306
ESSAYS ON LIBERTY
a season, or for ever. It is not essence, but accident; not end, rut means; it began late; it was formerly sOlllething quite different from what it is now. It justly appears to us indispensable, and as long as the existing order lasts in Europe, it must be maintained at any price; or if it is violently interrupted, it must be restored. But a political settlement of Europe is conceivable in which it would be superfluous, and then it would be an oppressive burden. At the same time I wished to defend Pope Pius IX. and his government against many accusations, and to point out that the inward infirmities and deficiencies which undeniably exist in the country, by which the State has been reduced to so deplorable a condition of weakness and helplessness, were not attributable to hiln; that, on the contrary, he has shown, both before and since 1848, the best will to reform; and that by him, and under him, lnuch has been really improved. The newspaper reports, written down at home from memory, gave but an inaccurate representation of a discourse which did not attempt in the usual way to cut the knot, but which, with buts and ifs, and referring to certain elements in the decision which are generally left out of the calculation, spoke of an uncertain future, and of various possibilities. This was not to be avoided. Any reproduction which was not quite literal must, in spite of the good intentions of the reporter, have given rise to false interpretations. When, therefore, one of the most widely read papers reported the first lecture, without any intentional falsification, but with omissions which altered the sense and the tendency of my words, I immediately proposed to the conductors to print my manuscript; but this offer was declined. In other accounts in the daily press, I was often unable to recognise my ideas; and words were put into my mouth which I had never uttered. And here I will admit that, when I gave the lectures, I did not think that they would be discussed by the press, but expected that, like others of the same kind, they would at most be mentioned in a couple of words, in futurant oblivioneln. Of the controversy which sprang up at once, in separate works and in newspaper articles, in Germany, France, England, Italy, and even in America, I shall not speak. Much of it I have not read. The writers often did not even ask themselves whether the report which accident put into their hands, and which they carelessly adopted, was at all accurate. But I must refer to an account in one of the most popular English periodicals, because I am there brought into a society to which I do not belong. The author of an article in the July N u111ber of the Edinburgh Review . . . appeals to me, nlisunderstanding the drift of my words, and erroneously believing that I had already published an apology of my orthodoxy. . . . A sharp attack upon me in the Dublin Revlew I know only frorn extracts in English papers; but I can see from the vehemence with which the writer pronounces himself against liberal institutions, that, even after the appearance of this book, I cannot reckon on coming to an understanding with hiln. . . r
