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Lecture Three: Democracy Challenged by Carlyle (in Past and

Present (Chapter XI: Democracy) and Taught by John Stuart Mill (in Bentham",
"Coleridge" and On Liberty - chapters II and III see also Contributions I, 88-89): The
Passage from Tantrum to Deliberative Prose in the Victorian Essay; understanding the
new liberal paradigm as a conception with rational principles and practices
(Contributions I, 92-94 and 95-96) (c).
http://books.google.ro/books?
id=ClE9AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA260&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false
(to see Carlyles portrait)
1. Part Three of Thomas Carlyles Past and Present (1840) treats democracy as
an annoying object of derision (compare this passage with Sartor Resartus,
The Everlasting Yea) and preaches instead the authoritarian rule by the
meritocracy
'You cannot walk the streets without beholding Democracy announce
itself: the very Tailor has become, if not properly Sansculottic,
which to him would be ruinous, yet a Tailor unconsciously symbolising,
and prophesying with his scissors, the reign of Equality. What now is
our fashionable coat?

Carlyle deconstructs (dismantles with a critical eye, in order to reconstruct on another level) the notion of
democracy. It is defined as 'the liberty of not being oppressed by your fellow man.
Carlyle considers it an indispensable, yet one of the most insignificant fractional
parts of Human Liberty. Carlyle considers that man is enthralled by his own brutal appetites:
Thou art the thrall not of Cedric the Saxon, but of thy own brutal appetites
and this scoured dish of liquor. And thou pratest of thy 'liberty'? Thou
entire blockhead!//Heavy-wet and gin: alas, these are not the only kinds of
thraldom.[] thou art_ as an 'enchanted Ape' under God's sky, where thou
mightest have been a man, had proper Schoolmasters and Conquerors, and
Constables with cat-o'-nine tails,been vouchsafed thee;
Liberty? The true liberty of a man, you would say, consisted in his
finding out, or being forced to find out the right path, and to walk
thereon. To learn, or to be taught, what work he actually was able
for; and then by permission, persuasion, and even compulsion, to set
about doing of the same! That is his true blessedness, honour,
'liberty' and maximum of wellbeing: if liberty be not that, I for one
have small care about liberty. You do not allow a palpable madman to
leap over precipices; you violate his liberty, you that are wise; and
keep him, were it in strait-waistcoats, away from the precipices!
Every stupid, every cowardly and foolish man is but a less palpable
madman: his true liberty were that a wiser man, that any and every
wiser man, could, by brass collars, or in whatever milder or sharper
way, lay hold of him when he was going wrong, and order and compel him
to go a little righter. O, if thou really art my _Senior_, Seigneur,
my _Elder_, Presbyter or Priest,--if thou art in very deed my _Wiser_,
may a beneficent instinct lead and impel thee to 'conquer' me, to
command me! If thou do know better than I what is good and right, I
conjure thee in the name of God, force me to do it; were it by never

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such brass collars, whips and handcuffs, leave me not to walk over
precipices! That I have been called, by all the Newspapers, a 'free
man' will avail me little, if my pilgrimage have ended in death and
wreck. O that the Newspapers had called me slave, coward, fool, or
what it pleased their sweet voices to name me, and I had attained not
death, but life!--Liberty requires new definitions.

2. John Stuart Mills utilitarian lessons in democracy: meant to secure the

greatest CIVIC happiness of the greatest numbers
2.1.
The principles which inform the Liberty of the Press explained in On
Liberty, Chapter II: Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion; the logic of
truth in Mills essays Bentham and Coleridge as a complement to the
examples provided in On Liberty chapter II
THE TIME, it is to be hoped, is gone by, when any defence would be necessary of
the "liberty of the press" as one of the securities against corrupt or tyrannical
government. No argument, we may suppose, can now be needed, against
permitting a legislature or an executive, not identified in interest with the people, to
prescribe opinions to them, and determine what doctrines or what arguments they
shall be allowed to hear.
the same emphasis, in Mills text, on the liberty of actual people/individuals, as in
Carlyles plea:
Let us suppose, therefore, that the government is entirely at one with the people,
and never thinks of exerting any power of coercion unless in agreement with what it
conceives to be their voice. But I deny the right of the people to exercise such
coercion, either by themselves or by their government. The power itself is
illegitimate. The best government has no more title to it than the worst. (the liberal
creed, the idea of modern democracy, cf. later in the lecture-plan and earlier in
time , John Henry Newmans The Idea of a University ) It is as noxious, or more
noxious, when exerted in accordance with public opinion, than when in opposition
to it. If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of
the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one
person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.
Mill proceeded to explain what happened in two cases when a mans opinion was silenced:
the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the
human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from
the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are
deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what

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is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth,
produced by its collision with error.
.
First: the opinion which it is attempted to suppress by authority may possibly be
true. Those who desire to suppress it, of course deny its truth; but they are not
infallible. They have no authority to decide the question for all mankind, and
exclude every other person from the means of judging. To refuse a hearing to an
opinion, because they are sure that it is false, is to assume that their certainty is
the same thing asabsolute certainty. All silencing of discussion is an assumption of
infallibility.
The demonstration about the degrees of certainty available in accordance with the rules of reason were
presented by Mill in his essays dedicated to Bentham and Coleridge :
1. Truth is a socially defined function of several truths, pragmatic and synthetic. It is obtained as a combination
that results after harmonising several partial truths, as can be possessed by real people in concrete circumstances. In
his essay Coleridge, Mill shows that:
All students of man and society () are aware that the besetting danger is not so much of embracing falsehood for
truth, as of mistaking part of the truth for the whole. It might be plausibly maintained that in almost every one of the
leading controversies, past or present, in social philosophy, both sides were in the right in what they affirmed,
though in the wrong in what they denied; and that if either could have been made to take the others views in
addition to its own, little more would have been needed to make its doctrine correct. (PEV I p. 458)
And the nuances Mill is capable of detaching in matters of partial turths have practically no endThus, it is in regard
to every important partial truth; there are always two conflicting modes of thought, one tending to give to that truth
too large, the other to give it too small a place; and the history of opinion is generally an oscillation between these
extremes. (Ditto, p. 460)
It is possible to harmonize the conflicting modes, but only in the long run, and very gradually:
Thus, every excess in either direction determines a corresponding reaction; improvement consisting only in this,
that the oscillation, each time, departs rather less widely from the centre, and an ever-increasing tendency is
manifested to settle finally in. (Ditto, p. 461)
There is a kind of physical, mathematical necesity shown to be at work in this extremely rational model of human
society, which proves the point made before, about the model of science underlying the clear, persuasive liberal
discourse.
2. Truth prevails over error (or as Mill calls error human fallibility), because it is possible to correct past errors
and to learn from them, so that all times there is just enough truth for correct action (On Liberty, in PEV, p.
510). Here, Mills theory veers into the moral and ethical realm, and it seems inspired by one of Jesus Christs own
reassuring teachings to the disciples.
There is no such thing as absolute certainty, but there is assurance sufficient for the purposes of human life. ()
Complete liberty of contradicting and disproving our opinion is the very condition which justifies us in assuming its
truth for purposes of action; and on no other terms can a being with human faculties have any rational assurance of
being right. (Ditto)

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The way to incline the balance in favour of truth by correcting error is, therefore, action. Here is the key of Mills
pragmatic optimism which he inherited by means of a closely supervised education from his father, Englands
greatest utilitarian philosopher, James Mill.
3.
Public opinion, discussion, is the complement of thought and experience, which are of necessity limited, just
as the individual person is. Exchange of ideas and experience, however, if conducted according to the laws of justice
and rationality, or if conducted fairly enough can correct errors and make humanity asymptotically approach in
actionwhat it cannot hope to attain in principle.
He (man in general, our note) is capable of rectifying his mistakes, by discussion and experience. Not by experience
alone. There must be discussion to show how experience is to be interpreted. Wrong opinions and practices
gradually yield to fact and argument: but facts and arguments, to produce any effect on the mind, must be brought
before it. Very few facts are able to tell their own story, without comments to bring out their meaning. The whole
strength and value, then, of human judgment, depending on the one property, that it can be set right when it is
wrong. (PEV I, p. 511)

Mills arguments illustrations of cases against the freedom of opinion; and of the fact that truth is part of
the utility The truth of an opinion is part of its utility : the Catholic Church, Socrates and the
Emperor Marcus Aurelius (as a persecutor of Christians)
-It is not too much to require that what the wisest of mankind, those who are best
entitled to trust their own judgment, find necessary to warrant their relying on it,
should be submitted to by that miscellaneous collection of a few wise and many
foolish individuals, called the public. The most intolerant of churches, the Roman
Catholic Church, even at the canonization of a saint, admits, and listens patiently
to, a "devil's advocate." The holiest of men, it appears, cannot be admitted to
posthumous honours, until all that the devil could say against him is known and
weighed.
Socrates, between whom and the legal authorities and public opinion of his time,
there took place a memorable collision()was put to death by his countrymen, after
a judicial conviction, for impiety and immorality. Impiety, in denying the gods
recognised by the State; indeed his accuser asserted (see the Apologia) that he
believed in no gods at all. Immorality, in being, by his doctrines and instructions, a
"corrupter of youth." Of these charges the tribunal, there is every ground for
believing, honestly found him guilty, and condemned the man who probably of all
then born had deserved best of mankind, to be put to death as a criminal.

Marcus Aurelius: et us add one more example, the most striking of all, if the
impressiveness of an error is measured by the wisdom and virtue of him who falls
into it. If ever any one, possessed of power, had grounds for thinking himself the
best and most enlightened among his cotemporaries, it was the Emperor Marcus
Aurelius. Absolute monarch of the whole civilized world, he preserved through life
not only the most unblemished justice, but what was less to be expected from his
Stoical breeding, the tenderest heart. The few failings which are attributed to him,

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were all on the side of indulgence: while his writings, the highest ethical product of
the ancient mind, differ scarcely perceptibly, if they differ at all, from the most
characteristic teachings of Christ. This man, a better Christian in all but the
dogmatic sense of the word, than almost any of the ostensibly Christian sovereigns
who have since reigned, persecuted Christianity. ()failed to see that Christianity
was to be a good and not an evil to the world, with his duties to which he was so
deeply penetrated. ) he deemed it his duty not to suffer society to fall in pieces;
and saw not how, if its existing ties were removed, any others could be formed
which could again knit it together. The new religion openly aimed at dissolving
these ties: unless, therefore, it was his duty to adopt that religion, it seemed to be
his duty to put it down.() the gentlest and most amiable of philosophers and
rulers, under a solemn sense of duty, authorized the persecution of Christianity. To
my mind this is one of the most tragical facts in all history.
It is important to discuss opinion held to be true:
However unwillingly a person who has a strong opinion may admit the possibility
that his opinion may be false, he ought to be moved by the consideration that
however true it may be, if it is not fully, frequently, and fearlessly discussed, it will
be held as a dead dogma, not a living truth.
Summary of Mills argument in Chapter II:
First, if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can
certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility.
II.42

Secondly, though the silenced opinion be an error, it may, and very commonly does,
contain a portion of truth; and since the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is
rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinions that the
remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied.
II.43

Thirdly, even if the received opinion be not only true, but the whole truth; unless it is
suffered to be, and actually is, vigorously and earnestly contested, it will, by most of those
who receive it, be held in the manner of a prejudice, with little comprehension or feeling of
its rational grounds. And not only this, but, fourthly, the meaning of the doctrine itself will
be in danger of being lost, or enfeebled, and deprived of its vital effect on the character
and conduct: the dogma becoming a mere formal profession, inefficacious for good, but
cumbering the ground, and preventing the growth of any real and heartfelt conviction,
from reason or personal experience.

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2.2.
The need to develop personal experience for attaining maturity a duty for every
member of a modern, democratic society: On Liberty III Of Individuality as One of the
Elements of Well-Being
Nobody denies that people should be so taught and trained in youth as to know and benefit by the
ascertained results of human experience. But it is the privilege and proper condition of a human
being, arrived at the maturity of his faculties, to use and interpret experience in his own way. It is for
him to find out what part of recorded experience is properly applicable to his own circumstances and
character. And ()The human faculties of perception, judgment, discriminative feeling, mental
activity, and even moral preference are exercised only in making a choice. He who does anything
because it is the custom makes no choice. He gains no practice either in discerning or in desiring what
is best. The mental and moral, like the muscular, powers are improved only by being used. The
faculties are called into no exercise by doing a thing merely because others believe it. If the grounds
of an opinion are not conclusive to the persons own reason, his reason cannot be strengthened, but is
likely to be weakened by adopting it. This is the pledge of Mills humanism in his views on general
education: to strengthen man rather than weaken him by the misuse of reason, either because it is
used in isolation or because it is not used at all. John Stuart Mills argument continues He who lets
the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him has no need of any other faculty
than the ape-like one of imitation. He who chooses his plan for himself employs all his faculties. He
must use observation to see, reasoning and judgment to foresee, activity to gather materials for
decision, discrimination to decide, and when he has decided, firmness and self-control to hold to his
deliberate decision. () It is possible that he might be guided in some good path, and kept out of
harms way, without any of these things. But what will be his comparative worth as a human being? It
really is of importance, not only what men do, but also what manner of men they are that do it.
Among the works of man which human life is rightly employed in perfecting and beautifying, the
first importance surely is man himself. Supposing it were possible to get houses built, corn grown,
battles fought, causes tried, and even churches erected and prayers said by machinery by
automatons in human form- it would be a considerable loss to exchange for these automatons even
the men and women who at present inhabit the more civilized parts of the world, and who assuredly
are but starved specimens built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a
tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward
forces which make it a living thing.