m--to see that a
thing which he has always been used to look at from one side only, which
he greatly values, and which, looked at from that side, more than
deserves, perhaps, all the prizing and admiring which he bestows upon
it--that this thing, looked at from another side, may appear much less
beneficent and beautiful, and yet retain all its claims to our practical
allegiance. Where shall we find language innocent enough, how shall we
make the spotless purity of our intentions evident enough, to enable us to
say to the political Englishman that the British constitution itself,
which, seen from the practical side, looks such a magnificent organ of
progress and virtue, seen from the speculative side,--with its
compromises, its love of facts, its horror of theory, its studied
avoidance of clear thoughts,--that, seen from this side, our august
constitution sometimes looks--forgive me, shade of Lord Somers!--a
colossal machine for the manufacture of Philistines? How is Cobbett to say
this and not be misunderstood, blackened as he is with the smoke of a
lifelong conflict in the field of political practice? How is Mr. Carlyle
to say it and not be misunderstood, after his furious raid into this field
with his "Latter-day Pamphlets"? How is Mr. Ruskin, after his pugnacious
political economy? I say, the critic must keep out of the region of
immediate practice in the political, social, humanitarian sphere, if he
wants to make a beginning for that more free speculative treatment of
things, which may perhaps one day make its benefits felt even in this
sphere, but in a natural and thence irresistible manner.

Do what he will, however, the critic will still remain exposed to frequent
misunderstandings, and nowhere so much as here in England. For here people
are particularly indisposed even to comprehend that, without this free,
disinterested treatment of things, truth and the highest culture are out
of the question. So immersed are they in practical life, so accustomed to
take all their notions from this life and its processes, that they are apt
to think that truth and culture themselves can be reached by the processes
of this life, and that it is an impertinent singularity to think of
reaching them in any other way. "We are all _terrae filii_," cries their
eloquent advocate; "all Philistines together. Away with the notion of
proceeding by any other way than the way dear to the Philistines; let us
have a social movement, let us organ