Autobiography
of the multitude always attaching itself principally to that which, in
the existing state of society, is the chief passport to power; and under
English institutions, riches, hereditary or acquired, being the almost
exclusive source of political importance; riches, and the signs of
riches, were almost the only things really respected, and the life of
the people was mainly devoted to the pursuit of them. I thought, that
while the higher and richer classes held the power of government, the
instruction and improvement of the mass of the people were contrary to
the self-interest of those classes, because tending to render the people
more powerful for throwing off the yoke: but if the democracy obtained a
large, and perhaps the principal share, in the governing power, it would
become the interest of the opulent classes to promote their education,
in order to ward off really mischievous errors, and especially those
which would lead to unjust violations of property. On these grounds I
was not only as ardent as ever for democratic institutions, but
earnestly hoped that Owenite, St. Simonian, and all other anti-property
doctrines might spread widely among the poorer classes; not that I
thought those doctrines true, or desired that they should be acted on,
but in order that the higher classes might be made to see that they had
more to fear from the poor when uneducated than when educated.
In this frame of mind the French Revolution of July found me: It roused
my utmost enthusiasm, and gave me, as it were, a new existence. I went
at once to Paris, was introduced to Lafayette, and laid the groundwork
of the intercourse I afterwards kept up with several of the active
chiefs of the extreme popular party. After my return I entered warmly,
as a writer, into the political discussions of the time; which soon
became still more exciting, by the coming in of Lord Grey's Ministry,
and the proposing of the Reform Bill. For the next few years I wrote
copiously in newspapers. It was about this time that Fonblanque, who had
for some time written the political articles in the _Examiner_, became
the proprietor and editor of the paper. It is not forgotten with what
verve and talent, as well as fine wit, he carried it on, during the
whole period of Lord Grey's Ministry, and what importance it assumed as
the principal representative, in the newspaper press, of Radical
opinions. The distinguishing character of the paper was given to it
entirely by his own articles, which formed at least three-fourths of all
the original writing contained in it: but of the remaining fourth I
contributed during those years a much larger share than anyone else. I
wrote nearly all the articles on French subjects, including a weekly
summary of French politics, often extending to considerable length;
together with many leading articles on general politics, commercial and
financial legislation, and any miscellaneous subjects in which I felt
interested, and which were suitable to the paper, including occasional
reviews of books. Mere newspaper articles on the occurrences or
questions of the moment, gave no opportunity for the development of any
general mode of thought; but I attempted, in the beginning of 1831, to
embody in a series of articles, headed "The Spirit of the Age," some of
my new opinions, and especially to point out in the character of the
present age, the anomalies and evils characteristic of the transition
from a system of opinions which had worn out, to another only in process
of being formed. These articles, were, I fancy, lumbering in style, and
not lively or striking enough to be, at any time, acceptable to
newspaper readers; but had they been far more attractive, still, at that
particular moment, when great political changes were impending, and
engrossing all minds, these discussions were ill-timed, and missed fire
altogether. The only effect which I know to have been produced by them,
was that Carlyle, then living in a secluded part of Scotland, read them
in his solitude, and, saying to himself (as he afterwards told me) "Here
is a new Mystic," inquired on coming to London that autumn respecting
their authorship; an inquiry which was the immediate cause of our
becoming personally acquainted.
I have already mentioned Carlyle's earlier writings as one of the
channels through which I received the influences which enlarged my early
narrow creed; but I do not think that those writings, by themselves,
would ever have had any effect on my opinions. What truths they
contained, though of the very kind which I was already receiving from
other quarters, were presented in a form and vesture less suited than
any other to give them access to a mind trained as mine had been. They
seemed a haze of poetry and German metaphysics, in which almost the only
clear thing was a strong animosity to most of the opinions which were
the basis of my mode of thought; religious scepticism, utilitarianism,
the doctrine of circumstances, and the attaching any importance to
democracy, logic, or political economy. Instead of my having been taught
anything, in the first instance, by Carlyle, it was only in proportion
as I came to see the same truths through media more suited to my mental
constitution, that I recognised them in his writings. Then, indeed, the
wonderful power with which he put them forth made a deep impression upon
me, and I was during a long period one of his most fervent admirers; but
the good his writings did me, was not as philosophy to instruct, but as
poetry to animate. Even at the time when our acquaintance commenced, I
was not sufficiently advanced in my new modes of thought to appreciate
him fully; a proof of which is, that on his showing me the manuscript of
_Sartor Resartus_, his best and greatest work, which he just then
finished, I made little of it; though when it came out about two years
afterwards in _Fraser's Magazine_ I read it with enthusiastic admiration
and the keenest delight. I did not seek and cultivate Carlyle less on
account of the fundamental differences in our philosophy. He soon found
out that I was not "another mystic," and when for the sake of my own
integrity I wrote to him a distinct profession of all those of my
opinions which I knew he most disliked, he replied that the chief
difference between us was that I "was as yet consciously nothing of a
mystic." I do not know at what period he gave up the expectation that I
was destined to become one; but though both his and my opinions
underwent in subsequent years considerable changes, we never approached
much nearer to each other's modes of thought than we were in the first
years of our acquaintance. I did not, however, deem myself a competent
judge of Carlyle. I felt that he was a poet, and that I was not; that he
was a man of intuition, which I was not; and that as such, he not only
saw many things long before me, which I could only, when they were
pointed out to me, hobble after and prove, but that it was highly
probable he could see many things which were not visible to me even
after they were pointed out. I knew that I could not see round him, and
could never be certain that I saw over him; and I never presumed to
judge him with any definiteness, until he was interpreted to me by one
greatly the superior of us both--who was more a poet than he, and more a
thinker than I--whose own mind and nature included his, and
infinitely more.
Among the persons of intellect whom I had known of old, the one with
whom I had now most points of agreement was the elder Austin. I have
mentioned that he always set himself in opposition to our early
sectarianism; and latterly he had, like myself, come under new
influences. Having been appointed Professor of Jurisprudence in the
London University (now University College), he had lived for some time
at Bonn to study for his Lectures; and the influences of German
literature and of the German character and state of society had made a
very perceptible change in his views of life. His personal disposition
was much softened; he was less militant and polemic; his tastes had
begun to turn themselves towards the poetic and contemplative. He
attached much less importance than formerly to outward changes; unless
accompanied by a better cultivation of the inward nature. He had a
strong distaste for the general meanness of English life, the absence of
enlarged thoughts and unselfish desires, the low objects on which the
faculties of all classes of the English are intent. Even the kind of
public interests which Englishmen care for, he held in very little
esteem. He thought that there was more practical good government, and
(which is true enough) infinitely more care for the education and mental
improvement of all ranks of the people, under the Prussian monarchy,
than under the English representative government: and he held, with the
French _Economistes_, that the real security for good government is un
_peuple éclairé_, which is not always the fruit of popular institutions,
and which, if it could be had without them, would do their work better
than they. Though he approved of the Reform Bill, he predicted, what in
fact occurred, that it would not produce the great immediate
improvements in government which many expected from it. The men, he
said, who could do these great things did not exist in the country.
There were many points of sympathy between him and me, both in the new
opinions he had adopted and in the old ones which he retained. Like me,
he never ceased to be a utilitarian, and, with all his love for the
Germans and enjoyment of their literature, never became in the smallest
degree reconciled to the innate-principle metaphysics. He cultivated
more and more a kind of German religion, a religion of poetry and
feeling with little, if anything, of positive dogma; while in politics
(and here it was that I most differed with him) he acquired an
indifference, bordering on contempt, for the progress of popular
institutions: though he rejoiced in that of Socialism, as the most
effectual means of compelling the powerful classes to educate the
people, and to impress on them the only real means of permanently
improving their material condition, a limitation of their numbers.
Neither was he, at this time, fundamentally opposed to Socialism in
itself as an ultimate result of improvement. He professed great
disrespect for what he called "the universal principles of human nature
of the political economists," and insisted on the evidence which history
and daily experience afford of the "extraordinary pliability of human
nature" (a phrase which I have somewhere borrowed from him); nor did he
think it possible to set any positive bounds to the moral capabilities
which might unfold themselves in mankind, under an enlightened direction
of social and educational influences. Whether he retained all these
opinions to the end of life I know not. Certainly the modes of thinking
of his later years, and especially of his last publication, were much
more Tory in their general character than those which he held at
this time.
My father's tone of thought and feeling, I now felt myself at a great
distance from: greater, indeed, than a full and calm explanation and
reconsideration on both sides, might have shown to exist in reality. But
my father was not one with whom calm and full explanations on
fundamental points of doctrine could be expected, at least with one whom
he might consider as, in some sort, a deserter from his standard.
Fortunately we were almost always in strong agreement on the political
questions of the day, which engrossed a large part of his interest and
of his conversation. On those matters of opinion on which we differed,
we talked little. He knew that the habit of thinking for myself, which
his mode of education had fostered, sometimes led me to opinions