ll,
very unpromising things, that modern science has come to be what it is.
There is a story of a great chemist who said he owed half his fame to
his habit of examining after his experiments, what was going to be
thrown away: everybody knew the result of the experiment itself, but in
the refuse matter there were many little facts and unknown changes,
which suggested the discoveries of a famous life to a person capable of
looking for them. So with the special notions of neglected classes.
They may contain elements of truth which, though small, are the very
elements which we now require, because we already know all the rest.

This doctrine was well known to our ancestors. They laboured to give a
CHARACTER to the various constituencies, or to many of them. They
wished that the shipping trade, the wool trade, the linen trade, should
each have their spokesman; that the unsectional Parliament should know
what each section in the nation thought before it gave the national
decision. This is the true reason for admitting the working classes to
a share in the representation, at least as far as the composition of
Parliament is to be improved by that admission. A great many ideas, a
great many feelings have gathered among the town artisans--a peculiar
intellectual life has sprung up among them. They believe that they have
interests which are misconceived or neglected; that they know something
which others do not know; that the thoughts of Parliament are not as
their thoughts. They ought to be allowed to try to convince Parliament;
their notions ought to be stated as those of other classes are stated;
their advocates should be heard as other people's advocates are heard.
Before the Reform Bill, there was a recognised machinery for that
purpose. The member for Westminster, and other members, were elected by
universal suffrage (or what was in substance such); those members did,
in their day, state what were the grievances and ideas--or were thought
to be the grievances and ideas--of the working classes. It was the
single, unbending franchise introduced in 1832 that has caused this
difficulty, as it has others.

Until such a change is made the House of Commons will be defective,
just as the House of Lords was defective. It will not LOOK right. As
long as the Lords do not come to their own House, we may prove on paper
that it is a good revising chamber, but it will be difficult to make
the literary argument felt. Just so, as long as a