§ 51. Now, let us imagine that an intelligent Greek or other foreigner, totally unacquainted with modern journalism, were to seek for evidence of its moral value and the real benefits it confers upon us. What answer would he receive? If he applied to the journalists themselves, they would tell him that it was their object so to furnish their readers with all the current topics of instruction as to make them able to converse intelligently without any further study. They would also profess to be leaders of the moral sense of the public, praising what was of good repute, and blaming the wicked, exposing abuses, and expounding virtue. They would also claim the merit of supplying the public with arguments in favor of a disputed conclusion, so that men might be furnished with weapons to meet their intellectual adversaries. He would naturally ask, on hearing this exalted programme, whether all this was done out of pure philanthropy or with any ulterior view; more especially, whether there was any pecuniary gain attached. They would reply that they did indeed take money for their teaching--and the laborer is worthy of his hire--but they would appeal to any of their readers whether the instruction afforded was not greatly in excess of their remuneration. With this reply our stranger might perhaps be but half satisfied, and might have some suspicion that independent evidence would not come amiss; and on inquiring from thoughtful men what emoluments were to be gained by this profession, he would hear that, if successful, it was one of the most lucrative known, and that many of the contributors confessedly worked, not for the sake of conviction, but of gain. He would next inquire whether success was always in their case a test of solid merit, and would discover that, however it might be so intellectually, from a moral point of view such was not the case. The most thoughtful and candid members of our society would explain to him that, here as elsewhere, men delighted more in reading what fell in with their prejudices than what exposed them, and that by pandering to this defect, and following in the wake of public opinion, newspapers often succeeded better than by honest and fearless teaching. He would hear that almost every paper belonged to some political party, whose errors and weaknesses it felt bound to justify and protect. Furthermore, that for the sake of clearness and of brevity, as well as from a want of care to do more than please for the hour, many arguments in the daily papers were superficial and illogical, not clearing, but obscuring, the real questions at issue. He would certainly, therefore, in the course of his inquiry, come to look upon them as a class or profession; but yet, if he spoke of them as such, he might be surprised to hear himself corrected by the journalists or by their friends. They would deny that they were a distinct profession, and say with truth that _all_ intelligent men who desired to teach were to some