EDITOR'S TABLE. 



129 



keep out " new ideas," he does well to cling 

 to classical studies. They are the greatest 

 barrier to new ideas and the chief bulwark 

 of modem obscurantism. The new sciences 

 have produced in their, votaries an unquench- 

 able thirst and affection for what is tnie in 

 fact, word, character, and motive. They have 

 taught us to appreciate and weigh evidence 

 and to deal honestly with it. Here a strong 

 contrast with classical training has been de- 

 veloped, not because classical training led 

 men to be false, but because the scientific 

 love of truth is something new and intense. 

 Men of classical training rarely develop the 

 power to go through from beginning to end 

 of a course of reasoning on a straight line. 

 They go on until they see that they are com- 

 ing out at a result which they do not like. 

 Then they make a bend and aim for a result 

 which they do like, not regarding the broken 

 continuity, or smoothing it over as carefully 

 as possible. Classical training, in the world 

 of to-day, gives a man a limited horizon. 

 There is far more beyond it than within it. 

 He is taught to believe that he has sounded 

 the depths of human knowledge when he 

 knows nothing about its range or amount. If 

 any one wants to find prime specimens of the 

 Philistinism which Matthew Arnold hates, 

 he should seek them among the votaries of 

 the culture which Matthew Arnold loves. 

 The popular acuteness long ago perceived 

 this, and the vile doctrines of anti-culture 

 have sprung up and grown just in proportion 

 as culture has come to have an artificial and 

 technical definition, as something foreign to 

 living interests. 



SPENCER ON PARLIAMENTARY INFLU- 

 ENCE. 



Mr. Heebeet Spexoeb, having been 

 invited to allow his name to be sub- 

 mitted to the Liberal Association of 

 Leicester as a candidate for Mr. Peter 

 Taylor's parliamentary seat, has writ- 

 ten a letter to the Rev. J. Page Hops, 

 one of the committee, declining the in- 

 vitation on several grounds. We re- 

 print the communication : 



38 Queen' s-Gabdexs, Bayswater, W., ) 

 February 21. f 



My deab Sib : While I am gratified by 

 the compliment, and by the manifestation of 

 sympathy implied in your proposal, I fear I 

 can not respond to it in the way you wish. 

 Several reasons, each of them sufficient, de- 

 ter me. 



In the first place, my health is such that 

 VOL. XXV. — 9 



discharge of parliamentary duties would be 

 impossible. When I tell you that until last 

 night I have not dined out for nearly a 

 year, because I have been unable to bear the 

 amount of excitement involved, you will see 

 that it would be absolutely out of the ques- 

 tion for me to imdertake the nightly wear 

 and tear which the life of a member entaOs. 

 Even in the best state of that variable health 

 which I have had these twenty-eight years, 

 I am able to write, or rather to dictate, only 

 three hours a day ; and such being the case, 

 you will see that the labors implied by active 

 political life, could I bear them, would make 

 it impossible for me to do other work. As I 

 regard such other work as by far the more 

 important— as I think I can do more good by 

 endeavoring to complete what I have under- 

 taken than by occupying myself in listening 

 to debates and giving votes — I should not 

 feel that I was doing right in exchanging the 

 one career for the other. 



Far too high an estimate is, I think, made 

 of the influence possessed in our day by a 

 member of Parliament, now that he has come 

 to be, much more than in past times, subject 

 to his constituents— now that the House of 

 Commons as a whole is more and more 

 obliged to subordinate itself to public opin- 

 ion ; the implication is, that those who form 

 public opinion are those who really exercise 

 power. It is becoming a common remark that 

 we are approaching a state in which laws are 

 practically made out-of-doors, and simply 

 registered by Parliament ; and if so then the 

 actual work of legislation is more the work 

 of those who modify the ideas of the electors 

 than of those who give effect to their ideas. 

 So regarding the matter, I conceive that I 

 should not gain influence, but rather should 

 lose influence, by ceasing to be a writer and 

 becoming a representative. 



But, apart from these general reasons, 

 there is the more special reason that, if chosen 

 by the electors of Leicester, I should prove a 

 very impracticable member. My views on 

 political matters are widely divergent from 

 those of all political parties at present exist- 

 ing. That which I hold to be the chief busi- 

 ness of legislation — an administration of jus- 

 tice such as shall secure to each person, with 

 certainty and without cost, the maintenance of 

 his equitable claims — is a business to which 

 little attention is paid ; while attention is ab- 

 sorbed in doing things which I hold should 

 not be done at all. As I could not agree to 

 be merely a delegate, voting as was desired 

 by those who sent me, but should have in all 

 cases to act on my own judgment, I should 

 be in continual antagonism to my constitu- 



