diverse, but upon a single "percept," all else remaining the same, the causal principle would have been satisfied at the first and purely physical stage. And should the dynamics of science ever succeed in resolving separate natural forces into more comprehensive terms, till some one embraced them all, that one would fulfil all the required conditions, without having taken up any of the spiritual attributes of God. The only way to avoid this consequence, is to make all Causality homogeneous, and identify it with Will; to show that, in its psychological essence, Cause means Will; that the psychological law of Causality, therefore, requires Will; that the notion of Force is an artifice of abstraction, made by expelling the spiritual element, or neglecting it, for mere purposes of computation and prediction of phenomena. In this way the principle of Causality is, rather than contains, the principle of Theism, and no second step has to be taken. Mr. Thompson, however, after reaching the one Infinite Cause, has to trust to the theological argument, to turn that Cause into Mind or intelligent Spirit; that is, he excludes other sorts of causation, by pointing to design, which is the special characteristic of this. 66 Design," however, (which means end-in-view,) is not a phenomenon that can be observed or exhibited at all; it is an invisible mental fact that may be supposed or inferred, in order to explain visible relations and successions; but to mention it as in Nature, is simply to assume it as behind Nature. All that can be perceived is Order; and it is not clear to us how any one, who once admits the reality of secondary or physical forces, can maintain that they may be known by this mark, that they produce disorder, while mind produces order; so that the presence of order excludes them, and indicates mind. What effects, other than orderly, do the so-called "physical forces" produce? Are they not detected precisely by tracking the analogies and unravelling the tangle of phenomena? And are not their "laws " simply our record of their method of order? If any Causations, other than mental and personal, be once admitted as real in the universe, the security of Theism, we must think, is fatally compromised. These, however, are abstruse metaphysical questions, and would have called for little remark, had Mr. Thompson thrown a preponderant strength into the moral side of the argument, and adequately interpreted the surmises of Conscience into a revelation of a holy God. But this part of his subject, though entered upon with the right clue in hand-of human free will and natural consciousness of moral distinctions, is less impressively treated than the more purely intellectual evidences in the first volume. The author seems to us not to be of one clear mind with himself in dealing with moral theory; for while he attributes character to God, and strongly insists on His holiness; he yet speaks of the Divine Nature as being that on which the law of right rests; and says that agreement with His Nature is that which constitutes truth,-disagreement with His Nature, that which makes a lie. (I. 333.) It is plain, moral qualities cannot be the predicates of One who, whatever He be, constitutes them by being what He is. We cannot but think that, if Mr. Thompson

K K

had surrendered his mind to the treatment of Natural Religion alone, he would have seized and held ethical truth with a firmer grasp. But he had before him the task of taking up into one organism with his philosophy, a scheme of dogma of which it is impossible to render any moral account; and, in order to keep room for his special theology, constant resort must be had to the principle that right and wrong may be one thing in man, and another in God; and, therefore, we must abstain from forming any moral estimate of what the creeds ascribe to God. The author's scriptural theology is presented in the boldest way; the usual doctrinal list,-Adam first sinless, then fallen; hereditary depravity, and universal damnation; atonement by the sacrificial blood of the incarnate Son of God; eternal punishment of those who are not saved. These doctrines are invested with no life; they apparently never have given him any trouble; he shows not the faintest passing appreciation of any suffering or scruple from them; but deals with them in a hard external way, as given propositions which his logic has to manipulate as best it may. Those who, with the best modern interpreters of the English church, revolt from the "hereditary taint on Adam's posterity," as neither credible nor scriptural,-who find in the words, sacrifice,' or 'satisfaction,' or 'exhibition of Divine justice,' "the moment they pierce beneath the meaning, something which is irreconcileable with the truth and holiness of God,"t-are kept at a distance as "infidels," and desired not to sit in judgment on God. We do not think that an author whose ideas of revelation are, that "God used to converse with men in visible form," (II. 162) -who holds to the Mosaic chronology, (II. 257), and to the accounts of the Deluge and the Tower of Babel as historical, (II. 268),—is entitled to assume the harsh tone of superiority which characterizes his book, towards the class of men whom, we presume, he wishes to persuade; and especially towards a writer from whom, in more genial temper, he might, without any compromise, learn so much, intellectually and morally, as Mr. Newman.

6

• See Jowett's" Essay on the Imputation of Adam's Sin." Epistles of Paul, vol. ii. p. 162.

+ Ibid.

"Essay on the Doctrine of Atonement,” vol. ii. p. 474.

[The remainder of our quarterly Summary of Theology and Philosophy is

unavoidably deferred.]

ART. XI.-SUMMARY OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY AND ECONOMY.

"The Limited Liability Act, with Observations and Notes, by Charles Wordsworth."* This edition of the late measure on limited liability is specially intended for lawyers, but from circumstances contains observations suited to a more extensive circle.

The origin of the measure is not one to which it is pleasant to recur. There have, we think, been few occasions upon which, in this country, the admirers of free government have had so much reason to feel doubt and distrust. The question was great; the arguments on either side fit for popular statement; all intelligent men interested;-yet the discussion in Parliament was poor; the speeches in favour, rambling; those against, narrow and confused. The Act which was at last passed, was passed in a hurry; omits the most interesting part of the subject; was only pressed through the Upper House by an allegation that many persons were waiting for it to invest much money: has little purpose except to enable numerous capitalists to invest considerable funds. The rest of the subject was hastily postponed.

The measure as it now stands can indeed scarcely be considered as containing a principle new to the law. By the previous legisla tion, the Board of Trade had power to license companies to engage in commerce with an exemption from unlimited liability. By the present law, the conditions of obtaining the privilege are made statutory; the discretion is superseded; any company can obtain a limitation of liability on stated terms. The Act, therefore, is in the nature of a Parliamentary Charter to particular companies, and scarcely embodies a new maxim of legislation.

The promise of the government to deal next year with the remainder of the question, and especially to enable individual lenders to individual persons to obtain a limitation of their liability, without the machinery of a joint-stock company, still gives an interest to the recent pamphlets on the subject.

The most remarkable of these published† during the present quarter is that of Mr. Potter. It is not, indeed, on what we think the right side; nor does it embody with skilful diligence everything which may be said on the wrong side; but it is written with an evident knowledge of the scene of action; expresses the thoughtful results of attentive observation; and as may be expected from * W. G. Benning and Co.

This pamphlet, we believe, was anonymously printed a short time previously. Its exact title is, "Practical Opinions against Partnership with Limited Liability," by Edmund Potter. John Chapman.

this description, states at least one plain difficulty which it is necessary to remove.

"If," says he, "limited liability is to be conceded, I conceive it would be just to capital, and to individual owners, that such capital ought to be placed on the same footing as joint stock, in fact only liable for its own amount. Let A. B. give notice that he is going to trade with £5000 in a particular concern, and for that amount only ought that business to be liable; thus you would remove all restriction;-refuse this, and you keep a restriction on individual capital, (but not on subdivided,) certainly not compatible with the Economist's theory of freedom in partnership.”

"I say," he adds, "treat all capital alike (admitting exceptional cases in regard to charters); make it all responsible. You cannot do this, as I have stated, if you absolve one £5000 because it is merely cut up into shares, and at the same time refuse like immunity because another £5000 is worked by an individual. Admit other systems, and you hold out a premium to irresponsibility, you encourage a moral cowardice, a shifting of risk, in contest with full fair responsibility; not, at all events, consistent with my ideas of political and economical fairness."

The answer to this is, that the apparent inequality arises from the nature of things. Consider the state of the old law. If the directors of an insurance company inserted (as they always did, and indeed, since the new Act does not extend to insurance companies, will still be obliged to insert) a stipulation into their policies, that neither they, nor any other shareholder in the company, should be liable for more than its capital stock, the law would have enforced the contract. The fund out of which payment was to be made was defined; the machinery of a joint-stock company secures its being separated from the other funds of the shareholders; kept apart from them by the appointment of auditors, really invested in their business. The law, therefore, when an express contract was made to look only to that fund, could and would enforce that contract. But if an individual were to give the notice which Mr. Potter supposes, there would be no real fund to be found. Nobody could tell that the £5000 ever was in the business-was ever separated from the trader's other funds; had ever an existence at all. It is of the essence of an agreement to restrict our demands to a specific fund, that the fund in question should be specifically held to meet those demands. There is no reciprocity, otherwise, in the bargain; if we agree to look to £5000, the £5000 should be really kept for us to look to. In the case Mr. Potter supposes, if the liabilities of the special business were only £2500, yet those who had made the contract which he imagines might never receive £250. The other liabilities of the trader might be enormous: it would be impossible to say what £5000 of his property was to be specially kept for the £5000 creditors: they would have no claim in rem to compensate for their relinquishment of their claim against the person and general funds of the trader. The law would set the agreement aside as unilateral and impracticable. The same principle applies when the limitation of liability results from legislative permission, and not from express and verbal agreement. It is abso

lutely necessary before parties, one or many, should claim to restrict their liability to a particular capital, that they must so fix and isolate that capital, as to ensure its being solely, or at least, in preference, liable to those demands. This, and not any desire to treat individual capital unfairly, is the ground of the inequality to which Mr. Potter objects. So anxious has the legislature been to carry out this principle, and strictly define and keep apart the special funds of the limited company, that it has enacted, that "no note or obligation given by any shareholder to the company whereof he is a shareholder, whether secured by any pledge or otherwise, shall be considered a payment of any money due from him on account of any share held by him, and no loan of money shall be made by any such company to any shareholder therein :"-that if the directors pay dividends out of capital, they should be personally liable to the extent to which they have done so:-that an auditor shall be nominated by the Board of Trade, to see that the accounts are duly kept, and the provisions of the Act observed. It would be impossible to make parallel stipulations in the case of an individual.

A great deal of severe criticism has been applied to the Act, for its inapplicability to the case of the working classes. Apparently in this spirit Mr. Wordsworth writes:

"The company is still to be formed and regulated under the 7 & 8 Vict. c. 110; and every one familiar with joint-stock companies knows how troublesome and intricate the provisions of that statute are. The machinery is not suited to work a small capital. The minimum capital of a company with limited liability is £250. No solicitor would undertake to establish a company, taking all preliminary steps, preparing the deed of settlement, &c., for a sum less than £100, at the lowest estimate. If, then, it is desired to form a company with the minimum capital of £250, there is at once an absorption of two-fifths of the company's funds before it can begin to work! What can be more absurd? And this on the supposition that all the shares are paid up; whereas the statute only calls for 20 per cent. to be paid by the shareholders before a certificate of limited liability is granted; that is, £50 on the £250! It follows, that a company having a small capital cannot be economically established. This objection may be added to the one already stated-that the machinery is not suited to work a small capital."

We have little sympathy with these objections. So far as the necessary provisions for registration, &c. of joint stock companies can be made cheaper, so much the better-the less is the friction of our industrial machinery. But, so far as the working classes are concerned, the tendency of the times is rather to afford them artificial facilities by incomplete formalities, than to restrict their rights by complexity of legislation. We would not tolerate needless encumbrances on the incorporation of associations of any class; but we would not give the working-classes a hair's-breadth of special facility. In the first place, it is very doubtful whether it will be of real advantage to them. There is much force in Mr. Potter's observation:—