ishments, and
none of those qualities which, in the Anglican Church, redeem in part
the guilt of its origin. This is not, however, the only point on which
our author has mistaken the peculiar and enormous character of the evils
of Ireland.

With the injustice which generally attends his historical parallels, he
compares the policy of the Orange faction to that of the Jacobins in
France.

The ferocity of the Jacobins was in a slight degree redeemed by their
fanaticism. Their objects were not entirely selfish. They murdered
aristocrats, not only because they hated and feared them, but because
they wildly imagined them to stand in the way of the social and
political millennium, which, according to Rousseau, awaited the
acceptance of mankind (p. 175).

No comparison can be more unfair than one which places the pitiless
fanaticism of an idea in the same line with the cruelty inspired by a
selfish interest. The Reign of Terror is one of the most portentous
events in history, because it was the consistent result of the simplest
and most acceptable principle of the Revolution; it saved France from
the coalition, and it was the greatest attempt ever made to mould the
form of a society by force into harmony with a speculative form of
Government. An explanation which treats self-interest as its primary
motive, and judges other elements as merely qualifying it, is
ludicrously inadequate.

The Terrorism of Robespierre was produced by the theory of equality,
which was not a mere passion, but a political doctrine, and at the same
time a national necessity. Political philosophers who, since the time of
Hobbes, derive the State from a social compact, necessarily assume that
the contracting parties were equal among themselves. By nature,
therefore, all men possess equal rights, and a right to equality. The
introduction of the civil power and of private property brought
inequality into the world. This is opposed to the condition and to the
rights of the natural state. The writers of the eighteenth century
attributed to this circumstance the evils and sufferings of society. In
France, the ruin of the public finances and the misery of the lower
orders were both laid at the door of the classes whose property was
exempt from taxation. The endeavours of successive ministers--of Turgot,
Necker, and Calonne--to break down the privileges of the aristocracy and
of the clergy were defeated by the resistance of the old society