One thing only he recognised as being malum in se, as a thing being to be opposed at any rate, and at any price, even on any such extraordinary supposition as that of its being brought forward by the party with which, at the time being, it was his lot to side. This was, parliamentary reform.
In the course of his forty years labour in the service of the people, one thing he did that vvas good: one thing to wit, that in the account of his panegyrist is set down on that side: — not perhaps very widely differ (says Mr. Malone) from the actual state of things, he used to observe that, if any one would carefully examine all the questions which have been agitated in Parliament from the time of the Revolution, he would be surprised to find \io-w few could be pointed out in which an honest man might not conscientiously have voted on either side, however, by the force of rhetorical aggravation and the fervour of the times, they may have been represented to be of such high importance, that the very existence of the state depended on the result of the deliberation.
" Some questions, indeed, h^acknowledged to be of a vital nature, of such magnitude, and so intimately connected with the safety and welfare of the whole community, that no inducement or friendly disposition to any party ought to have the smallest weight in the decision. One of these in his opinion was the proposition for a parliamentary reform, or in other words for the new modelling the constitution of parliament; a measure which he considered of such moment, and of so dangerous a tendency, that he once said to a friend now living, that he would sooner suffer his right hand to be cut off than vote for it."
One use of government (in eyes such as his the principal use) is to enable men who have shares in it to employ public money in payment for private service: — Within the view of Gerard Hamilton there lived a man whose talents and turn of mind qualified him for appearing with peculiar success in the character of an amusing companion in every good house. In this character he for a length of time appeared in the house of Gerard Hamilton: finding him an Irishman, Hamilton got an Irish pension of 300/. a year created for him, and sent him back to Ireland: the man being in Dublin, and constituting in virtue of his office a part of the lord lieutenant's family, he appeared in the same character and with equal success in the house of the lord lieutenant.
* " Yet, such was the warmth of his friend's feehngs, and with such constant pleasure did he reflect on the many happy days which they had spent together, that he not only in the first place obtained for him a permanent provision on the establishment of Ireland *, but in addition to this proof of his regard and esteem, he never ceased, without any kind of solicitation, to watch over his interest with the most lively solicitude; constantly applying in person on his behalf to every new lord lieutenant, if he were acquainted with him; or if that were not the case, contriving by some circuitous means to procure Mr. Jephson's re-appointment to the office originally conferred on him by Lord Townshend: and by these means chiefly he was continued for a long series of years under twelve successive governors of Ireland in the same station, which had always before been considered a temporary office." — Pari. Loff.44.
* Note hy editor Malone: — " A pension of 300/. a year, which the Duke of Rutland during his government, from personal regard and a high admiration of Mr. Jephson's talents, increased to GOO/, per annum for the juiut lives of himself and Mrs. Jephson. He survived our authoi His Grace gave permanence lo the sinecure, and doubled the salary of it. Here was Hberality upon li^ berality — here was virtue upon virtue. It is by such things that merit is displayed; it is for such things that taxes are imposed; it is for affording matter and exercise for such virtues; it is for affording rewards for such merit, that the people of every country, in so far as any good use is made of them, are made.
To a man in whose eyes public virtue appeared in this only shape, no wonder that parliamentary reform should be odious: — of parliamentary reform, the efHect of which, and, in eyes of a different complexion, one main use would be, the drying up the source of all such virtues.
Here, in regard to the matter of fact, there are two representations given of the same subject: representations perfectly concurrent in all points with one another, though from very different quarters, and beginning as well as ending with very different views, and leading to opposite conclusions.
Parliament a sort of gaming-house; members on the two sides of each house the players; the property of the people, such portion of it as on any pretence may be found capable of being extracted from them, the stakes played for. Insincerity in all its shapes, disingenuousness, lying, hypocrisy, fallacy, the instrubut a few years, dying at his house at Black Rock, near Dublin, of a paralytic disorder, May 31, 1803, in his sixty-seventh year."
Note. — That not content with editing, and, in this way, recommending in the lump these principles of his friend and countryman, Malone takes up particular aphorisms, and applies his mind to the elucidation of them. This may be seen exemplified in Aphorisms 243, 249.
merits employed by the players on both sides for obtaining advantages in the game: on each occasion, — in respect of the side on which he ranks himself, — what course will be most for the advantage of the univeisal interest, — a question never looked at, never taken into account: on which side is the prospect of personal advantage in its several shapes, — this the only question really taken into consideration: according to the answer given to this question in his own mind, a man takes the one or the other of the two sides: the side of those in office, if there be room or near prospect of room for him; the side of those by whom office is but in expectancy, if the future contingent presents a more encouraging prospect than the immediately present.
To all these distinguished persons, to the self-appointed professor and teacher of political profligacy, to his admiring editor, to their common and sympathizing friend % the bigotry-ridden preacher of hollow and common-place morality, parliamentary reform we see in an equal degree, and that an extreme one, an object of abhorrence. How should it be otherwise? By parliamentary reform, the prey, the perpetually renascent prey, the fruit and object of the game, would have been snatched out of their hands. Official pay in no case more than what is sufficient for the security of adequate service, — no sinecures, no pensions, for hiring flatterers and pampering parasites: — no plundering in any shape or for any purpose: — amidst the cries * Set post 26, of No tlieory! no theory! the example of America a lesson, the practice of America transferred to Britain.
The notion of the general predominance of self-regarding over social interest has been held up as a weakness incident to the situation of those whose converse has been more with books than men. Be it so: look then to those teachers, those men of practical wisdom, whose converse has been with men at least as much as with books: look in particular to this right honourable, who in the house of commons had doubled the twenty years lucubration necessary for law, who had served almost six apprenticeships, who in that office had served out five complete clerkships: what says he? Self-regarding interest predominant over social interest? Self regard predominant? no: but self-regard sole occupant: the universal interest, howsoever talked of, never so much as thought of; right and wrong, objects of avowed indifference.
Of the self-written Memoirs of Bubb Dodington how much was said in their day! of Gerard Hamilton's Parliamentary Logic, how little! The reason is not unobvious: Dodington was all anecdote; Hamilton was all theory. What Hamilton endeavoured to teach with Malone and Johnson for his bag-bearers, Dodington was seen to practise.
Nor is the veil of decorum cast off any where from his practice. In Hamilton's book for the first time has profligacy been seen stark naked. In the reign of Charles the Second, Sir Charles Sedley and others were indicted for exposing themselves in a balcony in a state of perfect nudity. In Gerard Hamilton may be seen the Sir Charles Sedley of political morality. Sedley might have stood in his balcony till he was frozen, and nobody the better, nobody much the worse: but Hamilton's self-exposure is most instructive.
Of parliamentary reform were a man to say that it is good because Gerard Hamilton was averse to it, he would fall into the use of one of those fallacies against the influence of which it is one of the objects of the ensuing work to raise a barrier; This however may be said, and said without fallacy, viz. that it is the influence exercised by such men, and the use to which such their influence is put by them, that constitutes no small part of the political disease, which has produced the demand for parliamentary reform in the character of a remedy.
To such men it is as natural and necessary that parliamentary reform should be odious, as that Botany Bay or the Hulks should be odious to thieves and robbers.
Above all other species of business, the one which Gerard Hamilton was most apprehensive of his pupils not being sufficiently constant in the practice of, is misrepresentation. Under the name of action, thrice was gesticulation spoken of as the first accomplishment of his profession by the Athenian orator; By Gerard Hamilton, in a collection of aphorisms, 553 in number, in about 40 vice is recommended without disguise; twelve times is misrepresentation, i. c. premeditated falsehood with or without a mask, recommended in the several forms of which it presented itself to him as susceptible: viz. in the way of false addition three times, in the way of false substitution twice, and in the way of omission seven times.
He was fearful of deceiving the only persons he meant not to deceive (viz. the pupils to whom he was teaching the art of deceiving others), had he fallen into any such omission, as that of omitting in the teaching of this lesson any instruction or example that might contribute to render them perfect in it.
Of a good cause as such, of every cause that is entitled to the appellation of a good cause, it is the characteristic property that it does not stand in need, — of a bad cause, of every cause that is justly designated by the appellation of a bad cause, it is the characteristic property that it does stand in need of assistance of this kind. Not merely indifference as between good and bad, but predilection for what is bad is therefore the cast of mind betrayed or rather displayed by Gerard Hamilton. For the praise of intelligence and active talent, that is, for so much of it as constitutes the difference between what is to be earned by the advocation of good causes only, and that which is to be earned by the advocation of bad causes likewise, — of bad causes in preference to good ones, — for this species and degree of praise it is, that Gerard Hamilton was content to forgo the merit of probity, of sincerity as a branch of probity, and take to himself the substance as well as the shape and colour of the opposite vice.
This is the work which, having been fairly written out by the author % and thence by the editor, presumed to have been intended for the press, had been " shown by him to his friend Dr. Johnson." This is the work which this same Dr. Johnson, if the editor is to be beheved, " considered a very curious and masterly performance." This is the work in which that pom- ' Extract from the preface to Hamilton's work: — " But in the treatise on Parliamentary Logic we have the fruit and result of the experience of one, who was by no means unconversant with law, and had himself sat in Parliament for more than forty years; who in the commencement of his political career burst forth like a meteor, and for a while obscured his contemporaries by the splendour of his eloquence; who was a most curious observer of the characteristic merits and defects of the distinguished speakers of his time: and who, though after his first effort he seldom engaged in public debate, devoted almost all his leisure and thoughts, during the long period above mentioned, to the examination and discussion of all the principal questions agitated in Parliament, and of the several topics and modes of reasoning by which they were either supported or opposed.
" Hence the rules and precepts here accumulated, which are equally adapted to the use of the pleader and orator: nothing vague, or loose, or general *, is delivered; and the most minute particularities and artful turns of debate are noticed with admirable acuteness, subtilty and precision. The work, therefore, is filled with practical axioms, and parliamentary and forensic wisdom, and cannot but be of perpetual use to all those persons who may have occasion to use their discursive talents within or without the doors of the House of Commons, in conversation at the Bar, or in Parliament.
" This Tract was fairly written out by the author, and therefore may be presumed to have been intended by him for the press. He had shown it to his friend Dr. Johnson, who considered it a very curious and masterly performance."
* For "nothing," read " the greatest pari,".1. B.
ii7 pous preacher of melancholy moralities saw, if the editor is to be believed, nothing to " object to," but " the too great conciseness and refinement of some parts of it," and the occasion it gave to " a. wish that some of the precepts had been more opened and expanded."
So far as concerns sincerity and candour in debate, the two friends indeed, even to judge of them from the evidence transmitted to us by their respective panegyrists, seem to have been worthy to smell at the same nosegay: and an " expansion and enlargement," composed by the hand that suggested it, would beyond doubt have been a " very curious and masterly," as well as amusing addition to this "very curious and masterly performance."
Two months before his death, when, if he himself is to be believed, ambition had in such a degree been extinguished in him by age and infirmities, that after near forty years of experience a seat in Parliament was become an object of indifference to him % — four years after he had been visited by a fit of the palsy*', — he was visited by a fit of virtue, and in the paroxysm of that fit hazarded an experiment, the object of which was to try whether, in a then approaching parliament, a seat might not be obtained without a complete sacrifice of independence. The experiment was not successful. From some lord, whose name decorum has suppressed, he was, as his letter to his lordship 2JV testified, "on the point of receiving" a seat; and the object of this letter was to learn whether, along with the seat, " the power of thinking for himself " might be included in the grant; the question being accompanied with a request that, in case of the negative, some other nominee might be the object of his lordship's " confidence."
The request was inadmissible, and the confidence found some other object.
It is in the hope of substituting men to puppets, and the will of the people to the will of noble lords, puppets themselves to ministers or secret advisers, that parliamentary reform has of late become once more an object of general desire: but parliamentary reform was that sort of thing which "he would sooner," he said, " suffer his hand to be cut off than vote for *:" whether it was before or after the experiment that this magnanimity was displayed, the editor has not informed us.
The present which the world received in the publication of this work may on several accounts be justly termed a valuable one. The only cause of regret is, that the editor should, by the unqualified approbation and admiration bestowed upon it, have made the principles of the work as it were his own.
True it is, that where instruction is given, showing how mischief may be done or aimed at, whether it shall serve as a precept or a prohibition, depends in * page xxxvii.
the upshot, upon the person on whom it operates with effect: Many a dehortation that not only has the effect of an exhortation, but was designed to have that effect; Instructions how to administer poisons with success, may on the other hand have the effect of enabling a person who takes them up with an opposite view, to secure himself the more effectually against the attack of poisons; But by the manner in which he writes, by the accessory ideas presented by the words in which the instruction is conveyed, there can seldom be much difficulty in comprehending in the delivery of his instructions whether the writer wishes that the suggestions conveyed by them should be embraced or rejected: If occasionally there can be room for doubt in this respect, at any rate no room can there be for any in the case of Gerard Hamilton. As little can there be in the case of his editor and panegyrist: Qui mihi discipulus puer es, cupis atque doceri^ Hue ades, hcEC animo concipe dicta tuo: The object or end in view is, on occasion of a debate in Parliament, — in a supreme legislative assembly, — how to gain your point, whatever it be. The means indicated as conducive to that end are sometimes fair ones, sometimes foul ones; and be they fair or foul, they are throughout delivered with the same tone of seriousness and composure.
Come unto me all ye who have a point to gain, and I will show you how: bad or good, so as it be not parliamentary reform, to me it is matter of indifference.
Here then, whatever be the influence of autliority, authority in general, and that of the writer in particular, it is in the propagation of insincerity (of insincerity to be employed in the service it is most fit for, and in which it finds its richest reward,) that throughout the whole course of this work, and under the name of Gerard Hamilton, not to speak of his editor and panegyrist, such authority exerts itself.
To secure their children from falling into the vice of drunkenness, it was the policy we are told of Spartan fathers to exhibit their slaves in a state of inebriation, that the contempt might be felt to which a man stands exposed when the intellectual part of his frame has been thrown into the disordered state to which it is apt by this means to be reduced. An English father, if he has any regard for the morals of his son, and in particular for that vital part in which sincerity is concerned, will perhaps no where else find so instructive an example as Gerard Hamilton has rendered himself by this book: in that mirror may be seen to what a state of corruption the moral part of man's frame is capable of being reduced; to what a state of degradation, in the present state of parliamentary morality, a man is capable of sinking even when sober, and without any help from wine; and with what deliberate zeal he may himself exert his powers in the endeavour to propagate the infection in other minds.
PART THE FIRST.
FALLACIES OF AUTHORITY, The subject of which is Authority in various shapes, and the object, to repress all exercise of the reasoning faculty.
With reference to any measures having for their object the greatest happiness of the greatest number, the course pursued by the adversaries of such measures has commonly been, in the first instance, to endeavour to repress altogether the exercise of the reasoning faculty, by adducing authority in various shapes as conclusive upon the subject of the measure proposed.
But before any clear view^ can be given of the deception liable to be produced by the abuse of the species of argument here in question^ it will be necessary to bring to view the distinction between the proper and the improper use of it.
In the ensuing analysis of Authority, one distinction ought to be borne in mind; — it is the distinction between what may be termed a question of opinio?!, or quid faciendum; and what may be termed a question oifact, or quid factum. Since it will frequently happen, that whilst the authority of a person in respect to a question of fact is entitled to more or less regard, it is not so entitled in respect of a question of opinion.
Sect. 1. Analysis of AutJiority, Sect. 2. Appeal to Authority, in zvhat cases Jhllacious.
I. What on any given occasion is the legitimate weight or influence of authority regard being had to the different circumstances in which a person, the supposed declaration of whose opinion constitutes the authority in question, was placed at the time of the delivery of such declaration?
1st. Upon the degree of relative and adequate intelUgence on the part of the person whose opinion or supposed opinion constitutes the authority in question, —say of the persona cujus, 2dly, Upon the degree of relative probity on the part of that same person, 3dly, Upon the nearness or remoteness of the relation between the immediate subject of such his opinion and the question in hand, 4thly, Upon the fidelity of the medium, through which such supposed opinion has been transmitted (including correctness and completeness),— upon such circumstances, the legitimately persuasive force of the authority thus constituted, seems to depend: such are the sources in which any deficiency in respect of such persuasive force is to be looked for.
Deficiency of attention, i. e. intensity and steadiness of attention with reference to the influencing circumstances on which the opinion in order to be correct, required to be grounded; deficiency in respect Sect, 1.] FALLACIES OP AUTHOR ITY. 33 of opportunity or matter of information, with reference to the individual question in hand; distance in point of time from the scene of the proposed measure; distance in point of place; — such again are the sources in which, the situation of the person in question being given, any deficiency in respect of relative and adequate intelligence is, it seems, to be looked for.
It is in the character of a cause of deficiency in relative and adequate information, that distance in point of time operates as a cause of deficiency in respect of relative and adequate intelligence, and so in regard to distance in point of place.
As to relative probity, any deficiency referable to this head will be occasioned by the exposure of the persona cujiis to the action of sinister interest: concerning which see Part 5, Chapter 2. — Causes of the utterance of these fallacies.
The most ordinary and conspicuous deficiency in the article of relative probity, is that of sincerity: the improbity consisting in the opposition or discrepancy between the opinion expressed and the opinion really entertained.
But as not only declaration of opinion, but opinion itself, is exposed to the action of sinister interest, in so far as this is the case, the deficiency is occasioned in two ways; by the action of the sinister interest either the relevant means and materials are kept out of the mind, or, if this be not found practicable, the attention is kept from fixing upon them with the degree of D 34 lALLACIES OP AUTIIORITV. [Ch. 1.
intensity proportioned to their legitimately persuasive force.
As to the mass of information received by any person in relation to a given subject, the correctness and completeness of such information, and thence the probability of correctness on the part of the opinion grounded on it, will be in the joint ratio of the sufficiency of the means of collecting such information, and the strength of the motives by which he was urged to the employment of those means.
On both these accounts taken together, at the top of the scale of trustworthiness stands that mass of authority which is constituted by what may be termed scientific or professional opinion: that is, opinion entertained in relation to the subject in question by a person who, by special means and motives attached to a particular situation in life, may with reason be considered as possessed of such mea?is of ensuring the correctness of his opinion as cannot reasonably be expected to have place on the part of a person not so circumstanced.
As to the special motives in question, they will in every case be found to consist of good or evil: profit for instance, or loss, presenting themselves as eventually likely to befall the person in question; profit or other good in case of the correctness of his opinion; loss or other evil in the event of its incorrectness.
In proportion to the force with which a man's will Sect. 1.] FALLACIES OF AUrilORITY. S5 is operated upon by the motives in question, is the degree of attention employed in looking out for the nieans of information, and the use made of them in the way of reflection towards the formation of his opinion.
Thus in the case of every occupation which a man engages in with a view to profit, the hope of gaining his livelihood, and the fear of not gaining it, are the motives by which he is urged to apply his attention to the collection of whatsoever information may contribute to the correctness of the several opinions which he may have occasion to form, respecting the most advantageous method of carrying on the several operations, by which such profit may be obtained.
1. The legitimately persuasive force of professional authority, being taken as the highest term in the scale, the following may be noticed as expressive of so many other species of authority, occupying so many inferior degrees in the same scale: 2. Authority derived from pozver. The greater the quantity of power a man has, no matter in what shape, the nearer the authority of his opinion comes to professional authority, in respect of the facility of obtaining the means conducive to correctness of decision.
3. Authority derived from opulence. Opulence — being an instrument of power, and, to a considerable extent, applicable in a direct way to many or most of the purposes to which power is applicable, — seems to stand next after power in the scale of instruments of facility as above, 4. Authority derived from reputation, considered as among the efficient causes of respect. By reputation, understand, on this occasion, general reputation, not special and relative reputation, which would rank the species of authority under the head of professional authority as above.
Note, that of all these four species of authority it is only in the case of the first that the presumable advantage, which is the efficient cause of its legitimately persuasive force, extends to the article of motives as well as means. By having the motives that tend to correctness of information, the professional man has the means likewise; since it is to the force of the motives under the stimulus of which he acts that he is indebted for whatever means he acquires. It is from his having the motives that it follows that he has the means.
But in those other cases, whatsoever be the means which a man's situation places within his reach, it follows not that he has the motives, — that he is actually under the impulse of any motive sufficient to the full action of that desire and that energy by which alone he can be in an adequate degree put in possession of the means.
On the contrary, in proportion as in the scale of power the man in question rises above the ordinary level, in that same proportion, in respect of motives Sect. ].] lALLAClKS OF AUTHORITY. 37 for exertion (be the line of action wliat it may), he is apt to sink below the same level: because the greater the quantum of the share of the general mass of objects of desire that a man is already in possession of, the greater is the amount of that portion of his desires which is already in a state of saturation, and consequently the less the amount of that portion which, remaining unsatiated, is left free to operate upon his mind in the character of a motive.
Under Oriental despotism, the person at whose command the means of information exist in a larger proportion than they do in the instance of any other person whatever, is the despot; but necessary motives being wanting, no use is made by him of these means, and the general result is a state of almost infantine imbecility and ignorance.
Such in kind, varying only in degree, is the case with every hand in which power is lodged, unincumbered with obligation; or, in other words, with sense of eventual danger.
In England the king, the peer, the opulent boroughholding or county-holding country gentleman, should, on the above principle, present an instance of the sort of double scale in question, in which, while means decrease, motives rise.
But so long as he takes any part at all in public affairs, the sense of that weak kind of eventual responsibility to which, notwithstanding the prevailing habits of idolatry, the monarch, as such, stands at all times exposed, suffices to keep his intellectual faculties at a point more or less above the point of utter ignorance; whereas, short of provable idiotism, there is no degree of imbecility that in either of those two other situations can suffice to render it matter of danger or inconvenience to the possessor, either to leave altogether unexercised the power annexed to such situation, or, without the smallest regard for the public welfare, to exercise it in whatever manner may be most agreeable or convenient to himself.
All this while, it is only on the supposition of perfect relative probity, viz. of that branch of probity that consists of sincerity, as well as absence of all such sources of delusion as to the person in question are liable to produce the effects of insincerity, — in a word, it is only on the supposition of the absence of exposure to the action of any sinister interest, operating in such direction as to tend to produce either erroneous opinion or misrepresentation of a man's opinion on the subject in question, that, in so far as it depends on the information necessary to correctness of opinion, the title of a man's authority to regard bears any proportion either to motives or to means of information as above.
On the contrary, if either immediately, or through the medium of the will, a man's understanding be exposed to the dominion of sinister interest, the more complete as well as correct the mass of relative information is which he possesses, the more completely destitute of all title to regard, i.e. to confidence, unless it be in the opposite direction, will the authority, or pretended or real opinion, be.
Hence it is that on the question, What is the system of remuneration best adapted to the purpose of obtaining the highest degree of official aptitude throughout the whole field of official service? — the authority of any person who here or elsewhere, now or formerly, was in possession or expectation of any such situation as that of minister of state, so far from being greater than that of an average man, is not equal to 0, but in the mathematical sense negative, or so muchbelow 0: i. e. so far as it affiards a reason for looking upon the opposite opinion as the right and true one.
So again as to this question — What, in so far as concerns cognoscibility, or economy and expedition in procedure, the state of the law ought to bo? — in the instance of any person who here or elsewhere, recently or formerly, but more particularly in this country, was in possession or expectation of any situation, professional or official, the profitableness of which, in the shape of pecuniary emolument, or in any other shape (such as power, reputation, ease, and occasionally vengeance), depended upon the incognoscibility, the expensiveness, the dilatoriness, the vexatiousness of the system of judicial procedure, — the weight of the authority, — the strength of its title to credit on the part of those understandings to which the force of it is applied, — is not merely equal to 0, but in the mathematical sense negative, or so much below 0.
Note, that where, as above, the weight or probative force of the authority in question is spoken of as being not positive but negative (being rendered so by sinister 40 FALLACIES OF AUTHORETV. [C/i. 1.
interest), what is taken for granted is, that the direction in which the authority is offered is tlie same as that in which the sinister interest acts; for if, the direction in which the sinister interest acts l^'ing one way, the direction in which the opinion acts lies the other way, in such case the title of the opinion to credit on the part of the understandings to which it is proposed, so far from being destroyed or weakened, is much increased, because the grounds for correctness of opinion, the motives and the means which in that case lead to correctness being more completely within the reach of, and according to probability present to, the minds of this class of men, the forces that tend to promote aberration having by this supposition spent themselves in vain, the chance for correctness is thereby greater.
Accordant with this, and surely enough accordant with experience and common sense, is one of the few rational rules that as yet have received admittance among the technically established rules of evidence. In a man's own favour his own testimony is the weakest, — in his disfavour, the strongest, evidence.