Critical and Historical Essays — Volume 2Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
History
Critical and Historical Essays — Volume 2
Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
English literature -- History and criticism; Great Britain -- History
That we have not freedom and unity together is a
very sad thing; and so it is that we have not wings. But we are just
as likely to see the one defect removed as the other. It is not only in
religion that this discrepancy is found. It is the same with all matters
which depend on moral evidence, with judicial questions, for example,
and with political questions. All the judges will work a sum in the rule
of three on the same principle, and bring out the same conclusion. But
it does not follow that, however honest and laborious they may be, they
will all be of one mind on the Douglas case. So it is vain to hope that
there may be a free constitution under which every representative will
be unanimously elected, and every law unanimously passed; and it would
be ridiculous for a statesman to stand wondering and bemoaning himself
because people who agree in thinking that two and two make four cannot
agree about the new poor law, or the administration of Canada.
There are two intelligible and consistent courses which may be followed
with respect to the exercise of private judgment; the course of the
Romanist, who interdicts private judgment because of its inevitable
inconveniences; and the course of the Protestant, who permits private
judgment in spite of its inevitable inconveniences. Both are more
reasonable than Mr. Gladstone, who would have private judgment without
its inevitable inconveniences. The Romanist produces repose by means of
stupefaction. The Protestant encourages activity, though he knows
that where there is much activity there will be some aberration. Mr.
Gladstone wishes for the unity of the fifteenth century with the active
and searching spirit of the sixteenth. He might as well wish to be in
two places at once.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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