Critical, Historical, and Miscellaneous Essays; Vol. 4: With a Memoir and IndexMacaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
History
Critical, Historical, and Miscellaneous Essays; Vol. 4: With a Memoir and Index
Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
English literature -- History and criticism; Great Britain -- History
continue unchanged. That we have not freedom and unity together is a
very sad thing; and so it is that we have {164}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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