last and sole appeal, Opinion; as a citizen of
Rome had Caesar.

The Government which puts its hand upon
a nation's mouth and thinks to stifle what it
has to say, will be inevitably kicked and
bitten. The nation will, some day, get liberty
and make amends for every minute of
restraint with lusty shouting. Among the
continental states which suffered from the
Revolutions of 1848, were some in which
the people had less of social evil to
complain of than we have in England; but
they were fretted by political restrictions, by
a system of espial which tabooed all conversation
upon public matters before any stranger,
and they were glad enough to get their
tongues at liberty. Adam, the old traditions
say, was made of eight pounds:a pound of
earth, his flesh; a pound of fire, his blood;
a pound of cloud, his instability; a pound of
grace (how that was weighed the legend sayeth
not) his stature; a pound of blossom, his eyes;
a pound of dew, his sweat; a pound of salt,
his tears; and, finally, a pound of wind, his
breath. Now Governments which don't allow
each man his pound of wind, get themselves,
sooner or later, into certain trouble; for,
when the wind does come at last (which it in
sure to do), it comes in a storm.

The freedom and the power of Opinion in
England, have given an importance to the
press which is attached to it, as a direct agent
in producing social reforms, in no other
European country. The journalist lays every
day a mass of facts before all people capable
of thought; the adult who has learnt only to
write and read, acquires his remaining education
—often not despicable in amount—from
his weekly paper. Jeremy Bentham, speaking
of those old superstitious rites by which it
was intended to exorcise evil spirits, says very
truly, "In our days, and in our country, the
same object is obtained, and beyond
comparison more effectually, by so cheap an
instrument as a common newspaper. Before
this talisman, not only devils but ghosts,
vampires, witches, and all their kindred tribes,
are driven out of the land, never to return
again! The touch of Holy Water is not so
intolerable to them as the bare smell of
Printer's Ink."

What can a man learn by skimming the
newspapers and journals of the day? Why,
in the northern seas there floats a very little
film of oil, where whales or seals have been.
So thin a film, no bird could separate from any
wave, yet there are birds who become grossly
fat on no other nourishment. The storm
petrel, or, in the Faroese phrase, Mother
Carey's chicken, skims the surface of the
troubled water, till the feathers of its breast
are charged with oil; and then feeds heartily
on the provision so collected. A vast number
of her Majesty's subjects dart over the debator
and the discussor of the newspaper, like storm
petrels, and thrive upon what skimmings they
retain.

Since the press in England has been actually
free (and many of us can remember when it
was not so), one fact has become every year
more prominent amidst the din of parties.
We have begun to see that, however much
we are convinced of any one thing, those are
not all and always fools who think the
opposite. We get a strong suspicion of our
individual fallibility; new facts come out, and
display old opinions in an unexpected light.
We respect our opponents, when they deserve
respect, and on the whole are teachable.

Of course, our views in politics are often
guided by our sense of private interest, but
there is nothing very wonderful in that;
nature intends man to cry out, when a shoe
pinches him. But, there is now abroad,
concerning social questions, a desire to hear all
that can be said about them; to tolerate, if not
to respect, conclusions that oppose our own;
a readiness to seek for the right course, and a
desire to follow it.

Into religion, unhappily, this spirit of
toleration has not yet extended, for tolerance has
made a clog of what ought to be a spur to our
exertion, so that, of late years, it has become
necessary to teach even such Christian
doctrines as charity and the first elements of our
religion, by the direct voice of the newspaper.
The free press has strength to destroy
sectarian pride, as it has already destroyed the
bigotry of party. That is a work of time; at
present we may be content to know how much
work has been done. There is a readiness in
politics to find out and to follow right, there
is an active spirit of enquiry, pumping up
daily a large flood of information, which is
not poured out in vain. Therefore, we
tranquilly content ourselves with the continual
progress which this country makes, and have
no faith in any man who tells us that it must
be saved or ruined. There is a picture in the
Navis Stultorum, of some men who go out
fowling, each with a goose upon his wrist.
The gentlemen who sport these ruin-or-salvation
crotchets, fowl with the wrong bird also,
we imagine.

Hence, we have no fear about the country; we
know very well that great reforms are needed,
but we believe, also, that after each necessity
has been well talked about, and become fully
comprehended, the reforms will come. The
most pressing want of our community is education.
There are eight millions of us who can
neither read nor write; and more than half our
children are now growing up to manhood and
womanhood without assistance from the
school. Of those among us, who can read and
write, a large number are taught, by the
education they have had, to do nothing more.
Even our wealthy classes cannot secure, very
easily, for their own children more than
a comparatively useless training, since four
out of five schools are conducted on a system
fashionable in the middle-ages, and ignore the
greater part of what has since become the
wisdom of the world.