THE ANARCHY OF MODERN POLITICS. 449 



their defects being generally very obvious, while the facts that justify 

 them, though in reality far more decisive, lie sometimes far below the 

 surface, and are only brought to light by a careful and delicate analy- 

 sis. But to abandon the rules of social action to the blind and arbi- 

 trary decision of an incompetent public, is really to destroy their 

 authority. Before, therefore, there can be that convergence of opinion 

 in relation to such matters which is indispensable to social well-being, 

 there must be a voluntary and intentional abdication by the major- 

 ity of their sovereign right of judgment an abdication which they 

 would probably be very willing to make if they could only find suita- 

 ble organs for the exercise of the function. In the wretched routine 

 of our political struggles, it is common to find the most judicious and 

 honorable men accusing one another of folly or of wickedness, on the 

 strength of the vain antagonism of their political principles ; while, in 

 every important crisis, the most opposite political principles are habitu- 

 ally defended by partisans of apparently equal respectability. How, 

 then, is it possible that the influence of this double spectacle, essentially 

 incompatible as it is with any deep and permanent conviction, should 

 not destroy all true political morality in the minds of those alike who 

 take part in it or who view it with admiration ? 



Private morality depends, fortunately, on many other general con- 

 ditions besides fixity of opinion. Here, in ordinary cases, a true natu- 

 ral sentiment speaks much more powerfully than it does in regard to 

 public relations. The disorganizing forces have, moreover, been coun- 

 terbalanced to a great extent ; partly by a progressive softening of 

 manners, the result of more general intellectual culture, bringing in its 

 train a greater familiarity with and a juster appreciation of the fine 

 arts, and partly by the unceasing development of industry. It must 

 be added that the rules of domestic or personal morality, as they de- 

 pend on simpler conditions, and admit of easier demonstration, are 

 naturally less endangered by the incursions of individual analysis. 

 And yet the time has undoubtedly come when, in the private as well 

 as in the public sphere, we are called upon to witness the lamentable 

 results of the general unsettlement of opinion. Whether we consider 

 the relations of the sexes, or of different ages and conditions, we shall 

 find that the necessary elements of all satisfactory social life are di- 

 rectly compromised, and are daily becoming more so, by the action of 

 a corrosive discussion, dominated by no real principles, which delivers 

 up to hopeless uncertainty every idea of duty. The family, which the 

 fiercest blasts of the revolutionary /tempest in the last century had left 

 untouched, is, in our day, radically assailed in its two essential foun- 

 dations, marriage and inheritance. We have seen even the most gen- 

 eral and obvious principle of individual morality, the subordination 

 of the passions to the reason, flatly contradicted by certain would- 

 be reformers, who, without stopping to consider the teachings of uni- 

 versal experience, rationally sanctioned as they are by the scientific 

 vol. xxm. 29 



