being that during the war-period brought on by the French revolution, there was a retrograde movement in respect of this right as in respect of other rights. A judge, in 1808, declared that "it was not to be permitted to any man to make the people dissatisfied with the Government under which he lives." But with the commencement of the long peace there began a decrease of the restraints on political speech, as of other restraints on freedom. Though Sir F. Burdett was imprisoned for condemning the inhuman acts of the troops, and Leigh Hunt for commenting on excessive flogging in the army, since that time there have practically disappeared all impediments to the public expression of political ideas. So long as he does not suggest the commission of crimes, each citizen is free to say what he pleases about any or all of our institutions: even to the advocacy of a form of government utterly different from that which exists, or the condemnation of all government.

Of course, with increasing recognition of the right of free speech there has gone increasing recognition of the right of free publication. Plato taught that censors were needful to prevent the diffusion of unauthorized doctrines. With the growth of ecclesiastical power there came the suppression of writings considered heretical. In our own country under Queen Elizabeth, books had to be officially authorized; and even the Long Parliament re-enforced that system of licensing against which Milton made his celebrated protest. But for these two centuries there has been no official censorship, save of public plays. And though many arrangements for shackling the press have since been made, yet these have gradually fallen into disuse or been repealed.

79. But in this case, as in cases already noticed, it follows from the precedence which the preservation of the society has over the claims of the individual, that such restraints may rightly be put on free speech and free publication as are needful during war to prevent the giving of

advantage to the enemy. If, as we have seen, there is ethical justification for subordinating the more important rights of the citizen to the extent requisite for successfully carrying on national defence, it of course follows that these less important rights may also be subordinated.

And here, indeed, we see again how direct is the connexion between international hostilities and the repression of individual freedom. For it is manifest that throughout civilization the repression of freedom of speech and freedom of publication, has been rigorous in proportion as militancy has been predominant; and that at the present time, in such contrasts as that between Russia and England, we still observe the relation.

After recognizing the justifiable limitations of these rights, that which it concerns us to note is that they, in common with the others severally deduced from the law of equal freedom, have come to be recognized in law as fast as society has assumed a higher form.

CHAPTER XIX.

A RETROSPECT WITH AN ADDITION.

§ 80. Where men's natures and their institutions are incongruous, there exists a force tending to produce change. Either the institutions will remould the nature or the nature will remould the institutions, or partly the one and partly the other; and eventually a more stable state will establish itself.

In our own case the action and reaction between our social arrangements and our characters, has produced a curious result. Compromise being an essential trait of the one has become agreeable to the other; so that it is not only tolerated but preferred. There has grown up a distrust of definite conclusions, and a positive aversion to system. Naturally, statesmen and citizens who, on the one hand, unite in declaring the sovereignty of the people, and who, on the other hand, dutifully write and complacently read royal speeches which address Lords and Commons as servants, and speak of the people as "my subjects," must be impatient of any demand for consistency in their political ideas. If, while they assert the right of private judgment in religious matters, they tacitly authorize parliament to maintain a creed for them, they must be restive when asked how they reconcile their theory with their practice. Hence, in presence of the many instances in which they have to accept contradictory doctrines, they become averse

to exact thinking, resent all attempts to tie them down to precise propositions, and shrink from an abstract principle with as much alarm as a servant girl shrinks from something she takes for a ghost.

An ingrained way of thinking and feeling thus generated by social conditions, is not to be changed by any amount of reasoning. Beliefs at variance with it cannot gain much acceptance. Readers in whom the separate arguments contained in foregoing chapters have failed to produce changes of opinions, will not have their opinions changed by bringing together these arguments and showing that they converge to the same conclusion. Still, before proceeding, it will be as well to show how strong are the united proofs of the propositions from which inferences are presently to be drawn.

81. We have no ethics of nebular condensation, or of sidereal movement, or of planetary evolution: the conception is not relevant to inorganic actions. Nor, when we turn to organized things, do we find that it has any relation to the phenomena of plant-life: though we ascribe to plants superiorities and inferiorities, leading to successes and failures in the struggle for existence, we do not associate with them praise and blame. It is only with the rise of sentiency in the animal world, that the subject matter of ethics originates. Hence ethics, pre-supposing animal life, and gaining an appreciable meaning as animal life assumes complex forms, must, in its ultimate nature, be expressible in terms of animal life. It is concerned with certain traits in the conduct of life, considered as good or bad respectively; and it cannot pass judgments on these traits in the conduct of life while ignoring the essential phenomena of life.

In the chapter on "Animal Ethics" this connexion was shown under its concrete form. We saw that, limiting our attention to any one species, the continuance of which is

held to be desirable, then, relatively to that species, the acts which subserve the maintenance of the individual and the preservation of the race, are classed by us as right and regarded with a certain approbation; while we have reprobation for acts having contrary tendencies. In the next chapter, treating of "Sub-human Justice," we saw that, for achievement of the assumed desirable end, a condition precedent is that each individual shall receive or suffer the good or evil results of its own nature and consequent actions. We saw, also, that throughout the lower animal world, where there exists no power by which this condition precedent can be traversed, it eventuates in survival of the fittest. And we further saw that, since this connexion between conduct and consequence is held to be just, it follows that throughout the animal kingdom what we call justice, is the ethical aspect of this biological law in virtue of which life in general has been maintained and has evolved into higher forms; and which therefore possesses the highest possible authority.

Along with the establishment of gregarious habits there arises a secondary law. When a number of individuals live in such proximity that they are severally apt to impede one another's actions, and so to prevent one another from achieving desired results; then, to avoid antagonism and consequent dispersion, their actions have to be mutually restrained: each must carry on its actions subject to the limitation that it shall not interfere with the like actions of others more than its own actions are interfered with. And we saw that among various gregarious creatures considerable observance of such restraints is displayed.

Finally, in the chapter on "Human Justice," it was shown that among men, the highest gregarious creatures, this secondary law, prefigured in a vague way among lower gregarious creatures, comes to have more pronounced, more definite, and more complex applications. Under the con