rning classes. He desired 'to
abolish all dogmas and ceremonies, and to employ the clergy to give
lectures on ethics, botany, and political economy, with decent dances
and social meals for the celebration of Sunday.' Mr. Stephen, after
observing that this plan exemplifies 'the incapacity of an isolated
clique to understand the real tone of public opinion,' adds that 'it
seems to have some sense, but one would like to know whether Newman
read his article.' Our own notion would be that it is a signal
instance of shortsightedness and of insensibility, on the part of a
psychologist, to the strength and persistence of one of the most
powerful among the emotions that dominate mankind. Mill's article
proclaiming these views appeared in 1835, just at the time when the
Oxford Movement was stirring up a wave of enthusiasm for the dogmas
and ritual which he treated as obsolete and nonsensical; nor is there
anything more remarkable or unexpected in the political changes of the
last sixty years, than the discomfiture of those prophets who have
foretold the decay of all liturgies and the speedy dissolution of
ecclesiastical establishments. This phenomenon is by no means confined
to England, or even to Europe; and at the present day, when the power
of religious idealism is better understood upon wider experience, no
practical politician attempts to disregard sentiments that defy logic
and pass the understanding.

Nevertheless Utilitarianism, as represented by James Mill's 'Essay on
Government,' was attracting increased attention, and was provoking
serious alarm. It was a period of confidence in theories which have
been partly confirmed and partly contradicted by subsequent
experiences of those 'principles of human nature' in which political
speculators so unreservedly trusted. In France, some fifty years
earlier, the destructive theorist had swept all before him; in
England, while he was assaulting with effect the entrenchments of
Conservatism, he was taken in flank by the moderate reformers. Mill
had denounced the Whigs as half-hearted and even treacherous allies,
who dallied with Radicalism to conceal their nefarious design of
obtaining political mastery with the fewest concessions possible. He
relied upon universal education to qualify the masses for the
possession of an extensive franchise, and upon enlightened
self-interest to guarantee their proper use of it. Macaulay rejoined,
in the _Edinburgh Review_, that the masses might p