essors?

Macaulay's declaration that he was only 'upon the defensive' might be
justifiable in an advocate. His real thought may be inferred from a
speech on the charter made in 1842. The chartists' petition of that
year had asked for universal suffrage. Universal suffrage, he replies,
would be incompatible with the 'institution of property.'[120] If the
chartists acted upon their avowed principles, they would enforce 'one
vast spoliation.' Macaulay could not say, of course, what would
actually result, but his 'guess' was that we should see 'something
more horrible than can be imagined--something like the siege of
Jerusalem on a far larger scale.' The very best event he could
anticipate--'and what must the state of things be, if an Englishman
and a Whig calls such an event the very best?'--would be a military
despotism, giving a 'sort of protection to a miserable wreck of all
that immense glory and prosperity.'[121] So in the criticism of Mill
he had suggested that if his opponent's principles were correct, and
his scheme adopted, 'literature, science, commerce, manufactures'
would be swept away, and that a 'few half-naked fishermen would divide
with the owls and foxes the ruins of the greatest of European
cities.'[122]

Carefully as Macaulay guards himself in his articles upon Mill, the
speech shows sufficiently what was his 'guess'; that is, his real
expectation. This gives the vital difference. What Macaulay professes
to deduce from Mill's principles he really holds himself, and he holds
it because he argues, as indeed everybody has to argue, pretty much on
Mill's method. He does not really remain in the purely sceptical
position which would correspond to his version of 'Baconian
induction.' He argues, just as Mill would have argued, from general
rules about human nature. Selfish and ignorant people will, he thinks,
be naturally inclined to plunder; therefore, if they have power, they
will plunder. So Mill had argued that a selfish class would rule for
its own sinister interests and therefore not for the happiness of the
greatest number. The argument is the same, and it is the only line of
argument which is possible till, if that should ever happen, a genuine
science of politics shall have been constituted. The only question is
whether it shall take the pomp of _a priori_ speculation or conceal
itself under a show of 'Baconian induction.'

On one point they agree. Both Mill and Macaulay profess unbounded
confidenc