Whatever opinion had a majority in the country would have a majority in the House.Labourers,as he suggests when showing the dangers of democracy,may be in favour of protection,or of fixing the rate of wages.Now in this scheme the majority in the country may enforce whatever laws approve themselves to the ignorant.I do not say that this would actually be the result;for I think that,in point of fact,the change of mere machinery would be of comparatively little importance.The power of the rich and the educated does not really depend upon the system of voting,or the ostensible theory of the constitution,but upon the countless ways in which wealth,education,and the whole social system affect the working of institutions.Mill can fully admit the fact at times.But here he is taking for granted that the effect of the scheme will be to secure a perfectly correct miniature of the opinions of all separate persons.The wise minority will therefore be a minority in the land.It will be able to make speeches.But the speeches,however able,are but an insignificant trickle in the great current of talk which forms what is called 'public opinion.'The necessary result upon his showing would be,that legislation would follow the opinions of the majority,or,in other words,facilitate the 'tyranny of the majority.'
This suggests one vital point.Mill,as I have said,has endeavoured to enlarge as much as possible the sphere of operation of the freewill --of the power of individuals or of deliberate conscious legislation.The result is to exaggerate the influence of institutions and to neglect the forces,intellectual and moral,which must always lie behind institutions.We can admit to the full the importance of the educational influence of political institutions,and the surpassing value of energy,self-reliance,and individual responsibility.The sentiment is altogether noble,and Mill expresses it with admirable vigour.
But the more decidedly we hold his view of the disease,the more utterly inadequate and inappropriate appears his remedy.The tendency to levelling and vulgarising,so far as it exists,can certainly not be cured by ingenious arrangements of one part of the political machinery.I take this to mark Mill's weakest side.
The truth was divined by the instinct of his democratic allies.
So long as he voted for extending the suffrage,they could leave him to save his conscience by amusing himself with these harmless fancies.
VI.WOMEN'S RIGHTS
Mill's Subjection of Women brings out more clearly some of the fundamental Utilitarian tenets.None of his writings is more emphatically marked by generosity and love of justice.A certain shrillness of tone marks the recluse too little able to appreciate the animal nature of mankind.Yet in any case,he made a most effective protest against the prejudices which stunted the development and limited the careers of women.Mill declares at starting,that till recently the 'law of force'has been 'the avowed rule of general conduct.'Only of late has there been even a pretence of regulating 'the affairs of society in general according to any moral law.'(44)That moral considerations have been too little regarded as between different societies or different classes is painfully obvious.But 'force'in any intelligible sense is itself only made applicable by the social instincts,which bind men together.No society could ever be welded into a whole by 'force'alone.This is the Utilitarian fallacy of explaining law by 'sanctions,'and leaving the 'sanctions'to explain themselves.But the argument encourages Mill to treat of all inequality as unjust because imposed by force.The 'only school of genuine moral sentiment,'he says,'is society between equals.'Let us rather say that inequalities are unjust which rest upon force alone.Every school of morality or of thought implies subordination,but a subordination desirable only when based upon real superiority.The question then becomes whether the existing relations of the sexes correspond to some essential difference or are created by sheer force.
Here we have assumptions characteristic of Mill's whole logical method;and,especially,the curious oscillation between absolute laws and indefinite modifiability.His doctrine of 'natural kinds'supposed that two races were either divided by an impassable gulf,or were divided only by accidental or superficial differences.He protests against the explanation of national differences by race characteristics.To say that the Irish are naturally lazy,or the Negroes naturally stupid,is to make a short apology for oppression and for slavery.Undoubtedly it is wrong,as it is contrary to all empirical reasoning,to assume a fundamental difference;and morally wrong to found upon the assumption an apology for maintaining caste and privilege.
But neither is it legitimate to assume that the differences are negligible.The 'accident of colour'has been made a pretext for an abominable institution.But we have no right to the a priori assumption that colour is a mere accident.It may upon Mill's own method be an indication of radical and far-reaching differences.
