is there which any one is prevented from doing, either by law or by public opinion, which any sensible person would wish to do? The true answer to this is that thirteen years ago a certain number of persons were, to a certain extent, deterred from expressing a disbelief in common religious opinions by the consciousness that their views were unpopular, and that the expression of them might injure their prospects in life. I have already said what I had to say on this, and need not return to it. As to legislation intended to discourage vice, I do not believe that any one would succeed in getting himself listened to if he were to say plainly, 'I admit that this measure will greatly discourage and diminish drunkenness and licentiousness. I also admit that it will involve no cruelty, no interference with privacy-nothing that can in itself be described as an inadequate price for the promotion of sobriety or chastity. I oppose it on the broad, plain ground, that if people like to get drunk and to lead dissolute lives, no one else ought to interfere. I advocate liberty-to wit, the liberty of a set of lads and girls to get drunk of an evening at a particular house of entertainment specially provided for that and other purposes; and though I own that that evil can be prevented by fining the person who keeps the house 57, the sacred principles of liberty forbid it, at least as regards people over twenty-one. Virtue up to twentyone knows no compromise, but we must draw the line somewhere, and when the twenty-first birthday

is passed liberty claims her prey, and I concede the demand. 'Fiat libertas ruat justitia.' I think the public would say to such a speech, You and liberty may settle the matter as you please, but we see our way to a measure which will do no harm to any one, and which will keep both young fools and old fools out of harm's way. If freedom does not like it, let her go and sit on the heights self-gathered in her prophet mind, and send the fragments of her mighty voice rolling down the wind. She will be better employed in spouting poetry on the rocks of the Matterhorn than in patronizing vice on the flags of the Haymarket.

CHAPTER V.

EQUALITY.

THE second great article of the modern creed which I have undertaken to examine is Equality. It is at once the most emphatic and the least distinct of the three doctrines of which that creed is composed. It may mean that all men should be equally subject to the laws which relate to all. It may mean that law should be impartially administered. It may mean that all the advantages of society, all that men have conquered from nature, should be thrown into one common stock, and equally divided amongst them. It may be, and I think it is in a vast number of cases, nothing more than a vague expression of envy on the part of those who have not against those who have, and a vague aspiration towards a state of society in which there should be fewer contrasts than there are at present between one man's lot and another's. All this is so vague and unsatisfactory that it is difficult to reduce it to a form definite enough for discussion. It is impossible to argue against a sentiment otherwise than by repeating commonplaces which are not likely to con

vince those to whom they are addressed if they require convincing, and which are not needed by those who are convinced already.

In order to give colour and distinctness to what is to be said on the one side, it is necessary to find distinct statements on the other. The clearest statement of the doctrine of equality with which I am acquainted is to be found in Bentham's 'Principles of Morals and Legislation.' It consists principally of an expansion of the principle that a given quantity of the material of happiness will produce the largest amount of actual happiness when it is so divided that each portion of it bears the largest possible ratio to the existing happiness of those to whom it is given. This, however, is subject to the remark that you may cut it up so small that the parts are worthless. To give a hundred pounds apiece to ten people, each of whom possesses a hundred pounds, doubles the wealth of ten people. To give a thousand pounds to a man who has already a thousand pounds doubles the wealth of only one person. To give a farthing to every one of 960,000 persons is to waste 1,000l. This argument no doubt shows that in so far as happiness depends on the possession of wealth by persons similarly situated in other respects, it is promoted rather by a general high level of comfort than by excessive accumulations of wealth in individual hands; but this is really a barren truth. It

* Dumont's Traités de Législation, vol. i. p. 180-191, ed. 1830.

might be important if some benefactor of the human race were to wake one morning with his pockets stuffed full of money which he wished to distribute so as to produce a maximum of enjoyment, but it has very little relation to the state of the world as we know it. Moreover, Bentham's whole conception of happiness as something which could, as it were, be served out in rations, is open to great objection, though his way of using it gave extraordinary force and distinctness to his views on many important topics.

Upon this subject Mr. Mill has put forward a theory which, if not quite so simple or so perfectly distinct as his view about liberty, admirably serves the purposes of discussion. The parts of his writings to which I refer are part of the chapter in his essay on Utilitarianism (ch. v.) On the Connection between Justice and Utility,' and the whole of his work on the Subjection of Women. Though these passages can hardly be said to give a definite theory of equality, which, indeed, was not the object with which they were written, they form a powerful and striking expression and, so to speak, condensation of a popular sentiment which in France and perhaps in some other countries is in these days more powerful than that which is inspired either by liberty or by fraternity.

Mr. Mill's views on this subject, then, seem to be as follows. Having considered other matters connected with Utilitarianism (to some of which I