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facts, would be difficult to convince of the truth, that two and two make four, if a prejudice stood in the way. Observe, they had this same unity of faith when they lived in competitive society, but it availed them notit could not save them; they embrace Community of Property, and from that moment succeed. They have not relaxed any of their tenets or discipline in the new state, which was proving so fatal to them in the old. How valuable and excellent must those economical arrangements be, which could keep men together under such immense dissociating influences! Again, I say, that any well balanced mind that can at all view this matter with any degree of impartiality, can come to no other conclusion, but that Community of Property is the great cause of their

sectarian existence.'

In addition to these very excellent passages, the pamphlet contains much desirable information relative to the Redemption Society, and many judicious extracts calculated to impress the public in Communism's Its circulation ought to be assiduously promoted. We look in each work we attempt to review for three things-1st, for that which is well meant-2nd, for that which is well done-3rd, for that which is new; and we have found in this pamphlet much that is well intended, well executed, and original. G. J. HOLYOAKE.

MR. HOLYOAKE'S 'RUDIMENTS OF PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE.

'THIS is a neat little volume, in which there is a good bit that relates to public speaking and good a deal that has nothing to do with it [1]. We do not see any system or logical method in the division into chapters. Under the head "Acquired Powers" the first chapter treats of originality [2]. There is a most extensive collection of opinions and dicta, bearing immediately or remotely on the subject, and some of the author's own remarks are not without interest, and display thought and facility of expression. However, the work is emphatically a compilation [3], and contains much that is interesting, and not a little that is instructive. It is proper to state that the author, in his "Proem" (why not Preface?) [4], lays claim to little beyond the arrangement of other men's ideas and expressions. The treatise contains much that the aspirant after the honours of "debate" will find of great service, as well as of lively interest. The writer is evidently extensively read in all that relates to his subject, and presents his readers with a large selection of anecdotes, incidents, tales, and reflections, which render the volume very readable and amusing.'-Birmingham Mercury, July 21. [We select this review for remark because the points of objection are such as may be felt by others, as well as this critic.]

1. The critic does not specify. It would be useful if he had.

2. This is the language in which the author, on page 5, explains his course of procedure-'In the division of the Parts and the succession of the Chapters there is no pretension to scientific classification. The distinction drawn between the Parts, though not recognised, will, I believe, be found practically suggestive. The order of the Chapters is that which seemed to me to be natural, at least to throw light, one upon the subject of the other. In 'Hints' a greater license is allowed, and strict sequence is not so much looked for as suggestiveness.' On

'ONE of the People' writes thus to the Reasoner:-I am firmly and thoroughly convinced that physical force will never win a people's liberty,— and if fight they will, let them fight with the battle-axe of thought, and Guttenberg's implements of war-paper, printing ink, and types. These are the intellectual weapons of intelligent men, not stupid guns.'

Physical force will never win a people's liberty.' Whence is the opinion gained? Not from the experience of history: for hitherto the peoples' liberties have never been won except by physical force. Let the spirits of Brutus and Leonidas tell us how Rome and Greece won and maintained their liberty. Let the heroic compatriots of Tell answer for the only republic yet in Europe. Let Holland boast of her revolt from Spain, America of her battles for independence. And powerfully as Guttenberg's implements of war' in the mighty hands of Paine aided America, yet their chiefest aid was this, that they stirred men to use their weaponed hands to win their freedom.

And what has been done in England without physical force? Though no blood was shed at Runnymede, yet had Magna Charta not been yielded but for the Barons' 'stupid' swords. It was not the battle-axe of thought' (albeit it was the day of England's master-spirits) with which Cromwell clove the head of royal tyranny, and won for England the only

p. 6 he says further-The First Part treats of the Rudiments of Rhetoric, the elements which the student derives from the instruction of others. These are named 'Derived Powers.' The Second Part includes those topics, a knowledge of which is not so much, or, rather, not so well derived from the instruction of others as acquired by the personal observation of the student.' These are for this reason entitled Acquired Powers,' and it is therefore that under this head the author treats of 'originality.'

3. On pp. 6 and 7 of the Proem the author thus anticipates this charge of 'compilation'-'Whosever well-expressed thought I have found which illustrated my subject, I have taken, and, what is somewhat more unusual, I have acknowledged it because the author of a useful idea ought to be remembered as one who leaves a legacy. Through this punctiliousness the critics will say that I have not composed, but that I have compiled, a book. Though I see books published around me in which there is more that belongs to others than in this book-but the obligations being concealed-the ostensible authors get the credit of being original. We are all of us indebted to those who have thought before us, and we have to say with Montaigne—“ I have gathered a nosegay of flowers, in which there is nothing of my own but the string which ties them." But in this case the string which ties them is my own. The architect (to pass from nature to art) has the credit of his conception and erection of an edifice. Yet he does not create the materials. The materials he finds, but he gives them proportion, place, and design. The idea is his; and if good, we credit him with distinct merit. Why, therefore, should not the author of a book, even if made up of other men's materials, be credited also with distinct merit, if his work has an idea which subordinates the materials he employs and shapes them to a new utility?'

4. Because Proem' has commonly been used as explanatory of the argument of a book, and' Preface' as merely the apology for it.

The passages we quote being in the book, were, no doubt, weighed over by the critic in the Mercury, and our conclusion is that in his judgment they were insufficient defences of the course taken-and we only quote them now that the reader may see the ground on which the plan of the book was constructed, and judge also for himself.

G. J. H.

gleam of national freedom she has ever known. Even the little Revolution of 1688 could not be accomplished without Dutch bayonets, and hard fighting too in Ireland. And our very Whig Reform Bill had for its precursor the by no means indistinct warning of this same newly maligned physical force.'

Physical force will never win a people's liberty.' If the past may not give us likelihood of the future, where shall we seek for an opinion? For, verily, there is little change in the ways of the world, no, nor in the natures of mankind, for all the preaching of Elihu Burritt.

Yet a man has a right to his opinion though others may not see the ground thereof. They, too, have a right to question its validity. And I would ask "One of the People' if he would recommend Guttenberg's implements' to the beleaguered Hungarians; whether he thinks their liberties are to be won by any means except the stupid guns.' Of what avail would be 'paper, printing ink, and types,' against Cossacks who cannot read?

If the Hungarians might but catch the Cossacks, send them to school, and teach them to read and to spell, then it might be of some use to fight them with intellectual weapons.' But now, when they cannot be so schooled, and when the only argument they understand is the 'stupid gun' or equally stupid sword?

How shou'd the Romans have acted? Would the battle-axe of thought,' or 'Guttenberg's implements of war' have kept out the Pope's Gauls? You will say-Neither has physical force.' No! but it has at least taught a noble lesson to aggressors, a lesson whose advantage is not only Roman. Many a future Brennus will halt on the threshold of his own infamy, ere dare to tempt another such hinderance in his path.

A great deal of nonsense has been talked about physical force: some for it, it may be; but certainly very much against it. Without any clear apprehension of the meaning of the term, many men declaim against physical force as a crime, as an immorality, the opposite of moral force.

It is not necessarily the opposite of moral force. It may be the servant of the moral, and by such service become moral and justifiable. But how many hands will be held up in horror against such a sentiment! how many voices will exclaim-Never! physical force can never be moral! Gently, good people!

If you see a man struggling against drowning, and you leap into the water, and save him, do you not employ physical force?

If you see two foolish men fighting, and, unable to convince them of their folly, you, never so quietly, step in between them and receive the blows from both, is not that very stepping between them an act of physical force?

But that is beside your meaning. You do not employ the term in such a sense.' Whose fault is it that you attach an arbitrary sense to common words? But, to come within your limits.

My little girl is asleep beside me. A wolf rushes toward her. As he is about to seize her, I snatch up the first weapon in my way (not nicely considering), and dash out his brains. This is physical force. Is act immoral? No! but there is a difference between men and beasts.'

my

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My two children are playing together. I see approaching them an armed madman of whose ungovernable ferocity I am well aware. He is deaf; but I hasten forward to restrain him. Before I can overtake him, he has struck down one child; his axe is raised over the head of the second. My rifle is in my hand. Shall I not fire?

'But all men are not madmen.' True! some are Cossacks; some Croats; some Frenchmen; some 'intelligent' statesmen and bombarders. The Tyranny of Wrong has many sorts of tools. How shall I proceed against them?

First, what is my justification for the use of physical force against the wild beast or the madman? Clearly that, only by such means I could prevent a mischief which it was my duty to prevent. There lies the whole question-between the never-to-be-abandoned duty of warring against Wrong, and the choice of the best weapon.

If I could have tamed the wolf, his death would have been a wanton or at least unnecessary cruelty; if I could have tamed the madman, was he not a man even as myself, made in the same likeness? But it was my duty to protect the innocent; and no other means could be made available. I was guiltless of choosing ill. The duty was clear before me. Nay! liave I not the right to defend myself against either wild-beast or madman? May I not fire into the ravenous wolves that beset me in the forest; or draw my sword against a band of assassins, of whatever country or calling? Is the instinct of self-preservation altogether false, then, and suicide a virtue? Shall the mother doubt her heart, and lay down her babe at the murderer's feet, and refuse to defend it? Or is the generous impulse at fault that makes the blood to boil, and the cheek to glow, at the very mention of wrong done to another?

Shall I defend my own life; shall I defend my child; and shall I stand by unheeding, or content myself with a cowardly, cold-blooded, egotistical 'sympathy' when my neighbour is injured? Have I no duty toward him?

Shall I save one neighbour from drowning, from the wild-beast, or the assassin; and shall I hold back, and advise my countrymen to hold back, when many are in danger?

If one has the right of self-defence, have not many? If one may defend the injured, though it be only by dint of physical force, may not the many? If I was right in saving my child from the assassin, will not my countrymen be right in saving the children of Rome, or Hungary, or Poland, from assassins; even though at the cost of as violent means, even though the assassins be not what is called mad, though they be less excusable?

Was the French invasion of Rome less villainous than the act of the madman? Are the enemies of Hungary-the violators of women, the murderers of children, the bombarders and massacrers-less cruel than wolves?

Shall I save my child, and then be told that war for a nation's existence is impious and unjustifiable?

But if there

War would be unjustifiable if there were other means. are not? When two people would discuss a question, would you tell one to argue in a language which the other could not understand? And if

kings and Cossacks will not, or cannot, understand reason-'the intellectual weapon of intelligent man,' is it our fault that it only remains for us to argue with the 'stupid guns?'

If so, give up liberty! renounce the hope of freedom! for once proclaim that you will not defend yourselves, nor cowards! your brethren, from the brutality of tyrants, and the wild beasts of every palace jungle will be let loose upon you. Your 'intellectual weapons' shall nought avail you; for the tyrants, who will not reason, know how by brute force to put down reason.

Opinions are not all-powerful; not the most reasonable opinions. But force with reason, that is, with truth upon its side, is stronger than the force of brutes and madmen.

The denial of force on the side of the just is not only an error; but it is an error no one could follow to its end. You would disband your armies while the world is full of armed savages. It is possible you may escape slavery, unnoticed in the general ravage. But be consistent! If force may not be used against the foreigner, neither may it be used against the citizen. Disband your armies; disband also your police. If it is a crime to use force, it is a crime to employ another to use force. If force may not win liberty, neither may it maintain order. Proclaim the thieves' millenium. Yes!' say the honestest among you, those consistent in the repudiation of physical force; we shall trust to education. So educate that force shall not be needed.' Let it be so, and he who would advocate force would be a monster; but, till then, till the world is educated?

While there are wolves and Cossacks; and while the wolves not only abound, but hold rule, and forbid and prevent education, it is our duty to defend the wronged and the innocent against them,-though it be with sword and fire, though it be to the death, whenever and wherever we are debarred from better weapons.

-Give us breath,

Clear ground of equal right;

The heralds of our pure intent

Shall be peace-provident:

But 'gainst the trampler Force, the stab beneath,

We cannot choose but fight

Even to the death.

There are some will exclaim against the prudence of this argument, as tending to encourage rebellions, war, and violence. I answer, it is not imprudent to take this question out of the domain of prejudice, from off the ground of an ignorant assumption, whereupon men who should be acting together are led to quarrel, and to denounce each other, the one side as sanguinary' and 'atrocious,' and the other with the no less offensive epithets of base' and 'cowardly' and 'hypocritical.' For the rest I will but answer in the words of Martin Luther:- I am for tearing off every mask, for managing nothing, for extenuating nothing, for shutting the eyes to nothing, that truth may be transparent, and unadultered, and have a free course.'

W. J. LINTON.