In another article on periodical literature for the Westminster Review,* the Scottish radical James Mill (1777-1836) turned his attention to the Quarterly Review, the most authoritative Tory publication. Whereas the Edinburgh Review, with its Whig politics, employed what Mill called the see-saw – in the main supporting the aristocracy, but sometimes making common cause with the people, and attempting to blur its aristocratic character – the Quarterly Review was more primitive. Its main weapons, Mill argued, were Assumption and Abuse rather than argument. I have excerpted a number of passages from Mill’s article, leaving aside the long quotations from the Quarterly Review that Mill uses to illustrate his points. I hardly need to say that the only way to grasp the whole argument is to read the article itself.
Comparison of the Edinburgh Review with the Quarterly Review
‘A majority of the articles in the Edinburgh Review proves that they are from men with ideas; men of stored and cultivated minds, even when the reasonings they employ are fallacious and the conclusions to be rejected. An article to which similar praise can be applied, rarely, and at long intervals, appears in the Quarterly Review. The writers in that journal are almost wholly of two sorts, compilers from books of travels, and mere litterateurs, men, who almost rank with the lowest class of artizans; who know little of literature, but the merely mechanical part; whose highest ambition is that of polishing a sentence; and who, feeling themselves incapable of making any impression by the weight and importance of their ideas, are perpetually on the strain to do so by mere language, pomp and glitter of expression.’
Whereas writers in the Edinburgh Review will sometimes lend help to the cause of improvement, ‘The writers in the Quarterly Review … seem to watch the earliest symptoms of any tendency in the public mind towards improvement in any shape, in order to fall upon it with determined hostility. They decry it with all the terms of reprobation. They endeavour to make it ridiculous, they endeavour to make it odious. They employ every artifice of which they are masters to prevent it. Whatever in their situation would be done by cold-blooded, remorseless enemies of mankind, that, in almost every instance, they will be found to do.
‘It has already been seen, by our remarks upon the Edinburgh Review, what is the line of artifice into which a publication is drawn, that lends itself to the interest of that section of the aristocracy, which is aiming at the powers of government without possessing them. The necessity of finding something to say which will please both the people and the aristocracy, leads to a perpetual shifting of position; but some skill is necessary to hide the operation. Something of ability is required in the conduct of the see-saw.
‘The position of those who write for the party in power is much more favourable. Coarser instruments sufficiently answer their purpose.’
On publications that serve power directly
‘It is well known to be much more the disposition of power to command, and to strike, than to persuade.
‘The situation of a mere advocate for the party in power, does not permit him absolutely to command and to strike. But his knowledge that he has power on his side, leads him to do that which, in his situation, is analogous to commanding and striking, and of all expedients within his reach, comes the nearest to these two operations. He assumes whatever he has occasion for; and he pours abuse upon those who are opposed to him.
‘Assumption, and Abuse; these are so uniformly, and to so extraordinary an extent, the weapons employed by those who stand on the vantage ground of power, that they may be regarded as peculiarly the logical arms of power.’
‘The grand question between the Quarterly Review and its opponents; between the advocates of power on the one hand, and the advocates of the people on the other, is, whether there is any thing in our institutions, and how much, which operates to the detriment of the people, and ought to be changed. The Quarterly Review affirms that there is little or nothing. Its opponents contend that there is much. It will be found in a great majority of instances, that the Quarterly Review maintains its position, by the assumption of the points which are in dispute, and by endeavouring to attach an odious character to its opponents; by begging questions, and venting calumny.’
Commentary on selected passages demonstrating the use of Assumption and Abuse
‘contradictions, though they are contrary to the rules of ordinary logic, are by no means contrary to the logic of power. The advocate of the “old-fashioned government” wanted to make the friends of an amended government appear both odious and contemptible. He could not make them appear so odious as he wished, without making them appear formidable. He could not make them appear so contemptible as he wished, without making them appear to be not formidable. And he knew well the sort of people whom he wished to please. If he spoke strongly enough for their interests, in the way which they deemed according to their interest, they would little care for the congruity or incongruity of his ideas.’
‘We have already stated, that “things as they are” versus “things as they ought to be,” alias, aristocratical supremacy versus securities for good government, alias, the aristocracy versus the people, is the cause at issue. We have seen how the Quarterly Review, the well-feed and highly-expectant advocate of “things as they are,” assumes every thing against the people, and endeavours to excite against them the passions of fear, hatred, and contempt.’
Commentary on the Quarterly Review’s discussion of the British constitution: ‘“Under it we are as free as our thoughts.” This is the aristocratical logic without reserve and without shame. If by “we,” the Reviewer means himself and brethren, we admit his proposition. Freedom there is, in abundance, as he well knows, and more than freedom, to applaud the aristocracy and abuse the people. The want of freedom is all on the other side. And in the next sentences … he calls for a still further abridgment of that freedom. Nothing less will satisfy him than “silencing” his opponents, not by argument, but the brute hand of power. And this he calls being as free as our thoughts. Such is the way in which power, when tolerably sure of its footing, deals with truth, reason, and justice.’
‘We shall next present a few instances of the application of the characteristic logic to the people of France and of America. As these are the people of modern times who are most distinguished for their efforts to throw off the yoke of aristocracy, every thing is to be done to make them appear excessively hateful.’
Commentary on the Quarterly Review’s discussion of the French Revolution: ‘”The lower and middling classes of the French nation had latterly made progress in knowledge and intelligence, unaccompanied by a corresponding improvement in morals.” How does the Reviewer know that? Are morals any thing else than a branch of intelligence? It is useless, however, to argue against a naked assumption, made for the purpose of abuse.’
‘We must bestow a little more attention upon the definition of the French revolution. Definitions are serious things. The Reviewer says, it may be correctly defined (indicating, of course, some peculiar excellence in the definition) “a sudden development of malignant power,” the words, for greater emphasis, printed in Italics. It would be an equally correct, and a much more intelligible definition, to say, that it was a sudden destruction of malignant power, meaning, by malignant power, the former bad government.’
‘The man … who uses the term “malignant power” does not understand the meaning of words. Malignant is a quality of a mind. Nothing can be malignant but a mind. Power is not a mind. A man may be malignant, and, having power, may use it for the gratification of his malignity. But it would be just as congruent to call a misapplied broomstick malignant, as to call power by that name. The object, however, was to get a horror-raising and hatred-inspiring phrase, to apply to the French revolution, and “malignant power” appeared to be delightfully suited to the occasion. The term malignity is repeated with a gusto again and again. “The character of the French Revolution,” says the Reviewer, “was power.”’
‘“Power suddenly conferred on malignity;” this must mean, if it has any meaning, that the men into whose hands the power of government came during the French revolution, were malignant men; and that again must mean that they made a mischievous use of their power. It is not for the interest of the Quarterly Review, nor of those for whose use it is written, to provoke too accurate a comparison of the use made of power by the revolutionary governments in France, and that made by the governments which either preceded or followed them.’
‘power cares not what it says. This is one of its various properties. The consciousness of writing or speaking on the side of power, seems to create an exemption from the trammels both of truth and of reason. Not only can power silence opponents, by knocking them on the head, when they press too closely; but power dazzles the eyes, and captivates the fancy of ordinary persons, so that whatever power either does or says, commands their approbation. Is not the dress of the great the fashionable dress, their language the fashionable language, their airs and manners the fashionable air and manners, and their opinions, the fashionable creed? Writings on the side of power may, therefore, presume a great deal on the favourable sentiments of their readers; and they generally make ample use of this their privilege.’
‘In the article of our first number, in which we began the analysis of the sinister interest under which writers that work for the aristocracy are laid, we have seen that nothing is of more importance to a bad government, bad by an undue mixture of aristocratical power, than a bad system of law, and a bad religion; bad, in as far as they are calculated to serve as props to the aristocratical power; but the more bad they are, sure of being the more lavishly eulogized by the advocates of aristocracy, at the same time that every friend of the people who attempts to reveal their badness, is sure to be the more violently and savagely reviled.’
Commentary on the Quarterly Review’s discussion of religion: ‘The assumptions about religion are of two kinds: the one set regarding the ecclesiastical Establishment; the other, the Creed of the church of England.
‘In favour of the Establishment it is habitually assumed, that the man who questions its goodness is an enemy to the constitution, and a lover of anarchy. In favour of the Creed it is assumed, that whoever disputes it is an atheist, and being an atheist, is exempt from all moral obligation, and ready for any and every crime. These are the standard assumptions involving abuse.’
‘It is the spirit of persecution, in its full growth, to say that one man has not as good a right to declare that opinion as any other man to declare a different opinion. Why should these misguided advocates of Christianity perpetually insist upon the suppression of evidence in its behalf; and preach by their actions, a truer test of their sentiments, than their words, that Christianity can only be supported, if the other side is not allowed to be heard?’
On liberty of the press
‘It may, in the meantime, be regarded as a principle which we do not think there is occasion to spend many words in proving, that every cause, or party, affords so far evidence of its being good, as it is friendly to the liberty of the press, and is willing to stand examination; so far evidence of its being bad, as it is unfavourable to the liberty of the press, and unwilling to stand examination; that is, to bear the test of unrestricted censure. The reader will now see what evidence of itself and its cause is in this respect afforded by the Quarterly Review.’
- Westminster Review (1824), Vol. 2, No. 4, pp. 463-503. ↩︎
Notes in the Margins of the Days 