Spain, and make a present of Ireland to Mr. Parnell or to anybody else who might care to take it off our hands. He would concentrate all our military and naval strength in and around Great Britain; and, having thus fortified the island by lopping off its rotten outlying members, the country would be in a position to enter on the discharge of international duties meet for civilization, conformable to the religion of humanity. England, along with France, would then be in a position to protect free Denmark, free Holland, free Belgium, from German or other autocratic aggression; and, as opportunity occurred, a blow for the resuscitation of Poland might perchance be struck. The neo-imperialists, at all events, can hardly be expected to regard this as the "voice of sense and truth;" but it is unquestionably positive politics as understood by Auguste Comte, and his disciple is not the man to shrink from any of the consequences of his master's teaching.
With respect to only one point in this programme do I care meantime to pronounce an opinion. The Comtists have never ceased to protest against our conquests in Hindostan, and our opium wars with China. Mr. Beesly in particular has lifted up his voice against these cold-blooded enterprises, which fill the mind of every sagacious observer with the gloomiest forebodings, with an energy that does him the greatest credit. It is one of the saving graces of the Comtist creed that it includes the most abject sons of men in the adorable Being of Humanity. They may be in the backward metaphysical state, like the Hindoos, or in the yet more unredeemed theological condition of the Zulus; but they are not, therefore, fit subjects for Christian oppression. They are where the most civilized peoples
