One reason is that Lewis was a practical man,and he shows very clearly why the practical man was inclined to Utilitarianism.A chancellor of the exchequer knows that the fate of a budget depends upon him,and refuses to regard himself as a mere tool of fate.A scientific treatment of history would lead,he thinks,to fatalism.(15)Everything is intrinsically uncertain where the human will is concerned.(16)Such events as the French revolution,therefore,must be regarded as controllable by statesmanship,and not,with some historians,declared to have been 'inevitable.'When we have got to the statesman or to the sovereign we have the ultimate cause,and need not ask whether he be not himself a product.Thus all laws,constitutional or otherwise,may be compared to machinery,(17)and suppose contrivance or design.All institutions have been made,and he assumes that even polygamy and slavery were 'dictated by unsound practical arguments.'(18)The tendency of such a doctrine is clear.All institutions,from the most organic to the most superficial,are regarded as equally a product of conscious manufacture.Their relation to the processes of social growth is tacitly disregarded,and the whole organism can be modified by a simple shuffling of the cards.We can therefore attack the problem of the best form of government without emphasising the necessary reference to historical conditions.
Lewis's wide reading supplied him with any number of judicious remarks,drawn from all authorities between Aristotle and Comte.
Undoubtedly such remarks deserve respect;they are apt to be commonplace,but are not therefore useless.Only,to apply them to any purpose,it is necessary to have a more definite understanding of the processes of social development which limit and define their value at any given stage.Empiricism,thus understood,really makes scientific method,as well as any definite scientific conclusion,impossible.Even in the purely practical sphere,the most important of all problems for a statesman is to know what are the limits of his powers,and to recognise what is really 'inevitable'in the great changes.
Otherwise,he is in the position of Mrs Partington fighting the Atlantic.Lewis became a Whig instead of a Utilitarian Radical;but it may be doubtful whether Whig 'opportunism'was not the most natural development of the Utilitarian empiricism.
II.GEORGE GROTE
The great representative of Utilitarian history is George Grote (1794-1871).(19)In some respects he was the most typical Utilitarian.Grote had been introduced to James Mill by Ricardo in 1817.He had yielded after some struggle to Mill's personal influence;and,though a student of Kant,had become an unhesitating proselyte.He had edited Philip Beauchamp,had defended radical reform against Mackintosh in 1821,and had joined J.S.Mill and other young friends in their systematic logical discussions.He fully sympathised with J.S.Mill's philosophy,and,as Professor Bain tells us,(20)hardly any man 'conned and thumbed'the Logic as he did.He was more of a Millite than Mill.Their friendship survived in spite of Mill's seclusion,and of certain doubts in Grote's mind of his friend's orthodoxy.The articles upon Coleridge and Bentham,marking Mill's sentimental backslidings,alarmed the more rigid adherent of the faith.During the political career of the 'philosophical Radicals'Grote was the faithful Abdiel.He defended their pet nostrum,the ballot,until the party became a vanishing quantity.
'You and I,'said Charles Buller to him in 1836,'will be left to "tell"Molesworth.'(21)On the fall of the Melbourne ministry he gave up parliament,and in 1843retired from the bank in which he had been a partner.His continued interest in the old Utilitarian principles was shown by his lifelong activity in the management of University College and the University of London.Happily,he could occupy himself in a more productive enterprise.He had been long interested in Greek history,and his great work appeared at intervals from 1846to 1856.His study of Plato appeared in 1865,and he was still labouring upon Aristotle at the time of his death.
Of the substantial merits of Grote's History I shall not presume to speak.It took its place at once,and gives a conclusive proof that the Utilitarian position was no disqualification for writing history.It seems,indeed,to prove a good deal more;namely,that the Utilitarian who was faithful to his most vital principles was especially qualified to be a historian.
The true position may perhaps be suggested by a remark in a recent book(22)by MM.Langlois and Seignobos.In laying down the conception of history as now accepted by the best writers,they remark that Grote 'produced the first model of a history'in the class to which it belongs.The principle illustrated is significant.'The aim of history,'we are told,'should now be not to please,nor to give practical maxims of conduct,nor to arouse the emotions,but [to give]knowledge pure and simple.'
History should be a descriptive science.Historians must be content to give political facts as a writer upon a natural science gives the ascertained facts about physiology or chemistry.Nothing,it may be said,could be more in accordance with Utilitarian doctrine.It was their very first principle to rely upon fact pure and simple,and to make it precede speculation and to minimise 'sentiment,''vague generalities,'and a priori theories.If Grote wrote a model history,it was because he thoroughly embodied the Utilitarian spirit.He studied the evidence with immense knowledge,unflagging industry,and thorough impartiality.He resembled an ideal judge investigating evidence in a trial.That was the method which,upon their own showing,the Utilitarians were bound to apply to all subjects,and Grote applied it to Greece with triumphant success.
