On Compromise

Chapter I. Introductory.

Design of this Essay The question stated Suggested by some existing tendencies in England Comparison with other countries Test of this comparison The absent quality specifically defined History and decay of some recent aspirations Illustrations Characteristics of one present mood Analysis of its causes (1) Influence of French examples (2) Influence of the Historic Method (3) Influence of the Newspaper Press (4) Increase of material prosperity (5) Transformation of the spiritual basis of thought (6) Influence of a State Church

Chapter Ii. of the Possible Utility of Error

Questions of a dual doctrine lies at the outset of our inquiry This doctrine formulated Marks the triumph of status quo Psychological vindication of such a doctrine Answered by assertion of the dogmatic character of popular belief And the pernicious social influence of its priests The root idea of the defenders of a dual doctrine Thesis of the present chapter, against that idea Examination of some of the pleas for error I. That a false opinion may be clothed with good associations II. That all minds are not open to reason III. That a false opinion, considered in relation to the general mental attitude, may be less hurtful than its premature demolition IV. That mere negative truth is not a guide V. That error has been a stepping-stone to truth We cannot tell how much truth has been missed Inevitableness is not utility

Chapter Iii. Intellectual Responsibility and the Political Spirit.

The modern disciplina arcani Hume's immoral advice Evil intellectual effects of immoral compromise Depravation that follows its grosser forms The three provinces of compromise Radical importance of their separation Effects of their confusion in practical politics Economy or management in the Formation of opinion Its lawfulness turns on the claims of majority and minority over one another Thesis of the present chapter Its importance, owing to the supremacy of the political spirit in England Effects of the predominance of this spirit Contrasted with epochs of intellectual responsibility A modern movement against the political spirit An objection considered Importance to character of rationalised conviction, and of ideals The absence of them attenuates conduct Illustrations in modern politics Modern latitudinarianism Illustration in two supreme issues Pascal's remarks upon a state of Doubt Dr. Newman on the same Three ways of dealing with the issues Another illustration of intellectual improbity The Savoyard Vicar Mischievousness of substituting spiritual self-indulgence for reason

Chapter Iv. Religious Conformity.

Compromise in Expression Touches religion rather than politics Hume on non-resistance Reason why rights of free speech do not exactly coincide with rights of free thought Digression into the matter of free speech Dissent no longer railing and vituperative Tendency of modern free thought to assimilate some elements from the old faith A wide breach still remains Heresy, however, no longer traced to depravity Tolerance not necessarily acquiescence in scepticism Object of the foregoing digression The rarity of plain-speaking a reason why it is painful Conformity in the relationship between child and parent Between husband and wife In the education of children The case of an unbelieving priest The case of one who fears to lose his influence Conformity not harmless nor unimportant

Chapter V. the Realisation of Opinion.

The application of opinion to conduct Tempering considerations Not to be pressed too far Our action in realising our opinions depends on our social theory Legitimate and illegitimate compromise in view of that The distinction equally sound on the evolutional theory Condition of progressive change A plea for compromise examined A second plea The allegation of provisional usefulness examined Illustrated in religious institutions In political institutions Burke's commendation of political compromise The saying that small reforms may be the worst enemies of great ones In what sense true Illustration in the Elementary Education Act Wisdom of social patience The considerations which apply to political practice do not apply to our own lives Nor to the publication of social opinions The amount of conscience in a community Evil of attenuating this element Historic illustration New side of the discussion Is earnestness of conviction fatal to concession of liberty to others? Two propositions at the base of an affirmative answer Earnestness of conviction consistent with sense of liability to error Belief in one's own infallibility does not necessarily lead to intolerance The contrary notion due to juristic analogies in social discussion Connection between the doctrine of liberty and social evolution The timid compromisers superfluous apprehension Material limits to the effect of moral speculation Illustration from the history of Slavery Illustration from French history Practical influence of a faith in the self-protecting quality of a society Conclusion

NOTE TO PAGE 242.

The Doctrine of Liberty

ON COMPROMISE.

CHAPTER I.. Introductory.

INTRODUCTORY.

The design of the following essay is to consider, in a short and direct way, some of the limits that are set by sound reason to the practice of the various arts of accommodation, economy, management, conformity, or compromise. The right of thinking freely and acting independently, of using our minds without excessive awe of authority, and shaping our lives without unquestioning obedience to custom, is now a finally accepted principle in some sense or other with every school of thought that has the smallest chance of commanding the future. Under what circumstances does the exercise and vindication of the right, thus conceded in theory, become a positive duty in practice? If the majority are bound to tolerate dissent from the ruling opinions and beliefs, under what conditions and within what limitations is the dissentient imperatively bound to avail himself of this toleration? How far, and in what way, ought respect either for immediate practical convenience, or for current prejudices, to weigh against respect for truth? For how much is it well that the individual should allow the feelings and convictions of the many to count, when he comes to shape, to express, and to act upon his own feelings and convictions? Are we only to be permitted to defend general principles, on condition that we draw no practical inferences from them? Is every other idea to yield precedence and empire to existing circumstances, and is the immediate and universal workableness of a policy to be the main test of its intrinsic fitness?

To attempt to answer all these questions fully would be nothing less than to attempt a compendium of life and duty in all their details, a Summa of cases of conscience, a guide to doubters at every point of the compass. The aim of the present writer is a comparatively modest one; namely, to seek one or two of the most general principles which ought to regulate the practice of compliance, and to suggest some of the bearings which they may have in their application to certain difficulties in modern matters of conduct.

It is pretty plain that an inquiry of this kind needs to be fixed by reference to a given set of social circumstances tolerably well understood. There are some common rules as to the expediency of compromise and conformity, but their application is a matter of endless variety and the widest elasticity. The interesting and useful thing is to find the relation of these too vague rules to actual conditions; to transform them into practical guides and real interpreters of what is right and best in thought and conduct, in a special and definite kind of emergency. According to the current assumptions of the writer and the preacher, the one commanding law is that men should cling to truth and right, if the very heavens fall. In principle this is universally accepted. To the partisans of authority and tradition it is as much a commonplace as to the partisans of the most absolute and unflinching rationalism. Yet in practice all schools alike are forced to admit the necessity of a measure of accommodation in the very interests of truth itself. Fanatic is a name of such ill repute, exactly because one who deserves to be called by it injures good causes by refusing timely and harmless concession; by irritating prejudices that a wiser way of urging his own opinion might have turned aside; by making no allowances, respecting no motives, and recognising none of those qualifying principles, which are nothing less than necessary to make his own principle true and fitting in a given society. The interesting question in connection with compromise obviously turns upon the placing of the boundary that divides wise suspense in forming opinions, wise reserve in expressing them, and wise tardiness in trying to realise them, from unavowed disingenuousness and self-illusion, from voluntary dissimulation, and from indolence and pusillanimity. These are the three departments or provinces of compromise. Our subject is a question of boundaries. And this question, being mainly one of time and circumstance, may be most satisfactorily discussed in relation to the time and the circumstances which we know best, or at least whose deficiencies and requirements are most pressingly visible to us.

Though England counts her full share of fearless truth-seekers in most departments of inquiry, yet there is on the whole no weakening, but a rather marked confirmation, of what has become an inveterate national characteristic, and has long been recognised as such; a profound distrust, namely, of all general principles; a profound dislike both of much reference to them, and of any disposition to invest them with practical authority; and a silent but most pertinacious measurement of philosophic truths by political tests. 'It is not at all easy, humanly speaking,' says one who has tried the experiment, 'to wind an Englishman up to the level of dogma.' The difficulty has extended further than the dogma of theology. The supposed antagonism between expediency and principle has been pressed further and further away from the little piece of true meaning that it ever could be rightly allowed to have, until it has now come to signify the paramount wisdom of counting the narrow, immediate, and personal expediency for everything, and the whole, general, ultimate, and completed expediency for nothing. Principle is only another name for a proposition stating the terms of one of these larger expediencies. When principle is held in contempt, or banished to the far dreamland of the philosopher and the student, with an affectation of reverence that in a materialist generation is in truth the most overweening kind of contempt, this only means that men are thinking much of the interests of to-day, and little of the more ample interests of the many days to come. It means that the conditions of the time are unfriendly to the penetration and the breadth of vision which disclose to us the whole range of consequences that follow on certain kinds of action or opinion, and unfriendly to the intrepidity and disinterestedness which make us willing to sacrifice our own present ease or near convenience, in the hope of securing higher advantages for others or for ourselves in the future.

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