Lorimer.
In the course of the same summer I fulfilled a duty particularly
incumbent upon me, that of helping (by an article in the _Edinburgh
Review_) to make known Mr. Bain's profound treatise on the Mind, just
then completed by the publication of its second volume. And I carried
through the press a selection of my minor writings, forming the first
two volumes of _Dissertations and Discussions_. The selection had been
made during my wife's lifetime, but the revision, in concert with her,
with a view to republication, had been barely commenced; and when I had
no longer the guidance of her judgment I despaired of pursuing it
further, and republished the papers as they were, with the exception of
striking out such passages as were no longer in accordance with my
opinions. My literary work of the year was terminated with an essay in
_Fraser's Magazine_ (afterwards republished in the third volume of
_Dissertations and Discussions_), entitled "A Few Words on
Non-Intervention." I was prompted to write this paper by a desire, while
vindicating England from the imputations commonly brought against her on
the Continent, of a peculiar selfishness in matters of foreign policy to
warn Englishmen of the colour given to this imputation by the low tone
in which English statesmen are accustomed to speak of English policy as
concerned only with English interests, and by the conduct of Lord
Palmerston at that particular time in opposing the Suez Canal; and I
took the opportunity of expressing ideas which had long been in my mind
(some of them generated by my Indian experience, and others by the
international questions which then greatly occupied the European
public), respecting the true principles of international morality, and
the legitimate modifications made in it by difference of times and
circumstances; a subject I had already, to some extent, discussed in the
vindication of the French Provisional Government of 1848 against the
attacks of Lord Brougham and others, which I published at the time in
the _Westminster Review_, and which is reprinted in the _Dissertations_.
Pages:
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273