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to a particular Church. For my own part I know not how, when it is so contemplated, to escape from the impression, that when closely scrutinised it will be found to threaten the very first principles of morals; or to deny that, if universally received and applied, it would go far to destroy whatever there is of substance in moral obligation.

The essence of the doctrine is, the license to choose the less probable. Is it not, then, obvious in the first place that it overthrows the whole authority of probable evidence? No probabilist, it must be supposed, could adopt and urge the argument of Bishop Butler's Analogy for the truth of Revelation. For his opponent would at once reply by the plea that there are certain real and unsolved difficulties about the theory of religion; that these constituted a solid, even if an inferior, probability; and that he could not, on the principles of Probabilism, be blamed for vindicating the right of his natural freedom in following the negative. If the view here taken of the range and title of probable evidence be correct, it is fearful to think what must be the ultimate effects upon human knowledge, belief, and action of any doctrine which saps or overthrows its title to our obedience. I say the ultimate effects: for, when thought moves only within prescribed limits, a long time may elapse before the detail of a process is evolved, and it is the ultimate effect, in moral questions, which is the true effect. It would even seem as if any, who are, consciously or unconsciously, impairing the authority of probable evidence, must also be clearing the ground for the fell swoop of unbelief in its descent upon the earth.

Next, we are surely justified in being to the last degree suspicious of a doctrine, which sets up the liberty of man as being not only a condition of all right moral judgment, but a positive ingredient in the claim of one alternative to be preferred over another; an element of such consideration, as to give the preponderance to what would otherwise be the lighter scale. Duty is that which binds. Surely, if there is one idea more pointedly expressive than another of the character of the ethical teaching of Christianity, if there is one lesson more pointedly derivable than another from the contemplation of its model in our Blessed Lord, it is the idea and the lesson that we are to deny the claim of mere human will to be a serious ground of moral action, and to reduce it to its proper function, that of uniting itself with the will of God. This function is one of subordination: one which manifestly it never can perform, so long as it is to be recognised as something entitled to operate in determining moral choice, and yet extrinsic and additional to, and therefore separate from, His commands.

Again, what can be more unnatural, not to say more revolting, than to set up a system of rights or privileges in moral action, apart from duties? How can we, without departing from our integrity before God, allege the right of our natural freedom as sufficing to VOL. V.-No. 27. 3 P

counterbalance any, even the smallest likelihood that His will for us lies in a particular direction? Scripture, surely, gives no warrant for such a theory; nor the sense of Christian tradition; nor the worthier schools of heathen philosophy. Is it not hard to reconcile the bare statement of it with the common sense of duty and of honesty, as it belongs to our race at large? And more. Is it possible to go thus far, without going much further? It is granted and taught, not indeed that where there is an overwhelming, yet where there is a sensible and appreciable superiority of likelihood in favour of one alternative against another, there, on account and in virtue of our inclination for that which has the weaker evidence, we may choose the latter with a safe conscience. That is to say, eliminating, or excluding from the case, that portion of likelihood which is common to both alternatives, there remains behind on the one side not a great but an appreciable probability: on the other a simple predilection; and shall the latter be declared by a system of Christian ethics to outweigh the former? How is it possible, either, firstly, to establish the right of mere will to be set against presumptions of duty? or, secondly, when once that right has been arrogated, to limit, by any other than an arbitrary rule, the quantity of such presumptions of duty, which may be thus outweighed? If an ordinary inclination may outweigh so much of adverse presumption of duty, may not a bias tenfold and twentyfold stronger outweigh a little, or a good deal, more? And then, where is this slippery process to terminate? Where is the clue to this labyrinth? What will be the rights, and what the assumptions, of inclination in this matter, when it has been stimulated by the countenance of authority, and when through indulgence it has become ungovernable?

But, as our sense of the obligations of human relationship, though lower, is also less impaired than that of our duty towards God, let us illustrate the case by reference to this region. Will a license to follow the less probable alternative bear examination, when it is applied to the relative obligations which unite man with man? An enemy brings me tidings that an aged parent is in prison and at the point of death, without solace or support. The same person has before deceived and injured me. It is probable that he may be doing so again so probable that if he had communicated any piece of mere intelligence, not involving a question of conduct, it would, upon the whole, have appeared most safe not to believe the statement. Let it then even be more likely that he now speaks falsehood than truth. Will that warrant me in remaining where I am, or is it possible to treat with neglect a call which may reveal the want and extremity of a parent, without an evident, gross, and most culpable breach of filial obligation? The answer would be No; and it would be immediate and universal. And yet the case here put has been one not of greater but of inferior likelihood. How then, we may ask, by the

argument à fortiori, is it possible to apply to the regulation of our relations towards God a theory which explodes at the first instant when it is tested by perhaps the deepest among all the original instincts of our nature?

It is indeed true that the doctrine of Probabilism is guarded by two conditions. The first is, that it is to apply only to questions of right, not to those, as I find it expressed, where both fact and right are involved. The question of the validity of a sacrament is not to be tried by it; and 'de même, un médecin est tenu de donner les remèdes les plus éprouvés, et un juge les décisions les plus sûres.' 19 But this reservation appears rather to weaken, than to strengthen, the case. Is it not sometimes difficult to decide on the validity of a sacred rite? Do the judge and the physician never doubt? Why are the rules for the investigation of truth which bind them, otherwise than obligatory on other personal conduct? Is not the foundation of duty to others strictly and immutably one with the foundation of duty to our own selves? Again, obligation to a fellow-creature cannot be stronger than obligation to our Father in heaven; therefore, if the liberty of a man is a good plea against a doubtful command of God, why may it not equally warrant a doubtful wrong to a patient or a suitor? if it be good in that part of our relations to God, which embraces the immediate communion of the soul with Him, why not also in that other part, when the intercourse is through the medium of holy rites? It is not difficult to see that neither the Church, nor civil society, could bear without derangement the application of Probabilism to the relations between them and the individual. But then it is more than ever difficult to conceive how such a relaxation of the moral law is to be justified, and that, moreover, in the department of conduct which is inward, in which we are our own judges, and in which therefore we may even have need to be aided against temptation by a peculiar strictness of rule.

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The other limitation of the doctrine is, that the probability we are to follow, though inferior to that of the competing alternative, must be intrinsically a solid one: and must not be glaringly, though it may be sensibly, inferior to the opposing argument. Quoique, comparativement à la probabilité contraire, la vôtre soit inférieure, il faut qu'elle soit, absolument parlant, grave, et solide, et digne d'un homme prudent; comme une montagne relativement à une autre peut être plus petite, mais néanmoins être en soi, et absolument, une assez grande masse pour mériter le nom de montagne.' 20 And this doctrine is supported by the very strange reason," that it is more easy to determine whether the probability in favour of a given alternative belong to the class of solid or of faint and inadmissible probabilities, than whether it be greater or less than the probability in favour of some other alternative. This proposition is one which 20 Ibid. p. 75. 21 Ibid. p. 86.

19 Manuel des Confesseurs, p. 74.

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requires to borrow support, rather than one which can afford to lend it. To me it has the sound of egregious paradox. However difficult it may sometimes be to compare the reasons adducible in support of opposite alternatives, the line between them, it is evident, can rarely be finer and more hair-drawn than that which is to distinguish, in the technical order, the general traits of a faint from those of a solid probability.

But upon the doctrine itself let me record, in concluding, these three remarks. In the first place, the cases are innumerable in which there is evidence in favour of a given alternative, which would amount to a solid, aye a very solid probability, if it stood alone: if it were not overthrown by evidence on the opposite side. But if we are to regard it absolutely, and not relatively, we must on this account fall into constant error. Secondly to know that our duty is to follow the safest and best alternative, is at least to possess a determinate rule, and one eminently acceptable to a sound conscience; one which gives us a single and intelligible end for our efforts, though the path of duty is not always, even for the single eye, easy to discern. It becomes a tangled path indeed, with the aid of Probabilism, which requires the decision of at least two questions: first, whether the alternative which it is meant to follow has a solid, not a feeble, probability in its favour; secondly, whether the alternative to be discarded has a notable and conspicuous, or only a limited and moderate, superiority over it. For the step cannot, by hypothesis, be taken until both these questions have been determined. In the third place, it is painful to recollect that when we are dealing with the most difficult parts of duty, those which we transact within ourselves, the appetite for self-indulgence should be pampered by encouragement from without. We are already apt enough to conjure into solid probabilities the veriest phantasms of the mind, provided only they present an agreeable appearance. Here is a premium set upon this process alike dangerous and alluring. The known subtlety of those mental introspections excuses many failures in those who do not create their own embarrassments; but for those who do, such a system appears capable of colouring error, which might have been blameless, with the darker hues of wilfulness and guilt.

W. E. GLADStone.

THE

NINETEENTH

CENTURY.

No. XXVIII.-JUNE 1879.

HOW SHALL WE RETAIN THE

COLONIES?

In a former article in this Review I remarked that the practical abdication of authority over the colonies by the Imperial Government and Parliament had produced evils in more than one branch of their administration, and especially in their commercial legislation. I propose now to enter somewhat more fully into this subject, and I shall endeavour to show that there was no good reason for relinquishing the control which till of late the Imperial Parliament had always maintained over the commercial policy of the colonies, and that its ceasing to exercise that control has proved injurious to the colonies themselves as well as to the mother country.

No one doubts that the interests of both have suffered from the` restrictions imposed upon trade by almost all commercial nations under the name of protective duties. The injury they inflict upon us by excluding British produce from what would otherwise be profitable markets is what attracts most notice, but they are in reality even more hurtful to us by diminishing the power of the nations which impose such duties to supply us with various articles we might purchase from them with advantage. Great complaints are made of these duties by our merchants and manufacturers, but little notice has been taken of the fact that the commercial policy: our colonies have of late been allowed to pursue unchecked has had much influence in encouraging other nations in adhering to the vicious system of what is called protection. Yet a little consideration VOL. V.-No. 28.

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