Because society could not otherwise subsist; and the same answer serves for the question, Why should I obey the sovereign ? Wollaston's attempt to convert all sin into lying was liable, it may be remarked in passing, to the same attack; for it was substantially an attempt to import into the still less propitious sphere of ethics that doctrine of the social compact which had a certain convenience in the more obviously empirical science of politics. Hume's reasoning is irrefragable, admirably put, and too trite for repetition. And yet the social compact theory lived long after the brains were out; nay, flourished and became identified with theories which exercised, and still exercise, a vast influence upon political thought. If we ask why so clear a refutation produced so small an effect, the answer may be suggested by the impotence of the rival doctrine. 56. Divine right and the social compact being exploded, and utility recognised as the sole and sufficient criterion of all political order, how are we to construct a definite political theory? What forms of government are useful, and why? Hume's conceptions of the origin and nature of government are perfectly clear and coherent. All government ultimately rests on opinion; the physical force is always on the side of the governed; the various instincts which bind men together in society enable the few to impose their will on the many; and the opinions which determine the nature of government are those which men form as to the public interest, as to the right to power, and the right to property.' What then, we might ask, is the genesis of the various opinions which have prevailed in the world, and how have they developed themselves, and given birth to different forms of government? But here we begin to feel that Hume is, at most, feeling after a method. He does not know clearly what he would seek, or how he is to seek for it. He writes an essay to prove that politics may be reduced to a science.'' In spite of the disturbing influence of individuals, he holds that laws 2 Ib. iii. p. 98, &c. Hume's Works, iii. p. 109, &c. 1 3 may be discovered as general and certain 'as any which the mathematical sciences afford us.' He claims that character for a few conclusions; such, for example, are the doctrines that 'a hereditary prince, a nobility without vassals, and a people voting by their representatives, form the best monarchy, aristocracy and democracy;' that death is unavoidable to the political as to the animal body;' or that arts and sciences can only take their first rise under a free government.1 Hume was, of course, fully sensible of the crudity and uncertainty of such maxims. The world, he thinks, is still too young for the discovery of many general and permanent political truths." But Hume does not perceive the fundamental error which vitiates all such reasoning. His inductions are necessarily futile, because they presuppose a merely superficial classification. He is arguing like a botanist who should divide the vegetable kingdom into trees, shrubs, and creeping plants, and search for the properties common to all the members of each class. As the classification would turn upon points of external form, observations founded upon it would only bring to light external resemblances, instead of revealing vital principles of growth. He is dealing in morphology instead of physiology. He throws into one class Switzerland, Holland, Venice, and the ancient republics as popular governments, and into another France, China, the Roman Empire, and ancient Persia as monarchical governments. The phenomena which are to be found in every member of one class, and absent from every member of the other, must obviously be of a superficial kind; and so crude an analysis cannot lay bare the real principles of national life. Like other writers who adopt the same method, Hume endeavours to construct the idea of a perfect Commonwealth' without reference, tacit or avowed, to the conditions of time, place, or development. He justifies his attempt by the precedent of Huyghen's investigation of the best form of ship for sailing, and argues that his ideal constitution is practicable because it resem ד 6 4 Ib. p. 177. |