bject to all religious
sects, this defect could not be remedied.

Southey, in fact, held that the absence of religious discipline was at
the root of the whole evil. Religion, he declares, much to the scorn
of Macaulay, 'is the basis upon which civil government rests.'[168]
There must, as he infers, be an established religion, and the state
which neglects this duty is preparing its own ruin. 'Nothing,' he
declares, 'in abstract science can be more certain than these
propositions,' though they are denied by 'our professors of the arts
babblative and scribblative'--that is, by Benthamites and Whigs. For
here, in fact, we come to the irreconcilable difference. Government is
not to be a mere machinery for suppressing violence, but an ally of
the church in spreading sound religion and morality. The rulers,
instead of merely reflecting the popular will, should lead and direct
all agencies for suppressing vice and misery. Southey, as his son
takes pains to show,[169] though he was for upholding authority by the
most stringent measures, was convinced that the one way to make
government strong was to improve the condition of the people. He
proposed many measures of reform; national education on the
principles, of course, of Dr. Bell; state-aided colonisation and the
cultivation of waste lands at home; Protestant sisterhoods to
reproduce the good effects of the old order which he regretted and yet
had to condemn on Anglican principles. The English church should have
made use of the Wesleyans as the church of Rome had used the
Franciscans and Dominicans; and his _Life of Wesley_ was prompted by
his fond belief that this might yet be done. Government, he said,
ought to be 'paternal';[170] and his leading aspirations have been
adopted by Socialists on the one hand, and the converts to Catholicism
on the other.

For his philosophy, Southey was in the habit of referring to
Coleridge; and Coleridge's _Constitution of Church and State_ is
perhaps the book in which Coleridge comes nearest to bringing an
argument to a conclusion. Though marked by his usual complexities of
style, his parentheses and irrelevant allusions and glances at wide
metaphysical discussions, he succeeds in laying down a sufficient
sketch of his position. The book was originally published in 1830, and
refers to the Catholic emancipation of the previous year. Unlike
Southey, he approves of the measure, only regretting the absence of
certain safeguards; and his gener