30S 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



the highways and the hedges as commonly are 

 eager to receive. 



Lord ARTHUR RUSSELL.— Our editor in- 

 forms me that it is my duty to sum up the debate 

 which I have started, to point out the amount of 

 truth which has issued from the alembic of this dis- 

 cussion, and, after the ground has been cleared, 

 to find for the result a more precise expression. 

 I have received very late the last contributions 

 to the controversy, and very little time has been 

 given me carefully to examine their reasoning 

 and to sift their contents. 



I believe that the debate has been useful, that 

 the terms have been clearly stated, that the rea- 

 soning has been worthy of the eminent men who 

 honored me with their criticism, and I take note 

 with pleasure of the remarkable agreement which 

 is found in the end among those who have joined 

 in this Symposium. Mr. Grant Duff predicted 

 that this would be the case when we had stated 

 our terms and cleared our ground. 



" My stand has been taken on a basis of fact," 

 says Mr. Gladstone, " which no one has ventured 

 to shake." The basis of fact being, as it results 

 by common agreement from our discussion, that 

 in England, during the last half-century, the pop- 

 ular judgment, with some exceptions (for exam- 

 ple, religious toleration, the support of the Turk- 

 ish policy, and of the financial policy of the present 

 Government, etc.), has been more just and true 

 on political questions than that of the higher or- 

 ders. We all reject the opinion of Rousseau that 

 there is an innate and instinctive wisdom in the 

 people, and we all agree that the multiplication 

 of ignorance does not give wisdom. 



The most valuable contributions, I think, 

 have been those of Mr. Hutton and Mr. Grant 

 Duff. The former has given an admirable review 

 of the last sixty years of our political life, with 

 an historical proof of the truth of Mr. Gladstone's 

 assertion as far as England is concerned ; and 

 the latter has clearly shown why the class who 

 constitute what is called " society " habitually 

 form wrong judgments on political questions, 

 from their defective education, their idleness, and 

 " the hardening crust of selfishness which wealth 

 and ease bring with them." 



As a politician of the Liberal persuasion, I 

 quite agree with Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Hutton 

 as to the facts of English history during the past 

 sixty years. Where I did not agree with Mr. 

 Gladstone was in thinking that we had any disa- 

 greeable confession to make, and I was anxious 

 to point out that when used as a mode of flatter- 

 ing the electoral body, as practised by Continen- 



tal demagogues, the depreciation of education 

 was exceedingly mischievous. Whether the prop- 

 osition under examination is as true in the his- 

 tory of France and America as it has been shown 

 to be in England, I doubt. When Mr. Gladstone 

 says "the superiority of the popular judgment in 

 politics, so far as it is superior, is, according to 

 my view, due mainly to moral causes, to a greater 

 mental integrity, which again is greatly owing to 

 the comparative absence of the subtiler agencies 

 of temptation," he appears to agree with Mon- 

 tesquieu's observation : "J'aime les paysam ; ih 

 sent trap ignorants pour raisonner de travers." 



" History," Mr. Gladstone remarks, " affords 

 a grand and powerful illustration of the argu- 

 ment in the acceptance of Christianity. Was it 

 the wealthy and the learned who, with their vast 

 advantages, and their supposed exemption from 

 special sources of error, outstripped their hum- 

 bler fellow-creatures in bowing their heads to the 

 authority of the gospel ? " 



An inquiry into the causes which facilitated 

 or impeded the spread of Christianity in the Ro- 

 man Empire, opens too vast and difficult a sub- 

 ject for examination within the limits ©f this 

 paper. But I may take this opportunity of re- 

 marking that among recent writers on the origin 

 of Christianity there is a very general agreement : 

 the good news that all men were equal before 

 their common Father was welcome to the slaves 

 driven to desperation by their hopeless condition, 

 while the new doctrines appeared dangerous, not 

 without reason, to the constituted authorities 

 and the owners of property. But I must not be 

 understood to mean that these two powerful 

 causes are sufficient to explain all the difficulties- 

 of the case. 



Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Lowe have, as is per- 

 haps natural, reverted to their controversy re- 

 garding the expediency of lowering the county 

 franchise, which, as Mr. Harrison justly observes,. 

 was not the question I proposed originally to sift, 

 I wish to point out here a mistake of Mr. F, 

 Harrison's : he thinks 1 that by the cultivated 

 classes I mean the country gentlemen. By the 

 cultivated classes I mean, with Mr. Grant Duff, 

 the minority of the minority. We appear all to 

 agree that necessary changes are first originated 

 by a small minority, and subsequently written and 

 talked- into existence, until what was at first only 

 an idea becomes a moving force. The great cur- 

 rents, says a recent French writer, which change 

 the conditions of society and the relations of men, 

 descend originally from those metaphysical heights 

 J See Supplement No. XIV , p. 109. 



