Page:Philosophical Review Volume 8.djvu/443

425 (p. 270). Moreover the same influence often leads the author to neglect correctness of speech, and his book is sprinkled with frequent examples of false English.

A considerable part of the book is occupied with historical matter, which has little or no connection with the subject in hand, and some of which is very curious. For instance, he says that Christianity in the days of its supremacy, maintained the principles of benevolence and human brotherhood, and that in those days "society represented and was pervaded by a divine-like mercy toward the unfortunate" (p. 262). This benevolence and mercy, I suppose, were illustrated in the thirty years' war in Germany, the only example of real anarchy the world has ever seen, and which was wholly due to Christianity. They were also shown in the children's crusades, in the massacre of St. Bartholomew, in the slaughter of the German peasants in Luther's time, and in the doings of those very devout Christians, the robber barons of the middle ages. Such extraordinary displays of benevolence and mercy are certainly unknown in the degenerate democracies of the present day.

But I must hasten on to consider the practical remedies which Professor Hyslop proposes for the evils of democracy, the exposition of which occupies the longest chapter in the book, and some of which have at least the merit of originality. He remarks that "the problem is much more than one of political machinery. It is also one of the ideas that furnish the motive power behind the machinery. The problem of constitutions is an important one, but it is subordinate to the intelligence and morality of the agencies that apply them" (p. 22). With such views of the problem to be solved, one would xpect that Mr. Hyslop would advocate improvements in education, and, perhaps, an educational qualification for the suffrage; yet, in fact, he has not a word to say about education, and treats with scorn the idea of an educational qualification for the suffrage, and advocates a property qualification instead. How high a property standard he would require in the voter he does not say; but he evidently wants it high enough to exclude the whole working class, or, as he calls it, the proletariat, and to give the control of affairs to what he calls the 'middle classes.'

But restriction of the suffrage is by no means the only, nor the chief of the 'reforms' that Mr. Hyslop advocates. He would establish in every democratic country a new organ of government, which he calls a "Court of Impeachment and Removal," which is to be endowed with the power and the irresponsibility of a despot, and which is relied