X.

AUTHORITY IN THE SPHERE OF

CONDUCT AND INTELLECT.

[INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS, II. (1892) 217-231.]

MR. LESLIE STEPHEN, in an article on 'Cardinal Newman's Scepticism,' recently published in the Nineteenth Century (1891, p. 188), says that the word 'authority' may mean two different things. Authority, when I speak as a historian or a man of science, is a name for evidence. Authority, as used by a lawyer, is a name for coercion, whether physical or moral.'

I propose to use the word 'authority' in the sense of the power which, in the sphere of conduct, in the long run determines our practice, and in the sphere of intellect in the long run determines our assent; admitting, at the same time, that the two spheres are by no means always distinct in human life as we know it.

It is not necessary for me to say a word on the importance of this subject, either in itself or in reference to the present time. Every one who observes human life at all must acknowledge that the desire for authoritative guidance is one of the most universal desires which men experience and express; and that the feeling of loyalty or devotion to the persons or institutions to whom, or to which, a man owes anything of his better life is, of all feelings, one of the noblest

AUTHORITY IN THE SPHERE OF CONDUCT, ETC. 219

and the most commanding. This is true at all times and in all places, but at the present time the desire is felt to be especially urgent, because it is in so many cases unsatisfied. We live in a time of widely-diffused intellectual activitywidely-diffused, I say advisedly and with emphasis, rather than deep or penetrating. A main consequence of this fact is that there are as many claimants for authority as there are moral and intellectual aspirations demanding it.

The desire for authoritative guidance may be observed to exist in two different forms, and issue in two different results, according to the moral constitution of the persons anxious to satisfy it. In this relation, human beings may be roughly divided into two classes: those who are capable of forming convictions, and those who are not. This division does not, it need hardly be said, correspond with the line of mere intellectual cleavage; it is not a division into clever people and stupid people. The capacity of forming convictions is a sign of power, but not exactly of intellectual power. On the other hand, great intellectual capacity, great versatility of talent, and manifold insight into things, need not imply any faculty of forming a real conviction. These gifts may serve no purpose but that of intensifying a sceptical tendency.

The history of human thought and action varies as either of these types of mind has, at any given time, the predominance. To the former class are due, in large measure, the great and sincere and constructive movements which re-awaken the moral forces which inspire society and social life. The demand of those minds for authority is answered by the moral passion which moves them; the rule which they set up is the embodiment of their own love of truth. The latter class form their convictions, or what stands for their convictions, upon scepticism, and thus tend to look for and find their authority, or governing principle, in mere force. Nothing is true, they say or think; the human intellect is impotent; therefore, let the majority of mankind with its traditional institutions, its received opinions and conventions, be our deity.

Weary of reason, or disappointed at the results of its efforts, they fall back for guidance on the irrational elements in life.

It has long seemed to me that during the last quarter of a century we have been suffering under what I venture to call a disorder of this kind'. The intellectual tendency of this period has been towards laborious collection of facts in the special spheres of particular sciences, natural and historical. Little, if anything, however, of first-rate importance, even in effort and intention, has been produced in the way of comprehensive thinking. John Stuart Mill is dead; Lotze is dead; Herbert Spencer is an old man, and who is to succeed him? The tone of literature, where it is not merely dull or conventional or sentimental, is that of a moody pessimism, or, at best, a clever and impatient scepticism. The danger of a reaction against the true liberal spirit, by which I mean the spirit of free mental and moral effort, is a real one. In the highest of all spheres, that of morals and religion, we are now face to face with a tendency to rest in half-beliefs, to decry the effort of real thinking as a superannuated folly, to accept traditional opinions as if, because traditional, they represented accom. plished facts; in short, to found a system of orthodoxy and conservatism upon scepticism and distrust.

Yet liberalism, or the movement in favour of mental and moral freedom, though not so powerfully represented in England as it was some thirty years ago, is no less vital in its essential characteristics. Its leading representatives at that time were John Stuart Mill and Thomas Carlyle. There were certain weaknesses or limitations in the teaching of both these great men which have tended to impair the permanency of its force. Neither, so far as I know, succeeded in giving

1 This sceptical tendency seems to have begun, in the nineteenth century, with Joseph de Maistre, who characteristically opens his defence of the principle of authority with an attack upon Locke. But it has assumed various forms, and is very differently represented, for instance, by de Maistre, by John Henry Newman, and by recent popular writers such as W. H. Mallock.

a thoroughly satisfactory answer to the question which I am endeavouring to discuss.

Mill's contribution to the movement which he represented seems to have been twofold, lying partly in the moral force and concentration of the man himself, partly in his protest against existing authority in those cases in which it appeared to him to embody injustice. His Essay on Liberty, published in 1859, is a masterly exposition of his principles. It is a noble protest against the tyranny of society and legislation, but, as it stands, will seem incomplete to minds which require the statement of some positive principle which, whatever its embodiment, is to take the place of society and legislation.

Carlyle, who felt more strongly than Mill did where the weak side of contemporary liberalism lay, made a real attempt to set up a positive authority in the shape of the great men of history. Perhaps, if Mill had been asked the question, he would have answered that men ought to be content with the simple love of loving-kindness,' and to ask for no further light. This would probably have appeared to Carlyle an inadequate, if not a sentimental, answer. However this may be, there seems to be no doubt that Carlyle set himself seriously to inquire what had been the ruling force in human history, and to have found the answer in the characters and actions, much more the characters than the actions, of great men. But he executed his task in too crude and hasty a manner, and though, as I believe, he struck upon the right path, he did not succeed in satisfying his age. His action was too much confined to asserting the greatness of great men ; in what that greatness consisted, and where its permanent influence lay, he does not seem to me to have asked with sufficient seriousness.

In this brief and fragmentary article I shall make no pretence of treating the subject exhaustively, or even thoroughly. I shall attempt only so much as is possible to one who lives outside the serious study of philosophy, and who can do nothing but record his observations on the facts of modern

civilized society as they have presented themselves to him. Starting from the point of view of liberalism, and speaking in complete sympathy with its principle and tendency, I would ask whether it is not possible, after all, for its representatives to take up a more positive ground than was occupied by the liberal philosopher of thirty years ago. I shall first ask what are the chief existing seals of authority recognized by modern society in the spheres of conduct and intellect; and then inquire whether any common and permanent principle can be discovered which underlies them all.

Roughly speaking, one may distinguish four different kinds of authority, which, although mutually connected, and indeed inseparable, in fact, suggest convenient landmarks to guide us in the discussion. These are (1) the authority of law, (2) the authority of religious bodies, (3) the authority of society or public opinion, (4) the authority of great men.

Do these various authorities rest upon any permanent principle? If so, on what? and why is the principle permanent?

I shall try to show, in answer, that the permanent element of authority, in all of them, is the moral feeling or conviction of the society which they affect; that where they are imperfect, or transitory, there they fall short of, or imperfectly represent, this moral feeling; that the authority of no one set of laws, of no one religious body, of no one society, of no one man, can be permanent; that at any given time the only absolute authority for the individual is his conscience, or his free moral conviction; but where this gives an uncertain answer, which it seldom does, recourse must be had to the moral feeling of mankind; or, failing that, to the moral feeling of the society to which he feels himself morally most nearly attached; that the cases of conflict, so arising, are inevitable, owing to the fact that the moral vision of every individual and every society is limited; but that the conflict is the means by which the moral force is asserting itself, and struggling for harmonious expression; that the conflict tends to a balance of moral forces and an ultimate agreement.