Historical Characters

It is a series of parts, some excellent, some indifferent, but which altogether do not form a whole. The fragment of the Revolution, though a fragment, presents the same qualities and defects. The narrative is poor; some of the characters, such as those of Rochester, Sunderland, and Halifax – and some of the passages (that with which the work opens, for instance) – are excellent; but then, these fine figures of gold embroidery are worked here and there with care and toil, on an ordinary sort of canvas.

The “Life of Sir Thomas More” is the only complete performance; and this because it was a portrait which might have been taken at one sitting.

The “Treatise on Ethics,” first published in the supplement of the seventh edition of the “Encyclopædia Britannica,” and which has since appeared in a separate form under the auspices of Professor Whewell, is still more remarkable, both in its design and execution, as characterising the author. He seems here, indeed, to have been aware of his own capabilities, and to have accommodated his labours to them; for his work is conceived in separate and distinct portions, and he undertakes to write the course and progress of philosophy by descriptions of its most illustrious masters and professors; a plan gracefully imagined, as diffusing the charm of personal narrative over dry and speculative disquisition.

Nothing, accordingly, can be better executed than some of these pictures. It would be difficult to paint Hobbes, Leibnitz, Shaftesbury, more faithfully, or in more suitable colours; the contrast between the haughty Bossuet and the gentle Fénelon is perfectly sustained; while Berkeley the virtuous, the benevolent, the imaginative, is drawn with a pencil which would even have satisfied the admiration of his contemporaries:

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“Berkeley.– Ancient learning, exact science, polished society, modern literature, and the fine arts, contributed to adorn and enrich the mind of this accomplished man. All his contemporaries agreed with the satirist in ascribing

“‘To Berkeley every virtue under heaven!’

“Adverse factions and hostile wits concurred only in loving, admiring, and contributing to advance him. The severe sense of Swift endured his visions; the modest Addison endeavoured to reconcile Clarke to his ambitious speculations. His character converted the satire of Pope into fervid praise. Even the fastidious and turbulent Atterbury said, after an interview with him, ‘So much understanding, so much knowledge, so much innocence, and such humility, I did not think had been the portion of any but angels, till I saw this gentleman.’98 ‘Lord Bathurst told me,’ says Warton, ‘that the members of the Scribblers’ Club being met at his house at dinner, they agreed to rally Berkeley, who was also his guest, on his scheme at Bermudas. Berkeley, having listened to the many lively things they had to say, begged to be heard in his turn, and displayed his plan with such an astonishing and animating force of eloquence and enthusiasm that they were struck dumb, and, after some pause, rose all up together, with earnestness exclaiming, “Let us set out with him immediately!”’99 It was when thus beloved and celebrated that he conceived, at the age of forty-five, the design of devoting his life to reclaim and convert the natives of North America; and he employed as much influence and solicitation as common men do for their most prized objects, in obtaining leave to resign his dignities and revenues, to quit his accomplished and affectionate friends, and to bury himself in what must have seemed an intellectual desert. After four years’ residence at Newport, in Rhode Island, he was compelled, by the refusal of government to furnish him with funds for his college, to forego his work of heroic, or rather godlike benevolence, though not without some consoling forethought of the fortune of a country where he had sojourned:

“‘Westward the course of empire takes its way:The first four acts already past,A fifth shall close the drama with the day,Time’s noblest offspring is its last.’

“Thus disappointed in his ambition of keeping a school for savage children, at a salary of a hundred pounds a year, he was received on his return with open arms by the philosophical Queen, at whose metaphysical parties he made one, with Sherlock, who, as well as Smallridge, was his supporter, and with Hoadley, who, following Clarke, was his antagonist. By her influence he was made Bishop of Cloyne. It is one of his greatest merits, that though of English extraction, he was a true Irishman, and the first eminent Protestant, after the unhappy contest at the Revolution, who avowed his love for all his countrymen;100 and contributed, by a truly Christian address to the Roman Catholics of his diocese, to their perfect quiet during the rebellion of 1745. From the writings of his advanced years, when he chose a medical tract101 to be the vehicle of philosophical reflections, though it cannot be said that he relinquished his early opinions, it is at least apparent that his mind had received a new bent, and was habitually turned from reasoning towards contemplation. His immaterialism, indeed, modestly appears, but only to purify and elevate our thoughts, and to fix them on mind, the paramount and primeval principle of all things. ‘Perhaps,’ says he, ‘the truths about innate ideas may be, that there are properly no ideas on passive objects in the mind but what are derived from sense, but that there are also, besides these, her own acts and operations – such are notions;’ a statement which seems once more to admit general conceptions, and which might have served, as well as the parallel passage of Leibnitz, as the basis of modern philosophy in Germany. From these compositions of his old age, he then appears to have recurred with fondness to Plato, and the later Platonists: writers from whose mere reasonings an intellect so acute could hardly hope for an argumentative satisfaction of all its difficulties, and whom he probably either studied as a means of inuring his mind to objects beyond the visible diurnal sphere, and of attaching it, through frequent meditation, to that perfect and transcendent goodness, to which his moral feelings always pointed, and which they incessantly strove to grasp. His mind, enlarging as it rose, at length receives every theist, however imperfect his belief, to a communion in its philosophic piety. ‘Truth,’ he beautifully concludes, ‘is the cry of all, but the game of few. Certainly, where it is the chief passion, it does not give way to vulgar cares, nor is it contented with a little ardour in the early time of life; active perhaps to pursue, but not so fit to weigh and revise. He that would make a real progress in knowledge, must dedicate his age as well as youth, the latter growth as well as first fruits, at the altar of truth.’ So did Berkeley, and such were almost his latest words.

“His general principles of ethics may be shortly stated by himself: ‘As God is a being of infinite goodness, His end is the good of His creatures. The general well-being of all men of all nations, of all ages of the world, is that which He designs should be procured by the concurring actions of each individual.’ Having stated that this end can be pursued only in one of two ways – either by computing the consequences of each action, or by obeying the rules which generally tend to happiness; and having shown the first to be impossible, he rightly infers, ‘That the end to which God requires the concurrence of human actions, must be carried on by the observation of certain determinate and universal rules, or moral precepts, which in their own nature have a necessary tendency to promote the well-being of mankind, taking in all nations and ages, from the beginning to the end of the world.’102 A romance, of which a journey to an Utopia in the centre of Africa forms the chief part, called, ‘The adventures of Signor Gaudentio di Lucca,’ has been commonly ascribed to him; probably on no other ground than its union of pleasing invention with benevolence and elegance.”103

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The following short description of the practical Paley comes aptly after that of this charming Utopian:

“Paley.– The natural frame of Paley’s understanding fitted it more for business and the world than for philosophy; and he accordingly enjoyed with considerable relish the few opportunities which the latter part of his life afforded, of taking a part in the affairs of his country, as a magistrate. Penetration and shrewdness, firmness and coolness, a vein of pleasantry, fruitful, though somewhat unrefined, with an original homeliness and significancy of expression, were perhaps more remarkable in his conversation than the restraints of authorship and profession allowed them to be in his writings. His taste for the common business and ordinary amusements of life, fortunately gave a zest to the company which his neighbourhood chanced to yield, without rendering him insensible to the pleasures of intercourse with more enlightened society. The practical bent of his nature is visible in the language of his writings, which, on practical matters, is as precise as the nature of the subject requires; but, in his rare and reluctant efforts to rise to first principles, becomes undeterminate and unsatisfactory, though no man’s composition was more free from the impediments which hinder a writer’s meaning from being quickly and clearly seen. He possessed that chastised acuteness of discrimination, exercised on the affairs of men, and habitually looking to a purpose beyond the mere increase of knowledge, which forms the character of a lawyer’s understanding, and which is apt to render a mere lawyer too subtle for the management of affairs, and yet too gross for the pursuit of general truths. His style is as near perfection, in its kind, as any in our language. Perhaps no words were ever more expressive and illustrative than those in which he represents the art of life to be that of rightly setting our habits.” – “Ethical Philosophy,” p. 274.

Such are the portraits in this work; the history of ancient ethics, and the vindication of the scholiasts also, are in themselves and as separate compositions of great merit; but when, after admiring these different fragments, we look at the plan, at the system which is to result from them, or endeavour to follow out the line of reasoning which is to bring them together – we quit the land of realities for that of shadows, and are obliged to confess that the author has barely sufficient vigour to make his meaning intelligible.

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To give the history intended to be given by Sir James’s treatise, would be without the scope of the present sketch; but it may not be amiss to say something of the state of the philosophical opinions which existed at the time of its publication, and which, in fact, called it forth. Helvetius, the friend of Voltaire and Diderot – Helvetius, whose works have been considered as merely the record of those opinions which circulated around him – the most amusing, if not the most logical of metaphysicians, wrote that everything proceeded from the senses, and that man (for this was one of his favourite hypotheses) differed from a monkey mainly because his hands were tenderer and more soft.

The doctrine of sensation led necessarily to that of selfishness, since, owing what we think to what we feel, every idea is the consequence of some pain or pleasure, and our own pains and pleasures are thus the parents of all our emotions.

A strong reaction, however, took place in the beginning of the nineteenth against the eighteenth century; the original existence of certain sentiments or affections implanted by nature, was contended for, in Germany and in Scotland, under a variety of qualifications. The school, which said that the affections arose from this primary source, called them disinterested, as that which contended that they more or less directly proceeded from some cause which had reference to ourselves, called them interested. There was but one step easily made by both parties in carrying out their doctrines.

The philosophers who thought that self-interest, “through some certain strainers well refined,” was the cause of all our actions and ideas, maintained that utility was the only measure of virtue, or of greatness. The philosophers of the opposite faction argued on the contrary, that as many of our emotions were natural and involuntary, so there was also a sense of wrong and right, natural and involuntary, and connected with those emotions implanted in us.

Living in a retired part of London, visited only by his adorers and disciples, looking rarely beyond the confines of his early knowledge, and on the train of thinking it had inspired, an old and singular gentleman, with great native powers of mind, almost alone resisted the new impulse, and, classifying and extending the doctrines of the French philosophy, established a reputation and a school of his own. The charm of Mr. Bentham’s philosophy, however obscured by fanciful names and unnecessary subdivisions, is its apparent clearness and simplicity.

He considers with the disciples of Helvetius – 1, that our ideas do come from our sensations, and that consequently we are selfish; 2, that man in doing what is most useful to himself does what is right.

Very strange and fantastical notions have been propagated against the philosopher by persons so egregiously mistaking him as to imagine that what he thus says of mankind generally – of man, meaning every man – is said of a man, of man separately; so that a murderer, pretend these commentators, has only to be sure that a second murder is useful to him by preventing the detection of the first, in order to be justified in committing it. It were useless to dwell upon this ridiculous construction. But in urging men to pursue the general interest of society at large, in telling them that to do what is most for that interest is to act usefully and thereby virtuously, Mr. Bentham found it necessary to explain how such interest was to be discovered.

Accordingly he has propounded that the general interest of a society must be considered to be the interest of the greatest number in that society, and that the greatest number in any society is the best judge of its interest. Moreover, in the further development of his doctrine, he contends that a majority would always, under natural circumstances, govern a minority, and that, therefore, there is a natural tendency, if not thwarted, towards the happiness and good government of mankind. This system of philosophy gained the more attention from its being also a system of politics. According to Mr. Bentham, that which was most important to men depended on maintaining what he considered the natural law, viz., governing the minority by the majority.

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Unfortunately for the destiny of mankind, and the soundness of the Benthamite doctrine, it is by no means certain that the majority in any community is the best judge of its interests; whilst it is even less certain, if it did know these interests, that it would necessarily and invariably follow them. In almost every collection of men the intelligent few know better what is for the common interest than the ignorant many; and it is rare indeed to see communities or individuals pursuing their interest steadily even when they perceive it clearly. It would, perhaps, be more reconcilable to reason to say that the intellect of a community should govern a community; but this assertion is also open to objection, since a small number of intelligent men might govern for their own interest, and not for the interest of the society they represented. In short, though it is easy to see that the science of government does not consist in giving power to the greatest number, but in giving it to the most intelligent, and making it for their interest to govern for the interest of the greatest number; still, every day teaches us that good government is rather a thing relative than a thing absolute; that all governments have good mixed with evil, and evil mixed with good; and that the statesman’s task, as is beautifully demonstrated by Montesquieu, is, not to destroy an evil combined with a greater good, nor to create a good accompanied with a greater evil; but to calculate how the greatest amount of good and the least amount of evil can be combined together. Hence it is, that the best governments with which we are acquainted seem rather to have been fashioned by the working hand of daily experience, than by the artistic fingers of philosophical speculation.

Nevertheless, the theory, that the good of the greatest number in any community ought to be the object which its government should strive to attain, and the maxim, that the interest and happiness of every unit in a community are to be treated as a portion of the interest and happiness of the whole community, are humanizing precepts, and have, through the influence of Mr. Bentham and of his disciples, produced, within my own memory, a considerable change in the public opinion of England.

Mr. Bentham’s name, then, is far more above the scoff of his antagonists than below the enthusiasm of his disciples; and it is in this spirit, and with a becoming respect, that Sir James Mackintosh treats the philosopher while he combats his philosophy.

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In regard to the theory of Sir James himself, if I understand it rightly (and it is rather, as I have said, indistinctly expressed), he accepts neither the doctrine of innate ideas disinterestedly producing or ordering our actions, nor that of sense-derived ideas by which, with a concentrated regard to self, some suppose men to be governed – but imagines an association of ideas, naturally suggested by our human condition, which, according to a pre-ordinated state of the mind, produces, as in chemical processes, some emotion different from any of the combined elements or causes from which it springs.

This emotion, once existing, requires, without consideration or reflection, its gratification. In this manner the satisfaction of benevolence and pity springs as much from a spontaneous desire as the satisfaction of hunger; and man is unconsciously taught, through feelings necessary to him as man, to wish involuntarily for that which, on reflection and experience, he would find (such is the beautiful dispensation of Providence) most for his happiness and advantage.

The union, assemblage, or incorporation, if one may so speak, of these involuntary desires, affecting and affected by them all, becomes our universal moral sense or conscience, which in each of its propensities is gratified or mortified, according to our conduct.

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Here end my criticisms. They have passed rapidly in review the principal works and events of Sir James Mackintosh’s life;104 and what have they illustrated? That, which I commenced by observing: that he had made several excellent speeches, that he had taken an active part in politics, that he had written ably upon history, that he had manifested a profound knowledge of philosophy; but that he had not been pre-eminent as an orator, as a politician, as an historian, as a philosopher.105 It may be doubted whether any speech or book of his will long survive his time; but a very valuable work might be compiled from his writings and speeches. Indeed, there are hardly any books in our language more interesting or more instructive than the two volumes published by his son, and which display in every page the best qualities of an excellent heart and an excellent understanding, set off by the most amiable and remarkable simplicity. His striking, peculiar, and unrivalled merit, however, was that of a conversationalist. Great good-nature, great and yet gentle animation, much learning, and a sound, discriminating, and comprehensive judgment, made him this. He had little of the wit of words – brilliant repartées, caustic sayings, concentrated and epigrammatic turns of expression. But he knew everything and could talk of everything without being tedious. A lady of great wit, intellect, and judgment (Lady William Russell), in describing his soft Scotch voice, said to me – “Mackintosh played on your understanding with a flageolet, Macaulay with a trumpet.” Having lived much by himself and with books, and much also in the world and with men, he had the light anecdote and easy manner of society, and the grave and serious gatherings in of lonely hours. He added also to much knowledge considerable powers of observation; and there are few persons of whom he speaks, even at the dawn of their career, whom he has not judged with discrimination. His agreeableness, moreover, being that of a full mind expressed with facility, was the most translatable of any man’s, and he succeeded with foreigners, and in France, which he visited three times – once at the peace of Amiens, again in 1814, and again in 1824 – quite as much as in his own country, and with his own countrymen. Madame de Staël and Benjamin Constant prized him not less than did Lord Dudley or Lord Byron. It was not only in England, then, but also on the Continent, where his early pamphlet and distinguished friendships had made him equally known – that he ever remained the man of promise; until, amidst hopes which his vast and various information, his wonderful memory, his copious elocution, and his transitory fits of energy, still nourished, he died, in the sixty-seventh year of his age, universally admired and regretted, though without a high reputation for any one thing, or the ardent attachment of any particular set of persons. His death, which took place the 30th of May, 1832, was occasioned by a small fragment of chicken-bone, which, having lacerated the trachea, created a wound that ultimately proved fatal. He met his end with calmness and resignation, expressing his belief in the Christian faith, and placing his trust in it.

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No man doing so little ever went through a long life continually creating the belief that he would ultimately do so much. A want of earnestness, a want of passion, a want of genius, prevented him from playing a first-rate part amongst men during his day, and from leaving any of those monuments behind him which command the attention of posterity. A love of knowledge, an acute and capacious intelligence, an early and noble ambition, led him into literary and active life, and furnished him with the materials and at moments with the energy by which success in both is obtained. An amiable disposition, a lively flow of spirits, an extraordinary and varied stock of information made his society agreeable to the most distinguished persons of his age, and induced them, encouraged by some occasional displays of remarkable power, to consider his available abilities to be greater than they really were.

“What have you done,” he relates that a French lady once said to him, “that people should think you so superior?” “I was obliged,” he adds, “as usual, to refer to my projects.” For active life he was too much of the academic school: – believing nearly all great distinctions to be less than they were, and remaining irresolute between small ones. He passed, as he himself said, from Burke to Fox in half an hour, and remained weeks, as we learn from a friend (Lord Nugent), in determining whether he should employ “usefulness” or “utility” in some particular composition. Such is not the stuff out of which great leaders or statesmen are formed. His main error as a writer and as a speaker was his elaborate struggle against that easy idle way of delivering himself, which made the charm of his talk when he did not think of what he was saying. “The great fault of my manner,” he himself observes somewhere, “is that I overload.” And to many of his more finished compositions we might, indeed, apply the old saying of the critic, who on being asked whether he admired a certain tragedy of Dionysius, replied: “I have not seen it; it is obscured with language.” His early compositions had a sharper and terser style than his later ones, the activity of the author’s mind being greater, and his doubts and toils after perfection less; but even these were over-prepared. Can he be considered a failure? No; if you compare him with other men. Yes; if you compare him with the general idea entertained as to himself. The reputation he attained, however vague and uncertain, the writings that he left, though inferior to the prevalent notions as to his powers, – all placed him on a pedestal of conspicuous, though not of gigantic elevation amongst his contemporaries. The results of his life only disappointed when you measured them by the anticipations which his merits had excited – then he became “the man of promise.” Could he have arrived at greater eminence than that which he attained? if so, it must have been by a different road. I cannot repeat too often that no man struggles perpetually and victoriously against his own character; and one of the first principles of success in life, is so to regulate our career as rather to turn our physical constitution and natural inclinations to good account, than to endeavour to counteract the one or oppose the other.