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T2DEN,

fous

1835-6. ghowed, that the character and motives of men are CO
Zr. 31-2. nected with physical predispositions, was to bring ¢
vacter and motive within the sphere of action, because ™
may in that case modify them by attending to the requ?
ments of the bodily organization. A boundless field is th
opened for the influence of social institutions, and th
opportunities of beneficence are without limit. There *
another side on which Cobden fouud Combe’s teaching ’
harmony with the impulses of his own temperament :
rests upon the natural soundness of the human heart, ol
its methods are those of mildness and lenity. In his
trepid faith in the perfectibility of man and society, Cobd®”
is the only eminent practical statesman that this count)
has ever possessed, who constantly breathes the fine spit’
of that French school in which the name of Turgot is th
most illustrious,
The doctrine of the pamphlets has its avowed source
the very same spirit which has gradually banished violenc®
harshness, and the darker shapes of repression from th?
education of the young, from the treatment of the insat®
from the punishment of criminals, and has substituted fo
those time-honoured but most ineffective processes, a rationd
moderation and enlightened humanity, the force of lenied!
and considerate example and calm self-possession. Nov’
intervention was an extension of the principle which, r¢
nouncing appeals through brute violence, rests on the nob?
and more powerful qualities of the understanding and
the moral nature. Cobden’s distinction as a statesman w%
not that he accepted and applied this principle in a gener?
way. Charlatans and marauders accept such principles in hot
way. His merit is that he discerned that England, at any raté
whatever might be true of Germany, France, or Russia, wot
in the position where the present adoption of this new spi’
of policy would exactly coincide with all her best and lero