44 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XII. No. 2i 



of political truth springing up among us, if it were the work of po- 

 litical philosophers improving their methods and concentrating 

 their efforts as philosophers have done in other departments, but it 

 is not represented as having sprung up mainly in this way. By 

 great party-conflicts, by acts of Parliament, which have settled great 

 questions practically for us, it is supposed that in some way truth 

 has been discovered or at least proved, as if the ballot-box could be 

 an organ of scientific discovery. Though I use so many words, I 

 do but say perhaps a little more strongly and decidedly what you 

 affirm by the act of founding this society. You say we should 

 study political questions impartially. I say we must put politics on 

 a new basis, — on a basis of systematic and reasoned truth. We 

 must have, not Whig and Tory principles, handed down to us from 

 the party-conflicts of other times and enshrined in the rhetoric of 

 ancient party-leaders, but principles of political science as taught 

 by great thinkers and writers. Those great writers, whom we name 

 with reverence, yet scarcely read, and seldom practically follow in 

 our politics, must come now to the front, must take henceforth the 

 lead. We must have masters whose style is calm, whose terms 

 are precise, whose statements are duly qualified, who see both sides 

 •of a question, and who know the history of the past, — the Tocque- 

 villes and the Mills, — and we must make up our minds that if any 

 thing like agreement is ever to be reached on political subjects, it 

 will not be by any amount of party agitation, or by any number of 

 victories at the poll, but by a sufficient supply of such teachers, and 

 by due docility in those who learn from them. 



In other words, politics must become a branch of study, a matter 

 of teaching and learning. But here, perhaps, I may seem to expect 

 too much, and you may doubt whether your society can attempt a 

 study which I represent as so scientific. You begin well by secur- 

 ing help from all the political parties. This, of course, is indispen- 

 sable ; and if you make due progress, the time will come when at 

 your meetings you will have become so accustomed and so attached 

 to the free scientific way of handling the subject, that you will al- 

 most forget the existence of those parties. I think you are right 

 too, if, as I hear, you have decided not to proceed to a division at 

 the termination of a debate. I like this, and think it is perhaps 

 more important than some might suppose. Your object is to find 

 1;he truth. Now a majority may be a very respectable thing, but it 

 ,has no functiorf in the investigation of truth. This is perhaps 

 hardly a truism, if I may judge from the prevalent way of speaking. 

 How often is some great act of Parliament, some reform bill, 

 spoken of as if it had established a principle, as if in some marvel- 

 lous way it had made something true and right which was not so 

 before. But in the pursuit of truth the number of votes is of no 

 sort of importance. It is so wholly indifferent which side has the 

 majority that you can infer nothing whatever from it. A majority 

 has, it seems to me, no particular inclination to take the right side, but 

 also it has no particular leaning towards the wrong. It belongs to 

 political action, and has no place 'in political study. 



So far, then, it appears that you have made excellent arrange- 

 ments for a political debating society. But allow me, first, to warn 

 you against resting content with a mere debating society ; and, 

 secondly, to suggest the possibility that your present plan may not 

 prove sufficient to meet all your wishes, and may call for additions 

 and further developments. 



First, a debating society, whether impartial or not, is still a soci- 

 ety simply for making speeches. In the debating societies that I 

 have known, speech-making has been an end and not merely a 

 means, — nay, it has been almost the principal end. The main ob- 

 ject which the members have had in view has been to acquire the 

 power of expressing themselves in public with freedom and effect. 

 No doubt, in any good debating society, the matter as well as the 

 form of the speeches is considered ; but distinctive excellence will 

 appear chiefly in the form. Now what is it that you mean to en- 

 courage, just thinking on political subjects, or merely smart speak- 

 ing ? Do we want a new society for the purpose of training a few 

 more of those talking-machines of which we have so many already, 

 ■of encouraging that fluency in political platitudes which our party 

 system itself encourages too fatally ? I have assumed throughout 

 this address that your object is precisely opposite, that you wish to 

 acquire a firm grasp of principles, to lay a foundation of political 

 iknowledge in precise definition, luminous classification, trustworthy 



generalization, authentic information. This you hope to do by the 

 co-operative method, by a society, by meetings. I would ask you 

 to consider carefully the regulations which will determine the char- 

 acter of your debates. Bear in mind that clearness of thought has 

 one eternal enemy, — rhetoric. It is difficult to encourage elo- 

 quence and to encourage justness of thought at the same time and 

 by the same methods. Your regulations ought to put some re- 

 straint upon the flow of rhetoric, to reduce as much as possible the 

 temptations to display. Perhaps, for example, if you have some 

 meetings where the audience is large, you might arrange to have 

 other meetings smaller and more select. You might try to intro- 

 duce dialectical discussion, which should proceed by rapid question 

 and answer, objection and reply, and where the members should 

 speak sitting. As your object is to assimilate political as much as 

 possible to scientific discussion, you should study to borrow the 

 forms of scientific discussion. Parliamentary forms, I think, should 

 be avoided. Written papers should be encouraged, since writing 

 almost imposes serious reflexion. It will be of no avail to eschew 

 partiality, if you allow yourselves to fall into the snare of rhetoric. 

 Tinsel phrases, the childish delight in uttering solemn periods and 

 hearing the sound of applause, bias the mind not less powerfully 

 than party connection. 



Another difficulty occurs to me. You intend to discuss political 

 questions. But is it so easy to decide what questions are political 

 and what are not ? Is it so easy to fix the limits of the politi- 

 cal sphere? That question becomes urgent as soon as you begin 

 to regard the subject seriously. Of course, if you are contented 

 with delivering a series of set speeches which shall be greeted with 

 applause, or if you intend merely to repeat the old story how the 

 Whigs or the Tories have been always right and their opponents 

 always wrong, the difficulty will not trouble you. But if you really 

 entertain the notion of discovering truth, if you intend to investi- 

 gate political questions seriously and renouncing all foregone con- 

 clusions, you cannot but soon make the remark how difficult it is to 

 separate political questions from others which are not usually called 

 political. If there is a science of politics at all, it must needs be 

 almost the most complicated of all sciences. It deals with that 

 curious phenomenon called the State, which is a kind of organism 

 composed of human beings. The lives of individual men, even the 

 greatest men, are included in the life of the State : almost every- 

 thing indeed is included in it. Does not the very thought of studying 

 such a vast comprehensive phenomenon, and of discovering the laws 

 that govern it, give rise to a feeling of bewilderment? Does it not 

 strike you that this study must rest upon other studies, that this 

 science must presume the results of other sciences, and therefore 

 that it cannot properly be studied by itself? Let me illustrate this 

 by one or two examples. I will take almost at hazard some of the 

 questions which are most likely to occupy you. I see on your list 

 the question of free and fair., trade. You will not doubt that this 

 question is political ; it is proved to be so by the plainest of all tests, 

 for it decides votes at the hustings. But it is equally evident that 

 the question belongs to political economy. The freedom of trade 

 has formed the main topic of economists since the ' Wealth of Na- 

 tions ■ was published. Here then politics run irito political econ- 

 omy. If you seriously mean to form an opinion on this political 

 question, how can you evade the economical question that lies under 

 it? 



Or take the Irish question, which has convulsed the nation so re- 

 cently. That, if any question, is political. But in the discussion of 

 it, what sort of argument is used ? It is said that the act of union, 

 by which the Dublin Parliament was brought to an end, was passed 

 by corrupt means, that it did not receive the assent of the Irish 

 people ; and so on, and so on. Well, are these statements true, or 

 are they not true ? This is evidently a historical question. To an- 

 swer it you must consult the record of occurrences which took place 

 at the close of the last century. In other words, you must travel 

 out of politics proper into history. Does not this example show 

 you how far you run the risk of being led, vvhat complicated in- 

 quiries await you ? Indeed, it seems to me that that immense and 

 pregnant question which was so suddenly brought before us, the 

 question of home rule, involves the greatest of those principles 

 which political thinkers, using a historical method and availing 

 themselves of that vast supply of trustworthy historical information 



