3. CHAPTER III
Of Political Associations
A question suggests itself under this branch of enquiry, respecting the
propriety of associations among the people at large for the purpose of operating
a change in their political institutions.
Many arguments have been alleged in favour of such associations. It has
been said "that they are necessary to give effect to public opinion,
which, in its insulated state, is incapable of counteracting abuses the most
generally disapproved, or of carrying into effect what is most generally
desired." They have been represented "as indispensable for the
purpose of ascertaining public opinion, which must otherwise forever remain
in a great degree problematical." Lastly, they have been pointed out
"as the most useful means for generating a sound public opinion, and
diffusing, in the most rapid and effectual manner, political information."
In answer to these allegations, various things may be observed. That opinion
will always have its weight;[1] that all government is founded in opinion;[2]
and that public institutions will fluctuate with the fluctuations of opinion,
without its being necessary for that purpose that opinion should be furnished
with an extraordinary organ;[3] are points perhaps sufficiently established
in the preceding divisions of this work. These principles amount to a sufficient
answer to the two first arguments in favour of political associations: the
third shall receive a more particular discussion.
One of the most obvious features of political association is its tendency
to make a part stand for the whole. A number of persons, sometimes greater
and sometimes less, combine together. The tendency of their combination,
often avowed, but always unavoidable, is to give to their opinion a weight
and operation which the opinion of unconnected individuals cannot have. A
greater number, some from the urgency of their private affairs, some from
a temper averse to scenes of concourse and contention, and others from a
conscientious disapprobation of the measures pursued, withhold themselves
from such combinations. The acrimonious, the intemperate, and the artful
will generally be found among the most forward in matters of this kind. The
prudent, the sober, the sceptical, and the contemplative, those who have
no resentments to gratify, and no selfish purposes to promote, will be overborne
and lost in the progress. What justification can be advanced for a few persons
who thus, from mere impetuosity and incontinence of temper, occupy a post
the very principle of which is the passing them for some thing greater and
more important in the community than they are? Is the business of reform
likely to be well and judiciously conducted in such hands? Add to this that
associations in favour of one set of political tenets are likely to engender
counter-associations in favour of another. Thus we should probably be involved
in all the mischiefs of resistance, and all the uproar of revolution.
Political reform cannot be usefully effected but through the medium of
the discovery of political truth. But truth will never be investigated in
a manner sufficiently promising if violence and passion be not removed to
a distance. To whatever property adhering to the human mind, or accident
affecting it, we are to ascribe the phenomenon, certain it is that truth
does not lie upon the surface. It is laborious enquiry that has, in almost
all instances, led to important discovery. If therefore we are desirous to
liberate ourselves and our neighbours from the influence of prejudice, we
must suffer nothing but arguments to bear sway in the discussion. The writings
and the tenets which offer themselves to public attention should rest upon
their own merits. No patronage, no recommendations, no lift of venerable
names to bribe our suffrage, no importunity to induce us, to bestow upon
them our consideration, and to consider them with favour. These however are
small matters. It is much worse than this, when any species of publications
is patronized by political associations. The publications are then perused,
not to see whether what they contain is true or false, but that the reader
may learn from them how he is to think upon the subjects of which they treat.
A sect is generated, and upon grounds not less irrational than those of the
worst superstition that ever infested mankind.
If we would arrive at truth, each man must be taught to enquire and think
for himself. If a hundred men spontaneously engage the whole energy of their
faculties upon the solution of a given question, the chance of success will
be greater than if only ten men are so employed. By the same reason, the
chance will also be increased in proportion as the intellectual operations
of these men are individual, and their conclusions are suggested by the reason
of the thing, uninfluenced by the force either of compulsion or sympathy.
But, in political associations, the object of each man is to identify his
creed with that of his neighbour. We learn the Shibboleth of a party. We
dare not leave our minds at large in the field of enquiry, lest we should
arrive at some tenet disrelished by our party. We have no temptation to enquire.
Party has a more powerful tendency than perhaps any other circumstance in
human affairs to render the mind quiescent and stationary. Instead of making
each man an individual, which the interest of the whole requires, it resolves
all understandings into one common mass, and subtracts from each the varieties
that could alone distinguish him from a brute machine. Having learned the
creed of our party, we have no longer any employment for those faculties
which might lead us to detect its errors. We have arrived, in our own opinion,
at the last page of the volume of truth; and all that remains is by some
means to effect the adoption of our sentiments as the standard of right to
the whole race of mankind. The indefatigable votary of justice and truth
will adhere to a mode of proceeding the opposite of this. He will mix at
large among his species; he will converse with men of all orders and parties;
he will fear to attach himself in his intercourse to any particular set of
men, lest his thoughts should become insensibly warped, and he should make
to himself a world of petty dimensions, instead of that liberal and various
scene in which nature has permitted him to expatiate. In fine, from these
considerations it appears that associations, instead of promoting the growth
and diffusion of truth, tend only to check its accumulation, and render its
operation, as far as possible, unnatural and mischievous.
There is another circumstance to be mentioned, strongly calculated to
confirm this position. A necessary attendant upon political associations
is harangue and declamation. A majority of the members of any numerous popular
society will look to these harangues as the school in which they are to study,
in order to become the reservoirs of practical truth to the rest of mankind.
But harangues and declamation lead to passion, and not to knowledge. The
memory of the hearer is crowded with pompous nothings, with images and not
arguments. He is never permitted to be sober enough to weigh things with
an unshaken hand. It would be inconsistent with the art of eloquence to strip
the subject of every meretricious ornament. Instead of informing the understanding
of the hearer by a flow and regular progression, the orator must beware of
detail, must render everything rapid, and from time to time work up the passions
of his hearers to a tempest of applause. Truth can scarcely be acquired in
crowded halls and amidst noisy debates. Where hope and fear, triumph and
resentment, are perpetually afloat, the severer faculties of investigation
are compelled to quit the field. Truth dwells with contemplation. We can
seldom make much progress in the business of disentangling error and delusion
but in sequestered privacy, or in the tranquil interchange of sentiments
that takes place between two persons.
In every numerous association of men there will be a portion of rivalship
and ambition. Those persons who stand forward in the assembly will be anxious
to increase the number of their favourers and adherents. This anxiety will
necessarily engender some degree of art. It is unavoidable that, in thinking
much of the public, they should not be led, by this propensity, to think
much also of themselves. In the propositions they bring forward, in the subjects
they discuss, in the side they espouse of these subjects, they will inevitably
be biassed by the consideration of what will be most acceptable to their
partisans, and popular with their hearers. There is a sort of partiality
to particular men that is commendable. We ought to honour usefulness, and
adhere to worth. But the partiality which is disingenuously cultivated by
weakness on both sides is not commendable. The partiality which grows out
of a mutual surrender of the understanding, where the leader first resigns
the integrity of his judgement, that he may cherish and take advantage of
the defects of his followers, bears an unfavourable aspect upon the common
welfare. In this scene truth cannot gain; on the contrary it is forgotten,
that error, a more accommodating principle, may be exhibited to advantage,
and serve the personal ends of its professors.
Another feature attendant on collections of men meeting together for the
transaction of business is contentious dispute and long consultation about
matters of the most trivial importance. Every human being possesses, and
ought to possess, his particular mode of seeing and judging. The business
upon such occasions is to twist and distort the sense of each, so that, though
they were all different at first, they may in the end be all alike. Is any
proposition, letter, or declaration, to be drawn up in the name of the whole?
Perhaps it is confided to one man at first, but it is amended, altered and
metamorphosed, according to the fancy of many, till at last, what once perhaps
was reasonable comes out the most inexplicable jargon. Commas are to be adjusted,
and particles debated. Is this an employment for rational beings? Is this
an improvement upon the simple and inartificial scene of things, when each
man speaks and writes his mind, in such eloquence as his sentiments dictate,
and with unfettered energy; not anxious, while he gives vent to the enthusiasm
of his conceptions, lest his words should not be exactly those in which his
neighbours would equally have chosen to express themselves?
An appetite perpetually vexing the minds of political associators is that
of doing something, that their association may not fall into insignificancy.
Affairs must wait upon them, and not they wait upon affairs. They are not
content to act when some public emergence seems to require their interference,
and point out to them a just mode of proceeding; they must make the emergence
to satisfy the restlessness of their disposition. Thus they are ever at hand,
to mar the tranquillity of science, and the unshackled and unobserved progress
of truth. They terrify the rest of the community from boldness of opinion,
and chain them down to their prejudices, by the alarm which is excited by
their turbulence of character. — It should always be remembered in these
cases that all confederate action is of the nature of government, and that
consequently every argument of this work, which is calculated to display
the evils of government, and to recommend the restraining it within as narrow
limits as possible, is equally hostile to political associations. They have
also a disadvantage peculiar to themselves, as they are an obvious usurpation
upon the rights of the public, without any pretence of delegation from the
community at large.
The last circumstance to be enumerated among the disadvantages of political
association is its tendency to disorder and tumult. Nothing is more notorious
than the ease with which the conviviality of a crowded feast may degenerate
into the depredations of a riot. While the sympathy of opinion catches from
man to man, especially among persons whose passions have been little used
to the curb of judgement, actions may be determined on which the solitary
reflection of all would have rejected. There is nothing more barbarous, blood-thirsty
and unfeeling than the triumph of a mob. It should be remembered that the
members of such associations are ever employed in cultivating a sentiment
peculiarly hostile to political justice, antipathy to individuals; not a
benevolent love of equality, but a bitter and personal detestation of their
oppressors.
But, though association, in the received sense of that term, must be granted
to be an instrument of very dangerous nature, unreserved communication, especially
among persons who are already awakened to the pursuit of truth, is of no
less unquestionable advantage. There is at present in the world a cold reserve
that keeps man at a distance from man. There is an art in the practice of
which individuals communicate for ever, without anyone telling his neighbour
what estimate he forms of his attainments and character, how they ought to
be employed, and how to be improved. There is a sort of domestic tactics,
the object of which is to elude curiosity, and keep up the tenour of conversation,
without the disclosure either of our feelings or opinions. The friend of
justice will have no object more deeply at heart than the annihilation of
this duplicity. The man whose heart overflows with kindness for his species
will habituate himself to consider, in each successive occasion of social
intercourse, how that occasion may be most beneficently improved. Among the
topics to which he will be anxious to awaken attention, politics will occupy
a principal share.
Books have by their very nature but a limited operation; though, on account
of their permanence, their methodical disquisition, and their easiness of
access, they are entitled to the foremost place. The number of those who
almost wholly abstain from reading is exceedingly great. Books, to those
by whom they are read, have a sort of constitutional coldness. We review
the arguments of an "insolent innovator" with sullenness, and are
unwilling to expand our minds to take in their force. It is with difficulty
that we obtain the courage to strike into untrodden paths, and question tenets
that have been generally received. But conversation accustoms us to hear
a variety of sentiments, obliges us to exercise patience and attention, and
gives freedom and elasticity to our disquisitions. A thinking man, if he
will recollect his intellectual history, will find that he has derived inestimable
benefit from the stimulus and surprise of colloquial suggestions; and, if
he review the history of literature, will perceive that minds of great acuteness
and ability have commonly existed in a cluster.
It follows that the promoting the best interests of mankind eminently
depends upon the freedom of social communication. Let us figure to ourselves
a number of individuals who, having stored their minds with reading and reflection,
are accustomed, in candid and unreserved conversation, to compare their ideas,
suggest their doubts, examine their mutual difficulties and cultivate a perspicuous
and animated manner of delivering their sentiments. Let us suppose that their
intercourse is not confined to the society of each other, but that they are
desirous extensively to communicate the truths with which they are acquainted.
Let us suppose their illustrations to be not more distinguished by impartiality
and demonstrative clearness than by the mildness of their temper, and a spirit
of comprehensive benevolence. We shall then have an idea of knowledge as
perpetually gaining ground, unaccompanied with peril in the means of its
diffusion. Their hearers will be instigated to impart their acquisitions
to still other hearers, and the circle of instruction will perpetually increase.
Reason will spread, and not a brute and unintelligent sympathy.
Discussion perhaps never exists with so much vigour and utility as in
the conversation of two persons. It may be carried on with advantage in small
and friendly circles. Does the fewness of their numbers imply the rarity
of such discussion? Far otherwise: show to mankind, by an adequate example,
the advantages of political disquisition, undebauched by political enmity
and vehemence, and the beauty of the spectacle will soon render it contagious.
Every man will commune with his neighbour. Every man will be eager to tell,
and to hear, what the interests of all require them to know. The bolts and
fortifications of the temple of truth will be removed. The craggy steep of
science, which it was before difficult to ascend, will be levelled. Knowledge
will be generally accessible. Wisdom will be the inheritance of man, and
none will be excluded from it but by their own heedlessness and prodigality.
Truth, and above all political truth, is not hard to acquisition, but from
the superciliousness of its professors. It has been slow and tedious of improvement,
because the study of it has been relegated to doctors and civilians. It has
produced little effect upon the practice of mankind, because it has not been
allowed a plain and direct appeal to their understandings. Remove these obstacles,
render it the common property, bring it into daily use, and we may reasonably
promise ourselves consequences of inestimable value.
But these consequences are the property only of independent and impartial
discussion. If once the unambitious and candid disquisitions of enquiring
men be swallowed up in the insatiate gulf of noisy assemblies, the opportunity
of improvement is annihilated. The happy varieties of sentiment which so
eminently contribute to intellectual acuteness are lost. A fallacious uniformity
of opinion is produced, which no man espouses from conviction, but which
carries all men along with a resistless tide. Truth disclaims the alliance
of marshalled numbers.
The same qualifications belong to this subject, as before to the head
of revolutions. Though, from what has been said, it may sufficiently appear
that association is scarcely in any case to be desired, there are considerations
which should lead us sometimes to judge it with moderation and forbearance.
There is one mode according to which the benefit of mankind may best be promoted,
and which ought always to be employed. But mankind are imperfect beings.
While opinion is advancing with silent step, impatience and zeal may be expected
somewhat to outrun her progress. Associations, as a measure intrinsically
wrong, the wise man will endeavour to check and postpone, as much as he can.
But, when the crisis arrives, he will not be induced by the irregularities
of the friends of equality to remain neutral, but will endeavour to forward
her reign, as far as the nature of the case shall appear to admit. It may
even happen that, in the moment of convulsion, and the terror of general
anarchy, something in the nature of association may be indispensably connected
with the general safety. But, even granting this, it need not be prepared
beforehand. Such preparation has a tendency to wear out the expedient. In
a crisis really auspicious to public liberty, it is reason able to believe
that there will be men of character and vigour, called out on the spur of
the occasion, and by the state of political knowledge in general, who will
be adequate to the scenes they have to encounter. The soil in which such
men are to be matured is less that of action than of enquiry and instruction.
Again; there are two objects which association may propose to itself,
general reform and the remedy of some pressing and momentary evil. These
objects may be entitled to a different treatment. The first ought surely
to proceed with a leisurely step, and in all possible tranquillity. The second
appears to require somewhat more of activity. It is the characteristic of
truth to trust much to its own energy, and to resist invasion rather by the
force of conviction than of arms. The oppressed individual however seems
particularly entitled to our assistance; and this can best be afforded by
the concurrence of many. It appears reasonable that, when a man is unjustly
attacked by the whole force of the party in power, he should be countenanced
and protected by men who are determined to resist such oppressive partiality,
and prevent the rights of all from being wounded through the medium of the
individual, as far as that can be done consistently with peace and-good order.
It is probable however that every association will degenerate, and become
a mass of abuses that is suffered to perpetuate itself, or to exist longer
than is necessary, for the single and momentary purpose for which only it
can justly be instituted.
It seems scarcely necessary to add in treating this subject that the individuals
who are engaged in the transactions here censured have frequently been excited
by the best intentions, and inspired with the most liberal views. It would
be in the highest degree unjust if their undertakings should be found of
dangerous tendency, to involve the authors in indiscriminate censure for
consequences they did not foresee. But, in proportion to the purity of their
views and the soundness of their principles, it were to be desired they should
seriously reflect on the means they employ. It will be greatly to be lamented
if those who, so far as regards their intention, are among the truest friends
to the welfare of mankind should, by the injudiciousness of their conduct,
rank themselves among its practical enemies.
[ [2]]
Book I. Chap. VI; Book II, Chap. III.
[ [3]]
Book I. Chap. V; Book III, Chap.VII; Book IV, Chap. II.