Thoughts on Man

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And is this the proud attitude of liberty, to which we are so
eager to aspire? After all, there will be some ingenuous men in
the community, who will not know how for ever to suppress what is
dearest to their hearts. But at any rate this institution holds
out a prize to him that shall be most secret and untraceable in
his proceedings, that shall "shoe his horses with felt," and
proceed in all his courses with silence and suspicion.

The first principle of morality to social man is, that we act
under the eye of our fellows. The truly virtuous man would do as
he ought, though no eye observed him. Persons, it is true, who
deport themselves merely as "men-pleasers," for ever considering
how the by-standers will pronounce of their conduct, are entitled
to small commendation. The good man, it is certain, will see

To do what virtue would, though sun and moon
Were in the flat sea sunk.

But, imperfect creatures as we mortals usually are, these things
act and react upon each other. A man of honourable intentions
will demean himself justly, from the love of right. But he is
confirmed in his just dealing by the approbation of his fellows;
and, if he were tempted to step awry, he would be checked by the
anticipation of their censure. Such is the nature of our moral
education. It is with virtue, as it is with literary fame. If I
write well, I can scarcely feel secure that I do so, till I
obtain the suffrage of some competent judges, confirming the
verdict which I was before tempted to pronounce in my own favour.

This acting as in a theatre, where men and Gods are judges of my
conduct, is the true destination of man; and we cannot violate
the universal law under which we were born, without having reason
to fear the most injurious effects.

And is this mysterious and concealed way of proceeding one of the
forms through which we are to pass in the school of liberty? The
great end of all liberal institutions is, to make a man fearless,
frank as the day, acting from a lively and earnest impulse, which
will not be restrained, disdains all half-measures, and prompts
us, as it were, to carry our hearts in our hands, for all men to
challenge, and all men to comment on. It is true, that the
devisers of liberal institutions will have foremost in their
thoughts, how men shall be secure in their personal liberty,
unrestrained in the execution of what their thoughts prompt them
to do, and uncontrolled in the administration of the fruits of
their industry. But the moral end of all is, that a man shall be
worthy of the name, erect, independent of mind, spontaneous of
decision, intrepid, overflowing with all good feelings, and open
in the expression of the sentiments they inspire. If man is
double in his weightiest purposes, full of ambiguity and
concealment, and not daring to give words to the impulses of his
soul, what matters it that he is free? We may pronounce of this
man, that he is unworthy of the blessing that has fallen to his
lot, and will never produce the fruits that should be engendered
in the lap of liberty.

There is however, it should seem, a short answer to all this. It
is in vain to expatiate to us upon the mischiefs of lying,
hypocrisy and concealment, since it is only through them, as the
way by which we are to march, that nations can be made free.

This certainly is a fearful judgment awarded upon our species:
but is it true?

We are to begin, it seems, with concealing from our landlord, or
our opulent neighbour, our political determinations; and so his
corrupt influence will be broken, and the humblest individual
will be safe in doing that which his honest and unbiased feelings
may prompt him to do.

No: this is not the way in which the enemy of the souls of men
is to be defeated. We must not begin with the confession of our
faint-heartedness and our cowardice. A quiet, sober, unaltered
frame of judgment, that insults no one, that has in it nothing
violent, brutal and defying, is the frame that becomes us. If I
would teach another man, my superior in rank, how he ought to
construe and decide upon the conduct I hold, I must begin by
making that conduct explicit.

It is not in morals, as it is in war. There stratagem is
allowable, and to take the enemy by surprise. "Who enquires of
an enemy, whether it is by fraud or heroic enterprise that he has
gained the day?" But it is not so that the cause of liberty is to
be vindicated in the civil career of life.

The question is of reducing the higher ranks of society to admit
the just immunities of their inferiors. I will not allow that
they shall be cheated into it. No: no man was ever yet
recovered to his senses in a question of morals, but by plain,
honest, soul-commanding speech. Truth is omnipotent, if we do
not violate its majesty by surrendering its outworks, and giving
up that vantage-ground, of which if we deprive it, it ceases to
be truth. It finds a responsive chord in every human bosom.
Whoever hears its voice, at the same time recognises its power.
However corrupt he may be, however steeped in the habits of vice,
and hardened in the practices of tyranny, if it be mildly,
distinctly, emphatically enunciated, the colour will forsake his
cheek, his speech will alter and be broken, and he will feel
himself unable to turn it off lightly, as a thing of no
impression and validity. In this way the erroneous man, the man
nursed in the house of luxury, a stranger to the genuine,
unvarnished state of things, stands a fair chance of being
corrected.

But, if an opposite, and a truer way of thinking than that to
which he is accustomed, is only brought to his observation by the
reserve of him who entertains it, and who, while he entertains
it, is reluctant to hold communion with his wealthier neighbour,
who regards him as his adversary, and hardly admits him to be of
the same common nature, there will be no general improvement.
Under this discipline the two ranks of society will be
perpetually more estranged, view each other with eye askance, and
will be as two separate and hostile states, though inhabiting the
same territory. Is this the picture we desire to see of genuine
liberty, philanthropic, desirous of good to all, and overflowing
with all generous emotions?

I hate where vice can bolt her arguments,
And virtue has no tongue to check her pride.

The man who interests himself for his country and its cause, who
acts bravely and independently, and knows that he runs some risk
in doing so, must have a strange opinion of the sacredness of
truth, if the very consciousness of having done nobly does not
supply him with courage, and give him that simple, unostentatious
firmness, which shall carry immediate conviction to the heart.
It is a bitter lesson that the institution of ballot teaches,
while it says, "You have done well; therefore be silent; whisper
it not to the winds; disclose it not to those who are most nearly
allied to you; adopt the same conduct which would suggest itself
to you, if you had perpetrated an atrocious crime."

In no long time after the commencement of the war of the allies
against France, certain acts were introduced into the English
parliament, declaring it penal by word or writing to utter any
thing that should tend to bring the government into contempt; and
these acts, by the mass of the adversaries of despotic power,
were in way of contempt called the Gagging Acts. Little did I
and my contemporaries of 1795 imagine, when we protested against
these acts in the triumphant reign of William Pitt, that the
soi-disant friends of liberty and radical reformers, when their
turn of triumph came, would propose their Gagging Acts,
recommending to the people to vote agreeably to their
consciences, but forbidding them to give publicity to the
honourable conduct they had been prevailed on to adopt!

But all this reasoning is founded in an erroneous, and
groundlessly degrading, opinion of human nature. The improvement
of the general institutions of society, the correction of the
gross inequalities of our representation, will operate towards
the improvement of all the members of the community. While
ninety-nine in an hundred of the inhabitants of England are
carried forward in the scale of intellect and virtue, it would be
absurd to suppose that the hundredth man will stand still, merely
because he is rich. Patriotism is a liberal and a social
impulse; its influence is irresistible; it is contagious, and is
propagated by the touch; it is infectious, and mixes itself with
the air that we breathe.

Men are governed in their conduct in a surprising degree by the
opinion of others. It was all very well, when noblemen were each
of them satisfied of the equity and irresistible principle of
their ascendancy, when the vulgar population felt convinced that
passive obedience was entailed on them from their birth, when we
were in a manner but just emancipated (illusorily emancipated!)
from the state of serfs and villains. But a memorable
melioration of the state of man will carry some degree of
conviction to the hearts of all. The most corrupt will be made
doubtful: many who had not gone so far in ill, will desert the
banners of oppression.

We see this already. What a shock was propagated through the
island, when, the other day, a large proprietor, turning a
considerable cluster of his tenants out of the houses and lands
they occupied, because they refused to vote for a representative
in parliament implicitly as he bade them, urged in his own
justification, "Shall I not do what I will with my own?" This
was all sound morals and divinity perhaps at the period of his
birth. Nobody disputed it; or, if any one did, he was set down
by the oracles of the vicinage as a crackbrained visionary. This
man, so confident in his own prerogatives, had slept for the last
twenty years, and awoke totally unconscious of what had been
going on in almost every corner of Europe in the interval. A few
more such examples; and so broad and sweeping an assumption will
no more be heard of, and it will remain in the records of
history, as a thing for the reality of which we have sufficient
evidence, but which common sense repudiates, and which seems to
demand from us a certain degree of credulity to induce us to
admit that it had ever been.

The manners of society are by no means so unchanged and
unalterable as many men suppose. It is here, as in the case of
excessive drinking, which I had lately occasion to mention[36].
In rude and barbarous times men of the highest circles piqued
themselves upon their power of swallowing excessive potations,
and found pleasure in it. It is in this as in so many other
vices, we follow implicitly where our elders lead the way. But
the rage of drinking is now gone by; and you will with difficulty
find a company of persons of respectable appearance, who assemble
round a table for the purpose of making beasts of themselves.
Formerly it was their glory; now, if any man unhappily retains
the weakness, he hides it from his equals, as he would a
loathsome disease. The same thing will happen as to
parliamentary corruption, and the absolute authority that was
exercised by landlords over the consciences of their tenants. He
that shall attempt to put into act what is then universally
condemned, will be a marked man, and will be generally shunned by
his fellows. The eye of the world will be upon him, as the
murderer fancies himself followed by the eye of omnipotence; and
he will obey the general voice of the community, that he may be
at peace with himself.

[36] See above, Essay 9.

Let us not then disgrace a period of memorable improvement, by
combining it with an institution that should mark that we, the
great body of the people, regard the more opulent members of the
community as our foes. Let us hold out to them the right hand of
fellowship; and they will meet us. They will be influenced,
partly by ingenuous shame for the unworthy conduct which they and
their fathers had so long pursued, and partly by sympathy for the
genuine joy and expansion of heart that is spreading itself
through the land. Scarcely any one can restrain himself from
participating in the happiness of the great body of his
countrymen; and, if they see that we treat them with generous
confidence, and are unwilling to recur to the memory of former
grievances, and that a spirit of philanthropy and unlimited
good-will is the sentiment of the day, it can scarcely happen but
that their conversion will be complete, and the harmony be made
entire[37].

[37] The subject of this Essay is resumed in the close of the
following.

ESSAY XVIII.
OF DIFFIDENCE.

The following Essay will be to a considerable degree in the
nature of confession, like the Confessions of St. Augustine or
of Jean Jacques Rousseau. It may therefore at first sight appear
of small intrinsic value, and scarcely worthy of a place in the
present series. But, as I have had occasion more than once to
remark, we are all of us framed in a great measure on the same
model, and the analysis of the individual may often stand for the
analysis of a species. While I describe myself therefore, I
shall probably at the same time be describing no inconsiderable
number of my fellow-beings.

It is true, that the duty of man under the head of Frankness, is
of a very comprehensive nature. We ought all of us to tell to
our neighbour whatever it may be of advantage to him to know, we
ought to be the sincere and zealous advocates of absent merit and
worth, and we are bound by every means in our power to contribute
to the improvement of others, and to the diffusion of salutary
truths through the world.

From the universality of these precepts many readers might be apt
to infer, that I am in my own person the bold and unsparing
preacher of truth, resolutely giving to every man his due, and,
agreeably to the apostle's direction, "instant in season, and out
of season." The individual who answers to this description will
often be deemed troublesome, often annoying; he will produce a
considerable sensation in the circle of those who know him; and
it will depend upon various collateral circumstances, whether he
shall ultimately be judged a rash and intemperate disturber of
the contemplations of his neighbours, or a disinterested and
heroic suggester of new veins of thinking, by which his
contemporaries and their posterity shall be essentially the
gainers.

I have no desire to pass myself upon those who may have any
curiosity respecting me for better than I am; and I will
therefore here put down a few particulars, which may tend to
enable them to form an equitable judgment.

One of the earliest passions of my mind was the love of truth and
sound opinion. "Why should I," such was the language of my
solitary meditations, "because I was born in a certain degree of
latitude, in a certain century, in a country where certain
institutions prevail, and of parents professing a certain faith,
take it for granted that all this is right?--This is matter of
accident. "Time and chance happeneth to all:" and I, the
thinking principle within me, might, if such had been the order
of events, have been born under circumstances the very reverse of
those under which I was born. I will not, if I can help it, be
the creature of accident; I will not, like a shuttle-cock, be at
the disposal of every impulse that is given me." I felt a
certain disdain for the being thus directed; I could not endure
the idea of being made a fool of, and of taking every ignis
fatuus for a guide, and every stray notion, the meteor of the
day, for everlasting truth. I am the person, spoken of in a
preceding Essay[38], who early said to Truth, "Go on:
whithersoever thou leadest, I am prepared to follow."

[38] See above, Essay XIII.

During my college-life therefore, I read all sorts of books, on
every side of any important question, that were thrown in my way,
or that I could hear of. But the very passion that determined me
to this mode of proceeding, made me wary and circumspect in
coming to a conclusion. I knew that it would, if any thing, be a
more censurable and contemptible act, to yield to every seducing
novelty, than to adhere obstinately to a prejudice because it had
been instilled into me in youth. I was therefore slow of
conviction, and by no means "given to change." I never willingly
parted with a suggestion that was unexpectedly furnished to me;
but I examined it again and again, before I consented that it
should enter into the set of my principles.

In proportion however as I became acquainted with truth, or what
appeared to me to be truth, I was like what I have read of
Melancthon, who, when he was first converted to the tenets of
Luther, became eager to go into all companies, that he might make
them partakers of the same inestimable treasures, and set before
them evidence that was to him irresistible. It is needless to
say, that he often encountered the most mortifying
disappointment.

Young and eager as I was in my mission, I received in this way
many a bitter lesson. But the peculiarity of my temper rendered
this doubly impressive to me. I could not pass over a hint, let
it come from what quarter it would, without taking it into some
consideration, and endeavouring to ascertain the precise weight
that was to be attributed to it. It would however often happen,
particularly in the question of the claims of a given individual
to honour and respect, that I could see nothing but the most
glaring injustice in the opposition I experienced. In canvassing
the character of an individual, it is not for the most part
general, abstract or moral, principles that are called into
question: I am left in possession of the premises which taught
me to admire the man whose character is contested; and
conformably to those premises I see that his claim to the honour
I have paid him is fully made out.

In my communications with others, in the endeavour to impart what
I deemed to be truth, I began with boldness: but I often found
that the evidence that was to me irresistible, was made small
account of by others; and it not seldom happened, as candour was
my principle, and a determination to receive what could be strewn
to be truth, let it come from what quarter it would, that
suggestions were presented to me, materially calculated to
stagger the confidence with which I had set out. If I had been
divinely inspired, if I had been secured by an omniscient spirit
against the danger of error, my case would have been different.
But I was not inspired. I often encountered an opposition I had
not anticipated, and was often presented with objections, or had
pointed out to me flaws and deficiencies in my reasonings, which,
till they were so pointed out, I had not apprehended. I had not
lungs enabling me to drown all contradiction; and, which was
still more material, I had not a frame of mind, which should
determine me to regard whatever could be urged against me as of
no value. I therefore became cautious. As a human creature, I
did not relish the being held up to others' or to myself, as
rash, inconsiderate and headlong, unaware of difficulties the
most obvious, embracing propositions the most untenable, and
"against hope believing in hope." And, as an apostle of truth, I
distinctly perceived that a reputation for perspicacity and sound
judgment was essential to my mission. I therefore often became
less a speaker, than a listener, and by no means made it a law
with myself to defend principles and characters I honoured, on
every occasion on which I might hear them attacked.

A new epoch occurred in my character, when I published, and at
the time I was writing, my Enquiry concerning Political Justice.
My mind was wrought up to a certain elevation of tone; the
speculations in which I was engaged, tending to embrace all that
was most important to man in society, and the frame to which I
had assiduously bent myself, of giving quarter to nothing because
it was old, and shrinking from nothing because it was startling
and astounding, gave a new bias to my character. The habit which
I thus formed put me more on the alert even in the scenes of
ordinary life, and gave me a boldness and an eloquence more than
was natural to me. I then reverted to the principle which I
stated in the beginning, of being ready to tell my neighbour
whatever it might be of advantage to him to know, to shew myself
the sincere and zealous advocate of absent merit and worth, and
to contribute by every means in my power to the improvement of
others and to the diffusion of salutary truth through the world.
I desired that every hour that I lived should be turned to the
best account, and was bent each day to examine whether I had
conformed myself to this rule. I held on this course with
tolerable constancy for five or six years: and, even when that
constancy abated, it failed not to leave a beneficial effect on
my subsequent conduct.

But, in pursuing this scheme of practice, I was acting a part
somewhat foreign to my constitution. I was by nature more of a
speculative than an active character, more inclined to reason
within myself upon what I heard and saw, than to declaim
concerning it. I loved to sit by unobserved, and to meditate
upon the panorama before me. At first I associated chiefly with
those who were more or less admirers of my work; and, as I had
risen (to speak in the slang phrase) like "a star" upon my
contemporaries without being expected, I was treated generally
with a certain degree of deference, or, where not with deference
and submission, yet as a person whose opinions and view of things
were to be taken into the account. The individuals who most
strenuously opposed me, acted with a consciousness that, if they
affected to despise me, they must not expect that all the
bystanders would participate in that feeling.

But this was to a considerable degree the effect of novelty. My
lungs, as I have already said, were not of iron; my manner was
not overbearing and despotic; there was nothing in it to deter
him who differed from me from entering the field in turn, and
telling the tale of his views and judgments in contradiction to
mine. I descended into the arena, and stood on a level with the
rest. Beyond this, it occasionally happened that, if I had not
the stentorian lungs, and the petty artifices of rhetoric and
conciliation, that should carry a cause independently of its
merits, my antagonists were not deficient in these respects. I
had nothing in my favour to balance this, but a sort of
constitutional equanimity and imperturbableness of temper, which,
if I was at any time silenced, made me not look like a captive to
be dragged at the chariot-wheels of my adversary.

All this however had a tendency to subtract from my vocation as a
missionary. I was no longer a knight-errant, prepared on all
occasions by dint of arms to vindicate the cause of every
principle that was unjustly handled, and every character that was
wrongfully assailed. Meanwhile I returned to the field,
occasionally and uncertainly. It required some provocation and
incitement to call me out: but there was the lion, or whatever
combative animal may more justly prefigure me, sleeping, and that
might be awakened.

There is another feature necessary to be mentioned, in order to
make this a faithful representation. There are persons, it
should seem, of whom it may be predicated, that they are semper
parati. This has by no means been my case. My genius often
deserted me. I was far from having the thought, the argument, or
the illustration at all times ready, when it was required. I
resembled to a certain degree the persons we read of, who are
said to be struck as if with a divine judgment. I was for a
moment changed into one of the mere herd, de grege porcus. My
powers therefore were precarious, and I could not always be the
intrepid and qualified advocate of truth, if I vehemently desired
it. I have often, a few minutes afterwards, or on my return to
my chambers, recollected the train of thinking, which world have
strewn me off to advantage, and memorably done me honour, if I
could have had it at my command the moment it was wanted.

And so much for confession. I am by no means vindicating myself.

I honour much more the man who is at all times ready to tell his
neighbour whatever it may be of advantage to him to know, to shew
himself the sincere and untemporising advocate of absent merit
and worth, and to contribute by every means in his power to the
improvement of others, and to the diffusion of salutary truths
through the world.

This is what every man ought to be, and what the best devised
scheme of republican institutions would have a tendency to make
us all.

But, though the man here described is to a certain degree a
deserter of his true place in society, and cannot be admitted to
have played his part in all things well, we are by no means to
pronounce upon him a more unfavourable judgment than he merits.
Diffidence, though, where it disqualifies us in any way from
doing justice to truth, either as it respects general principle
or individual character, a defect, yet is on no account to be
confounded in demerit with that suppression of truth, or
misrepresentation, which grows out of actual craft and design.

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