The Project Gutenberg EBook of On Compromise, by John Morley

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Title: On Compromise

Author: John Morley

Release Date: March 13, 2004 [EBook #11557]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON COMPROMISE ***

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ON COMPROMISE

_'It makes all the difference in the world whether we put
Truth in the first place or in the second place.'_

WHATLEY

ON COMPROMISE

BY

JOHN MORLEY

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON

1908

_This Edition first printed 1886_

NOTE.

The writer has availed himself of the opportunity of a new edition to
add three or four additional illustrations in the footnotes. The
criticisms on the first edition call for no remark, excepting this,
perhaps, that the present little volume has no pretensions to be
anything more than an Essay. To judge such it performance as if it
professed to be an exhaustive Treatise in casuistry, is to subject it to
tests which it was never designed to bear. Merely to open questions, to
indicate points, to suggest cases, to sketch outlines,--as an Essay does
all these things,--may often be a process not without its own modest
usefulness and interest.

_May 4, 1877._

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY.

Design of this Essay
The question stated
Suggested by some existing tendencies in England
Comparison with other countries
Test of this comparison
The absent quality specifically defined
History and decay of some recent aspirations
Illustrations
Characteristics of one present mood
Analysis of its causes
(1) Influence of French examples
(2) Influence of the Historic Method
(3) Influence of the Newspaper Press
(4) Increase of material prosperity
(5) Transformation of the spiritual basis of thought
(6) Influence of a State Church

CHAPTER II. OF THE POSSIBLE UTILITY OF ERROR

Questions of a dual doctrine lies at the outset of our inquiry
This doctrine formulated
Marks the triumph of _status quo_
Psychological vindication of